Topic: Technology
Closer Look: Rubin Observatory

Closer Look: Rubin Observatory

by | Jun 25, 2025 | , , , ,

In the early 2000s, the massive scientific return from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey made it clear that there are questions we can only answer by investing in systems that survey the sky and inventory everything visible. From learning about the distribution of galaxies by type to exploring the distribution of stars by age, that survey gave us a glimpse of just how much we don’t yet know. Apache Point hosts the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's telescope. Credit: SDSS The SDSS survey used a 2.5-m telescope to initially explore an 8,000 square degree area of the sky, and has since added new areas and...

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Astronauts dive into Mk-2 Training

Astronauts dive into Mk-2 Training

by | Jun 10, 2025 |

Recent aerospace news hasn’t been the happiest, but there was one moment of watery goodness I’d like to share.  On June 10, Blue Origin shared a video taken at the Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Tank that shows astronauts climbing around in and on a...

The Fermi Paradox at 75

The Fermi Paradox at 75

by | Jun 6, 2025 |

Enrico Fermi. Credit: Liz Zonarich / Harvard Staff The idea that bad things happen to good solar systems is a recurring theme in science fiction, with everything from natural disasters, to biological disasters, to disasters of life’s own making wiping out worlds in...

CERN did Alchemy, turning Lead to Gold

CERN did Alchemy, turning Lead to Gold

by | May 16, 2025 |

Reaction for lead to transmute into gold. Credit: CERN Showing that alchemy is possible if you have a big enough particle accelerator, researchers using the Large Hadron Collider have managed, not entirely on purpose, to transform Lead into Gold. According to a press...

Rubin Observatory Brings Much Needed Joy

Rubin Observatory Brings Much Needed Joy

by | Apr 25, 2025 |

Ok, so we held off running this last little section while I waited to see if Vera Rubin observatory would put out a First Light press release. Rubin Observatory did not put out a first light press release. They put out a Facebook post saying “on-sky engineering tests...

iSpace Has a Rubric for Mission 2 Success

iSpace Has a Rubric for Mission 2 Success

by | Jan 24, 2025 |

Over the past year, we've seen a variety of different commercial missions that do things I wouldn't necessarily consider successful. We've seen lunar landers unintentionally practice gymnastics by standing on their heads and flipping over sideways. We've seen...

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...

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...