R.I.P “Outcasts”

I just wanted to say a few words to mark the sad passing of the BBC’s “epic sci-fi” series, “Outcasts”, which isn’t being renewed after the end of its opening season. If you didn’t watch it, or haven’t heard of it, “Outcasts” was the story of a group of pioneers, on an alien planet, “Carpathia”, [...]

Mercury seen from near and far…

It’s now just two days – two days! – until NASA’s MESSENGER probe opens its eyes and starts taking the most detailed photos of the surface of Mercury ever seen. It entered orbit a few days ago, but since then it has been given a rigorous shake-down and check by its team of scientists and [...]

Now Mercury has a moon, too…

The MESSENGER probe has now successfully and safely entered orbit around Mercury! It took many years to get there, and a trip involving half a dozen different planetary flybys, but late last night the probe finally went into orbit around the planet that huddles closest to the Sun. We won’t get any new pictures for [...]

Evidence of ET Life found in a(nother) meteorite… or not…

Sigh… Here we go again. Another meteorite sliced open… another scientist peering at its exposed innards down the tube of an electron microscope… another eye-widening view of exotic, bizarre, alien-looking nano structures that, adding two and two to get fifty MUST be planet-hopping alien bacteria, surely..? What am I on about? Well, if you haven’t [...]