Updated 22 November 2025 Anyone, even the most casual observer, looking at the evening sky in the last month will have noticed the brilliant white planet Venus shining in the west. Often known as the Evening Star, Venus is the third brightest natural object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. In this… Continue reading Why Venus Shines Brightly
Author: Steve Hurley
Hi I am Steve Hurley. Although I work in the IT industry. I studied for a PhD in astronomy in the 1980s. My real passion is explaining scientific concepts to a non-scientific audience. My blog (explainingscience.org) covers various scientific topics, but primarily astronomy. It is written in a style that it is easily understandable to the non scientist.
Publications and videos
For links to my books and videos please visit www.explainingscience.org
Measuring and Mapping Light Pollution
Updated 16 December 2025 As discussed in my earlier post on Dark Skies , light pollution is a major nuisance to astronomers both amateur and professional. When astronomers classify how much light pollution there is at a particular location, they often use the Bortle Scale, devised by John Bortle and first published in the popular astronomy… Continue reading Measuring and Mapping Light Pollution
British coverage of Apollo 11
Last year as all my readers will know was the fiftieth anniversary of the first Apollo Moon landing. Image credit NASA Although the pictures and video from the Apollo 11 mission, including Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon, are famous throughout the world and are freely available on platforms such as YouTube, it is… Continue reading British coverage of Apollo 11
SpaceX Starlink Satellites (2020)
Update 16 March 2022- click on the image below to view a video of much of the information in this post https://youtu.be/smCG4mWKjPA Many of you will have seenthe pictures in 2019 showing long ‘trains’ composed of as many as sixty SpaceX Starlink satellites crossing the sky. A 'train' of SpaceX Starlink satellites just after… Continue reading SpaceX Starlink Satellites (2020)
Happy New Year 2020
Happy New Year! And happy new decade! 2020 could well be an important year for manned space flight. It might be the year that America finally puts humans back into space on American spacecraft. If this happens it will be on spacecraft designed and built by commercial companies rather than NASA. . The landing of… Continue reading Happy New Year 2020
Explaining Science 