As computers have grown ever more powerful, astronomers and astrophysicists have increasingly used computers to model the complex systems they study. This can range from modelling the motions of planetary bodies in our solar system, to simulating the convection of plasma in the depth of a star. Perhaps the most ambitious computer modeling project, however, is the Millenium Project at the Max Planck Institute.
Money for Nothing
Although there is a great deal of evidence for the big bang, it does raise an interesting question. If the universe began with the big bang, what caused the big bang? One of the more popular answers is that the universe quite literally came from nothing.
Primeval Atom
The origin of the universe is often portrayed in popular science as a vast sea of darkness. Centered in this darkness is a bright point of light, which suddenly expands, filling your view with light, fading into a dance of galaxies. Of course this raises all sorts of questions: What did the universe expand into? What triggered the initial explosion? Where did all that matter and energy come from? The problem is, this isn’t how cosmologists see the big bang at all.
Beyond the Sea of Stars
For generations humans looked up at the night sky and had only questions. Now we can look up at the night sky and know. Not just what stars and planets are, but the whole sky, the universe in its entirety. And yet there are still more questions to be asked.
Traveling Without Moving
With all the news about BICEP2 and the possible detection of early inflation, there have been a lot of misconceptions about what inflation actually is. One of the biggest is the idea that during inflation the universe expanded faster than light. It’s a misconception that even many experts get wrong.
Echoes
Yesterday a research project known as BICEP2 announced important results regarding cosmic inflation. The result centers on what is known as B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background. This is pretty big news, but it is also pretty complex, so let’s look at what’s really going on here and why this matters.
To the Point
Popular science loves to portray the big bang as an explosion from a point. It was even portrayed this way in the new Cosmos series. The only problem is that isn’t how the universe began, and portraying it this way raises all sorts of misconceptions.
How Astronomy Supports Evolution
If evolution is correct (and it is) then it must have occurred over billions of years, not a mere 10,000 or so. So how do we know — really, really know — that the Universe is billions of years old? It all comes down to a bit of astronomy.
Testing the Electric Universe
Why the Electric Universe is provably, clearly and ridiculously wrong.