Our Solar system is big, and vast, despite it is really small compared to our galaxy, not to mention the complete universe. To put this into a perspective, you can think yourself as a photon emitted by the Sun. It takes about 8 minutes to reach the Earth after a photon has been emitted from the Sun’s surface. And it takes 5 hours to get out to Pluto from the Earth. The edge of the Solar System is far beyond the orbit of Pluto.
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Category Archives: Astronomy
Great American Total Solar Eclipse 2017
There will be a total solar eclipse on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, and the United States will be the best country to watch. It will be also the first total solar eclipse to go coast to coast in the U.S. in 99 years. From Oregon to South Carolina, 70-mile Moon-shadow will race across the U.S. and it will completely block out the Sun for a few minutes. It’s still more than seven months away, but hotels already are selling out as people prepare for the rare and amazing event.
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Two stars may collide and light up night sky in 2022
Two stars may collide into a stunning “red nova” in 2022 (or a few months earlier, most probably between September 2021 and September 2022), and for a few weeks become one of the brightest objects in Earth’s night sky, scientists predict. When two stars merge, they increase in brightness 10 thousandfold.
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Earth and Moon, as seen from Mars
Recently, NASA published an amazing image of Earth (and Moon) taken on November 20, 2016, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera(1) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter(2). The image is so incredible that we can see even the continents and clouds of Earth.
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Top 10 Common Misconceptions about Earth
People believe many things which are actually not true. Here are the top ten misconceptions about Earth.
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Top 10 Most Beautiful Earth Images Taken From the International Space Station in 2016
Here are the top ten most beautiful (well, IMHO, of course) photos taken by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2016.
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If Andromeda Galaxy were brighter, this is what we’d see
Andromeda Galaxy is the farthest object in the sky that we can see with the naked eye. But if you don’t know where to look, you won’t notice it. But if it were much more brighter, its appearance in the sky would be sensational. The moon is a good reference about what we’d see in the image below:
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The Size Of Earth Compared to Other Planets and Stars (and the Universe)
When it comes to big numbers, very big numbers, human brain is weak. In fact, our brains cannot deal with the really large numbers. That’s why when the subject is Earth, planets, Solar System, galaxies, and in general, the Universe, we cannot truly conceptualize the things. A lot of people think we’re “conquering” the space (we are far, far away from that – and maybe we never will), or the “aliens” are regularly visiting Earth, as if it is just an hour’s drive from there. In fact, these people don’t truly understand what are they talking about, how big is the universe, how far the stars are, and how the Earth is a tiny, tiny spot in a vast space we are still striving to understand.
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How Eratosthenes calculated the Earth’s circumference
In 240 BC, the Greek astronomer, geographer, mathematician, music theorist and librarian Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 BC – c. 195/194 BC) calculated the circumference of the Earth without leaving Egypt. Here’s how:
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How Earth Moves (Video)
A beautiful video, once again, from Michael Stevens, titled “How Earth Moves”. Michael explains many concepts, including “sub-solar point”, “sidereal day vs solar day”, or “how Earth moves in the space” etc, and he is doing it in a very simplified manner. Enjoy!
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