How to spot a shooting star this weekend
Wherever you are this weekend, if you get the chance, don’t forget to look up. The Perseid meteor shower was first seen two thousand years ago, and is visible every year from mid July to the end of August...
Stories by Kelly Oakes
Art and science collide in a tale of two cultures
As I mentioned a little while ago, I’m involved in putting on a TEDx event at the Royal Albert Hall later this year. Today we announced our theme — a tale of two cultures — with a trailer featuring some recognisable (and some not so recognisable) places in Albertopolis...
A little perspective on our place in the universe
Here are some things that will give whatever might be on your mind at the moment a little perspective. You’ve probably seen these images plastered all over the Internet already.
Today's the day! A new pale blue dot
Where will you be at 10.27pm (UK time) tonight?The Cassini spacecraft will be somewhere behind Saturn. But it'll be looking at Earth, at us. So we'd better make sure we're looking back.
Exoplanet colour confirmed for first time: it's blue, but not pale -- and nothing like Earth
Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have confirmed that a planet called HD189733b, which orbits a star 63 light years from here, is a deep blue colour.Earth also looks blue from space...
A homesick astronaut on Mars
There are going to be plenty of technological and physiological hurdles to jump before we land the first astronauts on Mars. But once they're safely on their journey, another kind of challenge may rear it's head...
Happy Birthday Higgs Boson!
A year ago today I was at the 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany. Miles away in Geneva, Switzerland, scientists were getting ready to tell the gathering media about a discovery that would change physics forever...
Voyager is in a new region of space, and now that place has a name
Say hello to a brand new bit of the solar system, brought to you by that intrepid traveller Voyager 1: the heliosheath depletion region.Ok, the name's not particularly catchy, but this is exciting news!...
Good morning Gliese 526, the Earth says hello
Over the years we've sent a lot of stuff into space. Most of that has been spacecraft sent out to explore the solar system -- the moon and sun, planets and asteroids.
Space eye candy: Cool cosmic dust and a bright Orion nebula
This patch of sky holds some of the youngest stars ever found. The ribbon that runs through the centre of the image is made up of dust clouds in the constellation Orion, which holds one of the busiest nearby stellar nurseries...
Happy 20th Birthday to the free, open web!
Today Cern is celebrating 20 years of the free, open web.We all know the World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, during his time at Cern.
Remember that solar eruption from a few days ago? It just hit Earth
On Thursday morning, the biggest solar flare of the year erupted from the sun. Shortly afterwards it was followed by a coronal mass ejection (CME) that sent tons of high energy particles hurtling towards Earth.Solar flares can affect us almost instantly...
Elsewhere: A new physics blog and an afternoon of inspiring talks
The last couple of weeks have been busy ones in my day job, because we just launched the new physics blog physicsfocus!We have a whole range of posts already up, covering topics from latest physics results, to education and science communication...
Margaret Thatcher knew about the W boson discovery before everyone else
Margaret Thatcher was many things – including a scientist. And, thanks to her scientific inclination, she was one of the first people to be told about the discovery of the W boson at CERN.Thatcher visited the UA1 experiment, which ran on CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron, in August 1982...
Alien planet's atmosphere contains water and carbon monoxide
Astronomers have found water vapour and carbon monoxide, but no methane, in the atmosphere of an alien planet orbiting a star 129 light years away.The star, known as HR 8799, is at the centre of the first planetary system beyond our solar system to be imaged directly, in 2008...
Northern lights as you have (probably) never seen them before
Chances are, unless you've been lucky enough to see them in person, you will have seen the northern lights in a time lapse video online. But have you ever seen them just as they would play out in real life?Kai-Marius Pedersen is a northern lights hunter who records videos of real time aurora...
Want to go to Mars? Dennis Tito will take you there...
...as long as you're part of an older, married couple with amazing mechanical skills, great long term resilience, and relaxed attitude towards being exposed to high levels of radiation.
Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a space rose
Still looking for an extra special Valentine's gift for tomorrow? Here's something truly out-of-this-world... Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Overnight Scentsation.This miniature rose was grown in space, on NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery Flight STS-95, in an ASTROCULTURE TM commercial plant growth chamber...
What I learned at ScienceOnline2013: Performance, feedback, revision #scio13
Just over a week ago, on the second day of ScienceOnline2013, I dragged myself out of bed, onto a bus, and eventually made it to the the coffee table at the McKimmon Centre in Raleigh, North Carolina...
What Voyager saw: a journey in photographs #scio13
I spent this afternoon at a workshop on Rapid Media Prototyping, as part of ScienceOnline 2013 in Raleigh, North Carolina. So in the spirit of the session here is a rough and ready thing that I made.....
