Alliteration is accessible to all! Okay I’m done. Start some science! Really done this time. Today’s double post covers the smallest of stars, still larger than most planets, and the only weather Mercury will ever have. Humans are naturally interested in the extremes, the biggest, smallest, fastest, hottest, coldest, and every other characteristic outlier. With stars, being so huge and powerful, we are often more interested in the largest, hottest, and most energetic. Though on the opposite end of the spectrum, Cambridge University astronomers have discovered the smallest star in the known universe. The star, a red dwarf, has the...
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...
Cosmic rays are incredibly powerful invisible particles, and we can’t be sure where they come from. Not much in the way of a comforting thought, but it makes for a cosmic mystery that astronomers have been trying to solve for decades. And now they have come one step closer. Here’s what we do know. Cosmic rays are energetic atomic nuclei travelling at near the speed of light. They hit our atmosphere and rapidly interact with the molecules there to break into billions of smaller, less energetic particles that shower down on the life on Earth, without giving us much notice...
Last week, while looking at some of the best images from the Cassini spacecraft, I commented on the fact that the smooth rings of Saturn are small, varied chunks of ice and rock when you get down to the smaller scales. Reflecting on that this morning, I was thinking about how observing objects in our universe at smaller scales gives new insight into the variety and complexity of natural phenomena. Not long after, I came across a story of a new interesting object in our own Solar System. A new binary asteroid was discovered. This in itself isn’t too different...
As I often do, I pulled up the Astronomy Picture of the Day, and noticed today’s photo was a fond reminder of the eclipse I witnessed a month ago. I began to think about the preparation and timing, planning and organizing, the countless hours of testing gear for a single moment lasting two minutes, where the Moon and Sun aligned. I was in the right place, at the right time. Solar Eclipses are rare, and it’s mostly because only a narrow band of land on Earth, usually around 100 Km wide, experiences such an event at any one time. And with...
Science and technology benefit one another. New scientific theories afford new opportunities to create technology that can harness the laws of nature. Conversely, new technologies allow for better instrumentation and unprecedented efficiency in scientific progress. It’s a continual feedback loop, and some of the greatest challenges in science are solved simply by throwing more resources at them, or in other words, gathering more data. A good example of this is a relatively old problem for astronomers – determining how the spin of a galaxy affects it’s shape. We certainly don’t want for analogies on Earth, spinning pizza, driving on a...
As I was watching the grand finale of Cassini and listening to the mission team talk about the accomplishments of the mission, I learned a little bit about propellors. Not your typical airplane propellor, but the name used to describe this fascinating feature in Saturn’s rings. Seeing Saturn’s rings from afar, or even relatively close with Cassini, we see the rings as perfect. How do we end up with strange features and imperfections like this one? Looking elsewhere in the rings, we can find clues. The first clue is the namesake of the mission itself. The Cassini spacecraft was named for...
I remember vividly my first astronomy class in university. Winter 2004, only months before the Cassini spacecraft was set to arrive at Saturn after a seven year journey. On several occasions in that class we talked about what we might see when Cassini reached it’s destination. The first dedicated mission to the jewel of the solar system, originally conceived right after the voyager flyby in 1982, would give us a chance to study more than just a planet, but an entire system of interaction between a planet and it’s moons. Beyond that, it included the Huygens probe, to land at...
After the eclipse on August 21st, I took a deep breath. I spent a year focussed on photographing the eclipse, and with that goal complete, what was next? I was in the plateau of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, a couple dozen miles from Yellowstone, and had three days to enjoy with my fiancee. As luck would have it, those days were absent of any clouds, giving me two perfect evenings in clear, dark, dry skies to do some of the best astrophotography of my life. Here’s what I shot. The milky way shot for me is a...
The Juno spacecraft began its long journey to Jupiter in 2011. Waking up in 2016 it underwent a successful orbit injection on July 4th. Now after nearly a year of waiting, the public finally gets to see the first fruits of the mission. It has certainly been worth the wait. A new Jupiter, seen from a distance of 52,000 Km, has a vivid and chaotic southern pole in the above image. Swirling storms thousands of kilometres across whirl around one another in a sea of gaseous ammonia clouds. Will the system remain chaotic? Or will it change a year from...
