“Two Suns” by 2012

Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters.

-Alexander the Great

Yet another famous quote may be proven wrong. Yes…………….!!!

We may be witnessing the “Second Sun” at least temporarily for some weeks.There may also be no nights during this time frame…

Already the whole world is petrified by the prophecies on 2012. Adding further shudder to the precarious scenarios, this celestial phenomenon is coinciding with 2012.

The artistic Impressions of the phenomena is shown below.

Two Suns - 2012

The reason for this is due to the gradual death of Betelgeuse, the red super-giant, that is the second biggest star in the Orion constellation with a radius of 5.5 AU is roughly 1,180 times the radius of the Sun—a sphere so huge that it could contain over 2 quadrillion Earths (2.15 × 10¹⁵) or more than 1.6 billion (1.65 × 10⁹) Suns. That is the equivalent of Betelgeuse being a giant football coliseum like Wembley Stadium in London with the Earth a tiny pearl, 1 millimeter in diameter.

Betelgeuse by Hubble Telescope

Betelgeuse position in Orion

Death of a star means, losing its mass due to gravitational collapse. Literally the star is running out of fuel at its core, essential for shinning and being a star and end up in Supernova says Brad Carter, a senior lecturer of physics at the University of Southern Queensland.

A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic and are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months. During this short interval, a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun is expected to emit over its entire life span. The explosion expels much or all of a star’s material at a velocity of up to 30,000 km/s (10% of the speed of light), driving a shock wave, into the surrounding interstellar medium. This shock wave sweeps up an expanding shell of gas and dust called a “supernova remnant”.

When Betelgeuse becomes supernova, the explosion and luminosity created, may appear as second sun in the sky until it fades.

This Star Wars scenario could happen by 2012, or it may prolong…..But the coincidence with 2012 makes it curious.

The explosion could also cause a “neutron star” or result in the formation of a “black hole” 1300 light years from the earth.

Usually when a star becomes Supernova, even though it lights up the skies on a visible spectrum it also showers its energy in the form of tiny particles called “Neutrinos” in all directions.Eventually earth and all the living beings will be exposed to these particles, without causing any harm.In fact supernova produce elements that are critical to the life on earth. Most heavy weight elements on Periodic Table  like silver, gold and uranium are formed on earth from these supernovi.

Speculations and Prophecies:

The believers of  ”2012 Armageddon” prophecies by Mayan and Chinese Calendars, are reiterating that this could be the result of prophecy or the end of the world referred as “Apocalypse”.The word “Betelgeuse” derives from a Arabic phrase “yad Al Jauza” meaning the “hand of Al-Jauza” referring to a mysterious woman who controls the order of the universe.

Although scientists believe, this is yet another celestial happening, which is more beneficial and vital to the universe and has no connection to the Apocalypse or Armageddon.

Eventually, we are lucky to witness this celestial happening in our life times.

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”

The Universe is always a coalescence of fascination and mystery to mankind, from the medieval past to present. Its always cumbersome to even think “Where the universe ends?”. As a common man, we always put a full stop by saying that Universe is infinite. For a change, if anyone try to explore the vastness of this universe, I’m quite sure that, no one can be an atheist in this world.

Before you get bored of this usual science topic, just to get a feel of the universe, I’m projecting the distance from the earth to other planets in the solar system, by the time taken by Jet, Rocket and that of the Light ray.

Note that, to reach the center of Milky way Galaxy, where our solar system belongs to, by a ray of light (the fastest moving substance known to human) is 27,000 years. 

Wow!!! There are many Galaxies, like that of our milky way, which are not even visible by the powerful observatories built by mankind….. How to calculate the distance??????

“The entire world is looking at us”

                 said ISRO(Indian Space Research Operation) Chief G Madhavan Nair, after the successful launch of their dream project Chandrayan-1, India’s first unmanned Lunar mission, placing the country in an elite club of six moon-faring nations. 

                Lets express our hearty CONGRATULATIONS to ISRO, on their precise mission.

                This is a marvelous achievement, and a pride moment for every Indian.

                CHANDRAYAN in sanskrit means “voyage to the moon”.

                The 44.53 meter tall 4 staged launch vehicle PSLV-C11(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) swiftly ascent into the space filling the morning sky with a plume of velvety smoke tracking the projectile.

                                 The launch happened in a text book precision at 6:22 AM (IST) on 22 October 2008 at Satish Dhawan Space Centre,located in an island on Bay of Bengal,100 kms north of Chennai.

               The satellite spearheaded by the ISRO’s launch horse is weighing 1304 kg and is cuboidal in shape,carries 11 payloads, including two instruments from the American space agency, NASA, which will assess mineral resources, map the polar regions, look for ice deposits and prepare a three-dimensional atlas of the moon and prospect the lunar surface for natural resources.

Chandrayaan-1 will also look for possible uranium deposits on the moon.

               The 360-tonne PSLV-C11 has precisely achieved the objective of placing the satellite in the orbit around the earth with its nearest point being 250 km (perigee) and the farthest around 23,000 km (apogee) according to the press release from ISRO.

 

 

The satellite spacecraft will be injected into the lunar orbit on November 8th 2008,in about 15 days from now.

   The Scientific Objective  

The Chandrayaan-1 mission is aimed at high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared(NIR), low energy X-rays and high-energy X-ray regions. Specifically the objectives will be  

	To prepare a three-dimensional atlas (with a high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10m) of both near and far side of the moon.
	To conduct chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface for distribution of elements such as Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Calcium, Iron and Titanium with a spatial resolution of about 25 km and high atomic number elements such as Radon, Uranium & Thorium with a spatial resolution of about 20 km.

  Simultaneous photo geological and chemical mapping will enable identification of different geological units, which will test the early evolutionary history of the moon and help in determining the nature and stratigraphy of the lunar crust. 

 

Mission Objectives

To realise the mission goal of harnessing the science payloads, lunar craft and the launch vehicle with suitable ground support systems including DSN station.     To realise the integration and testing, launching and achieving lunar polar orbit of about 100 km, in-orbit operation of experiments, communication/ telecommand, telemetry data reception, quick look data and archival for scientific utilization by identified group of scientists.

Foot Note:

With this success, the manned mission to space and that of Mars is dream come reality for ISRO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armageddon

The place of a final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied to occur at the end of the world. – Dictionary.com

A famous blockbuster hollywood movie released on 1998, starring Bruce Willis, featuring as a deep core driller, sent to space and drill into the surface of the doomsday asteroid that was on collision course with the earth, to plant and detonate a nuclear weapon to split the asteroid into two halves. 

 

Even-though the movie depicts a high tech masala, the ideology of deflecting the course of asteroids and avoiding the catastrophical collision on the earth by using technology is still on course.  The Association of space explorers, an international group of astronomers and cosmonauts released a recent report Asteroid Threat: A call for Global Response, urging UN/International Institutions to appoint a governing body to identify the Near Earth Object(NEO) asteroids, pinpoint the exact location of the impact,predict the potential devastation, issue warnings of mass evacuation to the city or country under threat, deploy technology and devise plans to deflect the path of the asteroid,funding and assigning the job to specific space agency,point finger for accepting liabilities due to failure in technology or wrong predictions. Whether such a governing body will be formed in-spite of the political, technological and economical risks associated with this – an impossible dream or distant reality, only timeline can answer.

Figure: Asteroid Collision Illustration

The million dollar question is “What is the technology used to deflect the path of the NEOs?” – Is that same as Hollywood Drama by Bruce Willis?

The strategy for such a technology, conceived during a study carried in 2005 by Ed Lu and Stan Love, both astronauts and founders of B612 Foundation, and published in the November edition of Nature. In order to analyze the performance of Gravity Tractor, a B612 contract was issued to JPL in 2008, to conduct a formal performance analysis.A detailed report, facts and figures can be obtained from B612 foundations website

The study shows that, even a weak gravitational pull from a near by space craft is sufficient to change the orbital path of asteroid, as big as 140 meters across, the size big enough to cause a regional devastation if it hit earth. The conceptual design becoming reality in the near future is the Gravity Tractor.

Figure:Gravity Tractor

The asteroids or other foreign bodies when approaches the earth, gets attracted due to the earth’s gravitational pull and form new unstable orbital path,revolves around the earth and eventually crash on the earth’s surface.

Figure: Asteroid’s Unstable Orbital Path

In spite of  the vastness of the space, the foreign bodies were to pass through a small region of space called gravitational keyhole, which is a few hundred kilometers, so as to get pulled by earth’s gravity.

Even though the chances of a foreign body’s orbit path, fall in line with the keyhole is meagre, the use of a device like gravity tractor has to be deployed much advance in time, before the asteroid is nearing the keyhole. The gravity tractor weighing about 1 ton in weight is positioned about 155 meters away from the asteroid surface and exert a very gentle gravitational force, could alter the asteroid’s velocity by 0.22 microns/second per day. But on prolonged exposure of force on a long enough time scale, the course of the asteroid will be changed so that it is avoiding the keyhole entry and subsequent bashing on earth. The success of the gravity tractor is due to its precision of exerting the force on to the asteroid.

                              Figure: Gravity Tractor functions Illustrated

Suppose if the hypothetical orbit of the asteroid exists on a direct path to impact, then the use of gravity tractor alone cannot do the trick. Instead scientists proposed a second method called two-punch.

Initially a space craft is crashed directly to the asteroid, that would create a much change in asteroid’s orbital path, then the gravity tractor will be employed to move the asteroid away from the collision course.

Sounds interesting. The NEO threat in the nearest future may happen on a Easter Sunday, April 13, 2036, in the name of “Apophis”. The chances of Apophis hitting the earth is less than 1 in 45000. However, the Apophis will be in close encounters with earth on Friday, April 13, 2029 – 29,470 Kms from the earth, appearing to the naked eye as a moderately bright point of light moving rapidly across the sky.

 

Figure: APOPHIS Orbital Path

NOTE: NASA’s collision probability calculation of 1 in 45000, is challenged by a 13 year old German student Nico Marquardt, as 1 in 450. His assumptions indicate that, when the Apophis is nearing earth on 2029, could hit any of the 40,000 Geosynchronous satellites positioned around a band of 30,000 Kms from the earth’s surface, causing its orbital path to drift and thereby increasing the possibility of hitting the earth on April 13,2036. Although NASA denied this estimations, the fate of the earth remains a mystery until 2013, by then space observers can predict the exact path of Apophis.