Jon sez

Yes, the ship is named for the character in the early-1920s silent movie Nosferatu. What this says about the mind of the ship's captain is left as an exercise for the reader.

Our science today is an Earth-shattering kaboom, in honor of Earth floating in the background of the first panel. Scientists are reporting dust orbiting a close binary star pair, and their suspicion is that this dust points to a recent collision between two terrestrial planets in that star system.