Tag: astronomy

  • James Webb

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    Brendan Barry
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    It’s cool. In the darkness of space. We made it to the end of the week, a big week for space news. So with that, enjoy this illustration from xkcd about the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • It’s a Little Steamy Out There

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    Brendan Barry
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    And by out there I mean 1150 light years away. One of the five amazing images out of the first day’s announcement by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team was not a sexy photo of a nebula or a look back 13.5 billion years in time. Instead it was a plot of the amount…

  • L2 Halo for JWST

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I received a question about where the new James Webb Space Telescope is located. Is it in orbit of the Earth, like Hubble? Is it out in deep space? The answer is no, not really. Now I spent this morning trying to illustrate the answer to that question myself. However, it’s taking me too…

  • Black Holes and Revelations: Remastered

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    Brendan Barry
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    Two years ago I posted about how the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration managed to take the first photograph of a black hole, in particular a supermassive black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy, one of those galaxies far, far away that we see at a long time ago. This morning, the same group…

  • Keeping Things in Scale

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    Brendan Barry
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    Another week of amazing, happy, awesome news. So let’s keep it all in perspective with this graphic from xkcd. We all made it to Friday, so enjoy your weekend, everyone. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • The Hexagons of Saturn

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    Brendan Barry
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    Well, it’s the end of another week. I’ll save the bigger posts I have planned for next week and instead end with this little astronomy/geometry gem from xkcd. It takes a look at Saturn’s polar storm that takes the shape of a hexagon, not a circle or anything else. Credit for the piece goes to…

  • Threats from Little Bodies Inside and Outside

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    Brendan Barry
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    Of course the inside threat are those little bodies of coronavirus causing Covid-19. We cover them a lot here. But there are also threats from little bodies outside, way outside. Like asteroids impacting us. And that was the news yesterday when NASA announced improved data from a mission to the asteroid Bennu allowed it to…

  • But Where Are the Spiders?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I mentioned more about revolutions, well today we’re talking about Mars, a planet that revolves around the Sun. Late last week scientists working with the InSight lander on the Red Planet published their findings. Turns out we need to rethink what we know about Mars. First, the planet is probably much older than Earth.…

  • Revolution Number…

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    Brendan Barry
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    Nein? Last week we ended the week with a Friday post looking at Covid-19 cases. And they are not trending in the right direction, to put it mildly. Now I’m not sure I like the Covid post being on Friday, but it also doesn’t make sense on Mondays any longer given the lack of data…

  • But What About Pluto?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Damn you Neil deGrasse Tyson (but not really though)! Because, you know, he advocated for de-planet-fying Pluto back in the oughts. Which I mention because of this post from xkcd, which corrects common images of planets in the solar system accounting for their population. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.