galaxies
Tag archives for galaxies
How far away is stuff?
Posted by Ethan on April 24, 2013 
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” -Douglas Adams Well, maybe “peanuts” isn’t going to do. When you look out at the night sky, all sorts…
The Universe is Alive
Posted by Ethan on February 8, 2013 
“Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery When you look out into the Universe, what is it that you typically think of? Do you think of reliable, fixed stars and constellations? The…
Messier Monday: The Gateway Galaxy to Virgo, M60
Posted by Ethan on February 4, 2013 
“The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!” -Dave Bowman, 2001: A Space Odyssey Back in October, we began a new, weekly series here called Messier Monday. Each Monday, we’ve taken a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue, nebulous objects that might potentially be…
So much more than an Atom Smasher
Posted by Ethan on December 6, 2012 
“Forget it. I didn’t have that thing inside me where I wanted to smash against somebody and watch them break. I was too sensitive for that and disliked being that sensitive.” -Josh Brolin How do you figure out what something is made of? You take it apart — cracking it open if necessary — and…
Giving thanks for our place in the Universe
Posted by Ethan on November 21, 2012 
“We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.” -George Bernard Shaw All that is real about ourselves is nothing…
Every Galaxy will have New Stars for Trillions of Years!
Posted by Ethan on November 7, 2012 
“It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight.” – Neil Armstrong Indeed, all that glitters so brilliantly in the cosmos does so because of the stars that have formed throughout it. Over the 14 billion-or-so years that our Universe has been around, we’ve formed hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone. Given that our…
The Deepest View of the Universe. EVER.
Posted by Ethan on September 28, 2012 
“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” -Joseph Campbell One of the bravest things that was ever done with the Hubble Space Telescope was to find a patch of sky with absolutely nothing in it — no bright stars, no…
If it comes back to you, it’s yours!
Posted by Ethan on September 10, 2012 
“Not even light can escape such hollowing, this huge mass in a small space. Even the Milky Way with its open arms is said to have a black hole at its heart.” -Susan B.A. Somers-Willett Our Milky Way is home to us all. With its hundreds of billions of stars, massive spiral arms, dust lanes,…
Say Something Smart
Posted by Ethan on August 27, 2012 
“You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage.” -Martin H. Fischer I’ve always thought that the Universe is absolutely amazing; that everything from the tiniest indivisible particles all the way up to the largest structures and superstructures making up the Universe has an amazing…
Get Your Galaxy in Gear!
Posted by Ethan on August 17, 2012 
“We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.” -Carlos Frenk The Universe has been around for a long time: nearly 14 billion years, to the best of our knowledge. When it was very young, there were absolutely zero stars in it, while today, there are hundreds…
