Supermassive Black Hole Supports General Relativity

October 4, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

Einstein’s general theory of relativity has remained at the brink edge of being proved for decades now. It still remains as a theory due to the fact that we don’t know yet, how the general theory of relativity can be reconciled with quantum physics. However, there are still countless phenomena that prove this theory. The best of them is the total Solar Eclipse that took place in 1919.

The experiment conducted on the event of this eclipse proved that light from distant objects is bent by the gravity of massive objects which in this experiment was our very own parent star, the Sun; whereby the blocking of the Sun's light allowed us to directly observe the light from the star that was behind the Sun which appeared to be in a different location than it normally is. 

However, recently researchers at the University of Arizona have found that a 'shadow' cast by the supermassive black hole that is known as M87 at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy proves that Einstein was correct. 

https://www.cbs46.com/first-photo-of-a-black-hole-supports-einsteins-theory-of-relativity/article_e97bcb42-45e3-5c3f-b07f-9df771c4fbc2.html

The team has found that the intense gravity of the Black Hole bent the fabric of Space-time which acted as a magnifying glass which caused the shadow of the black hole to appear larger than it normally should be.  

When measurements were taken, the researchers found that the size of the black hole shadow was close enough to the size predicted by the mathematics behind general relativity.  

This black hole is located 53.49 million light-years away but thanks to modern technology, scientists could uncover it and study it. This is the same black hole that the researchers studied using the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019.  

 

https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5059618/The-first-image-of-a-black-hole-supports-Einstein%E2%80%99s-theory-of.html

Michael Kramer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and EHT collaboration member said, “Blackhole images provide a completely new angle for testing Einstein's theory of general relativity”. 

With such successful studies and discoveries, the theory of general relativity may soon become a law that would give us an extremely enhanced view of the universe. 

The Discovery Of Life On Venus

September 27th, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It doesn’t have any natural satellites/Moons and is a rocky planet. The close distance to the Sun coupled with the thick atmosphere of Venus makes it trap an insane amount of heat and hence, Venus is known to be the hottest planet in the Solar System. The temperatures on this planet can reach up to a blazing 462 degrees Celsius. This is enough to kill you and turn you into ashes in less than 2 seconds. Furthermore, it rains Sulphuric acid on this planet which is a highly corrosive acid and will burn you in the matter of seconds. This deadly rain is caused due to the composition of its atmosphere. If you want to see a place similar to hell in this life, then go to Venus and you’ll have an idea.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/16/1008478/venus-soon-as-possible-phosphine-clouds-astrobiology-life-veritas-davinci/

According to some theories, Venus was very similar to Earth millions of years ago; however, something went terribly wrong and unimaginable amounts of gases such as Cabon dioxide were released. Scientists still aren't sure about what exactly happened but whatever happened, it wasn't normal. This gives birth to many questions such as, was Venus once habitable, if yes then what lived on it, where did the inhabitants go or what happened to them, and so on. Whatever the changes may be in favor of life being on Venus, it is a general conception that in the current conditions, Venus cannot be home to any kind of living organism in any way, taking into account its conditions. However, you would be shocked to hear that scientists have recently discovered signs of life in Venus's atmosphere.  

Even though the surface of Venus may not be welcoming, the atmosphere may be the place where we should look for life in the form of microorganisms. There is a region of Venus's atmosphere that isn't too hot or too cold and may be suitable for life to exist in.  

Hence, Scientists have detected the presence of Phosphine gas in the same ideal region of the atmosphere of Venus. Phosphine is a deadly molecule to humans and was also used in the first World War as a weapon in chemical warfare. The reason behind Phosphine being so toxic to humans is that it reacts very easily with the oxygen that our body needs to respire and survive. However, Phosphine is not toxic to the forms of life which do not require oxygen to survive. In fact, some also produce phosphine. This gas is often found in oxygen-free environments on our planet and is produced by the waste of some microbial organisms. Therefore, if some kinds of microbes produce phosphine on Earth, there could also be some organisms on Venus that can produce Phosphine.  

The deep story behind this discovery is that one of the astronomers operating the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope at Hawaii known as Jane Greeves detected a hint of Phosphine gas in the atmosphere of Venus but that sign was confirmed by a more powerful telescope ALMA or Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescope located in Chile. 

After observing Venus again, scientists were assured that it was indeed, Phosphine. After countless experiments and simulations of trying to create Phosphine without life, the scientists failed and hence, it was sure now that according to the laws of modern science, Phosphine can only be produced by microbial life.  

There are two plausible explanations for the Phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. Either the production of Phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus is the result of some reactions that are unknown to modern science. Or, there is microbial life in the atmosphere of Venus which is producing the Phosphine gas.  

Venus has now become the top priority for Scientists and they are planning to send missions there to search for life. This would happen soon because Venus isn't very distant from us being a planetary neighbor.  

Imagination

September 13, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

Humans are the supreme inhabitants of Planet Earth and have been dominating it for thousands of years. In the current era, humans have developed to such an extent in astronomy that they can observe celestial bodies that are millions of light-years away. However, we cannot travel to these places as we haven’t discovered the technology to travel such distances in our lifetimes. Therefore, we are limited in power and technology. But we have an ability that makes us superior over any other known organisms and that ability is imagination. Imagination has no boundaries and it can take us anywhere at any time. It is our imagination and curiosity that has brought us to this point in scientific development.  

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2095042-nasa-approves-five-more-years-for-hubble-space-telescope/

Moreover, imagination is the key with which many known scientists have unlocked the secrets of the universe. If Einstein hadn’t imagined riding a beam of light, he may have not published theories like the general relativity which lays a basis in astronomical discoveries and the forces that govern the universe. Hence, with imagination, we can simulate any scenario for reasons such as discovering something or imagining of something that one cannot afford to experience. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."  

Furthermore, another great scientist with exceptional imagination was Nikola Tesla who had developed the ability to visualize his work and this allowed him to save a great deal of time, money, and effort in building and testing his machines. Therefore, he discovered the secrets of the universe in terms of energy and frequency and is to this day, well known for his work like Einstein.

Even I sometimes imagine traveling to my favorite celestial bodies such as Pulsars, Nebulae, and Black Holes though I cannot go there physically. I can imagine falling into a Black Hole and experiencing what's within. 

A Salty Underworld Below Martian Surface

September 6, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

In July 2018, data from the European Space Agency's Mars Express successfully found traces of a possible water lake below the icy surface on that exists on the south pole of Mars. 

However, two years later, they found fresh evidence supporting the existence of liquid water on Mars. Scientists examined radar images of Mars that were collected over a period of over 10 years and found evidence of not only one but several pools of water below the Martian surface. 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-lake-south-pole-ice-surrounded-pools-water

In detail, 100 radar images that were captured by the Mars Express spacecraft from 2010 till 2019, scientists behind this discovery found evidence of several liquid bodies below glaciers. These liquid bodies varied in sizes. The largest of which is 19 km m across and the smallest is nearly 5 km across.  

Taking into account, the average temperature on Mars is around -80 degrees Celsius, which is too cold to sustain any liquid water at the surface. 

However, researchers believe that these lakes maintain their liquid state thanks to their high concentrations of salt. Basically, Saltworks to get down the freezing point of water so the water can become colder than zero degrees Celsius before it turns to solid ice. In addition, water that contains salt can reach temperatures of nearly minus –21 degrees Celsius. 

Many scientists believe Mars was once a hospitable planet like Earth and might even have hosted life forms millions of years ago. However, the atmosphere of the planet was ripped away because the planet lacked a strong magnetic field like Earth's, allowing solar wind to deprive it of a thick atmosphere.  

https://astronomy.wonderhowto.com/how-to/old-are-you-mars-and-venus-learn-convert-earth-years-across-our-solar-system-0132937/

Though, we shouldn’t lose hope because discoveries like these suggest that some parts of the red planet can be welcoming to life, and could even contain some form of microbial life that survived the calamities. 

Einsteins's Theory of General Relativity

August 30th, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity which was vastly criticized and people had started mocking him as they thought that, how can such a person explain gravity better than Newton did in his laws? However, a decade later, in 1916, Einstein published the General theory of relativity which comprehensively described the geometry of space.  

https://insidetheperimeter.ca/einstein-storyteller/

It was this theory that was going to change our perception of gravity itself. For decades we thought that the universe was ruled by Euclidian geometry which we learn in schools. Euclidian geometry suggests things like; parallel lines can never intersect, and the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, and so on. This, however, was not the case in General relativity. On the contrary, general relativity showed that just like you can distort things drawn on a piece of paper by bending it, space can also be distorted due to bending around massive objects.  

Moreover, bending a two-dimensional piece of paper results in it being wrapped around a third spatial dimension and similarly, the bending of space around massive objects results in the third dimension being wrapped around a fourth spatial dimension according to the distribution of all matter around the universe, since mass is the property which causes the bending of space-time fabric. This fourth spatial dimension is impossible for us humans to comprehend because we are limited to only being able to comprehend until the third dimension.  

However, we humans still use resemblances to represent the fabric of space in a two-dimensional representation of the third dimension showing that the fabric of space-time is bent around massive celestial bodies. This way of representation is not much accurate but it’s simply the best we can do to understand this phenomenon. This concludes by bringing forward the idea that the universe is non-Euclidian and even parallel lines can indeed intersect if they move through curved space-time. 

 

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/309369/the-fabric-of-space-time

Einstein calls this work, the general theory of relativity due to the fact that this applies to all reference frames which means that it can apply to any acceleration (a= any value). The general theory of relativity is an enhancement to Newton’s law of relativity due to the fact that Newton explains the effects of the gravitational force but he never explains what gravity itself is, which Einstein did.   

Hence, due to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, we can now deduce that gravity is the bending and warping of the fabric of space-time. An example of this is how a dense ball bends the surface of a trampoline.  

Therefore, this suggests why less massive objects tend to fall towards more massive objects and hence, this is what explains the dynamics of the universe such as, why the planets in the Solar system orbit the Sun. Furthermore, the idea of general relativity also deduces the fact that space and time are not separate but instead, they shape the interlinked four-dimensional space-time fabric. Nevertheless, matter obeys space-time to know how to move whereas space-time obeys matter to know how to curve.  

The theory of general relativity has been confirmed by countless experiments of which one, made Einstein famous overnight. It was the experiment conducted on the event of a total Solar eclipse in 1919 which proved that light from distant objects is bent by the gravity of massive objects which in this experiment was our very own parent star, the Sun; whereby the blocking of the Sun's light allowed us to directly observe the light from the star that was behind the Sun which appeared to be in a different location than it normally is. 

  

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/84301824259043502/

In addition, the phenomenon of gravitational lensing also confirms the general theory of relativity in which light from celestial objects behind extremely dense objects such as black holes is bent in such a way, that it results in multiple images of the object seen around the black hole.

  

https://astronomy.com/magazine/2012/11/diy-gravitational-lensing