Phil Plait

Plait's work with Grady, et al. resulted in the presentation of high-resolution images of isolated stellar objects (including AB Aurigae and HD 163296 ) 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, which also confirmed results observed by Grady, et al.

After his research contributions, Plait concentrated on educational outreach.

Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964), 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.

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.

Plait began publishing explanatory Internet postings on science in 1993.

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".

It received a considerable amount of traffic after Plait criticized a Fox Network special accusing NASA of faking the Apollo missions.

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".

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).

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.

He established the badastronomy website in 1998 and the corresponding blog in 2005.

The website remains archived 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.

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.

In 2001, he coauthored a paper on increasing accessibility of astronomy education resources and programs.

A large proportion of his public outreach occurs online.

From August 2008 through 2009, he served as president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

His second book, Death from the Skies, describes ways astronomical events could wipe out life on Earth and was released in October 2008.

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.

Plait has contributed to a number of television and cinema productions, either onscreen as host or guest or in an advisory role offscreen.

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), Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS), and DragonCon.

Plait writes and speaks on topics related to scientific skepticism, such as advocating in favor of widespread immunization.

Plait used to live in Boulder, Colorado with his wife, Marcella Setter, and daughter.

In a 2009 interview, Plait stated that his daughter is interested in astronomy and science, as well as anime and manga.

Setter and Plait run Science Getaways, a vacation company that provides science-based adventures.

As of January, 2024, he lives in rural Virginia outside of Charlottesville.

He hosted the three-part documentary series Phil Plait's "Bad Universe" on the Discovery Channel, 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.

Additionally, he wrote and hosted episodes of Crash Course Astronomy, 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 at Saturn that night. One look, and that was it. I was hooked."

Plait was a science advisor for the 2016 film Arrival and the 2017 CBS TV series Salvation.

He was the head science writer of the 2017 show Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix.