Dohiyi Mir

Naming Conventions: Crater Giordano Bruno

Because a FB friend asked, I was curious about the naming history:

[A]part fiom the debate as to when and how the crater was created, what is of interest to us is that a Soviet astronomer (or astronomers) thought in 1960 to name this exeeedingly bright crater in honor of Bruno. Perhaps Bruno, as a martyr of science and free thought, figured as a hero for a people living in the less-than-free society of the then Soviet Union. Or perhaps Bruno, as a writer of esoteric doctrines that had inspired generations of Russian spiritualists such Madame Blavatsky and Pavel Florenskii, and gothic/proto-science fiction writers, such as Vladimir Odoevskii, seemed to be the ideal person to pIace on a bright spot on the "occulted" side of the moon. Or perhaps, as astronomer Jonathan McDowell suggests, Bruno was for the Soviets of the time a hero of rationalism and anti-clericalism.

Although we cannot confirm any of these possible motives from the information available, the Soviets' decision to pair him with the most lumninous, expansive object on the dark side of the emoon might have been a gesture of sincere admiration and hope. The fact that it took centuries for a feature on the moon to be named for Brumo (lunar nomenclature officially began with Giovanni Batista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi in 1651) is in itself a story worth considering.

I had a few speculations along similar lines, and while I wish I could find answer, I'm fairly happy with the continued mystery...

ntodd

PS--Neat LRO imagery of the crater.

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Lunar Time Machine

Carl Sagan providing a favorite astro-historical story.

Gervase's account of Canterbury monks possibly witnessing the creation of Crater Giordano Bruno in 1178:

In this year, on the Sunday before the feast of St John the Baptist, after sunset when the Moon had just become visible, a marvelous phenomenon was witnessed by some five or more men who were siting facing the Moon. Now there was a bright new Moon, and as usual in that phase its horns were tilted toward the east; and suddenly the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint in the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over considerable distance, fire, hot coals, and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were, in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me, and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it assumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisted shapes and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance. The present writer was given this report by men who saw it with their own eyes, and are prepared to stake their honor on an oath that they have made no additions or falsifications in the above narrative.

Well, it appears that the monks saw something else:

Now a new analysis demonstrates that a cratering event could not have happened in 1178. Paul Withers (University of Arizona) finds that an impact large enough to create a 22-km crater would likely have showered Earth with 10 million tons of ejected fragments -- perhaps a trillion bright meteors in all -- during the days that followed. "A meteor storm as impressive as this and lasting for a week would have been considered apocalyptic by all medieval observers," Withers comments. Yet no mention of such displays appears in English, European, Arabic, or Asian chronicles of the era.

Laser-ranging experiments during the 1970s revealed that the Moon nods back and forth by a tiny amount ("free libration"), suggesting to Hartung's supporters that the globe was still reverberating from the impact. But Withers notes that a reanalysis of the laser-ranging data later showed that the slight oscillation arises instead from fluid motions deep in the lunar interior. Furthermore, while Giordano Bruno is indeed the youngest crater of its size anywhere on the Moon, multispectral images from the Clementine spacecraft show that this impact site has to be much older than 800 years. 

Still an amazing account from where I sit.  And that's the beauty of science: we test, debate and adjust rather than merely accepting doctrine ex cathedra.

The man for whom the aforementioned crater was named burned at the stake on this date in 1600.  His crime, of course, was heresy.

He believed in things beyond the Church's teachings, and refused to recant.  While his execution didn't have much to do with his larger speculations about the nature of our universe, it isn't hard to understand how such a man as Bruno might end up straying when he thinks like this:

[I]f it is found that this our globe cannot be proved to be of a constitution different from the surrounding stars, since it manifesteth accidents no different from theirs, then should it no more than any one of them be regarded as occupying the central position of the universe, nor as being more fixed than they, nor will they appear to revolve around it rather than it around them.

Faith and reason, science and god don't have to be mutually exclusive, but usually are when Church and State are merged...

ntodd

Note: this is a repost from last year.

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And God Saw That It Was Good

Coincidentally, one of our FB friends had shared a link today to an old Science Wednesday post:

The picture became known as “Earthrise” and the image of the world from the perspective of a desolate lunar surface became an iconic reminder of our need to protect the Earth’s fragile resources. Earthrise and images like it are widely credited with inspiring the environmental movement and indirectly the start of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. In Life’s 100 Photographs that Changed the World, wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called it “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

I say coincidentally because it just so happens that we started rewatching From the Earth to the Moon this weekend, and tonight we got to the Apollo 8 episode.  Anders' photo wasn't the first earthrise ever captured, and it may or may not have been so widely distributed as 17's Blue Marble, but it certainly did present a tangible change in perspective for us.

I pointed that out to Sam when the scene came up on the show, and he said, "That's our planet we're on?  Where we live?"  Mind blown enough that he didn't change the subject to his kittens or Transformers for a few minutes.

ntodd

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It's A Mad House!

Tell us more, Dr Zaius:

The Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia believes that biological evolution is false because chimpanzees cannot speak like humans do.

BuzzFeed revealed on Tuesday that E.W. Jackson made the claim in Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life, a book he published in 2008.

In the book, he noted that scientists had taught chimpanzees to use sign language. He said this finding was wrongly used as evidence that primates were our ancestors. Jackson said the scientists were incorrect because spoken language was a gift God provided exclusively to human beings and “no other creature.”

Aside from the fact that we are primates, not just descended from them, I'm fairly certain nobody has linked us to chimps because they can learn sign language.  Lots of silly DNA and fossil studies for that.  

We also, you know, didn't actually evolve from chimps, and bacteria won't spontaneously turn into other creatures in your biology lab.  So let's teach less science and more Creationism in schools because FREEDOM!

ntodd

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"You could almost not drag me in..."

On the anniversary of Ed White's historic EVA, I read the news that China is getting ready for yet another spaceflight.  Regular readers know that I am not only obsessed with the US space program, but eagerly follow China's tentative steps into the shallows of the cosmic ocean.

If you're as obsessed with rocket travel--or the finer points of our Constitution, which never mentioned space agencies--perhaps you'd like to be an enabler and donate to keep this blog going until we get back to the moon?

ntodd

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Speaking Of The Moon

Jeebus wept:

As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.

But don't tell that to the good people of Waco, who were "visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence," according to the Waco Tribune.

Nye was in town to participate in McLennan Community College's Distinguished Lecture Series. He gave two lectures on such unfunny and adult topics as global warming, Mars exploration, and energy consumption.

But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: "God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars."

The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.

At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled "We believe in God!" and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they'd always suspected.

Like God couldn't make a lesser light out of a fucking reflector, or stars that are actually other suns, far away...

ntodd

Some Coincidences In Space And Time

Ne frusta vixisse vidar ("May I not seemed to have lived in vain").

 - Tycho Brahe's last words to Johannes Kepler

I noted in March that Kepler discovered his 3rd law on almost the same date that his namesake space observatory was launched.  Now, on THIS date, he reconfirmed his discovery (after noticing some calculation errors), and we also receive some not-so-good news about the Kepler spacecraft:

At our semi-weekly contact on Tuesday, May 14, 2013, we found the Kepler spacecraft once again in safe mode. As was the case earlier this month, this was a Thruster-Controlled Safe Mode. The root cause is not yet known, however the proximate cause appears to be an attitude error. The spacecraft was oriented with the solar panels facing the sun, slowly spinning about the sun-line. The communication link comes and goes as the spacecraft spins. 

We attempted to return to reaction wheel control as the spacecraft rotated into communication, and commanded a stop rotation. Initially, it appeared that all three wheels responded and that rotation had been successfully stopped, but reaction wheel 4 remained at full torque while the spin rate dropped to zero. This is a clear indication that there has been an internal failure within the reaction wheel, likely a structural failure of the wheel bearing. The spacecraft was then transitioned back to Thruster-Controlled Safe Mode.
...
The spacecraft is stable and safe, if still burning fuel. Our fuel budget is sufficient that we can take due caution while we finish our planning. In its current mode, our fuel will last for several months. Point Rest State would extend that period to years.
...
With the failure of a second reaction wheel, it's unlikely that the spacecraft will be able to return to the high pointing accuracy that enables its high-precision photometry. However, no decision has been made to end data collection. 

Kepler had successfully completed its primary three-and-a-half year mission and entered an extended mission phase in November 2012.

Even if data collection were to end, the mission has substantial quantities of data on the ground yet to be fully analyzed, and the string of scientific discoveries is expected to continue for years to come. 

All good things must come to an end, I guess.  And this mission was certainly not in vain...

ntodd

No Handball Playing In This Area

Vaya con Dios, Jose!

ntodd 

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

Just ask Stonewall Jackson:

Firsthand accounts of the Chancellorsville battle describe how Jackson kept his troops fighting into the night — a rarity at the time. That same day he had accomplished a major victory, squashing the Union's Eleventh Corps in a famous "flank attack." When the sun set that night and the sky darkened, Jackson pressed on, continuing the fighting by moonlight. It was then that a Confederate officer on the left wing of the 18th North Carolina regiment spotted Jackson and a group of riders coming toward him.

Mistaking his commander for advancing enemies, Major John Barry ordered his troops to fire. Jackson was hit with bullets in his right wrist and left arm, which had to be amputated, and died of complications from pneumonia eight days later.
...
[N]ow, astronomers say they know why Barry couldn't identify his commander — it's all because of the moon. Astronomer Don Olson of Texas State University and Laurie E. Jasinski, a researcher and editor at the Texas State Historical Association, report their findings in the May 2013 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.
...
Olson and Jasinski calculated the moon's position and the lunar phase using astronomical software, and figured out exactly where Jackson's party, as well as the 18th North Carolina regiment, would have been at the time of the shooting, around 9 p.m. that night. They used Confederate almanacs in Richmond at the Virginia Historical Society, as well as battle maps by Robert Krick, a military historian who is an expert on the Battle of Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson and the Civil War in Virginia.

"Once we calculated the compass direction of the moon and compared that to the detailed battle maps published by Robert Krick, it quickly became obvious how Stonewall Jackson would have been seen as a dark silhouette, from the point of view of the 18th North Carolina regiment," Olson said.

Olson has used astronomy to solve other historical whodunits before. For example, he calculated the direction of moonlight on the night of Paul Revere's ride in 1775 to explain why Revere wasn't spotted by British sentries on a nearby ship, and exposed how moonlight allowed soldiers on the Japanese I-58 submarine to see, and sink, the USS Indianapolis in 1945.

No silvery moon in June for him...

ntodd

Water, Water Everywhere

This is reasonably cool:

Astronomers have finally found direct proof that almost all water present in Jupiter's stratosphere, an intermediate atmospheric layer, was delivered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which famously struck the planet in 1994. 

Back in the Dark Ages, my company had enjoyed Internet access for not quite a year when SL9 smashed into Jupiter.  Most of our technical people thought the Internet was a fad and not worthy of serious consideration, but attitudes started to change a bit when I kept feeding everybody pictures of the impact.

I'd download files from various FTP sites and put them on our local Netware servers for all to see.  In a small way, it showed the value of the Internet, as well as the beauty of our cosmos.

ntodd