Let’s face it – there isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t gazed at myriad stunning astronomy images that are readily available on the web. Whether it’s Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, Saturn’s gorgeous rings, desolate Martian landscapes, or a spectacular deep sky object, the “raw material” behind each of these beauties is often publicly available data collected by survey missions. But how exactly does a long string of seemingly random “ones and zeros” get transformed into such amazing visual imagery? Tonight, Kevin Gill, the image processing “magician”, is with us to give us an introduction into how to access the public archives as well as how to process their data. Read More
Tag: Big Bang
Weekly Space Hangout: December 29, 2021 — Do Black Holes Grow as the Universe Expands? Dr. Kevin Croker Explains Cosmological Coupling
In our final episode of 2021 we are excited to welcome Dr. Kevin Croker from University of Hawai’i at Mānoa! Kevin led a team that compared data from simulated black hole mergers with that from gravitational waves detected by the LIGO–Virgo collaboration. This comparison led to a surprising conclusion: ignoring the expansion of the universe may be limiting the scientific understanding of black-hole physics. The team hypothesizes that that as the universe expands outward following the Big Bang, all objects with mass grow as well – and Black Holes are no exception. This new process has been dubbed “Cosmological Coupling.” Read More