--------- #1311 - Is the Universe Spinning, or, Is It Just Me?
- Gravity and Relativity control the path of mass that is in motion. Even the smallest atoms that are also waves will follow a defined trajectory in flight. A device that measures the flight of atoms can become a gyroscope, or an accelerometer, or a gravity sensor. The device is called an atom interferometer and here is how it works:
- Atoms are shot up at an angle of about 10 degrees above the horizontal. These bunches of atoms will follow a well defined parabolic trajectory. A separate laser is fired at this stream of atoms hitting and separating bunches into different trajectories. Two of these trajectories are selected that have trajectories crossing paths at a detector.
- The atoms are bunches of particles, but, at the same time, they are waves. Because the waves cross from different trajectories the detector sees an interference pattern from the colliding waves. The pattern will vary under varying influence on trajectories by gravity or even the rotation of the Earth. Because the interference pattern is so sensitive to orientation it can measure exactly how much the Earth has rotated from its original latitude.
- With a different orientation firing the atoms horizontally, at 90 degrees or perpendicular to gravity, the interference pattern will be around the gravitational axis. The pattern will become a perfect sinusoid. The amplitude of the sinusoid is a function of the Earth’s rotation rate plus the latitude relative to the equator. True north is determined when the sinusoid interference nulls to zero. The direction that the laser beam is pointing is true north. With the rotation rate accurately known a simple calculation can determine the position for any latitude around the globe.
- With the proper orientations the device can be used as a gyroscope and an inertial navigation system. The device is so sensitive it even has the potential of verifying Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity equations that predict the “geodetic precession” of the Earth’s rotation of its own axis.
- There is a company in Sunnyvale, California, manufacturing this device for commercial applications. The current model is a 50 centimeter cube. The commercial model is expected go be 1 centimeter cube that will be used in terrestrial navigation systems. The name of the company is “AOsense“.
- The idea that atoms can sense rotation and can sense gravity has lead astronomers to a new theory of why there is a predominance of matter over anti-matter in the Universe. This observation is one of the biggest mysteries in physics, the Big Bang produced equal amounts, where did all the anti-matter go? The whole idea begins with the idea that the entire Universe might be rotating? Here are the thinking stones to walk across the pond to this remarkable idea:
- There is another law in physics called the Conservation of Parity. It says that the Universe does not discriminate between physical processes and objects and their mirror images. A spinning top follows the same laws of motion regardless if it spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise. The physics with spatial coordinates are always the same regardless or how you flip the coordinates. So, Parity is a well understood law in physics.
- However, Parity is violated in some biological processes. For example, molecules of amino acids definitely favor left-handedness or right-handedness. And, the two different molecules have different properties. The Conservation of Parity is violated.
- Recently, scientists discovered that Conservation of Parity is violated in Beta Decay. When studying the Weak Nuclear Force on a spinning cobalt-60 isotope 70% of the electrons emitted in Beta Decay aligned themselves against the direction of nuclear spin. 30% of the electrons aligned themselves in the direction of the nuclear spin. Parity was definitely violated on these small scales. Maybe, Parity is violated on the very large scales, like the Universe itself.
- A well accepted law in astronomy is that at the very largest scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic, meaning the Universe looks the same in all directions. But, what if the Universe is spinning? Would it still look the same in all directions? To test this idea astronomers began observing the spin directions of spiral galaxies. They expected the direction of spins to be random with no bias for clockwise or counter-clockwise directions. There was no reason for expectong a preferred direction of spin.
- The observations were not easy. Out of 40,000 galaxies observed and out to 540 million lightyears distance only 2,817 spiral galaxies could be identified as having a particular spin direction. At first it all seemed to be random. Then, astronomers noticed that along one direction about 10 degrees to our own galaxies spin axis there appeared to be more left-handed spiral galaxies. Less than 3,000 galaxies was not a large enough sample to make a definite conclusion. More study was needed.
- A follow on study in 2010 observed 230,000 galaxies out to 1.2 billion lightyears. This sample got to 15,158 rotating spiral galaxies. This time looking in the opposite direction in the southern sky they found a definite excess of right-handed spiral galaxies. The only conclusion they could come up with for this bias in spin direction was that the Universe had some net angular momentum giving galaxies an extra kick in formation to bias their spin direction.
- Parity is violated in a spinning Universe. The spinning Universe has asymmetry. If the Weak Nuclear Force does not respect Parity maybe it does not respect Symmetry either. Maybe gravity does not respect the law of Parity. If these asymmetries began in the early formation of the Universe the gravitational shockwaves should have interfered with the energy field that caused Cosmic Inflation. This biasing could have resulted in the production of more matter over anti-matter.
- Astronomers are looking for these gravitational shockwaves in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. They do see some strange patterns in the temperature variations. These strange unexplained patterns could be an effect of asymmetric gravitational waves. On top of that these strange patterns line up with the patterns of left and right-handedness of spiral galaxies.
- If we were to leap to conclusions on slight evidence we might say that an initial spinning Universe caused parity-violating asymmetry where gravity is allowing matter to dominate over anti-matter. Bold theories need a preponderance of evidence.
- There are two missions defined for Europe’s Planck satellite that will study the Cosmic Microwave Background with greater resolution and for Japan’s Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to judge spin orientation of more spiral galaxies. A spinning Universe is a new idea. What does it all mean? An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
---------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Thursday, October 20, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Measuring the distance to the stars?
--------- #1310 - Using Parallax to Measure Distance to the Stars
- Attachment: Constellation of stars.
- By using precision parallax methods the Hipparcos Satellite has measured the distances to 22,396 stars to an accuracy of better than 10%. Before the launch of this spacecraft only the distances to 1,000 stars were known using parallax methods. ( See note 1 to learn how parallax measurements work.)
- Today Hipparcos measurements to the stars extends out to 300 lightyears. The brightness was measured for 1,058,332 stars. 23,900 of these stars belong to multiple star systems. 118,000 of these stars were measured in brightness over 100 times. As a result 11,597 stars were discovered to be variable stars. Nearly 10% are “variables” and 8,237 of these were not known before Hipparcos discovered them. Much of this data needs continual study to determine why the stars are variable in brightness. They could be “ Irregular Variables”, Large-amplitude Variables”, “Unsolved Variables”, “ Eclipsing Binary” stars, or something else yet to be discovered. So far 273 were determined to be Cepheids. 917 are eclipsing binaries. There is still more to learn.
- Distance precision varies. Brighter stars can be measured more accurately than fainter ones. More precise measurements can be made at the ecliptic poles. Stars within 30 lightyears like Vega and Formalhaut can be measured to within 1% accuracy.
- 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. To achieve parallax measurements Hipparcos measured the angle in the sky of stars at 6 month intervals when the Earth was viewing from opposite sides of its orbit about the Sun. The closer stars would shift by a small angle compared to the distant stars in the foreground. The separation of the two measurements is the base of a triangle 186,000,000 miles at its base. The Earth-Sun distance is one astronomical unit of 93,000,000 miles.
- For the 118,000 closer stars the measurements included distance, motion, luminosity, mass, size, and age.
-------------------------- 400 stars were measured to within 1% accuracy
------------------------- 7,000 stars were measured to within 5% accuracy. Ground based telescopes could measure only 100 stars to this precision accuracy.
------------------------ some measurements extended out to 500 lightyears. The Milky Way Galaxy disk of stars is 120,000 lightyears in diameter.
----------------------- Star Clusters were measured:
-------------------------------------- Hyades ------------------ 120 stars
-------------------------------------- Coma Berenices ------ 120 stars
--------------------------------------- Pleiades ----------- 80 stars at 385 lightyears distance. This was 10% closer than previous measurements that had put the distance at 440 lightyears. The difference meant that the stars were emitting 20% less light than expected.
- Hipparcos not only measured the distances to the stars it measured how gravity bent space-time and consequently bent the light that passed near the Sun. Einstein’s equations predicted that the gravitational deflection of starlight passing by the Sun would be 1.7 arc seconds. Measurements confirmed this calculation to one part in one thousand. Light travels in a straight line in curved space-time. Mass tells space-time how much to curve. Space-time tells light how much to bend.
- The Sun and stars quiver, or ring, at a unique resonant frequency of oscillations. These oscillation modes depend on star’s diameter and the different compositions of the different layers that make up the star. Using this data science can create a model that predicts the precise luminosity of the star. Hipparcos measurements exactly confirmed these predictions of the star’s brightness.
- An example of some numbers that calculated the distance to the star Eta Bootes. The parallax angle measured was 88.17 + or - 0.75 milli-arc seconds. The corresponding distance was calculated to be 40.0 lightyears with an uncertainty of less than 1%.
- Footnote (1): The parallax angle is a very small angle. But, once you have it simple trigonometry is used to calculate distances. Every six months the Earth moves from one side of its orbit about the Sun to the other side that is separated by a distance of 186,000,000 miles. This separation allows a different line of sight to nearby stars compared to the distant background stars. This is like holding your thumb at arm’s length and seeing it move back and forth as you close one eye than the other. If you measured the change in the line of sight angle that would be the parallax angle.
To illustrate further, When I was a Boy Scout I learned to use the parallax method to measure the distance across the river. We walked along the bank of the river and lined up two trees on the opposite side. On tree near the opposite bank and another tree in the far distance. (rocks or mountain tops work just as well as trees, duh). We wrote down the angle for the line of sight to each. We then walked along the bank of the river stepping off say 100 yards. We then sighted the same distant tree and the original spot we started from. This angle should be the same. Now we sight to the near tree. This angle changed and this is the angle due to parallax. The parallax angle plus the original angle is the same as the angle at the triangle’s vertex at the near tree. (Trigonometry rule about intersecting angles to parallel lines.) We sighted back to the original spot to give us two angles of the triangle, minus 180 degrees to get the third angle. Trigonometry is used again to calculate the side of the triangle represented by the distance across the river.
Example: The parallax angle change, 10 degrees, plus the original angle ,20 degrees, calculates the vertexes angel to be 30 degrees. The angle back to the original spot is measured at 60 degrees. The third angle in the triangle must be 90 degrees. The base of the 90 degree triangle was 100 yards. The distance across the river is the tangent 30 degrees = 100 / distance = 0.577 The distance across the river was 175 yards. That is some wide river. Better not try to swim across.
---------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Thursday, October 13, 2011
- Attachment: Constellation of stars.
- By using precision parallax methods the Hipparcos Satellite has measured the distances to 22,396 stars to an accuracy of better than 10%. Before the launch of this spacecraft only the distances to 1,000 stars were known using parallax methods. ( See note 1 to learn how parallax measurements work.)
- Today Hipparcos measurements to the stars extends out to 300 lightyears. The brightness was measured for 1,058,332 stars. 23,900 of these stars belong to multiple star systems. 118,000 of these stars were measured in brightness over 100 times. As a result 11,597 stars were discovered to be variable stars. Nearly 10% are “variables” and 8,237 of these were not known before Hipparcos discovered them. Much of this data needs continual study to determine why the stars are variable in brightness. They could be “ Irregular Variables”, Large-amplitude Variables”, “Unsolved Variables”, “ Eclipsing Binary” stars, or something else yet to be discovered. So far 273 were determined to be Cepheids. 917 are eclipsing binaries. There is still more to learn.
- Distance precision varies. Brighter stars can be measured more accurately than fainter ones. More precise measurements can be made at the ecliptic poles. Stars within 30 lightyears like Vega and Formalhaut can be measured to within 1% accuracy.
- 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. To achieve parallax measurements Hipparcos measured the angle in the sky of stars at 6 month intervals when the Earth was viewing from opposite sides of its orbit about the Sun. The closer stars would shift by a small angle compared to the distant stars in the foreground. The separation of the two measurements is the base of a triangle 186,000,000 miles at its base. The Earth-Sun distance is one astronomical unit of 93,000,000 miles.
- For the 118,000 closer stars the measurements included distance, motion, luminosity, mass, size, and age.
-------------------------- 400 stars were measured to within 1% accuracy
------------------------- 7,000 stars were measured to within 5% accuracy. Ground based telescopes could measure only 100 stars to this precision accuracy.
------------------------ some measurements extended out to 500 lightyears. The Milky Way Galaxy disk of stars is 120,000 lightyears in diameter.
----------------------- Star Clusters were measured:
-------------------------------------- Hyades ------------------ 120 stars
-------------------------------------- Coma Berenices ------ 120 stars
--------------------------------------- Pleiades ----------- 80 stars at 385 lightyears distance. This was 10% closer than previous measurements that had put the distance at 440 lightyears. The difference meant that the stars were emitting 20% less light than expected.
- Hipparcos not only measured the distances to the stars it measured how gravity bent space-time and consequently bent the light that passed near the Sun. Einstein’s equations predicted that the gravitational deflection of starlight passing by the Sun would be 1.7 arc seconds. Measurements confirmed this calculation to one part in one thousand. Light travels in a straight line in curved space-time. Mass tells space-time how much to curve. Space-time tells light how much to bend.
- The Sun and stars quiver, or ring, at a unique resonant frequency of oscillations. These oscillation modes depend on star’s diameter and the different compositions of the different layers that make up the star. Using this data science can create a model that predicts the precise luminosity of the star. Hipparcos measurements exactly confirmed these predictions of the star’s brightness.
- An example of some numbers that calculated the distance to the star Eta Bootes. The parallax angle measured was 88.17 + or - 0.75 milli-arc seconds. The corresponding distance was calculated to be 40.0 lightyears with an uncertainty of less than 1%.
- Footnote (1): The parallax angle is a very small angle. But, once you have it simple trigonometry is used to calculate distances. Every six months the Earth moves from one side of its orbit about the Sun to the other side that is separated by a distance of 186,000,000 miles. This separation allows a different line of sight to nearby stars compared to the distant background stars. This is like holding your thumb at arm’s length and seeing it move back and forth as you close one eye than the other. If you measured the change in the line of sight angle that would be the parallax angle.
To illustrate further, When I was a Boy Scout I learned to use the parallax method to measure the distance across the river. We walked along the bank of the river and lined up two trees on the opposite side. On tree near the opposite bank and another tree in the far distance. (rocks or mountain tops work just as well as trees, duh). We wrote down the angle for the line of sight to each. We then walked along the bank of the river stepping off say 100 yards. We then sighted the same distant tree and the original spot we started from. This angle should be the same. Now we sight to the near tree. This angle changed and this is the angle due to parallax. The parallax angle plus the original angle is the same as the angle at the triangle’s vertex at the near tree. (Trigonometry rule about intersecting angles to parallel lines.) We sighted back to the original spot to give us two angles of the triangle, minus 180 degrees to get the third angle. Trigonometry is used again to calculate the side of the triangle represented by the distance across the river.
Example: The parallax angle change, 10 degrees, plus the original angle ,20 degrees, calculates the vertexes angel to be 30 degrees. The angle back to the original spot is measured at 60 degrees. The third angle in the triangle must be 90 degrees. The base of the 90 degree triangle was 100 yards. The distance across the river is the tangent 30 degrees = 100 / distance = 0.577 The distance across the river was 175 yards. That is some wide river. Better not try to swim across.
---------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Thursday, October 13, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Let's visit asteroids Vesta and Ceres!
--------- #1309 - Vesta and Ceres Asteroids Get a Visitor?
- Attachment : Vesta Asteroid and Dawn Spacecraft.
- On September 27, 2007 we sent a spacecraft on a journey of 1,700,000,000 miles to visit an asteroid named “ Vesta”. The “Dawn” spacecraft became a satellite in orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011. Its mission is to study two asteroids over the next four years.
- After Vesta the spacecraft will start another 2 ½ year trip to visit the asteroid “Ceres” which it will also orbit for several months. Lots of data is coming back from this mission already. Science is trying to learn about these rocks that were the same rocks that formed the planets 4,000,000,000 years ago. Vesta’s age is put at 4,567,000,000 years old.
- The entry into Vesta orbit is a gentle one. Both are orbiting the Sun at 46,000 miles per hour with their relative speeds only differing by 110 miles per hour. The initial altitude of orbit was 9,900 miles above the asteroid.
- These asteroids reside inside the Asteroid Belt that orbits between Mars and Jupiter. They represent a part of the original accretion disk that never clumped big enough to form planets.
- Cameras aboard the spacecraft have seven color filters each designed to isolate a specific wavelength. The data photographed will tell scientists the mineral composition of the asteroid’s surface. Other detectors will measure Gamma Rays and neutron emission that emit from the surface when it is bombarded by Cosmic Rays. Cosmic Rays are not really “rays” but particles, mostly nuclei of hydrogen and helium atoms. By studying these impact emissions scientists can identify the elements of potassium, thorium, and uranium. These elements can be identified down to a depth of 3 feet below the surface.
- In total over 400 different element wavelengths will be detected to allow science to identify the emission and absorption spectral lines unique to each element.
- The influence of the asteroid’s gravity on the spacecraft will alter its orbit slightly, speeding it up and slowing it down. These changes in speed will be detected as Doppler Shifts in the frequency of the data transmissions. With this additional data science can accurately calculate the mass of each asteroid. We calculate the volume and then the density of the asteroid to better understand the asteroid’s composition and internal structure. Data so far suggests Vesta to have a metallic iron-nickel core with a rocky olivine mantle and a surface crust.
- Several descending orbits will be used to gather more data. Initially the orbit will be 1,700 miles altitude. Each orbit taking 3 days. The asteroid itself completes one revolution every 5 hours, 20 minutes. At this altitude the resolution of the cameras will be down to 820 feet.
- Later a closer orbit will get to 410 miles altitude taking only 12 hours to complete one orbit. This elevation is designed to make a topographic map of the surface.
- The next orbit at 110 miles altitude takes only 4 hours to complete an orbit. This lowest altitude will allow collection of the highest resolution data and the Gamma Ray and neutron emissions data. Upon completion of these measurements Vesta will be ready to gently fire its ion rockets to proceed on its journey to Ceres. We will have to wait until 2015 to get first hand reports on this part of the mission. It takes another 2 ½ years to reach Ceres
- Already we have learned that Vesta is 330 miles diameter. There is an enormous crater on Vesta where it has lost 1% of its mass due to an enormous collision that happened 1 billion years ago. The Earth has collected some of this debris in meteorites that we have recovered on Earth.
- Vesta is 2.36 AU from the Sun, the Earth is 1 AU. Its mass is 2.59 *10^20 kilograms, 0.35% the mass of the Moon. The density is 3.42 grams / cm^3, about the same as our Moon which is 3.34 grams / cm^3. Earth is 5.52 grams / cm^3. Vesta’s temperatures range from -20 C to -190 C. From Earth Vesta can be seen with binoculars. Its brightness Magnitude is 6.1. 6.0 Magnitude brightness is considered the average limit for the naked eye.
- The next asteroid is Ceres which is the largest, it is 33% of the mass of the entire Asteroid Belt that contains millions of smaller asteroids, including Vesta. Ceres is 590 miles diameter and takes 4.6 years to orbit the Sun. Ceres’ mass is 9.43*10^20 kilograms, or 1.3% the mass of the Moon. Its density is 2.077 grams / cm^3. Pure water is 1.0 grams / cm^3. Ceres takes 9 hours to rotate. It is orbiting the Sun at 40,000 miles per hour. Early indications are that Ceres may have a weak atmosphere and water frost on its surface. It is thought to have a rocky core and an icy mantle, judging from density calculations. Wait till 2015 to learn the better answers.
- An interesting part of this mission is the spacecraft’s propulsion system. There is no way this spacecraft could carry enough conventional rocket fuel to complete this mission. Instead its fuel tank contains 937 pounds of Xenon. Xenon is neutral atoms having 54 protons, 54 electrons, and 70 to 82 neutrons, depending on the Xenon isotope. The rocket engine uses ion propulsion. To get the ions an electron beam is fired at the Xenon dislodging the atom’s electrons and causing the nucleus to be ionized with a positive charge. The thruster is a strong electric field that fires these positive ions out the back of the rocket at 89,000 miles per hour. Action equals reaction and the spacecraft gently reaches the orbital speeds it needs to reach the asteroids.
---------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Tuesday, October 11, 2011
- Attachment : Vesta Asteroid and Dawn Spacecraft.
- On September 27, 2007 we sent a spacecraft on a journey of 1,700,000,000 miles to visit an asteroid named “ Vesta”. The “Dawn” spacecraft became a satellite in orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011. Its mission is to study two asteroids over the next four years.
- After Vesta the spacecraft will start another 2 ½ year trip to visit the asteroid “Ceres” which it will also orbit for several months. Lots of data is coming back from this mission already. Science is trying to learn about these rocks that were the same rocks that formed the planets 4,000,000,000 years ago. Vesta’s age is put at 4,567,000,000 years old.
- The entry into Vesta orbit is a gentle one. Both are orbiting the Sun at 46,000 miles per hour with their relative speeds only differing by 110 miles per hour. The initial altitude of orbit was 9,900 miles above the asteroid.
- These asteroids reside inside the Asteroid Belt that orbits between Mars and Jupiter. They represent a part of the original accretion disk that never clumped big enough to form planets.
- Cameras aboard the spacecraft have seven color filters each designed to isolate a specific wavelength. The data photographed will tell scientists the mineral composition of the asteroid’s surface. Other detectors will measure Gamma Rays and neutron emission that emit from the surface when it is bombarded by Cosmic Rays. Cosmic Rays are not really “rays” but particles, mostly nuclei of hydrogen and helium atoms. By studying these impact emissions scientists can identify the elements of potassium, thorium, and uranium. These elements can be identified down to a depth of 3 feet below the surface.
- In total over 400 different element wavelengths will be detected to allow science to identify the emission and absorption spectral lines unique to each element.
- The influence of the asteroid’s gravity on the spacecraft will alter its orbit slightly, speeding it up and slowing it down. These changes in speed will be detected as Doppler Shifts in the frequency of the data transmissions. With this additional data science can accurately calculate the mass of each asteroid. We calculate the volume and then the density of the asteroid to better understand the asteroid’s composition and internal structure. Data so far suggests Vesta to have a metallic iron-nickel core with a rocky olivine mantle and a surface crust.
- Several descending orbits will be used to gather more data. Initially the orbit will be 1,700 miles altitude. Each orbit taking 3 days. The asteroid itself completes one revolution every 5 hours, 20 minutes. At this altitude the resolution of the cameras will be down to 820 feet.
- Later a closer orbit will get to 410 miles altitude taking only 12 hours to complete one orbit. This elevation is designed to make a topographic map of the surface.
- The next orbit at 110 miles altitude takes only 4 hours to complete an orbit. This lowest altitude will allow collection of the highest resolution data and the Gamma Ray and neutron emissions data. Upon completion of these measurements Vesta will be ready to gently fire its ion rockets to proceed on its journey to Ceres. We will have to wait until 2015 to get first hand reports on this part of the mission. It takes another 2 ½ years to reach Ceres
- Already we have learned that Vesta is 330 miles diameter. There is an enormous crater on Vesta where it has lost 1% of its mass due to an enormous collision that happened 1 billion years ago. The Earth has collected some of this debris in meteorites that we have recovered on Earth.
- Vesta is 2.36 AU from the Sun, the Earth is 1 AU. Its mass is 2.59 *10^20 kilograms, 0.35% the mass of the Moon. The density is 3.42 grams / cm^3, about the same as our Moon which is 3.34 grams / cm^3. Earth is 5.52 grams / cm^3. Vesta’s temperatures range from -20 C to -190 C. From Earth Vesta can be seen with binoculars. Its brightness Magnitude is 6.1. 6.0 Magnitude brightness is considered the average limit for the naked eye.
- The next asteroid is Ceres which is the largest, it is 33% of the mass of the entire Asteroid Belt that contains millions of smaller asteroids, including Vesta. Ceres is 590 miles diameter and takes 4.6 years to orbit the Sun. Ceres’ mass is 9.43*10^20 kilograms, or 1.3% the mass of the Moon. Its density is 2.077 grams / cm^3. Pure water is 1.0 grams / cm^3. Ceres takes 9 hours to rotate. It is orbiting the Sun at 40,000 miles per hour. Early indications are that Ceres may have a weak atmosphere and water frost on its surface. It is thought to have a rocky core and an icy mantle, judging from density calculations. Wait till 2015 to learn the better answers.
- An interesting part of this mission is the spacecraft’s propulsion system. There is no way this spacecraft could carry enough conventional rocket fuel to complete this mission. Instead its fuel tank contains 937 pounds of Xenon. Xenon is neutral atoms having 54 protons, 54 electrons, and 70 to 82 neutrons, depending on the Xenon isotope. The rocket engine uses ion propulsion. To get the ions an electron beam is fired at the Xenon dislodging the atom’s electrons and causing the nucleus to be ionized with a positive charge. The thruster is a strong electric field that fires these positive ions out the back of the rocket at 89,000 miles per hour. Action equals reaction and the spacecraft gently reaches the orbital speeds it needs to reach the asteroids.
---------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Particle physics and electron volts?
--------- #1306 - Electron Volts in the Large Hadron Collider
- When the Universe first formed it was composed of a hot, dense, plasma of charged particles. It was so hot that these ionized particles popped in and out of existence, constantly. To recreate this condition today particle physics is trying to accelerate and smash charged particles together in Mammoth Colliders. Today the CERN Large Hadron Collider is smashing a stream of protons and an opposite rotating stream of anti-protons together. Both streams are traveling nearly the speed of light. The energies created exceed 14,000,000,000,000 electron volts. At these high energies it is hoped that some of these primordial particles will be recreated. And, hopefully, more about how our Universe was created in the Big Bang.
- It is strange to believe that astronomers need answers from particle physicists in order to answer their questions about Dark Matter that forms the galaxies and galaxy clusters, or, Dark Energy that is the force responsible for expanding the Universe at an accelerating rate. The answers they get from particle physics is about what happened a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. They start with a billionth of a second to extrapolate out to 13,750,000,000 years.
- In the Large Hadron Collider the proton /anti-proton streams circle the 16.7 mile tunnel in a vacuum tube at speeds that complete the trip 11,245 times each second. The vacuum in the tube is the best on Earth and equivalent to the vacuum out in space 600 miles above the Earth. When the protons collide a debris of sub-particles spray away from the collision. Detectors collect the data on the trajectories of these sub-particles and computers filter the data for study. There are 9,000 scientists from 85 countries pouring over this data in the hopes of discovering new particles. An enormous amount of data is collected every second that takes months or even years to evaluate. Computers collecting terabytes of data use specialized software to separate wheat from chaff that is blasting from this fire hose.
- When particles collide other particles / anti-particle pairs are produced. These pairs either annihilate each other in a flash of Gamma Rays, or, they individually decay into other particles that are less massive. Energies , i.e. mass, always seeks the lowest level. After the collisions the highest energy particles produced have lifetimes as short as 10^-24 seconds. Physics can not detect these short-lived first particles directly, they are just too fast. Physicists rely on detecting the secondary particles created when the heavier particles decay.
- Physicists can detect the trajectories of electrons, muons, and photons then they have to work backwards to figure out the primary particles that generated the secondary particles. The particle detectors reside inside giant super cooled magnets. Charged particles flying away from the collisions are bent in their trajectories by the powerful magnetic fields. These super cooled magnets draw 6 megawatts of power requiring 20,500 amperes of current. There are 9,000 of these magnets cooled down to 1.9 degrees Kelvin. Outer space is warmer, it is 2.735 degrees Kelvin.
- To create the proton collisions there are 2,808 bunches of protons and anti-protons traveling around the collider in opposite directions. When the two streams cross-paths inside the detectors over 200 billion protons get involved in the collisions. At near light speeds the protons are traveling there are 40,000,000 crossings every second. The resulting collisions emit 100 billion particles every second. That amounts to a lot of data to keep track of.
- The energy of the proton beam is 360,000,000 joules. This energy is equivalent to a 400 ton high speed train traveling around the track at 93 miles per hour.
- One of the particles most sought after is the Higgs Boson. A boson is a force carrying particle like the photon that carries the electromagnetic force, or, the gluon that carries the strong nuclear force. The Higgs is a boson that carries the force resulting in mass. The Higgs creates the mass found in all the other particles. Theoretically the Higgs will decay into 4 electrons, or 4 muons, or 2 electrons and 2 muons, or a pair of bottom quarks , or something even more complicated that we do not expect. Obviously, this is part of the reason we have not discovered the Higgs yet. We are still uncertain where exactly to look.
- The trick is to look with a lot of power. In particle physics the energy is expressed in electron volts. 1 electron volt is the energy to move one electron through 1 volt of potential energy. It is a very small amount of energy. 1 electron volt = 1.6 * 10^-19 joules. An electron in a TV cathode ray tube is 20,000 electron volts.
--------------- radio wave radiation < 0.0012 electron volts
--------------- light waves = 2 electron volts
--------------- gamma rays > 12,300 electron volts.
- The human eye is most sensitive to detecting 2.23 electron volts, the color yellow. The electrostatic potential repelling two protons in close proximity is 600,000 electron volts. The electrostatic potential between a proton and an electron in a hydrogen atom is 27 electron volts.
--------------- chemistry ----------- 1 electron volt
-------------- nuclear physics ------------1,000,000 electron volts
------------- particle physics ------------- 1,000,000,000 electron volts
------------- CERN’s Collider ------------14,000,000,000,000 electron volts.
- An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
---------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Sunday, October 9, 2011
- When the Universe first formed it was composed of a hot, dense, plasma of charged particles. It was so hot that these ionized particles popped in and out of existence, constantly. To recreate this condition today particle physics is trying to accelerate and smash charged particles together in Mammoth Colliders. Today the CERN Large Hadron Collider is smashing a stream of protons and an opposite rotating stream of anti-protons together. Both streams are traveling nearly the speed of light. The energies created exceed 14,000,000,000,000 electron volts. At these high energies it is hoped that some of these primordial particles will be recreated. And, hopefully, more about how our Universe was created in the Big Bang.
- It is strange to believe that astronomers need answers from particle physicists in order to answer their questions about Dark Matter that forms the galaxies and galaxy clusters, or, Dark Energy that is the force responsible for expanding the Universe at an accelerating rate. The answers they get from particle physics is about what happened a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. They start with a billionth of a second to extrapolate out to 13,750,000,000 years.
- In the Large Hadron Collider the proton /anti-proton streams circle the 16.7 mile tunnel in a vacuum tube at speeds that complete the trip 11,245 times each second. The vacuum in the tube is the best on Earth and equivalent to the vacuum out in space 600 miles above the Earth. When the protons collide a debris of sub-particles spray away from the collision. Detectors collect the data on the trajectories of these sub-particles and computers filter the data for study. There are 9,000 scientists from 85 countries pouring over this data in the hopes of discovering new particles. An enormous amount of data is collected every second that takes months or even years to evaluate. Computers collecting terabytes of data use specialized software to separate wheat from chaff that is blasting from this fire hose.
- When particles collide other particles / anti-particle pairs are produced. These pairs either annihilate each other in a flash of Gamma Rays, or, they individually decay into other particles that are less massive. Energies , i.e. mass, always seeks the lowest level. After the collisions the highest energy particles produced have lifetimes as short as 10^-24 seconds. Physics can not detect these short-lived first particles directly, they are just too fast. Physicists rely on detecting the secondary particles created when the heavier particles decay.
- Physicists can detect the trajectories of electrons, muons, and photons then they have to work backwards to figure out the primary particles that generated the secondary particles. The particle detectors reside inside giant super cooled magnets. Charged particles flying away from the collisions are bent in their trajectories by the powerful magnetic fields. These super cooled magnets draw 6 megawatts of power requiring 20,500 amperes of current. There are 9,000 of these magnets cooled down to 1.9 degrees Kelvin. Outer space is warmer, it is 2.735 degrees Kelvin.
- To create the proton collisions there are 2,808 bunches of protons and anti-protons traveling around the collider in opposite directions. When the two streams cross-paths inside the detectors over 200 billion protons get involved in the collisions. At near light speeds the protons are traveling there are 40,000,000 crossings every second. The resulting collisions emit 100 billion particles every second. That amounts to a lot of data to keep track of.
- The energy of the proton beam is 360,000,000 joules. This energy is equivalent to a 400 ton high speed train traveling around the track at 93 miles per hour.
- One of the particles most sought after is the Higgs Boson. A boson is a force carrying particle like the photon that carries the electromagnetic force, or, the gluon that carries the strong nuclear force. The Higgs is a boson that carries the force resulting in mass. The Higgs creates the mass found in all the other particles. Theoretically the Higgs will decay into 4 electrons, or 4 muons, or 2 electrons and 2 muons, or a pair of bottom quarks , or something even more complicated that we do not expect. Obviously, this is part of the reason we have not discovered the Higgs yet. We are still uncertain where exactly to look.
- The trick is to look with a lot of power. In particle physics the energy is expressed in electron volts. 1 electron volt is the energy to move one electron through 1 volt of potential energy. It is a very small amount of energy. 1 electron volt = 1.6 * 10^-19 joules. An electron in a TV cathode ray tube is 20,000 electron volts.
--------------- radio wave radiation < 0.0012 electron volts
--------------- light waves = 2 electron volts
--------------- gamma rays > 12,300 electron volts.
- The human eye is most sensitive to detecting 2.23 electron volts, the color yellow. The electrostatic potential repelling two protons in close proximity is 600,000 electron volts. The electrostatic potential between a proton and an electron in a hydrogen atom is 27 electron volts.
--------------- chemistry ----------- 1 electron volt
-------------- nuclear physics ------------1,000,000 electron volts
------------- particle physics ------------- 1,000,000,000 electron volts
------------- CERN’s Collider ------------14,000,000,000,000 electron volts.
- An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
---------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Sunday, October 9, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
When radios listen to the sky?
--------- #1305 - What Do the Cosmic Harmonics Tell Us?
- Up until the Universe was 370,000 years old the Big Bang plasma was too hot for neutral atoms to form. The plasma was full of charged free protons, and charged free electrons causing the photons not to be able to escape.
- After 370,000 years the expansion and cooling of the plasma was enough for neutral hydrogen to form. (See details in last paragraph) . The Universe became transparent to light. The light was very high energy Gamma Rays at the time, but, is today “ seen” as the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. This radiation started out at a temperature of 3,000 Kelvin. We “see” today at a temperature of 2.734 Kelvin. The temperature of the radiation has cooled by a factor of 1,000 as the Universe has expanded by a factor 1,000.
- The temperature of the background is 2.735 Kelvin which is nearly Absolute Zero and nearly homogeneous, but, not quite perfectly smooth at the very high resolution. At the highest resolution the temperature variations existed at 0.0005 Kelvin. Those “ hot spots” that started out due to quantum fluctuations have evolved into the stars and galaxies we see today.
- But, there may be even more to see in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. Hidden in the slight temperature variations may be primordial sound waves that began with ringing that was created 30,000 years after the Big Bang.
- The shockwave from the Big Bang released an acoustic wave trough the plasma. These acoustic waves should be like a string vibrating on a guitar. Standing waves would be created at fundamental frequencies and wavelengths. Harmonics of the fundamental frequencies would also be created. Sound waves in turn create regions of compression and rarefication. This, in turn, created regions of maximum and minimum densities that are frozen in the Cosmic Background.
- The hotter and coder regions are separated in the sky by about 1 arc degree or less. The difference in hot to cold is less than 30 parts per million. It takes very sensitive microwave detectors to record these small differences. The Planck spacecraft and Herschel far-infrared space telescope launched May 14, 2009 are designed to “see” these small temperature variations. The sound waves within these variations is expected to have a wavelength of 120 kilo parsecs.
- Other variations resulting from gravitational waves released during the period of Cosmic Inflation should detected as variations in the polarization of the photons. the Planck telescope has the “sun glasses” needed to detect this polarization.
- Planck and Herschel are following Earth 900,000 miles behind Earth’s orbit. the location in space is called the Lagrangian-2 point. At this point the gravity of the Earth and the Sun cancel each other out so the satellite can follow along without using much fuel. The satellites are also in Earth’s shadow which blocks most of the Sun’s radiation. this significantly improves the detectors signal-to-noise ratio, another big advantage.
- The detectors have to detect all the other radiation variations (noise) created by galaxies, other instruments, and even dust. This noise, once characterized is subtracted away to identify the desired signal in the noisy cosmic background.
- The Universe is a perfect Blackbody Radiation. As such, astronomers can predict the exact power spectrum as it varies with temperature. Comparing precise measurements with these theories in physics will tell as much about the creation of the Universe.
- What have the harmonic patterns told physicists? The Universe is 13,750,000,000 years old. The Universe is composed of 5% ordinary matter, 25% Dark Matter and 75% Dark Energy. The Universe is geometrically flat, that is, parallel lines remain parallel regardless of how far they are extended. The critical mass of the Universe is 10^-29 grams per cubic centimeter. Critical mass is just enough mass to stop the Universe from expanding due to the balance between collapsing force of gravity and the Universes’ expanding force.
- The Cosmic Radiation actually started 115,000 years after the Big Bang and ended 487,000 years after. The 380,000 years was the peak of recombination. The Cosmic Microwave Background actually covers the range 60 to 600 gigahertz, or, 0.5 to 0.05 centimeters wavelength. The energy level is 0.25 electron volts. The peak power of the blackbody curve occurs at 270 gigahertz. The first stars did not come along until 200,000,000 years after the Big Bang. Science plucks a string and a whole symphony is played.
An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Review #823 Sound waves and the Cosmic Microwave Background
Review #757 Cosmic Background Radiation.
---------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Thursday, October 6, 2011
- Up until the Universe was 370,000 years old the Big Bang plasma was too hot for neutral atoms to form. The plasma was full of charged free protons, and charged free electrons causing the photons not to be able to escape.
- After 370,000 years the expansion and cooling of the plasma was enough for neutral hydrogen to form. (See details in last paragraph) . The Universe became transparent to light. The light was very high energy Gamma Rays at the time, but, is today “ seen” as the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. This radiation started out at a temperature of 3,000 Kelvin. We “see” today at a temperature of 2.734 Kelvin. The temperature of the radiation has cooled by a factor of 1,000 as the Universe has expanded by a factor 1,000.
- The temperature of the background is 2.735 Kelvin which is nearly Absolute Zero and nearly homogeneous, but, not quite perfectly smooth at the very high resolution. At the highest resolution the temperature variations existed at 0.0005 Kelvin. Those “ hot spots” that started out due to quantum fluctuations have evolved into the stars and galaxies we see today.
- But, there may be even more to see in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. Hidden in the slight temperature variations may be primordial sound waves that began with ringing that was created 30,000 years after the Big Bang.
- The shockwave from the Big Bang released an acoustic wave trough the plasma. These acoustic waves should be like a string vibrating on a guitar. Standing waves would be created at fundamental frequencies and wavelengths. Harmonics of the fundamental frequencies would also be created. Sound waves in turn create regions of compression and rarefication. This, in turn, created regions of maximum and minimum densities that are frozen in the Cosmic Background.
- The hotter and coder regions are separated in the sky by about 1 arc degree or less. The difference in hot to cold is less than 30 parts per million. It takes very sensitive microwave detectors to record these small differences. The Planck spacecraft and Herschel far-infrared space telescope launched May 14, 2009 are designed to “see” these small temperature variations. The sound waves within these variations is expected to have a wavelength of 120 kilo parsecs.
- Other variations resulting from gravitational waves released during the period of Cosmic Inflation should detected as variations in the polarization of the photons. the Planck telescope has the “sun glasses” needed to detect this polarization.
- Planck and Herschel are following Earth 900,000 miles behind Earth’s orbit. the location in space is called the Lagrangian-2 point. At this point the gravity of the Earth and the Sun cancel each other out so the satellite can follow along without using much fuel. The satellites are also in Earth’s shadow which blocks most of the Sun’s radiation. this significantly improves the detectors signal-to-noise ratio, another big advantage.
- The detectors have to detect all the other radiation variations (noise) created by galaxies, other instruments, and even dust. This noise, once characterized is subtracted away to identify the desired signal in the noisy cosmic background.
- The Universe is a perfect Blackbody Radiation. As such, astronomers can predict the exact power spectrum as it varies with temperature. Comparing precise measurements with these theories in physics will tell as much about the creation of the Universe.
- What have the harmonic patterns told physicists? The Universe is 13,750,000,000 years old. The Universe is composed of 5% ordinary matter, 25% Dark Matter and 75% Dark Energy. The Universe is geometrically flat, that is, parallel lines remain parallel regardless of how far they are extended. The critical mass of the Universe is 10^-29 grams per cubic centimeter. Critical mass is just enough mass to stop the Universe from expanding due to the balance between collapsing force of gravity and the Universes’ expanding force.
- The Cosmic Radiation actually started 115,000 years after the Big Bang and ended 487,000 years after. The 380,000 years was the peak of recombination. The Cosmic Microwave Background actually covers the range 60 to 600 gigahertz, or, 0.5 to 0.05 centimeters wavelength. The energy level is 0.25 electron volts. The peak power of the blackbody curve occurs at 270 gigahertz. The first stars did not come along until 200,000,000 years after the Big Bang. Science plucks a string and a whole symphony is played.
An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Review #823 Sound waves and the Cosmic Microwave Background
Review #757 Cosmic Background Radiation.
---------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Thursday, October 6, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
How did the Earth get its water?
--------- #1304 - How Did the Earth Get Its Water?
- The Earth is a planet that was born in an inferno. No liquid water could have survived the intense heat. So, how did the planet get its precious water?
- 4,500,000,000 years ago the inner Solar System was 400 degrees C, which is hot enough to melt lead and vaporize water. A standing theory for astronomers was that a bombardment of icy comets brought the water to Earth a billion years later, after the Earth had cooled down. However, we have since learned the chemical composition of comet water does not match the water on Earth.
- The accretion disk around the Sun that formed the planets was an excellent system for separating the elements. The heavier elements fell toward the center due to the Sun’s gravity. The rocky planets formed in the inner Solar System and the gaseous planets formed in the outer Solar System. Also, it was hotter closer to the Sun. All the elements solidified or froze at different circumferences as you progress out on the accretion disk. Asteroids are rocky and formed in the inner part of the disk. Comet are frozen snowballs of ice and they formed in the outer part of the disk.
- It turns out that the asteroids are mostly rock, but contain water and their water is a better chemical match to what we find on Earth. The inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The left over rocks that did not form planets are the asteroids. Most of the asteroids lie in a belt orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. This asteroid belt marks the transition between the rocks and the gas in the Solar System. It is estimated that there are over 1 billion asteroids orbiting the Sun with the planets.
- Computer models studying the possible interactions between the two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, suggest that gravity traps may have pushed and pulled many of the asteroids out of their natural orbits and sent them hurtling toward the Sun, crossing the orbits of the inner, rocky planets. The outer asteroids were more like icy rocks, they had elongated orbits that may have been what pummeled the Earth with a renewal of water. The recent discovery of water ice on the surface of an outer asteroid (65Cybele) has significantly reinforce this theory.
- The Earth lot all of its water and then regained it with multiple asteroid impacts. If the Earth was perfectly smooth it would be covered in water up to 4 ½ miles deep.
- We tend to think the Earth is a large land mass. If we just count the land on which people can live it is only 12% of the surface of the planet. If we include the inland seas the livable land mass is only 4% of the surface. We are fortunate indeed to have all this liquid water. If our orbit was just 1% farther from the Sun or just 4% closet to the Sun we would have ice or vapor and not liquid water. There are other estimates that say 5% closer or 15% farther but that is still a narrow band for liquid water habitation.
- Theories are just that theories. We are not certain asteroids are the answer on how Earth got its water. Comets were not a good match because they contain too much deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen. The amount of deuterium is twice as much as is found in our oceans today. Asteroids are a good match for the amount of deuterium but they are a bad match for the amount of isotopic abundance of the noble gases, such as Xenon.
- Another theory is that certain molecules on Earth captured the water, withstood the inferno temperatures, and later released the water after things cooled down. Certain molecules such as Olivine, or Magnesium could bind water molecules so tightly that they could withstand temperatures of 600 C. If that were possible water could have arisen out of the cosmic dust after the planet had formed. As the Earth cooled and the rocks crystallized water liquid would be released. A team rich atmosphere would condense onto the surface to form our oceans.
- One of the primary reason astronomers are trying to determine how the Earth got is water is that they need to learn if there could be liquid water on other planets and other moons in our Solar System and other solar systems. Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it. Over 1,200 new planets have been discovered in other solar systems. We would like to learn if any of these planets are habitable. Which planets are water-rich and how did they get that way? How did the Earth itself get that way? We think Earth is water-rich, but, actually it is a desert. 70% of the surface of Earth is covered in water but that represents only 0.02% of the Earth’s mass.
- There may be an ocean ‘s worth of water still locked up in the Earth’s interior. We would like to learn this to apply to the prevalence of water on the extra solar terrestrial planets we discover. To listen to a conference debate on this question visit
http://bit.ly/fskkaf
- The Earth is a planet that was born in an inferno. No liquid water could have survived the intense heat. So, how did the planet get its precious water?
- 4,500,000,000 years ago the inner Solar System was 400 degrees C, which is hot enough to melt lead and vaporize water. A standing theory for astronomers was that a bombardment of icy comets brought the water to Earth a billion years later, after the Earth had cooled down. However, we have since learned the chemical composition of comet water does not match the water on Earth.
- The accretion disk around the Sun that formed the planets was an excellent system for separating the elements. The heavier elements fell toward the center due to the Sun’s gravity. The rocky planets formed in the inner Solar System and the gaseous planets formed in the outer Solar System. Also, it was hotter closer to the Sun. All the elements solidified or froze at different circumferences as you progress out on the accretion disk. Asteroids are rocky and formed in the inner part of the disk. Comet are frozen snowballs of ice and they formed in the outer part of the disk.
- It turns out that the asteroids are mostly rock, but contain water and their water is a better chemical match to what we find on Earth. The inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The left over rocks that did not form planets are the asteroids. Most of the asteroids lie in a belt orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. This asteroid belt marks the transition between the rocks and the gas in the Solar System. It is estimated that there are over 1 billion asteroids orbiting the Sun with the planets.
- Computer models studying the possible interactions between the two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, suggest that gravity traps may have pushed and pulled many of the asteroids out of their natural orbits and sent them hurtling toward the Sun, crossing the orbits of the inner, rocky planets. The outer asteroids were more like icy rocks, they had elongated orbits that may have been what pummeled the Earth with a renewal of water. The recent discovery of water ice on the surface of an outer asteroid (65Cybele) has significantly reinforce this theory.
- The Earth lot all of its water and then regained it with multiple asteroid impacts. If the Earth was perfectly smooth it would be covered in water up to 4 ½ miles deep.
- We tend to think the Earth is a large land mass. If we just count the land on which people can live it is only 12% of the surface of the planet. If we include the inland seas the livable land mass is only 4% of the surface. We are fortunate indeed to have all this liquid water. If our orbit was just 1% farther from the Sun or just 4% closet to the Sun we would have ice or vapor and not liquid water. There are other estimates that say 5% closer or 15% farther but that is still a narrow band for liquid water habitation.
- Theories are just that theories. We are not certain asteroids are the answer on how Earth got its water. Comets were not a good match because they contain too much deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen. The amount of deuterium is twice as much as is found in our oceans today. Asteroids are a good match for the amount of deuterium but they are a bad match for the amount of isotopic abundance of the noble gases, such as Xenon.
- Another theory is that certain molecules on Earth captured the water, withstood the inferno temperatures, and later released the water after things cooled down. Certain molecules such as Olivine, or Magnesium could bind water molecules so tightly that they could withstand temperatures of 600 C. If that were possible water could have arisen out of the cosmic dust after the planet had formed. As the Earth cooled and the rocks crystallized water liquid would be released. A team rich atmosphere would condense onto the surface to form our oceans.
- One of the primary reason astronomers are trying to determine how the Earth got is water is that they need to learn if there could be liquid water on other planets and other moons in our Solar System and other solar systems. Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it. Over 1,200 new planets have been discovered in other solar systems. We would like to learn if any of these planets are habitable. Which planets are water-rich and how did they get that way? How did the Earth itself get that way? We think Earth is water-rich, but, actually it is a desert. 70% of the surface of Earth is covered in water but that represents only 0.02% of the Earth’s mass.
- There may be an ocean ‘s worth of water still locked up in the Earth’s interior. We would like to learn this to apply to the prevalence of water on the extra solar terrestrial planets we discover. To listen to a conference debate on this question visit
http://bit.ly/fskkaf
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Why look for antimatter in the Antarctic?
--------- #1303 - Why Look for Antimatter in the Antarctic?
- The Earth is spinning. In Santa Rosa were are moving on the surface of Earth directly east at 700 miles per hour. If we were standing on the equator we would be moving east at 1038 miles per hour. We do not feel it because everything else is moving with us at the same speed. Constant velocity is natural motion. It takes no force to maintain it. It does take a force to speed it up or slow it down. Force = mass * acceleration. But what about the South Pole. If you were standing there your belt buckle would take 24 hours to make one complete revolution. Your belt buckle would be traveling 0.00005 miles per hour.
- Someone came up with the idea that would be a great place to launch a balloon. The temperature is constant, very cold. During the summer there is continuous daylight so there is no temperature variation between night and day. The winds are nearly constant and continuous rotating counterclockwise at an altitude of 20 miles. Stratospheric balloons can reach these altitudes and circle the South Pole in 3 weeks returning to their same spot to release a payload.
- When the balloon passes overhead 3 weeks later a radio controlled explosion severs the balloon from its payload and a giant parachute returns the payload to Earth. In the case of the balloon carrying the superconducting spectrometer experiment the payload is 6,000 pounds. The balloon itself weighs 5,300 pounds. It too is retrieved after it plummets to Earth.
- What does putting a superconducting spectrometer 20 miles above the Antarctic hope to accomplish? The experiment is designed to help solve the mystery, “ Why is there more matter than antimatter in the Universe? The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of each. If the two come together they immediately annihilate each other in a flash of Gamma Rays. The Universe we know is all matter. What happened to the anti-matter?”
- The high altitude detectors are designed to measure the high energy particles hitting our planet coming from outer space. Could some of these particles be anti-matter particles? If so, maybe there are stars out there that are totally made of anti-matter. Maybe entire galaxies could be made entirely of anti-matter. There is no way we could detect the difference until matter and anti-matter came together.
- The superconducting spectrometer carried a huge superconducting magnet. When cosmic rays entered the magnetic field some 120,000 feet altitude the particles path would be bent or curved depending on the charge, weight, and velocity of each particle. Negative charges would curve one way as they entered the magnetic field. Positive charges would curve the opposite way. Anti-protons are 1,836 times heavier than electrons so they would not curve as much. But, how much the paths curve also depends on the velocity of the particles. Therefore a second detector surrounding the super magnetic made of plastic scintillators which detect Cherenkov light measure the velocity as the particles zip through. These scintillators can measure velocity to one tenth of a billionth of a second. That is the time it takes light in a vacuum to travel the distance of 3 centimeters.)
- To catch those really massive particles like atomic nuclei that are traveling 90% the speed of light there is a third detector that is made of silica gel. Again Cherenkov light is created when a particle travels faster than the speed of light in a medium other than a vacuum. Light travels fastest in a vacuum and slower in all other medium. When a particle enters a medium and is traveling faster than the speed of light in that medium the particle emit’s a blue light called Cherenkov light.
- All three detectors collect data on all the particles that enter. The data is recovered and returned to the science libraries for analysis and study to determine if and how many anti-matter particles are hitting the Earth. During the 3 week flight the detectors will record over 5,000,000,000 events. Each event must be studied to determine which was an electron, a positron ( anti-electron), a muon ( a high energy electron), a proton, an anti-proton, or an atomic nucleus. If the atomic nucleus is anti-helium it would change the entire scope of physics in the study of cosmology.
- The balloons that carry the 4,000 to 6,000 pound payloads use 37,000,000 cubic feet of helium gas. The balloon fabric itself weighs 5,300 pounds. As the balloon is inflated it stands 1,000 feet tall. It is launched in a 10 knot wind and climbs 500 feet a minute. Its diameter expands to 400 feet across after 3 hours as it climbs to 120,000 feet into the stratosphere. The temperature there is -49F. When viewed from a commercial airplane it appears as big as a full moon yet it is twice as high above the airplane as the airplane is above the ground.
- 3 weeks later the balloon returns with 5,000,000,000 streams of data. There is much to study, an announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned. The anti-matter experiment is not the only experiment to use the high altitude balloons above the Antarctic. Check the NASA web site to learn about the others and to see videos of the balloon launches.
- The Antarctic Balloon experiments have mapped the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature of 2.725 Kelvin with cold spots being 0.0002 Kelvin colder and hotspots being 0.0002 Kelvin hotter. The hot spots have since evolved into the stars and galaxies we have today. Science has learned from this data that the Universe is geometrically flat. This means that 2 photons parallel to each other and traveling in a straight line will remain parallel. If the geometry were spherical the parallel paths would eventually cross, if the geometry were concave, or saddle shaped, the parallel paths would diverge and continually separate from each other. They have learned that 85% of the Universe’s mass is not detectable in the electromagnetic spectrum. They know the CMB is polarized. New space satellites will be studying this polarization. They have discovered new massive galaxy clusters. All from balloons. How about that?
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RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Saturday, October 1, 2011
- The Earth is spinning. In Santa Rosa were are moving on the surface of Earth directly east at 700 miles per hour. If we were standing on the equator we would be moving east at 1038 miles per hour. We do not feel it because everything else is moving with us at the same speed. Constant velocity is natural motion. It takes no force to maintain it. It does take a force to speed it up or slow it down. Force = mass * acceleration. But what about the South Pole. If you were standing there your belt buckle would take 24 hours to make one complete revolution. Your belt buckle would be traveling 0.00005 miles per hour.
- Someone came up with the idea that would be a great place to launch a balloon. The temperature is constant, very cold. During the summer there is continuous daylight so there is no temperature variation between night and day. The winds are nearly constant and continuous rotating counterclockwise at an altitude of 20 miles. Stratospheric balloons can reach these altitudes and circle the South Pole in 3 weeks returning to their same spot to release a payload.
- When the balloon passes overhead 3 weeks later a radio controlled explosion severs the balloon from its payload and a giant parachute returns the payload to Earth. In the case of the balloon carrying the superconducting spectrometer experiment the payload is 6,000 pounds. The balloon itself weighs 5,300 pounds. It too is retrieved after it plummets to Earth.
- What does putting a superconducting spectrometer 20 miles above the Antarctic hope to accomplish? The experiment is designed to help solve the mystery, “ Why is there more matter than antimatter in the Universe? The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of each. If the two come together they immediately annihilate each other in a flash of Gamma Rays. The Universe we know is all matter. What happened to the anti-matter?”
- The high altitude detectors are designed to measure the high energy particles hitting our planet coming from outer space. Could some of these particles be anti-matter particles? If so, maybe there are stars out there that are totally made of anti-matter. Maybe entire galaxies could be made entirely of anti-matter. There is no way we could detect the difference until matter and anti-matter came together.
- The superconducting spectrometer carried a huge superconducting magnet. When cosmic rays entered the magnetic field some 120,000 feet altitude the particles path would be bent or curved depending on the charge, weight, and velocity of each particle. Negative charges would curve one way as they entered the magnetic field. Positive charges would curve the opposite way. Anti-protons are 1,836 times heavier than electrons so they would not curve as much. But, how much the paths curve also depends on the velocity of the particles. Therefore a second detector surrounding the super magnetic made of plastic scintillators which detect Cherenkov light measure the velocity as the particles zip through. These scintillators can measure velocity to one tenth of a billionth of a second. That is the time it takes light in a vacuum to travel the distance of 3 centimeters.)
- To catch those really massive particles like atomic nuclei that are traveling 90% the speed of light there is a third detector that is made of silica gel. Again Cherenkov light is created when a particle travels faster than the speed of light in a medium other than a vacuum. Light travels fastest in a vacuum and slower in all other medium. When a particle enters a medium and is traveling faster than the speed of light in that medium the particle emit’s a blue light called Cherenkov light.
- All three detectors collect data on all the particles that enter. The data is recovered and returned to the science libraries for analysis and study to determine if and how many anti-matter particles are hitting the Earth. During the 3 week flight the detectors will record over 5,000,000,000 events. Each event must be studied to determine which was an electron, a positron ( anti-electron), a muon ( a high energy electron), a proton, an anti-proton, or an atomic nucleus. If the atomic nucleus is anti-helium it would change the entire scope of physics in the study of cosmology.
- The balloons that carry the 4,000 to 6,000 pound payloads use 37,000,000 cubic feet of helium gas. The balloon fabric itself weighs 5,300 pounds. As the balloon is inflated it stands 1,000 feet tall. It is launched in a 10 knot wind and climbs 500 feet a minute. Its diameter expands to 400 feet across after 3 hours as it climbs to 120,000 feet into the stratosphere. The temperature there is -49F. When viewed from a commercial airplane it appears as big as a full moon yet it is twice as high above the airplane as the airplane is above the ground.
- 3 weeks later the balloon returns with 5,000,000,000 streams of data. There is much to study, an announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned. The anti-matter experiment is not the only experiment to use the high altitude balloons above the Antarctic. Check the NASA web site to learn about the others and to see videos of the balloon launches.
- The Antarctic Balloon experiments have mapped the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature of 2.725 Kelvin with cold spots being 0.0002 Kelvin colder and hotspots being 0.0002 Kelvin hotter. The hot spots have since evolved into the stars and galaxies we have today. Science has learned from this data that the Universe is geometrically flat. This means that 2 photons parallel to each other and traveling in a straight line will remain parallel. If the geometry were spherical the parallel paths would eventually cross, if the geometry were concave, or saddle shaped, the parallel paths would diverge and continually separate from each other. They have learned that 85% of the Universe’s mass is not detectable in the electromagnetic spectrum. They know the CMB is polarized. New space satellites will be studying this polarization. They have discovered new massive galaxy clusters. All from balloons. How about that?
---------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Saturday, October 1, 2011
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