Cosmology Bus

Closer to Truth

I really enjoy the big surprises I sometimes get when following links from sites that relate to subjects I'm researching.

Not long ago, while reading a post on Science & Religion Today, I came across one that brought me to a site called Closer to Truth, which I'd never seen before (no surprise there), and which turned out to be a very rich and worthwhile stop currently focusing on three of the biggest topics around: Cosmos, Consciousness, and God. CTT, as it's also known, is the creation of Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an interesting guy who, among other things, is an international investment banker specializing in China, an advisor to the Beijing government on economic policy, a television producer, and an author. But he started out by studying human biology, eventually earning a Ph.D in brain anatomy from UCLA, which reminds me of a favorite line from one of my favorite songwriters, James McMurtry:

You never know when you leave the house / You might come home by a different route

McMurtry doesn't have a Ph.D, but he sure knows people.

Closer to Truth Opening Screen. Source: closertotruth.com

And Kuhn knows how to ask good questions and put together a compelling series. This is how CTT describes itself:

Closer To Truth is the definitive series on Cosmos, Consciousness and God, a global journey in search of the vital ideas of existence. It is the most complete, compelling, and accessible series on Cosmos, Consciousness and God ever produced for television.

Closer To Truth explores fundamental issues of universe, brain/mind, religion, meaning and purpose through intimate, candid conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, scholars, theologians and creative thinkers of all kinds. The shows are a rich visual experience, shot entirely on location in high definition with multiple cameras generating rich production values. The visual lushness of the high definition, on-location productions, combined with the intriguing titles of the shows, builds audiences already interested in mankind's greatest questions . . .

It is the mission of Closer To Truth to become the most publicly prominent venue for heightened understanding and thoughtful discussion of Cosmos, Consciousness and God for broad television audiences.

I don't know where they are in terms of a following, but the current group of 39 shows (13 each on the three main subjects) is airing on some 278 PBS stations across the U.S. All episodes, as well as shows from previous seasons, can also be watched in full or in part on the website. Some of the programs focusing on Cosmos are: Where are They, All those Aliens?, Does God Mix with Science?, Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Mind?, and How Vast Is the Cosmos? On Consciousness: Why Is Consciousness so Mysterious?, Do Persons Have Souls?, What Is the Mind-Body Problem? On God: What are Possible Worlds?, Is God Necessary?, Does Evil Refute God's Existence? I've sampled several already. Science fiction writer and space scientist David Brin is entertaining on "missing" aliens.  

Brin is just one in a very large and diverse group of participants who engage in one-on-one conversations with Kuhn on these and other topics. It's an impressive cast all right, including some key figures in cosmology, planetary science, and extraterrestrial life.

Kudos to Robert Lawrence Kuhn for making this very human search real and accessible.

Next stop: Rare Earth 

Banner bus photo credit: Dorothy Delina Porter.

"billions of Earths" and a 2,000-Year-Old Computer

Readers may recall that I volunteer a few hours a week in the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum in Chicago. The Institute is home to one of the world's major collections of early astronomical instruments, rare and modern astronomy books, and works on paper, and these days curators and staff are busy putting together a new exhibit commemorating the 400th anniversary of the telescope's use in astronomy. The exhibit opens in May and I'm already looking forward to the event.

Recently, two other events sharing Chicago and either direct or indirect Adler connections also held my attention. The first came across the news wires from the 2009 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which was held in Chicago February 12-16. Dr. Alan Boss of the Department of Terrestrial Magnestism at the Carneigie Institution for Science in Washington, DC (a very attractive place to work!) spoke on "The Search for Living Planets" at a symposium on planet origins and evolution. Alan Boss is an expert on exoplanets and part of the Science Working Group on NASA's Kepler Mission. He's also a member of something called the NASA External Independent Readiness Board for the Navigator Program, which oversees all NASA missions concerned with the detection and description of "habitable" planets.

The External Independent Readiness Board. I like the sound of that.

Anyway, Boss made news last week because in his talk he mentioned that there could be a hundred billion Earth-like planets in our own galaxy. In an interview with the BBC, he added:

"Not only are they probably habitable but they probably are also going to be inhabited. But I think that most likely the nearby 'Earths' are going to be inhabited with things which are perhaps more common to what Earth was like three or four billion years ago." 

Hubble Space Telescope image of Galaxy Cluster Abell 2218. Credit: Andrew Fruchter, et al. (Space Telescope Science Institute), Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, HST, NASA. 

The idea of there being a hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy is staggering considering the Milky Way is just one of perhaps 80-100 billion galaxies in the known universe. This gives new meaning to the word perspective. And speaking of perspective, you can also get a completely current one focused on the drama and science of searching for habitable worlds in Boss's new book, The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets (Basic Books, 2009). Published earlier this month, The Crowded Universe is truly an insider's account.

Another book published in February is behind last week's second Chicago connection, this one with a direct path to an Adler Planetarium conference room.

On the 17th, Jo Marchant, a London-based freelance journalist and editor for New Scientist magazine, in town for the AAAS meeting, came to the Adler to give a lunchtime talk on the amazing instrument called the "Antikythera mechanism." The largest part of the device was recovered by sponge divers in 1900 from the wreckage of an ancient Roman merchant ship near the Greek island of Antikythera. On examination it was found to contain inscriptions and extensive gearworks. Ever since, its details have been intensely studied in an effort to determine what the mechanism was designed to do and how it worked. This remarkable story of painstaking detective work, and its results, is the subject of Marchant's first book, Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-Old Computer--and the Century-Long Search to Discover Its Secrets (Da Capo Press, 2009).

I'd heard about the mechanism but I knew very little about it before Marchant's presentation. As it turns out, scholars today have an informed, though far from complete, idea about what the instrument did. The main title of her book, Decoding the Heavens, suggests its purpose as well as the process behind its gradual decipherment. BTW, the largest fragment of the artifact, displayed along with others in the National Archeological Musuem in Athens, looks like this:

Credit: Jo Marchant. Used with permission.

The device, which dates to approximately 70 BC, was apparently made of bronze and housed in a wooden case. In addition to Marchant's book, information about the latest findings and reconstructed models of the mechanism are available from New Scientist and The Antikythera Research Project, an international group of scholars focused on unlocking the still-remaining secrets of the device.

No doubt the astronomers in the conference room enjoyed the talk as much as I did. The mechanism reveals deep insights about ancient Greek astronomy and its use of Babylonian astronomical data. The instrument's extensive gearworks demonstrate (among other things) the relationship between the solar year and lunar month, as well as planetary and eclipse cycles. According to the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, its purpose was "to position 'heavenly bodies' with respect to the 'celestial sphere,' [of ancient Greek cosmology] with reference to the observer's position on the surface of the Earth."

For these and other reasons the device is generally thought to represent the world's oldest analog computer. But during her presentation Marchant mentioned another view: Alexander Jones of NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World recently suggested the mechanism is more like a "simulator" than a computer, demonstrating how the then-known universe was thought to work.   

Whatever its true function, historians of science appreciate what this unique instrument reveals about the astonishing mathematical and engineering skills of the Ancient Greeks. The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project understatedly says "it precedes any other known clockwork mechanisms of similar complexity by more than a millennium." Researchers think other instruments like it were made in the Ancient world, but the one recovered off Antikythera is the only known example on the planet. 

As for myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the Chicago and Adler connections mentioned above. They remind me of past and present associations with subjects I've long been interested in: archaeology, the conservation and preservation of early material culture, documentary research, the search for life beyond Earth, and our place in the cosmos.

Finding that place is a large part of what human life is about, regardless of our position on Earth and the meanings we attach to it.

Next stop: Science and Religion Frameworks

Banner bus photo credit: Dorothy Delina Porter.

Saturn's Venting Moon

Back in 2005, the Cassini spacecraft -- the first to study Saturn's rings and moons from orbit -- detected a plume of water vapor and ice shooting into space from fissures near the south pole of Saturn's sixth largest moon, Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus). About two years later, using its ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, Cassini observed four high-density water vapor jets against the background of the plume. One of the interesting things about the jets is that they were in the same positions as dust jets seen earlier. Another is that additional analyses revealed the presence of organic compounds in the plume.

But perhaps the most interesting development so far is that the density and temperature of the jets are consistent with a model that identifies the source of the plume as liquid water, venting from within Enceladus into space at supersonic speed through narrow channels on its surface.

It isn't known yet if the geysers on Enceladus are really produced by a subsurface aquifer, or via some other source. Cassin's next passby won't occur until August 2009. Meanwhile, planetary scientists working with the data in hand are keeping plenty busy.

And occasionally publishing.

Last week a letter in the journal Nature reported what you just read here in brief summary, which made the news wires and produced stories pointing out that if the presence of liquid water is confimed, then Enceladus would be the third body in our solar system known to have it. Earth and Jupiter's moon, Europa, are the other two.

The possibilities are exciting. Joshua Colwell, a Cassini team member and one of the authors of the letter (as well as "comet advisor" to the film Deep Impact), puts it this way:

"Water is a basic ingredient for life, and there are certainly implications there. If we find that the tidal heating that we believe causes these geysers is a common planetary phenomenon, then it gets really interesting."

Yes it does.

But if tidal heating is confirmed on Enceladus, there's a long way to go (literally) before anyone can determine if the process is replicated, let alone common, on other planets and moons. And then there is the matter of the "ingredients" whose presence, along with tidal heating or something close to it, astrobiologists believe are likely necessary to support life. Another planetary scientist, David Grinspoon (see Lonely Planets in last post), reminds us there are important questions to ask along the way as we think about habitable zones on worlds beyond our own:

"Life may be something that frequently, or even ubiquitously, happens inside planets. Perhaps biology can be a purely internal planetary phenomenon. If life begins underground, it makes the origin of life anywhere else in the universe less dependent on surface conditions. If all you need is some internal energy and some liquid water, then most planets have the right combo at some point in their history, since planets are born hot and wet . . . Can a planetary biosphere that loses its surface water retreat inward and persist, subterranean and homesick, but still alive? In some cases an 'inhospitable' surface may be only the thick, protective skin covering a thriving underground world.

Astrobiologists agree that there are three essential ingredients for habitability: (1) organic molecules (the building blocks), (2) liquid water (the medium), and (3) a source of energy (the spark of life). Based on our studies of comparative paleontology, how rare might such a combination be? . . .The belief that water is necessary and sufficient rests on the assumption that suitable energy sources will be common. How reasonable is this? . . . is tidal energy sufficient to drive a biosphere, or does life need a sun?"

These are good questions waiting for answers.

Meanwhile, I'm reminded that a large part of my interest in the intersection of science, religion, and extraterrestrial life came from questions of my own that waited -- and in some cases, are still waiting -- for answers. My journey, which has been and will continue to be a combination of curiosity, background, experience, and personal relationships, eventually brought me into contact with statements and writings on these subjects from several world religions. One in particular caught my attention years ago. It's from Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, a volume of tablets (letters) written by Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha'i Faith:   

"Thou hast, moreover, asked Me concerning the nature of the celestial spheres. To comprehend their nature, it would be necessary to inquire into the meaning of the allusions that have been made in the Books of old to the celestial spheres and the heavens, and to discover the character of their relationship to this physical world, and the influence which they exert upon it. Every heart is filled with wonder at so bewildering a theme, and every mind is perplexed by its mystery. God, alone, can fathom its import . . . Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute." [Gleanings, pp. 162-163, italics mine] 

The impact of this passage, an English translation from the original Arabic (or perhaps Farsi), depends on who is reading it and where they are on their own journey, spiritual or otherwise. But the fact that the principal figure of the youngest recognized independent world religion, a prophet whom Baha'is believe is the most recent Messenger of God sent to raise the spirit and potential of humanity, wrote this in the 19th Century, fascinates me as a matter of scripture unique in religious history. It also frequently inspires me to investigate the subjects I write about.

As I look at the artist's conception of the geysers on Enceladus venting into space, I'm gratified by the fact that at least some human beings on planet Earth now know they exist. 

The knowledge we as a species acquire is always incremental.

Like steps on a journey.

Next stop: tbd

Artist's conception of Enceladus jets and Cassini orbiting craft copywrited by Karl Kofoed. For editorial use only.

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

More Good Reads

Bringing the Sacred Home (11/11) mentioned Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, by David Grinspoon -- a book that's always on my short list of good reads about the prospect of life beyond Earth.

The rest of the short list -- five in all -- inlcudes two histories of the extraterrestrial life debate, a volume on theological perspectives, and a posthumous gift of inspiring writing from Carl Sagan. I consider these must-reads for anyone interested in acquiring a clear and well-grounded understanding of the subject. (Actually, there are no "musts" on this route, so let's call them read-if-you're-inspired selections.)

The histories were written by Michael J. Crowe and Steven J. Dick, two historians of science I hope to meet one day. Crowe is the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh Professor Emertus in Humanities in the Program of Liberal Studies and the Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame. An author of several distinguished volumes, his book The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900 traces the story as it unfolded in the West in meticulous detail. This is a work of formidable and impressive scholarship on every level: Crowe also covers the participants who wrote in langauages other than English. Not eveyone will appreciate the fact that there are some 80 pages of endnotes and an extensive bibliography, but I do. I consult this resource often, and never stop admiring the author's complete grasp of his subject.

Steven J. Dick, an astonomer and historian, is Chief Historian at NASA. His Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate (first soft cover ed. 2001), brings readers current on the evolving nature of the discussion in an equally engaging but different narrative style than Crowe's. Because it covers more recent thinking, the book includes chapters on the UFO phenomenon and SETI. FYI, Life on Other Worlds is an abridged and updated version of Dick's The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science (1996).

Dick also edited Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life, and the Theological Implications, mentioned in my 11/11 post. I have this on the list because it's the only volume I know that addresses theology from a diverse collection of individuals: physicists, astrophysicists, biochemists, planetary scientists, philosophers, historians of science, and theologians trained in science. That said, the title is a bit misleading: more scientitists than theologians contribute, and the subject, as large as it is, certainly deserves additional coverage from world religions and other spiritual traditions.

Rounding things out is Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, edited by Ann Druyan. Published in 2006, this volume presents a series lectures Sagan gave in 1985 commemorating the centennial of the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. In his talks Sagan outlined his personal views on what used be called natural theology, or as he described it, "everything about the world not supplied by revelation." In doing so, he spoke across a broad range of topics relevant to science and religion, including extraterrestrial intelligence, the implications of extraterrestrial folklore for the evolution of religions, and the God hypothesis. Sagan's approach to the lectures -- each one self-contained, revealing, and enjoyable from beginning to end -- is artfully described in Druyan's introduction. I have the Penguin Books soft cover edition. Speaking as a former publisher, it's hands-down beautifully designed and illustrated.       

There are, of course, dozens of other books well worth reading on the subject of life beyond Earth, including others by the authors referenced here. (Just last month, Crowe's The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915: A Source Book, was published by the University of Notre Dame Press.)The more I've researched, the more surprises I've discovered. Future posts will call selected ones to your attention.

Meanwhile, if you've come across a volume that you'd like to share, I'd enjoy hearing from you!

Anytime.

Next stop: Saturn's Venting Moon

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

 

 

Flight of the Phoenix

It’s almost official. On November 10, NASA announced that it had lost contact with the Phoenix Mars Lander, which effectively marked the end of a spectacularly successful mission on the Red Planet. As I write this, engineers at JPL in Pasadena, CA, are monitoring the spacecraft to see if its solar arrays can collect enough sunlight to allow it to call Earth one more time. But this isn’t likely, because Phoenix is in Mars’s north polar region, and the Martian winter is already in full swing. There isn’t much sunlight reaching the pole these days.

 

Over its five-month-long mission on the surface – two months longer than expected – Phoenix accomplished something unprecedented in the history of humankind’s investigations of Mars: it verified the presence of calcium carbonate, an indicator for liquid water and, using its robotic arm to dig, identified two different types of water-ice deposits beneath the planet’s surface.

 

The data collected by its sophisticated instruments and cameras will be studied for decades, but already scientists know the arctic region has soil that is mildly alkaline and contains salts that could serve as nutrients capable of supporting life. In sum, the Phoneix mission has brought scientists several steps closer to determining if the Martian polar region is -- or ever was in the past -- conducive for microorganisms.

Microbes.

 

On Earth we’ve known about them since the mid-17th Century (does the name van Leeuwenhoek ring a bell?), but in recent decades new ones have been discovered in some the harshest places on our planet. 

 

One recent discovery was announced this past summer at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. Jean Brenchley and Jennifer Loveland-Curtze, two researchers from Pennsylvania State University, described a new species of bacteria from Greenland that is so small it easily passes through today’s commonly used microbiological filters. These “ultra-small cells” are turning-up in surprising places. The Greenland bacteria were found living nearly two miles below the surface, encased in glacial ice that was determined to be about 120,000 years old.

 

These and other extremophiles have been found in a suprisingly wide variety of unforgiving environments on Earth: low-oxygen, no-oxygen, high-pH, low-pH, no-light, high-pressure, etc. In 2006, a team from Princeton University found bacteria that obtain all their nourishment from hydrogen and sulphur compounds derived from naturally decaying radioactive rock. These also live about two miles below ground, in South Africa.

 

Apart from sometimes being amazingly tough creatures, microorgamisms constitute a major proportion of life on Earth. According to Loveland-Curtze, "Microbes comprise up to one-third or more of the Earth's biomass, yet fewer than 8,000 microbes have been described out of the approximately 3,000,000 that are presumed to exist."

 

So many microbes, so little time, as the microbiologists say.

 

But for me, what’s really intriguing about the extremophiles we’ve discovered here is the prospect of analog microorganisms living beyond Earth, perhaps in our own solar system.

 

Probably the most thought-provoking – and certainly entertaining – book I’ve read on this subject is David Grinspoon’s Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, which won a Pen Center USA literary award when it appeared in 2004. I highly recommend it (see sidebar). Grinspoon is a planetary scientist and Curator of Astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. In Lonely Planets he not only effectively presents the big picture on a wide range of subjects that pertain to how we think about life on and off our planet – microbial as well as complex forms having (dare I say it?) “intelligence” – but he also reminds us of the value that natural philosophy, or a natural philosophical approach, can bring to the subject.

 

Natural philosophy will be explored in future posts. It’s worth several stops, in fact.

 

BTW, Grinspoon's site is worth a visit, too.

 

Meanwhile, Phoenix sits silently on the Martian arctic plain, buffeted by winter winds in near-dark conditions. I applaud the lander’s many accomplishments, but I also wonder if something similar to, but different than, an Earth-bound microorganism occupies a void in the rock and ice a mile or more beneath its frozen footpads.

 

Perhaps we need to dig deeper.

 

Next stop: More good reads 

 

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

 

Bringing the Sacred Home

Joseph Sheppherd, a friend of mine, is an anthropologist who works in the Pacific Northwest. He’s also a gifted storyteller and writer, and among the books he’s written is one called A Wayfarer's Guide to Bringing the Sacred Home, which I had the privilege of helping to publish a few years ago.

 

A Wayfarer's Guide describes the spiritual connection we have with our inner being, with members of our family, and with the community where we live. It also explores how these fundamental relationships contribute (or not) to our own spiritual development. Sheppherd draws upon Baha'i scripture and other Baha'i writings to illustrate the idea that sacredness resides in all three areas. His premise is that over time, we learn to bring many things into our lives. Some good. Some bad. And that:

 

“For many of us this is the beginning of a lifelong process of personal transformation. We come to see things around us in a new light and seek the divine purpose in the world, and we begin to bring the sacredness home.”

 

Of course, many does not include all. There are at least as many reasons as there are individuals who aren’t at all interested in the divine, in religion, in spirituality, or in anything else that touches on beliefs that go beyond the power of self.

 

That said, this gem of a book also teaches a lot about perspective, a subject human beings encounter every day whether consciously or not. Early on Joseph uses the night sky as a way of introducing how different perspectives offer very different interpretations of what’s seen, but don’t alter the underlying reality of what stars are. It’s worth quoting in full:

 

“Our views of the world are as unique as we are. When we look up at the night sky, we all see stars, but our perceptions of what we see may be very different. Some of us perceive patterns and connect the points of light into constellations; others see the interstices, the dark spaces between the stars. Some see the stars in two dimensions, arrayed like electric lights of various sizes on the ceiling; others perceive a third dimension of depth in their varying magnitudes. To some the sun and the stars are different; to others they are the same thing, with the one simply being closer to us than the rest. When we represent stars graphically, some draw them scintillating with five, six, or more points; others just make them dots. Regardless of how we see or portray them, stars are what they are, and their reality does not change. Only our perceptions of them differ.”

 

Joseph states the same is true of our individual understandings of God, but that’s a subject for another post.

 

And other books.

 

Another interesting volume, one that addresses our relationship with the cosmos, is Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life, and the Theological Implications. Edited by Steven J. Dick, an historian of science at the U.S. Naval Observatory and author of several works on the extraterrestrial life debate, this volume includes perspectives on the topic from physicists, astrophysicists, biochemists, planetary scientists, philosophers, historians of science, and theologians trained in science.

 

Not surprisingly, there is a range of opinion expressed about how much concepts about God should be revised as our understanding of the universe evolves.

 

Joseph’s examples of how human beings perceive the bodies of plasma churning with fusion energy throughout the universe remind me that no matter what our opinions may be concerning the prospect of life beyond Earth, they do not alter its presence or absence. It either exists or it does not.

 

Meanwhile, in my lifetime, the night sky has already come to mean many things: a source of awe and spiritual connection; a subject deserving of investigation; a symbol of just how much there is to learn; a reminder of my own journey so far; and more.

 

I believe the sacred resides within it, too.

 

This awareness is one of things I am grateful to have brought home.

 

Coming next: Flight of the Phoenix

 

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

322 and Counting

Yesterday, after driving my morning route, I jumped in my car and traveled to downtown Chicago for the third and final noontime lecture on extraterrestrial life co-sponsored by the Adler Planetarium and the Chicago Temple. (I missed the second one, on what extremophiles are teaching astronomers about the possibility of life beyond Earth. BTW, links to both institutions appear in my post of October 25.)

 

Once again, the lecture was a real treat.

 

Dr. Grace Wolf-Chase, an Adler astronomer and senior research associate at the University of Chicago, spoke on “Searching for Life in an Evolving Universe.” Wolf-Chase studies the early stages of star formation and the effects of outflows from newly formed stars. Her presentation touched on these subjects, but most of her talk focused on how astronomy has become one of the most diverse multi-disciplinary fields in science today, using a wide range of sophisticated technologies to expand  our understanding of how planets form around stars and how this process might yield habitable worlds.

 

Today the search for exoplanets is one of the most energetic specialties of astronomy. The first exoplanet, a largeJupiter-class body found orbiting a Sun-like star called 51 Pegasi, was discovered in 1995. As of this evening, 322 exoplanets have been identified using a variety of techniques. That’s 322 and counting.

 

For those interested in knowing the real time running total, Wolf-Chase referred her audience to The Exoplanets Encyclopedia, which not only keeps track of the number, but also provides a wealth of information on all things exo-.

 

Another strong resource is NASA’s own Astrobiology Institute (NAI), formally established in 1997 but loosely organized a couple of years before then. It’s mission follows that of astrobiology itself:

 

“The mission of astrobiology is to study the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth and in the Universe.

Astrobiology shares with other space related science programs a broad range of research interests. Astrobiology encompasses the understanding of biology as a planetary phenomenon. This includes how planetary processes give rise to life, how they sustain or inhibit life, and how life can emerge as an important planetary process; how astrophysical processes give rise to planets elsewhere, what the actual distribution of planets is, and whether there are habitable planets outside of our solar system; a determination of whether life exists elsewhere and how to search for and identify it; what the ultimate environmental limits of life are, whether Earth’s biota represent only a subset of the full diversity of life, and the future of Earth’s biota in space.

 

The mission of the NASA Astrobiology Institute is to further our understanding of these profound questions by:

 

carrying out, supporting and catalyzing collaborative interdisciplinary research;

 

training the next generation of astrobiology reseaerchers;

 

providing scientific and technical leadership on astrobiology investigations for current and future space missions;

 

exploring new approaches using modern information technology to conduct interdisciplinary and collaborative research amongst widely-distributed investigators;

 

supporting outreach providing scientific content for K-12 education programs, teaching undergraduate classes, and communicating directly with the public”

 

I’ve contributed to and written a few mission statements in my time. None as “far-reaching” as this one.

 

Something else Wolf-Chase accomplished was giving her audience a sense of the cosmic scale associated with the closest known exoplanet. Phoning home from it would require more than a 10-year wait before the message (“Wish you were here?”) is received. In contrast, a message phoned-in from the moon would take about one second. From Mars, 10 minutes.

 

Current investigations of known exoplanets primarily focus on detecting evidence of an atmosphere, oxygen, liquid water, and methane – and then ruling out alternate explanations for them if/when they’re detected.

 

The search is certainly no small task when one considers our sun is just one of more than 200 billion stars comprising the Milky Way galaxy. Putting this in even more dramatic perspective, the Milky Way is only one of perhaps 80-100 billion galaxies in the presently observable universe.

 

That’s a lot of real estate.

 

And given the large quantity of organic material in space – in particular, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (a term I never get tired of saying out loud) – I’m betting there are plenty of habitable zones on plenty of planets that human beings have yet to discover.

 

Coming next: Bringing the sacred home

 

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

Carte du Ciel

My last post mentioned the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum. It’s a place I’m gradually getting to know because for the past few months I’ve been fortunate to volunteer a few hours a week there. It’s a fascinating part of the planetarium, not only because of its exceptional collections and library, but also because of the interesting people who work and do research there.

 

The Institute is located below ground level in a behind-the-scenes secure section of the building. Above ground, visitors walking to and from the CTA bus stop in front of the planetarium, or to and from the adjacent parking lot, pass directly over it, completely unaware of what’s hidden one story below.

 

My role as a volunteer has been to record information found on a large collection of star charts and associated photographs the planetarium acquired several years ago.

 

That’s the short version.

 

A more specific description would be cataloging data associated with the Carte du Ciel, by far the planet’s largest science project of the late-19th and early-20th Centuries. International in scope and involving as many as 20 observatories on four continents working steadily over many years, the goal of the Carte du Ciel (“Map of the Sky”) was no less than to use the still-new medium of photography to accurately record the relative positions of millions of stars for the first time in human history, and then publish the results as The Astrographic Catalogue.

 

Each participating observatory was assigned a zone representing a specific part of the sky. Each was responsible for making and publishing its photographs and charts.

 

It was a revolutionary project in many respects, but the sheer volume of labor required to make the images, measure and plot the positions of every star of at least the 11th magnitude (brightness), and print and publish the results caused the project to run decades longer than expected. Most of the observations were made between 1895 and 1920, but one observatory worked on the project until 1948. Another was involved until 1950.

 

In the end, The Astrographic Catalogue (AC) was completed but not published in full until 1958. Subsequent enhanced versions appeared in the late 1990s.  

 

An interesting part of Carte du Ciel history is the role women played in measuring the magnitude of stars captured in the photographs and charting their relative positions. In Europe and Australia, where the majority of participating observatories were located, women were routinely hired to do this early form of “computing,” an exacting and critically important task. (Readers wanting to learn more about women’s work in astronomy at the beginning of the 20th Century, including the Carte du Ciel, will appreciate Eva Isaksson’s “Not a Heavenly View." The title is telling.)

 

The Bus makes a stop at Carte du Ciel because, after working several weeks with charts created by just one of the participating institutions (the Observatoire de Bordeaux), I’m reminded of two axioms relevant to the extraterrestrial life debate and the search for life beyond Earth:

 

Science is usually incremental in approach and accomplishment.

 

Sustained efforts often produce unexpected results over time.

 

Over the course of the project’s lifetime, Carte du Ciel observatories recorded the relative positions of more than four million stars. This was a monumental accomplishment despite the errors that were sometimes made. But the effort also created a record against which star positions obtained through modern, more sophisticated techniques could be compared. And this enabled astronomers to more accurately determine the motions of the stars.

 

I suspect the dedicated women and men who spent years – and also careers – making all those images and charts had no idea their painstaking work would contribute in this way.

 

Kind of like not seeing the activity hidden below our feet.

 

Coming next: An astronomical xox

 

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

 

Connecting Dots

On Thursday of this past week, 31 people, including myself, enjoyed a real treat in Chicago’s Loop: a free public lunchtime lecture by Dr. Marvin Bolt, Director of the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum. Bolt’s topic was “Theology and Extraterrestrials: Reflections on Life in the Universe,” the first of three lectures in a series on extraterrestrial life co-sponsored by the Adler and The Chicago Temple, also known as the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple.

 

Among other things, the Temple has the distinction of being the oldest church in the city (it was organized in 1831).

 

The Adler was the first planetarium built in the United States (est. 1930) and it contains the Western Hemisphere’s largest collection of historic astronomical instruments.

 

In addition to many other accomplishments, Marvin Bolt is one of the world’s leading authorities on early telescopes. He’s also an historian of science with a keen interest in the ways that religious belief systems intersect the idea of life beyond Earth.

 

One of the remarkable things about the occasion was the co-sponsorship arrangement between these two highly visible Chicago institutions – one scientific with a focus on educating and encouraging young people, particularly women and minorities, to enter careers in science, and the other religious with a focus on spiritual education and building a community grounded in faith while “committed to a transforming tradition connected with what’s going on in the world.” 

I value this kind of partnership because I understand how comparatively rare it is today. For about 150 years, Westerners have tended to separate the religious and the secular, matters of faith and science. This wasn’t always the case, of course, but that’s a subject for a different post. 

  

Another remarkable aspect of the program was the topic itself. I’ve been interested in the impacts of discovering life off our planet for a long time, but I never imagined having an opportunity to hear a presentation on the theological dimension of the extraterrestrial life debate right in my own back yard.

 

Not only did I enjoy learning new information through Bolt’s talk, I gained fresh perspectives on some of the fundamental questions raised within Christianity by a surprisingly broad collection of astronomers, philosophers, theologians, and literary figures who thought and wrote about the idea of beings living on various worlds beyond Earth. (Examples of these questions were provided by Bolt: Did God create more than one world with living beings? If so, are they intelligent? If so, did they fall into sin? If so, how does redemption take place? Is there a unique incarnation? A Jesus for each world? Or is there one Jesus for the entire universe?, etc.)

 

My new perspectives include an even deeper appreciation for the depth and breadth of the plurality of worlds debate as it has played out so far, and a clearer recognition of the importance of searching for similarly fundamental questions concerning the prospect of life beyond Earth that that have been raised in other religious traditions and contexts.

 

Not bad for a Thursday afternoon.

 

The ability to make connections between apparently different ideas or even objects is at the heart of creative inquiry. Understandably, it often leads to surprising results. We know this from our own personal experience but it’s often easier to recognize when we observe the process in others. Or read about it happening to others.

 

This short article is a “connect the dots” case in point involving Bolt, a colleague, and visits to several German museums that took place a couple of years ago. The piece speaks for itself, and what the historian of science says about his subject at the end of the article is worth re-reading several times:

 

“If we understand that today, too, science has economic, legal, political, artistic and religious dimensions, then we can do science in an integrated, ethical way.”

 

Coming next:The largest international science project you probably never heard of

   

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter

Welcome

Welcome to Cosmology Bus, a new ride for readers interested in any number of Big Questions for which definitive answers are currently in short supply: Are we alone in the Universe? Does it matter if we are? Does it matter if we aren't? What are the cultural and spiritual implications of discovering (or continuing not to discover) life beyond Earth? Are science and religion mutually exclusive? Are their purposes contrary or complementary? What do belief systems have to say about life in the Cosmos? Why spend money on NASA science missions when we're apparently knee-deep in an economic recession? Why do forget so much of our history so often? Can we all get along?

 

There is no shortage of Big Questions.

 

Cosmology Bus is one way of touring the landscape in search of answers. And it’s an appropriate vehicle for me: currently my day job really is driving a school bus in a very pretty part of northern Illinois.

 

When I'm not driving for the local school district I'm researching, and increasingly writing, about topics I've been interested in for years but never the time to explore as fully as I can today. Subjects that are part of my past but came into sharper focus only when I managed a publishing house producing books on the Baha'i Faith and its relationship to other world religions and the spiritual dimension of human life: new ways of thinking about science and religion, the nature of the Universe, our place within it, and how exploring all three can be a fulfilling endeavor.

 

Long before I managed the publishing house I was a graduate student in anthropology, which provided other useful perspectives in looking at my world and also at the heavens above on clear nights. Little did I know back then that what I was learning about ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, and the anthropology of religion would assist me decades later when researching the long and fascinating history of the extraterrestrial life debate extraterrestrial life debate, the rise of new atheism, perceived distinctions between spiritual and religious beliefs, or the non-dogmatic reality of religion in American society today.

 

This is a journey I will most enjoy making with others, and especially with others from a wide variety of backgrounds, life experiences, and interests. There are seats here for amateurs and professionals, practitioners and theorists, seekers, believers, atheists, and agnostics.

 

I hope you enjoy the ride!

 

Coming next: What a Planetarium, a Temple, and Extraterrestrials Have in Common

 

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter