With the advent of technology, space in projection, prediction, and analysis have all been taken to new levels of understanding. Black holes, particularly in their ability to remain hidden from any sort of visual nature, rendering most of our optics study useless, have benefited most from this when we could measure in other ways, using technology, to locate and find them.

With relativity and gravity at our disposal, it has been found that these black holes, when absorbing stars, tear these stars apart by gravity when they reach the event horizon, which sends out light that would otherwise not be seen, as black holes do not emit any light. Further, with stronger telescopes of different varieties and new techniques to study space, galaxies that showcase interactions with black holes often have a burst of activity where these galaxies were previously thought inactive. On top of this, with the recent studying being done on these black holes and their locations due to interactions they have with gas and stars, enough data has been collected that scientists have taken to projecting when stars and material would interact with such space, which ties back to the idea that black hole collision is also possible and could be projected between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Overall, both of these developments chart growth in the field, but very difficult one. Tidal collision is extremely rare, sometimes occurring only once in 10,000 years, depending on where we study the collision occurring. However, with the fusion of the data collected over time and the new projection ability of supercomputers with the combined knowledge of the data for prediction of these collisions, astrophysicists are hoping to see upwards of hundreds a year.

Understanding and seeing such collisions would deepen our understanding of black holes and of galactic physics to new reaches and standards. Science is, after all, in the business of raising more and more questions with the more we learn.

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140414150848.htm

Generally, when astronomers and astronauts and all various sorts of scientists who are looking for habitable living spaces, we look for those that imitate Earth in some meaningful way. We want potential living candidates to have comparable revolution periods, temperatures, day length, and overall be as comfortable as our current living conditions.

According to physicists at the University of Texas at Arlington, F-type stars may “indeed be a good place to look for habitable planets.” This comment in itself strikes an alarm bell due to its unusual nature, as F-type stars tend to be in the middle of the stellar scale, and are more massive and hot than the Sun, certainly not a livable habitat. On top of these already non-bearable for human characteristics, F-type stars also emit much more ultraviolet radiation, which could also sustain life heavily.

All in all, the researchers decided to take this bold stance on the issue due to the overall lack of knowledge on the issue, which leads us unable to fight back without doing extensive research to the topic which could simultaneously benefit or hurt either side. What is also postulated is that due to the lack of knowledge on the issue, that there is a much wider habitality range in F-type stars as opposed to other stars or planets. It is always interesting to take a stance that suggests that we look not for answers, but to find more knowledge, which leads us to more questions and yet to more to study, with more depth and more fervor. It would be interesting to hope this is the case because if so, we may find more habitats in our world, on other campuses, and in space. This would open up infinitely more moral questions as to who deserves to live in space, as well as the inherent race separation that would arise from living or separating off into distinct groups in space. However, this is the case with any real technological developments, and dreaming that we are ever free from moral decisions is an illusion at best.

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140325133544.htm

White dwarves come about when Sun-like stars run out of fuel to keep their own thermal energy maintained, collapsing and allowing for a star that has immensely large density, as it retains Sun-like masses for radii that are similar to the Earth’s. In theory, this is fairly simple to understand and process as a means to follow the evolution of certain stars. In stars, however, the fusion processes that allow energy to be generated and exist generally involve relatively few elements worth noting, generally simply hydrogen and helium. White dwarves, even if they were hot, for some reason, even if classified as pure hydrogen or helium, had always been contaminated with other elements that have drawn scientists crazy in an attempt to understand how.

Now, it has been speculated and seen that such elements are the result of planetary debris, the contamination of planetary systems that leave behind rocky material that form such diverse element groups within white dwarves that would normally never include such elements. Using the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer telescope, researchers could discern the spectra and thus determine which elements remained inside these white dwarves. What is fascinating about these means of contamination that allow for this diversity in elements remained a mystery because there was no consistency as to how certain elements ended up on these white dwarves, leading to vast differences in the abundance of specific elements. These stars bear a stark similarity to rocky material in general, as stars or interstellar gases generally lack these compositions.

As the researchers end the same discoveries, we can only assume that this means good progress and good discoveries are on their ways in a world where we have spent almost 20 years discovering this, this leads us to be able to project future white dwarves and their behavior. One particularly scary example I’ll leave you with for the future is the Sun. When the Sun becomes a white dwarf, its fate will be “ending up as merely contamination within the white dwarf remnant of our Sun.”

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326092240.htm

In the way we examine space, we have spent an enormous amount of time in this class focusing on stars of all varieties and their properties. The varieties in such stars include white dwarves, supergiants, neutron stars, among many others in the list of stellar evolution and in general existence. Rarely, if ever, do we find combinations of stars that result in stars that share multiple properties or reflect different varieties of star within one.

Recent astrophysicists have found that a very real phenomena exists where these stars may be able to be pinpointed as a star on the stellar map, particularly one known as the “Thorne-Zytkow object,” which shares the properties of a red supergiant star and a superdense neutron star. While these have been theorized in 1975 and many stars from then on have been speculated as having existed by observation, in January, the strongest example of one has shown up by an astronomer in Boulder. These stars are fascinating in that they are a result of a collision between these two stars, to the point where the fusion process inside of the red supergiant is interrupted due to the neutron star being “eaten” and settling inside the core of the supergiant, which would also result in a very specific chemical composition due to the massive shift in fusion processes that would result in not only a combination of the elements inside both the red supergiant and the neutron star, but also the new processes that exist to generate energy in this new creation. In this one in particular, there is a high existence of lithium, rubidium, and molybdenum.

What’s left to question after this existence has been theorized is naturally the collision and creation of other hybrid stars that would vastly alter the chemical processes and compositions of stars, as well as the way their generate energy and how such stars would form – questions for us to postulate and for scientists to attempt to solve.

Source:

http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/has-the-weirdest-star-in-the-universe-been-discovered-140107.htm

Black holes by very definition and by their very conception by Einstein are defined heavily by their infinitely dense, no volume, singularities that lies in their centers that creates many mass-based gravitational effects on anything around them and anything that dare cross their paths. Such a prominent effect even has a large section of description in the book about what precisely an indestructible astronaut would feel like being put through it and the insane effects this produces on all matter around the singularity.

However, a combination of scientists from University of the Republic in Uruguay and LSU have found that applying the effects of loop quantum gravity, a form of gravity we as students know little to nothing about, but many in the field know extensively about, can result in a conception of a black hole that does not result in these chilling, stretching, annihilating effects, but rather result in a black hole that would lead through to another location in the universe, another location in space (very much wormhole-like). Why is it that we question this construction now? As many of the scientists working to resolve this problem have noted, black holes have always been shrouded in mystery, and a particularly telling component results in the singularity occurring and the immediate breakdown of physics, as we just assume that whatever passes through the black hole is utterly annihilated, spaghettified, and equations stop mattering, in a sense.

This relates heavily back to cosmology as the Big Bang is thought to have started with a singularity, and helps identify its loop quantum gravity’s own methodology to define how these functions work. Gravity would still be strong and strengthen as you approached the center of the black hole, but would eventually lead to a spacetime jump, the stuff of science fiction and legend. The more we learn about physics, the more everyone hopes a little to find a little bit of the future in the knowledge.

Sources:

http://scitechdaily.com/study-takes-singularity-out-of-black-holes/

Grand Unified Theory, the idea that all forces can somehow relate to one another and influence one another to the point where we have one set solid explanation of the world and its forms and forces, naturally starts in cosmology, where gravity tends to resist all developments in the area. Gravity itself is a tricky force, generally classified as a “weak” force but having immense effects, depending on mass, to even light, as we learned recently.

However, the gravitational constant that Newton discovered that fundamentally became set in stone as the way to measure gravity and its strength, has previously been thought to have adjusted over time to adjust for the different forces that allowed for the Big Bang to form the universe and for all different varieties of gravity affecting the formation of the universe. Australian astronomers recently, compiling data from 580 different observable supernovae seen and recorded have come to the conclusion that the gravitational constant has been constant in the last 9 billion years! This affects the critical mass at which supernovae form to begin with, as well as altering how we perceive of the past universe – with the former idea of a changing gravitational constant, we could have assumed that the Earth had a larger semimajor axis and experienced different, longer seasons, for example, not as a result of the atmosphere but as a result of distance, or that the universe had formed in different ways that allowed adjusting to happen over time, not simply as a result of what we can already project backwards.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this means that as much as we try to deny Newton and his prowess in many different fields at one, it’s still hard to best someone from the 1600-1700s with modern day technology that gives us a deeper glimpse and further depth of truth into what we search for.

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140324230254.htm

When I searched for astrophysics news, I was pleasantly surprised to find one about galaxy interaction. Galaxy interaction as a topic is rarely discussed enough, even when it occurs on a daily basis and will likely happen to our own galaxy, given enough time. Recently, the picture above clearly highlighted two galaxies that are nearing collision and their vastly different histories. These two galaxies, NGC 1316 and NGC 1317 , although neighbors, have done dramatically differing amounts in getting to where they are.

NGC 1316, as seen in the picture, has pretty clear residue and aftermath of more outer layers of its galaxy that are not condensed and highly orbiting, rather, just residually following. To follow the article, this is indicative of galaxy collision, or “galaxy serial killer,” as a result of the clear larger amount of stars and the dust lanes that fill the space between the clusters of stars. The imagery used by the article is that this galaxy “swallowed” this other galaxy to create its current form.

What interested me about this topic to begin with is a fairly popular gif image created that illustrates the impending collision between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies, believed to look like the image below.

While is image is stunningly beautiful and appears to create a new sort of star or black hole, the idea that stars will collide is unlikely at best due to the raw space between stars in both galaxies. Using the Hubble Space Telescope data, researchers found that this collision of galaxies is inevitable for the foreseeable future, and that the collision of black holes would lead to a new one due to the nature of supermassive black holes, but this process itself, on top of the billion years we have before the collision, could take millions longer. The collision is again enjoyable to think about as a thought, due to its implications and the future thought required to imagine if there would even be life on earth to observe what would happen during that time.

Sources:

Carroll, Ostlie. An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140402095846.htm

Reading about cosmology, I am immediately drawn into the big questions it attempts to answer about from the very start of the universe, how it was created, and ultimately, how matter and life exists at all. After all, what we learn in a variety of subjects always has pertinence, but I was infinitely more curious to the creation, to how we live and how nature conspired to allow our own conception and the universe’s creation.

What is fascinating news about the topic of cosmology that Carroll and Ostile have written about is the fundamental difference between how what many of us were taught as children was a hotly debated topic as to the cosmological creation of the universe. With the study of the cosmic microwave background and its proven existence by blackbody radiation and microwaves existent in the atmosphere, the theory of a steady-state universe was proven false. The steady-state universe theory really drew me due to its idealization of the universe as constant and never-changing, never created and with no beginning or time with the tying of time to the infinite scale, and more due to the fact that it seems like a foreign theory. As children, we were never taught about the steady-state universe and were immediately drawn towards the Big Bang, which is now the standard theory of choice, but it is interesting to look into alternate theories.

Cosmic microwave background

The cosmic microwave background shown here is something that is common practice when describing the start of the universe. However, its fascinating nature and description only continues to be exacerbated when one considers the fact that this energy released from the Big Bang was expected to have nuclear reactions, and with the light elements in the universe, that Big Bang nucleosynthesis occurred to ensure that reactions continued occurring to create the universe from the very dense point of spacetime. Further, this picture is also shown to see what we from Earth can see as the last traces of scattering from the photons that were not scattered by free electrons, leading to an expansion and also revealing what areas are more energy dense.

It is absolutely baffling to consider how much work goes into the consideration and theories that shape our conceptions of the modern world and of the science-fiction world in which we have curved spacetime, meaning relativistic cosmology and creation, as well as traveling towards these sources to see what they mean. However, when one considers it, this is the fundamental question that behooves us all as people to understand, to see and discover more about our own creation.

The applications of physics generally do not interest me in terms of engineering or practicality. They function well and are definitely necessary and provide infinite cool feats that show what the human mind, with the aid of some technology, can accomplish; however, these ultimately are not something I find worth reading about, thinking about, or really delving into. The world of application in terms of space and the more abstract features, such as time travel, quantum mechanics, and space travel all interest me greatly, though.

Particularly, if we look at time travel, the ideas that science fiction provide give us a fairly inaccurate picture about how the world works and are a fascination as to how we want it to work – science becomes something we can control for our own benefit, or as in many time travel movies, for ill-guided ideas that inevitably lead to our own destruction. Time travel in particular, as it’s described with wormholes and the bending of the time-space continuum, provide infinite layers of fascination at something that could be possible but manages to elude us in our approach to light speed. Many physicists have exclaimed and discussed its theoretical possibility, particularly into the future as we approach light speed that time begins to slow down, but in terms of development of the energy sources required for approaching this speed and ensuring some sort of safety, time scales estimate even 6 years just to approach the speed, with no specified energy source nor money source.

This summer, I attended a conference called Icarus Interstellar Conference mostly focused on interstellar travel, with many discussions and panels on the theoretical possibility of not just short-range interstellar flights, but long-term flights as well as flights that allowed for such forward motion by utilizing planetary gravity, black hole gravity, and a variety of sources to generate the gravitational force and relativity speed necessary to allow us to jump forward in time. Most often, it seems that for the time being, this is the more plausible ability that we have rather than the ability to travel backwards in time through wormholes, which changes the plausibility for scenarios where we can change history, but is inspiring to the idea that we may be able to accelerate towards the future with life being entirely different from how we left it. Wormholes also have never been observed, with modifies the perspective of the possibility of time travel backwards, and many scientists seem to reject it on principle.

The possibility of these ideas pose much interest, and, as the first article in the article so eloquently puts, “for many scientists, it is the principle that counts, not the practical engineering.” So ultimately, it rests in the known possibility to travel to the future and the ramifications of what it means and how it affects us as a human, global civilization as well as individuals. The question does remain to be asked about the possibility towards going backwards in time, but for the time being, I think there are enough discussions and thoughts to have to the current state of forward travel that will keep us questioning further and further.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/opinion/opinion-time-travel-paul-davies/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/time-travel-possible-physicist-machine-future-only_n_3921944.html

What is interesting about this picture is that this is the artist’s rendition of what the artist believes Sedna looks like (1). Recently, another small world like Sedna was found to have similar properties, known only as VP 2113. Sedna reaches an interesting part of discussion because although it is not the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, a region of area outside of Neptune’s orbit from 30-50 AU, it easily has the largest period, reaching 12,300 years (2). What is fascinating about the new discovery of VP 2113 is that it similarly is a large body that is left relatively unexplained by many theories and structures of the solar system (1).

While Sedna was found in 2003, it was identified as a trans-Neptunian object, objects outside of Neptune’s own orbit. However, most bodies tended to fit within the Kuiper Belt, a belt defined outside of Neptune’s semimajor axis as being between 30-50 AU and thus defining a moment. However, Sedna defied many of the similarities in the area, and does not match much data with its other Kuiper Belt Objects, many of which have shorter periods, semimajor axes, and eccentricities (2). Now, with the discovery of VP 2113, a neighbor and another trans-Neptunian object, another match is found to relate its data and study further what these bodies should be classified as. Sedna itself has an orbit reaching to 76 AU and reaching out to 1000 AU, unheard of in comparison to the Kuiper belt, and similarly, VP 2113 reaches from 80 AU to 452 AU, with a smaller maximum range but still at a very significantly large semimajor axis. This discovery has led to others questioning these objects and speculating at their further existence, as one astronomer Megan Schwamb wrote that, “something else earlier on in the history of the solar system had to put them on these orbits.” (1)

What this discovery and many like it always reveal is the fascinating nature of science – as we learn more and discover more, there only becomes more to discover, question, and study. I’m excited to find a career or a life where I can always be making more discoveries and realizations and always be ever more curious to search for more.

Sources:

Klotz, Irene – http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/small-world-discovered-beyond-pluto-140326.htm

Carroll, Ostlie – Introduction to Modern Astrophysics