It takes a long time for things to change in the Universe. Time takes on an entirely different role when it comes to the lives of planets, stars, and galaxies. A million years in the life of a star or planet is the equivalent of a single day in the life of a human being. Human lifetimes come and go while stars and planets stay pretty much the same. However, just like human lives, where many days can build up to an important event, millions of years of lead-up can produce some incredible changes to a planet or star. New...
We know that the giant bright light in the sky that keeps us warm is so much more than we can see. A star, like countless others in the sky, close enough to outshine all of them. The Sun is a dynamic object, endlessly churning and burping plasma beyond it’s boundaries into the solar system and beyond. NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescopes have been keeping eyes on the Sun for years to characterize its 11-year magnetic cycle. And every so often they have a front-row seat to the massive blasts that just can’t be seen with human eyes. The first...
Looking at the universe in radio waves is a fascinating sight. For one, the radio sky is very weak; If you placed your cellphone on the Moon facing back at Earth, it would be brighter than all other radio sources in the entire sky by a factor of a million. But as with every other part of the electromagnetic spectrum, it has scientific value in studying the sky. Over the past decade, astronomers have been identifying several Fast Radio Bursts (FRB), short bursts of radio waves from different places in the universe that last for a few short seconds. These are...
Baryonic matter, which is everything we are made of and everything we can see in the universe, is not a lot of stuff. I mean to a tiny Earthling, it’s a heck of a lot, but if you put it all together it only makes up about 5% of the total Mass-Energy in the Universe. If you’ve ever seen the Millennium simulation, it highlights the fact that both baryonic and dark matter are organized into filaments of mass, with the baryonic matter at the densest points, ie the galaxies. What lies between these dense nodes and filaments are vast empty...
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...
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...
