Astronomy

AOP recently announced the introduction of a new interactive outdoor activity comprised of two routes. The astronomy-themed Cosmo Lost in Space trail is for children, whilst Astropark Journey, an augmented reality trail, is for an adult audience. Designed by Brilliant Trails and supported by Tourism NI and the Department for Communities, the attraction is based at the organisation’s Planetarium. The Cosmo Lost in Space trail follows the story of Cosmo, a dog that enters a spaceship which accidentally takes off to the Moon. Launch of the trails Young adventurers must follow the trail marked on a map to discover clues and locate the 11 Cosmo Lost in Space markers located along the route. Once all the clues have been collected, they will be able to decipher a secret code word to help Cosmo la...

Saturn imaged a few nights past, on 17 August. Image: Eric Sussenbach. The magnificent ringed planet Saturn is arguably the most popular planet, but undoubtably it’s the most stunning of all through the eyepiece. Saturn is special for its fantastic system of rings that are easy to see through even a small telescope. Unfortunately, the rings are ‘closing up’ from our perspective, on their way to an edge-on presentation in 2025. Despite this, the rings retain plenty of their glory and are well seen (see below). On Sunday, 27 August Saturn reaches it absolute best for the year, when it lies opposite the Sun in the sky, with Earth lined up between. This alignment is what astronomers term ‘opposition’, and its when Saturn, or indeed any superior planet (those which orbit the Sun at a greater d...

The largest storm in the solar system, a 10,000-mile-wide anticyclone called the Great Red Spot, has decorated Jupiter's surface for hundreds of years. A new study now shows that Saturn -- though much blander and less colorful than Jupiter -- also has long-lasting megastorms with impacts deep in the atmosphere that persist for centuries. The study was conducted by astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who looked at radio emissions from the planet, which come from below the surface, and found long-term disruptions in the distribution of ammonia gas. The study was published today (Aug. 11) in the journal Science Advances. Megastorms occur approximately every 20 to 30 years on Saturn and are similar to hurricanes on Earth, although...

A phenomenon called gravitational lensing can help astronomers observe faint, hard-to-see galaxies. Credit: NASA/STScI The universe we live in is a transparent one, where light from stars and galaxies shines bright against a clear, dark backdrop. But this wasn't always the case—in its early years, the universe was filled with a fog of hydrogen atoms that obscured light from the earliest stars and galaxies. The intense ultraviolet light from the first generations of stars and galaxies is thought to have burned through the hydrogen fog, transforming the universe into what we see today. While previous ...