Moon Hunters Final By Jeffrey Kluger

Moon Hunters By Jeffrey Kluger

Tho above show the last seconds of a Ranger space craft that were the first to take images of the moon. Also before start all the measurements are in imperial because the book was written for an American audience.

The first moon hunter was an accidental moon hunter because he didn’t know there was more than just the one that he and others for centuries saw above him and of course this was Galileo. On Jan 7, 1610 he pointed his telescope towards the planet Jupiter and he noticed 4 small stars that he didn’t know about before. Over the next few nights he noticed that these stars were moving around Jupiter and even saw one go behind Jupiter. He realized these objects must be going around Jupiter itself. He wanted to name them after his benefactors the Meducis a wealthy and powerful family in Italy. Eventually they named after characters in Greek mythology that were associated with the Zeus and these were Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. Soon after that Huygens found an orangish smudge near the rings of Saturn and this was to be named Titan after the Titans that Zeus overthrew in mythology. When Herschel found Uranus he soon found the moons Oberon and Titania named after characters in Shakespeares play A Midsummer’s night dream I believe the King and Queen of the fairy folk, then he found Enceladus and Mimas . The moons of Saturn Iapetus, Rhea, Thethys and Dione were found by Cassini. On the first day of the of the 19^th century Giuseppe Piazzi discovered an object between Mars and Jupiter in what is now known as the asteroid belt and was called Ceres. Over seventy years later on a steamy night in Washington DC at the Naval observatory Aseph Hall was looking near Mars 53 million miles away and saw two small smudges orbit Mars these two were at max 20 miles in diameter and were captured by Mars from the asteroid belt. Then of course Pluto was found but Charon was not until 1978 after I was born.

William Pickering was probably the driving force behind the early years of the unmanned space program. When he left New Zealand in 1929 to go to Caltech he wasn’t interested in rocketry at all he was more interested in helping bring hydroelectric power to his home country. Soon after he got his Ph.D he was offered a job to teach at the school basically what he was taught but he was allowed to go out into the dessert with the rocket scientists to a dried up canyon that they called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Eventually the War came (yes that conflict influenced a lot of science) him and the other engineers in dessert had some success but nothing like what was happening on the side of the planet in Germany. There Werhner Von Braun was working on his V-2 rocket. The V-2 was a 47 ft. 29000 lbs death machine that flew over the Baltic Sea from Poland to hit London. There was one problem with the early versions, they didn’t make to there test targets, they would go up but nothing came down. This was a mystery Until Von Braun drove the 2 hours to the target and waited in the very spot it was suppose to land. When it came down the skin of the rocket and fall apart just short of desired location, there was a re-design.

After the war Von Braun moved to the states and worked at the White Sands research facility in Ne w Mexico where he developed the Redstone rocket which was a streamline V-2 and Pickering worked still worked at JPL developing solid fuel rockets. In 1957 Pickering was asked to build a civilian version of the Redstone for space exploration and to launch a satellite. At the time Pickering and Von Braun had combined their rockets into a Redstone main stage and a second stage of 11 small solid stage rockets and another stage of 3 more solid state rockets. They dis this because they could get to to 250 miles above the surface of the planet but could get enough speed to place something in orbit. The Redstone couldn’t be used because what would called today the optics of the situation. On the 4^th of October 1957 the Russians launched Sputnik into orbit, all it did was send a simple morse code message. A couple of months after Sputnik the US Navy developed their Vangaurd rocket to try to launch a satellite. The rocket lifted off for a couple of feet then consumed itself in flames the satellite fall to the ground bounced and landed in front of the blockhouse. This was dubbed by the US media as Kupnutnik. After that the hybrid rocket was used now dubbed the Jupiter-C and Pickering and JPL worked to get a cosmic ray detector built James Van Allen re-configured for the new rocket and satellite and called Explorer-1, launched January 31, 1958.

Soon after that the National Advisory Committee on Aerodynamics was renamed the National Administration for Space and Aerodynamics (NASA) was formed. NASA went around to different public and private organizations to fund research. JPL and Caltech were approached, Pickering agreed only if they could explore the outer solar system someday. The first program that came about was the Ranger program. The Rangers were to go the moon and crash on the surface and on the way down with its six cameras was to take pictures of the moon looking for landing sites for the Apollo program. The Rangers each consisted with a first stage of an Atlas rockets which was 66 ft and cost 9 million dollars each, then the Agena second stage at 5 million dollars each and 12 ft tall, finally there was the ranger itself costing 8 million and ten feet tall, plus additional costs of labour and such each Ranger came to a total of 25 million dollars. When launched the Atlas would carry all three stages to about 80-90 miles and separate. Then the Agena would fire and carry the craft to 115 miles and separate then the Ranger would go the rest of the way. The Rangers had 6 cameras on board and when they got the moon 250,000 miles away they would be travelling at 6000 miles per hour, when the got to a distance of 1500 miles would wake the cameras up and take pictures and crash on the moon. They transmitted their pictures back to Earth and they would be displayed on a screen and a camera would take a picture of the screen and the film would be sent a developer in Hollywood. And the Gerard Kuiper would do the analyses. The first Ranger was suppose to go twice the Earth-Moon distance, to tests on the craft. It was launched on August 23 1961, it launched normally but when the Ageana stage was to separate, the Agena failed to fire. The craft orbited for 111 orbits for 7 days and crashed back to the Earth. It was found out that the Agenas had a design flaw, there was a valve that opened to allow oxygen into the burn chamber but was to close to the chamber and would fail sometimes if it was used more than once. For most cases this was fine but when it needed to fire twice it could fail. Ranger 2 also failed. Then Ranger 3 was launched and was suppose to go the Moon. It was to carry a 36 inch balsa wood ball on the top. This was done to hold a seismograph that the geologist requested. When the Ranger craft would get close to the moon it would launch the ball and the ball would land on the moon. After it was launched on April 12, 1963. There are connectors between each stage of the rocket. When there was a separation the connection would be broken like unplugging a plug, actually a very similar design. When the Ranger 3 separated there was a plug with prongs hanging out and a bunch of metal flakes floating around and on get stuck between the prongs and shorted out the craft. But the radio still sent a signal, so several days they tracked the craft going down on the moon by tracking the difference in the wavelengths as it got faster and faster as it getting closer and closer to the Moon.

Now back to the Russians, in 1958 they got Lunik 2 crash on the moon. By Feb 1962 the Russians had sent the probe Venera 1 to fly near Venus, 62,000 miles from the surface, the pictures just showed a white sphere. In 1962 the Americans sent Mariner 1 probe to get just over halfway closer to Venus at 23,000 miles, the Mariners were basically modified Ranger probes. The first probe to every get to the surface of Venus was Venera 9 by the Russians and did not last long because the atmospheric pressures is 90 times that of the Earth at sea level and is about 453 F, enough to melt and crash a lot of materials.

Then came Ranger 5 which got all the way to the Moon, the cameras were told to turn on a5 minutes before crash down, but they never got a signal, that was 125 million dollars and no success. Then came Ranger 6, the top scientist was replaced and made the number 2 of the mission. Ranger 6 was built in a clean sterile room unlike the other Rangers and the programming was completely redone because on one mission there was a mix up between left and right. But again it failed, this time a theorist from a different department figured it could of been plasma. Plasma is a when the elections and protons separate form one another but they stay close to each other. It was proposed that there was a gap in the outer casing and the plasma that surrounded the rocket got in and since it allowed a current it shorted out the circuits inside. Then on July 28, 1964 Ranger 7 was launched and was successful and took 4.316 picture, the next two missions rangers 8 and 9 were successful as well. That was that for the Rangers then there were the Surveyor probes that actually landed and took a lot more pictures each taking around 16,000 -17,000 images each in the Ocean of Storms and the Sea of Tranquility.

Then came the most error prone, most delicate probes of them all the humans. There were 7 attempts to land on the moon with 6 being successful. Each of the missions brought back samples from the various landing locations, the first few missions were in the maria or seas, the large craters on the near side of the moon. A few missions went to the highlands and Appenines in the north part of the near side and gathering some 838.2 pounds of rocks. During training the astronauts went thru a geology boot camp. They went out to the desert with a geologist to study rocks and rock formations so they know what to look for while on the moon. Scott while looking around thought he saw a green rock, which is odd for the moon. This rock had stayed there since the volcano that it erupted from 4.5 billions years ago, soon after the moon formed. Samples from the rest of moon like the Sea of Tranquility of 3.89 billion years old, Sea of Stars 3.6 billion years, Sea of Nestor 3.93 billion years, Craters like Copernicus and Tycho were found to be 800 million and 110 million years old. So soon after Thea crashed into Earth and the ring of debris combined to form the moon big asteroids impacted the moon to form the seas and then smaller asteroids came in and formed the smaller craters.

In 1966. Burke the former lead on the Ranger program figured out that the outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would be lined up in in the first time in 176 years and would take another 176 for it to happen again, the year that it would happen in was in 1979. So the planning started to begin. The platform that the mission was based off of was the Mariner probes, but there were several problems like communications, computing power and an energy source. You could use solar panels to power the craft but they would have to huge plus the power that is received from the sun decreases as an inverse square so by Jupiter that is 5.5 times away as Earth you get about 1/30 the power, by the time you get to Neptune which is 30 times away from Earth you only get 1/900 the power. Batteries but to power the craft for such a long time journey they would be very heavy requiring a lot more fuel to launch the craft. Eventually a system using plutonium 238 in three clusters of 8, they heat a piece of metal against a cold metal and the temperature difference would generate a current this is what is called a radio-thermal generator, this design was used on missions like Galileo and Cassini. The radio transmitter on the Rangers/Mariners would not be able to transmit the amount of data fast enough so it needed to be upgraded to a 12 foot wide dish, that can transmit up to 115,200 bits per second. The new computer system on board would have 3 main processors and 2 backups but eventually down size to 3 processors. The original name of the program was the Thermo Electric outer Planet Spacecraft or TOPS, then it was renamed to MJS77, for Mariner Jupiter Saturn in 77, Uranus and Neptune were dropped, then finally got the name of Voyager. There were two voyager probes one would go to Jupiter than to Saturn and fly under Titan and make a close pass at Titan going up to the north pole of the moon and keep going in the same line. Then Voyager 2 would go on a path on the same plane that the planets orbit around the Sun (or the ecliptic), so after it passed by Saturn it could just happen to pass by the other two planets. Each probe had an ultraviolet spectrometer, two imaging cameras, and a photopolarimeter. Each of the 2 craft had a golden record on it produced by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan which had music clips, and photographs on it and is discussed on this podcast, to be played by aliens if the aliens find them. On September 5 1977 the first of the two were launched.

Voyager 1 did not arrive at Jupiter until July of 1979. Press day was usually on Thursdays or by noon Friday at JPL just in time for the reporters to file their report back to their papers, radio stations/networks, tv stations/networks. Late Friday night Linda Morabito was one of the navigators/ pilots of the Voyager1, she was looking images to verify were the probe was, while looking at an towards the planet and she could see Io the innermost of Jupiters’ moons and noticed a fuzzy bit right at the 3 o’clock position above the moon. The plume was estimated to be 160 miles into space this was the first image of a volcanic eruption outside of the Earth. The next major discovery that happened in the Jovian system was when Voyager 2 flew within 20,364 miles of Europa. Europa for a long time was none to have a lot of ice on it but there were some details that weren’t known. It wasn’t known if the moon was covered with craters from impacts during the early days of the universe or smooth. If the moon was covered in old craters then the moon was in active, if it was smooth it meant that the moon was active and warm enough to melt the outer layer. When the image came on the screen in front Carl Sagan and a retinue of grad students it was smooth with dark cracks. Also later there was found angular pieces of ice, these were icebergs that were formed on an ocean and floated on the ocean until until the ice froze. Along with the known moons of Jupiter new ones were found also, several small moons that orbit close to the planet. Thebe was found when a small spot was found on an image, after analyzing many images it was found to be 138,000 miles above Jupiter at a size of only 60 miles. Then Synnott, the person who found the first one, found another one this one only 25 miles wide and only 79,360 miles above Jupiter, this new one called Metis.

The planet flyby was Saturn, Voyager 1’s pass was going to complicated one it had to fly by Saturn and go around and fly up Titan just to see if they get a glimpse of what might be underneath and the clouds were to heavy to see anything and then straight up out of the solar system. The entire trip around Saturn took 35 hours 4 minutes. The most distinctive feature of Saturn is of curse the rings which were found by Cassini and the main gap in the rings is named after him. While Voyager was there it did find moons in the rings that were keeping the rings stable or shepherding the rings. These moons are Pandora and Prometheus each about 40 km in radius. Janis and Epimetheus are only 31 miles from each other and every 4 years, swap orbits. There is of course Enceladus a 310 mile wide moon that nearly reflects all the light that it receives.

In the early days of planning the Voyager program the scientists always wanted to include Uranus and Neptune but congress did not want give the go ahead. But after Saturn Voyager 2 was still operating and could run for a while longer so the mission got extended. The first was Uranus, the planet is odd for on thing mostly and that its’ south pole is constantly pointed towards the Sun, it kind of rolls along it orbit with the north pole constantly in summer and the south pole in constant darkness. Uranus has a faint ring system, they were detected from Earth because they are positioned in a way that stick up from Uranus and from time to time block light from stars in the background. The planet was found to be 83 % hydrogen, 15 % helium and 2 % methane. The most interesting moon in the system is Miranda, it looks like it was smashed into a pieces and rearranged. Then came Neptune a blue planet with a giant blue spot. At 96 633 miles wide it was winds of 1200 miles per hour and the cyclone has a winds of 700 mile per hour, the top of the atmosphere has a temperature of -360 F and the lower levels the temperature is 900 F. Triton the largest moon of Neptune and also the coldest place in the solar system at -391 F with frost made from NH₃. During the flyby 6 new moons were discovered, between 36-119 miles wide.

Miranda

The second to last chapter mostly deals with Galileo the space prob launched in 1989 from the space shuttle and arrived in 1995. Unlike the Voyagers, Galileo was to go to Jupiter and to insert into an orbit around the planet. The spacecraft had a probe that was launched into the atmosphere where it was found that the upper atmosphere was 200 F and the atmosphere was really gusty at 330 miles per second in the upper atmosphere and 450 miles per second in the lower atmosphere. There is also a discussion about missions to be from the point of view of the author in 2000, there was no Cassini or New Horizons and there have been many moons found since then such as Nix, Styx around Pluto and moons around asteroids. That is a summary of the book, it is very info rich although I wish the Americans would catch up to the rest of the world and switch to metric, it is a book that needs to be updated.

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Moon Hunters By Jeffrey Kluger

Moon Hunters By Jeffrey Kluger

Tho above show the last seconds of a Ranger space craft that were the first to take images of the moon. Also before start all the measurements are in imperial because the book was written for an American audience.

 

The first moon hunter was an accidental moon hunter because he didn’t know there was more than just the one that he and others for centuries saw above him and of course this was Galileo. On Jan 7, 1610 he pointed his telescope towards the planet Jupiter and he noticed 4 small stars that he didn’t know about before. Over the next few nights he noticed that these stars were moving around Jupiter and even saw one go behind Jupiter. He realized these objects must be going around Jupiter itself. He wanted to name them after his benefactors the Meducis a wealthy and powerful family in Italy. Eventually they named after characters in Greek mythology that were associated with the Zeus and these were Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. Soon after that Huygens found an orangish smudge near the rings of Saturn and this was to be named Titan after the Titans that Zeus overthrew in mythology. When Herschel found Uranus he soon found the moons Oberon and Titania named after characters in Shakespeares play A Midsummer’s night dream I believe the King and Queen of the fairy folk, then he found Enceladus and Mimas . The moons of Saturn Iapetus, Rhea, Thethys and Dione were found by Cassini. On the first day of the of the 19^th century Giuseppe Piazzi discovered an object between Mars and Jupiter in what is now known as the asteroid belt and was called Ceres. Over seventy years later on a steamy night in Washington DC at the Naval observatory Aseph Hall was looking near Mars 53 million miles away and saw two small smudges orbit Mars these two were at max 20 miles in diameter and were captured by Mars from the asteroid belt. Then of course Pluto was found but Charon was not until 1978 after I was born.

 

William Pickering was probably the driving force behind the early years of the unmanned space program. When he left New Zealand in 1929 to go to Caltech he wasn’t interested in rocketry at all he was more interested in helping bring hydroelectric power to his home country. Soon after he got his Ph.D he was offered a job to teach at the school basically what he was taught but he was allowed to go out into the dessert with the rocket scientists to a dried up canyon that they called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Eventually the War came (yes that conflict influenced a lot of science) him and the other engineers in dessert had some success but nothing like what was happening on the side of the planet in Germany. There Werhner Von Braun was working on his V-2 rocket. The V-2 was a 47 ft. 29000 lbs death machine that flew over the Baltic Sea from Poland to hit London. There was one problem with the early versions, they didn’t make to there test targets, they would go up but nothing came down. This was a mystery Until Von Braun drove the 2 hours to the target and waited in the very spot it was suppose to land. When it came down the skin of the rocket and fall apart just short of desired location, there was a re-design.

 

After the war Von Braun moved to the states and worked at the White Sands research facility in Ne w Mexico where he developed the Redstone rocket which was a streamline V-2 and Pickering worked still worked at JPL developing solid fuel rockets. In 1957 Pickering was asked to build a civilian version of the Redstone for space exploration and to launch a satellite. At the time Pickering and Von Braun had combined their rockets into a Redstone main stage and a second stage of 11 small solid stage rockets and another stage of 3 more solid state rockets. They dis this because they could get to to 250 miles above the surface of the planet but could get enough speed to place something in orbit. The Redstone couldn’t be used because what would called today the optics of the situation. On the 4^th of October 1957 the Russians launched Sputnik into orbit, all it did was send a simple morse code message. A couple of months after Sputnik the US Navy developed their Vangaurd rocket to try to launch a satellite. The rocket lifted off for a couple of feet then consumed itself in flames the satellite fall to the ground bounced and landed in front of the blockhouse. This was dubbed by the US media as Kupnutnik. After that the hybrid rocket was used now dubbed the Jupiter-C and Pickering and JPL worked to get a cosmic ray detector built James Van Allen re-configured for the new rocket and satellite and called Explorer-1, launched January 31, 1958.

 

Soon after that the National Advisory Committee on Aerodynamics was renamed the National Administration for Space and Aerodynamics (NASA) was formed. NASA went around to different public and private organizations to fund research. JPL and Caltech were approached, Pickering agreed only if they could explore the outer solar system someday. The first program that came about was the Ranger program. The Rangers were to go the moon and crash on the surface and on the way down with its six cameras was to take pictures of the moon looking for landing sites for the Apollo program. The Rangers each consisted with a first stage of an Atlas rockets which was 66 ft and cost 9 million dollars each, then the Agena second stage at 5 million dollars each and 12 ft tall, finally there was the ranger itself costing 8 million and ten feet tall, plus additional costs of labour and such each Ranger came to a total of 25 million dollars. When launched the Atlas would carry all three stages to about 80-90 miles and separate. Then the Agena would fire and carry the craft to 115 miles and separate then the Ranger would go the rest of the way. The Rangers had 6 cameras on board and when they got the moon 250,000 miles away they would be travelling at 6000 miles per hour, when the got to a distance of 1500 miles would wake the cameras up and take pictures and crash on the moon. They transmitted their pictures back to Earth and they would be displayed on a screen and a camera would take a picture of the screen and the film would be sent a developer in Hollywood. And the Gerard Kuiper would do the analyses. The first Ranger was suppose to go twice the Earth-Moon distance, to tests on the craft. It was launched on August 23 1961, it launched normally but when the Ageana stage was to separate, the Agena failed to fire. The craft orbited for 111 orbits for 7 days and crashed back to the Earth. It was found out that the Agenas had a design flaw, there was a valve that opened to allow oxygen into the burn chamber but was to close to the chamber and would fail sometimes if it was used more than once. For most cases this was fine but when it needed to fire twice it could fail. Ranger 2 also failed. Then Ranger 3 was launched and was suppose to go the Moon. It was to carry a 36 inch balsa wood ball on the top. This was done to hold a seismograph that the geologist requested. When the Ranger craft would get close to the moon it would launch the ball and the ball would land on the moon. After it was launched on April 12, 1963. There are connectors between each stage of the rocket. When there was a separation the connection would be broken like unplugging a plug, actually a very similar design. When the Ranger 3 separated there was a plug with prongs hanging out and a bunch of metal flakes floating around and on get stuck between the prongs and shorted out the craft. But the radio still sent a signal, so several days they tracked the craft going down on the moon by tracking the difference in the wavelengths as it got faster and faster as it getting closer and closer to the Moon.

 

Now back to the Russians, in 1958 they got Lunik 2 crash on the moon. By Feb 1962 the Russians had sent the probe Venera 1 to fly near Venus, 62,000 miles from the surface, the pictures just showed a white sphere. In 1962 the Americans sent Mariner 1 probe to get just over halfway closer to Venus at 23,000 miles, the Mariners were basically modified Ranger probes. The first probe to every get to the surface of Venus was Venera 9 by the Russians and did not last long because the atmospheric pressures is 90 times that of the Earth at sea level and is about 453 F, enough to melt and crash a lot of materials.

 

Then came Ranger 5 which got all the way to the Moon, the cameras were told to turn on a5 minutes before crash down, but they never got a signal, that was 125 million dollars and no success. Then came Ranger 6, the top scientist was replaced and made the number 2 of the mission. Ranger 6 was built in a clean sterile room unlike the other Rangers and the programming was completely redone because on one mission there was a mix up between left and right. But again it failed, this time a theorist from a different department figured it could of been plasma. Plasma is a when the elections and protons separate form one another but they stay close to each other. It was proposed that there was a gap in the outer casing and the plasma that surrounded the rocket got in and since it allowed a current it shorted out the circuits inside. Then on July 28, 1964 Ranger 7 was launched and was successful and took 4.316 picture, the next two missions rangers 8 and 9 were successful as well. That was that for the Rangers then there were the Surveyor probes that actually landed and took a lot more pictures each taking around 16,000 -17,000 images each in the Ocean of Storms and the Sea of Tranquility.

 

Then came the most error prone, most delicate probes of them all the humans. There were 7 attempts to land on the moon with 6 being successful. Each of the missions brought back samples from the various landing locations, the first few missions were in the maria or seas, the large craters on the near side of the moon. A few missions went to the highlands and Appenines in the north part of the near side and gathering some 838.2 pounds of rocks. During training the astronauts went thru a geology boot camp. They went out to the desert with a geologist to study rocks and rock formations so they know what to look for while on the moon. Scott while looking around thought he saw a green rock, which is odd for the moon. This rock had stayed there since the volcano that it erupted from 4.5 billions years ago, soon after the moon formed. Samples from the rest of moon like the Sea of Tranquility of 3.89 billion years old, Sea of Stars 3.6 billion years, Sea of Nestor 3.93 billion years, Craters like Copernicus and Tycho were found to be 800 million and 110 million years old. So soon after Thea crashed into Earth and the ring of debris combined to form the moon big asteroids impacted the moon to form the seas and then smaller asteroids came in and formed the smaller craters.

 

In 1966. Burke the former lead on the Ranger program figured out that the outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would be lined up in in the first time in 176 years and would take another 176 for it to happen again, the year that it would happen in was in 1979. So the planning started to begin. The platform that the mission was based off of was the Mariner probes, but there were several problems like communications, computing power and an energy source. You could use solar panels to power the craft but they would have to huge plus the power that is received from the sun decreases as an inverse square so by Jupiter that is 5.5 times away as Earth you get about 1/30 the power, by the time you get to Neptune which is 30 times away from Earth you only get 1/900 the power. Batteries but to power the craft for such a long time journey they would be very heavy requiring a lot more fuel to launch the craft. Eventually a system using plutonium 238 in three clusters of 8, they heat a piece of metal against a cold metal and the temperature difference would generate a current this is what is called a radio-thermal generator, this design was used on missions like Galileo and Cassini. The radio transmitter on the Rangers/Mariners would not be able to transmit the amount of data fast enough so it needed to be upgraded to a 12 foot wide dish, that can transmit up to 115,200 bits per second. The new computer system on board would have 3 main processors and 2 backups but eventually down size to 3 processors. The original name of the program was the Thermo Electric outer Planet Spacecraft or TOPS, then it was renamed to MJS77, for Mariner Jupiter Saturn in 77, Uranus and Neptune were dropped, then finally got the name of Voyager. There were two voyager probes one would go to Jupiter than to Saturn and fly under Titan and make a close pass at Titan going up to the north pole of the moon and keep going in the same line. Then Voyager 2 would go on a path on the same plane that the planets orbit around the Sun (or the ecliptic), so after it passed by Saturn it could just happen to pass by the other two planets. Each probe had an ultraviolet spectrometer, two imaging cameras, and a photopolarimeter. Each of the 2 craft had a golden record on it produced by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan which had music clips, and photographs on it and is discussed on this podcast, to be played by aliens if the aliens find them. On September 5 1977 the first of the two were launched.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Like a lot of good science fiction 2001 deals with a number themes in life as well as science. This book was written a year before the movie came out and also before man has walked on the moon let alone sent probes to the outer solar system. Some issues touched upon are evolution, intelligent computers, space exploration and the ascent of man.

The first major theme of is evolution. The book starts with a tribe of Ape-man, given that they start not using tools and end up using tools they are somewhere between Homo erectus and Homo habilis because they start not using tools and using tools by the end and Home habilis being handy man or tool user. The tribe is having a hard time getting by foraging for berries, fruits and nuts because they are vegetarians at this point, Then one night a black shiny monolith appears, at first the apes ignore it because it is not a threat or food. That night they come back and the monolith controls the actions of the apes for many hours into night, like getting one to pick up a bone to use as a drum. The leader gets images of apes that are in better health and the monolith teaches the ape to use a club to kill a warthog for food or as defence against a leopard that is killing members of the tribe. There are points where evolution is speed up. There was a time where our ancestors lived in trees in a vast forest of central Africa. Then the environment changed, it became warmer and dryer and the apes had to cross vast open grasslands to get other forest areas. The ones that walked upright could move faster could get across faster and survived to pass along its genes. There was a time where these vegetarian apes started to eat meat, there is evidence at the very southern tip of Africa where there are shells of shellfish in caves. Some think this is when our line started to eat meat and nourished the growth of brains, and started us to use tools such as clubs, simple knives and saws, and fire. These periods of rapid evolution is what Stephen Jay Gould called punctuated equilibrium, when there are hug changes in the environment a mutation that gives a slight advantage will take over and once the population stabilizes the changes will slow down.

The next section is mostly about the transportation from the Earth the moon. Instead of using rockets to get into space they use a space plane. The plane is on a rail at a slight angle, instead of launching vertical. The inside is like a commercial plane except the floor has velcro on it so the attendants can walk around using velcro slippers when they are in orbit. In space there is a spinning space station that has a Russian section and an American section. The spinning is to simulate the feel of gravity, the spin creates a force that at the on the outside of the ring it can feel like you at least dome gravity. If it didn’t spin everything would float, this is because when you are orbiting around an object you are constantly falling to the object but since you are going around it at the same time you are staying at the same distance from the center so you feel like there is no gravity. Then they go to Clauvis base in the southern province near Tycho crater. In the middle of Tycho crater under about thirty feet of material is another monolith. It was the same ration of 1:4:9 but larger, once the sun rays hit the monolith a pulse is transmitted and tracked to the orbit of Saturn.

The stage was the journey to Saturn aboard the Discovery. The Discovery was 440 ft long, the front 40 ft was a globe with the inner 30 ft spinning around a core to simulate gravity for the humans aboard and this only part with an atmosphere. Then a long shaft to the engine that is powered a nuclear reactor and communications. There were only two astronauts awake for the entire journey the other three were put into a deep sleep or hibernation. This was done to keep the drain on supplies and when the ones in hibernation awoke they were fresh and ready for the mission. On board there was one of most intelligent computers every made by humans, actually a lot more intelligent than ones we have today. The HAL 9000, its duties was to keep the three astronauts who were asleep ok, to monitor all the systems of the ship and to keep a secret. The two astronauts on board were to keep on eye on HAL and to do repairs if needed. All was fine until they got to Jupiter were the strain of keeping the secret was getting to HAL. They go thru the Jupiter system, this is written before the voyager probes were announced and sent to the outer planets. So the writer did not know about the volcanic activity on IO where the surface changes in months or the surface of Europa. In the book they describe the surface of Europa as icy with a rocky out crops near the equator. In reality what was found was a globe of ice with icebergs frozen place which meant they were in liquid water, there were not that many craters in the surface which meant the surface has been refreshed regularly. Also there was dark streaks found all over the surface, these came from the cracks forming and water or slush coming up from below with organic chemicals giving them that color. While orbiting Jupiter the ship goes into the atmosphere to slow the ship using the friction of the upper atmosphere. At this time HAL starts to detect that the communication array is have problems, which are found out to false signals. He is trying to hide the real mission from the crew and ends up killing on of the awake astronauts and killing the three specialist. Now the upper functions of the computer had to turned off.

The final approach to Saturn the lone astronaut is there alone and to stop from crazy from the silence he plays music, mostly classical music from different composers. Also he is finally read into the real mission and about the monolith on the moon and his finally destination Iapetus. Iapetus is a small moon around Saturn and the main point of curiosity about it is that one side is dark as coal and the other is as white as snow. Cassini when he discovered the moon he could see it going to the farside of the planet but could not find when it should be coming out the other side. When Dave Bowman gets to the moon he finds a larger monolith but this one is much larger than the previous one. Eventually he takes out a small pod to see if he could land on it. He actually ends up going into it and it turns out to be a stargate to other systems and eventually to a red giant star. This star turns out to be the home world of the ones that built the monoliths but now they are energy only without physical form, and they transform into one of them.

The book and movie are now half a century old and the date in the title has gone by. I first read the book in high school where a teacher at the end of class would hand out books to those who wanted to read them, it was this and the Guns of Navarone for me. The next year a biology teacher showed the first segment for evolution, also he let whoever wanted to watch at lunch time. I convinced the principal to let me borrow a beta machine to convert to VHS. This is one of the best science fiction books and movies that has ever come out. It does not have much conversation or action, it is mostly focused on concepts and is interesting to see the difference between what has happened compared to what has really happened.

Spectral Classes with the Sky Scholar

 

Before we start, Dr Robitaille father passed away recently so I will offer some condolences on that front, I know how hard it is to readjust after a close personal close loss. But I need to get back on some work so we will tackle three videos in one because they are all some what related.

 

He starts discussing about apparent brightness this how relative bright objects are to one another, it is done on reverse logarithmic scale where the lower the number the brighter the object is like the Sun is at -26.8 and Vega is at 0 and Vega is considered a dimmer object to the Sun because it is further away, also which step is 2.512 dimmer than a lower one. To composite for this astronomers also us absolute magnitude which is calculated by setting the star at 10 parsecs away or 32.6 lyrs away (never pronounced parseconds). These numbers can be used to calculate the distance to the star using the distance modulus equation as below.

 

d=10^{((m_app-M_abs+5)/5)}, where d is distance in parsecs, m_app is the apparent magnitude and M_{abs is the absolute magnitude}

 

A more precise way to determine the brightness of stars is to measure the amount of photons that we receive from a star. Before the digital era it was done using photographic plates. One summer I got a job measuring photographic plates for a professor. This was done by using a machine that you measure how big they were, a brighter star would appear bigger and a smaller star would be dimmer. You didn’t just measure in one wavelength one plate would in a blue wavelength, another in the visible and in another in the ultraviolet. This is done to find out the brightness of the object but some objects might be closer or further away than the rest of the stars in the field and in the study were doing it was about the star cluster so they were dropped. When digital images went digital a similar process came about using programs such as IRAF and probably has evolved into other programs. Another digital way of measuring how bright a star is, is by measuring how many photons are received by the electronic device like a CCD. Measuring how many photons hit a device per second astronomers can figure out the luminosity which is how much energy per second the star emits and comparing it to the Absolute magnitude of the Sun to eventually find the distance to star.

 

by using the formula of:

m=M_sun-2.5* log₁₀(L_star/L_sun).

 

and subbing the apparent magnitude into the distance modulus equation.

The hottest stars are the O type stars with a temperature in the range of 28,000-50,000 K, appear blue white, He I absorption lines until ionization, that is one electron gets enough energy to leave the atom, Then He II absorption lines become stronger. The next cooler stars are the B type stars that are 10,000-28000 K, still bluish white stars He I stars become stronger at B2 and stronger as the stars get hotter, strong Balmer absorption lines. A type stars appear white these stars are have temperatures ranging from 7,500-10,000 K, Balmar absorption lines become present at A0 and Ca II absorption lines become stronger. The next stars appear yellow-whiter and they are the F type stars they have temperatures from 6,000-7,500K, Ca II absorption lines become stronger, other metal lines become stronger such as Fe I and Cr I, Balmer emission series weakens. Then we come to the type of star most of us know that is the G type stars, our sun is a G2 type of star. These stars have temperatures from 5000-6000K, Ca II lines become strong, neutral metal atoms such as Fe I are present. Then we have the K types stars that have temperatures of 3,500-5000K Ca II, H, and K lines become stronger, also there are metal absorption lines, The last of the classical types are the M class stars these have a temperature range 2500-3500 K and have lines form molecules which appear because the star is not hot enough to break apart the molecules.

 

Now for what everybody wants math and formulas. In the early days of quantum mechanics came about Bohr figured and equation to find the energy of the electron jumping from one level to another based off of the coulomb force and the centripetal acceleration to come up with the formula for the change in energy levels as:

 

E=(-μ*e⁴/(2*ℏ²*c)*1/n²_high)-(-μ*e⁴/(2*ℏ²*c)*1/n²_low)

 

Where E is energy. μ is the what is called the reduced mass of the system, the h with a bar thru is called h bar which is Plamcks constant divided by 2 pi this is done when dealing rotation, n are the quantum levels of the atom.

 

And then if you equate the energy the energy of a photon you get:

 

E= h*c/λ= (-μ*e⁴/(2*ℏ²*c)*1/n_high²)-(-μ*e⁴/(2*ℏ²*c)*1/n²_low)

 

And after some rearranging:

1/λ=-μ*e⁴/4*π*h³*c*(1/n²_low)-(1/n²_high))

 

and finally for hydrogen it changes for different atoms because the reduce mass is different for each type of atom. Also the energy units are eV’s or electron Volts which is equivalent to 1.602 *10^-19 J.:

.

E=-13.6eV (1/n²_low-1/(n²_high)

 

Then you can figure out a the temperature of the system by realizing that the energy from the temperature is E=3/2*k*T, where k is Boltzman constant, T is temperature.

 

T= 2/3 *(-13.6 eV*(1/n²_low-1/n²_high))

 

Also you can find the radius and mass of the star now:

 

Radius=I/T²*(L/4*π*σ)^1/2

As you can see if the star is cool and luminous it will have a larger radius than one that is hotter and less luminous.

σ is the Stefman-Boltzman constant.

L_star/L_Sun=3.8 10 ⁴ m_star/ m_sun

 

Generally the more massive the star the more luminous it will be.

 

I don’t know where Robitialle is going with these areas but he seems to leave out of details or assumes he can just rewrite things to fot his model so it should be interesting.

.

Happy 50th Apollo

 

Today of course if you know anything about space it is the 50^th anniversary of the landing of the first man on another celestial body the moon. Every one usually know the names of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin who went down in the Lunar Excursion Module or LEM and some might know Michael Collins was in the command module orbiting the moon for 2 days while the other two were on the surface, and about the 8 days that it took for them to go there and to come back but this was the tip of iceberg of all the work and the number of people that were involved plus all the blood and treasure that was spent. The race was started in October of 1957 when the Russians launched Sputnik into orbit which transmitted a pulse that anyone in the world. The Americans were building rockets under Wernher Von Braun, part of his past does include building rockets for the Nazi regime in Europe during WWII but is exactly clear what his views were. In April 1961 the first person went to space and that was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went up in a quick orbit followed by John Glenn who orbited the Earth three times. Then in 1962 John Kennedy announced that the Americans were going to the moon by the end of the decade. At this time the Americans were actually behind in the space race, going tot the moon would mean both sides would have to build a whole new rocket and new infrastructure so the Americans would have enough time to catch up. The first step was the Gemini missions which was to test orbital rendervous and other skills needed such as space walking.. Two parts would go into space separately and the pilots would dock with the other craft. On Apollo 8 the two crafts while docked started to go out of control and Neil Armstrong sis get the craft under control, they mission had to aborted, the last Gemini mission had Buzz Aldrin on it.

By the time the Apollo program was in full swing 400,000 people were working on the project in the United States, some in places like Canada. There were welders, electricians, engineers, doctors, mathematicians, doctors, scientists, and administrators. Eight years might seem like a long time but there was a lot new tech to be developed, the F1 engines used on the 1^st stage, for a long time the F1s would blow up, this was due to an instability in the oxygen/kerosene mixture, to solve a series of baffles were placed on plates that spread out the fuel. Plus there was Apollo 1, actually it got renamed Apollo 1 after the accident in respect for Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, the investigation determined that the fire was likely due a spark from a wire and that the capsule was a pure oxygen environment. Plus the fact the hatch required the astronauts to push in and the gears inside were very complicated and hard to open.

Apollo 8 mission got rearranged because the CIA found that the Russians were planning to send a man to the moon by the end 1968.Frank Borman was called into Deke Slaytons office and asked if the crew could do it. Their mission was to go the moon make 10 orbits and fire the engine at the time to get back to the Earth. They arrived just before Christmas Eve. The control of the craft was done by the one of the first integrated circuit computer. To run it was simple to call the program you had to press a button called noun to choose a program and then the button verb to call an action. There was one program that cause trouble and that was one that would make the craft think it was still on the launch pad, of course Jim Lovell had to press it. Two key things happened on this mission outside the key mission objectives and they were the reading of Genesis and Earth rise, for the first time man saw the world as a whole, no boundaries, no symbols, just our home, our only lifeboat for now. When the astronauts got back home they got messages from the president, the pope, and frank Bormans favourite which read “thank for saving 1968.” The next two missions were tests of maneurving with the LEM. Then finally On the 16^th of July Apollo took off to the moon and about 72 hours later after Neil had to use most of the fuel for the landing the Earth heard “The Eagle has landed.”, then after a rest period, they went out on the surface of the moon and “This is one small step for [a] man, and one giant leap for Mankind”

You are my Sunshine

You are my Sunshine

Before we deal with Donald Scott’s claims about the Sun, let us discuss briefly what we know about the Sun. First astronomers have divided up the Sun into 5 regions, the core, the radiative zone, the tachocline, the convective zone, the photosphere and the Corona. Starting with the core that takes up the 20 percent of the star starting at the center. The core is where all the energy is produced thru fusion and is the hottest part of the Sun being around 16 million Kelvins. This along with the gravity and the immense pressure in the Sun allows for nuclear fusion which starts two hydrogens with one proton each fuse together to form a hydrogen with a proton and a neutron called deuterium and emit a positron and a neutrino. Then the deuterium atom is combined with another hydrogen and forms a helium nucleus with 2 protons and 1 neutron and a gamma ray(γ) which is a high energy photon, this photon will bounce around the interior of the star from about a hundred thousand to a million years and eventually makes it out and few make it Earth. Then two of these of heliums are combine to form a helium with 2 neutrons and 2 protons and 2 hydrogens with 1 proton and . Over time the composition of the core changes over time from about 71 percent to 34 percent, helium rises from 27 percent to 64 percent and over time heavier elements will fall into the core making up 2-3 percent of the core.

₁¹H+₁¹H->₁²H+e⁺+ν

₁¹H+₁¹H ->₂³He+γ

₂³He+₂³He->₂⁴He+2₁^1H

The next zone is the radiative zone which takes up 50 percent of the Sun starting about 20 percent the way out to about 70 percent of the way out. The first 50 percent of the diameter has 90 percent of the mass of the Sun. Then there is the Tachocline which is the transition zone from the quiet radiative zone to the turbulent convective zone above. This were the magnetic dynamo is thought to come from. There are two components to the magnetic dynamo on part is Omega effect is the stretching of the magnetic field by being dragged and being wound at different rates. Another effect is the alpha effect it was named this because the loops in the magnetic field it cause looks like the Greek letter alpha α, it is cause when magnetic field folds over and twists. I guess the Sun is the alpha and the omega. The next zone is the convective zone where the warmer plasma rise and the cooler plasma sinks in oval tubes that go around the sun. Thru Helioseismology it was determined that these tubes move like a jet stream going around 130 km/h faster than surroundings, they are 27,000 km across and go down 19200 km, t tubs start at about 75 degrees latitude. It was for a while thought these currents caused the sunspots but it would only take months to a year for the magnetic fields to rise and not the 11 years that the sunspot cycle follows. The next zone is the one we see which is the photosphere. The temperature varies from the bottom at 6500k and near the top of 4400k, over roughly 500 km which covers only about 8 percent of the radius of the Sun. It is often called the surface of the sun but it only has a density of 1.0 *10^-6 kg/m³. On the photosphere there are granules that warm gas from the lower layers push up on the edges and sink in the center these granules can be up 700 km in width. Also in the photosphere dark spots or sunspots can occur. The outer parts of the sun is about 73 percent hydrogen, 25 percent hydrogen and 2 percent heavier elements. This is where magnetic fields bunch up and prevents hotter plasma to come up. There are a lot hotter than most things on Earth they are around 3000K compared to the hotter surroundings. Then there is the outer layer of the Sun called the Corona the density is around 1 trillionth that of the lower photosphere but in some regions it can be around 2 million degrees kelvin.

Now we get to his claims of how the magnetic fields are produced. The energy source that keeps the Sun going is a current form deep space, we have never have detected this current, plus it goes in both poles. Then the magnetic field keeps the flow lined up so then it work like a transformer, no not an Autobot or Deceptacon but an electrical transformer. This device can increase the voltage of another current thru magnetic induction. This is what drives the currents in the convection zone and drives the magnetic fields and creates the sunspots. Firstly we have evidence that the like limb darkening that the light comes from deep inside the Sun. Plus we have no evidence of the current from space.

http://www.coseti.org/solar_09.htm

I am going to quickly discuss a couple of other alternate theories of the Sun. On is that the it is mostly iron or the surface of the sun is iron. What the usually dig up is an image like one above taken in the ultraviolet which show very ionized atoms, like iron that get 14 electrons stripped off at a temperature of 2 million kelvins. They see the bright areas and then most of the sun dark. First anything cooler would appear dark but it would be still hot. They don’t figure on things like particle density. If you click on the link it shows a spectrum of the sun. You will notice that most of spikes are narroe and the widest in near the bottom at around 646 nm which is a hydrogen line. Another thing brought up is that astronomers think the stars are made up of small shells, this is not true this is a way modelling the star, it helps do the calculations, kind of like divide and conquer.

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml

You are my Sunshine

You are my Sunshine

Before we deal with Donald Scott’s claims about the Sun, let us discuss briefly what we know about the Sun. First astronomers have divided up the Sun into 5 regions, the core, the radiative zone, the tachocline, the convective zone, the photosphere and the Corona. Starting with the core that takes up the 20 percent of the star starting at the center. The core is where all the energy is produced thru fusion and is the hottest part of the Sun being around 16 million Kelvins. This along with the gravity and the immense pressure in the Sun allows for nuclear fusion which starts two hydrogens with one proton each fuse together to form a hydrogen with a proton and a neutron called deuterium and emit a positron and a neutrino. Then the deuterium atom is combined with another hydrogen and forms a helium nucleus with 2 protons and 1 neutron and a gamma ray(γ) which is a high energy photon, this photon will bounce around the interior of the star from about a hundred thousand to a million years and eventually makes it out and few make it Earth. Then two of these of heliums are combine to form a helium with 2 neutrons and 2 protons and 2 hydrogens with 1 proton and 1 neutron. Over time the composition of the core changes over time from about 71 percent to 34 percent, helium rises from 27 percent to 64 percent and over time heavier elements will fall into the core making up 2-3 percent of the core.

₁¹H+₁¹H->₁²H+e⁺+ν

₁¹H+₁¹H ->_2³He+γ

₂³He+₂₃He->₂⁴He+2₁^1H

The next zone is the radiative zone which takes up 50 percent of the Sun starting about 20 percent the way out to about 70 percent of the way out. The first 50 percent of the diameter has 90 percent of the mass of the Sun. Then there is the Tachocline which is the transition zone from the quiet radiative zone to the turbulent convective zone above. This were the magnetic dynamo is thought to come from. There are two components to the magnetic dynamo on part is Omega effect is the stretching of the magnetic field by being dragged and being wound at different rates. Another effect is the alpha effect it was named this because the loops in the magnetic field it cause looks like the Greek letter alpha α, it is cause when magnetic field folds over and twists. I guess the Sun is the alpha and the omega. The next zone is the convective zone where the warmer plasma rise and the cooler plasma sinks in oval tubes that go around the sun. Thru Helioseismology it was determined that these tubes move like a jet stream going around 130 km/h faster than surroundings, they are 27,000 km across and go down 19200 km, t tubs start at about 75 degrees latitude. It was for a while thought these currents caused the sunspots but it would only take months to a year for the magnetic fields to rise and not the 11 years that the sunspot cycle follows. The next zone is the one we see which is the photosphere. The temperature varies from the bottom at 6500k and near the top of 4400k, over roughly 500 km which covers only about 8 percent of the radius of the Sun. It is often called the surface of the sun but it only has a density of 1.0 *10^-6 kg/m³. On the photosphere there are granules that warm gas from the lower layers push up on the edges and sink in the center these granules can be up 700 km in width. Also in the photosphere dark spots or sunspots can occur. The outer parts of the sun is about 73 percent hydrogen, 25 percent hydrogen and 2 percent heavier elements. This is where magnetic fields bunch up and prevents hotter plasma to come up. There are a lot hotter than most things on Earth they are around 3000K compared to the hotter surroundings. Then there is the outer layer of the Sun called the Corona the density is around 1 trillionth that of the lower photosphere but in some regions it can be around 2 million degrees kelvin.

Now we get to his claims of how the magnetic fields are produced. The energy source that keeps the Sun going is a current form deep space, we have never have detected this current, plus it goes in both poles. Then the magnetic field keeps the flow lined up so then it work like a transformer, no not an Autobot or Deceptacon but an electrical transformer. This device can increase the voltage of another current thru magnetic induction. This is what drives the currents in the convection zone and drives the magnetic fields and creates the sunspots. Firstly we have evidence that the like limb darkening that the light comes from deep inside the Sun. Plus we have no evidence of the current from space.

http://www.coseti.org/solar_09.htm

I am going to quickly discuss a couple of other alternate theories of the Sun. On is that the it is mostly iron or the surface of the sun is iron. What the usually dig up is an image like one above taken in the ultraviolet which show very ionized atoms, like iron that get 14 electrons stripped off at a temperature of 2 million kelvins. They see the bright areas and then most of the sun dark. First anything cooler would appear dark but it would be still hot. They don’t figure on things like particle density. If you click on the link it shows a spectrum of the sun. You will notice that most of spikes are narroe and the widest in near the bottom at around 646 nm which is a hydrogen line. Another thing brought up is that astronomers think the stars are made up of small shells, this is not true this is a way modelling the star, it helps do the calculations, kind of like divide and conquer.

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml

You are my Sunshine

You are my Sunshine

Before we deal with Donald Scott’s claims about the Sun, let us discuss briefly what we know about the Sun. First astronomers have divided up the Sun into 5 regions, the core, the radiative zone, the tachocline, the convective zone, the photosphere and the Corona. Starting with the core that takes up the 20 percent of the star starting at the center. The core is where all the energy is produced thru fusion and is the hottest part of the Sun being around 16 million Kelvins. This along with the gravity and the immense pressure in the Sun allows for nuclear fusion which starts two hydrogens with one proton each fuse together to form a hydrogen with a proton and a neutron called deuterium and emit a positron and a neutrino. Then the deuterium atom is combined with another hydrogen and forms a helium nucleus with 2 protons and 1 neutron and a gamma ray(γ) which is a high energy photon, this photon will bounce around the interior of the star from about a hundred thousand to a million years and eventually makes it out and few make it Earth. Then two of these of heliums are combine to form a helium with 2 neutrons and 2 protons and 2 hydrogens with 1 proton and 1 neutron. Over time the composition of the core changes over time from about 71 percent to 34 percent, helium rises from 27 percent to 64 percent and over time heavier elements will fall into the core making up 2-3 percent of the core.

₁¹H+₁¹H->₁²H+e⁺+ν

₁¹H+₁¹H ->_2³He+γ

₂³He+₂₃He->₂⁴He+2₁^1H

The next zone is the radiative zone which takes up 50 percent of the Sun starting about 20 percent the way out to about 70 percent of the way out. The first 50 percent of the diameter has 90 percent of the mass of the Sun. Then there is the Tachocline which is the transition zone from the quiet radiative zone to the turbulent convective zone above. This were the magnetic dynamo is thought to come from. There are two components to the magnetic dynamo on part is Omega effect is the stretching of the magnetic field by being dragged and being wound at different rates. Another effect is the alpha effect it was named this because the loops in the magnetic field it cause looks like the Greek letter alpha α, it is cause when magnetic field folds over and twists. I guess the Sun is the alpha and the omega. The next zone is the convective zone where the warmer plasma rise and the cooler plasma sinks in oval tubes that go around the sun. Thru Helioseismology it was determined that these tubes move like a jet stream going around 130 km/h faster than surroundings, they are 27,000 km across and go down 19200 km, t tubs start at about 75 degrees latitude. It was for a while thought these currents caused the sunspots but it would only take months to a year for the magnetic fields to rise and not the 11 years that the sunspot cycle follows. The next zone is the one we see which is the photosphere. The temperature varies from the bottom at 6500k and near the top of 4400k, over roughly 500 km which covers only about 8 percent of the radius of the Sun. It is often called the surface of the sun but it only has a density of 1.0 *10^-6 kg/m³. On the photosphere there are granules that warm gas from the lower layers push up on the edges and sink in the center these granules can be up 700 km in width. Also in the photosphere dark spots or sunspots can occur. The outer parts of the sun is about 73 percent hydrogen, 25 percent hydrogen and 2 percent heavier elements. This is where magnetic fields bunch up and prevents hotter plasma to come up. There are a lot hotter than most things on Earth they are around 3000K compared to the hotter surroundings. Then there is the outer layer of the Sun called the Corona the density is around 1 trillionth that of the lower photosphere but in some regions it can be around 2 million degrees kelvin.

Now we get to his claims of how the magnetic fields are produced. The energy source that keeps the Sun going is a current form deep space, we have never have detected this current, plus it goes in both poles. Then the magnetic field keeps the flow lined up so then it work like a transformer, no not an Autobot or Deceptacon but an electrical transformer. This device can increase the voltage of another current thru magnetic induction. This is what drives the currents in the convection zone and drives the magnetic fields and creates the sunspots. Firstly we have evidence that the like limb darkening that the light comes from deep inside the Sun. Plus we have no evidence of the current from space.

http://www.coseti.org/solar_09.htm

I am going to quickly discuss a couple of other alternate theories of the Sun. On is that the it is mostly iron or the surface of the sun is iron. What the usually dig up is an image like one above taken in the ultraviolet which show very ionized atoms, like iron that get 14 electrons stripped off at a temperature of 2 million kelvins. They see the bright areas and then most of the sun dark. First anything cooler would appear dark but it would be still hot. They don’t figure on things like particle density. If you click on the link it shows a spectrum of the sun. You will notice that most of spikes are narroe and the widest in near the bottom at around 646 nm which is a hydrogen line. Another thing brought up is that astronomers think the stars are made up of small shells, this is not true this is a way modelling the star, it helps do the calculations, kind of like divide and conquer.

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml

Another Test

Before we deal with Donald Scott’s claims about the Sun, let us discuss briefly what we know about the Sun. First astronomers have divided up the Sun into 5 regions, the core, the radiative zone, the tachocline, the convective zone, the photosphere and the Corona. Starting with the core that takes up the 20 percent of the star starting at the center. The core is where all the energy is produced thru fusion and is the hottest part of the Sun being around 16 million Kelvins. This along with the gravity and the immense pressure in the Sun allows for nuclear fusion which starts two hydrogens with one proton each fuse together to form a hydrogen with a proton and a neutron called deuterium and emit a positron and a neutrino. Then the deuterium atom is combined with another hydrogen and forms a helium nucleus with 2 protons and 1 neutron and a gamma ray(γ) which is a high energy photon, this photon will bounce around the interior of the star from about a hundred thousand to a million years and eventually makes it out and few make it Earth. Then two of these of heliums are combine to form a helium with 2 neutrons and 2 protons and 2 hydrogens with 1 proton and 1 neutron. Over time the composition of the core changes over time from about 71 percent to 34 percent, helium rises from 27 percent to 64 percent and over time heavier elements will fall into the core making up 2-3 percent of the core.

₁¹H+₁¹H->₁²H+e⁺+ν

₁¹H+₁¹H ->₂³He+γ

₂³He+₂³He->₂⁴He+2₁^1H

The next zone is the radiative zone which takes up 50 percent of the Sun starting about 20 percent the way out to about 70 percent of the way out. The first 50 percent of the diameter has 90 percent of the mass of the Sun. Then there is the Tachocline which is the transition zone from the quiet radiative zone to the turbulent convective zone above. This were the magnetic dynamo is thought to come from. There are two components to the magnetic dynamo on part is Omega effect is the stretching of the magnetic field by being dragged and being wound at different rates. Another effect is the alpha effect it was named this because the loops in the magnetic field it cause looks like the Greek letter alpha α, it is cause when magnetic field folds over and twists. I guess the Sun is the alpha and the omega. The next zone is the convective zone where the warmer plasma rise and the cooler plasma sinks in oval tubes that go around the sun. Thru Helioseismology it was determined that these tubes move like a jet stream going around 130 km/h faster than surroundings, they are 27,000 km across and go down 19200 km, t tubs start at about 75 degrees latitude. It was for a while thought these currents caused the sunspots but it would only take months to a year for the magnetic fields to rise and not the 11 years that the sunspot cycle follows. The next zone is the one we see which is the photosphere.

Now we get to his claims of how the magnetic fields are produced. The energy source that keeps the Sun going is a current form deep space, we have never have detected this current, plus it goes in both poles. Then the magnetic field keeps the flow lined up so then it work like a transformer, no not an Autobot or Deceptacon but an electrical transformer. This device can increase the voltage of another current thru magnetic induction. This is what drives the currents in the convection zone and drives the magnetic fields and creates the sunspots. Firstly we have evidence that the like limb darkening that the light comes from deep inside the Sun. Plus we have no evidence of the current from space.

http://www.coseti.org/solar_09.htm

I am going to quickly discuss a couple of other alternate theories of the Sun. On is that the it is mostly iron or the surface of the sun is iron. What the usually dig up is an image like one above taken in the ultraviolet which show very ionized atoms, like iron that get 14 electrons stripped off at a temperature of 2 million kelvins. They see the bright areas and then most of the sun dark. First anything cooler would appear dark but it would be still hot. They don’t figure on things like particle density. If you click on the link it shows a spectrum of the sun. You will notice that most of spikes are narroe and the widest in near the bottom at around 646 nm which is a hydrogen line. Another thing brought up is that astronomers think the stars are made up of small shells, this is not true this is a way modelling the star, it helps do the calculations, kind of like divide and conquer.

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml

Test only a test

₁¹H+₁¹H->₁¹H+e⁺+ν

₁¹H+₁¹H ->₂³He+γ

₂³He+₂³He->₂⁴He+2₁¹H

(This reminds of a story. During my first astronomy class, the professor the name escapes me at the moment. Went over this in class and said wouldn’t be on a test or exam. But it was, some of us were upset and we blamed him, but was our responsibility to the work. I know i said there was nothing else coming but already started the research and writing so might as finish it now. )