Larry Sessions

Florida man shoots spaceship from his car!

Published June 7th, 2009 4 Comments

OK, so he shot it with a camera and the spaceship was the Shuttle Atlantis. It isn’t an alien spaceship nor even an UFO, but George Fetter got some great shots. (Click on the image here for a closeup, and be sure to note the bird on the lefthand side.) You can see all of them on his MilAirComms.com website.

I saw Mr. Fetter’s photo on Spaceweather.com and just had to use it as the opener for this blog. The photo has nothing to do with my topic here of UFOs, but I think the headline, and the reaction that some of us give to it, betrays our feelings about the thought of alien spacecraft. Some of us want to believe — I want to believe — but some want it too much. Some people want to believe that aliens are visiting Earth so much that they willingly believe outlandish stories devoid of evidence, exaggerate and distort reported observations, and accept the testimony of self-appointed experts with no credentials other than their own belief.

Coincidentally, I just learned that the 40th Annual International UFO Symposium will be held here in Denver this August. I won’t be attending, but a quick look at the MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) website, or any of the countless other UFO sites and publications make it clear that UFO enthusiasts are as active as ever. The MUFON website even sports a “Live MUFON UFO Event Report Map” purporting to show real-time maps of sighting reports.

Summer is the time for UFO reports, not necessarily because aliens flock to Earth at that time (perhaps on vacation), but simply because more people are out at night enjoying the warm weather. So I have been thinking about revising a previous post on how to observe UFOs, what to look for and what information to record to give the report some substance. Oral reports given by memory hours, days or months after the fact are about as useless — as we used to say — as a screen door in a submarine.

Unfortunately most reports have no scientific value, in part, because of the low quality of the information. Imprecise times, unclear directions and ambiguous descriptions are bad enough, but the worst are claims based on woefully incomplete information or pure speculation. To say that something was “as big as a football field” is utterly meaningless unless you also know how far away it was as well. In fact most — dare I say “all” — claims based solely on visual observation are at best worthless and at worst bordering on criminal.

But the worst of all are the abductee claims. Now don’t get me wrong. I cannot say with supreme certainty that there are no aliens or ETs and there has never been an alien abduction. I suppose that pretty much anything is possible, but without any scientifically acceptable evidence, I would have to rank such claims right up there with ghosts, leprechauns and winged fairies living in the flower garden. Just today I came across an article online that claimed:

“Up to 1 billion humans are abducted by hyperdimensional ETs, and humans are in cognitive dissonance“

The article goes on to say that “These 1 billion human abductees, according to the replicable empirical research, – have had their consciousness and and/or their physical bodies taken by a quantum, hyperdimensional process, and returned to their original location (and in some cases original time) with erased memories of the abduction.”

Uh-huh. Anyway, I also came across a brilliant and incisive video by Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (Seen here on the set of NOVA scienceNOW - April 2009) He says it so well that I will put off my revised “How to Watch a UFO” blog for now and just refer you to Neil Tyson’s video. What more could I add? Enjoy the video on YouTube:

Neil deGrasse Tyson: UFO Sightings

And for some additional rational thinking about UFOs, see the website of my old friend, journalist, space historian and former space engineer, James Oberg. In particular, check out his “Space Age Myths and Legends“ page.

Oh, and just one more thing regarding comments to this blog — sane, thoughtful and relevant comments are welcomed, but rude, irrelevant and inappropriate comments will be edited or rejected altogether. If you have a cogent, coherent and logical argument based on relevant and substantiated facts, I’d love to hear it. On the other hand, if all you have are unsubstantiated, undocumented claims or arguments based on the supposed authority (”Mr. X saw the UFO and it must have been real because he is a law enforcement officer”) of the observer (yourself included), then I would prefer not to waste space on a topics I have already addressed.

Preparing to say “Goodbye”

Published April 7th, 2009 in Earth, Human World, Space, atmospheric events and technology. 6 Comments

Many years ago, when I was at the Noble Planetarium at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, I had the honor and priviledge of interviewing Donald K. (”Deke”) Slayton, one of the original Mercury astronauts. I talked with him at his NASA office in Houston about the US and Soviet Space programs, although he said that it really was not possible to compare them because they were like “apples and oranges.” We also talked about the latest NASA project in the works, which Slayton insisted was a “space truck” for transporting cargo into and back from space. Officially known as the “Space Transportation System” or STS, its vehicles would become the Space Shuttle fleet.

Then several years later, I also had the great good fortune to be present at the very first launch of a manned shuttle, Columbia, on April 12, 1981 at Cape Kennedy. It was, to say the least, awe-inspiring. From just about three miles away from the launch pad, we could see the engines ignite and the great glowing rocket immediately rise, unlike the old Saturn V’s that lumbered slowly off the pad. There was odd silence until about 15 seconds later when the sound waves rushed over us in an intense, rapid-fire buffet that literally rattled your ribcage. The effect was surprizing, stunning and certainly unforgettable.

Although I have never witnessed another launch in person, I have observed Shuttles on numerous occasions, in flight, as they passed over Denver. I intend to take every opportunity to see the Shuttle Atlantis during the flight of STS-125, currently scheduled for launch on May 12 on the 5th and final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

If you have never witnessed a shuttle passage overhead, I urge you to do so at your next opportunity, because soon there will be no more opportunities. The Space Shuttle program is mandated to end on September 30, 2010, less than a year and a half from now. The final Shuttle Mission, STS-134 (Discovery), is scheduled to launch on September 16, 2010. After that, say goodbye to the Space Shuttle program. Barring any unforeseen and unexpected extenstions, Deke Slayton’s “space truck” will fly no more after that.

Observing the Shuttle is easy, but you have to look in the right direction at the right time. You must know where East, West, North and South are, and preferably you should be familiar with altitude and azimuth. Otherwise, all you need are your eyes, but binoculars can be useful. The Shuttle looks like an exceptionally bright star that moves across a typically wide area of the sky within a few minutes at most. Tracking a shuttle in even a small telescope is challenging, so I don’t suggest it unless you are very experienced.

There are several sites to tell you when and where to look from your location, but don’t bother to check until the Shuttle launches. The precise timings and directions depend on exactly when the Shuttle is launched, so wait to check on observing opportunties until after the Shuttle achieves orbit. (Note: the International Space Station [ISS] of course stays in orbit, so you can check on observing opportunities for it at any time.)

For observing times and directions, check out details from NASA at this page for the U.S.:
US

and here for Canada:
Canada

Elsewhere, you can still find out the possibility of observing the space shuttle and/or ISS here:
World

For a simple site based on your US Zip or Canadian postal code, check out Spaceweather.com’s Satellite Tracker:
Satellite Tracker

Say “goodbye” before it is too late!

Hey cutie! Hey cutie!

Published March 19th, 2009 in Animals, Climate, Human World, Science and environment. 0 Comments

$Barren Cottonwood, Denver\'s Bible Park, 19 March 2009$ It is the last day of an almost non-existent Winter in Denver, and as I walked my dogs through the park earlier we were surprised to find someone calling to me, “Hey, cutie! Hey, cutie!” Well, maybe it wasn’t to me, but I looked up anyway. Where was it coming from? I saw nothing except the still-bare branches of a cottonwood silhouetted against a bright sky. “Hey cutie! Hey cutie!”

Although I could not see the source of this call, I knew the caller was wearing a black cap. It wasn’t really a come-on, which is good because the caller was male and he would have been really messed up if he had been directing it to me. He was a black-capped Chickadee.

You might take it as a sign of Spring, but in fact the Chickadees are often here all Winter. Popular depictions often show them frolicking in snow, something we have had precious little of this season. But while we can see them just about any time of year, maybe today’s encounter is a sign of Spring, or at least the onset of mating season for Chickadees. In most years, it would be a bit early, but this season was hardly Winter anyway, with record-breaking high temperatures and desert dryness. Still, the Chickadee as harbinger of the growing season was a welcome sound, if not sight, today.

There was even the characteristic call of a Red-winged Blackbird, something I strongly associate with Summer. And the shrill staccato call of a Northern Flicker (our version of a Woodpecker), which while not particularly attractive, is certainly better than the machine gun rattle when it tries to find those tasty grubs in your metal rain gutters.

Truth is, the only birds I saw today were the ever present crows and the ducks in our neighborhood stream (”Goldsmith Gulch”). But I heard them and knew they were there. Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” But listening is a major part of observing as well. There is the sound of the wind and thunder, gurgling water and rain, the flutter of bird wings and their calls and songs, cicadas on a summer evening, crickets and any number of other insects, the chatter of squirrels and sometimes even the “yip yip” of coyotes. Just because my — and maybe your — main interest is in the skies above, doesn’t mean that we should ignore things much closer to us in Nature.

[We may not be able to hear stars and clouds -- two of my favorite things to observe -- but even the great Johannes Kepler discussed the "music of the spheres" and wrote music based on the motions of the planets. Personally, I prefer somewhat more melodic works as played on Seattle's King FM and particularly their Evergreen Channel, which are available online anywhere.]

Making sense of misconceptions

Published January 3rd, 2009 10 Comments

Shortly after my last blog in September, I was abducted by aliens who flew me to Thermoman’s home planet of Ultron where I was taught secrets of the Universe. Having just returned, I will now enlighten you with a new blog.

Now, I know that no one reading this will believe that, but I am amazed sometimes at the things people will believe. Some of it is simply unlikely, such as the idea that Earth is being visited by aliens from other worlds. This is certainly not impossible, but for various reasons it is deemed unlikely by most scientists and in any event there is no good physical evidence to support it.

And then there are other beliefs that simply fly in the face of established fact, such as the absurd idea that the Earth is hollow or that the Apollo astronauts never really landed on the Moon.

Leaving TV commercials and all manner of advertising aside, there are many other basic facts and concepts of science that people believe that are flat out wrong.

For example, many people believe that there is no gravity on the Moon. Sometimes they justify this belief by claiming that since there is no gravity in space and the Moon is in space, then there logically must be no gravity on the Moon. Unfortunately, this is an illogical mash-up of misunderstood concepts. Any object with mass has gravity, and missions to the Moon have proved this beyond doubt.

The idea that there is no gravity in space generally is also completely false. Gravity pervades the entire Universe; holds stars, planets and galaxies together; and is impossible to escape. People get the idea that there is no gravity in space when they see astronauts floating in the space station or ISS. By neither the astronauts nor their spacecraft are free of gravity. In fact for near-Earth missions, astronauts are subject a force of gravity 98 to 99 percent as strong as it is on Earth’s surface! The fact that they are falling around the Earth at the same rate as the spacecraft makes them seem weightless relative to things around them.

At this time of year another astronomical misconception arises. When asked what causes the seasons, students often answer that it is because the Earth is farther from the Sun in winter and closer in Summer. At least this bears a little logic, because the Earth does vary slightly in distance to the Sun through the year. It is natural to think that the Earth would be warmer when we are closer to the Sun. This is as logical as a geocentric cosmology (belief that the Earth is the center of the Universe) because we cannot feel the Earth move under us. It seems natural that this big, massive Earth is stationary while those little twinkling lights circle around us. But both ideas are completely wrong.

The the Sun-Earth distance variation fueled the seasonal changes, then our winters would be hot and summers cold. In fact, the Earth is about 3 million miles closer to the Sun in early January than in early July! The images at the top of this page show SOHO (Solar & Heliospheric Observatory) MDI (Michelson Doppler Imager) images of the Sun on July 4 2008 (left) and January 2 2009. At first glance you might not notice any difference in size. But if you look very closely, you can see that the January image is very slightly larger. This minor difference does not noticeably affect the amount of sunshine or other energy that the Earth receives, and has virtually no bearing on the seasons.

So what does cause the seasons? The Earth is tilted on its axis, pointing more or less toward Polaris, the North Pole star. As the Earth orbits the Sun, this tilt causes the planet to nod toward the Sun in June, and away from it in December. The upshot to this is that the Sun’s height in the sky varies, which in turn affects the amount of sunshine any given location receives and hence the overall temperatures. The Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun in winter and receives less sunshine.

My point is that we need to look at everything and ask why we believe what we believe.

I’d be interested in learning of misconceptions you have heard (or perhaps been guilty of), regarding astronomy, space or physical science in general. Comments?

The real danger of the LHC

Published September 9th, 2008 64 Comments

Don Davis, no copyright. There is a sobering fact, well known to science but little known in public. It is a fact related to Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc², and one that is frightening in its scale.

The average 75 kg person (about 165 pounds), has lurking in his or her genes — or more specifically, in his or her atoms — an amount of energy equivalent to about 1.6 gigatons of TNT, some 28 times greater than the largest nuclear bomb ever exploded (Tsar bomba, Soviet Arctic, 1960, 57 megaton yield).

Should your nucleons suddenly ignite in 100 percent conversion of matter to energy, the resulting release of energy would be the equialvent of an asteroid several hundred meters across (about a quarter mile) colliding with the Earth at 17 km (nearly 11 miles) per second. The impact would be sufficient to completely obliterate a large metropolitan area, gouge a crater about 5 km across and 300 meters deep. (That’s about 3 miles across and 1000 feet deep). This is several times larger than the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona. The surface effects including an atmospheric shockwave would decimate everything for many kilometers around, and would send a blast of heat to incinerate everything in its path. The resulting earthquake would be severe over a wide area, and the dust and debris thrown up by this event would gradually encircle the Earth, possibly even triggering a kind of “nuclear winter” sufficient to cool the temperature of the planet for months or years, killing vegetation and then the animals and people who depend on them thousands of kilometers away.

Given the amount of energy that Nature has stored in the matter of your body, your detonation would change the course of history and kill millions, leaving no trace of you except in the photons of energy that escape into space and the vibrations and heat captured by the planet.

Based on the laws of quantum physics, everything here is true. You do embody the awesome force of nature. However, how likely is it that you will suddenly explode in a nuclear holocaust? Quantum physics is probably the most studied and confirmed theory of nature in history. As with everything, there are problems and things we don’t yet understand about it, but the energy stored in particles is not one of these. This has been proved far beyond doubt. Witness the nuclear bomb, for instance.

Another thing, less widely known, is that quantum physics is a statistical study, and based on its laws, we can express the probability of almost anything happening. It is not absolutely impossible for all the mass in your body to suddenly transform into nuclear energy. But on the other hand, it isn’t likely. Not likely at all. There is an equation to calculate such probabilities, but I would not be so rash as to try and apply it here. However, suffice it to say that you and your immediate descendants are more likely to win first in every single lottery and contest on the planet Earth, every day of every year for the next million years, than you are to spontaneously transform into nuclear energy. It is not exactly impossible, but it is about as close to impossible as it is possible for anyone to imagine. There are better things to worry about.
This brings me to the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the latest “atom smasher” scheduled to open on September 10. This enormous new scientific instrument, and many associated instruments, can and will change our conception of the Universe, its inner workings and its origin. But, just as with you and your incredible store of nuclear energy, there is a chance that this collider could produce “mini” blackholes that in the bizarrest and indescribably unlikely of scenarios, could damage the Earth. And as with the chances of you suddenly detonating, the chances of any planetary harm due to the LHC, is frankly unimaginably small.

It is not so unimaginable that the LHC could produce “mini” blackholes, but these are not anything like the popular conceptions of a black hole, fueled by often highly inaccurate movies and over-anxious imaginations. The “mini” black holes that the LHC could produce — although still unlikely — would be microscopic at best, and unstable, which in this case just means that the could last only a tiny fraction of a second at most. Any that are produced — and again this is unlikely in the first place — will “evaporate” long before they would have any chance of pulling in any other matter. In any event, their mass would be far too small to produce enough gravity to pull in matter even as large as a microbe.

The real and dangerous thing about the LHC is not any imagined threat that it poses, but rather the unbridled, unschooled and utterly absurd fears promulgated by uninformed people. Of course such things have always occurred such as in the with hunts of the middle ages, but today absurdities spread with the speed of light through the Internet, and can have potentially deleterious affects on genuine and well-founded research. Too bad that human reasoning and the intelligence of the average public (which of course my dear reader, does not include you) has not kept up with the pace of technological development.

There is far, far, far more potential harm in the outcome of the current election season than there is of even the smallest hair on your head igniting in a bizarre nuclear transformation.

Keep in mind that physicists are people, too, not the “mad scientists” of moviedom. They have families. They love life as much as anyone else, and would not pursue the LHC and related technologies if they felt that there was any reasonable concern about safety. Also keep in mind that Physics is the most basic study of Nature. They are looking for truth. Yes. physicists developed the atomic and nuclear bombs, but that was under order from politicians. If you trust anyone, trust physicists, not politicians. Politicians sometime have to make the decision to go to war, and sometimes that is justified and should not be criticized (although sometimes if should be). Mark Twain once said something like “Be faithful to your country always, and to your government when it deserves it.”

In general, physics is a search for truth. The same is true for other sciences. Politics is a search for votes and power. Trust physics.

Spread the truth, and please don’t forward on emails with absurd claims, conspiracy theories or any of a host of other claims by people who know naught of which they speak.
(As clarification, the transformation of energy in a nuclear (fusion) bomb and in the Sun is not 100 conversion of all matter involved into energy. In fact it is on the order of 1 to 2 percent. The only process that we know of that reliably converts 100 percent of mass into energy is a matter-antimatter interaction — and yes, that is what they talk about in Star Trek and in fact has been demonstrated many times on a very small scale.)

Special thanks to the Dr. David Morrison and the Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards (NASA) website.

Red Skies and volcanoes

Published August 31st, 2008 in Climate, Earth, atmospheric events and environment. 0 Comments

There are signs and wonders in the heavens, although they may not always be what you first think. There is an old story of a Roman Emperor — Nero if I am not wrong — while lounging in his villa south of Rome — saw the northern sky awash with swirling red lights. Thinking that the City was afire, he sent his men to help put out the flames. But as it turned out, what he saw was the Aurora Borealis.

It might not be so dramatic as Nero thought, but events thousands of miles away can affect our weather and our view of the sky. Spaceweather.com has just issued an alert for “volcanic sunsets”, the various colorations of the sky, especially around the setting sun, due to gas and ashes erupted from the Kasatochi volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian islands.

The particles are of the right size to scatter sunlight of certain wavelengths, effectively acting as a filter to change the Sun’s apparently “monochromatic” light into a wide variety of hues. I put “monochromatic”, meaning one color, in quotation marks because our view of sunlight as white is merely an ironic illusion. While the sun’s light normally appears to us as a warm white, maybe slightly yellow, it’s light is really a mixture of all the colors of a rainbow. In fact a rainbow is sunlight spread out into all the constituent colors.

However, dust, molecules of water, smoke and a wide variety of airborne particles — aerosols such as the dust and sulfur dioxide in the volcanic eruptions — can result in a multicolored sunset.

We are accustomed to the golden and red hues of sunset, the painted sunset skies that are common from my home in Denver, which are caused by dust and larger molecules in the air. But in relatively small concentrations, smoke can turn the sky a milky blue or brownish, and other particles such as are frequently found in volcanic eruptions can cause less common and often dramatic pinks and purples and other unsuspected tints.
Don’t confuse these atmospheric effects (if you are so privileged as to observe them) with other unusual sky colorations caused by notilucent clouds, the aurorae, or even the faint hazy glow of the zodiacal lights.

The specific eruption that has caused the sunset light shows recently was several weeks ago, and presumably its affects will taper off over the next few days or weeks, so be sure to enjoy the sunsets soon. Of course it could happen again at any time, and sunsets can be spectacular at any time. If you are lucky, you’ll see something rare and unforgettable. But even if you aren’t lucky you can enjoy the sunset anyway. It’s never a waste of time.
“When in evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: For the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather today; for the sky is red and lowering.” Matthew XVI: 2-3

Larry S.
I have to admit it. The photo above is not a volcanic sunset, bur rather an “ordinary” winter sunset as seen from Denver in December 2007. And I may have used it before, but hey, it’s my photo!

Keep on truckin’ with Perseus

Published August 7th, 2008 3 Comments

The Perseid Meteor shower is predicted to peak before dawn next Tuesday morning, August 12. Much has already been said about it, so I will just briefly recap the facts at the end of this blog, and refer you to some other sources.

But while you are out looking at the Perseids, consider the constellation for which it is named, Perseus. Frankly the ancients must have had remarkable imaginations (or else they were on drugs!). The typical depiction of this constellation is that of a muscular Greek youth holding the Medusa’s head in one hand and the sword with which he had cut it off in the other. (Similar to this statue from the Vatican museums on Wikipedia: Perseus.)

Yeah, right. I’m afraid that that interpretation is a bit much for me. The stars of Perseus just don’t fit as far as I see. However, as a child of the 50s and a teenager of the 60s, I can make other associations. Many of my age remember an old Grateful Dead song called “Truckin‘”. Indelibly associated in my memory with this song is a cartoon character, that I remember simply as the “Keep on truckin” guy. Due to copyright concerns I won’t post the picture here, but you can see it on this Sony Pictures Classics page as the “keep on truckin” dude. This is how I see Perseus, although the starry version is a mirror (left-to-right) reversal of this comic interpretation. In my imagination, the star Gamma Persei (gamma) is the head, Algol or Beta (beta) Persei is the rear (left) foot, and Zeta Persei (zeta) is the tip of that big outstretched foot.

OK, so the 60s were good to me. But I can go back further, to a cartoon that made its debut in the 1930s called the “Little King.” If you are as old as I am (Lord help you), you will remember this comic that ran until the mid 70s. I can imagine Perseus as the Little King, with Gamma Persei as the tip of the kings oddly conical crown, and both Zeta Persei and Algol marking the bottom of his oddly skirt-like robe. (No, I really am not drunk!)

Of course you can view this constellation and all constellations by whatever visual associations work for you, but if you are of my generation, perhaps these mental images will help you identify Perseus in the sky.

SPECIFICS OF THE PERSEID SHOWER: It is difficult and maybe a bit misleading to predict an exact moment of the peak of the shower. However, a good guess is that the best time will be about 7 a.m. (a little late) EDT, 6 a.m. CDT, 5 a.m. MDT and 4 a.m. PDT (best bet). Keep in mind that meteor showers are spread out a bit, and in the absence of a Moon to interfere (it goes down on this morning at very roughly 2 a.m. in North America, depending on your location), several hours before predicted peak could be good, too. Wherever you are in North America, Perseus is rising in the northeast at about 9 p.m., and is highest shortly before dawn. Basically, the best time to look for the meteors (from as dark a place as you can find) is between about 2 a.m. and sunrise, local time. Look generally to the northeast, although the meteors actually can appear to radiate toward any part of the sky. If you are familiar with the Big Dipper (Ursa Major), a line drawn from Megrez (Gamma, the rear bottom of the cup of the dipper) through Dubhe (Alpha, or the front upper star of the cup) very roughly 6 times the distance between them, leads to Perseus.

Good luck, and keep on truckin.

For more information on the Perseid Meteors, see Perseid meteors before dawn August 12 and 13 on Earth & Sky.

Where are you?

Published June 25th, 2008 4 Comments

In this day of Global Positioning Systems, computers and the Internet, it has never been so easy to know your exact position on the planet, down to a few feet. Such precision is rarely necessary for real life, except perhaps for those folks who has lost the ability to read a map, or who don’t have the energy to call ahead and ask for directions.

But knowing your precise geographical coordinates can be useful, especially in astronomy. If, for instance, you want to look for Iridium satellites, or you are timing occultations of stars and planets by the moon, knowing your precise location is essential.

Unfortunately, not all of us have handheld GPS devices or such electronics built into our cell phones or cars. Almost everyone has a computer, though, and while you might not be able to carry it on a long trip or always be able to find a Wifi “hotspot,” there are plenty of ways online to pinpoint your exact position.

First and foremost there are GoogleMaps and Google Earth. Generally speaking, it’s enough just to type your address in and Google Earth will give you the coordinates, but there’s just a little more to do when you are using GoogleMaps:

Go to GoogleMaps (maps.google.com) and enter your address. Wait for the map of your location to show, then hit “Link to this page” and copy out the URL from the address bar. The geographic coordinates of the location will be embedded in the URL.

Here is an example with the coordinates for the new Community College of Aurora (CCA) Observatory:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=39.717381,-104.80412 … (extraneous
material in the URL removed.)

The observatory coordinates are 39.717381 North Latitude and 104.80412 West Longitude. (North latitude is positive, although the “+” sign normally is left out, and west longitude is negative.) These are in decimal degrees. Note that some webpages and other resources, including iTouchMap.com below, will give coordinates with many more decimal places. However, as far as non-military GPS and online map tools go, 5 decimal places is about the limit of reason.

The CCA observatory is on the CentreTech Campus of the Community College of Aurora in Aurora, Colorado, and is so new that at the time of this writing it has not yet been dedicated, and the Google image just shows a barren parcel of ground!

Here’s another site that uses Google Maps and lets you zoom in on your location, as well as where to point your satelite dish: Satellite Signals.

If you use a Wifi enabled laptop with Firefox and Windows XP or later, Loki great piece of free software that turns your computer into a “virtual GPS device.” Unfortunately it does not appear to work with Firefox 3.0, but there is a Mac version and one for Windows Mobile.

Thanks to Google, there are so many many other Firefox add-ons that it is bewildering. Another one I really like — and frankly use more often than Loki — is Mini Map Tabs. It works on all versions of Firefox. Just type in an address, or pan and zoom to a location on the map. The geographical coordinates of that location appear in the upper right corner of the map.

If you already are reasonably good with maps, go to EarthTools (www.earthtools.org). Pick your coutry (e.g. United States of America) in the box near the top of the left column, click on “Find Places,” and then enter your city (e.g., Austin, Texas). It will give you Austins all over the place (!), but Austin, Texas should be the first listed. It gives Austin’s coordinates as 33.7243°N 97.7344°W (5th and Congress). Recenter the image and zoom in, then find your street address on the resulting map. Double click on your location (on the map) to center it. The geographic coordinates are displayed in the left-hand menu page.

Note that the latitude and longitude are given in decimal degrees, rather than the traditional “minutes” and “seconds.” This is generally easier to deal with and useful in most situations. However, some applications may ask for the latitude and longitude in the degrees, minutes, seconds format.

And for the map geek in all of us, try iTouchMap.com, but don’t get carried away!

Finally, this is of course Earth & Sky, so we shouldn’t forget to mention Google Sky. Cool!

So, where are you?

Mars beckons, again

Published May 24th, 2008 3 Comments

If all goes well, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander will set down on the Martian surface near the planet’s North Pole at roughly 7:53 p.m. EDT on Sunday (tomorrow).

Two other missions, the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, are alive and well — far past their designed lifetimes — in widespread locations near the Martian Equator so the new lander will send back information from a completely different region of Mars. (Unlike the two rovers, the Phoenix Mars Lander is not a rover, but will stay in one location.) Several other American spacecraft, along with the European (ESA) Mars Express, are posed to assist tracking and provide communications assistance.

You can find links to live online coverage of the landing on the Jet Propulsion Lab and on the NASA TV website.

However, my experience is that these live video sites get really clobbered up during such important broadcasts, so you might have a hard time maintaining a connection. But you can still join in by taking a look at Mars yourself. No telescope on Earth or even the Hubble Space Telescope will be able to see any of the spacecraft at Mars, but the planet itself is still well placed to see from your backyard, weather permitting. Go out about an hour after sunset (about the time it gets good and dark) and face west. Look high overhead and slightly to the left and you will see two bright “stars” close together. They will be just a bit farther apart than the width of two fingers held at arm’s length. The brighter one, Saturn, is to the upper left of the star Regulus. Now, hold out your left hand, at arm’s length, in front of you with palm toward you. Spread your fingers as wide as they will go. Place your thumb on the Saturn-Regulus pair, and point your little finger to the lower right. Mars should be in the general vicinity of the tip of your little finger. I can’t be terribly precise, but Mars is somewhere around 4 o’clock relative to the Saturn-Regulus pair.

Barring any unforeseen problems, the first images likely will be released to the media and Internet by about 10:30 or 11 p.m. EDT.

Mars Phoenix Lander is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in cooperation with several other agencies. All missions currently at Mars are managed by JPL for NASA. For details on the missions, timelines and other information, please see the Jet Propulsion Laboratory homepage.

I should also mention that I am a NASA/JPL “Solar System Ambassador” (SSA’s), of which there are nearly 500 in the U.S. The SSA force consists of volunteer educators who present public programs about JPL missions to groups at museums, nature centers, libraries, parks and other venues. You can find out more about the program, and how to contact an SSA near you, at the Solar System Ambassador program homepage.

The Solar System Ambassadors Program focuses on public or group events. For information about activities intended primarily for schools, please see the JPL Education Gateway and the NASA Education homepage.

Larry S.

If Daylight Saving Time wasn’t bad enough…

Published April 21st, 2008 in Bizarre, Earth, Human World and Science. 9 Comments

There is so much controversy over Daylight Saving Time — who benefits?, does it really save energy?, is it worth the hassle? – that maybe we should dump it altogether in favor of “Mecca Time.” At least that is what some Muslim scientists meeting in Qatar have called for — nothing less than the worldwide adoption of Mecca Time over Greenwich Mean Time, according to a report in the BBC. Science, they claim, has “proven” that the Saudi city of Mecca, ground zero for Moslem pilgrimages, is the “center of the world.” One Arabic scientist says that this is so because Mecca is in “perfect alignment” with magnetic North, whatever that means.

Changing to Mecca time, he claims, will help clear up time discrepancies between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, make the blood and circulatory systems work better, and apparently heal the aged and infirm. The mechanism is some vague, undocumented and frankly absurd negative properties attributed to the Earth’s magnetic field. Even if this were true, its relation to our time keeping system would be unknown and probably non-existent.

As best I can tell, Mecca has a magnetic declination of several degrees East, although it appears to be near the magnetic equator. But even if it were exactly on the magnetic equator and the “magnetic prime meridian,” so to speak, so what? Time is an arbitrarily defined concept to begin with, so it makes no real difference if we define it based on the meridian of London, Tokyo, Sydney or Mecca. But since it already is defined based on Greenwich time (or one of the many associated systems), what possible value — scientific or practical — would we gain by changing it?

It would make about as much sense as renaming the Moon for Groucho Marx. “Oh, look! There’s a full Groucho out tonight.” Or can you imagine a romantic walk in the Groucho-light? A Moon by any other name would be as bright, but what sense does it make to change it?

Changing the time zones to coincide with “Mecca Time” makes about as much sense as… well, Daylight Saving Time.

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