The Average Color of the Universe
Credit: Karl Glazebrook & Ivan Baldry (JHU)
Explanation: What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted above, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. To determine this, astronomers computationally averaged the light emitted by one of the largest sample of galaxies yet analyzed: the 200,000 galaxies of the 2dF survey. The resulting cosmic spectrum has some emission in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but a single perceived composite color.
(via drawnblog)
Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only a s a speck of light among many others. Written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, rereleased in 1977.
via recuperate
Since my astronomy professor showed us this film last fall I’ve kind of loved it. I’ve always been fascinated by the scale of our universe, both large and small things. It makes our presence on Earth feel that much more miraculous.
Interesting article about our place in the universe of intelligence societies.
(via hairywhitethighs)
I just found out that Carl Sagan’s seminal 1980 science series, Cosmos, is completely free to watch in it’s entirety on Hulu. The program covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. I know what I’ll be doing for the next few days.
I realize I’m geeking out a bit with the last two posts.
