What high-speed astronomy can tell us about the galactic zoo

Aeon ^ | Christopher Kochanek

[dp0622]

Are there really other FReepers who understand this? :)

I would imagine some bright folks either work in the field or read a lot.

I’m still struggling through entanglement and how two atoms seven miles apart can affect each other faster than the speed of light.

[Telepathic Intruder]

"If you think you know quantum mechanics, you don't know quantum mechanics" -- Richard Feynman.

But this is an astronomy subject, involving classical physics, not quantum physics. When we tend to see the night sky as unchanging, forever constant, because nothing really does change. The stars are in the exact same positions they were a thousand years ago. The plants move with precise, clock-like regularity. But upon closer examination, we notice subtle changes. Supernovas, for example, occurring once every few dozen lifetimes. Last week's solar eclipse. A comet here, a particularly large meteor there. But upon even closer examination, the universe is full of change. Changes so violent they could vaporize our tiny planet with the merest exposure. But given the vastness of space, they are still few and far between.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Gotta brag about what I saw Friday night. I was coming out of a 7-11 store at 9:14 PM when I saw a strange light slowly crossing from East to North (in Arlington, Virginia).

At first I thought it was an airplane slowing coming out of Reagan National Airport, and then that an engine might have been on fire because of the colors involved. Having seen hundreds of meteors in my lifetime, including one near Bolide and a very long-lasting Cherry colored one, I then realized what I was watching was a slow moving, relatively large meteor that has tear-dropped shaped (head swollen with a long tapered tail or like a large tadpole (large head, medium body, tapered tail).

It was a slightly dark Cherry red on the upper third, orange-yellow in the middle and white at the bottom third. It literally did a slow flight at about 20-30 degrees elevation from the ground and the whole thing lasted about 5 - 7 seconds, but nor more than 10. (The average meteor lasts about 1 second such as the Orange Perseid I saw last week about Aug. 18th).

This was the most spectacularly colored meteor I’ve ever seen (the long-lasting Cherry one from about 8 years ago was the first Cherry colored one I had every seen).

While I’ve always wanted to see a large flaming meteor , this one was very spectacular in its own right. (I missed a flamer by seconds during a Leonid shower about 10 years ago. My son and I were talking on the phone and we both saw one large meteor but I turned my head for a couple seconds and missed the sparkler one, to my chagrin).

Mother Nature sure knows how to put on a show. Next good one should be the Leonids in November. Remember “Watch the Skies”.

[dp0622]

Does the sun rotate? I dont mind asking stupid questions? :)

Do all stars rotate. All stars are made of the same stuff i would guess.

And that’s a complete guess :)

[LibWhacker]

Yes, but you’ve got to remember it’s a big ball of gas. So different latitudinal regions rotate at different speeds. And the interior rotates at different speeds than the outer layers. It’s just a big messy ball of hot churning gas, very different from a solid rotating ball.

[oldplayer]

Linebacker, thanks for an interesting post.

[dp0622]

That’s incredible.

I never cease to be shocked and surprised by science. By the universe.

[dp0622]

Fascinating stuff.

[Lazamataz]

I hold that the universe is much too large, and by it’s volume, is a white-privilege racist oppressor. Let’s burn a statue of Galileo.

[LibWhacker]

LOLOL

[Mr. K]

the sun rotates every 11 days

[TXnMA]

Thanks for a good read! It's encouraging to know that the concept of large-baseline, distributed small telescope networks is being exploited.

I'm ending my run of solar orbits, but, maybe one day, there will be an "internet of amateur telescopes" whose shared and compiled data amplifies the spatial and time and spectral resolution of ASAS-SN...

[Alas Babylon!]

This guy makes a good case for the ASAS-SN, which is the project he’s working on, and damns with faint praise the LSST.

I wonder if there’s a fight for grant money?

[Techster]

Rotation at equator 25.05 earth days
Rotation at 16 degree latitude 25.38 earth days
Rotation at poles 34.4 earth days

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

[2nd Amendment]

Lots of things are racist! For instance the solar eclipse last week skipped predominantly black cities and went to predominantly white cities!

[dp0622]

Good Lord!! It must be YUGE!

Do all the planets and the sun rotate at the same speed?

[LibWhacker]

Also...

The sun's core rotates four times faster than its surface

[Telepathic Intruder]

Just about everything in space rotates to at least a little. The sun’s rotation is differential; it takes 24 days at the equator and 33 days at the poles. The sun itself, and all stars, are made of about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, the main elements of the universe. The earth and everything else we know are mostly just trace heavy elements, created by the explosion of some star 5 billion years ago.

[Wuli]

I would like to see automated astronomical observatories put together on and run remotely on earth’s moon, where NOTHING way out in space is as obstructed as everything is by earth’s atmosphere.

I have even wondered about saving the Hubble telescope, moving it and keeping it operating in lunar orbit.

I imagine in a couple hundred years we may even do some such thing far out on or around Pluto.

I can even envision, closer to home, permanent earth-sent satellites orbiting every planet in the solar system, monitoring every observable change and with analysis of all the data looking for, and I believe seeing, solar system wide relationships to some events and statuses of what is observed individually on ours and the other planets.