I have been away for a while, and I apologize for the lapse. However, I was in a car accident. As a result of my injuries, I have not been able to prepare articles for my blog. But now I’m back, and I am looking forward to writing and sharing posts on science and on being out of doors.
My
recovery is progressing well, and I am often outside walking in the
neighborhood or sitting in my yard enjoying the birds and the breezes.
Thank you for returning to Stonefig and checking for new articles. I intend to post a new article in the next day or so, and hopefully will be posting two or three articles a week as I had done before.
Enjoy
being outside. And enjoy reading on the current trends in science.
Be careful on the road. I am fortunate and thankful that my town has excellent paramedics who were able to respond quickly and for the policeman who was first on the scene and performed life-saving CPR.
There were people sitting on chairs on a stage. They were all introduced, including Dr. Shep Doeleman, the Director of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project. There was applause, and then there was silence as everyone in the room sat up to listen closely and to see the picture they all hoped to see. The presentation was succinct, but everyone whether in the room or watching remotely from their offices or homes was waiting for the anticipated announcement. These included scientists, post-docs, students, managers, politician, reporters, and other interested people watching and listening. These other interested people were called the “black-hole enthusiasts”. The work was described, including the development of a Very Long Baseline Interferometer the size of the earth with multiple sites at locations around the globe. Not all of the sites were able to view the target location at the same time, but this supported obtaining good data since as the world turned other sites/telescopes were able to view the target location in space. High levels of collaborative processes were required for the EHT team to be successful.
The target was in galaxy M87, also known as Virgo-Alpha. It is the largest galaxy in the Virgo cluster. At the heart of the galaxy is a super-massive black hole. The international team was seeking to “image”, to create a picture, of the event horizon of the black hole in M87.
The room was quiet. Dr. Doeleman turned toward the screen and pressed the button on his control. For a moment there was total silence followed by the soft clicks of cameras in the room. Then applause. It did not carry on for wave after wave, but it was solid and positive and excited. The applause stopped as everyone in the room leaned forward to see the image. Everyone quieted down as if there were a sound to be heard. Every ear strained; every eye refused to blink.
The image on the screen clearly showed the edge of the event horizon inside of which not even light can escape. Dr. Doeleman stressed that it was the work of numerous nations, their agencies, and their early-career and senior scientists that made possible the development of the pictures. The pictures were created from more than 5-petabytes of information. It was the hard work of all these people that enabled the image seen today to be extracted from the mass of data.
Enthusiasts at home leaned closer to their computer screen and rose on the edge of their chairs. The room was full of virtual attendees who wanted to be part of this announcement of what is truly scientific history.
The picture showed (“north” being up in the picture) a glowing mass of light, the swirl of particles around the heart of galaxy M87 before they cascade across the event horizon into the darkness. The colors in the maelstrom indicated the speed of photon emissions from the accretion flow toward the event horizon. There was a distinct rise in color as the relative speed of the light flowing towards the observing telescopes in 1-mm wavelength increased on the south edge of the ring. And there in the center, the darkness of no light escaping, the back hole. And between the two the crisp edge of the event horizon.
The first-of-its-kind image and the science and math behind it and the cooperation behind it all, leads us to a transformation of our understanding of black holes.
Congratulations to the entire team and all those who supported
and continue to support them.
The image of the black hole is based on the image provided by the NSF-EHT. The map of Virgo is based on a map provided by IAU and Sky and Telescope.
The announcement and press briefing can be viewed at https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/ .
One of the
dedicated science instruments on the Mars InSight lander has had to pause
during its deployment. The instrument is officially known as the Heat Flow and
Physical Properties Probe, which according to the Launch Press Kit is
abbreviated HP3 (pronounced “H-P cubed”). Its mission is to take the temperature
of Mars. It will determine the amount of heat that is escaping from the
interior of the planet. Knowing this heat flow will help us better understand
the evolution of the Martian interior – and the rate at which Mar’s internal
core energy is diminishing.
The instrument includes a probe that is being hammered into the Martian soil to a depth between ten and sixteen feet (3 – 5 meters). But the probe, which is called the “Mole” by NASA, has met significant resistance at a much shallower depth. NASA is trying to determine if the resistance is coming from a rock or a gravel layer. Then they will need to decide how best to get beyond the obstacle. Can it be penetrated, or will another method be necessary?
As a gardener, or I should say as the shovel-man for a gardener, I know what it is to hit a resistive object while digging a hole. For me the resistance is often a stone of small to moderate size or perhaps a root of a nearby tree. Sometimes I can remove the impediment, but sometimes I must shift the location of the hole. Removing the impediment is not an option on Mars. There is no gardener on Mars that can kneel and sweep out the rubble with their gloved hand. *
The Mole is
about 16 inches long and approximately an inch in circumference. The exterior
of the Mole is aluminum. It is attached to a flexible tether that carries
information to the instrument package that is attached to the deck of the
lander. The hammer that provides the driving force is built into the Mole. There
is no outside hammer at the surface level to drive the Mole into the soil. This
means that there is no device, like the claw on the back of a hammer, that can
extract the Mole so it can be placed in a different location.
Going back to my gardening efforts, I have often driven spikes for mats or pegs for garden borders into the ground. I have also driven steel rods to a depth or 18 to 24 inches to support a structure or a wall. In these cases, if I hit a rock or a root that I cannot penetrate I may be able to slightly reorient the item and try to slide past the obstacle. But that may not to be an option for the Mole on Mars. For clarity, I will have to ask NASA.
The Mole’s
internal hammer was designed to enable the tip of the Mole to penetrate objects
up to a certain hardness. This can be understood from the description of the
operation in the mission Launch Press Kit which describes the process. The information
in these documents states that it is expected that the hammer will be dropped
between 5,000 and 20,000 times to penetrate the soil to its planned depth. The
number of hammer blows required depends on the density and hardness of the soil
matrix.
Currently the
Mole has met an object of significant hardness. The hammer not only has to
overcome the hardness of the material it has to penetrate, but it also has to
overcome the friction of the sides of the Mole as it is driven through the obstacle
plus the added friction of the flexible tether as it is dragged down the Mole’s
hole.
NASA will determine the best course of action to allow the Mole to penetrate beyond its current depth. On March 21, the NASA Mission page stated that many ideas are being considered to free the Mole from the obstacle, and that the ideas will require “at least several more weeks of careful analysis.”
Stay tuned.
Perhaps we will be able to slide past the obstacle and reach the appropriate
depth.
Not everything outside is pleasant. Some of the unpleasant things are just nature’s way, like mosquitoes, angry wasps, and poison ivy. These can be often be avoided by an informed hiker who watches where they step and is careful in what they do.
But some unpleasantness
on the trail is – well – caused by our fellow hikers.
It’s all
about sharing the trail.
Today it
often seems that sharing the trail is not just with fellow hikers but with
their dogs as well.
Don’t get me
wrong, I like dogs. I have lived with several at different times. They were a
wonderful addition to my life, and I miss them. They were a delight. And I hope
when they met other people at home, or on the trail, or at the beach, or in the
neighborhood that they (and I ) were courteous to my neighbors and to their
dogs and other pets.
Today however
there seem to be more dogs than ever. You see them with their owners in stores (including
food stores which I think in most areas is against local ordnances), you see them
in restaurants, and in the neighborhoods. Thankfully, the days of letting dogs
run loose is far behind us. Most often when I see a dog it is on a leash as
most should be when out in public. The leash enables better control and can keep
the dog safe.
In order to
be courteous, the first of the two major things for a dog and owner is to know where
they are allowed and where they are not allowed. If you are not sure, ask. Ask
the store manager if you can bring your dog inside. Ask the restaurant owner if
you can have your dog with you at the table. And read the signs in public
parks.
The second
major thing is to make sure your dog is trained in how to act around other
people and their pets. This is huge! No one wants a dog to jump on them – even in
a friendly manner. No one wants their dog to be attacked or otherwise intimidated
by another dog. And dogs like to be trained. It gives them a sense of pride.
And its not hard. It takes a certain level of commitment by the owner to ensure
their dog knows not to pull on the lease, and knows how to sit and stay, and
how to be quiet.
In my walks and hikes I have seen extremely bad examples of dogs with absolutely no training who are basically wild and often aggressive. And I have often seen dogs that are exceptionally well trained and basically are at peace with their surroundings. In these later cases the dog, and the owner, and I are all glad to share the trail.
One last thing,
and this is totally to the owners. Sure, you dog has to “go”. We all get that.
And thank you to the vast percentage of folks who clean up after their dogs. But
after you have cleaned it up – PLEASE take it with you. Most National Parks no
longer have trash receptacles. You are expected to take your waste with you
when you go. And this includes those little plastic bags of dog waste. No one
is going to come behind you and pick it up. Please put it in your car and take
it home and dispose of it there. No one wants to have to start a nice walk in
the woods with the sight of waste bags all around the trail head.
“I was here 50 years ago. How much has the Canyon eroded
since I was here last?”
I was standing at the edge of the South Rim of the Grand
Canyon in Arizona. I was talking to a park ranger who looked like she would
appreciate my curiosity – and also looked like she would know the answer.
She answered, “The Canyon erodes about the thickness of a
piece of paper each year.”
“So,” I said, “that’s 50 sheets of paper, a tenth of a ream,
about three-quarters of an inch. I thought I saw the difference.”
And yes, I did see a difference. Not when I peer over the edge and look outwards towards where I can see the Colorado River, but when I look around. There are more people at the Canyon then there had been in November of 1973. The Park is more modern. The trails look better than they had 50 years ago. But the trail down into the Canyon looked just as challenging.
In both my visits to the South Rim, 50 years ago and now, there was snow on the ground. The snow adds to the beauty of the Canyon, as the rocks and trees and shadow are accentuated by the stark white of the snow. But caution is necessary as the trails can be icy and slippery. But with snow or sun caution is always necessary as with the added erosion of the past 50 years its a long way down – plus a bit.
During this visit I would not hike the South Kaibab trail; I
would do my hiking on the rim trail. But in 1973 I wanted to see how far down I
could get before I had to come back up at day’s end. I started early in the
morning with a light pack that I bought the day before in which I had an extra pair
of gloves, some sardines and crackers, and something to drink. I don’t think
they sold water in bottles back then. I was layered against the cold and had on
my sea-duty rain jacket with a hood. It was heavy over my denim jacket, but it would
certainly keep me dry. I also had on my woolen watch cap.
I had my copper bound walking stick and was ready to begin my
descent. It was cold and clear, and I was the only person on the trail. It was
great. The views of the Canyon opening to me were exhilarating. I could look
back millions of years as I passed the rock face of the trail wall. I took time
to think of all the history that had passed in the first few yards, and then I
was well down into the prehistory of the Earth.
It was the uplift of the Colorado Plateau that allowed the marvel of the Grand Canyon to become. About 70 million years ago tectonic forces lifted an area that is now within Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. As mountains formed and snows and rains fell the nascent Colorado River began its journey off the Colorado Plateau down to the Gulf of California. The River began to cut its way through the uplifted plateau as it sought to reach sea level. As it picked up sediments from its sources it flowed across the uplifted plateau like liquid sandpaper. The rushing River gouged and polished its way down to its present level. As the River grew so did the feeder streams that flowed into it; each cutting its own side canyon. The Canyon sides collapsed as the River cut deeper. This collapse created the width of the current Canyon. Rain and freezing water and trees and wind worked their own patterns of erosion on the Canyon walls, dislodging rocks that would tumble down towards the River below.
And here was another difference. As I hiked down in 1973 I
kept an eye on the weather at the Canyon rim. I could l see clouds gathering
and knew that it was snowing at the top. After reaching Skeleton Point and eating
my sardines and crackers, I knew it was time to turn back in order to get out
of the Canyon before the weather worsened. I was trudging up the last half mile
in snow, leaving my footprints behind me. The wind was blowing the snow, and I
had my hood up. Then I heard something.
It sounded like the thumping of distant thunder. I put my hood back so I could
hear better. There was a rumble and rattle of above me. I looked up and saw a
good size rock rolling down the Canyon side in my direction. I took several
steps backwards and watched as the rock landed on the trail where I had been
standing and bounded further down and out of sight in the direction of the River.
I had witnessed the process of the Canyon. Things change. That
rock is now in a different place and the level of the Canyon floor is now
lower. And I can tell the difference.
There are plenty of sights to see on the road through Texas. The country is starkly beautiful. It’s early Spring and some color is beginning to come to the grasses that line the roads and cover the fields. But one thing that I thought I would see, cattle, well I don’t see too many. But what I do see in the area around Midland Texas are pumps. I am driving through the area of the Permian Basin. Rank upon rank of oil pumps as far into the distance as I can see. If I use Google Earth I can see the area is covered with white specks. Each speck is an area around a pump or derrick where the grass has been beaten down and trucks are parked and various pieces of support equipment lay about. One thing of note is there are a lot of pickup trucks on the road and most are towing an open bed trailer. And they are all in a hurry. They are not being driven unsafely, just in a hurry. Out here time is truly money. it’s the ranks of pumps that draws my attention. As I drive down Interstate I-10 most of the pumps are nodding up and down driven by a massive cam and engine. Each one pulling crude oil out of the ground.
The Permian Basin contains more crude oil than any other
location within the United States and is one of the great oil resources of the
world.
Like it or not oil and gas extraction is part of our world.
It drives industry. It enables us to get around. And this will continue until a
different economically dependable energy source is developed. What is the good
of extracting and burning the essence of years that passed millions of years
ago? The resources that lie in the Permian Basin under Texas and New Mexico
were lain in that place during the Permian age. This age preceded the time of
the dinosaurs, and ended approximately 250 million years ago. Its end came with
in a mass extinction of more than 90% of the species on earth. Then as the continents
separated, the remnants of the age were overlain by the sediments of the
following eras and were compressed onto the hydrocarbon slurry that is drilled
for today.
That drilling provides jobs in Texas. The taxes derived from
those jobs built the road I drove down. But the economic reach of the oil
extracted from the Permian Basin extends well beyond to local area. It enables
many American to drive and to produce and to build. It enables us to create and
to sell. But this comes at a substantial price. The burning of the refined
extract causes pollution in our neighborhoods and smog in our cities. It
pollutes the air and dumps chemicals into the atmosphere. These chemicals
included CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” which are causing global warming and
causing the acidification of the oceans.
But today I see work and prosperity. I see people going to their jobs, being proud of the work they are doing, and doing good work. But beyond here, the same companies that are operating the wells and refining the oil into the world’s fuel, are also working on what may be “a different economically dependable energy source”, which may power people’s jobs and give them economic independence, and provide them with food, shelter, heathy lives, and pride in their existence.
When I see a snow knee I know it is the result of massive snows bending a tree over. It is also on a down-hill slope. The tree has been bent by the weight of winter snows in the mountains pushing down, laterally, on its trunk. The tree is generally straight above the knee, as in the Spring it shakes off the snows and grows true. But the knee remains, a tell-tale bend in the tree that shows its survival of passing winters.
This was different. The tree had a bend, but it was lateral
to the slope, not down-hill. And here in the rolling hills of Virginia we have
not had the amounts of snow generally associated with the snow-kneed trees of
the Rocky Mountains of the western United States. Something else had bent this
tree.
It was clear what had happened. I could see that the tree had been bent over early in its life. Some other tree or a large limb had fallen and caught the little tree and forced it down to the ground. But the smaller tree’s thin trunk had been flexible, and it did not split. The little tree was pushed done, nearly to the ground, under the weight of it fallen sister.
All signs of the other tree are gone, but the bent tree
tells the story of the fall, the crushing blow, and the aftermath.
Sometime in the past, disease or a windstorm caused a tree to fall in these woods. It was likely a large tree, not huge, but about 10 inches in circumference. Or it was a limb that was downed by the same causes. It fell from a tree that may still stands in the forest. When it – tree or branch – fell, it hit the little tree. It bent the smaller tree over and pinned it to the ground. And there they lay. The smaller tree would never be able to right itself due to the weight of the large tree/branch.
But the smaller tree did not give in. Its root structure had not been torn out of the ground and was still intact. The smaller tree was still viable could grow even under the weight of the tree/branch that had crushed it. The top of the smaller tree which lay pressed to the ground died and fell away. Today there is a scar of healed wood that surrounds the rotted spot now so close to the ground. The scar is partially covered by a round, rolled callus of wound-wood. This callus is the tree’s natural response to the injury. The callus seals off the damaged area and protects it from infection.
Today the larger tree/branch is gone. But the smaller tree
still lives. It is twisted to be sure, yet even in its captive state, it threw
off a new branch that reaches vertically up from its twisted trunk and each
year leafs and blossoms with some of the prettiest flowers in the forest. It is
a dogwood. Its dense wood helped it survive the blow. Its resilience helped it
to live and to grow. And its nature gives flowers and brightness to this patch
of the deep woods.
Now it is Winter. In the Spring the tree will again show its toughness and determination, and it will flower.
News sources around the world have reported the death of Wallace Broecker. As a climate scientist, he penned an article that was published in the journal Science in 1975. This article was among the early warning calls of the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to cause a rise in the global mean temperature. Dr. Broecker titled the article “Are we on the brink of a pronounced Global Warming”. Through his article, and many others that followed, the term “global warming” has come into common use and is readily understood by all to imply a continuing rise in the global temperature to the point that it has a detrimental effect on the oceans, wildlife, agriculture, and human society.
As Broecker stated in his 1975 article, “… the exponential rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide content will tend to become a significant factor and by early in the next century [the ‘next century’ started in 2000] will have driven the mean planetary temperature beyond the limits experienced during the last 1000 years.”
Further in the article
Broecker predicted, “As the CO2 effect will dominate, the uncertainty … lies
mainly in the estimates of future chemical fuel use and the magnitude of the
warming per unit of excess atmospheric CO2.” When any of us is outside we can
see and often smell the exhaust of the continuing use, and increased use, of
fossil (chemical) fuels by the world’s expanding population.
So when in his article
Broecker asks, “Are we in for a climate surprise?”, the answer is both yes and
no. Yes, it is happening, CO2 continues to clog our atmosphere. But no, in 2019
it is not a surprise.
The 1975 article may be found at – https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu//files/2009/10/broeckerglobalwarming75.pdf
Many things lie at the heart of climate change. Fundamental in this is global warming due to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The primary source of the CO2 is the consumption of fossil fuels by each and every one of us. We drive our cars, and CO2 is emitted in the exhaust. We turn on lights and use electricity generated from burning coal or gas. These methods of generating electricity result in the emission of CO2. These emissions have a direct effect on wildlife, the oceans, and the weather.
The mention of automobiles might put us in the mind that this problem only started since cars have been around. But it is not just the recent use of fossil fuels, we have been burning coal for a long time. Once emitted by burning of fossil fuels CO2 does not dissipated; it accumulates. Some of the CO2 may be taken up by trees and other plants in their respiration cycle. They take in CO2 and during photosynthesis the CO2 is converted into oxygen (O2). Carbon can be locked up in dead plant material too. When a tree falls in the forest its use is not over. There are kingdoms of plants and animals that will use the dead tree for food and homes in their own lives. As these plants and animals devour the now decomposing tree, they consume the carbon and lock it in their own bodies. But then as they die their carcasses, as small as they are, store some tiny bit of carbon to be released into the atmosphere and earth as the plants and creatures decompose into the earth. Over millions of years the decomposition of ancient organic matter, dead plants and animals, has produced the current fossil fuels that we use.
But how do we know that the level of atmospheric CO2 is increasing? First we can read the levels of atmospheric CO2 in ice cores. These cores are from specialized drills that penetrate deep into glaciers. When the core is drilled and extracted for examination, the levels of CO2 from past centuries can be measured. As the drill goes deeper and deeper into the glaciers the cores show what the atmosphere was like in the times past. The deeper the core is drilled, the further back in time the sample goes. When snow and ice accumulated on the surface of the glacier centuries ago it captured a signature of the gases that made up the atmosphere. From these cores the CO2 from ancient fires, and human use of wood and coal as a fuel, and emissions by ancient volcanoes can be studied. It has been established that accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere has been going on from preindustrial times, hundreds of years ago. Since the introduction of factories and industry that used fossil fuels to operate and manufacture goods, the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased at a higher rate.
A key tool in understanding the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been the work of Charles D. Keeling. In 1956 he began a program to measure atmospheric gases, including CO2, at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. As these observations are plotted over time, they show an increasing level of CO2 with each passing year. The graph that shows this increase, known as the Keeling Curve, also shows the change of the seasons in the northern hemisphere. The upwards spikes of the saw-tooth curve indicate rising CO2 in the Winter months when the leaves are off the trees and are not converting CO2 into O2. The downward slope of each “tooth” indicates the activity of the trees and other plants in the growing seasons of Spring and Summer as they remove CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into O2. But with each passing year the curve goes every upward.
From these two studies, we can determine that CO2 continues to increase based primarily on human activity. The rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere result in a continually rising average global temperature. This is due to the greenhouse effect as the CO2 and other gases trap energy from the sun in the atmosphere. The rising levels of CO2 also result in ocean acidification.
A copy is the
Keeling Curve from the Scripps Institute CO2 program is inserted below.
