future of the universe

              future of the universe

                           Pointing telescopes into the heavens is not merely an arbitrary practice used to study our surroundings. It is much more than that. Not only does it give us the ability to study the very laws of physics that keep the Earth in rotation around the Sun, ultimately giving way to the development of multicellular life-forms, but it also serves as some sort of a  allowing us to look back at  some of the very first celestial objects created after the dawn of time.

In addition to that, we are able to determine the rate at which the universe is expanding, see stars be born and die in equal proportions, detect changes in the atmosphere of distant exoplanets and so much more, making it somewhat difficult to determine which portions are the most important. ‘ However, it has been said that due to the accelerating  expansion of the universe, the very sky we’re observing today will look radically different from the one that’ll exist in a few billions or trillions of year from now we look at our Milky Way galaxy (or other galaxies) from an overall point of view, we find that much of its light -- perhaps more than half -- comes from a relatively few stars: massive, blue, young stars, less than one billion years old, emit huge amounts of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation. They are often grouped together into star-forming regions, sometimes lighting up gas in their vicinity to form HII regions.

Spiral galaxies may remind you of a pinwheel. They are rotating disks of mostly hydrogen gas, dust and stars. Through a telescope or binoculars, the bright nucleus of the galaxy may be visible but the spiral arms are dimmer and difficult to see.

Spiral galaxies are complex objects and have several components: a disk, a bulge, and a halo. The disk contains gas, dust, and young stars in its spiral arms. The dense bulge in the center of the disk contains mostly old stars and no gas or dust. The halo is the home of a very few, scattered stars and . The halo is also the home of dark matter in spiral galaxies.

Spirals are subdivided based on the appearance of the arms and the central region. Saw types have a large, bright central region and tightly wound arms, while Sc types have a smaller central region and loosely wound arms. Sb types are somewhere in between. Spiral galaxies can also have bar-like structures through them. These galaxies are classified as SB.

Galaxies like to live together in groups called clusters. There are not many of spirals in a cluster usually, but they are more common than in the regions between clusters. 

The star Algol takes its name from an Arabic word meaning “the Demon’s Head.” This star is said to depict the terrifying snake-y head of the Medusa monster.In the mythology of the skies, Perseus – a great hero often depicted mounted on Pegasus the Flying Horse – used Medusa’s head to his own advantage – to turn Cetus the Sea-monster into stone. Perhaps the ancients associated this star’s variable brightness with the evil, winking eye of the Medusa.

Algol brightens and dims with clockwork regularity, completing one cycle in 2 days, 20 hours, and 49 minutes. Moreover, this variable star is easy to observe with just the unaided eye. At its brightest, Algol shines about three times more brightly than at its faintest. At maximum brilliance, Algol matches the brightness of the nearby second-magnitude star Almach. At minimum, Algol’s light output fades to that of the star Epsilon Persei.

kepler is the new planets

Kepler is the first spacecraft capable of discovering Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of distant stars. ESA’s CoRoT spacecraft is finding “super-Earths” which are planets several times the mass of Earth. CoRoT’s planets are in short period orbits, which means that the planets are close to their stars and are high temperature orbs. The latest CoRoT discovery is roughly twice the size of Earth. Ground-based telescopes search for exo-planets using spectroscopy, and have discovered a bounty of giant planets. More than 340 planets have been discovered, including 37 systems with multiple planets. Altogether, planets have been found orbiting more than 280 nearby stars. Amazing!So far, planets as small as Earth have not been found. The Kepler mission is specifically designed to search for Earths in the habitable zone of other stars. This will take time. One transit is not sufficient. Discoveries must be confirmed by at least two additional transits, for a minimum of three transits. For a planet like Earth in orbit around a Sun-like star, the transits would be about a year apart. Thus, confirmation would require three years. The initial observation period for Kepler is 3.5 years, and it may be extended.