I am an astronomer, writer, and skeptic. I likes reality the way it is, and I aims to keep it that way. My real name is Phil Plait, and I run the Bad Astronomy blog.

URL: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy
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Copyright: Bad Astronomy Blog

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific — a non-profit educational group that does great work in getting the word out about astronomy — has just released a dozen free audio recordings of lectures from well-known astronomers. They include SETI scientists Frank Drake and Jill Tarter, planet finder Geoff Marcy, supernova guy Alex Filippenko, and many [...]

It’ll take a few days for the Canadian accent to fade away… anyway, here are some short things to be aware of.1) The new Carnival of Space is up at The Bat Page. It’s a good roundup, with a veritable explosion of Tunguska posts. Ha ha.2) There is a gravity simulator just put online called [...]

I read Skepchick every day, and I have a pretty broad and bawdy sense of humor, but even I know that it’s not really appropriate for more tender ears (well, eyes). So whaddya do?You start Teen Skepchick. Well, if you’re Rebecca Watson, founder of Skepchick, that is.Branching off of Skepchick, the teen version will be [...]

My friend Emilie Drobnes is an astronomy education specialist, and she’s taking a survey related to the International Year of Astronomy 2009. She sent out an email to a bunch of other astronomers asking, "What was the first object you ever saw through a telescope?"Mine was Saturn. I’ve told the story here on the blog [...]

I haven’t written about the Mars Phoenix lander in some time — I figure y’all get your news from Emily — but just in case I think I’d better mention that the oven on board the lander may short out the next time it’s used. This is bad news. The main goal of the lander [...]

Yay! GLAST works!The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope launched into orbit in early June. It’s been going through a rigorous testing period, but the main instrument (the Large Area Telescope, or LAT) is now sending down data, and word on the street (not that astronomers are ever seen on the street) is that it’s looking [...]

I’ve written about my friend and fellow skeptic Richard Saunders many times before. Most recently, I mentioned he has scored a gig on a TV program in Australia called The One, where they will try to choose "Australia’s Number 1 Psychic". Of course, in my opinion, psychics are full of Number Two.Check this out:The program [...]

Well, not really. But a really dumb article from ABC news says that astrologers predict Obama will win in November. Why?In May, seven astrologers at the United Astrology Conference in Denver predicted that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. would win the White House in November, citing Saturn’s opposition to Uranus on Election Day as a celestial [...]

OK, so you know the deal with Pluto. It was discovered in 1930, and declared to be a planet. But over time, as estimates of its size got more accurate, and it dwindled in physical stature, it dwindled in status as well. Then, just a few years ago, the International Astronomical Union, in a fit [...]

Three great things that go great together, I’ve always said.Chris Morris, a brilliantly funny man, was at CERN and the Large Hadron Collider with me when I visited in April. He was very earnest while we were there, but then at dinner we were dying with laughter. He wrote up his exploits for The Guardian, [...]

Jeebus, how much good news from Congress can we stand? Last Thursday, they gave Fermilab enough funding to continue their mission (more info here); something that was in so much doubt that the lab was about to start laying people off. Like, the next day. So this was just in time.I hadn’t written about this, [...]

As a followup, let me add a few things about the move:If you read this blog through a feed there may be issues. Please update your feed to be http://feeds.feedburner.com/BadAstronomyBlog. Most folks should already have that as the feed address, but check your feed reader to make sure. And yeah, I know people with the [...]

Welcome to Discover Blogs, the new home for the Bad Astronomy Blog!I am very pleased to finally announce my Big News: the Bad Astronomy Blog is now a part of Discover Magazine Blogs. The BABlog had been the front for my Bad Astronomy pages for over three years. In that time, it grew from a [...]

OK, so there have been some minor technical glitches in My Very Big News. It looks like it won’t happen until Tuesday morning. My abject apologies about this! But this turned out to be more complicated then expected. I can’t say when it will all be over, but hopefully tomorrow by around 11:00 a.m. Eastern [...]

Note added 10:00 p.m. Eastern: Still working on it. Sigh. My apologies.Still working on it, folks. Sorry about this! Looks like it’ll actually be closer to 7 or 8:00 ET. Doing web stuff always takes longer than you expect, even when you plan on it taking longer. Folks–I have to take the blog offline [...]

Folks–I have to take the blog offline for a few hours today. Sorry about this, but it’s all part of My Very Big News. So until about 17:00 tonight Eastern time (21:00 UT), I will have to turn off comments, and I won’t be posting. Sometimes WordPress hiccups and allows commenting even after I turn [...]

Two notes: Commenting on the blog will be turned off after 14:00 UT today for a major blog upgrade. Also, an article is in USA Today, um, today, about the topic of this post, and I’m quoted in it.100 years ago today, a small chunk of rock or possibly ice was lazily making its way [...]

Two notes: Commenting on the blog will be turned off after 14:00 UT today for a major blog upgrade. Also, an article is in USA Today, um, today, about the topic of this post, and I’m quoted in it.100 years ago today, a small chunk of rock or possibly ice was lazily making its way [...]

In the new NASA appropriations bill passed by the House* (and must get matched with the Senate version) there is a line asking the NASA Administrator to look into seeing what they can do about Apophis.Apophis is an asteroid that’ll pass pretty close to Earth in 2029; in fact it’ll be closer than our own [...]

In the new NASA appropriations bill passed by the House* (and must get matched with the Senate version) there is a line asking the NASA Administrator to look into seeing what they can do about Apophis.Apophis is an asteroid that’ll pass pretty close to Earth in 2029; in fact it’ll be closer than our own [...]

Sorry folks, I can’t do a live video chat today. I’ll be heading over to the Ontario Science Center with the group from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada instead. I’ll be out basically until tonight, so I won’t be putting up any more posts today either. I’ll e up and running again tomorrow… with [...]

Sorry folks, I can’t do a live video chat today. I’ll be heading over to the Ontario Science Center with the group from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada instead. I’ll be out basically until tonight, so I won’t be putting up any more posts today either. I’ll e up and running again tomorrow… with [...]

It’s a happy day for reality: many state governments are rejecting funding for abstinence-only education.Cool. As has been shown beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, abstinence-only education does not work. And as I have pointed out countless times, it results in more pregnancies and higher rates of STDs. Study after study shows this. The [...]

It’s a happy day for reality: many state governments are rejecting funding for abstinence-only education.Cool. As has been shown beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, abstinence-only education does not work. And as I have pointed out countless times, it results in more pregnancies and higher rates of STDs. Study after study shows this. The [...]

Fark linked to this video of David Tennant as The Doctor. In one episode ("Family of Blood"), the Doctor must hide from aliens pursuing him, so he converts himself into a human. He leaves instructions for his companion Martha, and in the show we see her listening to them for just a moment, and the [...]