Tag: astronomy

Planets, planets everywhere

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
January 7, 2013
5 mins to read
Leave comment

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2013/01/Planets-Everywhere.mp3[/podcast] You don’t have to be very old to remember a time when we didn’t know if there were any planets anywhere else in the universe beyond those in our own solar system. Oh, sure, scientists and science fiction writers had long assumed these extrasolar planets existed, but the stars were so distant it seemed …

Go see Tafelmusik’s The Galileo Project…

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns
December 1, 2012
3 mins to read
Leave comment

…if you have the opportunity. We did, last night, and were blown away. The music, the playing, the images, and the text were all fantastic, and pretty much exactly in line with the things that interest me most: science and the arts, mingled together. Tafelmusik is, of course, one of the world’s premiere period-instrument orchestras. …

The Transit of Venus

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
June 6, 2012
5 mins to read
Leave comment

I’m writing this on June 4, the eve of one of the rarest events in the solar system: the transit of Venus. In astronomical jargon, a “transit” is what happens when a smaller body passes in front of a larger one relative to an observer…in this case, us. The Sun, Venus and Earth actually line …

R.I.P.: the girl who named Pluto

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
May 12, 2009
4 mins to read
7 comments

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/05/the-girl-who-named-pluto-rip.mp3[/podcast] Three years ago I wrote a column about someone I was astonished I’d never heard of until that week: Venetia Phair (née Burney), at the time an 87-year-old retired schoolteacher in Epsom, England. At the age of 11 Venetia suggested the name Pluto for what was then (and for many decades after) considered the …

I haven’t posted about the Great Saskatchewan Meteorite…

By Edward Willett in Blog
November 28, 2008
1 mins to read
Leave comment

…because I didn’t see it, darn it. I still have vivid memories of seeing a fireball streak cross the skies over Texas when I was about seven. I would have loved to have seen this one. Oh, well. Looks like they’ve found some pieces of it, at least. I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse, …

The 1960s moon in high-def

By Edward Willett in Science Columns
November 17, 2008
5 mins to read
1 comments

Download larger version. A little over 40 years ago, to help it select potential landing sites for its Apollo lunar missions, NASA sent five unmanned spacecraft over two years to orbit the moon and photograph pretty much every inch of its surface. The images sent back were amazing, especially one of the Earth rising over …

Odd craters on Mercury

By Edward Willett in Blog
March 7, 2008
2 mins to read
Leave comment

They’ve found some very odd craters on Mercury, some with dark halos, which they at least have a tentative explanation for, and one they cannot explain at all: Superficially, the bright patch resembles an expanse of ice glistening in the sun, but that’s not possible. The surface temperature of the crater at the time of …

Photo of the Day: Lunar Eclipse. No, really, believe me!

By Edward Willett in Blog
February 21, 2008
1 mins to read
2 comments

I was feeling a bit disappointed in my best picture of the lunar eclipse tonight (this is about halfway to totality) until I saw John Scalzi’s photo. Now I’m thinking I did all right in the absence of a tripod and with a six-year-old girl tugging on my elbow and begging me to go back …

Watch for falling rock

By Edward Willett in Blog, Science Columns
October 1, 2007
5 mins to read
Leave comment

Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. As a kid I was always disappointed when we drove past “Watch for Falling Rock” signs in the mountains and no rocks actually fell. (I had a similar reaction to deerless “Deer Crossing” signs.) Obviously we were just driving in the wrong places, because …

Avert your eyes!

By Edward Willett in Blog
October 1, 2007
1 mins to read
Leave comment

The singularity at the center of our galaxy may be naked…and through its corrupting wanton abandon could “leak lawlessness into the universe, destroying any concept of cause and effect.” Paging Dr. Who…

Scientists do the work of SF writers…

By Edward Willett in Blog
September 25, 2007
1 mins to read
Leave comment

…and make a list of some of the planets that may exist in other solar systems. I’ve posted about it at Futurismic. (Rather than copy my posts from there here, from now on I’ll just make a note when I post something over there–apparently the searchbots and webspiders don’t like duplicate content.)

Favorite space photos

By Edward Willett in Blog
September 6, 2007
1 mins to read
Leave comment

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, New Scientist has assembled a stunning slideshow of the favorite space-related photos of a group of scientists, astronauts, artists and space entrepreneurs.