INTRODUCTION
"The universe is far from being explored. "Humans have waded out perhaps only ankle-deep into the shoreline of the cosmic ocean. There are vast and ever-changing waters farther out awaiting our attention. That is where our greatest opportunities for exploration remain." (Collins p. 179) In the last few decades little canoes and larger craft have put out to sea and all brought back a bounty of treasures. More ships of larger and more capable enterprises have set sail. Some more of them will be briefly mentioned. Astronomers are infatuated with Acronyms, so we have provided a CHART that shows all of the acronyms for the telescopes and organizations that are involved in each PART of the series on the COSMOS. We will add to the CHART or add additional CHARTS as needed each time there is a new PART in this series; there will many.
MAPPING AND EXPLORING THE COSMOS
When the COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND, (CMB) was first detected in the 1960's little did anyone imagine how important and how immense the changes would be in understanding the universe, or the questions that would be asked. The CMB was first detected by radar equipment as a uniform faint hum in the sky. But a series of spacecraft, built for precision cosmology, have since revealed the CMB in ever-increasing detail. George Smoot, a Nobel Prize winner in 2006 for his efforts in this effort says: "Last year's discovery is this year's calibration." He was a principal investigator for COBE, the next step to getting the precision detail in order to evaluate the universe and the CMB. The nearly isotropic surviving radiation from the primordial fireball has a black body temperature of 2.73 Kelvin. (Petersen p, 196) That is all that the CMB is-- surviving radiation that has gradually cooled down. (See PART 7 in this series) Three important spacecraft have provided sky maps upon which a great deal of cosmological investigations, results and conclusions are being directed and improved. Then the great LARGE SCALE STRUCTURE SURVEYS (LSSS) were undertaken. (see the LARGE SCALE STRUCTURE SURVEYS chart in PART 7 of this series). The last fifteen years has seen such a proliferation of data that one can scarce take it all in. But because so much more is coming, a summary of where we are and how we got there may help and certainly prepare one for the future data.
THE COSMIC BACKGROUND EXPLORER , (COBE) Launched in 1989, recorded temperature differences at large angular scales by comparing big patches of sky. This anisotropy- at levels of l part in 100,000 or about 30 microkelvins-contained the seeds of galaxies. The first results were announced 23 April 1992. The thinking at that time was that the earliest moment about which one could sensibly talk, about 10-42 of a second after the BIG BANG, the BB, was in progress. The temperature was 1032 degrees and the three forces of nature-electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces--were fused--as one. Matter was undifferentiated from energy, and particles did not yet exist. (Danielson p. 460) Matter in the universe--is of two kinds--dark matter and visible matter--and their role in gravitational formation of structure (galaxies, etc.) is different. Dark Matter, which by its nature is unaffected by radiation but responsive to gravity, would have started forming structure much earlier than visible matter could have begun to aggregate under the influence of gravity, as early as ten thousand years after the BB. It would take another three hundred thousand years before matter and radiation freed ordinary visible mater. It was a triumph for theory and observations. (Danielson pp. 162-163) Our universe was on its way. It would have just the right time span, the right amount of energy to result today in the right amount of matter, the right amount of dimensions, the right chemistry, and no way maladjusted to become what it is today. But way more precision was needed.
THE BOOMERanG EXPERIMENT:
This was a balloon-borne experiment to detect the Cosmic Background and radiation that appears to be emanating from the most distant reaches of space, capturing the birth of the universe and echoing it across the cosmos.
LARGE SCALE SYSTEMS
The structure of the universe on the largest scales includes the existence of superclusters of galaxies, and surprising, great holes in the universe. The velocity distribution of galaxies suggests a cell-structure with galaxies found in interlocking chains over 50 to 400 light years and holes that are 30 light years across or larger. (Longair pp. 454-455) Some holes are 500 light years across.
The remarkable feature of our small local group, about 50 galaxies, is that Andromeda and our Galaxy are presently approaching each other. They seemed to have been formed close together some 13 billion years ago, reached their maximum separation of 859 kpc about 8.5 billion years ago and are now falling towards each other at 70 km per second. ( Berkhuljsen pp. 256-257) The dynamics of the local group seems to indicate there is missing mass dominating the system. There is much more work to be done. In about 2.5 million years the merger will be complete.
WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE, (WMAP), following up on COBE, this probe into space was launched in 2001, it provided maps at much smaller angular scales. It has 45 times the sensitivity and 33 times the angular resolution of COBE. WMAP "can record temperature fluctuations in the millionths of degrees. These fluctuations are the seeds that generated the cosmic structure (galaxy clusters, etc, ) that we have today." (Petersen p. 175) WMAP has provided, among other things, the best estimates for the age and composition of the universe and thus providing the basis for establishing the radius and size of the Big Bang Bubble. (BBB) It is as if a new cosmology had been initiated. The new data overwhelmed those engaged in the interpretation of the data and theories proliferated to explain the observations.
THE INTERNATIONAL ULTRAVIOLET EXOLORER, (IUE) opened a window to a universe of frenetic activity in the hearts of distant galaxies to add sophisticated data to the mix. Supermassive black holes, with masses of millions to billions times that of our Sun are being found out there. They are believed to exist at the center of essentially every galaxy. (Petersen p. 160) When these monsters feast upon the gas and nearby stars within galactic centers, they release enormous quantities of energy producing a phenomenon called an ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS (AGN). The BLACK HOLES are the most luminous spectacles in the Universe. (Reynolds p. 432) See PART 3 for the summary of the SLOAN SURVEYS, which have identified vast numbers of these features.
THE CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY
The CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY (CXO), along with IUE are peering deeper into these energetic masses and other objects to map their structures. (Petersen pp. 160-161)
The dynamics of the history of the universe depends on its energy content that had been predetermined before the BIG BANG (BB), resulting in what is being called a QUANTUM FLUCTUATION (Morris p. 240), for want of a better name. Somebody will come up with a more descriptive name in the future. Whatever is happening now, in the universe, there is no new energy-matter being created. Einstein said "if you weigh how much material you have at the beginning you will always end up with the same amount at the end. Mass is always conserved...if you measure all the energy in a system [universe] at the beginning...you will always have the same amount at the end, even if a lot of it is heat...the mass of an object [universe] represents the energy locked up in it." (Moore p. 37) At the beginning that was all there was and all that would or will be.
The WMAP satellite data showed the BB universe could be considered, at that time of its observations, as composed of 4.6 percent normal (bayronic) matter; 0.0l percent thermal radiation left over from the BB, the CMB radiation; 23 percent dark matter, made of unknown elementary particles, which cluster like the galaxies and provide the mass to bind clusters such as the COMA CLUSTER, one of the largest structures so for found, together; and 72 percent dark energy. (Gott p. 102) Keep tabs on these number because they likely will change. .
DARK ENERGY-QUANTUM VACUUM ENERGY
DARK ENERGY is a quantum vacuum energy state, which gives the vacuum of empty space a constant energy density and a negative pressure. Since the negative pressure is uniform, it exerts no forces. The negative pressure produced by DARK ENERGY does have a gravitational effect, according to Einstein's theory of gravity-general relativity. Since it is a negative pressure (or suction), it exerts a negative gravitational effect, and since it operates in three directions, (up, down, left-right, front-back) it has three times as large a gravitational impact as the positive gravitational effect of the energy supplied by the dark energy. Thus, DARK ENERGY produces an overall gravitational repulsion, causing the universe's expansion to be accelerating today. Einstein proposed this effect in 1917, it is called the COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT, (CC) one of the numbers that define our universe. We know that DARK MATTER is present in the larger universe and they are learning how to look for it. We see the effects of it. It would appear that DARK MATTER with the immense gravity it wields pulls the normal baryonic matter along with it. Where there is baryonic matter there is an unseen mass of DARK ENERGY making its influence felt. (Petersen p. 167)
The DARK ENERGY produces an overall gravitational repulsion, causing the universe's expansion to be accelerating today. Adam Reiss, Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, Bob Kirshner, Alex Filippenko, and their colleagues discovered the constant in 1997 when they carefully measured the expansion of the universe over time by measuring the distances to distant supernovae; in the far reaches of space, they found that the universe's expansion is accelerating. (Gott p. 102) It created new theories at that time. Details are still being resolved.
Dating the CMB, (COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND) is what provides us the temporary date of the universe at about 13.82 billion years. The radiation was emitted when the universe was about 1,090 times smaller than it is today and when the universe is estimated to be only 3,800,000 year old, so the age of the universe is more than 14 billion years old and counting. The CMB photons have come to us directly from that epoch in time. It took all that time to reach us, so the look-back-time distance to the CMB is the age of the universe, and the minimum radius of the BIG BANG BUBBLE, except it has expanded during all that time. "We are effectively living inside a giant expanding microwave oven, but it's a rather low temperature oven now only 3.7 degrees above zero on the Kelvin scale (that's only minus 270o C.) " (Gott p. 106) So, the space between the photons and electrons has been stretching so fast that the distance separating them from us has been lengthening at a speed faster than the speed of light. But no objects are passing each other locally at speeds faster than the speed of light, upholding special relativity. It's just the fact that the space between two distant objects is stretching faster than the speed of light--something allowed by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Thus we can plot objects in the universe out to a current maximum of more than 45 light years (14 parsec, each 3.26 light years, Coles p. 67). (Gott p. 106)
THE PLANCK 2009 LAUNCH
The PLANCK was the first CMB spacecraft to carry highly sensitive detectors called bolometers-ultrasensitive thermometers. PLANCK has more than 10 times the sensitivity and 3 times the angular resolution of WMAP, giving it a chance to find indirect evidence for gravitational waves, now being sought for in ever increasing intensity. (E. Hand, NATURE, The Test of Inflation, Macmillan Publishers Limited, p. 821, 2009) The sky map of the Cosmic Microwave Background has even more precision and added fuel to many theories.
From the above, cosmologists have created a TIMELINE OF THE INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE (TTIU). Initially it has six parts: l. BIG BANG (BB), 2. INFLATION (IN) 3. COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND (CMB), 4. DARK AGES (DA) 5. FIRST STARS (FS) 6. GALAXY FORMATION (GA). (E. Hand, Nature p. 823, 2009) Each of these areas are being probed and instrumentation to explore them is being planned and emplaced, and extremely concentrated work is in progress and as data is obtained it will be identified in terms of its application to one of more of the above. Some of the above have been discussed, more on each of them will be provided from time to time. They are essential to the big picture.
Ground-based telescopes can be built cheaply with the latest technology, but satellites are expensive and slow to develop and are about to support clear and wide views of the sky. Balloons occupy a middle ground. Total US research funding for a dozen suborbital CMB experiments is about $25 Million a year, much less than any space-based successor to PLANCK, which would cost hundreds of millions, says Stephan Meyer, a physicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois. "And the science we get out of this is fabulous." ( E. Hand, Nature p. 823, 2009)
But regardless of what instrument is the observation point or platform, all will have to make very precise temperature measurements: the millionths and even billionths of a degree differences between Big Bang photons from one part of the sky to another. Michael Turner of the University of Chicago in Illinois says: "Your talking about measurements of temperature variations at the nano-Kelvin level. That's how important this [work] is, that people would worry about [doing this]." (E.Hand. Nature p. 824, 2009)
One of the most revealing and useful maps of what has been found so far, is the one prepared by GOTT and others, called the GOTT-JURIC MAP (Gott p. 120) . More than1.5 million copies of versions of their map were reprinted in the New York Times, New Scientist, and Astronomy magazines. Then in 2011 they published a new full-color gatefold version almost 40 inches long. (Gott p. 122) The map represents a 360o panorama looking out from Earth's Equator on the bottom and depicts and summarizes all that has been found from the earth to the COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND at the top of the map, the most distant thing we can see at present; because things change, they have dated the map as of 4:48 a.m., GMT, August 12, 2003 so one can compare future maps that no doubt will be made. It even includes the 8420, and counting, artificial satellites in orbit. It took eight years to assemble and evaluate the data from the great spacecraft and immense surveys undertaken during that time. It permits one to pin point where data from on-going surveys and the results of past surveys is revealing details of the universe, from our solar system, the local group of galaxies, the extended space with its nearby galaxies and clusters of galaxies, to the CfA GREAT WALL of galaxies 0.758 million light-years long and into the SLOAN-GREAT WALL (Discussed in PART 3) of massive galactic systems, some 1.37 LIGHT-YEARS LONG, and the 126,594 objects of the Sloan Survey Galaxies and quasars. (SSGQ) Before one gets to the great walls with their clusters, lineaments and filaments of galaxies, we come to the region the GREAT ATTRACTOR (AT), a huge gravity dense area that is pulling , like a stream, all nearby areas of local space and a lot around us, at a high speed towards it massive gravity center.
THE GREAT COMA GALAXY CLUSTER
And beyond the GREAT ATTRACTOR is the most massive galactic cluster so far found, the COMA CLUSTER, nearby it is the CfA GREAT WALL, and just beyond it the SLOAN GREAT WALL that contains the Quasar 3G 273. (It would take a map 250 feet long to just to show the complete SLOAN GREAT WALL on the scale of the Gott-Juric map) and a map near 4,000 feet long to show things to scale. Each galaxy in the SLOAN GREAT WALL harbors a hundred billion to a trillion stars. More than 10,000 galaxies reside in just the small fan shaped region occupied by the SLOAN GREAT WALL. To the side is the massive area of the SLOAN SDSS GALXIES previously discussed, where millions of galaxies have been mapped, and beyond these surveys are areas is the SLOAN SDSS QUASAR SURVEY (SSQS) where great numbers of Quasars have been mapped. And then the area, the arbitrary but necessary identification of the time and place where the accelerating or the Inflation of the BB occurred and beyond that is that portion of the universe host to QUASAR QSO O957 - LENS, and beyond that region is the area of the GRB 090423 and the SUBARU GALAXY, more on all of these in future PARTS. Then we reached the area of the FIRST STARS (Gott p. 126), and, finally, 13.82 billion light years away the awesome glow of the 2.73 kelvin MICROWAVE RADIATION WALL. We are looking at the CMB from the inside of our bubble. Everywhere we look we are seeing the CMB wall of radiation. What is beyond it? And what are we expanding into? Are collisions likely? All of the regions listed above are the subject of intense observation and study and future PARTS will update the progress in understanding our universe.
There is great effort now to unravel the mystery of the remnants what they are now calli ng the quantum fluctuation produced much earlier, when the universe was less than 10-34 seconds old, which represent density variations that eventually grew by gravity to form the immense structures and great clusters of galaxies we see today. (Gott p. 106)
OTHER GALAXY SURVEYS
Data to be used to evaluate the immensity of our universe is also provided by the following surveys: Over the past decade, galaxy surveys include the TWO-DEGREE FIELD GALAXY REDSHIFT SURVEY, with first results published in the ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL VOL. 633 in 2005. There was also the SIX-DEGREE FIELD GALAXY SURVEY, with their first results presented in MON. NOT. R. ASTRONOMY SOCIETY VOL. 416 ins 2011. Then the WIGGLE Z DARK ENERGY SURVEY, also reported in the MON. NOT. R. ASTRONOMY SOCIETY VOL. 418, also in 2011. Another of the great SLOAN SURVEYS, was the SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY again reported in the MON. NOT. R. ASTRONOMY SOCIETY VOL. 427 in 2012, which in part was discussed in early PARTS of this series. (Davis pp. 179-180)
One of the latest in the distinguished line of surveys is the BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY (BOSS) COLLABORATION REPORT in ASTRONOMY-ASTROPHYSICS VOL. 552, 2013, and JOURNAL OF COSMOLOGY, ASTROPART & PHYSICS VOL. APRIL 2013, how they could use observations of cosmic hydrogen gas to determine the expansion rate of the universe back before the EPOCH OF ACCLERATION (EA), which began about 7 billion years ago, now accepted as part of the standard cosmological model LCDMF, discussed in PART 4, p. 2, of this series. The expansion of the universe was first recognized in 1998 when observations of supernova indicated the universe was not only just expanding, but it was accelerating. Enormous time and expense and new instruments have been and are being constructed to elucidate and determine what is causing the acceleration, which so far remains a mystery. (Davis p. 179)
DARK ENERGY AND THE BOSS TEAM
DARK ENERGY encompasses several theoretical possibilities, but to distinguish between them more information is needed, such as whether DARK ENERGY is constant or changes overtime.
Because of limitations of instruments and technology in the past, astronomers were limited to observations to the relatively nearby portions of the universe, where supernovas and galaxies were easy to see, only stepping farther out as capabilities increased. Now BOSS bridges the great gap in distance by measuring cosmic expansion corresponding to a time when the universe was less than 3.8 billion years old, based on the present determined age of nearly 14 billion years. Data is rushing in. (See PART 6)
Their stunning measurements confirms the existence of DARK ENERGY and, most interestingly, shows no sign that DARK ENERGY has varied over the past 10 billion years! DARK ENERGY remains consistent with Einstein's cosmological constant! Their incredible measurements were made possible by the efforts of the BOSS TEAM.
The collaboration is in the process of obtaining the spectra of 1.6 million galaxies and 150,000 quasars, called such because of the extreme luminous central parts of some active galaxies. They are using the SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY 2.5 METER TELESCOPE, at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. Their ambitious objective is to determine the distribution of matter across more than half of the observable universe! They and others have found that the distribution is not random, and it holds a wealth of information about dark energy, dark matter, and the strength of gravity. They are on the edge of a great abyss of knowledge.
SOUND IN SPACE-BARYON ACOUSTIC OSCILLATIONS AND QUASARS
The presence of and distribution of hydrogen gas in its various states is becoming one of the great contributors to knowledge of the cosmos. Hydrogen wisps reveal DARK ENERGY, traces of hydrogen gas detected over vast regions of space, have for the first time been used as a standard ruler to measure DARK ENERGY--the unknown cosmic energy that is causing the universe's expansion to speed up.
One of the primary observable parameters BOSS has developed has been BARYON ACOUSTIC OSCILLATIONS, (BAO). These oscillations were formed by sound waves in the early universe, which was then so dense that sound traveled everywhere at more than half the speed of light. About 500,000 years after the BB, the universe had expanded to the extent that matter was no longer dense enough for sound waves to propagate. The waves then froze in place, leaving a characteristic acoustic or sound scale imprinted on the primordial density distribution of matter from which galaxies would eventually form. (Davis p. 179)
BOSS has seen farther by observing quasars, the extreme brightness of quasars arises because of the heating of material actively falling into the central black holes of the galaxies that host them. BOSS used these quasars as 'backlights' to detect the wispy hydrogen gas that permeates the universe between the galaxies. When quasar light passes through hydrogen clouds, the absorbed light can be detected and gives a map of where the hydrogen lies and many features of its concentration and distribution. Hydrogen has been traced out to the far reaches of the universe and even in our own galaxy by using quasars and the central radiations from our own Milky Way with its massive black hole. And it is not the first time BARYON ACOUSTIC OSCILLATIONS have been measured. But it is the first time that hydrogen has been used to measure BARYON ACOUSTIC OSCILLATIONS and by far the most distant measurement of the universe's expansion rate so far. These spectacular results supports the idea that the simplest model of DARK ENERGY-that it IS constant--really is the best one. Cosmologists have found DARK ENERGY exactly where the simplest theory predicts it to be. (Davis p. 179)
The problem remains that there is no good theoretical explanation for either DARK ENGERY or DARK MATTER. Observations will continue, but it is becoming clear that the real breakthroughs needed are now theoretical. Observations are easy and fun, amassing a great deal of data, and measurements can always be improved, but theory is much more difficult, and there are those who are having sleepless nights pondering over an explanation for what is being observed. Right now there is a "morass of poor theories for lack of a sufficiently charismatic proponent....the next generation of cosmology experiments aware of this issue, are doing their best to inform theory in different ways...and directing theorists investigations." (Davis pp. 179-180) "...I continue to be awed by the fact that humans are able to measure the distribution of hydrogen...more than 6 billion years before Earth was formed, and to relate it to sound waves in the infant universe by applying only simple physical concepts such as pressure and gravity, which also govern everyday life on Earth." (Davis p. 180) Perhaps the laws of creation known by God are much less complicated than they seem. A time will come when how it was all done will be made available to all. (D&C 121:28-32) Something to look forward to.
ALMA AND JAPAN
ATACAMA LARGE MILLIMETER/SUBMILLIMETER ARRAY (ALMA) was introduced in PART 1 of this series, in addition to being one of the largest tools recently developed for astronomy, it is the world's highest altitude radio telescope. THE NATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF JAPAN (NAOJ) is one of the three executive partners of ALMA. Japan is in charge of implementing East Asia's contribution to the array.
Japan put forward the plans for the LARGE MILLIMETER ARRAY (LMA) in 1983, almost at the same time as the US NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY (USNRAO) proposed the Millimeter Array. Japan was the first to suggest expansion of the observation wavelength to the submillimeter range in 1987, renaming the LMA as the LARGE MILLIMETER AND SUBMILLIMETRS ARRAY (LMSA). Japan was also the first country to start site surveys for millimeter/submillimeter-wavelength interferometers around the current ALMA site in northern Chile in 1992. ALMA started using 16 of its 66 total antenna the spring of 2013. Initial feed- back on the finalizing of this instrument is exciting. As data is released it will be incorporated into future PARTS of this series. (Nature Vol. 497, 16 May 2013, p. 112) See below for some recent results.
USGS EYE IN TH SKY
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) says that data from its latest environmental satellite, LANDSAT 8, are now publically available at go.nature.com/u81wkh. The $855 million spacecraft extends the world's largest continuous Earth-observation project, which has documented global land use trends through more than 3.7 million images dating back to 1972. LANDSAT 8, will collect at least 400 images per day at several visible and near-infrared frequencies, covering the planet every 16 days. The USGS has accommodated 11 million downloads since 2008. Get yours!
ORIGIN OF THE EARTH THEORIES
There are as many ideas of how the world was formed as there are planetary specialists. The Mormons allow for a vast period of time during days l and 2 in the creation. They do not subscribe to the Genesis account which has plant life placed on earth before the sun has been created. Photosynthesis is a law, it is not theory. The Mormons were on record since 1844 that evidence will be found that the earth is older than the sun, that the sun and moon were created not much earlier than 6 Billion years ago and that about 2.5 billion ago years significant cratonic stability was achieved on earth and other planets such as Mars. In the MORMON ACCOUNT, (MA) derived from their Temple Teachings, day three was creation time for the sun and moon, however old we find the moon to be or the sun, that will be approximately the time for the finalization of the system and the duration of the third period (day) of creation when the sun, moon and earth were configured together. Since the configuration of the Solar System, 2.55 billion years have passed. (See in PART 1, THEME 8) But we keep track of the ideas that are floating around. We are interested in details as much as any one.
Planet formation is a paradox according to standard theory, dust grains orbiting newborn stars should spiral into those stars rather than accrete to form planets. Astronomers have suggested that there are regions or pressure bumps where density and pressure gradients trap particles long enough to allow them to clump together. Interesting, but true?
A team led by Nienke van der Marel at Leiden University in the Netherlands has observed such a trap around the star Oph IRS 48, located about 120 parsecs away, about 391 light years from earth. THE ATACAMA LARGE MLLIMETER/SUBMILLIMETER ARRAY (ALMA), in Chile detected a crescent-shaped cluster on one side of the star-probably a reservoir of coalescing dust grains. (SCIENCE 340 pp. 1199-1201, 2013; NATURE VOL. 498, p. 141, 13 June, 2013). From time to time we will include recent results in the search for the real ET. The problem is a habitable planet must have the heavy element composition the earth has. Most stars have less than 27 of the elements, all our sun has, thus could not generate a dust reservoir from which an earth could be formed. Potential suns would have had gather up a mass of debris from a number of type one-a, (1 a), supernova explosions which result in the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements, detonations with the needed heat and pressure that create the heavy element. With sufficient detonations a mass if heavy elements could be a candidate for gravity accumulation and differentiation that could form into an earth.(Arnett p. 3)
In the universe compositional information may be divided "into classes: elemental and isotopic abundances. The abundance ratios of different elements will often be sensitive to the previous effects of atomic processes. For example, the composition of condensed bits of interstellar matter would favor easily condensed elements over the noble gases. The abundance ratios of different isotopes of the same element will be relatively less sensitive to atomic processes and therefore should provide more reliable clues as to the last nuclear processes to which the matter was exposed." (Arnett p. 2) Knowing the details of the geochemistry of our earth and looking for similar earths or planets, is a decent clue for looking for the real ET.
The isotopic composition of matter represents the contributions of many sources of nucleosynthesis. The process of mixing appears here as a fundamental difficulty. For a complex ensemble one cannot infer the complete nature of the individual nucleosynthesis events from a knowledge only of the average results. Thus one must try to determine the nature of individual events as well as their accumulated effect. (Arnett p. 3) The accumulated results is an earth like ours. The theory of nucelosynthesis will be powerful only to the extent that is quantitative. This requirement places severe demands upon knowledge of cosmic abundances, nuclear reaction rates, and the conditions in and the nature of astronomical objects. A consideration of thermonuclear conditions involves us in a broad variety of astronomical objects. The initial conditions for stellar nucleosynthesis are thought to be the results of cosmological nucleosynthesis. Our ideas about the nature of the BB are "largely constrained by the degree to which we can identify some abundances being the relic of cosmological nucleosynthesis rather than the results of subsequent stellar process...Evan with a thorough understanding of stellar evolution (which is far from available), we would have a serious difficulty. How do ensembles of stars and gas clouds interact as galaxies." (Arnett p. 3) In part, this is what all the surveys and efforts are trying to answer. We understand nuceosynthesis enough to make bombs, but we are struggling to get the clouds of heavy elements in sufficient density and quantity of heavy metals to make worlds. How many supernovae or generations of supernovae, of the type la (type one a) are needed to detonate, and how close, to each other to get a cloud of heavey elements sufficient produce or to organize an earth? Six? Seven?
YEARS IN THE FUTURE
The current wisdom, now, is that by 100 trillion years from now the STELLAR ERA of our day will end. So much thought and expense is going into pondering and evaluating the following projected events: Some 1037 years from now the long period of degeneration ends. Most of the matter of the BB universe will have been consumed by BLACK HOLES or turned to wisps of energy. By 1038 to 10100 years, the BLACK HOLES would have emitted and dissipated their mass mostly through gravity radiation. By 100100 years from now the dark era begins. (Moore p. 85)
None of the above is arbitrary, charts and papers have been prepared on the subject. Cosmologists find it invigorating and mind numbing thinking about how it all began, what else may be out there, and where will it all end? Great Fun. Cosmologists would be amazed and astonished at what a Mormon would be thinking.
NUCLEAR SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE ARRAY (NuSTAR)
Using the NUCLEAR SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE ARRAY (NuSTAR) , a newly deployed X-RAY observatory, the latest addition to the fleet of space telescopes of NASA, has the ability to measure the high-energy X-ray spectrum of an AGN. It has unprecedented accuracy to obtain an unambiguous measurement of the spin rate of this supermassive black hole, and found it to have a spin that is at least 84 % of the maximum theoretical allowed value. So, what is so important about these supermassive black holes and their spin? Their very presence is a mystery and so they get the attention of curious astrophysicists and cosmologists. (Reynolds p. 432) It is now clear that the first black holes seeds were created just a few hundred million years after the BB. The process that created them is still not understood. Weighing in a mere 10,000 solar masses or so, these seeds then gorged upon the gas within the young galaxies and grew rapidly into the behemoths that are seen today. Understanding galaxy formation and evolution is intimately linked to understanding supermassive black holes. The energy released by a growing supermassive black hole can be so powerful that it disrupts the normal growth of the host galaxy; in extreme cases, the ANG can terminate all subsequent growth of the galaxy. (Reynolds p. 432)
CHINA IN SPACE
In addition to its aspirations in the world of telescopes, China launched its fifth crewed space mission on June 11. The SHINZHOU 10 space capsule, carrying three astronauts, docked with the country- orbiting TIANGONG 1, SPACE MODULE on June I3, and returned to Earth June 26. It will be the last mission to TIANGONG 1. China plans to launch two more modules before 2016, in the run up to building a crewed space station by 2020. (Nature Vol. 473, 14-15; 2011; Vol. 498 13 June 2013 p. 143)
The COSMOS will continue to be studied in PART 6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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