Category Archives: astronomy

The Bar at the Centre of the Galaxy

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I don’t know about you, but my image of the milky way galaxy always been one where spiral arms extend out from a luminous, bulging saucer of stars and gas with a massive black hole at it’s epicentre. A stable, spinning This has been the visual portrayed through textbooks, magazines and documentaries over the course of my life and I never really thought that something so ingrained in my psyche would ever be overturned so dramatically.

Well take a seat at the Mos Eisley Cantina and drink in this amazing new view of our Milky Way Galaxy! Overwhelming evidence has confirmed that the centre of our galaxy is not a bulging rotating disk, but a bar or rod that matches the rotation of the galaxy! Click the image above to get a better view … while you’re looking at the image imagine the centre bar is spinning on it’s own axis like a toilet paper roll while the roll itself also turns head over feet with the rest of the galaxy. The visual image in my head is one of a great gyroscopic Newtonian steampunk engine providing power to the Milky Way Galaxy, twisting and spewing out stars in spiral formation …

For more information I’d recommend starting with a concise summary by backyard astronomer and blogger Ray Sanders, while Space.com has a more detailed account of the findings.

Marc “Skinnyhead”

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a Gateway Drug

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Grade A Certified Tyson ... the good shit.

So a Muslim and an Atheist walk out for a smoke …

A Muslim co-worker and I have been getting pretty friendly these days. Obviously, we disagree on the god topic, but he’s liberal minded and open to discussion about anything: religion, science, politics, pornography … everything is fair game, and that’s why our relationship works.

A few months back we were outside with a few co-workers talking about the possibility of living in space. I was adamant that I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat. My friend found the prospect of living in space to be tantamount to living in a black box. “There’s nothing really going in space … we’ve learned all there is to know … pretty boring really.” Astonished, I encouraged him to look a little further.

He did.

Science communication is a hot topic these days. Continue reading →

Abiogenesis, Evolution, Faith

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As usual, I am going to talk about something I am by no means an expert on. However, I have too often had conversations about evolution of late, and almost always they cause me no end of annoyance because the person discussing the topic does not understand what they are saying, and the concept of God as the agent of things is being presented in articles like this (which I have not as yet read, I merely read a post on Why Evolution Is True about the topic, but this post of mine is not tied to either piece, and I will read both later) with no justification. As well, there is a flurry of late of speculation as to the origins of life on earth. I do not plan on deconstructing Rabbi Jacobs’ article or commenting on Dr. Coyne’s comment on it. I provide them as links and nothing more, though I suggest you read both.

Evolution does not answer the question of how life appeared on the earth. Evolution is about the process of living things changing as the generations pass. It is a powerful theory that holds up time and time again to scrutiny, but asking evolution to explain why there is life on earth would be like asking the FCC’s policies on acceptable use to justify why there is radio broadcasting. Evolution refers to the way living things change, it does not posit on the topic of how living things got living in the first place. But it’s a common attack of evolutionary theory. It will go something like this:
 
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Three Steps Closer to Finding Life

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Every once in a while something gets me excited enough to get off the couch and start writing. ( It’s been over 2 months since my last confession, father ) Usually it has something to do with space, cause lets face it … I’m a huge space geek.

The fastest way to find life on other planets is to find other earth-like planets/moons. We know life evolved here under these conditions, so if we can find these conditions (atmosphere, water and organic compounds) on other planetary bodies, then the chances of finding simple lifeforms skyrocket. This week science blew my mind again with three discoveries that bring us one step closer.

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Stephen Hawking Says God Wasn’t Necessary

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Now here’s a book I’m looking forward to. In his new book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking states that the laws of physics are all the reason we need for the universe to exist. There was no need for that “spark” thing that triggered the Big Bang, but it was in fact inevitable. I’m sure there will be much blather on every possible side of the argument in the coming days, which will no doubt result in even higher book sales for one of the greatest minds in the world today.

The argument that it must have been God that kicked off the Big Bang has always seemed shallow to me. The question of what caused it is certainly a valid one, but in the absence of understanding, saying “I bet it was God!” is an intellectually weak cop-out. Most theists I know will gladly use that notion that the universe had to start from something in debate, but rarely ever does the conversation make any sense, and it gets more childish and insecure when I ask how God was created. It’s cool that HE always “just was, is, and ever will be”, but the universe doesn’t get accorded the same luxury.

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Starseed: Let’s Inseminate the Universe

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Remember when the Moon was just a barren rock floating mysteriously above us, Mars was a place where LGM (Little Green Men) plotted their earth invasion, and most of the news you heard about other galaxies was delivered by Jean Luc Picard? When I was a kid “The Universe” was just a vast unknown place where i could let my vivid but un-informed imagination run free. Man we’ve come a long way. Humanity has confirmed the presence of vast amounts of life-giving water on the Moon and Mars, and are expecting to find water on Saturn’s most famous moon, Titan. Since life seems to develop and thrive in even the most treacherous of Earth’s environments, the presence of water on other planets/moons has the scientific community expecting to find evidence of life on another planet very soon.

These are amazing times!

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Hubble, Color, And How It All Works

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I’m no astronomer. The number of celestial bodies I can identify by shape is highly limited, and I don’t know a lot of the science around the way Hubble makes pictures that are so breathtaking. Today, someone made a comment about just that, and it occurred to me that the only thing separating me from an understanding of the topic was air and opportunity. So I went to good ole’ Google and typed in “why do they color hubble photos?” and got the answer immediately.

On HubbleSite, there is a really explanation of this called Behind the Pictures. I figured I’d pass the link along to anyone who was similarly curious about these gorgeous photos, and what they represent. You know, cuz I’m so neat.

And while I’m at it, here’s a link to Awesome Antennae!, a post on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy web site talking about the Antennae Galaxies and including the gorgeous picture I borrowed for this entry. Very interesting stuff indeed!

Jim

Martian Eye Candy

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Well I’m impressed as all heck. I was just over at Discover Blogs and saw that Phil Plait had put this up on his blog, Bad Astronomy. I’ll just quote him in his explanation of it:

Via Emily at the Planetary Society blog comes this amazing animation, a three-dimensional flyover of Candor Chasma on Mars generated using HiRISE data.

Holy cow. And the timing of this video… will some kid in middle school watch this video, wonder what it would be like to really do this, and then, in 25 more years, be sitting at the stick of a Martian flyer?

All I can say from my perspective is that this is absolutely incredible. Thanks to Emily, I have a feeling that my fellow Meddling Kid Boy Infidel will be curling up with dreams of Mars tonight.


Jim

Science Reporting And Consensus

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While I was out with my back muscles all a-spazz, an article got sent my way that I immediately dismissed around the so-called consensus of the scientific community that the earth was struck by an asteroid, and that’s why the dinosaurs all died out and us mammals got our day in court. I dismissed this because it sounded like another fine example of the error science reporting makes all the time, that being that they don’t understand the difference between three scientists and all scientists.

It turns out I was wrong. Having read more on the topic, it definitely sounds like the vast majority of scientists are now in agreement that this is the only logical explanation for all the data. To help explain that, let me show you this article over at Neurologica, which does a fine job of talking about scientific consensus. It’s related to the topic of the dinosaur extinction, but uses that as a backdrop to talk about what consensus is. He also talks quite a bit about the problem of science journalism. It’s a good read, so enjoy!

Oh, and the picture? It comes from a web site that’s all about how a comet (or group of comets) will hit the earth in 2012, which they claim was pulled directly from the Bible Codes. It even has a brutal animated gif of a comet hitting the earth. If you didn’t enjoy the science above, at least enjoy the paranoia below!

Jim

More Primordial Soup, Dear?

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Well, it looks like Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, has all the right ingredients for life. Or at least so says Science Daily, and they seem to be fairly reasonable at reporting facts. This may mean that there is the potential for living things in some form or another, be they things that are there now or things that might go there from here on their way to somewhere else. In short, it’s a pretty exciting discovery.

Jim