Finding extrasolar planets is hard. But humans are pretty dang clever.
You’re no match for us, space.
Just give up.
Humans Conquer Space Mysteries and Other Alarming Events (No. 1)
3 Apr
Last week (4th week of March, 2014) on planet Earth…
The humans continue to push out into space. At this rate they’ll be capable of interstellar travel by the year 2233. Of course, we are all alarmed, and measures to inhibit this activity are currently being discussed.
The humans’ need to catalog every little thing grows at an alarming rate. Last week they discovered yet another dwarf planet in their outer solar system. They are calling it: 2012 VP113, although we’re not entirely sure why (they have weird names for things). This new object is not unlike the already discovered and similarly far from Earth body, Sedna.
This new body has the farthest perihelion of any planetary body the humans have yet discovered.
They figured out that it’s a small body, 300-1000 kilometers in diameter, and that it is moderately red. This tells us two important things: They are finding new and interesting ways to “see” things they cannot naturally see with their eyes, and they are not able to detect us yet. So nobody panic.
Note: The Nerd Next Door is not affiliated with a hostile alien race bent on galactic domination.
Galaxies for Beginners
19 Mar
This is a very brief introduction to galaxies. It is more of a primer video, so if you don’t know anything about galaxies – you’ve come to the right place! 😀
Voyager 1: Is It Out of the Solar System?
12 Nov
About two months ago, we found out that Voyager 1 crossed the edge of the Heliosphere and into the Interstellar Medium. But what does that mean… exactly? Is it out of the Solar System?
Globular Clusters (Sagittarius Part 1)
12 Sep
This is my favorite constellation! Go outside. Go look. Do it. Now.
Here is a star map for you.
The Titius-Bode Law
16 Jul
One of my favorite turned-out-to-be-not-true moments of all astronomical history: the Titius-Bode Law.
Makes me want to go join the Celestial Police.
Also, because you can almost not see it, my shirt says ‘Pluto/1930-2006/Revolve in Peace’. 😀
Common Questions No. 1
18 Jun
So I was thinking of doing an ‘Ask The Nerd’ type of channel, just for all those fairly straightforward questions. Hope you enjoy!
If you have any questions, as always, feel free to ask. If the answer’s straightforward, it’ll wind up in one of these. 😀
Philolaus and Antichthon
4 Jun
So I thought maybe I’d talk about my favorite old school Greek cosmogony today. It’s pretty badass, but I don’t want to give anything away… watch the video!
Also, yes, I know that Galileo didn’t drop balls off the leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s just a good depiction. Hope you like it! Let me know what you think! And as always, if you have a suggestion for a video, please let me know.
See you next Tuesday! 🙂
Remember That One Time…
1 Jun
When the Minor Planet Center cataloged the Rosetta Space Probe as an asteroid?
Yeah. Me too. It was awesome.
What with all the attention surrounding asteroid 1998 QE2 and its newly discovered moon, I thought I’d take some time to talk about my favorite asteroid of all time, 2007 VN84.
Which turned out to be the Rosetta Space Probe.
‘It appears to be mostly metallic… oddly shaped…’
I love the fact that this happened partly because it strikes me as being funny, and partly because I love it when things don’t turn out the way they’re expected to. For people that don’t remember, it happened in 2007, and there was some hubbub over it. Richard Kowalski discovered the asteroid, which appeared extremely close and looked to be about 20 meters across and would come within 1.89 Earth radii of our geocenter (or within 5,700 km/3,500 miles). Now that is close (you’ll notice everyone has been talking about how close 1998 QE2 is at 3.5 million miles).
It should be noted that Kowalski is actually a pretty badass astronomer. He was the first to predict an asteroid hitting Earth (2008 TC3) which then did enter Earth’s atmosphere (it’s hard to actually find and predict asteroids that collide with us because they’re usually pretty darn small) and exploded over the Nubian Desert. He’s got his own asteroid named after him (7392 Kowalski) but the reason he’s really cool is he’s for professional and amateur astronomers working together and building a community (and I love that stuff). He founded the Minor Planet Mailing List, which is available to everyone, so really, my point is, yes, the Rosetta Space Probe is not an asteroid, but it doesn’t really diminish the discoverer’s awesomeness.
The astronomer who recognized that 2007 VN84 was not, in fact, an asteroid, was Denis Denisenko (of supernovae 2011IP and 2011HZ fame) and who, presumably, has X-men superpowers when it comes to remembering probe trajectories.
With the Minor Planet Center observations crossing the 100 million mark this last March, and identifying over 600,000 orbits, and with thousands of artificial satellites going around Earth, and a goodly number of space probes (like Rosetta) that have been sent out, I’m actually shocked that the 2007 incident doesn’t happen more often.
I know that none of the above is new info on spacey stuff (which is why it’s not taking up my usual Tuesday slot you’ll notice) but just in case you were wondering what my all time favorite minor planet (a.k.a ‘asteroid’) is, it’s the Rosetta Space Probe.
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