Our universe

You’ve heard of a World War. Well this is a Galaxy War! For millions of years Messier 81 and Messier 82 have been in gravitational combat. Gravitational combat is galaxies, stars etc, in this case galaxies, are close to each other so there gravity is affecting the other one. The last ”battle” M82 probably  raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in the fullness of M81‘s spiral. But M81 left M82 with violent star forming regions and colliding gas clouds. In a few billion years, only one galaxy will remain! Which galaxy do you think will survive?

NASA has a awesome cite called ‘Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive’.
Click Here! if you want to see this awesome cite!

Another huge star, but no where near as big as VY CMa, is Eta Carinae. Eta Carinae is 7,000 to 8,000 light years away from us. It is about 100 solar masses, and is technically a stellar system that has at least two stars. Eta Carinae gives off more than a million times more light than the sun! It was thought to be the biggest star (that we know of) but now it is considered a binary system.

If you have any ideas for a new post please comment and tell me! I am always open to new ideas!

When you think of a star, what do you see in your head? A five pointed object, a celebrity posing for the cover of a magazine or a massive, fiery thing holding solar systems together or giving life to us and planets similar to us. That is what I think of. So I was wondering, what is the biggest star in the universe? Well, it’s impossible to find the biggest star in the universe, because it could be hidden in clouds of dusk and mostly because the universe is always expanding, making it to hard to find the biggest star in the universe.

One massive star is called VY Canis Majoris . It is about 4,940.3 degrees Fahrenheit, and 2,100 times bigger then the sun! You might remember my later post about the sun, it said that the sun was 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. Astronomers say that the bigger the star the cooler it is. No, not cool as in ‘awesome’ or ‘rad’, as in temperature. Some scientists say that if VY CMa (VY Canis Majoris) was placed in the center of our solar it would extend out to Saturn. But other scientists disagree and say it would only extend out to Mars. VY CMa is 1,816,267,995 miles across, you do they math. (1,816,267,995/2= ? = distance between the Sun and Saturn/Mars) Maybe they can compromise and say it reaches out to Jupiter.

More stars to come!!!!!

We have tried contacting aliens in the past. In 2008, NASA beamed The Beatles song ”Across the Universe” into space. It was a message, to any life between near The North Star, of peace. The speed of sound is about 340.29 m/s, so the song would be heard there in the year 2439. In 1977 we sent Voyager 1 and 2, each carrying a gold-plated copper disk with recordings on the sounds and images of earth. Also, we sent Pioneer 10 and 11 bearing plaques of a man and woman in 1972 and 1973.

Stephen Hawking suggested on ”In To The Universe With Stephen Hawking” that contacting aliens would be a terrible thing! He says it will be like when Columbus came to America. Columbus was thinking of turning the Native Americans in to slaves. What if aliens did the same to us?

No one knows what the aliens look, think, or act like. But if they are able to come to Earth from some distant planet they must be very intelligent. They could be roaming around looking to conquer other worlds. But what if they are friendly and peaceful like the people in Avatar. What if they are completely unintelligent, and don’t know there elbow from there foot (if they have elbows or feet). Maybe meeting aliens would be the best thing that has ever happened to mankind. They might give us information that we didn’t even know we needed!

You’ve heard about black holes being used for time and space travel. It is very popular in sci-fi books, movies or TV shows. Black holes are destructive so it would be impossible. Lior Burko, a 34 year old University of Utah physicist, thinks differently. In this article from Wired.com, Burko thinks black holes could be worm holes to different parts of the universe or maybe even another universe. If that happened it would be called a multiverse. Black holes are very dense, but that’s what makes it more believealbe for black holes to be worm holes. Black holes have collapsed into something so detructive, it practicly inhales objects like air, but the laws of physics no longer aply. Also some black holes might not be as destructive as others, or only destroy certain things.
What do I think of all this, well I’m not quite sure. Burko makes a very good point, but even some were less detructive than others, they would probably rip you and your space to shreds. If laws of physics didn’t alpy, would there be new laws? If so, would they help with time and space travel? If there were no laws at all there would be nothing and nothing would not be that helpful for scientists because there would be nothing to study and learn about. What do you think?

Solar Eclipse:
A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. The Moon could block all or most of the Sun’s light from Earth.

Lunar Eclipse:
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned (in that order). This causes the Earth to cast a shadow on the Moon.

A black hole is a region of space in which nothing, not even light, can escape. Black holes are said to swallow planets and stars whole. It is called “black” because it absorbs all the light that hits it and reflects nothing. Sagittarius A* is a bright and very compact object that gives of strong radio waves at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is said to by the host of a supermassive black hole. The black hole is about 4 million solar masses (look in glossary).
How are black holes formed?
Black holes are formed when a star the size of 3 suns reaches the end of its lifetime. That is when the star runs out of fuel. Therefore its stability cracks under its own gravity. The radius of the star shrinks and it start to devour anything that comes a bit close to it. Then gravity kicks in and the core of the star caves in and bursts inward. The outer shells of the star explode into the space. And thats the recipe for a stellar mass black hole.
What would happen if you fell into a black hole?
The ”event horizon” is the border of a black hole. And once you got close to the event horizon your body would be shredded apart into the smallest possible pieces. And you would die. Because a black hole isn’t actually a hole.