------------------------------ 2900 - Index of Astronomers Reviews
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These reviews are available in print or email. Business, economics, marketing in 3 binders. Astronomy reviews in 20 binders with lots of pictures. You can borrow binders. You can send me review number and I can email. Or, go on http://jdetrick.blogspot.com. The purpose is to learn pearls of wisdom efficiently, it takes 8 hours to read a book, write a review of pearls discovered, email is miraculous way to pass it along, a 10 minute read at 98% efficiency. Delete button is perfect solution any time you want. Reading reviews is as close to perpetual motion efficiency as you can get and still obey the laws of physics. Pass along to any young mind that is interested. Jim
1. Management Training #1
2. MBO Planning
3. More on MBO
4. E.F. Hutton, Group Dynamics, Irving Janis
5. Business Strategy - Dan Thomas, 1979
6. Managing - Harold Geneen
7. The Adaptive Corporation - Alvin Toffler
8. Developing Business Strategies - David Aaker
9. Challenge Facing the Electronics Industries - Bill Taylor
10. Love Thy Customer - Service Design
11. 12. 13. Passion For Excellence - Tom Peters, 1985
14. Manager of the Future - John Mee, 1973
15. Winning Streak - Goldsmith and Clutterbuck, 1985
16. The New Competition - Kother, 1985
17. Re-inventing the Corporation - Naisbit and Aburdene, 1982
18. How to Make People Decisions - Peter Drucker, 1985
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- See “000AstronomyIndex” for index of all reviews up to 2900:
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- This Index is astronomy reviews starting at 2900:
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- 2899 - COMETS - from outside our solar system? 2I/Borisov was an interstellar comet that visited our solar system last year, 2019. Astronomers have revealed the unusual chemical composition inside this comet. This strange ingredient has provided new clues about where this traveling space rock originated.
- 2900 - Template for these book reviews
- 2901 - PROBABILITY WAVE FUNCTION - The Wave Function in quantum physic is a math description if a quantum system, like an atom. It is a complex, valued probability, amplitude that lists possible results of a measurement at the atomic level and that deals with uncertainties in time and space.
- 2902 - RELATIVITY - measurements made in 2020? At the heart of every white dwarf star, which is the dense stellar object that remains after a star has burned away its fuel reserve of gases as it nears the end of its life cycle, lies a “quantum conundrum‘.
- 2903 - PREHISTORIC EARTH - how did life get started? Four billion years ago, Earth was covered in a watery sludge swarming with primordial molecules, gases, and minerals, nothing that biologists would recognize as alive. Out of that prebiotic stew emerged the first critical building blocks, proteins, sugars, amino acids, cell walls, that would combine over the next billion years to form the first specks of life on the planet.
- 2904 - PARTICLE MASS - how can math describe this? The atomic particles: electrons, photons, quarks and other “fundamental” particles supposedly lack substructure or physical extent. We basically think of a particle as a point-like object Yet particles have distinct traits, such as charge and mass. How can a dimensionless point have weight?
- 2905 - PHYSICS - in a nutshell? This review is mostly about “particle physics” in a nutshell. It starts out with the periodic table of about 100 elements. That is not many elements when you think it represents everything that is around us and also everything in all the other stars and planets. The 100 elements along with the electromagnetic force and gravity force is most of what we experience in our macro world.
- 2906 - SCIENCE - famous and not so famous scientists? 1. ALBERT EINSTEIN 2. ISAAC NEWTON 3. GALILIO GALILEI 4. PYTHAGORUS 5. CHARLES DARWIN 6. NIKOLA TESLA 7. MARIE CURIE……….. 20 GRAHAM BELL.
- 2907 - FAST RADIO BURSTS - what is the source? FRBs are powerful, millisecond-duration radio waves coming from deep space outside the Milky Way Galaxy. They have been among the most mysterious astronomical phenomena ever observed. These waves are only milliseconds in duration.
- 2908 - MILKY WAY GALAXY - learning so much more. Our galaxy is old, nearly as old as the universe itself. But it didn’t start as a spiral of stars around a peanut-shape middle. It grew over time, both accumulating stars from collisions with other galaxies and forming stars itself from inflowing gas.
- 2909 - STARS - extreme stars, examples? Stars in the night sky look pretty stable. Not much going on out there. But, it is worthy of a closer look to really learn what is beyond our nightly vision. Here are some examples of extreme stars. Be thankful our Sun is not one of them
- 2910 - ASTEROID - mining gold from asteroids? “16 Psyche” is an asteroid full of metal in the asteroid belt that could be worth $700 quintillion.. NASA plans to visit 16 Psyche by 2026. Could we be commercial mining faraway asteroids or should we start with the moon?
- 2911 - PHYSICS - unsolved mysteries? 1900, the British physicist Lord Kelvin is said to have pronounced: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” There are many mysteries we need to learn before we get hit by the next asteroid. Our Universe is full of surprises:
- 2912 -MAGNETIC FIELDS - they get big in astronomy? Magnets get really powerful in astronomy. Astronomers have measured a 1,000,000,000 Tesla Magnetic Field on the Surface of a Neutron Star. It is the strongest magnetic field ever recorded in the Universe. The record-breaking field was discovered at the surface of a neutron star called GRO J1008-57 with a magnetic field strength of approximately 1 BILLION Tesla.
- 2913 - ATOM - can we see an atom? Well, that really depends on what we mean by “see.” We see something when light emitted or reflected from an object reaches our eyes and the signal is conducted to our brain.
- 2914 - EXOPLANETS - what it is like on frontline of discovery? We’re getting better and better at detecting exoplanets. Using the “transit method” of detection, the Kepler Space Telescope examined over 530,000 stars and discovered over 2,600 exoplanets in nine years. “TESS“, the telescope that is successor to Kepler, is still active, and has so far identified over 1800 candidate exoplanets, with 46 confirmed by 2020.
- 2915 - APOLLO - space mission and inventions? In 1971 the Apollo astronauts had Thanksgiving dinner in quarantine. Here we are 50 years later and back in quarantine again. This Covid 19 mission will cost much more than the Apollo moon mission both in dollars and in lives. We can’t seem to get out of quarantine on alternate years. It must be caused by election plagues.
- 2916 - ASTEROID - near miss? Many nearby stars will pass close to the Oort Cloud at the outskirts of our Solar System, but only one will move through it. In about 1.35 million years, Gliese 710 likely will gravitationally perturb millions of comets, sending a sizable number on a potential collision course with Earth.
- 2917 - ASTRONOMY - measurements in astronomy? When we try to comprehend the Universe, there’s a whole lot that doesn’t add up. All the matter we observe and try to measure, from planets, stars, dust, gas, plasma, and exotic states and objects, can’t account for the gravitational effects we see in the orbits of stars in galaxies and galaxies in clusters.
- 2918 - MOON - mini-moon circling Earth? For only the second time in history, astronomers have discovered a new, natural-origin, minimoon orbiting the Earth. This minimoon, known as “2020CD3” (CD3 for short), was first discovered using data from the “Catalina Sky Survey“.
- 2919 - MOONS - in our solar system? The discovery of moons around another planet left centuries’ worth of astronomers desperate to learn more about what other natural satellites the solar system holds. Increasingly powerful telescopes and interplanetary spacecraft have revealed that there are many of the moons in the solar system and they are far stranger than anyone could have imagined.
- 2920 - APOLLO - Detrick‘s memories? In 1971 the Apollo astronauts had Thanksgiving dinner in quarantine. Here we are 50 years later and back in quarantine again. This Covid 19 mission will cost much more than the Apollo moon mission both in dollars and in lives. We can’t seem to get out of quarantine on alternate years. It must be caused by “election plagues“.
- 2921 - COMETS - and asteroids near miss? Asteroids are comets that have been orbiting closer to the Sun. Their orbits are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids are mostly solid rock because all of their lighter elements have been evaporated off.
- 2922 - WHITE DWARFS - the core of supernovae? An exploding white dwarf star blasted itself out of its orbit with another star in a ‘partial supernova’ and is now hurtling across our galaxy. This opens up the possibility of many more survivors of supernovae traveling undiscovered through the Milky Way, as well as other types of supernovae occurring in other galaxies that astronomers have never seen before.
- 2923 - BRAIN - human brain versus the Universe? This review follows the investigation of the similarities between two of the most challenging and complex systems in nature: the cosmic network of galaxies and the network of neuronal cells in the human brain.
- 2924 - COSMIC INFLATION - understanding the Universe? Shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was a relatively small, nearly infinitely dense place. 13.8 billion years ago the expanding universe means the entirety of what we know is now incredibly large and is getting more immense every day. The Universe is expanding at an ever accelerating rate.
- 2925 - SPACE - living there and the weather? The Space Station has been an orbiting lab with 20 years of continuous human presence. On Nov. 2, 2000, the first crew, Expedition 1, arrived at the ISS. NASA astronaut William Shepherd was the space station's first commander, paving the way for 20 years of humans living and working in low Earth orbit. Space weather is one of today’s explorations.
- 2926 - GALAXY ROTATION - can Dark Matter explain it? - ‘Dark’ matter was first proposed to explain the anomaly observed in the rotational velocities of galaxies. The observed rotational velocities of the gas and dust at the outer edges of a galaxy is rotating just as fast as the gas and dust near its center. Not what astronomers expected!
- 2927 - EARTH - Revolutions and orbits are how we tell time. We not only know that Earth’s orbit slightly changes over time, but we can quantify and confidently state exactly what those changes will be. What does this mean for the speed of Earth around
- 2928 - MILKY WAY GALAXY - precision mapping? The most precise 3-D map of our Milky Way galaxy in the year 2020 has been produced by astronomers. This 3-D Milky Way map was created using data from the European Space Agency’s “Gaia space probe” that’s been scanning the stars since 2013.
- 2929 - BLACKHOLES - history of discovery. - Blackholes were first discovered before I was born. In 1937, an astronomically inclined electrical engineer named Grote Reber built a homemade radio dish out of lumber and sheet metal in his backyard in Wheaton, Illinois. The following year, he confirmed Karl Jansky’s 1931 discovery of radio waves emanating from the center of the Milky Way.
- 2930 - GALAXIES - how many galaxies is the Universe? The universe is an immensely large place. Even distances between the nearest objects are staggering, and the distances across the Milky Way Galaxy and certainly between galaxies in the universe are astonishingly huge to living beings stuck on a planet
- 2931 - DARK MATTER - explorations? - Researchers remain unsure about what exactly dark matter is. Originally, some scientists conjectured that the missing mass in the universe was made up of small faint stars and black holes, though detailed observations have not turned up nearly enough such objects to account for the significant amount of dark matter's influence.
- 2932 - GAIA - space telescope measure star’s motion. - The Gaia space telescope has measured the acceleration of the Solar System when it orbits the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Gaia massive endeavor is to result in three-dimensional mapping of our galaxy, to be completed in 2024.
- 2933 - ASTRONOMY - most important discoveries. Below is a list of ten most important discoveries in astronomy:
- 2934 - - FRAGMENTS OF ENERGY - new theory for spacetime? For decades I have been learning about the disagreement between the two theories of science Einstein’s spacetime Theory of Relativity versus Quantum Mechanics descriptions of how an atom works. One works with big dimensions the other works only with the smallest dimensions. We need a theory of everything:
- 2935 - GRAVITY WAVES - whole new astronomy. Whatever the future may hold for gravitational-wave science, one thing is for certain: Yet another confirmation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the detection of gravitational waves, has finally provided an entirely new way for astronomers to explore the universe.
- 2936 - MOON - facts from moon-watching? - If you view the crescent moon seen from Mill Valley set behind Mount Tamalpais, Marin County, California, you see the brightness of the portion of the Moon not directly lit by the Sun, but instead illuminated by “Earthshine“. It will change over time, dependent on how reflective the Earth is, which is dependent on a number of factors, including cloud cover, ice cover, the time of day and the Earth's rotation, and even the seasons.
- 2937 - COSMIC RAYS - where do they come from? Cosmic rays are mostly protons, the nucleus of atoms that have a positive electrical charge. They are traveling at near light speed and are entering Earth’s atmosphere and your very own body every second.
- 2938 - NEUTRINO - and cosmic ray discoveries? - We all know that all material is made of atoms. Atoms combine into elements and molecules to create our material world. But what makes up atoms? You may have already learned that they are made up of electrons and protons. Now we enter the world of Particle Physics, what makes up protons?
- 2939 - ASTEROID - sample return? - Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe zoomed past Earth on December 5th and dropped off a capsule containing bits of an asteroid, finishing a six-year round trip to an asteroid
- 2940 - ENCELADUS - visit Saturn’s moon? One of the biggest findings was that the icy Moon Enceladus has a subsurface ocean that vents water into space. Fissures slashed across the south pole have temperatures warm enough to suggest the ocean is being heated by the moon’s core. On Earth, similar spots called hydrothermal vents are hotspots for life.
- 2941 - MILKY WAY - it ain’t what it used to be? . Even after 14 billion years, mergers continue to sculpt the overall shape of our galaxy. This realization is just the latest change in how we understand the great stream of milk across the sky. Everything we thought we knew about the future and the history of the Milky Way, we need a new model to describe this.
- 2942 - STAR OF BETHLEHEM - December 21,2020. This Review covers the depths of science to the depths of religion. We need both faith and knowledge. Gravitational waves are our newest technology to explore the universe with science. The Star of Bethlehem is the story of the birth of Christ and the stars are again in alignment this year, 2020.
- 2943 - GAIA - measuring the distance to the stars? The Gaia space telescope gauges the distances to stars by measuring their parallax, or apparent shift as they are viewed over the course of a year. Closer stars have a larger parallax as we see them from opposite sides of our orbit around the Sun. Astronomers use this parallax, or shift, to measure the precise distances to the stars. It is simple geometry triangulation.
- 2944 - ATOMIC CLOCKS - how accurate can they get? Our standard for timekeeping won’t change soon, but it is clear we can do better. At some point in the future, we will adopt a more accurate method. When we do, a clock based upon “quantum entanglement” could be the solution. If that’s the case, our official clocks will use “quantum weirdness to overcome quantum fuzziness“.
- 2945 - BLACKHOLES - that can not be explained? In October, 2020, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration published its latest batch of data, bringing the running total to 47 blackhole mergers, including two more that seem to feature at least one blackhole in the mass gap. And, a new gravitational-wave observatory in Japan, KAGRA, ran for two months earlier this year.
- 2946 - TEMPERATURE - a race to the bottom? - Scientists are probing the extreme ends of the spectrum of what’s called “absolute temperature“. At the upper limit, absolute hot is a theoretical furnace where the laws of physics melt away. On the flip side, absolute zero is cold, so cold there’s nowhere to go but up. This absolute zero is almost within scientists’ grasp.
- 2947 - CALIFORNIA - how the land was made? Before California was formed, the continent was called “Laurentia” on its journey back and forth across the equator, as it joined and was separated from the supercontinents. Over billions of years, Laurentia or North America, the continent took its form through many spectacular collisions and massive rifts.
- 2948 - ASTEROID - touch down on Bennu asteroid? OSIRIS-REx launched into space in 2016 and reached the asteroid Bennu two years later. In the time since, the spacecraft has set records for orbiting the smallest object yet for a spacecraft, and in the tightest orbit to boot.
- 2949 - SCIENCE - the Universe is science? For thousands of years, humans have pondered the meaning of our existence. From philosophers like the one above who debated whether their minds could be trusted to provide accurate interpretations of our reality to physicists who’ve attempted to interpret the weirder aspects of “quantum physics” and “relativity“.
- 2950 - NEUTRON STARS - it dosn’t get any stranger? Astronomy has many, many strange things to try to figure out. Let’s start with “neutron stars“. The crushing gravity, intense magnetic fields, and lightning-fast rotations place “neutron stars” among the most exotic beasts in the universe. Next come the most powerful magnetic fields in the universe wrack the searing surfaces of neutron stars called “magnetars“. These magnetic monsters form one of the most eccentric branches on the neutron star-pulsar family tree.
- 2951 - QUASARS - and other strange stars. Hubble Space Telescope was recently focused on “NGC 6302“, known as the "Butterfly Nebula" to observe it across a more complete spectrum of light, from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared, helping researchers better understand the mechanics at work in its technicolor "wings" of gas.
- 2952 - ATOM - what happens on the inside? No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they've figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct. Here's what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around "orbitals" in an atom's outer shell. Then there's a whole lot of empty space. Right in the center of that space, there's a tiny nucleus, a dense knot of protons and neutrons that give the atom most of its mass.
- 2953 - ETA CATENAE - an exploding star? Astronomers using NASA's “Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer” satellite made the first direct detection of a companion star of Eta Carinae. Eta Carinae is one of the most massive and unusual stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The detection was made possible by the high temperature of the companion star and the unique sensitivity of the satellite at the shortest ultraviolet wavelengths.
- 2954 - SPACETIME - how did it come from math? - All measurements of space and time are only meaningful relative to the observer in question, and depend on the relative motion of the observer to the observed. The spacetime interval remains invariant. No matter who is doing the observing or how quickly they’re moving, the combined motion of any object through spacetime is something all observers can agree on.
- 2955 - UNIVERSE - how do we know it is expanding? - The Universe hasn't existed forever but only for a finite time since the Big Bang, and that it's been expanding ever since that event took place. The matter and energy in the Universe began in a hot and dense state all at once, and then expanded and cooled as all the various components sped away from one another.
- 2956 - GAMMA RAY BURSTS - - Long ago and far across the universe, an enormous burst of gamma rays unleashed more energy in a half-second than the sun will produce over its entire 10-billion-year lifetime. ½ second versus 10,000,000,000 years! The light got here on May 22, 2020,
- 2957 - BIOLOGY - the physics of living matter? This is hard review to get through. Life is complicated. Biology is complicated. Physics and math have rules I can learn. Life has rules that are still secrets. If you make it through this review you will need a coffee break to recover. There has always been a contradiction between physics and biology. One is alive and the other is not. Where does the line cross between the two sciences?
- 2958 - DARK Energy Dark Matter. Dark Matter and Dark Energy only exist because we don’t understand it. It’s dark. No matter how much we might try and hide it, there’s an enormous problem staring us all in the face when it comes to the Universe. If we only understood three things:
- 2959 - PHYSICS - stories from year 2020.
- 2960 - NEUTRON STARS - to measure expansion of the universe. How fast is the Universe expanding? Ever since the expanding Universe was first discovered nearly 100 years ago, it’s been one of the biggest questions plaguing cosmology. If you can measure how fast the Universe is expanding right now, as well as how the expansion rate is changing over time, you can figure out everything you’d want to know about the Universe as a whole.
- 2961 PHYSICS - spooky physics in 2020.
- 2962 - SPITZER - telescope discoveries over 15 years.
- 2963 - MARS - 20 years of exploration. Over the past two decades, missions flown by NASA’s Mars Exploration Program have shown us that Mars was once very different from the cold, dry planet it is today. Evidence discovered by landed and orbital missions point to wet conditions billions of years ago.
- 2964 - UNIVERSE - How to Explain Our Universe? The purpose of this review is to explain the Universe. It is a big task, I agree. It spans over 13,700,000,000 years of time and lightyears of distance. It is the beginning of space and time and those need to be explained as well. This is difficult. The Universe is big and complicated and we do not know what we do not know. This is one shot at it, contrary opinions are welcome.
- 2965 - UNIVERSE - How the Universe was Formed? The Universe started with a concentrated spot of only energy. There was no space for the spot and time had not started yet. But, out of this “ spot” of energy came a creation and an expansion of space and time.
- 2966 - MATH - Invented to Solve Problems? This review discusses the languages of math and how they were invented to solve problems. Mathematics is a language. It can be used to explain observations, to solve problems, to find results and to predict results in the future.
- 2967 - METEORS - impacts early Earth and today? Our Solar System has an asteroid belt with thousands of asteroids orbiting between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. When did these asteroids get here? How did they get here? Is this belt the only source of the meteors and meteorites we frequently encounter colliding with Earth?
- 2968 - MARS - exploring robot dogs? Will Mars exploration be done by robot dogs? Scientists are equipping four-legged, animal-mimicking robots with artificial intelligence (AI) and an array of sensing equipment to help the robots autonomously navigate treacherous terrain and subsurface caves on the Red Planet.
- 2969 - MATH - for a Rocket Launch? - You give your students a photo of a rocket launch at Kennedy Space Center. The night time exposure was 2.5 minutes. How far from launch did the rocket reach its orbit at 300 miles altitude? Well let’s do the math:
- 2970 - EARTH - unusual places? Our Earth is a dynamic planet, and there is much about its history and ongoing processes on land, in the oceans and deep under the surface that scientists are still discovering. Here are several examples that should interest you:
- 2971 - NASA - space projects in 2021? NASA has four small-scale astrophysics missions. Through small satellites and scientific balloons, these missions enable new platforms for exploring cosmic phenomena such as galaxy evolution, exoplanets, high-energy neutrinos, and neutron star mergers.
- 2972 - DARK ENERGY - with Nancy Grace? A new NASA space observatory could push planet-hunting forward at warp speed by gathering data up to 500 times faster than the venerable Hubble Space Telescope does. The “Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope” (formerly known as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope or WFIRST) passed a key ground-system design review this month, according to NASA.
- 2973 - NEUTRINOS - the littlest particles! Many more discoveries are needed to explain neutrinos. A detector in the ice at the South Pole may make these new neutrino discoveries. Another experiment is sending neutrinos from Illinois to South Dakota. Neutrinos are a billion times more abundant than electrons.
- 2974 - MARS - Perseverance mission in 2021? - Space exploration just took the next giant leap in the search for signs of life beyond Earth. On July 30, 2020 NASA launched its most sophisticated and ambitious spacecraft to Mars, the “Perseverance rover“.
- 2975 - COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT - theory of the universe? One of the most mysterious components in the entire Universe is “dark energy“. It wasn’t supposed to exist. We had assumed that the Universe was a balancing act, with the expansion of the Universe and the gravitational effects of everything within it fighting against one another. The Universe was supposed to be in balance?
- 2976 - UNIVERSE - why is it dark? There are so many stars out there. Something seems a little mysterious. When we just don’t understand what is going on we describe it with the adjective ‘dark’.
- 2977 - SUN - how far away is the Sun? When at sea how can we use the Sun to determine our position, longitude and latitude? How can the moons of Jupiter be used as a clock? How can that clock be used to determine the speed of light? Learn from Ole the Danish astronomer:
- 2978 - SPACE TRAVEL - is it practical? - For 9 billion years, multiple civilizations could have come and gone and while no one species could have colonized the entire galaxy, it’s hard to imagine that this activity would have gone unnoticed. Why haven’t we heard from any extraterrestrials?
- 2979 - UNIVERSE - expansion rate? As the Universe expands the rate, in the speed-per-unit-distance, changes over time, dependent on the amount of energy present within a given volume of the Universe. As the Universe expands, the amount of dark energy in a given volume stays the same, but the matter and energy densities go down, and therefore so does the expansion rate.
- 2980 - MAGNETARS - quasars and neutron stars? Quasars are among the brightest objects in the universe, quasars are luminous, “active galactic nuclei” powered by supermassive black holes that are actively feeding on nearby material. Magnetars are a unique type of neutron stars, which are the collapsed cores of supergiant stars that died in supernova events
- 2981 - SUN - sunsets are beautiful, why? With the larger distance of atmosphere to cover, the blue light mostly bounces back out into space. But the red, orange and yellow light have longer wavelengths. This means they can scatter for longer and travel through more of the atmosphere to reach us.
- 2982 - SATELLITE - steam powered? Engineers have developed the specifications for “CubeSat” technology that will use steam as a propellant. Many CubeSats experiments have been held back until now because of a lack of good propulsion technology that small satellites can use
- 2983 - SPACE - news stories in the year 2020?
- 2984 - QUANTUM MECHANICS - make the best clocks? Precise optical clocks are but one application of the optical comb. Optical combs are transforming precision measurement in many areas, from finding planets around distant stars (precision doppler measurements), to potentially measuring the expansion of space itself (time dependence of redshift).
- 2985 - ASTRONOMY - how fast is universe expanding? In order to understand where our Universe came from and where it’s going, you need to measure how much it’s expanding. If everything is moving away from everything else, we can extrapolate in either direction to figure out both our past and our future.
- 2986 - GAMMA RAYS - magnetars and neutron stars. If the neutron star is spinning very fast it can create a rotating magnetic field that is a ‘pulsar’ or a ‘magnetar” depending on how strong the magnetic field is. Our newest telescopes and instruments are beginning to measure the characteristics of these extreme stars.
- 2987 - AVOGADRO’S - kilogram has how many moles? To measure the mass in kilograms we need to have a kilogram standard. Science would like to have a standard defined in some way tied to nature’s fundamental constants. Like the length of the meter is defined in terms of the constant speed of light.
- 2988 - REALITY - what is it really? What is Reality and How Do Astronomers Deal with It? Is the Universe 3 dimensional? How did space begin? Why is there matter filling space? How were galaxies born? What is Dark Matter? Is all the matter found in galaxies? What is Dark Energy? Will the Universe expand forever?
- 2989 - STRING THEORY - is this the new math? String Theory is the math astronomers use to delve into all these ideas. There has been some success working with multiple dimensions. But, nothing has been grounded in a physical reality that we can test and verify. It is still all theory after 30 years of trying. But, astronomers are not giving up. There is still a lot of explaining to do.
- 2990 - SPACETIME - at the micro-level? Space and time change at the macro-level to keep the velocity of communications a constant. Take some time to think about that statement. At the micro-level space and time become lumpy with uncertainties and seem to avoid this limitation all together. We live in the middle of these extremes and only recognize them at the frontiers of physics and astronomy.
- 2991 - GRAVITY WAVES - lensing and detection? - With the help of an automated supernova-hunting and a galaxy sitting 2 billion light years away from Earth that’s acting as a “magnifying glass,’’ astronomers have captured multiple images of a Type 1a supernova appearing in four different locations on the sky. So far this is the only Type 1a discovered that has exhibited this effect.
- 2992 - VELOCITIES - the Universe in motion? Everything in the Universe is in motion. It gets more complicated than you can imagine. Let’s start with our Milky Way and work our way around the Universe.
- 2993 - PULSARS - are used to find Dark Matter? - Pulsars can be used to measure tiny changes of acceleration within the Milky Way, scanning internally for Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
- 2994 - NEUTRON STAR - amazing math and physics? -Neutron Stars are amazing objects for astronomers to study. The Crab Nebula is powered by a neutron star. Ordinary Matter should be called Ordinary Space. The matter part is almost negligible. 99.999,999,999,999,9 % of solid matter is empty space. It is not solid at all. What makes it feel solid is the electromagnetic force.
- 2995 - - CRAB NEBULA - Neutron Star math? There are over 1000 “Pulsars” that astronomers have identified. Probably the most studied of these is the “Crab Nebula” which was a supernova that exploded in the year 1054 and today is a rotating pulsar.
- 2996 - NEBULAE - Jewel Bug, math - Hubble's Wide Field Camera observed the nebulae in 2019 and 2020 using its full, panchromatic capabilities. Astronomers have been using emission line images from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared light to learn more about their properties.
- 2997 - SUPERNOVA - gold forged in exploding stars? - Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star. By using our Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time of the exploding star.
- 2998 - GALAXIES - when galaxies collide? What happens to the central black holes growing at the cores of each? A new study using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and several other telescopes reveals new information about how many black holes remain after these galactic smash ups.
- 2999 - NEUTRON STARS - and magnetars? - Astronomers may have captured the first good look at giant flares from the strongest magnets in the universe. The likely cause of these giant flares that are Starquakes trillions of trillions of times stronger than any earthquakes.
- 3001 - GALAXIES - collide. The Milky Way is not a static object. Things are changing rapidly everywhere. To peer back to the galaxy’s earliest days, astronomers seek stars that were around back then. These stars were fashioned only from hydrogen and helium, the universe’s rawest materials. Fortunately, the smaller stars from this early stock are also slow to burn, so many are still shining after 13 billion years.
- 3002 - AXIONS - could they exist in stars? More than 400 light-years from Earth, there is a cluster of young neutron stars that are hot for their age. These stars, known as the "Magnificent Seven," emit a stream of ultra-high-energy X-rays that scientists haven't been able to explain. Could “axions” explain things?
- 3003 - VOYAGER - 43 year journey in space? - Both Voyager spacecraft are still going strong after 43 years in space, with each regularly sending back science to Earth from their remaining operating instruments. Voyager 2 flew incommunicado for several months in 2020 due to planned repairs and upgrades to its radio communications facility here on Earth but made contact again in November.
- 3004 - MAGNETARS - spinning neutron stars? When stars grow too big they collapse their atoms and blow up as a supernova. The collapsed center core left behind are the electrons crushed into the protons leaving only neutrons to form the neutron star. It is only 12 miles in diameter. Neutron stars can have some bizarre behaviors renaming them magnetars and pulsars.
- 3005 - SATURN - our Cassini visit? - NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, has been sending pictures for13 years. Cassini spacecraft was launched from Earth on October 15, 1997. Instead of taking the direct route, it made multiple flybys of Venus, a flyby of Earth and a flyby of Jupiter. Each one of these close encounters boosted Cassini’s velocity, allowing it to make the journey with less escape velocity from Earth.
- 3006 - NEUTRINOS - what have we learned? Neutrinos are the smallest atomic particles. If we could see neutrinos they would be exceptional probes into our environment. Neutrinos are produced in fusions reactions in the Sun and stars, and in radioactive decay in the earth's crust. The “ICECUBE neutrino detector” at the South Pole has over 5,000 light sensors to detect neutrinos interacting with atoms in the ice.
- 3007 - TELESCOPE - Roman Space Telescope. Will trump those images with images equivalent to 100 Hubble Ultra-Deep Fields at once. The Telescope is scheduled to launch in 2025 on a five-year mission. It’ll perform cutting-edge research into some of the compelling questions surrounding cosmology and exoplanets.
- 3008 - MATH - shuttle to the Moon? - Does the Space Shuttle have the payload capacity to carry enough extra fuel for this one-way trip? No, the Shuttle does not have enough capacity to lift all of the required fuel to Earth orbit. Here is why that is true:
- 3009 - COSMIC RAYS - and Dark Matter? When the forces of gravity and electromagnetism compete inside a giant star, eventually gravity always wins and the star collapses. So the fact that dark matter is 80% of the mass in the universe, and not 99.99999%, and regular matter is 20% as opposed to zero, strikes physicists as odd.
- 3010 - - MARS - Perseverance Mars mission? Perseverance mission in 2021? Space exploration just took the next giant leap in the search for signs of life beyond Earth. On July 30, 2020 NASA launched its most sophisticated and ambitious spacecraft to Mars, the “Perseverance rover“.
- 3011 - Launches and landing at sea has been a part of Musk long-term vision for SpaceX . Elon Musk is not just defining space launches he is redefining the auto industry. He is redefining the battery?
- 3012 - TELESCOPE - Roman searches further? - Hubble, Chandra, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, telescopes have shed light on our place in our universe beyond the wildest imaginations. There is so much more to learn. Dark matter is thought to make up some 85 percent of the universe' total mass, dark matter has eluded our astronomers.
- 3013 - SUPERNOVA - one explosion nearby? At that same time, there was also an extinction event on Earth, called the “Pliocene marine mega fauna” extinction. Up to a third of the large marine species on Earth were wiped out at the time, most of them living in shallow coastal waters.
- 3014 - ATOM - Nuclear Forces and Electron Volts? The Cosmic Ray is a proton traveling at nearly the speed of light. It was flung out of a galaxy that was 12 million lightyears away. It was so near light speed that after 12 million lightyears it was only behind a photon, released at the same time, by 46 nanometers. Because Relativity slows time at light speed the Cosmic Ray has only experienced 20 minutes of flight.
- 3015 - CONSTANTS - light to fine structure? The strangest thing about the Universal Constants is that if any were even slightly different we would not be here. If the Fine Structure Constant were to change even 4% carbon would not be produced in stellar fusion. If it were 1% instead of 0.7% all fusion would not take place in stars. Universal Constants are strange numbers but you can thank your lucky stars they are what they are.
- 3016 - PARTICLE PHYSICS - Phonons, Plasmons, and Magnons? Phonons, Plasmons, and Magnons, you probably have not heard of these. They are particles that appear in material when sizes are very small. When we get into the very, very small all particles are also waves. This is called a wave-particle duality in physics.
- 3017 - UNIVERSE - like Swiss Cheese? The mission is to study the nature of Dark Matter for a better understanding of matter, space and time. We are studying the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation with higher resolution and higher sensitivity. Telescopes integrated together with computers, are among projects designed to find the answers. (See Review 3019 - Telescopes - connect tem all together?)
- 3018 - GALAXIES - the most distant galaxies? Most of the galaxies in the Universe are “ over the horizon” and beyond what we can see. Astronomers estimate that 98.4% of the galaxies in the Universe lie in the zone that we can never observe. (Unless we find something we can detect traveling faster that the speed of light.)
- 3019 - TELESCOPES - connect them all together? There is no one single sensor that can collect data in all of those different wavelengths at the same time. Therefore, scientists have developed a many different instruments that are extremely good at collecting data in one specific spectrum, such as radio (ALMA), or mid-range infrared (James Webb).
- 3020 - ENERGY an abundance of alternatives? The U.S. uses 4,000,000,000 kilowatts per year. The world 17,000,000,000 kilowatts. We need to pursue many different energy alternatives and let each one meet the market conditions for readily available, lowest cost energy.
- 3022 - COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT - Einstein’s blunder? Without the cosmological constant in the equation there is no term to counteract gravity and the Universe would collapse on itself. With the term small enough the Universe would expand but gravity simply continuously slows the expansion into infinity.
- 3023 - MARS - returning rock samples to Earth? - Fundamental questions about Mars remain related to its potential for life; the geological history of the planet; the history of its climate and the driving forces behind these changes; the evolution of geologic processes and the interior composition and structure; and more recent atmospheric, polar, surface, and interior processes.
- 3024 - UNIVERSE - a short story? About 200,000 years ago, along came upright creatures capable of marveling at our mysterious universe and discovering how the whole thing came to be. Here is their story.
- 3025 - LASERS - a path to fusion power of stars? The hope is that such research could lead to fusion power plants, which could provide energy without emitting greenhouse gases or hazardous nuclear waste. These laser installations dedicate many of their experiments to pursuing fusion power. Mimicking the stars.
- 3026 - CASIMIR - force and vacuum energy? - How Vacuum Energy is affecting nanotechnology and expanding the Universe?
- 3027 - ATOMS - how fine structure constant works? - This is a 100 year story of how physicists were able to figure out the mathematics that defines the behavior of an atom. They are still figuring, but, we have come a long way. One of the biggest issues was infinity, which is a very long way.
- 3028 - INTEREST - The Growth and Decay of Money? Learn the math for the growth and decay of money. Let’s study the growth of money. The math is very interesting and it applies to many situations in nature that experience growth or decay. It involves compound interest in the case of money. In nature it is any continuous rate of change, usually with time.
- 3029 - EQUATIONS - that affect the world? How equations resulted from observations and inventing math. Equations are observations that are put in mathematical terms. Equations are discoveries. Math is an invention, a powerful invention. Equations allow you to predict accurately future results.
- 3030 - BRAIN - what creates consciousness? - How does the brain become a mind and create consciousness? Human brains have figured out how the Sun shines, how life evolved from a single cell, why apples fall. Our brains have built telescopes that see the galaxies as far back as the beginning of time.
- 3031 - KINETIC ENERGY - the energy of motion? The Universe is in constant motion. how fast is every thing moving in miles per hour. The energy of motion is called Kinetic Energy. The Universe is in constant motion in all directions and everywhere. The Universe must be FULL of energy. Constant motion is a natural state.
- 3032 - KINETIC ENERGY - defined. It all starts with the law of the Conservation of Energy. It is an amazing concept that Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy can only be changed from one form into another. And, the Energy created in the Big Bang is the same Energy we have today. It just got spread out quite a bit in the expansion of the Universe.
- 3033 - ROCKET REACTIONS - what are the physics, the math? - Rockets are very interesting if you want to learn physics. Rocket designs get right down to the fundamentals.
- 3034 - NEUTRINO DISCOVERIES - Neutrinos have a newly discovered method of interacting with matter, opening up ways to find them. The neutrino is a confounding little particle that is believed to have played a major role in the evolution of our Universe.
- 3035 - STARS - How many stars are in the sky? How many stars can you count on a clear night. I sure you would estimate several thousand. Astronomers have been fascinated with counting the stars for centuries. Over recent decades they have even developed a mathematical formula for calculating the number of stars you can see.
- 3036 - MAGNETAR - The Brightest Flash in Our History. December 27, 2005 the brightest flash of light in our history passed by Earth. It originated over 50,000 years ago when, here on Earth, only 50 northern Europeans survived the ice age on Earth from which all Europeans are descendents.
- 3037 - UNIVERSE - your home is big place? Amazing to know that shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was a relatively small, nearly infinitely dense place. It boggles the mind. But that was 13,800,000,000 years ago. The expanding universe means the entirety of what we know is now incredibly large and is getting more immense every day.
- 3038 - REDSHIFTS - tells us how old it is? The time that light has been traveling towards is 13 billion years. Space has been expanding during that time. Expanding space stretches out the wavelength of the light. Longer wavelength are towards the red end of the light spectrum, thus the “ redshift” of light.
- 3039 - ANTIMATTER - the opposite of normal matter? "Antimatter." is just like normal matter, with all the same properties and all the same abilities to make up atoms and molecules, except for one crucial difference: It has an opposite charge
- 3040 - EARTH - evolution of the Solar System? - To carry our lineage back further this review is about the geological history of our Solar System. We do not have many rocks to work with, a few meteorites, so the history lesson takes more imagination. By studying the rocks, gas , and stars within 6,500 lightyears of Earth with detailed observations.
- 3041 - QUANTUM MECHANICS - controlling our reality? This review discuss the strange world of Quantum Mechanics and suggests that it is really controlling our reality below the surface. Quantum behavior may be what allows birds to fly thousands of miles with precise navigation. It may be what allows plants to synthesize sunlight. It may be what links your brain to eyesight.
- 3042 - ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES - into light? When studying electricity and magnetism science measured the forces and the relationships between charges and distances of separation. These forces behaved very similar to gravity but much stronger. When electric permittivity and magnetic permeability were defined it was discovered that the ratio of their product was the speed of light. That is how science discovered that light was an electromagnetic wave.
- 3043 - PLANETS - how many are out there? We are content in thinking we have discovered the planets in our solar system. We have eight planets circling he Sun. Nine if you count Pluto. Then more planetoids are being discovered orbiting farther from the Sun than Pluto.
- 3044 - EXOPLANET - Pegasi and Doppler shift astronomy? The planet “51 Pegasi b” was discovered in 1995. It was the first planet discovered orbiting a normal star, like our Sun. When watching the star astronomers were able to detect a rhythmic wobble using the “Doppler Shift Technique.”
- 3045 - EXOPLANETS - and the search or life? Astronomers have been working hard adding the number of planets found to exist in other solar systems in our Milky Way Galaxy. By 2020, astronomers have discovered over 4,000 planets in other solar systems. 1995 was when the first planet outside our own solar system was found.
- 3046 - ANTIMATTER - and the Higgs Boson discoveries? Why is the universe is dominated by matter over antimatter, but there could be entire stars, and maybe even galaxies, in the universe made of antimatter. If the Universe did start out of ‘nothing” then there is equal amounts of matter and antimatter that would come back together and annihilate each other back to “nothing” again.
- 3047 - EINSTEIN - are his theories real life? One of the most mysterious components in the entire Universe is “dark energy“, which wasn’t supposed to exist. We had assumed that the Universe was a balancing act, with the expansion of the Universe and the gravitational effects of everything within it fighting against one another.
- 3048 - SHOOTING STARS - Out of the Galaxy? If a star is traveling over 1,000,000 miles per hour it is referred to as a “hypervelocity star“. Some 16 or these hypervelocity stars have been discovered. The first one discovered in 2005 was traveling over 2,000,000 miles per hour. In 2006 and 2007 seven more hypervelocity stars were discovered.
- 3049 - DARK MATTER - is real but what is it? Dark matter is still an unconfirmed model, yet , the detractors have yet to convince the larger field of their ideas. And the latest evidence? It also suggests that dark matter is real. But what is it?
- 3050 - EINSTEIN’S - Pythagorean Theory of Relativity? Deriving E = mc^2 Using a Teeter-totter. - Every kid knows how a teeter-totter works. You lay a flat board on a fulcrum. If a boy and a girl weigh the same, put the fulcrum in the middle and the teeter-totter is perfectly balanced.- This is the same simple concept we will use to derive E = m * c^2. Energy = mass * speed of light squared.
- 3051 - PHYSICS - mysteries to be solved? - We are all students if we are still learning, Right? Well mysteries in science today are solutions for students in the future. The science I refer to in this review is the broad look at astronomy and physics.
- 3052 - UNIVERSE - The Evolution of the Universe, The laws of physics say gravity is generated by matter and energy. The laws of physics in Quantum Mechanics say that vacuum energy could be the repulsive force of Dark Energy. However, the Quantum Mechanics math we know today calculates a force that is off by 55 orders of magnitude.
- 3053 - ATOMS - spooky action for clocks? Physicists imagine a day when they will be able to design a clock that's so precise, it will be used to detect subtle disturbances in space-time or to find the elusive dark matter that tugs on everything yet emits no light. The ticking of this clock will be almost perfect.
- 3054 - PERSEVERANCE - Mars mission with math. The most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars Thursday, February 18, 2021, after a 203-day journey of 293 million miles.
- 3055 - EARTH - magnetic pole shift. The temporary breakdown of Earth's magnetic field 42,000 years ago sparked major climate shifts that led to global environmental change and mass extinctions. The Earth suffered electrical storms, widespread auroras, and cosmic radiation, all triggered by the reversal of Earth's magnetic poles.
- 3056 - PERSEVERANCE - the rover has safely landed. It is the most technologically advanced rover that humans have set on the Mars surface. . The Mars 2020 Mission will use five new technologies to help future missions on Mars, both crewed and uncrewed. Two of these are technology demonstrations.
- 3057 - NASA’s - space inventions? - NASA was founding in 1958. Here are some of our greatest space achievements over these past 63 years:
- 3058 - PERSEVERANCE - Mars gives us more to learn? As we begin to understand the most ancient history of Mars, researchers are ready to directly search of any signatures that life might have once existed on ancient Mars.
- 3059 - NEURAL NETWORKS - doing the thinking for you? One common example of a neural network is your smartphone camera’s ability to recognize faces. Another example is driverless cars which are equipped with multiple cameras to recognize other vehicles, traffic signs and pedestrians using neural networks to turn or adjust their speed accordingly.
- 3060 - COMETS - hit the Earth? - The Chicxulub impactor , a comet, crashed into Earth about 66 million years ago. It left behind a crater off the coast of Mexico that spans 93 miles and runs 12 miles deep.
- 3061 - MARS - how to find life? NASA’s Perseverance rover is there on Mars, February 21, 2021. One part of the Perseverance rover mission is to search for fossilized microscopic life on Mars. How will scientists know whether they've found it?
- 3062 - DARK MATER - is it real? We have known about Dark Matter for a long time Back in the 1930’s, a Swiss astronomer named Fritz Zwicky noticed that galaxies in a distant cluster were orbiting one another much faster than they should have been given the amount of visible mass they had. He proposed than an unseen substance, which he called “dark matter“, might be tugging gravitationally on these galaxies.
- 3063 - MARS - radiation doses for astronauts? Mars has virtually no atmosphere, and this means that, unlike Earth, its surface is not protected from solar and cosmic radiation. On Earth, the annual dosage on the ground is about 0.35 Rem/year, but can vary from 0.10 to 0.80 Rem/year depending on your geographic location, altitude, and lifestyle.
- 3064 - INTERFEROMETERS - light and atoms? In astronomy we can put light and atom interferometers in space to be used to detect gravity waves. Gravity waves radiate from binary Blackholes and binary Neutron Stars. These gravity wave “telescopes” could see back to the beginning of the Universe.
- 3065 - TEMPERATURE - absolute zero degrees. Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, chill an aluminum membrane to 0.00036 Kelvin, lower than theory predicted possible for the material. The experiment suggests a way to see quantum effects, like a single object coexisting in two places at once.
- 3066 - BLACKHOLES - mysteries left to be solved? Regardless of where or how they’re found, primordial blackholes could tell astronomers a lot about the universe we live in. Depending on their mass, they could serve as probes into galaxy evolution, high-energy physics, and even the earliest fractions of a second after the universe was birthed.
- 3067 - SPACE - mysteries in astrophysics? Some of the major unsolved problems in astrophysics. What is Astrophysics? Some of the basic tools used in astrophysics include: the EM Spectrum, distances in astronomy, the concept of magnitude, the classification of stars, types of redshifts, basics of telescopes, the Hertzsprung Russell Diagram.
- 3068 - EARTH - magnetic field flips N. to S.? - The end of the world as we know it could come in any number of ways. Some believe global cataclysm will occur when Earth's magnetic poles reverse. When north goes south, the continents will lurch in one direction or the other, triggering massive earthquakes, rapid climate change and species extinctions. We are a species too.
- 3069 - PARTICLE PHYSICS - fundamental particles? Physicists working at CERN have observed a rare decay of the Higgs boson, expanding our understanding of the quantum universe. Scientists have found evidence of this massive particle decaying into two leptons and a photon. What are these fundamental particles?
- 3070 - MARS - size of the crater, math? - There is a satellite circling the planet Mars. It takes a photo of a crater on the surface. How big is the crater?
- 3071 - STARS - neutron stars, magnetars and pulsars? Big stars have short lives and dramatic deaths. This review highlights the bigger supernovae explosions that create Gamma Ray Bursts, Magnetars, and Pulsars. It refers to a small satellite student project that hopes to contribute to our understanding of these cosmic wonders.
- 3072 - BLACKHOLES - supermassive but hard to detect? Astronomers have found the biggest blackhole ever measured. It is 40 billion times the Sun’s mass, or two-thirds the mass of all stars in the Milky Way. This blackhole is in a galaxy that’s supermassive itself and probably formed from the collisions of at least eight smaller galaxies.
- 3073 - LIGHT - Light Spectrum discovered? Light is radiation that is emitted and absorbed by matter. Light is electromagnetic radiation because it is a combination of electric waves and magnetic waves that travel at high speeds oriented perpendicular to each other.
- 3074 - FSC - the Fine Structure Constant? As far as physics can tell us there are only 4 forces that control the entire Universe. (There may be a 5th if Dark Energy turns out to be a force). These forces are the same everywhere and always throughout time. Two of the forces control the nucleus of every atom, the Strong Nuclear Force and the Weak Nuclear Force.
- 3075 - DARK MATTER - Investigating Dark Matter? Whatever Dark Matter is it has mass, it is influenced by gravity, it is not homogeneous throughout space, it has some structure with galaxies and clusters of galaxies yet to be understood.
- 3076 - PARALLAX - measures distance to the stars? - In 200 B.C. Hipparchus Nicea , an astronomer using only his naked eyes measured the position and brightness of 1,080 stars. Today the science he started is called “ astrometry” In August 8, 1989 the High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite was launched, “Hipparcos”, to carry on the science of astrometry.
- 3077 - MAGNETARS - and Gamma Ray Burster stars? Magnetars could be the natural end product of [main-sequence] and probably also pre-[main-sequence] mergers. Astronomers may finally understand the origin of magnetars and their strong magnetic fields.
- 3078 - - BIRD POOP - can it break a car windshield? A woman with a cracked windshield claimed a bird had done it. The car was parked. The bird poop over the cracked windshield was 4 inches in diameter. To break a car windshield you need in excess of 50 million Pascal of pressure. Is the bird guilty?
- 3079 - DARK ENERGY - Could the Astronomer’s Math be Wrong? - Therefore, the Universe is not expanding at a constant rate, it is accelerating in its expansion. Astronomers do not know what could cause this so they call it “Dark Energy” and their calculations are that Dark Energy composes 73% of all the mass-energy in the Universe.
- 3080 - ATOMS - Stability with Uncertainty? The stability of all atoms, in all the elements, in all of matter, depends on the “Principle of Uncertainty” and the “wave-particle duality” of all matter. How can stability depend on uncertainty?
- 3081 - BRAIN - Understanding Yourself - If the brain were simple enough to understand we would all be too simple to figure it out. The brain gets it complexity from having many parts, each having a specialized function. It gets its complexity from the communications network that coordinates all of the parts through biochemical means. It gets its complexity through evolving throughout a lifetime and over many lifetimes.
- 3082 - UNIVERSE - how to create one? The beginning is the easy part. First you start with nothing. Who would have thought of that? This all happened around 13,700,000,000 years ago. That was when the universe sprang out of nothing. We still don't know the conditions under which the universe first formed, and whether there was a time before time. But, here is our best scientific guess.
- 3083 - EXOPLANETS - recent planet discoveries? Astronomers have confirmed the discovery of a “planetoid” that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system.
- 3084 - NEUTRON STARS - how can they carry charges? Can we have a super-strong magnetic field coming from the inside of a blackhole? We see blackhole magnetic fields, but are they generated inside the event horizon or outside, such as in the accretion disk? And if they do come from the inside, what’s the physics behind that?
- 3085 - UNIVERSE - explaining it s rate of expansion? Determining how rapidly the universe is expanding is key to understanding the fate of the Universe. But with more precise data this fate has become a mystery. Estimates based on measurements within our local universe don't agree with extrapolations from the era shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
- 3086 - DARK ENERGY - What is the Universe Made of? Dark Energy was not known until 1998 so we have only 30 years to think about it. The most likely answer is vacuum energy. A vacuum is not really a vacuum but a see of virtual particles and anti-particles going into and out of existence in such a short time they do not defy the laws of physics and cannot be detected using the laws of physics.
- 3087 - COSMIC INFLATION - needed to explain the universe? What is Cosmic Inflation? Cosmic Inflation is a theory to help astronomers explain the observations they have of the Universe. The theory is that the Universe expanded faster than the speed of light very early in its evolution.
- 3088 - GRAVITY - will we ever understand it? Experimental results are extending the parameter space of gravity measurements to small, single source masses and low gravitational field strengths. Further improvements to this methodology will enable the isolation of gravity as a coupling force for objects below the Planck mass.
- 3089 - SUPER SYMMETRY - Our best model of particle physics can not contain all the weirdness in the universe. The reigning physics model is the Standard Model. Its replacement has been predicted for decades.
- 3091 - ASTEROID - near miss and a perfect hit? One of the larger stones that hit was about 5 centimeters long. Its crust is the remainder of the surface that got heated as the meteorite came through the atmosphere. “Winchcombe meteorite” may look a bit like a broken barbecue briquette, but to scientists, it is absolutely beautiful.
- 3092 - ANTIMATTER - Teaching the Science. If you do not know the answer it must be science. Science is a process to learn answers to questions.. When you are curious about something, you observe its characteristics, you form a hypothesis, and then confirm it right or wrong with objective means.
- 3093 - NEUTRINOS - discoveries in Antarctica IceCube? Earth’s South Pole was struck by a ghostly particle from some unknown corner of the universe. This “antineutrino, the neutrino’s antimatter twin that has the opposite spin, collided with an electron at nearly the speed of light, and the ensuing particle shower lit up a network of detectors buried beneath the ice at an observatory in Antarctica appropriately named “IceCube“.
- 3094 - BLACKHOLES - the path to discovery? The closest confirmed blackhole is “A0620–00“, about 2,800 light-years away, but it’s likely there are many others much closer that we haven’t yet found. Astronomers estimate that our Milky Way may hold as many as 100 million stellar-mass blackholes.
- 3095 - DARK ENERGY - into WIMPs and MACHOs? The more we learn the more we know the less we know. That is certaintly true with astronomy. We have come to the most recent conclusion that 95% of the Universe is “dark”. We call it Dark Energy and Dark Matter. Of course Matter is Energy too, according to energy = mass*c^2 .
- 3096 - ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION - We are Immersed in Electromagnetic Radiation? Electromagnetic Radiation is going through your body all the time. The spectrum of electromagnetic radiation ranges from Radio Waves, Microwaves, Infrared, Light, Ultraviolet , X- Ray, and Gamma Rays.
- 3097 - ASTEROIDS - start life on Earth? - When the Earth was first formed in he solar System with the other planets it was pummeled by asteroids. Thousands of these space rocks slammed into the young Earth, sometimes with a force powerful enough to vaporize the seas.
- 3098 - ASTRONOMY - unsolved mysteries? - These were some of the major unsolved problems in astrophysics.
- 3099 - UNIVERSE - why is it expanding? Determining how rapidly the universe is expanding is key to understanding our cosmic fate, but with more precise data has come a mystery. Estimates based on measurements within our local universe don’t agree with extrapolations from the era shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Which is the correct picture?
- 3100 - GALAXIES - Don’t Follow the Laws of Gravity? Astronomers do not have a good idea of what Dark Matter really is. It is something that has mass and is an attractive force for gravity. But, it does not interact with the electromagnetic forces. It does not absorb or emit light or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
- 3101 - UNIVERSE - Is it spinning, or, is it just me? An initial spinning Universe could cause parity-violating asymmetry where gravity is allowing matter to dominate over anti-matter. Bold theories still need a preponderance of evidence. A spinning Universe is a new idea. What does it all mean?
- 3102 - TEMPERATURE - dimensional analysis to Big Bang? The math used is called “dimensional analysis.” It is a simple concept. To learn it we will try it out on a pendulum before we try it out on the Universe. Measurements in physics and astronomy can involve 3 dimensions: length (space), time, and mass (energy). We refer to these as dimensions and they are measured in units: meters, seconds, kilograms.
- 3103 - LASER - Laser Light is cool. Science is trying to use light pressure to cool objects by slowing down the vibration of atoms. The goal is to reach Absolute Zero temperatures and the ‘Ground State” of atom vibrations. The new science is called “optomechanics“.
- 3104 - LIGHT - The Power of Light? We can not learn all about the Universe using “ light”. There is just too little of it. Even if we expand the meaning of ‘light” beyond visible light to the entire electromagnetic spectrum our vision is limited. 95% of the Universe does not respond to electromagnetic radiation or forces.
- 3105 -- EARTH - finely tuned for life? How did it get that way? Are we here as a result of random collusions and mutations? We only know life that is us. That is a sample size of one. Regardless, Earth's history demonstrates that life can take root and evolve. Here is what we have learned.
- 3106 - UNIVERSE - The Universe you live in? Space is completely silent. Sound needs an atmosphere to travel through, and since space has no atmosphere, it has no sound. The biggest, most awe-inspiring exploding star wouldn’t even make a peep. Astronauts are able to communicate up there thanks to radio waves, which can travel through space.
- 3107 - Thinking what time is? Everything you see is younger when you see it. It takes time for the light to reach you and it is the speed of light that is constant. Time is variable it depends on where you are and how fast you are moving. It even gets more complicated.
- 3108 - EVOLUTION - Common sense is not is simple thing. It is an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas of life learned lessons, rules, and exceptions, dispositions and tendencies, checks and balances. We express common sense and knowledge through language that I am typing and you are reading.
- 3109 - CMB - measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background. We have a Universe with 5% normal matter, 27% dark matter, and 68% dark energy. At last, we can state, with extraordinary confidence, what the Universe is made of. The curvature of the Universe is no greater than 1-part-in-1000, indicating that the Universe is indistinguishable from perfectly flat. Where have I heard that before? Christopher Columbus did not believe it either.
- 3110 - BLACKHOLE - first picture. The first image of a blackhole's magnetic fields is of Galaxy M87's supermassive blackhole in polarized light. The lines mark the orientation of polarization, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the blackhole.
- 3111 - EINSTEIN - Why does energy equal mass? If you extrapolate all the way back, the universe gets smaller and smaller, it gets denser and denser, and warmer and warmer. Finally you get to a point where it's really small, really hot and dense. That's actually the Big Bang theory: that the universe started in such a condition. That's where you really have to stop.
- 3112 - TIME - think about it? Using both optical fibers and invisible laser transmission of data, the researchers have measured the meaning of a second more accurately than ever before. They did it by looking at minute, the measure of size, not time, differences between time kept by the atoms.
- 3113 - NEUTRON STARS - We have much more to learn about Neutron Stars. Each property shows itself a little differently depending on our observations and the instruments we use to make the discoveries. It is possible that Neutron Stars become Quark Stars before they become Black Holes.
- 3114 - BROWN DWARF - stars that do not shine so bright. Their brightness depends on their size. The bigger stars are the brighter they are and the shorter their lives. We are fortunate that our Sun is in the middle of the pack and should live for 10,000,000,000 years.
- 3115 - ANTIMATTER - created for research. - When the Universe first formed some 14 billion years ago an equal amount of matter and antimatter were formed. Somehow the two sets of particles got separated and we got lucky and ended up on the matter side of the equation. However, if the two particles ever come back together they annihilate each other back to pure energy again. Not good for us.
- 3116 - DARK ENERGY - a mystery for science? Dark energy is one of the greatest mysteries in science today. We know very little about it, other than it is invisible, yet it fills the whole universe, and it pushes galaxies away from each other. The result of this force is that it is making our cosmos expand at an accelerated rate.
- 3117 - DARK - energy and matter? Astronomers believe there are mysterious particles forming spherical halos around every galaxy. They sure would like to know what it is. There are several experiments being conducted around the world today.
- 3118 - LIGHT - bending around the Sun? This review is about Gamma, the factor by which light speed increases mass, contracts length in space, and slows down time. Nothing could be stranger:
- 3119 - ENERGY - Mass and Radiation. Mass-energy can neither be created or destroyed. What we have today has existed exactly the same since the Big Bang 13,700,000,000 years ago The universe started with nothing and ends up with nothing.
- 3120 - LIFE - How did I get here? If we could trace out the cosmic chain of life, Earth is just one link: not the first, and not the last, but an incubator of a story that began billions of years before. Until we have the decisive evidence in hand, we have no option but to keep all the viable possibilities in mind while we continue the search for the answers.
- 3121 - MONSTERS - did exist years ago? These monsters did exist at one time. Long enough to be passed on in the minds and thoughts of kids everywhere in the world, firing the childhood imaginations. What can be wrong with that?
- 3122 - LIGHTNING - brought life to Earth? Lightning is not such a one-off event. If atmospheric conditions are favorable for the generation of lightning, elements essential to the formation of life can be delivered to the surface of a planet. The oceans are enormous and humans are just a drop in the bucket.
- 3123 - FRACTAL MATH - Fibonacci’s fractals? Could fractals be the link to the very small world of quantum mechanics and the very large world of galaxies and galaxy clusters? Maybe the whole Universe was formed just like breeding rabbits.
- 3124 - LIGHT - standing on a light beam? The electromagnetic force carried by photons is basically light. It is these light photons that travel between the electrons and the protons in the nucleus of atoms. So, you could say that light beams are holding you at the surface of the Earth. It is the light between the atomic particles that is holding you up.
- 3125 - MATH - the Golden Ratio. If you divide a straight line segment into “a” and “b” , two segments and make the length of the segments such that a + b/a = a/b then their ratio is always = 1.618... In other words if you make the ratio of the entire line divided by the larger segment = the larger segment divided by the smaller segment the ratio is always the Golden Ratio which is 1.618...
- 3126 - TIME - GPS, and Entropy. The rate that time flows is not a constant like the rate of speed of light, the electromagnetic energy, or the force of gravity, or the mass of every electron. Light, gravity, and electron mass are constant, time is variable. The fact that time flows at different rates is not something that we encounter in our everyday lives.
- 3127 - HUBBLE CONSTANT - how fast universe is expanding? One of the most exciting questions in cosmology today is whether there is new physics that is missing from our current understanding of how the universe is evolving. A current discrepancy in the measurement of the Hubble constant could be signaling a new physical property of the universe unrecognized measurement uncertainties
- 3128 - LIFE - on other planets? 99.9% of all the species evolved on Earth have gone extinct. Only 0.1% still exist of the 50,000,000,000 species that have lived on Earth. Of these only 1 species has become a communicating civilization of 6,500,000,000 people. Only 100,000,000,000 people have ever lived on the planet. 6.5% of them are alive today.
- 3129 - - MILKY WAY GALAXY - When astronomers add up all the ordinary matter detectable around us, such as in galaxies, stars and planets, they find only half the amount expected to exist, based on predictions. This normal matter is "baryonic," which means it's made up of baryon particles such as protons and neutrons.
- 3130 - MILKY WAY - mysteries? The Dark Matter halo far outside and surrounding the Galaxy is the greatest mystery. We know the Dark Matter is there because we see the effect of its gravity. We see a constant orbital velocity of all the stars with ever increasing radius. Rotational velocity should fall off with the square root of velocity, if the mass is inside the radius.
- 3131 - PHYSICS - only six fundamental particles? Really! Only six fundamental particles make up our whole world? In our everyday world, when you get down to the fundamentals, everything we see or touch is made of only 6 fundamental particles. That is amazing.
- 3132 - LIGHT - speed and power? It is crazy math and a rash of scientific units but it illustrates that light comes from electricity and magnetism. Maxwell made this discovery simply looking at his equations trying to understand how electricity and magnetism works. You can understand it simply by reading this Review:
- 3133 - QUANTUM MECHANICS - too weird to ponder? Quantum Mechanics is the most powerful theory in physics. But, after 100 years of thinking and studying we are as confused as ever. Quantum Mechanics has weird theories that get confirmed with experiments results and to phenomenal accuracies, out to a dozen decimal places.
- 3134 - TIME -, it is about “time” that challenges our thinking. General Relativity changed our thinking about time. Math made it even worse. Something we take for granted sure gets complicated
- 3135 - UNIVERSE - what is it expanding in to? - If the Universe is infinite, how can infinity be expanding? Astronomers believe the Universe is finite and that eventually it comes back on itself. To explain this we have to decide the shape of the Universe. The shape is flat?
- 3136 - QUASAR - most massive blackhole discovered. Astronomers have discovered the second-most distant quasar ever found using three Maunakea Observatories in Hawai. It is the first quasar to receive an indigenous Hawaiian name, Pōniuā`ena, which means "unseen spinning source of creation, surrounded with brilliance" in the Hawaiian language.
- 3137 - PLANCK CONSTANT - the smallest constant in physics. The Planck constant is related to the quantization of light and matter. It can be seen as a subatomic-scale constant. In a unit system adapted to subatomic scales, the electronvolt is the appropriate unit of energy and the petahertz the appropriate unit of frequency. Atomic unit systems are based on the Planck constant.
- 3138 - HOLOCAUST - is in our future? Before the atoms existed there was not any structure that could tell time. Time could not exist among random fundamental particles. There was no structure for time or space before atoms. Size is a function of the Compton Wavelengths which are inversely proportional to mass. Time is a quantity that if it cannot be measured it can not exist.
- 3139 - ELECTRON - there are 3 generations? Why are there three generations of electrons? This review discusses the various properties of the electron and how adding energy creates the second and third generation of electrons called Muons and Taus.
- 3140 - QUANTUM MECHANICS - applied to astronomy? Blackholes created at the beginning may be ending their lifetimes about now. Astronomers expect a giant explosion of Gamma Rays with this happens. They are on the look out hoping to see the death of a mini- Blackhole.
- 3141 - ANTIMATTER - how to study it? New research from a CERN-based ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) has demonstrated for the first time how lasers can be used to slow down antihydrogen atoms, cooling them to near absolute zero (nearly -460 Fahrenheit) and making it possible to finally make precise measurements of these volatile particles.
- 3142 - UNIVERSE - is it also rotating? This Review tackles the question. Einstein’s theory of general relativity is our only validated theory of the universe as a whole. Without it we would have difficulty explaining where the universe came from and where it is going.
- 3143 - UNIVERSE - rate of expansion? The disagreement over the Hubble constant of expansion is one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology today. In addition to helping us unravel this puzzle, the spacetime ripples from these cataclysmic events open a new window on the universe. We can anticipate many exciting discoveries in the coming decade.
- 3144 - LIGHT - changes with energy? Light is all around us. If we add energy to light it changes. Add energy to red light and it changes to blue light. The energy levels that our human eye can detect range from 2 electron volts for red light to 3 electron volts for blue light.
- 3145 - SOLAR WIND - hitting the Earth? A Solar Wind traveling 1,118,468 mph due to hit Earth Sunday, May 2, 2021. This solar wind is sourced from the middle, darker parts of the Sun discovered by the GOES-16 weather satellite and is heading to Earth this weekend.
- 3146 - GALAXIES - millions more discovered ? In the universe, galaxies are distributed along extremely tenuous filaments of gas millions of light years long separated by voids, forming the cosmic web. Astronomers have captured an image of several filaments in the early universe, revealing the unexpected presence of billions of dwarf galaxies in the filaments.
- 3147 - EQUINOX - spring returns ? The March and September equinoxes occur when both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres equally face the sun and all parts of the world have the sun above the horizon for exactly 12 hours, and below the horizon for exactly 12 hours. Equal days and equal nights are the equinox.
- 3148 - PLANETS - in our Solar System? The order of the planets in the solar system, starting nearest the sun and working outward is the following: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and then the possible Planet Nine.
- 3149 - SUPERCONDUCTORS - and MRIs? Superconductor magnets are used in hospital MRIs today. MRIs are Magnetic Resonance Imaging. They actually work on the principle of NMRs, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. But, they call them MRIs in hospitals because the word “nuclear” would scare patients. They would not put their body in that giant cylinder if they thought it was radioactivity. MRIs are totally safe.
- 3150 - STARS - big and strange? The diversity of star stretches from star mass ½ the size of our Sun to those 1,000 times bigger. The bigger stars all go supernova, their explosions leaving a core of either a Blackhole or a Neutron Star. The smaller stars 140% the mass of the Sun and less, all end up as White Dwarfs or Brown Dwarfs. Diversity is all about the fight between mass and gravity.
- 3151 - UNIVERSE - size and beyond? The universe doesn't need that outside perspective in order to exist. The universe simply is. It is entirely mathematically self-consistent to define a three-dimensional universe without requiring an outside to that universe.
- 3152 - ANTIMATTER - is there another world? - Antimatter particles have the opposite charge of normal matter particles. When particles of matter and antimatter meet, they destroy each other. Otherwise, antimatter behaves similarly to ordinary matter.
- 3153 - MARS - robots write home? “Perserverence” rover and “Ingenuity” helicopter are two robots that not only share a mission, but they also use the same phone line back to Earth. Robots are exploring Mars for us.
- 3154 - PLANETS - which one to move to? Venus is too toxic, hot, and inhospitable. Mars is deadly too. Just as Venus is extremely hot, Mars is frigid cold. Venus has a thick, poisonous atmosphere, but Mars has a paper-thin one. Mars has all that radiation exposure to deal with. How do we choose?
- 3155 - ENERGY - Mass, Momentum, and Inertia? Inertia is the property of mass that resists any change in motion. If an object is in motion its inertia is often called momentum. Momentum is equal to mass times velocity. Still another way to look at mass is that it is the same as energy according to Einstein’s equation, where c = the speed of light Mass = Energy / c^2
- 3156 - CONSTANTS - in Nature’s particles? Understanding astronomy, the Universe, and the Big Bang all depend on the structure of atoms and the forces that interact with atoms. All things are as they are because Nature has constant relationships between atoms and forces. Constants that remain the same anywhere in the Universe over all space and time.
- 3157 - ENCELADUS - can we explore for life? NASA’s Cassini spacecraft left a legacy of discoveries behind when its 13-year-mission to Saturn ended in 2017. One of the biggest findings was the icy Moon Enceladus.
- 3158 - ISRAEL and GAZA - Iran continues to pursue production of a nuclear bomb and continues to promise to blow Israel off the map. Israel wants permission to attack Iran. U.S. won’t support them. Osama Bin Laden asks all Muslims to join the Fatah against Israel. Not much has changed over the past dozen years. Here is some history: What a mess!!!!
- 3159 - SUPERNOVA - why do stars explode? Astronomers have problems explaining how the supernova explosion actually occurs. A theory is that the explosion happens because of sound waves? That is what computer simulations are telling astronomers today. All the math remains to be worked out, but, computer simulations are getting closer to the observations they see in supernova explosions.
- 3160 - SUPERNOVAE - are what we are made of! Supernovae, stars that explode when they can no longer continue fusion radiation, are rare events. In the Observable Universe the event happens every second. We are living in and made of star dust and gas. When you look at the night sky and see those stars say “ that is where I came from”.
- 3161 - COSMIC RAYS AND GAMMA RAYS - Cosmic Rays are not rays at all, they are particles, sub-atomic particles, traveling through space at nearly the speed of light. Look at your thumbnail. Now imagine that 200 cosmic ray particles traveled through your thumb nail every second. Thousands of these ‘rays” zipping through your body and through the entire Earth.
- 3162 - LASERS - used in space communications. NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) will be launching this summer, 2021. This laser hopes to demonstrate the dynamic powers of laser communications technologies.
- 3163 - AVOGADRO’S - number of molecules in a Mole? This review answers the question, Are there as many oxygen atoms in a single breath as there are breaths in all the Earth’s atmosphere? What’s your guess, “i.e. calculation“
- 3164 - PYTHAGOREAN - theorem to derive Relativity? Einsteins’s equation can be recognized as the Pythagorean Theorem for Relativity. “E” is the hypotenuse, “(mc^2)” is the opposite side of a right triangle and (mv*c) is the adjacent side of the right triangle. The Theorem says that the hypotenuse squared is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of a right triangle. Here is the derivation:
- 3165 - WATER - on the moon, asteroids? The moon has been considered a waterless world. However, a discovery has shown that at least some parts of the moon, such as the large, permanently shadowed craters at its poles, contain significant deposits of water.
- 3166 - - TEACHING - how to learn? The goal of teaching must be to teach students how to learn. Students need to cultivate the ability to ask questions. This is the cornerstone of critical thinking. It is the exercise to learn to use creativity.
- 3167 - CALENDAR - biginning of time? - Calendar of the Universe, since the beginning of time. From 10^-43 seconds to 10^120 seconds , with higher resolution around 2.5 to 27 billion years, and 14 to 15, 14.9 to 14.999 billion years. All in 80 kilobytes.
- 3168 - TIME - how fast does it flow? The most accurate clock in the universe would probably be a rotating star like a pulsar, but on Earth atomic clocks provide our most accurate track of time. The GPS system uses atomic clocks to accurately track positions and relay data to the planet. To calculate the most accurate measure of time the clocks are measuring transitions within a cesium atom.
- 3169 - BLACKHOLES - how do we know they exist? -Black Holes are truly black and there are only two ways to describe them or find them. One description is their mass and the other is their rotation. That’s it. No other light or information comes out of a Blackhole. (Or, Steven Hawking’s radiation is contrary to this idea of no information escaping.)
- 3170 - HUBBLE - deep field discoveries? The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990. It weighed 22,500 pounds, 14 feet in diameter, 43 feet long, and orbits at 300 miles elevation. In 1993 a 94 inch mirror was repaired to solve some resolution problems. Cost of the program was $1,400,000,000 dollars.
- 3171 - PETER DRUCKER - My Hero in education? - As a teacher his Claremont College students were always welcome in his home and he genuinely had the desire to learn something form every student he met. That is why he became one of the most influential teachers most of us have every known.
- 3172 - SUN - how does it get so hot? The visible surface of the sun, or the photosphere, is around 6,000°C. But a few thousand kilometers above it the solar atmosphere, called the corona, is hundreds of times hotter, reaching a million degrees Celsius, 1,000,000 C.
- 3173 - PLANETS - travel time to each? So, we find a new planet, so what? We better be worrying about the planet we have. In 500,000 years our oceans will have evaporated due to the Sun turning into a Red Giant then a Planetary Nebulae. That is how much time we’ve got, if no other disaster hits us sooner. Whatever we figure out let’s hope they do the math.
- 3174 - UNIVERSE - age and rotation? We think our Universe was born about 13.7 billion years ago. This newborn universe didn’t look like it does today, with elegant, star-filled galaxies strewn in all directions. Instead of stars and galaxies, the early universe was filled with gas and dark matter.
- 3175 - RELATIVITY - can this theory be replaced? The discovery of gravitational waves in 2015 was a decisive victory, but, like its predecessors, it too might be about to fall. That's because it is fundamentally incompatible with Quantum Theory and that does not reconcile with the Theory of Relativity.
- 3176 - MOON - eclipse turns red? The only total lunar eclipse of the year will light up the sky this Wednesday, May 26, 2021, when the full moon, a supermoon due to the satellite's nearness to Earth, passes through Earth's shadow. During this lunar eclipse, the face of the moon will turn a brick-red hue.
- 3177 - PARTICLES - are waves with mass? Imagine a particle. Chances are you picture a tiny ball, bobbing in space. Now, try to imagine that tiny ball as a particle with no mass. That gets us into particles being waves. What is the difference between particles and waves? It gets complicated. Let’s start with the word “mass”.
- 3178 - PHYSICS - don’t undersrand the extremes? This makes quantum physics all about “probabilities“. We can only say which state an object is “most likely” to be in once we look. These odds are encapsulated into a mathematical entity called the “wave function“. Making an observation is said to ‘collapse’ the wave function, destroying the superposition and forcing the object into just one of its many possible states.
- 3179 - UFO’s and astronomy? If we are not alone, have technologically advanced aliens already arrived here on Earth? While there haven’t been any definitive extraterrestrials yet discovered here, the presence of UFOs (unidentified flying objects) has led some to believe that they may already be here
- 3180 - WATER - strange physics in common water? Water freezes into ice, water molecules suddenly stop moving and begin forming ice crystals with their neighbors. Ironically, they need a bit of heat to do so. You actually need some extra heat to freeze water into ice.
- 3181 - STARS - how many stars in the Universe? An estimate of the number of stars in the Universe was underestimated thinking all galaxies were similar to our Milky Way. This caused an undercounting due to the number of Red Dwarf stars. The new number is 3 times larger. Our Milky Way Galaxy is unique and not a good average.
- 3182 - ATOMS - at absolute zero temperature? The highest-resolution image of atoms so far has been captured, breaking a record set in 2018 at Cornell University. They captured this image using a praseodymium orthoscandate crystal.
- 3183 - QUANTUM - from atoms to a universe? The infant universe was smaller than an atom and was dominated by quantum fluctuations. Inflation caused the universe to grow rapidly before these fluctuations had a chance to fade away. This concentrated energy into some areas rather than others acted as seeds around which material could gather to form the clusters of galaxies we observe today.
- 3184 - GAMMA RAY BURSTS - caused by exploding stars? GRBs are short-lived bursts of gamma-ray light, the most energetic form of light. Lasting anywhere from a few milliseconds to several minutes, GRBs shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million trillion times as bright as the Sun.
- 3185 - MASS - increases with velocity? This review is about the factor by which light speed increases mass, contracts length in space, and slows down time. Nothing could be stranger:
- 3186 - SUPERNOVA - is what we are made of? Always, somewhere in the universe a star is reaching the end of its life. If it is a massive star it collapsing under its own gravity and becomes a supernovae. If it is much smaller it collapses into a dense cinder of a star, stealing matter from a companion star until it can’t handle its own mass and it goes supernovae.
- 3187 - NEUTRON STARS - from magnetars to pulsars? Stars larger than our Sun die with a different fate. They explode as Supernovae and their remnant cores become Pulsars of various types of Neutron Stars. Stars range in mass from 0.2 Solar Mass to 120 Solar Mass. Neutron Stars are in the 8 to 25 Solar Mass Range:
- 3188 - - JUPITER - Juno spacecraft visit? - The Juno spacecraft has been gathering data on the Jupiter, the gas giant, since July 2016. It will continue to be an explorer of the full Jovian system. This spacecraft is the most distant planetary orbiter. It will now continue its investigation of the solar system’s largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life.
- 3189 - METEORITES - history in meteorites? Meteorites are pieces of planets that never collected together big enough to become a planet. They just remain scattered around in orbit as asteroids circling the Sun.
- 3190 - - MICROBES - on Earth and the planets? Soil is mostly microorganisms, both alive and dead. It is typical to see several hundred different types of fungi and bacteria in a single pinch of soil off the ground, making it one of the most diverse ecosystems that exist.
- 3191 - WHITE DWARF STARS - what happens when they merge? Astronomers have found a white dwarf star that was once two white dwarfs. The pair of stars merged into one about 1.3 billion years ago. The resulting star is about 150 light years away.
- 3192 - MICROBES - control your life! - Microbes, protons, and the smallest stuff responsible for life and the causes of death.
- 3193 - NUCLEAR FUSION - an energy source? Fusion is happening in the core of the Sun . It is what keeps us warm and makes our plants grow. In every second, the Sun burns about 600 million tons of hydrogen into about 596 million tons of helium, yielding energy equivalent to trillions of atomic bombs.
- 3194 - PLANETS - how to discover life? The Deuterium / Hydrogen ratio is measured by exoplanet hunters to determine some of the atmospheric and hydrological history of new exoplanets. This will improve our understanding of the chemistry taking place on exoplanets and refine atmospheric models. What does it take for a planet to be habitable.
- 3195 - KILOGRAM - defined and redefined! The new kilogram's mass corresponds to the energy of 1.4755214 times 10^40 photons that are oscillating at the same frequencies as the cesium 133 atoms used in atomic clocks. Put this on your bathroom scales.
- 3196 - FRBs - Fast Radio Bursts and CHIME? CHIME is a satellite that detected over 500 Fast Radio Burst in its first year of operation. Already it is providing new clues to what’s causing FRB‘s.. What are Fast Radio Bursts and how is CHIME measuring them?
- 3197 - MILKY WAY’S - blackhole at the center? For the last 30 years astronomers have been mapping the orbiting stars circling the Milky Way’s center. The orbit of the star “S2” and its stellar companions indicated that they were circling around a massive object, about 4,000,000 times the mass of the Sun. It could only be one thing, a massive blackhole.
- 3198 - UNIVERSE - how immense is it? Shortly after the Big Bang, the Universe was a relatively small, nearly infinitely dense place. It boggles the mind. That was 13,800,000,000 years ago. The expanding universe means the entirety of what we know is now incredibly large and is getting more immense every day.
- 3199 - UNIVERSE - mass and energy ratios. How do we know the ratios. With the latest observations and experiments, it’s clear that time has passed. The Universe has only 4.7-5.0% normal matter in it, and the rest, in some form or other, is truly dark matter and dark energy.
- 3200 - DARK ENERGY - latest survey results? Survey results from the DES fit well with the predicted model that is used to map the universe from the beginning of time. In fact, it contradicts previous claims that there was a few percentage difference between the observed universe and the predicted one.
- 3201 - EARTH’S - core and how life began? We may never know exactly what led to the appearance of life on Earth. But we can at least build a trail of evidence that leads to the necessities for it to appear. The creation of some of the chemicals necessary for life might be more common than originally thought.
- 3202 - GALAXIES - with and without Dark Matter? Dark matter is invisible and its nature is unknown, but its existence is inferred from galaxies behaving as if they were shrouded in significantly more mass than we can see. There is thought to be about five times as much dark matter in the Universe as ordinary, visible matter. This is assuming that the laws of gravity are the same everywhere.
- 3203 - SUPERNOVAE - new supernova discovery? Astronomers may have finally discovered convincing evidence of an elusive kind of supernova, one that could explain a bright explosion that lit up the night sky on Earth nearly 1,000 years ago and birthed the beautiful Crab Nebula.
- 3204 - NEUTRON STAR - and Blackhole merger? Two galaxies about 900 million light-years away were merging. Their two blackholes each gobbled up their neutron star companions, triggering gravitational waves that finally hit Earth in January 2020.
- 3206 - FOSSILS - well preserved prehistoric life? 500,000,000 years ago before my time there was life in the oceans. “Animal” life and “plant” life, the earliest definitions of life, existed in the oceans.
- 3207 - VELOCITY - Earth is moving how fast? For humans standing on the surface of our planet, they don't feel Earth hurtling around the sun because they're also hurtling around the sun at the same speed.
- 3208 - HUBBLE DEEP FIELD - surveying deep space uncovered many remote galaxies and more galaxies in between. The galaxies vary in shape, size and color. We can see how they changed through time. With the Hubble Deep Field, we reach back nearly to the time when galaxies emerged from the chaos of the Big Bang.
- 3209 - SOLAR WIND - enters Earth’s magnetic field? How does the Earth’s magnetic field protect us from the Solar Wind? This review has the physics and math to explain how the Solar Wind of charged particles are captured by the Earth’s magnetic field. The charges bounce between the North and South magnetic poles and create the Van Allen Radiation Belts that are far above our heads and shielding us from the Sun’s more dangerous radiation.
- 3210 - SOLAR WINDS - a new form of energy? Are the Solar Wind dangerous, or, a new form of energy? The Solar Wind gets captured by the Earth’s magnetic field creating a powerful source of electricity high above our heads. Is there a way to tap into all this energy that the Sun sends us?
- 3211 - SOLAR MYSTERIES - more discoveries needed? What Is New and Extreme in our Solar System? One of the most important discoveries was finding water around the Solar System. Space probes sent into the south pole of the Moon confirmed the existence of water on the Moon.
- 3212 - SUPERNOVA - seen three times? Astronomers saw the same supernova three times thanks to “gravitational lensing“. And, in twenty years they think they’ll see it one more time.
- 3213 - TEMPERATURE - what it means to have one? Scientists are probing the extreme ends of the spectrum of what’s called “absolute temperature“. At the upper limit, absolute hot is a theoretical furnace where the laws of physics melt away. Absolute zero is cold, so cold there’s nowhere to go but up. This absolute zero is almost within scientists’ grasp.
- 3214 - FAST RADIO BURSTS - closer to the source? A “fast radio burst” was detected from within our Milky Way galaxy for the first time. We may be closer to uncovering its origin. What's causing these fast radio burst?
- 3215 - LIFE - how to get from chemistry to biology? A team of chemists from the Scripps Research Institute reported , November 6, 2020, that they identified a single, primitive enzyme that could have reacted with early Earth catalysts to produce some of the key precursors to life. These short chains of amino acids that power cells, the lipids that form cell walls, and the strands of nucleotides that store genetic information.
- 3216 - LIFE - asteroids and snowball Earth? Scientists know that the Earth was bombarded by huge asteroids in our early history. This analysis suggest that the number of these impacts may have been x10 higher than previously thought.
- 3217 - DARK MATTER - the mystery continues? Dark Matter could be even weirder than anyone thought. This mysterious substance that accounts for more than 80% of the universe's mass could interact with itself. Every attempt to explain dark matter using known physics has come up short.
- 3218 - PHYSICS - year 2021 discoveries? Here are some new discoveries in 2021 and we are only half way through the year. What’s next? By May 2021, we witnessed some amazing discoveries in particle physics, quantum mechanics, computational physics, astronomy, and astrophysics.
- 3219 - ATOMS - how many are in the Universe? Once we know the mass of the Universe, we can calculate how many atoms fit into it. On average, each gram of matter has around 10^24 protons. That means it is the same as the number of hydrogen atoms, because each hydrogen atom has only one proton. This gives us 10^82 atoms in the observable universe. Here is how the calculation was made:
- 3220 - EARTH - rising sea levels? The ocean absorbs more than 90% of the heat trapped by the planet due to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As the water heats up, its volume expands, causing sea-level rise. As the planet warms, the melting ice sheets add further height.
- 3221 - UNIVERSE - did it have a beginning? The Big Bang wasn’t the beginning of time and space, and cosmic inflation, which preceded it, cannot be the beginning either, unless it went on for an eternity. After a century of cosmic revolutions, we’re right back where we started: unable to answer the most fundamental question we can ask, “how did it all begin?”
- 3222 - ELECTRON SPIN - how did we come up with ½? An electron is a “spin half particle“. Ok, but what does that mean? Not only the electron but all the “fermions’ also have a half-integral spin while all the “bosons” possess an integral spin.
- 3223 - PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT - how it was discovered? The “work function” of the metal is the minimum amount of energy required to induce photoemission of electrons from a specific metal surface. The energy of the incident photon must be equal to the sum of the work function and the “kinetic energy of a photoelectron“. Your camera does that for you.
- 3224 - UNIVERSE - Strange ways to explain it? Why is the universe the way it is? Scientists have explored many ways to explain the cosmos, leading to some crazy-sounding ideas. Over the years, scientists have explored many ideas to explain our cosmos and its future. Here are some of the strangest ideas.
- 3225 - STARS - lifetime of stars? Stars last a long time, but eventually they will die. The energy that makes up stars comes from the interaction of individual atoms. So, to understand the largest and most powerful objects in the universe, we must understand the most basic atomic structures. The smallest controls the biggest?
- 3226 - GRAVITY - how can we explain it? Quantum mechanics theory of gravity runs into serious problems. Gravitation is currently explained through the theory of general relativity, which makes very different assumptions about the universe at the macroscopic scale than those made by quantum mechanics at the microscopic scale.
- 3227 - CEPHEID’S - Used to Discover America? Cepheid’s are stars that pulsate, varying their brightness in a cyclic manner. Edwin Hubble found a Cepheid star in the Andromeda Nebula in 1923. That was the first time astronomers realized that Andromeda was another distant galaxy, (M31) and not a nebula, or gas cloud, in our Milky Way Galaxy. Up until 1923 all astronomy was limited to inside the Milky Way Galaxy
- 3228 - STARS - death of stars? The universe may have even been created from a singularity. Big stars die as blackholes and singularities. One theory suggest our universe may reside within a giant blackhole, and recent evidence suggests that there may be a massive blackhole at the center of our galaxy that essentially holds everything in place.
- 3229 - PLANETARY NEBULAE - from Sun to Planetary Nebula? The complexity of the structures of planetary nebulae have given astronomers much frustration. These nebulae come in all shapes and sizes. Many are not symmetrical. Only 10% of the nebulae are bipolar.
- 3230 - STARS - Name the Stars? The name of the most popular star is “Polaris the North Star“, Constellation Ursa Minor.( The Bear Cub). Polaris is the North Star and the star most often found in all our literature. It is a stationary star in the northern sky because the Earth’s rotational pole points nearly directly at it. Here are more of the quiz questions:
- 3231 - FUSION - to generate electricity? When fusion is technologically mature enough to be used industrially, it will open up an unprecedented scenario where an extensive supply of clean, safe and sustainable energy can finally be guaranteed.
- 3232 - EARTH - what is its magnetic future? - The strength of Earth’s magnetic field has already been dropping over the past 1,000 years, and if the “South Atlantic Anomaly” grew and took over, we’d have a field reversal. The North Pole would become the magnetic South Pole. Your compass would flip.
- 3233 - EARTH - is it heating up? - In 2021, Earth reached a concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere that hit 150% of its value in preindustrial times. To prevent these worst effects of climate change, the world needs to decrease net emissions of carbon dioxide to zero by 2050. What is the plan?
- 3234 - GALAXIES - die too? - A single galaxy may contain billions of stars and their solar systems, all held together by the sheer force of gravity. But even galaxies die. After all of its star-forming gas runs out, and all of its stars have burned out, a galaxy dies. It will one day happen to the Milky Way, too. That day is some 5 billion years into our future. Probably should not have used “our”
- 3235 - SIZE - from the Universe to viruses. The size of things, from the Universe to viruses. The universe is a big place, but it's made out of small pieces. The periodic table includes elements such as oxygen, carbon and other building blocks that make up stars, things, and us.
- 3236 - EVOLUTION - My dogs Grandpa was a Llama? Science now knows that mammals and dinosaurs lived together for millions of years. 65,000,000 years ago dinosaurs died out and mammals took over and began to diversify. Mammals began as small, shrew-like creatures, some up to the medium sized dog. From there, evolution created a diversity of mammals where today we have 4,316 different species of mammals.
- 3237 - NEUTRON STAR - first detected merger? When the large star burns all of its fuel it can no longer resist gravity. The immense gravity at the center collapses the individual atoms themselves. The entire enormous star collapses into the center and then rebounds in a giant “supernova” explosion. What is left behind at the core is the collapsed star of neutrons. A Neutron Star is just 10 miles in diameter.
- 3238 - BLACKHOLES - act as gravity lenses? If there were a supernova, a super powerful explosion of a dying star, behind the blackhole, Astronomers would see that supernova go off multiple times. Each image would be delayed by a certain amount, depending on how many times it orbited the blackhole, allowing researchers to compare their theories with what‘s really happening.
- 3239 - PLANETS - how do they form around stars? Circumplanetary disks are vital to the formation of an exoplanet, since they control how much material the growing planet accumulates. Planetary disks also set the budget for satellite formation, determining how much material will be left over for moons to coalesce from.
- 3240 - CMB - radiation from our cosmic past? The CMB is essentially electromagnetic radiation that is left over from the earliest cosmological epoch which permeates the entire Universe. It is believed to have formed about 380,000 years after the Big Bang and contains indications of how the first stars and galaxies formed.
- 3241 - FRB - Fast Radio Bursts seeing with new eyes? On April 28, 2020, two ground-based radio telescopes detected an intense pulse of radio waves. It only lasted a mere millisecond but it was a major discovery, representing the first time a fast radio burst (FRB) had ever been detected so close to Earth.
- 3242 - BIG BANG THEORY- how did we get here? How was our Universe created? How did it come to be the seemingly infinite place we know of today? And what will become of it, ages from now? These are the questions that have been puzzling us since the beginning the times.
- 3243 - ASTRONOMY - using broader frequency coverage? With our eyes alone we have very limited coverage of everything that is out there . Telescopes have made a huge jump in all we can learn with bigger eyes. Telescopes developed technology to “see” far beyond the limited range our eyes can see, even through the traditional telescope.
- 3244 - EXOPLANETS - new techniques for discoveries? Using the “transit method” for detecting Exoplanets, the Kepler Space Telescope has examined over 530,000 stars and discovered over 2,600 exoplanets in nine years. TESS, the successor to Kepler, is still active, and has so far identified over 1800 candidate exoplanets, with 46 confirmed.
- 3245 - GRAVITY - bending spacetime? Gravity is the idea that objects in the universe are attracted to each other because spacetime is bent and curved. When Einstein came up with general relativity, he showed that all the mass and energy in the universe can curve spacetime.
- 3246 - WATER - on the Moon and Jupiter? - Scientists are confident that water ice can be found at the Moon's poles inside permanently shadowed craters, craters that never receive sunlight. But observations show water ice is also present across much of the lunar surface, even during daytime. This is a puzzle: Any water ice that forms during the lunar night should quickly burn off as the Sun climbs overhead.
- 3247 - BLACKHOLES - the more we learn the less we know? New observations of a blackhole not only confirmed behavior predicted by General Relativity, they also allowed the team to study processes taking place behind a blackhole for the first time.
- 3248 - EARTH - distance orbits around the Sun? Earth orbits the sun at an average of 92,955,807 miles. The distance from Earth to the sun is also called an “astronomical unit“, or AU, which is used to measure distances throughout the solar system.
- 3249 - UNIVERSE - our knowledge is expanding too. How do we measuring an expanding universe? A new technique for measuring the rate of expansion of our universe works by looking at the explosions of light and ripples in the fabric of space caused by a collision between a blackhole and a neutron star.
- 3250 - ASTEROIDS - Bennu and what killed dinosaurs? Asteroid Bennu is one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our Solar System. The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft orbited Bennu for more than two years and gathered data that has allowed scientists to better understand the asteroid’s future orbit, trajectory and Earth-impact probability.
- 3251 - CURIOSITY - the rover on Mars? It is hard for me to believe. But we still have robots roaming around the surface of Mars. Images of knobbly rocks and rounded hills are being sent to us by “Curiosity rover” after it climbed Mount Sharp, a 5-mile-tall mountain within the 96-mile-wide basin of Mars' Gale Crater.
- 3252 - UNIVERSE - how much does it weigh? By combining measurements using different techniques, astronomers were able to determine a best combined value, concluding that matter makes up 31.5±1.3% of the total amount of matter / energy in the universe. Only 5% is “Normal Matter”. You , me, and everything we see.
- 3253 - MOON - the total eclipse in 2010. We tend to take the Moon for granted. We know it circles the Earth every month and there are phases of the Moon from New Moon to Full Moon. But the Full Moon does not occur the same day every month. That is because the Moon’s orbit is once every 27.55 days. That does not match up exactly with our 30 and 31 day months. In fact, once in a Blue Moon we have two Full Moons in the same month. The devil is in the details.
- 3254 - COMET - largest one found? A giant comet was found far out in the solar system. It may be 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet, making it potentially the largest ever found in modern times. Called Comet C/2014 UN271 or Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers.
- 3255 - MASS - creating matter from light? Einstein’s 1905 paper speculated about the excess energy might be balanced by a loss of mass of the nuclear particles. This idea eventually led to Einstein’s most famous equation, E = mc2. Energy and mass are two forms of the same thing?
- 3256 - STARS - in our solar system? Every 50,000 years or so, a nomadic star passes near our solar system. Most brush by without incident. But, every once in a while, one comes so close that it gains a prominent place in Earth’s night sky, as well as knocks distant comets loose from their orbits.
- 3257 - NEUTRON STARS - collapse to white dwarfs? A nearby White Dwarf star found in 2021 might be about to collapse into a Neutron Star. About 97% of all stars in our Universe are destined to end their lives as “white dwarf stars“, which represents the final stage in their evolution.
- 3258 - BLACKHOLES - explained? Picture two merging galaxies and the resulting creation of Blackholes in the massive star formations that came out of the collision. What are the conditions that create these astronomical mysteries?
- 3258 - BIG BANG - the theory as a lot to work with. Astronomers can observe 100 billion, billion stars similar to our Sun. Most galaxies are still producing stars, but many galaxies have exhausted their supply of gas and can rarely produce stars. Eventually all stars will die.
- 3260 - HURRICANES - are worse than tornados! Computer models have shown that rising sea surface temperatures resulting from global warming could create more and more severe hurricanes. Global Warming is a trend linked to our burning of fossil fuels.
- 3261 - SATELLITES - removed from orbit? “Astroscale” signed a $3.4 million with internet mega-constellation operator “OneWeb: to develop a commercial system for removing defunct satellites from orbit. The technology will enable removing multiple satellites one by one with a single deorbiting spacecraft.
- 3262 - STARS - in our Solar System? The inner solar system is a relatively tiny target, and even if Gliese 710 does send comets flying our way, it would take millions of additional years for these icy bodies to reach us. That should give any surviving future humans plenty of time to take action. And in the meantime, they can enjoy watching what may be one of the closest stellar flybys in the history of our solar system.
- 3263 - SPACETIME - Space-Time Warp of Earth’s Gravity? Einstein’s Theory of Relativity predicted that gravity would warp the geometry of space-time just like acceleration would. If a satellite orbits the Earth it would follow the least energy path through this modified space-time. This would in turn cause the plane of the satellite’s orbit to wobble, or ‘precess‘. The effect of precession is very small, one part in a few trillion. This review tries to learn how the calculations were made and what the measurement results have been to prove Einstein is right.
- 3264 - RARE EARTHS - and what you should know? “Rare Earths” and what you should know about them? We are not talking planets here; we are talking dirt. Rare Earths are all around us, in our technology and even in our dirt. They are becoming a precious metal that you should know about. They could have more impact on the world’s politics than oil.
- 3265 - FORCES - combine into equivalency? The forces of nature, we take for granted in our natural world. They may have come from a single universal force. And, they may not be forces at all but a warped geometry in space and time. What we perceive as forces may be movements in space and movements in time. Not only could all the forces be combined into this fabric of distorted space, but, everything in our natural world could be interconnected in this geometric fabric of space - time.
- 3266 - - GLOBAL WARMING - a long term trend? - Predictions are based on physics and chemistry that are so fundamental, such as the atmospheric greenhouse effect, that these resulting predictions that surface temperatures should warm, ice should melt and sea level should rise are robust no matter the assumptions.
- 3267 - MOON ROCKS - still learning new science? When the Apollo spacecraft visited the Moon one of the operations conducted by astronauts was sample-returns, where lunar rocks were picked up and brought back to Earth.
- 3268 - COSMIC RAYS - messengers from the universe? The Earth is being constantly bombarded from space by cosmic rays of an unknown origin! Mysterious cosmic rays traveling at speeds approaching that of light constantly pelt Earth’s upper atmosphere from the depths of space, creating high-energy collisions that dwarf those produced in even the most powerful particle colliders. The atmospheric crashes rain down gigantic showers of secondary particles, not rays, to the surface of our planet.
- 3269 - STARS - what we learn from stardust? Stars have life cycles too. They are born when bits of dust and gas floating through space find each other and collapse in on each other and heat up. They burn for millions to billions of years, and then they die.
- 3270 - BLACKHOLES - merging boson stars? The biggest and heaviest blackhole collision ever observed, produced by the gravitational-wave. This collision might actually be something even more mysterious: the merger of two “boson stars“.
- 3271 - MARS ROCKS- meteorites and Martian rocks! - The first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment. Water was there on the surface for a long time. The first core samples is basaltic in composition and may be the product of lava flows. The presence of crystalline minerals in volcanic rocks is especially helpful in radiometric dating.
- 3272 - COSMIC RAYS - messengers from space? New findings in August 2021 suggest that carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen cosmic rays travel through the galaxy toward Earth in a similar way, but, surprisingly, that iron arrives at Earth differently. Learning more about how cosmic rays move through the galaxy helps address a fundamental, question: How is matter generated and distributed across the universe?
- 3273 - UNIVERSE - how did it all begin? The Big Bang wasn’t the beginning of time and space, and cosmic inflation, which preceded it, cannot be the beginning either, unless it went on for an eternity. After a century of cosmic revolutions, we’re right back where we started: unable to answer the most fundamental question we can ask, “how did it all begin?”
- 3274 - ASTEROIDS - a near miss? Is on the way. On April 13, 2029, the asteroid Apophis will pass less than 20,000 miles from our planet's surface, closer than the distance of geosynchronous satellites. During that 2029 close approach, Apophis will be visible to observers on the ground in the Eastern Hemisphere without the aid of a telescope or binoculars.
- 3275 - GRAVITY WAVES - DeBroglie discovers waves? - We need to perform an experiment that indicates General Relativity isn’t enough, and reveals a hint of the Universe’s theorized “quantum gravitational nature“. The dream of directly detecting gravitons is a much larger prize. One that we expect to be far more impractically difficult to actually achieve.
- 3276 - COMET - Bernardinelli-Bernstein”. This comet was the largest such icy body identified to date, perhaps more than 100 miles across. It sprouted a tail when it was remarkably far from the sun.
- 3277 - TIME - crystals move time backwards? - Researchers working in partnership with Google may have just used the tech giant's quantum computer to create a completely new phase of matter, a time crystal.
- 3278 - SUN - Solar Flares, are we prepared? A severe solar storm could plunge the world into an "internet apocalypse" that keeps large swaths of society offline for weeks or months at a time. When the next big solar storm does blast out of our star, people on Earth will have about 13 hours to prepare for its arrival.
- 3279 - BIG BANG THEORY - what does it mean? For almost a century, the term “ Big Bang Theory” has been bandied about by scholars. But what exactly does it mean? How was our Universe conceived in a massive explosion, what proof is there of this, and what does the theory say about the long-term projections for our Universe?
- 3280 - QUANTUM MECHANICS - versus classical physics? Quantum Mechanic’s rules rely on “probabilities‘. Quantum mechanics only reproduces classical physics on average. Based on these two insights, Neils Bohr argued that a quantum theory can never explain classical physics.
- 3281 - PLUTO - Planets and Baryons Beyond Pluto? Scientists thus discovered some of the Universe's missing baryons, thereby confirming that 80-90% of normal matter is located outside of galaxies, an observation that will help expand models for the evolution of galaxies. The further we look the more we see?
- 3282 - UNIVERSE - how fast is it expanding? Astronomers compared the latest gamma-ray attenuation data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes to devise their estimates from extragalactic background light models. This approach led to a measurement of approximately 67.5 kilometers per second per mega parsec for the rate of expansion of the Universe.
- 3283 - COSMIC RAYS - a lot we don’t know? Great mysteries of the universe surround us, all the time. They even permeate us, sailing straight through our bodies. One such mystery is “cosmic rays“, made of tiny bits of atoms. These rays, which are not “rays” but particles, are passing through us at this very moment, are not harmful to us or any other life on the surface of Earth, we think?
- 3284 - EINSTEIN RING - distance to far away galaxies? The circle surrounding a constellation of stars is called an “Einstein ring” after the famous physicist who predicted its existence.
- 3285 - GRBs - and Blackholes. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest, most energetic blasts of light in the universe. Released by an immense cosmic explosion, a single GRB is capable of shining about a million trillion times brighter than Earth's sun.
- 3286 - SUN - exploring the Sun? - The Sun plays a central role in shaping space around us. Its massive magnetic field stretches far beyond Pluto, paving a superhighway for charged solar particles known as the solar wind. When bursts of solar wind hit Earth, they can spark space weather storms that interfere with our GPS and communications satellites and can even threaten astronauts.
- 3287 - ATOMS - and Muons - At Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), near Chicago, scientists use a particle accelerator to smash individual particles together and look at the debris, or, possibly new fundamental particles that come out. Scientists are trying to find smaller and smaller fundamental particles, those tinier than atoms that fill up the universe and make everything we know.
- 3288 - BLACKHOLES - intermediate-mass blackholes? When a blackhole gobbles up a star, it produces what astronomers call a "tidal disruption event." The shredding of the star is accompanied by an outburst of radiation that can outshine the combined light of every star in the blackhole's host galaxy for months, even years.
- 3289 - MOON - Apollo moon rock discoveries? Geologist studying the Earth’s and Moon’s magnetic field that is captured in rock formations could offer a clear picture of just what type of magnetic field the Moon possessed before it mysteriously switched off around 900 million years ago.
- 3290 - METEOR - destroys a city? As of September 2021, there are more than 26,000 known near-Earth asteroids and a hundred short-period near-Earth comets. One will inevitably crash into the Earth. Millions more remain undetected, and some may be headed toward the Earth now.
- 3291 - GRAVITATIONAL LENSING - Quasars, GRBs, Blackholes? Catching the rerun of the explosive event will help astronomers measure the time delays between four supernova images. This will offer clues as to the type of warped-space terrain the exploded star's light had to cover to reach us.
- 3292 - DARK ENERGY - could we have found some? The theory for what is accelerating the expansion of the universe is called “dark energy” It has never been directly observed or measured. Instead, scientists can only make inferences about it from its effects on the space and matter that we can see. The stuff that is not “dark”.
- 3293 - UNIVERSE - expanding forever? Alternatively, dark energy could accelerate everything apart farther and farther from everything else, creating what's known as the Big Rip, in which the cosmos literally tears itself apart. We probably won’t stick around long enough to learn which ending really happens.
- - 3294 - NEUTRON STARS - have more to tell us? How many white dwarfs were the result of massive stars experiencing a supernova, and how many were the result of binary companions merging near the end of their lives? What is the rate of white dwarf mergers in the galaxy, and is it enough to explain the number of type 1a supernovae? How is a magnetic field generated in these powerful events, and why is there such diversity in magnetic field strengths among white dwarfs?
- 3295 - DARK MATTER - Could it be another Universe? Today we are trying to discover more about the Higgs Boson to explain the existence of mass. We are trying to discover the Graviton to explain the force of Gravity. So, why not, discover WIMPs to explain the existence of Dark Matter. WIMPs are Weakly Interactive Massive Particles that exist only in theory, so far
- May 30, , 2021 3257
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