Neutrinos - A summary of what we have learned?

- 1700 -  Neutrino  -  A summary of what we have learned so far.  They are nearly massless and travel nearly the speed of light.  They are as abundant as photons but behave quite differently.  They are generated in fusion and fission processes, some to enormous energies.
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---------------------------  1700 -  Neutrino  -  What we learned about the “Little One“?
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-  Neutrinos, what are they and where did they come from?  Neutrinos are atomic particles, part of the nucleus of atoms.  Their charges are neutral and they are nearly massless.  The photon is massless, simply a particle of energy.  The neutrino is close to massless.  Neutrinos do not interact with matter except slightly with the Weak Nuclear Force.  Also, if they have a slight mass then that implies they must also interact with the Higgs Field.
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-  Neutrinos bombard us constantly because they arrive with the Sunlight.  The fusion reactions at the core of the Sun produces billions of neutrinos.  They  arrive at near the speed of light and pass right through our bodies and through the entire Earth without obstruction.
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-  Hold up your thumb towards the Sun.
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-  65,000,000,000 neutrinos are passing through your thumbnail every second.  Neutrinos pass through your body unimpeded.  That is why they are so hard to detect.
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-  In contrast photons are massless and carry energy depending on their wavelength.  In sunlight 79,000,000,000,000,000 photons hit your thumbnail every second.  Your eye can detect their reflection, maybe even feel some heat from ultraviolet.  You would even see the bone if it were X-rays wavelengths.  The shorter the wavelength the greater the energy.  E  =  h / w.
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-  Neutrino mass is small, unknown , but less than 1,000,000th  the mass of an electron.
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------------------  Neutrino mass  <  0.13 electron volts  /  c^2
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-  Neutrino’s energy comes in three generations:
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--------------------Electron Neutrinos   <  2.5 electron volts
--------------------Muon Neutrinos   <  170,000  electron volts
--------------------Tau Neutrinos   <  18,000,000  electron volts
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-  How can we possible catch one of these “little ones” to study it?
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-  Astronomers have made a major attempt at the South Pole.  They have installed 5,160 detectors in one cubic kilometer of ice.  After 2 years of data collecting astronomers think they have discovered 80 high energy Tau Neutrinos that came to us from somewhere , other than our Sun, which are all low energy Electron Neutrinos.  One possibility is that Cosmic Rays slamming into our upper atmosphere could produce high energy neutrinos, much like a particle accelerator does in our science labs.
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-  These high energy Tau Neutrinos carry 10 trillion times more energy than visible light photons.  They have 1 million times more energy than the neutrinos discovered coming from the Supernova 1987A that occurred in our neighbor galaxy, the Large Megellanic Cloud.
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-  Neutrinos are generated in fusion and fission reactions in stars mostly.  However, low energy neutrinos are created in radioactive decay.  Your body contains 20 milligrams of Potassium 40, a natural radioactive element.  As a result your body is emitting 340,000,000 neutrinos every day.  But, don’t expect to loose much weight.
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-  Low energy neutrinos exit the fusion in the core of the Sun and reach the Earth in 8 minutes, nearly the speed of light.  Photons created at the same time in Gamma Ray wavelengths interact with the electromagnetic and nuclear forces in the hydrogen and helium atoms scattering so many times it takes them 40,000 years to reach the surface of the Sun.  By then they have lost so much energy their longer wavelengths are green light that reaches the Earth in 8 minutes scatters in the upper nitrogen atmosphere creating a blue sky and a yellow Sun to us surface dwellers.
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-  For astronomers it has been a mystery where the high energy, Tau Neutrinos, are being created.  They come from somewhere outside our Solar System.    Astronomers have 4 instruments using coordinated detection to possibly answer this question:
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------------------------  ICECube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole
------------------------  Chandra X-ray observatory in orbit.
------------------------  Swift Gamma-Ray observatory in orbit
------------------------  Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope, NuSTAR
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-  Over the last 4 years, 2010 - 2014, ICECube has detected 80 high energy Tau Neutrinos.  ( See Review # 1219 to learn about the ICECube observatory).
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-  Chandra X-ray observatory witnessed a giant flare outburst from the Blackhole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.  Exactly 3 hours later ICECube detected a neutrino signature.  3 other X-ray telescopes detectors received corresponding data on this high energy neutrino.
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------------  CONCLUSION:  Blackholes are one source for high energy neutrinos.
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-  Astronomer’s theory is that particles orbiting around a Blackhole get accelerated by a shockwave, like a sonic boom, launching charged particles at enormous velocities that decay into high energy neutrinos.  This may be the same mechanism that launches high energy Cosmic Rays.  But, Cosmic Rays are charged particles that change directions in magnetic fields so many times we can not determine their trajectories.
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-  Could all these neutrinos in the Cosmos explain Dark Matter that represents 23% of all the mass-energy in the Universe.  Normal matter represents less than 5%.
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-  If we really did invent a neutrino telescope we could learn a lot about the Universe.  Electromagnetic wave detection is nice but still limiting in how much we can see.  Stay tuned, there is much more to learn.
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-  Other Reviews on the topic of Neutrinos available upon request:
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-  #1631  Neutrinos used to detect Supernovae Explosions.
-  #1608  Left-handed neutrinos interact with Gravity ad the Weak Nuclear Force.
-  #1589  Neutrinos have a half-spin in angular momentum.
-  #1511 Sterile Neutrinos, would interact with Gravity but none of the other forces.
-  # 1219  ICE Cube , neutrino telescope at the South Pole.
-  # 1139  The Universe will light up when we can see with neutrino eyes.
-  # 732  Neutrino Thermal history, Big Bang to present.
-  # 630  History of neutrino discoveries since 1927.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Sunday, December 7, 2014  ---
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Supernova, Close to Home?

- 1699  -  Supernovae, Close to Home?  This review explores the possibility of a supernova occurring in our Milky Way Galaxy in our lifetimes.  What can we expect?
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---------------------------  1699  -  Supernovae, Close to Home?
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-  Our Sun is too small to ever go “ supernova”.  I will die a slow death over the next 5,000,000,000 years as it burns away its hydrogen and helium fuel.  It will end up a beautiful planetary nebula with a White Dwarf Star left behind.
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-  The White Dwarf will still be hot, but, it will have exhausted all its hydrogen and helium fuel.  The nuclear furnace at its core will shut off and the cool down period will begin.  It will last for eons.
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-  Our Sun does not seem small to us.  It is burning 600,00,000 tons of hydrogen every second.  That nuclear reaction produces 596,000,000 tons of helium every second.  The remaining 4,000,000 tons transforms into pure energy according to E = m*c^2.
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-  At the core the energy starts out as high energy Gamma Rays, but, by the time it reaches the surface of the Sun , which takes 40,000 years scattering off the dense atoms.  It looses energy and exit’s the surface as green sunlight.
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--------------------  Energy  =  mass * (speed of light )^2
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-  We see this energy in the form of sunshine.  The energy that powers all life on Earth.
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-  Most of the stars in the night sky will behave in the same way.  There are some more massive stars where their lifetime process becomes much different.
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-  The truly large stars 6 time to 20 times the mass of our Sun will not go quietly.  Once their nuclear fuel is extinguished their enormous gravity will cause an implosion to the center, then an explosion , into interstellar space.  The explosion is called a “ supernova”.
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-  One our two supernova will explode in our Milky Way Galaxy every century.  The luminosity of each of these explosions will be 10 billion times greater than that of our Sun.  One supernova is equivalent to a galaxy’s luminosity with 10 billion stars.  What is left behind is not a White Dwarf star but a Neutron Star, possible a Blackhole.
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-  We catalogued the first Supernova recording in 1680, known as Cassiopeia A.
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-  The next supernova recorded occurred in 1860 in Sagittarius.
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-  The most recent supernova close by in a neighboring galaxy, The Large Megellanic Cloud, was Supernova 1987A.
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-  Remember, a supernova explosion occurs every one or two seconds somewhere in the Observable Universe.  But, one or two per 100 years in our own Galaxy.  This list of 5 massive stars in our galactic vicinity are the next likely candidates to go supernova.  We could see these explosions with the naked eye.  Google these stars to get a detailed description:
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-----------------------  JK   Pegasi
----------------------  Spica
---------------------- Betelgeuse
---------------------  Rigel
----------------------  Gamma Velorium  -  A Wolf-Rayet star
---------------------  RS Ophiuchi  -  A Red Giant and White Dwarf pair.
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-  JK Pegasi is the closest.  It is 1.7 Solar Mass with a binary companion White Dwarf star at 1.2 Solar Mass.
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-  Some 260 lightyears away is Spica in the Constellation Virgo.  It is a 10 Solar Mass star.  Every star seems to have a different scenario for life expectancy.  A 10 Solar Mass star will fuse helium into carbon and oxygen. More massive stars greater than 10 Solar Mass will fuse helium into carbon, then neon, oxygen, silicon, iron, nickel.  Spica could become this type supernova.
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-  Betelgeuse is 640 lightyears away.  It is a 20 Solar Mass  Red Supergiant star.  It could go supernova in 20,000 to 100,000 years from now, or maybe tomorrow.
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-  Gamma-Velorium, a Wolf-Rayet star will be a special supernova because it is 30 Solar Mass.  It is 1,100 lightyears away.
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-  When we get into the astronomical details we begin to realize each star is different.  That in and of itself should tell us how unique we are.  Each star is different but here is a general scenario of a star going supernova:
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- A massive star has so much gravity that it collapse all the element’s protons into the nuclei until the heaviest element is created, iron.  Iron stops the process because it can not add anymore protons unless it adds energy.  Up to iron adding protons, fusion, releases energy.  It is that outward energy that keeps the star from collapsing.   When the gravity gets so intense the electrons orbiting the iron collapse into the protons residing in the nucleus and become neutrons, releasing an explosion of neutrinos in the process.
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-  When the star’s core collapses in this manner it reaches the center and bounces releasing an enormous amount of energy.    Up to 100 times more energy than the Sun will release over its entire 10 billion year lifetime.  The ball of neutrons left behind is a Neutron Star.  The explosion that creates and splatters elements into interstellar space is a supernova.  The shockwave causing this is traveling 22,000,000 miles per hour slamming into the outer layers of the massive star.
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-  The scattering debris of the supernovae carry all the variety of elements in the periodic table throughout the Universe.  We are still learning exactly how stars explode.  In many ways they are all different , like snowflakes.  Stay tuned, the next one in the Milky way could happen in your lifetime.  Now, when it happens you will know what it is.
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-  Picture is the Crab Nebula .  It is a supernova that exploded 7,500 years ago.  But, it is 6,500 lightyears away.  So the image we see is only 1,000 years after it exploded.  Already the shockwave is 6 lightyears in diameter.  We are looking into the past.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Thursday, December 4, 2014  ---
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How rare in the Universe are we?

- 1698  -  How rare are we in the Universe?  We are made of elements created in exploding stars.  Our world has such abundance but how rare is this abundance in the Universe?
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---------------------------  1698  -  How rare are we in the Universe?
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-  How small are we in the scheme of things, universally speaking.  Where did we come from?  When did we get here?  How and why is religion and that is way above my pay grade.  Here is some low cost astronomy and physics lessons to put in perspective how rare are we?
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-  We think that the total mass-energy in the Universe is 28% matter, with its gravity, and 72% anti-gravity, called Dark Energy.  Of that 28% matter, 23% is Dark Matter and only 5% is Ordinary Matter.  Ordinary Matter is what makes up everything we know about in our “world“.  We do not know what Dark Matter is?  But, it is responsible for the structure of the galaxies and clusters of galaxies.  We do not know what Dark Energy is but it is responsible for accelerating the expansion of space between all the galaxies.
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-  For ever 1 million lightyears of space galaxies are receding each other by 47,000 miles per hour.  Space every where in the Universe is expanding. The rate of expansion is called Hubble’s Constant.   All matter us getting rarified as space gets bigger.
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-  Now that 5% Ordinary Matter, 75% is Hydrogen and 25% is Helium.  That is what our Sun and the stars and most of the Universe are made of.  Hydrogen and Helium were originally created in the Big Bang.  But, what makes all the elements in the rest of the Solar System?  The moons , planets, and all biology is in the tenths of percentile of that Ordinary Matter dominated by Hydrogen and Helium.  Everything outside the Sun and the stars can be considered rare, trace elements.
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-  Where did the trace elements heavier than hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium come from if they were not created in the beginning of the Universe?  Hydrogen is one proton.  Helium is two protons, Lithium 3, Beryllium 4 , Boron 5.  But, all protons are positive charges.  Like charges repel each other.  How do the protons get combined in the nuclei of atoms to become heavier elements
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-  Putting 2 protons together to make Helium takes a tremendous  amount of pressure and very high temperatures.  It is like put the north poles of two magnets together, they just refuse to touch until overpowered by a greater force.  The center of the Sun has enough pressure and temperature to accomplish the creation of Helium from two Hydrogen protons.
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-  Stars like the Sun did not form until after 400,000,000 years of expansion and cooling of the Universe.  Hydrogen and Helium gas throughout space began to concentrate due the gravity of their collective mass.  Eventually the concentration got so great and the density and pressure so great that the .like positive electric forces of protons broke down and Hydrogen converted in to Helium.  The star’s core became a fusion furnace burning Hydrogen and creating Helium and creating energy.
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-  Two protons are slightly heavier than the Helium nucleus containing the 2 protons.  The difference in mass was converted directly to energy,  E = m*c^2.  The energy was in the form of Gamma Ray radiation to make the stars shine.  It is the energy generated in the fusion process.
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-  Our Sun is a medium size star that has enough gravity to create this Hydrogen to Helium fusion process.  In fact the Sun contains enough Hydrogen to fuse Helium for 10 billion years.  The truly massive stars will burn so fast there fusion furnace will only burn for a few hundred million years.
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-  Our Sun is a 2nd or 3rd generation star.  When our Solar System was formed around the Sun there were elements in orbit that came from the explosions of other previously massive stars.  It was these other elements that created the moons, planets, and biology of life circling out Sun.
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- The Sun’s fusion still provides the energy.  Gamma Rays emitted at the core scatter through the helium and hydrogen atoms for 40,000 years to reach the surface.  The Gamma Rays loose much of their energy in this journey to the surface and the leave as much lower energy, green light.  It takes only 8 minutes of this sunlight to reach the Earth and to scatter in the upper nitrogen atmosphere creating the blue sky and the yellow Sun to us observers on the surface of Earth.
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-  In 5 billion years from now our Sun will have fused all the hydrogen in to helium, the helium will fuse into carbon and oxygen.  Then fusion will stop.  The gravity pressure is not great enough to fuse the heavier elements.  It takes a bigger star.  Our star will die as a planetary nebula leaving behind a White Dwarf star of carbon and oxygen.  With no fusion to create energy it will gradually cool to a cold cinder floating in space.
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-  But , if the star is more massive fusion would continue into the heavier elements releasing Gamma Ray energy at each step.  Carbon atom’s nuclei would fuse adding protons to form neon, then magnesium, silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium , iron, nickel. Iron would have 56 protons.  At that juncture in the fusion the process changes.  Iron absorbs energy in gathering another proton rather than emitting energy.  Its nucleus is heavier than the sum of the 56 protons.  How do the elements heavier than iron get created?
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-  When the iron core of the massive store receives pressure beyond this point another process change occurs.  The atoms are mostly empty space with a small nucleus at the center and a cloud of electrons orbiting.  When the pressure exceeds the ability of the electrons to orbit they collapse into the nuclei protons to form neutrons.  The center of the star becomes a Neutron Star.  The collapse of the electrons causes a tremendous rebound at the center creating a shockwave and a massive release of neutrinos.  The star’s explosion is called a supernova.
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-  The shockwave blasts through the shells of the lighter elements that surrounded the heavier iron core.  The energy is immense, 10 billion times more than the total energy from the Sun.  Put another way, since the Sun has a lifetime of 10 billion years, the supernova releases more energy in one second then the Sun releases in its entire lifetime.
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-  The energy of this shockwave blasting through the lighter elements fuses all the heavier elements above iron, up to lead and uranium.  It is fission energy added to these nuclei to create heavier elements with a greater number of protons in the nucleus.  In fact Uranium is so heavy it will decay releasing its fission energy in its natural state.  That is how we get the 90 elements in the periodic table.  That the is source of the rare elements that make all the moons, planets, and biology. Getting biology out of this process is probably the rarest process.
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-  How rare are supernovae exploding in our Galaxy?    They have in the past and some are likely in the future.  See  Review # 1699 to learn of the potential massive star explosion occurring close to home.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Thursday, December 4, 2014  ---
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From beginning to end? The story of the Universe

- 1697  -  The story beginning to end.  What happened over the past 13.7 billion years.  How did we get to where we are today?  95% of it we do not know.  How fun is that?
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---------------------------  1697  -  The story beginning to end.
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-  This all happened 13,700,000,000 years ago.  In case you missed it.  It was the birth of time and the beginning of the expansion of space.  In a hundredth of a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second ( 10^-34 seconds) space expanded faster than the speed of light.  The Universe doubled in size 90 times.  The Universe started as a single “point” then when at 10^-34 seconds of age it instantaneously grew to the size of a golf ball.
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-  When this hot , dense, point reached the size of a golf ball it had already cooled off and slowed down its rate of expansion.  It kept expanding and cooling until charged particles could begin collecting into neutral particles.  One second after the expansion slowed neutron, protons, electrons, positrons, photons, and neutrinos filled the Universe.  Electrons and protons began to form neutral hydrogen.
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-  After 3 minutes the temperature had cooled from 10^32 degrees Kelvin to 10^9 degrees Kelvin.  This was cool enough for the isotope of Deuterium to form ( a proton plus a neutron).  Deuterium combined to form helium ( 2 protons and 2 neutrons), and some Lithium ( 3 protons )
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-  The Universe was too hot and too charged up with particles for the photons of light to escape because they were continuously scattered in all directions.  This plasma continued to cool and expand.  After 380,000 years it had cooled enough for enough charges to become neutralized that photons began to escape.  The Universe began to shine for the first time.  Before that it was a fog of dense plasma that scattered the light so intensely the photons remained contained.
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-  Today we see this “first shine” as the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB).  The temperature had cooled to now 3,000 degrees Kelvin, cool enough to allow the Universe to become transparent emitting Gamma Rays.  The high energy Gamma Rays lost energy and became stretched as they traveled through space that was expanding over the next 13 billion years.  Today they are microwave radiation (CMB).  This radiation is like a white noise coming from all directions.  If you remember the old CRT televisions and that static white noise you saw between switching channels, that was the CMB.
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-  This event was a flash of Gamma Rays but it was not starlight because no stars had yet formed.  It took another 400,000,000 years for clumps of hydrogen and helium gas to collect and gravitationally collapse to form the first stars.
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-  The Universe expansion continued for the next 5 billion years.  The gravitational forces were dominate and the expansion was gradually slowing down.  But, it was also getting less and less dense as the masses spread further and further apart.  The dominance of gravity was overcome and the dominance of anti-gravity took over.  We call this anti-gravity energy , “Dark Energy”.  Today it is accelerating the expansion of the Universe at an ever increasing rate.  We do not know what it is or what causes it.  It is the biggest mystery in science today.  Literally big, it is 72% of all the energy-mass in the Universe.
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-  Today it is expanding at 47,000 miles per hour for every million lightyears of space.  It is 9 billion years after it first started when our Solar System formed.  Today our Solar System s 4.6 billion years old and the Universe is 13.7 billion years old.
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-  This scenario that started in the beginning can be thought of as the simultaneous appearance of space everywhere in the Universe.  It did not start as a single point in the center with expansion moving outward like a supernova explosion.  Rather space everywhere began stretching out and carrying matter along with it.
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-  When the Universe first formed matter and energy were distrusted evenly, uniformly throughout space.  Somehow small fluctuations in the density of matter allowed gravity to create a vast web-like structure of stars separated in space.  The denser regions created more intense gravity and formed the stars that formed the galaxies.  There were clusters of galaxies interconnected by filaments of stars.  The Universe was a series of great walls of galaxies separated by great voids of empty space.
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-  Astronomers have tried to piece all this together assuming the Universe was entirely made of ordinary matter (baryonic matter).  But, the math did not work out.  It order to match observations the ratios of matter and energy needed to explain the Universe expansion just described,  the ordinary matter and it attraction with gravity could only occupy 4.6% of the total mass-energy in the Universe.  Somehow there is 23% more matter, called Dark Matter, that we can not see.  And, somehow there is 72%  anti-gravity forces, called Dark Energy, that is causing the Universe to be expanding at an every increasing rate.
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-  The rate of expansion is known as Hubble’s Constant, Ho.  It is currently:
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---------------------  Ho   =   47,000 miles per hour per million lightyears.
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-  Ho is “constant” at this point in time.  It says that for every million lightyears distance of space separating two galaxies they are receding away from each other at 47,000 miles per hour.
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-----------------  Receding Velocity  =  Distance * Ho
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--------------  The velocity is the speed of light.  And the inverse of Ho is the age of the Universe.
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-------------------  1 / Ho  =  million lightyears distance  /  47,000 miles per hour.
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-  A lightyear is 5,880,000 million miles
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-  There are 8,760 hours in a year.
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-------------------  1 / Ho  =  10^6  *  5.88 * 10^12 miles  /  47,000 miles *  8.76 *10^3 hours / year.
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-  Age of the Universe is 14.7 billion years.    This is the calculation if Ho is an average velocity and constant throughout time.  It was not.  The age is calculated to be 13.7 billion years because in the beginning 5 billion years the expansion was slowing down and in the past 5 billion years the expansion is speeding up at an ever accelerating rate.  The math gets more complicated.  There is more to learn, stay tuned.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Tuesday, December 2, 2014  ---
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Learning from Comet Landing?

- 1696  -  Comet landing with Rosetta mission is collecting science that tells us a history of our planet.  Did comets bring water to Earth 4 billion years ago?
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---------------------------  1696  -  Comet - Rosetta after Landing
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-  See Reviews # 1692 and #1688 for an introduction to the Rosetta mission landing on a comet, November, 2014.  This review begins the story of what we are learning from this adventure.
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-  “ Philae”, the Lander sent 64 hours of data before its batteries went dead and the instruments shut down in hibernation.  November 12, 2014 the landing occurred on a comet 2.5 miles in diameter traveling at 37,300 miles per hour.  This all happened 319,000,000 miles away from Earth between Mars and Jupiter.
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-  The batteries drained because the Lander bounced to a site almost devoid of sunlight making its solar panels inoperable.
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-  Ten instruments on board the Lander were still able to transmit their data.  The landing itself was a tricky maneuver.  The Lander weighing 100 kilograms on Earth ( 220 pounds) weighs only 1 gram on the comet.  No wonder the Lander bounced leaping 3,200 feet above the surface ( 0.6 miles).  The surface below was rotating.  Where it eventually landed gets only 1.5 hours of sunlight.  The Sun is too far away and that is too short a time for the feeble sunlight to recharge the batteries.
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-  A second attempt will be made when the comets gets closer to the Sun and the Lander comes out of hibernation.
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-  Pictures showed the landing site to b a dusty surface covered in rock-like material having a wide range of sizes.  A hammer mechanism on a 40 centimeter rod ( 16 inches ) probed the surface.  The dust was 4 to 8 inches thick.  Below that was rock hard ice.  With the previously calculated low density of the comet the ice was expected to be porous.  Not so at this landing,  it was unusually hard ice.
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-  A magnetometer measured the comet’s magnetic field.  Samples were taken from the surface identifying organic molecules.  Water H2O, carbon monoxide CO, carbon dioxide CO2, ammonia NH3, Methane CH4, methanol CH4O.  Analytical chemist are busy pouring over this data to learn if chemical signatures are similar to those found on the Earth.  Are their amino acids and water that could support life?
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-  In August 2015 the comet will be at its closet point to the Sun.  Attempts will be made to wake up the Lander to resume tests.  In the meantime Rosetta the Orbiter will continue to operate and make its own observations.
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-  One achievement completed when the Lander was operating involved the Orbiter from the opposite side of the comet passed a radio signal through the comet to the Lander.  This analysis will be similar to a CAT Scan that will create a 3-D image cross sections of the comet.
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-  Review # 1692 calculates the comet’s volume assuming that it is approximately two spheres connected together.  One is 2.4 kilometers in diameter, the other is 0.8 kilometers diameter.  The volume calculates to be 9.4*10^2 meters^3 , the mass 2.8 *10^12 kilograms ( 2.8 billion tons ), the density 300 kilograms / meter^3.  Water is 1,000 kilograms/ meter^3.
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-  More sophisticated calculations use the volume of the large lobe 2.5 x 2 x 0.8 miles and the small lobe 1.6 x 1.6 x 1.2 miles with a density of 400  kilograms / meter^3.  The Earth’s density is 14 times greater at 5,600 kilograms / meter^3
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-  One of the mysteries Rosetta hopes to solve is how water arrived on Earth.  We know that the Earth’s early formation was too hot for liquid water to survive.  Somehow water had to arrive after the Earth cooled down.  The bombardment of comets in the early days of the Solar System may have been the delivery mechanism.
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-  By analyzing  the isotopes in the water and the “ chirality” of the molecules, were they left-handed or right-handed molecules, ( Earth molecules are left-handed)  science can determine if there is a match.  The abundance of the Deuterium isotope in Earth’s water is 0.015%.  If comet water is the same ratio there would be another match.  Well, then we can thank the comets for life on Earth.
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-  Comet bombardment occurred 4 billion years ago.  estimates have been made that in over 400 million years the ice that was deposited could have filled the Earth’s oceans.
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-----------------------  2 kilometer diameter comets hit every 6 months, on average
-----------------------  20 kilometer comets hit every 600 years
-----------------------  200 kilometer comets hit every 1,000,000 years
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-  The volume of ice in comets this size is V = 4/3 *pi*r^2:
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-----------------------  2 kilometer comets , V  =  4.2 kilometers^3
-----------------------  20 kilometer comets , V  =  4,200 kilometers^3
-----------------------  200 kilometer comets , V  =  4,200,000 kilometers^3
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-  The volume of ice delivered per year is 20 kilometers^3:
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--------------------  4.2 kilometers / 0.5 years   =  8.4 kilometers^3/ year
-------------------  4,200 kilometers^3 / 600 years  =  7.0 kilometers^3/ year
-------------------    4,200,000 kilometers^3 / 1,000,000 years  =  4.2  kilometers^3 / year
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-  Solid ice is 6 times the volume of liquid water.
-  So, the total volume of water delivered is 3.33 kilometer^3 / year.
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-  The water in Earth’s oceans totals 1.33 billion kilometers^3
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-------------------------  1,330 * 10^6  /  3.33  =  400 * 10^6 years
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-  Therefore, if this much ice landed on the surface of the Earth over 400 million years that could account for all the water in Earth’s oceans.
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-  Stay tuned, there is much more to learn on this Rosetta adventure.
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-  Other Reviews about comets available upon request:
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-  # 1623 Calculate  the amount of water lost by a comet as it loops around the Sun.
-  # 1612  How many comets make close flybys to Earth?
-  # 1600  Comet ISON November 2013
-  # 1338  Did comets bring water to Earth?
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Monday, December 1, 2014  ---
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Measuring Astronomical Distances.

- 1695  -  Measuring Astronomical Distances.  This review illustrates different methods to measure distances back to the Big Bang.
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---------------------------  1695  -  Measuring Astronomical Distances
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-  For nearly 25 years the Hubble Space telescope has been staring at the heavens.  Staring is the right word.  Hubble is looking at the same spot in the sky for up to 140 orbits.  Each orbit takes 90 minutes.  The long time exposure is used to see as far back in the Universe as we possibly can.
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-  The latest Hubble images are using gravitational-lensing, the light bending properties of gravity from 6 remote clusters of galaxies.  The goal is to study even more remote galaxies that are in the same line of sight.  These far off galaxies would be too faint to observe without magnification and brightening created by the foreground clusters’ gravity.
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-  What astronomers hope to learn from these deep field studies:  When did the lights of the Universe first turn on?  How many galaxies formed in the first few million years after the Big Bang?  How quickly did they form?
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-  So far astronomers have determined that the number of galaxies drops off dramatically beyond a Redshift of 8.5,  corresponding to 600 million years after the Big Bang.  The most distant galaxy found to date had a Redshift of 9.8, a time only 490 million years after it all started.
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-  The enormous mass of a galaxy cluster  bends the light, analogous to a magnifying lens.  If Earth happens to be in the line of sight astronomers can image distant galaxies that would other wise be undetectable.
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-  One way to learn the distances to these remote galaxies is to use the light spectrum.  By measuring how much the light spectrum has shifted towards the red end of the spectrum astronomers an calculate how much the space has stretched in expansion during its long journey to Earth.  Knowing the Redshift  and Hubble’s constant for space expansion we can determine the distance the light has traveled:
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----------------------  Redshift  =  (wavelength observed  -  wavelength actual)  /  actual wavelength.
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-------------------- Distance =   receding velocity  /  Hubble’s Constant
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------------------  Hubble’s Constant  =  71 kilometers / second/ mega parsec
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-------------------  Hubble’s Constant  =  47,000 miles per hour /  million lightyears
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---------------  Redshift  ------------------   Travel Time  ----------  Time after Big Bang
---------------                  ------------------   lightyears      ----------  million years
------------------  1         -------------------       7.7    ----------------    5,930  -------------
------------------  5         -------------------       12.5    ----------------  1,190 -------------
------------------  8         -------------------       13.0    ----------------    650  -------------
------------------  10       -------------------       13.2   ----------------     480  -------------
------------------  15       -------------------       13.4    ----------------    270  -------------
------------------  20       -------------------       13.5    ----------------    180 -------------
------------------  50       -------------------       13.6    ----------------      47  -------------
------------------  100       ------------------      13.65    ----------------    17  -------------
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-  Gravitational lensing can magnify feeble radiation from tenfold to hundredfold.
The first galaxies found at a Redshift of 9.8 were a mere 500 lightyears across.  Which is 500 times smaller than our Milky Way Galaxy.  The belief is that these small galaxies merged in the early Universe to become the large galaxies we see today.
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-  Where but in astronomy can you witness the past.  We are getting very close to the Beginning.  Electromagnetic waves may not be the detection method used to see the farthest in the past.  Gravity waves, or neutrinos may be the detection medium used to accomplish this.
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-  Or, we may use the boy scout method to measure astronomical distances.  The further something is away from us the smaller it appears.  A popular visual is to look down the distance of a straight railroad tracks.  The distance between the tracks appears to get smaller and smaller.
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-  One Example:  Galaxy NGC415, called the “ Eye of Sauron”  hosts a massive Blackhole at its center.  The radiation for the accretion disk orbiting the Blackhole creates shockwaves that form hot dust rings around the Blackhole.  The hot dust rings emit infrared radiation.
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-  To measure the physical size of this dust ring astronomers measure the time delay from the emission of a flash of radiation from the accretion disk close to the Blackhole to the more distant ring of infrared emissions.  The distance or physical size of the radius of the ring is the time delay divided by the speed of light.
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---------------------  Physical Size  /  angular size  =  2*pi* Radius  /  360 degrees
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-  Using an interferometer of several telescopes achieved the resolving power of an 85 meter telescope.  This magnification  allowed the measurement of the angular size of the diameter of the ring.
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-  The distance from the telescope to the galaxy is the radius of another bigger circle., having the circumference  = 2 *pi*R
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-  To illustrate this math we will measure the distance to the moon.  We know the angular size of the Full Moon in the sky is about 0.5 degrees.  The physical diameter of the Moon is 3,476 kilometers ( 2,160 miles).
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----------------  3,476 kilometers  /  0.524  =  2 * pi* R  /  360
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---------------   R  =  380,000 kilometers
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----------------  R  =  236,000 miles
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-  The distance calculated for the Galaxy was 19  mega parsecs or 62 million lightyears.
But, that is from Earth to the Galaxy.  Using the Redshift method we were measuring back 13,000 million lightyears.  A distance 200 times further than our boy scout method.
Stay tuned, to see what distances the gravity wave and neutrino methods will produce.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Saturday, November 29, 2014  ---
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Nebulae are like snowflakes?

- 1694 -  Nebulae are like Snowflakes,  no two are alike.  The physics part of the story is even more interesting.  Scroll the internet for some beautiful pictures and  then try to imagine what is really going on with atoms and elements being created.
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---------------------------  1694  -  Nebulae are like Snowflakes.
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-  Like snowflakes no two nebulae are alike  Each color represents a different element.  Hydrogen being the predominate red glow.  Different colors are created by radiant emissions and also by reflections, absorption and reemission at different wavelengths.
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-  Nebulae are a natural evolution in the lifetime of stars. But, the nebulae phase lasts only a short period of time, thousands of years to even only decades.   Our Sun will be a nebula in another 5 billion years.  Our Sun is a medium size star and has an expected lifetime of 10 billion years.  Massive stars have a much shorter lifetimes, only a few million years in some cases and their nebula phase can be much different.
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-  Check out the internet to witness some great examples of nebulae:
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-------------------  Red Rectangle Nebula  HD44179.  composed of 4 spokes and ladder rings nested in the shape of a rectangle.
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------------------  Dumbbell Nebula M27 discovered in 1764.
------------------  Cat’s Eye Nebula  NGC 6543
-----------------  Eskimo Nebula  NGC 2392
-----------------  Spiro graph Nebula  IC 418
-----------------  Blinking Planetary Nebula  NGC 6826
-----------------  Ant Nebula  Menzel 3
-----------------  Ring Nebula  M57
-----------------  NGC 5189
-----------------  Boomerang Nebula
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-  Wherever we see hot, massive stars we are seeing a region of star formation.  Because massive stars have short life spans they are never found very far from their birthplace.
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-  Near hot stars are “ nebulae”  colorful, wispy, blobs of glowing gas.  The gas glows because electrons get accelerated out of their atoms due to the high temperatures and vibrating atoms ( the definition of temperature.)   The gas becomes ionized, the charges become separated.  Protons and electrons are no longer allowed to stay together and remain neutral.
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-  The gas atoms get excited, energized because they are absorbing ultra-violet photons from the hot stars.  The absorbed energy puts electrons in higher energy orbits.  When these electrons fall back not lower energy orbits they emit visible light.  Energy always seeks its  lowest level.
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-  When an electron in a hydrogen atom falls from an energy level of 3 to and energy level of 2 it emit’s a red photon with a wavelength of 656 nanometers.
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-  The nebulae are multicolored because light reflected from dust grains produces blue light that gets reflected due to its shorter wavelength.  Red light has wider wavelengths and passes through the dust without being reflected.  This is the same reason the sky is blue.  It is the same reason big waves pass by the boat and small waves splash against the hull.
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- Dark regions in the nebula is where dusty gas completely blocks the light.  Dust grains can also absorb high-energy light and remit light at lower frequency, infrared light.  Fast moving electrons nearing the speed of light can also emit radio wavelengths.  The is the same as how a radio transmitter antenna works.
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-  Among the dozens of nebulae discovered  so far 25% have bipolar lobes and 20% have multiple lobes.  Others are oval shape , or cylinders.  Some even have spiral arms.  If you count all of them discovered to date in the Milky Way you get 3,500.  Counting those undiscovered the estimated total grows to 28,000 in our Galaxy.
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-  The astronomical term “ planetary nebulae” was created because when some nebulae were first discovered they were thought to be planets.  Only when telescopes got better did astronomers realize they were gas bubbles.  The term is given to a very short phase in the evolution of a low-mass star.  Our Sun will experience such a phase in about 5 billion years from now.
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-  When a star has burned most of its fuel, hydrogen and helium, and the core is mostly fused oxygen and carbon surrounded by a shell of helium and an outer shell of hydrogen, the fusion moves from the core to the outer shell.  The helium then sinks to the lower shell.  The increased density of helium creates a “helium flash”..  The explosion plows through the hydrogen and the density decreases until the hydrogen sinks back down and the fusion starts producing helium again.  The whole cycle repeats itself many times.  You can see these shockwaves in the image history of each nebula.
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-  The explosive flashes send out a wind of high density carbon and heavier elements in the dust.  This wind can take 50% to 90% of the star’s mass out into a dense envelope surrounding the star.  This phase of the dying star is the planetary nebulae .
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-  The last phase of the star’s death ends as a White Dwarf of carbon and oxygen at the center.  There is no more hydrogen or helium to restart fusion again.  The smaller stars are not massive enough to produce the gravity pressure needed to fuse the heavier elements above carbon.  Big stars do this in supernovae.
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-  The star’s surface temperature gets to 30,000 Kelvin crating intense radiation ionizing the surrounding gas clouds causing them to glow.  This final phase in the process only lasts a few hundred years, sometimes as short as a few decades.  The planetary nebula phase  in its entirety only lasts a few tens of thousands of years.  Mere moments in astronomical terms.
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-  As the star’s winds die off the nebula steadily dissipates leaving behind the small dense White Dwarf that continues to cool for billions of years.
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-  It remains mysterious how the nebulae acquire the different and unusual shapes during the explosions.  Perhaps the density regions in the outer envelope vary to the degree high speed winds flow more rapidly.  If the wind flows out the poles it could produce the bipolar shapes we see.
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-  The theories so far do not go far enough to explain the complex point-symmetric shapes where each point on one side matches a corresponding point on the other side.  Maybe an interaction of a binary pair of White Dwarf stars could produce this shape?
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-  Maybe the star’ s magnetic field interacts with the exploding gases to sculpture the shape in interesting ways.  But, this would require an explanation for where the magnetic energy strong enough would come from?
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-  Maybe it is not an energy gain but an energy loss.  Maybe exoplanets interfere with the wind and change the angular momentum of the star when the planet is swallowed up?
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-  Maybe all these things happen and each planetary nebulae is formed in its own unique way.
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-  Astronomers explain the Red Rectangle Nebula as seeing two cone-shaped lobes where the edges of the cones stand out in the form of spikes.  The ladder rings could be consecutive, repeated eruption and shockwaves.  A Red Rectangle mystery is that its formation appears to be older than 14,000 years.
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-  Better telescopes discover more unique nebulae and more details to mystify their formations.  Stay tuned  - there is more to learn.  Study these images and try to imagine the myriad of elements created and thrown into the interstellar medium.  Everything in our lives is made from this star dust.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
----  email request for copies to:   -------      jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ---------
 ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/  , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com  ---
 ---- www.twitter.com , ---   707-536-3272    ----   Thursday, November 27, 2014  ---
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