The famous used to be planet kicked out by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson is now considered a dwarf planet, ever since 2006. Pluto was reclassified because it didn’t meet the three criteria the IUA uses to define a full sized planet
Other planets and galaxies in space have been the subject of many science fiction novels and television shows, most notably Star Trek. This week, NASA officially confirmed that 5,000 exoplanets outside of our Solar System exist. This discovery is monumental within the astronomy community, because although it has been speculated that there are millions or even billions of other planets, it is a crucial step in science to move forward through facts rather than assumptions. Of these 5,000 exoplanets, 5% are terrestrial planets like Earth which begs the question of whether or not there is other life in our Universe. While it is currently unknown, in several decades we may actually learn whether there is life on other planets.
Nuclear fusion is the fundamental source of energy generation in our universe. Stars (like our Sun) undergo nuclear fusion in their cores and emit energy in the form of heat and light. This stellar energy stands in the way of a dark, cold, lifeless universe, and provides the necessary ingredients for life on Earth. Sadly, the energy source that is responsible for powering the vast universe, and its hundreds of billions of galaxies, is non-existent on Earth’s power grid.
Nuclear fusion produces energy at magnitudes a thousand times greater than nuclear fusion (in nuclear reactors) and millions of times greater than natural mechanical energy (e.g. wind turbines and hydroelectric dams) or fossil fuel combustion. The fuel necessary for nuclear fusion, Hydrogen, is quite abundant on Earth, and we need not worry about running out of Hydrogen for billions of years. This fuel source compares favorably to the relatively sparse availability of fossil fuels (e.g. coal and natural gas) and fission elements (Uranium). Nuclear fusion also has limited unintended consequences, and does not result in a fatal radioactive risk (as in fission) or environmental catastrophe (as in burning fossil fuels). Nuclear fusion generates immense energy potential (could power the entire world), essentially unlimited reusability and limited downside… so why aren’t humans employing nuclear fusion right now?
Over the past 50 years, it has become painfully clear that generating a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction is incredibly difficult. A self-sustaining reaction produces more usable energy than is required to initiate and sustain the reaction. Hydrogen bombs release energy through fission and fusion reactions far in excess of its’ inputs; however, that released energy is not “usable” (or harnessed). Scientists are currently attempting to initiate and control a fusion reaction within a system that can run continuously and emit usable levels of energy (no explosions). To date, no self-sustaining, controlled nuclear fusion reaction has been established. The bottlenecks lie primarily in the immense difficulty of the problem and a remarkable lack of public funding for nuclear fusion projects. One day, nuclear fusion reactions will solve Earth’s energy problems and generate the power for every city and person in the world. Until then, we will continue to be reliant on dangerous, harmful or costly energy solutions.
So many of Earth’s features today, from our blue sky to life itself, depend on the atmosphere surrounding the planet, but it has taken billions of years to evolve to where it is today. This post will explore the evolution and progression of Earth’s atmosphere as well as the processes that led to these changes.
After Earth’s birth from dust and rocks orbiting the young sun, its atmosphere was mostly composed of Hydrogen and Helium, as those elements made up a vast amount of the material in space. Earth, however, was not massive enough to retain these light elements and eventually they were able to attain escape velocity and this atmosphere was lost like can be observed with Mercury. This might have been the end of the story, but Earth contained many volcanoes that released gas from the planet’s interior into the atmosphere in a process called outgassing. This process of outgassing created an atmosphere with increased amounts of water vapor, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. As Earth continued to cool down, that water vapor condensed, eventually creating oceans and lakes. Chemical compounds like carbon dioxide were dissolved in the condensing water and therefore removed from the atmosphere, leaving behind for the most part nitrogen.
The other major component of Earth’s atmosphere besides nitrogen is oxygen, a byproduct of photosynthesis. Over billions of years, the lifeforms living on Earth produced enough oxygen to drastically change the atmosphere and provide the oxygen we breath today. These three major phases are considered the essential steps for creating Earth’s atmosphere as we know it today.
For my third blog post, I wanted to research the future of Humanity. In about 5 billion years the Sun will run out of Hydrogen to fuse in the core, causing the sun to increase in size and become a Red Giant. It will get so large that it will swallow up Mercury, Venus, and Possibly Earth. I would like to think that given 5 billion years, humans, or our future evolution will be able to find a way to escape Earth and colonize other planets. The first step could be to colonize Mars.
There have been discussions about starting a colony on Mars, maybe even as early as 2050. This could be a great science experiment to see if we could sustain complex life on a planet other than Earth, but at this point in time, it does not seem to be worth the investment. Things will surely change in the future as new technology makes it easier to travel through space and create habitable environments on other planets. I suspect that when the Sun expands, the survival requirement to escape Earth will be enough motivation to make it happen.
A Short Video of the History of the Moons Surface!
In my previous blog post, I discussed the Giant Impact Hypothesis and how the Moon is thought to have been created. Now I want to talk about how the Moon came to look like it does. Just like every other planetary object, when it was newly created it was unmarked and most likely appeared mostly homogeneous in appearance and color. Then, shortly after its creation, it was first struck by a fairly large object that created the Aitken Basin. After that, it was bombarded by several decently sized asteroids that formed several more basins. This caused a period of mare volcanism where the basins were filled with basalt, which is what gave the Moon its darker splotches of color on its surface. This volcanism lasted for about 2.8 billion years, and only cooled about 1 billion years ago. Throughout this time, the Moon was still being hit with asteroids that left behind all sizes of craters. The Moon still receives the occasional new crater, but we do not see it change much, if at all, from year to year and the standard observer would hardly ever notice anything different about it!
Climate change is a pressing issue in that it has the capability to completely destroy the way humans live life on Earth. One of the main types of emissions is CO2 and it is causing our atmosphere to heat rapidly. Cryptocurrency is a new trend that is focused on decentralizing finance and allowing owners of tokens to send payments anonymously. Bitcoin is at the center of cryptocurrency and is the most valuable while simultaneously being the most recognizable name. But an often overlooked aspect of cryptocurrency is the impact it is having on the climate. Bitcoin mining is a way of earning tokens through verifying transactions, but it requires a tremendous amount of computing power, so much so that there are entire warehouses full of computers mining all day long. This might not have been such an issue if Bitcoin weren’t so big. Currently, “Bitcoin mining consumes 0.5% of all electricity used globally and 7 times Google’s total usage.” This is an absolutely absurd amount of electricity, but there are new cryptocurrencies such as SolarCoin aiming at promoting sustainability and renewable energy usage. SolarCoin in particular gives 1 SolarCoin to a user each time their solar panels generate 1 kwh. So even though cryptocurrencies are problematic for the climate currently, there is potential for them to be beneficial.
It might seem that the definition of the speed of light is simple–light can only physically go as fast as 300,000 km/s. This is true, but there is a lot more that goes into that number, and it doesn’t really have much to do with light. There is a lot more that goes into that number, and it doesn’t really have much to do with light. The definition comes from the laws of electricity and magnetism. James Clerk Maxwell defined four equations that defined how electric charges and currents work, and how magnetic fields are created from them. In addition, they showed how electric fields can be created from moving magnetic fields. The four equations were Gauss’s Law(All electric charges create an electric field), Gauss’s Magnetism Law(The magnetic flux across a closed surface is zero), Faraday’s Law(Varying magnetic fields cause electric fields), and Ampere’s Law(electric currents create magnetic fields).
These four equations use two natural constants, the permittivity of free space and the permeability of free space. So after having these four equations that describe the entirety of electromagnetism, Maxwell performed a thought experiment: he thought– What would happen if I oscillated an electric or magnetic source? The answer was an electromagnetic wave. If we look back at the four equations, this makes sense. A moving charge creates a changing magnetic field(Ampere’s Law), and that changing magnetic field creates a changing electric field(Faraday’s Law). As this happens over and over, an unstoppable loop is created, aka a self-propagating wave.
This can be thought of in the same way as throwing a rock into a lake, as the first wave pulls water from the rest of the lake, causing further and further oscillation. So how does this relate to light? Well Maxwell was curious about the wave he created– he knew it existed in nature because Electricity and Magnetism both exist– so he decided to figure out how fast this wave would move. This was fairly easy for him(besides a bunch of high-level calculus) since he already had four equations that defined the properties of this wave. Deriving the speed, he found that it was the square root of the inverse of permittivity multiplied by permeability. This makes sense since permittivity and permeability relate to the “resistance” of free space. When he plugged these numbers in, saw that the answer was ~300,000km/s(speed of light had been approximated before), he had an incredible realization that no one had before: Light must be a manifestation of electricity and magnetism, otherwise known as an electromagnetic wave. Taking this all in, we can see how the laws of electricity and magnetism helped scientists realize that light is nothing more than an electromagnetic wave, and its properties(aka maximum speed) are determined by the nature of the world we live in.
Many people have traveling to see the Northern Lights on their bucket lists. This unique phenomenon typically occurs near the Arctic Circle, with places like Finland advertising tourist expeditions to see them.
The Northern Lights, otherwise known as aurora, occur when ions from solar winds collide with atoms of different elements (oxygen, nitrogen) in Earth’s Atmosphere. The energy released in the collisions causes the colorful glowing seen in the night sky. These collisions are caused because electrically charged particles accelerate along the magnetic field lines into the atmosphere. Charged particles and the Sun’s magnetic field together are called solar wind.
Overall, seeing the Northern Lights is definitely something I would like to experience. Not only are they visually stunning, but they also demonstrate many aspects of physics.
It’s extremely fascinating that Ganymede has a salty ocean that has more water than all of Earth combined. Ganymede’s ocean is buried under a thick crust of rice. Scientists believe that the ocean is 60 miles thick and 10 times the depth of our oceans. There’s even been some signs that Ganymede’s surface shows signs of flooding.
This is interesting to learn because it indicates the possibility of more planets having water and more planets asides from Earth housing life.
