This just goes to show how much we do not know about our universe and how things really behave and move about over the years even with the advancement of the human mind and technology. Prepare for a long read because recently, scientists have been busy debunking and questioning nature's fundamental laws and they have found discreprancies that will show that the value of certain fundamental parameters, such as the speed of light or the invisible glue that holds nuclei together, may have been different in the past. So constants, seems to not be real constants.

The said differences are small, a few ppms, but even the smallest of changes would mean that the laws of physics would have to be revised--if not completely rewritten. Plus aside from the three spatial dimensions that we have grown accustomed to (length, width, and height), it seems that we might need to make room for six more spatial dimensions.

The evidence for varying constants that scientists rely on comes primarily from quasar studies. A quasar is an astronomical source of electromagnetic energy, including light, that dwarfs the energy output of the brightest stars. This one is bright and usually powered by black holes. It may readily release energy in levels equal to the output of hundreds of average galaxies combined.

Astronomer Michael Murphy heads the team that has been studying the spectra of this ancient light to determine if the early universe was different than now. Specifically, they look at absorption lines, which are due to gas clouds between us and the quasars. These lines are like fingerprints and DNA, it reveals what's in the clouds. All seems well until in 1999, the team found out that these fingerprints and DNA change in time.

How? By using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, they detected a frequency difference between billion-year-old quasar lines and the corresponding lines measured on Earth. Also they  recently performed careful lab experiments to confirm that there is indeed a shift in the quasar spectra, since some of those Earth-bound lines are not well characterized.

So, what does this mean? Because of the difference between quasars of today and those of billion years ago, this was interpreted as indicating that light was faster in the past, or that the electron had a weaker charge. Thus grilling the Fundamental Law of the Speed of Light and that electrons had a weaker charge.

Another finding from the team of Patrick Petitjean in the Astrophysical Institute of Paris revealed that a change in the proton to electron mass ratio from molecular absorption lines in quasar spectra. Which coincides with the observed electrron charge change in the Murphy study.

And talk about rewriting the Laws of Physics. If this is proven to be accurate and true, this would be a deviance in Albert Einstein's Theories-- the Equivalence Theory which basically says that  any experiment testing nuclear or electromagnetic forces should give the same result no matter where or when it is performed; and the Gravitational Theory or general relativity.

According to the Randall-Sundrum theory of the universe, "'Braneworld," the perceivable universe - that which we can observe physically - is a "membrane within a larger universe, like a strand of seaweed floating in the ocean." As such, it may be five dimensional, as opposed to the four dimensional  Einsteinian universe (height, width, depth and time).

So...where's the proof?

Possibly in the existence of "miniature black holes" that may be  floating around our solar system (a potentially frightening thought, if you've kept up with the posts on this particular blog). A new outer space telescope -  the Gamma-ray Large Space Telescope (GLAST) - is scheduled for launch next year that is sensitive enough to detect these mini-black holes - assuming they exist. If they do, scientists will be able to test the "'Braneworld" Theory, which one scientist described as "crazy enough to be true."

These "mini-black holes," thought to be the size of an atom's nucleus - but weighing as much as a small asteroid - are remnants of the "Big Bang," according to Braneworld, and there may be billions of them seeded throughout the galaxy. Relativity, on the other hand, suggests that these objects have long since evaporated. If these mini-black holes indeed exist, they would warp the fabric of space in a way different from that of "normal" black holes. According to scientists, light waves - particularly gamma rays - will be distorted in a different way when passing them.

If this indeed is true, GLAST will tell us all about it.

We earlier reported about those new findings that magnetic fields play an important role in nudging matters into black holes. In that report we said that the team made use of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to get their facts straight. Now, University of Michigan astronomer Jon Miller, who headed the research team, speaks up about his personal and scientific takes on the team's findings.

When he was asked on what is the level of significance and impact of their findings, he answered "this result is an important step toward understanding accretion onto black holes, which is ultimately central to understanding how black holes and galaxies co-evolve. So, potentially, the impact could be quite broad." In his answers it is implied that the findings only lead to more questions that will produce facts that again will come up with more questions.

That is why it is very important to him do more research about the topic. In his own words, he said that "we need more observations, and more sensitive observations. Chandra has allowed us an important glimpse; a future mission like Constellation-X has the potential to reveal the infall of matter onto black holes in even more exquisite detail." As what they say, the thirst for knowledge and facts is unquenchable.

Mr. Miller also believes that their findings will be positively received by the scientific community, yet he doesn't close the possibilities to skeptics. He continued by stressing the importance of his findings, "accretion onto central black holes can have a profoud impact on how galaxies evolve. It is also through accretion, that black holes in the center of galaxies grow to be monstrous -- millions to hundreds of millions of solar masses. More broadly, by some estimates, 20% of the light in the universe is due to accretion onto black holes. The mechanisms which cause accretion onto black holes to be a strong source of radiation (and sometimes also matter if a wind is driven) are therefore important for us to understand."

And being the meticulous astronomer that he is, he made sure that he thanked those who had a hand in the research. He was grateful to the staff of the Chandra X-ray Observatory and to NASA for their support. And he seem to look forward to the idea of doing more studies with Chandra anytime soon.

It seems that gravity isn't the only culprit in sending matters into centers of black holes, apparently, magnetism also has a hand on this. According to a new study, magnetism provides the final nudge that trap matters into a black hole, this result confirms a 1973 theory which states that magnetic fields drive both the infall of matter into black holes and the production of light energy created by the process.

Although a black hole's gravity is enough to draw matter in and keep it spinning in a stable "accretion disk". But before getting sucked up in a black hole, the matter must first lose some of its rotation speed which is called angular momentum. If angular momentum from the disk were not dissipated away, gas in the accretion disk would circle the black hole forever in a stable orbit, like the planets around our sun.

So how did the researchers uncover the role of magnetism in this phenomenon? Using NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the researchers studied GRO J1655-40, a binary system made up of a seven-solar-mass black hole that is stealing gas from the surface of a normal star. The siphoned gas accumulates in an accretion disk around the black hole. The spinning gas generated its own magnetic field which in turn powered a wind of charged particles blowing away from the black hole.

The wind of charged particles then transferred angular momentum from the inner regions of the disk outward which slowed down some of the spinning gas, allowing it to fall onto the black hole. The same researchers believe that magnetic fields play a pivotal role in the activities of black holes of different sizes and proportions. According to one of the researchers, University of Michigan astronomer Jon Miller, "we already know that disks around some young stars are driven by [magnetic] processes...It would not be a major surprise if all accretion disks rely on internal magnetic properties, at least partially."

Scientists tell us there are supermassive black holes at the heart of nearly every galaxy. Ranging from a million to a billion times the mass of our Sun, they consume everything around them. When this process goes too quickly, it "clogs the pipeline" (like stuffing one's mouth with more food than one can swallow). This results in the  glow of various wavelengths of radiation, visible from millions, and even billions of light years away.

Objects swallowed up by these monsters don’t go quietly; on the contrary, all of us might actually hear them in space soon.

These death screams will be recorded by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) which is scheduled for launch in 2015. This will consist of  three identical spacecrafts flying in triangular formation five million kilometers (about three million miles) apart.

As compact objects are consumed by the supermassive black hole, the enormous energies involved will send powerful gravity waves rippling across space.  As these strike the LISA spacecraft, the distance between them will  expand and contract slightly. LISA should be able to detect these changes, as well as the direction from where they originated.

Large supermassive black holes consumed all the compact objects in their vicinity long ago. Smaller black holes, however could still be surrounded by even smaller black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs, so their collisions should be more frequently detected.

The Black Hole Information Paradox comes from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity and has been the topic of nearly 30 years of debate. In 1976, Stephen Hawking calculated that as soon as a black hole forms, it starts losing mass by radiating energy ("Hawking radiation"). Hawking radiation contains no information about the matter inside the black hole and once the black hole fizzles, all information is lost.

Nice theory but unfortunately it violates the laws of quantum physics which say information can never be completely destroyed. Hawking argued that the intense gravitational fields of black holes somehow turns the laws of quantum physics upside down and inside out. Other physicists have forwarded their own theories that could make sense of this cosmic chicken-or-egg paradox.

One of them suggests black holes are not smooth, featureless entities but stringy "fuzzballs. According to the string theory, proposed by Ohio State University physicists, all particles in the universe are made of tiny vibrating strings. The contentious information continues to exist bound up in a giant tangle of strings that fills a black hole from its core to its surface.

NASA says it has the answer to the Black Hole Paradox. But you have to wait for a few days to know what it is. Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory will host a media teleconference on June 21 (1 p.m. EDT) to explain how black holes light up the universe. Briefing participants include:

• Jon Miller, assistant professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• John Raymond, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
• Meg Urry, professor, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

A video file about the discovery will also be aired on NASA TV.

Between the Third Dimension, which is where we are right now, and the Fifth Dimension, which was a popular group back in the 70s, lies the Fourth Dimension. And the existence of this fourth spatial dimension could be proven using a satellite scheduled to be launched next year. Although still in they-think-it-exists stage, the 4th dimension could give rise to thousands of mini-black holes within our own solar system. 

Black holes of various masses are thought to have been generated by the Big Bang as elementary particles. If Einstein's theory of general relativity is correct, the smallest of "primordial" black holes should have dissipated by now through a quantum process called Hawking radiation.

Alternative theories say these small black holes could still exist because of the existence of the 4th dimension which is lacking in theory of general relativity. "That [extra spatial dimension] changes the rate at which black holes radiate, so you can slow down the evaporation quite substantially," says Charles Keeton, a physicist at Rutgers University.

The full article awaits after the jump!

There may be a way to ensure that space telescopes fly in ultra-precise formations around our planet. According to a physicist, this is possible by combining the push of laser light with the pull of tethers. The issue is important because even if giant telescopes and sensitive detectors usually could do the job, they are expensive to make and to maintain plus they are also burdensome to launch.

Now, several next generation space missions propose to use more than one, in some cases dozens, of smaller spacecraft flying in formation to cover the area between them. A good example of this is NASA's Micro-Ascend X-ray Imaging Mission (MAXIM) and the Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of Cosmic Structure (SPECS).

The former, envisions as many as 33 satellites flying in concert to create a massive, X-ray interferometer with a resolution high enough to image black holes. The latter, on the other hand, calls for three satellites with a spacing of 1 km. apart to study the first galaxies that were formed in the Universe.

The problem now is how would astronomers maintain the configurations that are needed to make the separate spacecraft move and behave as one. Physicist Young Bae, is now proposing a system that will rely on lasers and tethers, according to the good physicist, "with these two working in combination, we can achieve nanometer accuracy over a kilometer in formation".

The concept will work in this way, lasers are beamed between pairs of spacecraft within a formation. Mirrors on each satellite reflect the laser beams back and forth, providing an energy-efficient thrust. This outward push is balanced by the inward pull of tension in Kevlar tethers linking the satellites. The system also uses the laser beams to measure and maintain the desired distance between satellites very accurately. Bae also added that “the alignment accuracy cannot be achieved by any other means”.

The NASA Institute for Advanced concepts funded Bae's research, but according to NASA officials, Bae's idea is not the only idea that they are entertaining. There are others suggesting the use of electromagnets rather than traditional thrusters to control the pointing of the individual satellites.