3563 - ANDROMEDA GALAXY - how big is it?

  -  3563  -  ANDROMEDA  GALAXY  -  how big is it?   Hubble telescope shows us the true size of Andromeda Galaxy.   It’s possible that you’ve seen the Andromeda galaxy (M31) without even realizing it. The massive spiral galaxy appears as a grey, spindle-shaped “blob” in the night sky, visible with the naked eye in the right conditions. It’s the nearest major galaxy to ours, and astronomers have studied it a lot.

---------------------  3563 -  ANDROMEDA  GALAXY  -  how big is it?

-  Now astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to map out Andromeda’s enormous halo of hot gas.   Scientists call the halo of gas surrounding galaxies the “circumgalactic medium” (CGM.) 

-

-  The CGM is diffuse, and nearly invisible. But as scientists get the technology to study it more closely, they’re starting to understand the important role it plays in galactic evolution. They think that the CGM is an important source of star-forming material, and that it regulates a galaxy’s gas supply.

-

-  The CGM is full of clues regarding the past and future evolution of the galaxy.  Astronomers used the “Cosmic Origins Spectrograph” (COS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to map out Andromeda’s CGM. 

-

-   Andromeda’s halo is by far the largest object in the night sky, we just can’t see it. It extends 1.3 million light years from the center of Andromeda, which is about halfway to our galaxy. In some directions, it extends even further, up to 2 million light years. And Andromeda’s halo is actually bumping into the Milky Way’s halo.

-

-  At a distance of 2.5 million light-years, the majestic spiral Andromeda galaxy it is so close to us that it appears as a cigar-shaped smudge of light high in the autumn sky. If its gaseous halo could be seen with the naked eye, it would be about three times the width of the Big Dipper—easily the biggest feature on the nighttime sky. 

-

-  There’s also much more detail in the CGM. There are two layered parts to it: an inner shell of gas is nested inside an outer shell. The inner shell is more dynamic, and the outer shell is hotter and smoother. Researchers think that the inner shell is more dynamic and turbulent because of outflows from supernovae.

-

-  The inner shell that extends to about a half million light-years is far more complex and dynamic.  The outer shell is smoother and hotter. This difference is a likely result from the impact of supernova activity in the galaxy’s disk more directly affecting the inner halo.

-

-  It’s not just the dynamic state of the inner halo that points to supernovae. It’s also the composition of the gas itself. The team discovered a lot of heavier elements in the gas, which are created in the hearts of massive stars, and are spread out into space by exploding supernovae.

-

-  The gas in the CGM emits some energy on its own, but it’s extremely difficult to see. The researchers studied it by watching the ultraviolet light from distant quasars as it passes through the halo. That ultraviolet light is absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, so it can’t be observed from the ground. But the Hubble can see it from its position in Low-Earth Orbit.

-

- The team found 43 quasars that are “behind” Andromeda from our point of view. Since they’re scattered across the breadth and width of the galaxy, the researchers were able to study the halo in multiple locations. They observed how the ultraviolet light from the distant quasars was absorbed differently in different regions of the CGM. The team used Hubble’s COS to detect ionized gas from carbon, silicon and oxygen.

-

-   These quasars which are the very distant, brilliant cores of active galaxies powered by Blackholes, are scattered far behind the halo, allowing scientists to probe multiple regions. Looking through the immense halo at the quasars’ light, the team observed how this light is absorbed by the halo and how that absorption changes in different regions.

-

-   By tracing the absorption of light coming from the background quasars, scientists are able to probe the halo’s material.   Previously, there was very little information, only six quasars, within 1 million light-years of the galaxy. 

-

-  The velocity of the gas in the inner and outer haloes was measured to determine that the inner shell is more dynamic than the outer shell. The inner shell shows multiple velocity components, while the outer shell shows only one velocity component. The velocity measurements also allowed astrponomers to determine that the outer halo is gravitationally bound to Andromeda.

-

-  Understanding the huge halos of gas surrounding galaxies is immensely important.  This reservoir of gas contains fuel for future star formation within the galaxy, as well as outflows from events such as supernovae. It’s full of clues regarding the past and future evolution of the galaxy, and we’re finally able to study it in great detail in our closest galactic neighbor.

-

-  Andromeda is really our only opportunity to study a CGM in such detail. Our position inside the Milky Way makes it impossible to study the Milky Way’s own CGM. And no other large galaxy is close enough for our current technology to study in this way. Distant galaxies appear so small that there aren’t enough background quasars for spectroscopy. Each quasar behind a galaxy provides a sight line for scientists.

-

-    Even though we can’t study the Milky Way’s CGM directly, the researchers say that they can infer certain properties of it based on this study. It is likely that the Milky Way has similarly a cool and warm–hot ionized CGM, and that the Milky Way’s and Andromeda’s CGM must most likely already overlap and interact with each other.

-

-  As it stands right now, Andromeda is the only galaxy that can be scrutinized in this way. But in the future, that will change. Future UV space telescopes like LUVOIR (Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor), with its enormous 15m mirror, should allow scientists to study the CGMs of galaxies outside our Local Group. 

-

-  This study is giving us a glimpse of some potential future results

-

April 30, 2022     ANDROMEDA  GALAXY  -  how big is it?        3563                                                                                                                                              

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--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Saturday, April 30, 2022  ---------------------------

3562 - GAMMA RAYS - light for different eyes.

  -  3562  -  GAMMA  RAYS  -  light for different eyes.  Astronomers need more Infrared telescopes in order to see these most distant Gamma Ray Bursts.  Analyzing these Gamma Ray Bursts is like culling a line of sight through the Universe that could map out evolution in 3 dimensions.  With many lines of sight recorded a detailed picture begins to form.

---------------------  3562 -   GAMMA  RAYS  -  light for different eyes.

-  Where Do Gamma Rays Come From?

-

-  Gamma Rays are light of the maximum possible energy.  With wavelengths shorter than 10^-11 meters, each Gamma Ray photon has an energy of at least 100,000 electron volts.  That is 100,000 times more energy than visible light.  Some Gamma Rays have even shorter wavelengths and even more energy.  The most energetic Gamma Ray recorded was 100,000,000,000 electron volts.

-

-  See Review 3560 to learn about “cosmic rays” which are not rays at all.  They are particles.  High speed particles.

-  Sunlight at the core of the Sun starts out as Gamma Rays and loses energy as it passes through layers and layers of gas.  It leaves the surface as ultraviolet and visible light.  

-

-  To create Gamma Rays you need a lot of energy.  Energy that comes from colliding particles at near the speed of light.  Or, from the annihilation of matter and anti-matter, accretion disks and jets around Blackholes, or radioactive decay in fusion reactors. 

-

-   When a massive star blows up as a supernova it emits Gamma Rays.  Some Gamma Ray bursts are so intense they can outshine 100,000,000 galaxies.  If astronomers want to see a distant galaxy that is far, far away, a Gamma Ray Burster is the one to catch.

-

-  Astronomers want the farthest distances to go back farther in time.  They are looking for  a redshift of 10 which corresponds to the age of the Universe at 500,000,000 years, 3.6% its current age.  After catching some 60 long bursts they have recorded only one with a redshift greater than 6.

-

-  Short duration Gamma-Ray Bursts are believed to be the result of 2 colliding neutron stars.  The bursts last only a fraction of a second in these collisions.

-

-  Long duration bursts last tens of seconds.  These typically lie at a much greater distance when the age of the Universe was only a few billion years old.  Long duration bursts are believed to be massive supernova that become rapidly spinning Blackholes.  These events can become intensely magnetized neutron stars called “Magnetars“.

-

-  The bursts are short lived but the afterglows can last for days.  Powerful jets pour out of the supernova heating the gas that surrounds the star.  This creates the optical and radio waves that continue to radiate energy.

-

-  A Gamma Ray Burst was detected with a redshift of 6.295 when the age of the Universe was 900,000,000 years old.  The expansion of the Universe over time makes the Burst appear to last longer because the radiation is stretch out and also stretched to longer wavelengths.  High energy X-rays can become stretched into the infrared wavelengths.  The optical wavelengths are missing because the intergalactic clouds of neutral hydrogen have absorbed all the visible light along the way.

-

-  The afterglow of the Gamma Ray Burst starts out about one lightyear distant from the supernova.  It passes through the host galaxy and then through billions of lightyears of interstellar medium to reach the Earth.  

-

-  The light we observe can contain fingerprints of the interstellar gas and dust it has encountered.  The spectroscopy data on this light shows absorption lines for the atoms and elements the light passed through.  One conclusion reached is that these distant galaxies contain less than 10% of the heavy elements that we find today in the Milky Way.

-

April 30, 2022     GAMMA  RAYS  -  light for different eyes.         1158     3562                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----  

--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Saturday, April 30, 2022  ---------------------------

3561 - SPACE - ongoing missions in 2022?

  -  3561  -  SPACE  -  ongoing missions in 2022?  -  Eight interplanetary spacecraft have a go to continue their missions at Mars, the moon, and asteroids.  These eight science missions hold substantial potential to continue bringing new discoveries.

---------------------  3561 -  SPACE  -  ongoing missions in 2022?

-

----------------  1)  MARS  -   Curiosity rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), landed on Mars in 2012 and will explore for another three years. It has spent several years climbing Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) after landing on the Red Planet's Gale Crater. It is on a long-term hunt to understand how water, and potential conditions for life, arose in that region of the planet. 

-

-  MSL will climb to higher elevations, exploring the critical sulfate-bearing layers which give unique insights into the history of water on Mars.

-

----------------  2) MOON  -Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been in operation since 2009, and will work for another three years. It is best-known for mapping surface detail of the moon in high-definition, tracking down landing missions (or crashes) past and present, and seeking preserves of ice water on the moon. 

-

-  NASA will be using its data in planning for its Artemis moon-landing program that plans boots on the surface no earlier than 2025.  LRO will continue to study the surface and geology of the moon.

-

-  The evolution of LRO's orbit will allow it to study new regions away from the poles in unprecedented detail, including the permanently shadowed craters near the poles where water ice may be found.

-

----------------------  3)  ASTEROID  -   The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission will have another stop after dropping off pieces of asteroid Bennu at Earth in 2023. 

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-  The spacecraft, in flight since 2016, will be redirected to visit Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid that was once deemed a slight threat to Earth in 2068. 

-

-  The asteroid will safely come within 20,000 miles of Earth in 2029.  NASA plans to study changes in the asteroid caused by its close flyby of Earth, and use the spacecraft’s gas thrusters to attempt to dislodge and study the dust and small rocks on and below Apophis’ surface.

-

-  OSIRIS-Rex will pivot to analyzing samples from Bennu after their return.

-

-----------------------  4)  The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission (MAVEN) launched in November 2013 to look at changes in the atmosphere of the Red Planet. It is suspected that gradual erosion of the atmosphere over the eons led to less running water at the surface of Mars, when pressure dropped.

-

-  The extended mission over another three years plans to study the interaction between Mars' atmosphere and magnetic field during the upcoming solar maximum.   MAVEN's observations as the sun's activity level increases toward the maximum of its 11-year cycle will deepen our understanding of how Mars' upper atmosphere and magnetic field interact with the sun.

-

----------------------  5)  MARS  -   InSight Mars landed on Mars in 2018 and has been useful in getting information on "marsquakes" to learn more about the planet's interior and how that evolved over the eons. 

-

-  The spacecraft has been working well, aside from the failure of a below-surface probe known as a "mole" and gradual dust buildup on its solar panels. Given its shaky power status, the mission has a few more months tacked on its mission until the end of 2022.

-

-  The extended mission will continue InSight's seismic and weather monitoring if the spacecraft remains healthy.   Due to dust accumulation on its solar panels, InSight's electrical power production is low, and the mission is unlikely to continue operations for the duration of its current extended mission unless its solar panels are cleared by a passing 'dust devil' in Mars’ atmosphere.

-

----------------  6) KUIPER  BELT  -  New Horizons in the Kuiper Belt launched in 2006 and has visited two worlds so far: dwarf planet Pluto in 2015, and the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth (2014 MU69) in 2019. The mission is expected to fly as far as 63 astronomical units in its next three years.

-

-  The New Horizons spacecraft can potentially conduct multi-disciplinary observations of relevance to the solar system, and NASA's heliophysics and astrophysics divisions. 

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----------------------  7)   MARS  -     The Mars Odyssey spacecraft started work in 2001 and continues to work well in its third decade in space. While NASA warned the mission is running low on propellant, it hopes to squeeze another three years from the mission. Besides being a remote scientist, Odyssey serves as a relay for other Mars spacecraft on the surface in sending their communications back to Earth.

-

-   Mars Odyssey's extended mission will perform new thermal studies of rocks and ice below Mars’ surface, monitor the radiation environment, and continue its long-running climate monitoring campaign.

-

-----------------  8)  MARS  -   Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been in service since 2005 and provides a long-term view of the surface of the Red Planet. It charts changes in sand dunes, ice caps and other features and also keeps an eye on missions on the Red Planet. 

-

-  Aside from the loss of one instrument (the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM) due to a loss of coolant that shut down one of the two spectrometers, the mission should operate for another three years. MRO will continue its relay services for surface missions, too.

-

-  MRO will study the evolution of Mars’ surface, ices, active geology, and atmosphere and climate. It  will continue to provide important data relay service to other Mars missions.

-

April 29, 2022        SPACE  -  ongoing missions in 2022?           3561                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----  

--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Saturday, April 30, 2022  ---------------------------

3560 - COSMIC RAYS - Are Cosmic Rays Really Rays?

  -  3560  -   COSMIC  RAYS  -  Are Cosmic Rays Really Rays?    Cosmic Rays are not really rays at all.  They are ionized “particles“.  Ionized means they are carrying an electrical charge.  Cosmic Rays are sub-atomic particles, electrons, protons, or atomic nuclei.  

----------------  3560 -   COSMIC  RAYS  -  Are Cosmic Rays Really Rays?

-  Cosmic Rays are extremely high energy because they are often traveling near the speed of light.  Because they are carrying an electric charge they are influenced by a magnetic field.

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-  The Earth’s magnetic field , called the magnetosphere, protects us from most Cosmic Rays.  Cosmic Rays entering the Earth’s field tend to spiral since the magnetic force is at right angles to the direction the charged particle is traveling.  Because of the spiraling directions it is difficult for astronomers to identify the source of these Cosmic Rays. 

-

-   Where do the particles come from?  Our ordinary physics can not explain how these particles can be pumped up to such enormous energies?  Some of the Cosmic Rays have been named “Oh my God Particles”.   One was recorded on October 15, 1991 to have the energy of 3*10^20 electron volts.  15 of these OMG particles have been recorded to date.

-

-  Astronomers believe Cosmic Rays are generated in Supernovae and in Blackholes.  Blackholes can create  tremendous jets of energy emitting from its poles of rotation.  Some of these Blackholes are spinning at the limits of relativity, up to 99.9999% the speed of light.

-

-    Intergalactic gas can go spiraling into these jets as ionized particles and then get accelerated out by the Blackhole’s magnetic field.  Astronomers will see the photon of light and then only 46 nanometers behind it will be the proton after traveling over millions of lightyears.

-

-  These high energy Cosmic Rays are going to be a serious problem for astronauts in space.  They have no magnetic sphere to protect them during interplanetary travel.  Mars and the Moon does not have magnetic spheres either.  Astronauts have returned from the Moon and reported strange flashing of light in front of their eyes.  These were Cosmic Rays going through their brains.

-

---------------  90 % of the Cosmic Rays are protons, hydrogen nuclei.

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--------------  9% are helium nuclei, also know as alpha particles which cause radiation sickness.

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-------------- 1% are electrons

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--------------  Cosmic Rays range in energies from 10^9 electron volts to 10^20 electron volts.  The lower energy particles reach Earth’s surface at the rate of 1 per square meter per second.

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-------------  The high energy particles reach Earth’s surface at the rate of 1 per 1,000 square meters per year.

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-------------  Our current particle accelerators can produce Cosmic Rays, accelerated charged particles, up to 10^13 electron volts.  This is the same amount of energy as a tennis ball traveling at 94 miles per hour, only it is in a particle the size of a proton. But, it is 10 million times less than the energy of the highest energy Cosmic Ray, 10^20 eV.

-

-  When Cosmic Rays are hitting the Earth below the 10^10 electron volt level the Earth’s magnetic field causes them to spiral.   This sends the charged particles into the Northern Lights or into the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth, for the most part protecting us at the surface of the Earth.

-

-  Of course, some Cosmic Rays get through.  Ice core samples have tracked the intensity of Cosmic Rays over history.  When Rays peak there is also a peak in cancer deaths 28 years later.  When Rays are at minimum, 28 years later cancer deaths are at a minimum.

-

-    Cosmic Rays tend to follow the Sun’s 11 year sunspot cycle.  Further correlations have been made with lightning intensity and even with climate change.  Cosmic Rays may have even played a major role in life’s evolution on Earth.  Mutations caused by Cosmic Rays may have been key to “survival of the fittest“. 

-

-   Many Cosmic Rays go right through you and hit nothing because human beings are made of atoms and mostly empty space.  Or, a Cosmic Ray may hit a DNA string and change evolution.

-

-  Cosmic Rays from the Sun are believed to be created when the magnetic loops on the Sun’s surface break.  The charged protons trapped in the loops get flung out into space at enormous energies.  

-

-  Particle Accelerators work by getting protons up to enormous speeds using pulsed magnetic loops around a circular track.  Cosmic Rays are detected in our atmosphere because when they do strike a gas atom they create a shower of descending pions, muons, neutrinos, and Gamma Rays that are detected on the surface.

-

-  Very recently astronomers have traced back the source of extremely high energy Cosmic Rays, 10^18 eV, to a pair of colliding galaxies.  5 particles were detected between 1993 and 2003 and traced back to these galaxies 450 lightyears away.  

-

-  Only about 100 of these high-energy Cosmic Rays have been detected in the last 10 years.  They are traveling so fast they do not get bent by the Earth’s magnetosphere, so, astronomers an triangulate to their source.  The spread of 1993 to 2003 for the 5 particles was because they took slightly different paths to reach here.  They left at the same time but a very slight deviation from a straight line adds up over such huge distances.

-

-  There is not a lot of data but enough to convince astronomers that high energy Cosmic Rays come from active galaxies that host violent Blackholes.

-

April 28, 2022        COSMIC  RAYS   -   Are Cosmic Rays Really Rays?     3560                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

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--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Friday, April 29, 2022  ---------------------------

3559 - UNIVERSE - what is the earliest galaxy?

 

 -  3559  -  UNIVERSE  -  what is the earliest galaxy?   Most galaxies after the birth of the universe were small, compact, dwarf galaxies.   A consequence of existing just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was hotter and denser than it is today. These little galaxies were also less bright than galaxies today, with less room for big, luminous stars.

---------------------  3559 -    UNIVERSE  -  what is the earliest galaxy?

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-  What is a “naturally occurring telescope” ?  We used one to peer at a very distant, gargantuan star, estimated to be an incredible 50 times the mass of our Sun.  The telescope used “gravitational lensing” with the Hubble Space Telescope.   The faraway star is dubbed “Earendel”.    It was only born about 900 million years after the Big Bang.

-

-  Telescopes are constrained by the amount of light they can gather. Distant objects are therefore very difficult to see, as there is less light to collect from those objects.  That light has spread out across the Universe in all directions.

-

-  Gravitational lensing allows astronomers to use a massive foreground object, in this case, stars within a star cluster, to bend and focus the light from something in the background. Massive objects in space deform space-time around them, allowing them to act like a magnifying glass, amplifying light from the background object. The effect was first predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

-

-  Follow-up data from Webb in infrared light will scrutinize the star’s spectrum signature of light. Spectral data allows astronomers to look for individual elements within the star. Learning about the star’s composition will tell astronomers about the star’s life history, age and where the star fits in with the early evolution of the universe.

-

-  Webb’s wavelengths go much deeper into infrared than Hubble. It also flies further in space and away from the stray light of Earth, at a stable gravitational zone known as Lagrange Point 2. Webb’s infrared eyes, its deep space location, and its higher definition will all contribute to gathering a detailed spectrum of this distant star.

-

-  Webb’s mandate will be to peer across 13.5 billion years of time to learn about the first stars and galaxies that were formed. The infrared vision makes it an ideal observatory to examine these early stars, which are receding away from us due to the ongoing expansion of the universe. The stars are highly redshifted, meaning that their light is shifted towards the red edge of the spectrum due to the stars’ light stretching as they recede away from us..

-

-    NASA plans to launch the “Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope” in 2027 to image wider star fields than Hubble, with equivalent resolution.    If a magnifying star passes across a huge background structure like a galaxy cluster the star provides a glimpse of what the cluster looks like in high definition including the granularity of normal matter and dark matter, both of which are important to learning about a galaxy’s evolution or history.

-

-   “HD1” is a candidate galaxy that may be the most distant astronomical object we have ever seen.   HD1 is so distant that it extends all the way back to a time when the universe was less than a billion years old.

-

-  The galaxy is strange for something that is 13.5 billion light-years away.   It is brighter than it should be.   It could be the key to understanding the early universe, as well as the first stars and first galaxies.

-

-  High redshift refers to how light appears in the universe.  Something exhibiting blueshift is coming toward us, while redshift means it is moving away from us. An object with a high redshift is “very far away” from us.

-

-  The  two galaxy candidates were at extremely high redshift, called HD1 and HD2.  It took 1,200 hours of observing the sky using four powerful observatories: The Subaru Telescope, VISTA Telescope, UK Infrared Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope.

-

-   HD1 and HD2 could be among the galaxies that spewed ionized hydrogen gas into the interstellar medium, leaving space “clear” as we see it today. Before this outpouring of gas, the universe can be thought of as more cloudy and opaque.

-

-   HD1 appears to be very bright, meaning that it’s likely one of two exceptional possibilities: A small galaxy packed with a population of bright first-generation stars, or a supermassive blackhole consuming matter surrounding it.

-

-  Because they were such low mass, the effects of stars forming in them could have caused a lot of damage in the sense of pushing gas out of them.  HD1 and HD2 are at redshift 13, which roughly corresponds to 13.5 billion light-years away or just 300 million years after the universe formed.  A redshift of 13 means the universe was smaller by a factor of 14 at the time.  This is an order of magnitude smaller.

-

-    If this galaxy was rife with star formation at a time that kind of activity was supposed to be rare forcing astronomers to rethink some of their theories of the early universe.  All large galaxies are believed to have supermassive blackholes at their center, but how these behemoths form is poorly understood.

-

-   If HD1 has a supermassive blackhole, then it would likely be a “quasar“.   A supermassive blackhole at the center of a galaxy rapidly devouring matter around it and then ejecting it out in bright light.

-

-  An X-ray telescope could look at HD1 and determine its energy output. This would tell scientists about the nature of the object, and confirm if it’s a blackhole.

-

-  The James Webb Space Telescope is equipped to stare at the early universe. It might be able to observe HD1 and other high redshift galaxy candidates and get a sense of their spectra. That could give clues as to its structure.  If it remains a single point source, it’s very likely a bright quasar instead of a galaxy rife with stars.

-

-  Presuming that these observations confirm the supermassive blackhole theory, the quasar’s brightness can also tell astronomers a lot about the mass of the blackhole. If the star-filled galaxy theory holds up, we can do a similar “weigh-in” and infer the number of stars it would need to hold to emit the light we see today.

-

-  What Webb reveals could be a major puzzle piece to reveal the true nature of the early universe.

-

April 26, 2022         UNIVERSE  -  what is the earliest galaxy?            3559                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----  

--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Wednesday, April 27, 2022  ---------------------------

3558 - KILO NOVAS - how gold was created?

  -  3558  -  KILO NOVAS  -  how gold was created?  The universe is smashing things together, stars, blackholes and ultradense objects called neutron stars.  When neutron stars smash together the collisions release a flood of elements necessary for life.

---------------------  3558 -  KILO NOVAS  -  how gold was created?

-  Astronomers used subtle ripples in the fabric of space-time to confirm that colliding neutron stars make life as we know it possible.  Including the gold ring on your finger.  

-

-  Just about everything has collided at one point or another in the history of the universe, so astronomers had long figured that neutron stars which are superdense objects born in the explosive deaths of large stars also smashed together. 

-

-    A neutron star collision would go out with a flash. It wouldn't be as bright as a typical supernova, which happens when very large stars explode. But astronomers predicted that an explosion generated from a neutron star collision would be roughly a thousand times brighter than a typical nova, so they dubbed it a “kilo nova“.

-

-  Neutron stars are made of a lot of neutrons. A bunch of neutrons in a high-energy environment start to combine, transform, splinter off and do all sorts of other wild nuclear reactions.

-

-  Kilonovas are responsible for producing enormous amounts of heavy elements, including gold, silver and xenon. Together with supernovas, kilonovas fill out the periodic table and generate all the elements necessary to make rocky planets ready to host living organisms.

-

-  In 2017, astronomers witnessed their first kilonova. The event occurred about 140 million light-years from Earth and was first heralded by the appearance of a certain pattern of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, washing over Earth. 

-

-  These gravitational waves were detected by the “Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory” (LIGO) and the Virgo observatory, which immediately notified the astronomical community that they had seen the distinct ripple in space-time that could only mean that two neutron stars had collided. 

-

-  Less than 2 seconds later, the “Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope” detected a gamma-ray burst, that is a brief, bright flash of gamma-rays.

-

-  A flurry of scientific interest followed, as astronomers around the world trained their telescopes, antennas and orbiting observatories at the kilonova event, scanning it in every wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum. 

-

-   All told, about one-third of the entire astronomical community around the globe participated in the effort. It was perhaps the most widely described astronomical event in human history, with over 100 papers on the subject appearing within the first two months.

-

-  Kilonovas had long been predicted, but with an occurrence rate of 1 every 100,000 years per galaxy, astronomers weren't really expecting to see one so soon. In comparison, supernovas occur once every few decades in each galaxy.

-

-  The addition of gravitational wave signals provided an unprecedented glimpse inside the event itself. Between gravitational waves and traditional electromagnetic observations, astronomers got a more complete picture from the moment the merger began.

-

-  That kilonova alone produced more than 100 Earths' worth of pure, solid precious metals, confirming that these explosions are fantastic at creating heavy elements.   The gold in your wedding ring was forged from two neutron stars that collided long before the birth of the solar system.

-

-  Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted that gravitational waves travel at the speed of light. But astronomers have long been trying to develop extensions and modifications to general relativity, and the vast majority of those extensions and modifications predicted different speeds for gravitational waves.

-

-  With that single kilonova event, the universe gave us the perfect place to test this theory. The gravitational wave signal and the gamma-ray burst signal from the kilonova arrived within 1.7 seconds of each other.

-

-   That was after traveling over 140 million light-years. To arrive at Earth that close to each other over such a long journey, the gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves would have had to travel at the same speed to one part in a million billion.

-

-  That single measurement was a billion times more precise than any previous observation, and thus wiped out the vast majority of modified theories of gravity.  No wonder a third of astronomers worldwide found it interesting. 

-

-  Researchers know that stars fuse light atomic nuclei to create heavier nuclei. Elements in the universe heavier than hydrogen (but lighter than iron) are created by a process known as “stellar nucleosynthesis“: nuclear reactions that occur deep inside stars' cores. 

-

-  It has been a long-standing mystery as to where in the universe elements heavier than iron are synthesized.  Though astrophysicists have theorized processes for how heavy elements like gold, platinum and lead are created in the cosmos, observational evidence has been scarce.

-

-  After blackholes, neutron stars are the densest known objects in the universe. Each is the size of a city, with a mass greater than that of Earth's sun; a teaspoon of this dense material would therefore weigh a billion tons. 

-

-  Neutron stars are created after stars more massive than Earth's sun explode as supernovas, leaving behind superdense magnetized balls of spinning matter composed mainly of neutrons, neutral particles that, along with protons, are found inside atomic nuclei. 

-

-  Neutron stars therefore contain some of the building blocks of atomic nuclei. If these neutrons are somehow released from a neutron star, they might undergo reactions that allow them to stick together, creating elements heavier than iron.

- 

-  Newly formed particles will be highly unstable and will lose neutrons, radioactively decaying into lighter particles. But if the surrounding environment is dense in free neutrons, more neutrons can be captured before the nuclei will decay, so heavier and heavier elements can be formed. 

-

-  If a neutron star smashes into another neutron star, clumps of neutrons are blasted into space and can rapidly synthesize heavy elements like gold via a mechanism called rapid neutron capture process, or "r-process" .

-

-  When astronomers confirmed the detection of the gravitational wave signal “GW170817” that emanated from the site of a gamma-ray burst in a galaxy 130 million light-years away, they realized they were looking at an intense cosmic collision called a "kilonova." 

-

-  This was a ripe environment for the r-process to take place. Kilonovas are powerful explosions that unleash gamma-rays and have been long theorized to occur when neutron stars collide. 

-

-  By comparing observations made using the Hubble Space Telescope and Gemini Observatory with theoretical models, astronomers have now confirmed that the r-process occurs in kilonovas, observing the spectroscopic fingerprint of heavy elements being created in the explosion's afterglow. 

-

-  With the help of the new gravitational wave signal, researchers now estimate that neutron star collisions may be responsible for the creation of most of the r-process heavy elements, like gold, found in galaxies. 

-

-   To paraphrase famed astronomer Carl Sagan, “while we may be made of "star stuff," the ring on your finger is made of "neutron star stuff."

-

April 25, 2022        KILO NOVAS  -  how gold was created?           3558                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

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--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Wednesday, April 27, 2022  ---------------------------

3557 - MATH - for a space shuttle launch?

  -  3557  -  MATH  -  for a space shuttle launch?-  Math exercise to calculate the fuel spent of a Space Shuttle launch.   The Space Shuttle is retired so we will miss those launches from Kennedy Space Center.  The Shuttle itself carries 55,000 pounds of fuel  At 8 pounds per gallon that is 6,900 gallons of fuel taken aloft. 

---------------------  3557 -  MATH  -  for a space shuttle launch?

-   It is not quite enough fuel to carry it to the Moon.  It would need 65,000 pounds of fuel to make a one way trip to the Moon.  See Review 1270 for a review of “ The Space Shuttle’s Last Flight”.

-

-  The Shuttle is not designed to make a trip to the Moon.  It is designed for a low Earth orbit of 236 miles high traveling at 17,180 miles per hour.  1270 Review explains how this orbit is achieved by obtaining a velocity that balances Kinetic Energy ( the energy of motion) with the Gravitational Potential Energy of elevation.  Do the math.

-

-  The Shuttle jettisons the main fuel tank used at launch.  It gets the Shuttle off the launch pad and to 50 miles altitude.  The Launch Fuel Tank is a cylinder 8.4 meters in diameter and 29.6 meters long.

-

-  How many gallons of fuel does the launch tank carry?

-

--------------  Volume  =  area of the cylinder cross section *  height

-

--------------  V  =  pi * r^2  * h

-

-------------  V  =  3.14  * ( 4.2)^2  *  29.6  

-

------------   V  =  1,600 meters^3

-

------------  one liter  =  1000 cm^3

-

-----------  V  =  1,000,000,000 centimeters^3

-

-----------  V  =  1,000,000 liters

-

----------- one liter  =  0.26 gallons

-

---------------  V  =  420,000 gallons

-

-  You are part of the launch crew and the flight controllers would like to know after launch when there is only 1/8 of a tank of fuel left.  Your job is to place a detector fuel gauge in the tank to give his reading.  Where do you put the gauge?

-

---------------   1/8 volume left  =  1/8 ( 1,600 meters^3)  =  200 m^3

-

---------------  V  =  pi* r^2 * h

-

--------------   200  =  3.14 * (4.2)^2 * height

-

--------------  height  =  3.6 meters.

-

-  You install the fuel gauge 3.6 meters above the bottom of the tank.

-

-  The launch vehicle burns 1000 gallons of fuel per second.  How long do we wait to get the fuel gauge to send the signal after blast off?

-

-  The tank will have burned through 7/8th of the volume of fuel.

-

----------------------  7/8  *  420,000 gallons  =  367,500 gallons

-

---------------------  367,500 gallons /  1000 gallons / second  =  367.5 seconds.

-

-  The fuel gauge signal should arrive in 6.1 minutes after launch.  An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.

-

April 24, 2022      MATH  -  for a space shuttle launch?            1410   3557                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----  

--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Sunday, April 24, 2022  ---------------------------

3556 - LARGE HADRON COLLIDER -

  -  3556  -  LARGE  HADRON  COLLIDER -    The world's largest particle collider is getting ready to smash atoms even harder in 2022.   Following a three-year break of scheduled maintenance, upgrades and pandemic delays, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is preparing to power up for its third, and most powerful yet, experimental period. 

---------------------  3556 -  LARGE  HADRON  COLLIDER  -

-  If all initial tests and checks starting in March, 2022,  go well, scientists will begin experiments in June and slowly ramp up to full power by the end of July.

-

-  The new run could finally reveal the long-sought "right-handed" versions of ghostly particles called “neutrinos“; find the elusive particles that make up dark matter, which exerts gravity but does not interact with light; and even help to explain why the universe exists at all. 

-

-  The completion of the will deploy the countless, both preventive and corrective, maintenance operations, which are required to operate such a 27-kilometer-long (17 miles) complex machine.

-

-  Since 2008, the LHC has smashed atoms together at incredible speeds to find new particles, such as the “Higgs boson“, an elementary particle and the last missing piece in the Standard Model that describes fundamental forces and particles in the universe.

-

-  In addition to other tasks, the ATLAS experiment, the largest particle detector at the LHC, will try to answer a question that has puzzled scientists for decades: Why are all the neutrinos detected so far southpaws? Most particles come in left- and right-handed flavors, which describe how the particles spin and move, and are thought to have antimatter twins, which have the same mass but the opposite electric charge. 

-

-  In theory, right-handed neutrinos should exist, but no one has ever found an elusive right-handed neutrino, a left-handed antineutrino or an antimatter twin to an ordinary neutrino, for that matter.  ATLAS will be on the hunt for a proposed left-handed relative to the neutrino called a “heavy neutral lepton“.  

- 

-  The upcoming LHC run will also introduce two new physics experiments: the Scattering and Neutrino Detector (SND) and the Forward Search Experiment (FASER). 

-

-  FASER will use a detector located 1,575 feet (480 meters) from the collision site for the ATLAS experiment, with the goal of collecting unknown exotic particles that can travel long distances before decaying into detectable particles, for instance, potential weakly interacting massive particles that barely interact with matter and could make up dark matter.

-

-   FASER's subdetector, FASERν, and SND will aim to detect high-energy neutrinos, which are known to be produced at the collision site but have never been detected. Such detections will help scientists understand these particles in greater detail than ever before. 

-

-  They may also address another conundrum. Matter and antimatter are thought to have been produced in equal amounts at the Big Bang. In theory, that means they should have annihilated on contact, leaving nothing behind. Yet our universe exists and is mostly matter. 

-

-   The new upgrades will allow the LHC to smash particles harder than ever before, up to an energy of 6.8 teraelectronvolts, an increase over the previous limit of 6.5 teraelectronvolts, which could enable the LHC to see new types of particles. 

-

-  The LHC will also smash atoms together more often, which should make it easier for scientists to  find uncommon particles that are very rarely produced during collisions. The LHC's detector upgrades will enable its instruments to gather high-quality data on this new energy regime.

-

-   But while the LHC experiments will deliver terabytes of data every second, only a fraction can be saved and studied. So scientists at CERN have improved the automated systems that first process the data and select the most interesting events to be saved and later studied by scientists.

-

- The LHC produces 1.7 billion collisions per second.  

-

-  The third run is scheduled to last until the end of 2025. Already, scientists are discussing the next round of upgrades to be implemented after Run 3 for the LHC's High Luminosity phase, which will further increase the number of simultaneous collisions and energies, and improve instrument sensitivities.

-

-  A decade ago, physicists wondered whether the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider would point to a new frontier beyond the Standard Model of subatomic particles. So far, that’s not been the case but a new measurement of a different kind of boson at a different particle collider might do the trick.

-

-  Fresh findings from the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, one of the main experiments that made use of the Tevatron particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab in Illinois.   The CDF team has a newly reported value for the mass of the “W boson“.

-

-  Bosons are force-carrying particles that transfer discrete amounts of energy between particles of matter.   The electromagnetic force is carried by “bosons” known as “photons“, while the “Higgs boson” is responsible for transferring the force that endows particles with mass.

-

-  The W boson plays a role in the “weak nuclear force“, which comes into play in radioactive decay as well as nuclear fusion, that process that makes the sun shine. The particle was discovered decades ago at Europe’s CERN research center, which is now home to the Large Hadron Collider, and its mass has been the subject of study ever since.

-

-   The W boson about 80 times heavier than a proton.   Knowing the precise weight of the W boson is a big deal because that value is factored into the finely tuned equations that are woven into the Standard Model, one of the most successful theories in science. The theory explains how atoms are put together, and its predictions, including the prediction of the existence of the Higgs boson, have been repeatedly confirmed.

-

-   And yet, there’s a lot the Standard Model doesn’t explain.   This has to do with the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which together make up more than 95% of the universe’s content. If there’s some measurement that runs counter to the Standard Model, that may point to an opening for revising the theory.

-

-   Physicists have analyzed huge amounts of data collected at the Tevatron between 1985 and 2011, and came up with a mass measurement that carries a precision of 0.01%. That’s twice as precise as the best previous measurement. Fermilab says it’s like measuring the weight of an 800-pound gorilla to within 1.5 ounces.

-

-  The only problem is, the 800-pound gorilla appears to tip the scales at three-quarters of a pound overweight. The expected value for the W boson’s mass was 80,357 mega electron volts, or MeV, plus or minus 6 MeV. The CDF’s value is 80,433 MeV, plus or minus 9 MeV.

-

-  The CDF researchers say their findings carry a confidence level of 7 sigma, which translates to a 1-in-390 billion chance that they could be explained away as a statistical fluke.  If the findings hold up, theoretical physicists will have to turn their firepower toward figuring out how to explain the discrepancy. 

-

-   Although the statistical analysis sounds impressive, there’s still a chance that something threw off the measurement.  That was the case for the claim in 2011 that neutrinos could travel faster than light. When those findings were first announced, researchers claimed a confidence level nearly as high as what the CDF team is claiming now. But upon review, the researchers found glitches in their experimental setup, including a fiber-optic cable that was mis-attached. Those faster-than-light neutrinos actually weren’t.

-

-   The CDF findings alone aren’t enough to force a full rethinking of the Standard Model. 

It’s now up to the theoretical physics community and other experiments to follow up on this and shed light on this mystery.   If the difference between the experimental and expected value is due to some kind of new particle or subatomic interaction, which is one of the possibilities, there’s a good chance it’s something that could be discovered in future experiments.

-

April 24, 2022                 LARGE  HADRON  COLLIDER                       3556                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----  

--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Sunday, April 24, 2022  ---------------------------

3555 - COSMIC RAYS AND GAMMA RAYS -

  -  3555 -  COSMIC  RAYS  AND  GAMMA  RAYS  -  Cosmic Rays and Gamma Rays are high energy phenomena that are amazing things to study.  They represent some of the extremes of the Universe.

---------------------  3555 -  COSMIC  RAYS  AND  GAMMA  RAYS  -

-  Cosmic Rays are not rays at all.  They are actually sub-atomic particles, usually the nuclei or hydrogen or helium atoms.  They obtain their high energy by traveling so fast, often near the speed of light.

-

-  Gamma Rays truly are waves.  They are high energy light waves.  The energy of all “light” , or electromagnetic radiation, is dependent on the frequency of oscillation.  The higher the frequency the higher the energy. ( E = h*f).

-

-  Gamma Rays have higher energy than X-rays.  Their frequencies are 3*10^22 cycles per second and higher.  These frequencies represent energies of 24,900,000 electron volts and higher.  Ordinary light is 2 to 3 electron volts.  Dental X-rays are 5,000 electron volts.

-

-  The Fermi Gamma Ray telescope is a Large Area Telescope that scans the entire sky every 3 hours.  It measures radiation levels from 20 million to 300 billion electron volts.

-

-  The really high energy Gamma Rays are above 10 billion electron volts ( 10 GeV).  Fermi’s telescope has discovered one of these every 4 months on average.  Fermi has discovered 496 Gamma Ray Sources over 10 GeV and 1,873 Sources over 1 GeV. (1,000,000,000 electron volts).

-

-----------  Here is how the data breaks down for gamma ray sources:

-

------------------  Blazar Galaxy  ------------  1,069  -------------  57%

-

------------------  Pulsar  ------------------------  115  -------------  6%

-

------------------  Supernovae  -------------------  77  -------------  4%

-

------------------  Active Galaxy  ----------------  20  -------------  1%

-

------------------  Normal Galaxy  --------------  20  --------------  1%

-

------------------  Unknown  --------------------  572  -------------  31%

-

-  Nearly 60% are Blazars and Active Galaxies.  These are super massive Blackholes that are consuming in-falling matter.  The rotating matter reaches high energy and jets out the magnetic poles at nearly the speed of light.  When these jets collide with particles and intergalactic gases they create high energy Gamma Ray radiation.

-

-  10% of the Sources lie within the Milky Way Galaxy.  These include rotating Neutron Stars called Pulsars, expanding debris from supernovae explosions and binary systems containing massive stars.

-

-  31% of the Sources found are completely unknown objects that are not detected at other wavelengths.  Some of the Sources completely fade away above 1 GeV.  

-

-  There have been 130 Gamma Ray Sources discovered that have energies above

 100 GeV.

-

-  Cosmic Rays, that is Cosmic Particles, have even greater energies than Gamma Rays.  Most Cosmic Rays have energies in the range 0.01 to 10 GeV.  However, as amazing as it sounds, a few Cosmic Rays have been detected with energies of 100,000,000,000 GeV.  

-

-  This energy level is 40,000,000 times more powerful that we can create here on Earth with our most powerful particle accelerators.  One of these single Cosmic Ray particles the size of a proton would have the same amount of energy as a tennis ball  hitting you at 100 miles per  hour.

-

-  Cosmic Rays were first discovered in 1912.  The Cosmic particle charges that were measured were thought to be some form of invisible light coming from outer space.  Therefore, they were called “Cosmic Rays”.  The “rays” stuck even though they were later to be discovered to be Cosmic Particles.  It was not until 1950 that astronomers figured this out.

-

---------------  Here is the data on Cosmic Rays:

-

-------------------------  89%  ----------------- protons, hydrogen nuclei, positive charges

-

------------------------  10%  ----------------- helium nuclei, alpha particles, 2 protons and 2 neutrons nuclei, positive charges

-

----------------------     1%  ------------------  electrons, negative charges

-

- All Cosmic Ray particles carry an electric charge  and therefore spiral as they travel through a magnetic field.  This makes it difficult, or impossible,  to determine which direction they were coming from.   The ratio of hydrogen nuclei and helium nuclei matches the relative abundance of these elements in the Universe.

-

-  The energy of Cosmic Rays is Kinetic Energy which is mass times velocity and depends on the speed of the particle.  The lower energy Cosmic Rays originate in our Sun.  The higher energy Cosmic Rays come from outer space.

-

-  The Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protects us from Cosmic Rays hitting us from outer space.  However, some Cosmic Rays do reach the surface of the Earth.  Your body on average receives 26 millirems of Cosmic Ray radiation every year.  Your body would receive an additional 5 millirems of radiation for each 1,000 feet you go in elevation above sea level. 

-

-   When you fly in commercial airplanes at 30,000 feet add 1 millirems for every 1,000 miles that you travel.  Airline crews have been found to have 23 cases for cancer per 100 instead of the 22 cases per 100 for land lubbers ( a 4.5% increase).

-

-  Astronauts experience 5,000 Cosmic Ray hits every second.  To protect astronauts to the level found on Earth they would need to be surrounded by 16 feet of water, or some other equivalent mass.

-

-  It is still a mystery of where the truly ultra-high energy Cosmic Rays come from.  A best guess is from super massive Blackholes in the center of galaxies.  Somehow these powerful energies are able to slingshot cosmic particles to near light speeds.  

-

-  One wild idea is that Dark Matter particles decay into high-speed proton pairs.  One proton gets pulled into the Blackhole and the other gets shot out in an equal and opposite direction to travel through the Cosmos. 

-

-  Announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.  We’re still working on it.

-

April 24, 2022       COSMIC  RAYS  AND  GAMMA  RAYS         1377   3555                                                                                                                                              

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---

---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----  

--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews 

---  to:  ------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------

--------------------- ---  Sunday, April 24, 2022  ---------------------------