Second Collections

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

The neighborhood parish took a second collection again today. This week’s was to help folks hit by Hurricane Irma. The one before that was for those affected by Harvey.

Folks in the Caribbean, Gulf Coast, and Florida weren’t the only ones dealing with disaster recently:

Quite a few folks in quite a few places are doing what they can to help others.

For some, that’s prayer. Others help with “tea and kindness:”

I think prayer and helping folks near the front door are both good ideas. So is helping outfits like CRS, Catholic Relief Services.

These folks will help anyone who needs it, and are global:

I think responding with prayer and charity makes more sense than assuming that Mother Nature is having conniptions. (September 10, 2017; August 27, 2017)

I’ve talked about disasters and how folks react to them fairly often in the last few weeks:

Posted in Being Catholic | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“Raving Politics”

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Quite a few parts of the Bible don’t talk about forgiveness. But quite a few do, and they’re not just in the New Testament.

This morning’s second reading doesn’t mention forgiveness directly, but the verse right after it does.

They all say why forgiving is a good idea.

It’s enlightened self-interest, in the long run:

“Wrath and anger, these also are abominations,
yet a sinner holds on to them.
“The vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance;
indeed he remembers their sins in detail.
“Forgive your neighbor the wrong done to you;
then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.
“Does anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?”
(Sirach 27:30–28:3)

“Why then do you judge your brother? Or you, why do you look down on your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God;”
(Romans 14:10)

“Then Peter approaching asked him, ‘Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?'”
(Matthew 18:21)

The parable of the unforgiving servant starts after Matthew 18:22.1

Our Lord seems to like parables.2

Two millennia after Jesus was here, some details take a little explaining. Folks in 21st century Minnesota don’t live and work quite like the Apostles did. That’s one reason I appreciate footnotes.

Forgiving “seventy seven times” is probably a reference to Genesis 4:24, where Lamach talks about vengeance.

It doesn’t mean if I forgive 77 times I can stay angry the 78th time. A footnote to Matthew 18:22 says it means I should forgive an unlimited number of times.

I think that makes sense. But it’s not easy. Not for me.

Doing What I Can

It’s easier now than it was. That’s partly, I think, because I’m older and may have learned a bit along the way.

Getting neural glitches treated helps, too. A lot. (July 7, 2017; July 2, 2017)

That’s made managing my emotions easier. Possible, sometimes.

I’m a very emotional man.

That hasn’t changed, although it seems like they’re less extreme these days. Maybe because thinking is easier now. Faster, too. That helps me head off runaway feelings.

There’s nothing wrong with emotions. They’re a normal part of being human. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1762–1770)

Feelings aren’t good or bad by themselves. Love, joy, fear, anger: they’re all useful. (Catechism, 1765)

What matters is how I use them. Ideally, I’d always love what’s good, fear what’s bad, and think before acting. (Catechism, 1765–1770)

I don’t live in an ideal world, and I’m not perfect. Nothing unusual there. I don’t always do what’s right. But I can try. (April 23, 2017; October 5, 2016)

That includes forgiving others. And myself, and that’s another topic.

Remembering Love

There’s a little truth to the “forgive and forget” motto. But it falls well short of telling the whole story.

I can’t perfectly forget when something bad has been done to me. Not if I knew about it, and the harm was serious enough.

That doesn’t bother me.

Even if I could, I think “forgetting” would be a bad idea. The same situation might happen again.

We’re called to holiness, not gullibility.

Truth matters. So does justice. (Catechism, 1807, 2468)

I’m quite sure that ignoring either would not be prudent.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending that something harmful is okay. Like I said, truth and justice matter.

So does love.

I should love God. I should also love others: all others, no exceptions. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789)

“Love” isn’t “approval.” I should be able to love someone and see something they do as a bad idea. (November 21, 2016; October 28, 2016; September 11, 2016)

Seeing some of what I do as a bad idea matters, too. I’m still working on that.

Outrage and Politics

I don’t know why folks get so upset over politics. Maybe it’s at least partly an outraged sense of justice.

That isn’t an entirely bad thing. Like I said, justice is important.

However, what I see in some online communities is not good.

For starters, I’m quite sure that no American president has been the antichrist. (November 29, 2016)

Maybe some really believed it. That doesn’t make them right.

Other folks, with different views, hurl other insults. That’s nothing new.

Details change. Attitudes? Not so much.

“Nazi” and “fascist” may be on their way out. “White supremacist” seems to be a popular label this year.

There really are fascists and white supremacists.

But not agreeing with me doesn’t make someone the antichrist or a fascist. Again, ‘really believing’ doesn’t make something true.

Nazism isn’t entirely gone. But the movement is pretty much history. The attitude that race, sex, or belief make one bunch better than anyone else? That’s still around, sadly.

Using “fascist” or “white supremacist” to express anger doesn’t make sense. Not to me. Particularly when the labels aren’t accurate.

I’d better explain that.

I care about justice.

Caring about justice won’t let me ignore politics.

But I don’t see a point in hurling insults at folks who aren’t just like me.

That probably wouldn’t make me seem reasonable. Yet more topics.

Politics and Perspective

Part of my job is knowing and loving God, and encouraging others to do the same. (Matthew 28:19–20; Catechism, 1–3)

Learning about this wonder-filled universe and appreciating God’s work seems reasonable. (Sirach 17:1–14; Catechism, 283, 341)

I think putting current events in perspective makes sense too.

“Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish’d face,
“Many a planet by many a sun may roll with a dust of a vanish’d race.

“Raving politics, never at rest—as this poor earth’s pale history runs,—
“What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?…”
(“Vastness,” Tennyson, via Bartleby.com)

What I say and how I act matter.

So does taking the long view:

1 September 17, 2017, readings:

2 Telling stories to make a point:

Posted in Being a Citizen, Being Catholic | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cassini-Huygens Mission

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

The Cassini-Huygens mission ends this week, after 13 years in orbit around Saturn. Scientists found answers to some questions they had, and uncovered new questions.

I think they’ll be studying Cassini’s and Huygens’ data for years. Decades.

I’ll take a quick look at what we’ve learned, and why scientists want follow-up missions to the Saturn system.

The Enceladan subsurface ocean wasn’t a complete surprise.

Theoretical work based on images and data from the Voyager flybys and Galileo Jupiter mission suggested that liquid water lay under Europa’s crust.

Cassini ‘saw’ geysers at the moon’s south pole in 2005. Their water is salty, with some organic matter.

“Organic” doesn’t mean “living.” But scientists think there could be life in the Enceladan ocean. That’s a major reason for having Cassini dive into Saturn’s atmosphere.

The spacecraft is running out of fuel. Left in orbit around Saturn, it might drift into an orbit that ended with an impact on Enceladus. That would complicate any study of possible Enceladan life.

Science and Imagination


(From NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Cal Tech, used w/o permission.)
(“Inspiration for this retro poster came from the famous 1963 diptych by Roy Lichtenstein titled Whaam”
(NASA/JPL))

Until the last decades of the 20th century, we didn’t know much about the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and the other outer planets.

Astronomers could tell how far from their planet the moons were, had a pretty good idea of how big they were, and could make educated guesses about what they were made of: but that was about it.

Scientists were limited to facts, and what they could extrapolate from those facts.

Writers and artists could stay ‘in the box,’ or let their imaginations off the leash: which they frequently did.

Then we started sending robot spaceships to the outer Solar System.

Some moons looked a bit like ours, crater-covered desolate spheres. Others are — different.

Nodding Mimas


(FromNASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, used w/o permission.)
(Mimas, with Saturn’s rings in the background, image from Cassini. October 23, 2016.)
(Tony Greicius, NASA))

Most moons in the Solar System, including Earth’s, are in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance. One side always faces the planet. Pretty much.

The moons, including ours, nod and wobble. “Libration” is what astronomers call this rocking motion.

Depending on who you read, the word comes from a Latin word meaning balance, or swinging, or something else.

You can call it non-uniform rotational motion or oscillations about an equilibrium. But “nodding” is shorter, and they all describe the same thing. More or less.

Mimas moves more than our moon. A point on its surface moves back and forth by as much as six kilometers. That’s a sizable fraction of the moon’s 396 kilometer diameter.

By measuring Mimas’s motions, scientists can learn what sort of material is under its surface. More accurately, they will: after they figure out why it nods so much.

Scientists figured Mimas would nod. Data from Cassini’s Image Science Subsystem, ISS for short, shows it has twice the expected wobble.

It’s a near-certainty that the extra wobble comes from something odd inside Mimas, but scientists haven’t worked out the details. Not yet.

One model that fits the data is a subsurface ocean, a deep one.

A problem there is that tidal stresses would make Mimas at least as tectonically active as Europa. That would give Mimas surface features like Europa’s cracks, which it doesn’t have. Or maybe the Mimantean crust is really thick and strong.

Another model that also fits is a lopsided core. Some scientists agree that the ocean is unlikely, but that a lopsided core isn’t the best explanation.

They say it’s more likely that something denser than its surroundings is under the crater Herschel.

That’s the big crater that gives this moon its “Death Star” moniker.

That discussion was still going on the last time I checked.

I figure we’ll find an answer, probably after collecting more data. Probes with seismometers on Mimas would help.

I don’t know when that will happen.

A joint NASA-ESA Titan Saturn System Mission would have launched in 2020, arriving at Saturn in 2029. It’s been postponed, but not canceled.

NASA and ESA are working on the Laplace Mission now. That mission’s focus will be the Jupiter system, particularly Europa. Japan’s JAXA, Russia’s Roscosmos, and probably other outfits will probably contribute, too.1

I’m quite sure someone will send explorers, robotic and otherwise, to the Saturn system. The question is when.

We’ve been wondering what’s over the horizon for a very long time. All that’s been changing is how far away our horizons are.

1. Cassini: Final Hours


(From NASA/JPL-CalTech/SSI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Just returned from Cassini: An image of Titan and its northern seas of liquid methane”
(BBC News))

“Cassini conducts last picture show”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (September 14, 2017)

“Engineers now have a precise expectation of when they will lose contact with the Cassini probe.

“The spacecraft is being ditched in the atmosphere of Saturn on Friday, bringing to an end 13 amazing years of discovery at the ringed planet.

“The team hopes to receive a signal for as long as possible while the satellite plummets into the giant world.

“But the radio will likely go dead at about 6 seconds after 04:55 local time here at mission control in California.

“That is 11:55:06 GMT (12:55:06 BST). This is the time that antennas on Earth lose contact.

“Because of the finite speed of light and the 1.4 billion km distance to Saturn, the event in space will actually have occurred 83 minutes earlier….”

The Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Station’s big antenna near Canberra, Australia, will be picking up Cassini’s final signals: along with several backup receivers.

Cassini’s systems can’t work fast enough to let scientists get pictures during the probe’s last moments.

Before Cassini stops taking and processing images, scientists are having it ‘look’ at Titan and Enceladus, and Saturn’s dark side. The Saturn night side images will be in infrared and ultraviolet.

Cassini’s magnetic and chemical sensors will be sending data directly to Earth during the last probe’s three hours. Cassini usually stored data in its onboard solid state memory before transmitting it back to Earth. There won’t be time for that as the probe enters Saturn’s atmosphere.

I expect that we’ll learn more about Saturn from Cassini’s last transmissions. We’ve already learned a great deal.

2. Saturn: 13 Years of Science


(From NASA/JPL-CalTech/SSI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Cassini began its study of the ringed planet in 2004”
(BBC News))

“Cassini: Saturn probe turns towards its death plunge”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (September 12, 2017)

“The international Cassini spacecraft at Saturn has executed the course correction that will send it to destruction at the end of the week.

“The probe flew within 120,000km of the giant moon Titan on Monday – an encounter that bent its trajectory just enough to put it on a collision path with the ringed planet.

“Nothing can now stop the death plunge in Saturn’s atmosphere on Friday….”

Folks from 17 countries designed and built the tech, and have been working on the Cassini-Huygens mission.

The project’s named after Giovanni Domenico Cassini and Christiaan Huygens. Huygens discovered Titan in 1655.

Cassini discovered some of Saturn’s moons — Iapetus and Rhea in 1671 and 1672, Tethys and Dione in 1684.

He also spotted divisions in Saturn’s rings. The Cassini divisions are named after him. So is an asteroid, 24101 Cassini, and craters on Earth’s Moon and Mars.

Huygens has namesakes, too: asteroid 2801 Huygens, a Lunar mountain and a Martian crater.

The Cassini-Huygens mission started in 1982, when the European Science Foundation and American National Academy of Sciences formally looked at cooperative efforts.

Folks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory built the Cassini orbiter. Alcatel Alenia Space built the Huygens lander. The combined spacecraft left Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 40 on October 15, 1997.

Two fly-by passes of Venus, one of Earth, and finally one by Jupiter, sent the Cassini-Huygens probes toward Saturn.

Statistics and Silliness

The Earth fly-by was on August 18, 1999; accompanied by the usual ‘something causes cancer’ articles and protests.

There was a little truth to them. Folks running the mission had crunched numbers and done a risk assessment.2

If everything that could possibly wrong had gone wrong — in the worst possible way — Cassini’s plutonium power source would have burned up, along with the rest of the spacecraft, in Earth’s atmosphere.

And then, we were told by ardent defenders of humanity, 500,000 innocent victims would die from cancer.

Their angst may have been real. Their statistics weren’t. That doesn’t mean that activists were lying.

The numbers they used may have started as a transcription error. Hypertrophied fear of radiation — and new tech in general — could have taken over at that point.

There really was a risk. But not much of a one.

The risk assessment’s worst-case scenario might have been detectable. But not, I think, particularly significant.

Cancer would kill 0.0005 per cent more folks — if Cassini dove into Earth’s atmosphere at exactly the wrong angle. Eventually. In a worst-case scenario.

That would have been around 5,000 additional deaths from cancer, over a typical human lifespan. I value human life, including folks I don’t know. (June 4, 2017; August 14, 2016)

But I’d seen the assessment results, and have some understanding of statistics.

Personally, I’m more frightened of walking down a flight of stairs. Some real-life Mr. Squibbs analogs got their 15 minutes of fame, and that’s another topic. (July 28, 2017; May 21, 2017; October 16, 2016)

Back to Saturn and science.

Cassini-Huygens started orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004. Cassini has been collecting and sending data ever since.

Huygens reached Titan’s surface on January 14, 2005.

Huygens sent back data for about 90 minutes after landing. The data included 700 images. Or would have.

A design glitch kept one of the lander’s communications channels from working. We lost 350 images that way, along with Doppler radio measurements between Cassini and Huygens.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we got data from the Huygens accelerometers and other instruments: plus that 90 minutes of data from the surface.

The probe’s designers had focused on keeping the lander working during descent, gathering data about Titan’s atmosphere.

When they designed Huygens, they were pretty sure it would touch down in a mountain range. Or maybe a flat plain. On the other hand, maybe it would splash into a Titanian ocean, or onto some other sort of surface.

Since they didn’t know what Huygens would land on, I think they did a good job.

3. Titan, Mostly


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)
(“This illustration shows Cassini diving through the Enceladus plume in 2015. New ocean world discoveries from Cassini and Hubble will help inform future exploration and the broader search for life beyond Earth.”
(NASA/JPL))

“Nine Ways Cassini Matters: No. 1”
NASA/JPL (September 11, 2017)

“NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and ESA’s Huygens probe expanded our understanding of the kinds of worlds where life might exist.

“With discoveries at Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan, Cassini and Huygens made exploring ‘ocean worlds’ a major focus of planetary science. Insights from the mission also help us look for potentially habitable planets—and moons—beyond our solar system.

“Life as we know it is thought to be possible in stable environments that offer liquid water, essential chemical elements, and a source of energy (from sunlight or chemical reactions). Before Cassini launched in 1997, it wasn’t clear that any place in the icy outer solar system (that is, beyond Mars) might have this mix of ingredients. By the next year, NASA’s Galileo mission revealed that Jupiter’s moon Europa likely has a global ocean that could be habitable. Since its 2004 arrival at Saturn, Cassini has shown that Europa isn’t an oddball: Potentially habitable ocean worlds exist even in the Saturn system—10 times farther from the sun than Earth….”

Christiaan Huygens spotted Titan in 1655.

Josep Comas i Solà noticed that Titan’s edge was unusually dark in 1903. He said the moon might have an atmosphere.

That was enough to let science fiction writers imagine life on Titan.

Frank R. Paul’s illustration for “Golden City of Titan” was far more fiction than science, which is appropriate for the November 1941 Amazing Stories back cover.

I suspect tales like “Sojarr of Titan” and “The Puppet Masters” fueled interest in space exploration, and discouraged some folks from taking science seriously.

I’d like to think many realized that pulp fiction was entertainment: and not particularly educational.

Meanwhile, scientists were studying the real Saturnian moon.

Gerard P. Kuiper used a spectroscope to confirm that in 1944. He figured the pressure might be around 10 kPa. Earth’s sea level pressure is around 101 kPa. That would have made Titan’s atmosphere significant, but much lower than our planet’s.

Still, a moon with an atmosphere was remarkable. Still is.

By the 1970s, we’d learned that Titan’s atmosphere had a lot more methane than Kuiper detected; and was a great deal thicker. The 1980 Voyager 1 flyby showed that Titan’s surface pressure was about half again as high as Earth’s.3

Life As We Don’t Know It?

Titan and Earth are the only places in the Solar System with thick, nitrogen-rich atmospheres. That makes Titan Earth-like, but not very.

“…Life as we know it is thought to be possible in stable environments that offer liquid water, essential chemical elements, and a source of energy (from sunlight or chemical reactions). Before Cassini launched in 1997, it wasn’t clear that any place in the icy outer solar system (that is, beyond Mars) might have this mix of ingredients. By the next year, NASA’s Galileo mission revealed that Jupiter’s moon Europa likely has a global ocean that could be habitable. Since its 2004 arrival at Saturn, Cassini has shown that Europa isn’t an oddball: Potentially habitable ocean worlds exist even in the Saturn system—10 times farther from the sun than Earth….

“…Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, offered tantalizing hints that it, too, could help us understand whether life could have evolved elsewhere. Cassini and ESA’s Huygens probe (which landed on Titan’s surface) found clear evidence for a global ocean of water beneath Titan’s thick, icy crust and an atmosphere teeming with prebiotic chemicals. Based on modeling studies, some researchers think Titan, too, may have hydrothermal chemistry in its ocean that could provide energy for life. On its frigid surface, which hosts vast seas of liquid hydrocarbons, scientists wonder, could Titan be home to exotic forms of life ‘as we don’t know it’?”
(NASA/JPL)

Reinforcing Aristotelian biases with unflagging devotion to Ussher’s chronology, I could decide that life can’t possibly exist anywhere except Earth: because it’s ‘not in the Bible.’ (June 30, 2017; June 16, 2017; December 2, 2016)

That seems imprudent, since I think I live in Minnesota.

My part of the world isn’t mentioned in the Bible. But I’m quite certain that the town I live in exists. Even if it’s not ‘Biblical.’

I’ve known a few dedicated ‘Bible-believing’ Christians, but none who told me that Minnesota isn’t here. (July 23, 2017; April 21, 2017)

As I keep saying, I take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101–133)

I’m not, however, obliged to try believing that science is poetry: or that the Bible reflects a contemporary Western viewpoint. (August 20, 2017; May 7, 2017; March 17, 2017)

I certainly do not have to choose either faith or reason.

Faith, reason, and an honest search for truth get along fine. Or should, for Catholics who understand our faith. (Catechism, 31–35, 159; “Fides et Ratio;” “Gaudium et Spes,” 36)

Organic Chemistry

Tholins are what we can get when ultraviolet light shines on organic compounds like methane or ethane.

Scientists think tholins on Earth may have helped life get started here. They’re not around now, and haven’t been since the Great Oxygenation Event. (May 19, 2017)

Tholins won’t form naturally on Earth these days, but there’s enough sunlight — ultraviolet included — in the outer Solar System to make tholins there.

Scientists figure Titan’s orange-red atmosphere and haze get their color at least partly from tholins.

Knowing that tholins could form in Titan’s atmosphere is one thing. Proving that they’re there is another.

What sort of chemistry is happening over Titan is something I think we’ll learn, most likely after more robotic explorers visit the Saturn system.

We may not find life on Titan. If we do, it may be organic: but wouldn’t quite be “life as we know it.”

Scientists have worked out hypothetical biochemistries using Titan’s liquid hydrocarbons the way we use water.

The critters would breathe H2 instead of O2 and acetylene instead of glucose, producing methane instead of carbon dioxide. It’s far from impossible. Earth’s methanogens have similar metabolisms.

If we do find critters living on Titan, one of the big questions will be how they got there.

There’s a chance that microbes hitched a ride in the Huygens lander.

Apparently COSPAR, the Committee on Space Research, decided that Titan was so cold that we didn’t need to be particularly careful.

Life as we know it wouldn’t have evolved there, probably. COSPAR said the moon’s freezing temperatures would kill microorganisms from Earth. That was the idea, anyway.

We’ve learned a bit more about extremophiles since then. I expect some lively scientific debates, if we find life on Titan.

If that happens, I expect even louder debates along much less scientific lines.

Some folks may decide that life can’t be on Titan because it’s not in the Bible. Others may say that God can’t exist because we found critters on Titan. We’ve been through this sort of thing before.

Looking at how the post-Darwin ‘science versus religion’ brouhaha developed, my guess is that ‘Bible-believers’ will inadvertently lend credence to the “God doesn’t exist’ folks.

I don’t see the ‘are we alone’ question that way, and I’ll get back to that.

Answers and New Questions

(From NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell, used w/o permission.)
(Ligeia Mare, second largest body of liquid on Titan, near the north pole.)

Titan’s seas, lakes and rivers look much like Earth’s; at least in images from Cassini’s mapping sensors.

That’s natural enough, since they’re probably formed by similar processes. Either that, or some other process just happens to produce something like Earth’s drainage networks.

Earth’s rivers hold water. Something else fills Titan’s.

Titan is so cold that water is a mineral, at least on the surface. The ‘water’ there would be liquid hydrocarbons: methane or a methane-ethane mix, probably.

Whatever Titan’s solid surface is made of, it’s almost certainly not the sort of rock we see on Earth. Scientists have several ideas about what it is, but right now that’s another unanswered question.

Titan may have liquid water. It could be a water-ammonia mix, deep underground.

We’re more certain about Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and Jupiter’s Europa and Ganymede. Scientists found strong evidence of liquid water on these moons.

More accurately, in the moons. This was a surprise, raising new questions.

Liquid water doesn’t necessarily mean life. But it’s getting increasingly difficult to rule out that possibility in Enceladus, Europa, and Ganymede.

Many New Questions


(From NASA/JPL, used w/o permission.)
(“This graphic summarizes Cassini’s 13 years orbiting Saturn, with moon flybys grouped into columns for each phase of the mission. The Grand Finale orbits appear as Saturn flybys in 2017. This list of icy satellite flybys includes three additional close encounters (Phoebe, Helene and Epimetheus) not included in the official tally of 12 ‘targeted’ flybys. At bottom, Saturn’s northern hemisphere seasons are indicated from 2004 to 2017.”
(NASA/JPL))

Scientists looked forward to learning quite a bit during the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Instruments on the spacecraft were designed to help them learn more about Saturn’s rings, the planet’s atmosphere down to cloud level and its magnetosphere.

They’d be looking at Saturn’s moons, too. For one thing, we knew that Iapetus was much darker on its leading hemisphere, but not what the surface on that side was.

We’d known that Titan has an atmosphere, but not much about it and even less about its surface.

We got answers, learning that subsurface oceans might support life: which raises more questions. Lots more questions.

We also got weather data for very roughly half of a Saturnian year.

The NASA/JPL website says more about what we’ve learned, and are learning:

God’s Executive Decisions

Thinking that God gave us brains and isn’t offended when we use them makes sense to me. But being comfortable with both faith and science is a tad countercultural at the moment, so I’ll explain why knowledge doesn’t threaten my faith. Again.

We’ve known that Earth is roughly spherical for a long time.

European scholars of the 11th century didn’t think Earth is flat. Some of them were, however, overly-enthusiastic about Aristotle.

The idea that Earth might not be the only world was discussed, again, around that time. Some figured that Anaximander had been on the right track, and that we’d find other worlds.

Some of Aristotle’s fans said that Earth had to be the only world: because Aristotle said so.

That’s when the Bishop of Paris stepped in. I’ve talked about 1277 and making sense before. (December 2, 2016; May 5, 2017)

Basically, God’s God, Aristotle’s not. God’s executive decisions are not subject to expert review.

That works for me. So does learning more about how this universe works.

I think God exists, and sustains this universe. (Catechism, 300–310)

I think that humans are rational creatures. Because I am human, I can use by brain. Or not. We have free will. (Catechism, 311, 1704, 1730–1731)

Whether or not I use my brain is up to me. I’ve learned that it’s better if I think. Acting on impulse is easy, but can lead to suboptimal outcomes. Often did, in my case. And that’s yet another topic.

Truth, Beauty, and Secondary Causes

I think truth and beauty are important.

Both can point me toward God. They’re expressed in words and in the visible world: “the rational expression of the knowledge;” “the order and harmony of the cosmos,” “the greatness and beauty of created things.” (Catechism, 32, 41, 74, 2500)

I keep saying this.

Studying this world, learning what’s happened since it started, is a good idea. (Catechism, 282–289)

Fearing knowledge is irrational.

As Leo XIII wrote, “truth cannot contradict truth.” (Catechism, 159, 214–217; “Providentissimus Deus“)

That includes knowledge we’ve been uncovering over the last few dozen millennia.

Ancient Mesopotamians did not have all the answers. Neither do we. But we’re learning. And that’s a good thing.

I’m a Catholic, so I think faith is a willing and conscious “assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” (Catechism, 142–150)

What we think is true about how the universe works has changed. That seems to upset some folks, but not me.

I figure God gave us brains, and curiosity, and lets us figure some things out on our own.

I won’t insist on this, but I think we see God’s willingness to let us act like humans in Genesis 2:19. Naming animals isn’t what got us in trouble, and that’s yet again another topic. (July 23, 2017; March 5, 2017)

We’ve known about fire for a long time, and wondered how it works.

Empedocles figured everything was made from four basic elements: earth, air, fire, and water.

That made sense at the time, but wasn’t entirely accurate. It looks like some “elements” are more like processes or states of matter than substances. (May 12, 2017; September 9, 2016)

Phlogiston was a 15th century effort to refine our model for the “fire” element. (March 24, 2017)

We’ve learned a bit more about the physics and chemistry of fire since then.

I’d be surprised if we’ve learned everything there is not know about it. But I think we’re closer to having the full picture.

I also think that understanding God’s creation a bit better is okay.

Thinking that a fire’s light and heat involve electron transitions certainly doesn’t cause a crisis of faith.

Everything we observe reflects a facet of the Creator’s truth, according to its nature. (Catechism, 301–308)

All natural processes involve secondary causes: creatures acting in knowable ways, following laws woven into this creation.

Since I believe that God creates everything, and that God is not a liar: learning about this universe gives me more reasons to admire God’s work. (Catechism, 159, 214–217, 282–283, 294, 341)

Looking For Life


(From NASA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

I am quite sure that life exists elsewhere in this universe: or not.

We may find life in the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Or maybe we will still be looking for extraterrestrial life when our descendants have examined every planet, moon, asteroid, and comet in this galaxy.

By then, some “extraterrestrial life” will almost certainly have been planted by us. It’s hard to imagine folks settling anywhere without planting crops and raising ornamental plants.

Either way, whether or not life started elsewhere is up to God. Part of our job is looking around this universe, learning what’s here and how it works.

The best- or worst-case scenario, depending on viewpoint, is learning that we have neighbors: free-willed beings with bodies. People, but not human. (September 8, 2017)

If we do meet folks who are people, but whose “clay” is on another world,4 I’m quite sure that some of us will panic. Others will react in equally-irrational ways. Thinking takes effort, which may help explain why so many apparently don’t.

Again, I don’t know if we have neighbors or not. If we do, I’m quite sure we will learn that God’s creation is much more interesting than we imagined. (December 23, 2016)

Some of the most clear-headed thinking I’ve seen about extraterrestrial intelligence is this:

“I been readin’ ’bout how maybe they is planets peopled by folks with ad-vanced brains. On the other hand, maybe we got the most brains…maybe our intellects is the universe’s most ad-vanced. Either way, it’s a mighty soberin’ thought.”
(Porky Pine, in Walt Kelly’s Pogo (June 20, 1959) via Wikiquote

More, mostly about life, the universe, and being human:

1 The Saturn system, briefly:

2 Cassini-Huygens:

3 Titan and life:

4 About clay, creation, and all that:

Posted in Science News | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

More Disasters

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

The good news is that folks on the Gulf Coast probably won’t be affected by Hurricane Irma. Not directly.

Cleanup and rebuilding there is taking a back seat to news of this weekend’s hurricane and Mexico’s major earthquake.

I’ll be talking about this week’s disasters, and how folks deal with them. Also faith, reasonable and otherwise, and a little science:

Before I get started, here’s a link to reality checks from FEMA, and NOAA’s National Hurricane Center:

American news services have been focusing on how folks in Florida are getting ready for Irma. Folks there will be experiencing the storm soon, and any nation’s news is likely to focus on that nation. The storm has already made a mess of places in the Caribbean.

I don’t know how many folks have died so far, either because of the storm or earthquake.

Known death tolls are still going up as survivors dig out and other folks search debris. It’s already bad news. Dozens died in the earthquake, and well over 20 when Irma went over.

We may learn that at least some folks would have survived if buildings had been sturdier, or they’d made different decisions.

I think reviewing what happened and why makes sense. That’s how we learn what we should keep doing, and what we should change.

Sometimes we learn that someone who should have known better acted badly. Truth and justice are important. The same goes for mercy and helping each other. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2447, 2472, 2475–2487)

Looking for someone to blame during a crisis? Not so much.


(From AFP, via BBC News; used w/o permission.)
(“The tremor was strong enough to bring down buildings near Mexico City”
(BBC News))


(From EPA, via BBC News; used w/o permission.)
(“A collapsed building in the town of Matias Romero in Oaxaca state”
(BBC News))

Blaming a superhuman entity for disasters isn’t new. What changes with time and fashion is who’s supposed to be in a divine snit, and what we presumably did to vex a surly spirit.

I’ve been noticing Mother Nature getting the credit for recent disasters.

Apparently the Earth goddess is peeved at folks who pollute. Or litter. Or maybe it’s how some voted. I’m not sure about details, and I’m pretty sure folks who play the blame game are mistaken.

It’s been a few years since a high-profile American Christian said something daft about natural disasters and sinners. I haven’t noticed it, anyway. I can’t say that I miss ‘the good old days.’

“Sin,” by the way, isn’t doing something that I don’t enjoy, can’t afford, or couldn’t do if I wanted to.

It’s what happens when I don’t love God and my neighbor — or don’t see everyone as my neighbor. No exceptions. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–37; Catechism, 1706, 1776, 1825, 1849–1851, 1955)

It’s an offense against reason, truth, and God. (Catechism, 1849–1851)

That happens a lot more often than I like. But I’m working on it. (August 27, 2017; December 4, 2016)

Sinners in the Hands of an Uptight God?

Dipping a little deeper into the well of the past, folks in England were told that the Great Storm of 1703 was God’s way of smiting them for the sins of their nation.

English pastors were dredging that up in moralizing sermons into the 19th century.

Daniel Defoe opined that the English hadn’t sufficiently smited — smote? smitten? — Catholics in the War of the Spanish Succession.

On the ‘up’ side, Europe’s seemingly-interminable turf wars did eventually encourage a little clear thinking. Also, arguably, the French Revolution. Oh, well.

I like to think that we’re learning. A little. Slowly. (June 25, 2017; July 14, 2017; November 6, 2016; October 30, 2016)

Here’s a short list of wacky notions:

I’ll give Jennifer Lawrence the benefit of the doubt. Her attitude may be at least partly well-played publicity for her current movie. Show business seems to have its own rules.

Folks with a particular style of spirituality give cartoonists like Wiley Miller opportunities for humor. I might be offended if I thought his “Church of Danae” was attacking my faith. (August 27, 2017; August 23, 2017)

But I’m a Christian and a Catholic. I recognize the sort of faith Mr. Miller reflects in his “Church of Danae” gags.

It has little to do with mine.

“There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.”
(“Radio Replies Vol. 1,” Forward, page ix, Fulton J. Sheen (1938) via Wikiquote)

Venom-spitting apostles of anger are still with us. But I think the ‘Angry God’ brand of Christianity is less influential these days. Happily.

I don’t think any of this shows that Christianity is stupid, that environmental awareness causes craziness, or that movie makers are bad.

I do think that natural disasters happen, and that they’re just that: natural disasters.

When they happen, part of our job may be to clean up the mess and rebuild. Some of us may be able to help folks who are doing that.

No pressure, but the Red Cross isn’t the only organization that steps in with disaster relief. I think CRS, Catholic Relief Services, is worth mentioning.

As the name implies, they’re Catholic. They’ll help anyone who needs it.

Their mission statement says their job is “to assist people on the basis of need, not creed, race or nationality.”

About Mother Nature and all that, I take environmental concerns seriously. But I don’t assume that a contemporary remake of Gaia or Phra Mae Thorani deserves special attention. (Catechism, 337–344, 2112–2114, 2402, 2415–2418)

God’s God, everyone and everything else isn’t. Remembering that makes sense.

Disasters happen, but it’s not because God has anger management issues. Seeing God as irritable, or worse, is our problem: not God’s. We’ve had a warped image of God for a very long time. (Catechism, 399)

We also have trouble dealing ourselves, and with each other, and that’s another topic. (July 23, 2017; March 5, 2017; November 6, 2016)

Mexican Earthquake


(From AFP, via BBC News; used w/o permission.)
(“Soldiers stood guard after a hotel collapsed in the town of Matias Romero, Oaxaca state”
(BBC News))


(From BBC News, used w/o permission.)

“Mexico’s strongest quake in century strikes off southern coast”
BBC News (September 8, 2017)

“An earthquake described by Mexico’s president as the country’s strongest in a century has struck off the southern coast, killing at least 33 people.

“The quake, which President Enrique Peña Nieto said measured 8.2, struck in the Pacific, about 87km (54 miles) south-west of Pijijiapan.

“Severe damage has been reported in Oaxaca and Chiapas states.

“A tsunami warning was initially issued for Mexico and other nearby countries, but later lifted.

“The quake, which struck at 23:50 local time on Thursday (04:50 GMT Friday), was felt hundreds of miles away in Mexico City, with buildings swaying and people running into the street. The tremors there were reported to have lasted up to a minute….”

BBC News is better than most at letting reporters get facts — and publishing them, along with (generally) common-sense analysis. (September 1, 2017)

A quake the size of the one off Mexico’s coast isn’t unusual. It’s ‘news’ in America partly because it’s fairly close.

“…This is the biggest quake experienced anywhere in 2017. Going on the statistics, you would expect at least one magnitude 8 to occur somewhere on the planet each year.

“It occurred where the Pacific ocean floor is drawn under Mexico and Guatemala. A great slab of rock, known as the Cocos tectonic plate, is driving towards the coast at a rate of 75mm per year. As it jerks downwards into the Earth’s interior, about 200km offshore, large tremors are the inevitable outcome….”
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News (September 8, 2017))

I think we will probably learn to predict earthquakes about as well as we predict weather today, eventually.

Right now, we’re learning what causes them and where they’re most common. We’ve found some answers and uncovered new questions, which is par for the course.

Prediction is pretty much limited to knowing roughly how much time passes between quakes in any one spot: on average. (July 28, 2017)

Earthquake science may be about where we were with meteorology and weather forecasting about a century ago.

Until fairly recently, folks in North America’s Tornado Alley knew that a tornado might hit; but not when it would. Not until we saw spinning clouds with bits of buildings inside, that is.

The earliest recorded earthquake I know of is the Mount Tai earthquake, about four millennia back. We don’t hear much about the 62 Pompeii earthquake, maybe because it wasn’t as destructive as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79.

We know more about earthquakes that happened recently.

At first glance, it could look like earthquakes happen more often now than in the past.

Maybe someone’s plotted the numbers and said that Earth will explode at some point from all the shaking.

Calling that unlikely would be a world-class understatement. I haven’t researched and proven this, but I’m quite sure quakes have been happening at roughly the same rate, on average, for the last several millennia.

They’re recorded more often now because we’re getting better at making, keeping, and correlating records.

Knowing more about events like the 2001 Geiyo earthquake than the 464 BC Sparta earthquake isn’t surprising.

We’ve learned a bit over the last two dozen centuries. We know more about what to look for, and how to gather and record data.

Our largest social units are bigger too, on average. (March 19, 2017)

I think that helps us cope with disasters. It may also help explain why we know so little about some ancient civilizations. (March 12, 2017; March 30, 2017)

Caribbean Hurricanes


(From Dutch military, via BBC News; used w/o permission.)
(“The Dutch military released aerial pictures showing the devastation on Sint-Maarten”
(BBC News))


(From AFP, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Hurricane Irma has destroyed homes and businesses across the Caribbean. This is the scene on one street in Saint-Martin”
(BBC News))

“Hurricane Jose: ‘Barely habitable’ Barbuda residents flee”
BBC News (September 8, 2017)

“The entire population of Barbuda, the small Caribbean island devastated by Hurricane Irma, has been evacuated as a second powerful storm, Hurricane Jose, is expected to hit the region on Saturday.

“The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, said Barbuda had been left ‘barely habitable’ with 95% of its building structures destroyed by Irma….”

Barbuda sounds a bit like Barbados or — sort of — Bermuda. All three are somewhat close to North America, with weather that’s not much like Minnesota’s.

About 1,600 or so folks live on Barbuda. The island is not particularly large. It’s mostly coral limestone, and mostly flat. The highest parts of the eastern highlands are 125 feet, 38 meters, above sea level.

Evacuating folks on Barbuda to Antigua seems to make sense, since another hurricane is coming.

Antigua is larger, higher, and — I hope — better equipped to shelter folks.

I don’t know how many folks living on Barbuda died during the storm.

One, a teenage surfer, was out riding waves stirred up by Irma. He died after falling off his board and hitting a reef. (BBC Newsbeat)

I’ve read of one other death on Barbuda, an infant. (BBC News)

Golfers of the Apocalypse?


(From David Simon (@AoDespair), Twitter, used w/o permission.)
(“In the pantheon of visual metaphors for America today, this is the money shot.”
(David Simon, journalist, on Twitter))

“Apocalyptic Thoughts Amid Nature’s Chaos? You Could Be Forgiven.”
Henry Fountain, The New York Times (September 8, 2017)

“Vicious hurricanes all in a row, one having swamped Houston and another about to buzz through Florida after ripping up the Caribbean.

“Wildfires bursting out all over the West after a season of scorching hot temperatures and years of dryness.

“And late Thursday night, off the coast of Mexico, a monster of an earthquake.

“You could be forgiven for thinking apocalyptic thoughts, like the science fiction writer John Scalzi ….

“…Or the street corner preacher in Harlem overheard earlier this week ranting about Harvey, Irma and Kim Jong Un, in no particular order.

“Or the tens of thousands who retweeted this image of golfers playing against a raging inferno of a wildfire in Oregon….”

That photo reminded me of a gag poster, or maybe bumper sticker, from a half-century back. It read “APATHY IS RAMPANT, BUT WHO CARES?”

I care plenty, but don’t see a point in hand-wringing angst.

Part of my job is contributing to the common good and getting involved as best I can. (Catechism, 1915, 2239)

I don’t see pessimism as piety, and the ‘gloominess is next to Godliness’ attitude seems silly. Or worse.

Decades of living with undiagnosed depression gave me little reason to imagine that melancholy was somehow admirable, and that’s yet another topic. (May 12, 2017; October 14, 2016)

Where was I? Storms, earthquakes, movies, comics, golfing through the Apocalypse. Right.

A bit after talking about golfers and an Oregon inferno, Henry Fountain mentions the recent eclipse and said that “all the recent ruin seems deeply, darkly not coincidental.”

I kept reading, and saw this bit of good sense: “…As any scientist will tell you, nature doesn’t work that way….”

He went on to talk about hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and history. Pretty much what I do, when explaining why I didn’t jump on the latest ‘end of the world’ bandwagon. (August 23, 2017; January 20, 2017)

I can see how someone in their teens or early adulthood might believe that End Times are nigh, or that the crisis du jour is but a prelude to humanity’s demise.

Wannabe prophets, spiritual and secular, can be quite persuasive. Appealing, at any rate. I think that’s partly due to imminent doom’s dramatic appeal. It’s the sort of thing that sells tickets to disaster movies.

Films like “Geostorm” and “2012” may be entertaining. But I think their science is about as reliable as the theology in “Hell Baby” and “The Seventh Sign.”

I see disasters like the ones making headlines this weekend as natural events. Doing what we can to prepare for them, within reason, makes sense. So does helping folks who are affected, when we can.

Fretting about whether End Times are Upon Us, or imagining that Mother Nature is vexed? That seems like a waste of time and effort. At least.

I can use suffering, joy, any experience, as a reason to pray and rejoice. (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18; Catechism, 2648)

But that doesn’t mean I should seek suffering, or try to get sick. That’s not being Saintly. That’s being daft. (August 18, 2017; July 21, 2017)

I think disasters, illness, any of the routine rough spots we experience, can be good reminders that I’m working out my salvation. (Philippians 2:12)

Also that I’ve got limited time, like everyone else. (August 27, 2017; April 9, 2017; December 4, 2016)

Weather Modification Experiments

We keep learning that technology isn’t foolproof safe. That doesn’t make tech, or us, bad.

It means that using our brains is important. (February 10, 2017; November 18, 2016)

I think the old ‘lords of creation’ and today’s ‘be very afraid’ attitudes are unreasonable. (August 11, 2017; July 14, 2017)

My guess is that many or most folks realize that humans aren’t all-powerful these days.

There’s some wisdom in seeing that we’re not all-powerful, and that doing whatever we want with this world occasionally has unpleasant results. Going to the other extreme? I’ll get back to that.

Suffering and illness can be a good reality check for hubris. They’re reminders that we’re limited, finite, powerless. (Catechism, 1500)

Compared to God, anyway. Forgetting that is a really bad idea. So, I think, is forgetting who and what we are. (July 23, 2017; November 13, 2016)

This is a big universe.

I think we’ll never run out of scientific puzzles to solve, or learn ‘too much.’ We do not and will not have infinite knowledge or power. (August 20, 2017; March 26, 2017)

On the other hand, I don’t think we’re utterly helpless.

I certainly don’t think we offended an irascible God by making lightning rods and eradicating smallpox. (October 16, 2016)

God gives us brains, a thirst for knowledge, and a knack for using what we learn to develop new tools. This is a good thing. Science and technology are part of being human. They’re what we’re supposed to be doing. (Catechism, 159, 214–217, 283, 294, 341, 2292–2295)

That makes sense, since part of our job is taking care of this world. We’re stewards, responsible for its maintenance. We can and should use its resources: wisely, keeping future generations in mind. (Catechism, 2415–2418, 2456)

We’ve been learning how weather works, including hurricanes.

Again, I don’t see this as a problem. ‘Blessed are the ignorant, for they shall remain clueless’ is not one of the Beatitudes.

We even know how to modify weather.

That’s hasn’t worked out as well as we hoped. Not yet.

Serious cloud seeding research was happening in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, weather control tech was being field tested. It looked like just a matter of time before we could decide when, where, and how much it rains.

Results of field testing were inconclusive.

That was a good thing for one team of scientists. A storm they modified grew, a lot, before reaching the Rapid City area.

The 1972 Black Hills flood caused 238 deaths and 3,057 injuries, and destroyed over a thousand homes. It didn’t take survivors long to learn who had been tweaking the storm a little earlier.

American courts eventually decided they didn’t have enough evidence to hold the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences liable for the death and destruction.

As I recall, public discussion of weather modification stopped rather abruptly after that. (May 26, 2017)

I think we’ll eventually know how to modify weather: safely. But I think today’s caution is probably a good idea.

In 1947, scientists seeded a hurricane east of Jacksonville, Florida. That may or may not be why the storm abruptly turned around and hit Georgia.

America’s government changed the rules after that, banning modification of storms with a 10% or better chance of reaching land in 48 hours.

Scientists tried quenching a hurricane again in 1969. They seeded Hurricane Debbie twice. Winds dropped each time: temporarily.

We’ve learned that hurricanes recycle their eyewalls fast. The 1947 and 1969 experiments may not have been as successful, or disastrous, as we thought.

That’s not terribly surprising. Tropical cyclones are huge storms. A hurricane releases roughly 70 times as much energy as we use: all seven-billion-plus of us.1

Learning how to control that, safely, will take more than we know today. Probably a lot more. But I don’t think it’s impossible, and am quite sure that we’ll figure out how. Eventually.

Other Catholic views of life, prayer, and making sense:

Dealing with disaster, my views:

1 What we’re learning, who we are:

Posted in Being Catholic | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Labor Day SETI

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

I nearly missed an interesting development in SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Interesting, and as newsworthy as most Stephen Hawking stories, but probably not significant.

Professor Hawking didn’t start chatting with aliens over the Labor Day weekend. That would be major news.

But an outfit he’s connected with will be listening to FRB 121102. I think it’s likely that they’ll collect useful data, and that this isn’t a prelude to ‘first contact.’

Other scientists say they’ve spotted several planets orbiting Tau Ceti. Two of them may be just inside that star’s habitable zone.

Believing and Learning

I’ve never met anyone who told me Earth is flat. One earnest young Christian seemed convinced that our sun goes around Earth, not the other way around.

Given his assumptions about reality and the Bible, he had a point.

1 Samuel 2:8, Job 9:6 and Psalms 150:1 were written by folks living just west of Mesopotamia.

It’s hardly surprising that their poetic imagery includes bits of Mesopotamian cosmology. It would have been familiar to folks living in that part of the world.

I also see a hint of Pythagorean ideas reflected in Job 38:7.

Natural philosophers weren’t all that far off in thinking about music of the spheres. We started working out the math of orbital resonance about two centuries back, and that’s yet another topic.

I could be a Christian and believe that Earth is a flat plate between the upper and lower waters. (December 2, 2016)

But ignoring what we’ve learned over the last couple dozen centuries isn’t necessary.

I take the Bible seriously. That’s a ‘must’ for Catholics. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101–133)

Believing and studying Sacred Scripture isn’t even close to trying to believe that Genesis, Psalms, Wisdom, Revelation and the rest were all written by someone with an American viewpoint. (May 19, 2017; December 13, 2016)

Then there’s the notion that thinking too much is bad for belief. I’m a Catholic, so faith and reason get along fine. Or should. It’s like St. John Paul II wrote:

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth….”
“Fides et Ratio,” Pope Saint John Paul II (September 14, 1998) (From vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.pdf (April 20, 2017))

Science and Religion

I don’t think science replaces God. That’d be as silly as looking for life’s meaning in Newton’s laws of motion.

I think I’m here to seek, love, serve, and know God as best I can. Putting anything or anyone else at the top of my priorities would be a bad idea. (Catechism, 1, 68, 2112–2114)

That doesn’t make science, family, parchisi, or anything else evil. They’re not problems unless I forget who and what I am, and where my primary focus belongs.

Large and In Charge

This is where I talk about science, God, and being human.

If you’ve read my stuff before, and know why reality doesn’t threaten my faith — feel free to skip ahead to FRB 121102 and Stephen Hawking in the News or SETI, Seriously.

Better yet, leave the Internet for a few minutes. Take a walk. Enjoy a cup of coffee. Read a book. Take a nap. Do whatever.

Some Catholics seem as passionately convinced as their choleric Calvinist counterparts that science is Satanic. Or at least utterly opposed to all that they hold dear.

I don’t hope or expect folks who regard evolution as the religion of the Antichrist, or who believe that thinking too much is sinful, to change their minds. It’s not likely that someone with that mindset would be reading this, anyway.

By the same token, I wouldn’t expect a born-again atheist to read this and start looking for the nearest RCIA program.

So how come I keep writing these posts? Partly because I enjoy having an excuse to read about what we’re learning and sharing what I find.

I also think there’s some point to being an example of a Christian who’s also interested in science. (March 31, 2017; January 29, 2017)

Folks who don’t like science, or see it as a threat, aren’t necessarily daft or dim. There’s been a great deal of nonsense published in the last century or so. Some of it, sadly, is still taken seriously.

Feeling menaced by new knowledge isn’t limited to Christianity’s fearful fringe. H. P. Lovecraft wrote that science threatens our “placid island of ignorance.” (March 31, 2017)

“…The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far….”
(“The Call of Cthulhu,” H. P. Lovecraft (1929); via WikiQuote)

I don’t see it that way. I don’t think knowledge can threaten an informed faith. But I know that sometimes knowledge encourages us to reconsider what we thought was true.

Since I think God creates the things of faith and the world we observe, I can’t reasonably fear what we learn. As Pope Leo XIII said, “truth cannot contradict truth.” (Catechism, 159, “Providentissimus Deus,” Pope Leo XIII (November 18, 1893))

My fascination with our growing knowledge of this universe isn’t the reason I am a Catholic and a Christian. But it doesn’t get in the way of my faith, either.

I think that God is large and in charge, and is creating everything we can observe. (Genesis 1:1–2:2; Catechism, 268–269, 279, 301)

Newly-discovered knowledge may mean taking another look at assumptions my great-grandparents made. The same goes for what scientists were pretty sure about when my high school textbooks were written.

As I keep saying, that’s not a problem. Scientific discoveries give us opportunities for “greater admiration” of God’s work. (Catechism, 283, 341)

Living in a Beautiful Universe

The notion that spiritual is good and material is bad predates Christianity. I’m not sure why it’s such a durable belief.

It doesn’t make sense to me, partly because I’ve got eyes and can see this world’s incredible beauty.

Some folks see the same beauty, and apparently decide that it’s a sinful snare, luring the unwary to their doom.

That doesn’t make sense to me, but the ‘gloominess is next to Godliness’ style of piety never did. Good grief, our Lord’s first miracle was getting drinks for a wedding. (John 2:1–10)

There’s more to it, and that’s yet again another topic. Topics. (Catechism, 528, 725, 1335, 1612–1617, 2618)

I think God creates everything, and that God doesn’t make junk. Ignoring God’s creation seems silly, at best. More to the point, we’re told that this world is good: basically. We got off to a regrettable start, and that’s still another topic. (Genesis 1:31, 3:1–19; Catechism, 299, 309–314, 385–406)

We’re also told that this universe isn’t just beautiful. It’s orderly, following knowable physical laws. We’re supposed to notice this beauty and order, and study it. If we do it right, it’ll lead us toward God. (Catechism, 31–35, 159, 279, 283, 289, 299, 337–349; “Gaudium et spes,” 5, 15, Second Vatican Council, Bl. Pope Paul VI (December 7, 1965))

Or we can decide that since an ordered creation exists, an orderly creator can’t. Or shouldn’t. We’re human, and can decide what we believe. (Catechism, 1730)

1. FRB 121102 and Stephen Hawking in the News


(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(“A Stephen Hawking-led project has detected what could be signs of alien life from a galaxy 3 billion light years away from Earth.”
(New York Daily News))

“Stephen Hawking project detects possible signs of alien life from distant galaxy”
Megan Cerullo, New York Daily News (September 2, 2017)

“Stephen Hawking’s Breakthrough Listen project has detected mysterious signals that could be coming from intelligent alien life.

“Astronomers working to identify alien civilizations picked up 15 repeated fast radio bursts (FRBs) from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away from Earth.

“It’s unclear if the signals, observed over a 30-minute period, emanate from black holes, rotating neutron stars, or if they represent signs of alien life….

“…The 15 signals came from FRB 121102. Astronomers had previously detected radio pulses coming from the same source….”

What’s new about this news is the Breakthrough Listen project’s interest. Stephen Hawking may not be as newsworthy as the current top pop media personality, but anything “Hawking” and science-related is news.

He’s associated with Breakthrough Initiatives, one of the more serious SETI outfits.1 (March 3, 2017; December 2, 2016)

I very nearly didn’t pay close attention to this piece. New York Daily News is among America’s more entertaining news resources.

They’re not quite in the “FBI CAPTURES BAT CHILD!” class.

But their FRB 121102 article included links to these ‘related’ pieces:

If you decide to follow those links, be aware that the New York Daily News website is a tad intrusive. They like to start videos while you’re reading, for one thing.

I was taking Labor Day weekend off, so I figured spending a few minutes reading about Professor Hawking and messages from space aliens might be fun.

Tesla, Martians, and FRB 121102

I don’t take journalistic efforts like the Great Moon Hoax and Nicola Tesla’s messages from Mars seriously.

More accurately, I do take them seriously: as entertainment, and as examples of what at least a few folks can be counted on mistaking for fact. (December 16, 2016)

Like I said, I was taking the weekend off, decided to see what Hawking was supposed to have been doing: and was pleasantly surprised.

Megan Cerullo’s article discussed something Project Listen might do, without implying that Hawking was talking shop with space aliens. She went into more detail than some, naming Breakthrough Initiatives’ founder Yuri Milner as well as Professor Hawking.

There’s a bit more than the usual information about this particular FRB, too: and the name of one of the scientists who reported its recent activity. That gave me enough to find Cerullo’s source.

It didn’t take long. Quite a few of the scientists working with Project Listen are with University of California, Berkeley.

Berkley News gave a nice summary; and linked to the original report:

“…These are the highest frequency and widest bandwidth detections of bursts from FRB 121102 obtained to-date….”
(“FRB 121102: Detection at 4 – 8 GHz band with Breakthrough Listen backend at Green Bank,” Vishal Gajjar et al., The Astronomer’s Telegram (August 29, 2017))

The Repeating FRB

Whatever FRB 121102 is, and whatever it’s been doing, it was quite active recently.

Radio astronomers using Green Bank’s C-band receiver picked up 15 bursts of radio energy during 10 30-minute scans. These observations started August 26.2

We’re still quite sure that this FRB is several billion light years away.

It may be in or near a dwarf galaxy that’s in the same direction as the radio bursts, and a couple billion light-years away. Roughly.

Seen from Earth, it’s in the constellation Auriga, between the stars Capella and Elnath. I don’t know if the galaxy is something amateur astronomers can detect, but if you want to try it’s at 05h 32m +33° 05′.

FRB 121102 probably isn’t an exploding black hole or colliding neutron stars. That sort of thing would only happen once. It’s hard to imagine how something could explode twice, or collide and merge more than once.

It is, so far, the only FRB that’s produced more than one burst of radio waves.

Interesting Times

FRB 121102 is probably a magnetar. Or it could be highly-magnetized pulsars going through one or more asteroid belts at irregular intervals. Or maybe it’s a neutron star-white dwarf binary, or something else.

At this point, “something else” seems reasonable. Scientists are having trouble trying to fit observed data into what we’ve learned about physics so far.

My guess is that we’re looking at something we haven’t noticed before.

It’s likely enough that FRB 121102 is a natural object.

But I think scientists who say that FRBs look a great deal like what we’d use to push starships may be on the right track. Fast radio bursts might, maybe, be artificial.

We can’t build anything on that scale. Not yet. But we know why we’d build a transmitter that powerful, and how it would work.

I’m a bit dubious about the “power beam” model: partly because we understand the physics involved. I’ll get back to that. Again. (December 16, 2016; September 16, 2016)

What’s stopping us from building starships at the moment are mainly technical and economic limitations. (March 3, 2017)

I suspect that today’s situation is like the 1880s and 1890s, when Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and others were working out the math and science of interplanetary navigation.

British balloons, Clément Ader’s steam-powered Eole, and Chuhachi Ninomiya’s model airplane were the most advanced aerospace tech at the time.3

A century later, we were discussing when we would go back to Earth’s moon.

I’d be surprised if we’re less than a century from ‘out and back’ travel to the stars. But there’s a remote chance that I’ll live long enough to see the first robotic probes launched. These are interesting times.

2. Worlds Around Tau Ceti, Maybe


(From F. Feng, University of Hertfordshire, UK; via Sky and Telescope, used w/o permission.)
(“This illustration compares the four planets detected around the nearby star Tau Ceti (top) and the inner planets of our solar system (bottom).”
(Sky and Telescope)

“Four Exoplanets Might Orbit Sun-like Star”
Monica Young, Sky and Telescope (August 15, 2017)

“When exoplanets were first being discovered by the handful in the 1990s, teams competed to measure the wobbles of nearby stars, induced by the gravitational tugs of orbiting planets. A star’s radial velocity (its motion toward or away from Earth) can be measured by its spectrum, where the Doppler effect will shift spectral lines as the star wobbles. The tinier the wobble, the tinier the shift — and the tinier the planet doing the tugging.

“Now astronomers are testing the limits of what this planet-finding method can achieve….

“…But if astronomers want to detect an Earth-size planet at an Earth-like distance from its star, they’ll need far more sensitive radial velocity measurements — around 0.1 m/s. And things get tricky when astronomers begin reaching below 1 m/s. It’s easy to confuse the motions on a star’s surface for the motion of the star itself or with internal signals generated by the instrument itself. A small planet’s signal can become lost in the noise….”

“Signal” in this case isn’t a message sent by someone. It’s “an indication of a situation,” as Oxford Dictionaries puts it.

Signal-to-noise ratio means slightly different things for engineers and scientists. It’s how much of whatever’s being measured is meaningful, compared to what’s not.

Doppler spectroscopy, the ‘wobble method,’ uses the Doppler effect. It’s the apparent change in wavelength as the observer and source move at different speeds relative to each other.

Maybe you’ve heard it at a railway crossing. A train’s horn will seem as if it’s at a higher pitch when the train approaches, then drop to a lower note as it passes.

Doppler spectroscopy isn’t the only way we find exoplanets. Astronomers found some, particularly big planets around nearby small stars, by measuring how much the star moves back and forth in our sky.

Some, like GJ 1132b and the TRAPPIST-1 planets, pass between their star and Earth during each orbit. We can “see” a few, like 51 Eridani b, whose stars are bright and nearby. (June 30, 2017; April 21, 2017; July 29, 2016)

The ‘wobble’ caused by planets like Earth isn’t much, as the article said. Folks studying gravity waves have similar challenges, sorting gravity wave effects out from background noise. (March 24, 2017)

Other Suns


(From Torsten Bronger, Kxx; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Cetus constellation map, Tau Ceti circled.)

Our star is unique in the sense that it’s the one our planet orbits. But we’ve found other stars that are very much like ours. One, HD 164595, is a bit over 94 light-years away. Others are closer, many aren’t.

Tau Ceti is more like the star Earth orbits than most, but isn’t a solar twin: more like a solar analog. It’s a bit cooler and dimmer, and less massive than our star. But not by much.

It’s also much less active. Astronomers have found little to no evidence of magnetic activity, so Tau Ceti probably doesn’t have sunspots and flares: not nearly as often as our star, anyway. Not now.

Maybe we’ve been observing it during something like the Maunder minimum, from around 1645 to 1715, when our star had almost no sunspots.

We were dealing with the Little Ice Age around that time, which may or may not have had anything to do with what our star was doing.

We’re currently observing more than the usual number of sunspots. But I haven’t noticed anyone saying that might have something to do with current climate changes.

Tau Ceti is also almost in our back yard: not as close as Alpha Centauri, but just under 12 light-years away.

Since it’s so much like our star, and so close, Tau Ceti was one of two stars observed by Project Ozma.

The Project Ozma SETI effort did detect evidence of intelligent life. On April 8, 1960, the Green Bank radio telescope detected a signal from the sky. It was from an aircraft built by humans, flying in Earth’s atmosphere.

Like Our Star, But Not Quite

Tau Ceti’s metallicity is lower than our star’s. To astronomers and cosmologists, metallicity is how much of a star isn’t hydrogen or helium.

Scientists still figure that stars with higher metallicity are more likely to have planets.

But we’re finding low-metallicity stars with planets, so it looks like there’s more to learn about that.

It’s likely enough that a we’ll find connections between a star’s metallicity and what sort of planets it has. Tau Ceti’s low metallicity may mean that its planets, if they’re actually there, may not be as rocky as the Solar System’s inner worlds.

These scientists have measured something. What we aren’t sure about is exactly what they’ve measured. Variations in radial velocity this small — about 0.2 meters per second — may be from something else. These changes could be “noise.”

Or Tau Ceti may have planets. This team seems to have done a good job of sorting out signal from background noise. We could very well be looking at another planetary system, close to home.4

Tau Ceti’s Dust

Assuming that Tau Ceti’s planets exist, they may not be a good place to look for life.

They’re not quite at what we consider a comfortable distance from their sun.

That’s probably not the biggest problem, though. Astronomers spotted dust circling Tau Ceti.

It’s in a belt around the star, concentrated about 55 AU, astronomical units, out.

They figure the dust comes from collisions in an analog to the Solar System’s Kuiper belt. Most of the Kuiper belt is between 30 and 55 AU away from our star.

To get the concentration of dust they found, there would have to be a lot of collisions. Tau Ceti’s Kuiper belt analog, if that’s what it is, has something like 10 times as many comet- and Pluto-size objects as the Solar System’s borderland.

Since we figure many comets come from the Kuiper belt, Tau Ceti’s inner planets would have roughly 10 times as many comets in their skies as Earth.

That would be scenic, but not necessarily good news for life. We’ve been learning that impact events like the one that made the Chicxulub crater happen at irregular intervals. (May 19, 2017)

The last big extinction event was probably helped along by the Chixulub impact.

Life on Earth recovered, but recovery takes time. It took about 30,000,000 years for a new ‘normal’ to happen after the Permian-Triassic extinction event.

Some critters survived each time, obviously. Some, like scorpions, lived before and after the dinosaurs. (December 23, 2016; September 30, 2016)

Maybe complex life wouldn’t have time to reset itself if extinction events happened ten times more frequently.

Then again, maybe folks living on one of Tau Ceti’s planets never considered the Solar System a likely place for complex life: because we didn’t get reset often enough.

And that brings me to our search for extraterrestrial intelligence, faith, science, and why I’m not worried about the universe being too old.

We’re Alone: Or Not

First, what I don’t think.

“Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,” “Invaders from Mars,” and “”Plan 9 from Outer Space” are entertainment.

I’d like to think that most folks realize their ‘science’ is very fictional.

Some folks “believe in” extraterrestrial intelligence. I don’t. Not like folks in the Aetherius Society.

UFO religions are a bad idea, although not often as obviously lethal as Heaven’s Gate. (August 13, 2017)

We don’t know if we have neighbors in this universe: free-willed creatures with physical bodies, like us; but not human.

I think we have neighbors: or not. Either way, it’s not up to me. God’s God, I’m not; and I’m quite content with that situation.

Part of my job is appreciating God’s work: not telling God what should or shouldn’t be real. (April 16, 2017; December 9, 2016; December 2, 2016)

SETI, Seriously

Scientists who take SETI seriously are not the screwball ‘flying saucer’ enthusiasts of the 1950s.

But I think many make overly-big assumptions about non-human intelligence.

Or maybe they’ve thought this through, and don’t want to risk spooking folks who sign checks for their research grants.

That may help explain why some of the clearest thinking I’ve seen about SETI comes from folks like XKCD’s Randall Munroe.

I’m not on the same page, philosophically, as H. P. Lovecraft. But I give him credit for realizing that people who aren’t human — may not be human. Not even close.

Obvious as that seems, the assumption that everybody will be pretty much like us apparently runs through our efforts to locate extraterrestrial intelligence.

The Fermi paradox, Drake equation, and Kardashev scale may indicate that we’re doomed.

I agree that we’re not selling trinkets to alien tourists and up to our hips in the Galactic Conglomerate’s equivalent of six-pack rings and empty oil drums.

But this may not show that intelligence leads to smog, nuclear winter, climate change, and death. I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t, actually.

I could be wrong about this.

Maybe people must be highly social. And maybe everybody uses technology we started developing about 98 years back, based on science that’s a few decades older. And maybe we’re the smartest, most advanced folks that ever were and ever can be.

Or maybe we’re the oddballs, and very young. Maybe our neighbors are hoping that we’ll soon get around to transmitting less radio noise. Imagine an unruly college fraternity in a senior living community, and you’ll see what I mean.

Even assuming that our neighbors are exactly like us, psychologically, I’m not convinced that slit gongs, wireless telegraphy and wavelength-division multiplexing are the ultimate communication technologies.

A million years is a long time, or a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ interval: depending on what scale you use. (December 16, 2016)

My guess is that if we do have neighbors, we’ll learn that humanity’s diversity barely scratched the surface of what’s possible. And I’m quite certain that we have a very great deal left to learn.

A Matter of Scale


(From Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

We don’t know whether this universe is actually infinite, but it is really, really big.

Scientists like Fermi understood how big the universe is, but folks like Thomas Paine maybe didn’t.

That may explain why Paine thought that if other worlds exist, God doesn’t.

I can understand an engineer living in the 18th century having an imperfect understanding of infinity.

A scientist writing in the 21st century making the same basic assumption — not so much. (August 20, 2017; April 14, 2017; September 16, 2016)

We’ve known the universe we live in is big and old for a long time.

“Terrible and awesome are you, stronger than the ancient mountains.”
(Psalms 76:5)

“Raise your eyes to the heavens,
look at the earth below;
Though the heavens vanish like smoke,
the earth wear out like a garment
and its inhabitants die like flies,
My salvation shall remain forever
and my victory shall always be firm.”
(Isaiah 52:6)

“Indeed, before you the whole universe is as a grain from a balance, or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.”
(Wisdom 11:22)

All that’s been happening in the last few centuries is how much we know about this universe. That might disturb someone who imagines God as merely someone who is a little bigger, smarter and stronger than we are.

I figure that God is — God. Infinite, ineffable, eternal, beyond anything we can understand. (Catechism, 202, 206–209)

And I’m okay with that.

More; mostly about life, the universe, and being human:

1 Serious SETI:

2 Fast radio bursts, still a puzzle:

  • Wikipedia
    • Fast radio burst
    • “A direct localization of a fast radio burst and its host”
      S. Chatterjee, C. J. Law, R. S. Wharton, S. Burke-Spolaor, J. W. T. Hessels, G. C. Bower, J. M. Cordes, S. P. Tendulkar, C. G. Bassa, P. Demorest, B. J. Butler, A. Seymour, P. Scholz, M. W. Abruzzo, S. Bogdanov, V. M. Kaspi, A. Keimpema, T. J. W. Lazio, B. Marcote, M. A. McLaughlin, Z. Paragi, S. M. Ransom, M. Rupen, L. G. Spitler & H. J. van Langevelde; Nature (Received November 1, 2016; Accepted November 16, 2016; Published online January 4, 2017)
    • “The Host Galaxy and Redshift of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102”
      Shriharsh P. Tendulkar, Cees Bassa, James M. Cordes, Geoffery C. Bower, Casey J. Law, Shamibrata Chatterjee, Elizabeth A. K. Adams, Slavko Bogdanov, Sarah Burke-Spolaor, Bryan J. Butler, Paul Demorest, Jason W. T. Hessels , Victoria M. Kaspi, T. Joseph W. Lazio, Natasha Maddox, Benito Marcote, Maura A. McLaughlin, Zsolt Paragi, Scott M. Ransom, Paul Scholz, Andrew Seymour, Laura G. Spitler, Huib J. van Langevelde, Robert S. Wharton; The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Submitted on 4 Jan 2017 (v1), last revised 5 Jan 2017 (this version, v2)) via arXiv.org

3 Aerospace tech in the 1890s:

4 A nearby planetary system, maybe:

Posted in Science News | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments