Top Five Planets

For the longest time there were only the nine planets that were known to us, with this number of course being controversially reduced in eight in more recent years, and they have become incredibly familiar to those of us who care to glance skywards now and then, but now countless more have been discovered orbiting alien stars. Many of these appear to be even stranger than we could've imagined but for most of us, none of them will ever hold the allure of the more familiar worlds that are closer to us. Perhaps one of them was the first sight we gazed upon when first looking through a telescope; perhaps one was the subject of a favourite childhood science-fiction tale; perhaps it's simply a particular alien quality of one of them that we find appealing, but I'm sure we all have our favourites. And these are mine:

5 - Venus

Long considered Earth's twin, this comparably-sized planet features hellish conditions that no life from our home could endure. Its atmosphere has constant lightning and is so dense the first few Venera probes sent by the Russians were crushed before reaching the ground. Even the ones that did manage to land unscathed only lasted an hour or so before melting. There is also sulphuric acid rain, every part of the surface features evidence of volcanic activity, and the entire planet leaves a tail behind it in space, much like a comet, due to the Sun's solar wind!

Welcome to My New Blog :)

Oh hey, how's it going? I am known around these parts (i.e. the internet) as Retro King Simon, or RKS if you prefer, and some of you may know me from my hopefully splendid blog, Red Parsley, where I warble on, often aimlessly, about various things that interest me, mainly retro gaming and films and things of that nature. One of the many other things I find interesting is astronomy; you know, space, the universe, and pretty much all the wondrous stuff that it contains.

Sadly, I'm not very smart so I can't realistically pursue a career in this field, but I have been absolutely fascinated by the subject since my parents bestowed upon me one fine Christmas a book entitled 'Amateur Astronomer' and a modest telescope to go with it. From that early age right up to the present day and beyond, I've spent a lot of my time reading about this bewildering subject, trying to grasp the insane distances, sizes, physics, etc, involved in understanding the incredible sights that our galaxy alone has to offer.

Owing to this, as well as my interest in writing about things I like, I have written the odd few astronomy-related features for Red Parsley, but that's probably not the kind of thing most of my regular readers want to see posted there, so I have decided to make a separate blog just for spacey stuff. It won't be updated as often as my 'main' page and I'm sure it won't contain a great deal of information you wouldn't be able to find just as quickly on Wikipedia or similar, but I suppose I'll be writing it as much for myself as anything - you know how it's often easier to absorb information if you're writing it as opposed to merely reading it?

Well, that's about it anyway. I hope you enjoy visiting this new page, such as it is! And since blog posts always look nicer with pictures, here's a great shot of one of my favourites occupants of the night sky. Bonus points to the first person who can identify this distinctive star cluster :)