Topic: Pamela Gay
Venus Volcanism is Erupting in the Literature

Venus Volcanism is Erupting in the Literature

by | Mar 25, 2025 |

Another big topic of discussion at LPSC seemed to be Venus. I say "seemed" because I’m sure the actual big topic of discussion was proposed budget cuts, which could be as much as 50%, but there was no definitive information on budget cuts, so that is more a big topic for gossip than for actual fact-based discussion. So let’s look at Venus. The most recent missions to Venus were Japan’s Venus Climate Orbiter, which studied the Venusian cloud cover from 2015 to 2024, and ESA’s Venus Express, which also studied Venus’s atmosphere, and orbited from 2006 to 2015. Together, these 2 missions...

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Dark Comet Numbers on the Rise

Dark Comet Numbers on the Rise

by | Dec 26, 2024 |

Oumuamua illustration by Stuart Rankin Humans like to label things. In general, this works out for us. If you go to a furniture store and ask for a sofa, they will show you things multiple people can sit on that are clearly sofas. Ask for a chair, and they will show...

The Monkeys Can’t Write Hamlet

The Monkeys Can’t Write Hamlet

by | Dec 3, 2024 |

By New York Zoological Society — Image derived from: Chimpanzee seated at a typewriter; Public Domain. I have bad news for one of statistics favorite sayings. As the story goes, given enough time and enough monkey’s randomly pressing keys on a keyboard, the complete...

Modern Melt

Modern Melt

by | Dec 1, 2024 |

Our Earth is currently working its way toward being the exact opposite of a snowball Earth as we see glaciers and ice caps receding across the planet. This is fundamentally changing our landscape and how we as humans interact with that landscape.  These changes...

Between Fire and Ice is Slush

Between Fire and Ice is Slush

by | Dec 1, 2024 |

Snowball Earth. Credit: NASA Our planet has been driven to environmental extremes at many times in its history, and many plants and animals - including humans - have demonstrated they can survive less than ideal conditions. The last major ice age hit its peak 20 to 26...

Dinosaurs Thrived After Ice

Dinosaurs Thrived After Ice

by | Dec 1, 2024 |

Archaeopteryx Credit: Peter Montgomery Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanic object in our solar system today, but our planet gave Io a run for its money more than 200 million years ago. At that point in our planet's history, our world was dominated by the Triassic...

Volcanic Moon Orbiting Distant World

Volcanic Moon Orbiting Distant World

by | Dec 1, 2024 |

Let’s look at a world 635 lightyears away that just might have a fiery moon of volcanic goodness. To be honest, every aspect of this system is hot. The star is similar our Sun, but the planet is on an 2.8 day orbit around that star, and this orbit makes Mercury look...

A Bit of Joy: Jury Duty Strikes Astronaut

A Bit of Joy: Jury Duty Strikes Astronaut

by | Nov 28, 2024 |

On Oct 28, Astronaut Don Pettit’s son posted to Twitter, “My family just got served two jury summons at once. And as if that wasn’t absurd enough, one is for the one of us in space right now.” I know that legally jobs are required to provide workers time off to serve...

Telescopes galore: Euclid, Rubin, and Roman

Telescopes galore: Euclid, Rubin, and Roman

by | Nov 4, 2024 |

Back in 1998, researchers studying supernovae discovered that our universe is accelerating apart. Up until that point, it had been understood that our universe’s expansion was either going to slow to a stop, continue on as is-ish, or reverse it’s motion and collapse...