I’m off to see Mom

I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again … stay tuned.

How Black Holes Produce Powerful Relativistic Jets October 16, 2025
In a recent study, theoretical physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt described the origin of powerful jets emanating from the core regions of galaxies using a series of complex simulations.
Foldable Solar Sails Could Help With Aerobraking and Atmospheric Reentry October 15, 2025
Use cases for smart materials in space exploration keep cropping up everywhere. They are used in everything from antenna deployments on satellites to rover deformation and reformation. One of the latest ideas is to use them to transform the solar sails that could primarily be used as a propulsion system for a mission into a […]
Humble Yeast Has Planetary Survival Skills October 15, 2025
Rather randomly I’ve just returned from a theatre tour where my science show featured yeast in one of the experiments, so when research about yeast surviving Martian conditions crossed my desk, it immediately piqued my interest. These microscopic fungi that help our bread rise and our beer ferment might just have what it takes to […]
When Fire Brought Ice to Mars October 15, 2025
Mars is a planet of mystery! Its surface today is cold and dry, yet evidence suggests it was once home to flowing water. Most of the planet's remaining ice sits locked away at the poles, but recent observations have detected signals of hydrogen in equatorial regions that could indicate buried ice deposits where the environment […]
When Tides Turn White Dwarfs Hot October 15, 2025
White dwarfs are stellar corpses, the slowly cooling remnants of stars that ran out of fuel billions of years ago. Our Sun will eventually share this fate, collapsing into a compact object so dense that the heavier it becomes, the smaller it shrinks. This rather strange property is just one of the aspects of white […]