Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:1/10/2012
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Hubble study challenges “cosmic fireworks” as largest driver of galaxy growth
Guest Post: The Cosmic Energy Inventory
The Cosmic Energy Inventory chart by Markus Pössel, Haus der Astronomie. Click for larger version.
Editor’s Note: Markus Pössel is a theoretical physicist turned astronomical outreach scientist. He is the managing scientist at the Centre for Astronomy Education and Outreach “Haus der Astronomie” in Heidelberg, Germany.
Now that the old year has drawn to a close, it’s traditional to take stock. And why not think big and take stock of everything there is?
Let’s base our inventory on energy. And as Einstein taught us that energy and mass are equivalent, that means automatically taking stock of all the mass that’s in the universe, as well – including all the different forms of matter we might be interested in.
Of course, since the universe might well be infinite in size, we can’t simply add up all the energy. What we’ll do instead is look at fractions: How much of the energy in the universe is in the form of planets? How much is in the form of stars? How much is plasma, or dark matter, or dark energy?
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Closest type Ia supernova in decades solves a cosmic mystery
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:12/15/2011
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Cosmic particle accelerators get things going
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/17/2011
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Guest Post by Author Peter Shaver: Cosmic Time Scales
Now and Then. This single all-sky image simultaneously captured two snapshots that straddle virtually the entire 13.7 billion year history of the universe. One of them is ‘now’ – our galaxy and its structures seen as they are over the most recent tens of thousands of years (the thin strip extending across the image is the edge-on plane of our galaxy – the Milky Way). The other is ‘then’ – the red afterglow of the Big Bang seen as it was just 380,000 years after the Big Bang (top and bottom of image). The time between these two snapshots therefore covers about 99.997% of the 13.7 billion year age of the universe. The image was obtained by the Planck Team using the new Planck spacecraft of the European Space Agency.
Editor’s note: Peter Shaver is the author of the new book “Cosmic Heritage – Evolution from the Big Bang to Conscious Life.” Find out here how you can win a copy!
The universe has gone through a number of distinct phases. The first part of the first second is speculative, but the physics of the latter part is well know to us. In the first several minutes the lightest elements (hydrogen and helium) were formed.
Over the next 380,000 years the universe was a hot (but always cooling) plasma of electrons, nuclei and photons. At 380,000 years it was cool enough for electrons and nuclei to combine into atoms, in a process called recombination. The photons were freed from the plasma, and the universe became transparent for the first time. As the universe was opaque before recombination and transparent after, we see this epoch as a ‘wall’, and it is known as the cosmic microwave background.
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Read the rest of Guest Post by Author Peter Shaver: Cosmic Time Scales (668 words)
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Distant galaxies reveal clearing of the cosmic fog
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:10/12/2011
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Fermi’s latest gamma-ray census highlights cosmic mysteries
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:9/12/2011
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Cosmic crashes forge gold
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:9/9/2011
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Astronomy Without A Telescope – Cosmic Coincidence
The standard model of the universe has it that the energy density of its contents and the ‘dark energy’ of its expansion are, just now, of the same order of magnitude. Coincidence? Credit: NASA.
Cosmologists tend not to get all that excited about the universe being 74% dark energy and 26% conventional energy and matter (albeit most of the matter is dark and mysterious as well). Instead they get excited about the fact that the density of dark energy is of the same order of magnitude as that more conventional remainder.
After all, it is quite conceivable that the density of dark energy might be ten, one hundred or even one thousand times more (or less) than the remainder. But nope, it seems it’s about three times as much – which is less than ten and more than one, meaning that the two parts are of the same order of magnitude. And given the various uncertainties and error bars involved, you might even say the density of dark energy and of the more conventional remainder are roughly equivalent. This is what is known as the cosmic coincidence.(…)
Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Cosmic Coincidence (556 words)
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Scientists discover an “instant cosmic classic” supernova
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:8/26/2011
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A cosmic exclamation point
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:8/15/2011
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What’s happening to galaxy NGC 474?Cosmic Bullseye: Auriga’s Wheel
Hoag's Object Credit: HST
One of the strangest types of galaxies is those known as ring galaxies. Examples of this include Hoag’s Object (shown above), the Cartwheel Galaxy, and AM 0644-741. These unusual shapes are cause by a galactic collision in which a smaller galaxy plunges nearly straight through the center of a larger galaxy. The gravitational disturbance causes a wave of star formation to ripple out from the center. In most cases, the intruder galaxy is long gone, but a serendipitous discovery as part of a larger survey recently turned up another of these objects, this time with the collisional partner still making its getaway.
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Read the rest of Cosmic Bullseye: Auriga’s Wheel (392 words)
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A cosmic superbubble dominates a stellar nursery
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:7/20/2011
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Herschel helps solve mystery of cosmic dust origins
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:7/8/2011
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Astronomers reveal a cosmic “Axis of Evil”
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:7/1/2011
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Cosmic explosion is new candidate for most distant object in the universe
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:5/25/2011
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A ridiculously basic problem on the set of “Cosmic Adventures”
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of “Liz and Bill’s Cosmic Adventures”? We just debuted Episode 4, and reviewing the final draft of the video reminded me how much of a pain it was to film one of the scenes. (Spoiler alert if you haven't yet watched it!)
Bill and I had the brilliant idea to film raisin bread rising while baking. (It’s one way to show some consequences of the expansion of the universe.) Well, it turns out making bread with yeast is a talent neither of us possesses. Not to mention that oven doors are reflective, and thus filming anything through said door is difficult.
So, over one weekend, Bill tried his hand at baking cinnamon raisin bread. When he brought it in the following Monday, the Astronomy magazine staff joked about how dense the bread was. Plus, the video camera didn’t work all too well, and our video production department would have had to piece together four separate clips.
Then it was my turn to prove how good I am at baking. Answer: only with basic foods. My bread turned out at least as dense as Bill’s, and I think the staff ate perhaps two or three slices. (It actually tasted OK, once you managed to get the knife to cut through the loaf.) And the video clip looked terrible.
(As a side note, while reviewing the video, I noticed a black reflection on the oven door. It turns out that my dog came into the kitchen to investigate the camera. You could even hear her sniffing at the video camera in the clip before the music was added. I thought this was hilarious, and thus had to share the clip with all of you.)
Third time’s the charm, especially when baking bread. But it had nothing to do with luck. Instead, we accepted reality: Instead of trying to bake yeast-based raisin bread, I decided to bake blueberry-lemon bread, thinking that the blueberries could look like raisins. And they sure do. The bread tasted better, too, and the staff ate the entire loaf.
So how did we fix the “filming through a reflective oven door” problem? Well, we need to keep some secrets, so watch the video at www.Astronomy.com/cosmicadventures.
Hope you enjoy the next episode!
PAMELA Uncovers Cosmic Ray Surprise
PAMELA data show clear deviations from a single power law model between protons and helium nuclei. Credit: Adriani, et. al, Science.
High energy particles called cosmic rays are constantly bombarding Earth from all directions, and have been thought to come from the blast waves of supernova remnants. But new observations from the PAMELA cosmic ray detector show an unexpected difference in the speeds of protons and helium nuclei, the most abundant components of cosmic rays. The difference is extremely small, but if they were accelerated from the same event, the speeds should be the same.
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Behind the scenes — Cosmic Adventures, episode 2
Last week, Astronomy magazine posted the second episode of Liz and Bill’s Cosmic Adventures. For this one, we focused on extrasolar planets — worlds orbiting stars other than the Sun. This is a hot topic in astronomy, so we wanted to make this one of our first episodes.
Creating this video series has been a learning process. We know the first episode had a few sound issues, but we were able to (mostly) remedy this problem. We also went with a different approach in this video, opting for a more casual banter instead of scripted scenes. We’ve heard already that it’s hilarious, and we hope you agree!
Future episodes won’t always be conversational; we want to have a good mix of styles. You’ll see a variation of this in the next installment, where we tackle an issue of monumental importance. (That’s a hint!)
We hope you like the series. Let us know your thoughts, either by posting a comment below or e-mailing us at cosmicadventures@astronomy.com.
My own cosmic microwave background
Last week, my fiancé sent me a gift at work — a weird little stuffed toy. But after I looked closer, I realized it’s a toy plushie version of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Yes, such a thing exists.
The company that makes it, The Particle Zoo (www.particlezoo.net), is actually one artist who hand-creates plush versions of the universe’s subatomic particles — both those known and those hypothesized. She also creates plush toys of different cosmic epochs (this is where the cosmic microwave background fits in).
Julie Peasley — the artist, aka the particle “zookeeper” — also makes the toys with different material depending on the mass of that particle. A photon has normal stuffing, but the proton uses poly beads, and the Higgs boson contains gravel. She also uses different outer material — felt or fleece — depending on the particle’s mass.
If you’re a geek (and if you’re reading this, odds are good), go check it out. I think the neutrinos are hilarious (they have masks because they’re elusive, like ninjas), as is the strange quark (it has three eyes).
Scientists are melting holes in the bottom of the world.Astronomers “weigh” heaviest known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:1/13/2011
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The Cosmic Web of the Tarantula Nebula
It is the largest and most complex star forming region in the entire galactic neighborhood.
Cosmic collisions no longer suspected of promoting black hole growth
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:1/5/2011
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Shedding New Light on the Cosmic Dark Ages
Representation of the timeline of the universe over 13.7 billion years, from the Big Bang, through the cosmic dark ages and formation of the first stars, to the expansion in the universe that followed. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team.
From a University of Cambridge press release:
Remnants of the first stars have helped astronomers get closer to unlocking the “dark ages” of the cosmos. A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and California Institute of Technology are using light emitted from massive black holes called quasars to “light up” gases released by the early stars, which exploded billions of years ago. As a result, they have found what they refer to as the missing link in the evolution of the chemical universe.
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Behind the scenes of “Cosmic Adventures”
We just launched the first episode of our new video series, “Liz and Bill’s Cosmic Adventures”! We’re so excited, we used an exclamation point. This project has been about 4 months in the making (although it feels like 14), so it’s fantastic and a great relief to see the first episode, shiny and new, on the Web.
As attentive viewers might notice (and longtime readers of Astronomy magazine’s Cosmic Grid might remember), the two of us have fairly diverse approaches to everything. Writing, humor, dressing, pets — we’re pretty different. But that’s what helps make this series fun (and, we hope, fun to watch). It’s also what makes it more work, because the two of us have been in much closer contact recently than usual. (Even now, we’re sitting uncomfortably close to each other as we write this blog.) Our co-workers have said we radiate a sibling rivalry vibe.
Also complicating things, each of us has never done anything like this before. In fact, we’re pretty sure we’re breaking new ground at Kalmbach, our publishing company. There’s a first time for everything, and we’re learning as we go. We wanted to start off with an “overview episode” to give you a taste of what’s coming and what we’re like. We don’t plan to shoot every episode that way, but hope to have a variety of approaches in the future (hint: music video!).
This first episode also features cameos by staff members from other magazines here at Kalmbach, a trend we hope to continue. We plan to highlight other Astronomy staff as well, so stay tuned for your favorite editors to show up. Collect them all!
So what are you waiting for? Go watch it, and please tell us what you think and what you’d like to see in future videos in the comments section or at cosmicadventures@astronomy.com.
Discovery at young star hints that magnetism is common to all cosmic jets
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/29/2010
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Clearing the cosmic fog: The most distant galaxy ever measured
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:10/20/2010
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Spacecraft sees cosmic snowstorm during comet encounter
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/19/2010
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Cassini reveals Saturn is on a cosmic dimmer switch
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/11/2010
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Astronomers find evidence of cosmic climate change
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/3/2010
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Cosmic curiosity reveals ghostly glow of dead quasar
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/4/2010
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Astrophysicists discover new galaxy clusters revealed by cosmic “shadows”
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:11/2/2010
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IceCube spies unexplained pattern of cosmic rays
Astronomy Magazine News Article – Released:7/30/2010
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