These pages chronicle the work and ruminations of Carolyn Collins Petersen, also known as TheSpacewriter.
I am CEO of Loch Ness Productions. I am also a producer for Astrocast.TV, an online magazine about astronomy and space science.
For the past few years, I've also been a voice actor, appearing in a variety of productions. You can see and hear samples of my work by clicking on the "Voice-Overs, Videos and 'Casts tab.
My blog, TheSpacewriter's Ramblings, is about astronomy, space science, and other sciences.
Ideas and opinions expressed here do not represent those of my employer or of any other organization to which I am affiliated. They're mine.
Visit my main site at: TheSpacewriter.com.
**Comments are welcome; I do moderate them to weed out spam.
Contact me for writing and voice-over projects at: cc(dot)petersen(at)gmail(dot)com
I Twitter as Spacewriter
Blog entry posting times are U.S. Mountain Time (GMT-6:00) All postings Copyright 2003-2011 C.C. Petersen
Spacewriter’s Recent Posts
- Sun Frenzy
- A UFO? A Plane? What is It?
- Planet Viewing
- Double Your Viewing
- Super Moon? Super What?
- Sic Venus Transit Solis
- Hurray, Hurray, the First of May
Archives
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Like space music?
Check out my favorite
space music artist:
Geodesium
at Geodesium.com
Blogroll
- 21st Century Waves - Technology Booms and Human Expansion Into the Cosmos
- About.Com Space/Astronomy
- Adot’s NotBlog
- Astroengine.com
- Astronomy Blog
- Astronomy Cast
- Badastronomy.Com
- Blooloop
- BLooloop: CCP
- Captain Disillusion
- ChandraBlog - Chandra X-ray Telescope
- Cosmic Log
- Cosmic Mirror
- Cosmic Variance
- Cosmos4u
- Discovery Space
- DP’s Astronomy Blog
- EurekAlert
- European Southern Observatory
- Friends of the Griffith Observatory
- Gemini Observatory
- Griffith Observatory
- Hairy Museum of Natural History
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Kids Directory
- Loch Ness Productions - Cosmic content
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- MIT/Haystack Observatory
- MWA Vodcast
- NASA Climate Change
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- Observing the Sky
- One Astronomer’s Noise
- Pharyngula
- Prince of Pithy
- Science Made Cool
- Significant Snail
- Solar System Watch
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- Space Weather FX Vodcasts
- Star Stryder
- Stop Unethical Recission
- String Theory
- The Daily Galaxy
- The Mathroom (possibly NSFW)
- The Meridiani Journal
- The Planetary Society Blog
- The Way Things Break
- TheCrotchetyoldfan
- Truth
- Understanding Science
- Universe Today
Black Holes and the Cosmos
Mass Holes
Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The ratio between the black hole Schwarzschild radius and the observer distance to it is 1:9. Of note is the gravitational lensing effect known as an Einstein ring, which produces a set of two fairly bright and large but highly distorted images of the Cloud as compared to its actual angular size. Courtesy Alain R. And Wikimedia Commons. Click to enlarge.
Welcome to the background page for my February 22, 2011 edition of 365 Days of Astronomy. Today I talk about black holes. It all stems from an entry I made on my blog called Mass Holes, wherein I talked about black holes in general.
I’ve found these objects to be incredibly interesting. Back when I was in school as a kid, black holes were more of a theoretical idea. But, there was no doubt that they’d be found–most astronomers said it was a matter of time and having the right equipment and techniques to detect them.
In the Hubble Space Telescope age, as well as in the radio astronomy age and the x-ray-telescope age, astronomers are now finding evidence for these once-mysterious objects. That evidence includes superheated jets of material streaming away from event horizons surrounding black holes, as well as fantastically strong x-ray and radio emissions from the materials surrounding these giant sucking objects. Now, astronomers are using black holes to probe the history of galaxy formation and evolution, and using stellar-mass black holes to understand the end states of very massive stars. It’s been a heck of a ride for black hole science, and there’s more yet to learn!
For more information about black holes, here are a few useful sites. Most of them have links to other interesting reading about black holes, too.
General Background
Black Hole (Wikipedia)
Galaxy Formation and Evolution (Wikipedia)
Stellar Black Holes (Wikipedia)
Chandra Guide to X-ray Sources (including black holes)
Media Stories and Pieces about Black Holes
A Black Hole at the Centre of our Galaxy
Astronomers Discover New Clues to Galaxy Evolution
Black Holes, Quasars, and Active Galaxies
Heaviest Stellar Black Hole Discovered in Nearby Galaxy
Lone Black Holes Discovered Adrift in Galaxy
Measuring the Black Hole (at the Heart of the Milky Way) (a podcast)
Surprise: Dwarf Galaxy Harbors Supermassive Black Hole
Zoom into the Stellar Black Hole NGC 300 X-1
Finally, listeners have been writing asking about the cool background music that shows up on each of my podcasts. It’s all music by Geodesium; this album features a piece from his newly released album Stella Novus. You you can find out more by visiting his web site at Geodesium.com!
This blog a wholly pwnd subsidiary of Carolyn Collins Petersen, a.k.a. TheSpacewriter.
Copyright 2008, Carolyn Collins Petersen
Inama Nushif!
Image of Horsehead Nebula: T.A.Rector (NOAO/AURA/NSF) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)
“It is by Coffee alone I set my day in motion. It is by the juice of bean that coffee acquires depth, the tongue acquires taste, the taste awakens the body. It is by Coffee alone I set my day in motion.”
