Author: Victor

Victor Allegretti is a first-year and an intended Economics major. He hails from Philadelphia, PA.

Space is big, time is bunk

By Victor Allegretti

Douglas Adams once wrote, “There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.”

A common problem with astrophysics is gravity’s insistence on non-conformity with the three other basic forces of nature: the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism. Dark energy also mischievously causes physicists to scratch their heads; it expands our universe at an accelerating rate, even though gravity should be contracting it or at least slowing the expansion.

While there isn’t any formal research to Douglas Adams’ statement, there is research from Nikodem Poplawski of Indiana University that postulates our universe exists inside of a black hole somewhere in space. He believes that the classic dark energy and gravity enigmas are the result of physicists commonly stopping their research for the origins of our universe at the Big Bang. According to Poplawski’s research, the collapse of a massive star in another universe could have created a wormhole, a space-time “bridge” (hence the name Einstein-Rosen bridges) to another point in space-time. Poplawski theorizes that within this wormhole, conditions could have existed similar to those associated with the Big Bang, thus possibly forming our universe.

The current conundrums of dark energy and non-conforming gravity can be addressed by this theory. If a universe existed prior to our own, it is possible that nuclear forces and electromagnetism played nice with gravity, and if our universe is expanding towards the end of the wormhole, the inexplicable expansion of our universe can be explained sans dark energy. Don’t be too excited to see whatever strange and bizarre cosmos exists beyond our own, however. The physics of wormholes are similar to the physics of black holes. If you could ever pass through the event horizon of the wormhole to visit the universe on the other side, you could never return. “You will be stuck,” Poplawksi says.

Hopefully Douglas Adams wasn’t right.

Sources:

A Stuck Spirit

A recent press release from NASA states that the Mars Rover Spirit will no longer be a mobile research platform. After driving into a sand trap in April 2009, the rover lost nearly all of its mobility and operators at NASA have periodically attempted to drive Spirit out of the trap with no success. Currently, the engineers are attempting to maneuver Spirit in such  a fashion so that its solar panels will face northward for the coming Martian winter. With a northern tilt, the rover can gain more power through its solar panels and remain operational.

Spirit’s mission was originally supposed to be 90 days, but the little rover has been performing scientific research for the last six years, far beyond its original mission parameters. Two years into its mission, the right front wheel stopped operating, and the rover pushed forward with only five operable wheels. In late November of 2009, six months after the rover was rendered immobile by the sand trap, the right-rear wheel stopped working as well. With only four full functioning wheels, the rover is in a spot of trouble. However, there is an upside to the rover’s immobility.

Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University and principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity, said “There’s a class of science we can do only with a stationary vehicle that we had put off during the years of driving…Degraded mobility does not mean the mission ends abruptly. Instead, it lets us transition to stationary science.” Possibly the most tantalizing opportunity presented to the researchers at NASA is the ability to study the planet’s core, and determine if the core is solid or liquid. “If the final scientific feather in Spirit’s cap is determining whether the core of Mars is liquid or solid, that would be wonderful — it’s so different from the other knowledge we’ve gained from Spirit,” said Squyres.

Sources:

  • http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol2151
  • http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20100126.html
  • http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/freespirit.html