Over the next few weeks much of the world's media will be focused on Sharm El Sheik in Egypt, where the United Nations Climate Change conference is taking place. My own view is that our chances of significantly reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over the next 10-15 years or so don’t look particularly… Continue reading COP27 November 2022
A friend of mine, the active amateur astronomer Colin Henshaw, brought the following photograph to my attention. It appears to show the Moon rising over Mossel Bay in South Africa. Although it was passed off as a genuine image, for reasons which Colin pointed out, it is a fake. If you study the Moon, it… Continue reading Fake Astronomical Images
This is first of a series of three posts in which I'll talk about the idea that the fundamental forces which govern our Universe and fundamental constants such as: the strength of gravity, the electric charge of the electron and the amounts of matter, dark matter and dark energy in the Universe have been in… Continue reading Our Finely-tuned Universe Part I-Fundamental forces
The night of 22/23 April will be the peak of the Lyrids, one of the most famous prolific meteor showers. Meteors (also known as shooting stars) are bright streaks of light caused by small lumps of rock or metal called meteoroids hitting the Earth’s atmosphere at very high speed. As they pass through the atmosphere they get heated… Continue reading The Lyrids 2022
Even though the Moon is far smaller and less massive than the Earth its gravitational field still has significant effects on our planet. The most noticeable of these are tides, the periodic rise and fall of sea levels. In this post I'll give an overview of the causes of tides. This is something which many… Continue reading Overview of tides
Explaining Science 