I Hope The New Year Puts The Light Into Our Eyes, Allows The Embers Of The Fire To Glow Within Our Spirits,

That's beautiful! :)

Milky way over Mount Hood from Laurence Lake, Oregon

This Amazon/Author Hardcover Giveaway of A Cosmic Legacy: From Earth to the Stars is a compilation of all my publications contained within one text and part of a continuing story. Race to win, or simply buy it, and make this grand literary opus the favorite item in your library, next to your reading corner, on your nightstand, or in your living room, as you settle and read while the days go by.

Enjoy the story of several heroes who do as much as they can to heal the Earth, provide healing to those suffering most, and help humanity get out and into the Cosmos!

The Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) is 2019911854, and the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is 978-1-7333131-2-4, which is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other stores online. Conduct a keyword search for the author, Matthew J Opdyke.

Hashtags #SpaceOpera #ScienceFiction #SciFi #Fantasy #Cerebral #Sophisticated #Books #eBooks #MatthewJOpdyke #mjopublications #physics #astronomy #biotech #neurotech #nanotech #spaceexploration #wellbeing #EarthFirst #physiology #neurology #longevity #CRISPR #sociopoliticalscifi #forEveryone

Merry Christmas from FTB Pathway Publications

Please enjoy

Matthew Opdyke @ Author Central

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0578430436

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Black Holes are NICER Than You Think!

We’re learning more every day about black holes thanks to one of the instruments aboard the International Space Station! Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) instrument is keeping an eye on some of the most mysterious cosmic phenomena.

We’re going to talk about some of the amazing new things NICER is showing us about black holes. But first, let’s talk about black holes — how do they work, and where do they come from? There are two important types of black holes we’ll talk about here: stellar and supermassive. Stellar mass black holes are three to dozens of times as massive as our Sun while supermassive black holes can be billions of times as massive!

Stellar black holes begin with a bang — literally! They are one of the possible objects left over after a large star dies in a supernova explosion. Scientists think there are as many as a billion stellar mass black holes in our Milky Way galaxy alone!

Supermassive black holes have remained rather mysterious in comparison. Data suggest that supermassive black holes could be created when multiple black holes merge and make a bigger one. Or that these black holes formed during the early stages of galaxy formation, born when massive clouds of gas collapsed billions of years ago. There is very strong evidence that a supermassive black hole lies at the center of all large galaxies, as in our Milky Way.

Imagine an object 10 times more massive than the Sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City — or cramming a billion trillion people into a car! These two examples give a sense of how incredibly compact and dense black holes can be.

Because so much stuff is squished into such a relatively small volume, a black hole’s gravity is strong enough that nothing — not even light — can escape from it. But if light can’t escape a dark fate when it encounters a black hole, how can we “see” black holes?

Scientists can’t observe black holes directly, because light can’t escape to bring us information about what’s going on inside them. Instead, they detect the presence of black holes indirectly — by looking for their effects on the cosmic objects around them. We see stars orbiting something massive but invisible to our telescopes, or even disappearing entirely!

When a star approaches a black hole’s event horizon — the point of no return — it’s torn apart. A technical term for this is “spaghettification” — we’re not kidding! Cosmic objects that go through the process of spaghettification become vertically stretched and horizontally compressed into thin, long shapes like noodles.

Scientists can also look for accretion disks when searching for black holes. These disks are relatively flat sheets of gas and dust that surround a cosmic object such as a star or black hole. The material in the disk swirls around and around, until it falls into the black hole. And because of the friction created by the constant movement, the material becomes super hot and emits light, including X-rays.  

At last — light! Different wavelengths of light coming from accretion disks are something we can see with our instruments. This reveals important information about black holes, even though we can’t see them directly.

So what has NICER helped us learn about black holes? One of the objects this instrument has studied during its time aboard the International Space Station is the ever-so-forgettably-named black hole GRS 1915+105, which lies nearly 36,000 light-years — or 200 million billion miles — away, in the direction of the constellation Aquila.

Scientists have found disk winds — fast streams of gas created by heat or pressure — near this black hole. Disk winds are pretty peculiar, and we still have a lot of questions about them. Where do they come from? And do they change the shape of the accretion disk?

It’s been difficult to answer these questions, but NICER is more sensitive than previous missions designed to return similar science data. Plus NICER often looks at GRS 1915+105 so it can see changes over time.

NICER’s observations of GRS 1915+105 have provided astronomers a prime example of disk wind patterns, allowing scientists to construct models that can help us better understand how accretion disks and their outflows around black holes work.

NICER has also collected data on a stellar mass black hole with another long name — MAXI J1535-571 (we can call it J1535 for short) — adding to information provided by NuSTAR, Chandra, and MAXI. Even though these are all X-ray detectors, their observations tell us something slightly different about J1535, complementing each other’s data!

This rapidly spinning black hole is part of a binary system, slurping material off its partner, a star. A thin halo of hot gas above the disk illuminates the accretion disk and causes it to glow in X-ray light, which reveals still more information about the shape, temperature, and even the chemical content of the disk. And it turns out that J1535’s disk may be warped!

Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI and Artist: John Kagaya (Hoshi No Techou)

This isn’t the first time we have seen evidence for a warped disk, but J1535’s disk can help us learn more about stellar black holes in binary systems, such as how they feed off their companions and how the accretion disks around black holes are structured.

NICER primarily studies neutron stars — it’s in the name! These are lighter-weight relatives of black holes that can be formed when stars explode. But NICER is also changing what we know about many types of X-ray sources. Thanks to NICER’s efforts, we are one step closer to a complete picture of black holes. And hey, that’s pretty nice!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Curl up, read a new series of books, and be edified! Out now, Part 1, Vesha Celeste, and Part 2, Eliza Williams, have been paired together, and are available for those interested in the types and directions of science and the speculation that lead to well-being and quality of life. Please feel free to follow, message, share ideas, and be a part of a positive future where, if we choose, we can prepare properly to navigate the stars. This is just the beginning of this series and prequel, “Pathway to the Stars,” to an even more giant series, “Further than Before!” Please enjoy. https://www.amazon.com/author/matthewopdyke #sciencefiction #scifi #sciencefictionfantasy #scififantasy #politicalscifi #physiology #neurology #physics #Apolitical #strongfemalelead #biotechnology #neuroscience #theoreticalphysics #problemresolution #productivepursuits #spaceopera #cerebraldrama #sophisticateddialogue #solarsystem #spacemining #physiologicaloptimization, #neurologicaloptimization #transhumanism #universalethics #wellbeing #genetherapy #CRISPR #politicalsciencefiction #matthewopdyke https://www.instagram.com/p/BpUMW6ZgB1I/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=wy078mgrbgmm

What are white dwarfs?

Some curiosities about white dwarfs, a stellar corpse and the future of the sun.

Where a star ends up at the end of its life depends on the mass it was born with. Stars that have a lot of mass may end their lives as black holes or neutron stars.

A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have exhausted their nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning stage, this type of star expels most of its outer material, creating a planetary nebula.

In 5.4 billion years from now, the Sun will enter what is known as the Red Giant phase of its evolution. This will begin once all hydrogen is exhausted in the core and the inert helium ash that has built up there becomes unstable and collapses under its own weight. This will cause the core to heat up and get denser, causing the Sun to grow in size.

It is calculated that the expanding Sun will grow large enough to encompass the orbit’s of Mercury, Venus, and maybe even Earth.

A typical white dwarf is about as massive as the Sun, yet only slightly bigger than the Earth. This makes white dwarfs one of the densest forms of matter, surpassed only by neutron stars and black holes.

The gravity on the surface of a white dwarf is 350,000 times that of gravity on Earth. 

White dwarfs reach this incredible density because they are so collapsed that their electrons are smashed together, forming what is called “degenerate matter.” This means that a more massive white dwarf has a smaller radius than its less massive counterpart. Burning stars balance the inward push of gravity with the outward push from fusion, but in a white dwarf, electrons must squeeze tightly together to create that outward-pressing force. As such, having shed much of its mass during the red giant phase, no white dwarf can exceed 1.4 times the mass of the sun.

While many white dwarfs fade away into relative obscurity, eventually radiating away all of their energy and becoming a black dwarf, those that have companions may suffer a different fate.

If the white dwarf is part of a binary system, it may be able to pull material from its companion onto its surface. Increasing the mass can have some interesting results.

One possibility is that adding more mass to the white dwarf could cause it to collapse into a much denser neutron star.

A far more explosive result is the Type 1a supernova. As the white dwarf pulls material from a companion star, the temperature increases, eventually triggering a runaway reaction that detonates in a violent supernova that destroys the white dwarf. This process is known as a single-degenerate model of a Type 1a supernova. 

If the companion is another white dwarf instead of an active star, the two stellar corpses merge together to kick off the fireworks. This process is known as a double-degenerate model of a Type 1a supernova.

At other times, the white dwarf may pull just enough material from its companion to briefly ignite in a nova, a far smaller explosion. Because the white dwarf remains intact, it can repeat the process several times when it reaches the critical point, briefly breathing life back into the dying star over and over again. 

Image credit: www.aoi.com.au/ NASA/ ESA/ Hubble/  Wikimedia Commons/ Fsgregs/ quora.com/ quora.com/ NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger/ ESO/ ESO/ Chandra X-ray Observatory

Source: NASA/ NASA/ space.com

New Type Of Space Object Called “G Objects” Look Like Gas But Behave Like Stars! Found Near Our Supermassive Black Hole In The Milky Way.

I am pleased to announce the New Release of Pathway to the Stars: Part 6.1, Trilogy!!! Continue the journey!

In Eliza's preface to her story, she taught us a lot. Here is one of her quotes, available in the new release:

"We need to overcome our apparent fixation toward and acceptance of suffering, misery, and death—many argue to the contrary. We need to rise up and fight against senescence and death, and if necessary, until our own ends. Doing so will fill our lives with purpose and lead to much more than a dismal and silly existence. Life will be a greater reward if we carry on with the spirit or thought of enabling the future of humanity for the long-haul."

~ Eliza Williams - "Pathway to the Stars: Part 6.1, Trilogy," Appendix

Announcing the Second Space Opera Trilogy! Enjoy the journey!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YMFQOeOWdNU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque

Further Than Before: Pathway to the Stars, Tome

This gigantic manuscript consists of the stories in both “Further Than Before: Pathway to the Stars, Part 1 and Part 2” compiled into a gigantic scholarly text, called the “Tome.” For Eliza and her crew of friends, it is a race against time to meet new cultures, preserve life, and share our legacies with distant civilizations, so we can span the Cosmos and go further than before! Purchase this eBook or HEFT this TOME in the printed format and enjoy the entire original Space Opera! The “Further Than Before” series, subtitled “Pathway to the Stars,” consists of all of the stories in an abridged format, ready for people to see what happens before each of the more detailed “Pathway to the Stars” series booklets are released, and is available in a Part 1 and Part 2, which are in-turn compiled into a gigantic scholarly text, called the “Tome.” Eliza Williams, Yesha Alevtina, James Cooper, Vesha Celeste, Sky Taylor and a host of friendly heroes tackle some of the greatest dilemmas of the day to bring humanity out and into the stars bearing a legacy we would be proud to share with other civilizations–a legacy of kindness, of mind-to-mind communication, of love, and of healing instead of harming. If we are to overcome the great expansion and the death of all life, we must overcome the smaller challenges to progress and focus on even greater ones. Eliza and her team work diligently to speed the pace of society in her world with the belief that beauty and untold potential are within every being. If we find ways to bring that out in ourselves and others, a future where we can breed longevity, a collective and high quality of life, augment the clarity of our minds, and innovate to span the Cosmos may be in our grasp. Within the organization Eliza founded, called Pathway, she and her team takes us on a fantastical and near-Utopian journey to get us out and into the farthest reaches of space, as we advance further than we have before, to make this happen. There are dilemmas such as the need for longevity and the ability to visit loved ones following long journeys, and they put in place the capabilities to overcome the effects of space travel on our physiology and neurology. We journey as Eliza, and her growing crew of friends, are determined to stabilize a rocky economy, wipe away undue suffering, violence, disease, terrorism, and trafficking in persons. They work together to tame seismic activity, weather, and fires. She and her friends tackle ways to prevent extinction and provide solutions to quality of life concerns. They even consider the longevity of our Sun and our Earth’s capacity to preserve life. Eliza tackles each of these issues to get us out, and into the stars, so we can begin our biggest quest–to help our Universe breathe ever so lightly. Allowing it to expand and contract ever so gently, may allow us to preserve its life as well as all of life, allowing us to maximize our mental capacity. With intellect, experience, perspective, kindness, and graciousness we will have the ability to gain more wisdom leading to longevity and clarity of mind. For Eliza and her crew of friends, it is a race against time to meet new civilizations, preserve life, share our legacies, and go further than before! Heft this Tome and join me on the entire original Space Opera of this Pathway to the Stars! No matter the challenge, there will always be an opportunity for greater pursuits! #spaceopera #spaceoperabooks #scifibooks #futurism #scifiauthor #sciencefiction #scififantasy #biotech #nanotech #neurotech #spacetravel #solarsystem #sciencefictionbooks Amazon Author Site: https://www.amazon.com/author/matthew… Author Website: https://www.ftb-pathway-publications.com LinkedIn Company Site: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ftb-… Facebook FTB General Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Furth… Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Further-Than… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthewopdyke/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Besokster Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/besokster/

Happy International Women’s Day!

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day, a day in which we honor and recognize the contributions of women…both on Earth and in space.

Since the beginning, women have been essential to the progression and success of America’s space program.

Throughout history, women have had to overcome struggles in the workplace. The victories for gender rights were not achieved easily or quickly, and our work is not done.

Today, we strive to make sure that our legacy of inclusion and excellence lives on.

We have a long-standing cultural commitment to excellence that is largely driven by data, including data about our people. And our data shows progress is driven by questioning our assumptions and cultural prejudices – by embracing and nurturing all talent we have available, regardless of gender, race or other protected status, to build a workforce as diverse as our mission. This is how we, as a nation, will take the next giant leap in exploration.

As a world leader in science, aeronautics, space exploration and technology, we have a diverse mission that demands talent from every corner of America, and every walk of life.

So, join us today, and every day, as we continue our legacy of inclusion and excellence.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Learn more about the inspiring woman at NASA here: https://women.nasa.gov/