It's only been recently that I realized what a mix of things I had posted on this blog: stories, poems, silly things, serious things, space travel, etc. What it was considerably lacking, however, was astronomy.
Perhaps I didn't even notice this lack until an opportunity presented itself this morning. When I brought up the news today, I was thrilled to discover the headline: "Scientists find most massive star ever discovered." According to the article, scientists in the UK found a star (R136a1) believed to be approximately 265 times more massive than our sun, and which burns about 10 million times as brightly.
Because a star begins with all of the mass it will ever have, and slowly shrinks as it ages due to its "self-consumption" or burning of its components to sustain itself, even though R136a1 is the most massive star yet discovered, it was even more massive when it was first created.
7.21.2010
7.13.2010
Connecticut
The 4th of July, Independence Day, was this past week. Unfortunately, I was unable to write anything for the occasion, being temporarily without internet for about ten days. To be exact, I was in Connecticut with my sister.
Our catch phrase during the trip became "like home, but not home." In other words, Connecticut has aspects that aren't much different, and other aspects that are soooo not New York. For instance, we walked into a crowded Walmart and were beginning to feel right at home until we spotted a sign in the store advertising fireworks. Beneath, strange boxes of the combustible items were stacked neatly, ready for the average customer. As a native New Yorker, I have always viewed selling fireworks to just anybody as being against the law. Thus the Walmart there was "like home, but really not home."
Anyways, my trip to CT left me favourably impressed. The ocean we visited was stunningly beautiful, and if my camera batteries hadn't decided to die, I would have loaded my hard drive with so many pictures that my computer would have crashed. I saw two impressive displays of fireworks (which one can never take a picture of to do it justice), and I watched Toy Story 3 in 3D (my first 3D movie ever).
Now I really am home. It has been one of those hot, quiet afternoons in the middle of summer vacation that makes one feel as though something unexpected should happen - but unexpected thing rarely does come along - and I'm not convinced that such days are unpleasant things....
Our catch phrase during the trip became "like home, but not home." In other words, Connecticut has aspects that aren't much different, and other aspects that are soooo not New York. For instance, we walked into a crowded Walmart and were beginning to feel right at home until we spotted a sign in the store advertising fireworks. Beneath, strange boxes of the combustible items were stacked neatly, ready for the average customer. As a native New Yorker, I have always viewed selling fireworks to just anybody as being against the law. Thus the Walmart there was "like home, but really not home."
Anyways, my trip to CT left me favourably impressed. The ocean we visited was stunningly beautiful, and if my camera batteries hadn't decided to die, I would have loaded my hard drive with so many pictures that my computer would have crashed. I saw two impressive displays of fireworks (which one can never take a picture of to do it justice), and I watched Toy Story 3 in 3D (my first 3D movie ever).
Now I really am home. It has been one of those hot, quiet afternoons in the middle of summer vacation that makes one feel as though something unexpected should happen - but unexpected thing rarely does come along - and I'm not convinced that such days are unpleasant things....
6.05.2010
The End of the Shuttle
"What is it? It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...a SPACE SHUTTLE!"
It's hard to know where to begin with a story when one is facing the end of it. Nevertheless, some effort must be made to acknowledge the retirement of the space shuttle - and the end of space travel as we know it. Scheduled to take off sometime mid-November of this year, the Endeavour will mark NASA's final shuttle mission.
Although NASA will continue to work on things such as Mars exploration (using robotic craft), and the study of stars and planets both in our galaxy and beyond, the future of manned space-craft is so uncertain and unlikely that it could be up to 10 or 20 years before an American astronaut again steps out onto the dusty soil of the moon's surface - and possibly longer before he can stand on Mars and see the red planet with his own eyes.
To be fair, none of the shuttles ever made it to the moon, but that only makes the retirement all the more saddening. If the government cared so little about landing on the moon in recent years, how much does it care about the exploration of space at all, now that the one connector between the Earth and the vacuum has been discarded without a replacement?
Therefore, we remember the shuttle as we remember the Apollo missions. Perhaps the shuttle's accomplishments were comparatively insignificant. Perhaps it's experiments weren't as ground-breaking as those during the Apollo period. Nevertheless, the symbol that it stands for: the delight of exploration, the importance of technological advance, and most notably, the self-sacrifice and bravery of those men and women who risked their lives - and of those who died, most notably those of the Challenger and the Colombia - for the furthering of our understanding of natural phenomenons and the physical universe - is no less great than past achievements. Thus we see the conclusion of this chapter in history come to an end.
It's hard to know where to begin with a story when one is facing the end of it. Nevertheless, some effort must be made to acknowledge the retirement of the space shuttle - and the end of space travel as we know it. Scheduled to take off sometime mid-November of this year, the Endeavour will mark NASA's final shuttle mission.
Although NASA will continue to work on things such as Mars exploration (using robotic craft), and the study of stars and planets both in our galaxy and beyond, the future of manned space-craft is so uncertain and unlikely that it could be up to 10 or 20 years before an American astronaut again steps out onto the dusty soil of the moon's surface - and possibly longer before he can stand on Mars and see the red planet with his own eyes.
To be fair, none of the shuttles ever made it to the moon, but that only makes the retirement all the more saddening. If the government cared so little about landing on the moon in recent years, how much does it care about the exploration of space at all, now that the one connector between the Earth and the vacuum has been discarded without a replacement?
Therefore, we remember the shuttle as we remember the Apollo missions. Perhaps the shuttle's accomplishments were comparatively insignificant. Perhaps it's experiments weren't as ground-breaking as those during the Apollo period. Nevertheless, the symbol that it stands for: the delight of exploration, the importance of technological advance, and most notably, the self-sacrifice and bravery of those men and women who risked their lives - and of those who died, most notably those of the Challenger and the Colombia - for the furthering of our understanding of natural phenomenons and the physical universe - is no less great than past achievements. Thus we see the conclusion of this chapter in history come to an end.
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