Flying On The Fringe

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced in March that the Hubble Telescope had picked up a fascinating image of the birth of a new star, currently identified as IRAS 14568-6304. The photo they posted is shown below. The new star is the bright spot at the top of the gold glow (not the bright one above it).

I think the scientists must have been  very excited—they managed to make their announcement quite poetic:

Like a hatchling pecking through its shell, this particular stellar newborn is forcing its way out into the surrounding universe.

This discovery is just one of many to come out of international cooperation in the field of astrophysics. The Hubble is managed by the European Space Agency, and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite that first identified the new star is a joint project of the US, the UK and the Netherlands, launched in 1983 to make the first all-sky infrared survey from space.

The ESA reported that if our eyes could register the faint infrared glow of the gas in the cloud, it would stretch across our sky more than 70 times the size of the full moon. It contains enough gas to make 250,000 stars like the sun.

The new star is one of several in the Circinus molecular cloud complex. It is ejecting gas at supersonic speeds and eventually will clear a hole in the cloud, allowing it to be easily visible to the outside universe. IRAS 14568-6304 is just the first among a number of sibling stars to break out of its parent cloud. The dark swath running across the image is the Circinus molecular cloud. The cloud is 2280 light-years away and stretches across 180 light-years of space. At longer infrared wavelengths, this darkness is filled with point-like stars that will one day break out like their big sister.

It is such a breath of fresh air to see international cooperation yield exciting results. I wonder what our world would be like if we elected scientists instead of politicians.

ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgements: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), S. Meunier

It has often been said that “life imitates art.” That is no less true in science fiction than it is in any other form of art. Developments in science are often spurred by the creative mind of a Leonardo da Vinci, Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov.

Star Trek introduced the concept of the “prime directive,” the rule that space-faring species were not allowed to interfere with the development of life on the planets they discovered. How close are we to encountering that reality? Closer than you might think.

On May 10, a group of NASA scientists announced in The Astrophysical Journal that they have confirmed the existence of 2,325 planets beyond our solar system. Of those, 550 are earth-sized planets, and nine of those orbit their suns in the “habitable zone,” the distance that makes it plausible for them to contain liquid water, considered the most important element in the generation of life. And that’s just life as we know it (from earthsky.com, May 12, 2016). All of those were discovered by the Kepler telescope in one tiny area of the Milky Way.

“I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years.” (NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan, and quoted by Mike Wall, Senior Writer, Space.com.)

We may not have to go beyond our own solar system. Mars has topographical features that hint that it had liquid water at some time in the past, or may have occasional flows from melting ice even now. Could there be surviving subterranean microbial life? At least two of the largest moons of Jupiter also have signs of water, and scientist are exploring the possibility that they might have liquid oceans below their icy surfaces.

Scientists are beginning to debate the necessity for a “prime directive.” How should alien planets and alien life be treated? Do we have the right to terraform a habitable planet or moon, possibly destroying indigenous microbes? What if those microbes are the forerunners of sentient life? Given the deplorable job we’ve done of protecting and nurturing the wealth of resources on our own planet, do we have the right to muck up some other planet’s future?

One of the aspects of science fiction I like best is it’s ability to force us to face moral issues that society would prefer to ignore. Star Trek challenged racial discrimination in several episodes. Now science fiction is forcing us to face the moral issue of how we should treat alien life, even microbial life. Time to implement the “prime directive” before it is too late.

Quote of the day: Feeling a few butterflies is the beginning of any great new adventure. Matthew “Kaboomis’Loomis, author, buildyourownblog.com

Welcome to my very first ever blog post! I have been planning this for probably five months or more, but taking the plunge and actually doing it terrified me. I created an entire shopping list of excuses for postponing creation of the blog, but underlying them all was fear.

This week I took the first real step: I set an appointment with my son to help me set up the physical website. That gave me a deadline. I still almost chickened out. While he was sitting beside me waiting for me to tell him what I wanted, I went surfing, claiming I needed to know a little more about what was involved so I would be able to understand what he was recommending to me. In my Internet travels I came across Mr. Loomis’s site, where he leads you step by step through creating a blog. You actually create it as you go through his steps.

I confess I only got through step 2 on his website, because I got excited and actually started! Of course, the first thing that happened was that I wanted a layout that was far more complex than the basic templates, so my son had to do quite a bit of work on it after all. But I took the plunge!

We all deal with fear when starting on a new quest. But if you allow the fear to conquer you, you will never move forward, never accomplish anything. Failure is a step in learning. When I joined Mid South Writers Group nearly ten years ago, I really had no intention of writing a book. I was intrigued, though. A story had been floating around in my head for years before that, but putting it to paper? Probably not for me.

Of course, my writers group had no intention of letting me off so easily. And so, soon I was writing it down. And learning the things I was doing wrong. But with work, failures turned into success, and now my first book is scheduled for publication early in 2017.

So embrace the fear, stare it down, defeat it.