Dr Joshua NallCurator of Modern Sciences at the University of Cambridge’s Whipple Museum of the History of Science Image: (c) Whipple Museum, University of Cambridge (Wh. 6211) Humans have long been intrigued by the possibility that Mars might harbour life. Planetary scientists nowadays continue to hunt for evidence of it, and space technologists even advocate […]

Bob Mizon, Dr Bob Fosbury, Sophie Spencer, & Charles Draper Astronomers are aware of the difficulties light pollution can pose for the pursuit of their activities. However, there is increasing evidence of much broader impacts on our health and environment that bring much wider interests to bear. Artificial light offers many benefits. But it needs […]

Dr Michael Perryman Image credit: ESA–D. Ducros, 2013 The Hipparcos satellite project of the European Space Agency was dedicated to measuring the accurate positions of more than 100,000 stars. Doing so from space represented a fundamentally new discipline in space science. With the publication of the scientific results from the Hipparcos mission in 1997, ESA […]

Roger Blandford (KIPAC, Stanford University) Image credit: ESO/APEX & MSX/IPAC/NASA and A.Symes The laws of physics were long thought to be unchanged when viewed in a mirror.We have known for over sixty years that they are not.As Sakharov first explained, this asymmetry, in action during the first moments of the universe, may account for the […]

Unless they are astronauts, humans must view the Universe through the window of the Earth’s atmosphere. Although a clear sky is relatively transparent to visible light, bright astronomical objects — most noticeably the Sun — can paint the entire sky with luminosity, colour and shadow to be captured by both landscape painters and photographers. How […]