Russell Deeks

It’s shaped like a lemon, has a chemical composition unlike any we’ve ever seen before and may be raining diamonds internally. Of the more than 6,000 confirmed exoplanets so far discovered, PSR J2322-2650b is one of the weirdest that scientists have come ... See more

On 21 December, 1968, NASA’s Apollo 8 mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 68 hours later, the spacecraft reached the Moon, orbiting the satellite 10 times in a 20-hour period before returning to Earth. During those 20 hours, astronauts ... See more

If you've been reading about this week's supermoon, you may have come across the terms ‘lunar perigee’ and ‘lunar apogee’. They might sound rather complicated, but they're actually simple terms that help us mark the points when the Moon is closest, and fa... See more

As the furthest major planet from the Sun – and so the recipient of the least amount of solar energy – you might expect Neptune to be a relatively sluggish planet. But when Voyager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989, the mission team were astounded to see not on... See more

This one’s easy: the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right? Well, no… not exactly. It would be more accurate to say that the Sun rises in a vaguely eastward direction, relative to wherever you are on the planet, and sets in a vaguely westward ... See more