50 billion planets!

I just got this news from the Associated Press, written by Seth Borenstein. According to his article, scientists estimate that there are 50 billion planets in our Galaxy. That is a big number! Of course not all planets are in the habitable zone or the Goldilocks zone. By using the number of planets the Kepler mission discovered so far, 1,235 planets and the number of planets that are in the zone for life, 54, it is estimated that there are 500 million planets in our galaxy that could support life.

So, with that many planets that could support life, how come no one is dropping by to say hello? The simple answer is, a planet to support life is one thing, intelligent life that can conquer space travel is a different question. Yes I am a skeptic when it comes to discover another civilization, but just to discover a planet that could support life would be very exciting. It would be even more exciting if we could detect signs that may indicate that there is possible life, such as vegetation on that planet. The way technology is going, I would not be surprised that scientist will find proof of possible plant life on a distant planet in the next five to ten years.

Not sure if any of the starwatchers here in the NW went out recently, but Friday and Saturday were great evenings to go out and do some start gazing. I got this really great app called Star Walk. This is the best program. It uses the photo lens on my iPod to superimpose the real sky with the app sky. Once the app is oriented with the real sky I can pick any object and the program guides me with arrows to the right spot in the sky. I was just looking at Orion and at Gemini and found the sport where the Eskimo nebula supposedly is. This nebula is not visible with the naked eye, but just knowing where to look is really neat.

Why I want to become a Astronomer

Because there is some really cool stuff out there. Don't get me wrong, I also think there is some really cool stuff to discover here on earth, but finding stuff in the sky is much cooler. Take the following image. A billion year old "Black Widow" Pulsar Ripping Through the Milky Way at 1 million kilometer per hour. How cool to discover this. But it's not only the discovering part. There is also the entire set of questions, the how, why and where is it going. For more on this phenomena go to the Daily Galaxy.
When I read the article I was especially intrigued by the transcriptional: "Yet the Chandra data show that this billion-year-old rejuvenated pulsar is an extremely efficient generator of matter and antimatter particles..." So that's where the Enterprise get's its fuel for the antimatter drive...

Radio Lab

It has been a while since I have done any posting. Not to worry, I have a few ideas... but for now, check this out. This is a real cool radio show. It's called Radio Lab, the station is WNYC. Here is a good show on space:


Stay tuned, more to come...

A Call from the Universe Next-Door

In my last post I talked about the possibility of a Universe next-door. By next door I mean, only about 10 to 35 meters away from the edge of our Universe. In that post it was suggested that the dark matter could be the gravitational pull from the Universe next door. As I kept reading posts in The Daily Galaxy I came across this post: “From the X Files Dept: Mystery Radio Waves Emitted From Nearby Galaxy Still Unsolved”. According to Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics M82 is emitting a radio wave like we have never observed before.

M82 is a nearby Galaxy, only about 12 million light-years away. This galaxy is also referred to as the cigar galaxy and can be found in the constellation of Ursa Major. According to Wikipedia, this Galaxy is 5 times as bright as our galaxy and 100 times brighter than our galaxy center. What we know so far about M82 is that this is an energetic galaxy that is creating a ton of new stars, much more then what our galaxy is creating.
Back to the radio waves. Muxlow states that the radio wave emission is not at all what we are used to see. According to The Daily Galaxy, Muxlow asks the question whether the black hole in the center of M82 is dragging material from one universe into yet another universe? The Daily Galaxy goes on and states, the nested universe concept suggests that a violent short wave gamma burst in a larger universe somehow make an appearance as a long wavelength radio wave in the smaller universe.
Nested universe concept? OK, I know we had a lot to cover in Astronomy 101, but the text book did not mention any thing about the nested universe concept. Even Wikipedia does not have an entry on nested universe. But this could be the link to the parallel universe I talked about in my previous post. This could be our ticket to our universe next door.

Is Stephen Hawking a Cyborg?

No, I don’t think he qualifies as a cyborg. To qualify as a cyborg one has to have mechanical or electronic things implanted into one’s body that enhance someone’s life experience. Using a computer externally does not make someone a cyborg, but installing a USB port on someone’s head facilitating the uploading of information directly into someone’s brain, well that is a cyborg.
How did I get started thinking about cyborg’s? This article in The Daily Galaxy got me thinking. We know, we have to leave this planet in about 3 ½ to 4 billion years. By that time the Sun will be out of fuel, and things will get unfriendly here on Earth. Starting a colony on the Moon or Mars will not help. We will have to look for a new solar system. We also know that there is nothing really close by, so we will have to travel for a while, most likely several generations.
Over the last few years we have learned how inhospitable space really is. Lack of gravity causes all kinds of problems, loss of muscles just to name one. Robots and computers are much better suited for the task in space. Take the advantage of a robot, fuse it to a brain, and the ultimate cyborg is ready for space travel.
In addition to the physical limitation of a human body in space we have this need to dominate and conquer. At the current stage of our evolution I wonder how long we would last on a space ship. Cramming several hundred people into a tin can, travel for several generations… I don’t see it. We can’t live in peace next to each other here on earth why would that change in space? But convert our courageous space travelers to cyborgs by removing the aggressiveness, have the individuals work for the good of the collective, now this would work. Maybe the story line of Star Trek and the Cyborg’s is not so far off. The Cyborg they encountered is just a borg that went bad.
Oh, by the way, if it ever comes to the choice between converting to a cyborg or left behind on Earth, I will stay behind. Losing my individuality… No Thank You!

What is Happening?

I have found something interesting! Oh yea, by the way, I love Twitter! No, I don’t care for the tweets between individuals that tweet about, “OMG this guy just spilled coffee on me”. I love the tweets from news organizations or individuals that tweet short updates on news event with a link to the full article.  This gives me a quick review on what is happening, plus if I find the news item interesting enough I can read the full article. One of the organizations I have been following is The Daily Galaxy. Some of the writing is very interesting! For example: “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened”. This of course is kind of a “cute” thought, sort of leads to the thinking of the Anthropic Principle. “The universe had to create an intelligent live form that is capable to observe it, without an observer, the universe cannot exist.”  Personally, I don’t buy it, but what the heck do I know.
A more interesting article is titled: “Is Gravity from a Parallel Universe Dark Energy?” Now that is way more interesting! The idea is based in string theory, 10 dimensions plus time etc.  Neil Turok of Cambridge University and Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor in Science  and Director of the Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton think that there are 3 dimensional plus time branes (flat looking sheets) that collide every trillion years or so creating the big bang ultimately creating us. According to Turok and Steinhardt, the branes are still very close to each other about 10 to 35 meters apart, so gravity could bleed from one universe to the other creating the mysterious dark matter. Cool! I understand their idea in principal. There is a link to a video that shows that collision between the branes, but somehow I have difficulties to imagine a universe such as ours, about 92 billion light years across, right next to another parallel universe of similar size, only 10 to 35 meters apart. The question comes up, what is the space made off between the universes? But here is the exciting news. As a science fiction writer, this opens up the possibility for some really interesting writing. Think about it, dark matter is here, it’s everywhere, linked to a parallel universe that is only at most 35 meters away from us. All the deja vue, ghosts, un-natural stuff, alien abduction, feelings of I have seen that before, all caused by a universe that is only 35 meters away from us. Very interesting!
For the full article, check out The Daily Galaxy!

Interesting Developments

MSNBC.COM has a nice write up with a bunch of great photos on Jupiter. The title of the article is: Jupiter and the Moon take over the Night. Of course I had to go out and see if that is so, and tonight was just the perfect night to do it. Clear, no clouds, but boy was it cold here at the coast. OK, I did not dress right, but it is summer, it's supposed to be hot, even at night. The article is right, the view is spectacular.

What else is happening in Astronomy? I have read a bunch of interesting news. The Swiss (they are so clever) discovered a bunch of exoplanets. According to the article, the planetary system has some similarities to our own system, including one planet that is only 1.4 times the mass of Earth, and very close to the star. This is it! Time to pack your bag and explore a new planet. Travel time is only 127 years assuming we can travel at the speed of light. At a more conventional speed it will take a bit longer… Check out the article, it features an interesting video.

There was another interesting news article, this time published by the BBC, "Supercomputer clue to black holes". What grabbed my attention in this article was the speculation that gas with a mass of millions of Suns could accumulate and collapse directly into a black hole, without forming a star first. Now that is some interesting stuff. This idea certainly challenges the conventional thinking of how the super massive black holes have formed in the center of the Galaxies. 

This is so great, just when we thought we understood something, some new theory comes along and challenges everything. Let's see how long this latest idea about the forming of the massive black holes in the center of the galaxies will survive.