Alastair Williams
@alastairwilliams.bsky.social
Space engineer, science writer, and author of The Quantum Cat
Reflect Orbital plan to ruin the night sky by putting thousands of mirrors in orbit. They are not the first to try doing this - thirty years ago the Russians put the first, and so far only, reflective mirror in orbit. 🧪🔭
Reflections on Placing Mirrors in Space
On plans, new and old, to put mirrors in orbit
open.substack.com
Imagine the outrage if Iran bombed an American school. Imagine the hatred, the violent revenge attacks on innocents, the indiscriminate bombings of Iran that would follow. What a stain this attack is on the USA and all of its citizens. www.bbc.com/news/article...
'What was their crime?': BBC visits Iran school in Minab where strike killed 120 children
Nearly five months on, grief is still raw as a teacher and a mother recall the horror of the attack in Minab.
bbc.com
Unlucky number 13. In comparison, after thirteen flights the Saturn V had put a dozen people on the Moon and launched a space station.
Jonathan McDowell@planet4589.bsky.social · 3w agoStarship Flight 13 aborted at booster ignition at 2245:29 UTC. No launch occurred, scrub for today, safe engine shutdown.
Starship Flight 13 aborted at booster ignition at 2245:29 UTC. No launch occurred, scrub for today, safe engine shutdown.
"Las Malvinas" are for the penguins, not the Argentines.
Please blow up the public comment (included below): BREAKING NEWS (7/15) — The administration wants to destroy Chaco Canyon without consulting Tribal Nations. It’s an irreplaceable historic & cultural site with 4,700 archeological sites that could be lost to the bulldozers of oil & gas development
The potential evacuation is almost certainly from an abundance of caution, but also a very serious and apparently unexpected situation. #iss #space
David Blanchflower BSc@davidbflower.bsky.social · 2mo agoAstronauts on International Space Station told to shelter as repairs under way to fix air leaks. 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4...
The more I read this article on a 'surge' in meteor strikes, the more skeptical I become. Is there any reason to think the increase it talks about is not simply down to random chance? The analysis itself seems to read like something an AI would cook up... amsmeteors.org/ams-q1-2026-...
Q1 2026: Has Something Changed in the Near-Earth Fireball Environment? — American Meteor Society
amsmeteors.org
The great comet of 1882 was extraordinarily bright, so much so that it could be seen even in the middle of the day as it approached the Sun. Here it was photographed from Cape Town by David Gill. #historyofastronomy #space #comets #photography
Space exploration should never be about trying replace the Earth. It must be about inquiry, about a desire to learn and to better ourselves, to explore. There is great beauty out there, but there is no other home for humanity.
Meade Krosby@meadekrosby.bsky.social · 4mo agoHow anybody can look at this image and think there are better options out there is entirely beyond me. The only planet with whales, and butterflies, and giant sequoias. Home.
How anybody can look at this image and think there are better options out there is entirely beyond me. The only planet with whales, and butterflies, and giant sequoias. Home.
The Orion Nebula, photographed by George Ritchey in 1901. #historyofastronomy #space #photography #history
Posting this here because @nasaspaceflight.com hasn't yet NASA's engineering cameras for #Artemis2 images-assets.nasa.gov/video/KSC-20...
images-assets.nasa.gov
Quite unfortunate that most of the exciting Artemis activities are taking place during European sleeping hours!
Oh wow, the photos already released from NASA for the launch of Artemis II from the NASA HQ flickr.
The lunar plain of Mare Humorum sketched by Etienne Trouvelot in 1875. To the bottom right is the crater Gassendi, on the top left the craters of Vitello and Doppelmayer. #historyofastronomy #space #artemis #art #science
Before the age of astrophotography, the night sky had to be drawn. Here is the work of one of the greatest. #historyofastronomy #art #space #history
The Moth and The Aurora: The Work of Étienne Léopold Trouvelot
On the life and the art of Étienne Léopold Trouvelot
open.substack.com
The Orion Nebula, photographed in 1883 by Andrew Ainslie Common. This image was the first to reveal stars too faint to be seen by the human eye. #historyofastronomy #space #photography #history
The Earth, seen by the crew of Apollo 17. Since that flight no human has gone high or far enough to see the entirety of the Earth silhouetted against the void. #space #historyofastronomy #NASA #artemis #apollo #photography
It worries me less that the president—whose is, as we all learned long ago absent of morals and decency—would say this, but more that 40% of the U.S. population remain unmoved by such despicable comments.
Oh okay, we're now at the point where America is threatening to commit terrible war crimes. What more red flags do you need to realise something is terribly wrong?
Have you ever heard of the red supergiant problem? 🧪🔭
The Strange Problem With Red Supergiants
Are the biggest stars vanishing without a trace?
open.substack.com
LLMs do not offer objective feedback. If you ask them is something is good they will tell you it is. If you ask them to criticise they will. Even if you ask them to criticise their own output!
lauren@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 5mo agogetting occasional reddit recommendations for posts in the ai subreddits is a great way to remind myself millions and millions of people still think LLMs are the Correct Answer Machine
Unfavorable weather conditions have pushed the launch date of the next Isar Aerospace Spectrum flight to no earlier than 23 March. Image credit: Isar Aerospace
