Skywatching
The time when our fundamental understanding of the universe changed
A few centuries ago, many believed our planet was the centre of creation and everything we see in the sky orbits around us. Then, we found our world is just one...
Long, long ago, in a distant galaxy
Twenty-one million years ago, a star in a distant galaxy exploded. The galaxy, known as Messier 101, is located in the constellation of Ursa Major, "The...
How a planet comes to the end of its life
Imagine a planet slowly spiralling in towards its star. As it gets closer the increasing heat, together with the star's equivalent of the solar wind, blast...
Biggest mistake of Albert Einstein's life remembered
If you have ever seen videos of astronauts in training on the "Vomit Comet,” ridden on a particularly exciting roller-coaster or maybe even tried...
A really good theory but...
Until a few years ago we were pretty confident we knew how planetary systems form around stars. A cloud collapses into a disc. The centre of the disc forms a...
A dagger from the stars
In 1922, when archaeologist Howard Carter opened up the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the first undisturbed ancient Egyptian royal tomb to be discovered, he...
Globular clusters with hundreds of stars spotted in space
In summer, the constellation Hercules, named after the hero in Greek myths, is high in the sky. The constellation looks like a broad-shouldered, headless man...
James Webb Space Telescope's view of the universe
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to make the front pages in astronomy news. One of the latest images is of the planet Uranus, the seventh planet...
The Sun's impact on our solar system is important
In February 2022, a burst of high solar activity caused the loss of a set of Starlink satellites that were in the process of deployment. The solar activity...
Kicking up a lot of cosmic dust
By now most of us must have seen the incredible images produced by the James Webb Space Telescope. Then of course, there are the beautiful images obtained using...
Inhospitable planet only beautiful from far, far away
Venus is one of the most beautiful sights in the sky. That brilliant, white spark in the morning or evening star got it referred to as Phosphorus "The...
Making really big telescopes
As I write this, the biggest radio telescope ever built, and maybe likely to be built for a very long time, is taking shape. Part of it is in Africa and the...
Conjunctions and 'rising worms' in space
On March 2, the planets Venus and Jupiter were within half of a degree of each other in the western sky after sunset. That is closer together than the width of...
Galaxy found with multiple black holes
A distant dwarf galaxy, located some 7.5 billion light years away (which means it is so far away its light is taking that long to get here), has ejected a...
How to make a really big bang
To make a very big bang in space, we need two stars orbiting fairly closely around each other. These so-called “double” stars are really quite...
Too far to fly to the stars
Several thousand planets orbiting other stars have been found so far and some are "Earthlike.” So far, almost all these planets have been found by...
Looking at the origins of the Moon
Around 4.5 billion years ago, the formation of the Sun's family of planets was in full swing. Dust and lumps of rock and ice were colliding and joining...
The threat to Earth by celestial ‘vermin’
On Jan. 26 a tiny asteroid passed Earth, a mere 3600 km away, at a speed of around 9.3 kilometres a second. Known as 2023 BU, it was discovered by Crimean...
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...