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...
It’s finally time for humanity to take the next great leap into the great beyond. We are natural explorers, and the time to explore a new frontier is now. Humans will soon go beyond the Moon, and we will venture there on the Orion Capsule, powered by the sails of the Delta IV rocket. You may have seen some of my other posts about it, or an old infographic of the flight procedure. The launch window is opening at 7:05 am EST today! It will have a 2 hour – 39 minute launch window. But if the weather is clear it...
The Universe is big, in case you weren’t aware. It’s the biggest thing we know of, containing at least 100 Billion Galaxies, each with up to 1 Trillion of their own stars. It’s ludicrously large. How do we know its so big? A major project completed in 2001 surveyed the Galaxies of the local Universe, and what was found can be summed up in the video below, from Reddit. The data is from the 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), whose goal was to map all the galaxies in the known Universe in Infrared. The colours in the above map show...
Panspermia. Look it up. It sounds more like science fiction than science fact, but imagine the implications. It is the idea that life is everywhere, and is seeded throughout the universe by comets, asteroids, meteors, rogue planets, and even spacecraft, by way of unintended contamination of microbes. It could also explain why there is life on Earth. Because we still know so little about the Universe around us, panspermia is considered a plausible scenario. To test parts of this theory, a team from the University of Zurich’s Institute of Anatomy used small pipettes to actually place double stranded DNA on the outside of...
Have you ever heard of the Van Allen belts? If not you really should learn about them. After all, without them the majority of life on Earth could not survive. So what are they and how do they keep us alive? The Van Allen Belts are a collection of charged particles, held in place by the magnetic field of Earth, that act as a barrier to prevent the most harmful radiation from the Sun from reaching the surface of the Earth. They shift according to the incoming energy of the Sun, and if there is a large enough swell of...
I like this picture – it gives good insight into just how much garbage is up there floating around in low Earth orbit. Space Junk has become a serious problem, and in the last few years has started to collide with satellites, creating more debris. Luckily, by 2018, Switzerland, with the help of Canada, will be launching a Space Junk Cleaner called CleanSpaceOne. Good on you Switzerland!
They did it! 10 Years in Orbit and 2 Billion dollars later, the landing is successful and confirmed. Now comes the fun part: The resulting Science!!! The first image that was beamed through 28 ad a half light minutes showed the lander on its descent, about 3km from the surface. The landing wasn’t perfect though. In fact it may have ‘landed twice.’ The 4km wide comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko doesn’t have enough gravity to keep the lander from flying out into space, which is why Philae was equipped with a harpoon system to lock it in place on the surface. Yesterday I...
For the first time in human history we are landing on a Comet! Watch the live feed and you can follow the landing as it’s happening. It is expected to touch down at about 11:03 EST. The lander, named Philae, already detached from the Rosetta Spacecraft at about 4am EST, and is slowly moving toward the landing site. Once it gets close enough it will launch harpoons (yup you read it right) to grab onto the comet and pull itself down to the surface, snapping photos along the way. The Science communication world has been following this story since the Orbiter arrived...
I did a short presentation last night for a group of families at a Halloween event. My job was to talk space but make it as spooky as possible and use some Halloween themes for the kids. There really is a fine line between teaching Science and being entertaining, but here’s some of the things I did. Lets start with the following image….What does this look like to you? Did you say the head of a witch? Then yes you are right! This is known as the Witch Head Nebula. A nebula is a place where gas and dust in...
I was blown away to hear this news just a few hours after the launch. The Antares rocket exploded on the launchpad just six seconds after launch. Yesterday’s post discussed how the Antares-Cygnus resupply launch was delayed by a lone man in a boat who had no clue he was in the blast zone. First of all, it’s important to note that no one was hurt, including all personnel on site and in the control room. This was an unmanned rocket, so the major loss was the resupply capsule and its cargo, not to mention the loss of the $250...
