Astronomy and Astrology and Changing Zodiac Signs

Referencing all this astrology stuff, I feel like Luke Wilson in the movie 'Idiocracy'...C'mon people this isn't new stuff! Some poor guy somewhere was trying to explain axial precession and the difference between astronomy and astrology and the 'students'-whoever they were-obviously there was a reporter in the bunch- misunderstood and somehow this makes the news as something 'new'. OK, I've been suckered in and I'll try to explain this in a less scientific way.

I was horrified by what I saw on NBC news last night, the anchor said 'precision' instead of 'precession', and referred to Ophiuchus as an 'unpronounceable constellation'. Off-e-YOU-kuss, if anyone is interested. Why he did not Google it and learn how to pronounce it is beyond me. I usually watch ABC, but for whatever reason NBC was playing on the tube. I know that today some media outlets are also trying to clarify this 'news', but I thought I would also give it a shot. We are the first group of humans who have lost touch with the reality of the night sky. We struggle to learn and see and understand, whereas just over a hundred years ago, everyone knew the constellations. Runaway slaves navigated by them, as did sailors. We have lost this in modern times and it is sadly no longer part of our culture. Most places are so light polluted that you can't even see the stars at night, but I digress.

Astrology is based on the idea that the Earth is at the center of the solar system and that planets and the sun and the moon revolve around the Earth, and have a influence on life here. Astrology uses the positions of the the solar system objects relative to a fixed Earth to try to explain Earthly events and predict the future. Most astrologers today use a system based on the ideas of Ptolemy, the Egyptian astrologer, astronomer and mathematician who lived almost two thousand years ago in the first century AD. In those days, the science of astronomy and the art of astrology were mixed practices. Today astronomers go to great lengths to separate themselves from astrologers.

Astronomy recognizes that the sun is the center of the solar system. People become confused because the two use most of the same constellations. Think of constellations as road maps for the sky. The plane of the solar system is the ecliptic and it is across that ring-like path that we can see the other planets, as well as the Sun and Moon, seemingly move across our sky. This is why people used to think the solar system was Earth-centered. Think of the constellations that fall on the ecliptic 'ring in the sky' as cities marking an interstate map. We call the group of them the zodiac constellations. Astrology recognizes only twelve for simplicity, but like the boundaries of cities, scientists have also changed the boundaries of constellations over the past several thousand years. Everything changes in our universe because everything is moving...The Earth is moving, the Sun is moving, the solar system itself is moving..The Earth is tilted and has a slight wobble. Over thousands of years that wobble causes us to see and view the stars differently. Today, in our time, Polaris is the north star or more properly, the pole star, but due to the Earth's tilt and wobble the imaginary pole line has not always pointed to that star. Around 3500 BC, the star Thuban or Alpha Draconis was the pole star. Around 400 BC, the pole star was Kochab in Ursa Minor. You know this star as the second brightest star in the Little Dipper. It is in the ladle of the dipper whereas Polaris, our current pole star, is the end of the handle of the dipper.

Imagine that the Earth is wearing a hula hoop in a fixed, almost level location near the equator. Over time the Earth wobbles and tilts, the hula hoop also tilts and 'moves'. If you were on the Earth, you would see the hoop change positions if you lived long enough. The ecliptic is an imaginary line representing the average plane of the solar system, but if you could look up and see it as a giant roadway or hula hoop, you would see that thousands of years ago it ran farther north than it does today. It moves. It takes almost 26000 years for the Earth to make one full circle in its wobble, and that is called axial precession or precession of the equinoxes. It is pronounced like 'pre-session', not pro-session or pre-cision.

Ophiuchus is and always has been a constellation in the sky on the ecliptic above Scorpius (and there's another difference, Scorpius v. Scorpio). At this moment in time, the constellation of Ophiuchus doesn't really lie on the ecliptic-neither does Aries, but they have in the past and while Western astrologers don't count Ophiuchus as a zodiac sign, astronomers do because it is what is known as a sidereal zodiac constellation. There are several other small constellations that also might touch the ecliptic at a given point in time. Western astrology just generalizes and keeps the zodiac at 12 tropical constellations by convention. Ophiuchus was once called Serpentarius. If you remember Greek mythology, you will recall that Hercules fought a great serpent, and in the sky, Ophiuchus the serpent bearer is next to the constellation of Hercules. To our eyes, the brightest stars are in the shape of a large coffin, so some people call Ophiuchus the Coffin.

Again, modern Western astrology is based on a fixed system-an Earth that doesn't move-that , whereas things move around it. the changes they recognize are those dealing with the seasons, how an area of Earth is oriented to the sun.

Astronomy understands that everything moves and that things change over time. Precession is slow, but we can actually see the movement as it is almost one degree for every 70 years. (360 degrees in a circle-remember the imaginary line at the pole wobbling makes a big circle in the sky-70 times 360 equals 25200 years. It's close. )

Now, has your sun sign changed??

Yes in astronomical terms and no in astrological terms.

First, understand what your sun sign is in astrology...it is the constellation on the horizon at the point where the sun rises on the day you were born. As the seasons change, the constellations change. Above, I used the analogy that a constellation was like a city with its borders changing. In 1930 the International Astronomical Union set a uniform standard for the borders of constellations. Not all constellations are the same size and the sun would spend less time rising in Aries(small constellation) than it would in Aquarius(large constellation) The IAU just defined the borders of the constellations as they were and took no consideration of astrologers needs for something uniform and regular.

Astrologers fixed the dates that demark a sun sign, but in reality, because of precession and because everything is moving, sidereal astronomers know that the Sun, for example, actually rises in Taurus from about May 16-June 5, not from the fixed April 20th to May 21st. About every seventy and a half years, it changes by a day. The May 16 start date is based on IAU calculations for the year 2002.

Ptolemy died in the year 168 AD.

2002 AD minus 168 AD equals 1834 years.

1834 years divided by 70.5 years equals 26 days.

April 20(the fixed astrological date) + 26 days = May 16 (the approximate actual date that the sun begins to rise in Taurus)

In our lifetimes, this hasn't changed appreciably. My birthday is May 13th so sidereally, actually, on the day I was born, the sun rose in the constellation of Aries, not Taurus, but astrologically speaking, I am a stubborn, earthy Taurean. Anyone who knows me knows that to be truer than you could believe. However, the fact that I am writing this note is an act very characteristic of an Arian.

In sidereal astronomy, the sun also rises in the constellation of Ophiuchus between November 29 and December 17. In modern Western astrology, this overlaps the sun signs of Scorpius and Sagittarius, and therefore is not used in order to simplify things.

One system, astrology, is fixed. The other, astronomy, changes.

If you believe in astrology, then your sun sign has not changed. If you were a Taurus, you are still a Taurus.

Going Green

My employer, a few months before I was hired, quietly initiated an voluntary environmental management system known as ISO 14001. This past Tuesday, after a week long audit, we have been recommended to be certified as ISO 14001. That is usually just a small formality-for the most part, we can say that we are ISO 14001 certified, or at least, we soon will be, but for the purposes of this blog, I will assume we already are.

We are now the only commercial flooring adhesive manufacturer in the US to be ISO certified. This is HUGE, and I am proud to say that I intend to play a more important role in this program in the future as anyone who knows me knows how much I care about the Earth, the interconnected nature of living things-Gaia, and environmental issues in general. Our environmental policy is straight in line with my personal belief set and green goals-conserving energy, reducing my footprint, becoming self sufficient and striving to live in harmony with nature. I also hope to become more active in the GreenBuilding community in the coming years.

http://www.usgbc.org/
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=222

My dream home is a passive solar earth sheltered home in the back pasture at the ridge line. Green Building, rather, sustainable building, is not new to me. It is a rare find to work in a place where your personal ethics and environmental concerns are shared by upper management. One day soon, our company will be building a new lab and office. I saw the architect's plans and WOW, would you believe that the building will be a LEED certified passive solar building with louvers to control the light and other energy saving features?!? How cool is that?

For those who aren't familiar with ISO 14001, you can learn more from the links below, and hopefully, for the sake of our planet, you can convince your employer and/or your community to follow suit. It can make a real difference, both for your organization, and for the Earth.

http://www.iso.org/iso/management_standards.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_14000

To quote Wiki, "The aim of the standard is to reduce the environmental footprint of a business and to decrease the pollution and waste a business produces."

And this could only be the beginning. We, as a business, could go even further, making even more voluntary changes that would benefit the company's bottom line and the environment. In fact, one such program that we could probably benefit from is called Six Sigma. Motorola invented this strategy for consistent business improvement back in the 1980's, and since then, other large, successful companies like GE and Honeywell have developed Six Sigma programs. It is really all about statistics-(I really, really wish I had taken more statistical studies in college). The Greek letter sigma, "σ" or "Σ", is equivalent to our "s" or "S". Sigma is the mathematical sign for standard deviations and there is a mathematical model that states that if there are six standard deviations between the process mean(the average in a data set) and the nearest specification limit, practically no items will fail to meet specifications. It is a process, and if your business operates within the process, then you will make less errors, 3.4 errors per one million opportunities, to be exact. In other words, if you put a system like this in place, and you make a million products a year, you can expect less than 4 product issues as a result of production or business error per million units. It is actually pretty interesting how far math can take you these days. Who knew that statistics would ever be so important in something other than baseball? ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
http://www.ge.com/en/company/companyinfo/quality/whatis.htm

It is an insane world. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but it sure is nice to work for a company that morally and ethically tries to do what is right. They get it. In a world where no one can agree on the cause of global warming, whether or not it exists, and what should be done about it, if anything, I have found an oasis of green common sense in my workplace. It is refreshing. I only wish I hadn't wandered around in the desert for so long.

Ch..Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes

I survived my first week back in the workforce after a year of being at home. I did not have any real problem getting up for work(I know that surprises some of you!), but I am definitely feeling the job in my feet. I don't yet have a desk and have been mostly standing all week long. My computer came in Friday(it is a nice looking Dell), but without a desk or workspace, obviously I can't use it. I thought my foot was 100% healed after the surgery, but I have discovered otherwise. There wasn't too much walking to the job, and certainly no exertion, just standing.

The best part of the 'new job experience' is the people. My co-workers all seem competent and seem to have a good work ethic. I've seen no slackers, no idiots. That's a good thing as I can't stand to be the only one working while everyone else surfs the internet or plays games on their phone or makes personal phone calls, etc. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. It is a good group of folks to work with, and I think that can make or break any job. Even if you love your job, if you can't stand the ones you work with, you can be miserable.

This past week, I've been 'training' with the QC guy. Instead of filling a position, I'll be carving out a niche for myself in the lab. I'll start with taking over some of the more mundane tasks, clerical minutia, that are weighing down the other chemists-things like recording spec data and filing certificates, MSDS sheets, etc. I'll fill in for the QC guy and probably perform some testing for the R&D guys. I'll probably do more bench work as I gain more experience, but for now, I'm
just learning the products and their applications and specs. There are probably 65 or 70 formulas or more, many sold under more than one label, so it can be confusing. In addition, I'm not familiar with many of the raw materials, so there is a LOT to learn before I start mixing anything! I'm still not sure whether or not I will be working more in QC or in R&D, but there is always the possibility of doing both. The company is growing and I'll have options. It is SO much better than the last place I worked. They are like night and day.

On the homefront, I did not make it into the garden at all this past week, so this morning I had lots of beans and okra to pick and process. I got almost two gallons of beans, which isn't bad considering the fact that it is October. I made some fresh guacamole with the few tomatoes I picked, and sliced and froze the okra for frying later. I did take about 20 of the smallest pods and tossed them into a pickle jar. I had a hankering for pickled okra, but since the fridge is already full, I did not want to open a new jar. I had a jar of pickles that only had a few pickles in the brine, so I tossed the okra, some cayenne peppers and some garlic into the jar, shook it, and tomorrow I'll start snacking on the okra. In three weeks, I go back to get my cholesterol checked, and okra is a wonder food for lowering cholesterol. I'll eat a lot of it in the coming weeks. Tomorrow, I'll can a small jar of Anaheims and Poblanos for use in burritos or beans, and I have a 9 cubic foot wheelbarrow full of peanut vines to process. I'll remove the peanuts from the vine, brush off the dirt, and allow them to dry a few more days in the house. They have been in the wheelbarrow on the porch, which isn't ideal for drying and curing, but with the rain last week, it was the best I could do. I did not want to lose my peanut crop to mice, rats, or squirrels.

Skyguy spent the day bleaching and pressure washing the deck and the front of the house. He'll probably spend the better part of tomorrow finishing the job. We were going to try to wait until Spring to replace the kitchen window, but I'm afraid it won't last through the winter and I really think we need to replace it now. I think we can get energy credits if we do it before November, too. First is the pressure washing, then the window replacement, then the house gets a new paint job. Next weekend we have a 5 year NWGAA anniversary event here at the farm, and I really did not want our guests to wonder if the algea would attack them while they ate. The house and deck face north, and with all the rain this year, everything is green and slimy. The deck was a safety hazard.

Thursday, Skyguy and I celebrated (and I use that term loosely) 25 years of marriage. We had plans to eat out, but that night we were both tired and decided to just go home and have a normal evening. After all, it was 'Survivor' night, and we had to watch evil Russell scheme and plot his way to through the game. We decided that we would celebrate on Friday and would rent our 'Jacuzzi room' at the Hampton Inn. We started doing that years ago when we did not have TV and had limited water supply. It was nice to take a hot shower of unlimited length, enjoy heat without loading a log into the stove, lounge around in the Jacuzzi, and watch TV, hopefully some boxing or ultimate fighting or maybe a Formula One race. We would try to do that once a year, at least, just to relax and enjoy things that most folks take for granted. Even though we now have satellite TV and a new well so we don't run out of water, we still like to go to "our room"at the Hampton. So on Friday after work, we grabbed dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and went to the hotel to check in. As it turns out, 'our' room is no longer there. Apparently the hotel removed the jacuzzi due to a leak, and now the only room with a jacuzzi is actually a room where the whirlpool is in the bathroom and you can't watch television from the bathroom. It was disappointing, the end of a tradition, but we rightly decided not to waste money on that anymore, so we stopped by Home Depot and drove home where we were greeted by a couple of very happy dogs. I spent a few hours last night looking for another 'Jacuzzi room', and I did find a hotel in Dalton, but I just don't know. It is so tempting to just take the credit card and just buy a damned hot tub for the deck. With that, I never need to leave home. I have dreamed about that for close to twenty years now.

Bugs

Yesterday, while picking tomatoes in the garden, I noticed this interesting looking 'wheel bug', a type of assassin bug, on a volunteer tomatillo. They are considered beneficial, but they do bite. It is more like a puncture than a bite, but it is painful and can become infected. If you look closely, you can see that he has killed a small bee. The nymph stage of this insect is red and black and is what I call the 'backwards bug' because the back legs and raised rump look like the bug is backwards. Earlier in the year, I saw hundreds of nymphs, but have only seen two adult wheel bugs, both yesterday. The other day, I was stung by a saddleback caterpillar. I did not see him when he stung me, but I suspected that was what got me. My forearm and wrist started burning while I was harvesting oregano. I put some crushed plantain on it and took a Benedryl when I came in the house. The next day, I found the caterpillar on the floor under the hanging bunch of oregano. I'm glad I found the fuzzy beast before the dogs did. Apparently I am not as allergic to them as I am to bees as the whelting was gone the next day. If you have ever been stung by a jellyfish, that's what I relate this to. It is a very similar feeling. Anyway, it's too bad that Mr. Wheelbug did not find Mr. Saddleback before I did. It is just my luck that a beneficial insect like a wheel bug would be eating my mason bees.







While I am on bugs, I thought some of you might like to see what we locals call 'Mexican grasshoppers' or Devil Horse grasshoppers. It is a type of Eastern Lubber, and I have never seen them outside of this valley. It is obviously a isolated local population as even people who live 15 miles away in Calhoun are amazed when they seen these grasshoppers on the road. That's where you usually see them, on the road. You can actually hear them crunch as you run over them.





This yellow flowering plant is an unknown that I'm hoping someone can help identify. It looks somewhat like a Jerusalem artichoke, but it shorter and only has 5 petals instead of 12. It is blooming now. For comparison, you can see the JA flowers in the background of squash picture. The leaves are very similar, but the unknown plant only grows to about 3.5 feet tall.

The Perseid Meteor Shower Explained

Tonight is the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower, one of the most popular meteor showers of the year. Folks lay out in the dark and count the meteors as they enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. Some are green, some are yellow, some are orange. Some meteors could be called fireballs-fireballs can make a whistling noise, make a sonic boom, or may even leave a smoke trail. It's hard to believe, but the Perseid meteors are pieces of a comet called Swift-Tuttle.

Picture, if you will, a model of the solar system in your head. Swift-Tuttle is a 6 mile wide comet(about the size of the one that supposedly killed the dinosaurs) named for the two astronomers, Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle, who discovered it back in 1862, during the Civil War. The comet had actually been observed for a couple of thousand years, but it wasn't until 1862 when it's elliptical orbit was calculated and they discovered it's period to be 120 years or so. They predicted the return of the comet for sometime around 1982. Comets get subjected to all kinds of forces and therefore it is hard to predict when they will return. The conventional theory that comets are dirty snowballs is under debate-I personally don't subscribe to the dirty snowball theory, but for the sake of this blog, I will stick to convention. Anyway, as the snowball comet approaches the sun, it begins to outgas and sling particles off it's surface, leaving a tail, a trail, that is often seen by observers. Once the gasses have dissipated, blown away by the solar wind, the small rocky particles still remain, floating along a debris trail in space. Some particles are large, some are almost microscopic. Each time the comet makes a pass, it adds a few more lines of debris, like a dog tracking mud into the house for the third time. Every year, the Earth, as it orbits the sun, passes though the dirt trail left by Comet Swift Tuttle, and as those pieces of dirt hit our atmosphere, we call them meteors. From Earth, it you look to space to determine exactly where the meteor stream originates, you will see that if you trace them back, they will all form a line back to a general spot in the sky, in this case, the constellation of Perseus. All meteor showers have a radiant constellation. The Geminids, in December, can be seen by looking in the direction of the constellation of Gemini. The Taurids originate from the constellation of Taurus. Each meteor shower is named for the radiant constellation, not, ironically, for the comet that created the debris trail. Some years, Earth travels through a part of the debris trail that is thick, and some years it travels though an area where there is not much debris, areas we have swept clean on prior years. If we are lucky, the comet has passed through laying down a new debris trail for the planet to pass through, creating a show that will become an active meteor shower.

As I mentioned before, the comet was due to return around 1982, but it did not show up until 10 years later in 1992. The reason for the delay could have been because it was affected by the gravity of other planets or moon, something in the Kuiper Belt, or a change in mass causing a loss of velocity from the outgassing and particle loss. There are a lot of variables that affect comet prediction. An astronomer named Brian Marsden solved the mystery in 1973. He correctly proposed that the outgassing would elongate the comets orbit creating a 130 year period. He correctly predicted the return of Swift Tuttle in 1992. Marsden made predictions based on the new orbit and velocities of Swift Tuttle, and August 14, 2126. But if the actual date of perihelion (when the comet makes its closest approach to the sun) was off by 15 days from his prediction (as the 1992 perihelion had been off by 17 days), the comet and the Earth might be in the same place in space at the same time. Since Comet Swift-Tuttle is thought to be about 10 kilometers or six miles across, the same size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, it must be taken seriously and watched closely for any additional changing variables.

Marsden continued to refine his work, and he traced the comet's path back 2000 years matching observations in 188 AD and 69 BC. Marsden concluded that it is highly unlikely the comet will be 15 days off in 2126, and he called off his warning of a possible collision. His new calculations show Comet Swift-Tuttle will pass a comfortable 15 million miles from Earth on its next trip to the inner solar system. The thing is, there is no way to really know what will happen with so many variables in play.

Worry not about Swift Tuttle colliding with Earth, just grab a bottle of wine, some blankets, some fruit, cheese, chocolate, and most importantly, those you love, and head off to a dark place. Lie on your back and watch Nature's Fireworks. Have fun! I'm socked in the clouds here. Bummer, but at least we have seen more than a few Perseids during the last few weeks. I'll take what I can get, I suppose. I'll be watching for them over the coming weeks. Just becuase you miss the peak doesn't mean the excitement is over. I have seen a lot of really cool fireballs after peak time.

Non-trivial Science related Trivia

I have this list of useless, but interesting random trivia, so for something different, I thought I would share the list with you. As you might expect, most have a science bent....Big surprise on that one as you all know, Bev is Earth.

Pavement on land creates "expressways" for oil and other pollutants to run into the ocean. "Every eight months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into our waters -- the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill," --- from the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003

That's why I like my gravel driveway. Yeah, it is rut filled and gets the vehicles muddy, but at least I know that my pollutants stay here and do not become someone else's problem downstream in the watershed.

The quest of alchemists—to change base metals into gold—was achieved to a certain degree in Soviet nuclear reactors, where radioactivity transformed some lead nuclei into gold.

The largest reservoirs of gold on Earth, about 10 billion tons, are the oceans. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to get it out. Gold is also plentiful elsewhere in the solar system. In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid, Eros, contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth.

That's a WOW from me. I heard the other day on TV that all the gold ever mined in the history of human mining would fill only two Olympic sized swimming pools. Same show informed me that a gold bar weighs about 27 pounds.

Kevlar, superglue, cellophane tape, Teflon, Post-it notes, photographs, and the phonograph: All were laboratory blunders. Chinese alchemists were trying to make an elixir of immortality and made gunpowder instead.

Speaking of Kevlar... the International Space Station is covered with a foot-thick blanket of Kevlar to protect it from over 100,000 meteoroids that will slam into it over a 20 year period. Of course, every day, up to 4 billion meteoroids fall to Earth, most of them insanely small, but you never know when a killer rock might slip in undetected.

Life on earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, but sex did not evolve until more than 2 billion years later. Asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in many important ways, so it is unclear why sexual reproduction developed.

The hermaphroditic earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has both male and female genitalia. If it cannot find a mate, the worm doubles up so that its female bits and male bits can go to town.

Some fish and reptiles can 'change sex'. In marine environments near coral reefs, most fish change sex at least once in their life, and they can have both male and female organs at the same time, like the worm.

Homosexual behavior is found in at least 1,500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird, and even invertebrates.
In the animal world, there doesn't seem to be a choice, just an adaption. Nature wins.


Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol, into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.

Americans generate 472 billion pounds of trash every year, including 96 billion pounds of food trash—more than 300 pounds per person, wasted.

Food waste is only 2 percent of the total waste. The rest is industrial refuse, including mine tailings, agricultural waste, construction debris, and chemicals

One quart of motor oil, improperly disposed of, can pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.
WOW!


Each year, consumers in the United States spread 300 million pounds of chemical insecticides, including compounds that the EPA says may impair the nervous system, disrupt hormones in the body, or cause cancer.
Not me, not me-I'm getting greener all the time!


Landfills are actually the No. 1 human-generated source of methane, belching 7 million tons into the atmosphere each year.
Those poor cows and pigs have really gotten a bum rap.

Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York, which closed in 2001, is the world's largest city dump, covering about 2,200 acres