Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage / Penguin Random House, 2024, paperback 136 pages) A Day in the Life Six people get up, eat, exercise, do their jobs, take time to reflect, look out of the window, socialise and go to sleep. Just an ordinary day. Each of them have their every waking hour mapped out:… Continue reading Falling Forever
Tag: Space
But where is everyone?
But where is everyone? The Fermi Paradox (reported from a casual conversation between Enrico Fermi and colleagues about extra-terrestrial life, in 1950 Jump in… Introduction Inspiration Discrimination Elsewhere… Alien Worlds: Planet Hunting in the Cosmos by Lisa Kaltenegger Published by Allen Lane / Penguin Random House books (2024), 275 pages Introduction Please don’t be put… Continue reading But where is everyone?
A Year in the Dark
Review of Phillip’s Stargazing 2024 & Night Sky Almanac 2024 There are several publications that offer a guide to the night sky for the year ahead, and here are two of them. Of course if you are interested in astronomy, you may already have reference books, star charts and on-line aids to navigating the night… Continue reading A Year in the Dark
Galactic Archaeology
A review of “The Ins and Outs of the Milky Way” The Vectis Astronomical Society public talk for May 2023 by Professor Sean Ryan Seeing the Milky Way Do we ever look up at the night sky and think how the view is never-changing, except for the wandering planets against a timeless backdrop of the… Continue reading Galactic Archaeology
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
What links this Ethiopian postage stamp, the Trojan War, Thomas the Tank Engine and Pink Floyd?
New Horizons – Old Harmonies
[Originally written for New Zenith, newsletter of the Vectis Astronomical Society, 3 January 2019] Early on New Year’s Day [2019], the New Horizons spacecraft successfully achieved its long anticipated flyby of Ultima Thule. At about 43 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, this was the furthest encounter yet with an object in… Continue reading New Horizons – Old Harmonies