Showing all posts about science
V Sagittae nova might outshine Antares, Betelgeuse supernovas
29 September 2025
A binary stellar system consisting of a Wolf–Rayet (WR) star, and a larger main sequence star, known as V Sagittae, are predicted to erupt in a massive explosion, possibly before the end of the century*.
Presently the WR body is furiously feeding on the substance of its nearby companion. The stars orbit each other about every twelve hours, and are gradually drawing closer together.
When both collide, they will explode as a nova.
The remnant of the nova explosion will be visible from Earth during the day, so fierce will the event be. V Sagittae is ten-thousand light years away from Earth, so we will be well clear of the blast zone.
Two red giant stars, Antares and Betelgeuse, being about five-hundred-and-fifty, and six-hundred-and-forty light years respectively away, will explode as supernovas eventually.
Astronomers think Antares may last at least another one-million years, while they give Betelgeuse about one-hundred-thousand years.
My money has been on Antares going first, but that looks like a real outside chance. Instead, I will, where possible, keep my eyes on the Sagitta constellation, where V Sagittae is located.
* I’m not sure if the nova/explosion has already occurred and becomes visible before the end of the century, or the actual explosion takes place then, meaning it won’t be visible for ten-thousand years.
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A planet might orbit Alpha Centauri A: send Chrysalis there instead
21 August 2025
The planet’s existence — orbiting Alpha Centauri A, part of the nearest stellar system to the Sun — has not yet been confirmed. If there though, the body would be situated within Alpha Centauri A’s (AKA Rigil Kentaurus) habitable zone, a star similar to our Sun.
That could be a more “Earth-like” planet, certainly more so than any planets orbiting the third member of the Alpha Centauri trinary: red dwarf star Proxima Centauri.
If anyone is serious about sending a sixty-kilometre long, multi-generational spaceship, named Chrysalis, on a four-hundred year, one-way, journey to Alpha Centauri, then the would-be planet hosted by Alpha Centauri A would be a more sensible destination.
Once, that is, the planet is confirmed to exist, in-fact resides in Alpha Centauri A’s habitable zone, and is truly “Earth-like”, not just some rock with a slight atmosphere, and a bit of liquid water.
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A four-hundred year, one way, trip to Proxima Centauri? Is this sci-fi?
13 August 2025
A proposal to build a multi-generational spaceship — named Chrysalis — that’s nearly sixty-kilometres in length, and would spend four-hundred years travelling to the star presently closest to the Sun, Proxima Centuri, recently won first prize in the Project Hyperion Design Competition.
The vessel, which would be fitted out with tropical forests, schools, workplaces, libraries, and manufacturing facilities, among other things, could house over two-thousand people. Obviously some travellers on Chrysalis, would live their entire lives only on the gigantic ship.
So far, so good. Aside from the ethical matter of consigning your descendants to a life lived on a sixty-kilometre long tin-can, whether they like it or not. But the proposal becomes a little murkier when we learn the vessel’s precise destination:
Chrysalis is designed to house several generations of people until it enters the star system, where it could shuttle them to the surface of the planet Proxima Centuri b — an Earth-size exoplanet that is thought to be potentially habitable.
Proxima Centuri b is thought to be habitable? So to recap: someone wants to spend untold trillions of dollars building a massive spaceship, that will carry some two-thousand people, on a four-hundred year long, one way voyage, to a planet thought to be habitable?
Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
Wouldn’t we first want to be one-hundred percent certain the planet in question, Proxima Centuri b, was in fact habitable, in Earth-analog fashion, before even drawing up blueprints for the vessel? Apparently not. Chrysalis‘ designers appear to be so confident Proxima Centuri b is fit for human habitation, they’re laying on shuttles to get people on the ground.
Doubtless passengers are relieved they’re not required to parachute to the surface.
Proxima Centuri b was discovered in 2016. The body is a super-Earth, meaning it is larger than our home planet, but still smaller than the likes of Uranus or Neptune. In addition, the planet is located in what is considered to be Proxima Centuri’s habitable zone. Planets within a star’s habitable, or Goldilocks zone, as Earth is in the Sun’s, are generally deemed to be conducive to life. Temperatures are neither too hot, nor too cold, and water can exist in liquid form.
But talk of Goldilocks zones usually applies more to G-type main-sequence stars, or yellow dwarfs, such as the Sun. Proxima Centuri is a red dwarf star, a rather different kettle of fish. I’m not even sure the term habitable zone should be uttered in the same sentence as red dwarfs.
I’ve written about these stars before. They fascinate me. As mentioned, one is the star nearest to us. They also live for trillions of years (compared to billions for many other stars, including the Sun). Red dwarfs will probably be the last stars shining in the universe.
But, as I’ve said previously, they’re not all that life-friendly, particularly for human life. As I’ve written this before, I’ll be succinct. Planets in the supposed habitable zones of red dwarfs, would be — on account of their relative closeness to the star — tidally locked. One side of the planet forever faces the star, and bakes, while the other, cloaked in perpetual darkness, freezes. Most hospitable.
Red dwarfs also emit powerful flares. The outlook would not be good for the inhabitants of a planet in the path of one of these stellar outbursts. Proxima Centuri b may be possessed of some sort of atmosphere, and water might be present, but the planet is no Earth.
What if, on reaching the distant planet, those aboard Chrysalis find it to be completely uninhabitable? Would they be able to return to Earth? No, because the journey is one way. Passengers would be on a multi-century trip to their deaths.
Of course, the Chrysalis project is hypothetical, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t merit in the idea. If the vessel is ever to be constructed, a more suitable destination planet, not just one thought to be habitable, needs to be chosen.
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astronomy, design, red dwarf, science
Time may be an artificial construct, but it feels awfully authentic
3 July 2025
Managing time when time doesn’t exist, from the Multiverse Employee Handbook, a science comedy podcast, produced by Robb Corrigan:
The real productivity crisis emerged when physicists tried merging Einstein’s relativity with quantum mechanics. They discovered something that would terrify any time management consultant: the Wheeler-DeWitt equation — quantum gravity’s fundamental mathematics — contains absolutely no time variable.
So maybe time doesn’t exist in the realm of physics, but who cares about physics when you’re running late for that train you must be on. Or when the hours and minutes are dissolving ahead of a critical deadline. Or anything else for that matter. And if time in fact does not exist, that’s not a problem either, the universe, and us along with it, carry on as usual.
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humour, physics, podcasts, science
One for coffee drinkers: caffeine might slow cellular ageing
2 July 2025
This from recent research at the Cellular Ageing and Senescence laboratory at Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for Molecular Cell Biology:
In new research published by scientists studying fission yeast — a single-celled organism surprisingly similar to human cells — researchers found that caffeine affects aging by tapping into an ancient cellular energy system.
Always enjoy coffee in moderation…
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Planet Nine may not exist, but Dwarf Planet Nine might
26 June 2025
The apparent discovery of an extremely distant dwarf-planet, known as 2017 OF201, might put paid to the speculated existence of a likewise far-flung Neptune-size planet, often referred to as Planet Nine, says Isaac Schultz, writing for Gizmodo:
Which brings us, inevitably, to Planet Nine, the theorized distant world posited as a gravitational explanation for the strange clustering of objects in the Kuiper Belt. Other ideas have been floated to explain the phenomenon — such as a ring of debris exerting gravitational influence, or even a primordial black hole — but nothing grips our human fascination like a distant planet, so far away from our solar system’s other worlds that it’s never been observed.
Unexpected variations in the orbits of numerous dwarf-planets and various other bodies, known as Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO), usually located beyond the orbit of Pluto, have long puzzled scientists and astronomers. This has lead some of them to believe the solar system hosts a larger planet, which they call Planet Nine.
This body possibly orbits the Sun elliptically, at an average distance of two-hundred-and-fifty astronomical units (AU), or thirty-seven billion KM (compared with an average six billion or so KM for Pluto), and takes ten to twenty thousand years to do so. But its theorised presence might account for the odd orbital behaviour of some TNOs.
But this is where things become intriguing. A 2013 NASA survey of the area surrounding the solar system, apparently detected no indication of any reasonably large planetary bodies beyond the orbit of Pluto. This despite the ability of their technology to perceive Saturn-size objects a tenth of a light year distant.
This discovery of 2017 OF201, which leisurely orbits the Sun once every twenty-five thousand years, and ventures as far away as sixteen-hundred AU, makes sense in this context. It also opens the door to locating potentially many more highly distant dwarf-planets.
The presence of 2017 OF201 however does not completely eliminate the possibility Planet Nine exists, the 2013 NASA study notwithstanding. Sihao Cheng, who participated in finding 2017 OF201, still hopes Planet Nine turns out to be there.
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In a world gone mad here is the clearest yet photo of Pluto
24 June 2025
This is — if anything you read on social media is accurate that is — the clearest ever photo of dwarf planet Pluto. The original set of images used to composite this one were taken ten years ago, when NASA‘s New Horizons space probe flew passed Pluto in July 2015.
By colour enhancing the image — Pluto doesn’t actually look quite so vivid — more detail is resolved, allowing for more information to be gleaned about the distant planetoid.
I’ve not been able to precisely ascertain when this image was first published. According to Project Ubu (Instagram page), in a post on Sunday 22 June 2025, NASA had “just released” the image. On hunting around, I found the same image on the Galaxies Instagram page, but they posted the photo on Friday 25 April 2025.
So the image certainly hasn’t been “just released”, I’d have gone for recently released. But enough being pedantic, let’s instead marvel at this incredible image.
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astronomy, photography, Pluto, science
Astronomy Picture of the Day website turns thirty
19 June 2025
Administered by NASA, the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website started posting images in June 1995. This is a time, that in 2025, feels positively prehistoric, when it comes to the web.
I’ve been looking at APOD on and off for maybe twenty years, and as far as I recall, the website has barely changed during that time. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect APOD has sported the same “Web 1.0” design since debuting thirty years ago. While the interface may not be much to look at, that’s not what we go there for: we’re there for the stunningly awesome images.
You can’t follow APOD on any socials channel, but you can subscribe to their RSS feed.
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astronomy, history, photography, science
UFOs, flying saucers, at Area 51, nothing but a military cover up?
12 June 2025
This sounds like the news that no one wanted you to hear:
The congressionally ordered probe took investigators back to the 1980s, when an Air Force colonel visited a bar near Area 51, a top-secret site in the Nevada desert. He gave the owner photos of what might be flying saucers. The photos went up on the walls, and into the local lore went the idea that the U.S. military was secretly testing recovered alien technology. But the colonel was on a mission — of disinformation. The photos were doctored, the now-retired officer confessed to the Pentagon investigators in 2023. The whole exercise was a ruse to protect what was really going on at Area 51: The Air Force was using the site to develop top-secret stealth fighters, viewed as a critical edge against the Soviet Union.
Hands up those who believe any of that, hey?
Otherwise, if someone could explain how extraterrestrials can travel vast distances through the galaxy to reach Earth, in vessels the size of a bus, apparently capable of travelling at the speed of light (or supposedly faster) without saying “oh, but they can bend the laws of physics”, I’m all ears. No warp powered motherships capable of cloaked flight either, please.
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Milky Way might not collide with Andromeda, Milkomeda might not form
4 June 2025
Some recently revised calculations, based on some more recent data, have shown our galaxy, the Milky Way, may not collide, or if you prefer merge, with Andromeda, a large galaxy presently about two and a half million light years away.
Astronomers have long believed a merger/collision to be inevitable. Although heading towards to each other — at an eye watering speed of about one-hundred kilometres per second — there’s close to a fifty-fifty chance both galaxies will simply sail passed each other.
Milkomeda, the name given to the would-be merged entity, and something I’ve written a bit about in the past, may never come to pass after all. But then again it might, no one can be one-hundred percent sure. Uncertainty is the only certainty.
If you’re stilling gunning for the formation of Milkomeda though, here’s an animation of the what the collision might look like, from the perspective of a far distant observer. Events play out over ten billion years, but are compressed to a minute, meaning things won’t be quite as violent as they look.
Even if Earth were still around at this point — which seems unlikely in five billion years time — the merger/collision of the two galaxies would probably make little difference to anyone still here. Aside from an upheaval in the way the night sky looks, that is.
Despite appearances, galaxies are mainly made up of empty space, meaning the chances of a star from Andromeda barging into the solar system would be pretty remote.
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