Conjunction of Inanna and Theia's Child Tonight

There was quite the spectacle in the heavens tonight, the conjunction of Inanna and Theia's child. Obviously some explanation is needed here since most people refer to these heavenly bodies as the planet Venus and the Moon. Inanna was the Sumerian name for the brightest planet, and they may have been the first people to surmise that the Morning Star and the Evening Star were the same object. The goddess they worshipped morphed into Ishtar and influenced the idea of Aphrodite. Venus was the Roman version of the deity.

Theia refers to the Mars-sized planetoid that collided with Earth early in her history that resulted in the formation of the Moon. The event probably took place about 4.51 billion years ago, very shortly after the formation of Earth itself. The hypothesis explains many of the odd chemical characteristics shared by the Moon and the Earth.

This picture was taken 45 minutes earlier than the first. Note the change in the position of he Moon (it moves much faster against the background.

In any case it was a beautiful sight tonight in the western sky shortly after sunset. I took pictures over a period of about 45 minutes and the relative position of the two celestial bodies was noticeably different.

Moon over (former) Magma...Pictures from the Road

 Who knew that it rains all the time in the Pacific Northwest??

We're most of the way home from our travels from central California all the way to Seattle, and I of course was looking forward to views and pictures of all those incredible volcanoes that extend from Shasta to Mt. Baker, but for the most part we saw overcast skies and rain. Go figure.

We did see Mt. Rainier briefly in our rear-view mirror at the end of a long driving day, and St. Helens for a moment from a bridge over the Columbia River in Portland, but neither moment offered an opportunity to stop for picture-taking. The clouds closed in shortly after.

We had similar hopes for today as we traveled down the central axis of the Oregon Cascades from Roseburg to California, but once again, the clouds were thick. But as we left Weed on the flanks of Mt. Shasta, the clouds parted and we had a glorious view of the sun-bathed volcano. I pulled off the highway, determined not to miss this last opportunity for a picture or two. As I was snapping pictures, I noticed the moon emerging over Shastina, the slightly smaller cone below the summit of Shasta. So here are the results. Enjoy! We did.

Finding Peace in the Nation's Most Crowded Park: A Walk Through Yosemite Valley

If you've read my previous couple of posts, you know I was in Yosemite Valley over the weekend. I was guiding my students on a field trip up the Merced River and into the park on Saturday, and I came back on Sunday seeking some better pictures of the recent rockfall at El Capitan.

We can't park a big bus just anywhere on the floor of Yosemite Valley, so I had to let my students loose to find their way to the upper end of the valley using the free trams. There was enough time that I decided to walk the three or so miles from Yosemite Lodge to Happy Isles, picking whatever winding combination of roads, trails, or sandy river shoreline I could find (there's a direct route, but why stick to that?). I was almost immediately awarded with a nice view of Yosemite Falls, which at 2,425 feet is about the seventh highest waterfall in the world. To my surprise, there was a bit of water flowing, kind of unusual this late in the fall.

The fall colors may not match the technicolor splendor that happens in the hardwood forests of the eastern U.S., but then those forests don't have the backdrop of vertical granite walls that Yosemite has. I was reveling in the splash of color here and there. I often think that fall is my favorite time of year here.

I made my way across the meadow trail to Sentinel Bridge. The cliffs of Glacier Point loomed high above. I didn't realize that I'd be up there looking down the very next day (that will be another post).

Half Dome seems to loom over every meadow view in the valley. It rises 4,800 feet above the valley floor. Although glacial ice filled the valley to the rim, Half Dome stood above the frozen rivers. It was shaped by exfoliation sheeting (corners and edges snapping off), as well as a bit of undercutting from the glaciers below. As you will see in a near future post, Half Dome would better be called Four-fifths Dome, but that doesn't flow so well. Actually I prefer the Native American name of Tis-sa-ack ("Crying Girl").

Because people tend to stare at Yosemite Falls when they are flowing, they find it easy to miss the prominent cliff of Yosemite Point and the Castle Cliffs (below).

I crossed the Merced River at Sentinel Bridge, and got a colorful version of the iconic view of Tis-sa-ack reflected in the still water.

It's the funniest thing...the seven square miles of the floor of Yosemite Valley may very well be the most crowded real estate in the national park system. The park doesn't get the highest number of visitors in the system, but it does get five million, and something like 90% of them spend their visit in the valley. And yet, despite the crowds on the day I was there, the moment I got off the road, I invariably found myself alone. Finding peace in the middle of tourist chaos is a precious gift, and I soaked it in.

Approaching the footbridge near the empty Curry Housekeeping Camp, I had a fine view towards Yosemite Point and the Castle Cliffs reflected on the Merced River.

I quickly walked through the gaggle of people at the stores in Curry Village (I'm not a purist; I stopped for a Gatorade at the store). I headed up the trail to Happy Isles. I started to find more and more Dogwood trees turning shades of pink and yellow. I made it to the Nature Center and met with my students to talk about geology, and then we made our way back to Yosemite Lodge.

While I was talking to the students one last time, I happened to turn and saw the Moon rising along the cliffs off to the southeast. I snapped some zoomed pictures, only to find later that I was aiming directly at Glacier Point. If you look closely, you can see the fencing and people gathered on the edge of the precipice. I was pleased with the effect.

We got on the bus and headed home, and despite the hubbub of running around with students all day, it was one of the most serene experiences I've had in a while. And best of all, I would be up there again the next day!

Second Week of Class, Wherein I Get Distracted by a Picture of the Earth

Earthrise from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

I can't help it. I get to the end of another lecture, one I've done dozens of times over the years, and it dawns on me what an extraordinary time we live in. We were talking today about the origin of our planet, and the evidence that has accumulated regarding the formation of planets in general. I presented a PowerPoint that ended with the picture above. I dismissed the class, but left the picture on the screen as I gathered up my things. This picture amazes me, in much the same way as the earth rise picture from the Apollo Mission in 1968. From the perspective of teaching for more than thirty years, I stand in awe at the wonders revealed by our exploration of the cosmos.

When I started teaching, the origin of Earth and Solar System was reasonably well-understood, but direct visual evidence was somewhat lacking. Quantitative measurements and laboratory simulations shed a great deal of light on the process of planetary formation, but visual evidence provides an emotional charge to understanding. Emotion is not a prerequisite to learning, but it can inspire the desire to learn.

When I started teaching all those years ago, I had slides, images that were shone by a piece of technology called a "slide projector". They mostly described the origin of the Solar System with a series of paintings, depicting what we thought the process would have looked like. I didn't scan them all, but one of them looked like this:

Credit: William K. Hartmann, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona

As the years passed, our ability to look farther into the Universe improved, and striking images appeared in the media. One by one, the paintings disappeared from my presentations, to be replaced by actual scenes of planetary formation taking place outside our own Solar System. The first was a fuzzy image of dust clouds around Beta Pictoris, a star about 65 light years away from Earth. It was the first time such clouds were imaged.

Then, in the early 1990s the Hubble Space Telescope transformed our view of the Universe. Spectacular images arrived, including those of the Orion Nebula, showing numerous planetary disks in the stellar nursery. More paintings disappeared from my class presentations.

Hubble image of planetary disks (proplyds)

Most recently, in 2014, it was the stunning image of a newly forming star with gaps in the dust cloud, showing where new planets were clearing space in the planetary disk. We aren't quite to the point of seeing the individual planets or their features, so the last painting in my presentation will probably remain, but who knows? The new James Webb space telescope is set to launch in 2018. It will represent 30 years of technological improvements over the Hubble Telescope, and it will be bigger. Who knows what wonders we will see next?

ALMA image of the young star HL Tau and its protoplanetary disk.  Credit: ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); C. Brogan, B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

But we always come back in my lectures to the home planet, our Earth. It's our home and will be for the conceivable future. Images of the pale blue dot in space illustrate both our isolation, but also our hope. Knowing it's all we have, one can hope that our students and our society will chose to care for, rather than exploit our fragile planet. The most distant picture of our planet was photographed by the Voyager Spacecraft in 1990 after it left the Solar System for an unknown future in interstellar space. The Earth was a single pixel at that distance.

If you've never heard or read Carl Sagan's comments about the Pale Blue Dot, here they are. I certainly could never have said it better:

We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

[...] To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Moon and Jupiter in Conjunction: Last chance until 2026!

Courtesy of "Science is Awesome" over at Facebook, here is a list of some of the most impressive astronomical events of 2013, including the hopefully spectacular show of Comet ISON in November and December. I remember Hale-Bopp from the 1990s and this is possibly going to be more impressive. If you check the list closely, you'll see that the first event is happening right now, as Jupiter and the Moon appear to be very close in the sky (if you are in South America, Jupiter will disappear behind the Moon). I took the photo above just a few moments ago.

PS: I realized the headline might be less than clear. It means that the Moon and Jupiter will not be this close in the sky again until 2026. Conjunctions do happen more often than this.

More on the conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter can be found by clicking here.

Geo-Picture-a-Day Week: Moon, Sky and Rock

It's day six of Geo-Picture-a-Day Week and today we go to basics: stone, sky and cosmos. It is an unusual framing of a familiar arch at Arches National Park in Utah: Landscape Arch, which is one of the widest spans in nature, the length of a football field. It's so thin in some sections that it is a wonder that it still stands (a big chunk fell out of it in the 1990's). So many geological processes are incredibly slow, but I will not be surprised if this arch collapses during our lifetimes.

Arches may seem like a deserted landscape, but what a contrast to a place like the moon, where essentially nothing happens aside from the occasional meteorite strike. A distant lonely place...but thinking back to the 1960's and my youthful dreams, I wish I had had a chance to walk upon it...