This is not true.  And the claim about the size comparison with the moon is also false.  Here is a brief history of this story.

On August 27, 2003, Mars did get a tiny bit closer to the earth than usual. The 2 planets are on the same side of the sun every 780 days or so, and that year it was the smallest distance that it has been in thousands of years. How much closer? And when were the other close times in recent years? Here is a table showing how much bigger Mars appeared to be in 2003 compared to other years when it was close or will be close.

So you can see that, even though it was unusually close in 2003, it was not something all that rare.

The other misleading statement is about the size compared to the moon.  The original story said that if you looked through a telescope at 50 power, Mars would appear in the telescope to be about the same size as the full moon appears to the naked eye.  That is quite a different story.

By the way, the next “closest distance” will be next spring, on March 3, 2012.  The last previous time was January 10, 2010.

Even though Elijah used the same words in his second answer, I think it was spoken differently.  In a google search on this question, I found no one else whose thoughts on the scene are in line with my own, so I don’t claim to have any evidence to support my ideas.  But I think that the 3 displays of God’s power must have shaken Elijah. And when he answers the second time, “I have been very jealous for the Lord…,” I feel he spoke in a different tone of voice.

Maybe the first time he gave the answer it was done in a self-righteous, offended tone of voice; and the second time in a broken, heart-felt complaint to our Lord. Has anyone else had thoughts about this? Was there any change in Elijah between the two replies?

I am interested in your thoughts about this impression.

Boyd

I was in my favorite domain – my garage – yesterday.  My wife had a question for me.  She approached the garage door, stood there for a moment, and smiled at me when I looked up, probably with my serious face, since I was busy.  She asked her question.  I gave my answer.  And she walked back to the house.

And the Lord nudged me, “Do you think she feels like Esther?”  I wondered about that, and immediately found the need to repent of this still-another “blind spot” that I have failed to see.

I went into the house and asked her, “Do you sometimes feel like Esther?”

She turned and immediately replied, “Oh, yes!”

I said, “What do you mean by that?”

“Like Esther entering the throne room of the king and hoping he will extend the scepter instead of having my head chopped off,” she replied lovingly.

My heart melted and I asked for forgiveness through tears of laughter as we hugged and found comfort in one more chink in my armor being identified, and by faith, corrected.

Thank You, Father.

or try this one:

This was an excellent sermon preached by Pastor Bob at First Freewill Baptist Church, Richmond, VA.  You can write Boyd at BrightMysteries@verizon.net for further information.  If the link doesn’t work, please let me know. Thanks. By the way, since Pastor Bob’s 93 birthday was 2 days later, we sang happy birthday to him – I noticed he joined in on the singing.

Both of the processes involve producing final products that are more stable than the initial ingredients. Fission happens when a heavy nucleus breaks up into two or more lighter nuclei, releasing lots of energy, because the lighter nuclei are more stable. Fusion goes the other way. Two very light nuclei are combined to give a heavier, more stable nucleus, releasing even more energy per gram, because the difference in stability between the “parents” and the “child” is even greater.

The most stable nuclei have 50-60 neutrons plus protons in them (iron and nickle, are typical in this range). So the final product at the end of the life of a star, for example, is a large chunk of this material. The lighter elements (nuclei) have fused together into these medium-heavy nuclei.

For comparison, nuclear fission starts with very heavy nuclei, Uranium, for example, with 238 neutrons and protons, and splits up into products frequently in this same range of medium-heavy nuclei.

So, to review, a star spends something like 99% of its life converting Hydrogen into Helium in the fusion process, then it changes character, spending the rest of its life (much shorter time scale) combining Helium into heavier nuclei, and those products into heavier ones still, until the stability maximum is reached, then it “dies”.

Since fusion is more efficient than fission, then why haven’t fusion reactors been made successfully for man’s use? The answer is, because it is very difficult to get the Hydrogen nuclei close enough to combine. They naturally repel each other because the protons are positively charged (remember, like charges repel).

Because a star is so massive, the strong gravitational force overcomes the repulsion between like charges, forcing them close enough to fuse. This kind of force has been very difficult to produce in the laboratories on earth. Only in the Hydrogen bomb has fusion been consistently possible. The atomic bomb is a fission process.

So that is a brief account of how a star “burns”. Another article will talk about the sequence of the life of a star including the time scale involved.

What are these stellar objects?  Well, astronomers think they all started out as regular stars and these are the results of their”deaths”.  But these are theories that may or may not be true.  (I think they are true, but I can’t prove them).

As in most all things created, we cannot do experiments in the present to see what really happened in the past. The best we can do is make up theories that seem to explain the evidence, and then compare other evidence as it is found against the theories.

So here is a brief summary of the theories as I understand them.

Red Giants = stars that are nearing death.  They have used up all the Hydrogen in the core, in the fusion process from Hydrogen to heavier elements, and there is a outer shell of hydrogen which continues the fusion process, but expands the diameter of the star greatly – typically 200 times its original size.  (Our sun would grow large enough to engulf the earth, it is predicted).

White Dwarfs = The white hot core of the star after it has “died” and blown off the outer shells.  It takes millions of years to finally cool off and become a cold, black dwarf, and no longer visible.

Black Holes = Many types, but one type is a star that had so much mass at the end of its life, that it collapsed under its own gravity to such a size where the density was so great that not even light could escape.  And this is the one I want to talk about more because a lot of the physics needs explaining.

The history line says “The original Galaxy Zoo was launched in July 2007, with a data set made up of a million galaxies imaged with the robotic telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. With so many galaxies, the team thought that it might take at least two years for visitors to the site to work through them all. Within 24 hours of launch, the site was receiving 70,000 classifications an hour, and more than 50 million classifications were received by the project during its first year, from almost 150,000 people.”

I just joined and hope to spend some time contributing. Anyone can do it. A tutorial is included. And your classification is checked against other observers to help prevent mistakes.