General Articles

Saturn to pull celestial Houdini on 11 August

  Image from Stellarium Sky map program Click here to view the original Popular Mechanics article In 1918, magician extraordinaire Harry Houdini created a sensation when he made a 4 500 kg elephant disappear before a mystified audience of over 5 200 at New York’s famed Hippodrome theatre. But a vanishing pachyderm is nothing compared …

Saturn to pull celestial Houdini on 11 August Read More »

Salt finding from Nasa’s Cassini hints at ocean within Saturn moon

Cassini imaging scientists used views like this one to help them identify the source locations for individual jets spurting ice particles, water vapour and trace organic compounds from the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Image credit: Nasa/JPL/Space Science Institute For the first time, scientists working on Nasa’s Cassini mission have detected sodium salts in ice …

Salt finding from Nasa’s Cassini hints at ocean within Saturn moon Read More »

Rare meteorite found by ‘fireball’ observatory

This all-sky image was taken by the Desert Fireball Network in Western Australia with a fish-eye lens. The film is exposed for most of the night, so stars trace long curves; the white streak diagonally across them is a fireball (Image: Desert Fireball Network, funding from STFC and the EU) A rare meteorite that may …

Rare meteorite found by ‘fireball’ observatory Read More »