Way Out

          graphic: European Space Agency/Rosetta Mission

SLEEP WELL, LITTLE LANDER: Unfortunate but not unexpected news today from the European Space Agency, "Silent since its last call to mothership Rosetta seven months ago, the Philae lander is facing conditions on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from which it is unlikely to recover."

We have followed the remarkable Rosetta mission with great interest. I mean, you have to love a spacecraft that is so well engineered that it's able to travel to a moving target (Comet 67P) and then launch a lander onto the comet's surface!

During its brief period of activity (64 hours from launch to landing), Philae took detailed images of the comet from above and on the surface, sniffed out organic compounds, and profiled the local environment and surface properties of the comet, providing unprecedented insights. 

Rosetta will continues its scientific investigations of the comet until September, when it will crash itself (well, with programmers' help) into the surface, joining Philae forever.

ALL TOGETHER NOW: Neat video from NASA today, showing the assembly of the James Webb Space Telescope's mirrors from start to finish. 

Photographer Chris Gunn and Producer Michael McClare, both from NASA Goddard collaborated to produce the video. Over a three-month period, they captured 141,639 images for the time-lapse at a rate of one image taken every 30 seconds between November 11, 2015 and February 1, 2016, a total of 83 days.

"Months before the mirror installation began, I looked for the perfect time-lapse camera placement, one that would give viewers an unprecedented look at the mirror integration of the space telescope," Gunn said. "When I decided that the best place to mount the camera would be on the 'over deployment fixture' directly above telescope structure I expected the mirror integration team to reject the proposal. After they verified the safety of our proposed camera set-up they were just as enthusiastic about the idea as I was.”
https://youtu.be/1d1sHLkmNQI

Each of the telescope's hexagonal-shaped mirror segments measures just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across and weighs about 88 pounds (40 kilograms). Once in space and fully unfolded/deployed, the 18 mirrors will work together as one large 21.3-foot diameter (6.5-meter) mirror.

POP ART: Today's physics lesson came courtesy of the musical group OK GO. Their music videos are always an over-the-top spectacle, but their newest one is an absolute eye popper.

For their song, "Upside Down & Inside Out," the video was recorded inside an accelerating aircraft to produce a zero-G environment. Per stories we read today, there were 15 parabolas per flight. They spent the first 7 parabolas rehearsing, and then ran the entire dance all the way through for the last eight.

The video wasn't available anywhere but the band's Facebook page initially, so I don't have a YouTube link for you right now, unfortunately. But I can share some behind-the-scenes videos.

OK Go - Upside Down & Inside OutHello, Dear Ones. Please enjoy our new video for "Upside Down & Inside Out".  A million thanks to S7 Airlines. #GravitysJustAHabit
Posted by OK Go on Thursday, February 11, 2016

The filming made a terrible mess, and between flights (two per day), the interior of the plane was hosed down, resulting in a wet, cold plane, like a "frigid, stinking swamp" per one of the crew working on set. https://youtu.be/aRhchsKmoPg 

Einstein FTW

An artist's impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.

Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL

"EINSTEIN SCORES AGAIN": That was the headline on a Seattle Times' post regarding today's ground (space) breaking announcement regarding the detection of gravitational waves. "Einstein was right" read the headline on  Pacific Science Center's social media post.

Today's news is a game-changing discovery in our quest to fully understand gravity, ushering in a new era for astronomy. For the first time, scientists have observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth.

Think about that: The warping of space-time!

Over a half century ago, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity. Since then, scientists have been attempting to detect these waves. 

Einstein pictured these waves as ripples in the fabric of space-time produced by massive, accelerating bodies, such as black holes orbiting each other. When two black holes collide, they release massive amounts of energy in the form of gravitational waves that last a fraction of a second and can be "heard" throughout the universe - if you have the right instruments.

https://youtu.be/i1-3eClv_TY

This movie shows a simulation of the merger of two black holes and the resulting emission of gravitational radiation. The colored fields represent a component of the curvature of space-time. The outer sheets (red) correspond directly to outgoing gravitational radiation, which was recently detected by the NSF’s LIGO observatories. 
Credit: NASA/C. Henze

Finally, the event of black holes colliding was detected, per the National Science Foundation (NSF) announcement that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of ground-based observatories in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, picked up that activity. Per the report, the ‪#‎LIGO‬ project heard the hallmark "chirp" of black holes colliding, fulfilling Einstein's General Theory of Relativity - the last part of his theory that had yet to be proven!

Today, we read many articles and watched multiple videos about the discovery. We started with a great story from the British Broadcasting Company: Einstein's gravitational waves 'seen' from black holes by Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News. There are multiple videos embedded in the story. We watched them all, including an interview with physicist Stephen Hawking about what this discovery means.

We also checked out a great TED talk: What Are Gravitational Waves?

There's also a great National Public Radio article (with photos and video) here: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/11/466286219/in-milestone-scientists-detect-waves-in-space-time-as-black-holes-collide

We'll definitely be reading more on the topic in the days/weeks/months/years to come. This announcement is something I've been thinking about since, oh, around 1972-ish, when I read Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time."  

Sweet Stuff

PARTY HEARTY: This afternoon, the kids participated in a super fun Valentine's themed party.  

We arrived early to help set up and CJ was quickly (and happily) conscripted into being the party's BINGO caller. 

I was a little nervous about how that might go, because I think he'd only even played BINGO a couple of times before, but he handled it like a pro (thanks in large part to a super helpful dad of some classmates' excellent supervision). He kept at it for 1.5 hours with nary a break.

Meanwhile, Annabelle made the party rounds, making arts and crafts, including enjoying a cookie decoration station.

There were Valentines to be distributed. Annabelle made an army of cute pet rocks (see lead photo for a few examples). CJ passed out 50 fishbowls (see below for a couple). The glare in the photo makes it kind of hard to read but they say, "I'm glad we're in the same school."

Figuring there would be LOTS of sweet treats around, we opted to bring some savory stuff, and "made" heart shaped cheese, sausage, peppers and pita with various sized cookie cutters. I think I have permanent heart-shaped impressions on my palms.

Of course, the best part of a Valentine exchange is checking out all the cool cards from others afterward.

Much fun!

Warming Up

LIKE A HEATWAVE:  Seattle set a record today - at 63 degrees, it was the warmest Feb. 9 on record. There were wispy clouds above, while fog tried to hang 'round the lower parts. Mt. Rainier looked like it was floating today.

We had to take a nice long walk this afternoon, soaking up the sun and warmth and the signs of a mild winter. (I sure wish I'd had a real camera with me instead of my dying cell phone's crappy lens.)

Rosemary in the neighborhood is blossoming with pretty little purple flowers.

Some neighbors' Japonica are also getting their bloom on.

  To the north and east, we could see snow capped Cascades in the far-off distance.

PLAY TIME: Yesterday afternoon, while I was at the dentist, Christian took the kids to a matinee play by Taproot Theatre's Road Company.  Below, CJ tells you a bit about the performance.

"Camp Super Friends" is a play by a group called the Taproot Theatre Company about a summer camp for those with superpowers, and the play's message is about bullying. 

In the play, a boy named Marvel visits the camp, but a more popular kid at the camp named Jet is acting mean to him. Marvel begins acting like Jet does, but does not earn any "friends" like Jet has. 

He learns that Jet's "friends" are just with him for things like candy he buys for them. When Marvel shows Jet how to make real friends that care about you, they team up to stop the evil Professor Nemesis.

My Funny Valentine

ROCK ON:  It may only be February 8, but we were getting our Valentine's Day on big time this morning. The kids each had to make 50 (!) Valentines for friends.  That's a lot. 

Naturally, we could have gone to the store and bought boxed cards, but why would we do that when we could spend more time and money hand making cards? - ha ha ha.

A few days back, we combed the Internet for D-I-Y Valentine ideas. Annabelle loved one we found that was a little googly-eyed rock with a heart-felt 'you rock!' greeting. That meant we were going to need some rocks. 

Fortunately, we live near multiple rocky beaches. 

Yesterday, before Super Bowl 50, we went down to Smith Cove and found a couple dozen. 

And then this morning, we headed to the kayak launch in Magnolia  and found some other candidates.

They have all now received eyes and mouths. Cheeks will be 'installed' tomorrow.

CJ, on the other hand, chose a cute design that featured a fish bowl. Annabelle and I drew one in Adobe Illustrator. 

We printed out 50 copies and the kids cut them out and stuffed them into globe-shaped treat bags we happened to have in stock. 

CJ grumbled something about us running a Valentine 'sweatshop.' 

Once the cards were cut out and carefully tucked into the bags, it was time to add the goldfish. Then we used silver twist-ties to close the bags' tops. They were pretty darn cute when we were done!

Going, Going

AD ASTRA, ED:  The crew of Apollo 14 have now all left Earth for parts unknown. The last survivng crew member, Edgar Mitchell, died yesterday, at the age of 85.

Mitchell's death came just one day shy of the 45 year anniversary of his moon landing. 

Mitchell was one of my favorite astronauts because he was unabashedly an X-Files kind of guy. He had a keen interest in what or whom is "out there."  It wasn't uncommon to see headlines like "Peace-loving aliens tried to save America from nuclear war,' claims moon mission astronaut Edgar Mitchell," and Former astronaut: Man not alone in universe associated with him. Guess where Mitchell grew up ... Rosewell, New Mexico, of course!

Buzz Aldrin had this to day about Mitchell: "I first met Ed when I was at MIT as he was studying there at the same time. Ed was certainly involved in advanced mental (sensory) perceptions aka mind reading. Not my bailiwick but I respected him for his persistence and dedication to studying the unknown. I'm sorry to lose another of our Apollo Lunar Pioneers. RIP Ed."

TECHIES: As has become our habit, last night, the first Thursday of the month, we spent a couple of hours at Living Computer Museum, enjoying their free movie night. I'll let the kids tell you a bit more about it, starting with Annabelle ...

The Living Computer Museum is a place where you can see the history of computing evolve, and interact with it too! All of the vintage computers they have on display actually work, and you can do many things with them. They have a large section of computers that run games that are usually on floppy disks or large cartridges. They also have a punch-card machine where you can spell a sentence or phrase, and then take it home! There are many small mechanical typewriters scattered around as well. The machines are fun to look at and interact with, and it’s interesting to learn about the history behind some of them. On the first Thursday of every month, the museum has a movie night where admission is free, but you might want to reserve a seat because they’re usually full. February’s movie was “TechMan”, which is about how computers have- and will- revolutionize our world. We’ve already developed Google Glass, a pair of glasses that project images like directions, reminders, or the internet, directly onto your retina. You can also take pictures. If you don’t like having your picture taken, you can wear an “Obscura” which will shine a laser beam into any cameras it detects. So much technology has been invented to help us, we can start digitizing our lives and not have to remember anything! It will be interesting to see how much life changes because of technology.

And here's CJ's take, centered on the movie we saw. 

"Tech Man" is a documentary made by Films for the Humanities and Sciences about the increasing closeness of human beings to machines. One of the featured devices in the documentary is "Google Glass". Google Glass is a device made by Google that you wear on your head and can use to browse the internet and take pictures or videos. The film also talks about other devices bringing humans and machines closer together, such as a watch that can show you your temperature or a camera, worn around your neck, that records everything you do. One of the people featured in the movie is Gordon Bell, the author of a book called "Total Recall," and he decided that he would record everything in his life and put it on a computer. This does not just include his daily activities, it also includes things like his e-mail and browsing history. Gordon said that he loses strong emotions associated with something once it has been recorded.

Turns out you can watch TechMan in the comfort of your own home via Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/76828370

TechMan (50 minutes) from Bregtje van der Haak on Vimeo.


POSTER GIRL: We were recently asked to help with a poster for a Black History Month event. The organizer wanted something that would capture the feeling of a Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote about light and love, and she cited the song "I'm Gonna Let it Shine" as a potential inspiration, too. 

Those were plenty of great ideas to work with, so, we on the MPA design team started talking about ideas. We liked the idea of a lantern, because they were used to illuminate the way on the Underground Railroad. We also liked the idea of a heart prominently in the image. So, Annabelle drew up a great heart lantern and we worked hard to come up with the right kind of flare in the middle to have it look like a candle. She did a great job with shadows to give it depth, and we wanted a nighttime looking wooden fence as a background to put the text on. 

We were really pleased with the end result, and so were the event organizers. Hooray!

It looked really nice when we printed it out poster size (about 17 x 22 inches). I could tell Annabelle was really proud to see the poster on the wall for all to see.

INGENUITY: In the past couple of days, a great story from Skylab days has popped up in my social media feeds.

It's the story of saving Skylab, really, thanks to some good ol' Yankee ingenuity and a woman with an industrial strength sewing machine. Unfortunately, the off-planet outpost was damaged during its launch off Earth. Once it reached orbit, a solar array failed to deploy, and damaged shields left astronauts at risk. A couple years back, we heard firsthand accounts from a couple of Skylab astronauts, including Jerry Carr, Jack Lousma, and Owen Garriott, talk about the orbiting lab getting too toasty.

The photo below shows Alyene Baker sewing an emergency, makeshift sunshield to keep Skylab from getting toasted. With her are, left to right, Dale Gentry, Elizabeth Gauldin, and James H. Barnet Jr.

          Credit: NASA

Before sending the thermal protection to low Earth orbit, NASA conducted experiments on the ground regarding its installation. Below, astronaut Russell Schweickart worked on a procedure for installation.

         Image credit: NASA
After a number of attempts, determined astronauts were able to manually make the damaged solar array deploy, and they installed the 'aftermarket' shield, stabilizing temperatures within the orbital workshop. 

The awesome NASA photo above shows Owen Garriott in extra-vehicular activity aboard Skylab.

It definitely looks like an add-on, doesn't it? But it worked!

     Image credit: NASA

The photo below, taken on June 22, 1973, shows the shield on the left side of Skylab, protecting it from micrometeroids and acting as a thermal shield. 

Thanks to the fix, Skylab went on to act as an international space lab for six years.

Past and Future

SHADY: We spent part of our evening at one of our favorite places, Living Computer Museum. We try to go every first Thursday for their movie presentations. Tonight we saw "Tech Man," but more about that tomorrow.

Of course, we always enjoy perusing the museum before and after the show. Tonight we appreciated some art made using vintage computer programming punch cards.  

A cute and clever use of part of our history, don't you think?!

WIDE WEBB: By now the Hubble telescope is world famous for the astounding images it has been providing to Earthings for years. In the not-too-distant future another amazing space telescope will be wowing us.

The James Webb Space Telescope is under construction, and recently workers in an enormous clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, used a robotic arm to install the last of the telescope's 18 mirrors onto its structure. Each of the hexagonal-shaped mirrors measure just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across, and they weigh 88 pounds (40 kilograms). Together, the mirror segments will work as one large 21.3-foot diameter (6.5-meter) mirror.

          Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn

An international project led by NASA the European and Canadian space agencies as partners, Webb will be the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever launched when it catches a ride atop a Ariane rocket from French Guiana in 2018.

From time to time we watch the Webb telescope being built at Goddard via the "Webb-cam:" http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html

Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn

BIOGRAPHICAL: While Annabelle was in art class today, CJ and I did some more research about Thurgood Marshall, the first African American United States Supreme Court justice. One of the things we learned is that his first first name was actually Thoroughgood, but he changed it in second grade, to simplify matters. 

Marhsall's father was a railroad porter, but he had an affinity for the law and used to go to the local courthouse and listen to lawyers argue cases.

After graduating from, Marshall wanted to attend the University of Maryland School of Law, but was denied entry because of his race. He went on to get his law degree from Howard. When he became a practicing attorney, one of the first cases he took was a discrimination suit against the U of Maryland on behalf of a young American American man.

In addition to reading articles, we watched a short cartoon with some biographical highlights.

https://youtu.be/9UtxSIXr5yM