The Gould Belt

The Gould Belt

Oct 19

The Gould Belt is a vast ring of active stellar nurseries and molecuar clouds encircling our Solar System. I am part of the JCMT Gould Belt Survey and the Spitzer Gould Belt Survey who study the star-forming regions within it, but what is the belt - and how did it come to be?

Spitzer and the Location of my Missing Week

Spitzer and the Location of my Missing Week

Jul 17

You may have noticed that I have 'fallen off the internet' this week, as a friend of mine recently said in a text message. Well the reason is that I have been attending a meeting about star formation and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Spitzer’s Galaxy

Spitzer’s Galaxy

Jun 05

A fantastic image from the Spitzer Space Telescope (which you'll see all over the web today) of our own Milky Way galaxy. The team have release a Google Maps API type site that lets you browse the galaxy in the infrared with some guidance.

The 10 Strangest (Real) Things in Space

The 10 Strangest (Real) Things in Space

Jul 25

I recently saw a Digg article which linked to a space.com page about the 10 Strangest Things in Space. All but 2 of the items were not pictures at all but computer simulations, or artists impressions. So here to correct this injustice to phenomena everywhere I present the REAL 10 Strangest Things in Space - or at least in my opinion. Feel free to suggest any others in the comments. V838...

Spitzer

Spitzer

Jun 15

Wednesday's seminar speaker was Robert Kennicutt, the principal investigator of the SINGS project (Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey). They have been using the Spitzer Space Telescope, launched 2003, to observe the dust content of the nearest galaxies. Spitzer detects at a wide range of wavelengths in the infrared and submillimeter regimes. This is the part of the spectrum where a vast...