Senior year at DePauw, Carol, KJ, and I signed up for what we thought would be a breeze--Physics 104: Stars and Galaxies. Much to our surprise, Mary Kertzman's freshman-level class gave us a run for our money. I found the course fascinating (although I think Carol and KJ would beg to differ), and lately it seems to have been following me around, so here are some articles, photos, and videos I've been collecting from the world of astronomy.
Not only is our universe expanding (that is, the space between objects is expanding; the objects themselves are not moving away from each other), but it's also accelerating due to what scientists believe is a mysterious dark energy linked back to the Big Bang. I had an embarrassing breakdown in the middle of class one day when trying to understand this concept, and just yesterday I woke up to this story on NPR about the three scientists who were recently awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering this phenomenon. This NPR blog has a nice compilation of interviews and videos about the subject.
Photo of the Milky Way from NPR's Tumblr:
An awesome time-lapse of flying over Earth from Radiolab's Tumblr:
Another time-lapse of the Northern Lights from space from Open Culture (watch how it works here):
Some 2011 award-winning astronomy photographs from BBC News:
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