Simply amazing pictures. 

Wake-up call? 

Your free end-of-the-world survival (nor not) guide.

Rocket of steel. 

Cool demo of what reusable rocket technology could mean outside of space travel. And a way to pay back for the space program through the huge impact it could have on the economy.

This is on a gas planet the type of Jupiter. So unlikely to be a second home but I was fascinated to learn our detection method can now spot that.

With a fleet of 4,425 satellites. No less. Which means more than the total number of satellites currently in Space. 

Ambitious program but great goal that would provide 200x more speed than what connected internet users get on average and perhaps more importantly internet access to areas that are not covered and potentially to the 4.2 billion of people who are not online yet. 

PR stunt or hard science? Too early to say but fascinating to see if we'll be able to prove that in the next future. Let alone translate what they say.

Elon Musk's proposal is probably super ambitious to some but his speech this week has the merit of making things pretty simple and straightforward in terms of what's at stake and how we can address the opportunity. 

The scope of his own plan is limited to transportation so he doesn't describe what Mars colonies will look like nor what people will do there. But that's the very interesting take-away to me: rather than attempting to plan everything in a typical government (or soviet-style?) way, he's proposing a platform for other entrepreneurs to build on and leverage the opportunities.

He's not saying "I've planned everything and you should all do what I say". He's focusing on solving the biggest hurdle (affordable transportation) and leaves the rest open. He makes the point that in the 1850's, no one lived in California but that the smart decision made was precisely to build a railroad to California... which became the most populous states a few decades later and economic leadership in technology and entertainment.

So in the same spirit, he's proposing a plan to reduce transportation cost to Mars to $100k/person with enough bandwidth to ship 1M people there over 40-100 years. 

What happens next is up to us. 

Learning the lessons from exoplanet search to transform the SETI program could lead to a much more focused search. And therefore more successful. Looking at the limited area of the sky where aliens are the most likely to be listening to us already... as they might track us the way we track exoplanets. 

Is here a 9th planet far away in the solar system that's 10x the mass of earth and hat orbits in 10,000 to 20,000 years? The Caltech team who had discovered the bodies beyond Pluto that ended disqualifying it as a planet are saying yes. Here's why and what critics' questions it would address. 

Looks like NASA now has a detailed plan to not just explore Mars but settle humans over there.

Very interesting and clear description. The fact that the time to compute and decode information can have an impact on information itself, and physics laws, is fascinating. 

Bold statement but NASA Chief says we know where to look and we know how to look.

Are quanta and the planck constant signs that our universe is pixelized?

It's not everyday that Europe makes space history. Happy and proud. 

A recap on the unifying theories that could explain the fabric of our universe.

Beyond the click bait graphic, I recommend to watch the video: it's awesome and explains in very simple terms the concept and challenges of FTL travel based on the warp drive theory. Plus some othee more accessible discoveries that could change space exploration sooner. 

Ready to move?

This is probably what scientists live for: the unique moment in one's career when the theory you built is proven true. Awesome.

The recent discovery of the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation is a big deal: until now, the Big Bang has only been a theory.

Until now.

Space X latest version of the Falcon rocket will be no less than the heaviest rocket in existence, coming only third to Saturn V and the Russian Energia rocket in history. 

Hundreds of challenges remain to be solved but as even NASA struggles to maintain an edge, the pay-off of a Space Elevator has never been clearer. The original idea of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky which Arthur C. Clarke turned into a novel could be the revolution space exploration needs.

It's safer to be an astronaut than a mountaineer or a navy pilot.

We need to change that and go back to the days where there was not only risk but reward.  In this article, Mollie Hemingway argues that the space shuttles deadly accidents were hard to accept not per se but because they seemed to be having had trivial objectives. 

It's great to see arguments piling up for that debate. And it's also important to remember that the greatest risk might be not to take any.

This is a fascinating discovery...

Amazing development of the private sector space industry. While we can always regret NASA didn't send a man to walk on Mars yet, what we're seeing from private initiatives will probably lead to a much stronger space coloinzation effort in the long run.

Unlikely say many scientists who criticize the rapid conclusion the University of Sheffield scientists arrived at. This is just one article but after being intrigued by my previous post on this, I investigated further and found the scientific community has been raising many concerns such as :

Sounds counter-intuitive and I find it hard to believe. But then again it's just one theory among many.

Very meta but interesting read. Are we in a matrix? 

Interesting follow-up to a discussion already started last year. The end of the solar system is being redefined in part thanks to the Voyager missions. 

A great first made possible by Hubble Space Telescope. Now just because it's blue doesn't mean it's similar to earth: this is actually a giant gas planet closer to Jupiter.

Nice project. Competition for Virgin Galactic? Or the future of air travel?

We can't blame Musk for not being visionary. I wonder whether dramatizing the topic like he did will have an impact. 

Bold.

Watch them orbit on scale and sort them by size: great job by the nytimes! 

Amazingly enough, some say it's a plausible scenario that would cost "just" $2.6 Billion and could help missions to Mars.

This is a great article that I discovered thanks to a comment by Vincent Lieser. However precious astronauts' lives are, they can not be assigned an inifinte cost without being heavily detrimental to other budget allocations that can save lives on earth and, more importantly, to the very mission of space exploration. Great read.

Interesting paradox.

Interesting take on how to design future spacecrafts. Not for perfection but for robustness in order to make space flights both more reliable and affordable. 

Good question...

This is a follow up to the rumour I published a few days ago and a confirmation that space traveler billionaire Denis Tito seems serious in considering a free return, low cost fly-by of the red planet five years from now. Any doubt that the private sector is now a serious contender in the space race? Read this.

Pretty cool way to play with zooming options and visible/non-visible light.

Sensational headline from the Huf Post but nevertheless a pretty cool discovery for particle physics.

Blame the Doppler effect...

Raisin bread, Einstein and the speed of light: a great explanation on the difference between motion and expansion. 

Earth 2.0?

This is based on extrapolating the results from obeserving 150,000 stars. There are some caveats to the study but the exciting news is that we don't seem to be falling short of earth-like planets.

Crazy story of that rock that was blasted out of Mars by a meteor impact and fell back on earth after millions of years in the cosmos to reveal fascinating secrets on the presence of water on Mars. 

A good high-level recap of all the different theories behind the multiple universes concept (yes there are also multiple theories of multiple universes: isn't that meta?).

Interesting discoveries reported by NASA on neutron stars. What's amazing for me to (re)discover is how dense neutron stars are. The image shows how a neutron star compares to Manhattan and Brooklyn in NYC. Yet, it's mass is 500,000 that of the earth...

Interesting experiment to see whether a robot can actually relieved the stress of being alone inSpace just like anothehuman an companion would. 

Hopefully this robot isn't called HAL...

Follow up on that fascinating story. Too good to be true?