Sunday, June 24, 2018

Jupiter.

The Earth would fit inside Jupiter 1324 times! It may not appear to be that much bigger than Earth, but, the way someone described it to me was: Because of the mass of Jupiter, it would be like a balloon, the planet would stretch , just like a balloon. Just like a balloon stretching to hold more water or anything else you put in it, Jupiter would, THEORETICALLY, stretch whenever you put something inside of it. It would stretch out enough to where All the other planets, including Pluto, would fit inside of it!
The famous, Great Red Spot is about Three times bigger than Earth.
It is a large storm that's been going on for over 300 years. It is currently, slowly shrinking. It spins counterclockwise at about 225 MPH (360 KPH). It is comparable to a hurricane.
Jupiter would fit inside the Sun 9 times.
It has a faint ring system. Scientists did not know about the rings until the Voyager Spacecraft got there. Voyager showed the rings for the first time. The rings are too faint to be seen with a Telescope. In fact, I have a really powerful Telescope and I can't see the ring with it. University of Central Florida in Cocoa, FL has the second largest Telescope in the state of FL and they can't see it with that scope.
It has, as of now, 69 confirmed Moons. Probably, more to be found.
Looking through my Telescope, I can see the color bands on the planet and Six of it largest Moons.
Since, Galileo invented his own Telescope and looked at Jupiter, and discovered 4 of these same Moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto), they are called: Galileo Moons. Those are Jupiter's largest moons. The rest are too small to see from Earth.
(Unfortunately, someone else invented the Telescope, just a short period of time before Galileo invented his telescope. So, he can't claim credit for inventing it.)
There are some very violent storms on Jupiter. Mostly inside the planet. Lightning on this planet is much more powerful than what we experience here on Earth. Scientists believe that it rains Diamonds inside of Jupiter. Because of the heat and pressure inside of the giant ball of Gas. But, they can't prove it.
The composition of the planet is mostly: Hydrogen, Helium and Ammonia. It's believed to have a rocky and metallic core.
Since the planet spins so fast, it completes one rotation in 9.8 Earth hours.
The rapid rotation causes Jupiter to bulge at the Equator. The diameter at the Equator is: 88,846 Miles (142,948 K).
The diameter at the poles is: 83,082 Miles (133,708 K). The Scientific name for this shape is: An Oblate Spheroid.
Jupiter is a Brown Dwarf. A failed star. Since it is made up of the same elements as most stars. However, it would have to be 75 times more massive to cause nuclear fusion of Hydrogen and turn into a star.
The color bands around Jupiter are created by strong 400 MPH (640 K) winds flowing East to West in the planets upper atmosphere.
Jupiter has a huge magnetic field, larger than any other planets. It is also the strongest magnetic field in our Solar System. It's almost 20,000 times strong than the one here on Earth! It is more than 1,000 times the lethal dose of radiation for a human. This magnetic field damages every spacecraft that goes near it, even if it is heavily shielded. The magnetic field extends out between 600,000 - 2 Million Miles (1 Million - 3 Million  K) towards the Sun and forms a tail which extends over 600 Million Miles (1 Billion K) behind the planet.
At it's furthest point from the Sun Jupiter is 507.04 Million Miles away.
When it's closest to the Sun it's 460.24 Million Miles away.
It orbits the Sun at a speed of 29,205 MPH. Completing one rotation around the Sun in 11.86 Earth years.
The distance from Jupiter to Saturn depends on where they are in orbit. When they are on the same side of the Sun and at their closest point, they are approximately 5 Astronomical Units (AU) away from each other.
When they are on opposite sides of the Sun, they are about 15 AU away from each other.
(One AU is the average distance between the Sun and Earth. 93 Million Miles or 149,668,992 K).
Depending on where the Earth and Jupiter are in their orbits, Jupiter is between 4.2 and 6.2 AU away from Earth.
We are lucky to have a planet the size of Jupiter in our Solar System, because, being so big, it has a lot of gravity. It attracts a lot of Metiors and other things to it. So, rather than hitting Earth or the other planets, a lot of them hit Jupiter instead.
Imagine what might have happened if Shoemaker-Levy would of hit Earth.
The SL comet had been captured by Jupiter's gravity about 20 or 30 years before it broke into several large pieces and hit Jupiter in July of 1994. The fragments of the comet got too close to the planet on July 16, 1994. The first impact created a fireball larger than Earth! A total of 21 impacts were observed over the next six days. The largest one created a dark spot more than 7,456 Miles (12,000 K) across. The explosion it created was 6 Million Megatons of TNT. That's 600 times the worlds entire known nuclear arsenal at that time, according to: www.americaspace.com.
A comet or meteor that size hitting Earth would quickly put an end to all life on Earth! In fact, most Scientists believe that it was a large meteor that crashed into Earth 65,000,000 years ago that killed off the Dinosaurs.

For anyone asking: Why does the US need to have a SPACE FORCE?

FOR ANYONE WHO IS WONDERING WHY WE NEED A SPACE FORCE:

    I'm pretty sure there was a time when people said: "Why do we need a Navy? Why do we need an Air Force? What good are those going to do? That's a waste of money!
Why are they spending Billions of dollars creating Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, Army Rangers, Delta Force and similar things? That's a waste of money! They are wasting my tax dollars on this!
Why are they spending so much money on building nuclear weapons? That could destroy the whole world in just a few minutes!
The enemy can and does attack the US and other countries from the air and water. That's why we need Air Force and Navy.
There's things going on in the world everyday that you and I will never know about. We have enemies all over the world. People are constantly thinking of things they can do to attack another country. Delta Force is a top secret military organization that, up until Clinton was in office, we weren't even supposed to know about. The government denied its existence completely. Bill Clinton hinted that there might be an organization like that, but that's all I'm going to say.
They are constantly protecting the world from terrorists.
Navy Seals and Special Forces take most of the missions that are way too difficult, dangerous and top secret for any other military units to take on.
SEALS killed Bin Laden, for instance.
The reason we have nukes is to PREVENT nuclear wars from ever happening in the first place. How? N. Korea, Russia, Iran and all other countries that don't like the US, they all know that the US invented both Atomic and Nuclear weapons. They also know that the US has more of them than most other countries. I'm sure there's probably a country somewhere in the world that probably has more than we do, but, the US has more than 99.999% of other countries in the world. They know better than to launch a nuke at the US or our allies. Because, the US can and will track their missiles coming in from tracking devices in space and on the ground. If they launch ONE single nuke at us, the President will first, launch about 20, multiwarhead missiles on their country and turn them into a pile of rubble!
Technology is changing really fast all over the world and we need a new way to fight crime, terror, illegal immigration, drugs, nuclear war, the list goes on and on.
Just like Science Fiction movies from the 1980's and even ling before that predicted, we would be in space by the year 2000. Well, we're late getting into space! 18 years late, but, it was inevitably going to happen.
Not only should we have a military presence in space, but also, a lot more Scientists should be up there studying the Earth and it's atmosphere.
As soon as the US gets a military presence in space, other countries will do the same. Our enemies will be up there to.
From outer space, you can see an entire continent, so, instead of an airplane flying over the ground between 300 feet to 5 miles off the ground, they have satellites and troops 20,000 miles or more above the ground. They will be able to look down and see everything. The enemy won't be able to hide very easily on the ground anymore.
The US and rest of the world will be forced to invent new technologies to keep up with the Space Force. When a Scientist tries to invent something specific, they will have to work on it for a long time. In the process, they will accidentally discover and invent other things. That is how we got the Lazer and the Microwave along with Millions of other things.
There is a lot of "Space Junk" flying around in space. It's all over up there. A lot is in orbit around Earth. That could crash in on us and cause a lot of problems. Space Force can protect us from that and try to find a way to clean it up.
They will watch for Metiors and yes, even UFOs!
Space Force will be above the atmosphere of Earth, so, they will have a better, much clearer view of outer space. That will help us study Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry and other things.
They can even send FBI agents up to watch down on the ground, not just in the US, but, in other countries to, and they can track criminals before they run too far away. Then, hopefully, it won't take 10 years to find them, like it did to get Bin Laden!
There's probably a Million other good reasons to have a Space Force.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

LIGHTNING TRIVIA:

Lightning can strike up to 20 Miles away from a thunderstorm.
When you see Lightning in the distance on a hot day, but, you don't hear thunder, that's because, there is a storm a long ways away. Too far for you to see the rain clouds or hear the thunder. This makes it look like the lighting is being caused by the heat. People often think it is the heat that is causing the lighting. It's often referred to as "Heat Lightning". But, Heat Lightning does not exist. It is regular lightning from a storm that's too far away for you to see the rain or hear the thunder.
Lightning strikes the Earth between 50 and 100 times per second! Astronauts have confirmed that as fact, because they can see the clouds light up in several different places around the world, all at the same time. They can see it from the space station.
Lightning can travel in all directions, most Lightning is cloud to cloud lightning and it doesn't hit the ground. On the ground it can travel straight down, up, or sideways. According to the Discovery Channel and some high speed video footage of lightning strikes, which you can see on YouTube, most Lightning travels from the ground up, NOT down from the clouds!
Lightning has between 1 Million and 1 Billion Volts.
In the movie: Back To The Future, they use the the word: "Jigowatt". There is no such thing as a Jigowatt. The actors mispronounced the word: "Gigawatt". Just like the computer term, Gigabyte- 1 Billion bytes, a Gigawatt is 1 Billion Watts.
When people get struck by lightning, they usually don't get hit directly by the bolt, usually, the lighting hits something else, if someone is touching the object that got hit, they get zapped. It can also "splash", or bounce off something it hits and hit someone. Sometimes, it hits the wet ground several feet away and if a person is standing on the ground near the strikes, electricity travels across the wet ground and hits them.
The record for the most times being struck by lightning lightning is 7 times! It was a park ranger. He lived to tell about it! However, he had Psychological and physical health problems after being struck that many times.
The lighting capital of the word as of 2016, according to NASA.gov, is: Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. They get an avg of 233 lightning strikes per square Km every year.
Before NASA researched this, The Congo Basin in Africa held the record for the most Lightning activity each year.
NASA conducted their research with: "The Lighting Image Sensor" (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission.
The lighting capital of the US is Tampa, FL. They have more Lightning than any US city. The word Tampa comes from the Clausa Tribe in the 16th century. The word Tampa means: "Sticks of Fire".
The Lighting Belt is an area of FL that extends from Tampa to Orlando and from Orlando down to Ft Myers and Lake Okeechobee. That  area of FL gets the most Lightning each year.
Lightning can generate heat up to 60,000 degrees F. That's 6 times hotter than the surface of the Sun!
Lightning kills more people than Hurricanes and Tornadoes combined every year.
NASA is not supposed to launch rockets through clouds, because, that could trigger lightning. However, I have seen them do it and the rockets did not cause lightning. Not the ones I saw.
Most commercial airplanes get struck by lightning at least once or more every year. Because of all the safety features on airplanes  to protect the plane and passengers from lightning, most people don't even know that the airplane was struck by lightning. In fact, planes can even trigger lightning.
Experts say that if lightning hits your car while you're in it, you should be safe. The force of the lighting will be absorbed by the outer frame of the car and you, theoretically, should not be affected by it. Unless you stick your arm out the window and touch something else that is touching the ground, then you'll get fried.
Lightning can be produced by other things besides rain, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, rockets and sometimes even a huge fire, which can also cause a fire tornado. That is a whirlwind caused by a fire. It sucks up the flame. Now the tornado is spinning around and it is actually spinning a flame around with it! Making it even more dangerous.l
Some other planets have storms on them and some of them also produce lightning. Jupiter has some of the most violent storms  in the Solar system. According to NASA, Lightning on Jupiter is much more powerful than what we experience on Earth.
(Most of this information comes from: Discovery Channel, NASA.gov, Orlandosentinel.com and Scientificamerican.com.)