Astrophysics and Cosmology - Discuss the Universe here

[Camazotz Automat]

The Sun is not electrically charged. If it were positively charged, it would attract electrons and repel protons, producing a solar wind that is made of entirely positively charged particles. If the Sun had a net negative charge, it would repel electrons, producing a solar wind made of negatively charged particles. The real solar wind is made of both protons and electrons

And this is why North Korea touches South Korea.

[area51drone]

Alright, watched the Feynman video..  maybe I'm missing something in this lecture, but this wasn't anything I hadn't read/heard already.   I understand that particles are waves etc.   The way to look at everything in fields makes so much more sense to me though, and that only the higher energy points in the field are observable as particles but there is still lower energy in the field -  is how I am thinking about this - am I wrong?   Thinking of everything in this way quickly explains wave particle duality, at least if I'm correct, and fuck, I could have this altered sense of understanding that is completely based on something other than reality.

But anyway, after watching the lecture, I started watching other videos on Feynman ( I love youtube).  So back to the redshift problem.  Watch this and skip to 23:00 to hear something very interesting.   I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at this conversation. 


Richard Feynman - Take the World from Another Point of View (PBS: NOVA - 1973)

[Agent : Orange]

It's early in the morning so I was only able to see a small part of that video, but I've never seen it before, and it's a real gift. I'll watch it later on tonight - probably much later because it's going to be a very long day :\

Anyway early on and until about the 1980s, no one really knew what a quasar was and they were even thought to be within our own galaxy, hence the name QUASi-stellAR object. Because how could something that bright be so far away? But now we understand that quasars are distant galaxies in their own right and their large redshifts make sense when you understand their central engine. Take a look at this:
http://www.universetoday.com/73222/

When that video was made it was 1972 and no one yet had a solid understanding of what a quasar really was, neither Feynman or Hoyle. So it shouldn't be surprising that they're arguing about the nature of them there. Also it's interesting because Hoyle's claim to fame is the Solid State Universe idea, which has been now solidly overturned. There's no way Hoyle can explain what are now well observed phenomena such as the cosmic microwave background.

Also the quasar redshift is directly observed to correlate with distance in a nice way by gravitational lensing where a foreground galaxy acts to lens a background object. All of the lensed quasars have redshifts higher than the redshift of the lenses themselves, so they have to be more distant than the relatively nearby lens galaxies. Here's a catalogue of 300 lensed quasars (http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/castles/). The quasar redshift (the "source") is z_s and the lens redshift is given as "z_l" in the table at that link.  As you can see z_s>z_l always as is expected. The question of redshift is really a problem that's settled among the scientific community nowadays. It's only really "creationist theories" that try to give a different interpretation to it. The fact is all other interpretations have to jump through hoops to explain observations that the standard stretched light effects explain very naturally and easily.

Anyway back later on. MUCH later on...
But at least it's Friday

[area51drone]

Gotta ask, you obviously know so much more than any layman.   How, or better yet, why, do you know all this stuff?

[Agent : Orange]

Gotta ask, you obviously know so much more than any layman.   How, or better yet, why, do you know all this stuff?

I'm an astrophysicist by day, bellgabber by night

[Camazotz Automat]

I'm an astrophysicist by day, bellgabber by night

This is now officially my favorite topic/thread. I will mainly lurk.

Agent : Orange, have you ever heard of the now defunct Electric Spacecraft Journal? Just curious.

[Agent : Orange]

This is now officially my favorite topic/thread. I will mainly lurk.

Hah, awesome.

But I really think that this thread needs a new title. It's really not about LUX anymore.

Agent : Orange, have you ever heard of the now defunct Electric Space Craft journal? Just curious.

No, I haven't. Who or what is that?

I hope the spice melange is involved in some way. And yes, since your string of Dune avatars I'm committed to making a reference in every exchange we have until they return.

[Camazotz Automat]

Haha
Awesome.

But I really think that this thread needs a new title. It's really not about LUX anymore.

No, I haven't. Who or what is that?

I hope the spice melange is involved in some way.

I agree, the topic title should be changed.

When you get a moment, you can read a brief summary about Electric Spacecraft here:

www.electricspacecraft.com 

I will try to add the occasional melange spice and maybe a question or two on gravitational theory.

[Agent : Orange]

I agree, the topic title should be changed.

When you get a moment, you can read a brief summary about Electric Spacecraft here:

www.electricspacecraft.com/ 

I will try to add the occasional spice.

Have not yet had a chance to read anything more than the title page but this jumps at me: Does this have anything to do with lifters?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionocraft

[Camazotz Automat]

Have not yet had a chance to read anything more than the title page but this jumps at me: Does this have anything to do with lifters?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionocraft

Their journal covered many research topics and experiments carried out and published by a network of members. But yes, some definitely had to do with lift. Others about Tesla coil research. Electricity in general. And many more subjects.

I'm not trying to get this thread off on a tangent. It's going very well just as it is. Was just wondering if you knew of the journal. Unfortunately, I'm signing off for the night. Looking forward to more in this thread.

Fear is the mind-killer.

[Agent : Orange]

Their journal covered many research topics and experiments carried out and published by a network of members. But yes, some definitely had to do with lift. Others about Tesla coil research. Electricity in general. And many more subjects.

I'm not trying to get this thread off on a tangent. It's going very well just as it is. Was just wondering if you knew of the journal. Unfortunately, I'm signing off for the night. Looking forward to more in this thread.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Sorry I got caught up in other stuff. I do wish I could have read more, but the stuff I did see raised some red flags for me. I don't really know what I make of the little that I've seen so far.

There seems to be a fringe group out there that has a specific agenda of attributing a variety of physical phenomena to electromagnetism where it really shouldn't be, and I have to say it's a bit surprising to me every time I run into it. Electricity and magnetism have their roles in the universe but I don't know why they carry such wide appeal; part of it must be the popular image of a tinkerer working away in a garage and the idea of such a figure changing the world from the foundations up. I'm all for revolutions but I think if it were as easy as reinterpreting the ramifications of all physical laws through electricity and magnetism then it would have been found already. Especially by the money hungry so-called "mainstream" scientists (who are really cut throat when it comes to grants that will pay for their research). Perhaps it's not so surprising that EM is used instead of the strong or weak forces since those are much less well known in popculture.

Anyway that's my initial read of things but given I haven't had the chance to read too far into things. I wish I was able to post earlier in the night when you were still on. EDITED TO ADD: Bless the maker and his passing.

[area51drone]

Agent, so again with the redshift issue.   Let's put this to bed so I can get onto a million other questions for you.   What did you think about the photos that Arp had (the ones I linked to you a while back) where there were two galaxies interconnected by something (interstellar gas clouds?), but their redshifts supposedly put them at great distances from each other? 

http://electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

[area51drone]

I'm an astrophysicist by day, bellgabber by night

Damn you.  I knew it.

[Agent : Orange]

Agent, so again with the redshift issue.   Let's put this to bed so I can get onto a million other questions for you.   What did you think about the photos that Arp had (the ones I linked to you a while back) where there were two galaxies interconnected by something (interstellar gas clouds?), but their redshifts supposedly put them at great distances from each other? 

http://electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

There are a lot of these coincidences but they're statistical, meaning that for a population of distant objects and a uniform distribution that are closer to you there's a certain number that are expected to be fairly well aligned. It's actually not even that bad, if you look at most of these they're not sufficiently aligned to be gravitationally lensed and for those that are the redshifts of the background objects are always larger than the lenses. It's hard to argue with that fact. Most of Halton Arp's arguments held in the early 70s at the time Feynman and Hoyle would have discussed such things but to hold on to them until modern times denies many of the observations made since. It's just not the way the universe really is.

[Agent : Orange]

Damn you.  I knew it.

Busted!

[Agent : Orange]

Their journal covered many research topics and experiments carried out and published by a network of members. But yes, some definitely had to do with lift. Others about Tesla coil research. Electricity in general. And many more subjects.

A little later in the night I realized I have some more stuff to add.

Despite my conservative response earlier, there are a number of different electromagnetism based engines for spacecraft that are widely used today such as the ion drive (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/144296-nasas-next-ion-drive-breaks-world-record-will-eventually-power-interplanetary-missions) and it's already been used in a number of missions such as the Dawn spacecraft (http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp). In fact this page gives a nice comparison of fuel sources for rockets in a plot.

Also, my favorite spacecraft idea, the solar sail, runs entirely on the momentum carried by light rays and can theoretically sail the solar wind, producing a drive with no moving parts (http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-sail.htm). 

[area51drone]

FYI for everyone but Agent - The Teaching company has Sean Carroll's 24 30 minute lecture set about Dark Matter/Dark Energy on DVD + streaming available right now for $70.   That's $180 off the regular price.   I'm picking it up.

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Course_Detail.aspx?cid=1272&id=1272&pc=science%20and%20mathematics

All kinds of coupons out there too, you can probably save a bit more on it.

[Camazotz Automat]

Sorry I got caught up in other stuff. I do wish I could have read more, but the stuff I did see raised some red flags for me. I don't really know what I make of the little that I've seen so far.

There seems to be a fringe group out there that has a specific agenda of attributing a variety of physical phenomena to electromagnetism where it really shouldn't be, and I have to say it's a bit surprising to me every time I run into it. Electricity and magnetism have their roles in the universe but I don't know why they carry such wide appeal; part of it must be the popular image of a tinkerer working away in a garage and the idea of such a figure changing the world from the foundations up. I'm all for revolutions but I think if it were as easy as reinterpreting the ramifications of all physical laws through electricity and magnetism then it would have been found already. Especially by the money hungry so-called "mainstream" scientists (who are really cut throat when it comes to grants that will pay for their research). Perhaps it's not so surprising that EM is used instead of the strong or weak forces since those are much less well known in popculture.

Anyway that's my initial read of things but given I haven't had the chance to read too far into things. I wish I was able to post earlier in the night when you were still on. EDITED TO ADD: Bless the maker and his passing.

Great response, AO. Your tinkering comment nailed it. There's a certain romanticism akin to "the wild west" and "final frontier" that is a driving force for some of the people I've talked to, but in reality might be as ill thought out as for one to take a covered wagon across the US today looking for new land. Wagons, ho! 

Not that we know every thing nor every aspect of what we do know, and I am all for experimentation, but it's one of those things where you have to watch both your wallet and your mind.

But do I like big giant arcs of electricity? Oh, yes. I do.

I really really do.

[Agent : Orange]

Great response, AO. Your tinkering comment nailed it. There's a certain romanticism akin to "the wild west" and "final frontier" that is a driving force for some of the people I've talked to, but in reality might be as ill thought out as for one to take a covered wagon across the US today looking for new land. Wagons, ho! 

Yes, exactly. We just have to have the basics pretty well nailed down if we're able to mass manufacture things like the thin film transistor displays that we're probably both using to write messages to this board. In order to make such a device for example you need to know a lot of physics, like electromagnetism and a good grasp of quantum mechanics too for the diodes and transistors. To push the mapping analogy farther in terms of the big picture it's obvious we have to have the large scale stuff pretty well explored, and "terra incognita" is pretty far away for the common man. It must be. Because it's only when we get into the fringes that very accurate and precise observations are needed to explore nature that "thar be dragons". What I mean is the grand mystery has shifted away from generating electricity from water wheels and heating water by boring cannons to black holes and the expanding universe. Which is a good thing because it means we've grown.

But deep down everyone is cheering for Madman Markum.

Not that we know every thing nor every aspect of what we do know, and I am all for experimentation, but it's one of those things where you have to watch both your wallet and your mind.

Absolutely, the only way to verify what we do know is correct in all aspects is by experimentng! That's just how new stuff is going to be found. But as you say it's way more likely to be found in the behavior of the strong nuclear force or something than in electromagnetism. But until the experiment is done, who knows?

But do I like big giant arcs of electricity? Oh, yes. I do.

I really really do.

That sounds like words from a guy who's gotten a jolt or two.
And I'd guess maybe makes a living from playing with current?

[Agent : Orange]

FYI for everyone but Agent - The Teaching company has Sean Carroll's 24 30 minute lecture set about Dark Matter/Dark Energy on DVD + streaming available right now for $70.   That's $180 off the regular price.   I'm picking it up.

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Course_Detail.aspx?cid=1272&id=1272&pc=science%20and%20mathematics

All kinds of coupons out there too, you can probably save a bit more on it.

Hey actually... that looks pretty damn interesting. I'd pay to hear a good set of lectures from Carroll on this.

I think tonight I might listen to the Art Bell interview you posted while I work.

[Camazotz Automat]

That sounds like words from a guy who's gotten a jolt or two.

Yes. It does.

And I'd guess maybe makes a living from playing with current?

I would like to answer this, but I signed a contract that included a Non Compete Clause which is being loosely (and aggressively) interpreted by my former employer to include even specifically mentioning the hell hole where I once bounced like Flubber in at best a downsized Wham-O factory.

I will be able to speak freely in approximately eighty-four years. For anyone to hear the "true story" will require significant advancements in Ouija board application, as I will be firmly ensconced in Valhalla when the contract finally implodes.

Super conducting planchettes cannot be ruled out as necessary gear to pick up my faint signal at that point (thank Odin for "astral lensing" on the Other Side, or all anyone would get would be I Love Lucy reruns which orbit in the astral troughs through a process that remains unclear.)

Never EVER sign a Non Compete!

[Agent : Orange]

Never EVER sign a Non Compete!

Understood. I've learned a lot about these things in the past two weeks.

[area51drone]

Hey actually... that looks pretty damn interesting. I'd pay to hear a good set of lectures from Carroll on this.

I think tonight I might listen to the Art Bell interview you posted while I work.

BTW, I found this lecture series on ebay..  I picked up a used copy for $33, but there is a new one for $40 right now.   Obviously no streaming, but a hell of a lot cheaper.

[Agent : Orange]

BTW, I found this lecture series on ebay..  I picked up a used copy for $33, but there is a new one for $40 right now.   Obviously no streaming, but a hell of a lot cheaper.

Nice!!

I listened to the Art Bell interview with Carroll, it was very good. He's like Kaku in that he has the same kind of knack for explaining things clearly and succinctly.

[Camazotz Automat]

I found out yesterday that The Criterion Collection is remastering the Errol Morris documentary, A Brief History of Time for US DVD release.

I will finally be able to discard my VHS tape copy, which is in near excellent condition but beginning to show hints of degradation.

I'm hoping the DVD includes the documentary "The Making of A Brief History of Time," directed by Edmund Coulthard.

A documentary of a documentary.

Wheels within wheels.

[area51drone]

Post a link when it's out for us will you?  In the meantime, everyone, here's three hours worth of Sean Carroll talking about the initial state / origin of the universe:


Initial state/origin of the universe (Part 1) by Sean Carroll



Initial state/origin of the universe (Part 2) by Sean Carroll

Here's another talk on Dark Energy by Carroll...


Dark Energy, or Worse: Was Einstein Wrong?

[Camazotz Automat]

Post a link when it's out for us will you? 

Absolutely.

[Agent : Orange]

When Art had Michio Kaku on the first Dark Matter show, I considered calling in after WR104 came up. His scenario of WR104 producing a gamma ray burst as it goes supernova is very disturbing, but there are other violent events that are equally terrifying and more unpredictable that have already been observed to affect the Earth in measurable ways. At least WR104 will give us some warning. The objects I want to discuss are little known and not often talked about but have generated significant interest within the community of high-energy astrophysics. So let me throw this out there.

The story starts on March 5, 1979, when a powerful pulse of gamma rays passed through our solar system. This pulse was generated in an extremely violent event that would have begun like a spherical explosion and after traveling a great distance to arrive at the Earth was more like a flat plane from expanding to such a large size. As this plane of radiation passed through the solar system it overloaded instruments onboard satellites that were sensitive to gamma rays. At the time the Soviets had two probes at Venus, and NASA had a variety of instruments in orbit including a satellite dedicated to observing the Sun. As the plane passed through the solar system it reached each of these instruments at a different time and overloaded the detectors on board for a few moments. Due to these many measurements, it was possible to pinpoint the origin of the pulse to an accuracy of a few arcseconds. This pointed directly to a small supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, containing a slowly spinning neutron star called SGR 0526-66. This object is now classified as a "magnetar" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar), and the origin of the burst is now understood to arise from a neutron star with a huge magnetic field.

To put in context how huge the magnetic field of one of these stars really is, consider that the Earth has a magnetic field of 0.25-0.6 Gauss (G), and a fridge magnet has a field of about 100 G. The strongest magnetar has a field that is more like 10^13-10^15 G, between 100 billion to 10 trillion times the strength of a fridge magnet. Get within a thousand kilometers of this object and you'd die just because that strength field would disrupt the body's chemistry. Put one at the distance of the moon and you've instantly erased all the credit cards in the world. These fields are generated inside neutron stars, which are small objects between 1.5 and 3 times the mass of the Sun, with a radius of only 10-12 km, about the size of downtown in an average Canadian city. They are made of degenerate neutron matter, the densest material known to exist (http://www.astronomynotes.com/evolutn/s10.htm). Neutron stars are the final step in stellar evolution before a black hole and are the final fate of stars that have more than three solar masses worth of material in their cores when they collapse after running out of nuclear fuel.

Despite the tensile strength of the neutron degenerate matter, the magnetic field of these stars is so great that once in a while a quake will occur that cracks the neutron matter crust and sends a huge disturbance through the magnetic field not unlike a solar flare, but on a giant scale. This causes charged particles to slosh around in the giant magnetosphere and generates bursts of gamma and X-rays like the kind that was seen sweeping through the solar system in 1979.

In December 2004, the magnetar SGR 1806-20 gave off a large burst, equal to something like 50 trillion times the Sun’s output during the burst. Despite being 50,000 light years from the Earth, enough high energy radiation made it to us to partially ionize the upper atmosphere, producing aurora and disturbing the Earth's magnetosphere (http://www.space.com/806-brightest-galactic-flash-detected-hits-earth.html). This burst had a significant and measurable effect on our world, despite coming from literally halfway across our galaxy to reach us. Now if such a source at that distance could affect our planet, a closer object could really make problems. In fact, we now know of a magnetar called SGR 1E1048.1-5937 (which we'll just call 1E1048). This magnetar is only 9000 light years from Earth. This object was only found because it has gone through low-level outbursts. Most of the time it is in a quiescent state and emits only a moderate amount of energy. But it has been seen to produce X-ray bursts. If 1E1048 produced a burst on the scale of the 1979 event, it could have dire consequences for life on Earth. We've seen what one of these beasties at 50,000 light years can do, one more than five times closer to us could do much worse. In fact, we are learning now that even magnetars which appeared to have low surface fields can have local regions on them with very powerful fields, something like sunspots, which are also magnetically driven. Some of these guys are even closer to us, with SGR 0418+5729 only 6,500 light years distant (http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mysterious_magnetar_boasts_one_of_strongest_magnetic_fields_in_Universe).

Unlike WR104, which would generate a large flux of neutrinos that would arrive at Earth a few days before the blast hit (http://hep.bu.edu/~superk/gc.html), there would be no warning from a magnetar burst. These events are not periodic, meaning that a burst could literally come at us from seemingly out of nowhere from a previously unknown source. And we've already seen what they're capable of even at large distances.

That's creepy and amazing all at the same time. And, I think, fascinating enough to warrant more discussion than they've gotten so far.

[area51drone]

I'll read your post in a second Agent, looks interesting, but I did think it was important to make sure you guys saw the link I posted at the end of my last post:


Dark Energy, or Worse: Was Einstein Wrong?

It's very good... although he rips through material very quickly.

[area51drone]

Agent,

That's absolutely fascinating.  I think I read something about magnetars once, but I guess I didn't give them much thought.   A few questions for you..

How do they know they are so small - is it based on theory or observation?

Do they give off any light other than xrays and gamma rays?

So what would the damage be if we were hit by one of these blasts from the closer ones? 

According to the wikipedia article, after 10,000 years their strong magnetic fields have decayed - do they still pose a threat after such time?  Do we know how old these ones that are close to us are?

What do you have to say about SGR 1900+14, the one that has a ring of matter around that... WTF?  Did magnetism draw the matter in, or gravity from the star?  How would that happen?  I know wikipedia says it's unknown, but are there any guesses?

Your link talks about the degenerate matter state of what these guys are made of - something like a solid, but like a gas as well.   If you had to guess what landing on this stuff would look/feel like if you could get close to it, how would you describe it?