I have recently written an article for my local amateur astronomical society about distance measurements in cosmology. There is a lot of confusion about what we mean by "distance" on the vast such scales and the article was written to help clear up of these misunderstandings. It is an expanded version of a shorter blog… Continue reading Measuring Distances in Cosmology
On 18 December a Ariane 5 rocket will take off from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, aboard it will be the $12 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - the most expensive scientific instrument ever launched into space. In this post I’ll talk about this remarkable telescope and the mission to deploy it.… Continue reading James Webb Telescope
Now that Europe and North America have moved back to winter time from Daylight Saving Time my readers living in these regions will be experiencing the darker evenings and lighter mornings. I have decided to create a poll about how you my readers feel about the twice yearly clock change. It will be interesting… Continue reading Poll – Would you abolish DST?
In the early hours of Sunday 31 October the clocks go back an hour throughout most of Europe and daylight saving time (DST) comes to an end. In this post I'll talk about the practice of putting the clocks backwards and forwards and why this may be coming to an end The beginning of DST… Continue reading Daylight Saving Time ends
In 2019, the year before the restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic, the world energy consumption was slightly higher at around 170 000 TWh. In this post I will talk about some of the science behind this amazing fact and discuss the challenge of getting solar energy from where it is plentiful to where it is… Continue reading Opportunities for solar energy
Explaining Science 