Monday 30 September 2013

The core of our galaxy is about to explode

It seems that there is nothing so peaceful as the scene of the Milky Way in the summer sky - or at least so we thought. In reality, the center of our galaxy is a mess, made from stars that are spinning with incredible speed, super nova remnants and highly magnetised neutron stars. All these orbits around monstrously large black hole with a mass of 4 million times the mass of the Sun.

And things will soon become more violent. Astronomers have detected the gas cloud, called G2, which decays to hasten towards the center of the black hole. Later this year, the black hole will begin to consume the gas cloud. As gas slowly accelerates to incredible speeds, it collides with other things that come to meet him, is heated and radiate incredible pace.

A similar event 10 years ago created so intense outburst of light that was as bright as a million suns. We know this because the light echoes still refuse the center of the galaxy.


Judging by the astronomer
Shep Doeleman, the upcoming event is expected to last a year or more, and he classifies as a matter that we will experience a once in a lifetime.

Despite its enormous size, the black hole is still a thousand times too small to be able to see the Hubble Space Telescope and on top of that, Interstellar dust blocks all light.

However, the wavelength of the radio waves of about 1 millimeter can succeed and give us insight into this black hole.


International Network of radio plates

Doelman currently organizing Event Horizon Telescope, a project that should create an international network of radio plate to work as a TV. They will collect the incoming microwave radiation, which is like a light, but with a higher wavelength. It is a one-sided process - the plates will passively receive radio signals emitted by sources in the center of the galaxy.

Among the plates would be a physical connection, but the data will simultaneously come to them around the world.

The data will be collected by a super-computer and will keep them on the hard disk. He will then work with them to create, Do 2015. year, according to Doelman, picture shadow of the black hole.

Friday 27 September 2013

All mammals, big or small, have about the same number of heartbeats in their lifetime!

A heart beat is such an individual thing. Your heart speeds up when you're exercising or when you're excited.

It slows when you sleep or are in a very calm state. Expanding this concept, heartbeats are also individual to species. Smaller creatures have faster heart beats than larger ones.

So you would expect all beings to have a different number of heartbeats in their lifetime right?
Wrong. Living creatures, despite their differences, have a similar number of heartbeats during their lifetime. This number is around 1.5 billion.

Large animals live longer but they also have slower heart beats. Smaller animals live shorter lives and have more frequent heart beats. Hence, most creatures have a similar number of heart beats.

If you think about time as measured by heartbeats, all creatures experience the same length of life - a lifespan of 1.5 billion heartbeats.

Monday 23 September 2013

In Russia, discovered the remains of an unknown human specie

Russian paleontologists have found in the Altai, the traces of an unknown type of the first men. The study of the genome of human remains were found in the famous Denisova cave, scientists have found that it corresponds to 17% of the Neanderthal genome, and 4% belong to an unknown hominid.

Sensational discovery forces archaeologists to continue their excavations. Currently, studies are done in older layers than the finding of "denisovec."

It is not a sensation revealed by the survey. Decoding the DNA of the remains of the primitive people of Altai denisim cave, found that 6% of genes have similar modern inhabitants of Southeast Asia.


It gave the right to the head of research, academician Anatoly Derevjanko Denisovca attributed to subspecies of modern man. He also cast light on the process of division of mankind, which occurred 60-70 thousand years ago, says archaeologist Michael Šunkov:

A part of the population went to the Altai, where the remains denisovca, while others emigrated to the southeast. In addition, the transit places - in Southeast Asia, China - in the genes of the excavated remains are found traces denisovca.

On the other hand, the 6% that were found among the modern inhabitants of the south-east, saying that the "Denisovac" involved in the formation of the modern human form.


In addition, during the excavation, archaeologists discovered in a nearby cave traces of Neanderthals, who lived at the same time as the denisovec. Earlier it was thought that Neanderthals did not come this far to the east. The idea has emerged that the two hominid groups participating together in the formation of modern man, a scientist explains:

This is called. inbreeding - mixing in certain territories. Our recent work has shown that the denisovtci and Neanderthals, found in our cave, also mixed. And it's a sensational result.


Now picture the origin of humanity as follows: there are four lines of development of modern humans: Homo sapience African, Eurasian Neanderthals, Altai denisovec and oriental man - a resident of the territory of present-day China.

An earlier popular theory monocentrizma - man exodus from Africa, is seriously compromised. Seems plausible ideas about academics Derevjenka polycentrism, which is confirmed by the Russian paleontologists and archaeologists.

In the scientific world, the discovery of the remains "denisovca" is in second place after the discovery of a Higgs boson. For outstanding discoveries in the study of ancient history, 12 June 2013, Anatoly Derevjanko received the State Prize of the Russian Federation.
 
 

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Neutron stars have so much gravity that the maximum height of a 'mountain' is 5mm!

A neutron star forms from the collapsing core of a massive star immediately following the star's exhaustion of it's fusion energy reserves. The outflow of radiation from the stellar core suddenly switches off and the core can no longer support the overlying layers against the inward force of gravity.

The rapidly mounting pressure of the infalling layers squeezes the electrons and protons of the core together to create neutrons and neutrinos. The neutrinos immediately escape into space but the neutrons crowd closer and closer together until they reach the density of an atomic nucleus. The tallest possible mountains on a neutron star can only be about 5mm tall due to their gravity.

At this stage, if the compressed stellar core is less than the Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit of about 3 solar masses, the neutrons are able to resist further collapse. Otherwise, a black hole forms. The star's collapsing middle layers rebound against the newly-formed solid neutron core. This generates a shock wave which heats and blows off the surface layers as a Type II supernova explosion.

Left behind is a rapidly spinning neutron star which has a strong magnetic field with poles that are usually aligned with the pole's of the star's rotation. Two oppositely directed beams of radio waves escape from the poles and sweep around like a lighthouse beam, producing a series of regular radio blips that can be detected from Earth. The result is a pulsar.

Monday 16 September 2013

Black holes are hidden in the Hadron Collider

Five years ago, was officially launched in the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator, which is an organization created by the European Nuclear Research CERN. The building Collider and research involved more than 10 thousands of scientists from more than one hundred countries. Russia has also made great contributions to the construction of accelerator technology, about a thousand of Russian scientists took part in the Collider.

The device has caused a storm - the researchers calculated that with him make breakthrough discoveries, including the decipherment of birth of the Universe. At the same time the media are afraid that they will perform the world ending because of the possibility that the accelerator form a microscopic black hole that will swallow I first collider, then the whole planet. But the apocalypse did not happen. As the scientists explain, when the energy generated by the Collider actually contributed to the formation of black holes, they would show up and in cosmic rays. But so far, no holes themselves, nor any sign of their presence is not there. In addition, specially performed research process, theoretically favorable for the formation of black holes have shown these unwarranted assumptions.

Regarding the findings, although derived colossal number of papers, the real breakthrough is yet to come, convinced the head of the laboratory for relativistic physics missiles at the Institute for Nuclear Research, Doctor of physico-mathematical sciences Alexei Kurepin:

- Only our device was announced more than a hundred works. But these are all ongoing works that allow us to plan further research. We need to find such nuclear reactions that allow us to say that there are some new state of nuclear matter. We go to it now, choose those nuclear reactions kje can provide this information.


Current as of today the so-called Standard Model - the theoretical structure of elementary particles - is not conclusive. How do scientists believe, it should be part of a deeper theory of microworld construction. This is called the new physics. Scientists estimate that the research on the Big Collider allow you to get at least a hint of what the deeper theory. In the opinion of the head of department of nuclear physics and astrophysics Lebedev Physical Institute of RAS Oleg Daljkarova.

- Few processes that should be posamtrani at the Large Hadron Collider were mainly related to the attempt to find the so-called Higgs BAŽON. It is a unique particle that is responsible for all the masses of elementary particles that can be seen now. It is in a unique field that would tie all the observed particles and that these particles has been given to those properties that we know. Without the modern theory of particles up in the air.

Higgs Bazon was meant more in 1964. in the framework of the Standard Model. But the results certainly do not prove that the answer is to be a new particle or not. Now scientists have suspended the experiments in order to modernize the Large Hadron Collider. Oleg Daljkarov says:


On this day happens modernization Collider, it will lead to increased intensity and energy increased about two times. Essential works will commence 2018th year. These experiments, I believe, will focus mainly on the possible discovery of particles that provide so-called supersymmetric theories which do not fit the standard model.

Currently scientists from Russia participating in all major Collider experiments. 2012th The Russian Federation has submitted an application for entry in CERN as association participants. According to the experts, it will significantly increase the contribution to the Large Hadron Collider.
 
 
 


 

Friday 6 September 2013

You need to know at least 42 digits of pi to calculate the circumference of the universe!

The number of pi is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it's diameter, and is approximately equal to 3.14159.

It has been represented by the Greek letter “π” since the mid-18th century, though it is also sometimes written as “pi”. For thousands of years, mathematicians have attempted to extend their understanding of pi, sometimes by computing it's value to a high degree of accuracy.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, mathematicians and computer scientists discovered new approaches that- when combined with increasing computational power – extended the decimal representation of pi to, as of late 2011, over 10 trillion digits!

However, only a handful of digits are needed for most applications – only 11 decimal places are needed to calculate the circumference of the Earth to a millimeters, while only 42 are needed to find the circumference of a circle the size of the entire universe to within less than the diameter of a single proton!

So learn pi!

Monday 2 September 2013

Life on Earth "started" on Mars?

Leading Geochemists again argue about whether the "seed of life" on Earth originated on Mars and then transferred to Earth by meteorites and volcanoes.

There is increasing evidence that entitle the hypothesis that life on Earth began on Mars, and thus deal with the BBC and the Guardian . Leading scientists in the field say there is one specific element that is of great importance for the origin of life and it can be found only on the surface of the Red Planet .
Professor Steven Benner , believes that life on Earth came meteorites , which have arisen as a result of meteor impacts on Mars or volcanic eruptions there. As evidence , he points oxidized molybdenum metal , which is considered the catalyst that helped organic molecules to develop the first living structure .
" Only then , when it became a highly oxidized molybdenum , then it could affect the formation of life, " said Benner , who is a professor at the " Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology " in the United States . " This form of molybdenum existed on Earth at the beginning of the creation of life , after about three billion years of the Earth's surface there is very little oxygen , and it is on Mars was enough. "
" This is another piece of evidence that tells us that life on Earth came Marovska meteorite , not that he started here . Analysis of Martian meteorites has shown us that there was no trace element Bor, and now believe that the oxidized form of molybdenum was also there. "
Another reason why it is difficult that life arose on Earth , Bener see that our planet is likely to be covered by water. Water prevents the necessary concentration of boron and thus disturbed the formation of the first forms of genetic molecules. Although the water existed on Mars at that time , it covered a much lower surface of the planet .
"The evidence is stacked and soon we might say - we're all Martians that life originated on Mars and came to Earth on a stone , " said Brenner on " Goldschmidt 2013 " conference in Florence. " It is fortunate that we have done here , as the two planets where life was possible , the Earth a much better choice . Martian Had our forefathers remained on Mars, we would not be argued about proreklam ..."