ASTRONOMY

ASTRONOMY I have had three rounds of astronomy. Round one was as a teenager in the early 1960s. I learned the constellations and watched meteor showers. Round two was in my 30s. I got into cosmology, learned the features of the moon and wrote my first astronomy paper. Round three was in my 50s. I subscribed to Astronomy Magazine, wrote this paper and went to an Australian Star Party to see the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. Hopefully, I have achieved permanence in the Internet age since astronomy is something I enjoy. History Each period in history sees the sky in a different way. The way a civilization perceives the sky is related to its travel capabilities. As man's knowledge of geography has increased, so has his understanding of the earth's place in the larger scheme. Greek astronomer Ptolemy lived in the second century. In his book called the Almagest, he had the earth at the center with the sun and planets going around it. This view stood for 1400 years. In 1453, Copernicus in Poland got it right. He expounded a heliocentric doctrine. Modern science was born. Really, Copernicus revived a forgotten idea of the Greek Aristarchus. The Greeks had science. The Scientific Revolution grew out of the Renaissance which was a return to Greek ideas. The Middle Ages were dominated by the Church, and the Bible ignored science. It put revelation above observation. The road leading from superstition and false information was very long. For centuries, man's concept of reality was shaped by the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that the earth is flat, but the implications are there: Satan taking Jesus to the mountaintop to show him the world's kingdoms and reference to the "four corners of the earth." Heaven was above. Hell was below. Even Shakespeare retarded the growth of science with ghosts, witches and fairies. No wonder, the people who settled in America knew so little about the nature of the cosmos. Things were changing. Europe was expanding, and the printing press spread new ideas. By the time of Columbus' voyages, most people knew that the earth was round. It became irrefutable when Magellan sailed around it, a grueling three-year voyage during which he was killed. Tycho Brahe was an observer. He found a nova in Cassiopeia in 1572. As a theorist, he was lacking. He knew the planets circled the sun but thought that both the sun and planets circled the earth. He built an observatory near Hamlet's castle in Denmark. It took Tycho's assistant, Johannes Kepler, to make sense of his work. Kepler's laws of planetary motion showed their orbits to be ellipses. The closer planets are to the sun, the faster they move. William Herschel was the father of stellar astronomy. He built telescopes and made the first model of the Milky Way. Erroneously, he placed our solar system at its center. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were physicists who laid the groundwork for modern astronomy. Newton introduced the concept of gravity, the tendency for two bodies to attract whether they are the earth and an apple or the earth and the moon. Einstein gave us relativity. Relativity says that the speed of light is the only absolute, that speed and time are relative to the observer. While the most distant galaxies may recede at 99.9% of the speed of light, they will never equal it. Even genius can be wrong. Newton was an alchemist, and Einstein did not believe the universe is expanding. Einstein was born in southern Germany. He lived in Switzerland and Italy. He formulated his theory of Special Relativity in 1905 and the theory of General Relativity in 1915. Being Jewish, he emigrated to the United States when the Nazis took control of Germany. Astronomy can be studied as a series of levels proceeding outward. Space has depth. There are motions within motions. Perspective rules. We explore the solar system. We reach for the stars. The Milky Way becomes one of countless galaxies. We search for extraterrestrial life. We question the origin and destiny of the universe. Solar System The solar system began as a cloud of dust and gas. The cloud began to spin and contract. It contracted into a disc with the sun at the center. Planets formed in the disk. Gravity caused rocky, terrestrial planets to form near the sun. Gas giants floated farther out. Celestial bodies are round because they are molded by the effects of spinning. Every star may have planets. There are two kinds of objects, those which shine by their own light like stars and those which reflect light like planets. The sun is an average star. It is 93 million miles away. Its surface is 11,000 degrees. Sunspots are dark because they are cooler. The sun shines by nuclear fusion. Hydrogen turning into helium emits energy in the form of heat and light. This energy is stored in fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. The sun is a middle-age star and will burn another five billion years. It will then become a red giant. The planets will be consumed. Earth's oceans will boil away. The atmosphere will go, and the sky will turn black. Mercury is so close to the sun that many astronomers have never seen it. Mercury's surface is cratered like the moon's. And like the moon, it has no atmosphere. NASA launched the Messenger spacecraft to Mercury to find out why the planet is so dense. Like Mercury, Venus is between the earth and the sun. For that reason, Venus never strays far from the sun in the morning or evening skies. It is seen in the western sky after sunset. It goes through phases visible through a small telescope. Venus is brightest in its crescent phase because it is closer to Earth. It gets as bright as -4.5 magnitude. Venus accompanied by a crescent moon is one of the most beautiful sights in nature. Venus is about the size of Earth, so we might expect similarities. But the surface of Venus is 900 degrees because of a greenhouse effect. Its atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide. Earth From space, Earth is a blue planet spotted with white cloud tops. It is 25,000 miles in circumference and 8,000 miles in diameter. Earth revolves around the sun every 365 days, a period defined as a year. Earth's orbit varies over millions of years. It stretches and shrinks, accounting for seven ice ages. Earth tilts 23 1/2 degrees on its axis. The tilt causes the seasons. Northern and southern hemispheres alternately lean into and away from the sun. When it is summer in the United States, it is winter in Australia. Earth's moderate distance from the sun is a factor in the evolution of life. It is neither too hot nor too cold. Liquid water can exist. And where there is water, there is life. Mountains are created by stresses in the earth. Our atmosphere came from volcanoes. It rained millions of years to create the oceans. Our atmosphere provides pressure and protects us from deadly rays. It extends 300 miles. Plants produce oxygen by photosynthesis. Life began in the sea (so we have read). Four billion years ago, chemicals began showing signs of life. Viruses were on the line between the living and nonliving. One-celled organisms developed. Plants colonized the land. Invertebrates evolved, and vertebrates followed. Fish evolved into amphibians which evolved into reptiles. Dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic Era between 65 million and 220 million years ago. Tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, <>stegosaurus, ankylosaurus and duckbills ruled. I wrote a paper titled "The Other Sciences" which was dinosaur-based. There are over one million species of animals. A species is a group of animals whose members breed with each other. The continents formed one land mass called Pangea. As continental drift occurred, reptiles evolved into birds and mammals. Most paleontologists believe birds are dinosaurs. There was an age of giant mammals in the Cenozoic Era. Mammoths and mastodons became extinct at the end of the recent Ice Age. Man has existed in some form for five million years. He evolved from primates in southeast Africa and spread through Europe and Asia. From Asia, he populated the South Pacific islands and walked across the land bridge at the Bering Strait into the Americas. That was 50,000 years ago. Races as we know them came into existence at the end of the Ice Age 20,000 years ago. Civilization was born in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Recorded history spans 5,000 years. The colonization of the Americas by Europeans from the Renaissance forward is the most important human migration in history. World population is currently 6 billion with 300 million in the United States. Natural history is understood in terms of the Geological Time Scale. Paleontologists study the fossil record. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, those laid down by water. Radio carbon dating determines the age of rocks. To know the age of rocks is to know the age of the fossils in them. Environment I wrote Save The Planet because I am a songwriter, not a fanatic. I recall Al Gore's book about the environment. It was so technical, it was unreadable. George Bush 41 referred to Gore as "Ozone Man" because of his preoccupation with the ozone layer. I have read that the ozone layer repairs itself. Global warming became the big issue with Gore. This is the tendency for man-made carbon dioxide to trap heat in Earth's atmosphere. The fear is, Earth will be heated to a point that the polar caps melt, flooding coastal cities. Unchecked, Earth may become a hell like Venus although we would be dead long before that. The problem I have is, geologists say we are between Ice Ages. If another Ice Age is inevitable, global warming might serve as a means for heating our planet. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can trap the sun's energy and prevent glaciers from flowing north and south and driving populations to the equator. It is crazy. We are trying to figure out whether we will burn up or freeze to death, whether we will drown or die of thirst because all the water is locked up in ice. If global warming is taking place, it may not be a bad thing. It got pretty cold in Nashville last winter. If it is a bad thing, man in his ingenuity will find a remedy. I am mainstream. With the population of the earth at six billion and climbing, we need to manage natural resources responsibly. The rainforest of South America cannot be destroyed without consequences. We should be planting trees in North America, one for each one we cut down. Houses have traditionally been built with lumber. Books have been made from paper. That can change. New building materials can be developed. Libraries are becoming electronic. The large mammals of Africa need to be protected, otherwise they will be extinct in a few decades. It is up to the governments of African countries and their National Park systems. At the same time, it is a world problem. Man is one species despite his constant fragmenting into religious sects and nationalities. If man were to act as one species (I am not promoting a one-race concept) and stop warring, he could put his house in order. The energy and money spent on Muslims, Jews and Christians fighting would go a long way toward developing alternative fuels. Fossil fuels will eventually be depleted. It will take time, but the amounts of coal, oil and gas in the ground are finite. If man does not prepare for a time when they are gone, civilization will collapse. There is talk about renewable energy and hybrid cars. More research needs to be done to reach a state of practical application. The Moon In 1981, I used maps to identify the moon's prominent features. The dark maria are lava plains. Lava flowed from the moon's interior when the impacts were hard enough. Five maria combine to form a foot with three toes: Serenity, Tranquillity, Crises, Fertility and Nectar. There are not many lava plains on the far side of the moon. The crust was thick on the far side so it did not break, flooding the lowlands with lava. The moon is geologically dead. If a meteor hits, the crater is more or less permanent. There are some interesting craters. Aristarchus is the brightest. Plato is the darkest. Copernicus, Kepler, Aristarchus and Grimaldi form a Y-shape. Tycho in the south is outstanding. Craters have central peaks, caused by the ground bouncing back. Recent craters have rays extending from them. These rays are stuff which was thrown out. The moon has mountain ranges. The Apennine mountains rise 20,000 feet. Earthshine is Earth lighting the lunar night. It is sunlight bouncing off the earth, hitting the moon and coming back to our eyes. Earthshine is seen during the moon's crescent phases when the moon is nearly in line with the sun and the earth, evening or morning. The horns of the moon always point away from the sun. The moon appears to wax and wane in its monthly orbit. Phases of the moon are new moon, crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter and crescent. The new moon is "no moon" because the side reflecting the sun is turned away from us. First quarter is lit on the right. Last quarter is lit on the left. Quarter phases are one quarter of the circle (90 degrees) from the sun in either direction. A blue moon is a second full moon occurring in a calendar month. Blue moons are not that rare. They occur once every 2.7 years. Until recently, it was thought that the earth and moon formed at the same time. It now appears that the moon came into existence when an asteroid crashed into the earth and ripped part of it away. This accounts for the moon not having a metal core. Old theories are earth-based. New theories are space-based. The earth has slowed the moon's spin until it keeps one side to us. The moon experiences two weeks of daylight and two weeks of night. There is no such thing as a "dark side" of the moon because the side we never see gets two weeks of light each month. The moon is 240,000 miles from Earth, at our doorstep. If we drove around the world 10 times, we could be on the moon. Light travels between the earth and moon in 1.2 seconds. The moon causes the tides in our oceans. It tugs at our atmosphere as well, but we are so deep in the atmosphere that we are unaware of it. The moon is slowly moving away. In March, 1960, I saw a total lunar eclipse. The moon took on a dark, copper color. It remained visible because sunlight was refracted, or bent, onto it by the earth's atmosphere. The earth casts a shadow into space. An eclipse of the moon occurs when the moon passes through this shadow. Usually, the moon passes above or below the shadow. A lunar eclipse can only occur during a full moon because of the way the sun, earth and moon have to line up. Earth's shadow has two parts. The umbra is the dark inner cone. The penumbra is the outer part which receives a bit of sunlight. "Umbra" is Latin for shadow. Latin terms are confusing. A total lunar eclipse involves five stages: penumbral, partial, total, partial and penumbral. During totality, the moon is completely inside the umbra. I saw a partial solar eclipse in Nashville, February 26, 1979. It was subtle. Had I not known of it in advance, I would not have suspected anything out of the ordinary. During a solar eclipse, the moon passes between the earth and sun. Solar eclipses occur less than lunar eclipses because of the relative sizes of the shadows cast by the earth and moon. The earth casts a large shadow, so eclipses of the moon are common. The moon casts a small shadow, so eclipses of the sun are more rare. It is a coincidence that the sun and moon appear to be the same size in the sky. From the moon, the earth is stationary but goes through phases. The sky on the moon is black because there is no atmosphere. Our sky is blue because air reflects light. The temperature of the moon's surface varies 500 degrees, from 225 to -275. There is no color except for the blue earth in the sky. There were no fossils in the moon rocks. Life began in the sea, and the moon has never had water. Minerals in the moon rocks vary somewhat from those found on Earth. American astronauts went to the moon six times between 1969 and 1972. 12 men walked on its surface. Neil Armstrong was the first. He made a mistake when he delivered his prepared statement. He said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He meant to say, "One small step for "a" man." Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquillity. Eugene Cernan was the last man on the moon. Weirdos claim that we did not go to the moon, that it was staged. They point to a picture of the American flag supposedly blowing in the wind as proof. There is no wind on the moon. Fact is, a horizontal bar was attached to the top of the flag to keep it from going limp. I am not sure if these people are crazy, stupid or making a joke. I debated Bart Sibrel in the parking lot of a karaoke bar in Nashville. Bart was convinced that we never went to the moon. It came out in the national news that he approached Buzz Aldrin (second man on the moon) in California and tried to force him to swear on a Bible that the moon landings were real. Buzz punched Bart in the jaw! Bart tried to sue, but the Los Angeles County District Attorney refused to file charges. Outer Planets (Mars) The outer planets exhibit retrograde motion. They appear to travel backwards as the faster Earth overtakes and passes them. Mars is a dramatic example. Percival Lowell studied Mars from his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He saw what he mistook for canals built by Martians. Mars gets its redness from dust storms. Its surface contains rust (iron oxide). Its polar caps consist of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide). Mars has a huge volcano known as Olympus Mons and a canyon called Valles Marineris. Mars' atmosphere is too thin for water although there is evidence that water once flowed on Mars. The only way to know whether life evolved is to go to Mars and bring back rocks to see if they contain fossils. A journey will take a year, six months to get there and six months to return. The Viking spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976. It found chemicals said to "mimic" life. The essentials for life are water, nutrients and energy. Scientists study the Atacama desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth, to learn about Mars. The Mars Science Laboratory will be launched in 2011. It will try to determine whether microbes evolved on Mars. There may have been a zone of life in the early solar system extending from Venus to the asteroids. The Martian moons are Phobos and Deimos. In Homer's Iliad, they were Fear and Panic, sons of the god of war. The asteroid belt lies between Mars and Jupiter. Jupiter's influence kept this collection of rocks from coalescing into a planet. Ceres and Vesta are asteroids. Difference in size means a difference in gravity. Large planets like Earth and Venus hold atmospheres. Small worlds like our moon and Mercury do not. Medium-size Mars has a thin atmosphere. Worlds with atmospheres have less craters because their atmospheres vaporize meteors and cause erosion. Earth has a few craters. Venus and Mars have more. Mercury and the moon are heavily cratered. Gas Giants Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn and was deflected. Voyager 2 went on to Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 spent 12 years (1977-89) on its Grand Tour. All the gas giants have rings. Jupiter is a failed star. If it were larger, nuclear reactions would have begun and it would shine by its own light. It consists of hydrogen and helium, the most common elements. Jupiter has bands because it rotates so fast that its clouds are stretched into patterns. The Great Red Spot is a storm. The Galileo probe reached Jupiter in 1995. Jupiter has 62 moons. Europa, Ganymede, Callisto and Io are the largest, named for Jupiter's lovers. They were first seen through a telescope by Galileo in 1609. Io has the only volcanoes in the solar system beyond Earth. Saturn is a butterscotch ball of gas light enough to float in water. Saturn's rings are beautiful. There are seven main rings. They are made of rock and ice. As Saturn orbits the sun in 29 years, we see the rings open at the top, edge-on, open at the bottom and edge-on. Saturn has 60 moons. Titan is larger than Mercury and is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere. Its atmosphere is orange. Cassini discovered the gap in Saturn's rings. Huygens discovered Titan. The Cassini spacecraft imaged Saturn from above, showing it completely surrounded by rings. The Huygens probe descended into Titan's atmosphere. Uranus was knocked on its side. Modern astronomy is explained in terms of collisions. Consider that the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid. If the ancients thought the heavens benign, today's universe is a violent place. Uranus is a green and featureless. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1781. Voyager 2 imaged Neptune's Great Dark Spot against blue methane. Small, rocky Pluto at the edge of the solar system breaks the rules. Its orbit is erratic, taking it inside Neptune. Pluto has three companions: Charon, Nix and Hydra. Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. The New Horizons spacecraft, will reach Pluto in 2015 at a distance of 3 billion miles. Beyond Pluto, the Kuiper Belt (pronounced like viper) awaits. Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) are small, icy objects not unlike Pluto. The Voyagers have left the solar system and are on their way to the stars. They contain recordings of Earth's languages and music. The solar system and everything in it is 4.6 billion years old. This includes the sun, planets and their moons, comets, meteors and asteroids. Comets, Meteors, Asteroids Comets are scraps left over from the formation of the solar system. There was a lot of debris in that early period, and craterization took place on a massive scale. Comets orbit the sun. They develop tails as the sun melts ammonia and methane. The tails are millions of miles long and point away from the sun, driven out by the solar wind. Halley's comet goes out beyond Neptune, returning every 75 years. Halley was not the first to see this comet but the first to predict its return. I saw comet Ikeya-Seki on Halloween morning, 1965. It was fuzzy and dim but worthwhile. I saw Hyakutake in 1996 and Hale-Bopp in 1997. It took 30 years to see my second comet, which I spotted the morning of March 24, 1996. Hyakutake was as bright as the Big Dipper stars and extended the handle. It was fuzzy with no discernible tail. Two mornings later, it was close to the Little Dipper. The morning of March 27, it was under the North Star. Hyakutake upstaged Hale-Bopp which had gotten advanced publicity. The Japanese are comet hunters. Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact with Jupiter gave astronomers their first glimpse of a collision in space. Jupiter is a vacuum cleaner, sucking up stuff and protecting Earth. In the early 1960s, I began watching the Perseids. The Perseids is the best meteor shower. It occurs annually in August. The night of August 11 and morning of August 12, 1964, I counted 351 meteors. Toward morning, they were dropping in the east like snowflakes. Many were bolides, leaving bright trails. The best one appeared after daybreak. My cousin was yelling, and I looked up to see a meteor as large as a full moon. It was exploding and changing colors. Meteor showers are associated with comets. The Perseids are associated with comet Swift-Tuttle. As Swift-Tuttle orbits the sun, it leaves behind debris. Meteoroids get strung out along its path. Most of the meteors entering our atmosphere are no larger than grains of sand. They are vaporized by friction about a hundred miles up. In any shower, meteors emanate from a point in the sky called a radiant. Showers are named for the constellations behind the radiants. We see more meteors toward morning because we are driving into them. Meteorites are objects which survive and fall to earth. Meteorites are made of iron and nickel. Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona, is evidence of a large meteorite which collided with Earth 50,000 years ago. 200 impact craters have been found around the world. There is one is near Odessa, Texas. Meteorites have been found on the ice in Antarctica. O. Richard Norton says meteorites are pieces of asteroids. The largest meteorite found in the United States came from Willamette, Oregon. I saw it in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. There is one instance of a person being hit by a meteorite. In 1954, a woman in Alabama was sleeping on her couch when a meteorite crashed through the roof. It ricocheted and hit her in the side. Craters have been mapped from the Space Shuttles. Comets and asteroids leave craters. The idea that dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid is now accepted. Scientists point to the Chicxulub (Cheek-shoe-lube) crater in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula as being the impact which killed the dinosaurs and two-thirds of all species. That is really pinning it down. Evolution seems driven by impacts. Something hit Siberia in 1908. It is known as the Tunguska Event. Trees were flattened, but no crater was found. A comet or asteroid vaporized before impact. Earth's atmosphere acts like sandpaper, smoothing craters out. Water erodes, and plate tectonics reshape the earth. Otherwise, the earth would look like the moon. Stars Stars are always there, even in the daytime when they are blotted out by the sun. This is something we may not understand as children. As the earth revolves in its orbit, different parts of the stellar panorama are exposed in the night sky. Seasons become identified with constellations. Constellations are illusions. They are two dimensional. They existed in the minds of the ancient Greeks who created them. Stars are at various distances. They are three dimensional. Some appear bright because they are close. Others appear dim because they are far away. The most recognizable constellations are the Ursa Major (Big Dipper), Scorpius, Orion and the Southern Cross. The Vikings saw the Dipper as a wagon. The pointers in the cup of the Big Dipper point to the North Star. Polaris is overhead at the north pole and retains its position as the earth spins. It is a wee bit off. This causes precession of the equinoxes and a shift away from Polaris as the North Star. Over 26,000 years, the earth wobbles like a top. The Zodiac consists of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. The sun, moon and planets remain against the background of the Zodiac because of the flatness of our solar system. Everything is in the same plane. The most elaborate story in the sky is that of Perseus and Andromeda, told by the fall constellations. There are Andromeda's parents, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, and the monster, Cetus. Pegasus is there, the winged horse ridden by Perseus. Perseus holds the head of Medusa, represented by variable star Algol. Constellations are products of Greek and Roman mythology. Despite relative distances, stars forming the constellations are close to our sun when we think of the entire Milky Way. The Greeks explained the Milky Way in poetic fashion. Legend had it that Hercules was born of an affair between Zeus and a mortal. When Zeus wanted his wife, Hera, to suckle the baby, she pushed it away and her milk flowed across the sky. Visible stars range from 1st to 6th magnitude. The brightest are Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus, Vega and Capella. The Arabs named them. Stars twinkle because of our atmosphere. We see 4,000 at any one time. Stars are so far away that they appear as points of light even through large telescopes. Stars are trillions of miles away. Their distances are measured in light-years. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 6 1/2 trillion miles. Light is the fastest thing in the universe at 186,000 miles per second. The closest star is a companion of Alpha Centauri, 4 light-years, or 26 trillion miles, away. Double stars are the rule. Mizar, the second star in the handle of the Big Dipper, is a double star. So is Albireo at the end of Cygnus. The contrast between its blue and yellow components is striking. Castor in Gemini is a system of six stars. Astronomers like to compare stars to people. Stars are born. They age. They die. Stars are born when gaseous nebulas shrink under their own gravity. Mass determines whether a celestial body will become a star. If there is enough mass, the pressure and temperature at the core will be great enough for nuclear reactions to begin. Stars form in clusters. The Pleiades are condensing from surrounding gas. The Orion Nebula is a stellar nursery, as is the Trifid Nebula. Nebulas glow when they reflect starlight. The Horsehead Nebula is dark but outlined by starlight behind it. Stars come in colors. Blue-white stars are young and hot. They inhabit the spiral arms of the Milky Way. Yellow stars like the sun are in the mid-temperature range. Red giants are old and cool. Stars die in two ways. Average stars like the sun become red giants. They die peacefully by exhausting their fuel. Antares and Betelgeuse are red giants. After a star burns all its hydrogen, it burns helium to form carbon. The elements are created inside stars. Our bodies are made from the remnants of ancient stars. A dying star is called a "planetary nebula" when it gives off a shell of gas. This is a bad name because it has nothing to do with planets. The Ring Nebula in Lyra is a planetary nebula. A dying star shrinks to become a white dwarf. The white dwarf is the core of a red giant. White dwarfs can be brown or red but are still called white dwarfs. Massive stars die by becoming novas and blowing up. A nova was seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987. Novas become pulsars and may become black holes. Black holes are collapsed stars whose gravity is so great that even light cannot escape them. They lie at the centers of galaxies. A quasar is a galaxy falling into a black hole. Milky Way The Milky Way is our galaxy, and we are inside it. This is not apparent right away as we look at the glimmering arch across the sky. The Greeks saw milk. But the Milky Way consists of 200 billion suns, 100,000 light years across and 2,000 light-years thick. If we could stand outside the Milky Way, we would see a disk with a bulge in its middle. It is shaped like a fried egg or a flying saucer. Our solar system revolves two-thirds of the way from the center toward the outer rim. It takes 200 million years for our solar system to revolve around our galaxy. This is a cosmic year. The last time the sun and planets were in this position, dinosaurs roamed the earth. In the desert in 1979, there was an instant when I felt myself revolving around the galactic center. Our solar system is located in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. The Milky Way in bright in the direction of Orion as we look down the length of the spiral arm. Since we are inside our galaxy, trying to figure out its shape is like someone in a house trying to determine the shape of the house. The structure of the Milky Way and the sun's position in it was ascertained by Harlow Shapley in 1917. We can grasp it when we know what we are looking at. The Milky Way circles the sky. Its bulging center is in the direction of Sagittarius where the star clouds are thick. The thin part of the circle, visible in winter, is in the direction of the outer rim. When we look at right angles to the Milky Way, we are looking through the top or bottom of the disk. Stars are sparse. As we might expect, more galaxies can be seen through the top or bottom. Patches of gas and dust like the Coalsack and Cygnus Rift obscure pieces of the Milky Way. People once thought these were holes. Because of gas and dust, radio telescopes are used to study the center of the galaxy. The Milky Way is 10 billion years old. Cosmology The universe is 13.7 billion years old. 13.7 billion years ago, all the stuff in the universe was concentrated in a speck of infinite density, a singularity, a mathematical concept. It exploded. This is what astronomers call the Big Bang, the point at which time began. Primordial energy and matter flew in all directions. Things cooled. Gas clouds condensed into galaxies. Galaxies are aggregates of stars, the building blocks of the universe. There are 300 billion galaxies. Some are distinctive. The Whirlpool and Sombrero look like works of art. Galaxies are categorized according to their structures. The Milky Way is a spiral. M87 is elliptical. The Magellanic Clouds are irregular. The Milky Way belongs to a Local Group of 35 galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy M31 is in this group. M31 is a spiral similar to the Milky Way but larger. It is 2.3 million light-years away and is the fartherest visible object. M31 is moving toward us and will merge with the Milky Way. Charles Messier assigned numbers to fuzzy patches in the sky. He cataloged 110 objects so he would not mistake them for comets. He lumped nebulas and galaxies together. The more thorough New General Catalog (NGC) dates from the 19th century. Galaxies form in clusters, and these in turn make up superclusters. The Virgo and Coma Berenices superclusters are vast. The Local Group is in the Virgo supercluster. Still, the universe is mostly empty. Proof of the Big Bang came from the work of Edwin Powell Hubble. By applying the Doppler Effect to light, Hubble found that light from galaxies showed a red shift. This suggests that galaxies are receding, moving away from each other. This is what we mean by the Expanding Universe. If we run it backwards, there is a point at which all galaxies converge. The primeval atom! Furthermore, the farther apart galaxies get, the faster they travel. The question becomes whether expansion will continue forever or whether there is enough gravity in the universe to pull it back together. This would be the Big Crunch and suggests an oscillating universe, one which alternately expands and collapses. Black holes may provide the gravity for a Big Crunch. The universe is not expanding in space. Space is being created as it expands. The balloon analogy is used, blowing up a balloon with dots on it to represent galaxies. We ask what was before the Big Bang. The answer is nothing. There was no space, no time and no events. It was the beginning in the truest sense. E. P. Hubble was the greatest astronomer of the 20th century. Shapley thought that external galaxies were inside our own. Cosmology was the step I was trying to take since I was a teenager. Carl Sagan's Cosmos was a breakthrough. To paraphrase Sagan, "The Cosmos is everything that has been, everything that is and everything that will be." Sagan saw man as poised on the shore of a cosmic ocean, intelligence as a means for the cosmos to know itself. The terms "cosmos" and "universe" are interchangeable. Telescopes In Swim With Dolphins, I wrote, "I wanna see the stars, Mauna Kea's calling me." September 13, 2003, I stood atop this extinct volcano 13,750 feet above sea level. "This is beautiful!" I thought. The volcano was stark and brownish, barren of vegetation. There was a Mars-like surrealism. I watched the sun set above the clouds. Stars blazed. The Milky Way, the plane of our Galaxy, arched brilliantly overhead. I was on the Big Island of Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It gets no better than this. Hawaii is at 20 degrees northern latitude. The north star appears lower and the constellation Scorpius higher than from Kentucky and Tennessee although not as high as from Australia where it gets straight up. I sensed the curvature of the earth. Mars was at its closest. I wondered why it was less red than when it was farther out. Our guide said, "Increased sunlight hitting the surface neutralizes its redness." The moon rose. I enjoy astronomy and saw a bit of everything. 13 telescopes dot the summit of Mauna Kea. There are the two Keck domes and the Japanese Subaru. Subaru is Japanese for "Pleiades." Mauna Kea is run by the University of Hawaii and Caltech. It is the only large observatory I have seen. I was above 40% of our atmosphere's oxygen but felt no different. It misted on the drive up. Rainbows were plentiful. Beauty heals. There are two kinds of telescopes. The refractor was invented by Galileo. The reflector was invented by Isaac Newton. The purpose of each is to collect light. The refractor uses an object lens. The reflector uses a mirror. The biggest telescopes are reflectors like those at Kitt Peak. Photography revolutionized astronomy. Photographic plates record more detail than the human eye. The pictures we see in books are long-exposure photographs. The Hubble Space Telescope was put into orbit by the Space Shuttle. Because it is above the atmosphere, its pictures are superior to those of earthbound telescopes. I was disappointed with the Space Telescope. It produced books full of chaotic images with no comprehensive breakthrough in theory. There may one day be an observatory on the far side of the moon. Planetariums are places where sky shows and lectures are given. Star patterns are projected inside a dome. I visited planetariums in Louisville, Nashville, Salt Lake City and New York. Space Travel The Soviet Union kicked off the Space Age with Sputnik in 1957. The United States established NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Agency). I stood in my parents' yard watching Echo I fly over. Th Mercury astronauts were John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, Gordon Cooper and Scott Carpenter. Glenn got a hero's welcome after orbiting the earth three times. Grissom died in a fire. Saturn 5 rockets sent men to the moon. Apollo 11 was the first landing. Neil Armstrong's footprint will last millions of years. Buzz Aldrin was second on the moon. Apollo 13 was brought back when an oxygen tank exploded. I was on my way to Germany. The 12 Apollo astronauts who walked on the moon are: Apollo 11 - Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin Apollo 12 - Charles Conrad, Alan Bean Apollo 14 - Alan Shepard, Ed Mitchell Apollo 15 - Dave Scott, James Irwin Apollo 16 - John Young, Charles Duke Apollo 17 - Harrison Schmitt, Eugene Cernan The Apollo program has been followed by a golden age of planetary exploration as NASA worked with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Competition between the United States and the Soviet Union drove the Apollo program. The spirit of cooperation which is supposed to put men on Mars is less of a motivator. Space Shuttles orbited 200 miles up and circled the globe in 90 minutes. Women were the most famous to fly in the Shuttles: Sally Ride and ill-fated Christa McAuliffe. Challenger and Columbia blew up. The Shuttles will be retired in 2010. The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will carry crews and supplies to the International Space Station. NASA plans to return to the moon by 2020 and to reach Mars by 2030. The CEV will take four men to the moon and six to Mars. Mars is closest to Earth during opposition when it varies from 35 million to 50 million miles away. It is during opposition that we will go to Mars. It will be far more challenging than going to the moon, about 200 times farther. 21 nations are involved in the International Space Station. Michael and I got a feeling for the ISS at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Futurists let their imaginations run wild. They foresee mining the moon, terraforming Mars and colonizing the galaxy. Congress is skeptical of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) although interest remains. Estimates of the number of alien civilizations range from zero to a certainty that the universe is teeming with life. Astronomers began finding extrasolar planets in 1995. 313 exoplanets have been discovered. A system with 3 planets was found around a star in Andromeda. The exoplanets found so far are gas giants like Jupiter, unlikely candidates for harboring life. We are searching for Earth-like planets. The assumption that life began in the sea is questioned in the Space Age. It may be that Earth was seeded from another solar system. Seeds of life may have traveled through interstellar space to take root in the favorable conditions of Earth. This is the Panspermia theory. Spores are one of the hardiest forms of life. Spores may travel between planets via comets and meteors. They are less likely to travel through interstellar space, but we cannot rule it out. Our perception is evolving as we reach into space. UFO sightings, close encounters and abduction stories are false. Such phenomena are explainable as aircraft or balloons, Jupiter or Venus, science fiction, psychiatric cases, hoaxes and lies. Roswell is a hoax. Claims that the government conceals UFO information are absurd. Physics Energy is the ability to do work. The four forces in nature are the strong and weak nuclear fields, the electromagnetic field and the gravitational field. The strong nuclear field holds protons and neutrons together. Nuclear bombs use this energy. The weak nuclear field is associated with radioactive decay. Gravity is the weakest force but is very long-range. Einstein overturned Newtonian physics when he debunked the idea that objects attract. He showed that mass bends, or curves, space and the effect is what we call gravity. We use the analogy of a trampoline, bowling ball and marble. A bowling ball on a trampoline bends it. A marble will move toward the ball but will orbit if its movement is right. Einstein showed that space and time are connected. Gravity is the effect of space-time being bent by matter. The sun bends space-time. Earth wharps the space near it. Weird The more exotic ideas are like something from Star Wars. Dark Matter is supposed to account for 90% of the mass in the universe. We can not see it nor can it be detected. And what is Dark Energy? Wormholes may be tunnels in black holes which lead to parallel universes. An infinite number of universes may make up the multiverse, each universe having a Big Bang. Is this fantasy? Astronomy has gotten too far out. We need a return to practical concepts. Science and Religion According to the Bible, the Virgin Mary got pregnant without Joseph's sperm and genetic material. An egg fertilized by Spirit? An angel informed Mary's husband of her pregnancy. Can we believe that angels exist as Billy Graham does or should we regard them as relics of Hebrew mythology? The star of Bethlehem! Chances are it was a literary star with no counterpart in nature. Someone is always trying to prove it was a comet or a conjunction of planets. So much in the Bible is perceived as the fulfillment of prophecy. Can we take this stuff literally or should we view it as a body of legends in the collective mind of ancient Jews? Prophecy works backwards. It is invented after the fact. Is there such a thing as sin? Sin does not exist in nature. A cat kills a mouse. No sin. Billy Graham believes in demons. I am 62 years old and have never seen a demon. Nor have I seen a miracle. The Bible is a string of impossibilities. People say these things do not happen today but happened back then. The notion is ludicrous. Why bend over backwards trying to force reality into a theological frame? If Jesus is God, why does He not return now? Why not put things in order? If the universe is 13.7 billion years old, will it take Him another 13.7 billion to do it? Can we believe Jesus ascended into heaven? Floated into space? Have astronauts in the Shuttle orbited past Him? In film biographies of Jesus, He has piercing blue eyes. Anglo-Saxon Jesus! He reels off vague parables which are riddles to the modern world. The surest way to confuse is to use a parable, analogy, metaphor or simile. What is God? What is the Kingdom of God? Where is God and where did He come from? Is theology man's invention? Books, art and movies take things out of context. They distort reality into episodes with hopes of commercial success. Is the Bible doing this? Why do we have to buy Bibles in stores to read the word of God? Why do preachers preach againt money and then beg for it? Apart from imagination and art, how could Jesus have raised Lazarus from the dead? We live in a natural universe. Faith cannot make the impossible happen. Yet, Jesus said, "I am the Resurrection, and the Bible says all things are possible with God. Are those who speak of an empty tomb not failing to distinguish between an actual tomb and a tomb of the mind? Preachers wear suits and ties and give the appearance of being rational. When they speak of a rapture and physically rising through the atmosphere, we realize something is wrong. Evangelist Jimmy Swaggert extols virtue while patronizing prostitutes. Morality seems most plausible with a scientific foundation. It is not science which uses nuclear energy for bombs. It is tax-funded military establishments which traditionally embrace religion. The Mormons are on the cutting edge of Christianity. They claim that Jesus came to western America to save the Indians. If intelligent life is discovered in another part of the galaxy, a sect will arise claiming that Jesus redeemed lost aliens. An age of theology lay between 3000 B.C. and 600 A.D. Science began only 400 years ago. Carl Sagan called science, the "candle in the dark." Science is the way. Observation over revelation. Objectivity over subjectivity. Evolution over creationism. Our eyes and ears tell us how things are. It is as we suspected when we were kids, before religion sapped our energy. Religion is flawed. We are physical, not spiritual. We are alive when we are alive, dead when we are dead. We are not dead when we are alive, not alive when we are dead. The supernatural does not exist outside man's imagination and his tendency toward myth. Sagan left us with these words, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Science is the candle, not astrology, not mythology, not religion. This being said, I still subscribe to the ultimate message of the gospels. If the universe is 13.7 billion years old and in middle age, Jesus Christ will return in another 13.7 billion years. He will return in the nick of time to save souls at the brink of the universe's demise. He will save all believers in the cosmos. At that point, religion and science will be one. The 1% of truth in the Bible will merge with the 1% of truth in science. God created the universe, and evolution is the means by which He did it. Eternity will kick in, 100% heaven. Hallelujah! Thank you! Jesus!! Southern Constellations We do not see the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere from the United States because the tilt of the earth in its orbit is not great enough. The earth itself blocks our view. To see the southern stars, we must journey to or below the equator. Of the 88 constellations, 32 are seen from the Southern Hemisphere. Many were named by the Frenchman Nicolas Lacaille, the last person to create constellations. Animals dominate. There are two mammals, six birds, two reptiles, two fish and one insect. ..1 Centaurus - centaur ..2 Lupus - wolf ..3 Pavo - peacock ..4 Tucana - toucan ..5 Grus - crane ..6 Apus - bird of paradise ..7 Phoenix - phoenix ..8 Columbia - dove ..9 Hydrus - serpent 10 Chamaeleon - chameleon 11 Dorado - swordfish 12 Volans - flying fish 13 Music - fly Lacaille named scientific instruments and tools. 14 Horologium - clock 15 Pictor - painter's easel 16 Octans - octant 17 Circinus - compass 18 Antlia - air pump 19 Telescopium - telescope 20 Norma - carpenter's level 21 Ara - altar 22 Reticulum - the net (in an eyepiece) 23 Fornax - furnace 24 Sculptor - sculptor 25 Caelum - chisel Four constellations are part of Argo, the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed. 26 Carina - keel 27 Vela - sail 28 Puppis - stern 29 Pyxis - compass This leaves (30) Indus, the Indian, (31) Triangulum Australe, the southern triangle and (32) Crux, the Southern Cross. The Cross points to the south celestial pole. Its bright stars are known as the Three Marys. According to the gospels, the three Marys at the cross when Christ was crucified were Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary and Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus. This is the only allusion to Christianity in the sky. Bright stars of the Southern Hemisphere: 1 Canopus - Carina 2 Alpha Centauri - Centaurus 3 Achernar - Eridanus Star Parties On Michael's 18th birthday, March 11, 2002, I took American Airlines to Los Angeles, then flew Qantas down to Sydney, Australia. We crossed the equator and international dateline at about the same place. I got a motel and rode a train to Sydney Harbor. I saw the Opera House, Harbor Bridge and the Rocks (Old Town). My purpose in going to Australia was to see the southern stars and constellations. Monte Wilson of the Astronomical Society of New South Wales (ASNSW) met me at my motel. We rode through the Blue Mountains to Wiruna, three hours northwest of Sydney, to the South Pacific Star Party (SPSP) I was lucky. The weather was great all three nights. I got to stay in the house, referred to as the "White House" because they let Americans stay there. There was a couple named Tom and Lucy from Texas who proved invaluable. Lucy had lived in Louisville in the Bardstown Road area. "I saw the Southern Stars burning in their glory!" I saw Canopus, Alpha Centauri and Achernar. I saw the Southern Cross and the Coalsack. I saw the missing piece of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. The Clouds were fainter than I imagined. These are satellites of the Milky Way. Tom kept finding galaxies and nebulas in Tony Buckley's 20 inch. We looked at Jupiter and Saturn. Orion was upside down. Scorpius was straight up. The hub of the Milky Way in Sagittarius was high and prominent. I looked into our galaxy's thickest part, something I only saw along the horizon back home. The southern constellations are abstract. To trace out even Argo and Centaurus would take time. Seeing Scorpius overhead stayed with me, that and seeing Orion and Scorpius in the sky at the same time. I was impressed at how close Sirius and Canopus are and that the Southern Cross is not far below Scorpius. Canopus is brighter than Sirius but 13 times farther away. The southern sky is spectacular because you also get the bright winter stars of the north. I will not forget walking out of the house that first night and looking up at the southern sky for the first time. It was ablaze with stars! ASNSW Treasurer Max Gardner drove me back to Sydney. He took me to his home and showed me the city. We crossed the Harbor bridge, driving on the left side. Sydney is halfway between the equator and the south pole. Max explained that Australia is a constitutional monarchy. It is part of the Commonwealth of Nations (British Commonwealth). The Queen is head of state. Crossing the Pacific Ocean, I noticed how close we came to Hawaii. I wondered how long it would be before I saw Hawaii. After noticing a book about Alaska in Max's bookcase, I wondered how long it would be before I saw Alaska. I arrived back in Nashville, March 18, 2002. One week later. Karen and I went to the Tennessee Spring Star Party, April 1-2, 2006, at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Frogs croaked hideously as we sat with other stargazers and picked out the spring constellations. A guy had his telescope set up and was showing galaxies on a screen. His technology was futuristic. The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) was like an image in a magazine, large and detailed. The Whirlpool is in Canes Venaciti 23 million light years away. The small galaxy to the left is behind the Whirlpool. We know this by the dust from the Whirlpool's arm in front of it. We looked at Bode's Galaxy (M81), a spiral in Ursa Major 11 million light years away. We talked about the chances of life elsewhere in the universe. I went to Alaska for the northern lights. I flew to Anchorage and traveled to Denali by train. A full moon interfered with my plans. The northern lights are caused by the solar wind hitting gases in our upper atmosphere. Each gas emits its own colors. Oxygen gives off green and yellow. Nitrogen gives off blue and violet. Oxygen and nitrogen at low altitudes give off red. Green is the most common color. The lights occur around ovals at the poles because the earth is a magnet, pulling particles north and south. We do not hear much about the southern lights because the large population centers are in the north. Other planets have northern and southern lights. I saw a pinkish hue in the sky in Louisville as a kid. Michael and I attended the Grand Canyon Star Party at Yavapai Point, June 9 & 10, 2007. Amateur astronomers had their telescopes set up. It was a good time for planets. We observed Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Venus blazed as it hung over the Canyon. Even though I do not want Michael to get into astronomy because it takes people out of the world, a superficial experience such as this is good. I may travel to see the Perseids in 2010. There will be no moon. I will go where the clouds are not. I struggled for my knowledge of astronomy. My family knew nothing of it. I remember my dad saying we would never go to the moon. He made this statement around 1957 during a game of Rook (card game) with his brother. I sat watching. I suppose he thought man would never go to the moon because God did not mean for it to happen, or something like that. Sometime later, my dad pointed to the Pleiades and told me it was the Little Dipper. It was pointless to tell him he was wrong. In his later years, I told him the sun was a star. He denied it. I brought my sister in, and she told him the sun was a star. He never said a word. I am not putting my family down. They were hard-working people. They just had no interest in astronomy. When we landed on the moon in July, 1969, my grandmother made the comment, "I thought the moon was a ball of fire!" Links: Astronomy Magazine Sky & Telescope Astronomy Now Astronomy Today NASA JPL Cumberland Astronomical Society CAS Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association Las Vegas Astronomical Society Grand Canyon Star Party Central Nevada Star Party Nebraska Star Party Stargazer Online Richard Bell Astronomical Society of New South Wales South Pacific Star Party SETI Sky Tonight Kitt Peak National Observatory Louisville Astronomical Society Mars Society Welcome to the Universe International Meteor Organization American Meteor Society Bibliography ..1 Apfel, Necia. Voyager to the Planets. New York, Clarion Books, 1991 ..2 Astronomy Magazine. 50 Greatest Mysteries of the Universe. Waukesha, Kalmbach, 2007 ..3 Baker, Robert H. Introducing the Constellations. New York, Viking Press, 1957 ..4 ________. When the Stars Come Out. New York, Viking Press, 1946 ..5 Bernhard, Bennet & Rice. Handbook of the Heavens ..6 Branley, Franklin M. The Milky Way: Galaxy Number One. ..7 Couper, Heather and Nigel Henbest. Space Scientist Series. New York, Franklin Watts, 1980s ..8 Fanning, A. E. Planets, Stars and Galaxies. New York, Dover, 1966 ..9 Ferris, Timothy. Coming of Age in the Milky Way. New York, William Morrow, 1988 10 ________. The Red Limit: the Search for the Edge of the Universe. New York, William Morrow, 1977 11 Gutsch, William A. 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the Universe. New York, Doubleday, 1998 12 Hathaway, Nancy. The Friendly Guide to the Universe. New York, Viking, 1994 13 Heeren, Fred. Show Me God. Day Star, 1995 14 Kerrod, Robin. The Book of Constellations: Discover the Secrets in the Stars. Barron's, 2002 15 ________. The Moon. Minneapolis, Lerner Publications, 2000 16 Knight, David C. Galaxies: Islands in Space. New York, William Morrow, 1979 17 Muirden, James. The Amateur Astronomer's Handbook. Third Edition. New York, Harper & Row, 1983 18 Norton, O. Richard. Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters. Missoula, Montana, Mountain Press, 1994 19 Phillips, Cynthia and Shana Priwer. Essential Astronomy: Everything You Need to Understand the Mysteries of Our Universe. Avon, Adams, 2007 20 Rees, Martin, general editor. Universe. New York, DK Publishing, 2005 21 Ride, Sally and Tam O'Shaughnessy. Exploring Our Solar System. New York, Crown, 2003 22 ________. The Mystery of Mars. New York, Crown, 1999 23 ________. The Third Planet: Exploring the Earth from Space. New York, Crown, 1994 24 Sagan, Carl. Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium. New York, Random House, 1997 25 ________. Cosmos. New York, Random House, 1980 26 ________. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. New York, Random House, 1994 27 ________. The Demon-Haunted World. New York, Random House, 1995 28 Steel, Duncan. Target Earth: The Search for Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets. Pleasantville, Reader's Digest, 2000 29 Wilford, John Noble. Mars Beckons: the Mysteries, the Challenges, the Expectations of Our Next Great Adventure in Space. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1990 30 Zim, Herbert S and Robert H. Baker. Stars: A Guide to the Constellations, Sun, Moon, Planets and Other Features of the Heavens. New York, Golden Press, 1975 Originally written 1995-1996 Revised 2002-2008