Light pollution is a well-recognized problem, severing human beings who live in urban areas (alas, the vast majority of us these days) from our primordial right to look up into the sky and gaze in wonder at endless twinkling points of light when the sun … Continue readingTake Back the Night?
Well, as of last Saturday, October 14, 2023, I’ve seen my first annular eclipse! Turned out there was some cloud cover in New Mexico, so rather than heading there I made my way to West Texas, Odessa to be precise, deep within the wide-open flat … Continue readingThe Ring of Fire Came to West Texas!
I’ve been giving some thought as to my alternate history space opera science fiction universe, and I have some ideas that might spice up and flesh out the mid 20th century in my timeline, even more so than the premise of the first moon landing, … Continue readingAfter Wings of Fire: Worlds of Ice?
What is a “planet”, anyway? A perhaps surprisingly contentious question, that extends far beyond the most recent flare-up of controversy, which centered around Pluto’s status in the planetary club, and despite the pretenses of the International Astronomical Union the jury’s still out on that one. … Continue readingWorldbuilding the Definition of Planet
In the previous post on colonizing the Oort cloud, I pointed out that with sufficiently cheap transportation technology any place within range will be inhabited to some extent by recreational-touristic populations or populations that deliberately seek out isolation. This outermost part of the solar system … Continue readingThe Sun as Gravitational Lens: A Breakthrough Technology?