Time is among the most mysterious of fundamental quantities. Time was originally defined and quantified through astronomy, and today astronomers are used to glibly talking of vast stretches of time. But even after Einstein showed time to be an elastic, changing thing we still have to resolve all its mysteries. Read more…
An image from the European Southern Observatory, reveals two galaxies, NGC 3169 and NGC 3166, meeting in intergalactic space. What kind of cosmic drama ensues in these close encounters of galaxies? Once the Universe was a quiet and peaceful place. Galaxies serenely sailed through the void in splendid isolation. Today Read more…
Professor Brian Cox has been back on our screens this month in his latest BBC2 series Wonders of the Universe. Over the past few weeks, the Prof has guided us through the Universe as we’ve never seen it before! Our Universe is estimated to be around 13.7 billion years old, Read more…
“The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “Contact”, “2001: A Space Odyssey” and many other movies have depicted the first contact between humans and aliens. Do scientists really listen for messages from extraterrestrials? Are they prepared if they ever do pick up anything? Martina Redpath investigates. We all at some point Read more…
Gleaned from NASA and Hubblesite.org, here are some facts you may not know about the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). 1. The HST’s history is longer than you might have thought, going back to just after World War II. In 1946, the astronomer Lyman Spitzer (1914-97) identified the main advantages Read more…
NGC 2841 is a rather beautiful flocculent spiral galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope recently imaged NGC 2841 as part of an investigation into how new stars are created. How do stars form? It is a question which intrigues astronomers and it is a very important one too with implications for Read more…
Our Image of the Month is a radically different view of the great spiral galaxy in Andromeda from the European Space Agency. Tracy McConnell explains how it was made and describes the stellar cataclysms it reveals. The inspiration here came from a new ESA image of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, Read more…
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope continues to produce stunning images. Let’s examine a particularly pretty recent treat, revealing the aftermath of a cosmic disaster. Like so many beautiful astronomical sights, the delicate sphere in this delightful image is the remains of a cataclysmic event. About four centuries ago, a tiny Read more…
The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope brings us new face-on portraits of six spiral galaxies. But what is the science behind these delightful images? Everyone loves stunning pictures of spiral galaxies, I have said this before and will no doubt say it again. The folks at the European Read more…
Galaxies, distant from us in space and time, have been in the news recently. Astronomers knew that far away galaxies (and hence ancient galaxies)were smaller than those galaxies closer (in time and space) to us today in the Milky Way. It was believed that the first galaxies appeared less than Read more…