Penumbral Lore; the Shadows of Science

Well, after completing NaBloPoMo I only magaged six posts in December.   That wouldn’t be too bad, except that all but one were in the first week in December…   lame.

I’ll try to post at least once a week from here on in.   We’ll see how that works.   I’ve got a couple more projects going now, and am considering starting a separate knit blog after all (but not sure if the low volume will make it worth while).  My current project is the Binary Scarf from knitty.com.   Only <knitgeek> I thought that knitting it in the round and then compressing it to a flat scarf would be a really annoying process.  Instead I cast 33 stitches on straight needles,  then kf&b each stitch.  Row 2 became k1sl1* across, and there I was, double knitting on flat needles.  Added the second color, hoping that it would dissappear on the slipped stitches and, you know what, it’s coming along just beautifully</knitgeek>, and I used an ASCII translator to encode the phrase “You have discovered the Secret Frequency“.

OK, enough about knitting.   The science story of the day is that asteroid 2007 WD5 probably won’t impact Mars at all.

As I type this, we have just begun Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year.  This means, of course, that across the world it is Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.  It is, of course, happening simultaneously - so we can illustrate two of the faces of the Time Cube (but we are educated stupid…)

Solstice is a time of great spiritual significance to many in the pagan community (neo- and otherwise), as well as the beginning of winter, and the harbinger of Christian holy days as well.   It can be a time to tie ones spiritual beliefs back into the physical universe, or just to pull out the old telescope and see if one can spot the Ursid Meteor shower.

As for me, well, I’m finally shaking off the last of this migraine (knock wood) and will stay inside and try to finish knitting my mother’s gloves (they’re looking quite nice, actually, but should have been done half a week ago).   Perhaps I’ll try some egg nog, if my tummy can handle it.  I will not be standing vigil tonight.

December has been an even lighter posting month than I had expected, but we’ve gotten this far without any bloodshed, so I’m optimistic that there will be a couple more posts before next year.

I’m recovering nicely from yesterday, but I still feel as though my head were stuffed with cotton batting.   I’m going to  stick to to a very short post today, one of the quantum weirdness experiments I referred to earlier.  Also, watch the skies tonight, there should be a very good view of Mars near the moon.

In “Quantum Zeno effect” by Wayne M. Itano, D. J. Heinzen, J. J. Bollinger, and D. J. Wineland Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80303, the invesitgators provide a demonstration of the Uncertainty Principle.   In this experiment, the Beryllium ions ⁹Be⁺, which have been ‘trapped’ and ‘laser cooled’ can exist in one of two energy states (see my “periodic post” for a refresher in quantum states). An RF pulse then transmitted energy back into the cooled ions, adding enough energy to ‘push’ all of the ions into the higher energy state. 

The thing is, measuring the energy levels of the ions had a definite effect on their energy levels.  If they were measured frequently enough during the process, none of the ions would absorb enough energy to ‘kick them up’ to the higher level.   Note that, for the purposes of this experiment, the ‘observer’ which was needed to restrickt the energy state refers to the laser beam, not to any sentient observer.   (Still, plenty freaky enough)

Thanks to meloukhia, who tipped me off to a team of High School students who won the international Genetic Engineering Machine (iGEM) competition for their invention of “synthesomes” (artificial organelles). Very, very cool stuff.

There are some great pics of Holmes 17/P from Hubble. The best time to observe the comet will be tomorrow night (the 19th) as the cloud of space debris it is passes in front of the star Mirfak. If you’ve got telescopes and the night’s clear, look towards Perseus, the view is great. Holmes, including the cloud of space dust generated when it exploded, is now bigger than the sun. Don’t worry, though. It’s near Jupiter’s orbit, heading towards the outer solar system (so no massive commet clouds coming between us and Sol…) The Leonids should be good tonight…

Hopefully I’ll have a more substantial post for you tomorrow.

A good place to start in discussions of the possibility of communicating with life from another planet is with Drake’s Equation:

N=R* x f_p x n_e x f_l x f_i x f_c x L

It says that N (the number of extra terrestrial species which might be able to send us recognizable signals) equals the average rate of star formation in our galaxy, times the fraction of those stars which have planets, x the average number of suitable planets per system, x the fraction of them which eventually develop life, x the fraction of those where life develops intelligence, x the fraction of those which develop a technological civilization (one which generates signals we could pick up) x the length of time they release those signals.

For the purposes of this argument, we’re looking at life which is very similar to terrestrial life, with chemistry based on Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen. At some future time we might take a look at Silicon/Sulfur chemistry, once a staple of SF novels but pretty out there, because hydrogen bonding won’t happen with Sulfur the way it does with Oxygen… So, basically, suitable planets have to have some quantity of liquid water in order for life to develop.

When Frank Drake came up with his equation, back in 1961, it was purely a theoretical exercise - how many planets might there be, and how many of them might have recognizable intelligence. Things have changed (a little) since then, in that we can now actually identify planets. As of this writing, there are 264 extra solar planets cataloged online. A couple of them from this past year are particularly exciting.

 

The most recent of these (as in, reported within the past week) is the fifth planet to be discovered orbiting the star 55 Cancri. 55 Cancri is a star very much like the sun, and the fifth planet is in the orbital zone which makes liquid water a real possibility. True, the planet is a lot more like Saturn than the Earth, but maybe it has moons. 55 Cancri is 41 light years away, so their inhabitants (if any) could point radio recievers at Sol and pick up “Strangers in the Night” by Frank Sinatra, or “These Boots are Made For Walking” by his daughter, Nancy, or, if they can decode television signals they could be treated to the first season of Batman.

 

The most Earthlike planet ever discovered was reported this past April. This one orbits a red dwarf (not to be confused with “Red Dwarf“) known as Gliese 581, very closely. It’s ‘year’ is about two weeks long. Gliese 581 is so cool, however, that this puts it within the ‘life zone’ and it could have liquid water. It’s about five times as massive as the Earth, and may be as small as 1.5 Earth diameters. This one is about 20 light years from earth, so listeners there might get “La Bamba” or maybe watch “Remington Steele” after Pierce Brosnan got jerked around as not bond, or catch the first season “Star Trek, TNG”.

That is, assuming that the signals would have enough strength to be decoded after 20-40 years of travel, but that’s the assumption we make when we scan the skys for alien signals, so it’s what I’m going with here.

Actually, this is very cool and exciting, and deserves some first class geeking out over. I’m just feeling a bit worn out today - my husband’s podcast will probably need another home if anyone’s going to be able to subcribe to it, and I’ve been playing around with it all day… Oh, well.   I took a moment to watch this video, taken on halloween night by the japanese space station Selene while orbiting the moon (as described in The Great Beyond). Amazingly cool stuff. Remember ‘the face on Mars’? Well, I’ve got this wonderful screen capture of a yin-yang mandala from the moon!

Note:  All links open in new windows.

I’m pretty late on picking up this story.  My apologies.  Those of you who have been following this for days can probably fill me in on lots of things I’ve missed.  hat’s happening?  Apparently bits of the comet 17P/Holmes are breaking off, and the newly exposed surface is, for the time being, really really bright.

According to Space Weather.com it happened on October 23rd of this year, when the brightness of the comet  increased over a million fold.   The increase continued the next day (but at a much slower rate).  The link at the right takes you to the SpaceWeather photogallery.

According to Gary W. Cronk’s Cometography  the outburst began on the 24th.  Cronk goes on to chronicle the history of the comet.  It was discovered in November of 1892 by E. Holmes of London, England, apparently in the midst of an ‘outburst event’, like this one.  That time it faded over the course of a month, then burst out again in March of the next year.

It’s apparently been hard to track, with an increasing orbital period (and mean distance) over the years.

So, this has been all over the astro-blogs for the past several days.   No deep musings or personal observations here, just a description of something which I find very cool.  I’m sure I’ve missed the brightest part of the show, but it’s been raining steadily all week.  Maybe when the sky clears up it will still be bright enough for me to spot.

My love of science began with  astronomy - with an artists conception of what a red giant and blue dwarf orbiting around each other would look like for an observer…

Somewhat later, I remember hearing about the classical view of the sky as a concentric series of shells which revolved around the earth, and how Coppernicus’ revolution shook the world.   I remember lying on a hill side, looking up at the night sky and thinking of the sky in one way and then the other, until I could almost feel myself, and the earth, catapulting through the heavens.

So, speculation of what the night sky might look like from other places in the galaxy resonate with me.  NASA’s description of the sky from orphan stars is particularly poignant.  It’s available as an audio file as well.