Song of the Week #9

I can't help it...I love chick drummers. :D This duo also happens to be awesome, and I might be seeing them in a couple weeks...woohoo..

Song of the Week #8

Kelsie McNair
Everything by her, really...but you should click the track called "radiation." It's quite good. Promise.

America, America...

*sigh*
If only this weren't accurate. Especially in the south...

Song of the Week #7

I can't help but like this song. *shrug* And it makes perfect sense..
(Nothing decent available on You Tube or elsewhere, so..click da link. Cool site, actually.)
The Bloodsugars: I Want It Back

Solar Flares

I took Thor's Day off, so my week o' space is incomplete. But..I'M ok with that, and I think Thor would be, too. I can't imagine he doesn't approve of beer, food, and football. There were even temporary tattoos. VERY Thor. :)

ANYWAY...
A solar flare is a large explosion in the Sun's atmosphere that can release as much as 6 × 10 to the 25th joules of energy(about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second). The term is also used to refer to similar phenomena in other stars, where the term stellar flare applies.
Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere (photosphere, corona, and chromosphere), heating plasma to tens of millions of kelvins and accelerating electrons, protons, and heavier ions to near the speed of light. They produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum at all wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays. Most flares occur in active regions around sunspots, where intense magnetic fields penetrate the photosphere to link the corona to the solar interior. Flares are powered by the sudden (timescales of minutes to tens of minutes) release of magnetic energy stored in the corona. If a solar flare is exceptionally powerful, it can cause coronal mass ejections.
X-rays and UV radiation emitted by solar flares can affect Earth's ionosphere and disrupt long-range radio communications. Direct radio emission at decimetric wavelengths may disturb operation of radars and other devices operating at these frequencies.
Solar flares were first observed on the Sun by Richard Christopher Carrington and independently by Richard Hodgson in 1859 as localized visible brightenings of small areas within a sunspot group. Stellar flares have also been observed on a variety of other stars.
The frequency of occurrence of solar flares varies, from several per day when the Sun is particularly "active" to less than one each week when the Sun is "quiet". Large flares are less frequent than smaller ones. Solar activity varies with an 11-year cycle (the solar cycle). At the peak of the cycle there are typically more sunspots on the Sun, and hence more solar flares.
Scientific research has shown that the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection is responsible for solar flares. Magnetic reconnection is the name given to the rearrangement of magnetic lines of force when two oppositely directed magnetic fields are brought together. This rearrangement is accompanied with a sudden release of energy stored in the original oppositely directed fields.
On the sun, magnetic reconnection may happen on solar arcades -a series of closely occurring loops of magnetic lines of force. These lines of force quickly reconnect into a low arcade of loops leaving a helix of magnetic field unconnected to the rest of the arcade. The sudden release of energy in this reconnection causes the solar flare. The unconnected magnetic helical field and the material that it contains may violently expand outwards forming a coronal mass ejection.
This also explains why solar flares typically erupt from what are known as the active regions on the sun where magnetic fields are much stronger on an average.
Solar flares strongly influence the local space weather of the Earth. They produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere that can present radiation hazards to spacecraft and astronauts. The soft X-ray flux of X class flares increases the ionization of the upper atmosphere, which can interfere with short-wave radio communication and can increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Energetic particles in the magnetosphere contribute to the aurora borealis and aurora australis.
Solar flares release a cascade of high energy particles known as a proton storm. Energetic protons can pass through the human body, doing biochemical damage, and hence present a hazard to astronauts during interplanetary travel. Most proton storms take two or more hours from the time of visual detection to reach Earth's orbit. A solar flare on January 20, 2005 released the highest concentration of protons ever directly measured, taking only 15 minutes after observation to reach Earth, indicating a velocity of approximately one-third light speed.
The radiation risks posted by prominences and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are among the major concerns in discussions of manned missions to Mars, the moon, or any other planets. Some kind of physical or magnetic shielding would be required to protect the astronauts. Originally it was thought that astronauts would have two hours time to get into shelter, but based on the January 20, 2005 event, they may have as little as 15 minutes to do so. Energy in the form of hard x-rays are considered dangerous to spacecraft and are generally the result of large plasma ejection in the upper chromosphere.
If you'd like to see the most recent, kick-ass flare, go here.
There are also Flare Stars. :)

Song of the Week #6

In keeping with the space theme, Flo is bringing back some 80's fashion. Oh how I've missed the leotard-with-holes and school-girl-lost-in-the-woods look. It's like Lady Gaga and Bat for Lashes had a lovechild, but..damn..she can sing and I can't help but like her stuff.
I hope I get to see her next month..I'll wear my leotard with a pimp hat for halloween. :D

The Theory of Relativity

Y'know..I almost, kinda understand a couple parts of that equation. Scary...

The Theory of Relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word "relativity" is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance.
The theory of relativity enriched physics and astronomy during the 20th century. When first published, relativity superseded a 200-year-old theory of mechanics elucidated by Isaac Newton. It changed perceptions.
For example, it overturned the concept of motion from Newton's day, into all motion is relative. Time was no longer uniform and absolute, as related to everyday experience. Furthermore, no longer could physics be understood as space by itself, and time by itself. Instead, an added dimension had to be taken into account with curved space-time. Time now depended on velocity, and contraction became a fundamental consequence at appropriate speeds.
In the field of microscopic physics, relativity catalyzed and added an essential depth of knowledge to the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with introducing the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves.
Albert Einstein‘s theory is known as the Theory of Relativity because its core principle is that the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same, relative to the observer. This is totally unlike the speed of anything else.
If you are driving along the motorway at 100km/hr and the car in the next lane is doing 120km/hr, you will observe it gaining on you at 20 km/hr. If this keeps up for an hour the other car will end up 20 kilometers ahead of you. Similarly, if the car in the next lane is doing 80 km/hr, it will appear to be going backwards at 20 km/hr, compared to you. But light, along with other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as radio waves and X-rays, doesn’t work that way.
No matter how fast you’re going, any beam of light appears to be travelling away from you at the same speed: 300,000 km/second. If you’re travelling at 50,000 km/second, and someone who is stationary switches on a lamp, the beam of light travels past you at 300,000 km/second, not at 250,000 km/second as you might expect. And yet, if the stationary person measures the speed, they also find that it travels away from them at 300,000 km/second. Weird!
How can this be? Bizarrely, as things move faster they get shorter and their time travels more slowly. So the observer moving at 50,000 km/second is measuring the light’s speed with a shorter ruler and a longer second. No wonder the light seems to travel the same number of kilometers each second, if the moving observer’s kilometers and seconds are different from those of the stationary observer.
At small speeds, the difference is not much. If you’re on a bus travelling at 100 km/hour, the bus gets shorter by less than a millionth of a millimeter, and its time slows down by the same proportion. Not enough to notice! But the effects predicted by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity have been repeatedly measured with larger objects and distances (such as planets orbiting the sun) and with objects travelling at high speeds (such as subatomic particles).

Another part of Einstein’s theory states that mass and energy are equivalent, and it provides a formula to convert from one to the other. This is Einstein’s famous equation “E equals m c squared”, where E is energy, m is mass (at rest), and c is the speed of light.
Any time you liberate energy, you are also reducing mass. When you discharge a battery, the electricity is generated by chemical changes inside the battery. These chemical reactions leave the battery slightly lighter than it was when it was fully charged, and the battery gets heavier again when you charge it up! Again, the difference is very small. Only a tiny proportion of the battery’s mass is converted into energy.
When you accelerate an object, it gets heavier. The faster an object goes, the heavier it gets. This is totally counter-intuitive, but it really happens. The energy used to accelerate the object doesn’t just disappear into nothingness; it reappears as increased mass of the object being accelerated.
This is why it’s impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light. As the speed of an object approaches the speed of light, it gets exponentially more massive (“heavier”). It would become infinitely massive at the speed of light, but of course you can never get that fast because it becomes harder and harder to accelerate the object as it gets faster and more massive.
This is a very informal explanation of the theory of relativity. The effects are so small at everyday speeds that we aren’t aware of them, but the theory is readily verifiable by experimentation.
Einstein’s theory points tantalisingly towards some kind of deeper understanding of the essential nature of time, gravity, energy and matter. Many scientists have spent a lot of time trying to unify these into an all-encompassing “theory of everything” but so far without success.

Dark Matter

Because I've been a bit down today, it seems fitting. It's also EXTREMELY cool.

The Universe is made up of 100's of billions of stars, presumably each the center of their own systems or part of nebulae or other systems and galaxies. Sometimes galaxies gather into clusters containing all sorts of visible matter (like stars, planets, asteroids, gases, and thermal energy). It turns out there is five times more material in clusters of galaxies than we would expect from the galaxies and hot gas we can see. Most of the stuff in clusters of galaxies is invisible and, since these are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity, scientists then conclude that most of the matter in the entire Universe is invisible. This invisible stuff is called 'dark matter', a term initially coined by Fritz Zwicky who discovered evidence for missing mass in galaxies in the 1930s. There is currently much ongoing research by scientists attempting to discover exactly what this dark matter is, how much there is, and what effect it may have on the future of the Universe as a whole.
In general, astronomers learn about the Universe by the electromagnetic radiation (or light) that we see from it. The light we see is in the form of radio waves, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray emission. But what if there is material in the Universe that does not glow? How will we ever know it is there? How can we tell how much of it there is? How do we know what it is? Dark matter has a gravitational pull on both the light and the sources of light that we can see. From the effects of "extra" gravity that we detect, we infer how much mass must be present.
The kinds of materials that we experience every day are made of atoms, which are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. We refer to this type of matter as "baryonic". Is the dark matter in the Universe made of the same stuff that we are familiar with, i.e., is it baryonic? Or is it something strange ... some kind of exotic new material, which we could call non-baryonic?
So far, it looks like there are both baryonic and non-baryonic types of dark matter. Some dark matter may be composed of regular matter (ie., baryonic), but simply not give off much light. Things like brown dwarf stars would be in this catagory. Other non-baryonic dark matter may be tiny, sub-atomic particles which aren't a part of "normal" matter at all. If these tiny particles have mass and are numerous, they could make up a large part of the dark matter we think exists.
Although dark matter was inferred by many astronomical observations, the composition of what dark matter is remains speculative. Early theories of Dark matter concentrated on hidden heavy normal objects, such as blackholes, neutron stars, faint old white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, as the possible candidates for dark matter, collectively known as MACHOs. Astronomical surveys failed to find enough of these hidden MACHOs. Some hard-to-detect baryonic matter, such as MACHOs and some forms of gas, is believed to make a contribution to the overall dark matter content but would constitute only a small portion.
Additionally, data from a number of lines of evidence, including galaxy rotation curves, gravitational lensing, structure formation, and the fraction of baryons in clusters and the cluster abundance combined with independent evidence for the baryon density, indicate that 85-90% of the mass in the universe does not interact with the electromagnetic force. This "nonbaryonic dark matter" is evident through its gravitational effect. At present, the most common view is that dark matter is primarily non-baryonic, made of one or more elementary particles other than the usual electrons, protons, neutrons, and known neutrinos. The most commonly proposed particles are axions, sterile neutrinos, and WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, including neutralinos).
Estimated distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universeThe dark matter component has much more mass than the "visible" component of the universe. Only about 4.6% of the mass of Universe is ordinary matter. About 23% is thought to be composed of dark matter. The remaining 72% is thought to consist of dark energy, an even stranger component, distributed diffusely in space. Determining the nature of this missing mass is one of the most important problems in modern cosmology and particle physics. It has been noted that the names "dark matter" and "dark energy" serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much like the marking of early maps with "terra incognita".
An important property of all dark matter is that it behaves like and is modeled like a perfect fluid, meaning that it does not have any internal resistance or viscosity. This means that dark matter particles should not interact with each other other than through gravity, i.e. they move past each other without ever bumping or colliding.
Historically, three categories of dark matter candidates have been postulated. The categories cold, warm, and hot refer to the speed at which the particles are traveling rather than an actual temperature.

Cold dark matter – objects that move at classical velocities
Warm dark matter – particles that move relativistically
Hot dark matter – particles that move ultrarelativistically

Mentions of dark matter occur in some video games and other works of fiction. In such cases, it is usually attributed extraordinary physical or magical properties. Such descriptions are often inconsistent with the properties of dark matter proposed in physics and cosmology.

Moon Day

Yup..totally predictable. Monday for the moon. :)
I'm stealing tidbits of interesting facts from NASA, mostly..

The moon moves in a variety of ways. For example, it rotates on its axis, an imaginary line that connects its poles. The moon also orbits Earth. Different amounts of the moon's lighted side become visible in phases because of the moon's orbit around Earth. During events called eclipses, the moon is positioned in line with Earth and the sun. A slight motion called libration enables us to see about 59 percent of the moon's surface at different times.
The moon rotates on its axis once every 29 1/2 days. That is the period from one sunrise to the next, as seen from the lunar surface, and so it is known as a lunar day. By contrast, Earth takes only 24 hours for one rotation.
The moon's axis of rotation, like that of Earth, is tilted. Astronomers measure axial tilt relative to a line perpendicular to the ecliptic plane, an imaginary surface through Earth's orbit around the sun. The tilt of Earth's axis is about 23.5 degrees from the perpendicular and accounts for the seasons on Earth. But the tilt of the moon's axis is only about 1.5 degrees, so the moon has no seasons.
Another result of the smallness of the moon's tilt is that certain large peaks near the poles are always in sunlight. In addition, the floors of some craters -- particularly near the south pole -- are always in shadow.
The moon completes one orbit of Earth with respect to the stars about every 27 1/3 days, a period known as a sidereal month. But the moon revolves around Earth once with respect to the sun in about 29 1/2 days, a period known as a synodic month. A sidereal month is slightly shorter than a synodic month because, as the moon revolves around Earth, Earth is revolving around the sun. The moon needs some extra time to "catch up" with Earth. If the moon started on its orbit from a spot between Earth and the sun, it would return to almost the same place in about 29 1/2 days.
A synodic month equals a lunar day. As a result, the moon shows the same hemisphere -- the near side -- to Earth at all times. The other hemisphere -- the far side -- is always turned away from Earth.
People sometimes mistakenly use the term dark side to refer to the far side. The moon does have a dark side -- it is the hemisphere that is turned away from the sun. The location of the dark side changes constantly, moving with the terminator, the dividing line between sunlight and dark.
The lunar orbit, like the orbit of Earth, is shaped like a slightly flattened circle. The distance between the center of Earth and the moon's center varies throughout each orbit. At perigee (PEHR uh jee), when the moon is closest to Earth, that distance is 225,740 miles (363,300 kilometers). At apogee (AP uh jee), the farthest position, the distance is 251,970 miles (405,500 kilometers). The moon's orbit is elliptical (oval-shaped).
Some ancient peoples believed that the moon was a rotating bowl of fire. Others thought it was a mirror that reflected Earth's lands and seas. But philosophers in ancient Greece understood that the moon is a sphere in orbit around Earth. They also knew that moonlight is reflected sunlight.
Some Greek philosophers believed that the moon was a world much like Earth. In about A.D. 100, Plutarch even suggested that people lived on the moon. The Greeks also apparently believed that the dark areas of the moon were seas, while the bright regions were land.

The Algonquin tribes of the Native Americans named the full moons for each month:

January: Wolf Moon: Hungry wolf packs howled at night
February: Snow Moon: Heaviest snowfalls in the middle of winter
March: Worm Moon: Start of spring, as earthworms (and the robins that eat them!) began to appear
April: Pink Moon: An early spring flower called "moss pink" started to bloom
May: Flower Moon: Many types of flowers bloom in May
June: Strawberry Moon: Strawberries were ready to be picked and eaten
July: Buck Moon: New antlers of buck deer, coated with velvety fur, began to form
August: Sturgeon Moon: Sturgeon, a large fish found in the Great Lakes, were easily caught at this time of year
September: Harvest Moon: Farmers could continue harvesting until after sunset by the light of the Harvest Moon
October: Hunter's Moon: Hunters tracked and killed prey by moonlight, stockpiling food for the coming winter
November: Beaver Moon: Time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to make sure of a supply of warm winter furs
December: Cold Moon: The cold of winter sets in

Happy harvest moon. ;)

Space?

So..it HAS occured to me, on many occasions, that the title of this blog might be a bit misleading. I know that if I happened upon it, I'd assume it had at least something to do with space..something astronomical. Because I never intended for anyone to really read anything here, the title wasn't so important a year or so ago when I created it. I just wanted a place to put things I couldn't keep in my head, and I AM Space Dog...so. *grin*
Anyway, it just so happens that I very much love all things astronomical and always have, so I hereby dub this week Space Week. This way I'm at least not disappointing anybody looking for spacey stuff for a few days. (Wow..I make it sound like I have herds of readers or something..lol.)
I'm going to do my best to post something everyday through Saturday.
Tonight's post, because I can't be where I want to be, is about Jupiter:

It's believed that Jupiter is a failed sun. I think everyone knows it's the largest and fifth planet from the sun, but lesser known is the fact that it is the only planet that has a center of mass with the Sun that lies outside the volume of the Sun, though by only 7% of the Sun's radius. The average distance between Jupiter and the Sun is 778 million km (about 5.2 times the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, or 5.2 AU) and it completes an orbit every 11.86 years. Jupiter's rotation is the fastest of all the Solar System's planets, completing a rotation on its axis in slightly less than ten hours; this creates an equatorial bulge easily seen through an Earth-based amateur telescope (it's true..I've seen it).
Along with the Sun, the gravitational influence of Jupiter has helped shape the Solar System. The orbits of most of the system's planets lie closer to Jupiter's orbital plane than the Sun's equatorial plane (Mercury is the only planet that is closer to the Sun's equator in orbital tilt), the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt are mostly caused by Jupiter, and the planet may have been responsible for the Late Heavy Bombardment of the inner Solar System's history.
Along with its moons, Jupiter's gravitational field controls numerous asteroids that have settled into the regions of the Lagrangian points preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. These are known as the Trojan asteroids, and are divided into Greek and Trojan "camps" to commemorate the Iliad. The first of these, 588 Achilles, was discovered by Max Wolf in 1906; since then more than two thousand have been discovered. The largest is 624 Hektor.
Most short-period comets belong to the Jupiter family—defined as comets with semi-major axes smaller than Jupiter's. Jupiter family comets are believed to form in the Kuiper belt outside the orbit of Neptune. During close encounters with Jupiter their orbits are perturbed into a smaller period and then circularized by regular gravitational interaction with the Sun and Jupiter.
Jupiter also has 63 named natural satellites. Of these, 47 are less than 10 kilometers in diameter and have only been discovered since 1975. The four largest moons, known as the "Galilean moons", are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Galileo Galilei is credited with discovering them in 1610, using only a telescope.
Then, of course, there's the Great Red Spot (pictured above)..a swirling mass of gas resembling a hurricane. The widest diameter of the spot is about three times that of Earth. The color of the spot usually varies from brick-red to slightly brown. Rarely, the spot fades entirely. Its color may be due to small amounts of sulfur and phosphorus in the ammonia crystals. The edge of the Great Red Spot circulates at a speed of about 225 miles (360 kilometers) per hour. The spot remains at the same distance from the equator but drifts slowly east and west.

Over here on Earth, Jupiter was assigned different functions, however. Because it's so large and is either the fourth or fifth brightest object in the sky, after the Sun, Moon, Venus, and sometimes Mars, it has obviously been visible to the naked eye since ancient times. The ancient Greeks associated Jupiter with their ruling god, Zeus. He was the rain god and lord of the sky, making his name an appropriate one for the king of the planets. His weapon is a thunderbolt, which he hurls at those who displease him. He is married to Hera but, is famous for his many affairs, and is also known to punish those that lie or break oaths. The Romans renamed him Jupiter, and he held the same general function in their mythology, but it varied over time. In the early Republican era, when Rome was an agricultural city, he first appeared as an agricultural god in charge of sun and moonlight (Jupiter Lucetius), wind, rain, storms, thunder and lightning (Jupiter Elicius), sowing (Jupiter Dapalis), creative forces (Jupiter Liber) and the boundary stones of fields (Jupiter Terminus).
As Rome developed into a city of commerce and military force, Jupiter evolved into a protector of the city and state of Rome. As with his earlier agricultural form, he could be invoked through a variety of titles, each dependent on the responsibilities being requested of him :

As a warrior god - JUPITER STATOR, FERETRIUS and VICTOR.
As great god of the Empire - JUPITER OPTIMUS MAXIMUS.
As protector of the Empire - JUPITER CONSERVATOR ORBIS
As protector of the Emperor - JUPITER CONSERVATOR AUGUSTORUM

According to Hindu mythology, Jupiter is considered to be the teacher of gods, or Devas. In Vedic astrology the planet Jupiter is known as Guru, Brihaspati and Devagura. Jupiter is a good indicator of fortune, wealth, fame, luck, devotion, wisdom, compassion, spirituality, religion and morality.
The 12 years of the Chinese Zodiac (also recognized in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) originated outside of China proper, perhaps in the northern-central Asia. These 12 signs derive not from the 12 months of the year, but from the 12 years of the Jupiter cycle (it's orbit). Jupiter is known as the Year Star.
In Norse mythology, Jupiter is closely related to the hammer-wielding god, Thor, associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind. Thursday (Thor's Day) is named for him.

BEER 101

Yes..the beer I'm writing about must be in ALL CAPS!!!
I have become a BEER connoisseur. For close to a year now, my friend (oh..let's call him Merlin the Honorary Lesbian) and I have been semi-frequenting an awesome bar here in Baton Rouge, LA. The Cove (and Port Royal) is (are) the absolute best bar(s) to visit here if you're interested in not only educating yourself about beer and the various brewing processes, but also sampling a mind-boggling variety of local, American, and international beers. (They also have tons of liquors, wines, and a very special collection of scotches.) This is serious stuff, people. This is not keg party beer, not for tailgating, not for downing by the case, and it requires a bit of a commitment on the part of the drinker. You don't order these to get hammered..these are liquid art, and you're even offered study materials and encouraged to keep a Beer Log (I don't so far). I'm never sure if I should be more impressed with the selection of 439 beers or the knowledgeable bartenders. We don't even pick anymore..they just tell us what we want.
Last night I was given Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, and I liked it enough to drink two. I even got little, plastic goat ornaments (they're around the neck of the bottle, like in the logo). Great beer AND plastic goats you can hang from your ears..or..whatever's handy. Can't beat that. :D
For now it's my favorite, and I love the label. Next time..who knows?
Four hundred or so to go...wow..Merlin and I may have to start working out.
In the meantime I encourage anyone who may happen upon this to check out the sites I have linked, including Beer Advocate, and, if you're a true beer lover, begin your education. I'm planning to go for my doctorate.

Song of the Week #5

Yes...it's a REMIX. 8-/
I have no idea why, but I really love this. (Well..aside from the fact that it's an awesome Muse song that I relate to as usual *grin*.) I listen to it quite a bit on my iPod..it makes me happy. Hope it makes you happy..or at least a bit dancy.
Dance in your underwear...it's fun.