Travel back in time

2013
Arrow: The Huntress Returns

ArrowThe 17th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Jessica De Gouw (Dracula) guest stars.

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Arrow: Salvation

ArrowThe 18th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Alex Kingston (Doctor Who) guest stars.

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Soyuz TMA-08M

Soyuz TMA-08MSoyuz TMA-08M lifts off from Russia, testing a new “fast track” trajectory to the International Space Station. With cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin, and astronaut Chris Cassidy aboard, the Soyuz capsule reaches the Station only six hours after liftoff, as opposed to the usual two days. The three new crew members join Expedition 35.

Arrow: Unfinished Business

ArrowThe 19th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW.

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Doctor Who: Cold War

Doctor WhoThe 795th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 97th episode since the series’ revival). The Ice Warriors make their first television appearance since the early 1970s. David Warner and Liam Cunningham guest star. Read more (more…)

Doctor Who: Hide

Doctor WhoThe 796th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 98th episode since the series’ revival). The Ice Warriors make their first television appearance since the early 1970s. Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine guest star. Read more (more…)

Arrow: Home Invasion

ArrowThe 20th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW.

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Doctor Who: Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS

Doctor WhoThe 797th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 99th episode since the series’ revival). For the first time in the new series, much of this episode’s action takes place within the TARDIS itself. Read more (more…)

SpaceShipTwo’s test drive

SpaceShipTwoSpace passenger line Virgin Galactic tests the Burt Rutan-designed suborbital SpaceShipTwo spacecraft VSS Enterprise at an altitude of over ten miles, reaching a speed of over Mach 1. Virgin’s official report is that the test flight was a complete success; no date is set for a suborbital test flight yet. Virgin is expected to build four more vehicles of the SpaceShipTwo class before moving on to a more advanced design, SpaceShipThree.

Arrow: The Undertaking

ArrowThe 21st episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. John Barrowman (Torchwood, Doctor Who) guest stars.

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Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror

Doctor WhoThe 798th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 100th episode since the series’ revival). Dame Diana Rigg (The Avengers, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and her real-life daughter Rachael Stirling guest star. Read more (more…)

Arrow: Darkness On The Edge Of Town

ArrowThe 22nd episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. John Barrowman (Torchwood, Doctor Who) guest stars.

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Doctor Who: Nightmare In Silver

Doctor WhoThe 799th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 101st episode since the series’ revival). Warwick Davis (Willow, the Star Wars movies) guest stars in an episode written by Neil Gaiman, featuring the Cybermen. Read more (more…)

Doctor Who: The Krotons (soundtrack)

Doctor Who: The KrotonsSilva Screen Records releases a CD of music from the 1960s Doctor Who story The Krotons, composed and performed by Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. A rare example of a pre-80s soundtrack scored entirely by the Workshop, The Krotons’ release catches fans off-guard as part of the label’s series of classic soundtrack releases celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who. Read more (more…)

Arrow: Sacrifice

ArrowThe 23rd episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. John Barrowman (Torchwood, Doctor Who) guest stars in the first season finale.

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Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into DarknessThe movie Star Trek Into Darkness opens in American theaters, having already opened overseas. This movie reunites director J.J. Abrams and the cast of the 2009 Star Trek movie, set in an alternate timeline from the original TV series and its big and small screen descendants. Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Peter Weller (Robocop) and Alice Eve also star. Read more (more…)

Doctor Who: The Name Of The Doctor

Doctor WhoThe 800th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 102nd episode since the series’ revival), closing the new series’ seventh season and setting up hints toward the much-anticipated 50th anniversary special. John Hurt and Richard E. Grant guest star. Read more (more…)

Soyuz TMA-09M

Soyuz TMA-09MPart of the 36th full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-09M. Fyodor Yurchikhin, Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano take up residence on the ISS for 166 days, becoming part of the Expedition 36/37 crews. Once again, a new “fast track” trajectory propels Soyuz from launch to docking at the ISS in under six hours. This crew returns to Earth in November 2013 aboard the same vehicle.

Dream Chaser test vehicle on the runway

Dream ChaserA full-sized structural test article of Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spacecraft begins “tow tests” at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, verifying the vehicle’s handling on landing gear after touching down. Drop tests and glide tests are scheduled for later in 2013, though all such tests will be completely automated. Sierra Nevada Corporation also provides the main engines for Virgin Galactica’s SpaceShipTwo, and had already built the engines that propelled SpaceShipOne toward its X Prize-winning flight. The Dream Chaser design is based on an unused study vehicle, HL-20, studied by NASA in the 1980s and ’90s, which was in turn based upon a Soviet-era test vehicle called BOR4.

Matt Smith reveals Doctor Who departure

Matt Smith as Doctor WhoActor Matt Smith announces that he will be give up the role of the eleventh Doctor in the forthcoming Christmas 2013 Doctor Who special, handing the TARDIS off to the twelfth actor to play the Doctor. First announced as the eleventh Doctor early in 2009, Smith has occupied the TARDIS since his first appearance in the closing scenes of 2010’s New Years’ Day special The End Of Time Part 2.

This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!

Shenzhou 10

Shenzhou 10The Chinese manned space mission Shenzhou 10 lifts off, carrying taikonauts Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping to the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory module for a stay of over two weeks. This is the fifth manned flight in the history of the Chinese space program, and the second (and is expected to be the last) to visit Tiangong-1. A larger orbital station, Tiangong-2, is under development.

Herschel Observatory decommissioned

Herschel Space ObservatoryThe European Space Agency officially shuts down the Herschel Space Observatory, having exhausted the unmanned orbital telescope’s remaining fuel supply with a maneuver to push it safely out of Earth’s L2 LaGrange point, opening that part of space up for future missions. Herschel’s science observations had ended when its supply of helium coolant, required to keep its instruments super-cooled to detect distant objects at the far-infrared end of the spectrum, ran out in April. Its replacement, the Gaia Space Observatory, is already being prepared for launch by ESA later in 2013.

Richard Matheson, writer, dies

Richard MathesonSF/horror/fantasy author Richard Matheson dies at the age of 87. His novels and short stories have been fodder for Hollywood for over half a century, including I Am Legend (which, in addition to the Will Smith adaptation, had also been translated into The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man, and is often credited as a primary influence in zombie fiction), What Dreams May Come, Somewhere In Time (inspired by the story “Bid Time Return”), A Stir Of Echoes and Duel (which inspired a TV movie which was Steven Spielberg’s first major directorial effort). Matheson also wrote episodes of The Twilight Zone (including Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, which was remade for Twilight Zone: The Movie), Star Trek (The Enemy Within), Amazing Stories, The Outer Limits and The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler (the pilot movies for what became the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker). Other movies inspired by his work included Trilogy Of Terror and The Box.

Star Trek: Music From The Video Games (soundtrack)

Star Trek: Music From The Video GamesBSX Records releases a CD, Star Trek: Music From The Video Games, containing newly-arranged and performed music from many Star Trek video games and computer games from the 1990s onward. Read more (more…)

Pluto’s fourth and fifth moons named

P4 and P5Two tiny, recently-discovered satellites of dwarf planet Pluto have new named ratified by the International Astronomical Union; P4 is renamed Kerberos and P5 is renamed Styx. The names – related to the “underworld” theme that has governed the naming of Pluto and its moons to date – overlooks a popular online vote that suggested one of the moons should be named Vulcan, after Mr. Spock’s home planet in Star Trek. Kerberos, discoverd in 2011, is believed to be approximately 20 miles in diameter and orbits Pluto at a distance of roughly 37,000 miles. Styx, first sighted in 2012, is even smaller, with an estimated diameter of 15 miles, orbiting only 1,200 miles from Pluto, making it the innermost satellite (a distinction previously held by Pluto’s near-twin, Charon). NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will have the opportunity to see the new moons up close when it does a flyby of Pluto in 2015.

The raining shards of the blue planet

HD 189733bScientists, analyzing Hubble Space Telescope spectographic data taken during a transit of the exoplanet HD 189733b against its parent star, reveal that they have determined the planet’s color in visible light. The doomed gas giant, only 63 light years away, is said to be a “deep azure blue” not unlike how Earth’s oceans appear from space, though in this case the color is theorized to be the result not of water, but of silicate rain – airborne glass – blowing in 7,000mph winds as the atmosphere is blasted away due to the planet’s proximity to its sun.