GIANT SPACE HAND!

This is a picture of a giant space hand....I kid you not! Actually, I am kidding. HAHA, gotcha! This is really the nebula PSR B1509-58, which is created from a pulsar. But we all know pulsars are neutron stars that just so happen to be in our line of sight. What causes the pulses of high energy is a misalignment of the rotation axis and the magnetic axis (according to NASA and I'm one to believe they get their definitions right). This pulsar spins SEVEN times a second! And it's twelve miles across. It may be small but don't underestimate its POWAH!! That's "power" but said in an epic voice.

Strong magnetic fields, 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field, are thought to be involved, too. The combination drives an energetic wind of electrons and ions away from the dying star. As the electrons move through the magnetized nebula, they radiate away their energy as X-rays.

The red stuff is a neighboring gas cloud. I think it looks like a twinkie. A GIANT SPACE TWINKIE! Which is good. It matches the giant space hand. I dare you to check out the article! http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090405/sc_space/cosmichandreachesforthelight

Lulin the Comet is Coming!!!!

February 24 is a VERY special day! Lulin the Comet will be visible to the naked eye.... and it's GREEN! Of course, the only reason it's green is because of its noxious atmosphere which oh so happens to be comprised of cyanogen and diatomic carbon gases. Ooooo, that even sounds poisonous. Sometimes poisons have really deceiving names, like Happy Gas.... it lulls you into a false sense of security and BAM! Death by Happy. And you never see it coming. Any who, this is the comet's first visit into the inner solar system, so lets give it a big warm hug. And also a big thanks to the Swift telescope, which took X-ray and UV pictures of the comet.

They are using NASA's Swift satellite to monitor Comet Lulin as it closes on Earth. The spacecraft has recorded simultaneous ultraviolet and X-ray images of a comet.On Jan. 28, Swift trained its Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope and X-Ray Telescope on Comet Lulin. "The comet is quite active," said team member Dennis Bodewits, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. "The UVOT data show that Lulin was shedding nearly 800 gallons of water each second." That's enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than 15 minutes.

And here's one more interesting tid bit about comets. Their tails always point away from the sun. Light actually exerts pressure, and this light pressure from the sun pushes all comets' tails away. So the tail of a comet can actually be in front of it. And to read about more interesting facts (and they are VERY interesting) here is the link to the article :)

Science Lesson 101

Okay, this absolutely astounded me. After watching this video I no longer have any faith in the human race. In fact, it's been a few good hours since I first watched it and I am STILL flabbergasted.... and I don't get flabbergasted often. So we are going to have a little education about rainbows. Contrary to unpopular belief, rainbows are actually caused by the Sun's light refracting off the surface of a raindrop, reflected off the back of it, and then finally refracted again as it leaves the raindrop. All raindrops reflect light in this way, but we only see a rainbow when the Sun appears to be behind the rainbow. Chemically induced rainbows.............. I don't even have anything to say about that O.O

Solar Eclipse!!

Listen up peeps! There is going to be a solar eclipse on August 1st! This is the first one we've had in two years, so it's a big deal!! However, there is one teeny tiny flaw to the whole thing..... you won't be able to see it in Florida. At all. But at least none of the other states will get to see it either, so HA! But if you happen to live WAAAAY up north then you are now the object of my envy. I'm turning green..... sooooo green.
And here's a video of a solar eclipse seen from NASA's STEREO spacecraft, which is a pretty nifty view, not going to lie.
Full link to article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080725/sc_space/viewersguideaug1solareclipse

Jupiter Had a Baby!

Okay, not literally, but it's close enough. It's actually a baby red spot!! It's adorable and I've named him Jr. So that's it in the picture and it is soooooo cute!!! Unfortunately it didn't quite make it all the way around the giant red spot, but it still gets an E for Effort.

Earth Songs!

This is the sound that Earth makes and that aliens and whatnot could hear if they really wanted to. This lovely sound is created when charged solar particles slam into our magnetic field. Luckily for us, our ionsphere blocks this from actually reaching us. And this is amazingly good because this sound is a radio wave that oh so happens to be 10,000 times stronger than anything that we've got and that would totally explode our radio stations.... which might be fun to watch but what are you supposed to listen to when you are driving?

Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights.

And here's the full article, which will not link once again. We are seriously getting very friendly with mister cut and paste. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080701-st-earth-sounds.html

Doomsday is Nigh!

Just kidding! :P But according to some people, it really is and via CERN's Large Hadron Collider, wich smashes protons and whatnot together. So these naysayers have tried to bring a lawsuit against CERN for possible world destruction. They seem to think that micro black holes will form instantly and destroy the Earth or that hypothetical particles that haven't actually been found to exist yet will pop out and say, "HEY GUYS IMMA GONNA KEEL YOU!" But whatev, cause my hero Stephen Hawking says that everything is all okay and since he is super crazy smart I am going to believe him on this.

Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.

So read the whole article for deliciousness: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080628/ap_on_re_eu/doomsday_collider