Tiny Worlds

Behold Saturn in her absolute magnificence. There are much larger pictures available on the Internet, fans, than here. Seek them out if you need a new desktop.

Look just outside Saturn's brightest inner rings at 9:15 o'clock  - there is a white dot. That white dot is Earth, and that dot contains our entire species, now, then, and seemingly forever.

We regress, while we know such wonders await us.


Blame Republicans.

In search of color in space

Not my shot - I wish. I've been looking for the Northern Lights for years, but never caught a glimpse. I'm pretty far North, but not far enough. I might have to travel to Iceland one day to remedy this - seeing colors dance across the sky is the kind of religious experience I want to try.


That's the ISS streaking overhead, with 6 people on board living and working in space. And here's what the Northern Lights look like from the ISS:

As you can see, the Northern Lights are a thin band of radiation at the edge of space. This is actual solar matter that has slammed into Earth's magnetosphere and spiraled down towards the Poles, producing the lights as the solar matter strikes the highest portions of the atmosphere.

Magic!

There has been an error

An error of some sort was required to create everything you see. For, there was matter and antimatter, and theoretically these two should cancel each other out, and yet they do not. By like 0.000001% for reference. But that 0.000001% was enough to create our entire Universe. Every star, every galaxy, every black hole, the sum remainder of an unfinished math set.

Imperfection is the source of Creation.

This being true, should we judge those who make mistakes? Or systems that crash?

Like this digital billboard with a Windows error in the fog?

Bow Shock

I like to think of stars as the basic building block of the Universe. Not sure if this is an accepted opinion, but I think it works. Everything revolves around stars - planetary systems like ours, and all life here on Earth and maybe on the 1000+ exoplanets discovered to date (there's billions more - current consensus is just about every star has planets).

Here, you see a star in its larger environment - ginormous gas clouds. Stars are born from these clouds, they shape and influence these clouds, and their death creates new clouds. Above you see a star affecting a larger gas cloud environment, creating a bow shock in the clouds - just like a boat creates a bow shock in water, or a wind turbine creates a bow shock in the air, stars are shaping the larger environments in which they find themselves. Here's another example.

Anywhere there are stars and gas clouds, you'll see bow shocks.

We exist in a sea of gas - we come from this gas. Gas!

These clouds are primarily hydrogen, but also contain everything that would make up a star and its planets - iron, silver, gold, carbon, everything.

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.

Come Together

There is magic, so you know. Click here to find out how.

Magic herbs 24/7. It's only natural.

To Serve and Protect

I must confess to being conflicted regarding the end game of the Boston Marathon bombing. First, let me make clear I harbor no confusion regarding the bombers themselves - evil deeds done for whatever reason are evil, and must be stopped/prevented. There's no gray area here. However, what has given me some pause is the police response.

First! I think the BPD and all involved agencies did a fantastic job in a difficult situation, and the same can be said for the local elected officials. That said, I've long bemoaned the militarization of the police, and you could see this militarization to clear affect during this past week:

This militarization comes from two "Wars": The so called "Drug War" and "The War on Terror". Each of which is in essence a tool for the powerful to control the powerless. The Drug War is especially pernicious, and was the genesis for the militarization of police forces across America. The WoT greatly added to this trend. And now we have both big and little cities with what are essentially armies, as police forces. In this particular example, it was beneficial, given the bombs.

And again, I've got no issue with the police actions of the past week. But this highlights the inherent contradiction.

Indeed, the police protect us from crazed individuals like these bombers, from psychopaths, from wacked out killers, from rapists, etc. It's necessary for a functioning society. On the other hand, the police also enforce the will of The Powers That Be. And so OWS protests will get smashed. Political protestors will get penned in and arrested. Random innocent folks will get their doors smashed in because the police think there's a drug dealer living there.

In a formula: "To Serve" - the Authorities. "To Protect" - the people. I'm for the latter, against the former. I'm anti-authoritarian, in all forms. Thus, my conflict.

And to end on a downer, as I'm wont, I ALWAYS find flag waving to be disconcerting. It's too tribal, and the only Tribe I belong to is "Matter in this Universe". Represent! However, it's hard to get upset with images like this:

Asian college students with an American flag posing with joyous (non-militarized) cops. Incredible. However, let us not mistake this:

As little more than college students finding a good reason to go party on the streets. It's justified in this case, no doubt, but oh-so closely related to the parties that happen after sports championships.

All that said, here's one image that fuses everything I was just trying to lay out:

A militarized police officer delivering milk to a family with kids trapped in their house during lockdown. Amazing.

I'll confess further, all this has left me confused.

Screaming Trees

All things fade in time. You, me, Rome, Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way, the entire Universe, some trillion trillion years from now. Not my fault, nor my picture. Lovely though, is it not? The power of entropy?

An abandoned factory in Japan, nature reclaiming the space. As entropy is nature, all order will be deconstructed, torn down, eaten up, broken into pieces and spread all about. Entropy is the way of things. All our deeds are but acts holding back the tide, so ever briefly.

Our end is inevitable. The only true questions are when and how. Probably asteroid, sometime in the future. But there's so many other options! Nuclear bombs, earthquakes, global warming, solar radiation, magnetic shift, name your apocalypse, and you'll find the likelihood is not insignificant. Ignore the possibility we do at our own peril. Life is fragile, we exist on the surface of a reality of harshness. Prepare yeself, mortal!

Elemental Art

Thin slices of a meteorite, seen through different filters. Or a Warhol piece or knock off. Either way, I'd hang it on my wall. Fun gift idea - framed science pics! Astronomy! Genes! Microscopes! There's a lot of beautiful images. Like this one:

Call me an enormous nerd, sure, but the Periodic Table is a thing of beauty. Its elegance is stunning, and the meaning behind it is profound. The numbers on each element represent the number of protons in the atom's nucleus, and thus also the number of electrons orbiting the nucleus. Dig it: Each new row represents a new electron shell - the orbital paths of the electrons. Hydrogen and Helium have one. Lithium and all the elements in row two have two, Sodium's row has three, and so on. The columns are called Groups and each column has the same number of electrons in its outermost shell, giving each element in the column similar properties, despite the difference in number of electrons. For it is true! All matter is made up of elements - you, me, the tree, the oceans, the Earth, the Sun, all the stars, the vast clouds of gas spanning hundreds of light years, and so on - all just collections of elements. And each element is an atom that becomes the thing we know as Gold or Silver or Oxygen simply based on its number of protons and electrons. Hydrogen has 1 electron, Helium 2, Lithium 3, Iron 26, and so on. And thus our reality is fashioned. It's incredible! And all presented cleanly here in this awesome chart. Awesome work, Dmitri Mendleev!

Bonus element pic:

Earth and our Moon as seen from Mercury. All but vast collections of different elements bound together by gravity.

#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.

Additional riffs on perspective

Perspective is gained naturally through all of life. One could not grow from a baby to child to lad to young man, raising hell, without several substantial changes in perspective. For instance, food no longer comes from boobies, but the kitchen. This is a rather dramatic shift!

Our scale of existence, once you can even gleam a comprehension, is vast beyond mind. Smaller too. Above is a series of actual stars and their sizes relative to one another. Note the change in scale from 3 to 4. Now you can see why Sol is tagged as a "dwarf star". A yellow dwarf. Bigger than many other stars (the really small ones, like Wolf 359

Never forget.), but no big kid on campus either. Least of all the brown dwarf stars, the dull runts who barely glow and are just tads bigger than Jupiter. But cheer up, little guys, you'll last till the end of time, for it is better to fade away than to burn out. And that's a current law of astronomy - mass of the star is directly correlated to their age and longevity, since size is essentially food source for the fusion engine powering all stars. Big stars burn hot and fast than go bang in nova, seeding the universe with heavier elements.

And thus the conclusion of this foray into perspective - we are stardust, man. Just about everything in us was forged in the furnace of fusion and its destruction in mighty explosion. The iron in your blood was made in and delivered from a giant star exploding, spreading matter to the 360 directions. Joining with vast hydrogen and helium clouds, these heavy metals then settled into a new star, with planets, and aye, even life. Carbon. Oxygen. Nitrogen. Gold. Everything important to us came to use directly from a star's destruction.

A nova, a smallish explosion of the outer layers of the star, and not its complete destruction. Thus the iron and other heavier elements are not dispersed. Supernova, on the other hand, result in the annihilation of the giant star  (in the star size chart above, stars in 5 and above, the bigger the star, the more awesome the destruction, of course.), and the dispersal of just about everything in it. Over the millennia, these overlapping paths of debris accumulated into you and me and everything you see, touch, or know. We are the stars, man, and they still speak inside of us. Through us. We are, as it has been said, a way for the universe to know itself.

Far out, right? Perspective.

Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

As a recent recipient of a melanoma, this pic makes me cringe. But some people can take the sun better than others - I have to now guard myself from overly bright lamps.

But it's true - we are just bags of mostly water. We are 70% water - if anything else were 70% of something, you'd say that is by far the dominant factor. Do you feel as if you are mostly water? Of course not. But it's true. Lesson: You can't always trust your common sense. Another example - does it seem like the Earth spins around the Sun, or the Sun spins around the Earth, based on your common sense? Yeah. And this is the true gift of Science - giving us the tools to reach beyond our own common sense, verily, our very senses.

Science - the systematic method of obtaining information through observation and experimentation. It allows humanity to exceed our biological limitations (senses) and perceive ever more deeply into the realities of time and space. For example - sunburns. They are literally the result of photons hitting our skin and damaging cells, causing them to "burn" as this physical impact imparts energy that heats up the target. I am in a perpetual state of awe as I learn more and more esoteric science facts but come to realize they are almost always grounded in processes we understand at a fundamental level - one object striking another. Fusion - the magic that runs this Universe - is the result of matter striking matter so often and so powerfully that it releases energy from the constituent matter in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which we ultimately see as light - which is defined as photons literally striking cells in our eye that then interpret this information as color and intensity, via our brain. Common sense is not common sense is common sense, in other words.

Also, too, remember Large Marge?

A passing resemblance.

We humans are special beyond compare, for we can perceive these High Truths of Science, while at the same time we are subject to the genetic imperatives that drive all life, everywhere (and there is life beyond this Earth, for sure. Just a matter of time before we have conclusive proof - which will happen in our lifetimes). We can, in theory, liberate ourselves from the genetic via our minds, via science, though this is exceedingly unlikely, for the genes are the drivers in most everything we do, and there's only one thing the genes want: To live on.

Sex and Mind. The two themes which define mankind. Which allows me to posit: Consider the miracle of the egg, which I recently heard described as "a way to bring the ocean with you wherever you go". And it's true - before the egg, all life had to give birth in water. After the egg, all the land was there for the taking, because the egg encases the ocean, and water is a requirement for life. For we are 70% water, after all. The rest is the dust and ashes cast off from generations of Stars that lived, swelled, and exploded, seeding the cosmos with oxygen, carbon, iron, indeed, everything we define as ourselves (not water).

Life is awesome, yeah?

Two Roads Lay

I delved deep into the vast photo archive that is my hard drive, growing ever larger by the day, searching for the next step, as this blog is an ever going series of steps, one to the next. And yay, is not this life as well? Anywho, I divined two roads, leading in different directions, each with merit and hints of providence. I pondered overlong, then realized I could go all Gordian Knot on this jam and roll with both. For all things are possible on the Tubes. RAmen.

Old lovers dug up from the sands of time. Dust and ashes is true enough, as the Bible says, since we are made up of dust and ashes from Supernova that produced the heavy elements that make up our entire world and everything on it. And assuredly we will return to this dust and ashes, just like our entire world will be reduced back to dust and ashes with the Red Giant phase of the Sun.

We are dust and ashes given life, given time to move, and think, and be, however brief.

And while we dance and sing today, consider ALL the people that lived before - like this couple, circa 30,000 BC (not this picture, just for example). A guy and and a gal in love, trying to make their way in this crazy world of saber tooth tigers and weird ass CAVEPEOPLE (Neanderthals), among many other perils. They were just like you and me, and no doubt shared many of the same hopes and dreams, however distantly removed. For you, me, all the people ever to have lived, stretching backs hundreds of thousands of years of men and women falling in love and fucking, bringing forth the next generation of people, as dictated by the genes. Sex is why we're here, and what we're here to do. Love is the engine created by evolution to foster this sweaty endeavour. And lust. And probably the desire to party, for by the party one can bring forth the sexy time sure enough.

Mathew Stafford, QB of the NFL sporting concern "Detroit Lions". Good team. Good QB. Megatron rules. But from the looks of it, frat boy jock douche. But such is the way of things, the way of the genes. Proof of fitness is guaranteed to attract the sexy time and the sexy time is all the genes ultimately care about - everything else is a means to this end: To Bed. So enjoy your time in the sun, Mathew Stafford. For time's sandpaper will find you too, as it will find us all, and grind us up into Pink Himalayan Salt. That's Knowshon Moreno above, as well. F'ing Fratboys!

Also too, how about a snake orgy?

That's some hot snake action, amirite?

Creator the Destroyer

 The dissolving shell of an exploded star, out there in space far, far away. These expulsions of tremendous amounts of matter forms clouds which, if lucky, grow denser and denser and start spinning and, maybe one day, if it ate all its vegetables, this spinning leads to fusion, and the birth of another star, a heavier star.

A star is fusion. But contained fusion, due to the gravity pressing down on the enormous weight of the star - fusion + gravity = star. If we can re-produce this on glorious Earth, we will create Paradise, with endless and clean power. Star Trek, man.

What is fusion? The opposite of fission - which is the splitting of the atom, releasing energy. Fusion is the fusing of atoms, also releasing energy. Lots. The sunlight that warms your face is from fusion deep within our star, The Sun.

Stars are born from a compression of ginormous gas clouds, ignite a fusion cycle, and then burn through their fuel supply. The bigger stars will create elements all the way up to our old friend Iron (Fe). Iron is truly magic, for, among many other wonders, it spells the end of stars - if a star ever starts fusing Iron, it will die shortly, in a megahuge explosion called a Supernova, the remnants of which will push matter - Iron, Calcium, Gold, etc - throughout the local space.

The Cat's Eye Nebula, a nebula being the aftermath of a Supernova. And in these clouds resides the very material that made us up - literally, the iron in your blood was made in some star long ago that done exploded and showered the surrounding space with debris, some of which was iron, which collected due to gravity, eventually forming a planet, which after some time gave birth to you. The same with Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc. Dig it? We are actually star children, and isn't that just a trip?

Here's some more star porn (click pic for big):

Pretty nifty, eh? This is our reality - we came from exploding stars just like these. And every atom in our body will one day return to a great spatial cloud. Isn't this all more wondrous than any mythology yet conceived on Earth?