These are some of my cosmology posts
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Understanding Cosmic Distances
I recently read an article from a popular astronomy website called Universe Today. It stated that: “…the CMB [cosmic microwave background radiation] is visible at a distance of 13.8 billion light years in all directions from Earth, leading scientists to determine that this is the true age of the Universe. “ This statement isn’t quite correct.…
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James Webb Telescope
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.…
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Poll – Would you abolish DST?
Update 1 January 2022. This poll is now closed. To see the results click here 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…
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Daylight Saving Time ends
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…
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Opportunities for solar energy
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…
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September 22 the equinox
In 2021 September 22 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…
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The Perseids 2021
The night of 12/13 August will be the peak of the Perseids, 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 (in the case of the Perseids around 200,000 km/h).…
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Congratulations Blue Origin!
A week is certainly a long time in crewed spaceflight! Following Richard Branson’s trip to “the edge of space” on Sunday 11 July, Jeff Bezos went one step further on July 20. He made a short journey to space, in the first crewed flight of his Blue Origin rocket ship, New Shepard. As the spacecraft…
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Congratulations Virgin Galactic
Great news from Virgin Galactic on Sunday. Although according to the widely used definition, their spacecraft didn’t quite get into space. Most international authorities define that space begins at an altitude of 100 km (the Karman line), whereas VSS Unity reached an altitude of 86 km, but a fantastic achievement nevertheless !!. For those who…
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The Space Shuttle 10 years on
Ten years ago, on 8 July 2011 Atlantis took off for the final mission of a Space Shuttle, bringing to close a programme which had lasted nearly 40 years and had cost the equivalent of $220 billion in 2021 dollars. In this post I’ll review this fascinating and unique piece of technology. The landing of…
Explaining Science 