So much light

4, yes. And here?

Each speck a galaxy, some nearly as old as the universe, hundreds of billions of them, all looking something like

Each galaxy containing billions of stars, and each star powered by fusion - the collision of atoms which produces just about everything.

Some of this we call light, and bless it with sight, and are defined by it.

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.

Every Sunrise

Every sunrise is a new beginning, each and every day a rebirth.

Stuff in the Sky

Moonrise! Bright as a star. Fun fact to ponder - the light from the Moon is reflected light from the Sun. This light was created in the center of the Sun millions of years ago, finally escaped, streamed across space, hit the moon and bounced off, right into your eye. Where it bounces off again, but the energy is translated by your brain as... Moonlight.

The ISS, racing across the sky. There's six people up in there! Also, that sure looks like the Northern Lights, but I didn't see it with my eyes. So that's either a trick of light and clouds, or the Northern Lights can appear below my vision's threshold, but can show up on a longer exposure.

Moonset, an hour after an August Sunset. Fun project if you have a view of the Western horizon and some time - note how Moonset shifts over the year. You might be surprised!

All photos, once again, Redshirt Inc. Click for big! Prints available! I also can DJ weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

Star Scales

Apologies for the slow speed of this gif, but do stay till the end, where you'll visually grasp the incredible scale of star sizes. Our Sun is fairly normal size wise, but oh how much bigger do stars get! So big that the Sun is but a speck compared to the biggest.

But like with rock and/or roll, the bigger a star is, the brighter and faster it burns away. Our star will last about 10 billion years on the main cycle; the biggest stars last but a few million years then go KABLOOM, leaving behind a neutron star, or a black hole.

Behold this scale and know the glory and the rapture of our reality.

Nucular

Back when nuclear power was cool (30's - 70's), mankind dreamed up all sorts of nuclear powered spacecraft to get us to the stars. An example above - the nuclear reactor is in the central core, sending out thrust via the two lower engines.

But then Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl, and Love Canal, and the rise of a shortsighted environmental movement that would block solar panels in the desert because they threaten a seasonal moss, and we come to today, with the widespread vilification of all nuclear energy. Thus:

SCARY ATOMS!!! This is a redshirt original Photoshop, by the way. One of only a handful. You can tell by the high quality. I should learn Photoshop.

Nuclear power can be incredibly safe - far more than a coal plant, for example. And for propulsion in space? Can't be beat! Look at the Voyagers, who are on the verge of leaving the solar system on the backs of tiny nuclear power plants.

But we can't have a reasonable discussion about nuclear power at all, thanks to forces both on the Right and the Left. At least in America, this truly is a "Both sides do it" issue.

Don't fear the atom, man!

Under a Midnight Sky

All the photos in this post were taken by me, redshirt, on a full Moon night in mid August, 2012, around Midnight. I used a tripod and a remote shutter release, which allows you to take steady shots for as long as you want. Most of these pics were either 15 or 30 seconds. I've got tons, but here's the best. Not Instagrammed, btw. Enjoy, I hope. That's Mt. Washington far off in the center of this picture.

The Big Dipper! The best Northern Constellation, yes? Two fun facts - to find the North star, trace a line straight up from the two stars forming the right side of the dipper. You can't see Polaris in this picture though. Also, get some binoculars sometime and take a look at the second star from the left, in the handle of the Big Dipper. This is actually two stars - Mizar and Alcor. You'll see them both through binoculars, and also in this picture.  Click for big, as always.

Headin' down the mountain. Midnight, remember. And here's a good point to remind you why the Moon shines - because of sunlight bouncing off it and then hitting our eyes. Literally. A photon is created in the center of the Sun millions of years ago, spends a long time trying to escape, and when it finally does it joins many gazillions of its fellows racing towards Earth in 8 minutes. Anything that reflects (pretty much everything) then bounces these photons elsewhere, where in turn they bounce of something else, so on until there's just no energy to bounce anymore. This is light, this is sight, and color - the materials of the reflector change the photon's "color", and thus we see blue, or red, or green, and all the colors in between.

A bit back up. And in this little valley I created a stream over the past year, and now it is truly a thing of beauty, though no picture seems able to do it justice. Created is the wrong word, however. Channeled is a better idea, though does not do justice to the tons of rocks I moved to make it so. But still, it is thus, and aptly describes all our human endeavors - channeling existing materials, in some manner or other. We cannot possibly create or destroy; it is only our place to rearrange.

Gondolin, occluded. Solar lights provide the ethereal glow. I work by obsesion, I've come to realize. Not sure if this is normal or healthy or good at all, but when I obsess on something, by gum it shall be done. My latest obsession has been in manicuring a natural wall of pine trees, as a fence of sorts. I've cleared all the forest around Gondolin of dead wood and leaves (tons of work), cut down many leaf trees, and carefully nurtured every little baby pine tree that pokes its head above ground. Soon (10-20 years), I will be surrounded by lovely, sweet smelling Balsams, and these damn leaf trees can go fly a kite. Raking! It sucks! And in the Winter, where are you then, oh Oak? That's right, bare assed and creepy.

Additional riffs on perspective

Perspective is gained naturally through all of life. One could not grow from a baby to child to lad to young man, raising hell, without several substantial changes in perspective. For instance, food no longer comes from boobies, but the kitchen. This is a rather dramatic shift!

Our scale of existence, once you can even gleam a comprehension, is vast beyond mind. Smaller too. Above is a series of actual stars and their sizes relative to one another. Note the change in scale from 3 to 4. Now you can see why Sol is tagged as a "dwarf star". A yellow dwarf. Bigger than many other stars (the really small ones, like Wolf 359

Never forget.), but no big kid on campus either. Least of all the brown dwarf stars, the dull runts who barely glow and are just tads bigger than Jupiter. But cheer up, little guys, you'll last till the end of time, for it is better to fade away than to burn out. And that's a current law of astronomy - mass of the star is directly correlated to their age and longevity, since size is essentially food source for the fusion engine powering all stars. Big stars burn hot and fast than go bang in nova, seeding the universe with heavier elements.

And thus the conclusion of this foray into perspective - we are stardust, man. Just about everything in us was forged in the furnace of fusion and its destruction in mighty explosion. The iron in your blood was made in and delivered from a giant star exploding, spreading matter to the 360 directions. Joining with vast hydrogen and helium clouds, these heavy metals then settled into a new star, with planets, and aye, even life. Carbon. Oxygen. Nitrogen. Gold. Everything important to us came to use directly from a star's destruction.

A nova, a smallish explosion of the outer layers of the star, and not its complete destruction. Thus the iron and other heavier elements are not dispersed. Supernova, on the other hand, result in the annihilation of the giant star  (in the star size chart above, stars in 5 and above, the bigger the star, the more awesome the destruction, of course.), and the dispersal of just about everything in it. Over the millennia, these overlapping paths of debris accumulated into you and me and everything you see, touch, or know. We are the stars, man, and they still speak inside of us. Through us. We are, as it has been said, a way for the universe to know itself.

Far out, right? Perspective.

One Possible End

If a substantial solar flare (like the one pictured above) headed our way, woe be upon us. Our modern society of electronics would fry away in an instant, replaced by the jungle, red in tooth and claw. It's not only possible, but inevitable. The sun will burp out a heaping of space gas directly towards us one of these days - tomorrow, or a thousand years from now, who's to say? And when it comes, all our circuits will melt.

There are steps we could take to prepare, but given the state of the world today, preparation for future calamities ain't happening. Instead, just hope that you, yours, and theirs(children), and maybe even theirs(grandchildren) too, will see a sunny day, free of doomsday rays.

But don't bet on it.

Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

As a recent recipient of a melanoma, this pic makes me cringe. But some people can take the sun better than others - I have to now guard myself from overly bright lamps.

But it's true - we are just bags of mostly water. We are 70% water - if anything else were 70% of something, you'd say that is by far the dominant factor. Do you feel as if you are mostly water? Of course not. But it's true. Lesson: You can't always trust your common sense. Another example - does it seem like the Earth spins around the Sun, or the Sun spins around the Earth, based on your common sense? Yeah. And this is the true gift of Science - giving us the tools to reach beyond our own common sense, verily, our very senses.

Science - the systematic method of obtaining information through observation and experimentation. It allows humanity to exceed our biological limitations (senses) and perceive ever more deeply into the realities of time and space. For example - sunburns. They are literally the result of photons hitting our skin and damaging cells, causing them to "burn" as this physical impact imparts energy that heats up the target. I am in a perpetual state of awe as I learn more and more esoteric science facts but come to realize they are almost always grounded in processes we understand at a fundamental level - one object striking another. Fusion - the magic that runs this Universe - is the result of matter striking matter so often and so powerfully that it releases energy from the constituent matter in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which we ultimately see as light - which is defined as photons literally striking cells in our eye that then interpret this information as color and intensity, via our brain. Common sense is not common sense is common sense, in other words.

Also, too, remember Large Marge?

A passing resemblance.

We humans are special beyond compare, for we can perceive these High Truths of Science, while at the same time we are subject to the genetic imperatives that drive all life, everywhere (and there is life beyond this Earth, for sure. Just a matter of time before we have conclusive proof - which will happen in our lifetimes). We can, in theory, liberate ourselves from the genetic via our minds, via science, though this is exceedingly unlikely, for the genes are the drivers in most everything we do, and there's only one thing the genes want: To live on.

Sex and Mind. The two themes which define mankind. Which allows me to posit: Consider the miracle of the egg, which I recently heard described as "a way to bring the ocean with you wherever you go". And it's true - before the egg, all life had to give birth in water. After the egg, all the land was there for the taking, because the egg encases the ocean, and water is a requirement for life. For we are 70% water, after all. The rest is the dust and ashes cast off from generations of Stars that lived, swelled, and exploded, seeding the cosmos with oxygen, carbon, iron, indeed, everything we define as ourselves (not water).

Life is awesome, yeah?

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.

Creator the Destroyer

 The dissolving shell of an exploded star, out there in space far, far away. These expulsions of tremendous amounts of matter forms clouds which, if lucky, grow denser and denser and start spinning and, maybe one day, if it ate all its vegetables, this spinning leads to fusion, and the birth of another star, a heavier star.

A star is fusion. But contained fusion, due to the gravity pressing down on the enormous weight of the star - fusion + gravity = star. If we can re-produce this on glorious Earth, we will create Paradise, with endless and clean power. Star Trek, man.

What is fusion? The opposite of fission - which is the splitting of the atom, releasing energy. Fusion is the fusing of atoms, also releasing energy. Lots. The sunlight that warms your face is from fusion deep within our star, The Sun.

Stars are born from a compression of ginormous gas clouds, ignite a fusion cycle, and then burn through their fuel supply. The bigger stars will create elements all the way up to our old friend Iron (Fe). Iron is truly magic, for, among many other wonders, it spells the end of stars - if a star ever starts fusing Iron, it will die shortly, in a megahuge explosion called a Supernova, the remnants of which will push matter - Iron, Calcium, Gold, etc - throughout the local space.

The Cat's Eye Nebula, a nebula being the aftermath of a Supernova. And in these clouds resides the very material that made us up - literally, the iron in your blood was made in some star long ago that done exploded and showered the surrounding space with debris, some of which was iron, which collected due to gravity, eventually forming a planet, which after some time gave birth to you. The same with Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc. Dig it? We are actually star children, and isn't that just a trip?

Here's some more star porn (click pic for big):

Pretty nifty, eh? This is our reality - we came from exploding stars just like these. And every atom in our body will one day return to a great spatial cloud. Isn't this all more wondrous than any mythology yet conceived on Earth?

The next link in the chain

Our sun, again. It's pretty big, eh? But not really - in the grand scheme of it all, our star is pretty average in most respects, which is a good thing. Because stars get a lot, lot bigger. For example:

 And that's big. Stars of this size burn hot and fast, living only a fraction as long as our star. Stars of this size play by some different rules. For example, their fusion process is different:

 Big stars were far more common in the early universe, and it is the big stars which made ALL elements in existence heavier than Iron (and a great deal of the iron too). For, you see, Stars are alive in the sense they are born, live (by burning - a hallmark of all life), and then die. Here:

 Fret not - our star is not going Supernova. Rather, it will puff up, eat all the planets out to Earth, and then shrink way, way down to a White Dwarf, and remain like that for billions and billions of years. The big stars, however, cross a threshold - a phase change, if you will, going up the chain (of temperature/pressure). As you can see, based on the size of the star, when these big guys go, they end up as a Neutron Star, or a Black Hole. More on Black Holes in the next post. 

  A neutron star is an exceedingly strange thing. First, they only come about when massive stars explode, and the remaining core shrinks down to the size of Manhattan. However, this small space contains an ENORMOUS amount of matter, so dense that a teaspoon of it would weigh more than the entire Earth. A neutron star has a solid crust, of Iron - how strange is that? It experiences "starquakes" on its surface, just like earthquakes, but on a scale beyond comprehension. But I am most interested in the interior, for, from what I can gather, the center of a neutron star sits on a line of reality - on one side is our universe, filled with energy, matter, stars, planets, etc; on the other side, is the Singularity of a Black Hole, which no one really has any idea about.

Neutron stars can go by a couple of different names. They're also known as Pulsars, due to the two jets of matter spewing out from the poles. They're also known as Magnetars, due to the incredible magnetic fields generated by this much mass/energy contained in such a small space, spinning incredibly fast. Again, the neutron star resides on the line between our reality of gravity, and the gravity of a black hole (which is "infinite"). 

My point? This line, of creation/destruction, reality/some other reality. There is so much mystery here it boggles my mind. Think of the processes involved: There was the Big Bang (another huge mystery) which produced the raw materials for everything; this material cooled over time, forming matter through phase changes; this matter aggregated, and eventually formed the first atoms (hydrogen and helium); these atoms coalesced into humongous clouds that blanketed the entire universe in darkness until, due to the vagaries of time/space, one very, very special cloud got very dense, and more matter was drawn to the center, making it denser, and so on; it began to spin, and draw in more matter, until BOOM! The birth of the first star, powered by an engine of creation hitherto unknown in existence: Fusion. Then another star was born, and another, and a million billions others. All huge, gigantic stars that burned hot and fast, and then exploded, seeding the early universe with all the elements we know today, and providing the material for the next generation of stars (ours is 3rd generation, I believe).

But they also left behind Neutron stars and Black Holes. Which might appear to be destruction incarnate, but really became the gravitational loci of the newly forming galaxies - our ultimate homes.

So, once again, over and over and over again - creation = destruction. All opposites are the same. Binaries are illusions. Yadda Yadda. In other words: We live in a constantly unfolding miracle that we barely perceive or understand. I find it inspiring, since there's so much more we can know. About the universe, and thus about ourselves (we are made, LITERALLY, from the material ejected by a Supernova).

And oh yeah, here's an actual Neutron star, viewed in X-ray:

Steps on the Path

The Sun. We're gonna have to work on a new name at some point, since how stupid will it seem to refer to our star as "The Sun" when we're orbiting around Sirius? We should start a naming competition! Anyways, here's our Big Brother. Many will refer to the Sun as our Mother or Father, but technically, the relationship is Big Brother/Sister who then has supported our poor asses since childbirth, since you, me, The Earth (need another new name!), The Moon (and another!), and all the other planets, all the asteroids, comets, etc, in the Solar System were created from the same ginormous cloud of dust and gas that the Sun was created from (the cast off remains of some other, far bigger star that exploded). We're all brothers and sisters in the Solar System. Represent!

The Sun (any star) is a dynamic place. By definition. This pic shows the powerful magnetic waves around the Sun, and you can see how chaotic they are. The chaos is caused by the extreme conditions within the sun coupled with its fluid nature. Magnetic effects, in part, cause Sunspots, which are like pimples on the clean skin of the star. Here's one forming:

 Looks like a ripple in a pond, which in a sense, I suppose, it is. Here's a developed sunspot at close range:

 Click for big. I suspect you might be shocked to see the surface of the sun looks like living tissue under a microscope. I was! The Sunspot is darker because it is cooler than the surrounding areas, but that's just a relative matter to you and me: Still hot! And active. Here's an even closer view of a sunspot:

As with many things, seeming order on the surface become chaotic when looked at closely (my definition of order/chaos by the way: Just a matter of perspective). You can see the turmoil at this range - again, all caused by the twisting, snapping, crazy magnetic fields that whip all across the star.


And again, like with many (every?) things, the closer you look at something, the less concrete it becomes. On a day to day basis, we think of permanent, static "things", and we base our worldview on this false view. Only when change happens unexpectedly to us do we remember the truth - but we'll suppress it. Deny it. Think of your self - are you permanent? Or temporary?


Answer: You're temporary. Like everything. In fact, it might be far more realistic to get rid of the concept of "things" - objects, and instead, think of "processes unfolding over time." Because that's a closer approximation of the truth - a set of temporary conditions that allows for certain situations to arise, situations that will disappear when the underlying conditions change. For example, take a star, any star. Our star, for example:

The business part of a star is the thermonuclear core - where fusion takes place. This is the center of creation, and the very process that defines a star. Here's what the Proton-Proton fusion process which occurs in our star looks like:

And so, I draw closer to my conclusion: As with phase changes, fusion is the result of matter being compressed to such a degree that there's literally no where for these protons to go without hitting another proton, or something else. When this starts happening, that's fusion - as simple as that: Elementary particles smashing into each other with enough energy that they fuse. This fusion process releases energy as well, and part of that is what we know as "Sunlight". 


And now that were at the core, and you see that for our Star, it is this Proton-Proton collision process which powers everything, perhaps you glimpse how nothing is a "thing", a permanent object, but rather everything's a temporary process. For this process above is massively powerful - if left un-contained, it would result in a huge explosion. However, gravity wants to compress anything with mass, and stars have lots and lots of mass (mostly hydrogen, some helium). So, gravity is pushing in with everything it's got, and nuclear fusion is pushing out, and there is a harmony reached, a balance. We call this balance a "star". That's all it is. And when the balance falters, the star goes BOOM. And then it's something else.


Do you see? How the most important object in our lives (our Star) is just an ongoing dialectic between fusion and gravity? And if this MOST important thing is simply a basic process, what do you think this world is then? Or you? Or everything?


Permanent and forever? Or just another temporary process?