Latest Posts by riekod - Page 2
“Math is language like English, just less commonly spoken”
— Seismology professor
The real reason mankind went to the Moon is this lady. Amazing. https://www.instagram.com/p/BsfnmjshAA3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=p1ybbxv208af
:’(
The IAU reclassifies Pluto as a dwarf planet. (2006)
Take your time. You’ll get it.
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I’ve found it!), but ‘That’s funny…’”
— Isaac Asimov | Author - I, Robot | Professor - Biochemistry
Birth of Massive Black Holes in the Early Universe Revealed
When the universe was still a baby – less than 1 billion years old – some of its stars turned into monster black holes. A key mystery in astronomy has been: why are there so many supermassive black holes in the early universe?
A new study, supported by funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation and a grant from the European Commission, suggests that massive black holes thrive when galaxies form very quickly. To make a galaxy, you need stars, which are born out of gas clouds, but also an invisible substance called dark matter, which acts as a glue to keep stars from flying away from the galaxy. If the dark matter’s “halo” structure grows quickly early in its life, the formation of stars is stifled. Instead a massive black hole can form before the galaxy takes shape. Black holes ravenously eat gas that would have otherwise produced new stars, and become larger and larger.
Previously, scientists theorized that powerful radiation from other galaxies muted the formation of stars in these young regions with massive black holes. But new simulations suggest that the rapid growth of galaxies is key to growing the black holes.
A black hole is an extremely dense astronomical object from which nothing can escape, not even light. When a star explodes in a supernova, a black hole can be left behind. Alternatively, a supermassive star can burn through its fuel quickly and turn into a black hole, no explosion needed. Scientists say this is how many massive black holes form in rapidly assembling proto-galaxies.
The simulation-based study, to be reported January 23rd in the journal Nature, also finds that massive black holes are much more common in the universe than previously thought. read more
Sunflower Galaxy
The First Real Photo Of Entire Earth From Apollo 8 In 1968.
Created using still images taken by the Cassini spacecraft during it’s flyby of Jupiter and while at Saturn. Shown is Io and Europa over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
Aurora Over Alaska (by HB Mertz)
Arp-142 - Colliding Galaxies (NGC-2936 & NGC-2937 Lower Left)
M43 - Part of the same star-forming complex as the Great Orion Nebula (M42)
As I get older I’m finding that a lot of the “intellectuals” I used to admire are actually just condescending and pretentious. And also realizing how much more important it is to be present, considerate, and empathetic because nobody really knows what they’re talking about and anyone who claims to know everything about anything is feeding you bs.
Lunar Eclipse 2019
Image Credit: Zachary Wells
The 2MASS Redshift Survey - The single most comprehensive survey of the universe… and everything that’s in it.
Night sky
Lieksa, Finland
October 2018
Leidenfrost drops – liquid drops that levitate on a layer of their own vapor over a hot surface – have been all the rage in recent years. We’ve seen how they can be guided, trapped, and self-propelled. What you see here is a bit different. This is a droplet of room-temperature ethanol deposited on a bath of liquid nitrogen. What levitates the droplet in this case is vaporous nitrogen evaporating from the bath.
The droplet is quickly cooling down; it freezes after its second or third bounce off the side walls of the beaker. What causes the droplet to self-propel is an asymmetry of the thin vapor layer beneath the droplet. As soon as some instability causes a slight difference in the thickness of the vapor layer, that triggers the propulsion, which the drop maintains even after freezing. (Image and research credit: A. Gauthier et al.)
Neptune
It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol ♆, a stylised version of the god Neptune’s trident.
If you’ve ever watched water running down the side of the street, you’ve probably noticed that it doesn’t flow smoothly. Instead, you’ll see waves, rivulets, and disturbances that form. That’s because the simple action of flowing down an incline is unstable. Water and other viscous liquids can’t flow downhill smoothly. Any disturbances – an uneven surface, the rumble of passing cars, a pebble in the way – will create a disruption that grows, often until the entire flow is affected. This video shows some of the complex and beautiful patterns you get then. (Video and image credit: G. Lerisson et al.)
Chang'E-4: The Yutu-2 rover isn’t wasting any time, & has driven away from the lander toward (but not into) a nearby crater. Reminder that all photos from the far side of the moon are being relayed to earth by the Queqiao spacecraft, which is parked in a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon L2 point, about 61,500km behind the moon. “Halo orbit” means it’s about that far behind the moon, but always off to one side or the other from the actual L2 point so it has a line of sight to the Earth. Wouldn’t be much of a relay otherwise.
Saturn’s rings and our planet Earth and Moon in the same frame captured by nasa’s Cassini spacecraft 19 July. (source @nasa) *Out Pale Blue Dot*
Milky Way Above The Ocean
If you’re not amazed by the stars on a clear night then we won’t work.
Declining Arctic sea ice: The 2018 Arctic Report Card found the Arctic region had the second-lowest overall sea-ice coverage on record. The map shows the age of sea ice in the Arctic ice pack in March 1985 (left) and March 2018 (right). Ice that is less than a year old is darkest blue. Ice that has survived at least 4 full years is white. Maps were provided by NOAA Climate.gov and based on data provided by Mark Tschudi./University of Colorado/CCAR. (NOAA Climate.gov)
Excerpt from this Washington Post story:
Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card.
The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself.
The oldest ice can be thought of as a kind of glue that holds the Arctic together and, through its relative permanence, helps keep the Arctic cold even in long summers.
“The younger the ice, the thinner the ice, the easier it is to go away,” said Don Perovich, a scientist at Dartmouth who coordinated the sea ice section of the yearly report.
If the Arctic begins to experience entirely ice-free summers, scientists say, the planet will warm even more, as the dark ocean water absorbs large amounts of solar heating that used to be deflected by the cover of ice. The new findings were published as climate negotiators in Poland are trying to reach a global consensus on how to address climate change.
In March, NASA scientists with the Operation IceBridge mission, which surveys the polar regions using research aircraft, witnessed a dramatic instance of the ongoing changes. Flying over the seas north of Greenland, in a region that usually features some of the oldest, thickest ice in the Arctic, they instead saw smooth, thin strips binding together the thicker, ridged pieces.
the InSight landing was so exciting!
~ november 26, 2018
Arp 188 and the Tadpole’s Tail
images of Neptune taken by Voyager 2 on August 24 1989.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill
In “Float” artist Susi Sie uses water and oil to create a whimsical landscape of bubbles and droplets. Coalescence is a major player in the action, though Sie uses some clever time manipulations to make her bubbles and droplets multiply as well. Watching coalescence in reverse feels like seeing mitosis happen before your eyes. (Video and image credit: S. Sie)
