Mountain Views News          Saturday, December 13, 2014

THE WORLD AROUND US

B2

Mountain Views-News Saturday, December 13, 2014 


TRACES OF MARTIAN LIFE COULD BE LOCKED IN A METEORITE; GEMINID METEOR SHOWER DEC. 13-14

Did Mars ever have life? Does it still? A 
meteorite from Mars has reignited the old 
debate. An international team that includes 
scientists from Ecole Polytechnique de 
Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) has published a 
paper in the scientific journal Meteoritics and 
Planetary Sciences, showing that Martian life 
is more probable than previously thought.

 “So far, there is no other theory that we 
find more compelling,” says Philippe Gillet, 
director of EPFL’s Earth and Planetary 
Sciences Laboratory. He and his colleagues 
from China, Japan and Germany performed a 
detailed analysis of organic carbon traces from 
a Martian meteorite, and have concluded that 
they have a very probable biological origin. The 
scientists argue that carbon could have been 
deposited into the fissures of the rock when it 
was still on Mars by the infiltration of fluid that 
was rich in organic matter.

 Ejected from Mars after an asteroid crashed 
on its surface, the meteorite, named Tissint, fell 
on the Moroccan desert on July 18, 2011, in view 
of several eyewitnesses. Upon examination, 
the alien rock was found to have small fissures 
that were filled with carbon-containing matter. 
Several research teams have already shown 
that this component is organic in nature. But 
they are still debating where the carbon came 
from.

 Chemical, microscopic and isotope analysis 
of the carbon material led the researchers to 
several possible explanations of its origin. They 
established characteristics that unequivocally 
excluded a terrestrial origin, and showed 
that the carbon content was deposited in the 
Tissint’s fissures before it left Mars.

*******

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER DECEMBER 
13-14 – If it’s clear late on Saturday and 
Sunday nights, Dec. 13 and 14, keep a lookout 
high overhead for the “shooting stars” of the 
Geminid meteor shower. “The Geminids are 
usually one of the two best meteor showers 
of the year,” says Alan MacRobert, senior 
editor at Sky & Telescope magazine. “They’re 
sometimes more impressive than the better-
known Perseids of August.”

 Under a clear, dark sky, you might see a 
shooting star every minute or two from 10 p.m. 
local time until dawn on these two nights. If 
you live under the artificial skyglow of light 
pollution the numbers will be reduced, but the 
brightest meteors will still shine through. 

 To watch for meteors, you need no 
equipment other than your eyes. Find a dark 
spot with an open view of the sky and no glary 
lights nearby. Geminids can appear anywhere 
in the sky, so the best direction to watch is 
wherever your sky is darkest, probably straight 
up. If you trace each meteor’s direction of flight 
backward far enough across the sky, you’ll find 
that this imaginary line crosses a spot in the 
constellation Gemini near the stars Castor and 
Pollux. Gemini is low in the eastern sky during 
late evening.

 The Geminid meteors are created by tiny 
bits of rocky debris (mostly the size of sand 
grains to peas) shed from a small asteroid 
named 3200 Phaethon, which was discovered 
in 1983. Before then no one knew the source of 
the Geminid shower. Phaethon is small, only 
about 3 miles across, and it loops around the 
Sun every 1.4 years in an orbit that approaches 
the Sun closer than any other known asteroid.

 Over the centuries bits of Phaethon have 
spread all along the asteroid’s orbit to form 
a sparse, moving “river of rubble” that Earth 
passes through in mid-December each year. 
The particles are traveling 22 miles per second 
(79,000 mph) with respect to Earth at the place 
in space where we encounter them. So when one 
of them dives into Earth’s upper atmosphere, 
about 50 to 80 miles up, air friction vaporizes it 
in a quick, white-hot streak.

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


THE YEAR OF NO CHRISTMAS By Christopher Nyerges

When I was around 10, 
my brothers and I were 
particularly bad, belligerent, and 
misbehaving one autumn. My 
mother gave us several warning 
and threats and a few “beatings” 
in her ceaseless attempt to get us 
to obey. I don’t recall what was 
“wrong” with us that year. It was 
as if we were afflicted by some 
unseen infection. Or maybe it 
was what all teens go through 
when they believe they know 
more than their parents. So my 
mother said, “Keep it up and 
there will be no Christmas this year.” Of course, my mother didn’t 
control the calendar. She just meant “no gifts.” That threat did at 
first affect our behavior, but then we’d go back to our nonfeasant 
and malfeasant ways. There were numerous threats, as November 
rolled into December, but things didn’t substantially improve. 

Now, I was at the age where I began to think about things, and the 
relative unfairness in the world, and the questioning of authority. 
But I also wondered why we should receive gifts at Christmas. By 
this time, I was aware that Christians 
celebrate the birth of Jesus at this time, 
and that it was primarily a religious 
holiday. I just didn’t get the whole gift 
thing –not that I minded receiving. But 
because I lacked an understanding of 
the whole picture, the idea of “no gifts” 
didn’t seem that threatening to me. 

Thinking back, our bad behaviour 
that year was likely the trickle-down 
defiance from our oldest brother. 
David was never a defier, certainly 
not an open defier, but the defiance of 
Gilbert the eldest would have trickled 
down to Thomas, to Richard, to me. 
We were not an ideal family, and I am 
sure I have suffered my entire life due to 
unnecessary defiance and the disrespect 
that I showed to my parents. Did my 
parents deserve respect? In retrospect, 
of course they did, though the question 
would have been irrelevant then – like 
the pot calling the kettle black. 

We were not saints, so who were we 
to point out hypocrisy in our parents? 
Anyway, by mid-December, the word was out: No Christmas this 
year. We were schizophrenic about this. “Oh, we don’t care,” we 
sassed, but inwardly I believe we each felt a deep dismay at our 
own inability to live up to our household’s very simple standards. I 
felt particularly dismayed that I had been no better, and that I was 
swayed along with the tide of my older brothers’ mob mentality. 
No Christmas. “She won’t follow through on it,” Tom told us with 
assurance. But inwardly, I felt my mother had to follow through, 
otherwise her word would mean little to us, and she’d gain little 
by “being nice.” I don’t recall what my father had to say about this, 
but it wasn’t much. 

So, sure enough, Christmas came, and we went glumly into the 
living room to a fire and the usual Christmas tree, but there were 
no gifts. We went to church and we talked with our schoolmates. 
When they talked about what they got for Christmas, we just found 
ways to change the subject. We had a quiet Christmas dinner. 

One of my brothers told his friends that my mother was mean, but 
I never did that. I knew we deserved nothing, and I felt a certain 
euphoric sense of justice in her actions, and I respected her more 
because of it. 

Interestingly, in certain ways, I felt closer to my mother after that, 
was more obedient because I simply felt better doing what was 
expected of me, and I never complained. Despite a seeming lack, it 
was actually one of the best Christmas’ ever, where I received the 
most fitting possible “gift” – the ability to quickly experience that 
my choices and actions have consequences. 

The story about my mean mother gradually got out into the 
neighborhood, and my mother once again became the topic of 
conversations, mostly criticizing my mother. I always remained 
silent, trying to listen to both sides. But I only heard one side—no 
gifts – from those who truly lost the meaning of Christmas, whose 
sole focus for Christmas seemed to be the acquisition of things. 

So I was “given,” slowly, a second “gift” by my mother’s action – a 
unique insight into the all-too-common mundanity of most people’s 
very narrow thinking. And I was allowed the rare opportunity to 
try and experience the meaning of Christmas without the over-
focus on material things.

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive Anywhere,” “Self-
Sufficient Home,” and other books. His blog can be read at www.
ChristopherNyerges.com. He can be contacted via his site, or Box 
41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041]