Bow Shock

I like to think of stars as the basic building block of the Universe. Not sure if this is an accepted opinion, but I think it works. Everything revolves around stars - planetary systems like ours, and all life here on Earth and maybe on the 1000+ exoplanets discovered to date (there's billions more - current consensus is just about every star has planets).

Here, you see a star in its larger environment - ginormous gas clouds. Stars are born from these clouds, they shape and influence these clouds, and their death creates new clouds. Above you see a star affecting a larger gas cloud environment, creating a bow shock in the clouds - just like a boat creates a bow shock in water, or a wind turbine creates a bow shock in the air, stars are shaping the larger environments in which they find themselves. Here's another example.

Anywhere there are stars and gas clouds, you'll see bow shocks.

We exist in a sea of gas - we come from this gas. Gas!

These clouds are primarily hydrogen, but also contain everything that would make up a star and its planets - iron, silver, gold, carbon, everything.

Big Sis

Say hi to our big Sister, the Sun. And it is our Sister (or Brother if you like) and not our parent, as the Sun and the planets all formed from the same ginormous cloud of gas. The Sun took up most of that cloud, but every single planet, moon, comet and asteroid came from the same cloud. Even you, roundaboutly.

Like all "things" - stars and planets and you included - the Sun is the result of a series of reactions held in balance. In the case of a star, this balance is composed of the inward pressure of gravity, and the outward pressure of fusion. As such, the heart of a star is quite small compared to its overall size, thanks to this simple process:

Fusion. Just a couple of atoms bouncing off one another with enough energy (because of the inward pressure of gravity) and kabloom! Fusion, the heart of a star, and thus the heart of all life. Fusion releases enormous amounts of energy, and that energy is the star, and all its light, in all frequencies.

These frequencies are the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to microwaves to visible light - what we see - to ultraviolet, x-rays, and finally gamma rays. All seen here. Each frequency reveals different information, and thus astronomers use a variety of detection methods to learn not only about the sun, but everything.

We exist in a living miracle. It's pretty cool.

Everything is Information

Think about it, really. Stop whatever it is you're doing (when you read the end of this paragraph), and think of this: Everything you see, touch, hear, know, think, remember, feel, is but some form of information. But more! Everything that is or could ever be - every atom, every molecular gas cloud, every star, every planet and person and even dog that has ever or will ever live is but a collection of information - ones and zeroes. Dots and dashes. Numbers on scales. Literally. Consider vision - an important human sense. Witness above how the human eye gathers light. Once focused, it strikes a collection of differentiated cells of the optic nerve, and that nerve transmits data to the brain. The data? Lightwave frequencies. The brain takes this data and transforms it into red, or green, or blue, or some combination thereof, and that in turn is what we see. And remember. It's a wicked cool trick!

Colors exist because the material through which light passes and strikes differs. Water is different than stone, a tree different than a car. Low different than high, hot different than cold, and so on. These differences give birth to all color, as the light is reflected, refracted, blocked, twisted, or otherwise changed in different ways based on the conditions. Above you see the spectrum in part, based on the density, temperature, and speed of the water, coupled with the differing angles of light. Below,

an amalgamation of movie poster colors by year - oldest at the top. Notice the color shift! And consider it - you see this shift through a screen over the internet, clearly nothing but data which comes alive with meaning in your mind. Hence!

False color astronomy. Defined as the addition of color where there was no color in the original image. This is an X-Ray shot, after all, and alas! We humans cannot see in X-Ray. The original image is greyscale, but in that scale is revealed the different frequencies of X-Rays, and if you follow the following logic: Low end of frequency equals red and high end equals blue than here you are - false color, but real in its way. It represents something very real and meaningful - especially meaningful to us, viewers of color, as we can tease meaning out of an image in color that we cannot in grey. For the best example:

The CMB: Cosmic Microwave Background. These globes represent the temperature of the UNIVERSE at approximately 300 million years old, which is a trifling number when you consider the estimated age of the Universe (14Billlion give or take). It is near this point that light first escaped the cosmic creation soup and traveled freely across space. And thus the map - different areas of hot and cold. Where the differences are like miniscule but enough over time to shape the infinity of galaxies that make up our ever expanding reality - red areas represent places of higher density and thus matter was attracted and here was built, everything. Blue less dense areas, now representing interstellar space, and it is vast and only getting ever vaster.

Once again, but numbers, which we translate into colors, shapes, texture, form. We are the creators of everything, since everything is but a bunch of numbers and long ass formulas n' shit. Consider in closing this image - our star, "The Sun"! In neutrinos, captured by a "telescope" buried deep under a mountain. You see, neutrinos don't care about our matter so much, and pass right through. Right now there are trillions upon trillions - seriously! - streaming right through you. Yet we found a way to measure them, and so here's the sun in False Color, neutrino style. Pretty dang sweet, science. Also too, eyes!

Finally, yay art! Previous post photo setup - not my picture, but alas I don't know who to credit. Whoever you are, rock on!

It's awesome what people can make out of all this information.

A Wizard Did It

The Wizards of ancient alchemy might be scoffed at today, but they were scientists of their times. Limited, mostly wrong, yet engaging in trial and error, documentation, additive/subtractive experiments, accumulated knowledge of compounds and elements, etc. To wit - turning lead to gold. Ironically, this is possible! Simply remove two protons from lead and voila! Gold. Not that any wizard of yore did that. But what if? What if a Wizard so grand and wonderful created, everything?

The Multiverse! With each bubble a pod budded off a black hole in some other dimension - a for real theory! Not proven, but it's discussed. It's infinity upon infinity and near impossible to conceive of in the slightest. But do! Consider each of these candy universes filled with

multicolored kayaks spinning madly, and in each kayak

a brightly dressed Indian woman, and hidden among these Indian women

is another wizard, but this one way less cool than the First Wizard. 

Huh? What if, man?

Artist's Representation

Did you hear the big nerd news? Disney bought LucasFilms, and so now the Mouse owns The Force. I don't like it in principle cuz "Monopoly" but creatively, hell yeah! Lucas was space drunk on his own fame/wealth and turned to crap. But he only got 4 billion for it, which, combined with the many other billions he's made off Star Wars, heh. You win, George, you win. Here's a cosmic Ring:

A spiral of death, a sun-like star expelling outer shells in its old age, prelude to star's end. Fitting for the finger of such a creative titan. But here's an industry secret: False Color

Mighty Orion, most beautiful of all nebula. But this picture, and pretty much every awesome astronomy picture you've seen, is a 'shop of sorts. In some form or another, astronomers take the raw data of their images and "translate" these images into colors. Since data is just numbers, in this case, the redshifts of various elements. These redshifts are numbers, these numbers are translated to colors, the colors you see above. What you might see with your eye could be quite different. Who knows - you'll never get a chance.

But isn't "False Color" what our brain is doing with all color anyway? Without eyes to see, there's no blue, or red, or green. Just frequencies of radiation. It is the seer that defines color, and thus, all of life is "False Color".

Or at least creatively enhanced.

Of Many Suns

An artist's representation of Gliese 667Cc, a lovely planet thought to be one of the first that resides in the so called "Goldilock's Zone", that is, the area not too close and not too far from a star where water could generally remain liquid. Which, we think today, is necessary for life. I suspect we'll find this is not so limiting in the future, but that's for then.

For now - perhaps one of the coolest Exoplanets discovered to date, orbiting a small red dwarf star which in turn orbits a pair of much larger stars who are orbiting each other. Fun fact to know and share: It's estimated that about 60% of all stars are at least binaries - stars orbiting stars. Our sun is a minority in this regard.

Here's another artist's interpretation of Gliese 667Cc:

Nice, right? Only 22 Light Years away. Or, that is, they've got The Simpsons on reruns now too. But just when everyone was all fired up about GL667Cc, up and comes PH1, or Kepler-64B:

It's a big Gas Giant 5000LY away so kinda boring in that regard, but not in this - it orbits a pair of stars. One planet orbiting two stars. These two stars are in turn orbited by another pair, like this:

Confusing as heck! And night time would be a thing of rarity. Good for beach going though! Except for the Gas Giant thing. But you know.

Another cool first with PH1 was it was discovered by "amateurs" using publicly accessible data from the Kepler Space Telescope. The best space telescope, by the way. Yeah, Hubble, you heard me.

Born Again

Congrats! We all survived the apocalypse and now reside in a higher vibrational reality - can you feel these good vibes? Try - you can make it so.

Any idea when our next apocalypse is scheduled? My calendar is wide open.


Above, from bottom - Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter at dawn. Loverly.

2 Assads and a Queen

So there's some stuff going on in Syria. Did you know? Do you care? Most Americans don't, I figure, unless it's for temporary political purposes. The Empire only cares for the Empire, at this point. Always a turning point, for the worst, in the history of Empires.

Those are the Assad boys at bottom. Bassel, the eldest and as such the heir apparent, is long dead, in a "car crash" some time ago. So Bashar's been in large and in charge since Dad died in the year.... 2000. Things went well for a while, even surviving the Empire's invasion of neighboring Iraq. But it's going down the shitter now, and I think the Assad's reign over Syria is near an end. I don't think what replaces it will be better at all, but that's the Middle East for you!

Also too, that of course is Freddie Mercury at top. Born Farrokh Bulsara, Freddie was perhaps the greatest rock n' roll showmen of all time, leader of one of the best rock bands of all time, Queen. Also gay - in fact, I'd say he looks to be the archetypal gay man, true or not. So now I have to ask what, if any, of the "gay look" descended from Freddie Mercury, and thus from his basic Arabness. Though he was in fact a Parsi and had nothing to do with Arabs or Islam. But these are trifling details! He looks Arab enough, compared to the Bassads, right? I have no idea where this photo comes from by the by. Trying to understand it. It's the sunglasses, mustache, and short dark hair. Pretty damn gay, Bashar!

Also as well - I recently read the best interview about Queen I've ever encountered, in Astronomy magazine, of all places. It was about Brian May - who's incredible. He got his PhD in Astrophysics and he completed it after Queen ended. He also built his own guitar (Red Special) with his Dad when he was 15 and has played it ever since. Awesome bloke. His PhD was about zodiacal dust, which sounds like an album name, but is also an awesome subject. Check it all out.

So there you have it. Whatever "it" is. Let me finish by saying I read Astronomy magazine regularly - I'm a subscriber! - but never Rolling Stone, even though somehow I've been getting issues sent to me for 3 years now, even though I never signed up for it nor have been billed or paid a bill. I look at the covers and go, "meh". I'm old enough now I no longer care what the young people think is interesting. So get off ah my cloud!

Committed

Fervor and commitment create the same in others, spreading like fire and thus culture is made, over time. The inspirational nature of the spiritual occasion gives it more or less power, so you better put on a good show. Pass these lessons on and let them cook in the oven of time and voila, Religion.

Also, I am dreading the inevitable increase in "WORLD TO END 2012 MAYA APOCALYPSE REPENT!!!" talk. I saw an ad for Ameritrade or some such investment company and they directly referenced 12/21/12, the DAY OF DOOM. Reversal of gravity, apparently, which would actually be an awesome way to end the world. But it's not going to happen!

I once dabbled in 2012 dreaming, having read all about the Mayan calendar decades ago. But back then, no one else much knew, so it was cool. But now? LAME!

No, now I know and understand Science, and thus have moved past all mythological answers to real questions. The world might end on 12/21/12 - but it could also end tomorrow. Or a billion years from now - it will end one day, our world at least. An asteroid, a volcano, a cosmic ray, lots of ways. But I bet it won't end on 12/21/12 and if by some strange chance it did, that still proves nothing about Mayan religion of Gods. It might speak to their astronomy, however doubtful.


But! The very idea of it - and this meme has grown wings and will soar ever higher in the sky as we approach the dread date - aye! This very idea will be self creating, as lost, lonely people latch onto it and try to make it real. Hoarding, looting, general mayhem could happen as fear mongers in the media ratchet up the tension.

Wait and see. I had a vision.

Space Dream (1975)

Another amazing shot by an amazing astronomical photographer Henry Legault, taken from the Earth. Consider the tracking issues in getting this clear of a shot - the first detailed pic of the ISS from Earth. But that's not my point.

Which is? The ISS is something of a farce, and perhaps only good for the international collaboration it fosters, some basic science, and some technological advances. But other than that, it really doesn't do much other than maintain a human presence in space. But for why? There's no other point, other than to do it. Which I can dig, mind you, but it can't last. The money is too much, the payoff not enough, and the climate here on Earth turning against big costly science projects, without profit. It's all about profits, remember?

Thus I predict the ISS lasts only 10 more years, max - maybe only 5 - before it crashes into the ocean, little gained other than some footnotes in history.

And without some big leap forward, that will be it. The end of humanity in space (unless China saves the day). It's depressing! Since I was raised in the fervor that was Apollo and a widespread belief we'd all be living on the Moon by the year 2000 and all the Solar System would be ours for exploration and colonization. Because isn't that the point of our entire species, of Life itself: To Spread? And surely, from a genetic standpoint, THE most important thing we could ever do is to establish a permanent human colony in space. One that is self sufficient and can grow and develop.

And so I give you a glimpse of a forgotten dream, back when Space itself was to be our Oyster: 1975, from a NASA study of space colonies capable of housing at least 10,000 people.

Two versions of the design, each spinning around enough to create gravity in the central structure and the environments on them.

Groovy and awesome, right? It's 1975! Everything's groovy and awesome. I love the architecture in all these drawings. What's even cooler, the mechanics behind this concept is pretty basic, if obviously massive. But even that can be solved: The idea is you capture an asteroid and tow it to the L4 or L5 Lagrange points, as shown here:

L4 and L5 are basically stable, in that an object there will not move much unless impacted by something else. And so there you have your big iron asteroid and around it you build a space factory - big project, but doable. And from this factory you fashion as much metal as you want to meld into massive space ships. Eventually, you've got colony space ships that can last as long as they are lucky enough to last - which could be a long time. Keep building them and soon enough you are practically guaranteeing humanity will survive no matter what happens.

Debate the merits of that, for they are rich. But I'd hazard we could begin building these ships right now if  - IF - all of humanity stopped spending money on armies and navies and missiles and bombs and so on, and instead spent that money getting this project going - a project that would benefit everyone on Earth and in fact every human that has ever lived or ever will live. Doesn't get much bigger and more important than that, does it?

Yeah, right.

The Same Sun

Back when America dreamed big. Conquer the sky and the stars was all - once that proved irrelevant, you'll note, the funds towards Space dried right up. Politics at play, alas - everyone hates politics, and yet, it goes on. Odd!

The shuttle is on the left, the ISS on the right. The big yellow thing in the background is the Sun, our star and protector of Life. That star - that concentration of fusion bound by gravity - pours forth all the Power we'll ever need, whether it's rays on the solar panels of the ISS or the orange sunset from the mountains on planet Earth, the sun is all we need and all we'll ever get. So enjoy.

Shadow in Space

I'm sure not many care, but this is the last voyage of the Starship Discovery, pictured above from last week, with the ISS casting a shadow from on high.

In many ways, the Space Shuttle is an apt metaphor for America over the past 50 years. To wit, born in a time of rapid advancement and progress (60's), milked for all it was worth by Regan and minions who offered nothing in return, and then left to meekly die because we've run out of money in the 21st century.

Summarized: With the rise of the Wingnuts, all long term planning/investment went out the window, and all efforts are made towards short term political gains, increasing wealth for you and yours, and making sure the little guys gets it in both ends. America! All while proclaiming one's great Patriotism.

We've got no replacement spaceship, and instead we're praying the private sector can come through. They might be able to, but even if they do, it's going to take awhile. And thus, in a weirdly poetic circle, Americans will now depend on Russians to get into space. USA! USA! Thanks again, Ronnie.

But alas! I did not want to touch that poison, for too long. Here's some neat-o shots of the ISS and the Space Shuttle. This first picture is from 2007, care of Phil Plait:

 That's the ISS and Space Shuttle shooting across the heavens, very close to each other. This next pic is from the current mission, and is awesome, as it was taken from earth:

 Click for big, as always.


Alas, it won't be till the Chinese make some real headway in space till America gets back in the game, because then the Redneck Wingnuts will say it's for defense, and the golden flow of money will commence. C'mon new Cold War (Chinese Space Version)!

Ready for my close up

Say howdy-do to our Star: The Sun! This amazing picture was taken by amateur astronomer Alan Friedman - read more about how he took this picture here.

Click for big, as always. As always, of course, the closer you look at something, the weirder it becomes. I can't help but see an embryo in the above picture.

Bonus shot: Same sun, shining far away:

Our old friend Cassini caught this reflection off a methane lake on the surface of Titan - amazing, eh?

Why the Sky is Blue and the Sun is Yellow

It's the same reason! Our atmosphere - blue light is scattered most easily by our atmosphere, and thus it appears blue. The remaining light trends towards the red end of the spectrum, which translates to a yellowish color for the sun. If you were to look at the sun in space, it would appear much whiter.

Additionally, as you can see above, the sun is changing color based on its position in the sky during the day - and the reason sunrises and sunsets are redder than Noon is again, the atmosphere - when rising/setting, the light has to go through more atmosphere than at noon, thus increasing the scattering, making it appear redder.

The more you know....

What you see

I must confess to ordering a pair of these back in the day, thinking I too could be an undercover lecher. Alas! They were a complete fraud, and I learned something that day about the world.... it lies!

But it is possible to "see" in X-Rays. Or in Radio Waves. Or infrared, etc. Here are some examples of the same object, yet the picture was taken in a different frequency. First series of pix is Galaxy M31, or Andromeda:

Radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray. And how about our good friend, Mother Earth:

 Infrared, visible, ultraviolet, EXTREME ultraviolet, X-Ray, and Gamma Ray. In the X-Ray photo, the earth is dark except for the Aurora at the north pole. The gamma ray view is showing particles from space bouncing off our atmosphere.

As you can see - wait, what is seeing? You can "see" in x-ray, or radio waves, or even gamma rays,  just not with our eyes, since we did not evolve the ability to perceive that frequency. Some animals can though. So, "seeing" is defined as the ability of a life form to receive and interpret specific frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. Thus, if there is no "receiver", there is no "seeing", right?


Thus! And in conclusion: If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? And the answer is: If there are no life forms to hear it, then no. Since sound - like color, like smell, like touch - only exists with the receiver, with life. Without a life form to translate a specific frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum into "blue", there's no such thing as blue. Just as, without a medium to travel through, AND a receiver to pick up the noise, there is no sound - just pressure waves. Sound is the brain translating that pressure wave by frequency into everything you hear.


So, again: Nothing is as it seems. In fact, it's far more wonderful than you could ever imagine.
 

The End (The Beginning)

And we've reached the end of the line - the Black Hole. This is an artistic rendering of what they might look like. It's doubtful anyone will know for sure for a long, long time, since they don't emit radiation of the type that allows us to see, and in fact, suck it in (the whole "Not even light can escape a Black Hole"). Perhaps you've wondered how this could be? I'm glad you asked!


Black Holes are a rather clear example of what I was talking about a few days ago, regarding "things" as opposed to "ongoing processes". There is nothing which actually makes up a Black Hole. Rather, everything we call a "Black Hole" is merely the result of a massive (and I mean massive) gravitational event which effects all of the space-time around it - we call these effects a "Black Hole". Semantic distinction, perhaps, but what isn't semantics?


So, a Black Hole is really an extreme gravitational event. I find myself amazed all the time to know that no one really understands what gravity is. You might think that's the most knowable force in the universe, since we experience it all the time - drop a rock on your toe, there's gravity. Thus, we understand the dynamics of gravity really well - this allows us to fly planes, blast off rockets, etc. However, no one knows what causes gravity, or what it actually is.


There are three main theories of gravity that have gained general currency over the past 300 years: 1. Most well known is Newton's Laws of Gravity. It's quite accurate on a day to day perspective, and in fact we got to the Moon using Newton's theory. Roughly, Newton posited an attractive force that binds matter together - he had no idea what that force is though. However, it's been shown 100% conclusively that it's not entirely accurate - for instance, our GPS system would not work using Newton's theories. Which leads us to, 2. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. This is essentially the working theory everyone uses now. And while it has been proven in many, very conclusive ways (the GPS system again; the orbit of Mercury was accurately predicted with it; the bending of light by stars was predicted by it), no one seems very confident it's the final answer, since, when it comes to Black Holes (the most extreme gravity), it doesn't work either (it results in an infinite gravitational field within zero space [THE SINGULARITY] - both results are absurd according to current theories). We'll no doubt be sticking with Einstein's theory for a while, because it is very, very accurate. For instance, this theory introduced the concept of Spacetime - a single entity of the spatial dimensions and time. (The 3rd theory is Quantum Gravity, with an actual particle that transmits the gravity force - the graviton. No proof however of this particle, yet).


Gravity in the Einstein perspective is NOT a force. This should be stressed, as it's quite radical. All it is in the geography of space time. To wit: things with mass bend spacetime, and this bending is gravity. Objects with more mass bend it more. We are bending spacetime right now by our very existence, and when move, we create ripples in space time. Objects with the greatest mass bend spacetime to the extreme, as shown here:

As you see, Black Holes appear to rip right through spacetime, and thus our nonsensical, absurd conclusion that it has infinite gravity in zero space. Makes no sense, but this is one of the greatest mysteries in history. I suspect if we ever do find out what's going on in the Singularity, we will have opened the door to an entirely new level of science.


Black Holes vary greatly in size. When big stars explode, they create stellar black holes, and there are no doubt billions of these in the Universe. But black holes can merge with each other, and this merging process was probably quite active in the early universe, when the first stars were being born than quickly dying. They can get so big, in fact, that entire galaxies form around them - it's now believed all major galaxies formed around a "supermassive" black hole.


Black holes also go by different names  - but this is only because until recently, we did not know these different things were the same phenomena. For instance, a supermassive black hole can also be known as a Quasar. Here's a pic:

That's an entire galaxy in the center, with two giant jets of gas shooting out of the poles of the active black hole at the center of this galaxy. Such that quasars = active black holes. They're feeding, in other words.

The black hole in the center of the Milky Way was active a long time ago, but no longer. What happens is after all the chaos of creation, things settle down, and eventually all the matter surrounding the black hole stabilizes in orbits far enough away that it doesn't get sucked in. Once this happens for long enough, the black hole goes quiet, and simply spins in the middle of the galaxy, creating the momentum for the entire galaxy's rotation.

It's even possible there are micro black holes everywhere - right in front of your nose, for example. But little proof has been offered for their existence or creation.

I leave with you the most common type of black hole: the Binary star system, unbalanced. In the upper right is a real picture of what we assume is a black hole.

Bet you didn't know that the vast majority of stars in the universe are in pairs: Binary systems. Our single star is the exception to the rule. Most of these pairs are lopsided, however, with one bigger than the other. The bigger one exhausts its fuel faster, and thus enters the death spiral faster, and if it's big enough, it will create a neutron star or black hole. Which is the kiss of death for it's surviving sibling. I'm sure as it's getting sucked into nothingness, it's thinking "NOT FAIR!"

But what is "fairness" in this vastness?