astronomy Tag

The continent is ravaged with civil wars, disease, poverty and starvation, but Africa is using space programs more and more to combat those problems. Several countries have launched initiatives to use satellite technology and have set up astronomy programs. Let’s take a look at all space initiatives of ‘the forgotten continent’. South Africa By far the country with the largest space program on the continent. South Africa has a large and active space sector which is both government and privately funded. The country utilizes several satellites for remote sensing purposesRead More

Trappist-1, a small star pretty close to Earth, has no less than 7 exoplanets orbiting it. The discovery is another new milestone in a series of many successful exoplanetary discoveries, but what exactly makes the Trappist-1 research so exciting? 4 questions about the big news. A team of Belgian and American scientists made made a big announcement yesterday: a star was found 7 exoplanets orbiting it, the largest amount of exoplanets ever discovered around a single star. This is exciting for a few reasons. Not in the least place, it’sRead More

There’s plenty to do about the ISS, the permanently manned space station that holds astronauts from all corners of the Earth. But few people know there’s a second space station currently in orbit around the Earth. The Chinese Tiangong station might not be manned, but the country has big plans for the future of the habitat. Tiangong is China’s own independent access to space, something the Chinese have aspired since astronauts Yang Liwei’s first flight in 2003. Heavenly Palace The station is called Tiangong-1, which roughly translates to ‘Palace ofRead More

Has the infamous 'Planet X' really been discovered? The mysterious planet at the end of the Solar System has alluded astronomers for years, but new evidence suggests it might just exist. What's the deal?Read More

So maybe you received a star for Christmas. It’s possible, because googling ‘how to buy a star’ returns thousands of results of online stores that tell you a certain dot in the sky is now ‘your star’. The same goes for craters on Mars or patches of land on the moon. Unfortunately though, all these gifts are fake. There’s no difficulty in choosing a cheap company that can buy a star for you. A package will usually consist of a piece of paper, a ‘certificate’ written in nice cursive charactersRead More

Exactly one year ago, ESA did something that had never been done before: It landed a small probe on a comet. The landing didn’t go exactly as planned, but hey, who cares? Philae taught us many things about comets, and about 67P/Churyumov/Geramisenko in general. What have we learned in those 12 months since that nail biting moment? 1. Landing on a comet is way harder than it looks Ok, maybe landing on a comet does look very hard, but Philae’s landing was far from ideal. The lander barely even madeRead More