Astronomy
How hot or not is a Black Hole?
Short Answer - the temperature of a black hole is inversely proportional to its mass. For a black hole with the same mass as our Sun the temperature is 60 billionths of a degree kelvin.
Latest
How About That?
Why does Iapetus have two colours?
Iapetus is the third largest satellite of Saturn, and it is the largest object in the solar system not in hydrostatic equilibrium. Iapetus is a moon of Saturn known for its colour dichotomy. It has a dark side and white side, and it is often called the Yin Yang moon.
How About That?
What makes the worlds seem round?
Are Mimas and Miranda the smallest known objects in hydrostatic equilibrium? Dan – London This question relates to the shape of astrophysical objects and as we discussed in the past, it’s an important characteristic of stars, and it’s in the definition of “planet”.
The Hubble Ultra-deep field
25ml Vodka 25ml Blue Curacao 25ml Grenadine 25ml blueberry juice 25ml lime juice Edible silver glitter Ice. Recipe Mix all the ingredient in a blender. Blend until ice is crushed. Serve in a martini glass.
AstroNews
Probing the furthest Universe to understand how spiral galaxies formed.
A new paper accepted for publication this month has highlighted how spiral galaxies came to form in the early Universe. By using the power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team lead by Roberto Maiolino has individuated the mechanism through which galaxies gather stell...
Astronomy
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: the woman who discovered what the Universe is made of.
In this vlog, I talk about Prof. Payne-Gaposchkin, one the most important astronomers of the 20th Century. Thanks to her we know that stars are not made by the same elements as the Earth, and that Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe.
Exoplanet
The first terrestrial exoplanet around a star visible to the naked eye
In the almost 20 years since the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, we have gone from thinking that planets are a cosmic curiosity to a common feature of the Universe. The race is on to find a true Earth twin, to measure an exoplanet atmosphere or, when the James Webb...
AstroNews
The Very Hungry Supermassive Black Hole
We all get the munchies, but when you’re a supermassive black hole (SMBH) your hunger might have dire consequences. And just like that an SMBH has outgrown its galaxy and jumped to the top of the heavyweight objects in the universe.
AstroNews
Lord of the Rings distance pinpointed
As I mentioned in a previous post, there are a few ways to measure the distance of a star in our galaxy. Unfortunately when the Luminosity is unknown and it is too far away to use parallaxes method, we are stumped for ways to estimate the distance.
AstroNews
Everything you need to know about Pluto before the New Horizon fly-by
Pluto, not to be confused with Micky Mouse’s dog, is going to be in the news a lot soon, as we are finally going to take a closer look to the elusive dwarf planet. Pluto Stats: Discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on the 18th of February 1930, it is smaller than our Moon with a 1184 […]
Luminosity
How do we know how massive stars are?
As we discussed in the previous vlog our understanding of stars is still incomplete, but there are areas which we are very confident on what we know.
Astronomy
I’m the Universe, hear me roar.
The cosmos has plenty of terrifying Lovecraftian features, but one of my favourites is the Space Roar.