As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’ve really enjoyed our
astronomy lectures. The final one was a few days ago and I was so fascinated by
it that I re-watched the lecture on our local TV channel, took notes and will
impart some of the information to those of you who are interested. If you
aren’t interested, come back in a couple days when I tell you about the Lake
District of Chile—we’re in the middle of 3 days of exploring now.
Dr. Norman Caisse was our resident astronomer—if you ever
get the chance to hear him, don’t miss it. His final lecture presented what he
considers the 10 greatest mysteries in astronomy. He cautioned us that every
astronomer probably has his own list, so this is subjective on his part.
10) What happened to the water on Mars? Evidence is clear
that, in its youth, Mars had a lot of water—perhaps more than the earth.
Craters with salts that you might find in seawater and huge chasms created by
flowing water confirm this. Where did it go????
9) What’s going to happen on 12/21/2012 when the Mayan
calendar ends? He said this probably wouldn’t make his list, but since it’s
right around the corner, it’s currently interesting. The Mayans were pretty amazing in their knowledge of the
universe. They realized that the earth revolved around the sun in 365.246 days.
They created an elaborate calendar based on this knowledge, starting 08/13/3114
BC. An epoch to the Mayans was 144,000 days or 5125 years, making the last day
of the epoch 12/21/2012. They did not create a new calendar for a new epoch
beginning 12/22/2012.
Many “kooks” (as he calls them) are predicting the end of
the earth on 12/21/2012. Also interesting on this day, the sun crosses the
equator of our galaxy (didn’t know it had an equator until these lectures) from
north to south. It’s also interesting that on this day there are 2 planets on
one side of the sun (Earth and Jupiter) and the remaining 6 (don’t you miss
Pluto?) on the other side of the sun. Some suggest these will cause our solar
system to “flip over” and destroy everything. You can decide if you want to buy
green bananas on the 20th of December.
8) What caused the Tunguska Event? In 1908, a giant
explosion over northern Siberia flattened 80,000 trees and killed many
reindeer. The explosion would have registered 6.5 on the Richter scale, if the
Richter scale would have existed, and been 1500 times greater than the atomic
bomb that fell on Hiroshima. No radiation was detected and no debris was ever
found. Current theories think it might have been debris from a comet that bounced
against the earth’s atmosphere and exploded. In order to create that kind of
explosion, it would have had to weigh one million tons and be the size of a
football field. But no one knows
for sure….
7) What was the function of the Antikythera Mechanism? In
1901, sponge divers found the remains of a galleon that went down between the
Greek islands of Kythera and Antikythera. Bringing relics to the surface, they
found 150 pieces of some mechanism, the largest of which was a 12-inch circle,
marked in degrees or minutes or seconds. The remaining pieces fit together (although
all pieces are not there) in such a way that it appears there were 42 gears of
various sizes that all meshed together. They were made of an alloy of tin and
bronze and were .08 inches thick. The current theory is that it was an
astronomical “clock” that would tell time or location based on locations of
planets and stars. Using the marks on the gears, the current guess is that it
stopped working in 82 BC. Was it the first analogue computer? (Here’s a guess at what it looked like:
http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr)
6) What did Stonehenge measure and how did they get those
big rocks positioned correctly? We know for example, that some of the rocks
were positioned to align with sun on the solstices, but there were way too many
rocks to measure just that.
5) Does the Farnese Atlas represent the Hipparchus’ vision
of the universe? Hipparchus was an
amazing astronomer, who understood the motion of the sun and moon and created a
detailed catalogue of stars—way before the invention of the telescope (not sure
when he lived, but possibly 2nd century BC). Unfortunately, little
of his work survives. In the archeology museum in Naples, there’s a wonderful
statue of Atlas (estimated 2nd century copy of earlier Greek work),
called the Farnese Atlas. He is carrying the world on his shoulder, but not the
world as we might expect. It’s a map of 44 of the 84 recognized constellations
of stars—in the right location on the globe! Did the unknown sculptor use
Hipparchus’ work as his model?
4) What did the “Wow” signal tell us? Stars make noise and
radio telescopes can measure that noise and see a constant pattern from
it. So it stands to reason that
when an unnatural sound occurs, one wonders what it might be. In 1977, Dr. Jerry
R. Ehman, a scientist from Ohio State, was looking at records of space noise and
discovered a huge blip of unnatural noise—a magnitude of up to 36 times the
volume of normal noise. Was it
someone from outer space trying to contact us? They were able to pinpoint the
general location about 200 million light years away, but there was never
another signal. We didn’t bother to send a signal back—after all, if it was a
message from intelligent life they would go “who was that we sent the message
to 400 million years ago?” By the way, did you know that we have an array of
radio telescopes sitting in the high desert, SE of Albuquerque? We visited it a
couple of years ago and it was amazing—we are constantly listening for signs of
life in the universe. Why is it called the “Wow” signal? Dr. Irving wrote
“Wow!” in the margin next to the markings for the amplified noise.
3) Who wrote the Voynich Manuscript and what does it say?
This arrived anonymously at Yale University in 1969 and there’s currently a
reward if someone can figure it out. It’s named for the book dealer who
purchased it in 1912—although it’s not know how it got from him to Yale. This
is a 248-page book that has been dated to the 13th century. The
paper and ink have been analyzed and appear to be plant material that might be
found in the Himalayas. It contains beautifully drawn botanical prints, what
appear to be recipes of remedies of some sort and 86 pages of astronomical
charts, including what appears to be an astrological calendar (even though
there was no telescope in the 13th century). The problem is that no
one has been able to translate it. It is not a known alphabet. There appear to
be 38 letters and some appear to be pieces from different alphabets.
2) What is the source of the scarab in King Tut’s burial
necklace? It was originally thought to be a peridot carved in the shape of the
beetle that you see used to represent long life in Egypt. But electron
microscope analysis shows that it’s only soft glass that’s 28.5 million years
old. What’s interesting is that this is found only in an 800-square-mile
section of the Sahara desert between Egypt and Libya. What caused the sand of
the desert to be converted to silicon dioxide—this unique soft glass? In order for this glass to be created,
a temperature of 10,000 degrees F would be required. They’re now thinking it
may be a situation similar to the Tanguska Event—a comet fragment exploding
above the desert that created this much heat.
#1) What does the Murchison Meteorite tell us about the
origin of life? (Creationist may want to stop reading.) On 9/28/1969 a
good-sized chunk of rock landed near Murchison Australia. It’s technically not
a meteorite, but to be quite frank, I didn’t understand this distinction. No
one knows where it came from, but it’s generally thought to be from outside our
solar system. What’s interesting, though, is what they found inside the rock.
It was loaded with a variety of amino acids. Many were amino acids that are
components of our bodies, but there were also 50 amino acids that have not been
seen on earth. Millions of these rocks have fallen to earth since the beginning
of time. Did life on earth come from these rocks?
One of the joys of being retired is that you actually have
time to contemplate some of this really interesting stuff. Hope you’re enjoying
this like I am.
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