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 by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in November 2007, a Bigfoot-like figure appears among the surface formations. The Internet grabbed hold of this photo around the beginning of 2008, and bloggers have...

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 Celestial Pole, the “False Cross” gives only bad directions. Two of its stars come from Carina (Iota and Epsilon) and Vela (Delta and Kappa). 3) Before astronomers formalized the constellation boundaries...

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 “close” in astronomical terms, which in this case is 1.4 lunar distances (334,000 miles). Or perhaps a friend of yours forwarded a goofball hoax e-mail to you about the government conspiracy (only one?) to hide...

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 three encounters with the planet, providing gravity assists necessary to place the probe in orbit around Mercury in March 2011. January 25, 2008 As Mercury fades in the distance, MESSENGER continues...

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: Sidney Perkowitz questions how much faith we can put into Hollywood’s depiction of scientists and their work; how accurately these films capture scientific fact and theory; whether cataclysms like our...

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 quiz. Don’t worry, it’s self-graded. Because you’re reading this blog on a computer screen, you have the Internet at your disposal. Humor me, though, and take a crack at these questions without the...

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 three encounters with the planet, providing gravity assists necessary to place the probe in orbit around Mercury in March 2011. January 17, 2008 Less than a week ago, terra incognita — Latin for “unknown...

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 three encounters with the planet, providing gravity assists necessary to place the probe in orbit around Mercury in March 2011. January 16, 2008 The first close-up images of Mercury have made their way...

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 three encounters with the planet, providing gravity assists necessary to place the probe in orbit around Mercury in March 2011. January 15, 2008 It’s okay to exhale. Everyone involved with the MESSENGER...

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 500. The astronaut toured the pits and garages and met some drivers. Feustel also drove a few laps in a stock car, reaching 100 mph. That’s fast, but on his August 2008 shuttle flight, Feustel will...