This is my first time starting a thread for a very long time. But I'd like to start a specific thread for the Astronomy junkies like me. For the past several months, ever since aquiring a deep interest in science of space, I have been browsing astronomy related websites, particulary wikipedia, to get my fix. I decided to create a thread here, so I can discuss what ever I have learned so far, and hopefully gain new insight, from others interested in the subject. Some of the topics that we can discuss include: 1. The creation of the Universe (the "Big Bang" theory) 2. Possibility of life in other Planets. 3. Facts about our solar system and its planets. 4. Discussion of Celestial Objects (Stars, Planets, Galaxies, comets, etc.) 5. Other lesser known objects in the Universe (Black Holes, Black/Dark Matter, Super Massive Stars etc.) So please feel free to share whatever area of interest, if any, that you have. Also, if you think that no one else in this forum has interest in astronomy, please let me know.
To get started here's a video on youtube that I found interesting. It shows the relative size of planet Earth compared to other objects in the sky... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnbuhjliCKA
I love Astronomy, I remember when I first met my wife, I leaned in real close and said "Hey baby, what's your sign" Astronomy rocks..... Da Virgo Dakota
what are all those planets after the sun? i am very very interested in astronomy but my high school life will end in two weeks with exactly 3 days in science classes talking about the solar system.
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Something that really interests me is the life of the sun. If science is right, the Earth has about 5 billion more years before it is incinerated.
I did a wiki search on every star in the video and i just found out they left out VY Canis Majoris, the largest known star
Just to add on.. There are two types of planets out there, Gas Giants, and Rocky Planets. The largest of Rocky Planets, such as Earth, are believed to be no bigger than 4x the size of earth, because they will simply "break down" under their own gravity if they were bigger. Meanwhile, gas giants cannot be bigger than our sun because, in my opinion, they are made out of heavier elements than Stars (heavier than Hydrogen and Helium). Thus, they cannot be as big as stars or else they will also break down. So, all of those other objects in the video have to be Stars much bigger than our own Sun.
I like this vid. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fgg2tpUVbXQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fgg2tpUVbXQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Oh, there's life on other planets.... <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UbPR1yI3XSI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UbPR1yI3XSI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
I was just pondering something the other day after seeing a picture taken by the Hubble telescope. As most of us know, 1 light year = the distance light travels in a year. Light travels somewhere around 186,000 miles per hour, I believe. What's crazy is that the furthest known galaxy in our universe is 13 BILLION light years away, meaning that if you hitched a ride on a beam of light it would take you 13 billion years to reach it, and by that time the universe would have expanded even further. In comparison, the moon is about 1 and 1/2 light SECONDS away from Earth. That type of stuff blows my mind. (and people still insist, undoubtedly, that we are the only life in the universe)
I'm somewhat fascinated about thinking about aliens and people living in other galaxies, yet I find space quite boring. This is frustrating.
The other thing that blows my mind thinking about it, is that accourding to scientist "Big Bang" or the start of the universe happened ~13.7 billion years ago. And the farthest known galaxies are also ~13 billion light years away, Meaning that the images of those galaxies that we see today are from 13 billion years ago (traveling at speed of light of course). So, does that mean that these far sources of light are actually the galaxies that existed shortly after the big bang?
As an astronomy fan you might be familiar with this; I use it for my home page as daily inspiration: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html I think KingCheetah first shared it here. He'll show up in this thread I'm sure...
yeah pretty much after the big bang the universe has been expanding at that pace no one knows whether its just going to keep expanding or contract back into something so small that it creates another big bang IIRC the way the scientists calculated the big bang theory is because they realised that the universe has been expanding..hence there must be a point where it all first started, and at that particular point...something HUGE must have happened to cause the universe to expand like that ->big bang
Actually, there are three known types of planets. Gas giants, ice giants, and rocky planets. All three of these exist in the Solar System. Also, there are known rocky extra solar planets that are larger than 4X the mass of the Earth. Gliese 581c is 5X the mass of the Earth and Gliese 581d is 7.7X the mass of the Earth, just to name two. I'm actually an astrophysicist and my field is planet formation, so I'm glad to see a thread on here about astronomy.
I think you meant to say light travels around 186,000 miles per second. I'm always amazed of how fast we're moving through space. The Earth is rotating around 1000 miles per hour and revolving around the Sun about 67,000 miles per hour. The Sun (and the solar system) is revolving around the center of the galaxy at about 490,000 miles per hour. On top of that, our galaxy is moving through space at a rate of about 660,000 miles per hour. Put all that together and in about one minute we travel 10,000 miles through space.
