The NASA Node 3 and ESA-built Cupola (NASA) There’s a mini-storm brewing over the popular choice of the winning nomination for the name of the new segment of the International Space Station (ISS). The problem arose when NASA decided to invite nominations for names of the new addition; NASA had...

© Oliver Widder/Geek & Poke It’s Friday Saturday [get comfortable, this turned into a long post], and I’ve been bogged down with a HUGE project I’ve been keeping under wraps for a couple of months (you will find out what that’s about on Monday), so I’ve been blogging...

A scene from X3: Terran Conflict (©Egosoft) When I said this on Twitter today, it struck up a lot of support. It actually came out as a throwaway comment in Wednesday’s Astroengine Live when I was having a rant about the misconception that space exploration is a luxury and not a necessity....

Warning: The following article contains criticism of a religious figure. Actually, it’s not really criticism, more pointing fun at a guy who should know better. If you feel the need to get angry in the comment boxes, feel free, but please use your CAPS LOCK sparingly, keep the language reasonable,...

Left: The 5-sense virtual reality system. Right: A scene from the NASA MMORPG (Mark Richards/NASA) Computer technology is reaching new levels of sophistication, limited only by our imagination (and that pesky Moore’s Law). As we develop faster and more powerful processors, an exponential increase...

The dwarf planet soap opera continues… The dwarf planet Ceres. Fuzzy (NASA/Hubble) Could the dwarf planet Ceres maintain life? Possibly, says a scientist from a German university. According to new research, this ex-asteroid (who did a deal with the IAU to sell out Pluto, trading in its asteroid...

George Hrab dominates the periodic table. Credits: Univ. Virginia/Geologic Records When I heard that George Hrab had turned the Periodic Table into a musical opportunity, I had mixed feelings. The mixed feelings were of excitement to hear what George had come up with, and those of fear of revisiting...

You talk about synthetic life like it's a bad thing - Tricia Helfer in BSG Say if you’re in space, searching for life, what do you look for? That’s simple. You look for something that resembles life on Earth; whether that be single-celled amoeba or a Star Trek-style humanoid with a lumpy...

The 1998 archive Hubble image of HR 8799 after image analysis - one of the star's exoplanets have been resolved (D. Lafrenière et al., ApJ Letters) What’s just as exciting as directly imaging an exoplanet in a new observing campaign? To discover an exoplanet in an old observing campaign. Like...

Left: The reflection in Zhai's visor shows a three-row array attached to the spacecraft. Right: The reflection from Zhai's wrist mirror shows the same array, only closer. They are not studio lights (CCTV) Remember all that conspiracy theory nonsense that was kicked up after the Chinese space walk last...