Trying to take my mind off my torturous existence, thanks physics and chemistry, I try to look up news articles on Flipboard.
Every now and then I read something that makes me think and sometimes reminds me of things I used to think about.
The article linked below in Forbes did both of those things.
I thought back to watching Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan and when he stated that there was nothing in space to connect us to the planets. He was rubbishing Astrology, which I agreed with, but I wasn't so sure that there was nothing connecting us.
Gravity is still not fully understood today and yet it holds that accolade of being the original or one of the original things thought about in science. Well at things like .. alchemy and such and the stars themselves of course. Oh Good God I hope no flat-earthers ever find this blog?!
From a child when I first wondered how gravity worked I was mystified. Yes I read a lot of books and watched almost every documentary going but I'd never come across a convincing answer.
How do two things have an affect on each other if there is nothing in space?
Oh you can put towards diagrams and drawings and show the fabric of space being warped and acting like a roulette table. But that 'fabric' had to be there.
So for years I hoped they would figure out this answer one day. But it continued for a long time and still kind does.
Then the whole quantum theory thing popped up but remained under my radar for a long, long time. When I did come across it out seemed kinda .. well .. alien. Sorry, lol. Eventually I started to get it but I wanted to understand it completely. Then I discovered that no one gets it completely. Weird. The whole thing is just .. wonderfully weird.
Talk was about the quantum realm being possibly responsible for gravity and this made a lot of sense.
Then they started talking even if the human soul possibly existing and having something to do with the quantum realm? Well in a weird way this kind of made sense to. Only in as far as the meaning of life being the oldest question and have been answered not made sense of thus far. Maybe the answers are here?
I wouldn't be surprised to find that to exist as quantum .. beings, for want of a better world, you would need a black hole.
I digress.
So today I stumble across this article that states that someone .. somewhere did a thought experiment and that it asks why we need quantum mechanics for gravity.
Maybe I might be around long enough to see this age old question finally get answered?
Now I'm thinking of all the things discovered and theories proved that Einstein, Sagan and Patrick Moore never got to see. Added to that list now sadly is Stephen Hawking.
Well despite the myriad of things trying to bring about my demise .. I may have stuck arrive long enough to see something else unfold?
After years of trying to detect neutrinos they may have just detected one recently? Time will tell.
It's staggering how much we still don't know, like the fact that Earth is got by high energy particles like protons. We do not know for sure where these originate from.
As I read the article linked below it got me thinking ..
Where do photons eventually and up?
I mean they tell us there is a limit to the universe, right? So what happens to light at the edges? I mean if there is no spacetime .. does light speed up? Does it stop? Does it behave erratically? Does it bounce back?
Well I don't think they're is an edge but more of that momentarily.
I then thought of something else .. we were surprised to find that the universe is expanding faster the further away it is, right? But we don't know why.
But we also kind of accept that spacetime is a .. thing. Like there is a fabric to it, so to speak?
Well what if all the stars and ask the galaxies giving off might and other highly energetic particles is why slowly spreads spacetime out?
It would explain while the furthest parts are the fastest moving in relation to our location.
Like flattening out ripples on a satin bed-cover, you slowly move your hands over and the metal moves ever so slowly. Maybe it's a minuscule version of this?
After all even some sub-atomic particles have mass.
And what shape is the universe? How do you know if the path is straight for a photon of light when it travels such large distances? It could be round, for all we know? Measuring things in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and even our local group is one thing, despite the insane distances. But for galaxies on the far sides of the universe .. we are talking of a mind boggling distance and we have barely ventured very far with scientific instruments. I mean the universe is so vast that spacetime would only need the slightest of curves that might remain undetectable to us, even if spacetime was detectable, but over insane distances could be curved.
I used to wonder when a child if you could travel at speeds many hundreds of times faster than the speed of light and set off in one direction would you eventually find yourself back at Earth?
In the meantime it will be interesting to see if this discover at the Ice Cube Laboratory gets confirmed and what we can glean from this?
It is a shame that I did not get into this line of work earlier than I decided to do my degree and wish I had forsaken all else. For the benefit of mankind, of course. Though of late I am not sure eveyone deserves it?
Ghostly particle caught in polar ice ushers in new way to look at the universe http://flip.it/TPqkNj
I read this interesting article regarding the amount of x-rays hitting a planet they know orbits Proxima Centauri and how they state that it's unlikely, might have said impossible, for life to form there.
Luckily for Proxima Centauri we also have two other stars which may also be hosts to planets actually in the same system?! Tatooine anyone? Lol. Imagine how cool this would like .. with a speeder and a light saber and a ray-gun? "Blast 'em!" Pew-pew-pew! These other stars are called Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. Very almost original! Lol.
They like to look at this one most likely because it is the closest to us, which is a bit weird. This is weird because if there was ever an dramatic increase in the drives and fuel of drives to power spacecraft to bring the time down to something far more .. reachable then adding a bit of time to get to the next nearest two or years would not be much of a stretch.
There is also the possibility that we may have to look very much further afield. Maybe in star systems further away by a factor of ten or more? Maybe thousands and even millions?
Then you have two world to look for .. one that could play host to life forms from Earth and ones that already home to intelligent life and there is a gargantuan gap between the two, of this I have no doubts at all.
Two things popped into my head upon reading this. How do you know life cannot exist on Proxima Centauri B? A planet roughly the size of Earth that exists within the habitable zone. Well .. I think they might need to rework that habitable zone to Possible Habitable Zone, lol, in cases where the radiation given off is off the scale. In this case that is x-rays.
Wait, what? 'Proxima Centauri B'? So does that mean there could be an 'Alpha Centauri A .. A? Or perhaps an Alpha Centauri B .. B? Maybe they should have used Greek letters for the exoplanets? Until they come up with names?
Or perhaps name the planets, that would be fun, with the names we already have regardless of their size?
Proxima Centauri Mercury, Venus Earth and so on and so forth?
Or use the names of another series of deities? We use Roman Gods so maybe Greek Gods for exoplanets? Proxima Centauri Apollo? That would be cool!
Now it could be that with 500 times the amount of x-rays rays that got Earth they penetrate right through the planet?
But if they do not, which is entirely possible, then what if life forms a more subterranean existence on planets like this?
I also remembered a few things I had thought previously regarding the methods used for detecting planets.
The first one is the angle of the orbits and how this might affect the wobble of the host star.
The second one is .. how in the world do you measure a wobble when your dealing with multiple planets?
Yes there may be the slight variations that can be calculated.
But this is a relatively new technique .. surely there must be a limit that is detectable?
For an example ..
They have found these super Jupiters orbiting close to a star .. and they will have an immense gravitational tug on the host star.
But what if you have a rocky planet the size of Earth at the distance of, say, Mars?
I would guess that any tugging ability would be greatly reduced .. even more so if the star had a greater mass then our sun?
So you have a greater mass star with a super Jupiter in close orbit. There must be both a mass and distance ratio where any gravitational tugging because almost impossible to detect and even no existent?
I simply cannot see them being able to detect something the size of Mars with a distance of say somewhere between Jupiter and Neptune. Maybe even something bigger than Mars and closer than Jupiter?
Or to put it another way I would be staggered if they found something the size of Pluto at the distance of Pluto. Exo-KPOs (Kuiper Belt Objects). Both if and when we find them I would be very interested to know how they achieved that.
So for me ever since they started increasing their database for exoplanets I knew that the number for each star is likely to be far higher than we currently know.
Whenever several planets were detected around a star at once, as happened only recently, I would think "WHAT?!" and then wonder just how many planets will exist in that particular star system?
I often think how exciting it would be if found systems with over a dozen planets? Of it were possible, of course. But then lots of things scientists generally agreed we impossible are shattered every few years. Though I am referring to astronomy here this even occurs due prehistoric animals here on Earth.
A top speed fit the Tyrannosaurus Rex at 65mph anyone? What do you mean it's legs broke? But I have written all those books?! DOH!!
I will make some personal guesstimates ..
If it capable of hosting life there will be life
Life will appear to be exiting within the first 200 or so star systems
Intelligent life will appear to exist but somewhat further out to a point that would explain why we had not heard them previously at somewhere between 90 and 500 light years
Admittedly I wont be around to see myself proved right towards the top end of that estimate
You see everyone asks me ..
"They have been listening for years and not heard anything and beaming out messages that no one has answered? There is no life out there."
I say .. "You know how the speed of light works, yeah?" to which they reply, of course
"Right then you know that the very closest stars it has taken 4 to 20 years for that message to reach out to them and the reply takes the same amount of time as it did getting there?
4 Light years .. 8 years to get a reply if they heard it
Average distance to what you can see might be 40 to 100 years meaning .. 80 to 200 years for an answer .. if you happen to be pointing your message at the star system with life that has reached a level technologically that you can answer
Now I would ask them how long has it been since we have been sending messages out and how many stars we are capable of sending messages to simultaneously
Eyes go wide as realisation sets in, 'Yeah .. might not quite reach us in our lifetime'
Yeah .. plans for scuppered. Went downhill and had to move another 250 miles yet again.
Then found out a health condition they sheet knew about is very deadly and they didn't tell me.
Yeah .. put myself and a lot of other people in danger and cost thousand upon thousands.
Yeah sounds like faked crazy shit? No.
It's been in one magazine called Love It which you can see the cover of and read about on my corruption blog if you look up a post titled 'The Fugliness' and there is one coming in less than two weeks. This next one will be the third publication in the mainstream media and there is more planned.
But while all that has and is going on I've not got to do very much in the way of astrophysics researching. Well .. I've done a bit.
But tonight I saw this one.
They are talking now about habitable exomoons in other star systems.
Star systems they said for a long time would not be host to any planets. Since a child I simply refused to believe this and hoped that one day in my lifetime I would be proved right.
Sometimes the maths just .. sort of appears to me, as strange as it sounds. Blew a fair few minds with that ability and other insight like abilities on my way to my computer science degree.
So .. let's have a little theory ..
I'll state that I think it would be rare for a star system to have as little as three planets. The lower the number the rarer it becomes.
At the other end I'm going to go with as many as a dozen. I might want to double that of they decide some kuiper belt objects, like Pluto, Seems Makemake and planet nine or ten of we ever find it, are reclassified as full on planets. Which they are.
Of course we're hunting for this elusive tenth planet but what's not to say they're are not more? We simply don't know. We have only our own solar system to go on and there are still things we haven't found.
So twelve full on planets could be the upper limit?
Other star systems might have more than ours and so might we had done. For instance or asteroid belt? A planet that failed to form or was destroyed? In other systems they might not have had this occur?
So .. exomoons?
What I found funny was someone stating there would not be that many because of the size they would need to be?
Umm .. have they read the same reports as me? Lol. They have found countless super Jupiters way bigger than our own red spotted giant. A great many it sounds like and closer to their star too. Even rocky planets way bigger than Earth have been discovered.
Yeah .. way bigger rocky planets and way bigger had giants means?! Way bigger bloody everything!
Way bigger than our moon and way bigger than Titan.
Here's some math insight and a theory ..
It's my belief that, upon thinking about these discoveries, that habitable moons may well outnumber habitable planets?!
You need the right body with a given zone and the planet needs to be just right as does a moon. But we all know moons vastly outnumber planets.
If it turns out that very large has giants are commonly found closer to their star and these have more moons than Jupiter and bigger moons than Jupiter then your talking about two, three and maybe even four moons in a star system that could be habitable?!
Yeah this would be pretty unique to have as many as four and would likely need two super Jupiters close enough to their star. Might require the right kind of star to meet these conditions too?
So you have a chance of two or more within a system.
I think with a planet being habitable it's more likely to be just one.
Even that which we are currently seeing is a tiny fraction and even once we've looked at all that we can see it will still be a tiny fraction.
The Milky Way Galaxy alone is a bloody big place and the University is so large it might as well be infinite.
Then there are other things we won't know once we've seen everything close by. Like ..
How are star systems laid out as you get to the galactic core of Saggitarius A*?
How about stars and their systems that roam intergalactic space?
What about those on the outer edges?
What about those in the spiral arms?
What about those between the spiral arms?
What about those in the bar?
Hmm are we supposed to have a bar? Can't remember, I think we did but maybe this was doubted at some point?
Well you see where I'm going?
Star systems in gas clouds?
Stars in nebulas?
The list just goes on and on of what we simply do not know.
They thought very few or no stars had planets and I didn't believe that.
That thought star systems all developed the same way and looked like ours, gas giants bring further out and I didn't believe that.
It's not a question of whether habitable worlds are out there and this goes for inhabited worlds too! The question is how far do we have to go to find them?
In our quadrant of the galaxy?
In our neighbourhood?
The other side of the galaxy?
Andromeda?
I just hope we start getting images of these exoplanets and their moons in my lifetime.
I'm currently very, very late to adding anything to this and any other blog I am the author of, outside of my corruption blog.
It's a long story and a pretty horrific one with some shocker developments .. I'm not going to go deep into.
To cut a long story short .. honest with everyone over plans.
Plans approved over thirteen weeks.
Find out about domestic violence in Hamilton members far away that results in discovery of disabilities in three out of five of them.
Police balls ups. Authorities doing nothing, think fire in house in Salford here.
Three cancer scares added on top of all that.
Speaking with Frank Field and the Work & Pensions Select Committee asking to use my case as evidence and publishing it on a website.
My own health deteriorating .. irregular heart beats, chest pain, tightness, getting out of breath and placed under a cardiologist.
Now they very short version of our of the way I just have one thing to say ..
Oumuamua!
Or 'A Visitor from afar arriving first'?! Tat is what it is called translated from its Hawaiian name.
This is the name given to not only a historical object in the solar system presently but a bloody bizarre one at that. SO they must be hopeful, right?
So much so they think it might be artificial .. or in other words .. alien in origin?!
You better believe it!
What's that? I better reach for my tin hat?
Well you better tell Stephen Hawking that as he is heading up a group of scientists attempting to mute their excitement because they think it might be alien in origin!
Ooh crikey. The chances are it's not .. but ..
It is the first interstellar object to enter the solar system that we have actually detected.
It's travelling very, very fast.
It's very, very long and thin which is not just unnatural in .. umm .. side rocks such as asteroids but .. the perfect shape for an alien spacecraft. Because it lessens damage from side debris like .. umm .. rocks and space dust. Meteoroids and the like.
Oh and speaking of damage .. it's very dense too suggesting it's either solid rock or even metal.
Weird for our first interstellar visitor, is it not?
So they are listening very intently for any signals it might give off that could not be from your average asteroid.
But it might be a ghost ship or Mary Celeste if your prefer?
So what then?
So what do I think?
Are you bloody serious man?! This is exciting .. it's the first thing I've been excited about for awhile now.
It's the first in awhile. Won't solve my current issues but .. of they are solved then maybe to very tool I had ear-marked for this blog which got benched will become a reality.
They thought it babe from Vega. Bit then realised .. well everything moves and takes forever to get there. Even at 196,000 miles per hour.
So it could have been travelling for a very, very long time.
Another possibility I have not heard or read anywhere is that this splinter like object exists as a result of a huge explosion or collision. Maybe a much rather rock existed that got hit by an even bigger rock and this splinter like structure is a result of that?
Maybe there is even some chance that is was the result of a collision between planets in another star system far away? Our own rocks are rounded because .. well many exist that are in belts that are akin and previously far more akin to a snooker table with objects shooting about colliding with each other. As these are invariably spinning any protruding bits get lopped off first, eventually giving us a more spherical shape.
But a collision far off in another system could produce a splinter like shape, it was not that odd to me .. just the reactions to it being splinter shaped being odd that got me excited. Thinking that maybe I was missing something? A collision between planets in another star system could potentially and likely did cause an incredible explosion with immense power. Something resulting from this being sent rocketing off out of its parent star system would not spend most or any part of its life, for that matter, in that billiard ball belt. Not long enough to become spherical in any way.
Of course it remains that this being once part of a planet in another star system could be the result of s supernova?
We do not even know if it could have been flung here by a low mass black hole by sling shotting around it making it impossible to determine where it originated from. Unless of course we can detect and follow its previous trajectory back and find a black hole and then able to calculate how it would have sling shotted around said back hole and carried on following its previous trajectory prior to that?
That would be one hell of a tall order. Black holes are difficult to find when they are not super-massive ones found at galactic centres. They have often asked questions about the possibility and existence of wandering black holes. Throw that into the mix and the task is very, very nigh on impossible if not already. At least with the current technology.
But what it it is some kind of ship or probe?
It slung shot around the sun in a typical asteroid like fashion but this could be a ruse to not arouse suspicion? That is a fifty-fifty chance and if I was an advanced civilisation and if I knew what we were like and how we treated our own, Theresa May and the Tories *cough cough* this is what I would do! Wanting a closer look but not wanting the primitive apes to react like a bunch of Chimpanzees baying for the blood of other primates and, in this case, their technology.
Yeah .. from my own personal experience I would not want to deal or even talk to us. Maybe they will be back in a thousand years to check whether or not we had become truly civilised or not before making any 'first contact'?
Just check out the events unfolding in Salford or my own corruption blog to see why any intelligent and benevolent beings would stay the hell away from us.
A shame then that scientists do not suddenly realise this and speak out to do something about it .. instead of just staring at the stars waiting to see if something is waving.
Please bear in mind all pictures and videos are not real and artist impressions, lol.
Here is my old favourite John Michael Godier on the subject ..
No I am not farting .. I have been in and out of GAS, or Gear Acquisition Syndrome, where you just want to gt everything! Yeah I have not done that and resisted.
Is that actually a thing? GAS? Or is it just something someone came up with that become a buzzword in its own right?
Oooh .. I did not realise I had not posted on my other blogs, namely this one!
Yeah .. once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away I said things were going to change? Well it might have failed to escape everyone's attention that it did not do as I had planned.
In fact everything went all Bjork on my arse .. Oh so quiet!
Then something else happened. Something kinda bad but also kinda unavoidable and I started to state once again that things were going to change.
Would not forgive anyone for thinking .. "Oh here we go again?!"
Yeah well .. no not this time and it just so turns out that a couple of other things are panning out to .. like an old change that was supposed to take place? Yeah that has returned from the grave too.
More will be known about the truth of that in exactly one week from now .. well on here any my other blogs at any rate.
For now I have acquired one .. umm well technically two items that will help me with this blog. Let us say that the outlay required to do this would go along way to show both my commitment and my .. umm .. enthusiasm?
We will see ..
What I have acquired thus far is a car for the first time in years and trust me the outlay as well as the insurance was considerable for me. But it both had to be done and was in the planning for a long, long time.
Then I bought a camera .. that is extremely good in low light as are BOTH the lenses. Both the lenses are top of the line zooms, before you groan .. check them out, and are claimed to be ass good as prime lenses and one of those is 24-70mm f2.8 and of considerable cost.
Though that was not as expensive as the 70-200mm f2.8 zoom with internal focusing.
Even the 1.4x teleconverter most people frown upon sells for like £450!
There are still things to be done and acquired and a battle is about to ensue as I was setting up a business for all this and all m blogs and .. they have reneged on their agreement and are now stabbing me in the back over all this.
I did figure that they might?
It may matter later down the end but then again it may not and it is too difficult to tell right now but a little over a week from now I should know what sort of position I am in.
So then I mentioned a car? A car that might be able to go anywhere, well almost, and that you could set up a tripod and a camera in the back of and shoot photos without getting you or the gear wet? Except .. well the camera and at least one of the lenses is both dust and weatherproof ..
The Car ..
The Camera ..
The Lens and Teleconverter ..
Another Lens more appropriate for this blog .. at least I think or I am buying another one, lol ..
Do have m eye on a couple of f1.4 wide angle lenses, one a 24mm I think it was?
Some other gear ..
I will build a PC to be able to edit 42 Mega Pixel RAW photos and 4K video .. this one .. does not .. at least it starts but within this century? Yeah .. no...
A Celestron was on the list .. except the list is now being interfered with after being agreed upon? Lol
h and the 'Gassing Over Gear'?
Presume you have heard of GAS? Gear Acquisittion Syndrome where you just want to buy everything?! Yeah well I held back somewhat, lol .. took several days before I got a hold off that second wide angle zoom f2.8 lens...
I have had a serious issue going on for seven months now.
It should have not gone on this long but it did.
There was delay after delay and I am not even sure why, with most if not all of them.
As I stated on my corruption blog .. it will mean some big changes when it occurs and will mean that I can buy a shed load of things that are for professionals, like camera equipment.
But before I could buy anything else I needed something that would help me acquire these other tools, of which there is a long list.
Of course one of the other issues I have had is that I use my mountain bike for a lot of work and .. well the weather has been dreadful for me and my health condition. My condition does not like it when it is hot and humid and it was exactly that of late.
Well .. that is until it turned to rain and last night I could heard this horrendous and loud noise and I thought 'That sounds like really, really heavy rain but that kind of rain I have not witnessed before!'
I got up and looked out my window and I think many local Indian people could be forgiven for thinking they had been teleported back to India in he middle of a monsoon!
Anyway yeah so I needed the bike and as has been the case for years now .. if it is really hot, raining or even just a wind stronger than 10mph then getting anything done wildlife wise, or anything else for that matter .. is impossible!
But ..
.. not anymore! (see video below)
As I stated previously .. many tools to come! Lol! Hmm Celestron and a professional DSLT?
I am talking astrophotography but .. well I am probably going to suck but I am a perfectionist so I will never give in until I am doing things perfectly! Lol.
