Vintage BBC Sky at night - Voyager's fly past of Uranus.

I can't believe this is more than 30 years old, and I vaguely remember seeing this on the news at the time.  Here are the late Sir Patrick Moore's thoughts on it.  This is BBC at its best again.

Finished Bang! The complete history of the universe

In the past few days I have finished reading 'Bang! The complete history of the universe' by Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott.

This book is a very good introduction to the history of the universe from the moment of the big bang, past the present and onto the future of the solar system and indeed of the universe.  It introduces the sub-atomic particle particle physics side in a very easy to read and informative manner.

I thoroughly recommend this for anyone who wants to grasp the basics of the big bang and how the universe will progress in billions of years time.

Bang! The complete history of the universe

During my week off, I went back to reading about astronomy again and bought myself the kindle version of Bang! The complete history of the universe by Patrick Moore, Chris Linnott and Brian May.  It introduces alot of particle physics, especially in the first chapter which deals with the nano seconds after the big bang, where everything was hot and the only particles were sub sub atomic ones.  At that stage not only atoms didn't exist but neither did protons, neutrons and electrons that made up the atoms.  So far I have read 20% of the book and I will post some more later.

Finally finished The sky at night

Previously I mentioned "the sky at night: questions from across the universe" book by the late Patrick Moore and Chris North, that I was reading.  And today I have finished reading it. It was very informative, sometimes witty and very personalized. It covered various subjects, including our solar system, space travel, comets, asteroids, constellation, how to watch the stars and more recent things such as exo-planets and the Mars Rover.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and feel more enlightened thanks to it.  Did you know that Moore has met the first man to fly(Orville Wright), first man in space (Yuri Gargarin) and one of the first men on the moon (Neil Armstrong).

Patrick Moore: the sky at night

I am still reading Gribbin's quantum computing book, but today I have bought the Kindle version of
The sky at night: questions from across the universe,written by the late Sir Patrick Moore.  Like the previous book, it is another question and answer book, which answers questions posed by BBC Sky at night viewers from over the years.  I have only just started reading it and one thing he mentioned was that it is perfectly reasonable to look at the stars using binoculars, instead of a telescope. He does explain alot of the scientific concepts quite well without delving to much into physics and chemistry jargon.

sun spots and global warming

As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, I am reading Patrick Moore's "can you play cricket on Mars and other questions".  It is a thoroughly interesting book, which introduces alot of astronomical concepts in question and answer format. I now know about constellations, supernovas, red dwarves, black dwarves and beetlegeuse.  The section which intrigued me the most was about sunspots. These are results of solar "storms" and are actually cooler than the surrounding area.  Solar flares are linked to them.  Indeed, each sunspot is a pair, one of each polarity.  Like the weather, sunspots come in cycles.  They appear in periods of high solar activity and when they do, they cause a warming effect on the Earth. 

Scientists now know that previous periods of global warming - Roman warm period, Medieval warm period etc coincided with extra solar activity and more sun spots.  And is includes the period we are in now.  When there is low solar activity, we have a global cooling and this was evident in the little ice age a few centuries ago.  We really need to question how much human activity can warm up the planet, or a much better question would be, how does human activity exacerbate this natural cyclical warming by the sun?

Personally I believe that man-made global warming is a hoax or rather a religion. In fact it takes our eyes off other eco problems like pollution and human overpopulation.  But never mind, it gives the far left something to moan about.

Very interesting book

Right now I am 42% through Can You Play Cricket on Mars?: And Other Scientific Questions Answered by Moore, Sir Patrick on Kindle for Android! http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindleforandroid/ according to my kindle app. It is an accessible book on planetary science written by the late popeyed broadcaster.  It has witty ancedotes as well as clear scientific explanations.  I will update more later.