One of the many things I love about astronomy is the uncovering of a mystery. As someone once said (nuts, I can’t find the reference) Isaac Asimov once said (paraphrased) science isn’t moved forward when someone yells "Eureka!", it gets that nudge when a scientist looks at the data and says, "That’s funny…"
Mysteries are everywhere, if you just know where to look. And their solutions can be found, if you know how to look.
So start by taking a look at this image from Hubble:
What you’re seeing at here is the cluster MS 0735. It’s not a cluster of stars, but of entire galaxies! Each object you see there is a galaxy, much like our own. The cluster is something like a couple of million light years across. There are no big galaxies that close to the Milky Way, yet this clusters has dozens, hundreds, in that same volume. It’s a crowded place.
However, it’s not that different than lots of other galaxy clusters we see. Most of them are crowded. This one has a big galaxy right at the center, which is also typical. Heavier galaxies tend to "fall" toward the center, merge, and grow into one monster one.
But this cluster hides a secret. And behind that secret is a mystery…
When viewed in X-rays, the cluster’s secret is revealed:
This view by the Chandra X-ray observatory shows that the cluster is surrounded by extremely hot gas, millions of degrees hot. Even this isn’t too surprising to astronomers: we’ve seen lots of clusters embedded in hot gas like this, and there are many reasons it happens. Gas from inside the galaxies gets blown out by exploding stars, for example. As galaxies move inside the cluster, orbiting each other, the gas inside galaxies can be stripped away (think of the air inside a convertible getting stripped out as the car speeds down the highway).
Without our X-ray eyes, we’d never know about that gas. So looking at the cluster in a different way reveals something hidden.
But wait a sec… that gas has a shape. It’s not just some blob. There are two big circular dark patches where there appears to be less gas. What gives?
Ah, there is the mystery! And to solve it, we need a cosmic detective.
Enter my old friend Brian McNamara. Those of you who watched the PBS NOVA show "Monster of the Milky Way" may remember Brian (I remember him because we went to grad school together). The show opened with him looking at images of this giant hot ball of gas in space. He was the one who took that image of the cluster above, and as soon as he saw it he knew he had something interesting. Those two dark patches are indeed holes, vast cavities carved out of the gas surrounding the cluster.
It’s possible to calculate the amount of gas that had to be pushed aside to sculpt those holes. The number is numbing: more than a trillion times the mass of the Sun was moved. Think about the energy involved! What sort of object could wield such vast power on fantastic scales?
The only thing astronomers know of that can do it is a black hole. And not just any black hole, but a supermassive one– millions of times the Sun’s mass. These exist in the centers of galaxies — there’s one that is 4 million solar masses in the center of ours. As matter falls into such a black hole, it heats up. The energy generated can be huge, and in many cases this drives vast beams of matter and energy outward from the black hole. It’s ironic that black holes are known for eating up everything near them, yet can actually eject tremendous amounts of matter at incredible velocities… but remember, this matter isn’t actually inside the black hole, just very close. And with a big black hole, there’s a lot of gravitational energy to tap into.
The galaxy in the center of MS 0735 must have a supermassive black hole at its core. It should even be pretty big, given how many other galaxies must have merged together to form that one beast. But if there are beams of matter ejected from it, there’s no hint of them in those images.
But just as we had to switch from visible light to X-rays to see the hot gas, we have to go to another set of eyes to see the beams. Here’s a third image of the cluster, as seen in radio waves:
Aha! There you go! In radio, we can see the gas ejected by the black hole, focused into beams (astronomers call them jets) hundreds of thousands of light years long. They’re not as hot as the intercluster gas, so they don’t emit X-rays, and the gas is too thin to emit visible light. But they glow brightly in radio waves. These beams scream out from the central black hole, moving at nearly the speed of light. Pity any gas that gets in the way… even a trillion solar masses of it.
These jets are what carved those cavities into the gas surrounding the cluster. They plowed through all that material, pushing it aside, powered paradoxically by the immense gravity of the black hole deep inside the cluster. This all becomes clear when all three images are put together:
Click on it for a hi-res version. It’s beautiful, stunning.
There’s your complete picture. Any one of these images is interesting, even provocative, but none by itself presents the complete picture. Astronomers need many eyes to look into space, and see what there is to see. And what a canvas the Universe reveals… Power on unimaginable scales! Destruction a million light years across! Monsters lurking in the deep cores of galaxies, central engines capable of wreaking such havoc!
Yeah, that’s why I love astronomy. Sometimes it’s the mystery, and sometimes it’s the solution. But always, always, it’s the story behind the images.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Hmm. I’ve heard that quote several times. Someone once told me that Asimov said it first, but I haven’t found the reverence yet.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Very, very cool! And thanks for the link to the Hubblesite gallery. I hadn’t been there in a while, and had forgotten how incredible the images it sends back are.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Very, very cool! And thanks for the link to the Hubblesite gallery. I hadn’t been there in a while, and had forgotten how incredible the images it sends back can be.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Whoops! Double post. Apologies. I don’t know how that happened. Sorry, Phil, and BA readers.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Isaac Asimov, according to this:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/470.html
November 8th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Yes, I heard it was Asimov too.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Wikipedia confirms Asimov as the source, (though it doesn’t give the original source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
November 8th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
I was tempted to put down Asimov, actually. I should have looked it up first. OK, I’ll correct the text in the entry.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:02 am
That’s a very good post – well put together. I think I’ll head off to bed now and dream about falling into black holes…like Alice in Wonderland. (12:56 a.m.)
November 9th, 2006 at 12:43 am
Beautifully done, BA, and I certainly prefer this over the Chandra press release.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:00 am
I’ve been looking for some pretty pictures to teach kids about the EM spectrum…these ones are just the ticket! Thanks Phil.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:03 am
My jaw dropped when I saw that last picture. I knew what had to be coming, because you strung it together so well. But to actually see how precise the overlap is centered on the cluster and the holes – well, it’s marvelous. The scientists involved can pat themselves on the back for once again fitting together the pieces of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle which no one in the history of mankind has ever done before.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:25 am
Didn’t Asimov also say: “There is no such thing as a paradox, only clumsily formulated questions”?
November 9th, 2006 at 2:26 am
Hey folks, am I missing something? I skipped on over to APOD and read that “Janus travels in an unusual orbit around Saturn where it periodically trades places with its sister moon Epimetheus, which typically orbits about 50 kilometers away“. Say what?
November 9th, 2006 at 2:26 am
That is an amazing story.
Every kid in America could pretty much understand that picture given the explanation. It’s not any more complicated than the plot of a Simpsons episode.
It’s the sort of picture that could change a kid’s whole thinking about the universe.
My question- is this sort of stuff being shown in schools (with proper explanation)- and if not, why not?
November 9th, 2006 at 2:28 am
Christian: I’ve been looking for a sequence exactly like this to use at the school I teach at when I talk about the EM spectrum. Rest assured, some of us agree with you.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:05 am
Great piece. I wish there would have been more time for you to talk about stuff like this when you came to UNO last week but the moon talk was great too. I’ve been back and forth whether to go into quantum physics or astrophysics but seeing you so jazzed about everything going on out there has tilted the scale a bit. Maybe I’ll see you at Sonoma one day.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:35 am
Crux,
Thanx, geniuses like us obviously think alike.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:42 am
Crux – Yes, Janus and Epimetheus are typically 50 kilometers apart – they trade orbits every now and then, and between them they shape a ring we only just discovered (using Cassini). Their delicate dance is as cool as this galaxy-sized engine of destruction, in my opinion.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2135
November 9th, 2006 at 3:43 am
Great post! Is there an estimate to the size of that black hole?
November 9th, 2006 at 3:51 am
These are the stories I love this blog for.
Great post Phil!
November 9th, 2006 at 4:30 am
To quote xkcd.com, “Science. It works, bitches.” Great stuff, Phil. I love this place.
November 9th, 2006 at 5:28 am
Those two very bright objects, at the far left- and far right-handside of the picture, those aren’t galaxies too are they? They seem more like they’re just stars that are much closer (to earth) than the galaxies in this picture. I’m just curious.
November 9th, 2006 at 5:43 am
Very cool. I agree with Laguna2, that’s the sort of thing that keeps me reading your blog.
BTW – I’ve been reading you blog for a while now, but never posted before. However, I just finished reading your book and wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. I’m doing a distance learning course (as part of a physics degree) in astronomy and your book really helped explain and clear up some of my misconceptions.
Keep up the good work, Phil.
P.S. Gotta love that crazy egg balancing stuff.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Awesome post Phil:).
November 9th, 2006 at 7:03 am
I wish we could edit these posts:(.
As far as I can see, there are 2 stars in that picture BB. The ones that look like they have crosshairs on them. IIRC that is an optical distortion created by some telescopes when they view stars. I don’t remember why or how it happens though. Or why it doesn’t happen to galaxies.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Those crosshairs are called diffraction spikes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike ) and are caused by the support bars holding the secondary mirror in place inside the telescope.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:10 am
John B: Thanks for the reference. I haven’t thought of Issac for a while, since I Robot was made into a movie. I keep wishing they’d(Hopllywood) would make a movie of Heinliens Stranger in a Strange Land and Methuselahs Children. The two best books Robert ever wrote, though with our advances in genetics the latter might need a little updating,,,
BA, that’s one hell of a good example for why we need multiple “eys in the skies”.
Keep on posting,,,
GAry 7
November 9th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Those crosshairs are called diffraction spikes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike ) and are caused by the support bars holding the secondary mirror inside the telescope.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:59 am
BA, excellent post. I’ve been reading your site for ages and never felt compelled to post before, but this was extraordinary. The most fascinating thing, to me, about the images is the evidence (I think) of the rotation of the black hole. Is that what I’m seeing? I’m no scientist, I just love science.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Great post, but … why the distorted directions in the radio jets? It looks like they started to come out at about NW and SE (as you have the orientation of the image plane) but then both got distorted to go N and S respectively. Are they hitting some higher density gas that diverts them? If so, that’s oddly symmetrical. What could cause that?
November 9th, 2006 at 9:11 am
That’s very cool. It’s that sort of thing that made me want to study physics.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Great post BA. Love the way you broke it all down and put it together, just like Cosmic Variance did with the recent observations of dark matter. If only more people were exposed to these kinds of explanations I think we’d get a lot more interest in science in this country.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:36 am
That was my response as wel … “Thats Soooo Cool”.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Nice, lucid, and intriguing explanation of one of nature’s awesome events, accompanied with beautiful images. This three piece puzzle demonstrates the advantages of multiple band observations. Also, the scientific use of false color is beautifully demonstrated, though not mentioned.
November 9th, 2006 at 10:00 am
You know, it was about 3 years ago since I got into this stuff. I was like what 10? 11? I remember doing a report about Edwin Powell Hubble, at first I wasn’t to sure about doing that guy, he was assigned to me. When I started reading a biography of him and studied the work he did I was hooked.
It was stuff like this that first got me interested in astronomy and astrophysics. I love the color of space, I love the mysteries, and I love the exitment of discovering and learning something new.
Thanks BA.
November 9th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Vicki:
I notinced the “kink” in the gas jets, too, but remember that the ends of the jets farthest away from the center were emitted first. So your sequence of evets seems reversed.
More likely the jets were being emitted in the N-S directions (at least as far as the pictures are concerned) and the jets were recently tilted and started emitting in the NW-SE directions.
What could do that? Tilting the black hole. A collision or merger with another black hole is about the only thing I can think of that would accomplish that, but there are plenty of them to be had in that galaxy cluster.
BA: beautiful story, well put together. thanks.
November 9th, 2006 at 10:15 am
First, thanks everyone! I really appreciate all the kind words.
And yes, this sort of thing is taught in schools… sometimes. Actually, for my day job this is sort of what we do. We stress the EM spectrum a lot, since we represent NASA missions that span the EM range.
But this was just personal. I love the way the three images are so different, and tell such a different story, but how in the end it all adds up so beautifully.
November 9th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Just wanted to let you know that this post has been included in the third installment of the Philosophia Naturalis blog carnival (dedicated to the physical sciences and technology). You can see it all here:
http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC046B.html
Lorne
November 9th, 2006 at 11:05 am
It’s difficult for me to decide which I find the most interesting. The story behind the pictures, or the pictures themselves. So, I decide not to choose.
Great post, BA. This is why I always loved science. There’s beauty in everything from those viewed under a microscope, to those viewed through a telescope. And the stories that go with them only adds to the allure.
-Berlie
November 9th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I’ll add my vote of thanks, too.
Thank-you very much, Phil, for a beautifully-written, informative and accessible (sp?) blog entry.
This kind of thing is what makes science so fulfilling.
November 9th, 2006 at 11:32 am
[Comic Book Guy Voice] Best blog post EVER![/Comic Book Guy Voice]
I saw the Nova show the other day, but this post really added some understanding for me; especially with the last image you posted.
Thanks BA!
-Dave
November 9th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Fantastic image and excellent narrative. Thanks for the inspiration!
November 9th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Great post! I just changed my desktop background image to you-know-what.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
I’ll add a “that’s so cool” to this as well.
As great as the last picture is, I found steps leading up to it more interesting. Smart people asking the right questions and usings all of the tools available to solve a mystery. The journey is always more interesting to me.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Just imagine what the night sky looks like for the folks that live in those galaxies!
November 9th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
[...] Bad Astronomy Blog » Plowing through the electromagnetic spectrum [...]
November 9th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Just happened to watch the NOVA show on Tuesday (had recorded it but was too busy to watch). Very cool.
For fellow teachers, another good Astronomy demonstration of the electromagnetic spectrum is comparing information about the Sun in the different electromagnetic “bands” to various frequencies in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The link is http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/helfand/
Of course the Sun doesn’t quite have the same “cool” factor as black holes.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
“Of course the Sun doesn’t quite have the same “cool†factor as black holes.”
Of course not — but it’s a heck of a lot easier to see…
Lorne
November 9th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Looking at the image, the jets appear to have a sharp bend in them.
Why is this?
November 10th, 2006 at 2:35 am
That’s a great post, one of the main reasons I keep listening – there’s wonderful worlds out there.. Thanks.
November 10th, 2006 at 2:56 am
One more thing that would be cool would be to map the mass distribution of the cluster with microlensing. Dark matter, is too weakly interacting to be entrained by the jets (right?) so the distribution of mass will not show any holes.
November 10th, 2006 at 3:02 am
Wow, simply amazing. Thank you BA.
November 10th, 2006 at 6:06 am
Thanks for that BA. Awe inspiring.
Lorne Ipsum – if you’re reading this – try NOT to lookat the Sun too much!
It’ll send you blind -and that’s for real – just ask a certain Galileo Galilei.
Gary Ansorge : If you’re reading this have you read GHeinelin’s novel ‘Friday’? That’s my fave – gripping from the start witha very sexy heroine and a nice little interstellar voyage at the end – witty, amusing, highly readable. If you haven’t already readit it, I’d certainly recommend it ..
November 10th, 2006 at 6:15 am
Ah, I see our little index regeix whatever-y code gremilin is still plaguing us … Its still backspace and refresh.
I also see my typos are as bad as ever. That’s Robert A. Heinlein’s novel ‘Friday’ (New English Library, 1982) of course with the red-haired heroine on the cover sitting on a hovercar with a backdrop of burning city.
Asa big SF buff Iread alot of novels and that one still has about the best openings I’ve ever read -’nuff said.
Dunno if any authors named Gheinelin exist .. if so haven’t read them
Apologies for those typos – stuffing up names is always embarassing. (Sigh)
November 10th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Mungascr: No, I’m not familiar with Friday. I’ll look it up.
Thanks,
GAry 7
November 10th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Thanks Phil for another very interesting post. Just love seeing things in a “Different Light”. And thanks Cindy (at 6.30 pm), for the link to Columbia Edu. for the little QuickTime movie, which I have subsequently re-distributed. Hey, these things should be on YouTube and/or Google videos, educating the masses.
Another thing though, in the Chandra X-Ray image and complementary discription, there is mention of the surrounding interstellar gas being many millions of degrees HOT. (You thought I was going to ask if it was degrees F or C didn’t you. Dur, I’m not even going to mention that. Hot is hot!)
Does this mean that the mean temperature of space in that (huge) vicinity is similar to the center of the Sun, or only the relatively sparse gas molecules or elements in that cloud the only things that could be heated by that radiation from the nearby (?) stars? I mean could we as space travellers actually venture there, and for the time being, not heat up and melt and eventually vaporise?
So, any estimate as to the average density of elements in that area, and how would it compare with our neck of the woods?
Ivan.
November 10th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Icemith:
Saying millions of degrees ‘hot’ is sloppy phrasing on their part. What they mean is that the molecules are radiating a lot of energy ( heat ) and the molecules are in a high energy state. However the gases are so spread out that their will only be one molecule every few cubic metres, unlike down here where there are 10(exp n). Imagine the sparks from a grinder or welder; each one will glow white hot, but you can pass your hand through a stream of them and they don’t hurt because their individual energy content is so small.
If you were to gather that gas together at sea level density it would be very hot indeed; it would shine like the sun.
space is very cold, very large, but has the very occassional very small very hot thing.
(please tell me that all made sense!! I just came of a 16 hour shift and should be nowhere near the memespace!)
November 11th, 2006 at 5:21 am
Yeah, thanks James, it was as I really expected, but I cease to be surprised nowdays, as the opposite can also be true. Nowhere was there a clue to the actual density mentioned but being so far away, and so huge, and being heated by such a monstrous ‘furnace”, it is mind boggling just the same.
I actually view space as “without heat of any kind”, ie at zero degrees absolute, and in fact “without cold of any kind”, if you get what I mean. It is only the “solid” object in space, ie the element hydrogen or whatever, that is agitated, thereby raising the temperature a mite or two. When that element has been heated for a long time, along with all the others so effected, I guess it is really raised in energy levels to a point where it re-radiates some of that energy and we see it as a glow, albeit in the microwave region, in this case, and in other parts of the EM spectrum across the whole gamut in all galaxies otherwise.
But I did wonder if that density was high enough to constitute an ultra-light solid, in effect. That would mean it would be very very hot. It would mean that there would be Mass, lots of it. Maybe even account for some of the “missing” mass of the universe?
Hey, what does metalic hydrogen look like? There must be some point where it does exist. Maybe not for long as it heats up, but there must be a temperature differential as one moves around so to speak. Are there cooler areas in Space behind other objects, such as in shadows? Being cooler, they would be more condensed, thereby having a slightly higher mass per given volume, and also a higher gravity. Or am I off beam with that one?
Ivan.
November 11th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Icemith:
Metalic hydrogen: Lighter than water, transperant, possibly a superconductor at room temp(strictly theoretical). We have made solid hydrogen in the lab, but metalic hydrogen likely only exists really deep on Jupiter, where the temp/pressure allows its formation. It is suggested by theoretical models it COULD remain metalic at normal temp/pressure, but until we can attain such humongous pressures in the lab, we won’t know for sure,,,
Gary 7
November 11th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
I loved the idea used in ‘Raft’ by Stephen Baxter; of a super-high gravitational-constant universe, where humans live in an oxygen nebula.
November 11th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
What made that nebula emit x-rays at a roughly similar temperature or intensity over its millions of light years of extent? If it’s the temperature of the gas, why didn’t it just cool down within a few years of being ejected, being exposed to the cold of intergalactic space? Why does the nebula look so much like a close-up of a supernova remnant? What makes those jets emit radio waves? How would matter spiraling into a black hole cause it to eject matter? Why would ejected matter be focused into beams or jets?
I’m wondering if the way astronomy is discussed is about popularizing support for it without explaining what’s really known, because that would be over the average person’s head, or if the way it’s discussed is about guiding funding by emphasizing the words that influence supporters, such as “black hole,” and that’s why practically nothing is publicly explained.
November 11th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Thanks for the info Gary. Boy you never know until you ask. I wonder if all the seemingly contradictory properties of hydrogen, or it’s states relative to pressure, temperature and other influences, still have to be determined. And who knows what may turn up in the on-going study in the future.
Undoubtedly with so much still to discover, why are we wasting time, energy and people fighting wars? Or even trying to find more horrific ways to bring down an enemy? And don’t anybody bring out the old chestnuts about pennicillin, or teflon, or even dynamite. Nothing can justify war as a bringer of goodness.
Enough of the rant, but any good persuasion to encourage kids and college students to follow the never-ending idea of “Why is it so?”, (with apologies to the late Prof. Julius Sumner Miller, who used that phrase to great effect here on Australian TV a couple of decades ago.) Well I certainly remembered him, but not only for the phrase. I guess many budding young scientists, now working in their chosen fields, do also. For me, it was too late, but I can still learn and be amazed.
Ivan. ( B.Zero, Uni. of Hard Knocks.) (Heck, I’m not even a batchelor anymore – I’m married!)
November 12th, 2006 at 6:56 am
Oops’, just noticed… 2nd line.. “… or its states.”, I should have written.
It’s not what came out, and I completely missed it. I’ll have to watch that in future.
Ivan.
November 12th, 2006 at 9:54 am
[...] Another of my favorite people is Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy.com. Phil has a particularly wondrous post about what you can see in space from different points of view along the electromagnetic spectrum. Well worth a read. [...]
November 12th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Awesome images, but I’m not buying all of the explanation. Radio emission implies relatively low kinetic energy, x-ray emission implies extremely high kinetic energy. The idea that a relatively low velocity stream of ions could push an extremely hot cloud of gas out of the way and clear out a volume of billions of cubic light years is preposterous. I would rather think that some explosive event such as the collision of ultramassive black holes ejected the hot gas in a asymmetrical way. The hot plasma is probably opaque to radio waves, and where there is little of the gas the radio waves can shine through.
November 12th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Howdy Doody, your initial assumption isn’t correct. Radio waves can be emitted in many different ways, as can X-rays. Kinetic energy is just one way, but there is also sychotron radiation. The jets from black holes have a vast amount of kinetic energy; they are travelling at very nearly the speed of light when they leave the center of the cluster. They do slow down, but the emission of the radio waves isn’t tied to their temperature.
November 12th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Pareidolia Alert:
Did anybody else notice that the radio wave image looks a bit like BA Phil poking his head around a corner? The top half, especially.
This blog is one of my faves, and this post is another reason why.
Thanks, Phil!
November 13th, 2006 at 2:46 am
MoeHammered: Did you mean that red image with the prominent nose in profile in the lower section, and the hint of a shock of red hair at the top, and the left eyebrow in the center of the image? And with Phil looking towards the East / right side of the screen?
No, can’t say I did.
Ivan.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:57 am
The Bad Astronomer said “sychotron radiation”
I looked that up and the closest I got was synchrotron radiation.
Synchrotron radiation gives me a point to start looking for science that’s been done to answer questions like mine about where all that radiation comes from and why, while keeping some distance from the fringe stuff that blames it all on legendary lightning bolts of Thor that Velikovsky reinterpreted some old legends as being about, or blames it on artists’ conceptions of “black holes” and their spirals and jets without having any explanation of how they work.
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 am
[...] The power of story — on a really big stage. Plowing through the electromagnetic spectrum [...]
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:19 am
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May 19th, 2007 at 6:10 am
[...] a much fuller and more literate explanation of the whole thing check out the badastronomer blog here. Leave a [...]