Posts Tagged ‘Astronomy’
next hubble image
As part of celebration of 2009 the year of Astronomy, NASA is letting people to decide where the Hubble Telescope should point next. There are 6 options for people to vote before march, 1st.
They've done something like this back in sometime around 2001 ... if my memory serves me right. But I do remember the winner, it was Horsehead Nebula. As the result of that, Hubble produced an astonishingly detailed photograph.
BTW, for those who are interested, I recommend you to put this site in your RSS reader.
Doomsday is family time
About why I haven't update anything here for quite a long time ... will I was just being lazy.
About the title ... according to many, tomorrow, 10th September, is the end of this world. Yeah you hear that right, end of our world. A black hole, or strange matter, will appear on Earth tommrow, and destroy the whole planet, possibly the whole universe.
All the fuss is about Large Hadron Collider(LHC). It is a particle accelerator located somewhere near Geneva, Switzerland. It is aimed to study many ultimate questions of physics such as the mechanism of the big bang and dark matters - but critics say that this machine may also be the ultimate suicide machine of the man kind ... there is a risk of a black hole or strange matter being created, and can effectly make the whole earth disappear.
That machine will operate for the first time tomorrow.
I like observational astronomy but has very little knowledge on cosmology - so I cannot tell you how the accelerator works ... just read wikipedia, please.
As many physicists, I personally think that there is a very, very remote chance that a micro blackhole created by the accelerator may swallow the whole earth. I don't know anything about stranglets.
That "remote" chance largely due to out lack of knowledge on the machanism of how the universe works. Although based on our current knowledge, because of the relatively low energy generated by the accelerator(compare with the bing bang), it is not very likely to create a balck hole.
Even if a micro black hole is created, the consensus of science community is that black hole will soon vaporise because of its size. Well unless there is a mechanism we have absolutely no understanding kicks in and did something very bad.
No good scientists will guarantee you the outcome of something nobody has ever done before. All we do is make the best assumption base on our current knowledge - it usually matches the outcome, but no professionals will rule out that 0.0000...% possibility of other outcome.
But sadly, that "slight chance" sometimes got exaggerated by some people and media. That remote risk of total destruction is worth to take for us to understand how the big bang happened.
BTW ... just for fun, if the worst happens, the black hole would still take few hours, a day or longer to suck every matter from earth. So you will have enough time to actually see how the black hole looks like before it tears you down into particles:)
Oh actually I wish that really happens tomorrow, so I don't have to hand in my assignment next week - that would be a good relief.
PS. the title is name of one of soundtracks from The Simpson Movie. Always good to spend more time to with your family ... you never know when the disaster might happen - it usually comes at the time no one expeceted it.
