Yesterday was the Hack Day at the UK National Astronomy Meeting 2014 in Portsmouth. I organised it with my good friend Arfon Smith of GitHub, formerly Zooniverse. We wanted to try and start a new NAM tradition - it went well so maybe we did. I'm psyched that .Astronomy got to help make it happen... Continue Reading →
Kepler-90: An Amazing, Tiny Solar System Where Internet Rumours Come True
We recently posted news of a Planet Hunters planet discovered as part of a seven-planet system. Like all the Planet Hunters stars this is one seen in data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Dubbed Kepler-90 this system is a peculiar microcosm of our own Solar System, with small (probably rocky) worlds in the middle, and larger (probably... Continue Reading →
Searching for Planets in the Pleiades
There's a cool paper on arXiv today in which an intrepid band of astronomers (I assume they were/are intrepid) search for exoplanets around the stars in the Pleiades using Subaru. Spoiler alert: they don't find any! However, it's an interesting look at how to hunt for planets and small/faint objects in general. They find 13 potential... Continue Reading →