Zooming in on Hercules … Don’t Feel Small!

You would be forgiven, after watching a video like this, for feeling small. As we fly through the deep universe, zooming in on ever expanding numbers of stars, spawning more points of light where before there was empty space … we begin to get a sense of just how big it all really is.

But then we arrive at our destination, beautiful jets of stellar gas spewing from the center of a supermassive black hole in Hercules A. And in that moment, you are looking at the same forces that seeded the universe to create our own planet. It is a moment long in the past, its electromagnetic fingerprint reaching us two billion years after it left home. This collapsed star supplied the atoms to create untold stars and worlds, perhaps in the neighboring galaxies dwarfed by the stellar plumes.

A star just like it supplied the atoms that made us.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson reminded us when he told the story of the most astounding fact in the universe, this image should make us feel tall … not small.

(via NASA/Goddard on Flickr, and one of the coolest things I’ve seen all week)

staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
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staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
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staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Illustrations by Moonrunner About Moonrunner: Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen. Click on the images to see what they represent. That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 
Zoom Info

staceythinx:

Illustrations by Moonrunner

About Moonrunner:

Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen.

Click on the images to see what they represent.

That’s what I call some serious astro-illustration. Be sure to click on the photos above to check out the explanations in the slide show. 

The Sound of a Dying Star

The electromagnetic frequencies of a dying Sun-sized star were analyzed and converted to audible tones using advanced software tools. This is what it sounds like for a celestial body to be torn apart by a black hole. Kind of. You know … converted, since sound waves don’t travel in space.

A nice feature, and fantastic explanation, from CNN Radio.

Source: SoundCloud / CNN

hellosantiago asked you: Since time doesn’t exist inside of a black hole, would something still age inside of one? Considering that “age” is a property of living things (I mean, think about it … it’s the distance in time since something came into being, which for the universe is pretty irrelevant, but for you and me is pretty freaking important), we’ll have to assume that something would stay alive inside of a black hole. Which, considering the gravity, is impossible. But let’s ignore that for a second. In a biological sense, “aging” is really the modification of certain processes. Your cell division slows, you accumulate mutations, your telomeres shorten, your skin and hair become less elastic and start disobeying laws of physics all on their own. So if something was still alive inside of a black hole (which it wouldn’t be) and its biological processes were still carried out (which they wouldn’t be), then I argue that they would still age. Of course, none of this is remotely realistic, so I will stop. But go ahead and have that deep, Saturday night conversation about whether aging is dependent on time or just coincidental … I think now is a good time for an Aaliyah video:
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hellosantiago asked you:
Since time doesn’t exist inside of a black hole, would something still age inside of one?
Considering that “age” is a property of living things (I mean, think about it … it’s the distance in time since something came into being, which for the universe is pretty irrelevant, but for you and me is pretty freaking important), we’ll have to assume that something would stay alive inside of a black hole. Which, considering the gravity, is impossible. But let’s ignore that for a second. In a biological sense, “aging” is really the modification of certain processes. Your cell division slows, you accumulate mutations, your telomeres shorten, your skin and hair become less elastic and start disobeying laws of physics all on their own. So if something was still alive inside of a black hole (which it wouldn’t be) and its biological processes were still carried out (which they wouldn’t be), then I argue that they would still age.

Of course, none of this is remotely realistic, so I will stop. But go ahead and have that deep, Saturday night conversation about whether aging is dependent on time or just coincidental …

I think now is a good time for an Aaliyah video:


Two huge-normous supermassive black holes found

They are about two thousand times larger than the black hole at the center of our galaxy, and about ten billion times the mass of the sun. Theory has long pointed to the existence of these big suckers (get it?) in the early universe and now we have the observations to prove they are real.

It even comes with its own soundtrack (see what I did with the video? I’m on fire today!)

Watch an interview with the astronomers who made the discovery here.

(via Gemini Observatory)

Source: gemini.edu