THE WORLD AROUND US
14
Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 11, 2015
EARTH-SIZE TELESCOPE EXPANDS TO SOUTH POLE TO SEE BLACK HOLES IN DETAIL
Astronomers building an Earth-size virtual
telescope capable of photographing the event
horizon of the black hole at the center of our
Milky Way have extended their instrument to the
bottom of the Earth—the South Pole—thanks to
recent efforts by a team led by Dan Marrone of
the University of Arizona.
Marrone, an assistant professor in the
UA’s Department of Astronomy and Steward
Observatory, and several colleagues flew to the
National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott
South Pole Station in December to bring the
South Pole Telescope, or SPT, into the largest
virtual telescope ever built—the Event Horizon
Telescope, or EHT. By combining telescopes
across the Earth, the EHT will take the first
detailed pictures of black holes.
The EHT is an array of radio telescopes
connected using a technique known as very
long baseline interferometry, or VLBI. Larger
telescopes can make sharper observations, and
interferometry allows multiple telescopes to act
like a single telescope as large as the separation—
or “baseline”—between them.
“Now that we’ve done VLBI with the SPT, the
Event Horizon Telescope really does span the
whole Earth, from the Submillimeter Telescope
on Mount Graham in Arizona, to California,
Hawaii, Chile, Mexico, Spain and the South
Pole,” Marrone said. “The baselines to SPT give
us two to three times more resolution than our
past arrays, which is absolutely crucial to the
goals of the EHT. To verify the existence of an
event horizon, the ‘edge’ of a black hole, and
more generally, to test Einstein’s theory of general
relativity, we need a very detailed picture of a
black hole. With the full EHT, we should be able
to do this.”
The prime EHT target is the Milky Way’s
black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced
“A-star”). Even though it is 4 million times more
massive than the Sun, it is tiny to the eyes of
astronomers. Because it is smaller than Mercury’s
orbit around the Sun, yet almost 26,000 light-
years away, studying its event horizon in detail is
equivalent to standing in California and reading
the date on a penny in New York.
With its unprecedented resolution, more
than 1,000 times better than the Hubble Space
Telescope, the EHT will see swirling gas on its
final plunge over the event horizon, never to
regain contact with the rest of the universe. If the
theory of general relativity is correct, the black
hole itself will be invisible because not even light
can escape its immense gravity.
First postulated by Albert Einstein’s general
theory of relativity, the existence of black holes
has since been supported by decades’ worth of
astronomical observations. Most if not all galaxies
are now believed to harbor a supermassive black
hole at their center, and smaller ones formed from
dying stars should be scattered among their stars.
The Milky Way is known to be home to about 25
smallish black holes ranging from five to 10 times
the Sun’s mass. But never has it been possible to
directly observe and image one of these cosmic
oddities.
Weighing 280 tons and standing 75 feet tall, the
SPT sits at an elevation of 9,300 feet on the polar
plateau at Amundsen-Scott, which is located at the
geographic South Pole. The University of Chicago
built SPT with funding and logistical support
from the NSF’s Division of Polar Programs. The
division manages the U.S. Antarctic Program,
which coordinates all U.S. research on the
southernmost continent.
You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.
OUT TO PASTOR
A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder
by Christopher Nyerges
[Nyerges is the former editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and the author of 14 books, including
“Guide to Wild Foods,” “How to Survive Anywhere,” “Foraging California,” and others. He leads
regular outdoor field trips to identify edible and medicinal wild plants. He can be reached at www.
SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com or Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041.]
WHY GRIN WHEN YOU CAN
LAUGH OUT LOUD
I am of the opinion that standing in line is not a career although I have been so employed most
of my life. If it is a career, I am not applying for any employment.
I have searched colleges and universities and have yet to find any of them offering a PhD in
Standing in Line. I believe there is no such thing, although I stood in line for so long now I
probably have earned a PhD.
This past week I had this brought to my attention in an interesting manner. I had ordered
a printing job at Staples and went in to pick it up. Walking in the door I noticed that at the
printing department there was a long line of people waiting. My heart sank.
Nothing seems to be more of a waste of time then standing in line waiting for service or to
pick up something. The woman behind the counter was doing the best she could, but the line
did not seem to shrink very much. In fact, it seemed to grow.
As I stood there, I noticed the people in line were getting a little grouchy. You could tell by
the grimace on their face that they were not in one of their “happy moods.” At the time, most
of the people in line were women. Nobody was talking to anybody, just staring or should I
say glaring at the woman behind the counter trying to move the customers through as fast as
possible.
It is always true that when you are in a hurry, things go rather slow. I try to pretend I am
not in a hurry and whistle, usually, “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.” If it is this time of year
people look at me as though I am crazy. Looks can be deceiving, but not in my case.
If you pretend that you have all the time in the world, things seem to go by quicker. It is like
your computer. If you are in a hurry, the computer will run as slow as possible. On the other
hand, if while you are waiting for the computer to get up and running you have many other
things to do the computer is up and running before you know it.
I was thinking all these things as I was standing in line because I was not really walking in
line. I thought of Johnny Cash’s song, “I walk the line,” and was tempted to start singing it, but
I did not think it would be appropriate.
Then things began to take another turn. A woman came behind the counter, saw me and
asked very loudly, “Are you here to pick up?”
There are times when something happens inside my head that makes me say things that I
have not really prepared. I do not know what it is, maybe it is my upbringing but I am still not
all the way up
. Without hardly a thought, I said in my outdoor voice, “No, I’m married, but thanks for the
offer. It’s not often an old geezer like me get such an invitation.”
Then the whole atmosphere changed. Most of the people in line broke out in hilarious
laughter. They never heard such a line in all their life. One woman looked at me and said,
“Thanks, I needed that.” Another said, “You’ve made my day.”
Everybody was laughing and talking and the time seemed to go by very quickly and soon I
was on my way out.
My observation is that most people are too serious, but too serious about the wrong things.
Everybody seems to be uptight particularly when they are in the store standing in line.
One rule I have in life and that is, I do not take myself very seriously. After all, I do own a
mirror! If what I see in the mirror is what other people see when they encounter me, I better
start laughing now and join the crowd.
There are things that we need to take seriously. Most people do not take the serious things
seriously, but they take instead, the hilarious things seriously. We live in an upside down
world.
A time comes when you have to really laugh out loud. I have noticed that when one person
starts laughing pretty soon everybody in the surrounding area will join in the laughing.
Laughing seems to be rather contagious.
If you get up in the morning and listen to the news, you are going to be down in the dumps
all day. So much on television and radio for that matter, contribute to the degree of sadness
infecting our country today.
I think occasionally everybody needs to have what I call “Laughter Therapy.” The way to
begin this “Laughter Therapy,” is to begin laughing at yourself. After all, everybody else is
laughing at you; why not join in the hilarity?
Of course, some things are not funny. The wise person knows the difference between what
is funny and what is not funny. To laugh at the wrong thing can be disastrous.
Solomon understood this quite well when he wrote, “A merry heart doeth
good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).
I refuse to go through life with a strained grin on my face. I choose to laugh out loud and
invite the whole world to laugh with me.
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.
BEING PREPARED
It seems that there is a lot in
Sierra Madre, and the world
at large, to fear these days –
terrorism, GMOs, inflation,
deflation, right-wingers, left-wingers, war, hurricanes,
comets….
It is worth reminding ourselves of the famous
Presidential quote, “There is nothing to fear but fear
itself.”
What is the cause of fear, that irrational reaction
to known and unknown events? Though this is
obviously complex, the overpowering emotion of fear
fills the void where there is no thinking, no physical
preparedness, no systems that have been worked out to
deal with challenges, and no love. Fear fills the void in
our modern computer and ipod age where neighbors
no longer no neighbors.
But, as always, we can choose our destiny. We can
get to know our neighbors. We can learn together how
to prepare for earthquakes by storing food and water,
and learning first aid. We can learn with students and
neighbors how to grow trees and vegetables, especially
in the cities where we have allowed ourselves to become
so dependent on everyone and everything else.
And, as my associates and I have attempted to for
several decades, we also find solutions in looking to
the past. It is amazing how many children “couldn’t
function” (so they say) without a cell phone or
computer. But just a few hundred years ago, here in
California’s rich coastal plains, generations of Native
Americans fed and housed themselves, took care of
their own politics and crime, and created a high social
system with no electronics, no K-Marts, no piped
water, and no e-bay.
Of course, things were different then, but human
nature is largely the same. Did they have things to fear
then? Of course! Their guaranteed income was zero,
there were no guaranteed health plans, no pensions,
no automobile insurance, no welfare, no WIC, no EBT
cards, and no FEMA or Homeland Security. There
were simply the people and their resolve to do what it
took to provide for themselves. As we have grown in
numbers, we have specialized ourselves into stupidity,
and we find that we now have much to fear….
Let us look at how native peoples of the past
provided food. Every fall, when the acorns fell from
the oak trees, the acorns were collected, shelled, and
then leached. Leaching means that they were ground
into flour and “washed” by pouring water over the
meal until the bitter tannic acid was removed. I still
do this today, except I do it in my kitchen, soaking the
shelled acorns in a pan rather than in a rock hollow
by the stream. By my estimate, 99% of this quality
food rots and decays on the forest floor or is raked to
the curb to be picked up by the city’s street-sweepers.
Yet, to collect your own acorns, and to make your own
bread and pancakes, is a wonderful feeling It is living
history. And each such simple act of doing something
for yourself make you more independent, more self-
reliant, more confident that “the way” is out there,
available.
Additionally in the fall, we have the cactus fruits
ripening, as well as the manzanita berries, and toyon
berries. All of these are good foods that we could all
use today. Though Homeland Security hasn’t (yet) told
us what to do to become self-reliant, these are just a few
of the ways to look to the past to eliminate fear, and to
be self-reliant.
The late Paul Campbell wrote an excellent book
called Survival Skills of Native California which
describes how California Indians provided for all their
needs from the land. This and other books can be seen
at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.
The School of Self-reliance also conducts weekend
classes in plant identification and survival skills.
Check the web site for details, or write to Box 41834,
Eagle Rock, CA 90041.
But whatever you do, don’t let fear take over. Take
action. Some action, and learn at least one new thing
each day to become more self-reliant. If we all look to
the past for some of our solutions, the future will be
bright indeed.
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