You received a note from Otterbein classmate Sandy J. Z. this morning, and she said [your old friend], “Jeannie P. S. said ‘Hi!’ and Sandy went on to say they have remained close friends throughout the years. You returned her note wishing Jeannie well, as always. ” What comes to mind as this is being scripted is, ‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.’ This is an open surprise of words from an old agnostic; but so noted. – Amorella.
I don’t know what to say.
This is how it is in the books, orndorff. Sometimes thoughts fly and people keep their mouths shut. HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither may be fiction but there’s a human truth in the concept. Post. – Amorella.
You are at the Social Security Office off By-pass 4 waiting for Carol’s appointment at 2:45 and wondering why the last comment.
I am. I am wondering if Merlyn is keeping his mouth shut when talking to Arthur. I don’t see how Arthur can possibly help Merlyn – in the old stories it is the other way around.
Today on NASA a new picture of the night sky is posted:
Gamma rays are by their very nature heralds of great energy and violence. They are a super-energetic form of light produced by sources such as black holes and massive exploding stars. Gamma-rays are so energetic that ordinary lenses and mirrors do not work. As a result, gamma-ray telescopes can't always get a sharp enough focus to determine exactly where the sources are.
For two thirds of the new catalog's sources the Fermi scientists can, with at least reasonable certainty, locate a known gamma ray-producing object*, such as a pulsar or blazar, in the vicinity the gamma-rays are coming from. But the remaining third – the "mystery sources" -- have the researchers stumped, at least for now. And they are the most tantalizing.
"Some of the mystery sources could be clouds of dark matter – something that's never been seen before," speculates Thompson.
About 85% of the gravitational mass of the universe is dark matter. The stuff we see makes up the rest. Dark matter is something that pulls on things with the force of its gravity but can't be detected in any other way. It doesn't shine – doesn't emit or scatter light – hence the adjective "dark."
Astronomers cannot detect dark matter directly using optical or radio telescopes. But dark matter just might shine in gamma rays.
"We've been using Fermi to search for dark matter for a long time," says the principal investigator for the Large Area Telescope, Peter Michelson of Stanford University.
Some researchers believe that when two dark matter antiparticles bump into each other, they will annihilate, producing gamma rays. Concentrated clouds of dark matter could form a gamma ray source at specific wavelengths detectable by Fermi.
"If we see a bump in the gamma-ray spectrum -- a narrow spectral line at high energies corresponding to the energy of the annihilating particles – we could be the first to 'apprehend' dark matter,” says Michelson.
The team plans to continue observing the mystery sources. Fermi scans the entire sky ever three hours, and this ongoing sequence of observations "piles up" gamma rays for the researchers to analyze. So far, too few gamma rays have been collected from the mystery sources to form definite conclusions.
Another, less-dark possibility for some of the mystery sources is colliding galaxy clusters. According to Michelson and Thompson, clashes of such magnitude would generate super large scale shock waves that would accelerate particles. Others of the sources, they say, might be some brand new phenomenon, perhaps something involving galactic black holes.
When all is said and done, many of the mystery sources could prove to be familiar.
"[They] will probably turn out to be members of known source classes – things we know but haven't recognized yet, like undiscovered pulsars, binary systems, and supernova remnants," says Michelson.
"Of course we're hoping for something really exotic like dark matter, but we have to look first at all the other options," says Thompson. "Fermi is an ongoing mission. We'll continue to search for answers to these puzzles and perhaps turn up even more surprises."
From: science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/18oct_600mysteries
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I like the concept: “Dark matter is something that pulls on things with the force of its gravity but can't be detected in any other way. It doesn't shine – doesn't emit or scatter light – hence the adjective "dark." Maybe the River Styx could work on such a principle – rather than the water flowing as it would do on Earth, it is pulled, souls are pulled, they appear to swim but that is not the case. How would a heartanmind know. Water flows, so that would be the assumption, but in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither it is pulled.
What difference would this make, boy?
I don’t know. It might. People make assumptions and creative intuition might also be mislead. As dark matter appears to be a mystery, Merlyn might discover the river water is pulled; it might make a difference in terms of a reflection on the rebellion. This is something he could bring up with Arthur although I don’t know what Arthur could do but listen. Something might come of the idea.
What would you do have Angels do the pulling like Apollo pulling the sun across the sky?
I want to keep the Angels out of it as much as possible. I want the metaphysics to be machine-like just as physics is.
How about some of the water of the Styx is drawn out of the fountain at Avalon? – Amorella.
No. That would be from suction and lift. No air in the Beyond. And, the spring happens when the underground aquifer meets the surface. The Styx would not be pulled out of the ground under the island. I always think of gravity drawing matter down to its lowest level, like water flowing to its lowest possible level. If the Styx is pulled though it can, in effect, travel uphill and as the spirit world is thought of as up, as in the heavens, then one could have such a river.
Something to think about. We would have to have a ‘Reason’ and a ‘Purpose’ just as people need a reason and a purpose for living. Post. – Amorella.
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