Anyone know about stars? Is it Venus I can see???

[TricityBendix]

That's it really.

I seem to remember hearing on the radio this week that you can see Venus at the moment really low in the west. I've just been in the garden and there's something - Not an aeroplane!!

How do I find out what it is?

I thought that was a plane...

Maybe I don't stand corrected then

maybe XDH was right

oooh, that's interesting, SMS.... have saved that to look at when I can keep my eyes open

They spelt resources wrong though

I've watched satellites - in the late evening usually when they are still catching the sun way up high - they flash as they tumble in space....
You can see them because they are shiny and thus very good at reflecting sunlight despite their small size.

So how fast do they go round the earth?

you really shouldn't have asked that

so, erm.... quite fast then?

17,000mph apparently.

oh is that all?

So it's not possible to see the same one say every 10 minutes?

90 mins to orbit the earth.

Sounds so general though. Surely some are slower than others?????

But apparently they have to travel that fast to avoid being pulled back to teh earth by gravity.

I DON'T KNOW. I AM A BIOLOGIST NOT AN ASTRONOMER..GOOGLE IS MY FRIEND ATM!!!

Still very impressive stuff nevertheless.

This is complicated by the fact that the Earth is rotating - so to stay above the same bit of the Earth the satellite has to be orbiting the Earth at the same angular velocity with which we rotate...... many satellites do this.

I think i have seen Uranus.

I'm getting a telescope for Xmas!

I can't wait!

I dunno, KM. But I'm not paying for it and it's coming from the US so it's gonna be good .

we bought DS a fantastic telescope for Christmas from the science museum.....we'll have to use it now to take a look at Venus...thanks for this posting TB, have printed the page from the BBC website so that DS (6) can have a read then we can all take a look ) How exciting (the moon looks fantastic btw through the telescope!!!!!)