Astro Wonders

2021-05-10 20:42:47 It's death anniversary of the man who knew everything ThomasYoung --

In Physics, Young is credited with establishing the wave theory of light, in contrast to the particle theory of IsaacNewton. His work was disparaged by most English scientists: any opposition to a theory of Newton’s was unthinkable. It was only... Open / Comment

2021-05-10 20:30:00 African-American mathematician, Katherine Johnson, who calculated Earth orbits and rocket trajectories for NASA's early space missions, helped to put astronaut John Glenn into the Earth's orbit in 1962. She was so skilled that Glenn had asked specifically for her and had refused to fly unless the calculations were verified by her.

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2021-05-10 15:30:01 Dwarf galaxies are the most common type of galaxy in the universe.
Dwarf galaxies, the small cosmic Lego bricks that combined to form the galaxies we witness today, contain greater proportions of dark matter than large spirals. As a result, dwarf galaxies give astronomers a better opportunity to study dark matter and its effects.

Miniature galaxies, called dwarfs, have even higher proportions of dark matter than larger galaxies because the motions of their stars cannot be fully explained by the sum of their stellar mass alone. The galaxies were packed together tightly, so many of them began to merge. That’s probably how most of the big galaxies took shape — through mergers between the dwarf galaxies
They contribute significantly to the mass of the Universe, but very little is known about them partially because they are small and dimly lit.

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2021-05-10 12:30:01 Download This Image (High Resolution) Open / Comment

2021-05-10 10:30:00 Horsehead and Orion Nebulas

The dark Horsehead Nebula and the glowing Orion Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas. Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one of the night sky's most recognizable constellations, they appear in opposite corners of the above stunning mosaic. The familiar Horsehead nebula appears as a dark cloud, a small silhouette notched against the long red glow at the lower left. Alnitak is the easternmost star in Orion's belt and is seen as the brightest star to the left of the Horsehead. Below Alnitak is the Flame Nebula, with clouds of bright emission and dramatic dark dust lanes. The magnificent emission region, the Orion Nebula (aka M42), lies at the upper right. Immediately to its left is a prominent reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man. Pervasive tendrils of glowing hydrogen gas are easily traced throughout the region.

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2021-05-10 05:30:00 According to mathematics, white holes are possible, although as of yet we have found none.

A white hole is a hypothetical region of space-time which can’t be entered from the outside, although matter and light can escape from within.

Basically, it’s the reverse of a black hole.

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2021-05-09 20:30:00 Gravitational Time Dilation at black holes

Gravitational time dilation is a phenomenon whereby time runs slower when in a higher gravitational potential. Gravity slows down the time. And the more massive or energetic an object is, the slower the time will be around it.

If a certain object approaches the event horizon of a black hole. To any observer, the object will completely freeze at the event horizon and will slowly disappear. Time dilation occurs close to a black hole, this means that to an observer
far away from the black hole time near the black hole runs slower. The extent of time dilation can be determined from the size of the black hole, swarzschild radius and the distance of the observer. The object at the event horizon will not experience any effects of time dilation and time would be completely normal for the object. According to an observer, it would seem like the object freezes and moves extremely slowly because the Observer experiences the gravitational time dilation.

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2021-05-09 16:35:31 A very sad news:

Dr.Nandivada Rathnasree has left us for the heavenly abode. She was battling with COVID.

She was the Director of Nehru Planetarium, Delhi, committee member and first chair of ASI-POEC!

She was extremely active in astronomy outreach and research!

She will be badly missed by all the students and the entire community..!

May her soul rest in peace! Open / Comment

2021-05-09 15:30:01 The future orbital trajectories of three spiral galaxies: our Milky Way (blue); Andromeda, also known as M31 (red); and Triangulum, also known as M33 (green). The Milky Way and Andromeda will collide about 4.5 billion years from now, a new study based on observations by Europe's Gaia spacecraft suggests.

Most of the stars Gaia is eyeing are in the Milky Way, but some are in nearby galaxies. In the new study, the researchers tracked a number of stars in our galaxy, in Andromeda (also known as M31) and in the spiral Triangulum (or M33). These neighbor galaxies are within 2.5 million to 3 million light-years of the Milky Way and may be interacting with each other, study team members said.

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