This night I dreamt that I was flying, as a passanger, on an airplane. I looked out the window and saw a meteorite flying by just a couple of meters away from the airplane. My reaction was, of course, "holy shit!" but I can't remember much more than that.
Woke up in the morning with a curiosity of how the airplane statistics looks this year. In media we've read about the Air France crash alot, but after that the news became silent. So I turned to my favourite site for airplane statistics Plane Crash Info.com.
If you click in "Go To Database" and "2009" you see all the accidents that have happened during 2009 so far. As expected there are alot of small airplane accidents but I'm not really interested in those. I mainly fly with big airplanes, except that really small propeller plane I flew with from Tenerefe to La Palma and back. Brr, horrible!
Jan 15, New York, New York US Airways, Airbus A320-214 N106US, 0 people dead out of 155.
I remember that accident very well. It's the Hudson accident, where they had to land in the Hudson river. When that accident happened I was on an airplane from Frankfurt to Singapore, on my way to Sydney. I saw the news about it on TV at Singapore airport, not the type of news you wanna see when you're going up again.
Feb 25, Amsterdam, Netherlands Turkish Airlines, Boeing 737-8F2 TC-JGE, 9 people dead out of 134.
I remember this one as well. I was on my way to Spain when that accident happened. I was going to the NOT observatory in La Palma to observe for 8 nights.
May 20, Near Madiun, Indonesia Military - Indonesian Air Force, Lockheed C-130 Hercules A-1325, 98 people dead out of 112.
Jun 1, Atlantic Ocean, 570 miles northeast of Natal, Brazil Air France, Airbus A330-203 F-GZCP, all 228 people dead.
The last one is the famous Air France accident that media was all crazy about.
Jun 30, Off Mitsamiouli, Comoros, Yemenia Airway, Airbus A310-324 7O-ADJ, 1 person survived out of 153.
Jul 15, Near Qazvin, Iran Caspian Airlines, Tupolev 154M EP-CPG, all 168 people died.
Ok, let's take a look how many accidents of these types we had in 2008.
We have 4 accidents in 2008 with 100 passengers or more. That is not many at all if you compare to the number of airplanes that fly every year, so no need to panic! In 2007 we had 5 accidents with 100 passengers of more. In 2006 we had 6 accidents, so one can say that so far, by just looking at these numbers, we've had about the average numbers of accidents in 2009. We know that in the end of 2008 and during 2009 the world economy was crashing, so it's nice to see that the airlines still seem to value safety as number one.
Ok, let's take a look at the aircrafts. We have
Airbus A320. Seems like that plane type was manufactured in 1988. (21 years)
Boeing 737. Seems like manufactured in 1967. (42 years)
Lockheed C-130 Hercules A-1325. That is a military transport aircraft and normally people don't fly in one of those when travelling. Let's exclude it.
Airbus A330. Seems like manufactured in 1992. (17 years)
Airbus A310. Seems like manufactured in 1982. (27 years)
Tupolev Tu-154M. Seems like manufactured in 1987. (22 years)
So, let's see if my dad was right. He used to work at Arlanda, the airport of Stockholm, as a civil engineer. He basically constructed electronics to cockpit and had a team install it. He knew quite alot about airplanes in gereral and he always said that the 25-year old airplanes are more safe than the newer ones. I remember it very clearly because logically that felt wrong for me. He said that the mechanicals are checked very often but the electronics are harder to check. It occurs in special situations and with the old airplanes we've already corrected the electronic errors, because there have been so many flights where the pilots have rapported these faults. With the new airplanes, we don't know much about the electronic components. They have been tested alot, but we need more flights to know if the electronic components are working good together.
If we look at how old these airplanes are we see that alot of them are around 20 years old. The numbers here may not be totally correct either, because I'm guessing that these airplane types have been manufactured during a couple of years or so. It is therefore very likely that the airplanes are even younger than these numbers.
But for this year it sure looks like my dad had a point. If you look at 2008 there were more Airbus accidents than Boeing, but if you look at 2007 we had more Boeings accidents. In 2006 there were more Airbus accidents again. I looked a little closer to the accidents in 2006 and found out that EVERY accident (with passengers more than 100) was due to pilot error or flight tower error. The human error in other words. In 2007 there seem to be one technical error that caused the accident, and the plane was just 6 months old. The rest of the accidents seem to be human errors. In 2008 we can see human errors as well. In 2009 we had a little more technical errors, such as engine failures after hitting birds and faulty altimeter. For the France Air accident the final report has not been published yet, as far as I know. But from the received messages indicating a failure of the electrical system you can perhaps assume that they had problems with the electrical system.
So, my conclusions are that it's really safe to fly with an airplane if you compare it to driving a car or just walking over the street. There are 12 months in every year which makes accidents happen every
2nd months in 2006
2-3 months in 2007
3rd months in 2008
2nd months in 2009
if you just look at the math. I can't see any changes between weather seasons in the statistics. Most of the accidents are due to human errors so to make any conclusions about the plane types or how old they are you need to look at the statistics for a longer period than I did here. As my dad would say "The accidents are mostly caused by shit behind the steering wheel". I guess I still have to assume that he knew what he was talking about and trust him in the airplanes age matter. It seems like most of the accidents happen during take off or landing, which is no surprise to me. My dad said that pilots often start and land by themself, even though they can do this using the autopilot, because they want to have "some fun" and also keep their skills up. The human error is the biggest problem with accidents and therefore it's no surprise to me that the most accidents happen during take off or landing.
So, a guess would be that there will be another airplane accident perhaps in November or December this year if you just consider that airplane accidents happen every 2-3 months. Also, there have been as many accindents this year already as it has been the last couple of years so it's also possible that the next airplane accident will happen in January or February. At the same time it's really hard to make any assumtions out of this, so don't take it too serious. It is still very safe to fly!
Note: I've just guessed an accident to happen 4 months out of 12. :D Also, an accident has already occured the date, but another year, I'm leaving for Sydney which makes half of my flight look better statistically. The other half is not as good statistically. :)
Once again, Einstein wins! Yep, it sure seems that way after scientists have studied the results from NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. At last week's group meeting we discussed the Fermi QG photon-lag measurements, so here's a litte info about it.
Einstein said in 1905, in his theory of relativity, that light has a constant speed and it was independent of its frequency, or how you're moving. Light has amazing properties and can sometimes confuse people. For example, if you travel on a, let's say a space station with a constant velocity, and you would throw a ball in the opposite direction as you're moving you would probably think it's logical that the ball will move away from you faster than if you threw it in the same direction you're moving. Right? If you throw it in the opposite direction the space station would have a velocity in one direction and the ball in the other direction. For you it would look like the ball has the velocity you threw it with, but you will also move in the other direction which makes the velocity seem even larger.
With light, that is not the case! Light will travel at the speed of light no matter how fast you're travelling or no matter the direction you send the light in. If you would travel almost the speed of light and lit a torch in the same direction you're travelling in, you will measure the velocity to the speed of light as much as if you would send it in the opposite direction. Fascinating, isn't it?! That's the reason for saying that light has a constant velocity, or speed (velocity is when you have a direction and speed is when you ignore direction).
According to theory light has the same speed for all its wavelengths, or frequencies if you prefere. Wavelength, frequency and energy is connected together: if you change wavelength, you change both frequency and energy and so on. Light has a wide range of wavelengths. Some wavelengths we see as colors where red has a longer wavelength than blue. If we go to longer wavelenths than red we get infrared, microwaves or radio. If we go to the shorter wavelength than blue we get ultraviolett, X-rays or gamma rays. So when we use the TV or radio we use light or when we use the microwave. When we're laying at the beach to get tanned our skin reacts to the UV-light and When we're at the dentist to get an X-ray we use light. The longer the wavelenths is, the less energetic the light is. Gamma rays, which has the shortest wavelengths and therefore is the most energetic, is very harmful to us.
But scientists have wondered that perhaps the different wavelengths, or frequencies, of light have different speeds. The change in speed must be really small, but could it be? One suggestion is that space has a granular structure on very small scales. That would lead to some light waves would travel faster than others. We already know that on small scales, like particle scales, we have to use quantum mechanics to understand what's going on. On that scale there are alot of statistics going on, and random events, things that seem very different from our orderly looking world. Scientists don't know how to combine these two "worlds", quantum mechanics with our Newtonian, and therefore maybe light can help us out. If different wavelengths can travel in different ways in this small granular structured space, perhaps we can find a relation between quantum mechanics and our Newtonian world.
So, NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope studied gamma rays of differing energies, in other words different wavelengths and frequencies, coming from an exploding star when the universe was half its present age. For 7.3 billion years the light travelled through space and finally hit the telescope which had the timer on. It turned out that the different wavelengths do not have different speeds, so Einstein is still right! But astronomers don't give up that easily. More tests are needed, and perhaps the light needs to travel even longer distances to be able to be measured better. This is just the beginning of testing Einsteins theories and so far 1-0 for Einstein vs. scientists.
You can read more about it here
7.3 Billion Years Later, Einstein’s Theory Prevails
Personally I'm kinda hoping that they would find something weird about light so we get some hints about the connection between quantum mechanics and Newtonian physics, but at the same time I'm going to become a bit upset if they do. Light seems to be an awsome particle with alot of secrets, and it's kind of perfect in one way. If they would measure that light has different speeds at different wavelengths, that would make the photon (light) less perfect. But hey, even the Sun has spots... Even though they appeard a little bit late this time. But that's another story.
Today I've been walking back and forth to the garbage room. I never thought I had that much garbage in my appartment! I've found papers and receipts from 2004! Why have I saved them through all these years?! I threw away some clothes and shoes I never use and put all my books in a box. I realized that I must have sold off around 30-40 books this year, because all the books I have left goes into just one box. Yay! I've also spoken to a friend of mine in Sydney and he's gonna pick me up from the airport. He's so kind to me and I think he's going to be like a big brother to me over there. It's great and people are so friendly in that country!
I can't belive that I have to move away from this appartment in about two weeks! I mean, there are things everywhere! Gosh, I have so much work left to do here before leaving! Ah well, it's gonna work out in the end. It always does!
Yet another newspaper article about religion and science. This time it's a scientist in chemistry from Göteborg, Sweden, who is trying to explain how the Bible actually can describe the science we know today. He said he has studied the Bible very closly and also that he is a scientist and therefore kinda know science. First of all he's blaming the translators of the Bible not to use the right translations. Me, myself and I would say that perhaps someone (not pointing any fingers here... hehe) is trying to make the Bible fit the reality better by using different words. But really, it doesn't matter, because you can interpret it in so many ways so words don't really matter. Then he says that the Bible translators probably didn't thought the Bible had anything to do with the reality and therefore the words was fitted to that type of picture. Wow! Talk about an accusement! Me, myself and I believe the best in people and think the translators really tried to translate it as good as they could. I would say this accusement is a typical argument from someone who is really anxious to get the pices toghether, and therefore blaming everything or everyone to make it happen. But once again "what ever, no proof but it's not impossible".
Then he continues. In the Bible it says that the Universe didn't have a shape when it was created and that's what scientists belive about Big Bang today. I say "Hold your horses here!". We don't have any equations to say anything about that time, in other words you can't even assume that it didn't have any shape. Then he continues with that the Universe slowly was wakening and filled with hydrogen during a phase with darkness, death and chaos. Well, I wouldn't say that the inflation phase of the Universe was a slow wakening. It was more like a crazy wakening with an expansion we've never seen since. The Universe wasn't immediately filled with hydrogen, and darkness, death and chaos hmm... Well, just leave the explanation to astrophysicist instead of letting some guy working with chemistry explain it. But I can totally understand that people would fall asleep if the newspaper started to explain every detail. Let us just say it's not that easy...
Then he continues with the origin of life. Of course he does! He says that the majority of the scientists don't think it's strange that life exists but it's because they've never cared to examin the options. I say "huh?". I wonder how many experiments that actually tried to create life in laboratory and examine the chemicals on comets and asteroids and so on. But anyway, he continues... The scientists are assuming that life came up by its own and there has to be several different properties interacting for that to happen. That the chance of life to come up without a creator is really small.
First of all I have to say I'm really interested in how he came up with the fact that the chance is small. Does he know something about life in the Universe that the rest of the people don't? Does he know how many times life has "tried" to evolve in the Universe? Maybe life has 100% chance of evolving if the conditions are right, and what is the chance that the conditions are right? That statement is totally nonsense I have to say. And if there is a creator, like a god, how does he know the odds of that creator to create life? The guy is a scientist for god's sake, is it too much to ask for him to be a little bit more scientific about his statements?
Also, I wonder what is so wrong about saying that everything that happened in the Universe caused us to live here? If something would have gone "wrong" we wouldn't be here today and therefore we would never been able to think about it. What is so wrong to think that way? Is it not good because the Bible says otherwise? No, I have to say, after reading this article, that the guy has had some tough times with his company (which is also mentioned in this article). The guy just needs some publicity so the business would run better.
My conclusions from this article are thereby: This guy is in serious need of having answers in life, and about life, and by changing words and interpret the Bible in different ways he can come up with explanations that suit him and science. I could probably do the thing by reading and interpret a Donald Duck comic... The foundation of his statements are poor which is surprising coming from a scientist. Also, if you want to appear as serious do not write your company's web address in the article.
Here's the Swedish article: Forskare: Gudstro är det enda vetenskapliga
One has to keep in mind here that scientists jobs are to explain things we see. Our job is not to prove if God exists or not. Scientists are just trying to understand processes and give them an explaination. If we're not sure we try to leave the field open. Scientists are trying to publish research without involving religion or personal oppinions. Sometimes it's really hard to do so, and therefore alot of reseach are double checked. All this research takes alot of time to do, and scientists normally don't wanna go out in media until they are very sure about the facts. Scientists, and especially astrophysicists, are working in a field that often can "contradict" religious belives. That makes the area more sensitive and religious people seem to belive that astrophysicists are trying to attack the religion. As I said earlier, that is not our job, and it's not our fault that religios people have a big problem of adapting science into the Bible. We're just trying to tell the people how things seem to work out there, without relgious aspects. Therefore I find it very interesting that articles like this get published over and over again. You hardly ever see a scientist publish a serious article that are trying to defend science against religion, but very often you see religios people trying to defend religion against science. Could it be that religious people find it harder and harder to defend the Bible? Are they threatened by the fact that scientists are working without considering the God-equation? I have to ask, because it sure looks that way...
Anyway... Today I have to give a great one to Staffan Linné who held a presentation about Lyman alpha leakage in galaxies. He did it as a part of his bechelor's thesis. Before the presentation he came up to me and said "Åsa, I can't pronounce 'equivalent width' fast in english". I laughed and told him to mumble it out instead, as a joke. I also told him that if you say "hydrogen" too many times it can be hard to pronounce. He looked at me and said "shit, I have to say that a couple of times too". During the presentation he finally came to the 'equivalent width' part and yep, he couldn't pronounce it right, and he started to laugh. Poor little guy, but it's hard to pronounce! Especially when you're a bit nevous. But the presentation was really good! Yay! Good work Staffan!
Ah yeah! The oral exam in observational astrophysics is postponed to next week which is really good for me! So, today I've been at home reading about photometry and some spectroscopy. Around lunch time I got an e-mail saying that the afro dance lesson for the evening was cancelled because the teacher was sick. Even though afro dancing is so much fun it felt really good. My body is aching so bad and really needs a break but in the afternoon Anna called me and wanted to have some company to the gym. I was like "Uhm, you're aware of the fact that I've been dancing like a maniac the last couple of days, right?" but in the end I said yes anyway. So, no rest here. Was at the gym for an hour and then went to the closest sushi bar on my way home. Life is great! Stressful but great!
I don't know if you've heard about this but on October 25 there were rumours about an meteorite impacting close to Mazsalaca in Latvia. Astronomers were intrigued but it turned out to be a hoax made by a tele company. Not so funny one I must say because meteorites hitting the Earth is something that happens from time to time. Mostly it's small ones that makes a big crater and perhaps some trees to fall. Anyway, what I wanted to say was in that video, even though it's fake, they are running towards it to film it. That's something I wouldn't recommend to anyone. Ok, the chance of being there when something like that happens is small, but if it would happen I think it's good to know one thing: Objects up there have chemicals that vaporize when heated by friction when falling through the atmosphere. After the impact there's a chance those chemicals can get released into the air, as gases. Those gaseous chemicals can be harmful for humans, or any animal, and cause sickness or even kill you. So, if you would see an impact, even though the chance of doing that is small, please think twice before running towards the crater!
Here's a link to a BBC article about an meteorite impact in Peru that may have caused people to get sick.
Scores ill in Peru 'meteor crash'
Ok, it's official: I have discovered muscles on my body where I though there were only fat! The reason: Afro dancing two days in a row. But it's so much fun and I can really recommend you to try it! You're gonna get a well trained body within weeks, that's for sure! The teacher screamed "Jump higher" and "Faster" and I almost screamed "You must be kidding, I've lost my connection to my legs 30 mins ago". Cheeses (like the commercial)! But it's sooooooo much fun! If you don't know what type of dance I'm talking about, look at this YouTube video. Some of the moves you'll find there you can find in our choreography as well.
My friend Robert has written some quotes on FaceBook that I liked:
Good friends are like stars: about half of them are in binary systems.
Good friends are like stars: quite a lot of them have spots.
Good friends are like stars: some are dwarfs and others giants.
Good friends are like stars: you never know when the cool ones will shed their outer layers and explode.
Today I've been studying observational astrophysics again. Me and Johannes have tried to solve some problems but we failed most of them. Yay! Not a very good day! At 5:30 PM I had my first class in Afro dance and at 4:55 PM I was still at school. I totally lost track of time and had to take a cab home to make it on time to the class. I made it in time though and it was fun as hell! My body was sore from yesterday when I tried belly dancing and I guess it's gonna be even more sore tomorrow. The worst part is that next class is tomorrow, which nobody knew before today. Everone, including me, thought we had class every Monday but it turned out we're gonna have class today, tomorrow and on Wednesday. Shit! Not enough time to study and the oral exam is on Wednesday. Not a chance in hell that I will be prepared if I need to leave that early every day!
I got a little upset that they didn't inform about this in time but I didn't say anything! I don't wanna skip the classes either because I've paid for them! At the same time this scenario is sooo typical in my education: You spend hours and hours at school and then you think "Ah, well I think I deserve to do something else besides school and have a little fun and enjoy life" but in the end you regret that you even tried to have a life because it just gives you more stress and headaches. This Afro dance collision with my exam is just one of many situations. Gah!
Anyway, try to be positive Åsa. The dance was really fun!
The last couple of days an interesting discussion has taken place on my homepage. It's about something called "Green flash" and is truely beautiful to see! I saw one just a couple of weeks ago.
It happens sometimes at sunrise or sunset and make some part of the sky turn green, usually for no more than a second or two. The reason for a green flash lies in refraction of light in the atmosphere. It usually happens when the sky is clear, and the sun goes up or down. When the light from the sun travels through the atmosphere the shorter wavelengths (blue) get scattered. That's the reason we have a blue sky, the blue wavelength "bounce" around in the atmosphere making the sky look blue. The longer wavelengths (red) don't get scattered the same way and therefore travel a longer distance through the atmosphere. That's the reason we have redish sunsets and sunrises. When this "Green flash" occurs the blue part of the light also get reflected, but because blue light is more scattered in the atmosphere, the green color remains.
You can read more, and see pictures, about the fenomenon at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash
or look at some pictures here
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/gf1.htm
It's very beautiful!
Something that is not so beautiful right now is observational astrophysics! I'm reading about Sampling Theorem (Whittaker-Nyquist-Kotelnikov-Shannon sampling theorem). I'm about to go crazy about this! "The sampling frequency must be greater than twice the bandwidth of the input signal in order to perfectly reconstruct the original" and then some equations for the Gaussian Point Spread Function. I think I need to study this a bit harder because right now I'm lost. Ah well, I've been through harder things in my education than this. :) I'll keep my mood up!
Let us learn something about observational astrophysics today:
Something else I've done today is belly dancing. I know, the clumsy Swede is trying to move the hips... I can say two things about this: 1) My body is going to be so sore tomorrow and 2) It's so much fun!
The only problem is the number 1) thing. Tomorrow I'll have my first class in afro dance and I'm hoping my body won't be too messed up after this belly dancing! I already feel sore in my back and my calfs! Talk about a 28-year old in a 78-year old body!
The last couple of days I've been in the world of observational astrophysics so I'm kinda lost in what has happened in astrophysics and media. What I do know is that Wlad has published an article. Wlad is a great guy I've met at the department of astrophysics here in Uppsala when he did his PhD. He was born in Brazil, moved to Sweden (Uppsala) to do his PhD in astrophysics and is currently living in Germany (although he is in Uppsala, Sweden right now). In the beginning of November he will move to New York for a PostDoc.
Wlad is a fun guy! We've had alot of arguments in the past because I think he has alot of extreme oppinions but you just can't get mad at him! He's just great! When he lived in Uppsala he always complained about Sweden and the weather and I can totally understand that if you come from Brazil! But now when he's living in Germany for a while he always talks about Uppsala as his home. I guess you don't miss something until it's gone... I wonder if I'm gonna talk about Uppsala that way when I'll leave...
Anyway, here you can read his article about naming exoplanets.
Naming the extrasolar planets
If you live in Göteborg, Sweden, there will be an astronomy week in the city library. Why not bring a friend and learn more about astronomy?
Astronomiveckan
As for me, myself and I we're trying to learn some observational astrophysics. It's not our favourite topic though. We're more into stellar physics or perhaps galaxy physics but hey, keep it positive! Observational physics is good to know!
Scientists seem to have found 32 new planets orbiting other stars, so called exoplanets, by using the HARPS spectrograph in La Silla, Chile. The news came out a couple of days ago and was announced on an ESO conference in Portugal. They have found planets that seem to have a lower mass than the planets we normally find. The massive exoplanets are normally easier to find because they disturb their star gravitationally at a higher rate then the less massive planets. We can more or less see the star "dancing" around in space and that indicates that there are massive planets orbiting. In some cases we can find exoplanets by looking at the light from the star. If the planet is big enough we can see the light intensity change as it passes infront of its star in our line of sight. As you can imagine the chance of that happening at the exact time you're sitting with the telescope pointed at that direction is not very high.
HARPS is therefore looking after "dancing" stars, and the instrument is impressive! It was installed in 2003 and can measure very small velocity changes, as small as 3,5 kilometers per second, which is roughly our walking velocities. The smaller velocities you can measure the higher probability that you will find smaller exoplanets. This project has been really successful with discoveries like: the first super-Earth in 2004, Neptune-alike planets around the star HD 69830 in 2006, the lightest planet ever discovered around a star in 2009, and now one planet that is believed to be covered in lava and with a density close to the Earth's.
These new findings seem to give a good insight for planetary astronomers. The last couple of years astronomers seem to think that planets are common in the Universe, and findings like this support that idea. As one of the professors, Nikolai Piskunov, here at the astrophysics department said in an interview (translated) "The findings seem to support the idea that planets are much more common in the Universe than we earlier thought. That increases the chance that there's life on other planets." But of course one has to keep in mind that there's a difference between life and intelligent life! Newspapers always seem to assume that life = aliens to talk to.
Well, very interesting findings I must say. I get impressed everytime I read about these instruments astronomers use! They are amazing and the techniques are beyond my understanding. It's a shame though, because I have an exam next week about: Observational astrophysics! I hope the techniques used for astronomy will reach my understanding until then!
This week it's Uppsala short film festival. Guess what the topic was at the lunch table here at the astrophysics department... It's funny though, the astrophysicist can't resist to somehow end up talking about old movie aliens or sci-fi movies. I don't think I have the time to watch the movies though, too much to do before going to Australia! I'm forcing myself to drink coffee this week, although I hardly ever drink it, just so I'm able to stay awake!
The computer problems with my master thesis seem to have come to an end! After changing accounts and lot of other things it finally happened: I can connect to my supervisor's computer WITHOUT crashing his computer! Yay! The amazing world of computers!
Ok, what have I manage to do these couple of days: Nothing. To sum up the master thesis: Computer problems. Every time I've tried to access my supervisor's computer his computer has locked. Great!
Was trying to put some alcohol to the computer problems but that just ended up me apparently hitting on some girl. Great! I told her "Wow, whatta muscles" and then realized she was gay. To try to make it better I said "Uhm, I'm not trying to hit on you". Great! I wasn't but why not just leave it there? No, no. This is Åsa we're talking about... Smooth as hell! Conclusion: Alcohol does not solve your computer problems, it just creates alot of other problems...
Today I read about a Rubik's cube in a digital version. It is called Touchcube and you just need to touch the cube with your finger and the chosen layers are changed. The colors on the original Rubik's cube are changed to small lamps and there's also a small speaker that make a sound when you change the layers. There are also other functions, like giving you suggestions how to solve it and an automatic solver. After reading this article I watch my own Rubik's cube and think it's a bit old fashion. Now I want this high-tech Rubik's cube instead. The price is about $100 US.
My old fashion Rubik's cube.
Back to the LCROSS mission I wrote about earlier. The mission was to let one space probe impact the south pole of the moon creating a plume of materia. The next space probe was supposed to fly through this plume and analyse the materia, especially water. Now, the NASA scientists have established that there was no plume. That means that the water question still has a question mark in the end, and not an exclamation mark. But the scientists are still hopeful. The instruments onboard worked as planned and perhaps some data can reveal if there's water on our moon's south pole or not. Earlier experiments seem to support that we have water on our moon, but more research is needed.
My first memory of astronomy was when I was 5 years old I was lying in the snow here in Sweden watching the stars. That's when my interest in astronomy started. I was trying to get my dad to buy me a telescope, but he never did. He thought that I was going to keep up my interest for a couple of weeks and then become fed up with it.
My interest for astronomy never died. My dad worked as a civil engineer at Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) and he taught me physics at a very early stage in life. That's probably the reason for me studying physics today: The more you know about a subject the more fun it usually gets. But astrophysics, I don't know how I ended up with that. It must have been these nights when I was lying in the snow watching the night sky. I have always been curious about astronomy, but my dad always told me not to educate myself in that subject. Astronomy = no job and low salary. Probably true, but no matter how I tried not to get stuck with astronomy I just couldn't resist.
When I was about 12 years old I put all the astronomy articles I could find into a folder. When I was 16 years old I often watched the night sky, but never so my friends could see me. I was too cool to be considered a geek. When I was 18 I wrote a paper about the Big Bang theory to complete my upper secondary education. After that I created my webpage, AstronomiGuiden, which is now probably the largest homepage for amateur astronomers in Sweden. I started to work as a salesman but got fed up with that and that's when I started my University education in math, physics and astrophysics.
Now, I'm almost finished with my master's degree and once again I'm standing on the verge to something new, a PhD. Do I really wanna do this? The answer is clear: Of course! Am I smart enough? I hope so... I have to admit it's kinda a scary, but my entire life has been about astronomy so this is probably something I'm supposed to do. My interest is too strong and will pull me back to astronomy if I try to resist.
But like a PhD isn't enough. In the middle of this I've decided to apply in Australia. The professors at the astrophysics department in Uppsala say that I'm welcome to do my PhD there and one professor at the University of Stockholm said the same thing. But noooo, I'm gonna go to a country where no one knows about me. Why take the easy road? Well, I hope this works out well in the end!
Well, today I realized that an astronomy club has sponsored my homepage with a kinda large amount of money. Yay! That is great and now I can hire someone to work with the website. Awsome!
"Boom boom boom now let me hear you say wayoh" was a song in the 90's and I guess that would have been a good song for the NASA scientists today, when the LCROSS impacted the moon. Me and some astrophysicists at the astrophysics department followed the impact on NASA TV, but we didn't see much. I guess we all were a bit dissapointed that we couldn't see the explosion we waited for. One professor seemed a bit sad that we were going to hurt our beloved companion, the Moon. Anyway, although we didn't see much the NASA scientist saw something apparently.
Source: NASA.gov
I heard rumours that the 1-meter telescope in Stockholm was supposed to use an infrared detector to see the impact, but a couple of minutes before the impact took place I heard that they had problems with a cable. I guess they gave up. I also heard that not even the Palomar telescope saw a plume. I guess we'll see if NASA got some good data or not from this mission.
Also, Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. You can say what ever in that matter but what I'm gonna remember is this quote:
"How can Obama get the Nobel Peace Prize hours before the US is supposed to bomb the Moon?!"
Hilarious!!
Now it's about 17 hours to the impact of LCROSS on the moon. The spacecraft LCROSS was launched on June 18, 2009. On board is a mini probe, Centaur, that will act as an impactor on the moon. The impact will create a debris plume that will rise above the lunar surface. The minutes after the main spacecraft will fly through the debris plume and collect data about the chemical abundance, especially water. The information will be sent back to Earth before impacting the lunar surface and creating a second debris plume.
The plumes are expected to be visible from Earth, using a telescope that is, and amateur astronomers are now preparing for this event.
Read more (NASA homepage)
Today I wrote the mini exam in Electromagnetic field theory. It didn't went great but not totally bad either. I guess I'm gonna get some points anyway... Directly after the exam I had to hurry back home, for some guy to do an inspection of my appartment. I'm moving out soon and they want to know the status of it. The guy was 30 minutes late but the inspection went well. No marks at all, everything looked good. Yay!
Let us start with some news about our own Solar System. Yesterday, Tuesday 6/10, the space telescope Spitzer published a new discovery about another ring around the planet Saturn. It's a very interesting discovery because it seems like the ring is the largest planetary ring ever discovered. The radius is 128 to 207 Jupiter radius large which makes it the largest ring in our Solar System. To compare, Saturn's E ring is about 3 to 20 Jupiter radius large. Talk about breaking a record! The ring cannot be seen with our own eyes though. The ring is very faint and probably contain ice and dust. It was discovered with Spitzer's infrared instruments.
Read more at NASA
About Saturn
Today I've studied for my mini exam in Electromagnetic field theory. I can solve all the problems, except ONE... And I'm SURE that's the type of question that's gonna come on this exam. It's just my luck, but we'll see tomorrow!
I'm gonna start blogging (again) this great day by writing a bit about the announcement of the Nobel prize in Physics. Perhaps not the most interesting thing you know but very important to scientist around the world. Everyone needs a bit of encourage, right?
The Nobel prize winners in physics this year are Charles K. Kao, Willard E. Boyle och George Smith. Charles Kao for his work with light transmission in fiber optics and Willard Boyle och George Smith for their work with the CCD detector.
I talked to the people at the astrophysics department here in Uppsala and they all seemed happy with the winners. The CCD detector is a very important tool for observing today and took the old photographic plates out of business. Astronomers went from hard-to-handle plates that had to be kept dark to small cameras with much better light sensitivity. The story of the CCD detector is something I've been told over and over again throughout my education and I wonder how many times I've had that question on an exam... It is truely something that has contributed to mankind! Everyone who has a digital camera at home uses the technique more or less and when I was working with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), La Palma, Spain, I used it as well. 
What else is new? Well, I have a mini exam on Thursday in Electromagnetic field theory. I should have studied hard today but I was really tired so I didn't do all the things I was suppose to do. Ah well, it's gonna work out well anyway I guess. I have all day tomorrow!
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