Mercury 13

A few weeks ago I showed my astronomy class the documentary "Mercury 13". The documentary details the story of the female pilots tested in the late 1950s and early 1960s for NASAs first forays into human space travel.

Seven of the members of the Mercury 13 team. - NASA

Admittedly I knew very little about this moment in NASA's history. The first US female in space was Sally Ride, in 1983, a full 20 years after the Soviet Union put a female in space. The US was far behind the times in gender equality among astronauts. 

This was an excellent documentary that used real footage from the late 1950s and 60s to tell the story. It was depressing to see how qualified this group was, only to be turned down for the simple reason of gender. One of the more disturbing scenes was the real footage of male astronauts being interviewed on the topic of women wanting to join them in space. Most brushed the women off as an annoyance and did not take them seriously. One of the astronauts stated that maybe they should have replaced the chimpanzee (early test flights used animals to determine safety for humans) with a woman...and the crowd laughed. Laughed. Sickening. Disgusting.

NASA is a fantastic organization and the scientific discoveries and technological advancements are incredible. But let us not forget that NASA isn't perfect and there were definitely some dark times as it relates to equality. I highly encourage you to watch this documentary. As of this writing, it streams on Netflix.

This Blog's History: OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission

In case you missed it a few weeks ago, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you to the post I wrote on the recent arrival of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to the asteroid Bennu. NASA continues to amaze! For more details, check the link below to the original post.

OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission

Science Fair Time!

Now that the holidays are nearly over, it's time to get serious about your local science fair. If your area is like mine, the start of the year is big on science fairs. A few weeks ago I sat down with both of my kids (the youngest is old enough to participate now!) and we talked out a few science fair ideas. We found a good one for my youngest that may not be the most original project, but it is a great starter project for a first time science fair goer that will illustrate the proper way to conduct a scientific experiment.

My oldest daughter is now in her fourth year of doing a science fair project. This year she needs a teacher sponsor, so she is currently working on that. Assuming she gets a sponsor, she's picked out a pretty neat project that is a level up from past projects she's worked on. She's pretty excited to get started.

Science fair projects come in all shapes and sizes. Some are very complex, while others are relatively simple. What is important, however, is engaging kids to think, ask questions, and experiment! Even simple projects are great at creating critically thinking minds. Check out the links below for a few (or many) science fair project ideas!

Science Fair Project Ideas

Science Projects

I didn't share the details of the science fair projects my daughters are working on. I'll wait until they've completed them to discuss the projects and results.

Think 100%: The Coolest Show on Climate Change Podcast

I found a new science themed podcast a couple of weeks ago and it's a pretty good one, so I thought I'd share it to this blog. The podcast is called Think 100%: The Coolest Show on Climate Change. As the title of the podcast suggests, the focus is on climate change. The link below will take you to a more detailed description of the show.

Think 100%: The Coolest Show on Climate Change

I've listened to a few episodes and added it to my regular to-listen list. It's some good stuff and there aren't too many podcasts completely focused on climate change out there. There are many that have a partial focus on climate change, but this podcast is 100% climate change all the time and that's an important distinction from other science podcasts.

Equality and Respect

Today is a special day for many. Regardless if you are an atheist, agnostic, or follow one of the estimated 4,200 active religions on Earth today, take time this holiday season to look around and take in the positives of life. Take a moment to respect others and treat everyone as you would want to be treated. There are a lot of negatives in life, but take the extra step to treating others with the same equality you desire for yourself, and this world will be a bit better.

Transformers - The Movie

As the weather has turned colder, we've found ourselves inside paying more board games and watching more movies as a family, as opposed to spending time outside. One of the recent movies we watched was Transformers.

Optimus Prime

There are now six Transformer movies released with a seventh planned next year. I know many rail on this movie franchise for being action porn, but admittedly I have really enjoyed watching the first three (haven't yet watched the others). My biggest complaint is the awful science regarding the 'dark' side of the moon in the third Transformers movie. I'll discuss that in greater detail in a future post.

My wife, myself, and both of my daughters have had a lot of fun watching them and have plans to watch the remaining movies in the franchise, including any future movies to be released. These are not deep thinking movies, but if you just want a break from reality and want some over the top action, well, Transformers will give you just that!

This Blog's History: What is a Moon?

What is a moon? I covered this a few weeks ago as part of the "What Is?" series on this blog. Thus for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to that post. Not just anything can be called a moon, but the category is quite broad.

What is a Moon?

Dial-Up Modem

I was in high school when the internet started to become more widespread in people's homes. Those of us who grew up on dial-up internet will have kids who will never know this 'wonderful' experience. My kids will never have the joy of the dial-up modem constantly hanging up, or never making a connection in the first place. They'll never have this sound imprinted in their memory database of all of eternity.

Dial-Up Modem Sound

Those of us growing up on dial-up internet knew exactly what that sound was supposed to sound like every time and if there was ever a deviation in the expected sound, we knew something was wrong. Unfortunately, deviations in the expected sound were quite common, resulting in many curse words being thrown at the computer! :-) 

When it comes to the internet, today's kids have it way too easy! Everyone should have to earn their way to high speed internet, just like the kids of the 1990s had to do. :-)

The End of Kepler

The end of the Kepler spacecraft is here. In fact, Kepler officially ended operations last month, on October 30th, when it finally ran out of fuel. This was expected as there's only so much fuel that can be stored and re-fueling is not an option given it's location in Earth's orbit about the Sun.

Launch of the Kepler spacecraft taken by NASA/Regina Mitchell-Ryall, Tom Farrar.

The Kepler spacecraft provided astronomers with a massive wealth of data to find exoplanets in other solar systems. As of October 29, 2018, Kepler had confirmed 2,681 exoplanets with another 2,899 exoplanets possibilities waiting to be analyzed. Wow! You can read further details here:

Kepler planet hunter ends operations after exhausting fuel

The search for exoplanets will continue with the TESS spacecraft, which launched in April 2018. Exoplanets everywhere!

The Crimes of Grindelwald

Last month, just before Thanksgiving, we went to the movies on a Sunday morning. Sunday mornings are our favorite day/time to go to the movie theater because tickets are cheap, usually just a bit more than $5 per ticket, and the crowds are lower. On this particular Sunday we went to see The Crimes of Grindelwald on the movie's opening weekend.

Crimes of Grindelwald

Let me begin by saying this was a FANTASTIC movie!!! I tweeted at J.K. Rowling to say the same, but she didn't tweet me back. LOL! I guess she was a bit busy. :-) Our family loved Fantastic Beasts and we loved Crimes of Grindelwald even more. Even though the movie took place in London, it reminded me so much of Scotland that I want to go back! 

As for the movie, every minute of it was exciting. I didn't want it to end! Eddie Redmayne is perfect in his role. I thought Katherine Waterston did a marvelous job. Johnny Depp is perfect for Grindelwald. And one of the best parts? Dumbledore is back!!! Dumbledore is played by Jude Law and he was the perfect middle aged Dumbledore. I won't give any of the movie away but it was simply fantastic. And there's another one coming out and we can't wait for it! If you haven't, go see this movie. It is wonderful!

Happy Birthday to my Dad

Today is my Dad's birthday. He would have turned 68 today, but we lost him back in June 2017 to brain cancer. It's days like today that I think back to my Dad and the wonderful memories there were with him that ranged from playing catch to discussing politics. This is the second holiday season without him. I feel I have a pretty good grasp on death in life. It's never a fun moment, but it is part of life, and death is something we must all face to help in the mourning process. But that doesn't mean we don't think back to our loved ones no longer with us and wish they were still here. My Dad's birthday and the day he died are always going to be those days.

This Blog's History: What is a Planet?

For This Friday in This Blog's History I point you back to the post I wrote in the 'What Is' series that took a deep look at a planet. If you are not aware, there are three criteria an object must satisfy to classify as a planet. Only eight objects in our Solar System meet those requirements. To find out more, follow the link below to the original post.

What Is #2: A Planet?

What Is #6: A Comet?

Our last look in this What Is series focused on asteroids, the rocky and metallic leftover planetesimals in the Solar System. Today we take a look at comets. Comets are most often described as dirty snowballs composed of water ice, rock, dust, carbon-type materials, and other icy, hydrogen compounds. Given they are less densely packed together and are composed of lower density materials, they are less dense overall than asteroids. Comets are the more icy leftover planetesimals in the Solar System.

Comet Hale Bopp taken by Auvo Korpi from Huhtamo, Finland

These dirty snowballs flare up and have an atmosphere, called a coma, when they approach the Sun. As they move away from the Sun, they receive less solar energy and the atmosphere flares back down for most of its trip around the Sun. When flared up, comets have two tails. Yes, that is right, TWO tails. There is the dust tail and ion tail. Both always point away from the Sun, as shown in the image below. 

Comet 1P/Halley as taken March 8, 1986 by W. Liller, Easter Island, part of the International Halley Watch (IHW) Large Scale Phenomena Network.

The white tail above is the dust tail and the blue tail is the ion table. The dust tail is composed of slightly heavier particles, so this tail bends just a bit, whereas the ion tail points directly away from the Sun. Thus even when the comet is moving away from the Sun, the tails point away, leading the comet. The tail is not always trailing the nucleus of the comet.

Comets orbit the Sun repeatedly, although each passing of the Sun results in a bit of mass loss. Eventually a comet, after a few thousand years and several orbits of the Sun, will break apart. Some comets come from the Kuiper Belt, out near Neptune and Pluto's orbit. These are called short period comets. A famous short period comet is Halley's comet, with an orbital period of 76 years. Long period comets come from the Oort cloud, and several tens of thousands of astronomical units from the Sun. These comets have orbital periods of several hundred to possibly several tens of thousands of years.

Most comets require a telescope to observe, but occasionally comets are visible to the naked eye. The last really good naked eye comet I remember was Comet McNaught, which flew by Earth in 2007. I took my astronomy class out a couple of times to view this comet. Comet McNaught has an orbital period estimated to be about 93,000 years, so I won't be seeing that one again. LOL!

Comets are beautiful objects in the sky, so if you ever have a chance to view one, definitely take advantage. 

Jurassic Park

So I've been on a mission lately to watch with my daughters several of the old movies I watched as a kid. The local library has been a great source for some of these movies. In the past we've watched Harry and the Hendersons, and we also watched The Sandlot. We've decided to watch the full Jurassic Park series, so we started with the original Jurassic Park, released back in the early 1990s.

I loved Jurassic Park as a kid and couldn't even begin to tell you how many times I watched it! Thus I was super excited to watch it again with my kids. We checked it out from the library on a weekend and cuddled up on the couch with some popcorn and movie fun! The kids loved it! I also have the book, so when they are ready, they can read the book and get more details that didn't make it into the movie. One of the moments in the movie I had completely forgotten was the appearance of Samuel L. Jackson! And Newman from Seinfeld is in Jurassic Park! 

My 8 year old probably enjoyed it the most. She talks about it quite a bit and now can't wait for us to watch the other Jurassic Park movies. So if you need some movie fun on a weekend evening, you can't go wrong with Jurassic Park!

Katie Mack on Twitter

There are thousands of great science advocates tweeting science and I plan on sharing some of my favorites on this blog. If you have a great interest in astronomy, you should definitely be following Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) on Twitter.

AstroKatie is an astrophysicist who tweets regularly and has many great things to say about astronomy and does a fantastic job tweeting about complex astronomical topics in a way that is easy for the general public to understand. She is greatly devoted to astronomy and greatly devoted to sharing her love of astronomy to the public.

We need more Katie Mack's in this world in which science is far too often demonized by one of the two major political parties in the U.S. So follow her on Twitter. You will NOT be disappointed.

Cool Science Mom Makes a Birthday Cake

Today's post is a big shout out to the Cool Science Mom who makes amazing birthday cakes! I was browsing through my photos on my phone and came across this one from this past summer.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake!

Now that is an awesome cake by the Cool Science Mom that I could NEVER do! LOL! Mine would be some big blobby green creature no one could recognize! LOL!

This Blog's History: Vote!

Last month, on election day, I posted the following, which I'm sharing again with you for This Friday in This Blog's History.

Vote!

Did you vote in the 2018 midterm election last month? If not, go register to vote NOW and be ready for the next election. I can not stress more the importance of voting. Every single vote matters. In the last election there were state office elections across the country decided by just a few votes. Literally just a few votes, as in less than 10 votes. Your vote matters!!! Take time now to register to vote and get it out of the way now so you don't run out of time later.

Here is a great site that walks you through the process on how to register to vote.

How to Vote

OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission

It's been an exciting year in astronomy, although every year is exciting! But the last two weeks have been of particular interest, starting with the November 26th landing of the InSight lander on Mars followed by the recent encounter of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft with the asteroid Bennu. On December 3, 2018, OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu and will now study the asteroid to better understand how objects formed in the Solar System. The first images are very cool!

Bennu - NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Okay, that is super cool! OSIRIS-REx will slowly get closer to the surface of the asteroid to fully map the surface and identify good spots to acquire a sample. At some point the spacecraft will briefly touchdown on the surface, acquire a sample, and return to Earth in September 2023. Again, super cool! 

Landing on Mars and now returning a sample from an asteroid. Astronomy and space exploration is awesome!

Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe is a NASA spacecraft launched toward the Sun that will make several orbits around the Sun in an attempt to better understand how the Sun works. Last month the spacecraft became the closest spacecraft to the Sun ever at only 15 million miles from the Sun's surface. For comparison, Mercury is about 36 million miles from the Sun. That's pretty cool!

NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

The more we know about the Sun, the more we can protect ourselves on Earth. The Sun can send out blasts of energy in the form of solar wind particles that can negatively effect communication satellites. Extremely large blasts of energy can potentially cause great damage to electrical grids on Earth, causing wide spread outages for very lengthy periods of time, possibly years. Thus the more we know about the Sun, the better we can prepare on Earth. Hopefully the Parker Solar Probe will be a continued success and help us better understand the Sun.

What is #5: An Asteroid?

What is an asteroid? That's the question in the fifth post in a long, on-going series of 'What is' questions in astronomy. An asteroid is a smallish, rocky/metallic object orbiting the Sun in the solar system.

Ceres - NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Justin Cowart

Above is an image of Ceres, the largest asteroid in the solar system, prior to its designation as a dwarf planet. Ceres has a diameter of 600 miles, but most asteroids are much smaller, typically only a few tens of meters in size. Asteroids are the rocky/metallic material leftover in the solar system that never accumulated as part of a planet or moon.

Asteroids can be found in various places in the solar system. There are many located in the asteroid belt, about 2-3 astronomical units from the Sun. Another set of asteroids, known as the Trojan asteroids, are located in Jupiter's orbit about the Sun. There is a set leading Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun and another set trailing Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun.

The most concerning set of asteroids to Earth are those known as Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). These are asteroids that have orbits that bring them very close to Earth's orbit, meaning a collision could be possible at some point in the future. As of 2016, there were over 15,000 known NEAs with many more found each week. Don't worry though as none of these are known to have an orbit that will collide with Earth in the next century. Although Earth has been hit in the past and will likely be hit again in the future, the odds of this happening in any given year, or even decade, are very, very, very low. 

Asteroid Ida with its small moon - NASA/JPL Photojournal of Galileo mission

Some asteroids even have moons. Above is asteroid Ida (35 miles in size) with a small moon orbiting it (1 mile in size). Each asteroid is different from all of the others and without them, our solar system would be a much more bland place to live!

Supergirl (TV Series)

Last week I shared my love of the TV series The Flash. Today I share my love of the TV series Supergirl. If you're a science fiction/fantasy/comic fan, how can you not love Supergirl???

Supergirl!

After spending its first season on CBS, Supergirl is now in its third season (fourth overall) on the CW. It's a great, great show with a strong female lead which is great to see. Supergirl is a show filled with a bunch of nonsense science, but that doesn't diminish its quality one bit. There are flying people, so you know right away you don't watch this show for the science, LOL! One thing I enjoy about this show, particularly so this season, is the focus on mutant rights and the very close connection this story line has with human rights in real society today. This season has a focus on hatred and bigotry directed toward mutants, which is playing off the hatred and bigotry that is unfortunately growing in our own society.

Supergirl...a great show. Watch it. :-)