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What is “dark energy,” and is there really such a thing? In the early 1990s, two separate teams tracked the rate of expansion of the universe by using type Ia supernovas as standard candles, (see episode 41 and episode 42 for details on standard candle usage.) Each team found that the rate of expansion of …
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Let’s celebrate, with balloons! The first manned flight of a hot air balloon took place in France in 1783. However, sky lanterns, paper and wood hot air balloons that don’t carry people, have been around in China since as early as 300 BC. Why did it take ever so long? During the research for episode …
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The cyborg Olympics Special thanks to @seeingwithsound, creators of the vOICe, (see episode 19,) for telling me about this one. In 2016, competitors came together to strive for the gold. The only thing is, these athletes used their brains, interfaced with computers, in order to compete. Here’s an article about the cyborg Olympics that I …
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Hey universe, let’s hear some noise! What would eventually be called the theory of the big bang was first described by Georges Lemaître in 1927. This early description included predictions later verified in 1929, but it wasn’t until 1964, when the cosmic background microwave radiation was accidentally detected, that the theory was taken seriously by …
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It’s still getting bigger In episode 42, we learned that in 1923, Hubble found out that spiral nebula are actually spiral galaxies, changing our understanding of the size of our universe. In 1929, using spectral lines, (see episode 44 and episode 46,) and building off of work previously done by Vesto Slipher, he discovered that …
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It takes two dead stars to make gold? In episode 43, we talked about how our universe makes the chemical elements that our world and we are made of through processes like nuclear fusion, and exploding stars. That may not be enough. Elements like platinum gold and uranium might come from the collision of two …
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What stars are made of In order to find out what a star is made of, pass its light through a prism, and examine the resulting rainbow, or spectrum. Here’s an article that includes an app that will let you play with the effect of different chemicals on a spectrum. Absorption/emission lines And here’s the …
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Pop go the stars For our universe to produce minds, we require many different chemical elements. Those elements were created by the stars. The lighter elements fuse together and provide the energy for stars to shine, and to keep from collapsing under their own gravity. Heavier elements, anything heavier than iron, require the stars to …
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It’s bigger than we thought In 1923 Edwin Hubble used a variable star to prove that the Andromeda Nebula was actually the Andromeda Galaxy. Before his measurements, it was widely believed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the only island of stars in the universe. Boy, did we get it wrong! Have a look …