Sunday, June 17, 2012

Exotic Objects in Deep Outer Space


The White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, Black Holes and Supernovae are among the Exotic Objects in Deep Outer Space, it help us understand the Life and Death of Stars.

Birthplace of Stars. Astronomers believe that molecular clouds of gas located primarily in the spiral arms of Galaxies, is where the Stars are born. Dense regions in the clouds of gas collapse and form "protostars". The gravitational energy of the collapsing star is the source of its energy before the star contracts enough that its central core can burn hydrogen to helium; it becomes a "main sequence" star like our Sun. The more massive a main sequence star, the brighter and bluer it is.

Death of an "Ordinary" Star. Once a star exhausts its core hydrogen supply, the star becomes redder, larger, and more luminous: it becomes a red giant star. The core of the star collapses under gravity's pull until it reaches a high enough density to start burning helium to carbon. Eventually, the Sun will lose all of the mass in its envelope and leave behind a hot core of carbon embedded in a nebula of expelled gas. Radiation from this hot core will ionize the nebula then the carbon core will eventually cool and become a White Dwarf, the dense dim remnant of a once bright star.

Death of a Massive Star (Supernova). When a star ten times more massive than Sun, it exhaust the helium in the core. The carbon core continues to burn carbon to oxygen, neon, silicon, sulfur and finally to iron. Without any nuclear source of heat to balance the gravity, the iron core collapses until it reaches nuclear densities which resists further collapse causing the infalling matter to bounce and produces a Supernova explosion that inject carbon, oxygen, silicon and other heavy elements up to iron into interstellar space that make life possible. The structure resulting from the explosion bounded by an expanding shock wave is called a Supernova Remnant. The star that exploded as a supernova is referred to as the supernova's progenitor star. 1) If the progenitor star's mass is around ten times the mass of the Sun, the core will cool to form a Neutron star. Neutron stars are potentially detectable as "pulsars", powerful beacons of radio emission. 2) If the progenitor mass is larger, then the resultant core is so heavy that not even nuclear forces can resist the pull of gravity and the core collapses to form a Black Hole. The material flowing onto the neutron star or black hole will produce a strong X-ray source that is called an X-ray binary. A quasar occurs when a black hole consumes all the gas surrounding it. (Source: NASA)
Wormhole is originally known as Einstein-Rosen bridges, hypothetical realization of general relativity that allows the existence of tunnel shortcuts connecting distant regions of space-time. If a Black hole can form from the gravitational collapse of massive star through an event horizon (surrounding the black hole defined as the point of no return) in the future from Supernova, then the reverse process of an exploding White hole; matter emerging from an event horizon in the past is also possible. A white hole is a region of space-time which matter and light may escape but cannot be entered from the outside. It is the reverse of a black hole, which nothing, including light, may escape but can be entered from the outside. "From that it follows that our universe could have itself formed from inside a black hole existing inside another universe", stated by theoretical physicist, Dr. Nikodem Poplawski of Indiana University. 'Space itself is expanding, carrying galaxies with it, like spots on an inflating balloon', a common analogy explained from the prevailing cosmological model of the BIG BANG theory.

Back in Time. The deeper we look into space is like looking further back into the past. The light we see from a star 1.5 million light years away on the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest neighbor of our Milkyway galaxy was emitted about 100,000 years ago traveling at speed of light approximately 300,000 km/sec. The relationship between mass and lifetime enables astronomers to put a lower limit on the age of the universe. New particles and antiparticles were created right after the Big Bang, for each billion of antiparticles there was a billion plus one matter particles and then annihilated in pairs through successive collisions back into energy as the Universe Expanded. The thermal (electromagnetic) radiation left-over after the annihilations is called the 'Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation' and fills the space between stars and galaxies uniformly, almost exactly on the same direction. Without excess of matter over antimatter, the universe would be an empty space, consumed by light with no stars, our planet earth and others planets, and mankind. Dark matter is a hypothetical particle called the weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP plays a central role in of structure formation and galaxy evolution, and is a type of matter with high-energy signatures that do not emit or absorb light which can not be seen through an ordinary telescope in the background. If the electrons, protons and neutrons which make our world then, their twins, positrons, antiprotons and antineutrons respectively were also created. New evidence that a sea of Cosmic Neutrinos electrically neutral remnant of the early universe - its oldest light almost weightless sub-atomic particles pass through you every second at nearly the speed of light. A block of lead (radiation-proof material) the size of our entire solar system wouldn’t even come close to stopping a cosmic neutrino,” said science team member Eiichiro Komatsu of the University of Texas at Austin.

NASA's NuSTAR Mission Begins. On Wednesday, 13th June 2012 at 09:12 AM PDT, confirmation of the successful deployment of NuSTAR's solar arrays in space was received. Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) will spend at least two years surveying high-energy X-rays more closely with its spatial and spectral resolution to the previously poorly explored hard X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum. NuSTAR will open a new window on the universe and will provide complementary data to NASA's larger missions, including Fermi, Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer." which detects lower-energy X-rays, will help solve fundamental cosmic mysteries. The expected result is an orbiting observatory that enables astronomers to see the universe in an additional band of light, advancing our understanding. "NuSTAR will help us find the most elusive and most energetic black holes, to help us understand the structure of the universe," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

This blog post is to commemorate on reaching the portal of living in an extraordinary time in this information age from 40 years of search for scientific solution of suppose to be a myth on perceiving bizarre large but random concentric dark spots that sometime appeared on our ceilings, walls and open spaces in our home at the age of 12-13. Local elder folks commented that it could be a gateway to hell but to my dad assumption, it could be somewhat a reflection of a gateway to another world. So far, the viable explanation cannot be found in the old house as it was sold out and rebuilt by the new owners but perhaps the answer to such experience lies beyond the Deep Outer Space; a part of the Infinite Dimensional Set Theory.

Albert Einstein, went on to say that "Knowledge is limited, Imagination encircles the world." Means, that Imagination is more important than Knowledge. Nature has the ability to throw us the biggest surprises, so expect dramatic twists and unexpected turns; many before you have dreamed up mind–blowing theories and crazy concepts. Some of these have prevailed against the tests of time and armies of knowledgeable critics – thus far. Someone, sometime, somewhere, may succeed in completing these unfinished mysteries, or even rewrite the chapters entirely. The book is by no means finished. (Source: CERN)


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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Antimatter


Antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. The branch of physics that deals with the study of the existence and interactions of atomic particles is known as Particle physics and the world largest center for this study is in Switzerland called 'CERN- European Organization for Nuclear Research'. A CERN physicist, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web (www), world's first-ever web site and web server.

Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass, everything you can touch is Matter... including you!. A Particle is a small object that constitutes the structure of matter much larger than atoms and molecules that is sufficient enough to determine its attribute, volume & mass, and it exist in three types, electrons, protons and neutrons. The word Anti-, in thesaurus equivalent meaning is similar to opposing, dead set against, unwilling, defiant, challenging or opposed to.

The Big Bang model was a natural outcome of Einstein's General Relativity as applied to a homogeneous universe. However, in 1917, the idea that the universe was expanding was thought to be absurd. So Einstein invented the cosmological constant as a term in his General Relativity theory that allowed for a static universe. In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced that his observations of galaxies outside our own Milky Way showed that they were systematically moving away from us with a speed that was proportional to their distance from us. (NASA WMAP_Universe.pdf 1.53mb)

The concept of Antimatter begins in 1928 with a British born physicist named Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac with his mathematical wave equation had introduce the Albert Einstein's relativity theory and Schrödinger's quantum theory are not only distinct from each other, but also oppose each other. Physicists had imagined that somewhere behind in the Exotic Objects in Deep Outer Space; there may be an Anti-you, a world that looks just like our own world, a parallel universe made of Antimatter. His theory work when the electron had a clone or mirror image particle, identical to it but with an opposite electric charge called an Antielectron or Positron in the same manner for any existing particle with proton and antiproton, neutron and antineutron.

The Antiproton Decelerator at CERN produces the low energy Antiprotons including the synthesis of Antihydrogen atoms. Antiparticles can be generated by colliding subatomic particles. Antiparticles created in a laboratory have a short life span as they are accelerated to collide into normal particles and annihilate. Matter and antimatter, or particles and antiparticles follows or attracts but when comes close to each other explodes and disappear leaving behind the energy. Albert Einstein's E = mc2 - mass is concentrated energy suggest, that matter can be created with energy and energy can be created with matter.

Antimatter is used in medicine for brain scans but research projects have also investigated the use of Antimatter as Fuel of the Future and space missions.


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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Fuel of the Future


New technologies are being developed for alternative fuels, and not only scientists envisage in supplementing, replacing or eliminating our dependency to fossil fuels (Coal, Crude Oil & Natural Gas) for several reasons. The carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from refining and consumption of fossil fuels causes pollution and adverse damage to our environment. Fossil fuels are not renewable energy sources and have geopolitical influence that become operationally expensive and scarce in supply.

Human Society has an obligation to preserve the environment for future generations but we must augment our increasing energy needs while moving to reduce petroluem dependence. Biofuels derived from Biomass conversion had threaten to push up food prices. Yet, Among the Fuels of the Future are Methanol, Ethanol, Biobutanol, Hydrogen, and Natural Gas. These fuels more particularly hydrogen when completely burn down doesn't produce greenhouse-enhancing carbon dioxide but producing them does have an environmental impact. Bioremediation is any process that uses microorganisms or their enzymes to return the environment altered by contaminants to its original condition.

Nuclear Energy, still an extremely controversial source of fuel of the future, although it has stable long term costs and an effective power generation output compared to the billions tons of greenhouse gases and pollutants from fossil fuel. The three main disadvantages of nuclear power are waste disposal, energy security, and nuclear disasters, which make nuclear energy much less viable. There were several waste disposal propositions have been made but burying underground on isolated mountains is the temporary solution like Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada, USA. There are may be very efficient nuclear energy sources of the future such as frozen Deuterium in laser driven nuclear fusion and Antimatter that are still at the development steps on the road to commercial use.

'Extreme Engineering': Researchers use bacteria to reduce uranium to safe levels published by Stanford University News Service and further tests were conducted at IFRC field sites that show promising results. Geobacter sulfurreducens are comma shaped gram-negative, anaerobic bacteria that are one of the predominant metal-reducing bacteria, discovered in a sample of soil contaminated by hydrocarbons in Norman, Oklahoma. This bacteria can be used to generate electricity when attached to electrodes and it produces nanowires that transfer electrons, the metallic-like wires are key to bioenergy applications of Geobacter, such as the conversion of wastes and biomass to methane and generating electricity from wastes in microbial fuel cells.

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Nuclear Energy



Currently, there are only few types of producing Nuclear Energy, commonly these are through the release process by Nuclear Fission or Nuclear Fusion or Radioactive Decay.

Nuclear Fission is the process where Neutrons is struck into the nucleus of uranium (235U) atoms in a nuclear reactor, which atom splits and releases a chain reaction energy in the form of heat that turns water into steam, which drive turbine to spin a generator and produce electricity. A typical main parts of nuclear reactor has the "core" where the nuclear reactions take place, the fuel rods and assemblies, the control rods, the moderator, and the coolant. Uranium (238U) ore absorbs the neutron into its nucleus and is not a fissile isotope of Uranium, so a technique is used to combine it with flourine called a Gaseous Diffusion to extract an enriched supply of Nuclear fuel. Plutonium is mostly a byproduct of nuclear fission in reactors where some of the neutrons released by the fission process convert uranium-238 nuclei into plutonium.

Nuclear Fusion is the process used by the sun and active stars to produce its energy by which two or more atomic nuclei join together through intense pressure and new single heavier nucleus than the originals is formed. The most common type achievable on earth is the fusion of two hydrogen isotopes of Deuterium (2H) and Tritium (3H), where each nucleus is fused to form an Alpha particle (4He nucleus) and a neutron. This process also sets off a chain reaction, which is difficult to control by man and is not yet commercially used as a means of producing electricity due to the extreme health, safety and environment requirements for continuous reactions and plasma containment. Its primary use is still only in the production of nuclear weapons.

Radioactive decay is the spontaneous and irreversible transformation processes by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing radiation or particles, this can be done by changing the number of protons in the nucleus. The three types of radioactive decay are the Alpha Radiation, Beta Radiation and Gamma radiation. Radioactive Decay is used in Nuclear Power plants where decay created from fission is in used for heat generation during reactor shut down, Age Dating in geology, Radioactive Tracers in imaging systems, Cancer Treatment, Sterilizing, Detectors, and Genetic Studies.

There are may be very efficient nuclear energy sources of the future such as frozen Deuterium in laser driven nuclear fusion and Antimatter that are still at the development steps on the road to commercial use.

We have access to so much bulk information from the internet but it is increasingly misconstrued upon looking beyond files of information that may keep you away from seeing certain points. An experimental social search network has been provided by Microsoft Research Fuse Labs named SOCL and was tested by roysplanner to demonstrate the effect of a fragmented process opinion on an extremely scientific and most controversial energy source such as Nuclear Fission. A network follower had posted corrective comments on the original message which leads the viewers to a deeper correlated fact; that someone may think that the process of Nuclear Fission and Fusion are the same, although they are not.

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