Is The Universe Getting Younger?

Though the new figure might yet be “too old” to satisfy America’s staunchest far-right Creationists, is our universe much, much younger than it really is?

By: Ringo Bones

America’s staunchest far-right Creationist may be buying their time, just waiting for a scientific consensus proving that the entire universe began in 9 o’clock in the morning Greenwich Mean Time on the 23^rd of October 4004 BC. Even the Creationist US Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo was probably elated to hear that the universe could be 2 billion years younger than it actually is. Will it be a matter of time that the universe is proven to be only 6,000 years old to the delight of America’s far-right Creationists and white nationalists?

Scientists estimate the age of the universe by using the movement of stars to measure how fast it is expanding. If the universe is expanding faster, that means it got to its current size more quickly and therefore must be relatively younger. The expansion rate called the Hubble Constant makes for a fast moving – and younger – universe. The generally accepted age of the universe is 13.7 billion years based on a Hubble Constant of 70. But lately a team of astronomers from the Max Plank Institute led by Inh  Jee came up with a Hubble Constant of 82.4, which would put the age of the universe at around 11.4 billion years.

It is somewhat disconcerting that while our understanding of our universe has vastly increased during the past 50 years while that same understanding told us that the universe was much younger than what we knew before. Remember the time when the scientific consensus was that the whole universe is a little over 18 billion years old? Then by the latter half of the 1990s, when the prior discovery and / or conjecture of the concept of dark matter and dark energy a few years before has slashed the age of the universe to 13.8 billion years. And now it is only a little over 11 billion years old. Could the 6,000 year old age of the universe embraced by America’s far-right Creationists, white nationalists and Trump supporters be proven during Mike Pompeo’s lifetime?

First True Picture Of A Black Hole Captured: Astronomical Breakthrough?

Despite of the astronomical community’s over 200 year fascination of the concept, does the recent true picture ever captured of a black hole truly an astronomical breakthrough?

By: Ringo Bones

Maybe we should be thanking first Katie Bouman, a former computer science student at MIT, now at Cal Tech, who developed the sophisticated computer algorithm that made possible the first ever interferometer-based photograph of a black hole. Although it was entirely a team effort, the astronomical community’s fascination of these enigmatic astronomical objects that are commonly referred to as black holes dates back over 200 years.

Now largely forgotten many credit the English clergyman and polymath John Michell for theorizing the existence of black holes, which he then referred to as dark stars and he does it using only Newtonian Physics. During 1783, geologist John Michell wrote a letter to Henry Cavendish outlining the expected properties of dark stars that got published by The Royal Society in their 1784 volume. Michell calculated that that when the escape velocity at the surface of a star was equal to or greater than the speed of light, the generated light would be gravitationally trapped so that the star would not be visible to a distant astronomer. The Sun’s escape velocity = 1/500^th that of the speed of light, would a star with more than 500 times more massive than our Sun has an escape velocity greater than that of the speed of light and would therefore be invisible to nearby astronomers?

It was when Albert Einstein published his General Relativity when our modern understanding of black holes gained widespread popularity. Popular enough that many science fiction writers often used it in their action-adventure scenes. The black hole’s popularity to the general public gained more impetus back in 1964 during the discovery of Cygnus X-1, a strong X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus. His work on stars and how they could become black holes got Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar the 1983 Nobel Physics Prize.

The recent Event Horizon Telescope breakthrough image shows a halo of dust and gas, tracing the outline of a colossal black hole at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, which is 55-million light years from Earth and about 6-billion times the mass of our Sun. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is composed of a network of eight radio telescopes spanning locations from Antarctica to Spain and Chile – was made possible by the involvement of more than 200 scientists. The Event Horizon Telescope achieved the necessary resolution by combining data from the eight of the world’s leading radio observatories, including the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) in Chile and the South Pole Telescope, creating a virtual telescope akin to the size of planet Earth.

Despite of the renewed fascination of anyone interested in astronomy and theoretical physics, a number of science fiction writers and Hollywood visual special effects artists were a bit “underwhelmed” because the recently published “true pictures” of the super-massive black hole at the heart of the M 87 galaxy only confirms that their visual representation or artist’s rendering of black holes were right all along. Nonetheless, the resulting astrophysical data obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope may prove to be more useful than the iconic M 87 galaxy super-massive black hole image.

Is Asteroid Cruithne Earth’s Second Moon?

Although now dismissed as just one of the Earth’s 18,000 so-called mini-moons, is asteroid 3753 Cruithne just one of the most popular candidates for Earth’s “second moon”?

By: Ringo Bones

Some astronomers claim that asteroid 2016 HO₃ that was discovered back in April 27, 2016 is the best candidate for Earth’s so-called “second moon” because it is possibly the most stable quasi-satellite of Earth, asteroid 3753 Cruithne still remained very popular of the other 18,000 candidate asteroids that qualified to be Earth’s second moon. Even though all of them never truly orbit around the Earth like the Moon, it seems though that at the moment, asteroid 3753 Cruithne is the most popular candidate for Earth’s second moon.

The name Cruithne is from Old Irish reference to the early Picts, the asteroid was discovered back in October 10, 1986 by Duncan Waldron on a photographic plate taken with the UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Coonabarabran, Australia. Although an earlier discovery of the asteroid back in 1983, when it was still designated as 1983 UH, is credited to Giovanni de Sanctis and Richard M. West of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. It was not until 1997 that asteroid 3753 Cruithne’s unusual orbit was determined by Paul Wiegert and Kimmo Innanen working at York University in Toronto and Seppo Mikkola working at the University of Turku in Finland.

As a Q-type Aten asteroid, 3753 Cruithne got the dubious designation of “Earth’s Second Moon” despite there are other 18,000 asteroids that are viable candidates for this category because it orbits around the Sun in 1:1 orbital resonance with Earth, making it a co-orbital object. Seen from the Earth’s surface, 3753 Cruithne seem to orbit around the Sun in a bean-shaped orbit that effectively describes a horseshoe that can change into a quasi-satellite orbit. Cruithne does not orbit Earth and at times it is on the other side of the Sun, placing Cruithne well outside of Earth’s Hill sphere. Cruithne’s orbit takes it inside the orbit of Mercury and outside the orbit of Mars. Cruithne orbits the Sun in about 1 year but it takes 770 years for the series to complete a horseshoe-shaped movement around the Earth.

At about 5-kilometers, or 3-miles, in diameter, asteroid 3753 Cruithne is far too small in size to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium to achieve a spherical shape. Its closest approach to Earth is 12-million kilometers, or 7 and a half million miles, approximately three times the separation between Earth and the Moon. From 1994 through 2015, Cruithne made its annual approach to Earth every November but it is far too small to be seen on the Earth’s surface at night via the naked eye. While the Moon’s surface gravity is about one-sixth that of Earth, on the surface of asteroid 3753 Cruithne, the surface gravity is probably one-one hundred thousandth that of Earth akin to what the Philae spacecraft experienced when it landed on the Comet 67P / Comet Churyumov - Gerasimenko back in 2014.

Ghostly Galaxy NGC 1052-DF2: A Dark Matter Free Galaxy?

Located 6.5 billion light years from our own Milky Way galaxy, is the ghostly looking NGC 1052-DF2 the first dark matter free galaxy ever discovered? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Back in 2015, a Harvard University astronomer named Pieter van Dokkum used the Dragonfly Telephoto Array in order to investigate faint astronomical objects, and these include ultra diffuse galaxies that look quite ghostly in comparison to our own Milky Way galaxy. Then as recently as March 28, 2018, Dokkum and his team of astronomers published their findings on why the galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 looks so diffuse and ghostly in comparison to a typical galaxy like our Milky Way – that is the ghostly looking galaxy is devoid of dark matter. 

Even though Earth-based detectors / traps containing liquid xenon, ultrapure germanium and gallium has yet to confirm the existence of this elusive substance, cosmologists and theoretical physicists had reached a consensus for about two decades now that dark matter is essential in the formation of galaxies. Since the 1950s, astronomers noticed that the amount of visible matter in a typical galaxy is not enough to hold all of the stars, gases and dust in place and from flying up given its rate of rotation – even the subsequent discovery of super-massive black holes in the centers of galaxies is not enough to hold all of it together; which makes 85-percent of the bulk of the Universe hitherto unseen hence the concept of dark matter.

Unusually ghostly and transparent, NGC 1052-DF2 (the NGC stands for New General Catalog as a new designation for the classification of nebulae, stars and galaxies – as opposed to the older M or Messier catalogue system) is about the size of our Milky Way galaxy and yet it contains 200 times fewer stars and 400 times less dark matter than our own galaxy and also lies 6.5 billion light years away from us. If this turns out to be true, NGC 1052-DF2 may be the first galaxy of its kind that is made up only of ordinary matter. Current astrophysical laws as we know then dictates that dark matter is thought to be very essential to the fabric of the Universe as we understand it. 

The study of this ghostly galaxy has recently been published in the science journal Nature. The authors of the study weren’t initially on the hunt for dark-matter-free galaxies instead they had set out to take a closer look at ultra-diffuse galaxies. These are similar in size to the spiral galaxies we’re more familiar with but have a fraction of the number of stars. When Prof. Pieter von Dokkum, lead author of the study, first spotted NGC 1052-DF2 said: “I stared a lot at that image and just marveled at it... its like a ghostly glow in the sky…” 

Galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 has very few stars but many of them are grouped together in unusually bright clusters. When the team studied the behavior of these clusters, they found that the stars seemed to account for all of the galaxy’s mass, leaving no room for dark matter. In a typical spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, there’s about five times more dark matter than regular matter. And as you go further out from the galaxy, you’ll find fewer stars and more dark matter. The dark matter halo is much more extended than the stars are in a typical spiral galaxy.

The Great American Total Solar Eclipse: The Astronomical Event Of 2017?

Hailed by many as the so-called Astronomical Event of 2017, will the August 21, 2017 Great American Eclipse be able to enlighten a science-starved America under the Trump/Pence regime?

By: Ringo Bones 

The hype behind the upcoming Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 make it seems as if the current occupants of The White House are not anti-science climate change deniers and yet the event could reinvigorate - and even enlighten - the current science starved Trump administration. Nonetheless, there are a lot of things to be grateful about the upcoming celestial event given that the last one – where the path of totally is right smack inside the continental United States – last happened back in 1918, almost a hundred years ago. 

The August 21 Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 will have a path of totality of 70-miles or 113-kilometers wide and stretches diagonally across the continental United States from the state of Oregon to the state of South Carolina below the Mason-Dixon Line. Even the so-called “sleepy town” of Depoe Bay, Oregon – more famed for whale watching than witnessing rare celestial events - had been preparing for the great astronomical event of 2017 since last week. And if you are lucky enough to be in the path of totality by Monday, August 21, all you need to observe The Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 is an eclipse shield to protect your naked eyes. Some serious eclipse buffs will nonetheless be preparing their solar eclipse photo gear and a filtered astronomical telescope. The next solar total eclipse whose path of totality falls in the continental United States will occur in 2024. 

Many also hoped that The Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 could rekindle some of America’s lack of interest in science and the scientific method given that a sizable majority of them had elected a climate change denier into The White House who also believes that the NASA Apollo Moon Landings are faked by an elaborate US Government conspiracy back in the 1960s. Well, at least those in the know might be laughing if the Christian Right U.S. Department of Education secretary Betsy DeVos issues a “faith-based warning” about the heath risk faced by pregnant women on having their fetuses acquiring defects when observing a total solar eclipse – which is for all intents and purposes a faith-based superstition - when they observe The Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017.

Traveling Telescopes: A Great Way To Spread Astronomy Awareness?

Given that a lot of young people are still clueless about astronomy, are travelling telescopes a good way to spread the knowledge about astronomy?

By: Ringo Bones 

Astronomer Susan Murabana did not have an easy time following her passion for celestial bodies while growing up in Nairobi, Kenya. Even until this day, the country has no planetarium, only a handful of astronomers and access to even an entry-level astronomical telescope in the 200-US dollar price range is nigh on impossible, it seems that spreading knowledge and awareness on astronomy in Kenya is akin to the proverbial “fool’s errand”. But now with her Travelling Telescope Initiative, she now has the means to inspire a new generation of Kenyans to the joys and fascinations to the science of astronomy. 

Together with her husband, Kenyan astronomer Susan Murabana started her Travelling Telescope Initiative back in 2013 as an astronomy outreach program by visiting primary and secondary schools across Kenya with an 8-inch astronomical telescope – about the minimum size to allow the viewer to resolve the structure of the Andromeda Galaxy, our Milky Way’s nearest galactic neighbor. Given that hands on astronomy is still largely an esoteric endeavor to children in the developing world, even seeing the moon through an astronomical telescope capable of a distortion-free 30-times magnification is enough to fascinate the uninitiated. 

Given the worldwide popularity of big-budget Hollywood space-based science fiction movies, the science of astronomy is still largely an unknown or at most a very esoteric scientific endeavor to most children in primary and secondary schools of developing nations across the world. While internet connected desktop personal computers in schools had been a boon to science education in the 21^st Century in developing nations, it seems that an overwhelming majority of children in developing countries can’t even point to the planet Mars in the sky as nighttime arrives in their local time zone.    

TRAPPIST-1 Has Seven Earth Like Planets?

Even since its discovery a year ago, the red dwarf / brown dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 is now believed to not contain one but seven Earth-like planets, does this make it more likely that this star system harbors Earth-like life?

By: Ringo Bones 

The most promising spot to look for Earth-like extraterrestrial life in our Milky Way galaxy just got more promising after it was found out that it not just contain three Earth-like planets but seven. The star is named after the team or astronomers manning the European Southern Observatory’s Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope, or TRAPPIST, who discovered a small dim red dwarf star about 39 light-years away last year. After other “more capable” astronomical telescopes were trained into the TRAPPIST star system, like the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and NASA’s (fortunately Fake President Trump hasn’t yet made an Executive Order to disestablish NASA despite The White House is now currently overrun by the U.S. Republican Party Jesus Cult) Spitzer Space Telescope had uncovered new features of the star system that the team of astronomers led by Michaël Gillon of the STAR Institute at the University of Liège in Belgium published their findings in the science journal Nature a few days ago confirming that the TRAPPIST-1 star system has not three but seven Earth-sized planets, six of which are likely rocky, and all seven could possibly support liquid water. 

Basing on the very recent discovered data, the TRAPPIST-1 star system looks very different from our own Solar System. The planets pass very close to each other as they orbit that according to NASA astronomers: “If a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring words, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth’s sky.” From this description alone, standing of one of TRAPPIST-1’s planets would be reminiscent of going to those “comic book” and “movie” planets as portrayed by their illustrators and set makers in those classic Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon movies and comics. 

Even though TRAPPIST-1 is a “mere” 39 light-years away which would put it right next door in cosmic terms – the planets might just have been on the other side of the cosmos from our perspective because using our current rocket technology, a spacecraft launched from Earth could only reach TRAPPIST-1 star system after 700,000 years. Given how far it is, a 595 mile-per-hour passenger jet airliner takes about 44-million years to reach it – if it could escape the Earth’s and our Solar System’s gravity. And the radio wave telemetry sent by a space-probe on one of TRAPPIST-1’s planets – travelling at the speed of light - would take 39 years to reach to NASA’s Mission Control Center.