If dark energy is everywhere, why are we studying it with telescopes instead of microscopes? Or whatever would be best for right here?
Because at the smallest scale it's impossible to measure. Dark energy is great but very defuse. It doesn't act at small scales, only on cosmic scales can we measure it's effects. It's nowhere near energetic enough to have an effect on individual atoms and molecules or anything smaller than a planet, really. I think we can just barely measure the effect of dark matter on objects orbiting the earth but it's so subtle that it requires special detectors to measure. Dark Energy's effects are even more diffuse and subtle.
Also because it doesnt interact with regular matter in any way besides gravity, and that's because gravity is just a curve in the fabric of space. We interact with and observe the universe through the electromagnetic spectrum, but dark energy doesnt give a fuck about the electromagnetic spectrum.
Dark matter and energy are unrelated phenomena. Dark matter does not interact except with respect to gravity. Dark energy is the expansion of space.
Its the second part that makes dark energy much easier to see with a telescope. If space expands between my atoms the strong electromagnetic* force keeps my atoms together and we notice nothing. If space expands between the earth and the moon gravity keeps the moon where it should be because the moon is always falling towards earth (and thus moving into new expanded space). If the space between galaxies is expanding then those galaxies move in relation to others relative to the expansion. Because theyre not tied to each other via another force and because the cumulative expansion is much greater because there is more space between them to expand.
An easy way to know it must/can exist is by thinking of the big bang. Right after the big bang the universe was in what was called the cosmic dark ages. It was so hot that photons could not travel very far before being absorbed. At this point we have a record of the observable universe in the form of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Which suggests that the universe was a uniform blob of stuff.
If you remember your entropy you might think “wait a second if the universe was a uniform blob of stuff shouldn't it not have created order out of nothing” and the answer is “yes, at the time the observable Universe was about 1000 ly across and it didnt get to 46 billion light years across without some energy injection.”
If dark energy is everywhere, why are we studying it with telescopes instead of microscopes? Or whatever would be best for right here?
Because at the smallest scale it's impossible to measure. Dark energy is great but very defuse. It doesn't act at small scales, only on cosmic scales can we measure it's effects. It's nowhere near energetic enough to have an effect on individual atoms and molecules or anything smaller than a planet, really. I think we can just barely measure the effect of dark matter on objects orbiting the earth but it's so subtle that it requires special detectors to measure. Dark Energy's effects are even more diffuse and subtle.
Also because it doesnt interact with regular matter in any way besides gravity, and that's because gravity is just a curve in the fabric of space. We interact with and observe the universe through the electromagnetic spectrum, but dark energy doesnt give a fuck about the electromagnetic spectrum.
There still any thought that this stuff is basically the gravity equivalent in higher dimensions. Gravity is curvature of the lower (potentially unfurled) dimensions and dark matter/energy is the shadow we see from the curvature of the higher dimensions?
Maybe? But i think the general idea is a bit more “juat the math maam” and has to do with how a the edge of an infinte curved space time defines a flat infinite space time in one fewer dimensions. And since we believe our space time to be flat we tend to think this is a possibility for a solution that satisfies tying a few theories together. There is a PBS space time on the holographic principle (and its progenitor videos) that gives a decent explanation.
*i think? Not actually going to bother looking up which forces hold together atoms and which forces hold up nuclei and which forces bind molecules etc. because i dont care
When we peer deep into space, we don't expect to find something staring back at us...
This galactic ghoul, captured by our Hubble Space Telescope, is actually a titanic head-on collision between two galaxies. Each "eye" is the bright core of a galaxy, one of which slammed into another. The outline of the face is a ring of young blue stars. Other clumps of new stars form a nose and mouth.
Although galaxy collisions are common most of them are not head-on smashups like this Arp-Madore system. Get spooked and find out what lies inside this ghostly apparition from the link in our bio.
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I mean we should always be skeptical of any claims of this sort, but not dismiss them outright. It sounds like there are several other groups working on experiments that should provide more evidence one way or the other about a theoretical fifth force, which is certainly a good thing and will hopefully clear things up at least somewhat.
by the laws of Sci-fi tv shows and cartoons one will be the good universe and the other will be the goatee wearing evil universe. <strokes goatee> now let's find this mirror universe and take all those hippies' resources.
Aparently there was also a paper a bit ago looking at the difference between the cmbr and hubble measures of the age of the universe that suggested
1) the universe is not flat, and is instead closed
2) the amount of dark matter is close to 50% and not 80% of mass
3) the age of the universe is 18 billiin years not 14 or 44
I mean we should always be skeptical of any claims of this sort, but not dismiss them outright. It sounds like there are several other groups working on experiments that should provide more evidence one way or the other about a theoretical fifth force, which is certainly a good thing and will hopefully clear things up at least somewhat.
I think it will be the connection to manipulate dark matter and lead to the discovery of magic, elves, and dwarves . Let's go all fantasy on this world
Its brightness cycles fairly predictably over several years. It's dimmer than usual even for that now, but not dramatically enough that astronomers are getting really worried (or really excited). It'll go off any minute now, but we're still talking an astronomical "any minute now" rather than a calendrical one, so I'm not holding my breath.
I'm torn between "I like Orion with all his limbs intact" and "I really want to see an intragalactic supernova." SN 1054 was apparently bonkers enough despite being an order of magnitude further away.
The dimness really is surprising compared to last year, though. We've had dozens of minutes of glear skies here so far this winter (*grumble*) and it's actually been difficult to pick out at a glance.
Betelgeuse has at least one fusion phase left before it blows. This might be the transition point to that phase, or it might not.
If it is, it means Betelgeuse has a lot less time left than we thought, on the order of 10-50k years instead of 100k-1 million that we predicted.
If it actually explodes then something is very wrong with our modeling - most likely of it but possibly of stellar evolution in general. Both of which are exciting things themselves and will give some fresh ground for doctoral candidates to try and achieve some notoriety.
Betelgeuse has at least one fusion phase left before it blows. This might be the transition point to that phase, or it might not.
If it is, it means Betelgeuse has a lot less time left than we thought, on the order of 10-50k years instead of 100k-1 million that we predicted.
If it actually explodes then something is very wrong with our modeling - most likely of it but possibly of stellar evolution in general. Both of which are exciting things themselves and will give some fresh ground for doctoral candidates to try and achieve some notoriety.
A supernova like this that is expected, whenever it happens, is sure to inspire many new doctoral candidates even. Heck, just thinking about it makes me want to do the next astronomy and physics classes on my list.
Betelgeuse has at least one fusion phase left before it blows. This might be the transition point to that phase, or it might not.
If it is, it means Betelgeuse has a lot less time left than we thought, on the order of 10-50k years instead of 100k-1 million that we predicted.
If it actually explodes then something is very wrong with our modeling - most likely of it but possibly of stellar evolution in general. Both of which are exciting things themselves and will give some fresh ground for doctoral candidates to try and achieve some notoriety.
Which is it currently in? I thought the last few elapsed very quickly (like "years," "days" and "hours" respectively).
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
As much as I want to see a supernova happen (so many science points!) I kinda also really don’t because there’s an even dozen religious and political actors (actors as in state, not stage) out there right now who have access to military power who would take it as ‘inspiration’ to try something really stupid….
As much as I want to see a supernova happen (so many science points!) I kinda also really don’t because there’s an even dozen religious and political actors (actors as in state, not stage) out there right now who have access to military power who would take it as ‘inspiration’ to try something really stupid….
i imagine any of them don't require a supernova to do their stupid thing. they'll find whatever justification they need, were they to do something stupid
let me experience unfathomably awesome natural phenomena
Betelgeuse has at least one fusion phase left before it blows. This might be the transition point to that phase, or it might not.
If it is, it means Betelgeuse has a lot less time left than we thought, on the order of 10-50k years instead of 100k-1 million that we predicted.
If it actually explodes then something is very wrong with our modeling - most likely of it but possibly of stellar evolution in general. Both of which are exciting things themselves and will give some fresh ground for doctoral candidates to try and achieve some notoriety.
Which is it currently in? I thought the last few elapsed very quickly (like "years," "days" and "hours" respectively).
It's currently burning helium. If its exhausted its helium it would dim and start to collapse and then start burning carbon. There's then neon, oxygen, and silicon, but like you said, those don't last very long, the silicon phase is so short that it's almost part of the supernova. I'm actually not sure if Betelgeuse is going to have all of those, the book I've been using for Betelgeuse discussion says 8-12 solar mass stars will go supernova in the neon or oxygen phases, and Betelgeuse's mass estimate range straddles the top of that block.
Neon is where we start keeping telescopes on it 24/7 because it's going to happen within the careers of most current astronomers, but carbon will last at least a few hundred to thousand years if that's what's about to happen (which isn't a for sure thing yet mind).
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Betelgeuse being 642 ly away it’s probably maybe already exploded.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Are all portions of the electromagnetic spectrum part of the wave/particle duality? Like, Gamma rays are a particle that fluctuates at a different wavelength than an X-ray? Are higher frequency particle/waves faster than others? X-rays can cause cancer, right, but they also tend to pass through soft tissue. Do they just hit the right part of their own frequency at the right tie in order to interact with soft matter?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Are all portions of the electromagnetic spectrum part of the wave/particle duality? Like, Gamma rays are a particle that fluctuates at a different wavelength than an X-ray? Are higher frequency particle/waves faster than others? X-rays can cause cancer, right, but they also tend to pass through soft tissue. Do they just hit the right part of their own frequency at the right tie in order to interact with soft matter?
Yes. Everything on the electromagnetic spectrum consists of photons, and they all exhibit particle/wave duality. None of them are faster than the others, they all move at the speed of light. What the photons can pass through depends on the energy and wavelength of the photon and whether it has enough energy to bump an electron in an atom to a higher energy level, or knock the electron off the atom all together.
Are all portions of the electromagnetic spectrum part of the wave/particle duality? Like, Gamma rays are a particle that fluctuates at a different wavelength than an X-ray? Are higher frequency particle/waves faster than others? X-rays can cause cancer, right, but they also tend to pass through soft tissue. Do they just hit the right part of their own frequency at the right tie in order to interact with soft matter?
So a photon is basically a photon, they are all the same particle. The speed of a photon is fixed. The amplitude of a single photon is also fixed. Because of this the energy of a single photon is directly proportional to how short its wavelength is. Gamma rays have short wavelengths and very high energy per photon, radio waves are the opposite.
IIRC x-rays (and gamma rays, UV rays, etc) cause cancer because their photons due to the shorter wavelength have high enough energy to break the covalent chemical bonds in DNA, wheras lower energy and longer wavelength photons do not. This isn’t a think unique to photons, any high energy particle can do it (helium nuclei, electrons and neutrons are also commonly produced by radioactive processes and can cause cancer in the same way).
This is completely separate (well... mostly) from opacity/translucency/reflectivity (bones tend to be opaque to xrays while soft tissue is transparent, in a way not much different to how glass or water is translucent but brick is opaque to visible light. This is just more a function if how various wavelengths of light are interact with various materials and the mechanics get pretty complicated).
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
So its more that on the photon scale everything is so "empty" that you just get lucky that 99.9% of the photons don't manage to hit anything?
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I just want to clarify one thing regarding particle wave duality. All light exist as a wave function. A photon is the collapsed wave function of light. Wave functions collapse during observation and measurement. To say that light exists as both a particle and a wave kind of misses the true definition of a particle. A fundamental particle (like an electron or photons) is the collapsed wave function of fundamental energy fields. I don't really understand all the math behind it but I can site the double slit experiment for a practical demonstration of this. With no observer, you get a wave pattern. With an observer you get a particle pattern. Light waves turn into particles when we tell them to.
So its more that on the photon scale everything is so "empty" that you just get lucky that 99.9% of the photons don't manage to hit anything?
Not really. Light is a wave until the wave function is collapsed. The reason gamma and x rays will pass through most material is not because photons are so small it's because the wavelength is so small. We aren't dealing with a particle so it doesn't matter how small or big it is. X rays have a wavelength of .01 to 10 nanometers. This is just getting small enough for the wave to pass through all that empty space in lighter atoms but large enough to be slowed down by others. Visible light has a wavelength of 400 to 700 nanometers. That is larger than the space between most atoms. The only way visible light passes through objects is by having the molecules arranged in such a way that they create spaces the right size for the wavelength of light.
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
But I thought we had just pointed out that all photon's have the same amplitude? Or is this more of a harmonic type deal, where you have to be able to fit discrete waves inside the gaps?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
It’s more the second thing. It’s not so much that they don't hit as ... they don't interact.
As a for example that's familiar to me:
In that experiment you take a compound, toluene in this case, and shine infrared light of the X-axis frequencies. The Y axis plots how much gets through. So if the light/photon is at 3500 cm-1 (don't worry about these units) almost 100% of it gets through. But if the light is 3000 cm-1, almost none of it gets through.
At 3500 there's nothing toluene can really do with that energy, so it just passes on by, but at 3000 it has something productive to do (in this case the C-H bonds get longer and shorter) so it is absorbed.
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Dark matter and energy are unrelated phenomena. Dark matter does not interact except with respect to gravity. Dark energy is the expansion of space.
Its the second part that makes dark energy much easier to see with a telescope. If space expands between my atoms the strong electromagnetic* force keeps my atoms together and we notice nothing. If space expands between the earth and the moon gravity keeps the moon where it should be because the moon is always falling towards earth (and thus moving into new expanded space). If the space between galaxies is expanding then those galaxies move in relation to others relative to the expansion. Because theyre not tied to each other via another force and because the cumulative expansion is much greater because there is more space between them to expand.
An easy way to know it must/can exist is by thinking of the big bang. Right after the big bang the universe was in what was called the cosmic dark ages. It was so hot that photons could not travel very far before being absorbed. At this point we have a record of the observable universe in the form of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Which suggests that the universe was a uniform blob of stuff.
If you remember your entropy you might think “wait a second if the universe was a uniform blob of stuff shouldn't it not have created order out of nothing” and the answer is “yes, at the time the observable Universe was about 1000 ly across and it didnt get to 46 billion light years across without some energy injection.”
Maybe? But i think the general idea is a bit more “juat the math maam” and has to do with how a the edge of an infinte curved space time defines a flat infinite space time in one fewer dimensions. And since we believe our space time to be flat we tend to think this is a possibility for a solution that satisfies tying a few theories together. There is a PBS space time on the holographic principle (and its progenitor videos) that gives a decent explanation.
*i think? Not actually going to bother looking up which forces hold together atoms and which forces hold up nuclei and which forces bind molecules etc. because i dont care
Also, PBS Space Time has a good video on cosmic inflation, too
They have a lot of good videos. They should be required viewing for every space nerd
Edit since the text doesn’t show up on mobile there:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/world/fifth-force-of-nature-scn-trnd/index.html
Also pretty obviously I'm thinking "mass effect".
Edit: Though it does sound like there are some good reasons to be skeptical: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-boson-claim-faces-scrutiny-20160607/
So, did anything come from this?
1) the universe is not flat, and is instead closed
2) the amount of dark matter is close to 50% and not 80% of mass
3) the age of the universe is 18 billiin years not 14 or 44
Edit: using data from the plank telescope
I think it will be the connection to manipulate dark matter and lead to the discovery of magic, elves, and dwarves . Let's go all fantasy on this world
It is absolutely noticeably dimmer than my personal recollection and I’m definitely over-hyped to witness it going supernova in my lifetime.
What the heck!
I'm torn between "I like Orion with all his limbs intact" and "I really want to see an intragalactic supernova." SN 1054 was apparently bonkers enough despite being an order of magnitude further away.
The dimness really is surprising compared to last year, though. We've had dozens of minutes of glear skies here so far this winter (*grumble*) and it's actually been difficult to pick out at a glance.
I wish the one in 1987 would have been visible from the US so I could have seen it myself.
If it is, it means Betelgeuse has a lot less time left than we thought, on the order of 10-50k years instead of 100k-1 million that we predicted.
If it actually explodes then something is very wrong with our modeling - most likely of it but possibly of stellar evolution in general. Both of which are exciting things themselves and will give some fresh ground for doctoral candidates to try and achieve some notoriety.
A supernova like this that is expected, whenever it happens, is sure to inspire many new doctoral candidates even. Heck, just thinking about it makes me want to do the next astronomy and physics classes on my list.
Which is it currently in? I thought the last few elapsed very quickly (like "years," "days" and "hours" respectively).
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i imagine any of them don't require a supernova to do their stupid thing. they'll find whatever justification they need, were they to do something stupid
let me experience unfathomably awesome natural phenomena
It's currently burning helium. If its exhausted its helium it would dim and start to collapse and then start burning carbon. There's then neon, oxygen, and silicon, but like you said, those don't last very long, the silicon phase is so short that it's almost part of the supernova. I'm actually not sure if Betelgeuse is going to have all of those, the book I've been using for Betelgeuse discussion says 8-12 solar mass stars will go supernova in the neon or oxygen phases, and Betelgeuse's mass estimate range straddles the top of that block.
Neon is where we start keeping telescopes on it 24/7 because it's going to happen within the careers of most current astronomers, but carbon will last at least a few hundred to thousand years if that's what's about to happen (which isn't a for sure thing yet mind).
Because no information can travel faster than c
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Yes. Everything on the electromagnetic spectrum consists of photons, and they all exhibit particle/wave duality. None of them are faster than the others, they all move at the speed of light. What the photons can pass through depends on the energy and wavelength of the photon and whether it has enough energy to bump an electron in an atom to a higher energy level, or knock the electron off the atom all together.
This article explains it --> https://science.howstuffworks.com/x-ray1.htm
So a photon is basically a photon, they are all the same particle. The speed of a photon is fixed. The amplitude of a single photon is also fixed. Because of this the energy of a single photon is directly proportional to how short its wavelength is. Gamma rays have short wavelengths and very high energy per photon, radio waves are the opposite.
IIRC x-rays (and gamma rays, UV rays, etc) cause cancer because their photons due to the shorter wavelength have high enough energy to break the covalent chemical bonds in DNA, wheras lower energy and longer wavelength photons do not. This isn’t a think unique to photons, any high energy particle can do it (helium nuclei, electrons and neutrons are also commonly produced by radioactive processes and can cause cancer in the same way).
This is completely separate (well... mostly) from opacity/translucency/reflectivity (bones tend to be opaque to xrays while soft tissue is transparent, in a way not much different to how glass or water is translucent but brick is opaque to visible light. This is just more a function if how various wavelengths of light are interact with various materials and the mechanics get pretty complicated).
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Not really. Light is a wave until the wave function is collapsed. The reason gamma and x rays will pass through most material is not because photons are so small it's because the wavelength is so small. We aren't dealing with a particle so it doesn't matter how small or big it is. X rays have a wavelength of .01 to 10 nanometers. This is just getting small enough for the wave to pass through all that empty space in lighter atoms but large enough to be slowed down by others. Visible light has a wavelength of 400 to 700 nanometers. That is larger than the space between most atoms. The only way visible light passes through objects is by having the molecules arranged in such a way that they create spaces the right size for the wavelength of light.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
As a for example that's familiar to me:
In that experiment you take a compound, toluene in this case, and shine infrared light of the X-axis frequencies. The Y axis plots how much gets through. So if the light/photon is at 3500 cm-1 (don't worry about these units) almost 100% of it gets through. But if the light is 3000 cm-1, almost none of it gets through.
At 3500 there's nothing toluene can really do with that energy, so it just passes on by, but at 3000 it has something productive to do (in this case the C-H bonds get longer and shorter) so it is absorbed.