When I do a planetarium show for an audience, and they see the night sky for the first time, I always ask them ‘What do you see?’ The response is the usual stuff – Stars, the Moon, maybe planets, or the Milky Way. But they seem to be missing the most important and largest part of the sky – the Darkness. Space itself. Stars light up the cosmos, but if there were no stars, would we think that the universe was empty? Perhaps, but if you can imagine this scenario, it gives you an important perspective when you want to...
First of all, in case you didn’t know, according to a few sources, today is not just Valentine’s day, but also: Impotence Day, Condom day, Singles Awareness Day, Ferris Wheel Day, Congenital Heart Disease Day, and Pet Theft Awareness Day. And on to the Astronomy! A classic favourite would be the Heart Nebula. Located 7,500 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, this heart-shaped HII emission nebula is located along the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. HII regions like this one are used to probe the massive star formation in a galaxy. This is because massive O and B...
This amazing video from animator Alphonse Swineheart gives us an idea of the vastness of space, showing how incredibly large our solar system is. There are a few long trips between planets, but some fun facts keep it interesting. Plus the point is that we are getting an idea of the scale of it all. One thing to keep in mind is that each second the viewer is travelling 300,000 Km, equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth almost 8 times! A good thing to remember is that if we were seeing the distance to the next star, proxima centauri, this video...
There has been a lot of planetary news lately, in our own solar system and beyond. With the DAWN spacecraft approaching Ceres, New Horizons finally reaching Pluto in a few months, and the Kepler Space Telescope giving results from it’s new observing run. Not to mention comet Lovejoy, Mars Rover anniversary, and the Venus Metal Frost story. Normally I would pass on so much planetary news, even though it is one of my favourite areas of Astronomy. This story, however, is just too good to pass up. Kepler 444, a very ancient star 117 light years from Earth, about 25% smaller than...
Voyager 1, launched way back in 1977, is still giving us Science, far away beyond the influence of the Sun. In the past few years, the spacecraft has passed the boundary between the Solar System and the Interstellar Medium, the so called Heliopause. This has given scientists the first ever direct look at the Space between stars. Since then, Voyager has felt some interesting shock waves, which are being referred to as ‘Tsunami Waves.’ When the Sun emits a Coronal Mass Ejection, the charged particles travel through the Solar System as a pressure wave. When this wave hits the Heliopause...
