Big Sis

Say hi to our big Sister, the Sun. And it is our Sister (or Brother if you like) and not our parent, as the Sun and the planets all formed from the same ginormous cloud of gas. The Sun took up most of that cloud, but every single planet, moon, comet and asteroid came from the same cloud. Even you, roundaboutly.

Like all "things" - stars and planets and you included - the Sun is the result of a series of reactions held in balance. In the case of a star, this balance is composed of the inward pressure of gravity, and the outward pressure of fusion. As such, the heart of a star is quite small compared to its overall size, thanks to this simple process:

Fusion. Just a couple of atoms bouncing off one another with enough energy (because of the inward pressure of gravity) and kabloom! Fusion, the heart of a star, and thus the heart of all life. Fusion releases enormous amounts of energy, and that energy is the star, and all its light, in all frequencies.

These frequencies are the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to microwaves to visible light - what we see - to ultraviolet, x-rays, and finally gamma rays. All seen here. Each frequency reveals different information, and thus astronomers use a variety of detection methods to learn not only about the sun, but everything.

We exist in a living miracle. It's pretty cool.

Temple of the Sun

Let our new temples be thermal solar collectors, generating clean electricity for a post-carbon world. Ramen.

A New Kind of Love

These are the men of the future. Consider the men of the past. Think of a boy born in 1900, who grew up into a world of radio then TV. Think of how different he'd be than this young man above, born in the Internet. All the rules are changing.

Without foundation in this new world, we drift, assuming new personas, at least for a while. And some more passionately than others.

The Internet has opened a Pandora's Box, and it won't be easily shut. It could be shut though - a good sized solar flare would fry modern technology, and we'd revert to the year 1900 quickly enough, for a decade or more. But the Internet would return, inevitably.

My advice for this new world? Be flexible of mind and body.

Everyday heroes

My thoughts are with all those affected by today's bombing in Boston. No idea who's responsible at this time, but it doesn't matter. I'm proud of the responses of all the people at the scene - for every act of terror there are hundreds if not thousands of heroes.

Everything is Information

Think about it, really. Stop whatever it is you're doing (when you read the end of this paragraph), and think of this: Everything you see, touch, hear, know, think, remember, feel, is but some form of information. But more! Everything that is or could ever be - every atom, every molecular gas cloud, every star, every planet and person and even dog that has ever or will ever live is but a collection of information - ones and zeroes. Dots and dashes. Numbers on scales. Literally. Consider vision - an important human sense. Witness above how the human eye gathers light. Once focused, it strikes a collection of differentiated cells of the optic nerve, and that nerve transmits data to the brain. The data? Lightwave frequencies. The brain takes this data and transforms it into red, or green, or blue, or some combination thereof, and that in turn is what we see. And remember. It's a wicked cool trick!

Colors exist because the material through which light passes and strikes differs. Water is different than stone, a tree different than a car. Low different than high, hot different than cold, and so on. These differences give birth to all color, as the light is reflected, refracted, blocked, twisted, or otherwise changed in different ways based on the conditions. Above you see the spectrum in part, based on the density, temperature, and speed of the water, coupled with the differing angles of light. Below,

an amalgamation of movie poster colors by year - oldest at the top. Notice the color shift! And consider it - you see this shift through a screen over the internet, clearly nothing but data which comes alive with meaning in your mind. Hence!

False color astronomy. Defined as the addition of color where there was no color in the original image. This is an X-Ray shot, after all, and alas! We humans cannot see in X-Ray. The original image is greyscale, but in that scale is revealed the different frequencies of X-Rays, and if you follow the following logic: Low end of frequency equals red and high end equals blue than here you are - false color, but real in its way. It represents something very real and meaningful - especially meaningful to us, viewers of color, as we can tease meaning out of an image in color that we cannot in grey. For the best example:

The CMB: Cosmic Microwave Background. These globes represent the temperature of the UNIVERSE at approximately 300 million years old, which is a trifling number when you consider the estimated age of the Universe (14Billlion give or take). It is near this point that light first escaped the cosmic creation soup and traveled freely across space. And thus the map - different areas of hot and cold. Where the differences are like miniscule but enough over time to shape the infinity of galaxies that make up our ever expanding reality - red areas represent places of higher density and thus matter was attracted and here was built, everything. Blue less dense areas, now representing interstellar space, and it is vast and only getting ever vaster.

Once again, but numbers, which we translate into colors, shapes, texture, form. We are the creators of everything, since everything is but a bunch of numbers and long ass formulas n' shit. Consider in closing this image - our star, "The Sun"! In neutrinos, captured by a "telescope" buried deep under a mountain. You see, neutrinos don't care about our matter so much, and pass right through. Right now there are trillions upon trillions - seriously! - streaming right through you. Yet we found a way to measure them, and so here's the sun in False Color, neutrino style. Pretty dang sweet, science. Also too, eyes!

Finally, yay art! Previous post photo setup - not my picture, but alas I don't know who to credit. Whoever you are, rock on!

It's awesome what people can make out of all this information.

Forever Young

Io, 4th largest moon of Sol's System. It's just a bit bigger than our Luna, yet oh so different.

For you see, Io is literally HELL in space. A moon of fire and magma, roiling land exploding, pits of burning damnation, etc. As such, the surface of Io is continually made anew, and thus has the fewest impact craters of any object save Sol itself.

This is a difference of 5 months. Huge zit out of nowhere - just before Space Prom, too.

A few other months. As you can see, in the blink of a geologic eye Io changes before us. Such is the temptation of HELL. Like Enceladus's CRYOVOLCANOES, Io's heat comes from tidal friction between Jupiter and the other large moons in the system. But the force on Io is far greater than on any other, and so it burns. I suppose one day it will be ripped apart, and then form a pretty ring. But already, Io has its ring:

Due to close proximity, Io interacts with mighty Jupiter in surprising ways. It's joined to its magnetic field, affecting the shape of that field. It creates a huge torus of plasma in a giant ring around the planet, made up of Io's atmosphere. It also dumps an enormous amount of material onto Jupiter, much of which falls at the North and South Pole, as witnessed in this Jovian aurora:

Ganymede and Europa are also bound directly to Jupiter's magnetic field, creating a loop of material exchange. As noted before, the 4th moon, Callisto, is not bound. And thus is free of the ravages of Jupiter's radiation to a great degree, and thus, our future space depot. But anyway, Io:

Some real time super massive volcano action in progress. You can see why it gives Jupiter 1 ton of material every second. Have it!

Technically, Io is the fifth moon out from Jupiter, but really is the first, since the inner 4 pale in size comparison. As do the rest of Jupiter's near 70 moons - most are irregular lumps of rock a few hundred miles wide, whereas the 4 big moons of Jupiter are all dwarf planet sized - two of them bigger than Mercury, and the other two just below. It's a mighty collection of moons, discovered way back in 1609 by Galileo. Here's how they look through an average telescope today:

From left to right: Europa, Io, Jupiter - King O' the Planets, don't ya ken - Ganymede (biggest moon) and my dear Callisto. Twas an amazing discovery, since it immediately raised a lot of questions - IF moons could orbit other planets, than we could be orbiting the Sun rather vice versa, and the Sun could in turn orbit another star, and that way lies infinity, and the opening of the human mind to something far, far bigger than himself, or Earth: The Universe. Praise be.

Of Many Suns

An artist's representation of Gliese 667Cc, a lovely planet thought to be one of the first that resides in the so called "Goldilock's Zone", that is, the area not too close and not too far from a star where water could generally remain liquid. Which, we think today, is necessary for life. I suspect we'll find this is not so limiting in the future, but that's for then.

For now - perhaps one of the coolest Exoplanets discovered to date, orbiting a small red dwarf star which in turn orbits a pair of much larger stars who are orbiting each other. Fun fact to know and share: It's estimated that about 60% of all stars are at least binaries - stars orbiting stars. Our sun is a minority in this regard.

Here's another artist's interpretation of Gliese 667Cc:

Nice, right? Only 22 Light Years away. Or, that is, they've got The Simpsons on reruns now too. But just when everyone was all fired up about GL667Cc, up and comes PH1, or Kepler-64B:

It's a big Gas Giant 5000LY away so kinda boring in that regard, but not in this - it orbits a pair of stars. One planet orbiting two stars. These two stars are in turn orbited by another pair, like this:

Confusing as heck! And night time would be a thing of rarity. Good for beach going though! Except for the Gas Giant thing. But you know.

Another cool first with PH1 was it was discovered by "amateurs" using publicly accessible data from the Kepler Space Telescope. The best space telescope, by the way. Yeah, Hubble, you heard me.

Electric Mayhem

The original Electric Mayhem, from left to right: Zoot (sax), Janice (lead guitar), Sgt. Floyd Pepper (bass, natch), and the beloved Animal (drums, natch to the max). Also, "Electric Mayhem" is a spectacular band name. And this was a great band - have you seen the Muppet Show from back in the day? Recall it? Here. Twas awesome and quite sophisticated. With great music. Also too: Fantastic costumes from some Comic Con. Mucho kudos to the dedicated nerds who made and wore them.

With Dr. Teeth, of course, and the late addition of Lips, the trumpet player.

I love - from afar - the makers of costumes and the results of their efforts. It's such a clear of example of noble intention and sincere pursuit. It's done for the love of it, and that makes it pure and worthy of praise. Holla!

True Love (Crushing Loneliness)

So yeah, Furry sex doll, apparently - not the I knew these things beforehand, O Wicked Internet, what horrors you have shown me - very well constructed, using space age plastics and synthetic skin and all kinds of space age stuff. IE Expensive. But that's what coin is for - to drop. And what else but beer and wood does this bachelor have to buy? So sad.

I surmise with no actual facts or data that we are living in an unparalleled age of loneliness, the likes the world has never dreamed. Millions of men and women walled up somewhere far away from others, even if physically close (ya ever think about apartment walls, and how close someone else's life is like two feet away?). In most of human history you had little choice but to hang out with at least some other people. There were no single apartments for the rabble in 500 BCE, I assure you.

Loneliness breeds lots of things, one of them - weirdness. How could it not? And so for the last 50-100 years we in the "west" have been building a whole new humanity - Virtual. Living physically isolated from others yet hooked in via electronic entertainment. This new humanity is going to be weird.

#Occupy Jupiter

It's true. Jupiter is far bigger than all the other planets put together. Its system of moons and smaller moons and more little tiny moons is its own planetary system. For you see, Jupiter could have been a star. Just a bit more mass, a little more spinning, and fusion would have lit. But alas, not enough gas, Jupiter was kicked out of Stellar U and now must walk among we, the discarded. But as a King, Boss Hogg of Sol's System.

And this is the chain of our existence. Dig it: From quarks and electrons, joining to form atoms, atoms joining to form molecules, molecules joining to form complex bonds, and based on their composition, we have our world and everything in it - rock, water, air, tree, you, me, even your pee. Complex groupings of molecular bonds.

Now, above you and me is space, vast and full of everything. Great, gigantic clouds of hydrogen light years long start to spin, perhaps disturbed by a nearby nova, and in the spinning the denser material falls towards the center of the spiral in ever increasing mass, causing ever greater heat, so on and such until there is a new joining, a new bond: Fusion. And fusion produces pretty much all of the energy you see around you. That makes you up. Energy and matter is our reality.

But fusion is not the end, for when the supernova collapses it can go one of two ways: A neutron star - a tripped out ball of neutrons (no atoms) spinning so fast yet so regularly they can be used as interstellar clocks. No bigger than Manhattan, they are denser than our entire solar system.

OR, a Black Hole.

Which is the ultimate break with this reality of ours - for everything goes in, the BH can get bigger or smaller, quieter or more active, like a "thing", but all of the energy and matter that falls in to it appears gone, into nothingness - for there is no such thing as a Black Hole, just its effects on gravity. The so called "Singularity" at the center of a Black Hole is just a placeholder word, since no one has any real idea. Our physics says it is of zero space yet infinite mass, which is absurd. You can't measure it directly, since it is literally a hole - everything falls through. And so either our mathematical theories are wrong, or we just don't have a clue. Yet. Science will find a way, eventually.

So, from electron to Black Hole and everything in between - this is our reality from start to end and swirls so large and endless around us, be of good cheer, for you are here, in this amazing grace, able to appreciate it. From time to time. Ramen.

New Year's Eve in the Dawn of Apocalypse

Happy New Years! One of my favorite holidays, tainted only by the fact it's based on a Christian calendar. But I can rise above that. Of all the holidays, people are most open and friendly on this night, willing to kiss strangers in the Common - when else does that happen? Mardi Gras in New Orleans, perhaps. The best night - Halloween might run some competition, but it gets a little too serious and demanding. New Year's is all about the part-aying. But don't drink and drive kids! Except on rural country roads, then it's cool.

And why not drink and drive? We've got less than a year left before the dreaded MAYAN APOCALYPSE! December 21, 2012, and the World ends, by some means which is not clear. But there's a cosmic alignment involved for sure. So feast and and be merry while ye can, for surely DOOM is nigh.

I'll admit I used to half believe in this Mayan Apocalypse bullshit - but it was a long time ago, 1998 or so, and I happened upon a Weekly World News article that was quite convincing. After further research, it seemed likely the world would end in 2012, due to a MAGNETIC POLAR SHIFT.  Because it's true, the magnetic poles on Earth do shift on semi-regular schedules, with North becoming South and South North. Think what that would do to our electronics were it to happen? Frazizzled.

There are lots of ways, in fact, our World (that being our human existence, and not the World itself) could easily end, tomorrow in fact. Herewith is REDSHIRTS TOP TEN APOCALYPSES (not in order):

1. Asteroid Impact. This is inevitable. It will happen at some point, the only question is when. Tomorrow? A million years? Sometime in between? Who knows. We might have years of warning, or, even with our awesome technology, a killer asteroid could sneak up on us unawares and be on our doorstep in days.
2. Super Volcano. Also inevitable. There are a dozen or so super volcanoes on Earth that when they explode, are powerful enough to darken the skies with ash for years. Can you imagine how tough it would be to live on this planet without sunlight for 10 years? We'd starve.
3. Nuclear War. The most likely doomsday scenario. All it takes is some dumb Repuglican with his/her finger on the button and we're all doomed.
4. Solar storm. Also inevitable. Our reliance on electronics would cripple most of so called "modern" society. If strong enough, could toast most living things.
5. Gamma Ray Burst. If a star of certain mass goes supernova and happens to have one of its poles pointed directly at us, we could be in the line of a sight of a high mass, super powerful gamma ray burst that would fry most life on Earth.
6. Global Warming. Happening right now. The real deal and we'll find out how well we can deal with Change - no thanks, once again, to Repuglicans, the crazy fucks.
7. Magnetic Polar Shift. Also inevitable. An event that would have zero impact on a tribe living in the Amazonian rainforest, but which would devastate "modern" society.
8. Ice Age. One of the consequences of global warming could be a new ice age, ironically. Snowball Earth would freeze most life to death.
9. Geologic Instability. Also inevitable. Imagine all the plates of Earth undergoing a vibratory effect that levels anything over 30 feet tall.
10. Super Virus. A bacteria that proves lethal to any human that comes into contact. Easily enough to conceive of, and gosh darn we've got people researching the subject worldwide.

Scared? You should be (but of course shouldn't be). Life is a tenuous proposition on this planet, and we could be shaken off like so much lice. And so, take nothing for granted! There is nothing permanent here at all, in the least bit. Every moment is a gift and you should treat it that way. Let us pray:

Dear ambiguous New Age God, give my Chakras the Crystaline Energy to survive the coming Tribulation.

I don't believe in a prophesied apocalypse at all anymore, in case you can't tell. I worship Science now and believe you me, it's the only Faith that delivers.

Everything's Connected

Saturn's auroras in time lapse sequence, taken by one of the most important science tools ever invented - ever! - the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Fact! Every planet with a magnetic field (Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) has auroras. Saturn has particularly spectacular auroras, as witnessed above, and below:

Look at them! They're things - you can see their thickness in this pic. That's because auroras are actually things - particles from the sun, sent flying on the solar wind, wrapping down the magnetic field of the planet towards both poles (due to the shape of spherical magnetic fields - everything is geometry, someone once said).  Cool, right?

It gets cooler. Scientists recently discovered - and believe me, despite all the wingnuts and Heebie Jeebies, we are in a Golden Age of scientific discovery, because of our advancing technology - that the coolest moon in the Solar System - Enceladus - is electrically connected to Saturn. They form a circuit. Lookee here:

On the left is a spot just below Saturn's Northern aurora, with a stream connecting to a big spot in an aurora like phenomena on Enceladus. These two spots spin around, the proof that they are connected. Check it:

This is Saturn's Northern aurora from above - in the upper left, you see a white box with a red dot in it. The red dot is the electrical field of Enceladus, as you can see it move in this time lapse image.There is a corresponding movement in the bright circle above Enceladus.

Enceladus is electrically charged in part because of all the water it expels. It expels a lot!  Enceladus contributes several of Saturn's rings, as it spews water into space which then freezes hard as rock then orbits around Saturn in a ring for some millions of years in beauteous wonder.

We are learning more and more about the Universe we exist in and are part of every day. It's amazing - to think! It was the mid 1990's when the first Exoplanet was confirmed, and now we are over 400 and about to sharply spike way higher - conventional wisdom now holds that just about every star has planetary bodies of some kind orbiting it. Meaning there are hundreds of billions (trillions?) of planets in our Galaxy. And of course there are hundreds of billions of galaxies. And so on.

The point? We live in a miracle. As a PS, here's humble ol' Earth, our home:

Aurora Australis, y'all.

Lightning in a bottle

Fun facts to know and share: Once struck by lightning, your odds of getting struck again go way, way up. It's as if lightning forever after locks onto you.

Did you know lightning bolts can also start from the ground and meet another bolt in the sky?

Did you know lightning is made of plasma? And that plasma is the most common state of matter in the solar system? And yet, it's only found on Earth in lightning - briefly - and from scientists. Another way we are like gods (Zeus).

"LASERS"

For reals - many telescopes these days use lasers as tracking signals - the laser beam is shot at the target (it need not reach its target though) and the distortion of the laser beam (through the atmosphere) is recorded, and this distortion rate is then subtracted from the actual mirrors of the telescope, thus producing a much clearer image. SCIENCE! Ever onward.

Our splendid War Machine is of course funding research into using lasers as weapons - and why the heck would they not? Given the clime. You see here a successful test of a ground based laser shooting at a drone a couple thousand feet up, destroying it. It's inevitable, it seems, that our weapons will get more and more sophisticated and powerful. Leading to...? What do you think? I know, right?

Not a laser beam, as far as anyone knows. Search GIS for Borras Norway. They say it's a rocket remainder, but, really? C'mon! Clearly an inter-dimensional portal beaming agents into our reality. Clearly!

A little light show via a medium of bubbles. Light is of course but one sliver of the electromagnetic wavelength, which spans radio waves to X-rays to gamma rays, and everything in between. Lasers are focused light, densely concentrated - since light is photons, particles that can vary in density based on the circumstances.

Point? Everything is weirder than you can imagine.