Latest Posts by whats-in-a-username - Page 4
A CELESTIAL INSECURITY
Is the moon envious of the sun?
And it's radiance that cannot be outdone?
Is that why she hides behind the earth?
Calls it an eclipse but, doubting her worth.
What does she see when she looks into the lake?
Her molten silver face or the distortion that ripples make?
Is this why poets always write about her desolate beauty?
Because she's more like us than any character from a movie.
A celestial body far far away
Like all our insecurities in display
How many times have we envied others radiance,
And hid away from an audience?
Doubting our worth, causing self-esteem distortion
By looking at a person's life only in portion?
So like her, we go through phases
And like her, we grow through phases.
“I like the idea of a motto,“ she goes on. “I think an inspirational quote can get you through hard times.” “Like what?” asks Gat. Mirren pauses. Then she says: “Be a little kinder than you have to.” We are all silenced by that. It seems impossible to argue with. Then Johnny says, “Never eat anything bigger than your ass.” “You ate something bigger than your ass?” I ask. He nods, solemn.
(hears a song lyric) this would make a great all-lower case fanfiction title
(hears a song lyric) this would make a great all-lower case fanfiction title
And in the centers...
Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!
Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.
Speedy stars
If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.
Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.
Shadowy silhouettes
Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.
In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.
Shattered stars
Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.
Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.
If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.
Making waves
But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!
These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.
Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.
We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!
Rogue black holes
So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.
Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.
For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!
⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!
⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
nina: I’m cold.
matthias: have my jacket.
inej: I’m cold.
kaz: *gets wylan to set ketterdam on fire*
COFFEE AND POETRY
Coffee and Poetry. How similar!
If you think they're poles apart,
You'll be surprised when I start.
You consume one
while the latter consumes you
Go on, try one while you brew.
Impedes your sleep
With a word, a line, a sip, or a cup
Stops you before you can think of giving up
Dark and addictive,
Sometimes even bitter.
Yet, somehow makes you feel better.
Coffee and Poetry. How similar!
Intoxicates you while it's also a detox
A mug or paper filled with paradox.
If this ain't your jam we can't be friends!
“my child is completely fine”
uhh your child listens to achilles come down on repeat while romanticising the beautiful tragedy of death.
❤
Achilles, come down (slowed)
Achilles, Achilles, Achilles, come down Won’t you get up off, get up off the roof? You’re scaring us and all of us, some of us love you Achilles, it’s not much but there’s proof You crazy-assed cosmonaut, remember your virtue Redemption lies plainly in truth Just humour us, Achilles, Achilles, come down Won’t you get up off, get up off the roof
I read between the lines when I can't write.!!😶
“In my heart I love her all the time.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald // The Great Gatsby
the books I’ve read all make up the tiny pieces of my soul; to read them is to read into my heart
Starry Night ⭐
Lying down on our grassy lawn,
Stars arranged like they're drawn,
Little fingers intertwined,
Playing on loop Seeing blind.
Then, you stand up to light your cigar,
That's when I see a shooting star.
I see your face through lighters flame,
And realize both are the same.
(04.12.20)
Attempt at a prompt from @creativepromptsforwriting 's December prompts.
The 25 Days of Shit Slytherins Say (Season 2): #3
Jingle bells, Umbridge smells, losers go away.
Draco’s hot, Voldy’s not.
Slytherin all the way!
My Storyteller 💜
His hair is grey
And vision is blurred
His spends his day
In bed, one-third.
He taught me to read,
And told me to lead.
He taught me to write,
And told me to fight.
Evening's he spent
Saying his prayer.
He hates to depend
Loves his arm chair.
Night's he spent
Telling us tales
About the places he went
With all the details.
A child's first teacher
Is it's mother
But my first teacher
Is my grandfather.
His hair is grey
And vision is blurred
His smile never fades
He's my world.
(04.12.20)
“a toxic label
broken chords
a gentle note
Silence roars
What I Am is
what I know
As above
so below...” - m.sonder
//transgressions//
REFORMATION
Holding on tightly to mamma's finger,
Our first fear was getting lost in the crowd
Then we grew up,
Held many other hands and let go of some
Slowly we saw our fear change
From getting lost to feeling lost amidst a crowd.
As a kid, we woke up in the middle of the night,
And then didn't go back to sleep
Thinking there might be demons under our bed
But as an adult,
it's harder to get any sleep
Because demons moved from under our beds to inside our heads.
(18.11.20)
“Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.”
— Unknown
Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus: First Part (XXV) (tr. J.B. Leishman)
Finding that one scene in a book that you love to read again and again because you just can’t get over it is the best part of reading in my opinion
july 15 // incinerate