Artist's impression of Proxima b

Pythagorean Astronomy: Proxima b

Posted on 26 August 2016 by Chris North

After a few weeks of rumours, the announcement of the discovery of an Earth-size (maybe!) planet around the Sun’s nearest neighbour has caused quite a stir. The planet is more massive than the Earth, but probably not by much, and sits in a location where liquid water could (at least in principle), exist on it’s
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Perseid Meteor by Pete Lawrence

Perseid Meteor Shower

Posted on 9 August 2016 by Chris North

Meteors, or shooting stars, are bright streaks of light originating from tiny grains of debris — often only the size of a grain of sand — whizzing through our atmosphere at speeds of tens of thousands of km per hour. Most of them originate from the trails of debris left by comets as they move
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Mission Juno

Posted on 28 July 2016 by Chris North

In July 2016 NASA’s Juno spacecraft completed its five year journey to the planet Jupiter. On board is a suite of instruments and experiments that will provide exquisite insight into the history of our Solar System’s largest planet. The process of Jupiter’s formation is a long-standing mystery that planetary scientists have been trying to answer for decades. As the University
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Pythagorean Astronomy: The Origins of Black Holes

Posted on 30 June 2016 by Chris North

On 15th June 2016 the LIGO collaboration released more detections of gravitational waves. As with the first detection, announced back in February, these gravitational waves were emitted by pairs of black holes, spiralling together and merging, But of course, those black holes need to come from somewhere, and in this case it’s thought to be the deaths of
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Astronomy at the Hay Festival

Posted on 16 June 2016 by Haley Gomez

Academics from the School were invited to appear at the international renowned Hay Festival this year as part of the Cardiff University series. Professor Sathyaprakash and Dr Patrick Sutton told the audience about the incredible science and personal discoveries behind the detection of gravitational waves in February this year.  This event, chaired by Professor Haley Gomez,
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Pythagorean Astronomy: New worlds

Posted on 26 May 2016 by Chris North

This month’s focus is on two different stories, but both involving the same spacecraft: Kepler. Edward Gomez and I discuss a result from the outer edge of our Solar System, regarding the icy world that goes by the catchy name of “2007 OR10”. By combining information from the Kepler Spacecraft, now in the second phase
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A 1-meter telescope in the LCOGT network

ISE 2016 Observing Challenge

Posted on 17 May 2016 by Brychan Govier

Take part in the ISE 2016 Observing Challenge and receive a personalised astronomical poster for your class! The Universe is a big place. More than big — it includes everything that exists! Help your students understand the magnitude of the cosmos by using your class time to explore some of the objects in the vast
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Interplanetary explorers

Posted on 29 April 2016 by Chris North

In this month’s instalment, Edward Gomez and I chat about interplanetary explorers to the icy worlds of Pluto and Ceres, and Cassini’s capture of interstellar dust as it passed through the Saturn system. And, of course, we look ahead to May’s Transit of Mercury, which we’ll be viewing with members of the public and school groups here
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Pythagorean Astronomy: to Mars – and Beyond!

Posted on 31 March 2016 by Chris North

March 2016 saw the launch of the first part of Europe’s two-part mission to Mars. The mission, called ExoMars, comprises the “Trace Gas Orbiter” – the part that’s just launched – and a large rover, which launches in 2018. The orbiter will sniff the atmosphere to test for evidence of past  – or maybe even present – life. Elsewhere
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