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.
-
-------------------------------  1928  -  Rainbows are in your head.
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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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----  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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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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------------------------------------------------------------------
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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.
-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----  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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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Friday, February 3, 2017  -----
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Cosmic Rays to Planetesimals

-  1926  -  Cosmic Rays to Planetesimals.  Cosmic Rays are not rays they are particles, atomic nuclei.  Earth and your whole body are constantly being bombarded.  These bombardments may have created all the diversity of life on Earth?  This Review explains it all.
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-----------------------------  1926  -  Cosmic Rays to Planetesimals.
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-

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-   Cosmic Rays are a misnomer that has stuck every since the mystery was first discovered.  There are many more misnomers that I will try to explain in this review.  Cosmic Rays are really hydrogen  and helium nuclei.  Hydrogen nuclei are really just protons.  And, Cosmic Rays are just high speed protons.  High speed helium nuclei are called Alpha particles.
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-  Cosmic Rays originate in the Sun and the other stars.  They come to us from outer space, ( as well as some ground radioactivity.)  They are charged particles that never travel in a straight line because they are always diverted by magnetic fields.  Many of these charged particles enter our atmosphere and travel along magnetic lines into the North Pole.  You can see them hitting atmospheric atoms causing the shivering Northern Lights.
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-    Cosmic Rays (protons) are going through your body all the time.  You just don’t notice it.  Your body is mostly empty space.  Not just your head.  Atoms in general are mostly empty space.  The atomic nucleus is very, very small, the size of a proton.  And, electrons are almost 2,000 times smaller.  All the rest is empty space.  Well, space is never empty but that is different Review.
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-  However, Cosmic Rays on occasion do slam into your body’s nuclei.  This smashup could cause cancer.  Or, it could cause a mutation.  Some mutations are bad, some are good.  The good ones survive and evolve.  The bad ones don’t do well in our environment.  Some of our Olympic athletes are a result of these mutations.
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-  In fact, over the past 4,000,000,000 years, these mutations could be responsible for all the diversity of life on Earth.  Maybe on other planets as well.  From mice to elephants, from germs to trees, from monkeys to man.  Most men refuse to believe this evolution.  However, most women do.
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-  Cosmic Rays are the smallest debris hitting us from outer space, not counting Muons and electrons, and a bunch more sub-atomic particles, but , that is a different Review.  When you start dealing with even larger particles hitting us we call them meteorites.  You can witness this bombardment by going outside on a dark night.  Away from all the lights (that ain’t easy)  And staring at the night sky until your eyes chemically adjust to the darkness and you begin to see the streaks of light whizzing across the night sky.
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-  If the streaks are traveling slow, say 18,000 miles per hour, and they are 200 miles away , then it is a satellite, or the space station.  If the streaks are traveling fast, say 26,000 miles per hour and they are closer, say 20 to 30 miles away, then they are meteors.  If they hit the ground they are meteorites.
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-  Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere.  Some hit the surface of the Earth.  Usually meteorites are found to be made of iron or hard rock.  They are the core of the meteor that has had it s crust , or surface burnt off, or evaporated.  Only a few meteorites have been recorded to have hit a person, a car, or a house.  Most hit the oceans which cover 76% the surface of the Earth.  As you will learn, that is how the oceans got here.
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-  If you want to see meteorite impacts check out the Moon.  Use binoculars and you can see the Moon is completely pockmarked in meteor impacts.  Even the smooth parts which are called Mares, or Oceans, are the result of larger impacts creating lava flows that resurface parts of the Moon.
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-  The Moon is even lopsided due to an even larger impact.  The crust on the near side is thicker than the crust on the far side.  This is due to the impact shockwave that went through the Moon and piled up more crust on our side.
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-  The Moon itself is the result of an impact of a planetesimal with the Earth.  4,300,000,000 years ago the impact splashed the Earth’s surface into orbit.  Our Moon is not a captured asteroid , it s part of the Earth that got separated.
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-  See Reviews #1923 and #1924 that discuss how the Earth has been pounded by asteroids and supernovae debris.
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-  Did life evolve due to Cosmic Rays?  Life does not have to have any meaning to exist.  The atoms in our bodies , arranged neatly by RNA and DNA, simply arrived from the explosions of massive stars.  There is no reason such order could not have arisen in billions of other places across billions of other galaxies.  Religion is a reason!
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-  We are thinking creatures and we can reflect on our origin in the stars as being the greatest gift of all.  We should not need more meaning than that.
-
-   We know that at least 100 billion galaxies exist.  We know that at least 400 billion stars area in our own galaxy.  The “Observable Universe” must have 10,000 billion , billion stars and that many planets and that many moons.  All of them being bombarded by those Cosmic Rays and planetesimals.
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-  Astronomers are anxiously searching the planets and moons in our Solar System for microbes.  Signs of the beginnings of life.  Likely targets include Europa, Enceladus, Titan, Triton, or even Mars.  Astronomers have found liquid water on several moons and dwarf planets in our Solar System.  There is water and oxygen out there, outside our island Earth, so, might there be life as we know it out there as well?
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-  Pieces of this world in outer space are entering our world and bodies every day.  We first discovered the Cosmic Ray particles in 1910.  They were detected in electroscopes.  At the time the detections were thought to be radiation coming up out of the earth itself.  Obviously, radioactive elements could cause this detection result  Theodore Wolf was a scientist motivated to test this idea.  He took his electroscope reading at the bottom and at the top of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.  That is just 300 meters, but, he found that more radiation was detected at the top.  Was the ionization coming from the ground or from the sky?
-
-  Victor Hess took these measurements into hot-air balloons in 1911 and he got the same results.  At 17,000 feet the readings were twice as high as on the ground.  Radiation was definitely penetrating from the atmosphere above.
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-  Hess even completed another elevation test at night to prove that the radiation was not coming from the Sun.  In 1912 he even did the measurements during a near-total solar eclipse.  In 1913 he proclaimed that radiation was coming from deep space.
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-  It was Robert Millikan who proclaimed the radiation from deep space was “ Cosmic Rays”.  He was thinking they were a form of invisible light, like Gamma Rays.  But, his theory was proven wrong when detection was shown to be stronger at the magnetic poles.  The radiation was some form of “ charged particle”, not photons, not a form of light.
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-  When in 1930 the detections were proven to be even stronger when streaming from the west.  The particles were deemed to be a positive charge.  The conclusion was then that Cosmic Rays were really positively charged protons, or hydrogen nuclei.  They have been bombarding the Earth for billions of years.  They may have been the reason for the evolution of the diversity of life.  Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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-  Note (1):  Other Reviews:  #1747  -  Adding up the power of Cosmic Rays leads to 10^29 megawatts, or  billion times the power of the Sun’s output.
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-  This review footnotes 11 other Reviews about Cosmic Rays.  For example:
-
- #1496  -  About 10 Cosmic Rays pass through your thumbnail every minute.
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-  #541  -  An average body absorbs enough Cosmic Ray energy to equate to 2 chest X-rays each year.
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-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Tuesday, January 31, 2017  -----
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Venus our sister planet.

-  1925  -  Venus our sister planet.  What is it really like there?  What are the “gravity waves” recently spotted in its upper atmosphere?  What is the history and the math used to study the planet next door?
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-

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-----------------------------  1925  -  Venus our sister planet.
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-  Venus is our sister planet.  The second planet from the Sun.  Also known as the Evening Star, or the Morning Star.  It is always lower on the horizon because the tilted orbits of the Earth and Venus only allow it to rise a maximum of 47 degrees above the horizon.
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-  Today, January 24, 2017, there is a massive “ gravity wave” across the face of Venus.  Stretching 6,000 miles between the poles it appears as a bow-shaped wave stationary in the upper atmosphere.
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-  The Venus atmosphere moves much faster that the planet itself.  Venus rotates once ever 243 days.  Winds on Earth only move 10 to 20% the speed of the planet  On Venus the winds are much faster that the planet’s rotation.
-
-  “ Gravity Waves” are upheavals in the Venus atmosphere caused by these winds colliding with the planet’s surface features.  ( Not to be confused with “ Gravitational Waves” caused by merging rotating Blackholes that create gravitational waves spreading across the Universe.  These waves were recently detected by the two LIGO observatories.)
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-  The atmosphere of Venus is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and the atmospheric pressure at the surface is almost 100 times greater than that on Earth.
-
-  Why do we call Venus a twin sister planet?
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-  Venus is similar size:
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------------  Venus radius  ----------  3,760 miles  -------  Earth  -----  3,960
 ------------  Venus mass  -----------  82%  Earth mass
------------  Venus gravity  ----------  91%  Earth gravity
------------  Venus density  ----------  same as Earth density.
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-  Venus and Earth had similar planetary evolution.  But,  the Earth has liquid water and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.  Venus’s atmosphere is 97% carbon dioxide.
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-  CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas elevating temperatures to 864 degrees Fahrenheit.  Hot enough to melt lead.  Venus is covered in highly reflective sulfuric acid clouds.
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-  The slow rotation means Venus lacks a magnetic field.  The surface pressure is so high it would be like being under a half-mile ocean ( 900 meters).  The Venus terrain is as varied as the Earth’s  but, the surface is bone dry.  All the water vaporized billions of years ago.  The Sun’s ultraviolet light broke apart water ( H2O ) into hydrogen (H2), Hydroxide  (OH)  and oxygen (O2).
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-  Sulfur dioxide discovered in the atmosphere is good evidence that Venus is volcanically active.  If granite could be found on the surface that is a good indication that Venus once had oceans.  Venus is a terrestrial planet orbiting in the Sun’s habitable zone.  It has a metal core and silicate crust.
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------------------  Planet rotation  -----------  243.025 days
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------------------  Planet year  ---------------  224.65  days
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-  ---------------  Venus orbit  ----------------  67,000,000 miles from the Sun
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-----------------  Earth orbit  ------------------  93,000,000 miles
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-  Venus has the  most circular orbit found in the Solar System. Its  orbit closest to Earth is 25,500,000 miles.  Venus’s rotation is retrograde relative to the other planets.  It takes the Sun 117 days to rise in the west and return to the same point in the sky.
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-  The explanation for the Venus rotation is that in early evolution history Venus was impacted by another large planet.  This happened to Earth 4.3 billion years ago, and, that is how our Moon was formed.  Consequently the impact gave Venus day that is 2,800 hours.
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-  The ancient Greeks called Venus “ morning star “Phosphoros”, meaning “ bringer of light”.  They called the evening star “ Hesperos”  meaning “ star of the evening”.  When they realized it was the same star they renamed it “ Aphrodite” meaning “ goddess of love”.  It was the Romans that renamed it “ Venus”.
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-  It was Nicholas Copernicus in the 16th century that realized that Venus did not circle the Earth.  We both circle the Sun.  It was Galileo and his crude telescope that first realized the phases of Venus were like the phases of the Moon.  They depending on which side was facing the Sun.
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-  Venus spends 9 ½ months as our Evening Star and another 9 ½ months as our Morning Star.  Venus transited the Sun in 2012.  Before that in 2004.  But, the next transit not until 2117.  In 1663  Scottish mathematician James Gregory calculated the Earth-Sun distance using trigonometry on these the transit measurements.
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------------------------------------------------------------------
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-  (1)  -  Review #1873  -  Venus and Mercury
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-  (2)  -  #1778  -  Venus must have some resurfacing hiding many old crater scars.
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-  (3)  #1729  -  Walk with Venus on a Starry night .  This review lists 7 other reviews about Venus.  For example:
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- (4)  #1368  -  The reflectivity of Venus is 75%.  Compared to Earth’s 29%.
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-  (5)  #945  Venus greenhouse effect.
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-  (6)  #587  -  Venus is tilted just 3 degrees for perpendicular.
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-  (7):  See  Review #1480 to  learn how to calculate the Venus transit of the Sun.  It happened in 2012.  The transit took 67 hours on June 12.  The next transit is in 2117.   These transit measurements were first made in 1761, then again in 1769 making a calculation for the Earth - Sun distance to be 93,726,000 miles.  Today our precise measurement is 92,955,000 miles.
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-   (8)  Here is some more math just for fun:
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--------------  #1865  -  Equations
-------------   #1844  -  Pascal’s wager
-------------  # 1780  -  How fast to orbit?
------------  #1750  -  Math for fun.
------------  #1661  -  Food for the brain
-------------  #1650  -  Combinations
-------------  #1638  -  Rent or buy
-------------  #1565  -  How fast is a satellite?
-------------  #1521  -  Powerful equations
-------------  #1467  -  Growth and decay of money.
--------------  #1459  -  Modular math
--------------  #1281  -  Solving problems , lists 14 additional reviews about math.
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-  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----  Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
---   Some reviews are at:  --------------     http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
--  email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Monday, January 30, 2017  -----
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Asteroids and supernovae visitors from outer space.

-  1924  -  Visitors from outer space.  Asteroids and supernovae affect life on Earth.  Detective work is looking at the evidence.  Did the asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula kill off the dinosaurs?  Did supernova 1987 affect life on Earth?
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-----------------------------  1924  -  Visitors from outer space.
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-

-
-  There is a giant hole in the Earth.  It is at the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, at the town of Chicxulub.  The town is where a 6-mile wide asteroid hit the Earth.  The impact crater is 110  miles wide.
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-  Standing at the rim of the crater 2,000 feet above the surface you are 12 miles above the bottom of the crater.  But, over the past 66 million years the crater has been filled in.  There are nearly 1,000 sinkholes forming a radius of 55 miles tracing the boundary of the crater’s outer rim.  Today these sinkholes are a valuable source of fresh water for the region.
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-  This global event that occurred 66,000,000 years ago is credited with annihilating 75% of living species on Earth.
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-  The impact was so strong it created tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and an ash cloud that circled the planet.
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-  “asteroid day.org” is a website recognizing the June 30, 1908, asteroid that exploded over Tunguska, Russia.  The atmospheric explosion flattened 800 square miles of tundra forest.
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-   Outer space does not just touch us with asteroids.  There is a dust from comets that slam into our upper atmosphere every day.  Cosmic Rays are higher speed atoms (particles misnamed as rays)  that collide with atoms in our atmosphere.  The Solar Wind enters our magnetic poles creating the aurora Northern Lights.
-
-  Another visitor is the remnants of a supernova  The explosion‘s particles reaching us include “ iron - 60”.  The iron elements on Earth are iron-56,  26 protons and 30 neutrons.  The iron-60 from supernova explosions have 4 additional neutrons and is an unstable radioactive isotope.
-
-  The Crab Nebula is an expanding explosion from Supernova 1054.  This explosion also throws iron-60 into space.  Iron-60 is found in magnet fossils, bacteria in sediments found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.  The bacteria dissolve but the magnetic crystals are preserved in the sediment.  So are the iron-60 atoms.
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-  The half-life for radioactive decay of iron-60 is 2.6 million years.  Therefore, this is not iron-60 from primordial Earth.  More likely it is from a more recent supernova explosion.
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-  Our early human ancestors were making stone tools 2.2 million yeas ago.  Bacteria munching on supernova ash are giving us new insights of what was going on back then.
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-  In February, 1987, a bright new star erupted in the Large Magellanic Cloud.  The “ Cloud” is a satellite galaxy that is 165,000 lightyears away from the Milky Way Galaxy.  It is the most distant naked-eye star explosion in recorded history.  It reached a peak luminosity Magnitude of +2.9. ( The brightest star in the night sky is -1.5 Magnitude )
-
-  This Supernova SN1987 is the brightest observed since Kepler’s Supernova in 1604 which occurred in our Milky Way Galaxy.  Today, 30 years later, the SN1987 is 10 million times fainter.  The star that exploded in the  LMC was a 12th Magnitude blue super giant star of spectral type B3Ia.  It is believed to have began as an 18 Solar Mass star.  The explosion created radioactive elements that powered the emissions over years following.  Nickel-56 decayed into Colbalt-56.  Titanium-44 decayed with a half life of 1,200 days.
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-  Since 2001 a re-brightening of SN1987 has occurred that is not powered by radioactive decay.  The new power source is the  violent collisions of the blast wave with the outer ring converting kinetic energy into heat.  The heated  material shines in X-rays.
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-  The collisions are also accelerating electrons to relativistic energies.  Interacting with magnetic fields produce radio waves.  This is called Synchrotron Radiation.
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-  The last supernovae “recorded” in the Milky Way were Kepler’s 1604 and Tycho’s 1572.  We are due another one.  On average a supernova occurs in our Galaxy every 100 years.
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-  Supernovae from massive stars create Neutron Stars.  More massive supernovae create Blackholes.  The Neutron Star is compressed to a 12 kilometers diameter.  The core heats up to 100 billion Kelvin.  10% of the core’s mass flies out as Neutrinos carrying off a vast amount of energy in less than 13 seconds.
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-  Today SN1987 has two larger, fainter rings in a tilted hour-glass shape.  The blasts ultraviolet pulse traveling at 10% the speed of light due to collisions with gas and dust.  Some 30 of these “ hot spots” appeared as a ring of pearls.  The necklace of pearls was produced in the denser fingers of the expanding gas.  The fingers are merging and fading now.
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-  The iron in your blood came form a star core explosion like this.  Much of the star’s debris is kept hot and glowing by the decay of radioactive nuclei.  Nickle-56 decays to Cobalt-56 in 6 days.  Then that decays into Iron-56 in another 111 days.
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-  Complete radioactive brightening fades away after 5,000 days.  The re-brightening is created by violent collisions of the blast wave turning energy into heat and X-rays.
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-  Electrons interacting with the magnetic field emits radio waves ( synchrotron radiation).
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-  This supernovae destruction and creation has occurred over the last 30 years.  Kepler 1604 and Tycho 1572 in our Milky Way are evidence of older supernovae explosions.
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-  A reminder, on average a galaxy the size of the Milky Way experiences a supernova every 100 years.  We are due.  An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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-  See #1923  Asteroid Bennu.  A mission to visit an asteroid in 2017.
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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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 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Friday, January 27, 2017  -----
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When will a big asteroid hit the Earth?

-  1923  -  When will a big asteroid hit the Earth?  What is the mission that will land a spacecraft on an asteroid and bring back a sample of its surface?  This mission to also to determine the likelihood of it impacting Earth.  It comes by every 6 years.
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----------------------  1923  -  When will a big asteroid hit the Earth?
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-  You may have missed it.  About 6:00 PM last night ( January 23, 2017)  an asteroid, 39 feet in diameter, flew past the Earth.  It was only a miss by 46,603 miles.  That is one quarter the distance to the Moon.

-  Surprised?  Actually so far this year ( 2017) 50 asteroids have passed us at distances closer than the Moon which is 238,855 miles away.
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-  If you were to tally up all the “ discovered” asteroids in orbit within 130% the distance between the Earth and the Sun ( 1.3 AU )  then the total NEA’s identified come to 15,197.
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-  This last one was 39 feet in diameter and it would likely all burn up as it plunged through the Earth’s atmosphere.  If an asteroid made it to the surface it would be called a meteorite.  It all depends on the asteroids speed, angle of impact, composition, and of course size if it reaches the surface.
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-  The first discovery of a Near Earth Asteroid, NEA, occurred August 13, 1898.  It was call 433Eros orbiting within 1.13 AU of the Sun.
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-  The most threatening asteroid known was discovered in 1999.  Known as “ Bennu”  Its projected orbit is calculated to pass between us and the Moon in 2135.  ( I will miss it, let’s hope it misses you ).  Orbits can get tweaked by other gravity pass bys.  A miss is  not certain .  If Bennu did hit us it would be at least a 3,000 megaton TNT impact.
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-  Pieces of asteroids fall to the Earth “all the time”.  They are called meteorites.  Most that make it to the surface of Earth are composed of rock and metal.
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-  Bennu is a special case.  It is composed of coal-black mass of delicate organic compounds, carbon-based biochemistry.  Most of this chemistry would burn up in our atmosphere.  Or, if it languished on the surface for a long time it would be significantly changed by Earth’s environmental conditions.
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-  The Japanese “ Hayabusa” mission in 2005 to asteroid Itokawa was designed to capture some pristine samples to study.  It did manage to bring back 1,500 microscopic mineral grains collected from the asteroid’s surface.  ( much less than expected ).
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-   The mission to visit Bennu was launched in September 2016.  It will arrive at the asteroid in August 2018, a 2 year journey.  Bennu is 1,640 feet in diameter ( 0.5 km).
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-  The mission has several objectives.  We need to study the instabilities of its orbit to determine the likelihood of a collision with Earth in 2135.  Secondly, the mission , OSIRIS-Rex, is designed to collect 60 grams of the surface.  These organic molecules could become a story of the formation of our solar system and to life on Earth.
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-  The organic molecules and the clay minerals on the surface could serve as feedstock for DNA, RNA proteins.  Immense numbers of carbonaceous asteroids must have collided with the pre-biotic Earth.
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-  Will Bennu ever collide with Earth?  It circles the Sun ever 1.2 years traveling at 62,634 miles per hour.  It has a close approach to Earth every 6 years, to within 186,000 miles.  Bennu’s orbit will take into account “changes” in the orbit due to the gravity of the Sun, the Moon, the 8 planets, and the dwarf planets, like Ceres, and the Earth.  Using these models the closest approach occurs in 2135.  I will miss that one, Thank God.  One of you will have to write about it.
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-  The calculations put the chance of an impact at 1 in 2,700.
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-  Of course, the odds of hitting the Sun are 50 - 50.  And, then there are the planets Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter it also must miss.
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-  Some science needed to make these collision estimates more accuratly include the “ Yarkovsky Effect”.  This is the effect of the Sun’s radiation being absorbed on one side of the rotation and radiating the absorbed energy as heat back into space the other side of the rotation.  This thermal radiation acts as a mini-thruster.  This effect for retrograde rotations, like Bennu has, causes the asteroid to drift towards us.  But, by how much?
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-  Current calculations since 1999 tells us the inward drift is more than 100 miles closer.  The OSIRIS-Rx  mission will measure Bennu’s spin , surface area, and thermal emissions to calculate its acceleration in our direction.
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-  Bennu will receive a 5-second touch-and-go maneuver to gather a sample of the asteroid’s surface.  This maneuver happens at the end of a 3-year stay in orbit.  The communications is 18 light-minutes between satellite and Earth.  The touch-down on the surface is designed to have a maximum velocity of only 10 centimeters per second. And, the mission is designed to allow 3 of these sampling attempts.
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-  In 2023 the sample of Bennu’s surface collected is to be returned to Earth.  The return capsule will hit the upper atmosphere at 28,000 miles per hour.  The heat shield will burn off 99 % of the reentry energy.  At 2 miles altitude parachutes will be deployed.  The soft landing is to occur in Utah’s West Desert.  What will we learn?
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-  An announcement will be made shortly, well in 8 years from now.  Stay tuned.  I hope we are all around to get it.
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-  See also other Reviews available upon request:
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-  #1871 -   Asteroids and their Trojan orbits.
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-  #1829  -  Dwarf planets and asteroids.   Also lists 11 other reviews about asteroids.  Including:
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-   #1825  -  Asteroids responsible for evolution 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
-  to:   -------    jamesdetrick@comcast.net  ------  “Jim Detrick”  -----------
-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Thursday, January 26, 2017  -----
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Titan and Saturn Mission accomplishments.

-  1922  -  Titan and Saturn Mission accomplishments.  The 20 years space exploration of Saturn will end this September.  There area some amazing videos at the website.
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----------------------- 1922  -  Titan and Saturn Mission accomplishments.
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----------------------   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msiLWxDayuA
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-  The above address is an amazing video collected as the Huygens Space Probe is descending into the atmosphere of Titan, largest moon of Saturn.  Several other videos are available at the same address.
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-  On December 24, 2004, the Huygens probe was released from the mother ship. Cassini.  The probe descended into Titan’s atmosphere landing on January 14, 2005.
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-  The pictures in the video are a 2 ½ hour descent reduced to a few minutes.  In the last few frames Titan’s surface comes into full view.  The camera sees mountains, river channels ,and a lakebed.  The surface was cobbled with chunks of water ice, hundreds of degrees below freezing.
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-  There is a NASA video that also shows all the measurement instruments recording data during this descent with sound added.  19 countries cooperated and participated in this Huygens mission.  The data collected allowed analysis of the geological and meteorological processes that created the surface features.  It is a volume story of how these scientists used sheer persistence, insight , and lots of improvisations to recover these measurement results.  Not everything went according to plan, major adjustments to the  mission had to be made on the fly.
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-  The Huygens space probe did not have enough power or a large enough dish to transmit all the data to Earth.  Cassini had to store the data then later transmit when Earth was on a line of sight.
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-  The whole story is amazing.  It took 2 years of fancy coding modifications and amazing trajectory math to delay the landing  months for a new trajectory to overcome some radio system design flaws that were encountered.  But, they did it.  Radio telescopes around the world helped by listening to Huygens’ faint signal capturing the data that the mother ship would miss.
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-  The Titan probe was just part of the Cassini mission.  Launched in 1997 it is due to end September 15, 2017 crashing into the Saturn surface.  In the next few months the Cassini mission has much more to do.  The spacecraft will be flying as low as 1,056 miles above the Saturn clouds.
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-  There is an amazing cloud that exists in the shape of a hexagon at the north pole.  A monster hurricane with 340  mile per hour winds somehow forms into a symmetrical hexagon shape.
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-  Cassini will do another flyby of the moon Titan.  The last pass after 7 years orbiting the Saturn system.  The astronomers are still trying to learn, “ How long is a day on Saturn?”  It is hard to tell because the layers of clouds above the surface rotate at different speeds.  The estimate is that one rotation occurs every 10.66 hours.  The 2 hemispheres vary from 10.6 hours to 10.8 hours.  The variations are thought to be caused by the Sun’s radiation interacting with Saturn’s magnetic field.
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-  Cassini’s final orbits will pass through the Saturn rings.  Its Cosmic Dust Analyzer will grab a handful of particles.  “ Why do Saturn rings have a golden hue?”    The rings are water ice, but what else?
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-  There are 62 moons orbiting Saturn.  Titan is the biggest.  Enceladus is the moon with the water jets shooting up into the atmosphere.  The reason Cassini will be dropped into Saturn’s atmosphere to burn up is to prevent a future crash into Titan or Enceladus that would pollute future studies.
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-  This September The Cassini 20 year mission will end in a fading radio signal that is gone forever.
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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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-  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  -- www.facebook.com  -- www.twitter.com
 -----   707-536-3272    ----------------   Tuesday, January 24, 2017  -----
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