The late, great Carl Sagan would have been 90 on November 9th By James Daly, Ph.D If anyone could ever accuse Carl Sagan of anything, it would be that he was a seeker of truth and peace. Indeed, his Pale Blue Dot was an exhortation to us all, so tiny on this pale blue dot, a Pale[…]
We’re watching the solution to Fermi’s Paradox unfold in real time Before I begin, I wish to state up front that this post contains no political content and does not take sides in any particular conflict. Political motivations or outcomes not withstanding, I am a sentient being who knows and feels pain. I feel the[…]
This is the fifth installment of our ten-part series on the brightest stars and, with it, we’re pleased to present the red supergiant star, Betelgeuse, the right shoulder of Orion, the hunter. Even though we’re still in August and Orion is a winter constellation, its prominence as a near-term supernova candidate makes it especially interesting.[…]
To suffer is to learn humility, true humility. Jocelyn Bell, no doubt, suffered in silence from the insult and the culture that led to it, one of the greatest professional injustices in modern academia. Given my Irish heritage, I have a particular interest in this story and, although the title could be a trigger or[…]
This pair of images represent Hubble’s targets on July 17, 2021 and demonstrate the telescope’s return to full science operations on that date. The images are part of a study being conducted by Julianne Dalcanton of the University of Washington in Seattle. The Galaxies ARP-MADORE2115-273 is a rare example of an interacting pair of galaxies[…]
With a period of 24 days, TOI-1231-b orbits an M-class (M3V) star of 0.48 solar masses, first discovered by the TESS orbiting exoplanet finder in 2019. Further confirmation came from the Planet Finder Spectrograph on the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Led by Jennifer Burt of NASA/JPL, her team at JPL and the University[…]
The total solar eclipse of July 11th, 1991 was hailed as the “Eclipse of the Century”. On this day 30 years ago, traveling with a group of friends and colleagues, I was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to observe the Eclipse of 11 July, 1991. 2 days of the 5-day, 4-night trip was in Cabo.[…]
Using the Keck Observatory’s Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) and DEep Imaging and Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) attached to the 10 meter telescopes on Mauna Kea, we’ve observed a long-postulated, third type of supernova, an “Electron Capture” supernova. It is believed, based on composite imaging across multiple spectral regimes, the famous Crab Nebula may have been[…]
On December 17, 2020, Dr. James Daly of Astronomy For Change interviewed Alberto Caballero, founder of the The Exoplanet Project and The SETI Project. Alberto holds a Master’s degree and is the host of the “Exoplanets” YouTube channel whose focus is habitable exoplanets, extraterrestrial intelligence and Interstellar Travel. Alberto is also involved with the Habitable[…]
Please visit our Patreon page to learn what happened “A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away….” VIdeo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Astronomy For Change: https://astronomyforchange.org Buy us a Coffee? https://www.buymeacoffee.com/astronomychange Follow Us On Twitter: https://twitter.com/astronomychange Why not support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/astronomyforchange Imagination is more important than knowledge An index of[…]
Every year on this date, the anniversary of the famous May 29, 1919 Total Solar Eclipse, we celebrate Einstein’s Triumph, the experiment that provided incontrovertible evidence for the veracity of his theory on Gravity, the General Theory of Relativity. Up until the turn of the 20th century, the natural universe was governed by Newton’s Laws;[…]
In a stunning image, worthy of publication on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day or, as a new category, as “Astronomy Picture of the Year”, Finnish Astrophotographer JP Metsavainio has produced a GigaPixel class image that took 12 years and more than 1,250 hours to produce! Join Dr. Jim Daly of Astronomy For Change has[…]
This is the second part in the two part series showcasing and explaining the amazing physics and technology that made NASA’s latest mission to Mars such a resounding success. In the first video Dr. Daly explains the physics behind the launch and cruise phases of the mission, complete with explanations, diagrams, theory and calculations specific[…]
Dr. Jim Daly of Astronomy For Change Interviews Alberto Caballero. The Exoplanet Project’s home page: https://exoplanetschannel.wixsite.com/home. Alberto holds a Master’s degree and is the host of the “Exoplanets” YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdDS4j318UpKjNcpe_LeQxQ) whose focus is habitable exoplanets, extraterrestrial intelligence and Interstellar Travel. He is also involved with the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project, an international consortium of[…]
This is the fourth installment of our ten-part series on the brightest stars and, with it, we’re pleased to present Sirius, the brightest star in Canis Major, the Great Dog. As we transition to winter, with the Winter Solstice occurring this year on the 21st of December (don’t forget to watch the Conjunction of Jupiter[…]
Update: Emergency Action Petition to the WhiteHouse to evaluate and stabilize the Arecibo radio telescope In an unexpected blow to the worldwide Astronomical community, the National Science Foundation announced on Thursday (11/19) that they would soon begin decommissioning the iconic radio telescope, the heart of the Arecibo Radio Observatory. The telescope was made famous in[…]
Climate Change is an Existential Threat to All Life on the Planet and to the Continuance of the Human Species as the dominant life form on the planet. By James Daly, Ph.D That’s a pretty bleak outlook and as stark as it gets but, sadly, it’s the truth regardless of how many politicians choose to[…]
In this video, Dr. Jim Daly of Astronomy for Change discusses the star Vega, where it is in the night sky, how it compares to the sun and the mythology surrounding Lyra, the constellation that it’s in. As an exercise in Astrophysics and imagination, Dr. Daly describes what would happen to our solar system if[…]
Dr. Jim Daly of AFC discusses the star Arcturus and its similarities to our own sun, our sun as seen through a lens that takes us on a journey in time 2.6 billion years into the future. What will happen to our solar system when that happens. We also take a look at the sky[…]
Related videos available at the foot of the page. With this third in installment in our ten-part series on the ten brightest stars we’re pleased to present the red supergiant star Antares, the Heart of the Scorpion. Derived from the Greek, the star’s name refers to it as a “rival to-Ares” (“opponent to-Mars”) with a[…]
This is the second installment of our ten-part series on the brightest stars and, with it, we’re pleased to present Vega, the “Contact Star” (made famous by the feature-length Hollywood production of the same name, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey). Vega, at 25 light-years distant, is the fifth brightest star in the sky and[…]
Here at Astronomy for Change we often get questions, good questions, about various topics in astronomy. Here’s a sampling of some of the more common questions received as of late: Which planets we can see from earth What star did sailors use to navigate? Why is Sirius so easy to find in the night sky?[…]
Link to video at foot of page Back in 2016 we published an article Where are the five brightest stars in our sky? Since then, this article has been one of our most popular and, accordingly, we’re going to continue the discussion, expanding the list from 5 (6, really, when you consider the sun) to[…]
On 3 October of 2017, in what the prestigious Royal Swedish Academy described simply as “a discovery that shook the world”, three Americans were awarded that year’s Nobel Prize in Physics “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”, waves famously predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity 105[…]
In this video, Dr. James Daly celebrates and discusses the Centenary of the first of many confirmations of Einstein’s Theory of Gravity, his General Theory of Relativity. On 29 May, 1919, observations were made of stars in the vicinity of the totally-eclipsed sun, a rare event that provided the conditions necessary for such an experiment[…]
The object discussed in this article, Terzan5, was featured as the Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD for 21 September, 2016 Astronomy Picture of the Day In a few articles I’ve touched upon a poorly understood class of objects known as Globular Clusters. These objects and the stars in them are galactic relics, timeposts that[…]
Related articles linked at the foot of this page Opinion by Dr. James Daly The late Carl Sagan, in his 1995 book “The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a Candle In the Dark” warns of exactly what is happening today and how reliance on science, reason, thought and collaboration is the antidote to a society that[…]
Looking up at the shimmering sapphire set low in the western sky towards midnight, Arcturus, we are reminded that another summer is here, that spring is gone and that Father Time continues his cadence, marking the years; it is a reminder that everything is changing and growing; it is solace in an insane world and[…]
Well, I did it! Using the college’s 0.63m flagship instrument, I, along with colleagues, visually observed the second most distant globular cluster associated with our Milky Way galaxy! I’m fascinated with relics as they have a story to tell, a deep story of something very old, of a long-gone epoch, a bridge, if you will,[…]
Looking up at the shimmering sapphire ascending the northeast sky at twilight, Arcturus, reminds us that the seasons are changing, that spring is emerging from what seemed to be an intolerably long winter; it is a reminder that everything is changing and growing; it is solace in an uncertain world and allows one, at least[…]
During these cold, clear winter nights in the Northern Hemisphere, the sky is adorned with a veritable treasure trove of jewels, ranging widely in brilliance, splendor and color. As seen from mid-northern latitudes, the winter sky has one of the highest densities of bright stars for any given region of the sky. Even a casual[…]
Astronomy is an area where the Greeks displayed a remarkable talent. Observational astronomy, the main focal point where astronomy took an unprecedented leap in Greece, attempted to construct a model of the universe that could account for the observations made by Greek scholars. They explored all imaginable alternatives, and carefully accounted for several different solutions of[…]
Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions and, starting in 2002, scientists at NASA have been monitoring that emission using instrumentation onboard the Cassini spacecraft. As a result, NASA was able to convert and translate the radio signals into sound in an effort to better understand the underlying phenomenon. This discovery is just one[…]
In what could only be described as a visual metaphor of a bright, hopeful, limitless future, this image, iconic as it is inspirational, epitomizes what is the best in us, the potential we have to soar to new heights, a young child chasing Juno along a Florida beach as the intrepid explorer slips the surly[…]
During his years working in the Swiss Patent Office, Albert Einstein often imagined what it would be like to ride on beam of light. This thought experiment would come to play a key role in the development of his Special Theory of Relativity, one of the four great works produced during his 1905 Annus Mirabilis.[…]
Update to this topic: The Ten Brightest Stars (and where they are, with video) – 1. Arcturus Going out to look up at the stars on a clear, dark night can be daunting, if not for its beauty and majesty but for what may seem like an uncountable number of stars; you often hear the[…]
World renowned physicist, and Advanced Fellow of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, Professor Brian Cox suggests that science not only gives us hope in a turbulent, conflicted and often dysfunctional world but also provides a method of coping with the turbulence. In an August 3rd BBC[…]
Note: Following observations of the 2 August Transit of the moon across the sun, SDO failed to return to Science mode, hence the blank video composites below. Daily, Dynamic Video Composite Loops of the Sun in the light of Extreme UltraViolet and soft X-Rays High-Definition Movies of the Raging Sun 24/7 Be the first to[…]
Almost half a million of the people alive today were alive 100 years ago. These same people have seen so much during that time and we’ve learned far more than the great lights of that day could have ever imagined. Ironically, it was through some of those great lights that we have progressed as far[…]
In what could only be described as a visual metaphor for a bright, hopeful, limitless future, this image, iconic as it is inspirational, epitomizes the essence of our mission at Astronomy For Change: a young child is chasing Juno along a Florida beach as the intrepid explorer slips the surly bonds of Earth into a[…]
In beautiful cadence, the progress of knowledge and understanding cascading across the millennia culminating now, with Juno’s successful arrival at Jupiter. In resounding brilliance, we are in orbit around the largest planet in our solar system, in search of our beginning. In the waning hours of July 4th, Juno successfully began its two year orbit[…]
Scientists are an interesting breed of people, they are creative, adventurers, critical, and pragmatic. This may not be the initial subset of people you would look to for inspiration. However, think for an instance of the motivation required to tackle the great intellectual challenges of our time. Scientists are driven by constant curiosity and inspired[…]
