Ten ways to get involved in space without leaving Earth

Experiencing weightlessness, watching the Earth rise over the stark lunar landscape, and seeing the stars exposed without the veil of the Earth's atmosphere: who hasn't thought about what it would be like? At the moment, getting into space is the preserve of the elite, whether they are scientists, military, or those wealthy enough to purchase a rocket ride. Space is a just dream to most of the rest of us.

But this doesn't mean that we have to live as if our feet were made of clay, Earth-bound like a worm when what we really want to do is fly like a bird. There are many ways to be part of space without ever leaving the Earth. I'm going to take you through some of them.

1. Visit a planetarium

The Melbourne Planetarium at Scienceworks. Image credit: Stewie Donn

Planetariums are dome-shaped cinemas designed to show the night sky and other celestial phenomena. The idea has been around since the 17th century, but today's planetaria use the best of high-tech projection and software to create immersive experiences. For a short time, you can be taken out of yourself and visit the furthest reaches of the universe. Most capital cities have them, and some regional centres too. They're not all stars and galaxies: planetarium shows also look at space junk, space weather, and aliens (hoorah!) among many other spacey good things. Here's a list of some places you can find one:

Wollongong Science Centre and Planetarium (NSW)
Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium (Brisbane)
Adelaide Planetarium
Launceston Planetarium
Melbourne Planetarium
Swinburne Virtual Reality Theatre, (Melbourne)
Ballarat Observatory 3D Theatre (Vic)
Sydney Planetarium
Horizon - the Planetarium (Perth)

There are even mobile planetaria which will come to you! In NSW, contact the Planetarium Education Group; in Queensland, Starlab Education, in Western Australia, the Spacedome.

2. Keep up with the breaking news from space

Subscribing to a space news service is a good way to get all the latest dirt on what's happening in the solar system. Some are more geared towards the general public than others. You can subscribe to their feeds or newsletters, and also follow them on Twitter.

Space.com is a very reliable and prestigious source of news.

Space Daily has a slightly more industry focus. You can subscribe to their newsletters for free.

Universe Today also covers astronomy.

Space News covers civil space, military space, commercial space and satellite communications business.

Space Ref is a space news and reference site. This includes space exploration and missions, and a space calendar of events.

Space Info features astronomy, Australian science, and spaceflight news

Aviation Week also covers a lot of space news.

Of course, there are a multitude of space resources online that cater to all interests. Starting points for the Anglophones are the NASA and ESA websites.

3. Do some space craft

Spacecraft, geddit? Don't spend all your time staring at the screen as if it will magically whisk you into orbit, get your hands dirty! And gluey and covered in paint, and maybe some glitter. I suppose you can get some kids involved if they're hanging around and won't go away.

Fabulous astronaut masks! made by Erin at Luck and Bliss.

Se7en makes bottle top aliens!

This is rather gorgeous: a 3D space garland from Jessika Hepburn

Doodle and Stitch make a simple but effective paper rocket

Here's another rocket made from a toilet roll - my favourite craft item

This rocket's made from a plastic bottle. You can have space fun while recycling too!

There are some more ideas in this post and there are plenty of amazing space craft projects on the internet.

4. Visit a space museum

Of course, the ne plus ultra of space museums is the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Another favourite is the Musee de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris. But you don't have to go overseas to see some wondrous space artefacts. Here's a few more local options.

Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (the Powerhouse), NSW, has the only permanent space display in the country.

Woomera Heritage Centre, SA, also has an amazing rocket park. Not for playing, the rockets are real.

South Australian Aviation Museum, located in Port Adelaide, has plenty of Woomera artefacts if you can't get to the outback.

At the Esperance Museum in WA you can see the remains of the space station Skylab, one of the most famous spacecraft ever to re-enter the atmosphere.

At the South Australian Museum you can see Australian astronaut Andy Thomas' spacesuit!

The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, ACT, has a brilliant museum celebrating both Australian and US space.

In Tasmania, don't miss the Grote Reber Museum. This is the heartland of radio astronomy!

Don't forget your local museum or heritage centre either - I've found some extraordinary space artefacts displayed in regional museums and small towns. Often they've been donated by someone who has worked in aerospace or has travelled to space places.

5. Follow a spacecraft on Twitter

This is one of the best things about social media. There are a number of spacecraft with Twitter accounts, and some hilarious parody accounts too. As a follower, you get the latest information and the opportunity to interact with the spacecraft (ie the team running it). But beware. You can become very attached to your robot space friend, and if the mission ends, it can be a very sad and emotional experience.

Here are a few recommendations.

@NSFVoyager2 - Voyager 2. Run by the amazing Dr Paul Filmer, you can expect regular updates on distance from Earth and which instruments are collecting data.

@MarsCuriosity - the Mars Curiosity Rover. This is the only rover still working on Mars after the death of Opportunity in 2019.

@SarcasticRover is a witty parody account which has a huge following. As well as space science, you get commentary about life on Earth from the viewpoint of space.....

@OSIRISRex is a NASA mission to the asteroid belt.

@Haya2e_jaxa is a Japanese asteroid mission with several components, due to return its sample to Earth in 2020.

As well as actual spacecraft, most space agencies, research centres and missions have social media accounts.

6. Celebrate a space event

You can have your own space event whenever you want! Get in some space beer or wine, encourage people to dress up, make a spacey mixtape. Get crafty (see No 3) and decorate your house like a space station or mission control room. Invite your friends and talk about space with them!

There are a few space occasions which are celebrated worldwide. 

Yuri's Night is April 12 and celebrates the day on which Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to enter space and orbit Earth. This is the official website where you can register your party and or find out what events are happening in your town.

A great way to participate in this anniversary is to orbit with Yuri by watching Christopher Riley's film First Orbit, available here. The film blends archival footage and recreations of Yuri's view taken by one of my favourite astronauts, Paolo Nespoli. I love it because it's almost meditative; you have to focus on every minute through Yuri's eyes, seeing a view of Earth that was truly unique.

Later in year is World Space Week, which kicks off on the anniversary of Sputnik 1's launch on October 4th. On the website you can find guidelines about how to organise an event, as well as events planned around the world that you can attend.

I'm going to start a new one: Valentina's Day. On 16 June 1963, she became the first woman to orbit the Earth and she is still the only woman to have carried out a solo space mission. We should celebrate this! 

7. Go satellite spotting 

Although light pollution has made it harder for people in densely populated areas to see the night sky, most people would recognise a star. Fewer, perhaps, realise that they're also watching satellites.

Satellites don't have their own lights, but we can see them when they reflect the light of the Sun, often bouncing off the solar panels which power the spacecraft. Even at night the satellites are high enough to catch the Sun's rays. You'll generally only see Low Earth Orbit satellites, but there are plenty of them, as well as the International Space Station.

Stars move very slowly, but satellites are fast - after all, they orbit Earth every 90 minutes or thereabouts. Look for a fast moving light. Beware of flashing lights: this is probably an aeroplane, not a satellite.

To see the largest and brightest object in orbit, the ISS, this handy NASA site allows you to search for local sighting opportunities.

Everyone knows the old folk rhyme about wishing on the first star you see in the evening (usually Venus, by the way - a planet).

Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight

The sky has changed since that rhyme was made, and our relationship to it has changed also. This is Billy Bragg, in his 1983 song Looking for a New England:

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care

Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? I say no. Instead, ask Dr Space Junk to grant your wish on a satellite. Here is my rhyme to go with your satellite spotting expedition, and it's even better because you get to make THREE wishes.

Dr Space Junk in your ship,
Watching every tiny blip.
Please bestow my wishes three:
One for Earth, one for Sea,
and one for the satellite high above me.

8. Join a space society

What could be better than making new space friends and getting to hang out at space events with them? There are a number of societies at national, state and local level which will enable you to get involved in space. Here are a few that I recommend.

Space Industry Association of Australia. This is an industry representative organisation, but definitely worth joining if you work in aerospace or a space-adjacent area.  Full disclosure: I am a member.
Space Association of Australia. Based in Melbourne, the SAA has regular meetings open to the public with guest speakers, and also has a radio broadcast.
National Space Society. This is a chapter of the US society. Every year the NSS hosts the Australian Space Research Conference.
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. There are chapters of the AIAA in Sydney, Canberra, and Adelaide.
The British Interplanetary Society is one of the oldest space societies in existence. (Maybe even the oldest one).  They publish a journal and a magazine.
The Planetary Society is another US one. It was founded by Carl Sagan, among others, in 1980.
Mars Society Australia is part of a global network of Mars societies. Basically they want to go to Mars, but they have lots of activities on Earth too.
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI) is a volunteer organisation interested in space activities.

If you want to get your hands dirty, you will find local rocket societies almost everywhere across Australia. This is where you can help build and launch a small rocket. It might not get to space but it's the same technology!

9. Eat astronaut food and drink astronaut drinks

There's lots of books around showing you how to train like an astronaut, but who can be bothered with that? Let's go straight to the gourmet end of astronaut existence. Your first tool is the wonderful Astronaut's Cookbook, which combines recipes with stories of life in space.

It's a myth that the powdered drink mix Tang was created for the space program, but it was invented in 1957, Year 1 of the Space Age. It became permanently associated with astronauts and spaceflight when it was used in NASA's Mercury and Gemini programs in the 1950s and 1960s. These days it comes in many difference flavours. And you can make cocktails with it! Here is the recipe for the Buzz Aldrin:

Tang (for garnish)
1 orange slice
4 oz of vodka (this is an American recipe)
2 tablespoons Tang
Ice 

Place Tang on a plate. Run orange slice around the rim of a glass; rotate rim of glass in Tang. 

In a cocktail shaker, add Tang, vodka, and ice; shake. Strain into glass. Makes 1 cocktail.

The fanciness doesn't stop there. How about following this yummy cocktail with some luxurious Lobster Newburg, as eaten by the lucky crew of the US space station Skylab?

For dessert - of course you need astronaut freeze-dried ice cream., and it's fairly easy to obtain. Many museum shops stock it, and you can buy the original online here. A cheaper version is available from the Questacon shop. For an easy substitute, try meringues!

Breakfast is a snap. Here is a recipe (scroll down) from the Astronaut's Cookbook for a microgravity-friendly cereal.

Any food in a pouch is a good bet. You can buy lots of yogurt, fruit and baby food in this form.

10. Be aware of space for a day

You can decide to do this any time. Just for a day, think about how you are connected to space through Earth and through human technology.

It starts when the sun rises. As you lie in bed, think about Earth slowly turning underneath you, tilting you towards the Sun.

Think yourself into space. Imagine your body moving through time and space, not confined by your line of sight. Sight is not a sense that helps us here. In your mind's eye, think of how gravity is anchoring you to the surface. Be aware of the layers of atmosphere above you, until they thin out and give way to the stars and planets.

Where's the Moon? Look for it in the sky - if it's daytime, you might see its pale white curves, hard to distinguish sometimes. It seems passive, slowly moving in an arc overhead, but its gravitational force causes the tides. Up on the Moon are the remnants of human missions, forming an other-wordly archaeological record.

Perhaps you look at the weather on your phone or the television/radio news while you're having breakfast. The maps of cloud formations over Earth are brought to you from Earth observation satellites.

Every time you use your smartphone, look up and think of the satellites it's using to hook into GPS. Perhaps you get some cash out from an ATM. Look at the printed receipt: the time on it comes from satellites signals. At the supermarket, all of the goods you're about to buy are transported by trucks and ships using satellite signals.

As dusk falls, think of how you are now turning away from the Sun, turning to face the outer regions of the solar system, where human spacecraft are wending their way out into the galaxy beyond.

And of course, finish your day with some satellite spotting.

Space. You're standing in it.

Apollo 8: the shadow diaries

Mapping the shadows

Shadows on the Moon have many scientific implications, from temperature to the electrostatic properties of lunar dust. I'm more interested in the cultural and social aspects of lunar shadows, however, while noting that the lines are often blurred between these distinctions.

I've considered shadows as part of the fabric of the Apollo landing sites. In another post I looked at Apollo mission photographs in which the photographer is present only as a shadow. Here, I'm thinking about shadows cast by 'natural' features; light, perspective, and movement. 

This is a series of images taken by the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. (All these images are from the NASA archives). Apollo 8 was the first US human spaceflight mission to orbit the Moon. People usually remember this mission for the famous snap of Earthrise, claimed to be one of the most influential images of all time.

Over 20 hours, the Apollo 8 spacecraft with its three crew orbited the Moon 10 times. The aim was to map the lunar surface, supplementing data from the Lunar Orbiter in 1964. 

This wasn't all, though. The crew were scoping out possible future landing sites, and shadows were a factor. A little way into their sixth orbit, one of the astronauts says:

The sun angles that we see now from the first IP, second IP, and P 1 are just right, I think, for landing conditions. The shadows aren't too deep for you to get confused, but the land is - has texture to it, and there are enough shadows to make everything stand out.

Not too much shadow, but not too little either. So now let's look at the shadows as seen by Apollo 8.

A shadow sequence

I've chosen these images from different points in the magazine 17C roll to show how shadows change as the spacecraft flew over the surface from lunar day to lunar night. 

Figure 1: AS08-17-2813

The surface of the Moon is a bright mirror against the black of space (Figure 1).

Figure 2: AS08-17-2761

With a different camera angle, the brightness fills the entire screen. We can see even brighter white markings (Figure 2). If you didn't know this was the moon, it could almost be the surface of a stone tool under a Scanning Electron Microscope, the changes in colour representing incipient fractures too small for the naked eye to detect.

As the Apollo 8 spacecraft injected itself into lunar orbit and prepared to take the first photographs, the astronauts commented on the lack of shadows.

Figure 3: AS08-17-2704

The details start to be resolved. It's no longer a flat surface with markings or fissures; it's a raised surface where faint shadows give it depth and texture (Figure 3).

Here, we're moving away from the subsolar point where the sun is overhead. The angle of light does not produce shadows, much as on Earth.

Figure 4: AS08-17-2686

Now we see more detail, and gradations of shadows, as the Apollo craft heads towards the terminator. The craters look like footprints in deep sand interspersed with those of smaller animals and worms, such as you might see on the surface of a beach still wet from the retreating water of the tide. In fact, astronaut Jim Lovell compared the texture of the surface to greyish beach sand.

In each major depression there are two or three shades of shadow, with the deepest black on the left hand edge.

Figure 5: AS08-17-2674

The shadows are deeper and darker as Apollo 8 approaches the evening side of the Moon. They convey a sense of late afternoon with an oblique sun. At the base of the craters, the shadows are deep black and even a little sinister (Figure 5). There are surfaces on the Moon that are permanently shadowed, never exposed to sunlight.

Figure 6: AS08-17-2664

The proportion of light and dark is now starting to reverse. The shadows are taking over the craters, leaving a miniature new moon sliver of brightness on the right side (Figure 6). These are deep holes, perhaps the lair of a lunar worm waiting to propel itself towards the spacecraft with a snap and swallow it whole.

Figure 7: AS08-17-2660

It is night on the Moon and all lies in shadow. Only the rim of the craters catch residual sunlight - or is it Earthlight?

During the voyage, Bill Anders said 'There's not as much detail, of course, as in the sunlight, but you can see the - the large craters quite distinctly, and you can see the albedo contacts quite distinctly. And also, the - there's a good three-dimensional view of the rims of the large craters'.

In the debrief following their return Anders commented that 'night landing or landing on the moon in an earthshine condition would be acceptable from a visibility standpoint'.



Anders raised another interesting point in the official debrief:

I thought that the shadows were not nearly as black as there [sic] appeared to be in the simulations that I've seen on earth, particularly the Boeing simulation. We could even see the features that were on the shadowside of some rills and rims. So, although it's dark, it's not a complete black and white situation. 

Naturally I'm taken with the concept of the shadow simulation. These would have used images from the Lunar Orbiter, which was orbiting at a higher altitude. 

Shadow [moon] lander

So what's my point? These are so different to the shadows cast by the accoutrements of robotic and human landing missions on the Moon. All the ones I've shown here have a circular geometry, and they're mostly about 'bumps and holes', as one of the astronauts said (from the transcripts it's sometimes hard to tell who said what). There's a peculiar feature of these bumps and holes which is shared with microscope views: sometimes it's hard to tell which one it is. Depressions and hollows can look like hills and protruberances, and you have to 'get your eye in' to see them properly. It's a sort of optical illusion, I guess, but one in which the shadows are critical.

Most of the cultural shadows on the Moon are cast by objects resting on the surface rather than depressions into the surface (although there are some of those too). They're frequently angular or linear. More recently, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has used these shadows to identify features of the Apollo sites.

Shadows are a critical feature of the visual experience of the Moon, at least for the astronaut. I'm not sure whether we can see lunar shadows from the Earth with the naked eye, though. Light and dark areas are caused by the reflectance properties of different geologies (selenologies?), known as albedo features. I don't think we can see the movement of shadows as the light of the sun or the phases of the moon change. With a telescope, though, it's different. The elongation of shadows near the terminator can be seen and photographed. 

There's something about scale and distance here, and about technology and vision. I guess what I really want to say is that shadows aren't incidental to our experience of the Moon. They're signs that we can read, and translate into science, and into poetry too.

Numinous


A patch of the Moon
flanked by shadows: trembling sense
we shouldn’t be here.













Image and poem by @tychogirl

Dr Space Junk's Guide to Voting For Names of Surface Features on Pluto

When the New Horizons mission reaches Pluto and its moons in July 2015, there'll be hundreds of surface features that have never been seen before and which will need new names. The theme for these names is exploration and the underworld.



New Horizons. Image courtesy of NASA

The International Astronomical Union is in charge of allocating names in the solar system. But the New Horizons mission team have got together with the SETI Institute to get the public to contribute to a shortlist for their consideration.

'Pluto belongs to everyone', says New Horizon science team member Mark Showalter, also a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute.  'So we want everyone to be involved in making the map of this distant world'.

You're my kind of guy, Mark Showalter.

But of course, one of the questions that immediately arises, to me anyway, is how many women-type of people will get a look-in in this process. So I went to the list to see what the representation was like. Let's just say, no surprises.

So with this in mind, I've done the hard work so you don't have to! Here is a list of women or female beings who are part of the longlist so far. And yes, you can vote for more than one. I'm also going to include some honourable mentions at the end that are just so cool you couldn't not want them to be the name of something on Pluto or Charon (the largest moon).

Happy voting! And remember to do it before April 24th. Full instructions are here.

History of exploration

Jeanne Baré (or Baret; botanist; first woman to circumnavigate the globe)

Alexandrine Tinné (Dutch explorer of Egypt)

Sacagawea (US Native American - Lewis and Clarke guide)

Fictional Explorers and Travelers

Eleanor Arroway (from Contact - Carl Sagan)

Alice (from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll) VOTE FOR ALICE. As someone who has identified with Alice from earliest childhood, I most certainly will be.

Arthur Dent/Trillian/Zaphod Beeblebrox (from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). She was smarter than the rest of them put together.

Candide/Cunegonde/Pangloss (from Voltaire's Candide)

Dorothy Gale & Toto (from Oz books - L. Frank Baum)

Kaguya-hime (Japanese folktale) You get double value with this one, as it's also the nickname of a Japanese lunar orbiter (separately listed).

Kathryn Janeway (from TV's Star Trek: Voyager)

Skywalker/Solo/Leia/Kenobi (from Star Wars films)

Exploration Authors and Artists

Octavia E. Butler (US - author of Xenogenesis trilogy) I've never read Octavia Butler, but I really, really should.

Madeleine L'Engle (US author - A Wrinkle in Time) Now I'm sorry, but I will brook no opposition on this. Vote for Madeleine. If you were not moved to fear, horror, compassion and love by A Wrinkle in Time, you are barely human. If you have not read it, get thee to a library forthwith.

Anne McCaffrey (US-Irish author - Pern and Talents series) Rollicking good science fiction-fantasy yarns that entranced millions. 

Alice Sheldon (US author - A Momentary Taste of Being) AKA James Tiptree Jnr, a wonderful science fiction author. Her family background is also discussed in Donna Haraway's Primate Visions.

Travelers to the Underworld

Proserpina (kidnapped by Hades) I prefer the Greek Persephone but whatever.

Inanna & Dumuzi (from Sumerian mythology)

Orfeo & Euridice (from Greek mythology) Please read this poem about Eurydice by H.D (Hilda Dolittle), but be warned it will break your heart.

Virgil & Beatrice (from Dante's Inferno)

Underworld Beings

Tuoni & Tuonetar (Finnish mythology)

Ereshkigal (Sumerian mythology)

Alecto/Megaera/Tisiphone (Furies or Erinyes - Greek mythology)

Ammit (Devourer of Souls - Egyptian mythology)

Melinoë (Bringer of nightmares - Greek mythology)

Honourable Mentions

Phileas Fogg (from Around the World in 80 days). However, it should really be Passepartout, who did all the hard work anyway.

Tintin (from graphic novels by Hergé)

Gallifrey (Planet of the Time Lords - Dr Who)

Heart of Gold (Infinite Improbability spaceship, from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Dawn Treader (by C. S. Lewis)

Chesley Bonestell (US space artist)

Hieronymus Bosch (Dutch painter of Hellish scenes) This is so obvious I don't know why it's even a matter of voting.

Stanislaw Lem (Polish science fiction author) Because I love that man's writing so much.

Maurice Sendak (US author - Where the Wild Things Are) Nuff said.

Baralku (Yolngu culture, Australia) Baralku is the Island of the Dead. You must vote for this because it is from the same region of Australia as the Aboriginal music on the Voyager Golden Records.

Sun Wukong (Monkey King - Chinese mythology) MONKEY. Do you hear me? This is Monkey.

Cthulhu (from H. P. Lovecraft)

Notes: on the official website, they mostly link to Wikipedia, but I've linked to other sites where I think there is more interesting or nuanced information. Sometimes, Wikipedia does have the best information online so I've stuck with that.

The longlist is quite long, and it's possible I've missed a few - if so, let me know and I'll add them.

If you think there are women/entities who ought to be on the official longlist but aren't, it's worth checking the Gazetteer to see if they haven't already been used elsewhere in the solar system.

My list here, and the commentary on it, are of course my personal views, and you are free to disagree or ignore them as you wish.

Dr Space Junk in da stratosphere: excavating my desktop

This is one of the results of me mucking around with graphics a few years ago. I found it while attempting to file all the stuff lying around on my computer desktop. At the time I made it, I was obsessed with vintage Russian space designs. (Well, still am, really).

Since I'm looking at random stuff, which I'm going to call an assemblage in fact, in Spit 1 of my computer, I might put a couple more artefacts up here. (Spits, for the non-archaeologists, are arbitrary excavation units. They might be 5 or 10 cm depending on the kind of deposit you're digging through. Typically Spit 1 is where all the grass roots, worms, sticks, and discarded rubbish is).

Here's a fabulous paper by Mark Edmonds about the archaeology and heritage of the Jodrell Bank telescope in the UK:

Full reference is

Edmonds, Mark 2010 When they come to model Heaven: big science and the monumental in post-war Britain. Antiquity 84:774-795

This is a picture of a cloud chamber. Cloud chambers are very exciting places where you can see the traces of sub-atomic particles like electrons. I think I was vaguely thinking of an archaeology of cloud chambers with some Schrodinger's cats thrown in for good measure.

Here's the first few slides of a lecture on cultural landscapes I used to give to the ARCH2108 Cultural Heritage Management class at Flinders University. The lecture is joint effort between me and my esteemed colleague Dr Lynley Wallis. The beginning is about the origins of the cultural landscape approach in geography (although there is another strand deriving from landscape painting) - later on the lecture covers cultural landscapes in archaeology and heritage management, including space, of course.

The final artefact from my desktop is an aerial image of the sewage works at the abandoned Orroral Valley NASA Tracking Station, from when we were doing a geophysical survey in 2010. Space sites can be more mundane than you might think. It was a rather peaceful place, slightly down slope and out of view from the main antenna and operations buildings. I thought that if anyone adaptively reused the site the tanks would make lovely water gardens.

Dr Space Junk in the Venus Transit Lounge

And Venus was her name ....

Well it was all a bit exciting really. Unfortunately I had a lot of trouble with the Australian feed from Alice Springs, and not just because a road worker had accidentally cut the cable. Even though they were supposed to be getting the best quality images, all I could find when I checked the site was pictures of someone's car boot.

So we watched the Hawai'i feed in my Transit Lounge here at Flinders University. The Hawai'ian dudes had some interesting commentary and I liked their casual approach.  People dropped in and out of the Venus Transit Lounge throughout the day. I wouldn't say I was any kind of expert on the Transit of Venus, despite it being my favourite planet, but all the same I found myself explaining various points and features to the assembled science lovers.

Jennifer McKinnon took this photo and supplied the caption!

The Transit of Venus at Flinders University

In Humanities Room 281, all day!

International Year of the Quiet Sun, 1964-1965

I do love a good International Scientific Year, and I was born in this one, so it seems a bit special.

The IGY was aimed at taking advantage of a solar maximum; the IQSY (International Quiet Sun Year) was all about the solar minimum. There were some satellite missions launched specifically for it, but I'll need to do a bit more research to find out which ones.

An interesting article about planning the IQSY can be found here:

Martin A. Pomerantz 1963 International Years of the Quiet Sun, 1964-65 Science 142(3596):1136-1143

The International Quiet Sun Year is a lovely notion as it implies that the Sun is usually noisy - like it was singing to us. (I'm sure someone must have translated solar activity into music before).

Launch of International Astronomy Year 2009

15 January 2009

2009 has been declared the International Year of Astronomy by the UN General Assembly in collaboration with the International Astronomical Union.

Launched under the theme, 'The Universe - Yours to discover', IYA2009 involves more than one hundred countries, and will stimulate worldwide interest, especially among young people, in astronomy and science.

The official opening ceremony takes place in Paris, 15-16 January 2009, under the aegis of the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Nobel Prize winners, scientists from all over the world and government ministers are attending this prestigious event.

Venus is so bright tonight

A lovely spring evening - as the sun set, I was sitting in the garden with my good friend the geophysicist I. Moffat, drinking red wine and watching how Venus caught the light of the dying sun. Mercury, also pretty spectacular. I thought to myself: I am looking at the planetary surface where the Veneras and the Vegas (complete with their diamond and sapphire windows) are sitting on the surface letting the slow winds caress them, an erosion process that will see them still intact when the solar system is at its last gasp.

Remembering also, that as a child I was fascinated by Babylonian observations of Venus. They seemed all the more mysterious, scientific and profound because I myself could not really see the stars. I was short-sighted from early childhood, and everything in the sky looked blurry to me. I also could not understand how my father recognised species of bird (he was a Neville W. Cayley fan from way back), assuming that some people could see things in patterns of flight that I was simply not capable of. Well, all that changed when I got glasses at age 11 - I could tell a planet from a star after all! And I could tell those bloody birds apart. Perhaps the heavens were so entrancing because I could not really see them. Perhaps the allure of science was all the stronger because of blurry vision ....

But possibly I digress. Venus is so bright tonight and I imagine myself a Babylonian astronomer, observing its phases. Taking the accumulation of traditional knowledge, thinking Tiamat (or whoever it was), and arriving at plausible theories for what was happening. Those guys were way cool.

I mentioned the red wine, right?