Remembering Challenger…

Today is the 23rd anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Challenger and her crew. Remembering Challenger… http://astropoetry.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/no-fear-of-ice

Remembering past tragedies… and shaping the future…

If there is a Black Week in NASA’s history, it has to be this one. Every year, over the course of just a handful of days, NASA marks no less than three ghastly anniversaries, remembers three lost spacecraft and three lost crews. On January 27th this year it was the 42nd anniversary of the Apollo [...]

5 Years Later…

Five years ago, space enthusiasts and scientists alike were celebrating the arrival of the second Mars Exploration Rover on the Red Planet. Three weeks after Spirit giddily bounced and boinged her way across the dust-smothered, rock-strewn floor of the huge Gusev Crater before coming to a halt, Opportunity – in what has been called the [...]

22 Today…

… well, I would be, if I’d been born on Mars; I much prefer to count birthdays in Mars years now, as there are two Earth years to every Mars year… So… here we are then… “one year off halfway-to-90″ as someone put it… cripes, there’s a thought…  But what the hell happened to The [...]

re “Skywatch” at The Helm, Kendal…

If you’ve come here looking for more information about the “Skywatch” being held in Kendal on Friday night, maybe after hearing me talking about it on Radio Cumbria, please click here, then scroll down the page until you come to the event information. Thanks!

It’s Space Station-spotting season again…!

We haven’t been able to see the International Space Station sailing serenely across the sky for a while – well, not without getting up at OMG! a.m! – but as January draws to a close the ISS will be perfectly placed for UK and northern hemisphere skywatchers to enjoy viewing again… If you’ve seen the [...]

Where were you on…

I don’t know if you felt it or not – you were probably busy – but at just after 7pm last Thursday night the world changed. Just a little; not enough to make people stop in the street, blink and carry on on their way slightly dizzy… not enough to make the Sun dim, or [...]

What’s going on in Mars’ atmosphere..?

   … something strange enough or interesting enough – or both – for NASA to put on a special briefing later this week… NASA will hold a science update at 2 p.m. EST, Thursday, Jan. 15, to discuss analysis of the Martian atmosphere that raises the possibility of life or geologic activity. The briefing will [...]

Looking back (up) at Homeplate…

Spirit has finally driven down off Homeplate (yaay!) and is now looking back up at her ‘perch’ of the last 6 million years or so… no, not that long really, it just felt like it. Anyway, if you want to see what Spirit is seeing, put on your 3D glasses and look at this anaglyph [...]

When the roving stops…

As I write this, at 7.25pm on a(nother) bitterly cold evening in the Lake District, both Mars Exploration Rovers – suffering rather lower temperatures than I am here! – are moving, or are at least able to move, on Mars. Oppy has been having a bit of a well-earned breather after scooting south towards Endeavour [...]