Parts of North America experienced a total solar eclipse the other day. You’re forgiven if you didn’t know about it, since it didn’t affect most of the rest of the world. But it was HUGE in the US. Facebook was full of people offering free or cheap eclipse glasses so people could look safely at…
This post might be a bit… sciencey for some of you, but I told everybody that I’m a space nut, so you’ve been warned. I became interested in astronomy and cosmology at a time when the Big Bang theory was not completely accepted as the true origin of the universe. Yes, I’m that old 😊….
I was a science fiction reader before I dipped my toe into the vast ocean of romance. More than that, I like space opera. Yes, I’m a Star Wars fan, despite the rather ordinary science. What attracts me is the aliens and the space ships and the amazing different worlds out there. And after all,…
Look, I’m a space nut. It says so on the header up there. So when NASA announced the discovery of “Earth 2.0” I was as excited as the next space nut. But let’s put this into context, people. What do we really KNOW about this planet, as FACT? It’s in the constellation of Cygnus, 1,400…
I recently read an article in iO9, about the potential shape of future political systems. And it got me to thinking, as these things do. I have a BA(Hons) in history. Part of my honours year was a fascinating study of the French, American and Russian revolutions, and the rise of Fascism in Italy and…
A lunar eclipse happened in my part of the world on 28th November, hard on the cosmic heels of a solar eclipse earlier in the month. As it turned out, the penumbral eclipse was a huge disappointment. No shadow across the moon’s disc, not even a reddening of the light. So the cirrus cloud partially…
I was reading an article from somebody, all enthusiastic about the exo-planets the Kepler probe keeps finding. They’re all many times larger than planet Earth even if they’re in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone. You know the one – not too close, not too far, just right. That is, a planet neither too close to its primary…
The more I read about the strangeness of our universe, the more I wonder if we, humanity, will ever colonise other planets. There’s not much chance we’ll settle on a diamond planet and I have to wonder how we’d go on many of the ‘earthlike’ planets already pinpointed. We are such fragile entities, we humans….
I woke this morning to the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away. To me, that means two things; the end of an era and that unenviable feeling of being old. The things I’ve seen, the things that are a part of the parade of my life. On Twitter I learned a friend’s husband had…
