Do you like to read mysteries? Astronomy is one of the biggest mysteries of all because it is all about what happened and why. Do you remember what a supernova can do? If it explodes and nothing is left but stardust, someday it may become another star. But what if part of it collapses inward after the explosion? When it does happen, astronomers think a neutron star is instantly created. A neutron star is an object so massive that half of a teaspoonful could weigh as much as a million blue whales, the largest animal on Earth. If you think the magnets on your refrigerator are strong, imagine if you could squeeze that magnet to the size of a pinpoint. Scientists believe this compression is what really increases the magnetic field of the neutron star. Once the neutron star starts spinning, it sends out a radio signal. You probably think of your AM or FM radio as the only radio signals around, but your TV stations also use them as well as many other people like the police, firemen, truckers, and pilots. Have you ever felt the pulse in the inside of your wrist with your finger? Try to find it and count how many times a minute you can feel that beat. It should be regular like the pulse of a spinning neutron star, called a pulsar. Your heart probably beats at a different rate than your friend's. Each pulsar's signal also sends out a different rate and so its location can be identified if the radio beam is directed toward Earth. Try taking your pulse and the pulse of your friend each day for a week, and write down your numbers. Did they change?

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Picture This

See if your family has a camera that will take pictures of the night sky, or if they know someone who does. On a clear night try taking a few pictures of the sky right in a row. Later examine the pictures to see if anything changed from picture to picture. You could also start an album of amazing shots.

Amazing Quasars

Now that you know that stars can be located by following a radio wave to the star, what would you do if you found a radio wave, but couldn't find the star? Like the astronomers, you would keep searching until you did! The light from the “star,” although viewers on Earth can barely see it at all, is brighter than almost any other object in the sky and this indicates that it is a source of tremendous energy! How bright is this light? Brighter than a trillion suns! Astronomers have found out that they are actually quasars, quasi-stellar radio sources, and many of them are located at the farthest edge of the universe. By measuring the huge red shift in the spectrum of each quasar, they are able to determine how fast it is speeding away from Earth and how far away it is. Can you guess how far the quasar would have traveled in the time it has taken to read this book, especially since the universe is continually expanding? Scientists also wonder what else might be hiding near these mysterious quasars. Many astronomers believe they may be the centers of galaxies that cannot be seen by any type of telescopes. Are there still quasars in the universe today? No one can be sure due to how rapidly light travels; what we are seeing now may have happened billions of years ago! Do you think those quasars have been replaced by black holes? And do you ever wonder if the universe keeps expanding, will the planets also get farther apart? Although that would seem logical, it doesn't appear to be the case. At this point in time the objects in our solar system seem to remain the same distance apart just as they always have been.

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Now You See It, Now You Don't?

Black holes aren't the only things that can make stuff disappear. Try pouring water in a clear glass and adding a few of the following things to it one at a time like salt, sugar, baking soda, pepper, and flour. What happens? Now try testing a few other things. Which ones disappear?