When were the planets discovered? Uranus and Neptune were definitely not found until modern science began, since a telescope was required to see them. The other five planets were not actually discovered per se. Since they are visible to human eyes, they have been observed since prehistoric times, and we see examples of cultures across the ancient world who observed them. The five visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Starting this weekend, you can see them all across one part of the sky, a visual alignment that hasn’t occurred since 2005. Planets are so-named because of the Greek...
This story popped up yesterday, and I can imagine it will go far, since it talks about life in the universe. I get it, it’s what people are interested in, and at least this story is focused on the science of why this is the best place to look for intelligent civilizations, instead of “Oh hey there’s a strange ring of material around a star, must be an alien superstructure.” But I digress. So where is the best place to look for life in the universe? The answer is in a Globular Cluster. A globular cluster is one of the...
Gas giants, like Jupiter, Saturn, or some of the largest exoplanets, are mostly made of Hydrogen gas. The simplest and most abundant element in the universe, Hydrogen easily reacts to form compounds, especially at higher temperatures, making it hard to contain and work with. It’s essential to understand how it behaves across a range of temperatures and pressures so that we can understand the interiors of stars and planets. But there may also be applications closer to home, like the white whale of materials science, a room temperature superconductor. A team of researchers from Osaka University and Tokyo Institute of...
Let me ask you, when you look at the stars on a cold, clear night, what do you see? Diamonds sparkling? Shapes? I do see those things, but I also see so much more. When I look at the stars, I see a thousand generations of humans looking up in wonder, writing shapes in the dirt and telling incredible stories of brave heroes, ferocious beasts, and important lessons. I see our common ancestors using the sky to predict the weather, the seasons, and even the coming of the end of the world. They were looking at a comet in the...
What do other planetary systems look like? We have seen some where massive Jupiter-sized worlds orbit closer to their star than Mercury does to the Sun, baking them with radiation. Others have had multiple rocky planets within the Earth’s orbit distance. Some have planets similar to Earth in a variety of locations. But what about far away from the star? We never expected to find gas giants like Uranus and Neptune in the far reaches of our solar system. Are there planetary systems where planets live even farther away? Maybe there are planets that live in the empty darkness between stars,...
How do stars lose mass? For a star like the Sun, it shoots out a swath of charged particles into space and sheds mass at a rate of 4 million tons per second! Though even at this rate, the Sun only loses 1% of its total mass every 160 Billion years, so it’s not disappearing anytime soon. For more massive stars, the process can become complex and strange. The red hypergiant VY Canis Majoris, one of the largest known stars, is about 40 times as massive as the Sun, but humungous in scale. If this star were to replace the...
If you wanted to look at weather and climate patterns on the Earth, you would put a satellite in orbit and watch the planet for a long time, looking for changes in the cloud layers and measuring wind speeds, etc. It isn’t a stretch to think that we could do the same for another planet, especially since most of the planets in the solar system have atmospheres. Jupiter, being the largest and heaviest planet, also has immense wind speeds and beautiful vortex features, some of which are larger than the Earth. But in order to understand these features, we have...
I’m addicted. I love astrophotography. I find myself spending a lot of time working no the photos, being outside trying to get the perfect shot, learning how to use my camera and other equipment, and putting together a wish list of equipment that will let me do even more! I went outside before sunrise yesterday and managed to snap an hour’s worth of images, adding to an hour from the night before, where I attempted some star trails over the city of Toronto. All I’ve done so far today is play with the photos and learn to make them look...
The month of October has some promising sights for Astronomers and the public, though only if you are an early riser. The intricate pre-dawn dance of the Planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter continues from it’s initial soiree in September, with a couple of close passes throughout the month that are must-see. Early on in the month, the waning crescent moon passes the group and gives us a perspective on the plane of the Solar System. By month’s end, the planets will continue to shift around as they are joined by Mercury, slowly rising above the morning Sun. Here are a...
I made a big purchase this year, one that I have wanted to make for a long time. I bought a digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR) – A Canon Rebel T3i. The only reason I did this was for astrophotography. I like photography in general – the idea of getting the perfect shot, cleaning up an image, enhancing details that were not there before. But after a trip to Europe where I felt I took too many photos, I decided that I didn’t want to experience my life through the lens of a camera, especially in an age where...
