It's November! This means two seasonal things, and there's been a bonus for astronomy this month as well.
Movember has inspired pictures all over social media of the suitably bewhiskered, so it seems churlish not to participate. Here we have a nice comparison picture; on the left is Kepler, and on the right is his sometime employer/mentor/sparring-partner, Tycho. Which do you think had the finer facial hair?
Of course, the night sky was also lit up on the fifth with celebrations of Bonfire Night, a.k.a. Guy Fawkes' Night. At least one astronomer was caught up in the aftermath, when many suspicious characters were rounded up and questioned: you can read all about Thomas Harriot by clicking the link. Partly, he was caught up in the wake of his patron, a local lad (to me), the Wizard Earl of Northumberland.
Also this week, a satellite named after Kepler has busy spotting exoplanets (those which orbit distant stars). It's now likely that about one in five stars have planets! Not a new idea, of course; as far back as the fifteenth century, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (a.k.a. Cusanus) has speculated that the stars were distant suns, complete with their own planets.
And for those of you who haven't seen it, here's the review of my book, from Sky at Night magazine.
Have a great week!
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