Explaining Science
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I have a PhD in astronomy from the University of Manchester in the North West of England. Explaining Science contains articles on astronomy, space, and space travel - written at a level which is easily accessible to the non-scientist but without being dumbed down. Check the posts now!
Explaining Science
1w ago
Doesn't time fly ! ? Ten years have passed since I wrote my first post on my Explaining Science blog (originally called The Science Geek). I have decided to mark the occasion by reblogging my first ever post. Over the last ten years the question whether there are primitive life forms on Saturn’s icy moon ..read more
Explaining Science
3w ago
Sometimes a video can convey a message better than a simple blog post and videos tend to reach a slightly different audience. I do get irritated by poor reporting of science topics in the mainstream media (maybe I am getting grumpy? ? ). So here’s a video about the errors in the article about the ..read more
Explaining Science
1M ago
This year, for the majority of the world’s Christians, March 31 is Easter Sunday, one of the most important dates in the calendar. Although Easter is the festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, it is also widely marked by non-Christians in the UK, particularly as there are two very welcome public holidays on the preceding ..read more
Explaining Science
2M ago
This post is a departure from my usual topics of astronomy and more general science. In 2020, I took a series of photos of my back garden. This year was, for those of us in the UK - like many countries in the world, the year of the lockdowns due to the covid pandemic. A ..read more
Explaining Science
3M ago
Like many of you, in December last year I followed with interest the news reports from COP28. As it concluded, there was much written in the media about whether the nations of the world would actually do what is needed to restrict the rise in average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Now ..read more
Explaining Science
4M ago
I am still surprised how many articles on otherwise reputable websites when writing about scientific topics are riddled with errors and have clearly been written by lazy journalists with no knowledge of the subject they’re talking about. One of the worst examples was an article on the December 2023 solstice which recently appeared on a ..read more
Explaining Science
4M ago
This year, the northern hemisphere winter solstice will fall on 22 December. On this date there are the fewest hours of daylight and, during the day, the Sun reaches its lowest elevation. The origin of the word solstice is from two Latin words: sol, which means Sun, and sistere, to stand still. At the time of the winter ..read more
Explaining Science
5M ago
In this post I’ll talk about curvature, what terms such as flat, positive and negative curvature mean and how this applies to the Universe. I won’t use complex mathematical definitions here, but intuitively curvature is a measure of how much a two-dimensional surface deviates from being flat. This concept can be extended to any number ..read more
Explaining Science
5M ago
I was disturbed to read the recent UN report pointing out that the government plans and projections from the major fossil fuel producers would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050. This conflicts with government commitments under the Paris Agreement, and ..read more
Explaining Science
5M ago
On 30 November 2023 the 28th United Nations Climate Change conference (COP 28) will open at Expo City, Dubai My somewhat pessimistic view is that our chances of significantly reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over the next 10-15 years or so don’t look particularly promising - mainly because there is the competing objective ..read more