Browsing Archive: February, 2016

Cosmic Bubbles

Posted by on Monday, February 29, 2016,

A few days ago I was chatting with some physics students online, as I often do, and one of the students asked me if there were any well motivated theories for why the laws of physics in our Universe should happen to be just right to support life. In fact there are many very good theories on this point, ranging from landscape theories in the multiverse, to a Universe that evolves baby Universes through the formation of black holes, and through to very speculative ideas that have been put forth...
Continue reading ...

Not The Ninth Planet

Posted by on Thursday, February 25, 2016, In : Astronomy

I feel that I must being this article with a disclaimer. Although I usually try to keep my science news articles neutral, some of the comments in this particular article should be considered more of an opinion piece on the silliness of certain definitions in astronomy. Those who only wish more serious, formal articles might want to skip this one...

By now even the most casual of astronomy fans will have heard the reports that astronomers believe they have discovered the ninth planet in the sol...
Continue reading ...

The Great Attractor

Posted by on Tuesday, February 16, 2016, In : Astronomy

In astronomy news this week, another big mystery has (possibly) been solved, and unfortunately it is a rather mundane solution.

In the early 1970s, astronomers who were studying distant galaxies noticed that they were being pulled towards a mysterious region near the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster, approximately 200 million lightyears away from us. Assuming that gravity had the same properties on cosmic scales as it does within our own galaxy, this region appeared to contain a concentrated mass...
Continue reading ...

New X-Ray Observatory Launched!

Posted by on Thursday, February 11, 2016, In : Astronomy

Some people stay up all night for movie premieres, for rock concerts, or for sporting events. I stay up all night watching rocket launches. Or at least that is what I am doing tonight.

Just before 4:00am Eastern Time the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched a rocket carrying its sixth scientific satellite from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan, and in the next few hours it will deploy the ASTRO-H experiment into orbit. And if all goes well, it will be providing astronomer...
Continue reading ...

Gravitation Waves Confirmed!

Posted by on Thursday, February 11, 2016, In : Astronomy

First let me congratulate the LIGO team and its collaborators on the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves! It is a milestone for astronomy and astrophysics, and one well worth celebrating!

The gravitational waves that they have detected passed through the Earth on September 14, 2015 at 5:51am EDT, and are believed to have been generated by merger of two black holes that had been orbiting one another. Based on the data, this particular collision likely occurred 1.3 billion years ago...
Continue reading ...

Gravitational Waves

Posted by on Wednesday, February 10, 2016, In : Astronomy

By now most of you will have heard the rumors. This Thursday the team behind the LIGO experiment are scheduled to give a press conference, and the most likely reason is that they are going to announce the detection of gravitational waves. Of course at this point we do not know how strong the signal is, or even that it is true, but if it is it will be an interesting confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

According to the general theory of relativity, mass and energy warp space...
Continue reading ...

Dr. Christopher Bird