Terra's Question

Hey! Is anybody out there watching Singing in the Stars right this minute? Buzz just kicked off a couple of contestants and -- you had to see it.

Terr-able


Terra's story is Freefall

Candi on Big Explosions

What are Gamma Ray Bursts
an essay by
Candi Rayton

Don't you just love big explosions? Lots of holos start off with them, engulfing everything in the view field with fire. Human beings are attracted to bright things that go pfffft. I believe that this is why gamma ray bursts are such a big deal on Spectra. I know that we are poised at the edge of the solar system and all, ready to look out and observe, but when you think what a gamma ray burst really is, the explosive death of a star, which may or may not then become a black hole, it's a little bit morbid, don't you think?

I don't know. It's an awesome display of pure energy, and we're sure never going to make an explosion that big. The distance record for us seeing one of these bursts was set a long time ago. On April 23, 2009, scientists first observed event GRB 090423. * Read the NASA report here * Infared dropout places the source of the burst at 13 BILLION light years away. I've lived in space all my life, but I still can't get my brain around these vast distances. My dad says that with the new lense they're installing on Spectra's main telescope, we're bound to see a gamma ray burst from even farther away soon.


Candi's story is The Fear of Falling

Bianca's Favorite Color

Why is the Horsehead Nebula Pink?

an essay by

Bianca Blay

This year, I have decided to focus my attention on my favorite color, pink, in order to determine why I like it so much. It is illogical that I should enjoy pink, as it is such a frivolous color, while I am such a serious person. I ought to like black, or at least dark blue. But no. I have a pink bedcover in my room, and I just can't bring myself to change it.

I started my analysis by attempting to eat nothing but pink foods for a week, to determine if this sensory pleasure was the basis of the color's appeal. I started Monday morning with a strawberry smoothie, which was a pleasant change from the usual. For lunch, I had the salmon, and picked up two pods of pasta -- one with red sauce and one with white sauce, and mixed it all together to make that pink sauce we have sometimes. A few noodles did escape during this process, but I tracked them down. Then, I had some pink lemonade, pink-ish (okay, red) Jello salad, a half a grapefruit, a piece of pink-frosted vanilla cake and half a bag of pink jelly beans.

After all of this, I had to take a dose of that pink stomach medicine. That's when I decided I was on the wrong track. Besides, except for cotton candy, I've run out of pink foods. And I've never seen cotton candy for real.

Anyway, the horsehead nebula is my favorite feature of the universe. It is also known as Bernard 33, because it is the thirty-third of 366 dark nebula (dense interstellar clouds) discovered and cataloged by Edward Emmerson Bernard in the early 1900s. The bright spots in it are new stars forming, and the dark part is swirls of dust. The reason we notice it at all is because of the distinctive pink glow. This glow is caused by hydrogen gas actually coming from behind the nebula.

Image Courtesy of NASA

Bianca's story is Falling Temperatures