Lectured

ON THE GROW:  Remember way back when, we pushed single lil sunflower seeds into potting soil on our countertop? Well look at 'em now!

We purchased the seeds back on Mar. 18, and planted them that same day.

And here's what they looked like back on Mar. 27.

We planted them in pots on the alley a few weeks back, and they seem to be thriving - at least so far. Can't wait to see them actually flower!

ASTROTECH:  Not a lot of pretty, outdoorsy photos to post today. It was a bit drizzly, so we spent most of today catching up on lectures from two classes.

Up first was "AstroTech: The Science and Technology Behind Astrological Discovery." We burned through all of week two today (and scored 100 percent on the test - w00t)!

We learned more about how telescopes work. Sure, we've all seen and used them, but it was really cool to hear it broken down into its working parts.

We also learned about how stars are graphed on a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Here's Wikipedia's version, from the European Southern Observatory ...

but I like Annabelle's version better. :)

And here's Annabelle's depiction of our sun turning into a red giant.

And here's a bonus factoid for you.

Watching these lectures about telescopes really made me want to track down the movie "Hubble's Amazing Rescue." Per its description on the PBS/NOVA Web site, "The best-known scientific instrument in history was dying. After nearly 20 years in space and hundreds of thousands of spectacular images, the Hubble Space Telescope's gyroscopes and sensors were failing, its batteries running down, and some of its instruments were already dead. The only hope to save Hubble was a mission so dangerous that in 2004 NASA cancelled it because it was considered too risky.

Scientists and the general public alike stubbornly refused to abandon the telescope, and a new NASA administrator revived the mission. This program takes viewers behind the scenes on a riveting journey with the team of astronauts and engineers charged with saving the famous "orbiting observatory" against all odds."

Sounds like the makings of a great suspense movie, no? I'm going to have to see if our library has it (before I break down and buy it). .. SWEET!  Just checked and it *is* available and is now on hold for us.

OUT AND ABOUT: When the drizzle gave way to partly cloudy, we went for a brisk walk down to Fishermen's Terminal. We always check out the memorial, with hundreds of names of souls lost to the sea. There's always some memento that gets me. Today, it was a pony. ...

We speculated about a child leaving it for a father, grandfather uncle, or brother.

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE:  We also watched several lectures for our "History of Rock (Part One)" course. Today, we learned about big changes in the musical scene in mid-1950s America.

We found our thrill and Blueberry Hill, thanks to Fats Domino and a great, vintage YouTube video:

And we sure enjoyed hearing Chuck Berry sing about Maybellene!

And we cranked the computer speakers for some Jerry Lee Lewis, too.

It was interesting to learn that the late '50s wasn't just the start of rock 'n roll, but it was also the birth of the 'teenager,' in a way. Never before had people that age had their own look, lingo and music, and never before had products been marketed directly to this group of people. Fascinating.

This class is a complete pleasure.  And it's about farm more than music, it's about the history of our nation, as well.

We Spy

 
Photo mosaic: NASA and 30,000-plus contributors!

SEARCHED THE WORLD OVER:  The photo above isn't just Earth, it's Earth on Earth Day, and it's made up of 36,422 individual photos, a mosaic of "Global Selfies" submitted by over 50,000 people via social media on Earth Day as part of NASA's "Earth Right Now" campaign.

All totaled, people on every continent posted selfies. The photos represent 113 countries and regions.  CJ and Annabelle submitted this selfie ... 

 Last night NASA had a campaign like this ("Wave at Saturn" was the occasion), they submitted a photo and when NASA posted the mosaic, I spotted the kids within three minutes or so.

Today, the needle-in-the-haystack hunt felt like it stretched to three hours, and of this writing, I still haven't found 'em, though I'm about 75 percent through looking.  

I have a hard time imagining I'd miss them. I mean, I managed to find five of my Facebook friends, at least seven Space Needles, three people (all women, BTW) flipping the camera off, a plethora of people doing yoga poses, several SCUBA divers, a couple of skydivers, a pair of My Little Ponies, Elmo, two aliens, three Stormtroopers, and way, WAY too many women making duck faces. (Actually, ONE would be too many, IMHO.)

To get a good look at the mosaic for yourself, check out the super duper high resolution version of it on the GigaPan Web site: http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/155294

EVENING AT THE ESTUARY: Tonight, we took a post dinner stroll down by the Hiram M. Chittenden (Ballard) Locks, just a mile or two north of our place. 

As soon as we entered, we could hear the chattering of heron overhead. It's prime time for nesting season, and even though they're way up high and somewhat hidden in the trees, the nests are pretty easy to spot. How, you wonder? Because all you have to do is look at the ground. 

If it's covered in white droppings, there's a nest overhead. ;)

Eventually, a few of the herons ventured out of their nests, looking for dinner or dessert.

They soared overhead, skimmed the water and stood along the shoreline, on the south side of the locks, near the colony. 

 A sign on site told us that a couple of seasons ago, there were 42 pair of herons nesting at the locks.

On the north side of the locks, there was lots of floral eye candy.  I loved the juxtaposition of these pink roses growing up out of the concrete, against the old Art Deco-style office adjacent to the big locks. 

 And I have to think purple is a favorite of one of the site's gardeners.  

 Pretty purple petals everywhere!

We had to head to the stepped hillside, which the kids love to roll down. Fortunately, tonight it wasn't covered in Canada goose poo, as is sometimes the case.

Poor CeeJ got up a little too much speed at the end. I guess the good news is, a tree stopped him before he rolled into the estuary.

We took a few minutes to watch the train bridge go up and down to accommodate rail and water traffic. 

We saw both freight and passenger trains roll by.

Of course, we watched boat traffic, too.  These poor tourists probably wondered why I was pointing at them and taking photos. It was because I couldn't believe how banged up the hull of the boat was!

Yowza!

And on our way back to the car, we even briefly spotted a harbor seal, no doubt looking for an evening snack! 

All in all, a lovely evening stroll, with so much to see!

Scenes from the Shore

EAGLE-EYED:  Another beautiful May day in Seattle. After art, math and science classes up north, we returned home, gathered up the dogs and scooters and set out for some exercise and sight seeing. Boy, did we get both.

We parked out on Magnolia Bluff, the south end of our neighborhood. It offers a 180-degree view of Elliot Bay/Puget Sound. Below, you can barely see CJ, in black, on his scooter, on the sidewalk between some mansions on the north and the water on the south.

The water was so smooth this afternoon, it would have been lovely to have been bobbing about on it in a watercraft.

We descended a few dozen stairs from the top of the bluff to a narrow road, Perkins Lane. We meandered along that pretty little road until we reached a new, small park that is well off the beaten path. It's name -  "W. McGraw Street End project" isn't very inspiring, but the space itself is amazing!

It was low tide, so we did some beach combing, spotting hundreds of shells and the spurts of clams under the sand. The beach has one enormous boulder. As I sized it up, I noticed an eagle perched atop!

We made our way closer to the rock - and the bird! He didn't seem to mind.

He was a BIIIIG bird. I've seen a few eagles in my time, and this was the biggest one I've ever seen.

Maybe he likes this perch because he thinks he's number one!

We marveled over the pointiness of his beak.

Of course, he just *had* to take off when I was changing lenses. I did manage to get him winging away.

 What a wingspan!

So glad we decided to hit that park this afternoon!  Well, that is, until we hit the steps leading back up to the bluff.

They were so long, you couldn't even see the top. It was a tougher climb than the Statue of Liberty, for sure.

Side note: when trying to find out of the W. McGraw Street End park had any other name, I came across a file on the city of Seattle Web site full of info about other street end parks. From it, I learned that 149 Seattle streets end on waterfronts, and that these street ends have been designated by the city as special rights of way, to be preserved and developed for public use. Now that, IMHO, is wonderful land use planning.

The file (a PDF - http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/shoreline%20fact%20sheet.pdf) I found today actually includes a list of each and every one of those street ends. What a great resource!

JUST FOR FUN: It was 'favorite fictional character day' where the kids take classes on Wednesday. CJ donned his Rainbow Dash hoody for the occasion. He sat next to Sonic the Hedgehog during science class. :)

Radioactive

MORNING MEANDER: Another lovely, sunny day in Seattle. I can't remember a nicer May in the 7-ish years we've lived here. This a.m. we took to the kayak canal, as I call it - the calm waters between the Ballard and Fremont bridges. 

The kids were on scooters, while I was being dragged by two Havanese. The path was busy, with locals out enjoying the weather and scenery. 

DEAD STARS: No, I'm not talking about Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain or even Elvis. I'm talking about you. You (and I) are dead stars, for real. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson has talked about it on Cosmos, and today we watched a short video featuring NASA astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller explaining how the iron in our blood connects us all to a universal supernova explosion. A link to it is here: http://youtu.be/UUo-Q8hhvB0, or watch an embedded version here:
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The video is a collaboration between The Atlantic and SoundVision Productions' The Really Big Questions. You can hear TRBQ's one-hour radio special "What is a Good Death?" distributed by Public Radio International online at http://trbq.org/topics/death/. 

RESURRECTION?: An interesting experiment is underway right now. A small group is trying to bring a 1970s-era NASA satellite back to life in an effort called the ISEE-3 Reboot Project.

The International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 probe, or ISEE-3, was launched on August 12, 1978. Here it is in a clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center, pre-launch.

Weighing 1,032 pounds (469 kg), the 16-sided polyhedron was initially used to study solar wind. Later, it was repurposed as a comet chaser, and its name changed to ICE (International Cometary Explorer). Check out its wild flight path!

The spacecraft ceased science operations in 1997, and engineers have lost the ability to command it to perform science. However, ISEE-3 Reboot Project members think they can bring it back to life. Right now, they're in Puerto Rico at the Aricebo telescope, and have picked up its signal. 

Why bother trying to reawaken a sleeping space probe? If the team can successfully return ISEE-3 to its original Earth/Sun Lagrange point L1 orbit, it will be used for STEM education, solar science, and more, according to Dennis Wingo of the reboot team. (Wingo has authored a great essay all about the project and it's posted here: 
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/25/the-international-sun-earth-explorer-isee-3-reboot-project-bringing-an-old-bird-back-to-the-earth-and-back-to-life/ )

The goal of the ISEE Reboot Project is to return ISEE-3 to its original Earth/Sun Lagrange point L1 orbit. Once safely back in orbit, it will be an open source, publicly accessible satellite data stream used for STEM education, amateur radio solar predictions, science about the sun and more.
The Reboot team has known for awhile now that the two transmitters aboard the craft are operational, but they're not sending telemetry. However, by poring over old ISEE-3 documentation, they've come up with a set of commands they hope will change that, and in Arecibo, they'll transmit those commands. (There is not a computer on board the craft, so they will be attempting to directly commanding its various subsystems.) They plan on having a ground transmission station at Morehead State University in Kentucky. The Reboot Project has raised over $135,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to finance their efforts.

We will follow their attempts on the project's blog: http://spacecollege.org/isee3/

MUSIC AND MAYHEM: Longtime readers already know that MPA has a thing for Pink Floyd music, so much so that we traveled to London last September to see Roger Waters and Co. perform "The Wall." 

Recently, Pink Floyd has dropped hints about something big happening today. They posted an absolutely haunting video of their song "Marooned" from their 1994 album "The Division Bell" with footage shot on and around the ISS, as well as abandoned buildings. 

As soon as I saw the shells of the buildings, I said to the kids, "That's Chernobyl." At that point, I realized (to my surprise) neither one of them had heard of Chernobyl before. And so, that immediately became topic du jour. One of the benefits of our educational model. :)

And so, they learned about how a bungled experiment created a sudden power surge, leading to a series of blasts which blew the 1,000-ton steel top off one of Chernobyl's four reactors. That allowed for a lethal cloud of radioactive material to spread, not just over the local area, but over large parts of Europe - with no warning, as officials tried to cover it up. The radiation that escaped into the atmosphere was equivalent to many times that produced by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Millions of acres of forest and farmland were compromised in the worst nuclear disaster in history.

We watched a slideshow on History.com, "Remembering Chernobyl" (http://www.history.com/news/slideshow-remembering-chernobyl).

We also watched a two minute travelogue about modern day Chernobly tours. http://www.travelchannel.com/video/chernobyl-tour. Afterward, we decided unanimously it would *NOT* be our next family vacation.
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TO DO LIST:  A fun build project popped up in my Facebook feed today. It was a video showing how to turn a smartphone with a camera into a digital microscope for about $10. It's pretty straightforward and would be fun to try. Definitely on our 'to do' list for this summer. 

Step-by-step instructions are available on the Instructables Web site: http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/, or you can watch the YouTube video: 
http://youtu.be/KpMTkr_aiYU
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LIFE COULD BE A DREAM: We finished up Week 1 of our . Lectures we listened today included the evolution of regional radio in the 1950s, the origins of Doo Wop, the Hokum Blues and gospel influences crossing over into secular music. Professor Covach also explained how Alan Freed's radio show was a barrier breaker. Although it was intended primarily for black, urban listeners, when the station would put an event, white teenagers, who were also listening (largely out of their parents' earshot!) would also show up. 

After the lectures we listened to The Chords sing "Sh 'Boom" (Doo Wop) and Ray Charles sing "I Got a Woman" (gospel). Great stuff! 

Swimmingly

INTO THE DEEP: A sure sign of summer coming is the outdoor community swimming pool opening up. In our case, that means Pop Mounger pool in 'downtown' Magnolia. It wasn't exactly hot (63 was the high) today, but it was sunny, so the kids jumped at the chance to have Christian take them for their first swim of the season there. It was a good call.

"You couldn't ask for a better day at the pool," said Christian, afterward. 

Hardly any people (just seven or eight besides the MPA crowd), no wind (unusual for that location) and the water was warm (85 degrees). And the best part - the kids both passed the deep water swim test, which required swimming two widths of the pool, nonstop. Having passed the test, it means now they can go in the deep end without Christian having to be literally within an arm's length.

Christian captures some action shots. Here's CJ sliding head first into the pool. 

Better yet, here's a link to an animated GIF! http://i.picasion.com/pic77/fe2b559c2ddd66f600f005be7d4cf370.gif

Of course, Annabelle had to do it, too.

And here's her animated GIF...http://i.picasion.com/pic77/fc0b373f117849cb196abbd249b21742.gif

ROAD WARRIORS: We took a field trip from Friday through Sunday, down south to Vancouver, USA. Christian and I had a little construction project there. The kids had some quality grandparents time, which included the gift of a new game, a Tetris-themed version of Jenga. 

On our way home, it was May 18, the anniversary of Mt. St. Helens' enormous eruption in 1980.
Our path took us over the Toutle River. We pointed out the ash deposits still on the riverbanks, and tried to explain to the kids what the river looked like in the aftermath of the eruption. Pictures do a better job of that, like this one, from the United States Geological Survey.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: NASA announced today that it's ready to begin construction on a future Martian lander under the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission. Scheduled to launch in March of 2016, the lander will pierce the Martian surface and dig down, to study its interior. 

Image Credit: 

NASA

Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) of France and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) of Germany are partnering with NASA by providing InSight's two main science instruments. Per the announcement, "The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will be built by CNES in partnership with DLR and the space agencies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It will measure waves of ground motion carried through the interior of the planet, from "marsquakes" and meteor impacts. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, from DLR, will measure heat coming toward the surface from the planet's interior."

In today's press release, NASA also reiterated its goal of sending a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s.
WHAT A VIEW: We have been reminiscing this week about the fourth anniversary of STS-132, the one and only space shuttle launch we witnessed with our own eight eyes. A few days ago, NASA posted this look back shot at the mission, taken on May 16, 2010, from the ISS. 

It's Atlantis, with its payload doors wide open, in orbit. Can you guess where over Earth they were at the time?

(credit: NASA-JSC)

Did you guess the Andes Mountains, near the border of Argentina and Chile? You can also see Rio Atuel in the valley in the lower right of the photo and Caldera de Atuel Caldera near the center of the image, by the port payload bay door.