minorScience

The Discovery Channel website has an article on a different idea for locating extrasolar planets that are more earth-like... water, atmosphere, maybe habitable. The idea is to take a look at earth the way we are trying to look at other planets - from a distance. Of course, we can't get as far away from earth as we have to be from anything else we're looking at, but hey, that's what math is for, right? At the moment it seems that scientists are making some use of Deep Impact's telescopes to peek back at earth as Deep Impact makes its lonely way out to comet Hartley 2.

The article says:

For example, at a planet-hunters conference in France last month, researchers reported that from the perspective of space, light from Earth twinkles as clouds pass in and out of view.

"A distant extraterrestrial observer would see Earth as a point source of light that varies in brightness in a repeating, predictable pattern, just like spots on a spinning ball," Science magazine reported in an article last month about the research, which was headed by Enric Palle of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands.

More about Deep Impact's new missions can also be found here.

I found this while wandering around Shakesville. Give it a minute. The first little bit doesn't seem to make sense, but then it gets... fascinating...

And now, of course, the answer to: "Who the hell is this nerd?"

I ran across an article full of niftiness today while surfing at work. You know, instead of working...

From Live Science and Space.com, apparently not only are people emitting waves of noise out into deep space that might some day attract the attention of some far-flung alien being, but the Earth itself is blasting out radio waves approximately 10,000 times greater than anything we measly inhabitants can manage. The radio waves are created by "charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field." The sounds are not audible to Earthlings, even dogs, because they are blocked by Earth's ionosphere (the last layer of atmosphere around our planet).

Even more nift lies in the fact that any planet which produces an aurora also produces these sounds, so scientists can also add this to the arsenal of planet hunting techniques. Locally, it seems Jupiter and Saturn also produce these radio waves.

The Space.com link above has an audio clip of the sounds. Oddly, the link to listen says "Buy Now," but when you click the link it just plays, and no fee is required. The sound is eerie, but pretty cool.

I don't want to give the impression that UCF is a bad place to study Astronomy, by the way. They do not offer a major for it, only a minor, but by all indications the faculty is working hard to make a fine planetary astronomy program. The school does offer a Physics major, and those interested in Astronomy probably take the Physics major and fill that out with the Astronomy minor (and hence why the school generally doesn't bother with the AST lab mentioned in the previous post - most of their students are already taking Physics II and it's lab, so few students were signing up for the AST lab).

In fact, UCF researchers have applied for and gotten themselves rather a large share of time on the Spitzer Space Telescope as referenced here on the UCF News & Information Page. The school also has its own observatory, the Robinson Observatory, with "a 20" Ritchie Chretien Telescope" which was just installed within the last year to replace an older, smaller telescope. 

They are currently running several very interesting research projects with the Space Research Initiative, JPL, the National Science Foundation, and of course NASA, as it is practically next door. I'm looking forward to getting into the more serious classes (and, admittedly, a little terrified). Hope they don't mind an English major mucking about and getting in the way. At this rate I'd be happy to sweep the floors and run for coffee if I could just be close to the research looking at or for extrasolar planets!

I'm pretty close to being able to get into the Astronomy class that I want in the Fall semester - at a different college. Maybe I've mentioned before the oddity that UCF offers Intro to Astronomy (AST 2002, at least at UCF) but they don't offer the lab... ever... or at least not anytime in the past or next couple of years. But the lab is kinda sorta required for my Astronomy minor - I could get around this requirement by taking the Physics II lab, of course, but that, you see, would mean that I was taking Physics II. (Do. Not. Want.) Yes, I understand that my whining permits were all revoked when I got that B in Physics I, but it was extremely painful and required a huge amount of help from my beloved, and is an experience that I do not wish to repeat, much less amplify.

So, I am attempting to take Intro and the lab at the other local community college (Seminole Community College) because they are the only place that offers the lab. They also have a cute little planetarium where they do shows on the weekend and for student field trips. Anyway, my transient student form has been approved by the hundred or so (by which I mean three) people through whom it had to pass by at UCF. Now I am waiting on a single approval from the registrar at SCC. Come on dude, or dudette... don't leave me hanging!

That's right, I'm here with the funny... or not.

Here, have a link to a nifty blog article I rather enjoyed by Greta Christina. There's some sex stuff on the page, so be aware of where you are if you go take a peek... I haven't spoken overmuch about being an atheist here so far, but I think this piece sums up nicely something I've tried to articulate in my head from time to time. There doesn't have to be a plan or a purpose or an end game for this life for it to be a joyous experience, at least for some of us. Just the mere existence of the universe is amazing enough.

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins

I think my first moment of "atheist transcendence" came while listening to the audio book of Richard Dawkin's God Delusion. It's in the section "Why there almost certainly is no god" regarding the anthropic principle. (From Wikipedia: "In other words, the only universe we can see is one that supports life. If it were a different type of universe, we would not exist to see it.") Page 138, here's the bit that struck and filled me with a sense of joy and awe that we, that anyone, that the entire universe exists... (emphasis mine).

"If the odds of life originating spontaneously on a planet were a billion to one against, nevertheless that stupefyingly  improbable event would still happen on a billion planets. The chance of finding any one of those billion life-bearing planets recalls the proverbial needle in a haystack. But we don't have to go out of our way to find a needle because (back to the anthropic principle) any beings capable of looking must necessarily be sitting on one of those prodigiously rare needles before they even start the search."

And here we are. :)

The Discovery launch was fantastic! I've watched launches from my yard and workplaces for almost 20 years now but nothing compares to being seven miles away, just across the water and seeing it lift off. I was awestruck. It made me cry... Here's a very nice image of the lift off from NASA. Once we get the video off of the camera I will post it here. The day couldn't have turned out better for a launch. The skies were clear, only wisps of clouds. It was bloody hot, but we brought chairs and sunscreen and lots of water.

The observation site isn't as bad as I had feared. Porto-potties are never great, but at least there was something and they did have hand washing stations, which I didn't expect. They had also set up some tents with seating underneath, but obviously not enough for everyone. Then they had several drink carts and tents with hamburgers, hotdogs, drinks and snacks. We weren't interested in braving the food, though. The hamburgers we got from one of the carts back at the visitor's center was so revolting that I'll never be able to eat one again.

The new IMAX movie they're showing at the visitor's center is very good as well, though, you know, it's a little disconcerting to listen to Tom Cruise narrate about the joys of three men crammed into a small cockpit together... ah, nevermind. Anyway, the new movie is about the building of the International Space Station, filmed largely by the astronauts aboard the station and out on their spacewalks. It was just beautiful. We just had a really great day.

So, yeah, I've been hitting The Sims pretty hard the past couple of weeks. As expected. That's okay, I'm enjoying the HELL out of this summer vacation, even if I am still getting up at 7 am to go to work every day.

Some thoughts....

I have finally (accidentally) seen some promo information for The Sims 3, due out in 2009. (Damn you, Will Wright!) I have now downgraded from "No, I won't upgrade my Windows computer again for another game, I'm just going to have to live without it!" to "Yeah, so maybe after I graduate (in 2010) I'll reward myself with a computer upgrade and the first couple of Sims 3 packs will be in a cheap(er) bundle..." Dunno 'bout either George Lucas or Joss Whedon... I think Will Wright is my master now...

Speaking of George the Destroyer... I've also been spending a good bit of time reading the free-to-download e-book, "The Secret History of Star Wars" by Michael Kaminski. Not bad at all. I can't say for sure how much of this is true, and I'm only on chapter three, but we long-time SW geeks who have absorbed every interview and article ever done on SW remember that Lucas has artfully "re-imagined" his history over the years. What he says now is not what he said back then, and I think he was much more honest about it back when it was just a blockbuster movie and not a "brand."

I've also been catching MASH reruns, generally on whilst I'm watching my Sims raise children and go on fabulous vacations. I really, really love MASH, by the way; it was a big component in the formation of my social and political views, plus, it was just really damned funny. But I've realized lately that through eleven years of great TV there were really only two episodes of MASH... Every show was some variation on the one or the other. One involved the presence of some Korean (North or South, wounded or captured, visiting  or hiding, didn't matter which) who taught a valuable lesson to some stuck up American about racism, jingoism, war mongerism, and so on. The second was the "Hawkeye goes crazy" episode which taught everyone how horrible war is. That actually worked for eleven seasons. Good job, guys! Oh, and by the way, for me it's Radar and Col. Potter. And I'll probably have to go with Trapper for sidekick...he's got the cooler nickname and he carried over from the movie. Honeycutt's cuter though... If you can find the original book, read it. It's by Richard Hooker, and it's a bit more candid than the somewhat sappy series... the original movie was probably a little closer.

Oh, and the last thing... I'm way overdue to report this, but I got to see Duran Duran again on May 18th at the UCF Arena. It was most verily awesome. They've gotten back into shape and have had a bit of a musical facelift, thanks to Justin Timberlake, as I hear it. Good for him... well, good for them, I guess. The new stuff sounded very good, so I suppose I'm going to have to go locate the damned disk (Red Carpet Massacre). But they judged their aging female/aging queen audience well enough to know to stick to the stuff we remember, and they did rather a lot of the 80's stuff, including "Last Chance on the Stairway" which I don't think I've ever heard live. Good stuff. Here's a photo for old times' sake.... I used to have this poster on my wall...

Duran-Duranweb

Tomorrow we're heading back down to Kennedy Space Center to watch another shuttle launch, STS-124 with Discovery. Here's hoping for good weather all the day, as these late afternoon launches are often subject to Florida's regular as clockwork afternoon thunderstorms. Also, here's hoping we don't return home with another bizarre illness!

Discovery VAB Rollout

This time we are taking the tour bus out to one of the viewing sites nearer to the launch pad, so we should have a much better chance of actually seeing something this time... Woot! We'll probably try to take some video again with our crappy little camera, which I will dutifully post despite the crappiness which may ensue.

And, just for fun, here is some nifty information about Discovery's history.

Enjoy!

I suppose it could be better, but I am coming along with my list of things to keep me busy this summer. I've gotten some cleaning done, still have a lot more to go, plus the organizing... must start with the garage soon. I've learned the basics of RoboHelp and HTML/CSS. I've played the hell out of some Sims, baby! I have written down the bones of something fiction-esque. I have at least dragged out of the closet and washed the material for a sewing project. I vaguely helped hubby put up some fence panels - as in, he did the work and I mostly just handed him tools. And, with the help of the godson we got a large part of the lawn and our bountiful abundance of leaves tamed.

This whole Mother's Day/Birthday week kind of slowed things down a bit. We popped down south for part of the day to have lunch with my mum. We found a Wii at Best Buy (!) so that's what we got my mum for Mother's Day. She was as excited as a little girl. Mom's an original gamer from way back - she started with Pong when it first came out, then the first Atari and the first Nintendo, and so on. Mom's cool like that...

Then I had to come home and clean some more because mum-in-law was set to arrive Sunday morning. Not that she cares what the house looks like, but it's days like that that I do.