By Duncan Lunan The Moon will be New on January 11th, Full on January 25th. It passes near Venus on the 8th and is near Venus and Mercury on the 9th, passing […]
The Sky Above You – January 2024
Humour in Science
By Duncan Lunan When the late John Braithwaite was working with me on the Glasgow Parks Astronomy Project, as part of the Jobs Creation Scheme, (1978-79) we and the other ‘Special Projects’ […]
The Earth’s Wobble #OnThisDay
On the 31st of December 1744 English astronomer James Bradley announced the discovery of Earth’s nutation motion or wobble. Bradley’s star measurements in 1727–32 revealed what he called the “annual change of declination […]
’Oumuamua – Astronautical Explanations
Most sources say that `Oumuamua came from very near Vega, in the constellation Lyra. Vega is a young blue-white star 25 light-years away, surrounded by what may be a disc of planet-forming material, and `Oumuamua might have been ejected from there; but the agreement isn’t all that close. `Oumuamua came from Right Ascension 279º.55, declination 33º.87, and the corresponding figures for Vega are 270º.61 and 38º.78
Studying Saturn’s Spokes
This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023, when the ringed planet was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s ultra-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring […]
Oumuamua – Astronautical Explanations
by Duncan Lunan First published in different form as ‘The Solar System’s First Interstellar Visitor ’Oumumua Revisited’, Concatenation, September 14th 2021; revised and updated, Analog, May-June 2023; follow-up letter, ‘Brass Tacks’, Analog, […]
“This thing is a real monster.” #Astronomy #JWST
Astronomers with the COSMOS-Web collaboration have identified a ghostly object AzTECC71 as a dusty star-forming galaxy. Or, in other words, a galaxy that’s busy forming many new stars but is shrouded in […]
The Sky Above You – December 2023
By Duncan Lunan On December 1st the Moon will be in line with Castor and Pollux in Gemini. It will be New on December 12th, and Full on December 27th, when it […]
The Sky Above You – November 2023 #Astronomy
By Duncan Lunan The Moon will be New on November 13th, and Full on November 27th, very near Venus on the 9th and occulting it in daylight (see below). There’s some interesting […]
Understanding the ‘quiet’ surface of the Sun
“We have used the most powerful solar optical telescope in the world to reveal the most complex magnetic-field orientations ever seen at the smallest scales. This brings us closer to understanding one […]
