An interpretation of 55 Cancri e

Starting things off the way they started, I’m here again to write about a wonderful planet that I found somewhere in the universe (I found the planet on the internet).  Just like Gliese 436 b – the first planet I wrote about – 55 Cancri e was discovered at roughly the same time.  Consider the value of our Earth.  In terms of global GDP, as of 2018 the world was worth just about 84 TRILLION dollars.  That’s a lot of dough!  For reference, with 84 trillion dollars, you can purchase up to 56 MILLION entry-level super yachts!  For a more reasonable comparison, you could buy Beyonce’s mansion over 950,000 times!  Now prepare to have your mind blown.  In comparison to this planet’s worth, the entirety of Earth’s value is just pennies in a bucket.  55 Cancri e is a massive exoplanet composed of diamond!

55 Cancri e is located within the Cancer Constellation

Discovered in 2004, 55 Cancri e is an exoplanet located very close to the star 55 Cancri a.  This star is located approximately 40 light years away and is actually contained within the constellation of Cancer.  55 Cancri e is the closest planet to orbit 55 cancri a, and has an orbit time of only 18 hours!  This is less than 2 seasons of Game of Thrones!  This is also very quick considering 55 Cancri e is nearly 9 times the mass of the Earth, and roughly twice as wide.  55 Cancri e was discovered by measuring the Doppler shift of known planets around the star.  This is when scientist measure the effects of planets on the space around them, and look for inconsistencies with predicted data.  If scientists only expect to see the effects of 3 planets, but there seem to be additional influences, scientists can assume that there is something else in the area!

Imagine how many yachts you could have!

How is this planet made up of diamond, though?  While scientists are not 100% certain as to what the composition of the planet is, one of the current possibilities is that roughly one-third of the planet is composed of carbon.  Since the planet is so massive, and it is located so close to its parent star, there would be enough heat and pressure to compress this carbon into diamond!  According to a study done by Yale, this planet would then be worth 26.9 NONILLION dollars.  Most people probably don’t know that nonillion is a degree of magnitude, but 1 nonillion dollars is the number 1 followed by 30 zeroes.  With this money, you could easily purchase more than 17 septillion entry-level superyachts!

Essentially, after doing so many random searches about space, space facts, space conspiracies, among other things, I have come to the full realization that space is full of crazy, wonderful phenomena.  There are things in space that make the universe seem like a beautiful place, and there are also things that make the universe seem extremely cold and unforgiving.  Regardless, I’m glad that the world has at least explored the universe a little bit so that we can always be inspired by our insignificance in the universe.  In the grand scheme of things, we truly are just a tiny speck in a vast universe that will eventually blow away as the endless surge of time continues.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/10/12/diamond-planet-worth-26-9-nonillion/#290613b67af2

There is becoming less and less coherency in this blog as time goes on.  I know I was considering going through all the planets in a series of blogs, but I realized that space conspiracies seemed like a much more interesting topic to investigate.  These conspiracies are juicy, controversial, and some are a bit eerie.

1. Nibiru – The Deadly Ghost Planet

In 1976, book writer Zecharia Sitchin published the book called “The Twelve Planet”.  This book was a rough interpretation of some discovered Sumerian text found many years ago.  Within the text, there was a rough description of a planet called Nibiru.  This mysterious planet supposedly orbited the Sun in an extremely lengthy orbit period of 3,600 years.  Originally, this planet was merely science fiction until a Nancy Lieder entered the scene.  Nancy Lieder was a woman who claimed to be able to receive messages and information from extraterrestrial beings.  With this “power”, Nancy predicted that Nibiru would bring about the end of the world by colliding with the Earth in the year 2003.  When this did not happen, she readjusted the date to 2012 and associated the event with the Mayan-predicted end of the world.  Naturally, this did not happen either.  In addition, NASA has not been able to locate any sign of evidence that this planet even existed in the first place.  However, it would be quite interesting if there was another planet lurking beyond Neptune just waiting to be discovered…

2. Saturn’s “Alien” Hexagon

The Hexagon-Shaped Storm Photographed on Saturn

In 2016, the NASA space probe Cassini was able to capture incredibly crisp images of the northern pole of Saturn.  When the images were sent back to NASA scientists, they found an oddly shaped structure.  In the pictures, scientists saw what appeared to be a giant hexagon at the top of the planet.  After a bit of analysis, NASA determined the hexagon to be a massive storm similar to the giant, red storm on Jupiter.  This storm specifically, however, has caught the eye of the public’s conspiracy theories because this storm has a very peculiar shape.  Few things in nature have recognizable shapes.  Beehives are probably the most notable naturally occurring shapes in nature, but other than beehives, hexagons are a rare occurrence.  That’s why conspiracy theorists believe Saturn’s storm to be something else.  Some believe it is a structure built by aliens for some unknown purpose, and some believe it is the gate to Hell.  Personally, I’m not sure why it makes sense that the gate to Hell would not even be on Earth, but that’s just one of the theories.

3. The Sun is a Gas Station???

Looks awfully like a UFO to me

Personally, this is one of my favorites because I love theories about alien ships and the possibility of having aliens moving throughout our solar system without us really knowing.  For many years, NASA has been continuously monitoring the Sun to check for solar flares, solar winds, and other sporadic events.  In 2012, while running a normal checkup on the Sun’s activity, NASA spotted a small silhouette near the surface of the sun.  The theory is that this was a captured image of a UFO that is siphoning off energy from the Sun to fuel the extraterrestrial ship.  While NASA later came out with a statement saying it was merely another one of the Sun’s normal characteristics, the picture captured does look suspiciously like a flying object is pulling solar plasma from the Sun.  To add to this, NASA’s explanation of the event – known as a prominence – was extremely under developed, and they admitted to not really knowing what the event was.  In my opinion, that seems like enough cause to conclude that aliens exist and were photographed taking a refueling break at the Sun.

Source List:

https://www.space.com/15551-nibiru.html

https://www.space.com/34944-saturn-hexagon-storm-awesome-cassini-video.html

https://www.space.com/36751-space-conspiracies/2.html

As I perused through current events happening in the astronomical world, I was drawn to a new report detailing the features on the surface of Mars suggesting the existence of large rivers.  It was at this moment that it occurred to me that I have yet to write about the eight planets in our solar system (I wrote about Pluto, but Pluto had its planetary membership revoked a few years back).  With that, I thought it best I start with Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.

It’s Mercury!

Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system; having a diameter of roughly 3000 miles, it only slightly larger than Earth’s moon which has a diameter of approximately 2200 miles.  Mercury, however, is also the “fastest” planet in the solar system because it has the takes the shortest amount of time to revolve around the Sun – about 88 Earth days.  However, having the title of the fastest planet is not without its downsides.  Since Mercury is so close to the Sun, the Sun’s solar flares and radiation have almost completely stripped Mercury of its atmosphere.  This makes it incredibly difficult for Mercury to regulate its surface temperature.  During the day Mercury’s surface can reach temperatures of over 800 degrees Fahrenheit.  Likewise, at night, the surface of Mercury plummets to a chilling -300 degrees Fahrenheit.  These extreme temperatures go to show how much Earth’s atmosphere does for our temperature regulation!

The Roman God Mercury

Mercury was named after the Roman god of speed, messages, trickery, commerce, and eloquence.  Personally, I feel there are a few contradictory terms in the description of Mercury.  In any case, Mercury was named after the Romans, who were able to observe the five “classical planet” (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars).  The Romans named each of these observable planets for their Roman gods.  While it is not 100% clear, Mercury’s name was most likely given because of its fast orbit period.

At the moment, there have been two major scientific explorations of Mercury.  Way back in the 1970’s, NASA launched the Mariner 10 to take images of the planet and relay them back to Earth over the course of a two-year mission.  The second mission was Messenger, launched in 2008 by NASA.  Messenger was strategically launched into the orbit of Mars so that it could have more time circling and recording the planet.  This strategy worked well for the next 7 years before Messenger finally collided with the surface of Mercury.

Unfortunately, Mercury doesn’t interest me very much.  I think it’s incredibly interesting that the temperatures spike so drastically because Mercury lacks an atmosphere, but I feel there simply isn’t much history to the planet.  When doing some research, I was hoping to find a bit into the story of how the Romans decided to name the planet Mercury, but it appears they did so relatively arbitrarily.  Regardless!  Mercury is a planet, and it must be respected as such.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

Midway through last year, NASA launched a new object into space called the The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).  The purpose of this machine is to fly throughout space and find new planets nearby the Sun.  With this is mind, one huge question would be if there is life on those other planets  If there isn’t life on those planets, could the planet still harbor life in the future?

After looking into the different requirements for establishing life on other planets, I stumbled upon a brief list of criteria that a planet should satisfy in order to culture life.

Temperature:  Temperature is a very important qualifier for life developing on other planets.  Naturally, if a planet is too cold, very few – if any – organisms would be able to survive.  One of the main reasons for this is that water would be unable to exist in a liquid state.  Temperature, however, also plays a role in the development of life.  With lower temperatures, molecules move much slower which causes reactions to happen less frequently.  These important chemical reactions are important in the development of life, so if they happen slower, it might take much longer for there to be potential for life.  Likewise, if the temperature is too hot, it will cause molecules to break down before they are able to form something that resembles life.

Water: Water is also an extremely important necessity for life.  Since water allows the transportation of chemicals and other resources throughout cells, it is important for the water to be liquid.  This, in turn, relies on the temperature being correct.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere of a planet can immediately determine whether a planet can contain life.  If the planet simply doesn’t have an atmosphere, it makes the planet vulnerable to external elements such as solar flares and asteroids.  If there is too much of an atmosphere, it might capture too much heat and make the surface of the planet uninhabitable.  An example of this would be Venus.  Its atmosphere is so thick that the surface of the planet is incredibly warm.

Energy: This category refers heavily on sunlight or light from the parent star.  If there is too little light, organisms have a high chance of not getting the chemicals they need from sunlight to survive.  Naturally, if there is too much energy directed towards the planet there are also issues.  Too much energy towards a planet could mean the planet gets too hot depending on how thick the atmosphere is, or the energy could prove harmful towards the organisms.

Since planets must nearly pass all of these criteria, it’s no mystery why so many of them cannot or do not contain life.  However, all of these criteria are based on the assumption that our human-defined definition of life is applicable to all organisms throughout the universe.  For all we know, there isn’t one set of rules for a living thing.  There could be countless variations of life that we simply aren’t aware of.

In my last post I discussed the Pillars of Creation – one of my favorite cosmic structures of all time.  In that post, I mentioned the incredible magnitude of the Pillars, being more than 5 light-years across in some locations.  While this is still an immense distance, it is nothing compared to many of the other cosmic structures in the universe.  What if there was something so large, that it defied the fundamental laws of physics?  That structure would be the Huge Large Quasar Group.

Artistic interpretation of heat and light emitting from friction of particles as they circle a black hole

The Huge Large Quasar Group (Huge LQG), or sometimes referred to as just the Large Quasar Group, is a massive cluster of 73 quasars.  Being discovered in 2013 by English astronomer Roger G. Clowes, the LQG is a very recent discovery in the scientific world.

What is a quasar, exactly?  A quasar is one of the brightest objects in the entire universe.  They are giant celestial bodies that usually contain super black holes at their center.  These black holes can be billions of times larger and more dense than our Sun!  Since light itself cannot escape from black holes, the light we perceive from quasars is actually heat and friction from many small particles rubbing together while being packed closer and closer into the black hole.

With that in mind, the Large Quasar Group is close group of 73 quasar systems.  The LQG spans a mind-boggling distance of 4 billion light-years across!  At one point in time, the LQG was the largest object discovered in the entire universe.  In fact,  the LQG is so large, it defies the laws of physics.

Something called the Cosmological Principle was a theory that tried to capture the magnitude of the universe and place it into a uniform rule.  The rule stated that if you zoomed out enough, the universe would look relatively uniform in size and in distribution of celestial objects.  After calculations, the theory formulated a limit of 1.2 billion lights years.  This mean that objects larger than 1.2 billion light years simply should not exist.  Yet the LQG exists at a staggering 4 billion light years in diameter!

While not much is currently known about the Huge Large Quasar Group, scientists think it provides us with opportunities to see into the birth of the universe.  I think it is fascinating how we keep finding new things in outer space.  To even imagine that there is something that large just floating out in the middle of nothingness continues to fill me wonder and curiosity.  Considering how our solar system is just a speck in a much larger Milky Way galaxy, which is just a speck in something even larger, puts so many things in perspective.

I have discussed a few celestial objects out in the great unknown so far: the Moon, black holes, anti-matter, and more.  But I have yet to discuss one of my personal favorite structures in outer space: The Pillars of Creation.  This discovery constantly makes me wonder about all the possibilities that could exist in our own solar system and beyond.

Close up of one of the Pillars

The Pillars of Creation are plumes of dust and gases organized into column-like shapes, or ‘pillars’.  These pillars are located in a nebula, namely the Eagle Nebula.  A nebula is a large collection of dust, gas, and small particles floating together in outer space like a large cloud.  The Eagle Nebula, discovered in 1745, is located about 7,000 light years away from Earth.  To put magnitude into perspective, the Eagle Nebula is massive.  The nebula itself spans the area of 3,850 square light years!  The Pillars of Creation, meanwhile, are a tiny subsection of the Eagle Nebula, only spanning a distance of 5 light years.  Regardless, these are massive distances.  Even the smallest tips of the fingers on one of the columns are numerous times larger than our solar system.

These Pillars were originally captured in 1995 by the Hubble Space telescope, and was recaptured again by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014.  In order to capture the entire image, the Hubble needed to take 32 images, each of the different sections of the pillars.  Once these images were stitched together, we have the breath-taking image that we know today.

The stitched final image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

I used to think the Pillars of Creation were called the Pillars of Creation because they were somehow a symbol of creation and birth.  After doing a little research, however, I realized this isn’t entirely true.  I discovered they are named the Pillars of Creation because the gases and particles composing them are in the stage of forming new stars!  Unfortunately, however, these newly forming stars may already be gone.  The Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003, detected an immense heat wave coming from the Eagle Nebula.  Scientists theorize this heat wave could have been the result of a supernova from a nearby star that exploded nearly 6,000 years ago.  This explosion would surely destroy the delicate pillars of gas and particles.  The interesting part is that since the Pillars of Creation are 7,000 light years away, we won’t be able to observe this supernova explosion until another 1,000 years.

I still find it amazing that up in the black, night sky, there are these extremely colorful, vibrant phenomena existing everywhere.  This being said, it confuses me slightly why the night sky is black in the first place, and not a colorful rainbow like what is observed with The Pillars of Creation.  Perhaps an investigation for another time.

My friend Peri says they look like Abbott and Costello from the movie “Arrival”

As many know, this past weekend there was a celestial phenomenon dubbed the Super Blood Wolf Moon.  Many of us were excited to go outside into the bitter cold and crane our necks up towards the reddish glow of the moon, but why exactly is this phenomenon so exciting?  What even is a blood moon?

The whole event revolves around a lunar eclipse.  This is when the Moon falls into the shadow of the Earth, meaning the Earth is aligned between the Sun and the Moon.  When this happens, much of the light from the Sun no longer reaches the moon.  Instead, only light that passes through the Earth’s atmosphere is able reach the surface of the moon.  Since the Earth’s atmosphere at this particular angle only allows low frequency light to pass through, such as the color red, it is occasionally the only light to reach the moon.  Therefore, the moon is given a spooky red glow!  This is the same phenomenon that make makes the sky red when the Sun sets on the horizon.

The Blood Moon, however, is not the only interesting state of the moon.  In the realm of eclipses alone, there are 3 different types of moons: Total eclipses, partial eclipses, and Penumbral eclipses.

A total eclipse of the moon is when the Earth’s full shadow covers the moon.  This results in the moon having a very dim appearance.  A partial lunar eclipse is when only part of the Earth’s shadow covers the moon, which causes the moon to look like a chunk is missing from one part of the moon.  Finally, there is the Penumbral eclipse.  This is when the moon is only covered by the penumbral shadow of the Earth.  The penumbral shadow is the faint outer shadow formed by the curvature of light around the bend of the Earth.  This type of eclipse is very faint and usually very uninteresting.

There are many superstitious beliefs that accompany these lunar eclipses.  While many scientists believe an eclipse to be simply a celestial phenomenon, others see an eclipse through a much more spiritual light.  For example, some believe a lunar eclipse is the sign of the coming apocalypse.  According to one rendition of the Bible, the coming of four consecutive lunar eclipses – known as a tetrad – would bring on the end of the world.  This, however, was proven not be to true.  The final lunar eclipse to complete the most recent tetrad was September 27th, 2015.

Throughout my life I have always loved lunar eclipses.  When I was young, these lunar events would always mean excitement throughout my house because my parents would promise to wake up me and my siblings since the eclipse occurred past our bedtimes.  When I grew older, I would stay up late into the night until the eclipse started and then rush outside with the rest my family.  While these events are much more common than a solar eclipse, they still make exciting events for all friends to gather and see!

Concept art of a black hole pulling apart a neighboring star

Black holes were always something that scared me when I was young.  It always terrified me that they were so strong that not even light – the fastest thing in the universe – could escape its gravitational pull.  While it still slightly worries me that Earth will be consumed by a black hole, I think black holes are fascinating cosmic structures that, if researched further, can provide amazing discoveries about our universe.

So what exactly are black holes?  Despite being called a “hole”, black holes are actually incredibly dense balls of matter.  Black holes can take on many different sizes.  The majority – known as “stellar mass” black holes, are about 20 times the mass of the Sun.  Since these black holes are more easily created, scientist estimate there can be up to one billion of these small black holes in the our own Milky Way.

On the other hand, the large black holes – known as “supermassive” black holes, are massive black holes that can be millions and millions of times more massive than the Sun.  These supermassive black holes are often found at the center of galaxies, such as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A.  This black hole is approximately 4 million times more massive than our Sun and is the driving force behind holding our galaxy together.

Black holes are born when large stars die.  When stars run out of combustible fuel, the core can no longer support the overwhelming pressure of the surrounding mass, and the star collapses into itself.  Thankfully, our Sun will never become a black hole because it does not have enough mass.  In order for a star to become a black hole, the core would have to be at least three times the mass of the sun.  When the star finally explodes in a supernova, it leaves behind a highly dense core which begins to pull the exploded matter inwards.  As more of the star’s mass is pulled back to the core, the gravity becomes stronger and stronger until a fully fledged black hole is created.

A black hole consuming the rest of a nearby star

At the moment we are unable to study black holes extensively because we are unable to see into the singularity – the absolute center of the black hole.  The most we can observe is the event horizon, which is the boundary between where objects can escape the gravitational pull, and where nothing – not even light – can escape.

I think black holes are fascinating because they provide the most drastic example of how mass impacts space-time.  When an incredibly dense object exists in space, it makes large “hole” in the fabric of space-time, which affects how time is experienced.  The entire concept that time is not fixed boggles my mind, and makes me question the composition of our own universe.

Antimatter.  What is it?  We know what matter is – physical substance found throughout the galaxy – but what is antimatter?  Can there be such a thing as inverse matter?  The theory behind antimatter is strangely logical, yet it still pushes the envelope of understanding in this world.  In this post I don’t really hope to make any grand statements about antimatter, but rather bring to light some of the more fascinating facts about the subject.  After all, antimatter is an incredibly complex idea and there is currently very little information known about antimatter.

Paul Dirac

Personally, I think the development of the theory of antimatter is the most interesting.  In the late 1920s, physicist Paul Dirac created an equation that mapped out the behavior of the movement of an electrons.  His equation worked very similarly to a quadratic function.  As the mathematical expression X^2 = 9 has two solutions (X = 3, and X = -3), Dirac’s equation mapped that there were two potential states that would explain the movement of electrons: a state in which the electron was negative, and a state in which the electron was positive.

Essentially, Dirac’s claim was that for every particle, there was another particle that exists with the same mass, same composition, but with an opposite energy sign.  For example, an electron would have the same mass, same structure, same energy, and same quantum characteristics, but the charge would be flipped.  The sign would be positive and therefore create a positron.  By this token, the collision of these anti-particles can create antimatter.  Should an antiproton and a positron fuse, they would create an antihydrogen antiatom.

I think this is amazing in itself because it means there could potentially be an entire “anti” universe that exists simultaneously with our own universe.  One of the strange details of antimatter is the imbalance of antimatter compared to normal matter in the universe.  There is drastically more normal matter than there is antimatter.  According to scientist’s original beliefs, the Big Bang theoretically should have released equal amounts of anti and normal matter during its explosion, so the reasoning behind the discrepancy between the two – known as baryon asymmetry – is still unknown.

To further study the characteristics of antimatter, scientists have created the Antiproton Decelerator, which actually manages to create antiprotons in order to study and experiment with.  Also with this machine, they are able to construct antiatoms and antimatter with the created antiprotons.  In 2011, engineers were able to create another decelerator that, paired with the initial Antiproton Decelerator, was able to prevent an antihydrogen atom from disappearing for 16 minutes.  Antimatter is extremely unstable, so being able to observe this phenomenon for even 16 minutes was an amazing achievement.

Unfortunately, it is simply a matter (ha) of fact that we do not know much about antimatter.  I wish we would put greater emphasis on the studies of these complex astronomical phenomena because I believe there must be many benefits to be derived from these studies.  I think with the continued discovery of things such as antimatter and dark matter, we will one day be able to harness the benefits that may come with each discovery.

 The Moon.  The fifth largest satellite in the solar system.  The mysterious space egg that glows brilliantly at night.  Is it really made of cheese?  Why does the cow have such a burning desire to jump over it?  Either way, the Moon is a staple in our lives – always waxing and waning over the course of approximately a month.

Despite appearing and being much closer than other objects in the night sky, the Moon is still a healthy distance away from the Earth.  The moon is approximately 240,000 miles away from the Earth.  This means about 30 Earth-sized objects can fit in between this distance.  Regardless of its generally close proximity to Earth, only 12 people have set foot upon the Moon’s surface.  This being said, the Moon is the only non-Earth object upon which humans have set foot.

There are a few hypothesis about the formation of the Moon.  The Giant-Impact theory almost seems self explanatory; a giant object, dubbed Theia, collided with the Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago.  When the debris settled, we were left with the Moon and Earth we know today.  However, there are doubts about this theory.  Dirt samples from the Moon are nearly the same as similar samples on Earth.  This would suggest that Theia and the Earth were composed of the same materials.  While this is still a possibility, scientists deemed this unlikely.

A few other theories about the formation of the Moon are the Capture Theory and the Co-Formation theory.  Under the Capture theory, the Moon was theorized to be formed elsewhere in the solar system, and the gravitational orbit of the Earth would lasso the Moon into the Earth’s orbit.  Likewise, the Co-Formation theory suggests that both the Earth and the Moon formed at the same time, and simply formed into two independent objects.  These theories have their strong points, but they also have many holes.  The Capture Theory makes little sense when acknowledging that the composition of both the Earth and the Moon are nearly identical, which is highly unlikely if the Moon were to come from a long distance away.  The Co-Formation Theory, on the other hand, makes little sense when observing the densities of the Moon vs. the Earth.  If they were to form together at the same time, their densities would be more similar to one another, but the Moon is significantly less dense than the Earth.

I am a firm believer that the Moon is actually just a giant space egg. The only question is: what grows inside???

Since humanity has had many advancements in technology, I still believe we should have done more with the Moon at this point.  It has been almost 50 years since the United States first landed on the Moon (it happened), so I am surprised that especially with the surge of new technology during the early 2000s up until now there were not more events involving the Moon.  Even if it was something like creating a small lab on the surface of the Moon, I am surprised we have not done more.  I imagine this lack of Moon experimentation has much to do with international politics.

I had meant to do a section about the mythology of the Moon, but I became too invested in investigating the origin of the Moon.  Perhaps next week I will dive into some mythology!

Never forget – the Moon is merely a space egg waiting to hatch…