Deborah's Journal

Spiral Galaxies Shimmer in Hubble Telescope's 27th Birthday Photos.

Mystery human hobbit ancestor may have been first out of Africa.

Maurice Conti: Can Machines Think And Feel For Themselves?

Marie Brennan on New Worlds: Names and Their Meaning

Is It Safe To Eat Moldy Bread?

And, for Tolkien geeks and fans of Galadriel: The Trial of Galadriel, by Jeff LaSala.

In other news, appreciate Martian moons while we can:

Phobos, the larger and inner of the two natural satellites of Mars, is slowly being pulled apart by tidal forces and is expected to break up within the next 50 million years, says a team of planetary researchers led by Dr Terry Hurford of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Phobos is Slowly Being Torn Apart by Mars | Space Exploration | Sci-News.com

Paleontologists Discover Oldest Known Fur Seal. The fossil was deposited in what is now the John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center, where Mr Boessenecker found it while searching through its collections. He instantly realized that it was not the small walrus Neotherium but a tiny, early fur seal. “This was very exciting as fur seals and sea lions have a limited fossil record that, up until now, extended back to about 10-12 million years ago.” “Yet we know that their fossil record must go back to around 16-17 million years ago or so, because walruses have a record reaching back that far.”


NASA Europa Mission Gets White House Approval. Europa is thought to possess an ocean of liquid water under its icy shell. During its many flybys, the Clipper would confirm and study that ocean, yielding insights about its depth, salinity and conductivity, among other characteristics.

Dairy Saturated Fats Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk. "The message from this study is that saturated fatty acids are not only different but have opposite relationships with diabetes risk," Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, in Boston, Massachusetts, told Medscape Medical News. Dr. Mozaffarian is the author of a commentary that accompanies the research. "These results add to growing evidence that dairy fat might reduce insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes; benefits that might be greatest for cheese and yogurt," he writes.

Consuming oily fish could repair damaged blood vessels. "Fish oil is known to increase the release of nitric oxide from the lining of the blood vessel wall which causes relaxation of the vessel and increases blood flow. Our study shows that fish oils could be better for our heart in more ways than previously thought, decreasing damage to the lining of blood vessels and by increasing the numbers of cells which repair those linings.

Two New Jurassic Mammals Discovered in China. Early mammals were once thought to have limited ecological opportunities to diversify during the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic era. However, Agilodocodon scansorius and Docofossor brachydactylus, and numerous other fossils – including Castorocauda, a swimming, fish-eating mammaliaform discovered in 2006 – provide strong evidence that ancestral mammals adapted to wide-ranging environments despite competition from dinosaurs.

Kinetic Insect Lamp. Korean artist U-Ram Choe uses resin, magnets, electric motors, CPU boards, and LEDs to create these amazing kinetic lamp/sculptures that are based on the morphology of insects. When switched on, the creatures light up and start gently moving

See if you can figure out what this is, then check your answer here. The rings are a hint.

APOD: 2013 July 29 - Saturn, Titan, Rings, and Haze

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft was sent to space over three years ago on February 11, 2010. The spacecraft was launched for a five-year mission to watch and observe the sun in our solar system. The new video of coronal rain on the sun was released to commemorate the third anniversary of the spacecraft’s launch date.



ASTRONOMY IS SOOOO COOL - or in this case, hot.

Eclipse Tailgate Party, Mineral Vista Point, CA

I've posted an "Eclipse Diary" in chunks on my blog (first part already up, the next three will come at daily intervals) and in an abbreviated but self-contained essay on Book View Cafe blog.


My attempt to photograph the "crescent sun" through a welding visor and solar shades... you can see it just at the far right of the image. I am sooo not a photographer.

From NASA and JPL:

More extremely cool (in more ways than one!) infrared discoveries - stars so cool you could touch them.

WISE: Coolest Brown Dwarfs Yet

Planets are teeny specks in the middle of nothing, separated by vast distances. 8 major planets with nearly circular orbits; Pluto and Eris are smaller and have more elliptical orbits; Pluto-like objects (many!) Eris is larger than Pluto! (Kuiper belt, objects rocky and icy like comets, 1/2 dozen we know about so far.)

Sun comprises 99.9% of solar system's mass, mostly H/He gas; converts 4 million tons of mass into energy each second.

Mercury - metal and rock, large iron core; desolate, cratered with long, tall steep cliffs, very hot/cold 425oC to -170oC Why iron core: During planetary accretion, lighter elements blown off, only heavier elements left. Outer planets - ices solid, grow bigger and more quickly than inner planets. Jupiter orbit = "frost line" for volatile gases being ice (but we are having to re-think the frost line in light of "hot Jupiters" that orbit very close to their stars.)
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The mission of Launch Pad is "to get the science right in sf," increase the signal to noise ratio and reduce misconceptions - Hollywood moguls are next, so movies can get it right, too. Participants include emerging and established writers, fantasy as well as sf. Will know they've done their job when a werewolf novel describes the phases of the moon correctly.

Stan Schmidt says: Everything is outgrowth of astronomy, carried to extremes. Fictitious science is presented within constraints of real science.

Astronomical objects vast range sizes, speeds, times, most of the beyond our ordinary experience; we and our solar system are tiny on cosmic scales. How to convey scale to readers? Earth is about the largest size we can understand experientially.
Earth 12,756 km diam. (Use metrics for science!)
384,000 km (about 1 light-second) to Moon.
c = 300,000 km/sec
1 AU = 150,000,000 km (about 8 light-minutes) (orbit is actually elliptical, as most orbits, so this is average orbital distance) Use AU for solar system, use light years for beyond
solar system 100 AU diam.
closest stars 17 light years; typical interstellar distances, galactic disk not as dense as center but denser than non-disc areas.
63,000 AU = 1 light year
3 1/4 light years = 1 parsec = 206,000 AU (from parallax triangulation, earth baseline 2 AU, compare observations different times of year, 1 arc-second, measurable by telescope)
Milky Way 75,000 ly diam. (Large spirals typically about 100,000 ly diam.) Can measure stuff beyond that, like molecular or atomic hydrogen gas or dark matter. Not such a big gap between galaxies as between stars; hence, galaxies collide but stars rarely do. Only a few galactic radii, galaxies cluster (our local group about 20, Milky Way one of 3 large spirals, Andromeda is another) Distances, millions of light years.
Superclusters form filaments and walls around voids (like sponge structure) voids not empty but fewer galaxies
"Observable universe" only what emits light: 14 billion ly; but actual universe may be much larger.
Relate to reader's everyday experience; how long to walk to moon? Movies: Powers of Ten, Cosmic Voyages, opening of Contact, popular mass-consumption version.

Stan: Sun & planets are impossible to see all in same system, may not even be obvious that you are in a solar system; you must watch for very small objects moving, need instruments to record position with high precision.

In this solar system, planets more or less in plane (ecliptic); there is good reason to think this is true for other systems as well. Solar nebula forms from collapsing clouds of dust, spins faster with collapse; then forms disc. Planetary systems are very common; we see gassy dust discs around young and proto-stars that we think are forming planetary systems.

Jim Verley on Misconceptions. "Larger" size of Moon on horizon is optical illusion, not lensing effect of atmosphere. Authority of print gives power to written misconceptions.
Kids have private ideas, formed very early and very resistant to alteration: examples include what makes season, phases of moon, that air has no weight, and oxygen is the only component of air. Embarrassment is a common response to confrontation. Many readers harbor these misconceptions; as a writer, put on a teacher's hat. Repeating a misconception cements it; bad information tends to be self-reinforcing. Conceptual change theory requires identification/confrontation of misinformation. Other examples: the age of universe, mastodons and dinosaurs coinciding with humans; astrology = astronomy; greenhouse/global warming deniers. Pedagogy is never at its best when declaratory; in fiction, you can address misconceptions in many ways; a character who is wrong or who has questions. General misunderstanding about science as belief system or information handed down by authority, don't understand scientific thinking. Legal argument vs. scientific thinking: "let me convince you about my position." Science is not like a jury verdict based on how two sides of case are presented. Majority opinion is not necessarily the right answer. On the internet, anyone can claim to be an authority. Conceptual change involves people making predictions based on their theory.

Jerry Oltion: Amateur astronomy: amateurs look through telescopes; professionals attach cameras to telescopes and then analyze the data. Refracting telescope gives larger field of view - harder to build because of precision of lenses. Also reflector (uses mirrors). Both turn images upside down. Binoculars - brain designed to use both eyes - 2 sets of prisms result in right-side up images. A lot of cool stuff is too dim to see with naked eyes or binoculars. The bigger the light-collecting ability the more you can see (i.e., size of mirror). What's important is how much light, not magnification. This is diameter, not length of telescope. Can change focal length with eyepiece lenses. 50x power per inch diameter. (3" refractor; 4" reflector is minimum). Benefit of low power is field of view, but crispness important. 1/2 hour to dark adapt eyes for chemical changes to occur in retina, so use dim red light. Tricks to use (rods) on periphery of vision, which is much more sensitive to dim light. This is called averted vision. Don't see much color, but will see what colors your retina is most sensitive to, telescope camera pictures show other colors. Telescope lenses can compensate for myopia but not astigmatism; get "eye relief" to accommodate corrective lenses.

What to see? Planets readily accessible, including details on Moon and Mars, rings of Saturn, even moons of Jupiter. Stars are so far away, magnification doesn't change appearance. About half are double-stars, so can see split. Clusters of stars, born in batches; light blows residual dust away, leaving cluster. Globular clusters 1/4 million stars so densely packed you cannot see through them - 200 in our galaxy, can see about half. Messier studied comets; found 110 fuzzy non-comets; list has beautiful and important objects.

Amateurs do make discoveries, pick up work that's too much for professionals, such as monitoring variable stars. Automated sky surveys find most comets, but amateurs still find some.