This Blog's History: Doctor Who and Black Holes

In case you missed it the first time, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on some bad black hole science in an episode of modern Doctor Who.  I love Doctor Who, but certainly don't watch it to learn the science of black holes!

Doctor Who and Black Holes

Old Capitol Museum - Iowa City, IA

Over this past Labor Day break, one of my work colleagues and I took a weekend trip to Iowa City, IA to attend an Iowa Hawkeyes football game.  I attended undergraduate school here many years ago and this was my first visit back in over 15 years.  We had a fantastic time at the game, made even better by Iowa beating Wyoming 24-3.

I always found this stadium very impressive so it was great to come back for a game.  After the game we took a tour around campus.  I was curious to see what had changed.  Several new buildings since 15 years ago and many new restaurants and pubs.  We took a look at the Old Capitol building and took a tour of the museum inside.  The Old Capitol building was built in 1840 and served as the location of Iowa's first capitol.  The capitol was later moved to its current location, Des Moines, in 1857.  The museum is a great piece of history and it was fun looking around and seeing the original state house and senate chambers.  Very impressive!  The building is not large, so it doesn't take long to tour, but definitely stop by if you find yourself in the area.  The museum is free to tour too!  

This was a kid-less trip, but at some point I'd like to take my kids to Iowa City for a visit.  My oldest daughter is already 10, so who knows, in 6-7 years we may be taking a trip for a college visit!  Yikes!  College already?!?!  Wow!  

Upcoming Lunar Eclipses

I've spoken quite a bit on solar eclipses over the last several months.  With a total solar eclipse sweeping from the west coast to the east coast of the United States and sweeping relatively nearby to where I live, can you really blame me?  Of course I was going to talk about solar eclipses!  But what about lunar eclipses?  When and where are the upcoming lunar eclipses?

To start, a lunar eclipse is the opposite of a solar eclipse.  Where a solar eclipse is the Moon blocking sunlight from reaching Earth, a lunar eclipse is the Earth blocking sunlight from reaching the Moon.  Given the Earth is a much bigger object, the shadow Earth casts onto the Moon during a lunar eclipse is much larger.  Therefore, you do not need to be as localized on Earth to view a total lunar eclipse.  If you are basically on the side of Earth facing the Moon at the time of a total lunar eclipse, you will see the total lunar eclipse.  Although not as impressive, in my opinion, as total solar eclipses, total lunar eclipses are still a sight to see!

The next total lunar eclipse is January 31, 2018.  This eclipse is observable from most of Asia, Australia, Alaska, Hawaii, and maybe just a bit of the very western continental U.S., as shown in the map below.

The white areas in the map will see totality.  As you can see, about half of the world will see the eclipse and the other half will not.  Some parts will see a partial eclipse.   The next total lunar eclipse observable from the continental U.S. is the next year, on January 21, 2019.  On this day, the entire continental U.S. will see a total lunar eclipse.

Lunar eclipses, although not as impressive as a solar eclipse, are still impressive and the U.S. population has the opportunity to see a total lunar eclipse in less than two years!

Scotland - Loch Ness

When we visiting Urquhart Castle in Scotland we, of course, took in the views of Loch Ness.  With Urquhart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness, it's impossible not to take in the views.  Loch Ness is a hot tourist spot, so Urquhart Castle had several tour buses dropping off tourists every hour.  Thus it was quite packed with people.  Don't let that stop you from visiting the castle, however, as you'll miss out big time on a historic castle in ruins on a beautiful loch surrounded by mountains.

So let's talk about Loch Ness and the Loch Ness monster.  I will be blunt.  There is no ancient sea monster tens to hundreds of feet long living in the depths of Loch Ness.  There just isn't.  There's plenty of anecdotal evidence from people who saw something, but literally zero credible evidence of any kind supporting a sea monster.  Loch Ness is beautiful and you should visit for the views, but don't visit in hopes of seeing a sea monster.  You might see a floating branch or random pile of trash (Loch Ness shores were very clean), but you are not seeing a sea monster.

A day prior to visiting Loch Ness we had lunch at a restaurant in which the owner came over and asked us about our visit and what we were doing next.  A very friendly and polite conversation.  He then pulled out the local newspaper that had an article on the second sighting of Nessie in Loch Ness in 2017.  Um...no.  Just...no.  The picture in the paper was a picture of a blurry blob floating in the distant waters.  It could have been anything!  As far as I could tell it was an ink splotch on the paper!  Sigh.

There is so much REAL beauty in the world that one shouldn't waste one's life seeking the non-existent.  Marvel at Loch Ness for what it is, a body of water surrounded by the Scottish Highlands.  Don't marvel at a sea monster that no evidence supports even exists.

While touring the castle and loch, I did quite a bit of drastic pointing with a shocked look on my face.  My kids thought it was funny, but my wife told me to stop because some people were going to believe that I found Nessie.  LOL!

The Tipped House at Science Central

Last Friday I shared my family's experience visiting Science Central in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  A great museum that was a ton of fun!  I mentioned in Friday's post that on the lower floor of the museum is an exhibit of a house/room tipped at an angle.  My kids ran right in and started walking up the angled floor and running down the angled floor and basically jumping all over the place.  I decided to run in and join them.  Unfortunately I did not take any pictures, but picture the room you are in now and tip the whole thing to one side by 30 degrees.  This should give you a good visual of this exhibit.

What happened when I ran in?  Nothing for 30 seconds.  I didn't trip and fall.  I started angling my body forward and walking up the floor.  At about t = 31 seconds I suddenly became nauseous.  Yikes!  It was a blast of nausea that just came upon me.  I stepped out of the room, and good thing I did because a few more seconds and I really think I would have thrown up!  This room severely effected my inner balance!  These effects hung with me for several hours.  After a few minutes I was no longer nauseous, but I was a bit light headed several hours later.

What does this all mean?  Well, I think it boils down to one thing.  I'm getting old.  :-)

This Blog's History: Scotland - The Black Isle

In case you missed it the first time, today, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on our trip to Scotland's Black Isle.  Beautiful scenery and excellent dolphin watching spots.  For more of our experience and pictures, click the link to the original post below.

Scotland - Black Isle

Science Central - Fort Wayne, IN

I recently had the opportunity to visit Science Central in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  We went as a family, along with my 10 year old's Girl Scouts troop.  My youngest daughter visited here in the spring with her first grade class and my wife attended as a chaperone.  This was the first visit for my 10 year old and me.

Science Central is a very cool science museum.  It's not particularly large, but it doesn't need to be.  There are two floors of exhibits and most exhibits are setup to be hands on, which is great for science!  They allow kids (and adults) to mess around with different science concepts.  I was like a kid in a candy shop, running around with my kids, and putting my hands on every hands-on demo!  I even slid down the two story slide, just like all the other kids there!  Don't believe me?  Here's my leg warmers they made me wear for protection.

Yeah!  Looking good!  LOL!  There was also an excellent demo show put on by one of the employees on the topic of electricity.  My kids loved the demos in the show!   Overall a great museum with reasonable admission prices.  Plan on spending approximately 2 hours when you visit.  

One last thing.  There's a tipped/angled house on the lower floor that you can go into and walk around.  I'm not sure the angle.  Maybe 30 degrees or so?  I thought this looked really cool and ran right in behind my kids.  Um...not the best move on my part.  More on this in Monday's post.  I'm creating a level of suspense here.  :-)

Scotland - Urquhart Castle

The day after visiting Fort George, Dhu Dallas Distillery, and Elign Cathedral, we checked out of our rental house and began the third, and final leg, of our journey in Scotland.  We set out from Beauly, Scotland and headed toward Dunoon, Scotland.  On the way we stopped at Urquhart Castle.

Urquhart Castle is a castle in ruins, as you can see from the images above.  The tower has been restored and you can climb to the top for some breathtaking views of Loch Ness.  Although this castle is in ruins, it is just as impressive and interesting as more intact castles such as Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle.  All over the ruins there are signs with historical information describing what each area of the ruins is thought to be.  There's also a large gift shop and historical information area.  Its location on Loch Ness makes it a very popular tourist stop.  Many tour buses stopped here during our visit.

Urquhart Castle is one of the castles on the Historic Scotland list, so buy that Explorer's Pass and save money!

Loch Ness.  More on this in the next post.  If you are a reader of this blog, you can easily guess my feelings on a large sea creature that nobody ever sees living in the waters of the loch.  :-)

Upcoming Solar Eclipses

It's been almost a full month since the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017.  I saw this total eclipse in person!  Jealous?  You should be!  LOL!  Solar eclipses take place every couple of years, but you have to be in a very specific place on Earth to see totality.  So when and where are upcoming solar eclipses?  The image below shows future (and a few past) eclipses for the next two decades.

The next total solar eclipse is in about two years, in 2019.  Much of the path of totality cuts across oceans, but there is a stretch through southern South America.  The next total solar eclipse to cut across the U.S. is April 8, 2024.  I'm excited about this one as totality will last nearly 4 minutes and I currently live in the path of totality.  No traveling required for this one!  Unfortunately April is not a great month for clear skies for much of the U.S.  There's a much greater chance of cloudy skies in April than in August (this past eclipse).  There are, of course, sunny days in April, so fingers crossed.

Looking at the U.S. further into the future, we see the following map of eclipses.

The blue paths are total eclipses while the yellow paths are annular eclipses.  An annular eclipses takes place when the Moon moves in front of the Sun, but at a time when the Moon is a bit farther from the Earth.  Thus the Moon may move across the middle of the Sun, it isn't big enough to block the full disk of the sun.  

For total eclipses, there's another good eclipse coming in 2045 that will sweep from the west coast to the east coast.  It's also a bit wider with an even longer total eclipse length.  So there are still opportunities out there for you to view a total solar eclipse if you happened to miss the one in August 2017.

Cool Black Hole Video by Kurzgesagt

A couple of weeks ago I watched a very cool black hole video produced by Kurzgesagt and posted on YouTube.  I previously wrote about this science YouTube channel here.  It's an excellent channel that produces a new, animated science video every couple of weeks.  The particular video I'm referring to is on the topic of black holes.

Why Black Holes Could Delete The Universe – The Information Paradox

At a very basic level, a black hole is a massive object packed into a tiny space.  Because this mass is packed into a very small space, the gravitational force is extremely large.  It is so large, in fact, that the mass is squeezed to an infinitesimally small space.  There's a distance away from this infinitesimally small space in which nothing, not even light, can escape.  This distance is referred to as the Schwarzschild radius or event horizon.

The cool thing about this video is that it goes well beyond this basic definition and explains the weird role that black holes can potentially play in the universe.  Give it a watch because it is very interesting!  The animation nature of this (and all videos on this channel) adds to the coolness!

The End of Cassini

Four spacecraft have flown by or orbited Saturn.  The first was Pioneer 11 in 1979.  The Voyager 1 spacecraft flew by a year later and the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by a year after that, in 1981.  It was over two decades before another spacecraft visited Saturn.  In 1997, the Cassini spacecraft launched from Earth and reached Saturn in 2004.  Cassini was the first spacecraft placed in orbit about Saturn, giving astronomers their best chance yet to study Saturn and its moons in great detail.  At the time Cassini had a four year mission lifetime, but was extended twice.  Cassini was a VERY successful mission, but it comes to an end today when Cassini plummets into the atmosphere of Saturn.

Awesome image of Saturn's rings taken by Cassini.

Why must the Cassini mission come to an end?  Given Cassini's location, there is no way to re-fuel or fix any mechanical problems with the spacecraft.  NASA has made the decision to destroy the spacecraft in a controlled way while they still have the ability to do so.  The concern of doing nothing is the possibility of the spacecraft contaminating the pristine conditions (including water) on several of Saturn's moons.  Thus NASA has chosen to destroy the spacecraft in such a way to eliminate the possibility of contaminating the moons.

Cassini provided amazing views of Saturn and provided a great deal of information on Saturn's rings, storms, atmosphere, and moons.  Without Cassini we'd lack this very valuable information that tells us more about the planet and its moons as well as the Solar System as a whole.  Today this mission ends.  Farewell, Cassini!

This Blog's History: We Saw a Total Solar Eclipse!!!

In case you missed it last time, WE SAW A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE!  It was AMAZING!  For my full description of our experience, take the link below to the original post.

We Saw a Total Solar Eclipse!!!

Scotland - Elgin Cathedral

After visiting Fort George and the Dallas Dhu Distillery, we found ourselves with just enough time to visit the Elgin Cathedral before it closed for the day.  This cathedral is another historic site on the Explorer's Pass list of sites to visit.  Again, this pass is a great opportunity to save money!

I'm am not a religious person by any means, so the thought of visiting a cathedral is usually not at the top of my list.  However, we had time and were close to this historic cathedral and I must admit it was quite interesting to view.  This is not an intact cathedral as you can see in our images below.  It has a very historic, castle type of appearance.  The two towers have been maintained and you can walk to the top of one and get an amazing view of the town!

After the cathedral doors closed, we took the opportunity to find a couple of geocaches in the area.  Anytime we travel to a new state or new country we've never visited before, we make sure to find a geocache or two to knock if off the to-do list.  

Got Science Podcast

The Got Science podcast is another excellent science themed podcast to add to your podcast list.  This podcast is produced by the wonderful people at the Union of Concerned Scientists, of which I'm a member.  This is a great organization that encourages strong science in politics and fights members of Congress who choose partisan politics over strong science.

This is a relatively new podcast, having just released their 12th episode at the time of this writing.  Thus far they've had episodes on the topic of rising sea levels, rocket forensics, and renewable energy.  It's a great new podcast that I enjoy, and one that I think you'll enjoy as well.

Got Science Podcast

The Emoji Movie

A few weeks ago I took the kids to see the Emoji movie despite having heard the reviews were horrible.  The movie has a whopping score of 8% on Rotten Tomatoes.  LOL!  I'm not sure the movie is really that bad.  It has it's moments and has a bit of good humor, but it's certainly not the greatest movie in the world.

My kids enjoyed it, I'll give it that!  My 7 year old loved the scenes with the poop emoji.  LOL! If I were you, I'd save this one until it comes out on Netflix or on Redbox.  If the movie still in the theater, go on a Sunday morning or a matinee when prices are cheaper.  It's not worth evening prices to go see.  

This Blog's History: Arthur's Seat

In case you missed it the first time, let me point you back to the post I wrote describing our experiences climbing Arthur's Seat in Scotland.  If you enjoy hiking, this is a great place to visit and the hike includes some breath-taking views of Edinburgh and the surrounding area.

Scotland - Arthur's Seat

Scotland - Dallas Dhu Distillery

After visiting Fort George and grabbing a bite to eat (okay, I had a full Scottish breakfast so it was a bit more than a bite!) we drove a bit further east and visited the Dallas Dhu Distillery.  Although this is not a castle, it is one of the historic sites included in the Explorer's Pass.  In other words, free to visit if you purchase the pass ahead of time.  A great money saver!

Dallas Dhu is an historic distillery that produced single malt scotch whiskey for nearly 100 years, ending in 1983.  Since this is not an active distillery, you can take a tour and get right next to the equipment used to make scotch whiskey.  This was a very interesting tour that provided a ton of information on the scotch whiskey making process.  At the end of the tour there's the opportunity for a free scotch whiskey tasting.  You get to taste a scotch whiskey, that although is not produced at this distillery, is only sold at this distillery.  You cannot purchase it anywhere else in the world.  Naturally I purchased a bottle.  :-)

If you're travelling through this part of Scotland and are interesting in the scotch whiskey making experience, the Dallas Dhu Distillery is a must-see!

Scotland - Fort George

On our second full day in the Inverness area in Scotland, we took a tour east of Inverness and visited a few attractions.  The first place we visited was Fort George, an active military base with a strong history.

It was very interesting visiting an active military base that has an historical castle-like look to it.  Some areas are off limits, but you are able to enter many other areas and tour around.  While touring, you see active military personnel walking around.  Off in the distance we could hear what sounded like a series of shooting drills.  If you visit Fort George, I highly recommend picking up the free audio headphones.  There are several spots inside the fort programmed into the audio devices and you get a much greater in-depth explanation of Fort George.

Fort George is also a great location for viewing dolphins, although we didn't see any.  Boo!

Nice views, but no dolphins.  Hopefully you'll have better luck when you visit!