Astronomy
Category archives for Astronomy
Messier Monday: A Dusty Open Cluster for Everyone, M25
Posted by Ethan on April 8, 2013 
“The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” -Henry David Thoreau Welcome to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each week, we take a look at the…
Long for the Stars
Posted by Ethan on April 5, 2013 
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery The Universe has been around for a long time: 13.8 billion years, to be precise. As humans, we’re…
It’ll take a lot more than AMS to find Dark Matter
Posted by Ethan on April 3, 2013 
“On what can we now place our hopes of solving the many riddles which still exist as to the origin and composition of cosmic rays?” -Victor Francis Hess We’ve come a tremendously long way in our understanding of the Universe, but there are plenty of mysteries still to be revealed. Way back in the late…
Messier Monday: Messier’s Greatest Mistake, M40
Posted by Ethan on April 1, 2013 
“It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.” -Dale Turner This April Fools’ day, even though the rest of the internet revels…
Where is Everybody? (Part II)
Posted by Ethan on March 29, 2013 
“If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody?” -Stephen Webb It’s one of the biggest conundrums in the Universe, known as the Fermi Paradox: if the Universe is so conducive to life, and if there are so many opportunities for it within our galaxy alone, why isn’t there any evidence (outside of the…
The Science of the Cosmic Microwave Background
Posted by Ethan on March 27, 2013 
“The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to -271.3°C, not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.” -Stephen Hawking One of the most powerful predictions of the Big Bang — the…
Messier Monday: The First Messier Supernova of 2013, M65
Posted by Ethan on March 25, 2013 
“I wouldn’t dream of working on something that didn’t make my gut rumble and my heart want to explode.” -Kate Winslet Welcome back for another Messier Monday! At the start of each week, we take a detailed look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue. This week, we’ve got…
What The Entire Universe Is Made Of, Thanks to Planck!
Posted by Ethan on March 21, 2013 
“Much later, when I discussed the problem with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. But this “blunder,” rejected by Einstein, is still sometimes used by cosmologists even today, and the cosmological constant denoted by the Greek letter Λ rears its ugly…
What Everyone Should Know about the Universe on the eve of Planck
Posted by Ethan on March 20, 2013 
“Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.” -Max Planck Tomorrow morning, at 8 AM my time, the press conference that cosmologists have spent the past decade waiting for will finally happen, and the Planck satellite — the…
Messier Monday: A Diffuse, Distant Globular at the End-of-the-Marathon, M72
Posted by Ethan on March 18, 2013 
“Every star may be a sun to someone.” -Carl Sagan Welcome back to yet another Messier Monday! Each week, we highlight one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue: Charles Messier’s legacy to comet-hunters and amateur astronomers, pointing out some of the most easily visible deep-sky objects as seen from our…
