No, not Kevin Spacey.
1) I’m interviewed on the most recent episode of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast, one of my faves, about the Star Trek movie, the Million Dollar Challenge failure of Patricia Putt, and a few other things. Here’s the direct link, too.
2) A new Are We Alone podcast is now online.
3) The new Carnival of Space (#105) is up at Space Disco. As always, tons of electronic yumminess there to keep you busy getting updates on space and astronomy.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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June 1st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
The ‘ARE WE ALONE’ thing is the best out of all 3 of them!
And you can bet that we’re not!
June 1st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I just received “Death from the Skies!” today and have already gotten thoroughly into it. One of the little extras was discovering this blog first thing. Thanks.
June 1st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Hi Phil, as per the Star Trek part of the interview, if memory serves me right, there was also a moment of silence when the Enterprise’s ejected cores exploded at the black hole. I remember there was a gargantuan, whitish ball of silent explosion that helped propel the ship back on track. I’m working from memory, but feel quite certain it was such a scene. Readers please refute if I’m wrong.
Also, when one of the interviewers began talking about the galaxy-threatening supernova, a sudden thought came to mind that, while there are indeed certain ways in which our planet could be destroyed as you have illustrated in our book, what then of our galaxy? Can galaxies also die? If so, what could be the scenarios that would bring about the demise, either slow or sudden?
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I remember reading about the Milky Way’s very probable collision with another galaxy in the very, very distant future. While galaxy-collisions do not kill any galaxy, I believe the gravitational pulls are more than enough to cause a considerable amount of disturbance (as seen from our miniscule eyes).
June 1st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Watch it, Phil. B. is on three Kevin Spacey websites / blogs….
June 1st, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Ha! Typo, Phil. as illustrated in your book, not “our.” Sorry.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I know this has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I found this and it was too good to pass up.
“One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.” – awesometnerd, SmashBoards
Muahaha. Thought you might enjoy that one.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:51 pm
There is such a source of energy — the sun. I posted too quickly, and can’t find a way to completely un-post, so, nevermind.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
In the Skeptics Guide interview it’s mentioned that Titan orbits on the plane of Saturns rings. However, I happened to see this Cassini image the other day.
http://ciclops.org/view/5155/Saturn_Four_Years_On
The object in the lower left sure looks like Titan. Anyone know what it is and if its Titan why does it look like its about 45 degrees off of the ring plane?
June 1st, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Nick: that’s Titan, but remember that the 3rd dimension in these images is projected onto 2! Note the tip of the rings; if Titan is sufficiently behind the planet, as it is here, it can look like it’s below.