cosmic seastar

  The aviation industry learned the hard way about the true dangers of lithium batteries within the last two decades. But despite strict regulations, they still cause scary scenes on commercial flights.  The Japan Airlines 787 involved in the lithium battery fire of 2013; Source: Wikipedia January 7, 2013 didn’t start well for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. While parked at Boston Logan International, a Japan Airlines aircraft caught fire — luckily, nobody was injured and fire crews were able to fight the rapidly spreading blaze. Half a year later, an Ethiopian Airlines 787 caught fire at London Heathrow — nobody was on board. Those were just two of several fires on board new 787 Dreamliners that eventually grounded the world’s entire fleet.  And the cause? Lithium batteries. On the Japan Airlines aircraft, batteries of the auxiliary power unit (APU), which provides power while the engines are turned off, caught fire. In the case of Ethiopian Airlines, it was an emergency lo...

  All stars are born within galaxies. However, there are also lone travelling stars in the emptiness between galaxies. No one knows for sure why they are there, but one thing is certain—only violence can tear stars from their homes.  The Antennae Galaxies, two merging galaxies. It's possible for stars to be ejected during mergers; Source: Wikipedia In outer space, stars and galaxies like to stay as close as possible due to their gravity. Stars accumulate to galaxies like the Milky Way, and galaxies group to clusters. The closest larger galaxy cluster is the Virgo Cluster, prominent among amateur astronomers for its relatively bright galaxies such as Messier 87.  But galaxy clusters aren’t the ultimate; clusters are just small structures on the very large scale, where they grow to superclusters. For example, the Milky Way is part of the Local Group, which in turn is part of the Laniakea Supercluster.  Superclusters reside in galaxy filaments — the largest known str...

  When an airline tried to cover up its own mistakes, an aircraft was doomed to crash in New Zealand’s worst aviation disaster.  The aircraft involved in the Mount Erebus disaster, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30; Source: Wikipedia From dry and hot deserts to jungles that are home to a vast range of species, Earth has a lot of environments to offer. Yet the most unique one of these should be Antarctica, the frozen continent in the Southern Hemisphere.  The ice sheet that gives Antarctica its distinct appearance and coldest temperatures on Earth (which can get as low as –90°C) make it a unique world almost alien to us. Antarctica as an entity is also very special; while a number of countries have territorial claims, the continent is primarily directed at research. But it’s also tourism that drives humans to the icy realm.  As early as the 1920s, ships carried passengers to Antarctic waters, although these days large cruise ships aren’t allowed for landing in Antarctica...

  From a galaxy larger than the Local Group to a galaxy filament that takes up 11% of the observable universe — these structures are so big they don’t compare to anything.  In the nightsky, the universe appears small; the most distant object to be observed with the unaided eye is the Andromeda Galaxy at a distance of two million light years — everything else is just stars, most of them just a few tens of light years away.  In the nightsky, it’s never apparent that the observable universe has a diameter of 93 billion light years. It’s thanks to technological advances like the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope that astronomers learned the true scale of what’s out there. For example, the famous Hubble Ultra-Deep Field contains more than 10’000 galaxies in a tiny patch of the nightsky.  But even these 10’000 galaxies are just part of something much bigger. It’s estimated that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable univers...

  One of the scariest things that can happen to a planet is when a supernova explodes not far from it. We have evidence that various supernovae happened near the Earth in the past… and one of them came just as our planet was born. How did our young Sun survive it and what effects did it have on our planet? The Crab Nebula, the remnant of the supernova astronomers observed in 1054; Source: Wikipedia Around 1400 light years away sits one of the most prominent nebulae of the nightsky: the Orion Nebula. Even in light-polluted skies, the constellation Orion is hard to miss. The nebula as part of Orion’s Sword is a popular subject for amateur astronomers and astrophotographers. It’s so famous that the first photograph of it was already taken in 1880! However, the Orion Nebula is just part of something much bigger — the Orion molecular cloud complex, aka the Orion complex. It’s one of the most active regions of star formation in our galactic neighborhood, with many young stars residing ...