Mark Thompson
Astronomers Will Get Gravitational Wave Alerts Within 30 Seconds
Any event in the cosmos generates gravitational waves, the bigger the event, the more disturbance. Events where black holes and…
Japan’s Lunar Lander Survives its Third Lunar Night
Space travel and exploration was never going to be easy. Failures are sadly all too common but it's wonderful to…
Black Holes Can Halt Star Formation in Massive Galaxies
It’s difficult to actually visualise a universe that is changing. Things tend to happen at snails pace albeit with the…
Mapping the Milky Way’s Magnetic Field in 3D
We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth’s magnetic field. It turns out that most objects in…
NASA’s New Solar Sail Has Launched and Will Soon Deploy
Solar Sails are an enigmatic and majestic way to travel across the gulf of space. Drawing an analogy to the…
TESS Finds its First Rogue Planet
Well over 5,000 planets have been found orbiting other star systems. One of the satellites hunting for them is TESS,…
There are Four Ways to Build with Regolith on the Moon
Over the last few years I have been renovating my home. Building on Earth seems to be a fairly well…
Astronaut Food Will Lose Nutrients on Long-Duration Missions. NASA is Working on a Fix
Astronauts on board the International Space Station are often visited by supply ships from Earth with food among other things.…
The Ingenuity Team Downloads the Final Data from the Mars Helicopter. The Mission is Over
I really can’t believe that the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars took its maiden voyage in April 2021. On the 16th…
What’s the Most Effective Way to Explore our Nearest Stars?
It was 1903 that the Wright brothers made the first successful self-propelled flight. Launching themselves to history, they set the…