CelticBear’s Musings

Latest show of “AstronomyCast” podcast discusses dark energy, the expansion of the universe, and its eventual heat death.

“Dark energy,” the reason why the universe expansion rate is increasing, despite the originally expected hypothesis that expansion of the universe was slowing. Proof there’s no great cabal of scientists colluding to fool the world about its origin. Two competing groups of scientists were seeking to find the rate of collapse of the universe when they independently discovered it’s not–to their utter surprise, it’s expanding. And the scientific community sat up in interest at this unusual and unexpected development.

Note that in this podcast, the scientist (physicist Dr. Pamela L. Gay) has no qualms with saying “we don’t know” in regards to things that science can’t yet explain. (Try to find a theologian willing to say “we don’t know”.)

That reminds me, seen this great t-shirt? I’d probably never wear it in public just out of decency, but man do I want one bad!

(click to go to http://xkcd.com/store/ to order the shirt.) 

It’s a reference to the COBE mission, which won a Nobel Award in science this year, for observing and calculating the background radiation of the universe revealing a closer exact age of the universe and just adds the greatest proof of the Big Bang onto an already mountain of evidence.

Also, over on Bad Astronomy blog, Phil Plait discusses the highly unusual and fantastic event of supernovae in general, and the utterly strange but fascinating frequency of novae in a nearby galaxy! Very cool and awe inspiring information.