☕ 27.01.2025 // I Completed My To Do List And Had A Latte With A Friend (Yes, We Both Took A Latte

i went to the local library to pick up some books today :) i'm literally so dumb because i was in the wrong row for the nonfiction section (looking for spacefarers) and i did not even stop to question why all the books around me were on the culinary arts.

i heard the master of djinn is a really good book and would be good for people that liked arcane. IF I MAKE IT THROUGH THE BOOK, maybe i'll write a review. hopefully i can because it looks really interesting...

i have a lot of random stuff to do these next two days since i wasn't productive for the first three days of break :(

study for computer science midterm

calculus unit 4 problem sets

magnetostatics FRQ

read literature for research project

update astrophysics notes

work on cosmology simulation

Electric field or smt

Milky Way & meteor at Yellowstone Park

NGC 1316 taken by Hubble Space Telescope on January 26 2021

NGC 1316 is an elliptical galaxy formed by the collisions of multiple galaxies near the constellation Forax in the southern hemisphere. What makes this galaxy unique is the dark lanes of dust visible around the galaxy. These are indicative that they galaxies NGC 1316 was formed by were spiral galaxies.

What helped scientists determine that this galaxy was created due to a "recent" collision where different types of images taken of NGC 1316. Hubble's images helped to reveal huge collisional shells and a small number of globular clusters. Collisional shells are formed from debris of the parent galaxy, which under the effects of gravity and tidal forces. These tails last for a long time, before eventually being reabsorbed into the progenitor (object of origin). Globular clusters are a group of stars bound by gravity.

These two events were indicative of a merger that occurred within the past couple billion years.

Dolphin Head Nebula taken by Ben Brown on February 23 2024

The Dolphin Head Nebula, Sh 2-308, is an emission nebula caused by the Wolf-Rayet star EZ Canis Majoris. WR stars have completed fusion of hydrogen and are now fusing heavier elements such as helium and carbon. They have unique emission spectrums for this reason, with no hydrogen emission lines.

The temperature of WR stars is much higher than typical stars, reaching 20,000 K to 210,000 K. WR stars are some of the most luminous stars due to their high temperatures, but most of their output is in the ultraviolet spectrum, meaning we can't see it with the naked eye.

This UV radiation ionizes the gas around it, leading to the emission nebula you can see in the photograph.

I wanted to lock in before the new year, so I finally got through the final part of my circuits lecture!!! I think this one was the longest yet (it took me like the whole day).

I did stop for a walk outside though (that’s the picture I took on the left) so that helped me clear my mind a little bit. Definitely a goal of mine will be to focus more when it’s time to work and then relax guilt free in order to prevent days like this.

Overall, I’m not disappointed since it’s difficult material. I really like the problem solving aspect of it since it’s like working a puzzle— especially the multi-loop ones.

Star Trails taken by Rob on February 24 2024

Star trails are photographs taken over long exposures, where the rotation of the Earth causes the stars to appear as arcs in the sky instead of points. The Earth rotates around its axis every 23 hours and 56 minutes.

Typically, star trails are focused on Polaris in the northern hemisphere, but I found this photo unique because it opted for a different composition. It also really highlights how dense the sky is with stars.

It begs the question, why isn't the sky infinitely bright with infinite stars? This is actually the observation that helped cosmologists find theories for the age of the universe. For a young universe, not enough time has passed for the light from incredibly distant stars to reach us, leading to the dark sky we see when we look up at night.

i actually got out of bed and did some work 😳 total 90 mins so far. next on my to-do list is emails and suddenly i want to crawl back into the darkness

International Space Station transit of the Moon taken by Quinn Groessl on January 31 2023.

The ISS orbits the Earth at a typical velocity of 28000 km/h (very fast) and at a typical altitude of 400 km. Gravitational forces keep the ISS in constant freefall, but with the forward velocity of the ISS, the overall distance to Earth and velocity stays pretty much the same.

These transits are pretty infrequent. The angle of the moon from the orbital plane can vary over time, and any small changes in the ISS orbit can have major effects on its path. In the sky, they are both fairly small objects, leading to smaller probabilities as well.

An important factor that allows these events to occur is that the ISS is traveling much faster relative to our perspective on Earth compared to the moon. The ISS orbits the Earth around 16 times a day, while the moon takes around a month (27.3 days).

You can see the video of it at this link. It's incredible how precise astronomers have to be with how short of a timespan there is to record this.

long study day at the library! there was a lot of snacks since it’s finals week but getting a spot was so impossible 😦 my friend and I saw three people leaving from behind some bookshelves and it was like the hunger games trying to grab our stuff and get seats before anybody else could take them

the library closed kind of early so now I’m back home and I have a long night ahead of me

- analysis study sheets (5/5)

- extra credit poem

- email people back 😭

- comp sci practice tests

- chem study sheets???