Exoplanets

In a nice piece on his Scientific American blog ‘Cross-Check‘, John Horgan recently gave me some much appreciated praise, whilst provoking discussion on a contentious subject – whether or not big science as we’ve known it ‘may be coming to an end’ (John’s words).

Christopher Nolan’s new film, Interstellar, is a near-future tale of astronauts departing a dying Earth to travel to Saturn, then through a wormhole to another galaxy, all in search of somewhere else humanity could call home.

Scientific discoveries across all fields just keep coming and coming. Here’s a small assortment of goodies from the past couple of weeks.

Ever feel that broadcast TV fails to tackle the big issues? I don’t mean the state of the economy, healthcare, the future of clean energy, or what B-list celebrities had for breakfast – I mean the Really Big Issues.

This post is one in a series covering, and expanding on, topics in the book The Copernicus Complex (Scientific American/FSG).           The conversation usually goes like this: Do you think we’re alone in the universe?

In a month’s time, the end result of two-and-a-half years of research, thinking, writing, re-writing, re-re-writing, editing, mulling, puzzling, coffee-drinking, beer-swilling, swearing, and tweaking will hit the shelves in the form of my new book The Copernicus Complex.

The release of a long-awaited National Academy of Sciences report on the state and future of the US space program has triggered wide-reaching commentary on what it means to be space-faring.

It's easier to detect exoplanets around M-dwarfs, the most common type of star in our galaxy, but these worlds also may suffer from a life-threatening solar wind

Waves on Titan indicate bodies of liquid methane may be home to life

Kepler will rely on solar radiation pressure to balance its compromised pointing ability in order to make observations of targets in the plane of Earth's orbit

If you appreciate John J. Audubon’s exacting detail and beautiful compositions and you marvel at the encyclopedic knowledge and delicate illustrations in the famous Sibley Bird Guides you may be interested to know that there are many contemporary masters following in their footsteps today.

Data from the damaged spacecraft reveal new worlds