The Astrophysicist’s Alphabet

Image credit: Galaxy Zoo.

“When I was having that alphabet soup, I never thought that it would pay off.” -Vanna White

Ever want an A-to-Z illustrated alphabet of astrophysics? Turns out that — other than writing your own via Galaxy Zoo — it doesn't yet exist. So I thought it would be delightful to make one for you… right now!

Image credit: Flickr user Image Editor / 11304375@N07.

A is for Aurora, polar lights fast and slow, the Sun’s hot electrons make the atmosphere glow.

Image credit: Andrew Hamilton of JILA / Colorado, http://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/insidebh/schw.html.

B is for Black hole, a star’s collapsed heart, once matter falls in, it will never depart.

Image credit: Comet West, retrieved from Cathy at http://www.rwaurigae.org/.

C is for Comet, with tails, dust, and ice, a trip near the Sun makes them look very nice!

Image credit: STScI / NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingworth (UCSC).

D is for Doppler, turning galaxies red, if you’re far, you’ll move fast, faster, fastest; you sped!

Image credit: Miloslav Druckmuller (Brno U. of Tech.), Peter Aniol, and Vojtech Rusin.

E is for Eclipse, where the Moon, Earth and Sun cast light-blocking shadows, and cause tons of fun.

Image credit: Flickr user Image Editor / 11304375@N07.

F is for Fusion, that powers the stars, nuclei join together, and the light is all ours!

Image credit: Dean Rowe of http://deanrowe.net/astro/.

G is for Galaxies, in clusters and groups, with billions to find, no wonder we’re snoops!

Image credit: NASA / Space Shuttle, from 1997.

H is for Hubble, the telescope from space, the sights it has seen help the whole human race.

Image credit: Robert Gendler of http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/Biography.html.

I is for Ions, who make gas glow so bright, when they find electrons, we see colorful light.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al.; Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI.

J is for Jets, from a galaxy’s core, when it eats and spits matter, they’re active once more!

Image credit: © 2007 Dorling Kindersley.

K is for Kelvin, with Helmholtz, stars will cool, so white dwarfs fade to black, it’s a great cosmic rule.

Image credit: Cleon Teunissen of http://www.cleonis.nl/temp/libration.htm.

L is for Libration, which makes our Moon rock, it’s a trick of the orbit; it’s tidally locked!

Image credit: Fred Bruenjes of Moonglow Observatory; 253 meteors from the 2007 Perseids.

M is for Meteors, which come in a shower, at the right time of year, you’ll see hundreds an hour!

Image credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

N is for Nebula, planetary, in this case, when the Sun’s out of fuel, this is our fate in space.

Image credit: Axel Mellinger.

O is for Opaque, why the Milky Way’s dark, without dust to block it, starlight would be stark!

Image credit: Optical: NASA/HST/ASU/J. Hester et al. X-Ray: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al..

P is for Pulsar, a spinning neutron star, as the orbits tick by, we know just when we are.

Image credit: K. Sharon (Tel Aviv U.) and E. Ofek (Caltech), ESA, NASA.

Q is for Quasars, great radio sources, distant, active galaxies eating like horses!

Image credit: NASA / Cassini / the CICLOPS team.

R is for Rings, all gas giants possess them, even one found in another sun’s system!

Image credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA.

S is for Spacetime, which curves due to matter, this Universe-fabric, it bends but won’t shatter!

Image credit: High-Z Supernova Search Team, HST, NASA, of SN 1994D.

T is Type Ia, the best known supernova, when White Dwarfs collapse, your distance? We’ll know ‘ya!

Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team; stitching of the HUDF and the XDF fields by me.

U is the Universe, which we’re still understanding, with billions of galaxies, our spacetime’s expanding!

Image credit: Antoine Vergara Astrophotography.

V is for Virgo, our nearest great cluster, with 1000+ galaxies, it’s a massive gut-buster!

Image credit: Nigel Sharp, Kitts Peak National Observatory/NOAO/AURA/NSF.

W is for wavelength, the energies of light, it’s how we know what atoms are in stars just from sight!

Image credit: ESO, APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO), A. Weiss et al., NASA Spitzer Science Center.

X is for X-rays, which find starbursts (in red), where the most massive galaxies form stars dead ahead.

Image credit: Larry McNish from RASC Calgary Centre.

Y is the Year, where we orbit our Sun, each planet is different; the Earth is just one.

Image credit: The Milky Way through a Fisheye Lens, from Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Z is for Zenith, so gaze up towards the sky! The Universe is here; let’s learn what, how and why.

Source: Science Blogs

DIY Paper Calla Lilies

Usually when I think of calla lilies, I think of plain old white ones. But there is a whole world of colored calla lilies out there. Gorgeous pinks, corals, mangos, yellows, and deep purple, even. Colors that make me want to go find gelato or sorbet right this instant. Here is a simple way to dress up a gift using just a few supplies – maybe for your dear, sweet mom for Mothers Day?!

Materials needed: various colored paper, tape, stapler, hole punch, yellow crepe paper streamer, scissors.

Step 1: Begin by cutting a square of paper in the shape of the top left image shown above. The size of the paper will depend on the size of the flower you want.

Step 2: Cut a 5 inch piece of crepe paper, fold it in thirds widthwise  then in half lengthwise. Pick up your petal shaped paper and bend both sides together while holding the crepe paper rectangle inside. Staple the layers at the base of the flower and set aside.

Step 3: Repeat, and staple this flower to your first flower. When you have two or three flowers stapled together, you will want to hide the staples by covering them with a green leaf. (You can use a little double-stick tape to secure the leaf to the flowers)

Step 4: Punch a hole through the leaf and flowers, for your ribbon, twine or string to go through.

Step 5: Wrap your gift and tightly tie your flowers on top.

You can put as many flowers on each gift as you like – check out the photos below, you can go nutso with the flowers! ;)

Happy Wrapping!

Source: Oh Happy Day

Confetti Egg Game :)

I love parties that involve surprises. And crowd participation. So, just in time for Easter festivities, we decided to throw a party with confetti eggs (which are a little surprise in and of themselves) with a little twist – one golden winner!

DIY Party: Glitter Confetti Eggs

Confetti eggs (aka Cascarones) are like mini pinatas for your head. Traditionally, hollowed out eggs are broken over the head of a friend, showering them with confetti….and supposedly good luck (but definitely confetti).

We decided to shake things up in our hunt this year by turning it into more of a game. You still fill most of the eggs with confetti (or birdseed, or, in our case, Fruity Pebbles since they still look like confetti but I don’t feel as bad about leaving them in the park for birds to nibble). But – one of the eggs in the batch is filled with gold glitter, and whoever ends up with the head full of glitter gets an awesome prize (besides all the good luck they have coming to them).

Party Rules

• Hide your confetti eggs as you would normal eggs, and let your friends go hunting for them.
• Once everyone has collected the eggs (or as the eggs are found – your choice), the *kindly* smashing upon heads begins.
• No throwing eggs! Proper egg-smashing etiquette requires your hand to come in contact with the other person’s head so that you aren’t hitting anyone too hard or poking anyone’s eyes out.

The lucky winner who gets the glitter egg smashed on their head goes home with the grand prize of the day. I’m always a fan of large quantities of fine chocolate, but you can get creative with what the prize will be.

Variations: If you’re really feeling feisty (and don’t mind a messier activity), I think it would be fun to leave a few eggs raw, just to keep things interesting (and provide some real motivation for running from the egg smashers coming toward you). Or, really shake it up and try things like jello filled eggs, or powdered sugar filled eggs, or whatever you’ve dreamed of dumping on someone’s head.

How to Make Confetti Eggs:

Materials Needed
Raw eggs
Egg dye (we used good ol’ vinegar and food coloring)
Confetti (or birdseed, fruity pebbles, or your filler of choice)
Gold Glitter
Tissue paper (we used a round 1″ punch to make our tissue paper perfectly sized)
Glue

Pin/Needle
Scissors

Step by Step:

1. Using your sewing pin, poke a single, small hole at the top an egg.
2. Open up a larger hole at the bottom of the larger part of an egg.
3. If your yolk is too large, sometimes it helps to use a toothpick or something to stir the yolk up and make it more liquid
4. Let the egg drain out of the larger hole into a bowl, blowing the residue out through the small pin hole in the top of the egg if you need to encourage the yolk out a little more quickly.

5. Rinse the egg shell (you can add a little bleach to get rid of the egg smell) and allow it to dry.
6. Use dye to color the eggshell (you’ll have to fill the hollow shell with dye to make it stay submerged); allow to dry thoroughly.

7. Fill the egg about halfway with confetti (or whatever you decide to put inside). Use a funnel if needed.
8. Cut a piece of tissue paper slightly larger in size than the egg’s hole. Glue the paper to the edges of the hole.

9. Voila. Your eggs are filled. You are ready to party.

Have fun out there, kids. May confetti-filled eggs make all your dreams come true.

Source: Oh Happy Day

Are These Images Proof Of Real Time Travel?

What if time travel is, ultimately, possible? And what if there’s already proof that people from the future have visited us, and even interacted with civilizations from our ancient past?

What follows are a series of images that many claim are evidence that time travel has already occurred, and that visitors from the future have mingled with cultures throughout history.

Are these stories and photographs real, or hoaxes?

On this occasion, I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Evidence of time travel in Chinese tomb?

In December 2008, Chinese archaeologists allegedly removed the opening of a giant coffin within what was believed to be an undisturbed, 400-year old Si Qing tomb in Shangsi County.

As they removed the soil around the coffin, however, they were shocked and amazed to find this:

A small piece of metal shaped like a watch, with the time frozen at 10:06.

“Swiss” was engraved on the back.

If the tomb was truly undisturbed for 400 years, what could explain the existence of this modern artifact?

Virtual Museum Photo: Time traveler caught on camera?

The above photo was allegedly found on the Virtual Museum of Canada website, an online repository of “Canada’s rich history and culture.” It’s said to be of the reopening of the South Fork Bridge in the early 1940s in Gold Bridge, B.C., Canada.

But in the photo, something doesn’t belong.

Who is this strange individual, seemingly out of place — modern attire and all — in what would otherwise be a perfectly ordinary gathering? Is the photograph real?

Woman on cell phone in 1928?

The above video contains a short clip taken from a special feature on the DVD version of Charlie Chaplin’s film, The Circus. In it, we see a relatively mundane shot from the film’s premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1928. Two individuals walk across the screen behind a zebra.

But what’s that woman holding to her ear?

A cell phone? A pan-dimensional communication device? Is this a real time traveler?

A Compact Disc case in the 1800s?

Allegedly, this photo was taken sometime in the 1800s, and appears to be of a man holding what looks like a fancy CD box.

You can see the flap held up by the man’s thumb, but remember: The earliest form of plastic wasn’t invented until the mid-1800s, and (obviously) Compact Discs weren’t in use until the 1980s.

Perhaps it was made of glass? But what was the purpose of this strange box, and was this photo truly taken in the 1800s?

Update: This is not actually a photograph, but rather a crop from a painting. Thanks go to Eddy Pengelly for the correction.

Andrew D. Basiago’s Trip To Gettysburg

This final image is courtesy Andrew D. Basiago, who allegedly took part in DARPA’s top secret government operation Project Pegasus back in the 1970s.

The photograph is said to have been taken during one of Basiago’s temporal trips, during which he found himself at Gettysburg on the very day of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.

Basiago is, allegedly, the young boy at center-left.

Says Basiago,

“I am the boy standing in the foreground of the image at center-left, looking to his right. My shoes were lost in the transit through the quantum plenum that took me from the plasma confinement chamber at the time lab in East Hanover, NJ in 1972 to Gettysburg, PA on the day that Abraham Lincoln gave his famous address there in 1863.”

And there you have it. Are these examples of true photographic evidence of time travel? Or nothing more than elaborate hoaxes?