Science, History, and Fiction in Everyday Life
Titan (1997) is a SF/ techno-thriller by Stephen Baxter. It examines Saturn’s moon Titan as the object of a manned mission aiming at discovering alien life, but also the more general issue of human exploration of the Solar System. More political than…
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2015 is an amazing year for space missions (not that 2014 has been a bad one) – plenty of them under way and expectations are high for the results they are going to deliver. New Horizons: if 2014 has been the…
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No, Europa Report is not a Jupiter Ascending ante-literam movie (the fear is legitimate considering the astronomical proximity) and, while I have still to watch the latest Wachowski’s movie, trailers have given me a clear idea what it’s about –…
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It seems that nominations and votes are taking up all my time this week. After Hugos, it’s Pluto, and the NASA’s campaign to encourage people all over the world to submit names for the new features the probe New Horizons…
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Today March, 6 NASA’s Dawn has finally completed its historic mission and entered Ceres’ orbit after 7.5 year of travel. The first space mission to have reached not one but two previously unexplored (dwarf) planets/asteroids, Dawn has previously studied Ceres’ twin Vesta in…
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Yes, “on” it is the correct preposition. It’s not the continent I’m talking about; it is the Jupiter’s moon with the same name. Why so? Because NASA just got extra-money for its 2016 budget (of $18.5 billion dollars, i.e. half…
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…which is maybe not a myth after all. When I have written some time ago about Nemesis, or the Death Star, in fiction and in conspiracy theories, I have briefly mentioned Planet X. Historically, this name has been given to two…
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If you were dreaming about the day we are going to leave and explore the Solar System, take space elevators down to Mars and sky-diving over the Ligeia Mare on Titan, look no further. Wanderers, by Erik Wernquist, is a…
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This is definitively the year of bacteria in terms of scientific discovery and ground-breaking experiments. It was only a few months ago that a new strand of DNA was engineered in a lab, creating an organism with semi-synthetic (“alien”) DNA. And it’s…
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My latest published articles on Serious Wonder. Incidentally, there are also a few more on space and SF posted by other contributors – I do recommend having a look at them, they are really interesting (one is on time travel, a subject I am going…
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