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 →
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 →
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.
Continue reading →Navigation by the stars is not a new thing. People have been doing it for centuries and any boy scout can find South (or North, if that’s where you live) with a quick glance at the heavens. At least one species of bird (Indigo Buntings) has also been shown to navigate by the stars, watching them move every night to learn which is the pole star and using this knowledge to find South for their annual migrations. But new research … Continue reading →
Permanently Shadowed Polar CratersShown in red are areas of Mercury’s north polar region that are in shadow in allimages acquired by MESSENGER to date. Image coverage, and mapping ofshadows, is incomplete near the pole. The polar deposits imaged by Earth-basedradar are in yellow (from Image 2.1), and the background image is the mosaic ofMESSENGER imagesImage Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory Out of the entire Solar System, where would you … Continue reading →
