"Dark," cosmologists call it, in what could go down in history as the ultimate semantic surrender. This is not "dark" as in distant or invisible. This is "dark" as in unknown for now, and possibly forever.

If so, such a development would presumably not be without philosophical consequences of the civilization-altering variety. Cosmologists often refer to this possibility as "the ultimate Copernican revolution": not only are we not at the center of anything; we're not even made of the same stuff as most of the rest of everything. We're just a bit of pollution, Lawrence M. Krauss, a theorist at Case Western Reserve, said not long ago at a public panel on cosmology in Chicago. "If you got rid of us, and all the stars and all the galaxies and all the planets and all the aliens and everybody, then the universe would be largely the same. We're completely irrelevant."

All well and good. Science is full of homo sapiens-humbling insights. But the trade-off for these lessons in insignificance has always been that at least now we would have a deeper "simpler" understanding of the universe. That the more we could observe, the more we would know. But what about the less we could observe? What happens to new knowledge then? It's a question cosmologists have been asking themselves lately, and it might well be a question we'll all be asking ourselves soon, because if they're right, then the time has come to rethink a fundamental assumption: When we look up at the night sky, we're seeing the universe.

Not so. Not even close.

Out There

A vast array of virtual tunnels that winds around the sun, planets and moons could slash the amount of fuel that spacecraft need to explore our solar system, according to NASA.

The so-called interplanetary superhighway (or interplanetary transport network) would take advantage of the gravitational pull between celestial bodies. In many cases, the competing forces cancel each other out, leaving corridors where ships could travel using little or no fuel.

I highly recommend the American Scientist article linked from this page. Seek out the magazine at your local newsstand.

The Interplanetary Superhighway

A new Boston website aims to bring order to the tens of millions of weblogs proliferating online and provide one-stop shopping for overwhelmed Internet surfers. In the process, it could put some cash in the pockets of Internet scribes pecking away in obscurity.

The company is set to disclose next week a $6 million funding infusion led by Jim Manzi, former chief executive of Lotus Development Corp. and the New York investment bank co-run by Bill Bradley, the former US senator.

CEO Tom Gerace sees Gather less as a mere host for bloggers than as a social networking site, like teenage blogger favorite MySpace.com, but for an older and more sophisticated audience.

Sorry, MemeStreams; the window is closed. David Brooks just got his highbrow MySpace.

One-stop site for blogs offered

This month, the first telescope designed specifically for SETI began scanning the skies. It is still in its early stage of development, but when it is completed the telescope will be so powerful that it will be able to look at more stars in a year or two than we have in the past 45 years.

I still think this is a waste of time, but a lot of people seem to be into it ...

Finding Support in the Search for E.T.

NASA chief Dr. Michael Griffin said he would reconsider the Hubble mission after the first two shuttle test flights determined if it would be safe to attempt it.

Hubble: Not Dead Yet

Oh! I feel it. I feel the cosmos!

Best Hubble Space Telescope Images

Sean O'Keefe is to Hubble as Frankie Dunn is to Maggie Fitzgerald, if you just swap out compassion for selfishness and soul searching for obstinancy.

Don't you think?

Update: Sean O'Keefe has replied with a letter to the editor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/opinion/l19nasa.html

He says that the CAIB recommendations dictated the Hubble decision.

"Nothing less than the credibility of the agency hangs in the balance. This is not about being "petulant," nor is it personal. It's about meaning what we said, doing what we said, and being responsible regardless of the popularity of the consequences."

I can respect him for his willingness to take responsibility for an unpopular but well-founded decision. It seems his absolute rationality on the matter is frustrating to a public that plays itself as an avid risk taker -- that is, until something bad actually happens, at which point the public has shown itself to be quite the dutiful flip-flopper. It's a no-win situation for O'Keefe, to be sure.

America's Billion Dollar Baby, Left to Die Cold and Alone

This is not "news", but the download is worth waiting for, and the video is worth the time.

It's a Flash presentation of selected images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. If you liked the images of the Ultra Deep Field that were published back in March (and cited widely, including here), you'll probably like this, too. Whereas the UDF was a panoramic view, these are more like "close-ups", although the term takes on a rather new meaning when the scale is on the order of one light year to every four inches.

The Best of Hubble

And that's exactly where we are.

CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging