YouTube Thursdays: Why is the night sky dark?

Ever look up at the stars and wonder why it's dark? Well here's the answer...

Galaxy closer than we thought... by about 40,000 light years

It was a screw up on a galactic scale, but at least we fixed it. Scientists have discovered that the Large Magellanic Cloud is actually 163,000 light years away when previous estimates had put it at around 200,000 light years away.

In case you're not aware, that is quite the change in position. The Large Magellanic Cloud, which can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere, is the third closest galaxy to our own Milky Way.


It is about 10 Billion times the size of our sun. It looks more like a giant cloud in the sky — it doesn't have a spiral shape, like our home galaxy — but might have at one time.

...

In the new study, researchers used new measurement techniques and well-known stars as benchmarks, to refine this measurement. The study suggests that their new estimate is accurate to about 2 percent.

It's good to know where things are in the universe. I'm assuming that's kind of important.

(To buy a book about galaxies, click here.)

The universe isn't forever

Bad news for those of you that wanted to live forever. Scientists have apparently discovered that the universe will, in fact, not last forever. Now there has been several theories as to what will happen to our reality, and the prevailing theory was that the universe will just go into a deep freeze and spread out.

The Large Hadron Collider and its use to discover of the Higgs boson particle point to a rather troubling end to our universe in billions and billions of years from now.

Work to study the Higgs' related particles, necessary for confirmation, is ongoing. If confirmed, the discovery would help resolve a key puzzle about how the universe came into existence some 13.7 billion years ago - and perhaps how it will end.

"This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now, there'll be a catastrophe," Lykken said. "A little bubble of what you might think of as an ‘alternative' universe will appear somewhere and then it will expand out and destroy us," Lykken said, adding that the event will unfold at the speed of light.

Now its nothing we'll have to worry about because by that time the Earth will have been destroyed by the sun burning out... but nevertheless it is kind of disconcerting.

(To learn more about the Universe, get this Blu Ray)

Asteroid strike in Russia

For the second time in 120 years, a large asteroid exploded in the atmosphere above Russia. While the first one, the Tunguska event, happened in 1908, this one happened this morning and injured 1,000 people. And we didn't see it coming...

It was a once in a decade event, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, told TODAY on Friday, saying the impact was the physics equivalent of hitting a brick wall.

“When you hit a brick wall, you basically explode, and that’s what happened here, and it exploded in midair,” Tyson said. "There have never been any cases of meteorites breaking up at such a low level over Russia before," Yuri Burenko, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Emergencies Ministry, told Reuters.

This comes hours before the 150-foot Asteroid 2012 DA14 gives Earth a buzz cut... coming in lower than our communications satellites... but missing the planet. While the two events aren't connected, it does give the public and little bit of a wake up call when it oomes to asteroids. If the DA14 were to hit, it would be like someone dropped a 2.5 megaton bomb.

(If you want to learn more about asteroids...)

Dung Beetles Use Milky Way to Navigate

Shocker in the Animal Kingdom. The lowly dung beetle is actually an astronomer. Scientists were at first puzzled as to how these beetles would move their dung balls in straight lines - even on moonless nights - and seemingly knew where to go. After extensive research, they found out that the beetles were using the Milky Way.

To test the star theory, the team set up a small, enclosed table on the game reserve, placed beetles in them, and observed how the insects reacted to different sky conditions. The team confirmed that even on clear, moonless nights, the beetles could still navigate their balls in a straight line. 

 To show that the beetles were focusing on the Milky Way, the team moved the table into the Johannesburg Planetarium, and found that the beetles could orient equally well under a full starlit sky as when only the Milky Way was present.

So if we lose the Milky Way... the dung beetles are pretty much screwed.

(To learn more about Dung Beetles... here's a book.)

Gamma-ray blasts are not fun

And guess what? We got hit by one 1,200 years ago.

It came from two colliding Neutron Stars from a few thousand light years away and scientists were just now able to pick it up because of the existence of carbon-14 in tree rings.

What did it do around the year 775 AD? Pretty much nothing. The estimate two-second blast had really zero effect on the earth since the most high tech thing on the planet at the time was the castle and the crossbow. Had that blast happened today we would be in some serious trouble since it would short out power grids and knock out all of our satellites. If the blast happened from say, 100 light years away, we would have been a crispy cinder.

These gamma ray bursts were the result of the creation of a black hole from the collision of the Neutron Stars. So you'll have to excuse science for taking a while to figure this mystery out since there's no evidence visible. Had it been a supernova, people would have seen it in the 700s because it would have been so bright it would have been visible during the day. Had it been a solar flare, it would have been the largest flare every recorded. The black hole theory pretty much settles everything.

Except, when is this going to happen again?

(Buy this awesome book on space by Neil deGrasse Tyson - the guy that killed Pluto.)

Meme Time: Your iPad Sucks

I mean you could buy an iPad but you wouldn't be nearly as cool as Captain Jean Luc Picard.

Does this remind you of anyone?

NASA has a prototype for a new spacesuit that might give people a flashback to a certain character from the cartoon "Toy Story."

The new suit, called the Z-1, has a large port on the back that allows the astronaut easy access. This means it wouldn't take as long to get into suits (which right now can be quite the process) and the suits can be attached to the side of the spaceship without the need of an airlock.

There's also more radiation protection and bearings to allow for easier movement and longer space walks. The prototype will serve as the basis for Z-2 and Z-3 space suit revisions.

But for the most part, all of us can only think about one guy...

More large rocks headed toward our planet

Gosh, isn't this kind of old? There are countless rocks floating through space and some of them just so happen to occasionally hit Earth.

Oh wait, it could cause the end of our species? Well perhaps we should spend a little more money on lasers or tractor beams or something. So it was rather strange that nobody really talked about a 100-foot asteroid that passed between the Earth and Moon this morning.

While it wouldn't has spelled the end of human kind if that rock did find its way through the atmosphere... say over a large city... it could have done some serious damage. Good thing we're spending money on professional sports stadiums instead of a space program that could ward off these dangerous problems.

And stay tuned folks, there is a three-mile (read: serious problems for planet Earth) rock that was pass within four million miles of the planet. Now that seems like a long ways, but considered the cosmic scale (HUGE) and whats at stake (HUMANKIND), that's pretty darn close. Throw in the Mayan prophecies and it's all a bit spooky.

You'd think that maybe it would be something people should pay attention to but alas, the story on asteroids are buried among the topics on Google News. Apparently it isn't that big of deal. I guess people are just assuming we're going to pull of some Armageddon-like miracle (even though the space shuttle is designed for low-earth orbit).

It's just pathetic that we only made it to the moon because we wanted to beat the Russians. Forget progress and actual benefits for the human race, as soon as space became somewhat bland the public lost interest. If you want to hear about great accomplishments by America in space, you have to read books now.

All we really have to show is the occasional astronaut floating around in low-earth orbit in a space station. Daring Missions like the Mars Rover are still looked at sideways by the public as wastes of money even though they further the exploration of our neighbor planet.

Well, at least we have Snooki...

Mercury has ice on it

Well, go figure.

The planet closest to the sun, where temperatures can get up to 430 degrees Celsius, apparently has ice. In fact, Mercury has a butload of ice, about 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of it. All of it resides in crater bottoms that never see the surface of the sun. This all comes from NASA's Messenger spacecraft.

Sean C. Solomon, the principal investigator for Messenger, said there was enough ice there to encase Washington, D.C., in a frozen block two and a half miles deep.

 That is a counterintuitive discovery for a place that also ranks among the hottest in the solar system. At noon at the equator on Mercury, the temperature can hit 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

 But near Mercury’s poles, deep within craters where the Sun never shines, temperatures dip to as cold as minus 370.

(To learn more about Mercury, check out this documentary)

Now why should this be fantastic news for all of us? Because the ice of Mercury proves that even in an inhospitable environment like being close to the sun, humans could probably find a way to set up a colony. While Mars is obviously the golden goose of the planets in the Solar System, an outpost on Mercury isn't so far fetched once space travel becomes more and more regular.

Just don't put it on a sunny surface. Perhaps underground or on a crater floor.

(If you want to see what the movies thinks of Mercury and being close to the Sun, watch the awesome flick Sunshine)

Its funny how in just a couple of decades, a solar system that seemed devoid of life and water (except for Earth) has become an outright playground for organic compounds. Now if we could just spend more on NASA...

The Earth is going to end

Oh no!!! You haven't heard this one before, there is a large rock headed for the Planet Earth and it will pass very, very close to our planet.

To avert a possible catastrophe – this time set for February 2013 – scientists suggest confronting asteroid 2012 DA14 with either paint or big guns. The stickler is that time has long run out to build a spaceship to carry out the operation.

NASA's data shows the 60-meter asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in February, will whistle by Earth in 11 months. Its trajectory will bring it within a hair’s breadth of our planet, raising fears of a possible collision.

The asteroid, known as DA14, will pass by our planet in February 2013 at a distance of under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is closer than the geosynchronous orbit of some satellites.

While the truth is we don't know if the thing is going to even hit the Earth - there's a serious problem we're going to have to contend with... time. It would take us puny humans a couple years to build a spaceship capable of handling this rock. Now experts think that it could either burn up in our atmosphere or if it were to hit it would be like somebody set off a thermo-nuclear bomb (not an earth or human civilization killer) - but still nobody wants to play musical chairs with physics. An idea has come up with a very interesting way to handle this rock...

A spaceship is needed, experts agree. It could shoot the rock down or just crash into it, either breaking the asteroid into debris or throwing it off course.

“We could paint it,” says NASA expert David Dunham.

Paint would affect the asteroid’s ability to reflect sunlight, changing its temperature and altering its spin. The asteroid would stalk off its current course, but this could also make the boulder even more dangerous when it comes back in 2056, Aleksandr Devaytkin, the head of the observatory in Russia’s Pulkovo, told Izvestia.

Yeah not quite Armageddon hero stuff, just astronauts with spray cans. While this story is just a bit sensationalized ... there's no real proof that this thing is going to hit the Earth... it's kind of a scary thought because the United States doesn't have an effective space vehicle to use. Whoopsie.

Epic Photo: Solar Eclipse

From Space.com

A NASA spacecraft has captured stunning footage of Tuesday's (Feb. 21) partial solar eclipse, which left our star looking briefly like a huge celestial Pac-Man.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was watching Tuesday morning when the new moon crossed part of the sun's face in a partial eclipse that was visible only from space.

Actually that's crap... the large thing blocking out the sun is actually John Lackey...

Voyager spacecraft has reached... well really nowhere.

Good news everybody! Voyager 1 is now... basically in the middle of nowhere. In the great achievement of human engineering, the farthest man-made object from earth has reached "uncharted regions between our solar system and interstellar space."

What does that mean? The suburbs? That space in between Montana and Washington  that's basically trees and freeway that everyone just likes to drive through (Idaho)? Sounds like Voyager has found a crappy region that rivals the Tri-Cities. 

After more than 30 years of space journey, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distance of about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from the sun and has entered uncharted regions between our solar system and interstellar space.

This region is called the “stagnation region” by the scientists. In this region gusts solar winds can be felt. Solat wind contains high-energy charged particles that stream from the sun that leak out into the space.

The stagnation region? Can we send the Kardassians there?

Earth to be destroyed...

Where is Bruce Willis when you need him?

An asteroid about the side of a tour bus (not dangerous to Earth) will pass within 7,500 miles of the planet (again, not dangerous). I would recommend that everyone call in sick on Monday for "asteroid day" and dupe your unsuspecting boss into thinking the world is going to end.

It's going to be closer to the earth than the moon. But don't fret, apparently an asteroid already came closer to Earth this year... in April.

That number passed within 3,400 miles but again, didn't do anything to the blue marble.

I guess we still have to wait for a sequel to Armageddon.

Asteroid to Pass Extremely Close By Earth on Monday | Near-Earth Asteroids & Potentially Dangerous Asteroids | Asteroid Photos & Comets | Space.com

Epic Photo: First ever color photos of Mercury's surface

Beach side property, right next to the sun. Plenty of space. Not many neighbors. Must be prepared with own umbrella. Any takers?

Here is one of the first color photos of the surface of Mercury, thanks to NASA's Messenger. Here's the story from CNN...

NASA released on Wednesday more of the first images of Mercury taken by a spacecraft orbiting the planet, including the first color closeups depicting it in all its pock-marked glory.

The images were taken by NASA's Messenger spacecraft, the first mission to orbit the planet closest to the sun, according to Messenger's website. Mercury has been seen up close before in fly-bys, but this mission marks the first complete long view reconnaissance of the planet’s geochemistry, geophysics, geologic history, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and plasma environment.

The mission also allows NASA and its partner, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, an opportunity to show off Messenger's impressive Mercury Dual Imaging System, which has two cameras: the Narrow Angle Camera and the Wide Angle Camera, NASA said.

The first image acquired by Messenger, which was released Tuesday, was part of an eight-image sequence for which images were acquired through eight of the wide angle camera's 11 filters. A color version of that first imaged terrain, pocked with craters, was obtained through the filters and displayed in red, green, and blue, respectively, NASA said.

NASA changes the rules of life

Finding life outside of our planet just got a new playbook. NASA has discovered arsenic-based life in California (not Al Davis, trust me), which throws everything out the window in terms of finding life on other worlds. Before we've looked for specific conditions for life that didn't include this possibility. Now? Heck there could be life on Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto for all we know, depending of chemical composition.

Looks like we need a bigger telescope.

NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

No word yet on whether this means that Ozzy Osbourne can now be classified as living.

We've found a place to send the Kardashians

Scientists have to be pretty pumped about this one.

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft recently performed the closest flyby of Rhea, the second-largest moon of Saturn, ever, to discover what scientists have long suspected: Rhea, like a couple of Jupiter’s moons, has a little baby atmosphere. And while this atmosphere is mostly oxygen and carbon dioxide, there isn’t enough oxygen to be breathable by humans; and while the carbon dioxide could be cause by the existence of rudimentary life, there are a lot of other things that could cause it to appear.

In order to get a good reading, Cassini had to fly within 60 miles of Rhea’s surface (for comparison, 60 miles up on Earth, and you’ve just reached the beginning of the Thermosphere, higher than meteors but below the Space Shuttle, right about where the Aurora hangs out). It turns out that oxygen makes up about 70% of Rhea’s atmosphere, but it’s still about 5,000,000,000,000 times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere. So, not an opportunity for human explorers to breathe in an alien sky just yet.

So perhaps, just perhaps, unintelligent life lives on Rhea. I'm sure they'll get their own reality TV series.

One-way trip to Mars

It's a pretty simple premise. It's cheaper to go somewhere one-way. Apply that to traveling to Mars and you're probably saving billions of dollars, right? A professor from Washington State is saying that we should send out astronauts with no real intention of coming back home...

Colonization of Mars would be faster and cheaper if astronauts behaved like the first settlers to come to North America - not expecting to go home, according to two scientists.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor, and Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, argue that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a precaution against a catastrophe on Earth.

"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving. You would send a little bit older folks, around 60 or something like that," the Daily Mail quoted Schulze-Makuch as saying.

I hate that cost has come into the realm of space travel. Apparently we only want to continue exploring space if it doesn't cost us too much green. Somebody needs to figure out a way to make money with this space travel thing and then we'd have the solar system colonized within a decade.

One thing about the cost thing. Keep in mind we'll have to figure out how to have a self-sustainable colony on Mars, and that might be more costly than just strapping on another rocket for the return trip. Also, do we even have the know-how to create a colony on a hostile planet? Is that even possible at this juncture? We're not talking about a year or two. We're talking about a permanent settlement.

Why don't we focus on the Moon first and do the Mars thing when we're ready.

Epic Photo of Greatness: Moon shot

The moon was out this morning while I was checking out Kerr Dam in Lake County. Check it out!

Space above Spokane

This photo was sent to KHQ in Spokane by David Dobbins of the Spokane Astronomical Balloon Project. They send a balloon up 87,111 feet before the camera came back down via parachute. Pretty awesome eh?