Category: Stars in their eyes
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Why the first stars could have been filaments
Star formation in the early universe ain’t particularly well understood. Why should a pristine cloud of dust suddenly collapse to form a star? One theory is that clumps of dark matter create gravitational wells into which the dust clouds collapse (although why dark matter should be clumpy and not smooth is anybody’s guess). But Liang…
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Galactic rings: the smoking gun for modified gravity
For a while now, them star gazers have been banging heads over the nature o’ gravity. Here’s the problem: when you look at the way galaxies are a-spinnin and a-spiralin, there just ain’t enough gravity to hold em together. So either there is some hidden mass putting its gravitational shoulder to the wheel: the so-called…
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How do black holes move?
There’s more to that question than meets the eye. Black holes ain’t like nothing else in the Universe, havin’ all kinds strange quantum properties as well as some curious gravitational ones too. So when it comes to cruisin’ the cosmos, do black holes move like classical objects such as stars or like quantum objects such…
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Google’s virtual telescope
Google ain’t just takin’ over the planet–it’s a-takin’ over the universe. The company created a big splash a couple a weeks ago by adding stars ‘n’ planets to Google Earth. They called it Sky. So now ya’ll can look down on Google Earth and up at Google Sky. This week, the company outlines its vision…
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The incredible galactic foxtrot
Ya’ll know the laws of physics are symmetrical–they have no preferred direction. The speed of light (and more or less everything else) is the same whichever way it is pointin’, right? So it’d be surprisin’ if the universe turned out to be asymmetric, shockin’ if it had a prefered axis and stunnin’ if it had…
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Huntin’ for quantum gravity
On the tiniest scale, spacetime ain’t flat at all but a-bubblin and a-fizzin with virtual particles leapin in ‘n outta existence. Quantum gravity, say them cosmologists, is a kinda foam. Ain’t nobody observed quantum gravity. But this week, them astrogawpers say they might have seen some indirect evidence while a-starin and a-gogglin at Markarian 501,…
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How to get ahead in evolutionary computing
Ya’ll know that connectedness is an important feature of small world networks. And that various busy bodies have worked out the best connected film stars, scientists, toilet attendents etc by analysing the network of links between these people in their various professions. Very clever and, at one time, even kinda intrestin’. Now Juan “Don” Merelo…
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The first quark nova
Them stargazers have been a-gapin’ and a-gawpin’ at a champagne supernova called SN2006g. A long, long time ago in galaxy far, far away (NGC 1260 in the constellation of Perseus) this mutha blew up big time: the blast was huge, offerin up 100 times more a-rumblin and a-tremblin than anything them astrogawpers have seen before.…
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The dark matter problem
It ain’t right, this dark matter business. The problem is these galaxies that astronomers are a-peepin and a-starin at: they’re just rotatin too quick for Newton’s beloved gravity to hold em together. So something has to be a-stickin and a-holdin them tight. Ya’ll bin told that dark matter provides the extra gravitational oomph to stop…