This is a short video on how to find the Sculptor Galaxy in the Southern Sky. This is a beautiful and bright galaxy that is well worth a look at.
News from the Galactic Centre
A Kiwi perspective on astronomy and space science news and how to get the most out the night sky
Instructions for looking up in December
This podcast has been recorded by us here from New Zealand for Space Place at Carter Observatory and the Jodcast, for the December night sky 2018. The Jodcast is a volunteer podcast about astronomy set […]
News from the Solar System
The burden of too much information is heavy, come and find out with us and Julian Priest, artist in residence at Space Place what you can do about it, if only complain, The Royal Society of New Zealand warns about blue light at night, NASA will land Mars 2020 at Jezero, an ancient delta on Mars, gravitational waves might or might not exist, the king is dead, Kepler run out of power, long live the king, TESS is the new kid in town. And last but not least, InSight is due to land on Mars.
News from the Solar System
In New Zealand, Space Starts with Sheep; a new season is about to open for exoplanets as scientists discover an efficient method to predict microlensing; Earth’s Moon to be used as a giant radio telescope; “Hello, Andromeda calling”, gravitational waves might be used to carry information; 1500 km long water cloud appears on Mars after the planet-wide storm from last month, while InSider probe has only one month left hurling through space, and will land on Mars in November; scientists narrow down the landing sites for Mars 2020 rover; change of plans, why not land among the clouds of Venus? Hubble and Chandra telescopes have been repaired, mostly by switching them on and off and stay tuned for the position of Uranus in the sky.
How to make a blackhole
A light hearted look at how you might make a blackhole if you happen to have a large star handy.
How do you make a star?
It’s not easy to make a star, you need a lot of cold space and a huge amount of hydrogen. But if you manage to do that then you can have your very own Sun sized star to keep you warm in winter.
What’s Going to Mercury?
BepiColombo is due to launch on Saturday on an Ariane 5 rocket. The mission will get to Mercury in 2025 helping us learn a lot more about the planet that is the closest to the Sun.
International Observe the Moon Night
This Saturday night is International Observe the Moon Night so hopefully the weather will be great and we can all catch a glimpse of the Moon.
What is a Gamma Ray Burst?
Aside from the Big Bang, Gamma Ray Bursts are the most powerful releases of energy in the universe, sometimes releasing over 100 times the entire energy of the Sun over it’s 10 billion year lifespan.
Now Chandra has a glitch
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has developed a glitch and gone into safe mode. The 19 year old spacecraft is well past it’s design life but continues to produce incredible science so hopefully it’ll be back to full serviceability very soon.
Aborted launch to the ISS
The aborted launch of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with Expedition 57 to the International Space Station reminded the world that space flight can still be dangerous. Fortunately both Nick Hague and Alexey Ovchinin return safely to the surface of the Earth.
Interstellar, here we come!
The amount of interstellar particles being detected by Voyager 2 may indicate that the spacecraft is about to pass through the heliopause into interstellar space.
News from the Solar System
Riding on Elon Musk’s muscle power earthlings are preparing to invade the Moon again. There they will find that some of its craters have been renamed to honour the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit our natural satellite 50 years ago. Venus is hailed by the Parker Solar probe that swings by it, Jupiter’s Moon Europa has 15 meters ice spikes on the surface and Saturn’s rings are not just water nor all the lost airline luggage. Mars has to resign to the idea that earthlings have figured out how to grow plants on it. Not even perchlorates can stop them. And last but not least, New Horizons is unstoppable going towards Ultima Thule.
Hubble having a bit of a glitch
The Hubble Space Telescope is currently in safe mode while technicians at NASA figure out what has gone wrong with a gyroscope that was found to be not performing properly. Hopefully it’s an easy fix and Hubble will be back to full operations soon.
Quasars – The worst kind of light pollution
Quasars are the brightest objects in the universe and are amazingly powerful. They are caused by Super Massive Black Holes.
My internship at NASA Ames – What is NASA
Last month, the New Zealand Government – The New Zealand Space Agency together with the US Embassy have announced four scholarships at NASA Ames, the same place I have been in 2014. There were media outlets in New Zealand that publicised this as an astronaut training opportunity, but this internship is no astronaut training school although it might lead to becoming one. This, and the knowledge that you don’t need to be an astronaut to work in the space industry, prompted me to want to share from my experience at NASA and give an overview of what to realistically expect from these internships.
Mars Week!
Last week was Mars Week at Oxford Area School in the South Island. It was a great week running Mars Missions and learning all about Mars.
The stars that we can see (except one)
The night sky is full of stars and some of the very brightest we see have some very interesting characteristics. Next time you’re looking at Sirius or Canopus you’ll be able to appreciate just how big they are compared to our very own star – the Sun.
How were oceans made, how did the water come to be on Earth?
First of all, Earth has a lot of water. It has 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 l of water. Some of this is in the oceans, some in the rivers and some inside Earth’s rocks, and some very deep […]
via Liquid water detected on Mars, can it hold life? – ASTROBIOLOGY.NZ The European Space Agency discovered a pocket of liquid water inside layers of ice on Mars. Professor Ian Hawes, from Waikato University explains why this discovery is important in our quest to understand life on Mars and other frozen places in the Solar System that contain water.
The night sky, this week, 23-29 July 2018
It’s the Winter of the Planets and in the early evening this week you can see Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Then there is the Lunar Eclipse on Saturday morning as well.
