Monthly Archives: February 2009

art, galaxies, galaxy garden

This Garden Universe

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The Galaxy Garden

The Galaxy Garden at Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Image copyright 2013 Carolyn Collins Petersen.
The Galaxy Garden at Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Image copyright 2013 Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Back when I was in college the first time (about the time of the Triassic), I had an astronomy professor who encouraged us to be creative in our final projects for extra credit. I was already running an A in the class, so I decided to do a book review of a popular “science” book that turned out to be about a hoax subject.  Some of my other classmates were much more creative, and so they turned in things like a pizza in the shape of M51, quilted stars, and star poetry.

I was reminded of that class (and how much fun we had the last day eating that pizza and listening to a poetry reading) when I saw a little blurb online about the Galaxy Garden in Kona, Hawai’i.  It’s an actual garden in the shape of our Milky Way Galaxy and each plant and flower has special significance to help explain the shape and makeup of our galaxy. There’s an amazing wealth of educational info on the website — I suggest you check out the page and its wonderful explanations of the art and design, as well as the science of the garden!

I happen to be a huge fan of the Big Island of Hawai’i.  I did two planetary science field trips there during grad school, went on an eclipse expedition there in 1991, have been to several meetings there and in Honolulu, and I work with the folks at Gemini and Subaru Observatories from time to time with their public outreach materials.

I’m also a fan of Jon Lomberg’s work. He lives on the Big Island but his work is known world-wide. His art is featured in Cosmos (the ground-breaking TV documentary by Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan), and has been commissioned by NASA, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Sky & Telescope Magazine, and on the covers of various magazines and books.  He’s a great and creative guy and so it’s no surprise that he conceived of and implemented this lovely garden at the Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary in Kona. It looks wonderful and I can’t wait to go back to the Big Island and see it!

astronomy, physics

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Exploring the Superlative Universe

The Space Shuttle: how fast is it? How fast could it go? (Artwork depiction courtesy National Geograhic.)
The Space Shuttle: how fast is it? How fast could it go?

Do you want to know what the fastest things are in the universe?  The most explosive?  The biggest and smallest? What objects do you think are faster, bigger, smaller, or most explosive?  For the fastest, I figured maybe it would be the high-speed, relativistic jets coming out from the centers of galaxies, where black holes live and snarf up surrounding matter.

For biggest and smallest, I figured superclusters of galaxies and sub-atomic particles, respectively. And, most explosive?  It would have to be the Big Bang, right?

All those things are examples of superlative things (from a Middle English perversion of a late French term superlatif, which came from the Latin superlatus, meaning “lifted up to the highest degree, most eminent”, etc.).

An asteroid the size of Manhattan may have contributed greatly to the death of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Is that the biggest explosion in the cosmos?
An asteroid the size of Manhattan may have contributed greatly to the death of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Is that the biggest explosion in the cosmos? (Artwork depiction courtesy National Geograhic.)

Superlatives in the cosmos are the topic of a series of three programs being shown on National Geographic beginning this weekend called Known Universe. I’ve been watching a preview copy of the series (thanks to the NatGeo folks!) and even I’ve learned some new things.  Like, what do you think the fastest object to be rocketed into space?  It turns out to be the new Horizons spacecraft which is traveling at toward a rendezvous with Pluto in 2015 at around 18 kilometers per second.  The series is chock-full of facts like that.

So, why study superlatives in the cosmos?

Because, so far as we know the biggest and smallest and fastest and slowest and most explosive things all obey the same laws of physics, throughout the universe. They teach us about conditions in other places, and how planets and galaxies and stars can change and evolve. These things help us understand the universe a bit better, even if what we’ve learned is the smallness of the atoms in a strand of hair or the speed of particles as they are accelerated in a physics experiment. In other words, superlatives help us understand the common places as well as the exotic in the cosmos.  That’s part of the message of this series. Maybe as you watch it, you’ll discover new things yourself.  Go check it out — starting Sunday night, January 15th on National Geographic Channel (in the U.S.).