Category Archives: News and Updates

News about Astronomy and Space Science. Find every news item and update here, in blog format. You can get these updates sent straight to your mailbox by subscribing here, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the link.

High resolution sky survey released to the public

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The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a fascinating attempt to map the entire sky at unprecedented levels of details, using digital cameras on large telescopes.  The data collected in the various projects making up SDSS are of enormous value to astronomers, as they can be mined for experimental data, or used as a reference to compare against recent images.  Probably the most well known user of SDSS data is Zooniverse, who gave us the citizen science project Galaxy Zoo. The third … Continue reading →

Making a Telescope

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The Urban Astronomer has decided to start building his own telescope.  This weekend, I began work grinding the primary mirror of what will (hopefully) become a six inch f/8 newtonian telescope on a dobsonian mounting – not too ambitious, but a perfect beginners project.  I’ve set up a blog on this page where I’ll be keeping a diary of my progress, which you can follow by clicking here, or selecting ‘Making Telescopes’ on the left hand sidebar. The most recent … Continue reading →

Old Apollo data reveals Moon’s core

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One of the many tasks required of astronauts during the six successful moon landings was the positioning of lunar seismometers to probe the interior of the Moon. These seismometers measured tiny shifts in the lunar surface, moon-quakes, and meteorite impacts until around 1977.  Using this data, researchers learned a lot about the composition of the moon, but not as much as they would have liked.  Seismologists analyse seismic waves travelling through the Earth (or in this case, the Moon) to … Continue reading →

New hope for Akatsuki

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As previously reported, the Japanese Space Agency’s (JAXA) Akatsuki spacecraft, launched in May last year, failed to achieve orbit around Venus last month.  A faulty valve caused fuel pressure to drop, killing the main thruster in the middle of a long braking maneuvre, so that it was travelling way too fast to be captured by Venus’s gravity.  Although Akatsuki ended up in a slightly lower orbit around the Sun which would bring it near to Venus again in six years time, JAXA scientists … Continue reading →

2012 Most Ridiculous Sci-Fi film of all time: Official

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NASA representatives recently met with Hollywood executives to discuss the portrayal of space and science in movies.  Many movies have presented such a distorted view of how the universe works that scientists are finding it harder and harder to communicate their work to the general public.  One particular film, 2012, built such a convincing case for the end of the world that many people were genuinely frightened, believing that the world would soon be ending.  “The film makers took advantage of … Continue reading →