Jan 07 2010
How primitive is our understanding of the cosmos? It’s relative. But not completely so.
How can we honestly gauge intellectual progress? In the least, by the technology (which relies upon predictive power) our current understanding produces. At best? That’s a topic for a more in-depth post.
[photo thanks to NASA]
Jan 05 2010
That’s no ball of fire, no meteor burning its way through the Earth’s relatively coarse atmosphere. On the contrary, it’s a ball of ice. And that ball has a name: Halley’s Comet (or more astronomically correct, comet Halley). Cool. In both ways.
[photo thanks to NASA]
Dec 31 2009
The above NASA photo is of Mars. Specifically, layered hills with sand “sculpted” by wind. Wind on Mars?!
My eyes are drawn to the photo, as if my sight had legs and could explore it. Speaking of which, in a few moments I will be pulling on boots and a coat to venture out into the snow. I will take along my camera and snap my own photos of more transient wind-blown formations. Amidst that “art” I will happily explore.
Dec 29 2009
My trip to the north country (VT and MA and back to VT) is nearing its end, and I have yet to see a show of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis). Oh well. I have, however, enjoyed vistas nothing like what enters my vision in Florida. Namely, mountains and snow and ice. Different architecture too. To name a few.
Sure, it has been damn cold for this sun loving soul. But when dressed in heavy clothing, heavy gloves, and heavy boots, I feel like an explorer in an alien land. And how great is that!?
[photo thanks to NASA]
Dec 21 2009
While the above image began as a photograph, I can no longer call it one. After modifying it with Photoshop, what I now have is . . . an image? A doctored photograph? Were I to reduce the filtering degree by degree, what would be the point, I wonder, I could refer to it as a photograph, period? Seems to me that photo editing software has introduced a whole lot of grey area into what we present as reality.
Consider this NASA photo.
There is no mention at the source of image manipulation. We do learn what captured the image of cosmic reality: the “Wide Field Camera peering though the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.”
But I sense some grey in the above. Not in color, but in the beautiful light diffraction of some of the stars. How much was the image doctored? Does it matter?
Dec 19 2009
Just viewed this over at Pharyngula. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Beautiful and moving. A “religious” experience for the scientifically-minded.
Dec 16 2009
A new cosmological finding got me thinking about how darn huge the universe is. Ironically, the theme of the piece was about nearness.
Black Hole Found to Be Much Closer to Earth Than Previously Thought
How close is that black hole to us? 7800 light years. Only 7800? My that is close.
Or is it? How close is 7800 light years? With a few back-of-the-envelope computations, let’s see if I can put it in perspective.
The circumference of the Earth is roughly 40,000 km. Time it would take to walk around our planet: about 1000 days. Time it would take to drive around the planet: about 400 hours. Time it would take to fly around the planet: about 40 hours.
Now we get to the unit of cosmic distances: the light-year. Time it takes for a photon to travel the distance of the Earth’s circumference: about 1/10th of a second.
How long does it take for a photon to travel from the Sun to the Earth? About 8 . . . minutes.
The distance between between the Sun and Earth is roughly 150 million kilometers. The Sun is that far away, and still sizable in the sky?! It’s huge!
Time it takes for a photon to travel to that black hole: 7800 light years. Not 7800 seconds, not minutes, not hours, not days. Years. That’s far. That’s blow-your-mind far.
And yet, from a cosmic perspective, it’s “much closer” than previously thought. Wrap your mind around that.
Dec 15 2009
Can you see the constellation, the Biggest Dipper, in the above grouping of stars? If so, you are clever. And totally nuts. No such constellation exists.
I wonder how many dots I have connected in my own beliefs that are fully imaginary?
But wait, before I shrug my shoulders and conclude there is no way to tell . . . when wanting to transcend my own potential delusions I should remember this: science is a social enterprise. We look outside our flawed selves for answers; we discuss, we debate, we expand our horizons. Socially.
Dec 12 2009
At first glance, the above photo could be of fungoid filaments invading a transparent cell.
But no. Those filaments are in the “firmament” above. And, to borrow an allegedly whispered line from Galileo: And yet it moves.
Solid and absolute “the heavens” are not. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say the cosmos is alive — at least not all of it — it certainly has evolved and continues to do so. From the microscopic filaments of a fungoid growth to the macroscopic filaments of an exploded star.
[photo thanks to NASA]
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Update: Speaking of evolution, the 18th edition of the Carnival of Evolution has been posted here. Look and learn.
Dec 10 2009
The above is certainly a moon, but what moon is it?
Answer: Tethys. It orbits Saturn.
Looks quite a bit like a ball of styrofoam. And it must be. To hang in space like that.
Yet celestial bodies don’t “hang.” That word reflects the perceptual habits of minds confined to a land-based life in a strong gravitational field.
Tethys is not so much hanging as it is traveling along a vector of velocity sufficiently great enough to keep the acceleration provided by Saturn’s mass from pulling in “down.” In, really.
Hang. Down. Fall. What’s in a word? A superstructure of unseen experience, both personal and collective.
Of course, any Aussie readers could easily dismiss my ruminations this way: What the heck does he know, he’s hanging on the underside of our planet. Too much blood must have rushed into his head.
[photo thanks to NASA]
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