31 Days of Planets: Wannabes

Day 31

You know, not everyone is a planet. But some have tried very, very hard to be - it's not their fault that astronomical conditions didn't work it out so that they orbited the sun and were big and... you know, everything else that categorizes a planet.

In this month of planets, I think it is time to recognize the honorable mentions - those that almost could have been a planet, if things were different. Which they're not.

The first honorable mention goes to Vesta!

Vesta is one of the largest asteroids in the solar system (second in mass only to the dwarf planet Ceres). It is the brightest asteroid visible from Earth. It is home to the Snowman Crater!

Why is Vesta a wannabe planet? Primarily because she has large cracks which scientists call graben, or areas where the ground sinks when two faults move apart. Research suggests that this beautiful asteroid was formed in the same way as planets. Thus - she tried, but didn't quite make it. Instead, Vesta is an asteroid  and quite an impressive one at that.

The second wannabe planet is Phoebe! One of Saturn's moons.

Why is Phoebe a wannabe planet? Pheobe, one of Saturn's oddly shaped moons, orbits in the opposite direction from all of Saturn's other 60+ moons. The data shows that Phoebe formed in the first 3 million years of the universe. In addition, it appears that Pheobe actively evolved before freezing up and drifting into our solar system. Now Phoebe is a moon, and a special one at that: she was the first to be discovered using photography.

Our third wannabe planet is Titan! Everyone has heard of Titan - one of Saturn's great moons. In fact, Titan is remarkably similar to Earth, except with different chemical composition. Titan is larger than Mercury, and if it revolved around the Sun instead of Saturn, we would probably be much more interested in investigating all of its plentiful resources. It is the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and along with Earth, there is evidence that stable bodies of water exist on its surface. Titan is awesome. Let's go there. 

Look, we even have a picture of the surface:

It's amazing.

In conclusion, we humans may think in terms of planets, but there is an incredible amount of everything to be found in the universe. I suggest that we not quit looking.

Pictures from Wikipedia.

31 Days of Planets: Fiery Planet of Doom

Day 25

The Fiery Planet of Doom! as you might think, is not a place in a video game. Although it might be. And that would be awesome. It is not the place that parents tell their children they will go when they lie, and it is not the place that haunts your nightmares. Well, actually, I don't know that. It might be. It's real name is WASP 18b, such clever and intriguing name, and this planet is the superhero of planets: the Flash!

It whips around its sun in less than a day (an Earth day). In addition, it is more than 10x the size of Jupiter! That is huge, in case you didn't realize. HUGE. And the planet is so close to the sun it is extremely blazing hot, and about to crash into the sun... making it a fiery planet... of doom.

If THE FLASH had more control over its general direction, it would be a fiery, fast, fortuitous, fabled, fantastic, fabulous, formidable, furious, free, fierce, flaring, flickering, flashy, ferocious, fearless, forceful, frenzied, flaming FLASH!

In conclusion, this might actually be where you go when you lie.

Picture from here.

31 Days of Planet: Fomalhaut b

Day 20

To be or not to be, that is the question! Or rather, to b or not to b! Because it's anybody's guess: does Fomalhaut b really exist?

Approximately 25 light years away, this exoplanet (in the constellation Piscis Austrinus) remains ... unconfirmed. The real question is: if we found it, why is it unconfirmed?

Scientists inferred the existence based on its influence on the Fomalhaut dust belt which was not centered on a star - thus implying that it must be centered on something else, like a planet. Then they took a picture of it with the Hubble space telescope. 

But something was wrong. It's orbit. Because of the dust disk, the planet's orbit would need to be elliptical, but if this were the case, the dust belt would be disrupted because of the estimated size of the planet. Could there be another planet in the mix?

Ray Jayawardhana argued that the misstep in the planet's orbit suggests that it might not be a planet at all and is pushing to have the exoplanet un-categorized as an exoplanet. 

At very least, we know that something is there. The not-yet-confirmed exoplanet would likely be a similar size to Jupiter, and surrounded by a belt of dust. From Formalhaut b, its star would look about like what the sun looks like from Saturn.

In conclusion, I think it's a planet, so that probably pretty much solves the whole issue.

The end.

Pictures from NASA and this article.

31 Days of Planets: Exoplanets

Day 19

As of this month, 842 extrasolar planets (exoplanets), or planets outside of our solar system, have been identified. The nearest exoplanet is in the Alpha Centauri system. The first published discovery - which was later confirmed - was by Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Wang in 1988. 1988 was a fantastic year - an amazing and stupendous year!

Exoplanets might look like Jupiter. They might look like Earth. They might look like Venus. They might look like - well any kind of planet that we already know, then possibly something completely different! The universe is so big and there is so much possibility, that I mean, think of it - a pink planet? A polka-dotted planet? A planet with dinosaurs that can fly?!?!

One day we'll get there. Yes, yes we will. Or die trying. We better die trying. We better not die by destroying ourselves. That would be very frustrating.

In conclusion, space, here we come!


Pictures from Hawaii! and discoveryblog and liberalrev.

31 Days of Planets: Saturn

Day 2: Saturn

Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun. If there were three Saturns, that would be 666 and probably the end of the universe. Saturn's radius is NINE TIMES Earth's. Saturn + Jupiter make up 92% of the total planetary mass in the solar system.

Saturn's defining characteristic is the system of rings that swoop so elegantly around the giant gaseous ball. The rings are probably hundreds of millions of years old, and are made up of ice and dust and a few moonlets. 62 moons orbit Saturn, with Titan the most well-known, but only 53 of the moons are named. They say that some of the moons act as Sheppard moons, and herd the rings to keep them in place, to keep them from expanding outwards. I like to think that those moons are alive, and so are the rocks and dust and moonlets - like a herd of sheep and some sheepdogs flying thousands of miles an hour around the beautifully gaseous and ringed planet.

And this is what Saturn would look like if you stuck it in a fire for a while (this is a real picture, though):

Hypothetically, if you were to have a Saturn-like planet, and then a giant asteroid (we're talking GIANT here) came and smashed the planet out of the rings, could the particles, etc. form to create a donut-shaped planet? Or would they all converge down to the center? Or would the energy resulting from the impact send everything flying outward towards space?

In conclusion, Saturn is awesome.


(Pictures from NASA)

31 Days of Planets: Jupiter

Day 1: Jupiter

Jupiter is my favourite planet. Also known as the Wandering Star, Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It has at least 67 moons, of which the largest four (Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto) were discovered by Galileo in 1609 and 1610. Jupiter is a gas planet.

The most well-known feature of Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, a storm bigger than the size of Earth, swirling violently through Jupiter's atmosphere. Jupiter also has rings, which are made up of dust and little rocks.

At least two spacecrafts have been deliberately crashed into the surface of Jupiter to take readings inside the atmosphere.

In addition, Jupiter has an aurora.

In conclusion, Jupiter is awesome.

Images from NASA.

When I was in Alaska

When I was in Alaska, there was a spacewalk.
Somehow I seem to find space everywhere.

Back to the beginning: I went for a walk. An 8-ish hour walk to be precise. I was very sore the next day. Also, I am writing this on an airplane. The first half of my walk was along a bike trail that followed the ocean. 

Here I stumbled across the most amazing thing (besides the ocean and mountains an trees and ducks and just everything in general):

Jupiter! 

Apparently (if you read the sign), a brilliant, beautiful, human being decided to scale down the solar system and measure it out along this bike path. Amazing!

The four inner planets were supposedly located on 5th street in downtown Anchorage. Jupiter was a 43 minute walk from the Sun.


Next I found Saturn.

Saturn was another 35 minutes beyond Jupiter. Beyond that were Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto; Pluto was a 5 hour and 30 minute walk from the Sun. I didn't make it that far. I did, however, make it to Moose land.

I found this moose sign, which I loved.

If you meet a moose with perky ears, don't invade its personal space, and try to peacefully coexist with the half-ton moose with slashing hooves. If the moose has flattened ears, think angry, half-ton, cat. Run - preferably faster than the moose. Actually, it doesn't say it on the sign, but you probably should back away slowly first, then run if necessary.

At any rate, all you really need to know is that if you ever want to stroll through a system of planets, gazing at the glittering stars and basking in the emptiness of space, go to Alaska at night (or you can go back in time and hitch a ride on one of the Voyagers - that would work too - but I'd recommend Alaska - you're less likely to die.)

How well do you know Jupiter?

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Imagining the Universe with Kitty Litter

If you imagine the universe, instead of as what exists beyond the the thin layer of elements that separate us from everything, but as an endless expanse of darkness with droplets of stars floating in determined circles around massive all-consuming, all-absorbing black holes, you'll discover that this is impossible. No matter how hard I know that the universe is thirteen billion years old, that stars are so massive it could take 1100 years to fly around one (a big one) in a jet plane, that millions and billions of these objects inhabit the rest of the dark, vast expanse of everything--in my head the looming rent bill still seems bigger.

When I see this picture-- 

--the biggest thing I can imagine is a dust storm blowing over cities and farms and continents. But this picture represents the birthing process of stars: the Orion Nebula having babies as big as or bigger than our sun, far bigger than our Earth, and incomprehensibly larger than me.

I'm a girl. Sometimes I feel fat. Well. Here's the thing:

Watch this. 

I'm not fat.

I like to imagine the universe. I spend hours and days and months and eventually years trying to picture it, to capture it with words or pictures or simply with thought, but I never will. I also don't care. Despite the immense impossibility of ever understanding the whole thing, it still fills me with wonder (which is a great feeling), reminds me that there's so much more to find and see than the little things that sit in front of me everyday, and it makes even the most mundane seem valuable.

Our magnificent universe, working and working without ever stopping, building and destroying, thinking and innovating; our magnificent universe, functioning in perfect rhythm, ignoring tiny little me who so admires its beauty and grace but still creating the perfect conditions for my existence; our magnificent universe filled with massive stars and planets, made of every element imaginable, filled with black holes and galaxies, life and death and existence, is swirling around itself, dying and breathing and living, and I am lucky enough to be allowed to change the kitty litter.




For more cool things about the size of the universe, check this!

Stripes Had Better Be In

On Friday Dave took me to the beach. The water was a bit chilly. I know this because I took off my shoes and played tag with the ocean. I also picked up a rock. It has stripes.

You know what else has stripes? The sky. 

Last week the sun blasted us with charged particles. It disrupted high frequency radio waves for two days. The sun is beginning a cycle of regular solar storms, which should occur about once a month through 2013. They won't all hit us, of course--the sun is a sphere and could hiccup in any given direction, towards the Earth or not. These light shows--called aurora borealis in the North and aurora australis in the South--create some of the most beautiful skies ever visible on Earth.


Awesome thing number one: one charged particle is just a charged particle. But a collection of charged particles is actually plasma. A lot of science fiction stories include plasma guns--weapons that spout ionized gases that disrupt robotic systems, destroy living matter, and generally cause all sorts of excited chaos. Well guess what. The sun does this to us all the time.

Awesome thing number two: the sun does not hate us (or love us, take your pick)--other planets have auroras too. Jupiter continues to be my favourite planet. Check out this sweet picture of Jupiter's aurora:

 

 That made me think, "I wonder what our aurora looks like from space?" Someone else thought of that too. Someone who actually gets to go to space.

 

Awesome thing number three: sometimes the Sun practices exploding. On these nights the Earth dresses up, like for a fancy dress party, sparkling with gems and plasma jewelry, the princess of the solar system. And we are just little germs, scurrying around on the surface building castles and highways, afraid that our communications systems will be disrupted by the sun.


One day I want to go to Alaska. I will plan my trip around projected solar flares. If I do it right, maybe I can see the aurora over the ocean. I'll take my striped rock and wear pinstriped pants and a striped scarf. If I'm lucky, stripes will even be in that season. Otherwise I will have to be uncool. Uncool, perhaps, but happy.

Build Fission Rockets, Become Aliens

Rockets are the key to getting into space. Not the kind of key you keep in your pocket which allows you to access your house, but the kind of key which you keep in a giant laboratory that allows you to access the entire universe. Until now we've only used combustion rockets to do anything--destroy cities, launch missiles, power jet packs, send men to the space station and the moon. But now the anonymous "they" are working on fission powered rockets.

What is special about those? you ask. 

Well, think bigger. Think bigger than Earth, think bigger than Jupiter (my favourite planet), think bigger than our star or our solar system--think deep space. Millions and billions of stars occupy our universe. And dozens of planets orbit those stars--totaling dozens of billions. Imagine that we can fly out into nowhere, soar among the stars.

Whenever I hear someone use that phrase, I always imagine standing among trees or among a crowd of people, except instead of people or trees there are stars. But it will be nothing like that. To soar among the stars is to fly between them with millions of miles between, seeing their glow on the other side of the dark matter that surrounds us, on the other side of the vacuum filled with rocks and dust that sits between our tiny vessel and them. It is to be alone in the dark, always moving forward, always searching.

Sounds lonely. But it also sounds amazing. So what are we waiting for? Let's build those fission rockets and get going. Let's give our scientists jobs. Let's catapult the best and the brightest of the human species out into space to start looking for other places to go, to live, to populate. Instead of waiting for the aliens to come here, let's go be somebody else's aliens.

It's our new mission: build fission rockets, become aliens.

Here is a video in honor of Carl Sagan, one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Enjoy. And go be an alien.

Today's Menu: Tiny Baked Planets with a Side of Turkey

Every time I see Jupiter, which looks simply like an incredibly bright star, I feel a sense of wonder. This wandering planet feels so close I want to reach out and grab it with my hand. For several reasons, this is not at all possible. First of all, it is rather far away--approximately 391 million miles away. In addition, Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, measured at 1300 times the size of Earth. Which is what I will be after my two delicious Thanksgiving dinners.

I have this little book, called The Pocket Guide to Science, edited by E. E. Free, and published ever so recently in 1923, and this is what it says about our beautiful solar system: "It is made up of our sun and the planets which revolve about it. There are eight planets: Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. There are also several hundred tiny planets, the largest only 532 miles in diameter, which travel in orbits between Mars and Jupiter. These are too small to be seen except through powerful telescopes."

The thing about planets, especially the tiny ones cluttering up our space, is that although they are rather far away and rather large, they are still similar to many things on our planet. Like potatoes. I feel as though I will be spending a lot of time peeling potatoes today: two delicious Thanksgiving dinners, and only four hours apart. You will probably be peeling potatoes, too. And if not-- go help your mother, right now!

And while you're peeling potatoes, imagine that they aren't in fact, tuberous vegetables, but some of those tiny planets traveling between Mars and Jupiter. Today, think conservation! We can all work together to keep our solar system tidy by eating tiny baked planets with a side of turkey.