Light is beautiful. It illuminates a world of beauty for us to appreciate while giving us a tool to decipher the riddles of the universe. In astronomy, it’s always about more photons! Because more photons = more data = better results. But in an increasingly technological world, more photons can be a bad thing. Especially when the artificial photons overpower the natural. I was lucky to spend most of my youth living away from the bright lights of the city, but with the sprawling metropolis of Toronto to the South, I could always see the orange glow that blocked out...
Not to be confused with Canadian Gum Hubba-Bubba, Hubble has released a great birthday image for it’s 26th birthday. I’m a few days late to celebrate, but it’s still a beautiful image. Known as NGC 7653, the Bubble nebula is 8,000 light years distant in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The reason for this natural bubble shape is that the star just left of center in the image is ionizing a surrounding cloud of Hydrogen with it’s powerful stellar wind. As electrons and protons recombine at the edges of the bubble, they release an infrared photon that can be clearly seen...
The Crab Nebula, as it’s commonly known, is connected to one of the earliest recorded supernova explosions. In 1054 AD, Chinese Astronomers saw the explosion of this supernova as an incredibly bright star in the sky lasting about two weeks, before fading. Now, nearly 1000 years later, the explosion is still happening as an expanding shock front rich in heavy elements moves through the interstellar medium. When the shock front hits dust or gas it is slowed down, giving the resulting nebula a unique shape. In this case, it looks like a crab. The supernova wasn’t exactly the death of the original...
Are equations beautiful? Does a mathematician see the machine code of the universe in the complex language they use? Does a Chemist see the flow of matter? Does a Biologist see the evolution of life? Does a physicist see the probabilistic nature of electrons? Many scientists would affirm their view that the equations that dictate their respective fields are artistic, in addition to logical. So if equations can be beautiful, what is the most beautiful equation? Naturally, the most beautiful equation should be simple. It should be somewhat intuitive, yet surprising in it’s result. It should explain something fundamental about the universe,...
The Rosetta orbiter, currently studying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it orbits the Sun, has been watching how the comet has changed as it moves toward its perihelion (point of closest approach to the Sun) in August of 2015. As the comet heats up from the increasing intensity of the Sun’s rays, it releases surface gases and dust into what eventually becomes the atmosphere-like coma surrounding the comet. As the comet moves the material produces the visible tail that we usually associate with a comet. With 67P specifically, Rosetta has recently made a surprising discovery: That the water and carbon dioxide streaming...
The science of Astronomy goes far beyond what humans can see with our eyes. The visible part of the spectrum has taught us so much, but when we look at all photons across the spectrum of light, we find exponentially more powerful methods for discovering the mysteries of the universe. Radio waves, yes the same ones that bring you music in your car, are found throughout the universe in very interesting environments. Radio waves often trace the most powerful objects in the universe, such as super-massive black holes, quasars, and other types of active galactic nuclei. Humans see visible light...
