Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, November 12, 2016

THE WORLD AROUND US

10

Mountain Views-News Saturday, November 12, 2016 


CURIOSITY MARS ROVER CHECKS ODD-LOOKING IRON METEORITE

Laser-zapping of a globular, golf-ball-size object 
on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover confirms that 
it is an iron-nickel meteorite fallen from the Red 
Planet’s sky.

 Iron-nickel meteorites are a common class of 
space rocks found on Earth, and previous examples 
have been seen on Mars, but this one, called “Egg 
Rock,” is the first on Mars examined with a laser-
firing spectrometer. To do so, the rover team used 
Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) 
instrument.

 Scientists of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) 
project, which operates the rover, first noticed the 
odd-looking rock in images taken by Curiosity’s 
Mast Camera (Mastcam) at a site the rover reached 
by an Oct. 27 drive. 

 “The dark, smooth and lustrous aspect of this 
target, and its spherical shape, attracted the 
attention of MSL scientists when we received 
the Mastcam images at the new location,” said 
ChemCam team member Pierre-Yves Meslin, at the 
Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology 
(IRAP), of France’s National Center for Scientific 
Research (CNRS) and the University of Toulouse, 
France.

 ChemCam found iron, nickel, and phosphorus, 
plus lesser ingredients, in concentrations still being 
determined through analysis of the spectrum of 
light produced from dozens of laser pulses at nine 
spots on the object. The enrichment in both nickel 
and phosphorus at some of the same points suggests 
the presence of an iron-nickel-phosphide mineral 
that is rare except in iron-nickel meteorites, Meslin 
said.

 Iron meteorites typically originate as core 
material of asteroids that melt, allowing the molten 
metal fraction of the asteroid’s composition to sink 
to the center and form a core.

 “Iron meteorites provide records of many 
different asteroids that broke up, with fragments 
of their cores ending up on Earth and on Mars,” 
said ChemCam team member Horton Newsom 
of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. 
“Mars may have sampled a different population of 
asteroids than Earth has.”

 In addition, the study of iron meteorites found 
on Mars—including examples found previously 
by Mars rovers—can provide information about 
how long exposure to the Martian environment 
has affected them, in comparison with how Earth’s 
environment affects iron meteorites. Egg Rock may 
have fallen to the surface of Mars many millions 
of years ago. Researchers will be analyzing the 
ChemCam data from the first few laser shots at 
each target point and data from subsequent shots at 
the same point, to compare surface versus interior 
chemistry.

 Egg Rock was found along the rover’s path up 
a layer of lower Mount Sharp called the Murray 
formation, where sedimentary rocks hold records 
of ancient lakebed environments on Mars. The 
main science goal for Curiosity’s second extended 
mission, which began last month, is to investigate 
how ancient environmental conditions changed 
over time. The mission has already determined 
that this region once offered conditons favorable 
for microbial life, if any life ever existed on Mars.

 Curiosity was launched five years ago this 
month, on Nov. 26, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air 
Force Station, Florida. It landed inside Gale Crater, 
near the foot of Mount Sharp, in August 2012. 

 The rover remains in good condition for 
continuing its investigations, after working more 
than twice as long as its originally planned prime 
mission of about 23 months, though two of its 10 
science instruments have recently shown signs of 
potentially reduced capability.

 

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


CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

ELECTION AFTER-THOUGHT

THE SOUND OF CRICKETS 

CHIRPING IN THE BACKYARD

[Nyerges is an independent, 
and is neither a Democrat 
nor Republican. He is the 
author of several books 
including “Extreme 
Simplicity,” “How to Survive Anywhere,” and 
“Squatter in Los Angeles.” Information about 
his books and classes is available from www.
SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.] 

 First, I’m not a fan or supporter of either Clinton 
or Trump. Out of a country of 300+ million, were 
they really the best that the two-party system 
could give us? In fact, several good candidates on 
both sides were thrown under the bus during the 
campaign season because they could not compete 
with the deep pockets of either Clinton or Trump. 
So sad! 

 I fully expected Clinton to win. All the 
commentators said she would win. All the polls 
showed her being the first female president. I 
was looking forward to a Clinton presidency 
with neither happiness nor fear, just more of the 
status quo. I was not able to wrap my head around 
a Trump presidency. Does he even know the 
intricacies of how Washington works? 

 Both Clinton and Trump had some big strikes 
against them, and that “dirty laundry” had 
been gone over and over in the media. Both had 
unsavory elements, and a few come to mind now. 

Where to begin? Trump’s female-groping and bar 
mouth seemed too undignified for a president, 
though OK for a wrestler. And in one of his building 
projects, he agreed (meaning, contractually “gave 
his word”) to pay a certain amount to an architect, 
but later decided to pay much less. “I’ve already 
paid too much for this project and I don’t want to 
pay more,” said Trump and so he paid far less than 
the agreement. Really? Trump knew it was wrong 
but he was able to out-lawyer the architect. 

 And Hillary – where to begin? The e-mail 
scandal and potential loss of national secrets 
and lying about it certainly didn’t help her. And 
Benghazi still leaves me wondering if she was 
asleep at the wheel as Secretary of State. She 
reportedly told the families of those killed in the 
U.S. Embassy that “We’ll find the people who 
made that video.” Really? How about “We’ll find 
the killers”? 

 In the end, they were the last two standing. 
They’d won all their party’s primaries, and then, 
on election day, there was one left standing. 

 In the punditry that followed, they all wrung 
their hands and asked “How could this have 
happened? How did we get it so wrong?” These 
media pundits more or less blamed white 
hillbillies for Clinton’s loss, as if all the white 
rednecks who are normally out in the woods 
hunting in November came in just to vote down 
Hillary. Really? Do they really believe that’s what 
happened? 

 I think the answer is much simpler. The 
American public had two choices, both bad and 
unsavory in too many ways. Who would ever want 
to say that they supported Trump? If you are a 
Republican, yours was not an ideal candidate, and 
he was easy to dislike and disavow, as many of his 
own party did. Assuming you were asked by a pre-
election pollster, I suspect that most said nothing, 
or lied. 

 In the end, the people spoke, via the electoral 
system. Was it the so-called silent majority? 
Maybe, maybe not. Who really knows? 

 Most people I know experienced very little 
political excitement this season, just annoyance 
that it all droned on for so long. I often heard 
that we had to choose the lesser of two evils, that 
we had only two choices. Though I’m sure there 
were many who liked Trump and his message, I’m 
just as sure that many were simply voting against 
Clinton. In the end, voters do not vote for “ideas,” 
but rather, they vote for the very real people who 
are presented. 

 I noted that several people posted their anger on 
Facebook, stating that they would do everything 
in their power to block and undermine Trump. 
OK, I understand that. I pointed out to one person 
that he now sounds like all the Republicans who, 
after the Obama win, said that they would do 
everything in their power to block and undermine 
Obama. Many kept good on that promise. 

 “Yeah,” this person retorted, “but the difference 
is that I’m right.” Hmmmm. I didn’t respond, but 
I thought it very sad that we don’t see that we do 
precisely what we accuse our adversaries of doing 
when the shoe is on the other foot. 

 If the many protestors in the streets now want to 
do something positive, they should begin now, and 
not wait until after the next election which doesn’t 
go their way. If they want to start a new party, 
start now. If they want to abandon the Electoral 
College, first find out why we have that system, 
and then, if they still want to abandon it, do the 
work that’s required to make that happen. 

 The United States has one president, and 
whether I personally like or dislike him or her is 
irrelevant. I respect the office of the Presidency, 
and I respect the founding Principles of the United 
States.

Noise has become a daily experience for many people 
today. From morning until night, we are surrounded by 
noise of all kinds. People have gotten accustomed to an 
atmosphere of noise. For my part, I am just a little bit tired 
of all the noise. What would life be like if there was silence?

 The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I were 
relaxing on the back porch after supper, drinking our 
coffee and enjoying the evening. Nothing quite compares 
to drinking coffee on the back porch after a hard day. Then 
my wife said something that startled me.

 “Do you hear that?”

 I listened and strained my ears but I could not hear 
anything. If my wife says there is something to hear, then 
there is something to hear. I strained my ears as much as 
possible, but to no effect.

 “Don’t you hear that?” She said once more.

 For the life of me, I did not hear anything and was 
beginning to think she was trying to pull one over on me. 
She does that occasionally and catches me. She thinks it’s 
rather funny, although I laugh along with her, I am not 
laughing on the inside.

 Finally, I said, “What are you talking about? I don’t hear 
anything.”

 She was staring across the backyard as though she was 
looking at something.

 “Don’t you hear that silence?”

 Personally, I did not know you could hear silence, but I 
was not going to argue with her at the time. I stared in the 
direction she was staring and still could not figure out what 
she was talking about.

 Then it came to me.

 Across our backyard several crickets were chirping. 
Normally I do not hear those crickets, but I could hear 
them loud and clear from where I was setting. What they 
were singing I am not quite sure, but I enjoyed listening to 
them at the time. It sounded so serene and peaceful.

 Sometimes our life is so crowded with other things that 
we do not hear some of the more quiet things. The noise 
around us crowds out some of the quietness in our life.

 “Okay,” I said with a grin, “I hear the silence now.”

 I suppose crickets chirp all the time, particularly the 
ones in our backyard, but I do not always hear it. For the 
next hour, my wife and I quietly listened to those crickets 
chirping and we enjoyed every moment of it.

 “Isn’t that silence,” my wife whispered, “truly 
refreshing?”

 I do not always agree with my wife, but this time I was 
in complete harmony with her thoughts. It is refreshing to 
listen to silence that has absolutely no agenda but to quiet 
the mind.

 Out in our society, we have noise and activity and miss 
the good things in life. I just wonder how many people miss 
the things in life that are truly refreshing because of all of 
the noise and activity around.

 It takes some time to get used to the silence, but my wife 
and I, as we sipped our evening coffee and staring across 
the backyard, enjoyed the sounds of silence.

 To appreciate the silence is one of the great privileges 
of life. I must confess I do not often get the chance to enjoy 
silence, especially hearing the chirping of the crickets in 
the backyard.

 As we were sitting there just enjoying the silence, I could 
not help but think of one startling little question. Why in 
the world did God create crickets? Of what purpose do they 
have in this busy world of ours?

 Very few people get the chance to hear crickets chirping, 
so why in the world would God take the time and effort to 
create them?

 If you would ask somebody when was the last time they 
heard crickets chirping, I am sure you would get the silent 
treatment from them. Nobody really takes the time to 
think about crickets let alone listen to them. We have too 
much to do and too many other things to listen to, to spend 
our time listening to silence.

 “Don’t you,” my wife sighed deeply, “just love those 
crickets?”

 I was not going to argue with my wife. I have never 
given crickets much thought in the past, but as we sat there, 
I began to appreciate the sounds of crickets in the evening.

 After a few moments of silence, I replied, “We ought to 
spend more time listening to those crickets.”

 I should not say this, but we named those crickets. One 
was Albert and the other we called Beatrice. Why? Does it 
really matter?

 From then on whenever we wanted to enjoy a little bit 
of quietness one of us would say, “How about an A and B 
concert?” We always knew what that meant; time to spend 
on the back porch enjoying the cricket concert.

 It takes a lot of discipline to get to the place to enjoy 
silence. For my part, I want to hear everything and know 
everything that is going on around me. It is as though I 
need to approve everything that has happened.

 Thinking about this I thought about David. Maybe this 
is what he meant when he wrote, “Be still, and know that 
I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be 
exalted in the earth” (Psalms 46:10).

 I am ready for another A and B concert this evening.

 Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God 
Fellowship, Ocala, FL 34483, where he lives with the 
Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-866-
552-2543, e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. Website is www.
jamessnyderministries.com.


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