Observing Deep Space

Posted on January 26, 2016 by mattsastronomyblog

Trying to observe deep space proves to be difficult with the naked eye.  Over time telescopes have allowed humans to see farther and farther into space.  The Hubble space telescope was launched in 1990 and orbits around the Earth.  Because the telescope is in space, there is minimal light pollution.  The telescope lens is almost 9 feet in diameter and is able to see other forms of light outside the visible spectrum.  These things allow the Hubble space telescope to observe distant objects and phenomenon that were previously unknown to us.

In October 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched.  It is known as the Next Generation Space Telescope.  The diameter of this telescope’s lense will be about 21 feet in diameter.  The James Webb Space Telescope will have a focus of near infrared astronomy.  This will allow it to see many deep space phenomenon that was previously unknown to us.

Perhaps this will allow us to discover other signs of life in the universe?James Webb Space Telescope

Hubble Telescope


Posted in Class, SolarSystem, Space Travel | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Observing Deep Space

Blog #1 Vast Size and Scale

Posted on January 26, 2016 by seanmcsolsys

From Chapter 1 of our course textbook, we dived deep into the vastness that is space. We explored what our cosmic address is, how long it takes to travel among the stars in terms of light-years, and measured our distance from the center of the Milky Way. Despite this almost unimaginable expanse, the chapter doesn’t really touch on the incredible size of the stars that twinkle in the sky. We are so used to the size comparisons of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. The star comparison video below opened my eyes to the size comparison of the largest stars in the universe

Star Comparison Video

vycanis
Size Comparison of Sun and VY Canis Majoris

VY Canis Majoris is considered one of the largest known stars and it is roughly 4000 light years away from Earth. But the distance isn’t the impressive part. VY Canis Majoris’s radius is 1420 solar radii where a solar radii is defined as our sun’s radius. In different units, the diameter is 13.2 astronomical units. The width of the star is more than 13 times greater than the distance between the Sun and the Earth. The estimates of the diameter do vary some, but it’s generally accepted that if VY Canis Majoris were at the center of our solar system, the solar surface would reach all of the way to Jupiter.

Just some food for thought to compliment the textbook’s grand size analogies on the galactic scale.


Posted in Class | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Blog #1 Vast Size and Scale

Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 26, 2016 by samanthas25

m49jd97The history of our Universe is extremely vast, and therefore might at times be a bit difficult to comprehend. In order to better take a look at the expansive history of the Universe, we can condense the large time period onto a single calendar year. This allows us to really grasp the amount of time that has passed between events. January 1st is when the Big Bang happened. In real time, this represents a period of time 13.8 Billion Years ago. While we think of Earth itself as old, on the Cosmic Calendar it occurred September 22nd. Though still far away from when humans first arrived, December 31st, Earth was born much closer to present day than when the Universe first began. Additionally, humans like to think that the extinction of Dinosaurs occurred a very long time ago, 65 million years to be exact. On the cosmic calendar, however, they went extinct on approximately December 30th, a single day before the arrival of humans. This really puts into perspective just how old the universe is. Trying to comprehend how much has happened in all of known history is truly a daunting task, but the Cosmic Calendar can help us establish a timeline more familiar to us that allows us to see great expanses of time relative to one another.


Posted in Class, Universe | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Cosmic Calendar

Voyager

Posted on January 26, 2016 by mattsastronomyblog

The voyager was sent out to explore deep space.  Since it was launched in 1977 it has now traveled 130 AU and was sent to explore the solar system.  It used planetary assists to achieve the solar system escape velocity required to enter interstellar space. In almost 40 years of travel, the Voyager 1 has only gone about 130 AU from earth.  The distance from the sun to the center of the Milky Way is about 1.7 x 10^9 AU.  This shows how limited our space travel is.  To put even more perspective, 1 light year is about 63,000 AU.  So after almost 40 years of travel, Voyager 1 has only traveled about 0.2% of a light year.  This further shows how large our universe is.

 

Voyager 1


Posted in Class, Space Travel | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Voyager

The Solar Eclipse

Posted on January 26, 2016 by nedastro2110

 

2718767762_6d6cd2b71f_o
Almost Total Solar Eclipse vis BusinessInsider

What you see above is an almost total solar eclipse. One of the easiest astrological phenomenons to observe due to its size in the sky is a solar or lunar eclipse. Now what is an eclipse exactly? Well it when either the moon aligns perfectly between the sun and earth in the case of a solar eclipse or when the earth aligns directly between the sun and the moon. We are going to talk about the former. In a total solar eclipse, the moon completely covers the sun so when you end up seeing is a picture like above where there is a dark circle, which is the moon, and the sun behind it shining it’s rays around the moon to give it that halo effect. The picture below exhibits a good overview of how they occur.

solar_lunar_eclipse_diagram
Solar and Lunar Eclipse Explained

Now how often do these amazing sights happen? Well, unfortunately not that often. There are four types of eclipses, Total, annular, hybrid, and partial. Partial eclipses happen quite often actually, as this is when the moon only partially obstructs the suns light so you see the sun take on a crescent shape. The reason that they do not occur all that often is the moon is on a 5% incline compared to the plane of the earth and the sun and therefore, it does not always eclipse the sun. If it was on the same plane we would have a solar eclipse every month during the new moon! The other important thing to not is that an eclipse does occur about 2-5 times per year but the key fact is that they occur somewhere on earth and often never in the same place. The next time 5 solar eclipses happen in one year will be in 2206. Shockingly, the current estimate is that they only reoccur in the same spot every 360 to 410 years making them quite rare in a location. The next total solar eclipse that will occur in the US will be on Aug 21, 2017. So we have some time to prepare to see this phenomenon but you should definitely try to see it as it will be on for the history books as they occur so infrequently. I will certainly be trying to capture it in an amazing location to get a great picture like above!


Posted in Class, Universe | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Solar Eclipse

Making the Jump to Light Speed

Posted on January 26, 2016 by lindseynestor
hyperdrive
WordPress

Chapter 1 of Astronomy: The Solar System served as a HUGE (seriously though) reminder as to how small and insignificant we are, and how very very very infinitesimally small the corner of the universe we’ve explored actually is. I’m a big Star Wars fan, and looking at that world from the perspective of astronomy class, it doesn’t  actually make much sense at all (although this will not affect my love for it). For instance, if we were able to travel at light speed, we would be able to get to the moon in about one second. That seems pretty quick, right? But at that same speed it would take us a whole year to reach the outer planets. A whole year, and we’d still be in our own solar system! Han Solo whips the Millennium Falcon around the entire GALAXY like it’s nothing. This obviously isn’t feasible at all, which doesn’t bother me too much in the context of Star Wars, but does make me a little bit sad/skeptical about the future of deep space exploration. At the rate of light speed, we won’t be exploring anything outside of our solar system in my lifetime – and that’s if we could learn to move at light speed, which also seems unlikely. I’m not trying to be a downer – we definitely have a ton of cool things close by to explore and discover. I’ll just have to settle for some imagination when it comes to the deep-space exploration (for now).


Posted in Class, Space Travel, Universe | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Making the Jump to Light Speed

Astro Apps

Posted on January 26, 2016 by jgarrett9

Observing the night sky can often be tricky when you are trying to locate stars or planets that all look the same to the naked eye. News stories always pop up about fun things to see in the night sky that will be easily visible for us such as two planets overlapping in their perceived orbits, or as has been reported more recently, five planets aligning at the same time. This amazing event occurs only once every ten years or so, and the fact that the naked eye will be able to see the five aligned planets, for the next two weeks, is the perfect time to talk about star gazing apps. The best app that I’ve found is Starmap. It is incredibly intuitive to use, which is really important for beginners, or really anyone who wants an easy to use app. Some of its best features include the ability to rotate around and see the screen move with you while highlighting important stars, planets, and constellations for you. You can also tap on any of these objects as seen here in this screenshot from an iPhone.

 

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 1.30.03 PM

Objects selected in the Starmap app. Zoom is also available and very useful for smaller objects.

The zoom function allows you to get a better idea of what the real shape of the object appears to us as, but the most important feature doesn’t have to do with the physical use once you’re observing. The app can send you a report when interesting phenomena are appearing outside. This feature is really useful for many of us who aren’t following a cosmic newspaper. Overall, the app does a great job of keeping you up to date on the most recent astrological events as well as helping you locate them once you make it outside to observe,

 

-Justin

 


Posted in Class | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Astro Apps

Speed of Light Slowing Down???

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Alex Pratte

So we’ve all heard of Einstein’s theory of relativity which states that the speed of light is constant and all that good stuff. Well, apparently a couple of Australian scientists have found evidence that points to the possibility that the speed of light is not actually constant and has been slowing down since the Big Bang. This crazy claim comes from the observations of an astronomer named John Webb. While looking at the light of a distant quasar one night, this incredibly smart man realized that this star had “absorbed the wrong type of photon from interstellar clouds on its 12 billion year journey to earth” (CBS). I don’t know what this means, but supposedly this can only happen if either the electron charge or the speed of light had changed at some point, both of which are big no no’s when it comes to the laws of physics. They are still not quite sure whats going on and have to do some more research, but how cool is it that the speed of light might not actually be constant? Answer: it’s pretty cool.

Check out the article here

Link to picture

150-speed_of_light


Posted in Class, Light | Tagged , | Comments Off on Speed of Light Slowing Down???

Size and Scale

Posted on January 26, 2016 by jgarrett9

The Universe is absolutely massive, and it never fails to impress us when there is a new way of seeing how truly large it is. Every time there is a new video or a picture of a tiny dot next to an enormous ball that helps us visualize how enormous the scale of the Universe is, we can only stare in awe. There is a video from 1977 called Powers of Ten that really does an excellent job of putting the Universe into perspective, but it impressed me for a different reason.

The detail that this video was able to capture was really incredible, especially considering how far we have come in understanding space since 1977. Even back then, the creators of this film, Charles and Ray Eames, were able to know about astrological phenomena all the way out at a scale of 10 million light years of scale. The object was not necessarily at that distance from Earth, but merely visible due to the large zoom out. The object depicted in the shot below is clearly an intentional clustering of stars or objects that astronomers at the time knew about.

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 1.04.40 PM

Powers of Ten video screenshot at 4:40

It’s amazing how much we know, and how much we can still discover such as Planet Nine which was only recently discovered. The Universe is so enormous, that things are still hidden from us even within our own Solar System, let alone the Milky Way or the entire Universe.

 

-Justin


Posted in Class, Universe | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Size and Scale

Human’s Fascination of the Solstices

Posted on January 26, 2016 by 2016spaceodyssey

If there was one thing that early humans revered most, it may have been the position of the Sun.  Ancient cultures around the world, before the first cities ever existed, built monuments to measure the Sun’s position (known as archaeoastronomy).  The most famous of which is Stonehenge in England, which has its entrances aligned to the sunrise and sunsets of the summer and winter solstices.  But there are other sites in places like Mexico, Turkey, and India that are similarly aligned to the summer and winter solstice in a similar way.  The markings of these special days is the likely origin to annual calendars.  It is also commonly believed that solstices were religious holidays for ancient people.  This is why in today’s day and age both the New Year and the major Christian religious holiday (Christmas) are both around the same time as the winter solstice.

I wonder what is so special about the solstices that humans find so interesting.  Why ancient people were so fascinated by the position of the Sun that they built grand monuments like Stonehenge to measure its position.  And I’m amazed that the system used to measure years developed thousands of years ago was so accurate that it is the basis for the Gregorian Calendar much of the world uses today.

5001157
Sun rising over Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice. Source: Twanight

Posted in Class, Historical, Instruments, Sun | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Human’s Fascination of the Solstices