From the dawn of consciousness, we humans have pondered the sky, wondering, “What is out there?” For thousands of years our ancestors were limited to what they could see with their eyes: The Sun, Moon, five planets, comets and 10,000…
About 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second, night and day. Yet in a lifetime you will not stop one of them. You are transparent to neutrinos – more transparent than a windowpane is to light. Even the whole Earth is…
Around 3pm on New Year’s Eve 2024 the people of Mukuku village (110km southeast of Nairobi in Kenya) were astonished when a 500-kg metallic ring 2.5m in diameter crashed into their village. Luckily, no one was injured and there was no…
Last month my wife and I travelled to Namaqualand for the beautiful annual display of Spring flowers – the best in the world. On our way back to Port Alfred we spent two nights at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) 14km to…
Could life possibly exist on Venus? asks Professor Donald Kurtz Venus is the beautiful, bright “evening star” you can now see to the northwest as twilight fades. It will remain in our evening sky until the end of February next year.…
You were taught as a child that the Sun is 150 million km away. Look at it at sunset. Can you tell how far away it is? The Sun is ½o in angular size, but then so is the Moon, which is only 384,000 km away. We cannot determine the distance…
