A little cheer on a dreary day

As many of you know, I'm interested in Astronomy. Accordingly, above is a picture of a "Stargazer Lily" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilium_%22Stargazer%22, of which we have some sitting in a vase on our living room table. Notice the "liquid sugar" on the stem to lure insects, I would think. That's probably what gives these flowers their heavily sweet odour, which seems to be particularly noticeable in the evenings. Click on the picture for a larger image.

Below is a picture of the camelia "bush" in our neighbours' back yard - these blossoms were not there yesterday. Click on the image.

This has been a rather unpleasant week, and not just because of the weather. Derek has not been feeling well, and yesterday we received notice that a very good friend of ours, Al, had died. We've known Al and Ernie, his lifelong partner (over 55 years), for more than 25 years. Al was almost 85 years old, and he had not been in shape for the last four years. A sad day for all of us who knew Al.

I posted these pictures to show that there is always something beautiful in nature. A little cheer on a dreary day...

All talk-little action

Last night, "Earth Hour" passed with nary a difference in our neighbourhood. We put out all lights in our house, turned off the TV and computers, lit up some candles, and had a glass of wine. Before the earth hour we had watched an episode of the "Cosmos" (Derek gave us the CD series for Christmas), and discussed the subject of that episode ("Backbone of the Night") while the lights were out.

Occasionally, I looked out of our front window to see whether other people had turned off any lights - nobody else seemed to have done so. Windows were still lit, outdoor lights were on, and the clouds were as bright as ever from the stray city lights.

For all the talk about preserving the environment, cutting energy consumption, making a smaller "footprint" on our planet, our neighbourhood at least gets a failing grade in that regard from me.

The solar flare of Monday, Feb 14

Near the centre of the image is the white flare which sent a massive amount of energy to Earth a couple of days ago.

I looked at the Sun through my Hα telescope yesterday but the flare is not visible in Hα light; however, the disturbed area where it originated on the Sun is. In particular, the "striations" at the centre of this image are visible in Hα.

ultraviolet image

Image from SDO/NASA

Caution: Never look at the Sun with the naked eye! All events on the Sun must be viewed through special protective filters; these reduce the light to about one thousandth of one percent (=1/100,000).

Here's a pertinent article published by National Geographic Magazine:

Ted Chamberlain

National Geographic News

Published February 16, 2011

The most powerful solar flare in four years exploded over the sun late Monday, according to NASA.

The magnetic instability that caused the flare also unleashed a blast of charged particles that should hit Earth's atmosphere tonight, possibly sparking auroras farther south than usual, experts say.

(Video: Solar Flare Causes "Sunquakes.")

The most powerful explosions in the solar system, solar flares occur when magnetic field lines on the sun cross, cancel each other out, then reconnect.

These "explosive reconnections" release huge amounts energy as heat—in this case, a short blast measuring roughly 35 million degrees Fahrenheit (19 million degrees Celsius), according to physicist Dean Pesnell, project scientist forNASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO.

In visible light, only the small dark surface blotches of sunspot 1158, which spawned the flare, could be seen. Without the SDO satellite, "you would never have known what was happening above" the sunspot, Pesnell said.

But the satellite's ability to detect many wavelengths of light allowed the observatory to image not only the flash, in extreme ultraviolet, but also streams of charged gas arcing along magnetic field lines—a "perfect example of solar physics." (See a January picture of a large solar flare.)

Not that SDO is perfect. Its digital-imaging hardware, for example, was overwhelmed by the intensity of the flare, resulting in overexposed areas that make the flare look bigger than it was.

Imaged flawlessly, the flare, at its most intense, would "look like a ball of light floating above the surface," Pesnell said, "about the size of a house."

(See pictures of solar eruptions.)

Solar Flare Plus Aurora-Inducing "Wind"?

Monday's fleeting magnetic breakdown also sent "a firehouse of material spraying out from the sun" when "spring loaded" streams of charged gases were freed from the magnetic fields that hold them in place on the sun.

Such so-called coronal mass ejections can pose radiation threats to astronauts and overwhelm Earth's magnetic field, potentially disrupting satellite communications and power grids on the ground.

But the solar gale now heading our way isn't expected to be particularly harmful. That's because, according to predictions, "it won't hit us dead-on," Pesnell said.

Still, he said, strong geomagnetic activity is expected Wednesday night, perhaps most visibly in the form of auroras—the southern and northern lights, which occur when atoms above Earth's gain energy from solar charged particles, then release it as light.

The U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center, he said, forecasts a 30 percent chance of auroras as far south as Washington, D.C.

Stargazers below the northern U.S. should look for a diffuse reddish glow, however, rather than the neon-hued "curtains" seen around the Poles. Furthermore, the nearly full moon will effectively dim any auroras Wednesday night.

(Pictures: Huge Solar Storm Triggers Unusual Auroras.)

X-Rated Solar Flare

Monday's blast was the first X-level solar flare since December 2006—X being the highest level of the flare-rating system.

But at X2.2—or 0.00022 watts per square meter—the Valentine's Day flare wasn't unexpectedly powerful.

"It fits in just perfect" with forecasts that show the sun entering a period of increased activity, Pesnell said.

The recent explosion, he added, has nothing on the giant blasts of the early 2000s. That most recent active period spawned the biggest solar flare on ever directly measured in November 2003—a blast more than ten times as powerful as Monday's.

Compared to that "big honker," he said, this week's flare "is pretty typical—except it was beautifully typical, because we saw it with SDO."

For more on solar flares, sunspots, and solar wind, read "The Sun—Living With a Stormy Star," from National Geographic magazine >>

"Biking"

Since the weather was reasonable this morning (it's getting ready to rain right now), my wife and I decided to take our regular walk around the neighbourhood. We do this as often as weather permits. For us that means that it's not raining or snowing. In that case, I substitute a half hour on our stationary bike. I've been using that bike basically by myself; my wife does her exercise by doing her normal housework - we have a "split-level" home, and she's constantly walking up and down the stairs.

By now, the bike's odometer reads just over 6043 miles (over 9700 kilometers). I commented on this exercise bike in March, 2009, at which time the odometer read 3000 miles. At an average of about 9 miles per half hour that additional distance represents roughly 330 days on which I used that bike.

It shows how often the weather around here is bad enough for us to forego taking a walk, because this means that there have been something like 170 inclement days per year during that interval; it's an indication that we live in a "high precipitation" city.

Here's the link to that previous post:
http://penmachinedad.blogspot.com/2009/03/turning-3000.html

True friends

Last night, since Derek has been feeling a bit better for the last couple of days, he had a date with some of his buddies to go to dinner. They arrived in a limousine to pick him up, much to Derek's surprise. The dinner took place at Gotham's - one of the "in" dining institutions in this city (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fflic.kr%2Fp%2F9c7N4i&h=6d43a. Fortunately, Derek has not lost his appetite; food is one of the things he can still enjoy.

What a considerate thing to do - true friends indeed.

Other "Earths"

For many years, astronomers, physicists, geologists, and scientists in other disciplines, as well as science fiction writers, have speculated whether there are planets circling other stars, much like our star (the Sun) has a retinue of large and small planets circling it. Our Earth is one of those planets. The ultimate aim is to establish whether there are other planets (exoplanets - not part of our solar system) which could perhaps have liquid water on their surfaces. We see liquid water as the absolute basic necessity for life as we know it, although we are beginning to see variations of life even here on Earth which may perhaps lead us to a possibility for other life forms, not necessarily requiring water.

In any case, the underlying reason to look for Earth-like planets elsewhere is to come up with a reason to think that life is present throughout the universe (at the moment, we have absolutely no evidence that life exists elsewhere).  Exoplanets have been known to exist for a couple of decades or so, but they are very hard to detect and the first ones we knew about were extremely large and could be called "failed stars".

There are a number of telescopes in orbit which are specifically designed to look for the extremely small effects which such planets have on their "suns".

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/MOST/  - This is a Canadian project, directed by Dr. Jaymie Matthews of UBC, which has detected some exoplanets as a serendipitous byproduct of its main mission (to measure tides and wave propagation in distant stars).

There are orbital telescopes specifically designed to look for exoplanets, and one in particular is designed to look for Earth-sized ones. Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Mission

It has just succeeded in detecting one exoplanet which is just slightly larger than Earth, albeit unlikely to be earth-like. This is the news release from NASA:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-007&cid=release_2011-007&msource=11007&tr=y&auid=7605855

(Artist's concept, NASA news release)

It'll have a profound impact on human thinking if we ever find another planet on which intelligent beings are present. If we ever get into direct contact with such a "civilization" the course of human evolution may be permanently altered.

Nostalgia

We celebrated our family Christmas with a wonderful dinner at my sister-in-law's again this year. There were also plenty of presents - practical for the adults and appropriate ones for the young ones. Among the presents we received I'd like to single out just one: Derek, Airdrie, Marina, and Lauren gave us a set of DVDs of the great series "Cosmos" by Dr. Carl Sagan. At the time it was first broadcast on TV (about 1980), Derek (who was then eleven years old) and I watched it with great fascination and admiration. It left a lasting impression on both him and me (See Derek's blog here: http://www.penmachine.com/2010/11/save-a-step).

I just finished watching the first three episodes again - the series has lost none of its significance and is in little need of updates. These are included as visual appendices on the DVDs. I still feel as I did the first time around and am hopeful that young people, many of whom were not even born when the series aired will have a good look at it. The series is available on youtube: (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cosmos+carl+sagan&aq=0). While I admire the great strides technology has made since then (I am an electronics technologist myself), I think that quite a bit of its use is superficial and will have no lasting meaning.  By contrast, the Cosmos series has "staying power"; it will impart a much more realistic perspective of life to our younger generation.

Watching the "rerun" (from my perspective), I was transported back to the time I first watched it  - with family memories coming to mind, along with the changes in our family since then: Derek (and our nieces) growing up, getting married, having their own families, etc. - nostalgia.

Thank you, Derek, Airdrie, Marina, and Lauren.