eCheat.com RSS Feedhttps://www.echeat.com/ El casi nada complejo mundo y descubrimiento científico-espacial de Stephen Hawking Introducción Historia del tiempo: Del Big Bang 2015-12-13T10:45:39.737-05:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/El-casi-nada-complejo-mundo-y-descubrimiento-científico-espacial-de-Stephen-Hawking-35158.aspx A History of The Light Spectrum (As seen from the Cosmos: A Spacetime Odessy) Et Luce Stellarum There is no other phenomenon in the universe that can accelerate from stopped to top speed instantly. And as particles try to get closer and closer to this speed, they resist more and more. There is absolutely nothing in this world that behaves like light. Physicists don't even know where there is a cosmic speed limit. All they know is that time stands still when you travel and the speed of light. Isaac Newton's enduring fascination with light began when he was a child. By the time he was in his 20s, Newton had become the first person to decipher the mysteries of the rainbow. Newton discovered that sunlight or "white light" was a culmination of all the lights. He made this discovery by carving a small hole of light into a wall and then placing a prism in front of the beam of light. He named the displays of colors "spectrum" which was Latin for phantom. Fast forward to the 1800s. At the time, everybody who went outside knew that sunlight carries heat. By night, William Herschel scanned the starry skies with the largest telescope at the world. By day, he asked whether or not different colors were different temperatures. When Herschel first set up this experiment he placed three thermometers on a table with two of them being on the spectrum's red and blue ends. The third was placed below red and served as the control of the experiment. As Herschel recorded the temperatures he found that red light was warmer than blue light. Something far more interesting however was going on with the control. After duplicating his experiment many times, Herschel discovered that there was a new form of light that was not seen by humans. He named the light Infrared, which is Latin for below red. At about the time of Herschel's discovery, Joseph Von Fraunhofer was a small boy working in a glass making factory in Germany. By the age of 27, Joseph was the world's leading optician. At the time, this acutely refined glass making process of optics, which were instrumental in creating spectacles, magnifying glasses, and telescopes, and was cutting edge and an extremely close guarded secret by the Bavarian Government. One day, while working in his laboratory, Joseph was experimenting with prisms and he wanted to get a closer look at the spectrum. He called upon his primitive telescope and looked into 2014-05-13T12:04:20.313-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/A-History-of-The-Light-Spectrum-As-seen-from-the-Cosmos-A-Spacetime-Odessy-35032.aspx General Relativity is Dead GENERAL RELATIVITY IS DEAD Milan Meszaros Alpha Group Laboratories Society, Inc. Abstract The intent of the present study is to analize standard cosmology in an immanent mathematical-critical way. First of all, the fundamental statements of this cosmological model will be investigated themselves as well as their relevation to the theory. Further aims are to reveal the interdependence of different physical disciplines, confrontation of various observations, to elucidate the correlations between observed data and theory and, finally, to analyze this cosmology from the point of view of self-consistency. The study discusses the status of the standard modell. ---------------------------------------------------- 6. SUMMARY By placing sandard cosmology on a postulational basis, we have managed to point out many intriguing inconsistencies. In the absence of the application of the axiomatic method, these contradictions have remained hidden. Within the framework of theory there exist six different and equal in importance differential equation systems to determination of dynamical parameters u, p, and R in the Robertson-Walker universe. The section of sets of solutions of these differential equation systems is the empty set (see Paradox 1). So the behavior of the Robertson-Walker universe is not determined uniquely by the theory (see Paradox 2). Contrary to generally accepted dogmas, there exist three independent equations (central equation system) which determine unequivocally (u, p, R) without supposing the state equation. Thermodynamically the solutions of the central equation system are false. (See Contradiction 1.) The "not false" solutions contradict the system of axioms. This is why standard cosmology does not have a single solution compatible with its postulational basis. (See Contradiction 2.) The Hubble law v=Hx is not equivalent to the general speed formula V(t): H(t)X(t) as a consequence of mutuality of the model and measurement and observation. Furthermore, the general speed formula and the universal relation of the redshift v(t)R(t):= const cannot be deduced from the theory. Finally, there are many arguments against the standard model. The origins of the Hubble law and the 3K blackbody radiation are unclear; moreover, these are not evidence of standard cosmology. As a consequence of the violation of causality, it is probable that not one single relativistic model can be adapted to this situation. So the big bang, or "big crunch," means "the collapse of conceptual categories," but not the gravitational collapse of the universe. The question is thus raised: What is the 2008-06-26T09:39:10-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/General-Relativity-is-Dead--33621.aspx Mission to Pluto Research Paper Mission to Pluto Research Paper There are nine planets in our solar system and we have visited all of these but one. Even though Pluto is the smallest and furthest planet from the sun, it is no way inferior to the other planets. It in fact is possibly one of the most unique bodies in the solar system. There is much that we do not know about this tiny world and its equally unique moon, Charon. For this reason we are proposing to send a flyby mission to the Pluto-Charon system as soon as possible. Pluto was discovered on February 18, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona (Stern 207). Jim Christy discovered Charon in 1978. Even though Pluto was discovered over seventy years ago, much of the information we know about this planet and its moon has been discovered very recently, in the late 1970's. Through Earth based observations. We were able to project the mass of Pluto to be 1.27e22 kilograms, and the mass of Charon to be 1.90e21 kilograms. We have also been able to hypothesize about other properties. The radius of Pluto is about 1137 kilometers (Hamilton 2). The radius of Charon is about 586 kilometers. Both bodies are relatively small, even in comparison to something as small as the United States (See figure 1). The temperature of Pluto is close to thirty five to forty-five degrees Kelvin (Arnet 2). The temperature of the Pluto-Charon system is so low because it is extremely far away from the Sun. In fact, it is nearly thirty-nine and one half astronomical units away from it (Kaufman 383). This is 5,913,520,000 kilometers (Hamilton 2)! The composition of Pluto and Charon is thought to be made up of large amounts of rock mixed with methane, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide ice. When Pluto is closest to the Sun, the planet warms up just enough for a thin atmosphere to form on the surface. The atmosphere is consequently made of the same gasses that are contained in Pluto's icy surface (Arnet 2). An interesting fact about this world is that it rotates on its axis in the opposite direction of most planets while tipped on its side. Most planets rotate on nearly circular orbits, but Pluto's is highly elliptical (oval shaped) this is another characteristic that differentiates it 2006-08-31T17:58:51-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Mission-to-Pluto-Research-Paper-31406.aspx Analysis of our Solar System Analysis of our Solar System On a hot summer night, as you are sitting outside enjoying the evening, you tilt your head back and look into the night sky. You begin to wonder what is really out there? How far away are the stars? Are they stars or are they planets? We live in a part of the night sky called the ¡§Milky Way Galaxy.¡¨ Our galaxy can be seen with the naked eye on a clear summer night. It resembles a ribbon stretched across the night sky. During the summer is when the Milky Way is at its fullest with the stars so clustered together they look like one white mass. Our galaxy is a gigantic agglomeration of stars and planets whose numbers will probably never been known. Currently we estimate this number to be about thirty billion. Scientists have estimated that the radius of our galaxy if it were to be traveled, would take us about fifty thousand light years and the thickness to be about fifteen to twenty light years. We live in small part of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is referred to as a solar system. Our solar system is made up of nine planets and 31 moons, which orbit the center of galaxy. At the center of our galaxy is our Sun, which is approximately twenty-five thousand light years from our solar system. These nine major planets in order from the center are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Mercury is the planet nearest to the Sun. As it orbits the Sun, it does not rotate, keeping the same face of the planet toward the Sun at all times. This means that one side of the planet has a continual burning day of 900„a F, and the other side a continual night and a deadly cold of 450„a F below zero. Mercury is the fastest traveling of the nine planets making one full orbit around the Sun in only eight days. Life on mercury would be impossible. If you could live where the night meets the day and survive the extreme conditions, you would need dark goggles to protect you eyes from the extreme light. Mercury has little or no atmosphere to diffuse the Sun’s light. You would also 2006-07-23T17:56:43-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Analysis-of-our-Solar-System-30542.aspx Examination of the Big Bang Theory Examination of the Big Bang Theory It is always a mystery about how the universe began, whether if and when it will end. Astronomers construct hypotheses called cosmological models that try to find the answer. There are two types of models: Big Bang and Steady State. However, through many observational evidences, the Big Bang theory can best explain the creation of the universe. The Big Bang model postulates that about 15 to 20 billion years ago, the universe violently exploded into being, in an event called the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, all of the matter and radiation of our present universe were packed together in the primeval fireball--an extremely hot dense state from which the universe rapidly expanded.1 The Big Bang was the start of time and space. The matter and radiation of that early stage rapidly expanded and cooled. Several million years later, it condensed into galaxies. The universe has continued to expand, and the galaxies have continued moving away from each other ever since. Today the universe is still expanding, as astronomers have observed. The Steady State model says that the universe does not evolve or change in time. There was no beginning in the past, nor will there be change in the future. This model assumes the perfect cosmological principle. This principle says that the universe is the same everywhere on the large scale, at all times.2 It maintains the same average density of matter forever. There are observational evidences found that can prove the Big Bang model is more reasonable than the Steady State model. First, the redshifts of distant galaxies. Redshift is a Doppler effect which states that if a galaxy is moving away, the spectral line of that galaxy observed will have a shift to the red end. The faster the galaxy moves, the more shift it has. If the galaxy is moving closer, the spectral line will show a blue shift. If the galaxy is not moving, there is no shift at all. However, as astronomers observed, the more distance a galaxy is located from Earth, the more redshift it shows on the spectrum. This means the further a galaxy is, the faster it moves. Therefore, the universe is expanding, and the Big Bang model seems more reasonable than the Steady State model. The second observational evidence is the radiation produced by the Big Bang. The Big Bang model predicts that the 2006-07-09T13:32:34-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Examination-of-the-Big-Bang-Theory-30106.aspx Biography of the Hubble Telescope Biography of the Hubble Telescope Perhaps more than any other person, Edwin Hubble (1884-1953) expanded our view of the universe. At the dawn of the 20th century, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way Galaxy was the universe, and it measured only a few thousand light-years across. In the 1910s, Harlow Shapley showed that the galaxy actually stretches about 100,000 light-years, and Henrietta Leavitt determined that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (two companion galaxies to our own, visible from the Southern Hemisphere) lay slightly outside the Milky Way’s border. But one big question that remained was the nature of the fuzzy patches of light known as nebulae. In 1923 and 1924, Hubble used the largest telescope in the world—the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at 2006-07-07T12:59:44-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Biography-of-the-Hubble-Telescope-30079.aspx Analysis of the Planet Uranus Analysis of the Planet Uranus Our planet Uranus. Uranus is the seventh planet of our solar system. Uranus is the mysterious blue planet that circles the sun, far from the Earth. A man named William Herschel first discovered this mysterious planet in 1781, he was a German musician living in England who had a great interest in Astronomy. He believed the sky held secrets he wanted to know. He couldn’t afford to buy a big telescope, so he made his own. One night in March 1781, Herschel was studying constellations of Gemini. He spotted by accident a blue-green dot. He studied it for several nights and he realized that it was moving very slowly across the sky. Herschel believed that he found a new comet. As the word of his discovery spread, professional astronomers measured the distance to the object and decided it was too far away to be a comet. It must be a planet instead. The new planet was twice as far from the sun as Saturn. This mysterious planet got its name from the tradition held. Like the six other planets, it was named for a god in Greek mythology. So it was named after the goddess that gives life. Because it orbited just beyond Saturn and was named Uranus for the god of the sky who furthered Saturn. Uranus is the third largest planet in our solar system. It is huge compared to Earth. Its diameter is 31,764 miles, which makes it about four times the size of Earth. Like all the other giant planets in out solar system, Uranus is made of a swirl of gases, liquids and solids. It has no solid surface to stand on. The solids are mostly silicon, iron, and basalt like rock. The center of Uranus is a solid core about the size of Earth. At the outer edge of the core, are the solid elements mix with the great ocean that surrounds the rocky heart of the planet. This ocean is about 5,000 miles deep. The deepest parts of the Earths oceans are only about seven miles deep. Scientists think Uranus’ ocean is mostly water mixed with a bit of liquid ammonia and methane. The thing that we thought was amazing was about 2006-07-02T22:20:32-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Analysis-of-the-Planet-Uranus-29901.aspx Synopsis of Orion Consellation Synopsis of Orion Consellation Orion has been recognized as distinct group of stars for thousands of years. The Chaldeans knew it as Tammuz, named after the month that the familiar belt of stars first rose before sunrise. The 2006-06-13T03:25:56-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Synopsis-of-Orion-Consellation-29405.aspx Ancient Astronomy Ancient Astronomy Astronomy has been a source for myriad ideas influencing every subject. The stars have existed since the dawn of man. People have looked to the universe to determine physical location, gain spiritual direction and to track time. Many early scientists used astronomy to make careers for themselves and print their names in all the history books of time. Since the beginning of time, the stars and all of the heavens have been used not only as a tool to aid in basic living but also to reveal new and undiscovered things about the time and world people lived in. The times leading up to the 17th Century were filled with many discoveries not only in astronomy but also in mathematics and science. These discoveries lead to many uses from the learned knowledge of these newfound discoveries. The view of the universe at the time of the 17th Century was referred to as the Ptolemaic system. They also believed that all things around the earth were perfect and unchanging. Another popular theory at the time was the Copernican system. This is where the sun is the center, rather than the sun. One of the main scientists during the 17th Century was Galileo. He believed in the Copernican system. When Galileo pointed his telescope to the sky, he made many discoveries that confirmed the Copernican system. One thing he found was that the moon was not a perfect sphere as thought of in the Ptolemaic system; it had craters and mountains not visible to the human eye. Another discovery Galileo made was that Jupiter had moons going around it. This conflicted with the Ptolemaic system. It proved that the earth was not the only planet with moons going around it. Galileo also found that Venus had phases just like the Moon; this meant that it had to be orbiting the sun. He also discovered that the sun had spots on it that could be used to see how the earth orbits around it. These discoveries all contradicted the Ptolemaic system and confirmed the Copernican system. In 1610, Galileo started to publish his findings on the Copernican system| In early explorations of the Earth, humans had only their five senses to lead them. Traveling through the forest or venturing out at sea would have been impossible if people had not realized that the stars stay relatively constant in position above them. Following 2006-04-15T04:52:02-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Ancient-Astronomy--28704.aspx Solar Energy Solar Energy Introduction Our world has been in existence for billions of years and throughout all those years we have used the sun for basic energy needs. So why not be able to harness that energy and use it to power things like our homes or our cars? Many scientist have been developing alternate forms of energy called “Green Energy.” Green power is the solution to creating a cleaner, sustainable energy system. Renewable energy--power from the sun, wind, plants, and moving water--is a natural way to meet our energy needs and protect the environment. Here are some forms of green energy: • Wind energy converts the power available in moving air into electricity. Wind power does not produce air emissions, generate solid waste, or use water. • Biomass is energy from trees and plants. This includes crops that are grown specifically for energy production and organic wastes, such as wood residues from paper mills and methane from landfills. Using biomass to generate electricity reduces global warming emissions if new plants are grown to replace those that are harvested. • Geothermal energy uses heat from inside the earth to make clean power. • Solar power captures the heat and light of the sun to generate electricity. Solar energy does not produce air emissions, generate solid waste, or use water. • Hydroelectric power captures the energy in falling water. It does not produce emissions or solid waste, but can have a relatively low or high impact on the environment, depending on the site-specific factors such as maintenance of water flow and water quality, fish impacts, and other land use issues. For the most part the cost has been a limiting factor. Whether it be the cost of the technology, or just the cost of replacing our fossil fuels and nuclear power plants it will be expensive none the less. There are many downfalls to nuclear and fossil fuel energy that solar energy can replace: • about two-thirds of the annual US emissions of sulfur dioxide, the main cause of acid rain and of very small soot particles. These fine particles are believed to be responsible for the largest share of the 50,000-100,000 deaths caused by air pollution in the United States each year. • about 30 percent of the nitrogen oxides, which combine with organic compounds in sunlight to form smog, and which stress forest ecosystems. High smog levels can trigger heart and respiratory problems and 2005-09-05T20:16:55-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Solar-Energy--27888.aspx Medieval Astrology Medieval Astrology Astrology is an ancient practice many civilizations used. Throughout many years the people believed the stars and planets guided their life to where it would go. Boethius, the counsel of Rome, believed that the movements of the planets told the people of “earthly events.” Astrology originated with the Chaldean, in Babylon, Mesopotamia, 2005-08-16T08:55:28-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Medieval-Astrology--27694.aspx Paper on The Leonids Meteor Showers Paper on The Leonids Meteor Showers "Late every autumn around November 17th or 18th, in the still, silent hours before dawn, dedicated meteor watchers have long kept a vigil. In the cold early morning darkness the sky glimmers with a preview of early spring constellations. Leading them up in the east is Leo. Its familiar Sickle asterism, a backward question mark, seems especially full of meaning these nights, for on the cutting edge of the Sickle's curved hook is the radiant of the greatest of all meteor showers" (Roe). The Leonids are called the "Kings of meteor showers" for good reason; they light up the sky brilliantly with white streaks, and occasionally a ball of fire that seems to fall toward earth. First, to understand the Leonids, you must understand meteoroids and comets. Comets are large pieces of ice, rock, and metal. They form in the outer reaches of our solar system, near the distances of Uranus and Neptune. They formed where there was plenty of water and temperatures were cold enough for water to freeze into balls of ice. These pieces of ice then condensed under the force of gravity from the nearby planets to form comets. Often referred to as "dirty snowballs" or "dirty icebergs", these comets are held in two belts in our solar system, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. The Kuiper Belt has a plane of approximately that of our earth; it is about 500 AU from our sun. The Oort cloud is a vast holding tank for the majority of our solar systems comets; it is projected to be about 50,000 AU from our sun (Kaufmann). Once in a while a comet will come out of one of these reserves (most likely from the Kuiper Belt) and enter into a highly elliptical orbit around the sun. When a comet approaches the sun, the immense heat of our sun will begin to melt a portion of the comet and sends debris off into space, leaving a trail of small pieces of rock and ice behind. This trail left by the comet, called the meteoritic stream, more or less remains in the original orbit of the comet for a lengthy period of time. These small pieces of debris are meteorites; they range in size from a few millimeters to a few meters across. If they would be any larger, they could be classified as asteroids (Kaufmann). When the comet 2005-07-18T06:15:30-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Paper-on-The-Leonids-Meteor-Showers-27323.aspx Documentary of Ulsses Mission to Space ULYSSES Mission to Space The Ulysses Mission is the first spacecraft to explore interplanetary space at high solar latitudes. Ulysses is both a study of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the USA. The spacecraft and spacecraft operations team is provided by ESA, and the launch and the spacecraft, radio tracking, and data management operations are provided by NASA. Scientific experiments are provided by investigation teams in both Europe and USA. This spacecraft was launched on October 6, 1990. It was originally proposed as a dual spacecraft mission to explore the regions over the Sun's north and south poles. In order for the spacecraft to reach these high solar latitudes, it was aimed close to Jupiter so that Jupiter's large gravitational field would accelerate Ulysses out of the ecliptic plane to high latitudes. This cannot be done with any man made launch. Ulysses landed on the planet of Jupiter on February 8, 1992. Since that day on, it has traveled to higher latitudes with maximum Southern latitude of 80.2 degrees. This was achieved on September 13,1994. Then in June through September of 1995, Ulysses traveled through high northern latitudes. These high latitude observations are being obtained during the quiet portion of the 11-year solar cycle. The primary mission of Ulysses is to characterize the heliospheric as a function of solar latitude. The heliospheric is the vast region of interplanetary space occupied by the Sun's atmosphere and dominated by the outflow of the solar wind. The periods of primary scientific interest were when Ulysses was at or higher than 70 degrees latitude at both the Sun's south and north poles. On June 26, 1994, Ulysses reached 70 degrees south. There it began a four-month observation from high latitudes of the complex forces at work in the Sun's corona. Scientists have long studied the Sun and the Earth using Earth based sensors but no other previous spacecraft had reach such a higher latitude. Now with Ulysses, high latitude data is available. Ulysses spacecraft carried a suite of instruments out to Jupiter where that planet's gravity pulled the spacecraft into a trajectory that carried it over the Sun's South Pole in the fall of 1994. Such instruments were the magnetometer, solar wind plasma experiment, solar wind ion composition instrument, unified radio instrument, energetic particle instrument, low- energy ion and electron experiment and many others shown on the following 2005-06-21T22:28:51-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Documentary-of-Ulsses-Mission-to-Space-27115.aspx Jupiter Jupiter is 2005-06-21T02:41:01-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Jupiter--27041.aspx Living In Space Energy Living In Space: Energy Space is filled with radiant energy and beyond earth's atmosphere this energy flow more steadily and more intensely from the sun than that which penetrates to the surface of the Earth. So an abundant and essential source of energy that would be used in space for the space colony would be solar radiation by developing satellite solar power stations. To live in space, humans must be protected from the fierce intensity and penetrating wavelengths of unattenuated sunlight, but this same energy is one of the primary resources of space. The colony will have to have enough energy to maintain a fairly uniform temperature even though it is apace. The sun shines twenty-four hours a day and is not dimmed by an atmosphere. Shaded materials not exposed to direct sunlight will almost be at absolute zero. While the temperature in closed bodies exposed to the sun can soar above the boiling point. The colony will need to have both heaters and air conditioners. On the other hand, this sun's energy can be converted into electricity in the colonies. It will be converted with ten percent efficiency to electrical power which is sold at a rate of .012 kw/hr, a square kilometer of space would return more than $14,000,000 each year. Converting solar power to electricity in space, we would build satellite solar power stations that would intercept the sunlight and convert it into electricity. The satellite solar power stations would intercept enough sunlight to replace five nuclear reactors or coal plants. The stations could be as big as nine miles long and four miles wide and it would only weigh twenty thousand tons. It would be built with hollow triangular girders made of aluminum that is very fast and easy to build . Solar power satellites are a pollution free way to generate electricity and cost no more than coal or nuclear energy. There has been twomajor designed stations made so far. One is designed by Peter Glaser of Author D. Little Inc., which would use very large arrays of photo voltaic cells to make the conversion directly into energy. The other major design is by Gordon Woodcock of Boeing Aircraft Corporation, proposed having conventional turbogenerators operating on a Brayton cycle with helium as the working fluid. The key product in the solar power stations is solar cells, which does the actual converting of energy into electricity. A useful material 2005-05-26T09:15:59-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Living-In-Space-Energy-26724.aspx The Future of Space Exploration Mining in Outer Space Mining in Space -- AIAA and New York Academy of Sciences On December 10, 1986 the Greater New York Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the engineering section of the New York Academy of Sciences jointly presented a program on mining the planets. Speakers were Greg Maryniak of the Space Studies Institute (SSI) and Dr. Carl Peterson of the Mining and Excavation Research Institute of M.I.T. Maryniak spoke first and began by commenting that the quintessential predicament of space flight is that everything launched from Earth must be accelerated to orbital velocity. Related to this is that the traditional way to create things in space has been to manufacture them on Earth and then launch them into orbit aboard large rockets. The difficulty with this approach is the huge cost-per-pound of boosting anything out of this planet's gravity well. Furthermore, Maryniak noted, since (at least in the near to medium term) the space program must depend upon the government for most of its funding, for this economic drawback necessarily translates into a political problem. Maryniak continued by noting that the early settlers in North America did not attempt to transport across the Atlantic everything then needed to sustain them in the New World. Rather they brought their tools with them and constructed their habitats from local materials. Hence, he suggested that the solution to the dilemma to which he referred required not so much a shift in technology as a shift in thinking. Space, he argued, should be considered not as a vacuum, totally devoid of everything. Rather, it should be regarded as an ocean, that is, a hostile environment but one having resources. Among the resources of space, he suggested, are readily available solar power and potential surface mines on the Moon and later other celestial bodies as well. The Moon, Maryniak stated, contains many useful materials. Moreover, it is twenty-two times easier to accelerate a payload to lunar escape velocity than it is to accelerate the identical mass out of the EarthUs gravity well. As a practical matter the advantage in terms of the energy required is even greater because of the absence of a lunar atmosphere. Among other things this permits the use of devices such as electromagnetic accelerators (mass drivers) to launch payloads from the MoonUs surface. Even raw Lunar soil is useful as shielding for space stations and other space habitats. At present, he noted, 2005-04-14T04:27:39-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/The-Future-of-Space-Exploration-Mining-in-Outer-Space-26494.aspx The Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda galaxy is the closest full size galaxy to the Milky Way because of this it is known as our nearest galactic neighbor. The Andromeda Galaxy is also the only galaxy visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere. At 2.9 million light-years from Earth, Andromeda is also the farthest object that can be seen from Earth. Andromeda is not only known as our closest neighbor but scientists also refer to Andromeda and the Milky Way as sister galaxies. Andromeda closely resembles the Milky Way in shape (spiral), structure, and distribution of chemical elements. But that is where their similarities end, for Andromeda dwarfs the Milky Way and contains around twice as many stars. This galaxy is set among the stars of the constellation of Andromeda, the tiny misty blur that astronomers know by the catalog number M 31 is easy to miss. Yet despite its unassuming appearance, M 31 is immensely greater than the stars that surround it. For centuries, astronomers thought that the Andromeda galaxy was nothing more than a nebula, a cloud of light-reflective dust and gas situated within the Milky Way. Then, in the 1880s, astronomer Isaac Roberts used a 20-inch telescope to take the first detailed photograph of Andromeda. For the first time, the spiral arms were revealed; but since no one could make out any individual stars, M 31 was still assumed to be a nebula. Ideas changed after a 100-inch telescope, the world's largest, opened on Mount Wilson near Los Angeles in 1917. The great astronomer Edwin Hubble was able to see for the first time that the outer spiral arms of the Andromeda galaxy contained individual stars. Theses appeared similar to many found in the Milky Way, but were much fainter. Hubble located three novae. One of these novae, however, turned out to be a Cepheid variable, a star that changes predictably in brightness. This Cepheid, and others subsequently discovered in the Andromeda Nebula, enabled Hubble to prove that the Nebula was not a star cluster within our own Milky Way, but a galaxy more than a million light years away. Andromeda is especially important for astronomers because is so similar o the Milky Way. Since we can never see our own galaxy from the outside, we can observe and learn from our nearby sister instead- the next best thing. Despite the large amount of knowledge we now have about the Andromeda Galaxy, its 2004-05-07T00:01:39-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/The-Andromeda-Galaxy--130.aspx Our Universe as a Laboratory for Understanding Physical Laws Cosmology is the study of the origin, current state, and future of our Universe. With recent technological advances, we have been able to probe deeper and deeper into the large scale structure of the vast universe and the small scale structure of matter. Our basis of understanding and determining fundamental physical laws in assumed to be correct when measured locally in laboratory experiments. These laws are verified over and over again so that they can be extrapolated to a distant time and place where they can be investigated with modern astronomical methods. The universe is basically used as a massive laboratory. The universe as defined by Dr. Green, is "everything that can be measured now or at any time in the future." What if our current understanding of the universe is not as perfect as we believe it to be? Our just we being egocentric in assuming that the fundamental physical laws that we have determined locally can apply to the rest of the universe? I am going to discuss why our universe is the best laboratory for understanding and determining the fundamental physical laws and then I will make an argument against this premise using dark matter, dark energy, Standard Candles, and Type 1a supernovae as a basis for discussion. A great reason why our universe is such a good laboratory is that everything is right in front of us; it is just a matter of us looking in the right direction at the right time using the right tools. A standard candle is a term used for an astronomical object, often a star, of well understood intrinsic brightness which enables us to determine cosmic distances (CAS online). If an object can be found whose luminosity you knew absolutely just from looking at it, then by comparing the apparent luminosity with the absolute luminosity, you could figure how far away it was. As the light from a distant object travels to Earth through an expanding universe, the cosmic expansion stretches the distances between galaxy clusters and the wavelengths of the photons emitted from the object. By the time the light reaches us, the spectral wavelength will have been redshifted by exactly the same factor that the universe had been stretched in the time interval since the light left the source. In order to get the time interval, the speed of light (3*10^8 meters/second) must be multiplied by the object's distance 2004-05-06T23:55:57-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Our-Universe-as-a-Laboratory-for-Understanding-Physical-Laws-128.aspx Space Time and Relativity Human during their evolutionary course and in order to understand the world around them, attended to explain the universe. Two of the biggest mysteries though, about man have always been and remain to be time and space. In order to analyze the "phenomenon" of space and time the effort to give some kind of definitions about those two terms composes a necessity. Describing time, it can be absolute, real and imaginary or global. By the term absolute, time is meant that for each event there is a number called time, and that those numbers have a logic continuance, from that part to the future. Referring now to the real and the imaginary time in the real time case, time, independently from spatial directions, follows and corresponds always an increasing course. In contrast, the imaginary time can increase and decrease adapting a spatial dimension's behavior. Concerning space now a satisfying try to define the term would be to support that space includes everything besides time and matter (even though we all know for sure that it exists). Space and time combined to each other form the known space-time. Space-time as a term and phenomenon has occupied a serious number of cosmologists. The first report about space-time came with special relativity in 1905. according to the upon theory, space-time is composed by four dimensions, three dimensions of time and one dimension of time. Furthermore in special relativity space-time is "flat" meaning that time as each observes counts it , increases normally in space-time from infinity-past to infinity-future. The perception about space-time transformed tremendously with a general theory of relativity. Space-time as described by Einstein's particular theory doesn't appear to be flat but distorted. This distortion is owed to the presence of mass and energy in space-time and consequently to gravitational force. As a result, even though particles tend to move up to straight linear, That's the main difference between special and general relativity concerning space-time, the involvement of gravity to space-time's distortion. Another subject on space-time, that must be discussed is its structure and expansion. If space-time has N points, the function that shows its expansion is 2N - 1. The expansion of time space has a double nature, timelike and spacelike. The steps expansion goes through, shows us the time nature, whereas the growing number of points shows the space nature. At every step, an image of each N points existing at the previous 2004-05-06T23:51:17-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/Space-Time-and-Relativity-127.aspx The Search for Black Holes For ages people have been determined to explicate on everything. Our search for explanation rests only when there is a lack of questions. Our skies hold infinite quandaries, so the quest for answers will, as a result, also be infinite. Since its inception, Astronomy as a science speculated heavily upon discovery, and only came to concrete conclusions later with closer inspection. Aspects of the skies which at one time seemed like reasonable explanations are now laughed at as egotistical ventures. Time has shown that as better instrumentation was developed, more accurate understanding was attained. Now it seems, as we advance on scientific frontiers, the new quest of the heavens is to find and explain the phenomenom known as a black hole. The goal of this paper is to explain how the concept of a black hole came about, and give some insight on how black holes are formed and might be tracked down in our more technologically advanced future. Gaining an understanding of a black hole allows for a greater understanding of the concept of spacetime and maybe give us a grasp of both science fiction and science fact. Hopefully, all the clarification will come by the close of this essay. A black hole is probably one of the most misunderstood ideas among people outside of the astronomical and physical communities. Before an understanding of how it is formed can take place, a bit of an introduction to stars is necessary. This will shed light (no pun intended) on the black hole philosophy. A star is an enormous fire ball, fueled by a nuclear reaction at its core which produces massive amounts of heat and pressure. It is formed when two or more enormous gaseous clouds come together which forms the core, and as an aftereffect the conversion, due to that impact, of huge amounts of energy from the two clouds. The clouds come together with a great enough force, that a nuclear reaction ensues. This type of energy is created by fusion wherein the atoms are forced together to form a new one. In turn, heat in excess of millions of degrees farenheit are produced. This activity goes on for eons until the point at which the nuclear fuel is exhausted. 2004-05-06T23:48:45-04:00 http://75.150.148.189/free-essay/The-Search-for-Black-Holes--126.aspx