Red Shift, Blue Shift

A redshift occurs whenever a light source moves away from an observer.

i.e, The observer sees the light source in the hue of RED if that light source appears to be moving away.

A blueshift occurs whenever a light source moves toward an observer.

i.e, The observer sees the light source in the hue of BLUE if that light source appears to be approaching.



In order for a light source to "move away,"  a combination of movements interrelating with one another is necessary.  Any given light source which travels at the same speed we are and moving in the same direction  would then necessarily be in a position neither moving away nor approaching closer—resulting in our purple here and now, perhaps. 

How many possible combinations are there in terms of celestial bodies' movement to and from each other?  If the universe were as chaotically spread out as it appears to be, we might conclude that any and all possible configurations exist; since we know that galaxies and solar systems actually operate in an orderly manner compressing more or less into a pancake shape and spiraling around a supermassive so-called black hole, we can conclude that the possible configurations of celestial bodies moving toward and away from each other represent a limited set.  

If something shifts red—okay, the relation of our movement to each other is such that this light is moving away—which could either mean we are both headed in the same exact direction only we are the slower of the two—or it could mean we are moving in opposite directions.   Whichever the case—we are moving apart from each other.  Redshift. 

Concerning humans and the so called possibility of extraterrestrials. Radio waves. Do they only appear longer to each other?  Will what we each experience here and now as "visible light"—by the time it reaches another living solar system—be perceived there as radio waves?   Why, certainly.  All we must do, is understand that space in no way should be perceived as being "very large," as tradition has unfortunately cemented. Putting it in the most direct and simple terms, there is no such thing as space. Quite naturally, for we all exist solely in time.   Time and matter.  Now we're getting warmer.  

IF we "zoom in" at the stars with a telescope more powerful than any we've heretofore glimpsed through—a question to an astronomer might be—will their radio waves gradually shorten with inverse proportion to our zooming to the point the telescope effectively "tunes in" to the visible light bandwidth as it normally appears in relation to the examined solar system?  Is it that even our eyesight itself when operating cannot exceed the speed of light—regardless of how much we "enhance" it through powerful telescopes ?  If the latter were to be the case—(and I'm starting to think it is)—then that would mean that by a fundamental property of nature itself  (nothing can exceed the speed of light) we as sentient beings may be (fundamentally) incapable of receiving anything but radio waves from those solar systems out there that are redshifting farther and farther away from us.  We must not lose sight that we are the observers, here. (Which is why I'm currently obsessed by the idea we might be able to process radio waves by somehow reverting them to their original shorter wavelength through some sort of oscilloscope or something, in order that we might conjure up a visible light image—aka, a "cosmic photograph," if you will—of the system we're receiving the radio waves from.)  

So under which circumstances does blueshifting occur? [Answer: Andromeda] I'd have to guess...extremely temporary ones wherein distant solar systems on an overall path of moving farther away from us might appear for a microfraction of a millisecond to be momentarily approaching as said star system whips in its clockwise rotation about its galaxy riding on its spiral arm while we ourselves might be spiralling momentarily towards it until the moment later when this synchronization no longer produces the micro-flash of blueshift.  

From what I've been led to understand about the nature of our galaxy and universe and relativity, all stars should be redshifting away from us.  Except for one thing—the stars in our own galaxy that we can see represent only the slightest microfraction of the total in our galaxy.   The stars we're following along with ("chasing") which are in direct proximity to us on our spiral arm must neither be redshifting nor blueshifting as we're perpetually bound together in this arm of the galaxy spiraling about our core.  Welcome to the purple shift. 

Redshifting and blueshifting must only be a phenomenon particular to powerful telescope observations.   How could anything blueshift at all in a universe where everything is allegedly expanding apart from one another ?  You'd think everything would be redshifted. 

Redshift, then, must be the normal setting for most everything we see in the night skies; and Blueshift merely a strange exception due to momentary synchronized alignments with other portions of our galaxy which flicker into the blue each time they momentarily appear closer.

 Of the 300 billion stars in our Milky Way—we can only see six or seven thousand of them with the naked eye, approximately. And we can only see up to three thousand of those at any given time. 

• Only the merest fraction of about .000003% of our galaxy is represented by the visible stars in our night skies. 
• Putting that in another context: it means that 99.999997% of our Milky Way galaxy is not visible to the human eye. 

It's remarkable to think that all those stars we see at night barely even scratch the surface of our remaining galaxy. We can barely see past the skin of our own atmosphere—and hardly beneath the skin of our galaxy.  We really need to think about this more while hoping for a proper sense of perspective to begin developing.

 

Gravitational redshift is a relativistic effect observed in electromagnetic radiation 

moving out of gravitational fields. 

In the theory of general relativity, there is time dilation 

within a gravitational well. 

Redshifting indicates a slide towards the radio wave end of the spectrum (red) while blueshifting indicates a slide toward the gamma ray end of the spectrum (blue).  

Fermi Jackpot

Just suppose that I've hit upon the bull's nose here, try searching online for the answer to the question of whether we have detected radio waves here on Earth or don't - ("Yeah - it's called X-96 Maaan") - you won't find anything except for entries to the Fermi Paradox , FAQs about SETI, and the usual stuff about far away radio signals from other galaxies.

Next search questions:

Can we convert radio waves into smaller  (light) waves?
~and~
Convert radio waves by shortening them


This brought up the rectenna:  a device for converting radio waves to electricity!

OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE

COSMOLOGICAL EXPANSION

I may have my answer to Fermi's Paradox!

Fermi's Question: 

"Where is everybody?"

My Answer: 

"Everybody is in the form of longer wavelengths - i.e, radio waves."

I might add:

"If we could somehow convert those particular radio waves, by rewinding them until they were shorter in length, they should eventually be rendered back into visible light images, should they not?"

Quasars and Wavelengths

Note: This blog was initially set up for the purpose of a NOTEPAD—that is, a way for me to put ideas up off the cuff, for future utilization in whatever creative writing endeavor I might undertake.   

For this reason I provide a reminder here as a disclaimer:   the following notes represent my best efforts at "thinking out loud" and therefore, you should follow along at your own risk.   In essence, this entry represents a sort of raw or untamed exacerbation of related ideas competing for cohesion in my mind.  Thanks for understanding.  I offer this in case you have any input—that's what the comments section at the bottom are for. Any help towards comprehending the nature of what I've written about would be much appreciated.  | The author.  

Excess emission from an AGN -  could potentially signify that quality which makes a galaxy adult -  or fully formed - having acquired a quasar and become active, in other words.  

~  We like to say "a galaxy hosting an AGN"— 

If we were to apply the principles of inversion with delicate purpose:

—We might infer that "the AGNs more correctly host us."  ~

(We should keep this possibility in mind while we proceed.) 

For centuries these adult "active" galaxies have had the highest redshift of any known stellar objects - being the brightest known things in our night time skies.  

The early universe featured many more active galaxies than we find today...

 ~  Gravitational  Lens ~

Unlike an optical lens, maximum 'bending' occurs closest to, and minimum 'bending' furthest from, the center of a gravitational lens. Consequently, a gravitational lens has no single focal point, but a focal line instead.

Maximum bending occurs furthest from the center of an optical lens. Not so with a gravitational lens, where the maximum bending occurs closest to the center. (I suspect this implies the focal line is around the edges of a gravitational lens.) 

Therefore - a gravitational lens's  focal point - unlike the single focal point at the center of optical lenses where minimum bending occurs -  exists on the peripheral edge of the gravitational lens.   The focal line may just be that next dimensional step from the zero dimensionality of a point to the single dimensionality of a line - if an optical lens has a single compressed focal point in the center - (where minimum bending occurs) - and gravitational lenses have an outspread focal line about the periphery—(because their focus is somehow inverted from optical lenses)—Then what is focused upon when observing the direct center of the gravitational lens?—the (otherwise blurred-out) epicenter of the Big Bang-?

(Because observing the peripheral focal line of a gravitational lens presumably reveals the next stellar object in our "field of vision.")

[It seems to me that gravitational lensing may be part of the answer involving the misguided question to the so-called possibility of "time machines" - (that instead of transporting us to, may only allow us to glimpse into the past or the future -?)   Perhaps, these conceptions of 'past' and 'future' we've come up with - do not exist in realspace irrelative to ourselves.   These conceptions may be more like primitive, or child-like, if you will, projections by our curious and more naive natures.  They're like wild stabs at the truth, and although bound to 'hit' their target partially (for truth is everywhere) - they miss the remaining totality - (those parts that avoided being 'stabbed' with our single-mindedness).  This process may keep us in the dark, more than illuminating it.    This form of untrained speculation inherent to growing organisms naturally ends up occluding more than it reveals.   For it is not so much that such conceptions as 'space' and 'time' exist as we might imagine them to - but, that which we cannot imagine lies spread out before us as reality, in fact.   Our capacity to imagine may even stretch towards the infinite, yet even as it does so, it easily loses grip of 'realtruth' on wild tangential journeys of speculation whose erroneous conclusions are achieved before that which is really happening may even be touched upon.]   

)Stare into the abysmal mirror at the fractal of zero(  

[The reason a time machine may not be capable of existing has more to do with our misconceived take on the nature of time itself - which a theoretical "time machine" is predicated upon - than any lack of cutting edge scientific experience.  Inventing a time machine would be similar to inventing a method to digest food without having to eat it - as if we'd forgotten that consuming the food in order to digest it ourselves was the original point. "We are already traveling through time" appears to be one minor reflection of why or how time machines as we have imagined them cannot be constructed - we or perhaps this universe or galaxy or solar system itself are already time machines of a sort.   It's like living on an airplane and one day wondering if there wasn't a way to invent an airplane.   Perhaps a bad analogy as it offers the tantalizing possibility of flying while flying....a telescoped presumption - but hopefully my meaning is clear.   We are constantly digressing down the slope of our abject dream. To dream of flying while flying may be a disease and not necessarily an aspiration....]

[More to the point.  These conceptions we have come up with and project over the mantle of that which we perceive to be our reality - -i.e, time and space and everything in between— are really the complicated aspects of phenomena concerning our perceptions of the refraction of light itself in all its undue manifestation.   For light must be the electricity by which we conduct our affairs here in this open realm of super generated gravity wells spun out in the almost impossible-to-map webwork that comprises our expanding universe. ]  

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _   Further notes on Sagittarius A and its central components - - - - - - - 


Sagittarius A is a complex radio source at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.  It is comprised of three distinct components: 

1.  Sagittarius A East:   supernova remnant 
2. Sagittarius A West:  spiral structure
3. Sagittarius A* Star:  (Written "Sagittarius A*" and pronounced 'Sagittarius A-Star'): very bright compact radio source 

(This is speculated to be the location of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own galaxy.  Whether or not this makes Sagittarius A* out to be a "Quasar" or analogous to one - I don't know. It seems likely.)


_ _ _ _ _ _ _  _ _   /End further notes on Sagittarius A and its central components - - - - 


~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~R A D I O ~-~-~-W A V E S-~-~-~-~-~-~


Naturally occurring radio waves are made by lightning, or by astronomical objects. 

What radio waves are -  They are a type of electromagnetic radiation whose wavelengths are longer than infrared light.   They have frequencies from 3 kHz to 300 GHz.  This displays wavelengths from 1 millimeter long to 100 kilometers long (62 miles).  They travel at the same speed as any other electromagnetic waves - the speed of light. 

(All that "light" happens to be - is that electromagnetic radiation which happens to be visible to the human  eye.   It is responsible for our ability to see.  If you've followed this far—are you being able to SEE what I've been getting at, here in this impromptu essay?)    

}speculation{
IF light with its shorter wavelength (but not too short!) is responsible for our ability to SEE, then longer wavelengths (aka radio) are responsible for our ability to _________.  Is the proper word for this analogy "HEAR" -?   Is there then a corresponding electromagnetic radiation for each of our five senses? [I doubt it.] Perhaps the micro-electric sensations of touch, the chemical-electric sensations of taste, the radio waves of sound, or the electro-nerve impulses of smell?  [Nice idea, but...*] 

By virtue of differing electromagnetic spectra, each one of our five senses may be "triggered" into response:   If visible light grants our SIGHT, I need to map out the hierarchy of the remaining four senses to see how they may fit into each other, nested or otherwise.
}/end speculation{

|radio, microwave, infrared...

...visible light...

...ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma-rays|

There appear to be SIX forms of electromagnetic radiation besides our own of visible light. 
*In between* each successive demarcation [excluding our own] are five gaps: 

|RADIO  gap 1  MICROWAVE  gap 2  INFRARED   gap 3  ULTRAVIOLET gap 4  XRAYS gap 5 GAMMA RAYS |


 {We may potentially insert each of our own 5 SENSES in between these spectral wavelengths.}


|RADIO   sound  MICROWAVE   smell  INFRARED  vision ULTRAVIOLET taste  XRAYS touch  GAMMA RAYS |


[In between INFRARED and ULTRAVIOLET lies the spectrum of VISIBLE LIGHT - from which either ALL 5 of our senses operate outward - or maybe just vision alone does{?}.   This should be studied further. /end cont. speculation]

If a quasar is a source of radio waves - or - waves longer than those we can see  - - could this possibly be referring to nothing more than the necessary distance (for example, a segment roughly equivalent to the radius of any given galaxy)  sufficient to serve as being long enough to produce wavelengths we are incapable of seeing?  This would imply that perhaps radio waves start out shorter, and then lengthen across spacetime; something I didn't think was the case, but now remain uncertain if we're even capable of establishing here, on Earth, from this distance. 

In other words --  if we were by an order of magnitude CLOSER to the source of these radio waves -- would  we THEN be able to see them?    

Q: IS THE ONLY THING 'MASKING' POTENTIALLY 'VISUALIZED' ASPECTS OF OUR UNIVERSE  [SUCH AS WE FIND IN AND AROUND OUR IMMEDIATE VICINITY HERE ON EARTH] THE DIFFERING LENGTHS OF THESE VARIOUS ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATIONS IN RELATION TO THEIR PROXIMITY TO US?  

Q: Could it be possible there is life invisible to us where waves lengthen - if only we could approach closer to them thus shortening the wavelengths - making it an option, perhaps to suddenly "tune in" visually to their existence via the proper signal converter?    

   ~  In (Temporary) Conclusion - 

We may currently speculate on the possibility that distant and longer electromagnetic wavelengths  [ such as RADIO, MICROWAVE, and INFRARED ]  may in fact signify phenomena identical to our own which VISIBLE LIGHT wavelengths allow us to see—except—their very distance from us  renders them longer and therefore no longer visible to us, who happen to be located at this sufficient distance from them.  

Begging the question:  IF we were capable of merely approaching closer to these sorts of wavelengths—perhaps we could then of a sudden "SEE" them as "visible light" the way we do so here. *  (i.e, What or how we perceive may all be relative to our proximity to what we are trying to perceive in time and space).    

*Necessarily begging the smaller question:  perhaps *relative locality* of any given potential species in our universe, in search of each other, amounts to having more to do with the limitations of our perceptions than anything else.   

Perhaps there is a reason for our "astral nearsightedness."

Maybe our galaxy (evidently barren of life to our searching eyes) is in fact teeming with all sorts of advanced civilizations.  

Perhaps they remain invisible to us due to no other reason than the relativity of our positions to each other.   

The corresponding electromagnetic wavelengths may perforce transform each kinetic "bulls-eye-spot" where life actually does exist into its own effectively hidden oasis of visible light.  Meanwhile, farther away "oases of life" (such as our own to distant life-forms) are rendered back into radio waves.  

This natural process may be cloaking cosmic life-forms in our own galaxy that are in the process of searching for each other.  Distance alone may have effectively barred them from viewing one another in their respective classical senses.    

Seen from this viewpoint—this insight may provide the necessary clue for an altogether improved search for extraterrestrial life-forms.  It may have something to do with translating longer wavelengths back into shorter ones  in order to simply "tune in" on these differing bandwidths of life existing around other stars.   

I suspect the only way of glimpsing other extant civilizations from our standpoint would be analogous to processing their emitted wavelengths until a sort of "photograph" were exposed for our examination.   Perhaps we should be trying to figure out how to translate radio waves into photographic impressions.   

Cloven Clay

To cut and divide
and separate into
pieces for knowing
(Science).


To knead from clay
and feign or fashion
something imagined
(Fiction).

Civilization Keeps a Strange Balance: a Tangential Circumscription

Staring at my collection of hardbound books on the shelves in my basement, I'm struck by the thought of their place in the overall electrochemical balancing equation that we call the passage of our lives. The idea may be approximated over several separate viewpoints later stitched together to represent a cohesive whole. We will examine these bit by bit in this essay [it will be necessary to withhold judgement from any independent portion of these viewpoints, because they merely pave the way toward the scaling of the whole.]  

The first notion which struck my mind was the identity and nature of the books themselves insofar as how they relate to us. Just what is a book, when you get right down to it?  Well, for starters, it's either something which sits on your shelf taking up space and which you will never during your lifetime read; or it's a book you have already read but which you may never again actually get around to re-reading; or it's a book that indeed sometime in the future you will actually read whether it be for the first time or repeatedly. Let's face it, for every library and personal collection of old hardcover or paperback books, there remains a great untraveled portion--a desolate landscape, shall we say--of untread upon paper, scorned pages whose particular arrangement of typed out lettering merely reside for the edification of no one. 

One can be easily swayed into thinking "this mass of dead trees" represents all that fine and proper mother nature razed and hacked to pieces and pulped into paper to satiate our own taste for pulpy adventure and topical headlines (so long as they suit our sense of expectation). But seriously, there's an equal argument which maintains that if mankind didn't at least destroy a certain portion of this majestic wild kingdom we're surrounded by--and which helped spawn us into fruition--the relentless drive of nature would continue growing unheeded until it consumed everything in its path (including ourselves and our civilization) swallowed back into itself.   

It should go without saying that a certain balance being achieved should necessarily be the goal of anyone or anything trying to get by in the wild empire of this world, be it on this or that side of the divide between industrialized urban civilization and the largely untouched and unseen shuttling empire of the wild crossing constantly between day and night, uninterrupted by millenia, while processing the evolutionary movements of an exploding cultural chain of predation among all the glittering and hissing conquerors and profiteers scavenging for the survival of the fittest among them.    

Just as I believe it should be re-stated that the spirit of the problem should always be consciously addressed for every challenging incident one should come to examine and understand in its proper context. The spirit of the problem may be different for each case, yet if addressed with the transparent and open understanding of any committee of individuals concerned, it goes without a doubt that the spirit of the problem being addressed will always be of benefit to everyone involved. Only in the abject and mutual ignoring of the spirit of any problem will technicalities be introduced which may allow guilty parties to get away with their false version of the truth, causing innocent human beings to continue suffering from it.  

Civilization must keep a strange balance of not merely cultivating the wild dominions surrounding in order that the overall equilibrium of life on earth be allowed to maintain itself, but also in hacking our way partially into it's sacred domain, by razing just the correct amount of trees in order to situate ourselves comfortably within it.  Keeping in mind the argument which asserts with no bones about it that were humankind to stand negligently by and allow nature to take its own course without our interfering in any way, it would literally drown us in a tsunami of creeping,  crawling and stinging carnivorous vines feasting upon our species and burying us into the rotting compost heap of their stink-fueled mass grave.  

Go ahead and stare nature in the face, I dare you.  Do it at night in a remote portion of the woods under moonlight with nobody else around except you and the wind and the towering trees and whatever wolves may happen to be roaming about that particular evening.  Never mind the peace you will surely find in the blessing of moon-rays (just the Sun's peering glance, watching over while we sleep) and the softer subtle susurrations of the star's echoing songs like lullabies relaxing you while far away furtive sounds in the forest become closer. Sticks snapping in the distance now appear to be breaking nearer, as some remote nocturnal wanderer approaches.  Resting in the mountains late at night far from cities and most humans becomes a holy experience when gazing deep inside to where the stars' old light still burns upon our retinas.  What was it we were saying?  Oh yes: balance our equation, or perish.

That's right.  Remember the Balance when considering whether or not all print material such as books should be banished from our practices upon this earth.  Imagine a near well-intentioned future which simply considered the production of print material (such as books) a crime of the very highest order possible, because it is a "crime against nature".  Imagine being considered a terrorist because, after all, you have enough print material (such as books) to immolate your entire neighborhood; never mind the rest of the details, for they are unnecessary and rendered moot in the cold scope of the Technical Eye. 

What is the Technical Eye?  Why that very Highest Ordinance which in a dystopian alternate possible future timeline of our very own, could come about easily just so long as we don't make the spirit of the problem a Mandate to be applied in all cases--in particular those brought before a court of law--considering the spirit of any problem is something to be applied to all possible human cases which may warrant it, and not just those which have made it to court.  

Beware the Technical Eye and it's Judgement failing to consider and implement anomalous facts which may or may not make the case exceptionable. Innocence and Justice are served together, they complement each other well.  As we begin moving forward  through yet another phase of our ever developing digital technology, preparing to arm not just ourselves with recording devices but also making it mandatory for police officers to film their official proceedings, the spirit of the problem will need to be acknowledged, addressed, and represented in all future legal dealings.  [My only question to any decent lawyer or judge, should they happen to be reading this, would be to ask if there isn't already such a motion on the books, that of having to necessarily follow the "spirit of the problem" in any given case, which in some odd cases may become necessary to stipulate in order to successfully avoid incrimination on a technical charge.  If you know the answer to the legal term for this, please leave a comment below.]  

What I'm getting at is that we wouldn't want to erroneously (for example) come to the conclusion that all print material (such as books) would have to necessarily be "outlawed" or banished in favor of going up on the internet or otherwise having been alternately available in electronic format, because just in case we were to lose everything from an EMP or otherwise, it would be good to have a certain modicum of baseline print material (such as books) around from which we could continue to rebuild the course of our lives.  

This has been another random, public announcement on [scratchYpost] by yours truly, just exercising my right to practice typing on a keyboard in the language of my choice, here on the blogger domain because it just so happens that was the one I was introduced to, and if it ain't broke, I'll never fix it.   

Mysterium...

for Jhon Longshaw

...the root of the word mystery lies in a secret 
or hidden meaning, from the Old French mistere 
and the Latin mysterium, "A secret rite, a secret 
worship, or secret thing," and Greek mysterion, 
a secret rite or doctrine, and deeper to mystes, 
"one who has been initiated," in other words 
a mystic, where the sense goes back to the Old 
French mistique and to the Latin mysticus 

One who has been initiated into being connected 
with the mysteries, associated with sacraments, 
exhibiting outward signs of an inward spiritual 
grace, like the eucharist, being a consecration 
and a mystery itself,  in other words sacred, 
which is to be made holy, in other words to be 
kept intact, a thing that could not be transgressed 
or violated, but kept whole, from Old English hal

"Entire, unhurt, healthy," where health is equated 
to being whole, sound, or well, from Old English 
willan, "to wish" arising from will,  from Gothic 
wiljan, "to will, wish, or desire,"  from Latin 
desiderare "to long for, demand, or wait in 
expectation for what the stars will bring," 
(de sidere), to consider (from Latin considerare) 
the stars, what we now refer to as sidereal, 
from Latin siderius, meaning "starry or astral, 
of the constellations," from Latin astrum, star 

Old English steorra, Old Norse stjarna, Greek 
aster, Latin stella, performing the lead part, 
the starring role, a part or character one takes, 
the symbol or imprint on the soul, from Old English 
sawol, "the spiritual and emotional part of a person; 
animate existence, of uncertain origin, ancestry, 
or race; from Old French origine, and Latin originem, 
"a rise, commencement, beginning, or source through 
descent, lineage, or birth, from Old Norse byrdr

"Birth, descent, race; offspring; nature; fate," 
from Latin fata "a prophetic declaration, oracle, 
or prediction," the sentence of the gods, from Old 
English wyrd, "fate, destiny", literally "that which 
comes", Old Saxon wurd, which is also to turn, 
and bend, from Old English weordan, to become, 
and weirder yet from the root -wer, or versus, 
from Latin versus, "turned toward or against"

Weorthan, what befalls one should he dare, from 
Old English durran, "to brave danger; to venture, 
presume," to risk the loss of a thing about to happen 
by chance, fortune, or luck; once upon a time, all 
these things described were one and the same, 
and the weird thing today remains, that by turns 
of phrase, they've slowly been flowering back into 
secrecy turning once again into hidden mystery...  

Notes Toward a Better Understanding of Our Solar System

Sedna, discovered a decade ago, is a trans-Neptunian object (most likely a Dwarf planet) which may turn out to be "the first known member of the Inner Oort Cloud".   The red oval below depicts Sedna's extreme orbit about our Sun.

TNO's:  Trans-Neptunian Objects

Planetary bodies which orbit the Sun farther away than Neptune are known as Trans-Neptunian Objects, or TNOs.   I wrote about them last year in my Science & Speculation blog, Dark Side of the Wild.

Eris & Dysnomia

Eris is a Trans-Neptunian object classified as a dwarf planet, dwelling in the scattered disc.  It's moon is named Dysnomia.  

Oort Cloud >  Scattered Field >  Kuiper Belt >  Solar System >   (SUN)   < Solar System  < Kuiper Belt  < Scattered Field  < Oort Cloud  

It's important for us to try harder to visualize our solar system as it really is.  In order to do that, one must discard our old preconception of the "flat pancake of nine planets" orbiting our Sun, and get prepared to have your mind blown, because the real thing is far more staggering than any of us previously imagined.   Before we even begin trying to visualize what a galaxy is, we need to scale it down a bit, and focus on being able to correctly visualize a solar system, first.  

Parallax is used to gain depth-perception.  It is a displacement in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight.  Stellar parallax is the effect of parallax on distant stars in astronomy.  Astronomy is the natural science that studies celestial objects and their evolution outside the atmosphere of Earth.  

Earth is the planet that we human beings all happen to reside upon.  There are five branches of natural science:  astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, and the Earth sciences, which include ecology and geology.   Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, and in that regard, may be seen as a larger aspect of astronomy itself, one of the oldest sciences; the Egyptian monuments, for instance, are examples of some of the oldest astronomical artifacts.     

One may begin the exercise of visualizing our solar system from the Outside going inwards, or they may start from the Inside, going outwards from our Sun.   I think doing both is best, starting from the inner core of our solar system, the Sun.  But before we do that, we must remember that the star we revolve about daily itself was formulated back during that mysterious event of our solar system's birth.


Stars are formed from molecular clouds.   Our Sun is about 8.5 kiloparsecs from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.   A parsec is 3.26 light years.  A kiloparsec (kpc) is one thousand times that, so three-thousand two-hundred and sixty-two light years.   To give us a better idea, our galaxy is measured as being somewhere in between 31 and 37 kiloparsecs in diameter, while being only one-third of a kiloparsec thick.   Here's a rough diagram (appropriated courtesy of the GNU Free Documentation License under Creative Commons):

The Globular clusters are spherical collections of stars which orbit a galactic core as a satellite.  

They exist within the galactic halo, that spherical region surrounding a galaxy which extends past the more visible and flattened disc-like portion more immediate to it.   There is both an inner halo and an outer halo; our Sun appears to be situated roughly where the inner halo ends and the outer halo begins.

 a 360 degree view of our galaxy

It's best to think of the cosmos as a nested set of spheres within spheres.  Our Milky Way Galaxy is a gigantic sphere of stars, wherein each star is nested, in turn, within a great spherical area of planetary bodies, such as our own Oort Cloud, for example.  At the core of which burns a single star.  

The Sun

The Shrinking Zone

I'd like to advance a theory on the likelihood that our planet's Habitable Zone was once upon a time during the earlier stages of our Solar System's formation actually much larger than it is today; which is to say, its distance from our Sun's location was greater than it is today, therefore it may have applied to the area in which Mars or the asteroid belt now resides.    

50 million years ago, when it is theorized a Mars-sized planetoid may have collided with the Earth to form our moon, was the heat coming from the Sun's region then greater than it is today?  

In the past, astronomers wondered at the much larger gap between Mars and Jupiter, theorizing there may have been a planet there, once.  (Astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers dubbed this hypothetical planet "Phaeton".)  It's not hard to imagine a planet formerly between Mars and Jupiter having been slammed into by a giant asteroid, nor is it it hard to imagine, perhaps, many such-sized planets having existed in this region, perhaps all of which were destroyed from chaotic collisions.  Whatever occurred during these formative stages of our solar system, the results are plain to observe today with telescopes:   the asteroid belt remains, trapped in orbit about our Sun.   Ceres appears to be the largest remaining chunk of whatever destructive collisions occurred way back then.   Perhaps certain chunks went ricocheting out towards Mars - two of which became captured by it's gravity, and are today known as Phobos and Deimos.   

But what about our Goldilocks Zone?  It's not hard to imagine that perhaps, back then--the heat from our developing Sun may have reached farther out.  For all we know, the Goldilocks Habitable Zone extended as far as where that missing fifth planet may have been located (referred to as either Phaeton and/or also Theia, today).   

In my raw theorizing, I have developed this idea that perhaps homo sapiens sapiens are descended from the Phaetons or the Theians, presuming either of these hypothetical planetoids were occupied by an advanced civilization.  Maybe they even surpassed our own level of technology, and figured out that their own Habitable Zone was shrinking, and would eventually encompass Mars.  Perhaps they devised a rudimentary form of space travel--a solar ark, so to speak--sufficient enough to carry a core group of them across safely to Mars.  

Perhaps they did this to escape the asteroid they observed headed straight towards them.  Whatever the case may be, it's interesting to speculate on the possibilities surrounding the notion that the Habitable Zone may have once had a greater circumference.  

Perhaps Mars once held life, as has been  pointed out many times before by scientists speculating.  Maybe the Goldilocks Zone shrank, from having accommodated Phaeton or Theia, to having accommodated Mars, for a new period lasting millennia. And maybe (just maybe), this Shrinking Zone continued to get smaller...until it finally reached the Earth.  

Maybe our ancestors were prepared for this, and successfully transferred themselves, once again, by planet hopping from Mars to Earth . . . just in time to benefit from the next, smaller Habitable Zone--which we find ourselves in today.   

It makes sense if, indeed, the heat being generated from our Sun was greater, back then.  It would explain a lot about the water currently being observed on Ceres.  It would help corroborate the new theory that perhaps life on Earth was seeded from Theia or Phaeton.  It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that this "seeding" may have something to do with the impact which rendered the asteroid belt and possibly our Moon.  

The thing to keep in mind, is we must never underestimate the outlandish magnificence or grandeur of nature.  We tend to think of it as being mechanistic, that is, accidental collisions resulting in life.  But what if some of what occurred was orchestrated by advanced beings: our forefathers?  It's easy to scoff at such notions, today.  Yet beware of scoffing away the proverbial baby with our tossed-out bathwater.   It's what keeping an open mind is all about.   

So, what if our Moon was placed here by design?  Maybe architects placed the Moon as a sort of "plumb bob" to intentionally rectify its axis to 23 degrees,  just so, in order to fine-tune this third planet from the Sun to accommodate life?  

The mystery of the formation of our Solar System has been studied with closer scrutiny since the invention of the telescope and continues to this day with the advent of modern science.  Today, scientists continue to make new and startling discoveries about the real nature of our solar system.  We should all be paying more close attention.  If we all think this through together, we might get somewhere.   

We are drawing closer towards more clues that will help provide the answers we are seeking.  Answers to the questions of our origin, and its true nature.  We must continue to exercise our thinking muscles and remember to speculate wildly!  For the actual answers may be far more shocking than we are currently prepared for.