Well, as of last Saturday, October 14, 2023, I’ve seen my first annular eclipse! Turned out there was some cloud cover in New Mexico, so rather than heading there I made my way to West Texas, Odessa to be precise, deep within the wide-open flat … Continue readingThe Ring of Fire Came to West Texas!
I’ve been giving some thought as to my alternate history space opera science fiction universe, and I have some ideas that might spice up and flesh out the mid 20th century in my timeline, even more so than the premise of the first moon landing, … Continue readingAfter Wings of Fire: Worlds of Ice?
What is a “planet”, anyway? A perhaps surprisingly contentious question, that extends far beyond the most recent flare-up of controversy, which centered around Pluto’s status in the planetary club, and despite the pretenses of the International Astronomical Union the jury’s still out on that one. … Continue readingWorldbuilding the Definition of Planet
In the previous post on colonizing the Oort cloud, I pointed out that with sufficiently cheap transportation technology any place within range will be inhabited to some extent by recreational-touristic populations or populations that deliberately seek out isolation. This outermost part of the solar system … Continue readingThe Sun as Gravitational Lens: A Breakthrough Technology?