Astronomy

The supermoon to rise into the Thursday night sky will be the brightest of the year, experts say, rivalled only by a comet dubbed “the best of the decade” so far.The October full moon, also known as the hunter’s moon, will be the third of four back-to-back supermoons, preceded by September’s harvest moon and August’s blue supermoon. November’s beaver moon is still to come.Dr Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist from the Australian National University, explains the full moon names often come from those given to them in North America by the Farmer’s Almanac and Native Americans because, like many cultures, they regulated themselves through the lunar cycle.In the case of the hunter’s moon, it coincides with the time of year approaching winter since “your last chance at going out and hunting for foo...

European scientists are preparing to launch a space mission that has been designed to create total eclipses of the sun on demand.The robot spacecraft Proba-3 will be launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in a few weeks in a mission which will involve flying a pair of satellites in close formation round the Earth. They will be linked by lasers and light sensors, with one probe blocking the view of the sun as seen from the other craft. The effect will be to create solar eclipses that will last for several hours.Observing these eclipses will revolutionise the study of the sun and understanding of how it can cause disruptions to power lines, GPS satellites and other earthly technologies, says ESA. The agency believes the mission will also act as a pathfinder for other formation spaceflig...