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from http://ift.tt/2hgH2XJ
Barely visible to the unaided eye on a dark, moonless night, Messier 17 – aka the Omega Nebula = is best seen though binoculars or low power on a telescope. It’s very near another prominent nebula known as Messier 16, the Eagle Nebula, home nebula of the famous Pillars of Creation photograph. These two closely-knit patches of haze readily fit within the same binocular field of view. Follow the links below to learn more.
How to see M17. If you want to see deep-sky objects like this one, learn to recognize the constellation Sagittarius the Archer. It’s located in the direction to the center of our Milky Way galaxy; many beautiful star clusters and nebulae can be found in this part of the sky. Luckily, this constellation contains an easy-to-find star pattern, or asterism, in the shape of a teapot. From the legendary Teapot asterism in Sagittarius, it’s fairly easy to star-hop to the Omega Nebula and its companion nebula, M16.
From the Teapot, draw an imaginary line from the star Kaus Austrinus and pass just east (left) of the star Kaus Media to locate M16 and M17. These two nebulae are close together and located about one fist-width above the Teapot.
As seen from the Northern Hemisphere, the Teapot, M16 and M17 are summertime objects. They’re highest up when due south on late August evenings. At the same time, they’re wintertime objects from the Southern Hemisphere, where they’re found closer to overhead.
Science of the Omega Nebula. Like M16, M17 Omega Nebula is a vast interstellar cloud of dust and gas giving birth to young, hot suns. It spans some 15 light-years in diameter. The cloud of interstellar matter of which this nebula is a part is roughly 40 light-years in diameter and has a mass of 30,000 solar masses. The total mass of the Omega Nebula is an estimated 800 solar masses.
The distance to the M17 Omega Nebula isn’t known with precision. There is little doubt that it lies farther away than the more brilliant Great Orion Nebula, the star-forming nebula that’s visible to the unaided eye in January and February. When you look at either M16 or M17, you’re gazing at deep-sky wonders in the next spiral arm inward: the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
The M17 Omega Nebula is thought to be around 5,000 light-years away. In contrast, the Orion Nebula resides within the Orion spiral arm (the same spiral arm as our solar system) at some 1,300 light-years distant. By the way, the local geometry of the Omega Nebula is similar to that of the Orion Nebula – except that the Omega Nebula is viewed edge-on rather than face-on.
The M17 Omega Nebula also goes by the name Swan Nebula or Horseshoe Nebula.
Competing nebulae. There are many glorious deep-sky objects in this region of the heavens. Two of the most famous patches of nebulosity – M8 and M20 – also vie for your attention, and couple up together within the same binocular field.
Like M16 and M17, this pair resides in the Sagittarius arm and is found by star-hopping from The Teapot. Judge for yourself which pair of stellar nurseries makes the bigger splash!
Bottom line: Barely visible to the unaided eye on a dark, moonless night, the Omega Nebula (Messier 17) is best seen through binoculars, or low power in a telescope. It’s one of our galaxy’s vast star-forming regions.
Barely visible to the unaided eye on a dark, moonless night, Messier 17 – aka the Omega Nebula = is best seen though binoculars or low power on a telescope. It’s very near another prominent nebula known as Messier 16, the Eagle Nebula, home nebula of the famous Pillars of Creation photograph. These two closely-knit patches of haze readily fit within the same binocular field of view. Follow the links below to learn more.
How to see M17. If you want to see deep-sky objects like this one, learn to recognize the constellation Sagittarius the Archer. It’s located in the direction to the center of our Milky Way galaxy; many beautiful star clusters and nebulae can be found in this part of the sky. Luckily, this constellation contains an easy-to-find star pattern, or asterism, in the shape of a teapot. From the legendary Teapot asterism in Sagittarius, it’s fairly easy to star-hop to the Omega Nebula and its companion nebula, M16.
From the Teapot, draw an imaginary line from the star Kaus Austrinus and pass just east (left) of the star Kaus Media to locate M16 and M17. These two nebulae are close together and located about one fist-width above the Teapot.
As seen from the Northern Hemisphere, the Teapot, M16 and M17 are summertime objects. They’re highest up when due south on late August evenings. At the same time, they’re wintertime objects from the Southern Hemisphere, where they’re found closer to overhead.
Science of the Omega Nebula. Like M16, M17 Omega Nebula is a vast interstellar cloud of dust and gas giving birth to young, hot suns. It spans some 15 light-years in diameter. The cloud of interstellar matter of which this nebula is a part is roughly 40 light-years in diameter and has a mass of 30,000 solar masses. The total mass of the Omega Nebula is an estimated 800 solar masses.
The distance to the M17 Omega Nebula isn’t known with precision. There is little doubt that it lies farther away than the more brilliant Great Orion Nebula, the star-forming nebula that’s visible to the unaided eye in January and February. When you look at either M16 or M17, you’re gazing at deep-sky wonders in the next spiral arm inward: the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
The M17 Omega Nebula is thought to be around 5,000 light-years away. In contrast, the Orion Nebula resides within the Orion spiral arm (the same spiral arm as our solar system) at some 1,300 light-years distant. By the way, the local geometry of the Omega Nebula is similar to that of the Orion Nebula – except that the Omega Nebula is viewed edge-on rather than face-on.
The M17 Omega Nebula also goes by the name Swan Nebula or Horseshoe Nebula.
Competing nebulae. There are many glorious deep-sky objects in this region of the heavens. Two of the most famous patches of nebulosity – M8 and M20 – also vie for your attention, and couple up together within the same binocular field.
Like M16 and M17, this pair resides in the Sagittarius arm and is found by star-hopping from The Teapot. Judge for yourself which pair of stellar nurseries makes the bigger splash!
Bottom line: Barely visible to the unaided eye on a dark, moonless night, the Omega Nebula (Messier 17) is best seen through binoculars, or low power in a telescope. It’s one of our galaxy’s vast star-forming regions.
Descriptions on this page are made possible by Les Cowley’s great website, Atmospheric Optics
Click here to learn more about 22-degree sun halos
Click here for more photos of contrail shadows, and to learn more about them
Descriptions on this page are made possible by Les Cowley’s great website, Atmospheric Optics
Click here to learn more about 22-degree sun halos
Click here for more photos of contrail shadows, and to learn more about them
Image at top: Waxing gibbous moon via OMladyO in Switzerland.
Tonight – July 31, 2017 – and in the coming evenings, people will see a waxing gibbous moon in the evening sky. The half-lit first quarter moon just happened on Sunday, July 30. Waxing means we’re seeing more and more of the moon’s illuminated side, or day side. Gibbous means the moon’s disk appears to us now as more than 50% lit by sunshine. On July 31, the moon is barely more than 50% illuminated, but the moon will be rising later – appearing in the sky for more hours of the night – and appearing bigger and brighter each evening this week. Click here to know the moon’s present phase.
Full moon will come August 7 or 8, 2017, depending on your time zone. And thus, in 2017, the moon will all but obliterate the annual Perseid meteor shower. At the same time, the moon is now edging toward a lunar eclipse, then a solar eclipse.
At this upcoming full moon, people from Earth’s Eastern Hemisphere can watch Earth’s dark shadow (umbra) darken the southern edge of the August 2017 full moon. Hence that part of the world will see a partial eclipse of the moon.
Click here to learn more about the August 7-8 lunar eclipse.
By the way, a lunar eclipse can only happen at full moon because that’s the only time Earth’s shadow can fall on the moon. More often than not, the full moon eludes the Earth’s shadow by swinging to the north or south of it, thereby missing being eclipsed. But not this month.
Why no eclipse every full and mew moon?
Three weeks from now, the the moon’s shadow will hit Earth at the August 21, 2017 new moon. The moon’s dark umbral shadow will cross the U.S. during daylight hours on August 21, to cause a total eclipse of the sun.
Total eclipse of sun: August 21, 2017
How to watch a solar eclipse safely
Best places to watch 2017 eclipse
How much traffic on eclipse day?
For now, each day after sunset, you’ll see more of the moon’s disk as sunlit. Another way to say this is, you’ll see more of the moon’s day side. Meanwhile, the dark part of a waxing gibbous moon – the part we can’t see well at this moon phase, because it blends with the dark of our own night, or blue of our own day – is the moon’s night side. Just as on Earth, night on the moon happens to be that part of the moon submerged in the moon’s own shadow. How much of the moon’s night, or day, side is visible from Earth depends on the moon phase.
Bottom line: The waxing gibbous moon is waxing toward full moon on August 7-8, obliterating the annual meteors showers and edging toward a lunar eclipse, then a solar eclipse.
Image at top: Waxing gibbous moon via OMladyO in Switzerland.
Tonight – July 31, 2017 – and in the coming evenings, people will see a waxing gibbous moon in the evening sky. The half-lit first quarter moon just happened on Sunday, July 30. Waxing means we’re seeing more and more of the moon’s illuminated side, or day side. Gibbous means the moon’s disk appears to us now as more than 50% lit by sunshine. On July 31, the moon is barely more than 50% illuminated, but the moon will be rising later – appearing in the sky for more hours of the night – and appearing bigger and brighter each evening this week. Click here to know the moon’s present phase.
Full moon will come August 7 or 8, 2017, depending on your time zone. And thus, in 2017, the moon will all but obliterate the annual Perseid meteor shower. At the same time, the moon is now edging toward a lunar eclipse, then a solar eclipse.
At this upcoming full moon, people from Earth’s Eastern Hemisphere can watch Earth’s dark shadow (umbra) darken the southern edge of the August 2017 full moon. Hence that part of the world will see a partial eclipse of the moon.
Click here to learn more about the August 7-8 lunar eclipse.
By the way, a lunar eclipse can only happen at full moon because that’s the only time Earth’s shadow can fall on the moon. More often than not, the full moon eludes the Earth’s shadow by swinging to the north or south of it, thereby missing being eclipsed. But not this month.
Why no eclipse every full and mew moon?
Three weeks from now, the the moon’s shadow will hit Earth at the August 21, 2017 new moon. The moon’s dark umbral shadow will cross the U.S. during daylight hours on August 21, to cause a total eclipse of the sun.
Total eclipse of sun: August 21, 2017
How to watch a solar eclipse safely
Best places to watch 2017 eclipse
How much traffic on eclipse day?
For now, each day after sunset, you’ll see more of the moon’s disk as sunlit. Another way to say this is, you’ll see more of the moon’s day side. Meanwhile, the dark part of a waxing gibbous moon – the part we can’t see well at this moon phase, because it blends with the dark of our own night, or blue of our own day – is the moon’s night side. Just as on Earth, night on the moon happens to be that part of the moon submerged in the moon’s own shadow. How much of the moon’s night, or day, side is visible from Earth depends on the moon phase.
Bottom line: The waxing gibbous moon is waxing toward full moon on August 7-8, obliterating the annual meteors showers and edging toward a lunar eclipse, then a solar eclipse.
Part three of our new blog series on radiotherapy explores a type of radiotherapy treatment called IMRT. We cover what it is, how it’s already improved the lives of many patients and why this number will continue to grow.
A tumour is a 3D ball of cells, each with a unique shape and position in the body. This causes a problem for radiotherapy as some parts of the tumour may be closer to healthy tissues than others.
The stronger the radiotherapy beam the more damage it will do to normal cells, which increases side effects and the chance of scarring.
So radiotherapists have borrowed a trick from the theatre.
Just as leading actors get a strong spotlight on stage with the rest of the set lit less brightly, different parts of a tumour can get different intensities of radiotherapy.
The advanced technique that lets this happen is called intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), where the intensity of radiation varies depending on which part of the treatment area it hits.
The crux of IMRT treatment is to give each part of the tumour enough radiation to kill it but to protect healthy cells at the same time.
This is done by using a bit of high-tech kit in the radiotherapy machine called a multileaf collimator. The radiation beam passes through metal leaves that slide to make different shapes.
The collimators movement is unique to each patient and controls the area exposed to radiation as well as the direction and intensity of the beam. This means that the precious, normal tissues get a much lower dose.
Professor David Sebag-Montefiore, a Cancer Research UK radiotherapy expert from the University of Leeds, says the way IMRT is given is also improving.
When it first came about IMRT was given by using many beams, each from a different direction. The patient lay on the bed whilst the radiotherapy machine sat in fixed positions, pointing to the tumour in the middle.
The idea is that the beam hits the tumour at lots of different angles but doesn’t stay in contact with healthy cells for long, so they have an easier job of recovering. Because this process is repeated from lots of different angles, the radiation beam has great coverage of the tumour but spares the important organs and normal cells around it.
A more sophisticated way of receiving IMRT is becoming increasingly available. Now the most modern radiotherapy machines deliver radiation in a smooth arc around the patient, which shortens the time it takes to give the treatment.
During IMRT the radiotherapy machine is a great multitasker. It moves around the patient changing the shape of the beams and their intensity, depending on which area of the body it’s treating.
“The way the beams shape and intensity changes, means it can spare areas of the body that don’t need radiation. For example, when we treat tumours in the pelvis it avoids sensitive areas like major nerves or genitals.” says Sebag–Montefiore.
Sebag–Montefiore thinks developments in IMRT have significantly improved treatment options for patients and their quality of life.
“IMRT has dramatically changed our ability to treat some cancers more effectively. It’s a type of radiotherapy treatment that can offer much more individualised treatment and gives the right dose to the right target,” he says.
All tumours are different shapes and sizes, so each patient gets their own individual programme of radiation.
“We used to operate on cancers of the head and neck and remove the tumours with surgery, but this is such a delicate area the operation would cause a lot of physical and psychological damage,” says Sebag–Montefiore.
With IMRT, just the tumour and a small area around it are exposed to radiation, reducing side effects and scarring.
IMRT is also improving quality of life for patients with anal cancer. With reproductive organs, the lower intestines and the bladder very near, operating is tricky.
“In anal cancer, surgery used to be thought of as the best treatment, but the whole back passage would be removed and a patient would have to use a colostomy bag for the rest of their life,” says Sebag–Montefiore.
IMRT has dramatically changed our ability to treat some cancers more effectively.
– Professor David Sebag-Montefiore
But IMRT’s beams are so carefully controlled delicate nerves around the bladder and genital area get less radiation, so anal cancer can be cured with fewer side effects.
“Because of this, the standard of care has changed for this cancer from chemo and surgery to radiotherapy,” he says.
There are many trials underway testing the best ways to use IMRT for a variety of cancers.
For example, the PLATO trial is using IMRT to decide the best radiotherapy treatment for patients with anal cancer.
Researchers are also looking at whether IMRT could help really hard to treat cancers. The SCALOP2 trial is looking at the best radiotherapy dose to use in patients with pancreatic cancer that hasn’t spread and how best to combine it with drugs.
Professor Corrine Faivre-Finn thinks IMRT could be particularly useful in killing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). She’s a Cancer Research UK expert in radiotherapy and is looking into the impact of IMRT on lung cancer at The Christie hospital in Manchester.
Her team looked back on nearly 9,000 lung cancer patients treated with IMRT between 2005 and 2015. They found that, as time went by, the number of patients that had radiotherapy treatment with the intention to cure increased each year. Before the introduction of IMRT in 2008, the number of patients given radiotherapy to cure was at 39 in 100 patients. But once it was fully available between 2009-2012 this number rose to 59 in 100.
“This means that IMRT has let us treat large volumes of tumours and tumours near organs that in the past we wouldn’t have been able to treat. We would have just given them end-of-life care or low doses of radiotherapy.” says Fairve-Finn.
But she adds that it’s not just survival that’s important.
“If you give a treatment like this you can control the disease for longer. This means less symptoms and so a better quality of life for the patient.”
Both Sebag–Montefiore and Faivre-Finn think patients will be having more and more personalised treatment plans using IMRT.
It’s clear that IMRT has already put on a pretty impressive show. In the case of lung cancer, it’s meant that larger, more developed tumours – previously thought too advanced to treat – can now be treated. It’s also changed practice for a number of cancer types.
And with further improvements on the way, IMRT could be set to take centre-stage in more treatment plans, for more cancer types in the future.
Gabi
Part three of our new blog series on radiotherapy explores a type of radiotherapy treatment called IMRT. We cover what it is, how it’s already improved the lives of many patients and why this number will continue to grow.
A tumour is a 3D ball of cells, each with a unique shape and position in the body. This causes a problem for radiotherapy as some parts of the tumour may be closer to healthy tissues than others.
The stronger the radiotherapy beam the more damage it will do to normal cells, which increases side effects and the chance of scarring.
So radiotherapists have borrowed a trick from the theatre.
Just as leading actors get a strong spotlight on stage with the rest of the set lit less brightly, different parts of a tumour can get different intensities of radiotherapy.
The advanced technique that lets this happen is called intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), where the intensity of radiation varies depending on which part of the treatment area it hits.
The crux of IMRT treatment is to give each part of the tumour enough radiation to kill it but to protect healthy cells at the same time.
This is done by using a bit of high-tech kit in the radiotherapy machine called a multileaf collimator. The radiation beam passes through metal leaves that slide to make different shapes.
The collimators movement is unique to each patient and controls the area exposed to radiation as well as the direction and intensity of the beam. This means that the precious, normal tissues get a much lower dose.
Professor David Sebag-Montefiore, a Cancer Research UK radiotherapy expert from the University of Leeds, says the way IMRT is given is also improving.
When it first came about IMRT was given by using many beams, each from a different direction. The patient lay on the bed whilst the radiotherapy machine sat in fixed positions, pointing to the tumour in the middle.
The idea is that the beam hits the tumour at lots of different angles but doesn’t stay in contact with healthy cells for long, so they have an easier job of recovering. Because this process is repeated from lots of different angles, the radiation beam has great coverage of the tumour but spares the important organs and normal cells around it.
A more sophisticated way of receiving IMRT is becoming increasingly available. Now the most modern radiotherapy machines deliver radiation in a smooth arc around the patient, which shortens the time it takes to give the treatment.
During IMRT the radiotherapy machine is a great multitasker. It moves around the patient changing the shape of the beams and their intensity, depending on which area of the body it’s treating.
“The way the beams shape and intensity changes, means it can spare areas of the body that don’t need radiation. For example, when we treat tumours in the pelvis it avoids sensitive areas like major nerves or genitals.” says Sebag–Montefiore.
Sebag–Montefiore thinks developments in IMRT have significantly improved treatment options for patients and their quality of life.
“IMRT has dramatically changed our ability to treat some cancers more effectively. It’s a type of radiotherapy treatment that can offer much more individualised treatment and gives the right dose to the right target,” he says.
All tumours are different shapes and sizes, so each patient gets their own individual programme of radiation.
“We used to operate on cancers of the head and neck and remove the tumours with surgery, but this is such a delicate area the operation would cause a lot of physical and psychological damage,” says Sebag–Montefiore.
With IMRT, just the tumour and a small area around it are exposed to radiation, reducing side effects and scarring.
IMRT is also improving quality of life for patients with anal cancer. With reproductive organs, the lower intestines and the bladder very near, operating is tricky.
“In anal cancer, surgery used to be thought of as the best treatment, but the whole back passage would be removed and a patient would have to use a colostomy bag for the rest of their life,” says Sebag–Montefiore.
IMRT has dramatically changed our ability to treat some cancers more effectively.
– Professor David Sebag-Montefiore
But IMRT’s beams are so carefully controlled delicate nerves around the bladder and genital area get less radiation, so anal cancer can be cured with fewer side effects.
“Because of this, the standard of care has changed for this cancer from chemo and surgery to radiotherapy,” he says.
There are many trials underway testing the best ways to use IMRT for a variety of cancers.
For example, the PLATO trial is using IMRT to decide the best radiotherapy treatment for patients with anal cancer.
Researchers are also looking at whether IMRT could help really hard to treat cancers. The SCALOP2 trial is looking at the best radiotherapy dose to use in patients with pancreatic cancer that hasn’t spread and how best to combine it with drugs.
Professor Corrine Faivre-Finn thinks IMRT could be particularly useful in killing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). She’s a Cancer Research UK expert in radiotherapy and is looking into the impact of IMRT on lung cancer at The Christie hospital in Manchester.
Her team looked back on nearly 9,000 lung cancer patients treated with IMRT between 2005 and 2015. They found that, as time went by, the number of patients that had radiotherapy treatment with the intention to cure increased each year. Before the introduction of IMRT in 2008, the number of patients given radiotherapy to cure was at 39 in 100 patients. But once it was fully available between 2009-2012 this number rose to 59 in 100.
“This means that IMRT has let us treat large volumes of tumours and tumours near organs that in the past we wouldn’t have been able to treat. We would have just given them end-of-life care or low doses of radiotherapy.” says Fairve-Finn.
But she adds that it’s not just survival that’s important.
“If you give a treatment like this you can control the disease for longer. This means less symptoms and so a better quality of life for the patient.”
Both Sebag–Montefiore and Faivre-Finn think patients will be having more and more personalised treatment plans using IMRT.
It’s clear that IMRT has already put on a pretty impressive show. In the case of lung cancer, it’s meant that larger, more developed tumours – previously thought too advanced to treat – can now be treated. It’s also changed practice for a number of cancer types.
And with further improvements on the way, IMRT could be set to take centre-stage in more treatment plans, for more cancer types in the future.
Gabi
“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived.” -Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, and Rick Berman
After being away for last weekend, it’s time to take a look back at the past two weeks on Starts With A Bang! There’s been no shortage of stories, of news, or of scientific matters of interest, so let’s see what we’ve got:
Next week, I’ll be at two days of the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, on August 3rd and 4th, and the full schedule is now online! While the Perseids are coming up, followed by the total solar eclipse, there’s still a whole lot to do before then. You’ve had a lot to think about and a lot to say, so let’s get right into our comments of the week!
From Elle H.C. on a (non-)problem with the LHC: “…while the LHC is all about creating as much noise possible (luminosity)…”
Hang on. Are you contending that you can’t know what goes on in a proton-proton collision, because there are bunched of protons being fired at each other, multiple collisions happening, and therefore we can’t pull the signal out of the noise? Because although that certainly makes things more difficult, it’s not at all a cause for concern in these experiments. Colliding composite particles means we need to be able to tell the difference between a collision of interest and a glancing collision, noise, or other particles that find their way (or their daughter particles find a way) into the detectors.
But we know how to do that: we trigger on large transverse-momentum events. For those events, we record the entirety of the data, and can determine which particle tracks originated from which collision. If you’re not concerned with disrupting spacetime or creating a catastrophe at the LHC, then perhaps I’ve misunderstood what you’ve been contending for a long time.
From Pentcho Valev on walking the walk: “No need to ban me – I’m leaving your blog.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. Your “leaving my blog” lasted for an even shorter duration than a Jay-Z retirement.
From Adam on falling into a black hole with a tether: “I’m not getting the Option C listed here. If a particle emits a force mediating particle, and the force mediating particle crosses or goes deeper into an event horizon, even if it hits some other particle in some random location, how’s the original particle going to know?
Am I missing something obvious? Is a return force mediating particle not required?”
Imagine you’re falling into a black hole. You know that once you cross the event horizon, nothing can get out. You also know that, with enough power, something that’s outside the event horizon, if you do it just right, can escape. There are also tidal forces at play, working to stretch (in the “towards-the-singularity” direction) and compress (in the “perpendicular-to-that-previous-direction” direction) that you just can’t avoid.
So what could possibly happen to you as you fall in? Or, if you prefer, as you, in your ship outside, try and deal with a tether that extends to an object that’s just fallen inside the event horizon?
The outside part can try and escape! If you try too hard, you’ll snap the tether. If you don’t try hard enough, you’ll be pulled in. And if you try just right — which means just hard enough that if you tried any harder, the tether will snap — then what? Well, the answer is that you’ll fall in as slowly as possible. In particular, the particles outside will continue to communicate (i.e., exchange forces) with the particles outside; the particles inside will communicate with the particles inside; and the particles just inside the event horizon will exchange forces with the particles that were outside the event horizon when those virtual particles were emitted, but by time those signals are received, those particles now must be inside the event horizon. Which means you really do only have two options: either you’ll be pulled in or the tether will snap. But you can continue to not have the tether snap if you fall in at the minimum possible rate, which is governed not by the material strength of the tether, but rather by the laws of relativity and causality. (And FYI, no, a “round-trip” force exchange isn’t necessary. One way exerts forces on both particles. That’s physics!)
From Denier on quantum gravity: “
Ethan: you are of the mindset that spacetime fabric is a thing, rather than nothingness itself. We can create visualizations of it; we can write down the laws that govern it; we can quantify the interrelationships of its various components. But it’s not a physical thing that you can poke holes in or tear apart
Denier: That sounds an awful lot like you’re declaring LQG to be fiction.”
Hold on! Saying “spacetime is a fabric” is true in General Relativity, which is our theory of gravity today. Space and/or time may be quantized or discrete at a fundamental level, but those scales at which we’d observe such effects are Planck-scale effects, something we don’t have any way of accessing with current or even envisioned future technology. LQG, or any discrete quantum theory of spacetime, could still be true, but it would have to reproduce classical GR in the low-energy limit.
I thought I said something to that effect when I first brought that up? Oh wait, I did! Here’s the rest of that quote:
But it’s not a physical thing that you can poke holes in or tear apart; it’s a mathematical structure that’s well-defined, and the conditions where that structure breaks down — Planck scales — are also well-defined. The LHC doesn’t reach those scales, so we’re positive that we’re fine. Your analogy isn’t applicable here.
QED, I think.
From Michael Mooney on the (perceived?) invalidity of Special Relativity: “I’m still waiting for Ethan to disambiguate the difference between apparent length contraction (re: differences in what observers see) and actual physical shrinkage of physical objects as promoted by SR.”
You wrote three things that you addressed here as a “response to my challenge.” Only one was physics:
Regarding length contraction, It would take a clear disambiguation of the difference between *apparent* contraction (as seen/measured by various observers) and *actual physical shrinkage* as claimed in the pole- in- a- barn and the train- in- a- tunnel SR thought experiments… also applied to flattened planets (as seen by…) and contracted distances between stars, as per fast travelers with slow clocks.
If we had a way to travel close to the speed of light and take 3D measurements, we would be able to do exactly that. We’d be able to combine the effects of length contraction along with frame-of-reference motions of light-emitting objects (i.e., arrival times) to measure if length contraction is real. We can do this for individual particles (or bunches of particles) and confirm that special relativity’s predictions are right. We’ve done it for fields (they exhibit length contraction at high speeds, like the electric field of an electron). But we haven’t been able to do this for large, composite, macroscopic objects because of practical constraints. But there’s no reason to believe that the physics is any different.
Your other two things that you wrote, however, complained about ontology. As a physicist, I’m not really interested in your (or my, or anyone’s) inability to wrap your head around a physical interpretation/visualization/ontology of what these well-defined entities actually are. You are of the mindset that such a definition is nonsense and incomplete and insufficient. You are entitled to your own opinion, but, like I said, I don’t find it interesting enough to even have a conversation about; it’s not physics, nor is it physically interesting. You are going to disagree and ask me to respond, and I will tell you that I won’t. Why not? Because I don’t waste my time explaining myself to someone who’s committed to misunderstanding me. And in this, you are.
From Frank on terraforming Mars: “Only possibility I see is if we can modify orbits of large asteroids and comets someday to collide with Mars to add both mass and water, and also make its orbit come closer to Sun.”
Wait, and you thought bringing material to Mars the old-fashioned way was difficult? How much mass do you plan on adding? Because the entire asteroid belt is 0.5% the mass of Mars. You want to bring Mars closer to the Sun? How are you going to dissipate all that orbital energy? I think the bigger lesson is that if you add just atmosphere and then water, you get a world that works, as is, for hundreds of millions of years. That’s pretty good!
From Steve Blackband on the same topic: “So a magnetic field not needed to maintain the atmosphere. Cool.
However there is still the issue of radiation exposure without one, unless you live underground or under a dome.”
Radiation exposure is an interesting question. While I may do lousy on Mars, someone who grew up in a radiation-rich environment would likely be fine. Somehow, if you grow up in a radiation-rich natural environment, you don’t suffer the same ill-effects that someone who grew up in a more typical Earth environment would when exposed to such radiation.
The most radioactive inhabited location on Earth is the city of Ramsar in Iran, and here’s the deal (from Wikipedia) on that:
Ramsar’s Talesh Mahalleh district is the most radioactive inhabited area known on Earth, due to nearby hot springs and building materials originating from them.[8] A combined population of 2,000 residents from this district and other high radiation neighbourhoods receive an average radiation dose of 10 mGy per year, ten times more than the ICRP recommended limit for exposure to the public from artificial sources.[9] Record levels were found in a house where the effective radiation dose due to external radiation was 131 mSv/a, and the committed dose from radon was 72 mSv/a.[10] This unique case is over 80 times higher than the world average background radiation.
People don’t die or get cancer as expected. You might have “zero-generation” problems with radioactivity on Mars, but I have a feeling that the surviving colonists are going to wind up just fine.
From Ragtag Media on a great list of eclipse apps: “It’s all about the apps:
http://ift.tt/2twl5s5“
This is beautiful, and worth sharing. Also, if you haven’t caught it, did you know I just did a new podcast on the upcoming eclipse?
From eric on the horizon problem: “Can’t the horizon problem be solved by the notion of these causally separated locations obeying the same laws of physics?”
As Michael Kelsey said, the problem isn’t that the laws of physics are the same; the problem is that different regions of the Universe are the exact same temperature despite being millions of light years apart! But if that’s too hard, think about it in this other fashion: the Big Bang must have occurred at the exact same moment with the exact same initial conditions everywhere. How exact is exact? For the temperature fluctuations we see, the “bang” must have occurred in all locations with the same energy separated by timescales of no less than about 10^-33 seconds.
Over millions of light years, how can you make anything line up to that incredible degree of precision? I don’t think you can, not without invoking some “the initial conditions were just finely-tuned like that.” And maybe they were… but that’s the essence of the horizon problem.
From Sinisa Lazarek on the science of the Game of Thrones homeworld: “Would there be dragons?”
Physics will only get you so far, Sinisa. I can get you a world with chaotic rotations and seasons… but as far as exobiology, I don’t think our science is there yet. Someday, perhaps.
Also, I noticed the arrival of jimbob on this post. This is a science blog, not a bible study group. He is now banned.
From Pawel on the possibility of life on Triton: “I cannot find any information on “black smokers” volcanoes on Triton. Sure, there is volcanic activity there, but what makes them similar to black smokers?”
Well, if you google “black smokers triton” you’ll find that there’s the Triton grill which can be used for smoking food, and that won’t help you much. But Voyager 2 was remarkable in the science it collected. Yes, it found a mostly nitrogen atmosphere with some methane, where the methane was indirect evidence of volcanic activity. It has evidence of resurfacing, so that’s more evidence of geological activity. And the presence of methane is different in different parts of the world, indicating a seasonal component — seasonal heating from the Sun — as well.
But we are absolutely certain that Triton is volcanically active. Along with Earth, Io, and Venus, only Triton also exhibits surefire volcanic activity. (This is likely due to tidal forces from Neptune.) But there’s also this:
Those dark spots and streaks? Volcanic activity. As the New York Times reported back in 1989:
One of the pictures showed a five-mile-high, geyser-like plume of dark material erupting from the icy surface of Triton, the blue and pink moon that all but stole the show from its planet when the Voyager spacecraft had its rendezvous with Neptune last August.
The discovery, scientists said, confirmed the hypothesis advanced immediately after the Voyager encounter that explosive volcanoes probably fueled by liquid nitrogen accounted for much of the rugged terrain on Triton. This meant that Triton is only the third object in the solar system, after Earth and Jupiter’s moon Io, known to have active volcanoes.
You can find more about it in the 1999 book, Satellites of the Outer Planets, by David A. Rothery.
From CFT on mathematical constructs: “Nothing actually moves in a mathematical construct like space time, It can’t even accommodate an impulse to motion, so the entire idea of it somehow affecting physical reality is quite pointless Platonistic hand waving.”
You know that there are many mathematical spacetime constructs; Einstein’s General Relativity was hardly the only one. The reason Einstein’s formalism is remarkable, though, is because it accurately describes our observed, physical reality. That’s all you need for physics. Mathematics is like taking the square root of 4. You get multiple answers: it could be +2 or it could be -2. Mathematics gives you all the possibilities a setup can admit. Physics? It has one answer, and that answer gives us our physical reality. If you can’t wrap your head around it, you can either listen to the (dissatisfactory) analogies that people who are educated in it make, or you can go and become educated about it yourself. Enjoy the Christoffel symbols!
From Steve on fake astro pictures: “Its such a sad sad sad reflection of the ignorance in this nation regarding science and education that you felt it necessary to tell the audience that the dog digging on the moon (without a dogsuit) is photoshopped in.
And that I felt it necessary to add ‘without a dogsuit’…”
You are aware that there are many people who don’t even believe humans landed on the Moon. They also think it was a hoax perpetrated by the American government, and that there was some sort of secret “staged area” where the Moon landings took place. So when you show them a picture like this, it jibes with their worldview. It confirms their belief, and so they’re likely to dig in deeper. This may happen frequently in your own life, depending on who you encounter and what issues you speak about.
For me, I prefer to just watch the Rammstein video that gave the best “how to fake a Moon-like video” I think I’ve ever seen.
From dean on the climate science issue: “All true, but as denialists know, all they have to do is repeat their lies and let them sit. It’s quick and doesn’t require any science but they do seem like common sense statements to most people.. They know refuting them takes time and longer explanations that will lose the attention of people. Not promising.”
You know, I am not a climate scientist. And I’m not really qualified to do climate science research. Which is why I ran my article past three separate Ph.D. climate scientists (technically, two climate scientists and one climatologist), all of whom vetted it and approved of all of my points.
But they made a separate point, one that I thought was quite important: their goal is to mislead. Their goal is to manufacture debate and uncertainty. Their goal is not to get the science right, nor to consider the full suite of evidence. Their goal is to keep the status quo in place. And perhaps if I keep taking the, “we have to all agree on the facts before we can discuss policy,” then all they have to do is keep muddying the facts and they win. So maybe I need to take a different line of argument if I want to make a difference.
I’m thinking on this.
From Pentcho Valev on Einstein: “Spacetime is a consequence of Einstein’s constant-speed-of-light postulate, and this postulate is OBVIOUSLY false.”
I’ll tell you what: show me one measurement from any reference frame that indicates that the speed of light in a vacuum is not exactly 299,792,458 meters per second (I even gave you the value!), and we can talk about your ideas. Also, you’re going to love yesterday’s Ask Ethan when you get to it… but you have to read it. Writing your own “wall of text” (as other commenters have rightly called it) is equivalent to promoting your own pet theories and nonsense here. If that’s all you have to write about, get your own blog, because if you don’t knock it off, you won’t be welcome here any longer.
Last chance to behave!
And finally, to end this on a high note, here’s Alan G. on… I don’t really know, but it doesn’t really matter: “Can’t wait to pop the corn and pop the top for reading these Sunday night. This is gonna be epic, and the start is not disappointing…”
There’s always a lot to say, think, and reason out, and if you’re curious about the Universe, I hope this blog (and even the forum) gives you something interesting to ponder. There’s some amazing stuff going on in the Universe all the time, and I hope to see you continue on this journey with me. Have a great rest-of-your-weekend, everyone!
“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived.” -Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, and Rick Berman
After being away for last weekend, it’s time to take a look back at the past two weeks on Starts With A Bang! There’s been no shortage of stories, of news, or of scientific matters of interest, so let’s see what we’ve got:
Next week, I’ll be at two days of the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, on August 3rd and 4th, and the full schedule is now online! While the Perseids are coming up, followed by the total solar eclipse, there’s still a whole lot to do before then. You’ve had a lot to think about and a lot to say, so let’s get right into our comments of the week!
From Elle H.C. on a (non-)problem with the LHC: “…while the LHC is all about creating as much noise possible (luminosity)…”
Hang on. Are you contending that you can’t know what goes on in a proton-proton collision, because there are bunched of protons being fired at each other, multiple collisions happening, and therefore we can’t pull the signal out of the noise? Because although that certainly makes things more difficult, it’s not at all a cause for concern in these experiments. Colliding composite particles means we need to be able to tell the difference between a collision of interest and a glancing collision, noise, or other particles that find their way (or their daughter particles find a way) into the detectors.
But we know how to do that: we trigger on large transverse-momentum events. For those events, we record the entirety of the data, and can determine which particle tracks originated from which collision. If you’re not concerned with disrupting spacetime or creating a catastrophe at the LHC, then perhaps I’ve misunderstood what you’ve been contending for a long time.
From Pentcho Valev on walking the walk: “No need to ban me – I’m leaving your blog.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. Your “leaving my blog” lasted for an even shorter duration than a Jay-Z retirement.
From Adam on falling into a black hole with a tether: “I’m not getting the Option C listed here. If a particle emits a force mediating particle, and the force mediating particle crosses or goes deeper into an event horizon, even if it hits some other particle in some random location, how’s the original particle going to know?
Am I missing something obvious? Is a return force mediating particle not required?”
Imagine you’re falling into a black hole. You know that once you cross the event horizon, nothing can get out. You also know that, with enough power, something that’s outside the event horizon, if you do it just right, can escape. There are also tidal forces at play, working to stretch (in the “towards-the-singularity” direction) and compress (in the “perpendicular-to-that-previous-direction” direction) that you just can’t avoid.
So what could possibly happen to you as you fall in? Or, if you prefer, as you, in your ship outside, try and deal with a tether that extends to an object that’s just fallen inside the event horizon?
The outside part can try and escape! If you try too hard, you’ll snap the tether. If you don’t try hard enough, you’ll be pulled in. And if you try just right — which means just hard enough that if you tried any harder, the tether will snap — then what? Well, the answer is that you’ll fall in as slowly as possible. In particular, the particles outside will continue to communicate (i.e., exchange forces) with the particles outside; the particles inside will communicate with the particles inside; and the particles just inside the event horizon will exchange forces with the particles that were outside the event horizon when those virtual particles were emitted, but by time those signals are received, those particles now must be inside the event horizon. Which means you really do only have two options: either you’ll be pulled in or the tether will snap. But you can continue to not have the tether snap if you fall in at the minimum possible rate, which is governed not by the material strength of the tether, but rather by the laws of relativity and causality. (And FYI, no, a “round-trip” force exchange isn’t necessary. One way exerts forces on both particles. That’s physics!)
From Denier on quantum gravity: “
Ethan: you are of the mindset that spacetime fabric is a thing, rather than nothingness itself. We can create visualizations of it; we can write down the laws that govern it; we can quantify the interrelationships of its various components. But it’s not a physical thing that you can poke holes in or tear apart
Denier: That sounds an awful lot like you’re declaring LQG to be fiction.”
Hold on! Saying “spacetime is a fabric” is true in General Relativity, which is our theory of gravity today. Space and/or time may be quantized or discrete at a fundamental level, but those scales at which we’d observe such effects are Planck-scale effects, something we don’t have any way of accessing with current or even envisioned future technology. LQG, or any discrete quantum theory of spacetime, could still be true, but it would have to reproduce classical GR in the low-energy limit.
I thought I said something to that effect when I first brought that up? Oh wait, I did! Here’s the rest of that quote:
But it’s not a physical thing that you can poke holes in or tear apart; it’s a mathematical structure that’s well-defined, and the conditions where that structure breaks down — Planck scales — are also well-defined. The LHC doesn’t reach those scales, so we’re positive that we’re fine. Your analogy isn’t applicable here.
QED, I think.
From Michael Mooney on the (perceived?) invalidity of Special Relativity: “I’m still waiting for Ethan to disambiguate the difference between apparent length contraction (re: differences in what observers see) and actual physical shrinkage of physical objects as promoted by SR.”
You wrote three things that you addressed here as a “response to my challenge.” Only one was physics:
Regarding length contraction, It would take a clear disambiguation of the difference between *apparent* contraction (as seen/measured by various observers) and *actual physical shrinkage* as claimed in the pole- in- a- barn and the train- in- a- tunnel SR thought experiments… also applied to flattened planets (as seen by…) and contracted distances between stars, as per fast travelers with slow clocks.
If we had a way to travel close to the speed of light and take 3D measurements, we would be able to do exactly that. We’d be able to combine the effects of length contraction along with frame-of-reference motions of light-emitting objects (i.e., arrival times) to measure if length contraction is real. We can do this for individual particles (or bunches of particles) and confirm that special relativity’s predictions are right. We’ve done it for fields (they exhibit length contraction at high speeds, like the electric field of an electron). But we haven’t been able to do this for large, composite, macroscopic objects because of practical constraints. But there’s no reason to believe that the physics is any different.
Your other two things that you wrote, however, complained about ontology. As a physicist, I’m not really interested in your (or my, or anyone’s) inability to wrap your head around a physical interpretation/visualization/ontology of what these well-defined entities actually are. You are of the mindset that such a definition is nonsense and incomplete and insufficient. You are entitled to your own opinion, but, like I said, I don’t find it interesting enough to even have a conversation about; it’s not physics, nor is it physically interesting. You are going to disagree and ask me to respond, and I will tell you that I won’t. Why not? Because I don’t waste my time explaining myself to someone who’s committed to misunderstanding me. And in this, you are.
From Frank on terraforming Mars: “Only possibility I see is if we can modify orbits of large asteroids and comets someday to collide with Mars to add both mass and water, and also make its orbit come closer to Sun.”
Wait, and you thought bringing material to Mars the old-fashioned way was difficult? How much mass do you plan on adding? Because the entire asteroid belt is 0.5% the mass of Mars. You want to bring Mars closer to the Sun? How are you going to dissipate all that orbital energy? I think the bigger lesson is that if you add just atmosphere and then water, you get a world that works, as is, for hundreds of millions of years. That’s pretty good!
From Steve Blackband on the same topic: “So a magnetic field not needed to maintain the atmosphere. Cool.
However there is still the issue of radiation exposure without one, unless you live underground or under a dome.”
Radiation exposure is an interesting question. While I may do lousy on Mars, someone who grew up in a radiation-rich environment would likely be fine. Somehow, if you grow up in a radiation-rich natural environment, you don’t suffer the same ill-effects that someone who grew up in a more typical Earth environment would when exposed to such radiation.
The most radioactive inhabited location on Earth is the city of Ramsar in Iran, and here’s the deal (from Wikipedia) on that:
Ramsar’s Talesh Mahalleh district is the most radioactive inhabited area known on Earth, due to nearby hot springs and building materials originating from them.[8] A combined population of 2,000 residents from this district and other high radiation neighbourhoods receive an average radiation dose of 10 mGy per year, ten times more than the ICRP recommended limit for exposure to the public from artificial sources.[9] Record levels were found in a house where the effective radiation dose due to external radiation was 131 mSv/a, and the committed dose from radon was 72 mSv/a.[10] This unique case is over 80 times higher than the world average background radiation.
People don’t die or get cancer as expected. You might have “zero-generation” problems with radioactivity on Mars, but I have a feeling that the surviving colonists are going to wind up just fine.
From Ragtag Media on a great list of eclipse apps: “It’s all about the apps:
http://ift.tt/2twl5s5“
This is beautiful, and worth sharing. Also, if you haven’t caught it, did you know I just did a new podcast on the upcoming eclipse?
From eric on the horizon problem: “Can’t the horizon problem be solved by the notion of these causally separated locations obeying the same laws of physics?”
As Michael Kelsey said, the problem isn’t that the laws of physics are the same; the problem is that different regions of the Universe are the exact same temperature despite being millions of light years apart! But if that’s too hard, think about it in this other fashion: the Big Bang must have occurred at the exact same moment with the exact same initial conditions everywhere. How exact is exact? For the temperature fluctuations we see, the “bang” must have occurred in all locations with the same energy separated by timescales of no less than about 10^-33 seconds.
Over millions of light years, how can you make anything line up to that incredible degree of precision? I don’t think you can, not without invoking some “the initial conditions were just finely-tuned like that.” And maybe they were… but that’s the essence of the horizon problem.
From Sinisa Lazarek on the science of the Game of Thrones homeworld: “Would there be dragons?”
Physics will only get you so far, Sinisa. I can get you a world with chaotic rotations and seasons… but as far as exobiology, I don’t think our science is there yet. Someday, perhaps.
Also, I noticed the arrival of jimbob on this post. This is a science blog, not a bible study group. He is now banned.
From Pawel on the possibility of life on Triton: “I cannot find any information on “black smokers” volcanoes on Triton. Sure, there is volcanic activity there, but what makes them similar to black smokers?”
Well, if you google “black smokers triton” you’ll find that there’s the Triton grill which can be used for smoking food, and that won’t help you much. But Voyager 2 was remarkable in the science it collected. Yes, it found a mostly nitrogen atmosphere with some methane, where the methane was indirect evidence of volcanic activity. It has evidence of resurfacing, so that’s more evidence of geological activity. And the presence of methane is different in different parts of the world, indicating a seasonal component — seasonal heating from the Sun — as well.
But we are absolutely certain that Triton is volcanically active. Along with Earth, Io, and Venus, only Triton also exhibits surefire volcanic activity. (This is likely due to tidal forces from Neptune.) But there’s also this:
Those dark spots and streaks? Volcanic activity. As the New York Times reported back in 1989:
One of the pictures showed a five-mile-high, geyser-like plume of dark material erupting from the icy surface of Triton, the blue and pink moon that all but stole the show from its planet when the Voyager spacecraft had its rendezvous with Neptune last August.
The discovery, scientists said, confirmed the hypothesis advanced immediately after the Voyager encounter that explosive volcanoes probably fueled by liquid nitrogen accounted for much of the rugged terrain on Triton. This meant that Triton is only the third object in the solar system, after Earth and Jupiter’s moon Io, known to have active volcanoes.
You can find more about it in the 1999 book, Satellites of the Outer Planets, by David A. Rothery.
From CFT on mathematical constructs: “Nothing actually moves in a mathematical construct like space time, It can’t even accommodate an impulse to motion, so the entire idea of it somehow affecting physical reality is quite pointless Platonistic hand waving.”
You know that there are many mathematical spacetime constructs; Einstein’s General Relativity was hardly the only one. The reason Einstein’s formalism is remarkable, though, is because it accurately describes our observed, physical reality. That’s all you need for physics. Mathematics is like taking the square root of 4. You get multiple answers: it could be +2 or it could be -2. Mathematics gives you all the possibilities a setup can admit. Physics? It has one answer, and that answer gives us our physical reality. If you can’t wrap your head around it, you can either listen to the (dissatisfactory) analogies that people who are educated in it make, or you can go and become educated about it yourself. Enjoy the Christoffel symbols!
From Steve on fake astro pictures: “Its such a sad sad sad reflection of the ignorance in this nation regarding science and education that you felt it necessary to tell the audience that the dog digging on the moon (without a dogsuit) is photoshopped in.
And that I felt it necessary to add ‘without a dogsuit’…”
You are aware that there are many people who don’t even believe humans landed on the Moon. They also think it was a hoax perpetrated by the American government, and that there was some sort of secret “staged area” where the Moon landings took place. So when you show them a picture like this, it jibes with their worldview. It confirms their belief, and so they’re likely to dig in deeper. This may happen frequently in your own life, depending on who you encounter and what issues you speak about.
For me, I prefer to just watch the Rammstein video that gave the best “how to fake a Moon-like video” I think I’ve ever seen.
From dean on the climate science issue: “All true, but as denialists know, all they have to do is repeat their lies and let them sit. It’s quick and doesn’t require any science but they do seem like common sense statements to most people.. They know refuting them takes time and longer explanations that will lose the attention of people. Not promising.”
You know, I am not a climate scientist. And I’m not really qualified to do climate science research. Which is why I ran my article past three separate Ph.D. climate scientists (technically, two climate scientists and one climatologist), all of whom vetted it and approved of all of my points.
But they made a separate point, one that I thought was quite important: their goal is to mislead. Their goal is to manufacture debate and uncertainty. Their goal is not to get the science right, nor to consider the full suite of evidence. Their goal is to keep the status quo in place. And perhaps if I keep taking the, “we have to all agree on the facts before we can discuss policy,” then all they have to do is keep muddying the facts and they win. So maybe I need to take a different line of argument if I want to make a difference.
I’m thinking on this.
From Pentcho Valev on Einstein: “Spacetime is a consequence of Einstein’s constant-speed-of-light postulate, and this postulate is OBVIOUSLY false.”
I’ll tell you what: show me one measurement from any reference frame that indicates that the speed of light in a vacuum is not exactly 299,792,458 meters per second (I even gave you the value!), and we can talk about your ideas. Also, you’re going to love yesterday’s Ask Ethan when you get to it… but you have to read it. Writing your own “wall of text” (as other commenters have rightly called it) is equivalent to promoting your own pet theories and nonsense here. If that’s all you have to write about, get your own blog, because if you don’t knock it off, you won’t be welcome here any longer.
Last chance to behave!
And finally, to end this on a high note, here’s Alan G. on… I don’t really know, but it doesn’t really matter: “Can’t wait to pop the corn and pop the top for reading these Sunday night. This is gonna be epic, and the start is not disappointing…”
There’s always a lot to say, think, and reason out, and if you’re curious about the Universe, I hope this blog (and even the forum) gives you something interesting to ponder. There’s some amazing stuff going on in the Universe all the time, and I hope to see you continue on this journey with me. Have a great rest-of-your-weekend, everyone!