As seen in Forbes Science | January 31,2019 | Bruce Dorminey Time and again we hear that we are behind the aerospace curve; that we should be farming peanuts on Mars by now; mining Helium-3 in some far-flung lunar lava tube, or living the dream in a space condo parked in low-Earth orbit. But nearing the [...]
As Seen In Forbes Science | January 14, 2019 | Author Bruce Dorminey Revolutionary new steam-powered space technology should enable future space probes to hop from asteroid to asteroid; around the surface of the Moon or Mars; or even on a far-flung Kuiper Belt object for decades at a time. It’s the product of a [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | January 13, 2019 | Author Bruce Dorminey Astrobiologists like to think that forming solar systems result in cauldrons of plenty; cornucopias of molecular compounds that make for terrestrial worlds just itching to form life. But observations of an eroding debris disk around the nearby red dwarf star AU Microscopii [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | December 31, 2018 On the cusp of yet another trip around the Sun, I found myself wondering how many alien civilizations within this sector of our Milky Way might have already come and gone? That is, bitten the dust due to wholly natural climate change long after their planet [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | December 11, 2018 Data from the asteroid ‘101955 Bennu’ --- the prime science target for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission --- reveal ubiquitous amounts of water locked inside clays, the mission’s science team reported. The team has been very pleasantly surprised by new analysis of high-resolution data from the spacecraft’s imaging [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | November 30, 2018 But more importantly, what can Mars’ inner workings tell us about the formation of planets like our own? In December, the InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) spacecraft will position its French-built surface seismometer only a few feet from where it landed. [...]
GLOBAL WARMING, I LOVE CO2, CO2 BENEFITS, CLIMATE CHANGE, FOREST FIRES, NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT, CO2 FERTILIZATION The 4th National Climate Assessment (NCA) was released Friday, November 23rd and was promptly greeted by wide media coverage and wringing of hands over its dire predictions for the planet’s future. Like the previous three assessments, it was mandated by the [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | November 22, 2018 South Korea is the last place to cross most people’s minds when it comes to the esoteric history of astronomy. But this politically-troubled peninsula is home to both Asia’s oldest surviving astronomical observatory as well as a vibrant contemporary center for astronomy and space just an [...]
As seen in Forbes Science By Bruce Dorminey October 24, 2018 Mars may be rife with dissolved oxygen in a liquid water subsurface, a team of geochemists at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory now say. Mars captured by the Viking orbiter. CREDIT: NASA/JPL/USGS Their findings, just published in the journal Nature Geoscience, appear to upend [...]
As seen in Forbes Science By Bruce Dorminey October 23, 2018 French astronomer Antoine Labeyrie likes walking fences. He's now advocating a space-based hypertelescope. CREDIT: BRUCE DORMINEY A French astronomer with a long history of innovation is planning a low-cost hypertelescope that would revolutionize optical astronomy from space. Composed of a million [...]
