IYA2009 News Round-up

19 December 2009

It's still IYA2009, which means that it's news round-up time. Hoooo-rah!

Story of the Week must surely go to Physics World's feature on Pakistani astronomers. Written by the president of the Khwarizmi Science Society, it looks at how IYA2009 events have boosted the public's interest. We shouldn't be surprised, given that they built a roving observatory to go to rural schools. That'd spark anyone's interest. Apparently "...older people were particularly delighted as they were shown various stellar constellations that matched their horoscopes." Hmm!

Why is astronomy so great? Big numbers, nice pictures. Bad Astronomy at Discover Blogs is going down this second route with its article on the top ten astronomy pictures of 2009. They are all corkers.

Fancy a laugh? Give the Science Comedian Brian Malow a chance, courtesy of Fora.tv. He mentions IYA2009 (to a bit of a cheer), and also talks about the Cosmic Diary's very own Brother Guy.

To Yahoo! now, for their 2009 Year in Review article. IYA2009 has prompted them to make it an astronomy-inspired feature which talks about meteor showers, Galileo, NASA, and the upcoming Blue Moon. Plenty of hyperlinks are scattered around the text, should your insatiable curiosity get the better of you.

Attention astrophotographers! Actually, attention Indian astrophotographers! You should run over to The Times of India who are advertising a competition to mark the end of IYA2009. Called "Snap the vibrant universe", some entries will be displayed in an exhibition and it sounds like there will be awards. Although it's a bit vague on that point. Fingers crossed.

This one is a bit different. The Gilroy Dispatch have written a seasonal article about the connections between Christmas and astronomy. Apparently "It goes far beyond the Gospel of Matthew's Nativity star." There are 11 paragraphs and IYA2009 is mentioned in number three, which isn't bad going.

Let's pay a visit to AlphaGalileo who have a news release about events marking IYA2009's end. The biggie is astronomers an archaeologists celebrating five millennia of astronomical heritage at Stonehenge in the UK. IYA2009 UK chair Ian Robson is involved, giving tours and things. Oh, and From Earth To The Universe have an exhibition there as well. Nice!

That's it. You'll miss these news round-ups when they're over, won't you? Your silence is taken as a "yes".

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