The Known Universe Scientifically Rendered For All to See

Straight from the American Museum of Natural History:

After hovering over Mount Everest and the gorges that plunge to the Ganges, you are pulled through the Earth’s atmosphere to glimpse the inky black of space over Tibet’s high desert. So begins The Known Universe, a new film produced by the American Museum of Natural History that is part of a new exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City.

The magic of this film, though, happens as the inky black expands. Pulling farther and farther from Earth, you see the deep blue of the Pacific give way to night as the Sun comes into focus, the orbits of the solar system shrink smaller and smaller, the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpio stretch and distort, and, as the Milky Way receeds, the spidery structure of millions of other galaxies come into view. Then, you reach the limit of the observable universe, the afterglow of the Big Bang. This light has taken more than 13.7 billion years to reach our planet, and you return, back to Earth, to two lakes that are nestled between Mount Kailash and Mount Gurla Mandhata in the Himalayas.

The structure of The Known Universe is based on precise, scientifically-accurate observations and research. The Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History maintains the Digital Universe Atlas, the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe. The Digital Universe started nearly a decade ago. It is continually updated and is the primary resource for production of the Museum’s Space Shows such as the current Journey to the Stars, and is used in live, real-time renderings for Virtual Tours of the Universe, a public program held on the first Tuesday of every month. Last year, some 30,000 people downloaded the Digital Universe to their personal computers, and the Digital Universe will soon be updated with a more accurate and user-friendly software interface. Digital Universe is licensed to many other planetariums and theaters world-wide.

“I liken the Digital Universe to the invention of the globe,” says Curator Ben R. Oppenheimer, an astrophysicist at the Museum. “When Mercator invented the globe, everyone wanted one. He had back orders for years. It gave everyone a new perspective on where they live in relation to others, and we hope that the Digital Universe does the same on a grander, cosmic scale.”

The new film was produced by Michael Hoffman, and directed by Carter Emmart. Brian Abbot manages and Ben R. Oppenheimer curates the Digital Universe Atlas. The exhibition at the Rubin, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, opened on December 11 and continues through May 10.

40 Years Ago Today

Well, for me, it was actually on the 21st (I was living in Sweden at the time), but watching Walter Cronkite and those fuzzy images is still my first vivid memory. I remember my dad impressing upon me how significant this was. I was just thrilled to be staying up so late!

NASA has their own 40th Anniversary Page up, and I'm sure this will be just about the only thing in the news and on any other site that has a remote interest. But I just wanted to add to the chorus on this. I'd like to see people get excited by space again. Heck, with as badly as we're fucking up this planet, and with as many crackpots as we let wander around unsupervised, I can see the appeal for wanting to just get off this rock, and try somewhere else.

So, do you have any particularly vivid memories of this day 40 years ago?

Herschel and Planck

With all the hoopla over the Hubble Repair Mission, it's almost easy to forget about the other astronomical observation devices. Today the Herschel and Planck satelites were launched by the ESA. I guess it's a good time to get observatories up there. The James Webb telescope is up and training the earth, these guys are heading over to L2, Hubble still going strong. I just love how we keep learning more and more. Peeling back the mysteries, only to expose more mysteries I bet. A while back, the Bad Astronomer even outlined what these two will do.

Go science. It works bitches!

Go, go Atlantis!

I don't know about you, but I love shuttle launches. It's just something to consder that we are sending humans into space! Say what you will about the United States (and Russia and China), but putting people into orbit is an impressive feat. And for all those that say the manned space program is a waste, I suggest you only do all your air travel from this day forward on robotic air carriers, and let robots drive you to and from work every day. There are just some things that require a human brain!

And I am glad that they are going up to add more life to the Hubble Space Telescope. The scientific returns we've gotten from Hubble are just amazing. They have just pushed the limits of our understanding, and shown us how much we really have left to figure out. Remember the Hubble Deep Field? That was just plain amazing. Looking at an EMPTY spot in the sky! I know that I'll be incredibly sad when the Hubble mission is finally over. I wish that we could just boost it up, or somehow retreive it, but sadly (at least as things stand), it will end up entring our atmosphere to burn up.

Here's to NASA, the astronauts, and Hubble. Cheers!

74.2 km/sec/Mpc

Just saw that we've nailed down how fast we're flying apart from the rest of the universe, and it just made me think of a particularly funny song from "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life". Actually, in thinking about it, it does seem that the most recent and dramatic philosophisers on the "Meaning of Life" have come from the UK. Monty Python, Douglas Adams, and even someone like Dawkins!

I encourage you to click the title link. Dr Plait does a wonderful job explaining what those numbers mean.

Just for your enjoyment, here are the silly lyrics:
Whenever life get you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enu-hu-hu-huuuuff

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way

Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light-years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick
But out by us it's just 3000 light-years wide
We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there's bugger all down here on Earth