The day I got the European Space Agency logo in Kerbal Space Program

I was trying to think of something to post about today whilst sipping at my coffee on my day off, when I suddenly remembered one of the coolest things I've ever done, which I never posted about. About 6 months ago, I was playing Kerbal Space Program. If you've never heard of it before, it's a computer game where you control your own space agency, creating rockets and exploring the Solar System.

Part of the game allows you to add a logo for your space agency and one of the possible options is to use the NASA logo. However I was sad to see that the European Space Agency logo wasn't a possible option (having worked at ESA for a year I feel passionate about giving them their deserved publicity and appreciation!). So, I half jokingly sent a tweet to both ESA and the makers of Kerbal Space Program, commenting that they should get together so I can represent ESA.

Just seen that the @ESA symbol isn't a possible flag on @KerbalSpaceP, but NASA is. Please add it, it would be so great :)

— Matthew Allen (@UKAstroNut) December 6, 2014

I didn't expect to get anything back, let alone only a few minutes later from the guys behind KSP!

@UKAstroNut We have express permission to use the @nasa logo. If the @ESA would like to talk, we'd be all ears :)

— Kerbal Space Program (@KerbalSpaceP) December 6, 2014

So, the KSP guys were up for it. But ESA are a big serious corporation, surely it wouldn't be so easy with them....

@KerbalSpaceP @UKAstroNut @NASA of course it is OK to use the @esa logo. Here you are: http://t.co/HWKaZKtaGw pic.twitter.com/xZOHnGUb2z

— fabriziolab (@fabriziolab) December 6, 2014

Except it was! Just a few minute after ESA came back with the thumbs up to use the logo. As you can imagine, quite a few people on Twitter joined in to celebrate our diversifying of space agency logos...

@UKAstroNut @esa @KerbalSpaceP @NASA Nice work!

— Fraser Cain (@fcain) December 6, 2014

@esa @KerbalSpaceP @UKAstroNut @fabriziolab GG ESA. Now my rockets will look even nicer. :)

— Lars Mæhlum (@maehlum) December 6, 2014

And so, the European Space Agency logo was added to Kerbal Space Program in the next update and you can now represent them with the logo in game. It's great to see two big companies working together. Adding the logo was just a small thing, but it really makes a big difference!

Rosetta and Comet 67P in Virtual Reality!

So, I recently posted that I co-made a couple of virtual reality apps for phones, that you can check out using the cheap Google Cardboard headsets. I've been in a bit of a high since making and releasing these and have been trying to think what I'd like to do next.

I went to a great talk the other night about the recent European Space Agency Rosetta mission, which landed a probe on a comet. There are loads of amazing image of the comet named 67P and of Rosetta, but they don't really show off the scale or the beauty of the comet. So I suddenly had the idea of making a VR Google Cardboard app to show off the comet in it's full 3D glory! Partly to practice my skills at making apps, partly to use for outreach, but mainly because I want to see it.

Luckily models of comet 67P and Rosetta already exist, which makes my life a lot easier. I was worried I would have to make them myself, which would be a pain, but the European Space Agency have actually already done the hard work.

So I quickly put them in to a scene, whacked a temporary Sun in the background and added an image of the Milky Way to the overall background and here are the results!

This is what I managed after half an hour of playing this morning, but there's a long way to go before I make a really great app from the idea. Still, it's a good start. So, I'm going to give blogging about the project a go, in case people are interested in what I've done. So come back and check out my blog to see how I'm getting along!

Showing off the Solar System at Eisteddfod

So last week I was lucky enough to go to Eisteddfod, a festival in Wales that celebrates welsh culture, language and arts. Now, I'm not the artistic type (and I'm not even Welsh!), but a smaller feature of the festival is celebration of science in Wales. As a budding young scientist who studies in Wales, I ticked this box, which is how I got to go along.

A friend and I were showing off our latest science outreach project, two virtual reality apps that can be run on your phone, that let you explore the Solar System and the Universe! Using Google's Cardboard headset (which costs less than £10!), you can turn most smartphones in to a virtual reality headset.

Everyone loved the apps and were amazed at what they could see. Seeing the planets and sun in our solar system orbiting around in space in front of them drew a lot of  "Wow" and "So cool" comments. The fact that we also got the apps translated in Welsh in addition to English meant everyone was really excited about our project. I was amazed to see how friendly people at Eisteddfod were, considering I don't speak a word of Welsh. If you did see us there, thank you very much for coming and talking to us and having a look at our apps.

If you want to check out the apps and get them for yourselves for free, they are called Our Solar System VR and Our Universe In Light VR and are both on the Google Play Store!

Virtual Reality Apps I Made!

So, over the last month and a bit, I have been helping to develop some astronomy apps. The aim of them is to inspire and amaze people, whilst maybe teaching people some things. The amazement comes through the fact that they are virtual reality apps. Using the Google Cardboard headset you can explore our solar system and our universe in virtual reality. The headsets only cost around £10 on Amazon and the apps are free!

The two apps are called Our Solar System VR and Our Universe In Light VR. In Our Solar System VR, you are able to explore and travel around the solar system in virtual reality. You can look around at the planets and our sun, zoom to the planets to get a closer look and even learn some cool facts and information about each one. In our Universe In Light VR you can look at the Universe in different wavelengths of light, from radio to optical  to X-Ray. You can also check out some of the fascinating objects we can see in the Universe and learn more about each one.Both apps are completely free and all the information can be in either English or Welsh.

So why not go check out both the apps and buy yourself a Google Cardboard headset whilst you're at it. There' hundreds of other great apps to check out, so why not!

Goodbye Dippy the dinosaur

'Save Dippy', they screamed from the rooftops.

If you've never visited the London Natural History Museum then you probably have no idea who Dippy is (I must admit, I didn't know he/she had a name). But it seems that there is a secret underground following for this plaster cast model of a Diplodocus skeleton. After the museum announced today that it would be switching the model skeleton in 2017 with the real skeleton of Whaley (yes, I just made up that nickname, shut up), the 25m skeleton of a whale that was beached in Ireland in the late 1800's.

Petitions and fake twitter accounts have been set up to bring attention to this travesty of museum exhibitions and to convince the museum to reverse it's decision. Sure, it's always sad to see a friend packed in to a storage box in the back of a museum (not from personal experience), but Dippy has had a 35 year long life in the front hall of the museum, which is pretty incredible for a skeleton that isn't even real!

And that's the main argument from the museum for changing the exhibits. Whilst the dinosaur is a paper cast model of a relatively unknown dinosaur, Whaley (this nicknames going to stick, I swear) is a real skeleton of a whale whos life and death are relatively well known. It's also an incredible example of a whale skeleton, with every bone present. Sure dinosaurs have a certain romance to them (if you're in to giant lizards), but at the end of the day it's essentially a papier-mache model. Surely it's better to flaunt off the incredible real life skeletons instead?

But if you're still not convinced by the museums arguments, then go ahead and sign the petition and spam social media with your love for Dippy. But personally, I'm looking forward to welcoming Whaley, to the front hall of a museum I will probably not visit for many years again, in 2017.

That's no Moon! Oh, wait...

All the worlds doomsayers have been on high alert for the last week as the asteroid 2004 BL86 passed close to the Earth. Of course, when we say close we mean in space scale, which was 1.2 million kilometres, or around 3 times the separation of the Moon and the Earth. The asteroid unsurprisingly passed safely past, as expected (there are many organisations that focus on predicting the paths of asteroids, to watch out for any dangerous ones).

After the panic period, many people were able to spot the asteroid in the night sky last night, which was relatively bright. Such bright asteroids are a rather rare sight, so its always a treat to be able to spot one. But whilst many of us were trying to spot the asteroid with our eyes or binoculars, the team at NASA's Deep Space Network antennae was taking some incredible radio images of the asteroid. Radio waves are reflected off the asteroid which can be seen by the antennae, allowing scientists to see the asteroid even if it isn't illuminated by visible light form the Sun.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/asteroid/20150126/2004BL86-640.gif

The radio images have allowed scientists to measure the size of the asteroid and study some of the details of its surface. But it was one unique feature that they didn't expect to see. The asteroid has a moon! Just as the Earth has a large body orbiting around it, our very own Moon, the asteroid 2004 BL86 also has a piece of rock orbiting around it. It's had to think of a body 1/40th the diameter of the Earth having enough gravity to have its own visible moon. You can see a time lapse of the asteroid above, where its moon can be seen as the bright spot moving down from the top of the image.

But whilst it was a surprise to the scientists that this particular asteroid has a moon, it's not overall a surprise, as many moons have been found orbiting around asteroids in our Solar System already. Still, it's not something we get to see very often, let alone around an asteroid that we can see clearly in the sky. 

Dwarf planet Ceres shows off its beauty

The NASA spacecraft Dawn, which launched 8 years ago, is finally approaching its final destination, the dwarf planet Ceres. The hard working little satellite has already spent over a year studying the asteroid Vesta, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and now is on its way through the asteroid belt to Ceres.

As Dawn has been getting closer to Ceres, it's taken some amazing pictures, one of which can be seen above. This picture was taken around 400,000 kilometres from Ceres, but is getting closer and closer and will eventually take the best images we've ever seen of the mysterious little dwarf planet. But even now we can already start seeing some interesting features on the dwarf planets surface. One of which is the bright spot that can be seen on the planets surface (seen below). We don't know yet what causes this, though it is likely a very reflective area on the surface, reflecting back sun light, but we need a bit more time to find out what it is exactly.

The asteroid belt is the remains of planet formation around our sun, that created the Earth and all the other planets billions of years ago. Leftover material formed the ring of rock, dust and ice that forms the asteroid belt, which in turn likely formed Ceres and Vesta. Whilst Ceres is not a proper planet, instead taking the same dwarf classification as Pluto, it was formed in the same way as planets like Jupiter and the Earth, but failed to sweep up all the remaining material in the belt.

With the NASA New Horizons probe reaching Pluto in the near future, this year seems to be the year of dwarf planets. Hopefully we will be able to get some incredible views of these unexplored worlds and better understand how the solar system formed, all those years ago!