Archive for October 2019

DISCOVERY OF OUMUAMUA: First Interstellar Object 2019

SOURCE BY - NASA DEPARTEMENT

Oumuamua — a curious, cigar-shaped rock — was the first interstellar space rock ever discovered in our solar system, though scientists debate whether it should be classified as an asteroid or comet. Now, a new study suggests that the strange object could actually be an alien light sail or solar-powered spacecraft.

Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) conducted the study, titled “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?” The paper was posted on the preprint website, the arXiv. In it, the astronomers offer a unique, new explanation for some strange behavior ‘Oumuamua has displayed.

The asteroid was first detected by the Pan-STARRS-1 survey in 2017. Astronomers saw it traveling out of our solar system and noted that it was spinning rapidly and likely had a rocky and metallic composition. Further research showed that ‘Oumuamua was also surprisingly icy, despite it not being a comet.

An alternative explanation

Researchers were in for another surprise when an international team found that the asteroid’s velocity had increased when they were expecting it to slow down.

That team concluded that, most likely, this was because of a process called outgassing, where material on the object’s surface is heated by the sun and vaporized. This process creates a comet’s tail, and the researchers thought that ‘Oumuamua it could be pushing the object and increasing its velocity.

Oumuamua

Small object against a background of stars.

This very deep combined image shows the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua at the center of the image. It is surrounded by the trails of faint stars that are smeared as the telescopes tracked the moving comet.

Credit: NASA AGENCY ESO/K. Meech et al.

Discovery of OUMUAMUA: First Interstellar object 2019

The first known interstellar object to visit our solar system, 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, was discovered Oct. 19, 2017, by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope, funded by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations (NEOO) Program, which finds and tracks asteroids and comets in Earth’s neighborhood. While originally classified as a comet, observations revealed no signs of cometary activity after it slingshotted past the Sun on Sept. 9, 2017 at a blistering speed of 196,000 miles per hour (87.3 kilometers per second). It was briefly classified as an asteroid until new measurements found it was accelerating slightly, a sign it behaves more like a comet.

Artist's concept of cigar-shaped space rock.

Artist's concept of interstellar object1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua) as it passed through the solar system after its discovery in October 2017. The aspect ratio of up to 10:1 is unlike that of any object seen in our own solar system. Image Credit: European Southern Observatory / M. Kornmesser.

ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS

The first confirmed object from another star to visit our solar system, this interstellar interloper appears to be a rocky, cigar-shaped object with a somewhat reddish hue. The object, named ‘Oumuamua by its discoverers, is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated—perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide. That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date. While its elongated shape is quite surprising, and unlike objects seen in our solar system, it may provide new clues into how other solar systems formed.

The observations suggest this unusual object had been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounters with our star system.

“For decades we’ve theorized that such interstellar objects are out there, and now―for the first time―we have direct evidence they exist,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, in November 2017.

Animated view of the interstellar object's orbit.

NASA DEPARTEMENT

Immediately after its discovery, telescopes around the world, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, were called into action to measure the object’s orbit, brightness, and color. The urgency for viewing from ground-based telescopes was vital to get the best data.

Combining the images from the FORS instrument on the ESO telescope using four different filters with those of other large telescopes, a team of astronomers led by Karen Meech of the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii found that ‘Oumuamua varies in brightness by a factor of 10 as it spins on its axis every 7.3 hours. No known asteroid or comet from our solar system varies so widely in brightness, with such a large ratio between length and width. The most elongated objects we have seen to date are no more than three times longer than they are wide.

“This unusually big variation in brightness means that the object is highly elongated: about ten times as long as it is wide, with a complex, convoluted shape,” said Meech. “We also found that it had a reddish color, similar to objects in the outer solar system, and confirmed that it is completely inert, without the faintest hint of dust around it.”

These properties suggest that ‘Oumuamua is dense, composed of rock and possibly metals, has no water or ice, and that its surface was reddened due to the effects of irradiation from cosmic rays over hundreds of millions of years.

A few large ground-based telescopes continued to track the fading object as it receded from our planet. Two of NASA’s space telescopes (Hubble and Spitzer) tracked the object traveling about 85,700 miles per hour (38.3 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun. Its outbound path is about 20 degrees above the plane of planets that orbit the Sun. The object passed Mars’s orbit around Nov. 1 and will pass Jupiter’s orbit in May of 2018. It will travel beyond Saturn’s orbit in January 2019; as it leaves our solar system, ‘Oumuamua will head for the constellation Pegasus.

Preliminary orbital calculations suggest that the object came from the approximate direction of the bright star Vega, in the northern constellation of Lyra. However, it took so long for the interstellar object to make the journey―even at the speed of about 59,000 miles per hour (26.4 kilometers per second)―that Vega was not near that position when the ‘Oumuamua was there about 300,000 years ago.

Astronomers estimate that an interstellar object similar to ‘Oumuamua passes through the inner solar system about once per year, but they are faint and hard to spot and have been missed until now. It is only recently that survey telescopes, such as Pan-STARRS1, are powerful enough to have a chance to discover them.

“What a fascinating discovery this is!” said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “It’s a strange visitor from a faraway star system, shaped like nothing we’ve ever seen in our own solar system neighborhood.”

The predicted position of `Oumuamua versus observed position

NASA DEPARTEMENT - HUBBLE TELESCOPE

The predicted position of `Oumuamua versus observed position

This diagram shows the orbit of the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua as it passes through the Solar System. It shows the predicted path of ‘Oumuamua and the new course, taking the new measured velocity of the object into account.

‘Oumuamua passed the distance of Jupiter’s orbit in early May 2018 and will pass Saturn’s orbit in January 2019. It will reach a distance corresponding to Uranus’ orbit in August 2020 and of Neptune in late June 2024. In late 2025 ‘Oumuamua will reach the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt, and then the heliopause — the edge of the Solar System — in November 2038.

How to Give Oumuamua Name

The object was officially named 1I/2017 U1 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which is responsible for granting official names to bodies in the solar system and beyond. In addition to the technical name, the Pan-STARRS team dubbed it ‘Oumuamua (pronounced oh MOO-uh MOO-uh), which is Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first.”

SOURCE BY - NASA DEPARTMENT

DISCOVERY OF OUMUAMUA: First Interstellar Object 2019

Eternally Collapsing Object (ECO)

An Eternally Collapsing Object (ECO) is a compact star that resembles a ball of fire, and it is so hot that its radiation helps it stay put despite its intense pull of gravity. Being extremely compact, ECOs mimic mathematical “Black Holes” in many ways, but there are observational reasons to believe that the so-called astrophysical “Black Holes” are really ECOs:

The eruptions and jet formations from the black hole candidates are better understood if they are indeed hot balls of fire rather than a cold piece of vacuum with an imaginary surface from which “nothing, not even light can escape”.

ECOs however asymptotically shrink towards the mathematical Black Hole state of infinite compactness.

Suppose a massive spherical star started collapsing due to its own weight. Then by Newtonian physics, sooner or later, in a FINITE time, the entire star material should collapse to a geometrical point forming a SINGULARITY where the density of matter and strength of / are infinite. It must be so because in Newtonian physical space-time has an absolute meaning and the (initial) actual/locally measured radius of the star, say R0, is Fixed & Finite:

In contrast, in Einstein’s “General Relativity” (GR), in the presence of gravity, the actual interior or PROPER radius (L) is always larger than the externally perceived radius (R);

i.e., L = a*R > R, because of a>1. Furthermore, the value of “a” will always increase if the strength of self-gravity will increase; i.e., if the star would get more compact. In fact, in strong gravity, similar stretching (dilation) happens for time intervals too.

In this sense, in GR, space-time is like a rubber membrane which gets stretched with the increase of gravity:

Therefore, there is no a-prior certainty that a Newtonian type singularity must occur for GR collapse. Despite this, even after the introduction of GR, most general relativists believe in essentially the same Newtonian picture of gravitational collapse by which collapsing matter must converge in a point-like singularity in a finite ( proper/ physically measured) time. This is, unfortunately, the case though not only Einstein himself but also many great physicists like.

Sir Arthur Eddington, the best theoretical astrophysicist ever, Sir Paul Dirac (Nobel Laureate), one of the finest theoretical physicists ever,

Nathan Rosen and many others argued that this picture must be incorrect and the star must not collapse beyond what is known as its “Schwarzschild Radius”:

Here G is the gravitational constant and c is the speed of the light. For a star

like the Sun,~3 km and for star ten times more massive, Rs ~30 km.

In particular, Dirac’s comment made in Proc. Royal Soc. (London) A 270, 354 (1962), was:

“The mathematics can go beyond the Schwarzschild Radius and get inside, but I would maintain that this inside region is not physical space, because to send a signal inside and get it out again would take an infinite time, so I feel that the space inside the Schwarzschild radius must belong to a different universe and should not be taken into account in any physical theory”.

Such objections, however, got ignored because of two misleading mathematical developments, and effectively mathematics beat physics:

1. In 1939, two American physicists J.R. Oppenheimer & H. Snyder APPARENTLY showed that for general relativistic collapse of a DUST (a fictitious form of matter having no pressure at all!), not only does the DUST collapse to a singularity but a Black Hole (BH) is formed whose imaginary surface lies at Rs and nothing can escape from within this surface, now called, an Event Horizon .

2. Further, in 1965, while studying generic gravitational collapse, Sir Roger Penrose, a highly regarded mathematical physicist, ASSUMED that for continued gravitational collapse, sooner or later, a one way trap – door will form, and once the collapsing matter would enter this trap-door it will be doomed to hurtle inwards no matter how much powerful rocket it would employ to escape . He essentially ASSUMED that at the advanced stages of collapse, any section of the star having mass M and radius R must plunge within its running Schwarzschild radius:

R(t) =2 G M(t)/c2 ----------------- (1)

Obviously, this idea was a sort of generalization of the concept of the formation of an “Event Horizon” and got known as a “TRAPPED SURFACE”. Once this ASSUMPTION was made, then under reasonable physical conditions, the collapsing matter must again end up in a singularity, as intended. Ideally, Penrose should have proved the inevitability of the formation of a trapped surface.

But instead, he just ASSUMED the crucial Eq.(1) which he was expected to prove or at least attempt to prove! Nevertheless, post-1965, most of the mathematical relativists adopted the same ASSUMPTION. If a singularity will indeed form, the space-time membrane, after the initial dip, would suddenly be pinched off and the stellar matter would hit the BOTTOM of the pit:

Black Hole Singularity

It appears that only one humble mathematical physicist Kriele offered proof that at least for a homogeneous sphere, there cannot be any trapped surface.

http://seminariomatematico.dm.unito.it/rendiconti/cartaceo/50-1/147.pdf

Unfortunately, Kriele could publish his result only in an obscure journal and maybe sensing trouble, he himself NEVER cited his important result!

Given this backdrop, in 1998, completely unaware of Kriele’s work, I showed that spherical GR collapse cannot form “trapped surfaces” irrespective of whether the sphere is homogeneous or not. I published my proof in a peer-reviewed journal first in 2000 [4] and in a broader context later [5,6]. Note, if a trapped surface did not exist, then in principle, collapsing matter could form.

(i) Quasi-static Objects (Chandrasekhar mass limit becomes irrelevant for very hot stars),

(ii) Rebound due to heat, radiation or pressure, or

(iii) Simply keep on contracting indefinitely!

As already mentioned, while the last option is absurd in Newtonian physics, it is not so in GR. As gravity increases, the space-time membrane elongates/dips and forms a pit; a particle undergoing collapse has to slide down this membrane into the pit. And if indeed the strength of gravity would grow indefinitely (a–> Infinity) during the continued collapse, then the

GRAVITATIONAL PIT TOO COULD BECOME ENDLESS & BOTTOMLESS

If so, continued gravitational collapse should indeed become ETERNAL without the formation of a true singularity. Consequently, objects undergoing continued general relativistic collapse should end up as “Eternally Collapsing/Contracting Objects” rather than as Black Holes or “Naked Singularities” (Singularities not covered by any Event Horizon).

Later as I interacted with several American astrophysicists like Darryl Leiter, Stanley Robertson [7] and Norman Glendenning, it became clear that as the contracting object would become hotter and hotter under gravitational compression, the Radiation Pressure would become so strong that it would almost counterbalance the inward pull of gravity. And it is in this way that ECOs conceived in 1998 could be realized in real life [8, 9, 10, 11, 12].

ECO-Ball of Radiation

Thus ECOs are Extremely Hot and Relativistic Radiation Pressure Supported Stars

whose radius hovers just above the INSTANTANEOUS “Schwarzschild Radius” as conceived by Einstein, Eddington, Dirac, Rosen and many other great physicists.

These quasi-static ECOs are however always radiating (unlike true black holes) and losing mass-energy by the E= Mc2 formula. Suppose as a given ECO radiates and it's mass decreases, it contracts by 1cm. But as it contracts, its gravity becomes a bit stronger and dips the rubber membrane of internal space maybe by 1.1 cm. Thus it becomes a hopeless unending chase for singularity.

Recall that the Acceleration Due to Gravity as measured by any static observer on the Event Horizon of a black hole is g=Infinity (limitless).

(And this is the reason, why nothing can escape from within the EH)

Similarly, gravitational red-shift of the EH, as seen by a distant observer too is infinite: z=Infinity (unbounded, limitless)

This means that, even if an extremely energetic gamma-ray photon would start its journey near the EH, its energy would reduce by a factor of (1+z) as it would reach the distant astronomer. And since z=∞, no energy would reach the astronomer, and he would see the EH as black.

In contrast, on the surface of an ECO, ” g’” and “z” are extremely large, maybe thousands or even million times larger than the corresponding values for a Pulsar/Neutron Star which is supposed to be an extremely compact star (object). Accordingly, to a distant observer, an ECO appears almost as a “black hole” though it has a physical surface made of hot plasma (fire) unlike the fictitious mathematical surface of a black hole (Event Horizon). As mentioned, it is the relentless heating due to extreme gravitational compression which makes the ECO essentially a “Ball of Fire”.

- ABSOLUTE GROUND STATE OF COLLAPSE

In classical physics, an absolute ground state is characterized by E=0 . So, if a star would really become “dead” and the “singularity” would be its “dead body” or the absolute ground state, then the singularity too should have

E=Mc2= 0; i.e., M=0:: Expected Mass of Singularity

Now recall that, the interior of an ASSUMED (static) BH is swept clear of all matter/radiation because nothing can stay put inside its ”trapped region”, and the “singularity” is the only source of matter/energy. Thus it is expected that a (neutral) BH may have unique mass M=0! And indeed it was found that though the mathematical “black hole” solution is a correct one, BHs nevertheless have unique gravitational mass
M=0 [13, 14].

Note, in GR, an occurrence of M=0 need not mean the absence of matter! This is so because gravitational mass is the sum total of all sources of energy including the NEGATIVE self-gravitational energy. Thus,
an occurrence of M=0 may imply that the (negative) self-gravitation has been so extreme that it has off-set the all other sources of energy like rest mass-energy of protons, neutrons constituting the star and all internal energies (heat, pressure etc).

And such proof confirms that the so-called BLACK HOLE CANDIDATES having huge masses cannot be true black holes.

In effect, the ECOs strive to become true mathematical black holes that have the unique mass M=0 [13]. However, an ECO never succeeds to attain this state. As an ECO continues to slide down the self-created pit, the pit gets deeper and deeper, i.e. the depth increases eternally :

Actually, near the singularity,” a” tends to blow up making interior radius L too blow up! Simultaneously, both “g” and “z” –> Infinity. Thus as if every sphere would internally be stretched to Infinity if self-gravitation would push them towards the gravitational singularity. Although such a scenario is weird, absurd from the point of view of Newtonian gravity, it is plausible in GR; as if all objects contain an Infinity within themselves!

Note, in principle, one should solve Einstein’s equations analytically to see whether singularities are indeed formed or not. Unfortunately, even the infinitely simplified Newtonian collapse equations cannot be solved analytically (or numerically, without many simplified assumptions) because one does not know the exact equation of state of matter and radiation transportation properties at extremely high density and temperature. Thus, so far no-body has analytically solved Einstein’s equations for truly realistic cases (without making various assumptions) to show that singularities are formed! And the only way one can solve collapse equations analytically and without making convenient simplifications is by setting pressure=0! Of course, one must not hope that such an extremely unrealistic assumption would ever lead to a true physical picture.

In hindsight, Penrose overlooked that

(a) Gravitational collapse must be radiative, and the value of M and Rs must keep on decreasing [15], and there is no fixed goal post which collapsing matter can target

(b) Also, unlike what he ASSUMED, pressure always decreases effective gravity and continues to oppose collapse in general relativity as it does so in Newtonian gravity [16].

Effectively, at least for a spherical case, Penrose assumed the gravitational free-fall of the star by ignoring resistive effects like pressure gradient and radiation/ heat flow, etc.

In fact, what Roger Penrose, John Wheeler, and many GR experts forgot was the intuitive comments by none other than Oppenheimer & Snyder THEMSELVES before they embarked on the idealistic, unrealistic computation about gravitational collapse:

“Physically such a singularity would mean that the expressions used for the energy-momentum tensor do not take into account some essential physical fact which would really smooth the singularity out. Further, a star in its early stages of development would not possess a singular density or pressure, it is impossible for a singularity to develop in a finite time.”

And maybe research works cited here have indeed substantiated the above comment made in 1939 by the persons who are (incorrectly) credited with proving the inevitability of formations of “Black Holes’’ and “Singularities’’ in GR!.

Incidentally, in 2011, it was shown that even the apparent formation of “Trapped Surface” and “Black Hole” in Oppenheimer & Snyder Collapse was only a mathematical illusion and physically it does not correspond to any gravitational collapse at all as because when pressure is strictly zero, density too is zero, and there is no matter, no gravity [17]!

RADIATION PRESSURE SUPPORTED STARS (RPSS)

Most of the stars we know of, resist their gravity by means of gas pressure, i.e., the pressure due to electrons, ions and atoms. But, in the 1960s, Sir Fred Hoyle, who many believe should have got the Nobel not once but twice, and Nobel Laureate William Fowler first pointed out that stars can be supported by radiation pressure alone if they would be sufficiently hot:
WillFowler

There is NO UPPER MASS LIMIT FOR RPSSs
They went on to suggest that QUASARS contain such hot RPSSs rather than true BHs. Similarly, ECOs too are hot RPSSs. But there are an important difference

The RPSSs conceived by Hoyle & Fowler were strictly static Newtonian stars (z <<1 1="" an="" and="" ascribed="" central="" efficiency="" energy="" generation="" having="" nbsp="" power="" source="" span="" their="" thermonuclear="" to="" was="">a la Sun; and the possibility of power generation by slow gravitational contraction was ignored. Thus the RPSSs of Hoyle & Fowler were perceived to run out of nuclear fuel.

As the star contracts and becomes more compact, its negative gravitational potential energy becomes even more negative. Then, in order to conserve total energy, the star creates additional positive energy. Part of this positive energy makes the star even hotter, and the rest of it is radiated away, a process explained independently by Lord Kelvin & Hermann von Helmholtz approx. 150 years ago:

The net energy which can be tapped in this way is 100%:
E0=M0 c2

the initial mass-energy of the star. In this case, there is no need for invoking any specific fuel! Furthermore, ECOs are dynamic solutions and they are extremely relativistic with z>>1.

As the exterior radius of the contracting star R(t) shrinks, Rs = 2GM(t)/c2 too shrinks (very slowly) because of loss of mass by radiation. So as if there is a perennial chase R(t) –>Rs = 2GM(t) /c2 , and by the time R(t) would catch up with Rs, both would attain nil values as the final ground state must correspond to E=Mc2 =0. Yet, it is likely that
L(t)= a(t) R(t)–>;∞, because of a(t) –>;∞
infinitely fast!

DISCOVERY OF OUMUAMUA: First Interstellar Object 2019

DISCOVERY OF OUMUAMUA: First Interstellar Object 2019

Eternally Collapsing Object (ECO) Explained 2019

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