The most weird objects in the universe

In our universe, there are objects that seem to arise from the most creative imagination; some of them have photos that look like a fantastic artwork.

Although we are used to hearing about black holes, if we think about them, these objects seem to come from a fantasy not our world... but they are not the only weird objects in the universe.

Have you heard about quasars, pulsars, dark matter, nebulae, supernovae, or magnetars?

Here I tell you about these and other curious objects of our universe.

Science. Weird names in astronomy: the stars

The human being observed the sky since the beginning of the time. He saw shapes in the groups of stars similar to objects around him, but in other shapes he imagined the form of his gods and the birth of his legends.

He named the wandering stars, the planets, after his gods, and he named the stars as well. As his knowledge progressed, he gave names to asteroids, nebulae, galaxies and regions of the Moon and the planets of the solar system.

The traditional names of the stars that we use today are of Arabic origin such as Rigel or follow a nomenclature based on their location in the sky with respect to a constellation such as Beta Orionis (other name for Rigel) of the Orion constellation. However, there are unusual names that pay tribute to important figures related to the astronomical research and worldwide culture.

Scientific poetry: The old astronomer to his pupil, by Sarah Williams

As far as I can remember I love poetry but since I studied physics, I have been very interested in the science and poetry combination. Is this concept possible? Well, yes. The great advances of science during the XIX century till today, have been accompanied by the development of a new kind of poetry: the scientific poetry whose rooths belong to the Roman time.

The following quote is often attributed to Galileo in social nets:

I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

However it seems to belong not to the Italian physicist but to the poem The old astronomer to his pupil, written in 1868 by the English poet and novelist Sarah Williams.

Mad about time II. Time travel to the past.

We live in a vertex of past and future time cones. We have seen the past and we know that we will see a part of the future. We even know that is possible to travel to the future but the question is: can we travel to the past?

Astronomical games III. The Sun and planetary skies

In two last entries, everything about solar system scales, sizes of the sun and the planets, distances from the planets to the sun and characteristics about their composition and their skies. However, how big is the sun in every planetary sky?

Astronomical games II. Planetary landscapes

Have you thought in other worlds?

Astronomical games I. The Solar System

Time ago I had the opportunity to visit a primary school in UK to talk about astronomy. Back to Mexico I used to give and enjoy outreach talks about science. In UK I started to talk about Mexican culture and after a year I had the opportunity to give talks about astronomy for kids. I was a little scared about this new experience as it is in some way is easiest to speak with adults (more if they are academics) than to speak to kids. Anyway, it was my second year in UK and I wanted to share a little part of the knowledge of the universe to these little guys and discover as I discovered before with other kids, new thoughts and very interesting questions.

Changing the geometry of the world

Only some human beings have changed the geometry of their known world.

On October 12, the World remembers Columbus’ discovering of American continent. I am referring not to the country but to the complete continent named America some years later its discovery (the American continent from Argentina in the South to Canada in the North).

The man on the street

The man on the street lives and sleeps. He sees sights with beautiful sunrises and sunsets. He does not worry if Earth’s rotation is the origin of day and night cycle. The man on the street spends his life through the years: Holydays and cold during the winter; the spring so full of flowers and hopes; the summer of the vacations; and the autumn plenty of leaves fall and calm. He does not think about the Earth’s translation around the Sun or about the inclination of the terrestrial axis.

The man on the street walks and sometimes he falls ill (although some of humans’ epidemics have happened every 11 years, he does not know that the solar cycle of 11 years as well).

The music of the Sun, a new musical hit?

In the antiquity people used to believe that the Sun was turning around the Earth. They though that this was the cause of days and nights in our Earth. Nowadays we know that it is the Earth and the other planets, which actually turn around the Sun.

In the antiquity people also believed in the existence of a celestial and wonderful music played by the planets and the spheres made of ether in our universe. Nowadays we know that that old substance named ether does not exist and that the universe actually is constituted of a matter named plasma. But what about the music? Does it exist or not?

An astronomer cricket and the child’s day

In 1954, UNESCO established a day to celebrate the children. This day is the 20th of November of every year. However, every country has its own date according to its customs and traditions.