Don't Panic! It's Just Science

freshphotons:

Yelawolf’s debut studio album Radioactive comes out November 21st.

cwnl:

Meteor Between the Clouds

This bright meteor streaked through dark night skies over Sutherland, South Africa on November of 2009. Potentially part of the annual Leonid meteor shower, its sudden, brilliant appearance, likened to a camera’s flash, was captured by chance as it passed between two clouds.

Credit & Copyright: Victor van Wulfen

laughingsquid:

Biochemies, DNA Molecule Plush Dolls That Promote Science Education

n-a-s-a:

Hammer Versus Feather on the Moon 

the-star-stuff:

Brief History of the Universe

Our universe began in a tremendous explosion known as the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago (left side of strip). Observations by NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer and Wilkinson Anisotropy Microwave Probe revealed microwave light from this very early epoch, about 400,000 years after the Big Bang, providing strong evidence that our universe did blast into existence. Results from the Cosmic Background Explorer were honored with the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics.

A period of darkness ensued, until about a few hundred million years later, when the first objects flooded the universe with light. This first light is believed to have been captured in data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The light detected by Spitzer would have originated as visible and ultraviolet light, then stretched, or redshifted, to lower-energy infrared wavelengths during its long voyage to reach us across expanding space. The light detected by the Cosmic Background Explorer and the Wilkinson Anisotropy Microwave Probe from our very young universe traveled farther to reach us, and stretched to even lower-energy microwave wavelengths.

Astronomers do not know if the very first objects were either stars or quasars. The first stars, called Population III stars (our star is a Population I star), were much bigger and brighter than any in our nearby universe, with masses about 1,000 times that of our sun. These stars first grouped together into mini-galaxies. By about a few billion years after the Big Bang, the mini-galaxies had merged to form mature galaxies, including spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way. The first quasars ultimately became the centers of powerful galaxies that are more common in the distant universe.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured stunning pictures of earlier galaxies, as far back as ten billion light-years away.

cwnl:

Lightning Strike & The Eiffel

by Bertrand Kulik

the-star-stuff:

Cosmic Tornado

This “tornado,” designated Herbig-Haro 49/50, is shaped by a cosmic jet packing a powerful punch as it plows through clouds of interstellar gas and dust.

The tornado-like feature is actually a shock front created by a jet of material flowing downward through the field of view. A still-forming star located off the upper edge of the image generates this outflow. The jet slams into neighboring dust clouds at a speed of more than 100 miles per second, heating the dust to incandescence and causing it to glow with infrared light detectable by Spitzer. The triangular shape results from the wake created by the jet’s motion, similar to the wake behind a speeding boat. (read more)

moderation:

Every Way Devised to Deflect an Asteroid

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With asteroid 2005 YU55 passing close by Earth yesterday, this rather unsettlingly near flyby has many people wondering if we would be able to divert an asteroid that was heading for an intersection with Earth in its orbit. Of course, as natural disasters go an asteroid strike on Earth would be extremely bad. Even relatively small space rocks could wipe millions of people off the face of the planet, and for the really big asteroids – like the one that caused the Chicxulub event 65 million years ago – it’s unlikely that humanity would survive. And yet, for all their devastation, asteroids offer a glimmer of hope. An asteroid strike is preventable, given we have the time to deal with it.

What are some other options?

Blow it up with nukes
Every Hollywood story dealing with asteroids always involves packing nuclear warheads on board a spaceship and then flying out to blow up the asteroid. Kaboom! Problem solved? Not exactly. The science in these movies is misleading at best, and probably just plain wrong.

Use a Solar Sail

For a more elegant idea rather than blowing it up, physicist Gregory Matloff has studied the concept of using a two-sail solar photon thruster which uses concentrated solar energy. One of the sails, a large parabolic collector sail would constantly face the sun and direct reflected sunlight onto a smaller, moveable second thruster sail that would beam concentrated sunlight against the surface of an asteroid. In theory, the beam would vaporize an area on the surface to create a aerojet of materials that would serve as a propulsion system to alter the trajectory of the NEO.

Tie them Up

Back in 2009 David French, a doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, had the idea of attaching ballast to an asteroid with a tether. By doing this, French explains, “you change the object’s center of mass, effectively changing the object’s orbit and allowing it to pass by the Earth, rather than impacting it.”

(via universetoday)

mad-as-a-marine-biologist:

Coral polyps under UV light

© Ivan Choong 

jtotheizzoe:

Western black rhino declared extinct

A sad day, as it’s believed that no wild black rhinos remain. We have poachers and bush medicine to thank for this tragedy:

“You’ve got to imagine an animal walking around with a gold horn; that’s what you’re looking at, that’s the value and that’s why you need incredibly high security.”

(via BBC News)

fuckyeahmedicalstuff:

Alcohol-induced dilated cardiomyopathy

Note the enlarged ventricular chambers - the increased size causes the appearance of thinned ventricular walls. Assumption that there is decreased musculature in heart walls can cause incorrect diagnosis of cause-of-death.

Dilated cardiomyopathy can cause systolic dysfunction and atrial fibrilation, as well as being a source of thromboembolism.

electronicthroat:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARL!

I fucking miss you.

macmankev:

A Universe Not Made For Us [Carl Sagan Tribute Series, S01E01]