‘The Universe’ Archives
Most Distant Known Object in the Universe 13 Billion Light-Years from Earth
One of the reasons I like looking at the night sky is that when you look up you are looking into the past. The sky is a map of what things used to look like. The objects you see have moved from their apparent location due to gravitational forces and the expansion of the universe. Some/many/most? may no longer exist at all! Those objects close [...]
Relative sizes of Planets and Stars
I tried recently to describe the difference in size between Jupiter and Earth to help explain my last blog showing Jupiter and Earth as seen from Mars. In this image Jupiter is still larger than Earth, even though it is 800 Million miles further away. This is the same with the stars we see. Those which are brighter are often much further away [...]
Whats the (dark) matter?
Sure you hear about this stuff, but what is it and what's the problem? I heard on a podcast a simple explanation! As we look at our galaxy we know it spins... But what we don't know is why it doesn't fling stars out of the edges as it spins ( like the force you feel on a merry go round). You might imagine the force pushing stars away from the [...]
Life after Hubble?
I recently blogged that the absense of Hubble would leave a huge gap in astrophography which didn't seem likely to be filled anytime soon. NASA however just released this amazing photo of M31 (Andromeda galaxy to most of us) showing over 20,000 UV light sources.The image was taken by the SWIFT spacecraft which was launched in 2004. It is the [...]
A Swift view of Andromeda
A Swift view of Andromeda Posted using ShareThis
Rocky World COROT-7b Rains Rocks | Universe Today
Rocky World COROT-7b Rains Rocks | Universe Today Posted using ShareThis
Hubble – More Amazing pictures
So what are we going to do without Hubble? It may have been recently upgraded but it's not going to last forever.... and there is nothing, NOTHING planned to replace it's visible light telescope. These images are simply breathtaking. More images from http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0911b.html
Just how big is the universe? 78Billion Light years…
Getting some idea of just how big the universe is......
Andromeda Galaxy
In the quite distant future The Milky Way and The Andromeda galaxy will merge.