BlogFlock

In March, a chunk of rock and metal appeared over Lake Erie, flew at supersonic speed over northern Ohio, and then blew up in a deafening explosion. Over the next week, at least four other fireballs appeared over North America:…

For the first time in half a century, humans have flown over the surface of the Moon.

The moment of closest approach came on Monday evening. After flying for six days, the Orion…

In the 1860s, the American Civil War cut off the supply of cotton to the textile mills of New England. The solution, Étienne Léopold Trouvelot thought, might be found in moths. With the right kind he could produce silk, and with this he could alleviate the shortage.

Unfortunately, the American…

The hottest stars are blue. These are the beasts of the galaxy, massive stars that can be seen from incredible distance. But they do not live…

Giant stars are supposed to die in big and dramatic explosions. They run short on fuel, their cores collapse under immense gravitational pressure, and then they blow up. In 2023, we saw this happen in the nearby Pinwheel Galaxy: the star, probably a red supergiant akin to Betelgeuse, exploded…

Of all the known stars, WOH G64 is surely one of the most extreme. It is enormous. Were it placed at the centre of the solar system, it would consume all the planets out to the…

America’s billionaires are suddenly obsessed with the idea of building data centres in orbit. Elon Musk has, as usual, taken the lead. In the past month…

In the 1950s, the American government poured millions of dollars into studying something called nuclear pulse propulsion. The name only hints at the insanity of…

In 1768, the Royal Society of London dispatched the vessel Endeavour on a voyage of discovery. The mission was one of exploration. Cook was to boldly go into the unknown Pacific Ocean, explore the strange lands…

This week I’m happy to introduce a guest post by Samreet Dhillon. Samreet is a physics post-graduate and part-time science communicator, whose primary interests lie in Quantum Field Theory and Astrophysics. You can find his newsletter, ‘Bohring’ , on Substack.

Last month, I finished reading Astronomy in Minutes