News is just reaching us of the most amazing astronomical discovery which I am ever likely to experience in my lifetime, one which I never thought I would see. As regular followers of this blog will know, the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute has been searching for evidence of life in the universe by looking for some… Continue reading Breaking news!
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
Easter – 27 March 2016
This year, for the majority of Christians, 27 March will be Easter Sunday, one of the most of the most important dates in the Christian calendar. Although Easter is a is a festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, it is also widely marked by non-Christians in the UK, particularly as there are two very welcome public… Continue reading Easter – 27 March 2016
The first day of spring
Now that we are in the month of March, for most of us in the northern hemisphere the worst of the winter is over, and it is only a couple of weeks until 21 March, the first day of spring. 21 March is an important date for other reasons, too. For one thing, it is used as the basis for the… Continue reading The first day of spring
The Discovery of Gravitational waves
Originally posted 2016. Revised March 2026. Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein back in 1916, and were finally detected one hundred years later in Febuary 2016 after decades of unsuccessful searching. In an announcement on 11 February at a Washington DC press conference David Reitze, the executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, said:[1] “Ladies and gentlemen,… Continue reading The Discovery of Gravitational waves
Terraforming Venus
Updated December 2025 In a previous post I have discussed living on Venus in floating colonies. I'll now discuss terraforming. This the process of changing the global environment of a planet in such a way as to make it suitable for human habitation. Because it is so far beyond our current technological capabilities, most articles about… Continue reading Terraforming Venus
Explaining Science 