So while you’re waiting for my inevitable review of Star Wars (it’ll be up Thursday night, I hope!) I thought I would treat my readers to this image:

It’s an image of a young star which is just starting to emerge from its cocoon of gas and dust. I saw the image a couple of weeks ago, before it was released publicly, and it was a real “Wow!” moment. I spend and have spent a lot of time looking at astronomical images, and it’s rare to find one I don’t recognize at all. But to find out it’s from a cluster of young stars with which I am passingly familiar was an added notch to the coolness factor of the image.

Boosting it even higher is that the image was taken by amateur astronomers on the ginormous Gemini 8 meter telescope (imagine a mirror as big as a living room, a roomy living room, and you get the idea). Amateurs these days know as much or more about imaging as many professionals, including me. I started off as an amateur with a small ‘scope, and in many ways think of myself as one. So it’s with a degree of pride that I display that image. Read the link; it’s fun. I love it when people are so enthusiastic about astronomy!

Oh, and I’ll mention the amateurs who took that image were Canadians. Why mention it? Because this image comes hard on the heels of a news item that says Canada is #1 in astronomy worldwide.

So take off! It’s a beauty way to go.

Just a quick note for today: my friends at Slacker Astronomy had me on their show once again, proving that not all scientists can learn from their past mistakes. This is not a scripted show, but more of a chit-chat where we discuss allegations of NASA image altering, creationism, pizza, and Mad Cow Disease, and of course a minor amount of flirting and other silliness.

For the first few minutes of the show you get to hear a great Saturday Night Live skit with Will Ferrell imitating Harry Caray doing a wacky interview about astronomy. It’s pretty funny.

You can download it here.

Back in March, I posted one of my first blog entries about an experiment that some people thought might have created a teeny weeny black hole. I’m no quantum mechanic, so I didn’t speculate too much on it, but made some predictions based on past experience.

One was that I’d get lots of emails. I was wrong. I only got one, really, from a fellow named Jay Kane. I’d introduce you, but I’ll let him do it himself. His email is reprinted with his permission.

I’m a fan of your website (and Randi’s) and I noticed in your blog you mentioned the “black holes” at RHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory. As it turns out, I (2 weeks ago) received my PhD in heavy ion physics, and my research was carried out at BNL. And, as it further turns out, my thesis was about the disappearance of jets mentioned in that black hole paper.

You mentioned that there were probably more mundane explanations for this “jet quenching”, as it is known. You’re right, and this was an effect that was predicted as early as 1982 by Bjorken. The jet quenching that we see is thought to be a result of the interactions of these very high energy partons with a medium of deconfined quarks and gluons, aka the Quark-Gluon Plasma. [Ed.: well, duh.]

This result, although far from definite, is very exciting, and, in my opinion, a better explanation than black hole theories.

I try not to argue from authority, but am generally willing to take advice handed to me from people far more knowledgeable in the appropriate field than I am. So thanks, Jay. I appreciate the email and the update.

Also, a press release of sorts came out of Brookhaven, clarifying the black hole stories. Basically, the original statements made by Horatiu Nastase, the scientist from Brookhaven, is not that a black hole might have been made, but that the phenomenon is analogous to a black hole. In other words, the math is similar, but the real physical effects are very different. So not only was this phenomenon observed not a black hole, it was never really claimed to be one either.

I so knew it wasn’t a black hole.

Note added Thursday, May 12: Oops! I forgot to mention, the Eighth Skeptics Circle of blogs has been posted at Pharyngula’s place. And in keeping with my own blog entry below– nyah nyah, mine’s mentioned first!

This has been quite a week for me. Bear with me; I have a point to make, though not a terribly serious one.

First, I did a series of on-camera interviews for a telecourse I am helping edit. Basically, it’s like a TV series to accompany a well-known astronomy textbook; students watch the show to supplement the material in the book. I was hired to help edit the scripts– fact-check, add color commentary, that sort of thing.

There are many famous astronomers interviewed for the program, but sometimes we find later that there are some holes, some topics that we missed, and we need another on-camera talking head to verbiate and plug those gaps. I volunteered to do that, and we did the shots the other day. A crew consisting of the scriptwriter and the transcriber/editor/jane-of-all-trades came to my house to do the filming, and we spent a fun morning getting a bunch of interviews shot. I enjoy doing this sort of thing. It’s a bit like the blog; I get to ramble a bit, shoot off my mouth, except this time it’s on video and I can make silly faces and gesticulate a lot.

Then, that night, an interview I did for Penn and Teller‘s TV show on Showtime, called, ah, something I can’t print here and remain family friendly, finally aired. It was on the Moon Hoax, and I was worried I might look foolish, but in fact it turned out pretty well.

Then, the next day (today!) I did a radio interview. I also got an email asking me if I’d be interested in talking on TV about NASA’s upcoming Deep Impact mission. We haven’t worked that out yet, but still!

And what the heck, I’ll abandon any pretense of false modesty here and also say that I was very pleased with the feedback on my blog entry about science and why it’s cool. I wasn’t sure how it would float, and I was mildy surprised and very happy so many people liked it.

So it’s been quite a week, as I said before. This kind of stuff can easily go to one’s head.

I am not what you’d call a celebrity, really. I won’t be falsely modest, here– I loathe that sort of coyness and find it very insincere. I’m just being honest. A lot of people know about my site and all, and I’ve been on radio and TV and all that. I like to say that I’m famous among a very small group of people. My wife has a co-worker who said it much more concisely. He said I’m “secretly famous”. I love that phrase. The irony suits me.

But it’s funny- I go to skeptic meetings and such, and get treated like a celebrity. People stop me in the hall, I sign autographs in my book, things like that. It was pretty embarrassing at first, but I understand it– I still have my own heroes, and sometimes I can’t believe I get to hang out with folks like James Randi, Michael Shermer, and duh, Penn and Teller. So I understand the idea of celebrity fandom, though when I’m on the receiving end it feels… hmmm, "blasphemous" is the wrong word, but it’ll do.

I can see where some celebrities get full of themselves and lose touch with reality (cough cough J-Lo cough cough). I’m in no danger of that, but still… as a trained scientist, I have to allow for the possibility. So I have a failsafe mechanism, a tried-and-true device that will ensure I never get a big head. Are you ready? This is heady stuff:

I make sure I use scoopable cat litter for my cat, Gizmo.

And I also make sure it’s flushable. Nothing, and I mean nothing puts you back in your place like scooping redolent, fetid cat crap into a pie plate, walking it down the hall, and flushing it down the toilet. No matter how late I get home from some invited lecture, I always stop in the laundry room and scoop. I am, in the end, a slave to my cat’s somewhat inefficient digestive system.

As long as my cat is alive, I’ll stay grounded. Maybe we should make sure all our politicians have cats like mine. This country would be a better place.

In April, I was asked to give a short speech to a group of local students who participated in a science fair. I wasn’t sure what to say to them, until I saw a newscast the night before the fair. The story was some typically inaccurate fluff piece giving antiscience boneheads “equal time” with science, as if any ridiculous theory should have equal time against the truth.

I sat down with a pad of paper and a pencil and scribbled down this speech. I gave it almost exactly as I wrote it.

I know a place where the Sun never sets.

Welcome to science. You’re gonna like it here.

Astronomy is one of the few sciences where old equipment is still useful. I used a telescope built in 1885 in a class in grad school, for example (and it’s still one of the best instruments I’ve ever used). I saw the scars from a comet impact on Jupiter on another hundred-year-old ‘scope. I recently toured a radio observatory in Australia used to track the Apollo 11 landing.

And now one such venerable site is in danger of being torn down. The Bracewell Radio Observatory in California is owned by Stanford University. It was shut down due to lack of funds many years ago, but more recently a fire inspection showed that there is too much underbrush and combustible materials around it. In California, this is a very serious affair, because in the summer wildfires can rage out of control.

The folks at Stanford inspected the facility themselves, and found the equipment to be in good working order. They decided they want to re-open the facility, and use it to teach the public about radio astronomy, and to let amateur radio astronomers use it. As a public outreach guy myself, I think this is a fine idea.

So they have mounted a rescue effort to save the array. If you want to help, take a look at their web page and see what you can do. But hurry! The decision on what to do with the site will be made on June 30, 2005. I’ll post updates here as I find out about them.

Note added May 7: I suspected this might happen; eBay removed the auction. Ironically, the Universe is real, and they pull the auction, but when someone sells the frying pan that made the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich, that they let pass. It’s a crazy cosmos. Anyway, the seller relisted it, this time making things somewhat clearer.

I get email.

This one, though, was different, even for me.

I recently visited your site and figured you might get a kick out of this. I am an artist
from NJ, USA, and on May 5th I launched a 9-day interactive art project where I’m
auctioning off the entire universe on ebay. To view or participate in this satirical
project you can visit this link: eBay Auction: The Entire Universe.

The more people participate the more fun it will be.

Yes, you read that right. He’s auctioning off the entire Universe, the whole shebang, the cosmos, the whole nine yards, Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Mind you, since the Universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating, every second you wait the better the deal gets (amortized over a per cubic light year basis).

It makes a great gift, I would think, for the man who has everything.

Anyway, I can’t decide if this is ridiculous or genius. Probably it’s both. But I do wish I had thought of it first.