CHEOPS Away

ESA's CHEOPS spacecraft launched this week. We're about to learn a LOT more about exoplanets.

CHEOPS stands for the Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite. It’s a partnership between ESA and Switzerland, with 10 other EU states contributing. Its mission is not to find more exoplanets, but to study the ones we already know of.

It’ll watch as these exoplanets transit in front of the star, the same way we’ve found most of the exoplanets we’ve discovered to date. But CHEOPS will be focusing on the dips in starlight with a specific intent: to find the planets’ size.

https://www.universetoday.com/144436/esas-cheops-just-launched-were-about-to-learn-a-lot-more-about-exoplanets/

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Originally posted on Twitter.

The Expanse Season 4 Musings

I finished watching The Expanse Season 4 Tuesday night. A few SPOILER-FREE random and whimsical thoughts:

Every scene is 10x better when Miller is in it. Thomas Jane is an underrated actor, and Miller might be his seminal role.

Amos, am I right? Who knew the asshole sociopath would worm his way into our hearts?

I often felt like I was in Mass Effect Andromeda, only purple instead of blue.

Politics...too long to go a few centimeters. I mean, I'm all about a mutli-book arc (seriously), but...sigh.

It turns out that sometimes, friendship IS more important than sex!

Delusional narcissism is the most base form of crazy. But it is an effective form.

Bobbie Draper is really, REALLY tall. (Legitimately so, as apparently Frankie Adams is also really, really tall.)

Alex: Quiet all season, until BOOM. CONVERSATION.

Chrisjen Avasarala is a masterpiece character. Even when handed a weak, meandering storyline, the character remains extraordinary. Uncomfortable and layered in many curse-laden shades of gray, but extraordinary.

Redemption arcs. Redemption arcs everywhere!

Amazon clearly cut the show's budget. Too many dark landscapes and cramped interiors, too little majesty of space. Alas.

*

Originally posted on Facebook.

A Geek's Guide to Continuum

I told myself I wasn't going to do one of these for CONTINUUM. There are *so many* scenes, and I've already plumbed the depths of the Geek lexicon pretty thoroughly. But then I was sitting on the couch one evening, and the perfect title for one scene popped in my head unbidden. And here we are.😌

Yes, this one is heavy with Buffy and LOTR references. I am okay with this.

Color Key (listen carefully, as our menu options have changed):
DARK BLUE: Alex / Caleb / Nika
LIGHT BLUE: Humans
PURPLE: Asterions
GREEN: Anadens
PINK: Other Aliens

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Originally posted on Facebook.

Poster Wall Reorg Redux

Time for another poster wall reorg!⁠
...and now I once again have a whole bunch of empty wall space to fill....⁠
⁠
#MrJennsen reminded me that back when I first told him of my plans for Amaranthe beyond Aurora Rhapsody, he commented (with only a trace of snark) that if I'd told him about those plans from the beginning, he could have arranged the wall correctly the first time and saved himself a lot of extra work.⁠
⁠
Extra work he has now done anyway, because he ❤️ me. And ❤️ my books. 😊

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Originally posted on Facebook.

Clouds Up Close

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this impressive image revealing a band of swirling clouds in Jupiter's northern latitudes during Juno’s close flyby on Nov. 3, 2019. Small pop-up storms can also be seen rising above the lighter areas of the clouds, most noticeably on the right side of the image.

This view provides scientists with high-resolution details — the spacecraft skimmed approximately 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops at the time it was taken.

Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson created this enhanced color image using data from the JunoCam camera. It was taken on Nov. 3, 2019 at 2:13 p.m. PST (5:13 p.m. EST) at a latitude of about 38 degrees north.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/clouds-up-close

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Originally posted on Twitter.

Continuum Update

Told ya. 😎

And I'm not *quite* done adding words yet, which means so long as not too many end up on the cutting-room floor, CONTINUUM will in fact be the longest book since Starshine. 🎉🎉🍻

I just thought you'd like to know.😋

[EDITORIAL NOTE]: This is the reason for the sparse posting on Supermassive Black Holes of late. I’m eating, sleeping and breathing Continuum, and everything else has fallen by the wayside - including but definitely not limited to social media posts. Regular posting will resume soon…ish.

[EDITIORIAL NOTE #2]: The word count is now 136,210.

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Originally posted on Facebook.

Aurora Rising - No, Not That One

When Random House released a YA sci-fi book titled "Aurora Rising" a few months ago to great fanfare and many press releases, I didn't make a big deal about it - I don't think I even mentioned it on social media. Titles are not copyrightable, so there was zero I could have done about it from a legal or public relations perspective. It wasn't even the first book titled "Aurora Rising" to come out in sci-fi since I completed the trilogy (that honor goes, I believe, to the renaming of Alastair Reynolds' "The Prefect" to "Aurora Rising" about 2 years ago).

I received the 1-star review posted on below on Vertigo a few days ago (just saw it this morning): https://www.amazon.com/…/R2IVQJYX…/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_rvw_ttl…. Now, authors are NOT supposed to publicly respond to reviews, negative or otherwise (as a matter of custom and propriety - there's no Amazon rule against it). But I did it anyway.

I Just. Couldn't. Help. Myself.

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Note: since posting this on Facebook, the outpouring of support has been tremendous. In addition to people commenting on the review chiding the poster, readers have reported it for abuse dozens of times. I don’t know if Amazon will eventually will remove it, but the support everyone has shown has been worth so much more.

The Size of Space

Take 30 seconds and right-click until you feel suitably insignificant and overawed: https://neal.fun/size-of-space/

"A new website called “The Size of Space” illustrates how incomprehensibly vast the cosmos are.

As you scroll to the side, the site takes you on a journey from the size of an astronaut all the way up to the entire observable universe. As the scale ramps up, from spacecraft to moons to planets and onward, the smaller objects become tiny dots before vanishing altogether." Via Futurism.

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Originally posted on Facebook.

Moons of Saturn

On July 29, 2011 the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera took this snapshot and captured 5 of Saturn's moons, from just above the ringplane. Left to right are small moons Janus and Pandora respectively 179 and 81 kilometers across, shiny 504 kilometer diameter Enceladus, and Mimas, 396 kilometers across, seen just next to Rhea.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap191017.html

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Originally posted on Twitter.

Brand New Again

I'm finally getting to updating the paperbacks with the Amaranthe rebranding (albeit slowly, because Continuum). I was working on Transcendence today, and since there were a few minor interior updates, I was flipping through the PDF proof to make sure everything looked good.

I accidentally started reading at the point where Matei Uttara attacks Caleb. Two hours later I'm still reading, utterly transfixed. And I might have teared up twice.

I know every "thing" that happens in this book like the back of my hand, but 4.5 years later, the words are brand new all over again.🥰

Oh, how I adore these guys.

Oh, how I adore these guys.

Originally posted on Facebook.

Arcalasers On The Way?

“Bendy laser beams fired through the air”: https://www.nature.com/news/2009/090409/full/news.2009.360.html

Yet another example of technology in one highly specific area progressing FAR faster than I had anticipated. We're barely starting to get laser weapons, and already we're bending them!

Though 'arcalaser' is a much cooler name than 'Airy beam,' IMHO....

Granted, the article closes with the following: "Bendy laser beams that can pass through obstacles might, at first sight, also seem ideal for military applications, but that's unlikely, says Kasparian. That's because only beams with small diameters — carrying relatively little energy — can be manipulated to curve significantly. "You are not going to be able to shoot people behind walls with this," says Kasparian."

Well, not YET.😎

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Originally posted on Facebook.

Revisiting A Big Decision

Wow. It's been 2 years since I made STARSHINE free for everyone. I'm thrilled (and more than a little relieved) to be able to look back at this blog post, all full of hope and belief and dice rolls and a twinge of fear as it was, and be able to say that I was right about it all.😎

Making Starshine free was the best thing I've ever done in this career (other than writing 11 more books to follow it, obviously). It's brought tens of thousands of readers to Aurora Rhapsody, many of whom might never have found or taken a chance on it. Readers who are now invested in this amazing journey through Amaranthe as we head into Riven Worlds. I am so glad all of you are here.✨

“Starshine Is Free & Other Outlandish Notions” (10/9/17): https://www.gsjennsen.com/news/2017/10/9/starshine-is-free-other-outlandish-notions

Originally posted on Facebook.