A few days ago, a newspaper received a photograph of a Lunar Halo from one of their readers and asked me to explain what was going on. You can click on the above link to read my answer, but it was by necessity rather short, and incomplete. So what’s the full story? What we see in the image to the right is a full moon, surrounded by a colourful halo, with the constellation Scorpius faintly visible along the top border. … Continue reading →
An exoplanet is a planet which is not a part of our Solar System. Although nobody knew for sure if they even existed 20 years ago, they are now being discovered at an incredible speed – more than one every single day. Because even the nearest stars are so far away, they are incredibly hard to see, which is why so far even the smallest yet discovered are much much larger than the Earth. Comments? Questions? Why not … Continue reading →
5800 hours, or 242 earth days. A year on Venus is 220 earth days, so on Venus a day is actually longer than a year! Comments? Questions? Why not mail me at uastronomer@gmail.com
Continue reading →The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. This age is deduced by radiometric dating (Carbon-14 dating is one form of radiometric dating, suitable for archaeogical timespans. Other isotopes are needed to measure really long periods of time) — the oldest rocks anybody has found on Earth are about four and a half billion years old. Extreme ages of the planet are backed up by the times required for geological features to form, life to evolve, the age of the … Continue reading →
Dear Urban Astronomer I read recently that an important New York publication had reported in detail that the famous astronomer John Herschell had seen life on the Moon, with a powerful new telescope. Can you tell me more about this? Curious Dear Curious. Sorry to disappoint, but after doing a bit of research, I learned that the “Important New York Publication” you’re referring to was none other than The New York Sun, and the article in … Continue reading →
