This Blog's History: Get Your Flu Shot!

Every fall I write a post on the importance of getting your flu shot. This year was no different. Here's that post, for This Friday in This Blog's History. It's now the end of November, but it's never too late to get your flu shot. Some protection is always better than no protection.

Get Your Flu Shot!

The End of Dawn

One day after the ending of the Kepler spacecraft mission, the Dawn spacecraft mission came to an end on October 31st when it ran out of fuel.

Animation of the Dawn spacecraft - NASA.

The Dawn spacecraft had a very different mission than Kepler. Kepler identified exoplanets in other solar systems while Dawn spent time closely studying asteroids in our solar system. Dawn took a very close look at Vesta and Ceres in the asteroid belt.

Vesta as viewed by the Dawn spacecraft - NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Super cool! All good missions must come to an end, but that just makes room for new missions to discover new things in the Universe!

Mars InSight Lands!!!

If you've been paying attention to astronomy news over the last 48 hours, you can't have possibly missed the successful landing of the Mars InSight lander on the surface of Mars! Although NASA has had much success landing spacecraft on Mars in recent years, historically about half of missions to Mars have failed. So despite the recent successes, there were a lot of nervous scientists, engineers, and science lovers this past Monday, November 26.

On Monday, November 26 @ approximately 2:55 PM EST, the InSight lander sent back a signal after successfully landing on Mars. Woohoo! Shortly after it sent back its first image.

Surface image of Mars - NASA/JPL-Caltech

The above image may not look great, but this is the first image sent back and there is a dust cover with dust from the landing. This will be cleared in future images and soon InSight will be sending back amazing pictures of the Martian surface.

Imaging is not the primary goal of this mission, however. This will be the first Mars mission to study the interior of the planet. InSight has a drill that will dig 16 feet deep into the Martian soil, providing astronomers with data they have never before had! Stay tuned to this lander as results come in. You can keep up to date by following NASA's page on InSight and by following Insight on Twitter.

MARS InSight Mission Skip Navigation

InSight on Twitter

What Is #4: A Moon?

Today's post in this What Is series focuses on a moon. Not THE Moon. THE Moon is the moon that orbits the Earth. Here I'm focusing on the general definition of any moon. We know a planet must orbit the Sun, be spherical in shape, and cleared its area of debris, but what does it take to be a moon?

The two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, taken by NASA/JPL/USGS

Shown above are the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. A moon is any natural object orbiting a planet, dwarf planet, or even asteroids. Basically if the object orbits something other than the Sun, it is a moon. Earth has one moon, Mars has two moons, and Jupiter has 67 moons (as of 2018), for example. Some moons are very large and spherical in shape. This includes our Moon and the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, among others. Most moons are much smaller and look more similar to Phobos and Deimos. Most moons are just a few miles in size and are more irregular or lumpy in shape.

Artificial satellites we put in place to orbit Earth or other planets are not moons. To be a moon, the object must be natural.

So there you go. Moons are natural objects that orbit other objects in the solar system. What about moons in other solar systems? They are called exomoons because they orbit exoplanets. :-)

Legends of Tomorrow (TV Series)

In addition to The Flash and Supergirl, another great comic book TV series on the CW channel is Legends of Tomorrow.

Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow is now in its fourth season on the CW channel and I've been watching since the premier episode of the first season. It's a great series with a group of unsung superheroes fighting the bad guys and traveling through time. This show had me at 'traveling through time.' LOL! The heroes are your lesser known heroes that often cause the very problems they end of solving, but that's the fun with this series. These superheroes are not perfect, so it's easier to connect to them than it might be for the superheroes who can do no wrong. 

So like The Flash and Supergirl, I recommend Legends of Tomorrow. Typically once per season there is a set of cross over episodes with a long, cross show story arc that includes The Flash, Supergirl, and Green Arrow, another superhero show on the CW.

This Blog's History: The Forbidden Treasure of Miftenmaid

For This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on a very cool dice game we found at the Indiana Renaissance Fair. The game is a mix of Yahtzee and Dungeons and Dragons and is called The Forbidden Treasure of Miftenmaid. It's easy to learn and my kids have had a great time playing it. If you need a new family game, this is a good one.

The Forbidden Treasure of Miftenmaid

What Is #3: A Galaxy

Today's What Is series topic is a galaxy. What is a galaxy? I previously discussed a star, and a galaxy is a collection of up to a trillion stars that are gravitationally bound together and also often include a large collection of gas and dust. Galaxies vary in shape and size. There are spiral galaxies, of which the Milky Way Galaxy (our galaxy) is one. There are elliptical galaxies that contain less gas and dust and more older stars. There are also irregular galaxies that are typically smaller in size and are, as the name suggests, irregularly shaped.

The Whirlpool Galaxy taken by NASA and the European Space Agency

The Whirlpool Galaxy, shown above, is a great example of a spiral galaxy with arms spiraling around in a circular shape. Smaller galaxies can contain a few hundred million stars and larger galaxies can contain up to a trillion stars. The Milky Way Galaxy is estimated to have 200-400 billion stars. There are also galaxies possibly made entirely, or mostly, of dark matter with few, if any stars. These are a still a bit unknown at this time, but there is some evidence they exist. 

There is much going on in a galaxy that will eventually be covered in this What Is series, but I'll keep today's post simple. A galaxy is a collection of gas and dust, with a few hundred million to a trillion stars. The gas and dust can collect together to make new stars. Galaxies with less gas and dust are done making stars or suggest stellar formation is coming to an end soon.

With billions of estimated galaxies in the Universe and billions of stars in each galaxy, there are billions and billions of solar systems potentially harboring life. Somewhere out there I have to think there must be other intelligent life.

Halloween Cake

Just before Halloween, my oldest daughter attended a Girl Scout event to raise money for Girl Scouts. To raise money, each Girl Scout had to make a Halloween themed cake to be auctioned off. Here's my daughter's cake:

My daughter's cake showing tentacles and eyeballs in a witch's cauldron!

I thought this was very creative and blows away anything I could make! The tentacles and eyeballs in the soupy mix of a witch's cauldron is just great! It auctioned off for $5, so now I'm getting on my proud dad soapbox to say, what the heck?!?!?! $5!!! This cake is worth $5,000 at a minimum! LOL! The highest selling cake went for $15. Granted, this cake was pretty cool too, but cooler than the above. No way! Dad getting off his soap box now. :-)

Underdogs

A couple of weekends ago while my wife and oldest daughter were at a Girl Scouts event, my youngest daughter and I went to the local public library in search for a movie to watch to occupy our evening time. She chose Underdogs.

Underdogs

Underdogs is a fun family movie with a great message. It starts out with a dad talking to his son at bedtime who is frustrated with not scoring any goals on his soccer team and wants to quit. The dad shares a story of when he was young. It's a story of a powerful, yet arrogant, soccer player who tries to destroy a town. To stop the town from being destroyed, the professional soccer player and his team of other professionals is challenged to a game of soccer against a rag tag team of players from the town. Thus the title Underdogs. There's a bit of magic with foosball players coming to life and helping out. 

The movie sends a great message about never giving up even when things seem impossible. What is different from most underdog movies, however, is the ending is not quite as you'd expect and that makes the underdog message even more powerful. I won't give it away, so go check out this movie and watch it with your kids. A good movie with a great message!

What Is #2: A Planet

For the first post of this new 'What Is' series, I explained what makes a star a star. It only seems fitting today, for the second post in this series to define a planet. Most of us are familiar with the concept of a planet, but I'm guessing most people don't know much more than a planet is a large object orbiting the Sun. And yes, that describes a planet, but there's more to a planet than being a large body that orbits the Sun. For starters, what is meant by large body and secondly, what is meant by orbiting the Sun?

Mars taken by the Rosetta spacecraft. ESA - European Space Agency & Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research for OSIRIS Team 

If you were born before 2006, but after 1930, you grew up knowing Pluto as the ninth planet in the Solar System. But Pluto was always a bit odd with some characteristics markedly different from the other planets. The orbit was more inclined and more elliptical than the other planets and it was the smallest planet. If you were born before 1930, Pluto was yet to be discovered. If you were born after 2006, Pluto was already moved from the planet category, to a new category defined by the International Astronomical Union, dwarf planets. So what makes a planet a planet? There are three criteria.

1. A planet directly orbits the Sun. Earth's Moon indirectly orbits the Sun. This means that it does move around the Sun, but only as it orbits Earth. The Moon directly orbits Earth. Therefore the Moon fails this criteria. Pluto, however, satisfies this requirement. Pluto directly orbits the Sun.

2. A planet must be large enough, with enough gravity, to be spherical in shape. Objects that are small do not have enough gravity to form into a sphere. They tend to be randomly shaped based on how the material came together as they formed. Pluto, despite being the smallest planet before 2006, was large enough to be a sphere. There are several non-planetary objects in the solar system that are spherical in shape.

3. A planet must have cleared its area of neighboring debris. This is where Ceres, a very large, spherical asteroid in the asteroid belt fails as a planet. Ceres has not cleared the asteroid belt of debris and is therefore a dwarf planet. Objects that satisfy the first two requirements but fail this third requirement are called dwarf planets. Pluto has not cleared its area of debris. Astronomers have discovered many objects near the orbit of Pluto that Pluto has not cleared. In fact, it was the discovery of these objects that led astronomers to re-think the definition of a planet.

So there you have it. A planet is a large object that orbits the Sun, but it must directly orbit the Sun, be large enough to be a sphere, and be large enough to clear its area of debris. In our solar system, only eight objects satisfy these requirements: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

This Blog's History: Cool Science Demonstrations

Since it is impossible to have too many science demonstrations on your list, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to a recent post in which I shared a great website listing 50 different science demonstrations you can do with your kids. Check it out and get some ideas. Great for a rainy day or a day that is too hot/cold to spend much time outside.

Cool Science Demonstrations for Kids

Water Boil Order

The town I live in recently had a main water line break. Although our house was never cut off from water, the town did put all residents on a water boil order as a precaution. The water boil order lasted about 5 days before the line was repaired and the water tested and cleared. The purpose of a water boil order is to inform all residents they need to boil any water for consumption for about a minute in order to kill off various bacteria and viruses that may have contaminated the water supply. This is the first time I have ever been in under a water boil order. I grew up in the country so we were always on a well. Our first house as an adult, where I lived for twelve years, was also on a well. Aside from scattered apartments in college, I've only lived in a house with city water for the last five months.

The water boil order was annoying, but also a first world problem that helps put easy access to water in perspective. Throughout much of the world people do not have easy access to water and in many cases, access to clean water is hard to come by. This will only increase in the future as climate change increases droughts throughout the world, further decreasing clean water supplies in many locations. I'm fortunate where I live that water supplies are readily available and aside from the occasional water boil order, I never have to worry about clean water.

According to PCI Global, between 600-700 million people lack access to clean water and 2.4 billion people lack access to improved sanitation facilities (toilets). This is over 30% of the world's total population, which is incredible when you think of all the technological advances. 30%!!!! We in the U.S. are very fortunate and need to keep this in mind every time we complain about minor disruptions in our water supply.

What Is #1: A Star

I started this blog over six years ago and in this time it has changed and evolved as would be expected. One of the new changes I've been thinking about for awhile and am implementing now, is a new series titled "What Is". To start this series, I've chosen an astronomical object category that most people have at least some familiarity, a star.

What is a star? Simply put, a star is a large ball of gas giving off a great deal of light and producing energy through nuclear fusion.

Star Merope (23 Tau) in Pleiades (M45) by Henryk Kowalewski

This barely scratches the surface (no pun intended, or maybe it is intended) of a star. Let's start with the gas. Stars are formed from large clouds of gas and dust and this gas is primarily hydrogen and helium. A star like the Sun is 75% hydrogen and 25% helium with trace amounts of other materials. Over a star's lifetime it converts hydrogen into helium in the core through a nuclear fusion process. It is the nuclear fusion process that differentiates a star from a brown dwarf (failed star). The star ends its life with just a bit less hydrogen than it started with and a bit more helium than it started with.

Stars come in a variety of categories. Stars can be much smaller than the Sun, as small as 8% the mass of the Sun. The smaller the star, the cooler and redder it will be. Stars can have masses upwards of a 100 times that of the Sun. These larger stars are much hotter and much bluer in color. Once a star uses up its hydrogen supply in the core, it enters the end stages of its life and at this point a lot of weird things happen. Large, hot, blue stars can suddenly become cool and red. I'll cover this in much greater detail in a future post in this series.

Stars are often found in binary (or more) systems with other stars. Estimates suggest 50% or more of stars are part of multi-star systems in which the two (or more) stars are in orbit about each other. Our Sun is a single star system so we'll never know what it's like to live in a binary system. 

There is so much more to discuss on the topic of stars, but to avoid a very long post, I'll leave you with the basics and dig much deeper into the details with future posts on red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, black dwarfs, brown dwarfs, etc.

Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? by Jesse Bering

If you are looking for a science themed book that is different than the typical science themed book, look no further than 'Why is the Penis Shaped Like That'? by Jesse Bering.

Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?

I've had this on my bookshelf for about a half year since I picked it up for $5 at a science teaching conference I attended last spring. I finally decided to read it and just finished it. This isn't a book for a young kid, but for teenagers and adults, this is a great book that looks at the science of the human reproductive anatomy as well as how humans view sex in society.

Although the author throws in some of his own humorous opinions, the author focuses on the science of every subject he introduces. It's quite amazing the number of scientific studies on the less talked about aspects of human anatomy and sex. This is a book I definitely recommend and one I GUARANTEE you will learn something by reading. You've likely never read anything like it before.

NASA Ringtones

I can't believe I haven't seen this before, but it is super cool and every space geek needs this! NASA ringtones for your phone!!!

NASA Audio and Ringtones

The above site gives you a list of all available ringtones. The easiest way to switch your ring tone is to download the regular NASA app. Within the app is a ring tone selection list and with the tap of a button your ringtone is switched! Super cool! I currently have the famous "that's one small step for man..." audio as my ring tone. I freely admit it, I am truly geeking out right now about this. :-)

This Blog's History: Book Review - Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait

Yesterday I told you to follow Phil Plait on Twitter, so for This Friday in This Blog's History I point you back to the book review I wrote on Phil Plait's book, Bad Astronomy. A great, great book you should definitely read! To read my review of the book, click the link below.

Book Review - Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait

Phil Plait on Twitter

Today's post will be short. If you have a Twitter account and you are not following Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, you definitely should be. His Twitter handle is @BadAstronomer and you should go follow him now! Between great astronomy related posts, his goats, and his political activism and desire to elect more scientists to political office, he's one of my favorite follows on Twitter. My only complaint? He doesn't follow me back. :-( LOL!

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Admittedly, I have not yet read this book, but it is now on my "definitely must read and must read as soon as possible" list. You can't go wrong with any book by Neil deGrasse Tyson, but the title of this book is very intriguing. Is astrophysics an accessory to war? Absolutely! A great example is the atom bomb. Without astronomy and physics, there is no atom bomb. There are no nuclear weapons in the world. Aside from this though, I know very little about the role astrophysics has played in U.S. (and around the world) military operations. And now I want to know more! Damn you Neil! Just when I start to make a dent in my reading list (okay, not really) you come out with a book I can't possibly not read! :-)

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military 

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Skipping Rocks

If you have some time to kill and you and your kids are bored, a great activity is to take them to a park with a river and spend some time skipping rocks. There's quite a bit of science to it as the key is picking out a flat, smooth rock that can skip. In addition, you have to throw at an angle as parallel as possible to the water surface. If you throw directly at the surface, the rock breaks the water surface tension and plummets to the river bed. Easier said than done. Here's a wiki guide on how to skip rocks.

How to Skip Rocks

Back in October when the temperature was still hitting 80+ degrees in our neck of the woods, I took my youngest out to a nearby river and we spent an hour or so skipping rocks. Here she is in action.

Check out that rock skipping form!

I may be bragging here, but I was on fire skipping rocks! I swear I had some 10-12 skippers. They were probably 5-6 skips, but they sure looked like 10-12 skips in my excitement! LOL! We are heading into winter now, so you may find it too cool to spend much time outside, but when there is a nice warm day, get out there and skip some rocks. Finding that perfect rock is half the battle, but once you do find it, the pressure is on not to waste it on a bad throw!

This Blog's History:

In case you missed it last time, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to a post I wrote on choosing your next book in the fantasy and science fiction genre. I found a great guide to choosing your own book and shared it with readers. To get to the guide, click the link below to see the original post on this. Reading is a great way to escape the turmoil of the real world and let's face it, we all need a break from the real world at times!

Fantasy/Science Fiction Reading Guide

Get Your Flu Shot!

If you haven't already, get your flu shot! Take your kids in to get their flu shots! The flu shot provides a strong layer of protection against the flu this winter season. The CDC recommends getting your flu shot by the end of October. Today is November 1, but it is not too late. Even a late flu shot provides protection. It takes about two weeks for the flu shot to take effect and provide protection to your body, thus the reason for getting in and getting that shot ASAP. I took my kids in a couple of weeks ago. It was quick and painless. Okay, maybe a bit of a sting in the arm, but aside from that, no side effects.

CDC Flu Shot Information

Please, please, please, take the flu seriously! It is not just a minor cold. The flu can kill and it can kill in large numbers. According to an article published by Time and quoting the CDC, 80,000 Americans died due to flu complications last year. Many of these are the very young and very elderly, but the flu can bring down perfectly healthy adults in the prime of their life.

80,000 Americans Died of the Flu in the 2017-2018 Flu Season

Yes, some years the flu shot is more effective than others, but some protection is always better than no protection. So get out there and get your flu shot! It's possible that like me, your employer offers shots on site, but if not, it's easy to go to a CVS, Walgreens, or other local pharmacy to get the shot. Your doctor's office will have the vaccine on hand. But take the few minutes to get in and get your shot. Protect yourself and protect your kids. There really is no excuse not to do it.

Okay, there is one excuse and that is if you are one of the very few people out there allergic to it. In which case, it is even more important for the rest of us to get the flu shot to help create herd immunity to protect those who can't get the shot. The more people protected, the more difficult it is for the flu to spread to others

Get you flu shot ASAP!!!