esiegel | January 31, 2014Do black holes exist? The world’s most famous scientist vs. the actual science.
“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the Universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” -Stephen Hawking
Here in our little corner of the Universe, the Earth is a pretty intense source of gravity for us. If we want to escape its gravitational pull, we’d need to accelerate ourselves up past the escape velocity, or the speed necessary to climb out of the gravitational potential well that Earth’s mass creates. We can (and have) accomplished this, in fact, but it would take a speed of around…
esiegel | January 31, 2014"There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know." -Lewis Carroll
It's the end of the week once again, and so it's time for yet another Ask Ethan column! This week, I was asked a wonderful math question by Keith H., who wanted to know:
Among my 1,434 [Facebook] friends, it's nobody's birthday today. Given the 365.25 days in a year, what are the odds of a day like this? Show your work.
Assuming that none of your friends were born prior to March 1, 1900, this is the right starting point.
Image credit: ePrint…
esiegel | January 24, 2014"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." -Robert Frost
Well, here we are, at the end of the week, and you know what that means: another Ask Ethan column! This week, I've been asked about the same thing by many different people, so I'll credit it to Patrick E. and Matt T., who want to know:
I'm curious to hear your take on this: the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics applied to the origin of life.
For those of you who haven't heard, this is what they're talking about.
Image credit: Richard A. Cunha, Thereza A. Soares, Victor H. Rusu, Frederico J.S. Pontes, Eduardo…
esiegel | January 18, 2014"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." -Antoine de Saint Exupéry
It's the end of the week here, so it's time for another Ask Ethan column! Today's question comes from longtime reader and fan Jeremy F., who wants to know about the feasibility of the planned Mars One mission. In particular,
I hope 4 people don't just fly to their death, that would be terrible for my chances of getting to Alpha Centauri or Vega before I die.
No kidding. Let's go back to the…
esiegel | January 10, 2014“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” -Douglas Adams
Even though our main blog has moved, I'm so glad that the questions and suggestions have still been pouring in, because it's time for another entry in our Ask Ethan series! Today's question comes from professional physicist Marty Olsson, who asks:
I have been bothered for a long time why the Milky Way looks curved, sort of like…
esiegel | January 3, 2014"The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -Mark Twain
When you think about where all of this came from -- back to the beginning of the Universe -- there's a good chance it makes you a little uncomfortable. For this week's Ask Ethan, our one remaining column here on ScienceBlogs, our reader vvv asks a question that quite possibly many of you have wondered:
Why didn't the universe collapse into a black hole right "at the moment of the big bang?"
And quite honestly, I've wondered a fair bit about this myself. Here's why.
Image credit: Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn (Weather and Sky Photography…
esiegel | January 1, 2014"Actually, I wasn't happy or sad. I was medium. And medium is the happiest that I'll ever be." -Axe Cop
It's been an amazing journey over the years, sharing the joys and wonders of the Universe with you. From the smallest subatomic particles, the most fundamental interactions and the shortest timescales imaginable to the stars, galaxies, clusters, superclusters and beyond, we've spent the better part of the last five years together here on ScienceBlogs exploring the most interesting aspects of physical reality together.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O'Connell (UVa), and…
esiegel | December 30, 2013"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." -John Wayne
There's a lot to look forward to on the precipice of the new year, and many of us will be up until midnight to ring it in. Well, if you're up that late, why not step outside and take a look at one of the deep-sky wonders of the Universe that won't be visible in the early part of the night for months! This Messier Monday, a near-moonless sky will greet you until the pre-dawn twilight, and…
esiegel | December 28, 2013"I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different." -T. S. Eliot
Time passes, and things grow; that's the way of the world, so it seems. 2013 was no exception, and as Joshua Radin (featuring Patty Griffin) would sing,
You Got Growin Up To Do.
Well, the world grew again this year, in a multitude of ways. Approximately 134 million new human babies were born worldwide, and in back in February, the largest extraterrestrial object in more than a century merged with the Earth. It's been quite a year for new additions.
Image via: http://www.zingzoo.com/2013/02/15/falling-meteor-…
esiegel | December 27, 2013"Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." -Dream Hampton
Perhaps no word in the English language generates as much misunderstanding as the word theory. In scientific circles, this word has a very specific meaning that's different from everyday use, and -- as a theoretical astrophysicist myself -- I feel it's my duty to help explain exactly what we mean when we use it. In this week’s Ask Ethan column, I'm pleased to pull out of our question/suggestion box the question of Ripley, who asks:
I often see that because there is no "100…
esiegel | December 24, 2013"Bethany: Is your house on fire, Clark?
Clark: No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights." -National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Ahh, Christmas. It's easy to forget how much the invention of the light bulb in 1879 reduced the number of tree fires in people's homes. It was a mere three years later that people began decorating Christmas trees with strings of lights instead of candle flames, and as you can imagine, the reduction in open flames atop fresh kindling had its benefits, and caught on like wildfire. Trees now routinely sport previously unfathomable numbers of lights, limited…
esiegel | December 23, 2013"A sister is both your mirror - and your opposite." -Elizabeth Fishel
With 110 deep-sky wonders to choose from in the Messier catalogue, our long-running series on Messier Monday promises to keep us busy for some time to come! As we've finally passed the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, many new spectacular sights await skygazers in the early part of the night. As it's also the 1-year anniversary of when we adopted a little sister for our dog from the local humane society, I thought it would only be fitting to highlight the little sister to last week's Messier object.
Image…
esiegel | December 22, 2013"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry." -Maria Montessori
The Universe has some wonderful sights to show you if you know how to look for them, and that's maybe most apparent when you look at some of the amazing images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Here on Earth, however, the onset of winter for many of us brings a little bit of scarcity with it, something Drive By Truckers can help you relate to with their song,
When The Well Runs Dry.
You might not think these two things are related -- the wonders of…
esiegel | December 20, 2013"To be is to be the value of a variable." -Willard Van Orman Quine
It's the end of the week once again, and the very end of our Year In Space 2014 Wall Calendar giveaway! So for this week's Ask Ethan column, after dipping into our question/suggestion box, I'm very pleased to let Vera from Italy know that her question was the winning one, as she asked:
I saw the video you posted about the variable star RS Puppis, by the Hubble Space Telescope, and I really would like a post about what exactly are variable stars.
Thank you very much Ethan!! :-)
So -- no burying the lede here -- there was a…
esiegel | December 18, 2013"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." -Albert Camus
As the year draws to a close, we approach a very special time of year, at least from an astronomical perspective. This Saturday, December 21st, will mark the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (or the Summer Solstice in the Southern), or the date where the Earth's axis is tilted its maximal amount away from (or towards) the Sun, as viewed from an observer in the Northern (or Southern) Hemisphere.
Image credit: Mrs. Snyder at the Seven Hills School.
While it's pretty common knowledge…
esiegel | December 16, 2013"Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe." -Maria Mitchell
It's time again for Messier Monday, where we highlight the various wonderous deep-sky objects of the night, and show you how to find them against the expansive backdrop of stars. The (almost) full Moon is out tonight, polluting your night sky with as much light as a large-sized urban area, but that doesn't mean all of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue are off-limits!
Image credit: Mike Keith’s delightful (a)periodic table of Messier objects!
While extended…
esiegel | December 15, 2013"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." -Thomas Jefferson
We all have our own unique story in this world, of where we came from, who we are now, and how we've grown to become the person we are. We've all had some help along the journey -- from friends, family, teachers/mentors or even from strangers -- and yet we can all conceive of ways we'd like to see the world improved. This weekend, let Brother Ali (featured once before here) remind you of this as he sings about his son,
Faheem.
Well, I'm about to…
esiegel | December 13, 2013"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure." -Joseph Campbell
Ever since we created a question/suggestion box here, we've been deluged by far more excellent questions than one person could possibly answer, but that doesn't mean we aren't trying! For this week's Ask Ethan, our question comes from long-time fan and reader crd2, who asks:
As we look at the furthest quasars we see they have supermassive black holes, as large as 109 solar masses. By what mechanism are they able to reach such large sizes over so short a…
esiegel | December 11, 2013"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
It was just a little while ago that we were all speculating wildly -- and optimistically -- about Comet ISON, as it plunged towards the Sun from its origins in the very, very distant Solar System. As its perihelion date (the moment of closest approach to the Sun) drew near, you may have noticed something interesting about photos of the comet: it's tail appeared to get longer and longer!
Image credit &…
esiegel | December 9, 2013"The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself." -Thomas Szasz
But on this Messier Monday, you're lucky enough that you're about to be introduced to one of the great northern galaxies of the Messier catalogue that is feeding itself! There are 110 deep-sky, non-transient objects that make up the Messier catalogue, and a full 40 of them are galaxies, the most numerous and most distant of all the types of objects catalogued by Messier.
Image credit: Tenho Tuomi of http://www.lex.sk.ca/astro/messier/index2.…