Monday, April 23, 2012

Red Dwarf Habitable Zone Earth Size Planets are Like Venus

The Earth sits squarely in the sun’s habitable zone. A star’s “habitable zones” is the distance range around a star where planets can have liquid water on their surface. Astronomers have been excited to find that about 40% of red dwarfs have approximately Earth size planets orbiting them many of which are in the stars habitable zone. This fact has lead to the suggestion that these planet could have life on them. A new study shows that tidal forces may dry out Earth size planets orbiting within a red dwarf “habitable zones” making them more like Venus than Earth and therefore hostile to life.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Electromagnetism





Electromagnetism is the study of affects of electric charges both at rest and in motion.  It is one of the four fundamental forces of nature and it is the main binding force of the atom outside the nucleus. Electromagnetic theory is important to understanding nature. Charge is the property of subatomic particle that gives rise to electric fields.

The charge of a particle can be negative, positive, or neutral. Charge is a fundamental property of matter. Magnetism is the force of attraction or repulsion resulting from the motion of electric charges. While the force lines associated with electric charges tend to be strait, magnetic force lines tend to be circular. Electrodynamics is the branch of physics dealing with the electromagnetic forces between electric charges.

In its most basic form electrodynamics deals with the affect of charges in relative motion. It is this mutual production of electric and magnetic fields that  forms the  bases of the unification of eclectic and magnetic fields. Every thing else in electromagnetism extends from this starting principles.