Category: Star

Touch the Sun

~ mehopper

Remember how Icarus wanted to touch the Sun, but met his demise instead?

Well, scientists at NASA wanted to touch the Sun too, but unlike Icarus, they succeeded!

Better yet, they are beginning to share what they learned by doing it!

Before we get into all of that, let’s go back and start at the beginning.

NASA launched a robotic spacecraft called the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) in 2018, and this video describes the probe’s audacious mission to “touch the Sun.”

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

Then NASA posted this 360° video about the probe’s launch that was narrated by Nicola Fox (Project Scientist at that time and now Director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

Since its launch, the probe has done a spectacular job of starting to achieve its scientific goals, and some of the first results were just released this week.

Here’s a quick teaser that NASA posted ahead of a press conference on Wednesday.

ScienceAtNASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA Science (Official Website)

This video summarizes the key discoveries that NASA shared at the press conference.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

Four articles about the results were also posted by the journal Nature ahead of their publication in the print edition on December 12th. This article introduces those articles and has links to them.

A Step Closer to the Sun’s Secrets (Daniel Verscharen, Nature)

It’s awesome to know more about what makes that great glowing ball in the sky tick, but I also found myself a bit sad because the mission’s goals do not include sending back imagery for us Earthlings to enjoy. That means we still don’t know what it looks like to “touch the Sun.”

Perhaps it would look a bit like this 360° video of a simulation of the Sun that was posted by a hearty YouTuber way back in 2016.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Zproxy (YouTube Channel)

That was cathartic to watch, but of course it wouldn’t sound like that because there is no “sound” in space. The actual experience would also be way, way more visually stunning.

We can be certain of that because, while the Parker Solar Probe doesn’t capture imagery, there’s another NASA mission called the Solar Dynamics Observatory that does. It doesn’t capture 360° videos, but what it does capture is far more dynamic than the simulation.

Here’s a video that the Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on June 18, 2015. This isn’t exactly how it would look because it’s been colorized in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, but it still gives you a sense of the unbelievable majesty of the activity that you would see on the surface of our favorite star if you were able to go there in person.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

How beautiful was that?!?!

Kudos to the scientists and engineers at NASA for having the audacity to find ways to go where no one has gone before and for communicating to us what it’s like there, too!

If you want to learn more about the the rest of the Solar System, explore this Toy World!

Click the 360° image below to explore it, click the menu in the upper right for controls and click “i” buttons on/off for links to experiences. Use “portals” to visit otherToy Worlds.

You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.

You can also choose your own adventure by clicking on the links below.

“Space”
Universe (Astronomical Instrument)
Galaxy Milky Way, Andromeda
Planetary System Star, Brown Dwarf, Planet, Moon

Our Neighborhood
Solar System Sun
Terrestrial Planet Mercury, Venus, Earth (Moon), Mars
Asteroid Belt Ceres, Vesta
Jovian Planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Trans-Neptunian Object
Kuiper Belt Pluto, Haumea, Makemake
Scattered Disc Eris, Sedna, Planet X
Oort Cloud Etc. Scholz’s Star
Small Body Comet, Centaur, Asteroid

Find out more about the Sun@Cosma …

Milky Way Lost & Found

~ mehopper

Have you seen the Milky Way?

You may think that you have, but are you sure?

Unless you live in an extremely remote area, or you’ve visited one, then you probably haven’t seen our own galaxy, the Milky Way, very well, or at all.

Worse yet, you may not even realize that it’s missing.

The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness demonstrated that vast swaths of people have never seen the Milky Way due to Light pollution. Here’s a link to a video and some articles about the the atlas.

We’re Missing More And More Of The Night Sky (Newsy, YouTube)

Light Pollution Limiting Night-Sky Views (Brady Dennis, Portland Press Herald/Washington Post)
The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness (Fabio Falchi et al., Science Advances)

You can learn a lot more about the unexpectedly scary effects of light pollution on animals and us humans in a longer, more in-depth video from Seeker.

Light Pollution Is More Dangerous Than You Think (Seeker, YouTube)

Here’s a link to a 360° video from CNN that discusses the problem and explains how a group called the International Dark Sky Association is trying to improve the situation by establishing Dark Sky Places in remote locations like Utah’s Zion National Park.

The Endangered Starry Sky 360 Video (CNN, YouTube)

Here’s a story about a viral video that shows how the sky over New York City would look without the glow of lights blocking out the view.

Here’s What the Stars Above NYC Would Look Like If We Could See Them (Talia Avakian, Fortune)

That viral video was the work of filmmakers Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan, and it was just the latest addition to their Skyglow Project. They were inspired by the Dark Sky Movement, and they’ve published similar videos featuring Los Angeles and other places. Here’s is a link to a video that explains more about their work.

Skyglow Illuminating The Night Sky Talking Pictures (Wired, YouTube)

Now, back to how well you have seen the Milky Way.

For that, it is useful to know about the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale (Wikipedia). It’s used to rate the sky’s brightness on a scale of 1 to 9.

Here’s a link to a beautiful film entitled Lost in Light by Sriram Murali that shows the night sky as seen at different levels of the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale. Notice the Milky Way is increasingly prominent as it gets darker.

Where Are the Stars? Lost in Light, See How Light Pollution Affects Night Skies (Sriram Murali National Geographic, YouTube)

Now that you know how to quantify what you can or can not see, here’s a Interactive Light Pollution Map where you find out how well you can see the sky from where you are now or where you’ve been. To learn about how it works, check out the Help.

If you find that you have lost the Milky Way where you are, then you can figure out the nearest place to find it by using the International Dark Sky Association’s list of International Dark Sky Parks and their handy dandy Dark Sky Place Finder.

Finally, while I was doing research for this post, I tripped over this folksy music video about light pollution. Enjoy, and don’t forget, turn the lights down, or better yet, off!

Dark Skies: The Light Pollution Song (Matthew Dimakosm, YouTube)

Find out more about our galaxy …

The Waves Won!

~ mehopper

Gravitational waves that is!

It has been announced that Rainer Weiss (MIT), Barry Barish (Caltech) and Kip Thorne (Caltech) have won the 2017 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for their decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the first observation of gravitational waves in 2015.

Here are links to a one minute video from Newsy and a few articles from The New York Times that celebrate the honor.

US physicists Win Nobel Prize (Newsy, YouTube)
2017 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to LIGO Black Hole Researchers (Dennis Overbye, New York Times)
Learning from Gravitational Waves (David Kaiser, New York Times)

Needless to say, the gentleman’s respective institutions are proud of their faculty’s achievements, and they’ve each published press releases celebrating the win as well.
MIT physicist Rainer Weiss shares Nobel Prize in physics (Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office)
Caltech Scientists Awarded 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics (Caltech)

MIT also published a short video of Rainer Weiss describing his reaction to finding out that LIGO had successfully discovered gravitational waves.

Rainer Weiss wins Nobel Prize in Physics (MIT, YouTube)

If you’re not exactly well versed about gravitational waves, here’s a neat little video that explains the concept with stick figures.

Minute Physics (YouTube Channel)
Minute Physics (Facebook)

If you would like a more in-depth explanation of the science that earned the Nobel Prize, here’s a video of Walter Issacson interviewing Kip Thorne that covers the fascinating story of how LIGO helped prove something predicted by Einstein a century ago.

Kent Presents (YouTube Channel)

Of course, Kip Thorne isn’t new to the public eye. If he looks a bit familiar to you, it could be because you saw him on TV back in 2014 during numerous interviews where he explained the awesome contributions that he made to the movie Interstellar. Here’s a link to a short clip from the Interstellar Featurette that explains how he helped make the movie spectacular to watch and contributed to a better understanding of physics too!

Interstellar Featurette – Building A Black Hole (Rotten Tomatoes, YouTube)

Cool stuff!

Find out more about gravity, physics, the universe and science in general …