|
September 10, 2004
Interesting Facts About The Universe
Interview
with Neil de Grasse Tyson author of the book,Just
Visiting This Planet
Mike
Carruthers:
Ever notice that sometimes when the moon is low in the sky
it looks really big?
Neil
de Grasse Tyson:
It looks bigger and it's a completely mentally induced
illusion.
Physicist
Neil de Grasse Tyson author of the book Just
Visiting This Planet.
The effect
is greatly magnified if there are things on the horizon such
as buildings or trees if it's just a perfectly smooth horizon
like on the oceans surface the effect is significantly diminished.
And if you bent over and looked at the moon on the horizon between
your legs, don't do this in front of other people, if you bent
over, looked at the moon through your legs then all these horizon
cues are now upside down and your brain doesn't know what to
do with them. And upon doing this the moon resorts back to it's
original size.
Now the
sun can't burn forever, so when will it run out of steam?
Put it
on your calendar in five billion years it will run out of fuel
and that will be a sad day. The sun will actually expand at
that point and engulf the entire orbit of earth. And earth the
planet would be this charred cinder orbiting deep within the
suns surface. By the way there are stars in the night time sky
that are already doing this it's called a red giant phase and
one of the stars in the constellation Orion it's called Betelgeuse
it's a red giant star, were we earth orbiting around that star,
we'd already be dead.
At somethingyoushouldknow.net
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
|
