One of the unforeseen hazards of the space age — what happens when an astronaut drops a tool? In this case it was letting go of an entire tool bag. To quote the story from the Earth Sky News (https://earthsky.org/human-world/orbital-oopsy-a-tool-bag-is-now-orbiting-earth/?) — “A tool bag is orbiting Earth, and night sky observers might catch a glimpse
If you have any interest in astronomy, you know there is a profusion of satellites being launched by both public and private entities. Lots of satellites make life miserable for Earth-bound astronomers. Worse, it leads to another problem — who takes out the trash? Satellites have a fixed lifespan and, like all things mechanical, they
How often do you travel? This is a marvelous age; we can be almost anywhere in the world (outside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles) in under 24 hours. And yet… I travel internationally about once a year, and in three of my last six overseas trips I’ve been delayed by the airlines; twice I’ve lost
If you were observing Earth from an alien planet, how would you know if life really existed here? The renowned astronomer Carl Sagan wondered the same thing. Then he got an opportunity to find out. In October 1989, NASA launched the Galileo spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. But because of the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986,
Have you stayed at a motel recently? Or when was the last time you dined at a Sunday brunch? You may not have stopped to think about the origin of those words. But its simple — put “motor” and “hotel” together for “motel” to acknowledge the age of the automobile. Similarly, combining “breakfast” and “lunch”
Does the moon experience earthquakes (or in this case, moonquakes)? That’s one thing NASA wanted to know when we first visited our celestial companion. So when the Apollo astronauts arriv ed, they installed seismometers on the moon’s surface. Sure enough, those instruments recorded seismic events just like here on Earth. In fact, scientists have since
What would you think of police officers who use less force, are named in fewer complaints and lawsuits, are thought of as being more honest and compassionate, and can reach better outcomes for crime victims, especially in sexual assault cases? All good qualities? Yes, there are many such officers now, but one category excels in
In addition to cat videos, a favorite social-media meme is portraying faces in everyday objects. They’re always good for a smile. But everything in this world has a name and imaginary faces are no exception. This phenomenon has been labeled pareidolia — “the illusory perception of meaningful patterns or images of familiar things in random
Contact with alien civilizations from somewhere else in the universe has been a topic of fascination for most of human civilization. (Considering what happened to indigenous peoples in the Americas after European contact, whether or not this would be a good idea is a whole different topic, but let’s press on.) Theoretically, there could be
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ideas. Today I happened to find an article on Yahoo that brought back some Air Force memories — “True to Life But Without the Price Tag: The Decoy Weapons Ukraine Wants Russia to Destroy” by Melissa Bell, Daria Martina Tarasova and Pierre Bairin, CNN (https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/true-life-without-price-tag-051313104.html). In the late