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...
Rosetta captured comet 67P in all its glory this past week, as it reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. This marks the point where the comet feels the most solar energy, resulting in streams of gas and dust shooting from the nucleus. Rosetta captured a series of images to show the brilliance of the comet. It’s been just over a year since Rosetta first injected itself into orbit around 67P on August 6th, 2014, and it has been hitching a ride around the Sun with the comet ever since, collecting amazing science data and observing the comet through its...
A few weeks back, the Philae lander woke up and began transmitting the coveted science data it had been holding on to for the better part of 2015, waiting for the Sun to shine bright enough to wake it from its deep slumber. As soon as it was able, it transmitted data back to the Rosetta orbiter, which then sent it on its long journey back home to Earth. Now that a few weeks have passed, we can finally see what the first science from the surface of 67P looks like, and determine its true fate. We can clearly see a...
I love data visualization. If I didn’t love astronomy and explosions so much, I would probably be in the art form of visualizing data in fascinating ways. Who knows? I may change my life’s work some day. A recent APOD takes the art to a new level. By looking at time sensitive measurements of Gamma Rays from an incredible active galactic nucleus (AGN), we can get an idea of how a gamma ray burst comes at us from so far away, and what the difference is between the usual activity and a true burst of radiation. Each circle represents a...
Lucky me. I’m taking a vacation next week. The same week that New Horizons will make it’s flyby of Pluto. It just means I get to watch from the road, from the outside in for once. I’m still looking forward to it, but with a cup of coffee and a national park as my venue, rather than a newsroom media call. At any rate, my posting will continue as I still feel like my blog-a-day rationale is beneficial for me as a writer (and hopefully for you as the reader), though I might mix in a few of my own photos from a...
Lurking in the depths of a galaxy, hidden from human eyes, lie millions of monsters. They could swallow you up in an instant, sealing you off from the outside world and devouring you atom by atom. This sounds like your typical Hollywood monster movie, but with millions of black holes hidden throughout the galaxy, its more real than you might think. Supermassive black holes, the largest ones that reside at the centers of galaxies, are much easier to see. They are devouring gas and dust rapidly, resulting in bright emission across the electromagnetic spectrum, especially in x-rays. For many galaxies,...
When the Rosetta spacecraft entered orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, first images captured deep circular depressions among the other surface features. Now that the orbiter has taken significant observations of the comet’s surface, the science team has concluded that these depressions are actually sinkholes that form by the same processes that form sinkholes 500 Million kilometers away here on Earth. Sinkholes on Earth form when subsurface material is eroded away. Though not initially visible on the surface, the material falls deep underground leaving a circular cavern. Once enough material has eroded away, the top of the cavern collapses, leaving a large...
The Rosetta orbiter lies in a vast empty space, inhabited only by its orbital companion – a 4 Km wide ball of ice and dust, spitting out gases and other material as it is warmed by the Sun’s rays. It’s next mission milestone comes on August 13th, 2015, when the duo reaches perihelion, the closest point to the Sun in their orbit. It will be the first time a spacecraft has the opportunity to study the outgassing and behaviour of a comet as it orbits close to the Sun. So far the comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko has been slowly increasing in...
The surface of the Sun is around 5500 degrees Celsius. It’s hot, and it’s a completely different state of matter than the solid, liquid, and gas states that we are used to. However, this is a pretty balmy temperature compared to the solar atmosphere, which is heated to over a million degrees. But how does it get so hot compared to the surface? We know the core of the Sun, where fusion happens, is where temperatures can reach 14 Million degrees, but how is that energy radiated outward? And more importantly, how does it bypass the solar surface and make...
The Moon has clearly seen some stuff. It’s visibly heavily cratered across it’s surface, which has remained unchanged since it’s surface solidified 4.2 Billion years ago. Think about that – the Moon has been the same, with the exception of cratering, for 4 Billion years. This is a stark contrast to the Earth, whose erosion and tectonic activity cause the crust to change on scales of a few hundred million years. Astronomers have worked hard to learn about the early solar system by looking at the Moon and its cratering patterns. Most of the visible craters on the Moon are...
