I agree. Most people take for granted the concept of "due process", which even most tyrannical regimes recognize as an important ritual while staging mock trials of political prisioners.
In Guantanamo, there is not even the semblance of "due process". The individuals imprisioned there are not even guilty until proven innocent.
The same applies to 'suspects' outsourced by the Bush administration to prisons in countries like Syria and Egypt. They are not officially detained, they are faceless and nameless. They are 'ghost prisioners'.
For a tiny glimpse of what happens to these people, see Abu Ghraib. No doubt they are not treated as kindly in the dungeons of Damascus and Cairo.
As for the Geneva Convention, Attorney General Gonzalez referred to it as a 'quaint document'. Law as we know it has been thrown out with the bathwater, and this should send chills up and down the spine of every sentient being on the face of the planet.
There is a LOT of noise and precious little facts in the controversy surrounding so-called "gay marriages". The subject is being approached from the wrong angle, a fundamentalist christian angle. Which is just what a Jerry Fallwell, a Pat Roberston or a Jimmy Swaggart want you to do, both as an attacker or defendant of the concept.
The fact that should always be kept in mind is what a few states are actually granting homosexual couples: the status of CIVIL UNION.
Civil Union is NOT a marriage in the full sense of the law, has nothing to do with the church, but it does grant some of the legal rights that married couples enjoy, such as hospital visitation rights, taxation, inheritance rights, social security, etc.
I personally believe that all couples, be they hetero or gay, married or unmarried, should have legal rights. The separation of church and state is there to, among other reasons, have the law protect all citizens from religious dogma, no matter what religion it may be.
When law and religion merge, folks, we are in deep doo-doo, backtracking our way to the good-old, glory days of middle ages. Just ask the people who lived under the Taliban.
Thankfully, on our way back to the past, we have a Thomas Jefferson to reckon with, standing there like a giant, guarding the threshold he helped us cross once.
Let's jettison the word "marriage", copy-paste "civil union", so that public discussion on the subject can come back on track. You will find that the argument becomes clearer that way.
Let's say a black hole has sucked all the matter it will ever suck, and all it does now is slowly evaporate. After aeons, this black hole will go back to having a mass BELOW the 3 Solar Masses.
What are the theoretical scenarios for such a moment?
Like you say, maybe black holes pass below the Chandrasekar Limit without ado and keep on evaporating until they vanish into a mist of elementary particles.
Then again, maybe gravity ceases to be able to sustain the singularity, and out it instantly pops in an event even more catastrophic than the original collapse itself. A singularity in reverse! A Big Bang?
Anyway, thanks to all of you for clearing up my misconception about the Chandrasekar Limit.
Hold your horses there, cowboy. There are thousands of papers that agree with the theory that black holes exist. A single four-page paper stipulating the opposite does NOT change anything. Not yet, anyway, not by a long shot.
Furthermore, I am glad that papers like this one come out from time to time, as they promote healthy discussion and thinking outside of the box.
Science as a system is a bit like the game "king of the hill", and there lies the beauty of it. Intense scrutiny and assault ensures science continues heading in a truthfull direction. And yes, instances of certainty come few and far between.
For any paper to be published in any respected science journal, there is a peer review, composed of the most knowledgeable people in the field, ruthless in their dissection of the proposed paper. If it passed this test of fire, it is published. Then it is dissected again, only this time by the scientific community at large.
So, science is a process. When you study any science, you are not really learning about how things are and how they work, instead you are learning about man's quest for knowledge, and that is as grand an epic as they come.
The concept of the black hole came from a german physicist, Karl Schwarzschild, while stationed in the russian front during World War I. What he did was take the physics of Einstein's gravitational theory to a logical (although quite abstract) conclusion.
In 1929, the hindu astrophysicist Subramanyan Chandrasekar figured out the amount of mass that dooms a star to eventually collapse into a black hole; known as the Chandrasekar limit, it is 1.4 times the mass of our sun.
The first detected candidate for black hole status (in the early seventies, I believe) is a massive x-ray source named Cygnus X-1, and coincides with the known position of a binary star system in the constellation (surprise) Cygnus.
However, as to the origin of the term "black hole", I do not know.
The way I understand it, the theoretical principle of Dark Energy is as simple as "Nature abhorrs a vacuum".
As galaxies speed away from each other, the space between them becomes emptier and emptier, until in some spots perfect vacuums appear. It is here that energy is spontaneously created from nothing, filling the empty space and pushing outwards the space around it.
Quite a concept, any way you care to look at it. Here are two takes on it: 1. Space has the capability of producing energy, therefore matter, from nothing, by itself. So what is matter, really? 2. A perfect vacuum creates a sort of "portal", and energy is transferred from "elsewhere". What would this "elsewhere" be?
As times goes by, galaxies drift further apart, more and more vacuums are created, more matter bursts forth...what's the scenario for the future of the universe under these conditions?
Here's a bit more about the nature of Dark Matter, what theory thinks it is in a more specific manner. However, we must explain what "Normal" Matter is.
"Normal" Matter is matter that is influenced by the four forces of the universe. The first three are at the atomic and sub-atomic level, the fourth one is on the Relativistic Scale:
1. The Strong Force, keeping the atomic nucleus together, even as it is composed of neutral and positively charged particles. 2. The Weak Force, which makes the orbits of electrons decay over time. We know it also as Radiation. 3. The Electromagnetic Force, which creates attraction between atoms, creating molecules. 4. The Gravitational Force, which creates an attraction between masses.
Dark Matter of the WIMP variety (Weak Interactive Massive Particles) is UNAFFECTED by the first three forces. It is like a mist that congeals under gravity, but is never more than "ghostly", and since it cannot bond at the atomic and subatomic level, it is undetectable except by the gravity it creates.
Dark Matter of the MACHO variety (Massive Compact Halo Objects) consists of would-be stars that never made it, or stray planets and planetoids roaming around the galaxy.
Therefore, we call it Dark Matter because we haven't been able to detect it, but we can perceive the gravitational effect it has, everywhere we look. And I mean everywhere, since the figures say that between 90% and 98% of the universe consists of Dark Matter.
While it is a generally accepted law that nothing WITHIN space can travel faster than light, this law may not apply to SPACE ITSELF, which could inflate at superluminous speeds if the correct conditions are present.
I know this sounds bizarre, and I'm no expert on the subject, but I'll try to give a simple example that even I can understand:
Let's say space is like a balloon. Matter are the molecules within that balloon. The matter within may not move faster than light by its' own means. But the balloon may inflate faster than light, and the matter within goes along for the ride. At the end of inflation, the matter has kept its' same relative position in space.
The correct condition for inflation to happen is known as supercooling. Here is an example that Alan Guth used to describe it: water that's below 32 degrees farenheit but retains its' liquid state. However, just gently tap the plastic mold and the water will abruptly crystalize into ice before your very eyes. Supercooled water.
Another example would be a beer in the freezer that's liquid, but turns to ice from the top down when you open the lid. Supercooled beer.
Accordingly, the universe would have to inflate at a certain speed (much faster than light) to re-attain its' appropriate state under specific conditions.
According to Alan Guth, most of the universe's matter cancelled itself out instants after the Big Bang, due to matter-antimatter collitions. In a super-excited state, the universe found itself almost empty, and had to readjust by inflation and a spontaneous burst of creation of matter. In fact, Guth said that with 28 pounds of matter under the right conditions, a universe just as massive as ours could be created. This is why Guth said that our universe could be the ultimate "free lunch".
I agree that subtitling should be the only way to present the work of a foreign film director.
However, getting comfortable with watching a subtitled movie takes a bit of getting used to.
Growing up in northern Mexico, a short drive from the US border, I watched (and listened to) all movies withous subs. Then I moved for 8 years to Guadalajara, where all american movies are presented in english, with spanish subs. For months of moviegoing, my eyes kept getting pulled to the letters flashing on the bottom of the screen, distracting me from BOTH the visuals AND the audio. It was disorienting, and the funny thing is that nobody in Guadalajara understood what I was talking about, as they had been living with subtitles since the dawn of time.
Eventually, my mind adapted, and this (acquired) ability pays off in droves when I watch any foreign film now. I can take in and enjoy the acting in whatever language, while keeping a firm grip on the plot and visuals.
However, back in my hometown, a LOT (not all) of my friends were unable to fully enjoy, for example, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" when I took them to see it. They became distracted, just like I would have been years before.
I wish my friends would make the effort, but I can understand perfectly where they are coming from.
In a nutshell: learning to watch subtitled films without undue effort, in the US, is like learning to drive stick-shift, even as you already have a car with automatic transmission. Most people would say "Why bother with the effort?".
Supposedly the explosion took place very close to a weapons factory.
I'm just speculating, Tom Clancy style, about a joint American-Japanese-South Korean sortie, you know, James Bond-ish sort of thing. And on Kim Jong Il's grand celebration, to boot. Now THAT would be quite an embarassment to the Illuminated Leader.
Then, the well trained western media calls it something ludicrous, like a forest fire, a classic techno-thriller wrapup.
Now that I've read the end of the book, I'd like to go back and read a bit of character development, the romantic interest, etc.:-)
Actually, the James Webb Telescope is scheduled to be launched in 2011, not 2009. But the key concept here is "scheduled".
1. It won't happen any sooner. 2. It may happen later. 3. If at all. What if Congress tries to adjust the budget again between now and then? What if (bite my tongue) there's a glitch?
Believe me, I want that new telescope up there. I'm just trying to take into account the haphazard world of politics and NASA.
I don't think, in this particular case, that's it's necessary to sacrifice what already is for something that will eventually be, and if all goes according to plan, at that.
I agree. Hubble has been able to take a licking and keep on ticking in superb fashion. Hubble is tried and true, so why scrap that old, faithful VW Beetle?
Now for those that say that Earth-based telescopes (EBTs) can now do an equal job, I don't believe that for a minute. No two ways about it, once light hits the athmosphere, it is scattered and some of it is irrevocably lost.
Here's another aspect that makes Hubble superior to EBTs: Hubble will never have a cloudy night.
Hubble is perfect for working in tandem with EBTs. I'm thinking the Deep Field Proyect: Hubble gets the clear image, finds an intriguing gap, and Hawaii's Keck is called into action to zoom in as deep as it can on those coordinates. And then, voilá, the most distant object ever pictured makes itself apparent. The people operating Keck would not have known where to point if it wasn't for Hubble. This is just one example of how Hubble keeps astronomers thinking outside of the box.
Also, any more servicing missions that Hubble gets from the Space Shuttle will only increase the know-how for future maintenance missions, as there is NOTHING that can replace on-the-job experience.
For many reasons, including pretty pictures, I believe the only thing that could possibly replace Hubble is another Space Telescope, and that's not in the near horizon, so let's keep Hubble, what do you say?
Okay. At face value, it may seem the same, but I make a distinction between "earth" wind and "space" wind, because there are a few key differences.
Earth wind: 1. Is mainly composed of molecules. 2. Is fairly dense and travels through air, athmosphere. 3. Is caused by shifting and clashing air masses of varying temperature, which in turn is caused by a planet's rotation.
Space wind: 1. Is mainly composed of charged subatomic particles. 2. Is extremely diffuse and travels through a near-perfect vacuum. 3. Is caused by a star either ejecting mass or downright exploding.
There's another difference I was cooking up, but the phone rang and I lost my train of thought. But you get the general idea.
Hmmm. Interesting hypothesis on the second paragraph, but there are some crucial facts to consider. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:
A strike with a huge asteroid did not happen, because we would be able to see the scar of the impact, especially on the surface of a planet that is geologically dead. Mars has no processes to erase a feature of this magnitude.
Furthermore, the Earth was also impacted, very early in its' existence, by a gigantic mass, planet-sized in fact, that ripped the Moon out of what is now a huge hole we now call the Pacific Ocean. And yet, here we are.
So no, my guess is that Mars did not lose its' athmosphere and water via one single, devastating impact.
Hell, yeah! I believe that Voyager is doing its' most important work RIGHT NOW. After the Neptune flyby, the planetary science teams packed up and left, and a new crew of solar and interstellar scientists took over the lab, to remain there until Voyager's batteries run out, in the year 2020.
As we speak, Voyager 1 is more than twice the distance from the Sun to Neptune, maybe even three times as much. Voyager 2 is lagging behind a bit. Whatever the exact distance, the Voyager Twins are alive, well, and broadcasting from the very edge of the Solar System.
First, a bit of definition: a Solar or Interstellar Wind is not really wind, but particles travelling through space at great speeds. Our own Solar Winds zoom away from the Sun at about a million mph; it is poetically referred to as a Supersonic wind.
Solar winds race outward like an expanding bubble. Interstellar winds bombard us from all directions. There is a high-turbulence zone where these winds clash head-on; very little penetrates either in or out. This zone is called the Heliopause, where Solar Winds slow down from Supersonic to a hundred thousand mph. During a Solar Maximum, when our winds push the hardest, the Heliopause expands in area. Conversely, during a Solar Minimum, the Heliopause deflates.
On August 1, 2002, Voyager 1 measured Solar Winds at a hundred thousand mph! However, eight months later, the winds went back up to Supersonic, and have remained that way. Voyager 2, lagging behind, has detected no change at any point in time.
What does this mean? Well, Voyager 1 left the direct influence of the Sun, then some months later the bubble expanded, and Voyager 1 is back under the influence.
This has been a source of controversy, since way too few interstellar particles were detected, according to what current theorists expected. But then again, we ARE in uncharted territory, aren't we?
Here's another likely culprit for the lack of a magnetic field/shield: Earth has a HUGE satellite, the Moon, whereas Mars has two tiny, potato-shaped asteroidlets, Phobos and Deimos.
It is the interaction between Earth and Moon that creates the magnetic shield we have.
First off, we have tidal interaction, which gives Earth nice strong tugs, maintaining a molten state underneath us, thereby creating/enhancing a magnetic field. As to why the Moon is not molten inside, its' origins and composition will have something to do with it.
Secondly, the interplay between two large celestial bodies (Earth-Moon is technically a double planet, as is Pluto-Charon) expands and supercharges a magnetic field way beyond what it would be if a celestial body was alone. I read somewhere, sometime, that Earth-Moon has a magnetic field a hundred times stronger than it would be if Earth was a lone sphere.
Straightforward enough: no Moon, no shielding for Earth, for various reasons. Jupiter's moon Europa is cozily nestled inside its' host planet Jupiter, as well as Titan in Saturn; this is what another reason that makes them the most plausible life-sustaining places in our Solar System (other than Earth, of course).
I ignore the situation on Mercury and Venus, but whatever it is, solar winds and radiation, at those short distances, might cut through anything like Kevlar-busting bullets. On Mars, it will be like a regular bullet cutting through paper.
"Rights do not exist in nature, and nature has only one rule: survival of the fittest".
I believe that this statement is true, until the emergence of consciousness (enlightement), Homo Sapiens Sapiens, throws a screwball into the strike zone of conventional wisdom.
William Blake said something to this effect: "You cannot go against nature, for if you do, it is part of nature too".
We can finally feel an inkling that something that "has always been" may be wrong. Furthermore, we can CHOOSE.
Could this inkling be a beacon towards the next level, whatever it may be? Consciousness, civilization, wisdom, take your pick (or pick all of them and more).
The "Survival of the fittest" dogma has been of utmost necessity for billions of years, but may already be obsolete in terms of true human necessity.
"Survival of the fittest" may be a barrier in human growth, as well as an excuse, in the worst place at the worst time, for all kinds of needless (and eventually self-destructive) atrocities.
Oh yeah? Well how about:
The Game Players Of Titan!
Philip K. Dick
No, seriously, anything Vonnegut has ever written remains relevant today, for, after all, Vonnegut is a humanist.
Humanists are a commodity we never seem to have enough of.
It's about microbe contamination. Huygens was put together under the most antiseptic conditions possible, but no method is foolproof, and anyway, Cassini-Huygens came in contact with our dirty athmosphere between the lab and the launching pad. Who knows what type of microbes are piggybacking on it.
Remember "The Andromeda Strain?"
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. Most people take for granted the concept of "due process", which even most tyrannical regimes recognize as an important ritual while staging mock trials of political prisioners.
In Guantanamo, there is not even the semblance of "due process". The individuals imprisioned there are not even guilty until proven innocent.
The same applies to 'suspects' outsourced by the Bush administration to prisons in countries like Syria and Egypt. They are not officially detained, they are faceless and nameless. They are 'ghost prisioners'.
For a tiny glimpse of what happens to these people, see Abu Ghraib. No doubt they are not treated as kindly in the dungeons of Damascus and Cairo.
As for the Geneva Convention, Attorney General Gonzalez referred to it as a 'quaint document'. Law as we know it has been thrown out with the bathwater, and this should send chills up and down the spine of every sentient being on the face of the planet.
Wait a minute, people.
There is a LOT of noise and precious little facts in the controversy surrounding so-called "gay marriages". The subject is being approached from the wrong angle, a fundamentalist christian angle. Which is just what a Jerry Fallwell, a Pat Roberston or a Jimmy Swaggart want you to do, both as an attacker or defendant of the concept.
The fact that should always be kept in mind is what a few states are actually granting homosexual couples: the status of CIVIL UNION.
Civil Union is NOT a marriage in the full sense of the law, has nothing to do with the church, but it does grant some of the legal rights that married couples enjoy, such as hospital visitation rights, taxation, inheritance rights, social security, etc.
I personally believe that all couples, be they hetero or gay, married or unmarried, should have legal rights. The separation of church and state is there to, among other reasons, have the law protect all citizens from religious dogma, no matter what religion it may be.
When law and religion merge, folks, we are in deep doo-doo, backtracking our way to the good-old, glory days of middle ages. Just ask the people who lived under the Taliban.
Thankfully, on our way back to the past, we have a Thomas Jefferson to reckon with, standing there like a giant, guarding the threshold he helped us cross once.
Let's jettison the word "marriage", copy-paste "civil union", so that public discussion on the subject can come back on track. You will find that the argument becomes clearer that way.
They tried this up in Fermilab, but they did it within an Einstein-Bose Condensation Field, so catastrophe was averted.
They also tried an experiment in which a group of scientists put instant coffee in the microwave, and were never seen again.
You bring up a fascinating point, check this out:
Let's say a black hole has sucked all the matter it will ever suck, and all it does now is slowly evaporate. After aeons, this black hole will go back to having a mass BELOW the 3 Solar Masses.
What are the theoretical scenarios for such a moment?
Like you say, maybe black holes pass below the Chandrasekar Limit without ado and keep on evaporating until they vanish into a mist of elementary particles.
Then again, maybe gravity ceases to be able to sustain the singularity, and out it instantly pops in an event even more catastrophic than the original collapse itself.
A singularity in reverse! A Big Bang?
Anyway, thanks to all of you for clearing up my misconception about the Chandrasekar Limit.
Hold your horses there, cowboy. There are thousands of papers that agree with the theory that black holes exist. A single four-page paper stipulating the opposite does NOT change anything. Not yet, anyway, not by a long shot.
Furthermore, I am glad that papers like this one come out from time to time, as they promote healthy discussion and thinking outside of the box.
Science as a system is a bit like the game "king of the hill", and there lies the beauty of it. Intense scrutiny and assault ensures science continues heading in a truthfull direction. And yes, instances of certainty come few and far between.
For any paper to be published in any respected science journal, there is a peer review, composed of the most knowledgeable people in the field, ruthless in their dissection of the proposed paper. If it passed this test of fire, it is published. Then it is dissected again, only this time by the scientific community at large.
So, science is a process. When you study any science, you are not really learning about how things are and how they work, instead you are learning about man's quest for knowledge, and that is as grand an epic as they come.
Strange, I thought "yacht" was pronounced "throat warbling mangrove". Hang on a minute, that was "Raymond Luxury Yacht".
The wager of the bet that Hawking lost, by the way, was a one-year suscription the Penthouse magazine.
The concept of the black hole came from a german physicist, Karl Schwarzschild, while stationed in the russian front during World War I. What he did was take the physics of Einstein's gravitational theory to a logical (although quite abstract) conclusion.
In 1929, the hindu astrophysicist Subramanyan Chandrasekar figured out the amount of mass that dooms a star to eventually collapse into a black hole; known as the Chandrasekar limit, it is 1.4 times the mass of our sun.
The first detected candidate for black hole status (in the early seventies, I believe) is a massive x-ray source named Cygnus X-1, and coincides with the known position of a binary star system in the constellation (surprise) Cygnus.
However, as to the origin of the term "black hole", I do not know.
Or natural gas, which burns with significantly lower ecological impact than oil.
The way I understand it, the theoretical principle of Dark Energy is as simple as "Nature abhorrs a vacuum".
As galaxies speed away from each other, the space between them becomes emptier and emptier, until in some spots perfect vacuums appear. It is here that energy is spontaneously created from nothing, filling the empty space and pushing outwards the space around it.
Quite a concept, any way you care to look at it. Here are two takes on it:
1. Space has the capability of producing energy, therefore matter, from nothing, by itself. So what is matter, really?
2. A perfect vacuum creates a sort of "portal", and energy is transferred from "elsewhere". What would this "elsewhere" be?
As times goes by, galaxies drift further apart, more and more vacuums are created, more matter bursts forth...what's the scenario for the future of the universe under these conditions?
But on Altair they pronounce them "Thallers".
Here's a bit more about the nature of Dark Matter, what theory thinks it is in a more specific manner. However, we must explain what "Normal" Matter is.
"Normal" Matter is matter that is influenced by the four forces of the universe. The first three are at the atomic and sub-atomic level, the fourth one is on the Relativistic Scale:
1. The Strong Force, keeping the atomic nucleus together, even as it is composed of neutral and positively charged particles.
2. The Weak Force, which makes the orbits of electrons decay over time. We know it also as Radiation.
3. The Electromagnetic Force, which creates attraction between atoms, creating molecules.
4. The Gravitational Force, which creates an attraction between masses.
Dark Matter of the WIMP variety (Weak Interactive Massive Particles) is UNAFFECTED by the first three forces. It is like a mist that congeals under gravity, but is never more than "ghostly", and since it cannot bond at the atomic and subatomic level, it is undetectable except by the gravity it creates.
Dark Matter of the MACHO variety (Massive Compact Halo Objects) consists of would-be stars that never made it, or stray planets and planetoids roaming around the galaxy.
Therefore, we call it Dark Matter because we haven't been able to detect it, but we can perceive the gravitational effect it has, everywhere we look. And I mean everywhere, since the figures say that between 90% and 98% of the universe consists of Dark Matter.
While it is a generally accepted law that nothing WITHIN space can travel faster than light, this law may not apply to SPACE ITSELF, which could inflate at superluminous speeds if the correct conditions are present.
I know this sounds bizarre, and I'm no expert on the subject, but I'll try to give a simple example that even I can understand:
Let's say space is like a balloon.
Matter are the molecules within that balloon.
The matter within may not move faster than light by its' own means.
But the balloon may inflate faster than light, and the matter within goes along for the ride.
At the end of inflation, the matter has kept its' same relative position in space.
The correct condition for inflation to happen is known as supercooling. Here is an example that Alan Guth used to describe it: water that's below 32 degrees farenheit but retains its' liquid state. However, just gently tap the plastic mold and the water will abruptly crystalize into ice before your very eyes. Supercooled water.
Another example would be a beer in the freezer that's liquid, but turns to ice from the top down when you open the lid. Supercooled beer.
Accordingly, the universe would have to inflate at a certain speed (much faster than light) to re-attain its' appropriate state under specific conditions.
According to Alan Guth, most of the universe's matter cancelled itself out instants after the Big Bang, due to matter-antimatter collitions. In a super-excited state, the universe found itself almost empty, and had to readjust by inflation and a spontaneous burst of creation of matter. In fact, Guth said that with 28 pounds of matter under the right conditions, a universe just as massive as ours could be created. This is why Guth said that our universe could be the ultimate "free lunch".
I agree that subtitling should be the only way to present the work of a foreign film director.
However, getting comfortable with watching a subtitled movie takes a bit of getting used to.
Growing up in northern Mexico, a short drive from the US border, I watched (and listened to) all movies withous subs. Then I moved for 8 years to Guadalajara, where all american movies are presented in english, with spanish subs. For months of moviegoing, my eyes kept getting pulled to the letters flashing on the bottom of the screen, distracting me from BOTH the visuals AND the audio. It was disorienting, and the funny thing is that nobody in Guadalajara understood what I was talking about, as they had been living with subtitles since the dawn of time.
Eventually, my mind adapted, and this (acquired) ability pays off in droves when I watch any foreign film now. I can take in and enjoy the acting in whatever language, while keeping a firm grip on the plot and visuals.
However, back in my hometown, a LOT (not all) of my friends were unable to fully enjoy, for example, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" when I took them to see it. They became distracted, just like I would have been years before.
I wish my friends would make the effort, but I can understand perfectly where they are coming from.
In a nutshell: learning to watch subtitled films without undue effort, in the US, is like learning to drive stick-shift, even as you already have a car with automatic transmission. Most people would say "Why bother with the effort?".
Supposedly the explosion took place very close to a weapons factory.
:-)
I'm just speculating, Tom Clancy style, about a joint American-Japanese-South Korean sortie, you know, James Bond-ish sort of thing. And on Kim Jong Il's grand celebration, to boot. Now THAT would be quite an embarassment to the Illuminated Leader.
Then, the well trained western media calls it something ludicrous, like a forest fire, a classic techno-thriller wrapup.
Now that I've read the end of the book, I'd like to go back and read a bit of character development, the romantic interest, etc.
Actually, the James Webb Telescope is scheduled to be launched in 2011, not 2009. But the key concept here is "scheduled".
1. It won't happen any sooner.
2. It may happen later.
3. If at all. What if Congress tries to adjust the budget again between now and then? What if (bite my tongue) there's a glitch?
Believe me, I want that new telescope up there. I'm just trying to take into account the haphazard world of politics and NASA.
I don't think, in this particular case, that's it's necessary to sacrifice what already is for something that will eventually be, and if all goes according to plan, at that.
I agree. Hubble has been able to take a licking and keep on ticking in superb fashion. Hubble is tried and true, so why scrap that old, faithful VW Beetle?
Now for those that say that Earth-based telescopes (EBTs) can now do an equal job, I don't believe that for a minute. No two ways about it, once light hits the athmosphere, it is scattered and some of it is irrevocably lost.
Here's another aspect that makes Hubble superior to EBTs: Hubble will never have a cloudy night.
Hubble is perfect for working in tandem with EBTs. I'm thinking the Deep Field Proyect: Hubble gets the clear image, finds an intriguing gap, and Hawaii's Keck is called into action to zoom in as deep as it can on those coordinates. And then, voilá, the most distant object ever pictured makes itself apparent. The people operating Keck would not have known where to point if it wasn't for Hubble. This is just one example of how Hubble keeps astronomers thinking outside of the box.
Also, any more servicing missions that Hubble gets from the Space Shuttle will only increase the know-how for future maintenance missions, as there is NOTHING that can replace on-the-job experience.
For many reasons, including pretty pictures, I believe the only thing that could possibly replace Hubble is another Space Telescope, and that's not in the near horizon, so let's keep Hubble, what do you say?
Let me think for a second...
Okay. At face value, it may seem the same, but I make a distinction between "earth" wind and "space" wind, because there are a few key differences.
Earth wind:
1. Is mainly composed of molecules.
2. Is fairly dense and travels through air, athmosphere.
3. Is caused by shifting and clashing air masses of varying temperature, which in turn is caused by a planet's rotation.
Space wind:
1. Is mainly composed of charged subatomic particles.
2. Is extremely diffuse and travels through a near-perfect vacuum.
3. Is caused by a star either ejecting mass or downright exploding.
There's another difference I was cooking up, but the phone rang and I lost my train of thought. But you get the general idea.
Hmmm. Interesting hypothesis on the second paragraph, but there are some crucial facts to consider. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:
A strike with a huge asteroid did not happen, because we would be able to see the scar of the impact, especially on the surface of a planet that is geologically dead. Mars has no processes to erase a feature of this magnitude.
Furthermore, the Earth was also impacted, very early in its' existence, by a gigantic mass, planet-sized in fact, that ripped the Moon out of what is now a huge hole we now call the Pacific Ocean.
And yet, here we are.
So no, my guess is that Mars did not lose its' athmosphere and water via one single, devastating impact.
Hell, yeah! I believe that Voyager is doing its' most important work RIGHT NOW. After the Neptune flyby, the planetary science teams packed up and left, and a new crew of solar and interstellar scientists took over the lab, to remain there until Voyager's batteries run out, in the year 2020.
As we speak, Voyager 1 is more than twice the distance from the Sun to Neptune, maybe even three times as much. Voyager 2 is lagging behind a bit. Whatever the exact distance, the Voyager Twins are alive, well, and broadcasting from the very edge of the Solar System.
First, a bit of definition: a Solar or Interstellar Wind is not really wind, but particles travelling through space at great speeds. Our own Solar Winds zoom away from the Sun at about a million mph; it is poetically referred to as a Supersonic wind.
Solar winds race outward like an expanding bubble. Interstellar winds bombard us from all directions. There is a high-turbulence zone where these winds clash head-on; very little penetrates either in or out. This zone is called the Heliopause, where Solar Winds slow down from Supersonic to a hundred thousand mph. During a Solar Maximum, when our winds push the hardest, the Heliopause expands in area. Conversely, during a Solar Minimum, the Heliopause deflates.
On August 1, 2002, Voyager 1 measured Solar Winds at a hundred thousand mph! However, eight months later, the winds went back up to Supersonic, and have remained that way. Voyager 2, lagging behind, has detected no change at any point in time.
What does this mean? Well, Voyager 1 left the direct influence of the Sun, then some months later the bubble expanded, and Voyager 1 is back under the influence.
This has been a source of controversy, since way too few interstellar particles were detected, according to what current theorists expected. But then again, we ARE in uncharted territory, aren't we?
Here's another likely culprit for the lack of a magnetic field/shield: Earth has a HUGE satellite, the Moon, whereas Mars has two tiny, potato-shaped asteroidlets, Phobos and Deimos.
It is the interaction between Earth and Moon that creates the magnetic shield we have.
First off, we have tidal interaction, which gives Earth nice strong tugs, maintaining a molten state underneath us, thereby creating/enhancing a magnetic field. As to why the Moon is not molten inside, its' origins and composition will have something to do with it.
Secondly, the interplay between two large celestial bodies (Earth-Moon is technically a double planet, as is Pluto-Charon) expands and supercharges a magnetic field way beyond what it would be if a celestial body was alone. I read somewhere, sometime, that Earth-Moon has a magnetic field a hundred times stronger than it would be if Earth was a lone sphere.
Straightforward enough: no Moon, no shielding for Earth, for various reasons. Jupiter's moon Europa is cozily nestled inside its' host planet Jupiter, as well as Titan in Saturn; this is what another reason that makes them the most plausible life-sustaining places in our Solar System (other than Earth, of course).
I ignore the situation on Mercury and Venus, but whatever it is, solar winds and radiation, at those short distances, might cut through anything like Kevlar-busting bullets. On Mars, it will be like a regular bullet cutting through paper.
"Rights do not exist in nature, and nature has only one rule: survival of the fittest".
I believe that this statement is true, until the emergence of consciousness (enlightement), Homo Sapiens Sapiens, throws a screwball into the strike zone of conventional wisdom.
William Blake said something to this effect: "You cannot go against nature, for if you do, it is part of nature too".
We can finally feel an inkling that something that "has always been" may be wrong. Furthermore, we can CHOOSE.
Could this inkling be a beacon towards the next level, whatever it may be? Consciousness, civilization, wisdom, take your pick (or pick all of them and more).
The "Survival of the fittest" dogma has been of utmost necessity for billions of years, but may already be obsolete in terms of true human necessity.
"Survival of the fittest" may be a barrier in human growth, as well as an excuse, in the worst place at the worst time, for all kinds of needless (and eventually self-destructive) atrocities.
Oh yeah? Well how about: The Game Players Of Titan! Philip K. Dick No, seriously, anything Vonnegut has ever written remains relevant today, for, after all, Vonnegut is a humanist. Humanists are a commodity we never seem to have enough of.
It's about microbe contamination. Huygens was put together under the most antiseptic conditions possible, but no method is foolproof, and anyway, Cassini-Huygens came in contact with our dirty athmosphere between the lab and the launching pad. Who knows what type of microbes are piggybacking on it. Remember "The Andromeda Strain?"