End of Beyond Einstein?

With a hat tip to Steinn Sigurdsson and Kea, last week saw stories that both the Laser Interferometry Space Antenna (LISA) and an International X-Ray Observatory (IXO) were to lose funding. For years this blog been chronicling NASA's Beyond Einstein program and the effect of "dark energy." The writer attended an Observing Dark Energy Workshop and the Beyond Einstein conference in Stanford during 2004, and the 2006 HEAD meeting in San Francisco, where Principal Investigator Harvey Tanenbaum described the planned X-Ray mission. In 2007 a scientist argued before the National Research Council that emphasis on DE would be bad for science.

LISA was a plan to send 3 spacecraft in formation to detect hypothetical gravity waves. IXO evolved from CON-X, a Space-based X-Ray observatory. These were considered first priorities in the Beyond Einstein program, yet in 2007 were pushed out of line in favour of a Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM). In August 2010 JDEM was itself replaced by WFIRST, which would seek extrasolar planets and look for DE on the way. November brought news that the entire astrophysics budget would be eaten by cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope.

The WFIRST Progress Report lists as its third goal, "Supernovae as a probe of the expansion history." No explicit mention of "dark energy," which many doubt even exists. The DE advocates are reduced to sub-committee advisors in this Powerpoint plan. WFIRST is described by Steinn as "a hack of a powerpoint presentation no one else had seen." There is reason to doubt that JDEM, WFIRST or anything similar will ever fly.

Is this the end of Beyond Einstein? No by a long shot! These missions would be expensive and not launch until years in the future. The case for existence of gravitational waves is questionable--the LIGO experiment has not detected any. The evidence for "dark energy" is even shakier; the redshifts of Type Ia supernovae can be explained by GM=tc^3 and a changing speed of light. The real advances may have been accomplished with little more than pen and paper.

The local conditions of Special Relativity, which do not allow for gravity, can be linked with the curved Space/Time of General Relativity. The solution can explain much about the Universe--its size, expansion rate and whether that expansion will stop or reverse. A bit of math can explain the non-linear increase of supernova redshifts, the cosmic horizon problem, the "flatness" problem, even the 4.507034% proportion of baryons. Long before the expensive Space missions would have launched, we may already be Beyond Einstein.

Who Mourns For Adonis?

Americans, what does this resemble? This is the classic STAR TREK episode WHO MOURNS FOR ADONIS? The temple set is designed to make its occupant look big. It turns out that Apollo is not a God, but an alien whose flashy technology awed his audiences. As Arthur Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The blonde woman in the short skirt is Leslie Parrish, whose other notable credit was THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE.

In photo below, viewscreen photos are from X-Ray spacecraft. Picture on the left is from SOHO and the right is from CHANDRA.

Another Big Hole

Just 2 weeks ago a Black Hole was discovered in galaxy M33 with 16 times the mass of the Sun. Like the video, object M33 X-7 orbits a companion star in a violent dance. The star passes between the BH and Earth every 3 days, eclipsing the former's X-ray emissions. This was the first known binary system where that occured, allowing astronomers a rare chance to measure mass. This discovery is in the October 17 issue of NATURE.

Previously it was thought that stellar mass Black Holes could weigh no more than 10 solar masses. In the November 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists announce discovery of a Black Hole of at least 24 solar masses! Object IC10 X-1 was first noticed by the Chandra X-ray observatory in November '006. Follow-up observations were made by the Swift spacecraft and our Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea. Further measurements are likely to increase the mass estimate. Since we can only measure masses of Black Holes that are eclipsed by stars, there could be many more massive ones out there. Space.com article

To answer a question from yesterday, Chandra has also found X-rays nearby in Saturn's Rings. A picture was shown this blog way back on June 2006. No, not Chiang Kai Shek's memorial, the photo at the bottom. The Rings are full of X-ray sources! Perhaps someone should look for BH's in this neighbourhood.

Human theory says that Black Holes can only grow to a certain size because the speed of light has always been the same, but the Black Holes don't know that. Bad, bad Black Holes! What business do they have conflicting with theories? Someone should have made sure they never have anything to do with physics!

Beyond Einstein Decision

One week from today is September 5th. At 4 PM EST, the National Research Council will release their report "NASA's Beyond Einstein Program: An Architecture for Implementation." The report is intended to decide which of the five proposed missions (Constellation-X, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, Joint Dark Energy Mission, Inflation Probe, and Black Hole Finder probe)will fly first. Regardless of the future, this writer is very grateful for the purple BEYOND EINSTEIN pen, which is all a theorist really needs.

Constellation-X is subject of a profile in August's issue of Physics Today. The article points out that the National Academies 2001 Decadal Survey named CON-X as a priority second only to the James Webb Space Telescope. "Constellation-X will also be able to use galaxy clusters to investigate the nature of dark energy with an accuracy comparable to supernova-based studies;" the article contnues, "thus it will also complement ground-based dark energy surveys."

At AAS HEAD and other meetings were hundreds of high-energy astronomers eager to see CON-X launch. Support for JDEM/SNAP is limited to a few physicists based mostly in Berkeley. It is no exaggeration to say that the leadership of SNAP team are not astronomers, but have all their training in physics. Getting a job in particle physics is hard, and "dark energy" allows a way to take astronomy funding. It has also allowed a way to adopt particle physics work habits--big experiments, big collaborations, big budgets, and conclusions based on groupthink. This is how the whole idea of "dark energy" got started.

If JDEM someday flies it will not return a single particle of "dark energy," just an equation of state. This can be found using JWST or other experiments. Even if repulsive "dark energy" exists, it would be so diffuse in Space that it could not power a cell phone. It has not led to a coherent theory, only an endless divergence of speculations. Physicists have been busy crowding the journals with specualtion about "dark energy."

Depending on decisions, pursuit of "dark energy" could delay other missions by years. Even if DE exists, it has no practical use. It will not even lead to a coherent theory, only endless speculation. All of those who read this, is "dark energy" good for science?

Jupiter Poles

This photo of Jupiter combines a visual image from Hubble with X-ray data from the Chandra spacecraft. The North and South poles are alive with X-rays. Like Earth's aurora, this display occurs in both poles simultaneously 140,000 km distant! Something in Jupiter's core links the poles. Jupiter has an immense magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system. Presence of a singularity would explain Jupiter’s field, and why Jupiter gives off nearly twice as much heat as it receives from the Sun.

Cassini has seen a huge hurricane at Saturn's South Pole. The largest planet does not have a storm centred at the South Pole because Jupiter’s magnetic poles do not line up with the geographic poles. The magnetic field is angled 9.5 degrees, indicating that Jupiter’s singularity is offset like that of Earth. Jupiter completes its day in less than 10 Earth-hours. A southern jet radiating from Jupiter’s core would be bent further outward by the rapid rotation. Magnetic fields would cause the storm to rotate in an anti-clockwise direction as seen from above. For signs of such a storm, we can look at the latitude of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

Astronomers like Geoffrey Marcy and Debra Fisher have found "hot Jupiters" in other solar systems, giant planets orbiting very close to stars. Old ideas of planet formation can not explain these objects. They could not have formed solely from condensing gas, for solar radiation would cause the gas to evaporate. Presently astronomers speculate that they formed farther from their suns, and then drifted closer after formation. All of them? If that is true, why haven't our giant planets drifted into the Sun?

If giant planets formed around singularities, a Black Hole's gravity would prevent them from dissipating. Hot Jupiters could then form extremely close to stars. Rotating Black Holes could also account for the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune, and why those fields are far offset from the planets’ rotation axes. Jupiter's X-rays could result from the polar jets of a Black Hole.