Mountain Views News          Saturday, February 21, 2015

THE WORLD AROUND US

14

Mountain Views-News Saturday, February 21, 2015 


OUR SUN HAD A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH ANOTHER STAR—JUST 70,000 YEARS AGO


Astronomers have identified the closest known 
flyby of a star to our solar system: a dim star that 
passed through the Oort Cloud about 70,000 years 
ago, coming within 0.8 light years of the Sun.

 A group of astronomers from the U.S., Europe, 
Chile and South Africa have determined that a 
recently discovered dim star is likely to have passed 
through the solar system’s distant cloud of comets, 
the Oort Cloud. No other star is known to have ever 
approached our solar system this close—five times 
closer than the closest star, Proxima Centauri.

 In a paper published in Astrophysical Journal 
Letters, lead author Eric Mamajek from the 
University of Rochester and his collaborators 
analyzed the velocity and trajectory of a low-mass 
star system nicknamed “Scholz’s star.”

 The star’s trajectory suggests that 70,000 years 
ago it passed roughly 0.8 light years (5 trillion miles) 
from the Sun. This is astronomically close—our 
closest neighbor star today, Proxima Centauri, is 
4.2 light years distant. In fact, the astronomers are 
98% certain that it passed through what is known 
as the “outer Oort Cloud”—a region at the edge of 
the solar system filled with trillions of comets a mile 
or more across that are thought to give rise to long-
period comets orbiting the Sun after their orbits are 
perturbed.

 The star originally caught Mamajek’s attention 
during a discussion with co-author Valentin D. 
Ivanov, from the European Southern Observatory. 
Scholz’s star had an unusual mix of characteristics: 
despite being fairly close (only 20 light years away), it 
showed very slow tangential motion, that is, motion 
across the sky. The radial velocity measurements 
taken by Ivanov and collaborators, however, showed 
the star moving almost directly away from the solar 
system at considerable speed.

 Mamajek worked with former University of 
Rochester undergraduate Scott Barenfeld (now a 
graduate student at Caltech) to simulate 10,000 
orbits for the star, Of those simulations, 98% showed 
the star passing through the outer Oort cloud, but 
fortunately only one of the simulations brought 
the star within the inner Oort cloud, which could 
trigger so-called “comet showers.”

 While the close flyby of Scholz’s star likely had 
little impact on the Oort Cloud, Mamajek points 
out that “other dynamically important Oort Cloud 
perturbers may be lurking among nearby stars.” 
The recently launched European Space Agency 
Gaia satellite is expected to map out the distances 
and measure the velocities of a billion stars. With 
the Gaia data, astronomers will be able to tell which 
other stars may have had a close encounter with us 
in the past or will in the future.

 Currently, Scholz’s star is a small, dim red dwarf 
in the constellation of Monoceros the Unicorn, 
about 20 light years away. At the closest point in its 
flyby of the solar system, Scholz’s star would have 
been a 10th magnitude star—about 50 times fainter 
than can normally be seen with the naked eye. It is 
magnetically active, however, which can cause stars 
to “flare” and briefly become thousands of times 
brighter. So it is possible that Scholz’s star may have 
been visible to the naked eye by our ancestors 70,000 
years ago for minutes or hours at a time during rare 
flaring events.

 The star is part of a binary star system: a low-
mass red dwarf star (with mass about 8% that of 
the Sun) and a “brown dwarf” companion (with 
mass about 6% that of the Sun). Brown dwarfs are 
considered “failed stars”; their masses are too low to 
fuse hydrogen in their cores like a star, but they are 
still much more massive than gas giant planets like 
Jupiter.

 

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

WHY I WROTE MY BOOKS: 

EXTREME SIMPLICITY: 

HOMESTEADING IN THE CITY 

by Christopher Nyerges

 

[Nyerges is the author of several books, including “Enter the Forest” and “How 
to Survive Anywhere.” He can be reached at Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, 
or www.ChristopherNyerges.com]


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP

This year I celebrate another birthday. I hate to say it, but this is getting rather monotonous. 
Every year I celebrate my birthday. Of course, when the year comes around with no 
birthday to celebrate everybody will know what has happened.

 The only thing I am wrestling with is which birthday am I going to celebrate? I have so many from which to choose, 
it is hard to really pick out the birthday I want to celebrate.

 Some people like to pick the newest birthday to celebrate. I, on the other hand, believe that since it is my birthday, I 
have the option and right to pick which birthday I am going to celebrate.

 It will take me several months to decide, so I need to get started now to pick out which birthday to celebrate.

 In thinking this matter over, I have been tempted to celebrate my first birthday because I have no memories of 
that birthday whatsoever. I am not sure my parents could afford a camera, because there are no pictures of that first 
birthday. It is rather sad, but I think I can change that.

 To celebrate my first birthday would be a rather awesome thing. The first birthday is celebrating the beginning of 
your life. However, the thing that makes it somewhat crazy is, at that time in life you do not know what to think about 
as far as life is concerned. After all, being only one year old does not give much time to contemplate what the world is 
all about. There is a certain degree of innocence in a one year old that fast fades as birthdays come and go.

 As I think about celebrating my first birthday, I thought about sitting on the floor in diapers, drooling, while 
everybody is singing happy birthday to me. That picture kinda cancels any desire I have to celebrate my first birthday.

 Then I thought about celebrating my 100th birthday. That would be awesome. I may not be around when I am 100 
years old and even if I was around at that time, I may not know what is going on around me. Now that would be the 
perfect time to celebrate.

 Then another disturbing thought entered my head. Just like my first birthday on my 100th birthday, I could be 
sitting on the floor in diapers, drooling, while everybody around me is singing happy birthday. I do not think we want 
to go there.

 Before I can make any real decisions along this line, I think I am going to have to take a little nap.

 As I was taking my nap and just before I slipped off into la-la land, I thought about how old I really am. I am old 
enough so that I can take a nap in the afternoon without anyone thinking anything negative about it. If that is not 
something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

 If I am going to celebrate my birthday, whichever one I choose, I will have as the focus of that celebration the 
wonderful privilege of taking naps. The older I get, the more accommodating an afternoon nap really is. That’s worth 
celebrating.

 I can remember when younger, if caught taking a nap people made fun of me. “What’s the matter with you,” people 
would say as they pointed laughing in my direction.

 To tell them I was just taking a nap did not do anything for my reputation.

 Now, the situation is completely changed. I can have a nap in the morning and then another one in the afternoon 
and then, believe it or not, I can take a nap just before I go to bed for the night.

 I feel sorry for those people who are not able to sleep at night. I am definitely not one of them. Sleep has not been a 
hobby to me; it is a full-time occupation I have mastered.

 I am not quite sure how old I was when my parents taught me a little prayer for when you go to bed. It began, “Now 
I lay me down to sleep.” If only I could remember how old I was when I learned that, I would celebrate that birthday.

 Nothing has been more beneficial to me than being able to say, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” regardless of the time 
of day. What a wonderful thing it is to be able to sleep and not be harassed by “well-meaning friends” who just don’t get 
it.

 I have not come to any conclusion about which birthday to celebrate this year, but I do plan to celebrate this whole 
idea concerning sleep.

 When I was very young, I would fall asleep whenever and not think anything of it. As I got older, it became 
embarrassing for someone to catch me napping. Then, I passed a certain milestone in life; I do not know which 
milestone it was, where I am not embarrassed anymore for anybody catching me asleep.

 I think that is what I am celebrating this year. At my birthday party, right after the cake, everyone will join me in 
taking a nap.

 David understood the importance asleep when he wrote, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the 
bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2).

 What puts you to sleep is a good indication of what kind of person you are.

 Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, FL 34483. He lives 
with his wife, Martha, in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 1-866-552-2543 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net or 
website www.jamessnyderministries.com.

Homesteading in the City” is perhaps my favorite 
of the books I have written because it is like a 
personal diary of how my wife Dolores and I 
worked towards our goal of “living lightly on the 
earth,” even though we had a small budget and 
lived in a small suburban Los Angeles home. 

We were doing what our Appalachian friend 
used to describe as “living country in the city.” 
We pursued all aspects of self-reliance, and wrote 
about it. Starting as soon as we moved in to our new 
home in 1986, we began task by task with limited 
income. We used our front lawn to grow food, we 
recycled our wash water, collected rain water, had 
chickens, a duck, bees, and a pig, had solar water 
heating and solar electricity, a wood stove, and we 
planted fruit trees and food everywhere. 

 We describe our efforts to do “integral gardening” 
on every bit of usable land, to produce food (for 
people and wildlife), medicines, fragrance, shade, 
and useful tools. We describe the details of what 
it meant to raise earthworms, chickens, rabbits, 
bees, a goose, a pig, and our dogs in their typical 
suburban back yard. 

We took the reader along their journey to installing 
a wood fireplace, solar water heating, and a solar 
electric system. 

 Though there is much “how to” in this book, it 
is full of personal stories and rich reading of the 
learning they experienced along the way. There is 
a section on recycling, and a unique section about 
the economics of self-reliance. 

 It’s worth noting that this is not a book we 
planned on writing. In 2000, we were called by 
the Mother Earth News magazine to write an 
article about our meaning of “alternate health” 
methods, and we wrote about the methods that 
were as ancient as Hypocrates. We were on the 
cover, and a book publisher contacted us to see if 
we could turn that health article into a book. We 
said yes. But when we submitted the manuscript 
to the publisher, they said, hmm, not exactly what 
we were looking for. [That book, Integral Health, 
will be published eventually]. So they asked us if we 
could just write about how we live, which we did, 
and it became Extreme Simplicity. 

 Extreme Simplicity, first published in October of 
2002, will be re-released from another publisher in 
August of 2013. It will be available wherever books 
are sold, from Amazon, and from the School of 
Self-Reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041; or 
www.ChristopherNyerges.com. 

HERE ARE SOME SELECTED EXCERPTS 

WOOD FIREPLACE 

Our freestanding fireplace has completely 
transformed our home. We would strongly 
encourage anyone without one already to seriously 
consider installing one. On very cold nights, we 
had been using those small electric heaters that 
really drive up your electric bill. The fireplace made 
the house really feel like a home, and we now are 
uncertain how we got along without it. 

In our case, the transition to wood heating was fairly 
easy, because we had plenty of firewood readily 
available. We were actually doing a neighbor a 
favor by cleaning up and carting off large amounts 
of dead and fallen wood from his property. Our 
first season of firewood came entirely from our 
weekly cleaning of his yard, just for the cost of our 
labor. How’s that for a win-win situation? 

TIME AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE 

Many people today believe that they’re spending all 
their time working, yet with very little in return. 
Unfortunately, such realizations may come too late 
to be remedied. 

We think that the Amish people have the right 
idea when they keep their schools and work close 
to home. They don’t have to go a long way to a 
job, thereby avoiding wasted time and energy, 
unnecessary expenses, and disconnection from 
their community. They can protect their families 
from undesirable influence, and there is the added 
bonus of having youngsters nearby where they can 
learn a trade from an early age. The Amish are 
firmly committed to valuing “quality of life” over all 
the stuff that our modern society deems important 
or indispensable - car, home entertainment system, 
fancy clothes, foods bought for “convenience” 
and prestige rather than fresh garden flavor and 
nutritional value. 

4 MAGIC WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR 
FINANCIAL SITUATION 

 Once, during a period of homelessness before 
we were married, Christopher was engulfed in 
thoughts of “poor me” and “I’m destitute,” and 
he could scarcely see a way out of the darkness. 
Dolores provided him with a simple set of practical 
tools that anyone can use if only they choose to do 
so. Here are four “magic” ways to improve your 
financial situation: 

1. Never waste anything. 

2. Continually improve your personal honesty. 

3. Leave every situation or circumstance better 
than you found it. 

4. Tithe to the church (or organization) of your 
choice. 

We know that these are genuine practical solutions. 
We have heard people say that they cannot make 
these efforts - such as tithing, or improving 
an environment - because “we are poor.” Our 
perspective is that they have their reasoning 
backwards. They are poor because they do not 
engage themselves in the world in these ways. 
Logical thinking leads to erroneous conclusions 
when the premise is false. 

3 STEPS TO HOUSEHOLD ENERGY 
EFFICIENCY 

1. You can do without some electrical devices. 

This will probably involve changing your behavior, 
for instance, thinking twice before switching on 
an electrical tool or appliance when a non-electric 
alternative will work just as well or better. 

2. You can learn to use your existing devices more 
efficiently. 

This step, too, requires changes in habit, but once 
you’ve understood the extra expenses caused by 
inefficiency and waste, you’ll feel good about it - 
plus you’ll save money by practicing efficiency. 

3. You can purchase new appliances that render 
your household inherently more energy efficient. 

This step requires initial outlays of money, and in 
some cases higher short-term expenses, but with 
certain especially wasteful appliances, the best way 
to save energy and money is to immediately replace 
the old, wasteful model.