RIVER OF STARS

Brad Goldpaint of Goldpaint Photography took this fantastic image of the Milky Way rising behind the Monument at Smith Rock State Park, located in Central Oregon, USA. It is a panorama of 12 images featuring the Crooked River, the popular Monument rock structure, and the rising Milky Way under the North Star, Polaris. The rock structures in the background are lit from small traces of light pollution from nearby housing.

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CYGNUS LOOP NEBULA

The Cygnus Loop (radio source W78, or Sharpless 103) is a large supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation Cygnus.. looks so awesome

Milky Way Over a sea of clouds

Milky Way Above a Sea of Clouds
Credit : Roberto Bertero — at Mount Rocciamelone summit, Italy.

FIRST VIEW OF THE PLANET

This famous “Blue Marble” shot represents the first photograph in which Earth is in full view. The picture was taken on December 7, 1972, as the Apollo 17 crew left Earth’s orbit for the moon. With the sun at their backs, the crew had a perfectly lit view of the blue planet.

BIRTH OF A STAR

On a clear night if you look up at the sky, you will perhaps see something like this

well, you don’t actually see those many stars unless you are lucky enough to be at a place far away from civilization and its light pollution, but anyway, gazing at a clear night sky is always going to be awesome for one reason – all those beautiful stars..

So, ever wondered how those stars are formed? What makes them shine so bright  that you can see them from millions of miles away?

here’s the answer

Astronomers think that the birth of a star begins as a dense cloud of gas in the arms of spiral galaxies. Such clouds of dust and gas are called nebulae. Dense parts of these clouds undergo gravitational collapse and compress to form a rotating gas globule.

 

The globule is cooled by emitting radio waves and infrared radiation. It is compressed by gravitational forces and also by shock waves of pressure from supernova or the hot gas released from nearby bright stars. These forces cause the roughly-spherical globule to collapse and rotate. The process of collapse takes from between 10,000 to 1,000,000 years.

As the collapse proceeds, the temperature and pressure within the globule increases, as the atoms are in closer proximity. Also, the globule rotates faster and faster. This spinning action causes an increase in centrifugal forces (a radial force on spinning objects) that causes the globule to have a central core and a surrounding flattened disk of dust (called a protoplanetary disk or accretion disk). The central core becomes the star; the protoplanetary disk may eventually coalesce into orbiting planets, asteroids, etc.

The contracting star heats up due to friction and forms a glowing protostar. This stage lasts for roughly 50 million years. This is the basic process which every star undergoes before its formation. Further development of the star depends on its size and mass. The following chart sums it up for us.

Stargazing is one of the best things about astronomy.

Planet Earth

Amazing view of earth from the sky.
Courtesy NASA Goddard

Amazing Auroras

Aurorae Boraelis, more commonly known as Northern Lights, put on the most amazing light shows one can ever see from our planet. Pictures such as the following take my breath away everytime i look at them.

Tommy Eliassen of Tommy Eliassen Photographycaptured this striking image of the Northern Lights and the Milky Way, as well as a meteor streaking through the sky above Ifjord, Finnmark, Norway on September 25, 2011

While enjoying the spaceweather on a gorgeous summer evening in mid-July, astronomer Philippe Moussette captured this colorful looking north from the Observatoire Mont Cosmos, Quebec, Canada. In the foreground, lights along the northern horizon give an orange cast to the low clouds. But far above the clouds, at altitudes of 100 kilometers or more, are alluring green and purple hues of the  northern lights, a glow powered by energetic particles at the edge of space. In the background are familiar stars of the northern sky.

The Aurora are formed from fast moving, electrically charged particles that emanate from the sun. These are driven towards the poles by the Earth’s magnetic field – their various colours are a result of the different gases in the upper atmosphere. Sounds pretty cool, huh? In the northern hemisphere they are called the Aurora Borealis and in the southern hemisphere they are called the Aurora Australis. The Aurora Borealis forms in an oval shaped halo, and is most common in the Arctic region. There being very little light pollution up there probably helps with spotting them too

These heavenly beauties make me want to look at them forever. They fill in me a sense of wonder and astonishment. An aurora sighting is sure magical.

White Hole Theory

The concept of a white hole has always fascinated me. That there might exist such a region in space into which nothing can  enter, but from which everything springs out is as fascinating as it is wierd.

Before reading further, be very clear that as of now White Holes appear only in theory and their existence has not yet been proven. Nor are there any known processes through which a White Hole could be formed. However, the concept of a White Hole is so compelling that physicists around the world are strongly attracted to the theory and believe that the existence of  White Holes is possible.

so now,

What Is A White Hole?

Everyone knows about Black Holes as  regions in space which suck inside everything around them (including light), but from whom nothing can escape. A White Hole, in essence, is thought about to be the exact opposite of a Black Hole .  Instead of pulling in matter, a white hole expels it like a sort of cosmic exhaust valve, giving off serious amounts of energy.

There Is a theory which speculates that a Black hole in one universe opens up as White Hole in some other universe. According to the theory, the light and matter absorbed by a Black Hole in one universe ends up in another universe by escaping through a  White Hole. Wacky as the idea may seem, the following image may help us to understand the theory better.

If this theory is to be given any credit, then it also postulates the existence of  Multiple Universes and loopholes and time travel. However, we will talk more about those interesting  stuffs in another post. The next Important question which arises before us is

If things such as White Holes exist, Where are they? Why cant we see them?

Is it possible that white holes are hiding in plain sight?  In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking demonstrated that when a white hole and a black hole are in thermal equilibrium with their surroundings, they absorb and emit the same amount of radiation — and thus it’s impossible to tell them apart. So maybe some of the objects we think are black holes could be white holes in disguise. That’s one theory. However, the theory requires a special circumstance in which the While Hole must be in thermal equilibrium with the black hole.

The theory that’s going around these days is a rather simple one. At its most basic, the theory states that white holes simply wouldn’t be as stable as black holes are, and it seems that they would collapse almost immediately under the weight of their own gravity.

This is where inconsistency creeps in. Even though the idea of the existence of a White Hole is compelling, our current understanding of the universe states that they simply cannot exist.

Now, here is where i would like to tell you about an interesting incident.

On June 14, 2006 NASA’s Swift satellite detected a gamma ray burst which was labelled as GRB 060614. Gamma ray bursts are extremely strong bursts of electromagnetic radiations and are often associated with the collapse of a supernova.

The thing with  GRB 060614 is that it  didn’t fit with our understanding of where it came from – its long duration of 102 seconds meant that it had to be created in a supernova explosion, and yet there were no supernovas there for it to have come from. Without a supernova nearby, such extreme bursts cannot happen. Yet we have detected it.

Now, it’s being suggested that we might actually have caught sight of a white hole. The fierceness and duration of the explosion could well fit with a white hole briefly popping into existence, spewing out some matter, and then quickly collapsing into itself, resulting in this massive explosion.  Although it’s not the most likely explanation , we cannot discredit it.

The trouble with our understanding of the universe today is that even though we have found out a lot , there are still a greater number of things about which we are clueless. This does not mean we must be disappointed and give up hope. We must keep looking for answers, and only through perseverance will we be able to answer the deepest questions of our universe.

Even though White Holes might just be a hypothesis today, i strongly believe that some day we might find some acceptable proof of their existence. Whatever we know about our universe today shows that the laws of physics are not comfortable with things that happen only in one direction. Which means, that if a black hole exists, then it should be possible to reverse the equations governing them so that you get something that’s reversed but otherwise identical. That’s what a white hole is.

– Santosh

Leaf Tailed Gecko

Look again, That is not a leaf, its a leaf tailed gecko.
Isnt it amazing how certain species of animals can camouflage themselves with such incredible accuracy!

Image via –  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Carin-Bondar-Biologist-With-a-Twist/193162710726173?group_id=0

In the beginnin…

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe