Top Five Stars

Stars are pretty mental when you stop to think about it - they are basically giant, constantly-exploding nuclear bombs that hang around for billions or even trillions of years - crikey! Just watch a video of a 'coronal mass ejection' to witness the scale of their fury, and that's just our thoroughly average, non-spectacular star. There are billions more out there, most of which we know little about, but some are very well known. Here's a brief look at some of the most noteworthy examples:

5... Canopus

Unfortunately, only those oafs in the southern hemisphere get to see Canopus but I included it anyway as I like its name. It's a white supergiant and is very very bright - over 10,000 times brighter than the sun, in fact, and is also a source of x-rays which means it's spooky too. It's also a bit of a loner in galactic terms, and is not part of any stellar groups. I can relate to that...

Space Stuff - Messier Objects Part 3

Charles Messier (1730 - 1817) was a French astronomer who spent much of his life identifying various star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, and other notable occupants of our glorious heavens. Ironically, it wasn't even his aim to create a comprehensive list or catalogue of interesting sights - he actually did it purely as part of his efforts to hunt down comets which was his primary goal - but make a list he did, and such was the importance of it and the many discoveries on it, the list of 'Messier Objects' has remained in regular use to this day by amateurs and professionals alike.

This could be down to the fact that the list contains many of the biggest, brightest, and best-known (and therefore most popular) objects to be found. Indeed, many of us will have grown up seeing or hearing about a lot of them, myself included, without ever knowing what they are or even what they're called. There are 110 objects in Messier's catalogue too, which means simpletons like me often forget about some or get others mixed up, so I figured it might be worth listing them here. The third such post is therefore thus. The pics should all be 1200x900, hope you like them :)

Part One can be found here; Part Two can be found here

M81 / Spiral Galaxy
"Bode's Galaxy"

M82 / Starburst Galaxy
"Cigar Galaxy"

Space Stuff - Messier Objects Part 2

Charles Messier (1730 - 1817) was a French astronomer who spent much of his life identifying various star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, and other notable occupants of our glorious heavens. Ironically, it wasn't even his aim to create a comprehensive list or catalogue of interesting sights - he actually did it purely as part of his efforts to hunt down comets which was his primary goal - but make a list he did, and such was the importance of it and the many discoveries on it, the list of 'Messier Objects' has remained in regular use to this day by amateurs and professionals alike.

This could be down to the fact that the list contains many of the biggest, brightest, and best-known (and therefore most popular) objects to be found. Indeed, many of us will have grown up seeing or hearing about a lot of them, myself included, without ever knowing what they are or even what they're called. There are 110 objects in Messier's catalogue too, which means simpletons like me often forget about some or get others mixed up, so I figured it might be worth listing them here. The second such post is therefore thus. The pics should all be 1200x900, hope you like them :)

Part One can be found here

M41 / Open Cluster

M42 / Nebula
"Orion Nebula"

Space Stuff - Messier Objects Part 1

Charles Messier (1730 - 1817) was a French astronomer who spent much of his life identifying various star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, and other notable occupants of our glorious heavens. Ironically, it wasn't even his aim to create a comprehensive list or catalogue of interesting sights - he actually did it purely as part of his efforts to hunt down comets which was his primary goal - but make a list he did, and such was the importance of it and the many discoveries on it, the list of 'Messier Objects' has remained in regular use to this day by amateurs and professionals alike.

This could be down to the fact that the list contains many of the biggest, brightest, and best-known (and therefore most popular) objects to be found. Indeed, many of us will have grown up seeing or hearing about a lot of them, myself included, without ever knowing what they are or even what they're called. There are 110 objects in Messier's catalogue too, which means simpletons like me often forget about some or get others mixed up, so I figured it might be worth listing them here. The first such post is therefore thus. The pics should all be 1200x900, hope you like them :)

M1 / Supernova Remnant
"Crab Nebula"

M2 / Globular Cluster

Top Five Elements

I'm sure most of us at least remember the periodic table - no school chemistry class would be complete with it - but how much do you know about the many elements featured on it? Probably about the same as me, but I've been belatedly reading up recently and have learned lots of interesting stuff about them, not least that there are now some 118 of them! Here are five I found the most impressive :)

5 - Iridium

As well as sounding like something from Star Trek, Iridium is also among the rarest of all elements on earth. It's a shiny and very dense metal (the second densest of all elements, in fact), is resistant to nearly all corrosion, and is found most commonly in meteorites, which means the tiny amounts in Earth's crust likely arrived from the depths of the cosmos. Time to launch a mining expedition?

New Blog!

Yes that's right! As some of my longer-term readers may well already know, another subject I'm interested in besides video games and films is astronomy. I've posted a handful of related features here before but I know most of you come here for gaming-related stuff so I've kept them to a minimum. It remains a subject I'm very interested in though, despite being hopelessly ill-equipped to comprehend much of it, so I decided to create a separate blog just for spacey stuff.

It won't be updated as often as Red Parsley - I only have so much free time after all - but if you have any interest in the subject, I invite you to check it out now and then. Click here to see! http://skysofullofstars.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Top Five Countries I Know Nothing About

I've long had an interest in geography - it was one of the few subjects I did well in at school! - and I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of such matters including, unlike many people it seems, the location of every country our beleaguered planet is home to. I've also over the years come to learn at least something about most of them, whether by hearing about them on the news, watching films based in them, or even by visiting them, but some countries have remained little more than names on a map to me. So, here are the five I probably know the least about, or knew the least about until doing a bit of research for this post!

5. Suriname (South America)

I already knew that Suriname was 'one of those little ones at the top of South America', but that was about the extent of my knowledge. I've now learned that it's a former Dutch colony and the smallest country on the continent with a surprisingly low population of around half a million, most of whom live on the coast at the north. That leaves the interior of the country to be filled with tropical rainforests and savanna which, happily, remains mostly untouched by us idiots. Indeed, much of it takes the form of protected nature reserves and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Back on the Atlantic coast, the economy is dominated by bauxite (aluminium ore) mining, an industry centred near the capital of Paramaribo which is home to almost half of the country's population, but tourism is also increasing thanks mainly to the diverse and beautiful nature reserves, one of which overlooks one of the largest man-made lakes in the world.

Astronomical Musings #1

I recently read a news report on a subject that I've long found slightly irksome - extrasolar planets. They, for non-astronomers, are planets in orbit around stars that are not our Sun. They are difficult to spot - considering their distance it's hardly surprising - and it's only been with the help of recent innovations in the field that astronomers have been reliably able to detect them amidst the glare of their parent star. As the news article in question mentions, this is done by looking out for the tiny and very brief drop in luminescence in the star as the planet passes between it and us.

The existence of quite a large number of these planets has now been confirmed. Amazingly, from such a huge distance it's possible to determine what kind of planet they are and even their temperature. Many of those found so far are gas giants but this latest discovery is not. Not only is it a terrestrial planet (i.e. one with a solid surface) but it's also one that's supposedly in the so-called 'habitable zone' around its host star. By this the genius astrophysicists mean that its distance from its star and therefore its mean surface temperature is comparable to that of Earth. This had led to many excited claims of 'a second Earth' or a 'twin' of our planet which has in turn prompted some more imaginative individuals to speculate that it might even host complex life-forms not unlike those found here on our own planet, and it's from here that my problem arises.

Top Five Nebulae

Nebulae are a fairly commonly-recognised sight thanks to sci-fi shows like Star Trek (where they usually end up buggering up the Enterprise somehow) but how many actually know what they are? I suppose not many really care but I do and have always been fascinated by these colourful clouds which come in several different forms and an infinite number of shapes and arrangements formed from clouds of hydrogen, helium, and various other ionised gases. There are hundreds of beautiful and eye-catching nebulae throughout our galaxy and beyond, but here are five of my favourites:

5 - Southern Ring Nebula (NGC 3132)

This striking cloud is a planetary nebula which is formed when a star blows off its outer layers as it transforms into a White Dwarf. It's located about 2000 light years away in the Vela constellation (of Star Control 2 fame!) and looks more like a portal to another dimension. Eeek!

Top Five Clouds

Anyone who's lazy and spends a lot of time daydreaming like me will surely love clouds. It truly is one of life's simplest pleasures laying on some grass on a nice day, maybe with some nice relaxing music playing quietly, gazing up the various different arrangements of clouds. It's also interesting that merely looking at them can not only tell you what the weather is like, but can also warn you of impending weather too! To that end, here is my Top Five:

5 - Noctilucent
These are the highest of all clouds and are almost beyond the extent of the atmosphere altogether! They can only be seen in high northern and southern latitudes, and even then only for a short time after the sun has disappeared below the horizon. They weren't even discovered that long ago and there is still little known about them. Plus, they look nice :)

Top Five Moons

Astonomy is another of my many hobbies, it's something I find confusing (not having a degree in astrophysics and all) but fascinating nonetheless. So, following on from the recently-touched-upon-theme, I thought I'd try another nonsensical, but hopefully informative Top Five! Hardly what any of you come here for, I know, but I hope some of you might find something of interest here. Let me know if you like it and maybe I'll occasionally do a few more posts like this... :)

5 - Luna

I guess I should include this one purely as it's our own barren, insignificant little rock. It's the second brightest object in our sky (and can help when walking through dark, spooky places at night) despite actually being very dark, and in a curious quirk of fate it always has the same side facing us, but aside from a few little tit-bits it's pretty unremarkable. But hey, without it we would have a very different planet and no eclipses!

Top Five Planets

For the longest time there were only the nine planets that were known to us, with this number of course being controversially reduced in eight in more recent years, and they have become incredibly familiar to those of us who care to glance skywards now and then, but now countless more have been discovered orbiting alien stars. Many of these appear to be even stranger than we could've imagined but for most of us, none of them will ever hold the allure of the more familiar worlds that are closer to us. Perhaps one of them was the first sight we gazed upon when first looking through a telescope; perhaps one was the subject of a favourite childhood science-fiction tale; perhaps it's simply a particular alien quality of one of them that we find appealing, but I'm sure we all have our favourites. And these are mine:

5 - Venus

Long considered Earth's twin, this comparably-sized planet features hellish conditions that no life from our home could endure. Its atmosphere has constant lightning and is so dense the first few Venera probes sent by the Russians were crushed before reaching the ground. Even the ones that did manage to land unscathed only lasted an hour or so before melting. There is also sulphuric acid rain, every part of the surface features evidence of volcanic activity, and the entire planet leaves a tail behind it in space, much like a comet, due to the Sun's solar wind!