Tag Archives: Moons

ⓜ Pronouncing the Names of the Moons of Saturn…

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This entry is part 18 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

…or, Pulling Teeth from Tethys (And Then I Wrote…) Since this site began more than six years ago, every Thursday I have been publishing a reprint from my column “Across the Universe” in the British Catholic journal, The Tablet. I have finally gone through all of them (except for 2019’s columns) and I’ve even re-published a few of the oldest ones that came out here before our readership had grown.  In order to let my backlog build up a bit, I am taking “Across the Universe” offline for 2020. Instead, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written an published in various places… often obscure. Here’s an offprint of a paper I first published in the AGU newspaper EOS back in 1982, on a topic that is still current. At the time, I was a postdoc at MIT working on computer models of the moons of Saturn, which were just coming up in conversation for the … Continue reading →

When is a week not a week ? When its Science Week 2016 of course !

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Science Week 2016 was the 21st iteration of this infectious annual event . My involvement has been ongoing since 2007. A multitude of varied engagements are supported and promoted by Science Foundation Ireland. The aim is to stimulate interest in a broad range of sciences. Science Week makes the often complex world of science totally digestible to every person who embraces it. The programs are targeted towards school children and their teachers plus the public at large. Science Week touches almost everyone in this country via TV, Radio, Social media, publications and apps. Nationwide road shows, workshops and talks go directly to schools,libraries and other centres. The magic and wonder of many sciences shared with tremendous enthusiasm and smiles by a host of participants. This year my offerings were two drawing workshops Deadly Moons and Marvellous Mars plus a special Constellation session for local cub scouts. The workshops were attended by 800 children in 10 venues over 11 days in … Continue reading →

Orbits of Jupiter’s Moons

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I was putting the finishing touches on a lecture I was to give to the Warren Astronomical Society titled “Exploring the Solar System;” I wanted to put a couple images of the orbits of the moons of the planets. The image below shows the inner moons of Jupiter, in nice circular orbits – this is pretty much exactly what one would expect when it comes to moons, right? Now, I KNEW that Jupiter had 67 moons, and I KNEW that several of them were captured comets and asteroids… but I did not expect to see this when I zoomed out to show the orbits ALL of Jupiter’s moons. Jupiter is a MESS! And Saturn isn’t any better: I don’t know WHAT I was expecting, but this wasn’t it, and it should have been… I can’t remember seeing anything like this in any books of Astronomy that I have seen. These images were captured from the Windows app Celestia – I … Continue reading →