I made the first version of this guide back in 2023 with the intention of collecting a set of free resources sufficient to guide a reader through the field of physics. Since then it has become my most popular post with tens of thousands of views. Over time things get…

If NASA keeps the schedule, the moment of lift-off will come in early February. Six immense engines will roar to life, each belching out a tremendous…

Just how massive can a star get?

The Sun makes for a logical starting point. It is big, weighing in at over three hundred thousand times the mass of the Earth. But by cosmic standards, that is merely average. Betelgeuse…

Aristotle was the student of Plato; Plato the student of Socrates.

For twenty years, Aristotle studied at Plato’s Academy. By all accounts,…

As always, welcome and thank you for reading! For those who are new here, this is a newsletter on space and physics. This…

Project Mercury was supposed to be fast, and it was supposed to be simple. After all, Sputnik had made it starkly…

For the past decade, NASA has had a large mirror sitting in a warehouse. In principle, it could one day form the centrepiece of a new Hubble-class telescope. But in reality,…

First, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of you for reading, for subscribing, and for your kind feedback.

I set out at the start of last year to write more often, while still focusing on quality over quantity. In practice, that has meant devoting…

I spent some time, this summer, in the valley of the Vézère in southwestern…