Spinning their eternal solitary dance in the endless void, the burning stars fall forever around the galaxy, dropping, as they go, a few precious photons into our eyes. Each tiny light-droplet is thousands, or millions, or billions of years old; and it has traveled almost six trillion miles in each of those years. Today an… Continue reading

As everyone knows by now, Pluto was recently demoted from “planet” to “dwarf planet”. (“Dwarf planet” is an unfortunate name; for a readable explanation of why, try this article by a linguist.) For some folks, this change is of huge importance; for others, it means nothing. It doesn’t matter to the astronomers themselves, for example… Continue reading