carbon
esiegel | June 4, 2012"Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties." -James Jeans
Here on Earth, every living thing is based around four fundamental, elemental building blocks of life: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and, perhaps most importantly, carbon.
Image Credit: Robert Johnson / University of Pennsylvania.
From diamonds to nanotubes to DNA, carbon is indispensable for constructing practically all of the most intricate structures we know of. Most of the carbon in our world comes from long-dead stars, in the form of Carbon-12: carbon atoms containing six…
milhayser | September 7, 2011
On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel explains that although we see the full range of spectral classes in the night sky—from cool red M stars to blazing blue O's—75% of nearby stars "are the reddest, coolest, M-class stars, including the closest star to us." Only 4.2 light-years away, Proxima Centauri "is invisible even with binoculars, and even with dark skies, a small, 3" telescope would unable to find it." Yet O and B class stars, despite being much rarer and much more distant, are so luminous that they can't be missed. Brightness can be deceiving—even when looking at entire galaxies and…
sastyk | July 28, 2010Pursuant to my previous post, today's project in the decision making process for Eric and I (we'll finally see the inside of the house tomorrow) is to find how long the commute to Eric's job and our synagogue is. These two things make up about half of our total driving - only half simply because we are very fortunate, and Eric has managed to work his academic schedule so he's only on campus three days per week.
We realized last night that the house is further from SUNY Albany and our synagogue in Niskayuna than we'd realized - we'd figured it would be about the same since the house is only…
grrlscientist | October 30, 2009tags: environment, forest ecology, trees, forestry, carbon sequestration, global warming, climate change, Nature Conservancy, streaming video
You know that trees store carbon, but what does that really mean? How much carbon does the tree outside your window store, and how does that compare to the carbon we emit when we travel or power our homes?
How many trees are in your yard? I don;t have a yard (I have a fire escape), but my neighborhood is being revitalized by BYC's "Million Trees" project, so roughly by the time that I leave for Germany, the city will be planting trees on the street in…
sheril | March 10, 2009The Guardian:
Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs, scientists will warn today.
Say what?! Look, ocean acidification is a VERY real threat to our planet. That said, the seas are not turning to acid! (But gee, way to scare folks into envisioning the demise of the wicked witch!) This demonstrates a lack of taking the time to explore and understand what ocean acidification means--the term is used to describe the way the pH of oceans is becoming less basic as they absorb…
esiegel | May 14, 2008When I think of molecules, I think of Conan O'Brien doing his skit where he plays Moleculo...
the molecular man! I don't think of astronomy, and I certainly don't think of the leftover radiation from the big bang (known as the cosmic microwave background)! But somebody over at the European Southern Observatory put these two together and made an incredibly tasty science sandwich.
See, we can measure the cosmic microwave background today, because we have photons (particles of light) coming at us in all directions at all locations, with a temperature of 2.725 Kelvin. Theoretical cosmology…
esiegel | April 24, 2008Even creationists have said that if you find something that's alive now that's over 6000 years old, it would prove to them that the Earth is at least that old.
Previously, the oldest tree in the world was thought to be a Bristlecone Pine in California, known as the Methuselah tree, at 4,840 years old (as of 2008).
It's huge! But you can also date a tree not by its trunk, but by its root structure. And as The Log Blog reports, Swedish researchers have found a tree on Fulu Mountain that is over 9,000 years old! Although it looks puny because its trunk dies every few hundred years or so and it…
esiegel | April 7, 2008What's going to happen to all the stars in the Universe as they get older? Well, just as nothing can live forever, stars can't live forever also. Why? Because they run on fuel: burning hydrogen into helium, for example. When they run out of fuel, something's gotta give. Barbara Ryden reminds us of an excellent and appropriate quote by Dylan Thomas:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
But what exactly happens to the star depends very sensitively on what the mass of the star is.
If you've got a tiny little star, less than about 40% of the mass of…