Artemis II: A Return to the Moon
Tomorrow evening, NASA opens the launch window for Artemis II. Four astronauts leave low Earth orbit for the first time since 1972.
Orbiting Frog
Space, technology, photography, and projects by Rob Simpson.
Latest posts
The Moral Panic Over AI's Carbon Footprint
Generative AI gets condemned on environmental grounds while people scroll Netflix in bed. The numbers tell a different story.
Maui's Hook
Polynesian navigators crossed the Pacific using the stars. The fishhook in Maui's myth is real, it's Scorpius, and the angle it makes with the horizon tells you your latitude.
The Computer from Star Trek is Real, and Nobody's Paying Attention
I've had agents working for me for just over a week. A PA, a home helper, a doctor, a blog editor. The realisation that this could do 80% of what I do for a living is somewhat humbling.
The Keys to Life, Found in a Rock
We went to an asteroid, brought a small piece of it back, and found the keys to life as we know it inside it.
Standing on Nothing Much
We hear a lot about how low gravity would let you jump higher. The reality is considerably stranger than that.
The Last Generation: Why Europa Might Be Jupiter's Final Attempt at Making Moons
Europa and the other Galilean satellites might be the survivors of multiple generations of moons that formed and were destroyed during Jupiter's violent youth.
Push Notifications for Astronomy: Vera Rubin
The Vera Rubin Observatory's 800,000 nightly alerts mark the beginning of real-time astronomy, fundamentally changing how we discover and study transient cosmic events.
Walking on Fire for Project Possibility
Next Saturday I'm walking barefoot across burning hot coals at 650°C to raise money for Project Possibility. There's one week left to donate.
Satellites on Google Earth: Back from the Dead
For years I've been getting emails asking about my old satellite tracking tools for Google Earth. They went offline in 2015. In February 2026 I finally rebuilt the whole thing from scratch in a single afternoon: with a little help from Claude.
The Soul Nebula
The Soul Nebula in HRGB The Soul Nebula, also known as Westerhout 5 (W5) amongst other names. Located in the constellation Cassiopeia, this celestial body is a…
The Rising Influence of Private Space
Private space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are revolutionizing space exploration with innovations like reusable rockets and ambitious goals for interplanetary travel. These advancements are reshaping the industry, creating opportunities for more competitors and contributing to job creation. Exciting developments are expected in the near future, bringing us closer to the…
The Pacman Nebula
NGC 281 is more fondly known as the Pacman Nebula. In normal wavelengths this image resembles(ish) the ghost-gobbling Pacman, but here I'm using narrowband SHO…
The Iris Nebula
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula 1,300 light years away, illuminated by a partially embedded star (SAO 19158) which is 10X the size of our Sun. The…
Creating Creatures with AI
I've been enjoying learning Tensorflow, and this awesome Colab lets us invent new creatures and crossbreeds from nothing but code.
Sky Silhouette: Barnard 7
The night sky is full of thousands of silhouettes of all many shapes and sizes. In 1919 an astronomer called Edward Barnard created a catalogue of more than 300 of these dark nebula.
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula
[](https://media.orbitingfrog.com/uploads/wp-migrated/2021/11/elephant-trunk-sho2-2.jpg) Elephant's Trunk Nebula SHO 20 light years long, and 2,400 light…
Some of the Milky Way in Cygnus
[](https://media.orbitingfrog.com/uploads/wp-migrated/2021/11/deneb-sadr.jpg) Deneb-Sadr and (some of) the Milky Way in Cygnus. Taken from Provence, France.â¦
The North America Nebula & Pelican Nebula
The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and neighbouring Pelican Nebula (IC5070 and IC5067) in Cygnus, near Deneb. A bright emission nebula, partially obscured by…
UK Eclipse 2015 Photos
[](https://media.orbitingfrog.com/uploads/wp-migrated/2015/03/img7345.jpg) Today's partial Solar eclipse is off to a great start here in Witney, where the…
A New Paper All About #yellowballs
Another paper for the Milky Way Project. The Yellowballs began on the very first day of the Milky Way Project when a user asked me 'what is this?' and I wasn'tâ¦
A Tour: From You to the Largest Structure in the Universe
Line 1. Letâs start with 'typical' humans. The average human adult male is 1.75 metres tall - that's 3.83 cubits or 5.74 feet. The average female is 1.62â¦
An Open Chatbot for Astronomy: @botastro
Hubot is an open source chatbot created by GitHub. It's used by various companies, groups, and other techie types, to control systems, gather information, andâ¦
Going the Distance: Philae and Taliesin
This was an amazing week. On Wednesday the Rosetta spacecraft launched the tiny Philae lander on a 10km journey to the surface of a comet: a mountain-sizedâ¦
Electrolysis of Water: with Pencils and a 9V Battery
HâO might be the most familiar chemical compound on the planet. Many people know that water is HâO, but most wouldn't think about what that means in a chemicalâ¦
Combining Your Clicks with Milkman
Really pleased to make my Milkman app available for all MWP users :)
Mazda Makes My Year by Calling Me a 'Rebel'
[](https://www.mazdarebels.com/en-gb/content/the-astronomer/) Iâve been called a lot of things but ârebelâ hasnât come up too often. Not that I mind. As partâ¦
A Daily Dose of Zooniverse
[](http://daily.zooniverse.org) 'Something awesome from the Zooniverse every day' was the tagline that we came up with, almost a year ago, for a new Zooniverseâ¦
The Zooniverse (and Me!) in Wired UK this Month
[](https://media.orbitingfrog.com/uploads/wp-migrated/2014/09/screenshot-2014-09-04-10-33-03.png) This Month's edition of Wired (UK) includes a feature…
Coding Comes to the National Astronomy Meeting 2014
The latest issue of Astronomy & Geophysics includes an article by your truly about the GitHub/.Astronomy Hack Day at the UK's National Astronomy Meeting inâ¦
8 Images That Can Totally Change Your Perspective
I got into a conversation recently about how some astronomical photos can totally change your whole perspective of yourself and your place in the Universe.â¦
Executable Publications as Sensors for Science
Executable papers are a cool idea in research [1]. You take a study, write it up as a paper and bundle together all your code, scripts and analysis in such aâ¦
Star Trek: The Rewatch
Warning: 400 words of geekery ahead! Iâve embarked on an extremely nerdy and wonderful new project: a podcast about rewatching Star Trek. Each week weâ¦
The littleBits Exoplanet Detector: A NAM 2014 Hack Day Project
Yesterday was the Hack Day at the UK National Astronomy Meeting 2014 in Portsmouth. I organised it with my good friend Arfon Smith of GitHub, formerly…
LSST, Public Data, and NAM Hack Day 2014
Today is the start of the UK National Meeting in Portsmouth. Iâll be there tomorrow, and running the NAM Hack Day on Wednesday with Arfon Smith - which isâ¦
Crowdsourcing the First World War: A Lovely Social Machine
[](http://www.operationwardiary.org) Working at the Zooniverse means that I get to indulge many of my interests beyond astronomy, like history. In January weâ¦
New Milky Way Project Paper Brilliantly Fuses Citizen Science and Machine Learning
A new Milky Way Project paper was published to the arXiv last week. The paper presents Brut, an algorithm trained to identify bubbles in infrared images of theâ¦
Become a Sunspotter and play Solar 'Hot-or-Not'
New Zooniverse project goes live today and I warn you: it is highly addictive!
Orbiting Links
[](http://links.orbitingfrog.com) I've added a new section to Orbiting Frog today: Orbiting Links (http://links.orbitingfrog.com). This new page displays anâ¦
Ideas Worth Spreading: My TED 2014 Experience
TED 2014 has just ended here in Vancouver and I have finally now experienced an event Iâve heard a lot about for many years. Iâve watched TED talks online forâ¦
The Zooniverse in 3mins 21s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DppJ-Sexmdg This was recorded at the Citizen Cyberscience Summit in London in February - it's me summarising the Zooniverse for…
I Went to Norway to See the Aurora
I was lucky enough to visit Norway last week. I lead a group chasing the aurora (as best you can in cloud!) over the top of Norway from Tromsø to the Russianâ¦
Timelapse of the Earth's Seasons Seen from Space
[wpvideo jZEU7OC9] This video is a time-lapse of images taken from a geostationary satellite. It shows a whole year of the Earth's orbit around the Sun from…
Astronomy Resources for Teachers
[](http://amzn.to/1hY4O17) I've started a page with some links, facts and ideas for teachers, educators and anyone else that wants them. Quite often when Iâmâ¦
Moving a Giant Telescope for Space Warps
This was just too awesome!
Backstage at BBC Stargazing Live
This week is the BBC's Stargazing Live show: three now-annual nights of live stargazing and astronomy chatter, live from Jodrell Bank. CBeebies are alsoâ¦
Infrared: The Hidden Classroom
I recently had the pleasure of visiting Tower Hill School (in Witney) to talk about astronomy, space and science. The kids were brilliant and asked awesomeâ¦
The Rabbit Has Landed: China is on the Moon
[](https://media.orbitingfrog.com/uploads/wp-migrated/2013/12/20131214-233542.jpg) Congratulations China! You just became the third country to land on, and…
A Brand New Milky Way Project
[](https://media.orbitingfrog.com/uploads/2026/02/1771788064982-u18vnf.jpg) Just over three years the Zooniverse launched the Milky Way Project (MWP), myâ¦
Male and female brains: the REAL differences
> Observational studies have shown that the male brain is hardwired to be paid more, occupy more powerful roles and positions, and be more inclined to killâ¦