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Thomas Harriot telescope moon 1609 Elizabethan astronomer
The Past · Scientific Pioneers

Thomas Harriot: The Forgotten Astronomer Who Drew the Moon Before Galileo

On 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot drew the moon through a telescope. The drawing predates Galileo's published lunar work by several months. Harriot never published it. This is the story of the astronomer history nearly forgot.

· 3 MIN READ
Pythia Oracle of Delphi priestess ancient Greece Apollo temple
The Past · Legendary Seers

Who Was the Pythia? The Women Behind the Oracle of Delphi

The Pythia was not a single prophetess but a title held by dozens of women across a thousand years. Almost none of them left a trace in the historical record. This is what we know about the women behind the Oracle of Delphi.

· 4 MIN READ
The Oracle
◆ The Oracle ◆

Let the stars choose your next read

Tell the Oracle what era is calling you — the past, the present, or what's coming — and it will find the right article from the celestial record.

Consult the Oracle
NASA DART mission asteroid deflection planetary defence
The Present · Planetary Defence

Planetary Defence: What DART Proved and What It Didn't

Humanity now knows it can deflect an asteroid. Whether it can do so in time, with enough warning, and with the international cooperation required is a different question entirely.

· 3 MIN READ
Grigori Rasputin seated at a table, photographed in imperial Russia, staring directly at the camera with an intense gaze
The Past · Legendary Seers

Rasputin's Death: The Poison, the Bullets and What Actually Killed Him

The poison didn't work. Neither did the bullets. Or so the story goes. What the post-mortem actually found is considerably less dramatic, and considerably more interesting.

· 4 MIN READ
Cassandra Greek mythology prophet cursed by Apollo stands on the walls of Troy as the city burns behind her
The Past · Legendary Seers

Cassandra: The Prophet Nobody Listened To

She saw the fall of Troy coming and said so, repeatedly. Nobody listened. Thousands of years later her name is still being used for exactly that situation, which tells you something about how little has changed.

· 4 MIN READ
Nostradamus quatrains Les Propheties open book 16th century French prophecy
The Past · Legendary Seers

What Do Nostradamus's Quatrains Predict? An Introduction to Les Prophéties

Before the famous predictions, there is the form itself. This article introduces the quatrains, the language problem, and the mechanism that keeps Nostradamus alive after five centuries.

· 7 MIN READ
Star of Bethlehem night sky Jupiter Saturn conjunction Magi astronomy
The Past · Celestial History

The Star That Led the Magi: Miracle, Myth or Astronomy?

The Bible gives us one source, one story, and almost no detail. Two thousand years of astronomers have been trying to work out what was actually in the sky.

· 5 MIN READ
Nicolaus Copernicus portrait, heliocentric theory pioneer, 15th century astronomer Poland
The Past · Scientific Pioneers

The Man Who Moved the Earth: Copernicus, Part One

Before he changed cosmology, Copernicus spent decades doing almost everything else. The first in a series on the man behind the theory.

· 3 MIN READ
Crewed Mars mission surface habitat life, astronaut isolation 500 days Mars
The Future? · The Final Frontier

A Year on Mars

The first crew to reach Mars will spend roughly 500 days on the surface before the planets align enough to let them leave. Here is what the first year might actually look like.

· 4 MIN READ
Fermi Paradox deep space silence, search for extraterrestrial intelligence SETI
The Future? · Are We Alone

The Fermi Paradox: Are We Alone in the Universe?

Are we alone in the universe? The conditions for life appear to be everywhere. The evidence for it, beyond Earth, is nonexistent. The Fermi Paradox has been asking why for seventy years.

· 4 MIN READ
Mother Shipton, Ursula Shipton, Yorkshire prophetess and famous British seer
The Past · Legendary Seers

Who Was Mother Shipton? The Making of a Yorkshire Prophetess

She was born in a cave, lived on the edges of respectable society and allegedly predicted the modern world five centuries before it arrived. But how much of Mother Shipton is real and how much is Victorian invention?

· 5 MIN READ
Mars surface crewed landing mission timeline, SpaceX Starship NASA Mars programme
The Future? · The Final Frontier

When Will Humans Land on Mars? The Honest Answer

NASA says the 2030s. SpaceX has been saying the 2020s for the better part of fifteen years. The honest answer to when humans will land on Mars requires getting past the press releases and into the engineering, and the engineering is where the story gets complicated.

· 4 MIN READ
Artemis II mission debrief, Orion heat shield inspection, NASA lunar programme assessment 2026
The Present · Human Spaceflight

What Artemis II Proved, and What It Didn't

The heat shield held, the crew splashed down safely, and NASA says Artemis III is on track for 2027. Two weeks on, the post-mission data is telling a more complicated story about a reentry trajectory that had to be redesigned, a valve that needs fixing, and a 2028 landing date that is doing a lot of optimistic work.

· 5 MIN READ
Artemis II Orion Integrity capsule Pacific Ocean splashdown April 2026, NASA crew recovery
The Present · Human Spaceflight

They're Home: What the Artemis II Splashdown Actually Looked Like

The heat shield held, the parachutes deployed, and four astronauts are home. Mission Control called it a perfect bullseye. What they did not mention is that getting there required flying hardware several engineers had formally objected to.

· 4 MIN READ
Hypatia of Alexandria, ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer, 5th century Roman Egypt
The Past · Scientific Pioneers

Who Was Hypatia of Alexandria? Life, Death and Legacy

Hypatia drove her own chariot, lectured to packed rooms and advised the most powerful man in Alexandria. She was killed for it in 415 AD. Sixteen centuries later, everyone claims her and almost nobody reads her.

· 4 MIN READ
Artemis II Orion capsule splashdown recovery, USS John P Murtha, NASA crew return 2026
The Present · Human Spaceflight

Artemis II Splashdown: What Happened When NASA's Moon Crew Returned

The lunar flyby is done. The records are broken. Now four astronauts have to survive re-entry on a heat shield several engineers were still arguing about on the morning of launch, and hand their data to the people who will decide whether 2028 is still possible.

· 3 MIN READ
Asteroid 2024 YR4 near Earth approach, NASA planetary defence tracking, near-Earth object risk
The Future? · Existential Threats

Asteroid 2024 YR4: The Moon Near-Miss and What It Taught Us About Planetary Defence

For a few weeks earlier this year, asteroid 2024 YR4 had a genuine, calculated probability of striking the moon in 2032. Scientists ruled it out in March. What the episode revealed about our planetary defences is considerably less reassuring.

· 3 MIN READ
NASA lunar base concept, moon south pole outpost, Artemis programme future mission
The Future? · Future Missions

NASA Moon Base Plans Explained: When Humans Could Live on the Moon

NASA plans to build a permanent Moon base at the lunar south pole. Discover the timeline, technology, Artemis missions and when humans could live on the Moon.

· 3 MIN READ
NASA planetary defence warning about undetected city-killer asteroids near Earth
The Present · Planetary Defence

NASA Says 15,000 Dangerous Asteroids Are Still Missing

In February, NASA's acting planetary defence officer told a scientific conference that 15,000 asteroids large enough to destroy a city remain undetected. We have no spacecraft ready to deflect one. She said it keeps her up at night.

· 3 MIN READ
AI-generated illustration of the Artemis II solar eclipse, showing the solar corona visible from the Orion spacecraft during the April 2026 lunar flyby
The Present · Human Spaceflight

The Eclipse Nobody on Earth Can See: Artemis II and the View from Beyond

On 6th April, four astronauts watched a solar eclipse that nobody on Earth could see. It lasted nearly an hour. The sun vanished behind the moon and the corona blazed into view. Some moments belong entirely to the sky.

· 4 MIN READ
Artemis II lunar flyby 2026, first humans beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17, Orion spacecraft crew
The Present · Human Spaceflight

Artemis II: The First Crewed Moon Mission Since Apollo

Four astronauts flew around the moon in April 2026. The first humans beyond Earth orbit since 1972, and the first to break the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. Here is what actually happened out there.

· 4 MIN READ
Nostradamus, Michel de Nostredame, 16th century French prophet writing his quatrains by candlelight
The Past · Legendary Seers

Who Was Nostradamus? Biography, Prophecies and Quatrains Explained

He was a physician, an astrologer and possibly the most misquoted man in history. Before the prophecy industry got hold of him, Nostradamus was something considerably more interesting.

· 8 MIN READ
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The Past

Seers, prophets and the civilisations that looked up before us.

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Space science, celestial events and what is happening right now.

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Threats, possibilities and the questions nobody has answered yet.

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