Cosmic Rays to Planetesimals

-  1926  -  Cosmic Rays to Planetesimals.  Cosmic Rays are not rays they are particles, atomic nuclei.  Earth and your whole body are constantly being bombarded.  These bombardments may have created all the diversity of life on Earth?  This Review explains it all.
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-----------------------------  1926  -  Cosmic Rays to Planetesimals.
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-   Cosmic Rays are a misnomer that has stuck every since the mystery was first discovered.  There are many more misnomers that I will try to explain in this review.  Cosmic Rays are really hydrogen  and helium nuclei.  Hydrogen nuclei are really just protons.  And, Cosmic Rays are just high speed protons.  High speed helium nuclei are called Alpha particles.
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-  Cosmic Rays originate in the Sun and the other stars.  They come to us from outer space, ( as well as some ground radioactivity.)  They are charged particles that never travel in a straight line because they are always diverted by magnetic fields.  Many of these charged particles enter our atmosphere and travel along magnetic lines into the North Pole.  You can see them hitting atmospheric atoms causing the shivering Northern Lights.
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-    Cosmic Rays (protons) are going through your body all the time.  You just don’t notice it.  Your body is mostly empty space.  Not just your head.  Atoms in general are mostly empty space.  The atomic nucleus is very, very small, the size of a proton.  And, electrons are almost 2,000 times smaller.  All the rest is empty space.  Well, space is never empty but that is different Review.
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-  However, Cosmic Rays on occasion do slam into your body’s nuclei.  This smashup could cause cancer.  Or, it could cause a mutation.  Some mutations are bad, some are good.  The good ones survive and evolve.  The bad ones don’t do well in our environment.  Some of our Olympic athletes are a result of these mutations.
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-  In fact, over the past 4,000,000,000 years, these mutations could be responsible for all the diversity of life on Earth.  Maybe on other planets as well.  From mice to elephants, from germs to trees, from monkeys to man.  Most men refuse to believe this evolution.  However, most women do.
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-  Cosmic Rays are the smallest debris hitting us from outer space, not counting Muons and electrons, and a bunch more sub-atomic particles, but , that is a different Review.  When you start dealing with even larger particles hitting us we call them meteorites.  You can witness this bombardment by going outside on a dark night.  Away from all the lights (that ain’t easy)  And staring at the night sky until your eyes chemically adjust to the darkness and you begin to see the streaks of light whizzing across the night sky.
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-  If the streaks are traveling slow, say 18,000 miles per hour, and they are 200 miles away , then it is a satellite, or the space station.  If the streaks are traveling fast, say 26,000 miles per hour and they are closer, say 20 to 30 miles away, then they are meteors.  If they hit the ground they are meteorites.
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-  Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere.  Some hit the surface of the Earth.  Usually meteorites are found to be made of iron or hard rock.  They are the core of the meteor that has had it s crust , or surface burnt off, or evaporated.  Only a few meteorites have been recorded to have hit a person, a car, or a house.  Most hit the oceans which cover 76% the surface of the Earth.  As you will learn, that is how the oceans got here.
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-  If you want to see meteorite impacts check out the Moon.  Use binoculars and you can see the Moon is completely pockmarked in meteor impacts.  Even the smooth parts which are called Mares, or Oceans, are the result of larger impacts creating lava flows that resurface parts of the Moon.
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-  The Moon is even lopsided due to an even larger impact.  The crust on the near side is thicker than the crust on the far side.  This is due to the impact shockwave that went through the Moon and piled up more crust on our side.
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-  The Moon itself is the result of an impact of a planetesimal with the Earth.  4,300,000,000 years ago the impact splashed the Earth’s surface into orbit.  Our Moon is not a captured asteroid , it s part of the Earth that got separated.
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-  See Reviews #1923 and #1924 that discuss how the Earth has been pounded by asteroids and supernovae debris.
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-  Did life evolve due to Cosmic Rays?  Life does not have to have any meaning to exist.  The atoms in our bodies , arranged neatly by RNA and DNA, simply arrived from the explosions of massive stars.  There is no reason such order could not have arisen in billions of other places across billions of other galaxies.  Religion is a reason!
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-  We are thinking creatures and we can reflect on our origin in the stars as being the greatest gift of all.  We should not need more meaning than that.
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-   We know that at least 100 billion galaxies exist.  We know that at least 400 billion stars area in our own galaxy.  The “Observable Universe” must have 10,000 billion , billion stars and that many planets and that many moons.  All of them being bombarded by those Cosmic Rays and planetesimals.
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-  Astronomers are anxiously searching the planets and moons in our Solar System for microbes.  Signs of the beginnings of life.  Likely targets include Europa, Enceladus, Titan, Triton, or even Mars.  Astronomers have found liquid water on several moons and dwarf planets in our Solar System.  There is water and oxygen out there, outside our island Earth, so, might there be life as we know it out there as well?
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-  Pieces of this world in outer space are entering our world and bodies every day.  We first discovered the Cosmic Ray particles in 1910.  They were detected in electroscopes.  At the time the detections were thought to be radiation coming up out of the earth itself.  Obviously, radioactive elements could cause this detection result  Theodore Wolf was a scientist motivated to test this idea.  He took his electroscope reading at the bottom and at the top of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.  That is just 300 meters, but, he found that more radiation was detected at the top.  Was the ionization coming from the ground or from the sky?
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-  Victor Hess took these measurements into hot-air balloons in 1911 and he got the same results.  At 17,000 feet the readings were twice as high as on the ground.  Radiation was definitely penetrating from the atmosphere above.
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-  Hess even completed another elevation test at night to prove that the radiation was not coming from the Sun.  In 1912 he even did the measurements during a near-total solar eclipse.  In 1913 he proclaimed that radiation was coming from deep space.
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-  It was Robert Millikan who proclaimed the radiation from deep space was “ Cosmic Rays”.  He was thinking they were a form of invisible light, like Gamma Rays.  But, his theory was proven wrong when detection was shown to be stronger at the magnetic poles.  The radiation was some form of “ charged particle”, not photons, not a form of light.
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-  When in 1930 the detections were proven to be even stronger when streaming from the west.  The particles were deemed to be a positive charge.  The conclusion was then that Cosmic Rays were really positively charged protons, or hydrogen nuclei.  They have been bombarding the Earth for billions of years.  They may have been the reason for the evolution of the diversity of life.  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):  Other Reviews:  #1747  -  Adding up the power of Cosmic Rays leads to 10^29 megawatts, or  billion times the power of the Sun’s output.
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-  This review footnotes 11 other Reviews about Cosmic Rays.  For example:
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- #1496  -  About 10 Cosmic Rays pass through your thumbnail every minute.
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-  #541  -  An average body absorbs enough Cosmic Ray energy to equate to 2 chest X-rays each year.
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----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Tuesday, January 31, 2017  -----
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Venus our sister planet.

-  1925  -  Venus our sister planet.  What is it really like there?  What are the “gravity waves” recently spotted in its upper atmosphere?  What is the history and the math used to study the planet next door?
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-----------------------------  1925  -  Venus our sister planet.
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-  Venus is our sister planet.  The second planet from the Sun.  Also known as the Evening Star, or the Morning Star.  It is always lower on the horizon because the tilted orbits of the Earth and Venus only allow it to rise a maximum of 47 degrees above the horizon.
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-  Today, January 24, 2017, there is a massive “ gravity wave” across the face of Venus.  Stretching 6,000 miles between the poles it appears as a bow-shaped wave stationary in the upper atmosphere.
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-  The Venus atmosphere moves much faster that the planet itself.  Venus rotates once ever 243 days.  Winds on Earth only move 10 to 20% the speed of the planet  On Venus the winds are much faster that the planet’s rotation.
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-  “ Gravity Waves” are upheavals in the Venus atmosphere caused by these winds colliding with the planet’s surface features.  ( Not to be confused with “ Gravitational Waves” caused by merging rotating Blackholes that create gravitational waves spreading across the Universe.  These waves were recently detected by the two LIGO observatories.)
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-  The atmosphere of Venus is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and the atmospheric pressure at the surface is almost 100 times greater than that on Earth.
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-  Why do we call Venus a twin sister planet?
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-  Venus is similar size:
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------------  Venus radius  ----------  3,760 miles  -------  Earth  -----  3,960
 ------------  Venus mass  -----------  82%  Earth mass
------------  Venus gravity  ----------  91%  Earth gravity
------------  Venus density  ----------  same as Earth density.
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-  Venus and Earth had similar planetary evolution.  But,  the Earth has liquid water and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.  Venus’s atmosphere is 97% carbon dioxide.
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-  CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas elevating temperatures to 864 degrees Fahrenheit.  Hot enough to melt lead.  Venus is covered in highly reflective sulfuric acid clouds.
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-  The slow rotation means Venus lacks a magnetic field.  The surface pressure is so high it would be like being under a half-mile ocean ( 900 meters).  The Venus terrain is as varied as the Earth’s  but, the surface is bone dry.  All the water vaporized billions of years ago.  The Sun’s ultraviolet light broke apart water ( H2O ) into hydrogen (H2), Hydroxide  (OH)  and oxygen (O2).
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-  Sulfur dioxide discovered in the atmosphere is good evidence that Venus is volcanically active.  If granite could be found on the surface that is a good indication that Venus once had oceans.  Venus is a terrestrial planet orbiting in the Sun’s habitable zone.  It has a metal core and silicate crust.
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------------------  Planet rotation  -----------  243.025 days
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------------------  Planet year  ---------------  224.65  days
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-  ---------------  Venus orbit  ----------------  67,000,000 miles from the Sun
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-----------------  Earth orbit  ------------------  93,000,000 miles
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-  Venus has the  most circular orbit found in the Solar System. Its  orbit closest to Earth is 25,500,000 miles.  Venus’s rotation is retrograde relative to the other planets.  It takes the Sun 117 days to rise in the west and return to the same point in the sky.
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-  The explanation for the Venus rotation is that in early evolution history Venus was impacted by another large planet.  This happened to Earth 4.3 billion years ago, and, that is how our Moon was formed.  Consequently the impact gave Venus day that is 2,800 hours.
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-  The ancient Greeks called Venus “ morning star “Phosphoros”, meaning “ bringer of light”.  They called the evening star “ Hesperos”  meaning “ star of the evening”.  When they realized it was the same star they renamed it “ Aphrodite” meaning “ goddess of love”.  It was the Romans that renamed it “ Venus”.
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-  It was Nicholas Copernicus in the 16th century that realized that Venus did not circle the Earth.  We both circle the Sun.  It was Galileo and his crude telescope that first realized the phases of Venus were like the phases of the Moon.  They depending on which side was facing the Sun.
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-  Venus spends 9 ½ months as our Evening Star and another 9 ½ months as our Morning Star.  Venus transited the Sun in 2012.  Before that in 2004.  But, the next transit not until 2117.  In 1663  Scottish mathematician James Gregory calculated the Earth-Sun distance using trigonometry on these the transit measurements.
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-  (1)  -  Review #1873  -  Venus and Mercury
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-  (2)  -  #1778  -  Venus must have some resurfacing hiding many old crater scars.
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-  (3)  #1729  -  Walk with Venus on a Starry night .  This review lists 7 other reviews about Venus.  For example:
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- (4)  #1368  -  The reflectivity of Venus is 75%.  Compared to Earth’s 29%.
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-  (5)  #945  Venus greenhouse effect.
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-  (6)  #587  -  Venus is tilted just 3 degrees for perpendicular.
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-  (7):  See  Review #1480 to  learn how to calculate the Venus transit of the Sun.  It happened in 2012.  The transit took 67 hours on June 12.  The next transit is in 2117.   These transit measurements were first made in 1761, then again in 1769 making a calculation for the Earth - Sun distance to be 93,726,000 miles.  Today our precise measurement is 92,955,000 miles.
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-   (8)  Here is some more math just for fun:
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--------------  #1865  -  Equations
-------------   #1844  -  Pascal’s wager
-------------  # 1780  -  How fast to orbit?
------------  #1750  -  Math for fun.
------------  #1661  -  Food for the brain
-------------  #1650  -  Combinations
-------------  #1638  -  Rent or buy
-------------  #1565  -  How fast is a satellite?
-------------  #1521  -  Powerful equations
-------------  #1467  -  Growth and decay of money.
--------------  #1459  -  Modular math
--------------  #1281  -  Solving problems , lists 14 additional reviews about math.
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----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Monday, January 30, 2017  -----
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Asteroids and supernovae visitors from outer space.

-  1924  -  Visitors from outer space.  Asteroids and supernovae affect life on Earth.  Detective work is looking at the evidence.  Did the asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula kill off the dinosaurs?  Did supernova 1987 affect life on Earth?
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-----------------------------  1924  -  Visitors from outer space.
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-  There is a giant hole in the Earth.  It is at the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, at the town of Chicxulub.  The town is where a 6-mile wide asteroid hit the Earth.  The impact crater is 110  miles wide.
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-  Standing at the rim of the crater 2,000 feet above the surface you are 12 miles above the bottom of the crater.  But, over the past 66 million years the crater has been filled in.  There are nearly 1,000 sinkholes forming a radius of 55 miles tracing the boundary of the crater’s outer rim.  Today these sinkholes are a valuable source of fresh water for the region.
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-  This global event that occurred 66,000,000 years ago is credited with annihilating 75% of living species on Earth.
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-  The impact was so strong it created tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and an ash cloud that circled the planet.
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-  “asteroid day.org” is a website recognizing the June 30, 1908, asteroid that exploded over Tunguska, Russia.  The atmospheric explosion flattened 800 square miles of tundra forest.
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-   Outer space does not just touch us with asteroids.  There is a dust from comets that slam into our upper atmosphere every day.  Cosmic Rays are higher speed atoms (particles misnamed as rays)  that collide with atoms in our atmosphere.  The Solar Wind enters our magnetic poles creating the aurora Northern Lights.
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-  Another visitor is the remnants of a supernova  The explosion‘s particles reaching us include “ iron - 60”.  The iron elements on Earth are iron-56,  26 protons and 30 neutrons.  The iron-60 from supernova explosions have 4 additional neutrons and is an unstable radioactive isotope.
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-  The Crab Nebula is an expanding explosion from Supernova 1054.  This explosion also throws iron-60 into space.  Iron-60 is found in magnet fossils, bacteria in sediments found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.  The bacteria dissolve but the magnetic crystals are preserved in the sediment.  So are the iron-60 atoms.
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-  The half-life for radioactive decay of iron-60 is 2.6 million years.  Therefore, this is not iron-60 from primordial Earth.  More likely it is from a more recent supernova explosion.
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-  Our early human ancestors were making stone tools 2.2 million yeas ago.  Bacteria munching on supernova ash are giving us new insights of what was going on back then.
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-  In February, 1987, a bright new star erupted in the Large Magellanic Cloud.  The “ Cloud” is a satellite galaxy that is 165,000 lightyears away from the Milky Way Galaxy.  It is the most distant naked-eye star explosion in recorded history.  It reached a peak luminosity Magnitude of +2.9. ( The brightest star in the night sky is -1.5 Magnitude )
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-  This Supernova SN1987 is the brightest observed since Kepler’s Supernova in 1604 which occurred in our Milky Way Galaxy.  Today, 30 years later, the SN1987 is 10 million times fainter.  The star that exploded in the  LMC was a 12th Magnitude blue super giant star of spectral type B3Ia.  It is believed to have began as an 18 Solar Mass star.  The explosion created radioactive elements that powered the emissions over years following.  Nickel-56 decayed into Colbalt-56.  Titanium-44 decayed with a half life of 1,200 days.
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-  Since 2001 a re-brightening of SN1987 has occurred that is not powered by radioactive decay.  The new power source is the  violent collisions of the blast wave with the outer ring converting kinetic energy into heat.  The heated  material shines in X-rays.
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-  The collisions are also accelerating electrons to relativistic energies.  Interacting with magnetic fields produce radio waves.  This is called Synchrotron Radiation.
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-  The last supernovae “recorded” in the Milky Way were Kepler’s 1604 and Tycho’s 1572.  We are due another one.  On average a supernova occurs in our Galaxy every 100 years.
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-  Supernovae from massive stars create Neutron Stars.  More massive supernovae create Blackholes.  The Neutron Star is compressed to a 12 kilometers diameter.  The core heats up to 100 billion Kelvin.  10% of the core’s mass flies out as Neutrinos carrying off a vast amount of energy in less than 13 seconds.
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-  Today SN1987 has two larger, fainter rings in a tilted hour-glass shape.  The blasts ultraviolet pulse traveling at 10% the speed of light due to collisions with gas and dust.  Some 30 of these “ hot spots” appeared as a ring of pearls.  The necklace of pearls was produced in the denser fingers of the expanding gas.  The fingers are merging and fading now.
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-  The iron in your blood came form a star core explosion like this.  Much of the star’s debris is kept hot and glowing by the decay of radioactive nuclei.  Nickle-56 decays to Cobalt-56 in 6 days.  Then that decays into Iron-56 in another 111 days.
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-  Complete radioactive brightening fades away after 5,000 days.  The re-brightening is created by violent collisions of the blast wave turning energy into heat and X-rays.
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-  Electrons interacting with the magnetic field emits radio waves ( synchrotron radiation).
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-  This supernovae destruction and creation has occurred over the last 30 years.  Kepler 1604 and Tycho 1572 in our Milky Way are evidence of older supernovae explosions.
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-  A reminder, on average a galaxy the size of the Milky Way experiences a supernova every 100 years.  We are due.  An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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-  See #1923  Asteroid Bennu.  A mission to visit an asteroid in 2017.
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----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Friday, January 27, 2017  -----
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When will a big asteroid hit the Earth?

-  1923  -  When will a big asteroid hit the Earth?  What is the mission that will land a spacecraft on an asteroid and bring back a sample of its surface?  This mission to also to determine the likelihood of it impacting Earth.  It comes by every 6 years.
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----------------------  1923  -  When will a big asteroid hit the Earth?
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-  You may have missed it.  About 6:00 PM last night ( January 23, 2017)  an asteroid, 39 feet in diameter, flew past the Earth.  It was only a miss by 46,603 miles.  That is one quarter the distance to the Moon.

-  Surprised?  Actually so far this year ( 2017) 50 asteroids have passed us at distances closer than the Moon which is 238,855 miles away.
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-  If you were to tally up all the “ discovered” asteroids in orbit within 130% the distance between the Earth and the Sun ( 1.3 AU )  then the total NEA’s identified come to 15,197.
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-  This last one was 39 feet in diameter and it would likely all burn up as it plunged through the Earth’s atmosphere.  If an asteroid made it to the surface it would be called a meteorite.  It all depends on the asteroids speed, angle of impact, composition, and of course size if it reaches the surface.
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-  The first discovery of a Near Earth Asteroid, NEA, occurred August 13, 1898.  It was call 433Eros orbiting within 1.13 AU of the Sun.
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-  The most threatening asteroid known was discovered in 1999.  Known as “ Bennu”  Its projected orbit is calculated to pass between us and the Moon in 2135.  ( I will miss it, let’s hope it misses you ).  Orbits can get tweaked by other gravity pass bys.  A miss is  not certain .  If Bennu did hit us it would be at least a 3,000 megaton TNT impact.
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-  Pieces of asteroids fall to the Earth “all the time”.  They are called meteorites.  Most that make it to the surface of Earth are composed of rock and metal.
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-  Bennu is a special case.  It is composed of coal-black mass of delicate organic compounds, carbon-based biochemistry.  Most of this chemistry would burn up in our atmosphere.  Or, if it languished on the surface for a long time it would be significantly changed by Earth’s environmental conditions.
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-  The Japanese “ Hayabusa” mission in 2005 to asteroid Itokawa was designed to capture some pristine samples to study.  It did manage to bring back 1,500 microscopic mineral grains collected from the asteroid’s surface.  ( much less than expected ).
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-   The mission to visit Bennu was launched in September 2016.  It will arrive at the asteroid in August 2018, a 2 year journey.  Bennu is 1,640 feet in diameter ( 0.5 km).
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-  The mission has several objectives.  We need to study the instabilities of its orbit to determine the likelihood of a collision with Earth in 2135.  Secondly, the mission , OSIRIS-Rex, is designed to collect 60 grams of the surface.  These organic molecules could become a story of the formation of our solar system and to life on Earth.
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-  The organic molecules and the clay minerals on the surface could serve as feedstock for DNA, RNA proteins.  Immense numbers of carbonaceous asteroids must have collided with the pre-biotic Earth.
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-  Will Bennu ever collide with Earth?  It circles the Sun ever 1.2 years traveling at 62,634 miles per hour.  It has a close approach to Earth every 6 years, to within 186,000 miles.  Bennu’s orbit will take into account “changes” in the orbit due to the gravity of the Sun, the Moon, the 8 planets, and the dwarf planets, like Ceres, and the Earth.  Using these models the closest approach occurs in 2135.  I will miss that one, Thank God.  One of you will have to write about it.
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-  The calculations put the chance of an impact at 1 in 2,700.
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-  Of course, the odds of hitting the Sun are 50 - 50.  And, then there are the planets Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter it also must miss.
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-  Some science needed to make these collision estimates more accuratly include the “ Yarkovsky Effect”.  This is the effect of the Sun’s radiation being absorbed on one side of the rotation and radiating the absorbed energy as heat back into space the other side of the rotation.  This thermal radiation acts as a mini-thruster.  This effect for retrograde rotations, like Bennu has, causes the asteroid to drift towards us.  But, by how much?
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-  Current calculations since 1999 tells us the inward drift is more than 100 miles closer.  The OSIRIS-Rx  mission will measure Bennu’s spin , surface area, and thermal emissions to calculate its acceleration in our direction.
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-  Bennu will receive a 5-second touch-and-go maneuver to gather a sample of the asteroid’s surface.  This maneuver happens at the end of a 3-year stay in orbit.  The communications is 18 light-minutes between satellite and Earth.  The touch-down on the surface is designed to have a maximum velocity of only 10 centimeters per second. And, the mission is designed to allow 3 of these sampling attempts.
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-  In 2023 the sample of Bennu’s surface collected is to be returned to Earth.  The return capsule will hit the upper atmosphere at 28,000 miles per hour.  The heat shield will burn off 99 % of the reentry energy.  At 2 miles altitude parachutes will be deployed.  The soft landing is to occur in Utah’s West Desert.  What will we learn?
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-  An announcement will be made shortly, well in 8 years from now.  Stay tuned.  I hope we are all around to get it.
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-  See also other Reviews available upon request:
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-  #1871 -   Asteroids and their Trojan orbits.
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-  #1829  -  Dwarf planets and asteroids.   Also lists 11 other reviews about asteroids.  Including:
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-   #1825  -  Asteroids responsible for evolution on Earth.
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----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Thursday, January 26, 2017  -----
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Titan and Saturn Mission accomplishments.

-  1922  -  Titan and Saturn Mission accomplishments.  The 20 years space exploration of Saturn will end this September.  There area some amazing videos at the website.
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----------------------- 1922  -  Titan and Saturn Mission accomplishments.
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----------------------   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msiLWxDayuA
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-  The above address is an amazing video collected as the Huygens Space Probe is descending into the atmosphere of Titan, largest moon of Saturn.  Several other videos are available at the same address.
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-  On December 24, 2004, the Huygens probe was released from the mother ship. Cassini.  The probe descended into Titan’s atmosphere landing on January 14, 2005.
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-  The pictures in the video are a 2 ½ hour descent reduced to a few minutes.  In the last few frames Titan’s surface comes into full view.  The camera sees mountains, river channels ,and a lakebed.  The surface was cobbled with chunks of water ice, hundreds of degrees below freezing.
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-  There is a NASA video that also shows all the measurement instruments recording data during this descent with sound added.  19 countries cooperated and participated in this Huygens mission.  The data collected allowed analysis of the geological and meteorological processes that created the surface features.  It is a volume story of how these scientists used sheer persistence, insight , and lots of improvisations to recover these measurement results.  Not everything went according to plan, major adjustments to the  mission had to be made on the fly.
-
-  The Huygens space probe did not have enough power or a large enough dish to transmit all the data to Earth.  Cassini had to store the data then later transmit when Earth was on a line of sight.
-
-  The whole story is amazing.  It took 2 years of fancy coding modifications and amazing trajectory math to delay the landing  months for a new trajectory to overcome some radio system design flaws that were encountered.  But, they did it.  Radio telescopes around the world helped by listening to Huygens’ faint signal capturing the data that the mother ship would miss.
-
-  The Titan probe was just part of the Cassini mission.  Launched in 1997 it is due to end September 15, 2017 crashing into the Saturn surface.  In the next few months the Cassini mission has much more to do.  The spacecraft will be flying as low as 1,056 miles above the Saturn clouds.
-
-  There is an amazing cloud that exists in the shape of a hexagon at the north pole.  A monster hurricane with 340  mile per hour winds somehow forms into a symmetrical hexagon shape.
-
-  Cassini will do another flyby of the moon Titan.  The last pass after 7 years orbiting the Saturn system.  The astronomers are still trying to learn, “ How long is a day on Saturn?”  It is hard to tell because the layers of clouds above the surface rotate at different speeds.  The estimate is that one rotation occurs every 10.66 hours.  The 2 hemispheres vary from 10.6 hours to 10.8 hours.  The variations are thought to be caused by the Sun’s radiation interacting with Saturn’s magnetic field.
-
-  Cassini’s final orbits will pass through the Saturn rings.  Its Cosmic Dust Analyzer will grab a handful of particles.  “ Why do Saturn rings have a golden hue?”    The rings are water ice, but what else?
-
-  There are 62 moons orbiting Saturn.  Titan is the biggest.  Enceladus is the moon with the water jets shooting up into the atmosphere.  The reason Cassini will be dropped into Saturn’s atmosphere to burn up is to prevent a future crash into Titan or Enceladus that would pollute future studies.
-
-  This September The Cassini 20 year mission will end in a fading radio signal that is gone forever.
-
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Tuesday, January 24, 2017  -----
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Particle Physics in the year 2016.

-  1921  - Particle Physics in the year 2016.  Mysteries to solve in Gravity Waves, Higgs Bosons, Neutrinos, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Anti-Matter.  Plus new ones unnamed.
-
-----------------------------  1921  - Particle Physics in the year 2016.
-
-

-
-  The year 2016 in Particle Physics covers the Universe from the smallest to the largest scales.  From inside the atom to inside Blackholes.
-
-  100 years after Albert Einstein predicted Gravitational Waves scientists have confirmed they do exist, the LIGO experiment showed that.
-
-  Other experiments are pursuing the Higgs Boson, Neutrinos, Dark Matter, Dark Energy ( the name for Cosmic acceleration ), anti-matter, and who knows what new discoveries might show up in 2017.
-
-  The Large Hadron Collider first discovered the Higgs particle in 2012.  Today the collider’s particle collisions are producing one Higgs Boson per second.
-
-  You would think that another particle that has 100 trillion of them passing through your body every second would be easy to discover.  Not so easy.  We know that there are 3 different types of Neutrinos produced in the Sun’s core nuclear reactor.  This stream of Neutrinos is continuously bombarding Earth.
-
-  In 2016 Japan’s T2K experiment showed a possible difference between the rate at which a Muon Neutrino turns into an Electron Neutrino.  And, the same rate exists for their Anti-Neutrinos. Their search hopes to answer the question “ Why is the Universe not full of equal quantities of Matter and Anti-matter?  Why  does Matter dominate our World?
-
-  Speaking of matter.  Why is 25% of all the Mass-Energy in the Universe made of Dark Matter that we cannot see?  Dark Matter interacts with Gravity but does not interact with electromagnetic radiation.  That is what makes it “dark”.
-
-  Speaking of Dark.  What is the Dark Energy that is accelerating the expansion of the Universe faster and faster?  All the galaxies are racing apart.  The furthest ones are exiting out of our Observable Universe.  “ Observable” is limited by the speed of light that has only traveled 13.8 billion lightyears to get here.
-
-  To answer the Dark Energy question the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey is collecting data on 1,500,000 galaxies and Quasars to construct a model of our Cosmic structure.  How fast is it really expanding?  Where is it going?  What happens next?
-
-  Sometimes experiment search for one thing and find another.  Sometimes the data is not what is expected.  How do you explain it?  Could new undiscovered particles be the source of his new data?  Or, is the measurement in error?  Particle Accelerators are pursuing the limits, expanding the envelopes of current measurement capabilities.  Our knowledge is being pushed into the unknown.
-
-  There is nothing more unknown than the data involving “ Quantum Entanglement”.  Particles that share a property like spin can be separated by distances, that light can not possible close the gap, but one particle will flip spin “ simultaneously” with the other.  How can this be possible?  Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second.
-
-  Science has certain rules:  cause and effect,  time moves forward not backward, the speed of light is a constant, properties are objectively measured, data doesn’t lie.  “ Entanglement” breaks the rules.  Entangled particles appear to have no fixed position or orientation ( spin) until they are measured.  Both particles show their state at the moment of measurement, regardless of how far they are separated.
-
-  Is cause and effect violated?  Are measurements and observations only “ subjective”.  Is there communications possible faster than the speed of light?
-
-  Speaking of new discoveries that are needed in 2017, “Why is the Universe more Matter than Anti-Matter?
-
-  Charged particles, protons and electrons, have anti-matter counterparts that are identical in every respect except they carry the opposite charge.  They have the opposite electric charge and the opposite magnetic property.  If they come together they annihilate each other.  The package turns into nothing but Gamma Rays.
-
-  Each spin-carrying electric charge creates a small magnetic field.  The magnetic moment is a fundamental property of the particle.  Measurements of magnetic moments of both particles and anti-particles are “identical” to a measurement uncertainty of 0.8 parts per  million.
-
-  Stay tuned, there is  much more to learn.  An announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):  See also Space Mission in 2016  Review #1920
-
- (2)  See Review # 1883 also listing 9 more reviews about Particle Physics.
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-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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What's happening in space in 2017

-  1920  -  Space Missions in 2017.  Here is what we are doing in space exploration this year…………
( Also See # 1921  for year 2016 in Particle Physics )
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-----------------------------  1920  -  Space Missions in 2017
-
-

-
-  While Donald Trump was being inaugurated he introduces a transitional year in government, 2017.  The same thing is true in space exploration, 2017 is a transitional year.  The New Horizon flyby of Pluto was in 2015.  The first ever landing on an asteroid is to occur in 2018.
-
-  The new President is cutting budgets to get our nation back to financial sanity.  We will anticipate what is left of the over 100 launches scheduled in 2017.  Almost all of these will orbit Earth as communication satellites, or scientific instruments studying our planet.
-
-  Other nations have bigger budgets for space.  China is sending a mission to the Moon, to collect 5 pounds of Moon soil and rocks,  returning them to Earth so samples can be studied.  China plans to have  “ taikonauts” exploring the Moon by 2030.
-
-   For another crew of real people there are 2 US missions planning  maiden flights:  SpaceX Dragon 2 and Boeings Starliner both scheduled for 2018.  These missions are designed to replace the Space Shuttle in reaching the International Space Station.
-
-  Cassini space probe of Saturn will end its mission burning up in the Saturn atmosphere on September 15, 2017.  Cassini has been studying Saturn and its moons since 2004.
-
-  New Horizon spacecraft is half way between Pluto and the Kuiper Belt objects.  We are hoping there is some more exploration left out there.
-
-  There is still a Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter.
-
-  There is the Dawn spacecraft orbiting the asteroid, now called  dwarf planet Ceres.
-
-  There is the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the ExoMars orbiter studying that planet.  The Opportunity and Curiosity rovers are on the surface of Mars still doing their thing.
-
-  “Lucy” is planned for 2021 to visit the Belt asteroids and the Trojan asteroids sharing the orbit with Jupiter.
-
-  “Pshche” is an asteroid mission to launch in 2023 and visit a 130 mile wide iron and nickel asteroid in 2030.  Astronomers believe this asteroid is the left over core of a planetesimal from our early Solar System formation.  This mission is scheduled to last for 20 month duration.
-
-  These several asteroid missions are designed to help us learn how the Solar System came to be.
-
-  Here at home the Event Horizon Telescope that internet connects several radio telescopes around the world to photograph the shadow of the Blackhole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
-
-  August 21, 2017 the Moon will provide a total eclipse of the Sun on a 70 mile wide path across the US.
-
------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-  Note (1):  See Review # 1921 to learn what happened in Particle Physics in 2016.
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-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Sunday, January 22, 2017  -----
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How do galaxies form?

-  1919  -  How did planets form?  Theory is that gas and dust orbiting the star ( our Sun ) coalesced and multiple collisions created little planets ( planetesimals) that with further collisions created the large planets.  Stars form into galaxies much the same way.
-
-

-
-----------------------------  1919  -  How did galaxies form?
-
-  How many galaxies are there?  How much does our Milky Way Galaxy weigh?  Science trying to use the planet formation model in computer simulations find that simple collisions of material are not enough energy to form planetesimals and galaxies.  There must be other processes involved.
-
-  Large galaxies devour smaller galaxies.  It is a story of cosmic cannibalism.  The Universe is littered with disembodied streams of stars, gas, and dust resulting from galaxy collisions.
-
-  Our Milky Way Galaxy is a cannibal of smaller dwarf galaxies in our neighborhood.  One well documented example is the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy that is now a barely discernible pile of stars.   There have recently been discovered a dozen long  streams of stars that have been pulled apart by the Milky Way’s immense gravity.
-
-  The Canis Major dwarf galaxy is likely the next target to be devoured by our Galaxy.  This would add another 1,000,000,000 stars to the Milky Way.
-
-  The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are actually dwarf galaxies that are candidates in our Local Group of galaxies that might be next to merge with the Milky Way.
-
-  The Milky Way Galaxy may one day be itself prey to a larger galaxy.  In 4 to 5 billion years the Andromeda Galaxy may begin to merge with the Milky Way.  Today it is 2,500,000 lightyears away but it is hurtling towards us at 250,000 miles per  hour.
-
-  Andromeda Galaxy out weighs our Galaxy two to one.  Andromeda will absorb the Milky Way like eating a candy bar.  A new greater galaxy will emerge, the “Milkomeda Galaxy”.  Dozens of other dwarf galaxies in our Local Group will also merge with Milkomeda.  But, this is at least 4 billion years from now.  Don’t hold your breath.
-
-  When it is all over there will be one giant elliptical galaxy formerly  known  as the “Local Group”.
-
-  Cannibal galaxies are messy eaters.  Not all the material torn from victims is consumed.  Some escape into empty space to become orphaned stars and star clusters.
-
-  It is not just galaxies that collide, planets and planetesimals collide as well.  New evidence is coming together on how our Mother Earth suffered multiple collisions.
-
-  Astrophysics has revised the estimate of the number of galaxies in the “Observable Universe” from 200 billion to 2,000 billion, or 2 trillion.
-
-  The Observable Universe is measured to be 13.8 billion lightyears in all directions.  That distance is the edge as far as we can see.  It takes light that long to reach us, so, that edge today is 46 billion light years away.  But, we can not see it yet.
-
-  It is space that keeps stretching out and expanding the Universe.  The light photons themselves get stretched out passing through this medium so that visible light and ultraviolet light from the past is stretched into infrared and even microwave wavelengths.
-
-  Given the volume of the “Observable Universe” with a radius of 13.8 billion lightyears , and, the calculated density of the Universe would put the mass of the Universe at 3.4*10^54 kilograms.  This mass calculation  includes both Ordinary Matter and Dark Matter.
-
-  Now divide the total mass by the average galaxy mass and you get 200 billion galaxies.  How did we more recently get a number 10 times greater?
-
-  Astronomers used the Hubble Telescope “ Ultra Deep Field” image.  This is one spot in the sky with a very long time exposure.  Convert the number of galaxies exposed into a
 3 - dimensional map.  Then astronomers compared that to a 3-D image of galaxies closet to home which could include the smaller and dimmer dwarf galaxies that would not show up in the Deep Field image.
-
-  So, the result is not that the Universe is not bigger it just contains more galaxies that have fewer stars in them.  The total number of stars in the Observable Universe comes out to the same number when astronomers create a smooth distribution curve from the big galaxies to the tiny dwarf galaxies.
-
-  The galaxies we can see are just the “ tip of the iceberg”.  There are another 9 smaller , fainter galaxies that we can not see.  Also, at great distances the light from these galaxies is red-shifted beyond the visible spectrum into the infrared spectrum that we can not see.  If we could see all the way into the microwave wavelengths the Universe would glow with stars in all directions.
-
-  There are 2 trillion galaxies out there you just can’t see then all.
-
-  The Milky Way Galaxy is  between 4*10^11 to 5.8 * 10^11 Solar Mass.  We weighed it.  That is between 400 to 500 billion Sun-size stars, on average.  That particular measure uses the radius to be 311*10^18 miles.  If you go out to 746 *10^18 miles you get a mass of 900 billion Solar Mass.  This mass includes stars, planets, moons, gases, and dust, AND Dark Matter.
-
-  These mass calculations are  being made by using the velocities and positions of globular star clusters that orbit our Galaxy.  Velocities must be measured in 2 directions, one along our line of sight, the other across the plane of the sky ( proper motion ).  The math uses Bayesian Statistics in a model using 572 parameters to reduce the uncertainties of such a complex measurement.  How much does our Galaxy weight?   Now you know.
-
-  Stay tuned.  There is much  more to learn..  An announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):    There are 9 more reviews on the Milky Way starting with 1889 and a listing of 8 more.  Also available upon request.
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-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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How do Blackholes and galaxies evolve?

-  1918  -  Blackholes and Galaxies?  How do galaxies evolve?  Which came first the central Blackhole or the galaxy?   Is there a direct correlation between the size of the central Blackhole and the size of the galaxy ?
-
-----------------------------  1918  -  Blackholes and Galaxies?
-
-

-
- The first super-massive Blackholes were discovered in 1963.  The first discovery had a red-shift that indicated it was receding at 16% the speed of light.   It became known as  a “Quasar” and soon hundreds more were discovered.
-
-  These Quasars can shine brighter then their entire host galaxy, or, other whole galaxies.  The rapid variations in brightness implied that the actual light radiation was coming from something smaller than our Solar System.  These small centers of galaxies were spewing jets of ionized gas millions of lightyears into space from their rotational poles.  The jets were plasma that smashed into gas surrounding the galaxy heating the gas to many millions of degrees Kelvin.  The hot gas emitted X-rays.
-
-  The gas was falling into the Blackhole circling to velocities nearly the speed of light.  The friction within the gas creates the heat that emit’s the X-ray radiation.
-
-  In 2002 astronomers observing the motion of individual stars surrounding the Blackhole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy proved that the center was a mass of 4.3 million Solar Mass.  The area emitting this radiation was so small it had to be the concentrated energy of a Blackhole.
-
-  In 2005 the same type analysis confirmed the size of the Blackhole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy.
-
-  Blackholes appear to control the evolution of all the large galaxies.  But how?  We need to explain why the mass of a central Blackhole does not correlate with the mass of the galaxy disk.  For similar size galaxies, one can have a Blackhole of 1,500 Solar Mass.  Another can have a Blackhole of 1,000,000,000 Solar Mass.  Something else is going on?
-
-  When the Universe was 2 to 6 billion years old,  during the era of rapid  Quasar development, many smaller Blackholes merged into larger Blackholes.
-
-  A Blackhole is a pit in the fabric of space-time.  Space and Time are interchangeable. You can not have one without the other.
-
-  Blackholes are places in space where the density of matter grows so high that all matter is crushed into a single point, a Singularity.  The Singularity is the center.  The rim of the Blackhole is the Event Horizon.  The Event Horizon is the edge where even light photons, get turned around by the pull of gravity and sent back into the Singularity.
-
-  There are two types of Blackholes.  Stellar Blackholes that form from a single massive star.  And, Galactic Blackholes that are the centers of most galaxies and have a mass of million, or billions, Solar Mass.
-
-  Spinning Blackholes have an additional kinetic energy in addition to the gravitational energy.  Spinning Blackholes can power jets of gas and dust exiting out of their rotational poles.
-
-  The rotational velocity of a spinning Blackhole can be calculated :
-
-------------------  Rotational Velocity  =  v  =  a * c /  ( 1  + ( 1 - a^2) ^ ½  )
-
---------------------  c  =  the speed of light  =  186,000 miles per second
-
---------------------  a  =  the angular momentum
-
-  If the spin is 31.3% of its maximum.  Then:
-
----------------------  v  =  0.16 *c  =  16% the speed of light.
-
-  There are 3 ways astronomers can measure the mass of a Blackhole.  If stars can be seen orbiting the Blackhole the speed and radius distance can be used to calculate the mass.
-
-  If the light from the Accretion Disk flickers the duration of the flicker corresponds to how long light took to travel from one side to the other side of the disk.  Light speed and duration time can be used to calculate distance across the disk.  The size of the Accretion Disk can be used to correlate with other Blackholes to estimate the mass.
-
-  If the above data can not be collected, astronomers can us the brightness alone of the Accretion Disk to estimate the mass of the Blackhole.
-
-   We need a lot of estimating to measure something we can not see.
-
-  Blackhole folklore gives the impression that Blackholes are enormous beasts devouring everything in their cosmic neighborhood.
-
-  Astronomers can get very sure of the thing that they think they are very sure of.  Actually  Blackholes are surprisingly tiny spheres of influence.    Their gravitational reach is surprisingly small, only a few lightyears.  Stars can whisk by within a few thousandths of a lightyear and survive unscathed.
-
-  If a galaxy were the size of the Earth the central Blackhole would be the size of a penny.

-
-  Defining the correlation between the size of the Central Blackhole and the size of the galaxy as proven to be difficult.  There appear to be many  different factors involved.
-
-  Blackhole evolution could have a feedback system , a cosmic thermostat, that shuts off development.  Rotating hot gas creates jets shooting out the poles and inflating bubbles that create eddies and turbulence that could cut off further star formation in the galaxy.
-
-  Cold gas makes stars and feeds Blackholes.  10 to 12 billion years ago galaxies were 50% gas.  Today, large galaxies are only 5 to 15% gas.
-
-  At lower masses the galaxy population is dominated by spiral galaxies.
-
-  A galaxy can evolve as a ball ( elliptical ) or a disk depending on where it is born and how the cosmic web is feeding it.
-
-  The study is still open ended trying to explain the correlation between the size of Blackholes and the size of their host galaxies. Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.  Or, maybe astronomy will just give us more mysteries to solve.
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-  See Reviews #1908  -  How the  mass of the Blackhole is calculated
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-  #1891  -    The Blackhole is inescapable for stars greater than 20 Solar Mass.
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-  # 1882  -  Could  Blackholes explain Dark Matter?
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-  #1869  -  How big can Blackholes get?
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-  #1843  -  Great Walls in space with  Blackholes.
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-  # 1819  -  The history of discovery of Blackholes.  This review also lists 21 other Reviews on the subject of Blackholes.  All the way back to #592 dated December, 2005.
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-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Saturday, January 14, 2017  -----
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How “ Entropy” controls the fate of the Universe?

-  1917  -  How “ Entropy” controls the fate of the Universe?   Entropy always increases, it never decreases in a system.  Can science speculate scenarios for the future of the Universe and still hold to this law in physics?
-
-  See Review #1914 and #1915 to learn more about “ Entropy”
-.
-  This Review #1917 tells what happens to the Universe because entropy controls our fate.
-
-----------------------  1917  -  How “ Entropy” controls the fate of the Universe?  
-
-

-
-  The Universe we observe today is full of stars, galaxies, Blackholes, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and radiation.   It has clumps, clusters, and giant voids.  It is expanding and cooling.
-
-  Due to the constant and finite speed of light when we look into the distant Universe we are looking into the past and we observe a Universe that is smoother, hotter, denser, less clumpy, more energetic and more uniform.
-
-  So, what we see today would indicate that the future Universe will be clumpier, frozen, sparser, less energetic, and emptier.
-
-  To wrap our heads around this evolution of the Universe as we understand it we adopt the concept of “ Entropy”.  Entropy is a mathematical concept employing statistics of large numbers.  We can even calculate the Entropy for the entire Universe:
-
---------------------------  Entropy  =  10^104  *  BK
-
-------------------------  BK  is Boltzmann’s Constant
-
-------------------------  BK  =  1.38  * 10^-23  Joules  /  degrees Kelvin
-
-  (  See Review #1915 to learn about Boltzmann’s Constant )
-
-  The Entropy of the Blackhole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is 10^91 *BK .  Most of the Entropy in the Universe is due to many, many Blackholes.
-
-  When the Universe was very young the Entropy was much lower.  Not many Blackholes had formed yet.  In the far future the Entropy will be much higher, When Blackholes decay due to Hawking Radiation, Blackholes eventually evaporate causing Entropy to increase even further.
-
-  When the early Universe was dominated by radiation the Entropy was :
-
---------------------------  E  =  10^88  *  BK
-
-  This is less than the single Blackhole at the center of our Galaxy.  Entropy was much less 13.8 billion years ago.
-
-  In the far future, after all the Blackholes evaporate the entropy will be:
-
--------------------------   E  =  10^123  *  BK
-
-  Could the Universe expand forever, continue to accelerate until it rips entirely apart?
-
-  Could the Universe reverse and re-collapse, moving backwards until it becomes a single point, a “ Singularity”.
-
-  Could the Universe have originality stated out as a Singularity?  None of the math tells us what could have happened before 10^-33 seconds closer to the beginning of  time and space.  Math calculations become infinities with no answers.
-
-  If an Inflationary State existed before the hot Big Bang the Entropy could have been:
-
--------------------------  E  =   10^15  *  BK
-
--------------------------  E  =  10^15  *  1.38 * 10^-23
-
------------------------  E  =  1.38  * 10^-8  Joules per Kelvin
-
-  But the temperature could have been billions of degrees Kelvin.  So, we can not calculate the Entropy at the beginning.  It could be zero.
-
-  The math in the theory of General Relativity takes us to a Singularity.  If we introduce some other theories, quantum theories of gravity, then other scenarios can be calculated.
-
-  Using the math  in “ Loop Quantum Gravity”, String Theory,  Brane Cosmology, we can derive 4 other possibilities that are not a Singularity.
-
-  The Universe could go through a cycle, a stringy bounce.  The Universe expands, reaches some maximum size, contracts, and re-collapses while the Entropy is increasing the entire time.
-
-  Another possibility is that gravity changes.  gravity could get turned off for a period of time and cosmology could go into hibernation.
-
-  Another possibility assumes that space-time pre-exists in a variety of locations and properties.  There could be multi-universes and we just happen to be in one of them.
-
-  One of the challenges astronomers have is to create one of these scenarios where by Entropy is continuously increasing.  Most hold on to this fact the the 2nd law of Thermodynamics can never be violated.  Of the 4 scenarios presented the “ multi-verse”, or  “reproducing cosmology” scenario easily avoids the increasing Entropy problem,  the other scenarios do not adhere to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics.
-
-  We are convinced that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.  But,  within the system there are fluctuations in this expansion.  These uneven fluctuations are what created the structure we observe today.  This “Inflation” of space, creating more and more space at an exponential rate, must continue with overall Entropy of the entire system never decreasing.  The multi-verse scenario is the only one to avoid this problem, so far
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-  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.  Request the following reviews if interested to learn more.
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-   #1914  -  Entropy is the arrow of time.  The entropy of this room is 546 Joules per Kelvin.
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-  #770  -  Too much information.  A cubic centimeter of water contains 100,000 billion, billion atoms.  Each atom can contain a bit of information.  4,000,000,000 years ago organisms learned of cull useful bits out of the cosmic noise.
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-  #530 -  Entropy and Evolution.  Good mutations win out in evolution because they are the ones that survive.  Things naturally and eventually always get worse.  When you get to the last heartbeat you’re done.
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Is their a ninth planet?

-  1916  -  How big is our Solar System?  New discoveries at the edge of the Solar System are causing renewed search for the answer.  Is there a Planet 9 out there.  There is something causing strange orbits.
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-----------------------------  1916  -  How big is our Solar System?
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-  The night sky seems tranquil.  Peaceful and quiet.  The stars are consistent in the sky throughout our lifetime of observation.  Our Solar System seems to be in a similar state.  But, evidence shows that tranquility was not the case a few billion years ago.
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-  Planets form around their star in a disk.  Gravity collects the gas and dust in a rotating wash machine of material.  The gas is escaping the disk rapidly, so, planets must form in a short period, 4 to 5 million years.  Although the rocky inner planets can form over a longer period, maybe up to 100 million years.  The Solar System itself is 4,800 million years since formation.
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-  During these phases of planet formation the planets and the planet hopefuls, called planetesimals, often collided.  Such a collision is how the Earth-Moon first formed.  The Moon is a splash of Earth’s crust.  Such collisions also caused Venus to rotate backward compared to the other planets.  Uranus got tilted 90 degrees in its rotation.  Mercury lost its outer shell.  Other planetesimals were knocked out of the Solar System all together.
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-  Studying our Solar System is difficult.  Evidence for what happened for the first few million years is mostly wiped out.  But, thanks to Kepler’s Space Telescope we can begin to collect evident from other solar systems in various stages of formation.  We call these planets, “ exoplanets”.
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-  Studying Mercury gives us another clue.  Mercury is mostly an iron core.  Its crust and mantle are  missing, or far reduced.  Mercury’s orbit is far less circular than the other terrestrial planets.  The best explanation ( computer modeling ) suggests that Mercury shared its orbit with other planetesimals.  Many collisions occurred. Mercury’s natal shell was vaporized in these collisions.
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-  Planetesimals were constantly colliding with in the confined space closer to the Sun.  Some were smashed to bits.  Some were ejected out of the Solar System all together.  Some went crashing into the Sun.
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-  Venus and Earth have nearly circular orbits.  But, the larger gas planets have elliptical orbits and their orbits dip far above and below the plane.  Between 3.8 and 4.1 billion years ago the gas planet’s immense gravity sent rocks and ices hurtling into the inner solar system creating collisions with the smaller rocky planets.
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-  All these same computer  models are suggesting the likelihood of an undiscovered ‘Planet 9”.  Adding another gravitation influence would help explain much of the Solar System structure,  particularly with the new discoveries beyond Neptune.  The models want to create a Planet 9 with 10 times Earth-mass and orbiting at 250 AU in the outer Kuiper Belt.  ( AU is Astronomical Units, Earth-Sun distance, or 93 million miles)
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-  Supporting evidence came with other “dwarf planets” found beyond 40 AU, 30% further out than the dwarf planet Pluto.  These new dwarf planet orbits are disturbed by an object gravity far outside the effects of Neptune.  These objects could take 20,000 years to orbit the Sun.  Neptune takes 165 years to orbit.
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-   These models tell us that the early Solar System needed twice as much mass as what would up as the 8 planets.  All these theories lead us to thinking that the early Solar System started out far more complicated than originally thought.  My high school science book is outdated?
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-  Studying exoplanets is another source in the search for answers  The most intriguing answer would come from the discovery of the mysterious Planet 9.  Over 4,000 likely exoplanets have been discovered.  Continued study is trying to understand each of their solar systems.
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-  Interesting stuff.  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.  Maybe it will be “ We have discovered a ninth planet, what should we name it?
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-  See Reviews #1872 , #1826,  and six other reviews to learn more about our Solar System.  
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Is gravity a universal force?

-  1913  -  Is gravity a universal force?  Is it the same everywhere?  Astronomers have measured light that has traveled a distance of 8,000,000,000 lightyears.  Conclusion  -  the laws of physics are the same everywhere.
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-----------------------------  1913  -  Is gravity a universal force?
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-

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-  Is gravity a universal force the same throughout the Universe?  Isaac Newton started our understanding of gravity as a “ force” of nature.  Like magnetic force.  Like the strong nuclear force.  Albert Einstein changed the concept of gravity as a force at all.  Gravity ‘forces” are the result of the warping of space and time.  So, space was no longer constant.  It was a flexible quantity.  Time was now longer a constant flow, it changed depending on the velocity it was traveling.  Gravity is falling down the slope of curved space-time.
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-   There are 4 forces in nature.  Electromagnetism, Strong and Weak Nuclear forces are interactive forces that are much , much stronger than gravity.
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-  Could it be that gravity is not a “ fundamental force’” created by space, time, mass and energy?  Is this reality merely a stage evolving from a more fundamental force that we have yet to discover?
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-  Where to start with this idea?
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-  Could gravity exist as “ quantum units”, and not as what we perceive as a “ continuous force”.
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-  One investigation involves understanding the “Entropy” of a Blackhole which is proportional to the Blackhole’s surface area ( not its volume ).  A second avenue of investigation is Stephen Hawking’s theory that the temperature of a Blackhole is proportional to the acceleration at the Blackhole’s Event Horizon.  ( Request Review #964 to learn more about Entropy )
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-  With Einstein’s equations for General Relativity the 4 dimensions of space-time incorporating Dark Energy as a positive Cosmological Constant could explain gravity.  The problem comes from the assumptions needed in the equations that do not allow for the gravitational acceleration of the galaxies.  We are missing something?  All observations conclude that galaxies are flying apart at an accelerating rate.  Another missing force must exist to cause this acceleration.
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-  The composition and structure of the Universe have changed over time but the laws of physics have not.
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-  One confirmation that occurred last month ( November, 2016) was measurements made on a galaxy 8 billion lightyears away.  The galaxy had a super-massive Blackhole at its center.  At the event Horizon the Blackhole it is consuming mass as the gas and dust orbits are descending.  The violent collisions occurring at this interface expels tremendous amounts of radio, microwave, infrared, optical , ultraviolet, X-ray, and Gamma Ray energy.  This radiation is visible over billions of lightyears distance.  When this electromagnetic energy travels this great distance it encounters many of the elements in the intergalactic medium.  Most encounters are with hydrogen and helium atoms, but, a few other elements as well.  When the light energy is absorbed by these atoms, absorption lines are created in the electromagnetic spectrum.   Each atom has unique electron shells and each absorption bar-code represents a unique quantum of energy.  This unique signature is used to identify each element
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-  What is learned by studying this light from 8 billion lightyears away with that same phenomena occurring in our own Milky Way Galaxy is that electromagnetic energy is a consistent force over time.  It always behaves the same everywhere and always.
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-  These studies are attempts to understand and “ unify” electromagnetism, nuclear forces and that of gravity.  Unifying “ Quantum Theory” with “ General Relativity Theory”.  How does gravity work, really?  Today the equations in these two theories are not compatible.  One only works on small things and the other only on large things.  We need one theory that works on everything , everywhere.  We are not there yet.
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-  Stay tuned, there is much more to learn.
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----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
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Boltzmann’s Constant - Energy and Temperature

-  1915  -  Boltzmann’s Constant  -  Energy and Temperature  Some very smart people in the 1800’s discovered the fundamental constants that define energy and temperature.  Here are some of the basics of physics:
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---------------------  1915  -  Boltzmann’s Constant  -  Energy and Temperature
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-

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-  Boltzmann’s Constant relates the amount of thermal energy in a body to its temperature.  In 1871 Ludwig Boltzmann, at the age of 27,  proposed that the quantity of radiation, or energy intensity, was directly proportional to the 4th power of temperature.
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-Ludwig Boltzmann was born in 1844 in Vienna, Austria.  He was working off Josef Stefan’s earlier proposal that stated an object emits energy at a rate proportional to its temperature in Kelvin^4.  Josef Stefan was born in St. Peter, Austria, in 1835.  Boltzmann was also a friend of James Clerk Maxwell who wrote the famous mathematical equations for electromagnetism and showed that light was an electromagnetic wave.  Boltzmann applied his mathematics to deduce Stefan’s proposal regarding thermal energy and temperature using thermodynamic principles, entropy, and statistical mechanics.  In other words, he did the math.
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-  The total energy emitted from each square meter of a body’s surface each second is called energy flux.  And energy flux = (Stefan-Boltzmann’s constant) * Kelvin^4.
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-----------------  Energy = (5.67 * 10^-8 joules/m^2 * K^4*sec) * T^4
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-----------------  Stefan-Boltzmann’s Constant is   5.67 * 10^-8 joules/m^2 * K^4*sec
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------------------ “T” is the temperature in degrees Kelvin.
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-  Raising the temperature from 300K to 600K increases the radiated energy by 2^4, or 16 times.  Raising the temperature to 6000K, the surface of the Sun, increases radiated energy to 20^4, or 160,000 times more energy.  This is the energy emitted per square meter each second.  If we know the surface area of the Sun we can calculate its total energy emitted per second.
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-  Energy from the Sun per square meter  =         (5.67*10^-8)  * 6000^4
-  Energy from the Sun per square meter  =         7.348 * 10^7 joules/m^2*sec
-  The surface are of the Sun  =                           4*pi*r^2
-  The radius of the Sun =                     6.96*10^8 meters  ( or, 432,500  miles )
-  The surface are of the Sun  =               6.09 * 10^18 square meters
-  Energy from the Sun per second  =       45 * 10^25 joules/second
-  Energy from the Sun  = 450,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 watts  (note 1)
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-  So, if we know the Temperature of the Sun we can calculate its energy, or luminosity, which is power, or, total energy emitted each second.  Joules of energy / second is watts of power.   But, how do we know the temperature of the Sun?

-  We determine the temperature of the Sun by using Wien’s law which says that the energy intensity of each wavelength emitted by a blackbody is determined solely by its temperature.  A blackbody is a body that absorbs or emits all wavelengths and is therefore perfectly black.  The Sun by definition is a “blackbody“.  The peak wavelength emitted is inversely proportional to the temperature.
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- Maximum wavelength = 2.9*10^-3 / T
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-  So, we measure the intensity of the Sun at each wavelength of light.   Then, we determine the wavelength where the intensity peaks.  The wavelength peaks at 500 nanometers, or the color of blue-green light.  The Sun looks yellow to us, or 600 nanometers wavelength, because we see the Sun through our atmosphere which filters out the shorter wavelengths.
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- T  =  2.9*10^-3  /  maximum wavelength
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- T =  2.9*10^-3  /  500 * 10^-9 meters
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- T  =  5800 Kelvin
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-  The surface temperature of the Sun is 5800 Kelvin.  Temperature is inversely proportional to maximum wavelength allows us to measure the temperature of the stars.  Reddish stars are 2000-3000 Kelvin.  Orange stars are 3000-5000 Kelvin.  Yellow stars are 5000-8000 Kelvin and white stars are 8000-12,000 Kelvin.
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-  Wilhelm Wien was born in 1864 in Prussia.  He received the Nobel Prize in 1911 for discovering this law.  He died in 1928 at the age of 64.   Ludwig Boltzmann died in 1906 at the age of 62.  He committed suicide due to episodes of severe mental depression brought on by other scientists disagreeing with his theories.
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-  Stefan-Boltzmann Constant = 5.67*10^-8 watts /meter^2 / Kelvin^4
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The Stefan Boltzmann Constant is the energy in watts per square meter per the 4th power of temperature.
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-  The Stefan-Boltzmann Constant came from = 2*pi^5*k^4 / 15*h^3*c^2
-  Where “h” is Planck’s Constant of Action
-  Where  “c” is the speed of light
-  Where “ k” is Boltzmann’s other constant.
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-  Boltzmann’s other constant = 1.38065  *  10^-23 joules / Kelvin:
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-  The Boltzmann Constant came from = the Molar Gas Constant / Avogadro’s Number
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-  Amedeo Avogadro was born in Turin, Italy in 1776.  He lived to age 80, to 1856. Avogadro invented the word “molecule” and separated it from atoms.  He was studying the electrolysis of water separating it into hydrogen and oxygen.  He learned that water was 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.  He also learned that equal volumes of all gases contain the same number of molecules, assuming that temperature and pressure is the same.  Equal volumes of all gases contain the same number of molecules.  What is that number of molecules?  It is called Avogadro’s Number.
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-  When hydrogen and oxygen are a gas they are molecules, with molecular weights , H=2 and O=32.  The atomic weights are individual atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, H=1 and O=16.  H2O has a molecular weight or 18,  H=2, O=16.  It is convenient for physicists to express molecular weights in grams.  So, the gram-molecular weight of water is 18 grams, and this is referred to as a “mole”.  A mole of water has a mass of 18 grams.
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-  A mole of hydrogen gas (2 grams) at zero Centigrade has a volume of 22.4 liters (5.5 gallons).  A mole of oxygen (32 grams) takes up the exact same volume, 22.4 liters.  Each gas, hydrogen and oxygen, and every other gas has the same number of molecules per mole.  Once you know how many molecules are in a known volume and known weight you can calculate the weights and diameters of each molecule, and therefore, of each atom.
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-  Johan Loschmidt was born in Bohemia ( now Czechoslovakia) in 1821.  As a businessman he went bankrupt and became a teacher in 1856 and began publishing papers.  He was the first one to calculate Avogadro’s Number.
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-  Avogadro’s Number  =  6.0221367*10^23 molecules / mole
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-  One mole of any gas has 602,213,670,000,000,000,000,000 molecules.
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-  A mole of oxygen weighs 32 grams and contains 6.02*10^23 oxygen molecules.  Therefore, each molecule of oxygen weighs 5.3*10^-23 grams.
An atom of oxygen weighs 1.67343*10^-24 grams.
The diameter of an oxygen atom, and any other atom is 10^-10 meters.
254,000,000 atoms placed side-by-side would make a line one inch long.
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-  The Molar Gas Constant comes from a mole of gas where pressure * volume = Molar Gas Constant * Temperature.  p*V = R*T.  The Molar Gas Constant, R =  8.314510 joules / Kelvin / mole
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-  Now, back to Boltzmann’s Constant:
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 -  Boltzmann’s other constant = 1.38*10^-23 joules / Kelvin:
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-  The Boltzmann Constant came from = the Molar Gas Constant / Avogadro’s Number
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Boltzmann’s Constant = 8.3 joules / Kelvin / mole  //  6.02*10^23 molecules / mole
Boltzmann’s Constant = 1.3*10^-23 joules / Kelvin.
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-  So, in summary you need Avogadro’s Constant Number to calculate Boltzmann’s Constant.  And Boltzmann’s Constant to calculate the Stefan-Boltzmann Constant which relates Energy to Temperature^4.  Ludwig Boltzmann knew that thermal energy measured by temperature was created by atoms constantly flying around like tiny missiles.
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-  Their individual velocities vary a great deal but their velocities can be described using statistics.  For example, the mean velocity of an oxygen gas molecule at room temperature and pressure is 0.3 miles per second, or 1,080 miles per hour.  It is the kinetic energy of these fast moving atoms that we measure as temperature and it is Boltzmann’s Constant that relates the two, temperature with energy.  It amazes me that this was all figured out in Europe in the mid-1800’s, over a hundred fifty years ago, by some very smart people.
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-  Note (1):  More accurate answer is 3.827 * 10^26 watts because actual surface temperature of the Sun is 5800 Kelvin, by measuring the peak wavelength from above the Earth’s atmosphere.
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-  Entropy is mathematical.  It is the result of statistics.  The is more possibilities of things to be disorderly than orderly.  So, if things vibrate, fluctuate, change then they are eventually gravitate to “ disorderly’.  That is Entropy.  The same thing happens with atoms.
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-  Joule -  is a unit of Energy whereby one Newton of Force acts over one meter of work.
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-  Newton  -  is a unit of Force that will accelerate a mass of 1 kilogram to 1 meter / second^2
------------------------------  F  =  m*a
-----------------------------  Force  =  mass  *  acceleration
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---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
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