Mountains of Creation
September 4, 2008
When we think much about creation we are treading dangerous ground. We live within a tiny slice of space and time, and mankind’s expanding ability to probe the far reaches of the cosmos is where the danger lies. Are there any human minds at all that can draw valid conclusions from such images probing space and time?
Credit Lori Allen, Xavier Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), JPL-Caltech, NASA. Astronomy Picture of the Day, August 29, 2008.
Giant star forming region W5 is over 200 light-years across and about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. W5’s sculpted clouds of cold gas and dust seem to form fantastic shapes in this impressive mosaic of infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. In fact, the area on the right includes the structures previously dubbed the Mountains of Creation.
I question whether my mind can anywhere near adequately process such a look back in time. The idea of light-years just doesn’t compute. It’s probably best that I ration the precious hours allotted to me and not spend too many of them wondering about such mysteries.
Dave, in awe of the Mind behind such mysteries.
Blog comments
August 27, 2008
It’s hard to view comments on a blog article through the eyes of the commenter. A recent post on Riverside Rambles, written by Joan Ryan, a regular and very thoughtful commenter, offers some delightful insights into the psyche of a blog commenter.
The commenting person’s need for validation is an interesting point. I wonder if women, in general, feel a greater need to be validated than do men. I would like to think that I, being a man, don’t really care what other readers may or may not think about my comments. I give it my best shot and let the chips fall where they may. Am I kidding myself?
Is the smiley face necessary to avoid word bombs? Again, I would like to think that clear English prose should be sufficient. Since blogging seems to encourage sloppy writing, perhaps the smiley has a place, but I try to avoid using these cutesy things as much as I can. I certainly agree with Joan’s main point that most of us don’t want to unnecessarily offend our readers. I confess, though, that sometimes I want to offend in hopes of getting a response.
I believe we shy away from communicating religious viewpoints because they deal with the Big Issues that are important to us. I want people to know how I am grappling with life’s important questions. I may be on the right track, or I may be totally wrong, but it’s my track, and it seems important that you, the reader, at least understand where I am coming from. Whether you agree or not is your business. My goal is to write without rant. Who can object to that?
Dave, grinning, ducking, and running.
Virgo cluster
July 8, 2008
Credit & Copyright: Günter Kerschhuber (Gahberg Observatory)
(Click on image for larger view)
Explanation: The Virgo Cluster of Galaxies is the closest cluster of galaxies to our Milky Way Galaxy. The Virgo Cluster is so close that it spans more than 5 degrees on the sky - about 10 times the angle made by a full Moon. With its heart lying about 70 million light years distant, the Virgo Cluster is the nearest cluster of galaxies, contains over 2,000 galaxies, and has a noticeable gravitational pull on the galaxies of the Local Group of Galaxies surrounding our Milky Way Galaxy. The cluster contains not only galaxies filled with stars but also gas so hot it glows in X-rays. Motions of galaxies in and around clusters indicate that they contain more dark matter than any visible matter we can see. Pictured above, the heart of the Virgo Cluster includes bright Messier galaxies such as Markarian’s Eyes on the upper left, M86 just to the upper right of center, M84 on the far right, as well as spiral galaxy NGC 4388 at the bottom right.
A Christian worldview must somehow take into account the cosmos. I am tempted to think that only in this day of the Hubble telescope and it’s friends am I finally equipped to think seriously about God and historical beginnings. But that would be saying that the shepherd of ancient times, in the dark of night, contemplating the sky full of stars, could not know what he needed to know about God and beginnings. It doesn’t take much reflection to know that would be saying nonsense.
Today, the Astronomy Picture of the Day is just a part of the flood of information I am besieged with every hour of the day. I am trying to sip from a firehose. My shepherd on the hill had plenty of time to ponder his sky-view, and I suspect that his philosophical conclusions were of greater value to him than my fleeting thoughts while looking at the image above. What do you think?
Dave, blessed but not overawed by scientific progress.
Phoenix on Mars!
May 27, 2008
I sometimes wonder if we are losing our sense of wonder. Is it really possible to design, engineer and launch a mechanical contrivance on a ten month journey through space to make a soft landing on Mars? Must be - it happened Sunday evening, earth time. Here’s a pic of a Phoenix footpad beamed back to earth.
More amazingly, if that is possible, the Phoenix navigator took the Lander’s image just as it was deploying for landing.
Credit: Phoenix, HiRISE, NASA, JPL-Caltech, Univ. Arizona.
To learn more what went on, here is a video animation of the landing.
Dave, pinching himself.
My blogger grand-daughter
May 5, 2008
This is a shameless plug for grand-daughter Andrea Cooley’s blog, creative overflow. Andrea is an Associate Editor for a Des Moines publisher, and has a lot of creative juices flowing in her veins.
Her latest post is the reaction of Andrea and husband Adam to the profusion of spring color. They wonder if this was partly a reaction to a long winter with its shades of gray. (You left-coasters wouldn’t know about that.)
All of which reminds me that I have a few images of a recent spring walk in Quincy yet to post. I’ll do it Real Soon Now.
Dave, full of pride and good intentions.
Techno-Bedouins
April 12, 2008
According to Nomads at last in the latest on-line Economist, a new generation of techno-Bedouins is emerging in the culture. Is this a Good Thing? You’ll have to decide that for yourselves. The generation gap is too wide for me to even think about it.
As a word, vision and goal, modern urban nomadism has had the mixed blessing of a premature debut. In the 1960s and 70s Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the most influential media and communications theorist ever, pictured nomads zipping around at great speed, using facilities on the road and all but dispensing with their homes. In the 1980s Jacques Attali, a French economist who was advising president François Mitterrand at the time, used the term to predict an age when rich and uprooted elites would jet around the world in search of fun and opportunity, and poor but equally uprooted workers would migrate in search of a living. In the 1990s Tsugio Makimoto and David Manners jointly wrote the first book with “digital nomad” in the title, adding the bewildering possibilities of the latest gadgets to the vision.
I commend the article for your reading. It provides a lot to think about when we consider the way various technologies have impacted our lives. Did you know that there are almost 3.5 million mobile-phone users worldwide, compared to essentially zip in 1996? Or that almost all of those users are in the 18-29 demographic?
Dave, not sure what to make of all this.
A diesel in your next car?
April 5, 2008
Every time I see the posted fuel pump prices, I wonder about the premium price of diesel over gasoline. Obviously the premium still makes economic sense, but I certainly didn’t have a clue. Today’s Economist helps clear the air, so to speak, since my impression of diesel vehicles is cluttered up with inappropriate images of dark smoke and stink. I know that none of you have such ill-informed prejudices, but you might find the article interesting nevertheless.
Meanwhile, back at the pump in America, diesel currently costs 20% more per gallon than regular petrol. When that premium reaches 35%, the difference in fuel efficiency will equal the difference in price—and there will be no economic reason to make the switch. Some reckon that day is only a few years away.
All of this is pretty academic for some of us. First, there are yet no efficient family diesel vehicles available. Second, I likely will not need another car at all unless I’m still driving at age 90. I’m marginally dangerous to my fellow drivers now.
Dave, driving very carefully these days.
The keyboard gene
March 24, 2008
Where does chronic keyboard addiction (CKA) come from in the Ayers clan? I don’t know whether genes can properly be said to come from anywhere or anyone, but several of the family seem to suffer varying degrees of this pernicious CKA malady.
So here is the data. Make of it what you will.
Since dear Marilyn has a pathological hatred of any keyboard, (I think maybe a Royal portable typewriter fell on her head some time in her past), I shall start by assuming that I am the prime propagator of the KB gene in our family. We have four children, and one of those decided to skip a generation, but the other three have shown signs of suffering from CKA. The most seriously afflicted is our firstborn, Larry, followed closely by his sister, Linda, and arguably her matronly younger sister, Leslie. Only equally matronly Laura seems immune.
As an aside, I remember when my brothers and I accompanied mom and dad on a motor trip from Mt. Lebanon, PA, to Niagara Falls in 1947. It was billed as sort of a second honeymoon for the folks, and it got off to a rough start. Somewhere before Buffalo, NY, Dad ribbed Mom a bit about being a matron, now that she had turned forty. Three pairs of big ears in the back seat picked up on it and started calling her “matron mom.” Big mistake. I thought for a while that dad would throw us out of the car and make us walk the rest of the way. And then there was the incident in the hotel room at the Falls when they left us alone while they went out and held hands or something. But I digress.
Larry’s oldest, Tyler, seems to have received a dollop of the KG, and it’s a little too early to tell about great-granddaughter Franziska. And I’m not sure about Tyler’s sis Adrian, although we do get e-mails from her, mis-punctuation and all.
The next logical step in this scientific inquiry is to look back in my past to see where I might have picked up the KG. I think first of mom’s brother, Uncle Bus. I remember his wonderfully descriptive letters written from Okinawa, but he didn’t type. The only other possibility that I know of on mom’s side was her sister, Auntie Lois. She was a Navy Wave in the big war, and she typed a blue streak.
As far as I can remember, and that isn’t very far, no one on dad’s side of the family used a keyboard at all. There apparently were no bloggers then to get them started. I have to smile when I try to picture grandpa Ayers typing away from his combine, or grandma Ayers turning from her laptop to wring the head off a chicken for dinner.
This is getting ridiculous. I’m sorry. (Sort of.)
Dave, clicking away with abandon.
Equinox day
March 20, 2008
Sometime today the equinox occurs. The Astronomy Picture of the Day site provides a spectacular view of the event, courtesy of the Expedition 15 crew. Earth dwellers will experience nearly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Recorded last June from the International Space Station, the Sun’s limb still peeks above the distant horizon as seen from Earth orbit. Clouds appear in silhouette as the sunlight is reddened by dust in the dense lower atmosphere. Molecules in the more tenuous upper atmosphere are preferentially scattering blue light.
Dave, quite content with a vicarious viewing.
Hale-Bopp revisited
March 7, 2008
Credit & Copyright: A. Dimai, (Col Druscie Obs.), AAC
The Great Comet of 1997 was photographed from the Dolomite mountains near Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy., The image was chosen as the AstronomyPicture of the Day on March 2, 2008. (Click image to enlarge)
On Sunday night, April 6, 1997, I was over the North Atlantic, flying to Brussels on the way to Israel and a 12 day study tour of the Holy Land. All through that short night, Hale-Bobb hung over the left wing tip as I gazed out of my window and thought about God’s cosmos. My puny earth-bound mind struggled to conceive of God as creator of not only Earth, but of ‘heavens’ of which man still knows only a smidgen, orbiting telescopes notwithstanding.
Such scientific knowledge of God’s cosmos is not essential to my salvation, but it sure is an important lesson in humility.
Part of my morning on-line routine is studying a bit of Scripture and gazing at the Astronomy Picture of the Day. The NETBible and APOD have permanent tabs on my Firefox browser for my daily lesson in humility.
Dave, tiny speck.
