Society for Popular Astronomy

NASA has announced that its Ingenuity helicopter has had its first attempted flight into Mars’s rarified atmosphere delayed until at least tomorrow, due to a technical problem. The problem was discovered when the ‘copter was having its rotators tested. If successful, Ingenuity will be the first mach...

Looks like a Sun flower, which is appropriate, don’t you think?

Does the white spot on the Sun have an official classification? It looks like a flaring site.

They could replace modules at the station with new ones. Originally, the ISS was intended to be considerably bigger, but mounting costs set a limit to its eventual size.

Early life was wearing hard hats at the time :wink: . Seriously though, a current theory for the origin of life says that the molten masses below craters formed by asteroid strikes cooled and created geothermal springs, rich in the nutrient chemicals necessary for life. Apparently, it only happened ...

I should add that the observation I made was supplemented by a double-stack observation. I attached the Lunt LS50f to the PST. This revealed a white patch on the solar disc. Lunt claims that it’s solar components don’t work with other solar makes, but the LS50f etalon works well with the PST, as it ...

The Sun is still in boring mode it seems, with little to see except for proms. The last solar maximum showed lots of detail: sunspots, proms, filaments and flares. This time round the Sun is taking its time to emerge from full minimum. This morning I was able to image several proms in the PST with a...

In 2019 an air leak was discovered in the International Space Station ( ISS ). Attempts to fix the leak have not been fully successful. Last year, technicians identified why cabin pressure had been affected. Other cracks where discovered in 2020 using an electron microscope and sealed, but there are...

The news agency Tass said that Russia is planning to design and build rockets capable of carrying payloads of two-hundred tonnes. While China is to built its fifth rocket launch site, including a section of a command centre and assembly testing facility. The new launch site will be in Xiangshan, clo...

The global population level is slowing and set to stabilise at 8 billion. It’s HOW we live at this point in time that’s fouling the nest. We need total system change, not half-baked reformist solutions. But that’s politics .. .

I thought it was the Eagle neb because at the centre of the nebulosity there appear to be structures that look like the so-called Pillars of Creation.

There’s plenty of extended detail in there. Are we looking at the Eagle Nebula?

The Moon and Mars were messed up long before showman Musk burst onto the scene Mike, by asteroids and comets.

I haven’t seen this star for many years. It’s very pretty.

The countryside charity CPRE has completed its survey with over 8000 results. The star count has revealed a ten percentage drop in people experiencing severe light pollution since February. The CPRE attributes this reduction probably to the Covid lockdown. The number of stars counted in Orion betwee...