Mercury Setting
Apr 07
Mercury, the innermost planet, is currently making one of its elusive appearances in the night sky. Being so close to the Sun, and fairly small, Mercury is only visible when our line of sight to it places it at its most easterly or most westerly point. The orbit of Mercury is not very wide and so this means that even at its greatest elongation from the Sun it is still only visible for a few days,...
ESA’s Cosmic Vision: Part 1
Feb 19
We had a talk yesterday from Dr. Fabio Favata titled "Space Astronomy in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 plan". Cosmic Vision is the European Space Agency's peculiar name for its plan over the next decade and a bit. The talk was very good, and covered almost the whole breadth of ESA's big activities that are either currently running or up-and-coming. So where is ESA right now? Currently ESA is...
Carnival of Space 40
Feb 07Hello and welcome to the 40th Carnival of Space! I thought I'd add a bit of javascript into my page for a change - it's the HTML equivalent of a mid-life crisis for the Carnival which is now at its 40th gathering. Congrats to the Carnival and all those involved. Now let's get on with the material. There are some great oddities this week, including an anecdote regarding Willie Nelson. Batman is...
A New Side to Mercury
Jan 16
The MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury on Monday evening in one of three scheduled slow-down fly-bys before it begins orbiting the planet in a few years. The first images (there are going to be a LOT of them) will now begin to appear. This image from a press release out last night, shows the previously hidden face of the planet. It doesn't get more impressive that this. People get into...
Mercury Rising
Jan 14
Today at 1904 GMT, the NASA spacecraft Messenger will make its first approach of Mercury, the inner-most planet of our solar system. This evening's approach is the first of three between now and 2011, designed to slow down the probe as it readies to begin orbiting the planet. This will be the first visit to Mercury by any probe since 1975. More than 1,300 images of Mercury will taken during...
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