Astronomy Rocks

The Beatles

2009-10-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

Firstly I do apologise for the gross length of time since I last published anything, way over a month!

Anyway apologises aside today I am going to write about John, Paul, George and Ringo or the fab four if you prefer. Yes I’m going to be writing about the Beatles! Now to be honest I don’t really need to provide any kind of introduction to the Beatles and their work, pretty much everyone has heard or listened to their songs. Also I think it would be appropriate to write a blog post about them at this time than at any other, because as I’m sure most of you are aware 2009 is the 40th anniversary of the Beatles final studio album Abbey road. That is the one with them walking across the Zebra crossing.
Now you may be surprised to read that I wasn’t even born at the time when the Beatles were actually an album producing group, however my Father was and he as a wide collection of Beatles albums, Both Vinyl and CD. So as a child I heard a lot of Beatles music, which I think influenced my musical tastes and musical style as I became a teenager and started to play guitar.
Enough personal yarns, to be honest many may regard the Beatles as way too overrated. And they may be right as the Beatle mania of the sixties was a little bizarre, however not many would say the songs themselves and the music was overrated. For a start the Beatles albums virtually defined the sixties musically and, the Beatles most famous album Sgt Pepper’s lonely Hearts club band is arguably the best Pop/rock n roll album of the entire decade.
Now as I mentioned this year is the 40th anniversary of Abbey road so to celebrate the BBC as put on loads of Beatles documentaries and a couple of the bands films. Which not to be cruel aren’t brilliant. Also all the albums have been rereleased and digitally remarstered, which is nice to see. One final thing before I go which is your favourite Beatle (a bit of a cliché question I do admit).

PS I will try to make my next post a bit sooner than the last one

kyle

Spotify - the soloution to downloads

2009-09-06T04:52:00.000-07:00

Hi

Well I’m back after my holiday, which was great. Anyway to the point, there is a problem with modern music. Or rather there is a problem with the modern music business.
Before that though let’s go back to a time when things were a lot simpler, the year is 1886 and the place is Berne Switzerland. This is the day when the convention for the protection of literary and artistic works takes place. At this convention the copyright was born! To skip all the dull copyright law, the convention basically decided that anyone who created some new book or piece of music had the legal rights to their own creation. Or rather if they put that little symbol there name and the year on their piece, from then on they had the legal right to how it was copied. Meaning if it was reproduced they had to receive some sort of payment.
So after this convention most countries agreed to the terms and signed up to it happily. Interestingly America however only agreed to the convention in 1988! From then up to near the modern day everyone seemed happy. Records, tapes and CD’s were produced and the bands or artists got their money as per copyright. Books were published and the authors got payment.
However now we have arrived at the modern day and the problems have started. With the advent of MP3’s and the internet along with modern technology, anything can be put on the internet and the copyright law is becoming difficult to enforce. This is making the record companies jolly angry as they fear that people who can get something for free will never pay for it.
Of course to force people to pay for what they listen to or download, governments are branding people thieves and dishing out extreme punishments. The thing is though there is quite a difference between the types of thieves. On one hand there are the people who are downloading an album and burning it onto CD with the intent of selling it to make a profit. And I agree these people are committing a crime. However on the other hand there are the people who are downloading the one song or album for personal use, simply because they cannot afford to buy it at a legitimate outlet. Now these people are not the same as the people who mass download with the intent to sell. As one they are not making a profit. And two once they have downloaded there one song they will probably feel a sense of wrong doing themselves and when they have the money buy the album from a legitimate outlet. Now those two aren’t the same thing. One is criminally wrong the other is at worst ethically wrong.
Personally I don’t illegally download and never have, so I don’t have a two side’s stand point. I do however understand that the artists deserve to get payed and that there fans should be able to listen to their music. Happily for once both sides seem to be able to get their wish, new internet programs such as spotify are allowing people to listen to their favourite band perfectly legally on their computer. While still giving the band or artist a suitable payment due to the advertising that is shown on the spotify website. Unsurprisingly Spotify and others like it are becoming a huge success. So hopefully in the feature the consumer and the record label should be able to reach a happy medium. And they will be no need to brand ordinary music fans as thieves. Also it will make the real criminals easier to catch.

And best of all they might at last remove that stupid advert from every single DVD!

Kyle

Impact on Jupiter

2009-07-23T03:04:00.001-07:00

Breaking Astronomical news, the above picture is the latest image of an impact on Jupiter. As yet it is I think unclear whether it was a comet or asteroid that caused the impact. Although comets striking Jupiter have occurred before, just over fifteen years ago a comet named shoe-maker Levi 9 came too close Jupiter. Jupiter’s colossal gravitational pull tore the comet into several small chunks. Each one then over the course of 24 hours plummeted into the Jovian clouds. Although the Comet fragments were completely obliterated in the atmosphere, they did leave dark markings (Scars of the impact). Similar to the dark mark you can see above. Incidentally each of these dark markings caused by the shoemaker impact was the size of the Earth. Which is another reason why we should all be thankful of Jupiter’s presence, because if it wasn’t there that comet could quite possible have hit the Earth! Causing Apocalyptic damage.
15 years later it seems another piece of space debris as hit the king of the planets. This impact occurred in Jupiter’s South Polar Region, which rather confusingly in this image taken by an Amateur in Australia, appears to be where the North Pole would be. I’m not an expert on optics but this is I am told is due to the mirror in the telescope which flips the image so it appears upside down. Or the correct way if you are a sleeping bat.

Anyway as more information on this impact unfolds it tells us one thing, the solar system is constantly evolving and constantly active!

Kyle

July 20th

2009-07-21T04:45:00.001-07:00

Hi

I again apologise for the gap in time since my last post, but I was as usual busy with something else. Anyway yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and seeing as that was so widely published I am not going to bother writing about that. Instead I am going to write about lesser known anniversary that took place on that same day.
July 20th was the 60th anniversary of the July 20th plot, where Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler. It is the one that was recently made into a film starring Tom Cruise. The plot was orchestrated by the German Resistance, who planned to overthrow the Nazi regime. To do this they intended to remove Hitler and claim the SS where staging a coup. Therefore initiating operation Valkyrie, which would arrest all the other head Nazi’s (Himmler).Finally if all this was successful the resistance would install a democratic government and call for a truce with the allies. Of course the plot failed. And in the subsequent days and weeks hundreds of conspirators were rounded up and brutally executed.
Before the July 20th plot there had been innumerable plots to assassinate Hitler, all failed for different reasons. Either Hitler didn’t show up at the predicted area, or a fuse for a bomb was unsuccessful. One of the most recent plots before July 20th was lead by a Prussian general named Henning von Tresckow. Secretly he slipped a bottle of liqueur on to a plane with Hitler, timing the fuse so it would detonate in flight. Again this plot failed, due to the high altitude the fuse was delayed and Hitler cheated death once more. It appeared to many that Hitler had the luck of the devil.
By this time 1944 ish Germany was certain to lose the war; the Red army was advancing as was the British and American forces after D day. So you may ask why the resistance didn’t wait for the allies to kill Hitler for them. The answer to this is simple the people who rallied around Stauffenberg, were high ranking members of the army. Who followed there conscience rather than orders and they all knew that every single day literally thousands of people were dying. Most of which were innocent civilians murdered in the Nazi death camps. And they simply and rightly agreed this must end.
So they put in motion what would become the July 20th plot. However before they could put it under way they needed to get General Fromm on side. Fromm was leader of the reserve army and, without him Operation Valkyrie could not be initiated. Eventually the resistance got Fromm on side by promising him a better position in the new leadership.
So on July 20th Stauffenberg and an assistant named Von Haeften set off to the wolf’s lair carrying two bombs in their brief cases, ready to be armed before the meeting.
Just before the meeting started Stauffenberg and Haeften attempted to arm the bombs. However an interruption forced Haeften to leave, giving Stauffenberg only one bomb. Also due to an allied bombing attack a couple of years earlier Stauffenberg was left permanently disabled. He lost one hand, three fingers from the remaining hand and his right eye. Even with these injuries Stauffenberg armed the bomb and headed from the meeting.
Stauffenberg remained confident that one bomb would do the job, as the bunker most meeting was held in was solid concrete, thus magnifying the blast. However due to the heat the meeting was moved to a wooden conference hut, which unfortunately had many windows. Too late to back out Stauffenberg positioned the bomb as close to Hitler as possible, Leaving under the guise of taking a phone call. Minutes later the blast rocked the hut.
Stauffenberg was unsure as to whether Hitler was dead, but seeing as he had to leave immediately he trusted the bomb had succeeded. Meanwhile in Berlin Fromm had failed to initiate Valkyrie, so another General Friedrich Olbricht initiated the order in his name.
So when Stauffenberg everything was in place and the reserve army began to round up all SS officials. However Back at the wolf’s lair Hitler had survived! Sustaining no major wounds. To the right is the destroyed conference hut.
Unaware of this Stauffenberg continued as per operation Valkyrie.
Eventually however in the late hours of July 20th the news of Hitler’s survival was known. And the reserve army was called to arrest the conspirators.
In an attempt to prove loyalty to Hitler, Fromm convened a quick court marshal and immediately sentenced Stauffenberg, Olbricht and Haeften to death. They were shot by firing squad in the early hours of July 21st outside their own office at the war ministry. Stauffenberg’s last words were “Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!" ("Long live our sacred Germany!")

The July 20th plot was the last major attempt to kill Hitler, 9 months later with Berlin surrounded Hitler shot himself. Doing what hundreds of attempts could not. Stauffenberg and his conspirators are memorialised in the Bendler block. The place of there execution.

As I mentioned recently this story as been made into a film staring Tom Cruise, I recomend you to watch it as it is very good.

Kyle

40 years since Stonewall

2009-07-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

I am writing two posts in one day, as I have just remembered that today is the day of loads of pride events. The biggest being London pride and is close to the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
As you may have seen I am a supporter of Stonewall and everything it does in it's campaign for equality and equal rights. However I'm not sure everyone knows how it got it's name. Or if you do I won't have anything to write about so put up with me. Please...
Well stonewall is named after a rioting event that took place in and around the Stonewall inn in 1969. Where the police raided the stonewall in in the early hours of that morning and, then later on in the evening the community who went there fought back against the police. This moment is widely believed to be the start of the gay rights equality movement.
Before this really from 1945 onwards, members of the LGBT community were subject to wide spread intolerance and unacceptance from many. Homosexuality at this time was still officially classified as a mental illness! Which many still believed could be cured. Although the “cures” were often brutal forms of punishment that bordered on torture. Meanwhile in England things were not much different, Alan Turing who I mentioned in an earlier post was subject to a supposed “cure”.
Anyway back in 1969 the stonewall inn was a small-ish gay bar in New York city. Where LGBT men and women could congregate. However on 28th June 1969 the police decided to raid the building.
So in the early hours of the mourning the NYPD raided the building and forced all the people outside on to the street. The police were instructed to arrest any men dressed as women on sight. And take them down the local station. When the police van varied a crowd of people had swelled outside the stonewall. Who then proceeded to throw beer cans and coins at the police van. This quickly turned into wide spread hostility from the crowd. Which the police repaid with violence as they attempted to disperse the protesters.
By 4.00 in the morning most of the streets had been cleared. 13 people were arrested, several hospitalized and a few police officers were injured. Also the inside of the Stonewall inn was left completely smashed.
In the aftermath of the Stonewall riots local activists set up a paper titled “Gay” , a title they deemed necessary after most publications refused to print the word Gay in there papers. Later in 1970 to mark the one year anniversary of the riots, a Gay pride march took place covering the 51 blocks to Central Park. Then in 1971 similar pride marches took place across the USA and in London.
After this the Stonewall charity was set up, with an English version as well that still campaigns for equality.
Of course there is still a long way to go before everyone Gay,straight, black, white, of any faith or creed is accepted but thanks to the work of people like Stonewall and countless others we are at least one step closer.

Incidentally today is the London and I think Derby pride day!

Kyle

Computer part 3

2009-06-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

Again sorry about the quite large gap in time since the last part of this blog story thing. So in the concluding part I am going to go through the history of “Modern computing” and, the apple mania that as swept the land.

At the start of the sixties IMB was the largest company in the world, and virtually the only computer company. Which is quite amusing considering some IBM executive once said “I predict the world will eventually need 5 computers.” They thought at this time that maybe NASA or the USA gov would have one and that was about it. The idea that even ordinary families would have a computer wasn't really taken seriously.
Until about 1976 when two computer scientists named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, built and sold a small computer out of a garage in California. That they named Apple. And it was a reasonable success, showing there was a genuine demand for a computer of the people. IBM thought this was pretty absurd, but still needed to put a competitor of some description out to challenge Apple.
So in 1981 the IBM PC came out. And to be honest by modern standards it was pretty dreadful. There was no mouse just a keyboard, so you couldn't click anything as there was nothing to click. So if you wanted to see any file, you had to type in it's ridiculously long name into the command line operating system. And then you couldn't start moving files without hours of typing away. But besides these massive faults it still sold in the millions and IBM remained the big computerised cheese.
Enter now some groovy Californians who saw the future. These Californians worked for a photo copying company perhaps the most famous the Xerox corporation. Who had a research centre called the Palo Alto research centre in California. There they postulated the idea (that they couldn't build) of what we would call the modern desktop. In this idea the screen was a big box with these weird things called “Icons” that things called “mice” clicked on. And when you clicked on this Icon with your mouse you would be inside another box. You could have pictures, music and even video. At the time that this was being thought up mid to late eighties this seemed like a impossible dream. That many dismissed as mad, in England around this time type writers were still in use!
However Apple thought they could build it and in the year of 1984 Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs brought out the Apple Macintosh computer. It was everything these people at Xerox had dreamed of, it was the desktop that knocked the clunky command line for six. It was a literal overnight success being bought by the famous Hitchhikers guide Douglas Adams. Understandably IBM was worried and needed to bring out another competing product. However instead of creating another command line system, they got a unknown called Bill gates, who owned a obscure company called Microsoft to set the software for them. While they continued to make the box it went in. So Bill and his team got to work by buying out right a operating system, and then changing it slightly before giving it to IBM. After this Mr Gates went to all the other computer makers and got the rights to putting his software in there machines. The resulting computers were called IBM compatibles. At this point IBM was surmounted as the biggest computer company by Microsoft as they had the rights to the important software systems, meanwhile Apple struggled on against Microsoft and Mr Gates.
I am now going to miss a brief period where Steve Jobs left Apple and return to the story as he too returned to Apple.
In 1996 Steve Jobs came back to Apple after his new company NEXT was merged with his original company Apple. Shortly after his return Apple developed a new operating system 0S X. In the years leading up to the millennium and beyond it is not hard to see that Apple as taken over with it's ever inventive ideas . They have of course brought out the train of ipods and itunes store and the more recent iphone. But perhaps the most famous Apple product from this era is the original imac in it's famous “Bondi blue”. Which was developed with help from a one Johnny Ive from Britain. Among the many features that made this Computer significant, was that it used the standard USB ports that all computers now use. As seen to the right
So that is I think pretty much the history of the computer to about today. I apologise if I have omitted anything.

Thanks for reading

Kyle

Computer part 2

2009-06-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is part two of the history of the computer mini blog series. In part one I told the story of Charles Babbage and his difference engine. And how it was never finished in Babbage's lifetime. In this part I am going to tell the story of the WW2 code breakers, Alan Turing and the Colossus computer.
First let's paint the picture from after Babbage's death to the out break of WW2. Well there really isn't much to tell computer speaking. After Babbage's death the difference engine was shelved and, the men with pencils were back in a job. The at the start of the 20th Century WW1 started, at this point there was a chance for Babbage's computer if finished to change the world. The Difference engine was more than a simple pocket calculator, it could do ballistic calculations. Namely the trajectory of shells. This meant WW1 could have been brought to a swifter end, because with accurate shells it would be more likely for the shell to hit the target. Of course this would mean more people would be killed which obviously is not good, but you cannot deny a difference engine computer would have helped end the war. After this Germany was defeated and the treaty of Versailles was brought in. Which ultimately led to the rise of Hitler and the subsequent second world war.
So the year is 1941 Europe is under the Nazi jack boot, and it is the hight of the blitz. England is being bombed nightly. And worst of all vital supply ships are being preyed upon by U boats. The problem is the Germans have secrecy on there side, the U boats use a secret code called the Lorenz cipher under which they would spread orders. What was needed was a way for the British to be able to crack this code, so they could head the U boats off and secure allied shipping.
To achieve this more men with pencils were brought in, these men however were the brightest maths brains from the great universities Oxford, Cambridge and Hull (maybe not Hull). One of this number was a very gifted mathematician called Alan Turing.
Turing was put to work in Hut 8 of Bletchley park, code breaker central. Hear Turing found himself working with some of his old friends and Professors form university. Together they began to work to crack the lorenz cipher. However again there was a problem, like most things done by Humans they weren't fast enough. So complex were these codes that by the time one was cracked it was already redundant. Turing and others realised a better system was needed.
Enter at this point a man from a postal sorting office called Tommy Flowers who saw the future.
Flowers realised that a code was simply a mathematical problem, and that a digital computer which essential just does maths very quickly could crack a code in half the time of a Human. To build this computer Flowers turned to Turing and, together they began to design the workings of the first programmable digital computer. Before Turing and Flowers could build the computer dubbed “Colossus”, they had to pitch the concept to the army top brass. When Flowers predicted the computer would be finished in about a year, the army dismissed the project claiming “The war will probably be over by the time it was finished.”
Fortunately for the free world Flowers knew the war wouldn't be other in a year and, built his computer regardless. Flowers even went so far as to spend £1000 of his own money to ensure it was completed on time. When Colossus was finally finished in 1942/3 the war wasn't other and a faster way of cracking codes was desperately needed.
Thankfully Colossus worked brilliantly and could crack the German high command codes in sometimes less than an hour! The army top brass was so impressed they immediately ordered 10. With Colossus shipping was safe once more and, Britain along with the rest of the allies were given the momentum to ultimately win the war. To the right is an image of a working Colossus.
After WW2 the story of Colossus and it's inventors is much less happy. Bound by the secrecy act Colossus was dismantled and, packed off to some storage facility somewhere never to be used again. Even though it was still in working order. Tommy Flowers was given a small reward from the country for his War work, it was barely enough to cover the money he personally invested. After this Flowers was largely forgotten, a shame for such a innovative man Turing also had a sad future. In 1952 he was charged of Homosexuality which at the time was still classified as a mental illness! He was then found guilty of section 11 of the criminal amendment act, incidentally the same charge the brilliant Oscar Wilde was convicted of more than 50 years earlier. His punishment amounted to a chemical castration! Turing died in 1954 a suicide attempt involving cyanide.
Another tragic end for another brilliant man.
After this Britain's involvement in major computer events subsided and, from then on major advances came from America.
In the next part I am going to go form the sixties to the present day, with the modern Apple phenomena.

Thanks again for reading.

Kyle

Computer part 1

2009-06-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

As a month ago I wrote a post on the Internet and it's inventor the great Tim Berners-Lee, this post is going to be a follow on. With the invention that goes hand in hand with the internet. The Computer.
Love them or loath them Computers are hear to stay and, are as far as I am aware one of the fastest evolving inventions on the planet. But there history is a long and varied one. From there routes in Victorian England, to the military code breakers of WW2. And finally to the present day with the laptop on your desk that can give you at will pretty much anything you want. So here is admittedly a condensed history of the computer.
In the Hey day of the British empire the Victorian superpower ran not on tea but on calculations. Calculations determined everything from the course of ships bound for America, to the quantities needed for factories. So to solve this mountain of calculations computers were brought in. Although they weren't computers as in a calculator, but were in fact men with pencils who would labour ceaselessly to get all these crucial calculations done. However as with everything done by humans there were mistakes, these mistakes meant ships missed port or incorrect quantities were sent to factories. So a more accurate solution was required.
Enter another Brit (I'm not patriotic) called Charles Babbage. Babbage was a well respected mathematician and philosopher, who in his prime rubbed shoulders with the gliteratie of Victorian society. Among other things Babbage worked on the probability of biblical miracles, calculating the probability of being raised from the dead. Don't ask why. He also requested to be lowered into mount Vesuvius as he wanted to know how hot lava was. In essence Babbage was the definition of a Victorian genius and polymath.
In 1882 Babbage turned his attention to the problem of the computer (Men with pencil) and, decided that a mechanical system would yield the correct answer to any equation. And unlike a human thought could not be twisted or misinterpreted. Babbage named his new mechanical computer the not especially brilliant Difference engine and set to work. Although Babbage did not have the resources to build the complete difference engine he could build a small section of it, even incomplete many of the engineers of the Victorian powerhouse could see it's potential, subsequently Babbage received a grant of the government to get to work on the full sized version.
Sadly Babbage never completed his difference engine the money dried up and so did the support. Even those who had previously supported him began to heckle the chancellor of the time said “If the difference engine was ever completed, it should be made to calculate it's own usefulness.” Babbage died in October 1871, so unpopular was he at the time that nobody went to his funeral!
The difference engine was shelved and forgotten about, until to mark the bi centenary of his death, the difference engine was finally completed by the British science museum. And guess what it did work just as Babbage predicted. To right is a image of the completed difference engine. Although compared with modern computers the difference engine is no more than a pocket calculator (although much larger). This machine can do the calculations that the men with pencils spent there lives doing, with barely any exertion what so ever. Which leads me to think that if the difference engine had of been completed in the 1880's the world today would be very different.
So I am going to leave this section of the computer's history there with the great Charles Babbage. In the next part I intend to go from the WW2 code breakers to the present day.

Thanks for reading

Kyle

Guitar

2009-06-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post. As somebody asked me to post a pic of my Guitar on Twitter, this is another of my Acoustic on this blog.

Kyle

Messenger and Mercury

2009-05-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago the NASA Space probe Messenger made another fly-by of its target planet Mercury. Messenger is the only mission after the Mariner probe in the late seventies to visit Mercury. However Messenger is different. It is designed to go into orbit around Mercury, and run a complete mapping of the planet. Whereas the Mariner probe simply flew past taking some quick snaps as it went. The mapping aspect of Messenger’s mission should begin in 2011, but until then Messenger must make several fly-bys of Mercury, so it will be capable of getting into the correct orbit. And it is one of these build up fly-bys that happened a couple of months ago. During this Fly-by Messenger revealed previously unseen parts of the Mercury surface and, made a few surprised discoveries. But first here is a brief run down of are present knowledge of Mercury.
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun that much is certain. There was a brief stint in the early 20th Century, when people believed there was a planet closer in called Vulcan, but that that was later disproved. Mercury is officially the closest planet to the Sun.
Mercury is also known to be very very hot, with the dayside of the planet reaching temperature as high as 167 Degrees Celsius. Mercury as no atmosphere to speak of, except a very tenuous cloud of trace gases known as an exosphere. The exosphere contains trace amounts of elements such as Calcium, Oxygen and Potassium. Know doubt the remains of countless Comet impacts billions of years ago. Added to this there is a large amount of Hydrogen and Solar particles, certainly the by products of the constant stream of Solar wind hitting the planet.
The surface of Mercury is best described as ancient, with no current geological activity occurring today. Dead in other words .The main surface feature seen is impact craters. Most billions of years old, caused by the impact of Asteroids and Comets at the end of the late heavy bombardment, (Final stage of main solar system formation). And it is one of these impact craters that holds the title of largest crater in the solar system. It is called the Caloris Basin and has as a diameter of over 1500Km! So large was this impact that it forced up the surrounding are to form a mountain range 2 Km high. Other crater features on Mercury are called chain cratering. Chain cratering is formed when a planets gravity rips apart an object say an Asteroid or comet, and the subsequent fragments impact the planet or it's moon, like a chain of bullets from a machine gun. As seen right. This is seen on many planets and moons including mars and Jupiter's moon Calisto.
Mercury is very special terrestrial planet, because besides Earth it is the only other with a magnetic field. The magnetic field is small at only 1.1% that of the earth's, but even that is too much as Mercury is predicted to be completely solid. And therefore incapable of having a molten magnetic field generating core, like the earth.
It is at this point that we return to messenger, after messenger made it's fly-by scientists analysing the data made tantalising discoveries, that may challenge are knowledge of Mercury. And perhaps more intriguingly pose new questions. Messenger imaged previously unseen parts of Mercury with it's cameras and sensors and, found near the poles and around other deep craters large amounts of Water present in the exosphere. Now this was completely unexpected. And scientists now believe this might mean that at the bottom of these craters, some of which are in permanent darkness there might be water ice mixed in with the soil. Not a ice cap worth but more than a trace! This Ice may have arrived from impacting comets, the like of which created the Caloris Basin. As well as this Messenger provided visual evidence on the previously unseen far side of Mercury, of supposed volcanic activity! Which may indicate recent geological activity and, perhaps a still molten core which could finally put to the rest the source of the unexplained magnetic field.
Of course Messenger is an on going mission and it's discoveries are far from over, so if your interested check out there homepage below. I'm sure however that after Messenger is finished Mercury might prove to be not so dead after all!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/

Kyle

Voyage of Discovery

2009-05-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

The Voyager space craft need know introduction. These twin 700Kg probes were the first ever to visit all four gas giants and, are as of 2009 the most distant Human objects ever built. They are currently at a distance of 10.095 Billion miles from the Sun, on the very edge of the Solar System itself. Approaching the Heliopause and interstellar space. The Heliopause is the region marked out by the solar wind, and is essentially a bubble encompassing the solar system. Of course the History of the Voyager probes is a long and illustrious one.
Launched in 1977 the voyager probes were heading for the outer planets thanks to Newtonian mechanics. It had been calculated that a space probe with conventional rocket fuel could go no further than Jupiter. So a new method was needed if Voyager stood any chance of getting to the furthest reaches of the Solar System. Enter Gravity assist. Gravity assist is a convenient way of getting between planets with out the need for massive fuel stores. It works something like this, if you fly past a planet e.g. Jupiter at the correct angle the planets gravity takes the space robe and, shoots it off in a different direction with an increased burst of speed. Also conveniently at the time of the voyager launch in the seventies, all four gas giants were in a rare 150 year planetary alignment. Which meant that by using gravity assist if the space craft got the correct trajectory as it left each planet, it would be shot of for an encounter with the next planet out and so on.
So with a viable way to get to the outer planets voyager was off!
Voyager 1 reached it's first Gas giant target of Jupiter in march 1979. 2 years after launch. Voyager's closest approach was at a distance of 217,000 miles. Voyagers pass revealed incredible detail about Jupiter it's moons and atmosphere. Among many discoveries Voyager imaged very faint rings around Jupiter. Imaged with unparalleled detail the atmosphere of Jupiter. And perhaps most importantly showed that the four galleon satellites were far from dull! Io was shown to be more active than Earth with many sulphurous volcanoes. And Europa was discovered to have a entire water ice covering, which perhaps covers a warm liquid water ocean! which maybe could have black smokers (volcanic vents), that provide home to microbial life! A lot of speculation there but it's not completely impossible. After the huge success of the first fly by the stage was set for Saturn.
The gravity assist with Jupiter was successful and in February of 1980. 3years after launch Voyager arrived at Saturn. This time Voyagers closest approach was from 77,000 miles. At this distance Voyager unveiled complex structures in Saturn's expansive rings, analysed the Saturnian atmosphere. And again showed that Saturn's moons were surprisingly active. Titan was unique in that it was proved to be the only moon with an atmosphere. And Enceladus had Ice geysers ,that were and still are so prolific they contribute to the ring system around Saturn!
The next fly by was with the planet Uranus (No puns!). Voyager passed Uranus in January 1986, at a distance of 81,000 km. Sadly Uranus was fairly bland and there was little to see in it's Methane clouds. This was a major disappointment for the mission scientists. But Neptune was still to go.
The Final planet in Voyagers mission was Neptune, which was passed in August 1989. Nearly 20 years after the original launch. In contrast to Uranus Neptune was much more interesting. Like Jupiter Neptune was discovered to have a great dark spot and, the fastest winds in the solar system clocked at nearly 1000 mph! Also Neptune's largest moon Triton was imaged with Nitrogen geysers miles high! Such was the frigid temp of this moon, that Nitrogen which makes up the gas of are atmosphere on Earth is frozen solid ice.
Voyager now passed all the planets and with no possibility of reaching Pluto drifted of into interstellar space. It's last image of the solar system was a sort of “Family portrait” ( to right)taken in 1990, with all the planets visible and Earth less than a pixel across!
So that was a brief history of the Voyager probes and there amazing journey to the very edge of the Solar system. The voyager probes now at the very limits of communication with earth, will continue to drift into the void of interstellar space in silence. And in roughly a few million years it is believed they will pass some of the nearest stars!
Thanks for reading.

Kyle

Greatest living Britain?

2009-05-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well as the title indicates is this the greatest living Englishman. Note I didn't put is this the greatest Englishmen ever, because if I did we almost certainly be lost in a sea of Titans such as Brunel, Babbage, Shakespeare or Queen Victoria. But anyway back to the original point is this the greatest living Britain? Of course I dare say some people may never have even see this guy before and think “Who!”. So to anyone who doesn't know this is the face of Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist, credited with the invention of the World Wide Web or internet!
Briefly I will tell some of the story of how he came to invent the web and change the world. Before then returning to to the original question.
So in the early eighties the scientists at the Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN for short), which is now home to the large Hadron Collider. Were faced with a big problem, all the scientists working on different aspects of physics or Quantum mechanics, had know way of posting there findings and keeping each other up to date. So such was the rapid progress of there field. So to solve this issue they brought in a British computer scientist, a one Tim Burners-Lee. So Tim took a NEXT computer to Switzerland (headquarters of CERN) to sort out the problem. The NEXT computer for anyone interested was developed by Steve Jobs of apple fame and, ran a UNIX-based operating system. That last bit was a little beyond me, as I am quite computer literate yet when it comes to the overly technical side am a bit useless!
So let's return back to Burners-Lee. Now while in Switzerland Tim devised a brilliant way of allowing all the separate scientists machines to talk to each other, and share information without actually being physically connected. In a sort of digital web. To do this he created a “Language” all the machines could understand, called Hyper text transference protocol or HTTP for short. After that he created the first web server that could take all these HTTP files from the varying scientists and, have them stored and then brought up at will by another scientist somewhere else. He called this web server after much deliberating the World Wide Web or WWW. The WWW Became the first ever web browser and in a way the first ever website. Capable of bringing up text from all over the CERN sight and then allowing it to be read by any other CERN scientist somewhere else. Problem solved!
Of course I'm sure you don't need me to tell the rest of the story. Of how the WWW spread from CERN and know connects the Human race like never before.
So I have at least told you how Burners-Lee created the web and how it spread out to the rest of the world. But back to the original question is he the greatest living Britain? Well he sure as hell has my vote! Put it this way I can't think of anyone in living memory who has so changed the way Humans live , for instance without him I wouldn't be typing this now and you wouldn't be reading it! The Internet as allowed us to do things unthinkable a mere century ago. For instance from my desk I can check the stocks in Tokyo, or send information to a colleague in New York without even having to so much as move. The internet as quite literally changed everything!
I personally believe Tim should be much more widely know than he is and should receive WAY more recognition than he does.
So Tim Burners-Lee greatest living Britain? YES

Kyle

Missing link?

2009-05-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

I am sorry again for the gap in time since my last post, but I have been quite busy. But thankfully I am now on holiday for a couple of days, so I may be able to produce a few more posts.

Anyway with that apolgetic note out of the way back to the subject of this post.
As I'm sure you may have seen on the news or read in the papers, palaeontologists believe they have at last found the fabled missing link! The missing link in case you don't know is the common ancestor that both apes and humans share. It is the species where Humans and Apes slit from each other and went down there different evolutionary paths, leading to the present day. The missing link is significant because it is final indisputable proof that Charles Darwin's theory of Evolution is correct and, that man did indeed evolve from apes!
But could the fossil above be it?
Of course the media have naturally over blown this story and, of course as far as there concerned THIS IS DEFFINELTY THE MISSING LINK! But really.
The fossil is a 47 million year old primate, discovered in Messel Germany. Officially known as Darwinius masillae, it is the fossil of a Lemur like creature called Ida shows. The fossil has surprisingly Human features. It has opposable thumbs and fingernails instead of the normal primate claws. Scientists also say the cat sized mammals hind legs offer evolutionary evidence that shows how primates adapted to walk on there hind legs, the breakthrough that will finally vindicate Darwin's theory of evolution.
Sadly I am not a palaeontologist and therefore am not very familiar with this branch of science, so I'm sorry that I was unable to provide you with more information. But if your interested a documentary will be airing on the History channel this week, which I for one will be watching.
One thing is certain however there is bound to be a lot more news time given over to this area of science, which obviously must be good.
I'm not sure what my next blog post will be on but I am aiming for something Astronomical

Kyle

Twitter followers

2009-05-04T02:06:00.000-07:00

Just briefly sometime between last night and today I passed the hundred follower mark!

So thankyou to all my followers and to anybody who has read by blog.

Kyle

One life

2009-05-03T13:35:00.001-07:00

Hi
I am going for a nice and cheery subject today. Death! Now please feel free to not to bother to read this, as I am sure the last thing you want is to be depressed by a guy who just likes to ask awkward questions. Hey it's compulsory for Astronomers/scientists to ask awkward questions, in fact it should be compulsory for everyone to ask awkward questions. Life would be much more interesting!
So back to the topic of the day. Death is a idea that as plagued mankind for eternity, raising such irritating questions as What happens when we die? Or even more irritatingly is there a Heaven? Of course philosophers have grappled with such conundrums for quite a while, so I doubt I will help proceedings. But anyway let's have a go.
Of course as a scientist and a person who regards himself as fiercely logical. Nothing happens when we die. Your organs stop and your mind shuts down like the windows (or mac if you prefer) computer and, your finished. Well not quite your kind of recycled by the universe and your atoms are reused, but overall the Human is finished. And the next question Is there a Heaven/life after death? Well again this one is continuously debated by theologians the world over, so my humble opinion pales into insignificance. But I personally believe that there is no life after death. I simply can't see why there would be some special reward or punishment for one insignificant species, on a insignificant plant in the depths of a typical Galaxy. Of course I might be completely wrong! And of course you are perfectly entitled to disagree with me, in addition to this don't assume I am against any religion. I have the up most respect for all religions and people in them.
Briefly I will side track to a little story about this subject. Somebody asked me “If you don't believe in life after death aren't you scared” To which I answer no. I only have a brief blip on this planet and subsequently believe that I should enjoy every second. And try to be constructive with my blip of seventy or so years. And if there is or isn't something there what's the point in worrying about it, as either way you only depress yourself.
Oddly I have just thought of something while listening to the John Lennon song Imagine. If there was proof that there was no beyond (Heaven/Hell), this could be quite good for mankind. Bear with me. If we realised that we had only one life and, that was it. Human behaviour would almost certainly change, there would probably be no more wars or senseless violence. As I hope mankind would consider it unacceptable to end another persons brief stay in this amazingly remarkable world. And as well as this people might finally be able to put aside their petty differences, entering into equality and peace. As life quite literately is too short!
Wow I have amazed myself by managing to end a miserable subject on something reasonably nice.
Thanks for reading and, more Astronomy based blogs will be coming soon.

Kyle

Sky at night tribute

2009-05-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

It has been a reasonably long length of time since my last post, so here is a new one for anybody interested. The Sky at night is to anybody interested in Astronomy a crucial part of it's fabric. So here is a brief tribute to the Sky at night TV show.
Just briefly I will give the programs history. The Sky at night started in the Summer of 1957, months before the first ever satellite Sputnik went up. So the program is in fact older than the space age. Over it's 50 year run the sky at night as covered many famous astronomical events, from the first satellite,to the first man on the moon, the launch of Hubble and the rather disappointing total solar eclipse from England. Added to this the entire 50 years as been presented by one man. The world famous Sir Patrick Moore.
Now over this time The sky at night as had many notable guests. From Carl Sagan to Fred Hoyle of steady state theory fame. Added to this there have been some recent regulars, including Dr Brian May (From Queen). And more recently Chris Lintott, who started to assist Patrick Moore in presenting as his mobility deteriorated. Just to shamelessly name drop again I am very pleased to have met Chris Lintott and, hear a talk he gave last year.
As part of the shows appeal is it's content, which due to Astronomies always progressing nature as never stagnated. As well as covering the new events in Astronomy such as space probe launches and, new scientific discoveries the Sky at night as covered the more theory based aspects of the subject. Such as Special/General Relativity,the Big Bang and Cosmic microwave background (CMB).
The Sky at night as also influenced many young people to get into Astronomy. Me for a start I used to watch it as a kid and, found it fascinating! And that is what I think is part of it's appeal. Patrick's endless enthusiasm/knowledge of the subject coupled with the amazingness (not a word but never mind) of the subject. Certainly have and will continue to make The Sky at night a huge success!
So that is my brief tribute to the Sky at night.

Kyle

Moab is my washpot

2009-04-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

I promised myself I would write a post on this book, after I finished reading it. But what with one thing or another I finished reading it about a month ago! So anyway a bit late but here is a review on Stephen Fry's autobiography. Moab is my washpot.

Of course Stephen is well known to most people in England. Famous for his part in Blackadder, Double act with Hugh Laurie and Qi tv series. However I don't think many people knew much about his youth untill this book came out.

So for the benifit of anyone who hasn't read it I will give a brief overview. That hopefully dosen't leave no reason to read the book. The book tells the story of the first 20 years of Stephen's life. As he goes through several schools,drifts the country and eventually gets arrested for credit card fraud (or whatever the crime is called). There are several things (for want of a better word) that Stephen struggled with through his youth and, that very nearly destroyed him. One was the stealing, something that Stephen talks about very very honestly. But does show deep deep remorse for. The other is love (again I'm sure most people know Stephen is gay). Although when you read his story and the feelings he struggled with, the love is so very similar to any other love story straight or gay the names are interchangeable with whoever you like. In this instance however the love is for a boy named Mathew, who Stephen falls immediately for. While aged 14ish at his High school.

I personaly do identify with the story quite strongly, as I'm sure most who have read it will. I am being carefull not to say anymore as it may reduce the need to read the book, which would be a crime!

Another fantastic quality of this book is Stephen's glorious use of language. With his unique linguistic gift, Stephen shows his feelings with an amzing clarity. Which makes the book a pleasure to read.

I can't say how much I recommend this book other than to say I would give the book 9 out of 10! I won't give it 10 as I promise myself I will never give anything 10 out of 10.

But do read it!

Next post will be on Astronomy.

Kyle

Harriot Who?

2009-04-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

This is a part historical part astronomical blog post. This is going to be about Thomas Harriot, someone who is not very well known. Don't feel bad, to be honest I never heard of him until a couple of months ago. Anyway Thomas Harriot is a very or rather should be a very famous name in Astronomy. Just to name drop slightly, I was also very privileged a few months ago to hear a lecture on this man by Alan Chapman. Alan is also not widely known but to anyone interested in Astronomy he is a common name and, rightly so as he is one of the best public speakers I have ever heard! Drifting slightly now so back to Harriot.
Now as I have mentioned Thomas Harriot is not well known, so I am sorry if some details are a bit vague but I will do my best. So He was born around 1560 and died on the 2nd of July 1621. He was a Astronomer, Mathematician,ethnographer and Translator.
Thomas's early life is a bit sketchy, but what Historians do know is he was educated at Oxford university. And was the son of a pretty well of family. He left University in his early twenties and, was almost immediately hired by Sir Walter Raleigh. As a mathematics tutor. Of course Sir Walter is famous as a explorer and favourite of Queen Elizabeth. After this Sir Walter took Harriot into his Entourage, which with him being a favourite of the Queen meant Harriot rapidly built his social standing and wealth.
In 1585 to 1586 Harriot set of on a voyage with Sir Walter to the Americas. This was really like a gap year and considered very fashionable for any young nobleman. Harriot's role on the voyage was to be a navigator and Science advisor. Harriot landed in Roanoke Island of the cost of North Carolina and, quickly encountered some Native American tribes. Who he communicated with and quickly learnt there language Algonquian and, subsequently acted as an interpretor between the two parties. Harriot returned in 1586 and established himself with another wealthy aristocrat.
Sorry if you are getting bored but the Astronomy is coming. I promise. Anyway the Aristocrat Harriot became friends with was the Earl of Northumberland. Another favourite of the Queen and drowning in money. Because the Earl was a favourite of the Queen and very rich, He was like most wealthy people prone to new and expensive technology. And this is how we believe Harriot was introduced to the Telescope, a new invention form Renaissance Europe originally designed to view distant ships.
The interesting thing and the reason Harriot should be world famous, is because of what he did with this Telescope. On July 26th 1609 Harriot took his primitive 2 or 3 inch telescope and, looked at the moon with it. This was the first ever Astronomical observation with a Telescope made crucially six months before Galileo. Over the next few months and years Harriot looked at a myriad of Astronomical objects and, advanced the optics of Telescopes. While recording all this in his journals.
Now the thing many of you may be asking is why nobody every heard of Harriot, yet heard of Galileo. Well the answer is quite simple, Harriot had no reason to shout about his discoveries. He was a wealthy respected lord with high social connections he had nothing to gain. Whereas Galileo was out for fame,wealth and money to provide for his illegitimate children. Plus to assure his future.
Harriot died in 1621 a fabulously wealthy man, with a sea of amazing yet unrecognised scientific discoveries. These discoveries were finally brought to light in the early 20th Century. Along with Harriot's Journals which dates testified Harriot was the first ever Human to make observations with a Telescope. Thus assuring his place in History.
Thanks for reading.

Kyle

Kepler

2009-04-18T01:47:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you are aware Kepler NASA's planet finding space observatory as recently been launched. And as now opened it's mirror shield to get it's first look at what it will be observing. As seen above.
Kepler as I have said is a NASA mission, that is designed to search for extrasolar planets. And maybe just maybe find something the size of the earth. To do this Kepler will sit and stare at patch of roughly 100,000 stars , in the constellation of Cygnus. Kepler will watch these stars light output and wait for the tell tale light dip that tells us a planet is transiting the star. Hopefully at the end of it's estimated 2 year mission, there won't be 300 planets known to us like now but nearer a 1000!
The discovery of planets outside are solar system (hence the name extrasolar) is a reasonably recent discovery. The first extrasolar planet was discovered in 1995, orbiting around the star 51pegasis. It is a large planet roughly 3 times the size of Jupiter (largest in solar system). And is also oddly very close to it's parent star and, therefore very hot it is classed as a hot Jupiter. 51Peg was discovered using the wobble method. The wobble method is a method of finding planets without being able to see the planet directly. What happens is as the planet orbits the star it's gravity tugs at the star causing it to wobble. It is only a very slight wobble, which tells you why we have mainly discovered large planets, the bigger the planet the bigger the wobble. From this indirect means planet hunters can infer the size of the planet and how close it orbits.
Kepler however is using a different method the transit method. With the transit method as well as being able to detect the planet, find it's size and orbital distance. You are able to see what chemicals constitute the planetary atmosphere, by checking the spectra of the light given of by the star. If you already know what is in the stars atmosphere you can infer that what shouldn't be there is from the planet.
This method however does have a draw back for Kepler. Because Kepler is observing these stars face on (from are point of view). Any planets that orbit over the pole will be invisible to it's instruments. However with a 100,000 star field this seems to be compensated for.
The holy grail of planet hunting is not finding hot jupiters, but finding a earth like planet. As yet we have not achieved this goal, we have come close Glise 5981 as a trio of planets 1 five times the size of Earth. Although with Kepler it might be possible to find planets slightly bigger than Earth. The true achievement of finding a planet the same size as Earth with an atmosphere breathable, water oceans and life will have to wait. But when it does I don't think I will be exaggerating when I say it will be one of the greatest discoveries in Astronomy. It will show us are planet is not unique but part of a bigger picture and, if this planet as life on it will show us we are not alone in the Universe!

Thanks for reading

Kyle

Roving Mars

2009-04-17T03:24:00.000-07:00

The subject of this post really doesn't need an introduction, it is of course the world famous Mars exploration rovers. Spirit and Opportunity.
I'm sure you are all familiar with the rovers, but for the benefit of those who don't I will give a quick overview. Spirit and Opportunity were the follow ons from the successful Mars pathfinder mission. They were launched in 2003 and arrived at Mars in 2004. There mission was to search for interesting Geological features that indicate past water on Mars, they had an expected 90 days to do this (a little out)!
The Twin spacecraft are roughly the size of a small golf cart and cost roughly 820 million US dollars to build and launch! To complete their surface mission the rovers were given all the equipment a Human geologist would want. They therefore have a microscope, a tool for cutting rocks, a instrument that analyses the chemicals of soil,panoramic cameras and many more with very long anagrams. In short seeing as we are unable to put a human geologist on Mars, these rovers provide the next best thing.
After there 18 month journey the rovers were ready to land. This is a dangerous process and as been rightly called the seven minutes of Terror. The rovers entered the atmosphere separately landing on different sides of the planet. As they entered the heat shield protected the craft from breaking up. Then a few miles above the surface the parachutes opened slowing the craft further. Finally a few hundred feet above the surface the air bags inflated and the rover was dropped! I find this hard to believe a incredibly expensive rover just dropped, all it had to cushion the blow was a layer of air bags. Both rovers sustained about 10 bounces on the surface before finally coming to rest. They had landed the surface mission could begin.
Hopefully you should be able to see a map showing where the rovers landed. The colours indicate height. After setting of spirit and opportunity were intended to drive roughly 1 km in there 90 days. Now as I am sure you know they exceeded that and are currently entering there 5 year!
The rest of my post is going to be on the lifetime of these remarkable rovers. At writing 17.4.09 the rovers are currently working well, there have been one or two failures due to wear and tear ( Wheel jams) but overall they are both still working. Opportunity is currently heading for a massive crater a couple of miles away from it's current location and, Spirit is just reawakening from a survived Martian winter.
At the moment there is no indication that they will fail any time soon so Long live spirit and opportunity. I wish I could provide more info on the surface mission but the blog doesn't have enough space. If you want more information check out this website.

http://http//marsrover.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Kyle

Technological progress for war

2009-04-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

Hi there

As I am holiday (HOORAH). I have for once had no work to finish or writing to complete for some looming deadline. And that is why you have got a few more blog posts than usual,also due to this lack of work my mind as been thinking about lot's of knotty problems and ideas.
One of these ideas is does mankind need a war to advance itself? It is an interesting question though isn't it when you think about it. I am of course NOT arguing wars are good or in any way right! For two very good reasons one I'm a pacifist and, think killing someone is never right. Two I don't like the idea of inflicting or receiving pain. Very briefly I must sidetrack to a story from years ago. Now when I was about nine or ten I used to play rugby, which surprises me now because I deplore sport and physical exertion. But anyway I used to play rugby and, after one match or during I can't quite recall. There was a fight, I didn't start it was to do with somebody else. Yet as usual I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and, a rather large beefy boy decided he didn't like me, for whatever reason so promptly broke my nose. Obviously it was incredibly painful but I didn't retaliate. I could have done but I had no desire to inflict the same kind of pain that I was currently experiencing. Which shows how incapable I am of being violent even in self defence!
So back to the question, now sadly history does show us that in times of war humans do advance technology at a staggering speed. For instance during WW2 the power of the atom was unlocked creating the ultimate weapon and, ironically prevented a WW3. Because with every country armed to the teeth with nukes (said in an American accent). No sane person would launch them as it would end in total obliteration. Also in the next big conflict the cold war man entered space. As I'm sure you are aware this resulted with America going to the moon, however that wasn't the original purpose of space rockets. The original purpose was rather more brutal, the intention was to be able to send a nuclear warhead on top a rocket, over the Atlantic via space to strike Moscow or Washington. Thankfully we managed to prevent the cold war from going Nuclear.
In those instances you can see that without a war technological milestones like landing on the moon might not have happened that early. Which does beg the question would these things have happened at all? With Nuclear power the answer is certainly yes. With the space programme, due to it's astronomical cost I am forced to say probably not.
This is a rather sad thing in my opinion to realise about ones species. That we only make improvements of technology if they will help us kill one and other more quickly. Of course this isn't true in all cases but the fact that it happens at all is quite upsetting. However I am hopeful that eventually the Human race will transcend there petty disputes and, enter in to a period peace and exploration of the Universe.
Thanks for reading. My next post will probably be on something more astronomically based.

Kyle

Moon Hoax (Not what you think)

2009-04-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

I suspect that when you read that title you assumed I had finally gone completely insane and, now believed as some do that man never went to the moon. Let me first assure you that I DO BELIEVE MAN WENT TO THE MOON. The product of this post is going to be on why some people still believe it was all a hoax.
Now as I'm sure you are aware it as been roughly 40 years since man last went to the moon. And at writing 13th April 2009, we have yet to return or get anywhere close to getting back there. We are currently sat in Low earth orbit , with the international space station.
I am going a little of track so back to the moon, Apollo 11 was the first mission to land on the moon. With a crew of Neil Armstrong, Edwin Buzz Aldrin and the one everyone forgets Michael Collins. Buzz and Neil landed in the sea of tranquillity spending, a few hours looking round taking pictures and famously planting the American flag.
The planting of the American flag was the first thing the skeptics jumped on, why was it blowing? The moon doesn't have a breeze they yelled loudly to anyone listening. The thing they neglected to realise was that to stop the flag flopping limply, spoiling the patriotic moment. NASA had attached a Aluminium pole along the top of the flag, to keep it up. However when whichever one (hard to tell in spacesuit) forced the shaft of the flag into the hard Luna rock, He twisted the shaft thus moving the supporting pole around causing the flag to move. And of course with no atmosphere and therefore no drag the flag moved for ages, as if being blown by a breeze. The skeptics also failed to note that when the astronauts moved past the flag, after the vibrations had dissipated there was no movement. As you would expect with the wind on earth.
Much to your relief I am not going to go through every single thing that “ Proves” we never went to the moon. If I did you would be reading this for years! What I am going to write about is why people want to believe they never went. Of course I'm sure the hoaxists will say “We only want you to see the truth.” But why can't they accept we went. The evidence is overwhelming! I do however sort of understand why they think it. If you look back through History you will see next to every great historical achievement, a line of hecklers shouting about how there lying. It surely happened when people crossed the Atlantic to America and, it will doubtless happen when we eventually go to Mars. Every great event as a cause for disbelief.
The one thing I genuinely can't get however is why these people would not want to believe it. Surely it is amazing to everyone to know that humankind as gone to a different world!, in the sixties of all years. A time when computing power was pretty much zero. It must make you proud to be a human, to know that when we put are minds to it we can accomplish incredible things. For instance at the start of the space race 1957, nobody could have possibly imagined we would have men walking on the moon in 12 years.
I think that is a nice way to end this post, following this I am no longer going to attempt to convince these people. As Gene Cernan says “The truth needs no defence”. However I for one can't wait to later this year when the Lunar reconnaissance orbiter goes up. With this probe with it's high res camera, it should be capable of seeing the lunar rovers, accent stages and maybe even the footprints. Which of course will be exciting!

How low will the Sun go?

2009-04-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Sun is of course the central star in are solar system, the life force without it's light there would be no life on earth. And the Sun is currently in Solar minimum.

Now the Sun is a massive subject and I am incapable of summing up it's entirety in a single post, so this post is going to be on the solar cycle and, the current and unusual solar minimum it is in.

The Sun goes in solar cycles over a period of 11 years. In a solar cycle there is a minimum and a maximum, we are currently in a minimum. The solar cycle is basically a measure of sunspots and solar activity. At solar minimum there is very few sunspots and at maximum there is loads. For earth at least solar maximum is a serious worry, because when at maximum the Sun is more likely to produce a CME (Coronal mass ejection). A CME occurs when the Sun releases a chunk of solar material and high energy particles, this material then speeds away from the sun and can on occasion come to the earth. When it comes to the earth it is worrying for many, the astronauts for instance on the space station don't want to be around when this comes. Without the protective atmosphere of earth, the radiation isn't dispersed and " Scrambles your DNA" giving you cancer or other nasty diseases. The high energy radiation will also nock satellites out which is problamatic for GPS.

After a solar maximum the new solar cycle starts. Astronomers on earth know when this as happened because the first sunspot of the new solar cycle as a different polarity to that of the cycle before. Which means if the previous cycle polarity was north the next cycles would be south. The polarities switch because every 11 years with the solar cycle the magnetic field of the entire Sun switches, meaning the north becomes the south and vice versa. Sorry if that wasn't well exsplained but it's hard to find the words. This effect also happens with the Earth over a much longer time scale, so at some point the magnetic field of the Earth will also switch!
Solar cycles come and go. The new solar cycle started at the start of 2009 late 2008. And are usually pretty uniform at maximum there is a lot of flares and sunspots. And at minimum there is very few yet still some sunspots. Now that is what makes the current solar cycle interesting. As you can see in the image above there is not one sunspot to be seen. Why this as happened is not fully understood but it does have effects on earth. The Aurora which is caused by the magnetic field of the Sun is one effect. Because with no sunspots which are affected by the magnetic field. It is unlikely there will be large amounts of Aurora activity. there is no reason to be worried however as it is highly improbable that the Sun's energy output will decrease. It does however mean that Solar observers will have little to look at in the immediate future!

Kyle

Writing post

2009-04-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

Hi

As I said there will be fictional stories in this blog from time to time, this is only a opening I will write more if anyone is interested.

Harold's saloon pulled to a stop outside a smart three floor town house, on the outskirts of central London. It was a new building made of smart red brick and, had been the home of Harold and his wife Sarah for four and a half years . They had been very kindly provided it when Harold had taking up his job at the counter intelligence task force, of course to Sarah or anyone else for that matter nobody knew it. To everyone outside of work he was Harold Crick a thirty something who worked for a reputable merchant bank, well a merchant bank anyway. Harold liked it that way it meant nobody could let something slip and, endanger his wife or himself.
Harold leaned back into the leather of his seat and starred at the windows of his house. Sarah should be home now. Harold thought to himself confirming this by taking a glance at the dashboard clock. 8.45 “Definitely.” He said out loud unnecessarily as he was the only person in the car. Harold stepped out into the freezing night, the wind licking his face and the surrounding trees. Now just beginning to sprout delicate pink blossoms that signalled the start of spring. Harold turned around back to face the house, noticing how strange it was that no lights were on in any rooms. Harold shook his head dismissing the thought to the recycle bin of his mind. He had learnt that if you did his job for too long you began to see threats everywhere. Harold walked quickly to the front door the wind picking up now and, slipped his key silently into the lock and entered.
Harold and Sarah's house was sparsely decorated yet neat. The neatness however came from the fact that Harold and Sarah were barely ever in it. Harold was always busy at work or doing field work in some distant country. Sarah was also equally busy yet a little closer to home working a busy practise in Harley street. Harold stepped over the threshold into the hall lights turning on automatically thanks to a new home computer system. He placed his jacket on a peg to the right of the door and walked into the living room. Still no Sarah. Harold wasn't worried she was probably having a bath or watching the television upstairs. Harold reasoned to himself. Suddenly realising he hadn't had anything to drink since lunchtime Harold walked into the open plan kitchen and poured himself a drink. He sat on his uncomfortable metal chair in his newly decorated office, making a note to himself that he really should get it replaced. Harold couldn't believe at that moment how insignificant a chair would appear in a matter of a few hours.
Contentedly Harold sat on his horrid chair, sipping his red wine (not his favourite drink but all that came to hand). And tapping away on his computer searching for a holiday, that he had been given leave to take. The only holiday he and Sarah had been available to take together in over two years.
He leaned back into his chair and at this moment realised something was a miss. As he leant back into his chair he saw a window was open, only slightly but enough to make him think. Harold's brain quickly deduced that the only reason such a window would be open on such a cold night, was to gain entry from outside. After all the window was just capable of allowing a man entry, and crucially it hung limply as if forced open with a crowbar. Harold's brain quickly sprung into survival mode. He reached beneath his desk and pulled up a Aluminium brief case. The brief case was inconspicuous and immediately forgettable much to the designers intentions. He placed it on the desk and keyed in a familiar four digit code, the case accepted the command and with two clacks that Harold hoped weren't loud enough to alert the intruders who were assumable still upstairs. Opened and revealed the contents. The brief case wasn't a empty travelling case, but was a field box provided by work and which was encouraged to be kept in every agents home. Among over things it contained a micro computer,a passport, a credit card belonging to a dummy company and crucial a 9MM pistol. That was all Harold was interested in he took the pistol out of it's surround, pushed in the round next to it and tightened the silencer. Harold then walked swiftly to the door leading on to the hall and waited.
Harold waited until He was sure there was no movement upstairs, he didn't want them to know he was coming and have time to arm themselves. Then turned and padded up the stairs the gun always ahead of him. Harold had been trained in clearing houses and bought this training to bear on his own house. He cleared each room quickly, glancing around thoroughly with the 9MM then moving on. He did this until finally he reached the last room on this floor, his and Sarah's bedroom. The lights were of as he had observed from downstairs, he flicked the switch with his free hand and saw what he had feared he would. His wife was laying on the the hard wooden floor next to the bed (made by the cleaner only this morning) unmistakably dead! She looked strangely peaceful as if perhaps asleep, this was revealed to be sadly untrue as next to her was a spent Hypodermic needle, the contents of which had been forced into her jugular. Harold sat over her for a second not wanting to move and wishing time could be reversed, as Harold understood none of this could be reversed he decided these murders were going to pay. Before leaving the room he closed the lids over the glassy lifeless eyes of his former wife. Harold new these people were professionals they were assassins and they were clearly after him, but Harold new he was better than these people and they were going to die because of it.
Harold heard a voice talking on the phone as he climbed the last flight of stairs, it was coming from a small library Harold had converted from a disused bedroom. As he neared the door he heard the conversation “ Not yet we got his wife though.” The man said in a heavy accent. Harold clenched his right hand around the grip of the gun he so wanted to kill this man for murdering his wife , yet he knew there was still useful information to be heard from the conversation. “Yeah I know what he looks like 6 foot, early thirties, blond hair .” “Don't worry there is two of us I think we can handle it.” He finished apparently reassuring a doubtful employer. Harold sensed the man was going to hang up soon, he seized his moment moving as close as he dared to the man without him turning around. And fired one shot into the back of the man's skull killing him quick, silently and sadly from Harold's point of view painlessly. The man teetered for a moment but Harold caught him before he hit the floor. The sound of a man hitting the hard wooden floor would obviously alert the other man to his presence. Harold cleared the final rooms until by the process of elimination knew the other assassin was in the second living room at the far end of the house. The door was closed and Harold heard no sound on the inside. He was cautious of entering guns blazing it would certainly result in death and, now he wanted some answers. Harold slowly ran his hand along the wood of the door until his hand found the door knob. Using the door as cover he slowly opened it. Then turned pointing the gun at the empty room. The murderer had left out the balcony, he must have heard the quiet give away of a silenced shot. Now Harold was no closer to finding out who had targeted him and killed his wife. All that showed there was any trace of the assassin was a spent needle that killed his wife and, the open balcony it 's doors flung wide open where the killer had made his escape. The curtains fluttered gently under the now strong wind from outside and to any outside observer all seemed well.....

Sorry about the length I know it's quite long. If anyone wants to comment you will have to go through Twitter, as the comment function on this blog works sporadically. Sorry about that and thanks for reading.

Kyle

Writing

2009-04-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hi

From now on between serious non fiction blog posts. There will be fiction short poems and stories that I am thinking of starting to write.

Klyle

Real?

2009-04-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

Hi

You will probably get a few more blogular posts this week, because I'm on holiday and have nothing to do. All work completed for once!
Now this is a question asked many times by many people, serious or otherwise. What is real? Now of course this may sound like a simple question at first,third and thirty third glance but is one I believe as a complex answer.
Of course there is many people reading this who will say that it's obvious and define real as what we can smell,taste,feel ,see and touch. Yet it's not that simple is it because under that definition real is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain and neurons. And as you know your brain can be confused, by tricks of the eye and so on. Which tells me at least we can't certainly tell what is real and what is not. Much like in a modern film it is near impossible to tell what is real and what is CGI.
Which does pose yet another more intriguing question. Are we ourslelves real? This is a question that is grappled with by philosophers, which is something I am not. But it is a thought provoking question to anyone and everyone. If you think about it more and more, one it makes your head hurt and, two it makes you question every aspect of reiality. For a start what would be the point it aquiring money, if your aquiring something that itself is not real to buy things which are still not real!
This question also as a question within itself. Why are we here and what are we here for? If where not real in the sense of the senses whats the point of us? Are we perhaps some sort of virtual video game for a higher civalisation. Like a version of spore or sims.
Of course the simple answer to all these questions could be, that there all rubbish a product of a over active mind and, we are in fact totaly real and in no way virtual. And as I have said that would be the simple answer, which in most cases is the correct one.

Kyle

10 Things

2009-04-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

In the world today there are many lists. 10o films to see before you die, Ten things to do before you die, top 10 songs, best restaurants and the list goes on and on. But to my knowledge there are no top tens of the best astromical sights. So below is my top ten of the things I love and, hate about Astronomy.

I'll start with the good things

1 Total solar eclipse

2 First view of Saturn through a telescope

3 A good comet

4 Giving Astromical based talks

5 The sky at night ( TV Show)

6 The fantastic pictures

7 New disoveries

8 Going to lectures

9 Seeing the Andromeda Galaxy

10 The moon Landings (Long time ago now)

The things I hate

1 BEING CONFUSED WITH BLOODY ASTROLOGERS

2 Light polloution (Even in the middle of no where)

3 Skeptics who say we didn't go to the moon!

4 Cold nights observing

5 Wasting my money on a bad telescope

6 People who assume it's just a science/hobby for old men with beards (I don't have a beard!)

7 Exspensive equipment (sadly turns some people away from the subject)

8 Names of constellations and identifiying them (took me ages to learn some of them)

9 Lack of astromical funding in England (compared with NASA)

10 Not returning to the moon......

That is my list, I'm sure you will have different ideas and will disagree with others so leave your lists below. I look forward to reading them.

PS The picture isn't mine courtesy of Internet.

Kyle

Parallel Universes?

2009-04-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Hi there

This post is going to be on Paralle universes and, the likely or unlikely possibility of there exsistence.

Of course as you know paralle universes are the favourate of sci fi authors and, certain branches of nutty science. You know the like of which who have claimed to have been abducted and then probed by ET. Rather coincidentally next to the pub! Because of this parallel universes are regarded as total rubbish. And about as credible as Atlantis or roswell, but is this absolutely true.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not one of those nutty so called scientists who will quite happily believe anything. I am however inceredibly open to new scientific ideas.

And in recent years there as been new cosmological ideas, ( I won't use theory) that have hinted at the posibility of parallel univereses.

The first of these is Membrane or M theory (sorry if I apear inconsistent but thats it's name). M theory is an addition to the possible theory of everything string theory, string theory is very complicated and therefore very dull if your not interested. So I will give a very simple exsplanation, S theory says that all particles (Protons Electrons) are not points or balls as you would imagine. But very very thin strings that vibrate at diferent resonances, and these different resonances give us the myriad of particles we see. Very briefly there is one crucial problem with S theory as shown in the cartoon above. Mathematically S theory works fine, the problem is as yet there is NO evidence to prove it's true and, NO link between it and the other famous theories Special and General relativity . But of course with the new LHC who knows what will be found.

I am getting into a physics based ramble and you should be spared from that so back to parallel universes. Now in M theory like S theory there are multiple dimensions ranging from six to in some cases eleven, oddly only four of these dimensions affect us. I know sounds odd don't attempt to think about it it only makes your head hurt! Now these six to eleven dimensions make up a higher space sometimes known as the multiverse which contains branes. The concept of the multiverse does have a small shred of evidence to it's name. As you know out of the four forces gravity is the weakest and, this is believed to be due to the fact that gravity is the only force that provades the multiverse.These branes are formed from quantum fluctuations (something out of nothing ) in the vacuum. And are like cosmic paving slabs that through Gravity come together strike and form big bangs, then seperate and collide again with other branes. And thus a myriad of parallel universes are created evolve and die!

Again like string theory there is very little evidence for this idea, although the same was true of the big bang at the start of the 20th Century so who knows what will happen. It is also rather satisfying to people who wonder what started the big bang. It also makes the concept of parallel universes a bit more plausible, although I don't claim for a moment it is certain proof of anything. One thing is certain it is an area that needs more serious research. For anyone reading this who wants to know more I recommend Endless universe Beyond the Big Bang (search it on Amazon).

Thanks for reading!

Kyle

PS3 COD 5

2009-04-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

In this post I'm not going to get bogged down with the old argument which is best, PS3 or XBOX 360. Because it's just a matter of preference and, what you want!

A game that as recently come out is COD 5, part of the now famous Call of duty franchise. It's quite good entertainment. This installment is set in two location, the first follows a Marine in the South pacific, the other a soldier in the Red army.The weapons are the standard affair rifles and machine guns all historically accurate. The Russian shotgun and American Browning Machine gun are the most fun.

The levels are jolly difficult in the South pacific your attacked by Bonzai charges, when you least exspect it. One of the other best aspects is the Coperative Zombies level, which is fun because it's just daft.

The Multiplayer is also reasonable, although with me there is some lag. The COD server is also prone to crashing and filling up, which can be a tad irritating.

Overall the game is good and, with the arival of the new map pack ( which I will be buying tonight.) The COD franchise is set to dominate the FPS market for some time to come!

Kyle

Return to the moon! Or perhaps not

2009-04-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

Firstly sorry about the incredibly long time since my last blogular entry.

This post is a sort of rant about the future of space flight, or rather the lack of a foreseeable future! Currently man is sat in earth orbit, doing lots of jolly interesting experiments on the space station. Yet to my mind it's not the same as the old days of Apollo.

That was a time when one we had to win the space race and, two a time when we went places. Yes it was dangerous there was inumerable risks and near misses on nearly every Apollo mission. But we dared to go! And crucially there was no health and safety!

And that is one of the main reason why we haven't been back to the moon, the Apollo scientists and Astranouts themselves said that if they tried to repeat what they did, today the answer would be a resounding NO.

America however as promised to be back to the moon by 2020 but with the current economic climate can you see it? I for one cannot.What we really do need is another space race this would give NASA and ESA the real urge to head for the moon. It is however unlikely that with the problems on earth, (the economic crisis) space exsploration will be given such a priority as it was in the sixties.

Kyle

New pictures of Deimos

2009-03-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post this as I am now quite interested in Phobos and Deimos, after doing a talk on them late last year.

Well as I am sure you are aware Mars as 2 tiny moons Phobos and Deimos. Which are almost certainly captured astroids ( A hole different story). Previously there as not been many images of Deimos, due to it's small size 15 kilometers across. Until now!

Recently the Mars reconnaissance orbiter which is really the spy satellite of the martian system,if it was in orbit around earth it would be classed as a spy satellite, because of it's high resolution camera HIRISE. As made several close fly by passes of the moon and, revealed previously unseen detail as seen above using that camera. Personally I wish I had these images when doing my talk!

In the image you can see that Deimos looks quite similar to Phobos having the same brown pink hue, irregular shape and quite heavily cratered surface.

Discovery of moons. The moons were discovered in 1877 by the American Astronomer Asaph hall. The moons were also predicted in several books including Gulliver's travels.

I hope that as informed you if you were interested.

Kyle

The new Guns n Roses album. Is it any good?

2009-03-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

The new GnR album came out a few months ago and I have recently bought it and started to listen to the songs. But is it any good?

Well I'll have to start by saying I am a huge fan of GnR and have most of there older albums. So eagerly anticipated there new one. What a shock! One most of the band as left with only Axl left, although that didn't really bother me has Axl is really the heart of the band. The thing that did surprise me was that they don't sound the same. The lyrics are pretty similar to the old ones but the riffs and intros are very different. But then I realized what should I have expected, with a 14 year gap it is right that the music as changed and not stagnated.

The songs themselves are alright some are good like Street of dreams, IRS and scraped but some aren't quite so good Better for instance which I prefer to skip. On balance however they are more good than bad songs.

Is it worth the wait?

Well as some of you know there as been a gap of 14 long years since the last album and, if your honest 14 songs can't be worth the wait.

Overall I think the album is more good than bad and would give it seven out of ten. It would have been nice if it had come sooner and, Slash was still there but what you gonna do.

Kyle

Stephen Fry's Podcasts

2009-03-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

I am very sorry to anyone reading who Doesn't like Stephen or is not interested for whatever reason, but this is all I feel I can write about as it is the only thing I've done this afternoon. I am also sorry if this sounds a little groverly.

Well like most people on earth I have a ipod, with the usual selection of music that I am terribly embarrassed about playing in public. But recently I have started to download podcasts and, by far and away the most listened to are those by Stephen Fry. I can't really explain why I find them so appealing maybe it's Stephen's wit and personality. Or something else.

But they are brilliantly interesting and, give me much pleasure when I occasional have to walk place to place, (something I will gladly do when the car breaks down!)

Thats my little appreciation post to Stephen and his podcasts, that I hope he will continue to do.

Kyle

2009-03-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

Seeing as I am very busy. I will try to provide anyone interested with one blogular post a week.

First attempt at Blogging

2009-03-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

Well this is my first attempt at entering the world of Blogging.

Anyone who is following me on Twitter, feel free to follow this.

Kyle