The Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant

Theres a ghostly remnant of star death out there in the night-time sky. It cant be seen with the naked eye. However, stargazers can glimpse it through a  telescope. It looks like a faint wisp of light, and astronomers have long  called it the Crab Nebula. The Ghostly Remains of a Dead Star This faint, fuzzy-looking object is all that remains of a massive star that died in a supernova explosion thousands of years ago. The most famous recent image of this cloud of hot gas and dust was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope  and shows amazing detail of the expanding cloud. Thats not quite how it looks from a backyard-type telescope, but its still worth searching out from November through March each year. The Crab Nebula lies about 6,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Taurus. The debris cloud has been expanding ever since the original explosion, and now it covers an area of space about 10 light-years across. People often ask if the Sun will explode like this. Thankfully, the answer is no.  Its not massive enough to create such a sight. Our star will end its days as a planetary nebula.   The Crab Through History For anyone alive in the year 1054, the Crab would have been so bright they could see it in the daytime.  It was easily the brightest object in the sky, besides the Sun and Moon, for several months. Then, as all supernova explosions do, it began to fade. Chinese astronomers noted its presence in the sky as a guest star, and its thought that the Anasazi people who lived in the U.S. desert southwest also noted its presence. Weirdly enough, there are NO mentions of it in European histories of the time, which is somewhat odd, since there WERE people observing the sky.  Some historians have suggested that perhaps wars and famines kept people from paying much attention to celestial sights. Whatever, the reasons, the historical mentions of this awesome sight were pretty limited.   The Crab Nebula got its name in 1840 when William Parsons, the Third Earl of Rosse, using a 36-inch telescope, created a drawing of a nebula he spotted that he thought looked like a crab. With the 36-inch telescope, he was not able to fully resolve the colored web of hot gas around the pulsar. But, he tried again a few years later with a bigger telescope and then he could see greater detail. He noted that his earlier drawings were not representative of the true structure of the nebula, but the name Crab Nebula was already popular.   What Made the Crab What It Is Today? The Crab belongs to a class of objects called supernova remnants (which astronomers shorten down to SNR). They are created when a star many times the mass of the Sun collapses in on itself and then rebounds out in a catastrophic explosion. This is called a supernova. Why does the star do this?  Massive stars eventually run out of fuel in their cores at the same time they are losing their outer layers to space. That expansion of the stellar material is called mass loss, and it actually begins long before the star dies. It gets more intense as the star ages, and so astronomers recognize mass loss as a hallmark of a star that is aging and dying, particularly if theres a LOT of it happening. At some point, the outward pressure from the core cant hold back the massive weight of the outer layers, They collapse in and then everything blasts back out in a violent burst of energy. That sends huge amounts of stellar material out to space. This forms the â€Å"remnant† that we see today. The leftover core of the star keeps contracting under its own gravity. Eventually, it forms a new type  of object called a neutron star. The Crab Pulsar The neutron star  at the heart of the Crab is very small, probably just a few miles across. But it is extremely dense. If someone had a can of soup filled with neutron star material, it would have about the same mass as Earths Moon!   The pulsar itself is roughly in the center of the nebula and spins very fast,  about 30 times a second. Rotating neutron stars like this are called pulsars (derived from the words PULSating stARS). The pulsar inside the Crab  is one of the most powerful ever observed. It injects so much energy into the nebula that astronomers can detect light streaming away from the cloud in virtually every wavelength, from low-energy radio photons to the highest energy  gamma rays. The Pulsar Wind Nebula The Crab Nebula is also referred to as a pulsar wind nebula or PWN. A PWN is a nebula that is created by the material that is ejected by a pulsar interacting with random interstellar gas and the pulsar’s own magnetic field. PWNs are often difficult to distinguish from SNRs, since they often look very similar. In some cases, objects will appear with a PWN but no SNR. The Crab Nebula contains a PWN inside the SNR, and it appears as a sort of cloudy area in the middle of the HST image. Astronomers continue to study the Crab and chart the outward motion of its remnant clouds. The pulsar remains an object of great interest, as well as the material its lighting up as it swings its searchlight-like beam around during its rapid spin.      Edited by  Carolyn Collins Petersen.

The Poverty Of South Africa - 1509 Words

The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the forty eight poorest nations. Just like how most money is in the hands of the few, during apartheid most power was in the minority leaving others to suffer without a chance to truly achieve their potential. In South Africa it became extreme to the point where certain races could only live in certain areas; clearly it lasted much too long.The main reasons why it lasted so long was because of the segregational laws, failed rallies; and lack of a leader. First we need a basic understanding of the apartheid system in South Africa. Apartheid was the structure of government in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. It was Established by the National Party which was the government at the time. The term â€Å"apartheid† literally means apartment and was used to keep the white minority in power. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the segregational system didn’t exist before 1948, it just means that it became official then. One of the most distinguishing things about apartheid is its degrading laws. These laws were one of the main reasons why apartheid lasted so long. One of these laws was the Race classification act.This basically meant that everyone was classified according to race. It involved lots testing and continuously change between the races for example in 1984; 518 coloured people were defined as white; 2 whites were called chinese; 1 white was reclassified indian; 1 white becameShow MoreRelatedRacism And Poverty : South Africa1640 Words   |  7 PagesSince it’s foundation, South Africa has faced significant issues with racism and poverty. From the times of colonialism, to the era of apartheid, South Africans have been segregated in discriminatory contexts that have left a large proportion of the population living in desperate conditions. 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In South Africa, people are free in numerous ways for instance South Africans are free to express themselves, go wherever they want, and follow any religion. Furthermore, Libertarians believe in freedom of choice which is the same belief occurring in South Africa. Freedom plays a major role in South Africa’s Bill of Rights, and is a reoccuring theme throughout South African laws and politics. The economic issue in Libetaria is that theRead MoreTo what extent is reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty sufficient to achieve economic growth and development?1222 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿To what extent is reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty sufficient to achieve economic growth and development? Absolute poverty measures the number of people living below a certain income threshold or the number of households unable to afford certain basic goods and services. Much of the poverty in developing countries, such as South Africa, tends to be absolute poverty. Economic growth can be defined as steady growth in the productive capacity of the economy. Short term growth

Meditation, attention and well-being of college students Free Essays

Ask any college student today and they would probably say that being in college is one of the most difficult and consuming endeavor that they have had in their lifetime. College life is not only about going to classes, meeting deadlines, writing papers and completing courses. College life is also about developing analytical and critical minds, learning life-skills, building knowledge and applying it to real-life situations. We will write a custom essay sample on Meditation, attention and well-being of college students or any similar topic only for you Order Now College students need all the help they could get to make their academic lives a little lighter or more manageable. Many self-help books have advocated changing one’s attitude, thinking positively, time-management, building relationships and other methods that one gets a feeling that they do not really provide solutions but just state the obvious. One that has received less attention is in the area of meditation. Literature has found that meditation has positive effects in reducing stress as a relaxation technique. However, meditation has been associated with new age thinking and referred to as spooky stuff that the present generation of college students may not be aware of. Meditation have existed since man first begun creative thinking, it is often referred in religious and spiritual practices. In the early years of psychological investigation, meditation became a popular subject in terms of the experiences that people have when they meditated as well as how it can be an effective relaxation technique. Meditation is being able to become more attuned with one’s inner self and this takes a great deal of directed attention. Attention refers to the ability of the mind or consciousness to attend to a specific area, event, information or thing. Studies on attention have highlighted the detrimental effects of not being able to hold one’s attention, and of how fleeting and short a person’s attention span can be especially in a very complex and stimulus overloaded  environment we have. Directing attention to a single object or thought can be relaxing since it allows the person to be present in the here and now, it was also espoused that training oneself to become more attentive can develop cognitive functioning and thus help in academic performance. College students can benefit in learning and being able to use meditation techniques to cope with the many stresses and anxiety of college life and developing attention skills to further enhance academic performance. It is therefore hypothesized that college students who practice meditation will have a longer attention span and will have higher grades and a more positive mental health and hence increased feelings of well-being. This study will determine if college students who practice meditation techniques on a regular basis have higher attention skills as measured by a behavioral experiment and whether they have more positive feelings of well-being as determined by a well-being inventory. A discussion of meditation and its application into the enhancement of attention, creativity and consciousness is presented to demonstrate the far reaching effects of meditation as a means of aiding college student’s performance in school and their mental health. Meditation Meditation has been defined as process wherein the person achieves an altered sate of consciousness by performing certain rituals and exercises. These exercises include controlling and regulating breathing, sharply restricting one’s field of attention, eliminating external stimuli,  assuming yogic body positions and forming mental images of an event or symbol. The result is a pleasant, mildly altered subjective state in which the individual feels mentally and physically relaxed. Some individuals after extensive meditation practice may have mystical experiences in which they lose self-awareness and gain a sense of being involved in a wider consciousness, however defined. That such meditative techniques may cause a change in consciousness goes back to the ancient times and is represented in every major world religion. Buddhists, Hindus, Sufis, Jews and Christians all have literature describing rituals that induce meditative states (Arambula, Kawakami, Gibney, 2001). Traditional forms of meditation follow the practices of yoga, a system of thought based on the Hindu religion, or Zen which is derived from Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. The two common techniques of meditation are an opening up meditation and concentrative meditation.  Ã‚   In opening-up meditation the subject clears his/her mind for receiving new experiences while in concentrative meditation the benefits are obtained through actively attending to some object, word, or idea. Experimental studies of meditation provide only limited insight into the alterations of consciousness that a person can achieve when meditative practice and training extend over many years. In his study of the Matramudra, a centuries old Tibetan Buddhist text, Brown (1977) has described the complex training required to master the technique. He has shown that cognitive changes can be expected at different meditative levels. A somewhat commercialized and popular form of meditation has been promoted as transcendental meditation or TM ( Hanley Spates, 1978) ). The technique is easily learned from a qualified teacher who gives the novice mediator a mantra and instructions on how to repeat it over and over to produce the deep rest and awareness  characteristic of TM. In TM a person develops a reduced state of physiological arousal; feelings such as peace of mind, a feeling of being at peace with the world and a sense of well-being are reported after engaging in TM. In a now classic study on the effect of TM to college students by Hanley Spates (1978), it was reported that those who were practicing meditation had more positive personalities. In this study, meditation in the form of transcendental meditation (TM) will be used as the meditative process which will be given to college students who will participate in this study. The TM is much easier to learn and practice than the traditional forms of mediation and since it produces feelings of peace and well-being that it suits the purpose of this study. Meditation is categorized under altered states of consciousness and since consciousness is the most basic cognitive function that is closely related to attention, the second part of this study is to determine if meditation enhances attention span and accuracy and in effect would lead to greater academic performance. Meditation and Attention Meditation and attention is unquestionably linked together, meditation is the process by which attention is narrowed and focused on one object or event, and without engaging one’s attention fully to the immediate task, and then nothing will come out of it. Attention must be acutely directed towards the mantra, the breathing of the individual and the experiences one will have during the meditative state. Meditation in effect enhances the ability of the person to direct attention and when attention is more keen and developed, a person can have better concentration  and can better attend to the critical thinking skills needed in college education (Shear Jevning, 1999). Attention has been the earliest subject of the study of psychology, cognitive science have provided evidence that attention is physiological, that it is limited but can be expanded to become more acute and enable the person to become more aware of his/her environment, more appreciative of nature and life and it causes a general feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction. Several studies have tried to find evidence that meditation and attention has a relationship. In a study of the effects of opening-up and concentrative mediation to attention in terms of ignoring distractions and focusing attention (Chan, 2003) found that meditation was positively correlated with the ability to direct attention but it was shown that meditation minutes per day was positively correlated with decreased distractions and mistakes, the form of mediation used or how may years a person has been meditating did not have any significant relationship with the owner. In a similar study, concentrative and mindfulness motivation was measured in terms of how effective it contributed to the task of sustained attention. The study compared the sustained attention of students who had meditation training to those who did not (Valentine Sweet, 1999). The study found that those who had meditation techniques scored better in the sustained attention task wherein those who practiced mindfulness meditation had better scores than the concentrative mediators. The practical applications of an enhanced attention that is not affected by distractions and sustained attention can be directed towards improved academic performance of students. Meditation, Attention and Well-being 7 Meditation and Creativity A new concept put forward by Sarath (2006) advocated the use of meditation techniques to mainstream classroom instruction as it enriches the learning process and enhances the creative process and consciousness of students. Creativity is highly related to the issue of meditation because the experience associated with meditation is similar to the second person approach wherein the student actually creates and produces an output that would enable him/her to have a deeper understanding of the concepts raised in class (Sarath, 2006). The author had argued that education and learning should be focused on providing actual experience of the lesson, not just learning something in books and not being able to work with it. Creative expression of one’s talent and interests should be the main thrust of the school. At the same time, a more sustained attention and inability to be distracted by external stimuli are necessary steps in the practice of creative thinking. Conclusion Meditation is not just for the spiritual and magical but it is also a positive process to develop attention and induce students to relax and communicate with their bodies and their surroundings. College students have to deal with pressures and expectations that they sometimes feel cranky, anxious and fed up. Meditation as evidenced by the studies conducted showed that it could positively affect attitudes, attention span and resistance to distractions. Meditation also has been found to be a medium that could enhance the learning process and encourage creativity. As such, this study has found evidence to support the hypothesis mentioned in the first part. Meditation, Attention and Well-being 8 References Arambula, P., Kawakami, M., Gibney, K.   (2001). The physiological correlates of Kundalini Yoga meditation: A study of a yoga master. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 26; 2, pp. 47-53. Brown, D.P. (1977). A model for the levels of concentrative meditation. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 25; 4: 236-273. Chan, D.P. (2003). Effects of meditation to attention, Unpublished dissertation. University of California. Hanley, C. Spates, J. (1978). Transcendental meditation and social psychological   attitudes. The Journal of Psychology, 99, p121-1127. Sarath, Ed. (2006). Meditation, Creativity and Consciousness: Charting Future Terrain with Higher Education. Teachers College Record, 108; 9, pp 1816-1841. Valentine, E. Sweet, P. (1989). Meditation and Attention: A comparison of the effects of concentrative and mindfulness meditation on sustained attention. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 2; 1, pp 59 to 70. Shear, J. Jevning, R. (1999). Pure consciousness: Scientific exploration of meditation techniques. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6; 2, p. 3) How to cite Meditation, attention and well-being of college students, Essay examples

Social Work as a Career free essay sample

Career Goals According to the National Association of Social Workers website, Social Justice is the foundation of Social Work’s unique purpose and perspective representing one of its core values. (www. socialworkers. org) Embedded in social justice is economic justice and the two existing without one another is the fundamental attention Social Workers promote on behalf of clients surrounding environmental forces that create and contribute problems in living beginning the process of equal economic, political and social rights with opportunity. Social Workers open the door to those greatest in need conveying the message of person in their environment developing personal and social responsibilities using institutions as a tool. Institutions that provide wages from work; institutions for exchanging goods and services; along with those institutions that are void of economic gain such as schools, hospitals and detention centers increasing the need for experienced professionals. (www. socialworkers. org) Becoming a School Social Worker I can address what I view as an imbalance of social and economic justice in the school system. We will write a custom essay sample on Social Work as a Career or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Like special education labels, inferior educational tools and resources, limited extracurricular activities, lack of empathy, and an environment where parents relinquish parental power to school administrators; resulting in students lacking self-motivation and parents lacking a support system on motivating their children who may be experiencing social, emotional, and behavioral problems that impede learning. I would like to develop a program that teach parents adaptation skills learning that parenting does not have to be one size fits all. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the roles and expectations of the school, the parent and the student to eradicate some of the social and economic justice inequities that exist. The United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that employment of social workers is expected to grow by 25 percent from 2010 to 2020, faster than the average for all occupations. Growth will be due to an increase in demand for health care and social services but will vary by specialty. (www. bls. gov/ooh/community-and-social-service/social-workers. tm) Comparing those statistics to other professional fields of study gives me comfort and confirmation that my choice to pursue this professional degree is a decision in the right direction. Positively impacting the community I’ll serve. Â  Bureau of Labor Statistics