Recent content by Gary Brown

The Harvard original luckily doesn't claim that bonding H to CO makes CO2 ! https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2025/01/explaining-persistent-hydrogen-mars-atmosphere

I think that atmospeheric pressure is the issue here. Mars as we know from its helicopter has very, very low pressure compared to Earth. Titan on the other hand has a somewhat high pressure, about one and a half times Earth. So Mars would be no place at all to test this new 'copter......

Even a tidally locked, close-in planet may have "seasons" - and thus variable sunlight and shadow - depending on both tilt (especially varying tilt) about axis and eccentricity of orbit. Eons of even small but regular changes are what enable evolution of whatever may be alive there.

Anyone else struggling with this part of the instructions: The object you are evaluating is ALWAYS centered exactly in the middle of each image. In the vast majority of the ones I've looked at, there is nothing exactly in the middle of any image. All the bright pixels are off center......

I loved this article - the sheer, continuing wonder of "looking up at the sky". A quick quibble - orders of magnitude are the easiest slips to make....... but Bode's Galaxy is around 11.5 million light years away. That million is important!

Great Voyager 1 article - but, please, it's Neil Armstrong, not Neal !!!!!

I love that the Webb team still refer to "port" and "starboard" wings of the mirror!

Great catch!

So, I was initially wondering if the sunward side of the shield is what could - possibly..... - be picked up by another scope. The business side of the Webb is of course intentionally as locally light-free as possible, and thus all-but-invisible.

Great, informative article, as ever. Question - is there any other earth / orbit based telescope that could capture a "natural" image of the Webb, or is it simply too small and dim? Gary B.

Another aspect is that many people who "follow the science" do so as a matter of belief, rather than a matter of command of the details and the arguments. And so folks like the flat-earthers enjoy exposing the lack of real knowledge amongst the sphericals! I recent sat with a group of people...