Hey hey! It’s a blue moon today! For all those people who have used the phrase ‘Once in a blue moon,’ it finally happened. Turns out that phrase means ‘about once every 2-3 years.’ A blue moon doesn’t mean the moon is changing colour anytime soon, just like a supermoon doesn’t mean the moon actually gains superpowers or gets noticeably bigger. A blue moon is simply the second full moon in a calendar month. The moon orbits the Earth in approximately 29.5 days. This was how months were originally formed. But 12 months x 29.5 days means that we are...
Categorizing objects in the universe can be difficult. The fiasco with Pluto over the last decade is more than proof of that. We generally look to location and then to size as the two main methods for classifying the stuff that permeates the cosmos. Galaxies contain stars, which host orbiting planets, which host orbiting moons; While asteroids fly in between planets and icy comets are wander through the outskirts of star systems. But what about the in-between objects? Often we find strange things in strange places. There are moons in our solar system that are larger than planets. What would...
Since the Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres in March of this year, it has slowly been taking high resolution maps of the surface from several different altitudes. After each successive mapping run it moves into a closer orbit of the icy world for a higher resolution glimpse. After two successful mapping runs, we finally have a full high resolution topographic map of Ceres, revealing its cratered surface in unprecedented detail. With a quick look at the map, a couple of things become apparent immediately. For one, the surface craters are quite deep, and consistent with an icy crust. The size...
I just discovered a new YouTube channel that has been running for awhile. It has astronomers from all over the world who talk about their work on the biggest and most intense pieces of telescope technology that we have on this Earth. If you have a bit of time, a bit being about 15 minutes, you’ll want to check it out!
Looking at the universe in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum can reveal features and structures that are invisible to human eyes. The vast black emptiness of space explodes into a sea of colour when we use cameras to expand our vision. Looking at a galaxy through human eyes can be a simple and seemingly uninteresting view, but in infrared, microwave, or ultraviolet wavelengths we see the deeper layers of the vast array of stars. The closest large spiral galaxy and a cousin of our own Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, is revealed in ultraviolet. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)...
Friday’s science update from the New Horizons team shed some more light on the seemingly endless jaw-dropping discoveries from the Pluto system. We have found a surprising atmosphere and very cold ice flows, contributing to a surprisingly active geology for an object that receives so little sunlight. Seven hours after the craft made its closest approach of Pluto, it turned around and took a backlit shot, revealing two distinct layers of hazy atmosphere at 80 Km and 50 Km above the surface respectively. It looks more like an eclipse photograph from much closer to home, but it shows a hauntingly...
Since the explosion of exoplanet science in the late 1990s, our entire understanding of the universe beyond our own solar system has changed. We have confirmed over 1,000 planets orbiting other stars, with another 3500 waiting to be confirmed by subsequent observations. As we search, our prime directive has always been to improve our technology to determine if other Earths exist, and to seek them out. Every year we have added another discovery that brings us closer to finding a twin of the planet Earth in space. Today we have come one step closer, and it is indeed a big step....
I love data visualization. If I didn’t love astronomy and explosions so much, I would probably be in the art form of visualizing data in fascinating ways. Who knows? I may change my life’s work some day. A recent APOD takes the art to a new level. By looking at time sensitive measurements of Gamma Rays from an incredible active galactic nucleus (AGN), we can get an idea of how a gamma ray burst comes at us from so far away, and what the difference is between the usual activity and a true burst of radiation. Each circle represents a...
For anyone who actually reads this blog, which based on my stats could be anywhere from 1 person (myself) to 300 people a day, you’ll have noticed I’ve been missing my daily posts for the last week. It was my glorious vacation week, the first one I’ve had in three years, and though I tried and tried, there was only one week that worked out perfectly for scheduling, and it was the one week I didn’t want to miss. In all my planning and preparations, the only week that worked was the exact same week as the historic flyby of...
I’m going on vacation tomorrow, but will still be posting some of my own photos hopefully, or just blogging about whatever I feel like, which is what I normally do anyway. So in the meantime, here’s a pic of Charon! This is the first time human eyes have gazed upon such a distant alien world. Stunning.
