SUPERNOVA

Ever wondered whats a Supernova or what do you mean by white dwarf or a red giant? Are these characters from a fairy tale? No, not at all. These are cosmic phenomenon observed and studied and categorized by scientists. Feel like hearing a bit more about it? Then do read on… :-)

Supernovae are massive exploding stars. The explosion occurs at the end of certain star's life time and is so energetic that the resulting illumination can be as bright as an entire galaxy.

To understand why these explosions take place one has to be familiar with the birth and death of stars. A star is born out of a huge gaseous cloud essentially of hydrogen mixed with small quantities of other elements. As the atoms are drawn inwards towards the center due to the pull of gravity, pressure and heat increases. When the core becomes hot enough
to initiate fusion process hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium and the star is born.

The fusion process then continuous providing the required energy to balance the inward pull of gravity. This phase of the star continuous for a long time. Eventually the supply of hydrogen atoms run down and the fate of the star is sealed depending up on its mars.

Stars up to 1.4 times the mass of the sun (Chandrasekhar’s limit) contracts into a white dwarf star that cools and slowly fades away. Stars more massive can have a complicated death. One possibility is that of a supernova explosion. This is the result of a sudden collapse of a super giant star at least eight times as massive as the sun. Broadly supernovae can be classified into two categories. Type one and Type two.

When the hydrogen reserve is exhausted the gravitational pull gains an upper hand due to the absence of the balancing outward force which comes due to the fusion processes.

The resulting compression of the star will increase the temperature to such a point that helium atoms fuse to form carbon and oxygen. The energy given off again stabilizes the stars until this phase is over. A similar process continues with carbon and oxygen fusing to produce neon, magnesium and oxygen. These elements undergo another fusion process as the temperature and pressure increases to produce silicon and sulphur. The latter two elements then fuse to form iron. Nuclear fusion stops at iron because energy is no longer produced by fusing iron. The star at this stage has a structure that has been compared to an onion. Outside the iron rich core is a layer of silicon and sulphur, then a layer of carbon, neon and oxygen, then a layer of helium and finally an outer region of hydrogen. The iron collapses very quickly. Since the iron core can only collapse and can no longer undergo further fusion it becomes very hot and begins to expand rapidly. Instability is set in when the star core condenses at first and later expands. When the star is collapsing the stars outer shells rush in to fill the void left by the iron core. When the expansion of the core sets in it collides with outer gaseous shells producing tremendous shock waves which glow the outer layers away from the core. This is the supernova’s gigantic explosion. When a massive star undergoes such a fate it falls under the type two category supernova. the heavy elements in the outer skin of the star and those created in the blast wave are scattered throughout space at remarkable initial speed of about 10,000 km/sec. the expanding clouds slows down and dissipates into the inter stellar medium. It also creates the necessary shock waves for new stellar formation.

In a type one supernova two stars are involved. One of them is initially more massive than its companion. It therefore evolves faster and exhausts its fuel quickly. Its inner core is hot enough to initiate the helium and later the carbon fusion while the outer shell is composed of basically hydrogen and energy continuous to be produced there. At this stage instability sets in and the outer layers swell out and as they do so they cool down. This is the red giant phase. The companion now pulls matter from the swelling star, hence becomes more massive and gradually evolves into a red giant, while the other one becomes a white dwarf. The situation gets reversed with the white dwarf drawing matter from the companion. But as its mass increases the limit of 1.4 solar mass the carbon detonates and in a matter of few minutes the white dwarf blows up. The energy released is enormous and the luminosity can reach up to 400,000 million times that of the sun. The expanding gaseous envelope and the inner core the form the super nova remnants.
The supernova explosions are instrumental in redistributing stellar matter in space. The abundance of elements like hydrogen, helium and heavy elements in the solar systems suggest that a blast wave from a supernova explosion could have triggered the collapse of the gas cloud that eventually became our sun.

Disclaimer: The data for this article was picked from an old newspaper article which i do not remember now. All rights are honoured. :)

A trip to heaven..... KODACHADRI

KODACHADRI: 1393 mts above sea level,the cool breezes flowing through the western ghats gently pass us by. what it brings in we do not understand. but the coolness is the least of it. situated 12 kms from mookambika temple in kollur, i think the air must be pretty blessed also. For the boring details, kodachadri is a peak in shimoga district. It is situated in the middle of the Mookambika National Park and is home to several endemic and endangered species of flora and fauna. The peak also holds religious importance as it is believed that Adi Sankara meditated at this peak. Hence, a temple or “Sarvajna Peetha” was built at the top. The view of the sunrise and sunset from here is considered to be something which should not be missed. how we came to be here is a small tale in itself, involving a self repecting amount of "mallu" pride, wild animals, and devout engineers.
Just a visit to the Kollur mookambika temple. We left from Bangalore by road, in a Toyota qualis on Friday night. Reached Kollur by around 11 am on Saturday. Went to the mookambika temple and the day was spent there and by evening we returned back to our lodge. We could see that the neighboring houses all have electrified fences. On enquiry we came to know that those were protection from wild animals... whoa... wild animals in the town. except for us that is.....

We all had planned to go to kodachadri, but by vehicle. but on Sunday morning we decided... what the heck, lets walk our way up... a couple of us had gone earlier to town and made enquiries about trekking. The information was that it was roughly about 8km and should take u around 3 hrs. And most important piece of information was that we had a mallu tea-shop on the way... yeah... that’s right we had a kuttapan chettan's thattukada... (Kuttappan da dhabba). So we all make of by around 7:30 from the hotel. Our driver "Gowda" took us to a point from where we needed to start our trek. We reached there by around 8 told the driver to be back at this point by 2 or so.hope my friends, make us do many things... least of which is a confident us telling the driver to come back on time.

And then we start off. I think I forgot to tell how many of us were this "WE". We were a five member gang. My room-mates. We didn’t have a proper breakfast that morning, since we would get to kuttapan chettan's shop and we could have proper breakfast from there, so why spoil your appetite by having anything else... Another hope thing this one.

And we started off. There was a narrow beaten path between dense forest. huge, gigantic, enormous trees. not enough big synonims exisst for the trees. I think the road was for trucks to pass with jungle wood...(or so we argued.. proper way for brigands likes veerappan.)

And the road went on. It never seemed to end and by this time we were all getting hungry. persistence being our motto and mainly becaause there was hardly anything else to do. We should have reached the tea-shop in about a 20 30 mins. And its past 9 30. Almost an hour and a half since we started off. So are we in the right direction? Are we going inside to the jungle instead of going towards the temple. The question haunts us.

We walked on for another half an hour with no one or interesting thing in sight except for blood thirsty leeches. Now these leeches are pretty smart. They just lie around on the ground until some passes nearby. It grabs on to the footwear and works its way up to your leg where it can get a good bite. You never feel the bite unless you are watching it. Then it sucks on and on and on. It uses some chemical which will prevent the coagulation of the blood which will make sure that the leech gets an uninterrupted supply till it’s full and it simply detaches. But still the effect of the chemical remains which means that you'll be bleeding until you stop it with some salt.
Hungry and tired we are walking kind of lost and then we spot a cow. Holy cow... that was a domestic cow with a rope on its neck. Cool. So we do have humans nearby… J so we looked even further and we saw a guy. Phew... finally we see a soul. We asked him whether we were on the right track or not. He assured us that we were on the right track and the greatest assurance we got from him was the tea shop was nearby. Finally by 10:30 we reached kuttappan chettans thattukada... wow... what a relief....
The menu was limited but the food was really tasty... quite natural. its like what home food is to hostellers. I have got the point across haven't i?
We all filled up our stomach. One quick quiz. Once we are done with our breakfast..Filled our stomach, what do we do next.. Plan for the travel?? BUZZ.... wrong answer.. Plan for lunch we asked kuttapan chettan to prepare lunch for us. So that was done.. We paid a small advance also and booked lunch... and then we planned the next leg.

We asked for directions and filled up our water bottles and set off. From here onwards the path completely changed its form. From a narrow road to it became an actual jungle trail. Full of rocks, bushes thorns and blood thirsty leeches. Slowly we made our way through all those... then the path stopped abruptly. Leaving to the traveler to decide how to move on from now on... well when you are climbing up a hill the general direction to go is "up". So we just followed the general directions and moved on...

The climb was very tough. Especially for HEALTHY people like me. Wait. This owe an explanation. There are two categories of people. One is skinny and the other is healthy. And as you have rightly guessed I belong in the healthy category... so I had to huff,puff and gasp a lot to keep up with the gang. But the climb was pretty tough even for the fitness freak in our gang.

slowly and steadily we were climbing up and in about a hour we could feel the climate changing and so was the scenery... we could feel the cool breeze as we were climbing up.

The climb was pretty peaceful though. No noise of vehicles, no phones ringing no TV sounds.. Nothing.. Complete bliss. The only sounds were the occasional clatter from the birds on the trees. Sometimes the peace was also scary, we didn't see anyone on the way. Neither going up nor down. There was another thing bothering us.. We were told there are wild animals in these forests.. And the place seems completely deserted.

We reached the top a small peak. one down, many many more to go. Suddenly we walked into a clearing from the woods.Lo and behold.. It was really a marvellous spectacle.We could see the clouds touching the mountains.We were literally walking through the mist and fog which group up to become clouds. felt like this is the road to heaven.

Then came a treacherous part. Walking along narrow strips on mountain sides. One slip.... and you are history. There is no way anyone would even hear your scream let alone help you out....
At this point we could see at a far away mountain some buildings. phew... so we were on the right track. but the building seemed pretty far away. a couple more hours of climbing and we were all out of our final oodles of strength and stamina. And out of water. But wait, do mine eyes deceive me? what do we see? a guy selling nimbu paani. And guess what? that’s also a mallu guy. got reminded of the forward where a mallu tea stall is setup at the moon when Neil Armstrong lands there.

Well whatever you say nimbu pani never tasted better. We asked the guy about the doubt we had, regarding wild animals. He confirmed there are wild animals in that area. Apart from elephants and bears all other animals are there. That’s the assurance that he gave, and he has seen them also.
From there we could see the buildings and the temple on top. So we were pretty close then. so within another 45 mins to 1 hour we reached top. What a relief. But the feeling that you get is supreme. We have springs originating from that point. Never tasted clearer water.

Visited the temples there and then had lunch from a hotel there. Pity that we didn’t have any mallu hotels there.. :(
But honestly the food was good and hot and filling. We ate our stomach full.

Now we needed to plan to go back. It was already 3pm and we were way behind schedule. It took us more than six hours to reach the top. So return we decided to hitch a ride on a jeep. Got hold of a jeep driver who agreed to take us down to Kollur.
So our return journey begins.. Even this is no less an adventure. The roads are nonexistent. Jumping over from stone to stone and taking perilous hairpin curves with just one hand. Now I thought I knew how to drive... nope... my skills are nowhere near this master. we bow to him, he who holds our lives in a hand.
After a bumpy ride for about 45 mins we were back on level road. Then we sped away towards Kollur. In about another 15 mins we reached the spot where we left our qualis. After getting freshened up we started back to Bangalore
a little tale but nevertheless one which was enjoyed to the most.

The Carrot, Egg and Coffee

I would like to post an article I recently read. I liked it very much, so here it is.....

The Carrot, Egg and Coffee Bean

Put three pots of water over the fire. In the first pot put some carrot, in the second some eggs and in the third, put some coffee beans. Boil all the three pots for 15 minutes, take out what you have put in each pot. After boiling, the carrot becomes soft, the egg becomes hard, the coffee powder has disappeared, but the water has the colour and wonderful aroma of coffee.
Now Think About LifeLife is not always easy and comfortable.Many times things don't happen as we wish.People don't treat us like we hope.We work very hard and get few results. What happens when we face difficulties?
Now Think About The PotsTHE BOILING WATER IS LIKE THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE.
We can be like the carrots.We go in tough and strong. Finally come out soft and weak. We get very tired. We lose hope. We give up.There is no more fighting spirit.Don't be like the carrots!
We can be like the eggs.We start with a soft and sensitive heart. We end up very hard and unfeeling inside. We hate others.We don't like ourselves.We become hard-hearted. There is no warm feeling, and only bitterness. Don't be like the eggs!
We can be like the coffee beans.The water does not change the coffee powder. The coffee powder changes the water!The water has become different because of the coffee powder. We can be like the coffee beans. We make something good from the difficulties we face. We learn new things.We have new knowledge, new skills, and new abilities. We grow in experience.
We make the world around us better.To succeed, we must try…and try again. We must believe in what we are doing. We must not give up. We must be patient. We must keep pushing.Problems and difficulties give us the chance to become stronger… and better…and tougher.What are we like when things do not go well? Are we like the carrot…or the egg...or the coffee bean? Be like the coffee bean!

"THE HOTTER THE WATER, THE BETTER THE TASTE"

Who Moved My Cheese...!!!!

I would like to blog a few words about a book I read lately. I am not an avid reader, the main reason being that I read too slowly and it takes too much time to finish the books. The book about which I am going to talk about is "Who moved my cheese" by Dr. Spencer Johnson. The reason I started reading the book was that, it is a rather short book, roughly around 80 pages with lot of pages with images and lot of white space.
It is a book, which tells a story about the different changes that happen in life, personal as well as professional, and how well or how bad people react to it.
The book starts off by telling about a reunion of old classmates and after the reunion some of the friends meet up again in the evening and discuss their lives. Then one person in the group tells a story. This story is actually the main content of the book.
There are four characters in this plot. Two mice SNIFF and SCURRY, and two little men HEM and HAW. All these characters are actually representations of different types of people in this world. These four live in a maze where there is plenty of cheese to begin with. Now cheese actually represents the worldly things and happiness we expect from this world or career etc. The cheese brings happiness to all.
Now the story begins and the four try to find cheese in the maze. All four work hard to find cheese, and days pass by and they eventually stumble upon a huge cheese station. They settle down and eat cheese. They return day after day to eat cheese. This goes on for quite sometime.
The mice have been exploring the whole maze even when they had cheese in the station. They also had an idea about the amount of cheese that was in the station and so they were not surprised when one day all the cheese had disappeared. The mice just put on their running shoes and went off in search for new cheese.
The little men though, didn’t take things as the mice did. They were absolutely shocked when the cheese was finished. They just couldn’t accept the fact that the cheese was no longer there. They both remained at the cheese station and kept wondering who moved their cheese? After a little while HAW decided that they had waited enough and that they should look for new cheese. But HEM was adamant and said they should wait there for the cheese to return.
HAW finally decided to look for cheese by himself and after long and tedious search he finally finds cheese. On his way to the new cheese station he writes words of wisdom on the maze walls for his friend HEM.
Those words are actually messages the author wants to pass on to his readers. The author does not tell what happened to HEM. It is left for the imagination of the reader.
Then after the story is told the friends discuss it among themselves and try to draw parallels from their own life. I feel that discussion is very important to understand how the story can help us in our lives.
So in the end the Moral got from this story is "If somebody moves your cheese, be sure to move with it", or even better "Sense that the cheese is going to be moved, and YOU move before it."

Anu is leaving today….

Anu …. or anusankar is a dear colleague and friend of mine who is leaving to day to Chennai. He got placement in HCL systems.
I still remember the first time I saw him. It was my first day at office. I was a bit scared and tense and all….. Well here I am at CMMI level5 Software Company, without any previous experience ….. You surely gotta be tense. I was introduced to some senior people and was given a temp seat. I logged on as guest, and I looked around. To my left I saw a guy … a rather colorful guy… he is quite fair, and I think he was wearing an orange shirt and a yellow tie… or the other way around. Anyway I remember a combination of yellow orange and all.
There was a phone on his desk which kept constantly ringing. He kinda seemed to know everybody... gawd… who the hell is he......
Well that was the first time I saw him. I didn’t talk to him that day or for some more days to come...
I am not the kinda guy who walks in and introduces oneself and makes friends …. I kinda wait for the others to make the move. The first day there I met Roy... another character there... well his story is another episode. Well to sum up me and Roy joined together and kinda became friends from day 1 itself.
The first time I talked to Anu is when I went for a movie with Roy. Don’t remember which movie but it was in Sreedhar. It was just a hi bye… there was another guy with him Naushad. He kept to himself and so did I. later on we used to go to have lunch together. That’s when we started talking seriously…. And we never looked back.

We sort off formed a gang together. We didn’t actually realize it nor did we name it or anything. We would plan activities for the weekend, such as movie, trip to beach etc…
The most memorable trip we had was the trip to fort Kochi… and here I forgot to mention something about anu, he has a jeep... yep an old Willy’s JEEP. White color.
That’s the vehicle in which we usually go out.
The most attractive thing about the jeep is that it has only 3 gears and the Top speed is 50kph. So when the jeep is doing 45+ the whole jeep shivers and makes noise as if you were on 120. So you get an adrenalin rush of going at speed above 100 and yet you are safely going below 50.
Well we went to fort Kochi in this jeep and wandered around... and later at night went for a buffet. I am having problem with “hello” so as soon as I get it working I’ll post some photos of that trip…

Well I really departed from the starting topic….. He is leaving today….. As one can expect parting is always very sad. And even more coz for the past 3 months we have been transferred over to the TVM office and the guys around us are new... so the friendly faces that we see are just us.
He is going and said will keep in touch and all … but still the sheer distance between us is definitely going to build an invisible wall.
If we have a get together where we all would be there, would it be still like the old time….?? I doubt it….. Well only time will tell....
Well I think that’s enough for today..

BLACK

Went for movie yesterday. Black. Good movie. It’s not the kind of movie you go to enjoy with your friends. It deals with a serious subject. And it very beautifully portrayed. Even better is the background score, apt and enchanting. Rani is just superb in that movie. And of course the Big B.... He has still has it in him. You shouldn't miss out the movie.
There were times during the movie when your eyes would get wet.... it was an emotional roller coaster throughout the movie... well I think once in a while you should watch movies like this and yield in to the emotions that they trigger... Even better was the realization of the fact that there are so many unlucky people out there like "Michelle" and how lucky you are and how thankful you are to god, that you are not one among those unlucky ones...

My first post

Well, finally I decided to start blogging... as I wrote in a mail to abhi i wasn't quite attracted to blogging and didn't quite get it until i read abhi's blogs...
Got inspired by them and decided to start blogging.
For those who are reading this and don't know me ...
I am Sanoop, i am 28 yrs old and i am from Kerala "Gods Own Country!!" even if there are people who would argue about that i truly believe that i live in Gods Own Country..
Well i think that's enough for a start....
more to follow...