Latest Posts by acosmicgeek - Page 2
Okay I know that I love black holes but buddy why don’t you not come here?
I wonder if falling into a black hole would hurt? If I could choose any way to go out, it’d probably be by black holes. Might as well be killed by the love of my life.
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OJ287 is one of the largest black holes in the known universe. If it were placed at the center of our solar system, its event horizon would swallow nearly everything is our Sun’s sphere of influence. All the planets, the asteroid belt, and (obviously) us. This beast is an estimated 18 billion solar masses and drifts through the cosmos some.
Image credit: Jaime Trosper/FQTQ
It’s been two years, and I’ll never forget him.
I remember when I was little and I loved space, but I was worried that I would be too bored of the astrophysics area. Then I read Mr. Hawking’s book a Brief History of Time, and I fell in love.
Thanks, Stephie.
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The world lost an amazing thinker today. Celebrated world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking passed away in Cambridge on March 14th, 2018 (Pi Day), at age 76. Somehow, I think he would have found this to be very poetic.
Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.
Yeah Earth is such a narcissist
But TESS is a great satellite (it launched in 2018 by SpaceX - so thanks guys!)
The study of exoplanets has never been my main thing in astrophysics (sorry, my heart belongs to black holes and cosmology!) but I think it’s a really cool and important field. And, for everyone who says that the vastness of space just shows our insignificance, know that the odds of us finding other intelligent life are extremely small. I think we’re pretty special.
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SpaceX successfully launched TESS yesterday! We’re going to discover so many new exoplanets.
The search for another Earth is super cool even if it might never end lol
But like, Aliens.
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Are We Alone? How NASA Is Trying to Answer This Question.
One of the greatest mysteries that life on Earth holds is, “Are we alone?”
At NASA, we are working hard to answer this question. We’re scouring the universe, hunting down planets that could potentially support life. Thanks to ground-based and space-based telescopes, including Kepler and TESS, we’ve found more than 4,000 planets outside our solar system, which are called exoplanets. Our search for new planets is ongoing — but we’re also trying to identify which of the 4,000 already discovered could be habitable.
Unfortunately, we can’t see any of these planets up close. The closest exoplanet to our solar system orbits the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, which is just over 4 light years away. With today’s technology, it would take a spacecraft 75,000 years to reach this planet, known as Proxima Centauri b.
How do we investigate a planet that we can’t see in detail and can’t get to? How do we figure out if it could support life?
This is where computer models come into play. First we take the information that we DO know about a far-off planet: its size, mass and distance from its star. Scientists can infer these things by watching the light from a star dip as a planet crosses in front of it, or by measuring the gravitational tugging on a star as a planet circles it.
We put these scant physical details into equations that comprise up to a million lines of computer code. The code instructs our Discover supercomputer to use our rules of nature to simulate global climate systems. Discover is made of thousands of computers packed in racks the size of vending machines that hum in a deafening chorus of data crunching. Day and night, they spit out 7 quadrillion calculations per second — and from those calculations, we paint a picture of an alien world.
While modeling work can’t tell us if any exoplanet is habitable or not, it can tell us whether a planet is in the range of candidates to follow up with more intensive observations.
One major goal of simulating climates is to identify the most promising planets to turn to with future technology, like the James Webb Space Telescope, so that scientists can use limited and expensive telescope time most efficiently.
Additionally, these simulations are helping scientists create a catalog of potential chemical signatures that they might detect in the atmospheres of distant worlds. Having such a database to draw from will help them quickly determine the type of planet they’re looking at and decide whether to keep observing or turn their telescopes elsewhere.
Learn more about exoplanet exploration, here.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
I’m so hype for this telescope though
They say it might be able to see back to when the first stars were born - how exciting!
Eat shit Hubble telescope
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The launch of the James Webb Telescope – the successor of the Hubble Telescope – has been delayed until 2021 but damn it’s going to be awesome.
Pass the happy! 🌌✨ When you receive this, list 5 things that make you happy and send this to 10 of the last people in your notifications!
1. Being reminded to think of happy things xD
2. Space (literally anything, you guys can tell how obsessed I am)
3. Writing Sci-Fi stories
4. Wearing a sweater on a cold day
5. Having lemon cookies to go with my coffee
Remember to all: especially in times like these, it’s nice to take a minute and think about the things that make you happy. They don’t have to be super obvious and sappy, like your family or your pet dog, they can be the little things that brighten your day. Like stars, and lemon cookies. Think about happy little things.
How do I constantly forget how beautiful the universe is?
Also, this is true, Jewels DEFINITELY aren’t as bright as stars!
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A Stellar Jewel Box: Open Cluster NGC 290 : Jewels don’t shine this bright – only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. The photogenic cluster, pictured here, was captured in 2006 by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Open clusters of stars are younger, contain few stars, and contain a much higher fraction of blue stars than do globular clusters of stars. NGC 290 lies about 200,000 light-years distant in a neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan (SMC). The open cluster contains hundreds of stars and spans about 65 light years across. NGC 290 and other open clusters are good laboratories for studying how stars of different masses evolve, since all the open cluster’s stars were born at about the same time. via NASA
Omg yes this is it - this is the unified theory of everything - Einstein was just a lion the whole time!
It does explain the hair though
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The physics lion
Anddddd that’s how the nucleus was formed!
This would’ve been a great way to remember the Rutherford experiment in Chemistry class, lol
I should start studying by meme ...
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Woah :O
COOOOOLLL
I’ve never gotten to see a full solar eclipse, just a partial one that happened a few years ago.
Maybe I’ll have better luck in the future?
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Traveling for 4 days, Just to See 30 Seconds of The Full Annular Eclipse! It Was worth All the Effort!
via reddit
I mean, that is true. Atoms would really like communism (aside from Noble gases, of course).
Fluorine be like SHARING IS CARING
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Hydrogen bond vibes
THE LIFE OF A STAR: A DAY IN THE LIFE
Stars are born, and then they live. If a body is large enough and has enough pressure in its core, it will squeeze to fuse hydrogen. The hydrogen in a star's core fuses into helium, releasing photons and fueling the star. The heat created in this process attempts to expand the star, but as their gravity is so strong which threatens to collapse them (making it a problem once fusion stops - we'll get to this later!), this creates an equilibrium. And while stars have some things in common, they do have unique qualities of their own.
Here are the properties that all main sequence stars share: hydrogen fusion, hydrostatic equilibrium ("the inward acting force, gravity, is balanced by outward acting forces of gas pressure and the radiation pressure"), the mass-luminosity relationship (in other words, the more massive a star, the brighter it is), it is the stage where stars spend the most of their lives, and a composition made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium (ATNF - Australia Telescope National Facility).
Like the planets and our sun, stars have structure. The layers of a star are as follows, from the innermost to the outermost: the core, the radiative and convective zones, the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the corona. The structure of our Sun is illustrated above.
The core of a star undergoes fusion in order to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium, and prevent the star from collapsing in on itself. As such, the core is the hottest and most dense region of a star (Universe Today). Thermonuclear energy spreads from the core through convection, the process by which heat moves: heat moves up and cold moves down because cold has a higher density than hot (Britannica: convection). Furthermore, some stars are fully convective, while others just have regions of convection. "The location of convection zones is strongly dependent on the star’s mass. Cool and low-mass stars are fully convective ... Stars slightly more massive and warmer than the Sun, also form a convective core." (Stellar Convection). I'll touch on this in the next chapter, where small stars such as Red Dwarfs are fully convective and are able to avoid the Red Giant phase, due to a lack of build-up of particles in their cores.
In radiative zones, this energy is carried by radiation. In convective zones, it is carried by convection. These zones are not hot or dense enough to undergo nuclear fusion. The photosphere is the surface of a star, then the inner atmosphere (colored red due to the abundance of hydrogen) is the chromosphere, and the outermost atmosphere is the corona (space.com).
In terms of stellar composition, they are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium (which also happen to be some of the most abundant elements in the universe and are the fuel behind a star's nuclear fusion), but also include heavier elements (such as carbon and oxygen). As observed by spectrums and other observations, stars with a greater amount of heavier elements are typically younger because older stars give these elements off due to mass-loss (ATNF - Australia Telescope National Facility).
Stars also undergo atomic and molecular processes internally to maintain their hydrostatic equilibrium:
The Proton-Proton Cycle is the main source of energy for cool main-sequence stars, such as the Sun. This cycle fuses four hydrogen nuclei (aka, protons) into one helium nucleus and two neutrinos (some of the original mass is converted into heat energy). Two hydrogen nuclei combine and emit a positron (a positively charged electron) and a neutrino. The hydrogen-2 nucleus captures a proton to become hydrogen-3 and emit a gamma-ray. There are multiple paths after which, but it always results in the same (Britannica: proton-proton cycle).
The CNO Cycle (aka the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen Cycle) is the main source of energy for warmer main-sequence stars. This cycle has the same resultants but the process is much different. *SKIP AHEAD TO AVOID MY NERD RANT* It fuses a carbon-12 nucleus with a hydrogen nucleus to form a nitrogen-13 nucleus and a gamma-ray emission. The nitrogen-13 emits a positron and becomes carbon-13, which captures another proton/hydrogen nucleus and becomes nitrogen-14 and another gamma-ray. The nitrogen-14 captures a proton to form oxygen-15 and then ejects a positron and becomes nitrogen-15. This, of course, captures another proton and then breaks down into a carbon-12 nucleus and a helium nucleus (an alpha particle). *JUST IN CASE YOU SKIPPED AHEAD* TLDR, it ends up as helium. Nuclear fusion, folks, it's weird (Britannica: CNO cycle).
The products of these processes aren't just automatically transferred and radiated away from the star. No, first they must make their way through the radiative and convective zones. Neutrinos travel almost at the speed of light, and so are the least affected. Photons also lose some energy during the journey, due to interactions with other particles. This energy heats up the surrounding plasma and keeps it flowing, in turn the convection currents transport energy to the surface (ATNF - Australia Telescope National Facility).
Even though a star spends most of its life in the main-sequence stage, this cycle of processes and equilibrium ends eventually. In the next chapter, we'll be talking about what happens after a star runs out of hydrogen to fuse - Giant and Super-Giant Stars.
The rate at which a star runs through its hydrogen is proportional to its mass: the greater the mass, the faster it runs through hydrogen, and vice versa (Britannica: star). Then the star will begin to fuse the heavier elements until it meets its match: iron. Then things get real ... explosive.
First - Chapter 1: An Introduction
Previous - Chapter 4: A Star is Born
Next - Chapter 6: The End (But Not Really)
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That’s gorgeous!
This picture right here is why I hate light pollution
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The Galaxy Above : Have you contemplated your home galaxy lately? If your sky looked like this, perhaps you’d contemplate it more often! The featured picture is actually a composite of two images taken last month from the same location in south Brazil and with the same camera – but a few hours apart. The person in the image – also the astrophotographer – has much to see in the Milky Way Galaxy above. The central band of our home Galaxy stretches diagonally up from the lower left. This band is dotted with spectacular sights including dark nebular filaments, bright blue stars, and red nebulas. Millions of fainter and redder stars fill in the deep Galactic background. To the lower right of the Milky Way are the colorful gas and dust clouds of Rho Ophiuchus, featuring the bright orange star Antares. On this night, just above and to the right of Antares was a bright planet Jupiter. The sky is so old and so familiar that humanity has formulated many stories about it, some of which inspired this very picture. via NASA
Favorite color?
It changes almost every day ~ but I’ve always really liked purple :D
Omg particles are such players - JUST CHOOSE ONE!!!
But yeah wave-particle duality is kinda confusing sometimes lol
Like, how is it both? I dunno! Maybe I’ll read up on that later ...
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Photons : Hello I’m a particle . Oh yeah but i behave like a wave too , isn’t that beautiful !!
Lookin’ Good!
I’ve been wanting to be an Astronaut for Halloween but sadly I live in Florida and the heat might suffocate me in a full suit! Perhaps a nice NASA shirt and hat and maybe a fake ID badge and I can go as a scientist :D
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Artemis Generation Spacesuit Event : Amy Ross, a spacesuit engineer at Johnson Space Center, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, watch as Kristine Davis and Dustin Gohmert wear prototype spacesuits. (via NASA)
Poor, poor moon :(
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“boy, girl, time for dinner!”
Okay, that is really funny lol
Also - I’m back from my self-imposed vacation! I’m drafting the next chapter and starting my post schedule tomorrow, so look forward to new content coming soon!
I hope you’re all doing well :)
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Here’s some physics.
Best Star Wars movie can’t deny it
Prequels and sequels eat your heart out
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The Empire Strikes Back opened in theaters on this day in 1980.
True.
Iron actually takes more energy to fuse than it releases, so the inward pressure needed to keep the star from collapsing isn’t enough when it’s mainly fusing iron, and then it collapses.
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When Stars Die…….
Einstein ... thank.
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Herr Einstein…
Aw heck yeah let’s go
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List of extrasolar candidates for liquid water
The following list contains candidates from the list of confirmed objects that meet the following criteria:
Confirmed object orbiting within a circumstellar habitable zone of Earth mass or greater (because smaller objects may not have the gravitational means to retain water) but not a star
Has been studied for more than a year
Confirmed surface with strong evidence for it being either solid or liquid
Water vapour detected in its atmosphere
Gravitational, radio or differentation models that predict a wet stratum
55 Cancri f
With a mass half that of Saturn, 55 Cancri f is likely to be a gas giant with no solid surface. It orbits in the so-called “habitable zone,” which means that liquid water could exist on the surface of a possible moon. ]
Proxima Centauri b
Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of the red dwarfstar Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to the Sun and part of a triple star system. It is located about 4.2 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, making it the closest known exoplanet to the Solar System.
Gliese 581c
Gliese 581c gained interest from astronomers because it was reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star, with a temperature right for liquid water on its surface, and by extension, potentially capable of supporting extremophile forms of Earth-like life.
Gliese 667 Cc
Gliese 667 Cc is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Gliese 667 C, which is a member of the Gliese 667 triple star system, approximately 23.62 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius.
Gliese 1214 b
Gliese 1214 b is an exoplanet that orbits the star Gliese 1214, and was discovered in December 2009. Its parent star is 48 light-years from the Sun, in the constellation Ophiuchus. As of 2017, GJ 1214 b is the most likely known candidate for being an ocean planet. For that reason, scientists have nicknamed the planet “the waterworld”.
HD 85512 b
HD 85512 b is an exoplanet orbiting HD 85512, a K-type main-sequence star approximately 36 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Vela.
Due to its mass of at least 3.6 times the mass of Earth, HD 85512 b is classified as a rocky Earth-size exoplanet (<5M⊕) and is one of the smallest exoplanets discovered to be just outside the inner edge of the habitable zone.
MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb
MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, occasionally shortened to MOA-192 b, is an extrasolar planet approximately 3,000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. The planet was discovered orbiting the brown dwarf or low-mass star MOA-2007-BLG-192L. At a mass of approximately 3.3 times Earth, it is one of the lowest-mass extrasolar planets at the time of discovery. It was found when it caused a gravitational microlensing event on May 24, 2007, which was detected as part of the MOA-II microlensing survey at the Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand.
Kepler-22b
Kepler-22b, also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-087.01, is an extrasolar planet orbiting within the habitable zone of the Sun-like star Kepler-22. It is located about 587 light-years (180 pc) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. source
It’s alive ALIVE!!!!!
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Hubble Takes Closer Look at Not-So-‘Dead’ Neighbor : Because they lack stellar nurseries and contain mostly old stars, elliptical galaxies — Like Messier 110 — are often considered “dead” when compared to their spiral relatives. But scientists have spotted signs of a population of young, blue stars at Messier 110’s center, hinting that this neighbor of our Milky Way may not be so “dead” after all. (via NASA)
That’s how I want the world to end
better than us all getting killed by a pandemic or a nuke
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On November 12, 1833, there was such an intense meteor shower that it was possible to see up to 100,000 meteors crossing the sky every hour. At the time, many thought it was the end of the world, so much that inspired this wood engraving by Adolf Vollmy.
I'm watching the launch now, half an hour to go!
This is the first NASA astronaut launch since 2011. I wanted to go to Cape Canaveral to watch but instead I'm watching from afar :)
(Edit: they’ve put off the launch till Saturday due to weather)
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This isn’t family friendly but its darn funny xD
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They haven’t figured it out
I read this article when answering a question on quotev and it’s fascinating!
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
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That’s epic :o
Kennedy Space Center reopens on May 28th and I begged my parents to go but they don’t want to xD
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The first West Coast SpaceX launch captured by photographer Dylan Schwartz.
Antimatter if you mattered then you would cancel out xD
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Anitimatter matters!