I saw an article last night about gravitational waves, that a black hole merger was detected by not just the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), but by another project altogether, the Virgo collaboration. This is the first gravitational wave detection confirmed by two separate groups, and it marks the beginning of a new era of experimental science, the first in astronomy in over two decades. Around 1.8 Billion years ago, to black holes merged in a faroff galaxy. They had masses of 31 and 25 times that of the Sun, though with their incredible density they would each be...
A pretty cool result came out of Cornell University this week, showing that Mars was struck by a pair of ancient asteroids that caused massive tsunamis. Not only is it the first evidence of a tsunami event on another world, but it proves that Mars once had a large ocean. The study looked at ancient shorelines between the lowlands and highlands of Mars, where the ocean-land boundary would have been. Two massive impacts, a few million years apart, extended the shorelines and caused turmoil with the Martian climate at the time. “About 3.4 billion years ago, a big meteorite impact triggered...
With the extra lights shining in cities across the world at this time of year, we are outputting a significant number of photons into Space. So many that Satellites in orbit have been able to see the difference. In the maps below, the areas in green are locations where the brightness has increased by as much as 50%. Being able to see the difference from Space is amazing. The maps also exist for Caribbean nations, where much of the population celebrates Christmas. Now I’m not avoiding any one particular holiday in my use of the phrase ‘holiday lights,’ because it turns...
When I do Planetarium shows, one of the things I like to talk about during the Milky Way – Andromeda collision that will happen in 70 Mlllion years, is the fact that very few stars will actually hit each other. Yet we still call it a ‘Galaxy collision.’ One of the questions I always get is “Will the Earth survive this?” I usually ask the audience. The response is usually a unanimous ‘No way!” And then I tell them how big Galaxies are and they can’t believe how unlikely it is that the solar system will be affected. Consider the...
