Stars
esiegel | November 27, 2013“I have announced this star as a comet, but since it is not accompanied by any nebulosity and, further, since its movement is so slow and rather uniform, it has occurred to me several times that it might be something better than a comet. But I have been careful not to advance this supposition to the public.” -Giuseppe Piazzi
So it begins again: the neverending debate about who gets to be a planet and who doesn't. Everyone can bring their own interpretation of the science to the table -- and everyone has their own preferred naming scheme -- but when I think about the Solar System, I try to…
esiegel | November 25, 2013"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old." -Franz Kafka
The night sky is our window into the Universe beyond the Solar System, and in some cases, even beyond our own galaxy! Perhaps the oldest useful collection of deep-sky objects, the Messier catalogue showcases 110 of the most prominent night sky wonders, a full 42 of which are located beyond our own galaxy. Today, for Messier Monday, let's take a look at one of the true rarities of the Messier catalogue: a globular cluster that's not a part of our own galaxy!
Image credit: Al Kelly of http://www.kellysky.net/; images…
esiegel | November 18, 2013“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Leonardo da Vinci
Welcome back to another exciting Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! As Comet ISON dives towards the Sun and a nearly perfect full Moon towers overhead, it's easy to forget about those wondrous deep-sky objects that are fixed, but the 110 prominent members of the Messier Catalogue are always on tap for dedicated skywatchers. Although the extended objects -- galaxies and nebulae -- are difficult to view with a…
esiegel | November 11, 2013"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all." -Abraham Lincoln
It might be Veterans Day / Armistice Day all around the world, but it's still Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! We may have been fighting wars for all of human history, but nearly all of the 110 deep sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue go back long before that.
Image credit: Tenho Tuomi of Tuomi Observatory, via http://www.lex.sk.ca/.
Today, we take an in-depth look at one of the brightest and closest star clusters in the entire night sky, one that -- despite being…
esiegel | November 6, 2013"I conclude, therefore, that this star is not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor... but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world." -Tycho Brahe
I want to take you back in history, back to the middle of the 1500s. Night skies were spectacular, even from the world's most cosmopolitan cities, and thousands of stars consistently graced the sky, sights only visible from a few select locations in the world these days.
Image credit: Lennox & Addington County Dark Sky Viewing Area, via…
esiegel | November 1, 2013"Galileo got it wrong. The Earth does not revolve around the Sun. It revolves around you and has been doing so for decades. At least, this is the model you are using." -Srikumar Rao
It's the end of the week, so that means its time to take on another one of your questions from the question/suggestion box, and continue our ongoing Ask Ethan series! Even though there's a backlog of hundreds of questions, you should keep sending the new ones in, as all questions are fair game for any segment. This week's question comes from reader Brian Mucha, who asks us:
Where did the sun and planets get their…
esiegel | October 21, 2013"Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error." -Benjamin Rush
Welcome back to another Messier Monday! Each week, we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep-sky wonders of the Messier Catalogue, from distant galaxies to nearby star clusters, from nebulous star factories to ancient globular bunches, and from stellar remnants to the rare-but-interesting anomalies. There are only three such anomalous entries out of all 110 Messier objects, and today provides us with a fantastic opportunity to take an in-depth look at one of them.
Image credit: The Messier Objects by Alistair Symon…
esiegel | October 18, 2013"If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it." -Justin Cronin
Well, it's Friday again, and that means it's time to dip into the question/suggestion box, and see what you've come up with for me. This week's Ask Ethan comes from our reader Michael Acosta, who wants to know about the end of the world. Not, mind you, the way the world is actually likely to end, but in a way that would be satisfying to an aspiring science fiction writer.
In this wonderful science fiction book I am writing, there is a subplot involving…
esiegel | October 14, 2013"The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. [...] It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his." -John Eldredge
Welcome back to another Messier Monday, where the glittering wonders of the night sky -- visible to anyone at the right latitudes with even simple equipment -- are on display for everyone. The bright collection of 110 deep-sky wonders include star clusters, globular clusters, galaxies…
esiegel | October 2, 2013"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." -Charles Darwin
There are problems with science today, no doubt. With all the knowledge we've accumulated about the Universe, from the smallest subatomic scales to the farthest recesses of deep space, there are still realms and regimes where our best theories fail, where the predictions and the data don't match, and where no known explanation is sufficient for the phenomena that shows up…
esiegel | September 25, 2013Farnsworth: "There is it. The edge of the Universe!"
Fry: "Far out. So there's an infinite number of parallel Universes?"
Farnsworth: "No, just the two."
Fry: "Oh, well, I'm sure that's enough."
Bender: "I'm sick of parallel Bender lording his cowboy hat over me!" -Futurama
Our existence here in this Universe is something that we know is rare, special, beautiful, and full of wonder.
Image credit: Kelly Montgomery.
Some things happen with amazing regularity and predictability: the occurrence of days-and-nights, the tides, the seasons, the motion of the heavenly bodies, and so much more. The…
esiegel | September 23, 2013"I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words." -Joseph Pulitzer
When it comes to the Messier objects, though, it isn't words that get concentrated; its collections of stars, gas, dust and more! So welcome to another edition of Messier Monday, where we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue. Some of these objects are only a few light-years wide, containing just a…
esiegel | September 16, 2013"Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill
To kick off every week for nearly a year now, we've begun it with Messier Monday, where we take an in-depth look at the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the first elaborate catalogue of fixed night-sky wonders that could possibly be confused for transient comets. Originally, when first published, this catalogue was made up of 103 objects; the final 7 were added posthumously. Each one tells its own unique story, yet all of them tell a sliver of our own story,…
esiegel | September 11, 2013"Like all animals, human beings have always taken what they want from nature. But we are the rogue species. We are unique in our ability to use resources on a scale and at a speed that our fellow species can't." -Edward Burtynsky
It's really a romantic notion when you think about it: the heavens, the Milky Way, is lined with hundreds of billions of stars, each with their own unique and varied solar systems.
Image credit: 湖北直行便 of AstroArts, via http://www.astroarts.jp/photo-gallery/photo/13870.html.
But beyond that -- in addition to the stars -- there are hundreds of billions of planets…
esiegel | September 9, 2013"Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg." -Hans Christian Anderson
Welcome back for another Messier Monday! There are 110 deep-sky objects in the Messier catalogue, some of the most prominent night-sky fixtures, as seen from Earth, running the gamut of astronomical phenomena from within our galaxy and beyond. Each week, we pick a new one to place under the spotlight, examining what it is, what we know about it, and how to find it, among other spectacular facts.
Image credit: Rolando Ligustri, taken over many years, retrieved from http://www.…
esiegel | September 5, 2013"One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range." -Victor Hugo
A couple of weeks ago we took a look at the most distant galaxy (so far) in the known Universe, a galaxy so far away that it takes exclusively infrared observations from our most power space telescopes (Hubble and Spitzer) in order to detect it. What's perhaps even more remarkable is that the light we do detect from it -- the light we detected in the infrared -- was actually emitted in the Ultraviolet part of the spectrum!
Image credit: NASA, ESA, Garth Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Rychard…
esiegel | September 2, 2013"We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe." -Edwin Powell Hubble
With 110 deep-sky objects scattered throughout the heavens, the Messier Catalogue provides skywatchers across the globe with a number of spectacular targets, from nearby nebulae and clusters to spectacular, distant galaxies. Each Monday, we spotlight a new one right here.
Image credit: Rolando Ligustri,…
esiegel | August 26, 2013"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle." -Khalil Gibran
It’s time again for another Messier Monday! The Messier Catalogue was the original comprehensive and accurate catalogue of fixed, deep-sky objects visible to any dedicated (northern hemisphere) skywatcher with even the most primitive of astronomical equipment. Over the centuries, as our understanding of what we're looking at has improved, these 110 celestial wonders have provided classic examples of astronomical phenomena ranging from stellar corpses to new star-forming regions, from young…
esiegel | August 12, 2013"There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad." -Sophocles
Imagine looking up at the night sky -- able to survey the full depths of space -- with eyes the size of saucers instead of our paltry, few-millimeter-sized pupils. What do you suppose you'd see? Well, here on Messier Monday, we take a journey through the first catalogue to effectively do just that! Charles Messier catalogued, over many years in the late 18th Century, 110 deep-sky objects, each unique, and each telling its…
esiegel | August 9, 2013“Next to reasoning, the greatest handicap to the optimum development of Man lies in the fact that this planet is just barely habitable. Its minimum temperatures are too low, and its maximum temperatures too high. Its day is not long enough, and its night is too long... These factors encourage depression, fear, war, and lack of vitality. They describe a planet, which is by no means perfectly devised for the nurturing or for the perpetuation of a higher intelligence.” -James Thurber
It's been just about three years, now, since the first announced discovery of a planet in another star system…