Archive by category | Astronomy

Lunar balloonist

Posted by Barbara Kiser | Categories: , , ,

Artist's impression of Museum of the Moon as it will look in a park setting.

Multi-media artist and researcher Luke Jerram experiments with sound, movement and materials in a dazzling array of installations. He has created monumental blown-glass sculptures of bacteria and viruses (Glass Microbiology), the acoustic wind pavilion Aeolus, and Retinal Memory Volume, an interactive sculpture using the mechanisms of eyesight. Here Jerram talks about his new Museum of the Moon, a vast globe that will premier at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta in August.  Read more

On the road with Star Men

Posted by Barbara Kiser | Categories: ,

Very Large Array radio telescopes, New Mexico.

Fifty years ago, four young men with newly minted PhDs left England for the California Institute of Technology. They were embarking on what turned out to be long and successful lives in astronomy. CalTech afforded Donald Lynden-Bell, Roger Griffin,  Wal Sargent and Neville Woolf opportunities — to probe the heavens, through access to the world’s best telescopes at Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar, and to explore the astonishing landscapes of the western United States on the road.  Read more

Much ado about science

Posted by Barbara Kiser | Categories: ,

The Chandos portrait, possibly of Shakespeare,

As the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth rolls round again, it’s salutary to recall just how long the hunt for science in the bard’s work has gone on. In 1917, for instance, Herbert Warren, reviewing Shakespeare’s England, mentions the bard’s “world-embracing interest” as encompassing zoology and medicine. And the playwright’s lifetime (1564-1616) certainly coincided with a panoply of key scientific events and figures.  Read more

Hubble and the cosmic sublime in poetry

Posted by Barbara Kiser | Categories: ,

The Bug Nebula (NGC 6302.

Twenty-five years ago, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope began to lay bare the depths of space — from the evolution of galaxies to the age of the Universe. Beyond its contribution to science, Hubble’s dazzling images of galaxies, stellar nurseries and planetary moons have mesmerised a generation.  Read more

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