Bunny dump investigated
'The things you see at work'
Officer's mentor testifies
'Woke' free speech standoff
Act probe granted extension
'Political theatre,' says NDP
1.27 million protested
Harris to attend funeral
Ukraine calls for fighter jets
Home sales to flatten
Nike sues Lululemon
AI detection tool launches
Hurt player out of hospital
Chiefs player hospitalized
Siblings to skate for BC
New plan for 'DC Universe'
'Bad Boys' sequel planned
Weeknd tops Juno noms
Skywatching
Light pollution is stopping us from seeing the night sky properly
We're a funny species. On one side, we like to lie on our backs by lakes in the woods, or at other dark places, and enjoy looking at a starry sky. Poets,...
The age-old question: Is there life on other planets?
One of the planets being studied with the James Webb Space Telescope is about the size of the Earth. However, it lies so close to its star that it only takes...
Hisses, whistles and clicks—the sound of the magnetosphere
Quite a few years ago now, an ionospheric physicist and I were a long way up a dirt, logging road in Algonquin Park, in Ontario. The idea was to get a long way...
The era of really huge telescopes has arrived
An optical telescope with a mirror 30 metres in diameter is being built. Also under construction is the largest radio telescope in history. This need for...
Listing the faint ‘fuzzies’ in space
Comets are among the most beautiful sights in the night sky. For a few weeks maybe, they grace the sky before vanishing again. We see a glowing head followed by...
Astronomical highlights of 2022
In this last article of 2022, it seems appropriate to mention two of the most exciting things in astronomy that happened this year. The first is the successful...
Celestial change that causes the winter solstice
On Dec. 21, we will reach the winter solstice. The Sun will rise latest and set earliest, be lowest in the sky at noon and we will have the shortest period of...
Repeating high-energy explosions in space
The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment radio telescope (CHIME), located at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory just south of Penticton,...
Why we have the Centaur, the Phoenix and the Furnace in the night sky
All over the world, different races and cultures have impressed their myths on the stars. Heroes and objects from mythology are there in the sky as groupings of...
Our neighbouring black hole
Black holes are rather menacing objects. Stars, planets, dust and any other material getting too close fall in. There is an intense flash of radiation and...
Learning more about 'white dwarf' stars
It might be surprising that “white dwarf” stars, the relics of stars like our Sun that have run out of fuel, are useful cosmic stopwatches. The...
Learning from impacts areas on the Moon
If you look at the Moon through binoculars or a small telescope, two sorts of terrain stand out. There are lighter-coloured, mountainous regions that are...
Stars absorbing planets while leaving 'zombie' planets behind
It is widely accepted among the scientific community that over the next few billion years the Sun will swell into a red giant star, absorbing Mercury and Venus,...
Explosion detected in space was creation of a massive black hole
On Oct. 9, orbiting observatories detected the biggest burst of gamma rays we have ever seen. It was so strong it affected our ionosphere. It came from the...
Looking at Wolf-Rayet stars in outer space
The amazing images produced so far by the James Webb Space Telescope have captured the attention of the media. They are easy to find on-line, just search for...
Successful move pushing asteroid off course
NASA has just achieved a major feat in astronavigation. A spacecraft has successfully impacted an asteroid that is orbiting another asteroid. This is not just a...
Looking at 'sunquakes' and 'starquakes'
One of the programs at our observatory is monitoring activity on the Sun. This is done using two small radio telescopes. We do this because many of our...
A new look at Neptune
When the James Webb Space Telescope was launched, we all had great expectations as to what the telescope would show us. The instrument is living up to those...
Gauging ‘planetquakes’ and ‘moonquakes’
When the Apollo astronauts went to the Moon, among the instruments they installed were seismometers, devices for detecting vibrations in the...
The North Star is not the constant we think is
Most of us know how to find the Pole, or North Star. We find the Dipper and follow the line indicated by the pair of stars opposite the handle. It is the star...
