The far-side of the Moon and Rainbows

-  1899  -  The cow jumped over the far-side of the Moon.  The first sight of a new face for the world to see.  What did we learn?  That rainbows are only in your head.
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---------------------1899  -  The Far - Side of the Moon.
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-  The Moon orbit’s the Earth showing us only one face.  No one saw the far-side until 1959, but, the photo-quality was so poor.  The most that could be concluded is that it was very different than the near-side.  The large dark maria were not as numerous.  Maria is Latin for “ seas”.  Instead its surface was mostly bright, rugged highlands, crisscrossed with rays from large, fresh craters.
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-  The Moon was two distinct hemispheres of individual character.  The maria are ancient lava flows which erupted from the surface 3 billion years ago.  The eruptions were caused by the heat from decaying radioactive elements deep under the surface.  The heat melted the magnesium and iron-rich mantle producing liquid rock that covered the surface.
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-  The flowing magma formed giant impact features called “basins”.  Some are more than 620 miles in diameter.  The basins were caused by asteroids impacting the Moon some 4 billion years ago.  The basins created fractures that allowed magma to break through to the surface.
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-  Impact craters and basins cover the entire surface.  Not all basins are filled with lava.  Something must have caused the volcanic flooding of almost all the near- side basins but only a few of the far-side basins.
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-  The Moon’s crust consists of aluminum and calcium rich rocks.  The Moon must have been nearly totally molten covered by an ocean of magma in which these low density minerals floated to the surface.  The denser iron-rich minerals became the “ mantle”.  It was the mantle that slowly re-melted due to the heat from radioactive elements.  This magma erupted as maria basalts.
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-  The Moon’s crust is some 20 miles thick similar to parts of Earth’s crust.  The crust on the far-side is thicker than on the near-side.  Also, the Moon’s center of mass is offset a couple miles in the direction  of Earth.  This is what likely caused the Moon’s rotation to synchronize with its orbit of Earth.
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-  The half-life of the radioactive elements is 4.5 billion years where by it decays to lead.  The internal heat generated explains much of the surface, but, the rest is the result of a complex history of impacts, mare flooding, and other random geological events.  We  only partly understand why the near-side and far-side of the Moon are so different.  Maybe the cow knows.
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-  Another strangness is the “giant in the room”.  Compared with other rocky planets our Moon is so huge.  It’s crust is also similar the Earth’s rock having the same oxygen isotopes.  Minerals composed of sodium and calcium aluminum silicates are the same as Earth’s curst.
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-  The Moon’s formation occurred 4.6 billion years ago when two planets occupied the same orbit around the Sun collided in a grazing angle.  The ejected material formed Saturn-like rings around Earth.  Over thousands of years these rings accreted into a huge mass of orbiting particle eventually forming the Moon we have today.
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-  The Full Moonlight is 400,000 times dimmer than Sunlight.  This is not intuitive because our eyes protect us from huge brightness changes.  The 6th  magnitude stars mark the lower limits of human visual experience.  The upper limits is 9 trillion times brighter.
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-  We only see dimness in black and white.  With more light intensity we can see colors.  But, these colors only occur in our brains.  The photons are only electromagnetic pulses. They have neither luminosity or color.  Just as magnetism and electricity is not visible, neither are photons.  Instead photos deliver an electromagnetic force that excite the cells in the back of the eye.  The impulses for these cells produce the subjective perception of light and color.  That is why the rainbow of colors occurs strictly inside your head.
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-  Your brain’s 100 billion neurons are what creates the brightness and colors in our visual Universe.  It will be hard to convince you that the visual scene external to your eyes is only an illusion.
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-  The photons originated in the Sun.  The brightness of the Sun is 400 trillion, trillion watts.  What reaches us is only 1,000 watts per square meter.  The photons do not come from the Sun’s disk that we see.  Instead the inner most core , 1/200th of the volume , produces photons in the center compact fusion generator.  The outer edge is the photosphere where these photons are released.  This edge is only a few hundred miles thick.
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-  Eight minutes later the photons show up on Earth.  But, none turn in to colored light until your brain does its trick.  The energy of the photons depends on the frequency of the photon oscillations.  Higher frequencies carry more energy.  The frequency also controls the color the eyes detect and the brain registers.  The frequencies increase from red light to blue light.  The rainbows are only in you head.
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-  Other reviews available on this subject:
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-  #1704  -  There are two sides to get a Full Moon.  The size of the Moon is 27% the size of the Earth.  However, the Moon is only 1.2% the mass of the Earth.  To get a rocket to leave the Moon it needs to accelerate to only 5,400 miles per hour.
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-  #1681  -  Enceladus and Europa might support life?  We have 173 moons orbiting our 8 planets.  Over 150 asteroids also have orbiting satellites.
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-  #1678  -  Moon history from the beginning.  The Moon has almost  no atmosphere.  You can count cratering yourself on website “NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter”  www.moonzoo.org  The Moon is 250,000 miles away but these images are from only 400 miles away.
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-  #1450  -  Full Moon on Doug’s birthday.
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-  #1291  -  Two Moons over Miami.  The early Universe was a chaotic place.
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-  #1243  -  What is behind the Man in the Moon?  As the Moon cooled it preserved some water in the form of hydroxyl.  The Moon is spiraling away in its orbit 1.5 inches each year.
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-  #1651  -  Moon may be the best habitats for life.
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-  #64  -  written November 11, 2004.  What you did not know about our Moon.
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A century of astronomy:

-  1898  -  A century of astronomy, hundreds of small steps for man, several giant leaps for mankind.  Albert Einstein started it at beginning of the century.  The space program follows for 100 years:
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---------------------1898  -  A Century of Astronomy.
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-  A century of astronomy.  It begins with Albert Einstein and physics in 1905 when Einstein introduced the idea of light being “ photons”, little bundles of energy.  He used this idea to describe the “ photoelectric effect”.  Later that year he outlined the ideas behind “ Special Relativity”.
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-  In 1906 Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto.  It was not until 1909 that Karl Boblin first proposed that the Sun was NOT the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
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-  1910, April 20, Halley’s comet had its closest approach at 14 million miles.  It will return July 28, 2061.  I’ll miss it.  In 1916 Karl Schwarzschild uses General Relativity to derive the size of the “Event Horizon” of a non-rotating Blackhole.
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-  November, 1915, Einstein adds gravity to his equations for General Relativity, as the curvature of space-time.    1923 - Edwin Hubble discovers a variable star and calculates the distance to discover the Andromeda Galaxy.
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-  In 1927  Georges Lemaitre proposes the expanding Universe from a single- point.  In 1948 the idea became known as the Big Bang.  In 1925 a doctoral thesis proposes that stars are made of hydrogen and helium.  In 1926  Goddard launches the 1st liquid fuel rocket.  In 1929  Hubble uses “ Redshifts” to explain an expanding Universe.  The more distant the galaxy the faster it is receding due to the expanding space.  Today the Hubble Constant of Expansion is calculated to be 70 kilometers per second per mega parsec., or 47,000 miles per hour per million lightyears distance.
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-  In 1931 the electron microscope is invented.  In 1933 Karl Jansky uses his home-made radio telescope to conclude that radio signals were originating at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
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-  In 1932 the neutron is discovered.  And, deuterium is discovered to contain one proton and one neutron  And, Carl Anderson discovers the “ positron”, an electron anti-matter.  Carbon Dioxide is discovered in Venus’ atmosphere.  Methane is discovered in Jupiter’s atmosphere.  In 1933 Fritz Zwicky proposes Dark Matter is holding galaxies together.  In 1934 he proposes a supernova would leave behind a Neutron Star.
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-  In 1935 the first radar experiments.  In 1936  33,342 stars were catalogued with their characteristics.  In 1938  Hans Bethe demonstrates how stars generate energy through nuclear fusion.  1939 - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard start their company.  In 1941 from 14 supernovae observations Type I and Type II are defined.   Later Type Ia becomes the “standard candle” for distance measurements.  In 1942  Enrico Fermi achieves the first sustained nuclear reaction.
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-  In 1944 discovery of atmosphere on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.  1946 - bounces radio signals off the Moon.  The ENIAC electronic computer operational.  The first radio interferometer is built.
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-  1947 - Bell X-1 plane breaks the sound barrier.  Bell labs invents the transistor.  1948 - the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) is discovered.  1949 - Cape Canaveral, Florida is built for rocket testing.  Big Bang nucleosynthesis proposed as how elements were created.
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-  1950 - The Oort Cloud thought to contain a trillion comets between 20,000 AU and 100,000 AU away.  Comets are proposed to be “ dirty snowballs”.  In 1986 they are proposed to also have rocky cores.  In 1951 the Kuiper Belt of comets are found between 30 AU and 55 AU.
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-  1952 - Cepheid Variable stars proposed as another “ standard candle “ to measure astronomical distances.  Hydrogen bomb is detonated.  The sub-atomic neutrino is detected.  1953 - measuring radioactive decay of meteorite deduces the age of the Earth to be 4.55 billion years.   1954 - Metric System established.  1955 - the anti-proton discovered.  Atomic clock invented using Cesium - 133 atoms.  Electron synchrotron radiation discovered.  1956 - anti-neutrino discovered.
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-  1957 - nucleosynthesis in the stars proposed on how the 97 elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and lithium were created.  1957 - Fortran used in computers for scientific computing.  Sputnik 2 launches a dog into space.  1958 - NASA is created.  Explorer satellite defines the Van Allen Radiation Belts circling Earth.
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-  1959 - U.S. launches the first weather satellite.  And, puts rhesus monkey into sub-orbit returning safely to Earth.  1961 - Yuri Gagarin becomes 1st human in sub-orbit.  Alan Shepard next in a 15 minute sub-orbit.
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-  1962 - Mariner2 in Venus fly-by.  Muons detected measured to have time-dilation according to equations in Special Relativity.  1963 - Quasar redshift finds galaxy moving away at 16% the speed of light.
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-  1964 - Discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.  Sub-atomic quarks were discovered as components of protons and neutrons.  Ranger 7 takes 4,300 close-up pictures of the Moon.  Density waves explain Milky Way’s spiral arms.  Higgs Boson proposed to explain how particles obtain mass.  Gemini 3 astronauts circle the Earth.  Mariner 4 does Mars fly-by.
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-  1966 - Soviet Union lands Luna 9 probe on the Moon.  Their Venera 3 crashes into Venus.  Leonid comets shower at 150,000 meteors per hour.  Soviet’s Luna 10 orbit’s the Moon.  NASA Surveyor 1 lands on the Moon.  1967 - Gamma Ray Bursts first discovered.
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-  1967 - Electroweak Force proposed to combine electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces.  Soviet Union Venera 4 descends through Venus’ atmosphere.  1968  Apollo 8 orbit’s the Moon.  1969 to 1972 twelve American astronauts walk on the Moon.  The Murchison meteorite that falls on Australia contains organic compounds and amino acids originating in space.
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-  1971 - Soviet Mars 3 makes a soft-landing.  Mariner 9 orbits Mars.  1972 - Pioneer 10 launched for Jupiter.  1973 Skylab orbits Earth.  Type Ia supernovae defined as “Standard Candles”.  1973 - Pioneer 10 fly-by of Jupiter.
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-  1974  “Quasar” discovered to be 900 million lightyears from Earth.  The first “Pulsar” is discovered.  Sagittarius A* measured to be a Blackhole of 4.3 million Solar Mass at center of Galaxy.  Pioneer 11 does Jupiter fly-by.
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Soviet Venera 9 lands on Venus.  1976 - Viking I and II land on -  1975 - Mars.  1977 - rings discovered orbiting Uranus.  1978 - Pluto’s moon Charon discovered.  Pioneer 11 reaches Saturn.  1979 - gravitational lensing of Quasars confirms Einstein’s calculation in theory of General of Relativity.
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-  1980 - Asteroid suggested to be cause of extinction of dinosaurs.  Voyager I reaches Saturn.  Alan Guth ‘s  Inflation Theory solves “ Horizon Problem” and “ Flatness Problem” in cosmology of the Universe.
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-  1983 - Sally Ride 1st American women in space.  1986 - Voyager 2 passes Uranus.  1988 the Einstein Ring observed due to gravitational lensing.  Deuterium discovered on Mars.  Extra-solar planet evidence found around star, Alrai.  But, data is poor quality.  MIR Russian Space Station in orbit.  Supernova 1987a exploded 168,000 years ago.  Its light just reaches Earth.  Voyager 2 reaches Neptune.
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-  1989 - COBE satellite measures Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.  Voyager 2 passes Neptune.  1990 - Hubble Telescope in orbit.  1993 - Endeavour astronauts correct Hubble telescope’s vision problem.    1990 - Magellan spacecraft orbits Venus.  CERN introduces the first Web page.  1991 - Yucatan impact crater identified as asteroid impact.  First exoplanets discovered outside our Solar System.
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-  1992 - seeds of galaxies discovered in Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.  First Kuiper Belt object beyond Pluto discovered.  1994 - Comet Shoemaker-Levy smashes into Jupiter.  Dwarf galaxy discovered just 50,000 lightyears away.  First Brown Dwarf object discovered bigger than a planet but too small to be a star.
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-  1995 - Closest exoplanet discovered orbiting 51 Pegasi.  Galileo spacecraft orbits Jupiter.  Science creates element number 112, called Copernicium.  10 meter telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.  GPS becomes operational using 32 satellites.  Today’s accuracy to within 14 nanoseconds.
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-  1997 - Mars Pathfinder lands.  Contact not lost until 2006.  Blackhole discovered in galaxy M84.  1998 - water- ice discovered at the poles on the Moon.  Neutrinos have mass.  Liquid water lies under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa.  Quantum teleportation demonstrated.
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-  1998  -  First components of International Space Station in orbit.  Since 2000 the home for over 200 astronauts.  1999 - Chandra X-ray Observatory deployed.  Type Ia supernovae in distant galaxies peg the Universe expansion rate acceleration.  Dark Energy accounts for 69% of composition of the Universe.  Dark Matter 29%.
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-  2000 - 11 new moons discovered around Saturn.  10 new moons discovered around Jupiter.  2001 -  11 more moons discovered around Jupiter.  NESAR spacecraft lands on asteroid.  WMAP analysis of CMB pegs Universe at 13.77 billion years old expanding at 69.3 kilometers per second per mega parsec, that is 47,000 miles per hour per million lightyears.
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-   2003 - Hubble Ultra Deep Field image of 10,000 distant galaxies back to 400 million years after Big Bang.  Dwarf Planet Sedna discovered.  Voyager I sends data back from edge of Sun’s heliosheath.  Twin Rovers explore Mars, discover recent water flows and frost.
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-  2004 - Cassini- Huygens spacecraft orbits Saturn.  2005 - Deep Impact spacecraft smashes into comet.  Finds density of comet to be like talcum powder.  Dwarf Planet Haumea discovered in the Kuiper Belt.  Mars Reconnaissance orbits Mars.  Huygens probe lands on Saturn’s moon Titan.  Sends data for 90 minutes.  Dwarf Planets Eris and Makemake discovered.  Nix and Hydra moons discovered orbiting Pluto.
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-  2006 - Pluto demoted to a Dwarf Planet.  2007 - Phoenix Mars lander.  1999 mission returns “ Stardust” from comet to Utah desert with samples.  Amino acid and glycine found in samples.  2009 - Kepler Space Telescope hunts for exoplanets.  Over 2,200 planets discovered with an additional 4,500 candidates still under investigation.
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-  2011 - Messenger spacecraft orbits Mercury.  Dawn spacecraft orbits asteroid Vesta.
2013 - Planck satellite provides data on CMB.  2014  - Rosetta spacecraft arrives at comet.  New Horizon passes Pluto.  Dawn orbits Dwarf Planet Ceres.  2016 - gravitational waves detected.  Planet 9 may have been discovered?  Higgs Boson discovery probably pre-mature.  Need more data.  Stay tuned, and announcement will be made shortly.
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-  (1)  From Astronomy magazine September, 2016 issue.
-  (2)  Other reviews available on this subject:
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-  #1742  -   #1743  -  #1744  -  # 1745  Astronomy facts.  Hundreds of interesting facts about astronomy.
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-  #936  -  “What the heck is goin on round here?”  Examples of some of the strangest astronomy.
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-  #902  -  Astronomical directions.  How measurements are made in astronomy.
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-  #1458  -  Astronomy helps society.  Other inventions that came from astronomy work.
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-  #641  -  To be a good writer you need to be more like an astronomer and less like a physicist.
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----  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”  -----------
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The mysterious Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Quasars

-  1897  - The mysterious Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Quasars create radio bursts of energy that astronomers are still trying to explain.
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---------------------1897  - The mysterious Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Quasars
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-  There are mysterious radio bursts coming to us from far away galaxies.  Since 2007 some 20 pulses have been recorded.  The pulses only last for a few milliseconds, but, they release the energy equal to a million suns.
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-  These 20 events were viewed in telescopes that can observe only a small patch of sky at any one time.  If astronomers could view the entire sky at one time they estimate that there are 10,000 radio bursts occurring every day.
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-  Astronomers have no explanation as to the source of this enormous energy.  Some ideas include colliding Neutron Stars, exploding Blackholes, snapping Cosmic Strings of space-time.
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-  This radio energy passes through the expanses of space encountering magnetic fields, plasma clouds of charged particles, and other Cosmic stuff.  If we really understood these radio bursts and could measure them precisely they could be a whole new “ telescope” to see the composition and structure of the Universe.
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-  Astronomers are studying “ Pulsars” which are rapidly spinning Neutron Stars. ( See Footnote (1))  These are collapsed stars that are only a few kilometers in diameter, but, extremely dense, atom nuclei collapsed into neutrons at the core.
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-  As the Pulsars rotate they swing a beam of radiation across our line-of- sight.  These radio signals appear as pulsating blips.  However, ever so often a radio signal will blip with so much energy it will saturate the electronics destroying the measurement signal.  These bursts of energy only last up to 5 milliseconds.
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-  After several of these occurrences over several years astronomers are convinced the bursts are originating in far away galaxies.  By measuring the signal “ dispersion” of higher frequency signals versus lower frequency signals astronomers can infer these great distances.  Higher frequencies arrive faster after traveling through intergalactic plasma, ie: charged electrons.  Lower frequencies are slowed by this same medium.  By measuring this delay astronomers can calculate how much intergalactic space the signal has traveled.
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-  Radio bursts from Quasars are quite common. ( See Footnote (2)).   But, these signals are much weaker.  The fast radio bursts referred to above are 1,000,000 times brighter than Quasars.  The theories on what causes this are also extreme.  
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-  Cosmic Strings are superconductors of electric currents that snap in space-time creating a burst of electromagnetic radiation.
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-  Or, Blackholes exploding in a burst of radio waves.  Maybe these are “tiny” Blackholes that formed in the first few seconds of the Big Bang.
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-  Or, the massive collision of two Neutron Stars.  It is all still a mystery.
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-  In March of this year, 2016, astronomers uncovered a burst that reoccurred 11 times in 16 days.  This recurring signal dispels theories of a single event like exploding Blackholes, or colliding Neutron Stars.  This event has a process that could regenerate itself.
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-  It could be that the rapid rotation of a Neutron Star could generate an enormously powerful magnetic field.  Called a “Magnetar“.  Somewhat similar to Solar Flares on our Sun’s surface, a magnetic field could “ snap” releasing a torrent of energy, accelerating charged particles , that in turn could emit radio bursts.
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-  Regardless of the source these signals they could act as Cosmic lasers that could more accurately describe the structure of the Universe.  The astronomy world has a new focus of concentration.   There is a lot more to learn here.  An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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-  (1)  Pulsars  -  The first discovery of a Neutron Star occurred in 1967 when a graduate student discovered a strong source of radio waves.   The pulses of radio waves were arriving at exactly 1.337301 second intervals.
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-  Now known as “ Pulsars” they are Neutron Stars left behind by supernova explosions.  The stars spin as the result of the Conservation of Angular Momentum as the star collapses in size.   The spinning star creates a magnetic field that is a trillion times as strong as the Sun’s.  At the magnetic poles beams of radiation escape.  When the magnetic poles don’t align with the rotation axis a sweeping beam rotates rapidly.
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-  Pulsars have been discovered that are rotating 625 times per second.  Only a Neutron Star could spin that fast without tearing a part.
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-  (2)  Quasars are powerful radio emissions coming from distant galaxies.  The galaxy centers are Blackholes with rapid rotating disks of inflowing material.  The friction, centripetal force, angular momentum , and gravitational energies all compete to produce intense radiation, more than from 1,000 galaxies the size of the Milky Way.
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-  The rapidly rotating disk drives two jets of escaping plasma in opposite directions out the poles.  When the jets hit intergalactic gas they produce hot spots with radio lobes.  The jets are formed inside twisted magnetic fields that contain and guide the charge particles.
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-  By measuring the orbital radius  ( r ) and the orbital velocity ( v ) of the gas clouds orbiting the Blackhole at the center of the galaxy we can calculate the mass inside the radius.
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-----------------------------  Mass  =  r * v^2  /  G

-------------------  G  =  Gravitational Constant  =  6.67*10^-11  m^3/( kg*sec^2)
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------------------  Velocity  =  v  =  800 kilometers per second
------------------  Velocity  =  1,790,000 miles per hour.
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------------------  Radius  =  r  =  60 lightyears
------------------  Radius  =  5.6 * 10^17 meters
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-----------------  Mass  =  ( 5.6*10^17) * (8.0 * 10^5)^2  /  6.67*10^-11
-----------------  Mass  =  5.4*10^39 kilograms
-----------------  Solar Mass =  2.0*10^30 kilograms
-----------------  Mass  =  2.7 * 10^9  Solar Mass
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-  The mass in the Blackhole , the central region of the galaxy, is equivalent to 2.7 billion Suns.
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-  (3)  Other Reviews available:
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-  #1327  -  Neutron Stars  -  The surface is solid and harder that a diamond, 50 trillion times denser than solid lead.  Its magnetic field is a trillion times more intense than that of our Sun.
-  #  1273  -  Neutron Star mergers.
 -  #1192  -  The new zoo of Pulsars.
-  # 642  -  Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Magnetars.
-  #  861  -  Cannon Ball Stars
-  #625  -  Neutron Stars.
-  #21  -  Stars grow old.
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-  (4)  Different names for Neutron Stars:  Magnetars, Gamma Ray Bursters, Binary Neutron Stars, Gamma Ray Flares.
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----  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”  -----------
-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Saturday, August 6, 2016  -----
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Dark Energy and the expansion of the Universe

 -  1896  -  Astronomers are trying different methods to measure the accelerating expansion of the Universe.  The hope is for new discoveries to point to the source of “Dark Energy” that is creating this repulsive force.
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---------------------1896   -  Dark Energy and the expansion of the Universe.
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-  Astronomers are convinced the Universe is expanding.  And, it is expanding at an accelerating rate.  In the last few decades technology has advanced so fast, astronomers are able to create a 3-D map of this expansion and the form it takes.  It appears more like a spider web with filaments connecting nodes separated by voids but growing bigger.
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-  Three primary measurement methods are being used:
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-  (1)  The Hubble Telescope observing Type 1a supernovae explosions.
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-   (2)  The Planck Satellite measurements on the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.
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-  (3)  The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey measuring pressure waves in the spacing of nodes and voids between galaxy clusters.
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-  All three methods peg the expansion rate at about 150,000 miles per hour per mega parsec.  A mega parsec is 3.3 million lightyears distance.  This equates to 45,500 miles per hour per million light years.  All three methods have results within 8% of each other.  But, 8% leaves room for new discoveries.  What can explain these differences?
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-  Here are the results of each method of measurement:
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-  (1)  Type 1a supernovae are explosions of a White Dwarf Star that accumulates mass to reach 1.4 Solar Mass.  This limit of gravitational pressure collapses electrons into their nuclei creating the recoil in a “ standard candle”  supernova explosion.
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-  These measurements get the expansion rate at  49,485 miles per hour per million lightyears distance.  The measurement error is calculated to be + - 2.4%
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-  (2)   The Planck Satellite measurements get the expansion rate at 45,417 miles per our per million lightyears.  This measurement error is +- 1%.
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-  (3)  The BOSS measurements reported the same result as Planck’s except the measurement error a +-1/5%.  The expansion rate of 45,417 miles per hour per million lightyears.  BOSS got this studying the patterns in clustering of 1,200,000 galaxies.
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-  The difference is 4,068 miles per hour.
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-  An 8% difference in different measurements of the same acceleration rate.
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-  Each method is trying to refine the measurements and calculations to reduce measurement error.
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-  (1)  The Hubble Telescope is measuring objects of “ known” brightness, called Intrinsic Brightness.  They calculate distances by measuring dimness and by measuring the shift in frequency , the spread of wavelength, traveling through expanding space.  Besides Type 1a supernovae, Cepheid Variable Stars are also used because their pulsation rates can be correlated to their Intrinsic Brightness.
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-  The Hubble Telescope measurements are working to refine their results by measuring  two other types of stars, RR Lyrae Variable Stars  and Red Giant Stars.
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-  These particular type stars are identified in a galaxy where the distance is accurately known through other methods.  Then, calculate the Intrinsic Brightness.  “r “ is the distance.
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----------------------  Measured Brightness   =  Intrinsic Brightness  /  (4 * pi * r^2)
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-  (4 * pi * r^2) is the surface area of a sphere of the expanding light radiation bubble.
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-  When the same type of stars are identified in the most distant galaxy the Intrinsic Brightness is used to calculate the distance.  The goal is to reduce the measurement errors to less than 1%.
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-  The Hubble Telescope is also beginning to use Gravitational Lensing to image galaxies that were previously too dim to see.  A cluster of galaxies, 100 times more massive than our Milky Way Galaxy can bend the light beams from the much more distant galaxies behind them.  The focused beams act as a “magnifying glass“.
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-  (2)  The Planck measurements were made of the slightest temperature variations of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.  They are extending these measurements beyond just temperature to the ‘polarization” of this radiation of the ancient light that originated 380,000 years after the Big Bang.
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-  (3)  Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations are sound waves that have stretched into today’s distribution of galaxies and voids.  The Cosmic Microwave Background contains the same pressure waves that originated at that same time after the Big Bang.  The pressure wave changes that have occurred over the last 13.4 billion years is a measure of how Normal / Dark Matter and Dark Energy have competed in governing the rate of expansion.
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-  In the early Universe the mass was concentrated and gravity could actually slow down the rate of expansion.  This lasted for the first 7 billion years.  By then the mass had spread out so much gravity’s influence dissipated.  The repulsive force of Dark Energy took over dominance and the Universe has been accelerating its rate of expansion ever since.
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-  Astronomers are trying to learn what causes the vacuum of space to have a repulsive force?  Is this force every where the save?  Does this repulsive force change over time?  Called a mysterious Dark Energy , it could be an evolving energy field and not just a constant pressure?
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-  8% is not a big difference in measurement results, but, astronomers are convinced it points to something missing.
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-  Theories have proposed a  new type of particle, a new type of neutrino that may be affecting these measurements.
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-  Put together these measurements are creating a 3-D map or the Observable Universe.  The picture is one of galaxy strings like filaments connecting galaxy cluster, called nodes. The spaces between are giant voids, nearly empty space containing only a few atoms per cubic meter and no galaxies.
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-  This spider web tapestry is very similar to the neurons and nodes in the human brain.  These astronomy reviews are designed to stretch your brain.  Once stretched it will not return to its previous size.  Enjoy!
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Everything in the Universe is in motion.

-  1895  -  Everything in the Universe is in motion.  It gets  more complicated than you can imagine.  Let’s start with our Milky Way and work our way around the Universe.
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---------------------1895  -  Everything in the Universe is in motion.
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- The plasma gas halo that surrounds the Milky Way Galaxy is about twice the galaxy size and spinning in the same direction as the galaxy disk.  This is a recent discovery that the gas halo is rotating at 400,000 miles per hour while the disk itself is rotating at 540,000  miles per hour.
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-  This discovery was made using spectrometry to measure the wavelength spectral line of hot oxygen atoms.  The speed of the gas moving toward us or away from us shifts the spectral lines from  their inherent frequency.  The amount of shift is used to calculate the speed.   See footnote (1) to learn how this calculation is done.
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-  Other paths of research have determined that 80% of the total mass in the Universe is Dark Matter.  Dark Matter does interact with gravity but does not emit any electromagnetic spectrum.  Even the 20% of Normal Matter that does emit a spectrum has not all been found in the visible light of the galaxies.  This discover of a halo of hot gas may help account for some of the missing “ Normal Matter”.
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-  Of course, spinning at a constant velocity is a natural state for everything in the Universe.  Sitting here in Starbucks in California I am spinning East  at 700 miles per hour.  If we move to the equator our velocity would be spinning at 1,000 miles per hour.  That is why our rockets are fired from Florida over the Atlantic giving them a 1,000 mile per hour boast to get into orbit.
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-  At the equator on the Sun we would be spinning 4,350 miles per hour.  But, the Sun is so big it takes 24.47 days to complete one revolution.  At the poles, strangely enough, it takes longer, 26.24 days.  That is because the Sun is a sphere of hot gas and different regions rotate at different rates.  The rotation rate is slow enough that centripetal forces do not flatten out this almost perfect sphere.
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-  This is not the case for the star Archenar in the Constellation Eridanus 139 lightyears away.  It is spinning so fast the equator is flattened out 53% more than the polar circumference.  Archenar is 7 times the mass of the Sun and 11.6 times the diameter of the Sun at the equator.  While, only 7.6 times the diameter pole to pole.  The rotation rate causing this elongations is 560,000 miles per hour at the surface.
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-  There is a 25 Solar Mass star in the Large Magellanic Cloud Tarantula Nebula 160,000 lightyears away that is traveling 1,243,000 miles per hour at its surface.  If it were spinning any faster its centripetal force would start tearing it apart into a flattened disk.
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-  When a star goes supernova the gravity becomes so great at the core that the electrons collapse into the nucleus of the atoms.  The electrons collapse in to the protons creating neutrons and a Neutron Star is formed that is only 12 miles in diameter.  The conservation of rotational energy can spin up the Neutron Star to 700 rotations per second.  The spin rate is able to be measured because radiation blasting out the poles sweeps around like a lighthouse beacon.  These Neutron Stars are referred to as “ Pulsars”.
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-  If the Neutron Star acquires even more mass and gravity its neutrons will collapse further into quarks and then into a Blackhole.  A super massive Blackhole gobbling up stars can attain a spin rate that is 87% the speed of light.  That spin velocity would be 583,500,000 miles pre hour.
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-  (1)  An example of how Redshift is used to calculate the receding velocity of a distant galaxy.  Spectroscopy is used to detect the emission lines of the atomic hydrogen.  Hydrogen has two spectrum lines in the visible region located at these wavelengths:
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------------------------------------  656.3 nanometers
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-----------------------------------  486.1 nanometers.
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-  These spectral lines are detected with a shift in frequency.  Here are the measured wavelengths:
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-------------------------------------  662.9 nanometers
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-------------------------------------  491.0 nanometers.
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-   The wavelengths have been stretched by the expanding space over the distance traveled.  The galaxy appears to us as receding away as the space between us gets larger and larger.  The resulting percentage shift in wavelength is referred to as the Redshift, (z).
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----------  Redshift  =  (wavelength observed  -  wavelength at rest)  /  wavelength at rest
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--------------------------   Redshift  =  662.9 nm  -  656.3 nm  /  656.3 nm
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--------------------------   Redshift  =  6.6 nm  /  656.3 nm
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--------------------------  Redshift  =  0.01  , or,  1%
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-  The receding velocity of the distant galaxy would be 1% of the speed of light
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----------------------------  v  =  c * z
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---------------------------  Receding velocity  =  300,000 km / sec  *  1%
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-----------------------  Receding Velocity  =  3,000 km/ sec
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----------------------  Receding Velocity  =  6,710,800  miles per hour.
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-  The distant galaxy is moving away from us at 6.7 million miles per  hour.
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-  (2)  The expanding space is due to the opposing forces of gravity due to mass and Dark Energy in the vacuum of space.  Dark Energy is winning.  Not only is everything else not bound by gravity spinning it is accelerating away from us.
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-  (3)  Review #1851  -  discusses the fastest and slowest velocities from expanding space to continental drift.  It lists 4 other reviews on the subject and 6 footnotes about the calculations used.
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-  The first homo sapiens on Earth appeared over 2,000,000 years ago.  But, one orbit around the Galaxy takes 220,000,000 years.  So, we have completed only 0.9% of the orbit.    One second on your watch takes 1/60 of its orbit around the dial and that is 1.7%.  You  people have not been around very long.
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Thursday, July 28, 2016  -----
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Asteroid impacts in Earth‘s evolution

-  1894  -  Asteroid impacts in Earth‘s evolution and how a few mammals survived.  Evolution over 4,600 million years and only the last 3 million years did we evolve to tell about it.
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---------------------1894  -  Asteroid impacts in Earth‘s evolution.
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-  There is no question that asteroid impacts have significantly affected Earth’s history and the evolution of life on the planet.  Science has found evidence of 17 impacts older than 2,500 million years.  There could have been hundreds more of these impacts that have been hidden in major tectonic shifts and extensive magma flows.
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-  The Moon’s surface shows evidence of monster rock bombardments back to 3,900 million years ago.  New evidence on Earth is found in seafloor sediments that date back 3,460 million years.  The massive impacts vaporize the asteroid instantly, forming tiny spherical glass particles called “ spherules”.
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-  The ocean sediments were preserved by two layers of volcanic sediment that could be radioactive dated with high precision.  The levels of platinum , chromium, and nickel found in the spherules are the same as found in asteroids.
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-  The largest impact occurred shortly after the Earth was first formed.  It occurred 4,500 million years ago when an asteroid the size of a small planet slammed into the Earth splashing surface debris into orbit.  The Earth -crust that was launched eventually accreted and coalesced into the Moon.
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-  This scenario is evidenced by the zinc isotopes on the Moon matching those in Earth’s crust.  Also, lunar rocks returned from the Apollo Mission had the same ratios of oxygen isotopes as those on Earth.
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-  Later impacts were on smaller scales, thankfully.  The Sudbury Basin in Ontario, Canada is one of Earth’s largest craters, 160 miles in diameter, 9.3 miles deep, that occurred 1,800 million years ago.
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-  The Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan Peninsula occurred 66 million years ago.  It was 110 miles in diameter.  This impact is credited with wiping the dinosaurs off our evolutionary record.
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-  The Meteor Crater near Flagstaff, Arizona was created by an iron meteorite 150 feet in diameter.  This impact occurred just 50,000 years ago.
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-  On February 15, 2013 the 10,000 ton meteor exploded 18 miles above the Russian country side near Chelyabinsk.
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-  No question asteroids greatly influenced our past.  Dinosaurs did not survive.  Somehow mammals did. Their story fits in the midst of all this.
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-  In 1824 the Geological Society of London announced the discovery of the first dinosaur.  In that same stone quarry another discovery, two tiny mammal jaws the size of a mouse jaw.
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-  Were mammals living with dinosaurs?  Yes!  Mammals defined as having fur, mammary glands, big brains , complex teeth, and keen senses.  Placental giving birth to live, well-developed young.  These mammals numbered among the 5,000 species living on Earth at that time.
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-  The earliest traces of prehistoric mammals are dated 210 million years ago.  Mass extinctions marked the end of this period.  Turtles, lizards, frogs, crocodiles and small dinosaurs that eventually became birds managed to survive.  Also discovered were small shrew-to-mouse sized mammals that survived after 90% of mammal species died out with the dinosaurs.
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-  A distinguishing feature in these first mammals, was baby teeth being replace with adult teeth.  This  feature allowed youngsters without teeth to nurse on the mother’s milk.  This allowed mammals to grow faster and the young to have a better chance of survival.
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-  Mammals grew huge brains compared to their ancestors.  They also grew larger olfactory bulbs to smell and auditory to hear.  These small animals had powerful jaws to crush the exoskeletons of insects.  The could slice and grind small plants.  During the 252 million to 66 million year era dinosaurs ruled while these small animals existed on small insects and scurried underground.  Their sharp senses, fine-motor skills, elevated metabolism, enabled them to thrive in the cold and dark of night.
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-  160 million years ago lived a dog-sized creature with webbed hands and feet and a flattened tail like a beaver.  There were flying squirrels gliding through the trees.  Between 174 to 164 million years ago the number of mammal species increased dramatically.  Flowering and fruit bearing trees  became a new source of food for them.
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-  66 million years ago an asteroid struck the Yucatan and unleashed wild fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.  The longer term climate and environmental changes extinguished the dinosaurs that  had survived the previous 150 million years.  Some of the earliest mammals survived.  Placental evolved quickly evolving to fill the available niches.
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-  63 million years ago a puppy-sized creature with gangly limbs, long fingers and toes was leaping through trees.  This is the oldest known primate.  It took another 60 million years to become a  bi-pedal walking ape.  Just 3 million more years of evolution and I am sitting here writing about it.
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-  The large asteroids of our past have been a major contributor to the evolution of life on Earth.  What about our future?  Astronomers have identified more that 12,000 asteroids in near-Earth orbit.  Only 1,000 of these have been characterized as to composition, size, shape, and rotation speed.
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-   It makes a huge difference whether an Earth- threatening asteroid is solid rock or a pile of rubble.  Not just in case we have to divert it, but, also just learning composition helps us understand how the Solar System was built.
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-  The smaller objects become visible only with a few days of their closest approach and with a miss we have only a few weeks to characterize them.  The fast spinners are likely to have a solid dense interior.  The fastest spinning asteroids, some 20 meters in diameter have spinning rotations of 16 rotations per second.
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-  Knowing spin and composition are critical if astronomers have to redirect an asteroid’s trajectory.  Scientists are characterizing only 100 near-Earth asteroids a year but discovering as many as 1,400 per year.
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-  Will asteroids continue to influence life and evolution on Earth?  Time will tell.  What about all those exoplanets in another solar systems?  What kind of evolution are they experiencing?  Time will run out before I will know.
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-  Request Review #1866 to learn about evolution and supernovae.  Plus this review lists 5  more reviews on the subject of evolution.
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----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Thursday, July 21, 2016  -----
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New Horizon spacecraft flew by Pluto July 14, 2015.

-  1893 -  The one year anniversary of our visit to the Dwarf Planet, Pluto.  New Horizon spacecraft flew by Pluto July 14, 2015.  Here are the noteworthy discoveries found in this far-away world.
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---------------------1893 -  Our visit to the Dwarf Planet, Pluto.
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-  New Horizon spacecraft took 9 years , 5 months, and 25 days to reach its fly-by.  The journey started with a sling shot using the speed of Earth’s orbit to boost its speed to 99,419 miles per hour heading out of the Solar System.
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-  The Sun’s gravity continued to slow the speed down.  When  New Horizon reached Pluto it was still traveling 30,000 miles per hour.  Pluto is 4,670,000,000 miles away and even with the speed of light, the radio  transmissions take 4.6 hours to traverse the distance.
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-  That was a long way to go for a short fly-by but there was  no fuel left to slow the craft down.  Even with this short visit what we found was a surprise.  This distant object proved to be more complex and dynamic that anyone expected.  It is not a frozen dead rock.   Not just a big asteroid at the edge of the Solar System.
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- New Horizon flew to within 476,000 miles of Pluto’s surface.  The heart-shaped plain that stood out so prominently was actually a nitrogen glacier.  The largest known glacier in the Solar System.
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-  On Earth we have a water-ice volatility cycle.  The ice, water, vapor cycle rotates with the seasons.  On Pluto there are four volatile ices going through the freezing and precipitation cycles.   The four volatiles are methane, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and yes, water.
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-  These cycles are created by Pluto’s eccentric, elliptical orbit around the Sun.  At its closes it is 2,700,000,000 miles from the Sun.  At its farthest it is 4,500,000,000 miles from the Sun.  ( Earth averages 93,000,000 miles in its orbit).  It takes Pluto 248 years to circle the Sun.
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-  Frozen hard water-ice was found widespread across Pluto’s surface acting as a crustal bedrock.  The surface even shows sheets of ice that have flowed in the past and maybe even are currently flowing.  There are plains that have surfaces that are less than 10 million years old.  The is due to thermal convection of Pluto’s deep ices.
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-  Pluto has volcanoes with broad bases, gentle slopes, and summit depressions.  Some volcanoes rise 3.5 miles elevation.  Called cyro-volcanoes because they erupt a slurry of melted ices instead of molten rock.
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-  Pluto’s surface has more than 1,000 craters greater than 10 miles across formed by impacting Kuiper Belt objects  ( comets and asteroids).
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-  Pluto has a blue haze atmosphere extending 125 miles above the surface.  This atmosphere is believed to be due to chemical reactions of ultraviolet sunlight interacting with nitrogen and methane.  The chemical reactions create soot-like particles forming a foggy haze.
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-  Today, one year later, New Horizon is 300,000,000 miles beyond Pluto heading towards Kuiper Belt Object, 2014MU69.  This rendezvous is expected to occur January 1, 2019.
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-  Pluto was my 9th planet when I was in school.  When even larger Kuiper Belt Objects were discovered beyond Pluto’s orbit astronomers decided to call them all “ Dwarf Planets”.  But, we may still be missing the real 9th planet that is 10 times the size of the Earth.  This is a theory being used to explain how 6 other Kuiper Belt Objects have highly eccentric orbits under the influence of another massive object at the fringes of our Solar System.
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-  Could it be a captured exoplanets from an alien world?  If we discover this 9th planet it could bring us new knowledge about other solar systems and planet creation.  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Other Reviews on the subject available upon request:
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-  #1857  -  to learn about the 5 moons orbiting Pluto
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-  #1856  -  to learn more about the 9th planet that might take Pluto’s place, if we can discover it.  It is the math that tells us something is out there.
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-  #1660  -  to learn about the other Kuiper Belt Objects.
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-  #1632  -  to learn about the other Dwarf Planets
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Sunday, July 17, 2016  -----
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