SciGaze Group

                         Image Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas  The first patent of the telescope was recorded in 1608. After that many improvements have been made in the telescopes. Today we have telescopes of all sizes. Telescopes about the size of a car or a bus are successfully launched in the outer orbit. Telescopes are also sent to distant planets like Mars, Jupiter, Saturn etc. The Voyager duo has even crossed the solar system. Large telescopes are also installed on the land, bigger than a building. Today, telescopes are successfully installed in aeroplanes. The flight would take off and will complete its observation while in the air and finally gets landed after completing the observation. Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint mission by NASA and German Aerospace Center (DLR). SOFIA is basically a telescope of 2.5 m diameter installed in Boeing 747SP. It is not the first time when NASA installed a telescope inside an aeroplane. The first use of an aircra

We all have our routines. But ever thought what routine do astronauts follow while at ISS. Living and working at zero gravity is not easy. During their mission, astronauts face a completely different environment. Also, it is not easy to make our body work in zero gravity. Body movements are changed completely in order to work in zero gravity. While on Earth we are free to eat any food we like and want, but above at the ISS astronauts are not. Special diets and foods are prepared for them. A special bathroom is also created on the ISS.  It costs NASA around $10,000 to supply a bottle of water to astronauts at ISS. Now with the use of the new Falcon 9 rocket, it costs $2,700 to supply a kilogram of food or other material to the ISS. So, astronauts must work with a limited supply of food and water. There are special arrangements made at the ISS for astronauts to brush, shave, wash their hair etc.  (1) Eating in ISS: Having your dinner in a laboratory that is 400 km above the land and movi

  Extrasolar planets or simply exoplanets are planets found outside the solar system. These are very interesting bodies as they have the same routine as our home planet ie orbiting the centre star. However, there are many exoplanets that do not orbit any star. They are known as Rogue planets. There are possibly more than a billion rogue planets in the Milky Way. Exoplanets were first predicted in 1917 but were not discovered till 1992. Many exoplanets were discovered to have the same composition as the Earth. Hence there might be possible of life there (here life may include small microbes and not giant aliens as seen in fiction). There are about 11 billion habitable Earth-like exoplanets in the Milky Way.  Till now 4,719 exoplanets are discovered, out of the 772 were part of a system (like the Solar System) having at least three planets. If we want to find extraterrestrial life then exoplanets are the way to find them. If there are 11 billion habitable exoplanets in our home galaxy th

Many of us have heard or read about astronomical objects whose official names are starting with NGC, like NGC 1976, NGC 1952 etc. But what actually this NGC means? NGC is one of the most historic catalogues of deep space objects ever created in history. The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC) is a list of deep space astronomical objects created by John Dreyer. This catalogue has 7,840 astronomical objects listed including galaxies, nebulae, black holes, clusters etc. It's obvious that Dreyer himself has not discovered all the 7,840 objects. The journey was started many years ago by William Herschel and his sister Caroline. They both located and observed more than 1000 objects in the deep space. They published the first catalogue which contained around 2500 objects. John Herschel, Willian's son also located and discovered many astronomical objects. He catalogued objects even more than his father's discovery. He published his catalogue which contains

Charles Messier and his assistant Pierre Mechain were the astronomers who created this catalogue. Charles never intended to create a specific catalogue like this. All he wanted was to find different comets inside the solar system. But there were many outer solar system objects which blocked his way and make it difficult for him to locate the comets. He created a list of 45 such astronomical objects which blocked his search for comets. Eventually, that list was found out to have some of the most amazing astronomical objects, far more interesting than the comets. He published that list in 1774, which became well known as the Messier Catalogue. The first version of the catalogue published in 1774 contained 45 objects (M1 to M45). 18 were discovered by Messier himself and the rest were already known. By 1780, he added 25 new objects, so the second version of the catalogue now has a total of 70 objects. The final version, published in 1781, the catalogue had a total of 103 objects. 7 new ob

               In the last few decades, the expansion of the Universe has been a topic to debate for astronomers. When we talk about expanding the universe many questions arises in our mind like why it is expanding, evidence of its expansion, what makes it expand, how fast it is expanding. Many theories have been proposed to determine the actual reason behind expanding universe.               Theoretically, the expansion of the universe was proven by Hubble's Law which says that galaxies are moving away from the Earth with velocities proportional to their distance. Mathematically, the expansion was proven by the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric. The FLRW metric is an exact solution of the field equation of general relativity proposed by Albert Einstein. It says that the universe, which is isotropic, homogenous and expanding is path-connected. Another way to prove the expansion of the universe is the Doppler Effect (redshift and blueshift). When distant galaxies are observ

There are billions and billions of galaxies in the observable universe or say the total number of galaxies is impossible to count. So it is very obvious that in such a wide universe two galaxies will collide. The collision is a very obvious and common event in astronomy, whether it is between two galaxies or any other two bodies. Gravitational pull is the main reason for the collision.                A similar collision is about to happen with our home galaxy. A head-on collision of the Milky Way will happen with the Andromeda Galaxy. The first evidence of collision appears when the spectrum observation of our neighbour galaxy showed the blueshift, which means the galaxy is approaching us and is most likely to collide with our home galaxy. Astronomers first thought that Andromeda will not collide with the Milky Way. It appeared that the galaxy is moving towards a point nearly 178,000 light-years away from the Milky Way. But after studying the relative motions of stars in the Andromeda

The Discovery of radioactive particles deep inside the Ocean has left astronomers to think that we are passing through a cloud of supernova debris. A small amount of rare isotope Iron-60 has been found from five different samples from the Indian Ocean. As iron-60 is not naturally produced on the Earth, these atoms might have entered Earth through outer space over several thousand years. This means our Earth has constantly been exposed to this radioactive isotope for more than 33,000 years. Near the solar system, supernovae have created filaments, bubbles of low-density atoms like hydrogen. Iron-60 has a half-life of 2.6 million years. Traces of iron-60 has also been found from lunar samples and in our galaxy. Hence any sample found on Earth must have deposited from outer space since there are no chances of iron-60 surviving from the formation of Earth 4.6 billion years ago. Iron-60 has also been found from the Antarctic snow. Iron-60 can reach Earth because it might be trapped inside t

               Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is the most reflective body of the Solar System because it is mostly covered with fresh ice. Spacecraft like Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Cassini deeply observed this moon and discovered some of the most amazing things on it. Cassini, during its close flybys of Enceladus, discovered the cryovolcanoes in the south polar regions.               These cryovolcanoes eject geyser-like jets of ice, water vapour, sodium chloride crystals and molecular hydrogen. The discovery of such geysers was a matter of excess surprise for the astronomers. Cassini observed many terrains and young impact craters in the south polar regions. The impact craters in the south polar regions were as young as 500,000 years. Near the terrain, there are four famous ridges known as the "Tiger stripes". Such ridges suggested that there a lot more internal geological activity inside Enceladus than expected. Also, Enceladus' highest ever temperatur