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!

Does Venus have Active Volcanoes?

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Artistic impression of an active volcano on Venus. Copyright ESA/AOES Beautiful Venus, jewel of the skies, the evening star, is the closest place to hell in our Solar System.  It’s atmospheric pressure crushes down with immense force, equivalent to a depth of 900 meters below our ocean’s surface – enough to kill a nuclear submarine.  The atmospheric temperature is hot enough to melt lead.  It rains sulphuric acid.  And as if that weren’t enough, new data from the European Space … Continue reading →

Guest Post – Russian Meteor

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Every now and then, one of my friends in astronomy write something that sums up my views on a topic better than I could myself.  When that someone is Neville Young, it happens more often than not, and his recent newsletter on the Russian Meteor, which is currently estimated at having had a mass of 3000 tonnes and a size of 15 meters across, is one example.  He has very kindly allowed me to reprint it here, for your benefit: … Continue reading →

Valuable asteroid to skip by Earth on Friday

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The trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb 15, 2013. In this view, we are looking down from above Earth’s north pole. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Tomorrow evening, at 9:26pm South African time, an asteroid will shoot past Earth, missing us by under 28,000km.  As usual, the astronomy press dance the fine line between “This is really Exciting!” and “Don’t worry, it won’t hit us and you probably won’t see it so stop getting so excited”.  Still, it is the closest … Continue reading →

Carnival of Space #288

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A new week brings us a new Carnival of Space, this time hosted by Ray Sanders of Dear Astronomer.  Ray is an amateur astronomer like myself, only with much more education behind him.  The Carnival features the usual selection of the past week’s best writing on space science and astronomy.  Highlights include both historical memorials and new developments in space travel, commercial rocketry, exoplanets and more!  Visit the carnival here to join the fun.

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