What’s up with Saturn’s moons?

A round-up of the month’s celestial objects plus recent findings which suggest that some of Saturn’s moons are quite young – if the dinosaurs had telescopes they may not have been able to see them!

The spider from Mars:

“What has the ‘spider from Mars’ got to do with the South African National Space Agency’s latest venture: supplying the International Space Station with a radiation-protected source of fat and protein?”

Music and Astonomy (repeat):

“You’ve probably heard of The Harmony of the Spheres or Music of the Spheres. Where did it come from and how does it relate to distance measurements in astronomy?”

Exo-planets:

There are various methods to detect exo-planets – i.e. planets orbiting around stars other than our own. A student at Washington D.C. Howard University has created palm-sized satellites known as “Cubesats” which usually measure no more than 10cm cubed and with a mass of no more than 1.3kg.

Fast Radio Bursts:

Fast Radio Bursts are brief yet brilliant eruptions of cosmic radio waves and they have baffled astronomers since they were first reported nearly a decade ago. Though they appear to come from the distant universe none of these enigmatic events have revealed more than the slimmest details about how and where they were formed until now…and this, cosmically speaking is an important discovery.

Gravitational Waves and You:

What are the uses of Gravitational Waves and what is the South African involvement in their research and detection? You may be surprised.

Gravitational Waves and You:

Professor Amanda Weltman from the University of Cape Town discusses the recent scientific finding.

Astronomy and why it is so transcendent.