I really enjoy looking at images of the Sun from one of the several round-the-clock monitoring systems. It’s fascinating that the public can get access to almost real time images of the Sun and see what’s going on in several wavelengths. I’ve always hoped to see what other stars look like in the future, and today, that future is one step closer. Here’s a brand new picture of another star! This is a real image of distant star π1Gruis, a star 350 times as massive as the Sun, in the southern hemisphere constellation Grus. The star is 530 light years...
Space dust hits the Earth every day in the form of meteorites. As much as 300 tonnes of the stuff falls to the Earth each day. Of course, most of it is dust or small rocks, and goes unnoticed by the majority of people. But every so often, a larger rock plummets to Earth, and if it’s big enough, it will make it’s presence known. One such meteor flew through the atmosphere less than 48 hours ago in the Northeast USA. The bright flashes occur when a space rock, called a meteoroid, hits the atmosphere of the Earth, which rapidly...
Gold doesn’t come from your local jewelry store, and the Gold rush that occurred in the Yukon territory at the turn of the 20th century is not the source I’m talking about either. I want to take it further back, to the origins of gold the element. Similar to the origins of most other elements on the periodic table, it requires an immense amount of energy, such as the nuclear fusion that goes on within a star. But Gold can not be made by a star’s thermonuclear engine. Gold requires more energy, as does every other element heavier than Iron. So...
There are many types of objects in space that just can’t be seen with visible light, and many more that have very different features when observed across the electromagnetic spectrum. A prime example of the former is a molecular cloud. Cold, incredibly huge, and full of low density Hydrogen, these clouds are the raw material for star forming galaxies. If stars begin to form within them, they can be seen as gorgeous nebulae, but when alone in the darkness of space we need to look for the dim signature of radio waves they emit. The Smith cloud, named after it’s...
We just saw it. Another record breaker. This incredible explosion of a massive dying star is the brightest supernova ever observed. You may think you get how big this explosion was, but it was brighter than collective brightness of all the 400 Billion stars in the Milky Way. You may be asking why you can’t see it in the sky. Well even though it is incredibly bright, it is 3.8 Billion light years away in a distant galaxy, so the discovery needed a huge telescope. It may have been powered by a rare star called a magnetar, a star with such an...
Space is incredibly dangerous, in case you didn’t know. Harmful radiation, bitter cold, low pressure, no air, and no gravity make for a very difficult environment to survive in. Even though a space capsule is pressurized with breathable air, protected with radiation shields, and warmed to a comfortable temperature, the effects of microgravity are still damaging to the human body. We know that astronauts lose bone mass rapidly, have to exercise to keep their muscles active, but what other effects does microgravity have on the body? For one, without gravity to clear your sinuses, they get a bit clogged in...
This storm is a monster. It strengthened from a pretty usual category 1 hurricane to the most powerful hurricane the planet has ever seen in less than a day. This strengthening was all due to the warmer-than-usual pacific waters under the influence of el nino. Luckily the storm has weakened since making landfall and is down to a tropical depression (less than a category 1), but it still highlights the fact that warmer oceans and a shifting climate are bringing more extreme weather events our way every year.
Deep within the Earth, far below the layers of rock that form the crust, and even further below the molten rock of the mantle, lies a hot core of Iron and Nickel. The swirling of the liquid metal creates a flow of charge and produces the magnetic field of the Earth, without which we humans could not survive. But there is still more. At the centre of the Earth, a part of the liquid metal core, the size of Pluto, cooled into a solid ball of Iron and Nickel. When in the Earth’s history did it form? This question has...
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’ Such is the case with the search for life. Any scientist who finds direct evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life had better be sure. And then once they are sure they had better find too much evidence because people will still not believe them. It’s because alien life would be such a monumental, paradigm-shifting discovery, and our entire way of life and system of beliefs would be compromised. For this reason, I simply shake my head every time I see some sensationalized news article about the ‘potential for...
Stars are far apart, especially compared to the everyday distances in human experience. The fastest a human being has ever travelled is just shy of 40 Km/s, and even at that incredible speed it would take 30,000 years to reach the closest star. That is an incredible distance no matter how you slice it. Taking it a step further, most stars in the sky are 20-200 times further away, and that’s just the population of stars we can see. So if we go beyond and talk about galaxies and the distances between them, we are literally talking astronomical quantities. Yet even with...
