Cassini took this great picture of Saturn in late June. The shadows of the rings on the planet are getting wider since it has been almost a year since the equinox when they appeared to be pretty much a thin line. There is a moon in the image. Pandora is just below the rings on [...]
I like lists. I especially like lists about space “mysteries”. Of course, there are very few true mysteries remaining, and what many people think of as a “mystery” is really only something that sounds mysterious. Keeping that in mind, I’d like you to consider these “bizarre” (not my word for it) things in space. I [...]
Here's one more reason why leaving Pluto off the planetary list just doesn't make sense. Caltech astronomer John Johnson and his colleagues say they've found two planetary systems where pairs of Jupiter-scale planets are so close together that their orbits almost certainly cross.
Okay, rather than risk losing my computer completely, I’m going to wait and publish about neutrinos tomorrow. Sorry, I know you’ll understand. Extremely bad weather here!
This is very strange, this star was ejected from our galaxy and is traveling at about 1,600,000 miles per hour — that’s 2,500,000 km/hr !! Of the 16 known hypervelocity stars this is the fastest. To add to the strangeness this star also should have burned out long-long ago but yet we can still see [...]
Herschel’s garden, from where he found the planet Uranus. Credit: Will Gater Yesterday I paid a visit to the former home of one of my all time astronomy heroes. Number 19, New King Street in Bath was the home of Sir William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers this country, and indeed the world, has [...]
Around 10:30pm last night I started to see reports coming in on Twitter of a large and bright noctilucent cloud (NLC) display appearing across much of the country. Poking my head out the window I was, to my dismay, greeted with thick uniform cloud lit by light pollution. Hoping for the best, I checked on [...]
The Milky Way over Dartmoor (click to see a bigger version). Credit: Will Gater I thought I’d just briefly share this image with you all and give you a quick heads-up for some sights to look out for in the night sky at the moment. I took this image last weekend from one of my [...]
A view of the ISS gliding across the night sky on 24 June 2010. Credit: WillGater.com The International Space Station (ISS) will be making some bright flyovers over the UK over the next week or so, providing the perfect entertainment for any of you waiting for a noctilucent cloud display to materialize. The ISS appears [...]
Me standing next to one of the LOFAR antennas. Credit: WillGater.com Today Sky at Night Magazine’s editor Graham, and I, visited the Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire to see the UK’s contribution to the LOFAR project now entering its final stages of construction. LOFAR (the LOw Frequency ARray) is a radio telescope which will observe the [...]