At the end of September, scientists from NASA, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope announced that they had discovered water vapour plumes on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. The plumes extend more than 100 miles into space. The discovery was announced in a hastily arranged press conference amidst excitable rumours that NASA had discovered aliens. No aliens were forthcoming, but the discovery is certainly is good news for planetary scientists looking for extraterrestrial life.
A blast from the past. This article and interview first appeared in Astronomy and Space magazine in June 2007.
The early Solar System was a violent place. One theory states that shortly after Earth’s formation four and a half billion years ago, a body the size of Mars thumped into Earth, blasting off massive amounts of debris. This debris eventually coalesced to form the Moon. After formation, the Moon underwent a period of intensive bombardment by meteorites that scared, fractured and left the Moon covered in craters of all sizes. This period was known as the late heavy bombardment and occurred between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago.
As we spend so much time studying Orion over the Winter, it will do no harm at all to mention a few of the other objects that are visible apart from M42, the Great Orion Nebula. Seeing as M42 is the highlight of Orion, lets start there and turn our binoculars on the Sword of Orion. The whole sword of Orion is rich in Nebulae and clusters. Running from the South up we have NGC 1980 a small cluster and nebulosity, M42 and the trapezium, are above that. M43 is between M42 and The Running man Nebula, NGC1977. Finally, north of NGC1977 we reach NGC1981.
Back in 2005 to 2007, I edited, wrote for, and produced an astronomy magazine for Kerry Astronomy Club. It lasted for six issues.
Allow me to present Spéir, Astronomy with A Kerry Twist
