Arquivo para a ‘Física’ Categoria
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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Universe mysteries and universal forces
25
Nov
When Einstein formulated the Theory of General Relativity, two
big “holes” remained in his theory, one he recognized as wormholes, paths in a space-time dimension in which there could be spaces, from a mathematical point of view, of immense gravity in which everything “disappeared” and another unrecognized one was the formulation of quanta as a dimension between time and space where there is a third hypothesis between matter and non-matter, the “quanta”.
According to physicist Jim Al-Khalili “He devised a new theory about the entire Universe, in which he also said that when stars collapse they form black holes”, and that at that time he believed they were just mathematical hypotheses, necessary to close the account, but “that they didn’t exist, that they were just products of mathematics”, but it was something that bothered him said Al-Khalili in the BBC interview.
The quantum issue was a state called entanglement, today called quantum entanglement, a state of the particle where there was a collapse of the wave function, and thus, the actual existence of the particle was in an “adjacent” reality which is precisely the entanglement, Einstein, Poldoski and Rosen wrote an article that by their names was called EPR in which they said that the particle was always present and rejected the hypothesis of a “third state”, which was later proved.
Black holes not only exist, but pictures have already been taken (a famous one was published in April 2019), which are actually made by algorithms that map the magnetic effects around it, and thus build an image, it is now known that they are numerous and even some exist within our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Universal forces are increasingly arousing curiosity and also fear, a large comet was recently discovered and was named after the Brazilian Bernardinelli who were doing a doctorate in cosmology in the US, called Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014-UN271) 150 km in diameter and can be seen in 2031, but they are the meteors that populate the imagination of the apocalyptic on duty, they are numerous and unpredictable, some are discovered moments before passing close to our planet.
NASA started a test mission in an attempt to redirect asteroids, the project called Dart (Double Asteroid Redirect Test) will try to send a small spacecraft to collide against Dimorphos, “moon” of the asteroid Didymos, in an attempt to change its route, does not represent danger to the planet, so this is just a test.
The universe is mysterious, we still know little about it, 68% is made of dark energy (picture), and this energy does not dilute as the universe expands (the entropy principle), and if this expansion is faster and faster, as Einstein supposed, this can lead to some curious conclusions, such as the fact that this strange “energy” arises in this expansion.
Look at the Universe and its mysteries should restore us to the humility of how little we know, how admirable is the mystery of life and our destiny as a person and as a planet.
Distances in light years events in millions of years
12
Nov
If on a scale of human life we speak at most hundreds of years,
on a planetary scale we must speak of millions and even billions of years, if in terms of distance we can speak of thousands of kilometers on a planetary scale, in astronomical terms this scale is millions of light years, the time light travels per year.
This is not even to say that extraordinary events do not happen, because in terms of planetary and universal life billions of years have passed, so at some point in time this could happen, like the end of the dinosaurs, the ice age and changes in the planet’s geology that have already occurred, and neither that it will occur tomorrow or in the next few years, but at some point in time they may occur.
The volcano on the island of La Palma shows signs that it may be ending its eruption, so the catastrophes that were suggested (hypothetically and with a rare possibility of occurring) will not happen, but it doesn’t mean that others elsewhere on the planet cannot happen, earthquakes and weather events have occurred and caused tragedies such as Fukushima in Japan in March 2011.
This pandemic also seems to be at the end of its cycle, although Europe is alert, but there more than here the number of people who have resisted the vaccine is very large.
We must always be alert, life on the planet is at risk, the problem of environmental balance, the social problem arising from the pandemic crisis, but which was huge before it, the eternal danger of wars over market disputes and religious intolerance is always hanging around us.
A great international agreement that unites peoples and establishes a truce in conflicts, that brings solidarity between peoples and resolves the ecological balance, could be a great encouragement for a civilization in crisis.
In spiritual terms it means that humanity must also evolve at this point, and the signs are not the best, so it is not a matter of apocalypse or threat, when the human spirit releases all energy contrary to its well-being and progress moves towards an abyss and towards tragedies, the day when a great night will fall on men seems to be at hand, so says the Bible reading (Mk 13:24-15): “In those days, after the great tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the light it will no longer shine, the stars will begin to fall from heaven and the forces of heaven will be shaken”, but the reading immediately afterwards also indicates (Mk 13:32): “no one knows about that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven , nor the Son, but only the Father”.
So let’s live life and let’s favor what is good for all humanity, not just for groups or ideologies, life needs to go on and it is necessary to fight for it.
The evolution of stars and white dwarfs
11
Nov
The evolution of a star like the Sun goes from a giant to a supergiant
phase and ejects a planetary nebula and then transforms into a white dwarf when it is losing its energy and brightness.
The basis of stellar evolution calculations is called Hydrostatic Equilibrium whereby the pressure of the gas counteracts gravity in most of the lives of stars, since if there is no such dynamic equilibrium or time it collapses, so stars have nuclear reactions at some stage in their evolution, the ones that don’t have are brown dwarfs.
Using the ALMA radio observatory in Chile, which study a dozen red giants, the evolutionary stage at which stars approach death, they release an enormous amount of energy, producing a constant stellar wind, ie, ejecting a stream. of particles that throws the mass of the star itself in all directions, and these are the bases of its spectacular images.
If they were solitary nebulae, they would only have concentric shapes, but the presence of other companion stars and even planets that orbit the red giants, the influence of their fields ends up forming other images, influenced by the surrounding objects, giving specific configurations and colors.
One of the project scientists Carl Gottlieb, co-author of the study “(Sub)stellar companions shape the winds of stars evolved” said: “We now have an unprecedented view of how stars like our Sun will evolve during the last stages of its evolution”, this is of course on a scale of millions and even billions of years.
Palaeontologist and theologian Teilhard Chardin said that on the scale of the Cosmos: “only the fantastic has the condition to be true, planetary nebulae form incredible cosmic images that look more like divine paintings and are formed around a star that has reached the giant stage red, and recently scientists discovered why their shapes are unique.
But what are black holes ?
10
Nov
Black holes are regions in space-time (neither space nor time are absolute
as idealists think) where the gravitational field is so intense that nothing we know, no particle or electromagnetic radiation like light, can escape it, Einstein’s theory of general relativity foresaw this as calculating an extremely compact mass that would deform spacetime to form a black hole.
On April 10, 2019, a gigantic black hole was “photographed” (figure), nestled in the heart of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy located 55 million light years away was photographed as a dark circle surrounded by a flaming ring.
This photo actually used a computational algorithm, as scientists can’t directly observe with the telescopes they use to detect other bodies using X-ray, light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation, but can infer by detecting interference in bodies next to matter nearby, so if a black hole passes through a cloud of interstellar matter, it will draw the matter inward in a process known as accretion, it first heats up and then is torn apart as it goes towards it, thus having a dramatic interference in the bodies in its vicinity firing powerful bursts of gamma rays.
Black hole formation is so far known as a result of stellar collisions, shortly after launch in December 2004, NASA’s Swift telescope observed powerful flashes of light that were gamma-ray bursts, and shortly after the Chandra event and the Telescope NASA’s Hubble Spacer collected “afterglow” data from this event which led scientists to conclude that powerful explosions occur when a black hole and a neutron star collide, producing another black hole.
Even though the basic process of formation of black holes is known, a mystery remains that they exist on radically different scales, spread across the universe, on the one hand there are many remnants of massive star explosions, they are generally 10 to 24 times larger in “stellar mass” than the Sun, others are small and difficult to detect, but scientists estimate that there are ten million to one billion of these holes in the Milky Way alone.
At the other extreme are “supermassive” black holes that are millions to billions of times more massive than the Sun, astronomers believe they may be at the center of all large galaxies, including our Milky Way, observation is possible from the effects in the stars and in the gases close to it.
