These are some of my cosmology posts
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COP26 Two years on
On 30 November 2023 the 28th United Nations Climate Change conference (COP 28) will open at Expo City, Dubai My somewhat pessimistic 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 promising – mainly because there is the competing objective…
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September 23 2023 the equinox
In 2023 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, but incorrect, view that they are the…
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A Cyclical Universe
Updated March 2026 In The End of the Universe I remarked on the surprising similarity between conditions in the very early Universe, just after the Big Bang, and the far future of the Universe. In this post I’ll give an overview of Roger Penrose’s model of the Universe in which it passes endlessly through a…
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Commercial Space Travel
Although a small number of extremely wealthy space tourists have paid millions of dollars for orbital spaceflight, by their very nature only a handful of people can take part in these spaceflights each year. It looks like Virgin Galactic will start commercial spaceflights aimed a larger audience soon. According to the Virgin Galactic Website Galactic…
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The End of the Universe
In the Universe’s far future, star formation will cease, and it will contain white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. Over immense timescales, stellar remnants will decay, and black holes will evaporate through Hawking radiation. Ultimately, the Universe will consist solely of low-energy photons and dark energy, mirroring its early state.… Continue reading The End…
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The Lyrids 2023
The night of 22/23 April 2023 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…
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Roger Penrose – Cycles of Time
Revised March 2026 Conformal cyclical cosmology (CCC) is Roger Penrose’s model of the Universe where it passes endlessly through a possibly infinite number of cycles (or aeons) each of which starts with a big bang and ends with a rapidly expanding empty universe. This fascinating idea was proposed in a rather technical book titled Cycles…
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The equinox 20 March 2023
In 2023 March 20 is the date of the March equinox and is also the first day of spring (or the first day of autumn if you’re one of my readers in the Southern Hemisphere). In this post I’ll talk about the equinoxes and discuss the commonly held, but not quite correct, view, that they…
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Christmas Day January 7th?
Happy New Year to my readers and followers and I hope you have successful 2023. Although for most us the Christmas and New year festivities are over, for followers of the Orthodox form of Christianity, Christmas is yet to come, as they don’t celebrate their Christmas until January 7. The reasons for celebrating Christmas 13…
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No more leap seconds
With all the events going on in the world it passed almost unnoticed that a decision was made recently to abolish the leap second. The resolution was made on 18 November 2022 during a meeting held in Paris held by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. What is a leap second? The length of…
Explaining Science 