Stunning

Brilliant Massive Stars

The image below is just breathtaking.  I found it at the Astronomy Picture of the Day site and just gaped at it for a few moments. Pictures like this are what draws us all to astronomy — if for nothing else than the sheer loveliness of such distant, alien visions. This was actually released a couple of years ago as a part of a story about looking for what we thought might have been the heaviest (most massive) star in the Milky Way Galaxy. When astronomers first studied this region, they speculated that there was a single star here that could be as much as 200 solar masses, which would make it the most massive known.

It turns out that what they thought was a single massive star was, in fact, three stars with about 100 solar masses divided between them. If you’re interested, they’re the central bright stars above the cloud in this image. Even three stars having a hundred solar masses is … well… massive.  These stars will become insanely bright and stupendous supernovae when they die. And, below them is a huge stellar nursery, cranking out more hot, young stars for future astronomers to study!

Massive stars in the open cluster Pismis 24

The Best Blog Title Evar…

It’s Hard Up Here for a Blimp

The maiden flight of the Airship Ventures first blimp. Guess its name and win a free flight!

Okay, so Wired beat me to it, but you gotta admit, it’s a great title. And, the story behind it is one that I’ve known about since last year when one of the two principals told me about it at a meeting.  The “blimp” in question is actually a zeppelin (essentially a blimp with rigid airframe) — and the first to touch down on American soil in more than 70 years. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it belongs to a company called Airship Ventures, founded by a couple named Brian and Alexandra Hall.

Alex is an old friend and colleague who we got to know from her work with a couple of different science center fulldome theaters in England and the U.S.  I ran into her at an Association of Science-Technology Centers meeting in Los Angeles a year ago and she regaled me over lunch with the tales of hers and Brian’s latest adventure.

I have to admit, I’ve wondered how this venture would go, considering that zeppelins haven’t been used much for human transport in an age of jet aircraft.  Still, we’re all used to seeing the Goodyear Blimps (which are different in design but follow the same principles as zeppelins) in the skies over games. So the idea of gliding along in an airship that lets designers take advantage of the way gases can be compressed (remember the gas laws!) into bags (cells) that can be attached to rigid skeletons and used to loft people into silent flight isn’t a new one. I hope it goes well for Airship Ventures — and maybe sometime I’ll be able to save up and take a ride with Alex and Brian!

Split Cherry Tree

How I Learned the Importance of Science and Education

I think from an early age I was interested in the outdoors and bugs and animals.  At the age of 7 or so I became aware of the stars and planets. One thing I was really big on was reading, and my mom always said that if you couldn’t find me, I was probably somewhere with my nose in a book.  From that reading is probably where I got my formal interest in science.

Recently I ran across one of the stories I read as a kid that has always stayed with me. It’s called “Split Cherry Tree” by the writer Jesse Stuart. In light of the recent attacks on science as “elitist” and “anti-religion” and all the other untrue assertions made about planetariums and science education (and the apparent lack of understanding about science and education evinced by the vice-presidential candidate for the GOP), I think this story says it all about why our society should maintain its interest in and funding of education. In particular I think it applies quite rightly to the importance of science education.  Here are the first few paragraphs and a link to the full story. Your assignment?  Read and reflect on what it means. I mean, really read it and reflect thoughtfully.

I don’t mind staying after school,” I says to Professor Herbert, “but I’d rather you’d whip me with a switch and let me go home early. Pa will whip me anyway for getting home two hours late.”

“You are too big to whip,” says Professor Herbert, “and I have to punish you for climbing up in that cherry tree. You boys knew better than that! The other five boys have paid their dollar each. You have been the only one who has not helped pay for the tree. Can’t you borrow a dollar?”

“I can’t,” I says. “I’ll have to take the punishment. I wish it would be quicker punishment. I wouldn’t mind.”

Professor Herbert stood and looked at me. He was a big man. He wore a grey suit of clothes. The suit matched his grey hair.

“You don’t know my father,” I says to Professor Herbert. “He might be called a little old-fashioned. He makes us mind him until we’re twenty-one years old. He believes: ‘If you spare the rod you spoil the child.’ I’ll never be able to make him understand about the cherry tree. I’m the first of my people to go to high school.”

“You must take the punishment,” says Professor Herbert. “You must stay two hours after school today and two hours after school tomorrow. I am allowing you twenty-five cents an hour. That is good money for a high-school student. You can sweep the schoolhouse floor, wash the blackboards, and clean windows. I’ll pay the dollar for you.”

I couldn’t ask Professor Herbert to loan me a dolIar. He never offered to loan it to me. I had to stay and help the janitor and work out my fine at a quarter an hour.

I thought as I swept the floor, “What will Pa do to me? What lie can I tell him when I go home? Why did we ever climb that cherry tree and break it down for anyway? Why did we run crazy over the hills away from the crowd? Why did we do all of this? Six of us climbed up in a little cherry tree after one little lizard! Why did the tree split and fall with us? It should have been a stronger tree! Why did Eif Crabtree just happen to be below us plowing and catch us in his cherry tree? Why wasn’t he a better man than to charge us six dollars for the tree?”

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