Inertia - Science for You

Massive stars implode as Core-collapse supernovae. Now, what happens to the core? It can either end up as a neutron star or a black hole. Let's take the neutron star scenario here. The Star Died, But Left Its Angry, Spinning Ghost The core implodes, sending shock waves to the ambient medium. This forward shock compresses and heats the ambient gas, and propagates sweeping up the material. Now, as the deceleration of the shock drives back a reverse shock into the cold ejecta, heating the metal-rich gas to X-ray-emitting temperatures. But, what's there at the centre? A rapidly-spinning, highly magnetic neutron star. This neutron star, a pulsar, generates an energetic wind of particles and magnetic field. Thus, we have a nebula driven by the winds of a pulsar hosted inside a supernova remnant (SNR) - a pulsar wind nebula (PWN). Is a PWN an SNR? No, a pulsar wind nebula and a supernova remnant are not the same. Yes, a pulsar wind nebula is formed after a supernova explosion and the...

Stars are beautiful. But their explosions are even more beautiful. And the remnants of that, further more beautiful. Beautiful, beautifuller, beautifullest! When a massive star collapses, it implodes. That's its death. A core collapse supernova. These explosions are extremely luminous and can outshine an entire galaxy. But long after this catastrophic death, the legacy of the star continues. The remnants of these explosions can be seen for another tens of thousands of years; telling the lore of the star to the generations yet to live. Shaping the rest of the universe, by cosmic rays, shocks and radiations. Research proves that even distant explosions have influenced the atmosphere on Earth ( see article ).  What if the star wasn't massive? Then they end up as White Dwarfs. But these White Dwarfs may accrete more mass to it from its companion, and thus explode due to 'over-mass'.  This detonation is a Type Ia supernova.  These explosions enrich the universe with light an...

Hydrogen (he/him) sees a UV photon. He is excited. So excited that his electron jumps up two levels. Being far from home, the electron cries. So, the Hydrogen lets the electron come one level closer, still keeping a bit of the excitement. H II regions are cool. I mean, temperature-wise. It could be seven thousand to fifteen thousand kelvin.  And this depends on what's in there and what causes it. So, what causes the temperature? Photoionisation. And who causes the photoionisation? A star! A massive central star.  So, let me introduce to you, an H II region. An H II region is a region of photoionised gas surrounding a massive star. A sweet help by the star to its surrounding region. So, what really happens? There's a big star. There's gas around it. The star radiates UV rays. And what does UV do? They ionise the ambient medium. i.e., the UV photons are absorbed by the gas, and hence a spherical region is formed. This is a Str ömgren sphere. The most abundant...

Life outside Earth We have been thinking of life outside earth since time immemorial. And when it comes to the scientific search of extraterrestrial life, what and where are we searching for? The primary question - what , is thought worthy.  We assume that the Life outside Earth is like the Life on Earth. We assume the life to be water-based and to share many such similarities. Why so? Life outside could be of any form. It really need not be water based. It really need not have the needs of the terrestrial life, say, oxygen. But, it is easier to look for life with this assumption, for, as the old joke goes, the old man who lost his keys at night will search for it under the streetlights. So, although we know that life on Earth could not be representative of life elsewhere, we take up the assumption while we scout for extraterrestrial life. A similar approach is also usually taken while we decide where to hunt for life. We look for Sun-like stars and Earth-like orbits and temperatu...

  Order from Chaos - The Cosmic Web Imagining the universe we have known about would be a picture of innumerous galaxies sprinkled randomly all around like air bubbles suspended in a gel. Chaos . That one word would describe it. However, as we zoom out, in reality, we conceive order from chaos; we would observe that all those galaxies which we envisioned to be spread out randomly are actually existing together along paths of gases. The image is exactly like motor vehicles moving through tarred roads alone, avoiding the land amidst the roads - galaxies are only present along the filaments and these filaments are linked together to form a structure like a spider’s web and we call it the cosmic web, which is a term coined by Richard Bond in 1996 to describe a tangled structure of clumps and filaments naturally formed by dark matter left to experience the pull of gravity. The area enclosed between the roads are analogous to dark matter present as voids among the cosmic web and accounts...

 People have thought about the existence of particles smaller than the smallest sensible particles of matter from time immemorial. Moreover, a similar philosophy of ' anu ' is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts. However, this suspicion had no scientific grounds until one or two centuries ago. Now, we know that matter is composed of atoms, atoms of nucleons and electrons, and nucleons of quarks. The concept of an atom was first scientifically proposed by John Dalton, which was further developed by Ernest Rutherford and Neils Bohr, although J J Thomson was the first to propose a model after Dalton. While Thomson presented a model of atom in which the electrons are distributed in a positive space as if seeds in a watermelon or plums in a pudding, Rutherford's famous gold foil experiment proved that most of the space inside an atom is empty and that the positive charge is concentrated in a centre called nucleus, and thus proved Thomson to be incorrect. An interesting thing w...

Black Holes are always considered as reapers of life. So, here's a twist! LIFE AROUND A BLACK HOLE! Black Hole A black hole is a point in space-time fabric with extremely high density. The gravitational pull of a black hole isa so high that not even light can  escape its gravity.  AGN - Active Galactic Nucleus Simply, the nucleus or centre of an active galaxy.  This galaxy would be having a blacl hole at its centre. Around the black hole would be a disc of stars and gas, spiraling into the black hole, called the accretion disk. Let us see the possibility of life in this accretion disk, powered by the black hole.  Life Around It AGN emit different radiations. UV rays are also emitted. UV rays have the potential to power reactions for prebiotic chemistry. i.e, if prebiotic elements are available,  which are commonly available in and around a star, the UV rays can mediate the reactions between them,  synthesizing the simple biomolecular build...

Why are Black Holes black? We all know: black holes are black. No light escapes a black hole. But, why?  We come across the answer for this while studying gravitational red shift. Gravitational Red Shift Gravitational red shift is similar to the concept of Doppler red shift, but different. Doppler red shift is a change (lowering) in frequency of a wave due to its velocity. But, gravitational red shift is the lowering of frequency of a wave due to gravitational force in the space-time fabric. The derivation that explains this shift happens o be simple, but we shall leave that for now. At the end of the derivation we conclude that the relative frequency change of a wave (due to gravitational force) equals to GM/c 2 R; where G and c are our familiar constants - Newton's 'G' and the light's 'c', and M and R are the mass and radius of the star respectively. The star here could be the star of any phase - a main sequence star, a super giant or even a ...

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S BIGGEST BLUNDER Even the great physicist Albert Einstein made an utter foolishness? (He did!) But, the biggest quality of a scientist is to admit his mistakes, right? Pic credits: Ugur Peker, Unsplash THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT When you hear the term, what's your primary guess on that? It's something related to cosmology? Okay, it's something regarding cosmology. It's a constant? Well, again yes, it is a constant; an Albert Einstein Constant. It comes in Einstein law? Uh, what do you mean? Einstein Law? What is that? So, let's get to it. THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY What is the theory of relativity? Everything is relative to one another. There is this Special Theory of Relativity which is regarding the elementary particles and their interactions and the General Theory of Relativity which is regarding the laws of gravitation and the other forces of the universe. The postulates of the Special Theory are: 1.The laws of physic...

Hubble's Law - sounds interesting and elegant. But, then what's wrong with it? Well, that's not a law. THE HUBBLE'S LAW " All objects move from each other and the apparent relative velocity is proportional to distance . "   That is the Hubble's Law. Mathematically, Ｖ=ℍ₀ D  This  ℍ₀ is the Hubble's Constant - which is in fact, a non-constant constant. The value changes with time, and the precise value had been a matter of debate for nearly one century. Currently, as per March 2019 the Planck Mission shows the value to be 74.03±1.42% using Hubble Space Telescope observations. The Hubble's Law serves a strong evidence for the big bang theory. Don't know much about the BIG-B ? We'll post an update soon. Hubble and his Assumptions The Hubble's Law serves a basis for most of the modern cosmological concepts and views. But, even this foundational law makes many philosophical assumptions, especially on the unif...

BOROPHENE In the last update, I had mentioned about borophene, and now we are here to talk about it. Overview Borophene is the crystalline atomic monolayer of boron. It is a two-dimensional allotrope having a metallic electronic structure and conducts electricity. they have strong covalent two-centre-two-electron bonds and stable electron-deficient multi-centre-two-electron-bonds.  Synthesis *Deposition of elemental boron on a silver (Ag 111) surface under ultra-high vacuum conditions. *Or we have the technique of letting Boron diffuse into Au(111) substrates at high temperatures. It then segregates to the surface and forms borophene islands as it cools. Comparison: Graphene v/s Borophene *More light-weighted than graphene *High flexibility (or rather "record high") *Higher ideal strength than graphene *Higher stiffness to weight ratio than graphene *Superconducivity *Borophene is a better option  for Li ion battery compared to graphene....

GRAPHENE Graphene had been a matter of wonder since 2004 and research studies on its applications and potentials been vigorous since. Graphene claimed unbeatable potentials and capacities. But, now, a fellow competent has arose. With Boron much similar to Carbon, the new attention is towards Borophene, which is the two-dimensional monoatomic layer of Boron, just like Graphene for Carbon. So, before exploring Borophene, we shall now see for Graphene and its applications for energy. Overview Graphene is a two- dimensional single atomic layer of Carbon. It is a good conductor of electricity and very strong that it is planned to be used for space elevators. And the strength of Graphene is that, it is the strongest material in the world! The strength results from the power of the carbon-carbon tetravalent bonds. A good semiconductor, Graphene also stands a candidate for superconductors. Graphene for Energy An Eternal Source of Energy from Graphene Under suitab...

GALAXY TYPES Galaxies What are galaxies? Yeah, you know that. It's a system of a large number of stars -  billions and millions of stars. It also has gas and dust. These interstellar gases and dust absorb light from the stars and diminish the light reaching our eyes further along with diminishing it faces by distance. Unawareness of these absorbing gases and dust in the past had led to miscalculations of distances and locations. Okay, now focus on the topic. Galaxy types Spiral Spiral galaxies show rotation and flattening with a central bulge. Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy. This type is the most numerous among bright galaxies. Milky Way Galaxy. Image courtesy: NASA The different types of spiral galaxies are Sa, Sb, Sc... . This progression is in the decreasing order of importance of the nucleus or the central bulge wrt the surrounding disc. Milky Way is of the Sb type. Barred Spiral Some spiral galaxies have bars in their centre. they are the barred spiral...

SONOLUMINESCENCE Sonoluminescence: the phenomenon of production of light from sound; to be said the simplest. The interesting matter is that, we don’t know how! Science is searching for explanations. Okay, so let’s talk about sonoluminescence. SOME PHILOSOPHY Some hold that everything we discover these days, from the past many centuries, are but re-discoveries only. The knowledge about everything had once been acquired; but it got lost. Personally, Echo Delta as well believes in it. And, all those are not really ‘lost’, but rather is now hidden in scriptures like Mahabharata, Holy Bible, Holy Qur’an, Torah etc. So, why am I talking about this now? Genesis 1.3 of the Old Testament, Holy Bible, goes as follows: ‘Then God commanded, “Let there be light”- and light appeared.’ This command is the first command of God. And, when light was ‘created’, what He saw was water. This might imply sonoluminescence. Yes, I mean it. God produces a sound, that sound creates light: so...

Greetings! We’ll be talking about the most tiny bit of anything, here. Yeah, so what’s everything made up of? Atoms?? And what about atoms? They’re made of protons, neutrons, electrons and aaahh! Now, what about the protons and neutrons? Further they are made up of sub-atomic particles; quarks, in this case. (A/N: following the remarks that this blog’s English is ‘non-decipherable’ by many, Echo Delta shall be trying to dilute it… ‘if not for my reader, then for whom do I write.’) FERMIONS AND BOSONS Basically, what do we have around us? Matter and force. We are materials (~from matter) and so is our Earth. The Earth holds us on it by gravitation. The gravitation here is the force, obviously. Thus everything around can be seen as matter and force. Force is by means of which matters interact. What are the tiniest bits of matter and force? Yes, it’s time for the heroic entry of our protagonists! (^drum-rolls please^) the FERMIONS AND BOSONS!!! Fermions are the particles of matter, and...

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST FOR FUN! JUST FOR LAUGHS! Yeah! Hear it once more: our earth is HOLLOW!! Or at least, that's what some hollow-earthers claim it to be.  For what those who oppose it are holding is only ‘OHHH! What nonsense!’, ‘How can that ever be so?!!’ and some facts opposing some clues held up by some youtubers; sadly, nothing more scientific - except for the case they argue with seismic wave readings, which confusingly is done by the hollow earthers as well. MAIN CONTENTS The hollow earth theory: Facts The Theory: Hollow Earth Some Random Thoughts and Thoughts So.. let’s see about the Hollow Earth Theory. It started a loooong way back in history. And, maybe hence, many sites just push this aside remarking it just ‘a historical theory’. The hollow earth theory: Facts Heard about Wilhelm Reich? In brevity, Dr Reich was punished to death officially for continuing with his research! 😳 Read further details here . ...

Censored Science? JUST FOR FUN! JUST FOR LAUGHS! Heard of Wilhelm Reich? A great psychoanalyst who could heal all types of neurosis and psychological and behavioral problems. It was in the 1940s that he came up with a form of energy and its accumulator which was remarked “the most important single discovery in the history of medicine”. The Orgone Energy!! And the accumulator was more like a big capacitor and showed good results. The energy is there in the atmosphere, space and in living organisms as well. What Dr Reich observed was that the  orgone energy charge in the human biosystem was expressed in emotions and sexuality. It could be measured electrically. This man - this great man, did wonders! He made artificial rain a success! The accumulator cured illnesses! He did even more fascinating, read on. The Food and Drug Administration, U.S., burned off all the books and journals prepared by Dr Reich.All the books, notes, journals and whatever existing were destroyed...

Suppose…     ...you have two ladoos in hand. You weighed each and found one 8 and the other 12 grams. Now, you want a bigger ladoo from those two and, wuhooo!, here I am with a glowing bulb over my head and helping hands. You hand them over to me, and I crush them both and mould the crumps of both ladoos together making a bigger ladoo for you. But, as you weigh the bigger ladoo I just made, you find it to be 17 gram. 12 + 8 = ???! Haa, yes, there arises a question on the missing 3 gram! So, what yeh gonna do? Huh! Blame me?? Nah, I didn’t - I didn’t eat it. Okay, so what’s the matter? Consider these ladoos to be black holes . Yeah, I mean it. Such a case was found with black holes as well. It was found that two black holes of solar masses 36 and 29, collapsed not to form a black hole of 36 + 29 = 65 solar mass, but of 62 solar mass. The missing 3 solar mass here went into the production of gravitational waves. And, that was the birth of gravitational wa...