Phil Plait

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Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> also known as The Bad Astronomer, is an American astronomer, skeptic, and popular 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, and Under Alien Skies. He has also appeared in several science documentaries, including How the Universe Works on the Discovery Channel. From August 2008 through 2009, he served as president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> Additionally, he wrote and hosted episodes of Crash Course Astronomy,<ref name="Re/code">Template:Cite news</ref> which aired its last episode in 2016.

Early life

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 at Saturn that night. One look, and that was it. I was hooked."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Education and research

Plait attended the University of Michigan and received his PhD in astronomy at the University of Virginia in 1995 with a thesis on supernova SN 1987A, which he studied with the Supernova Intensive Study (SINS).<ref name="sonneborn-1998">Template:Cite journal</ref>

During the 1990s, Plait worked with the COBE satellite and later was part of the Hubble Space Telescope team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, working largely on the Space 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.<ref name="plait-1995">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="kotake-2006">Template:Cite journal</ref> Plait's work with Grady, et al. resulted in the presentation of high-resolution images of isolated stellar objects (including AB Aurigae<ref name="grady-1999">Template:Cite journal</ref> and HD 163296<ref name="grady-2000">Template:Cite journal</ref>) from the Hubble 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, called Herbig Ae/Be stars,<ref name="millan-gabet-2001">Template:Cite journal</ref> which also confirmed results observed by Grady, et al.<ref name="natta-2001">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Public outreach

After his research contributions, Plait concentrated on educational outreach.<ref name="ba-bio">Template:Cite web</ref> He went on to perform web-based public outreach for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and other NASA-funded missions while at Sonoma State University from 2000 to 2007.<ref name="sonoma">Template:Cite web</ref> In 2001, he coauthored a paper on increasing accessibility of astronomy education resources and programs.<ref name="plait-2001-agu">Template:Cite conference</ref>

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<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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, describes ways astronomical events could wipe out life on Earth and was released in October 2008.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Plait's work has also appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future and Astronomy magazine. He is also a frequent guest on the SETI Institute's weekly science radio show Big Picture Science.

Template:AnchorPlait 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 series Phil Plait's "Bad Universe" on the Discovery Channel,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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 including How the Universe Works. Plait was a science advisor for the 2016 film Arrival<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the 2017 CBS TV series Salvation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was the head science writer of the 2017 show Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Scientific skeptical advocacy

File:Wiseman Plait Nickell.jpg
Phil Plait (center) during TAM9 in 2011, with Richard Wiseman and Joe Nickell

From 2008 to 2009, Plait served as the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, which promotes scientific 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 as The Amazing Meeting (TAM),<ref name="tam">Template:Cite web</ref> Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS),<ref name="necss-2011">Template:Cite web</ref> and DragonCon.<ref name="dragoncon-guests">Template:Cite web</ref> Plait writes and speaks on topics related to scientific skepticism, such as advocating in favor of widespread immunization.<ref name="provax-2009">Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Plait used to live in Boulder, Colorado with his wife, Marcella Setter, and daughter.<ref name="ba-bio" /> In a 2009 interview, Plait stated that his daughter is interested in astronomy and science, as well as anime and manga.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Between 2011 and 2018, Setter and Plait ran Science Getaways, a vacation company that provides science-based adventures.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="sciencegetaways-about">Template:Cite web</ref> As of January 2024, he lives in rural Virginia outside of Charlottesville.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Internet presence

Badastronomy.com

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File:Phil Plait the Universe is Cool.jpg
The final slide to Plait's presentation at the JREF's 6th The Amazing Meeting convention

Plait began publishing explanatory Internet postings on science in 1993.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="POI20070412">Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Rp 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 several pseudoscientific theories related to space and astronomy, such as the "Planet X" cataclysm, Richard Hoagland's theories, and the Moon landing "hoax".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It received a considerable amount of traffic after Plait criticized a Fox Network special accusing NASA of faking the Apollo missions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Astronomer Michelle Thaller has described Badastronomy.com, as well as Plait's book and essays called Bad Astronomy, as "a monumental service to the space-science community".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Blog

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 about skepticism, pseudoscience, and antiscience topics, with occasional personal and political posts. On November 12, 2012, the Bad Astronomy blog moved to Slate magazine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Plait told Richard 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."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On February 1, 2017, the Bad Astronomy blog moved to SyfyWire,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> where it was hosted until October 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His blog was then hosted by Substack, and since early 2024, on beehiiv.com.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Plait has also contributed significantly to the MadSci Network, a question-and-answer Ask-A-Scientist forum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Online video

In September 2011, Plait spoke at a TED conference in Boulder, his hometown. His conference explained how to defend Earth from asteroids.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Plait taught Astronomy on the YouTube educational series Crash Course for 47 episodes, from January 15, 2015<ref name="Re/code"/> to February 12, 2016.

Books

Articles

  • Plait, Phil, "The Milky Way's Secrets: Our galaxy's night-sky spectacle sparked scientific revolutions", Scientific American, vol. 329, no. 4 (November 2023), pp. 86–87.

Media appearances

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

Awards and honors

References

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