Search found 228 matches
- Fri Mar 13, 2015 2:06 pm
- Forum: The Asterisk Café: Discuss Anything Astronomy Related
- Topic: What is Light?
- Replies: 43
- Views: 62771
Re: What is Light?
I was staring at glare reflecting off a white plate under my flower pot, studying the diffraction it pattern presented to my retina when I realized that there were many concentric rings (more than I could reasonably be expected to count individually) and that they were constricting and expanding, p...
- Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:18 pm
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: Keck: Thermonuclear Supernova Ejects Galaxy’s Fastest Star
- Replies: 4
- Views: 64958
Re: Keck: Thermonuclear Supernova Ejects Galaxy’s Fastest St
Are not ALL Supernovae "thermonuclear"? No. Supernovae of type Ia are, since they result in binary systems where a white dwarf "sucks" material from its companion until its mass is large enough to ignite nuclear fusion again. On the other hand, type II supernovae result from the...
- Thu Mar 05, 2015 8:42 am
- Forum: The Asterisk Café: Discuss Anything Astronomy Related
- Topic: What did you see on the web today?
- Replies: 60
- Views: 119426
Re: What did you see on the web today?
So, would this mean that if more websites say intelligent design is true than sites saying it's false, Google considers intelligent design to be true
- Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:36 pm
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: No Big Bang?
- Replies: 21
- Views: 36906
Re: No Big Bang?
A problem I see with this theory is that the universe is demonstrably aging. We can see the progression of the formation of elements in the stars of distant galaxies in the concentration of iron atoms. If the universe is infinitely old, it seems to me there should be a lot more iron than there is. ...
- Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:01 pm
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: No Big Bang?
- Replies: 21
- Views: 36906
Re: Space: Big Bang Deflated? Universe May Have Had No Begin
See discussion here.
- Mon Feb 23, 2015 8:23 am
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: HEAPOW: UFOs Surrounding a Black Hole (2015 Feb 23)
- Replies: 2
- Views: 17012
Re: HEAPOW: UFOs Surrounding a Black Hole (2015 Feb 23)
Yes, but only if you don't confuse these UFOs with flying saucers.RobertDukes wrote:is it true?
- Wed Feb 11, 2015 8:52 am
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: No Big Bang?
- Replies: 21
- Views: 36906
Re: No Big Bang?
Consider the following hypotheses and ask yourself which of them are likely to receive the most attention (let's assume that all of them were put forth by scientists): 1) Wormholes can exist/ Wormholes can't exist. 2) It is possible to travel through a wormhole / It isn't possible to travel through...
- Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:18 pm
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: No Big Bang?
- Replies: 21
- Views: 36906
Re: No Big Bang?
Like Chris, I am not terribly excited about this. There are dozens of papers per week that deal with quantum gravity and cosmology, with all kinds of results. I don't mind that people spend their time working on this. But putting out press releases is way to premature. They tend to mislead the layma...
- Mon Feb 02, 2015 9:55 am
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: UGlasgow: Speed of light slowed down through FREE SPACE
- Replies: 14
- Views: 12307
Re: UGlasgow: Speed of light slowed down through FREE SPACE
This post is related to the opening post, not to the intervening discussion. BBC News, Scotland A team of Scottish scientists has made light travel slower than the speed of light. They sent photons - individual particles of light - through a special mask. It changed the photons' shape - and slowed ...
- Mon Feb 02, 2015 8:50 am
- Forum: The Asterisk Café: Discuss Anything Astronomy Related
- Topic: What is Light?
- Replies: 43
- Views: 62771
Re: What is Light?
The dimensions we have access to- length, high and width- all are accessible with time being fleeting but sensible actor. The forces and force carriers move amongst those dimensions. I have always being nagged (probably posting it many times before) that size itself could be a dimension. I think if...
- Mon Jan 26, 2015 8:04 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: The Milky Way over the Seven Strong... (2015 Jan 26)
- Replies: 13
- Views: 29461
Re: APOD: The Milky Way over the Seven Strong... (2015 Jan 2
This APOD looks like a scene right out of a science fiction movie. Great image!
- Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:10 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: The Mysterious Methane of Mars (2014 Dec 22)
- Replies: 11
- Views: 21627
Re: APOD: The Mysterious Methane of Mars (2014 Dec 22)
Which brings me back to the Earth. Do we know if the biomass of the Earth has ever - well, in the last three billion years or so - been thousands of times smaller than it is now? Since life started from a few biomolecules and cells, the answer is yes. AFAIK, the composition of Earth's atmosphere wa...
- Fri Dec 05, 2014 9:16 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: Milky Way over Moon Valley (2014 Dec 05)
- Replies: 6
- Views: 19497
Re: APOD: Milky Way over Moon Valley (2014 Dec 05)
What is the "object" below the Magellanic Clouds? It appears to be in front of the (water) clouds, so it must be something terrestrial?
- Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:24 am
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: NASA Telescopes Find Black Hole May Be a Neutrino Factory
- Replies: 2
- Views: 5056
Re: NASA Telescopes Find Black Hole May Be a Neutrino Factor
This discovery is important, because it would have found a massive neutrino source and change the theory of black holes. I agree with you that this is an important finding. But keep in mind that the authors claim evidence, not proof, that high energetic neutrinos originate from the vicinity of the ...
- Thu Nov 13, 2014 9:13 am
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: ESA: Rosetta: Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
- Replies: 240
- Views: 561086
Re: ESA: Rosetta: 100 days to wake-up
According to the news, Philae had some problems with the landing and they lost contact. I hope all will be well.
Update: #Philae2014 sent an image, so I assume all went well in the end.
Update: #Philae2014 sent an image, so I assume all went well in the end.
- Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:05 pm
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri... (2014 Nov 10)
- Replies: 62
- Views: 64982
Re: APOD: The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri... (2014 Nov 1
Can somebody help put a scale to this photo? The description just states it can resolve details as small as 40 light minutes. But 40 light minutes is ~720 million KM, or just shy of where Jupiter orbits. Does that mean the innermost dark band is approximately where Jupiter would orbit? Here is a pi...
- Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:24 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri... (2014 Nov 10)
- Replies: 62
- Views: 64982
Re: APOD: The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri... (2014 Nov 1
I remember that the science books I read as a child were still discussing if the solar system with its planets was unique. It's amazing that 25 years later, we know hundreds of exoplanets, have measured some of their atmospheres, and are now able to watch them forming.
- Fri Nov 07, 2014 10:51 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: The Map of Dione (2014 Nov 07)
- Replies: 18
- Views: 81958
Re: APOD: The Map of Dione (2014 Nov 07)
The bottom left area of the image looks like wave ripples.... :---[===] * I noticed the ripples in the pole regions, too. They are an artifact of the cylindrical projection . It is a mathematical fact that you can't map the surface of a sphere onto a plane without distortions. Usually, these distor...
- Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:11 pm
- Forum: The Communications Center: Breaking Science News
- Topic: Griffith U: Many Interacting Worlds theory
- Replies: 10
- Views: 4731
Re: Griffith U: Many Interacting Worlds theory
For more discussion, you can also visit the blog by Peter Woit.
- Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:19 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: Moon and Earth from Chang'e 5-T1 (2014 Nov 04)
- Replies: 43
- Views: 173928
Re: APOD: Moon and Earth from Chang'e 5-T1 (2014 Nov 04)
Isn't a selfie a self-portrait? So it would require a picture of the spacecraft. Best selfie is this one, IMHO.Nitpicker wrote:One of the best selfies ever taken.
- Tue Nov 04, 2014 8:47 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: Moon and Earth from Chang'e 5-T1 (2014 Nov 04)
- Replies: 43
- Views: 173928
Re: APOD: Moon and Earth from Chang'e 5-T1 (2014 Nov 04)
Just curious, why are the multitudes of stars among the Milkyway apparently not visible in so many of these otherwise high-resolution, highly-processed images taken from outer space? Adding to what geck has said: This is the same reason why you couldn't see a firefly right next to the sun. You can ...
- Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:31 pm
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: Too Close to a Black Hole (2014 Oct 26)
- Replies: 36
- Views: 155360
Re: APOD: Too Close to a Black Hole (2014 Oct 26)
Roughly, once a particle passes the event horizon, it will continue to travel to the "center" of the black hole. This has always seemed off to me. In reality, I'd expect that a good deal of mass inside the event horizon (maybe all of it) must actually be in relativistic orbits around the ...
- Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:32 pm
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: Too Close to a Black Hole (2014 Oct 26)
- Replies: 36
- Views: 155360
Re: APOD: Too Close to a Black Hole (2014 Oct 26)
Markus, is the singularity simply the spot where the math breaks down? Another way of asking the same question: is there a mass at the center of the black hole which has a diameter > 0, however small it might be? Rob The concept of a singularity of a space-time is mathematically well defined. But t...
- Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:38 am
- Forum: The Bridge: Discuss an Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Topic: APOD: Too Close to a Black Hole (2014 Oct 26)
- Replies: 36
- Views: 155360
Re: APOD: Too Close to a Black Hole (2014 Oct 26)
re black holes still considered a singularity ? At the "center" of a black hole the theory that describes them, general relativity, breaks down because of a singularity. Everywhere else is fine, in particular at the event horizon, which marks the "point of no return". This is al...
- Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:54 am
- Forum: Open Space: Discuss Anything
- Topic: Extremophile bacteria
- Replies: 1
- Views: 308
Re: Extremophile bacteria
I read about deinococcus radiodurans . It can survive extreme amount of radiation and thrive on nuclear waste. But apparently this more of a side effect, since such high levels of radioactivity don't occur naturally. The wikipedia article claims that the radioactive resistance is due to d. radiodura...