#scienceposts

If you had a "Gods-Eye View" of the cosmos, and you zoomed out and out and out... you'd notice that the universe - at such a small scale -looks like a complex series of filaments. Webs. Veins. Wires.

These are stars and galaxies. We know now that matter (stars and galaxies etc.) seem to all line up next to each other in such a way that when you zoom out far enough, they seem to just blend together and all clearly become a part of a larger structure.

These structures are called galactic filaments and we know they exist. Our best methods to map the universe have resulted in this knowledge.

But why???

Well. The answer, we think, is dark matter.

To explain I need an analogy. If you're at the beach and there's a wave coming towards you, just stand there and watch.

What happens? The water, more or less evenly washes over the sand then recedes.

Now with your finger draw a little line in the sand. Draw a webby shape like the top row of images. Now as the water washes over the sand, some is left behind caught in the line you drew.

It's entirely possible that the universe's filament "webby" shape is because this is the way dark matter is spread throughout the universe. The gravitational attraction of the dark matter draws regular matter into it, sticking to that part of space like the water got stuck in the lines, or like dust to a spider web.

There are SO MANY MYSTERIES still.

I want to end this post with another thought, another analogy.

Before you watch the water on the beach wash into the lines you draw in the sand do another thing.

Notice the place where two filaments of web connect. Take your finger and carve out a little hole deeper in the sand. As the wave washes over it you'll notice the water swirling into the hole.

The place where two branches of filament connect, this is where one finds huge populations of star clusters and... whirlpool galaxies. Galaxies that spin and swirl around almost like water down a drain.

Each of these universes does have a hole it spins around - a black hole. Another great mystery.

The World Wide Web & the First Website

Have you ever wondered where the internet came from?

It was originally a project at CERN, those guys running the Large Hadron Collider. The project started out with the name ENQUIRE and was basically formed by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee.

They produce so much data at CERN with every particle collision that human eyes to this day still haven't seen all the results of their tests.

Well, they wanted to form a database where they could store this information until the day came when humans had sorted there way down to the unread data. Thus: the World Wide Web was created.

We can all thank them because in 1993, they decided to make their "WWW" free for the public, they had no idea though that their file storage database would become one of the pillars of modern humanity.

On this note, have you ever wondered what the very first website ever is?

Feel free to explore because I tracked it down for you:

http://info.cern.ch/

Listen Like a Tree

One of my favorite discoveries this Summer (one that didn't get too much press imo) was the discovery that plants can hear.

When scientists played the sounds of caterpillars chewing on leaves near a tree, they found that it amps up its chemical defenses against such predators (mustard oils specifically).

Mad Science Hoorah!

A team at Fermilab is doing something called the Holometer Experiment which is testing whether or not the fabric of space is actually 2D.

You read that right. By using two separate wavelength-lasers, they're testing things like holographic interference which means - to sum:

I don't fucking know but this is really cool and I'll definitely get back to it when I learn how it all works.

Some of you may have noticed a few days ago that there was a particularly spectacular meteor sheering across the sky. Well if it was the one pictured above then it wasn’t a part of this months Perseid meteor shower at all but was rather the end of another space ship.

Orbital Sciences is a private company that cargoes things to the International Space Station for NASA but they don’t have the technology to bring their ships home so they discard them after use by dropping them into the atmosphere at orbital velocities.

The most remarkable things happen when you push the laws of physics to their extremes. Such a place where this happens is space:

Far away in the Gliese 436 star system is a Neptune-sized planet called Gliese 436 b. This world is covered in ice that burns constantly at 822.2˚ Fahrenheit (439˚ C).

Did you know that in 2006-2007, Earth had a second moon?