Fraser Cain

One of the great accomplishments of the Apollo missions was to bring home hundreds of kilograms of lunar rock. Suddenly, geologists had a lifetime’s worth of lunar samples captured from several different spots across the Moon. These rocks and dust have been under continuous analysis since the Apollo 11 astronauts came home over 50 years … Continue reading "Bringing Mars To Earth. The Plans For a Mars Sample Return Mission"

Humans to Mars. That’s the plan right? The problem is that sending humans down to the surface of Mars is one of the most complicated and ambitious goals that we can attempt. It’s a huge step to go from low Earth orbit, then lunar landings, and then all the way to Mars, a journey of … Continue reading "Want To Explore Mars? Send Humans To The Moons Of Mars First: Phobos And Deimos"

I’ve said many times in the past that the Earth is the best planet in the Universe. No matter where we go, we’ll never find a planet that’s a better home to Earth life than Earth. Of course, that’s because we, and all other Earth life evolved in this environment. Evolution adapted us to this … Continue reading "Better Than Earth? Are There Superhabitable Worlds In The Milky Way?"

In 2017, Elon Musk laid out his grand sweeping plans for the future of SpaceX, the company that would take humanity to Mars. Over decades, tens of thousands of Starship flights would carry a million human beings to the surface of the Red Planet, the minimum Musk expects it’ll take to create a self-sustaining civilization. … Continue reading "What Will It Take To Feed A Million People On Mars?"

Near the end of 2019, astronomers watching the red giant Betelgeuse noted how much the star had dimmed, continuing to steadily fade for months.  It’s a variable star, and it’s known to get dimmer and brighter, but the big surprise is that it’s still continuing to dim, recently passing magnitude 1.56 and still getting dimmer. … Continue reading "Betelgeuse Is Still Dimming! And We Have the Pictures to Prove It"

My Dad’s a pretty good woodworker, and recently completed a wooden table that looks surprisingly like Jupiter, Great Red Spot, atmospheric bands and all. Here’s the original table from a bit of a side angle: And here’s what it looks like when it’s orbiting the Sun, imaged by Juno during a recent flyby. Check out … Continue reading "My Dad Made a Table That Looks Surprisingly Like Jupiter"

As soon as I saw these new artificial intelligence image creation tools, like DALL-E, I wanted to see how well they’d work for generating space and astronomy images. I’m still on the waiting list for DALL-E 2, so I don’t have any feedback to give there, but I signed up for Midjourney AI, played arou…

Starlink on Mars? NASA Is Paying SpaceX to Look Into the Idea

Landing on Pluto May Only Be A Hop Skip and Jump Away

Antimatter Propulsion Is Still Far Away, But It Could Change Everything