Northern Lights

has anyone actually seen the Aurora with their naked eyes. I haven't, I want to but I haven't....Yet!. I will discuss how the auroras actually happens, that is, the physics or astrophysics behind it.

The Northern Lights are aurorae, colored (usually red or green)
patterns seen as rays, arcs, or "curtains" in the sky that are produced
when particles from the solar wind  hit the upper atmosphere of the Earth. 

What actually happens is that high energy particles from the sun (mostly electrons)
collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, causing
the atoms to be ionized (lose electrons).  The ionized atoms then
spiral along the Earth's magnetic field, and move toward the north
and south magnetic poles. As the electrons enter the earth's upper atmosphere,

 they will encounter atoms of oxygen and nitrogen at altitudes from 20 to 200 miles
 above the earth's surface. The color of the aurora depends on which 
atom is struck, and the altitude of the meeting.

• Green - oxygen, up to 150 miles in altitude
• Red - oxygen, above 150 miles in altitude
• Blue - nitrogen, up to 60 miles in altitude
• Purple/violet - nitrogen, above 60 miles in altitude

 As they move, they give off light of different wavelengths in nanometers (nm):

• Green--495–570 nm

• Red---620–750 nm

• Blue--450–475 nm

• Purple/Violet--380–450 nm

 Solar winds stream away from the sun at speeds of about 4.5 x 10^5 meters/second. When they reach the earth, some 40 hours after leaving the sun, they follow the lines of magnetic force generated by the earth's core and flow through the magnetosphere, a teardrop-shaped area of highly charged electrical and magnetic fields.
All of the magnetic and electrical forces react with one another in constantly shifting combinations. These shifts and flows can be seen as the auroras  moving along with the atmospheric currents that can reach 1 billion Watts. (In contrast, the circuit breakers in your home will disengage when current flow exceeds 3600 Watts.)
 Usually when there are a lot of sunspots, the lights are farther south,. Sunspot activity follows an 11-year cycle. The next peak will occur in 2011 and 2012,  so you can see the auroras outside the normal time.

Just for your understanding
solar winds are traveling at  4.5 x 10^5 meters/second is equal to 1 million miles per hour!
 1 billion(1,000,000,000,000 Watts) = 20,000,000 Amps at 50,000 Volts
3600Watts = 30Amps at 120 Volts (for your household!!!)


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How to find the Andromeda Galaxy

For those of you who are like me, and like to go outside at night and look into the sky and find different things and just star gaze to see what you see then here is something that might be fun for you to do.
Andromeda is called M31
Here is how to find the Andromeda Galaxy:
1. Go to a place where there is little light, in the city (Riverside,MorenoValley) you mostlikely will not see it with you un-aided eye, so go somewhere dark enough, I dont care where you go, just go.

2. You will need to find three constellations:

• Pegasus- the great square of pegasus is easy to find,it is one of the easier to locate of the three, as it looks like a giant square
• Cassiopeia--is even easier than pegasus because it looks like a "W" or "M"
• Andromeda lies between Pegasus and Cassiopeia

3. On Pegasus locate the brightest star on it. The one that is closest to Cassiopeia.
This star is called Sirrah

5. Next to this bright star, look in the direction toward Cassiopeia and a little down.
You will see a fainter star.
6. Next to this star, look in the direction toward Cassiopeia again, and a little down.
You will see an even fainter star. (this star is called Mirach) (careful this is where your eyes might play tricks on you if your not using binoculars, or the sky is not dark enough)
7.  Now from Mirach, you will see a star just above it, this star is called mu Andromeda, and it is even fainter than Mirach. (If you are not  using anything, it is difficult to see, but you can see it!)

8. from mu andromeda look just above it and you will see a fuzzy, cloud like object, this is ANDROMEDA!


 
I didnt use binoculars the second time I searched for Andromeda, and in order for me to follow the faint stars I had to look to the side and not at the star itself, maybe its just me, but his helped when I was looking at Andromeda, and the faint stars.
Side NOTE:

• If you look carefully in binoculars or a telescope, you may find two faint fuzzy spots beside it. One of them, M32, is smaller in size and closer to the actual galaxy core. The other, NGC 205, is more elusive, larger in size, and farther from the actual galaxy. Both are companion galaxies to Andromeda.
• You will probably be able to find it if you use a GOTO or computerised telescope. If you use an equatorial and know how to use setting circles, the Galaxy is at RA 00h43m, DEC +41deg16' .

If you have any questions, about finding it please email the professor not me! 

An Explosion?

Last year sometime and one night I was at my friends. We were in his driveway smoking a cig, and the sky was clear and the stars were out. We were looking at the different constellations, just trying to find Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor and I was explaining to him, how to find the Andromeda Galaxy (which I will blog about in another post be sure to stay tuned) anyway, while we were fascinated with the night sky, this crazy thing happened.
We were both looking in the same spot at this bright star, trying to figure out if it was the brightest in the night sky. It was just above his chimney to the right of it. In that instant, I seen a bright light that seemed to start off as a little dot, then it expanded to the size of any other star out there. It was white when it was starting, but after it reached its final size, it then started to die out, and when it was decreasing in size it got fainter too. When it was fading away it turned from a white light to a bluish green light. I thought it was nothing, and my eyes playing tricks on me, but my friend told me "dude, did you see that". Oh sh*t! We both seen it!
It had to be light years away, as far as any other star out there. It wasn't a meteor because it wasn't in our atmosphere. It was way farther than the distance to the moon.
Maybe it was a huge explosion in space, maybe two celestial objects colliding with one another. Maybe it was a supernova, and at that exact moment I got to see it with my own eyes.
I just wonder if I was the only person(and my friend as well) to see this incident.
Is it possible to see a supernova, it wasn't close enough to destroy the earth if the nova happened so its within reasonable distance. Maybe it was life on another planet and they were doing something with their military weapons. Who knows, but what I do know is this:
I got to see an explosion in space with my very own eyes!
if anyone has seen something in space please reply about it, im interested to know. Maybe someone had a similar incident.

Dark Matter/Energy?

What is Dark Matter? What is Dark Energy? are they one in the same?
They are both "Dark". My mentor once told me that anything "dark", we have no clue about it.  So if someone ask you a question or ask you to explain something and you have know idea what to say, just tell them that---"its Dark"! And while they may be related, their effects are quite different. dark matter attracts, dark energy repels. Our universe contains 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars inside them and great clouds of gas and dust surrounds them.maybe perhaps different planets and moons and other little bits of cosmic celestial objects. The stars produce an abundance of energy, from radio waves to X-rays, which streak across the universe at the speed of light. Yet everything that we can see is like the tip of the cosmic iceberg — it accounts for only about four percent of the total mass and energy in the universe.

About one-quarter of the universe consists of dark matter, which releases no detectable energy, but which exerts a gravitational pull on all the visible matter in the universe. So while dark matter pulls matter inward, dark energy pushes it outward. Our galaxy is about 100,000 light years across, and shaped like a disk, and the stars around our galaxy orbit the center, or center of mass. The closer to the center the faster the star orbits, and stars farther from the center orbit slower. However, calculations show the all the stars orbit about the same speed, which indicates that something is tugging on the stars and making them do this. Calculations also show that a vast "halo" of dark matter surrounds the Milky Way. The halo may be 10 times as massive as the bright disk, so it exerts a strong gravitational pull.
Know one knows what Dark Matter or Dark Energy is? Hopefully one day, I will get my PhD, and f ind out myself. Yes I need a Phd to do it, because if I discover what they are before, and I get published then everyone will call me Mr. Matt of astronomy instead of Dr. Matt.of astronomy---it just sounds better. So in order to discover what Dark matter and energy means, you guys are just going to have to wait until I get my PhD, then I will discover it and tell you. Until then just wait!