Where are the exomoons

A most interesting article on how our moon may have made our planet hospitable to life and thus a clue to whether there is life elsewhere in the universe. We excerpt:


...First, there’s the stark reality that life on Earth may not have happened at all without the starring role played by our own moon.

The Earth’s axis is tilted by 23.5 degrees relative to its motion around the sun. This tilt gives us seasons, and because this tilt is relatively small, seasons on Earth are mild: most places never get impossibly hot or unbearably cold. One thing that has been crucial for life is that this tilt has stayed the same for very long periods: for millions of years, the angle of tilt has varied by only a couple of degrees.

What has kept the Earth so steady? The gravity of our moon.

In contrast, Mars only has two tiny moons, which have negligible gravity. Without a stabilizing influence, Mars has gradually tumbled back and forth, its tilt ranging between 0 and 60 degrees over millions of years. Extreme changes in climate have resulted. Any Martian life that ever existed would have found the need to continually adapt very challenging.

Without our moon, the Earth, too, would likely have been subject to chaotic climate conditions, rather than the relative certainty of the seasons that stretches back deep into the fossil record.

The gravity of the moon also produces the Earth’s tides. Billions of years ago, the ebb and flow of the oceans produced an alternating cycle of high and low salt content on ancient rocky shores. This recurring cycle could have enabled the unique chemical processes needed to generate the first DNA-like molecules.

...we shouldn’t be discouraged by the fact that most exoplanets found so far are bloated gaseous beasts, with hostile environments unlikely to support life as we know it. What we don’t know yet, crucially, is whether these exoplanets have moons. This prospect is exciting, because exomoons are expected to be smaller rocky or icy bodies, possibly hosting oceans and atmospheres....

Thinking at a Distance

Nice story about plants that can camouflage themselves.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/19/the-sneaky-life-of-the-worlds-most-mysterious-plant/

The use of superlative and the adjective "sneaky," in the title, "The sneaky life of the world's most mysterious plant," suggests the authors may never discover  mysteries at lot closer than the Amazon jungle. That of course is just one of many things I do not know.

Beauty and knowledge

Who we are must surely be connected with what we are a part of. This article talks about speculation regarding galaxy formation. What if knowledge must proceed looking outward and looking inward, at the same time, and also adjacently.  Could be. Could explain the thrill non-scientists feel when some topics are broached.

Marilynne Robinson

Jan Cox once said, in the 1970s, that religion, that which ordinary talk refers to by that word, was putrid. It was not always that way. He said at times in history the church "had sheltered," the work. He wouldn't have had any reason to refer to Marilynne Robinson, if he knew of her.

At the link there is an essay by this writer which places the way religion is used in political life in a context which values religion.  I sway into her words, and am thankful someone can speak with her authenticity. I have no idea how viable this 'edge of the ordinary' is.

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/awakening?utm_source=Main+Reader+List&utm_campaign=8ebfda6509-August+11_Now_at_Commonweal8_11_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_407bf353a2-8ebfda6509-92372181

Suddenly we know what quasars are!?

Suddenly we know what quasars are!? When did we figure that out.


http://phys.org/news/2015-09-converging-black-holes-virgo-constellation.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=splt-item&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter

....

A supermassive black hole about to cannibalize its own can be detected by the mysterious flickering of a quasar—the beacon of light produced by black holes as they burn through gas and dust swirling around them. Normally, quasars brighten and dim randomly, but when two black holes are on the verge of uniting, the quasar appears to flicker at regular intervals, like a light bulb on timer......

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-converging-black-holes-virgo-constellation.html#jCp

Lithium stellar quantities still a mystery

Our title is not the one used by this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/29/us-science-nova-chile-idUSKCN0Q314920150729?

The Reuters title is "Lithium find in exploding star could help solve astronomy puzzle."

My point is the skew to presenting the physical sciences in a particular light. Why NOT present the gaps in our ignorance more boldly in articles popularizing scientific progress?

We quote from the article:

":If we imagine the history of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way as a big jigsaw, then lithium from novae was one of the most important and puzzling missing pieces..."

Actually this article is fairly fair compared to many I read. So the fact they say---lithium from novae was one of the most important and puzzling missing pieces... supports my point. In fact, the lithium quantities still are a mystery, as the end of the article makes clear. And what if our progress is not just filling in empty pre-shaped spots in a grid? What if what we don't know defines the whole puzzle?

How do scientists synchronize themselves

Fascinating article on how things synchronize in nature. My interest though is how science popularizers talk.  The whole buildup is this old mystery and how it gets solved. Then the last paragraph walks it all back. This is typical. Read the article from the link -- I only excerpted a bit. 

Quoting from a Smithsonian article...

Christiaan Huygens was a busy scholar. Among his many achievements, the Dutch scientist figured out the shape of Saturn's rings and discovered that planet's largest moon, Titan. He founded the theory that light travels as a wave, and he invented the pendulum clock. Huygens, it seems, couldn't even turn off his scientific mind when he was under the weather.

In 1665 he was ill and stuck in bed, watching two pendulum clocks that were attached to a beam in his house. He noticed the pendulums started to swing in time with each other, no matter whether the clocks had been started or stopped at different times or what position the pendulums started in. Huygens was baffled. There had to be some way the clocks "spoke" to each other, but he lacked the precise instruments necessary to measure interaction between the clocks. So he chalked it up to mysterious movements transmitted by the air or the physical connection in the beam, and there the matter rested for more than 300 years.

Now, physicists revisiting the 17th-century conundrum think the answer may lie in sound waves. ......

Jonatan Peña Ramirez, a researcher at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, has also published studies of the Huygens' clock phenomenon. He says physicists like to study this system because it mimics other cycles in nature. "Similar phenomena can be observed in biological systems, where some cycles inside the human body may synchronize in a natural way," he says.

However, he isn't yet convinced that sound energy is the culprit for the clocks. "If you replace the driving mechanism in the clocks by a smooth mechanism, i.e., a mechanism that does not apply [discrete] impulses to the clocks, still one can be able to observe synchronization," he says. As far as he's concerned, "Huygens' synchronization … is far from being solved."
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-sound-explian-350-year-old-clock-mystery-180956022/#9ekmf3VpK0pO95pB.99
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