Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 23, 2013

B3

The World Around Us

 Mountain Views News Saturday, November 23, 2013 


COMET ISON ON TARGET FOR A THANKSGIVING ROASTING..

...plus Possible Pre-Dawn 
Views in Early December

 A comet that has caused a lot of excitement is 
racing toward a close encounter with the Sun on 
Thanksgiving Day. Comet ISON will pass about 
700,000 miles above the Sun’s surface before 
whipping around and heading back toward deep 
space—if it survives. If it does, the comet might 
be visible to the unaided eye before dawn for a few 
weeks after the encounter.

 For a high-resolution illustration showing how to 
spot Comet ISON in early December, visit StarDate 
Magazine’s Media Center: http://stardate.org/
mediacenter.

 While you’re there, you can also sign up to receive 
notices of upcoming sky-watching events.

 An automated asteroid-hunting telescope, part of 
the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) 
in Russia, discovered Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) 
on September 21, 2012. Some comet-watchers 
quickly suggested that it could become as bright as 
a full Moon late this year. Continued observations, 
however, show that it’s not brightening as much as 
those early optimistic projections indicated.

 The comet will get brighter as it approaches the 
Sun, but more difficult to see through the Sun’s glare. 
It will shine at its brightest as it passes the Sun, 
although it will be too close to the Sun at that time 
to view safely.

 Like all comets, ISON is a big ball of frozen gases 
and water mixed with rocks and dust. This ball, the 
comet’s nucleus, appears to be about three miles 
wide—large, as comets go. As ISON approaches 
the Sun, the heat vaporizes some of the comet’s icy 
surface. That surrounds it with a cloud of gas and 
dust that can span a hundred thousand miles or 
more. The Sun’s radiation pressure pushes some of this material outward, away from the Sun, to form a glowing tail.

 As ISON moves far enough from the Sun for us to see it in morning twilight in early December, it should be a pretty sight.

 ISON will pass closest to Earth on December 26, at a distance of about 40 million miles. (The average Sun-Earth distance is roughly 93 million miles.)

 ISON probably came from the Oort Cloud, a vast shell of icy bodies that extends out to a distance of approximately one light-year from the Sun—one-fourth of the distance to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, 
which is 4 ¼ light-years away. The Oort Cloud bodies are leftover “building blocks” from the birth of the solar system, so they contain the same mixture of materials that gave birth to Earth and the other 
planets. Astronomers believe this is probably ISON’s first-ever trip to the Sun’s vicinity.

 After a remarkable flare up in brightness on November 14, comet ISON became barely visible to the naked eye as it passed Earth on its journey toward the Sun. But the comet’s future is far from certain. 
NASA lists three possible options for what might happen: (1) the comet spontaneously breaks up sometime before Thanksgiving; (2) it is destroyed as it roasts in the Sun’s heat on Thanksgiving Day; or (3) it 
makes it away from the sun with a large tail of lost dust behind it. Spontaneous breakups are quite rare—they happen to less than 1 percent of comets—so one of the latter two options will likely come to pass 
over the next several weeks. Until then, expect more incredible photos of ISON to start surfacing—and keep looking up!

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com. 


Photo by Damian Peach

 

SPORTS


RAIDERS BRING HOME 2ND PLACE CYO 
TROPHY

Sierra Madre, CA – After an action-packed weekend of CYO-championship football, 
a proud St. Rita Raider team brought home the second place trophy, beating out 129 
of the 130 teams in the Los Angeles Archdiocese! It was their sixth championship 
game in the school’s history, which culminated with a 28-0 loss to Holy Family of 
South Pasadena.

Saturday’s game against the formidable St. James of Torrance was a nail-biter with the 
score tied at 6-6 at the half. The impressive Raider athletes turned up the heat in the 
second and a touchdown, with a successful two-point conversion, sealed their spot in 
the next day’s championship game with a 20-12 final score.

Raider pride was unmatchable as crowds of alumni and fans packed the stands on 
Sunday to support the team and their legendary coach and athletic director, Randy 
Davies. In his 43 years of coaching at St. Rita, Davies has garnered immense respect 
due to his unwavering high standards and sportsmanship. He has established many 
of the CYO rules in all sports, and passed up positions such as Director of CYO and 
others in high school athletics to remain committed to St. Rita students and athletes. 
This year, he continued to lead the way by mandating soft helmets for his players this 
year to protect them from head injuries.

St. Rita had finessed their way to victory over the Knights in league, but in this final 
game, Holy Family decided to stick to their physical brand of football and the Raiders 
couldn’t match up. Despite the loss, Davies was touched by everyone who came out 
to show their support and was extremely proud of his athletes, saying they played a season filled with 
“passion and pride.” 

“As a coach, I would surely have loved to win that game because the boys worked so hard,” Davies said. 
“…but I don’t measure my successes in those types of things. I get my greatest pride from watching our 
athletes succeed in high school and college and hope their experiences here give them some tools to 
become better parents and citizens.”

His players take pride in the fact that they defeated a number of bigger and faster teams throughout the 
season, had a 16-game winning streak and, according to Davies, “never quit believing they could win.” 

St. Rita School, located at 322 N. Baldwin Ave. in Sierra Madre, is a top-ranked Catholic parish school 
with an award-winning, championship CYO sports program. 


LA SALLE SUFFERS CIF FIRST ROUND LOSS TO CARPENTERIA


CIF 1st Round game. 24-31 loss to Carpenteria. Photo by John Blackstone

CHANTRY FLAT CABIN FOR SALE

 Cabin 102, located in the Spruce Grove area, is for sale at $60,000 OBO. This is a cute cabin that is up the 
trail a bit from Spruce Grove so that you are not overlooking the campground. The cabin is a typical size 
of around 400-500 square feet. Unlike some cabins, this one has a very a large storage area built on to the 
cabin. It comes with a wood burning stove, a separated kitchen area, plenty of sleeping area. The cabin has 
been actively used and is in great shape. Many a good meal was cooked on the stove. Water is available in 
the creek below the cabin.

 For those of you who know the Baldwins and would be sad to see them leave the canyon, don’t worry. 
They just need to find a cabin closer in to main canyon. 

The inside of the cabin can be seen by appointment on a Friday or Saturday. If you are not familiar with 
the area, we recommend that you hike up to see it to be sure that the distance (approximately 4 miles) will 
work for you. 

 Three pictures are posted on Facebook (Adams’ Pack Station). Please call the Pack Station at 626.447.7356 
or emailif you have questions: dburgess@adamspackstation.com