Category Archives: astronomy

Perseids

It’s official.  Photographing meteors is hard.

Moon, Venus, Jupiter and star clusters. Morning of 12 August (Photo:Tim Jones)

Don’t look for meteors in the picture above, because there aren’t any.

My master plan last night, on the 12th August peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower, was to capture in one photograph all the good stuff above: Moon, Venus (bottom left), Jupiter (top) close to Hyades and Pleiades star clusters in Taurus, Orion rising – PLUS a nice Perseid meteor, preferably an exploding fireball, flying through the whole thing.

It doesn’t work like that unfortunately, and, by the time Venus came into view, the meteors had dried up for the night.

Anyhow – I did get something for four hours of clicking and coffee in the dark.  The first pic below is actually yesterday’s effort, but the rest were taken this morning between midnight and 4 a.m. outside Los Angeles.  A bright hazy sky has reduced the meteor trails to barely visible streaks – but they are there, some with red-green coloration caused by different chemical elements burning off at different times as the meteor enters the atmosphere.  Camera and exposure: Canon 7D on tripod unguided, 17mm lens, f.4, 30 seconds, ISO 400-640.

The Perseids are off their maximum now, but will be around for a couple more days if you want to try photographing one yourself.  Just point the camera anywhere in the sky after 11 pm or so.

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

Close-up of above meteor

 

 

Planetfest 2012 – Curiosity Knows No Bounds

Planetfest (Photos: Tim Jones)
NASA’s Charles Bolden and Plantetary Society CEO Bill Nye at Planetfest 2012

Unless you spent last week vacationing at the bottom of a Titan methane lake, you can’t have failed to notice NASA has just placed its largest, heaviest, and most advanced rover yet – the Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, on the surface of Mars.  And ‘placed’ it was  –  nice and gently – by a rocket powered crane.

Sky-crane descent of the Mars Science Laboratory ‘Curiosity’ Picture: NASA

Even though I followed the moon landings, the idea of visiting Mars, in any form, still has a ring of science fiction about it.  But last weekend at my first Planetary Society Planetfest in Pasadena, California, Mars for me and 1500 others became extra-real, as we stood enthralled and affirmed in the knowledge that, for all our faults, human beings can still pull this stuff off.

There were nail-biting moments and fascinating discussions.  What I’ve put together here is a summary from my notes, mixed in with thoughts and photos to give you a taste of what went on.

Let’s set the scene with a JPL simulation of Curiosity’s landing:

And here’s the reaction where I was sitting in the Planetfest crowd:

Now meet four of the Planetary Society team who managed the panels, reported live from JPL, introduced speakers, and generally held things together from Saturday through to Curiosity’s landing late on Sunday evening:

Bill NyeBruce Betts

Jim BellEmily Lakdawalla

Left to right from top: CEO Bill Nye; Director Projects Dr.Bruce Betts; President Jim Bell; Technology & Scientific Coordinator Emily Lakdawalla.

Emily Lakdawalla at Planetfest 2012 (Photo:Tim Jones)
Emily Lakdawalla at Planetfest 2012

Arriving early Saturday morning for a front row seat, I knew I was off to a good start when NASA Director of Planetary Science Jim Green sat next to me and slipped me a couple of mission pins.

Jim Green (Photo: Tim Jones)
Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green reviewed fifty years of solar system exploration at NASA: missions past, present, and possible future.

It also helped that by the time Curiosity touched down we were already Mars experts, thanks to two days of presentations from the likes of ‘Mars Czar’ Scott Hubbard.  Hubbard, now an aeronautics professor at Stanford, authored NASA’s ten-year Mars program in which each mission informs and sets direction for future missions under a guiding science strategy of ‘Follow the Water’.  That strategy has morphed to ‘Seek Signs of Life’, with the qualification that Curiosity isn’t looking for living life as such, but evidence of past life or conditions that might have supported it (incidentally, there’s an article on this aspect by Stuart Clark here in the Guardian newspaper).

'Mars Czar' Scott Hubbard, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University (Photo:Tim Jones)
Scott Hubbard “I was first Mars Czar”
Rosaly Lopes-Gautier, JPL
JPL Volcanologist Rosaly Lopes-Gautier explained some crucial differences between the geology of Earth and Mars

We can follow the sequence.  Launched in 1996, Global Surveyor spotted evidence of flash floods, old polar oceans, and water-modified rocks.  In 2001, the Odyssey probe detected possible water ice at the pole (using gamma ray spectroscopy), which in 2008 Phoenix confirmed, actually scraping some of it away.  The 2004 Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, also found evidence of historic water in the form of tell-tale hematite ‘berries’. And in 2006, the high-definition imaging ability of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbitor (MRO) convincingly separated out surface features caused by water from those by wind.  MRO images were also instrumental in identifying Gale Crater as Curiosity’s landing site.  It’s sitting there now, in shake-down mode.

Matt Golombek, Senior Research Scientist JPL
Matt Golombek, JPL

Choosing Gale Crater, said Senior Research Scientist Matt Golombek, as with any landing site, is all about balancing science and safety: a negotiation between scientists who want the rover to go places where it can do interesting science, and engineers who have to build something that will get it there.

Site choice is also iterative with spacecraft development during the build, consistent with a rigorous systems engineering approach that underpins Hubbard’s original strategy and integrates the science/engineering/management teams.

Gale Crater and Curiosity landing site (Photo: NASA)
Gale Crater and Curiosity landing site (Photo: NASA)

So why choose Gale Crater from what started out as fifty possible landing sites?  Firstly, it doesn’t contain many mini-craters for Curiosity to accidentally land and get stuck in; but as importantly, great science waits there in accessible layers of sedimentary rocks stacked up around its central peak – Mount Sharp: layers where we might find signs of an environment for past life.

Pasadena Convention Center (Photo:Tim Jones)
Pasadena Convention Center

“The history of Mars is in this hole”

So said Head of Mars Program Doug McCuistion describing how, over the weeks and months, Curiosity will explore the 96 mile wide Gale Crater, moving in on the three-mile high central peak, analysing rocks as it goes – remotely by shooting them with a laser and looking at the emitted light, and by pulling samples into its onboard chem. lab.

Each layer of the ancient deposit at Mount Sharp represents a step back in time, and as the side of the deposit has eroded away, Curiosity doesn’t need long drills to reach them.  We may, said Chief Engineer Rob Manning, find evidence of a historic “warm wet Mars”, or even the complex carbon calling cards of past life.  Unlike the earlier Spirit and Opportunity rovers – essentially geophysics platforms – Curiosity, with its onboard chem. lab, is equipped to find them.

Curiosity’s driver, Scott Maxwell, used the analogy of backing your car out of the drive with a 15 minute throttle delay for an entertaining introduction to roadcraft on an alien world.  The key tip it seems – based on experience with the Spirit rover – is don’t drive to anywhere you can’t see!

Rover Driver, Scott Maxwell (JPL)
JPL MSL Driver, Scott Maxwell
Head of Mars Program Doug McCuistion (Photo:Tim Jones)
Head of Mars Program Doug McCuistion
Chief Engineer MSL, Rob Manning (Photo:Tim Jones)
Chief Engineer MSL, Rob Manning

After Curiosity?

I guess next to the landing itself, the dominant buzz was around how best to counter a slowdown in the pace of planetary exploration and NASA budget cuts.   Crazy as it felt against the euphoria of Planetfest, NASA has no follow-on missions to Mars scheduled after Curiosity (although India plan an orbiter for 2014). [Update 20/08/12, InSight Mars planned for 2016].

In the grand scheme of things, when it comes to actually paying for it, space and planetary exploration simply aren’t a priority for – as one delegate described the general populace – normal people.  The Curiosity mission cost every American $7, or I guess about $1 /year.  What’s seven bucks?  One burger meal?  A movie rental?

Science fiction author David Brin echoes the common frustration that we’re not doing enough, fast enough, in space.  Where’s the desire? asks Brin, reminding us we have a strong track record of achieving challenging, unlikely, tasks if we really put our minds to it, and pointing to that fairyland in the desert we call Las Vegas.

David Brin (Photo: Tim Jones)
David Brin

Asked what it might take for a NASA budget hike to receive more popular support, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver suggested discovery of evidence for extra-terrestrial life or intelligent life might do it, or, less attractively, an asteroid threat to the planet.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver (Photo:Tim Jones)
NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver

It’s not that there are no ideas for a further  mission.  That would likely involve bringing material back to Earth for detailed analysis by many different laboratories and researchers: a ‘sample return’ mission.

Meantime, the Planetary Society reiterates the case for continued investment to support (America’s) national interest.  That includes Bill Nye’s argument for ‘trickle-up economics’, whereby exploration project investments in a region attract the best educators, lift regional and national education standards, motivate a new generation of technology workers – ultimately strengthening a country’s role as an innovation economy (the only sort that has much of a future in my view).  That’s before the global economic and political stability benefits to other, if not all, countries stemming from international co-operation in space.  These are the kind of messages  NASA Adminstator Charles Bolden and JPL Director Charles Elachi endorsed the Planetfest audience to get across to their elected representatives (i.e. Congressmen).

Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator (Photo: Tim Jones)
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Charles Bolden and Charles Elachi (Photo:Tim Jones)
Charles Bolden and Charles Elachi
Dr Charles Elachi, Director Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Dr Charles Elachi, Director Jet Propulsion Laboratory

I suspect it also helps to have a few star quality communicators, not to say terminal space enthusiasts, on the case – like Bill Nye, Emily Lakdawalla, and Astronomy Outreach Specialist and Planetfest cheerleader Shelley Bonus :

Shelley Bonus (Photo:Tim Jones)
Shelley Bonus “Curiosity Knows No Bounds!”

Commercial Space

Will the future of space be saved by the market?  NASA has made extensive use of commercial contractors since before the Apollo program, and now an upswell of new businesses like SpaceX, XCOR, and Virgin Galactic, bringing with them new business models and work cultures, present fresh possibilities.

The role and opportunities for private investment were explored by a panel comprising Andrew Nelson from XCOR, developer of the Lynx low earth orbit rocket plane; George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, and your best bet for an early space holiday; Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize, an initiative which, among other things, is in the process of spawning a host of mini-moon-landers; and David Giger of SpaceX, the group whose Dragon capsule in May 2012 hooked up with the international space station.  Lynx and Dragon were both on display.

XCOR Lynx at Planetfest Pasadena (Photo: Tim Jones)
XCOR Lynx

 

Andrew Nelson, XCOR (Photo:Tim Jones)
Andrew Nelson, XCOR

As a trend, relatively well understood processes like taxiing to Earth orbit look likely to migrate almost 100% to commercial interests, leaving NASA and the publicly funded space efforts of other nations to push the exploratory envelope.  But it’s not clear-cut.  Peter Diamandis reckoned the first manned mission to Mars could be a private venture – and made a bet with Whitesides to that effect (freebie to orbit on Virgin Galactic if he wins).

George Whitesides (left) and Peter Diamantis (Photo: Tim Jones)
George Whitesides and Peter Diamantis

Private entities can take bigger risks where they’re justified by attractive financial returns.  Diamandis believes asteroids will be commercially mined in the next 10-15 years.  Some contain precious metals, others carbonaceous chondrites – loaded with hydrogen and oxygen (as water) that, converted to fuel could be stored in space depots; beats lifting every ounce to orbit as we do now.  These ideas could revolutionise the fuel logistics of solar system exploration.  Science might be coincident with commercial ventures – but it’s still science.

All that said, with private investments apparently self-limited to the hundreds of millions of dollars, not billions, the panel believed public investment is still important.

SPACEX Dragon Capsule at Planetfest Pasadena (Photo: Tim Jones)
SPACEX Dragon Capsule at Planetfest Pasadena

One company already working with NASA is Sierra Nevada, who were involved building the sky-crane which, when this picture of Executive VP Mark Sirangelo was taken, had yet to lower Curiosity safely on to Mars; so maybe that’s a nervous smile.

Exec. VP Sierra Nevada Corp., Mark Sirangelo (Photo: Tim Jones)
Exec. VP Sierra Nevada Corp., Mark Sirangelo

But as one of three suppliers chosen to develop launch systems to reach the space station, along with Boeing and SpaceX, Sirangelo can be happy.  On a more sombre but celebratory note, Sirangelo presented a tribute to the life of astronaut Sally Ride, who died in July this year.

Manned Missions?

Mentally photoshopping human figures into Martian panoramas is irresistible.  And while the debate around the merits of manned versus unmanned exploration trundles on, some folks, like aerospace Engineer, Founder and President of the Mars Society, and author of The Case for Mars, Robert Zubrin, just want to get on with it.

President of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin. (Photo:Tim Jones)
President of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin.

Zubrin, whose enthusiasm alone should get him to Earth orbit, favours the systematic transfer of first unmanned, then manned, modules – for fuel generation, living, etc. –  to Mars over a period of years.  At least his approach side steps the popular but contentious (and somewhat macho?) debate around who’s ready to hop on a one-way mission.  When X-Prize founder Peter Diamantis asked who would volunteer at 75% and 50% risk levels, the show of hands by my reckoning was  reserved and super-reserved (although as George Whiteside commented, enough for a crew!)  Diamantis reckoned he’d sign up at the 50% risk level.  I got the impression from NASA Adminstrator Charles Bolden that he personally supports manned exploration.  Further pressure for manned missions comes from advocacy groups such as Artemis Westenberg’s Explore Mars, whose optimistic goal is to see humans on Mars by 2030.

Artemis Westenberg (Photo: Tim Jones)
Artemis Westenberg

Of course, you can go to Mars in your imagination when you like, a mission delegates at Planetfest prepped for with the help of the Space Art panel.  Led by President of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, Jon Ramer, the five space artists discussed the ins and outs of their craft applied to scientific visualisation, fine art, book, and movie work.

Space Artists (Photo:Tim Jones)
Space Artists. From left to right: Jon Ramer, Don Davis, Rick Sternbach, Don Dixon, and Aldo Spadoni.

Staying with the arts.  In tribute to science fiction icon Ray Bradbury, who died in June this year, co-founder of the Planetary Society Louis Friedman, with actor Robert Picardo and space historian Andrew Chaikin, led a poetic tribute to the visionary and sometimes controversial author of The Martian Chronicles.

Louis Friedman (Photo: Tim Jones)
Louis Friedman
Space Historian Andrew Chaikin
Space Historian Andrew Chaikin
Robert Picardo reads Ray Bradbury (Photo: Tim Jones)
Robert Picardo reads poetry by Ray Bradbury

Diversions and Surprises

Bill Nye may be the CEO of the Planetary Society, but for half an hour on Saturday he donned his trademark lab coat to become 100% ‘Science Guy’ in a liquid nitrogen-fueled double act with actor/director Robert Picardo.  The session ended with Bill feeding marshmallows at -370 F to Picardo and young members of the follow-on ‘careers in space’ panel.

Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye (the 'Science Guy')(Photo:Tim Jones)
Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye (Photo: Tim Jones)
Robert Picardo (Photo: Tim Jones)
Robert Picardo (Photo: Tim Jones)
Bill Nye and Robert Picardo do science (Photo: Tim Jones)
Bill Nye and Robert Picardo do science
Bill Nye and Robert Picardo do science (Photo: Tim Jones)
Bill Nye and Robert Picardo do science
Bill Nye launching smoke pulse (Photo: Tim Jones)
Bill Nye launching smoke pulse
Robert Picardo (Photo:Tim Jones)
Robert Picardo
The Right Stuff (Photo:Tim Jones)
The Right Stuff

Special Guests

A host of special guests appeared on Sunday afternoon, perhaps the most diverting being writer / producer Ann Druyan, who was married to and worked with the late Carl Sagan.

Joined on stage by Family Guy producer Seth MacFarlane, Druyan shared progress on a new thirteen part re-make of Sagan’s famous Cosmos series that will be aired on Fox Network and fronted by Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Ann Druyan (Photo: Tim Jones)
Ann Druyan
Ann Druyan (Photo:Tim Jones)
Ann Druyan

It’s encouraging that Druyan is staying close to the production, and through MacFarlane aims to maintain the production values and ethos of the original show.  Asked whether climate change would be addressed in the updated version, Druyan said it would be – as it was in the original.  Also, there would be less emphasis on the nuclear threat.  Again in common with the original, efforts will be made to bridge any perceived science-religion divide, perhaps through an appeal to common goals around themes like preservation of the environment.  As one delegate put it, Carl Sagan could ‘disagree without being disagreeable’.  It will be interesting to see what Tyson does with the Cosmos mantle.

Seth MacFarlane and Ann Druyan (Photo: Tim Jones)
Seth MacFarlane and Ann Druyan
Seth MacFarlane (Photo:Tim Jones)
Seth MacFarlane (Photo:Tim Jones)

Until Next Year

That’s all folks.  All in all a pretty unforgettable weekend.  Anyone feeling a bit cynical about space exploration or those who support it would do well to sample one of these gigs.  Bill Nye is dead right when he says adventures like Curiosity represent mankind at its best!


 Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs by Tim Jones

 

Of related interest on Zoonomian

Buck Rogers – A Copper-clad Lesson from History

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

 

 

Annular Solar Eclipse 20th May 2012

Eclipse near maximum projected from 100mm Swarovski spotting scope

I’m in Los Angeles at the moment, which means I got a half decent view of this evening’s annular solar eclipse.

Projected sun's disc in shadow of my head (photo:Tim Jones)
Projected disc of sun in shadow of my head. Click for large image. (Photo:Tim Jones)

The sun didn’t show as a true annulus from where I am, but an off-set 85% coverage is pretty spectacular all the same.  The sun’s image is projected with a 100mm spotting scope, and I took pictures with my standard camera.

Rig for projecting and photographing the eclipse.
Rig for projecting and photographing the eclipse.

With projection, you need something to shade the image from the direct light of the sun, and failing anything better at hand, I find my head does the job – complete with muzzed up solar flare haircut for the occasion!

Note, this is all about projecting the sun’s image.   Remember: NEVER  LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN THROUGH A TELESCOPE.

The eclipse started at 17:24 PST and reached maximum at 18:38 PST.  I caught the maximum but gave up shortly after because of trees getting into the shot.

Working backwards from maximum eclipse, this is at 18:39.

Maximum eclipse 18:39 PST
Maximum eclipse 18:39 PST

Few sunspots visible again near maximum eclipse:

Sunspots

About half an hour before maximum…

18:10 PST. About half an hour to maximum eclipse

Sunspots come out very well in projection.  There’s some distortion of the shape of the sun/moon by this method, because the camera is always a bit off-centre, but I reckon the detail is pretty good.

Sunspots, in early part of eclipse (click for larger pic)

Well on it’s way….

30 minutes or so in....

The first nick out of the side of the sun at 17:27

First nick taken out of the sun (around 17:27 PST)

Craters on the moon?  For sure there are craters on the moon.  But can you see them in profile during an eclipse?  The air tends to ‘boil’ the image so much that it’s hard to separate out random optical effects from real lunar geography.  These two shots were taken a few seconds apart, so features appearing on both are likely to be real.

Close up showing surface irregularity of moon

Same as above but a few seconds later:

Close-up showing surface irregularities of moon (as above plus a few seconds)

I think there is a bit of a dip about a third of a way up the limb, but it’s not clear cut.  To do this properly, we’d need to take a bunch of photographs and electronically combine them to get an average profile over a few seconds or minutes.  Some dedicated soul out there will have done it.

 

See also my post on the 4th Jan 2011 partial solar eclipse HERE

Total Lunar Eclipse 10th December 2011

Lunar Eclipse, 10th December 2011, 5.40 PST from Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th December 2011, 5.40 PST from Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)

I took these photographs between 5.00 and 6.15 a.m., 10th December 2011, from the foothills above Los Angeles near Pasadena. Here’s the progression through to totality at around 6.05 a.m.

  Pics taken on Canon 7D, 100-400 L, Various ISO 200-800, 100th" - 1" f6.3
Pics taken on Canon 7D, 100-400 L, Various ISO 200-800, 100th" - 1" f6.3
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.15 PST Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.15 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.24 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.24 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.33 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.33 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.35 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.35 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.39 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.39 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.40 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.40 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.50 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.50 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.50 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10 Dec. 2011, 5.50 PST, Los Angeles, Photo:Tim Jones
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 5.55 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 5.55 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.00 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.00 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.02 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.02 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.04 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.04 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)

 

Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.04 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.04 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.08 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.08 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.11 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.11 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.11 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lunar Eclipse, 10th Dec 2011, 6.11 PST, Los Angeles (Photo:Tim Jones)

 

Lawrence Krauss Sprinkles Stardust at the School of Life

I’d heard of Alain de Botton’s School of Life  and its  “good ideas for everyday living“; I just hadn’t been to one of their ‘Sunday Sermons’.

Lawrence Krauss at Conway Hall 16th October 2011. Photo by Tim Jones
Krauss 2.0 ?

So arriving at Conway Hall yesterday to hear theoretical physicist and all-round science communicator Professor Lawrence Krauss talk about Cosmic Connections, it was an unexpected but not disagreeable surprise to find David Bowie and a seven foot spandex-clad devil stirred into the mix.  I for one can’t think of a better preparation for contemplating one’s insignificance in a miserable futureless universe than a good singalong to Space Oddity.

Conway Hall (Photo:Tim Jones)
Conway Hall (Photo:Tim Jones)
Lawrence Krauss at Conway Hall 16th October 2011. Photo by Tim Jones
“You are stardust; it is literally the most poetic thing I know about in all of science”

On the face of it, Krauss’s ultimate message is a bit grim: that our expanding, accelerating, universe will eventually dilate into cold, empty, blackness.  But, more positively, he’s saying we should take all that as read and concentrate on our perspective: understand what we really are and how we connect with the universe.  Then the journey to oblivion doesn’t look so miserable afterall; it looks fascinating – even poetic.

Lawrence Krauss at Conway Hall 16th October 2011. Photo by Tim Jones
Stardust meets Starman

Krauss’s consciousness-raising / cheer-up therapy centred around three less than obvious connections we have with the cosmos:

First off – we are the universe.  We’re made of stars.   The heavy elements that make us up could only have been made in stars, and they could only end up as part of us if they were blasted out of exploding stars: the supernovae.

Crab Nebula
You were here…

Call me a romantic, but I like the imagery.  Bits of me: hands and feet, arms, legs, head, brain – they didn’t just pop up a few decades ago, but have been flying around for billions of years and will be around for billions more.  I’ve been inside an exploding supernova – several most likely.

Lawrence Krauss and the Devil. Photo by Tim Jones
Straight on at purgatory, then right at the second circle….

devil photo Tim Jones
What the….

Next came the connectedness of life, with a nice story of Krauss sitting to write a physics paper, aware  he’s breathing the very atoms breathed by Einstein as he formulated his own theories (inspired inhalation?).  We’ve all got a bit of Julius Caesar in us it seems – literally.  And on the larger scale of the solar system, the exchange of possible life-bearing rocks between the Earth and other planets, including Mars, could mean we’re all extra-terrestrials without even knowing it.

Lawrence Krauss at Conway Hall 16th October 2011. Photo by Tim Jones
“The future is miserable”

Krauss’s final illustration challenges our perception that aspects of reality we normally consider outlandish and irrelevant to our day-to-day life do indeed have a direct influence on us.  The mundane activity in question is navigation by Global Positioning System (GPS), where the consquences of not correcting for satellite speed (Special Relativity), and height above the Earth (gravity effect/General Relativity), on measurement of the requisite nano-second scale signal transit times, would in only a day be sufficient to put ground track navigation out by several kilometres.

“Ground control to Major Tom”
Lawrence Krauss at Conway Hall 16th October 2011. Photo by Tim Jones
“Bits of Mars are falling on Earth all the time”

I really like this GPS example and the way Krauss presented it.  There was no such thing as GPS when I was at school, so all we got were stories of atomic clocks losing time when they were shot round the world on fast planes, or hypothetical astronauts of the future going on fictional journeys.  To be able to relate relativistic effects to a very real navigational error that normal folk can recognise and care about is brilliant.

Who’d have thought Sunday sermons could be such fun?

Lawrence Krauss and Tim Jones Photo Sven Klinge
It’s important to help struggling authors….

Photographs copyright Tim Jones.

Final photo: Thanks Sven Klinge.

Update 4th Dec. 2011 Video of the event:

Lawrence Krauss on Cosmic Connections from The School of Life on Vimeo.

Also of interest? – Lawrence Krauss recently on Materials World with Quentin Cooper (about 15 mins in)

 

 

Book Review: Tweeting the Universe, by Marcus Chown & Govert Schilling

Tweeting the Universe

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber (3 Nov 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571278434
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571278435
  • Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.4 x 2.9 cm

 

What do they say: small on size, big on content?  That’s not a bad description of my latest reading.

For a while, I’ve followed physicist and science writer Marcus Chown bravely fielding science questions on Twitter.  And with his friend Govert Schilling doing the same from the Netherlands, it was only a matter of time before we saw Tweeting the Universe: the authors’ new Q & A astronomy book – where the answers come in tweet-sized bites.

Truth be known, they’ve been a bit sneaky here, as the answers aren’t limited to JUST 140 letters – although, in fairness, that would have made for a rather short read.   Instead, each answer comprises a series of ten or so tweet-sized mini factlets that form a complete explanation to – wait for it – 140 questions, grouped under themes like: the moon, planets, sun, stars, galaxies, life in the universe, telescopes etc.  Pedantic nitpicking aside though, when you’re in the groove of this slightly odd format there are noticeable benefits.

For starters, this tweet-speak thing is a great way of absorbing a lot of information on a whole range of topics in a short time.  That’s thanks to the super-high information density that Twitter-style compression delivers over an already substantial 300+ pages; because, like ‘Twitter proper’, there’s no space wasted with redundant language and niceties.  The result is a succinctness and clarity of argument too easily obscured by other formats.

I suspect getting there was no small deal.  Twitterers of the world know how tough it is to condense their message to an essence that followers will still understand, but Chown and Schilling had the trickier job of designing for a broad non-specialist audience.  Not that their efforts will stop my old English teacher spinning in her grave at some of the grammar.

And while it might not be the first choice of seasoned professionals (don’t know though) or those who in general like to submerge in the detail, Tweeting the Universe should have wide appeal, and particularly with the attention-deficit-disorder-generation whose name is written all over it.  The longest you’ll ever have to stick with a topic is one and a half pages.

I read a lot of popular astronomy and physics, but still found questions I’d never think of asking and others I only thought I knew the answer to, like: “Are the stars artificial?”, and “Why is Uranus lying on its side?”  I didn’t know our galaxy has so many satellites, and it was good to revisit some of the less obvious ‘goldilocks’ factors without which humans might not have evolved on Earth: like our stabilising moon and a rather convenient dinosaur extinction.

The content is authoritative, but presented in a light style with an edge of humour: it’s comforting to know the sun would be just as hot if all its hydrogen were swapped for bananas.   There’s also a nice seasoning of the science with cultural and historical references: like the origin of the expression ‘rare as a blue moon’; and the fact the Incas and Aboriginies named constellations not only after star patterns, but also the dark shapes made by gas clouds in the Milky Way (I guess living away from the city gives you these options).

And lastly, I’m reassured that at least one aspect of the universe is constant across all literary forms: namely, that scientists are as clueless about the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in Tweet-form as in any other.

All in all then, Tweeting the Universe is a rich little knowledge bomb, recommended equally for consumption over  a weekend or as an occasional ‘dipper into’ before bed or  between tube stops.   And with Christmas on the way, a nice little stocking-filler too.

The Moon Hoaxing Scandal of 1835

Herschell pictured on a papier mache box lid at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford (Photo: Tim Jones)

The fantastic weather in Oxford yesterday meant museum visits took a back seat to a good punting session on the Cherwell (a violation of physics in its own right with me at the helm).

Oxford (Photo:Tim Jones)
Oxford

But we did get a half hour in the Museum of the History of Science , where I snapped this papier mache box lid, a great early example of newspapers not letting facts get in the way of a good story.  For what they lacked in hacking scandals in 1835, they made up for in hoaxing, in stories like the one to which this exhibit relates: The Great Moon Hoax.

The picture is a satirical sketch of the astronomer Sir John Herschel, in a scene based on a series of reports by Richard Adams Locke for the New York Sun in 1835, supposedly describing observations made by Herschel at his South Africa observatory.

From the New York Sun 1835 (Wikicommons)

You can read up on the detail at the museum of hoaxes), but in this rendition, which is new to me, I particularly like the weird equipment combo Herschel’s minions are wielding around him: some sort of camera obscura / microscope mash-up by the looks of things.  Maybe those instruments were more familiar than telescopes?   Or, more likely, the  journo just let his imagination get the better of him.  Either way, I guess it’s still the little winged moon-men that steal the show.

The exhibit put me in mind of two lectures on a similar tack I enjoyed in the Royal Society’s History of Science series.   You might like to check them out:

‘Fleas, lice, and an elephant on the moon’  by Dr Felicity Henderson (Sept 24 2010)

‘The Telescope at 400: a Satirical Journey’ by Richard Dunn (April 24 2009)

(both can be found by tracking down to the correct dates at the Royal Society podcast/vidcast page here).

 

 

 

Book Review: The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth, by Stuart Clark

Hardcover: 272 pages

  • Publisher: Polygon (1 May 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1846971748
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846971747
  • Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 15.4 x 3 cm

 

 

 

 

Galileo Galilei’s scrape with the Roman Catholic Church is well known.

His suggestion that the Earth spins on its axis and orbits around the Sun was an afront to scripture that got him branded as a heretic and almost burnt at the stake. How he first became aware of the full peril of his situation is less well known: on a rooftop in Rome, eavesdropping whilst taking a pee behind a bush.

Maybe that’s how it happened, maybe not – either way, the Earth won’t stop turning.

But it’s through these touches of imaginative license: sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, on occasion disturbingly vivid, that Stuart Clark breathes life into the characters of his first novel, The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth.

The title comes from an episode in the book, where Galileo explains the hopelessness of trying to understand the universe without the correct language – mathematics; to do so is to “wander about lost in the dark labyrinth of the sky.”  But don’t panic, it’s an equationless drama.

In this first part of a trilogy that reaches from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, we follow the lives of the astronomers Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) as they challenge the religiously inspired orthodoxy of the times: an Earth-centered universe with the Sun and planets orbiting around in perfect circles – just as God intended.

Each astronomer has special skills and his own ideas about the cosmos:

Tycho, the meticulous naked-eye observer, happy for the Sun to orbit the Earth, yet convinced the other planets revolve around the Sun.

Galileo, arguably the father of evidence-based thinking, points his telescope skyward to see mountains on the moon, satellites around Jupiter, moon-like phases on Venus and Mercury, and spots on the Sun (Clark reminds us Galileo didn’t actually invent the telescope) – each observation a blow to the accepted model of the universe and Aristotle’s concept of a perfect heaven.

And Kepler, obsessed with geometry, turns a rigorous mathematical eye to his compatriots’ data to derive a model of eliptical planetary motion that, relativistic effects aside, is valid to this day.

On the journey, we share starry rooftop nights with Tycho and his armillary spheres and sextants; and with Galileo and his telescope. We encounter scientific concepts, painlessly embedded in the story, from stellar parallax to Kepler’s defining relationship for a planet’s distance and period round the Sun. 

We meet the landmark publications that captured these ideas: Kepler’s discussion of perfect polygons Mysterium cosmographicum, his treatise on Mars: the Astronomia nova, and the Rudolphine Tables of star positions; Galileo’s telescope observations in Sidereus Nuncius and his more troublesome endorsement of Copernican ideas in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.

The whole is delivered through a pacey narrative that switches back and forth through time and space.  One moment we’re in Rome, then Prague, then Florence, then Rome again.  Thus Clark weaves his factually-based interplay of lives and ideas.

As in any drama, characters are developed in contexts that resonate with our personal experience: relationships, families, squabbles, births, marriages and deaths – as far as that’s possible 400 years on.   Is that illusory?  Can we ever really see from behind 16th century eyes?   No, we can’t.  But how else to share Kepler’s wonder as he steps out onto the observatory roof, or taste Tycho’s not-so-scientific bon vivre lifestyle and lordly pride, or feel Galileo’s chill dread as he anticipates what a rabid Inquisition has in store?

And that, in a nutshell, is Clark’s proposition.

It’s one where he’s shown due respect for the underlying history, reflected perhaps in a favouring of credible human vignettes over elaborate manufactured sub-plots.  So, lots of expansion on the meetings, schemes, and conflicts that must have taken place but would never be recorded – scenes that  can be directed and embellished to divert and entertain without compromising the main account.

In this regard, it’s a very different book to, say, Edward Rutherfurd’s London, where the main story lines are totally fictional.  Clark’s work comes over as based on historical record and scientific fact.  It’s important, as historians of science in particular can, understandably, take issue with inaccurate or controversial portrayals; I’m thinking of a recent defence of Nevil Maskelyne, the 18th century Astronomer Royal, demonised in the film version of Dava Sobel’s Longitude.

The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth begins in Rome, where a defiant Giordano Bruno, comfortable only with his conscience, waits in a cell to be burnt at the stake for heresy.

Johannes Kepler, an outcast Lutheran, arrives in Bohemian Prague to join the service of Tycho Brahe, and get a first sniff of the observational data he’ll one day build into a planetary model.  He also hears about one Galileo Galilei of Padua, and the wonderful discoveries he’s made with his telescope (before long Kepler will have one of his own).

And all the time the Roman Catholic Church is watching, keeping tabs on these dangerous individuals, their troubling independence and inconvenient appeal to evidence.   Kepler is spyed on – his mail intercepted. Galileo, at first encouraged by the Pope, is told in no uncertain terms to leave theological interpretation to the Church; but his thoughts are already committed to print. Thus the slippery slide to persecution, recantation, and repression is joined.

The plot moves between the bloody war-torn streets of Prague and the red robed intrigue of Vatican corridors.  Current events in Reformation Europe are dominated by the struggle between an increasingly Jesuit-influenced Catholic Church and a rising tide of Lutherism.  And our astronomers are in the thick of it.

Far from being godless atheists, they aim to explain God’s works – not undo them.  Yet a Catholic Galileo and a Lutheran Kepler still each grapple to rationalise their ideas to themselves and to a world of dogmatic orthodoxy.  A world where political, theological, and philosophical considerations hold sway over rationalism; where solidarity of belief and allegiance to the group is prized over individual will, conscience, or even physical proof; where mathematical descriptions are acceptable as professional tricks, but will never define truth; where witchcraft is a burning issue, and astronomy is inseparably tied up with the superstition of astrology.

Indeed, Kepler makes a good living drawing up horoscopes for wealthy patrons and courtly sponsors – a trade he revisits as the need arises (Clark actually credit’s him with a rather modern pragmatism on these issues).

Reformation Europe is also a great background for some of Clark’s more vivid visualisations, reminiscent of a Terry Gilliam movie in their medievalism.   I love the “gobs of some thick unguent” Kepler spies clinging at the margins of Tycho’s prosthetic nose when they first meet, and the mood-setting ‘unpleasant tang of tallow’ in Kepler’s study.

Life is dirty, smelly, and not a little dangerous.

On the downside, I occasionally lose track in the switching interplay of events and locations, feeling the need to draw little timeline diagrams – lest I get totally lost in the labyrinth.  And oblivious to any description or other literary signposting, I only ever thought of our heros as bearded old men.  I’ll call it William Shakespeare syndrome- there just aren’t enough ‘before they were famous’ portraits out there.

But none of that detracted from The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth as a thoroughly entertaining and recommended read.

In capturing that essential excitement of the night sky, unchanged over the centuries, Clark has created a work accessible to all comers, and one that astronomers and history fans in particular will doubtless lap up.

I look forward to meeting Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble in future installments.

Stuart Clark’s website is at stuartclark.com

 


 

 

Science Communication – Over the Garden Fence

science communication over the garden fence

Last week’s Public Attitudes to Science report from Ipsos MORI and BIS says a lot about how the  public feel about and engage with science.

The Summary is worth five minutes of anyone’s time.

But what came unbidden to my mind, as I pondered how informed or uninformed people are about science, was a visit from a neighbour last week, and a reminder that we don’t need to appear on the telly or be called Brian Cox to do our own bit for science communication.

Basically, the guy spots me over the fence messing around with my telescopes, and invites himself over for a look-see.  And, yes, he has been ‘Wonderised’ by Brian.

So I drop plans to photograph the ISS – I’ve got enough of those anyhow – and instead show him Saturn through the little ETX-90.  For a first view through a telescope we could hardly do better.

We talk about the earth’s rotation and why the telescope’s axis points at the pole – watching Saturn scoot across the view with the drive turned off.   We talk about the cost of kit, magnification, aperture, and what can be achieved with a pair of binoculars.

The forgotten ISS appears.  Ultra-bright.  Fantastic stuff.

The truth is that astronomy could have been designed for engagement, with other areas of science and engineering not lending themselves to a hands-on demo in quite the same way.  I’ve worked with everything from fluid mechanics, to ultrasonics, to high-power lasers and the thermodynamics of steelmaking slags.  It’s all fascinating stuff  (believe me :-P); and while earthbound, still somehow less accessible than the stars.

This is where good science writing steps in; but TO MY POINT: if you know something cool – don’t wait for an invite to the Royal Society or the BBC to share it.   And have a peep over your neighbours fence; you might see something interesting.  (But don’t get arrested either.)

Easter Telescope Resurrection

With a diameter of 120,000 kilometres and a bright reflective surface, Saturn is an unmissable object in the night sky right now. But at 1.3 billion kilometres away from us, it looks only a hundreth the size of the full moon.  Which means the screen width of my Saturn video below represents one third of a lunar diameter across (for best view, click to full screen):
[jwplayer mediaid=”9786″]

I recorded the movie through my old but capable 1978-vintage 6″ Fullerscopes reflector – specially resurrected for Easter after 30 years in storage. (See my efforts with  the moon and the smaller ETX-90 telescope in Armchair Astronomy.)

Fullerscopes 6″ at left, after the clean-up, ETX-90 at right

Getting the telescope up and running really required nothing more than (literally) brushing away some cobwebs and giving the mirrors a wash – something I’d be more hesitant of doing had I not just read a step-by-step ‘how to’ in Sky at Night magazine.

Dirty mirror
Diagonal

Although thick with dust and grime, I’d reason to believe the mirrors’ coatings beneath were o.k., as I remember having them vacuum re-aluminised and silica coated just before I abandoned the instrument and disappeared off to university.  Some gentle soaking, swabbing, and rinsing down with distilled water, and all was shiny once again.

Cobwebs
Before

Fullerscopes’ german equatorial mountings were all built like tanks – this ‘Mark II’, rated to carry a 10″ reflector, is still in good order save for some rust on the exposed steel shafts.

The RA drive, that ordinarily would drive the telescope counter-rotational to the Earth’s axis, wasn’t operational for a variety of reasons; but the fine adjustment on the declination axis was working.

Fullerscopes Mk II Equatorial Mount

All of which goes to explain why on the clip Saturn appears to fly across the screen.

Soaking

 

I’d forgotten how stunning to the eye Saturn is through this telescope. In better seeing conditions I’ve seen the gap in the rings – the Cassini Division – quite clearly. Now, Saturn’s moon Titan was unmistakable.

Filming what you see with your eye is a little more challenging, although the ‘live view’ on the Canon 7D makes life a lot easier. Rather than watch the live feed through a computer, on this occasion I used the camera’s LCD display directly to focus with the help of a magnifying glass. The clip was made by projecting the image onto the camera’s CCD sensor via a 12.5mm orthoscopic eyepiece; the main mirror’s focal length is about 1250mm.  The scene could have stood higher magnification, but I was limited by the eyepiece focal length and size of the projection tube.

Good as new

All in all, considering the state of the equipment at the start of the day, I’m happy with the end result.  The gap between the disk of Saturn and the rings is clear enough; but no Cassini division – so still some work to do!  All the same, a fun day messing around with telescopes and engineering – no better way to spend the Easter hols.

 

 

 

1. Saturn Fact Sheet (NASA)

2. To be exact: the angular size of Saturn on 25/4/2011 was 19 seconds (“) of arc, approximately a third of a minute.  There are 60 seconds in a minute, and the moon is typically 30 minutes across; so Saturn appears one ninetieth of the moons diameter.