I'm a science writer and editor. I work with clients in the observatory and planetarium community, as well as my own book, web, planetarium, and other projects.
Need a writer/editor? Visit my services page for my projects and availability.
Note: The ads you see below and at the bottom of this page are screened for content and many fine companies do appear here. Occasionally ads I don't want DO slip through, particularly for pseudo-science, st*r-naming, ID, and other questionable sites. Please understand that I cannot be held responsible for their content. Do visit them if you wish, but as with all advertising, be logical and use common sense.
You know that town in Texas where the residents think they're seeing alien UFOs (which turned out to be Air Force jets)? Well, they haven't seen anything as alien as what the folks at the Carnegie Institution of Washington found when they did observations and analysis of a star called HE 0437-5439, a so-called "hypervelocity" star. It's speeding away from the Milky Way, but it wasn't born IN the Milky Way. So, astronomers studied its mass, age, and speed of the star, which is about nine times the mass of the Sun. It's moving into intergalactic space at about 2.6 million kilometers per hour. That's much too fast for it to have come from the Milky Way, but where DID it come from?
As it turns out, HE 0437-5439 was born in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way. The Carnegie astronomers figured this out by looking at amounts of certain elements in the star. The "elemental abundances" they found point to a particular area in the Large Magellanic Cloud where similar amounts of the same elements exist. Hence the star more than likely formed in that region. So, what's it doing speeding away from the LMC and the Milky Way? Stars don't get up and flash out of their home galaxies just for the heck of it. They have to be kicked out by something.
The most likely scenario goes something like this: HE 0437-5439 formed as part of a binary system (a pair of stars orbiting a common center of gravity). As that pair of stars moved through space, they passed by a black hole that was about a thousand times the mass of the Sun. As we all know, black holes suck; that is, they have strong gravitational pulls. One star of the pair got pulled into the black hole, while the other got a gravitational kick that flung it out of the LMC. Now the surviving star (HE 0437-5439) is on its way to intergalatic space, leaving astronomers with an important clue that there's at least one black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Now they just have to find it. (Note: for more information, read this press release.)
The first step you take to space is the one you take when you go outside and look up at the stars. A lot of questions crowd your mind. How far away are those stars? is a good one. Another one that you eventually get to is: How did they form?
Astronomy, the science that studies the stars and planets and galaxies, is a rigorous way of looking at the stars and explaining how they came to be. It applies physics, which is another science that we all learn at some point in our lives. The laws of physics describe motions, actions, and reactions. Pretty simple, really. Something happens, a law of physics describes that happening. If you can observe it, you can describe it. If it happens often enough in the same or similar ways, the laws of physics describe it. That's the essence of science, and the application of physical laws. Clear thinking is required and it's not hard to do once you get the hang of it.
So, the stars are out there, and over centuries of study, we've figured out how they work, where they came from, and what they're going to do throughout their lives. Same with planets and galaxies and nebulae.
But, the first step is to go out there and gaze.
There's a project going on in the first two weeks of October called the Great World Wide Star Count. It's aimed at anybody who wants to go outside, look up at the stars, and then share what they see with others. It's a science project, and as such things go, it's pretty easy. You go outside, look for specific constellations and then come inside and write up what you see in a form on the World Wide Web. Visit the link to find out more. It's time to step outside to the stars! Start practicing for the Star Count tonight!
In her column in Parade Magazine, a writer named Marilyn vos Savant made a list of "Questions too Funny to Answer." Some of the questions were truly funny, belying people's mis-understanding of science. Sad, in a way.
But, the saddest question, one that I didn't find to be funny at all (and I'm surprised she listed it as "funny) was this: "Where did all the stars go? In the '50s, the sky was loaded with them."
It really isn't even a dumb question. It's a query that reflects a changed perception of the sky: we're not seeing as many stars as we used to. Back in the '50s we didn't have much light pollution as we do now. Populations were somewhat smaller, and we were scattered more. Less light pollution per square meter, you might say.
Today, we light the night sky up with photonic pollution that tells the universe, "Look here! These people have money to burn!" Because, of course, when we light the night sky unnecessarily, we're wasting money. And harming the environment in more ways than one.
If you ever have a chance to be in a truly dark-sky site, you'd see why I label the night sky as one of the seven wonders of the universe. To quote David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey,, "My god, it's full of stars!"
And that gorgeous scattering of distant starlight is what set our minds wondering throughout the centuries. They caused us to wonder about what they were, how they got there, what makes them shine, and what will happen to them in the future. The science of astronomy, followed by astrophysics, augmented by physics, planetary science, atmospheric physics, and so many others, flowed from our wonder about the night sky.
The sites below belong to space and astronomy enthusiasts. I make every effort to check them and make sure they are still appropriate. However, I am not responsible for their content, nor do I endorse any of it by simply linking to them. As with all Web surfing, please exercise caution.
Adot's Notblog A fellow traveler blogger and astronomy enthusiast!
Astronomy Blog An astronomy blog pondering the big questions
