.|... Through the Telescope ...|..

hazor:

Timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death
[High Res picture]

(via scinerds)

Pulsars

Ever look up at a clear night sky and notice some of the stars blink a bit more than others? They dwindle and fade in and out at different rates, almost making the skies look like sparkling water. What you are looking at most of the time is actual stars that are making their way to the end of their life. The moment prior to their eventual death

But to understand what a Pulsar is you need to Understand what Neutron stars are as well. Neutron stars are one of the possible ends for a star. They result from massive stars which have mass greater than 4 to 8 times that of our Sun. After these stars have finished burning their nuclear fuel, they undergo a supernova explosion. This explosion blows off the outer layers of a star into a beautiful supernova remnant. The central region of the star collapses under gravity. It collapses so much that protons and electrons combine to form neutrons. Hence the name “neutron star”.

Simply put, pulsars are rotating neutron stars. And pulsars appear to pulse because they rotate, Like shown in the figures below & above.

Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that have jets of particles moving almost at the speed of light streaming out above their magnetic poles. These jets produce very powerful beams of light. In addition, since stars variate in energy output, every single pulsar in the night sky is unique and has it’s own “pulsating” beacon. Kind of the same way species here on Earth have variations of the beating heart.

Information Via: NASA

(via scinerds)

ikenbot:

The Fabric of Space-time

Image: What happens to light as it passes through a point of space-time in where mass has been applied, as well as why objects in space orbit the way they do (planets, galaxies, clusters, etc.)

Also known as the Space-time Continuum, I’ve always been fascinated about the very space that holds the planet we live on, stars we see at night, solar system we observe, and supernovas we stargaze on telescopes. In astronomy you hear the term space-time get used a lot and I thought I’d highlight key features that describe what this fabric is. I find it odd that not that many people stop to think what holds us up, how are we suspended in space-time? Well, technically we’re not suspended. We’re constantly moving, constantly orbiting. And it’s not just Earth and the solar system joining in on this cosmic dance, you can include star clusters, galaxies, super clusters and even Blackholes, just about everything in our Universe. Keep in mind that even as you read this post, our solar system is orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, traveling at roughly 220 kilometers a second!

What is Space-time?

Einstein visualized gravity as a manifestation of the curvature of space-time - the three space dimensions and a fourth time dimension. Most of us cannot visualize a curvature of four dimensional space-time, so visualize a curved two dimensional rubber sheet. Placing a mass on the rubber sheet curves it downward like space-time curves in the presence of a mass. On such a rubber sheet a small mass can circle around the curvature produced by a large mass, just as planets orbit the Sun. Or a mass can roll straight downward just as an object falls to the Earth. Space-time being the very “material” these events and masses take place on.

Einstein explained gravity as a result of the curvature of space-time near the presence of a mass. The differences between general relativity and Newton’s law of gravity only become noticeable when the gravitational force is very strong.

Einstein’s general theory of relativity is one of the crowning intellectual achievements of the 20th century and led to such predictions as black holes, gravitational lenses, and the expanding universe. So far it has passed every experimental test with flying colors.

Info via Suite101

(via fuckyeahquantummechanics)

scinerds:

expose-the-light:

Top 10 Biggest Brain Damaging Habits

1. No Breakfast

People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level.This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration.

2. Overreacting

It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental power.

3. Smoking

It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.

4. High Sugar consumption

Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.       

5. Air Pollution

The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our body. Inhaling polluted air decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in brain efficiency.

6. Sleep Deprivation

Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate the death of brain

7. Head covered while sleeping

Sleeping with the head covered, increases the concentration of carbon dioxide and decrease concentration of oxygen that may lead to brain damaging effects.

8. Working your brain during illness

Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.            

9. Talking Rarely

Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain.

10. Lacking in stimulating thoughts

Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.

the-star-stuff:

Sun Is Moving Slower Than Thought

“Shocking” find may redraw picture of solar system’s cosmic shield.

The sun is moving through the Milky Way slower than previously thought, according to new data from a NASA spacecraft.

From its orbit around Earth, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellitemeasured the speeds of interstellar particles entering at the fringes of our solar system, 9 billion miles (14.5 billion kilometers) from the sun.

Plugging the new data into computer models, the IBEX team calculates that the sun is moving at about 52,000 miles (83,700 kilometers) an hour—about 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) slower than thought.

The discovery suggests that the protective boundary separating our solar system from the rest of the galaxy is missing a bow shock, a major structural component thought to control the influx of high-energy cosmic rays.

(via scinerds)

scinerds:

never gets old

genannetics:

We’re all mutants now | Ars Technica

What a great article desribing a new paper published in Science, which describes how human population growth is throwing a wrench into simple models describing allele frequency and mutation rates in modern humans.  It turns out we’re a complicated bunch, with our rapid growth and our spread out of urban centers giving us all more rare mutations than would be expected.  And our complexity has consequences too:

The model they’ve (the research team) developed has some pretty significant implications both for current genomic research and for medicine. As far as research goes, the conclusion is pretty simple: even though we have more human genetic samples than ever before, most studies still haven’t been able to survey a large enough population to see the influence of the rapidly expanding human population. That’s beginning to change, so it’s important that the researchers who are doing this work use the appropriate math, or they’re going to have a hard time interpreting what they see.

So it turns out that it’s going to take a lot more work to get to the root causes of common disease than previously thought.  We’re all so different and complex, it’s going to take a lot of genomes and better models to understand what our mutations say about us.

(via scinerds)