Ask any number of astronomers who they believe to be the most influential figures in 20th century astronomy and chances are you will hear the name of Vera Rubin being uttered a few times. Recipient of numerous awards and accolades including the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal, Vera Rubin (nee Read more…
The month of December offers us the most intense meteor shower of the year. These are the Geminids, so-called because they appear to emanate from the constellation of Gemini the Twins. At the peak of the shower, over 120 meteors – two meteors every minute – can be spotted under Read more…
Armagh Observatory and Planetarium reports that, if skies are clear on the morning of 19th November 2021, sky-watchers will witness a partial eclipse of the Moon. The eclipse begins at 0720 am Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) when the Moon is only 5 deg above the NW horizon. At that time Read more…
Orionids are debris from comet Halley that graced Earth’s skies in 1986 and is expected to return to the vicinity of the Sun in 2061. Orionids tend to be quite fast, hitting the Earth’s atmosphere at 66 km /sec. This is fast enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean in about Read more…
by Apostolos Christou During the past week, Earth passed through the core of the Perseid meteor shower. The peak of the shower – when up to 100 Perseids could be observed under clear conditions away from light pollution – occurred between the 11th and 13th of August. Three bright Perseids Read more…
When Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin touched down near the lunar Appenine mountains in the summer of 1971, they brought along a rover to aid them in their exploits. The use of this Lunar Roving Vehicle – or LRV as it was called – was the first Read more…
by Apostolos Christou On the 11th of July 2021, we were informed that Virgin Galactic’s CEO Sir Richard Branson and his fellow passengers onboard VSS Unity reached “the edge of space”. But why “the edge” and not simply “space”, surely space is a well-defined domain so that one either reaches Read more…
How many moons can you see with the naked eye? The answer may surprise you.. Of the hundreds of moons orbiting the planets of our solar system, all but four are too faint to see with the naked eye. One of the four is, of course, Earth’s own Moon. The Read more…
Armagh Observatory and Planetarium reports that, if skies are clear on the morning of 10th June 2021, sky-watchers will witness a partial eclipse of the Sun. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, in effect casting a shadow on our planet. When the Read more…
What do a tree, a colander and a piece of cardboard have in common? The answer: they can all be used to observe a solar eclipse! Our Sun – the brightest star in the sky – has been the subject of intense scrutiny ever since human beings began to interrogate Read more…