Throughout history, the field of astronomy has expanded our understanding of the universe and our place within it. From ancient stargazers to modern astrophysicists, humanity has consistently sought to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos. This curiosity and thirst for knowledge have driven incredible discoveries that not only shifted our perspective of the universe but ...
If you could watch the sky in extreme slow motion over millions of years, you’d see something quietly astonishing: the Moon is sneaking away from us, step by tiny step. It’s not dramatic like an asteroid strike or a supervolcano, but this slow-motion breakup between Earth and its only natural satellite is reshaping our future ...
In a few billion years, the warm, familiar Sun we see every day will be unrecognizable. It won’t explode in a dramatic supernova, and it won’t quietly flicker out like a dying candle. Instead, it will shrink into something small, incredibly dense, and strangely beautiful: a white dwarf. That future is written into the Sun’s ...
Stand on a beach, scoop up a handful of sand, and let it run through your fingers. It feels like an impossible number of tiny grains, a miniature infinity you can barely comprehend. Now imagine being told that the universe holds more stars than all the grains of sand on every beach and every desert ...
Saturn’s rings always felt like one of those things that would just… be there. Like mountains, or oceans, or that friend who’s always late but somehow never changes. So it’s genuinely unsettling to realize that the most iconic feature of the “Lord of the Rings” planet is slowly vanishing, and on cosmic timescales, it’s happening ...
It’s hard to look at modern Mars – dry, dusty, and freezing – and imagine crashing waves and stormy shorelines. Yet a growing stack of evidence says that long ago, this rusty world may have looked far more like Earth, with vast oceans, lakes, rivers, and even rainfall. The more scientists dig into the Martian ...
You’ve probably heard the phrase before: we’re made of stardust. It sounds poetic, maybe even a little mystical. Yet, it’s one hundred percent scientific fact. Every atom in your body originated from the hearts of ancient stars that exploded billions of years ago. That carbon in your muscles, the calcium in your bones, the iron ...
Imagine a universe where every star has gone out, every galaxy has faded, and nothing truly new can ever happen again. Not because of some violent explosion, but because everything has simply…run down. That’s the idea behind the heat death of the universe: not fire and chaos, but a slow, relentless slide into cosmic boredom. ...
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered whether there’s more to the twinkling lights above than just beauty? People have been staring at stars and making up stories about them for thousands of years. That’s not just poetic nonsense, though. There’s actually science behind it. The connection between stars and human ...
Have you ever stared up at the night sky and felt that mix of wonder and unease wash over you? Space has this funny way of making us feel ridiculously small and yet deeply curious at the same time. The thing is, the more we discover about the cosmos, the weirder it gets. Sure, you ...
Nelleke van Niekerk, BSc Food Science (Biochemistry)
