The Astronomy Show 15.07.19

The Astronomy Show 15.07.19

On the Astronomy Show today there will be a big focus on the Moon for the reason that we are very close to the 50th anniversary of the Apoll 11 landing with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon. With this in mind our lead story today is about the Moon with news that India is planning to lauch their second mission to the Moon, this is the Chandrayaan 2 mission and if successful India will become the fourth country to make a soft landing on the Moon.

There will be the regular round up of what is happening in the night sky this week, the Moon attracts the atention again because there will be a partial eclipse of the Moon on the 16th July, this will be visible from Britain. The giant planets Jupiter and Saturn can still be seen as soon as it becomes dark.

The usual round up of astronomy news includes details of  the launch of the Spektr-RG Russian X Ray telescope, and the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission which has grabbed  a second sample from the Ryugu asteroid. The astronomical scrapbook looking at anniversaries this week is dominated by the Apollo 11 Moon landing but other events were happening including in 1994 comet Shoemaker Levy 9 started to crash into Jupiter. All this plus the round up of news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show, every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9. 00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the show later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy Show 08.07.19

The Astronomy Show 08.07.19

On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at news that the Euro Mars Lander suffered damamge during testing when its parachute failed to deploy properly. Mars has been the planet where around half the missions have failed and having a parachute system not working correctly is a recipe for another disaster, engineers will be checking to see what happened.

I will be taking my usual look at what can be seen in the night sky during the next 7  nights including details of how to find Saturn which is now at its best and news that the first sunspots of the next cycle have been seen.

The astronomy news includes details that scientisit have found that mould found on the International Space Station is very hard to kill in space and another mysterious deep space flash has been observed, this time its host galaxy has been traced.

The astronomical scrapbook looking at anniversaries that occured this week include in 1979 Voyager 2 reached Jupiter, Telstar was launched in 1962 and in 1965 Mariner 4 reached Mars, there will also be the usual round up of news and events from the astronomical societies of the north of England.

The Astronomy show every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. You can hear the show live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or listen to the show later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy Show 01.07.19

The Astronomy Show 01.07.19

On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at news that NASA is planning to send a drone to exlpore Titan the largest moon of Saturn. Apart from  Earth, Titan is the only other body in the solar system that has flowing liquid on its surface, but rather than water it is Methane as it is  much too cold on Titan for water.

I will take a look not just at the night sky this week, but what we might expect to see during the summer momths as the summer constellations can be seen at their best during July. On July 4th the Earth is at its farthest point from the Sun during its yearly orbit. I will be looking at why when the Earth is furthest from the Sun we have summer in Britain.

The other regular features include news that Mars may have escaped life threatening impacts early on and a mysterious extragalactic flash has been pinpointed for the 2nd time. The astronomical scrapbook looks at events that happened this week in history including in 2004 the Cassini probe reaching Saturn and the Crab Nebula was first seen in 1054. There will also be the usual round up of news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 Fm The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the programme later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy Show 24.06.19

The Astronomy Show 24.06.19

On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at evidence that Mars has been hit by a meteorite within the past year causing a crater around 50 feet (15m) across. It gives more evidence of just how dangerous asteroids can be.

The will be the usual look at the night sky during the next 7 nights, although the skies are still bright at this time of the year , it is still the Noctulucent clouds that are still attratcing all the attention, there have been some terrific displays. Also we will be looking at the lack of sunspots on the Sun which of course would be expected during solar minimum. Could this year be a record breaker?

The other regular features include news that astronomers have been seeing super flares on stars  in our galaxy, that are similiar to our own Sun. Could our own Sun produce such super flares and what would this mean? There appears to be cotton candy clouds in the atmopshere of Mars and there is a mysterious glow which is warming the rings around Uranus.

The astronomy scrapbook which looks at events that happened this week in history include the so called Yorkshire eclipse of the Sun on June 29th 1927 and the Tunguska event of June 30th 1908. There will also be the round up of news from the astronomical societies of the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5FM, the show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the show later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy Show 17.06.19

The Astronomy Show 17.06.19

The Astronomy Show returns today after another break, I have been away on a cruise to the Baltic presenting astronomy talks. I also had the chance to visit the Helsinki Observatory which is well worth a visit if you are ever in Finland.

On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at evidence that not only do we have meteorites from the Moon and Mars on the Earth but new evidence suggests that some rare meteorites on Earth may well have come from the asteroid Vesta.

There will be the regular round up of what is happening in the night sky over the next seven nights, however to make up for the lack of long periods of night time we have been experiencing some fantastic Noctulucent Cloud displays. There is a day time meteor shower on at the moment which can only be studied by radio or radar but astronomers are trying to discover if the Tunguska event in 1908 was part of this shower.

The astronomy news this week includes details that the Spitzer space telescope will be shutting down next year, there appears to be a weird galaxy creeping up on our Milky Way Galaxy and the asteroid 2006 QV89 has a 1- in 7,000 chance of hitting the Earth later this year.

There will also be extra news stories regarding the Moon including a weird anomaly at the south pole which could be the site of of a metal asteroid and why is the Moon flashing at us? Could it be due to Transient Lunar Phenomena?

The Astronomical Scrapbook will be looking at events that happened this week  including in 1800 the birth of the the future Earl of Rosse, in 1955 the longest solar eclipse of the 20th century and in 1978 Charon the largest moon of Plut was discovered. There will also be the usual round up of news from astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the show later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy show 20.05.19

The Astronomy Show 20.05.19

On the Astronomy show today I will be looking at the question 'when will we see another bright comet'. There are always many comets that can be observed, but these usually require reasonable sized telescopes to see them. Many of these can be really important to astronomers for a variety of  different reasons. However to many people the idea of a comet is a spectacular object with a magnificent tail stretching across the sky. When will the next one appear?

There will be the regular round up of the night sky for the next seven nights with a focus on the constellation of Bootes with its bright star Arcturus dominating the late spring sky.

I will be taking a look at a number of news stories this week that feature the Moon, including the Chinese Chang'e 4 experiencing its 4th night on the Moon, the crash site of the Israeli Beresheet lander has been identified and the news that the Moon is shrinking!

The regular astronomy news section includes a giant hole in the Martian atmosphere is venting all its water into space, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has passed its 60,000 orbit of the Red Planet and I will take a look at where the pioneer and voyager space craft are now.

The astronomical scrapbook which looks at anniversaries in history this week includes in 1543 the death of Copernicus, the bright nova in Pictor in 1925 and the first predicted eclipse of the Sun in 585 BCE. There will also be the round up of news from astronomical societies across the north of England.

The Messier marathon will end this week, I know that there are 110 objects listed but Messier only listed officially 103 an open cluster in Cassiopeia, the other 7 have been added in more recent times and it is uncertain if they were seen by Messier.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the programme later on the Drystone Radio podcast.

The Astronomy show 06.05.19

The Astronomy Show 06.05.19

On the Astronomy show today I will be looking at the life of Jerrie Cobb the record breaking pilot and advocate for female spaceflight who has died recently at the age of 88. She was the first woman to pass all the same pre flight tests as NASA's seven Mercury astronauts.

There will be the usual look at the night sky for the next seven nights including locating the North Star at the time that the great pyramids were built and how the light from the star Arcturus opened a great exposition in Chicago in 1933. The other regular features include the astronomy news with details that an asteroid called Apophis will near miss the Earth on April Friday 13th 2029 by just 19,000 miles. The point about Apophis is that it is around 1100 feet or 340 metres across. News is coming from China that they hope to build a moon base at the south pole of the Moon within the next ten years.

The astronomical scrapbook looking at events that happened this week in history features David Fabricius who died in 1617 and was the first person to observe a variable star, omicron Ceti or as it is sometimes known as Mira and in 1861 John Tebbutt the Australasian astronomer  discovered the great comet which would be seen by Queen Victoria using a telescope that was made by Thomas Cooke of York. The Messier marathon has reached M102 in Draco the Spindle wheel Galaxy. This plus the round up of news from astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy show every Monday evening between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm only on Drystone Radio 103.5 FM. The show can be heard live on line at www.drystoneradio.com or listen to the show later on the Drystone Radio podcast.