Mars Rovers Update:
To bravely hunker down and wait

Many great explorers quests’ were brought to a standstill by weather – Odysseus hung out on an island, Magellan paused in Patagonia, and Amundsen shivered near Antartica’s coast. Following in the footsteps of these great and weather respecting men are two little robots, Spirit and...

A telescope dream for any budget

As a graduate student at the University of Texas, I got to accompany the undergraduates on star parties (nominally as the ‘responsible’ adult, but really as a colleague in madness). We’d load up our cars with every telescope we could find, about a dozen pair of binoculars, and laptops with...

Quantifying the Darkness

We’ve all had those magical moments of looking up and suddenly seeing something breathtaking in the sky. Perhaps it was just a moon low in the sky with a planet near and bright. Perhaps it was the Milky Way pouring itself into the horizon over a country road. Whatever the source of wonder, our ability...

Mercury & Venus: Understanding hot rocks & Greenhouse gases

The latest episode of The Universe focused on our solar system’s hottest two planets: Mercury and Venus. In looking at each of these worlds, scientists are faced with Sun related issues no other planet has: we can never study these planets when they are high in the sky well after sunset (the ideal time...

Summer Days, Drifting Away . . .

As an academic, I can be as bad as any school child when it comes to counting down the days until summer begins. The holidays of Easter & Passover always mark the final race toward finals, and with these spring celebrations I know a brief reprieve from scheduled days and grading is on the way. Now, with...