HOME |
RSS | 
Recent news reports about a predicted decline in the sun’s magnetic activity pose the question, asking if the earth will be cooling off because of it. Let’s ask the Bad Astronomer, Dr. Phil Plait.
The answer — spoiler alert! — is almost certainly “no”. I want to make sure that’s clear, because I will bet essentially any amount of money that some climate change denial sites will run with this story and claim that we don’t need to worry about global warming. That’s baloney, and what follows is why. The reasons take a minute to explain, but of course that’s where the cool stuff (haha!) is. So let’s take this one step at a time. And if you have the attention span of an E. coli bacterium, you can skip down to the conclusion section.
What follows is a pretty comprehensive but simply written explanation of the sun’s magnetic cyle and its effect on Earth’s temperature. Link
One thing we should always remember is that the the earth is spinning around while the stars stay relatively constant in the sky. YouTube member bulletpeople took a beautiful existing time-lapse video of the stars and edited it to show the stars as static in the sky, which highlights the rotation of the earth. -via reddit
The following is an article from the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
by Steve Trimberger
With the loss of Pluto, the number of major planets in our solar system has dropped to eight. If the current trend continues, then come April 13, 3703 the solar system will no longer have any major planets. My analysis, below, suggests several possible causes, for the loss of major planets.
The Solar System’s Major Planets
Major planets have been the objects of study for thousands of years. Their positions and numbers have been accurately reported and have been subject of numerous observations by literally billions of observers. In this study, we analyzed published reports of the number of major planets and used statistical analysis software to identify trends in the data. These trends show a disturbing result, specifically, that the number of planets in the solar system has been decreasing since the middle of the nineteenth century. Extrapolation leads to the conclusion that the solar system will have no planets by the end of the next millennium.
Table 1. Reported Numbers of Planets in the Solar System
Historical Observed Planet Count
Table 1 shows the number of reported planets by various researchers. The reports in table 1 are selected from the literature and are representative. The planet counts have been confirmed extensively in numerous publications as well as by huge numbers of anecdotal accounts. The data are irrefutable, although, as noted in table 1, the dates of some of the early data points are estimates. Sensitivity analysis shows that the conclusions in this paper are not particularly sensitive to variations in these dates.
more …
I just learned a lot about sunspots from Dr. Phil Plait. He’s quite excited about NASA footage that shows the formation of a cluster of sunspots earlier this year.
Sunspots are actually regions of slightly cooler material at the Sun’s surface. Hot plasma (ionized gas, stripped of one electron or more) rises from the solar interior, reaches the surface, cools off, and sinks back down. This is called convection, and is the same process you see in a pot of boiling water. But at the surface, the tortured and twisted magnetic field of the Sun can suppress convection, preventing the cooler material from sinking. Since the brightness of the plasma depends on the temperature, this cooler stuff is darker. Boom! Sunspot.
Or, in this case, sunspots. You can see five of the suckers here, changing and mutating as the plasma interacts with the magnetic field. I recognize these spots, too: they were responsible for the first X-class flare of the season on March 15th. There’s dramatic footage of that as well which I posted on my blog at the time. They’re busy spots; they blew out a lower energy flare a few days earlier, too.
And here I am calling them cute and little when they’re actually comfortably bigger than the Earth and exploded with the energy equivalent of millions — millions! — of nuclear bombs.
Now I’m excited, too! Watch the video at Bad Astronomy. Link
(Image credit: NASA/SDO)
Steve D took an offhand comment from Twitter and ran with it, creating an actual box of Astronom O’s, “The Breakfast of People Who Stay Up All Night”. The oat cereal contains marshmallow moons and stars, and the box features Carl Sagan on the front and star facts on the back. He also made a single-serving size! Do you think General Mills might find this idea worth marketing? Link -via the Presurfer
I knew this, but only because I recall the approximate the number of miles to the moon, and the circumference of the earth. Those near my age might also remember that a fast rocket ship takes three days to get to the moon. -via reddit
This magnificent photo taken in Switzerland shows the expanse of the Milky Way galaxy across the heavens. This small size really doesn’t do it justice; click on the link to view a much larger image. Hovering over the photo at the link will also point out major star clusters and nebulae.
Link via io9 | Photo: Stephane Vetter
Comments Off
Like most trust-fund party boys, astronomer Tycho Brahe came fully outfitted with a less-than-endearing arrogant side. Of course, that’s not to say his hubris was totally misplaced. As a child, it didn’t take Tycho very long to realize that he possessed not only a lot more mental power than most of his peers, but also a lot more money. His genius came naturally, of course, but his privileged upbringing was a bit more contrived … to say the least.
While the Danish astronomer may be remembered as one of science’s biggest celebrities, Tycho’s parents were a few stars short of a Big Dipper. In a grand act of misplaced kindness, Mom and Pop Brahe, Beate and Otte, took pity on Otte’s childless brother, Jorgen, by promising him their first-born son. And though they changed their minds when baby Tycho came along on December 14, 1546, Jorgen kept his end of the bargain. He bided his time until Beate gave birth to a second son, then kidnapped young Tycho. Naturally, the youngster’s parents were outraged -that is, until they remembered that Jorgen was filthy rich and their erstwhile son would inherit his fortune. So, in yet another display of questionable decision-making, Tycho’s parents let Jorgen keep the boy.
This strange transaction gave Tycho an enormous edge. Not only did he grow up in a setting of great wealth, but he also had access to fantastic educational opportunities. At the urging of his uncle (er, father), Tycho studied law at the University of Copenhagen beginning at the age of 13, but his interest quickly waned. Instead of pursuing a legal career, Brahe became convinced he could predict planetary motions better than anyone had during the previous two millennia. He was, of course, correct.
more …
Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy Blog has a collection of astronomical images that display valentine heart shapes -which just goes to show you can find anything if you look heart, er, hard enough. This picture is of the W5 star-forming region taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The gallery ends with an extremely geeky bit of graffiti. Link
Comments Off Today, for the first time in history, humans can see the entire sun.
In October 2006, NASA launched a pair of twin spacecraft into space. Called STEREO — Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory — they traveled in opposite directions, one ahead and the other behind the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The goal was to get a wide, stereoscopic view of the Sun which would provide 3D information on our star.
Today they reached that goal. After traveling a combined 470 million kilometers (290 million miles) relative to the Earth, they are now on opposite sides of the Earth’s orbit, staring down at opposing faces of the Sun.
The full coverage observation of the sun will last for eight years. Dr. Phil Plait has an explanation of how NASA did this, and why it is important, at Bad Astronomy. Link
The Romance of Radio Astronomy – $14.95
If your lover is a star lover (no, not the celebrity kind – the massive, luminous ball of plasma kind), then here’s the perfect T-shirt for you: The Romance of Radio Astronomy from the NeatoShop by Mark Heath of Nobrow Cartoons. Perfect for Valentine’s Day gift, too!
Like that? See more: Mark Heath T-shirts | Scientists Do It T-shirts | Science T-Shirts | Funny T-Shirts
Comments Off What do you get when you combine your geeky passion for astronomy and craft? This awesome Stellar Quilts by Jimmy McBride:
Yes, that’s the Pillars of Creation. Find more of Jim’s artwork on Craftzine: Link
Comments Off 
Kathryn Aurora Gray knew a superstar when she saw one (and with a middle name like that, how could she not?). The 10-year-old girl from New Brunswick, Canada, just became the youngest person to ever to find a supernova (with a little help from astronomer dad):
Since a supernova can outshine millions of ordinary stars, it can be easy to spot with a modest telescope — even in a distant galaxy such as UGC 3378, which is about 240 million light-years away. The trick is to check previous images of the same location to see if there are any changes. That’s what Kathryn was doing for the images of the galaxy taken by her father.
Nancy Atkinson of Universe Today has the story: Link (Photo: David Smith/AP)
The 33-year old space probe Voyager I, now 17.4 billion miles from the Sun, has detected a major drop in the strength of solar wind in its location. This indicates that the probe is about to leave our solar system:
The event is a major milestone in Voyager 1′s passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the sun’s sphere of influence, and the spacecraft’s upcoming departure from our solar system.
“The solar wind has turned the corner,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. “Voyager 1 is getting close to interstellar space.”
Our sun gives off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble known as the heliosphere around our solar system. The solar wind travels at supersonic speed until it crosses a shockwave called the termination shock. At this point, the solar wind dramatically slows down and heats up in the heliosheath.
Link via Popular Science | Image: NASA/JPL
Dr. Phil Plait has published his selections of the best astronomy pictures of 2010. Not only will you see awesome pictures, but each has an explanation, like the full version of the cropped picture you see here.
Whenever a new type of instrument is used to examine the skies, surprises are guaranteed. And when the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) started scanning the heavens in 2010, it returned one amazing view after another. My favorite by far is this one, showing NGC 1514, a dying star shedding material.
This image, in the far-infrared, is very different than optical shots of the nebula, which show it looking more like a disk. It’s not certain just why this object has these two rings, but it’s likely that dust ejected from the dying star is slamming into gas previously thrown off. That older gas is most likely in an hourglass shape, common in such objects. Perhaps the dust is hitting the inside of that hourglass figure, making the rings. Maybe it’s a different reason entirely. We don’t know!
See also 14 at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link -Thanks, Phil!
Comments Off 
This is a cloud that has broken off the Carina Nebula. It’s about 8,000 light years away and has a nasty attitude. Or did, at least 8,000 years ago. Did we do something offensive at the time?
Link via Geekologie | Photo: NASA
It was only in 1995 that astronomers found measurable evidence of specific exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. Now we have actual images of some exoplanets, as well as artist renderings of the data collected.
We know of nearly 500 other planets orbiting other stars. However, the methods of finding these exoplanets are indirect. We measure their affect on their parent stars, but we didn’t directly see the planets themselves… until 2005, when the first image of an actual world orbiting another star was announced.
As of October 2010, only 7 such planets have been imaged, but we’ll soon have more. This gallery shows the best of these images, including the first alien solar system to have its picture taken.
The picture shown here is the star HR 8799 with three planets revolving around it! See a much larger image in the gallery. Link -Thanks, Phil!
(Image credit: Gemini Observatory)
Comments Off 
A two-year-old boy is fascinated with outer space and all it contains. And he knows more about it than most adults! Watch this cute video submitted to a contest which asked people how scientific discovery impacted their lives, at NeatoBambino. Link
Comments Off In the past few years, astronomers have detected many planets orbiting other stars. This led some to wonder what our solar system would look like to alien astronomers on the same quest, using similar technology. They concluded that the key to finding planets around our sun at a distance would be Neptune. This planet’s gravity has significant effects on the Kuiper Belt — the region of gas and dust surrounding the outer limits of our solar system. Christopher Stark of the Carnegie Institution for Science explained:
Through gravitational effects called resonances, Neptune wrangles nearby particles into preferred orbits. This is what creates the clear zone near the planet as well as dust enhancements that precede and follow it around the Sun.
“One thing we’ve learned is that, even in the present-day solar system, collisions play an important role in the Kuiper Belt’s structure,” Stark explained. That’s because collisions tend to destroy large particles before they can drift too far from where they’re made.
Link via Geekosystem
Comments Off 
Photo: Kwon O. Chul, TWAN
The gorgeous pyramid of light above is called the zodiacal light. Andrew Fazekas of the National Geographic News explains the elusive celestial phenomenon:
Unlike the stars and gases of the Milky Way, which stretch away from Earth for light-years, the source of the zodiacal light lies between the inner planets of our solar system.
There, billions of dust grains orbit the sun in a flattened disk spread out along the ecliptic—the plane of the solar system, which also contains the paths of the 12 constellations of the zodiac.
The dusty disk, also called the zodiacal cloud, radiates from near the sun out beyond the orbit of Mars, toward Jupiter. The dust reflects and scatters sunlight in such a way that it creates a visible glow for observers on Earth.
"Because the dust in the solar system is concentrated along the ecliptic plane, the zodiacal light is likewise concentrated," Gyuk said.
Comments Off 
Every year, the National Maritime Museum of Britain gives awards in the field of astronomical photography. Prizes are awarded in five categories: Earth and Space, People and Space, Our Solar System, Deep Space, Young Astronomy Photographer and Best Newcomer. Pictured above is the grand prize-winning Blazing Bristlecone by Tom Lowe.
Link via The Agitator
Comments Off 
This is an image taken by the Hubble telescope of a binary star system (named AFGL 3068) in which one star is a a carbon star, a dying red giant, which throws off material in which appears to us to be a spiral pattern. The explanation of this very strange star system is at Bad Astronomy. Link -via Monkeyfilter
This time-lapse video by YouTube user szyzyg shows asteroids in our solar system as they have been discovered since 1980:
Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You’ll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video.
As the video moves into the mid 1990′s we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you’ll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner.
At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that’s tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths.
Astronomers have so far found about half a million minor planets in our solar system.
via Popular Science
Binary solar systems — systems consisting of two stars orbiting each other — are quite common. Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have observed that many of them have a lot of dust and debris, leading to the hypothesis that the dust clouds were originally planets that collided with each other.
Geophysically, what would it be like if two planets hit each other? Phil Plait of Discover writes:
The energy in such a collision would dwarf the sweatiest nightmares of any Hollywood writer — or religiously-motivated apocalyptic preacher, for that matter. The two planets, each massing sextillions of tons, would ram each other at speeds of 20 or more kilometers per second. The energy released would be trillions of times that of all our nuclear weapons combined.
Link via Sci Fi Wire | Image: NASA
In 1821, French astronomer Alexis Bouvard reasoned that the eccentricities in the orbit of Uranus might be caused by the gravitational pull of a nearby planet. 45 years later, that planet, Neptune, was directly observed for the first time. Because it takes 164 years for Neptune to complete one orbit of the Sun, its orbit has until now not been fully observed:
Although Neptune is oblivious of this special time in its orbit, next year will be a special year for astronomy. It will be the first time for nearly 150 years that a planet has completed its first full orbit after its discovery.
Uranus, a planet discovered by Herschel in 1781 — approximately 10 AU closer to the sun than Neptune — completed its first orbit after discovery in the year 1865 (it completes one orbit of the sun every 84 years). And Pluto, the newly designated dwarf planet discovered by U.S. astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 — approximately 10 AU further away from the sun than Neptune — won’t complete its first orbit for another 168 years. We’ll have to wait until 2178 to see Pluto complete its first 248 year orbit around the sun.
Link | Photo: NASA
Galaxy M87 is an enormous collection of heavenly bodies, but astronomers who have studied the effects of its black hole see similarities to the recent volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, and have dubbed it a galactic super-volcano. We covered the shockwaves associated with the Earth mountain previously, and parallels can actually be seen in the distant galaxy.
In the analogy with Eyjafjallajökull, the energetic particles produced in the vicinity of the black hole rise through the X-ray emitting atmosphere of the cluster, lifting up the coolest gas near the center of M87 in their wake, much like the hot volcanic gases drag up the clouds of dark ash. And just like the volcano here on Earth, shockwaves can be seen when the black hole pumps energetic particles into the cluster gas.
“This analogy shows that even though astronomical phenomena can occur in exotic settings and over vast scales, the physics can be very similar to events on Earth,” said co-author Aurora Simionescu also of the Kavli Institute.
Chandra X-Ray Observatory has much more info on this and other astronomical wonders.
Link – and here’s just the X-Ray version of the phenomenon.
(Image credit: NASA/CXC/KIPAC/N. Werner, E. Million et al); Radio (NRAO/AUI/NSF/F. Owen)
Comments Off 
Artist Franceska McCullough makes toothpick sculptures that are inspired by geometric forms and astrophysical patterns. Pictured above is “Ganymede and Callisto Pod”, in reference to the two largest moons of Jupiter:
This is Ganymede Callisto Pod – or more directly the orbital pattern of the two largest moons of Jupiter. I chose Ganymede and Callisto because they are the two ice covered potentials to life, they are simply beautiful in the photo’s I’ve seen and their orbital dance is exquisite. If you are ever close enough to my sculpture that you can see inside to the core then you will see the orbital pattern very clearly.
Link via Make | Photo: Franceska McCullough, used with permission.
Researchers led by Paul Crowther, professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield, UK, have discovered a cluster of young stars that are about twice as big as the maximum size that astrophysicists thought could exist. Each is about 300 times the size of our sun:
In the study, the researchers estimated the maximum possible mass for stars within the two clusters, and the relative number of the most massive stars. Their findings have caused them to reevaluate current estimates for how large these stars can be.
“The smallest stars are limited to more than about 80 times more than Jupiter, below which they are ‘failed stars’ or brown dwarfs,” said Olivier Schnurr, a research team member from the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam in Germany. “Our new finding supports the previous view that there is also an upper limit to how big stars can get, although it raises the limit by a factor of two, to about 300 solar masses.”
Link via Geekosystem | Photo of NGC 3603 courtesy of NASA
How close could you get to the sun before burning up? Alessandra Calderin of Popular Science asked NASA engineer Ralph McNutt:
The sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth, and if we think of that distance as a football field, a person starting at one end zone could get about 95 yards before burning up.
That said, an astronaut so close to the sun is way, way out of position. “The technology in our current space suits really isn’t designed to withstand deep space,” says Ralph McNutt, an engineer working on the heat shielding for NASA’s Messenger, a new robotic Mercury probe. The standard space suit will keep an astronaut relatively comfortable at external temperatures reaching up to 248°. Heat coming off the sun dissipates over distance, but a person drifting in space would begin encountering that kind of heat (the five-yard line) some three million miles from the sun. “It would then be a matter of time before the astronaut died,” McNutt says.
The space shuttle, however, has greater heat resistance than a spacesuit, so it could get to the two-yard line before cooking its crew.
Link | Photo: the Sun seen from Skylab, courtesy of NASA
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day today is a cosmic cloud called Thor’s Helmet, for obvious reasons.
Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor’s Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is actually more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble’s center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major.
(Image credit: Star Shadows Remote Observatory and PROMPT/UNC/Steve Mazlin, Jack Harvey, Rick Gilbert, and Daniel Verschatse)
| FEATURED ITEMS FROM THE NEATOSHOP | |
 |
Mustache Bottle Opener |
 |
My Cryptozoological Family - Family Car Stickers |
 |
Zombie Hand Bottle Opener |
View more: New Items &
Best Sellers |
|
