Welcome to Astronotes
Hello, I’m Colin, welcoming you to Astronotes, the Planetarium’s official blog. Here you will find the latest news and views from the fascinating worlds of astronomy and space exploration. We hope you will come here to learn what is hot and exciting, profound or even weird from worlds beyond ours . So that's the introduction out of the way, now on with the Universe!
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Comets and Asteroids Archive
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Professor Moriarty: a Great but Forgotten Astronomer
Posted on December 15, 2011 | 4 CommentsJames Moriarty (?-1891) was one of the greatest of the many astronomer-mathematicians who flourished in the nineteenth century, however among the general public his scientific accomplishments are forgotten. Mention his... -
Dawn over Vesta
Posted on September 19, 2011 | No Comments202 million km (1.35 AU or 125 million miles) from Earth an explorer from Earth is investigating the giant asteroid Vesta. This intrepid pioneer is the Dawn space probe. ... -
Comet Elenin Images from STEREO-B spacecraft
Posted on August 3, 2011 | 66 CommentsThe approaching Comet Elenin has triggered suspicious and fearful speculation among some observers. A contribution to this brouhaha has been the lack of images of this visitor from deep space,... -
Vesta comes into view
Posted on June 14, 2011 | No CommentsNASA’s Dawn spaceprobe is approaching the asteroid Vesta. At a distance of 483 000 km, the spacecraft has made images rivalling the best Hubble Space Telescope views of this fascinating... -
Return to Comet Tempel 1
Posted on February 19, 2011 | No CommentsComet Tempel 1 is by far the most closely studied comet in history. We saw it up close for the first time in July 2005, when NASA’s Deep Impact mission... -
Have you seen the Zodiacal Light?
Posted on February 18, 2011 | No CommentsThe Zodiacal light is a rarely seen yet intriguing spectacle in a dark sky. Sinead McNicholl reveals the connection between the zodial light and a famous rockstar! Have you ever... -
Hartley 2: What has the Deep Impact flyby shown us?
Posted on November 5, 2010 | No CommentsNASA’s Deep Impact probe flew past comet Hartley 2 and revealed a odd-looking peanut-shaped nucleus. What are the first impressions from these exciting images? Only about a mile (1.6 km)... -
Could we visit an asteroid in the next ten years?
Posted on October 15, 2010 | 3 CommentsIt is 14 November 2019 and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when humans first walked on another world, has been and gone but today a new and... -
Asteroids collide: nobody notices until a year later!
Posted on October 14, 2010 | No CommentsBetween Mars and Jupiter lies the Asteroid Belt, a swarm of millions of shards of rock, metal and ice. Somewhere out here, between 5-10 February 2009, a small asteroid, perhaps... -
Hooray for Hayabusa: Japan’s asteroid pioneer
Posted on October 1, 2010 | No CommentsThe team at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency deserve congratulations for the amazing (and hopefully record-breaking) Hayabusa mission to asteroid 25143 Itokawa. Launched in 2003 (the spacecraft was called MUSES-C...