On this day in 2004, an explosion from SGR 1806-20 reached the earth. It is thought to be the largest explosion to be observed on the earth since a supernova was observed in 1604. SGR 1806-20 is neutron star with a particularly strong magnetic field. I have a certain fondness for neutron stars because the first paper I published involved a mathematical model of a neutron star. They are bizarre objects.

After a supernova, the star can experience a gravitational collapse — becoming small and unimaginably dense. For example, SGR 1806-20 is less than 20 km in diameter with a mass of over 12 times that of the Sun. Because all this mass is so compact, in order for angular momentum to be conserved, neutron stars spin very fast. In the case of SGR 1806-20, it rotates on its axis every 7.5 seconds.

The magnetic fields on neutron stars are enormous, but SGR 1806-20 is in a special category with even larger fields, magnetar. During the event that caused the 27 December 2004 observation, SGR 1806-20 released more energy in 0.1 seconds than the Sun does in 100,000 years. If SGR 1806-20 had been one of our closest neighboring stars, that one event would have killed all higher life forms on Earth. SGR 1806-20 is 50,000 light-years away. The closest magnetar to us is 9,000 light-years away. But that’s an evolutionary thing. If the Earth were close to such an object, advanced life would never have developed here.

Other people torture themselves thinking about terrorism. But I find this kind of stuff far more edifying. The universe is horrible. We really do exist on a particle of dust floating through space. We survive because of dumb luck. But at least it is cool. For example, if you took the entire human population and put them on the surface of a neutron star, they would be squeezed to the size of an aspirin. Where else but science do you learn things like that?

On this day last year, the first test flight of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Orion MPCV) took place. Using it, we should be able to go beyond low Earth orbit to, say, the Moon. Indeed, its next test will be an uncrewed trip around the Moon by the end of 2018. And then, some time around 2022, we plan to send four astronauts into orbit around the Moon. And then a few years later, the first crewed trip to an asteroid.

Now you all know me: I love the robotic space program. I’m not that keen on people going up in space because I’m risk adverse. But this is pretty cool. And if people are going to be orbiting the planet… Plus, the potential for the exploration of asteroids really is great, because it is our first real efforts to address the potential catastrophe of an asteroid striking the Earth. On the other hand, given how well humans seem to be doing in creating their own catastrophes, maybe it is unnecessary. Still: it is worth doing.

Also: the cost of the mission is estimated to be less than $3 billion. That’s roughly 50 times less than colonizing the Moon — much less Mars. But I know how all of you are really excited about colonizing Mars, so listen up: Orion is an important step in that too. It seems to me that Orion is about the most exciting thing happening in crewed space exploration. It’s a bit of a return to the Apollo days.

On the other hand, Donald Trump will probably destroy the world before we ever reach an asteroid. Here’s hoping I’m wrong!

On this day in 3340 BCE, the first solar eclipse was noted. And it was in Ireland of all places. There is much dispute about this. But what the hell: it’s a good excuse to talk a bit of eclipses. When I was younger, I always wondered why it was we didn’t have solar eclipses on every new moon and lunar eclipses on every full moon.

The reason is because the solar system is really a mess — everything is tilted this way and that. So things have to line up just so in order to get an eclipse. It just so happens that we have very special solar eclipses here on earth because the apparent sizes of the moon and the sun are almost exactly the same. If you were on the moon, you would experience a whole lot more solar eclipses — they would last longer than our eclipses, but they would also not be so stunning in their near perfection.

Regardless, it isn’t surprising that we humans would would have been making notes about eclipses for thousands of years. If this Irish notation of a solar eclipse is right, it is around the time that humans first developed written language. In other words: as soon as humans started writing things down, they were writing about eclipses. Because they are amazing.

On this day in 1974, Lucy — or as her friends know her, AL 288-1 — was discovered. She is our best representative of Australopithecus afarensis, a hominid that lived between three and four million years ago. Her fossilized skeleton is thought to date back to about 3.2 million years ago. What is most interesting about her is she seems to have walked on two legs. At the same time, she had a small skull, like that of non-hominid apes. Thus, we believe that humans walked upright before we developed our ridiculously large brains.

I find this kind of stuff fascinating. We humans are so focused on our brains, but they really are part of a larger evolutionary picture. If not, why don’t all animals just get bigger and bigger brains? Being smarter is not necessarily an advantage. We can see that in our own world. There’s the question people like me hate, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?!” I also relate it to VHS and Betamax. The latter actually had a better quality, but the former was good enough — along with some features that made it more useful. That’s how I think of rich people who started poor: generally smart enough with the right skills for making money — rarely brilliant.

So why bipedalism and then increased brain size? It appears to be because freeing up the hands led to building of tools. And in that, being smarter was a major advantage. So evolution selected for bigger brains only after our ancestors started walking on two legs. As I said: fascinating.

On this day in 1924, the universe got a whole lot bigger. Until Edwin Hubble published his findings, it was believed that the Milky Way galaxy was the entire universe. Andromeda had been known of for thousands of years. But it was thought to be a nebula inside the Milky Way. Hubble showed that it was far too distant for that and was rather a galaxy like our own. It was truly one of the days the universe changed.

When I was young, I had what is probably a typical view of the universe: there are stars, and around them are plants; stars swirl around in galaxies; and galaxies are just these things that hang out. But it is all a whole lot more messy than that. In fact, the universe seems to be like a fractal: it’s kind of the same at whatever scale you observe it. There are, for example, about three dozen galaxies that we know are satellites of our own. In about four billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are going to “collide.” They won’t really collide, because like most of the universe, they are almost all empty. But the two will go on to form a new galaxy, that we’ve already named: Milkomeda. Check out this great animation that NASA created of this interaction:

Based upon this, you can see why people have a hard time not believing in a multiverse. And I don’t doubt that at some point we will find a way to show this indirectly. Maybe a better understand of dark energy will imply other universes. Or maybe, it is all just a delusion of the singularity of my consciousness. In which case, I don’t know why you’re even reading this. Oh, that’s right: you aren’t. A better question: why am I not happier? As singularities go, this consciousness is just meh.

On this day in 1905, Albert Einstein published an incredibly important physics paper. It was a very good year for him, but remarkably, not his best. In 1905, he published four papers — any one of which would have made him a huge figure in 20th century physics. He was 26 years old. And, as we know, working a day job. This is used by many people to claim that we don’t need to fund scientific research. Of course Einstein was working a government job. And the people who say that are idiots.

The first paper (9 June 1905) was, “On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light.” This was the photoelectric paper that posited that energy is quantized. It is the most important paper in quantum mechanics. Interestingly, Einstein never did accept quantum mechanics of the Heisenberg and Schrödinger variety. That’s where the quote “God does not play dice” comes from. Even more interesting is that Max Planck, who did so much to further Einstein’s career, thought that this paper was total junk. And if anyone has the claim to being the father of quantum mechanics, it is Max Planck.

The second paper (18 July 1905) was, “On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat.” It’s a classic of statistical mechanics. It explained Brownian motion as a random walk. I’ll be honest, I’ve never paid much attention to the paper because it seems too obvious to me. Statistical mechanics have always just made sense to me. But it was a huge finding at the time.

The third paper (26 September 1905) was, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” That’s Special Relativity. There was a year of my life when I was quite literally obsessed with it. It made no sense whatsoever to me. I finally realized that the problem was not my understand of Special Relativity but with my expectations. It isn’t a theory meant to explain the universe as I know it. It is meant to explain the motion of bodies moving very fast relative to each other. There is no “intuition” that we humans will ever have for it.

The fourth paper (21 November 1905 — 110 years ago today) is the most important of the papers, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” This is also about relativity. It is where we get the famous equation: E = mc². But what’s really important is that it is the first step toward Einstein’s greatest achievement, the General Theory of Relativity. And that, will have to wait for another time.

On this day in 2013, the MAVEN space probe was launch from Earth. MAVEN stands for “Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission.” It entered into orbit around Mars on 22 September 2014. It was designed to study the evolution of Mars’ atmosphere over time. And less than two weeks ago, NASA announced, NASA Mission Reveals Speed of Solar Wind Stripping Martian Atmosphere.

It was discovered that the Martian atmosphere is significantly eroded during solar storms. This indicates that Mars used to have a much thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere that kept the planet much warmer than it now is — warm enough for liquid water to exist on the surface. The change from this warm Mars to the cold Mars of today apparently took place roughly four billion years ago.

I find this frustrating. I wish I were still associated with a college. I have questions. Did Earth’s larger magnetic field shield it from this effect? Is there a reason why this effect would be most important with carbon dioxide or is it just that the Martian atmosphere is primarily composed of the gas? Would the same thing have happened if the atmosphere had been mostly nitrogen or oxygen?

Regardless, this is fascinating stuff. And I don’t remember hearing a bunch of news coverage about this last week. It goes along with something I say often: our science reporting is terrible. Our political reporting is terrible. It seems that journalism is terrible with regard to anything I know a bit about. So I think we can conclude from this that journalism is terrible regarding everything. That’s not to say that all of journalism is bad or that all reporters suck. But it does indicate that there is something wrong with the industry. And I’m afraid I know what it is: the profit motive. It needs to be publicly supported. That is as important to democracy as elections.