well my first entry to this blog..was wondering what is it that would be intriguing enough to catch your attention...well heres something...reading up on news i found this article about moons of Saturn ..well how many do you think there are?...10..12..well they say there are about 60 now...shocking isn't it..here we are worried about the eclipses of our one moon.having superstitons, beliefs,observations,landings or no landings,missions to the moon..imagine keeping up with all of this for 60 moons...yes Cassini the spacecraft, was sent to take images of saturn picked up high resolution images of a moon called s/20074..well not a great name but yeah i don't wanna argue with the international astronomical union.this one's been moving around the planet and is the size of about 4 km in diameter not very big but yeah its there...many of these moons drifting around saturn have been located..cassini is expecting to find more of these moons..by the the mission end they're going to be loads i suppose..imagine being asked the name of saturn's moons in a quiz ..now..sheesh....i would suggest people to look up this news ..pretty pictures and really cool info..i'm sure u'll never promise your girl the moon again...
sanibh
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Exoplanets and Alien Life
For hundreds of years, man hoped to find some form of life in our Solar System, but sadly, after a lot of research and development and careful scanning and observation, things just didn't seem to fit. Every planet was chalked out for some vital condition that it could not satisfy. However, at this point, what we must realise is that what we are looking for is not some form of civilisation that is alien to us, for all we know of life is the way we humans biologically know it. We can definitely not rule out the possibility of the existence of an alien life form that has a totally different set of conditions to be able to sustain themselves. But, since looking for such forms of life would be nothing less than a wild goose chase, we narrow down our search to only those forms of life that are more or less similar to us biologically.Once scientists laid down some fundamental basis to define life, and some basic characteristics were identified, they went ahead in the quest to search for life beyond our solar system.
In the simplest terms, an extrasolar planet (also referred to as an exoplanet) is a planet beyond the solar system. As of today, there are 257 exoplanets that have been identified. This count only includes those planets that have been observed to be revolving around particular stars. Rogue planets and interstellar planets are not included in this count.
As far as detection of exoplanets is concerned, direct imaging is not an option. However, a host of other alternative indirect methods are available, including transit method (most commonly used), astrometry, radial velocity or Doppler method (this technique has proved to be the most productive one), eclipsing binary, and many more.
Most exoplanets known today orbit stars very similar to our sun. Firstly, this is because most of these search programs tend to focus on such stars. Secondly, those stars that are of lower mass are less likely to have planets, and even if they do, the planets themselves are quite small and therefore hard to detect. Lastly, the stars that are much hotter than our sun produce a photo-evaporation effect that inhibits planetary formation. Kepler Mission is probably one of the biggest leap that mankind has taken in this direction and it is expected to yield tremendous amounts of information about exoplanets that will take us a step closer to detecting alien life forms.
Detection of life (other than an advanced civilization) at interstellar distances, however, is a tremendously challenging technical task that will not be feasible for many years, even if such life is commonplace. So till then, lets just say, WE RULE THE WORLD...
Image details:
This artist's illustration shows an icy/rocky planet orbiting a dim star. Astronomers detected an extrasolar planet five times as massive as Earth circling a red dwarf, a relatively cool star. The distance between the planet, designated OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, and its host is about three times greater than that between the Earth and the Sun. The planet's large orbit and its dim parent star make its likely surface temperature a frigid minus 364 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 220 degrees Celsius). OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb looking at it's sun.
Image Source : NASA and the European Space Agency
-Mohit Gidwani
TIME TO ACT STRING(ENT)
String theory, I think is the theory that has given the idea of unification of all elementary forces under one head, some realistic ground for further investigations and discoveries…this time the discovery not just restricted to our universe or those four dimensions of space time but taking a huge leap in terms of imagination, which this time is mathematically empowered.
The first question that came to my mind when I got to know about this relatively new theory was…”what is a string?”
Now string as a term here is nothing but evolution of the word “particle”.
The particle theory which is widely used, exhausted and of course accepted works well only when the system is taken to be independent of gravity, as it is too weak a force in this frame of reference.
General relativity like no other theory till date, has offered infinite insights into the universe, the orbits of planets, the evolution of stars and galaxies, the big bang and recently observed black holes. However, the theory itself only works when we pretend that the universe is purely classical and that quantum mechanics is not needed.
String theory and the idea of wrapping the microscopic particle into more number of dimensions closes this gap between classical and quantum models.
In String Theory, the myriad of particle types is replaced by a single fundamental building block, a `string'. These strings can be closed, like loops, or open, like a hair. As the string moves through time it traces out a tube or a sheet, according to whether it is closed or open. Furthermore, the string is free to vibrate, and different vibrational modes of the string represent the different particle types, since different modes are seen as different masses or spins. This the basic principle behind the idea of getting strings into the picture of our universe and for that matter(and forces) universes.
To actually take this primeval idea to the extent of unifying all the forces, it became mandatory for the scientists to bring in a multi dimensional system into existence. Gravity the force I guess for which each one of us have already fallen, posed a huge problem with concern to unification.
One of the most remarkable predictions of String Theory is that space-time has ten dimensions! At first sight, this may be seen as a reason to dismiss the theory altogether, as we obviously have only three dimensions of space and one of time. However, if we assume that six of these dimensions are curled up very tightly, then we may never be aware of their existence. Furthermore, having these so-called compact dimensions is very beneficial if String Theory is to describe a Theory of Everything.
But with the all the development in this area, scientists reached the state where ten dimensions were to be handled, nine spatial one being time. This lead to five string theories with not much of co relation.
Before the string theories could go to the dogs, scientists added another dimension to these ten dimensional systems, the eleventh dimension.
And then we got what we now know as M-theory. The theory of membranes.
The tiny invisible strings of String Theory are the fundamental building blocks of all the matter in the Universe, but now, with the addition of the eleventh dimension, they changed. They stretched and they combined. The astonishing conclusion was that all the matter in the Universe was connected to one vast structure: a membrane. In effect our entire Universe is a membrane.
Then it became very easy to imagine a “world” with many such membranes, having parallel existence. As beautifully said by the renowned scientists Paul Steinhardt and Michio Kaku… there have been other universes existing throughout just that we never thought of it. While some of these universes may be working on completely different set of laws, some of them are bound to resemble ours.
Gravity which as we is the weakest force in “this” universe might just turn out to be pretty strong in some other universe.
Scientists are now heading towards solving the puzzle behind this weak force.
Is gravity leaking from our universe through the empty spaces between the eleven dimensions or has it been seeping all this while into our universe from another membrane close by?
With the idea of eleven dimensions now, we can actually believe to have an existence at some tail end of the force of gravity.
This thought is so astonishing and intriguing that any person on earth would love to know more.
The big bang then actually turns out be an event in this entire string of existence.
Lumps of matter are thought to have come into existence by interaction of two or more membranes. These membranes actually ripple and this interaction in terms of energy leads to creation of other universes or potential universes.
The journey from the string theory to the parallel universes via M-theory is full of fascinations and anticipations and like any other theory..assumptions.
This theory has now brought us to the pinnacle of imagination coming true with time machines actually being worked out on the principle of parallel existence of membranes, forces, matter and events.
I just hope that all that this theory says turns out to be true…and I really wish all those key people, scientists involved in this pursuit of “everything” a very good luck for all times and dimensions to come!!!
-kuhu shukla
The first question that came to my mind when I got to know about this relatively new theory was…”what is a string?”
Now string as a term here is nothing but evolution of the word “particle”.
The particle theory which is widely used, exhausted and of course accepted works well only when the system is taken to be independent of gravity, as it is too weak a force in this frame of reference.
General relativity like no other theory till date, has offered infinite insights into the universe, the orbits of planets, the evolution of stars and galaxies, the big bang and recently observed black holes. However, the theory itself only works when we pretend that the universe is purely classical and that quantum mechanics is not needed.
String theory and the idea of wrapping the microscopic particle into more number of dimensions closes this gap between classical and quantum models.
In String Theory, the myriad of particle types is replaced by a single fundamental building block, a `string'. These strings can be closed, like loops, or open, like a hair. As the string moves through time it traces out a tube or a sheet, according to whether it is closed or open. Furthermore, the string is free to vibrate, and different vibrational modes of the string represent the different particle types, since different modes are seen as different masses or spins. This the basic principle behind the idea of getting strings into the picture of our universe and for that matter(and forces) universes.
To actually take this primeval idea to the extent of unifying all the forces, it became mandatory for the scientists to bring in a multi dimensional system into existence. Gravity the force I guess for which each one of us have already fallen, posed a huge problem with concern to unification.
One of the most remarkable predictions of String Theory is that space-time has ten dimensions! At first sight, this may be seen as a reason to dismiss the theory altogether, as we obviously have only three dimensions of space and one of time. However, if we assume that six of these dimensions are curled up very tightly, then we may never be aware of their existence. Furthermore, having these so-called compact dimensions is very beneficial if String Theory is to describe a Theory of Everything.
But with the all the development in this area, scientists reached the state where ten dimensions were to be handled, nine spatial one being time. This lead to five string theories with not much of co relation.
Before the string theories could go to the dogs, scientists added another dimension to these ten dimensional systems, the eleventh dimension.
And then we got what we now know as M-theory. The theory of membranes.
The tiny invisible strings of String Theory are the fundamental building blocks of all the matter in the Universe, but now, with the addition of the eleventh dimension, they changed. They stretched and they combined. The astonishing conclusion was that all the matter in the Universe was connected to one vast structure: a membrane. In effect our entire Universe is a membrane.
Then it became very easy to imagine a “world” with many such membranes, having parallel existence. As beautifully said by the renowned scientists Paul Steinhardt and Michio Kaku… there have been other universes existing throughout just that we never thought of it. While some of these universes may be working on completely different set of laws, some of them are bound to resemble ours.
Gravity which as we is the weakest force in “this” universe might just turn out to be pretty strong in some other universe.
Scientists are now heading towards solving the puzzle behind this weak force.
Is gravity leaking from our universe through the empty spaces between the eleven dimensions or has it been seeping all this while into our universe from another membrane close by?
With the idea of eleven dimensions now, we can actually believe to have an existence at some tail end of the force of gravity.
This thought is so astonishing and intriguing that any person on earth would love to know more.
The big bang then actually turns out be an event in this entire string of existence.
Lumps of matter are thought to have come into existence by interaction of two or more membranes. These membranes actually ripple and this interaction in terms of energy leads to creation of other universes or potential universes.
The journey from the string theory to the parallel universes via M-theory is full of fascinations and anticipations and like any other theory..assumptions.
This theory has now brought us to the pinnacle of imagination coming true with time machines actually being worked out on the principle of parallel existence of membranes, forces, matter and events.
I just hope that all that this theory says turns out to be true…and I really wish all those key people, scientists involved in this pursuit of “everything” a very good luck for all times and dimensions to come!!!
-kuhu shukla
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