The Astronomy Show 21.11.18

The Astronomy Show 21.11.18

On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at the discovery of a crater under the ice on Greenland. The crater is nearly 20 miles wide and its impact would have had a massive effect on the Earth's climate. It is believed to have been formed between 3 million and 12,000 years ago.

The regular features on the show include a look at what is in the night sky during the next week including identifying that really bright white object in the sky in the East before sunrise. The astronomy news includes details that show that the Earth has been near missed 66 times so far this year by asteroids, Voyager 2 creeps closer to the edge of the solar system and NASA plan to land the 2020 mission to Mars in an ancient lakebed to search for signs of life.

Other regulars include the A-Z of constellations which  is now at Taurus the Bull while the Messier Marathon will look at M 80 in Scorpius. The astronomical scrapbook looks at anniversaries  this week which include a comet discovered in York in 1783, and the first transit of Venus observed in 1639. All this plus the usual round up of what is going on in the astronomical societies in the North of England.

The Astronomy Show every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. You can hear the show on line at www.drystoneradio.com or catch the show later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy Show 14.11.18

The Astronomy Show 14.11.18

The Astronomy Show is back, I have survived two weeks cruising off the coast of Norway some of the time we were in the Arctic Circle hunting the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, we were not to be disappointed because there was an incredible Northern Lights display on November 3rd. It was stonking, the best I have seen since 2004, I will explain all in the show tomorrow.

On the show today I will be looking at the end of two important space missions the Kepler Space Telescope which has been hunting for planets orbiting other stars and the Dawn mission which had orbited the dwarf planet Ceres. Both missions were massive successes and achieved incredible results and their ending which was expected by astronomers will still be keenly felt by all who used the information they sent back to Earth.

I will also be looking at what can be seen in the night sky including a recap of the highlights on the autumn sky. There is also news of the discovery of a comet, this is not unusual  comets are always being discovered by astronomers, but what makes this comet special is that it was discovered not by the professionals but by amateur astronomers.. Early indications are that it could become bright in the early morning skies, however the brightness of comets  are notoriously difficult to predict.

There will be the usual regular features including the latest astronomy news including  a strange cloud seen on Mars, Saturn's moon Dione is covered with weird stripes and the Space X 'Starman' and its Tesla Roadster are now beyond Mars. The astronomical Scrapbook looks at anniversaries this week including Tycho's discovery of a comet in 1577, Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars and John Goodricke starts his astronomical diary. The Messier Marathon has reached M79 a globular cluster in Lepus while the A-Z of constellations is at the barren constellation of Sextans the Sextant. All this plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the North.

The Astronomy Show every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. You can listen live to the Astronomy Show on line at www.drystoneradio.com or hear the show later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

Astronomy Scrapbook and WW 2

Astronomy Scrapbook and WW 2

October 27th

On the 27^th October 1449, probably the last of the great Arab astronomers Ulugh Beg sometimes called the Sultan of the Stars died. He was the grandson of Tamerlane the Mongol leader who founded the Timurid empire in Persia and Central Asia.

Ulugh Beg was a Timurid ruler as well as an astronomer and mathematician. He built a great observatory in Samarkand in 1428 in Central Asia which today is part of Uzbekistan. The observatory which although it contained no telescopes was considered to be one of the finest in the Islamic world and was the largest in Central Asia. It was only surpassed in importance when Tycho Brahe the Danish astronomer who studied the Supernova in 1572 built his observatory called Uraniborg in 1576.

Ulugh Beg observed the night sky from his observatory and in 1437 produced a catalogue of 994 stars and realised that the observations he was making showed that the catalogues made by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2^nd century AD , which were then also used by Arab astronomers were not accurate. His catalogue is regarded as the most accurate produced between those made by Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe.

Sadly his scientific expertise was not matched by his skills in running an empire. There was a lot of in fighting within his family and after several rebellions he was killed on the instructions of his son.

Please visit my website to view my astronomy talks at www.astrognome.co.uk 

Ulugh Beg The Sultan of the Stars

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After over 4 months of fighting the during the Sino Japanese war, Japanese forces captured the city of Wuhan on October 27th 1938. The battle which covered a large geographical area was one of the most important in the early part of the war. There were heavy casualties on both sides, it is estimated that 400,000 casualties were suffered by the Chinese with the Japanese losing around 140,000 men. There are some estimates that suggest that these figures are an under estimate and that the true number iwas over a million people were killed on both sides

The second Sino-Japanese war began on July 7^th 1937 with a full scale Japanese invasion of China following an incident on the Marc Polo Bridge. In 1938 Wuhan was the second largest city in China and was situated on the Yangtse and was therefore an obvious target for the Japanese.

After the battle a large part of the Chinese Air Force and Navy was destroyed, however major elements of the Chinese army remained intact. The battle had also severely weakened the Japanese army to the effect that although there were some advances into central China between 1939-42 no major operations by the Japanese forces would be launched until 1944 with the operation called Ichi-Go.

I present The Astronomy Show on the community station Drystone Radio 103.5 FM, every Wednesday afternoon between  3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. The show can be heard on line at www.drystoneradio.com 

I will be lecturing on a cruise ship in the arctic looking for the Northern Lights during the next 2 weeks, the next Astronomy Show will be on Wednesday 14th November.

The Astronomy Show 24.10.18

The Astronomy Show 24.10.18

On the Astronomy Show this week I will be looking at the question when will we find Planet Nine? Last week I reported on the Astronomy Show about the small asteroid called the Goblin which has been discovered at the edge of the solar system and astronomers are watching it to see if anything might be pulling it slightly out of its predicted orbit.

I will take my regular look at the night sky this week. I will look at what constellations we can see at the moment, however with regards to the planets we are restricted to just seeing Mars at the moment. The other regular features include the latest astronomy news with the launch of the Bepi Columbo mission to Mercury. The astronomical scrapbook which looks at anniversaries this week in astronomy. In 1784 John Goodricke discovered the variable star Delta Cepheus, the first photo from the surface of Venus in 1975 and in 1675 the small moon of Saturn, Iapetus was discovered. 

The A-Z of constellation has reached Serpens a constellation in two parts, while the Messier marathon is at M78 in Orion. This plus the look at what the astronomy societies in the north of England are up to.

The Astronomy Show every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com the show can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

I will be away for the next two Astronomy Shows I will be lecturing overseas, the next Astronomy Show will be live on Wednesday 14th November.

The Astronomy Show 17.10.18

The Astronomy Show 17.10.18

On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at  results from the European space robot MASCOT as it hops around the crazy rocky surface of the Ryugu asteroid. The MASCOT lander was deployed from the Japanese Hayabusa2 mother ship. The problems of working on this small asteroid include  the gravity being only one-66,500th of Earth's, this means that even a tiny push off the surface is enough to send the lander floating away from the asteroid.

I will take a look at the night sky with details of how we just missed a meteor storm from the Draconid meteor shower on the 8th-9th October and hopefully coming soon the brightest comet of the year, comet Wirtanen is expected to become a naked eye object during December and over Christmas.

Other regular features include  the latest astronomy news with 4 huge planets being  discovered around a very young star and astronomers observe a surprisingly faint and fading supernova. The Messier marathon has reached M77 a Seyfert galaxy in Cetus and the A-Z of constellations is at the small constellation of Scutum the Shield. The astronomical  Scrapbook looking at anniversaries this week include the death of the York based telescope maker Thomas Cooke in 1868 and the launch of the first astronaut or Taikonaut from China in 2003. This plus the round up of what is going on in the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show only on Drystone Radio 103.5FM every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. The show can be heard on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the show later via the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy Show 10.10.18

The Astronomy Show 10.10.18

The Astronomy Show returns after my break during which I took my Stardome Planetarium around some of the schools of northern England showing them the stars in the night sky.

On the show today I will be looking at a new object discovered in the far outer regions of our solar system, the asteroid nicknamed 'The Goblin' could increase the chances of discovering the so called planet nine, an undiscovered world that could be lurking far away from the Sun.

As we are now well into the autumn season I will be taking a look at the stars and constellations that we can see in the coming months, plus identifying which of the planets can be seen during the next few nights.

I will take a look at the latest news from the world of astronomy, including Voyager 2 which is at the edge of interstellar space and is measuring an increase in cosmic rays, the Hubble Space Telescope has been put into a safe mode due to a gyroscope failure and Jupiter has an extra magnetic pole. The Messier marathon reaches  M76 in Perseus, while the A-Z of constellations looks at the obscure constellation of Sculptor.

The Astronomical Scrapbook which looks back at anniversaries this week includes the first image of the far side of the Moon in 1959 and the discovery of the largest moon of Neptune, Triton discovered in 1846. There will also be the usual round up of what is happening  in some of the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the show later via the Drystone Radio podcast.

Astronomy Scrapbook and World war 2

September 30th

If you have ever followed my blog you will know that I was Curator of Astronomy at the Yorkshire Museum in York until I retired in 2011 and I present a weekly radio show on Drystone Radio which is called not surprisingly the Astronomy Show. What people might not know is that apart from astronomy, another great interest of mine is military history so I thought that with the coming of 2019 and the 80^th anniversary of the start of the second world war that I would see if any there were any major dates that occurred during that conflict that also coincided with astronomical anniversaries.

Here is the first, and it starts before the war started, but it was an event that had major implications for people in Europe.

This blog will begin on September 30^th 1938 with the British prime minster Neville Chamberlain returning back to Britain after a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Germany Chamberlain had a piece of paper which he waved to the crowds and proclaimed that there would be peace in our time. The paper referred to the Munich agreement which allowed Nazi Germany to occupy certain parts of the country then known as Czechoslovakia. This area of Czechoslovakia was known as the Sudetenland.

September 30^th 1550 the German astronomer Michael Mastlin was born, a professor of mathematics and astronomy, one of his pupils was Johannes Kepler who is best known for his laws of planetary motion and for his observations of the supernova of 1604 which is usually referred to as Kepler’s 

Star.

September 30^th 1975 Charles Kowal and Elizabeth Roemer discovered Themisto a small moon of Jupiter. There were not enough observations of the orbit of the moon at the time of discovery and it was subsequently lost only to be rediscovered again in 2000. Themisto is only about 5 miles in diameter and is named after the daughter of the river god Inachus and lover of Zeus.

The Astronomy Show every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5FM The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or can be heard later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

Next Astronomy Show Wednesday 10^th October.