December 2008
20 posts
1 tag
My 2008
Over on my personal blog, as mentioned the otherday, I’ve put together a review of my 2008 - it includes some astronomy but mostly about my travels… if you fancy taking a look see here.
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The International Year of Astronomy
We are on the verge of the start of the International Year of Astronomy. 2009 looks to be a year packed full of fun astronomical based activities - so go and find out what is going on near you (for the UK take a look at the IYA UK Node and the FAS webpages). Why 2009 you may ask? Well the first and probably most important reason is that 2009 is 400 years since Galileo first made recorded...
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Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope
It’s almost been a year since I was last out at the worlds most sensitive, highest resolution, low frequency radio telescope. I’ve not actually posted much about this, or indeed the radio astronomy work I do here but I though I’d give you a quick post about this and give you a couple of pictures.
The GMRT (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope) is based in Khodad which is not too far...
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Carbonate deposits found on Mars
After a long search scientists have announced the discovery of substantial deposits of carbonate rocks on Mars. These rocks do not appear to have been formed from the bed of a long-lost ocean but there is hope that the rocks might hold preserved traces of organic matter from the planet’s early history.
Carbonate deposits on Mars, seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (credit:...
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Happy winter Solstice!
Today was the winter solstice.. I personally couldn’t see much of the Sun due to the thick cloud.. but I do hope you went out an celebrated the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere, though I’d just point that out!). Read more about the solstice here. It has quite a lot of significance amongst Pagans and here are some pictures of some people at Stonehenge. A webcast of...
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Seasons Greetings from Hubble
The Hubble space telescope website has a great selection of holiday cards… so why not send your colleagues/friends/family (insert which person you want to send something different) a picture of the cosmos for Christmas this year? Here is an example:
Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms... →
I don’t think there is any real need to worry but expect power grid and satellite failures to become more often. On the plus side we might see some nice aurorae.
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Christmas Tree Cluster
Well it is approaching Christmas and us astronomer do try and get into the feel of it really… here we have the so-called Christmas Tree star cluster which includes many stellar “nurseries,” providing brilliant opportunities for the study of star birth. If you can’t see what I’m talking about then I’d understand but look at the blue stars they make out a nice...
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The Star of Bethlehem
I’ve heard many discussions on the nature of the “star of Bethlehem” and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anything satisfactory apart from a chance alignment of a few objects (planets and a bright star) in the East. Though a big issue is when really was Jesus born? I’m not sure we know that answer. As a scientist I’m really not sure we can comment, we just...
Exoplanet may harbour stormy skies →
This article suggests signs of water and, perhaps, weather on a distant ‘hot Jupiter’.. I find the data a bit hard to believe (well I think they take their results a bit too far)… but definitely interesting.
Largest Moon of the year
Back on Friday you would have seen the largest full moon over the year. I doubt, unless you are a seasoned observer you would have noticed any effect. Why was it bigger? Well the Earth and the Moon (and of course the Sun….) are all bound together by gravity. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days. But the orbit is not a perfect circle. The moon’s average distance from us is...
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Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008 →
Not the traditional advent calendar but a nice spin! Go look at the glories of the heavens.
Carbon Dioxide Detected on Exoplanet HD 189733b
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide on a planet orbiting another star. This is pretty interesting stuff and a step forward in extrasolar planetary studies, hopefull aiding plans for future James Webb Space Telescope observations of extrasolar planets. See here for more.
Geminid Meteors
Fancy seeing some shooting stars? The best meteor shower of the year tends to be the Geminids and they are just starting to get going. The peak is expected somewhere between the 13th at around 6pm. There is one big problem - a nice big and bright full Moon coincides with the full moon. The best view will probably be got by observing around the 13th when the Moon is out of the sky (or try and block...
Mr. Accelerator “vs.” Mr. Telescope →
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Liquid Nitrogen and the Banana
What happens when you put a banana into liquid nitrogen? Well… lets see:
(this definitely provided a nice distraction from the afternoon laboratory session :-)) OK, so that’s cool.. but why does freezing a banana make it so brittle? Well… bananas have a large water content. As the banana is frozen this causes millions of tiny ice crystals to form. These form in many...
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The Solar Spectrum with a digital camera
The other day, whilst teaching a lab I decided to get a simple spectrometer out and aim it at the day lit sky. This allows you to observe the solar spectrum without the chance of blinding yourself (you should never stare or aim any optical aid at the Sun). I then placed my digital camera on the end of it and aligned it roughly to get:
The dark bands on the images are absorption lines in...
Wood Plank Found on Mars? →
This is quite an amusing article and at first, to the untrained eye, the picture does indeed look like a wood plank! Of course, it isn’t though!
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Operation SkyPhoto
I’m not one for advertising things that involve cash but this is for a good cause, damn it!
“Operation SkyPhoto is a project aimed to raise funds towards helping out with Alexander Thatte’s treatment and research into leukaemia. Alexander is the son of two members of the Physics department of the University of Oxford. He has been battling leukaemia for 4 years with chemotherapy...
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Lunar Conjunction
Last night, the three brightest objects in the night sky converged, producing a triple-conjunction. I managed to get a half decent view between spells of cloud from my flat window…
So in this image you have the Moon, with Venus just to the bottom right and then just a bit higher and to the right Jupiter! Not bad for a 5 minute break in the cloud.