Planet X? No, that idea can be crossed off the list then
18 March 2014
For a long time astronomers believed, or hoped, there was a Jupiter, or Saturn, size planet lurking out in the distant reaches of the solar system. The presence of such a body, commonly referred to as “Planet X”, they thought, might account for the odd orbital paths of some of the other outer planets, dwarf planets, and various other Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO).
But no, a NASA backed mission, that has spent just over a year scanning the sky, did not find any evidence of a such planet:
This news comes from a paper analyzing observations by WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, a scrappy little mission that spent 13 months mapping the entire sky in infrared wavelengths. This is where warm objects are bright, things like dinky stars, asteroids, galactic dust, and more. WISE was very sensitive and was able to see objects that were pretty faint. For example, it found tens of thousands of previously undiscovered asteroids, some of which get pretty near the Earth. These glow in the infrared, heated by the Sun. What it didn’t discover, though, was another giant planet in our solar system. And it’s pretty definitive: It would’ve seen a planet the size of Saturn out to a distance of 1.5 trillion kilometers, more than a tenth of a light year! A planet the size of Jupiter would’ve been seen out to twice that far.
I imagine it’s possible there are other, much smaller planets, or dwarf planets, yet to be detected, out in the solar system’s far reaches though.
Originally published Tuesday 18 March 2014, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
RELATED CONTENT
A map of the solar system for your own grand tour of the planets
4 February 2014
Back in the 1960’s the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a US space agency, was keen to organise a “Grand Tour” of the solar system’s outer planets, by taking advantage of a planetary alignment that would occur in the late 1970’s. They hoped to send up to four automated probes to take a closer look at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
Funding cuts thwarted the idea, though NASA deep space probe Voyager 2, launched in 1977, was able to fly by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
There won’t be another such alignment of the outer planets until well into the twenty-second century. But thanks to Pasadena based designer and illustrator Paul Rogers, who has created a map of the solar system for tourists, you may be able to plan your own jaunt about the planets in the meantime.
Originally published Tuesday 4 February 2014, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
RELATED CONTENT
astronomy, design, illustration, legacy, science
Not every moon is a moon, most are captured objects
9 January 2014
Here’s a 2010 photo, taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe, of Phobos, one of two… moons orbiting Mars. But that’s not a moon. And nor is Deimos, Mars’ second so-called moon. In reality they’re merely random rocks captured by the Red Planet at some point in the past.
Take a look at Earth’s moon. The Moon. It’s elegant, sizeable, and spherical. The same cannot be said of the rocks orbiting Mars, a couple of unfortunate asteroids that once strayed a tad too close to the fourth planet. Most of the outer planets of the solar system have moons similar in stature to Earth’s satellite, but they also host a bunch of minuscule, oddly shaped rocks, called moons simply because they orbit the planet in question.
It makes me think it is time to consider what really constitutes a moon. If Pluto can no longer be regarded as a planet, why then must every last rock that has been pulled into orbit by a planet, be called a moon? Surely such bodies should adhere — like planets, real planets — to some sort of criteria before being called a moon.
Being pretty much spherical, and of a certain size and mass, could form basic benchmarks, and anything under a certain size should be referred to as a captured object rather than a moon. Sorry Mars, but both your orbiting companions, Phobos and Deimos, are captured objects, not moons.
Originally published on Thursday 9 January 2014.
RELATED CONTENT
astronomy, legacy, Mars, Pluto, science
I doubt that our lives are merely the sums of our possessions
12 December 2013
This piece I read on Kottke last week had me wondering about the way we… measure someone’s achievements, success, or net worth, upon their death. In October US comedian and author David Sedaris wrote about the suicide of his youngest sister, Tiffany, earlier this year. Judging from her will, Tiffany appeared to have become estranged, to some degree, from her family, but it was Sedaris’ reference to his late sister’s possessions, or lack thereof, that caught my eye:
Compared with most forty-nine-year-olds, or even most forty-nine-month-olds, Tiffany didn’t have much. She did leave a will, though. In it, she decreed that we, her family, could not have her body or attend her memorial service. “So put that in your pipe and smoke it,” our mother would have said. A few days after getting the news, my sister Amy drove to Somerville with a friend and collected two boxes of things from Tiffany’s room: family photographs, many of which had been ripped into pieces, comment cards from a neighborhood grocery store, notebooks, receipts.
In response, Michael Knoblach, a friend of Tiffany’s, chastised Sedaris in an article he wrote for the Wicked Local Somerville. Among other points, Knoblach wished to make clear that Tiffany’s estate amounted to more than just two boxes of belongings:
I found David Sedaris’ article, “Now we are five,” in the Oct. 28 New Yorker to be obviously self-serving, often grossly inaccurate, almost completely unresearched and, at times, outright callous. Some of her family had been more than decent, loving and kind to her. “Two lousy boxes” is not Tiffany’s legacy. After her sister left with that meager lot, her house was still full of treasures. More than two vanloads of possession were pulled from there and other locations by friends.
Tiffany may have been troubled, but it is clear her life had value far beyond her possessions, regardless of their quantity.
Originally published Thursday 12 December 2013
RELATED CONTENT
Alone Time, a short film by Rod Blackhurst, with Rose Hemingway
27 September 2013
It looked like the perfect weekend away, camping in the wilderness, far from the stresses of the city and career. Until the twist at the end. That’s Alone Time, a short film by American filmmaker Rod Blackhurst, starring Rose Hemingway as Ann.
Based on actual such events by the way, but don’t read about it until you’ve watched the video.
(Thanks Sarah)
Originally published Friday 27 September 2013, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
RELATED CONTENT
film, legacy, Rod Blackhurst, Rose Hemingway
Once an accident, twice a coincidence, or is it just stuff happening?
27 August 2013
Chance encounters, strokes of luck, the turn of a friendly card… Are these sorts of happenings, like say bumping into someone you haven’t seen, or heard of, in a decade in a country you’re visiting for the first time, really the long shots they seem to be?
An analysis then of chance, probability, and coincidence, such that it actually is:
The simple question might be “why do such unlikely coincidences occur in our lives?” But the real question is how to define the unlikely. You know that a situation is uncommon just from experience. But even the concept of “uncommon” assumes that like events in the category are common. How do we identify the other events to which we can compare this coincidence? If you can identify other events as likely, then you can calculate the mathematical probability of this particular event as exceptional.
Originally published Tuesday 27 August 2013, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
RELATED CONTENT
A guide to making a career out of looking busy in a job that is not a job
1 August 2013
Doing nothing is hard work. Constantly maintaining the pretence of looking busy is a full time job in itself, and for one American worker has virtually become a career.
Nine years later, someone calling himself the “forgotten employee”, still occupies, and is paid for, a role his employer apparently abolished very early into his tenure with the company.
So I arrived, acquired a large office in a remote corner of said facility, and continued with my march towards greatness. Then, something strange and wonderful happened. In outlook, an EMail appeared with my name in the “Courtesy Copy” field. Apparently, a new Vice President had decided to delegate the responsibilities that once were mine to another department. Immediately frightened for my job and my well being, I was tempted to scream out —yet, thankfully, I remained silent. I continued to come into the office on time every day, picked up the random pieces of my old job that were left scattered in the transition, and waited for the word. That, my friends, was 4 months ago to the day. After 30 days, I became convinced that I was a forgotten, non digestible entity in the corporate stomach. No man ever comes over to ask me for anything — although I am but a Manager, and Directors roam the hallways like rabid hyenas, I am much too senior to all of them for them to attempt an attack. Every once in a while, the phone will ring, and an old acquaintance will ask for help solving a problem — I gladly comply. Sometimes, I let the phone ring… but the voicemail light never comes on. They move on to the next target, under the false assumption that I am much too busy to be bothered.
I don’t know if this is for real, though I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it were, but there has to be a screenplay in it. The more you read, the better it gets.
(Some language possibly NSFW.)
Originally published Thursday 1 August 2013, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
RELATED CONTENT
Give up and ghost the host, leave a party without saying bye
10 July 2013
When it comes time to leave a social gathering, sometimes people simply drift out the door without saying a word. It’s bad form for sure, but dispensing with what feels like contrived pre-departure small talk, might make for a more graceful exit. It turns out though the practice is quite widespread. So much so, it has been given a name, and has become known as “ghosting”:
Goodbyes are, by their very nature, at least a mild bummer. They represent the waning of an evening or event. By the time we get to them, we’re often tired, drunk or both. The short-timer just wants to go home to bed, while the night owl would prefer not to acknowledge the growing lateness of the hour. These sorts of goodbyes inevitably devolve into awkward small talk that lasts too long and then peters out. We vow vaguely to meet again, then linger for a moment, thinking of something else we might say before the whole exchange fizzles and we shuffle apart. Repeat this several times, at a social outing delightfully filled with your acquaintances, and it starts to sap a not inconsiderable portion of that delight.
Context is everything of course. We’re talking large events here, not small, intimate, dinner parties. That said, how many people here have first hand experience of this? Of ghosting? Yep, as suspected… I see more than a few of you nodding your heads.
Originally published Wednesday 10 July 2013.
RELATED CONTENT
The Alcubierre Drive, a means of faster than light speed travel?
6 June 2013
Could NASA be developing a means of moving through space at speeds greater than light? Apparently so. The trick though to travel at speeds faster than light is to generate a space, rather than a craft, that exceeds light speed, and then slot a vessel into that space.
It’d be as if you were going down a water slide, or something, where the water is moving you, and you’re just along for the ride.
Traveling faster than light has always been attributed to science fiction, but that all changed when Harold White and his team at NASA started to work on and tweak the Alcubierre Drive. Special relativity may hold true, but to travel faster or at the speed of light we might not need a craft that can travel at that speed. The solution might be to place a craft within a space that is moving faster than the speed of light! Therefore the craft itself does not have to travel at the speed of light from it\’s own type of propulsion system.
Intriguing, if nothing else.
Originally published Thursday 6 June 2013, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
RELATED CONTENT
Trailer for Before Midnight, by Richard Linklater, with Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
9 April 2013
Richard Linklater, director of Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly, and Bernie, collaborates once more with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke to make Before Midnight, the third title in the Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, series of films.
No word of an Australian release as yet (I heard 13 June whispered as a suggestion), but in the meantime check out the trailer. I can’t say what piqued my interest in these films since first seeing them on DVD eight or nine years ago. Eurorail maybe? Peneda-Gerês? County Bondi?
It looks like he missed the flight…
Originally published Tuesday 9 April 2013.
RELATED CONTENT
Ethan Hawke, film, Julie Delpy, legacy, Richard Linklater, video