The Craftsman site - Eta Carinae

Cosmology is the study about the origin, the structure and evolution of the universe.  It is an science that always has been developing over time, ever since new discoveries causes revision of old theories.  The cosmology tries to answer those great questions:  How and when was the universe born, what does it look like, what does it consist of, and how will it end?  Trying to solve these mysteries might give you a headache.

In 1925 the astronomers had understood that the universe was composed of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of galaxies, and many of them was speeding away from us within an enormous paste.  It looked like the universe was expanding within all directions.

Competing Theories.

The first scientist that used these findings and performed an extrapolation back in time, was Abbé Georges Eduard Lemaítre (1894-1966).  In 1927 he brought forward the theory that the universe had a starting point, a time-point when all matter and all energy was concentrated within a single point.  When this point exploded like a firework, this marked the start of time and space and was the cause that the universe was expanding.

Twenty years later an alternative idea aroused.  This one was called the Steady State-theory, and it presumed that that the cosmos was the same forever, all places and in all directions.  The universe had no beginning and would neither have any ending.  The expansion that had been observed, was the result of the fact that when new matter was created, old matter had to be pushed away.  The british astronomer Fred Hoyle, the loud-speaking defender of the Steady State-model, invented the expression "Big Bang" as a sarcastic ridicule  of the competing theory.

The same year as the Steady State theory was published, the physicist George Gamow that some of the chemical elements we observe today, was created within the first few minutes of the birth of the universe.  Further on he argued that within the early universe it had been very hot and was cooled down during the expansion.  If the Big Bang theory was correct, Gamow predicted that the cosmos today is containing only a small piece of the heath that was left from its birth.  The Steady State-theory didn't predict anything about this.

The astronomers called this pr-predicted rest of heath the cosmic back-ground microwave radiation or CMB -radiation.  This was detected by a coincident in 1965.  The CMB radiation was the last nail within the chest of the Steady State-theory.

Most is invisible.

Even if the "Big Bang" became the accepted hypothesis, many unanswered questions remained.  Exactly what did happen within the first milliseconds of the birth that led to the universe we see today?  What does the universe consist of, and what is its final fate?  The cosmologists has found some of the answers, but still there exist many enigmas.

Early in the 1980´s Alan Guth meant that within the tin,tin fragment of a second after the birth of the universe the cosmos expanded with factor of at least 10^10.  With other words :  The space itself expanded dramatically.  His theory help us to explain why the universe is as large as it is, even if it is only 13,7 billion years old.  At the same tim the astronomers concluded that most of the mass of the universe was invisible and consist of so called dark matter.  What this matter in reality is made of, nobody knows, but there is sufficient enough of dark matter that the expansion of the universe will stop and change direction which again will cause into a "Big Crunch" some time into the distant future.

In 1998 it was discovered that the expansion velocity of the universe in reality is increasing, something that causes cosmology even more difficult to realize.  It seem like if the universe is filled with an unknown force called "dark energy", and that it is pushing everything apart.  According cosmologists involve  everything we can see - all from atoms and molecules onto planets, stars and galaxies  -  only four per cent of the total universe.  this makes it not peculiar that the cosmos is hard to understand.  Most of it is not visible to us!

Therefore it is curious to understand that for two hundred years ago the astronomers believed that comprised only our solar system and the stars, and no one knew how far away they were.  For less the hundred years ago it was believed that the whole universe consisted of only the Milky Way galaxy, even if there were requested about what the many faint, unclear dots of light that was spread out in the sky could be.

In 1923 Edwin Hubble used the 250 cm telescope on Mount Wilson  and discovered that the faint Andromeda "fog" in reality was an enormous collection of stars approximately one million light years away - a distance that is more then three times the known diameter of our Milky Way  system.  Astronomers quickly found that other unclear spots also were distant galaxies.  But from where did these come from?  When were they born?  And what was their destiny?  In the attempt to find an answer to these fundamental questions "invented" the astronomers the modern science of cosmology.

May 16, 2012: 

Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system's population of potentially hazardous asteroids. Also known as "PHAs," these asteroids have orbits that come within five million miles (about eight million kilometers) of Earth, and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth's atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

The asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE, sampled 107 PHAs to make predictions about the population as a whole. Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 PHAs, plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). So far, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found.

In this simulated view of the near-Earth asteroid population, potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) are denoted in orange. Less dangerous near-Earth asteroids are blue. Earth's orbit is green. [more]

While previous estimates of PHAs predicted similar numbers, they were rough approximations. NEOWISE has generated a more credible estimate of the objects' total numbers and sizes. Because the WISE space telescope detected the infrared light, or heat, of asteroids, it was able to pick up both light and dark objects, resulting in a more representative look at the entire population.

"The NEOWISE analysis shows us we've made a good start at finding those objects that truly represent an impact hazard to Earth," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near-Earth Object Observation Program at NASA Headquarters. "But we've many more to find, and it will take a concerted effort during the next couple of decades to find all of them that could do serious damage or be a mission destination in the future."

This orbit diagram illustrates the difference between a PHA and less hazardous near-Earth asteroids (NEA). [more]

The new analysis suggests that about twice as many PHAs as previously thought reside in low-inclination orbits, which are roughly aligned with the plane of Earth's orbit.

"Our team was surprised to find the overabundance of low-inclination PHAs," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Because they will tend to make more close approaches to Earth, these targets can provide the best opportunities for the next generation of human and robotic exploration."

The NEOWISE analysis suggests a possible origin for the low-inclinaton PHAs: Many of them could have originated from a collision between two asteroids in the main belt lying between Mars and Jupiter. A larger body with a low-inclination orbit may have broken up in the main belt, causing some of the fragments to drift into orbits closer to Earth and eventually become PHAs.

The lower-inclination PHAs appear to be somewhat brighter and smaller than other near-Earth asteroids. The discovery that PHAs tend to be bright says something about their composition; they are more likely to be either stony, like granite, or metallic. This type of information is important in assessing the space rocks' potential hazards to Earth. The composition of the bodies would affect how quickly they might burn up in our atmosphere if an encounter were to take place.

"The NEOWISE project, which wasn't originally planned as part of WISE, has turned out to be a huge bonus," said Mainzer.  "Everything we can learn about these objects helps us understand their origins and fate."

How did life come into being?  This question has bothered scientists for a long time.  There are especially two theories they are gathering around:  That life came here to Earth by comets and meteors, or that life is purely a result from chemistry and accidental incidents.  The answer is still unclear, but the scientists know that the answer is to be found within space.

During centuries the scientists has tried to find the answer of the most intricate  question of them all:  How did life come into being?  And even if they have analyzed meteorites and moon-stones and even created amino acids within their laboratories, they are still in great doubt about if life bubbled up by itself from within oceans upon the Earth, or was brought here from the universe.  No one does really know how the transition took place from the lifeless matter that constitutes the planets and stars, until life came into being.

Clues that are found is seen today within the oldest species of stone among other place on Greenland  and Australia.  But even when the scientists aim their magnifying glass toward those ancient rocks, the traces from the earliest life is few and very difficult to interpret.  Because the scientists also has established amino acids, the building blocks of life, within meteorites and within comet dust that space probes has brought back to Earth, life could in theory very well have come to Earth from outside.  NASA-scientists has even recently found the matter adenin and guanin within meteorites.  This constitutes two of the four bases that create the genetic code within DNA.

Life started for about 3,6 billion years ago.

The Earth was in its very start a intense hot rocky planet covered covered with liquid.  It is not easy to picture to oneself that organic substances can come into being or at all exist within such extreme conditions. 3,6 billion years ago Earth had calmed down so much that the first oceans was created.  This was the time when the first traces of life turned up - and the question is how they came into being.  One possibility is that life miraculous came into being here on the at that time young Earth.  We do not know much about the conditions on Earth at that time , but life could have had an abruptly start from a large amount of molecules that was brought here by meteors and comets.  But because life came into being so quickly, the theory claim that it is easy to take the step from the building blocks of life into living organisms.

The other possibility , the so-called panspermia-theory, claim that not only the building blocks, but also life itself came to Earth from outside.  The theory has óne immediate advantage, it explain how life swiftly could come into being upon an earthly planet that had become cold enough that life could exist within large oceans.

Researchers within both chemistry and physics struggled for years to explain how life really had come into being.  But in 1952 the breakthrough happened.  The chemist Harold Urey  his assistant Stanley Miller tried to recreate the conditions that ruled on the early Earth.  They simulated lightnings by sending electric charges through   flasks containing gasses they meant the atmosphere of the Earth was made of billions of years ago:  methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapour.  They managed to create several amino acids which proteins are made of.

But this is not where the problem is situated.  Amino acids are actually not that intricate to create.  The only thing is to have the correct chemical conditions.  It is therefore not that funny that creating amino acids have succeeded within laboratories, because the creation of amino acids follows the chemical laws.  But the amino acids are only the building blocks , and to put them together into exactly the proteins that all life burst out of , demand enormous amounts of information .  This information is as far as we can see, not built-in into the laws of nature.  But something has to govern these dawning biological processes.  One typical protein molecule consist of 100 amino acids of 20 different types.  They are able to be combined in not less then 10^130 ways.  That one particular protein shall be created by pure chance, is thus impossible.

Perhaps life began through RNA.

Both theories are fighting the same basic problem:  DNA control the formation of proteins.  On the other hand there has to be proteins present to be able to create DNA.

The dilemma represent the chemistry variant of the problem of the hen and the egg and perhaps it is avoided by thinking the same way:  It is the evolution that decides.  The question will then narrow down to if it is possible to imagine some type of molecular evolution where a row of tiny steps of progress of development can become into larger molecules that are able to collect and store information.  This is a modern manner to observe the darvinistic thinking, because the development of life is based upon living organisms reacting on information from their surroundings and are able to adapt accordingly.  This has further on led to a variety of theories about that life in reality came into being with only RNA, which is able to act both as data storage and catalyst for production of proteins - and further develop into the complex DNA-based life that inhabit the earth of today.

The central difference of if life came into being on earth or came from outside, depend upon how fast and simple molecules like RNA and DNA can come into being.  If the process is difficult or demand other conditions then the young earth could bring together, the answer has to be found some place out there among the stars.  Because the universe itself , or only our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are more space and time for life to have developed rather then here on earth.

The british astronomer Fred Hoyle started in the years around 1980 to investigate where within the universe conditions for life could exist.  He chose the enormous dust-clouds inside the Milky Way.  By spectroscopic analysing them to define their composition he found sensational information.  The standard theory at that time was that the dust-particles within the clouds was build from graphite and ice, but Hole´s colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe had observed some infrared spectres that reveled that there more than just graphite and ice within the dust clouds.  The discovery caused a discussion about if it was any possibility that the dust particles was build of organically substances.  Hoyle and Wickramasinghe arrived to the conclusion that the infrared spectres best could be explained if the particles in reality was freeze-dried bacterias.  The discovery was received with contempt within the astronomical expertise, which faster then lightning distanced them self away from Hoyles path-breaking theory.

It did not get any better when Hoyle went even further and suggested that certain epidemic deceases on Earth perhaps was caused by bacterias and viruses that was brought to Earth by remains of comets and meteorites from other parts within the solar system or the universe.

Bacterias are able to survive in space.

Today the pansperia debate has taken a new direction.  We have found rocks from meteorites on Earth that has arrived from Mars, and it is only question of time before we find rocks of meteorites that origin from Venus. 

They are made of the surface of Mars and Venus because of hitting meteorites that has pounded loose rocks from their surface at such force that they are thrown into space.  Correspondingly pieces from Earth has been thrown away and landed on Mars and Venus.  This mean that the Earth, Mars and Venus has exchanged matter ever since the solar system came into being.  If life came into being only on one of these planets, there can almost be no doubt that such life has been transferred to the two other - because micro organisms are most likely able to survive a longer journey in the universe if it is well enough safeguarded inside a meteorite.

The mechanisms proposed for interstellar panspermia are hypothetical and currently unproven. Panspermia can be said to be either interstellar (between star systems) or interplanetary (between planets in the same star system), and its transport mechanisms may include radiation pressure and lithopanspermia (microorganisms in rocks). Deliberate directed panspermia from space to seed Earth or sent from Earth to seed other solar systems have also been proposed. One new twist to the hypothesis by engineer Thomas Dehel (2006), proposes that plasmoid magnetic fields ejected from the magnetosphere may move the few spores lifted from the Earth's atmosphere with sufficient speed to cross interstellar space to other systems before the spores can be destroyed.

Probability was that in the childhood of our solar system there was equal good possibilities for life both on Venus and Mars as on Earth - possibilities are that we can not even say if we origins from the Earth or in reality are immigrants from one of our neighbouring planets. 

Perhaps life not at all has originate from our solar system.  Probability is that life has come to our corner of the galaxy from even more distant places in the universe.

Scientists say they have confirmed that a meteorite that crashed into earth 40 years ago contains millions of different organic compounds. It is thought the Murchison meteorite could be even older than the Sun.”Having this information means you can tell what was happening during the birth of the Solar System,” said lead researcher Dr Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin. The results of the meteorite study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Supernovas are the explosive deaths of the Universe's most massive stars. In death, these objects blast powerful waves into the cosmos, destroying much of the dust surrounding them.

This composite from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the remnant of such an explosion, known as N132D, and the environment it is expanding into. In this image, infrared light at 4.5 microns is mapped to blue, 8.0 microns to green, and 24 microns to red. Meanwhile, broadband X-ray light is mapped purple. The remnant itself is seen as a wispy pink shell of gas at the center of this image. The pinkish color reveals an interaction between the explosion's high-energy shock waves (originally purple) and surrounding dust grains.

Outside of the central remnant, small organic molecules called Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are shown as tints of green. Meanwhile, the blue dots represent stars within that lie along the line of sight between the observatories and N132D.

Two satellites are on their way to a hot rendezvous with the Sun:  They have to tackle several hundred degrees temperature doing measurements through small cracks within their heath-shield. 

Solar Orbiter and Solar Probe Plus will work under extreme working conditions when the two probes after fire and six years voyage reach their destination at the closeness of the Sun.  But the data obtained from them can give us decisive new knowledge about the physics of our star.

The pictures from the Sun will be out of this world.  We will be introduced to a landscape of glowing gas where several thousands of kilometer long flares of fire are flung from the surface.  Through sun-spots larger than our earth we will be able to see farther inside the sun.  The best pictures will reveal details of less than 200 kilometers - and sharper than ever seen before.

Within a few years time, when two new probes are sent on their way toward the sun, the thought is to get a better understanding of the physical condition of our star and by that better our possibilities to forecast about larger solar eruptions.  We have experienced earlier that such eruptions can paralyse large parts of the electrical supply and electronics on the earth and by that all our normal modern world daily activities.

But this research will not at all be easy.  The probes will be several hundred degrees hot, and their sensitive instruments has to lie protected behind a solid shield.  The only view to the sun will be small openings within these shields.

NASA will venture farther out.

These two new probes are the European Solar Orbiter that are sent up in 2017, and the american Solar Probe Plus that starts its voyage in 2018.  The european space organisation ESA has chosen a cautious course.  Indeed the Solar Orbiter will pass the Sun closer then Mercury, the innermost planet, but the distance will still be more boldly - the USA probe will travel all the way into a distance of 5,9 kilometers from the Sun.  There it will circle around the Sun at a speed of 200 km/s and the temperature upon its shield will keep up to more then 1400 degrees.

But the extreme-temperatures is not the only challenge.  It is actually more difficult to send a space probe against the sun.  This is caused by the fact that the Earth rotates around the Sun at a speed at a speed of 30 km/s or specifically 108 000 kilometers per hour.  A space probe that are sent from Earth, contain automatically this speed, and to be able to begin falling cautiously against the Sun the probe has to decrease its speed.  The rockets it is possible to use to decrease its speed are limited - the remainder of the speed reduction has to be done by letting the probe pass by Venus a number of times.

But the method is time-consuming, this is why it will take nearly four years before Solar Orbiter in 2021 is able to take its final position at a circulating time around the Sun of 168 days.  Minimum distance from the Sun will be 42 million kilometers, the largest 137 million kilometers.

Even if the two probes will gain very different lanes, they shall both carry out measurements of the magnetic fields of our Sun.  A lot of what is going on on the Sun, is governed by the magnetic fields - among them the solar spots and solar flares.  Modern computer technology will put Solar Orbiter capable of transforming magnetic field measurements within the solar atmosphere into pictures indicating the direct magnetic condition of the Sun.

Something occur to the magnetic field  from it comes into being within the inner of the Sun until it creates the sun spots within the photosphere of the Sun.  This can be connected to the fact that the magnetic field of the Sun is able to govern the hot magnetic plasma of the star.

The Sun is a large ball of gas, 1.4 million kilometer across, consisting primarily of hydrogen and helium, and taking up 99.8 percent of the mass of the solar system. At its center the temperature is 15 million degrees Celsius, hot enough to force hydrogen nuclei to combine to form helium. The energy that is released by this process is transported by radiation and gas currents (convection) to the visible surface of the Sun, where the temperature is 6000 degrees, and is then radiated out into space.

The first images of the poles ever.

Solar Orbiters lane is chosen to accomplish these complicated processes.  When the probe comes as closest to the Sun, it will for several days keep paste with the solar rotation and hang put above the Sun within the same spot, just like our TV-satellites sits within the same spot above the Earth.

Every time the probes passes by Venus, they will gradually change the plane of the lane within such manner that it angles so much against the equator of the Sun that we can get the first close-up images of the polar areas of the Sun.  A lot indicate that the solar spot activity depend upon the strenght of the magnetic field within the polar area.  The sunspots are important to us, because the number of sunspots might influence the climate upon our Earth.

While Solar orbiter caries on with its tasks, the Solar Probe closes up gradually to the Sun - till it in the end comes very close to the thin upper layer of the outer atmosphere of the Sun, the so-called corona.  The corona is something of the most  puzzling with the Sun, and Solar Probe Plus give us the opportunity to study it for the very first time up close.

One of the largest enigmas are the fact that why the corona, which contain an temperature of more then one million degrees, are so much hotter then the surface that is approximately 5800 degrees.  Here on Earth it gets colder the higher up we travels within the atmosphere.  Perhaps it once more the magnetic field that transport energy from the surface and up into the corona.  Solar Probe Plus caries with instruments to analyse the chemical composition through a mass spectrometer.  At the same time it gives us opportunity to for the first time to measure the magnetic field this close to the Sun.

The probe will teach us much new about the Sun, but of course also bring forth new enigmas that has to be solved only on even closer range.   So when the Sun - perhaps toward the end of the next decade - is visited once more, it can very well be an even hotter affair.

Inner chaos creates violent energy.

We know that the Sun get energy from converting hydrogen into helium within its core - but then it becomes worse.  The energy has to get out into the surface, and to start with it is done by radiation that transport the energy.  Higher up, where the hot gases are ascending, and cold gases are sinking down, the transport of energy happens by the help of convection.  This is where the magnetic field of the sun is created, an the solar rotation and convection causes together that the magnetic field so to say is curved around the Sun and sometimes brakes through the surface creating sunspots.

The magnetic field runs the processes within the three layers of the atmosphere, photosphere, cromosphere and the corona.  Eruptions happens often when the energy within the magnetic field is released, to example in the form of fiery tongues that is called protuberances, which is able to fling billions of tons of plasma into space.  The corona is gradually transformed into the magnetosphere with flows of charged particles which reaches all the way out to the limits of our solar system.

The Solar Probe, a unique high-technology dual spacecraft mission to be implemented in cooperation with the Russians, will venture deep into the solar corona, the Sun's outer atmosphere - far closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft has previously ventured. It will demonstrate technologies for imaging, and taking in-situ and remote measurements at 3 solar radii (R_s) above solar surface, where radiation temperatures exceed 2000 K.

Solar Probe is designed to answer long-standing fundamental questions:

• What heats the extended solar corona and accelerates the solar wind?

• From where in the corona do the different types of solar wind originate?

• What roles do turbulence and waves play in the coronal heating process?

• What are the mechanisms that accelerate, store and transport high energy particles throughout the corona?

Our Sun is the only star we can measure in situ. Solar Probe will relate remotely observed solar phenomena to actual physical processes occurring in the solar atmosphere and corona. This will offer unique access to processes that are important in many other significant but inaccessible stars throughout the Universe.

To make life arise and flourish, a planet has to be situated within the exact distance from its star.  The Earth is situated within the so-called habitable zone whereas the is adapted within a manner that the temperature is ideal for the existence of animal- and plant life.  But what if.......the Earth was situated another place from the sun. 

Would there still exist life on Earth if the distance from our sun was changed into something different?

Earth travels within an almost circular lane at a distance 150 million kilometers from the Sun - the distance we call an astronomical unit (AU).

From good reasons it is impossible to carry out experiments to test how much farther the distance from the sun has to be changed before it will not be possible to exist upon the Earth.  But scientists can get closer to an answer by using computer models and by observing our neighbouring planets.

If the earth came closer to the sun, the polar ice would start melting.  Because ice is white and is reflecting much light, the earth would become much darker and because of this much hotter.  The condensation from the oceans would increase, and because water vapour is an effective greenhouse gas, the greenhouse effect would increase and become greater.  In the end all the oceans of the world would disappear, and the earth would end as a ardent and lifeless desert just like Venus is today.  The majority of these calculations predict that this will happen if the distance is reduced into only 0,95 AU.

If the distance to the sun was larger the opposite would occur.  A crust of ice would swept the earth almost down to the equator.  Larger amounts of CO2 could have been absorbed by the increasingly colder ocean, and the greenhouse effect would have been lesser and lesser.  In the end the earth would have been covered with ice from pole to pole.  But in the long run volcanic activity would once again have increased the amount of CO2 within the atmosphere recreating a sort of more friendly climate.  It is very difficult to estimate when the greenhouse effect that the earth in this manner will be able to establish, will compensate for the larger distance from the sun.  But a majority of the computer models that are used, establishes the limit between 1,03 and 1,3 AU.

It seem that the habitable zone is pretty narrow, and that it is quite a lottery prize for us that the Earth is situated where it in realty is.

The bacterias does survive us all.

The majority of all species of animals would very quickly have become extinct if our Earth was moved into another position.  On the other hand many one-celled orgasms like thermophile bacterias are able to tackle extreme conditions.  When the sun within a distant future become hotter, the last form of life will be bacterias that floats around in the atmosphere above an extremely hot planet.

2012 February 27

Explanation:

Twenty five years ago, the brightest supernova of modern times was sighted. Over time, astronomers have watched and waited for the expanding debris from this tremendous stellar explosion to crash into previously expelled material. A clear result of such a collision is demonstrated in the above time lapse video of images recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope between 1994 and 2009. The movie depicts the collision of an outward moving blast wave with the pre-existing, light-year wide ring. The collision occurred at speeds near 60 million kilometers per hour and shock-heats the ring material causing it to glow. Astronomers continue to study the collision as it illuminates the interesting past of SN 1987A, and provides clues to the origin of the

Explanation:

This false-color image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals a one light-year diameter ring of hot, ten million degree plasma. It is one of the most detailed X-ray images of the expanding blast wave from supernova 1987A (SN1987A). At visible wavelengths SN1987A is famous for its evolving rings, and superposed on this image are white contour lines which outline the innermost optical ring as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The composite picture clearly shows that the X-ray emitting shocked material lies just inside the optical ring. In fact, the X-ray emission seems to peak (whitest color) close to where the optical emission peaks (closely spaced contours), a persuasive demonstration that the optical light is produced as the blast wave plows into surrounding material. What will SN1987A look like in the future? According to a popular model, in coming years the expanding supernova blast wave should hit and light up even more material while the violent impacts send reverse shocks back towards the site of the explosion and light up the ejected stellar debris. In any event, astronomers will watch eagerly from a ringside seat as a new supernova remnant emerges.

March 29, 2012:

NASA's Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds. Recent finds include planets with double suns, massive "super-Earths" and "hot Jupiters," and a miniature solar system. The variety of planets circling distant suns is as wonderful as it is surprising.

As the numbers mount, it seems to be just a matter of time before Kepler finds what astronomers are really looking for: an Earth-like planet orbiting its star in the "Goldilocks zone"—that is, at just the right distance for liquid water and life.

"I believe Kepler will find a 'Goldilocks planet' within the next two years," says Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a researcher at NASA HQ who specializes in exoplanet biology. "We'll be able to point at a specific star in the night sky and say 'There it is—a planet that could support life!'"

A ScienceCast video explores the challenges of studying faraway 'Goldilocks planets.' Play it!

Kepler has already located a few Earth-sized planets, but they are too close for comfort to their parent stars. These recent finds have heightened the sense that a big discovery is just around the corner.

But finding a Goldilocks planet is just the first step. Getting to know it is much more difficult.

The problem is that, in the cosmic scheme of things, Earth-sized planets are relatively small, and the ones Kepler is finding are staggeringly far away. Most are hundreds, or even thousands, of light years away from Earth. Almost completely hidden by the glare of their parent stars, these distant pinpricks are very difficult to study.

Fortunately, NASA has a plan.

Light reflected from a planet carries the 'fingerprint' of its atmospheric composition.

"The reflected light of an exoplanet tells its story," explains Kepler Program Scientist Doug Hudgins, also at NASA HQ. "To get at that story and learn about the planet's atmosphere and composition, we can use a technique called transit spectroscopy."

The basic idea is simple: When a planet reflects the light of its parent star, the atmosphere of the planet leaves a subtle imprint on the reflection--a sort of spectral "fingerprint" that astronomers can study to learn what the planet's atmosphere is made of.

One new mission under consideration by NASA, named FINESSE, is a fingerprint specialist. Short for "Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer," FINESSE would measure the spectra of stars and their planets in two situations: once when the planet is in view, and again when the planet is hiding out behind its star. In this way, FINESSE can separate the planet's dim light from the stellar glare and reveal the composition of the planet's atmosphere.

NASA is also considering an observatory named "TESS"--the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Supported in part by Google, the MIT-led mission is specifically designed to find exoplanets in the local galactic neighborhood. TESS would study hundreds of stars within 50 light years of Earth, close enough to study in some detail.

"With better detectors and instruments designed to block the glare of the parent stars, these next-generation telescopes could not only find a Goldilocks planet, but also tell us what its atmosphere is made of, what sort of cloud cover graces its skies, and maybe even what the surface is like—whether oceans cover part of the globe, how much land there is, and so on," says Hudgins.

Domagal-Goldman expects big surprises: "We've found so many unexpected things about planets that now I expect to be amazed. When we can study a Goldilocks planet, I believe we'll discover something revolutionary about how life interacts with a planetary environment. Nature is so much more diverse than we anticipated."

March 27, 2012:

There's a tiny moon orbiting beyond Saturn's rings that's full of promise, and maybe -- just maybe -- microbes.

In a series of tantalizingly close flybys to the moon, named "Enceladus," NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed watery jets erupting from what may be a vast underground sea. These jets, which spew through cracks in the moon's icy shell, could lead back to a habitable zone that is uniquely accessible in all the solar system.

Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice from many locations near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. More than 30 individual jets of different sizes can be seen in this image captured during a flyby of NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 21, 2009. [more]

"More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus's south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place," says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. "Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth's oceans."

Thermal measurements of Enceladus's fissures have revealed temperatures as high as -120 deg Fahrenheit (190 Kelvin). "If you add up all the heat, 16 gigawatts of thermal energy are coming out of those cracks," says Porco.

The watery plumes of Enceladus come from icy fissures nicknamed "tiger stripes." [more]

She believes the small moon, with its sub-surface liquid sea, organics, and an energy source, may host the same type of life we find in similar environments on Earth.

"The kind of ecologies Enceladus might harbor could be like those deep within our own planet. Abundant heat and liquid water are found in Earth's subterranean volcanic rocks. Organisms in those rocks thrive on hydrogen (produced by reactions between liquid water and hot rocks) and available carbon dioxide and make methane, which gets recycled back into hydrogen. And it's all done entirely in the absence of sunlight or anything produced by sunlight."

But what makes Enceladus special is that its habitable zone offers itself up for easy access.

"It's erupting out into space where we can sample it. It sounds crazy but it could be snowing microbes on the surface of this little world. In the end, it's is the most promising place I know of for an astrobiology search. We don't even need to go scratching around on the surface. We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out. And voilà…we have what we came for."

The source of Enceladus's heat appears to be Saturn itself. Researchers say Saturn's gravitational pull causes the moon's shape to change slightly on a daily basis as it orbits. Flexing motions in its interior generate heat--like the heat you feel in a paperclip when you bend it back and forth rapidly.

On March 27, 2012, Cassini flew just 46 miles above the south pole of Enceladus--and right through the spewing plumes. [more]

"But the tidal flexing occurring now is not enough to account for all the heat presently coming out of Enceladus. One way out of this dilemma is to assume that some of the heat observed today was been generated and stored internally in the past."

Porco believes Enceladus's orbit could have been much more eccentric, and the greater the eccentricity, she says, the greater the tidal flexing and resulting structural variations that produce the heat. In this scenario, the heat would have been stored inside the little moon by melting some of the ice to recharge the liquid sea.

"Now that the orbit's eccentricity has lessened, the heat emanating from the interior is a combination of heat produced today and in the past. But since more heat is coming out presently than is being produced, Enceladus is in a cooling off stage and the liquid water is returning to ice. There are models to show that it never really freezes entirely, so the eccentricity may increase again, restarting the cycle."

Whatever is turning up the heat, Porco has a plan of action. It's simple:

"We need to get back to Enceladus and check it out."

What looks like a close-up of a sea sponge is actually Hyperion, a moon of Saturn that tumbles around the ringed planet at a distance of over 920,000 miles -- almost four times the distance our own moon is from us!

The image above is a color-composite made from raw images taken by the Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 28, 2010, when it passed by the moon at a distance of 45,442 miles.

At right is a newer image acquired by Cassini on Sept. 16, 2011, from a distance of about 55,000 miles.

At 255 x 163 x 137 miles in diameter Hyperion is the largest of Saturn's irregularly-shaped moons and the largest irregularly-shaped moon in the solar system.

Astronomers have suggested that it's the leftovers of a larger body that was blown apart by an impact. Hyperion's sponge-like appearance may be the result of the moon's low density and high porosity, which could cause impactors to compress the surface inwards rather than blasting material out. 

Unlike most of Saturn's other moons, Hyperion is not tidally locked -- that is, it does not always face the same side to Saturn (like our moon does with Earth.) Rather it tumbles along in its orbit. This has prevented astronomers from thus far calculating a standard longitude-latitude map for Hyperion.

One important cause to the fact that such chaos might arise within our solar system, is the phenomenon of resonance.  Resonance arises when the orbital time for two or more planets stand out as simple ratios.

As example the ratio 1 : 2, where one of the planets make use of the double of time around the sun as the other one.

Within some cases resonance lead to high stability.  To example Neptune and Pluto which moves within lanes at orbital times which are 2 : 3.  A consequence from this resonance is that these two planet - as far as we can see their interaction - does not come that close to each other that they will collide when their lanes crosses each other.

Titan

Some resonances also bring about instability.  The two moons of Saturn - Titan and Hyperion has a resonance of the proportion 3 : 4.  This might indicate the chaotic rotation of Hyperion around its own axis.  It is simply impossible create a calendar for when Saturn rises and goes down seen from the surface of Hyperion, because the small icy moon does not have any clear defined day and night.  Hyperion's rotation obviously enough is the most evident example of a chaos-phenomena within the solar system right in front of our eyes.

Our solar system that is governed by the gravitational laws of Newton, seem very orderly and solid.  we can predict it far into the future and calculate when the sun rises and settles and hoe the moon and the planets are moving.  If something seem safe and predictable, it is that the earth and the other planets will continue their conduct for millions of years within their fixed lanes.

As long as we do not speak about more than some million years, we can be certain that the solar system ticks as a precision clockwork.  But for very distant period of time our solar system is less stable and more chaotic than we would imagine.  Even within Newtons laws of gravitation lies the chaos awaiting, and if looked at the total range of time span of life for our solar system counting billions of years, chaos is something we obviously need to take into consideration.

Looking ahead, our first gained experience is that it will be completely impossible to calculate where the position within its lane a planet is to be found, but as time goes by, there will appear more and more serious divagation.  The actual planetary lanes will possible be changed, something that might lead to the total chaos where several planets might come into a course where they will collide.

Asteroids are totally unpredictable.

It has taken astronomers more then 300 years to move from the imagination of stable solar system to  realize that chaos play a significant role.  The sooner the better we must learn to live with a certain insecurity - not least when it comes to the asteroids. 

Thousands of asteroids are situated within the inner solar system, and looking forward to year 2100 there will be 90 of them to pass by the earth at a very close distance.  The astronomers are pretty certain that none of them will hit us.  But there exist two problems.  First of all that there are many asteroids that we have not detected yet, subsequently the fact that to predict the lane of an asteroid is not easy at all.  The asteroids will of course also behave according Newtons laws of gravity, but if an asteroid comes close enough to a planet, it might very easy take another lane.  It is convenient to calculate the effect of one near pass by the Earth, Mars or Venus, but if this take place within a rapid sequence, things start to become difficult - impossible, actually - to predict the lane many years into the future.

The actual example is the asteroid Apophis that 13 of April 2029 will pass by the Earth within a distance of only 20 000 km.  About every seventh year after that it will continue to pass by the Earth regularly, still we are able to calculate its lane but only within and assumption.  It is therefore impossible to predict if Apophis will hit the Earth at any moment of time.  Apophis let us live through a mild version of the catastrophic phenomenas that through the 4.6 billion years has had great influence for how our planetary system looks like today.

Long struggle between order and chaos.

Even Newton was aware of the fact that our solar system was not a perfect made clockwork.  The two large planets Jupiter and Saturn seemed to contain lanes that was not quite stable.  Jupiter was slowly on its way closer toward the Sun, while Saturn was moving away.  In wain Newton tried to explain this by the help of the laws of gravitation, but had to give up because the calculations immediately became to complicate to solve.  Instead he concluded that such calculations surpassed the human brains capacity.

Jupiters and Saturns behavior quickly became a challenge for the scientists of the 1700 century, and in 1776 the great french mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace meant that he had solved the problem.  By use of the newly advanced differential equation Laplace could prove that Jupiter and Saturn seemed to contain a periodical their lanes to oscillate in and out over a period of thousand years, but without any other things changing for very long periods of time.  This was caused by the phenomena between Jupiter and Saturn, that is called resonance.  For each time Jupiter circles five times around the Sun, Saturn will have made two rotations.  Both planets are very large and heavy and pull each other with noticeable forces, and because of the 5 : 2 resonance there is a certain rhythm within their mutual influences.

Laplace by this meant that he had proved the stability of our solar system.  He was convinced that that in fact all movements could be calculated as far into the future as wished, if only all the basic facts were known previously.  The solar system was still a clockwork.  With Laplace the belief within the determinism reached its peak:  that everything could be calculated and that nothing was left the coincidences and their crookedness of lapses.  Within this image of the world there were left no place to chaos.

Competition gave no solution.

Within the more than next 100 years that followed, The world view of the astronomy was solid anchored within the gravitational law of Newton and the determinism.  But there still remained one obstinate problem which became the first warning about a much more complicated solar system.  This was connected to the movements of our moon that even the greatest astronomers never managed to build a mathematical formula over.  The movements of our moon is the classical example of the so called three-bodies problem, where three planets affect one another with gravitational forces - within this case the Earth, the Moon and the Sun.

The three-body problem became the great challenge to solve for the 1800-century mathematicians.  This even resulted into the fact that there were to be payed out a prize-competition within the occasions of that the Swedish-Norwegian king Oscar 2 60 years anniversary the 21 of January 1889.  The winne had to produce a mathematical solution not only for the three-body problem, but also solve the so called n-body problem where a casual number of bodies affected each other.  The prize consisted of a gold medal and a sum of 2500 Swedish kroner - an amount which was highly respectable in that time.

The contribution the at last won that prize, should cause the fact that it would change our entire world view - even if it would take almost 80 years before the professional colleagues entirely understood the consequences of the dissertation on the theme that the young french professor Henry Poincaré was behind.  Poincaé went for solving the problem within his own way.  He demonstrated no complete solution for how the three planets moves, But rather proved instead that such solution could not exist at all, and that the movement was totally unpredictable.

Poincaré became by this the first one that indicated the concept that today goes under the name chaos.  This mean that if explore the development of two similar systems each with three planets within each one, and with only marginal different beginner-qualifications, the movements will rapidly develop them self totally differently.  Even if only moving a planet a few hundred meters or change the speed with a couple of meters per second, is enough to create a totally different development.

Pontcaré was far ahead of his time.  A more thoroughly examination of chaos demand much data power, and the modern chaos theory saw the light of day earliest in 1961 when it first of all was developed in connection with meteorological models.  But than things happened very fast, already within the 1980 years even more and more astronomers made use of computers to investigate the stability of the solar system rating over many millions of years into the future.

The uncertainty becomes continuously greater.

One of today's most established scientists within this field is the french scientist Jaques Laskar at the observatory in Paris.  He has developed a range of very advanced methods of calculation which make it possible to look many million of years into the future.

One of the first results that Laskars data simulations show is that we relatively soon loses the possibility to find out where within the lane the Earth is situated within a given point in time.  This is illustrated by the two calculations he carried out of the lane of the Earth, where there were only 15 meters difference for the position of our Earth at the beginning of the simulations.  After 10 million years the difference had grown into 150 meters, then things took off and started to change very fast.  After 100 million years the difference had increased into 150 million kilometer, which is the same as today's distance between the Sun and the Earth.

We do not know the exact position of the Earth of today even close to the precision within the 15 meters, causing into the fact that we only have to realize the we have no clue of the whereabouts of where within its lane our Earth is situated when we look into the future.

The next step for Laskar was to move 500 million years into the future.  Than he would not find the positions of the planets, but investigate the stability's of their lanes.  T he main result was that the four large outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune contain very stable lanes, while the situation for those four inner planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars is totally different.

The latest calculations was carried out by Laskar in 2009 together with his colleague Mickael Gastineu , also at the Paris-observatory.  They chose to go incredible far into the future and calculated approximately five billion years into the future, what looks to be to the end of lifetime for our solar system.  Totally they carried out 2501 simulations, each one with the starting conditions based upon what we know of about our solar system of today.  It took approximately four months to make one simulation, which needed immense amounts of data-power.  What was the most dramatic result was that Mercury within one per cent of the simulations is ending into an oval lane of such character that the small planet either might collide with Venus or fall into the Sun.

Laskar and Gastineau has advanced the exposition within these causes where the inner part of the solar system moving toward chaos.  They carried through 201 simulations with this as basis.  The result became dramatic:  Within five cases Mars is totally thrown out of the solar system.  Within the other cases there will occur collisions between the planets or a planet and the Sun within a time span of only 100 million years.  Within one simulation crashes Mercury into the Earth, 29 simulations show a collision between Mars and the Earth, while the Earth collides together with Venus within 18 scenarios.  Finally there occur a simulation that demonstrates that Mars passes by Earth at only a few hundred kilometer in distance.  This is not much more favourable than a direct smash-up, because the enormous tidal water forces that the pass by will release, melt down the mantel of our Earth and crust and causes the entire ocean to vaporise.  The surface of the Earth will be left as a deep ocean of melted lava.

Through history chaos are found.

Luckily such scenario becomes an alternative first some billion years into the future, and there exist no visible sign to indicate that the lanes of the planets are not stable.

"By the way the time horizon for the chaotic element is far to vast", say Jaques Lascar.  " the only way we can find solid clues caused by chaos, is is to investigate back in time of the solar system history - and actually we by now just have started to see if we are able to detect such clues by investigating geological samples which can tell us something about the climate on Earth more than 50 million years ago."

Irrespective if we succeed if we find signs of chaos within the past of our solar system, we can calmly welcome the nearest future coming towards us.  According the computer simulations it is still not very likely that our solar system changes in a substantial manner until our Sun swell into a red giant, swallowing Mercury  and Venus and changes our Earth until the unrecognizable. Which happens not until five million years into the future.

If life is totally normal incident according our laws of nature, it is strange that we have found no signs of it elsewhere.  And if the can exist other intelligent beings elsewhere in our universe, why haven't they been heard of?

Our scientists has no other course the take the basis within our earthly type of life when they evaluate the possibilities for it to exist elsewhere.  This is where our planet long history gives us two important clues:  Life occurred straight away when the earth became inhabitable.  And pretty long time passed before there occurred anything else then one-celled organisms.  This indicates that life came pretty easy into being, but the expansion into multiple cells took its time and was intricate.  Moving even more into the future, the prediction will depend upon which type of cosmological model we take into consideration.

There is also another type of ending that can be predicted.  Per heps the dark energy will, caused by the steady expansion rip the universe itslf into pieces.

This is why we have to distinguish between one- and multiple-celled organisms of life.  We know by now that some micro-organisms which is called extremophiles, cope with the most incredible conditions.  Many earthly extremophiles can feel comfortable on Mars, within the Venus-atmosphere or on the moons of Jupiter.  If they exist, we shall find them through sufficiently searching as our solar system is further explored.

Highly developed organisms have less chances within such conditions.  Experienced situations gained here on earth tell us that animals and plants do not cope with the same conditions as the micro-organisms.  If we shall do serious search for advanced types of life, it will be logical to look for this on planets outside our solar system that contain climates similar to those here on earth - This will of course cause in the need to travel outside of our solar system to search upon the many exo-planets that are to be found many places within the Milky Way.  This is not technologically easy with our space-vessels of to day.

At the same time we might listen for signals from space-beings.  This has been done for 50 years, but constantly without any results.  Even if 50 years within this connection is relatively short time, We do meet a paradox:  If there should exist any intelligent beings out there, some of them has to many millions of year in front of us in their development.  They must have had abundant of time to explore the whole Milky Way and perhaps colonize every single planet with livable conditions.  This should cause into the possibility that it should be easy to find traces from them.  The case that we has not manged to do so, has made made many scientists into believing that we are actually totally alone.

Concerning life within our solar system there is only speaking about a short time before we have the answer to that available to us.  If we travel out and leaving the solar system, things will immediately look worse.  Per hep we might with future technology find traces of lifeforms on exo-planets through analysing their atmosphere.  But there is always possible that ET emerges once more.

How will it all end?

Cosmologists can verify two important circumstances, namely that our universe are expanding faster and faster, together with the fact that it contain limited resources of energy.  this will cause the stars within a distant future to die one after the other at the end only leaving tiny dwarf stars left.  These convert hydrogen so slowly that each of them can exist more than 100 billion years.

Even further into the future the distance between the galaxies will increase more and more, causing the in time there will not be any star left within the visible universe.  At the same time the galaxies will gradually be breaking up.  Some of the stars will be swallowed by the enormous black holes within the centers of the galaxies, While others will be flung out into the empty space.  At last there will be only black holes and dead stars left within a totally dark space.  Even further into the future, the circumstances will depend upon which cosmological models we take into consideration.

There is also another end of cosmos that we has to consider.  Per heps the dark energy because of the constant expansion will rip the universe into pieces, also referred to as the big rip.  Or per heps our universe is reborn after a collision with another universe.

Earlier it was thought that there were the possibility that the expansion of the universe would be succeeded by a contraction, and that all matter once more was collected into a single point.  But after the dark energy was discovered, this model of thinking almost completely abandoned.

It is easy to look into the development of the universe some billion years into the future.  But we doesn't know anything about its final faith because it is impossible to prove the theories of the cosmology with 100 per cent certainty.

The universe which we can observe, has a confined extension.  But what is found beyond this event horizon?  Does it inflict us with any consequences here on Earth?

We are situated within a universe that is 13.7 billion years of age.  But because it is expanding, the visible universe is much larger then should be expected in the first place.  A galaxy that has been sending light toward us in ten billion years, is not situated 10 billion years away.  It is situated even further away since the universe has been expanding while the light was travelling toward us.  If we take this into consideration, the radius of the visible universe will be 42 billion years.  This space is called the hubble-universe.

Possibilities that there lies something beyond this space is not out of the question.  The big bang theory also opens for the possibility that it exist a large space outside the hubble-universe.  This is called multiverse of category 1, and consist for practical reasons of several areas because the age of the universe is limited to how far away we can see - and will always be like that wherever we are situated.  If this explanation is correct, will that answer to the original question come to be:  Outside the visible universe there are just even more universe.

Theoretically there is the possibility that there existing even another type of multiverse, called type 2.  There are also infinitely many universes within this multiverse, but they are strictly disconnected from us.  All the universes are like bubbles within an emptiness, and they posses characteristics that we have no capacity or ability to imagine and which is only possible describe mathematically.  The laws of nature within these bubbles are extremely likely to be extremely different, which means that all thinkable laws of nature is found some place or anywhere.  If this explanation is correct, outside our universe is found an empty space and far away  innumerable other bubbles.

It is obvious causes to the fact that it is difficult to observe anything outside the visible universe.  Still there exist however a small possibility:  In 2008 there was made an observation indicating that the galaxies moved through the universe as if they were affected by a gravitational force very far away.  Further observations of this so-called dark flow can perhaps bring us some steps forward.

Sept. 25, 2008 -- Astronomers have stumbled upon an unexplained two-million-mile-per-hour sideways shift in the universe toward a colossal, unseen, unknown gravity source beyond the horizon of the observable universe.

What's being called a dark flow appears to be pulling vast clusters of galaxies toward a 20-degree-wide patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela.

"It does fly in the face of everything we know," said astronomer Dale Kocevski of the University of California at Davis. He's one of the authors of a paper in the Sept. 24 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters which introduced the discovery. "I'm sure it's going to be controversial."

The dark flow was detected by studying 700 very distant clusters of galaxies which are lit up by hot, X-ray-emitting gases.

WATCH VIDEO: Learn about the moment astronomers found the universe was expanding.

First the team of researchers led by NASA's Alexander Kashlinsky carefully located the X-ray clusters -- each containing thousands of galaxies.

Next, they looked at the same spots on a map of what's called the cosmic microwave background -- the attenuated glow from the first light that was free to travel through space just 380,000 years after the universe was born. This glow was mapped in detail by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).

Planets, stars and gaseous nebulae does fill up the cosmos.  Just that many scientific computations clearly indicate that there is something else that is impossible for us to see, that necessarily has to be present.  What really is this?

If we analyse light that is sent from distant galaxies, it is proved that the light on its way toward the earth is deflected more than it is supposed to be.  The gravitation alone from the galaxies the light is passing by, is not strong enough or to weak to to cause the measured deflection.  That is why our astronomers suspect that there exist a so called dark matter that contain the missing gravitation.  Our universe is also expanding more and more rapidly, and this requires a repulsive force that has been given the name dark energy.

The possibility is there to recalculate into mass what energy that has to be present with the help of Einsteins famous equation E=mc^2.  By that we will obtain a pretty exact estimate about how large amount of the universe that are consisting of black matter and black energy - except for the fact that we not yet know especially much about what these components are.  Faint luminous objects, neutrinos and special particles named wimps are mentioned as candidates for dark matter.

The stars and galaxies that are visible, constitutes in reality only for a very small part of our universe.  More then 95 per cent consist of ingredients which we do not know what is.  Visible matter constitutes to only 4.6 per cent of our universe.

When it comes to dark matter, the scientists look for large, heavy particles that are able to create the excess gravitation needed.  We have plenty and good experience with finding new particles within our laboratories, causing this project to have a fair chance to succeed.

However dark energy is another cup, and the are no suggestions to explain what it consist of.  The hunt for answers to this is complicated by the fact that we do have few or none measurements about how the expansion of our universe is accelerating.

How many dimensions are there?

Ever since Einstein introduced concept space time, we have been used to regard the universe as four dimensional with three cubical dimensions and one time arrow dimension.  But newer research primarily within the string theory imply that there might be found as much as a total of eleven dimensions.

We do not have any concrete proof that there exist more than those four dimensions that Einstein was calculating with.  That so many physicians still are of the opinion that they exist, is caused by the their need for extra dimensions to make newer predicted theories to work for truth.  This applies especially of great extent according the new string theory that goes together only if there exists seven extra cubical dimensions.

The string theory is of today the researchers best suggestion for a model that includes all the known natural forces.  The theory describes the atomic particles , not as particles without any dimension, but as strings that can vibrate.  But to make the theory able to vibrate, the strings must be able to vibrate within a right-dimensional space.  The fact that there are predicted exactly eleven dimensions, is the result of some extremely abstract mathematical calculations.

Because these seven extra dimensions never has been observed, it is believed they are curled together into an extremely tiny volume within so-called Calabi-Yau-rooms.  That the dimensions - at least seen out of our universe - are so incomprehensible tiny, make them naturally very difficult to explore within traditionally practical physics experiments.

By means of experiments in particle generators, basically at CERN, perhaps it can be possible to conclude that gravitation, matter or energy is able to ooze into other dimensions, in that manner to establish that they exist.  Only that such experiments are limited to the almost impossible, making an experimental based answer probably to lie many years into the future.

Is it possible for a black hole to let something go?

Astronomers take as their starting point that the universe is filled up with black holes where the largest ones contain billions of times the mass of our sun, are situated within the galactic centers.  But what happens when the black hole become established?  Is that a one road process that swallows all matter and information forever, or can this progress also be reversed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s-pWPqFQBE&feature=player_embedded

Black holes are a direct consequence of Einsteins theory of relativity.  The theory describes within all its simplicity the black hole by by defining an event horizon that cloaks the inner space of the hole from the surrounding universe.  Everything that end inside the event horizon, disappear from our universe forever.

But the british physician Stephen Hawking established already in 1974 that the quantum mechanic allow radiation to escape the event horizon.  This radiation, which is called the hawking-radiation, led to the fact that the black hole is very slowly vaporising.  But it is still an unsolved problem to find if this radiation also make it possible to retrieve any information from the black hole.  The quantum mechanic doesn't just allow that information only becomes gone away.

The singularity within the middle of the hole is neither not sociable with the quantum mechanics, making black holes far more complicated than what appear from the quantum relativity theory.

The closest black holes lies many thousand years away from us, and the hawking-radiation is to weak to be observe from such far distance.  This make it difficult to study the black holes from a practical side.

Are the laws of nature casual?

Plenty of the physicians has calculated that even minor changes within the laws of nature would have made it impossible for life to exist.  It seem that our universe is fine-tuned for the requirements of life's needs.  If this is true, perhaps the laws of nature are not quite accidental after all.

Our science is in reality almost quite blank in this matter.  Logically regarded there is three answers to this question:

• The first one have for its object that it is a purpose with the universe and because of this was create in a special manner.  But this is a religious view that lie outside the actions of science.
• The other is that there perhaps is not possible to grab only one law of nature and change that one without it will have consequences elsewhere.  If the laws of nature stick together, possibilities are that a universe with other laws and constants of nature there will also be possibilities for existence of other forms of life.
• The third possibility is that there exist a enormous amount of universes - the string theory tell us 10^500 - each one with its own set of laws of nature.  In that case it should not be so very strange to conclude that there has been created some sort of life into being within a few of them.

Even if we should succeed to come up with an theory about everything, it will hardly enough not solve the problem itself.  This is therefore dubiously that we can expect to bring forward an answer by means of the science we know of today or for what to be expected to arise within the nearest horizon of time-span.

Per heps the Big Bang wasn't the start of all things.  Some scientists look at the bang as an transition as the moment when an earlier universe collapsed, then exploded and because into the reality we now are experiencing.

Astronomers has given the standard answer to this question over the time that it is pointless to ask this question - they compare it as to ask about what is north of the North Pole.  Although this attitude is about to change.  For the time being there are launched constantly various theories that deal with possibility of existence and time prior to the big bang and even a multitude of other universes.

The big bang is an old established theory that describe the evolution of our universe all the way from the time it was less than an atom.  But the theory tell us nothing about how or why the universe came into being - far less about what existed before.  it can be that time and space as wee know it, arose from and together with the big bang.  but it doesn't rule out that the backcloth of the immense explosion has to be found within something that already existed.

An old saying claim that "nothing comes out of nothing".  and scientifically this is actually impossible to understand a universe that comes into being out of absolutely nothing at all.  This is why even more cosmologists consider the big bang as an event that was related to something that already was existing.  Common for these new thoughts is that they consider an emptiness that per heps has existed eternally, and which is subject to quantum mechanics and their set of laws.  If there really exist such void, there is possibilities to formulate theories that possibly can answer for what really existed prior to the big bang.

One of these theories is named eternal inflation.  The theory claims that within this eternally empty space there will come into being universes eternally which all are expanding.  Our universe is just one among infinitely other universes, only that those other ones are so distant within time and space that all communication between them are impossible.  The theory is also argumenting that the emptiness is expanding incomprehensibly fast, which causes causes to distant the individual universes constantly further away from each other.

Other theories is evaluating cyclical universes arising, are destroyed and reborn over and over again.  Such theories suggest alternative pasts prior the big bang, but they are not solving the fundamentals within the enigma of creation.  "Why does something exist instead of nothing at all".  This question is however only moved into a eternally distant future to answer.

Such answer will demand that our universe somehow will notice that other or previous universes really do exist.  The seemly most clever way to search for this is to search into the cosmic back-ground radiation.  There has been made such investigations, but no conclusive results has not been achieved - and will probably not emerge any soon yet either.

What caused the universe not to disappear immediately after it was created?

Normally our universe should have disappeared within an ocean of radiation.  When time came into being, there was produced both matter and anti-matter, and if - as the case which we believe - there was produced equal amounts of both, our universe would have been changed into only pure energy.  But somehow there was produced somewhat more matter then anti-matter out of unexplainable causes.

Large parts of our continental image is created by the law of symmetry within the nature.   But when the universe came into being, it looks like for each billion anti matter particles that was created, there was made one billion and one particles of matter.  This minor obliquity has made it possible that our universe still exist.

The imbalance excesses what scientifically said is called the CP-symmetry.  The task now comes to try to explain how this CP-symmetry fracture does occur, and thereafter adopt it to our image of the world around us.  At the same time establish the possibility of this phenomena within an experimental process, and perhaps demonstrate what the cause of this is.

Through many years there has been carried out practical physics where there are made both matter and anti-matter.  Almost without exception the outcome has been that there has come into being exactly equal amounts of each - so to say accordingly the CP-symmetry.  The few deviations that has been observed has been to insignificant that they can explain this inequality within the universe.  But in 2010 there was carried out some experiments at Fermilab in USA that brought the research a few steps forward.  Within these researches there were created óne per cent more myons than anti-myons.  One per cent constitutes within this case a pretty considerably deviation, but the researchers are still lacking an explanation to why this occurred.

After for years to have observed only extremely minor deviations within the CP-symmetry, there has successfully been detected a deviation that is larger then what is explainable through the so-called standard model.  More experiments of this kind can be expected, and they will hopefully bring us closer to an answer within this matter.

1. CP violation - The standard model of elementary particle suggests that when the universe was less than 10^-12 sec old, the condition was ripe for the production of more matter than antimatter with CP violation to provide the mechanism for different reaction rate (to produce matter and antimatter). The explanation sounds reasonable as described in the subsequent sections. However, theoretical calculation as well as experimental measurement shows an excess far too small to account for the observed degree of asymmetry.
2. Super-symmetry - Super-symmetry is one of the most promising extensions of the standard model of elementary particle. It demands many as-yet-unknown particles and perhaps new kind of interactions. It is suggested that new interaction outside the standard model might act differently on quarks and anti-quarks, and produced the excess of quarks in our universe. Although there are inclusive claims, so far there is no hard evidence for super-symmetry from experiments.
3. Leptogenesis - This explanation also requires new physics beyond the standard model. It assumes the existence of a new type of very heavy neutrino called singlet neutrino in the very early universe. According to the leptogenesis scenario, the singlet neutrinos would decay into either neutrinos or anti-neutrinos. Then the standard model predicts that certain reactions could occur in the very high-temperature conditions to convert anti-neutrinos into matter particles (and thus the lepton number is not conserved, e.g., from 0 to 2), eventually producing neutrons and protons leaving the universe devoid of antimatter (see neutrinoless double-beta decay). So far there is only one controversial claim in 2001 to have observed such reaction.

How was matter collected into Galaxies?

Short time after the big bang the universe was filled with a hot, luminous heaps of gas.  But only within a few hundred million years some of the gas has gathered into lumps and become the first galaxies.  How did this really start the process of forming the first galaxies.

To day we are able to observe galaxies that was formed less then 500 million years after the big bang.  Because they are so far off, we observe them as they looked like shortly after the creation of the universe.

Thanks to such observations the astronomers are able to create them self an idea of how this creation of galaxies came into reality.  Even if many details are still missing, they can approximately see how smaller galaxies collided with each other and tangled them self together and became the gigantic galaxies we know of today.

But there are still no full clarity about the facts that caused the gas which filled the early universe, to start gathering into galaxies.  But theories are constructed that anyway revel the first steps within the process.

The astronomers has gathered around two important factors.  One of them concentrates about quantum fluctuations from the big bang itself.  The fluctuations caused the gas not to be quite homogeneous, that the density was not quite the same everywhere.  It is expected that it was within the areas with high density that the gas started to be thicker and thicker then to become those first galaxies.But calculations show that not only high density of matter alone was enough to cause the galaxies to be created.  That's why factor number two - which is dark matter - has to come into the picture.  Dark matter doesn't behave like ordinary matter.  Simulations has reveled that dark matter rapidly gather into long filaments that fill up the universe like a spider web.  The dark matter then created, and especially where the filaments crossed each other, this extra gravitation that put everything into action.

Recent observations done by the Hubble telescope among other show that the distribution of galaxies that we can observe within the universe, roughly speaking correspond to the calculated distribution of dark matter within long filaments.  This fact indicate that dark matter possibly played a role when our universe came into being.

The great problem still exist that we yet does not know what the dark matter is.  At the same time there are possibly other midwifes, to example the massive black holes.

With the new generation of telescopes, both in space and on earth, there should be possible within a time frame of twenty years to explore far enough back toward the big bang that we can explore the creation of the first galaxies.  This together with more knowledge about dark matter might per heps solve the enigma.

March 2, 2012: 

Glowing green and red, shimmering hypnotically across the night sky, the aurora borealis is a wonder to behold.  Longtime sky watchers say it is the greatest show on Earth.

It might be the greatest show in Earth orbit, too. High above our planet, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) have been enjoying an up-close view of auroras outside their windows as the ISS flies through geomagnetic storms.

“We can actually fly into the auroras,” says eye-witness Don Pettit, a Flight Engineer for ISS Expedition 30. “It’s like being shrunk down and put inside of a neon sign.”

Lately, the International Space Station has been flying through geomagnetic storms, giving astronauts an close-up view of the aurora borealis just outside their windows: video.

Auroras are caused by solar activity.  Gusts of solar wind and coronal mass ejections strike Earth’s magnetic field, rattling our planet’s protective shell of magnetism. This causes charged particles to rain down over the poles, lighting up the atmosphere where they hit.  The physics is akin to what happens in the picture tube of a color TV.

Incoming particles are guided by Earth’s magnetic field to a pair of doughnut-shaped regions called “auroral ovals.”  There’s one around the North Pole and one around the South.  Sometimes, when solar activity is high, the ovals expand, and the space station orbits right through them.

That’s exactly what happened in late January 2012, when a sequence of M-class and X-class solar flares sparked a light show that Pettit says he won’t soon forget. “The auroras could be seen [as brightly as] city lights on the Earth below--and even in the day-night terminator of the rising and setting sun. It was simply amazing.”

Pettit is a skilled astrophotographer. He and other members of the crew video-recorded the displays, producing footage that officials say is some of the best-ever taken from Earth orbit.

The videos capture the full range of aurora colors—red, green, and many shades of purple.  These hues correspond to different quantum transitions in excited atoms of oxygen and nitrogen.  The precise color at any altitude depends on the temperature and density of the local atmosphere.

“Red auroras reach all the way up to our altitude 400 km above Earth,” says Pettit.  “Sometimes you feel like you can reach out and touch them.”

Astronaut Don Pettit is a prolific photographer and writer. More of Don's experiences on board the ISS are recounted in his online blog.

“Green emissions, on the other hand, tend to stay below the space station,” he says. They move like a living ‘shag carpet’ of lights. “We fly right over them.”

Surprisingly, Pettit does not find this unsettling. “It is not disorienting to see auroras underfoot,” he says.  “Perhaps it is because I have been up here so long.”

What he does find disorienting is the meteors.

“Occasionally we see a meteor burning up in the atmosphere below--and this does look strange. You should be looking up for meteors not down.”

As marvelous as these sights are, Petit has seen better.  He was the science officer for ISS expedition 6 back in 2003 when the auroras were even stronger than they were now. 

“But this expedition is not over yet,” he points out hopefully. 

Indeed, more auroras are in the offing. Following some recent years of deep quiet, the sun is waking up again. Solar activity is now trending upward with a maximum expected in early 2013. 

This means the greatest show on Earth—and in Earth orbit—is about to get even better. Stay tuned for updates.