Science for Kids: Things you didn't know about Light

What is "Light"

Light is a type of energy. It is a form of electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength which can

be detected by the human eye. In physics, the term light sometimes refers to electromagnetic

radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. Light exists in tiny packets called photons.

It shows properties of both waves and particles. The study of light, known as optics, is an important

research area in modern physics.

What are the types of galaxies

Galaxies are certainly among the most popular telescope targets for amateur astronomers. They show an incredibly wide range of size, shape, and internal structure has undoubtedly lead to their fascination among both amateurs and professional astronomers alike. they are vast groups of stars, dust, and gas ranging from a few thousand to nearly a million light-years in diameter. 

Their respective masses show a similarly broad range from less than a million to well over trillion solar masses. This variety of shape and form is far greater than in any other class of deep sky objects.

Inception Lucid Dreaming, The Easy Way

Inception was a major blockbuster movie introduced in summer 2010, indeed was a stunning movie yet mind blowing one, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento) and starring an international cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levvit and Michael Cain). It was held in the near future and it's main idea was about controlling and sharing dreams by a matrix-like system, also talks about sub-dreams or dreams within dreams, and inserting ideas to the subconscious using "dreams", So it's all about dreaming, although sub-dreams and dreams sharing are pure science fiction(so far), there is a method you can do to control your own dreams and make it vivid as possible using the massive engine in your head called the "subconscious", this method is known as "Lucid Dreaming", it is not easy to achieve and need a lot of training, but here i'm going to tell you how it's done easily with minimum practice.

Gamma Ray Burst Danger and Studies

For 25 years, cosmic gamma ray bursts (GRBs) have been one of the great mysteries of modern astronomy. GRBs have given us several clues as to what they might be. GRBs were seen to occur frequently and appeared to be spread evenly over the sky. Their distribution on the sky indicated that they were the result of events happening either very close or very far (in other galaxies). The events were not, for example, seen to be concentrated in the plane of our Galaxy.

What are Nazca Lines

The Nazca Lines, also known as Nazca figures, Nazca Pictures and Nazca Images, are an engima. No one know who had built them or indeed why. Since their discovery, the Nazca Lines have inspired fantastic explanations from ancient gods, a landing strip for returning aliens, a celestial calendar, used for rituals probably related to astronomy, to confirm the ayllus or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution or, a map of underground water supplies.

When Giant Black Holes Collide

,,When giant black holes collide, the surrounding space-time trembles,,

The collision of two supermassive black holes in the aftermath of a galaxy merger is the ultimate cosmic cataclysm, throwing out more energy for about an hour than all the visible stars in the entire universe combined. Moreover, in order to form the billions of majestic galaxies scattered across the sky, astronomers think that such events must have happened frequently as the first galaxies consolidated and grew.

What happens when galaxies collide?

When two nearby galaxies attracted to each other by their gravitational force (a relatively common event in galaxy evolution), their gases collide violently. As gas and dust smash together at speeds of millions of miles an hour, they combine the raw materials for new born stars in an amazing hot and bright display, and eventually -in some cases- causes a super massive black hole from this collision.

Sunspot: Sharpest View Yet in Visible Light

This crisp view of a sunspot, captured by New Jersey Institute of Technology's New Solar Telescope and released last week, may be the most detailed picture of its kind yet shot in visible light, astronomers say.

Sun storm to hit earth with 'force of 100m bombs' in few years

After about ten years of sleeping, the giant is waking up - and it's got astronomers on full alert.

This week several US media outlets reported that NASA was warning the massive flare that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the power and potential to wipe out the entire planet's power grid.

Sea of the Devil: Dragon Triangle

The Bermuda triangle's infamous association with disappearing boats and aircraft is known across the globe. Less well known is an area off the west coast of Japan which has an equally deadly history. It is an area where Japanese sailors fear to voyage; they call it 'Ma-no Uni' – the "Sea of the Devil".

Scientists find 'monster' star using Very Large Telescope

The most massive star ever, which is up to 20 million times brighter than the Sun, has been discovered using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, scientists in Britain said Wednesday.

Five-Pointed Laser Telescope Gives Astronomers Clear Shot to Heaven

Star gazing just got a whole lot better thanks to five green lasers punching a pentagon pattern 15 miles high in the sky.

Panasonic unveils first handheld 3D camcorders

The camcorders look like regular handy-size video cameras and can capture conventional 2D video and images, but by adding a conversion lens adapter, they can capture in 3D. The adapter has two small lenses that each capture a slightly different image of the scene being shot. The right-eye and left-eye images are recorded side-by-side and are what's needed to create a video image with the illusion of depth.

Siphonophore: Deep-sea super organism

Another monster discovered in the deepest and weirdest waters in the world, here is some terrific video of a bioluminescent deep-sea siphonophore, an eerily fantastic creature that appears to be a single, large organism, but which is actually a colony of numerous individual jellyfish-like animals that behave and function together as a single entity.

What is the God Particle ?

The most asked, most controversial question in physics today is what determines mass in an object. It is mentioned on the movie "Angels and Demons", the "God Particle" is the nickname of a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson. In layman’s terms, different subatomic particles are responsible for giving matter different properties. One of the most mysterious and important properties is mass. Some particles, like protons and neutrons, have mass.

Live stream of gulf oil spill

Watch live streaming video from wkrg_oil_spill at livestream.com

Most Bizarre Ocean Creatures, Part 1

The World Ocean, is an interconnected yet complete system that rely on its own balance and resources, covering almost 71% of the Earth's surface, leads to a better name for out planet to be called "The blue Planet". This huge amount of water contains some weired creatures discovered almost every expedition held by marine biologists, especially to the deep waters beyond the photic zone (the place that sun light can't exceed). This requires special abilities for these creatures to survive. Not to mention their strange looking.

Gulf Oil Spill in Pictures and Videos

The whole story on pictures and videos.

HD Video of gulf oil spill

BP has released HD video shot underwater of the gulf oil spill. The video was taken back on June 3rd, when the company had cut the pipe in order to place the containment box over it.

What's the Mystery about the Pyramids of Giza ?

Pyramids always got this powerful exotic-theories magnet, we always see them as something beyond our explanation, what makes them attract all this kind of attention from both archaeologist and paranormal researchers ?

Why Mentos cause Soda explosion?

I've read a lot of articles about this but lately i have found this good explained one that i wanted to share with you. So what cause that weired reaction we all saw or even tried for ourselves.

Dinosaur DNA, anyone?

Not yet, and maybe there will never be any in the near future, says John Asara, a pathology instructor at Harvard Med. School. Asara led a team in may 2009 that successfully extracted protiens from two dinosaur fossils discovered in Montana.

Another asteroid hits Jupiter

An amateur astronomers in the Philippines and Australia witnessed the collision occurred by an asteroid that hit planet Jupiter at Thursday June 3, 2010.

The image provided by Anthony Wesley shows bright flash, upper left, from an object hitting the Jovian surface. The event was also confirmed by another amateur skygazer in the Philippines.

Reasons you don't want Cadmium in your lunch

It's normal when we see all this news and talks about discovering a material like cadmium in any industrial equipment or in some inner parts of day use gadgets, but it is way too far of normal when this material being discovered in something we put in our mouth. So why really this element is very dangerous to enter our body, even by very low concentrations. or by the title, what is the reasons you don't want cadmium in your food.

12M Shrek glasses pulled back by McDonald's after evidence that it contains cadmium

LA - Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on "Shrek"-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald's, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap U.S.-made collectibles while dramatically expanding contamination concerns about the toxic metal beyond imported children's jewelry.

Computer models show Gulf oil reaching East Coast

This is a computer models show oil leaking from a damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico could wind up on the East Coast and even get carried on currents across the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe.

Extremely rare Meteorite found in Oregon

An extremely old and pristine meteorite was found on the side of the road in eastern Oregon, expert say it's 4.5 billion years old and expect it to be from the same era of the formation of the solar system.

How Much Junk is in Space

Space, a seemingly vast frontier, is actually pretty crowded with junk, and it's getting worse.

Early of may the communications satellite Galaxy 15 lost control and joined the growing ranks of debris crowding the space around Earth.

Binoculars in Astronomy

Portable, Cheap, wide field viewing and easy!, you say why not. although they have their limits, you can always enjoy observing by them a good number of sky gems.

New space station crew will bid farewell to shuttle

Mon May 31

One Russian and two Americans set to fly to the International Space Station voiced nostalgia Monday for the retiring US space shuttle, which will make its final visit to the ISS this year.

News: BP's Latest Victims, a Dead Dolphin Covered in Oil

Well, i know this blog's about astronomy, but this won't hold me to write about this catastrophic disaster, which will reveal more more in the future than now.

News: Europa Has Enough Oxygen For Life

A hope seems to appear, as new research suggests that there is plenty of oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms with greater oxygen demands than microorganisms.

Top 10: Space Weapons

Large nations are now racing for space age weapons. These are some of the most advanced and sophisticated weapons built to take the arms race to the next level.

News: Advanced GPS satellite launched

27th, may 2010,

The first of an advanced new fleet of navigation satellites for the U.S. Air Force soared into space late Thursday in a blazing night launch from a seaside pad in Florida.

The new global positioning system (GPS) satellite, called GPS 2F-1, blasted off atop an unmanned Delta 4 rocket at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 Friday GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

iPhone App: SkyVoyager

SkyVoyager is a powerful astronomy app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It is designed for both beginners and advanced users. It contains a database of 300,000 stars to 10th magnitude, and 30,000 deep sky objects, including the entire NGC and IC catalogs. It renders the planets and moons in detail, using NASA mission imagery, and includes a database of several hundred asteroids, comets, and artificial satellites.

iPhone App: iStellar

iStellar is a mobile planetarium and astronomy app for iPhone and iPod Touch. Based on the time and location setting input by the user, iStellar able to display the stars on the night sky for the given location. Information obtained through the GPS function, iStellar will chart the location of stars and will rotate according to the position detected by the position sensor. It is optimized for Multi-Touch control, allowing you to operate intuitively; drag to move the star chart, pinch to zoom in and out, and so on.

Low budget Astrophotography

Astrophotography may sound to be a huge step for beginners and is only reserved to professionals who spend years and years in this hobby and with quite expensive gadgets. As a matter of fact it needs good experience, but you will educate yourself with trial and error time after time, but to be honest, it's very tricky and maybe impossible to have results like the powerful high-end imaging devices, especially when imaging deep sky objects, but with cheaper equipment you can create decent images if you know how to tweak'em to the limits, now we will see how it's done.

The Newtonian Reflector Telescope

This Uniquely-look telescope first developed by another pioneer in science, Sir Isaac Newton. The design of this telescope is fairly simple. Other than the lenses in the eyepiece, there is only one surface that has a curve in it (the primary mirror).

Light Pollution

We begin with the greatest impediment of all to observing the heavens in today’s world. Light pollution is excessive or misdirected artificial outdoor lighting. It does no one any good, and almost everyone considerable harm.

Sky Navigation: Altitude and Azimuth

Whatever the celestial object you desire to observe, you first need to find it(obviously), when we talk about stars (or any other celestial objects) we need to have a system for identifying where they are in the sky.

Refracting Telescopes

When a "Telescope" term come in mind, we always think of that tube with the big lens and the small one we look in. Though its inventor may be lost in history, this early kind of telescope is called a "Galilean" or simple refractor. The Galilean refractor consists of two lenses: a convex (curved outward) lens held in front of a concave (curved inward) lens a certain distance away. As you know, the telescope’s front lens is called the objective, while the other is referred to as the eyepiece, or ocular.

Telescope Accessories for beginners

There are some essential accessories and gadgets that you should consider buying with your telescope.

Starter Telescope Models for Beginners

What to consider ?

There are a wide rang out there you can pick from. And I will try here to review and show you some of these models which are recommend for a beginner, compared to the cost.

Buying a Telescope for Beginners

So, you intend to buy a telescope, my belief that there are three primary concerns a beginner should have when buying a first scope: cost, size (& type), and reliability. Those three aspects are very common when you decide to buy whatever you put in mind, so we will try to follow them from a amateur point of view or just a father who want to get his son the scope he always dreamed of.