Lincoln, England, was home to the famous 617 Bombing Squadron in WWII. These are the fellows that dropped the bouncing bomb on the great dams in the Ruhr valley. The inventor of the bomb, didn't stop there, he had other problems to solve. Some of the Nazi emplacements were proving hard to hit as they were underground and protected by thick layers of concrete. He developed a very large 22,000 pound bomb for the purpose. Getting this bomb into an aircraft and getting that aircraft into the air, was a marvel on its own. Only the Lancaster could do it and the submarine pens and great gun emplacements were to suffer as a result.
After the war, superfluous aircraft were mostly scrapped (aircraft enthusiasts like myself, silently sob at the thought) but some were converted to 'gate guard' duty. All the heavy hidden stuff in the aircraft were removed and they took positions outside of Air Force bases around the world. 617 Squadron, didn't put a Lanc next to the gate, they put two of these huge bombs on either side of the entrance. And there they stayed, silent sentinels for sixty odd years.
When time came for the road to be widened, they brought a crane in to move the bombs out of the way and reposition them. When they began to lift, there was a problem, they were a lot heavier than expected. A few tools were brought to the site and some brave soul, opened a part up and peered inside. There waiting patiently for detonation was the 22,000 pounds of Torpex D1, high explosive. And the one a few meters away was the same. Should one of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that passed by these bombs, miss the gate and hit the bomb, both could have exploded. This cathedral along with around a third of the city of Lincoln, ancient and modern would have been destroyed in an instant. Thousands would have been killed, many thousands injured. If this had happened during the cold war, WWIII could have started
Civilization hung upon the dodgy tyres of innumerable post war delivery trucks.
. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Iridium rain
Sixty six million years ago, most of the non avian dinosaurs and surface hugging fish, just died. Survivors were mostly burrowing creatures, fish that could live below fifty meters and crocodiles. Archaeologists were first alerted to its cause by the discovery of Geologist. Walter Alverez of a strange layer of clay, later found to be all over the world. This clay layer separates like cream in a layer cake, the age of the reptiles from the age of the mammals.
Why would 75% of the population of the planet's life just die? Alverez took the problem to his Dad Luis Alverez, the Nobel Prize winning physicist. He turned out to be the best person in the world to ask. He took some of the clay and subjected it to chemical analysis. What he found, surprised them both. The clay was peppered with Iridium. Lots of it. Iridium isn't unknown on earth, but it is bloody rare, and to find a layer of clay with so much of it, was very odd indeed. There is one place where there seems to be quite a lot of iridium - In meteors. The iridium in the clay must have come from space.
Discovering a 180 km wide crater in the gulf of Mexico of the right age, pretty much determined what killed much of the life - A ten km wide meteor made a bang so big it would have echoed around and around the world many times. The equivalent of a hundred million megatons of TNT type bang. The impact point was the source for the iridium and a huge quantity of sulphur trioxide ejected into the air and spread around the planet. When you take a molecule of sulphur trioxide and you add a molecule of water you get sulphuric acid. Nasty stuff. And the air was full of it.
Also jettisoned up was a large quantity of very important silica, without which, neither you nor I, would be here, and this post would be written by a reptile. The silica as it fell through the gaseous sulphur trioxide, sulphuric acid and water vapour, collected together and formed the acid rain from hell. Concentrated sulphuric acid fell from the sky all over the earth for three solid days. Only those who could hide underground or deep under water, or like the crocs and ferns, had a tolerance for acidic water survived.
After those few days, the little furry rat like animals that managed to find safe water, survived. The rise of the mammal, was assured.
Why would 75% of the population of the planet's life just die? Alverez took the problem to his Dad Luis Alverez, the Nobel Prize winning physicist. He turned out to be the best person in the world to ask. He took some of the clay and subjected it to chemical analysis. What he found, surprised them both. The clay was peppered with Iridium. Lots of it. Iridium isn't unknown on earth, but it is bloody rare, and to find a layer of clay with so much of it, was very odd indeed. There is one place where there seems to be quite a lot of iridium - In meteors. The iridium in the clay must have come from space.
Discovering a 180 km wide crater in the gulf of Mexico of the right age, pretty much determined what killed much of the life - A ten km wide meteor made a bang so big it would have echoed around and around the world many times. The equivalent of a hundred million megatons of TNT type bang. The impact point was the source for the iridium and a huge quantity of sulphur trioxide ejected into the air and spread around the planet. When you take a molecule of sulphur trioxide and you add a molecule of water you get sulphuric acid. Nasty stuff. And the air was full of it.
Also jettisoned up was a large quantity of very important silica, without which, neither you nor I, would be here, and this post would be written by a reptile. The silica as it fell through the gaseous sulphur trioxide, sulphuric acid and water vapour, collected together and formed the acid rain from hell. Concentrated sulphuric acid fell from the sky all over the earth for three solid days. Only those who could hide underground or deep under water, or like the crocs and ferns, had a tolerance for acidic water survived.
After those few days, the little furry rat like animals that managed to find safe water, survived. The rise of the mammal, was assured.
Alien Astronomers
Looking out at the stars tonight, it was so clear that I felt I had to make use of my astro setup.
I was just cruising along the Milky Way, star after star after star. There are three hundred billion of them. Three hundred billion stars make up the Milky Way. I had to look that number up, because every time I see the number somewhere, the estimate has risen again. While looking at some of our neighbours I heard some statistics on a podcast that set me thinking of the Drake Equation. As loathe as I am to say never, I'll risk it this time to say it is one equation that will never be solved.
Professor Drake probably got asked the question a lot more than I am, and almost everyone asks me, 'Are we alone?' So he worked out a formula for estimating the number of planets with intelligent life. It is very long and I won't go through each term tonight but given the last estimate I read on the number of stars in our galaxy was two hundred million, multiplying guesses over guesses and you get a lot of wiggle room in the final figure.
The Kepler satellite has discovered over three thousand planets in our galaxy, with more confirmations all the time. It is no longer news to find yet another. However we can get some surprising figures from the Extra Solar Planets they have discovered. It seems from the figures that there is around one planet for every star in our galaxy. That isn't to say there are planets around every star, there aren't, but as lots of stars have multiple planetary systems, it averages out to one each. One sixth of these are earth sized, that makes fifty billion earthlike planets just in our galaxy. Taking all of the other elements into account, the current guess is a figure upwards of 35 million intelligently inhabited and able to communicate their presence, planets in 'our' Milky Way.
On this planet we have around half a million amateur astronomers, and as only half that number is in darkness at any one time, we should divide by two. Out of those lets say 10% are actually using their scopes at any one time. So from earth we have twenty five thousand people looking through a scope at the sky, every night. If the thirty five million inhabited planets have astronomers in the same way as we do, that means as I was looking up tonight, there were 875 Million astronomers looking back.
So next time you are out at night, look up and smile, say 'Hi' to the neighbours. Some of them must be saying the same thing!
I was just cruising along the Milky Way, star after star after star. There are three hundred billion of them. Three hundred billion stars make up the Milky Way. I had to look that number up, because every time I see the number somewhere, the estimate has risen again. While looking at some of our neighbours I heard some statistics on a podcast that set me thinking of the Drake Equation. As loathe as I am to say never, I'll risk it this time to say it is one equation that will never be solved.
Professor Drake probably got asked the question a lot more than I am, and almost everyone asks me, 'Are we alone?' So he worked out a formula for estimating the number of planets with intelligent life. It is very long and I won't go through each term tonight but given the last estimate I read on the number of stars in our galaxy was two hundred million, multiplying guesses over guesses and you get a lot of wiggle room in the final figure.
The Kepler satellite has discovered over three thousand planets in our galaxy, with more confirmations all the time. It is no longer news to find yet another. However we can get some surprising figures from the Extra Solar Planets they have discovered. It seems from the figures that there is around one planet for every star in our galaxy. That isn't to say there are planets around every star, there aren't, but as lots of stars have multiple planetary systems, it averages out to one each. One sixth of these are earth sized, that makes fifty billion earthlike planets just in our galaxy. Taking all of the other elements into account, the current guess is a figure upwards of 35 million intelligently inhabited and able to communicate their presence, planets in 'our' Milky Way.
On this planet we have around half a million amateur astronomers, and as only half that number is in darkness at any one time, we should divide by two. Out of those lets say 10% are actually using their scopes at any one time. So from earth we have twenty five thousand people looking through a scope at the sky, every night. If the thirty five million inhabited planets have astronomers in the same way as we do, that means as I was looking up tonight, there were 875 Million astronomers looking back.
So next time you are out at night, look up and smile, say 'Hi' to the neighbours. Some of them must be saying the same thing!
Tim Tams
I threatened to put this on Facebook a while ago, so here it is. One of our German exchange students is back on a working holiday/gap year and a friend of hers flew in to join her for some Aussie travel. Both lovely girls, V, the visitor went against the grain of Australian culture when she announced that she didn't like Tim Tams. Normally such an admission would have her handcuffed and escorted to the nearest airport terminal, but I managed to keep the confession quiet and instructed her not to breathe a word of it to anyone. The AFP were nowhere to be seen, so I think we got away with it.
Strangely enough, she had no problem with vegemite, these two facts I find almost impossible to reconcile.
Strangely enough, she had no problem with vegemite, these two facts I find almost impossible to reconcile.
Right wing, left wing
When I worked for a couple of unions I was considered to be dangerously right wing. When I started my own business, my business partner considered me to be ridiculously left wing.
You know you are an astronomer when:
You know you are an astronomer when:
1. Your first instinct as you step outside, day or night, is to look up.
2. When buying a home, you veto every property that hasn't a clear view of the ecliptic.
3. You consider a nap in the afternoon a down payment for getting up at 3 a.m.
4. You bought an iPhone after a lifetime of avoiding Apple computers, because Monte Huebsch showed you an app that helped identify stars.
5. You think making a Facebook post about seeing an iridium flare is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
1. Your first instinct as you step outside, day or night, is to look up.
2. When buying a home, you veto every property that hasn't a clear view of the ecliptic.
3. You consider a nap in the afternoon a down payment for getting up at 3 a.m.
4. You bought an iPhone after a lifetime of avoiding Apple computers, because Monte Huebsch showed you an app that helped identify stars.
5. You think making a Facebook post about seeing an iridium flare is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Crazy idea #374
Imagine a small shed similar in size and shape to a TARDIS. Inside is a contraption powered by solar panels upon the roof. It consists of a great jar filled with genetically engineered slime. Air is pumped in and the CO2 is broken down by the slime depositing the carbon in some nicely inert state. And releasing oxygen into the air or collected for commercial / medical usage. Every owner of every car on the planet has to have one beginning with every sale over the next five years and compulsory for every car thereafter. You don't need to keep it in your backyard. You could buy the assignment rights from someone who will position and maintain your shed for you. This would place a great opportunity for poor hot countries to get capital from rich cold countries.
Who is in and when shall we release the IPO?
Who is in and when shall we release the IPO?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)