May 22nd and 23rd will be providing some excellent opportunities for seeing the International Space Station from Europe and North America. The details of each sighting vary from place to place, but it is safe to say that the two days and nights will be offering some of the best sightings for a long time!

I am often asked how gravity works. I usually answer and then they say ‘yes, but HOW does it work?’. Well here is another stab at answering a fairly complicated question via the internet (never a good idea).

Stephen Colbert interviewed International Space Station resident and Wriststrong supporter, Garret Reisman during his May 8th edition.

The BBC is running a video of Yves Rossy, a Swiss man who jumped from a plane and then flew using his homemade jet-propelled glider. The image above shows a previous version of the glider, which only has two jet engines. The model flown this week used four. Mr. Rossy,…

Using the microwave oven in your kitchen, you can measure a fundamental property of the universe: the speed of light. All you need are some tasty marshmallows and a ruler.

Planets move relative to the stars always moving from west to east in the sky. Well almost always. Every once in a while, a planet will slow down in its apparent slide across the constellations each night. For a few nights it may even appear to have stopped. Then it…

What number or method should be used when trying to signal our presence to alien races?

Oh to to be able see in the infra-red! This image is a composite of pivot irrigation systems near Garden City, Kansas is a false-color composite image made using near infrared, red, and green wavelengths. To get the most out of this image you have to click on it and…

Continuing my series of posts regarding Google Sky and Google Earth, here is a KMZ file that will let you find some of the prominent and interesting space telescopes and satellites on Google Earth. This file includes real-time position tracking and 1 hour flight paths for 9 different space telescopes and satellites.

China’s Fengyun 1C satellite, which was destroyed intentionally by China last year, still presents a risk to satellites and other orbiting bodies. I have created a Google Earth file which will let you track the debris in real-time.

I had a question via email asking about Comet Holmes. I thought that by answering it on the blog, maybe others would also have some questions answered. so, thanks to Marycie for her question.

Comet Holmes was a very dim, and expected comet. Until October last year. During the period…

Trailers seem to be the ‘in thing’ these days. There is a (very long) trailer for the BLAST experiment’s movie somewhere out on the internet. Today, this very nice trailer popped up in my Twitter feed from Stuart at Astronomy Blog. It’s for the International Year of Astronomy, also known…

Many animals have been put into space. Here I list my favourite space critters, including the Orbiting Frogs for which this very blog is named.

The Japanese Moon-mapping craft, Selene, has been busy. A preliminary release of what will be the best map of the Moon ever created, shows the topology and mineral content of the Moon’s surface.

There is an interesting conversation taking place on Universe Today. You’ll currently find a list of short answers to the question ‘what is the value of space exploration?’ from a series of Astronomy Bloggers.

My favourite quotes so far are “It would be useful to know about the cosmos, rather…

This short film, ‘Das Rad’ is shown from the point of view of two rocks, watching the world go by them in ultra fast-forward. It is interesting to try to view humanity on such a long time scale.

ESA have released information on the incredible content of the skies above our heads. In their press release they outline what exactly is littering orbital space around the Earth.

The image here shows the view from above the North Pole of all low Earth orbit objects as of January 2008.…

Two new designs in the Orbiting Frog Shop this week that are worth noting. ‘Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining’ depicts a cloud blocking the Sun whilst a series of Ag symbols cling to its edges. ‘Parallel Universes’ shows the word universe twice, in parallel; perfect for anyone who understands…

This is more art than science, but it is very pretty. Stereoscopic 3D images give full colour and allow each nebula to show another dimension of beauty.

The much anticipated SCUBA-2 instrument has been installed on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. The question is how did they manage to get one very large and expensive piece of kit inside another? Here are some photos from the JAC website.