This is first, and foremost, and atheism blog. All other things I blog either stem from ideas and thoughts I have gained through my atheism, or things I genuinely enjoy.
I am a lover of my love, and musician of my music, a humanist of my human nature, and an intellectual of my intellect.
I am a lover of my love, and musician of my music, a humanist of my human nature, and an intellectual of my intellect.
-
How I feel.
This tenfold.
When I saw Jupiter, the four Galilean moons, and Uranus through a telescope for the first time, I was completely enthralled to be seeing them myself. :3
(via imagineatoms)
via imagineatoms➜ -
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Space
There is still so little known about outer space by modern science, but of that little we do know, there are some extraordinarily amazing things. This is a list of the top 10 cool facts about Space.
10. Lightweight
Fact: If you put Saturn in water it would float
The density of Saturn is so low that if you were to put it in a giant glass of water it would float. The actual density of Saturn is 0.687 g/cm3 while the density of water is 0.998 g/cm3. At the equator Saturn has a radius of 60,268 ± 4 km – which means you would need an extremely large glass of water to test this out.
9. Constantly Moving
Fact: We are moving through space at the rate of 530km a second
Our Galaxy – the Milky Way is spinning at a rate of 225 kilometers per second. In addition, the galaxy is travelling through space at the rate of 305 kilometers per second. This means that we are traveling at a total speed of 530 kilometers (330 miles) per second. That means that in one minute you are about 19 thousand kilometers away from where you were. Scientists do not all agree on the speed with which the Milky Way is travelling – estimates range from 130 – 1,000 km/s. It should be said that Einstein’s theory of relativity, the velocity of any object through space is not meaningful.
8. Farewell old friend!
Fact: The moon is drifting away from Earth
Every year the moon moves about 3.8cm further away from the Earth. This is caused by tidal effects. Consequently, the earth is slowing in rotation by about 0.002 seconds per day per century. Scientists do not know how the moon was created, but the generally accepted theory suggests that a large Mars sized object hit the earth causing the Moon to splinter off.
7. Ancient Light
Fact: The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old
The energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago – it spent most of this time passing through the dense atoms that make the sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun! The temperature at the core of the sun is 13,600,000 kelvins. All of the energy produced by fusion in the core must travel through many successive layers to the solar photosphere before it escapes into space as sunlight or kinetic energy of particles.
6. Solar Diet
Fact: The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms a second due to solar winds
Solar winds are charged particles that are ejected from the upper surface of the sun due to the high temperature of the corona and the high kinetic energy particles gain through a process that is not well understood at this time. Also, did you know that 1 pinhead of the sun’s energy is enough to kill a person at a distance of 160 kilometers? [Sourced from Planet Science]
5. The Big Dipper is not a constellation
Fact: The Big Dipper is not a constellation, it is an asterism
Many people consider the big dipper to be a constellation but, in fact, it is an asterism. An asterism is a pattern of stars in the sky which is not one of the official 88 constellations; they are also composed of stars which are not physically related to each other and can be vast distances apart. An asterism can be composed of stars from one or more constellations – in the case of the Big Dipper, it is composed entirely of the seven brightest stars in the Ursa Major (Great Bear) constellation.
4. George’s Star
Fact: Uranus was originally called George’s Star
When Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he was given the honor of naming it. He chose to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) after his new patron, King George III (Mad King George). This is what he said:
In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, ‘In the reign of King George the Third.’
Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered with the use of a telescope.
3. Extra Moons
Fact: Earth has at least 4 moons
Okay – that is not actually true – but it is very close. In 1986, Duncan Waldron discovered a asteroid (5km across) that is in an elliptic orbit around the sun with a period of revolution virtually identical to that of Earth. For this reason the planetoid and earth appear to be following each other. The periodic planetoid is named Cruithne (pronounced krin-yə) after an ancient group of Scottish people (also known as the Picts). Because of its unusual relationship with Earth, it is sometimes referred to as Earth’s second moon. Cruithne, is fainter than Pluto and would require at least a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope to attempt to be seen. Since its discovery, at least three other similar asteroids have been discovered. These types of objects are also found in similar relationships to other planets in our Solar System. In the image above (courtesy of Paul Wiegert), the earth is the blue circle with a cross in it, and Cruithne’s orbit is shown in yellow.
2. Sunspot Music
Fact: Sunspot activity may be the primary reason for the beautiful sound of Stradivarius violins
Antonio Stradivari is considered to be the greatest violin maker ever. He lived in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. Scientists have been unable to work out what it is about his violins that makes them so incredible, but they do know that the timber used to make them is a very important contributing factor. From the 1500s to 1800s, the earth underwent a little ice age mostly due to increased volcanic activity and decreased solar activity (this is called the Maunder Minimum). As a result of this cooling, the types of trees that Stradivari used for his violins were particularly hard (due to slow growth). Hard timber is especially good when making violins. It is very probable that had Stradivari lived in a different age, his violins would not be prized as they are today. This picture above is made of three overlapping photos. It shows the rings in the spruce tree used to make the most famous Stradivarius violin, the “Messiah.” The first row of numbers gives the width of each ring in millimeters (one mm is about the thickness of a fingernail). The bottom row gives the years in which each ring grew.
1. Cold Welding
Fact: If two pieces of metal touch in space, they become permanently stuck together
This may sound unbelievable, but it is true. Two pieces of metal without any coating on them will form in to one piece in the vacuum of space. This doesn’t happen on earth because the atmosphere puts a layer of oxidized material between the surfaces. This might seem like it would be a big problem on the space station but as most tools used there have come from earth, they are already coated with material. In fact, the only evidence of this seen so far has been in experiments designed to provoke the reaction. This process is called cold welding. For those who still don’t believe it, here is the Wikipedia article on Cold Welding.
(via divineirony)
via expose-the-light➜ -
➜
The greatest mysteries of the planets
Mercury
Mercury is notoriously difficult to study, thanks to its proximity to the scorching hot and blindingly bright sun. Thus, mysteries abound. For example, Mercury has a giant core - perhaps because its outer, lighter layers got brushed off by planetary collisions long ago, but scientists aren’t sure. It also has a magnetic field and an atmosphere, both of unknown origin. In fact, the little planet leaks a steady stream of atmospheric particles, suggesting its atmosphere is somehow constantly regenerated. The biggest boggler of all: Mercury’s highly elongated orbit is growing more oval-shaped all the time, and it could someday crash into Venus or the sun. Will its changing path (and resultant changing gravitational field) disrupt the orbits of Earth and the other inner planets, causing chaos?
Venus
Planetary scientists are still working out the details of how a once-earthlike Venus gradually morphed into the hellishly hot planet shrouded in a thick blanket of toxic gases we see today. But a bigger mystery regarding Earth’s “evil twin” is why the planet’s atmosphere swirls around it 60 times faster than the sphere spins itself; and speaking of Venus’ spin, no one knows why it goes counter-clockwise unlike all the other inner planets, such that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
The most intriguing open question of all: does Venus harbor life in its clouds? Some 30 miles up, there should be a habitable niche where pressure and temperature are earthlike. For energy, floating creatures resembling bacteria could thrive off the ample sunshine or chemicals in the atmosphere.
Earth
You might think we’d have nailed down the major bullet points about our home planet’s structure and formation, but in fact, big zingers remain. We don’t know, for example, how all this water got here, and we’re uncertain about the nature of Earth’s core, which, strangely, transmits seismic waves faster in one direction than the other. Our beloved satellite has big bogglers, too. While most scientists think the moon formed from a chunk of Earth that got knocked off during an ancient impact, the theory has a hole: the theoretical impactor, dubbed Theia, should have left a residue with distinctive characteristics, but it has not been detected.
Mars
The Red Planet, now frigid, barren and seemingly deserted, spent its first 500 million or billion years as warm, wet and geologically dynamic. Scientists don’t know why it changed so drastically for the worse. They also wonder whether a more vibrant Mars once harbored life, and if it did, whether any bacteria-like Martian organisms managed to adapt to the harsher environs that took over, and are still eking out an existence there.
What’s more, scientists can’t fully explain the planet’s “hemispheric dichotomy.” Smooth, younger lightly cratered lowlands dominate the planet’s top half, while ancient, heavily cratered highlands characterize the southern hemisphere. As for how Mars’ two funky, lumpy moons got there, their size and shape suggests they originated as asteroids and were captured by the planet’s gravity; however, captured asteroids normally traverse elongated, oval orbits, while Phobos and Deimos follow circular paths around Mars.
Jupiter
Like a carefully dyed Easter egg, Jupiter is girded by lighter-hued bands called zones and darker bands called belts. But are these stripes merely surface features overlaying a uniform inner ball of gas, or are the zones and belts actually the tops of concentric cylinders that make up the planet? Whole stripes have been known to disappear without a trace; one vanished in May 2010 that was twice as wide as Earth; why? Other surface decors, such as the swirling vortex known as the Great Red Spot, are equally as mysterious: What power source drives their turbulent motion?
Furthermore, early in its history, this gas giant gobbled up great gobs of heavy elements, including more carbon, nitrogen and sulfur than are found in the sun. How did all that heavy stuff get in there, and is some of it compacted in a solid core deep below Jupiter’s surface? Scientists still don’t know, and are hoping to learn a thing or two when the Juno spacecraft flies past in 2016.
Saturn
For four centuries, astronomers have contemplated Saturn’s eye-popping rings, but none of their attempts to explain the beautiful features have ever seemed quite right. The rings could have formed from the icy remnants of a bygone moon, or from a passing comet torn to shreds by the planet’s gravity; they could be relatively young at just a few hundred million years old, or they might date back to the birth of Saturn more than four billion years ago. We just don’t know. We’re also yet to nail down the dynamics of giant storms and jet streams on the ringed planet’s surface, as well as the dynamics of its rotation. Three different spacecraft have attempted to measure the length of Saturn’s day by detecting its natural radio emissions as they soared past; all three have turned up different measurements.
Uranus
Planets are expected to radiate heat leftover inside them from their fiery formation process, but puzzlingly, Uranus radiates little or no heat into space. Perhaps the seventh planet’s heat got unleashed during some cosmic smash-up in the distant past. That collision could also have caused the planet’s strange sideways spin. Or maybe Uranus somehow self-insulates, keeping all its heat trapped inside.
Uranus also drags around with it the craggiest astronomical object known to man - a satellite called Miranda. This strange moon has deep canyons, scrapes, terraced layers and a cliff some 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) deep – the deepest in the solar system. Miranda’s geological mess may have formed from flowing ices in the moon’s interior, perhaps heated by gravitational squeezing from Uranus and other moons, oozing out onto the surface. Or, perhaps the moon was shattered several times and came back together, creating its jagged and mottled features.
Neptune
Astronomers had expected Neptune to be a weatherless, featureless world in deep freeze. Instead, Voyager 2’s flyby in 1989 - the only close look we’ve ever gotten of this 3-billion-mile-away planet - revealed a turbulent atmosphere with lighter cloud ripples and raging storms. Surprisingly, the fastest winds ever recorded in the solar system whirl on Neptune, up around 1,300 miles (about 2,100 kilometers) per hour. Driving this activity appears to be Neptune’s internal heat, but as the farthest planet from the sun (farthest, that is, ever since the more-distant Pluto was kicked off the planet list in 2006), why does it hold so much heat?
Neptune’s clumpy rings also confound scientists, as does its bizarre magnetic field, which emanates from a point off-set from the planet’s center.
I was told by my astronomy professor this past semester that Saturn’s rings were most likely several asteroids or moons pulled apart by its’ gravitational force or otherwise known as the Roche Limit. :p
-
Getting Closer! New SuperEarth Found in Red Dwarf Habitable Zone
A new superterran exoplanet (aka Super-Earth),a rock-water world, was found in the stellar habitable zone of the red dwarf star Gliese 163 by the European HARPS team. The planet, Gliese 163c, has a minimum mass of 6.9 Earth masses and takes nearly 26 days to orbit its star. Superterrans are those exoplanets between two and ten Earth masses, which are more likely composed of rock and water.
Continue reading “Getting Closer! New SuperEarth Found in Red Dwarf Habitable Zone” »
(via divineirony)
via dailygalaxy.com➜ -
As soon as I read ‘8 planets’ I shed a tear for Pluto. But yeah, people are dumb, there are innumerable planets.
(via meow--zedong)
via memecollection➜ -
A Morning Line of Stars and Planets
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Las Campanas Observatory, Carnegie Institution for Science)
(via we-are-star-stuff)
via apod.nasa.gov➜
