China Jon's Syncretic Journal

The New Horizons space probe was in the news lately and is going a long way to check out Pluto. Then it will continue out to see the place where comets are born. This will be happening in about 8 years. That is how far away Pluto is at the speed New Horizons is traveling. As New Horizons passed Jupiter, it was going about 52,000 miles per hour. When it was launched from Earth it reached a record speed of 35,800 miles per hour.

So, how does this speedster compare to the other spacecraft speed records? Do you know what the fastest speed of any man made object is and where and when it occurred?

I'll give you a clue. Why is the New horizons space probe going faster now than when it was launched? Gravity! Jupiter's gravity has been pulling the New Horizons space probe faster and faster towards Jupiter. So, Jupiter has the most gravity of any planet in the Solar System, but what has more gravity than all the planets put together?

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From APOD:
The Outskirts of M77
Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Observatory)
Explanation: Face-on spiral galaxy M77 lies a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatic constellation Cetus. Also known as NGC 1068, its very bright core is well studied by astronomers exploring the mysteries of super-massive black holes in active galaxies. While M77 is also seen at x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, and radio wavelengths, this visible light image highlights another remarkable aspect of the galaxy. In the picture, the data has been enhanced to show outer faint details, following spiral arms and structures that reach far beyond the galaxy's brighter central regions. Including the fainter outskirts, the galaxy's diameter is well over 100 thousand light-years at M77's estimated distance, making it larger than our own spiral Milky Way.

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Have you heard of 'Dark Energy?'

Dark Energy is a theoretical tool based on the need to explain observations of the Universe.

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It is often asked: How big is the Universe? Is it expanding?

The universe is expanding only in our perception.
The universe used to be a perfect sphere surrounding the Earth, and the Sun and all the heavens revolved around the Earth.
Then the Sun became the center of the universe, and the heavens, including the Earth, revolved around the Sun.

Telescopes added the idea that the Solar System revolves around a massive thing called a galaxy.

Then, some nebulosities were recognized to be galaxies, and the universe got really big. In the 1920s Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way was just one of a vast number of galaxies scattered throughout the universe.
They tried counting the galaxies to see if there were more in one direction than another. No luck.
Then they took a long long look into the deepest depths of the universe. They found thousands of more galaxies.
Since they can now see galaxies that are 13 billion years old, they want to conclude that the universe is 13 billion years old.

Again, they want to assume that we are at the center of the universe and so the light we see is coming from the 'edge' of the universe. They want to conclude that the universe is expanding (away from us at the center) in all directions.

Do you not find this laughable?

The Theory of Relativity, (or is it the Special Theory of Relativity?) states that nothing can go faster than light, and that no matter how fast you are traveling, you have a 'frame of reference,' and that if you measure the speed of light, it will always be the same constant. Light will have the same speed even if you are traveling at 90% of the speed of light, not 190%. These illogical conclusions are a result of the mathematical gymnastics that is used in these theories.

It is my opinion that gravity is faster than light, otherwise light would be able to escape from a black hole. I am very skeptical about the whole scenario. There is too much we don't know about time, gravity and electromagnetic energies under high acceleration and gravity. If gravity can decelerate light in some way and trap it in a black hole, then why can't gravity accelerate light that is passing very near but not into the event horizon? Why is the red shift considered to be only a measure of distance and not a measure of the effect of gravity?

How can the gravity of a galaxy create a 'galactic lens' that creates 4 images of a farther galaxy. If light from a far object can be bent toward a galaxy then why is there not an apparent ring of galaxies around the galactic lens rather than 4 images? Why 4 rather than 360? Light from the Sun is refracted into a circular image by the droplets of water in the air. This is because the droplets are spheres that refract the light in all directions. Is he gravity from a distant galaxy spherical? Or does the gravity strength reflect the disk shape or globular cluster shape of the galaxy? What gravity shape could produce 4 images of a further galaxy? Does this have something to do with the true nature of time?

Thanks for reading this far! Do you like these ramblings of mine?

Questions:
1. Does the earths moon spin on its axis?
2. Why do we never see the darkside of the moon?
3. Why don't we see its other side?

My Answer:
Parts of this answer are easy: The Moon does spin on its axis. We do see the dark side during the phases of the moon: The New Moon, Crescent Moon, Full Moon, and Waning Moon, etc.

The last part is not so easy: "Why don't we see its other side?"

Why don't we see the other side of the moon? One theory says it is because tidal friction has slowed the moon until one side always faces Earth. Good guess, and probably partially correct in that it it relates to the polarity of the gravity field and how opposite sides of the Earth and Moon might be bulging or elongated. The deeper answer has to do with the inner structure of the moon and how its imbalance results in a Moon that always has one side that faces 'down.'

I believe in the theory that the Moon is a result of an ancient collision between the Earth and another celestial body. Debris from that collision became the Moon. When two bodies collide, the forces generated can destroy either one, or both of the objects. In this case, one object was destroyed and part of its remains became part of Earth and part of it became the Moon. Probably some of Earth was blasted out into space and may have become part of the Moon as well. At any rate, the two bodies which had formed out of the dust of the early Sun's dusty accretion disk as nearly perfect spheres came together and mixed their different parts together in a fiery blast which left both of them imperfect.

The Earth's response was an internal imbalance of energy that has been powering the creation of continents and continental drift over the last several billion years.

The Moon formed out of the remains that were ejected into an orbital path around the Earth. The largest chunk gathered up the rest and grew in size until it became the moon we have now, several billion years ago. The last small chunks left impact craters all over the Moon's surface. The Earth is about 80 times larger than the Moon. Most of it is Iron, and molten iron at that. It is much more homogeneous than the Moon, which is a jumble of chunks, including iron probably that was blasted off the Earth. Mass is not evenly distributed throughout the Moon's structure.

An analogy: When a body is submerged in water, it takes the place of the water in the space used by the body. Water has weight. The body has weight. If the weight of the water is more than the weight of the body, the body will rise up and float on the surface of the water. If the weight of the body is more than the weight of the water, it will sink to the bottom of the water. But if the weight of the body is the same as the weight of the water, it will just float in place. But here's the point: Even though the body floats in place, neither sinking nor floating, the heaviest part of the body will turn the body so that the heavy part is toward the bottom and the lighter part is toward the top. This is a result of gravity's polarity, the 'up-ness' and 'down-ness' that is part of the way gravity works. Heavier goes down, and lighter goes up. This can also be seen in a hot air balloon. the heavy wicker basket with the passengers stays at the bottom and the hot (lighter) gas inside the balloon tends to go to the top.

The moon, in orbit around the Sun and the Earth is in a state similar to neutral buoyancy of a body in water in its orbit around the Earth. The Earth's gravity is stronger - at the distance of the moon, than the Sun's. And the Moon's mass is not sufficient to keep it spinning in the Earth/Moon gravity's polarity. So the Heavy side of the Moon faces 'down' and the lighter side faces 'up.' Since it is caught in a gravitational bond with the Earth, 'up' and 'down' to the moon are on a line drawn between the Moon's and Earth's centers of mass. If you were standing on the Moon, the Moon's gravity would be much stronger than the Earth's at that distance, and up and down - to you - would be on a line pointing toward the Moon's center of mass.

The Earth's mass is sufficient to keep it spinning against the polarity between the Earth and Moon. The only result on Earth is a minute slowing of the Earth's rotation, and the ocean's tides.

;-D The Moon is the Heart of Romance! Enjoy it!