On the evening of March 9, Leacock 132 was filled with anticipation and intellectual curiosity as the crowd took their seats to hear Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Rainer Weiss give the Anna I. McPherson Public Lecture, sponsored by the McGill Department of Physics. Weiss’ presentation was titled “Exploring[Read More…]
Tag: space
What to make of NASA’s announcement of newly discovered planets
What do a beer, a Roman Catholic religious order, and a newly discovered planetary system have in common? They are all named Trappist, but only one of the three could potentially hold the key to life beyond Earth. On Feb. 22, NASA announced the groundbreaking discovery of seven new exoplanets—planets[Read More…]
Canadian universities team up to track down rare radio signals in space
Space. The first image that comes to mind is probably the night sky, a tranquil blanket of empty blackness dotted with twinkling stars, but this image is deceiving. Not only are stars much more sparse in the universe than the sky may lead one to believe, but the vast voids[Read More…]
What are the rules in Star Wars? MILAMOS aims to clarify military law in space
Outer space plays a vital role in every person’s daily life—from sending a text message, to hearing a broadcast on the radio, to swiping a credit card. However, terrestrial warfare is also dependent on space. So, if one country interferes with another country’s satellites, does this constitute an act of[Read More…]
McGill professor wins top Canadian science award
Professor Victoria Kaspi, astrophysicist in McGill University’s Department of Physics and Director of the McGill Space Institute, was awarded the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, the nation’s top scientific honour, last month. Kaspi is one of the world’s leading experts on neutron stars, tiny stellar remnants[Read More…]
Rewriting the history of the moon
A research team out of UCLA, when testing the compositions of moon rocks, determined that they possessed a striking similarity to rocks found here on Earth. This has led the scientists to believe that the Earth and the moon have the same origin. McGill Earth and Planetary Sciences professor William Minarik,[Read More…]
The final frontier: Law and politics in space
For many, space is the final frontier. The challenges associated with its exploration are immense, but so are the potential rewards. Current international law proclaims that space belongs to all of humankind, but some believe that it is only a matter of time before the potential for financial gain puts[Read More…]
What the galaxies have in store
Last year was an exciting year in space. In 2015, the Dawn orbiter visited the dwarf planet Ceres, scientists photographed the surface of Pluto in unprecedented detail, and Matt Damon even got stuck in space again. But knowing what’s already happened is easy—it’s predicting the future that’s hard. But that doesn’t[Read More…]
Album Review: Space Sessions: Songs from a Tin Can – Chris Hadfield
Colonel Chris Hadfield, 56, is the first musician ever to release an album recorded in space. Yes, that’s right: Space. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely made in space. Hadfield had to polish up the production upon his return to Earth, which gave the album a clean and atmospheric final[Read More…]
Mission accomplished: Philae touches down
At 16:03 GMT on Nov. 12, 2014, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission’s Philae lander touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Its arrival marked the end of a decade-long journey that spanned 6.4 billion kilometres, and the first successful landing of a spacecraft on a comet. The Rosetta mission, named[Read More…]
