Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

The Future Is So Cool

When you were growing up, 2014 was the future. And it’s become cliche to bemoan that we don’t have the flying cars we were promised, but did get early delivery on a dystopian surveillance state. So living here in the future, I just wanted to point out how cool it is that you can detect […]

 

#Apollo45

July 20, 1969. I’ve blogged about it before. There are people who can write eloquently about events of such significance.  I am not one of them.  I hope that doesn’t stand in the way of folks remembering the amazing accomplishment that the Apollo program was.  

 

Lunar Oribter Image Recovery Project

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project needs help to recover data from the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft. Frankly, it’s a bit of a disgrace that Congress funds, well, all sorts of things, over this element of our history, but that’s besides the point. Do I want to get angry, or do I want to see this […]

 

Neil Armstrong, RIP

Neil Armstrong died August 25, aged 82. It’s difficult to properly memorialize this man, because, to a degree almost unheard of in our media-saturated times, he avoided the limelight. A statement by his family notes: As much as Neil cherished his privacy, he always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world […]

 

Emergent Planetary Detection via Gravitational Lensing

The CBC Quirks and Quarks podcast on “The 10% Solar System Solution” is a really interesting 9 minutes with Scott Gaudi on how to find small planets far away: We have to rely on nature to give us the microlensing events. That means we can’t actually pick and choose which stars to look at, and […]

 

Earthrise

40 years ago, NASA released this first [human-taken] photo of the Earth from far away: [Update: The BBC has a nice story.]

 

Quanta In Space!

What’s the biggest problem with quantum cryptography? That it’s too expensive, of course. Quantum anything is inherently cool, just as certain things are inherently funny. Ducks, for example. However, it’s hard to justify a point-to-point quantum crypto link that starts at one-hundred grand just for the encryptors (fiber link not included, some assembly required), when […]

 

Hurricane Ivan From the Space Station

Every now and then, an “Astronomy Picture of the Day” is just breathtaking. Today’s is Hurricane Ivan from the Space Station. Click for the larger view.

 

"There’s supposed to be a Mars-shattering Ka-boom!"

Here at Emergent Chaos, we’re big fans of large objects hitting other large objects at high speed. Which is why it’s important to tell you that 2007-WD5 is a 50 meter asteroid that’s set to pass within 48,000 kilometers of Mars next month. “We estimate such impacts occur on Mars every thousand years or so,” […]

 

Voyager 1 passes 100 AU

            Voyager 1 has passed 100 AU. It’s a stunning feat of engineering. (Story via Slashdot.)