In general, because it is so successful, and because the speed of gravity in GR is the same as the speed of light, we can say we know how fast gravity propagates.
In particular, observations of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar (and other binary pulsars) show the mutual orbit is decaying (the stars are slowly spiraling in, and will one day collide). The rate of decay is exactly as predicted by GR, and is due to the system radiating gravitational waves. The rate at which the system is losing energy tells us how fast that gravitational wave radiation is travelling … and it’s c, the speed of light, to within 1%!
Working out how gravity, as geometry in GR, makes planets in our solar system orbit the Sun is somewhat tricky, and misunderstanding of the details is what’s behind an erroneous claim you might come across on many websites (that the speed of gravity is many millions of times c, or even infinite).
A very long baseline radio interferometric observation of a quasar as it passed near Jupiter, in 2002, lead two researchers to claim to have directly measured the speed of gravity (they found it to be c, plus or minus about 20%). However, this claim is controversial, with several GR experts claiming the analysis contains subtle flaws, and that what was actually measured is the speed of light. The method Fomalont and Kopeikin used might allow a direct estimate of the speed of gravity to be made in future, in the view of their critics, with big improvements in precision.
The formula for velocity is one of the first that you learn in physics. It is also one of the most important as it is help to solve more complex physic problems and give comprehension of other physics concepts. However it is one that can be easily misunderstood. We too often mistake speed and velocity to be the same. As we know it the formula simply states that velocity is rate of the change in position or distance over time. The problem is that this can also be applied to speed. However speed and velocity are to different concepts even though they share the same formula.
The first thing that sets velocity apart is that it is what is called a vector. A vector is a quantity that has both a numerical magnitude or value and a direction. Physics involving velocity needs these two components to work properly. Speed only has magnitude and no direction.
The next thing is that velocity can have a positive or negative value. This most times has to do with the direction of the object in its particular reference frame. This is because physics breaks down motion on the large scale from the point of view of an observer. Speed is different in that is relative to whatever circumstance it is applied to.
Finally velocity can vary over time. Derivations of the formula for velocity like the formula for final velocity take this into account taking an intial and final velocity to determine the overall velocity of an object. Speed only has one situation and that is instantaneous velocity or the speed that occurs at a given moment.
The formula for velocity is one of the key concepts of physics. Without it we can’t understand classical mechanics and even the motion of particles and massive planets and galaxies. For this reason it is important for any physics lover to understand how it works and should be applied.
If you enjoyed this article there are several others on Universe Today that you will find interesting. There is a great article about Newton’s laws of motion. There is also an interesting article on Planck’s constant.
You can also find some great resources online. There is a great explanation of velocity on the GSU.edu hyperphysics web site. You should also watch the video about motion on howstuffworks.com.
You can also listen Astronomy Cast. Episode 44 is about Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
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Hiding an object with a cloaking device has been the stuff of science fiction, but over the past few years scientists have successfully brought cloaking technology into reality. There have been limits, however. So far, cloaked objects have been quite small, and researchers have only been able to hide an object in 2 dimensions, meaning the objects would be immediately visible when the observer changes their point of view. But now a team has created a cloak that can obscure objects in three dimensions. While the device only works in a limited range of wavelengths, the team says that this step should help keep the cloaking field moving forward.
The cloaking technology developed so far does not actually make objects invisible. Instead, it plays tricks with light, misdirecting it so that the objects being “covered” cannot be seen, much like putting a piece of carpet over an object. But in this case, the carpet also disappears.
This field is called transformation optics, and uses a new class of materials called metamaterials that are able to guide and control light in new ways.
Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany used photonic crystals, putting them together like a pile of wood to make an invisibility cloak. They used the cloak to conceal a small bump on a gold mirror-like surface. The “cloak” is composed of special lenses that work by partially bending light waves to suppress light scattering from the bump. To the observer, the mirror appears flat, so you can’t tell there is something on the mirror.
“It is composed of photonic polymer that is commercially available,” said Tolga Ergin, who led the research team, speaking on the AAAS Science podcast. “The ratio between polymer and air is changed locally in space, and by choosing the right distribution of the local filing sector, you can achieve the needed cloaking. We were surprised the cloaking effect is that good.”
The wavelengths of “invisibility” are in the infrared spectrum, and the cloaking effect is observed in wavelengths down to 1.3 to 1.4 microns, which is an area currently used for telecommunications.
So, what is the practicability of this device?
“Applications are a tough question,” said Ergin. “Carpet cloaks and general cloaking device are just beautiful and exciting benchmarks to show what transformational optics can do. There have been proposals in the field of transformation optics for different devices such as beam concentrators, beam shifters, or super antennas which concentrate light from all directions and much, much more. So it is really hard to say what the future will bring in applications. The field is large and the possibilities are large.”
“Cloaking structures have been very exciting to mankind for a very long time,” Ergin continued. “I think our team succeeded in pushing the results of transformation optics one step further because we realized the cloaking structure in three dimensions.”
Artist’s schematic impression of the distortion of spacetime by a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. The black hole will swallow dark matter at a rate which depends on its mass and on the amount of dark matter around it. Image: Felipe Esquivel Reed.
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There’s the common notion that black holes suck in everything in the nearby vicinity by exerting a strong gravitational influence on the matter, energy, and space surrounding them. But astronomers have found that the dark matter around black holes might be a different story. Somehow dark matter resists ‘assimilation’ into a black hole.
About 23% of the Universe is made up of mysterious dark matter, invisible material only detected through its gravitational influence on its surroundings. In the early Universe clumps of dark matter are thought to have attracted gas, which then coalesced into stars that eventually assembled the galaxies we see today. In their efforts to understand galaxy formation and evolution, astronomers have spent a good deal of time attempting to simulate the build up of dark matter in these objects.
Dr. Xavier Hernandez and Dr. William Lee from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) calculated the way in which the black holes found at the center of galaxies absorb dark matter. These black holes have anything between millions and billions of times the mass of the Sun and draw in material at a high rate.
The researchers modeled the way in which the dark matter is absorbed by black holes and found that the rate at which this happens is very sensitive to the amount of dark matter found in the black holes’ vicinity. If this concentration were larger than a critical density of 7 Suns of matter spread over each cubic light year of space, the black hole mass would increase so rapidly, hence engulfing such large amounts of dark matter, that soon the entire galaxy would be altered beyond recognition.
“Over the billions of years since galaxies formed, such runaway absorption of dark matter in black holes would have altered the population of galaxies away from what we actually observe,” said Hernandez
Their work therefore suggests that the density of dark matter in the centers of galaxies tends to be a constant value. By comparing their observations to what current models of the evolution of the Universe predict, Hernandez and Lee conclude that it is probably necessary to change some of the assumptions that underpin these models – dark matter may not behave in the way scientists thought it did.
There work appears in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
As with last week’s Universe Puzzle, something that cannot be answered by five minutes spent googling, a puzzle that requires you to cudgel your brains a bit, and do some lateral thinking. This is a puzzle on a “Universal” topic – astronomy and astronomers; space, satellites, missions, and astronauts; planets, moons, telescopes, and so on.
Name three well-known astronomers – or physicists whose work contributed to astronomy – and whose names are constellations. For a gold star, say why your three are more prize-worthy than anyone else’s!
UPDATE: Answer has been posted below.
There are no prizes for the first correct answer – there may not even be just one correct answer – posted as a comment (the judge’s decision – mine! – will be final), but I do hope that you’ll have lots of fun.
Hon. Salacious B. Crumb, Charles A. Musca, David Virgo, and V.R. Phoenix are indeed possible answers, but they are not particularly well-known. You definitely get an extra point for going to “defunct constellations”, but it is creativity too far.
Navneeth, Leó Szilárd (Leo) is an excellent answer!
renoor, Francis Drake (Draco) is a wonderful, left-field answer!
Gadi Eidelheit, Henrietta SWAN Levitt (Cygnus) is good, not least because I had that on my list. And LEOnard Euler is also excellent! However, you get only half marks for Maximillian WOLF (Vulpecula) – Vulpecula is ‘Fox’; Lupus is ‘Wolf’; and no marks for Charles Augustione de COLUMBO (you mean Charles Augustin de Coulomb; the constellation Columba, the Dove, is not related to Coulomb).
In addition to Henrietta Swan Levitt (Cygnus), I had the following:
* William Swan (he left his name in astronomical spectroscopy, google Swan bands)
* Bill Keel (Carina; Bill is extremely active in his support of amateurs, Galaxy Zoo, etc, etc – ‘ngc3314’ is his handle – and also has done excellent work on dust in spiral galaxies)
* Arthur Wolfe (Lupus; his name is in the cosmologically important Sachs-Wolfe effect)
* Tim Hunter (Orion; co-founded the International Dark Sky Association, in 1987)
* Charles Wolf (Lupus again; together with Georges Rayet he discovered the Wolf-Rayet stars)
This artist’s impression of the distant galaxy SMM J2135-0102 shows large bright clouds a few hundred light-years in size, which are regions of active star formation, These “star factories” are similar in size to those in the Milky Way, but one hundred times more luminous, suggesting that star formation in the early life of these galaxies is a much more vigorous process than typically found in local galaxies. Credit: Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
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Looking back in time – and through a gravitational lens – astronomers found evidence that galaxies in the early Universe went through a “growth spurt” of rapid and vigorous star formation. A distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102 is making new stars 250 times faster than the Milky Way. Due to the amount of time it takes light to reach Earth the scientists observed the galaxy as it would have appeared 10 billion years ago – just three billion years after the Big Bang.
“This galaxy is like a teenager going through a growth spurt,” said Dr. Mark Swinbank from Durham University, lead author of a new paper published in Nature. “We don’t fully understand why the stars are forming so rapidly but our results suggest that stars formed much more efficiently in the early Universe than they do today. Galaxies in the early Universe appear to have gone through rapid growth and stars like our sun formed much more quickly than they do today.”
SMM J2135-0102 was found using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope, which is operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Follow-up observations were carried out by combining the natural gravitational lens of nearby galaxies with the powerful Submillimeter Array telescope based in Hawaii to magnify the galaxy even further. The distant galaxy SMM J2135-0102, shown here in 870-micron observations by the Submillimeter Array, has been gravitationally lensed by a foreground galaxy cluster. The galaxy's light is magnified and bent by gravity to produce mirror images of each of four star-forming regions (labeled A through D). If the galaxy were seen undistorted, it would appear like the inset at upper left. Regions A and D are separated by less than 6,000 light-years. The inset at lower right shows the resolution of the SMA image. Credit: Mark Swinbank (Durham) and Steve Longmore (SAO)
“To a layperson, our images appear fuzzy, but to us, they show the exquisite detail of a Faberge egg,” said Steven Longmore of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
“The magnification reveals the galaxy in unprecedented detail, even though it is so distant that its light has taken about 10 billion years to reach us,” said Swinbank. “In follow-up observations with the Submillimeter Array telescope we’ve been able to study the clouds where stars are forming in the galaxy with great precision.”
They found four discrete star-forming regions within the galaxy, and each region was more than 100 times brighter than star-forming regions in the Milky Way, such as the Orion Nebula, and estimate that the observed galaxy is producing stars at a rate equivalent to 250 suns per year.
“The star formation in this galaxy’s large dust clouds is unlike that in the nearby Universe,” said co-author Carlos De Breuck from ESO. “However, our observations suggest that we should be able to use underlying physics from the densest cores in nearby galaxies to understand star birth in these more distant galaxies.”
Their results provide new insight into a critical time during the Universe’s history. SMM J2135-0102 is seen at the epoch when the majority of all stars were born, and therefore when many of the properties of nearby galaxies were defined. By studying it and other distant galaxies in the young Universe, astronomers hope to learn about the history of the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies.
Artists rendering of a symbiotic recurrent nova. Image credit: David A. Hardy & PPARC
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An alert was raised March 11 when Japanese amateur astronomers announced what might have been the discovery of a new 8th magnitude nova in the constellation of Cygnus. It was soon realized that this eruption was not what it appeared to be. It was actually the unexpected nova-like erruption of a known variable star, V407 Cygni. Typically varying between 12th and 14th magnitude, V407 Cyg is a rather mundane variable star. So what caused this well-behaved star to suddenly go ballistic?
V407 Cyg is a symbiotic variable. These are close, interacting binary pairs usually containing a red giant and a hotter, smaller white dwarf. They orbit a common center of gravity inside a shared nebulosity. A typical symbiotic variable consists of an M type giant transferring matter to a hot white dwarf via its stellar wind. This wind is ionized by the white dwarf, giving rise to the symbiotic nebula.
Symbiotic variables are complex systems with many sources of variability. They can vary periodically due to the binary motion, the red giant can vary due to pulsation, the stars may be obscured by circumstellar dust, or the light emitted my change due to the formation of giant star spots. The white dwarf component may glow more or less constantly as it accretes material from the red giant and heats it up at a steady rate, or the material may form an accretion disk around the white dwarf, like in dwarf novae. Mass accreted onto the white dwarf can result in flickering and quasi-periodic oscillations. If there is a sudden increase in the rate of accretion, or the material in the accretion disk reaches a point of instability and crashes down onto the surface of the white dwarf the symbiotic system may undergo a nova-like eruption.
About 20% of symbiotics consist of a Mira-type variable as the giant of the pair. These binaries reside in much dustier envelopes. V407 Cyg is one of these dusty, Mira-type symbiotics. Its typical variation of a few magnitudes is due mainly to the pulsation of the Mira component of the system. Astronomers had never before witnessed a nova-like outburst of this interacting binary. You can imagine their surprise when Japanese amateurs, searching for novae along the galactic plane, suddenly detected this mild mannered, dusty Mira, symbiotic variable glowing nearly 100 times brighter than ever before.
That was just the beginning of the story. The first new spectra taken of the system, on March 13th, was different from any ever recorded for this star or any other symbiotic Mira variable in outburst. The normal absorption spectra of the Mira star was completely overwhelmed by the blue continuum of the outbursting white dwarf. The characteristics of the emission spectra revealed two distinct types of activity. One was the relatively slow ionized wind of the Mira star. The other looked like the fast expanding ejecta of a nova outburst. In fact, the spectrum looked remarkably similar to the symbiotic recurrent novae, RS Ophiuchi.
Typical outbursts of known symbiotic binaries, and symbiotic Miras in particular, usually exhibit a very slow rise to maximum, taking months, and no real significant mass ejection. This appears to be a much more quickly evolving and violent event, more like the eruptions of the recurrent novae RS Oph and T CrB. V407 Cyg may join this rare class of symbiotic recurrent novae.
As if that weren’t enough, another twist was added to the story on March 19th, when the Large Area Telescope (LAT), on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the star in gamma-rays, something never observed in a symbiotic system before. The gamma-rays could be caused by shock driven acceleration of the ejected material, and its capture by strong magnetic fields within the system.
Like many novae and recurrent novae outbursts, this eruption may last for weeks or months and the variation in light output could be quite complex and interesting. Because the giant secondary is losing mass, the system is likely to have a large amount of circumstellar material. The ejected shell from the nova explosion on the white dwarf will interact with this material as the shell propagates outward, and will likely produce a wide variety of variable phenomena.
V407 Cyg has our attention now, and professional and amateur astronomers will be keeping a close eye on it from now on.
Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana, left, and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, address human spaceflight during a forum Friday at Brevard Community College's campus in Cocoa, Florida. (Rik Jesse, FLORIDA TODAY)
“I know him [Obama] to be a vigorous supporter of the manned space program”, Nelson added. “But he certainly has not given that impression. The President is going to have to prove that when he comes here on April 15,” said Nelson. He was referring to the upcoming “Space Summit” scheduled to take place at or near the Kennedy Space Center on April 15.
“The President made a mistake” in cancelling Project Constellation says Florida Sen. Bill Nelson. Nelson believes that the White House budget office or Science Advisor John Holdren (sitting to left of Obama) urged Pesident Obama to terminate Constellation. Does Obama really believe in continuing US Human Spaceflight ? Answers may come at the “Space Summit” set for April 15 at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Bill IngallsConstellation was the designated human spaceflight successor program to the Space Shuttle program which is currently planned to shut down by the end of 2010.
Comprised of the Ares 1 and Ares 5 booster rockets and Orion manned capsules, Constellation would have sent humans flying to exciting destinations of exploration beyond low earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo lunar landings ended in 1972. The ambitious targets included the Moon, Mars, Asteroids and Beyond.
Sen. Nelson made his remarks on March 19 at a public space forum co-hosted by Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Florida ,which is the local college located only a few miles distant from KSC and also by the local newspaper Florida Today. Nelson was joined by KSC Director Bob Cabana, a former astronaut who flew 4 space shuttle missions. Over 100 residents attended the space forum.
Up to 9000 workers at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) are fearful of swiftly losing their jobs and livelihoods in the aftermath of the imminent dual cancellation of the Shuttle and Constellation programs. Tens of thousands more jobs will be extinguished as well in other states across the US.
“By saying they were cancelling the Constellation program, the perception is that the President is killing the manned space program”.
“The President made a mistake. He made a mistake because he did not stand up and lay out his budget for the space program and outline what his goal is, which is Mars, and how we should go about getting there for the space program. The President should have used the word restructure not cancel with regard to Constellation”.
Ultra Rare Up-Close view of Shuttle Discovery from on top of Launch Pad 39A after retraction of the massive Rotating Service Structure (RSS, at left) during my pad visit on March 19 as part of media photo op. I was in absolute awe to stand right beneath Discovery. The payload canister (rectangular white box) containing ‘Leonardo’ resupply module had just been hoisted up the RSS to support delivery of ‘Leonardo’ into shuttle cargo bay for STS 131 mission targeted to launch on April 5. Thousands of KSC shuttle workers will lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired by end of 2010. Will the shuttle program be extended ? Credit: Ken Kremer
President Obama’s cancellation of Project Constellation has been vigorously criticized by key members of both houses of the US Congress, including Democrats and Republicans, since the moment that word first leaked of the Presidents decision to kill the moon program announced by President George Bush in 2004.
Many political and industry leaders have harshly labeled this decision as an “Abdication of US Leadership in Space”, which amounts to nothing less than a “US Space Surrender” that will begin the “Death March of US Human Spaceflight”. They also fear that the massive job cuts will result in catastrophic devastation to the local effected economies as well as a swift erosion of the science and technology base across America.
“This is a tough time for our people because they are facing dislocation and the loss of jobs in a terrible time which is an economic recession”, explains Nelson.
Nelson and others members of Congress are pushing a compromise with the Obama Administration that would accelerate development of a new Heavy Lift booster rocket that would adapt certain technologies from Constellation.
The Obama plan does not include any specific program to develop a Heavy Lift booster. Instead, the plan vaguely mentions the pursuit of “game changing technologies” that would one day enable faster voyages beyond Earth says NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
The fact that the Obama plan has not set any goals, timelines or destinations for NASA is the cause of what has lead to the vociferous denunciations. $9 Billion has already been spent on Constellation and a minimum of another $2.5 Billion would be required to terminate the project according to existing contracts.
“We’re going to keep a vigorous R&D program going for a Heavy Lift rocket and [manned] spacecraft if what we do in the Senate is finally adopted.” Nelson hopes that this new program will offset some of the job loses coming soon to Florida.
“It is my hope that we’re going to get additional work that is going to cushion the blow after the last space shuttle mission is flown. It’s time we get out of low Earth orbit. And that’s what we intend to do. But it hasn’t been managed the right way.”
“I hope the President will embrace this in his comments when he comes here on April 15,” Nelson stated.
Nelson believes that the president’s Budget office and or Science Policy office decided to kill Constellation. Better advice would have been to restructure the program, he said.
KSC Director Bob Cabana said, “The $6 billion more in the [NASA] budget over five years is a significant increase. And I think it shows a commitment to exploring.”
“We have known that the shuttle is coming to an end for quite awhile. We’re still trying to figure out the impact of the new budget on KSC. There will be a significant loss of jobs”, from the end of the shuttle and Constellation.
“If we can establish a vehicle testing program, hopefully we can buy some of those jobs back”, said Cabana.
“We have to focus on what we can do at Kennedy to retain the critical jobs that we need in order to be viable for the future. Part of that is transitioning low earth orbit operations over to the commercial sector. We know how to do that. Our job [at NASA] should be developing those technologies and those skills which are far too expensive for the commercial sector”.
“My role is putting the Kennedy Space Center in the very best possible position for the future to retain those skills and facilities that we need to explore space beyond low earth orbit when the direction is given to do that”, said Cabana.
Cabana added that part of that effort would be renovate aging infrastructure in order to develop a “21st Century launch facility” at KSC to make commercial space viable and retain some jobs for the current KSC workforce. Plans call for spending about $2 Billion on extensive renovations to the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building to make it more “modular” so it can “handle more rockets”.
Protestors outside the forum held up signs that said:
“Obama Lies, NASA Dies” ……. “Send Obama & Nelson to Uranus”
“NELSON SELLS NASA OUT” ….. “Clunkers 3 Billion $$ …. NASA ‘0’ $$”
The details of the upcoming KSC “Space Summit” are still not known with respect to the exact location, what President Obama plans to discuss, the format, who will participate and who will be permitted to attend.
Aerial view of the 300 meter diameter Arecibo radio telescope dish
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It’s about fifty years since Frank Drake sent out our first chat request to the wider universe. I say about as I think the official date is 11 April 1960 – but I notice a lot of fifty year anniversary blogs and interviews are already being published, so what the heck, I’m not waiting either.
While no-one is really concerned that we haven’t had an answer back yet, it is a little despondent to have scanned the skies for someone else’s chat request all this time and found nothing.
In a recent New Scientist interview (actually January 2010 – they were really getting in early), Drake refers to his equation delivering an answer in the order of one in 10 million stars having an advanced civilization – and he uses that statistic to indicate it’s too early to think we have done a statistically adequate scan yet.
Nonetheless, the chances of there being advanced civilizations near enough to enable a future United Federation of Planets already looks doubtful.
Drake’s initial communication efforts in Project Ozma were small scale, but his clever and carefully constructed Arecibo message out to Messier 13 (a globular cluster of approximately 300,000 stars) in 1974 aroused some criticism that telling the aliens where we are might result in an invasion.
This is a little implausible, since Messier 13 is 25,000 light years away. By the time the invasion fleet arrives we will either be long gone or have spent the intervening period developing the technology to blast them out of the sky if they don’t turn back immediately.
Actually, that’s probably an important consideration if we ever decide to invade someone. We will need to take a couple of universities along to keep our technology advancing ahead of theirs. However, if we are travelling near the speed of light, the time differential means that they will get ahead anyway. Hmm…
The Arecibo message composed of 1679 bits, being the product of two prime numbers 73 and 23 (i.e. the number of rows and columns). Impressive, huh?
Anyway, here in the 21st century, I want to suggest that more attention should be given to us just not looking stupid. There’s already all the bad TV out there. We can fairly claim that all that was never meant for alien consumption, but recently we advanced humans have quite deliberately transmitted a Beatles song to Polaris and sent a bunch of text messages to Gliese 581. I mean, huh?
Polaris, being a Cepheid variable – and in any case a short-lived and already dying supergiant – was probably never stable enough to support planets, so we probably got away with that one. However, there’s no getting around us sending text messages to Gliese 581c in 2008 (from Ukraine) and subsequently following that up with another set blasted at 581d in 2009 (from Australia, sorry…).
This was because when we recalculated, it was apparent that the exoplanet 581d was more likely to be in the habitable zone of its star than 581c. Hopefully those 20 light year distant aliens will appreciate that the inconsequential shift in the main focus of those two transmissions is an indication of our extreme cleverness.
See, it’s a bit like reading Shakespeare to a dolphin. With no comprehension of the language, you will just look like someone who is content to sit for hours making funny noises while dangling your feet in a pool. But with a bit of comprehension, the dolphin can be reasonably expected to reply – hey Brainiac, I’m a dolphin, what’s forsooth mean?
There are aliens among us who already think we’re a bit daft. How about we first check in with Frank Drake next time we feel like shouting out the window?
Elementally speaking, Universe Today is a science blog. Screenshot showing a part of David Bradley's Periodic Table of Sciece Bloggers. Can you find UT?
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David Bradley is a first-class science writer from the UK, who writes with a chemistry slant at his blog Sciencebase. He’s also an interesting guy to follow on Twitter, and coined the term “Scientwists.” David also must be incredibly creative (or have more time on his hands than I could ever imagine) as he has created a Periodic Table of Science Bloggers. There you’ll find over 100 different science blogs, covering topics from astrobiology to zoology. While the blogs aren’t listed in topical groups similar to how the elements on the real periodic table are grouped, most are listed as an element whose abbreviation comes close to the blog or blogger’s name. For example, Universe Today is listed as “Uut – Ununtrium.” Check out this very cool periodic table to expand your horizons and bit and find some new blogs and new subjects to read about.
I have to admit I hadn’t heard of Ununtrium before, but here’s what it is:
“Ununtrium is the temporary name of a synthetic element with the temporary symbol Uut and atomic number 113.”
“It is placed as the heaviest member of the group 13 (IIIA) elements although a sufficiently stable isotope is not known at this time that would allow chemical experiments to confirm its position. It was first detected in 2003 in the decay of element 115 and was synthesized directly in 2004. Only eight atoms of ununtrium have been observed to date. The longest-lived isotope known is 284Uut with a half-life of ~500 ms, although two newly discovered heavier isotopes probably have longer half-lives.”
While Ununtrium is nothing like Universe Today — which is one of the longest-lasting blogs (over 10 years!) — the abbreviation fit well!
