AstroNews
If we want to discover signs of life on an exoplanet, our best option is to study its atmosphere, which is easier said than done. The exoplanets whose atmospheres have been studied so far don’t seem to have what we would consider ‘life-friendly’ conditions. But our observatories are always improv...
The Astroholic Live
Catch up with the latest The Astroholic Live on Periscope! In this episode we discuss sustainable chemistry, third law of thermodynamics, Catholicism and the antipopes and how can we become amortal! Guest star: Dr Andy Nortcliffe Watch it here!
Time Travel
I recently talked about how time travel to the past is unlikely to be possible. That came with the label that we haven’t found a law that tells us that it’s impossible just yet. We have hints, but no certainty. So what if time travel was suddenly possible? Who should be using it? For what […]
Videos
An international team of astronomers has made a great discovery. A nearby exoplanetary system has seven Earth-size planets!
How About That?
Time is a curious dimension. Although we might be still in space, there’s no way for us to be still in time. And while we can explore every direction in space, time has a preferred direction: forward. We are constantly traveling through time, and for us we are going to the boring velocity of 1 […]
Journal Club
Last week, in a matter of a few days, two studies came out that brought with them a completely different perspective on our Moon. The first one, published in Nature Geoscience, was about an alternative hypothesis on the formation of our natural satellite. The (now) traditional scenario suggests t...
How About That?
One of the underlying ideas in Einstein’s general relativity is that for an observer, the acceleration due to gravity, or the acceleration due to thrust, are identical. This is a consequence of the equivalence principle. This phenomenon is the way to achieve artificial gravity in space. No specia...
How About That?
Space is big. The Voyager probe, launched in 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn, took 36 years to leave the Solar System. It is the furthest human object from us, and it is still in our neighbourhood. Even the radio waves we sent into space have barely reached a few hundred star systems, and they...
The Astroholic Live
We were planning a happy and light Christmassy episode but since we were looking at 2016, the conversation soon took a turn for the worst. We talked about penguins, Brexit, conducting putty, special snowflakes, the star of Bethlem, and Rudolph’s problems!
How About That?
One of my biggest pet peeves about sci-fi universe building is the lazy approach in building alien civilisations. We often see the trope showing one world, one climate, and one language. Given the variety that our planet has to offer under any aspect it is a shame that the same variety is lost in...
Astrophysics
Black holes are incredibly fascinating. They represent the unknown, the dangerous, the terrifyingly majestic. They are the modern version of the void, the abyss, the bottomless pit. Most sci-fi gets black holes right, but poetic license ignores the facts at times, and takes over to accommodate th...
Astrophysics
According to the World Health Organization, 360 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss. For the remaining 95% of the population, sound is a cardinal part of our sensory experience. It allows us to communicate easily, and to better experience the natural world. So how terrifying is i...