Asteroid Day is a global movement to protect Earth from Asteroids. Or, as it says on asteroidday.org: “It’s a global awareness movement where people from around the world come together to learn about asteroids and what we can do to protect our planet, our families, communities, and future generations. Asteroid Day will be held on the anniversary of the 1908 Siberian Tunguska event, the largest asteroid impact on Earth in recent history”. Which is tomorrow, 30 June 2015.
 

I know I have a lot of readers who know even less about astronomy and science than I do as an amateur, citizen scientist, but don’t get me wrong: this is not another doomsday prediction. I try to pay as little attention to those silly but annoying announced apocalyptic events, which are usually not based on facts and evidentially, none of these forecasts have actually happened so far. So, we haven’t found an asteroid of which we can say it’s going to destroy our home on a certain date – yet.
 

But, according to this declaration you can sign, stating your concerns, there are a million asteroids in our solar system that have the potential to strike Earth and destroy a city, yet we have discovered less than 10,000 — just one percent — of them. And if you’re now thinking: “Yeah, well, you never know what’s going to happen and I will probably be dead by the time this happens”, then you might be right. Because we don’t know (yet) if an asteroid will hit us in another hundred year’s time or, say, next week.
 

Should we panic then? No, but let’s also not be dinosaurs. As Bill Nye, who’s one of the esteemed scientists who signed the declaration, said: “Someday humankind will have to prevent an asteroid impact. We will need to work together to get it done. The first step toward protecting our planet is to find and track the swarm of space rocks that cross orbit with Earth. Let’s get going!”
 

So tomorrow will be the first global Asteroid Day, to raise awareness of the fact we need to act now. If you want to add your name to the list of people who’ve said: “Yes I think this is important, please do something about this” too, then you can find the petition on asteroidday.org.
 

On there you can also find a list of cool events, such as the premiere of the film 51 Degrees North in London, the Science Museum. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it, but I thought I should bring it to your attention anyway. My pal Brian May has written the music for it and I can’t wait to see the result. I’m going to end here with a little interview he did, in which he gives away only a little bit of why this movie is so unique.
 

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Meanwhile, I will start with something astronomy related (in case you haven’t seen them on social media yet): my birthday prezzies. And with that, another late THANKS to everyone for the lovely day and wishes! My 32nd trip around the Sun was another amazing one, mostly because of the lovely people around me, and I feel very grateful for that.
 

The new journey started well too, as we went to see Fleetwood Mac in Antwerp. I was very excited with all of them touring together again and they were fabulous! On the way back home, I sang their songs again in the car, still wishing they will bring out a DVD of this show.
 

Other things we went to see included Hartsvrienden and Jurassic World. We also walked a lot, my BFF Angie got married and I now (finally) have a poster of Hanny’s Voorwerp, yay! Then there was the surprise of the gentleman on my right sending me this photo recently, even though it was taken at the press conference in Seattle in 2011!
 

And what’s occupying my mind right now is this beautiful track written by my old pal Brian and played beautifully by my new friend Henri (who’s band we went to see also). Share and Enjoy!
 

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We also appeared on Astronomy Picture Of the Day again and I was sent this cool video below, which gives a more detailed explanation too. And I know I’m not supposed to read the comments, but I have to admit I find the internet’s thoughts on this quite amusing…
 

Okay, a top 15…
 

1. Actually i am more impress by brian may being a astrophysicist than a new type of object discovered : D

2. This is the most amazing thing ever. Basically it’s the dance between two galaxies. Hm. Sounds like a Queen lyric. Lol.

3. Just one reason Brian May is my favorite rockstar.

4. A L L H A I L T H E G L O W C L O U D

5. So it’s like a spotlight on a cloud.

6. …so it’s a space-rainbow. =)

7. Voorwerp is such a weird word though.

8. Very disappointed that I didn’t get to hear another person fuck up the name.

9. Well, you tried pronouncing it correctly. Close enough.

10. They should have called the object “Hagelslag” just to confuse scientists.

11. She’s really fortunate. By volunteering & asking a simple question, Hanny van Arkel’s name will be remembered forever… well for as long as human civilization exists. Now that’s immortality.

12. Thanks, joining galaxy zoo right now. At the same time I wish not to find a black hole. ; )

13. I’ve heard of this object before, but I never bothered to look into it. This video made me realize that was quite the mistake.

14. I’d like to touch hanny’s hinny.

15. Yeah, I’d like to stick my voorwerp into your blue blob……or black hole…either one is good.

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As you might be well aware, I’m half British in my mind and most of my friends live in the United Kingdom, so I’m well informed of what’s happening over there. Today they vote. Now I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert in politics, in any country, but of course it’s very important for everyone to use their voice and vote.
 

As you may also know, one of my English friends, Dr Brian May, has been tirelessly telling everyone to please use this right indeed, to try and make their little part of the world a better place. And to help everyone who’s not sure who to vote for, he set up the Common Decency concept. This is not a political party and neither does it support one single party.
 

What it does do is support individuals who’ve shown to be decent. Those who not only have the most decent plans, but also those who stick to those plans. Now as I said, I’m not an expert, but it seems to me this should make it easier to choose who to vote for and in making it easier, maybe more people will vote indeed.
 

It makes sense to me. So in support of Brian, everyone at Common Decency and all my other pals in blighty, I thought I’d post this reminder to 1) please go and vote and 2) maybe check out Common Decency first. As the line on the card reads: Only 24 hours of democracy every 5 years, make sure you use it – vote on May 7th 2015.
 

Flyer contructed by Brian.
 

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We’re expecting a baby boy! Here is the little bug. I underestimated how exhausting it is for a female body to make a baby (I mean, the process after fertilisation). Then there was also the scary weeks of being diagnosed with a rare but life-threatening infection, for which I’m seeing experts in Belgium now. We seem okay, just very very tired (and that’s the reason I haven’t answered your e-mail yet! Sorry!) This blog won’t turn into a pregnancy/baby blog, but an occasional announcement like this seems appropriate, I think.
 

Oh and thanks for all your enthusiastic messages, cards and gifts so far. Even all of those who spilled the beans on flipping Facebook before I was ready to do so. Yes, I can laugh about it now.
 

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(It’s fairly late, but I’ve been busy. I’ll let you know soon with what).
 

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I was asked to write a short bit for the American ‘Astronomy’ magazine, which would feature a whole article about some of the Hubble Space Telescope’s most successful stories. It’s in the April 2015 issue and you can see my contribution below, which they titled “From the classroom to pop culture”.
 

After my TED talk, I was also interviewed for the TED blog. This was called “Meet the accidental astronomer who inspired a comic book”. I was also interviewed by Telescope, an online magazine, which interestingly enough has not much to do with astronomy. They “exist to tell the stories of real-life heroes” and you can find mine on their website. Then there was another exotic appearance on a Finnish website, which I always think is rather cool. And there was the German radio interview, for which I spoke a bit of German for the first time too.
 

I also got an e-mail last month to notify me we’ll be mentioned in the Dutch Zenit magazine of May and we got a mention on Free Star Charts. Thank you, to everyone for these shout outs and for telling me about them. I appreciate it.
 

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It’s a beautiful day…

The sun is shining

Colour!

Sheep!

“Shooting stars”

Raindrops

On the fence?

A Moon jigsaw

Set in stone

Stick figures

I’m your Venus!

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With the sun over the water on a train over a bridge, with music in my own bubble, I can almost cry at the beauty of life. I kid you not. It was one of those breath-taking big orange ball sunsets, of which I couldn’t have taken a picture that would do it justice, while I was on my way to Astrofest for the 8th time. Steven and I met in Hook of Holland, where we had dinner in the harbour before we boarded the ferry. On the other end, there was a coach to London instead of a train, but it was a smooth trip and I even remembered the route to the venue from Kensington High Street.
 

I had forgotten my tickets to Astrofest, but the lovely organisers remembered I had been a speaker a few years back, so there wasn’t a problem. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful weekend. Steven and I first paid a visit to Robin from Canopus books. He gave me an awesome book, which I started reading right away (I will show you the book later). Then we met up with Graham and the boys had a look around all the astronomy toys. We said hi to Emily and Dave, Mandy and Ian and we found Todd lurking around the stalls too.
 

The pub we usually go to for lunch had changed their interior a bit, but it was still a lovely place and it was another cosy gathering of friends. Old and new. (Tom, it was great to meet you and I’m looking forward to catching up over Skype soon). Unfortunately we missed a few talks, but the venue was packed nonetheless. I especially liked the talk about Rosetta’s Comet and how it showed us the anatomy of the ‘duck’ (and that it would float on water too). Another very important mention was Asteroid Day (and I loved how people were asking about Brian, while he’s still touring of course).
 

A personal highlight was the lovely women at the stand of AstroCymru. They sold beautiful astronomy jewellery to support their work of visiting schools to teach kids about our planet and what else is out there. Steven (and I) especially loved their ‘down to earth’ box, in which they kept real fossils. I held a real vertebra of an Iguanodon dinosaur and a real meteorite. Steven, being a dinosaur fan, told the lady a few facts she didn’t know yet and I loved her enthusiasm!
 

Before we went for dinner, I had checked into the nearby hotel (where three men complemented me about the bag my mum had made, ha ha). The evening gathering was lovely too (not in the least because Annie gave free massages to us all). We managed to find a cosy pub, with a funny guy serving us and it was concluded that this was all we needed on a desert island. All in all, it was truly great to be over for Astrofest again and I already look forward to the next one!

We took the ferry out

Aw. Teddy bears on the road in Kensington.

That’s okay, Central Line, WWRY has closed anyway.

Lovely view from our hotel

Me and the lovely Robin from Canopus Books

Reading from my new book (more soon)

Holding a real Iguanodon vertebra!

And a real meteorite!

Lucie did a great job!

My pal Brian was sort of there anyway.

Steven and I captured by Graham.

The boyriend.

Lunch with the Galaxy Zoo gang

Dinner with the Galaxy Zoo gang

Including weird faces…

And free massages!

The beautiful astronomy jewellery

Bye London!

Clouds from the other side, flying back

The Dutch shore in sight.
 

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