About Oregon Expat
Sometimes the best view is from the outside, and an American expatriate living in Portugal is, in many ways, outside of both nations. The views can be spectacular. I’m also a science nerd, Mac dweeb, grammar geek, and science fiction author, so the posts in this blog tend to be eclectic.
Click the “About” tab if that wasn’t quite enough detail — or go to my official author website.
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Recent Posts
- Hope, an unfamiliar emotion
- Pompeii takeout and American assumption
- Far Enough
- I have an issue with Netflix’s “Away”
- Now, about *that* topic
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star is in the wild
- Alsea Rising is out and #1!
- Coming soon: Alsea Rising
- On his terms
- Beyoncé: Homecoming
- UPRISING and balance
- The brain radio
- Alsea lovers: This is the one you’ve been waiting for
- The chicken church
Recent Comments
- Fletcher DeLancey on Porto’s most famous bookstore
- pablohaake on Porto’s most famous bookstore
- Alberto on Throwing flowers
- Rael on Portuguese idiom of the day: Lança perfume
- Rael on Portuguese idiom of the day: Lança perfume
- Fletcher DeLancey on Hope, an unfamiliar emotion
- Miriam English on Hope, an unfamiliar emotion
Categories
Category Archives: astronomy
Cool factoids about New Horizons
You’ve probably heard a lot about the New Horizons probe lately, and there’s a good reason for that. Tomorrow, July 14, the probe will fulfill its destiny. After nine and a half years of travel, it will zip past Pluto, … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, event
2 Comments
Jupiter, destroyer (and savior) of worlds
It has long been known that the advanced life on Earth may owe its existence to Jupiter, whose hulking presence and massive gravity well have probably saved our planet from many an asteroid collision. Not only has Jupiter attracted and … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy
2 Comments
This ‘n’ that
While working hard on deadlines, I kept tossing interesting things into a folder and thinking I’d blog them later. That folder needs a good cleaning, so here’s a link dump to start off your weekend. *** In a classic example … Continue reading
Those Scots are a different sort
Last Sunday, the owner of a Loch Ness tour company stepped outside to snap some photos of the “beautiful sky.” John Alasdair MacDonald (could there be a more Scottish name?) then captured a once-in-a-lifetime shot when a brilliant meteor flashed … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, culture, Europe
3 Comments
SDO Year 5
What has collected over 200 million images and 2,600 terabytes of data, and just celebrated its fifth anniversary? The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. And I have to admit that when I saw the part about “2,600 terabytes of data” … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, video
4 Comments
A most amazing “failure”
Sometimes the mainstream press really does not know what’s going on when it comes to anything techy. Case in point: earlier this month, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon capsule that was destined to dock with the … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, science, tech, USA
11 Comments
Wanderers
Ooo. This is a gorgeous film, with imaginative and extremely detailed visions of what future Terrans might see if we ever get out of our gravity well and start living elsewhere in our solar system. The film alone is worth … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, travel, video
2 Comments
Wallpaper Monday
What distant planet is covered with ice and vast liquid oceans, is active enough for the ice to be constantly renewed (thus erasing impact craters and creating a mostly smooth surface), yet has gigantic cracks and ridges that imply convection … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, wallpaper
7 Comments
The ESA’s day in the sun
NASA/JPL usually gets all the press, but yesterday the European Space Agency had its moment. That’s because in March 2004 the ESA sent out a probe called Rosetta, which then traveled 6.4 billion kilometers over a period of ten years … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, event
4 Comments
Gravitational waves, part II
Remember how, back in March, the science-heads were agog about new evidence of gravity waves from the Big Bang? I wrote a happily awed post about it, in which this sentence is particularly relevant: Of course, the results must be … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy
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