Corona hits hard

March 29, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

We, humans, have collectively caused damage to the equilibrium of nature through all kinds of means including wars, deforestation and many other things; now, in my opinion, nature is taking its revenge. However, there is still a great opportunity for us to stabilize our lives by saying no to wars, genocides and innocent killings of not only humans but also animals. Nature has given us a head start in doing so.

What is Covid-19?

Covid-19 is part of a large group of viruses (The Coronaviruses) that infect both humans as well as animals; hence, they cause respiratory illnesses in a human that can range from common colds to serious diseases. Before Corona, a very likely virus known as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) was detected in Southern China in 2002 and just like Covid-19 it spread around the world affecting 26 countries resulting in 8,000 confirmed cases; consequently, leading to 774 deaths. However, the tolls of cases and deaths due to the Covid-19 have surpassed SARS.

Covid-19 is also known as the coronavirus however; a more specific name for Covid-19 is Sars CoV-2. The most common symptoms of Covid-19 are dry cough and fever but, in some cases, it can also lead to a severe respiratory problem leading to pneumonia and bronchitis. Covid-19 can only lead people with existing illnesses or a weak immune system to these severe limits. Hence, old people are the most vulnerable to these severe respiratory diseases. Moreover, research on the early 44,415 Chinese Coronavirus patients showed that 81 percent of people affected only experienced mild symptoms. Among the remaining cases, 14 percent experienced severe respiratory illnesses. Only 2.3 percent of all the confirmed cases died due to the virus.

How Far has Corona Spread?

Till March 11, Chinese health authorities have recorded over 81,102 cases and 3,231 deaths. China has now slowed down the spread of the virus in their country due to strict preventive measures but the virus is now heavily affecting the rest of the world.

Currently, there are confirmed cases in over 150 countries around the globe. After China, the most affected country is Italy where 97,689 cases have been reported, mostly in the northern regions of the country. Consequently, 10,779 deaths have been reported in Italy.

Furthermore, Spain has also been greatly affected by the virus and 78,799 cases have been reported leading to 6,606 deaths. The Government is taking all the necessary steps to prevent the virus to spread even further. All schools, restaurants, markets, and bars have been closed.

Moreover, Iran is also facing a huge number of confirmed cases due to the virus and 38,309 cases have been reported leading to 2,640 deaths.

The USA has also been affected largely with 133,094 cases and 2,363 deaths.

How did all this start and where exactly?

As many of you probably already know that this virus originates from a seafood market in Wuhan, China. Wild animals such as snakes and birds are illegally traded in this city.

Image Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/virus-sparks-soul-searching-over-chinas-wild-animal-trade-11580055290

Most probably, this disease has been spread from an infected animal to the stall keepers and then to the customers.

The research on what caused this virus is still on and many countries are working hard to find the cause as well as a vaccine for the virus so that in the future, the virus is prevented.

The markets in Wuhan were shut down for research and cleaning on 1^st January. The chances of containing the disease have greatly deteriorated due to the spread around the world. Hence, scientists are trying their best to contain the virus as much as possible. Many of the governments of countries have shut down schools, restaurants and any other work that requires going out of the home. In my country, Pakistan, schools have been closed till 1st June to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Overview

Corona has greatly spread all around the world; there have been 708,020 total confirmed cases and 33,529 deaths. On March 11, the WHO (World Health Organization) had officially declared that the Corona virus is a pandemic. Moreover, on 30^th January the WHO had already classified this problem as a global emergency; thus, all of the countries have to work together to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading any further. The speed of the spread has been reduced however; it has not yet stopped. We should all work together and cooperate with our leadership. Please report to the nearest hospital if you experience any symptoms of the virus. Please try not to go outside your houses unless it is urgent to do so. Wash your hands for 20 seconds to remove the virus from your hands if it has reached it. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

From Smallest to Biggest

March 22, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

As I have explained in many of my blogs, the universe is a huge place that is literally never-ending. Not only is this so big, but it is also expanding at ever-increasing rates. It has numerous types of celestial bodies in it and so, in this blog, I will highlight some of the main types of celestial bodies in the universe in an order of how big is it.

The first and smallest celestial body in the universe is an asteroid. These things exist in the number of millions in many solar systems. The question that would pop into your mind is how did these objects form? Well, in our star system, these objects were formed in the early solar system and are the remains of the violent events of the early solar systems such as the collision of planets.

Image Source: https://www.newsweek.com/giant-asteroid-world-tallest-building-sail-earth-1487404

A strange fact is that more than 150 asteroids have been known to have moons. In our star system, these asteroids exist in the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt. I have explained in detail about these celestial bodies in one of my previous blogs.

The second celestial body that I'll highlight is a moon. A moon is the natural satellite of any planet. Our planet Earth also has a moon named Luna.

Image Source: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/earths-moon/overview/

Our moon formed due to the collision of a Mars-sized planet named "Theia" with Earth. The highest number of moons a planet in our star system has is 79 moons, which orbit Jupiter.

The third celestial body on my list is a planet. Most of you may know about what they are right? Due to the fact that we are living on the one right now.

Image Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCDVN7DCzYE

Planets are celestial bodies that orbit a star in an elliptical orbit. In our star system, there are 8 planets. There are even planets that orbit no star at all. These planets are rogue planets who travel alone in this cold vacuum. I have explained one in one of my previous blogs.

The next celestial body that I'll explain is a star. Stars are huge glowing balls of gas mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. These stars make energy through Thermo-nuclear fusion (a very complex topic to talk about). Our star is the Sun which all of the 8 planets, millions of asteroids and many dwarf planets orbit.

Image Source: https://www.universetoday.com/16338/the-sun/

The largest known star in our whole universe is UY Scuti in front of which our star seems nothing at all.

The next celestial body I'll talk about is one of the biggest in our whole universe. It is known as a galaxy. These celestial bodies contain millions or even billions of stars and gases held together due to a strong gravitational attraction from probably, a supermassive central black hole in the center of it. Our galaxy named Milky Way alone has billions of stars even though it is not one of the biggest in the universe.

Image Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5AdrupH788

The supermassive central black hole in our galaxy is named Sagittarius A*. This black hole is literally too big. The biggest known galaxy to us is IC 1101.

I did not explain in detail the celestial bodies because I just wanted to give an overview of the types of celestial bodies from the smallest to biggest. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

Strangest Planets That Exist - 3

March 15, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

I have written multiple blogs on this topic and in this blog, just like the previous blogs, I’ll share some of the strangest planets that exist in our universe.

The first planet that I’ll talk about is CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9. This planet was discovered in 2012 by a group of French and Canadian Astronomers. This planet is a rogue planet that is intriguing. This planet orbits no star at all and wanders in the emptiness of space all alone. It has a mass of 4-5 times the mass of Jupiter, which is too much and is 130 light-years away. Some say that this planet was kicked out of its system by the gravitational force of other planets that were its neighbors. Moreover, this planet consists of a lot of heavy elements and shines bright. This planet also emits infrared radiations into space directly which means that it emits heat into space. It has an average temperature of about 400 Degree Celsius which is due to the nuclear fusion that it does. This planet may also contain methane as well as water in it. 

Image Source: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/107/the-free-floating-planet-cfbdsir-j2149472-0403089/

The next planet I’ll talk about is Psr J1719–1483 B which is a very strange planet due to the fact that it orbits a Pulsar. Now, Pulsars are some of the densest objects in the universe. They are so dense that one spoon of the matter of a Pulsar has a mass equal to Mount Everest.

A Pulsar: 

Image Source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-continues-to-study-pulsars-50-years-after-their-chance-discovery/

This Pulsar in specific has a diameter of 19 km but still has a mass of 1.4 times the mass of the Sun. Pulsars also spin violently fast and some can spin up to 700 times a second. The planet PSR J1719–1483 B orbits this Pulsar in 2 hours.

Another Planet that I’ll talk about is TrEs-4b which is one of the largest known planets in the universe. 

Image Source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrES-4b

It is located 1400 light-years away from us in the Hercules Constellation. Even though this planet has a size, which is 1.7 bigger than that of Jupiter, it has a very low density and hence it is categorized as a ‘Puffy Planet’. The shocking thing is that the density of this planet is the same as cork which has shocked Astronomers. However, astronomers say that this phenomenon is due to the extremely high temperatures on the planet (1260 Celsius) because it orbits only at a distance of 7.2 million light-years away from its Star.

The last planet I’ll talk about is known as the Genesis Planet. This planet will shock you because it is extremely old. It is 12.7 billion years old and thus, it is also called Methuselah who was the oldest man according to the bible. The real astronomical name of the planet is PSR-B162028B. Another great thing about the planet is that it is the first one to orbit a star in a cluster of almost 100 thousand stars. Surprisingly, it orbits two stars with one being a neutron star that spins at the rate of 100 times per second.

Strangest Galaxies That Exist-2

March 8, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

As I explained in my first blog on this same topic, our universe is overwhelmingly huge. It extends over billions of light-years across. As we know, the larger something is, the easier it is to find extreme objects within. I have discussed many strange celestial bodies in my previous blogs but, in those blogs didn’t include galaxies. Hence, in this blog too I will cover some more strange galaxies we have discovered.

The first galaxy I’ll talk about is NGC 6946 which is also known as the Fireworks galaxy. This galaxy is also a cannibal galaxy just as Andromeda galaxy which will collide with our Milky way in just a few billion years. 

 

Image Source: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/fireworks-galaxy-ngc6946.html

NGC 6946 is eating up the mass of three of its companion galaxies and has already done eating half of their mass. It is called the fireworks galaxy due to huge number of supernovae (celestial bodies that are formed due to the explosion of a star when it runs out of fuel) in it. 

The galaxy I’ll talk about has a huge name; WISE J224607.57-052635.0. It is located in the Aquarius Constellation is a very bright galaxy that shines more than 300 trillion suns combined. 

 

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISE_J224607.57%E2%88%92052635.0

Probably, there is a supermassive black hole at the center of this galaxy which has formed an accretion disk around it due to the gas, dust and space debris. These accretion disks are super-accelerated churning masses of particles that are among the brightest objects in the whole universe. The temperature of these disks reaches up to millions of degrees and emits Ultra-violet as well as X-rays due to which the clouds of dust around the black hole heat up. These clouds then radiate, making their parent galaxy insanely bright. 

Another strange galaxy that I’ll explain about is Messier 63 which is located 57 million light-years from us in the Canes Venatici Constellation. 

 

Image Source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-63-the-sunflower-galaxy

This galaxy looks like a sunflower as it consists of a central disk which is surrounded by small sleeves that contain blue and white stars. The strange thing about this galaxy is that it has a strange ability to change its color. The core remains bright yellow and its sleeves change colors to blue, brown, white and purple. 

The last galaxy I’ll talk about is Messier 94 which is a spiral galaxy located in the Canes Venatici constellation, the same as the previous galaxy I talked about.

 

Image Source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17011

When you look at this galaxy, it seems as if it’s a huge hurricane. You will get this perception because of the bright blue sleeves of rapidly forming stars that surround the galaxy. These stars are rapidly forming due to the pressure from the center of the galaxy which forces the gases to move to the sleeves of the galaxy forming gas clouds and then stars because these gases have star-forming material packed in them such as Hydrogen and Helium. 

In this blog which was the second of its topic, I explained some more strange galaxies that exist in our galaxies. There are many other galaxies that may be strange but I only highlighted the ones which seemed strange to me. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

The Starburst Galaxy

March 1, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

Our universe is overwhelmingly huge. It extends over billions of light-years across. As we know, the larger something is, the easier it is to find extreme objects within. I have discussed many strange celestial bodies in my previous blogs but, those blogs didn’t include galaxies. Hence, in this blog, I will cover a strange type of galaxy known as a starburst galaxy. 

Our night-sky is all covered by bright objects that are fascinating to gaze at. However, you are looking at those objects in the past. This phenomenon happens because as we know, the light also takes time to reach farther places. Therefore, the light from those distant objects also takes time to reach us. Let’s take the example of the closest start to us which is Proxima Centauri. It is approximately 4.2 light-years away from us. Thus, if the star explodes just right now, we will see the explosion after about 4 years because the light from the explosion will take 4 years to reach us in the speed of light.

The galaxy I'll explain briefly about is one of my favorites. It is a pair of galaxies known as ADFS-27. These galaxies belong to a rare group of celestial objects called Starburst galaxies. 

Image Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07392-5

Some even refer to this pair as antennae galaxies. This is a very bright pair of galaxies located almost 12.6 billion light-years away from us. This means it took the light from these galaxies almost 12.6 billion years to reach us, which is almost the age of the whole universe. We are looking at this object 12.6 billion years in the past. This object is basically, two galaxies that are colliding/merging into each other which might be the most explosive and violent collision in the history of the universe. These galaxies are more than 10 times larger than the Milky Way galaxy. Stars are being produced in these galaxies almost 1000 times faster than our very own Milky Way and this just won’t stop because there are almost 50 times more star-forming materials in these galaxies than in the Milky Way. These galaxies just won’t stop forming stars and getting brighter for the next millions or even billions of years. Right now, the galaxy would’ve probably been formed but we can’t see that because time will take 12.6 billion years to reach us from this place. Most probably, the result of the collision will be an elliptical galaxy, which is the largest type of galaxies that exist in the universe. We don’t exactly know why these galaxies behave like this; what causes them to behave like this and what is their end result but whatever it is, we will soon find it out.

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.