- A collection of scientific articles on various aspects of mirror matter theory
- Mirror matter article on h2g2
- R. Foot. "Mirror matter type dark matter". http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0407623.
- L.B. Okun. "Mirror particles and mirror matter: 50 years of speculation and search". http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0606202.
Antimatter sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and it is. But it's also very real. Antimatter is created and annihilated in stars every day. Here on Earth it's harnessed for medical brain scans.
"Antimatter is around us each day, although there isn't very much of it," says Gerald Share of the Naval Research Laboratory. "It is not something that can be found by itself in a jar on a table."
So Share went looking for evidence of some in the Sun, a veritable antimatter factory, leading to new results that provide limited fresh insight into these still-mysterious particles.
Simply put, antimatter is a fundamental particle of regular matter with its electrical charge reversed. The common proton has an antimatter counterpart called the antiproton. It has the same mass but an opposite charge. The electron's counterpart is called a positron.
Antimatter particles are created in ultra high-speed collisions.
One example is when a high-energy proton in a solar flare collides with carbon, Share explained in an e-mail interview. "It can form a type of nitrogen that has too many protons relative to its number of neutrons." This makes its nucleus unstable, and a positron is emitted to stabilize the situation.
But positrons don't last long. When they hit an electron, they annihilate and produce energy.
"So the cycle is complete, and for this reason there is so little antimatter around at a given time," Share said.
The antimatter wars
To better understand the elusive nature of antimatter, we must back up to the beginning of time.
In the first seconds after the Big Bang, there was no matter, scientists suspect. Just energy. As the universe expanded and cooled, particles of regular matter and antimatter were formed in almost equal amounts.
But, theory holds, a slightly higher percentage of regular matter developed -- perhaps just one part in a million -- for unknown reasons. That was all the edge needed for regular matter to win the longest running war in the cosmos.
"When the matter and antimatter came into contact they annihilated, and only the residual amount of matter was left to form our current universe," Share says.
Antimatter was first theorized based on work done in 1928 by the physicist Paul Dirac. The positron was discovered in 1932. Science fiction writers latched onto the concept and wrote of antiworlds and antiuniverses.
Antimatter has tremendous energy potential, if it could ever be harnessed. A solar flare in July 2002 created about a pound of antimatter, or half a kilo, according to new NASA-led research. That's enough to power the United States for two days.
Laboratory particle accelerators can produce high-energy antimatter particles, too, but only in tiny quantities. Something on the order of a billionth of a gram or less is produced every year.
Nonetheless, sci-fi writers long ago devised schemes using antimatter to power space travelers beyond light-speed. Antimatter didnt get a bad name, but it sunk into the collective consciousness as a purely fictional concept. Given some remarkable physics breakthrough, antimatter could in theory power a spacecraft. But NASA researchers say it's nothing that will happen in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, antimatter has proved vitally useful for medical purposes. The fleeting particles of antimatter are also created by the decay of radioactive material, which can be injected into a patient in order to perform Positron Emission Tomography, or PET scan of the brain. Here's what happens:
A positron that's produced by decay almost immediately finds an electron and annihilates into two gamma rays, Share explains. These gamma rays move in opposite directions, and by recording several of their origin points an image is produced.
Looking at the Sun
In the Sun, flares of matter accelerate already fast-moving particles, which collide with slower particles in the Sun's atmosphere, producing antimatter. Scientists had expected these collisions to happen in relatively dense regions of the solar atmosphere. If that were the case, the density would cause the antimatter to annihilate almost immediately.
Share's team examined gamma rays emitted by antimatter annihilation, as observed by NASA's RHESSI spacecraft in work led by Robert Lin of the University of California, Berkeley.
The research suggests the antimatter perhaps shuffles around, being created in one spot and destroyed in another, contrary to what scientists expect for the ephemeral particles. But the results are unclear. They could also mean antimatter is created in regions where extremely high temperatures make the particle density 1,000 times lower than what scientists expected was conducive to the process.
Details of the work will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on Oct. 1.
Though scientists like to see antimatter as a natural thing, much about it remains highly mysterious. Even some of the fictional portrayals of mirror-image objects have not been proven totally out of this world.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that some antimatter star or galaxy exists somewhere," Share says. "Generally it would look the same as a matter star or galaxy to most of our instruments."
Theory argues that antimatter would behave identical to regular matter gravitationally.
"However, there must be some boundary where antimatter atoms from the antimatter galaxies or stars will come into contact with normal atoms," Share notes. "When that happens a large amount of energy in the form of gamma rays would be produced. To date we have not detected these gamma rays even though there have been very sensitive instruments in space to observe them."
From studying antimatter for over 100 years, antimatter, which is sometimes called mirror matter and can be a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma. Antimatter is mirror image of matter and like matter is composed of antimatter elements that have been incorporated in the Periodic Table of Matter-Antimatter Elements. Each antimatter element's nuclear, chemical and physical characteristics have been defined to such an extent that scientists know almost as much about antimatter as matter. Using the government’s estimate of $10 billion to find the Higgs bosons, the intellectual value of the Periodic Table of Matter-Antimatter Elements is estimated to be over $1 trillion.
In 1898, Arthur Schuster, British physicist, coined the name "antimatter." Schuster believed that there were entire antimatter solar systems that were indistinguishable from our solar system. In 1905, Einstein unveiled his special relativity and his famous equation, E=mc2. Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg apply the concept to the atoms and invented quantum theory of physics. In 1928, Paul Dirac combined quantum theory and special relativity, which resulted in a solution containing an electron with positive energy, and a positive electron (positron) with negative energy, which was confirmed by Carl Anderson in his study of cosmic particles.
When antimatter or mirror matter enters our solar system, mirror matter is called comets. The quantity of mirror matter in our solar system is a million times less than scientists had estimated. In 2002, Norm Hansen announced the discovery that comets are composed of antimatter to the joint meeting of American Physical Society and American Astronomical Society. The solar dust particles blast antimatter off the comet to create the comet's plasma coma; and the solar wind pulls the coma's plasma into the comet's tails. People are able to see comets from the conversion of matter-antimatter into Mirror Energy, which produce a spectrum of radiation that includes light, x-rays, and gamma rays.
Antimatter sungrazers comets have collided with the Sun and produced enormous explosions. According to the National Geographic magazine, July 2004 issue, solar bursts were equivalent to billions of megatons of TNT. When Earth passes through these enormous solar storms, communication satellites have been damaged and electrical power on Earth has been disrupted. Comets are not only colliding with the Sun, but also have colliding with stars throughout the Universe and are the source of gamma-ray bursts that scientists have been studying for 40 years. http://www.energyusa.net/antimatter.htm
Mirror Matter Mystery
Two Australian scientists believe they have found evidence of a parallel universe of strange matter within our own Solar System.
Dr Robert Foot and Dr Saibal Mitra report that close-up observations of the asteroid Eros by the Near-Shoemaker probe indicate it has been splattered by so-called "mirror matter".
Mirror matter is not anti-matter, it is altogether weirder. It is somehow a "reflection" of normal matter, a sort of parallel series of particles required to restore the balance of the Universe.
Sounds far-fetched - some believe so. However, experiments are underway to confirm or deny the existence of this strange, potentially significant but as yet undetected component of the cosmos.
Mirror matter is a hypothetical form of matter that restores nature's flawed left-right symmetry.
Laws of nature, such as the rules that govern the interactions of fundamental particles, show a high degree of symmetry except that some laws are not the same when reflected in a hypothetical mirror.
This means that elementary particles display a preference for left over right. In a way, the Universe is left-handed. Why? Nobody knows.
Many physicists are happy with this idea believing that in the first instants of the Big Bang everything was perfectly symmetrical. Only when the cosmos cooled did it become asymmetric, with a difference emerging between left and right.
But some scientists do not accept this. They maintain that the Universe has a left-right balance because there exists "mirror matter" - for every known particle there is a mirror particle that restores the cosmic balance.
Mirror matter would produce its own light but we would not be able to see it because mirror matter only interacts with our matter via gravity.
Dr Robert Foot believes that mirror matter would have been made in abundance in the Big Bang and that it is all around us but we can't see it.
"There could be mirror matter stars, planets and galaxies out there," he told BBC News Online.
"In fact, some think that the unseen so-called "dark matter" of the Universe could actually be mirror matter," he adds.
"Mirror matter is perfect to explain dark matter. It's dark and can only be detected through its gravity."
Dr Foot believes he has found evidence that it is here, closer than we believed, and that it had had a measurable effect on our spaceprobes.
In October 2000, the Near-Shoemaker spacecraft lightly touched down on the 13-by-13-by-33-km (8 by 8 by 20 miles) Eros asteroid. It was the first time a probe had landed on an asteroid.
Its close scrutiny of Eros revealed many strange features - such as flat-bottomed craters filled with a peculiar bluish dust, and a puzzling lack of small craters.
Unexplained by conventional understanding, Dr Foot believes that mirror matter provides an answer.
He calculates that small objects containing mirror matter could have struck the asteroid and left behind precisely the same scars that are seen. Indeed, he says there is no other credible explanation.
He also calculates that mirror matter may explain the mysterious force that acts on both the Pioneer 10 and 11 deep spaceprobes.
Launched in 1972, the Pioneers are leaving the Solar System in opposite directions. Detailed analysis of their trajectory indicates that they are both subject to a tiny, unexplained force that is slowing them down.
Dr Foot believes that mirror matter exerting a drag on the Pioneers could be to blame.
"How else can you explain that both Pioneers, on opposite ends of the Solar System, experience the same force pushing in the same direction?" Dr Foot asks.
In a research paper to be published shortly, Drs Foot and Mitra suggest that mirror matter may even have struck the Earth.
He singles out three possible events: the 1908 Tunguska impact in Siberia and low-altitude, low-velocity fireballs seen in Spain in 1994 and in Jordan in 2001.
"Mirror matter could also explain these events," he told BBC News Online.
Many scientists dismiss mirror matter as wild speculation but even the sceptics will have cause for thought if the latest experiments from the European Centre for Nuclear Research (Cern) are to be believed.
Experiments involving so-called ortho-positronium - an arrangement in which an electron orbits a positron (its antimatter equivalent) - show that it decays slightly faster than can be explained.
This could be due, says Dr Foot, to the electrons changing fleetingly into mirror matter and then back again.
Experiments at Cern and in Moscow hope to determine in the next year or so if mirror matter really does exist.
Dr Robert Foot is from the University of Melbourne; Dr Saibal Mitra is from the University of Amsterdam.
50 years ago it was discovered that the fundamental particles,

such as the electron and proton, have 'left-handed' interactions -- they
do not respect mirror symmetry. This experimental fact motivates the idea
that a set of 'mirror particles' exist. The left-handedness of the ordinary
particles can then be balanced by the right-handedness of the mirror particles.
In this way mirror reflection symmetry can exist but requires something
 profoundly new. It requires the existence of a completely new form of matter
 called 'mirror matter'.

 The mirror symmetry requires that the masses of the mirror particles

should be the same as their ordinary counterparts. However, ordinary and

mirror particles do not interact with each other by any of the known

fundamental forces except via gravity. Einstein's theory suggests that

anything with mass should couple to gravity, however the other fundamental

forces can act completely separately on the ordinary and mirror sectors.

Mirror matter should not be confused with anti-matter which has quite

different properties (in fact, some people have the unfortunate habit
of
 using the term 'mirror matter' when they really mean anti-matter).
In anycase,
 mirror matter is still hypothetical
although there is a large range of astrophysical
 and experimental evidence
for its existence.
The evidence ranges from observations suggesting that most of the matter
 in the Universe is invisible to unexpected properties of ghostly particles
called 'neutrinos'.

It predicts mirror matter stars which are invisible -- and there is a large
 body of evidence for such invisible  dark matter.
There is also some specific
evidence that mirror stars have been
observed from their gravitational effects
 on the bending of
light ( MACHO

If mirror matter exists then mirror planets should also exist.
In fact,
 there is remarkable evidence that these planets have
actually been detected
 orbiting around nearby ordinary stars.

The opposite type of system, with an ordinary planet orbiting a mirror

 star, also apparently exits, but has been misidentified as an
 <a href
'isolated' planet!

Perhaps most remarkable of all, is the evidence that mirror matter
 not only exists
in our solar system, but mirror matter asteroid or comet sized
 objects are
frequently colliding with our planet. There may even be fragments
 of mirror
matter at various impact sites around the world (such as the one

in  Jordan), which could potentially be found. Nobody has looked!
On the
microscopic level two types of forces or interactions can connect ordinary
 and mirror matter.
That is, by small transition forces connecting photons with
 mirror photons and by small mass mixing terms between neutrinos and mirror
 neutrinos.
The observational consequences of these effects are actually observed:

The photon-mirror
photon transition force implies a shorter effective lifetime
for orthopositronium (a
type of atom made from an electron and a positron)
 in vacuum experiments.
A shorter lifetime is seen!

Neutrino-mirror neutrino mass mixing implies
that each ordinary neutrino
 transforms (oscillates) into its mirror
Remarkably, solar,
 atmospheric and other neutrino experiments
actually require the existence of
 new types of neutrinos, oscillating with
the ordinary neutrinos in a way
 which is
 <a href
consistent with the mirror matter theory.

Any mirror matter hydrogen gas left over in our solar system
would not have
 been swept out by the solar wind. Remnant mirror
matter particles striking
 spacecraft would
lead to a drag force slowing them down.

 precise measurements of the velocities of the
 Pioneer
spacecraft  indicate
 that
they are indeed slowing down faster
than expected due to known forces!
In physics, mirror matter, also called shadow matter or Alice matter, is a hypothetical counterpart to ordinary matter. Modern physics deals with three basic types of spatial symmetry: reflection, rotation and translation. The known elementary particles respect rotation and translation symmetry but do not respect mirror reflection symmetry (also called P-symmetry or parity). Of the four fundamental interactions electromagnetism, the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravity, only the weak interaction breaks parity.
Parity violation in weak interactions was first postulated by Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang  in 1956 as a solution to the τ-θ puzzle. They suggested a number of experiments to test if the weak interaction is invariant under parity. These experiments were performed half a year later and they confirmed that the weak interactions of the known particles violate parity.
However parity symmetry can be restored as a fundamental symmetry of nature if the particle content is enlarged so that every particle has a mirror partner. The theory in its modern form was written down in 1991 , although the basic idea dates back earlier . Mirror particles interact amongst themselves in the same way as ordinary particles, except where ordinary particles have left-handed interactions, mirror particles have right-handed interactions. In this way, it turns out that mirror reflection symmetry can exist as an exact symmetry of nature, provided that a "mirror" particle exists for every ordinary particle. Parity can also be spontaneously broken depending on the Higgs potential.  While in the case of unbroken parity symmetry the masses of particles are the same as their mirror partners, in case of broken parity symmetry the mirror partners are lighter or heavier.
Mirror matter, if it exists, would have to be very weakly interacting with ordinary matter. This is because the forces between mirror particles are mediated by mirror bosons. With the exception of the graviton, none of the known bosons can be identical to their mirror partners. The only way mirror matter can interact with ordinary matter via forces other than gravity is via so-called kinetic mixing of mirror bosons with ordinary bosons or via the exchange of Holdom particles. These interactions can only be very weak. Mirror particles have therefore been suggested as candidates for the inferred dark matter in the universe.
Observational effects of mirror matter
If mirror matter is present in the universe with sufficient abundance then its gravitational effects can be detected. Because mirror matter is analogous to ordinary matter, it is then to be expected that a fraction of the mirror matter exists in the form of mirror galaxies, mirror stars, mirror planets etc. These objects can be detected using gravitational microlensing. One would also expect that some fraction of stars have mirror objects as their companion. In such cases one should be able to detect periodic Doppler shifts in the spectrum of the star. There are some hints that such effects may already have been observed.
What if mirror matter does exist but has (almost) zero abundance? Like magnetic monopoles, mirror matter could have been diluted to unobservably low densities during the inflation epoch. Sheldon Glashow has shown that if at some high energy scale particles exist which interact strongly with both ordinary and mirror particles, radiative corrections will lead to a mixing between photons and mirror photons. This mixing has the effect of giving mirror electric charges a very small ordinary electric charge. Another effect of photon-mirror photon mixing is that it induces oscillations between positronium and mirror positronium. Positronium could then turn into mirror positronium and then decay into mirror photons.
The mixing between photons and mirror photons could be present at tree level or arise as a consequence of quantum corrections due to the presence of particles that carry both ordinary and mirror charges. In the latter case, the quantum corrections have to vanish at the one and two loop level, otherwise the predicted value of the kinetic mixing parameter would be larger than experimentally allowed.
An experiment to measure this effect is currently being planned.
If mirror matter does exist in large abundances in the universe and if it interacts with ordinary matter via photon-mirror photon mixing, then this could be detected in dark matter direct detection experiments such as DAMA/NaI. . In fact, it is one of the few dark matter candidates which can explain the positive DAMA/NaI dark matter signal whilst still being consistent with the null results of other dark matter experiments . Mirror matter may also be detected in electromagnetic field penetration experiments  and there would also be consequences for planetary science.
Mirror matter could also be responsible for the GZK puzzle. Topological defects in the mirror sector could produce mirror neutrinos which can oscillate to ordinary neutrinos.  Another possible way to evade the GZK bound is via neutron-mirror neutron oscillatons.
The phrase "mirror matter" was also introduced by physicist and author Dr. Robert L. Forward as an alternative term for what is commonly called antimatter, in an attempt to emphasize that antimatter is identical to ordinary matter, except reversed in all possible ways (i.e., CPT). (Forward was apparently not aware of the use of the word "mirror particles" by Russian physicists to mean parity reversed matter that does not interact strongly with "ordinary" matter). This is elucidated in his book Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics (1988), and his editing the small review journal Mirror Matter Newsletter (1986-1990). However, this use of the term "mirror matter" for antimatter was never widely picked up by others and is not currently in common use.
The mirror photon is the mirror counterpart of the photon. It may be massless or massive in theory. Mirror photons and other mirror matter particles have been proposed as a candidate for dark matter. The mirror photon is also invisible and undetectable, except for their gravitational effects. According to Bob Holdom, of the University of Toronto, says that photons and mirror photons, (along with other particles and their mirror counterparts) can change into each other through the exchange of a "Holdom force" particle, or H particle. Mirror photons, in theory, can interact with regular photons. However, the mirror photon can not interact with any charged particle, it can only interact with its neutral counterpart, the regular photon. A mirror photon can decay into two separate particles, a mirror electron and a mirror positron. These two particles quickly combine to form mirror ortho-positronium. Since mirror particles and mirror photons have the same gravitational properties of regular matter, they could form mirror planets or mirror stars. A mirror star would continually emit mirror photons, and not only would the mirror photons be undetectable, the mirror star, being made out of mirror matter, would be undetectable too, except for its gravitational pull.
A mirror photon would have the same speed of a regular photon. Mirror photons and mirror matter both feel the force of gravity, as gravity is part of spacetime. Aside from the aforementioned characteristics, a mirror photon is the same as a regular photon.
New Theory Asserts The Existence Of Mirror Matter
Melbourne - May 06, 2002
Invisible asteroids and other cosmic bodies made of a new form of matter may pose a threat to Earth, asserts Australian Physicist Dr. Robert Foot.
In a revolutionary new theory, Dr. Robert Foot of the University of Melbourne argues that meteorites composed of `mirror matter' -- a candidate for the invisible dark matter that astronomers say is necessary to explain their observations -- could impact with the Earth without leaving any ordinary fragments.
Indeed, the theory seems to provide a simple explanation for the puzzling Tunguska event - the blast which destroyed a huge area of Siberian forest in 1908.
While scientists have attributed this explosion to an ordinary meteorite, no traces of such an object have ever been found. Moreover, there are frequent smaller such events, occurring on a yearly basis, which are even more puzzling.
The idea of mirror matter comes from the established fact that the interactions of the known elementary particles, such as the electrons, protons and neutrinos, violate mirror symmetry -- they have left-handed interactions.
This experimental fact motivates the idea that a set of `mirror particles' exist. The left-handedness of the ordinary particles can then be balanced by the right-handedness of the mirror particles.
In this way mirror reflection symmetry can exist but requires something profoundly new -- a new form of matter called `mirror matter'.
In a recently published book -- Shadowlands, quest for mirror matter in the Universe -- the scientific case for the existence of mirror matter is given.
At the very least, there is a range of fascinating evidence for its existence including: astronomical observations suggesting that most of our galaxy is made from a new form of matter - dark matter, puzzling Jupiter sized planets only a few million miles from their host star, and the mysterious slowing down of spacecraft in our solar system. Remarkably, it is also possible that Pluto -- the most distant planet in our solar system -- might even be a mirror world, which can explain various anomalous features of its orbit.
Perhaps, the most important consequence of all this -- if true -- is the possibility of actually extracting the mirror matter from the Tunguska impact site and other such sites around the world.
The mirror matter idea has not attracted a huge following among physicists. In a recent UPI article, Howard Georgi of Harvard University says: "Foot's ideas have not attracted a huge following in the community that cares about these things, perhaps because the problems they solve, while interesting, are not the most critical puzzles that we are wrestling with."
Nevertheless, mirror matter, if it exists, would be a completely new type of material with a potentially huge commercial value.
Its scientific value would be of no less importance.
What's New with My Subject?
"Antimatter: Matter consisting of atoms which are composed of positrons, antiprotons, and antineutrons. Also loosely refers to the antiparticle corresponding to a particle -- the antiparticle may be regarded as the particle traveling backward in time, or "conjugated." In present physics, the photon is recognized as its own anti-particle. However, since physicists do not differentiate between positive and negative energies in a photon, then they assume that there is no difference between a photon and an antiphoton. This is not true prior to the photon's interaction, where the photon is a 4-space entity, but it is essentially true after the interaction when one looks or observes only 3-spatially. The antiphoton, however, acts quite differently from the photon in 4-space, since it is time-reversed, as is clearly shown in optical phase conjugation. The tentative hypothesis of scalar electromagnetics for the final photon emission interaction with a charged particle in an atom is this: In the expression CPTEGS (where C is charge and normally negative, P is normal parity, T is time and normally positive, E is energy and normally positive, G is gravity and normal is positive, S is entropy and normally positive or increasing). if one of the components is reversed in sign, then each of the remaining components is also individually reversed in sign. This "first order rough hypothesis" will probably need much further refinement, but there is a nugget of real truth therein, once it is more properly sorted out. The phase conjugate photon (antiphoton: negative energy, negative time), e.g., is produced by the photon interaction with the positively charged nucleus, producing a time-reversed wave having negative time-energy, negative time, reversed parity, causing gravitational repulsion, and causing negentropy. Note that, if the rough CPTEGS hypothesis holds, then time-reversal (phase conjugation) is intimately involved with antigravity. At least we have rigorously shown that the common dipole produces a giant negentropy from its mere formation, and this giant reordering of a fraction of the vacuum energy spreads at the speed of light in all directions. This giant negentropy continues so long as the dipole remains intact. Dipoles in matter that has been here since the beginning, have been pouring out 3-spatial EM energy (real EM energy) continuously for some 15 or so billion years. They have been receiving reactive power (phase conjugate energy) from the active 4-vacuum all that time as well." --Tom Bearden
Stable baryonic matter in the Universe currently appears to be composed of up and down quarks. However, a system of 3A up, down, and strange quarks would have a lower energy per baryon than normal nuclear matter. The energy savings comes from the decreased Fermi levels of a system with 3 different flavors instead of only two. The quarks in this case would not form individual baryons, but would have wave functions ranging over the entire size of the system. Color must still be confined, so it is still possible to talk about baryon number when discussing such a system. This would represent a new ground state of matter.
In 1984 it was suggested that such strange quark matter, or `strange matter,' might be both stable and bound at zero temperature and pressure. Normal nuclear matter does not decay to this true QCD ground state due to the high order weak process necessary to produce the strange quarks in abundance. The radically different wave functions between nuclear and strange matter would also greatly inhibit such decay. However, certain specific processes can be envisioned that would produce strange matter.
It is natural to divide the spectrum of strange matter into 3 categories by size. Each requires a different model. Bulk strange matter is sufficiently large that no surface effects need to be considered. The concepts needed to explain bulk strange matter are useful in more detailed models of `strangelets,' nuggets of strange matter with a baryon number . Very small strangelets would resemble superheavy isotopes of known elements. A model of very small strangelets requires a different approach, as these systems are too small to simply apply a bulk model with surface corrections.
Naturally occuring strangelets may have formed in the early stages of the Universe. Strange matter may also be formed in the present under high pressure in the dense interiors of neutron stars. In order to detect naturally occuring strange matter, or to produce it in the lab, it is necessary to determine its stability. An understanding of the interactions between strange and normal matter is also important.
Several searches have been conducted for natural sources of strangelets, both astronomical and terrestrial. Accelerator experiments have attempted to produce strangelets artificially, and more are planned as new facilities become available. Occasionally, speculations on the properties of and uses for strangelets have resembled science fiction.
Finally, there are many details which must be thoroughly investigated in order to make meaningful specific predictions from the models I will discuss. (For example the choice of renormalization scale.) Rather than attempt this, I will be interested in revealing the general properties of strange matter predicted by these models.
It is not clear that strangelets exist naturally, can be produced, or are stable enough to be detected. Searches have so far not found evidence of them. But while it is not clear that they must exist, they cannot be ruled out. The allowed range of parameters for stability is fairly wide, and the values are not unreasonable. The arguments that motivated the first discussions of strange matter remain valid reasons to expect it. The existence of strangelets would provide possible explanations for some observed phenomena (e.g. dark matter). Fascinating new phenomena would also be available for study. Further theoretical exploration of the possibilities of strangelets is fundamentally limited by the inability to use QCD for detailed calculations of the many-quark system, and by a lack of specific knowledge of the critical parameters. For these reasons, the experimental search must continue. -- Joshua Holden http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~jholden/strange/node1.html#SECTION00010000000000000000
A strangelet is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. Its size would be a minimum of a few femtometers across (with the mass of a light nucleus). Once the size becomes macroscopic (on the order of meters across), such an object is usually called a quark star or "strange star" rather than a strangelet. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter. The term "strangelet" originates with E. Farhi and R. Jaffe. Strangelets have been suggested as a dark matter candidate .
Strange matter hypothesis
The known particles with strange quarks are unstable because the strange quark is heavier than the up and down quarks, so strange particles, such as the Lambda particle, which contains an up, down, and strange quark, always lose their strangeness, by decaying via the weak interaction to lighter particles containing only up and down quarks. But states with a larger number of quarks might not suffer from this instability. This is the "strange matter hypothesis" of Bodmer  and Witten. According to this hypothesis, when a large enough number of quarks are collected together, the lowest energy state is one which has roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks, namely a strangelet. This stability would occur because of the Pauli exclusion principle; having three types of quarks, rather than two as in normal nuclear matter, allows more quarks to be placed in lower energy levels.
Relationship with nuclei
A nucleus is a collection of a large number of up and down quarks, confined into triplets (neutrons and protons). According to the strange matter hypothesis, strangelets are more stable than nuclei, so nuclei are expected to decay into strangelets. But this process may be extremely slow because there is a large energy barrier to overcome: as the weak interaction starts making a nucleus into a strangelet, the first few strange quarks form strange baryons, such as the Lambda, which are heavy. Only if many conversions occur almost simultaneously will the number of strange quarks reach the critical proportion required to achieve a lower energy state. This is very unlikely to happen, so even if the strange matter hypothesis were correct, nuclei would never be seen to decay to strangelets because their lifetime would be longer than the age of the universe.
The stability of strangelets depends on their size. This is because of (a) surface tension at the interface between quark matter and vacuum (which affects small strangelets more than big ones), and (b) screening of charges, which allows small strangelets to be charged, with a neutralizing cloud of electrons/positrons around them, but requires large strangelets, like any large piece of matter, to be electrically neutral in their interior. The charge screening distance tends to be of order a few femtometers, so only the outer few femtometers of a strangelet can carry charge .
The surface tension of strange matter is unknown. If it is smaller than a critical value (a few MeV per square femtometer ) then large strangelets are unstable and will tend to fission into smaller strangelets (strange stars are still stabilized, by gravity). If it is larger than the critical value, then strangelets become more stable as they get bigger.
Natural or artificial occurrence
Although nuclei do not decay to strangelets, there are other ways to create strangelets, so if the strange matter hypothesis is correct there should be strangelets in the universe. There are at least three ways they might be created in nature:
- Cosmogonically, i.e., in the early universe when the QCD confinement phase transition occurred. It is possible that strangelets were created along with the neutrons and protons which form ordinary matter.
- High energy processes. The universe is full of very high-energy particles (cosmic rays). It is possible that when these collide with each other or with neutron stars they may provide enough energy to overcome the energy barrier and create strangelets from nuclear matter.
- Cosmic ray impacts. In addition to head-on collisions of cosmic rays, ultra high energy cosmic rays impacting on Earth's atmosphere may create strangelets.
These scenarios offer possibilities for observing strangelets. If there are strangelets flying around the universe, then occasionally a strangelet should hit Earth, where it would appear as an exotic type of cosmic ray. If strangelets can be produced in high energy collisions, then we might make them at heavy-ion colliders.
At heavy ion accelerators like RHIC, nuclei are collided at relativistic speeds, creating strange and antistrange quarks which could conceivably lead to strangelet production. The experimental signature of a strangelet would be its very high ratio of mass to charge, which would cause its trajectory in a magnetic field to be extremely straight. The STAR collaboration has searched for strangelets produced at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, but none were found. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is even less likely to produce strangelets, but searches are planned for the LHC ALICE detector.
Possible seismic detection
In May 2002, a group of researchers at Southern Methodist University reported the possibility that strangelets may have been responsible for a seismic event recorded on October 22 and November 24 in 1993 . The authors later retracted their claim, after finding that the clock of one of the seismic stations had a large error during the relevant period.
It has been suggested that the International Monitoring System being set up to verify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) may be useful as a sort of "strangelet observatory" using the entire Earth as its detector. The IMS will be designed to detect anomalous seismic disturbances down to 1 kiloton of TNT's equivalent energy release or less, and could be able to track strangelets passing through Earth in real time if properly exploited.
If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and a strangelet comes in contact with a lump of ordinary matter such as Earth, it could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter . This "ice-nine" disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.
This is not a concern for strangelets in cosmic rays because they are produced far from Earth and have had time to decay to their ground state, which is predicted by most models to be positively charged, so they are electrostatically repelled by nuclei, and would rarely merge with them.  But high-energy collisions could produce negatively charged strangelet states which live long enough to interact with the nuclei of ordinary matter.
The danger of catalyzed conversion by strangelets produced in heavy-ion colliders has received some media attention, and concerns of this type were raised  at the commencement of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) experiment at Brookhaven, which could potentially have created strangelets. A detailed analysis  concluded that the RHIC collisions were comparable to ones which naturally occur as cosmic rays traverse the solar system, so we would already have seen such a disaster if it were possible. RHIC has been operating since 2000 without incident. Similar concerns have been raised about the operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN  but such fears are dismissed as far-fetched by many scientists.
In the case of a neutron star, the conversion scenario seems much more plausible. A neutron star is in a sense a giant nucleus (20 km across), held together by gravity, but it is electrically neutral and so does not electrostatically repel strangelets. If a strangelet hit a neutron star, it could convert a small region of it, and that region would grow to consume the entire star, creating a quark star.
It should be remembered all the issues discussed above relating to the conversion of ordinary matter to strange matter only arise if the strange matter hypothesis is true, and its surface tension is larger than the aforementioned critical value.
Debate about the strange matter hypothesis
The strange matter hypothesis remains unproven. No direct search for strangelets in cosmic rays or particle accelerators has seen a strangelet (see references in earlier sections). If any of the objects we call neutron stars could be shown to have a surface made of strange matter, this would indicate that strange matter is stable at zero pressure, which would vindicate the strange matter hypothesis. But there is no strong evidence for strange matter surfaces on neutron stars (see below).
Another argument against the hypothesis is that if it were true, all neutron stars should be made of strange matter, and otherwise none should be. Even if there were only a few strange stars initially, violent events such as collisions would soon create many strangelets flying around the universe. Because one strangelet will convert a neutron star to strange matter, by now all neutron stars would have been converted. This argument is still debated, but if it is correct then showing that one neutron star has a conventional nuclear matter crust would disprove the strange matter hypothesis.Because of its importance for the strange matter hypothesis, there is an ongoing effort to determine whether the surfaces of neutron stars are made of strange matter or nuclear matter. The evidence currently favors nuclear matter. This comes from the phenomenology of X-ray bursts, which is well-explained in terms of a nuclear matter crust, and from measurement of seismic vibrations in magnetars.[


Most of the time, the aurora borealis phenomenon is usually seen in the polar areas of the world. Get more info on Royal Mile. Although it can occur during the daytime, the Northern Lights are best viewed during the night. Also, the reason why many people take the time to schedule a vacation to the polar areas of the world is because of the fact that they want to witness the beauty of the Northern Lights for themselves. Of course, the locals witness it regularly but even they admit that this phenomenon never ceases to amaze them.
Choosing the right time of the year is important if you want to go sightseeing for the Northern Lights. However, winter time is usually the only time of the year when you can watch the Northern Lights in their full glory. However, just as explained earlier, the collision of solar winds against air molecules has to happen first. Otherwise, there won't be any aurora borealis to see in the sky. Even though that's the case, the rarity of this phenomenon makes it all the more beautiful. Usually, this phenomenon tends to happen from October up until March. This period is when you'll see majestic Northern Lights in full display. Also, if you're going to sightsee for the Northern Lights, you'll want to be far away from the city lights. Get more info on Scotland. You'll also want to find a place where there aren't any clouds blocking the view.
If you're on vacation, you will want to make sure that you make arrangements in the right hotel. Having the right hotel location will make it easier for you to see the Northern Lights during nighttime. Learn more from https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports-and-everyday-life/food-and-drink/food-and-cooking/travel.
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The Northern Lights have been on the tip of everyone's tongue, especially since Joanna Lumley and the BBC recently sighted it in a one-off documentary. Just like Lumley, the viewers were enthralled and inspired in equal measure as the camera crew captured the enigmatic sequence of colour forms.
There is no one definite place, but we certainly know where you're most likely to see them, and those places lie in the Arctic Circle. We suggest the Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway which was featured no.4 in The Telegraph's Ten Ways to See the Northern Lights. The unique experience about seeing the lights in the Lofoten Islands is that the surrounding sea often maximises any sighting of the Northern Lights by the spectacular, mirror reflection it produces.


John Glenn became the oldest person to fly into space when he rode on the space shuttle in 1998. He was 77. Wally Funk recently beat that record, when she flew on Jeff Bezos' private rocket in July at age 82. But now William Shatner, who is 90 years old, is booked to fly on Bezos' New Shepherd capsule. According to TMZ, Shatner, who played the original captain Kirk on Star Trek, will take a 15-minute ride into space in October. It is unclear whether Kirk, er, Shatner paid for the ticket, which can be as much as $20 million, or whether he is riding free. The publicity would be well worth it for Bezos' Blue Origin space tourist business. The flight will be filmed inside and out for a documentary.


- What was one of the biggest benefits of the space race?
- How and when did the US win the space race?
- How did the space race advanced technology?
- How did the space race affect American schools?
- What was the purpose of the space race?
- How does space exploration benefit the environment?
- Who won the Space Race and why?
- How space technology improves our lives on Earth?
- How was the economy affected by the space program?
- What was the benefit of going to the Moon?
- How much did America spend on the space race?
- How does NASA benefit the economy?
- What are the benefits of space tourism?
- How does the space program benefit the US national economy in general how does it benefit the world?
- What country won the space race?
- Why was the Gemini program valuable to future space programs?
- How did the spacecraft help the astronauts survive their time in space?
- What is NASA’s purpose?
- Should the US spend more money on space exploration?
- How did NASA influence the American economy in the 1960s?
- How does space tourism affect the environment?
While the Space Race fueled Cold War competition and anxiety, it also provided significant advantages to human civilization. Many industries, including telecommunications, microtechnology, computer science, and solar power, needed and generated quick breakthroughs and developments as a result of space travel.
Similarly, How did the Space Race benefit society?
Overcoming the difficulties of working in space has resulted in numerous technological and scientific breakthroughs that have benefited society on Earth in areas such as health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, energy and the environment, information technology, and industrial productivity.
Also, it is asked, What effect did the Space Race have on the United States?
Sputnik’s success had a significant influence on the Cold War and the United States. Fearing falling behind, US leaders accelerated its space and weapons projects.
Secondly, How did the Space Race benefit us today?
During the Space Race, groundbreaking attempts to launch artificial satellites were made. It encouraged nations to deploy unmanned space missions to the Moon, Venus, and Mars in order to compete. It also made human spaceflight to the Moon and in low Earth orbit possible.
Also, How did the space race impact the US and Soviet Union?
The Cold War and the Space Race The Cold War continued until 1991, when the Soviet Union fell apart. The Space Race was an important component of the Cold War, as the Americans and Soviets battled to be the first to send a person into space, demonstrating their scientific and intellectual supremacy.
People also ask, Was the space race positive or negative?
To summarize, the space race had terrible consequences, yet it was a fascinating growth in space research and people’s attitudes on other parts of life.
Related Questions and Answers
What was one of the biggest benefits of the space race?
The original space race sparked technological breakthroughs that improved our lives beyond mere lunar travel, as Forbes’ Charles Beames and Reason’s Liz Wolfe point out, including advances in computer science (e.g., the integrated circuit), aerodynamics (resulting in more fuel-efficient vehicles), and materials science (
How and when did the US win the space race?
Dec. — Apollo 8 became the first crewed mission to circle the moon, shifting the tide of the Space Race.
How did the space race advanced technology?
Medical imaging techniques, durable healthcare equipment, artificial limbs, water filtration systems, solar panels, firefighting equipment, shock absorbers, air purifiers, home insulation, weather-resistant airplanes, infrared thermometers, and a slew of other life-saving inventions are just a few examples.
How did the space race affect American schools?
It is true, as many who follow the politics of the space race are aware, that the National Defense Education Act of 958 (enacted in response to Sputnik) boosted the quantity of science and math taught, resulting in some intriguing curriculum studies and change, particularly in top institutions.
What was the purpose of the space race?
President Kennedy’s announcement concentrated the Space Race on a single aim for Americans: putting a man on the Moon before the Soviets. The Space Race was transformed into a race to the Moon. For years, the Soviets denied that they were involved in a race to the Moon.
How does space exploration benefit the environment?
Space exploration is critical to climate research because it provides us with additional knowledge about the Earth, our solar system, and the function of gases in our atmosphere, and nuclear energy has played a key part in launching our space missions.
Who won the Space Race and why?
With the landing on J., America essentially “won” the space race that started 12 years earlier with the launch of Sputnik.
How space technology improves our lives on Earth?
Satellites that circle the globe provide the most accurate weather reports and alert us to impending storms; they monitor our climate on a daily basis, assisting in the tracking of increasing rates of climate change and its effects, such as rising seas and changing moisture levels, wildfires, and atmospheric changes; and they connect millions of people around the world.
How was the economy affected by the space program?
According to NASA’s inaugural economic impact report, the agency produced about $65 billion in economic effect in fiscal year 2019, with the Artemis mission, which aims to return people to the moon by 2024, accounting for the majority of that activity. The report (which covers the period from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2018) was issued by the agency.
What was the benefit of going to the Moon?
We will improve life on Earth and prepare to explore the rest of our solar system — and beyond — if we can successfully establish a presence on the Moon. Medical experts have a significant problem in keeping astronauts healthy in a lower-gravity and higher-radiation environment than Earth.
How much did America spend on the space race?
Spending did not return to this level until 1980, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, it never did again for the rest of the Cold War. From the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite in 1957 until the moon landing in 1969, the United States spent around $30 billion on the space race.
How does NASA benefit the economy?
According to the study, NASA’s operations produced more than $64.3 billion in total economic production in fiscal year 2019, supporting more than 312,000 jobs throughout the country and generating an estimated $7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.
What are the benefits of space tourism?
Scientific investigation. There are a few scientific advantages to space tourism, though the most recent flights may not have been long enough to provide much information. We’ll be able to examine long-term physiological changes in people as a consequence of being in space when lengthier space missions become available in the future.
How does the space program benefit the US national economy in general how does it benefit the world?
NASA’s spending has an economic impact, supporting essential sectors, generating new companies and employment, and encouraging students to pursue careers in science and engineering. NASA invests in future technologies and discoveries while also delivering social and economic benefits to the United States now.
What country won the space race?
the Soviet Union
Why was the Gemini program valuable to future space programs?
Because Gemini astronauts worked to refine techniques of re-entry and landing, the effort proved beneficial to future space initiatives. It was carried out between 1965 and 1966 in order to define future space projects and deliver the first man to the moon on time. NASA was in charge of the project.
How did the spacecraft help the astronauts survive their time in space?
The Apollo spacecraft were constructed with several safety systems to aid astronauts in surviving the perilous atmosphere of space. The astronauts were shielded by cosmic radiation, extremes of heat and cold, and micrometeoroids in the command and lunar modules.
What is NASA’s purpose?
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the federal agency in charge of space exploration, space technology, Earth and space science, and aeronautics research in the United States. Exploring new boundaries, finding new information, and inventing new technologies are just a few of the ways NASA inspires the globe.
Should the US spend more money on space exploration?
Spending on space sustains highly skilled professions, promotes technological developments with practical applications, and generates economic prospects. As a result, the pool of public funds available to address the world’s most critical issues expands.
How did NASA influence the American economy in the 1960s?
NASA became a significant client for various U.S. aerospace businesses as a consequence of its multibillion-dollar expenditures in the 1960s. From $16.4 billion in 1961 to $22.6 billion in 1967, total aeronautical product sales grew.
How does space tourism affect the environment?
A voyage to space may produce more emissions than a conventional airline flight since just a few passengers board these flights, resulting in substantially greater emissions per passenger. If space travel gets more widespread, the pollution might become much worse.
The “how did the space race benefit us society” is a question that many people ask. The answer to this question is that it has benefited us by giving us an opportunity to explore and expand our knowledge of the universe.
This Video Should Help:
The “what was the impact of the space race” is a question that has been asked many times. The answer to this question is that the space race benefited society by being an inspiration for technological advancement.
- why did the space race happen
- how did the space race benefit us society quizlet
- who won the space race
- how did the space race affect american schools?
- how did the space race end


Project synopsis: It is now widely believed that chemical heterogeneity in the core-mantle boundary region profoundly influences the dynamics and evolution of Earth’s core and mantle, and the behaviour of the geomagnetic field. However, we presently don’t know much about what chemical species are responsible for this heterogeneity, where exactly they are located and what their size might be. For example, tantalizing hints of geochemical heterogeneity in the outermost core are given by anomalous seismic signals at the core-mantle boundary, but this region of our planet is by no means accessible for direct geochemical investigation. Pallasite meteorites may be derived from differentiated planetesimals, subsequently smashed into fragments by collisions with other planetesimals early in the history of the solar system. These meteorites may provide indirect evidence of processes that affected the early Earth. This project will use a combination of geochemical investigations of pallasite meteorites and geophysical modelling of the composition of the Earth’s outermost core to investigate the nature and origin of pallasite meteorites and to determine what information they contain regarding differentiation processes in planetary bodies, specifically, Earth.
Pallasite meteorites comprise roughly equal proportions of olivine and iron, similar to that found in fractionated iron meteorites. Historically, they have been thought to represent remnants of the core-mantle boundary of planetesimals that were assembling at the same time as the formation of Earth. These planetesimals grew to a sufficient size for the segregation of an iron-rich core to take place but were subsequently broken into meteorite-sized chunks by collisions with other planetesimals. However, it is possible that the metal component comes, not from the differentiated body itself but, from the impactor. Pallasite meteorites are rare (only 61 found to date, and only 4 of those being observed falls; we will have samples from 12 main group pallasites available for this project) but they may offer insights into planetary differentiation, specifically related to Earth.
The project: The unique nature of pallasite meteorites means that many different hypotheses relating to the deep Earth can be investigated. The first part of the project would entail detailed characterization of minor phases, for example sulphides and phosphates, which may prove useful for geochronology, i.e. for dating the solidification of the core of a differentiated body. Once characterized, there are several potentially high impact hypotheses that could be explored related to the timing of core crystallisation, and the impacts that destroyed the pallasite parent body (or bodies). Combined with geophysical modelling to better understand the record of planet(esimal) cooling, this project has the potential to unlock the secrets of some of the most enigmatic features of our planet’s evolution
Requirements: The willingness and potential to undertake extensive delicate chemical analyses under clean laboratory conditions is essential for this project. In addition, a high degree of numeracy will be advantageous, as will a desire to build and test geophysical models relating to the chemical and physical properties of the Earth’s deepest geochemical reservoirs.
Training: Thorough training in cutting edge geochemical methods and geophysical modelling will be an integral part of this project and will be tailored to the successful student as required – we realize that these are not necessarily off-the-shelf skills, but the right candidate will acquire them!
Related opportunities: At the University of Leeds we have active and vibrant research groups who focus on the deep Earth and high temperature geochemistry. The Deep Earth Research Group is one of the largest groups of scientists studying the structure and dynamics of Earth’s core and mantle in the world while the Rocks, Melts and Fluids Research Group offers outstanding experimental and analytical facilities with which the elemental and isotopic characteristic of Earth and planetary materials can be determined in world class clean laboratories with state of the art instrumentation. Please contact any of the supervisors to discuss further PhD opportunities.


Space exploration has long captured the imagination of humanity, and recent developments in missions to Mars and the pioneering efforts of companies like SpaceX have brought the cosmos closer than ever before. we embark on a thrilling journey through the latest news and breakthroughs in space exploration, focusing on Mars rovers and SpaceX’s remarkable endeavors.
Mars Rovers: Unearthing the Red Planet’s Secrets
Mars rovers have transformed our understanding of the Red Planet, uncovering mysteries and paving the way for future missions.
- Perseverance Rover: NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, is a technological marvel equipped with advanced instruments to search for signs of ancient life and collect rock samples for return to Earth.
- Ingenuity Helicopter: Traveling alongside Perseverance, the Ingenuity helicopter achieved the first powered flight on another planet, opening the door to aerial exploration of Mars.
- Curiosity Rover: Curiosity continues to roam the Martian surface, studying the planet’s geology and climate and serving as a testament to NASA’s engineering prowess.
- Challenges and Discoveries: The rovers have encountered challenges, such as dust storms, but their discoveries, including evidence of a watery past, have been groundbreaking.
- Sample Return Missions: Future plans involve missions to collect and return Martian samples to Earth, offering a deeper look at the planet’s geologic history.
SpaceX: Pushing the Boundaries of Space Travel
SpaceX, the brainchild of Elon Musk, has redefined space travel with ambitious goals and groundbreaking technology.
- Commercial Space Travel: SpaceX has successfully launched numerous commercial and cargo missions, opening up new possibilities for space travel beyond government-funded programs.
- Crewed Missions: The Crew Dragon spacecraft, in partnership with NASA, has sent astronauts to the International Space Station, rekindling human spaceflight from American soil.
- Starship Project: The Starship project aims to create a fully reusable spacecraft capable of carrying humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, with the goal of making life multi-planetary.
- Space Tourism: SpaceX is part of the burgeoning space tourism industry, with plans to offer civilian spaceflights in the near future.
- **Starlink: The Starlink project aims to provide global satellite internet coverage, potentially connecting the world and generating revenue for Mars missions.
Challenges and Opportunities: The Future of Space Exploration
The future of space exploration is teeming with both challenges and opportunities.
- International Collaboration: Cooperation among space agencies, including NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, and others, is essential to pooling resources and expertise for large-scale missions.
- Mars Colonization: The dream of establishing a human presence on Mars involves a multitude of challenges, including radiation protection, life support systems, and ethical considerations.
- Space Debris: The growing issue of space debris poses a risk to spacecraft and the long-term sustainability of space travel.
- Search for Extraterrestrial Life: The search for life beyond Earth continues, with missions to Europa and Enceladus, moons of Jupiter and Saturn, where subsurface oceans may harbor life.
- Commercial Growth: The expansion of commercial space endeavors may lead to greater affordability and accessibility for space travel, revolutionizing the industry.
Exploring the Unknown: A Collective Human Endeavor
Space exploration represents a collective endeavor, with a shared quest for knowledge and adventure.
- Inspiration and Discovery: Space missions inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and dreamers while uncovering the mysteries of the universe.
- Scientific Breakthroughs: The knowledge and technologies developed for space missions often lead to groundbreaking discoveries with applications on Earth.
- Ethical and Environmental Considerations: As we venture beyond our planet, ethical questions arise, particularly regarding the preservation of celestial bodies and their ecosystems.
- Sustainability: Achieving long-term sustainability in space exploration is a global challenge, addressing debris management and resource utilization.
- Endless Possibilities: The realm of space exploration holds endless possibilities, with the potential to redefine our understanding of the cosmos and our place within it.
Space exploration, driven by missions to Mars and the pioneering efforts of companies like SpaceX, marks a remarkable odyssey into the unknown. As we unravel the secrets of the Red Planet and reach for the stars, we are not only expanding our horizons but also nurturing the human spirit of curiosity and adventure. With each discovery, each launch, and each technological breakthrough, we draw closer to a future where space is not the final frontier but a new canvas for human exploration and ingenuity.


Sometimes it is hard to find the image you are looking for. There are now over 6000 images on this website, with multiple
images on many targets. Listed below are the various “Indexes” to images, by common group. The links are now active,
and you can now access the index, and search for images, and/or click on the image of your choice to view it.
NEW: Use the new “DaHut Image Library Search Engine” to see “Current” AND ‘ARCHIVE’ Images.
Abell Galaxy Clusters ( AGC-xxx ) 50 Selected Objects
Messier Images ( M-xxx )
110 Objects *
Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies ( ARP or Arp ) 338 Objects
Sharpless SH2 Neb ( SH2-xxx ) 313 HII Regions
Caldwell Images ( C-xxx ) 110 Items *
NGC-0001 - NGC-0999 *
NGC-4000 - NGC-4999 *
Herschel - (DSOs) Sorted by H# - Linked to NGC
NGC-1000 - NGC-1999 *
NGC-5000 - NGC-5999 *
*New Herschel Double Stars (And AL Double Stars)
NGC-2000 - NGC-2999 *
NGC-6000 - NGC 6999 *
Hickson Compact Galaxies ( HCG-xxx ) 100 Objects
NGC-3000 - NGC-3999 *
NGC-7000 - NGC-7840 *
IC Images ( IC-xxxx )
Continuation of NGC after 7840 *
Named Object Index
Abell Galaxy Clusters - EVAC 33 Objects
Abell Galaxy Clusters Project Distance Groups 0-1-2-3 [ Mag 12.5 - 15.6 ] 112 Objects
Abell Galaxy Clusters Project Distance Group 4 [ Mag 15.7 - 16.4 ] 166 Objects
See an INDEX for the last 50 observations/images that have been made/taken, by clicking HERE and then you can see the observation
datasheet and image, by clicking on the item in the INDEX.
These images go all the way back to 2008.
Images prior to June 2012 (SBIG camera), June 2013 (CG-5 mount) and Aug 2013 (CGEM Mount), were definitely part of the “steep
learning curve”…. Generally, images after June 2013, are of decent appearance, due largely to the fact that I was now imaging from
an EQ mount, and taking longer exposure images (Guided). What a difference !!.


Angry Birds Space Premium is totally ad-free!
After a giant claw kidnaps their eggs, the Angry Birds chase it into a wormhole and find themselves floating in a strange new galaxy – surrounded by space pigs! Luckily the Angry Birds have super powers of their own...
Angry Birds Space features 60 interstellar levels on planets and in zero gravity, resulting in spectacular gameplay ranging from slow-motion puzzles to lightspeed destruction. With regular free updates, brand new birds, brand new superpowers, and a whole galaxy to explore, the sky is no longer the limit!
• 60 interstellar levels!
• Regular free updates!
• Brand new birds!
• Brand new superpowers!
• Zero-gravity space adventures!
• Trick shots using planets’ gravity!
• Hidden bonus levels!
• Beautifully detailed backgrounds!
Join the global phenomenon as it goes galactic!
NOTE: If you upgrade from Angry Birds Space to Angry Birds Space Premium, your progress will not be transferred.
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• A new moon rises and puts pigs in motion! If you thought it was hard to pop pigs in space before, just wait til they''re orbiting around the icy planets in these 10 NEW LEVELS!


Are we alone?
by Djoeke Schoonenberg
The question whether extraterrestrial life exists is perhaps one of the most intriguing questions that astronomers are actively trying to answer. Close to 4000 planets around stars other than our sun (so-called exoplanets) have been discovered in the past twenty-five years, and many more discoveries are expected. A considerable fraction of these planets have rocky surfaces and orbit their host stars in the so-called habitable zone, where liquid water may exist — generally thought to be a key ingredient for life. Djoeke will discuss how exoplanets are discovered and how astronomers search for signs of extraterrestrial water and life. She will answer the question where water on Earth came from, and how unique the Earth actually is.
€7,50 or €15,00 including De Weekhap at Café DS
Doors open: 20.15


The Voyager Probes, launched in 1977 by NASA, serve as unparalleled pioneers in interstellar exploration. These spacecraft were designed to study the outer planets of our solar system but have since surpassed their intended mission, venturing beyond the known boundaries of our celestial neighborhood. With a wealth of scientific instruments onboard, these extraordinary probes have taken humanity on a captivating journey through the mysteries of space, providing invaluable data and transforming our understanding of the universe. In this article, we will delve into the remarkable capabilities and contributions of the Voyager Probes as they continue their interstellar odyssey beyond our solar system.
Introduction to Voyager probes
The Voyager probes, namely Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, are a pair of unmanned spacecraft that were launched by NASA in 1977. These iconic space probes were created with the purpose of studying our solar system and venturing into interstellar space, providing us with valuable data and insights about the outer planets, as well as the vast expanse beyond our solar system.
Purpose of Voyager probes
The primary objective of the Voyager probes was to conduct a flyby exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. However, their capabilities far exceeded this initial goal. The Voyager missions aimed to deepen our understanding of the outer planets, reveal their intricate compositions, and shed light on the mysteries of interstellar space. Additionally, the Voyager probes were designed to collect data about the planets’ moons, magnetic fields, rings, and other celestial features, thus contributing to the scientific community’s knowledge of our solar system.
Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977. The launch dates were strategically planned to take advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets that occurs only once every 176 years. This alignment allowed the probes to slingshot from one planet to another, utilizing the gravitational forces to gain momentum and accelerate their journeys.
Spacecraft and instruments
The Voyager probes were each equipped with a variety of instruments and cameras, which enabled them to capture detailed images and gather scientific data about the planets they encountered. Some of the notable instruments on board included magnetometers, plasma analyzers, ultraviolet spectrometers, and imaging systems. These instruments provided valuable insights into the composition, atmosphere, magnetic fields, and other properties of the planets and their moons.
Path of Voyager probes
After their launch, the Voyager probes embarked on a unique trajectory through our solar system. Voyager 2 followed a path that allowed it to make close approaches to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. On the other hand, Voyager 1’s trajectory took it on a faster route towards Jupiter and Saturn, but it did not have the opportunity to explore the latter two gas giants. Nevertheless, both probes accomplished groundbreaking discoveries during their encounters with Jupiter and Saturn, as we shall explore in the following section.
Journey Through Our Solar System
Exploring the outer planets
The Voyager probes carried out extensive research on the outer planets, unraveling the mysteries that surrounded these distant worlds. Their observations provided invaluable data on the composition, atmospheres, and structures of the gas giants, revealing intricate cloud formations, atmospheric dynamics, and magnetic phenomena. Moreover, the probes’ findings contributed to the understanding of planet formation and the formation of the solar system itself.
Encounter with Jupiter
Voyager 1 made its historic encounter with Jupiter on March 5, 1979, while Voyager 2 followed suit on July 9, 1979. These flybys allowed the probes to capture astonishing images and gather vital data about the largest planet in our solar system. Voyager 1’s images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a colossal storm system, provided scientists with unprecedented details about its structure and behavior. The probes’ observations also revealed Jupiter’s intricate system of rings, magnetic field interactions, and the volcanic activity of its moon, Io.
Encounter with Saturn
After their successful exploration of Jupiter, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continued their journeys towards Saturn. Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Saturn on November 12, 1980, while Voyager 2 flew by the ringed planet on August 25, 1981. These encounters yielded remarkable images of Saturn’s rings, showcasing their intricate structure and composition. The probes also identified new moons and captured detailed data on Saturn’s atmosphere and magnetic field, leading to groundbreaking discoveries about the planet’s dynamics and unique features.
Reaching Interstellar Space
Voyager 1’s entry into interstellar space
Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object from Earth, achieved a historic milestone on August 25, 2012, by becoming the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. This momentous event marked the crossing of the heliopause, the boundary where the influence of the Sun’s solar wind diminishes and the influence of interstellar space becomes dominant. The data transmitted by Voyager 1 provided crucial insights into the characteristics and dynamics of this uncharted cosmic realm.
Voyager 2’s entry into interstellar space
Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, Voyager 2 also ventured into interstellar space on November 5, 2018. This second entry into the vast interstellar expanse further expanded our understanding of the boundary between our solar system and the interstellar medium. Voyager 2’s exploration of this uncharted territory provided scientists with a wealth of data that shed light on the interactions between our heliosphere, the region influenced by the Sun’s magnetic field, and the surrounding interstellar environment.
Findings from interstellar space
The findings from the Voyager probes’ missions into interstellar space have been groundbreaking. They have revealed the complexities of the interstellar medium, including the unexpected presence of magnetic fields and a higher density of interstellar particles than previously anticipated. These discoveries have prompted new questions about the nature of interstellar space and have opened up avenues for further research and exploration beyond the confines of our solar system.
Impact and Discoveries
The Voyager probes have made immense contributions to our scientific understanding of the solar system and interstellar space. Their comprehensive studies of the outer planets, their moons, and the interstellar environment have resulted in a multitude of scientific publications and advancements across various fields. The data collected by the probes continues to be analyzed and yields new insights even decades after their initial missions.
Understanding of our solar system
Before the Voyager missions, our knowledge of the outer planets was limited to telescopic observations. The close encounters with Jupiter and Saturn provided by the Voyager probes revolutionized our understanding of these giant planets and their extensive systems. The atmospheric dynamics, intricate ring structures, and magnetic properties revealed by the probes’ observations have significantly expanded our comprehension of the processes at work in our solar system and planetary formation in general.
The Voyager probes’ ventures into interstellar space have opened up new avenues of research and exploration beyond the boundaries of our solar system. The data and insights they provided have sparked further missions and initiatives aimed at deepening our understanding of interstellar space and searching for potential signs of extraterrestrial life. The Voyager missions have served as a catalyst for the ongoing pursuit of knowledge about our place in the universe and our potential companions among the stars.
Technology and Communication
Challenges of long-distance communication
Communicating with the Voyager probes presented significant challenges due to the vast distances involved. As the probes ventured farther from Earth, the time required for signals to reach them increased, resulting in a delay of communication. This delay, which can range from several hours to several days depending on the distance, required careful planning and coordination to ensure timely command execution and receipt of scientific data.
Deep Space Network
To overcome the challenges of long-distance communication, NASA established the Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN consists of three ground-based antenna complexes located in California, Spain, and Australia. Through these strategically placed antennas, NASA maintains constant contact with the Voyager probes, enabling the transmission of commands and the reception of scientific data. This network plays a crucial role in facilitating communication with distant spacecraft and has been instrumental in ensuring the success of the Voyager missions.
Data transmission and storage
The Voyager probes were equipped with state-of-the-art technology for data transmission and storage, given the limitations of long-distance communication. The spacecraft recorded scientific data on magnetic tape recorders, which were periodically played back and transmitted to Earth. The data rate was relatively slow, with a maximum of 115.2 kilobits per second, but it facilitated the transmission of invaluable scientific data over the vast distances. The data received from the probes were then carefully processed and analyzed by scientists, leading to groundbreaking discoveries and advancements in our understanding of the solar system and beyond.
Legacy of the Voyager Probes
Inspiring future missions
The Voyager missions have left a lasting legacy by inspiring future space exploration endeavors. The scientific achievements of the probes, coupled with the breathtaking images and discoveries they made, have captured the human imagination and sparked curiosity about the unknown realms of the universe. These missions demonstrated the potential for space exploration beyond our solar system and paved the way for subsequent missions such as New Horizons, which explored Pluto, and the upcoming Dragonfly mission to explore Saturn’s moon, Titan.
The Voyager probes have had a significant cultural impact on society. The stunning images captured by the probes have been disseminated widely, captivating the public and fostering a sense of wonder and awe about the cosmos. The “pale blue dot” photograph, taken by Voyager 1 from a distance of about 6 billion kilometers, showcases Earth as a tiny speck in the vastness of space, reminding us of our shared existence on this fragile planet. This image, along with others, has become iconic in popular culture and continues to inspire people to contemplate the wonders of the universe.
Voyager Golden Records
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Voyager missions is the inclusion of the Voyager Golden Records. These records, made of gold-plated copper, contain a selection of sounds and images representing the diversity of life and cultures on Earth. Intended as a message to any extraterrestrial intelligence that may encounter the probes, the Voyager Golden Records encapsulate the collective human experience and serve as a time capsule of our civilization. This ambitious endeavor reflects the profound human desire for connection and exploration, elevating the Voyager missions to both a scientific and cultural milestone.
Future of the Voyager Probes
Potential encounters with other star systems
Although the Voyager probes’ primary missions were focused on exploring our solar system, they continue their journey into the realm of interstellar space. While it is unlikely that they will encounter another star system directly, the probes may pass close to other stars in the distant future. While their power supplies will eventually deplete, the Voyager probes will continue their silent journey, serving as a testament to human ingenuity and determination to explore and understand what lies beyond our cosmic neighborhood.
Fading communication signals
As the Voyager probes venture deeper into interstellar space, the distance between them and Earth will continue to increase. This, coupled with the natural decay of the spacecraft’s systems and power sources, will eventually lead to a weakening of the communication signals. Ultimately, there will come a time when the signals from the Voyager probes will become too faint to be detected and deciphered by the Deep Space Network. Nevertheless, the data and knowledge they have transmitted will forever remain as a testament to our exploratory spirit.
Continued data analysis
Even as the Voyager probes journey further into the unknown, scientists on Earth continue to analyze the vast amount of data collected by the probes. The scientific insights derived from these analyses will undoubtedly continue to shape our understanding of the solar system and interstellar space for decades to come. The probes’ data will serve as a valuable resource for future researchers and will fuel ongoing scientific advancements, further solidifying the legacy of the Voyager missions as significant contributors to human knowledge and exploration.
Ethical and Philosophical Considerations
Responsibility of interstellar exploration
The Voyager missions raise profound ethical and philosophical considerations regarding the responsible pursuit of interstellar exploration. As humanity ventures beyond the confines of our home planet, it becomes imperative to reflect on the potential impact our actions may have on other civilizations or ecosystems. Ethical guidelines must be developed to ensure responsible exploration that respects the rights and integrity of potential extraterrestrial life forms, if they exist, and maintains ecological balance in any visited celestial bodies.
Life beyond our solar system
The Voyager missions have spurred a profound contemplation of the existence of life beyond our solar system. While the probes were not specifically designed to search for extraterrestrial life, their findings have provided valuable insights and data that contribute to the ongoing search for habitable environments and potential biosignatures in our galaxy and beyond. The possibility of finding life, whether microbial or intelligent, beyond Earth raises fundamental questions about our place in the universe and the potential for life to thrive in diverse and extreme environments.
Implications of finding intelligent extraterrestrial life
The discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life would undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for humanity. It would force us to reevaluate our place in the cosmos and confront profound existential questions about the nature of life, consciousness, and our interconnectedness with the universe. The Voyager probes, as emissaries of Earth, carry the potential to encounter intelligent life in the far future, making it imperative for us to approach this possibility with an open mind and a thoughtful consideration of the ethical and philosophical implications that it entails.
In conclusion, the Voyager probes, with their pioneering missions, have revolutionized our understanding of the solar system and interstellar space. Through their encounters with the outer planets, exploration of interstellar space, and transmission of invaluable scientific data, the Voyager missions have expanded our knowledge and inspired countless future explorations. As they continue their silent journey, the Voyager probes serve as a testament to human curiosity, ingenuity, and the innate desire to explore the unknown. Their achievements underscore the importance of interstellar exploration in advancing our scientific understanding and inspire us to continue unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos.


Here’s What You Need to See the Perseid Meteor Shower This Weekend
The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks this weekend . . . specifically late Saturday night going into Sunday morning. Here are some tips to give you the best shot at seeing some “shooting stars” . . .
1. Go to a spot away from city lights. The best viewing is going to be under a dark sky with no clouds, far away from city lights and street lamps.
2. Wear warm clothing. Even in the summer months, it can get pretty cold sitting outside waiting around for a meteor shower. You should have a jacket, a blanket, and maybe a warm beverage like hot cocoa.
3. A red flashlight. Regular flashlights and even your phone emit too much bright light to allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness. If you want a chance at seeing the fainter meteors, it might be worth picking up a redlight flashlight.
4. A chair that reclines. Watching for meteors involves a lot of looking up at the sky, which can strain your neck. Your best options are to lie flat on the ground, or use a chair that reclines.
5. Patience. It could take about 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark. And resist the urge to look at your phone, because its light will mess up your night vision.


Now that first private spaceship has crossed the border to space and NASA considers offering prizes for various other private space accomplishments, and remembering that NASA is unable to do maintenance to Hubble space telescope due to space shuttles being grounded, when are we going to see first commercial maintenance operation to Hubble and other satellites? My guess is as soon as next year. Rutan’s SpaceShipOne looks promising and if NASA is allowed to buy services from commercial provides, I see no reason why it wouldn’t happen. Government organized space missions begin to look like history, despite Mr. Bush’s plans to go to Mars. Personally I bet the first Mars mission will be privately organized, although it’ll probably have (mostly) public funding.


The Planets: Through the Telescope
Take a look through the telescope to get a better view of the planets—and Gustav Holst’s The Planets.
The Romans named the closest planet to the sun for Mercury, the messenger god. Holst composed a lively melody to represent the planet that orbits around the sun faster than any other planet in the galaxy.
Venus shines brightly in the night sky, since it is the closest planet to Earth. Holst composed a lovely, dreamy movement for this planet, named for the goddess of love, art and beauty.
The Red Planet gets its hue from the iron-rich particles on its surface. It gets its name from the Roman god of war, and Holst captured the planet with dramatic brass and intense, march-like rhythms.
Romans bestowed the name of their supreme and most powerful god on the largest planet in the solar system. Holst gave some of his most joyful and exciting music in The Planets to Jupiter to depict the god of the sky, protector of all and giver of victory.
Saturn—named for the Roman god of renewal, wealth and old age—is most famous for its beautiful rings, which can be seen from Earth. Holst depicts the “Bringer of Old Age” with slow, unsettling chords that eventually give way to a heavy march; the second half of the movement features a soothing, circular pattern in the orchestra’s woodwind section.
Named for the father of the sky in Greek mythology, Uranus was the first planet to be discovered by telescope. For this cold planet, Holst wrote a movement he subtitled “the Magician.”
The planet furthest from the sun is the coldest in the galaxy, and named for the Roman god of water. To depict this faraway icy planet, Holst used harps, celeste, a treble choir and dreamy melodies full of mystery.
Hear the New Jersey Symphony perform Holst’s The Planets.
HOLST The Planets
Xian Zhang, conductor
Newark Voices | Heather J. Buchanan, conductor
New Jersey Symphony
Recorded October 13, 2019, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
Replay Your Adventure
Why stay on Earth when you can set off on another mission to Mars?
This New Jersey Symphony adventure is generously sponsored by the Horizon Foundation for New Jersey.


The universe is so amazing. It is so dark, yet it is really bright. The space between planets and galaxies is cold, yet there is warmth. If there was ever a real paradox, it is the universe. Our three-dimensional universe is filled with contradictions, but it is a beautiful place filled with breathtaking vistas and awe inspiring events. Who knows where our search of the heavens will take us. Seeing pictures like the one below makes my soul yearn for ability to travel in deep space like in the movies Star Trek or Star Wars. I believe that if a spaceship landed and offered the opportunity to us, Joe and I would hop on and I’d shout: “Take us to warp 8, Scotty!”
Rho Ophiuchi might look like an abstract painting, but this splash of colors is in fact a busy star-forming complex. WISE, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Explorer captured the picturesque image of the region, which is one of the closest star-forming complexes to Earth.
The amazing variety of colors seen in this image represents different wavelengths of infrared light. The bright white nebula in the center of the image is glowing due to heating from nearby stars, resulting in what is called an emission nebula. The same is true for most of the multi-hued gas prevalent throughout the entire image, including the bluish, bow-shaped feature near the bottom right. The bright red area in the bottom right is light from the star in the center–Sigma Scorpii–that is reflected off of the dust surrounding it, creating what is called a reflection nebula. And the much darker areas scattered throughout the image are pockets of cool, dense gas that block out the background light, resulting in absorption (or ‘dark’) nebulae. WISE’s longer wavelength detectors can typically see through dark nebulae, but these are exceptionally opaque.
The bright pink objects just left of center are young stellar objects–baby stars just beginning to form. Many of them are still enveloped in their own tiny compact nebulae. In visible light, these baby stars are completely hidden in the dark nebula that surrounds them. Also seen in this image are some of the oldest stars in our Milky Way galaxy. The first cluster, M80, is on the far right edge of the image towards the top. The second, NGC 6144, is found close to the bottom edge near the center. They both appear as small densely compacted groups of blue stars. Globular clusters such as these typically harbor some of the oldest stars known, some as old as 13 billion years, born soon after the universe formed.


This pioneering illustration of the northern hemisphere, with the terrestrial and celestial globes shown together, provides an interesting snapshot of Dutch attitudes towards exploration (and colonization). The Japanese island of Urup, for instance, which is just below the elbow of "Bootes," the club-wielding herdsman shown wearing a pink coat, is labeled "Compagnies Lant." This is Dutch for "Company Land" and references how the Dutch East India Company had taken possession of the island after a 1643 expedition there. The costuming of the constellation "Bootes" is also noteworthy. Shown as a heroic nude in Dürer's woodcut, "Bootes" is depicted here in northern attire, wearing a fur hat, long coat, and warm boots.


Recently, Director of Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology (Qian Lab) Hong Chen and Academician Wei-Hua Wang were invited to visit the Institute of Material Physics in Space, German Aerospace Center (DLR), met with Director Andreas Meyer and technical experts in the field of space science. A memorandum of understanding（MOU） was signed between Qian Lab and DLR on the joint space experiments.
During this visit, the two sides conducted in-depth exchanges. Professor Andreas Meyer introduced the organization and operation mode of DLR and the ongoing scientific research project under microgravity; Professor Matthias Sperl introduced the movement of particulate matter under microgravity conditions; Professor Hubertus Thomas, chief scientist of the Plasma Kristall project of the International Space Station, introduced the utilization of electric fields, lasers and temperature changes to excite particles and eventually form ionic crystals.?
The delegation also visited the electromagnetic suspension equipment or electrostatic suspension equipment independently designed by DLR in the microgravity platform such as the falling tower, weightless aircraft and sounding rocket.?
Qian Lab and DLR have already formed a strong cooperation foundation in the early stage. The two institutes have conducted a definite cooperation plan for the "metal material space 3D printing" project, and each has carried out research work. On the afternoon of March 25th, under the witness of Academician Wang Wei-Hua and Chief Designer Zhu Zong-Peng, the representatives of Director Hong Chen and Professor Andreas Meyer signed a memorandum of understanding on behalf of Qian Lab and DLR, respectively. Qian Lab and DLR will jointly promote project cooperation in the field of "space science and technology", share experimental platforms, and promote further cooperation between China and Germany in the aerospace field.


Mike Kersjes is a special-education teacher and football coach in Michigan. Mike doesn’t talk down to his "special" students. He respects them, and he believes they’re capable of achieving great things. When Mike hears about Space Camp, a competitive education program at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, he gets an idea. Even though the program is designed for gifted science students, Mike decides participating in the summer program would do wonders for the self-esteem of his young students, one in particular who wants to be an astronaut.


This year the Church of England campaign to advertise the Christmas services held in churches around the country, used the slogan ‘Follow the Star’ #FollowtheStar . And to connect with this, the Monday craft group helped create a beautiful star which has appeared above the main door to the church (see photos).
Of course, the main characters in the accounts of the birth of Jesus who followed a star were the Magi, otherwise known as the Wise Men or the Kings (we traditionally say there were three of them, because of the number of gifts they brought, but we do not actually know how many of them there were). In Matthew’s gospel it is described how they said ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ (Matthew 2.2) And then, in verse 9 it says how they saw the star ahead of them, and it stopped over the place in Bethlehem where the child was.
What was going on? Was there a real astronomical event in the sky then? First of all, we need to realise that the Magi were experienced star gazers of their day. They were from Persia and were called ‘Magupati’, and were priests of their day in a Persian religious sect. They would have studied the stars religiously. We know that they interpreted what they saw as meaning a special king would be born. That means they saw something quite special and unusual to come to this conclusion. So there have been a number of theories about what they actually saw. Theories include a comet, or a supernova, or a conjunction of planets (and various versions of that theory abound). Or potentially, there was a supernatural ‘different’ event which cannot be understood by astronomy today.
Whichever theory proves to be correct (and we actually will never be able to fully know) – the fact remains that a star in the sky led the Magi to Jesus. A star – which is several light years away from us – has a spiritual significance for the Magi, and by extension for us who celebrate their visit to the infant Jesus at the Feast of Epiphany. We may speak about God placing the stars into space, we may talk in theoretical terms of God creating the universe. But here we have evidence of the influence God has on the universe focussing in on an event on planet earth, in a small town called Bethlehem, on a particular date over 2,000 years ago. That was all in God’s plan.
God has the whole of the universe in his hands. He has our planet, and all of creation in his hands too. It is remarkable to think of all that. And yet still, God is interested in you and in me. He may be the creator of the entire universe, but He is also concerned about the small moments in our lives. This is why the Christ-child was born. He knows all about our lives, and everything we go through. So when we see the star above the church door, or we see any of the stars in space, let us look with wonder and remember God who created all the universe, and us too. Let us learn to see God in all aspects of His creation we see day to day, whether in flora or fauna, or even people we meet. Let us learn to follow wherever He is leading us.