Robert E. Strong

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: SMART-Center Turns 25 — 50 Years Ago (Part 1)

April 30, 2019

In elementary school, I labored under the common misconception that persists with most youngsters unabated to this day. I thought that “Science” is the accumulation of random facts and figures about a field of ...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Practice Makes Perfect — 50th Anniversary of Apollo 9

Robert E. Strong

March 18, 2019

As the rocket blurred into the clouds, I watched the joyful exuberance of the hundreds of kids around me all still spellbound by the launch of Apollo 9. As I kept turning, this view was quickly replaced as th...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Big Idea — The Fractional Gravity Experiment (Part 3)

Robert E. Strong

February 27, 2019

(Editor’s note: In the last two weeks, we read about the Big Idea (Part 1) and Big Idea (Part 2). Today, Robert E. Strong wraps things up. Did his "Big Idea" make the cut? Read on ... ) For over third of a c...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Big Idea — The Fractional Gravity Experiment (Part 2)

Robert E. Strong

February 19, 2019

(Editor's note: Last week we read about the Big Idea (Part 1). Today, Robert E. Strong recaps that article and moves on to Part 2.) As a recap from Big Idea: The Fractional Gravity Experiment (Part 1): ...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Big Idea — The Fractional Gravity Experiment (Part 1)

Robert E. Strong

February 12, 2019

It is always amazing to me how a single small event can alter trajectories that appear to be set firmly on a specific course. Perhaps our perceived life’s course is an illusion. The idea that we are set on a ce...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Total Lunar Eclipse — Sun, Earth, Moon Syzygy

Robert E. Strong

January 19, 2019

Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite words, a word that may be new to most of my gentle readers: “syzygy.” Syzygy (pronounced: sizz-ah-gee) is the alignment in a straight line of three or more c...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: The Golden Anniversary of the Apollo 8 Earthrise Image

Robert E. Strong

December 15, 2018

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For the vast majority of the human tenure on this planet, the surface of the Earth — or very near the surface — was the sole domain of human direct first-hand experience of the universe. Other than the occasion...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Why Can’t We See the Footprints on the Moon (Part II)

Robert E. Strong

November 24, 2018

In our last installment, Where Are the Footprints on the Moon?: Part I, we discussed that because the Earth’s moon is big and very far away, you just cannot see small objects on such a huge scale. The footprint...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Where Are the Footprints on the Moon? (Part 1)

Robert E. Strong

November 15, 2018

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Nearly a third of a century ago, on a tropical island in the South Pacific far, far away, I started organizing weekly educational and public StarWatches as the laboratory portion for a high school astronomy cla...

A VIEW FROM THE MOON: An Introduction

Robert E. Strong

October 16, 2018

Years ago, nearly 46 to be more exact, I was a freshman in high school. I was 14 1/2 years old, it was a Saturday morning, dawn was shining on the still sleepy city of Richmond, (East) Va., and I was heading to...

Reinstating Pluto as a Planet

Robert E. Strong

August 17, 2015

The July 12, 2015 article about Pluto was the start of a four-part series (Is Pluto a Planet?). The goal of the first article was the hope of rekindling a scientific and public conversation of “what a planet is...

Is Pluto a Planet?

Robert E. Strong

July 12, 2015

Do you know what a planet is? Most of us can tell the difference between a planet and a star and the difference between a planet and an asteroid or comet. Astronomers, like everyone else, like to group/class...

Author Robert E. Strong