seismick
Why must Earth hurt me in this way?
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WHAT IF THE UNIVERSE STARTED WITH A DARK BANG??
Blog#278
Saturday, March 11th, 2023
Welcome back,
The Big Bang may have not been alone. The appearance of all the particles and radiation in the universe may have been joined by another Big Bang that flooded our universe with dark matter particles. And we may be able to detect it.
In the standard cosmological picture the early universe was a very exotic place. Perhaps the most momentous thing to happen in our cosmos was the event of inflation, which at very early times after the Big Bang sent our universe into a period of extremely rapid expansion.
When inflation ended, the exotic quantum fields that drove that event decayed, transforming themselves into the flood of particles and radiation that remain today.
When our universe was less than 20 minutes old, those particles began to assemble themselves into the first protons and neutrons during what we call Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis is a pillar of modern cosmology, as the calculations behind it accurately predict the amount of hydrogen and helium in the cosmos.
However, despite the success of our picture of the early universe, we still do not understand dark matter, which is the mysterious and invisible form of matter that takes up the vast majority of mass in the cosmos.
The standard assumption in Big Bang models is that whatever process generated particles and radiation also created the dark matter. And after that the dark matter just hung around ignoring everybody else.
But a team of researchers have proposed a new idea. They argue that our inflation and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis eras were not alone.
Dark matter may have evolved along a completely separate trajectory. In this scenario when inflation ended it still flooded the universe with particles and radiation. But not dark matter. Instead there was some quantum field remaining that did not decay away.
As the universe expanded and cooled, that extra quantum field did eventually transform itself triggering the formation of dark matter.
The advantage of this approach is that it decouples the evolution of dark matter from normal matter, so that Big Bang Nucleosynthesis can proceed as we currently understand it while the dark matter evolves along a separate track.
This approach also opens up avenues to explore a rich variety of theoretical models of dark matter because now that it has a separate evolutionary track, it's easier to keep track of in the calculations to see how it might compare to observations.
For example, the team behind the paper were able to determine that if there was a so-called Dark Big Bang, it had to happen when our universe was less than one month old.
The research also found that the appearance of a Dark Big Bang released a very unique signature of strong gravitational waves that would persist into the present-day universe. Ongoing experiments like pulsar timing arrays should be able to detect these gravitational waves, if they exist .
We still do not yet know if a Dark Big Bang happened, but this work gives a clear pathway to testing the idea.
Originally published on Universe Today.com
COMING UP!!
(Wednesday, March 15th, 2023)
"BIG BANG DOES NOT EXPLAIN COSMIC CREATION"??
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so, we went on a hiking trip and that's my favourite picture
and no, we totally didn't take any rocks with us (;ŏ﹏ŏ)
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the core of geology is memes, honestly
Earth's outer core:
Earth's outer core: is liquid
S-waves: *leaves the chat*
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The beauty of Google Earth glitches.
Place: Antarctica
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Hematite
I see this word in almost every article, lecture, or exercise but never really looked it up. But I think it would be good to know what I am talking about so I’ll do it now.
Hematite is one of the most frequent minerals of the earth’s crust. Its chemical composition is Fe2O3 (sorry I have no clue how to turn text to subscript on tumblr) and is an iron oxide. Therefore it is a common source of iron ore.
How do I recognize Hematite?
On Mohs' scale of hardness, it reaches from 5 to 6.5 depending on the additional components to iron and oxygen. It still is not that easy to test the hardness of most pieces of hematite as they tend to crumble.
Iron oxides usually have a red to brown coloration. However, in nature hematite often is grey, silver, or black due to weathering and shows a metallic to submetallic luster. To differentiate hematite from other dark-colored minerals it might help to test the color of its streak. The dust of a mineral always has its original color. So when you're testing for the streak color and it turns out reddish, it probably is hematite (at least if you know that it might be hematite as there are other red minerals out there). Furthermore, hematite often is associated with magnetite. So hematite might be weakly magnetic, but on its own, it isn't. It may occur in various forms massive, crystalline, botryoidal, fibrous, oolitic, and others (yes, I copied that. most of these words I never heard of. It might take a while until I understand all of them.).
What is hematite used for?
As I mentioned hematite is used as a source of iron. Several open-pit mines produce over a hundred thousand tons per year. Most smaller mines were abandoned as the larger mines produce most of the requested ore.
Otherwise, it may be used as a pigment. The hematite dust may be mixed to form a red to brown-red paint. Used in cave paintings and many historical artworks, it has a long history in the utilization as a color. The name of hematite is originated in the Greek word 'αἷμα' (haima) which means 'blood' and is referring to its red color.
Hematite may also be used as a gemstone or as esoteric healing crystals but that's not what I will discuss in my posts as everyone have their own beliefs.
Areology!
Yes, you can investigate rocks even other planets. In this context, areology means the geology of Mars. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) found crystalline hematite on mars. It is the reason for Mars' red color. Several areas with hematite accumulation may also indicate water-rich regions as the formation of crystalline hematite is dependant on near-surface water according to P. Christensen.
source: Researchgate - The Distribution of Crystalline Hematite on Mars from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer: Evidence for Liquid Water
source: NASA - Mars Curiosity Rover
source: geology.com - What is Hematite? and again a little Wikipedia but far less this time.
Wow! Research on this is hard and I totally underestimated the amount of time I need for the articles. So if you have any requests for topics or any questions, feel free to ask me!
And if you see any mistakes I made, any fake news I fell for or sources I am missing, please do not hesitate to tell me... So far I am new to this. Thanks!
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Earth’s magnetic field
One of my lectures was about applied geophysics and geomagnetics. So I guess I’ll start with a post about earth’s magnetic field. I’ll try to give credit to all my sources.
from: greendustries blog
So, how does a magnetic field larger than an entire planet look like?
In fact it is quiet similar to any other rod magnet. Maybe not as accurate as Earth’s magnetic field has several magnetic ‘poles’ (locations where a compass needle stands vertical) but at least it is good to approximate the location of magnetic field lines. And a fun fact: any compass needle is labled the wrong way as Earth’s magnetic south pole is an magnetic north pole and vice versa. also it has an 11.5° angle of inclination to the rotation axis.
The origin of 95% of the magnetic field is convection of the outer core. The inner core is a solid sphere of iron and nickel. The outer core has a similar composition but is liquid and is in constant movement.
Is it a static construct?
Well, would I answer this question if it is static? Probably not. As I mentioned the poles are flipped but that is only the case for a few hundred thousand years. In an irregular timespan the magnetic field will wander, decrease in its strength and will flip then.
How do we know this? Some minerals such as magnetite are ferromagnetic and while they cool down as components of rocks these minerals will align along the magnetic field lines. This can be observed near mid-oceanic ridges because there more or less constant new formation of rocks. So if you know how fast the tectonic plates are moving you are able to calculate the intervals of the changing magnetic fields.
The inner core also rotates a little faster than the Earth’s surface so the location of the poles change over time.
So why is it good to have an magnetic field?
I guess most of you already know this but I gonna tell you anyway. The sun, your local star nearby, emits a load of radiation and without the magnetic field it would reach earth surface. But due to the magnetic field the radiation will be pulled to the poles and form the aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere and the aurora australis in the southern hemisphere.
from: magicalnaturetour.tumblr.com
source: nasa.gov and maybe a little wikipedia oops
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hello there!
noon of the first day, i’d say. Well, actually I will start my second semester in a few weeks. Currently I study geophysics and computer science but as I realized not successful at all. I didn’t receive my results for the exams yet but I can tell that I probably didn’t pass most of them. And even if I do, i’d get the worst grades. Well there’s a virus out there, I don’t know if you heard about it but that is no excuse for my failure. So I decided that something has to change!
In the next semester I will not only change my learning method, I will also try to post on this blog daily, or at least a few times a week. I hope this will help me to keep my motivation, improve my English skills (I am german, if you couldn’t tell by all the mistakes I probably made in the few paragraphs xD), learning more about the topic that were only mentioned in a short period during the lectures but are still important for my exams.
Also I hope this blog is going to help some of you too and maybe I will reach some people who know a bit about geophysics, geoscience or computer science and can help me whith some problems, mistakes I made or tell me about their experience.
Most of the post are probably short article or definitions. Some of them I might take from my English lectures, I will see how this is going. I try to keep most of the posts English but I cannot promise that I will succeed. Sometimes I may also post about some problems or challenges I am facing at the time.
Anyway, I am really exited about this blog and I do hope that some of you will enjoy my post and might join me on my path to become a better student
Simon
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