Echo Rift Update

I hope everyone is very much enjoying INVERSION! (Or has already very much enjoyed it ). Feel free to wax poetic about it anywhere, anytime. I don't mind.

Today I give you a totally useless image that tells you nothing interesting whatsoever. What is it? The current scene-by-scene outline of ECHO RIFT. 60 scenes for now; there will be more, as characters get loud and bossy. The first column is the individual scenes, then across the top each column is a character/location arc.

For this book I'm playing with Dabble, an intriguing new competitor for Scrivener (dabblewriter.com/). It lacks (for now) the color coding feature of Scrivener that might have given you a tiny bit more useful info here, but OTOH it has this wonderful plotting tool that links your outline directly with the scenes your writing. Perhaps the best thing going for it, though, is constant cloud syncing and web access: write anywhere with no version conflict disasters.

Anyway, here's your next book - in progress.

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Originally posted on Facebook.

CosmoQuest-a-Con

I'm excited to announce that I will be a guest at CosmoQuest-a-Con, an online space & scifi convention taking place THIS WEEKEND! It's produced by the fantastic Planetary Science Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the exploration of our solar system.

How can you attend? Watch all the "main stage" events for free at Twitch.tv/CosmoQuestX . Or, grab a $20 ticket here (https://planetaryscienceinstitute.kindful.com/e/cosmoquest-a-con) and get access to concerts, contests, readings, & talks on Discord, as well as the vendor and artist rooms. Proceeds benefit on-going science and science-education activities.

I'll be speaking on 3 panels on Saturday and Sunday:

"IMPROMPTU SPACE" (Sat 10:30 EDT): I'll be the host and 'interpreter' for an audience-driven impromptu space-themed song and dance performance by Gillian Rhodes (a celebrated dancer and choreographer) and David Joseph Wesley (a Grammy Award nominated composer). No, *I* won't be singing or dancing. Sorry, guys.

"CREATING THE FUTURE THROUGH FICTION" (Sat 4:30 EDT): "Science fiction often starts by imagining future technologies, but it doesn't end there. From creating new cultures to creating new ways to live, science fiction must build new worlds from the stars down. Let's talk with fiction writers about what they consider in world-building."

I'll be joined on this panel by sci-fi rock stars Dennis E. Taylor (author of the Bobiverse novels) and Alex White, Writer (author of The Salvagers trilogy).

"SUNDAY MORNING BREAKFAST SPACE" (Sun 11:30 EDT): "In this hectic world, it sometimes takes effort to make room for creative activities. Join us as we discuss how we make space for space fiction."

I'll be joined on this panel by Dr. Sean Raymond (an astrophysicist studying the formation and evolution of planetary systems) and Dr. Elizabeth Ferrara (a Research Scientist at the University of Maryland studying pulsars and gravitational waves).

See the full 3-day schedule here: https://cosmoquest.org/x/cosmoquest-a-con/. It's packed with space, astronomy, sci-fi, art, games, music and more.

All the thanks to the awesome Beth Johnson for getting me involved in this exciting event!

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Originally posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Closest Images of the Sun Ever Taken

This morning, the European Space Agency and NASA have unveiled the closest images of the Sun ever taken by a spacecraft: high-resolution pictures taken by their newly launched Solar Orbiter spacecraft. Already, the pictures are revealing weird phenomena on the Sun that we’ve never seen in such detail.

“We didn’t really expect the first images to turn out really this great,” Daniel Müller, ESA’s project scientist for the Solar Orbiter mission, tells The Verge. “They’re not only really sharp and perfectly exposed from the technical perspective, but they really show things that we have not seen before.”

Thanks to these images, scientists have discovered what appear to be relatively “tiny” solar flares peppered across the Sun’s surface. The scientists behind the mission have dubbed these small flares “campfires,” as they are millions to billions of times smaller than the massive, energetic flares that periodically erupt from the Sun. Dozens of these campfires can be seen at any give time within the field of view of Solar Orbiter’s camera. “What is intriguing is that they seem to be happening everywhere on the Sun all the time,” says Müller.

More info: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/16/21326014/esa-nasa-solar-orbiter-images-flares-campfires-sun-close-distance

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Originally posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Poster Wall Redux

Thermostat, shermostat. We aren't afraid of no thermostat!

...Actually, we clearly ARE afraid of a thermostat, since we grabbed the book posters and fled halfway across the house to get away from it.

Until this morning, this wall housed our gaming and movie posters. This wall has several advantages over the previous location:

(1) It's 30% wider, so MUCH more room to grow = more book posters = more books.

(2) The posters are much closer to where the magic happens = more inspiration.

(3) NO THERMOSTAT = ...NO THERMOSTAT

The gaming and movie posters are in the process of being relocated to the evil thermostat wall (and since it's smaller, other places around the house).

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Originally posted on Facebook.

The Beauty of NGC 2275

Look at this gorgeous galaxy! (courtesy of Hubble). And what a striking galactic core. I think I can almost spot the Siyane cruising in from the bottom right to investigate.

"NGC 2275 is classified as a flocculent spiral galaxy, located 67 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer. Millions of bright, young, blue stars shine in the complex, feather-like spiral arms, interlaced with dark lanes of dust. Complexes of these hot, blue stars are thought to trigger star formation in nearby gas clouds. The overall feather-like spiral patterns of the arms are then formed by shearing of the gas clouds as the galaxy rotates."

https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2026a/

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Originally posted on Facebook.

The Night Sky in X-Ray

Feast your eyes on the incredible beauty of our sky in X-Ray : https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-what-the-entire-sky-looks-like-through-x-ray-eyes

"A space telescope launched in July 2019 has just completed its first survey. For months, the eROSITA telescope aboard the Spektr-RG space observatory has been scanning the entire sky, collecting observations for the deepest all-sky survey in X-ray wavelengths.

"Now, all those data have been compiled into a map containing over 1 million bright X-ray objects - approximately doubling the number of such objects from the entire 60 years of X-ray astronomy prior.

"This all-sky image completely changes the way we look at the energetic universe," said astrophysicist Peter Predehl, eROSITA principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE).

"Most of the sources in the map - around 77 percent - are supermassive black holes actively accreting material in the cores of galaxies, or what we call active galactic nuclei. These objects are extremely energetic, and there are a lot of them out there."

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Originally posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Hubble Captures Globular Cluster NGC 6441

The Hubble Space Telescope has delivered another outstanding image. This one is of NGC 6441, a massive globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius. It’s one of the most massive ones in the Milky Way, and the stars in it have a combined mass of 1.6 million solar masses.

NGC 6441 is a gorgeous visual spectacle. It’s also of great scientific interest; it hosts four pulsars, an abnormally high number of variable stars, and has a rather high metallicity for a globular cluster. And it’s host to several Type II Cepheid stars, which is unusual for a cluster with high metallicity.

https://www.universetoday.com/146451/hubble-photo-of-globular-cluster-ngc-6441-one-of-the-most-massive-in-the-milky-way/

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Originally posted on Twitter.

Stunning Visualization of the Center of the Milky Way

Visit the Milky Way's supermassive black hole with the 'Galactic Center VR' visualization video. This stunning video is based on data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, as well as other telescopes. The latest iteration allows viewers to see 500 years of evolution at Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the black hole in the Milky Way's Center.

Video: https://www.space.com/galactic-center-vr-black-hole-visualization.html

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Originally posted on Twitter.

The Luckiest Writer

99% of the authors you've ever heard of are not rich. If they're talented, prolific and very lucky, they're able to make a decent living writing books - enough to pay the bills and go on the occasional beach vacation.

I count myself among the very luckiest. Thanks to all of you, today I was finally able to trade in my trusty *14-year-old* RAV4 for a 2020 Nissan Murano.

...Its name is Caleb. 😋🥰

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Originally posted on Facebook and Instagram.