Announcement Thursday on Einstein's gravitational waves

phys.org ^ | February 8, 2016 | AFP

[WhiskeyX]

Scientists are set to make a major announcement Thursday on efforts to pinpoint the existence of gravitational waves, or ripples of space and time that transport energy across the universe.

The waves themselves have never before been directly measured, though Albert Einstein said a century ago they were out there, according to his theory of general relativity.

They are believed to form around massive objects like black holes and neutron stars, warping space and time.

If gravitational waves have been spotted, it would mark one of the biggest scientific discoveries of our time, filling in a major gap in our understanding of how the universe was born.

[Therapsid]

his circular orbit is especially odd considering that the Moon’s center of mass lies more than a mile closer to the Earth than its geometric center. This fact alone should produce an unstable, wobbly orbit, much as a ball with its mass off center will not roll in a straight line. Additionally, almost all of the other satellites in our solar system orbit in the plane of their planet’s equator. Not so the Moon, whose orbit lies strangely nearer the Earth’s orbit around the Sun or inclined to the Earth’s ecliptic by more than five degrees. Add to this the fact that the Moon’s bulge — located on the side facing away from Earth — thus negating the idea that it was caused by the Earth’s gravitational pull — makes for an off-balanced world.
William Roy Shelton, who wrote, “It is important to remember that something had to put the Moon at or near its present circular pattern around the Earth. Just as an Apollo spacecraft circling the Earth every 90 minutes while 100 miles high has to have a velocity of roughly 18,000 miles per hour to stay in orbit, so something had to give the Moon the precisely required velocity for its weight and altitude … The point—and it is one seldom noted in considering the origin of the Moon — is that it is extremely unlikely that any object would just stumble into the right combination of factors required to stay in orbit. ‘Something’ had to put the Moon at its altitude, on its course and at its speed. The question is: what was that ‘something’?”
The Moon has at least three distinct layers of rock. Contrary to the idea that heavier objects sink, the heavier rocks are found on the surface. And there is a definite disparity in the distribution of minerals. Ubell asked, “If the Earth and Moon were created at the same time, near each other, why has one body got all the iron [the Earth] and the other [the Moon] not much?” asked Ubell. “The differences suggest that Earth and Moon came into being far from each other, an idea that stumbles over the inability of astrophysicists to explain how exactly the Moon became a satellite of the Earth.”

he Moon is extremely dry and does not appear to have ever had water in any substantial amounts. None of the Moon rocks, regardless of where they were found, contained free water or even water molecules bound into the minerals. Yet Apollo 16 astronauts found Moon rocks that contained bits of rusted iron. Since oxidation requires oxygen and free hydrogen, this rust indicates there must be water somewhere on the Moon

Furthermore, instruments left behind by Apollo missions sent a signal to Earth on March 7, 1971, indicating a “wind” of water had crossed the Moon’s surface. Since any water on the airless Moon surface vaporizes and behaves like the wind on Earth, the question became where did this water originate? The vapor cloud eruptions lasted 14 hours and covered an area of some 100 square miles, prompting Rice University physicists Dr. John Freeman, Jr. and Dr. H. Ken Hills to pronounce the event one of “the most exciting discoveries yet” indicating water within the Moon. The two physicists claimed the water vapor came from deep inside the Moon, apparently released during a moonquake.

Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory startled the scientific world by photographing the first recorded gaseous eruption on the Moon near the crater’s peak. Kozyrev attributed this to escaping fluorescent gases. He also detected a reddish glow characteristic of carbon compounds, which “seemed to move and disappeared after an hour.”

Some scientists refused to accept Kozyrev’s findings until astronomers at the Lowell Observatory also saw reddish glows on the crests of ridges in the Aristarchus region in 1963. Days later, colored lights on the Moon lasting more than an hour were reported at two separate observatories.

1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, “If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the Moon be less dense than the outer parts. Indeed, it would seem that the Moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere.”

Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, while scoffing at the possibility of a hollow moon, nevertheless admitted that since heavier materials were on the surface, it is quite possible that giant caverns exist within the Moon. MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, “The Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the Moon’s gravitational field … indicating the frightening possibility that the Moon might be hollow

The significance was stated by astronomer Carl Sagan way back in his 1966 work Intelligent Life in the Universe, “A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object.”

Dr. Farouk El Baz was quoted as saying, “There are many undiscovered caverns suspected to exist beneath the surface of the Moon. Several experiments have been flown to the Moon to see if there actually were such caverns.” The results of these experiments have not been made public.

Experts were surprised to find lunar rocks bearing brass, mica and amphibole in addition to the near-pure titanium. Uranium 236 and Neptunium 237 — elements not previously found in nature — were discovered in Moon rocks, according to the Argone National Laboratory. While still trying to explain the presence of these materials, scientists were further startled to learn of rust-proof iron particles in a soil sample from the Sea of Crisis. In 1976, the Associated Press reported that the Soviets had announced the discovery of iron particles that “do not rust” in samples brought back by an unmanned Moon mission in 1970. Iron that does not rust is unknown in nature and well beyond present Earth technology.

Isaac Asimov, well known for his works of fiction, has written, “It’s too big to have been captured by the Earth. The chances of such a capture having been effected and the Moon then having taken up nearly circular orbit around our Earth are too small to make such an eventuality credible.”

Asimov was right to consider the Moon’s orbit — it is not only nearly a perfect circle, but stationary, one side always facing the Earth with only the slightest variation. As far as we know, it’s the only natural satellite with such an orbit.

William Roy Shelton, who wrote, “It is important to remember that something had to put the Moon at or near its present circular pattern around the Earth. Just as an Apollo spacecraft circling the Earth every 90 minutes while 100 miles high has to have a velocity of roughly 18,000 miles per hour to stay in orbit, so something had to give the Moon the precisely required velocity for its weight and altitude … The point—and it is one seldom noted in considering the origin of the Moon — is that it is extremely unlikely that any object would just stumble into the right combination of factors required to stay in orbit. ‘Something’ had to put the Moon at its altitude, on its course and at its speed. The question is: what was that ‘something’?”

lol

[ETL]

Is that something you copied and pasted or wrote yourself? Looks to me C&P since it has those weird special characters replacing apostrophes.

[ETL]

"gravitational waves, or ripples of space and time that transport energy across the universe."

Gravitational waves, if they exist, are believed to propagate at the speed of light. I guess this implies that the "messenger particles" (gravitons?) have no mass.

[Mycroft Holmes]

Small correction: Gravitational waves, if they exist, are believed to propagate at the speed of light. I guess this implies that the "messenger particles" (gravitons?) have no rest mass.

[ETL]

True, assuming GWs are actually believed to be transmitted via gravitons, or some other form of messenger particle.

[Mycroft Holmes]

If you believe the quantum mechanics it's a graviton, if you believe Einstein it's bent space. I believe I'll have a beer.

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