Blog Archive

Nichelle Nichols and the Nerd-in-chief

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/03 11:02 CDT

I got this wonderful photo from Nichols' Twitter after Mike Okuda retweeted it.

A theme song for IKAROS

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/11 10:10 CDT

JAXA's solar sail mission IKAROS is still hibernating, and there's no way of knowing if the spacecraft will reawaken or not. They try to raise contact with the spacecraft once a month, with the last attempt being made on March 10; we can only wait to see if they'll succeed. What better time to release a theme song for the mission? IKAROS has always been even more full of personality even than other JAXA missions (which is saying a lot).

LeetUp Reconnaissance Report

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/06 02:08 CST

A recap of the "carnival of nerdly delights" that is LeetUp.

This is how far human radio broadcasts have reached into the galaxy

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/24 05:26 CST

There is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity's presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way.

The Scale of the Universe, by Cary and Michael Huang

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/16 10:14 CST

Cary and Michael Huang present a basic "powers of ten" visualization starting at human scale from which you can scrub downward smaller than quarks or upward to the scale of the entire universe.

Put New Horizons on a stamp

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/09 12:26 CST

A week ago, the New Horizons team announced an effort to gather signatures in support of a petition to the U.S. Postal Service to commemorate the historic flyby of Pluto on a stamp.�