Astronomy Series

If you’re curious about science, but frustrated both about the complex language that scientists use and about the cataclysmic Hollywood documentaries on TV, where all you can learn is a million ways the Earth might get destroyed, then you’ve come to the right place! Lie back and let us explain the Universe for you in 12 simple but thrilling episodes.


2 Comments

Episode 8: Galaxies and black holes grew up together

  January 14, 2014

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU AND NORBERT WERNER If our previous episode left you wondering whether black holes are too strange to actually exist in the real Universe, you’ll be happy (or shocked) to find out that, by now, astronomers have quite convincing evidence that these exotic objects aren’t just a … Continue reading

8 Comments

Episode 7: Fascinating facts about black holes

  October 20, 2013

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU We all wish we could experience time in a different way – something other than the inexorably regular tick-tock of your wrist watch or wall clock. Einstein’s genius consisted in daring to envision, and prove, that this wasn’t just a human dream, but a part of … Continue reading

1 Comment

Episode 6: The cosmic web

  September 16, 2013 ,

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU AND NORBERT WERNER You’ve probably heard that Archimedes had his “Eureka” moment when he stepped into his bathtub and realized that the water level rose. But did you know that our entire Universe, on the grandest scales, resembles the foam you play with when you are … Continue reading

1 Comment

Episode 5: Islands in a sea of darkness

  August 26, 2013

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU You may imagine that the Universe is full of strange and complicated physics, and you’d be right. But that’s not the most difficult thing about it. Understanding the sheer size of our cosmos probably poses a bigger challenge to our minds than the most complicated physics … Continue reading

1 Comment

Episode 4: Interplanetary travel

  August 13, 2013 ,

WRITTEN BY: NORBERT WERNER AND AURORA SIMIONESCU When Aurora was growing up in communist Romania, before the 1989 revolution, many foreign books were hard to come by. Her introduction to the genre of science fiction was what she’d later remember only as “that book with the purple cover that I … Continue reading

No comments

Episode 3: Life in the Solar System

  August 6, 2013 ,

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU AND NORBERT WERNER We met Dr. Oleg Gusev in September 2012 at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan. During his presentation, he took a test tube containing something that looked like little red crystals – unmistakably dead and dried out, closely resembling colorful … Continue reading

No comments

Episode 2: Are we alone?

  July 30, 2013 ,

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU In November 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish discovered a rather peculiar source on the sky, which was sending a radio signal once every 1.33 seconds, with remarkable regularity. For a while, the source was affectionately nicknamed LGM-1, short for “little green men” – until … Continue reading

3 Comments

Episode 1: The Universe Recycles

  July 23, 2013 ,

WRITTEN BY: AURORA SIMIONESCU There’s something fundamental about being out at night on a lonely mountain meadow, listening to the flowing water of a nearby stream, the wood fire having long died out, leaving the stars as the only source of light to pierce through the darkness. Something ancestral – … Continue reading