Last week, “human computer” Katharine Johnson passed away. Johnson’s calculations of orbital mechanics were instrumental to the success of NASA’s Apollo missions. One of the first African-American women scientists to work at NASA, Johnson’s time at NASA was fictionalized in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.  This month’s playlist includes videos…

Highlights… Watch new, never-before-captured high resolution footage of the Sun’s surface; NASA says goodbye to the Spitzer Space Telescope; Sky watchers can see great views of the constellation Orion in February; Emily Sandford breaks down the physics and ethics of an elevator to the Moon; SciShow explains how you can…

Happy New Year!  Highlights… NASA test drives the new Mars 2020 rover; CuriousDroid unravels the past and present of hydrogen energy and aero-space travel; Astronaut Don Pettit discusses launching rockets from the Moon; The Planet Protection team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory break down why microbiology matters in space; SciShow…

Highlights… The ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured evidence of a giant planet orbiting a white dwarf star; This month, Venus, Saturn, and Mars, along with a crescent moon, will be visible in the December sky; SciShow breaks down the mystery of inconsistent oxygen levels in the Martian atmosphere; Physicist Tara…

Highlights… New images from the ESO’s Very Large Telescope indicate that the asteroid Hygiea might be reclassified as smallest dwarf planet in our solar system; Denna Lambert from NASA Goddard tests out an inclusive picture book designed for the visually impaired, featuring images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope; Astronomers…

Highlights… The Carnegie Institute of Science discovered 20 new moons orbiting Saturn, making it now the planet with the most moons in our solar system; Speaking of planets, sky watchers this month will be able to spot the elusive Uranus and Neptune with the naked eye; New ESO observations of…

Highlights… The world said good-bye to Mar’s rover Opportunity last month when NASA declared mission end on February 13, 2019; Could the multiple universes of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse be real? Fermilab dives into the science!; The Space Telescope Science Institute shows how the Webb Space Telescopes’ integral field unit…

Happy New Year! Highlights… Emily Lakdawalla from the Planetary Society takes us on a tour of the spacecraft currently exploring our solar system; Revisiting the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 that were discovered nearly two years ago; Take a look at the complexity and precision that goes into building the James…

After an unexpected four month hiatus, we’re back! Highlights… NASA bids a fond farewell to Kepler, the telescope that proved over it’s nine year mission that there are more planets than stars in the universe; SciShow Space explains how stellar occultations can be used to hunt for exoplanet rings; Late…

Highlights… This month’s Physics Crash Course video looks at resistors, batteries, and circuits; James Christy and Robert Harrington talk about how they discovered Charon, 40 years ago; A global dust storm swirling across Mars is threatening the Opportunity rover, will it survive?; As scientists noticed that ‘Oumuamua gained an extra…