Discovering asteroid Vesta: the story of the Celestial Police
March 10, 2021 at 11:18 am
Vesta, the brightest asteroid in our Solar System’s asteroid belt, was one of the very first asteroids to be discovered. The story of how Vesta was discovered is one full of failure, jealously and discredited theories, as all good science history should be.
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Today we know of around two million asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but 250 years ago the existence of anything at all in that area of the sky was mere speculation.
In 1766 a German astronomer and mathematician, Johann Daniel Titius formulated a mathematical law for explaining and predicting the spacing between planets in a planetary system. This is the first discredited theory we will meet in this story.
6 women who changed astronomy and spaceflight
6 women who changed astronomy and spaceflight
February 11, 2021 at 9:54 am
It’s no secret, the contribution made to astronomy and spaceflight over the centuries, but it’s also no secret how those contributions have often gone entirely unnoticed or been undervalued.
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To mark International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2021, we’ve taken a look back at some of the women who changed the way we observe and explore the cosmos forever.
Denied the role of astronomer at Royal Academy of Science in Berlin The institution that snubbed Winckelmann no longer exists, having been replaced by the Berlin-Brandenberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Image credit: Science Photo Library, welcomeimages.com
Mary Somerville: the life of the Scottish scientist
November 30, 2020 at 11:16 am
Mary Somerville was a celebrated lady of science of her day. Her name lives on in the Oxford College named after her, there’s a crater on the Moon that bears her name and in 2017 her face featured on the Scottish £10 note. But who was Mary Somerville, and why is she so celebrated?
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Like many women within the history of science, her story is complicated. While their male peers were allowed to join and be educated within prestigious institutions, publish original work under their own name and be declared discoverer, inventor and theorist, women did not have those options.