Space Terms

When light is passed through an aperture small enough, what you get is not a bright image of a dot, but a bright disc surrounded with more circular rings alternately bright and dark. The bright central dot is called an Airy disk and the pattern that surrounds it is called an Airy pattern, named after […]

Telescopes need mirrors to reflect and collect light. Before the 1980s, reflective mirrors for telescopes were usually very thick so they can hold their shape to the required precision as it moves across the sky. Their sizes have set a physical limit to how big they can get. Mirrors of this type are usually just

In the physics of light, known as optics, light can be bent using lenses. As you may have observed on a daily basis, concave and convex mirrors distort the image that it reflects. Magnifying lenses can enlarge an object. These properties are all due to the capability of these mirrors and lenses to bend light.

Quantum mechanical models of atoms predict that atoms can absorb specific wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum and release the absorbed energy in other forms such as heat. Working on the visible light spectrum, or commonly called as just “light”, each wavelength translates to colors. Different wavelengths correspond to the different colors perceivable with the naked

Absolute zero is the theoretical temperature at which entropy is at minimum. It is a physical limit to the lowest possible temperature. When a system reached absolute zero, pressure, volume and internal pressure also become zero. At this temperature, the energy of the matter involved is at the minimum, though it is not correct to

A coronal mass ejection is literally an ejection of coronal mass from the sun. When this happens a large amount of coronal mass is shot off from the sun, the coronal mass estimated to contain millions of tons of plasma. Coronal mass ejections are observed and recorded by telescopes equipped with coronagraphs.

In 1964 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a form of radiation found everywhere in the universe. This data was later theorized to be connected with the Big Bang Theory. Penzias and Wilson noticed a radio background source all across the sky. It was later discovered that the sky is uniformly lit up in a

The cosmic background radiation that is believed to be cornerstone of the Big Bang theory and a fundamental basis for the cosmological theory has become a central piece of astronomy. While initially discovered as a radio anomaly and explained in terms of radiation, this cosmic phenomenon can be best viewed in the microwave spectrum. The

Cosmic rays refer to the energetic particles from space that enters the earth’s atmosphere. The earliest observers thought that these particles were rays and thus named them as such. However further in the future we were able to discern that these particles come in individual protons or alpha particles instead of a steady stream of

Cosmological constant is a physics term generally denoted by the symbol lambda. Lambda is a Greek letter that looks like a triangle missing its base. The cosmological constant was developed by Albert Einstein to be a modification to his original Theory of Relativity. At that time Einstein was trying to posit that the universe is