Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Black Hole: A simple definition!

What an immensely awesome thing. A black hole holds a great deal of mystery behind it. When you think of a black hole, you may think of a giant hole in space, but that isn't always the case. Scientist believe the smallest black hole can be the size of an atom. A single atom if you are unaware is smaller than you can see. A recent hypothesis( a guess that needs much more evidence) has brought up the idea of black holes even being on our own planet Earth.

There are 3 kinds of black holes that we know of. The small ones i was describing which are believed to have been created the same time everything else around it was created. There is a mid range black hole that gets shot off into space sometimes when a planet dies. The super massive black holes are thought to have been created at the time of creation and are usually found in the middle of a galaxy. We have one at the center of out milky way galaxy. Don't worry, we wont get sucked in. We are too far out in its spiral to fall victim to its power.

If there were black holes on our Earth, why cant we see them? Well thats a great point but the weird part of black holes is that you cant see them at all. You can only ever see what is circiling it from its pull. The gravitational pull is so strong in a black hole that not even light can escape. This makes them themselves completely invisible.

Black Holes are extremely small in relation to their mass which of course is massive. This is what creates the powerful gravitational force that they exhibit.

So what is on the other side? We dont know. There is an assumption that just as there are black holes, that there are also white holes where the matter comes back out. Wouldn't that be a trip?

Titan: The Moon of Saturn


        Titan is one of the most interesting space entities in our solar system. What makes this awesome named thing so awesome? Well its the fact of its thick orange atmosphere that first aroused interest. Whenever scientist see things and not what its made up of, it seems to annoy us. So what did we do? We sent a probe, which shot off of another satellite who was gathering information around the area with a special interest in Titan. 

        Titan has an atmosphere however it is not a planet. It orbits Saturn and offers the possibilities of life in the future? How do we know this. Well we don’t but the probability is more than any other place besides earth in this solar system. That probe gathered information on what titan held beneath its atmosphere. We found that it had oceans of methane and it rained. We also know that the conditions on the planet are far to hostile to life as we know it. This doesn’t mean much as we have recently been broadening our views on how life works.

        Another experiment was done to see if using the compounds and elements on the planet could form life in its setting and the results proved true. The compounds that formed life on this planet began to form. That is exciting news. Maybe life in the universe isn’t as rare as we thought. To think there are so many suns all with a life zone and planet surrounding them, and we have came close to finding the same things that started life here, right beside us. Everything so far we’ve noticed has been a random scattering of different things. If we find it so close, the chances of it being many places exist.


Titan's Discovery:

when: It was discovered on March 25th, 1655
who: A Dutch astronomer by the name of Christiaan Huygens. (the probe was named after him)

The name Titan comes from a legend that tells the story of Zeus's sons who were killed by the titans. Zeus was angry and struck them down. The lighting burned them to ashes and man was created from these ashes.

Can we live there?
Unfortunately we can't. The moon of Saturn is far to cold for humans. It lies outside of the life zone . It also is known to have far more smog gases and can rain down gas like substances.

Stats:
equatorial radius: 2575 km or 1600 miles
It is the biggest of the 53 known moons orbiting Saturn. (even bigger than our own)
The surface of Titan is about -289 degrees Fahrenheit pr -178 degrees Celsius
Titans orbit around Saturn last around 16 days and is 1.2 million kilometers long

Friday, April 13, 2012

A Tribute to Orion

Orion is one of the most known of the constellations. Its distinguished primarily by the belt which are 3 bright stars in a row. Around the belt are four more stars that signify the body of Orion. Another lightly visible string of 3 stars is the sword hanging from the belt. 7 of the stars are believed to have planets. Of course the easiest way to locate the constellation is to look for the belt. Orion resides along the celestial equator.


Funny, I never imagined it like this. 


This is truly one of my favorite photographs of all time from space! 


Stars:
Rigel- 6th brightest star in the night sky. Will soon go supernova or white dwarf.
BetelGeuse- right shoulder of the hunter and is close to becoming supernova
Bellatrix
Mintaka
Alnilam- aprox 1340 lightyears from earth making the belt around that distance
Alnitak
Saiph


Orion is recognized in many world cultures and there are many different beliefs involving it from a wide variety of cultures.