Monthly Archives: January 2009

January 31, 2009

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January 31, 2009

It’s a Gong Xi Fa Cai Eclipse

On 26th of January 2009, there's an eclipse occured in Indonesian, and on the same time that day celebrated as the Chinese New Year, so it was a Gong Xi Fa Cai (恭喜發財) eclipse. For those who celebrate the new ...

January 30, 2009

RoPACS: Rocky Planets Around Cool Stars

RoPACS, one of the big collaborations I am involved, is a European network which has the goal of training PhD students in the field of the exoplanet search and characterization (by the way, we are opening 11 positions ...

January 29, 2009

Getting ready for Yuri's Night 2009

This year, like every year, Yuri's night takes place on April 12th and is a celebration of humanity’s achievements in space. Each April 12, people from around the world come together to mark the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first flight ...

January 27, 2009

Busy times for Outer solar system exploration

            As you can see from my feature article, I am very much involved in the preparation studies for future space explo-ration of our Solar System. Besides Pluto (recently demoted to a dwarf planet to be studied NASA’s mission New Horizons), ...

January 26, 2009

Heavenly music

The year 2009 is also for the community of astronomers from Mexico, Spain and Florida, since the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the GTC, will start its scientific operations in few weeks. Meanwhile, famous musicians visit the place and think about new ...

January 22, 2009

Cultural Heritage of Astronomical Obervatories, IAU Symposium 260

The next talk at the session on astronomical heritage is by Professor Gudrun Wolfschmidt, Germany, Cultural Heritage of Astronomical Observatories. This subject is relates to my local astronomical observatory inManchester which celebrated its centenary in 2003 (the Godlee Observatory). Towards the ...

January 22, 2009

Live Blog from the IAU 260 Symposium, S4 Preserving the astronomical heritages

Here I am again, live from the IAU symposium, just after lunch with the sessions starting at 2pm. There are a number of parallel sessions running this afternoon and on the last count I think I have to change rooms ...

January 22, 2009

Live Blog from the IAU 260 Symposium, S12 Astronomy, the Media and Society, Part 4

After the Coffee break I caught 2 of the talks, the participants followed the inspirational journey made by Gernot Meiser from Germany to observe a solar eclipse in the heart of Africa with only a truck and a batch of ...

January 22, 2009

Live Blog from the IAU 260 Symposium, S12 Astronomy, the Media and Society, Part 3

The next speaker is Catalin Mosoia, (Romania), Science and Jourmalism: friend or foe? Questions and answers - Curiosity _ a desire for knowing more than what we knew a few minutes ago - what is the colour of a chameleon if it is looking ...