Out there, distance = time.

The Cepheid stars are used as celestial lighthouses in order to determine distances. They are everywhere, which also means that they are "everywhen". To the given regular pulsation of a star corresponds a given absolute luminosity which, after having measured the apparent magnitude of said star, enables us finally to determine its distance (and by implication the galaxy it's in) from the earth. The distances determined this way were cross-checked through other means and the results are considered as reliable, despite a certain margin error which remains negligible given the huge distances in question.

If the physical laws at a given point of space-time are identical to the physical laws observed at billions of other points of space-time located millions of light-years between each other, it means beyond a reasonable doubt that the physical laws haven't changed since eons ago.

More about distances in remote outer space = Red Shift

Speed of light or not, the redshift doesn't lie.... Whatever the side of the universe we look at, the most distant stars/galaxies have the greatest redshifts....

 

E pur si muove!

 

I have already answered this question on several occasions on this thread. Is it possible to move on, please ?

 

The physical laws I'm talking about aren't just related to the speed of light. There are tons of details to learn about a star from the light we receive from it and said details show all the physical laws at work therein.

Besides, Delta Cepheid is just about 800 light years from us. Those stars are everywhere.

 

What have I been doing since we started this discussion ? I certainly won't start it all over again...

Besides, my examples didn't contradict the Bible but a certain interpretation of it.

 

Hi all

The excitement regarding the pictures from Pluto highlights how scientists are blinded by the bias to a very ancient universal, but at the same time ignoring their own evidence that the universe isn't as old as they claim it to be. Here's a slice of the BBC Pluto story below:

Mission scientist John Spencer told journalists that the first close-up image of Pluto's surface showed a terrain that had been resurfaced by some geological process - such as volcanism - within the last 100 million years.
"We have not found a single impact crater on this image. This means it must be a very young surface," he said.

This active geology needs some source of heat. Previously, such activity has only been seen on icy moons, where it can be explained by "tidal heating" caused by gravitational interactions with a large host planet.
"You do not need tidal heating to power geological activity on icy worlds. That's a really important discovery we just made this morning," said Dr Spencer.
Alan Stern, the mission's chief scientist, commented: "We now have an isolated, small planet that's showing activity after 4.5 billion years."
Prof Stern said the discovery would "send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing boards".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33543383


Londoner

 

Thanks for the link Londoner,
I had a good laugh on this one. It reminded me of what the native americans used to say when confronted by the white men. “Hmmm, white man speaks with forked tongue!â€

Or, as the other reference says, “He’s speaking out of both sides of his mouth!†First it’s icy and cold, then hot due to “tidal heatingâ€. And why is it “4.5 billion years†and not 4.7 billion years? Plus; how do they determine these figures and ideas without samples? I don’t believe the space craft reached out and dug samples from the surface.

 

Truth is often stranger than fiction... That's why God's Creation will always keep bewildering both the Evolutionists and the Creationists... and that's why I keep thinking that God's creative works aren't limited to our poor understanding of the Creation account as recorded in the Bible...

http://www.nature.com/news/hubble-spots-water-spurting-from-europa-1.14357

http://www.nature.com/news/icy-enceladus-hides-a-watery-ocean-1.14985

More to come tomorrow... Sorry but I'm exhausted (4th week of canicula here....).

 

Dear Londoner,

Thank you very much for your answer and for giving an example.

Yes, I admit that deciphering the scientific lingo may be a little bit tricky at times.

Here, I'd rather emphasize John Spencer's statements as follow :

"Mission scientist John Spencer told journalists that the first close-up image of Pluto's surface showed a terrain that had been resurfaced by some geological process - such as volcanism - within the last 100 million years. "We have not found a single impact crater on this image. This means it must be a very young surface," he said."

In this text, John Spencer isn't talking about the dwarf planet as a whole but about its surface. A surface is said young when it has been resurfaced by some geological process, as the text says. It has nothing to do with the birth date of the planet in question.

Here is an old surface



Here is a young surface



Interestingly, here is what the Earth looks like if we remove the oceans that give it its round shape. The shape here is a bit deformed because it's a "theoretical", exaggerated shape, produced from gravitational data.



As said earlier in this thread, there are only 174 astroblemes officially listed. Below is one found in Canada :



The Earth and the Moon have more or less the same age and yet, the surface of the Earth is much younger than the surface of the Moon. The surface of the Earth is younger because volcanism has reshapped its surface, covering most of the holes created when the meteorites hit the ground. Some craters may have disappeared underground if they happened to be on a subduction plate. Finally, erosion (wind, rain, chemical reactions, etc.) is a powerful tool that planes and eventually shaves off all eminences in the long term. Such things don't exist on the Moon, since there is no geological activity, no water, no atmosphere (therefore no wind, no rain, no erosion).

One of the means of datation for the rocks is the K-Ar dating. Another one is the Rb-Sr. In the case of the first, the ticks start counting when the rocks get cooler and solid. That is, when the magma goes out from the deepest parts of the planet, gets cool and becomes solid rock. Counting the ticks, so to speak, doesn't give the age of the planet but the age of the surface when it became solid rock. It shows you too that a surface may be younger than the many different layers below. If you read how those methods work, you will understand that with hot magma, it's impossible to date anything.

The physical laws (nuclear physics, radioactivity) at work in those dating methods are the same as the ones at work in the whole universe, deep inside the stars (previous ones + fission, fusion, electromagnetism, etc.), whether said stars are close or distant. Since the astronomists see physical events taking place far away and obeying to the same physical laws at work within the Sun, it therefore means that said physical laws haven't changed since the Big Bang. That's what I was trying to explain in my answers to Josh.

The ages given in the article are those of the planet, not of its surface.

As said in the article, the one detail that may make the scientists go back to their drawing boards is that they don't understand how a dwarf planet, so far away from anything that could cause such a heat, keeps having a geological activity. Small planets tend to cool and get cold way faster than larger planets. My astronomy mag says that the heat MAY come from the decay of an isotope of aluminium. The heat in the Earth's core comes also from the desintegration of its radioactive elements therein. I can't say more about it as I am not done reading the article about Pluto and New Horizons.

I'll give more details about it all in my second answer to Tsaphah.

 

Dear Tsaphah,

Here are some explanations more.

Do you know that you go up and down about 1 foot in average twice a day without noticing it ?

The tidal forces attract outwards the oceans and even the ground under your feet and the bulge created follows the Moon in its course around the Earth...

Earth tide

Earth tide or body tide is the displacement of the solid Earth's surface caused by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. Its main component has meter-level amplitude at periods of about 12 hours and longer. The largest body tide constituents are semi-diurnal, but there are also significant diurnal, semi-annual, and fortnightly contributions. Though the gravitational forcing causing earth tides and ocean tides is the same, the responses are quite different.

If you have a look at the chart at the bottom of the page which link I gave above, you will see that the vertical amplitude is 384.83 mm.

or

Source

Earth tides

Earth tides or terrestrial tides affect the entire Earth's mass, which acts similarly to a liquid gyroscope with a very thin crust. The Earth's crust shifts (in/out, east/west, north/south) in response to lunar and solar gravitation, ocean tides, and atmospheric loading. While negligible for most human activities, terrestrial tides' semi-diurnal amplitude can reach about 55 centimetres (22 in) at the equator—15 centimetres (5.9 in) due to the sun—which is important in GPS calibration and VLBI measurements. Precise astronomical angular measurements require knowledge of the Earth's rotation rate and nutation, both of which are influenced by Earth tides. The semi-diurnal M[SUB]2[/SUB] Earth tides are nearly in phase with the moon with a lag of about two hours.

Some particle physics experiments must adjust for terrestrial tides[SUP].[/SUP] For instance, at CERN and SLAC, the very large particle accelerators account for terrestrial tides. Among the relevant effects are circumference deformation for circular accelerators and particle beam energy. Since tidal forces generate currents in conducting fluids in the Earth's interior, they in turn affect the Earth's magnetic field. Earth tides have also been linked to the triggering of earthquakes.See also earthquake prediction.

However, when you look at the body tides on Io, one of Jupiter's satellites :

Source

The eccentricity leads to vertical differences in Io's tidal bulge of as much as 100 metres (330 ft) as Jupiter's gravitational pull varies between the periapsis and apoapsis points in Io's orbit. This varying tidal pull also produces friction in Io's interior, enough to cause significant tidal heating and melting.

Source

As a result, both Io and Europa are slightly deformed by tides as they orbit Jupiter. As the outer portions of these moons flex up and down in response to these tides, the friction of rock and ice grains sliding across each other releases heat. This heat is very important to understanding the geologic history of these objects.

On Io, this heating produces volcanic activity that is far more active and intense than volcanism on Earth. On Europa, the tidal heating may have heated its interior enough to melt ice and produce a subsurface ocean. The Earth and Moon also experience tidal deformation as the Moon orbits Earth, but the heat released is not significant for either object.

Source

In contrast, notice that the tides on Europa are 1000 times stronger than those here on Earth, since Jupiter is both very massive and very close to Europa. (Those on Io are even stronger.) That's a lot of energy being pumped into Europa via tides!

Source

Thus, the tidal flexing kneads Europa's interior and gives it a source of heat, possibly allowing its ocean to stay liquid while driving subsurface geological processes. The ultimate source of this energy is Jupiter's rotation, which is tapped by Io through the tides it raises on Jupiter and is transferred to Europa and Ganymede by the orbital resonance.

Source

Io, a moon of Jupiter, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, with no impact craters surviving on its surface. This is because the tidal force of Jupiter deforms Io; the eccentricity of Io's orbit (a consequence of its participation in a Laplace resonance) causes the height of Io's tidal bulge to vary significantly (by up to 100 m) over the course of an orbit; the friction from this tidal flexing then heats up its interior. A similar but weaker process is theorised to have melted the lower layers of the ice surrounding the rocky mantle of Jupiter's next large moon, Europa. Saturn's moon Enceladus is similarly thought to have a liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust.

 

A great site I just found whilst looking for additional information :

Source:

Even though Io is about the same distance from Jupiter as the Moon is from the Earth, Io experiences much stronger tidal stretching because Jupiter is over 300 times more massive than the Earth---Io's rock surface bulges up and down by as much as 100 meters! Io also takes 1.77 days to orbit Jupiter---compare that with the 27.3 days that the Moon takes to orbit the Earth. Io's orbit is kept from being exactly circular by the gravity of its Galilean neighbor Europa and the more distant Ganymede. Io, Europa, and Ganymede have a 4:2:1 orbital resonance that keeps their orbits elliptical. For every four orbits of Io, Europa orbits twice and Ganymede orbits once. Io cannot keep one side exactly facing Jupiter and with the varying strengths of the tides because of its elliptical orbit, Io is stretched and twisted over short time periods. The tidal flexing heats Io's interior to the melting point just as kneading dough warms it up.

(...)

A note of caution before proceeding further: although heating of the interior by tidal effects is a significant reason why some of the moons of the jovian planets exhibit geologic activity, it is not the only reason. Tidal heating cannot explain all or any of the activity seen on some of the icy moons. Other mechanisms such as rotational shearing from a wobbly rotation axis can play a role. Ultimately, it is the composition of the icy moons that makes the difference. The ices are able to deform and melt at lower temperatures than the silicate and metal rocks found in the inner terrestrial planets and their moons.

(...)

Europa is farther from Jupiter than Io, so the tides it feels from Jupiter's enormous gravity are less. It takes about 3.5 days to go around Jupiter in its elliptical orbit. Weaker tides over a longer time period mean the tidal flexing is less than what Io experiences, but the calculated amount of tidal heating at Europa could be enough to maintain liquid water. Europa is too small for radioactive decay in its rocky core to provide enough heating. Geological activity on the moons of the jovian planets, even those smaller than Europa, is possible not only because of tidal heating but also because of their composition. Ice melts and flexes at lower temperatures than rock. The flexing of the ice from changes in the tides, as it moves around Jupiter in its elliptical orbit, creates an impressive system of cracks on the surface. The cause of the dark colors of the cracks is unknown, but it may be due to organic materials or salts.

 

How do we know what Pluto's atmosphere is made of ?

What is light that we receive from the Sun ?








The Sun's maximum level of light energy is at the green colour one





What is the spectrum of solar light ?




More about it here

Excerpt : There are over 100,000 absorption lines in the sun’s spectrum. These enable us to analyze the sun’s composition.

Emission and absorption lines





More information about emission and absorption lines here.

 

What is heat ?

Source

In the English language, we understand "white hot" to be hotter than "red hot," while "blue" is usually associated with degrees of coldness, as in "cool blue" or "icy blue." In terms of real temperature, "blue hot" is hotter than "red hot."

What is incandescence?

Incandescence is the emission of light by a solid that has been heated until it glows, or radiates light. When an iron bar is heated to a very high temperature, it initially glows red, and then as its temperature rises it glows white. Incandescence is heat made visible – the process of turning heat energy into light energy.

Our colloquial usage of "red hot," "white hot," and so on, is part of the color sequence black, red, orange, yellow, white, and bluish white, seen as an object is heated to successively higher temperatures. The light produced consists of photons emitted when atoms and molecules release part of their thermal vibration energy.

Incandescent light is produced when hot matter releases parts of its thermal vibration energy as photons. The Kelvin scale measures absolute temperature (a change of 1 K is equivalent to 1 °C), with 273 K being equivalent to water’s freezing point. At medium temperatures, say 1073 K (800 °C), the energy radiated by an object reaches a peak in the infrared, with a low intensity at the red end of the visible spectrum. As the temperature is raised, the peak moves toward and finally into the visible region. The temperature range experienced on earth, usually between 100 K and 2000 K, produces electromagnetic energy mostly in the infrared and visible light range, which gives us a convenient color temperature scale.

(...)

Our definition of "white" is derived from emission from the 5800 K temperature near the surface of the sun. Its peak at near 550 nm (2.25 eV) is paralleled in the maximum sensitivity of our eyes in the same region. This is usually attributed to our evolution in the vicinity of our sun. No matter how high a temperature rises, blue-white is the hottest color we are able to perceive.

According to what's explained above, we can deduce the heat inside of a star through its color temperature.

Source

Blue giant is not a strictly defined term and it is applied to a wide variety of different types of stars. What they have in common is: a moderate increase in size and luminosity compared to main sequence stars of the same mass or temperature, and are hot enough to be called blue, meaning spectral class O, B, and sometimes early A. They have temperatures from around 10,000 K upwards, ZAMS masses greater than about twice the Sun (M[SUB]☉[/SUB]), and absolute magnitudes around 0 or brighter. These stars are only 5–10 times the radius of the Sun (R[SUB]☉[/SUB]), compared to red giants which are up to 100 R[SUB]☉[/SUB].

Source

A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses (M[SUB]☉[/SUB])) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, from 5,000 K and lower. The appearance of the red giant is from yellow-orange to red, including the spectral types K and M, but also class S stars and most carbon stars.

Just like a white hot iron bar is hotter than a red hot iron bar, blue giants are hotter than red giants.



In the photo above, the blue corresponds to colder temps and the red to hotter temps.

 

According to what is explained above, a certain amount of heated gas will emit radiations that correspond to what it's made of. Later, whenever that light goes through a certain cooler gas, the atoms within said gas will absorb the levels of energy of that light to which they pertain.

It therefore means that from the light that comes from a star, we can deduce the atoms it's made of and if we wait till Pluto's atmosphere passes before a given star of which we know the atmosphere's components, the absorption lines will give us its atmosphere's composition.

Alice

Alice is a compact, general-purpose UV imaging telescope/spectrometer, which is now flying aboard NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt and the ESA/NASA Rosetta asteroid flyby/comet rendezvous mission. The two Alices are called "P-Alice'' (as part of the Persi suite on New Horizons) and "R-Alice''.

A "spectrometer'' is an instrument that separates light into its constituent wavelengths, like a prism, only better. An "imaging spectrometer'' both separates the different wavelengths of light and produces an image of the target at each wavelength. On the New Horizons mission, Alice will probe the atmospheric composition of Pluto. Alice has two modes of operation: an "airglow'' mode, which allows measurement of emissions from atmospheric constituents, and an "occultation'' mode, when either the Sun or a bright star is viewed through the atmosphere producing absorption by the atmospheric constituents. The Alice occultation mode will be used just after New Horizons passes behind Pluto and looks back at the Sun through Pluto's atmosphere.

To be continued

 

A couple of years ago, I was out in service with my old friend, the ex-husband of the termagant I often talk about, and we were having a discussion about scientific subjects. It didn't happen all the time that we talked about scientific subjects but it would happen once in a while.

I told him that Jehovah had made things very well for us humans because He had programmed us to see beauty in what has no real intrinsic beauty.

I read once this beautiful sentence : Our lives are a dream dreamt awake and guided by our senses. The trilogy Matrix didn't exist back then but this sentence really conveyed the same message. The world we all live in, as individuals, depends on how we feel and interpret it. The world we live in depends on how our body interacts with it and how our brain makes sense of it. Our five senses are mere physical, electric and chemical signals deep inside our nerves and neurons which are interpreted and made sensible by our brain.

Back to my friend; as examples, I mentioned firstly the colors, which are mere differences of energy, of frequency. The difference between red and blue is just a difference of frequency, of levels of energy. Regarding our taste and smell, it's just a question of molecules. Some molecules get in contact with our nose or tongue and chemical and electric signals start rushing to our brain. The same happens with hearing. Sounds, music notes are all the same, just a long series of short sounds, just acoustic waves making our eardrum move, which in turn send signals to our brain.

Many robots can see through cameras, taste and smell odours and listen to and analyse sounds. Many animals see the colours too, listen to sounds, smell odours, etc. Why does my dog see colours and yet isn't in awe before a sunset ? Why does my dog get excited whenever I cook some meat whereas she'll wince at the smell of Chanel n°5....?

The same for us, molecules are just molecules; they're just an aggregate of atoms assembled in a certain order and twisted in a certain direction (levorotary, destrorotary). Why do we wince when we smell poo and drool at the smell of a tasty meal ? After all, it's just a question of molecules and atoms glued together.

I told him that it was because Jehovah had programmed us, deep within our genes to recognize, instinctively, positive and beneficial molecules as tasty and appealing whereas unhealthy and dangerous molecules would be right away deemed as stinky or unpalatable. The same with colours and sounds, etc. Why ! Even our eyes are the most sensitive to the "kind" of light that comes from the Sun... !!!!

I told him that there was no intrinsic beauty in such things, excepted the one Jehovah had programmed us to see....

His answer stunned me : "You may be right but I think that there is anyway a higher level of beauty that we humans aren't able to discern. The armies of heaven cried out of joy when they saw God's Creation. Would they have cried out of joy if there wasn't intrinsic beauty in His Creation ?"

I hadn't back then gone so far in my reasoning because I was limiting it strictly to scientific and objective subjects and his reply was subjective, but I liked it anyway.

Yes, as Tsaphah said, we don't know everything. I agree. However, I do think that it's not because we don't know everything that we should discard what we already know, even if it's in partial ways. I mean, throwing the baby with the bathwater. There are things that we don't know and we can't keep pushing them aside as if they weren't reality (Please, I'm not talking about evolution here). I do think that, at a certain point, we must begin to acknowledge the reality of certain things (physical laws, archeological findings, etc) that might shake our certitudes, but never our faith, obviously.

Personally, I do think that keeping discarding undeniable physical phenomena for the sake of our own little personal faith is a dead-end. We all have already observed and understood that God's Creation is mind-boggling and that it is way beyond our current and future understanding. Every new discovery and scientific feat is a stone added to the figurative pedestal of God's glory. Human's knowledge has always been a long path and it's far from being over. However, each and every one of said findings glorifies our God. The universe is each day more amazing and unfathomable. Every new law that we discover or that we prove right is a mere step to higher levels of understanding of God's knowledge and wisdom. If we discard anything that may be at variance with our personal understanding, we may be turning a blind eye to higher levels of knowledge and understanding that we may desperately be looking for through other means like the Bible. I read once that there were two books, in reality, that prove the existence of God. The Bible and the book of Creation, Mother Nature, as you call it in English. Both books complement one another if we learn how to read them both properly.

As my friend said, there must be a higher level of beauty, a higher level of understanding of God's Creation that makes it all.... make sense. There are billions of things that we don't know but as well the rank and file believers as the scientists are in the same boat in that regard. One day, extraordinary scientific discoveries will reveal the key so we understand better God's thought, as Stephen Hawking phrased it. It may just as well be Jehovah who reveals it through anyone he'll choose to that end. In the meantime, let's all be convinced that there are higher levels of understanding regarding the huge puzzle of Creation (which keeps bewildering us), that what we try and grasp on scientific grounds isn't necessarily fallacious and that Jehovah will give us the key one day to understand it all, maybe in spite on what we believed...