How to Collect Your Own Stardust

 

How would you like to collect some extraterrestrial dust? Scientists estimate that thousands of tons of meteorite dust fall to Earth every day. Passage through our atmosphere reduces most meteoroids to fine particles of dust. That dust then gently falls to the ground or rain washes it out of the sky. That’s your ticket to capturing some meteorite dust.

Many meteorites contain a high proportion of nickel and iron, both of which possess magnetic properties. That property of meteorite dust provides a quick and cheap way to separate it from the far more common terrestrial dust.

Fill a large bowl partly full of water. Use a glass, aluminum, or plastic bowl, not a steel one. Make sure a magnet won’t stick to your bowl. Place it on something that puts it up and away from ground level. This helps reduce the amount of Earth dust that’s kicked up by cars and wind. You need to put it out in the open where it can collect any rain. If you’re doing this during the warmest days of summer, you need to check it pretty regularly. Keep water in the bowl so the dust doesn’t dry out and blow away. You can also collect runoff water from your roof gutter’s downspout.

After several weeks, or after rain, retrieve your bowl. Get a second bowl or container. This doesn’t need to be as large as the first one. If you get rain within a few days after a meteor shower, your chances of capturing meteorite dust increase. You can check the dates of meteor showers at http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/.  

Meteor Shower, credit NASA/JPL

Wrap a magnet in a plastic bag, and run it over the bottom of the collection bowl. Make sure you pass it over any sediment that you see in the bowl, or, better still, very slightly stir up the sediment.

Micrometeorites in rainwater

Anything that sticks to the magnet is most likely a bit of a meteorite, your own shooting star dust. Now put the plastic-wrapped magnet into the second bowl. Carefully pull the magnet out of the plastic bag. Meteorite dust makes up much of what falls off. You may only get a few sand-grain-sized or smaller pieces. Considering that the bodies orbiting in the Asteroid Belt and comets, the prime sources of meteorite dust on Earth, were created by the same material that made our sun and all the planets at the very beginning of our solar system’s formation, the age of the fragments you collect exceeds four billion years!

The Original Star-Crossed Lovers

 Look at the circular star chart and notice the three bright stars, Vega, Altair, and Deneb that sit in the center of the sky. Together, these three stars make up the Summer Triangle. You really can’t miss them. Vega is the third brightest star visible from Oklahoma. Altair is the ninth brightest we can see, and Deneb is the fifteenth.

Star map for September, The map shows the sky at 11:00 early in the month, 10:00 in the middle of the month, and 9:00 at the end of the month. Map produced using Night Vision star mapping software.

Two factors determine the brightness of a star in our sky: how much light it emits, the star’s luminosity, and the star’s distance. We rate luminosity compared to our sun’s light output. Altair is 17 light-years away and is 10.6 times brighter than our sun. By comparison, the closest star to us beyond the sun is 4.2 light-years away. Vega sits 25 light-years distant and puts out 50 times more light than our sun. Deneb is one of the most distant stars visible to the naked eye at 1467 light-years and shines an incredible 196,000 times brighter than our sun. If Deneb were as close to us as Vega, it would far outshine anything in our sky other than the full Moon and the sun!

Vega and Altair are the main characters in the Japanese Star Festival known as Tanabata. Look at the enhanced star chart showing the center of the sky, and note that Vega and Altair sit on opposite sides of the Milky Way, the great heavenly river in the sky. Vega represents Princess Orihime, a weaver who made beautiful cloth by the sky river. Her father is the God of the Heavens. Because she was so despondent at never finding love, Orihime’s father introduced her to Hikoboshi, a cow herder who lived on the other side of the Milky Way, marked by the star Altair. Their attraction instantly grew great, and they married soon after.

This star map with enhanced Milky Way was produced with SkyGazer star mapping software.

The Sky God soon became frustrated as Orihime stopped weaving her beautiful cloth, and the cows wandered all over the sky because Hikoboshi spent all his time with his beloved wife. To set the heavens right again, Orihime's father forbade the lovers from seeing each other. Orihime begged her father to reconsider. Out of love for his daughter, he allowed the two to spend one day a year together, on the 7^th day of the 7^th month, when Japanese lovers celebrate Tanabata.

But, the river of the sky proved to be too deep. Orihime cried until a flock of magpies formed a bridge for her to cross. They do this every year unless it rains on that day, in which case Orihime and Hikobosi must wait another year to be together. In Japan, young couples pray for nice weather on Tanabata so Orihime and her husband can unite for that one day. The festival is celebrated on July 7^th, but the stars are highest in our sky in September.

 

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

 This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.oklahoman.com.

 

The Psychology of Being Watched

 

Ever walk into a room and get that feeling that you are being watched?  If so, do you behave differently?  Are you less likely to, say, throw litter on the ground?  According to Sander van der Linden, a doctor of Experimental Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, you will be a better person when you feel you are being watched.

Van der Linden performed a detailed study on what he calls gaze detection, a “dedicated neural architecture for detecting facial features, including the presence of eyes which served as an important evolutionary tool in ancestral environments, e.g. for detecting lurking enemies.”  According to van der Linden, we are all hard-wired to detect faces and in particular eyes and reading the intent in others eyes.  We had to know if they were the eyes of a friend or a stranger, perhaps even a dangerous enemy.

In modern society, gaze detection manifests as a sort of social referee so that when others are watching us, it has a positive effect on our decision making: we make choices that are better for society as a whole even if it is less desirable or more troublesome for us personally.  Van der Linden’s research specifically studied what people would do with trash in a cafeteria when someone was and wasn’t watching.  Older studies, done in the 1970s showed that people who are being watched are three times more likely to properly dispose of their trash, as opposed to leaving it at the table or on the floor, when they are being watched compared to not being watched.  Studies also showed that it didn’t matter that someone was physically watching; a poster of people with wide-open eyes on the wall had the same effect.  When people perceived a pair of eyes on them, whether real eyes or photographs of them or just figures that resemble eyes, they behaved differently then when they didn’t feel as if they were being watched.

Van der Linden’s studies proved that the same gaze detection behavior could be extended to images that simply looked like a pair of eyes.  In his words, “it doesn’t take a fellow human being to make us feel ‘as if the world were watching,’ not even another living organism. All it takes is an image of a pair of human eyes.” 

 

And it is not an effect that we have conscious control over.  We can’t overcome the behavioral change simply because we are aware of the effect.  It is a hard-wired set of behaviors, providing an evolutionary advantage.  “This makes sense,” van der Linden states “because there is great evolutionary value in being able to quickly assess whether any predators are on the prowl; neural activation of the gaze detection system is fast and automatic. Yet this also means that it’s possible to “trick” the system and this is exactly what the new experiment has shown: objects that merely resemble human eyes are sufficient to trigger human gaze detection and subsequently alter social behavior.”

After reading his study, I wondered how this gaze detection phenomenon might manifest itself in a situation in which a moral choice isn’t an issue.  Could the mere fact that we unconsciously perceive that we are being watched when no action we might do makes any difference except to ourselves make us behave or believe something that we wouldn’t otherwise do so?  When we don’t have a moral choice to make, might gaze detection cause some other psychological effect?  In particular, how might it affect the perceptions of someone sitting in a room at night, especially if they already had a notion that there was paranormal activity occurring in the house?  How might gaze detection affect their behavior?

I posed this question to Dr. van der Linden: Is it possible that this feeling of being watched could, in a situation where one is frightened for whatever reason, cause the person to perceive other imagined phenomena such as hearing sounds or seeing shadows out of the corner of their eyes or just a generally “creeped” out feeling, phenomena that some might assume is caused by a ghost?  This was his response.

 

The question you posed is whether, if a ‘spooky’ environmental cue can be identified, can (gaze detection) also induce behavioural responses other than moral and social adjustments? This is in fact a very interesting research question and I don’t have a straightforward answer. I imagine it can. People often report to feel ‘uncomfortable’ when they know they are being watched, even more so of course when they believe that a deceased individual (or ghost) is watching them. Also, this may very well induce feelings of anxiety and panic.

Emotions that people report while ‘experiencing’ paranormal activity are usually instinctive emotions such as ‘fear’ and ‘anxiety’ that, because of how the brain is wired, are very hard to control, in particular because these emotions originate in the oldest part of the brain, which is very well developed, and as a result often overtakes our ability to continue to reason ‘rationally.’ Recent research has in fact indicated that perceptual and sensory experiences (e.g. ‘feeling a presence’ or ‘picking up energy’) are related to the limbic system, the older part of the brain. In fact, research points to the fact that ‘extrasensory experiences’ are particularly common in individuals that have a strong sensitivity to environmental factors. In other words, people that often experience allergies, headaches, other chronic symptoms or a heightened sensitivity to light, sound, touch and smell are particularly prone to experiencing paranormal activity. Individuals with a heightened sensitivity also tend to be female (about 2/3). So people sensitive to environmental conditions react more strongly, in reason and feeling to incoming informational cues from their environment.”

 

Gaze Detection may become one of the causes of reported paranormal phenomena.  I believe that this could become a powerful tool in the paranormal investigator’s arsenal to prove to people that they are NOT being haunted by a ghost, but that rather subtle psychological behaviors are triggered by the presence of photographs, posters or drawings on the wall or even in decorative motifs.  The next time a client tells you that “people always feel a presence in this room” or report sounds or “shadows out of the corner of my eye”, look around.  If the room has lots of photos of deceased Aunt Martha, maybe it’s not her ghost, but merely her eyes that haunt the place.

A $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 Asteroid.

 

During the mid-19^th century, Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, working at an observatory in Naples, discovered nine asteroids, among his other credits. His fifth asteroid, Psyche, was only the 16^th known. Although he didn’t realize it at the time, Psyche would become one of the most unique and interesting asteroid discoveries.

Analysis of Pysche revealed it to have a radius of slightly over 70 miles, with an average density revealing it to be made of almost solid iron and other metals. Astronomers believe that it might be the metallic core of a planet that never fully developed. Scientists estimated its commercial value at $10,000 quadrillion. That's $10,000 followed by 15 zeroes.  It is one of the most valuable objects in the Asteroid Belt, assuming we could ever mine it.

Artist rendering of Asteroid Psyche, credit NASA

However, a recent analysis of Psyche hints that it may be slightly less valuable. Given Psyche’s size and mass, astronomers had estimated it to be 95% iron and other metals, giving it that high estimated value. However, a recent NASA spacecraft’s visit to another asteroid caused a team of researchers led by University of Arizona undergraduate student David Cantillo to reevaluate that estimated value. University of Arizona scientists lead the science team for NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to study another asteroid, Bennu. OSIRIS-REx retrieved a sample from Bennu's surface and is now bringing it back to Earth. Bennu turned out to be a rubble pile. It’s a loose collection of rock and dust held together by gravity but not solid.

As Cantillo’s team assessed the known data on Psyche, they realized that it may also be a rubble pile, and is likely only 82.5% metallic. If true, that would drop its commercial mining value to a “mere” $8700 quadrillion.

I think I’d still stake a claim, if only international law allowed it.

 

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

 

This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

Just How Much Cosmic Dust falls to Earth Each Year?

 

On almost any dark, clear night away from city light pollution, even the casual sky observer may see one or several “shooting stars.” Tiny bits of rock, typically less than an inch across, create these brief streaks of light. The rocky bits move so quickly through the air that they create a huge amount of friction, heating the air to incandescence which creates the streak of light.

Eventually, the cosmic rock is broken into tiny dust particles which float serenely down to the surface of our planet. This cosmic dust comes primarily from two sources. A research team studying this phenomenon, led by Julien Rojas, a doctoral student at the University of Paris–Saclay, found that more than 60% of the dust originates from the family of comets that Jupiter’s huge gravitational pull herds into orbits of less than 20 years and which can pass close to Earth’s orbit. Another 20% of the dust likely came from the main asteroid belt.

                          Meteor entering Earth atmosphere as seen from the ISS. Credit NASA

Astronomers want to know just how much of this cosmic dust Earth accumulates each year. But the problem is that with dust constantly blowing around all over our planet, it becomes virtually impossible to separate space dust from Earthly dust.

There is one place where terrestrial dust does not contaminate extraterrestrial dust, Antarctica. The study team collected ice cores from that continent in an attempt to quantify the amount of cosmic dust landing on our planet each year. And, because the snow and ice cover there can be melted, it is easy to separate the tiny dust particles from the otherwise dustless environment. Jean Duprat, a cosmo-chemist and co-author of the study, said “The South Pole is by far the best location because you are surrounded by oceans, you are completely isolated from mainlands.”

 Extrapolating the three-year study of Antarctic cosmic dust measurements to the entire planet, the team found that between 4,000 and 6,700 metric tons of space dust falls to Earth each year. Rojas explained that the study’s range is simply a matter of statistics due to the inherent difficulty of extrapolating the worldwide accumulation from a series of limited, local measurements. “Depending on the volume of snow,” Rojas said, “you would expect a certain uncertainty by just counting the particles.”

Between 4,000 and 6,700 tons a year! And you think you have a problem keeping weight off.

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

 This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

 

Is the Hypothesized "Planet Nine" Actually a Primordial Black Hole?

 On March 13, 1781, astronomer William Herschel pointed his telescope into the night sky and discovered the planet Uranus, the first such discovery in historical times. Over the next 45 years, as astronomers observed Uranus looking for possible moons, they realized its orbit didn’t follow the known laws of gravity. Some astronomers surmised that perhaps Newton’s gravitational laws didn’t work so far from the sun.

But two mathematicians decided that the discrepancy occurred due to the gravitational attraction of an eighth planet even farther out. Unbeknownst to each other, both French astronomer Rubin Le Perrier and British mathematician John Couch Adams began calculating the likely position of such a planet based on the aberrations of the orbit of Uranus. On September 23, 1846, French astronomer Johanne Galle found Neptune within one degree of the predicted position. The effect of Neptune’s gravitational pull on the orbit of Uranus led to its discovery.

In January 2015, Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown noted some rather odd orbits of five asteroids in the far outer regions of our solar system. Using computer modeling, they predicted the presence of a ninth planet ten times larger than Earth whose gravity they theorized affected the asteroids. They dubbed it “Planet Nine.”

That planet has never been discovered even with today’s sophisticated telescopes, yet according to Brown and Batygin, new evidence continues to support their hypothesis. This negative result has led some astronomers to propose a radical idea: maybe the cause of the odd orbits isn’t a large planet but rather a small black hole.

Typically, black holes result from the death of massive stars and are typically five to ten times the mass of our sun. But the extreme conditions at the earliest stages of the formation of the universe could have created smaller, planet-sized black holes, called primordial black holes, although we’ve yet to find any. 

Primordial black holes may exist throughout the cosmos. Credit NASA

A planet ten times the size of Earth should have been found, many astronomers believe, but a black hole of the same mass would be tiny and impossible to see. The only way to discover one is to use the same method astronomers use to find any stellar-sized black hole, by way of its massive gravity. A planet-sized black hole might be invisible, but the gravity of one could certainly cause the observed effect.

I think the idea of a primordial black hole at the edge of our solar system is exciting. As long as it stays out there.

Is There Life on Mars? Maybe, but We Haven't Looked in the Right Places

 Two new studies point to a real possibility of life on Mars. We know Mars once had lots of water, enough water to cover the entire planet by as much as three-quarters of a mile. That water is now lost from the surface.

                          Artist’s rendering of Mars before it lost surface water, credit NASA

One study, led by Eva Scheller, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, looked at the rate at which Mars lost water to space. Hydrogen, a component of water molecules, comes in various forms. Normal hydrogen consists of one proton and one electron. Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, also contains one neutron. Being heavier, deuterium can’t escape Mars as easily as normal hydrogen. By studying the ratio of the two, scientists can determine how much hydrogen, and therefore water, Mars lost to space since it formed. This allows the scientists to estimate the total amount of water Mars originally possessed.

Since the rate of hydrogen loss early in Mars’ history can’t be known precisely, scientists can only estimate the amount of water lost. They calculate that the total amount of water lost from Mars amounts to only enough to cover the planet by up to 82 feet. That leaves a lot of water still on Mars. The rest, they claim, went underground, chemically combined with minerals in the Martian crust. "Mars basically became the dry, arid planet we know today 3 billion years ago," Scheller stated. Since then, the amount of water locked below the crust has remained essentially unchanged. Water loss from Mars stopped when the remaining water became trapped in the crust.

                                                  Mars with polar ice cap, credit NASA

Nathalie Cabrol, director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research, part of the SETI Institute, led the second study. She claims life would still exist on Mars if it ever developed there. It simply would have moved underground with the water. We haven’t found it yet because we haven’t looked in the right places.

Cabrol studies some of the harshest environments on Earth, locations scientists refer to as Mars analogs. These places represent the environments on Earth most like Mars, a cold, dry desert world. She explains that at these locations on Earth, “You can walk on the same landscape for miles and find nothing. Then, maybe because the slope changes by a fraction of a degree, the texture or the mineralogy of the soil is different because there is more protection from UV, all of a sudden, life is here.”

On Earth, virtually everywhere water exists, so does life, even deep below ground with water trapped in rocks. Cabrol says that on Mars, other conditions must also be considered. “What matters in extreme worlds to find life is to understand the patterns resulting from these interactions.”

Both scientists agree that the Perseverance Rover, newly landed on Mars, may be able to find the right conditions for Martian life below the surface.

 

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

 This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.