Andrew Lam's Blog - Posts Tagged "mars"

Mars has become a very busy place, being orbited by satellites and crisscrossed by Land Rovers. As if that's not enough, Curiosity, a roving science laboratory, just successful landed at the planet's ancient crater to probe for signs that the planet was life-friendly in the past.

Indeed, we are mapping and processing our neighboring planet so extensively that it feels as if Mars has already been colonized. There is even a Google Mars website if you want to see the planet's surface in technicolor.

Man, despite our earthly crises, remains enthralled by the cosmos. NASA is planning manned missions to Mars in the 2030's- with the cooperation of Japan and Europe - and plans to establish a permanent station on the moon. China, too, hopes to have a manned station orbiting the moon, having sent a moon orbiter in 2010 to map it out and in 2013, it'll send a landing rover. All the while, our satellites, probes and telescopes are peering deep into the heavens looking for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Welcome to the post-global age. We are now entering an age where human interactions reach beyond the stratospheres of our world toward the cosmos.

Call it cosmozation, or better yet, empyrealization--an age where man's reach for the heavens is realized. Neither words exist yet in the dictionary, but for that matter neither did globalization 3 decades ago. (So feel free to come up with a coinage that may be à propos to our post-global age.)

Roland Robertson, a social scientist, defines globalization as "The compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole." The world shrinks, geographical constraints are overcome, while identities become multilayered, complex. As a species, we may not always get along with each other, but these days, thanks to an integrated economy and unprecedented mass movement across the various borders, and modern technology--satellites, cell phones, jet planes, the internet, and so on--we are, like it or not, constantly aware of each other's existence. Humans are, in fact, interacting and influencing one another on an unprecedented scale and intensity, regardless of the distances.

Taking Robertson's definition a step further, it seems inevitable that the universe too, shrinks and compresses as we explore and measure it, and as we infer profound implications from our discoveries. Cosmozation, or empyrealization, is then the process by which man's awareness and influence expand beyond our planet: We grow cognizant that we exists on intimate levels with the rest of the universe, that we are interacting with it, and, increasingly, having an effect upon it.

While thinkers and writers still haven't come to terms with the full impact of the forces of globalization, another age is already upon us - one in which man's awareness expands beyond the globe as his relationship with the cosmos intensifies.

There's a radical shift taking place in regards to our relationship with the universe. Not so long ago, until Copernicus came along, we assumed our world was the universe's center -- and, for that matter, flat -- and that the sun orbited Earth. Most of last century we held on to the notion that our solar system was unique. And scientists just a generation ago assumed, too, that conditions on Earth -- a protective atmosphere, ample water and volcanic activity -- made it the only planet that could possibly support life.

Now we know that the conditions on our home planet may be unique, but solar systems are not at all anomalies. In fact, we are in the process of accepting that we are very much part of the larger universe. Furthermore, by sending space probes to the edge of the solar system, by collecting moon rocks and comet dust, by landing probes on Mars to dig for soils and search for signs of life, we are in constant exchange with the universe.

As astonishing discoveries are being made, that sense of self-importance has eroded, giving way to a more humble assessment of our place in the cosmos.

Consider some of these recent discoveries.

*Using the Hubble telescopes and the Kepler observatory, which orbit Earth, and the Hale Telescope in California, astronomers have discovered hundreds of other solar systems, and nearly 800 exoplanets--planets that are outside our solar systems. One planet in particular, 150 million light years away, is believed to have an atmosphere.

*We know that Earth is constantly bombarded by meteors when we look up into the night sky and spot shooting stars. But more astounding is astronomer Lou Frank's recent discovery. Using the Hubble Telescope to study Earth's atmosphere, Frank proved that Earth is constantly being hit by snowballs from space. The implications are enormous: If ice from outer space hits Earth regularly, it could be "raining" onto other planets too, providing much-needed water to support life. The universe is suddenly very wet.

*A few years ago a meteorite from Mars found on Earth, known as the Allan Hills meteorite (or ALH 84001 to scientists), astonished everyone when some scientists claimed they found tantalizing traces of fossilized life within it. Their findings have been contested, but the discovery fired up the imagination.

*Moreover, the Galileo space probe that orbited Jupiter showed us that on Europa, one on Jupiter's many moons, huge oceans lie beneath an icy surface. Scientists found active volcanoes as well - that is to say, ingredients that could spark and possibly support life.

*More tantalizing still is the organic materials found in comet dust collected from the comet Wild 2. Here's NASA's press release on the comet dust brought back to Earth by the space probe Stardust: "These chunks of ice and dust wandering our solar system appear to be filled with organic molecules that are the building blocks of life."

The finding surprised scientists because many predicted that the space probe would find mostly ice. Instead, the finding could lend support to the belief that comets could have "seeded" life on our planet as well as others.

*Then, of course, there's the discovery of water on the moon. Scientists found this by deliberately crashing a rocket stage into the moon in 2009, and, in the floor of a permanently-shadowed crater, found up to a billion gallons of water and ice near the moon's south pole.

And if there's water aplenty in the universe, then why not DNA? "Panspermia" (originating from the Greek word for "all-seeding"), the hypothesis that seeds of life could have been delivered to Earth - and possibly other planets--is now revised; this theory of an interstellar exchange of DNA was championed by Francis Crick, who discovered the DNA molecule with two other scientists more than half a century ago, was ridiculed last century. But if scientists laughed behind the Nobel laureate's back when he first suggested it, no one is laughing now.

Besides, there is such a thing as self fulfilling prophecy: If Earth didn't receive DNA for a primordial start- up way back when, we are now actively sending out our earthly DNA to space via the forms of various microbes that are riding along with our space crafts and satellites and shuttles that are scattered out into the universe.

As a result, ours is no longer just a lonely blue planet amidst the heavens. As we send probes and manned missions to the comos and map the universe, as we enthusiastically search for signs of life elsewhere and collect comet dust - earth seems to exist increasingly as part of an open and intricately complex system.

War and strife and revolutions and bloodshed seem endless on our home world, but when man gazes up at the night sky, it remains alluring and sublime. To paraphrase the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, that sea on which humanity now sails is infinitely more vast than that imagined by Columbus. And with a rover named Curiosity actively searching for signs of past life on Mars, there's no doubt that our place is in space, and the cosmic age has indeed arrived.

Andrew Lam is an editor with New America Media and the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. His next book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," is due out in March, 2013.

Follow Andrew Lam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/andrewqlam

Mars has become a very busy place, being orbited by satellites and crisscrossed by Land Rovers. As if that's not enough, Curiosity, a roving science laboratory, just successful landed at the planet's ancient crater to probe for signs that the planet was life-friendly in the past.

Indeed, we are mapping and processing our neighboring planet so extensively that it feels as if Mars has already been colonized. There is even a Google Mars website if you want to see the planet's surface in technicolor.

Man, despite our earthly crises, remains enthralled by the cosmos. NASA is planning manned missions to Mars in the 2030's- with the cooperation of Japan and Europe - and plans to establish a permanent station on the moon. China, too, hopes to have a manned station orbiting the moon, having sent a moon orbiter in 2010 to map it out and in 2013, it'll send a landing rover. All the while, our satellites, probes and telescopes are peering deep into the heavens looking for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Welcome to the post-global age. We are now entering an age where human interactions reach beyond the stratospheres of our world toward the cosmos.

Call it cosmozation, or better yet, empyrealization--an age where man's reach for the heavens is realized. Neither words exist yet in the dictionary, but for that matter neither did globalization 3 decades ago. (So feel free to come up with a coinage that may be à propos to our post-global age.)

Roland Robertson, a social scientist, defines globalization as "The compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole." The world shrinks, geographical constraints are overcome, while identities become multilayered, complex. As a species, we may not always get along with each other, but these days, thanks to an integrated economy and unprecedented mass movement across the various borders, and modern technology--satellites, cell phones, jet planes, the internet, and so on--we are, like it or not, constantly aware of each other's existence. Humans are, in fact, interacting and influencing one another on an unprecedented scale and intensity, regardless of the distances.

Taking Robertson's definition a step further, it seems inevitable that the universe too, shrinks and compresses as we explore and measure it, and as we infer profound implications from our discoveries. Cosmozation, or empyrealization, is then the process by which man's awareness and influence expand beyond our planet: We grow cognizant that we exists on intimate levels with the rest of the universe, that we are interacting with it, and, increasingly, having an effect upon it.

While thinkers and writers still haven't come to terms with the full impact of the forces of globalization, another age is already upon us - one in which man's awareness expands beyond the globe as his relationship with the cosmos intensifies.

There's a radical shift taking place in regards to our relationship with the universe. Not so long ago, until Copernicus came along, we assumed our world was the universe's center -- and, for that matter, flat -- and that the sun orbited Earth. Most of last century we held on to the notion that our solar system was unique. And scientists just a generation ago assumed, too, that conditions on Earth -- a protective atmosphere, ample water and volcanic activity -- made it the only planet that could possibly support life.

Now we know that the conditions on our home planet may be unique, but solar systems are not at all anomalies. In fact, we are in the process of accepting that we are very much part of the larger universe. Furthermore, by sending space probes to the edge of the solar system, by collecting moon rocks and comet dust, by landing probes on Mars to dig for soils and search for signs of life, we are in constant exchange with the universe.

As astonishing discoveries are being made, that sense of self-importance has eroded, giving way to a more humble assessment of our place in the cosmos.

Consider some of these recent discoveries.

*Using the Hubble telescopes and the Kepler observatory, which orbit Earth, and the Hale Telescope in California, astronomers have discovered hundreds of other solar systems, and nearly 800 exoplanets--planets that are outside our solar systems. One < href=http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/... target=blank>planet in particular, 150 million light years away, is believed to have an atmosphere.

*We know that Earth is constantly bombarded by meteors when we look up into the night sky and spot shooting stars. But more astounding is astronomer Lou Frank's recent discovery. Using the Hubble Telescope to study Earth's atmosphere, Frank proved that Earth is constantly being hit by snowballs from space. The implications are enormous: If ice from outer space hits Earth regularly, it could be "raining" onto other planets too, providing much-needed water to support life. The universe is suddenly very wet.

*A few years ago a meteorite from Mars found on Earth, known as the Allan Hills meteorite (or ALH 84001 to scientists), astonished everyone when some scientists claimed they found tantalizing traces of fossilized life within it. Their findings have been contested, but the discovery fired up the imagination.

*Moreover, the Galileo space probe that orbited Jupiter showed us that on Europa, one on Jupiter's many moons, huge oceans lie beneath an icy surface. Scientists found active volcanoes as well - that is to say, ingredients that could spark and possibly support life.

*More tantalizing still is the organic materials found in comet dust collected from the comet Wild 2. Here's NASA's press release on the comet dust brought back to Earth by the space probe Stardust: "These chunks of ice and dust wandering our solar system appear to be filled with organic molecules that are the building blocks of life."

The finding surprised scientists because many predicted that the space probe would find mostly ice. Instead, the finding could lend support to the belief that comets could have "seeded" life on our planet as well as others.

*Then, of course, there's the discovery of water on the moon. Scientists found this by deliberately crashing a rocket stage into the moon in 2009, and, in the floor of a permanently-shadowed crater, found up to a billion gallons of water and ice near the moon's south pole.

And if there's water aplenty in the universe, then why not DNA? "Panspermia" (originating from the Greek word for "all-seeding"), the hypothesis that seeds of life could have been delivered to Earth - and possibly other planets--is now revised; this theory of an interstellar exchange of DNA was championed by Francis Crick, who discovered the DNA molecule with two other scientists more than half a century ago, was ridiculed last century. But if scientists laughed behind the Nobel laureate's back when he first suggested it, no one is laughing now.

Besides, there is such a thing as self fulfilling prophecy: If Earth didn't receive DNA for a primordial start- up way back when, we are now actively sending out our earthly DNA to space via the forms of various microbes that are riding along with our space crafts and satellites and shuttles that are scattered out into the universe.

As a result, ours is no longer just a lonely blue planet amidst the heavens. As we send probes and manned missions to the comos and map the universe, as we enthusiastically search for signs of life elsewhere and collect comet dust - earth seems to exist increasingly as part of an open and intricately complex system.

War and strife and revolutions and bloodshed seem endless on our home world, but when man gazes up at the night sky, it remains alluring and sublime. To paraphrase the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, that sea on which humanity now sails is infinitely more vast than that imagined by Columbus. And with a rover named Curiosity actively searching for signs of past life on Mars, there's no doubt that our place is in space, and the cosmic age has indeed arrived.

Andrew Lam is an editor with New America Media and the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. His next book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," is due out in March, 2013.

Follow Andrew Lam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/andrewqlam

A meteor estimated to be 10 tons by NASA exploded Friday morning over Russia's Ural region and its shockwave caused injuries to over 1,000 people. It took out windows and walls in the city of Chelyabinsk. And it temporarily shifted the conversation here on earth to talks of the heavens.

"We can find these objects, we can track their motions, and we can predict their orbits many years into the future," noted Robert Naeye of Sky and Telescope in an essay called, "Lessons from the Russian Meteor Blast."

"And in the unlikely event that we actually find a dangerous object on a collision course with Earth, we might actually be able to deflect it if given sufficient warning time. Now, every government in the world is keenly aware of the possibility of meteor explosions over its territory."

The Russian parliament is also keen on the idea. "Instead of fighting on Earth, people should be creating a joint system of asteroid defense," its affairs committee chief Alexei Pushkov wrote on his Twitter account late Friday. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Saturday reiterated the idea and proposed a global defense system to counter space threats.

And on CNN, Lawrence Krauss, professor of physics and director of the Origin Project, talked about how human technology has advanced to the point of predicting and, more interesting, deflecting oncoming meteorites that could cause the earth "significant damage."

"We have to think about it seriously,"he said. "It's not science fiction. We can send a rocket out and land on [a meteor] or impact with it." If the meteor is far enough, "A small rocket running for a while [can cause] a small angular change.. enough have it miss the earth."

Meanwhile a new program called ATLAS is about to be launched. According to The Guardian, "The University of Hawaii has proposed a cheaper, simpler system known as Atlas -- Advanced Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System -- to be constructed with the help of a $5 million grant from NASA." Its aim is to create a warning system on oncoming asteroids and find ways to save earth from the impact.

So welcome to the age of empyrealization -- an age of man's increasing awareness and interactions with the heavens. We grow cognizant that we exist on intimate levels with the rest of the universe, that we are interacting with it, and, increasingly, having an effect upon it as it does upon us. The word doesn't exist yet in the dictionary, but for that matter neither did globalization three decades ago.

Unlike the dinosaurs, we have, in effect, become active agents in changing our destiny. A giant meteor wiped out 90 percent of life on earth 65 million years ago because the dinosaurs didn't collectively create a missile shield to deflect the meteor. Humans, on the other hand, with our orbiting telescopes and space probes, and our growing awareness of the threat from space, can track large foreign objects coming millions miles away and are talking about collectively deflecting those that could do us harm.

That man has changed his home planet is now well-accepted. Long before the industrial revolution and the age of climate change, humans have significantly impacted earth, at least according to climate scientist William Ruddiman. In his book titled Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate, he claimed that there is significant evidence that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been rising since the earliest beginnings of agriculture. There is strong evidence, too, that a mini-ice age was averted some 5,000 years ago due to the rise in methane caused by the proliferation of rice paddy agriculture in Asia.

Unlike our ancestors, however, increasingly we are aware that human actions have an impact on the entire planet and beyond.

The knowledge informs NASA's decision in September 2003 to crash the spacecraft Galileo on Jupiter rather on Europa, one of Jupiter's 39 satellites. Europa has an ocean under its ice and active volcanoes to boot. It just might be supporting alien life. Jupiter, on the other hand, is very hot and gaseous and deemed incapable of life. Crashing Galileo on Europa would have risked contaminating it with microbes from earth.

In fact, we have been interacting with the heavens longer than most have thought. Think of it in term of radio waves. According to Adam Grossman, "mankind has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now ... That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity's presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across."

Or think of it in term of our orbiting trash. According to NASA, "More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or "space junk," are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. "

While some fall to earth, others exit into outer space. In other word, the cosmos might rain meteors on earth, but humans too have already interacted with the universe by sending manmade debris into space.

More significantly, our rovers have been on Mars, roaming and digging, and studying its soil. And we have plenty of space probes that travel about in our solar system. Voyager 1, the first space probe sent up to the cosmos, has gone outside of the solar system and into deep space.

And all the while we map the universe, searching for planets that maybe hospitable to life. Astronomers, in fact, have discovered hundreds of other solar systems, and 864 exoplanets so far -- planets that are outside our solar systems. One planet in particular, 150 million light years away, is believed to have an atmosphere.

Clearly our destiny is in outer space. In a sense, globalization is but child's play compared to empyrealization, where man now recognizes earth as exiting in an open system with the rest of the cosmos and that he is interacting with, and increasingly, having an effect upon it.

Alas, back home, there's the issue of falling meteorites. The dinosaurs didn't fare well. Man, on the other hand, has a better chance. Whether or not we can deflect a large meteor as in the Hollywood movie, Armageddon, remains to be seen. But brilliant minds are at work. And nothing like an external threat to galvanize humanity.

Andrew Lam is an editor at New America Media. He is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), which won a Pen American "Beyond the Margins" award, and "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres". His latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," a collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants struggling to rebuild their lives in the Bay Area after a painful exodus, was recently published by Red Hen Press. He has lectured and read his work widely at many universities.