Mabfan's Musings

A friend of mine asked me what the deal is about Birkat HaChamah, which is taking place tomorrow. So for those of you who are interested, here's a very basic primer.

Basically, Jewish tradition holds that the sun was created on the fourth day of creation, which was a Tuesday night leading into Wednesday morning. (Remember that Jewish days start on sundown the night before.) The theory as I understand it is that every 28 years, the sun returns to its position in the sky where it was when it was created. When this happens, tradition calls for us to recite a standard blessings of experiencing wonders of nature, which in English says, "Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who does the work of creation." This blessing is also supposed to be recited when one experiences an earthquake, sees lightning, witness a comet, etc. (The Transit of Venus also counts.)

Anyway, tomorrow morning Jews all over the world will be reciting Birkat HaChamah, connecting us with generations past and generations to come. We last recited this blessing on April 8, 1981, and we won't do it again until April 8, 2037.

This year is even more special, as the blessing is being recited on Erev Pesach, or the day before Passover. According to one of the references I found, the only previous years in which this happened were 609, 693, 1309, and 1925 (C.E.). The same reference says that there's a tradition that the final redemption will occur after an Erev Pesach Birkat HaChamah, so who knows? Maybe Elijah will bring special tidings on the night of the first seder.


For more and probably better information on Birkat HaChamah, please see:
Birkat Hachamah: Blessing the Sun
Wikipedia: Birkat Hachama
Quick Guide to Birkat Hachama

Sean P. Fodera, the New York Regional Coordinator of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as Planet, visited his son's classroom to discuss Pluto and blogs about it in My Presentation on Pluto's Planetary Status:

I briefly explained the history of how planets get discovered, and how improving technology has made it easier to find objects in space. They were amazed that anyone could have spotted Pluto from Earth with 1930s telescope technology, or that comparing fuzzy photos could work for detecting the far-off planet....

I discussed the controversy over Pluto's demotion, explaining how the new definition of planet is not accurate, and how less than 5% of the IAU actually voted on the matter. The students had trouble understanding the voting part of it, since they all seem to assume that if something is voted on, it must be fair. So, I presented an example. "Let's say that when your teacher and I went to this school, it was decided that every year the 6th grade class would get to go to the circus. Now, years later, someone decides to take a vote about whether to keep going on the circus trip. Instead of all 50 of you voting, only three of you vote. One votes 'yes', and two vote 'no'. 'No' wins, but it's not exactly a fair vote, is it? That's what happened to Pluto." Eyes lit up, and lot of heads started shaking.

Go read!

Last night, Nomi and I met Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, for the second time. As I noted earlier, Tyson was speaking at the Newton Free Library to promote his new book The Pluto Files, which is all about his role in the controversy that led to the demotion of Pluto. Since Nomi and I are, respectively, the vice-president and president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, also known as SP3, we felt compelled to attend.

Back, back! Neil deGrasse Tyson defends himself from the defenders of Pluto. Photo copyright ©2009 by SP3.

( Read more... )

I shook hands with Dr. Tyson after we were done, and I could tell that he'd been signing a lot of books. It kind of reminded me of my own publication party back in November.

We said good-bye to Melissa, and Andrew drove Nomi and me home. All in all, a nice start to my birthday weekend.

As for Dr. Tyson and Pluto... well, the IAU has another General Assembly this summer, in Rio de Jainero, Brazil. I suspect Dr. Alan Stern will be there to push for a restoration of Pluto's status. We'll see what happens.

But We All Share a Love for Astronomy! Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Burstein, and Nomi S. Burstein may disagree on Pluto, but we all agree that Dr. Tyson is a gentleman. Photo copyright ©2009 by SP3.

Copyright ©2009 by Michael A. Burstein.

From 10:19 pm to 10:26 pm EST, gnomi and I went outside and observed the lunar eclipse. (We might have stayed longer but it is below 0 degrees Celsius outside.) From the left, most of the moon was covered in shadow with a hint of orange; the right still shone fairly brightly.

(Nomi has placed a photo here for anyone who wants to see it.)

For those of you just tuning in, the NASA Messenger spacecraft will be doing its first flyby of Mercury today. It's the first spacecraft from Earth to visit Mercury since Mariner 10 in 1974.

I've been seeing contradictory reports about when the closest approach will take place; I've seen both "around noon" and "2:04 PM EST." If anyone has more accurate information, I'd appreciate it.

Messenger is supposed to settle into orbit around Mercury in 2011, but it's scheduled to make two more passes of the planet before then. I'm looking forward to the new science – and the new pictures!

On September 5, 1977, thirty years ago today, Voyager 1 began its journey to explore our solar system. Today, it continues to fly through space, bringing a message of humanity's existence to the stars.

I remember the excitement of growing up during this mission, as we got to learn about the planets of the outer solar system and what they looked like up close. The first good pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all came from the Voyager missions.

Godspeed, Voyager 1.

(For more information, see NASA's Website on Voyager.)

Exactly one year ago today, the International Astronomical Union, at their General Assembly in Prague, voted to demote Pluto from planet to dwarf planet.

(An excellent post about the public's reaction since can be found at The Enduring Power of Pluto.)

On this day exactly ten years from now, a total solar eclipse will be visible over much of the continental United States. The eclipse's path will start in the Pacific ocean, and will pass through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, the northeast corner of Kansas, Missouri, southern Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, northeast Georgia, and the Carolinas. Millions of people will be able to see the eclipse, assuming the weather holds out.

The duration of the eclipse will be about two and a half minutes at maximum, at the center line. The width of visibility will be about 115 km.

This will be the first total eclipse to pass over any part of the United States since 1991, when a total eclipse passed over Hawaii. Plan your trip now! (Ten years into the future is not as far out as you think...)


References:
USA Total Solar Eclipse 2017, everything you need to know to plan to see the eclipse, including links to details maps, courtesy of Dan McGlaun
Hermit Eclipse: Total Solar Eclipse: August 21 2017 (with some excellent maps)
Path of Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21 (a NASA website with coordinates, which links to a map of the globe with the eclipse's path)
Wikipedia: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

Yesterday, Science published a paper by Michael E. Brown and Emily Schaller, reporting that Eris is actually more massive than Pluto, which would imply that if Pluto were to be considered a planet, Eris would have to be one as well. Anne Minard wrote an article on this discovery for the National Geographic News, and as it so happens she called me to get my opinion as the president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet (SP3).

Minard's article can be found at Pluto Smaller Than Nearby Dwarf Planet Eris, Study Finds. I'm actually found on page 2, and the article pretty much sums up where I stand:

Michael A. Burstein is president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, which goes by the acronym SP3. The group of astronomy buffs formed in the spring of 2006, when rumors first started circulating that Pluto was in trouble.

Burstein preferred the IAU's initial idea for a planet definition, which was never voted upon at their solar-system-shattering meeting last August.

By that definition—that a planet should directly orbit a star and be massive enough to be round—Pluto would still be a planet, as would dwarf planets Eris and Ceres, a large, round asteroid orbiting near Jupiter.

It's fine if we end up with 50 or even 100 planets as new objects are discovered, Burstein said. We could keep the math easy by calling the old guard, including Pluto, "classical planets," he added.

For now, Burstein's group is laying low to see what the pros do—under the guidance of New Horizons' Alan Stern. Stern is leading the charge of professional astronomers to dismiss the IAU's ruling.

"People just aren't using the IAU definition because it's so substantially flawed," he said. "Even their own members, and I'm one, aren't using the IAU definition."

The debate over a better definition was a hot topic at the April meeting of the European Geophysical Union. And it's already part of the agenda for the February 2008 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A year ago today, NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto. Therefore, this is a good time to remind folks about The Great Pluto Debate coming up on February 4.

I know that sometimes this journal might seem like all Pluto, all the time, even though we have the savepluto LiveJournal for Pluto news. But I want to mention the Debate here, because the event will be of interest to anyone fascinated by astronomy and our solar system. It's not just for Pluto supporters, but for anyone interested in the question of how we should classify Pluto.

The flyer for the event is posted at http://savepluto.livejournal.com/10943.html. I have to say that I am very impressed by what the Clay Center Observatory managed to do. Panelists for the debate include Owen Gingerich, the chair of the IAU Planet Definition Committee, and Brian Marsden, the Director of the Minor Planets Center. Both of these gentleman have agreed to come over from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to participate, which boggles my mind as much as it delights me.

I'm asking for your help in publicizing it, especially if you're local to Boston. If you're a teacher or a parent, please bring this event to the attention of your school. The Debate is appropriate for ages 8 and up, and schools may find it valuable to send their students.

And if you're interested in attending, please go to http://www.claycenter.org/astro and make sure to register for the event. Seating is limited, so register as early as you can.

As I mentioned recently, I was just interviewed for a podcast.

Paul Levinson, who does the Light On Light Through podcast among others, decided to devote Episode 17, released on Saturday 1/13/07, to the status of Pluto. Paul asked me if I would be willing to come on in my capacity as the president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet to discuss what the International Astronomical Union did to Pluto and what might happen next.

Even if you've read some of what I've written before on the subject, you might want to download the podcast, since Paul does a good job of asking the questions that are on everyone's mind. You can click on the link above, or you can go directly to Light On Light Through: What on Earth Are They Doing to Poor Pluto?. Both SF Signal and Locus picked up the news for their "SF Tidbits" and "Blinks" sections respectively, so I guess it has some significance.

Also, on the podcast, I make the first public announcement regarding the lineup we have for "The Great Pluto Debate!" taking place at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts on the afternoon of February 4. I'll be posting more about this soon, but if you download the podcast, you'll get the news sooner.

I'm getting a birthday present from NASA!

On February 28th, the day after my birthday, the New Horizons probe will make its closest approach to Jupiter. If you've been reading my blog, you're probably aware that New Horizons is the spacecraft launched almost a year ago, bound for the planet (yes, I say planet) Pluto.

New Horizons started approaching Jupiter for its gravity assist a while back, and what's the point of passing by Jupiter without taking a few pictures? As Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, said, "We're the only train going to Jupiter between '03 and 2016." The Galileo probe finished its mission back in 2003, and the next mission to Jupiter isn't planned to reach the planet until 2016.

Of course, New Horizons will be taking lots of data before my birthday. In fact, NASA is planning its first press conference with new images of Jupiter for January 18th -- the day after Nomi's birthday.

Hmmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with our desire to keep Pluto a planet? Is it possible that Stern and NASA planned this as a secret thank-you? After all, they did first attempt to launch New Horizons on Nomi's birthday last year, and it was only bad weather that delayed the launch to January 19.

Then again, it's probably all just a huge coincidence.

(See the article "Pluto probe begins close-up study of Jupiter" by Kelly Young from the New Scientist Space website for more information.)

As many of you may already know, today is the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Bloggers around the world are participating in a blog-a-thon to commemorate Carl Sagan, and here's my contribution.

I never met Sagan, although a few years ago Nomi and I had the pleasure of meeting his son Nick at the Boston World Science Fiction Convention. But it would not be exaggerating to say that Sagan had a major influence on my life. His PBS TV show Cosmos came out when I was a kid, and I was enthralled by it. I watched every episode of the show as many times as I could. We didn't have a VCR then, and DVDs didn't exist, so my only chance to watch it was when PBS chose to broadcast it.

I remember certain scenes vividly, such as the scenes with actors portraying Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, as Sagan discussed the history behind our understanding of planetary motion. I loved the spaceship of the mind that Sagan rode through the universe, allowing viewers to witness astronomical phenomena up close. And I will never forget the lesson imparted by the final episode, "Who Speaks for Earth?" in which Sagan told his viewers that all of us living on the planet have the right to speak for Earth.

For years afterwards, I read Sagan's books, always delighted by the plain-spoken way in which he presented difficult concepts. Although there were points with which I disagreed with Sagan, I always appreciated the way he made me think. If I had to credit any one person with inculcating a love of astronomy in me, it would have to be Carl Sagan.

Years later, when I found myself teaching astronomy, I made a point of showing as many episodes of Cosmos as I could to my classes. I can only hope they got the same sense of wonder out of the series that I did.

As mentioned a couple of days ago, gnomi and I were interviewed by CBS4 News about our fight to save Pluto.  They ran the interview last night.  The video is here, with a partial transcript here.  The reporter, Ken Barlow, gave a plug for the Clay Center Observatory and for our upcoming Save Pluto Day observances on 4 February 2007.

Quick media announcement for those of you following Nomi and me as we fight for Pluto:

CBS 4 News in Boston is doing a story on us and on the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet! According to our sources, the segment will be broadcast as part of the 5 PM local news on Wednesday, November 29 (that's tomorrow). Nomi and I were interviewed for the segment, discussing our love of Pluto and why we think the IAU's definition of a planet is flawed.

If you miss the segment, it will be placed on the Channel 4 website at http://cbs4boston.com after the broadcast. We'll try to provide folks with an exact link.

For those of you who can stop thinking about the election for a moment, be advised that there is a Transit of Mercury taking place tomorrow. The last one took place on May 7, 2003, and the next one isn't until May 9, 2016. A transit is when a planet appears to cross the face of the sun. From Earth we can only observe Transits of Mercury and Transits of Venus.

Transits of Mercury are more frequent and less exciting than Transits of Venus, so Nomi and I have no plans to observe this one live, as we did for the Transit of Venus back on June 8, 2004. (And anyway, the weather prediction for Massachusetts tomorrow is for clouds and rain.) But for those of you in our hemisphere who wish to observe it, the Transit should be visible from much of the United States. It begins at 2:12 pm EST (7:12 pm GMT) and ends close to 7:08 pm EST (12:08 am GMT Thursday). That means those of you in the Pacific Northwest will actually be able to observe the whole Transit, from beginning to end; those of us in the East Coast will see the sun set before the Transit is complete.

For more information and some nice graphics, Sky & Telescope's website has a great article: Mercury's Day in the Sun.

Those of you who have been following the savepluto LiveJournal already know that yesterday, those of us at the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet have declared that February 4, 2007, will be International Save Pluto Day. And we've posted the International Save Pluto Day Declaration to the website as well.

We're also very glad to note that the Brookline TAB newspaper once again found us newsworthy, running an article titled Brookline couple launches 'International Save Pluto Day.' Because we're not professional astronomers over at SP3. We're regular people trying to generate a grass-roots movement.

And the thing about a grass-roots movement is that it depends upon the general populace to get moving. We've created a framework within which the worldwide net of Pluto supporters can take action. Rather than having a diffuse series of (say) Internet petitions, an International Save Pluto Day would help impress upon the consciousness of the world that Pluto still has a broad base of intense support. As anyone can see in the declaration, we're encouraging people to contact the IAU on or about that day, to make it clear how important Pluto is to all of us. If they receive a bunch of separate petitions or letters spread over the course of a year, it may not make an impression. But if they receive a slew of support in the space of a week, they'll definitely notice.

And we want people to make a celebration of the day. That's why we're grateful to our friends at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts. Although the Center is neutral on the issue, they've agreed to be the first place to run a program in honor of Save Pluto Day. And we're hoping that by the time February 4, 2007 arrives, there will be others, all over the world.

So if you're on our side, please consider doing what you can to get the word out there. Talk it up on your blogs. Contact observatories and planetaria and ask if they plan a program for that day. Let the media know you're interested. Create an entry on Wikipedia. But get out the word.

Because if we can have an international day where everyone goes around talking like a pirate, surely we can have one where everyone thinks about Pluto.

I just wanted to let people know that this Sunday, I'm going to be interviewed live on the EZHelp, You and More Internet Radio Show about Pluto. For more information, see SP3 President To Be Interview on Internet Radio on the savepluto LiveJournal.

To listen to the show on Sunday October 29th at 11 AM EST, just go to http://ezhelp.org/chat.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Nomi and I were interviewed by the Brookline TAB on Monday evening about the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet.

The article, Brookline couple launch campaign to save Pluto (Brookline TAB, September 28, 2006), does a good job of representing us as who were really are, and why we're so passionate about Pluto:

We all need reminders for life’s special moments - birthdays, anniversaries, space travel.

While furiously tapping at their handheld electronic organizers, Michael and Nomi Burstein race through their schedules to pinpoint their special moment.

"We have it written down in our handhelds," Michael murmured, zipping through his digital database.

"We’re sort of scary that way," Nomi quipped, not looking up from her own compact computer.

Michael calls out the sought-after date first - the year 2015.

Nine years is how long this Brookline couple will wait for a space mission that left Earth in January to reach Pluto.

But with regard to Pluto’s newly demoted planetary status, the two are not so patient....

And there's a picture, too!

On Monday night, Nomi (LJ: gnomi) and I were interviewed by the Brookline TAB for an article about the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet. The TAB wanted to get a photograph of us that would be relevant to the idea of saving Pluto, so we ended up going to The Clay Center, an astronomical observatory that is part of the Dexter-Southfield School in Brookline, Massachusetts. This is a real observatory, up on a hill, with a dome and a 25-inch reflector.

We spent about an hour being photographed and another hour being interviewed. For those of you who are interested, the article will appear in tomorrow's TAB, and I'll provide a link to the on-line version. However, this isn't about the article, but rather about the opportunity Nomi and I took to go back.

We were so impressed with the observatory on Monday night that we decided to return last night for one of their Public Telescope Viewing nights. All throughout the day, the sky was rather clear, so we expected a good night of observing. We were most definitely not disappointed.

We arrived at the Center a little before 6:30 pm, and we were met by Robert F. Phinney, their Science and Technology Director. We had met him the day before. Mr. Phinney showed us some of the meteorites and other artifacts, and then we went upstairs to an observation deck. As the sun set, we looked out over the city of Boston and its environs with a pair of binoculars. Nomi managed to find her office building, and I picked out Copley Square, which wasn't too hard thanks to the Prudential and the Hancock.

Around 7 pm we entered the dome, where John Briggs, a teacher at the school, had been getting the telescope ready for viewing. We were the only ones there, although other guests showed up about an hour after we did. Now years ago, when I trained on the Loomis-Michael Telescope on the top of Harvard's Science Center, I learned a valuable lesson. When doing astronomy, you should always keep a log book of your observations. If you don't write it down, it's as if you didn't see it. So I took out my little Moleskine notebook and kept a log of what we saw. Mr. Briggs used a computer program to move the telescope, and here's the log.

7:10 pm: I saw Altair.

7:22 pm: I saw Beta Cygni, or Albireo, which looked like a yellow star next to a blue star. From what I've read, Beta-1 is an orange-yellow K-class giant and Beta-2 is a main-sequence B-class star.

7:33 pm: I saw Epsilon Lyrae, which through the 7-inch refractor looked like two stars, but through the reflector resolved into four.

7:44 pm: I saw M57, the Ring Nebula. It looked like a smoke ring.

7:57 pm and 8:03 pm: I saw M13, the globular cluster in Hercules.

8:09 pm: I saw Vega.

8:22 pm: I saw the central heart of the Andromeda Galaxy. It looked like a blob.

Now, at this point, Nomi and I had expressed our interest in seeing Pluto, since, truth be told, neither she nor I had ever seen it through a telescope before. Pluto was low in the sky, around twenty to thirty degrees above the horizon, but the gentlemen running the scope found it for us.

8:33 pm, 8:46 pm, and 8:50 pm: I saw Pluto. It was an extremely faint dot, but it was there. To think of all the fuss that one little dot has caused.

8:59 pm: I saw the double cluster in Perseus, NGC 869 and NGC884

9:03 pm: I saw Uranus. It appeared as a bluish-green disc. (First time!)

9:08 pm: I saw Neptune. It appeared as a blue-white disc. (First time!)

9:16 pm: I saw the globular cluster M15 (NGC 7078).

At this point, Nomi and I decided it was getting late, especially since the season premiere of Gilmore Girls was now on our TiVo. So we bid farewell to the Clay Center, but we've promised both them and ourselves that we will be back.

Sadly, I can't share any direct photos of what we saw last night, since there wasn't any sort of camera attached to the telescope. And anyway, the point of observing is to experience the wonder of the universe directly and immediately for yourself. Of course, if you want to see some pictures of what we saw, there are no doubt plenty you can find on the web.

But for those of you who want a picture, I share with you a link to last night's post from the Bad Astronomy Blog, Jupiter from a height. Phil Plait reposts a picture of Jupiter that has been taken by the New Horizons spacecraft, which is speeding towards Pluto. Check it out; it's way cool.

And while you're at it, if you live in the Boston area, consider dropping by the Clay Center on one of their public viewing nights. You'll be glad you did.

Copyright © Michael Burstein