And In The Centers...

A weak week!

I buried my head in a pillow to bawl

Knees to my chest like a ball

I guess it was the Domino effect

Of being vulnerable, easy to affect

Sometimes my heart twists and wrings

Most often my head hurts and rings

I assure you it's not just a phase

I've tried but the feeling doesn't faze.

No one really saw the signs

Even if it's simple science

At last I cried out aloud

Louder than I was allowed.

(there's something so comforting about homophones. <3)

Shit Slytherins Say: #254

Ok no offense, but some of us *looks pointedly at self in mirror* need to fucking chill

SCRIBBLE AND SCRATCH

With a cup of tea, a pen, and my book

I sat to write at my favorite nook.

Head filled with voices trying to get out,

And a heart humming with tunes of doubt.

I scribble, and scratch then my words fade,

As I suppress the thoughts that make me afraid.

So I go back to the books that give me relief.

To find my answers within someone else's grief.

There are many problems within these books.

And in that world, solutions aren't mine to look

Within worn-out, annotated, and yellow pages,

I forget my fright as I did for ages.

Soon I'm drawn back to my nook

Holding on to empty pages of the notebook

I scribble, and scratch but the words don't fade

For I've let my thoughts out of its shade.

LET'S STAY IN

A few more days let's stay in,

Read a book or play violin.

Though how long is uncertain,

This too shall pass, that's certain.

Binge your favourite TV show,

Or adopt a dog, so you can watch him grow.

Stay up all night then wake up late,

And enjoy your cup of hot chocolate.

Make biryani, bake a pie,

Or paint a picture and watch it dry.

Call that friend who cares for you,

And watch the sky in brilliant hues.

A few more days let's stay in,

Later you can go trek mountain.

Though how long is uncertain,

This too shall pass, that's certain.

(30.10.20)

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

one time in high school my french teacher told the class that his grandmother died and a kid in the class said “je regrette :(“ and the french teacher burst out laughing and was like “you’re gonna wanna say desolé in this context because je regrette means like…. my bad”

Aesthetic: Sudden Collapse

Give me sudden collapses.  Please.

Give me stumbling and wavering and vision going blurry before going black.

Give me running and faltering and crumpling like a ragdoll.

Give me standing up mid-argument and words trailing off and eyes rolling back.

Give me slamming into things on the way down.  Give me frantic, scrambling catches by the unprepared.  Give me a soft thud and heads turning back in unison.

Give me curses, give me worry, give me eyes that close and do not open.

Give me a fight that’s over, give me looking up at the sky in relief, give me letting go.

Give me the sight of legs that no longer work, of eyes that flutter shut, of a body dropping to the floor.

“Hey,” he said, half-asleep, “what were you before you met me?”

“I think I was drowning.” A pause.

“And what are you now?” he whispered, sinking.

I thought for a second. “Water.”