NASA Planning to Harpoon Asteroids and Comets

The plan is to shoot a spike in to the asteroid or comet that is designed to collect samples and retune them to Earth. The first probe to use this method is OSIRIS-REx, a probe scheduled to be launch in 2016 to collect samples from an asteroid in 2023.

In preparation for this flight scientists at JPL are using a crossbow to test the penetration of test harpoon to determine how much power to put in the cannon that will shoot it at the asteroid. This is a mission to keep an eye on there is no telling what surprises it will discover.

Two elements finally get their names.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry have given elements 114 and 116 their permanent names. They are the chemistry organization with the authority to officially designate the names of elements.

Now called Flerovium (Fl) element 114 is a synthetic element discovered in December 1998 with an atomic weight of 289 and a half life of 2.6 s.

With its new name of livermorium (Lv) element 116 is a synthetic element discovered on July 19, 2000 with an atomic weight of 293 and a half life of 61 ms.

The are two the 118 elements that make up the periodic table and it is these elements that make up every thing we see. This is an amazing fact that everything we see including distant galaxies are made from these elements.

Two enormous suppermassive black holes Discovered.

Calling these truly massive monsters suppermassive black holes would probably be gross understatements because they dwarf the previous record of 6.3 billion times the mass of the sun. Both of these black holes are larger in dynamiter than the entire solar system and could easily swallow us whole.  

They were discovered by way of the Hubble Space Telescope and were found at the centers of other galaxies.

The smaller of the two was found at the center of galaxy NGC 3842 in the consolation Leo and has an estimated distance of about 331 million light-years. It mass is that 9.7 billion Suns but compared to other one it is actually small.

The larger one and undisputed champion of the suppermassive black holes was found at the center of galaxy NGC 4889 in the Coma constellation. This monster of a black hole has a the mass of a whopping 21 billion Suns.

Discoveries like these are show that the universe sill has many mysteries hiding in the depths of space. It needs to be noted that suppermassive black holes like this are so large that planets and even stars could fall through the event horizon intact.

Sedimentation in flowing water

This is an article on sedimentation in flowing water with video

Above is a video illustration of the formation of sedimentary layer in flowing water. It is based on both experimentation and observation. The direction of flow is left to right. Note that all three layers are forming together in the direction of flow. This means that the Principles of Stratigraphy do not necessarily work in the real world.

Big Foot the Living Gigantopithecus.

Bigfoot or Sasquatch as American Indians call it occasional sightings have occurred right up to the present. It is called Bigfoot from the large foot prints the leave behind but based on the description it is most likely a larger ape.

The most famous Bigfoot footage is the Patterson Film. This film was taken by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin in 1967 the approximate range to the Bigfoot is about 100 feet. There are those are claims that this film was a hoax bur even if it is; there many other sightings suggesting that Bigfoot could be a real animal. If this film is genuine then it supports the identification of Sasquatch as being a type of large ape. The Yeti of which has been sighted in the Himalayas of Asia. Also known as the abominable snow man; it leaves the same large prints as Sasquatch.

If they are real then what are they? Is there an animal known to science that could account for both groups of sightings? The answer is yes. They are known only by fragmented fossils found in as Asia but they fit the description perfectly. These anumales are a type of large ape called Gigantopithecus. While most of  its fossils are found in Southeast Asia, the possibility that some migration to North America is not impossible. It would stand at 10 feet and would be a prefect match for Bigfoot. So if Bigfoot is real it is most likely a living Gigantopithecus making it a living fossil.

Cosmology the Science of the Universe

Cosmology is the scientific discipline dealing with the origin, structure, and relationships of the universe and a cosmology is any theory or doctrine that describes the natural order of the universe. Every civilization has had its cosmology going as far back as is known. Such cosmologies  have usually taken the form of a philosophically based mythology. Todayincreased knowledge in Physics and Chemistry has resulted in a more scientific approach but philosophic assumptions still play a major role in Cosmology.

Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the Universe in 1929 by measuring the redshifts of distant galaxies. In 1998 it was discovered the expansion of the universe to be accelerating based on observations of type Ia supernovae.

Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) is the thermal black body spectrum that is nearly uniform in every direction, It represents a temperature of 2.725 K in that it peaks in the microwave range a frequency of 160.2 GHz, with a wavelength of 1.9 mm. It was first observed in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The CBR temperature fluctuations discovered by the WMAP data of the entire sky showed an average temperature is 2.725 Kelvin with tiny temperature fluctuations spanning about 0.0002 degrees Celsius.

The Big Bang Cosmology is the current establishment Cosmology. The model starts with all mater and space squeezed into an infinitesimal dot called a singularity. This infinitesimal dot suddenly underwent an extremely energetic expansion commonly described as an explosion. Over time the heat of this expansion cooled eventually forming galaxies, stars, planets and eventually us. CBR is seen as residual heat from the Big Bang red shifted by the expansion of t he universe. The Big Bang is based on three main purely philosophical assumptions. First there is absolute naturalism with no intelligents or purpose being allowed in the process. The universe is considered to be unbounded with no edge that is no point beyond which there is no mater. Finally there is the cosmological principle which states that the universe looks the same from every place. The goal is to deal with the fact that we seem to be at the center of the universe by making every place look like the center

There Other Naturalistic Cosmologies such as the steady state cosmology which has no beginning or end to the universe but requires a continual source of new matter. There is a new Cosmology called the plasma universe which depicts much of the phenomenon in universe as being electrical in nature. It is not yet fully developed.  

Creationist Cosmologies are based on three main purely philosophical assumptions. The first is God as the creative intelligents with purpose in the process. The universe viewed as bounded with an edge beyond which no mater is found. There is a center to the universe and the Earth is near it. Now this is not Geodetic because the universe does not rotate around the Earth Plugging these assumptions along with the observed expansion into relativity results in time dilation at the center where the Earth would have been producing a time line on Earth consistent with the Biblical account. CBR is seen as the light God created on day one red shifted by an expansion factor of about 3,300.

In conclusion Cosmology deals with the origin, structure, and relationships of the universe but is heavily dependent on philosophical assumptions since we only see the universe a one location that is the Earth. Evolutionary and Creationist Cosmologies are based on different assumptions producing different results for the same data.

A Short Look at M–Theory

Introduction

M-theory is an unification and extension of string theory. String theory requires 6 dimensions beyond the 4 (3 space, 1 time) that we are already familiar with for a total 10 dimensions.  Further more as string theory developed 5 different versions were produced. M-theory resulted from the simple addition of an 11th dimension, resulting in a unification of 5 different versions of String theory.

The result is a unification of the four forces of nature including gravity in a single theory. This accomplishment has one down side and that is the difficulty of finding evidence of these higher dimensions. It does however make predictions that should be testable is the world’s larges super collider. The powerful particle accelerator can produce the energy levels need to look into the small scales where there these extra dimensions can be detected. However this super collider has so far failed to find the evidence predicted by m-theory

Branes

It was discovered that by adding this 11th dimension that a string could be stretched out to form a membrane or brane for short. Furthermore strings could be attached to a bane forming the bases for a universe. It provides the vary fabric for space-time general relativity showed exists.

Conclusion

M-theory is a theoretical concept that has much potential. It expands our view of reality beyond which science has previously considered. It opens up new possibilities science would previous been closed to.