4 posts tagged “astronomy geek”
Just a few things wandering through my brain tonight.
First off, I got into a discussion today about planets, specifically which planet was my favorite. I've always sort of resented Saturn, the Liberace of planets. It just seems so ostentatious with its gaudy, "hey, look at me everybody" rings. Liberace used to wear giant rings, too, although his weren't 155,000 miles wide. I half expect the Cassini probe to find candelabras on one mink-covered moon.
I have to give props to Jupiter, of course, just for being so undeniably awesome. It's interesting to look at--lots of pretty colors, and the big red spot (more properly known as The Great Red Spot), basically a hurricane 2 to 3 times the size of our little rock. Hell, Jupiter is 2.5 times as massive as all the other solar planets combined. We're nothing more than a tick to Jupiter's hound.
Anyway, Kellee at work said that Pluto was her favorite planet. I scoffed, of course. Pluto has been downgraded to a "dwarf planet." "Dwarf Planet" is Latin for "crappy little dirty snowball." Pluto isn't even the biggest dwarf planet--that would be Eris. I didn't bother to point out that Pluto exists in the Kuiper Belt, sort of a planetary Island of Misfit Toys, where rocks and asteroids and comets and crap linger across the railroad tracks from where the cool planets live, smoking generic cigarettes and guzzling 40's of Mickey's Malt Liquor.
So Kellee--faced with my irrefuteable rightness--said, "Well, I bet YOUR favorite planet is Uranus!"
I carefully argued my case for Neptune being the coolest planet. It's a lovely blue color, accessorized smartly with a pink moon named Triton. It has the highest winds in the solar system (roughly 1500 mph, or 10 times as fast as Hurricanes Andrew or Katrina), and it vents methane gas into the solar system, just like my brother. Plus, Triton has a retrograde orbit, meaning it was originally one of those crappy little Kuiper Belt dirtballs, untill Neptune cruised by and rescued it. (Think "Pretty Woman," only with Neptune and Triton instead of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts) The coldest object measured in our solar system was on Triton, at -235 C (second coldest, in case you were wondering, was the Devil Bitch's icy heartless core).
Then it dawned on me: Uranus just might be my favorite planet, except that I hate its name. If the four Jovian planets were Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and, say, Jennifer Garner, I'd probably dump Neptune faster than John Mayer dumped Jessica Simpson. Planet Jennifer Garner is a lovely green, and rolls through its orbit on its side. I respect a planet that doesn't stand up all the time. Planet Jennifer Garner lacks the scary weather of Neptune, and her moons are named after Shakespearean characters. And yes, Jennifer Garner has rings, big beautiful, expensive, Ben Affleck-purchased rings. As far as the planet...well, you know.
Which led me to this thought: somebody somewhere was the first to make the eighth-grade joke, "Uranus has rings." Really, somebody had to be first with that one, and he or she (though it was almost certainly a teenaged boy) has most likely reproduced.
Oh, enough astronomy for now.
If ever I needed to have a drummer standing by for a rimshot, it was last night. A friend-girl was saying something about how much of her female plumbing had been removed. I told her she should have bought the Extended Cervix Plan. (rimshot)
She did a spit-take. A happy one, thank God.
I was talking to a lady today about how fall is "just around the corner." I mentioned that we have at least six more weeks of brutal summer here. She responded sympathetically, and I realized, I don't mind the summer here. It's hot, yeah, and we had heat indices in the 100's today. But there's mystery, magic, energy in the heat, in the long steamy nights. As refreshing as that first cool front will be, it won't feel right somehow. The constant heat and humidity get old, I admit, but it's how it's supposed to be.
Either way, at least we're not on Pluto (so nyaah, Kellee). Happy Thursday.
(Tampa, FL, 0320 EDT, 29 August 2008. 83 degrees Fahrenheit, heat index 89 F--the way summer nights should be)
Sometimes, I really wish I had a camera with me at all times. Ana-Sofia was clamoring to go out on the balcony, and I went out with her, just to check out Lake Tom at night. There's something peaceful in the summer night, with white birds skimming the water's surface, scooping up bugs for dinner, and a Stravinsky tree frog concerto croaking and warbling in the steam. The cat watched the birds raptly, and I glanced up to see this:
I've seen lots of beautiful things in my life, sights you can stare at, drink in, savor and commit to memory: sunsets over the Grand Canyon, Space Shuttle launches, lunar eclipses, waterfalls, mountains drenched with autumn color. My memories are rich with these images, but there's something spectacular in the split-second blaze of a fireball. A few years ago, I watched the Leonid meteor shower. It was an unusually active part of the cycle, and the moonless night was clear. During the peak, around 0500, I counted between the meteors: five to ten seconds. It was amazing from my vantage point next to a street light. Out in the dark countryside, it must have been unbelievable.
When I was home from college one summer, I was driving down Longboat Key. I came to a stretch where the Gulf of Mexico is less than a hundred feet from the road, with no trees or buildings blocking the view. I looked to the west, and I saw the Flash of Green. I'd read about the green flash, and heard people who knew someone who saw it, and there it was, just for me: the final sliver of the orange sun slipping below the horizon, then a brief double-flash of green.
I think we live movies, but we remember snapshots. I watched "Juno" a few weeks ago. It was good, but I wasn't enthralled with it at first. It seemed to be a little too self-consciously hip at times, a little too cute. The moment that sold me was when Jennifer Garner meets Juno at the mall. The expression on her face when she feels the baby kick made me go all gooey. Her face radiated delight, wonder, and joyful amazement. In a movie famous for it's overly precious dialog, the most transcendent moment for me was one without words.
My brother and I played 18 holes of golf at Disney's famed Magnolia course one summer day. I couldn't tell you my score, nor could I describe a single shot, but I'll never forget driving the cart back to the clubhouse as lightning struck the trees near us.
We get some of the world's most amazing sunsets here, and I notice them when I can. They paint the sky with just about every color imaginable, from soft pastel pinks and lavenders to fiery reds to heavenly gold. Some of these tableaux hold for a seeming eternity, fading gradually into twilight. A couple decades ago, I happened to look to my right at a fortuitous moment, and I saw that flash that trumps every lingering sunset I've ever seen. Tonight, I'm grateful HRH Ana-Sofia was so unwavering in her demand for balcony time. That, and that some piece of space detritus chose that moment to hit our atmosphere.
Thank God I didn't blink.
I mean, for the new moon to move so it no longer blocks my view of the Sun.
I smiled. Some of my neighbors outside chattered excitedly.
The sound is the double sonic boom caused by a Space Shuttle on final approach to Kennedy Space Center across the state. There are two glide paths the shuttle will take. One is further south, over Ft Myers, I think. The other goes right over Pinellas County, causing that loud, wonderful, jarring double boom.
Anyone who's wandered around my Vox knows that I'm a total astronomy dweeb. I always have been. But I'm also a NASA geek. When I was a wee lad, my dad used to take us out in the front yard to watch the Apollo rockets take off. We were on the other coast, but you could see the fire, bright as it could be. During the early Space Shuttle days, my uncle was stationed at Patrick AFB in Satellite Beach. He got us into KSC for one launch. It got scrubbed at the last minute. A few days later, we drove back over, and watched the shuttle launch from the side of a highway. There were tens of thousands of other folks parked there as well. This was Challenger, on one of her early successes.
A few years later, I was in Tallahassee when Challenger exploded. From all the way up there, you could see the contrail. It didn't look like anything was wrong, really, but I'd been watching Tom Brokaw show the footage. I was crushed. I was crushed again when Columbia disintigrated. My stomach and spirits alike fell like the debris.
As long as I've lived here in Gomorrah, I've always treasured that double boom when a shuttle lands. For all the flubs and overruns NASA has endured, the technology and daring are still miraculous to me.
My phone just burped. Here's the text message:
FW: From: 3738 Msg: news@baynews9.com / Breaking News / Space shuttle lands safely after two week mission. Tune into BN9 for more.
My cellular phone just sent me a text-message from my 24/7 local cable news channel, telling me that a big hunk of machinery we humans launched into space has just returned safely--gliding, for God's sake--from its mission (helping build an orbiting space station), and I've just sent that text message from my cellular phone through the Interweb (via my broadband connection) to my home computer, whereupon I pasted it into this message, which has gone through the Interwebs to your computer, where you're reading it now.
It's so damn cool living in the 21st Century. And welcome home, Endeavor.
