Pythagorean Astronomy: 2018 – a year in space

Posted on 30 December 2018 by Chris North

Chris North, Mat Allen and Sarah Roberts discuss the highlights of 2018, and look forward to 2019. From missions to the inner Solar System, landers on Mars, and rovers on asteroids, lots has happened. In 2019, we’re looking forward to New Horizon’s flyby of Ultima Thule out in the Kuiper Belt, more results from the
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Kepler’s Legacy

Posted on 29 November 2018 by Chris North

Chris North, Sarah Roberts and Matt Smitth discuss the landing of NASA’s Insight probe, which is set to investigate the interior of Mars and search for Mars-quakes. Closer to home, we’re celebrating 20 years of the International Space Station this month. In astrophysics research, Cardiff researchers, including Matt, were involved in a study of exploding
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Vulcans, dust storms, and water on Mars

Posted on 27 September 2018 by Chris North

Chris North, Sarah Roberts and Mat Allen discuss a number of recent news stories. One of the latest planets to be discovered, “40 Eridani A a”, seems to be a lot like the fictional planet Vulcan, home to Spock in Star Trek. The RemoveDEBRIS mission has test-fired its net, and the Hyabusa 2 mission has
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Parking near the Sun

Posted on 30 August 2018 by Chris North

Earlier this month it was announced that an entrepreneur would like to launch an “artificial star” into orbit, adding to the mass of space junk. Chris North and Edward Gomez give their views on the matter, and how missions such as RemoveDEBRIS might help. Further afield, there’s more water on Mars – or in this
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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: Missions to Mars and plumes from Europa

Posted on 31 May 2018 by Chris North

This month has seen missions large and small launch towards Mars, and new results from the Gaia satellite. What gets astronomers so excited about such datasets? Meanwhile, astronomers have been using machine learning to address a number of problems – we discuss a couple of examples which have been published recently, one about exoplanets and
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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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