Shane Ross

What if a spacecraft could cycle between Earth and Moon orbits, performing multiple circuits of each, naturally and indefinitely, with zero propulsion? We’ve discovered a new class of stable, prograde, low-energy cycler orbits that do just that. Why these orbits matter: Ballistic → fuel-free Stable → long-term ready Near-chaotic → agile with low ΔV Low-energy → access to Earth/Moon, Lagrange points, Sun–Earth L1/L2, even heliocentric space At the AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference in Boston next week, I’ll present on a new family of ballistic Earth-Moon cycler orbits that are stable, prograde, and mission agile—unlike any cyclers in the current literature. The example below is shown in both the Earth-Moon rotating frame and inertial frame. Conference Paper: ross.aoe.vt.edu/papers/ross-ro…

Chuck Norris died in 1996. Death just took 30 years to build up the courage. Clouds don’t rain. They sweat when they see Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups. He pushes the world down. Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet as Chuck Norris. There is no theory of evolution — just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live. Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice. RIP CN

Atmospheric rivers are like giant firehoses in the sky, moving enormous amounts of water across the Pacific and dumping it in just hours.

Interesting rock found on Mars. Rome shows up in the most unexpected places.

@HopDavid41 @SciGuySpace Yes: there are low-energy pathways connecting SEL2 with the Earth–Moon L1/L2 regions via 4-body dynamics. These kinds of transfers can be surprisingly efficient and are key to thinking about how material moves through Earth's sphere of influence. Here’s an example.

@SciGuySpace @RossDynamicsLab , they are talking about parking an asteroid at the sun-earth-L2. Are there low delta V paths from SEL2 to the lunar Hill Sphere? I expect a commodity asteroids as well as lunar resources can provide is up momentum for momentum exchange tethers.

This would be super cool if it happens. arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/…

Spliced together an 81-hour radar loop of the Alaskan Snowicane and my goodness it is insane. A tropical-looking storm made entirely of freezing rain and snow.

Uluru transformed by rain 🌧️ Heavy rainfall turned the iconic rock into a series of flowing waterfalls, creating a rare and spectacular sight.

Experience the epic conclusion. Dune: Part Three only in theaters and IMAX December 18. #DuneMovie #FilmedforIMAX

This is a 1000-gram iron bar. In its raw form, it’s worth around $100. If it’s turned into horseshoes, its value rises to about $250. If it’s made into sewing needles, its value jumps to roughly $70,000. If it’s crafted into watch springs and gears, it can be worth around $6 million. And if it’s transformed into precision laser components, like those used in lithography, its value can reach $15 million. Your value is not defined only by what you are made of, but by how well you shape your potential into something extraordinary.

Meet Raven:

This is wild. 143 million people thought they were catching Pokémon. They were actually building one of the largest real-world visual datasets in AI history. Niantic just disclosed that photos and AR scans collected through Pokémon Go have produced a dataset of over 30 billion real-world images. The company is now using that data to power visual navigation AI for delivery robots. Players didn't just walk around with their phones. They scanned landmarks, storefronts, parks, and sidewalks from every angle, at every time of day, in lighting and weather conditions that staged photography would never capture. They documented the physical world at a scale no mapping company with a fleet of vehicles could have replicated on the same timeline or budget. Niantic collected this systematically, data point by data point, across eight years, while users thought the only thing at stake was catching a rare Charizard. The most valuable AI training datasets in the world aren't being assembled in data centers. They're being built by people who have no idea they're building them.

@PitaGriffin @CburgesCliff The Lyapunov time, the timescale over which the uncertainty in the system state grows exponentially youtu.be/22VVVn1zPdM

@CburgesCliff @RossDynamicsLab is there a word for the characteristic scales over which a dynamic system is unpredictable? E.g., the angles of a real double pendulum are unpredictable for some duration after being put into motion, but perfectly predictable by tomorrow.

I predict it will end up pointing straight down. 😎

Gliding never goes out of style

My sabbatical in a nutshell

⚠️ I waited 2 hours. Started in the TSA line at 5:30 AM for a 7:40 AM flight at @AustinAirport — just barely made it through.

@mathelirium Your series’s are the best. Keep it up👍🏽

Another classic Inverse Problem is seismic imaging, or more broadly inverse scattering. You do not open the Earth and directly inspect what lies below. What you measure are returning echoes at the surface, and then you have to work backward to infer what hidden structure could have caused them.

Photographer Peter Maier captured this jaw-dropping timelapse of a cloudburst over Lake Millstatt in Carinthia, Austria.

The most-visited counties form an approximate set covering of the U.S. interstate highway network.

The ultimate Engineering flex is making almost any shape fly.😁 AUREOLE - PVRA TriDisc is our experimental drone concept that replaces spinning propellers with Perimetric Vectoring Ring Arrays (PVRA). We place micro-nozzle belts around tri-lobed ring. These tiny jets push air to generate lift, lateral motion, and rotational control for the craft. This scene is a proof-of-concept rigid body dynamics demo rather than a full CFD. We juste wanted to see if the shape can fly. But everything is still grounded in the language of flight...control systems, aerodynamics, physics and mathematics.

Resurrection Valley

The world's first space-based "bullet time" view: debris blasting off Dimorphos moments after NASA's DART spacecraft hit its target. The Matrix made it famous. NASA made it real.