Revised 12 December 2025 Now that Christmas is nearly upon us, if you've not done so already why not treat yourself to an e-book from Explaining Science. If you'd like to know more about popular astronomy , I've written three e-books which are available in the Amazon Kindle store at a nominal cost. By… Continue reading An idea for Christmas from Explaining Science
Category: Alien Life
Schiaparelli on Mars -updated
As most of you will already know, and much to our disappointment, the Schiaparelli probe failed to land successfully on Mars last Wednesday. The plan was that when it entered the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft would immediately begin to slow down to 1700 km/h as a result of the friction caused by the atmosphere hitting its heat-shield. When it reached… Continue reading Schiaparelli on Mars -updated
Schiaparelli’s landing on Mars
Update 7 February 2026 Sadly the Schiaparelli Spacecraft failed to land successfully on Mars. It hit the ground at 300 km/h and would have been destroyed on impact. The post below was published on 13 October 2016, six days before the failed landing. On 14 March 2016 the European Space Agency used facilities at Baikonur… Continue reading Schiaparelli’s landing on Mars
ExoMars TGO: Tracking Methane in the Martian Atmosphere
6 February 2026 - This an update of an orginal post first published in 2016 On 14 March 2016 the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on a seven month journey to Mars. When it arrived at the red planet, its key sciencetific objective was to study how the distribution of… Continue reading ExoMars TGO: Tracking Methane in the Martian Atmosphere
Breaking news!
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!
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