Night Sky

Check This Out! Tonight we will be treated to a show of heavenly bodies. Of course, every night there is a show in the sky, but tonight and tomorrow...well, just read what Dr. Phillips says...

by Dr. Tony Phillips (e-mail: james.a.phillips@earthlink.net)

http://science.nasa.gov/

On Nov. 30th a slender 10% crescent Moon leaps up from the horizon to join the show. The delicate crescent hovering just below Venus-Jupiter will have cameras clicking around the world.

Dec. 1st is the best night of all. The now-15% crescent Moon moves in closer to form an isosceles triangle with Venus and Jupiter as opposing vertices. The three brightest objects in the night sky will be gathered so tightly together, you can hide them all behind your thumb held at arm's length.

The celestial triangle will be visible from all parts of the world, even from light-polluted cities. People in New York and Hong Kong will see it just as clearly as astronomers watching from remote mountaintops. Only cloudy weather or a midnight sun (sorry Antarctica!) can spoil the show.

Although you can see the triangle with naked eyes--indeed, you can't miss it—a small telescope will make the evening even more enjoyable. In one quick triangular sweep, you can see the moons and cloud-belts of Jupiter, the gibbous phase of Venus (69% full), and craters and mountains on the Moon. It's a Grand Tour you won't soon forget.

Right: A sky map of the triple conjunction on Dec. 1, 2008.

(NOTE: This map is right side up for you to view, but upside down as to actual.)

Finally, look up from the eyepiece and run your eyes across the Moon. Do you see a ghostly image of the full Moon inside the bright horns of the crescent? That's called "Earthshine" or sometimes "the da Vinci glow" because Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to explain it: Sunlight hits Earth and ricochets to the Moon, casting a sheen of light across the dark lunar terrain.

By itself, a crescent Moon with Earthshine is one of the loveliest sights in the heavens. Add Venus and Jupiter and … well ... it's time to stop reading and go mark your calendar:

These Colors Don't Run...

I love the informed use of the double meaning in a phrase. A picture says a thousand words and the same is true for mental pictures. Each of us conjures up images and meanings and the use of double meanings just seems to get the thought juices flowing.

The other day, I noticed an American flag sticker in the back window of a car—a car that has spent a lot of time in the sun. The words “These Colors Don’t Run” were faded as was the flag itself. As I thought about the use of the word “colors” to represent the flag of our country—and “run” to mean we don’t run, but stand and fight for the freedoms those colors stand for, it occurred to me that while they don’t run, as in run together, they do fade. They fade as does our patriotism, our loyalty, our attention to the details that make up our freedoms.

So soon after our declaring our independence from Great Britain in the 1700’s, we were called on again in the war of 1812 to stand for freedom and it was during this time that Frances Scott Key penned what would become our National Anthem. “…And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!” The Star-Spangled Banner, by its very name, lauds the “colors” as standing for freedom and the bravery that it takes to maintain that freedom.

In World Wars I and II we were called on to stand with other countries to defend the World against hate and oppression in Europe. On December 7th, 1941, the sinking of the USS Arizona symbolically called the “colors” to defend freedom from an attack from Eastern Asia.

There have always been and will always be threats against freedom—calls to put the color back in our cheeks and the color back in our flag. We must not let our colors fade. We must remember, we must be on guard, we must be prepared.

These colors don’t run, so let’s not allow the enemies of freedom and human rights lull us into a false sense of security, convince us that all is well, and lure us into giving up our freedoms. Don’t fade in the stretch.

This Veterans Day, and always, remember, support, say thank you to those who have given for your freedoms, my freedoms, and those of all who are yet to come.

--mak

In Celebration of Breathing...

There was a big celebration in Cambridge, MA a few weeks ago. It was interesting, in a strange sort of way, to hear a room full of marine bacteriologists singing songs and laughing. Scientists aren’t usually known as party animals, but this WAS the twentieth anniversary of the discovery of a photosynthetic marine microorganism now known as Prochlorococcus."

It all started when Penny Chisholm, a biologist at MIT, went on a cruise. Like the good scientist she is, she took along casual clothing, sun block, and her flow cytometer, a device for detecting microscopic particles, such as cells, in a stream of liquid. In this case, she found previously unknown cells in the sea water.

These tiny cells (about 1500 of them would fit on the edge of a credit card) turned out to be bacteria that have the capacity to perform photosynthesis (basically to split water molecules into H’s and O’s). Moreover, they may be descendants of the very organisms that produced oxygen for sustaining life on a hostile planet a long, long time ago.

In the laboratory we can use a source of direct current (battery) to energize positive and negative electrodes submerged in water. This process, known as electrolysis, will cause the hydrogen and oxygen molecules that make up water to let go of each other and separate. Oxygen will bubble up around the positive electrode and hydrogen around the negative electrode.

This is rather large and cumbersome; however, on its chlorophyll-filled membranes, the tiny Prochlorococcus uses visible light from the sun to do the same thing. The bacterium then releases the oxygen to the atmosphere and combines the left over hydrogen with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make high-energy food for marine animals. Pretty neat system, huh?

So once Prochlorococcus appeared on Earth, the atmosphere began filling up with oxygen (well at least to 21%). The destructive ultraviolet rays of the sun began to convert some of the oxygen into ozone to form a layer to protect the Earth from the ultraviolet rays--talk about turning the enemy's strength against them! Without the more powerful uv rays, other life forms could appear and live. The excess oxygen was available for fire, rusting, and breathing!

This bacterium is invisible to the naked eye and yet produces approximately 20% of the oxygen each of us inhales. In addition, it pulls enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to provide the basis for the entire marine food web. Small, but plentiful, their numbers extend into the trillion trillions.

Isn't nature wonderful? So there is great cause for celebration. Like most discoveries of this type, it was serendipitous—discovered quite by accident while looking for something else entirely.--mak