NASA’s NuSTAR will use its X-ray eyes to scout for hidden black holes in the universe.
My little brother got into outer space and stuff so my step-mom bought him a place mat with all the planets on it. When I first saw it, I was upset, because it was newer and so Pluto wasn’t labeled. I was about to say something when I noticed something…
Pluto is there.
The artist remembered Pluto.
Guys…
The artist drew Pluto crying.
lol Pluto. XD
(Source: rubywhiterabbit)
Fun fact about me: my favourite animal as a child was ze bunny. I had a toy bunny called ‘Bunny’, I still have him/her/it (I was never quite sure) today. (Actually, on that point, I will now think of Bunny as being genderqueer :3) I might put up a photo of Bunny one day :)
(Source: all-those-fairy-tales-cametrue)
Some perspective
Light travels at a speed of 299,792,458 metres per second exactly. No matter how fast you, or the light source is traveling, go try measuring it and you’ll find that this is exactly the case.
At this speed, it takes light:
- 18 milliseconds to travel between London and New York
- 0.13 seconds to circumnavigate the equator of the Earth
- 1.4 seconds to travel to us from the Moon
- 8.4 minutes to travel from the Sun
- 4.15 hours to travel from the Sun to Neptune, the most remote planet in the Solar System
- 17 hours to travel to the current location of Voyager 1, the farthest man made object from Earth
- ~0.8 years to travel from us to the Oort Cloud, a hypothesised spherical cloud of icy comets centered around the Sun, which marks the boundary of the solar system
- 4.2 years to travel to us from Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Sun.
- 1,100 years to travel to us from the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way
- 100,000 years to travel across the whole disc of the galaxy itself
- 2.5 million years to travel to us from the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest neighbour
- 110 million years to travel across the Virgo Supercluster, our small, local little corner of the universe
After this it stops making sense to say “a distance x”, as the expansion of the universe warps our perception of distance on these immense timescales. Therefore, when you hear radio static, 1% of that is said not to originate from a place, but rather a time, roughly 13.5 billion years ago - the cosmic microwave background from the time of recombination at the dawn of the universe.
TL;DR: The universe is big.
(Photo: pretendy)
A boy left his bike chained to a tree when he went away to war in 1914. He never returned, leaving the tree no choice but to grow around the bike.
O.O
(Source: saltykisses)
The Most Astounding Fact by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” This is his answer.
When you take something great, like the musings of the mind of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, and combine it with something else great, like stunning images of life and wonder on and off of Earth … you get this.
It’s the sort of video that makes you prop your chin up in your hand, with your head tilted just so (yeah, like that), as you stare at your computer screen mumbling things like “Ahhh“ and “Wooahh” and other unintelligible noises that mean “I approve of this, and it makes me feel good.”
Watch it once, then twice, then with a friend.
Top Ten Infrared Space Pictures
1. Helix Nebula. A newly expanded image of the Helix Nebula (pictured) is one of the ten infrared pictures chosen by scientists to celebrate the thousand days that the Spitzer Space Telescope has been working past its retirement date. Image courtesy J. Hora, HSCfA, W. Latter, Herschel, and Caltech/NASA
2. Mountains of Creation. An infrared photograph of the star-forming region W5, aka the Mountains of Creation (pictured), was taken before Spitzer’s coolant ran out. Image courtesy L. Allen, HSCfA, and Caltech/NASA
3. See-Through Sombrero. At visible wavelengths, the Sombrero galaxy is a fuzzy white ball encircled by a black-rimmed ring of dust. Yet in infrared (pictured), the dust glows with splendor. Image courtesy R. Kennicutt, U. Arizona, and Caltech/NASA
4. Cygnus Constellation. This close-up of the Cygnus constellation was the very first picture taken after Spitzer ran out of coolant in 2009. Image courtesy Caltech/NASA
5. Trifid Nebula. One of the more striking objects in the visible-light sky is the Trifid Nebula.Image courtesy J. Rho, SSC/Caltech/NASA
6. Ancient Galaxies. Spitzer is widely known for its see-through views of nebulae, the Milky Way, and nearby galaxies, but it was also designed to peer back in time-possible because of the time it takes light to travel from distant objects to reach Earth. Image Courtesy Spitzer Space Telescope
