I decided to take my own personal leap day on writing about the leap day. Partly due to being busy at work, and partly due to lack of mental faculties. All that aside, it’s only another 1,459 days until the next leap day, so we better start preparing. A leap year occurs because the solar system seems to slightly disagree with the way we manage time. Earth’s trip around the Sun, a year, doesn’t take exactly 365 days each lasting 24 hours. It takes a bit longer. A year is actually 8,765 hours, or 525,949 minutes, which is 365 days, 5...
On the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, its two major satellites can be seen, the large and small clouds of Magellan. Both considered irregular galaxies, they are more like swarms of stars, similar to gnats here on Earth. But even though they lack structure, they are still alive. The large magellanic cloud contains the single largest active star forming region in the entire local group of galaxies. This is the Tarantula Nebula. In the core of the tarantula, huge supernova shockwaves blast gas and dust, triggering star formation while forming dense filaments away from the center. Along the entire...
Planet nine from outer space has yet to be found, but the theory is sound, and the hunt has begun. Since the announcement by Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown on January 20th, astronomers have been finding ways to search for the theorized planet, using all the available data to zero in on it’s position. It’s certainly big enough to find, at roughly 10 Earth masses, but with a huge swath of space to search, everything that excludes part of the search area is a step in the right direction. One of the ongoing goals of researchers is to carefully calculate...
After falling continuously for an entire year, Scott Kelly is ready to hit the ground. With the goal of studying the long-term effects of microgravity on humans, his year is space has been something to keep an eye on. Always in good spirits, he is probably excited to come home, albeit apprehensive due to the dangers of returning to gravity after such a long time. Next Tuesday, March 1st, he will experience significant forces once again as he undocks from the ISS and is ferried home by the Soyuz capsule. Like wearing a weighted suit, coming home will be an...
NASA has several orbiting spacecraft trained to study the Sun during it’s 11-year cycle. Recently the team of astronomers and scientists behind the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) released a video showing a full year of activity on the Sun. You’ll want to crank this one up to 4K if you can, though it still looks spectacular in 1080p. It’s interesting to note that the bulk of the solar activity is along the rotational plane, which is the plane of the entire solar system. Also notice that as the days pass the Sun doesn’t rotate completely every day. This is because...
Galaxy NGC 4569 is a spiral galaxy that is part of the Virgo cluster, around 55 Million light years distant. Like any other spiral galaxy, we can learn about its motion through the cluster, the properties of its stellar population, and how quickly its converting gas and dust to stars. But this galaxy has an interesting property, it’s missing a lot of gas. For years, astronomers have had ideas about where the gas has gone, and with new data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), they now have the answer. The gas is being stripped off of the galaxy, and is now...
One of the first things you hear when learning about the states of matter is about good old H2O: Steam, Water, Ice. Naturally you are asked “Why does Ice float?” The answer is a simple matter of density, frozen water is less dense because water expands when it freezes. You can do a bit of an experiment by filling a balloon with water. Paint the balloon and put it in the freezer. When it freezes the water will expand, and so will the rubbery balloon, but the dried paint will crack at weak points. This is exactly the same thing...
You’ve seen the planets, now let’s look at some of the best moons to visit in the solar system, ala the romanticized art deco style! Ceres is like a gas station for that long trip to Jupiter, treated as an icy rock that is not the best tourist destination. Enceladus is a lot like the spacefarer’s version of Yellowstone park, with the southern hemisphere geysers being the appeal. My two favourites are Titan and Europa. Titan’s colour scheme and view of Saturn are gorgeous, but the best part is the paddle boats in the hydrocarbon seas. The most interesting visit...
When it comes to science communication, the most important thing to keep in mind is the perspective of the layperson, what someone will see, think, or understand if they have no prior knowledge. When you have some expert knowledge in science it can be hard to put it aside, but imagining the thought-process of a beginner gives you valuable information about how you are communicating, and can make a huge difference in your effectiveness. Which is why I am always thrilled to see things that communicate real science, yet stimulate the imagination. NASA, being a publicly funded organization, has to...
Gamma rays are the highest energy photons on the electromagnetic spectrum. Their wavelength is similar to the size of an atom, and when two of them collide they tend to produce a matter-antimatter particle pair. They represent energy high enough to synthesize the fundamental particles of matter, and are produced in the highest energy environments in the cosmos. The interchange of matter and energy works both ways, so one of the ways gamma rays are generated is through annihilation of a matter-antimatter particle pair. Looking back to the beginning of the universe it gives us the earliest ‘chicken or egg’...
