Pythagorean Astronomy: On Board with DART

Posted on 2 November 2022 by Chris North

At the end of September, NASA’s DART mission was deliberately crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos. Not carelessness, but a deliberate act with a view to testing planetary defense. After all, if we discover something large heading towards Earth, we might want to be able to nudge it off course. Here in Wales, the Comet Chasers
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The Welsh school children helping NASA save the planet from asteroid strikes

Posted on 26 September 2022 by Chris North

In Hollywood movies like Armageddon, Deep Impact, or the more recent Don’t Look Up, it is the Americans who save the Earth from the disaster of an asteroid or comet impact. But now Welsh school children are getting in on the act, observing an asteroid in support of An exciting NASA mission. NASA and partners
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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: Asteroid tagging and Stellar Spaghettification

Posted on 29 October 2020 by Chris North

Chris North and Edward Gomez give a round-up of the month in astronomy. Towards the end of October, NASA’s Osiris Rex spacecraft grabbed a sample from the asteroid Bennu. What happens next, and what might we learn from these samples? Chris and Edward discuss. There’s also an update on Betelgeuse (however you chose to pronounce
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Biomarkers, near-misses and anniversaries

Posted on 30 May 2019 by Chris North

A roundup of the month’s news from around the Solar System – and beyond. You don’t think of mars rovers having drawers, but that’s exactly what has just been installed on the Rosalind Franklin Rover, part of ESA’s ExoMars mission. This is no ordinary drawer, of course, but the “Analytical Laboratory Drawer”, designed to test
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Pythagorean Astronomy: flying space-shrapnel and a misbehaving Universe

Posted on 2 April 2019 by Chris North

In December 2018 an object hit the Earth’s atmosphere at over 100,000 kph over the Arctic Ocean, entirely unnoticed, until the orange streak was spotted in satellite imagery. Meanwhile, two missions are currently exploring much larger asteroids – Japan’s Hyabusa-2 mission to Ryugu and NASA’s Osiris-REX mission to Bennu. Chris North and Edward Gomez discuss
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Organics, asteroids and Nobel Prize winners

Posted on 28 June 2018 by Chris North

There were new results about organic compounds from two places in the Solar System this month: the planet Mars and the dwarf planet Ceres. We discuss what organic compounds are, and why their discovery doesn’t mean we’ve found life, but is still an interesting find. Further afield, the ALMA telescope has been finding planets orbiting
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Tumbling Space Cucumbers and 5000 sols on Mars

Posted on 1 March 2018 by Chris North

Ever taken a selfie on your birthday? Well, that’s just what the Mars Rover Opportunity did to celebrate its 5000th “sol” (martian day) on Mars. This doesn’t sound like much, but 5000 sols is about 14 years – not bad for a rover that was only expected to last about 3 months! The selfie –
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