There is a loose hierarchy of the cosmos that repeats. Stars form clusters, and then galaxies. Galaxies form clusters, and then these form clusters of their own, called superclusters. Gravity dominates the structure of such collections, yet all we feel and see from Earth is a relatively homogeneous distribution of stars. How do we see this hierarchy? If we zoom in, looking at a patch of sky so tiny that we can’t see any stars, what do we see? This patch of sky is about the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, and if we point the...
As the Dawn Spacecraft readies for orbit insertion only a week from now, the images coming in are getting sharper and sharper. Once the craft is fully in orbit its first task will be to map the surface of the planet in high definition. Even on the last few weeks of the journey to Ceres, we have seen increasingly clear images, and have already started asking ‘What the heck is that?’ This week’s ‘what the heck are we looking at?’ involves this apparent double bright spot on Ceres, imaged on February 19th from a distance of 46,000 Km, about an...
At one point in history, let’s say around 1994, astronomers were fairly confident in their understanding of the formation of planetary systems. Even though at the time we hadn’t found any planets orbiting other stars, they had long been theorized, and we figured that systems would form much like our own solar system. Rocky planets in the interior, gaseous giants further out, and a huge icy debris field at the outer edges. And then along came 51 Pegasi b. Half the mass of Jupiter, it orbits its star in only 4 days, far closer than Mercury. It was considered a...
It’s been cold lately. The temperature has fallen somewhere between Hoth and Pluto, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon. It seems we complain about the weather no matter the season. It’s too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too bright, too dark. We do have a lot of variation in the seasons, but compared to some other planets, Earth is pretty mild in its climate. One such case is the recently discovered Kepler 432b. A massive planet six times heavier than Jupiter with a comparable size, it orbits closer to its parent star than Mercury...
I’ve always been a fan of data visualization. We have so much raw data in the world that can reveal incredible information about our Universe, and the only thing stopping us is the time to analyse it all. Sometime data visualizations pop up that really put things into perspective, help us see trends that we didn’t know of before, and offer insights into where we should look in the future. I feel like I find something amazing that someone has produced on a daily basis, and being able to visualize complex data can give anyone a deeper understanding of the...
Everything in the universe that has mass, has gravity. It’s easy to understand that the Earth, large as it is, has gravity, which pulls on us constantly, keeping us on terra firma. It’s just as easy to understand that other large objects have gravity, like the Moon, planets, and the Sun. However, it’s much harder to understand that every person on Earth has gravity. Strangely, you exert a force on the Earth, and on every other human. You also exert a force on every rock, tree, and creature that roams the Earth, and they all exert a force on you....
This amazing video from animator Alphonse Swineheart gives us an idea of the vastness of space, showing how incredibly large our solar system is. There are a few long trips between planets, but some fun facts keep it interesting. Plus the point is that we are getting an idea of the scale of it all. One thing to keep in mind is that each second the viewer is travelling 300,000 Km, equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth almost 8 times! A good thing to remember is that if we were seeing the distance to the next star, proxima centauri, this video...
A few years ago, in a desert in Morocco, a very special meteorite was found. A rock unlike anything ever found on Earth, called NWA 7034, or colloquially ‘black beauty.’ Chemical analysis in 2011 found that it originated on Mars, but it was even unlike any other Martian meteorite discovered. The scientific community was extremely excited to determine its properties through a spectroscopic analysis, and today we have some answers that are as amazing as we expected. A new paper detailing spectroscopic results of the meteorite reveal that its composition is the same as the composition of the dark Martian...
Enjoy this great little video about an asteroid hit as viewed by a dinosaur on ancient Earth. The one in the video is 10Km wide and it’s the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous-Paleogene period 66 Million Years ago. For reference, the Asteroid BL86 that passed by us this week was 300Km wide, a true killer! Sadly there’s no explosion, but hey, if we were able to see it we would be instantly vapourized so we wouldn’t be watching it anyway.
Today was the flyby of the big Asteroid 2004 BL86. It can be seen tonight in the sky but you will need a darn good pair of binoculars or a telescope. Here’s where to find it: Scientists have also revealed some new information about it, including updating its size from 550m down to a more paltry 300m, which is still pretty big! Also, it has a moon! Crazy right? Enjoy yet another close shave by a moderately sized Space rock that could have had a devastating impact.
