drew@drewexmachina.com
The planets Earth and Venus would seem alike to a distant observer looking at our solar system. They have similar radii, masses, bulk compositions and distances […]
According to an old adage, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. For some time now, it has been claimed that a […]
One of the earliest television shows I clearly recall watching as a young child was the original run of the scifi classic, Lost in Space. As […]
Along with the pair of rovers still active on the Martian surface (including Opportunity which has been on the move for over a decade now), NASA’s […]
Among the lay public, probably one of the most misunderstood astronomical terms that has recently come into common use has to be “super-Earth”. All too often, […]
During the past few days, word has started to spread about the latest study that has resulted in the “disappearance” of a pair of planets that […]
I readily admit that one of my pet peeves going back almost 20 years to the discovery of the first extrasolar planets has been overblown claims […]
The original motivation behind NASA’s Kepler mission (and, indeed, the primary driver of the design of its hardware) was to detect Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars […]
Earlier this week, the discovery of a pair of planets orbiting the nearby Kapteyn’s Star was announced [1, 2]. While such announcements go largely unnoticed nowadays […]
The 1976 Viking missions to Mars have been our only attempts to date to search directly for life on another planet. The pair of identical Viking […]
Six years ago the discovery of the fifth planet known to orbit 55 Cancri A (abbreviated 55 Cnc A and also known as ρ1 Cancri A) […]
The announcement of the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting inside the habitable zone of the distant red dwarf star designated Kepler 186 has resulted in […]
