Some months back I made some from the hip comments about ‘Oumuamua, that strange little visitor from outside the solar system. Some of them were superseded by later events, others are certainly debatable. However, in the last week or so, ‘Oumuamua has been in the spotlight due to renewed speculation that it could be artificial, [...]
December 16th. The day that the comet that could have been famous will fly by Earth at only 30.4 times the distance of the Moon. Could have been famous? Yes, had things worked out differently, a generation of space fans would have been learning to say “Wirtanen” (it is Vir-tanen) instead of “Churyumov-Gerasimenko” (Chury to [...]
There have been dozens, if not hundreds of theories to explain the Star of Bethlehem. In this sense it is similar to the death of the dinosaurs where many dozens of theories have been proposed, but just two or three are real candidates to be correct. Here are a few of the less likely ones: [...]
The confirmation that A/2017 U1 (now, formally, 1I/2017 U1, or 1I/'Oumuamua) which, if it is of the low albedo that its reddish colour indicates, has a diameter of 200-250 metres, has interstellar origin, has created great interest in the astronomical community as well as the need to invent an acceptable naming system for interstellar objects. [...]
