Is this a giant hole in space? I show a picture similar to this as I ask this question to students and audiences that I host in my planetarium. Most people answer that it is a black hole, or dark matter, or dark energy, or something strange like that. But the amazing thing is that it is actually a thick cloud of dust that is opaque, letting no visible light from the distant stars pass through. The funny thing is that the cloud is transparent in infrared light, but in the visible spectrum it highlights something interesting about the universe:...
Are equations beautiful? Does a mathematician see the machine code of the universe in the complex language they use? Does a Chemist see the flow of matter? Does a Biologist see the evolution of life? Does a physicist see the probabilistic nature of electrons? Many scientists would affirm their view that the equations that dictate their respective fields are artistic, in addition to logical. So if equations can be beautiful, what is the most beautiful equation? Naturally, the most beautiful equation should be simple. It should be somewhat intuitive, yet surprising in it’s result. It should explain something fundamental about the universe,...
Nothing like a rocket launch in the early morning to inspire and wake you up. The 4 Million Newtons of thrust and a weight of over 500 tons gives a nice blast of power to your morning that coffee never could. I am talking about the Atlas V rocket that launched on September 2nd, carrying a US Navy communications satellite up into orbit. There is a lot happening in this medium exposure photo. The rocket blasts off in a bright flash, then climbs into the atmosphere, where its exhaust plume becomes a noctilucent cloud, illuminated by the Sun that hasn’t...
If you have ever seen the Andromeda Galaxy, M31, in the sky or through a telescope, you’ll find it’s reminiscent of a small blurry, fuzzy patch, almost like a cloud. The cloudy look is similar to looking at the hazy white glow of the milky way’s concentrated disk. But that cloudy view is not all of M31. The galaxy is so far away, around 2.5 Million light years, that you’re only seeing the concentrated light from its central bulge. You’re actually missing a large portion of the galaxy because its just too dim for your eyes to see. If you can take a...
When we have the best telescopes at our disposal, we can take the most detailed data, and ultimately gain the most valuable science. Being able to take a closer look, to resolve the finer details, to see what lies within, gives us the ability to understand the present, peer into the past, and ultimately, predict the future. The ESO’s Very Large Telescope continuously brings in fantastic images of objects that we have studied previously, but weren’t quite sure about. This week we saw another prime example of this. The Medusa Nebula is a planetary nebula in the constellation Gemini. It...
There are multiple types of Supernovae that have been observed throughout the Universe. Classifying them is difficult because the conditions of each one are not always similar. There are now seven different classifications of these stellar explosions, that are divided (and subdivided) by their spectral characteristics. By studying the light from supernovae, we can determine what type it is, and identify what kind of stellar environment led to its destruction. The supernova remnant 3C 397, shown above in the constellation Aquilla at a distance of 33,000 light years, has thought to have been expanding for 1-2 millennia. Originally thought to have...
A few months ago I talked about Astronomers seeing the gas cloud known as G2 passing the central black hole of the Milky Way, called Sagittarius A*, and how we had hoped to watch the black hole destroy it in order to learn about the behaviour of supermassive black holes. As we all sat and watched the passage of the cloud over the course of a few months, we were surprised to find that the cloud remained intact and passed straight by Sag A*. When we last checked in, the leading theory was that the ‘cloud’ actually was a dense...
This Galaxy, NGC 7714, has an odd shape. In fact we call it a ‘Peculiar Galaxy.’ Why doesn’t it have the characteristic spiral arms if it is indeed a spiral? Why doesn’t it look more diffuse and football shaped like an elliptical galaxy? The reason is that like millions of other galaxies in the Universe, it has recently collided with a nearby companion galaxy. Now using the term ‘collided’ is not really accurate. In reality the two galaxies are interacting via gravity. During a ‘collision,’ stars in the interacting galaxies don’t physically hit each other. The galaxies are incredibly large,...
Have you ever wondered how they differ? The Asteroid Belt, shown above, consists of hundreds of thousands of rocks, with all kinds of different shapes, ranging in size from the Dwarf Planet Ceres at 950 Km in Diameter, down to small bits the size of dust particles. It lies between Mars and Jupiter. The Kuiper Belt (pronounced Kai-per) consists of Icy rocks, and it a major source of short-period Comets in the Solar system. Extending beyond the planet Neptune, Pluto was discovered to be one of the largest objects in the belt. The mysterious Oort cloud is a collection of...
If you’re in Astronomy circles you may have heard about a big cloud of Hydrogen heading toward the supermassive black hole in the centre of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*. The lead up to the cloud approaching the black hole had astronomers buzzing this year, as it would be a direct opportunity for us to see the black hole ‘devour’ the cloud. The black hole would show us some celestial fireworks and give us a huge opportunity to study their behaviour. Astronomers watched closely, and then the cloud passed right by…. We should have seen the cloud torn apart as matter spiralled...
