Interstellar news for terrestrials like you! Hubble photographs comet ATLAS breaking up!: Predicted to be the best comet to fly by Earth in decades, astronomers now hope that C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) will answer many questions about comets. Furthermore, the Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing photograph of ATLAS breaking up on April 23rd Image credit: nasa.gov NASA to name new telescope after the “Mother of Hubble”!: NASA’s new infrared telescope WFIRST is going to be named after Nancy Grace Roman. Nancy Roman is regarded as the “Mother of Hubble” is also the first NASA female chief and executi ..read more

1st 1928: National Astronautics Prize was established 2nd 1931: The first rocket designed to send mail was launched 3rd 1969: NASA released their 12-month plan for manned missions 4th 2002: The ISS lost altitude control and was put on emergency mode 5th 1974: Mariner 10 flew by Venus 6th 1911: Birth of Ronald Reagen 7th 1939: Best test of Goddards liquid propellant pumps 8th 2000: Discovery of GRV 99027 Mars meteorite 9th 1990: Flyby of Venus by the Galileo probe 10th 1998: Flyby of Europa by the Galileo probe 11th 1969: An unmanned lunar module was discussed for ..read more

Interstellar news for terrestrials like you! As the second monthly series starting this 2020 with “On This Day in Space History”, you have lots to look forward to. In this series, we will be looking at the top space news each month. January News Is Betelgeuse Going to Explode? Since September 2019 Betelgeuse has been dimming. Betelgeuse is also at the top of the list of the stars most likely to go supernova relatively near us. When preparing to go supernova a star contracts from the gravity and then explodes in a supernova. This is why people think it’s going to go supernova. The ..read more

Welcome to The Ultimate Astronomy Quiz 1. Who First Theorised That all Orbits are Ellipses? (2) 2. What is the Drake Equation Used for? (0.5) to calculate energy to calculate how big the universe is to calculate the probability of intelligent alien life to calculate gravity to calculate mass 3. How old is the Universe in Billions of Years? (2) 4. How Would the Sun be Described if it was a Human and its Relative age Stayed the Same? (0.5) young adult pensioner middle aged child infant 5. Who First Accurately Measured the Circumference of the Earth? (2) 6. What was the First ..read more

1st 1801: The discovery of the first asteroid Ceres by Guiseppe Piazzi 2nd 1959: Luna 1, passed within approximately 6km of the moon but because of a failed launch vehicle control system, the probe didn’t hit as planned 3rd 1962: The official designation of the Mercury Mark II program became “Gemini” 4th 2004: Succesful Mars landing of Mars Exploration Rover A (Spirit) 5th 1905: The discovery of Jupiter’s moon Elara by Charles Perrine 6th 1999: The plans for a Chinese manned flight was officially reported 7th 1610: The discovery of Jupiter’s moons Io, Europa and Callisto by G ..read more

The Solar System, the wonders of our night sky for millennia. In this series, we’ll be looking at each planet in detail and investigating how they interact with each other. So wander your eyes up to the wandering stars in the heavens and look at them in a new way: past, present and future. This planet profile will be on Mercury credit: istockphoto.com Mercury Fact File Distance from Sun in km 65.574 million Distance from Earth in km 247.23 million One year 88 Earth days One day 58d 15h 30m Avg temperature during day in C 427 Avg temperature during night in C -173 Main materials ma ..read more

Have you ever wondered about constellations? Why they are in specific shapes? And what are the stories? Well, in this series we’ll be exploring the stories of the night sky: Constellations. Today we’ll be talking about Cassiopeia and Andromeda. Let’s jump straight into it. Cassiopeia was the queen of Aethiopia. Her husband was King Cepheus of Ethiopia and was the daughter of Coronus and Zeuxo.  Credit: stars.astro.illinois.edu One day Cassiopeia claimed that she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs called the Nereids. When the Nerids got word of this hubris they were outraged ..read more