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Active Galaxy NGC 1275 (APOD 22 Aug 2008)

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:22 pm
by emc
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080822.html (The day the Asterisk stood still…)

The different wavelength imaging techniques in overlay makes this APOD extra interesting. The shells of hot gas engulfing large portions of the colliding galaxies, I suppose, is reducing potential for life supporting planets. Nowhere amidst the shells to have a picnic I expect!

As I maneuvered my cursor on and off this APOD image, the slight misalignment in the overlay prompted thought about the motion arena played out among all the objects of the cosmos. If I understand correctly, everything in the cosmos is moving… all the asteroids, moons, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, dark matter… everything… including cosmic microwave background radiation. There is no stationary object found in the universe. Position, speed and trajectory are measured relative to other objects.

<< R.E.M. – Stand...
”Stand in the place where you live
Now face North
Think about direction
Wonder why you haven't before
Now stand in the place where you work
Now face West
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you haven't before

If you are confused check with the sun
Carry a compass to help you along
Your feet are going to be on the ground
Your head is there to move you around” >>

My head isn’t always moving me around… but my head spins as I contemplate my cosmic ride that is rotating at about 1,000 MPH and moving around the sun at approximately 67,000 MPH which is orbiting the center of the Milky Way at around 490,000 MPH and the MW in turn may be moving at roughly 1,300,000 MPH into outer galactic space… so technically, I am always ‘moving around’ even in my sleep.

Image
(The Milky Way - image from Chandra field guide website)

So where are we in the cosmos? I think the best answer is “we don’t know” since we can’t “see” the entire cosmos. Or at least we can’t say for sure that we can. Come to think of it… how do we know we can’t see the entire cosmos if we can’t see it??? Oh well, at any rate, it was good to learn that we are currently a safe distance from any hot cosmic gas, plus we are in a relatively quiet and pristine location for viewing the outer spaces.

This cosmic vantage point entices and teases us into imagining all sorts of inter and outer galactic adventures including incredible alien discoveries. Myself for example, some years ago, inspired by the “rocket age”, changed my bunk bed and Jimmy Jet into an intergalactic hyper-light-speed adventure vehicle exploring imaginary planets and battling hostile aliens. I never really cared about where I was or where I was going… just had to get somewhere to fight those bad aliens!
Image

One of this APOD’s caption links shows us the bright x-ray emissions from what is thought to be NGC 1275’s super massive black hole… perhaps even a merging of black holes. The linked image shows us that BHs do not just take away, but give off a signature by causing x-rays… but who knows the destination of black hole food or fuse? (Multiplicities becoming a singularity… Huh? What did I just say?) Two things for sure… BHF can’t go nowhere or turn into nothing because except for Uninc Caddo County, Oklahoma, USA, “nowhere” is not a place and nothing is only in my mind...

Image

"Where ground is soft, where often grows Arise, arouse, arose a ... a rosy nose?"

It’s a good thing we aren’t heading too close to any black holes…

Image

But I am a little bit confused… If black holes are a singularity of mass, why are they called “holes”? …If I dig a hole in the moon, there will be nothing in the hole but space. And why are they called “black” if nothing can avoid becoming part of the singularity once past the event horizon? …If I mix equal parts of the three primary colors magenta, cyan and yellow… it creates the color black - (well, almost black depending on lighting). If I add white to black, black becomes gray. I think they should be called “ancient ravenous killer stars that eat their own light” or “zombie stars”.

And just to humor imagination… If I were to survive entry past the event horizon becoming the fuse into the black hole… would I see the light from me now that I am the singularity?
Image
Or would I be in utter darkness because my eyes are forced to look inward only to the singularity? Would I still see the nose on my face? Would I even have a face? Or would it just be the singularity to keep me company? Come to think of it… I guess I would keep myself company. One good thing, I would be singular of mind.

...So I here I sit speeding onward and outward in my galactic gumshoes… on the fringes of astronomer’s tall pews enjoying the beautiful APOD views reading the waves of cosmic news…“Asteriskly” sharing the muse and clues without paying the astronomical dues. Such a bargain, I can’t refuse although sanity is easy to lose when contemplating black hole fuse.

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:29 pm
by neufer
Active Galaxy NGC 1275: a giant tick on the Pisces-Perseus supercluster.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080822.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080520.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071211.html

(It's good to have APOD back!)

Re: Active Galaxy NGC 1275 (APOD 20080822)

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:28 pm
by orin stepanek
[quote="emc"]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080822.html (The day the Asterisk stood still…)



(As I maneuvered my cursor on and off this APOD image, the slight misalignment in the overlay prompted thought about the motion arena played out among all the objects of the cosmos. If I understand correctly, everything in the cosmos is moving… )


One of the reasons i don't believe we can go backward in time. To do so; the movement of the universe would have to be reversed. If your at a certain place at a certen time; everything would have to be at that point. Unless the other unknown dimentions can allow this. :?

Orin

Re: Active Galaxy NGC 1275 (APOD 20080822)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:31 am
by emc
orin stepanek wrote:One of the reasons i don't believe we can go backward in time. To do so; the movement of the universe would have to be reversed. If your at a certain place at a certen time; everything would have to be at that point. Unless the other unknown dimentions can allow this. :?

Orin
Hi Orin,
I quite agree... We are locked into our space-time-continuum unless some other dimensional mobility comes to light. And I have enough trouble trying to grasp black holes much less something that would seem to rip the space-time fabric... I have to imagine a step outside our current physical world to grasp time travel. It is always now everywhere at the same time.

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:04 pm
by orin stepanek
Hi Ed! Black holes are indeed scary. A bunk bed huh? 8) When I was a kid I had a wooden wheelbarrow. The handles were the thrusters. It's amazing what one's mind can imagine. :)

Orin

Re: Active Galaxy NGC 1275 (APOD 20080822)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:19 pm
by bystander
emc wrote:… BHF can’t go nowhere or turn into nothing because except for Nowhere, Uninc Caddo County, Oklahoma, USA, “nowhere” is not a place and nothing is only in my mind...
Being from Oklahoma, I've been to Nowhere, or at least as close to it as anyone would want to be.
…If I mix equal parts of the three primary colors magenta, cyan and yellow… it creates the color black. If I add white, black becomes gray.
That only works with pigments. If you add equal parts of CMY (or RGB) light, you get white.

Re: Active Galaxy NGC 1275 (APOD 20080822)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 4:33 pm
by neufer
bystander wrote:
emc wrote:… BHF can’t go nowhere or turn into nothing because except for Nowhere, Uninc Caddo County, Oklahoma, USA, “nowhere” is not a place and nothing is only in my mind...
Being from Oklahoma, I've been to Nowhere, or at least as close to it as anyone would want to be.
------------------------------­-----------------------
Bridge to Nowhere
------------------------------­-----------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/utopian
.
<<*UTOPIA* is a name for an ideal society, taken from the title of a
book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island
in the Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-
legal system. The term has been used to describe both intentional
communities that attempted to create an ideal society, and fictional
societies portrayed in literature. "*UTOPIA*" is sometimes used
pejoratively, in reference to an unrealistic ideal that is impossible
to achieve, and has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.
.
The word comes from Greek: οὐ, "not", and τόπος, "place", indicating
that More was utilizing the concept as allegory and did not consider
such an ideal place to be realistically possible. It is worth noting
that the homophone *EUTOPIA*, derived from the Greek εὖ, "good" or
"well", and τόπος, "place", signifies a double meaning that was almost
certainly intended. Despite this, most modern usage of the term
"*UTOPIA*" assumes the latter meaning, that of a place of perfection
rather than nonexistence.
.
More's *UTOPIA* is largely based on Plato's Republic. It is a perfect
version of Republic wherein the beauties of society reign (eg:
equality and a general pacifist attitude), although its citizens are
all ready to fight if need be. The evils of society, eg: poverty and
misery, are all removed. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends
its citizens to war, but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone
neighbors (these mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous
situations in the hope that the more warlike populations of all
surrounding countries will be weeded out, leaving peaceful peoples).
The society encourages tolerance of all religions. Some readers have
chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for
a working nation, while others have postulated More intended nothing
of the sort. Some maintain the position that More's *UTOPIA* functions
only on the level of a satire, a work intended to reveal more about
the England of his time than about an idealistic society. This
interpretation is bolstered by the title of the book and nation, and
its apparent equivocation between the Greek for "no place" and "good
place": "*UTOPIA*" is a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning "no",
and topos, meaning place. But the homonymous prefix eu-, meaning
"good," also resonates in the word, with the implication that the
perfectly "good place" is really "no place.">>
--------------------------------------------------

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:04 pm
by bystander
Believe me, Nowhere, OK is no Eutopia. Neither is it a utopia, as it actually does exist. Or maybe it is eutopian, in that it is properly placed. It is out in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:31 pm
by jesusfreak16
I'm in the middle of a triangle: 9 miles from one town,9 miles from another,and 11 miles away from the other :wink: :?

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:49 am
by BMAONE23
sounds like you are in the middle of the Nomuda triangle. :lol:

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:33 pm
by emc
I've been nowhere more than a few times...

jobs that lead nowhere (like trying to find bogus delivery locations)
relationships that went nowhere (long story)
the middle of nowhere (kinda like jesusfreak16)
roads that went nowhere (man I'm gettin' sleepy)
places that were nowhere to be (times I wished I was somewhere else)
places that were nowhere to be found (times I was lost)
people that were nowhere to be found
I found words that were nowhere in the dictionary
I've used words that are nowhere in the dictionary

One thing for certain... I prefer to be nowhere near a black hole
<<"Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" Neil Young>>

Image
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... new_detail

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:05 pm
by orin stepanek
emc wrote:I've been nowhere more than a few times...

jobs that lead nowhere (like trying to find bogus delivery locations)
relationships that went nowhere (long story)
the middle of nowhere (kinda like jesusfreak16)
roads that went nowhere (man I'm gettin' sleepy)
places that were nowhere to be (times I wished I was somewhere else)
places that were nowhere to be found (times I was lost)
people that were nowhere to be found
I found words that were nowhere in the dictionary
I've used words that are nowhere in the dictionary

One thing for certain... I prefer to be nowhere near a black hole
<<"Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" Neil Young>>

Image
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... new_detail
Anywhere but nowhere! :wink:

Orin

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:21 pm
by emc
bystander wrote:Believe me, Nowhere, OK is no Eutopia. Neither is it a utopia, as it actually does exist. Or maybe it is eutopian, in that it is properly placed. It is out in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.
Bad news bystander... there are a few more places listed in Wikipedia that are Nowhere...

Nowhere, a place in Norfolk, England.
Nowhere, a 1985 novel by Thomas Berger.
NoWhere, a European regional Burning Man event
Nowhere, Kansas, the setting of Courage the Cowardly Dog


but since Nowhere, Oklohoma is not one of them... reckon that makes Nw, OK a bit more "Nowhere" than anywhere else.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:33 pm
by emc
orin stepanek wrote:Hi Ed! Black holes are indeed scary. A bunk bed huh? 8) When I was a kid I had a wooden wheelbarrow. The handles were the thrusters. It's amazing what one's mind can imagine. :)

Orin
Hi Orin,

The bottom bed was my cockpit... I covered it on three sides with sheets from the top bunk to make it dark so the lights in my Jimmy Jet would stand out... the Jimmy Jet was critical in making the fantasy work. I expect your imagination in the wheel barrow was stronger... I like the thruster aspect, pretty cool idea using the handles... and you had tricycle gear (sort of) to boot. My ship was VTL.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:47 pm
by bystander
emc wrote:Bad news bystander... there are a few more places listed in Wikipedia that are Nowhere...
but since Nowhere, Oklahoma is not one of them... reckon that makes Nw, OK a bit more "Nowhere" than anywhere else.
Nowhere, OK is an unincorporated township near Ft. Cobb Reservoir in west central Oklahoma. Quite aptly named. You can find it on Google Maps.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:19 pm
by emc
bystander wrote:
emc wrote:Bad news bystander... there are a few more places listed in Wikipedia that are Nowhere...
but since Nowhere, Oklahoma is not one of them... reckon that makes Nw, OK a bit more "Nowhere" than anywhere else.
Nowhere, OK is an unincorporated township near Ft. Cobb Reservoir in west central Oklahoma. Quite aptly named. You can find it on Google Maps.
Actually Google is how I found it http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=& ... iwloc=ddw1

I was curious if there was a town named "Nowhere" after thinking that "stuff" that goes into black holes has to go somewhere instead of nowhere. The name "black hole" is misleading to astronomy dummies such as myself. Without any research, I initially thought black "hole" meant that matter entering the BH disappeared which conjured up extra dimensional activity in my imagination. I "think" I understand a little better now, the "singularity" of the unfortuously captured matter that adds to BH mass. Interesting how the "singularity" boggles math.

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:21 pm
by Martin
Orin wrote:
One of the reasons i don't believe we can go backward in time. To do so; the movement of the universe would have to be reversed. If your at a certain place at a certen time; everything would have to be at that point. Unless the other unknown dimentions can allow this.
Ronald L. Mallett, Ph.D. is a professor of physics in the University of Connecticut.

"In Einstein's general theory of relativity, both matter and energy can create a gravitational field. This means that the energy of a light beam can produce a gravitational field. My current research considers both the weak and strong gravitational fields produced by a single continuously circulating unidirectional beam of light. In the weak gravitational field of a unidirectional ring laser, it is predicted that a spinning neutral particle, when placed in the ring, is dragged around by the resulting gravitational field.
In a later paper, he argued that at sufficient energies, the circulating laser might produce not just frame-dragging but also closed timelike curves, allowing time travel into the past:
For the strong gravitational field of a circulating cylinder of light, I have found new exact solutions of the Einstein field equations for the exterior and interior gravitational fields of the light cylinder. The exterior gravitational field is shown to contain closed timelike lines.
The presence of closed timelike lines indicates the possibility of time travel into the past. This creates the foundation for a time machine based on a circulating cylinder of light."

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:27 pm
by bystander
From Wikipedia: Ronald Mallett
Wikipedia and Martin wrote:Ronald L. Mallett, Ph.D. is a professor of physics in the University of Connecticut. ...
Coming soon to a movie theatre near you! Time Traveler: A Spike Lee Film

Dr. Mallett's Home Page

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:45 am
by Martin
I agree it sounds like a movie. However, some ideas as ridiculous as they sound can become reality at a later date. So mock accordingly

I just wanted Orin to realize that there could be alternatives and one may not have to find a way to reverse the entire observable universe to accomplish time travel.
:idea:

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:32 pm
by bystander
Not mocking, check out the link. Spike Lee did buy the movie rights to Dr. Mallett's book Time Traveler.

Can't say I have much faith in the results, but I certainly can not refute his theory.
  • BTW: If you are going to quote word for word from a source, you should at least give credit to the
    source, even if it is public domain. While plagiarism is not criminal, it is certainly unethical.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:31 am
by Martin
Thx for pointing that movie link out -I missed it.

There is a good reason why plagiarism is not a criminal act. This would be one example.

I thought I did include the source Wikipedia (oops). As far as, being unethical -that is relative.