space
Friday Unrelated Information
Two researchers in the psychology department of the University of California at San Diego recently decided to test whether we really hate spoilers, or just like to say we do. What they found surprised them: The majority of people apparently like having a story spoiled for them. In fact, we may enjoy spoiled stories even more than the unspoiled versions.
Friday Unrelated Information
Two Videos
Two Things To Make You Happy Today
With absolutely no attempt at hyperbole at all, it is fair to say that this is one of–if not the–biggest achievement of the human race. For, as we speak, an object conceived in the human mind, and built by our tools, and launched from our planet, is sailing out of the further depths of our solar system–and will be the first object made by man to sail out into interstellar space.”
Friday Unrelated Information
Worthy Of Dr. Sagan
You guys. Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog has outdone himself. He’s describing a massive, massive infrared survey of the sky–over 150 billion pixels, showing a billion stars–and he does it really, really well (click through to see how he gives an idea of scale). But it’s at the end of the post that he gets really Sagan-esque:
Think on this: there are a billion stars in that image alone, but that’s less than 1% of the total number of stars in our galaxy! As deep and broad as this amazing picture is, it’s a tiny slice of our local Universe.
And once again, we’ve reached the point where I’m out of words. Our puny brains, evolved to count the number of our fingers and toes, to grasp only what’s within reach, to picture only what we can immediately see — balk at these images.
But… we took them. Human beings looked up and wondered, looked around and observed, looked out and discovered. In our quest to seek ever more knowledge, we built the tools needed to make these pictures: the telescopes, the detectors, the computers. And all along, the power behind that magnificent work was our squishy pink brains.
A billion stars in one shot, thanks to a fleshy mass of collected neurons weighing a kilogram or so. The Universe is amazing, but so are we.
Space News
Another new supernova has been found as of March 16. This one in barred spiral galaxy M95, which is roughly the size of our own Milky Way galaxy and about 37 million light years away. Supernova SN 2012aw is the really bright point at the end of the spiral arm that goes down and to the right–see it?
Oh, space. You provide such good perspective.
(Picture from APOD; you can read more about the supernova on Bad Astronomy.)
The Universe Loves You
The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not. –The Upanishads
(Image from the Heart and Soul nebulae via Bad Astronomy; quote via my inner hippie. )
Friday Unrelated Information
1. A dear friend suffered a terrible loss this week, so putting up funny links or MST3K quotes doesn’t feel right today. Instead, I will tell you to travel safely and hug your loved ones and try to make your part of the world more full of light.
2. I’ll also give you a space picture, since that’s how I cope:
(Click the image to see it bigger–every speck of light you see is a galaxy.)
This was the last image featured on The Atlantic’s space Advent calendar. As the caption there said:
This Hubble image is one of several, including the Ultra Deep Field, which peer into seemingly empty space, leaving the camera shutter open for hours, and reveal that billions of galaxies made up of billions of stars fill our skies in every direction as far as we can possibly see, separated by almost unimaginable distance and time, yet still reachable, visible as an image of their long-ago selves.