Shameless Plug for Phil Plait...

If you haven't bought, begged, or borrowed a copy of Phil Plait's new book then you're really missing out. Death From the Skies! is a fascinating look at cosmic catastrophes for non-scientists, but unlike many other popular works on such things it isn't just a bunch of goofy prophecy mumbo-jumbo or sci-fi nonsense. The world will end one day, but it's not going to end with Jesus dropping the cosmic elbow on us or Cthulhu burbling up from long-lost R'lyeh.* Nope, one day the earth will be struck with a civilization-annihilating impactor, scorched clean of life by our sun's death throes, or utterly obliterated by a gamma ray burst. And Phil Plait wants to tell you all about it.

Honestly, I don't think there's anything better than a good astronomy book to provide a reader with a sense of slack-jawed, humbling, awe. Phil's also better than most about sneakily dropping knowledge on you while regaling you with pants-wettingly frightening doomsday scenarios, so this book isn't just for entertainment. Seriously, check it out.

*Speaking of R'yleh, its (wholly fictional) location is tagged on the current version of Google Earth for some reason...

Congrats to Phil Plait, the New President of JREF!!

Holy crap, the James Randi Educational Foundation announced on Monday that the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait, will be taking over as the foundation's president! Plait is an author, skeptic, and actually quite a good astronomer and it's cool to see that he will be heading up the JREF in Randi's absence. Randi is apparently going to devote his time to finishing up a couple of new books. Phil had this to say on his blog:

There is no way I can replace Randi, or fill his shoes, or even be moderately Amazing. I won’t even try. Happily, I don’t need to: he will continue to work with the JREF, guiding the Foundation as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. There is a lot of Randi in the JREF, and of the JREF in Randi, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As cool as it is to see Phil taking over the JREF, it also makes me a little sad that Randi isn't running the show anymore. Over the years, James Randi has done more to advance skepticism and critical thinking than almost anyone and his books and TV specials have helped to pull lots of True Believers™ (Your pal Skippy included) out of the muck of credulity. That being said, I can't think of anyone I'd rather see taking over for Randi than Phil. Congratulations man, and good luck.

IFOs are so much cooler...

There's going to be an IFO (Identified Flying Object) coming to earth in a few weeks, because a U.S. espionage satellite recently lost power and is slowly spiraling down out of orbit. It remains kind of unclear to me from the news coverage whether this is a planned obsolescence sort of thing or it just plain broke, but it apparently can no longer be steered and the folks who monitor such things aren't quite sure where it's going to land.

It's actually unclear (to me at least) whether much of it will really survive re-entry. What I've read indicates that it's about the size of a bus, which would make it smaller than SkyLab, which made an uncontrolled re-entry a few years ago and largely disintegrated. Legend has it some of the remnants that did make it to earth (landing in Australia) squashed a cow.

Just for fun, here's a link to Phil Plait's movie review for Star Wars Episode III. This is a total non-sequitur except that he takes time to explain exactly why stuff burns up during atmospheric re-entry. Hint: It's not friction.