Last week there were some exciting announcements from NASA about human exploration of the Moon. If all goes well the US may return an astronaut to the Moon’s surface sometime in 2027. That’s well in advance of China’s intention of putting people on the Moon in 2030. As in the 1960s, human space exploration seems…
The fall of a new meteorite is always a very exciting and unexpected event. They can land anywhere and do! The places that they pitch up in can sometimes be a little on the dull side. I am not sure Felix, Alabama is a wild and crazy tourist hotspot but it is a great meteorite…
Now, in the last post I mentioned our group’s weekly meeting. You missed it! It’s in the second paragraph, after all the stuff about poppy seeds and leopard spots. Anyway, I am happy to report that CRG is still going strong. What is CRG? It is the acronym for Cosmochemistry Research Group. When I started…
Last week NASA held a press conference to promote the publication of a paper in the scientific journal Nature about some odd, spotty rocks on Mars. The event was widely publicised. These strange blotchy features were found in Jezero crater by the Perseverance Rover. The lead author of the paper was Jeol Hurowitz of Stony…
Venus is not a nice place to visit. It rains sulphuric acid and has a surface temperature of approximately 465 degrees centigrade. Add to that a spacecraft crushing atmospheric pressure of about 90 times greater than that on Earth and you get the picture. Venus is never going to be a holiday destination! But it…
This summer I went on holiday to Chamonix in France. It’s a wonderful place, with spectacular views of the Mont Blanc and surrounding peaks. It was not my first visit. I came here first in 1986 and have been back many times since. A highlight of any visit to Chamonix is to take the funicular…
There was recently a story in the UK news about a billionaire who was filling his pond using tap water delivered by tankers. The locals were not happy. We have a water shortage here in the UK at the moment and so you can’t use your garden hose to irrigate your garden. Not that you…
Last year my book: A Meteorite Killed My Cow came out. It was an attempt to make meteorite science a bit more accessible to a general audience. Obviously one likes to see how things are going, so I did a Google Search on “meteorite books”. No sign of it, not a sniff! So, I thought…
Over the last couple of weeks I have been catching up with the latest series of Clarkson’s Farm. I am a bit of a fan. Lots of wonderful views of the Cotswolds’ countryside. Some very funny incidents out on the farm and some sad bits too. The episode about the pigs was particularly, well, harrowing!…
Meteorites: The Blog from the Final Frontier 