The Three Big Bangs
new as of 1-23-98 Updated 1-26 w/gfx,1-27 w/asteroid page & 1-28 w/supernovae page
Disclaimer
Please note the purpose of this page is not to impose on you the theory of evolution or that of creation. Regardless of personal belief, its purpose is to show what science has learned in the field of astronomy and for extra credit in physics.
Furthermore, I refuse to respond to rabid diatribe E-mails on this matter.
Please Enjoy The Page,
After you've read the disclaimer we will proceed to the introduction.
The Three Big Bangs is about three separate universal phenomena. It was written by two very well known astronomers, Philip M. Dauber and Richard A. Muller.
The first part is about asteroids hitting the earth or "Impacts". It describes the asteroid that probably annihilated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It will also go into a little about comets too.
The second part is about the violent end of some stars that create an immense blast bigger than anything you can imagine. These are referred to as supernovae.
The third part skims across relativity, and chemistry and what the beginning of the universe was like. It will also describe Hubble's Law. "The speed of objects moving away from is directly proportional to their present distance," or something like that.
we will now proceed to the first part of the book.
Impacts - Note: this is also a graphic created by me.
Impacts are among some of the most dangerous disasters in the universe. Other natural disasters such as famine, flood, and earthquakes are horribly damaging and traumatic. But, none of the following have the ability to destroy all intelligent life on Earth. Have you seen "Outbreak". Have you wondered if it were possible for all world civilization to be annihilated in a matter of months by a deadly air-borne disease. Consider this, (please not with a full stomach) Life is normal as usual not much has happened lately. There is a 80+ mph hurricane somewhere in the Caribbean, but what do you care, its thousands of miles away and practically in another world. One of these mornings and see that everything is the same, save one thing: There is a small glowing spot in the sky. Little do you know that is a 6 mile wide asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
Unknown to you is the fact that this insignificant "dot" is only four hours from impact on the earth. At this time it is as far away as the moon and about as bright as the planet Venus at dusk.
Ten minutes from impact it is within one Earth diameter. By this time you would be able to see the odd shape. Perhaps you could even see it tumbling in its irregular rotation.
Ten seconds before impact it would blaze bright colors as it hit the Earth's upper atmosphere. A yellow cylindrical contrail forms behind it expanding outward at the speed of sound.
For arguments sake we will say it slams into the ocean. It punches through it and the rest of the mud below that into the Earth's crust. All of this in less than a second. Life as you know it would be over forever.
Within a few seconds, energy equal to that of millions of the biggest thermo-nuclear devices ever made is released.
bang!
If you are within a few hundred meters of the impact you had better have sunscreen because the temperature around you turns to Oh...around 100 million degrees Celsius. Water, mud, and even some are instantly vaporized at these temperatures.
The shock wave alone, travels through the ground at 4 kilometers per second creating a huge 200 kilometer wide crater.
Meanwhile, the amount of dust alone, is around 100 trillion tons worth. Forget city smog and cows "belching methane", the environmental concern for the greenhouse effect now has a bigger problem, a 100 trillion ton one. This mass is roughly equal to that of a billion large ships. This number does not even consider the huge amount of rock rebounded back into space and the majority of which rained down thousands of miles away to wreak havoc there.
Forests and Jungles within a thousand miles burst into flame and if any do not burn they are dealt with in the coming pressure wave. Distant grasslands and forests will burn in the next few hours as meteor are thrown back up only to be pulled back in by the same force that helps sustain life, Earth's gravity.
There is also another "small" side-effect. The impact in the ocean causes waves taller than any building today to crash ashore obliterating anything in their way. The ocean nearest the impact is now BOILING. Good day for a swim?
Remember the hurricane I referred to earlier? Above the overheated ocean a storm forms. All of us on the west coast of the United States can remember what happens when warm water mixes with cold air. You know, "El Nino". This cold to hot air difference is a little larger. So instead of a huge storm or a 90 mile-an-hour hurricane, you have to deal with winds that quickly build to about 800 kilometers-per-hour. There are updraft carrying water as high as 50 km. This storm will not be known as a hurricane. In science it is dubbed as a "Hypercane". Winds will reach supersonic velocity. This storm lasts for days as the surface of the ocean slowly cools.
If you manage to survive this you should not consider yourself lucky. It will now be months before you see the Sun or Moon again. It becomes very cold world wide as the sun disappears and temperatures plunge to sub-freezing levels. This is not your only new problem. The fiery explosion releases an enormous amount of sulfur dioxide. Reacting with the billions of tons of water vaporized by the impact it creates acid rain. A more detailed explanation is in order. The intense heat of the fireball fused vast amounts of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen into oxides of nitrogen. Today oxides of nitrogen from automobile exhaust are a main cause of smog. Reacting with water in the air, these compounds form nitric acid, which along with sulfuric acid is one of the most corrosive substance known to chemists. So you better have a ceramic umbrella.
With this and for several other reasons the Earth�s atmosphere was effectively destroyed. This left nothing to stop its usual 98% UV rays from baking everything on our planet and creating horrid conditions. Blistering hot in the day and ice cold at night. It would be hundreds of years before conditions returned to normal.
The 65 million year date is proven for several reasons. By measuring the number of atoms in radioactive beryllium -10 in the clay scientist were able to measure the age of surrounding clay fields with dinosaur remains. The dates were consistent with 65 million years. The other link is a little easier to understand. When this asteroid hit, the intense heat melted sand into a shocked quartz, a glass like substance. This was found spread around with the dating of 65 million years. Now all they needed was a crater to show where the impact occurred. Finally, they found a 170 km wide crater off the Yucatan Peninsula. It is dated at 65 million years and named the Chixiclub crater.
The story goes. The asteroid was about 11 km across. It hit the earth at around 30 kilometers a second when it hit home. The amount of kinetic energy in such and object is insane. Something traveling 30 times the speed of a rifle bullet will make trouble. *The only witnessed impact was in the early 1990�s when the comet "Shoemaker-Levy 9" hit Jupiter with enough force to pulverize the earth or at least a good portion of it.
But not all asteroids are dangerous. Between Jupiter and Mars, (or Saturn & Jupiter???) is a huge field of asteroids. The dangerous ones are called "Earth Crossers" because they cross our orbit around the sun. There is even a huge belt of asteroids outside our solor system.
We get a significant hit about once every 200 years. The last major hit was a comet in 1908. Unlike asteroids, comets are loosely packed dust or ice. This created an "air-burst". When it hit, in Siberia, it exploded and was very visible in the surrounding area. About 30 miles away a farmer was thrown off his porch by the shock wave, but there were no injuries due to the rural impact, but if something like that hit Tokyo today, there would be big problems. This rural Siberian blast was reported as seen by people as far away as London, this possible if it were an airburst.
Every 26-28 million years we seem to get more asteroids that usual as Earth crossers. Some theories say this is chance, but one has even gone further. It allows for a star to be orbiting ours and disrupting a bunch of asteroids in the far away asteroid belt, outside our solar system, into path towards our sun. Many of these will cross Earth's orbit with the sun. In there gravitational attraction to the sun. This star that causes the retargeting of all the asteroids cannot be seen by us because it is a brown dwarf. It has already been given the name "Nemesis". This is still only a theory and there is no proof, but it is a strong one. Until more evidence, save the numbers and guesses we already have, arises we wil have to only speculate.
Supernovae - This is a picture of Supernova 1987A. - At light years away this is a descent picture. Also note the pressure rings.
Supernovae are, to put it simply, "Exploding stars". They are caused by the following: A star turns its hydrogen into helium, carbon, lithium, and heavier elements. When it runs out of hydrogen several things can happen.
1. If it is small it will turn into a brown dwarf and just sit doing nothing.
2. If it is around 10 solar masses (ten times the size of our sun) a Type II supernova can occure.
Here is a more presice explination of the process with a cool graphic: (a simpler one is found below and is easier to understand, for me)
A simpler explination is this:
The core of the star collapses on it self at a huge rate of 50,000 km a second, 1/6 the velocity of light. The immense gravity removes all electrons by combining them with the protons from and creates a neutron center. Its density is roughly 3 x 10 to the 14 th power grams per cubic centimeter. A teaspoonful of such matter would weigh as much as 10,000 ships. Since the outside is moving at 50,000km a second in. It hits this core, which you can tell its density is impenetrable. Either of two things happen. First, it can bounce out and make a Type II supernova explosion. Such and explosion is indescribable. The other possibility is that the matter does compress and keeps compressing until light cannot escape. This is reffered to as a "Black Hole". More controversy that I might go into later.
The Type I supernova is caused by binary stars (two stars in orbiting closely). One of these stars gets too much mass and can no longer support its own mass. The result is a Type I Supernova explosion. A much better explination can be obtained HERE at this other website. Make sure to use the "Back" button on your browser to return here!
Third Bang
The 3rd part of this book is much more difficult to understand so I will only go over it briefly. The theory goes that instead of the classic big bang of matter exploding into space. The theory is now space an matter exploded and is all expanding relative to time. Before this it is unknown what was present, scientifically. The temperature of space was about 6000 degrees Kelvin at the beginning as opposed to the relatively cool 1.5 degrees Kelvin now. There was opaque radiation. So opaque that anything heavier that a proton could not survive. After about 500 million years it cooled off and with Newton�s law of gravitation everything came together in galaxies and stars.
Today we can tell many things. Distance is discernible because of the light on a spectrum is different if a galaxy or star is moving away. The light waves are longer or shorter. A good example is the Doppler Effect. As a train moves toward you the velocity of the sound waves are changed and "crunched together" due to your relative positions and higher speed. As it moves past the sound has to go twice as fast to get to you and sound waves stretch.
Edwin Hubble found out the basic, but monumental law, "Galaxies are fleeing us at speeds directly proportional to their distance." With this we have been able to learn much more in recent years.
In conclusion this book was a very good book because it let someone who knew little about protons and electrons understand the complications that plagued even the best astronomers many years ago.
