As discussed in my previous post, Kepler's improvement of Copernicus's heliocentric system led to its more general acceptance, and his three laws describing the way planets move are fundamental laws of astronomy. However, this wasn't his only contribution to science. He was one of the greatest thinkers of the seventeenth century scientific revolution and in… Continue reading Kepler’s other achievements
Category: Uncategorized
Living on Venus
In this post I'll look into the distant future and talk about humans living and building settlements on the planet Venus. Because it is well beyond what we can achieve with our current technology, it is a topic that been more in the realm of science fiction rather than factual scientific writing. However, even though there are many difficult obstacles in… Continue reading Living on Venus
Virgin Galactic: what next ?
Like many people, I was was saddened to hear about the crash of Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two on a test flight yesterday, which resulted in the death of one of the pilots and the serious injury of the other. It is far too soon to say what caused the crash. That will have to wait… Continue reading Virgin Galactic: what next ?
First Humans on the Moon
Originally Posted July 2014 -Updated April 2026 On 20 July 2014 it was the 45th anniversary of the first crewed Moon landing. To commemorate this. I thought that I'd re-post an earlier article which discussed the first Moon landings. My next article, which I will post next week, will be on the subject of space… Continue reading First Humans on the Moon
Pluto may be wearing a dark belt of moon dust
An interesting blog post I found today. Did you know that Pluto, which is only one sixth the mass of the moon, used to be classified as a planet? However, in 2006 it was re-classified as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union.
Explaining Science 