The cup of wonder
Sometimes, in the midst of our routine lives,
The mist parts
To reveal something so gorgeous
So wondrous
That we just have to stop and gaze
And let our hearts swell with the feeling of reverence
And joy.
I am always thankful for the reminder
To stop a while
And drink from the cup of wonder.
For more wonder, please visit: Our World and Skywatch.
I’m away making the most of the last week of the summer holidays, so please excuse my absence!
Don’t forget to enter my give-away here, if you want to…
Making time for awe
Never let your life become so filled with work, your mind become so crammed with worry, or your heart become so jammed with old hurts or anger, that there’s no room left in them for fun, for awe, or for joy. ~ Sandra Kring
The colour, the light, the joy. It was there all the time, waiting to be discovered beyond the veils of grey.
For more wonder, please visit: Skywatch.
MACHOs and WIMPs
I can get worried about the small things in life. But obsessed by the big things. Like the universe.
How big is the universe? Does it have a beginning and an end? And what is it made of?
Well, it seems that most of the universe is made up of stuff that we cannot see at all – that is, dark matter.
Dark matter is the name given to mysterious and invisible particles that we assume must exist because of how it interacts with ‘normal’ matter via gravity.
No one seems to know what dark matter is. It could be ordinary matter, strong man matter – like MACHOs (or Massive Compact Halo Objects). Brown dwarfs (not a very macho-sounding name – is it?) and black holes (far more butch!) are examples of MACHOs.
That’s just one possibility! Dark matter could be something else completely: it could be extraordinary matter, which may or may not, be composed of WIMPs (or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). Neutrinos are WIMPs and quite possibly photinos and neutralinos (although they do not like being called this).
The best guess is that dark matter is made up of both ordinary and extraordinary matter.
What I find so mind-boggling is that only 10%-30% of the universe is visible. That means that most – well, nearly all – of the universe is hidden behind veils of galaxies and clouds of hot gases; it is invisible, mysterious, perplexing.
NASA/CXC/CfA/STScI/ESO
This X-ray telescope image shows that dark matter (shown in blue)
makes up most of the mass of this galaxy.
Go out tonight in the dark and gaze upwards to the skies. Enjoy the wonder of the stars and moon. Then take a minute to contemplate the vast universe that we cannot see; that we can only guess is out there.
What miracles does it hold? What song does it sing?
As Carl Sagan once said:
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
Who says what?