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Since Dennis Tito became the first space tourist at the beginning of the last decade, the commercial space industry has taken a great leap forward.

The eruption that started Saturday at Puyehue-Cordón Caulle along the Chilean-Argentine border is still going – and still causing problems for people living in the zone where ash and pumice […]

Near-Earth Asteroids are a threat to our planet, but they also represent an opportunity to generate enormous wealth, and may drive the commercial space race. 

The first total lunar eclipse of 2011 took place less than a week ago although people residing in North America weren’t able to enjoy it. This time around, people in […]

Alright, so the title of the post is a little cheeky, but right now it appears that the eruption of Grímsvötn that started last Saturday (May 21) is for all intents […]

The Allen Telescope Array, a set of 42 radio telescopes that has been searching for alien signals and conducting astronomical research since 2007, has been shut down due to budget cuts. 

It has been a while since we’ve had what I would consider a “busy” Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report – but this week, there is a ton of […]

As quickly as it started, the eruption at Grímsvötn seems to be ending. Ash emissions from the volcano ceased early this morning (Iceland time) and now only steam plumes remain […]

After the space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center this week, there will only be one more space shuttle mission left before the era of NASA’s manned […]

Today is May 18 and that marks the date of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington that killed 57 people (video). I don’t have an elaborate post […]

This week ended up being a little busier than I expected – I had to make that quick transition from wedding/honeymoon to beginning to prepare for my field/labwork coming up […]

Fifty years after Gagarin, plans abound for crewed missions into deeper space. A near-Earth asteroid landing, one-way trip to Mars, or hover point hiatus in mid-space, anyone?

Less than a decade after sending its first human into orbit, Beijing is working on a multi-capsule outpost in space. The project proves that power is shifting among nations with space ambitions.

Prognostics is a field within engineering to predict when a system or a component within that system will no longer function as designed or is likely to fail. For example, […]

In a recent essay posted online, NASA scientist James Hansen explains what he calls the “Easter Bunny” fantasy that we can adequately address climate change by providing subsidies for renewable […]

Well, when it rains, it pours. We’ve gone from some rather sparse Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Reports to a quite busy one. So, in an attempt to […]

Now that we’ve had time to reflect on the daring attack on Osama Bin Laden’s Pakistani compound by Navy SEAL Team 6, it’s been fascinating to hear about all the […]

There are many reasons for us to visit Mars. A key motivation is that after Earth, it appears the most likely abode for life in our solar system. And there are some political factors.

n nNASA is experimenting with Second Life as a platform for broader collaboration on the future of space exploration. The space agency has already created a virtual island in Second […]

N.A.S.A.’s Messenger spacecraft, which entered orbit around Mercury on March 17, sent its first images of the hot planet’s surface, including its previously unseen southern pole, back to Earth.

After months of delays and preparation, the oldest remaining shuttlein the fleet–Discovery, finally made its way from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the KSC to the launch pad. At 4:53 […]

It has been a couple weeks since I posted the USGS and Smithsonian Institute’s Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report – being busy with work every day for the […]

I’m as surprised as you are, but it is already Monday. Busy week for me – students getting ready to register for Fall Semester courses and a talk to give […]

Over the last few weeks, the Dieng Volcanic Complex (also known as the Dieng Plateau) in Indonesia has been increasingly showing signs of potential eruptive activity. The complex began experiencing […]

The ultradense core of an exploded star contains superfluids, a strange form of superconducting matter which exhibits remarkable properties such as climbing upwards.

The ash from the Grímsvötn eruption in Iceland has now made its way to the British Isles and over 200 flights have been delayed or cancelled due to the ash, […]

Normally I don’t fall too far behind when it comes to the plethora of volcano images that show up on the friendly confines of the interweb. Well, this week looks […]

The light at the end of the finals tunnel has appeared – only one set of papers (where I posed to my volcanoes class the question “if someone asked you […]

We’ve finally made it to the weekend, so I thought I’d leave you with a shiny new image from the NASA Earth Observatory folks. The new ASTER image (below) captured […]

Despite its significant downsides, nuclear energy is still absolutely vital for America’s (and the planet’s) future. This will become all the more true when cleaner fourth generation reactors become available.