Updated 13 December 2025 ------------------------------ As I complete this post, it's completely dark outside and it's only 5 o'clock in the afternoon; most people I come across think that it will continue to get dark earlier and earlier in the afternoons until the date of the winter solstice which for the UK in 2025 falls… Continue reading The evenings are drawing out already
Tag: Astronomy
Astronomy Items
The discovery of dark energy
The is a now an expanded and updated version of this post available at: https://explainingscience.org/2020/12/10/dark-energy-an-unexpected-finding/ The Expansion of the Universe Astronomers have known since the late 1920’s that the Universe is expanding. By this we mean that distances between objects which are not bound together by another force, such as gravity, increase over time.… Continue reading The discovery of dark energy
Jim Peebles winner of the Noble Prize 2019
I was interested to hear that Jim Peebles, at the age of 84, has won a half share of the 2019 Noble Prize for physics for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology. Jim Peebles (1935-) Image from Wikimedia commons In the early 1960s Peebles and his colleague Robert Dicke had predicted the existence of the microwave… Continue reading Jim Peebles winner of the Noble Prize 2019
The September equinox
In 2019 September 23 is the date of the September equinox and is also the first day of autumn (or the first day of spring if you're one of my readers in the Southern Hemisphere). In this post I’ll talk about the equinoxes and discus the commonly held view that they are the two days in… Continue reading The September equinox
12-13 August 2019 – the Perseids
For revised post containing more tips on how to view the Perseids see The Perseids 2021. 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 a very high speed (in the case of the Perseids around 200,000 km/h). As… Continue reading 12-13 August 2019 – the Perseids
Explaining Science 