Astrodidact

Galaxies are what make everything possible. They are complex, enormous, and home to all the stars in the universe. Galaxies come in many different forms; there are spiral, elliptical, irregular, and even merged galaxies. Typically, galaxies don’t just exist alone in space either but are part of a local group. For example, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is part of the Local Group that consists of another, even more massive galaxy known as Andromeda, as well as 52 other galaxies known as Dwarf galaxies. They are much smaller and contain a low number of stars in comparison to the Milky Way and Andromeda. Our Local Group of galaxies are all gravitationally bound, which will lead to an inevitable merger between ourselves and Andromeda in about 4 billion years from now. But outside of our group is a different story as it is Dark Energy that is creating more and more space in between our group of galaxies and the others that exist in outer space. It is truly a remarkable thing that we are able to observe this before our very eyes. The following galaxies are just a handful of the billions of others that exist in the observable universe. The majority of the following text is provided by NASA. From top to bottom, left to right:

Antennae Galaxy: Visible on the upper right, NGC 4038 used to be a normal spiral galaxy, minding its own business, until NGC 4039, toward its left, crashed into it. The evolving wreckage, is known famously as the Antennae. As gravity restructures each galaxy, clouds of gas slam into each other, bright blue knots of stars form, massive stars form and explode, and brown filaments of dust are strewn about. Eventually the two galaxies will converge into one larger spiral galaxy. The Antennae lies 45 million light years away from Earth.

Whirlpool Galaxy: Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper’s bowl until you get to the handle’s last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier famous catalog(M51). Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (top),NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the angular boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the human eye, deep images like this one can reveal the faint tidal debris around the smaller galaxy.

Centaurus A: At only 11 million light-years distant and spanning over 60,000 light-years across, the peculiar elliptical galaxy is also known as NGC 5128. Forged in a collision of two otherwise normal galaxies, Centaurus A’s fantastic jumble of young blue star clusters, pinkish star forming regions, and imposing dark dust lanes are seen here in remarkable detail. Near the galaxy’s center, left over cosmic debris is steadily being consumed by a central black hole with a billion times the mass of the Sun. As in other active galaxies, that process likely generates the radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray energy radiated by Centaurus A.

Andromeda Galaxy: A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy really is just next door as large galaxies go. So close, and spanning some 260,000 light-years, its spiral arms stand out in visible light images of Andromeda (also known as M31), the arms look more like rings in the GALEX ultraviolet view, dominated by hot, young, massive stars. As sites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted as evidence Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago. The large Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way are the dominant members of the local galaxy group. It is also believed to contain close to one trillion stars. For comparison, the Milky Way contains somewhere between 200-400 billion.

Needle Galaxy: Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. This sharp, colorful image reveals the galaxy’s bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565’s thin galactic plane. An assortment of other background galaxies is included in the pretty field of view, with neighboring galaxy NGC 4562 at the upper left. NGC 4565 itself lies about 40 million light-years distant and spans some 100,000 light-years. 

The Pismis 24 cluster within NGC 6357 is one of the more extraordinary regions in the visible universe. There are two striking features shown in this image. The nebula, NGC 6357 is seen below and is an emission nebulae full of ionized hydrogen gas. This is what explains the reddish hue. It also spans for about 400 light years in diameter. That’s just under 2.4 quadrillion miles long. Our stars gravitational grasp extends to a mere 12 billion miles for comparison.

If someone were to ask me what I consider beautiful about this universe, these images come to mind. This is just one small aspect of the natural universe but to me, nebulae and the formation of stars is extraordinary beyond words. Starting from the top and going down, left to right, here are the names and a brief description:

Carina Nebula-Otherwise known as NGC 3372, The Carina nebula is an estimated 7,500 light years away from Earth, and can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere in the constellation, Carina. It is four times larger than the Orion Nebula and contains a total mass in the range of 900,000 times the mass of the Sun. This magnificent nebula is home to one of the largest stars ever discovered- Eta Carinae. It is roughly 150 times the mass of our Sun but is four million times as luminous.

Orion Nebula- Otherwise known as M42, the Orion Nebula is a relatively close 1,500 light years away. It has a diameter of 24 light years, which is roughly 141 trillion miles wide. It’s total mass is roughly 2,000 times the mass of the Sun. Due to its close proximity, the Orion Nebula remains one of the most studied nebulae. We can see roughly 700 stars at many different stages of their lifecycle in the Orion Nebula.

Trifid Nebula- Residing in the constellation of Sagittarius, the Trifid Nebula, known also as M20, is approximately 5,000 light years away from Earth. In this image, we can see three distinctive types of Nebulae within the Trifid. The first being a red emission nebula, which is created by the hydrogen atoms being ionized by nearby stars within the nebula. The second is a blue reflection nebula, created by the dust that is reflecting the starlight. This reflection creates the blue seen in this image. The third is a dark nebula, which is created by the even thicker dust clouds that create a silhouette within the Trifid. The diameter of the Trifid Nebula is roughly 40 light years across.

Tarantula Nebula- This absolutely massive nebula deserves a lengthy description to appreciate its true size. Otherwise known as Doradus 30 or NGC 2070, the Tarantula lies at a distance of 160,000 light years from Earth and contains a mass that is measured in millions of times the mass of our Sun. It is estimated to be 100 times larger than the Orion Nebula and roughly 550 light years in diameter.  This equates to about 3.2 quadrillion miles in diameter. A number that is so utterly comprehensible, but worth considering. For perspective, the distance to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years away, making the diameter of the Tarantula Nebula 127 times wider than the distance to Alpha Centauri. This nebula is also so incredibly bright that if we replaced the Orion Nebula with it, it would be as bright as 60 moons and would cast shadows on Earth. The Tarantula Nebula can be seen in the constellation of Doradus.

R136 within the Tarantula Nebula- This tremendously luminous super star cluster seen as the bright blue stars to the right of the image, lies within the previously mentioned Tarantula Nebula. R136 contains what are called OB type stars(Blue-Blue/White). They are short-lived and extremely large. A rule to remember- the larger the star, the shorter the life. There are thousands of stars in this cluster alone, many of them being at least 50 times larger than our Sun. It is believed that this cluster will become a Globular Cluster in the future due to the close proximity of all the stars. In fact, Scientists have measured that 121 of these stars reside in a region of only 15 light years in diameter  Consider again that the nearest star to our Sun is 4.3 light years away. In under 4 times that distance there lies 121 massive and extremely luminous OB-type stars. Truly unbelievable when you think about it. It is also believed that 40 supernovae have occurred in R136 within the last 10,000 years; the last being the famous SN 1987A supernova.

Seahorse Nebula- This beautiful image of the Seahorse Nebula lies near the Tarantula Nebula at a distance of 170,000 light years. It is roughly 100 light years in diameter, which includes the Seahorse that is 20 light years in diameter alone. The incredible colors that we see here are a result of red sulfur atoms being ionized by a nearby star cluster known as NGC 2074. In addition to the sulfur atoms creating the red hue, the glowing hydrogen creates the green hue, and the oxygen atoms are creating the blue-ish hue.

Planck Time

What is the smallest unit of time you can conceive? A second? A millisecond? Hard to say seeing as how time is relative. Under the right circumstances, hours can fly by and seconds can feel like a lifetime. But unfortunately for physicists, time is not something that can be delt with so philosophically. And since they deal with cosmological forces both infinitesimally large and small, they need units that can objectively measure them. When it comes to dealing with the small, Planck Time is the measurement of choice. Named after German physicist Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, a unit of Planck time is the time it takes for light to travel, in a vacuum, a single unit of Planck length. Taken together, they part of the larger system of natural units known as Planck units.

Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, Planck units are physical units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of five universal physical constants. These are the Gravitational constant (G), the Reduced Planck constant (h), the speed of light in a vacuum ©, the Coulomb constant(ke or k), and Boltzmann’s constant (kB, sometimes k). Each of these constants can be associated with at least one fundamental physical theory: c with special relativity, G with general relativity and Newtonian gravity, with quantum mechanics, with electrostatics, and kB with statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. They were invented as a means of simplifying the particular algebraic expressions appearing in theoretical physics, especially in quantum mechanics.

Ultimately, Planck time is derived from the field of mathematical physics known as dimensional analysis, which studies units of measurement and physical constants. The Planck time is the unique combination of the gravitational constant G, the relativity constant c, and the quantum constant h, to produce a constant with units of time. They are often semi-humorously referred to by physicists as “God’s units” because eliminate anthropocentric arbitrariness from the system of units, unlike the meter and second, which exist for purely historical reasons and are not derived from nature. Some challenges to Planck’s Time have been mounted. For example, in 2003 during the analysis of the Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field images, some scientists speculated that where there are space-time fluctuations on the Planck scale, images of extremely distant objects should be blurry. The Hubble images, they claimed, were too sharp for this to be the case. Other scientists disagreed with this assumption however, with some saying the fluctuations would be too small to be observable, others saying that the speculated blurring effect that was expected was off by a very large magnitude. A unit of Planck Time can be expressed (in the third picture).

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