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Stability of Interstellar ‘Big Dumb Objects’

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/04/24/stability-of-interstellar-big-dumb-objects/

Published: April 24, 2026 14:41

‘Big dumb objects’ (BDOs) appear to great effect in science fiction. They come in all manner of sizes and shapes and they fulfill a wide range of functions. An early favorite of mine was Cordwainer Smith’s “Golden the Ships Were Oh! Oh! Oh!,” which I…

No Signs of Atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1 b or c

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/04/16/no-signs-of-atmosphere-on-trappist-1-b-or-c/

Published: April 16, 2026 16:39

Waiting to learn what next generation telescopes will reveal is tantalizing in the extreme. In terms of space-based instruments, we’re getting close to launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which has been the subject of many posts here under its…

Interstellar Probes: Moving Beyond Bracewell

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/04/09/interstellar-probes-moving-beyond-bracewell/

Published: April 9, 2026 19:20

Lately we’ve been discussing interstellar probes, the kind that an extraterrestrial civilization might use to explore the galaxy. Ronald Bracewell’s analysis of such probes dates back to 1960 and was all but coterminous with the emergence of SETI. The…

On Artemis and Starshot

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/04/06/on-artemis-and-starshot/

Published: April 6, 2026 16:56

Watching Artemis lofting skyward I relived the Apollo launches, experiencing feelings that no subsequent missions ever engendered. Artemis involves taking humans back into exploration mode with our spacecraft. Getting people out of low-Earth orbit again is…

Thinking about Bracewell Probes

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/04/01/thinking-about-bracewell-probes/

Published: April 1, 2026 17:27

Sometimes I jog my perspective on thorny physics issues by going back to earlier work. At our all too infrequent dinners together, Claudio Maccone used to tease me about this, saying that older scientific papers had inevitably been superseded by recent…

Interstellar Choices: Where to Look for Habitability?

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/03/25/interstellar-choices-where-to-look-for-habitability/

Published: March 25, 2026 15:45

A recent conversation with a friend who works the futures markets has me thinking about the nature of daydreaming. This is a guy who tracks fast-breaking numbers all day long so as to avoid getting a freight-car’s worth of coffee beans or some other…

Biology on a Rogue Planet’s Moon?

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/03/18/biology-on-a-rogue-planets-moon/

Published: March 18, 2026 14:48

I don’t write science fiction, but I have several friends who think I do simply because I write about distant planets and futuristic ways to reach them. The boundary between SF and science has always fascinated me. I like to poke around in old magazines,…

Starshot Is a Success (Part II)

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/03/10/starshot-is-a-success-part-ii/

Published: March 10, 2026 16:40

The second part of Jim Benford’s examination of Breakthrough Starshot concludes our look at the numerous issues advanced by Phase I of the project. Largely discounted in recent press coverage, the Starshot effort in fact completed a successful Phase I and…

Starshot Is a Success: Part I

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/03/03/starshot-is-a-success-part-i/

Published: March 3, 2026 16:40

The fortunes of Breakthrough Starshot have been the subject of so much discussion not only in comments in these pages but in backchannel emails that it is with relief that I turn to Jim Benford’s analysis of a project that has done significant work on…

The Language of Contact

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/02/25/the-language-of-contact/

Published: February 25, 2026 17:58

How we think intersects with the language we think in. Consider the verb in classical Greek, a linguistic tool so complex that it surely allows shadings of thought that are the stuff of finely tuned philosophy. But are the thoughts in our texts genuinely…