Origin of our universe - a new thought!

Many of us now tend to believe that the origin of our universe is the big bang. Recently I had a thought ... What if big bang was not the origin? What if it were just one of the events or for that matter one of the millions of big bangs that might have taken place? What if the universe was contracting and expanding?
All these were questions that came to my mind until I realized that scientists were already working on this thought of mine...$&;#%#

An attempt to understand the "Theory of Relativity"

I found this theory very interesting. This was developed by the great "Einstein". While I was reading about it and was trying to understand it... it all sounded very unnatural(if you would!).

Example of the theory:

Assume that you(A) are sitting in car A traveling at 500 miles/hr and one of your friend(B) is in Car B traveling at 1000 miles/hr and another friend(C) is on the ground stationary. Also assume that a light beam passes you all at that instance.

Of course, every atom of our body was once part of a star!

This is the end to one of my favorite movies, GATTACA. This is part that contains my favorite quote where Vincent says, "For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess, I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say that every atom of our body was once part of a star. Maybe I am not leaving.......maybe I'm going home."

Just a while ago... Endeavour docks at ISS

Early hours on Wednesday (12:06am EST), Endeavour docks at ISS.

Purpose of the mission: The STS-130 mission of space shuttle Endeavour will deliver a third connecting module - the Tranquility node - to the International Space Station and a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics.

Image above: (From left) Mission Specialist Nicholas Patrick, Pilot Terry Virts, Mission Specialists Robert Behnken and Kathryn Hire, Commander George Zamka and Mission Specialist Stephen Robinson. Image credit: NASA

Hubble takes pictures of Pluto

Our most distant planet Pluto gets photographed by Hubble. The photographs that you see is a set of many pictures taken by Hubble.

Understanding telescopes - Basics

There are two major types of telescopes.
1. Reflective (Uses lenses and mirrors to reflect light on to the eye peace) - Generally smaller in size.
2. Refractive(Uses lenses only) - Generally larger in size.

There is a third type called the Catadioptric telescope. It uses both the properties of Reflective and Refractive telescopes. Generally not used by ametures.

If you are planning to buy a telescope don't get too confused with what kind of telescope to buy. First things first.. try to understand how telescopes work. You would need to know a few terms before you understand its functioning.

1. Aperture: A telescope's most important attribute is its aperture, which determines the brightness and sharpness of everything you see through your scope. Inreal simple terms this is the diameter of the main lense(or the Objective lense). Here is what most of the ameture astronomers tend to believe... "getting a bigger objective lense or a larger aperture would mean a better telescope". That would be a mistake! The size of objective lense that you want also depends on what you want to observe in space? If you just want to observe the moon and some nearby planets like Mars and Jupiter - a 3" Objective is good enough, however, if you wanted to observe galaxies you would need a much larger telescope that can accommodate a large Objective(at least 6" and above).

2. Power of Magnification: This is a critical factor since it decides how close a view you can get of the space and planets. You can make any telescope magnify at effectively any power you want by using different eyepieces. An eyepiece is the small removable lens assembly you look into.

Few myths that need clarification:

Don't buy a "department store" telescope: While the price may seem right, and the pictures on the box look compelling, small telescopes found in retail stores are of consistently poor quality.So, dont buy them.

It's not about magnification: It is actually one of the least important aspects, and is something you control based on your choice of eyepieces.

Computer pointing is not necessary: These systems increase the cost of the telescope significantly, and don't add much value for beginners. In fact, my personal suggestion is to begin with a manual telescope. When you struggle hard to focus on an object of your interest... you learn the most. So, dont go the easy way... there is less learning.

Its Official... Water found on Moon.

So finally after intensive study of the data collected from three different spacecrafts, NASA confirms the presence of Water on lunar surface. The findings of all three spacecrafts, Indias Chandrayaan-I, Cassini and the Deep Impact Spacecraft provide unambiguous evidence of the presence of water.

So how on this heavenly Earth(or should I say Moon) did this Water come from!!!

Per NASA, there is a potential for two types of water on the Moon.

Type 1: That was brought from outside sources, like water-bearing comets striking the lunar surface.
Type 2: Interaction of Solar winds with lunar rocks.


Type 2 explained: Rocks that make up lunar surface are 45% Oxygen combined with other silicate materials. The Solar wind is made up of protons and/or positively charged Hydrogen atoms. When the constant stream of solar particles emitted by the Sun travelling at 1/3rd the speed of light hit the lunar surface with enough force they break apart already existing oxygen bonds in the lunar soil and tend to form water.

Bottom line: GREAT news! H2O found on Moon.


Courtesy: nasa.gov