Topic: In-depth
Closer Look: Remote sensing our Planet Earth

Closer Look: Remote sensing our Planet Earth

We live on a geologically active rocky world that is uniquely shaped by a combination of water-driven weather and complex life. Currently, we are the only world we know of capable of supporting humans without requiring advanced technologies and mitigation against radiation and the certain death of environmental toxins. Understanding our world is a basic need if we want to preserve and protect life, but in many ways, the politics of humans makes studying our world weirdly difficult. Earlier this week, I got a notification from NASA that one of their funding programs had to be canceled because...

read more
Closer Look: Humanity’s Return to the Moon

Closer Look: Humanity’s Return to the Moon

I am a post-Apollo baby. Throughout my entire career, I’ve listened to the stories from senior researchers about how they watched men walk on the moon and thus became astronomers or planetary scientists. Me… I watched science fiction and decided if I wasn’t going to...

Closer Look: The 2024 Carrington Event

Closer Look: The 2024 Carrington Event

On Wednesday, May 8, community member ThirdRock Astronomy brought to my attention a massive sunspot that was growing to resemble the Sunspot that produced the 1859 Carrington Event, which lit the skies with aurora and powered the telegraph grid with induced current. ...

The State of Climate Change

The State of Climate Change

Extreme Weather. Credit: NOAA As human beings, we have infinite capacity for empathy. We also have the capacity to be blind to what is going on in the world around us. This dichotomy is why some people see the Sarah MacLachlan ASPCA ads and donate, others click to...