Category Archives: Light

A Smiley Face in Space :)

A picture taken by Hubble shows what appears to be a face complete with two eyes, a nose, and a smile. The two eyes are actually galaxies while the smile is made up of curving light that forms a partial circle around the figure. However, the smile doesn’t exist. There is lots of immeasurable and […] Continue reading

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The James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is set to be the official successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, due to launch is 2018. In order to understand how the JWST will be improving on the Hubble, I think it is first important to understand some of the light aspects of space observation. Model […] Continue reading

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Hubble’s Law

Photo Source: Hubble’s Law Considering the topic of what light can tell us, Hubble’s Law is one topic I’ve always found greatly interesting.  As the picture suggests, the redshift of a distant galaxy is in direct linear proportion to its distance from Earth.  This is the essence of Hubble’s Law – which relates a galaxy’s… Continue reading

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Tour de Light

If you’re like me, when you think of light you think of the visible light spectrum, the colors of the rainbow. In reality light is much more than what we can see with our eyes, the spectrum extends far in … Continue reading Continue reading

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Absorption Spectra

Photo Source: Absorption Spectrum The photo above is the full absorption spectrum of the sun.  The black lines come from the different chemical elements within its atmosphere, and this is true for all stars!  Different elements absorb and emit light at different wavelengths from one another.  Scientists have conducted (here on earth) experiments to determine… Continue reading

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Blog Post #4: The Twilight Saga

If you’re like me, then the concept of “twilight” has recently become a little confusing. In class, twilight has been …

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LIGHTS? OR ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES?

When we talk about light in our daily life, usually we only talk about visible lights. However, light can include any kind of electromagnetic waves. Lights in visible spectrum are the only lights which can be received and recognized by human eyes. From the very left to the right of the whole spectrum, lights of … Continue reading LIGHTS? OR ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES? Continue reading

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Light Pollution in the Move From Rural to Urban

I am from a very small rural town, which equates to incredible views of the starry sky every night. Every so often, mostly on warm summer nights, there would be bonfires in the middle of a field or on a beach and the sky would be absolutely incredible to behold. It wasn’t until I moved […] Continue reading

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Shadow Bands!

If you’re like me, you have probably never heard of Shadow Bands. Shadow bands are a phenomenon that accompany total solar eclipses and occur just before and after totality, appearing as lines of alternating lines of dark and light moving … Continue reading Continue reading

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You Could Be One Step Closer to Understanding the Size of our Solar System!

Have you ever felt that understanding the truly staggering size of the universe is unfathomable? With the help of this interactive website you can see first-hand the tremendous distances in just our own solar system! Starting from the center of our solar … Continue reading Continue reading

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