Last week I went to see the Dark Universe exhibit at AMNH. It was really mind blowing! It was at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, the glass cube containing the space theater designed by Polshek and Todd Schliemann. The building consists of a six-story high glass cube enclosing a 87-foot (27 m) illuminated sphere that appears to float — although it is actually supported by truss work (from Wikipedia). I was wondering about the height and support. Inside the top half of the planetarium, is the space show which uses hi def full dome video to project the movies.
I learned about dark matter and dark energy. I've always been interested in space, the universe etc and I have a limited and very broad knowledge on cosmology and astrophysics. It's really a hard science to learn and get your mind around. I've been hearing about dark matter and dark energy for a while, but never really grasped it, but now I feel like I have more confidence in explaining, but in a very broad sense. This is how I explained it to my husband: Ordinary matter is what we know that is on planet Earth or around us: people, food, shelter, animals, atoms, electrons, ocean's tides, gravity, forces, moving vehicles, technologies, our galaxy, stars, etc. Scientist can explain these concepts. Dark matter is matter that does not absorb or emit light, but is responsible for clusters of galaxies. This matter keeps them together. We can not see dark matter and we do not know what it is, but we know it is like a "fabric" or web keeping the galaxies together. I'm sure it is responsible for others things too. Dark energy is energy responsible for the expansion of the universe. We can not see dark energy either and we don't know what it is, but I can't wait until scientists figure it out! I really can't think that big, its too astronomical! Where is the universe expanding to? I felt infinitesimally small! Anyway scientist say the total mass energy responsible for the known universe is 5% ordinary matter, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy. So basically, we really don't know that much!
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My short blog topics include: photography, music, science, crafts, vacation photos, movies, events in NYC, and of course stop motion animation.
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