How About That?
PodcAstroholic – What is dark energy?
We explain what dark energy is in only 60 seconds.
Alfredo Carpineti
Podcastroholic
PodcAstroholic – What is dark matter?
We explain what dark matter is in only 60 seconds.
How About That?
Leaving The Universe Behind
If the known universe was spherical would it be possible to move outside of it the same way a rocket can leave the Earth? Justin, New Zealand Oh that’s an interesting question. Could it be possible to leave our Universe? Probably not, but you don’t ask exactly that. You picked a specific universe.
Astronomy
The Astroholic Live – Proxima b, Warp Drive & Alzheimer’s cure
Another episode of the Astroholic Live. This time we answer many plausible and implausible questions, and comment on the latest news from Astronomy and Medicine
Astronomy
A ‘Van Gogh View’ Of The Polaris Flare
Space images can often be breathtaking and the night sky has often inspired artists to produce incredible masterpieces. Sometimes even the way astronomers represent data can be both scientifically and artistically stunning. Case in point is the polarization map released by the Planck Collaboratio...
Journal Club
Interstellar Travel Meets The Real Universe
Interstellar travel is about to go from a Sci-fi idea to physical reality, but the jump comes with a series of considerations that fiction writers don’t have to consider. This could work as an introduction for the apparent lack of toilets in Star Trek, but it’s actually something else. You see, s...
Journal Club
Testing Relativity With Nothing
There are two big problems with astrophysics, and they are called dark energy and dark matter. Dark energy is responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Dark matter keeps the galaxies together, and we think it’s made of particles which don’t emit any light. We don’t know exactly w...
How About That?
A Ghostly Cradle Of Stars
If you wonder where we came from and how we got here, there’s a step we are quite confident on. About 5 billions of years ago, before the Sun shone a single ray all the atoms you are made of were part of a large gas cloud like the one in the picture. The object […]
Cepheid Variables
There’s a lack of young stars around the core of the Milky Way
According to a new study, a major revision of the Milky Way is necessary. A team of Japanese, South African and Italian astronomers has discovered a large region of our galaxy which lacks any young stars. In a research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the resea...
Spiral Galaxy
A Galaxy Interaction That Deceives The Eyes
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photograph is one of my favourite images of interacting galaxies, but it’s actually a bit of a cheat. The galaxies are not interacting at all. The galaxies are simply in a chance alignment from our vantage point, and that’s how Hubble was able to produce such ...
Galaxy Merger
Mergers in G-Major
There has been a surprising affinity between astronomy and music. Both needed the inspiration of the muses to be performed in Ancient Greece, and expressions like the Music of the Spheres just shows the profound link between these two realms of human genius. In space, nobody can hear you scream, ...
Star
See A Baby Star Hatching From Its Birth Cloud
A new-born star cloaked in a golden veil stands starkly against the black filament of the Circinus cloud. While it might sound like the beginning of a fantasy novel, this is simply the description of this spectacular Hubble Image The Space Telescope caught a phenomenal view of a young star, IRAS ...