SETIcon

You know you've made it when your institution has its first "con." Such as it is with the S.E.T.I Institute in Mountain View, CA. SETIcon, as it is called, will be taking place in Santa Clara, CA on August 13-15 with a great line-up of speakers. I'm just hoping they will have a way to make a video record of the speakers available to those of us who are unable to attend. Just a few of the speakers on the agenda include former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, Jill Tarter the SETI Institute's director and inspiration for Jodie Foster's character in the film Contact, Isaac Asimov's daughter Robyn Asimov, and SETI Radio host Seth Shostak.

Though I knew of its existence in its early stages I didn't became acutely aware of S.E.T.I. and its work until I read Carl Sagan's first and only novel Contact. Once the movie premiered I was stunned at its profoundness and how it put our thinking on the possibility of extraterrestrial life in a context I had not considered: that of the vast distances involved in our stellar neighborhood and our isolated position relative to the rest of the stellar population in the Milky Way.

Now with the Internet community such as it is I am a devout follower of S.E.T.I.'s work and am able to stay up to date on the various projects and work taking place there. It will be fun to post about S.E.T.I. events and their work whenever something interesting comes along.

Let's hope one of those "events" will be the one that tells us we have a galactic "neighbor."

Ridley Scott's Space Jockey Get's A Ride

The news about Ridley Scott planning a prequel to his original movie Alien as a reboot to the franchise was like manna from heaven for this aficionado of sci-fi cinema. When it premired in 1979 my visceral reaction to the opening shot of the Nostromo silently filling the screen as it crawled back to its home base of Earth after a mining mission on the planet Theda was so strong it still seems like I only just saw it a few hours ago. I think I must have sat slack jawed for the first twenty minutes of Scott's opus as I tried to visually digest the new benchmark of expectations being set for future movies about space and space travel. One of the most haunting scenes or images of that film was when Hurt's character was standing in awe before an alien traveller's body who had obviously not survived a violent explosion from within still strapped to his flight deck chair. That image was so strong and intense anyone who re-watched this movie would wonder about the story of this "space jockey" and the circumstances that brought him there:

Now it looks as though the days of wondering are over. Scott is going to tell his story. According to the evocative director in an interview the film will take place 50 years before the Nostomo stumbles upon the space jockey's body. Early speculation is a target release date set sometime in 2011.

Yummy.

A Stellar Image From A Steller Obervatory

Its builders claim the European Southern Observatory houses the world's most advanced optical instrument. The photo they posted today certainly makes it hard to argue with their claim. That "instrument" is an 8.2 meter diameter main mirror coupled with four movable 1.8m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes. We are told that when they work together, in groups of two or three, to form a giant 'interferometer' this "allows astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes." This enabled the ESO to be the first Earth bound observatory/telescope to capture the first image of an extrasolar planet [eso0842]. One of the 'very kewl' things about this observatory, which is based in southern Chile, is each of the four auxiliary telescopes have names that originate from the indigenous peoples of the area: The Mapuche. The names of each of the auxiliary units in the Mapuche language have very specific meanings: (1) Antu -which means The Sun [UT1]; (2) Kueyen -which means The Moon [UT2]; (3) Melipal - which means The Southern Cross [UT3]: and finally (4) Yepun - which means Venus.

The ESO web site also tells us this region of Chile on a moonless night is so dark and low in light pollution you can see your shadow from the stars in the Milky Way. Anyone, even those with a mild or fleeting interest in astronomy, would surely love to visit this area and experience an evening with a telescope. The image in question, Super Nova 1987A, is quite an impressive event where the star's material has been ejected by the explosion at 100 million kilometers per hour. We further learn from Astronomy Now Online the image shows the star's ejecta that took 10 years to catch the previous ring exhaled by the dying star:

How impressive is that? I'm sure the cache of future images of the ESO VLT won't rival Hubble or the new James Webb Space Telescope to be launched in 2014. But if the image of Supernova 1987A above is any indication I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

One last little factoid about the ESO facilities. The wing that houses the denizens of this community of researchers was featured in the last James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. Now that's worth a martini shaken, and not stirred to know.

28 Days

In Steve McQueen's classic racing movie "Le Mans" he explains to the wife of a racing colleague who died the previous year in a fiery accident why he still races in a sport so fraught with danger, "For us there is only racing. The time in between...is just waiting." For Gator alumnus and fans alike its no different. There is Gator football season and all the time in between is just waiting. That's why hearing the news that Gator football practice started yesterday is like mainlining adrenaline. Being jacked for a new season and salivating at the prospect of another run at an SEC championship, revenge at Tuscaloosa for last years SEC Championship game loss, the debut of John Brantley as the new on the field leader of the offense, and the return of Urban Meyer makes the rush even greater.

That loss to Alabama last year in Atlanta still hangs in my throat along with a bad taste in my mouth that simply will not go away. I don't know if Brantley is the guy to make things right but the anticipation is almost unbearable. There is a lot to sort out. Will Andre DuBose be the guy we think he is capable of being? There's that issue of depth at linebacker. What's Meyer's plans for a possible appearance of Trey Burton with some wildcat time at QB. What can we expect from the Freshmen? And finally, the QB position. Will Brantley be the QB we think he can be? The time to sort all this out is almost upon us.

Yep. For us there is football season. All the time between is just waiting. That wait is almost over. In 28 days / 20 hours/ and 36 minutes its going to be game time at the swamp.

I'm already there.

Spooky

When I recently saw the news about the incident in China recently on my BBC World News wire where the government shut down a regional airport because of a fiery ufo overhead I stumbled across something I didn't even know existed: a National UFO Reporting Center. As a raging skeptic when it comes to reports of extraterrestrial life visiting earth I still found this sight to be utterly fascinating. Wikipeida tells us the National UFO Reporting Center was founded in 1974. Curiously enough and coincidentally when you visit the actual site you will quickly discover that this past month of July had a record breaking number of reported sightings since its founding: 658. This beat their September, 2009 record by 63 sightings. It has a pretty extensive data base and several ways to contact the center (i.e. phone, e-mail, web site, etc) from anyone in the general public to report an unidentified flying object.

For me the world of Ufology is fascinating in itself because of the interest I have in spaceflight and NASA. Its just that I find the possibility of earth being visited by life outside the confines of our solar system unable to overcome the realities of the physics involved to overcome the vast distances in question. Despite my healthy skepticism I find the MUFON and attendant UFO community organizations around it fun to follow as an indulgent guilty pleasure. Having said that I want to make it clear these communities are filled with respectable members of society and professionals from a variety of scientific fields which is why it so fun to follow and fascinating. Still, I guess its sort of like those individuals who read the gossip rags and follow the Internet celebrity gossip sites as guilty pleasures but are loath to admit it to anyone. All I know is its fun to follow and write about and I'm admitting it!

Ageless

I've finally accepted the fact that for years Hollywood's dearth of good scripts for women has been par for the course in a world where under 30 female "leads" fulfilling their role as screen ornaments for the male star is the norm. About the only "leading" actress left that can carry a film by herself anymore is Angelina Jolie amid a swirling montage of speeding cars and disposable emasculated male characters whose ass she has or will kick in the linear timeline of the plot. So imagine my surprise to discover that the highest paid actress in 2009 wasn't the scene chewing Ms. Jolie but none other than the 46 year old Sandra Bullock who is her senior by eleven years. No doubt Ms. Bullock is still renowned for being filmdom's sexiest bus driver but 2009 saw her carrying a leading role by herself in two smart crisp roles that only she could have pulled off: The Blindside & The Proposal.

For many years my favorite actress has been the 75 year old Dame Judi Dench whose formidable acting skills make any role, no matter the size, the one thing you remember about the film when the credits roll. The best example of this is her turn as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare In Love. Despite Gwyneth Paltrow getting Oscar's nod that year for best actress it is Judi Dench who actually steals the movie with her paltry 8 minutes of screen time. Trust me, after watching this film its her you remember and not the waif-like and pouting Ms. Paltrow long after the credits have rolled.

My "how kewl is that" sensibilities are in fine working order this morning as it finally dawned on me that Hollywood's cache of female stars are being led by these two ageless women over 45 whose sexiness transcends age through their talents and self awareness of who and what they are. Watching Ms. Bullock and Ms. Dench wield their power in a male dominated industry has been fun and refreshing for me over the past decade or two. And the best thing about this is they aren't showing any signs of even being done yet.

Now how kewl is that?

Nature's Raw Power

My reading on lightning tells me its a thinly charged column of air rapidly heated to three times the surface of the sun. This 'Astronomy Photo of the Day' from July 20th in the skies of Athens, Greece is one of the best this year. I'm sure this was a spectacle that would have made even the mighty Zeus flinch from his throne atop Mt. Olympus. I never cease to be astounded by nature and its power. To get a glimpse of that power like the above photo should give pause to anyone not humbled by that power.

Chinese Media Wants To Believe

Recently a well publicized (well, on the Internet anyway) UFO sighting in China's Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou caused quite an international media stir (except here that is). The photographic and subsequent video record of the actual sighting aren't very convincing. I've seen to many video clips of old post cold war ICBM & lost derelict spy satellite boosters succumbing to Newtonian law and finally finding its way back to the insane world that launched them in secrecy no longer able to cling to their anonymity. The Hangzhou airport sighting actually looks pretty mundane in light of past clips of old spacecraft hardware giving up the ghost and de-orbiting to a fiery end.

I was just somewhat amused this event caused this much excitement with the weighty logical explanations on hand for what they obviously observed. Though I'm sure there's a little Fox Mulder in all of us when it comes to the possibilities of extraterrestial life. I reside quite comfortably in my skeptic's easy chair when it comes extraterrestrial visitations due to the distances involved and the resources needed to make the trip. As to the possibility of the existence of life as we define it outside the confines of our solar system I am definitely in that camp. This puts me in the S.E.T.I. school of thinking as opposed to the Roswell mindset and the expectations associated with that community.