Carl Sagan's Warning

Carl Sagan passed away in 1996. He was a truly exceptional human being: one of the great scientific minds of all time.  By trade, he was an astronomer, and he made many important contributions in that arena. But his greatest gift was his ability to communicate and educate the masses about science. His Cosmos TV series was extraordinary. I had the opportunity to meet Sagan one time in  Los Angeles. It was during the time that the NASA Viking Lander first began sending pictures and data back from Mars.  Sagan was brilliant, but he was also warm and caring. I read his books and watched when he was on TV.  I won't deny that I revered the guy.

Dr. Carl Sagan

It's hard to believe that 17 years have gone by since Sagan left us.  These days,  young people are mostly unfamiliar with this great man.  They would surely benefit from his wisdom and inspiration, as I did.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

                                                                                                               Carl Sagan
                      

In the video clip that follows, Sagan expresses deep concern over the fact that too many of the people we elect to represent us in government are ignorant, even hostile to scientific reason and understanding.

Here is the link to a brief 'You Tube' clip of Carl Sagan in his last TV interview talking to Charlie Rose... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iyFw8UF85A

Pale Blue Dot - Take Two

On August 14th, I posted a blog entry titled, a Pale Blue Dot, narrated by Carl Sagan and produced by Michael Marantz. 

A Pale Blue Dot is a term used by Sagan to put some perspective on our Earth's place in the vastness of the solar system and the universe.

Here is another short video. This one is also called 'A Pale Blue Dot'  It is from something called The Sagan Series and includes Carl Sagan's wonderful perspective on humanity's place on the Earth and the greater universe...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=923jxZY2NPI

Earth from Saturn

The following image was taken July 19th by the NASA Cassini space probe orbiting Saturn.  In this image, our Earth is 900 million miles away, roughly ten times the distance of the Earth from the Sun.

Earth (see arrow)

It's deeply humbling to see an image of ourselves from this perspective. Where the universe is concerned, we are a mere speck on the horizon.

Cassini approaching Saturn

Big History - An Introduction to Everything

Developed by Australian University Professor, David Christian, the Big History Project is designed to give students a clear perspective on how life evolved for humans, beginning with the big bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

Professor Christian says that the human advancement part of this process was and continues to be driven by the unique ability humans have for collective learning.   No other species has the ability to accumulate  knowledge and pass it on to future generations.  We humans make mistakes, but we are capable of extraordinarily complex learning. 


Here is a link to Professor Christians' very compelling TED presentation...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs


Here is a link to the Big History Project webpage ...  http://www.bighistoryproject.com/Home

The Known Universe - A Digital Tour

The known universe is enormous. Something on the order of 15 billion light years across.  If time and tangible existence began with a big bang, the result was a colossal  and by all appearnces endless expansion of known space. Billions of galaxies with billions of stars in each, all flying away from eachother as the universe expands outward.

Carter Emmart and his team of astrophysical wizards at the American Museum of Natuiral History have created an amazing digital rendering of what the living universe looks like, beginning on Earth and traveling outward to the edge of known space.

It's a remarkable six minute plus journey, and it can't help but leave one humbled by the awesome scale of it's vision.

Here is a link to Carter Emmart as he presents 'The Known Universe' to a TED audience...

http://blog.ted.com/2010/07/01/a_3d_atas_of_th/

Moons of Saturn

This remarkable image was taken by NASA's Cassini space probe in September, 2011. It includes four of  the planet, Saturn's moons, orbiting along the outer edge of its rings.

Satun's largest moon, Titan (3,200 miles across) is in the background. In the foreground just above the rings is the moon, Diode (698 miles across) . Just beyond the outer edge of the rings on the right is the moon, Pandora (50 miles across), and finally, just in the gap between the first ring cluster and the second is the tiny moon, Pan (17 mles across).

The image above is not an illustration, it is a photograph, made all the more amazing by the fact that Saturn is a billion miles from the Sun... so far, that it takes nearly 30 Earth years for Saturn to make one complete orbit of the Sun.

Here is an illustration of Saturn with the NASA Cassini Probe.

The Hydrogen Age

In 2007, I was the lead author on a non-fiction book titled, The Hydrogen Age.  At that point, I had invested about fifteen years of my life in efforts to expand public awareness of hydrogen as a critical part of any transition to clean, renewably produced energy.

The book was a critical success, especially with people in the clean energy business.  

 Technically, hydrogen is not a source of renewable energy, but instead is an energy carrier.  By taking electricity generated from wind turbines, solar panels, tidal and wave action, river currents, and geothermal steam and running it through an electrolyser, you can split water molecules into their constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then by stored for use on demand. It can be used to power internal combustion engines likes those in most cars or turbines like those in jet aircraft.  It can also be used in a device called a fuel cell to produce useful electrical energy.

The transition to a 'Hydrogen Economy' is moving ahead, particularly on the other side of the Atlantic, where the European Union and Germany in particular, are directing billions of Euros in a transition away from fossil fuel dependence to a sustainable economy, whose foundation is clean, renewably produced energy with hydrogen as its principle storage medium.[more on the European transition in my earlier blog entry - The Third Industrial Revolution]

In the US,  the move to clean, renewably produced energy is proceeding, but at a much slower pace. This is almost entirely because energy policy in the US is controlled by 'big oil' and other entrenched energy lobbies.  

By the year 2015, many of the world's leading automakers are expected to offer their first hydrogen fueled vehicles for sale in their retail showrooms. Things appear on very much on track for that to happen in Europe and Japan, and perhaps China, where efforts are underway to put the fueling infrastructure in place to support hydrogen powered vehicles.  Unfortunately, public policy in the US is badly corrupted. It favors old school energy interests over the common good. I very much hiope that will change.

The Drake Equation

Frank Drake is a famous astronomer. He played a leading role in the establishment of the gigantic Aricebo Radio Astronomy Observatory in Puerto Rico. 

Frank Drake has long been focused on some of the most important questions known to humankind...

In the vastness of the universe, are we the only intelligent lifeform? Does life itself only exist here on Earth?

In 1961, Drake and his colleagues took a set of assumptions, based mostly on theory, and came up with a mathematical equation as a way of estimating the number of other places in the universe that might support life. It is now called, The Drake Equation.

Here is a video link that features Drake's colleague, the late, great astronomer, Carl Sagan, explaining, The Drake Equation...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ztl8CG3Sys

Given the incredible expansiveness of space, and the near infinite number of galaxies in the universe, each filled with massive numbers of stars;  etc., etc....what comes out of this very engaging, intellectual exercise depends on the assumptions put in.   The Drake equation shows just how much that must go right in order for life to exist. Having said that, it also shows that though the conditions for life might be exceedingly hard to come by, there are so many possibilities in the vastness of the universe, that life, even intelligent life, could be common.  Then again, it might not be...  

Astronomers have been trying to detect incoming radio signals from every corner of space since the early 80s..  In all that time, nothing has come up that could be attributed to alien intelligent life from some other part of the universe.  The search continues...

The takeaway is there is no place in the vicinty of planet Earth that is particularly hospitable to life...at least not for life as we know it.  We humans may be unique.  We may well be alone in the universe.  We  have only one planet on which life flourishes, and we know that all seven billion plus of us humans depend on its rapidly dwindling, living bounty for survival. The smart play would be to appreciate what we have, and take very good care of it.  Unfortunately, that's not how it's going.  We need to mend our ways, and we need to do it soon, before its too late...