Pythagorean Astronomy: Venus resurfaces

Posted on 1 March 2022 by Chris North

Back in September 2020, the new broke that an unexpected gas, phosphine had been discovered in the atmosphere of Venus. While plans for making further measurements are progressing, the theoreticians have been hard at work modelling the atmosphere, and trying to explain how life could possibly exist in such a harsh environment Dr William Bains,
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Radio Repeater

Posted on 7 February 2022 by Chris North

When a mysterious signal was found by an undergraduate student, Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker was perplexed. It was hiding in archival data from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a large network of radio antennas in Western Australia. Based at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Natasha started to loop deeper. Repeating every 18 minutes, and
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Mysterious visitors bearing gifts

Posted on 29 December 2021 by Chris North

The first interstellar object to be discovered was ‘Oumuamua, detected in 2017. Joined by Comet 2I/Borisov a couple of years later, astronomers are eagerly awaiting further discoveries of such objects, which were ejected from other solar systems. We explore what the link is between these interstellar objects and the history of star formation around the
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Pythagorean Astronomy: The Cosmic Webb

Posted on 6 December 2021 by Chris North

The world of astronomy is eagerly awaiting the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope later in December. The telescope is not without controversy, but is set to revolutionise observations of the cosmos. Prof Pete Hargrave was responsible for building a calibration source for MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Imager, while Dr Tim Davis will be observing
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Lucy in the Sky with Trojans

Posted on 6 November 2021 by Chris North

Back in 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft whizzed past Pluto on its way out of the Solar System. A few years later, as it continued on its way through the Kuiper Belt, it passed by a snowman-shaped object called Arrokoth. More recently, it’s discovered two objects that are in fact four – binary objects comprised
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Supernova Detective Story

Posted on 3 October 2021 by Chris North

Way back in 1181 AD, astronomers in China and Japan recorded a “guest star” – something that we’d now call a supernova. Over 800 years later, astronomers made a connection between this ancient observation and more recent studies of a very unusual object that goes by the name of “Parker’s Star”. Prof Quentin Parker, from
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Pythagorean Astronomy: It’s the Small Things: Exomoons

Posted on 8 September 2021 by Chris North

The last month or so has seen several cases of small things being discovered. The first is an asteroid, 2021 27PH, which gets closer to the Sun than Mercury. What could we learn about fundamental science from such an object? The second is one of the smallest exoplanets detected, at less than half the mass
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Herding Megacomets

Posted on 29 July 2021 by Chris North

In late June an interesting object was discovered heading inwards from the outer solar system, identified in archival images from a survey of the sky. It was initially thought to be worth keeping an eye on over the next decade or so, as it approaches the orbit of Saturn before heading back out to the
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Cosmic Developments

Posted on 1 July 2021 by Chris North

Our understand of the Universe has changed a great deal in the last 100 years. From Einstein’s theories of relativity and measurements of the expanding Universe, to the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the mysterious Dark Energy. But what are the current mysteries and unknowns that we still want to uncover? And how
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Learned Societies and Society Learning

Posted on 2 June 2021 by Chris North

This month, we’re joined by two people who’ve just been elected to prestigious roles in science here in the UK. Professor Mike Edmunds has just become President-elect of the Royal Astronomical Society, while Professor Bernard Schutz has recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Both these societies have a long history, and we
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