AstrotalkUK

Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

Partial Solar Eclipse 29 March 2025

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Early on Saturday, 29 March 2024, the clouds cleared and a partial solar eclipse was visible in the sky from Puerto De La Cruz in Tenerife. Surprisingly, it was the first clear day and sunny for almost a week.

The sunspot activity was not particularly high, despite the fact that, right now, the sun is going through a maxima in its 11 year cycle. For comparison, I have included a picture of the sun from December last year. Note the increased amounts of sunspots compared with those seen during today’s partial solar eclipse.

A brief time-lapse video

Here is one from last year

Lunar Eclipse 13-14 March 2025

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In the UK, you need to get up early to see the lunar eclipse this week on Thursday night or Friday morning. It starts at about 4 a.m. and is totally eclipsed by around 6:30 a.m., just a couple of minutes before the moon sets. Since it occurs near the Moon-set, it will be low in the western sky.

Lunar Eclipse 13-14 March 2025 from the UK

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon enters the Earth’s shadow, it does not disappear but takes on an intense red colour.

It will cause lots of headaches for the teams managing spacecraft on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit. Solar power is their only power source, so they will need to prepare several hours of ‘no sunlight’!

More at the skyandnight magazine here https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/total-lunar-eclipse-march-2025.

Episode 119: Professor Ivan Almar and Astronomy in Hungary during the Soviet Era 

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During the International Astronautical Congress in Milan in October 2024, Professor Iván Almár was elected to be a member of the Astronautics Hall of Fame. 

Professor Ivan Almar
Professor Ivan Almar: Credit Konkoly Observatory Budapest, Hungary DSc

It is an honour previously bestowed on individuals or groups that in the past have included Apollo 11 astronauts,  NASA Administrator Charles Bolden,  Zezhou SUN Designer-in-Chief of Chang’e-4 Program, Yuri Koptev General Director of the Russian Space Agency, the James Webb Space Telescope team from (NASA, ESA and CSA), and the Tianwen-1 Spacecraft Development Team. 

I am familiar with Theodore Von Karman and Herman Oberth, both of whom are associated with Hungary. They played an instrumental role in the development of astronautics. Since Hungary was under the influence of the USSR for most of the post-WW2 years, the astronautics it conducted were not easily publicly accessible.

Ivan Almar completed his university studies in 1954 and became aware of the activities for the International Geophysical Year 1957-58. He knew that the USSR Academy of Sciences and other countries planned to build and launch satellites to observe the Earth from orbit. The coincidence of time and place set him on his long career. His contributions included 

I started by asking him how his interest in astronomy started.

Rocket launches around the World 2024

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How many rockets were launched from Earth in 2024? From which countries and which spaceports? What rocket types were involved, and what was carried into space to which orbit? 

This and much more is recorded every year by many companies, governments and organisations. However, individuals also record it in meticulous detail throughout the year and have been doing it for many years. I want to mention just two here.

Jonathan McDowell from planet4589.com
Anatoly Zak from https://russianspaceweb.com/

Dr Jonathan McDowell (on Bluesky) is an academic from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. Every year, he produces Jonathan’s Space Report, a downloadable (pdf). He has a list going back to 1998.

Johnathan's Space Report 2024 - Page of contents
Johnathan’s Space Report 2024 – Page of contents. Credit planet4589.org

The 2024 report is just over 100 pages and full of metrics and graphs detailing the global space launches to Earth orbit and beyond. One sentence caught my eye in this year’s report. It was a reference to a launch not from the Earth but to the Earth. On page 4, referring to launches he did not include in his data, he says, “excluded is 2024-U02, a Chinese launch from the surface of the Moon.” This was the Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission. A casual statement capturing the “routineness” of humanity’s current space capabilities.

Jonathan’s Space report covers an incredible amount of data that answers the questions I outlined in the first paragraph. Incredible, that he does all this on the side of his day job as an astrophysicist. 

Jonathan’s summary includes a comparison of successful launches in 2024 going back to 2017. It captures the increasing launch cadence for the USA and China. The delayed introduction by ESA of Ariane 6 has held back launches in Europe.

Johnathan's Space Report 2024 - Launches reaching orbit
Johnathan’s Space Report 2024 – Launches reaching orbit. Credit planet4589.org

Anatoly Zak (on bluesky) is a journalist originally from Moscow and has now been based in the USA for over three decades. He has written for many publications and books but is best known for his dynamic website, russianspaceweb.com. His summary of space launches for 2024 is available here: www.russianspaceweb.com/2024.html, as are similar summaries for previous years (change the year in the URL).

USA, China and Russia Launch Cadence in the 21st Century. Credit Russianspaceweb.com

Anatoly Zak lists all the detailed metrics for 2024 and captures this dramatic rise in launches with a single graphic.

Global Launches in 2024 . Credit Russianspaceweb.com
Global Launches in 2024 . Credit Russianspaceweb.com

For 2024, the global launch statistics show that the USA remains the leader with 158 launches and China second with 68. More countries and companies are developing their own large constellations for space-based internet access, global GPS systems, communication, and Earth Observation. In addition, 2025 is expected to be busy with an unprecedented two dozen missions to the Moon.