Astronomy

Mona Evans

Saturn's vivid rings are well known, but it's not the only ringed planet. And it isn't just planets that have rings. The cosmos has a variety of ringed objects.

Mona Evans

Rosetta went where no space mission had been before! It caught up with a comet in deep space and went into orbit around it. Its lander Philae was the first ever to land on a comet. At the end of the mission, Rosetta also landed on the comet to join it and Philae on the comet's journey.

Mona Evans

Achievements may be honored with prizes and medals, but few get represented as children's toys. However Lego responded to a proposal to showcase women in space and astronomy by making a Lego set representing four such women and their major contributions. Who were these women?

Mona Evans

Thousands of years ago a comet broke up. A remnant still visits Earth, adding to the debris stream fuelling the annual Taurid meteor shower. The shower peaks near Halloween and may produce brilliant meteors – its nickname is 'Halloween Fireballs'. But is there something deadly in the Beta Taurids?

Mona Evans

No one alive had seen Venus transit when the 2004 one occurred. And if you missed that and the 2012 transit, there isn't another until 2117. However Mercury also transits the Sun – and these transits happen more often. But what's a transit and what do we learn from it?

Mona Evans

The Prime Meridian of the World is “where time begins” at zero degrees of longitude. By international agreement in 1884, it was located at Greenwich, England. But if you stand on that meridian and look at the GPS on your phone, it won't read zero. What happened?

Mona Evans

A professional musician named William Herschel was the first person in history to discover a planet. Later, as a professional astronomer, Herschel studied the stars and deep space objects to try to understand “the construction of the heavens.” He was one of the fathers of modern astronomy.

Mona Evans

In the north of England in the early 17th century, there was an amazing circle of astronomers. They were well ahead of their time, and included the first two people ever to observe a transit of Venus. What ended this brief flowering? Peter Aughton tells the story.

Mona Evans

Many foods are associated with a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. But what do you suppose would be on the menu for Thanksgiving in space? Would you have to squeeze turkey paste out of a tube and get gelatin-covered dessert cubes? No. Food has improved since the early days of space flight.