Author Archives: Allen Versfeld

About Allen Versfeld

Allen is an amateur astronomer, an IT professional, a podcaster, a father of five growing kids, a barely competent chess player, and the owner and publisher of the Urban Astronomer podcast and website. He has formerly served as Director of the Astrophotography and Citizen Science sections of the Astronomical Society of South Africa. You can find his personal social media feed on Mastodon!

Comets from beyond the Solar System

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New work by Dr Harold Levinson and partners shows that many of the most famous comets may have originally been captured from other solar systems billions of years ago when the Sun was still escaping the nursery.  Conventional theory states that most comets come from the Oort cloud, a huge spherical mass of debris left over from the formation of the solar system located out past the orbit of Neptune.  A passing star’s gravity can nudge a body in the … Continue reading →

SumbandilaSat

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The Satellite Applications Centre (SAC), part of the CSIR, announced that South Africa’s Sumbandila microsatellite (SumbandilaSat) has been fully commissioned and is returning useful data from orbit.  The satellite was launched last September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and has suffered many difficulties between then and today’s announcement.  Sumbandila, meaning “Lead the Way” in the Venda language,  is part of the South African space programme and will serve as a research tool to investigate the viability of affordable space … Continue reading →

Jupiter Impact

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A large object, possibly an asteroid or a meteor, hit the planet Jupiter on Thursday, resulting in a large fireball. The fireball was seen on June 3 at 2031 UTC by two independent amateur astronomers, Christopher Go in the Philippines and Anthony Wesley in Australia. Wesley, who is known for having also spotted last July’s Jupiter impact event. He caught this latest impact on video, which showed a fireball the size of Earth after the object hit. It could be … Continue reading →

Mars500 begins

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A crew of 6 men were sealed into their ‘spacecraft’ today in a simulated mission to Mars.  For the next 520 days they will be living in close proximity, physically isolated from the outside world.  They will live and work like astronauts, eat special food and exercise in the same way as crews aboard the International Space Station.  The first 250 days of the mission will simulate travelling to Mars, followed by a month of exploring their surroundings and another … Continue reading →

Escaping Earth

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Every great leap forward, whether technological or social, stems from a number of smaller steps and events.  A revolution first needs a spirit of discontent, oppressive leadership, and a spreading philosophy which allows the masses to think about means to freedom.  The inventor of the internal combustion engine needed to know about mechanics, metallurgy, chemistry, and these technologies all came from previous inventions. In the same way, we need to develop a foundation of bridging technologies before mankind can become … Continue reading →