Universe
Quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to…
Quote source: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017).
Human Factors
The Fermi Paradox has a simple answer that nobody in the space industry wants to…
Enrico Fermi asked the question over lunch in 1950. The universe is roughly 13.8 billion years old.
Human Factors
Every serious planetary scientist knows Mars will kill the first people we send…
Ask a planetary scientist what worries them most about sending humans to Mars and they will not hesitate.
Space & Missions
The Artemis II crew briefed Congress in May
NASA's Artemis II crew brought a plush zero-gravity indicator to Capitol Hill in May 2026, weeks after the White House proposed cutting the agency's science directorate by 47% — a single budget cycle revealing which kind of space work Congress can see.
Constellations
A 3,700-mile wall of acid clouds has been racing around Venus for decades, and…
Scientists have identified the mechanism behind one of Venus's strangest weather features: a 3,700-mile-long bank of sulfuric acid clouds that whips around the planet every few days.
Human Behaviour
Nobody talks about why the most competent people at work are often the loneliest in…
The most capable people often end up the most isolated, and it isn't pride or exhaustion driving it. Competence taught them, decades earlier, that the safest way to be loved was to need nothing visibly. The cost arrives later, quietly.
Space & Missions
NASA wants to fly a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars before 2028 ends, and the…
NASA says it will launch a nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft to Mars before the end of 2028, a deadline that would move space nuclear propulsion out of…
Earth & Life
Abandoned coal mines may be releasing hidden carbon into the air, but researchers…
Research from West Virginia University finds that abandoned coal mines leak significant CO2 through water drainage, but the same chemistry, contained underground and accelerated by microbes, points to one of the cheapest passive carbon-capture mechanisms ever documented.
Space & Missions
A shoebox-sized detector just rode SpaceX to orbit to test a wild idea in particle…
A shoebox-sized satellite carrying gallium and tungsten crystals is now circling Earth, attempting something particle physicists have never tested in orbit before: whether a neutrino detector can work from space.
Space & Missions
NASA just confirmed the SLS upper stage on Artemis 3 will be replaced with a hollow…
NASA confirmed on May 13 that the Space Launch System rocket for Artemis 3 will fly without a functioning upper stage.
Psychology
Having the time you always wanted does not always relax you
There is a story we tell ourselves about busy adult life that goes something like this.
Psychology
Psychology suggests people who stay sharp and perceptive deep into later life may…
There is a particular kind of older person who, by the standards of the wider population, has stayed unusually sharp deep into their seventies and eighties.
Space & Missions
The FCC just handed SpaceX a major spectrum win, but EchoStar’s $2.4 billion escrow…
The Federal Communications Commission has cleared a major spectrum transfer from EchoStar to SpaceX, but the most important part of the decision may not be the airwaves themselves.
Constellations
A Robinhood co-founder just raised $275 million to put AI data centers in orbit
Cowboy Space Corp. has raised $275 million in Series B funding to build orbital data centers powered by sunlight and launched on a rocket the company is designing itself.
Constellations
A Florida startup just raised $65 million to beam concentrated sunlight at…
Star Catcher Industries has raised $65 million to build what it calls the first power grid in space.
Human Behaviour
Nobody talks about why the most reliable person in every family quietly disappears…
The most reliable person in every family often goes quiet in their late sixties, and the cause traces back four decades to when their dependability first became invisible. What looks like withdrawal is the end of a long, silent accounting.