astro picture for the day/note for the day

Image Credit & Copyright: Leonardo Orazi

- Note for the day, post 5/24/11, or "thought for the day/the U.S. Capital building and non-Euclidean geometries!", about Democracy has been updated! I think I'll post more ganglands.  This is amazing.  These ganglands give great frontrow seats on the formations of cults/religions.  Understand that cults are gangs with mythology and religion is just a big cult, and these gangland videos are a goldmine!  The first gangland video is remarkable because it shows that the first 'Lethal Weapon' plot actually had a real life story incarnation!

Highlights I found in this episode,

"It's o.k. for people to respect you. But when they fear you, now you got the power." - Frank Lucas

 

"We ruled that with an iron fist." - Nicky Barnes

 

They had a chain of command, and ruled by violence.  Frank Lucas learned fear rules by the Ku Klux Klan. "Anybody can die for no reason" - Frank Lucas.

 

Frank learned gangster life from a Bumpy Johnson.  Bumpy learned from the Sicilian mafia(most of the Mafia of the early 1900s were Sicilians).

 

 

astro picture for the day

 

Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA - Processing: Judy Schmidt

 

I don't even believe this picture. 

 

- 10Feb2014 edit, Artificial intelligence achieved? molecular self-assembly as artificial intelligence

 

I remember a previous development from these guys; they used cellular automata to solve parallel processing; this latest development seems a little bit different. One interesting quote, "Our exploration would deliver a human-like brain for robots or sophisticated industrial machines," concludes Bandyopadhyay. "At the same time, it would open up a new physical world of biology squarely parallel to the chemical-only genetic and molecular biology that exists today."

astro picture for the day

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Birmingham/M.Burke et al.

This is an x-ray image from the X-ray space telescope Chandra of Galaxy Centaurus A.  When radio astronomy first started, this galaxy was the second most prominent object next to Sagitarious A(the center of our galaxy). 

Astronomers are finding that there's a corresponding mass gap between neutron stars and black holes their finding in Centaurus A and what they've found in our galaxy, which is strong evidence of just what it takes to create a black hole versus a neutron star in a supernova explosion.

- and in other news, the Yellowstone supervolcano appears to have raised ten inches in just the last year; but the earthquakes seismometers still detect the same background of earthquakes suggesting this may not be so alarming.  But, the god believers seem to take advantage of this suggesting the end of the world is coming.

I find whenever I check out Yellowstone supervolcano, all kinds of messianic end of the worlders start prophesizing doom. Here's one, called armageddon online .  I can't seem to find this other one.  ope, I found it!  In this one can be found,

"Prophetic Vision of Yellowstone Volcano
March 16, 2007
Diane M.

To Holly Deyo:

I have been told to share this with you by spirit. Your work has been so meaningful to
 

me I hope this is useful for you and Stan.

I had a prophetic vision come to me the middle of February. Since then, I have had more
parts of the vision filled in on almost a daily basis. My vision was significant volcanic
activity in Yellowstone National Park, on March 17 2007.  Although it is shown to me
as a large eruption, it does not devastate mankind. The eruption is bigger than Mount
Saint Helens. Even though all of the signs are there, the eruption catches people
off guard.

The Eastern Part of the United States is effected from the ash, and there is some
civil unrest, but not too much because people cannot be out in the ash. Most of the
civil unrest is surrounded with people trying to get supplies.
Colorado is somewhat affected, but not devastated. California escapes most of the
effect. Although, there is some crop failure, most citizens of the United States will
continue to have access to sufficient food.
However, the world will feel the effects, since the United States will not be able to export
any significant quantities of food. The parts of the world that are already suffering from
food shortages will get worse. This event will start the beginning of a period of food
shortages.

In the vision I was shown that although several catastrophic events have already
happened, this event is to serve as a wake up call, so that people can prepare for the
even rougher road ahead."

 

And much more, like "These Bible Codes and Analysis were done by Tom Gaston and Chris Van Houten
THE BIBLE CODE PREDICTS THAT YELLOWSTONE WILL BLOW MARCH 31 OR APRIL 1, 2004"

 

 

astro picture for the day

ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image

- 05Feb2014 edit/ Science/Technology news for the day

I've mentioned atomic clocks before and noted that these technologies advanced rapidly.  Only most people wouldn't know it.  They don't know the time kept in everyones computers and cell phones hooked up to the internet are determined to great accuracy by atomic clocks.

Clocks in general depend on some period motion.  It started out with the sun and sundials, then pendulums(Galileo and then Huygens really), and today with atomic clocks its the periodic back and forth movement of electrons from a lower to a higher orbit and back down again.

Atomic clocks are used for satellite navigation, navigation of space probes.  But, soon, the accuracy of atomic clocks will make for small super sensitive sensors of gravity, thermodynamics(heat), movement accelerations, and magnetic/electric fields. One application never mentioned in astronomical telescopes!

Atomic clocks are just one technology that is getting advanced of course.

One maybe exciting nanotechnology development is the ability to make arbitrary nano diamond without high pressures, just chemistry.  This is still just a theoretical development. 

thought for the day/the Planets in Human history

Life conquered the land, then the air, and now, more or less, life has penetrated outer space.  Life has been able to leave the cradle from which it's born.  This reality mostly still exists only in it's home solar system. The various planets have characters all their own.  They all have their stories to say about the Solar system and the history of Mankind's learning about them.

Mercury is the core of a Earth/Venus sized planet exposed.  It was hit by some body maybe mars sized which blasted off the outer crust. It's motions were a proving point for Einstein's "General theory of Relativity."

This was our only picture of Mercury till just a few years ago.  It's from the Nasa Mariner spacecraft around 1974.

Here's the recent new image of Mercury is streaks across its surface.

Venus is often called Earth's twin; but, as it turns out, it's a greenhouse gas world gone wild.  It's atmosphere temperatures goes into the eight hundred degrees. When this happens is anyone's guess. My own theory is that it is phase locked(probably due to not having a moon like the Earth does) to the Sun.  One side got heated up.  The hot atmosphere on one side eventualy heated up the other side.

Image of Venus around 1979, by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter

Soviet Russia was actualy the first to get an image of Venus's surface; then, we got a great orbiter around Venus in the 1990s.  The science of hellish Venus was of course stunning.

The Earth is not only the only planet with life, it is absolutely covered with life.  And of course, this life evolved one intelligence that has been able to figure out the universe.  It may owe all this to it's Moon.  The Earth is also unique in this solar system for being a double planet system.  If the moon was orbiting on its own, it would be considered a planet all by itself.

This is Apollo 10 image of Earthrise while orbiting the moon.

Mars has gone cold.  It's red probably because it's once oxygen atmosphere has been obsorbed in the rocks; hence the rusty rock look.  Mar's orbit at one time was eight degrees out of a perfect circle. This presented problems for Kepler and Tycho Brahe, and led to Kepler's three laws; these laws later were derived by Newton's inverse square law.

Here's my favorite image of Mars, where you can see it's atmosphere. This picture would be from Mariner spacecraft in the 1970s.

Jupiter is the first of the gas giants.  It's the biggest of them all.  Recent studies suggest that Jupiter often takes the hits from any comets, making multicellular life possible here on Earth. It has four major moons(about the size of the Earth's orbiting moon). In the 1600s, Romer investigated the motions of these moons and found the finite speed of light.

Jupiter has a red spot noticed by Galileo.  This Red Spot has is still visible.  How long it's been there and how long it will be there is still a scientific question.

Jupiter has some fascinating orbiting moon/planets. Io is a volcanic world due Jupiters magnetic field going straight through it, and tidal forces with Jupiter.  Europa is a ice world covering a watery world.  It's oceans created some of the first fascination after Mars for possible life outside of the Earth.

Voyager spacecraft image of Jupiter and its redspot.

Saturn is the rings world.  Galileo appears to be the first to notice them. Saturn has another world fascinating for extraterrestrial life - Titan.  A recent space probe has finally seen the surface of Titan.  Titan doesn't appear to be hospitable, but it's cold physics creates some interesting geology.

Another interesting Saturn moon revealed by the Cassini spacecraft is Encelades. It's Europa like.

 

Mosaic of Saturn and its moons; pictures from Voyager 1

Uranus is a tipped over planet.  This is probably due to a collision a long time ago. Uranus was discovered in the 1700s.  It was the first planet discovered by Humans since the Greeks noticed the wandering stars.

Mathematicians of the 1700s found Uranuses orbit odd.  They predicted another Planet further out to account for it's odd motions.  This planet was called Neptune.

Voyager 2 spacecraft image mosaic of Uranus and its moons.

Voyager 2 spacecraft image of Neptune