Top 10 Astronomical Mysteries

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 20^th 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 2^nd century BC). Unfortunately, little of his work survives. In the archeology museum in Naples, there’s a wonderful statue of Atlas (estimated 2^nd 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 13^th 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 13^th 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.

The Atacama Desert and Astronomical Thoughts....

The Atacama Desert of northern Chile is reputedly the driest place on earth. Many people living in this area have never seen rain. We docked at Arica and drove through the desert to visit the native village of Codpa. Arica just lost its “driest spot in the world” honor to another place in the Atacama because they recently had a few drops of rain. The annual rainfall is .4 mm (.016 inches). It’s a relatively narrow desert, however. We drove about 70 miles from the coast and had already passed into the pre-Andean region, where there are actually small plants and cacti. In the center of the desert, there is NO LIFE. NASA sent the Mars Rovers here to test them and they found NO LIFE!

The desert does have several fertile valleys, however, where small rivers from the Andes head toward the sea. Most dry up before they reach the sea, but they do provide some areas where modest amounts of water enable habitation. Pictures 1 and 2 show a couple of these valleys. The 3^rd picture shows a “field” of rock cairns. Long ago, nomads and shepherds would drive animals to the sea from the Andes and would leave cairns to mark their route home. Today these mark tourist routes through the desert. We were actually traveling the Pan-American Highway through the desert—a good 2-lane road.

The Atacama is a high dessert. At one point we were approximately 8500 feet above sea level. The cactus in picture 4 is a Candelabra Cactus and only grows above 8000 feet. While it looks vaguely related to our saguaro cactus, it grows much higher—the saguaro tops out at about 4500 feet.

At Codpa we were on the eastern edge of the desert. Picture 5 shows the river that enables people to live there, along with the canal to the left that provides some irrigation. Picture 6 shows the interior of their church. Note the holes in the roof—not much rain here!!!

Back on the ship, we noticed a flock (herd? Pod?) of the jellyfish shown in picture 7—quite lovely creatures.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we have been having astronomy lectures. It’s hard to get your head around numbers such as the number of galaxies, the widths of galaxies and the distances from us—how do you measure billions of light years? Today we had an entire lecture on black holes. We went in determined to understand what a black hole is and what goes on inside it. We came away somewhat smarter about what it is, but still don’t know what goes on inside. But we’re in good company. Astronomers don’t know what goes on inside. There’s a constant amount of energy in the universe and what goes in can’t just disappear—it has to come out somewhere. Some astronomers are starting to throw out “white holes” to explain how it gets out. Time travel even gets raised as a possibility.  “Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away….”

Peru--It's More Than the Incas!

We made 2 stops in Peru: Trujillo in the north and Lima. Interestingly, at both stops we focused on the pre-Inca civilization and were amazed at how interesting it was—equally as interesting as the Incas (other than Machu Picchu.).

Along the coast, Peru gets little rain—although it is generally cloudy with relatively high humidity 5 months of the year. Weather comes from east to west and all the water gets dumped in the Amazon and on the slopes of the Andes. The first picture shows the view from the Salaverry port near Trujillo—brown and dry, other than small patches where it is irrigated.    

The second picture shows one of the palaces in the Chan Chan complex, near the ocean in Trujillo. This is the capital of the ancient Chimu Empire and is 1000 years old. Chan Chan had a population of 50,000-60,000 people and covered approximately 8 square miles. Within Chan Chan, 9 palaces have been discovered that were built for each ruler once the previous ruler died. Close friends, military leaders and family were sacrificed and buried with the leader in his palace and that palace was abandoned. Approximately 1200 people lived in each palace, so each was a small city in itself.  The palaces were built of adobe. This was a very sophisticated society that built wells and canals from natural springs.

We then traveled to the beach to see boats built in the ancient style (picture 3). These were built of reeds, floated on top of the water and were capable of traveling long distances, carrying goods to markets.

We were in Lima for 2 days and had 2 great experiences. We visited a typical upper-class home in downtown Lima—Casa Aliaga. The house was originally given to the Aliaga family in 1535 by Pizarro, the conquistador who became the president of Peru in the 16^th century. It has been in that family for 16 generations. Unfortunately, lighting and size of rooms did not allow for good pictures. It had a very plain façade on the street, but once inside, had lovely courtyards and rooms with beautiful furnishings that had been imported from Europe.

We also visited the Larco Herrera Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of pre-Columbian art. Pictures 4 and 5 show pottery pieces (jugs or musical instruments?) that were buried with people and show what the person looked like.  When people died they were mummified in a fetal position and left to dry out for 60-70 days. During the mummification period the pottery pieces and other items that would be buried with the person were made and collected.  When the mummy was ready to be buried, it was enclosed with much padding in fabric that looked like clothing (picture 6), a mask that looked like the person placed over his face and a feathered hat placed on his head.

The museum also had a wonderful collection of jewelry. Picture 7 shows the nose and ear decorations for men. The ear pieces went through the ear with a shaft about an inch wide (ouch!). The nose pieces somehow magically stayed on the nose—don’t understand.

Finally, the last picture shows one of the storerooms. Unlike most museums, the pieces not on permanent display are crowded into glass-fronted cases so you can see them. There were at least 6 storerooms with floor-to-ceiling artifacts. Truly amazing!!!

The Fauna of Ecuador

One day in Ecuador—we stopped in Guayaquil. The visit confirmed why this is not a major destination. It’s the gateway to the Galapagos, but otherwise, there’s not much there. There are few buildings of historical significance and nothing that’s pretty. Why did we stop? Some people left the boat for a few days to see Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands for a few days. Since we have been to both of those, we “enjoyed” Guayaquil.

We did find their Historical Park, which turned out to be a bit of a bright spot. It had a small, but interesting, zoo of animals found in Ecuador.  Our favorites:

·      A beautiful little parrot (picture 1).

·      2-toed sloths that are about the size of a large house cat (picture 2).

·      Mama and baby Peccaries (picture 3).

·      Tapirs (picture 4).

We have a brief stop in Trujillo, Peru and then on to Lima for 2 days. More later….

Embrera Indian Village

What an amazing cultural experience. We kept waiting for something touristy to happen, but it didn’t. It was the real deal!

We took a bus for about 1.5 hours out of Panama City, getting on smaller and smaller roads. Then we boarded dugout canoes—real trees hollowed to hold 8-10 people. They did have a motor on back, which is a good thing. We traveled by canoe 45 minutes up the Chagres River to an Embera Indian Village—we would have never gotten there rowing! There are no roads—travel by water is the only access. This is deep in the Panamanian jungle. Picture 1 shows our transportation.

The village had no electricity The houses (picture 2) varied from planed boards to logs, built 10-12 feet off the ground, so they don’t have to worry about tarantulas and snakes (very venomous—like the bushmaster). The houses have roofs and half walls, letting the air flow through. There are large roof overhangs because it rains—a lot!

Clothing for the tribe consists of rectangular pieces of cloth. The men wear a loincloth and crossed, beaded necklaces. Most women are topless, although some have constructed a beaded bra-like top. Women wrap a large rectangular cloth around their waist. Children dress like adults. All go barefoot. They use a semi-permanent dye (lasts about a week) to put designs on their bodies. Conveniently, it also seems to be an insect repellent.

No one has a job. The men hunt and fish, providing their protein: fish, armadillo, deer and the occasional wild boar. Their other main staple is the plantain (similar to a banana). They don’t have dishes—all food is served on plantain leaves. They prepared a simple lunch of fish and smashed and fried plantains (picture 3). 

Bringing tourists to the village is the only source of money for this tribe. Everyone contributes crafts, which are sold to the tourists. Men do wood carving and seed carving. The seeds are orange-sized and, when carved, look like ivory. The women make monkey masks and baskets from woven reeds, with colors found naturally.

The children play with the village ball—one boy was kicking it, very much like soccer. They play games—we saw one using stone to draw in the sand. Everyone dances (picture 4).

There is one 2-holed outhouse.

All children attend a school some distance away through 6^th grade. To go beyond that, they must leave the village and almost no one leaves. Our guide was Embera, growing up in another village. He left the village, finished high school and 2 years of college in Oregon. His stories and experiences were amazing.

How fortunate we were to have had a day like this (picture 5).

The Panama Canal

You try to be nonchalant about the Panama Canal—just another canal, locks, been there, done that elsewhere—but you can’t. It’s a truly amazing construction that would be a huge job in 2012. But it was completed in 1914—pretty clever those Americans.

Christopher Columbus landed in Panama on his 4^th trip to the New World. The Natives told him about the “big water” to the west. He asked if there was gold and silver; they said no; he left. Balboa finally discovered the Pacific going across Panama in 1513. Ever since then, people have understood the importance of crossing that narrow stretch of land. First the Spaniards would load Incan gold and silver on a ship in the Pacific, send it north, traverse the isthmus via mule and load it on a ship in the Atlantic. The reverse would happen in the 1850s, when gold miners flocked to California. The French made the first attempt at a canal in the 1880s, under the lead of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, they lacked the techniques and were plagued by malaria and yellow fever.  After 20,000 deaths they abandoned the plan.

Building a Canal was Teddy Roosevelt’s top priority and he negotiated with Columbia (there was no country of Panama at that time) to give America the right to build and control forever. Columbia said no. So, while not well-documented, it appears that TR talked some revolutionary sorts into breaking away from Columbia and forming a new country of Panama (with or without American help, who knows?), which occurred in 1903. Construction began shortly thereafter and, after a few personnel changes, was completed by the Army Corp of Engineers, headed by George Washington Goethals, in 1914. The canal was returned to Panama in 1999.

The first decision was what type of canal to build. The Suez Canal was a sea-level canal—digging and blasting enough earth to allow ships to sail end-to-end without locks. But the Suez Canal, between the Mediterranean and Red Seas, worked at sea level because there were small similar tides at both ends. The tides in the Atlantic are larger and the ones in the Pacific are even larger. So it was decided that it couldn’t be built at sea level and would require 3 locks at either end, to raise or lower a ship 85 feet.

To supply the locks with a constant supply of gravity-fed water, the Chagres River was dammed in 2 places to create a large reservoir (the world’s largest) between the locks. The canal crosses an unbelievably dense jungle, where over 200 inches of rain fall a year, creating a good supply of water. The humidity is amazing—makes NC look like a “dry heat”!

The current locks are 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long. Ships up to 106 feet wide may traverse the canal—pretty tight fit! Our smaller ship had about 8 feet of clearance on either side. Each ship is attached to a series of “mules”—electrically-powered train-like devices that actually do the driving through the locks. There’s a pilot that boards the boat and directs the “mules”. Between the sections of locks are Lake Gatun and some narrowly-carved cuts through the mountains.

We entered the first lock on the Atlantic side at about 7:30 AM. Picture 1 shows the two ships ahead of us. (Ships can go in both directions, but for today, at least, ships entered from both oceans in the morning, passed in Lake Gatun and exited in the afternoon.) Picture 2 shows the “mules” pulling us—we had 3 on each side, 2 in front and 1 in back. Picture 3 shows us entering the 1^st lock, while the ships in front of us are in the 2^nd lock. Note the gates and road across the canal opening for us.  Picture 4 shows that there’s not much clearance.

We ate lunch while crossing Lake Gatun and now, in pouring rain, we’re in the final lock at about 4:00 PM. We should be docked in Panama City at about 7:00PM. Picture 5 shows us exiting the first set of 3 locks and entering Lake Gatun. You can see the ships that have preceded us and those waiting to head to the Atlantic.  Picture 6 shows the Culebra Cut—the most difficult area to blast. The mountain that was cut off is the continental divide in this part of Panama. Finally, picture 7 shows the ship next to us in lock number 5. You can see that we’ve already lowered, while she is being positioned by the mules.

In today’s world, there are many ships that are too large to transit the canal. The project to expand the canal is underway and scheduled to be completed in 2014. 6 new parallel locks are being constructed that will be 1400 feet long and 180 feet wide. Water-reutilization basins are also being constructed, along with massive  pumps, that will allow up to 60% of the water to be reused. Some of the narrow cuts along the current canal are also being widened to be at least 500 feet wide.

About 14,000 ships traverse the canal each year. The average cost for each ship is $54,000. The most expensive ship was one of the Disney cruise ships, which cost about $250,000. The least expensive sum ever paid was 36 cents, charged to Richard Halliburton in 1928, when he swam from one end to the other.

At Sea

It’s a cloudy, windy day in the Caribbean Sea as we sail toward the Panama Canal.  The picture  is the Miami skyline as we sailed by just after sunset. It’s hard to imagine that a week ago southern Florida was being severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy did not cause our flight to Ft. Lauderdale to be canceled. It did, however, impact 35 of our shipmates, who were on the previous sailing of our ship, which came though Sandy on its way from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale. Instead of going to Martha’s Vineyard and Charleston as they were supposed to, they headed far out to sea—taking the long way around. Given the size of Sandy, however, they were unable to escape its fury, encountering 25+-foot seas for the better part of 2 days.  It sounds like almost everyone was seasick and many people suffered falling out of bed. We are much more fortunate.

Interesting day at sea. One lecturer this morning discussed the Caribbean Sea and Christopher Columbus, who sounds like a bit of a bungler. He died, not realizing that he had discovered a new world.  He thought he had gone to the Fareast and just missed the rich part! Fortunately, others pursued the adventure following him, but it was almost 100 year later that the richness of the New World was appreciated.

We also have an astronomer on board, who talked about comets and asteroids and presented some amazing photographs. Many of the photographs are from NASA, which provides an astronomy picture of the day at apod.nasa.gov. Unfortunately, the lecture supported the theory that girls don’t enjoy science and math like boys. The Columbus lecture had more girls than boys, while the astronomy lecture had twice as many boys as girls. Sad…. This girl had a great time!

More when we get to Panama.