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- 2029 - SPACE -Dust in outer space. - What creates the dust we find in space throughout our Solar System? Could life have started in the dust of outer space? Once life got started in space how did it survive the radiation that destroys life? Regardless of how we got here aren’t you glad you landed on Mother Earth?
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--------- #1245 - Can Dust in Outer Space contain Life?
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- What creates the dust we find in space throughout our Solar System? Could life have started in the dust of outer space? Once life got started in space how did it survive the radiation that destroys life? Regardless of how we got here aren’t you glad you landed on Mother Earth?
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- Look into the Western sky this spring evening right after sunset. Under the right circumstances you can see the “ zodiac light”. This faint triangle of light extends up from the horizon. It is produced by the sunlight bouncing off the inter-planetary dust in our Solar System. The triangle of light stretches along the path of the Sun, thus the name, “zodiac”. This is because the ring of dust forms a disk in the same plane as the orbiting planets.
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- This zodiac dust covers a huge area reflecting light that would out shine the planets by a factor of 100. An extraterrestrial observer would see this dust before they would see Jupiter or the Earth.
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- Infrared telescopes have discovered similar dust debris around over 100 other stars in the galaxy. The presence of these debris disks implies the existence of asteroids, comets, and possibly planets. The dust disks around these exoplanet solar systems appear to have radii ranging from 100 to 1,000 astronomical units. Or, 20 to 200 times the Sun-Jupiter distance. The light spectrum from these dust debris resembles the same as that from comets.
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- Interstellar dust grains have been found to be composed mostly of carbon, silicon and oxygen. Most are about 1,000 nanometers in size. Other molecules that have been detected include silica, or SiO2, magnesium, iron silica ( called olivine), amorphous carbon, and water ice. These also are the same compounds we find in comets and asteroids.
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- What makes this dust interesting being found around Earth’s orbit is that it should not be there. The orbiting dust particles are between 20,000 and 200,000 nanometers in size. Those particles smaller than 20,000 nanometers should get pushed out of the Solar System by the Sun’s solar winds. Those dust particles larger should have spiraled into the Sun because sunlight alone should slow the particle’s angular momentum. A particle 100,000 nanometers in size should spiral in from the Asteroid Belt into the Sun in less than 100,000 years. But, the dust is still there so something must be continuously replenishing it.
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- Astronomers explain this by assuming it is the result of on-going collisions among the asteroids and the evaporation of the surface of comets as they travel closer to the Sun. The main asteroid belt in the Solar System lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid collisions are common in this region. These impacts throw dust off littering the space around the impacts. Comet tails are the trails of dust that have boiled off the surface of the comet as it heats up.
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- The total mass of all this dust is 1/1000th the mass of the Moon. Like all the matter in the Universe that is heavier than hydrogen and helium it originally came from supernovae explosions during an earlier evolution of the Universe. Truly massive stars only live for 10,000,000 years. They burn hydrogen fuel so fast due to their massive gravity. When the fuel runs out the star collapses and rebounds into an enormous explosion called a supernova. In the process of this enormous compression fusion of hydrogen nuclei gets smashed with other protons creating heavier and heavier elements all the way up the Periodic Table. The explosion then scatters these heavier nuclei into inter-stellar space.
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- It is cold in space, -440 degrees Fahrenheit. But, that is just the right temperature for atoms to slow down and coalesce into bigger molecules. These molecules coalesce to become dust particles. Dust coalesces into clumps of dust and gravity collects even more material until a giant mass can eventually create another star. But, this time the star has an accretion disk of dust that contains the heavier elements, like carbon and oxygen. These coalescing molecules can result in chemical reactions that can even create complex organic molecules.
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- So, from “destruction in space“, the Universe returns to “creation in space“. But, what more is created? The elements of life are created and they could exist in the dust of space long before the formation of the planet Earth. We know that the same organic molecules could have landed on Earth in the distant past because they are still landing on Earth today. And, not just Earth, but Earth-like planets throughout the Universe.
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- Recently a meteorite landed in Australia. It was analyzed and found to be chocked-full of organic molecules. This is not new. It has been going on for 4,500,000,000 years, since the planet first formed. Other planets throughout the Universe must have been experiencing the same thing.
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- Complex organic molecules mean proteins and nucleic acids. Proteins perform the basic tasks of metabolic processes. Nucleic acids are RNA and DNA that encode genetic information. OK, where is all this going?
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- Well, it just could be that life evolved in space and spread throughout the Universe just as it spread to planet Earth. Most of science has assumed that space is too cold and too low density to ever form complex molecules. However, ideas change with new data.
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- Beginning in 1969 ammonia molecules have been detected near the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Soon after that at 4.8 gigahertz, the spectrum of formaldehyde was discovered. Then, at 88.6 gigahertz hydrogen cyanide was discovered.. Isocyanic acid at 87.9 gigahertz. Formic acid was found in space. This is the same acid that is in ant bites. Methanol was found. This is simple alcohol.
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- When infrared astronomy was introduced the spectrums of methanol, ammonia, and water ice were all discovered in interstellar space, the open space between the stars.
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- In 1990 science began reproducing complex molecules in vacuum chambers here on Earth meant to represent outer space. Fundamental elements bathed in ultraviolet light began to form carbon atoms, nitrogen , fatty acid molecules, and nucleic acids molecules. This is the chemistry of RNA and DNA and the elements for the beginnings of life. It is still chemistry and not biology but these same molecules have been found in the dust clouds throughout the galaxy. When meteorites struck the Earth in early times they delivered these same organic molecules to its surface.
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- In 1962 a 200 pound meteorite landed in Murchison, Australia. Analysis found millions of organic compounds, including amino acids.
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- In 1950 meteorites landed in Kentucky. In 1969, in Mexico. Analysis of these meteorites found the same thing.
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- More than 150 different molecules have been identified to date in interstellar space. These include sugar, ethyl formates ( which is the sweet smell of rum). fulminic acid (which is used in explosive detonators), NH2 CH2 CN, amino acetonitrite, which is similar to glycine. Acetone which is polish remover. Ethylene glycol which is antifreeze. Over 150 of these complex molecules have been found. However, we do not know how all this chemistry can transform into biology. Only God knows.
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- But, if it happened, the likelihood is that it is prevalent throughout the Universe. Earth is not that special. Let’s go to Saturn. The moon Escalades spews icy volcanoes of ammonia, formaldehyde, and other organic molecules from its surface. The moon Titan is thick with methane and has pools of hydrocarbons on its surface.
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- We know life got here on Earth. That event allows me to write this. We do not know how, or where, it came from. But, the possibilities expand beyond Earth. Maybe space dust itself, maybe meteorites, maybe asteroids. After all the size of the dust is all relative. From one perspective Earth itself is just a giant dust ball in space. We are not unique, but we are the product of a benevolent Universe that gives us life wherever it makes sense. It is the make-sense part that is so confusing.
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- Read review # 1246 - The dangers to life that space gives us? This review provides the opposite perspective. Why it is so hard to sustain life in space.
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-""2007. Much todo about nothing. There is more nothing in the Universe as there is something. Nothing somehow contains repulsive energy, a form of anti-gravity. Even the atom itself is mostly empty space. New math tells that empty space is full of energy.
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- 2001. Space time, fast speed and short time. The speed of all the planets. The speed of the Sun is 486,000. Lasers can create a pulse that is 650 attoseconds long.
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- 1986. Space is what separates things. What else is it? The whole can be reduced to the size of a sugar cube if all the space between the atoms were removed. But, it would weigh the same. Space may have more than 3 dimensions. Space is not nothing.
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- 1920. Space missions in 2017. What will be in the budget for space exploration.
- 1861. - How can space be curved by mass and gravity? It is impossible to leave space. In 1916 the General Theory of Relativity showed the math for curved space. But, on average across the Universe the curvature of space is flat.
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- 1831 - From blackholes to empty space. Could there be a blackhole so big the whole universe is inside it? The only difference between the Big Bang and a blackhole is the dimension of time. The Uncertainty Principle is responsible for creating stars and planets.
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- 1790 - Space bends and time slows. This review takes us through determinism, non-locality, infinity, spacetime and relativity.
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- 1791. - the consequences of the theory of relativity.
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- 1773. - the size of space depends on how fast you are moving.
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- 1670. - space dust.
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- Plus several more reviews about space and spacetime
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------- Wednesday, February 28, 2018 -----
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