Theory/Cosmogony

This is an image of the painting about Urknall. Credit: Hans Breinlinger.

Cosmogony is any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence, or origin, of the cosmos or universe, or about how what sentient beings perceive as "reality" came to be.

Usually, the philosophy of cause and effect needs a beginning, a first cause. Modal logic may only require a probability rather than a sequence of events. The concept of uncountable suggests an unknown somewhere between a finite number of likely rationales and an infinite number of possibilities.

From a sense of time as moving forward from yesterday to today and onward to tomorrow, there is again a suggestion of a prehistoric time before the first hominins.

The use of any system of thought or emotion to perceive reality suggests that some existences may precede others.

When more detail becomes available an existence may be transformed into something, an entity, a source, an object, a rocky object, or out of existence.

As a topic in astronomy, cosmogony deals with the origin of each astronomical entity.

Observation, for example, using radiation astronomy may provide some details.

Theoretical astronomy may provide some understanding, or at least some perspective.

Astronomy

Main resource: Keynote lectures/Astronomy

In astronomy, cosmogony refers to the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used in reference to the origin of the solar system.

Cosmology

"Cosmology is the study of the structure and changes in the present universe, while the scientific field of cosmogony is concerned with the origin of the universe. Observations about our present universe may not only allow predictions to be made about the future, but they also provide clues to events that happened long ago when ... the cosmos began."

Astrogony

The hominins of Earth may have observed and recorded a genealogy, or a begetting, of astronomical objects. Such a begetting may be called an astrogony.

Their astronomical observations may have suggested a genealogy, a progression from one astronomical object to another from the point of view of Earth. These objects may have been recorded and perhaps regarded based on what was observed.

Sun-system astrogony

At least in the northern hemisphere of Earth, the local hominins may have observed, recorded, and regarded a progression of astronomical objects in the sky.

These objects have been remarkable enough that they have made their presence known to the locals of Earth. The time frame could be as short as 10,000 years or as long as a million.

From the current state of knowledge about astronomical objects around other stars, especially nearby, it may be possible to imagine similar objects in the solar system to account for these observations.

Since hominins are recording these phenomena, it is reasonable that these phenomena occurred during an oral history into a written history in some form.

Watery abyss

This is an image of Chaos magnum from a book. Credit: Sailko.

The image at right is Chaos magno, a primordial or first Greek god.

For specific cosmogonic details the most important piece of Mesopotamian literature is the Babylonian epic story of creation, Enuma Elish (ibid., 60–72). Here, as in Genesis, the priority of water is taken for granted, i.e., the primeval chaos consisted of a watery abyss. The name for this watery abyss, part of which is personified by the goddess Tiamat, is the etymological equivalent of the Hebrew tehom (Gen. 1:2), a proper name that always appears in the Bible without the definite article. (It should be noted, however, that whereas "Tiamat" is the name of a primal generative force, tehom is merely a poetic term for a lifeless mass of water.) In both Genesis (1:6–7) and Enuma Elish (4:137–40) the creation of heaven and earth resulted from the separation of the waters by a firmament. The existence of day and night precedes the creation of the luminous bodies (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, and 14ff.; Enuma Elish 1:38).

Neptune was the Roman god of water and the sea in Roman mythology and religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter. Italic Neptune has been securely identified as a god of freshwater sources as well as the sea.

The orbit of Neptune is the furthest from the Sun of the planets. Its orbit may be slowly increasing as it moves further away from the Sun.

Skies

Main resources: Skies/Astronomy and Skies

This is an image of a painting by artist Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574). Credit: Dodo Vasari.

Uranus, Ouranos meaning "sky" or "heaven", was the primal Greek god personifying the sky. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father.

The image at right is a painting by artist Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574). The main focus is on Cronus (Saturn) castrating Uranus (the Greek sky god). As both Uranus and Cronus are represented by men, this suggests that they were similar in nature. "[T]he ancients’ religions and mythology speak for their knowledge of Uranus; the dynasty of gods had Uranus followed by Saturn, and the latter by Jupiter. ... It is quite possible that the planet Uranus is the very planet known by this name to the ancients. The age of Uranus preceded the age of Saturn; it came to an end with the “removal” of Uranus by Saturn. Saturn is said to have emasculated his father Uranus."

Aphrodite

""Foam-born" Aphrodite is linked to the Moon through her epithet Pasiphaessa, the 'All-shinig One'. In Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite was conceived in the lap of the waves which were fertilized by semen from the severed genitals of Ouranos, Heaven, and was 'born in soft foam', as the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite puts it.⁷¹"

"Democritus and Anaxagoras taught that there was a time when the Earth was without the Moon. Aristotle wrote that Arcadia in Greece, before being inhabited by the Hellenes, had a population of Pelasgians, and that these aborigines occupied the land already before there was a moon in the sky above the Earth; for this reason they were called Proselenes."

"Apollonius of Rhodes mentioned the time “when not all the orbs were yet in the heavens, before the Danai and Deukalion races came into existence, and only the Arcadians lived, of whom it is said that they dwelt on mountains and fed on acorns, before there was a moon.”"

"Plutarch wrote in The Roman Questions: “There were Arcadians of Evander’s following, the so-called pre-Lunar people.” Similarly wrote Ovid: “The Arcadians are said to have possessed their land before the birth of Jove, and the folk is older than the Moon.” Hippolytus refers to a legend that “Arcadia brought forth Pelasgus, of greater antiquity than the moon.” Lucian in his Astrology says that “the Arcadians affirm in their folly that they are older than the moon.”"

"Censorinus also alludes to the time in the past when there was no moon in the sky."

"[T]he Moon’s formation took place away from the Earth,."

“The moon was formed independently of the earth and later captured, presumably by a three-body interaction, and these events were followed by the dissipation of the excess energy through tidal friction in a close encounter.”

"[T]he Moon could not have been formed in orbit around the Earth".

"[T]he planetary origin and capture of the Moon by the Earth becomes a strong dynamic possibility.”

Golden age

"An, the oldest and highest of the Sumero-Babylonian gods, whose primordial age was "the year of abundance," signified Saturn, according to Jensen.⁶"

"There is one God, greatest among gods and men, neither in shape nor in thought like unto mortals ... He abides ever in the same place motionless, and it befits him not to wander hither and thither."

"The motif of Saturn handing over power to Jupiter derives, of course, from Hesiod's account of the succession of the gods in his Theogony, and his story of the five successive ages of men -- the first, or golden, age being under the reign of Kronos (Saturn) and the following ages being under the reign of Zeus (Jupiter) -- in his Works and Days (110ff.). These stories were often retold. Ovid, for example, combines in his Metamorphoses the stories in the Theogony and Works and Days, telling us how, "when Saturn was consigned to the darkness of Tartarus, and the world passed under the rule of Jove, the age of silver replaced that of gold."⁸"

Saturn is third furthest away from the Sun and its orbit may also be slowly getting further away from the Sun.

Hermeneutes

Nabu (in Biblical Hebrew Nebo נבו) is the Assyrian and Babylonian god of wisdom and writing, worshipped by Babylonians as the son of Marduk and his consort, Sarpanitum, and as the grandson of Ea.

In Chaldean mythology, Nebo was a god whose worship was introduced into Assyria by Pul [Tiglath-pileser III] (Isa. 46:1; Jer. 48:1). The great temple at Birs Nimrud was dedicated to Nebo.

Hominins “lived without town or laws, speaking one tongue under the rule of Jove. But after Mercury explained the languages of men (whence he is called hermeneutes, ‘interpreter,’ for Mercury in Greek is called Hermes; he, too, divided the nations) then discord arose among mortals.”

“The meaning is clearly that Hermes invented one language for one people, another for another. The whole account reminds one of the Biblical Tower of Babel.”

"In my understanding Mercury was once a satellite of Jupiter, or possibly of Saturn. In the course of the events which followed Saturn’s interaction with Jupiter and its subsequent disruption, Mercury was pushed from its orbit and was directed to the sun by Jupiter. It could, however, have been a comet and the entwined snakes of the caduceus may memorialize the appearance it had when seen by the inhabitants of the Earth."

Silver and iron ages

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus (Ancient Greek is the "Father of Gods and men". He is the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and Etruscan counterpart is Tinia. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he is married to Hera, although, at the oracle of Dodona, his consort is Dione: according to the Iliad, he is the father of Aphrodite by Dione.

Morning star

The Greeks thought of the two as separate stars, Phosphorus [the morning star] and Hesperus [the evening star], until the time of Pythagoras in the sixth century BC.

The Romans designated the morning aspect of Venus as Lucifer, literally "Light-Bringer", and the evening aspect as Vesper.

"During a rare period of very low density solar outflow, the ionosphere of Venus was observed to become elongated downstream, rather like a long-tailed comet. ... Under normal conditions, the solar wind has a density of 5 - 10 particles per cubic cm at Earth's orbit, but occasionally the solar wind almost disappears, as happened in May 1999. ... A rare opportunity to examine what happens when a tenuous solar wind arrives at Venus came 3 - 4 August 2010, following a series of large coronal mass ejections on the Sun. NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft, orbiting downstream from Venus, observed that the solar wind density at Earth's orbit dropped to the remarkably low figure of 0.1 particles per cubic cm and persisted at this value for an entire day."

"The observations show that the night side ionosphere moved outward to at least 15 000 km from Venus' centre over a period of only a few hours," said Markus Fraenz, also from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, who was the team leader and a co-author of the paper. "It may possibly have extended for millions of kilometres, like an enormous tail."

"Although we cannot determine the full length of the night-side ionosphere, since the orbit of Venus Express provides limited coverage, our results suggest that Venus' ionosphere resembled the teardrop-shaped ionosphere found around comets, rather than the more symmetrical, spherical shape which usually exists."

"The side of Venus' ionosphere that faces away from the sun can billow outward like the tail of a comet, while the side facing the star remains tightly compacted, researchers said. ... "As this significantly reduced solar wind hit Venus, Venus Express saw the planet’s ionosphere balloon outwards on the planet’s ‘downwind’ nightside, much like the shape of the ion tail seen streaming from a comet under similar conditions," ESA officials said in a statement today (Jan. 29). It only takes 30 to 60 minutes for the planet's comet-like tail to form after the solar wind dies down. Researchers observed the ionosphere stretch to at least 7,521 miles (12,104 kilometers) from the planet, said Yong Wei, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Katlenburg, Germany who worked on this research."

The Children of Heracles

"Violent earthshocks and other perturbations of nature destroyed the Mycenaean citadels and left their defenders exposed to the assaults of migrant tribes, dislodged in the same upheavals, and calling themselves the Children of Heracles, or Mars."

"At the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the seventh century before the present era, when every fifteen years Mars was approaching dangerously close to the Earth, Isaiah prophesied “the day of the Lord’s vengeance,” in which day “the streams [of Idumea] shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.” (8) [Isaiah 34:9] A curse upon man and his land was that “brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.” (9) [Job 18:15] “Upon the wicked he shall rain pitch, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest.” (10) [Psalm 11:6] This eschatological vision was alive with Ezekiel in the days of the Babylonian Exile. He spoke about “an overflowing rain, and great hailstones [meteorites], fire and brimstone.” (11) [Ezekiel 38:22]"

Sun

Main resources: Stars/Sun and Sun (star)

Apparently from about 2687 b2k forward in time the only major astronomical objects, that is, objects with a visible disk, as viewed from Earth are the Sun and the Moon. All others are lesser in spectacle and regard. Comets still occur.

Planetary sciences

"An aspect of current cosmogonic models is reviewed which until a few years ago had received little consideration: the transformation by accretion of kilometer-size objects into bodies comparable in size to the earth."

Colors

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Colors, Color astronomy, and Colors

An artist's impression of Juno near Jupiter. Credit: NASA.

"We present a 9 million star color-magnitude diagram (9M CMD) of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) bar. [...] The 9M CMD is assembled from MACHO Project two-color instrumental photometry calibrated to the standard Kron-Cousins V and R system (Alcock et al. 1999)."

"It is important to study the stellar populations of nearby galaxies like the LMC in order to understand the processes of galaxy evolution. In particular, the formation of exponential disks is an outstanding problem in cosmogony (e.g. Freeman 1970, Fall & Efstathiou 1980, Dalcanton et al. 1997). [...] By studying the low-mass RR Lyrae variables, we make inferences to the nature of the old and metal-poor LMC field population. This elusive LMC population probes the formation epoch of the LMC, with general implications for cosmogony." "Juno [NSSDC/COSPAR ID: 2011-040A] is also carrying a colour camera, promising Earthlings "the first detailed glimpse of Jupiter's poles"."

"The Juno mission was launched on 05 August 2011 to study Jupiter from polar orbit for approximately one year beginning in 2016. The primary scientific objectives of the mission are to collect data to investigate: (1) the formation and origin of Jupiter's atmosphere and the potential migration of planets through the measurement of Jupiter's global abundance of oxygen (water) and nitrogen (ammonia); (2) variations in Jupiter's deep atmosphere related to meteorology, composition, temperature profiles, cloud opacity, and atmospheric dynamics; (3) the fine structure of Jupiter's magnetic field, providing information on its internal structure and the nature of the dynamo; (4) the gravity field and distribution of mass inside the planet; and (5) Jupiter's three-dimensional polar magnetosphere and aurorae. Juno carries eight experiments to achieve these objectives."

Minerals

Main resource: Minerals

"A new cosmogony proposed by author bases on idea that formation of planets takes place on pre-solar stage of evolution of proto-stellar/proto-planetary nebula. [...] The hypothesis predicts that all particles in one stream are of the same mineral composition and of the same density."

Theoretical cosmogony

Def.

1. the "study of the origin, and sometimes the development, of the universe or the solar system, in astrophysics, religion, and other fields",
2. any "specific theory, model, [myth], [or other account] of the origin [...] of the universe", or
3. the "creation of the universe" is called a cosmogony.

Def. the "origin and development of the cosmos" is called a cosmogenesis.

Def.

1. "the study of the physical universe, its structure, dynamics, origin and evolution, and fate",
2. "a metaphysical study into the origin and nature of the universe", or
3. a "particular view (cultural or religious) of the structure and origin of the universe", is called a cosmology.

Cold dark matter cosmogony

Consider a universe "dominated by neutrinos and 'cold dark matter'".

"The evidence for unseen mass [...] suggests that the cosmological density parameter Ω is at least 0.1-0.2 [rather than for an] Einstein-de-Sitter 'flat' universe with Ω = 1 [... This] can only be reconciled with the data if the galaxies are more 'clumped' than the overall mass distribution, and are poor tracers of the unseen mass even on scales of several Mpc."

"Particle physicists have other particles ‘in reserve’ which could make a substantial (non-baryonic) contribution to Ω, but which differ from neutrinos in that their freestreaming velocity is negligible, so that small-scale adiabatic perturbations are not phase-mixed away. Such particles can be described as ‘cold dark matter’, in contrast to neutrinos whose free streaming velocity renders them ‘hot’."

"There is no shortage of ‘cold dark matter’ candidate particles—although each of them is highly speculative, to say the least. The motivation for nonetheless considering the hypothesis that the universe is dominated by cold dark matter is that it leads to a cosmogonic scheme that avoids the difficulties of the neutrino-dominated scheme and correctly predicts many of the observed properties of galaxies, including their range of masses, irrespective of the identity of the cold particle (Peebles 1984; Blumenthal et al. 1984)."

"In cosmogonic schemes involving cold dark matter, there is no equally obvious process that might inhibit galaxy formation in the incipient voids".

Entities

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Entities and Entities

"I shall introduce the themes with several quotations which are representative of a number of popular contemporary writings on cosmogony. ... First, they each personify an entity or concept-'the laws of physics', 'chance' and 'natural selection' respectively."

Sources

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Sources, Radiation astronomy sources, and Sources

"The amount of energy needed [to inhibit galaxy formation] is not exorbitant; however there are physical problems of coupling it to the gas in a suitable way. For instance, the most obvious possibility is photoionization. The temperature attained depends on the mean energy of an ejected photoelectron, and in a typical HII region is never more than a few times 10⁴ K. At first sight, one might suppose that a source spectrum peaking sharply at photon energies 100 eV (e.g. a blackbody spectrum with Τ 10⁶ K) would yield a correspondingly hot HII region. But this is not so (except in the implausible case of very sudden ionization) because a photoelectron would then collisionally ionize several neutral atoms before they had a chance to be photoionized, the energy of each photoelectron consequently being shared among several electrons and ions (Bardeen 1984, personal communication)."

Objects

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Objects, Object astronomy, and Objects

Notation: let the symbol h, or h, "denotes the Hubble constant in units of 100 km s^–1 Mpc^–1".

"Most of the initial baryons might have been incorporated in a population of stars that were either pregalactic, or else formed during the initial collapse phase of a protogalaxy: these stars, or their remnants, could perhaps now have a high M/L and contribute to the unseen mass. Ideally, one would like to be able to calculate what happens when a cloud of 10⁵–10⁷ M_⊙ condenses out from primordial material: does it form one (or a few) supermassive objects [(SMOs)], or does fragmentation proceed efficiently down to low-mass stars?"

"An uncertainty in the evolution of massive or supermassive stars is the amount of loss during H-burning; however the hypothesis that most mass goes into very massive objects (VMOs) of greater than about 10³ Μ_⊙ is compatible with the nucleosynthesis constraints."

"Other possible ‘escape clauses’ [to Ω_bh²) ≲ 0.1 but not with Ω_bh² = 1 (for ≥ 3 species of neutrinos)] can be invoked—for instance, there might be large-amplitude inhomogeneities in the initial baryon distribution, such that all the baryonic material we can now sample comes from underdense regions, the overdense regions having turned into dark population III objects (Rees 1983)."

Strong forces

Main resources: Charges/Interactions/Strong and Strong forces

"Due to the very low energy of the colliding protons in the Sun, only states with no angular momentum (s-waves) contribute significantly. One can consider it as a head-on collision, so that angular momentum plays no role. Consequently, the total angular momentum is the sum of the spins, and the spins alone control the reaction. Because of Pauli's exclusion principle, the incoming protons must have opposite spins. On the other hand, in the only bound state of deuterium, the spins of the neutron and proton are aligned. Hence a spin flip must take place [...] The strength of the nuclear force which holds the neutron and the proton together depends on the spin of the particles. The force between an aligned proton and neutron is sufficient to give a bound state, but the interaction between two protons does not yield a bound state under any circumstances. Deuterium has only one bound state."

The "force acting between the protons and the neutrons [is] the strong force".

"A potential of 36 MeV is needed to get just one energy state."

The width of a bound proton and neutron is "2.02 x 10^-13 cm".

Electromagnetics

Main resources: Charges/Interactions/Electromagnetics and Electromagnetics

"The first systematic attempt to base a theory of the origin of the solar system on electromagnetic or hydromagnetic effects was made in Alfvén (1942). The reason for doing so was that a basic difficulty with the old Laplacian hypothesis: how can a central body (Sun or planet) transfer angular momentum to the secondary bodies (planets or satellites) orbiting around it? It was demonstrated that this could be done by electromagnetic effects. No other acceptable mechanism has yet been worked out. [...] the electromagnetic transfer mechanism has been confirmed by observations, as described in the monograph Cosmic Plasma (Alfvén, 1981, pp. 28, 52, 53 0."

"If charged particles (electrons, ions or charged grains) move in a magnetic dipole field - strong enough to dominate their motion - under the action of gravitation and the centrifugal force, they will find an equilibrium in a circular orbit if their centrifugal force is 2/3 of the gravitational force [...] The consequence of this is that if they become neutralized, so that electromagnetic forces disappear, the centrifugal force is too small to balance the gravitation. Their circular orbit changes to an elliptical orbit with the semi-major axis a = 3/4a₀ and e = 1/3 (where a₀ is the central distance where the neutralization takes place [...] Collisional (viscous) interaction between the condensed particles will eventually change the orbit into a new circular orbit with a = 2/3a₀ and e = 0."

"If [...] there is plasma in the region [collisional interaction results in] matter in the 2/3-[region]. [...] matter in the region [...] will produce a [cosmogonic] shadow in the region".

Weak forces

Main resources: Charges/Interactions/Weak/Forces and Weak forces

"If E_grav is the gravitational energy of a star and E_therm is its total thermal energy, then the binding energy of the star is given by E_bind = E_grav + E_therm < 0, where E_grav is negative and E_therm is positive. The temperature of the cores of stars is determined by the balance between the gravitational attraction and the gas pressure. Since the gravitational energy determines the gravitational force and the thermal energy determines the gas pressure, it is obvious that there exists a relation between the two. If the gas in the star behaves like an ideal gas, then 2E_therm + E_grav = 0, a result which is known as the viral theorem.¹⁴ The theorem is extremely simple and can be derived in just 6 lines.¹⁵"

"¹⁴Poincaré, H., Lecons sur les hypothéses cosmogoniques, Librarie Scientifique, A. Hermann, 1811. This theorem is also the basis for the negative effective specific heat of stars. Only at this point do we need the Clausius connection between kinetic energy and temperature [Clausius, R.J.E., Phil. Mag. 2, 1 (1851); ibid. 102; ibid. 12, 81 (1856)]. The temperature is given by the kinetic energy divided by the Boltzmann constant. If the star loses energy L, it must contract, i.e., reduce its radius, and consequently lower its negative gravitational energy E_grav. The kinetic energy T is then more positive, so the temperature rises. In this way the star can lose energy and increases its temperature, in contrast to normal matter. This is one of Eddington's famous paradoxes about stars: they lose energy and heat up."

"¹⁵ See Jeans, Astronomy and Cosmogony, Cambridge University Press, 1929, p. 67."

"In 1937, Gamow and Teller³⁶ postulated an extremely important addition to Fermi's β-decay theory. They realized that there are cases where the Fermi theory fails to explain the decays. Consequently, Gamow and Teller proposed an ad hoc solution to explain the discrepancy. [... simplifying] the difference between the Fermi and Gamow-Teller interactions as they are expressed in the reaction relevant to stars, namely p + p → ²D + e⁺ + ν. In a Fermi interaction which converts a proton into a neutron and vice versa, the sum of all spins of the particles does not change. In a Gamow-Teller interaction, the total spin must change by one unit."

"What Gamow and Teller actually discovered was that the weak force, which is responsible for the β-decay, has two different components which behave and act differently and have different strengths. A good example is the electromagnetic force which can appear as a Coulomb force between electric charges or as a magnetic force acting on moving charges. The electric and magnetic components behave differently. Fierz³⁷ generalized the theory by combining the Fermi and Gamow-Teller conditions into a unified theory of this complicated force."

"³⁷Fierz, M., Zeit. für Phys. 194, 553 (1937)."

Continua

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Continua and Continuum astronomy

"The problem of formation of generic structures in the Universe is addressed, whereby first the kinematics of inertial continua for coherent initial data is considered. The generalization to self-gravitating continua is outlined focused on the classification problem of singularities and metamorphoses arising in the density field."

Emissions

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Emissions, Emission astronomy, and Emissions

"The prismoidal method provides a good approximation of the dust emission peak for cold sources [...], but probably overestimates the long-wavelength flux for warmer, flatter [spectral energy distribution] SED sources [...], resulting in a bias toward lower T_bol."

"In a binary formed via gravitational fragmentation, we would expect the separation to correspond to the local Jeans length (Jeans 1928):"

$\lambda _{J}=({\pi c_{s}^{2} \over G\mu _{p}m_{H}n})^{1/2},$

"where c_s is the local sound speed, and μ_p = 2.33 and n are the mean molecular weight and mean particle density, respectively. A Jeans length of 4200 AU would require a relatively high density (n ~ 6 x 10⁵ cm⁻³, assuming c_s = 0.2 km s⁻¹). The mean density of the Per-Bolo 102 core, measured within an aperture of 10⁴ AU, is 4 x 10⁵ cm⁻³, close to the required value."

Absorptions

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Absorptions and Absorption astronomy

"Recent years have seen the emergence of a standard model for the growth of structure – the hierarchical clustering model – in which the gravitational effects of dark matter drive the evolution of structure from the near-uniform recombination epoch until the present day. Simple models for galaxy formation in the context of these CDM cosmogonies have been remarkably successful in reproducing the properties of the local galaxy population (Kauffmann, White, & Guiderdoni 1993; Cole et al. 1994) and have been extended to predict the sizes, surface densities and circular velocities of spiral galaxy disks (Dalcanton, Spergel, & Summers 1997; Mo, Mao, & White 1998)."

"For quenched galaxies, the Hα absorption trough is deep and can be traced through the nucleus and along the major axis. It extends to a radius at or beyond 2 R_d [where R_d is the galaxy disk scale length] in all but three cases. This makes it possible to determine a velocity width from the optical spectrum as is done for emission line flux, with appropriate corrections between stellar and gas velocities (see discussion in Paper I, also Neistein, Maoz, Rix, & Tonry, 1999). In the few cases where a velocity width can also be measured from the H I data, it is found to be in good agreement with that taken from the Hα absorption line flux."

"The extent of the Hα absorption trough along the major axes of the quenched spirals is significantly more truncated than the distribution of the Hα emission line for H I deficient galaxies. The distribution of the old stellar population contributing to the Hα_ext [extent of Hα] absorption of the quenched spirals may be partly responsible for this extreme truncation, if disks are built up from the inside to the outside over time."

Bands

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Bands and Band astronomy

"The hydromagnetic approach led to the discovery of two important observational regularities in the solar system: (1) the band structure [such as in the rings of Saturn and in the asteroid belt], and (2) the cosmogonic shadow effect (the two-thirds fall down effect)."

Backgrounds

Main resource: Background astronomy

"Although we cannot confidently predict what these so-called ‘population ΙΙI’ stars would be like (Kashlinsky & Rees 1983), there are several constraints which, in combination, imply that if there are enough of them to provide the unseen mass, the individual masses must either be less than 0.1 M_⊙ or else in the range 10³–10⁶ Μ_⊙. Masses above ~ 0.1 M_⊙ would contribute too much background light unless they had all evolved and died, leaving dark remnants. But the remnants of ordinary massive stars of 10–100 M_⊙ would produce too much material in the form of heavy elements."

Meteors

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Meteors and Meteor astronomy

Current "knowledge of the orbital structure of the outer solar system, [is] mostly slanted towards that information which has been learned from the Canada-France-Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS: www.cfeps.net). Based on our current datasets (inside and outside CFEPS) outer solar system modeling is now entering the erra of precission cosmogony."

"Since the discovery of the first members of the Kuiper belt (Jewitt and Luu, 1993) the growth in knowledge of the outer solar system has been marked (perhaps driven) by the discovery of individual objects whose dynamics pointed at previously unknown reserviours; for example: 1993 RO and the plutinos, 1996 TL66 and the ‘scattering disk’, 2003 CR103 and the detectatch disk, 90377 Sedna and the Inner Oort Cloud."

The "‘main Kuiper belt’ is populated by dynamically ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ subcomponents (Brown 2001), the dyncamically ‘cold’ component is further sub-divided into a ‘stirred’ and ‘kernel’ component (Petit et al., 2011). The plane of the Ecliptic does not match the ecliptic or invariable planes of the solar sytem (Elliot et al., 2005). Collisional families exists, Haumea (Brown et al., 2007)."

Cosmic rays

Main resources: Cosmic radiation astronomy and Cosmic-ray astronomy

"Violent activity and Supernovae generate cosmic ray (suprathermal) particles. The speeds of individual particles may be ~ c, and their energy density, if they diffused uniformly through the universe, could well exceed 100 eV per baryon. Subrelativistic particles would be slowed down, and would transmit their energy to the thermal component. However, the relativistic particles could themselves exert a pressure if they were coupled (e.g. via magnetic fields) so that they constituted, with the thermal gas, a composite fluid, to which they contributed most of the pressure. Although there is here even less problem in fulfilling the energy density requirement than there is for ultraviolet radiation, there is uncertainty about how uniformly it can spread. If the cosmic-ray energy remains concentrated around the sources, it is irrelevant in the present context [of the cold dark matter cosmogony]; at the other extreme, if the particles diffuse too freely, they do not couple well enough to protogalactic gas for their pressure gradients to oppose gravitational collapse."

Neutrons

Main resources: Neutron radiation astronomy and Neutron astronomy

"Primordial nucleosynthesis depends on two things: the expansion timescale at 0.1–1 MeV and the baryon density at that same epoch (which is proportional to Ω_bh²). The predicted ⁴He abundance is rather insensitive to the matter density: for Ω_bh² ≳ 10^–2 the density of baryons is high enough to ensure that most of the neutrons that survive when the neutron-proton ratio ‘freezes out’ at kT ≃ 1 MeV get incorporated in ⁴He."

Protons

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Protons and Proton astronomy

"It is fair to note, however, that almost all theories which invoke non-baryonic matter require some level of coincidence in order that the luminous and unseen mass contribute comparable densities (to within one or two powers often). For instance, in a neutrino-dominated universe, (m_v/m_proton) must be within a factor ~ 10 of n_b/n_γ. The only model that seems to evade this requirement is Witten’s (1984) idea that the quark-hadron phase transition may leave comparable amounts of material in ‘ordinary’ baryons and in ‘nuggets’ of exotic matter."

Electrons

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Electrons and Electron astronomy

"Various gaps and density minima have been observed in the Saturnian ring system. Attempts have been made to attribute these observations to gravitational resonances with the inner satellites, thus causing the removal of particles from the dark regions of the ring system (Alexander 1953, 1962)."

"According to an alternative theory (Alfvén and Arrhenius, 1976) the observed dark regions are the result of a 'cosmogonic shadow effect' produced by the 'two-thirds fall-down mechanism'. The basis of this mechanism is the following: plasma contained in the magnetic dipole field of a central (celestial) body is brought up to a state of partial corotation. In the corotating frame of reference, the plasma experiences an outward centrifugal force which drives a current of density J.

The "charge on a dust particle changes with latitude, i.e., [going] from the equator up to the '2/3' points. The electrostatic charging of dust particles in a plasma [where] charging processes such as photo-emission, field emission thermo-ionic emission, and secondary emission can be neglected [...] contributions to the total charging current come mainly from thermal fluxes of electrons and ions, i.e., $I=I_{i}+I_{e}$. A dust grain acquires its equilibrium charge -q_e (q > 0) when"

$I=I_{i}+I_{e}=0.$

"The electron and ion currents are given by (Mendis et al., 1984)"

$I_{e}=-4\pi r_{g}^{2}n_{e}e{({kT \over 2\pi m_{e}})^{1/2}}e^{y},$

$I_{i}=-4\pi r_{g}^{2}n_{p}e{({kT \over 2\pi m_{i}})^{1/2}}[1-y],$

"where y = -q(e²/kTC), C being the grain capacitance[, ] r_g is the grain radius, $n_{e}$ the average electron density, and $n_{p}$ is the average ion (plasma) density."

Positrons

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Positrons and Positron astronomy

"The two conversions of protons into neutrons are assumed to take place inside the nucleus, and the extra positive charge is emitted as a positron."

Neutrinos

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Neutrinos and Neutrino astronomy

"If neutrinos have negligible rest mass, the present density expected for relic neutrinos from the big bang is n_ν = 110 (T_γ/2.7 K)³ cm^–3 for each two-component species. This is of order the photon density n_γ, differing just by a factor 3/11 (i.e. a factor 3/4 because neutrinos are fermions rather than bosons, multiplied by 4/11, the factor by which the neutrinos are diluted when e⁺–e^– annihilation boosts the photon density). This conclusion holds for non-zero masses, provided that m_vc² is far below the thermal energy (~ 5 MeV) at which neutrinos decoupled from other species and that the neutrinos are stable for the Hubble time. Comparison with the baryon density, related to Ω via n_b = 1.5 x 10^–5 Ω_b h² cm^–3, shows that neutrinos outnumber baryons by such a big factor that they can be dynamically dominant over baryons even if their masses are only a few electron volts. In fact, a single species of neutrino would yield a contribution to Ω of Ω_v = 0.01 h^–2 (m_v)_eV, so if h = 0.5, only 25 eV is sufficient to provide the critical density."

"Neutrinos of nonzero mass would be dynamically important not only for the expanding universe as a whole but also for large bound systems such as clusters of galaxies. This is because they would now be moving slowly: if the universe had cooled homogeneously, primordial neutrinos would now be moving at around 200 (m_v)^-1_eV km s^–1. They would be influenced even by the weak (~ 10^–5 c²) gravitational potential fluctuations of galaxies and clusters. If the three (or more) types of neutrinos have different masses, then the heaviest will obviously be gravitationally dominant, since the numbers of each species should be the same."

Gamma rays

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Gamma rays and Gamma-ray astronomy

"Over the last few years, the cold dark matter cosmogony has become a fiducial model for the formation of structure. [...] The problem with detecting dark matter using annihilation radiation gamma rays has been that the expected signal is comparable to the background (Stecker 1988) and it would be difficult to separate a "cosmic-ray halo" from a dark halo."

"The flux of annihilation gamma rays is given by"

$F=(\sigma V)XD^{-2}m_{\lambda }^{-2}\int _{0}^{\infty }\rho ^{2}r^{2}\,dr,$

"where $(\sigma V)$ is the cross section, $D$ is the distance to the [dwarf spheroidals] dSph's, $m_{\lambda }$ is the [weakly interacting massive particles] WIMP's mass, $X$ is the average number of gamma rays in excess of 100 MeV per annihilation and depends weakly on $m_{\lambda }$ (Stecker 1988)."

In March 2010 it was announced that active galactic nuclei are not responsible for most gamma-ray background radiation. Though active galactic nuclei do produce some of the gamma-ray radiation detected here on Earth, less than 30% originates from these sources. The search now is to locate the sources for the remaining 70% or so of all gamma-rays detected. Possibilities include star forming galaxies, galactic mergers, and yet-to-be explained dark matter interactions.

X-rays

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/X-rays, X-ray astronomy, and X-rays

"The X-rays from clusters of galaxies reveal that hot gas is present, with temperature such that the sound speed is similar to the virial velocity (Forman & Jones 1982). The amount of gas in the cores is not enough to satisfy the virial theorem—it is comparable with the amount in ‘luminous’ galactic material. However, gas could provide a bigger fraction of the mass in the outlying parts—because the X-ray emission per unit mass goes as n, diffuse gas is less conspicuous. (The X-ray spectrum shows that this gas has a temperature consistent with being gravitationally bound in a cluster potential whose depth is inferred from the velocity dispersions of the galaxies. This fact argues against ‘radical’ ideals, such as that the clusters are not virialized, or that the galactic redshifts are not true velocity indicators.)"

"Gas that gets heated to kT 10 keV would not be confined in cluster potential wells, but would constitute a roughly homogeneous intercluster medium. It has been suggested that such a gas is the prime contributor to the X-ray background at > 10 keV; even if it is not, the observed strength of this background constrains the density and thermal history of any such gas. More gas can be ‘hidden’ in intergalactic space if it is ultra-hot (~ 40 keV) rather than at a lower temperature. Indeed, there could be almost enough such gas to provide the critical density if it were heated up at a redshift z < 3. The difficulties with this idea stem from the very large energy input and special thermal history necessary to avoid conflict with various observational constraints (Fabian & Kembhavi 1982)."

Ultraviolets

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Ultraviolets and Ultraviolet astronomy

"What about radiation pressure? The microwave background is of course the dominant energy density. However, it is too weakly coupled (via Thomson scattering) to exert any effective damping on non-Hubble flows at epochs z ≲ 100. A somewhat more hopeful possibility is the pressure of Lyman line radiation. If the protogalactic gas is not completely ionized, most of the cosmic background emitted in the ultraviolet would have been transformed into Lyman alpha, whose energy density could exceed 100 eV per ion. The cross-section is certainly large enough to ensure that radiation has a short mean free path. However, in a collapsing (or expanding) medium, the photons would be shifted out of the line wings after the density has changed by a fraction (~ 3Δν/ν). Even though the line width may be as much as 50 Å, this means that the effectively trapped energy density at any instant would be only a tenth of the total radiation background density in the ultraviolet."

Opticals

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Opticals and Optical astronomy

"For outside wave fields of the Moon and the Earth accept seismic and acoustic waves which characteristic frequencies first of all coincide with frequencies of orbital and own rotation of cosmogony objects (planets and their satellites, multiple star systems, pulsars)."

"Besides wave (acoustic) processes in the top Earth atmosphere and also those from that its are accompanied also by optical effects (polar lights) and strongly connected with gas dust streams acting [4]."

Visuals

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Visuals and Visual astronomy

"Masses above ~ 0.1 M_⊙ would contribute too much background light unless they had all evolved and died, leaving dark remnants."

Violets

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Violets and Violet astronomy

"The abundance ratios of stable isotopes of the light elements in comets may provide clues of cosmogonical significance."

"In 1997 we observed comet Hale-Bopp with the 2.6 m Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, with a view to estimating the ¹²C/¹³C abundance ratio. About twenty high-resolution (λ /Δ λ ~ 70000) spectra of the strong CN Violet (0,0) band were secured with the SOFIN spectrograph from 7 to 13 April. The heliocentric and geocentric distances of the comet were then close to 0.9 AU and 1.4 AU, respectively. While the data do show the expected lines of the ¹³C¹⁴N isotopic molecule, we have been surprised to find in addition a number of very weak features, which are real and turn out to be positioned very near to the theoretical wavelengths of lines pertaining to the R branch of ¹²C¹⁵N."

Blues

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Blues and Blue astronomy

"Modern data on Coma and other clusters bear out the same trend [for unseen mass]: the overall mass-to-blue-light ratio M/L within the virialized parts of clusters is ~ 300 h [...]; but for the stellar content of ordinary luminous galaxies it is 1–10."

Cyans

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Cyans and Cyan astronomy

"The ices of Callisto do not seem to have exploded at all."

If the age of the Galilean satellites is "cosmogonic ( ≈ 4 x 10⁹ yr) [...] it is clear that there are no grounds for postulating a cosmogonic crater age [...] "

"The comet data suggest [...] that there should be released simultaneously [...] about two orders of magnitude less (Q_CN/Q_H2O ≈ 10^-3 by Schloerb et al. (1987)) of cyan compounds, ≈ 2 x 10¹⁵ g."

Greens

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Greens and Green astronomy

"There the deceased states that “I have strewed green stones",8 most likely with the intention of identifying himself with the [...] time when Amun became the supreme god of the Egyptian pantheon, the creation [...] “He (Amun) created the heaven and made it luminous through the stars."11 In the myths and mythologems discussed above, the stars came into being in a later phase of cosmogony. However, we also know of myths reflecting different views. [...] stage of the birth of the universe.12"

Yellows

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Yellows and Yellow astronomy

"The behavior of groups of massive stars in open clusters is examined. The high concentration of binaries and yellow giants toward the center of the open cluster NGC 2632 (Praesepe) is not a singular phenomenon. It can be found in the Hyades and in the Coma-Berenices cluster, which are nearly of equal age, but not in younger and older objects. This phenomenon depending on the mean mass of a star group, its evolutionary phase, the mean age of the cluster and the time of star formation within it, can be explained by the diagram of the evolution of star clusters, i.e., by cosmogonic reasons. It is not caused by gravitational effects."

Oranges

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Oranges and Orange astronomy

"Then, as that long period was drawing to a close, these Gods directed the orange colored force of life into the smaller matrices of Divine Mind and brought into physical being the lichens and the mussels and all the lowest forms of life on land and sea."

Reds

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Reds and Red astronomy

Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to snapped this new image of Vesta on May 14 and 16, 2007. Credit: NASA; ESA; L. McFadden and J.Y. Li (University of Maryland, College Park); M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore); P. Thomas (Cornell University); J. Parker and E.F. Young (Southwest Research Institute); and C.T. Russell and B. Schmidt (University of California, Los Angeles).

"To prepare for the Dawn spacecraft's visit to Vesta, astronomers used Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to snap new images of the asteroid. The image at right was taken on May 14 and 16, 2007. Using Hubble, astronomers mapped Vesta's southern hemisphere, a region dominated by a giant impact crater formed by a collision billions of years ago. The crater is 285 miles (456 kilometers) across, which is nearly equal to Vesta's 330-mile (530-kilometer) diameter. If Earth had a crater of proportional size, it would fill the Pacific Ocean basin. The impact broke off chunks of rock, producing more than 50 smaller asteroids that astronomers have nicknamed "vestoids." The collision also may have blasted through Vesta's crust. Vesta is about the size of Arizona."

"Previous Hubble images of Vesta's southern hemisphere were taken in 1994 and 1996 with the wide-field camera. In this new set of images, Hubble's sharp "eye" can see features as small as about 37 miles (60 kilometers) across. The image shows the difference in brightness and color on the asteroid's surface. These characteristics hint at the large-scale features that the Dawn spacecraft [sees] when it arrives at Vesta."

"Hubble's view reveals extensive global features stretching longitudinally from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. The image also shows widespread differences in brightness in the east and west, which probably reflects compositional changes. Both of these characteristics could reveal volcanic activity throughout Vesta. The size of these different regions varies. Some are hundreds of miles across."

"The brightness differences could be similar to the effect seen on the Moon, where smooth, dark regions are more iron-rich than the brighter highlands that contain minerals richer in calcium and aluminum. When Vesta was forming 4.5 billion years ago, it was heated to the melting temperatures of rock. This heating allowed heavier material to sink to Vesta's center and lighter minerals to rise to the surface."

"Astronomers combined images of Vesta in two colors to study the variations in iron-bearing minerals. From these minerals, they hope to learn more about Vesta's surface structure and composition."

"The simplest model for the genesis of the HED meteorites involves a series of partial melting and crystallization events [1] of a small parent body whose bulk composition is more or less consistent with cosmic abundances but is depleted in the moderately volatile elements Na and K [2]."

"Why should both Vesta and the Moon be rich in oxidized Fe but depleted in Na and K?"

"How did the HEDs get here from Vesta? The discovery of a string of Vesta-like asteroids in orbits linking Vesta to nearby orbital resonances [5] has shown that [...] arguments [...] for material originating at Vesta to reach Earth-crossing orbits are [...] valid."

"An alternative theory is based on electromagnetic heating during an episode of strong solar wind from the early proto-Sun when our star experienced a T Tauri phase, as predicted by modern stellar astrophysics."

Infrareds

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Infrareds and Infrared astronomy

"The deuterium enrichment of cometary water is one of the most important cosmogonic indicators in comets. The (D/H)_H2O ratio preserves information about the conditions under which comet material formed, and tests the possible contribution of comets in delivering water for Earth's oceans. Water (H₂O) and HDO were sampled in comet 8P/Tuttle from 2008 January 27 to 2008 February 3 using the new IR spectrometer (Cryogenic Infrared Echelle Spectrograph) at the 8.2 m Antu telescope of the Very Large Telescope Observatory atop Cerro Paranal, Chile."

Submillimeters

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Submillimeters and Submillimeter astronomy

Stars "believed to have circumstellar disks similar to the primitive solar nebula [are] based on the criteria [...]:

1. high far-infrared optical depths around visible stars,
2. shallow spectral energy densities longward of 5 µm, and
3. large millimeter-wave flux densities indicative of ≳ 0.01 M_⊙ of H₂."

"Evidence for changes in particle composition, size, or shape, reflected in the emissivity index, could therefore be relevant to theories of cosmogony."

"The observations were carried out at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) in Hawaii during 1989 November through December 4, and 1990 December 4 through 9. The detector was a silicon composite bolometer fed by a Winston cone and cooled to a few tenths of a degree with a ³He refrigerator. The filtering employed standard techniques: a scattering filter of black polyethylene fused to fluorogold at 77 K blocked wavelengths in the far-infrared; a crystal quartz filter coated with black polyethylene at 4 K eliminated all near-infrared radiation; and bandpass filters made of metal mesh on nylon or polyethylene, defined the actual wavebands (e.g., Whitcomb & Keene 1980; Cunningham 1982). Different Winston cones were used with each filter to match the diffraction limit of the 10 m telescope, giving different beam sizes on the sky."

Microwaves

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Microwaves and Microwave astronomy

"The existence of galaxies and clusters today requires that perturbations in the density must have become nonlinear before the present epoch. In a baryonic universe, for adiabatic perturbations at recombination, this implies present-day fluctuations in the microwave background an order of magnitude larger than the present observational upper limits of ~ 2 x 10^–5 on scales of 2 arcmin (Uson & Wilkinson 1984)."

"For nonbaryonic dark matter, on the other hand, the predicted fluctuations in the microwave background are consistent with the observations—though only if Ωh^4/3 > 0.2 (Bond & Efstathiou 1984)—since the baryonic fluctuations are small at recombination and only later grow to the same size as fluctuations in the dark matter. [...] if the universe had inflated by just the amount needed to yield Ω of (say) 0.1, it would be unnatural to find such small amplitude anisotropies in the microwave background—this would require the pre-inflation geometry of our observable universe to have been rather special, with a curvature which was essentially constant (to 1 part in ~ 10⁴) over scales of order the curvature radius."

"Hogan (1984) points out that, if large volumes of gas were raised to such high temperatures that pressure gradients could drive the requisite motions, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect might lead to smallscale anisotropies in the microwave background exceeding the measured limits. But, despite this constraint, there may be no insurmountable objection to this general possibility; it is conceivable that the configurations we now see could be determined by gas-dynamical rather than primarily gravitational effects."

Radars

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Radars and Radar astronomy

"Very low values of the radio brightness temperatures of the rings of Saturn indicate that their high radar reflectivity is not simply due to a gain effect in the backscatter direction. These two sets of observations are consistent with the ring particles having a very high single scattering albedo at radio wavelengths with multiple scattering effects being important. Comparison of scattering calculations for ice and silicate particles with radio and radar observations imply a mean particle radius of ~ 1 cm. [...] The inferred mean size is consistent with a model in which meteoroid impacts have caused a substantial reduction in the mean particle size from its initial value."

Radios

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Radios, Radio astronomy, and Radio astronomy

"Comets provide important clues to the physical and chemical processes that occurred during the formation and early evolution of the Solar System [...] Comparing abundances and cosmogonic values (isotope and ortho:para (o/p) ratios) of cometary parent volatiles to those found in the interstellar medium, in disks around young stars, and between cometary families, is vital to understanding planetary system formation and the processing history experienced by organic matter in the so-called interstellar-comet connection [2]. [...] ground-based radio observations towards comets C/2009 P1 (Garradd) and C/2012 F6 (Lemmon) [...] constrain the chemical history of these bodies."

Superluminals

Main resources: Radiation astronomy/Superluminals and Superluminal astronomy

"One should prove whether specific predictions for linear alignments of substructures and multiple quasars, for superluminal velocities and for brightness variations of short time scale can be made on the basis of a macroscopic superstring. [...] A macroscopic superstring cosmogony of the known astronomical objects seems possible. Some of the major obstacles of the usual cosmogonies, the origin of structure and angular momentum, are solved from the beginning."

Plasma objects

Main resources: Plasmas/Plasma objects and Plasma objects

Because "of the huge spatiotemporal scales of plasma objects in space, the basic accepted views about the theory of plasma stability, which is now better suited for laboratory applications, are already in need of revision."

Gaseous objects

Main resources: Gases/Gaseous objects and Gaseous objects

"In accord with modern cosmogonic concepts that are discussed later, three basic materials have been used to construct interior models of the giant planets: a solar mixture of elements dominated by hydrogen and helium ("gas"); water, methane, and ammonia with O, C, and N in solar proportions ("ice")²; and magnesium- and iron-containing silicates and metallic iron, with Mg, Fe, and Si in cosmic proportions ("rock"). [...] Gaseous objects, such as stars, are the end products of one or several successive gravitational instabilities that occur in dense molecular clouds."

Liquid objects

Main resources: Liquids/Liquid objects and Liquid objects

"Apart from the scientific interest for fluid sciences and material sciences in space, the rotating liquid drops have high interest for cosmogony, geophysics and nuclear physics as well."

Rocky objects

Main resources: Rocks/Rocky objects and Rocky objects

"The generally accepted model for terrestrial-planet formation describes their hierarchical accumulation from smaller rocky objects. [...] Developing scenarios that predict the formation of large terrestrial-type planets with low eccentricities represents a significant and as yet unsolved problem of cosmogony."

Hydrogens

Main resources: Chemicals/Hydrogens and Hydrogens

"The motions of hydrogen clouds and globular clusters offer probes for the gravitational potential in the outlying parts of massive galaxies; these data also suggest the presence of unseen mass."

"Even if gaseous bound systems of galactic mass can form, the types of galaxy they develop into may depend sensitively on the composition of the gas—in particular, whether it contains heavy elements, which permit more efficient cooling (and whether molecular hydrogen, an important coolant at T < 10⁴K, can form)."

Heliums

Main resources: Chemicals/Heliums and Heliums

"The cosmic helium abundance can however be measured with sufficient precision to suggest that the primordial ⁴He is less than 26 per cent at the 3 σ level (Pagel 1982). This is compatible with Ω_bh²) ≲ 0.1 but not with Ω_bh² = 1 (for ≥ 3 species of neutrinos)."

Lithiums

Main resources: Chemicals/Lithiums and Lithiums

"From the cosmogony point of view, there can be many different pathways to form a planet, and this casts some doubt that planet formation could be either an adequate physical quantity or a useful observational criterion to define what a planet is. In practice, it is convenient to adopt a planet definition that heavily relies on the mass of the object because the mass can be either measured directly or it has an impact on observable quantities such as surface gravity. For solar composition the boundary [brown dwarfs] BDs and planets is determined by deuterium fusion, which ceases to be stable at around 13 Jupiter masses [18, 19]. Just as the lithium test has effectively been applied as a tool to distinguish between very low-mass stars and BDs [6, 43, 46, 62, 72], the deuterium test has been proposed to distinguish between BDs and planets [9] but it has not been carried out yet because it is observationally very challenging. This important observational test may have to wait for the advent of the 30-meter class generation of ground-based telescopes such as the European Extremely Large Telescope or the American Thirty Meter Telescope. Particularly promising targets are nearby late-T dwarfs with effective temperatures around 500K that appear to have peculiar properties indicative of young age and planetary mass, such as for example ULASJ1335+11 [37]."

"A possible link between lithium depletion, rotational history and the presence of exoplanets has been explored for solar-type main-sequence stars [15]."

Berylliums

Main resource: Chemicals/Berylliums

"The foundation of modern planetary cosmogony is the Kant-Laplace hypothesis that the sun and planets were formed simultaneously from a primordial, cool, rotating gas-dust cloud."

"Stars with an initial mass less than the solar mass have a large deficiency of light elements — lithium, beryllium, and boron — which burn up almost completely both in the interior and in the convective envelope."

Carbons

Main resources: Chemicals/Carbons and Carbons

File:Stellar evolution.jpg

Stellar evolution is one of the major topics of cosmogony. Credit: redOrbit.com.

"Stellar evolution is the process of formation, life, and death of stars. It is one of the major topics of cosmogony."

"Once a medium size star (such as our Sun) has reached the red giant phase, its outer layers continue to expand, the core contracts inward, and helium atoms in the core fuse together to form carbon. This fusion releases energy and the star gets a temporary reprieve."

"However, in a Sun-sized star, this process might only take a few minutes! The atomic structure of carbon is too strong to be further compressed by the mass of the surrounding material. The core is stabilized and the end is near."

Oxygens

Main resources: Chemicals/Oxygens and Oxygens

File:SolarnebulaNASA.jpg

The earliest dust and rocks are forming in the solar nebula by this artist's impression. Credit: NASA.

An oxygen isotope "discrepancy was noted forty years ago in a stony meteorite that exploded over Pueblito de Allende, Mexico. It has since been confirmed in other meteorites, which are asteroids that fall to Earth. These meteorites are some of the oldest objects in the Solar System, believed to have formed nearly 4.6 billion years ago within the solar nebula’s first million years. The mix of oxygen-16 (the most abundant form with one neutron for each proton) and variants with an extra neutron or two is markedly different in the meteorites than that seen on terrestrial Earth, the moon or Mars."

“Oxygen isotopes in meteorites are hugely different from those of the terrestrial planets, ... With oxygen being the third most abundant element in the universe and one of the major rock forming elements, this variation among different solar system bodies is a puzzle that must be solved to understand how the solar system formed and evolved.”

"In most instances, oxygen isotopes sort out according to mass. Oxygen-17, for example, has just one extra neutron and is incorporated into molecules half as often as oxygen-18, which has two extra neutrons. In these meteorites, however, the rate at which they were incorporated was independent of their masses."

"One theory proposes that the mix of oxygen isotopes was different back when the earliest solid matter in the Solar System formed, perhaps enriched by matter blasted in from a nearby supernova. Another suggests a photochemical effect called self-shielding, which this team had previously ruled out. The final surviving theory was that a physical chemical principle called symmetry could account for the observed patterns of oxygen isotopes."

The final surviving theory was tested "by filling a hockey puck sized chamber with pure oxygen, varying amounts of pure hydrogen and a little black nugget of solid silicon monoxide. A laser was used to vaporize a plume of silicon monoxide gas into the mix. This mixture of ingredients is observed by radiotelescopes in interstellar clouds, the starting point for our Solar System."

"The oxygen and nitrogen reacted with the silicon monoxide gas to form silicon dioxide. This solid, which is the basis of silicate minerals like quartz that are so prevalent in the crust of the Earth, settled as dust in the chamber. The earliest solid materials in the Solar System were formed by these reactions of gases."

After [collecting and analyzing the dust] a mix of oxygen isotopes [was found] that matched the anomalous pattern found in stony meteorites. The fact that the degree of the anomaly scaled with the percentage of the atmosphere that was hydrogen points to a reaction governed by symmetry."

“No matter what else happened early on in the nebula, this is the last step in making the first rocks from scratch, ... We’ve shown that you don’t need a magic recipe to generate this oxygen anomaly. It’s just a simple feature of physical chemistry.”

Materials

Main resources: Chemicals/Materials and Materials

"The amount of gas in the cores is not enough to satisfy the virial theorem—it is comparable with the amount in ‘luminous’ galactic material. [...] if the universe were closed by hot gas, or by black holes which were not primordial, but formed by astrophysical processes from baryonic material, the cosmic abundances of the light elements would require some unorthodox explanations".

Earth

Main resource: Earth

"Current theories for the origin of Earth’s ocean require a contribution from both asteroids and comets, although the relative importances of the asteroidal and cometary fractions is still under investigation (Delsemme, 2000; Morbidelli et al., 2000)."

Quasars

Main resources: Stars/Quasars and Quasars

"Luminous quasars could only form after galactic sized systems had collapsed. A constant comoving density of luminous quasars between z=2 and z=4 is compatible with the CDM model if quasars are short-lived and radiate at about the Eddington limit. However, according to the CDM model the abundance of high-luminosity quasars must decline exponentially at higher redshifts [...] at z~5."

Hypotheses

Main resource: Hypotheses

1. Orthogonality may have occurred before dimensionality.

"The cognitive theory of the young Steiner is at one and the same time an ontology and a cosmogony—a regression to the pre-modern naive movement of universal realism. Its aim is to show man his task and position in the universe through a process of self-reflection and to ensure that through the thought process [...] man is able to achieve something which he once owed to a belief in revelation, namely the satisfaction of the mind.⁶"

"Steiner’s cosmogony takes the basic form of the gnostic myth: man must lose his worldliness and slavish dependence on material things so that the soul and the world can rise up to self-redemption and fuse once again with the divine spiritual origins which both bear within them. Modern man lives on the fourth planetary phase of development of the earth that entails an experience of individuation and the respiritualization of the individual."

"An earlier quantitative survey of former German pupils of the Rudolf Steiner schools (born in the year 1940/41) revealed significant differences between this group and a control group in the following areas: higher geographical and social mobility; more pronounced leisure activities in the areas of reading, interest in art, practice of a musical instrument and ability in craftwork; and an interest in further training.²¹"

See also

• Cosmology
• Theoretical astronomy

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