Last updated 3.28.2023
The rotation axis of the Earth is inclined relative to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. Because of the inclination of the rotation axis, Earth is never exposed equally within a year to the illumination (and heating) of the Sun. That's why we have seasons. Seasons are in opposition between North and South, thus when we have winter in the northern hemisphere we have summer in southern and the other way around.
In the same time, the orbit itself is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse. But most importantly, the rotation axis which is constant around 23 degrees wobbles within a 23 thousand years cycle (pure coincidence of numbers). This rotation of the axis with a 23 thousand years period is called precession. But it is so slow it would not make any noticeable difference to others than astronomers within let's say 1000 years. However the ancient ones knew about it. The djed in Egyptian pictogram representing Earth's magnetic field and its true cause is inclined at 23 degrees.
(The images below are not distorted but exaggerated showing the orbit of Earth around Sun is not a circle but an ellipse with Sun in one of the centers and what ellipse shows only 5% difference between the two diameters).
And here's where the trouble begins. When let's say northern hemisphere is further from Sun in the same time with Earth being inclined away from Sun in that side of the elliptic we have an ice age in the North. Close to this theory we have
https://www.google.com/search?q=milankovitch+cycles&gws_rd=ssl
According to this theory the most livable time on the whole planet is right in between of maximum of glaciations or equal glaciations between North and South, or the present moment. And place, around Equator, probably most time. Soon, that is in a few thousand years or so, we're going to start freezing in the southern hemisphere.
This is known to astronomers and to many others as the "astronomical theory of ice ages", although by the general public is confused with pseudoscience. Also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession#Astronomy
But here comes the real interesting part. I've been looking through the peep hole that is the northern shaft of the Great Pyramid. (With Stellarium, of course. That is i put in Stellarium - a free planetarium app for Windows and Linux - on the exact coordinates of the Great Pyramid and directed the view towards the direction of the shaft). What i've seen right away is... Polaris. I moved the time to the year 2105 when by astronomical predictions Polaris is supposed to point Earth's geographic North within about 14 minutes of an arc (not specified where on Earth from) . From the latitude of the pyramids, it's within just less than a degree. http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/polaris.html
According to Stellarium, in the year -23650 there was also an alignment of the shaft within less then of a degree.
A few hundred years before 2105, it was within 1.5 degrees or so, so it will be a few hundreds after. Then it starts getting even further. That means Polaris will be the best indication for Earth's geographic North Pole around year 2105.
Through the shaft in that year, we can see it within less than a degree or so, a bit less than today (throughout daily or yearly cycle). That means we are 90 years away from the middle of the cycle.
So will be @ 27820. But Stellarium is not a true astronomical prediction tool. It only works with currently known orbits not affected by gravity. So it gives a predicted precession period of about 25700 years instead of other calculations of about 25920.
However Milankovitch cycles predict a complete glaciation cycle of about 23000 years (second paragraph).
At any other time, Earth geographic North Pole is away from Polaris, the furthest right in between, when Polaris is at double the inclination angle, 2x23 decrees, that is about 46 degree.
According to all these, 13000 years from now, "down under" will finally be winter at Christmas time... But in the mean time we will have an ice age at South Pole that would probably include Australia and a complete meltdown of the polar cap in North.
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Spaceship Earth
Very few people realize that planet Earth in its motion around the Sun, with Sun moving around the center of the galaxy at incredible speeds and have been circling the galaxy around 18 times since... well, since time began for it, our planet dances with the stars and the Moon. :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_year
So all celestial bodies sort of tango around, like Earth and Moon, Earth and planets and stuff. So no big need to go to Mars only a few of us cause we all may sometimes be where Mars has passed by and beyond...
Or try to go in the Delta Quadrant with Kathryn Janeway's Voyager since we all are going to be there in about a 100 million years or so anyways... Or maybe not, cause the galaxy itself might move around the Universe and stuff with other galaxies...
I'm saying Earth tangos with Moon because since Moon is one sixth of Earth's weight, it pulls it too a little bit and Earth rotates around Moon about 6 times less then Moon around Earth, together forming some sort of wobbling pair, locked in a sort of like gravity pull, never too far, never too close, for like eons...
Actually the motion of the Earth in space is very complex and it takes a lot of differentials and computer power just to figure the path of a satellite. Not talking about going to the Moon and stuff.
By the way, i thing it's impossible to go to Mars since going to the Moon for three men took a rocket about 2.8 million kilograms (6.2 million pounds), the weight of about 400 elephants. If light takes about 1 second to travel from Earth to Moon, to Mars, depending on the position on the trajectory of both, well, they wrote better than me here http://blogs.esa.int/mex/2012/08/05/time-delay-between-mars-and-earth/
4 minutes, that is 240 seconds, 240 x farther than Moon at the closest point, you will need a 240 times bigger rocket. 96000 elephant-power.
But let's come back here on Earth and talk about our spaceship for 7 billions.
Many times i think... Well... There are so many things that if would miss we couldn't be here that sometimes i think the whole damned thing is engineered.
If we only speak about magnetic field that deflects, together with the Solar magnetic field the cosmic rays, particles coming from cosmic cataclysms with near the speed of light that would fry everything on Earth if it wasn't for those two magnetic fields...
http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2013/08/08/nasa-says-the-magnetic-field-of-the-sun-is-about-to-change-polarity/
By the way, Sun's magnetic field is about to reverse polarity, it does so every 11 years or so and that takes about 3 month in which time Earth will be less protected...
Life on Mars is not possible just because of missing of a Magnetic field... Let's say if they could figure a way to dissociate water, if there was water there like in the movie with Schwarzenegger, and make an atmosphere, that would be soon swept away by the cosmic rays and the solar wind (a different story)...
I believe if they could start a magnetic field, maybe Mars will catch an atmosphere in time, from comets and stuff...
The thing is nobody knows exactly why Earth has a magnetic field. There is a theory, about the motion of magma inside Earth and creating an electric current that in turn creates this huge magnetic field, but that theory could not explain why Venus that does not have a molten core has a magnetic field, though weak, about 1% of that of Earth, still capable of maintaining an atmosphere, although made of CO2 and an average of 460 Celsius degrees (at which temperature structured objects, like rocks usually start to glow or radiate in visible red!).
I used to know this geological engineer in Romania, Emil Rusu, who once told me, nobody went yet in there (center of the Earth) so we can't know for sure what's going on...
By the way, Venus is about the same size as Earth and Mars about the same size of Moon, with twice the gravity of Moon but still 38% of that of Earth... So colonists in there would jump around not walk, LOL.
But the reason i wrote all these is i wanted to say something about the theory of convection inside the Earth and tectonic plates.
In other words, i never heard of an explanation like why the plates raise and separate from each other in the middle of the continents and bump into each other and sink in the middle of the Ocean... I always thought the other way around and plates are raising because bumping into each other in the middle of the continent...
The explanation may be because in the middle of the Oceans there is a different rate of cooling of the plates, the oceans carrying at the bottom, through currents, some coolness from Poles, much more efficient than air through winds and stuff, and cooling the plates. Then magma being cooled through the mantle as well, it sinks in that area, only to raise, after being heated again after traveling to the center of the Earth, in the middle of the continents. That's why.
However, according to this theory, at any point at the surface of the Earth, the temperature is lower than at the bottom of the mantle, some 100 km... down, where rock is actually molten and much hotter magma raises from the center of the Earth. That proves there is a constant transfer of heat from under the mantle to surface and radiating in the cold space surrounding us. Cause nothing, including the mantle, is not a perfect insulator... Some heat will travel through it... (If that wouldn't be so, there would be no convection in magma, cause if there's no heating at the bottom and cooling at the top, there's no convection)
Because of this, after billions of years since Earth has reach the current thermal balance, there is a source of heat at the center of the Earth, otherwise it would have frozen, like Venus, long time ago. (Venus is hot at the surface due to runaway greenhouse effect) but one piece of solid rock as a whole. Well, many pieces, of course, cause it is fragmented. (One more proof that appearances are sometimes misleading.) (Or maybe it has in the middle some tiny molten part and it still moves around a bit thus the residual magnetic field).
Isn't our Spaceship Earth wonderfully engineered? Isn't all this exciting?
So all celestial bodies sort of tango around, like Earth and Moon, Earth and planets and stuff. So no big need to go to Mars only a few of us cause we all may sometimes be where Mars has passed by and beyond...
Or try to go in the Delta Quadrant with Kathryn Janeway's Voyager since we all are going to be there in about a 100 million years or so anyways... Or maybe not, cause the galaxy itself might move around the Universe and stuff with other galaxies...
I'm saying Earth tangos with Moon because since Moon is one sixth of Earth's weight, it pulls it too a little bit and Earth rotates around Moon about 6 times less then Moon around Earth, together forming some sort of wobbling pair, locked in a sort of like gravity pull, never too far, never too close, for like eons...
Actually the motion of the Earth in space is very complex and it takes a lot of differentials and computer power just to figure the path of a satellite. Not talking about going to the Moon and stuff.
By the way, i thing it's impossible to go to Mars since going to the Moon for three men took a rocket about 2.8 million kilograms (6.2 million pounds), the weight of about 400 elephants. If light takes about 1 second to travel from Earth to Moon, to Mars, depending on the position on the trajectory of both, well, they wrote better than me here http://blogs.esa.int/mex/2012/08/05/time-delay-between-mars-and-earth/
4 minutes, that is 240 seconds, 240 x farther than Moon at the closest point, you will need a 240 times bigger rocket. 96000 elephant-power.
But let's come back here on Earth and talk about our spaceship for 7 billions.
Many times i think... Well... There are so many things that if would miss we couldn't be here that sometimes i think the whole damned thing is engineered.
If we only speak about magnetic field that deflects, together with the Solar magnetic field the cosmic rays, particles coming from cosmic cataclysms with near the speed of light that would fry everything on Earth if it wasn't for those two magnetic fields...
http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2013/08/08/nasa-says-the-magnetic-field-of-the-sun-is-about-to-change-polarity/
By the way, Sun's magnetic field is about to reverse polarity, it does so every 11 years or so and that takes about 3 month in which time Earth will be less protected...
Life on Mars is not possible just because of missing of a Magnetic field... Let's say if they could figure a way to dissociate water, if there was water there like in the movie with Schwarzenegger, and make an atmosphere, that would be soon swept away by the cosmic rays and the solar wind (a different story)...
I believe if they could start a magnetic field, maybe Mars will catch an atmosphere in time, from comets and stuff...
The thing is nobody knows exactly why Earth has a magnetic field. There is a theory, about the motion of magma inside Earth and creating an electric current that in turn creates this huge magnetic field, but that theory could not explain why Venus that does not have a molten core has a magnetic field, though weak, about 1% of that of Earth, still capable of maintaining an atmosphere, although made of CO2 and an average of 460 Celsius degrees (at which temperature structured objects, like rocks usually start to glow or radiate in visible red!).
I used to know this geological engineer in Romania, Emil Rusu, who once told me, nobody went yet in there (center of the Earth) so we can't know for sure what's going on...
By the way, Venus is about the same size as Earth and Mars about the same size of Moon, with twice the gravity of Moon but still 38% of that of Earth... So colonists in there would jump around not walk, LOL.
But the reason i wrote all these is i wanted to say something about the theory of convection inside the Earth and tectonic plates.
In other words, i never heard of an explanation like why the plates raise and separate from each other in the middle of the continents and bump into each other and sink in the middle of the Ocean... I always thought the other way around and plates are raising because bumping into each other in the middle of the continent...
The explanation may be because in the middle of the Oceans there is a different rate of cooling of the plates, the oceans carrying at the bottom, through currents, some coolness from Poles, much more efficient than air through winds and stuff, and cooling the plates. Then magma being cooled through the mantle as well, it sinks in that area, only to raise, after being heated again after traveling to the center of the Earth, in the middle of the continents. That's why.
The ridges in the middle of the Paicific Ocean, where plates meet and bump into each other... |
Because of this, after billions of years since Earth has reach the current thermal balance, there is a source of heat at the center of the Earth, otherwise it would have frozen, like Venus, long time ago. (Venus is hot at the surface due to runaway greenhouse effect) but one piece of solid rock as a whole. Well, many pieces, of course, cause it is fragmented. (One more proof that appearances are sometimes misleading.) (Or maybe it has in the middle some tiny molten part and it still moves around a bit thus the residual magnetic field).
Isn't our Spaceship Earth wonderfully engineered? Isn't all this exciting?
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Planetary Alignement
I've always said astrology was/is a waste of time. And maybe it is for the most part. But today after viewing a short video with Gelu Voican Voiculescu presenting some stuff about planetary alignments and talking almost like a scientist, i was curious and opened Stellarium and set it on December 89. After all, 89 was the year of great and peaceful transformations in Eastern Europe. But while playing with the time wheel of the mouse back and forth it was not 89 that caught my eye but early January 1990. Take a look for yourself. I couldn't catch all planets in a single screenshot so i put two successive ones, one with the outer planets and one with the inner ones. They were pretty aligned allright. I'll keep on googling about until i can find some more info. But i don't think it happens very often. For those who asked themselves why i keep adding all kind of things from so many different areas. In college, i actually had to learn pages full of differential equations that i totally forgot describing the motion of planets when we had a whole chapter of Celestial Mechanics within the semester or year of the mandatory Theory of Mechanics course. It was enough to raise my curiosity about stars and planets and stuff. Then the Sci-Fi movies like Star Trek and Star Wars i love to watch. There was also a legend transmitted from generation to generation of students at the Mechanics Faculty within the Technical University in Iaşi about then retired prof.Mangeron saying that when NASA asked scientists from the whole world to help them with recalculating the trajectory of Apollo 13 after the accident actually he sent them the best calculations, and they actually used those to bring the astronauts back to Earth. (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)