A century of astronomy revealed Earth’s place in the universe
I read this summary and what struck me is that most of this has happened in my lifetime. I have followed astronomy all my life and took the discoveries for granted. It was an epiphany that this is the greatest era of discovery in history. The gravity* of it is astonishing. A hundred years ago galaxies were a theory. It is incredible to think how limiting that was now. We are just at the beginning of what might come and you can be sure it will be a lot.
Astronomers Were Not Expecting This in 2023
Once again the mindscape shifts.
This report on a solar system fragility repeats a common theme in my science reading. Everything I have read from paleontology to biology to physics suggests the knife’s edge that life lives on in the universe. Life exists by an incredible range of chance factors and luck that we are doing our best to screw up.
What happens in space matters
We are mostly water and water is mostly Hydrogen which is as old as the universe. Sobering stuff and another clue to not screw up the planet. We have a fatal attraction for self extinction.
10 Days of Venus and Jupiter
Image Credit & Copyright: Soumyadeep MukherjeeExplanation: Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately. The impending close conjunction of the two brightest planets visible in clear evening skies has been hard to miss. With Jupiter at the top, starting on February 21 and ending on March 2, their close approach is chronicled daily, left to right, in these panels from Dhanbad, India. Near the western horizon, the evening sky colors and exposures used for each panel depend on the local conditions near sunset. On February 22, Jupiter and Venus were joined by the young crescent Moon. The celestial pair appeared to be only the width of a full moon apart by March 2. Of course on that date the two planets were physically separated by over 600 million kilometers in their orbits around the Sun. In the coming days Jupiter will slowly settle into the glare at sunset, but Venus will continue to move farther from the Sun in the western sky to excel in its current role as the brilliant evening star.
I watched this casually this month. It was cool to see them dance around the sky. It is little wonder they fascinated the ancients when they moved like this and other sky lights aka stars didn’t.
*a pun and not a pun
A persistent influence of supernovae on biodiversity
What happens in space matters.