Skywatching
Searching for the Milky Way's Black Hole
When we look into the southern sky close to the horizon on summer evenings, we are looking towards the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is lurking...
Looking at where we came from
Where did we come from? The main science-based ideas propose life on Earth began in shallow, sunlit water, or around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean. The...
Looking at how our universe will come to an end
Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe began, in an event often referred to as the "Big Bang". At some point in the remote future, we think the...
Venus: From steamy jungle to super hot furnace
One of the demonstrations done for public tours of the (National Research Council's Dominion Radio Astrophysical) observatory (in Penticton) involves a...
Astronomy on the Moon’s far side
The image showed a group of distant galaxies in what would have been beautiful detail. However the image was crossed by lots of white lines, rather like the...
What ripples in 'space time' can tell us
If you have ever sat by a pond on a summer's afternoon, you must have spent some time looking at the ripples. When a fish surfaces for a moment it leaves...
Space telescope spots 12.8 billion-year-old star
The image does not look very impressive, just a faint, somewhat blurry dot. However, that dot is an image of the oldest and most distant individual star we have...
Hard to believe there isn't life elsewhere in universe
We're all familiar with the sorts of alien we get in science fiction movies. They are usually humanlike and often move slowly because the actors cannot see...
Finding signs of life elsewhere in the universe will not be easy
The story in "A for Andromeda", a book by Fred Hoyle and John Eliot, starts with the last-minute tests before the opening of a new radio telescope. ...
Many astonomical discoveries made by amateurs
Today our astronomical tool kit includes telescopes with 10-metre diameter mirrors (or bigger), radio telescope arrays spanning continents, and of course all...
Taking a closer look at the unseen universe
The project sounded tedious but straightforward—to find out how matter is distributed in spiral galaxies. One approach was to carefully count the stars...
Exploring oceans on other planets may provide us answers
The deepest point in the Earth's oceans lies almost 11 kilometres below the surface. Down there it is cold and has seen no sunlight for millions of years....
Black holes the most efficient energy sources in the universe
Astronomers observing the core region of a galaxy 1.2 billion light years away have detected what could be the buildup to an extremely high-energy...
James Webb Space Telescope preparing to keep an eye on space
The James Webb Space Telescope is now at its parking place about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, located so that the Earth is between it and the Sun. Now it...
Moon plays a large part in Earth's continued existence
As part of our quest to find out if we are alone in the universe, our search is strongly focussed on “Earth-like” planets—worlds like ours. So...
Trying to see into the centre of our galaxy
The MeerKat radio telescope, located in southern Africa has produced some absolutely stunning images revealing what is going on in the centre of our galaxy, the...
Looking for watery life on other planets
Now that we know our world is just one of countless billions of planets scattered across the universe, is it reasonable to assume ours is the only one with...
Cosmic 'bubbles' are just some of what fills 'empty' space
Our Solar System is currently moving through a cosmic bubble. This void in space is about 1,000 light years wide. (A light year is the distance light travels...
Cosmics explosions: From solar flares to the Big Bang
There are places in the universe where colossal amounts of energy are stored. Most of the time, it is slowly released non-catastrophically, but on some...
The search for rogue planets in outer space
Imagine a world upon which the Sun has not shone for millions or billions of years, or maybe ever. It is wandering the spaces between the stars and the only...