Galaxies
Category archives for Galaxies
What Lies in the great Pinwheel Galaxy?
Posted by Ethan on May 26, 2012 
“This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time.” -Frances Willard As spring gives way to summer here in…
The Whole Story on Dark Matter
Posted by Ethan on April 19, 2012 “Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.” -Vera Rubin I want you to think about the Universe. The whole thing; about everything that physically exists, both visible and invisible, about the laws of nature that they obey, and about your place in it. It’s a daunting, terrifying, and simultaneously beautiful and…
Down the barrel of a thousand cosmic cannons!
Posted by Ethan on April 13, 2012 “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” -Albert Einstein Our galaxy is but one among hundreds of billions in the cosmos, nearly all of which contain supermassive black holes at the center. Ours happens to be “only” a few million times as massive as our…
The Whole Universe from One Satellite’s Eyes
Posted by Ethan on April 11, 2012 “We were left with a picture of part of the sky with no stars or galaxies, but it still had this infrared glow with giant blobs that we think could be the glow from the very first stars.” -John Mather When you look out at the night sky, you’re limited by the light pollution from…
A Little Black Hole Goes A Long Way
Posted by Ethan on March 29, 2012 “[The black hole] teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but.” -John A. Wheeler To an astronomer on any other world, the…
Why is there something instead of nothing?
Posted by Ethan on March 27, 2012 “Think binary. When matter meets antimatter, both vanish, into pure energy. But both existed; I mean, there was a condition we’ll call ‘existence.’ Think of one and minus one. Together they add up to zero, nothing, nada, niente, right? Picture them together, then picture them separating–peeling apart. … Now you have something, you have two…
This is what your Universe looks like!
Posted by Ethan on March 21, 2012 “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” -Edgar Allen Poe When you look out into the darkness of a moonless, unpolluted night sky, you’ll of course notice that it’s full of stars, planets, and the occasional extended object. But you’ll also…
A Martian Supernova for Skywatchers Everywhere!
Posted by Ethan on March 20, 2012 “When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes.” -Tycho Brahe When stars reach the end of their lives, there are many possible fates that they…
A Cosmic Smashup and a Dark Matter Mystery?
Posted by Ethan on March 5, 2012 “I soon became convinced… that all the theorizing would be empty brain exercise and therefore a waste of time unless one first ascertained what the population of the Universe really consists of.” -Fritz Zwicky You very likely know that there are four fundamental forces in the Universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear…
Remember How Tiny We All Are
Posted by Ethan on March 1, 2012 “The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine.” -James Irwin With everything that goes on in this world, from our daily…
