Party Rock Is In The House Tonight

WHY IS THE SPACE BLACK??

Blog#306

Saturday, June 17th, 2023

Welcome back,

Look up at the night sky with your own eyes, or marvel at images of the universe online, and you'll see the same thing: the inky, abysmal blackness of space, punctuated by bright stars, planets or spacecraft. But why is it black? Why isn't space colorful, like the blue daytime sky on Earth?

Surprisingly, the answer has little to do with a lack of light.

"You would think that since there are billions of stars in our galaxy, billions of galaxies in the universe and other objects, such as planets, that reflect light, that when we look up at the sky at night, it would be extremely bright," Tenley Hutchinson-Smith, a graduate student of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), told Live Science in an email. "But instead, it's actually really dark."

Hutchinson-Smith said this contradiction, known in physics and astronomy circles as Olbers' paradox, can be explained by the theory of space-time expansion — the idea that "because our universe is expanding faster than the speed of light … the light from distant galaxies might be stretching and turning into infrared waves, microwaves and radio waves, which are not detectable by our human eyes."

And because they are undetectable, they appear dark (black) to the naked eye.

That said, a 2021 study in The Astrophysical Journal suggests that space may not be as black as scientists originally thought. Through NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, researchers have been able to see space without light interference from Earth or the sun.

The team sifted through images taken by the spacecraft and subtracted all light from known stars, the Milky Way and possible galaxies, as well as any light that might have leaked in from camera quirks. The background light of the universe, they found, was still twice as bright as predicted.

The reasons for the additional brightness, which remain unknown, will be the focus of future studies. Until then, one thing seems likely: Space could very well be more "charcoal" than pitch-black.

Originally published on big livescience.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, June 21st, 2023)

"WHY IS DARK MATTER SO IMPORTANT??"

Wendy Cope, "From June to December: Summer Villanelle"

you really don't know the effect you have on people. i might just reply your last text with emojis since that's how i think it's supposed to be but it made my whole day, my whole week, and maybe i feel like 2023 is complete. love you

Space.com

Where did Earth get its water? It was sucked up from space, new theory says

The theory could have important implications for the search for life outside the solar system.

Earth may have formed much more rapidly than previously believed after born as tiny millimeter-sized pebbles that accumulated over a period of just a few million years. The new theory also implies that rather than water being delivered to Earth by icy comets, this vital ingredient for life is present on our planet due to our young planet thirstily sucking up water from its space environment. The theory could have important implications for the search for life outside the solar system, indicating that watery and habitable planets around other stars may be more common than currently theorized. The new theory put forward by the team suggests that around 4.5 billion years ago when the sun was an infant star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust, known as a proto-planetary disk, tiny particles of dust would be quickly sucked up by forming planets once they reached a certain size. In the case of the infant Earth, this "vacuuming up" of disk material ensured our planet was supplied with water. 

Continue Reading

Saturn

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope took its first near-infrared look at Saturn on June 25. The planet appears dark at this wavelength, as methane gas in its atmosphere absorbs sunlight — but its icy rings stay bright!

Of course Saturn brought its ring light 🪐

the group chat when i ask whos available to hang out next week

If you're a young woman with emotions you gotta save em up so you can yell at your eldest daughter. If you're a young man with emotions you gotta go on a quest or some shit.

mine's not 17 yet but yeah okay

"what's your dream job??" Uhh to have 17 weird little hobbies that I don't have to be good at and hang out with friends. I get money via being the world's specialist little princess