Phil Plait | |
|---|---|
 Phil Plait atThe Amazing Meeting on January 20, 2007 | |
| Born | Phillip Cary Plait (1964-09-30)September 30, 1964 (age 61) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Other names | Bad Astronomer |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan University of Virginia |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics,astronomy,science communication |
| Thesis | Hubble space telescope observations of the circumstellar ring around of supernova 1987A (1995) |
| Website | Bad Astronomy Newsletter (earlier postsarchived on SyFy andon Slate) |
Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964),[1] also known asThe Bad Astronomer, is an Americanastronomer,skeptic, andpopular science blogger. Plait has worked as part of the Hubble Space Telescope team, images and spectra of astronomical objects, as well as engaging in public outreach advocacy for NASA missions. He has written three books,Bad Astronomy,Death from the Skies, andUnder Alien Skies. He has also appeared in several science documentaries, includingHow the Universe Works on theDiscovery Channel. From August 2008 through 2009, he served as president of theJames Randi Educational Foundation.[2][3] Additionally, he wrote and hosted episodes ofCrash Course Astronomy,[4] which aired its last episode in 2016.
Plait grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. He has said he became interested in astronomy when his father brought home a telescope when Plait was 5 years old or so. According to Plait, he "aimed it atSaturn that night. One look, and that was it. I was hooked."[5]
Plait attended theUniversity of Michigan and received his PhD in astronomy at theUniversity of Virginia in 1995 with a thesis on supernovaSN 1987A, which he studied with the Supernova Intensive Study (SINS).[6]
During the 1990s, Plait worked with theCOBE satellite and later was part of theHubble Space Telescope team at NASAGoddard Space Flight Center, working largely on theSpace Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. In 1995, he published observations of a ring of circumstellar material around SN 1987A, which led to further study of explosion mechanisms in core-collapse supernovae.[7][8] Plait's work with Grady,et al. resulted in the presentation of high-resolution images of isolated stellar objects (includingAB Aurigae[9] andHD 163296[10]) from theHubble Space Telescope, among the first of those recorded. These results have been used in further studies into the properties and structure of dim, young, moderate-size stars, calledHerbig Ae/Be stars,[11] which also confirmed results observed by Grady,et al.[12]
After his research contributions, Plait concentrated on educational outreach.[13] He went on to perform web-based public outreach for theFermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and otherNASA-funded missions while atSonoma State University from 2000 to 2007.[14] In 2001, he coauthored a paper on increasing accessibility of astronomy education resources and programs.[15]
A large proportion of his public outreach occurs online. He established the badastronomy website in 1998 and the corresponding blog in 2005. The website remains archived[16] but is no longer actively maintained, while the blog has continued, through several changes of platform, to the present day.
His first book,Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax", deals with much the same subject matter as his website. His second book,Death from the Skies, describesways astronomical events could wipe out life on Earth and was released in October 2008.[17]
Plait's work has also appeared in theEncyclopædia Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future andAstronomy magazine. He is also a frequent guest on theSETI Institute's weekly science radio showBig Picture Science.
Plait has contributed to a number of television and cinema productions, either onscreen as host or guest or in an advisory role offscreen. He hosted the three-part documentary seriesPhil Plait's "Bad Universe" on theDiscovery Channel,[18] which first aired in the United States on August 29, 2010, but was not picked up as a series. He has appeared in numerous science documentaries and programs includingHow the Universe Works. Plait was a science advisor for the 2016 filmArrival[19] and the 2017 CBS TV seriesSalvation.[20] He was the head science writer of the 2017 showBill Nye Saves the World onNetflix.[21]
From 2008 to 2009, Plait served as the president of theJames Randi Educational Foundation, which promotesscientific skepticism, a position he eventually stepped down from in order to focus on the "Bad Universe" television project. He has also been a regular speaker at widely attended science and skepticism events and conferences, such asThe Amazing Meeting (TAM),[22] Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS),[23] andDragonCon.[24] Plait writes and speaks on topics related to scientific skepticism, such as advocating in favor of widespreadimmunization.[25]
Plait used to live inBoulder, Colorado with his wife, Marcella Setter, and daughter.[13] In a 2009 interview, Plait stated that his daughter is interested in astronomy and science, as well as anime and manga.[26] Between 2011 and 2018, Setter and Plait ran Science Getaways, a vacation company that provides science-based adventures.[27][28] As of January 2024, he lives in rural Virginia outside of Charlottesville.[29]
Plait began publishing explanatory Internet postings on science in 1993.[30][31]: 3:10 Five years later, Plait established Badastronomy.com with the goal of clearing up what he perceived to be widespread public misconceptions about astronomy and space science in movies, the news, print, and on the Internet, also providing critical analysis of severalpseudoscientific theories related to space and astronomy, such asthe "Planet X" cataclysm,Richard Hoagland's theories, andthe Moon landing "hoax".[32] It received a considerable amount of traffic after Plait criticized aFox Network special accusing NASA of faking the Apollo missions.[33] AstronomerMichelle Thaller has described Badastronomy.com, as well as Plait's book and essays calledBad Astronomy, as "a monumental service to the space-science community".[34]
In 2005, Plait started the Bad Astronomy blog. In July 2008, it moved to a new host,Discover Magazine. While it is primarily an astronomy blog, Plait also posts aboutskepticism,pseudoscience, andantiscience topics, with occasional personal and political posts. On November 12, 2012, the Bad Astronomy blog moved toSlate magazine.[35] Plait toldRichard Saunders in an interview that "they [Slate] are very supportive... a new community." Revisiting old posts, Plait stated, "I've written about everything, when you've written 7,000 blog posts you've pretty much written about every topic in astronomy."[36]
On February 1, 2017, the Bad Astronomy blog moved toSyfyWire,[37] where it was hosted until October 2022.[38] His blog was then hosted bySubstack, and since early 2024, on beehiiv.com.[39]
Plait has also contributed significantly to theMadSci Network, a question-and-answer Ask-A-Scientist forum.[40][41]
In September 2011, Plait spoke at aTED conference inBoulder, his hometown. His conference explainedhow to defend Earth from asteroids.[42]
Plait taught Astronomy on the YouTube educational seriesCrash Course for 47 episodes, from January 15, 2015[4] to February 12, 2016.
| Year | Program | Episode(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Captain Disillusion: UFO on the Moon | Quick D | Video short | |
| 2019 | Ancient Skies | Episodes #1-3 | Mini Tv series documentary |
| 2017 | How the World Ends | Episodes "Planet X"/"Aliens Invade" | Tv series documentary |
| 2015 | Crash Course: Astronomy | Episodes #1-47 | Short form YouTube series |
| 2012 | Curiosity | Episode #2.12 – "Sun Storms" | TV series documentary |
| 2012 | The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson | Episode #8.122 | TV series |
| 2010–19 | How the Universe Works | "Black Holes" "Stars" "Planets" "Solar Systems" "all episodes in seasons 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6" | TV series documentary |
| 2011 | Captain Disillusion: Fame Curve Collection | Video short | |
| 2010 | Bad Universe | "Death Stars" "Alien Attack!" "Asteroid Apocalypse" | TV series documentary |
| Known Universe | "Stellar Storms" "Cosmic Collisions" | TV series documentary | |
| 2008 | Naked Science | "Hubble's Amazing Universe" | TV series documentary |
| 2007 | Is It Real? | "Life on Mars" | TV series documentary |
| The Zula Patrol | "Larva or Leave Me/Egg Hunt" "There Goes the Neighborhood" | TV series | |
| 2006 | Nova | "Monster of the Milky Way" | TV series documentary |
| 2005, 2009 | Penn & Teller: Bullshit! | "Conspiracy Theories" "Astrology" | TV series |
| 2002 | Die Akte Apollo | TV movie documentary |
A lot of folks logged on to www.badastronomy.com a year ago when Plait skewered a Fox-TV documentary that accused NASA of faking its Apollo missions and lunar landings during the 1960s and 1970s.
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