Bon Voyager

Easily one of the greatest projects to ever come from NASA is the Voyager Program. The idea for this mission sprouted in 1977 from the coincidental alignment of the outer Jovial planets. During this ideal time the outer planets of our solar system would be in linear proximity of each other, making for an opportunity to briefly visit each in one swing. The original plan was to send two probes, Voyager I and Voyager II, to flyby Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn's satellite moon Titan. These probes were not meant to make it home, only to send data and analysis of these planets. Voyager II was launched before it's counterpart to visit the Gas Giants while the Voyager I had a different trajectory to flyby Titan. 

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2

Upon successfully completing the mission the two were reassigned a new mission to explore Interstellar space, or in other words the reaches beyond our solar system. They have both left our system and are now famously the first human items to enter outer space.

Another astounding feature about these craft is their unique cargo. Both Voyagers carry a "gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth" called the Golden Record. This sub-program was installed aboard each craft with hopes to be a sort of time capsule for another being to find. The idea being that maybe in their dormant journey through Interstellar space, a future human or alien civilization might find and decode the messages within to see what the human experience once was. 

The Golden Record- the summary of life on Earth

By 2020, it is projected that the power in each unit will be too low to continue running scientific equipment and will slowly shut down the non-essentials and eventually the whole system. By 2025 the Voyagers are expected to be completely lost to space. Goodbye, dear Voyager program. Bon Voyage!

Dark Energy/Dark Matter

One extremely curious and slightly discouraging component of our knowledge of the universe is the existence of what is call Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Though we can't see or detect traces of either, leading theories suggest the universe is actually made more of these two than of regular matter. Humans, Earth, the Sun, our solar system, the Milky Way, and everything else is made up of elements, atoms, and cells that can be summarized as matter. All of this matter is thought to only make up about 5% of the universes total matter. The rest consists of about 25% Dark Matter and around 70% Dark Energy.

The only reason these two items are theorized is due to the apparent structure of the universe. Scientists have a hard time believing that the content of the universe-the stars, the galaxies-are all loosely bound by gravity from normal matter because it isn't strong enough. Without a structure, the stars might travel aimlessly through the universe, never clumping together to form any galaxies. So that is where scientists think something invisible that doesn't emit or reflect light comes into play and gives shape to the universe. 

Take a look at this video that illustrates and explains Dark Energy and Dark Matter in depth. Watch from beginning to 1:18 to learn the basics. Continue watching for additional information

Black Holes

Black Holes are a difficult topic to summarize. Many respected scientists have differing opinions over the function and existence of these natural mysteries. Because no human has ever been near a Black Hole we can only speculate based on our distant observations. There are varying theories but for the purpose of this blog, we will only worry about the more mainstream ideas.

A Black Hole is best known as a region in space with extremely strong gravity. The gravity is so strong that there is no way for objects that get too near to break away from its gravitational pull, not even light! The point where an object has come too close to break free from the gravitational grasp is known as the Event Horizon. This feature is thought to be the beginning of a pull so strong that even a beam on light shining out from the horizon can't escape, let alone a spacecraft or planet/star. It is popular belief that the pull gets ever-stronger the closer the object gets to the face of a Black Hole, otherwise known as the Singularity. This point represents the end of the line and the end of physics as we know it. Theories of beyond the Singularity range from talk of time and space traveling worm holes to fiery oblivion to even a religious heaven or limbo. The most taught speculation is that the end of the Black Hole is a fiery mass of nothingness that consumes endlessly. 

Check out my podcast over Black Holes for more information!

Black Holes Podcast

Try tuning to my podcast to learn something new about the terrors of the Universe: Black Holes. I briefly describe some theories about the origins and functions of Black Holes.

Photo: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/cygx1_ill.jpg

Universe and Company Slideshow

Please enjoy a short compilation of some of my favorite computer rendered and real photos of space:

World's Most Famous Telescopes

Take a peek at some  of the world's largest and greatest observatories! I encourage you as a reader to check out the Keck Observatories and how telescopes like these revolutionize the way we calculate distance, speed, and even age of distant objects.



For more Google Maps fun beyond our planet check out this awesome link and explore the Moon and Mars! google.com/maps/space/mars

NASA's New Spacesuit

In early November of 2015 NASA unveiled a new prototype for their new spacesuit, the Z-2.

This is the current prototype for the Z-2 spacesuit. Most likely subject to many changes between now and 2030!

This prototype will eventually be refined into a final version that will be used in the projected Mars missions in the 2030s. This design will likely influence newer models that will be used in other planetary explorations. Though it is still in the non-flight stage, the suit will feature a new technology that allows the Mars walkers to "dock" into a ship or terrestrial base which replaces the necessity for airlocks. Compared to the current models, this suit will also offer maximum flexibility for explorers to be able to get in and out of rovers, and retrieve samples and to top it off, a cool aesthetic design. The ideas and original designs for the suit were originally outsourced in a public poll last year. The original look has been tweaked and optimized to took "less like a Teletubby."

Our Great Neighbor

You may already know that the galaxy to which we belong is the Milky Way and that there are a limitless amount of galaxies in the observable universe. Though it may sound like a great distance, approximately 2.5 million light years away there exists our closest neighbor. The Great Andromeda Nebula, better known as the Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy just like our own. Our great neighbor is larger in size and mass.

One interesting aspect worth noting about Andromeda is its influence on the Milky Way. Scientists speculate that the gravitational pull of this galaxy and our own are close enough to influence each other. 

With this in mind, it has been measured that we are being redshifted (moving towards) to Andromeda. In theory, our two bodies will eventually collide and the Milky Way will be absorbed to form a new galaxy made of both.

FUN FACT! Leading astronomers believe that during the collision the stars within each galaxy are spread so far apart that few if any will directly impact the others. The Super Massive Black Holes in the center of each galaxy will crash into each other at accelerated speeds. 

This is what the Andromeda Galaxy would look like in the sky if it were much brighter.

Check out this short computer simulation of what the collision might look like!

String Theory

Particles as Strings as tiny vibrating strands of energy-strings

Strings are identified as having a mass and charge as well as wavelength and frequency.

Scaled to the universe from Earth, the strings are only as big as a tree.

Extra Dimensions of Space

• To allow for variety of properties particles and forces need to be vibrating in more than three dimensions.

Why Strings?

• Unification Theories
• Strings smooth out jittery structures and can work in both realms 

M-Theory 

• Strings can stretch into membranes (d-branes)
• with enough energy, a d-brane can be as large as a universe!
• The universe may be a d-brane floating in a higher dimension

News: Water Found on Mars

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has officially announced the existence of water on The Red Planet as of September 28, 2015. A few years back this had merely been speculated, however a recent reconnaissance of the planet as well as sand samples on-board the Curiosity rover have provided firm evidence of its existence. According to images produced by high powered spectrometers, the water contains extremely high concentrations of salts, and a mix of chlorates and perchlorates. This concoction is known to have a low freezing point, therefore can remain in a liquid state during Mars' summer with temperatures above -10 degrees Fahrenheit (F).  During winter on Mars when temperatures reach as low as -195 degrees F, the water freezes into pockets of ice like the glaziers that are believed to remain under the planet's surface.

This discovery goes beyond the excitement of the water. NASA's Jim Green says that "If you look at Earth, water is an essential ingredient. Wherever we find water, we find life." This theory is becoming widely embraced and recently the assumption has been made that because the water remains a sustainable liquid during the summers of Mars, that organic life can exist.

There's Water on Mars! Here's Everything You Need to Know

Though comical, this video explains many of the concepts of this new discovery and what they mean for humankind.

Crash Course in Optical Telescopes

Refraction

·         Forms an image using a lens

·         Light converges to from an image at the focus or focal point

·         Telescope use an objective lens to form a primary image

·         There are major limitations:

o    The scope has to be long and hold a large/heavy lens

o    Correct shape of the lens is crucial and must be perfect at all times

o    The support of the lens is on the edge of lens and can cause it to sag

o    Lenses suffer from CHROMATIC ABERRATION

§  Refraction is dispersive

§  Chromatic Aberration occurs when the dispersive nature of refraction blurs the original image

·         Would be okay for close objects, but not ideal from distance viewing

Refracting Telescope

Difference between Refracting and Reflecting

Reflecting

·         Uses a series of mirrors to transmit image to a focal point

·         Law of Reflection: Angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection

·         Must be CONCAVE mirrors

o    Receives light from range view

·         Telescope uses a primary mirror to form primary image

o    Kind of like WYSIWYG

·         Advantages of using this scope

o    Use of greater diameter which means more light can be collected

§  More light means more vivid, detailed image

o    One perfect reflecting surface

o    Supported anywhere behind the mirror

o    NO Chromatic Aberration

Sirius with and without light dispersion 

Diffraction

·         The bending of light around corners of edges

·         Longer wavelengths of light bend more than shorter wavelengths which results in issues for larger diffracting models

o    Splits light into its component wavelengths (the color spectrum)

o    Causes heavy dispersion

The Milky Way

If you’ve ever looked up at the night sky to see a clouded 
stripe run from one end of your observable horizon to the other, you are looking into the Milky Way galaxy. This spiral formation is your galactic home.

Milky Way Galaxy spiral arms and SMBH

Leading theories about the center of our average galaxy suggest that there exists a supermassive black-hole now named Sagittarius A shaped like a football. From the center we have drawn proof of four separate arms branching outward. The arms of the Milky Way consist of both population one and population two stars. Population one stars are blue in color because they are a younger, cooler formation. These stars are found along the inside of each arm and are a part of open cluster constructions. Population two stars are older and more red shifted in color. These round stars are found in globular clusters and are too hot to form new stars (void of star-forming material).

The Milky Way consists of approximately 200-400 billion stars across a one hundred thousand light-year diameter and six thousand light-year width. Our solar system is believed to be towards the end of a spiral arm that leaves us about 28 thousand light-years away from the center.

You are here Milky Way Galaxy

Pushing Our Bodies and Our Minds

TIME magazine recently published an article on September 15th covering a Twin Study done on the International Space Station (ISS). The study reports the effects of extended periods of space travel on the mind and body of a cosmonaut. Nobody knows these effects greater than astronaut Gennady Padalka, who is briefly described in the article as the new record holder for most days spend away from Earth—878 days over 5 missions!

Gennady Padalka

Check out the full article at http://time.com/4034666/space-body-mind/

Exploring Exoplanets

Exoplanets are planets that are beyond our solar system. Most of the exoplanets NASA is interested in are Earth sized and orbiting a sun-like star in the habitable zone, though the first few confirmed exoplanets were actually Jupiter sized. The habitable zone is the range of distance from the planet to its parent star where life is possible- not too close, and not too far. 

The exoplanets orbiting a sun-like star are the best candidates for becoming definitive planets because the magnetic field of these stars closely resemble the magnetic field of the sun which is strong enough to form a planet. More than 1,000 confirmed exoplanets have been discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope which reached orbit in 2009 and searched for these habitable planets for four years. It discovered these exoplanets by using the transit method which records how much a star's light dims when a planet passes in front of it. This helps determine whether the planet has the exoplanet qualities by showing us how big and how close to its planet star it is. The method used when the first Jupiter sized exoplanets were discovered is the radial velocity technique which detects how much a star "wobbles" when its planet orbits- the closer the planet is to the star, the more the star seems to wobble. Kepler has discovered a variety of planets from gas giants and terrestrial planets, to super-Earths which are planets between the size of Earth and Neptune and are also in the habitable zone. 

Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Telescope, named after Edwin Hubble, launched into low-Earth orbit in 1990, is indisputably one of the greatest technological advancements of our time. Without this 2.4 meter mirror working tirelessly every hour of every day, astronomers wouldn't be nearly as far along. Most famous for its ground breaking photo, Hubble Deep Field. Within the first week of its orbit, the telescope was able to reveal over 10,000 galaxies using long exposure through the humble reflector mirror. Today it has helped uncover over 10 billion galaxies in the visible universe as well as aided it providing evidence of the origins of the universe. It also has allowed scientist to find that the universe is ever expanding faster and faster and can determine the exact rate of expansion over a series of digital data it constantly collects. Being that it is the only telescope to be serviced in space by astronauts, the Hubble Space Telescope is one of the greatest assets that our soul-searching species owns. 

Hubble Deep Field

For more information and a better learning experience on the Hubble program as well as some interactive modules visit http://hubblesite.org/.

And It All Started With a Big Bang... BANG!

Well, not certainly. Some scientists would argue this misconception that The Big Bang actually had a big bang. The leading theory is that it was not an explosion, but a very quick expansion. Space and Time are the fabrics of the universe and did not occur in any one place or at any one time, but it happened everywhere all at once. Think of the universe as a big balloon being inflated. Consider the Earth, our galaxy, and the billions of other stars and galaxies to be on the skin of the balloon. If you choose a point on the surface, you'll notice the rest of the rubber stretches further away with every inflating breath.

CMB

 With advanced technology, we have been able to pinpoint--what we think--is an exact period of time and direction in which the creation and formation of our universe took place. This time period is believed to be in between 1.0x10^-43 of a second and 1.0x10^-36 of a second.  Astronomers can measure this time frame through the bread crumbs left behind by the expansion. Namely, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) which is leftover thermal radiation. This radiation is observed in every direction we look as long as we have the right equipment. So where did all of this energy and material come from in such a rapid amount of time? Though we can't be sure, many turn to multiverse theories for answers.

Formation of a Planet

Planets begin forming from clouds of dust and gas that are floating around after the collapse of a molecular cloud called a solar nebula. A few of the more freely floating materials clumped together, form a primitive meteorite called a chondrite. These chondrules then attract other grains from the solar nebula based on magnitude which creates an asteroid. This process continues as the asteroid gets pulled into the Main Belt and begins to take repeated hits by other asteroids which attach to the original asteroid and begin to form a complete planet. This process ultimately takes 500-700 million years to complete.

Multiverse Theories

There are many controversial theories describing the idea of parallel universes.
One theory of multiverse states that somewhere out there is another planet just like Earth, but we are unable to see it because our cosmic sight is limited by the speed of light. We can only see within our Hubble volume which represents our observable universe.

Another leading theory theory is that the space between other possible universes is infinitely expanding, making it impossible to ever reach. There are two sub-theories to this; the first being eternal inflation which states that in this infinitely expanding space, an infinite number of universes is created. The second sub-theory is the Ekpyrotic theory which goes even further and states that two universes collide in multiple locations, creating multiple universes at one time rather than one separate universe within so much space. Think of each universe as a battery and each has a different charge. When the walls of these branes collide, they give and take a bit (or maybe even all) of the energy from the other. This quick transfer of energy and mass is one of the leading theories because many believe this is where the Big Bang came from, a collision.

Two Branes Colliding

An unpopular theory states there are many separate but coexisting universes which affect each other. For example, my decision right now changes the life of myself in a different world. Theorists use this method to try and explain spontaneous quantum behaviors.

In 1995, a man named Edward Witten postulated that different universes existed neatly stacked on separate planes of dimension based on the brane sizes of the universes. He described our's as a brane-3 and we exist in a dimension called "the bulk", and only other brane-3 sized universes can exist in this sub-realm.

Neatly Stacked Branes

Light:The Instrument of Astronomy

Understanding how light works for and against us is crucial when observing the universe. Of course we need light to see, but did you know we use it in other ways? Because light can vary in wavelength and energy we use its assorted state to gather information like temperature, rotation speed, emission and absorption lines (shift in distance), and more. This is done using a method called spectroscopy.


Before getting excited about the numerous wonders of the visible universe, please take the age of light into consideration. When you look up at the night sky to see the stars, every bit of light you observe is not a current representation of how the source looks. What you are looking at is light from the past. A light-year is a unit of distance (not time) used to determine how far light travels in one year which happens to be about 6 trillion miles. If a star is 190,000 light-years away, and you observe it from Earth, you are actually seeing the light it emitted 190,000 years ago. So, it is safe to say that just because we see an object now does not mean it still exists in the present state. Until scientist discover how to travel at the speed of light, everything outside of our galaxy is impossible to reach. According to universetoday.com, the closest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri at 4.24 light-years away.

Keep this rule in mind as we explore other topics throughout the blog.

This video outlines the concept, composition, and nature of light. Phil explains how we see and don't see light. 

Let's Space Out Together

Hello readers,
My name is Dustin and this is my first time blogging. I am a third year undergraduate studying Mass Media Public Relations at Washburn University. 

The topic of this blog will be outer space and the leading theories or facts on some of the most puzzling phenomena and observations across the visible universe. While I have you here I hope to at least give you one fun fact that you can share with others across the galaxy (or maybe just the dinner table).  For millennia mankind has looked to the twilight sky in awe of the wonders we have discovered and what we can only hypothesize. A few disputed topics such as Multiverse Theory, Black Holes, and possible habitable Exoplanets and a many others will be included. If the mysteries of the universe intrigue you, then gravitate towards my expository postings and PLEASE feel free to leave comments!

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert in astronomy and at no point should you assume that these ideas are entirely my own. 
I have taken multiple courses of study in the field. My posts are subject to my interpretation of modern theories and should not be considered stone cold facts. I am simply a passionate enthusiast. Astronomy has interested me to no end for as long as I can remember and I hope you enjoy learning about the world beyond our world as much as I do!