#58 - April 2017

The Discussion: Paul and Jen packed out the Star Stage at this
year’s Big Bang Fair in Birmingham as Sirius Astronomy ran
experiments to explain how rockets and space suits work and how
space capsules protect astronauts from the heat of re-entry. Jen
updates us on her astronomy research trip to South Africa next
month and Ralph reviews the latest space-based sci-fi thriller,
Life.


The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we
have:


A schoolboy who spotted an error in NASA data

Are the Van Allen radiation belts weaker than always thought?

Was Earth’s atmosphere like Titan’s 2.4 billion years ago?

Using the sun as a gravitational lens

NASA’s heading for Mars & evidence of an ancient Mars
tsunami



The Interview: This month we have a couple of interviews with the
children taking part in science challenges at the Big Bang Fair
and clips of Paul & Jen creating fire hazards and projectiles
around an undefended audience…


Hat of Woo: Following your comments by email and online, we’re
bringing back the vile and rancid Hat of Woo this month. And
we’re back with a festering sore of a conspiracy theory in the
form of Immanuel Velikovsky’s laws of physics defying Worlds in
Collision ‘theory’.