Elena's Legacy. Texts written by Elena, excerpts from texts she liked, her artworks.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Black Holes

Fascination with space is omnipresent. Whether it takes the form of amateur stargazing, science fiction books and films, horoscope readings or scientific endeavors, interest in the stars and the sky is abundant. The fact comes as no surprise, since after all, space is by far the largest part of the world, at least as humanity knows it. To illustrate, all the planets, stars, intergalactic gas, comets and debris in the Universe comprise only an approximate 5% of its totality ( the rest being 3 quarters dark energy, and 1 quarter dark matter, as depicted graphically in another entry). So, how small is Earth compared to the rest of the Cosmos? Insignificantly tiny, indeed! Well, at least in size. But aside from the celestial bodies mentioned, there are also black holes. Now these, exemplify the definition of mysterious…

Dancing With the Stars is a television show portraying celebrities as dance competition contestants. Nonetheless, the phrase can convey other meanings such as in this dancing couple constellation (fictional). Notwithstanding, most constellations requires quite a bit of imagination to be reconstructed. Image: Copyright © Elena

Along these lines, Horowitz (2011) explains that the mystery surrounding black holes, which constitute thermodynamic entities, started to be elucidated in the 1970s. The author also outlines the fundamentals of string theory, crucial to understanding the puzzle. Also, the gauge set of principles may provide an alternative explanation to the formation and evaporation of such objects. Interestingly, the supersymmetry characteristic of the postulate is hoped to be shown for the first time in history by the famous Large Hadron Collider (particle accelerator) being built at CERN.

Amazingly, the area of a black hole cannot decrease (Hawking, 1971). But it can, however, evaporate, although the memory of what was drawn into it disappears with the event. Still, theoretically the information could be recovered from the remnants.

A giant planet. Light and Dark or Space Exploration. In a black hole, the ‘event horizon’ is the point of no return, beyond which light cannot escape due to velocity properties. Image: Copyright © Elena

Depending on one’s opinion, black holes may be the most interesting elements in the Cosmos. The mystery continues to fail to be completely understood, despite significant progress with telescopes such as Hubble, Voyager and theoretical advances in knowledge.

References:

Hawking, S. W. (1971). Gravitational radiation from colliding black holes. Physical Review Letters, 26, 1344 -6.
Horowitz, G. T. (2007). Black holes, entropy, and information. ArXiv, 1: 1-8.

Wonders of Grandiosity

The Wonders of Grandiosity

Galaxy (immense conglomeration of stars, planets and other cosmic bodies orbiting a center of a denser cluster).

As Star Trek: The Next Generation Captain Jean-Luc Picard used to say, space is the last frontier. Science fiction fascination with the Cosmos is well signified in the popular media by such popular franchises as Star Wars, Star Trek and Stargate. Notorious sci-fi writers include Isaac Azimov (Three Laws of Robotics), Clarke (2001: Space Odyssey), Orwell (1984) and Huxley (Brave New World), among others.

Aside from captivating authors’ minds, the Universe has likewise attracted the interest of scientists. Astrophysics, astronomy, planetary science, astrochemistry and astrobiology all deal with the stars and the sky. Coversely, astrology is an art, largely nonscientific predictions of one’s future (such as the horoscope) based, however, on factual positioning of stellar objects at the moment of one’s birth or during particular events.

Solar System planet Saturn, easily recognizable by its characteristic rings. Photo in public domain

Astrophysics lectures are available online, thanks to the open learning project. Many prestigious universities participate, including Harvard, Yale and Columbia Universities.The lecture was posted online with several others as part of an open learning project. Several other outstanding universities offer free courses online.

The ether is approximately 74% black energy, 22 black matter, and 4 stars, planets, comets, intergalactic gas and debris combined. No one is yet certain as to what black energy is, paradoxically, since it is by far the largest component.

Television sitcom the Big Bang Theory, starring Jim Parsons, takes its name from the notion that everything came to be due to a blast. According to the Hubble telescope and contrary to Albert Einstein’s static universe concept, the whole is still expanding.

The largest star in the world as we know it is VY Canis Majoris. By scalar comparison, our Sun, an average star, is but a tiny dot next to it. The again, there are many giants and hypergiants in between (Arcturus, Aldebaran, Cephei, etc.). The proportions from moon to the superstar are beautifully portrayed by the German science magazine Wissens in an amazing video from German Science Magazine Wissen ‘Our Small World’ (Unsere Kleine Welt). As a brief aside, despite proposed grammatical reforms, all nouns continue to be capitalized in German).

Jupiter, the largest planet of our Solar System, consisting entirely of gas. Interestingly, the spot seen in the picture above represents a storm. Photo source: public-domain-image.com

Before Pluto lost its planetary status, there were 9 planets in the Solar System. In order, they orbit the center: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto.

Space Definitions

About Space, Univers and Cosmos

The following definitions aim to outline the most commonly used terms related to space (synonymous with the Cosmos and the Universe). Some of the basics (overview), black holes and astrophysics are discussed at greater length elsewhere. Evidently, list non-exhaustive.

Asteroid – Small rocky stellar body. An impressive number ofasteroids orbit the sun, between Mars and Jupiter, and are called the asteroid belt.

Astral – Anything that has to do with stars.

Astrobiology – The study life and living organisms in deepspace, if any.

Astrochemistry – Chemistry (the study of elements and their interactions) as related to interstellarlocations.

Astrology – Predictions and postulates stemming from thebelief that the positions of stars influence lives of individuals and outcomesof events.

Astronomy – The pure and applied science studying celestial objects.

Astrophysics – Branch of astronomy that concentrates on physics.

Black Hole – A mysterious area from which nothing, including light, can escape.

Comet – Small celestial bodies containing ice, rock and dust, often seen with a trail resembling a tail.

Constellation – A collection of stars representing an imaginary drawing, widely used in astrology to predict (non-scientifically) the future.

Illustration: Old Drawing

Dark Energy – Hypothetical form of energy present in the Universe in very large quantities (most of the Cosmos, cosmology).

Dark Matter – Matter that cannot be directly seen due to failure to reflect light and electrophysiological properties (astronomical and cosmological theories)

Dust – Cosmic or space dust is differentiated by its molecular composition and its type (interplanetary, interstellar, intergalactic, etc.).

Dwarf – Dwarf stars are smaller than the norm; there are white and brown dwarf stars. If Jupiter was larger and more massive, it would become a brown dwarf. By the same toke, at the end of its life cycle stars such as the sun become white dwarfs.

Galaxy – A massive collection of stars, solar systems and planets. Stars are counted in the billions and orbit around the center of the galaxy. Galaxies sometimes merge, for example, according to astrophysical theories, the Milky Way (our galaxy) and the nearest galaxy, Andromeda, will collide in infinitely many years.

Light year – A unit of measure of distance (and not of time!), used to describe the immense distances in the Universe and referring to the colossal amount of kilometers or miles traveled by light in an Earth year.

Nebula – A cloud of dust, gas and other particles deep in space.

Quasar – A highly active galactic nucleus.

Solar System – The planetary system we live in. The system has as it center our sun, while the planets in orbit are (in order from the star) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Pluto used to be considered a planet, but lost its planetary status since many similar dwarf planets (such as Erin and Sirius) have been discovered. Likewise, satellites, such as the Moon, or Saturn’s Titan, orbit the planets themselves.

Solar storm – Storms on our sun are cyclical, taking place roughly every eleven Earth years.

Star Attitude. The word star can also refer to celebrities or otherwise renown individuals, as well as projects or other objects that stand out (e.g. a star product). Image: Copyright © M. Jorgensen (Elena)

Star – A large sphere of plasma, contained together by the forces of gravity. Very large stars are called giants, there are red, and orange giant and hypergiants. The largest star in the world is VY Canis Majoris.

Telescope – A tool used to look at stars, ranging in complexity and capacity from amateur stargazing to professional, international observatories and probes sent into space.

From Our Sun to Canis Majoris

Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology: From Our Sun to VY Canis Majoris

Anthropocentricrefers to the human being focused view, as if everything revolved around humans,just as anthropomorphic means humanizing inanimate objects or ascribing human qualities to other sentient beings. Although we tend to think of our planet, our continent, our country, our state or province, our city, town or village, or even our house or room, as the center of the world, on a stellar bodies and celestial objects scale, the Earth is quite tiny. For example, with Pluto gone, the Earth is 4th in size among the planets of the Solar System.

However,the relative sizes of rock and gas planets differ. Conversely to Earth’s structure of a core, mantle and crust, massive planets such as Jupiter are made entirely of gas and contain no solid core whatsoever. Nonetheless, these planetary masses still generate combustion and are likewise hotter at the center.

Jupiter and its satellites. Approximate, estimated relative sizes of gas planet Jupiter, the Sun, and Sirius, a star outside the Solar System, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and part of the Canis Majoris constellation. Image: © Elena (Megan Jorgensen)

Moreover, satellites such as the Moon are numerous, with Jupiter counting up to 64 moons in orbit. Curiously, Saturn’s moon Titan, hosts a lake composed of liquid methane.

Starsakin to our Sun, vary in size, mass and power. Alike many mammals, the lifecycle of a star, from birth to supernova or implosion, goes through different stages. Stellar conglomerations cover redhypergiants and orange giants, as well as, degenerate white dwarfs – the termused to refer to a dying star. Furthermore, large gaseous planets such as Jupiter couldpotentially be brown dwarfs, if their internal combustion and mass were higher.

The largeststar known to man in the Cosmos is VY Canis Majoris, in the Canis Majoris Dwarf Galaxy. Still, Pollux, Aldebaran, Arcturus, Rigel, Sirius, Binary Cephei VV,Antares and Betelgeuse are all larger than the Sun. Despite this, other starsare naturally smaller, such as Wolf 359. Notwithstanding, some of the mostmysterious phenomena in cosmology and astronomy pertain to black holes.

Canals on Mars

In 1907, Alfred Russel Wallace showed that Lowell’s had erred in his calculation of the average temperatures on Mars. Wallace’s conclusion was that life on Mars – by this he meant civil engineers with an interest in hydraulics – was impossible. But he offered no opinion on microorganisms.

Despite Wallace’s critique, despite the fact that other astronomers with telescopes and observing sites as good as Lowell’s could find no sign of the fabled canals on Mars, Lowell’s vision of the red planet gained popular acceptance. It had a mythic quality as old as Genesis. Part of its appeal was the fact that the nineteenth century was an age of engineering marvels, including the construction of enormous canals: the Suez Canal, completed in 1869, the Corinth Canal, in 1893; the Panama Canal, in 1914; and, closer to home, the Great Lake locks, the barge canals of upper New York State, and the irrigation canals of the American Southwest. If Europeans and Americans could perform such feats, why not Martians? Might there not be an even more elaborate effort by an older and wiser species, courageously battling the advance of desiccation on Mars?

We have now sent reconnaissance satellites into orbit around Mars. The entire planet has been mapped. We have landed a few automated laboratories on its surface. The mysteries of Mars have, in anything, deepened than any view of Mars that Lowell could have glimpsed, we have found not a tributary of the vaunted canal network, not one lock. Lowell and Schiaparelli and others, doing visual observation under difficult seeing conditions, were misled – in part perhaps because of a predisposition to believe in life on Mars.

The observing notebooks of Percival Lowell reflect a sustained effort at the telescope over many years. They show Lowell to have been well aware of the skepticism expressed by other astronomers about the reality of the canals. They reveal a man convinced that he has made an important discovery and distressed that others have not yet understood its significance. In his notebook for 1905, for example, there is an entry on January 21: “In reading Lowell’s notebooks I have the distinct but uncomfortable feeling that he was really seeing something. But what?