by Jon Farrow, Canadian science communicator in the UK.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s footprints on the moon will never fade. Until they get struck by a meteor or the sun expands. Well, we know the sun will expand to engulf the Earth’s current orbit in approximately 5 billion years, but how likely is it that a meteor will wipe one of these footprints …
Continue reading "About As Likely As A Lunar Footprint Getting Hit By Space Debris"
Human eyes can see wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation between 390 and 750nm. Light at the long end of this range (~750nm) appears red while light at the short end (~390nm) appears blue or violet. We call this range the visible spectrum for pretty obvious reasons; it’s the wavelengths of light that are visible to our …
The planet doesn’t care about us. We live on a chunk of rock that follows the bend of space-time around a massive ball of Hydrogen. This rock is home to more species than we can count, and yet it seems the only species that counts is Homo Sapiens. We beat out all the other members …
This week I downloaded an application called Exoplanets onto my iPhone. Not only does it have a list of confirmed extra-solar planets (some 825 and counting in the database), but it also has the ability to plot the discoveries in terms of mass, density, distance, semi-major axis, and many other variables. My favourite feature, however, …
My favourite author of all time is Isaac Asimov: he crafted the wonderful Foundation series, he penned (or type-writered) countless essays on the importance of science literacy and education, and he’s the mastermind behind I, Robot (remember: the plot of the Will Smith movie had very little to do with the original and amazing book …
I haven't posted in a little while. Last week I got busy and didn't have time to reflect on the things I had learned in the previous week, and a reflection from the week before did not jive well with the blog format. It involved graphs created in MS Word. Wordpress did not like these …
I saw a video today of a NASA supercomputer’s simulation of the collision of two spiral galaxies. It is less than two minutes long but simulates the passage of nearly 2 billion years. I am amazed at how much the behaviour of these truly giant structures resembles the swirling of smoke from an extinguished candle. …
I like to think of myself as a moderately sized human. I’m almost six feet tall and I weigh 80 kg. I can lift heavy objects and reach the cookies on the top shelf. I’m busy with university reading, homework, music, and all manner of other activities. I think I’m pretty important. Until I look …
