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Swirls of Jupiter

Jupiter is a very stormy, turbulent, violent planet. The planet completes a day (or one complete rotation) within roughly 10 hours, which creates massive winds, producing these swirls, and violent storms. The fast rotation coupled with the fact that the planet is nothing but gas greatly multiplies the Coriolis effect. Earth too has a Coriolis effect, this creates the characteristic hurricane shapes and also contributes to the fact that storms will spin the opposite direction in different hemispheres. Luckily, our rotation is slower - our storms are less frequent and less violent than they would be if our days were shorter.

In this post contains some facts and curiosities about one of the most extreme objects in the universe - Black Holes. Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating objects found in outer space. They are objects of extreme density, with such strong gravitational attraction that even light cannot escape from their grasp if it comes near enough.

1° A Massive Star Collapsing In Upon Itself

Say you have a star that’s about 20 times more massive than the Sun. Our Sun is going to end its life quietly; when its nuclear fuel burns out, it’ll slowly fade into a white dwarf. That’s not the case for far more massive stars. When those monsters run out of fuel, gravity will overwhelm the natural pressure the star maintains to keep its shape stable. When the pressure from nuclear reactions collapses, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute, gravity violently overwhelms and collapses the core and other layers are flung into space. This is called a supernova. The remaining core collapses into a singularity — a spot of infinite density and almost no volume. That’s another name for a black hole.

2° Black holes come in a range of sizes.

There are at least three types of black holes, ranging from relative squeakers to those that dominate a galaxy’s center. Primordial black holes are the smallest kinds, and range in size from one atom’s size to a mountain’s mass. Stellar black holes, the most common type, are up to 20 times more massive than our own Sun and are likely sprinkled in the dozens within the Milky Way. And then there are the gargantuan ones in the centers of galaxies, called “supermassive black holes.” They’re each more than one million times more massive than the Sun. How these beasts formed is still being examined.

3° The first black hole wasn’t discovered until X-ray astronomy was used

Cygnus X-1 was first found during balloon flights in the 1960s, but wasn’t identified as a black hole for about another decade. According to NASA, the black hole is 10 times more massive to the Sun. Nearby is a blue supergiant star that is about 20 times more massive than the Sun, which is bleeding due to the black hole and creating X-ray emissions.

4° Black holes are only dangerous if you get too close

Like creatures behind a cage, it’s okay to observe a black hole if you stay away from its event horizon — think of it like the gravitational field of a planet. This zone is the point of no return, when you’re too close for any hope of rescue. But you can safely observe the black hole from outside of this arena. By extension, this means it’s likely impossible for a black hole to swallow up everything in the Universe (barring some sort of major revision to physics or understanding of our Cosmos, of course.)

5° We aren’t sure if wormholes exist

A popular science-fiction topic concerns what happens if somebody falls into a black hole. Some people believe these objects are a sort of wormhole to other parts of the Universe, making faster-than-light travel possible. But as this Smithsonian Magazine article points out, anything is possible since we still have a lot to figure out about physics. “Since we do not yet have a theory that reliably unifies general relativity with quantum mechanics, we do not know of the entire zoo of possible spacetime structures that could accommodate wormholes,” said Abi Loeb, who is with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

6°  Black holes will spaghettify you and everything else

If a person was able to survive long enough to describe falling into a black hole, he would at first experience weightless as he goes into free fall, but then feel intense “tidal” gravitational forces as he got closer to the center of the black hole. In other words, if his feet were closer to the centre than his head, then they would feel a stronger pull until he eventually is stretched and then ripped apart. As he falls in he may observe distorted images as the light bends around him and he will also still be able to see beyond the black hole as light continues to reach him from the outside.

7° Weird time stuff happens around black holes

This is best illustrated by one person (call them Unlucky) falling into a black hole while another person (call them Lucky) watches. From Lucky’s perspective, Unlucky’s time clock appears to be ticking slower and slower. This is in accordance with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which (simply put) says that time is affected by how fast you go, when you’re at extreme speeds close to light. The black hole warps time and space so much that Unlucky’s time appears to be running slower. From Unlucky’s perspective, however, their clock is running normally and Lucky’s is running fast.

8° Massive Black Hole Lies At The Center Of Milky Way Galaxy

It is now thought that most galaxies are held together by supermassive black holes at their centers, which cluster hundreds of solar systems around them. In fact, 30,000 light years away at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy is a black hole with 30 million times the mass of our own sun.

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New Blue Origin video reveals New Glenn details while company celebrates rocket’s first customer.

Jeff Bezos revealed new details on Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster Tuesday at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington, D.C. In a new promotional video released by the company, a typical flight profile for the rocket is shown including launch, payload delivery to orbit, and first stage recovery. Liftoff will occur from Cape Canaveral’s LC-36, shown with heavy modifications from both crewed and uncrewed flights. Once the second stage continues the rocket’s ascent to orbit, the first stage will flip around and relight its center BE-4 engine to slow itself down as it returns through the atmosphere. After using a series of six aerodynamic strakes, or fins, to maneuver through the atmosphere, New Glenn’s first stage will land on a moving recovery vessel downrange in the Atlantic ocean. Blue Origin states that the moving ship will offer better stability for landing.

New Glenn will be the second orbital-class rocket to use a floating platform for first stage recovery. Although SpaceX achieved the first sea platform landing in April 2016, the technology was originally patented by Blue Origin in 2010. The two companies had a legal dispute with the U.S. Patent Office on the technology until Blue Origin withdrew the claims in 2015. Sea-based platform recovery was originally conceived in academia in the 1990s before either company was founded. 

Bezos also announced at the conference that Paris-based Eutelsat – one of the largest telecommunication satellite operators in the world – has agreed to be the first paying customer on New Glenn, signing for a mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit sometime around 2021 or 2022. Eutelsat often gives new launch vehicles a market by flying their payloads on the initial flights of the vehicles.

New Glenn - named after Mercury astronaut John Glenn - was unveiled in September 2016 as the next vehicle in Blue Origin’s rocket family. The company successfully flew and recovered the smaller New Shepard suborbital vehicle between 2015 and 2016 paving the way for much of New Glenn’s technology. Seven BE-4 engines designed and manufactured entirely by Blue Origin will power New Glenn’s first stage while a single BE-4 optimized for vacuum conditions will power the second stage. An optional third stage can propel payloads into deep space and will increase the rocket’s height from 269 feet to 311 feet. The first BE-4 engine was completed last week at the company’s current manufacturing facility in Kent, Washington. Blue Origin is currently constructing a massive rocket manufacturing facility on Kennedy Space Center property where New Glenn’s components will be manufactured and assembled. Construction is scheduled to be completed in early 2018. P/C: Blue Origin.

FULL ANIMATION: Heliocentrism vs Geocentrism