Ready to reach the stars?

The American multinational corporation Google, has launched a new project that will allow users travel through the space like every kid has always imagine. This experiment has been called “100.000 Stars”, and the reason for this name is really simple: with help from NASA, the European Space Agency and other sources alongside the technology used in Chrome, Google’s creative lab is creating a magnificent display of the one hundred thousand nearest stars in relation to our Sun.

 And that’s not everything of course, apart from the possibility of zooming in or out the site, or literally navigate through our cosmos, with the assistance of the Virtual Encyclopedia Wikipedia, users are able to acquire information about every star shown on the display, and get a digital image of the celestial body. The site starts with a short explanation of itself, and then the user will gain full control of it; either he could begin a followed tour through the site or just explore our part of universe by himself, like a real astronomer could do.

This last application of Google join the vast group of services that the successful corporation had integrated into our daily life – Gmail, Chrome, Google Maps, Google+, among others -, but after using for a few minutes, you’ll start realizing that more than a service, is a beautiful tool that could not only amaze or entertain, but also enlighten the young minds of future scientists.

Is someone out there?

Do you believe in aliens? When I was little I really liked the idea of having super intelligent neighbors that would come to visit us and help us out with all our problems. For a nine-year-old girl it might be interesting, but what about science itself. Can we call ufology a pseudo-science?

The Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has being totally rejected by the scientific community. Mostly because there is no evidence that living creatures can travel in the space, plus our closest planets are totally empty. Therefore, all the Hollywood’s ideas that have been showed on the movies are just pure fiction.

Two hypotheses have made lot of noise. One is the portal theory, which was proved by Nasa’s researchers in the university of Iowa. It says that maybe those “travelers” came from portals that open in our galaxy and are connected with others.

The historic aspect has also being really important. It’s believed that the Entities presented in the mythology could have been these special visitors. Some answers could be found, like how some civilizations could have developed advanced technology tools. Even the pyramids construction mystery could be solved.

Some researchers attribute our race to a mutation made by aliens to create a similar intelligence, which could also explain the difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.

Do you think all this is going too far? Would you like to find out that your religion is based on aliens’ visits? Is it really important for us to know all this? 

(source: http://www.educatinghumanity.com/2012/03/ufo-theory-sightings-research-reports.html)

Infrared nights

Have you ever asked yourself why the night sky is black? Well, what most of us may think is that, it happens because the sun’s light is not reaching our side of the world directly.

Sadly I have to tell you that’s not totally true. 

Our sky is blue during the day time because of the ozone in the atmosphere, but if we didn’t have it, we would see the space directly, like from the moon. Then, why is the universe dark?

If you look through a telescope the universe you will appreciate the light and starts from billions of years ago. You can even see the background light from the bigbang. Therefore, all the light from those “babies stars”, that now are 13 billion of years older should be seen by us every night including the bigbang background in the edge of the universe. Then, nights should be as brighter as sunlight.

Lately an astronomic research has showed that the universe expansion is not the only cause of this blackish night sky. The stars movements also make their light change into an infrared light, including the bigbang background radiation. This kind of light can’t be appreciated by human eyes.

What we can’t perceive by ourselves it’s really impressive, Did you know about this? Do you think that books should be changed? What else had been ignored by our none-complete sensorial system? 

(source: http://youtu.be/gxJ4M7tyLRE)

can this be a déjà vu?

No, it’s not the end of the world… yet. Some scientists have found in a lately research that some alien planets have been destroyed.

Apparently, in their way of trying to find planets similar to the earth, they have discovered four agonizing stars that are making their own solar system collapse.

The study directed by astrophysicists at the University of Warwick in the U.K. shows that the material which was caught surrounding the White dwarfs (stars in their last stage) is very similar to what we can find in our Milky Way, specifically in our planet.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, they found out 80 white dwarfs that, as the earth, the material that is still rotating around them is made of oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon. Essential elements which are part of the 93% of our planet.

Also it was found a little portion of carbon. This is also similar to our reality. According to the investigation this low amounts are not very common to find, actually it’s the first time that they are found in so distant galaxies.



What does this has to do with us? Well, the researchers said that this can be a quick look to what is going to happen with our sun in a far away future. Do you think that those planets were habited? Are they still alive?







(source: http://www.space.com/15535-alien-planets-eaten-dying-stars.html)

Please Moon, don't walk away

Nowadays it's believed that time is passing really fast, but my dear classmates this is just a cultural product. Actually, time has passing everytime a little bit slower than before. Why? because our dear symbol of the night is going away from us. Don't worry! It's not the end of the world.

In simple words, the tide effect that connects the moon with our planet has being decreasing. The sun has being causing all this. Therefore the distance between the beautiful moon and us is growing, affecting to the energy our planet uses to rotate.

Scientists think that millions of years ago a day consisted of 22 hours and a year of 397 days, and the moon could be appreciated in its enormous figure from the earth's surface. 

And probably far into the future a day will last 47 of our present days, and we won't see the moon from where we are now. A world that obviously, we won't appreciate (the sun will blow up first with the earth-moon system).

An amazing consequence of this will be that we won't have total eclipses anymore.

What we must learn about the moon movement is that conventions shouldn't be believed when we talk about cosmic matter. Our universe can surprise us every day. What do you think? Are you ready to let the moon go?

I hope you can make it George :)

(Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/09/12/160944289/time-moves-with-the-moon)

Man and the Universe: Both created from the same elements

“The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.”

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Have you ever thought that the atoms which form our DNA are present in the most ancient Galaxies of the whole Universe?

Recent studies have shown that the most important elements that compose life on earth (hydrogen , oxygen, carbon, nitrogen) are present in the most ancient galaxies of the Universe. We can find these elements in different places, such as the surfaces of moons, planets, stars and asteroids.

As we all know, the early Sun was made up of just a cloud of nebulae gas and interstellar dust. These two ingredients were pushed together by a nova’s explosive energy, making the sun begin to spin, permitting the process of hydrogen fusion to start, and letting the Sun begin to shine. Earth was created from the very same cloud of gas and dust, and humans were created out of the same elements that made the Earth.

Of all the facts I mentioned before, the most amazing is that we humans are connected molecularly with all of the elements of the Universe: A star exploded but created a new star, and new planets, and us. We are made of stars.

Knowing what we do about the Solar System and how it was created, what do you think about the religious views that say human beings were created by God?

 For more information about it, check out this video.