Seriously – think about this for a moment. Are we the type of species that could, knowing full well life existed elsewhere in the galaxy, resist the temptation to meddle?

Almost all of our explorations throughout history have been with the express purpose of finding and returning with something of value. Once found, the ‘gold rush’ is on even if there is plenty of it in our own backyard.

Europe had more than enough room for civilization in 1492, but when Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world, we had to accumulate more.

Diamonds which have now been found in Northern Canada have sparked a new mineral rush to the Arctic even though there are plenty to be found elsewhere in the world.

Existing oil reserves are plentiful enough to get us by the development of new technologies that no longer require us to rape the earth but we insist on doing it anyways.

If we are to explore the Universe, could we realistically do this when our technology is always just on the cutting edge of getting us to that shiny object in front of us but yet leave it alone if it proves to be something our ethic tells us we shouldn’t touch?

For example, let us assume for a moment that Gilese 581g is eventually discovered to have a moon which is approximate in size and mass to that of our Earth. For those not in the know, Gilese 581g is a planet approximately 4-5 times the size of our earth, sits in the habitable zone, and is less than 100 ly away from our solar system.  If it had a moon with the same proportions as our moon, then we have just found probably one of the best potential planets to send a mission in order to explore for life.

If we found it thou – some type of pre-nuclear civilization – what would we do? Simply turn around and go home? Or would the compulsion to explore (meddle) be too much?

Most likely we wouldn’t have much of a choice. In the development of our technology we have typically taken a minimalist approach such that we carry with us just enough to do the job at hand and very little to spare.  Explorers off to the continent of Australia picked up fresh supplies along the way. Finding green shores would typically mean we would want to avail ourselves of whatever is available for trade or plunder.

Getting to Gilese 581g and finding plants and animals – I doubt very much that any explorer would be willing to simply walk away without having the opportunity to touch down.  As much as people would like to think that the morals of Star Trek would be the pervasive attitudes that would carry us into space flight, the reality is that the search for knowledge is tempered by a quest for value and rarity.

We are all looking for the bigger, better deal and without some form of control on our more basic human desires, we just simply cannot control that urge to open Pandora’s box once where know where it is.

It is our history.

Does that make us a grievously savage race? Possibly. Its hard to tell without comparison to other cultures which have done the same.  Unfortunately, as Carl Sagan pointed out in his series Cosmos, the meeting of other cultures would surely be one sided, with either them or us being vastly superior in technology.

Maybe there is a galactic police out there whose job it is to protect lesser races. Maybe the law of the land is conquer or be conquered. The rush to meet aliens could result in an exchange of culture with technological benefits for the whole of humanity or it could result in enslavement.

Hawkins wants to suggest that we shouldn’t draw as much attention to ourselves on the basis of how it worked out for the native North Americans.  I’m not so sure. There are as many possibilities for cultural exchange out there as there are likely to be stars in the sky. We can only control what we can control. What it is in our power to affect.

I think that at some point in the next several years, we need to start determining who we are as a species. Earth as a holistic culture – what are our values. How do we want to be perceived among the races that inhabit the galaxy. What ethos do we take with us. What compromises are we prepared to make. What sacrifices.

For example, what do we consider to be our ‘territory’ in this region of the galaxy? Everything within 50 lys? 100? Can we apply our tenets of international law to the way we interact with other species? Are we even entitled to the resources available within our own solar system?

When you are the only known sentient race within 100 lys of your home planet, the answers are pretty clear cut. But what do you do when the inhabitants of Gilese 581g come knocking on your door one day and inform you that your probes to Mars are an infringement on their rights in this sector?

It may be another 500 years before we make first contact as a society. But seeing how the human race is slow to change, it certainly wouldn’t be premature to start to think in terms of a galactic collective of which Earth is a part.

And maybe – just maybe – we can find the strength to work through our own local differences in the process when they are finally seen to be so small in comparison to what is awaiting us out there.

– Kevin Feenan

Herein is the essential contradiction:

1) Regardless of whether time and energy are related, such that a dimension of time can be defined by some manipulation of energy at any level, the first law of thermodynamics cannot hold as there must be infinite energy available in order to establish a ‘carbon copy’ of the universe as we move backwards in time. This is because the energy of the universe must be able to be recreated in its entirety at any given point in time and from any number of given observers.

2) In order to get to those moments in time, an observer would have to be taken outside the normal flow of the universe and then “reinserted”. Ergo the total sum of energy available would be that of all known universes plus the energy required to move backwards in time.

Both aspects contradict the first law of thermodynamics which

expresses the existence of a quantity called the internal energy of a system, and shows how it is related to the distinction between energy transfer as work and energy transfer as heat. The internal energy obeys the principle of conservation of energy but work and heat are not defined as separately conserved quantities. Equivalently, the first law of thermodynamics states that perpetual motion machines of the first kind are impossible. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics]

In short – the energy available in the universe is a constant.

Now certainly how liberally you want to define “the universe” has a great deal of influence over how possible time travel into the past is going to be. After all we could define the energy constant of the universe to be the sum total of all possible universes at any given point in time. That argument however is self-defeating because for any given number of universes, if time travel into the past were possible then there will be always at least n+1 universes which would inherently mean the first law of thermodynamics is wrong.

Inflationary Universe

Let’s use Ocam’s Razor as our guide in this for a moment and assume that the first law of thermodynamics actually holds. Conventional theory suggests that our universe is an inflationary one where galaxies are flying apart except in our local cluster. The principle of dark matter has been proposed to account for the missing mass of the universe required to make galaxies and local clusters ‘stick’ together.

Beyond this there are a host of other problems including the uniformity of the universe when looking at the background radiation of the universe presumed to be the leftovers of the Big Bang, the nature of what is at the center of a black holes, and why quasars are so far away in comparison to our own galaxy.

What I find interesting about the existing theory is that it assumes the first law of thermodynamics has only two possible outcomes – 1) the big crunch – where everything eventually collapses in on itself until we get another big bang, or 2) heat death – where everything eventually flies apart so far that thermodynamics is impossible to sustain. It also assumes that the universe had to have a starting point – a principle that is dependent on time being a dimension of the universe.

Convection Universe Hypothesis

One of the problems with an expanding universe theory is that recent physical evidence points dark energy welling up from the vacuum of space without any substantive cause. This energy potentially leads to the formation of particles of opposite charge (matter / anti-matter) which, in the absence of any real gravimetric forces, would possibly represent the dark matter assumed to be present.

What has surprised me in doing some preliminary research is that the principle of convection has not been mentioned anywhere as a possible mechanism for an expanding universe which preserves the first law of thermodynamics but yet accounts for how the universe may seem to be expanding. 

Let me see if I can simply paint this picture which doesn’t start with a Bang but a wimper. In no way am I trying to explain the origins of the universe itself. However let’s first start by assuming that the big bang inflationary theory is wrong – that there was no big bang. Convection currents by their very nature imply a cyclical process of creation and renewal. We will pick as the starting point the concept of a black hole as being both the beginning and the end of the cycle.

Black Holes

As theory into new and exotic particles continues to grow, one of the more interesting aspects of particle physics is this idea of quark-gluon plasma. Quark-gluon plasma exists only at very high temperatures and densities such as what will exist in the center of a black hole. At sufficient densities it may be possible that unconfined quarks can travel beyond the gravitational pull of a black hole and ‘appear’ elsewhere in the universe such as in the vacuum spaces in-between galaxies. 

This would be different from Hawking radiation, which proposes that a black hole can ‘evaporate’ at the event horizon, in that such convection acceleration would occur within event horizon after the particle has fallen past the boundary. The inference being that black holes should ‘dissipate’ faster than called for simply by the application of Hawking radiation.

Convection Inflation

Once past the boundary of the black hole – such unconfined quark-gluon plasma becomes confined in the cooler vacuum regions of the universe where they begin to form dark matter. Such matter accretes in the void spaces between galactic clusters which serve to push the universe outward creating new islands of matter from which new galaxies can take root.

Space itself would then be subject to both expansions and contractions as new galaxies start to take shape. Such an effect would appear to be forcing local galaxy clusters together while those galaxies on outside of this boundary would be constantly pushed away (thereby explaining why it is only our local cluster of galaxies that appear to be contracting whereas everything else is rushing away from us).

Quasars

Stellar formations such as quasars which represent the amalgamation of multiple galaxies into a single galactic formation would necessarily take billions of years to form under such a model. As new dark matter would constantly be pushing such formations further and further away, these super massive objects would necessarily not be near or close by our own local area if the scattering effect was constantly searching for the ‘weakest’ point in the universe to re-express itself as dark matter.  Hence the propensity for such matter to fill the interspatial regions outside the gravitational influence of a quasar would be substantially higher than it would within the gravitational vicinity.

Microwave Background Radiation

By a similar token, the background radiation of the universe may be able to be similarly explained not as a remnant of the Big Bang but rather as the echo of dark matter being formed in the spaces between stars and galaxies. Such uniformity would be consistent with an ongoing process of matter – antimatter collisions which are proposed as part of the mechanism for dark matter formation.  While there does not seem to be any direct linkage between the hot and cooler measurements of the cosmic radiation background and the actual consistency of what is physically present in those areas, I would think it would not be surprising if there was a co-relationship between the presence of dark matter generation and those areas which are fairly ‘hot’.

Accelerating Universe

Another aspect of the coalescing of dark matter into galaxies and new star formations is that the warping of space during these formations would tend to artificially show a universe that is expanding at an accelerating rate rather than at a constant speed. Consider that when dark matter forms in a region of fairly uniform, flat space, there is very little bending of space. As matter begins to coalesce, the gravity well produced would seem to the outside observer as if the galaxy was accelerating away from the observer at an ever increasing rate when in fact the relative point to point distance, not accounting for gravitational effects, would be the same as it was previously.  Such effects should be more pronounced the larger the size of the galaxy.

Convection Cycle

The convection cycle could repeat infinitely without the need for the universe to expand infinitely or contract into a big crunch. One of the major benefits is that a convection model doesn’t require exotic particles nor does it break the first law of thermodynamics. Most of the observable aspects of the universe are apparent through a simply rotation of energy in and out of convection currents and are in many respects the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions.

At the moment I haven’t found anything which suggests that such a convection hypothesis of the universe is not workable. That isn’t to say there may not be substantive holes in the theory, just that at the moment, any such holes are not big enough to discount the theory either. It is also important to note that while the specifics of this theory may use some aspects that need to be modified later (for example the assumption that a dense quark-gluon plasma is the final end-state of a black hole before it evaporates internally) it is the general principles here which are fundamental to its understanding and explanation of observable and testable hypotheses.

Time

Originally I started out with this concept of time as being problematic specifically as it applies to the first law of thermodynamics. If there is going to be a major obstacle to a convection model of the universe – it is likely going to involve principles related to time (such as the relationship of particle positions relative to each other and any constraints imposed by the speed of light). We’ve already seen that particles can be influence in quantum theory at distances that are not possible based on a universe where the speed of light is an upper constraint. This would tend to suggest that either our model of the quantum layer of the universe is incomplete or our concept of time is incorrect.

While time is relative producing various testable hypotheses when use for forward time travel, the fact that our observable universe breaks down when travelling backwards would suggest that it is our concept of time which is incorrect. In order to conserve energy objects must be able to move faster than the speed of light without using all of the available energy inherent in the universe as part of that acceleration.  This may be testable indirectly even if all the sub-atomic processes are still being worked out which is what caught my interest and attraction in the idea.

Certainly lots of gaps but at the same time it provides a ton of opportunities for reading and research in new directions which may prove more beneficial to immediate space-based goals and objectives than just whether the big-bang existed or not. More on that later thou.

– Kevin Feenan

Primary among these influencers is the concept of tidal forces between a star and its planets – known as tidal locking. Tidal locking occurs when the rotation of a planetary body matches its orbital period similar to how the moon always shows the same face to the earth even though the moon is rotating as it revolves around the earth. This effect means that extrasolar planets which are tidally locked with their stars, even though they may exist in the “habitable” zone would not be suitable for life as the persistent heating of one face of the planet would eventually boil off any potential atmosphere – thereby rendering the planet inert to the development of life (See link).

By the same token – planets that revolve too fast may also be unable to support life – or at the very least such rotation vs planetary shape may play a role in the ability of life to develop. While not directly argued by Donald Hamilton, the shape of a planetary body that is spinning rapidly would force more material (including water and atmosphere) towards the equator there by rendering any possibility of uniform atmosphere creation almost impossible until such time as the planet could take on a more spheroid shape.

Such atmosphere would only be protected in as much as there would be a viable magnetic field available to ensure that plasma from the solar wind does not come in contact with the planet’s troposphere or stratosphere and thereby strip ions necessary for atmospheric collection to occur (See link, link).

The more pressing challenge however is that in all of these endeavours to try to find additional habitable planets, almost all techniques focus on two aspects that almost ensure defeat even before analysis has started. The first is the requirement to identify planets based on indirect observation requiring either solar transits or wobbles. Rare is the ability to see a planet directly such as is the case with the gas giant orbiting the star β Pictoris.

New Methodology Proposal

One of the more interesting notions however that I would like to put forward is that an adaptation of a technology which is used to identify magnetic fields in deep space could be used to examine candidate solar analogs which can be seen perpendicular to our point of observation similar to β Pictoris.

Scientist for UCLA have refined a technique for examining super massive black-holes for signs of primordial magnetic fields between galaxies. The technique involves examining images for blurriness caused by deflection of electrons and positrons that would otherwise render a more crisp image.

What I am proposing is to use a similar technique in order to examine the background radiation emanating from behind a candidate solar analog. Similar to gravitational lensing, using a known fixed point in space should render parts of the resulting image “blurred” when taken at different points in time. Since the original study claims to be able to detect “femto-Gauss” strength at just one-quadrillionth of the Earth’s magnetic field, it should be possible to use this technique to examine nearby solar analogs for confirmation of planetary systems.  

Specifically – Solar systems including 61 Vir, HD 1461, 23 Librae, and β Pictoris would be primary candidates for confirmation of the process as each of these systems are close enough to make for a reasonable test of the hypothesis and have known planets which have been verified by the international community.

While the technique would not necessarily screen for planets that do not have a magnetic field (subject to the nature of artificially created magnetic fields that may result from some chemical interaction in the same vicinity) the point of fact remains that when looking for habitable planets, at the moment the ones we are most interested in will have to have a magnetic field of some reasonable strength if they are to be able to sustain life based on our present definitions.

While this doesn’t solve the problem of how to get there – it certainly creates opportunities whereby we can more closely determine those solar systems of interest wherein we may, within our lifetimes, choose to send a robotic probe for investigation notwithstanding a 100-150 year mission term.

– Kevin Feenan

Here is where I have a problem with the science: the corona of a star based on observations of our own sun have been shown to be several millions of degrees higher than the surface temperature (~6000K/10000F). Ignoring the effects of coronal mass ejections for a moment – such radiation on the outside of the planet and a core temperature of 1000F+ from the surface should provide sufficient energy for atmospheric molecules to vaporize off into space , be picked up by the solar winds, and blown off. In short - the planet shouldn’t have an atmosphere that close to the sun’s corona.

What then are we looking at? Most likely the culprit is superheated gas trapped in the magnetosphere of the planet providing the illusion of an atmosphere where none should exist. However even there we have a bit of a problem.

See – for the planet to have a rotation period equal to it orbital period – this would suggest that any internal metallic core had long since stopped spinning. This is in part what accounts for planetary magnetic fields. So if we can infer from the rotation of the planet that its magnetic field is weak then there shouldn’t be a residual atmosphere due to interaction with solar wind.

The other other two mechanisms I can think of that may be responsible for the presence of an atmosphere would be venting of carbon dioxide and methane from within the planet’s core as the planet cooks like being in a microwave oven. The issue with this theory is that for a planet to get this close to its star it is likely that any such residual gas may have leached from the planet surface millions of years ago.

The second mechanism is a combination of gravity and thermal currents that may cause molecules to bind more tightly to the surface of the planet. If so then it may be possible to get a much more accurate read on the size / mass of the planet simply by figuring out at what point the pull of gravity counteracts the vacuum of space considering the amount of heating that needs to occur to heat the planet’s surface temperature to 4000F.

Of course there is another possibility – the one which I found myself drawn to immediately upon reading the article. The science could just be out and out wrong. Personally I hope this isn’t the case as I would like to think that we can identify earth sized planets in other star systems that our children can one day visit. I’m just more than a little disappointed however that those people who purport to be on the cutting edge of this science who just out and out assume that what they are looking at represents an atmosphere without critiquing the possibility that what they are doing is inherently at the cutting edge.

It wouldn’t be the first time that humanity’s exploration of science has shot off on a tangent. Let’s hope that other communications about Kepler will be a bit more considered.

So let me see if I get this straight. The US has spent approximately $560B since 2002 on the war in Iraq in order to make the region more peaceful and gain strategic access to oil reserves which have experienced an almost 300% increase since the war began. This is considered to be money well spent considering the level of outsourcing that has occurred over the past 10 years, the steady increase in corporate profits on what earnings are made within the US, the $350B/year different between what oil should cost compared to what it is priced at today thanks to market speculators, and now a $700B bail-out package whose price tag is going up every day unless something isn’t done to get the money market moving again.

By comparison, a similar $560B investment in intermediate-green technologies, such as Rentech’s GTL technology, which could have put the US substantially on the road to energy independence including the necessary fuels required for getting into space in the first place, and augmentation of NASA’s space program, which creates high-end jobs in both R&D and manufacturing domestically, would have realized . . . what? . . . maybe a thriving sustainable economy that leverages the key strategic assets that can only be gotten from first world countries such as a solid educational system and population with disposable income willing to invest and support those same technologies?

Yep – I can see the benefits are paying off already.

All sarcasms aside – the point here is that its unfair to point the finger at NASA for a failure of vision when the Administration that is necessary in order to support any vision is so stuck in a 1950s McCarthy era mindset that it can’t see past its own fear mongering to establish a realistic vision for the country as a whole. And the unfortunate part in all this is that where goes the US goes Canada, Europe, and a host of other countries/economic zones that are so economically integrated with American policy that it becomes impossible to talk about issues at this level such that their impacts are only felt within the US itself.

As with most issues however it is always easier to focus on pointing a finger in one direction rather than looking at the larger picture. If NASA needs a vision for the future then I offer one up here for consideration:

What drives countries from economic have-nots to world super powers is not their resource base but rather their capability of mobilizing a society towards manufacturing and export. NASA vision should not just be to go to Mars but rather developing the infrastructure necessary to produce finished and semi-finished goods in low and very-low gravity environments. So for example, mining and exploration of asteroids and comets in near earth orbit. Establishing habitats for trades and craftsmen. Transportation systems for getting raw materials in and out of the central orbital planes between Venus and Jupiter with Mars representing the ideal central location for such manufacturing to take place.

Essentially, NASA’s role would become one of co-ordinating the US economic engine and logistics towards these goals rather than being directly responsible for their implementation. R&D funds and local commercial manufacturing would necessarily follow suit as priorities are set for specific levels of resource and manufacturing production. This would not only stimulate political will behind space exploration in our immediate local group of planets but also funds from the commercial industry as the potential for ownership and economic profits related economic drivers steadily increase.

Now I don’t know about you but a 250m hunk of rock spinning towards the earth with only 5 days notice doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. I mean – can you remember anything about this being in the media? We aren’t exactly talking dino-extinction here but at the same time we aren’t talking about a little tap on the shoulder here either.

Now what got me started on this again was a quick scan of CNN’s affiliate KTVU who reportedthat scientists are concerned about our preparedness bearing in mind that “A rock the size of the UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium is currently headed our way.” Huh? What rock? I can only assume that they are referring to Apophis which is scheduled to have two very close approaches: one in 2029 and another in 2036.

The one in 2029 is the one however expected to cause most of the issues. This one, based on current estimates, will pass between the earth and the moon, within reach of a number of geosynchronous communication satellites. The orbit isn’t well enough understood to know if it will hit any of those nor what effect such a collision may have on Apophis’ orbit. Beyond this is a further uncertainty factor that only additional measurements in 2013 will be able to unfold in addition to whether in 2029 Apophis will manage to thread a very narrow keyhole window that would most certainly result in a direct hit in 7 years time.

From a cultural perspective, let’s assume for a minute that NASA is yanking everyone’s chain and in fact Apophisis set to collide with the Earth on April 14, 2029. Do you tell anyone? At 270m in diameter it kinda makes the current US Financial Crisis a bit irrelevant doesn’t it? Do you carry on paying your bills? Do you throw away the moral code that governs a civil society? Do you embrace or abandon God? Considering the blast would be the equivalent to 100,000 Hiroshima bombs, this isn’t exactly something that would one effect the local area of impact.

Scientists are calling for a plan – something that could be put into effect in short order should we find another TU24 asteroid with 5 days to spare. On the basis of what happened last January I don’t see that call as being unreasonable. Especially if you consider how much preparation time NASA and other space agencies say they need to get a rocket off the ground never mind closing the gap in sufficient time in order to avoid a ‘confrontation’.

Herein however lies a fundamental problem. The most cost effective solution would be to have a space based system which is pre-armed with nuclear missiles. I say cost effective only because we have enough rockets and warheads to blow ourselves up several times over. It seems to be the nature of Governments to cop-out when faced with large issues that have remote possibilities to go for the ultra cheap solution under the assumption that the fallout (no pun intended) will occur on someone else’s watch.

My concern is that such calls to action would inevitably lead to the weaponization of space under the pre-text of benign intent. Considering the human race’s pre-occupation with killing each other, I’m thinking that while the call by these scientists is a good one, for the right reasons, that any such proposals need to be thought out extremely carefully. The path to many of today’s more interesting plagues has be fraughtwith good intentions which were never the intent of the original creators. Ideas become corrupted when opportunities for power and control become involved. Open the door just a little and people will find ways to open it the whole way.

You can think of this another way – how many asteroids has the earth been hit with over the past 100 years which caused significant damage? 1 Maybe? In contrast how many wars have we had in that period of time? As much as I really like the idea of supporting an Earth defensive shield against rouge asteroids, I think personally that I would rather take my chances with the asteroids and convince the commercial section that there ‘maybe gold in them there hills’. Mining the largest asteroids for raw natural resources may end up being a far more effective solution in the long run than figuring out ways to blowing them up or pushing them off course.