Emma
-
What the Heck is a Quasar?
I’ll give you a hint: this is not an image of a quasar. This image is from a first-season Star Trek: The Original Series episode, “The Galileo Seven” — the original footage, before it was remastered (and before astronomers had…
-
Exploring Radio Lobes
Meet galaxy NGC 5128, also known as Centaurus A. Anyone notice something weird going on here? If you’ve been following my recent posts on galaxies, you might notice that this does not look like a typical galaxy. It has a…
-
What are Seyfert Galaxies?
Meet NGC 1566, an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Fornax. To the human eye, this galaxy looks almost like any other spiral: It has a central nucleus and spiral arms, and it’s full of gas and dust. As an…
-
Galaxies Demystified
From the smallest of irregular and dwarf galaxies, to the most spectacular of spirals, to the most massive of ellipticals, there’s no denying that galaxies are incredible objects. On this blog, we’ve covered a great deal of information about galaxies.…
-
How Galaxies Evolve
Ever since astronomers realized that the mysterious, fuzzy objects known as “spiral nebulae” were, in fact, separate galaxies beyond our own, we’ve sought to understand the stories of galaxies. We’ve since discovered that most galaxies are found in galaxy clusters.…
-
When Galaxies Collide
Meet the Whirlpool Galaxy, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. This was actually the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral. Specifically, the Whirlpool Galaxy is what we call a grand-design spiral: a galaxy with a very…
-
Exploring Galaxy Clusters
What if we were to travel beyond our own Milky Way Galaxy, and foray out into the galactic wilderness of deep space? What do you think we’d expect to find? Would we find galaxies spread out apart from one another,…
-
Updates!
Alright, so, a couple things… Yes, I’m back! I spent most of 2023 working on my first novel, to the detriment of pretty much all my other projects. But the first draft is now complete — ringing in at 158,000…
-
Is Dark Matter Real?
Here we are, people — it’s finally time to talk about dark matter! I’ve teased this subject in my last few posts. We’ve discussed how the idea originated — with observations of the rotation of galaxies. We’ve touched on the…
-
A Peek at Supermassive Black Holes
There are few things in the universe quite as exciting as black holes. They’re in all the movies — I even wrote a post a few years ago on what the movies get wrong about them! Though some movies, like…
