Discover Top Posts Tagged with #astronomytalk

Photo credited to Gerald Rhemann

This is a comet tail! It’s really quite gorgeous, isn’t it? The comet itself is that glowing teal light in the corner but that tail is the real focus. This is called Comet SWAN and the long ion-tail really sticks out compared to other comets. Comet patterns are hard to predict, but I can tell you to watch out for this one in June. You may just be able to catch it with the naked eye!

#Wouldn't it be great if there was life on the comet?#Unfortunately that's quite unlikely #But we can always believe.#astronomytalk

I said I’d get pictures of the Griffith Observatory! The first one is a large model of the moon. You could see everything on it and on the screen, it was labeled. Things like the Sea of Tranquility which is where the crew of Apollo 11 landed. Of course... it may have other secrets.

Next we have a model of Galileo’s telescope. As you may or may not know, Galileo wanted to see the stars and planets more clearly, so he crafted a tool to help him do that. Through Galileo, we eventually came to know that our solar system is heliocentric. Very cool.

Below the moon is one of the main draws of the Griffith Observatory; the Zeiss telescope. I was very tired and it was a very long line and, well, nowadays it’s nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it’s still awesome to be able to look through a telescope so big. Through it, I saw Jupiter and its four brightest moons, Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede, also known as the Galilean moons since Galileo discovered them.

This last picture is the underground exhibit where you can learn about all of the planets. It’s all stuff you can find online but there’s something special about standing under a model of Neptune and reading about the methane atmosphere. From above, you can look through telescopes pointed to the back of the room where a massive printing of the sky is. About where Virgo’s location is.

Phew, that’s a lot and it’s not even a fraction of what I experienced, but I’m happy to share even a bit!

#If you want to visit: it’s located in America. Specifically Los Angeles #Lots of people seemed to be enjoying themselves.#Did I mention the planetarium? It’s a done thats all a screen!#We watched a video explaining the fundamentals and history of space!#Jeez I could ramble forever...#not a suggestion #astronomytalk

Photo taken by the Akatsuki Orbiter.

The darkness of Venus has been revisited as a topic lately. It’s unclear what the dark spots are exactly, but we can observe the effects of them. Another name is ‘unknown absorber’ (which sounds really cool!) because they absorb solar radiation. This, in turn, affects Venus’s weather patterns. The clouds of Venus turn this energy into wind, but the absorbers disrupt this. A theory on what these unknown spots could be was first proposed by Carl Sagan and Harold Morowitz, a biophysicist. They brought up the idea that the clouds might be extraterrestrial life. Sanjay Limaye, a planetary scientist, expanded on this, saying it could be partially composed of microorganisms that evolved differently on Venus.

Now, I wonder what may happen if these creatures, should they be real at all, passed into fantasy. Would they become youkai?

#Unknown youkai sounds familiar...#These spots also contain carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid #This makes the idea of foreign life more plausible #On Earth; microorganisms produce sulfuric acid #Perhaps Venus is no different #Now... Wouldn't that be fascinating?#astronomytalk

Photo taken by F. Schinzel

Remember how I talked about supernovas? This is sort of... an extension. The bit shooting off - it kinda looks like a shooting star - That’s a pulsar. Heard of it, but not sure what it is? That’s alright. It’s a neutron star or white dwarf (basically the remnant of a dead star) that is magnetized. The beam is electromagnetic radiation! It makes for a pretty phenomenon.

#It's sorta like a magic spell!#A big boom and then a missile flying out.#Did you know that a pulsar is scarily accurate in it's timing?#That is too say it's perfectly in sync #The regularity in the rotation has astronomers use them as timers!#Some pulsars are compared to atomic clocks!#Even I have to be a bit envious.#astronomytalk

Photo Taken by the Event Horizon Telescope

What is this? A scientific discovery that broke and set foundations for astrophysics. This is the first picture of a black hole! We have a woman named Katie Bouman to thank for it as she led the project that culminated into this revolutionary picture.

#It's amazing - But scary at the same time.#Like hearing about an old urban legend and then suddenly looking it in the face.#There's still quite a bit we don't know about black holes #But no one can deny them now #Merry proposed the idea that a black hole might be a breach in the boundary.#There might be credit to that... But we'd have to go there to find out.#astronomytalk

Photo taken by Hubble Space Telescope.

This, now this is something special. These are two galaxies, there’s the one on top and the one below it. And in the center, trails of stars. This is a galaxy collision. The two galaxies have passed through each other. Now trapped in each other’s gravitational pull, they will eventually coalesce to form a single galaxy. Also, taking in that third galaxy to the right of the top one.

#The real bread and butter that makes this unique is those stars.#There's no solid proof of why they're there #But we can hypothesize #The turbulence fading after the collision might have given these stars exactly what they need to form.#Yes that seems the likeliest.#astronomytalk

Photo taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

There’s something magical about this astronomy picture, don’t you think? See those streaks? Eta Carinae, the most massive and brightest star within 10,000 kilometers from the Earth, is due to explode at some time. It’s like a ticking time bomb star just waiting in space... Isn’t that so cool?

#Those streaks are immensely interesting too #They went so long unexplained #Well at any rate #Merry sees the beauty in the picture itself #That's great but I think the science behind it is the most fascinating part #But as I said #It's still the embodiment of a magical astronomy.#astronomytalk

We once had a theory where the Oumuamua Object was an alien ship. I really wish that were true. But maybe there’s still something to it. After all, professionals miss things all the time.

#The idea that there's other life out there; Isn't it intriguing?#I find it improbable that there isn't.#After all we are discovering new stuff every day #And we know that while our own solar system can't sustain life other than Earth due to placement of the Sun and atmospheres #But there are millions of other solar systems in different galaxies #What if they're just like us and trying to find a way to find US.#not a suggestion #astronomytalk