New Horizons Closest Approach to Pluto

Posted on 14 Jul 2015 by Frank Moraes

[I decided to go live with this ahead of schedule. The following text is based upon it being published at the usual 9:05 am. See the “Afterword — Live Blog” section below.]

Pluto - 13 July 2015 As this is published, New Horizons will have made its closest approach to Pluto. It’s closest approach will be at 4:49 am local (Pacific!) time. Even Google is celebrating it with an unfortunately fairly boring Doodle to mark the occasion. But it’s the thought that counts. We already know so much more than we did before about the planet, dwarf planet, or space debris — depending upon how you see it. I tend to be in the “space debris” camp, but I think it is wonderful space debris. This is a great moment. We can’t manage to feed all our children. We can’t manage to stop fighting wars. We can’t even manage the European economy, but at least we can fly out to Pluto and take some measurements.

Speaking of which, the big news as I write this is, How Big Is Pluto? New Horizons Settles Decades-Long Debate. It turns out it is even bigger than we thought: almost 1,500 miles across. But just to be clear: that’s still a hell of a lot smaller than our Moon. Interestingly, Pluto’s biggest moon, Charon, turns out to be just about what we thought from ground based observations. And the reason for that is really interesting!

The problem with Pluto is that it has an atmosphere. True: not much of an atmosphere. Pluto’s atmosphere makes Mars’ atmosphere seem thick. Nonetheless, it is thick enough to cause all kinds of light disturbances. As a result, when we were observing it from the earth, we had to assume a certain level of atmospheric distortion. But it turns out that Pluto is less dense — likely containing more ice. And its atmosphere is even thinner than we had assumed before.

Meanwhile, New Horizons has been able to get better estimates of Pluto’s next two biggest moons. Hydra is about 30 miles across and Nix is about 20 miles across. We are still waiting to get better images of the two smallest moons: Kerberos and Styx. And I assume we are going to discover other small moons as well. We will see.

Afterword — Live Blog

Fake Science and Fake Reality on Television

Posted on 09 Jul 2015 by Frank Moraes

Mermaids: The Body Found Are mermaids real? Well, they certainly were in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides — the best film in the series. But if you are a viewer of the supposedly science oriented Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, well, you might think they actually existed once in the real world, and it is only because of a government cover-up that it isn’t in all the papers. Because that is what the 90 minute long “documentary” Mermaids: The Body Found disclosed. I know this because my father came to me in a state of confusion and agitation after having seen it. And how could he know it wasn’t real? After all, they didn’t show it on History Channel.

The film was designed to deceive. According to Brad Newsome at The Sydney Morning Herald, “Here’s a new low in supposedly educational television. It’s a fake feature-length documentary that doesn’t ‘fess up to being fiction until a disclaimer pops up at the end. Until then we have what looks like a slick documentary about the discovery of mermaids and a conspiracy to keep them hidden.” People of my father’s generation generally think that when people go to the trouble of making films, they are at least trying to be honest. They don’t go in for that whole postmodern Blair Witch Project nonsense.

I remember when I was a graduate student, I was in the habit of putting up the covers of Weekly World News on my office wall. This was around the time that Bat Boy first showed up and I just loved it. One time, I had up a cover with some sea monster that had allegedly been found in Lake Michigan. One evening, our regular janitor saw the cover and became very concerned. He said, “I used to live on Lake Michigan and I never saw anything like that.” I tried to explain to him that I didn’t think it was real, but the fact that the tabloid looked real left him unconvinced.

After that, I stopped putting the covers up in my office. It had never occurred to me that people would actually think they reported the truth. And I remember clearly watching television movies as a child and thinking that certain apocalyptic movies were telling the truth about something that was really going on. It concerned me a great deal. So I don’t want to do that to other naive people. But the thing about those dramas was that (1) they were about actual things that were going on, but in a more dramatic setting (think: The China Syndrome); and (2) they weren’t trying to deceive anyone. But that clearly isn’t the case now.

Another part of the problem is that channels now have pretty much no relationship to what they nominally offer. Last year, Ross Pomeroy wrote, Dear Discovery Channel: Less Pseudoscience, More Discovering, Please. In it, he noted, “Discovery Channel’s slogan is brief and to the point: ‘The World Is Just Awesome.’ It’s just not awesome enough for them, apparently.” Back in 2011, PhD Comics summed up the problem nicely:

It’s all pathetic. And even worse, is the state of “reality television.” At least Mermaids: The Body Found was well done. They properly noted that the mermaids (if they existed) would be more like half human and half dolphin rather than human-fish. And the CGI was quite good. But “reality television” is now a big deal because it is cheap to produce. People put up with the fact that it is really pretty boring because of the heightened excitement that it is real. The problem, of course, is that actual reality is even more boring than “reality television.” So we end up with scandals like the fact that Alaskan Bush People aren’t even full-time residents of Alaska.

It’s not just in politics where Americans will accept total crap. It appears that that Americans will accept total crap in all aspects of their lives. I was never much of a fan of I Love Lucy, but there is no doubt that it is far better than the majority of stuff people happily pay to get pumped into their houses. Thank God for Bob’s Burgers, or I would think all hope was lost.

Pluto Coming Into Focus

Posted on 08 Jul 2015 by Frank Moraes

Pluto - Color - 3 July 2015 By the time this is published, New Horizons will be less than 5 days and 11 hours from its closest approach to Pluto. Last weekend, the probe stopped sending data for a while. This is now referred to as the July Fourth Anomaly. Apparently, the computer tried to do two computationally difficult tasks at once, and had a bit of a meltdown. But the autonomous autopilot noticed the problem, fixed it, and resumed communication after an hour and twenty minutes. Still, this put the unit off course, and wasted about a day because of the 9-hour communications delay between us and New Horizons.

The image there is the most recent that we’ve seen of the dwarf planet. The images from 3 July onward are the first in which we’ve been able to see some surface features. And we see in the southern hemisphere a lot of texture. What’s more, there is what looks like an enormous impact crater. Or maybe it’s a volcano. Who knows? The fact that the southern hemisphere looks more beaten than the northern hemisphere makes me think that there must be some kind of erosion process going on.

But the most obvious thing in the photo is that Pluto is kind of red. Meanwhile, it’s largest moon, Charon, is grey. So is the reddish color Pluto due to its atmosphere? It has a very small atmosphere. That could have something to do with it. Or it could be that Pluto and Charon are totally different. But they could still have once been part of the same object. This has got to be a particularly wonderful time for planetary scientists. I’m sure they are going crazy over all of the ideas that are being proposed.

Just in the last week, we’ve learned far more about Pluto than Clyde Tombaugh could ever have imagined. And the next week — not to mention over the next years as the data are analyzed — are going to be amazing. To me and probably most people, Pluto has always been just this fuzzy light in photographs. Just look at this image from Tombaugh’s original discovery:

Up to now, the dog Pluto has been more real than the planet. But now the planet is becoming real. It is coming into focus — literally. This is really going to be great.

Economics and the Neolithic Revolution

Posted on 06 Jul 2015 by Frank Moraes

I came upon a very exciting article headline, On the Economics of the Neolithic Revolution written by Kevin Bryan. The Neolithic Revolution was the time about 12,000 years ago when humans transitioned from nomadic hunters and gatherers into stationary farmers. I find it fascinating. What’s more, I have my own idiosyncratic ideas about it. For example, it is usually claimed that the invention of farming led to settlements. But as I’ve discussed before, there are settlements that started before farming. I tend to think that people settled down first. But most likely, it was a muddle with people hunting and gathering while they were also playing around with agriculture.

Bryan’s article on the economics of the Neolithic Revolution, is actually a review of a couple of recent papers. So my problem with his article is not exactly his fault. But he noted that the lives of people in settlements were not at first as good as those in nomadic tribes. But the reason for thinking that is so “economist stupid” that I want to scream: nomadic people were taller. Phrases like “man does not live by bread alone” are apparently drummed out of economics students. And Bryan even noted that those living in settlements showed fewer signs of “food availability shocks.” Humans, you may have noticed, are risk adverse. Most people would choose to have a dependable but lower quality diet than to have a higher quality diet that went along with significant risk of starvation.

The broader issue is that there are lots of other reasons that people settle down. And I don’t buy this whole idea that farming is this back-breaking work. Farming is back-breaking during certain times of the year. For most of the year, it’s actually quite a relaxed lifestyle. Hunting and gathering, on the other hand, is something that you have to do constantly. Plus, you are far more threatened by the vagaries of life. In a settlement, you can always escape inclement weather. And you are much less likely to be attacked by a leopard.

Bryan does bring up some good questions, however. He noted that inequality was worse in settlements. He doesn’t mention it, but rats were a huge problem too — which is why the invention of pottery was so important. But there are no doubts that settlements were not a complete improvement. Again, however, I think it all comes down to risk aversion. The rise in inequality probably happened because settlements tended to attract raiders. This caused the formation of governments for collective protection. But it is probably better to think of the mafia than a representative democracy.

Above all, what bugged me about the article was the two reasons offered for why people in settlements would create statues and such, which had no material value. Again: this is “economist stupid” thinking. Why did people create cave paintings? But okay, let’s look at what the economists come up with. First is the idea that it was the social equivalent of braying: to show off the strength of the society, “See, we are so strong, we can do useless things!” Even Bryan thinks that’s pretty lame.

The second idea is building totems acted as a kind of social branding — a way of establishing norms in the settlement. But doesn’t that beg the question? Isn’t the fact that people are willing to build these totems an indication that the norms have already been well established? To me, it is all about social bonding and shared meaning. The totems were something that the people believed in. In most cases, they were of a religious nature, which means — Listen up, economists! — that building them wasn’t rational.

No one makes individual choices based upon what is most rational for the collective. No one thinks, “I’ll be nomadic because statistically speaking, my children will be two inches taller!” That’s the kind of thinking of people playing Dungeons & Dragons. People live their lives primarily to minimize discomfort. It really has surprisingly little to do with economics — as powerful a way as it is for understanding the way the world works.

Afterword

Just to be clear, since economists do occasionally come by here: I am not saying that any of the economists involved in this are stupid. Far from it! I assume they are all brilliant. But people get caught in certain ways of looking at the world and lose their grip on reality. Models become reality. And since people are rational in the models, they must be rational in reality. It’s totally understandable, and I have done it myself.

The Purpose of Vaccination

Posted on 03 Jul 2015 by Frank Moraes

Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig Parents who identify vaccination as a personal choice made for themselves and their own children misunderstand vaccination as a concept. Most people will survive childhood illnesses without the aid of a vaccine; vaccines are not administered on behalf of these people, though they do help them avoid the non-lethal downsides of disease, such as temporary discomfort and long-term injury. Vaccines are rather administered on behalf of people who cannot receive them, and people who would not survive the illnesses they protect against based on deficits in their own immune systems. These people include the very old, the very young, and those already suffering: people with HIV/AIDS, people going through chemotherapy, pregnant women, and people who have never had strong defenses of their own. Widespread vaccination of healthy people creates “community immunity” or “herd immunity,” which prevents illnesses from penetrating groups where vulnerable people live, thus saving their lives.

—Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig
The Christian Case for Vaccinating Children

Anniversary Post: IRIS

Posted on 27 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

IRIS On this day, two years ago, NASA launched the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). It was created to study the sun’s chromosphere. And it has a single device on it: an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer. It takes a picture every second. And the pictures have a spatial resolution of 0.3 arcseconds. That’s about 1/6,000 the diameter of the sun.

But the really cool thing about ISIS is that it is in sun-synchronous orbit. That means that it is orbiting the earth from pole to pole. But it precesses at a rate of once per year. Thus, the satellite is always pointing at the sun! I had never even heard of such a thing before. I’ll tell you, those astronomers are very clever!

sun-synchronous orbit The results from IRIS are pretty technical. All I can really say is that the sun’s chromosphere appears to have a much more complex structure than previously thought. And different parts quite close together can have drastically different temperatures and pressures. I’m sure it will help us understand better how the sun releases its energy.

The IRIS mission length was supposed to be two years and it is now two years. But you know how NASA is. They are like Scotty from Star Trek, always providing bad estimates so they can look like miracle workers. Although in the case of NASA engineers, they really do seem to work miracles once projects are underway.

Happy birthday IRIS!

The Fermi Paradox and the Multiverse

Posted on 25 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

Turtles All the Way Down Caleb Scharf wrote a provocative article over at Scientific American, Does a Multiverse Fermi Paradox Disprove the Multiverse? His answer: maybe! My answer: no!

The Fermi Paradox is the contradiction of why it is that we aren’t constantly seeing space aliens given the predictions of just how common intelligent life must be in the universe. I don’t see the paradox because I think the predictions of life in the universe are ridiculous. We have good reason to believe that the Earth is the only place in our solar system that has life beyond bacteria. So it would seem that even life as complicated as flat worms is really hard to develop. It requires a stable system. And it turns out that the Earth has a lot of advantages — not least of which being our ridiculously large moon that stabilizes our rotation.

I know what people who know a little science (that is, have seen Cosmos) say to this, “But there are so many stars in so many galaxies! True enough. But most of the stars are clustered in the galactic nucleus where it is much too violent to allow advanced lifeforms to really get a foothold. Nonetheless, I’m more than willing to believe that the universe is riddled with flat worms. My big problem is much more speculative: humans.

In this regard, I’m not talking about the inherent violence of humanity and its tendency to destroy itself. But it is ridiculous for us to think that we will continue on as we have been. People think too much of a Star Trek future. But it just won’t be that way. We will either somehow get past our reliance on hierarchy or we will destroy ourselves through ossification. And if we do move forward, there is no telling where we will go, but it is unlikely to be out to visit nearby stars. We, with our modern view of reality, think that is the next step. But in two thousand years — to say nothing of 200,000 years — we will have a distinctly different way of seeing reality.

In many ways, we have regressed. Our science has gotten so good that it is now possible for a small minority — the power elite — to manipulate the masses. Just twenty years ago, global warming really wasn’t a political issue. There were still many unknowns — but that was the extent of it. Then the oil industry decided that admitting to global warming was a major threat to its profits. And now half the people in the United States think it is a hoax. It is very possible that Orwell was right, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” The only difference will be that it will be a democracy and the people will gladly vote for that boot stomping their faces.

The other issue is that there are huge constraints on moving from one solar system to another. The closest star is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away. So even at 0.9 the speed of light, it would take five years to get there. And that doesn’t include all the acceleration and deceleration that would be necessary. Even at that speed — which is a practical impossibility — a one way trip would be more than ten years. If we looked at the far more doable case of 0.1 the speed of light, it would be 43 years there, but about 90 years realistically. What about trans-light speeds or worm holes? I think they are firmly rooted in science fiction.

Scharf applies the Fermi Paradox to the multiverse. But this strikes me as even more ridiculous. He makes his case based upon some of the more foolish discussions of the multiverse. I don’t accept that other universes could just be anything. He claims that if universes could be anything, then surely there would be some that would allow one to move from one universe to another. I think that rather blurs the distinction between universes. Regardless, what if our universe is one of those that doesn’t allow such universe hopping? What’s more, if some civilization did come from another universe to ours, they would be equally constrained in finding our little planet.

I know that I am kind of pessimistic about all of this. But it seems to me silly. The multiverse is an interesting concept. It is possible that some day we could prove that it exists. No kind of simple argumentation on either side of the question is going to solve anything. But I think it is kind of silly to take the Fermi Paradox — which most think does not disprove that intelligent life is everywhere in the universe — and use it one step further out.

As for me, I just excited that we are visiting Pluto.

There Are Smaller Things to Fear Than Sharks

Posted on 20 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

After the two shark attacks inside of two hours on the same North Carolina beach, it’s not surprising that people get shook up. It could be that normal prey were in the area that attracted the sharks. Or it could just be a statistical fluke. Regardless, it is good that both victims were given immediate help and survived — albeit with life changing wounds. I haven’t been able to find any information on what kind of sharks they were, but one eye-witness said one of the sharks was about seven feet long. My guess would be that it was either a blacktip or bull shark. The blacktips are more common, but the bulls are more likely to attack.

Although I love and respect sharks, I really won’t go in the water. Blame it on Jaws. But I find it amazing that people actually dive with big and dangerous sharks — including great whites. But that’s their business. In general, being around sharks is a lot safer than you would think. For one thing, most sharks aren’t that aggressive. But even the supposed “man eaters” don’t really see us as prey. We are too boney. Not that this is much comfort to someone who just had her arm bitten off.

Christopher Ingraham wrote a good article following these recent shark attacks, The Animals That Are Most Likely to Kill You This Summer. He noted that people tend to dismiss concerns about shark attacks by pointing out things like heart attacks or traffic accidents. These really aren’t very helpful because the fear is not just about dying but the manner of death. Being bitten in half is not how most of us want to go — although it is probably better than getting mauled to death by a bear.

He put together an infographic that lays out our risks. It’s interesting. Looking at the United States from 2001 to 2013, we find that on average, only one person is killed per year by sharks, alligators, and bears. Venomous snakes and reptiles kill six. Spiders kill seven. And shockingly, nine people are killed by non-venomous arthropods — I assume ants. What’s up with that? Let me just say right now that I would rather be killed by a shark.

Similarly, bees and such kill almost 60 people per year. They are the biggest animal killers. But I’m more interested in the animals that we choose to be around — the ones we think of as our friends. Cows kill a lot of people — not because they are mean, but because they are big and people work with them. But dogs are responsible for 28 deaths per year. I’ve written about this, Dog Violence Is Completely Unacceptable. Too often it is one of those aggressive dogs that men with small penises refuse to castrate — usually resulting in the deaths of children and pregnant woman. Horses also kill a lot of people.

But the truth is that we shouldn’t worry about animals killing us. Mistakes made in US hospitals result in roughly 100,000 deaths each year. It’s important to keep things in perspective. Just the same, I don’t see myself making a categorical statement like, “Don’t go into the hospital!”

Anniversary Post: Telegraph

Posted on 20 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

On this day back in 1840, Samuel Morse was given the patent for the telegraph. Yeah, yeah, yeah: very important invention. And he was an exceptional painter. But it just goes to show that being brilliant and talented doesn’t make you a good person. Samuel Morse was a total jerk — a truly vile person. Let me count the ways. First, he was radically anti-Catholic, because, you know, he was a protestant and knew the one true way. Second, he was anti-immigrant, because, you know, he was already here. Third, he was pro-slavery, because, you know, being born in Massachusetts he had no reason to be for it except that the Bible told him so. Just listen to the great man on the subject:

My creed on the subject of slavery is short. Slavery per se is not sin. It is a social condition ordained from the beginning of the world for the wisest purposes, benevolent and disciplinary, by Divine Wisdom. The mere holding of slaves, therefore, is a condition having per se nothing of moral character in it, any more than the being a parent, or employer, or ruler.

That’s the problem with getting your morality from a book — especially one from thousands of years earlier that is filed with the vilest of social conventions cloaked in the idea that it was God’s will. Anyway, like most evil men, he had a long and happy life. He certainly didn’t make as much money off his patents as he could have, but he lived and died quite rich. So if you hear anyone complain that he didn’t get his due, remember: he lived like Mitt Romney but might have lived like Warren Buffett if his patents had been better controlled. Excuse me if I don’t care.

Anyway, happy anniversary for the bigot’s invention!

Text edited from . . . – – – . . . for Samuel Morse.

Anniversary Post: Giordano Bruno Crater

Posted on 18 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

It is almost impossible to resist marking this day as the beginning of the Tang Dynasty. But I am a science nerd at heart. And so on this day in 1178, the Giordano Bruno crater was formed on the moon. How do we know? Well, there were these five monks in Canterbury and they were looking at the moon. Being the 12th century, there wasn’t a whole lot else to do. Then as now, everything on television was crap. And they saw more or less an explosion on the moon.

Gervase of Canterbury was more or less the Christ Church historian at that time. And so he related what the other monks had told him. He then wrote, “From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a 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 resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.” Pretty amazing!

The truth is that we don’t know that this asteroid impact was what created the Giordano Bruno crater. There are other explanations. For example, what they could have seen was a meteor exploding in the earth’s atmosphere, but aligned so that it looked like there was an explosion on the moon. Either way, it’s a pretty cool thing. I like to think that it was the Giordano Bruno impact. Because that crater was named after — You’ll never guess! — Giordano Bruno.

Giordano Bruno is the man who only 400 years later would be burned alive by the very same church because of various ideas he had — including that the stars were suns that were very far away and that there were other worlds. I know a lot of my atheist friends like to blame this on religion. But that’s really unfair. The problem is humanity itself. We are a fearful species and it brings out our greatest cruelty. At the same time, there are incredibly liberal religious people and incredibly fearful, vicious non-believers.

But let’s just say happy anniversary to the Giordano Bruno crater. And let us ask forgiveness for what we did to Giordano Bruno. All too often, we know not what we do.

Crazy Republican Says Drought Due to Abortions

Posted on 16 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

Shannon Grove California is going through it’s worst drought on record. Four years we have been suffering from a lack of water. There is basically no snow pack. The situation is dire and Governor Brown has done a number of things to address the situation like water rationing. But according to Republican State Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, we have the wrong approach. The drought is not due to a high pressure system sitting off the west coast pushing away winter storms. It is due to the fact that God is unhappy with us because we haven’t passed laws to make abortion illegal.

According to RH Reality Check, Grove was speaking at the California ProLife Legislative Banquet. And with a Bible in hand that she waved above her head, she said, “This is the infallible word of God!” The fact that people like this have political power is truly frightening. A lot of Americans are worried about the Islamic State. But it is over there. It isn’t in charge here. But people like Grove have a lot of power and they are no more rational. I don’t see how it would be hard to convince Grove that we ought to be stoning homosexuals, given that the Bible is “the infallible word of God!”

But then she got down to the subject of the California drought. “Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” she said. “It rained that night. Now God has his hold on California.” In other words: if the state of California would just pass a law making abortions past 20 weeks illegal, our drought would be over. It’s amazing that NOAA hasn’t picked up on this simple solution. There’s no need for general circulation models; it’s all right there in the Bible. Except, of course, that it isn’t right there in the Bible. Like most modern American Christians, Shannon Grove decides on her own what the Bible means and then claims that that is the literal word of God. I call it hubris, and God looks down on that in the Bible.

What I think is fascinating about this is how it shows what the anti-choice movement really thinks of life. As soon as Perry signed that law, it rained. And then this year, well, the rain rain rain came down down down. And 46 people died in the flood this year. We don’t know how many people have died or will die as a result of our drought in California. But none of this matters, because people like Grove and her buddies in the anti-choice movement don’t care about humans after they are born.

Grove has also looked at California’s drought from a political perspective. Back in 2009, she was complaining about water used to support endangered fish. She said, “What civilized society destroys its own food source for a three-inch fish?” Of course, that’s not what she actually means. What she means is, “What civilized society puts the smallest pressure on corporate profits to protect an important ecosystem?” Of course, the issue isn’t the fish anyway; that’s just a nice way to blame our drought on those long-hairs. The point is that we can’t approach the drought in a rational way; the drought is an opportunity to demagogue in the name of business interests and fundamentalist Christianity.

Grove is, of course, not alone in her vile nuttery. World Watch Daily editor Bill Koenig has also blamed the drought on abortion and — What a surprise! — same-sex marriage. Columbia Christians for Life director Steve Lefamine had the nearly 2,000 deaths as a result of Hurricane Katrina all worked out, “God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion.” But somehow God never judges us for all the innocent people we kill in war. Consider this table from War Made Easy:

War	Civilian Casualties
World War I	10%
World War II	50%
Vietnam	70%
Iraq	90%

But these have nothing to do with the California drought. That’s because, once again, these people don’t care about human life. That’s why I refuse to call them pro-life — although there are people like Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig who I think do quality for that name. But people like Shannon Grove are just demagogues who want to deprive people of rights in the name of pushing their pro-corporate and authoritarian policies. It’s disgraceful. Maybe God’s mad at them and that’s why California is having this drought. But most likely it’s just that stable high pressure system.

Philae Lives!

Posted on 14 Jun 2015 by Frank Moraes

Philae Back on 17 November 2014, I reported, The Resurrection of Philae. It was a hopeful headline, because I was relating the fact that Philae had died. You may remember that there was a lot of excitement the world over — including here at Frankly Curious — when the Rosetta space craft managed to get into a stable orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Part of the excitement of this mission was that that Rosetta was going to look for organic material on the comet. It is widely speculated that the organic material on the Earth was seeded to it by comet impacts.

Part of this search for organic material was going to be done by the Philae probe that landed on the comet. Unfortunately, the system designed to anchor Philae onto the comet failed. This resulted in Philae bouncing around on the comet for two hours before finally stopping at the bottom of a cliff. This was unfortunate, because it meant that the solar panels on the unit would get very little sunlight. And thus, in just a couple of days — on 14 November 2014 — Philae powered down when its battery died. It was a sad day. But it wasn’t the end. There was still the hope that when 67P got closer to the sun, little Philae would power back up.

At 4:33 this morning, the world got the following tweet:

Hello Earth! Can you hear me? #WakeUpPhilae

— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) June 14, 2015

It then tweeted to Rosetta asking, “How long have I been aleep?” To which many people responded gleefully including mars_stu who responded with great cheek, “a long time… humans now hunted by apes riding horses, but don’t worry about it…”

Back in January, I had made my peace with the death of Philae, Organic Macromolecules on Comet P67. That was a very big deal. Actually, for me, that was the one big thing that I cared about. Comets are interesting in that they may well have been the primary sources of the Earth’s water and organic matter that led us to today when we have this amazing oasis of life.

In that article, I wrote:

The main thing to remember is that it is this kind of science that the Rosetta mission is all about. Here in the United States, we tend to focus on the technology side of it, “Hooray! We got a spaceship to orbit a comet! We landed on a comet!” But that’s just the means of doing something much greater. The objective of the mission is to better understand the origins of the solar system. And that work will be going on for years to come.

I still believe that. But I will admit that the fact that Philae has managed to wake itself up and get back to work is exciting based only on the cool technology that allows this. Of course, even more exciting is that Philae will get back to work. And given that 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has an orbital period of six and half years, it is possible that Philae will go back to sleep in a few months, only to wake up again six years from now. And then again and again and again. This really is great stuff — the best of what we are!

H/T: BBC.

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