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"So I can hear what you're saying: 'But you guys replicated the moon shot on a set, and you're special effects artists. You're exactly the kind of guys that NASA would've hired to do this kind of thing in the first place!'"
-Adam Savage, Mythbusters Moon Scam on Youtube 3:35. No rocket flame on LEM "blastoff" at 0:01. No stars.

"Surprisingly, the Moon is a moderately bright gamma-ray source. As Thompson says, 'The only part of the electromagnetic spectrum where the Moon is brighter than the Sun is gamma rays.' Being a cold, mostly inert object, the Moon is utterly incapable of producing gamma rays on? its own. But cosmic-ray particles slamming into the lunar surface produce secondary gamma rays."
-Robert Naeye, NASA GLAST, FERMI GAMMA RAY SPACE TELESCOPE, 23 August 2007

"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. This? is the great dragon of chapter 12, Satan or Azazel. He has a number of names, but in each case, he is the king of all the demons, Lucifer, who became Satan."
-Revelation 9:11, Christian Bible, KJV with Forerunner Commentary

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The Moon as seen by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, in gamma rays of greater than 20 MeV. These are produced by cosmic ray bombardment of its surface. The Sun, which has no similar surface of high atomic number to act as target for cosmic rays, cannot be seen at all at these energies, which are too high to emerge from primary nuclear reactions, such as solar nuclear fusion

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The sun as seen in gamma rays by COMPTEL during a June 15, 1991, solar flare. The sun is ordinarily not known to produce gamma rays, but during this solar flare, steams of neutrons poured into the intrastellar medium to create gamma rays.

http://spacescience.spaceref.com/newhome/headlines/compton_ast.htm

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In the past, the distinction between X-rays and gamma rays was based on energy (or equivalently frequency or wavelength), with gamma rays being considered a higher-energy version of X-rays. However, modern high-energy (megavoltage) X-rays produced by linear accelerators ("linacs") for megavoltage treatment, in cancer radiotherapy usually have higher energy than gamma rays produced by radioactive gamma decay. Conversely, one of the most common gamma-ray emitting isotopes used in diagnostic nuclear medicine, technetium-99m, produces gamma radiation of about the same energy (140 KeV) as produced by a diagnostic X-ray machine, and significantly lower energy than therapeutic photons from linacs. Because of this broad overlap in energy ranges, the two types of electromagnetic radiation are now usually defined by their origin: X-rays are emitted by electrons (either in orbitals outside of the nucleus, or while being accelerated to produce Bremsstrahlung-type radiation), while gamma rays are emitted by the nucleus or from other particle decays or annihilation events. There is no lower limit to the energy of photons produced by nuclear reactions, and thus ultraviolet and even lower energy photons produced by these processes would also be defined as "gamma rays".[2]

In certain fields such as astronomy, gamma rays and X-rays are still sometimes defined by energy, or used interchangeably, since the processes which produce them may be uncertain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray

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Homeland Security now using deadly gamma ray guns

Science Applications International Corp. in San Diego, CA received $98 million firm-fixed-price contract for 50 Militarized Mobile Gamma-Ray Imaging Systems for non-intrusive inspection of vehicles and cargo, as well as maintenance of these systems. Work will be performed in San Diego, CA, with an estimated completion date of Dec 24/10. The US Army Research Development and Engineering Command (ARDEC) Acquisition Center at Aberdeen Proving, MD issued this contract (W91CRB-09-F-0003).

Gamma Ray Imaging is used in the biomedical field to yield specialized PET/ SPECT scans, but it has also begin to see use under the USA’s 2002 Container Security Initiative (CSI). SAIC makes the MobileVACIS system for this purpose, with the ability to scan a 40 foot container in under 6 seconds.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/cat/contracts-awards/page/105/

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VACIS (Vehicle and Container Imaging System)

Cargo scanning or non-intrusive inspection (NII) refers to non-destructive methods of inspecting and identifying goods in transportation systems. It is often used for scanning of intermodal freight shipping containers. In the US it is spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security and its Container Security Initiative (CSI) trying to achieve one hundred percent cargo scanning by 2012[1] as required by the US Congress and recommended by the 9/11 Commission. In the US the main purpose of scanning is to detect special nuclear materials (SNMs), with the added bonus of detecting other types of suspicious cargo. In other countries the emphasis is on manifest verification, tariff collection and the identification of contraband.[2] At February 2009, approximately 80% of US incoming containers are scanned.[3][4]

Gamma-ray radiography systems capable of scanning trucks usually use cobalt-60 or caesium-137[5] as a radioactive source and a vertical tower of gamma detectors. The cobalt-60 units use gamma photons with a mean energy 1.25 MeV, which can penetrate up to 15-18 cm of steel.[5][6] The systems provide good quality images which can be used for identifying cargo and comparing it with the manifest, in an attempt to detect anomalies. It can also identify high-density regions too thick to penetrate, which would be the most likely to hide nuclear threats.

X-ray radiography

X-ray radiography is similar to Gamma-ray radiography but instead of using a radioactive source, it uses a high-energy Bremsstrahlung spectrum with energy in the 5-10 MeV range[7][8] created by a linear particle accelerator (LINAC). Such X-ray systems can penetrate up to 30-40 cm of steel[9][10] in vehicles moving with velocities up to 13 km/h. They provide higher penetration but also cost more to buy and operate.[6] They are more suitable for the detection of special nuclear materials than gamma-ray systems. They also deliver about 1000 times higher dose of radiation to potential stowaways.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_Scanning

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The innermost layer of the sun is the core. With a density of 160 g/cm^3, 10 times that of lead, the core might be expected to be solid. However, the core's temperature of 15 million kelvins (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) keeps it in a gaseous state.

In the core, fusion reactions produce energy in the form of gamma rays and neutrinos. Gamma rays are photons with high energy and high frequency. The gamma rays are absorbed and re-emitted by many atoms on their journey from the envelope to the outside of the sun. When the gamma rays leave atoms, their average energy is reduced. However, the first law of thermodynamics (which states that energy can neither be created nor be destroyed) plays a role and the number of photons increases. Each high-energy gamma ray that leaves the solar envelope will eventually become a thousand low-energy photons.

Outside of the core is the radiative envelope, which is surrounded by the convective envelope. The temperature is 4 million kelvins (7 million degrees F). The density of the solar envelope is much less than that of the core. The core contains 40 percent of the sun's mass in 10 percent of the volume, while the solar envelope has 60 percent of the mass in 90 percent of the volume. The solar envelope puts pressure on the core and maintains the core's temperature.

The photosphere is the zone from which the sunlight we see is emitted. The photosphere is a comparatively thin layer of low pressure gasses surrounding the envelope. It is only a few hundred kilometers thick, with a temperature of 6000 K.

The corona is hotter than some of the inner layers. Its average temperature is 1 million K (2 million degrees F) but in some places it can reach 3 million K (5 million degrees F).

he outermost layer of the sun is the corona. Only visible during eclipses, it is a low density cloud of plasma with higher transparency than the inner layers. The white corona is a million times less bright than the inner layers of the sun, but is many times larger.

The corona is hotter than some of the inner layers. Its average temperature is 1 million K (2 million degrees F) but in some places it can reach 3 million K (5 million degrees F).

Temperatures steadily decrease as we move farther away from the core, but after the photosphere they begin to rise again. There are several theories that explain this, but none have been proven.


The picture showing more turbulence was taken with x rays. The heat and energy of the corona cause the emission of x rays.

In the corona, above sunspots and areas of complex magnetic field patterns, are solar flares. These sparks of energy sometimes reach the size of the Earth and can last for up to several hours. Their temperature has been recorded at 11 million K (20 million degrees F). The extreme heat produces x rays that create light when they hit the gasses of the corona.



The solar corona is constantly losing particles. Protons and electrons evaporate off the sun, and reach the earth at velocities of 500 km/s. Most of the mass of the sun is held in by magnetic fields in the corona, but particles slip through occasional holes in the fields. Solar wind affects the magnetic fields of all the planets in the solar system. When the solar wind hits the Earth's magnetic field, the wind compresses the field and creates a shock wave called the Bow shock. Closer to the Earth are the Van Allen radiation belts where solar particles are trapped due to magnetic forces. Still closer are huge rings of electric current around the poles, formed by the influence of the solar wind on the magnetic field. Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have magnetotails where the wind extends their magnetic field.

http://fusedweb.llnl.gov/cpep/chart_pages/5.plasmas/sunlayers.html

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

So you're rejoicing that Obama has cut government spending on useless projects that have no future, right, PN? I mean, hell, if we've never been, we have no use trying to go again, returning to the Moon for the first time. Right?

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Hmmm... I do know about xrays and gamma rays being similar except for source, so when the wikipedia entry said that the sun's core emits no gamma rays, that was the extent of my inquiry.

I googled sun x-rays and got a mess of pictures, so you're right on that one. The sun does produce x-rays/gamma rays, at the surface.

My next questions are dose over surface area, and intensity. How much gamma radiation is emitted? What is the intensity of gamma ray exposure outside of the Van Allen Belt during normal solar activity? I can definitely buy someone getting fried by a solar flare being close enough that diffusion doesn't become a factor. During normal activity at earth range, it seems like the intensity of the gamma radiation would then fall off exponentially with distance, similar to how luminosity works.

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Daredevil Space Diver To Leap Toward World's First Supersonic Free-Fall From 120,000 Feet

Just what happens to his body as it goes from subsonic to supersonic and back to subsonic speed is of great interest to scientists, and so he’ll be hooked up to an electrocardiogram monitor during the jump. He’ll also be outfitted with accelerometers and GPS units to confirm his acceleration and speed, and from that the stress on his body. But that’s pretty much it for gear—because he’s wearing a pressurized suit filled with 100 percent oxygen, his crew is rightly wary of putting too many electronics and power sources in his suit that could accidentally set him on fire. Any data they collect will then be made public and turned over to the military and NASA. The plan is to make the jump sometime in 2010.

But first they have to test all the gear to make sure that it will work as it transitions from the freezing, no-pressure environment at 120,000 feet to the extreme heat of the dive. It’s the same as with any other flight test program, says Jonathan Clark, the team’s medical director (whose work in high-altitude space jumps we profiled in 2007). “Only in this case, Felix Baumgartner is the aircraft.”

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-01/120000-foot-jump-dare
devil-space-diver-become-first-human-break-sound-barrier-free-fall
http://www.redbullstratos.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner

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Originally posted by piratenews:
The Moon is bathed in both cosmic and solar radiation.

The Solar Wind is 6-million mph bullets of charged particles, and pushes away cosmic radiation particles from the Sun...

...The Sun's corona produces the gamma rays, from matter falling into the Sun's gravitational well, not nuke fusion in the core. Those Solar gamma rays hit the Moon at 670-million mph.

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Originally posted by out2theblack:

Speed of light is 186,282 miles per second , in vacuo , which works out to only about 600 million mph , so for those gamma rays to hit the moon at that velocity , the speed of light would have to be exceeded , wouldn't it ?

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Did y'all forget Joseph Kittinger already? He jumped from a balloon at over 102,000 feet altitude, exceeding 700mph in freefall. In 1960. Lived to tell the tale, too.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Awesome, O2B! I'd love to go up in an old biplane one day. I've done gliders and old canvas and wood Pipers, but never an open-cockpit biplane. Hell, a Stearman would be plenty nice!

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Originally posted by piratenews:

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Originally posted by out2theblack:

Speed of light is 186,282 miles per second , in vacuo , which works out to only about 600 million mph , so for those gamma rays to hit the moon at that velocity , the speed of light would have to be exceeded , wouldn't it ?

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I may have done the math wrong...too many concussions, too much mercury.

186,000 miles per second X 3,600 seconds/hour = 669,600,000 mph

670-million mph, more or less, is the speed of light, speed of x-rays, speed of gamma rays.


...I wonder what the g-force is to accellerate to 670-million mph in 1/2 the width of an atom?

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Originally posted by out2theblack:

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Originally posted by piratenews:

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Originally posted by out2theblack:

Speed of light is 186,282 miles per second , in vacuo , which works out to only about 600 million mph , so for those gamma rays to hit the moon at that velocity , the speed of light would have to be exceeded , wouldn't it ?

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I may have done the math wrong...too many concussions, too much mercury.

186,000 miles per second X 3,600 seconds/hour = 669,600,000 mph

670-million mph, more or less, is the speed of light, speed of x-rays, speed of gamma rays.


...I wonder what the g-force is to accellerate to 670-million mph in 1/2 the width of an atom?

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Maths check out...

That g-force would be excessive , for things made of flesh , at least...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

Did y'all forget Joseph Kittinger already? He jumped from a balloon at over 102,000 feet altitude, exceeding 700mph in freefall. In 1960. Lived to tell the tale, too.

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