In the past 8 months, I’ve given a talk titled “How the Constellations Came to Be” three times. At the end of the talk, I give a few bits of trivia related to the constellations. I thought it might be fun to expand on those bits and made them into a blog...

In 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin captured the famous footage of what many cryptozooligists and kooks believe is Bigfoot. Perhaps sick of urban sprawl, the Patterson-Gimin Sasquatch relocated to the Red Planet. In a panoramic image captured...

On Wednesday, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, Google engineering director Andrew Moore introduced a new version of the company’s Sky application in Google Earth. Of particular interest to me is the inclusion of historical...

In my last blog post , I presented a 25-question constellation trivia quiz. Here are the answers. 1) Serpens occupies two regions of sky. Ophiuchus the Serpent-bearer separates Serpens. 2) Unlike the Southern Cross, whose long axis points to the South...

On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury. MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging — made the first close-up observations of the innermost planet in 33 years. This flyby marked the first of...

On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft will fly past Mercury. MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging — will be making the first close-up observations of the innermost planet in 33 years. This flyby marks...

On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury. MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging made the first close-up observations of the innermost planet in 33 years. This flyby marked the first of...

One of the pleasures of attending American Astronomical Society meetings is strolling through a sea of poster papers. A poster paper is exactly what it sounds like — it’s an oversized page that summarizes the results of a single study. Now and then...

On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury. MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging — made the first close-up observations of the innermost planet in 33 years. This flyby marked the first of...

On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury. MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging — made the first close-up observations of the innermost planet in 33 years. This flyby marked the first of...

If you’re a fan of strange tales, curious quests, and questionable observations, you’ll enjoy Richard Baum’s The Haunted Observatory (Prometheus Books, 2007). As an astronomy trivia buff, I found a lot to keep me reading. In his first chapter, “A World...

Astronaut Andrew Feustel was at the Daytona International Speeedway in Florida last week for the kickoff of NASCAR’s 2008 season. NASA and the racing league are both celebrating 50th milestones: the space agency’s anniversary and the running of the Daytona...

I was checking out the exhibitors at this week’s American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, and trying hard to avoid information overload. The booth for the Pan-STARRS project stopped me in mid-stride. In fact, I may have actually done a...

Duck! There’s another near-Earth asteroid coming! You may have noted the media reports this week about the asteroid 2007 TU24 , which makes a close pass by our home planet next Tuesday (January 29). But don’t worry too much, because I mean...

On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flies past Mercury. MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging — will be making the first close-up observations of the innermost planet in 33 years. This flyby marks the...

Update from January 9: Since our last update, we have received numerous tracking measurements of asteroid 2007 WD5 from four different observatories. These new data have led to a significant reduction in the position uncertainties during the asteroid's...

I interviewed physicist Sidney Perkowitz about his book Hollywood Science . This publication looks at more than 100 films throughout cinematic history that have covered scientific topics. Columbia University Press, the publisher, sums up the book as:...

I'm headed off to Iceland for the Northern Lights and Lava Fields Tour. I'll report from the tour, letting you know about the aurorae we see and the sites we visit. See my video here .

Have you ever seen the road to heaven in the sky? Have you ever eaten a rotten fish and lived to tell about it? Here's what it's like .

From the darkness of Reykjavík, see my report on Iceland's unique riding dogs. See this video here .