Is Speed of light the ultimate speed

One question frequently asked about relativity is "what would happen if we went faster than light?". It's sometimes said that time would run backwards. Special relativity tells us that this is simply not possible. The universe has a speed limit of just under the speed of light, and it has a clever way of stopping us from breaking it. As we go faster our apparent mass (i.e. as measured by an external observer) increases in proportion to our speed. In fact our mass seems to increase at the same rate as time slows down (in a similar way to the graph seen earlier). We know from everyday experience that the heavier (i.e. more massive) an object is the more energy is needed to move it.

If we try to move an object just above 0% of the speed of light we will find that it has the mass we expect it to have. However, as noted, the mass of the object will appear to increase in proportion to our speed. For example, at 99.5% of the speed of light the object will "weigh" around 10 times what it did when it was stationary:

As our speed goes ever higher so the apparent mass increases, and so does the energy required to move it. At the speed of light it would take infinite energy to move any mass. Since it's clearly impossible to obtain infinite energy we can never quite reach the speed of light (but we can get as close as our energy supply, and technology, will allow). Note that the occupants of any rocket travelling at very high speeds will not be aware of any increase in mass, just as they wouldn't be aware in any change in the rate that time passes. It's only when they measure the mass of stationary (more accurately, near stationary) observers that they will see that there has been a change in mass. However, the astronauts will perceive that everything around them has changed its mass while their own seems to have remained constant.

However, there is something that can travel at the speed of light, and that is, of course, light! See later in this page for an explanation.

The birth rival of Matter THE ANTI-MATTER

This isn't a trick question. Antimatter is exactly what you might think it is -- the opposite of normal matter, of which the majority of our universe is made. Until just recently, the presence of antimatter in our universe was considered to be only theoretical. In 1928, British physicist Paul A.M. Dirac revised Einstein's famous equation E=mc². Dirac said that Einstein didn't consider that the "m" in the equation -- mass -- could have negative properties as well as positive. Dirac's equation (E = + or - mc2) allowed for the existence of anti-particles in our universe. Scientists have since proven that several anti-particles exist.

These anti-particles are, literally, mirror images of normal matter. Each anti-particle has the same mass as its corresponding particle, but the electrical charges are reversed. Here are some antimatter discoveries of the 20th century:

• Positrons - Electrons with a positive instead of negative charge. Discovered by Carl Anderson in 1932, positrons were the first evidence that antimatter existed.
• Anti-protons - Protons that have a negative instead of the usual positive charge. In 1955, researchers at the Berkeley Bevatron produced an antiproton.
• Anti-atoms - Pairing together positrons and antiprotons, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, created the first anti-atom. Nine anti-hydrogen atoms were created, each lasting only 40 nanoseconds. As of 1998, CERN researchers were pushing the production of anti-hydrogen atoms to 2,000 per hour.

When antimatter comes into contact with normal matter, these equal but opposite particles collide to produce an explosion emitting pure radiation, which travels out of the point of the explosion at the speed of light. Both particles that created the explosion are completely annihilated, leaving behind other subatomic particles. The explosion that occurs when antimatter and matter interact transfers the entire mass of both objects into energy. Scientists believe that this energy is more powerful than any that can be generated by other propulsion methods.

So, why haven't we built a matter-antimatter reaction engine? The problem with developing antimatter propulsion is that there is a lack of antimatter existing in the universe. If there were equal amounts of matter and antimatter, we would likely see these reactions around us. Since antimatter doesn't exist around us, we don't see the light that would result from it colliding with matter.

It is possible that particles outnumbered anti-particles at the time of the Big Bang. As stated above, the collision of particles and anti-particles destroys both. And because there may have been more particles in the universe to start with, those are all that's left. There may be no naturally-existing anti-particles in our universe today. However, scientists discovered a possible deposit of antimatter near the center of the galaxy in 1977. If that does exist, it would mean that antimatter exists naturally, and the need to make our own antimatter would be eliminated.

For now, we will have to create our own antimatter. Luckily, there is technology available to create antimatter through the use of high-energy particle colliders, also called "atom smashers." Atom smashers, like CERN, are large tunnels lined with powerful supermagnets that circle around to propel atoms at near-light speeds. When an atom is sent through this accelerator, it slams into a target, creating particles. Some of these particles are antiparticles that are separated out by the magnetic field. These high-energy particle accelerators only produce one or two picograms of antiprotons each year. A picogram is a trillionth of a gram. All of the antiprotons produced at CERN in one year would be enough to light a 100-watt electric light bulb for three seconds. It will take tons of antiprotons to travel to interstellar destinations.

The Invisible matter !!

Dark matter makes up most of the universe – but we can only detect it from its gravitational effects and not be directly detected

    Galaxies in our universe seem to be achieving an impossible feat. They are rotating with such speed that the gravity generated by their observable matter could not possibly hold them together; they should have torn themselves apart long ago. The same is true of galaxies in clusters, which leads scientists to believe that something we cannot see is at work. They think something we have yet to detect directly is giving these galaxies extra mass, generating the extra gravity they need to stay intact. This strange and unknown matter was called “dark matter” since it is not visible.

Dark matter

Unlike normal matter, dark matter does not interact with the electromagnetic force. This means it does not absorb, reflect or emit light, making it extremely hard to spot. In fact, researchers have been able to infer the existence of dark matter only from the gravitational effect it seems to have on visible matter. Dark matter seems to outweigh visible matter roughly six to one, making up about 27% of the universe. Here's a sobering fact: The matter we know and that makes up all stars and galaxies only accounts for 5% of the content of the universe! But what is dark matter? One idea is that it could contain "supersymmetric particles" – hypothesized particles that are partners to those already known in the Standard Model. Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may provide more direct clues about dark matter.

Many theories say the dark matter particles would be light enough to be produced at the LHC. If they were created at the LHC, they would escape through the detectors unnoticed. However, they would carry away energy and momentum, so physicists could infer their existence from the amount of energy and momentum “missing” after a collision. Dark matter candidates arise frequently in theories that suggest physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry and extra dimensions. One theory suggests the existence of a “Hidden Valley”, a parallel world made of dark matter having very little in common with matter we know. If one of these theories proved to be true, it could help scientists gain a better understanding of the composition of our universe and, in particular, how galaxies hold together.

wikipedia link to know more on Dark Matter

Dark energy

Dark energy makes up approximately 68% of the universe and appears to be associated with the vacuum in space. It is distributed evenly throughout the universe, not only in space but also in time – in other words, its effect is not diluted as the universe expands. The even distribution means that dark energy does not have any local gravitational effects, but rather a global effect on the universe as a whole. This leads to a repulsive force, which tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe. The rate of expansion and its acceleration can be measured by observations based on the Hubble law. These measurements, together with other scientific data, have confirmed the existence of dark energy and provide an estimate of just how much of this mysterious substance exists.

wikipedia to know more on Dark energy

Jupiter Twin Found Orbiting Sun-like Star

The hunt for planetary systems similar to our own Solar System has understandably focused on a rather obvious method so far: looking for Earth-like planets.

   But a team of researchers has instead found a potential Solar System 2.0 not by looking for Earths, but instead through finding a Jupiter twin similar to our own gas giant in an almost identical orbit. The discovery was made using the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 3.6-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.

“The quest for an Earth 2.0, and for a complete Solar System 2.0, is one of the most exciting endeavors in astronomy,” said Jorge Melendez from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the leader of the team and coauthor of the paper in which the findings were published, in a statement.

Jupiter is thought to have played a key role in the formation of Earth, possibly clearing out debris and enabling small rocky planets like Earth and Mars to form by swinging through the inner Solar System early in its life like a wrecking ball. It therefore stands to reason that finding a similar planet in a similar orbit in another planetary system could be a sign that the system formed in a similar way to ours.

Studying the star HIP 11915, 186 light-years from Earth, the international team found that it has a gas giant that is not only almost identical in mass to Jupiter, but orbits at a similar distance from its host star. That planet has 0.99 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits at 4.8 astronomical units (one AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun). Jupiter orbits at 5.2 AU. The team notes that the size of the exoplanet cannot yet be determined, owing to the method of its discovery – radial velocity – which relies on measuring the planet's influence on its host star.

While other Jupiter-like planets have been found before, this is the first time that such a planet has been found in this configuration. What’s more, the star itself is similar in mass, composition and age to our Sun.

“From the spectrum of HIP 11915, we can tell that its composition is similar to the Sun,” coauthor on the study Megan Bedell from the University of Chicago told IFLScience. It’s thought that our Sun’s chemical composition is fairly unique, possibly due to forming rocky planets in the past. “If it’s true, then HIP 11915 has the chemical signature of a rocky planet host,” Bedell added.

Jupiter is thought to have swept through the early Solar System, illustrated, allowing rocky planets like Earth to form. NASA.

The discovery of a Jupiter-like planet is arguably more important though, considering the key role that we think Jupiter may have played in the formation of Earth as we know it. “Current theories suggest that Jupiter enabled the formation of our inner Solar System because it migrated into Mars' current orbital distance and cleared out [some of the] debris from the inner Solar System with its gravity,” said Bedell. This enabled the smaller rocky planets to form, due to the limited debris available, rather than larger gas giants.

“After Jupiter migrated back out again, smaller planets like Earth and Mars were able to form without as much interference. So if this is true, then having a Jupiter-like planet would make small rocky worlds more likely to form," said Bedell.

At the moment, the team is unable to confirm or deny whether there are rocky planets in the HIP 11915 system, although this could be possible with the ESO's upcoming rocky planet-hunting ESPRESSO instrument, due to be installed on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile next year.

But the discovery of this gas giant in a relatively long-period orbit could be a step toward finding Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars. So far in planet hunting, gas giants have almost exclusively been found in close orbits around their stars, turning them into so-called “hot Jupiters”.

“This discovery is, in every respect, an exciting sign that other solar systems may be out there waiting to be discovered,” Bedell said in a statement.

Is it Time To Call Pluto a planet Again?!!!!!!???????

But that doesn't mean it will always be a dwarf planet. As NASA’s New Horizons passes by Pluto, an underdog planet beloved in the hearts of many enthusiasts, it has come to the attention of many scientists around the world that Pluto was a lot bigger than expected.

So is it time to maybe rethink that Pluto is bigger than the average asteroid, less dwarf and more planet? Maybe not. Either way, Pluto was confirmed to be the biggest in the Kuiper Belt, just slightly bigger by volume and diameter than the other big contender, Eris.

Eris and its moon, Dysnomia.

What scientists found incredible is that Pluto has a relatively young surface compared to other planets, with hardly any craters or other punches and smacks from outer space. On top of that, mountains made of pure ice were recently discovered. Its internal structure is completely unique as well, apart from other rock planets such as Earth or Mars, and even its neighbours Eris and Charon.

The thing that really blew away scientists, though, was its active, hot, internal core which suggests the planets and some dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt are still growing and have tons of geological activity. Because of Pluto’s smooth surface and gradually growing ice mountains, I think it’s time to reopen the planet debate.

I was in the “Pluto is not a planet” camp for a very long time, considering its bizarre orbit around the sun and tiny, teeny weenie size. No matter how much I loved Pluto, even with my heart believing in Pluto’s legitimacy as a planet, I just wasn’t convinced.

Charon, the waltzing partner of Pluto. Its canyons are twice as deep as the Grand Canyon’s.

However, with all the new evidence provided by the heroes at NASA, I realized that maybe we were all just a little too hard on the little planet that tried. Maybe with its large atmosphere, unique makeup and growing bones, scientists should have not so quickly taken away its title.

But then again, a dwarf planet status is not so bad, right? Here’s more reason why we should all be fervently downloading images of Pluto — with Charon and Pluto high-fiving way more than we ever thought, this dynamic duo of our solar system may even be confirmed as the first binary dwarf planetary system. Chances are we’ll be seeing a lot more of Charon in the days to come, whose existence was debated up until Horizon’s photos came back to Earth.

Hydra was also heavily photographed, despite being quite far away for New Horizon to photograph. It was confirmed that it is mainly made up of ice water and is very similar in makeup to Triton. More moons such as Nix and Kerberos will probably show up in the days to come, as well as more info on Hydra.

With five moons all orbiting Pluto, easily making it similar to a planet like Saturn or Jupiter, the new and constant geological activity and being far more alive and hefty than anyone on Earth knew, Pluto makes a strong case for itself. Even NASA says it’s thinking about “restoring Pluto’s honor”. Either way, Pluto has delivered way more than anyone bargained for.

If Pluto isn't restored, no need to panic — we should all be way excited that the backdoor mysteries of our own solar system are finally being revealed. Maybe next we’ll hear about news from NASA’s Voyager, which left our solar system last year — aliens, perhaps?

pluto has YOUNG surface!?!

Pluto is an outlier, an underdog, a scientific anomaly. The dwarf planet may be small—but it definitely has big potential.

“This far exceeds what we came for,” noted Cathy Olkin, New Horizons Deputy Project Scientist, during today’s 3 p.m. press briefing at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.

In a small portion of Pluto’s bright “heart” feature, the New Horizons team imaged mountain ranges that, at up to 11,00o feet high, rival the Rockies. “That’s a ‘balloon popping’ event,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons Project Investigator. These mountain regions could be geologically active, and the scientists predict that they aren’t more than 100 million years old. Compared to the 4.56-billion-year-old solar system, that’s infantile. It’s this ripeness and youth—highly unexpected for a celestial body so far away—that has the mission crew bustling with excitement.

New Horizons captured in great detail the heart-shaped feature, which has been named the Tombaugh Regio after Clyde Tombaugh. In planetary geology, a "regio" is a large area of a planet of moon that is strongly differentiated in color or albedo (reflectivity) from surrounding regions.

In fact, it may be one of the youngest surfaces that we’ve ever encountered. What’s more, the mountains are made of water ice and coated with a thin veneer of methane and nitrogen ices. “We can be very sure that water is there in great abundance,” Stern said. Nitrogen ice may be eroding from the surface; that there’s a veneer at all, though, implies that active internal processes are likely driving these volatile gases to the surface. The New Horizons team has a few guesses as to what could be going on: an internal, subsurface ocean could be freezing and gradually releasing energy, or radioactivity could be at play.

Tidal heating—thermal energy generated by gravitational interactions between planetary bodies—is typically a prerequisite for mountain formation. Or at least, that’s what scientists have always assumed. But Pluto begs to differ; it can’t have tidal energy because Charon and Pluto are in tidal equilibrium. The presence of towering mountain ranges, then, suggests that tidal heating is not needed to power recent geological activity. “This is going to send a lot geophysicists back to the drawing board,” said Stern. “We have to get a bit more clever.” Pluto is now the only icy world that doesn’t orbit a giant planet—and a fledgling example of a brand-new geophysical law.

Another sign of youth is the fact that this section of Pluto’s heart has no impact craters. That discovery came as a huge surprise to the team. This initial region contains strange geological features as small as half a mile long. Material that looks like lava flow (though it’s too big to be exactly that) ripples through bumpy terrain. At the same time, a new high-res image of Charon depicts large cliffs, troughs, and canyons—one of which is four to six miles deep. The dark area at its polar cap is also bigger than the team thought it would be. “There’s so much interesting science in this one image alone,” said Olkin as she discussed Charon during this afternoon’s press conference.

In the coming weeks and months, the New Horizons crew will investigate how and why Pluto still exhibits such ample activity. Is it somehow living off of stored energy from its original formation? They will also extrapolate the data to better understand how the Pluto-Charon system can help us better comprehend the relationship between Earth and its own moon, as well as how our planet may have lost some of its atmosphere early on in its life.

Titan`s climate so similar to earth , can we colonise this moon like planet ?

Lakes on Titan. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Even though there are lakes and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, the rains that feed them may come few and far between. According to data gathered by NASA’s Cassini mission, parts of Titan might not see rain for more than 1,000 years.

And according to Dr. Ralph Lorenz, from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), a new mission to Titan is exactly what’s needed to get to the bottom of this.

Rain on Titan?! It sounds bizarre, but scientists have observed a complex cycle of liquid on Titan, with lakes and rivers, clouds, and the rain that must feed them. But on Titan, where surface temperatures plunge to -179C, we’re not talking about water. The whole hydrological cycle runs with methane: methane lakes, methane rivers, and methane rain.

And it appears that the rain on Titan can be extreme, with deep river channels that must have had enormous flows for brief periods. But this rain must also be rare. In all of its observations of Titan, Cassini only spotted two instances of darkened regions that might have indicated rainfall.

In a recent talk at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), Dr. Lorenz presented his estimates of the Titan rainfall, and the need for a new mission that could study it.

Titan Mare Explorer. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Titan Mare Explorer (TiME)

Dr. Lorenz is one of the scientists involved with the proposed Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) mission; one of three shortlisted missions that might be turned into NASA Discovery missions.

If selected, TiME would travel to the Saturn system, descend through Titan’s thick atmosphere, and land in Ligeia Mara, a large lake on the surface of the moon. It would search for rainstorms on the descent – an extremely unlikely event – and then watch the skies for evidence of rainfall. It would be able to “hear” rain falling directly onto it, and in the liquid around it. TiME would also be equipped with instruments that would let it see cloud formation, rain shafts, and even methane rainbows.

Assuming the rain shafts are 10 km wide, and would be observable at distances of 20 km, the lander should be able to detect rainstorms within a 1200 km² area. According to Dr. Lorenz:

We might expect a 50% chance for a lander to be rained on directly in a 2500hr mission, but that its camera could observe nearby rainfall an expected ~5 times.

Once in 1,000 years?

While the weather system on Titan is similar to Earth, it probably has some significant differences, which Cassini observations have hinted at. Although there were possible storms seen in 2004, there was a huge gap until 2010. After the “storm”, the surface of Titan was changed with a large darkened area that could indicate saturation of liquid on the surface. These ponds seemed to dry up in future observations.

Estimates indicate that regions near Titan’s poles see rainfall for 10-100 hours every Titan year (30 Earth years). But the drier parts of the moon might not see more than a single rainfall every 1,000 years.

Ice volcanoes 

Based on new data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, may have active ice volcanoes. The researchers analyzed surface brightness data captured by Cassini and discovered changes that would indicate active cryovolcanism on Titan.

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Anezina Solomonidou, from the Observatoire de Paris and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, presented the research at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2013. Interestingly, the active ice volcanoes on Titan could make certain areas of the moon more suitable for life. “These results have important implications for Titan’s potential to support life as these cryovolcanic areas might contain environments that could harbor conditions favorable for life,” said Solomonidou in a statement.

The study analyzed three locations near Titan’s equator, Tui Regio, Hotei Regio and Sotra Patera, for potential ice volcano activity, comparing those locations with similar volcanic regions found on Earth, examining features such as calderas, a feature caused by the collapse of land after an eruption and volcanic craters.

According to the researchers, Titan has many features that can be found on Earth, including dunes, lakes, weathering erosion as well as clouds and rain of liquid methane, instead of water. Titan’s surface is covered by a thick layer of ice, but underneath that ice there is an ocean of liquid water, although it may contain ammonia. Solomindo says Titan needs to have a mechanism to replenish methane.

Methane is important in the search for life as it is one of the four components, along with water vapor, carbon dioxide and oxygen, which astronomers look for to determine a planet’s, or moon’s, potential to sustain life, reports Universe Today. There are organisms on Earth, such as methanotrophic bacteria, that convert methane into energy. Unlike a volcano eruption on Earth, a cryovolcano, or ice volcano, eruption ejects methane.

Researchers, using Cassini’s onboard Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), discovered brightness changes for two regions, Tui Regio and Sotra Patera. Tui Regio decreased in brightness between 2005 and 2009, but Sotra Patera had an increase in brightness between 2005 and 2006. Sotra Patera, formerly known as Sotra Facula, has been previously pegged as an ice volcano by NASA in 2010 as the area features two peaks, potential volcanic craters and flows. “When we look at our new 3-D map of Sotra Facula on Titan, we are struck by its resemblance to volcanoes like Mt. Etna in Italy, Laki in Iceland and even some small volcanic cones and flows near my hometown of Flagstaff,” said Randolph Kirk, from the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center in Arizona, in a statement.

The only known ice volcano is found on Neptune’s moon Triton. The cryovolcano was observed byVoyager 2 in 1989.

What is increasing the methane on titan volcano or life Read this article on Universe Today. 

New Horizons’ Last Portrait of Pluto’s Puzzling Spots

Three billion miles from Earth and just two and a half million miles from Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has taken its best image of four dark spots that continue to captivate. 

The spots appear on the side of Pluto that always faces its largest moon, Charon—the face that will be invisible to New Horizons when the spacecraft makes its close flyby the morning of July 14. New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, describes this image as “the last, best look that anyone will have of Pluto’s far side for decades to come.”

The spots are connected to a dark belt that circles Pluto’s equatorial region. What continues to pique the interest of scientists is their similar size and even spacing. “It’s weird that they’re spaced so regularly,” says New Horizons program scientist Curt Niebur at NASA Headquarters in Washington.  Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, is equally intrigued. “We can’t tell whether they’re plateaus or plains, or whether they’re brightness variations on a completely smooth surface.” 

The large dark areas are now estimated to be 300 miles (480 kilometers) across, an area roughly the size of the state of Missouri.  In comparison with earlier images, we now see that the dark areas are more complex than they initially appeared, while the boundaries between the dark and bright terrains are irregular and sharply defined.  

In addition to solving the mystery of the spots, the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team is interested in identifying other surface features such as impact craters, formed when smaller objects struck the dwarf planet. Moore notes, “When we combine images like this of the far side with composition and color data the spacecraft has already acquired but not yet sent to Earth, we expect to be able to read the history of this face of Pluto.”

When New Horizons makes its closest approach to Pluto in just three days, it will focus on the opposing or “encounter hemisphere” of the dwarf planet. On the morning of July 14, New Horizons will pass about 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) from the face with a large heart-shaped feature that’s captured the imagination of people around the world. 

Image caption: New Horizons' last look at Pluto's Charon-facing hemisphere reveals intriguing geologic details that are of keen interest to mission scientists. This image, taken early the morning of July 11, 2015, shows newly-resolved linear features above the equatorial region that intersect, suggestive of polygonal shapes. This image was captured when the spacecraft was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto.

Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

The dangerous little white twin

You’re probably more familiar with a supernova, where a star is ripped apart in a cataclysmic explosion.   Novas occur when a white dwarf orbits with another star and captures some of the star’s outer material. This material forms an accretion disk around the white dwarf, which gradually falls to its surface.  When material accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf, it can trigger a nuclear explosion that causes it to brighten similar to a supernova, but not nearly as intense.  Since the explosion doesn’t destroy the star, it is possible for a nova to occur again after more material has accumulated.

The most famous recurrent nova is RS Ophiuchi, which becomes a nova about every 20 years.  Other recurrent nova occur at different rates.  Recurrent nova caused by more massive white dwarfs tend to have shorter repeat times than those with less mass.  This seems to be due to the fact that stars with more gravity can accumulate matter from the companion star more quickly.  Some recurrent nova have irregular repeat times, or have novae with highly varying brightnesses.  This seems to be due to disruptions in the accretion disk when the star explodes.

It is thought that recurrent novas could be a precursor to the white dwarf becoming a supernova.  If the material cast off by the nova is less than the material accumulated each time, then the white dwarf will gradually increase in mass.  Eventually this bring its mass to the Chandrasekhar limit, which is the upper limit for the mass of a white dwarf.  Beyond that point the star will collapse, which can trigger a supernova explosion.

Recently astronomers have discovered a fast recurrent nova in the Andromeda galaxy.  A paper on the nova was recently published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, and presents some of the initial results.  The star, known as M31N 2008-12a has a nova outburst about once a year.  This is extremely rapid, since the next highest frequency rate is about once a decade.  The star also brightens quickly and dims quickly, on the order of a few days.  When observed in x-rays, it was found the star emits x-rays during the nova period for about 10 days.  Since x-rays are generated by nuclear interactions, this indicates that the nuclear interactions on the surface only last about that long.

All of this points to M31N 2008-12a being a very massive white dwarf star.  Since the novae occur so rapidly, it is clear that material from its companion star continues to accrete at a regular basis.  It would seem that this star is on its way to becoming a supernova.  Just how soon that might be is unknown, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.  It could explode at any time.

Of course on a cosmic scale “any time” could be anywhere from tomorrow to thousands of years.

Paper: M. Henze, et al. A remarkable recurrent nova in M 31: The X-ray observations. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 563, L8 (2014)

Note: Recurrent nova happens is a white dwarf comes from a supernova again

The incredible journey of light from the core taking millions of years

Light consists of photons.Photons are the elementary particles basically the light itself.
   The Sun consumes 4 million tons of hydrogen per second. This loss of mass is converted into energy, 564 million tons of hydrogen are converted into 560 million tons of helium. The Sun produces its energy through nuclear fusion, due to the pressure and temperature prevailing in his big heart. This pressure and this temperature forcing electrons to break away and travel atoms released from atomic nuclei. Therefore the material no longer behaves like a gas but as a plasma. The nuclei of hydrogen powered against each other by the enormous pressure, will be transformed into helium nuclei. This fusion process generates a core mass slightly smaller and this difference is released as energy.  
  
The energy produced by nuclear fusion is conveyed from the heart of the Sun by light particles and heat, called photons. When merging two protons in a nucleus of deuterium to create a helium nucleus, photons are released. This particle, created in the solar core, transmits the light beam to Earth. To send us this photon must traverse the various layers of the Sun. The transit time of a photon of the heart at the surface is between 10 000 and 170 000 years based on collisions.

 Due to this photons are created they in the start they are the dangerous gamma rays which destroy the D.N.A of  living organisms. 

this deadly gamma ray turns into a less dangerous x-rays when the pass through the radiative zone, this process takes  millions of years.

 after that they are carried by the atoms and get transferred frequently from one atom to another, slowly losing energy and becoming visible light. This proscess happens in the convective zone. 

 Then the final atoms which carry the photons help the photos reach the surface . After they reach the surface

the photos are ejected from the  atoms, then the cold atoms literally fall back to carry more photons.

photons represented in the form of wave

 Then the photos or the light to be more precise attain the 3*10^8 m/s speed and take 8 mins to reach earth.

the sun's surface

Note : Light travels both as a electromagnetic wave and as a particle(photon). To know more on the dual nature of light visit: wikipedia.

  

Know more on photons on wikipedia

the contradiction to all the black holes THE WHITE HOLES!!!!!!!!!!

1. In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime which cannot be entered from the outside, although matter and light can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a black hole, which can only be entered from the outside, from which nothing, including light, can escape.
2. It is also believed that if you get ucked into a BLACK HOLE , you may get ejected out from the other part of the black hole or more precisely the WHITE HOLE and end up in a very far away part of our universe or another universe , even in a different part of time itself.
3. In the interstellar more the person who enters the black hole with the name Gargantua  and comes back to our universe in a different time
4. Note:- Black hole can slow down the time or make an object which sucked in go to a different.  
5. 

6. 

   image of the black hole and the planet

   more info on white hole : a)universe today
7. b) wiki pedia
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Einstein's FAMOUS Equation E=mc^2 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

image from livescience.com

In physics,  is the concept that the mass of an object or system is a measure of its energy content. For instance, adding 25 kilowatt-hours(90 megajoules) of any form of energy to any object increases its mass by 1 microgram (and, accordingly, its inertia and weight) even though no matter has been added.

A physical system has a property called energy and a corresponding property called mass; the two properties are equivalent in that they are always both present in the same (i.e. constant) proportion to one another. Mass–energy equivalence arose originally from special relativity as a paradox described by Henri Poincaré.^[1] The equivalence of energy E and mass m is reliant on the speed of light c and is described by the famous equation:

Thus, this mass–energy relation states that the universal proportionality factor between equivalent amounts of energy and mass is equal to the speed of light squared. This also serves to convert units of mass to units of energy, no matter what system of measurement units used.

If a body is stationary, it still has some internal or intrinsic energy, called its rest energy. Rest mass and rest energy are equivalent and remain proportional to one another. When the body is in motion (relative to an observer), its total energy is greater than its rest energy. The rest mass (or rest energy) remains an important quantity in this case because it remains the same regardless of this motion, even for the extreme speeds or gravity considered in special and general relativity; thus it is also called theinvariant mass.

On the one hand, the equation E = mc² can be applied to rest mass (m or m₀) and rest energy (E₀) to show their proportionality as E₀ = m₀c².^[2]

On the other hand, it can also be applied to the total energy (E_tot or simply E) and total mass of a moving body. The total mass is also called the relativistic mass m_rel. The total energy and total mass are related by E = mc².^[3]