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

The Largest Ever 3D Map of the Universe

Fly through the latest release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, with images of 200 million galaxies. The spectra and motion collected in this ongoing project, which released this latest data this week, are like a lens into the early days of our universe.

Don’t feel small, feel special! That we can know so much about something so immense … that is truly amazing. 

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

Skylights

Tell ya what … today is just going to be home to a time-lapse trifecta, okay? Especially with all the Jonah Lehrer stress from earlier. I think we all need a chill-out moment. 

NASA’s first images from Mercury and Gemini came this morning, then a gorgeous tour through the night skies as seen from the ISS. Now Knate Myers (who did the ISS video) has just posted this tour through the stars and sights of New Mexico.

Because of its low population density and minimal light pollution, New Mexico is a skywatcher’s paradise. Much of this video was shot at the Very Large Array, a field of radio telescopes in the middle of the state. Close to 6,000 photos went into this collection, and every one of them is a work of art. I especially like the part about halfway through where he turns off the rotation tracking equipment that follows the stars’ paths during the long exposures, and we get to see the trails extend across the heavens in concentric arcs.

HD, full scrizzle, have a great evening y’all!

Source: vimeo.com

project-argus: NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born (Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here) If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):  As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble. To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
Zoom Info
project-argus: NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born (Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here) If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):  As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble. To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
Zoom Info
project-argus: NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born (Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here) If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):  As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble. To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
Zoom Info
project-argus: NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born (Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here) If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):  As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble. To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
Zoom Info
project-argus: NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born (Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here) If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):  As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble. To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
Zoom Info
project-argus: NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born (Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here) If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):  As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble. To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
Zoom Info

project-argus:

NPR: Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born

(Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here)

If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes): 

As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble.

To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.

Sphere of Stars A visualization of the constellations in a three dimensional shell Our place in the universe is nothing special, physically speaking. We’re in the outer realm of an arm of a fairly average galaxy, and thanks to our particular location in space we are given a very particular perspective on all our stellar neighbors. As we stare into the night sky, the stars above us appear as if painted on a dark canvas, this one next to this one, a little bigger, a little brighter than that one. And like dots on a page, humans have projected images onto those patterns, called constellations. But of course the stars are not painted on a canvas. They are near and far, a spattering of spheres in a three-dimensional web (which we explored a couple weeks ago in this awesome 3-D constellation visualization). If you ever need an argument against astrology, it’s that Earth’s place in the universe is no more special than any other planet’s, likewise with the pattern of dots we see in the sky. Santiago Ortiz has created the interactive model above of the constellations as if they were painted on a sphere surrounding Earth. I recommend checking it out (can you identify any constellations?). Is this what it would be like if the universe were The Truman Show? Is this what it would be like if there were gods looking in on us? (via Co.Design)
Zoom Info
Sphere of Stars A visualization of the constellations in a three dimensional shell Our place in the universe is nothing special, physically speaking. We’re in the outer realm of an arm of a fairly average galaxy, and thanks to our particular location in space we are given a very particular perspective on all our stellar neighbors. As we stare into the night sky, the stars above us appear as if painted on a dark canvas, this one next to this one, a little bigger, a little brighter than that one. And like dots on a page, humans have projected images onto those patterns, called constellations. But of course the stars are not painted on a canvas. They are near and far, a spattering of spheres in a three-dimensional web (which we explored a couple weeks ago in this awesome 3-D constellation visualization). If you ever need an argument against astrology, it’s that Earth’s place in the universe is no more special than any other planet’s, likewise with the pattern of dots we see in the sky. Santiago Ortiz has created the interactive model above of the constellations as if they were painted on a sphere surrounding Earth. I recommend checking it out (can you identify any constellations?). Is this what it would be like if the universe were The Truman Show? Is this what it would be like if there were gods looking in on us? (via Co.Design)
Zoom Info
Sphere of Stars A visualization of the constellations in a three dimensional shell Our place in the universe is nothing special, physically speaking. We’re in the outer realm of an arm of a fairly average galaxy, and thanks to our particular location in space we are given a very particular perspective on all our stellar neighbors. As we stare into the night sky, the stars above us appear as if painted on a dark canvas, this one next to this one, a little bigger, a little brighter than that one. And like dots on a page, humans have projected images onto those patterns, called constellations. But of course the stars are not painted on a canvas. They are near and far, a spattering of spheres in a three-dimensional web (which we explored a couple weeks ago in this awesome 3-D constellation visualization). If you ever need an argument against astrology, it’s that Earth’s place in the universe is no more special than any other planet’s, likewise with the pattern of dots we see in the sky. Santiago Ortiz has created the interactive model above of the constellations as if they were painted on a sphere surrounding Earth. I recommend checking it out (can you identify any constellations?). Is this what it would be like if the universe were The Truman Show? Is this what it would be like if there were gods looking in on us? (via Co.Design)
Zoom Info

Sphere of Stars

A visualization of the constellations in a three dimensional shell

Our place in the universe is nothing special, physically speaking. We’re in the outer realm of an arm of a fairly average galaxy, and thanks to our particular location in space we are given a very particular perspective on all our stellar neighbors.

As we stare into the night sky, the stars above us appear as if painted on a dark canvas, this one next to this one, a little bigger, a little brighter than that one. And like dots on a page, humans have projected images onto those patterns, called constellations. But of course the stars are not painted on a canvas. They are near and far, a spattering of spheres in a three-dimensional web (which we explored a couple weeks ago in this awesome 3-D constellation visualization). If you ever need an argument against astrology, it’s that Earth’s place in the universe is no more special than any other planet’s, likewise with the pattern of dots we see in the sky.

Santiago Ortiz has created the interactive model above of the constellations as if they were painted on a sphere surrounding Earth. I recommend checking it out (can you identify any constellations?). Is this what it would be like if the universe were The Truman Show? Is this what it would be like if there were gods looking in on us?

(via Co.Design)

Close To Home Explore the stars of the zodiac constellations, and their neighbors, in an interactive model of near space! Zoom from Earth outward and see the position and distance of those celestial bodies as they reside in three-dimensional space. It’s sort of like flying a spaceship through your web browser. Of course, it’s the height of humanity’s hubris to assume that our particular perspective on the stars and the shapes we assign to them allow us any particularly special place in the universe. But they sure are pretty to look at :) Visit the fully interactive version here. (via Kirstin Butler)
Zoom Info
Close To Home Explore the stars of the zodiac constellations, and their neighbors, in an interactive model of near space! Zoom from Earth outward and see the position and distance of those celestial bodies as they reside in three-dimensional space. It’s sort of like flying a spaceship through your web browser. Of course, it’s the height of humanity’s hubris to assume that our particular perspective on the stars and the shapes we assign to them allow us any particularly special place in the universe. But they sure are pretty to look at :) Visit the fully interactive version here. (via Kirstin Butler)
Zoom Info

Close To Home

Explore the stars of the zodiac constellations, and their neighbors, in an interactive model of near space! Zoom from Earth outward and see the position and distance of those celestial bodies as they reside in three-dimensional space. It’s sort of like flying a spaceship through your web browser.

Of course, it’s the height of humanity’s hubris to assume that our particular perspective on the stars and the shapes we assign to them allow us any particularly special place in the universe. But they sure are pretty to look at :)

Visit the fully interactive version here.

(via Kirstin Butler)

Night Skies

Oh. My. Goodness.

We know about my weakness for time-lapse videos of beautiful stuff. This is just feeding the beast.

These are some star shots captured on a road trip by a time-lapse production company called T-Recs. I love how they blend views of long, threadlike star trails with detailed (labeled!) shots of pinpoint stars across the cosmic canvas. 

Have you ever seen shooting star paths so dramatic? And the scene with the reflection on the car windshield … that’s one I’ve never seen before. Bravo.

HD, full-screen, speakers up, sense of awe at the ready … you know how we do things.

(by T-Recs)

Source: vimeo.com

theatlantic:

theatlanticvideo:

A Breathtaking Time-Lapse Portrait of the Sky Over Yosemite

Photographer Shawn Reeder spent two years documenting the natural beauty of the national park for this four-minute escape.

Gorgeous.

I think this will do just fine for our Friday time-lapse relaxation session, don’t you? As always, I recommend setting your “Ooohs and Aaahs” to about 9.6 and engaging full-screen HD.

Source: The Atlantic