- Available on blog or request a copy:
- 2830 - CHANDRA - X-ray telescope. From the launch of the Aerobee rocket in 1962, astronomers had known that the X-ray sky wasn’t dark, instead it is teeming with high-energy photons. Chandra telescope sharpened the view, resolving almost all of the background into its individual sources. Data from Chandra and XMM-Newton suggest that most of the sources that remain undetected are shrouded in gas and dust.
- 2831 - SUN - the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. - A new spacecraft is journeying to the Sun to snap the first pictures of the Sun's north and south poles. “Solar Orbiter“, a collaboration between the European Space Agency, or ESA, and NASA.
- 2832 - CLIMATE CHANGES - we can barely see? With each new year that comes upon us changes occur throughout the entire observable Universe. Despite all appearances that things don't change very much, particularly on cosmic scales, our planet, the Solar System, the galaxy, and even the entire Universe all undergo significant changes that are not only detectable, but that cumulatively add up as time goes on. Here are some changes you may not have noticed:
- 2833 - SUNSPOTS - and the California forest fires. Observers study the Sun closely, so we can better understand the life and activity of our star. Humans have observed sunspots, dark blotches that arise from strong magnetic activity, for more than 1,000 years, and tracked them in detail since the invention of the telescope, for the past 400.
- 2834 - COSMIC RAYS - The Risks of Space Travel. The scariest menace for space travelers are Cosmic Rays. They are not “rays” at all. They are charged particles that are everywhere in space hurtling at near light speed. Most are positive ions of hydrogen nuclei ( a proton, H+1 ) but some are the nuclei of the heavier elements, even iron ( Fe +26 ).
- 2835 - NEUTRINOS - a thermal history. If you could see neutrinos you could see back in time to 1 second after the Big Bang. To see with visible light, we see with photons. And, because the Universe is expanding seeing with visible light, near the red end of the spectrum, we can see back to when the Universe was 2.3 billion years old, 17 % its current size.
- 2836 - GENEALOGY - from Jim to blue algae. Kathy’s genealogy is in Review 520 and it goes back to Adam and Eve, 12 pages but a fascinating read. The Detrick’s genealogy is Review 521. It doesn’t go back so far, just back to circus performers and horse thieves. Jim’s genealogy in this review goes back the farthest, to blue algae.
- 2837 - BACTERIA - could they be builders? Buildings are not unlike a human body. They have bones and skin; they breathe. Electrified, they consume energy, regulate temperature and generate waste. Buildings are organisms, albeit inanimate ones. But what if buildings, walls, roofs, floors, windows, were actually alive, grown, maintained and healed by living materials?
- 2838 - RELATIVITY - as scientists explain it? The Universe is hard to explain. Here are our best minds trying with their favorite theories. God provides a simpler explanation. It is just the way he made things. Yet, we keep trying to understand how he did it. Here are the scientists that have they best ideas to date, 2020. We keep trying to understand how we got here? It ain’t easy?
- 2839 - ELEMENTS - how were they created? Our Universe started with only 4 elements. We look around Earth and we can find 116 elements. How did all that star dust get here? How did life come up out of these elements? You are really made of stardust!
- 2840 - CMB - cosmic microwave background echo? We only understand a bit about 5% of the Universe that is ordinary matter and we are clueless about 95% of the Universe that is Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Astronomers are getting better instruments into space that can measure the granularity of the CMB with higher resolution and they can begin measuring the polarization of the photons.
- 2841 - CMB - Cosmic Background Radiation - First discovered in 1965 by Penzias and Wilson who were doing experiments with radio antennas for Bell Telephone labs. The theory of its existence was first proposed by astronomer George Gamow in 1948, but they did not have any radio receivers that could listen for those frequencies back then.
-- 2842 - STARS - at the extremes of astronomy? The stars in the night sky can become boring. Also the same except for the fact that the Earth is going around in circles to our star. But the same pattern seems to repeat itself every year. Along comes astronomy and we see these stars in a whole new perspective.
- 2843 - BIG BANG - a theory in crisis? A series of powerful observations has made it clear that our universe has expanded for billions of years, emerging from the hot, dense state we call the Big Bang. When we compare the results from different kinds of measurements, the expansion rate of the universe, the temperature patterns in the light released when the first atoms formed, the abundances of various chemical elements, and the distribution of galaxies and other large-scale structures, we find stunning agreement of how the physics all happened. Why it happened is still a mystery.
- 2844 - CHANDRA - X-rays to sound and Infrared? Galaxy clusters have proven key to testing dark matter and understanding dark energy. X-ray observations first revealed the wildly hot gas within clusters, gas that would have drifted away if it weren’t for the cluster’s dark matter, which gravitationally holds it in place.
- 2845 - ELECTRON - defining the wave function? In water waves, the quantity that varies periodically is the height of the water surface. In sound waves, it is the pressure that varies. In light waves, electric and magnetic fields vary. What is it that varies in the case of “matter waves“?
- 2846 - ELON MUSK - defines his battery? During Tesla's long-awaited "Battery Day" on Tuesday September 22, 2020, Elon Musk announced several innovations that could transform the battery industry. Musk focused on an in-house redesign of the lithium ion battery, which he says will use nickel cathodes, rather than cobalt.
- 2847 - EXOPLANETS - CHEOPS - exploring other planets. September, 2020, eight months after the space telescope CHEOPS started its journey into space. CHEOPS is the first European Space Agency mission dedicated to characterizing known exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets outside the Solar System. They were first discovered in 1995.
- 2849 - COSMIC INFLATION- explaining the Big Bang? Cosmic inflation is revealing answers has only raised more questions. The puzzles that have arisen this time, however, may truly never be solved. If that information is no longer present in our Universe, it will take a revolution to solve the greatest puzzle of all: “where did all this come from“?
- 2850 - FUSION REACTOR - the dream of limitless electricity? A new “compact” fusion reactor that could feasibly be built and go online much faster than existing fusion reactor concepts. Construction of a reactor, called “Sparcs“, is being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a spin off company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, is expected to begin next spring, 2021, and take three or four years to provide us limitless energy.
- 2851 - FUSION - how does it work in the stars? - The fusion in the core of stars can be analyzed as simple hydrogen nuclei, which are protons, fusing together to create heavier elements. Each fusion process up to the element Iron releases some amount of energy. Knowing how much energy our Sun puts out we can estimate the lifetime of our star, how long it will take to “burn up” all of this proton fuel.
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------------------------- Saturday, October 3, 2020 --------------------------------
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