releases.jhu.edu/2012/12/21/wmap ... ervations/

releases.jhu.edu/2012/12/21/wmap ... ervations/

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pzbjb

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pzbjb

There's plenty of info about what's going on up in space here:- www.spaceweather.com/ Also, ever wanted to see the Northern Lights? Well, you can register for e-mail or SMS alerts here to give you every chance when they can be seen from the UK (Cloud cover permitting ):- aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/

There's plenty of info about what's going on up in space here:- www.spaceweather.com/ Also, ever wanted to see the Northern Lights? Well, you can register for e-mail or SMS alerts here to give you every chance when they can be seen from the UK (Cloud cover permitting ):- aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/

Well, Asteroid Apophis missed us, so there went another doomsday scare. But while it passed at a relatively comfy 18m km away, on Friday 13 (naturally) April 2029, it will make a close pass at a distance of about 30,000km. That's about 10% of the Earth-Moon distance.



And if you are still about in 2036, that might be it. Genuinely, for once. There is a small "keyhole" of space which there is a 200,000-1 chance it could go through and if it passes through that keyhole in 2029, it will come back and hit Earth on 13 April in 2036. Note the word "will". The boffins will be able to say with absolute certainty, one way or the other, once they have tracked the precise path on the 2036 fly-by. This is because it will be close enough to bounce a radar signal off, and from that they will get the exact speed and exact distance.



Maybe there's a job for Bruce or Clint after all.



If you want to watch the asteroid live right now go here: [urlhttp://events.slooh.com/[/url

A year before my 40th Birthday - no midlife crisis for me. Interesting stuff though.

I doubt i ll be alive then, but if i am i ll be 76 and would be good to see if the end really is nigh then.

It might not be the end, but there's a chance property prices in the impact zone may be affected from 2029.



So my idea for 2036 would be to dig a bloody great hole at the impact epicentre, and install a big feck-off trampoline.

Great shot of the hexagon on Saturn, courtesy of the Cassini spacecraft. Nobody still ha sa clue how the hexagon is formed, but it's been stable, on a rotating gas planet, for the 20 years since first observed.

Well, looks like I'm never going to see Comet PanSTARRS as it seems to be permanently cloudy, but it's still a big day for humanity as NASA has announced that the Voyager I spacecraft has become the first man-made object to leave the Solar System and fly into interstellar space.



Now travelling at about 17 km per second (away from the Sun), it will still take around 40,000 years to get within 2 light years of a nearby star, but its power source will run out in 10-15 years so it will be silenced.



It is incredible we still receive data and communicate with it - the strength of signal is about a millionth of a billionth of 1 watt, and a signal now takes over 17 hours to reach Earth.



Maybe one day some alien will pick it up and decipher our message. One of mankind's greatest achievements.

Sounds excellent, so we'll get seven years notice of the death star returning ?



Easily enough time to stock up on tin hats and baked beans.







Somewhere, sometime, on a planet far, far away some alien lifeform is listening to that very faint signal and trying to work out what the looped tape of Lionel Richie's "Hello" song all means.

This is where I make you all gain an inkling of how utterly insignificant we are (except to ourselves) and why some alien lifeform is not (yet) listening.



The Solar Syatem is, in space terms, NOTHING.



And the only aliens who could hear us would be any within our "communications bubble"; that is, how far our earliest broadcasts have travelled, at the speed of light, since radio communication was invented.



And that, if you look at a picture of our galaxy, is again, NOWHERE AT ALL. The overwhelming majority of even our own poxy little galaxy could not possibly have any inkling at all that we are here.



Here you go, sit yer throats: that tiny, insignificant blue dot is in fact The Bubble. That's how far our signals have got.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/eur ... id=wp_ipad

www.washingtonpost.com/world/eur ... id=wp_ipad