AstroScience

Astrophotography is a fantastic hobby that can be enjoyed by everyone. In their own right, I believe astrophotographs to be works of art – both representing scientific data from the heavens and artistic interpretations at the same time. Socially, the hobby also brings about sharing, not only of beautiful images, but also the techniques and methods of bringing these images to life. People post images on various social media and this brings an appreciation of what’s out there. Some lean more on the artistic side, giving a photographic interpretation, while others lean towards getting at the technical explanation of what the subject matter is. Some also post the equipment they used, the processing they conducted and often a snippet about the distance, size, and category of what they are imaging.

On Astrobin, there was once a forum discussion as to whether astrophotography was an art or a science. (If you missed this discussion, I am sure it will come up again). Everyone had the obvious arguments for or against, whether it was quantitative or not, how much artistic freedom there was, whether it was both or neither, etc. etc. While, trying to contribute to the discussion I was finding that from a science and understanding point of view, there was little discussion on actual image postings on what the heck we were looking at, how it works, and why does it look way it does. I was deeply enjoying creating my own images, but I really wanted answers too – and scientific ones.

I consider myself an expert in remote sensing, having had to use my imagination to interpret the indirect measurement of what is deep underground through petrophysical (sending measuring gear to the bottom of wells) and geophysical measurements (using seismic/sound data to explore geology) and simple production data (what comes out/goes in to the wells) coupled with scientific understanding and analogies to learn what is going on. All this data needs to be integrated into a coherent picture of what is going on for forecasting, optimization and future development purposes. As a scientist or engineer, you are quite remote from what you are studying.

I feel a bit at home with Astronomy even though I have only being doing it for a few years. In Astronomy one is also very remote from the things one is studying. While you can see what is going on, that is all you can do – the other senses are pretty useless. Its all remote sensing, whether that is through visual astronomy, astrophotography, astrophysics (measuring and analysis of photons). Together with cosmologists, astrophysicists have to put this altogether into a coherent story.

Since both oil and gas exploration and production as well as astronomy and astrophysics are studying things remotely, it is difficult to prove the validity of the story. Unlike in a laboratory where you can control most external variables, you have to take whatever you get – whatever you can remotely measure. One critical difference between oil and gas exploration and astronomy that I will point out is the degree of consequences. In the former, economic well being is at stake, whereas in astronomy, there are generally fewer consequences to getting something wrong. This makes astronomy much less stressful, and the perfect hobby – all the interest – none of the stress (at least not for us amateurs). While many of the professional astrophysicists and cosmologist are in horror when the JWST data shatters pet theories and misconceptions, I actually rejoice because from my perspective it would be pretty dull if all it said was “Yeah, you were right”.

Most cosmological explanations are fantastic, although sometimes I believe they are not appreciated or understood by many astrophotographers. I marvel at the work, time, and resources spent at coming up with logical explanations for what we see. I have certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed reading papers and articles that come out and even extra-curricular youtube videos to watch. But like any good engineer, I was a problem to solve and a puzzle to work out.

But there is a “dark emotion” associated with our scientific understanding that actually makes up 27% of the way I feel about astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. This dark emotion doesn’t really interact with the joy I have at seeing the images, but it does weigh down my enjoyment of understanding them. It’s as if I have to let my understanding of thermodynamics, chemistry, and dynamics get sucked into a black hole. My internal gut, along with my business and scientific experience tells me that we are using the fact that space is remote as an excuse to invent all sorts of fantastical creatures to pretend we know what we are talking about. Here are my top “unicorns”

1. Black holes are a physical singularity where matter takes up no space. This one is easily debunked by observing everything and anything else in the universe and seeing that a singularity is only a mathematical construct. Stephen Hawking essentially debunked this by showing that black holes have entropy, temperature, and stuff radiates out of it – so time is curing this one.
2. Atomic hydrogen clouds spontaneously contract/compress to form stars just by the nature of the cloud size. This explanation continues to be popularized despite being against the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the hydrogen atoms not being able to decide who should be at the centre of the star, pressure would blow such a cloud apart should it start to contract, and finally this never ever happens in real life.
3. There is dark matter that only weighs something, but doesn’t actually interact in any other way. This is a popularized oversimplification. Yes, the public understands the concept, but really it is a fudge factor to make their equations work. Astrophysicists can only record what they see – it is convenient that they can’t see dark matter. It is also convenient that we can produce any ourselves, or that is doesn’t exist naturally in my back yard or my garage. One is left with a kind of ghost, while they are unnecessary to explain the universe, ghosts cannot be disproven. Same with dark matter. (I explain that I believe dark matter is simply molecular hydrogen in my galactic structure series of posts).
4. Dark energy. Now I believe we don’t quite understand what is causing the universe to expand, I don’t think I buy this unicorn either – but I will keep an open mind. Certainly we don’t need dark energy to explain monetary inflation and we don’t need variable Hubble constants.

Astronomy represents the ultimate in pop-science, and I have to admit I do enjoy sensational stories myself that trigger the imagination. However, I don’t like it when scientific sovereignty is invaded by fairy tales and I am asked to abandon my core beliefs.

There is a fracture in the astronomical scientific community and I think this is evident is two quotes. The first is from Richard Feynman (one of my personal heros) that is:

The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth. See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

The second quote can be found just about everywhere online, but I pulled this one from Cern.

Dark matter seems to outweigh visible matter roughly six to one, making up about 27% of the universe. Here’s a sobering fact: The matter we know and that makes up all stars and galaxies only accounts for 5% of the content of the universe!

Where I believe we get tripped up, is right back at the beginning of these theories and the fundamental properties of real matter and energy. Real gases are not ideal – their molecules are sticky. Real fluids have viscosity, while ideal fluids do not. Real substances often have dipole moments. Real substances can take different forms and phases according to thermodynamics. Real substances have stresses, pressures, and temperatures. Real energy is conserved (at least in a time symmetric sense) and real entropy always grows (at least to observers on this side of black hole’s even horizon). Radiative, conductive, and convective heat transfer happen all at the same time. If one fails to recognize these properties, that one might find themselves making up a new substance or phenomenon that breaks real scientific laws. We have somehow led astray into thinking everything in the universe non-dissipative and ideal, just because matter is rarefied.

Our understanding of the universe can only be achieved through the understanding of non-linear dynamics (including thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, electromagnetic dynamics). Such non-linear systems are both hard to understand, and yet responsible for most of the complex behavior we see down on earth. Why it is popular to make up snake oils and fairy dust to explain things, we shouldn’t really shouldn’t do it – even the alternative is to lose the clockwork certainty of classical physics that we all love to grasp onto. Although it is an older book, I would highly recommend reading James Gliek’s book “Chaos, Making a New Science” Penguin Books, 1988. This book describes non-linear mechanics and chaotic systems in a very digestible way – no calculus needed.

Where I believe a lot of the mainstream explanations of thing arise is that of a lack of knowledge of non-linear (or chaotic) dynamic systems. Once again, I will turn to a Feynman quote where he explains his two questions for God…

“Why quantum mechanics? And why turbulence?”

The first question is obvious (even though the answer is currently beyond us). The second question is less obvious, but I believe reflects Feynman’s appreciation that turbulence (as a representation of non-linear dynamic systems) explains why a lot of what we see going on and yet fundamentally we cannot predict its outcome – no matter the fine scale that we measure and know its most minute of properties. We will be relying on both turbulence and quantum mechanics to explain not only the birth of stars, but also how galaxies work and function. The whole field of non-linear mechanics is lost on our current cosmological understandings, replaced by simulation. Simulations don’t work in non-linear dynamics, as illustrated by Lorenz and his weather simulations – a fact ignored by both many cosmologists and climate scientists. I know from my own business that basing investments on simulation results is a very bad idea. Simulations only tell you what you want to here and don’t really prove or even demonstrate much at all. Astronomy is currently run through simulations. They sure are pretty though don’t bet the farm on them.

So I have summoned enough dark energy to counterbalance this by creating this website partly to vanquish the demons of pop-culture that undermine true understanding. I hope you enjoy my explanations you might read on this website, and forgive my 27% criticisms of some of the established ones. I cannot help but point them out when they occur.My main point is you won’t hear fairy tales here – just science. Although it is tempting to wow people with talks of mathematical divide by zero errors in the real universe, lots of mysterious and magical fairy dust that makes gravity work, snake oil that makes the universe expand, and all sorts of Harry Potter stuff, you won’t find that here. Sometimes the explanations will test your math and physics skills because often the real story is complex and difficult – but I would rather keep this site non-fictional. I am not saying everything I right is gospel, just that I don’t lean on silly concepts such as the spontaneous collapse of a gas into a star.

On a positive note, I think I have described the 27% of all astronomical knowledge that I disagree with. I think you will find that the remaining three quarters is in line with conventional understanding. For these, I hope to give you at least a different perspective that adds to, rather than butts heads with conventional thinking. There is some great research out there and great scientific videos, papers, and discussions. I make full use of it, when I find it. What I crave most of all, however, is debate and discussion. Please, please, please comment on anything you either agree with and enjoyed reading, or disagree with and if you convince me, I will correct.