Arquivo para a ‘Física’ Categoria
There are forces that can change the course of catastrophe
27
Jan
The idea of some imminent catastrophe to happen is in the air, it’s
not just apocalyptics, but natural scientists who see planetary depletion (glaciers, species extinction, climate change, earthquakes, etc.), political scientists about the ideological tension that returns remembering the cold war, and it would be possible to avoid or at least have a positive reaction to it, the pandemic looks like it was a training and the rehearsal doesn’t look good.
One of the recent mysterious discoveries made by astronomers is that an object in our “galactic backyard”, which means at 4 thousand light years, a space object was found, as being a neutral star or white dwarf are only hypotheses, in which this object produces powerful beams of energy, the strange object (pictured) launches the beam of powerful energy that crosses the line of sight of the earth observed by astronomers and published in the journal Nature (see in ICRAR), are something unusual in space observations.
Natasha Hurley-Walker, from Curtin University’s International Center for Radio Astronomy Research, leads the team that made the discovery and stated: “This object was appearing and disappearing for hours in our observation…. It was kind of scary for an astronomer because there is nothing known in the sky that does that.”
There are also powerful forces that act in our midst, it is not just about cheap exploitations of prayers or positive feeling that can lead to the improvement of an environment and people, a set of words and actions taken in a positive direction for a given problem can and should able to resolve or change situations where the problem or conditions are great.
In addition to the pandemic, which some want to decree the end as if it were that simple, we have the tension of an imminent war, and we should have no doubt that all people who can speak, ask, meditate or pray that an atrocity of this size does not occur. they must do it, in war only civilians, the poor and the weakest who suffer, there is no palpable or healthy solution that comes from provoked catastrophes.
Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before – ICRAR
James Webb arrives at his destination
25
Jan
Exactly one month ago, the new James Webb Space Telescope
observatory (JWST Nasa) arrived yesterday at 17:00 (Brasília time) in a region where with a minimum of fuel consumption he will be able to remain in orbit, called the Lagrange L2 point, which is actually a region between the Earth and the Sun where the centripetal (attractive) force is balanced with a centrifugal force.
In fact, they are regions and therefore called orbital islands, every planet in the solar system has Lagrange Points and as they move away from the Sun these islands are larger, the island related to the earth is about 800,000 km wide, the which in spatial terms is small, the point L2 for example is 5 million km from Earth and still very far from Mars, 57.6 million is the distance from our neighboring planet.
The observations will still take 5 months to calibrate all equipment, adjust the mirror and aim for the first targets.
Now it will be 5 months of work for Webb to send the first images on his “targets in the infrared universe”, he will not look for exoplanets or new points, but point to known points and make measurements more precise and with greater definition, Webb’s mirrors ( hexagonal) that should have a complicated and fine adjustment will have up to 5 times the power of Hubble’s mirrors, in addition to using a more sophisticated technology that is infrared, where you can “see” by observing the light strongly “deflected to the red” of distant objects and can peer through clouds of murky dust, it will be able to sift through exoplanet atmospheres identifying gases with greater precision.
More than 1,000 teams of astronomers from around the world have requested time on the Webb in its first year and 287 have already been lucky enough to be pioneers, among the questions from these teams are looking at the ice-covered oceans on Uranus’ 27 moons, the icy giants Uranus. and Neptune can explain much of the origin of galactic systems, look at black holes that are of average size and resolve conflicting measurements on the rate of expansion of the universe and generally speaking will use Webb for two dominant themes: time and distance between opposite extremes in the universe. universe: the early universe and the closest planetary systems and their dilemmas.
In addition to these great themes, a topic that arouses curiosity, although it is due to a childish aspect of aliens, is what is called biosignature, that is, real conditions of life, which in fact do not find “beings” but the conditions of past or future existence. of them are: gaseous, direct or indirect products of the metabolism of living beings, of surface, of spectral results resulting from the radiation reflected by organisms, and, temporal, which are responses related to seasonal changes in the biosphere where there is, for example, diurnal and nocturnal variation of CO2, some biosignatures can be found, beings are still left to the imagination, it is clear that some biological form can exist in such an infinite space of probabilities.
Christmas gift
24
Dec
In December 1947, right around Christmas, three Bell Telephone
engineers (William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain) invented the transistor (TRANsfer reSISTOR) that revolutionary communication and later computing, also ICs (Integrated Circuits) have as a base the transitor.
The big event this Christmas will be the launch of the James Webb Space Observatory (jwst, James Webb Space Telescope) from the Kourou space base, in French Guiana, at 9:20 am EDT, which will be taken to the Ariane 5 spacecraft. made at the cost of $10 billion, the most expensive space project in history.
What are we going to look for in space, in addition to other puzzles, the origin of the universe in its early stage, and it’s curious why this happens this Christmas, and why it is so special.
Lights decorate cities even in attention with a possible new wave of the pandemic and also a new flu, they light up hope and make us look to the future and to the beginning of our lives, our planet and humanity.
There is no way to escape from utopians, cosmogonies and religious eschatologies, even if we can solve many enigmas, the philosophical question remains: why there is everything and not nothing.
The answer can only be ontological, there is a reason for being and there is a promising future, where there is hope if we return to the logic of Being, of dialogue and of the encounter with the Other.
The message cannot be any other than that which speaks of brotherhood and peace, both not yet fully achieved by humanity, Christmas reopens this hope.
This is the prophecy that Isaiah announces (Is 52,7 when there will be true peace: “how beautiful they are, walking on the mountains, the feet of him who proclaim and preach peace, of him who proclaims good and preaches salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Reign thy God,’” the message that believed in the coming of the Savior, the birth among men of the Messiah.
The lights in the city not only announce this light visible to the eyes, but those that open the heart to friendship and peace (Jn 1:4-5): “in her was life, and life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it”, because a tiny point of light already dissipates the darkness, and this is our hope.
May Christmas renew hopes for a possible and sustainable future for humanity, and may justice and peace reign in a new world.
Black holes and discoveries
16
Dec
Black holes don’t “suck” all the matter around them, and the latest
observations prove that several bodies escape their very strong gravitational field, a region where a singularity point occurs, a name given in physics and mathematics for points of curves and events Physicists that some trend changes, for example, it is speculated that artificial intelligence may surpass human intelligence, which would bring about an irreversible change in human civilization.
Black holes, according to English physicist Stephen Hawking (from the Big Bang and the Theory of Everything), emit thermal radiation due to quantum effects and a special type of radiation that became known as Hawking radiation, as we have already pointed out in the blog, are the final stage of supermassive stars.
An observation made in 2013 proved this theory, and it was published by researchers at Cornell University (we did a post), but the observation of a black hole was only possible in 2019, thanks to an internationally collaborative experiment known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT ), which captured the first image of a black hole in the Messier 87 galaxy, photographed in the heart of the Centaurus A galaxy in unprecedented detail (pictured).
In a black hole, space and time fold in on themselves, the laws (which we know) of physics that apply to most of our universe don’t seem to work there, its edge as we’ve said is called the event horizon, and a Spinning black holes can reach temperatures in excess of 20 million °C, the accretion disk in a quasar releases blinding radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
The accretion disk refers to an accumulation of material on the “surface” (one must remember that the notion of time and space here is different), and this works as if it were a very efficient engine, in the view of French astrophysicist Marta Volonteri , from the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, black holes “are the most efficient and efficient engines in the universe”.
The mystery is what exists beyond black holes, one of the two most acceptable hypotheses is the one developed, in 1935, by Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen to theorize bridges that connect two different points in space-time, and in 1980, the physicist Kip Thorne hypothesized that physical objects could travel through, something like the fourth dimension “wormholes” (wormholes), but different because they are seen in certain positions (space-time) of space.
The other hypothesis is called the “black hole firewall”, it would be like a kind of fire barrier, where the event horizon would burn anything that comes into contact immediately, this hypothesis lacks both theoretical and observational proofs, they were recently observed objects that exit or escape black holes.
The last hypothesis, the least likely of all, is called a white hole, where each white hole would have been in contact with another in the past, and was formulated by Russian cosmologist Igor Novikok in 1964, it lacks observations and some plausible fact.
The Leonard Christmas Comet
15
Dec
Discovered January of this year by astronomer G.J. Leonard
of the University of Arizona from the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, the small celestial body Comet Leonard has an orbital period of 80,000 years, and has been seen in the northern hemisphere as it approaches Earth, and will now be seen in the coming weeks from the 15th in the southern hemisphere.
Technically called C/2021, it is reversing its visibility position from the north to the south of the planet, so residents of the southern hemisphere will be able to see it, albeit small.
The closest approach distance to the Earth was 34 million kilometers on December 12th, now it heads towards the Sun, on December 18th it will already be close to Venus, at 42 million kilometers and it will orbit the sun on January 3rd 2022, at a distance of 90 million km, these distances are small in spatial terms, but due to its size it will be seen as a weak point until then, with a telescope and knowing its orbit it will be easier to see it.
The comet travels at a speed of 70 km/s, and despite the expectations being very good, it is necessary to remember that it will be closer and closer to the Sun and brings the possibility of losing strength, in general they are unpredictable and the closer to the Sun the more they can lose how to increase their brightness, so how bright their tail will be in our hemisphere is not quite certain, in the northern hemisphere observation was made more easily with the help of instruments, even a small telescope.
The observations made so far there has been an increase in luminosity due to a phenomenon known as frontal scattering, dust particles ejected from the comet cause a refraction of light, when the angle between the comet in relation to the Earth and the Sun is very large (larger than 160º), as its trajectory is perpendicular to the earth, this will be happening these days from December 14th and 16th, but the scattering depends on the size of the particles and of course, if the sky is clear, in southern Brazil there are rains at this time.
Unlike comet Neowise, which was brightest in the northern hemisphere in 2020, this time Leonard will be more visible in the southern hemisphere, being visible on the horizon, each night from today it will be more visible further up towards the planet Venus ( incorrectly called the Dalva Star), and it will be more visible longer until the 18th because appearing later the sky will be darker.
You need to look for a place with good visibility, low local light and open skies, and look to the west horizon, until January 3rd when the sun approaches and it will start to get weak.
URGENT: Launch of James Webb Space Telescope postponed to 12/24.
The new space telescope observer
14
Dec
T
he Hubble telescope, named after Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953) is already showing signs of aging, has recently been repaired again and is back in service, named after Hubble’s intergalactic and extragalactic measurements and demonstrating that many objects once considered clouds of dust and gas, were actually galaxies far beyond our own Milky Way, now another more powerful telescope will honor a former NASA administrator of the Apollo project: James Edwin Webb.
The name was embroiled in controversy, but NASA findings did not attest to the veracity of the facts, the telescope was built with the participation of the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, in addition to NASA, of course, and its launch is scheduled for the 22nd of December 2021, next week, and may be followed live on a youtube channel (James Webb Space Telescope Launch — Official NASA Broadcast – YouTube).
Much more powerful than Hubble, the larger mission of the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) will be to investigate the origins of the universe, most clearly infrared radiation, which resulted from the original great expansion (Big Bang) and the transformation processes of the Universe’s childhood , but its power and instruments will allow you to see very far.
This way you will be able to observe the evolution and formation of galaxies, there is already a mapping of galaxies in formation and so it will only be necessary to adjust the position, understand the formation of stars and planetary systems. and finally, study the planetary and life origins.
It is made up of three main modules: Integrated Science Instrument Modele (ISIM), it contains powerful infrared instruments and microprocessor circuits, the Optical Telescope Element (OTE), a complex optical system built by Ball Aerospace, and the Space Support Module (SSM) which supports JWST navigation and spatial support.
The expectation that once in orbit the Telescope will send thousands of data daily, and soon we will have puzzles and probably new discoveries before the end of the year, the launch has already been delayed a few times, but now the date seems to be close.
URGENT: Launch of James Webb Space Telescope postponed to 12/24.
New paths and new christmas
10
Dec
Man has gone through many historical stages, each with its 
drama and its mystique, like the one revealed in the Neolithic monument Stonehenge (photo).
The times of pandemic made us more withdrawn both in the proximity of family members and in the interior life (which Western thought calls subjectivity), but where are we heading, what kind of Christmas this year will be, the end-of-the-year festivities we already know by the new pandemic wave will be reduced.
Anyway, we celebrate a passage, whether for Christians waiting for the parousia (the first two weeks) or from here to Christmas the intervention of God in history through the birth of the God-child in Bethlehem, which is gradually being erased from the party and replaced by consumerism, snow and other rites alien to the historical fact.
Yes historical, because Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem precisely for a census, that is, to be counted among men and registered they should go to Joseph’s hometown and by a whim and divine care Jesus is born and is already registered among men, this is therefore not symbolic, but recorded historical data.
What to expect this Christmas, the atmosphere of “party” is reduced, we are still involved with the pandemic, there is a climate of apprehension and already a certain discouragement, for some it involves anxiety and some kind of anguish, nothing better than believing in a New weather, the popular saying goes: after the storm comes the calm, it will come.
Perhaps not as we expected, for example, a huge euphoria or an explosion of joy, but the feeling that we must rebuild life with struggle and behind the rubble, the Christmas season at its root is this, something divine intervened in human history to change it forever, it is certain that they want to erase Christmas and with it the hope of a new world, however precisely because of the suffering we have been through, we do not know how long it can last and how far it can go, it is a harbinger of a new time, a calm.
John the Baptist, who was Jesus’ cousin, baptized people with water (Baptist because of this), and the people thought he was the Messiah, but he explained that the type of baptism that would make Jesus would be much stronger: “He will baptize you in Holy Spirit and on fire. He will come with a shovel in his hand: he will clean his threshing floor and gather the wheat in the barn, but he will burn the straw in the photo that does not go out” says the evangelist Luke (Lk 3,16-18) and John “proclaimed a lot other ways” the Good News.
We can expect this in the near future, certainly yes, there is also this expectation in our theme, in many ways, and it will certainly be something unpredictable
Natural disasters and society
09
Dec
Although science still has difficulties in predicting natural
catastrophes, unpredictability is a major current theme for several fields of study, human action on which the problem of these catastrophes can be expanded must be rethought.
It’s not just about interfering with earthquakes, asteroid routes, weather problems and changes in the planet’s magnetic field, the problem is the social dimension that each catastrophe can take, like the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma, which does not have fatal victims, but the problem of air quality, the displacement of families, the loss of family income, among others, what worries us is the possibility of a social catastrophe, at the moment, the government there declares that the volcano can go to sleep.
The Semeru catastrophe in Indonesia, which counted 34 dead until yesterday, and whose predictability was not possible is a fatality, but the tsunami in Fukushima in 2011 that affected an atomic plant and made an entire region uninhabitable has the human recklessness of building plants in disaster-prone areas warns of a serious and long-standing problem: the nuclear plants, the millions of liters of water used to cool the now inactive but radioactive plant, was dumped into the sea.
European countries are the ones that most use nuclear power plants, and a fossil fuel supply crisis, mostly coming from Russia, is a related problem, which aggravates the social danger even more. Looking at the map (figure) we also notice that many plants they are on the waterfront and the risk of tsunamis is even more serious, Fukushima taught.
In the world, 17% of the energy used is nuclear, 40% is still coal, the oldest fuel typical of the first industrial revolution, fossil (oil) is 40%, hydraulic and wind power is only 2% with a forecast of 3% for 2024 , a growth too small to be considered an effort that could reveal a change of scenario, of course there are associated economic interests.
The serious problem of nuclear power plants, which can themselves have accidents like the one at Chernobyl, cannot be underestimated the serious problem of some natural catastrophe that could affect the power plant’s problems, with huge social losses (generally only economic , which are associated of course) that a disaster could cause.
In the world, there are 440 plants in operation and 23 under construction, Europe has 207 plants and 7 under construction, the map shows the huge number by the sea, in inhabited regions and subject to earthquakes (tectonic faults for example), after the Europe follows North America with 123 plants, Japan, China and Korea with 82 and 7 under construction.
Natural disasters occur, Germany decided that it will not install new reactors and that the current ones will be deactivated after their useful life (32 years in your case), Turkey also abandoned the idea of building its first plant, in the opposite direction Brazil after the inauguration of Angra-2 (located by the sea) is already discussing Angra-3.
A complete social conscience must also foresee serious problems that a nuclear catastrophe could cause, and the consequences would be harsh for humanity.
Is it possible to induce an earthquake
08
Dec
We’ve heard of experiments carried out by the US Navy on the high seas 
intentionally causing small earthquakes, but unintentionally activities carried out on the ground can induce earthquakes, an international team of researchers documented the discovery of this new type in research carried out in British Columbia, Canada, and published in Nature Communications last month.
The earthquake was discovered when the team was studying an earthquake caused by hydraulic fracturing, a method used in western Canada to extract oil and gas, and that this is what characterizes the so-called induced earthquake, the action of pumping water into rocks, the saying goes soft water on hard stone, in this case it not only pierces but can cause an earthquake.
With a network of eight seismic stations, located around an injection well a few kilometers apart, the researchers led by Phd Hongyu Yu, from the Geological Research Institute of Canada and by Rebeca Harrington, professor of geology at University of Bochum recorded seismic data from approximately 350 earthquakes, of course all of low intensity but similar to the volcanic ones, and this suggests a few more observations on current eruptions.
The observation is that 10% of the identified earthquakes had unique characteristics, that they break more slowly, but very similar to volcanic earthquakes.
The analysis suggests that these earthquakes caused by human actions, are slower and have a long duration, and as they expand they become a mixture of the two types, therefore they are induced, and the conclusion is that human actions can cause and worsen the conditions for future earthquakes and eruptions in volcanic areas.
The two consequences are then that the fluid pumped into the rock generates a pressure increase sufficient to generate a network of fractures close to the well, while a second consequence is that the action exerts a change in elastic tension in the neighboring rocks that can be transmitted over distances longer, with serious consequences.
If before we imagined that only the vegetal part of nature should be respected, it was discovered that rocks, stream beds and stone deposits should also be taken care of.
Between science and believe
07
Dec
Whenever the weather changes: rains, floods, storms, hurricanes
and now volcanoes and earthquakes something worries us, it is necessary to separate what is in fact supernatural from the natural that exists, even if catastrophic, science helps, but it doesn’t always have answers ready.
It was like a Covid-19 problem and the La Palma volcano is now drawing attention for its unpredictability, but it has helped science that has collected a much larger number than in other eruptions and its variation also helps to study different influences, the shape of the soil, the earthquakes and temperatures close to the volcano, the type of soil (in this case there are several deep cracks) and the type of lava effusion.
A recent opinion article, volcanology is not a science that can make predictions, in fact, in the opinion of physicists such as Werner Heisenberg and philosophers such as Edgar Morin their predictions, even though possible, are hypotheses, but in the case of volcanology the Cumbre Vieja, volcano of La Palma, has helped.
An article published in the journal Science and which was the subject of an article in the journal El Pais, by researcher Marc-Antoine Longpré elaborated a series of opinions, including that: “The course-term forecast is based on technology and on the recognition of patterns of behavior of volcanoes, as well as constant improvement, as volcanologists gather more data”, as is the case with this eruption of Cumbre Vieja, in La Palma, in the Canary Islands.
The article published in the prestigious journal Science, begins by explaining that it had 50 years of rest and is historically the most active of the Canary Islands, it erupted on September 19, 2021, and will complete one of the longest eruption periods of the day. December 19, when it will reach 3 months of eruption and the article informs that the longest on record was 3 months and 3 weeks.
But the seismic patterns started on the date of September 11th, I wrote the article: “the number of detected earthquakes quickly increased to several hundred per day, of which only a subset was located”, and grouped in much smaller depths (<12 km ) and of lower seismicity than the previous one (around 3 to 4 degrees on the Richter scale), and with a displacement to the area of =the volcano that erupted on the 19th, this already marks a pattern for eruptions (see graphics of author) Another fact observed was the appearance of two fissures, in addition to the elevation of the ground and the formation of the volcanic cone, each fissure measuring about 200 m in length, 1 km above sea level and 2 km from the village of El Paraèso which was rapidly evacuated without reaching the residents.
The author informs that the eruption shows no signs of abating, and speaks of the social drama for the local population and compares saying that it is similar to Kilauea, and asks if interested parties, of course, are including financial and political interests, if in the long term will it be possible to permanently reduce the risk associated with urban development on the flanks of the Cumbre Vieja?
This is the important social fact, preventing deaths as happened recently with the eruption of the Semeru Volcano in Indonesia where 14 deaths initials (today it rose to 34), the article was prophetic in this regard, since it was published days before this eruption, yes extraordinary things are possible and even even supernatural, but who has the authority to assert them? it is necessary to avoid fake news and a climate of terror that contributes nothing, but caution, as is the case with the Pandemic, is necessary and prudent.
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