Pope High School Astronomy

@Rainmaker1973 1. That picture is Barnard 68 - a dark dust cloud full of stuff. It’s far from a void. 2. “Cosmic void” and less than average are two totally different concepts. But, 3. This suggests that the universe is not isotropic nor homogeneous. That could be huge.

Astronomers now say it’s 100 times more likely that Earth and our galaxy sit inside a giant cosmic void. This idea challenges one of the most basic assumptions in cosmology: that matter is evenly spread throughout the universe on large scales. Instead, new evidence from baryon acoustic oscillations – patterns left behind by sound waves from the Big Bang – suggests that we live in an underdense bubble two billion light-years wide with far less matter than average.

@aviationbrk That’s not ATL

Meanwhile in ATL 🤏 Video: Kyle Marcks

@forallcurious Because physics is universal

If aliens exist, why haven’t they visited Earth?

@elonmusk begin planning a mission to Enceladus and Europa asap. Please.

@MaxVelocityWX This was two days ago, but I’m in Georgia right now wearing a hoodie. We’re far from red.

Summer Version 5.0 is loading…

@MaxVelocityWX It’s still summer.

bye bye to any hopes of winter anytime soon!

Moon, Venus, and sunrise over Haleakala. 10,023 feet. 44 F. July 21, 2025. Undercast skies made this an unforgettable experience.

@SPACEdotcom 1. That’s Neptune 2. I thought this was fairly obvious as Uranus’ temperature is higher than what is predicted by Stefan-Boltzmann Law. There must be internal heating.

Please. Do better than this. The fact that we’re at apogee has nothing to do with temperature.

Be on the lookout for some earthquake activity soon.

Milky Way galactic disc as seen from Dead Horse Point State Park - our first international dark sky park. Sky was full of stars. Lucky to be there during a new moon.

Mesa Arch overlooking Canyonlands.

Got lucky to get permits to the fiery furnace in Arches NP. Check out Surprise Arch from below. Amazing what water erosion can create.

Turn up your brightness. Looking into our galactic disc with the silhouette of Balancing Rock in Arches National Park.

Ancient seas and sand, pressure, time, water erosion - the basic ingredients that gives us Delicate Arch.

A warm-up for what’s to come. The city lights of Moab were interfering, but still a look into the Milky Way galaxy.

Amazing what time, wind, and water can do. Nearly 2,000 feet deep. Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It is wonders like these that have us spending time on geology in class. These processes happen elsewhere in our solar system.

Zooming in on a 1,500 foot tall cliff with huge pegmatite intrusions.

Supposedly, those spires are the remains of an ancient mud flow caused by a volcanic eruption 50 or more miles away. Colorado

Look what I found! Leaf fossil. Likely a member of the birch family.