Astronomy Cast Ep. 398 – Seeing Things: Emitting, Reflecting, Ionizing Light Sources

Astronomers gather electromagnetic radiation with the telescopes: mostly visible light. But sometimes they’ve got to be clever about where they look for these elusive photons. Light can get emitted, absorbed, reflected, and each method tells astronomers a little more about what they’re looking at.

Visit the Astronomy Cast Page to subscribe to the audio podcast!

We record Astronomy Cast as a live Google+ Hangout on Air every Monday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch here on Universe Today or from the Astronomy Cast Google+ page.

3 Replies to “Astronomy Cast Ep. 398 – Seeing Things: Emitting, Reflecting, Ionizing Light Sources”

  1. Just something to think about:

    If something can happen in a lab, it probably already happened naturally in the Universe.
    Einstein was a genius. The famous solution to a calculus problem. E=mc^2.
    Where in the Universe does that occur naturally? Fission or fusion doesn’t quite hit the spot. But where can you find mass literally traveling at the speed of light squared to spontaneously convert to energy? It will happen. It happened before too. It has always happened.

    Think of the Big Bang. What caused it? Hint: E=mc^2. The expansion of the Universe many trillions of years from now. The Universe is accelerating apart faster than the speed of light. The expansion no longer can be measured at a current speed. It is accelerating wildly. At this point, even the largest black hole has evaporated away in Hawking radiation. Nothing larger than sub-plank length objects exist. Even those are being stretched to their limits. Then, the unthinkable happens. One of those objects ruptures. More spontaneously erupt now many light years away. Whole new Universes now poor out into the old stretched Universe. E=mc^2 now has reached it’s destiny.

    1. None of this has been proven and is only mathematical conjecture. The same goes for the entire gravity based concepts called the “‘standard model”. The newest radio telescope data seems to contradict all of the current models especially “black holes” and dark matter/dark energy”. These mathematical constructs have never been observed or experimentally confirmed. I find it astounding that this fact is routinely overlooked.
      Black holes are certainly not holes and are not black either. They have been observed to emit massive amounts of electromagnetic radiation including plasma jets and gamma radiation. They also are surrounded by massive magnetic fields which presumes massive electric current within. These galactic centers are most likely super dense, rapidly rotating plasmoids. This is the only structure which accounts for the recently observed data. There is experimental support for this model as well. Anthony Peratt at Los Alamos demonstrated that spiral galaxies could be formed using only electric current, plasma and magnetic fields. These models also had the necessary velocities to maintain galaxy structure without the need for dark matter or black holes. It appears highly likely that the driving force for galaxy and star formation is electromagnetic and that gravity has little to do with any of the observations being made today. This makes sense since electromagnetic forces are 10 to the 39th times more powerful than gravity. The recent documentation of massive interstellar and intergalactic electric currents as proposed by Birkeland provides the electromagnetic framework for the observed universe. Even star “nurseries” have been documented occurring along “filaments”. The massive galactic sized magnetic fields recently discovered are likely related to these intergalactic electric currents.
      It’s time to replace the “mysteries” of the standard model with scientific observations. Only those with knowledge of plasma physics and electrical engineering will be able to make sound scientific conclusions.

      1. “This makes sense since electromagnetic forces are 10 to the 39th times more powerful than gravity.”

        *slurp* That’s great until one remembers that the EM force decays over distance by (at least) an order of magnitude greater than gravity does. The net result is that at cosmic distances, EM truly becomes the “electro-WEAK” force, haha! *slurp*

        “Only those with knowledge of plasma physics and electrical engineering will be able to make sound scientific conclusions.”

        *slurp* Do you mean, the same electrical engineers (not to say “high school physics students”) that can use Coulomb’s Law (see above) to shred your Electric Universe theory without so much as putting down their coffee mug between sips? *slurp*

Comments are closed.