Titan's Shadow: A Once in a Millenium Celestial Alignment

[satsumamoon]

I like the music over the video.

[toast3551]

Please cut out the ridiculous music. Why do people think that science has to be romanticized with music to make it palatable?

[ManlyMuscleDad]

Great video.

[RealHeisKa]

that nebulas size compared to the planet..

[johnmarkgeneral0123]

WOW!!!! this video is so amazing

[kristianjensendk]

i love your vids

[Garo48]

What is the music? Nice information!! Thanks!!

[xaviarthunders]

Great vid! but omg the song is painful.

[PreciseArrow1]

Tony Darnell is awesome.... <3

[CAGftw00]

Well since no one else has answered you in a week I can try my best.

Eight minutes is only the time it takes the light from the Sun to reach Earth, given that the speed of light is constant, and that the Earth orbits the Sun at a reasonably constant distance of 93 million miles. This means that when talking about gravity, eight minutes doesnt come into play at all.

Were the Sun to simply vanish, the effects on the Earth would be immediate....

[CAGftw00]

We would immeditely begin drifting off into space, along with the rest of the planets in our solar system, at a direction away from where the sun used to be, and slightly in the direction of orbit. You can visualize the Sun's gravitational pull on the earth by imagining you have a ball on the end of a length of rope. When you pick up the rope and spin around, the ball orbits around you at the end of the rope. if you were to suddenly let go (disappear) the ball would go flying away from you.

[CAGftw00]

In that example the tightened rope represents gravity as you spin around, the ball represents the Earth, and you represent the Sun.

As for the "fabric of Space" affecting gravity, well, it does. But, you said you were in eghth grade and it would be difficult to convey to someone as early in their education exactly how it does. I promise one day you'll learn it though. But yes, were the sun to disappear, the earth would go flying off into space, resulting in humanity's demise. Hope this helps.

[naTuReSsHow]

What is going to happen in 2012 in the Universe?

[Grospoliner]

Not much, planets will spin and orbit, stars will burn, fizzle, and be born. The universe will continue on its march, vast, cold, uncaring for petty human concerns.

And little of import will occur to Earth beyond the usual. Meteorites burning up in the atmosphere, lethal radiation bombarding the planet being deflected by our EM field. You know, the usual.

[naTuReSsHow]

I thought that the planets and sun shall align.

[Grospoliner]

Not at all. There is actually a wonderful program for XP that shows the location of objects in the solar system. You can download this program for yourself simply by googling planetary orbital program. Not suprisngly, during no point in 2012 will all the planets in the solar system align. Infact with this program you can determine the next time the planets will align.

[Grospoliner]

Incidentally, the planets can only align during 2 points in Plutos orbit, as at all other times Pluto's orbit does not rest in the Solar Plane. This may narrow down the potential timeframes for you to search, as it is a rather difficult task to figure out.

[Grospoliner]

Turns out I'm wrong, the odds of a planetary alignment are astronomically low, and when I mean low, the odds are they will never line up once during the life of the solar system. There is a website that discusses this in detail.

[ab30494]

@Grospoliner pluto is no longer a planet

[Grospoliner]

Dwarf planet is still a planetary object, not that that is really relevant to what I was discussing. I for one am not compelled to tack on the unneeded qualifier when unnecessary.

[nctrls2]

@naTuReSsHow nothing free Popcorn

[mrmitch]

Youtube should pay you. You're the only reason I come here. Thanks for the very informative videos!

[jpham227]

this video is space animation eye candy, and the music is perfectly synced to the visuals.

excellent.

[sanchezdot]

101/100  ;D

awesome!!

[sarojz]

Very interesting Tony, I always enjoy your uploads.

[dvaplustripet]

you doo some great work!! thanx°°° allways a pleasure to watch and learn...

[granyte]

keep them coming the channels of this qualitie are rare on youtube great vid

[0wacko0]

this is better than a documentary!

[dragonfirefoxx]

wow this was very interesting!

[Jacnas]

For a while I was confused about the choice of music. Then I thought of Dr Chandra!

[Translicc]

tdarnell, thanks for the video again! It's pretty impressive they found a way to examine the atmosphere of titan. As AlvinHDavernport is saying, how is your work progression? Keep up these videos!

[tdarnell]

@Translicc Things are going well. I plan to make some vids in the coming weeks about my work on the Dark Energy Survey as well as the science behind what we're trying to accomplish.

[jessemaurais]

Science: getting us closer to the truth one measurement at a time.

[AlvinHDavernport]

By the way, tdarnell, your work is superb in every aspect.Thanks for making astronomy **even more** enjoyable than it already is. I hope things are going well with your research on dark energy--and I'm assuming you're still working on that.

[tdarnell]

@AlvinHDavernport Thanks! As for my work on the Dark Energy Survey, things are progressing. We are in the middle of a data challenge (a simulation run) of our data pipeline, so I've been a little busy these past months, but things are going great.

[krobinson95]

You have a great voice. You should branch out and do more videos.

[jljarubas]

very interesting

[1RadicalOne]

Congratulations, TDarnell. You precipitated an edit to Wikipedia. ;)

[Crab Nebula is on my watchlist, and thus I saw the edit, not-so-coincidentally made today, soon after this video's upload.]

[tdarnell]

@1RadicalOne Wow, that's really cool. I liked the additional information, it was more thorough than the what was on NASA's website about this.

For example, it says this alignment last occurred in 1296, while I was under the impression it hadn't happened at all. I thought 2003 was the first.

Thanks!

[1RadicalOne]

Yes, Wikipedia can be a good source for information, especially technical articles like this one (well, this one isn't THAT technical), which are unlikely to be subject to vandalism.

[AlvinHDavernport]

I agree with you. Wikipedia can really be not a good but a great source of information if handled carefully. People sometimes overestimate the amount of misinformation AND don't know where the vandalism is usually found. Some articles are, for most of the time, beyond those problems. If you know how to use Wikipedia and how to tell a good from a bad piece of information, it can be one of the greatest tools on the Internet.

[1RadicalOne]

Wikipedia amounts to a planetary information network; theoretically, there is no better source for indiscriminate information.

[GungnirStrike]

I agree BENGAL

[BENGALtiger87]

Isn't it a bit misleading to say that the crab nebula was created in the year 1054 .....

It was visible from earth in 1054 but it must have really occurred much earlier (speed of light)

[tdarnell]

@BENGALtiger87 Good point, I should have chosen my words more carefully. It's more accurate to say 'seen from Earth in 1054' rather than created (or formed) in 1054, when in fact the supernova occurred much earlier.

Thanks for pointing that out!

[yourpalcliffy]

this might be a stupid question but it intrigues me so i will go for it

how come the shadow of titan (i beleive from d light of d sun) on the crab nebula is instant inspite of te fact the nebula is abt 6500 light yrs away..??

[CrownRoyalSociety]

You have things a bit mixed up.

The light is coming FROM the Crab, passing through Titan (where we can look at its atmosphere) and enter the Chandra Observatory. There is no shadow on the nebula from Titan. The shadow is from Titan and on Chandra.

And remember: there is no such thing as a stupid question.

[tdarnell]

@CrownRoyalSociety Very well put

[isdykusii]

amaizing

[Hidd3nLeaf]

in the video you said it wont happen until 2267 and in the description you said 2276. Please tell me which one is correct :(

[tdarnell]

@Hidd3nLeaf Sorry, typo in the description. I've fixed that, the year stated in the video is correct.

[invertd007]

awesome!

[clownpenisfart]

Okay.

I'll be the stupid one and ask:

If it happened in 2003, and it is going to happen again in 2267, how is it a millenial event?

[tdarnell]

@clownpenisfart Because the Crab nebula was formed out of a supernova explosion in 1054 and this was the first alignment to occur since that time.

[k1awdttt]

Chandra looks like a giant traffic cone!

Function over style aye?

[tdarnell]

@k1awdttt heh,heh, I like that, I've never heard that one. Yeah, it's not like anyone's going to be looking at it in orbit.

[taiko78]

next time it happend star trek may be around :)

[nothinbuthax]

!!!

[jesse0192]

How the crab x-rayed titan. A surprisingly common occurrence, once per millennium--although it can be tough to think of that as common.

This channel is amazing. One of the few that leave me thinking, "I can't believe these videos are free." Thank you, Tony!!

[CiphersSon]

cool video i'm surprised the history channel and discovery channel didn't show 2 weeks worth of doomsday programs lol

[tdarnell]

@CiphersSon Agreed! The History Channel is much worse than Discovery, but I'm a little surprised they didn't take the opportunity to link this to a Nostradamus prediction.

[naTuReSsHow]

I wouldn't have been able to watch it. LOL

[Athaeus]

tdarnel - I just want to point out the crab nebula wasn't 'created' - it formed.

[worbat]

@Athaeus Formed/created are close enough to meaning that it really doesn't matter.

[AleximusMaximus]

I agree, but I must admit I enjoy witnessing people's knee-jerk reaction to what they perceive as somebody implying an intelligent creator :p

Nice to see people having an allergy to creationism.

But you are right, a nebula can be created by a supernova, creation does not require an intelligent author.

It only ever really bothers me when someone says that the Universe was created.

[worbat]

@AleximusMaximus The universe was created.

[Athaeus]

@worbat

Not really. 'Creation' suggests a concious input of some sort, while 'form' has no such implications.

It's a minor thing, I know. But even Sir David Attenborough is careful not to use the word "create" when he speaks about natural processes.

[worbat]

@Athaeus

It was a joke. :P

[AleximusMaximus]

*Foams at the mouth* :D

[Mendelevium146]

hehe, maybe he meant created by the explosion of the original star?

[jpham227]

excellent!

[IChoseTheRedPill]

i love this channel... more! more!

[JASONCROW123]

matrix ftw

[josebskb]

yesssssssssssssssssssssssss

[AEVautomatic]

no matter what way they are aranged 9nce a century or once a 100 years w/e its the same.

[czechwindboy]

Love your stuff. Keep them coming.

[EvanLarimore]

Fantastic video!

[ESAMMEX]

first!

[vava54own]

@ESAMMEX

You got owned by 1 second ;P

[ESAMMEX]

I watched half the video before realizing nobody had yet posted a comment.  :(

[Blueisalightbulb]

i think of tomb raider ;P