I re-organized some of A Catholic Citizen in America’s pages today, and — I hope — made the navigation menus more useful. In the process, I removed some text that’d been cluttering one page. On the off-chance that you’re interested, here it is:
Technical issues in March, 2018, put me off my ‘science news every Friday’ schedule.
After my son resolved them, going back to the routine was an option. Instead, I decided to start work on several ‘back burner’ projects; including a book that’s been on my ‘really should do this’ list for some time:
I’ll also be posting something new whenever there’s something ready. Some posts will be in the usual being Catholic and science news categories, some in not-so-usual categories like being a citizen or being an artist. The one I finished first, “Spirit Photographs,” wouldn’t fit in existing categories, so I made a new one: discursive detours.
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a robotic observatory, began watching 200,000 nearby stars on August 7, 2018.
So far, scientists have found more than 2,200 TESS Objects of Interest (TOI). Of these, again so far, 154 have turned out to be exoplanets.
They include a few probably-rocky planets around Earth’s size, but none are ‘Earth 2.0.’ And some are like nothing in our Solar System.
HD 202772A b, for example, is as massive as Jupiter, but orbits its sun every 3.3 days.
Its sun, HD 202772A, is larger and hotter than ours; so the planet is a great deal hotter than Jupiter. Scientists figure its equilibrium temperature is around 2,100 K.
That’s hot enough to melt platinum or thorium, but not quite Thulium’s boiling point. At Earth’s sea-level atmospheric pressure.1
TESS, a Space Observatory
(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(TESS, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite; Artist’s concept.)
Depending on what’s being discussed, Tess is “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” Hardy’s durable novel; or Nikolay Tess, a fall guy in Latvia. It’s also a British musician; or any one of 13 tropical storms.
I’m guessing that NASA didn’t have “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” in mind when they named their Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
On the other hand, maybe the moniker’s an effort at appeasing today’s Mrs. Grundys.2 Make that Ms. Grundys, given today’s priggish preferences, and that’s another topic.
Transiting Exoplanets
(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Almost a full-sky survey: NASA illustration, showing TESS’s overlapping fields of view.)
Back in 2018, when the space observatory went into orbit, TESS was billed as an all-sky transiting exoplanet survey. That’s not quite accurate, although by this time TESS has observed about three-quarters of Earth’s sky.
If you know about transiting exoplanets, TESS and all that, then feel free to skip to the next heading. Or, better yet, take a coffee break, sort your socks or go for a walk.
Still here? Thanks!
Transiting exoplanets aren’t a particular kind of exoplanet, like hot Jupiters, Mini-Neptunes or Super-Earths.
They’re planets orbiting another star with orbits that carry the planet across their sun’s face, as seen from the Solar System.
Astronomers can’t take photos of transiting exoplanets, the way they do when Venus or Mercury passes between our planet and our star, but they can measure how much the star’s light dims during a transit.
And, if the star is bright enough and close enough, measuring how the light changes tells scientists whether the planet has an atmosphere, and what’s in the alien air.
HD 209458 b, for example, the first transiting exoplanet spotted, is also the first known to have an atmosphere. Since 1999, when it was discovered, we’ve learned that there’s hydrogen in its atmosphere. Plus water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Maybe.
HD 209458 b is a hot Jupiter, orbiting a star that’s much like ours, about 159 light-years out in the general direction of Epsilon Pegasi: Enif, the nose of Pegasus.3
Not Quite an All-Sky Survey: Yet
(From NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA), used w/o permission.)
(Mosaic showing TESS primary mission survey area. The ecliptic’s on this map’s equator.)
(From MIT/TESS, used w/o permission.)
(TESS year one through four survey areas, ecliptic coordinates.)
Backing up a bit, TESS was billed as an ‘all-sky’ observation mission back in 2018. If the space observatory lasts long enough, it may finally have looked at the entire sky.
But it only covered about 75% of the sky in the two years of its primary mission. That’s because scientists told TESS to look northward of Earth and the Moon, avoiding their scattered light.
And the primary mission’s original planned observations avoided the ecliptic, the plane of Earth’s orbit. I strongly suspect that was because TESS, Earth and our world’s Moon are all in the inner Solar System.
And, since the Solar System’s inner planets, asteroids and zodiacal light’s dust are all in the ecliptic too, observations though all that would have scattered light issues, too.4
KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b: Yes, It’s a Planet
(From Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC), used w/o permission.)
(The KOI-5 star system. Diagram is not to scale.)
“Shortly after NASA’s Kepler mission began operations back in 2009, it identified what was thought to be a planet about the size of Neptune. Called KOI-5Ab, the planet, which was the second new planet candidate to be found by the mission, was ultimately forgotten as Kepler racked up more and more planet discoveries. By the end of its mission in 2018, Kepler had discovered a whopping 2,394 exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, and an additional 2,366 exoplanet candidates, including KOI-5Ab.
“Now, David Ciardi, chief scientist of NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI), located at Caltech’s IPAC, says he has ‘resurrected KOI-5Ab from the dead,’ thanks to new observations from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission.
“‘KOI-5Ab fell off the table and was forgotten,’ says Ciardi, who presented the findings at a virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS)….”
KOI-5Ab may have been forgotten by humans, but Kepler’s observations remained in our databases. And, happily, someone noticed that TOI-1241b in the TESS databases was the same as KOI-5Ab; so scientists could verify that KOI-5Ab was a planet.
Verifying that KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s existence had been confirmed took more time than I liked.
Partly because that particular star system’s designation isn’t quite standardized.
On the other hand, we’re well past the days when four astronomers could say Aschere, Al Shira, Lubdhaka and Sirius: and be talking about Alpha Canis Majoris. (September 18, 2021)
But I learned that The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia’s “Planet Kepler-5 b” was at the same coordinates as KOI-5AB and TOI-1241b.5 It’s real.
And it’s not quite like anything in the Solar System.
TOI-1241b’s Oddly Skewed Orbit
(From Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC), used w/o permission.)
(Artist’s impression of KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b.)
KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s mass is about half that of Saturn’s. It circles its sun every five days, more or less.
KOI-5A is a bit more massive and hotter than our star, so KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b too massive and far too hot to be ‘Earth-like.’
KOI-5A and B orbit each other every 30 years. KOI-5C goes around A and B every 400 years. That’s roughly 30 and 400 years.
If what we know about how planetary systems grow is right, then KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s orbit should be in the same plane as the two brightest stars’ orbit. But it’s not.
KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s orbit is tilted about 50 degrees out of what should be its ecliptic. Scientists aren’t sure why, but think it’s likely that KOI-B’s gravity messed with KOI-5Ab’s original orbit.
Studying the KOI-5/TOI-1241 and other multiple-star planetary systems should help scientists learn more about how stars and planets form.6
There’s more to say about TESS, exoplanets and stars, much more; but that’ll have to wait for another time.
My right shoulder has been acting up, making writing a slower process than I like.
An ‘up’ side is that it’s giving me opportunities for practicing patience, and that’s yet another topic.
Let’s see. How should I wrap this up? Rattle off statistics? Complain about being 70 — which would be daft, considering the alternative. Got it! Travelogue.
KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s planetary system is 2,950 light-years out, give or take. That’s far outside TESS’s 200 light-year search bubble. So I figure TOI-1241b is a sort of bonus, confirming Kepler observations.
At any rate, KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b is by far not the first stellar system we’ll visit.
Stellar Stopover Speculation
But if and when we do send probes out there, they’ll pass Delta and Gamma Cygni, Fawaris and Sadir, on their way.
Or maybe they’ll stop off at Fawaris and Sadir, assuming that whatever technology we use allows such stopovers.7 And that’s yet again another topic.
I’ve talked about TESS, exoplanets and all that before, and probably will again:
“HD 202772A B: A Transiting Hot Jupiter Around A Bright, Mildly Evolved Star In A Visual Binary Discovered By Tess”
Songhu Wang, Matias Jones, Avi Shporer, Benjamin J. Fulton, Leonardo A. Paredes, Trifon Trifonov, Diana Kossakowski, Jason Eastman, Maximilian N. Gunther, Chelsea X. Huang, Sarah Millholland, Darryl Seligman, Debra Fischer, Rafael Brahm, Xian-Yu Wang, Bryndis Cruz, Hodari-Sadiki James, Brett Addison, Todd Henry, En-Si Liang, Allen B. Davis, Rene Tronsgaard, Keduse Worku, John Brewer, Martin Kurster, Charles A. Beichman, Allyson Bieryla, Timothy M. Brown, Jessie L. Christiansen, David R. Ciardi, Karen A. Collins, Gilbert A. Esquerdo, Andrew W. Howard, Howard Isaacson, David W. Latham, Tsevi Mazeh, Erik A. Petigura, Samuel N. Quinn, Sahar Shahaf, Robert J. Siverd, George R. Ricker, Roland Vanderspek, Sara Seager, Joshua N. Winn, Jon M. Jenkins, Patricia T. Boyd, Gabor Furesz, Christopher Henze, Alen M. Levine, Robert Morris, Martin Paegert, Keivan G. Stassun, Eric B. Ting, Michael Vezie, Gregory Laughlin; AAS Journal (Submitted October 4, 2018) via arXiv, Cornell University
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has survived Louis XIV-style redecorating, the French Revolution, Napoleon and 19th-century remodeling.
I’m pretty sure it will survive repair and reconstruction, following the April 16, 2021, fire.
Notre-Dame de Paris is Burning
(From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
Somewhere between 6:50 p.m., Paris time, and 7:18 p.m., April 15, 2019, something caught fire under the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris.
That in turn set of an alarm at 7:20. Give or take a few minutes.
Timelines I’ve seen for the 2019 Notre-Dame fire don’t quite line up.
Not surprising, under the circumstances. Dealing with a fire would have made keeping detailed records a low priority.
I’m getting most of my numbers from Reuters and BBC News articles, and some from a Wikipedia page.1
Okay. Back to ‘what happened and when.’
Folks who were working at Notre-Dame noticed the alarm. Then someone went up to see what was happening.
That was basically a good idea. But the person went up to the attic of the cathedral’s sacristy, which wasn’t burning.
Happily, the folks on site remembered Notre-Dame’s main attic. Then, a quarter-hour later, they’d climbed the three hundred-odd steps up to the attic.
Which, by 7:43, was merrily ablaze.
After what I’d imagine was a brisk trip back down the steps, at 7:51, firefighters were called. They arrived within 10 minutes.
After the Fire: Uncertainty and Some Good News
(From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
The cathedral’s spire collapsed at 7:50. Or 7:53. Firefighters began focusing on saving the towers around 8:30.
By 9:45, they’d brought the fire under control. Later, some 15 hours after it had started, the fire was out.
The next day, April 16, a Parisian public prosecutor said that the fire had been an accident: not arson. But he put 50 folks to work, looking into what had started the blaze.
Years later, we’re still not sure what started the Notre-Dame fire. Maybe an electrical short, maybe someone’s cigarette: someone even suggested that a computer glitch was behind the blaze.
But not arson, which may be true. Construction and renovation sites catch fire with distressing regularity.
Whatever caused it, the 2019 Notre-Dame fire wasn’t all bad news.
It hadn’t killed anyone.
And, although we lost part of Notre-Dame’s Crown of Thorns, along with relics of two saints; statues that had been on the cathedral’s spire had been removed before the fire and Notre-Dame’s rose windows survived.
So did the spire’s copper rooster / weather vane: which fell, dented but undaunted, and was found on the day after the fire.
Another bit of good news is how fast folks began supporting after-fire repairs.2
Ownership and Treasures
(From AFP/Getty, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
I’m guessing that Notre-Dame’s being part of the “Paris, Banks of the Seine” UNESCO World Heritage site made pledging support for rebuilding easier.
So, again my guess, was the cathedral being property of the French government.
Up until the French Revolution, the Paris archbishop — as agent of the Catholic Church — owned the cathedral. Napoleon let the Church conduct religious services there, but didn’t transfer ownership.
Or the cathedral’s been state property since 1905: it depends, apparently, on who’s telling the story. And which aspect of the French state’s ownership is in focus.
At any rate, besides being a house of worship, Notre-Dame de Paris is recognized as one of humanity’s cultural treasures.3 Can’t say that I’d argue with that.
Relics
(From AFP/Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(Notre-Dame de Paris, looking up to where the spire used to be. (April 17, 2019))
As I see it, zero fatalities is the best news coming from the 2019 Notre-Dame fire.
But I’m also glad that while firefighters were upstairs, dealing with attic flambé, other folks had organized a sort of bucket brigade, and were evacuating art and relics. Which brings me to why they thought a shirt that hasn’t been worn since the 1200s was worth saving.
The shirt of Saint Louis and Notre-Dame’s Crown of Thorns are relics: things associated with a Saint and/or Jesus that many Catholics venerate. That’s venerate, not worship, and that’s almost another topic.
At any rate, the shirt had been worn by Louis IX of France. As such, it’s a second-class relic: something routinely worn or used by a Saint.
The Crown of Thorns is, as far as we know, headgear that Roman soldiers jammed on our Lord’s head shortly before his execution. Documentation for its authenticity goes back to a bit after 409 AD.4
That four-century gap in the paper trail bothers me, but not very much.
History and Priorities
The Roman government viewed Christianity as a subversive movement until 313, and by that time the Empire was crumbling.
Three centuries later, folks like Saint Isidore of Seville were scrambling to preserve the ancient world’s knowledge.
I suspect that scholars like Saint Isidore focused more on scholarly records than on certifying relics like the Crown of Thorns because, in their day, philosophical treatises seemed more likely to be forgotten.
At any rate, veneration of relics can be an important part of being Catholic. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1674)
But it’s not a big part of my daily and weekly routines. Maybe because I grew up as a Protestant, becoming Catholic as an adult; or maybe not.
Finally, about relics: they’ve got a dubious reputation in my culture. I strongly suspect that’s because hucksters and European politics played hob with a legitimate religious practice.5 And that’s another topic, for another time.
A New Cathedral Building in Paris – – –
(From “Paris à travers les Ages”/”Notre Dame de Paris,” via Gutenberg.org, used w/o permission.)
(Notre-Dame de Paris under construction during the 13th century.)
There’s been a cathedral in Paris since the fourth century: Saint Étienne’s. Or maybe the fifth. Documentation for that time and place is sketchy, mostly because folks were adjusting to a world without the Roman Empire.
Time passed. The folks in charge remodeled Saint Étienne’s along Merovingian, Carolingian, and Romanesque lines.
Then, in 1163, the bishop of Paris signed off on plans to replace Saint Étienne’s with a new building.
I suppose assigning 1270 as a completion date for Notre-Dame de Paris makes sense. That’s when architect Pierre de Montreuil finished work on the south transept and rose window.
But the building’s gone through considerable change since then. The south rose window, for example, was reconstructed in the 18th century and replaced in the 19th.6
– – – And Two Cults
(From Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Dancing girls and reason personified: Notre-Dame, Paris, during the French Revolution)
The French monarchy’s state religion was Catholicism.
Other European monarchies had their own state religions, often some version of Protestantism.
By 1789, that had inspired centuries of religion-themed propaganda and appalling body counts.
Which I figure helps explain why assorted factions in the French Revolution agreed that the Catholic Church had to go.
That left a religion-shaped hole in French culture: which, in 1793, was filled by the Cult of Reason and then Cult of the Supreme Being. Both of which used Notre-Dame de Paris for their events.
I’ll give folks running the Cult of Reason credit. Dancing girls and a personable young stand-in for the goddess Reason sounds like an 18th century toga party.
Then Napoleon started sorting out the mess left by revolutionaries and other enthusiasts. In 1871 folks in the Paris Commune tried torching Notre-Dame de Paris, unsuccessfully.7
Faith, Landmarks and Me
(From REUTERS/Benoit Tessier, used w/o permission.)
(Reconstruction resumes: Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral’s roof. (April 15, 2021))
“Work to shore up the Notre-Dame de Paris has been finished, allowing restoration to start at the cathedral two years after a fire destroyed the attic and sent its spire crashing through the vaults below, officials said on Saturday.
“Soon after the April 2019 blaze, President Emmanuel Macron said the cathedral – which dates back to the 12th century – would be rebuilt and later promised to get it reopened to worshippers by 2024, when France hosts the Olympic Games….”
Although I’m glad to see that Notre-Dame de Paris survived the 2019 fire, and will be ready for use by 2024; I’d be happier if the Catholic Church owned the building.
But my preferences won’t change history, or the current French government’s policies.
Maybe getting Notre-Dame ready in time for the 2024 Olympics feels too ‘worldly.’
On the other hand, we wouldn’t have magnificent buildings like Notre-Dame de Paris if Medieval civic leaders didn’t think their regions would benefit from having a justifiably-famous landmark.8
I can hardly blame 21st century civic leaders from showing the same good sense.
As for whether Notre-Dame’s survival after the French Revolution and 2019 fire is “miraculous” or not? I don’t know. Much depends on how I define “miraculous.”
I do, however, think that the Catholic Church’s survival — the Church, not the places where we worship — that our still being here is wildly improbable.
Or maybe not so much, since for two millennia we’ve been saying that we’re getting help. (Catechism, 687-741, 1287, 2623)
Nothing in this universe lasts forever, including stars.
Massive stars live fast and die young: exploding as supernovae.
One of these, AT2016jka, nicknamed “Requiem,” was first spotted in 2016. It showed up again in 2019.
Scientists figure they’ll get another look in 2037, give or take a few years
But the supernova only exploded once. We’re getting reruns of the event, thanks to gravitational lensing. I’ll be taking about stars, including supernovae, gravitational lensing, and whatever else comes to mind.
Astronomers use designations like AT2016jka and MRG-M0138 for reasons I’ll discuss in “A Star by Any Other Name.”
“…Any Other Name” is currently on my back burner. The current pandemic distracted me, so I’ve got several works-in-progress. And that’s another topic.
Now, about stars, names and alphanumeric gibberish. Basically, we can see maybe 10,000 stars. That’s under ideal conditions. And, since folks occasionally discuss stars, they need ways to let other astronomers know which one they’re talking about.
We’ve named the brighter ones. Several times. Sirius, for example, has been called Aschere, Canicula, Al Shira, Mrgavyadha and Lubdhaka.
Now multiply the hassle of deciding whether everyone should call it Aschere, Al Shira or Lubdhaka by 10,000.1
Bottom line? Designations like AT2016jka make discussing stars easier. And slightly less likely to trigger arguments over which nation’s, culture’s, or language’s name is the “right” one. Even so, astronomers still use nicknames like “requiem.”
Common Origin, Different Results
(From NASA, used w/o permission.)
(Stellar evolution, from brown dwarfs to blue supergiants.)
All stars are not created equal, although they all begin the same way.
The star we call the Sun, for example, began as part of a stellar nursery: a molecular cloud that started collapsing and forming stars.
Our Sun and all its stellar siblings have been on their own for 4,600,000,000 years now. Astronomers think maybe HD 162826 and HD 186302 come from the same cloud, but that’s debatable: and debated.
At any rate, our sun is still turning hydrogen into helium and energy; and will continue doing so for billions of years.
Then, when it runs short on hydrogen, it will pulse a few times, balloon outward until its surface is about where Earth’s orbit is now, and then collapse.
Arcturus is a solar-mass star that’s at this stage in its life.
Six billion years from now, our star will be a white dwarf.
A star with considerably less mass than ours won’t become nearly as hot or bright: but will last a whole lot longer.2
Supernovae
The most massive stars become blue supergiants, burn through their hydrogen in a few million years and then collapse: compressing and heating their core to a point where heavier elements fuse, releasing energy and a whacking great quantity of neutrinos.
Stars like Betelgeuse aren’t quite as massive, but will eventually explode in about the same way.
I gather that a fair number of scientists expect Antares and Betelgeuse to become a supernovae soon.
Soon on a cosmic scale, that is: maybe 10,000 years from now for Antares and 100,000 years for Betelgeuse. Roughly. We’d have to know a great deal more about those stars and how exactly how supernovae work to get more exact forecasts.
Scientists have pegged Antares, Betelgeuse and four other nearby stars as supernovae that haven’t exploded yet. Nearby, again, on a cosmic scale.
The closest, IK Pegasi, is about 154 light-years out, in the general direction of Rotanev: a star almost nobody has heard of.
IK Pegasi isn’t a super-massive star. It’s two stars, one of them a white dwarf, and that brings me to supernovae types I, II, III, IV, and V. Light from each type looks different, depending on which parts of the spectrum are brightest and which elements are there.
Very massive stars become supernovae, but not all supernovae start as supermassive stars.
For example, if a mid-size star that’s running out of hydrogen balloons out far enough to start leaking onto a white dwarf companion, the white dwarf may get overloaded. Then it will collapse, triggering carbon fusion, which sets off fusion of heavier elements.
As with so much else in this universe, it’s complicated. And it’s only in the last century that scientists realized that supernovae weren’t the same as novae, and started figuring out how they work.3
Light and Gravity
(From Krishnavedala, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(How gravitational lensing works: massive object “b” bends light, forming two images.)
Light from the Requiem supernova reached Earth in 2016, and again in 2019. We’re expecting another Requiem rerun in 2037, give or take a few years.
If light always travels at the same speed, then how come we’re getting Requiem reruns?
Short answer, the supernova’s light has been taking different paths on its way here, because a very massive galaxy cluster is in the way.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity said that gravity fields should bend light. So does classical physics, but only about half as much.
All that was theoretical until 1979, when scientists said Twin Quasar SBS 0957+561 was actually two images of the same quasar: and backed the claim up with data and analysis.4
Supernova Requiem: More Data, Greater Precision
(From Joseph DePasquale (STScI), via NASA, used w/o permission.)
(“Requiem” supernova images: 2016 and 2019.
(Near-infrared images from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera.))
“…The light that Hubble captured from the cluster, MACS J0138.0-2155, took about four billion years to reach Earth. The light from Supernova Requiem needed an estimated 10 billion years for its journey, based on the distance of its host galaxy….
“…The lensed supernova images were discovered in 2019 by Gabe Brammer…. Brammer spotted the mirrored supernova images while analyzing distant galaxies magnified by massive foreground galaxy clusters as part of an ongoing Hubble program called REsolved QUIEscent Magnified Galaxies (REQUIEM).
“He was comparing new REQUIEM data from 2019 with archival images taken in 2016 from a different Hubble science program. A tiny red object in the 2016 data caught his eye, which he initially thought was a far-flung galaxy. But it had disappeared in the 2019 images….
“…This time-delay method is valuable because it’s a more direct way of measuring the universe’s expansion rate, Rodney explained. ‘These long time delays are particularly valuable because you can get a good, precise measurement of that time delay if you are just patient and wait years, in this case more than a decade, for the final image to return … The real value in the future will be using a larger sample of these to improve the precision.’…”
A key phrase for me in this Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA article is “…larger sample…to improve the precision….”
Knowledge, Wisdom and Living Amidst Greatness and Beauty
A great deal of what we know about about this universe — its size, age and expansion rate — comes from data that’s been collected during my lifetime. Much of it from analysis of observations made at the edge of what our instruments can detect.
Very little of our new knowledge matches, in a literal and metaphor-free way, to the Old Testament’s mythic images.
I could let that bother me, or decide that — since Abraham, Moses and all lived before the days of space telescopes — everything we’ve learned since 1650 is Satanic.5
Or that religion in general and Christianity in particular is unscientific: and therefore stupid and old-fashioned.
I could, but I won’t. And, since I’m a Catholic, ignoring this wonder-packed cosmos and what we’re learning about it isn’t required.
“Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the original source of beauty fashioned them.
“Or if they were struck by their might and energy,
let them realize from these things how much more powerful is the one who made them.
“For from the greatness and the beauty of created things
their original author, by analogy, is seen.
(Wisdom 13:3–5)
I’ve talked about that, and why I don’t see a point in denouncing weather forecasts, before. Often:
“Resolving the age and chemical abundance ratios of a quiescent galaxy at z 2”
M. Jafariyazani, A. Newman, S. Belli, R. Ellis, S. Patel, C. Conroy, B. Mobasher; American Astronomical Society meeting #235, id. 228.06. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 52, No. 1 (January 2020) Abstract via astrophysics data system, Harvard
Naming Stars
IAU (International Astronomical Union)
Clearing debris at New York City’s World Trade Center. (September 25, 2001)
These days, September 11th is mostly remembered as the date of the 9/11 attacks.
But that’s not the only ‘on this day in history’ incident from my country’s history.
The Halve Maen, for example, a Dutch East India Company vlieboot, sailed into what we call Upper New York Bay 412 years ago today.
A log entry noted that locals called an island there “Manna-hata” — or maybe that was the name for part of the island, or a hickory grove on the island’s southern tip.
We’re pretty sure that what the ship’s officer heard was Munsee “manaháhtaan,” meaning something like “place for gathering the wood to make bows. Or maybe it was “manhattoe.”
Anyway, I think “Manna-hatta” isn’t a bad effort for someone recording a word from an unfamiliar language. Although it would have been nice if the ship’s officer had recorded more about Munsee and Algonquin languages in general. And that’s another topic.
More immigrants arrived over the next few centuries.
Their cultural heritage included engaging in trade. And since “Manna-hatta” was on an excellent harbor, their settlement grew. A lot.1
Just Another Tuesday Morning
Idawriter’s photo (July 18, 2021): Walker and Centre Streets, New York City.
Then, 392 years after the “Manna-hatta” log entry, folks in Manhattan were starting another weekday morning.
It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Twenty years ago today.
At 8:46 Eastern Daylight Time, someone flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
Everyone on Flight 11, along with folks on floors 93 through 99, died.
About 16 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower.
After that, American Airlines Flight 77 flew into the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field southeast of Pittsburgh.
At 9:59, the South Tower collapsed.
The North Tower fell at 10:28.
Death, Dust and Debris
Jim Watson’s photo of Word Trade Center rubble and fires. (September 14, 2001)
By then, folks around the world had begun watching more-or-less frantic reporters trying to make sense of smoke, sirens, fleeing folks and dust. Lots of dust.
But what may have gotten the most attention after 10:28 was the burning scrapheap that had been the the World Trade Center’s twin towers.
By midday, folks in lower Manhattan and Arlington had started putting out fires and were picking through the rubble, looking for identifiable pieces of people and property.2
Lord High Muckamucks and — Finally — a Medal
FBI’s map, showing flight paths of the four aircraft hijacked September 11, 2001. (May 18, 2011)
I wasn’t taking notes at the time, so I can’t remember who insisted that two airliners flying into two of New York City’s tallest buildings was just an accident. Or the exact words.
Important people making daft statements is probably par for the course in situations like the 9/11 attacks. City and state lord high muckamucks are human, too. I’ll take the hysteria as evidence that they knew how bad it could be.
The two towers housed 430 companies employing 35,000 people. Thankfully, many were below the floors occupied by Marsh & McLennan Companies, Fuji Bank and smaller outfits.
I’m not sure when someone with both an impressive title and common sense acknowledged that my country was under attack. I figure it was before 9:45 a.m., when America’s air space started getting cleared.
At 9:57 a.m., the passengers and crew on United Airlines Flight 93 began fighting the four terrorists who’d hijacked their airliner.
Then, at 10:03 a.m., Flight 93 dove into a field, killing everyone on board.
The passengers and crew of Flight 93 were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Posthumously, of course. After only eight years of debate.3
It’s nice to know America’s Congress can get something right now and again.
Life, Death and Labels
USN/Eric J. Tilford’s photo: Fire engine at World Trade Center site in New York City. (September 16, 2001)
Although I’d imagine very few folks seriously believed that four airliners had ‘just happened’ to fly into buildings and a field, it took time to learn who the terrorists were.
And even more time to isolate DNA from scraps found in New York City, Arlington and that field, sort through testimony and surviving records, and come up with a death toll.
A reasonable estimate says that 2,996 folks were killed that day, including 19 terrorists who had committed the slaughter. That number will almost certainly change, since we’re still analyzing DNA from pieces of more than 1,100 unidentified individuals.
I’ve used the conventional “terrorist” label for the 19 people who killed thousands. I suppose they might have called themselves martyrs or heroes in a holy war.
I gather that the chap who inspired the September 11 attacks said America was guilty of attacks, aggression and atrocities against Muslims.4
I think words, labels included, matter. But that mass murder is mass murder, no matter what the killers call themselves.
I also think that human life matters. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2258-2262)
And, although I don’t always approve of what my country’s government does: I don’t think mass murder is a reasonable method for expressing disapproval.
Viewpoints
I’m an American and a Christian.
If one set of stereotypes applied, then I’d have been spending the last two decades ranting about Islam and striving to have all American Muslims deported.
But I’m a Catholic. So, applying other stereotypes, I’d have been plotting against real Americans all this time.
Or, adopting another stereotype, one that’s been fashionable much of my life, I could have displayed sophistication by declaring ‘religion kills people.’
But I’m an American, a Christian and a Catholic. So I’ll take a quick look at an imaginative alternate history.
Islam is a Catholic Plot?!
Excerpt from “Mamma’s Girls,” Chick Publications. (Currently out of print, retrieved September 9, 2021)
I’ll give Jack Chick and the folks carrying on his work at Chick Publications credit for evangelical zeal.
Accuracy, not so much.
But I’ll grant that Chick tracts tell compelling tales and proclaim clear messages.
One of those messages, part of one at any rate, is that Islam is a Catholic plot. Or, perhaps more accurately, that both are a Satanic plot.
Maybe someone who believes the message(s) in literature like “Mamma’s Girls” — that “The Whore” and Islam are in cahoots with Satan — can be convinced otherwise.
However, making the effort strikes me as an exercise in futility.
But then, I’ve rubbed elbows with folks who hold similar beliefs; and don’t enjoy metaphorically slamming my head into a brick wall.
I was going somewhere with this. Let’s see. Death, destruction, 9/11 and DNA. Stereotypes and religion. Comic books and an alternate history.
Right.
There was a time when I was in online groups which included Muslims. I probably still am, but who has which faith hasn’t been as much of an issue lately.
They were self-identified Muslims, at any rate. I can no more peer into the mind of someone online than I can face-to-face, and that’s yet another topic.
One of the points my Muslim fellow-members made was the one Ali Moeen discussed in “Yeh Hum Naheen/This Is Not Us!”5
Okay, but that doesn’t change religion’s connection with the September 11 carnage.
(Not Just) the Bible and Me
Mass murderers may have apparently-religious motives. But just as not all Christians are in the Ku Klux Klan, not all Muslims are terrorists.
And I’m quite sure that not all feel that having different beliefs deserves death.
I’m inclined to believe folks like Ali Moeen, since I’m a Catholic: and know that my faith isn’t even close to fitting Chick Publications’ “The Death Cookie” profile.
If some of my fellow-citizens are profoundly wrong about my faith, then I figure maybe they’re not 100% accurate about what other folks believe.
There’s the whole ‘respect’ thing too, but before I get to that: about the “Mama’s Girls” claim regarding Sacred Scripture and rules for Catholics.
Half of what the”religious advisor” in that comic said was almost right.
Since I’m a Catholic, I can’t read Revelation 13:2 — and decide that, Biblically speaking, its true meaning is that zoos are Satanic. Or that Doomsday is on the 132nd day of next year.
But I can read the Bible. Make that I must read the Bible.
One of my faith’s happier obligations is frequent reading and study of Sacred Scripture. (Catechism, 101-133)
And, since I’m also supposed to pay attention to wisdom accumulated over the last few millennia, I can’t start my own ‘Bible Prophecy End Times Fire Insurance’ business. (Catechism, 75-95, 2033, 2121)
Which is fine by me.
Now, about the rabidly religious and respect. But mostly respect.
Truth and Love
From “The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy” Pillar of Fire Church, Zaraphath, New Jersey. (1925)
Because I’m a Catholic, I must both seek truth and respect “…different religions which frequently ‘reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men.’…” (Catechism, 2104)
That respect includes valuing religious freedom. Everyone’s religious freedom. (Catechism, 2104-2109)
I see that sort of respect as a subset of my faith’s top obligation: loving God and my neighbors. All my neighbors. Everyone. No exceptions. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:3110:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789, 2196))
Love and respect aren’t easy when some of my neighbors have killed other neighbors, or seem convinced that folks like me are a threat to their country.
But it’s still a ‘must do.’ Or at least a must-try.
Anger and Remembrance
U.S. FEMA/Michael Rieger’s photo: (“The Sphere” at the World Trade Center. (September 21, 2001)
I’m still angry that a handful of religious fanatics murdered more than two thousand folks on September 11, 2001.
But staying angry won’t bring them back. And that’s yet again another topic.
There’s no way I can highlight every 9/11 victim, so I’ll link to one remembrance and move on:
But I’m also none too happy about the property damage: which included public and private art valued at an estimated $110,000,000. I’m not exactly ecstatic that my native culture measures art in terms of currency, and I’m wandering off-topic again.
The art thing isn’t all bad news. Some pieces, like “The Sphere” weren’t destroyed. Weren’t completely destroyed, at any rate.
And, although I’d vastly prefer that crackpots would take a cognitive leap back into reality: conspiracy theories happen. Like ‘airplanes didn’t make the towers fall because they couldn’t, that’s why.’
My favorite, in terms of weirdness, is one person’s insistence that America’s vice president ordered the Pentagon part of the attacks. I am not making that up.
The Sphere — AKA Sphere at Plaza Fountain, WTC Sphere and Koenig Sphere — is a whacking great bronze sculpture. Is, present tense.
It’s the only World Trade Center artwork recovered more-or-less intact. And, after standing in New York City’s Battery Park for a few years, it’s back at the new World Trade Center.
I think the powers that be had the right idea, dusting it off but not repairing damage sustained during the attack.6
A Special Tree
PumpkinSky’s photo: The “Survivor tree”, alive and well and back at the World Trade Center (July 16, 2012)
Finally, there’s the Survivor Tree: a callery pear tree pulled from the World Trade Center’s rubble in October 2001.
It was eight feet tall at the time; mostly burned, but with one living branch.
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation transferred it to a nursery in the Bronx for recovery. Folks didn’t expect it to survive; but when it did, they planted it in the Bronx. Then a storm blew it down, and the Bronx nursery planted it again. And it kept on not dying.
The last I heard, the Survivor Tree is back at the World Trade Center, has several namesakes, and provides photo ops for visitors.7
Oh, yes: we rebuilt the World Trade Center, and that’s — what else? — still another topic.
As for what I think the 9/11 attacks “mean;” I talked about that and free will, in “Health and Surfside Condo Collapse: Siloam Scenarios” and “Joy and Shadow, Free Will and Something Silly:”
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
Mass murderers may have apparently-religious motives. But just as not all Christians are in the Ku Klux Klan, not all Muslims are terrorists.
