Drake Equations
Can anyone hear us?
Assuming that there are other intelligent civilisations out there in the universe, what is the likelihood that we’ll ever be able to communicate? The key to answer this question is to look at the Drake Equation.
Latest
Astronomy
Observation of Dirac Monopoles in a Synthetic Magnetic Field
What are magnetic monopoles and why are they important? If you ever broke a magnet in two when you were little (I was a weird kid, leave me be) you might have noticed that you would have two perfectly working magnets in your hands.
Art
Forensic Astronomers: ART DIVISION.
I firmly believe that the popularity of Astronomy is strongly related to our ability of producing awe-inducing photographs of the furthest corner of the cosmos. While looking up interesting pictures to talk about on the blog I stumbled upon the Astronomy Forensic Team from the University of Texas.
AstroNews
Supermassive Black Hole in RX J1532: the Destroyer of Worlds
From the NASA website: Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and a suite of other telescopes to reveal one of the most powerful black holes known. The black hole has created enormous structures in the hot gas surrounding it and prevented trillions of stars from forming.
Antimatter
Calories in anti-matter
Dear Mr Science Guy, How many calories would get in a bottle of antimatter? How long would it take to burn off at the gym if you drank it? Thank you, Rob, age 30 Rob asks a very interesting question which allows me to explain several different concepts. First of all, what is anti-matter?
AstroNews
A supernova in our galactic neighbourhood
An amateur Russian astronomer has observed a Supernova in M82, a galaxy that is only 12 million light years away (a walk to the chemist on cosmic scales). The supernova has been confirmed as a Type Ia supernova. These supernovae occur when a white dwarf in a binary system accretes enough mass fro...
How About That?
Would I survive a nuclear attack on London by hiding under my mattress?
Last night I had a nightmare that the centre of London was nuked. In my half-sleep state I tried working out if I could survive just by getting under my mattress or if I had to get out of bed to be more proactive for my survival. First, I had to check what kind of […]