Can Dark Matter make Blackholes?

-  1934  -  Can Dark Matter make Blackholes?  Gravity alone is not sufficient to create a Blackhole by itself.  We also need the electromagnetic forces.  We are discovering many new dwarf galaxies.  Maybe these discoveries will lead us to the source of Dark Matter?
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-

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-----------------------------  1934  -  Can Dark Matter make Blackholes?
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-  For almost 100 years now astronomers have tried to account for the size and the mass-energy of the Universe.  They postulate that 27% is made of unknown mass and 63% is composed of an unknown energy source.  Most of this mass is invisible.  It is called “Dark Matter”, or missing baryonic matter. Normal matter that is visible comprises only 4.5% of this total.
-
-  The “unknown energy”  is called “ Dark Energy” and it is “ whatever” is responsible for the Universe’ constant and accelerating expansion.  We do not know what is causing this?
-
-  There are two categories for Dark Matter, Cold and Hot.  These are astronomical terms that do not refer to temperature, but to the size of the particles and their thermodynamic properties.  Cold Dark Matter would be in the form of more massive particles that could include Blackholes, or near invisible Brown Dwarf planets, or some undiscovered heavy particles called WIMPS,   Weakly Interactive Massive Particles.
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-  “Cold Dark Matter” particles could have low root-mean-square velocities due to their large mass, > 100 GeV, which is 100 times the mass of a proton.  Cold large particles would have low thermal velocities which would allow clumping into dwarf galaxies.  To support this theory astronomers are trying to find low-mass galaxies with cosmic-time redshifts of “z” between 6 and 8, between 12.7 and 13.0 billion lightyears away.
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-  “z” is the symbol for “ redshift”.  It is the amount of shift of wavelength toward the red-end of the light spectrum.  Red color has larger wavelengths.  The faster the expansion the wider the wavelengths “w” and the more distant the light source.
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----------------------  z  =  “w” observed  -  “w” at rest  /  “w” at rest
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-   For redshifts of 6 to 8 the galaxies would be extremely faint with Absolute Magnitudes of -12 to -13 and be at very large distances of 12 to 13 billion lightyears away.  The age of the Universe is 13.8 billion years.  So, this is getting close to the Big Bang.
-
-  There are current infrared astronomy missions designed to detect these distant dwarf galaxies and to support the “ Cold Dark Matter” theory.  Question to be answered:  “ Why can’t we see Dark Matter that makes up to 27% of the mass-energy of the Universe?”
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-  To find dwarf galaxies we might begin looking in our own neighborhood.  The Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies are surrounded by many dwarf galaxies  Astronomers have identified roughly 50 of these dwarf galaxies orbiting our Milky Way.  These galaxies range in size from several billion stars to a few hundred stars.  The Milky Way contains between 100 billion and 1,000 billion stars.
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-  Dark Matter is believed to be the key to galaxy formation.  Dark Matter provides the gravity to attract Ordinary Matter into a single area where ordinary matter gravity and the electromagnetic forces can take over.
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-  Astronomers find Dark Matter clumps by measuring motion and composition of ordinary visible stars.  Smaller dwarf galaxies can behave like more massive galaxies due to the gravity inference of invisible Dark Matter.
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-  Dwarf galaxies are becoming an ideal tool in order to study Dark Matter.  Most dwarf galaxy’s stars formed over 10 billion years ago.  Current theory is that many of these dwarf galaxies merged to form larger ordinary galaxies.
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-  By analyzing the elements in the stars of dwarf galaxies astronomers can learn the conditions and mechanisms of early star formation in the Universe.  These galaxies should contain many first generation stars.
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-  Looking at mass alone, not including energy, then 85% of the mass in the Universe is Dark Matter.  This appears to be the cosmic glue that holds the Universe together.  Many dwarf galaxies have so few stars, so diffuse, that without Dark Matter they could not be held together.  This brings up the question:  “ Are there pure Dark Matter galaxies out there?  , With no Ordinary Mater at all?, no stars? “
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-  Dark Matter out weighs normal matter 5 to 1.  It does not absorb or emit light, or any electromagnetic radiation.  It does interact with normal matter gravitationally.  That is how it holds galaxies together.  But, could Dark Matter form its own Blackhole?  No.  It can not form stars or planets either.
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-  The difference is he electromagnetic force unique to “ light”.  Gravity can bring gas and particles together, but, they “stick” together due to the electromagnetic forces.  This is how a “fluffy” structure becomes denser to form atoms, stars and planets.  It is the electromagnetic force that forms all “ Normal Matter.
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-  Because there is no electromagnetic forces in Dark Matter the particles are unbound and stretch into giant ellipses.  Gravity is such a weak force compared to the electromagnetic force.  Gravity alone can not make a Blackhole.
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-  Now you know how galaxies form, but, how does Dark Matter form?  Answer that and you will get a Nobel Prize.  This is one of the many mysteries still to be discovered in our Universe.  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):  Request any of the Reviews by number to learn more.
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-  #1850  -  Dark Matter, do we have it right this time?
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-  #1823  -  Dark Matter and the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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-  #1820  -  Dark Matter, what do we know about it matters.
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-  #1777  -  and,  listing 12 more reviews about Dark Matter.
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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    ----------------   Wednesday, February 15, 2017  -----
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Supernova 1987 we are still learning what happened.

-  1932  -  Supernova 1987 occurred in our neighboring small galaxy.  It is still being studied today 30 years later.  We are still trying to learn the physics of how a supernova explodes?
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-----------------------------  1932  -  Supernova  1987
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-

-
-  Where were you in 1987?  Ok, you may remember this “ A blue super giant supernova lit up the southern sky”  Here we are 30 years later and we are still learning, “ what just happened?”
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-  Supernova 1987A is 160,000 lightyears away.  Happy it was not any closer.  It was actually in another galaxy not the Milky Way.  It was a smaller galaxy called the “ Large Magellanic Cloud”.
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-  In our milky Way Galaxy it is expected to have a supernova explosion every 100 years, on average.  This supernova occurred, became visible,  February 23, 1987, and some astronomers just happened to be watching.
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-  They determined that the star that exploded used to be Sanduleak -69*202, a blue super giant several Solar Mass  in size. When the elements fused up to the heaviest element, iron, the fusion stopped.  The core collapsed.  The outer layers imploded into the core.  The core condensed into the density of an atomic nucleus, a neutron.  The collapse rebounded sending a shock wave that blew away, exploded, blew up the outer surface.  The core left behind became a super dense Neutron Star only 12 miles in diameter.
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-  The shockwave continued outward traveling at 10% the speed of light, 18,600 miles per second.  The explosion created even heavier elements in the immense heat and pressure.  These elements were radioactive.  As the radioactivity decayed the energy released continued to heat up the interstellar gas that surrounded the star.
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-  The half-life of radioactive elements only powered the explosion for 3 years.  In 1990 the gas cooled and dimmed.
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-  Seven years later the expanding shockwave encountered another ring of interstellar gas that had been thrown off 20,000 years earlier.  This second collision heated knots of material that started glowing like a necklace of pearls.  The hot gas was glowing at
 1 million degrees Kelvin.
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-  A supernova explosion releases an immense amount of energy.  The millions of degrees temperature creates X-ray emissions along the shockwave.  Meanwhile the core has cooled back to 20 to 100 Kelvin.  That is cold, water freezes at 273 Kelvin on Earth.
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-  The dust near the core is like smoke, molecules the size up to 0.1 millimeter at 20 degrees Kelvin.
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-  The atoms in the dust are many different elements fused in the process.  Each element emits specific colors, or wavelengths of light.  Emissions are occurring as the electrons in the outer shells of atoms collapse, or jump, to a lower energy level, or shell.  Each element atom has a unique set of electron shells so each emit’s a different set of wavelengths,  called spectroscopy.
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-  Astronomers are recreating a 3-D map of the distribution of each of these elements: hydrogen, iron, silicon, calcium, magnesium, and oxygen.
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-  To date astronomers have not been able to create a computer model that replicates a supernova explosion.  The hope is that this new data will help create a new mathematical model.  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):  Request any of the Reviews by number to learn more.
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-  #1881  Supernovae are like snowflakes, no two are alike.  This review list 9 other reviews available on the subject.
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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    ----------------   Monday, February 13, 2017  -----
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Time will tell, it still a mystery.

-  1931  -  Time, it is about “time” that challenges our thinking.  General Relativity changed our thinking about time.  Math made it even worse.  Something we take for granted sure gets complicated.
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-----------------------------  1931  -  It is about TIME
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-
- Here are some quotes from previous reviews about time, available upon request if you are interested:
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-  Review # 1774  -  Time is a fundamental concept that Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity disagree about.
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-  “It’s about time”, that we are trying to learn about time.
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-  Time,  we can’t live without it.
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-  If time is an illusion, it is a very pervasive one.
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-  God created time to prevent everything from happening all at once.
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-  Review #1758  -  We see time as a constant march into the future.
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-  Astronomers see time as a variable that depends on gravity and the speed of motion.  Speed is space divided by time.
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-  GPS only works because equations use the Theory of Relativity when calculating distance that triangulate your position.
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-  An event that might be in the undecided future of one observer may have already occurred in another observer’s past.
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-   The act of the observer appears to prompt nature to decide what actually happens.
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-  #1735  -  Time is only strange if you think about it.
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-  Mass is simply a concentrated from of energy.
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-  Gravity is the curvature of space and time.
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-  The speed of light is always the same regardless .  It must be the same for all observers.
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-  #1691  -  Time moves slower as you move faster.
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-  #1621  -  Everything you see is younger then when you see it.
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-  #1341  Was time first created in the Big Bang?    Or, did it exist before then?
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-  #1189,  #1006  -  No two times are the same if they are separated in space.
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-  #910, #854, #842  -    To go from GPS time to Universal Time just add 19 seconds.
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-  #830, #814  -  10^-43 seconds is the smallest increment of time.  A quantum of time.
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-  #783,  #747  -  Why 60 minutes?
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-  #356  -  Zepto-seconds used to study the motion of atoms.
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-  #354  -  The Universal Calendar of all events starting at 10^-43 seconds to 80,000 years.  It is 60 ages long.
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-  #37  -  Deriving the Time Dilation equations using the Pythagorean Theorem.
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-  #1931  -  Time  -  It is about “time” that challenges our thinking about time
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-  The General Theory of Relativity merges time with space.
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-  Space is the geometric relationship between observable particles.  Maybe it is entirely separate from time?  Space is a 3-D geometry.  Time is just something we preserve because the Universe is constantly changing snap shots of space.
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-  All the laws of physics treat time as asymmetrical.  Mathematically time can move forward of backward.  Except!  Thermodynamics 2nd law of entropy.  Particles and energy always move in the direction of greater disorder, greater randomness.
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-  Somehow forward time must be linked to entropy?  A new theory puts increasing entropy as caused by increasing ‘ quantum entanglement”.
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-  If entropy is always increasing, then running it backwards, the Big Bang must have been the lowest entropy, or greatest randomness, or greatest amount of disorder,  and therefore the maximum entropy.  Entropy has been increasing ever since.
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-  Rather than trying to separate space and time maybe we just put them on an equal footing .  Particles can exist at one location and not another.  Maybe particles can exist at one time and not another.  Space and time are equal “ quanta”.
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-  Quanta are waves and particles and what ever is in between.  At the fundamental level the Universe is made up of quanta: mass, charges, momentum, etc.  These fundamentals work together to create protons, atoms, molecules, and whoever is reading this.
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-  Isaac Newton came up with laws that had the world that was flat, with empty, and absolute space.  Space was always fixed with 3 dimensions  Time was absolute, always traveling at the same rate.  This world works just fine today as long as you do not travel to the edges.
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-  Albert Einstein changed all that.  Time was not absolute, it was relative depending on motion.  Particles that travel close to the speed of light experience time differently.  Times dilates and space contracts.  Space and time are frame dependent depending on your motion.
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-  A “light clock” , due to the constancy of the speed of light, would run differently for observers moving at different speeds.  Observed time is a variable.  Distance divided by time is a constant.
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-  Quantum Field Theory uses “flat space”.  General Relativity uses “ curved space”.  The difference in Einstein’s discovery is that gravity and acceleration motion are the same thing.  You can not tell the difference.
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-  Curved space uses “ Metric Tensor” math,  invented by Riemann , it defines curved space-time due to gravity.  How our Universe is curved defines how matter and energy will move through it.  The curved space-time is called the geodesic.  It is the path taken with constant motion, but, it is not a “straight line”, although , it is the shortest distance between 2 points.
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-  We did all this just to show you how gravitational lensing works to see the edges of the Universe.
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-  It is more complicated.  Metric Tensor math is more complicated than just gravity.  The calculations include 16 different components including radiation pressure, vacuum pressure, pressure due to motion in 3 spatial directions, volumes changing, tidal forces, and gravitational waves , to name a few.
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-  If you know the numbers for all 16 components you cold predict the future of the expanding Universe.  Each of the 16 components unfolds into the next frame of time.  One frame after another.  We are still working on the physics to describe “time”.  Physics is the study, the science, that tries to describe our world.  It is interesting that the more we learn the more mysteries we uncover.
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-  Time will tell.
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- But, there never seems to be enough of it.  Sorry , my time is up.
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-  Note (1):  Request any of the Reviews by number to learn more.
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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, February 11, 2017  -----
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Gravity bends light. Using gravitational lensing

-  1930 -  Gravity bends light.  Using gravitational lensing around a galaxy cluster we can see back to the beginning of the Universe.  Amazing!  While the Universe is expanding at 49,306 miles per hour per million lightyears of space.
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-

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-----------------------------  1930  -  Gravity bends light.
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-  The Hubble Space Telescope began using the magnifying power of gravitational lensing in December , 2012.  The gravity is provided by a galaxy cluster that holds thousands of galaxies.  X-rays show the gas inside the cluster glowing at millions of degrees.
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-  It is the gravity provided by Dark Matter that is the glue” holding all these galaxies and gas together in a massive cluster.  The Dark Matter represents 80 to 90% of the cluster’s total mass.  Calculations put the mass at 1,000,000,000,000,000 Solar Mass ( 10^15).
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-  The massive gravity warps space-time.  The effect of bending space-time is to create an enormous gravitational lens.  But, the lens is not pure.  With magnification comes lots of image distortions.  Light from the image follows multiple paths around and through the lens creating multiple distorted images.  But, it is a magnified image if we could just clear up the distortion.  Gravitational lensing allows astronomers to study faint , far away objects from the early Universe.
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-  Hubble’s eyes can see infrared to ultraviolet.  Hubble is looking at the same spot for 70 orbits around the Earth to get a long time exposure.  The total observing time provides 280 exposures each 15 to 20 minutes duration.
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-  Multiple time exposures allow astronomers to map the distribution of the mass within the cluster.  The multiple images are of the same background object.  A computer matches the positions of the warped images.  The software varies the amounts and positions of Dark Matter until it reconstructs the same image each time.
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-  These results allow astronomers to map the Dark Matter within the cluster and to learn how the Dark Matter behaves.
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-  Secondly, this model of the lens allows a clear view study of the faraway galaxies.  This process of matching images is a lot of trial and error.  Then the astronomers got lucky.  By using the computer to subtract new images from old images they identify what changes.  With this technique they discovered supernovae explosions.
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-  The single image of the supernova shows up at different times because the light has taken different times.  The astronomers named the explosion Supernovae Refsdal.  By studying how each image arrived, brightened , and dimmed astronomers cold accurately determine the distributions of mass in the gravitational lens.  This brightness curve for a Type 1a Supernova is very well defined.
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-  Multiple images arrived from November 3, 2014 to December 11, 2015.  Five different images of the same supernova event.  The Type 1a supernova has a well defined brightness curve that allowed the calculation of the “intrinsic brightness”.  This in turn allowed a calibration of the amount of magnification of the gravitational lens.
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-  The first stars living in these faint dwarf galaxies were pure hydrogen emitting ultra-violet light.  This radiation kicked the electrons out of the hydrogen atoms creating a Universe of ionized gas.  This was termed the era of “ re-ionizations”.  An ear astronomers are anxious to explore.
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-  The results of this astronomy has produced over 90 published scientific papers.  There is still more to learn about the enormous galaxy clusters and their window into the earliest evolution of the Universe.
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-   Dark Energy is a mysterious force that is 75% of the Universe’ mass-energy.  It is the force that is expanding the Universe at an accelerating rate.  Dark Matter is 25% along with ‘ Normal Matter” provides the gravitational pull on all matter and light.
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-  Another result of gravitational lensing data is to produce a new “ Hubble Constant” for the rate of expansion of the Universe.
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------------------------  71.9  + or - 2.7 kilometers per second per mega parsec.
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-----------------------  accuracy to within  =      2.7 / 71.9     =      3.8 %
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-----------------------  49,306 miles per hour per million lightyears separation.
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-  So, you may be interested to learn that is how fast you are traveling towards the edges of the Observable Universe.  Hold on.  An announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):    Also see Reviews #1404, #1199,  ………….  The most distant galaxies measured have their light shifted 600% toward the red end of the light spectrum because the galaxy is receding away from us due to space between us expanding.
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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    ----------------   Thursday, February 9, 2017  -----
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Light is photons. But, what are photons. Really?

-  1929  -  Light is photons.  But, what are photons.  Really?  We are learning more about them by sending light through a vacuum and observing interactions with quantum fluctuations.  This might unleash the world’s most powerful energy source. The vacuum of space.
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-----------------------------  1929  -  Light is photons.
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-

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- How does the Sun shine?  By nuclear fusion.  It is fusing hydrogen into helium with a little radiation energy left over.  The radiation starts out as Gamma Rays.  It finally reaches us as visible light.  The blue light wavelengths get scattered by the gas molecules in our atmosphere creating the Blue Sky.
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-  This simple fusion reaction powers the Sun up to 96 billion megatons of power output per second.
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-  That amounts to 96,000,000,000 H-Bombs going off continuously.
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-  Our Sun is just an average star.  Larger stars like Rigel and Deneb release 240,000 times the Sun’ s energy.  Can you imagine having that many sun’s in the sky.
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-  Rigel is in the Constellation Orion with 70,000 Solar Luminosity.
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-  Deneb is in the Constellation Cygnus with 170,000 Solar Luminosity.
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-  Stars are non-stop explosions, but, their last explosions are supernovae.  Stars die as supernovae and their central cinder left behind becomes a Neutron Star, or a Blackhole.
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-  We experienced a supernova explosion in the Crab Nebulae on the 4th or July 1054.  Too early for an Independence Day Celebration here in the US.  Even 963 years later this explosion is still continuously emitting the energy of 75,000 Suns.
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-  Nuclear fusion only converts 0.7% of the four hydrogen to one helium mass to energy.  To get to 100% we need to merge matter and anti-matter.  When electrons meet positrons (which are anti-electrons) there is a 100% conversion to Gamma Rays.  A single gram of this cocktail would power a 100 watt light bulb for 30,000 years.  A dollar bill weighs a gram.  Converting a dollar bill to 100% energy would power a 1 horsepower motor from 1500 B.C. to the year 2017.  Can you imagine pulling up to a gas station and saying “ give me a dollar’s worth”.
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-  If we could just produce anti-matter it would solve a lot of our world’s energy problems.  The CERN Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland can produce 10 million anti-protons per minute.  Why not put them to good use?
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-  Well, 10 million per minute would still take 100 billion years to make a single gram of anti-protons, ( anti-hydrogen).  That is a long time to wait for a dollar’s worth.
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-  Why mess with matter at all.  Let’s go directly to space for our power.  We could use “vacuum energy”.  Zero-point vacuum energy would create the greatest amount of power imaginable.
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-  According to Quantum Mechanics a vacuum is not empty at all.  It is filled with the Quantum Energy of particles blinking into and out-of existence so quickly we can not detect them.  The blink is faster than can be measured and the blink cancels out any release of energy.
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-  Could science ever even measure these quantum fluctuations?
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-  Every time we probe and measure a quantum system we destroy it.
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-  According to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle there is a lower limit that can ever be known about a quantum particle.  A vacuum is filled with particle -anti-particle pairs that continually appear and disappear randomly.  They are more like “ virtual particles” than “real” particles.
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-  Maybe we can “ indirectly” measure these quantum fluctuations?
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-  Quantum Fluctuations can produce randomly fluctuating electric fields.
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-  In 2015 a German team of scientists claimed they have detected these vacuum fluctuations by observing their electric field interactions with a light wave.  Super short laser pulses lasting a few femto-seconds fired into a vacuum experienced subtle changes in the polarization of the light..
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-  This team is studying the effects of these fluctuations in the “time domain”.  It turns out that in a vacuum space and time behave in the same way.  Better read that again:  It is space-time.
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-  When measured in the time domain the effect of squeezing the vacuum can speed up or slow down the quantum fluctuations.  With these measurements science can directly detect the electromagnetic background noise of the vacuum.
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-  What can we learn by probing the quantum state of light in a vacuum?  This is invisible behavior of light at the quantum level.  What are photons?  Really?  An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.  We are still looking into it.
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-  See Review #1474  -  Interesting numbers that define our Universe.
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-  Baryonic matter and energy only comprise 4.6% or the matter-energy in the Universe.
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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    ----------------   Tuesday, February 7, 2017  -----
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Rainbows are in your head.

-  1928  -  Rainbows are in your head.  So are the stars you see and the Universe in your imagination.  It all has to do with the speed of light and the bending of light.
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-------------------------------  1928  -  Rainbows are in your head.
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-

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- Light coming from the stars is traveling very fast, 670,633,500 miles per hour. But space is very, very big. The nearest star is 4.5 lightyears away.

------------ There are 5,880,000,000,000 miles in a single lightyear

------------ Alpha Centauri is 26,460,000,000,000 miles away

------------- Time = Distance / Velocity

------------- Time light has traveled = 26.46 *10^12 miles / 6.7 * 10^8 miles / hour

------------- Time = 37,000 hours for light to reach us

------------ There are 8,760 hours in a year

------------ Time light has traveled = 3.7*10^4 hours / 8.7*10^3 hours / year = 4.5 lightyears

- That is how far the closest starlight has to travel and how long it takes to reach us even when traveling at 670 million miles per hour.

- When we are looking at the star Alpha Centauri we are viewing what it looked like nearly 4 ½ years ago. It is 4 ½ years older now. It could have blown up and disappeared and we would not know about it for another 4 ½ years. ( although this explosion is unlikely) It turns out the Universe is always giving us old information.

- You hear that expression that the stars of the heaven could have gone supernova and not even be there anymore. This is unlikely. The stars we can see with the naked eye are likely within 3,000 lightyears distance. These are the stars in our neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy. So, all these stars could not have lived more than 3,000 additional years. Stars live for millions and billions of years so 3 thousand is merely a blink of the eye in star time.

- You can only see about 6,000 stars in the night sky. But, who’s counting? It is very unlikely that one of these will have gone supernova exactly 3,000 years ago, or whatever fewer lightyears it is away from us. The most likely supernova we are likely to have in our Galaxy is Eta Carinae ( just guessing) and it is 250,000,000 lightyears away. It would have had to have exploded 250,000,000 years ago in order for us to see it now. ( See Reviews #1346, #775, #49, and #832 to learn more about Eta Carinae.)

- Astronomers have discovered over 1,000 Quasars that are billions of lightyears away. They are extremely bright lights created by active Blackholes at the cores of massive galaxies. These astronomers are most assuredly looking at ghosts. Quasars only occurred in the early Universe. The Universe has since expanded so much that more recent Quasars don not exist anymore. The light we are seeing is information about a long bygone Universe.

- We have read about massive stars collapsing into a Blackhole. We visualize it happening in our minds. Artist depict renderings and computer simulations of what it would look like. Our imagination can see it but in fact we could never see such an event. A Blackhole is so dense with so much gravity that light never escapes. Its gravity bends space-time back on itself. If somehow we were viewing this event from outside it would simply look like time was slowing to a stop. The event becomes frozen in time. It just stops. There is nothing more ever to be seen.

- The Universe is expanding at 47,000 miles per hour for every million lightyears distance. Therefore the galaxies are no longer located where we see them. And, of course, by now they may look much different. There may even have been mergers and collisions by now. They may even be so far away by now that the light will never reach us. We may never know what these galaxies look like today.

- We create the Universe in our heads. It is similar to how we create “ rainbows’ in our heads. Rainbows are not objects that really exist. They are not actually there. If some sees a rainbow from a different location, she is seeing a different rainbow from the one you are seeing. Your eyes witness a specific light beam that gets bent in the rain drops and enters only your eyes. If no one was looking the rainbow would not be there. In fact, throughout history rainbows did not exist until animals evolved with color vision. Your eyes and your eyes alone personally create the colors you see. Each rainbow is personally yours.

- Rainbows do not have shadows or reflections. If you see a rainbow reflected of the still surface of a lake it is a different rainbow because it is being created by different beams of light. Rainbows are not real, we make them real in our heads.

- So it is with much of the Universe. It is as we perceive it. The finite speed of light requires that we use the laws of physics to learn what “is”. For sure, it “ is” not what we “ see”. A good student will be able to “ see” with “ understanding”. You have to learn to see what is. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
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Cosmic rays, a blessing or a curse?

-  1927  -  Cosmic Rays, are they a curse or are they a blessing?  See Review #1926 about Cosmic Rays and Planetesimals.   This review continues the discussion about Cosmic Rays
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-----------------------------  1927  -  Cosmic Rays
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- Cosmic Rays are mostly high speed atomic nuclei coming from our Sun or other Stars.  The most common atomic nuclei is Hydrogen, which is a single proton.  Helium nuclei are called an Alpha particles, each with 2 protons  Heavier elements have more protons right up the Periodic Table all the way to iron.
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-  Here are the percentages of Cosmic Rays detected:
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--------------------  90%  -----------------  protons, hydrogen nuclei
--------------------    9%  ----------------  helium nuclei
---------------------   1%  -----------------  heavier nuclei and negatively charge electrons.
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-  Why are there not 50% electrons and 50% protons?  That is what makes up all neutral hydrogen atoms.  That would make more sense?  We just don’t know.
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-  Next, when enormous energy levels were detected from some Cosmic Rays the conclusion was that they came from galactic cores, or Blackholes, not from the nuclear furnace of our neighborhood Sun, or other single stars.
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-  Cosmic Rays from the Sun are much weaker.  Galactic Cosmic Rays are more powerful, between 100 million electron volts ( MeV) and 10 billion electron volts (GeV).  These were all protons with a mass of 1,836 electron-mass.  To have more energy they must be traveling at much higher speeds.  Energy = mass * (velocity)^2.  A Cosmic Ray of 100 MeV is traveling 43% the speed of light, or, 288,000,000 miles per hour.
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-  A Cosmic Ray with energy of 10 GeV is traveling at 99.6% the speed of light, or, 671,000,000 miles per hour.  The highest energy Cosmic Ray ever measured was 1,020 GeV.
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-  Half of the radiation ( 50%) we experience comes from the ground.  Radiation in the Earth.  10% comes from Cosmic Rays from outer space.  If you live in Denver, Colorado, you receive twice as much as if you were at sea level, San Francisco, California.  Airline pilots experience twice as much radiation as the rest of us.
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-  Cosmic Rays coming from deep space first strike the hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen molecules at 35 miles elevation in our atmosphere.  The collisions create a shower of lighter particles that rain down on us, neutrons, protons, electrons, and neutrinos  Another particle that is a transient is the Muon with a mass of 208 electrons.  They are essentially “heavy” electrons with a half-life of 2 millionths of a second.
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-  Muons don’t live very long.  How can they even reach the ground from 25 miles up in the atmosphere?  Because they are traveling so fast, nearly half the speed of light, that they are “ Relativistic”, meaning time slows down for them and distances shrink.
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-  Measurements have calculated that your body encounters 240 Muons passing through every second.  The really dangerous Cosmic Rays are the heaviest iron nuclei traveling at near light speed.  But, these are very rare unless we get close to a supernova explosion.
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-  The heaviest nuclei Cosmic Rays are still mysteries, but, they are believed to come from colliding galaxies, like NGC4038 and NGC4039, the “ Antenna Galaxy”.  Maybe the source are super massive Blackholes that somehow slingshot these particles to relativistic speeds.
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- These are all charge particles that are redirected by magnetic fields causing them to come at us from all directions.  This energetic flow of particles surrounds us, and even goes through us.  An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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-  (1):   See Review #1747  -  Compares Cosmic Rays and Gamma Rays.
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-  (2)  This Review footnotes 12 other resources on the topic:  #1659,  #1624,  #1568,  #1496, #1377,  #810, etc.
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-  (3)  See Review #1926 to learn how Cosmic Rays may be responsible for the evolution of life on Earth.
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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
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