Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 85

NASA and Hubble Strike Again!

A fantastic jumble of young blue star clusters, gigantic glowing gas clouds, and imposing dark dust lanes surrounds the central region of the active galaxy Centaurus A. This mosaic of Hubble Space Telescope images taken in blue, green, and red light has been processed to present a natural color picture of this cosmic maelstrom. Infrared images from the Hubble have also shown that hidden at the center of this activity are what seem to be disks of matter spiraling into a black hole with a billion times the mass of the Sun! Centaurus A itself is apparently the result of a collision of two galaxies and the left over debris is steadily being consumed by the black hole. Astronomers believe that such black hole central engines generate the radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray energy radiated by Centaurus A and other active galaxies. But for an active galaxy Centaurus A is close, a mere 10 million light-years away, and is a relatively convenient laboratory for exploring these powerful sources of energy.

Comentary courtesy of NASA.

My comment is, the universe is not a safe place. Most of it is cold and dark and empty, and most of the rest of it is furnaces producing lethal radiation, often in the course of exploding, colliding or cannibalizing neighbors. Not that I'm complaining. It's one heck of a show.

Another Dream

I had the following dream last night:

I was in a small, dark cell. There was an opening at the top, large enough for me to get a hand through. I had a toy dump truck, smaller than a matchbook truck, and there was a dish of water on the floor next to the opening. (The cell was under the floor.) I was able to reach through the opening and use the truck to scoop water up, so I could drink. I did this again and again.

I think the dream is about my life in a capitalist society. I have had enough money to get by, and I've been mostly comfortable -- physically comfortable, at least. I can't say that I've been especially trapped: I've mostly done what I wanted to, which was be a writer. But living in an unjust society is constraining, and there such a thing as a thirst for justice and freedom. As the wonderful song by Solomon Burke says, None of us is free, till all of us are free.

Naomi Kritzer's comment on the dream:

It's your subconscious telling you that you can survive a Republican Congress, but it will be very annoying.

Less bleak and maybe more true than my analysis.

A Dream

I had a dream the night before last about a hwarhath woman who solves a mystery while impersonating Sherlock Holmes. There was more to the dream than just this, but I lost it as I woke.

In any case, it seemed worth trying to write a story about the dream idea. I got 1,900 words written yesterday. I intend no more than 7,000, so I am 25-30% done.

Another image emerged, besides the tall, thin hwarhath woman dressed (so of) as Holmes. I don't know if this was part of the dream, or something I made up after. It's a row boat, floating in the still, green water of a fjord. It's empty. That is the mystery.

Photo of the Day, Thanks to NASA

Constellations of lights sprawl across this night scene, but they don't belong in the skies of planet Earth. Instead, the view looks down from the International Space Station as it passed over the United States along the northern Gulf Coast on October 29. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is docked in the foreground. Behind its extended solar panels, some 360 kilometers below, are the recognizable city lights of New Orleans. Looking east along the coast to the top of the frame finds Mobile, Alabama while Houston city lights stand out to the west, toward the bottom. North (left) of New Orleans, a line of lights tracing central US highway I55 connects to Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee. Of course, the lights follow the population centers, but not everyone lives on planet Earth all the time these days. November 2nd marked the first decade of continuous human presence in space on board the International Space Station.

Happy Halloween from NASA and ESA!

Halloween's origin is ancient and astronomical. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day, a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With a modern calendar, however, the real cross-quarter day will occur next week. Another cross-quarter day is Groundhog's Day. Halloween's modern celebration retains historic roots in dressing to scare away the spirits of the dead. Perhaps a fitting tribute to this ancient holiday is this view of the Ghost Head Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Similar to the icon of a fictional ghost, NGC 2080 is actually a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The Ghost Head Nebula spans about 50 light-years and is shown in representative colors.

NASA Photo of the Day

This stunning vista represents the highest resolution image ever made of the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31) at ultraviolet wavelengths. Recorded by NASA's Swift satellite, the mosaic is composed of 330 individual images covering a region 200,000 light-years wide. It shows about 20,000 sources, dominated by hot, young stars and dense star clusters that radiate strongly in energetic ultraviolet light. Of course, the Andromeda Galaxy is the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way, at a distance of some 2.5 million light-years.

A Photo Patrick Took

Another Photo Patrick Took

Dell Butcher

A poem, since there is more to life than prejudice...

That's a fine tow boat you have there --
the Dell Butcher
out of Jeffersonville, Indiana,
docked at the Lower Landing
in St. Paul, Minnesota --
blue and white
in the bright October sunlight,
leaves falling from nearby trees
and pigeons flying up.

Elizabeth Moon Again

I just heard that Elizabeth Moon's invition to Wiscon has been withdrawn. As I just wrote to the Wiscon concomm:

I think you did the right thing. Her remarks were simply too awful, and the history of prejudice in the US is way too long and ugly. It must be opposed in the strongest possible way.

I also think this must have been a very difficult, painful decision. I am glad I didn't have to make it. I expect you will be getting flack, because this is a situation where you are going to make people angry, no matter what you do.

Some people may decide to not attend the con. I expect a lot more will come, who have been thinking of not coming next year.

I had a talk about Wiscon with friends yesterday, and one friend said she was most likely not going to attend, though she did every year, because she didn't want to be part of an ugly fight.

Now she can go. I had been planning to go all along, but I'd been worried about what I should do at the con.

There may still be some acrimony and intense discussion. But now the con will not be honoring someone who had expressed deeply prejudiced and wrong opinions about Muslims and the nature of the US, a country -- we should remember -- that has always been multicultural and is becoming more so; and where people have a right to not fit in and not conform to the opinions a self-proclaimed majority.

Remember Roger Williams? Remember fandom?