Media

Pythagorean Astronomy: Einstein’s Revolution

Posted on 28 November 2015 by Chris North

November 2015 marks the centenary of the publication of one of the most important theories in physics: Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. On this month’s episode I chatted to Prof Mark Hannam and Dr Patrick Sutton. As part of the Gravitational Physics group here in Cardiff, Mark and Patrick try to understand the implications
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Water on Mars – Again!

Posted on 29 October 2015 by Chris North

In October 2015 we had news of the discovery of water on Mars – again! Almost a perennial story now, but is this discovery any different to previous discoveries, some of which stretch back to the 1970s? To find out more about this particular story, I spoke to UCL planetary scientist Peter Grindrod. Originally broadcast
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Pythagorean Astronomy: AstroCamp and Galaxies

Posted on 28 September 2015 by Chris North

The arrival of Autumn means one thing to astronomers: darker skies. Every spring an autumn, astronomers gather along with their telescopes, campervans and tents for “star parties”. One such meet-up is AstroCamp, held near Cwmdu in the Brecon Beacons. At just an hour or so north of Cardiff it’s not too far, and I’ve been going along to
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Pythagorean Astronomy: In conversation with Mark McCaughrean

Posted on 27 August 2015 by Chris North

On Monday 24th August, Cardiff was treated to a public talk by Prof Mark McCaughrean, Senior Science Advisor in the European Space Agency’s Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration. Mark spoke about the Rosetta mission, which has been studying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the past year, including the landing of Philae on the comet’s surface amid huge media attention.
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Pythagorean Astronomy: New Horizons at Pluto

Posted on 30 July 2015 by Chris North

On 14th July 2015 the New Horizons probe whizzed past Pluto, providing our first ever close-ups of this tiny world at the edge of our Solar System. This month, Edward Gomez and I discuss why Pluto is so fascinating, and what the first few images have told us. We also chatted about this month’s other
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Radio astronomy close-up

Posted on 28 June 2015 by Chris North

Radio telescopes are normally used for looking at very distant objects thousands, millions, or possibly even billions of light years away. But to do that, they have to look through the Earth’s atmosphere. For some radio astronomers the distorting effects of our atmosphere are an annoyance, but earlier this year Australian astronomers using the Murchison
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Solar System round-up

Posted on 28 May 2015 by Chris North

It’s a busy year in the Solar System for robotic explorers, with New Horizons on the way to distant Pluto, Dawn orbiting Ceres in the outer asteroid belt, and Rosetta and Philae accompanying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it makes its closets approach to the Sun. This month Dr Edward Gomez and I chat about these missions,
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Pythagorean Astronomy: End of the Messenger

Posted on 30 April 2015 by Chris North

The Messenger probe arrived in orbit around Mercury in March 2011, after a 7 year journey to the innermost planet in our Solar System. It mapped the entire surface of this tiny planet, of which we’d seen less than half from the previous mission back in the 1970s. Far from being a dry, inert ball
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Pythagoras’ Trousers: Making the Invisible, Visible

Posted on 2 April 2015 by Chris North

In this special documentary as part of the Pythagoras Trousers radio series, Rhys Phillips visits his alma mater, Cardiff University’s School of Physics & Astronomy, to find out about a new generation of detectors being developed to help see things in the far infra-red part of the spectrum. With contributions from Chris North, Peter Hargave,
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