The concept of Panspermia is a description of all life in the Galaxy having been seeded by other life, all originating at one point. This life can hitch a ride from star to star on comets, meteorites, and rogue planets. It’s true we have never found evidence for life outside of our own home planet, but if panspermia is a viable theory, it could mean that life is everywhere, just waiting for us to find it. In a new study from astronomers as the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, panspermia creates ‘oases’ where pockets of life form. As life is able...
How often does a star explode as a supernova in the Milky Way? With as many as 400 Billion stars, you would expect it to happen often But stars live a very long time, and most massive stars take anywhere from a few hundred million to a few billion years to reach maturity and explode. Putting all this together gives us a surprisingly human estimate. A supernova explodes in the Milky Way, on average, once every 50 years, or about once per human lifetime. We can still see remnants of great explosions that happened long ago, still expanding into the...
Minerals are formed when geological or biological activity create unique combinations of elements. The type of mineral you get is dependent on the environment in which it forms. For geological minerals, pressure and temperature can vary to give different combinations that are difficult to replicate in a lab. For biological minerals, life slowly but surely undergoes processes that shift and shape minerals, usually as a waste product from obtaining energy. But with 3 billion years of life forming and reforming on our planet, springing up new diversity and losing countless species to extinction, there may be minerals that we simply haven’t...
An unusual Phenomenon known as a Red Sprite has been seen by the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth. Seen above a lightning storm, it is unknown what causes this rare phenomena of tendril-like lines that extend up into the atmosphere from the lower storm. The Moon is visible near the centre of the frame, and to its right we can see the constellation of Orion above the atmosphere and lights of our comfortable planet Earth. Along the horizon at the right side of the image is the visible red sprite, occurring quickly during this longer exposure. Amazing...
Welcome to a new series of posts that will characterize 1000 amazing facts about the Universe. There is so much out there that we have yet to learn, and every day, astronomers across the globe are using their research to reveal the deepest secrets of the cosmos. This series will look at the strangest, coolest, most exciting facts that we have discovered in hundreds of years of modern science. Fact #1: The Universe is Far Larger than you Can Possibly Imagine Let’s start with the fastest speed ever travelled by a human being, about 11 Km/s (40,000 Km/h). This is incredibly fast...
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...
The Prime Meridian is the imaginary line of zero longitude, the geographic starting point for any East-West degree measurement of any place on the Earth. It was selected by an international delegation that convened in 1884 in Washington, DC. It’s a North-South imaginary line that run right through the Airy transit circle at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. This is also where we get the measurement of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). As our ability to measure position and time improves with the Global Positioning System (GPS), the precise position of the prime meridian has actually changed, moving 102 meters East...
I was with my friend and fellow astronomer Jesse Rogerson discussing the fantastic book from xkcd author Randall Munroe, called What if? We were talking about the brilliant analogy used by Munroe when talking about how big a supernova is. The questions asked was “Which of the following is brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina?” 1. A supernova, seen from 150 Million Kilometers, about as far as the Sun is from Earth. 2. The detonation of a Hydrogen Bomb, pressed against your eyeball. What a great question. The answer, surprisingly, is the Supernova, which is...
The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DISCOVR) was launched back in February of this year. Although its goal is to measure solar wind particles from the Sun as a space weather predictor, DISCOVR passes the orbit plane of the Earth and the Moon twice per year. In its first pass, it snapped an amazing series of frames of the Moon passing in front of the Earth. The images show the dark side of the Moon, as well as the stark contrast between the darker lunar surface and the bright Earth. The camera that took the shots, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera...
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)...
