Yeshz Infinity and Beyond...
A Quote by Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain
Telescopes are in some ways like time machines...
They reveal galaxies so far away that their light has taken billions of years to reach us. We in astronomy have an advantage in studying the universe, in that we can actually see the past. We owe our existence to stars, because they make the atoms of which we are formed. So if you are romantic you can say we are literally starstuff. If you're less romantic you can say we're the nuclear waste from the fuel that makes stars shine. We've made so many advances in our understanding. A few centuries ago, the pioneer navigators learnt the size and shape of our Earth, and the layout of the continents. We are now just learning the dimensions and ingredients of our entire cosmoc, and can at last make some sense of our cosmic habitat.
Latest in Space - Top Stories
Thursday, March 21, 2013
"Mars is telling us something. I'm not sure what it is because it's speaking Martian. But it's telling us something," - Prof Squyres
Friday, March 15, 2013
Higgs Boson – God Particle??
Image Source: http://www.businessweek.com
The term "God Particle" was coined by Leon Lendarman in his book about Higgs Boson. It really is not a GOD particle, it sure is going to be a very important particle that needs to fit the standard model of Physics that we know today. And that by itself is a challenge.
Out of reading elsewhere, I found out that scientists are now evaluating if there are more than one varieties of Higgs Boson particle. If it does, then the scientists will have to re-evaluate our whole standard model of Physics (ie; how do objects gain mass and why do some particles like Photons, do not have mass??). If they find out that there is only one type.. then it could be our answer to the question in bold above. Ie; they will know exactly why stuff happens the way it happens.
Either way it will be interesting to see how things unfold.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Voyager - on the verge of exiting Solar System!
35 years ago tomorrow, Voyager 1 left our Earth and set out on a mission that very few people are aware of. Apart from the fact that Voyager 1 and 2 will be the only man made objects that will have reached the end of our solar system, there are some other interesting facts.
It is interesting to know the kind of equipment that Voyager carried on board in 1977. It just has 68Kb of computer memory!! An 8 track tape recorder.. (Say whaaat!!). Gold plated discs containing multilingual greetings, music and pictures, in a hope that an intelligent species may come across it and be able to decode.
Today Voyager 1 is 11 billion miles away and Voyager 2 is 9 billion miles from the Sun. It takes 17 hours for a radio signal from Voyager 1 to reach earth and 12 hours (or maybe 15 hrs) from Voyager 2.
The news that Voyager exited our Solar System will sure be something I will look out for and milestone to remember and cherish.
Source: yahoo news
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Tragic loss - in memory of Neil Armstrong!
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
One crazy fact about Curiosity's landing on Mars!
Just in case you did not know:
1. It takes 14 minutes for the signal from the Rover to reach Earth.
2. It takes approximately 7 minutes for the Rover to land on Mars after it touches the Mars atmosphere.
Here goes the crazy fact: By the time, we, on Earth, get the signal from the rover that it has touched the Mars atmosphere, the rover has already landed safely or got destructed somewhere!!
Everything was automatic, with no chance for course correction. With more than 500,000 lines of code and Zero margin of error... Absolutely phenomenal !!
Check out some cool videos on the NASA website:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=18895
Credits: www.nasa.gov
Friday, March 16, 2012
Moon, like never seen before
Staring at the moon for hours together when I was a kid..beautiful! Looking through my telescope at the craters and the shadow formations, imagining the mountains..awesome! But nothing matches what you will see in this video. The more I look at this video.. the more I want to look at it. Okay, enough said, have at it...
Now here is the best part.. This is no Artists imagination... its all real, up close videos and images taken by Nasa's LRO. Be on the look out for more of these, astro enthusiasts.
Courtesy: Space.com