A00299 - Magazine of the Month for the Month of July 2024: Scientific American: Special Edition: Dark Universe: All the Darkness We Cannot See

 

"Humans have always looked to the stars.  Those pinpricks of light in the vast blackness spark curiosity, wonder and awe.  Our newest orbiting observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in 2021 and is sending back jaw-dropping images of visible and infrared light from galaxies, star-nursery nebulas and supermassive stars.  More than 25 years ago, astrophysicists discovered that rather than slowing down as it expands, the universe is in fact speeding up; some invisible force between the points and clusters of light is making the universe careen off in every direction.  The cosmos is brimming with this so-called dark energy and other mysterious phenomena.

"The empty vacuum of space is alive with exotic particles flashing in and out of existence.  Some of them -- whether so-called WIMPs, axions, or other, as yet undiscovered particles -- may be the invisible dark matter pulling galaxies together. Some stars might be fueled by the annihilation of dark matter itself.

"There are sprawling voids in space, some hundreds of millions of light-years across, whose emptiness scientists think is the ideal zone for studying less understood particles such as neutrinos.  Some galaxies are made primarily of dark matter and contain very few stars.  Stranger still, earlier this year astronomers reported the discovery of a galaxy emitting a radio signal but hardly any visible light.

"The darkest places we know of are undoubtedly black holes. Their gravitational hearts devour all light, and scientists suspect that the space inside black holes is stretchy and could grow forever or connect to other black holes through wormholes in spacetime. The existence of black holes was first hypothesized by Albert Einstein, but it took a century to capture an image of one, and even that image is of just the fiery ring of matter wrapping around the penumbra of the event horizon -- the black hole remains faceless. 

"The explanations for these dark phenomena may be found in points of light.  JWST has spotted bulky galaxies from the early days after the big bang.  Their existence could signal a potential alternative way for black holes to form.

"One of the more mind-bending hypotheses in cosmology is that our universe could be a holographic projection of a lower dimension.  This concept has led to new ideas about black holes and the early universe.  Spacetime itself may not be an inherent feature of the universe; instead it could arise from a more basic framework of the cosmos.  And Nobel Prize -- winning physicists have shown that our reality is not necessarily ... real.

"Humans peer at the stars, yes, but we are limited by our eyes, perceiving only 0.0035 percent of the electromagnetic spectrum.  We can't see radio waves, x-rays or heat, never mind other forces such as gravity or magnetism, but innovative technology is allowing us to understand some of the unseen.  The totality is mostly still hidden from us in darkness, but that doesn't mean we'll stop looking."

*****

This magazine is ultra cool.  One of my great pleasures is seeing the photo of the rainbow galaxy (Galaxy J0613+52) which is a galaxy as massive as the Milky Way but which is almost entirely devoid of stars.  When astronomers view the galaxy what is seen is mostly a rainbow reflecting the receding view of the massive gas within. 

Amazing!

Everett "Skip" Jenkins

Fairfield, California

July 21, 2024

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>

To: Everett Jenkins <skipjen2865@aol.com>

Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2024 at 02:42:09 AM PDT

Subject: Magazine of the Month for the Month of July 2024: Scientific American: Special Edition: Dark Universe:

Growing up in the High Desert town of Victorville, California, one the truly spectacular sights occurs almost every night when the stars begin to emerge and shine.  In the High Desert in the 1960s and early 1970s, the town of Victorville only had 15,000 people and the light pollution was minor.  So, for many Summer nights, an African American boy could go outside, look up, and dream about worlds where life would be better.

Fast forward sixty years, and that African American boy is now 70 years old.  He still has a fascination with stars, but he marvels at the notion that all he can see -- that all anyone can see -- is only a small portion of what must be. How can that be?

Well, while waiting in the Portland Airport after my Bucket List adventure in Eugene, Oregon, I spotted a magazine that immediately caught my attention.  The magazine was a Special Edition of Scientific American magazine, and the title of the magazine is "Dark Universe: Mysterious cosmic phenomena shape reality itself". This magazine actually tries to explain how the visible universe is really only five percent of the universe and that there is more than five times more dark matter and 14 times more dark energy in the universe than there is what we can see.

Intrigued, I purchased the magazine and began reading it.  

After reading a portion of it, I decided that I would make this magazine my first ever Magazine of the Month, and I invite all who can, to join me in learning how to measure the weight of nothing.  Fascinating stuff, it is.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins