Blogs / Bad Astronomy

My fellow Hive Overmind blogger Carl Zimmer just won the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Kavli Science Journalism Award for writing in large newspaper, specifically the New York Times.

Yay!

Carl Zimmer won in the large newspaper category for a trio of articles he wrote for The New York Times on aspects of genetics and evolution. "I sometimes feel a little embarrassed that I like to write articles about the kinds of basic questions my kids ask me," Zimmer said. “For the three stories I submitted, the questions were, "What’s a virus?" "What’s a gene?" and "Why do fireflies flash?" I had a marvelous time talking with scientists about the complex answers to those simple questions, and now, thanks to this award, I don’t have to feel at all embarrassed.” Zimmer previously won in the online category in 2004.

And he shouldn’t be embarrassed, because it’s exactly those kinds of questions that should be written about! Engaging the public is what more scientists should do, and if they did it as well as Carl the world would be a better place.

Let me show you something. And when I say "something", I mean something.

See the red arrow, and where it’s pointing? That arrow is pointing to a place that changed humanity forever. You can divide all of history between the time before and the time after what happened where that arrow points.

You see, that arrow is pointing to the spot, the very spot, where Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on another world.

Yeah.

This image is from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and it shows the Apollo 11 landing site. We’ve seen it before, but this time LRO is in its 50 km mapping orbit, so the resolution on this image is far higher — about 50 or so centimeters (20 inches). In this image, the tracks made by Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they scampered on the Moon for 2 hours and 31 minutes are obvious. You can even see the lander footpads, each just less than a meter (a bit over a yard) across.

The bright spots south of (below) the lander are various scientific packages they installed, including the Lunar Ranging Retro Reflector and the Passive Seismic Experiment. If I’ve got the scale right, the faint dark trail going to the upper left is where they put the TV camera. Somewhere between that and the lander is the flag. The Sun was shining straight down in this image, so the flag isn’t visible.

The image above is only one part of a bigger shot:

That big feature to the right is West crater. As the astronauts rode the lunar lander down to the surface, Armstrong saw that the computer was going to put them down right in the rubble field west (left) of the crater. He took control, and with literally seconds of fuel left, put the lander safely down where you see it in this image. His cool hand saved the mission; had they landed among the rubble the lander could have hit a boulder, or landed so lopsided they would not have been able to take off again.

Note the picture’s scalebar. If this were the Earth, you could stroll across this image in maybe 10 minutes. Encumbered as they were in their spacesuits, and lacking time, Armstrong and Aldrin never got very far, and certainly not to West crater. Pity; it’s interesting. Look at the rubble around it! Those boulders which almost wiped out our first attempt to land on the Moon must have been excavated by the impact, and would have provided instant insight into the Moon’s deeper layers.

Of course, we went back five more times. There was plenty of interplanetary booty to be nabbed.

I love these pictures from LRO! I’ve waited for years to be able to see images like this, and they are just as I imagined them. And they come at a propitious time, when the fate of our exploration of space is changing rapidly, and decisions on its future are to be made. It’s at just this time we most need to be reminded of what we can do when we strive for what seems to be impossible, and when we set our sights, quite literally, beyond the horizon.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Out in Western Australia, in the Nullabor desert, there is an array of sky cameras designed to observe meteors as they flame their way through our atmosphere. It’s been observing the sky since 2006, and it paid off handsomely: a bright meteor observed by the skycam has led to the resulting meteorite being found.

Cooool. By triangulating the meteor, astronomers were able to track the rock all the way to the ground, where the meteorite was found only 100 meters from the predicted location. Not only that, the track of the meteor on the sky allowed astronomers to backtrack its trajectory, and calculate the orbit of the meteoroid. They found it came from a family of asteroids in the inner asteroid belt, just outside the orbit of Mars. over millions of years the orbit migrated inward toward the Sun, and eventually intersected ours, resulting in, well, the collision.

This is really nice because not too many meteorites are recovered from known falls, and fewer still where the orbit of the incoming rock can be determined. When this happens, we get for free what otherwise would take a fairly expensive rocket trip to accomplish.

I’ve been saying for some time that with the advent of digital cameras everywhere, we’ll be seeing this more often. In this case the cameras were designed and implemented specifically to do this, but just you wait. Some ATM or junkyard or home security camera will do the same thing. The age of public involvement in astronomy is just beginning.

Tip o’ the Whipple Shield to MeteoriteMen on Twitter.

Looking for something to do this weekend, and for the next month? Are you anywhere near New York City?

Then I am very pleased to let you know that a group of artists there have created an exhibit based on my book, Death from the Skies! The exhibit is hanging at the ABC No Rio site, and runs from now until November 25 (actually it started last week). The viewing times are Sundays 1:00 – 3:00pm and Wednesdays & Thursdays 4:00pm – 7:00pm.

This is very cool, and I am deeply honored they based their work on my book. I was contacted by artist Brian George about it some time ago. Just recently he sent me some snapshots, and I was totally blown away by this:

I recognized this poor sot right away, and if you’ve read the first few pages of the book you will too. He’s the first guy killed by the Universe, straight away in Chapter 1. But don’t fret too much about him: everyone dies in the book. Over and over again, even.

I love the shadows of the trees in that drawing. Read the book to find out why. <Mwuahahahaha!>

The artwork on display is eclectic and interesting, and if you’re into astronomy and mayhem you want to go! The artists include Michael Estabrook, Brian George, Jacob Hashimoto, HC Noel (who drew Mark, above), Kevin Pyle, Kelly Savage ("Galaxies" over there on the left), William Stamos, Es Muss Sein Quartet & B-Cat and C-Town.

There’s a Facebook group for the exhibit, too.

And as an aside, if you happen to be in NYC Friday November 6, why not pay my friend, the wonderful flame-haired chanteuse Marian Call, a visit at her east coast debut? Her voice and music are really good, and she sings about cool scifi stuff, and even has a song the title of which I suggested to her. She’s awesome.

Of course, if you’re not in NYC, but instead are in Florida, that’s OK, because then you can go to Carl Sagan Day on Saturday, November 7!

My friend Bug Girl (an entomologist and Skepchick) sent me a note about a cool opportunity for U.S. east coast teachers: you can participate in a Shuttle experiment involving Monarch butterflies in space!

When Atlantis launches next week, it will be carrying some Monarch caterpillars to be taken aboard the Space Station, where they will hatch and be observed. Lots of questions will be investigated: What happens when pupae burst open in space? How will the butterflies cope? Will their migrating instinct be satisfied by moving 7 km/sec across the face of the Earth?

OK, I made up that last one, but Monarch Watch is looking to get teachers and students involved in the real science of butterflies in microgravity. But HURRY! They need your email by tomorrow, Friday, November 6! So if you’re an east coast teacher, go to Bug Girl’s blog and see how you can join in on the insecty fun.

Well, not literally, though that would be really amusing.

Jamie Hyneman and My Close Personal Friend Adam Savage™ were on the always-hilarious Late Night with Craig Ferguson show a little while back, and the video is on YouTube (note: somewhat NSFW dialogue):

Did you hear what Adam mentioned roughly six minutes in? The JREF! Woohoo! Adam is great about donating stuff from Mythbusters to the JREF so we can auction it off to raise money, and that particular gift was pretty special. Rarefied, you might say.

And, thanks to Greg Fish, I can add this:

Yer darn tootin’.

[Get it? Tootin'! Hahahaha!]

Image from ROFLRazzi.

When I was in high school I was a marching band dork. Shocker, I know. But let me tell you something: we were good. Very good. We won a lot of competitions, and we hosted a drum and bugle corps competition at our school that pulled in the best from around the country. To this day, all these decades later, it’s still the loudest thing I have ever heard.

We humans have incredible talents: imagination, cleverness, dexterity, and musical abilities that are truly astonishing. Don’t believe me? Then behold:

Un. Flipping. Believable.

Those guys have major talent. Watch the bit from 4:50 to 5:10 again, and call those guys dorks. Holy mackerel, they rock.

Tip o’ the chapeau to Fark.