Music of the Cosmos No Space Oddity

 

Collage by Jonathan Sabin

       The death of music superstar David Bowie brings to mind all the beautiful songs written with a spacey theme.

       And when you see the cosmic collection of works, well, you realize that the inspiration of the cosmos is no space oddity.

       The Sun, stars and mostly the Moon are themes of songwriters since, well, probably since the cow jumped over the Moon!

       There are classic monster hits like “Moon River” (Henry Mancini & Johnny Mercer 1962), “Here Comes the Sun” (The Beatles 1970) and “Stardust” (Hoagy Charmichael 1927).

       But there is so much more between heaven and Earth.

       I have a Spotify account, and keep several favorites list.  Song with the title “Moon” in them have 45 entries lasting 3 hours; “Sun” has 30 songs at 2 hours My folder of “Astro” has 83 songs at 6 hours (from heavy metal master Rob Zombie’s “Mars Needs Women” to “Cosmic Rays” by jazzman Charlie Parker). And there are certainly some great songs we all know.

       But David Bowie nailed it.  Sure, “Space Oddity” and its prologue “Ashes to Ashes” are the giant hits.  But there’s so much more…like the beautiful lyrics in “Starman” and “Lady Stardust”, both from the “Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars” album. And then there is the album “Black Star,” the 25^th and final album from this once-in-a-lifetime talent.

       Tributes from David Bowie music lovers show that the man literally “sold the world” on his quirky yet positively received music creations.  And they were just that, keenly crafted musical stories about loving Earth but reaching for the stars. 

       Music is a lot like that.  Dreamy stories about our own nirvanas, some good, some a little nasty.  Music is a lot like that too—taking glimpses at the good and bad sides of life. And astronomy themes have plenty of “Dark Stars” (Grateful Dead) and “Moonage Daydreams” (Bowie) for those songwriters.

The whole spacey music concept of such bands like Yes, Rush and of course Pink Floyd were influenced by the Space Age.  And look at all the album cover art (another “Stargazer” column) with outer space themes, i.e. albums by Boston, Grateful Dead, Asia and Electric Light Orchestra, and many more.

       I looked around and thought about all the songs with themes of the Earth, stars, planets and Moon. There is a whole genre of “space music” of instrumentals, as well as concert pieces like Holst’s “The Planets.” But I found some tunes I’m sure you’ll be tapping your toes to…

       Let’s start with some of the top hits from the Cosmic Billboard Top 100 and the first spacey hit, the 1962 instrumental Telstar by the Tornadoes.  The song is the first #1 hit in the USA by a British band, and came on the heels of John Glenn’s historic three orbits of Earth. 

The 1960s had a little musical story by the Byrds called “Mr. Spaceman,” the 1970s were ruled by Bowie and Pink Floyd; the ‘80s and the disco era had a hit “Lucky Star” by Madonna. The 1990s had REM “Man on the Moon” and into the 21^st Century there’s “Soak Up the Sun” by Cheryl Crow.

There are a hundred songs about the Sun, but you know some of the real smash hits by heart: “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,” by Bill Withers; “Let the Sun Shine In (Aquarius),” by Fifth Dimension; and Sunshine (Go Away) by Jonathon Edwards. 

There’s “Keep on the Sunny Side” by the 1928 Carter Family and “You Are My Sunshine” from the 1930s which nearly everybody knows: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear how much I love you, so please don’t take my sunshine away.”  And 20 or so more verses to this happy song, which is the state song of Louisiana.

Some of those songs about the Sun have some awful long titles: “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine” (The Statler Brothers 1978); “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” (Gerry & The Pacemakers 1964); and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (Elton John 1974).  

Don’t forget, a “Good Day Sunshine” by The Beatles deserves some “Cheap Sunglasses” by ZZ Top. And if your lost, you might be in a “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden

My favorite solar karaoke classics would be “House of the Rising Sun” by Eric Burdon; “Paper Sun,” by Traffic; “Sunshine of Your Love,” by Cream; and “Sunshine Superman,” by Donovan.  Yeah, all from the 1960s of my life, so if you don’t know them, go fetch ‘em on your favorite Space Age communication device!

Most of the planets have songs titled after them “Drops of Jupiter” by Train was a big hit in the 2000s, and “Jupiter’s Child” by Steppenwolf was a ‘60s hippie favorite.  Meanwhile, Emily Lou Harris is singing to her lover about “Jupiter Rising.” And Janis Joplin is running from sunlight under a “Half Moon.”

I was excited to see planet “Mercury” on a list, listening to an Alan Jackson cover I realized it a girl was crazy about a car, not a planet!

And I can’t ignore the obvious bad song titles about our much abused planet Uranus: “Anus of Uranus” by Klaatu; “Up Uranus” by KMFDM; and “Out of Uranus,” by Killing Floor. Pew!

There’s a bunch of “stoner” songs that seemed to make their way from vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD and now internet music.  “Space Truckin’” by Deep Purple was a rocking through the Universe in the 1960s.  And then you have that little Pink Floyd album called “Dark Side of the Moon” packed with stellar classics.  How about Blue Oyster Cult and their spacey songs like “Astronomy.” Another cosmic rocker is “Star Rider” by Foreigner. 

Venus is a hot topic for some Cosmic Top 100 hits. 

A monster hit for the teen idols of the 1950s was about a modern goddess “Venus” by Frankie Avalon.  Then in the 1960s there was a hit “Venus” by the Shocking Blue (“I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, at your desire”).  And that was covered in the 1990s for a mild hit by Bananorama. Meanwhile, somewhere in the music temples, the Chili Peppers took a “Subway to Venus.”

And the Moon.  Yes, it is the most sung about object in the skies.  You’re probably not a songwriter if you’ve never written a tune about our favorite celestial neighbor.   

Some of the logical hits: “Bad Moon Rising,” by Credence Clearwater Revival; “Moondance” by Van Morrison; “Moonshadow” by Cat Stevens; and “Moon River” by Henry Mancini and classically sung by Andy Williams. Are you humming along yet?

One of the earliest “astro songs” songs that became a hit in the 1950s was “How High the Moon” by Les Paul & Mary Ford (It’s 240,000 miles FYI).  Shortly after that, Hank Williams, of course, was “Howlin’ at the Moon!” I’d walk a “Moonlight Mile” with the Rolling Stones if Frank Sinatra would promise to “Fly Me to the Moon,” just another classic that sticks in your head.

And the “do-wop” spin on the Marcels’ 1961 “Blue Moon” is a completely different song than the beautiful 1956 ballad by Elvis Presley, “Blue Moon.”

A nice two-step melody is the 1909 Gus Edwards /Edward Madden classic “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” made more popular by Doris Day’s 1953 recording.

Hear Ozzy Osbourne “Bark at the Moon” and tell me if that melody is nice…or nasty.  Little Feat will serve you up a drink at the “Spanish Moon,” and you can really trip out on the imagery of the Grateful Dead’s “Picasso Moon.” And the Kink’s let it all hang out on “Full Moon.”  Bring it home is Neil Young with “Harvest Moon.”

I suggest three Moon songs for you to checkout: “Moon at the Widow” by Joni Mitchell; “The Moonbeam Song” by Harry Nilsson; and “Drunk on the Moon” by Tom Waits.  Each melodic, interesting and, well, about my favorite subject, the Moon!

Stevie Wonder has sung about living on “Saturn,” where people live to be 205.  Tori Amos is a “Star Whisperer” and Jethro Tull immortalizes the “Big Dipper.”  Yet it is David Bowie who ponders for us “Is There Life on Mars?”

 I’ve taken many trips around the cosmos listening to John Lennon’s “Across the Universe.” And there’s not a finer bluegrass tune than Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”  Both seemingly come from the opposite sides of the music cosmos, but they don’t. The inspiration is out of this world for both great musicians.

Astronomers believe there is a harmonic rhythm to the motion of the spheres, and mathematicians will show you the laws that govern both an orbiting planet and a vibrating guitar string. The music of the spheres is a beautiful thing.  

The great David Bowie understood the harmony of the Universe and his planet.  And his cosmic playground was music. 

Bowie took that celestial rhythm from his soul and shared it with his fellow earthlings—trying to reach across the Universe.  I think he made it.

          I was at the LBJ Texas White House Ranch (Friday Jan. 15, 2016), turned a corner in the gift shop/museum and...wow! Very neat, concise space display with...what's this...OMG! President Johnson collected autographs of the famous who visited the Ranch on concrete blocks, called "Friendship Stones." And before me were the Mercury Triumvirate--Shepard and Glenn (signed April 24, 1962) and Grissom (who put the date of his sub-orbit July 21, 1961). They must have been at the Ranch together. Look at hero Gus' with the Mercury 7 symbol! Nice little serendipity at an awesome American treasure--the LBJ Ranch 50 miles west of Austin, TX.
        

MARQ AT LBJ RANCH  and SPACE RACE DISPLAY

                 FRIENDSHIP STONES AT PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON'S TEXAS WHITE HOUSE A SWEET SURPRISE OF SPACE HISTORY

     No politician of the 1950s or '60s did more for space exploration than Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States.  As Vice President under President John F. Kennedy, it fell to him to oversee the new agency NASA and the Moon Race with the Soviet Union when Kennedy cast the die to the Moon in 1961.   America's launch in Florida is named for Kennedy.  But is in Houston at the Johnson Space Center where most of the training is conducted and astronauts live.  And all the Moon rocks are at JSC!  
    So it must have been a special day when Americas first three spacemen came to visit the Texas White House on April 24, 1962.  

The Friendship Stones:   
     

Alan Shepard 

ALAN SHEPARD, Mercury 1 and Apollo 14  At age 37, the Navy test pilot from Derry, New Hampshire was strapped in a tiny Mercury capsule called on top of a converted rocket built for a nuclear warhead.  On the morning of May 5, 1961, after long delays necessitating him relieving himself in his spacesuit, America's first spaceship "Freedom 7" blasted off the coast of Florida.

Shepard in First Mercury Space Suit

  The spaceship reached 115 miles high and Shepard experienced a few minutes of weightlessness as he took controls.  Arcing back to Earth and  a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean 350 miles from its launch pad, the 15-minute, sub-orbital flight propelled Shepard to fame--a hero's ticker-tape parade in New York City awaited.  Ten years later, Shepard would sand on the Moon and wack a golf ball with a 6-iron while the world watched the Apollo 14 mission of 1971. 

 Shepard was one of the first astronaut millionaires (real estate), and was actor Jack Nicholson's character study as the neighbor moonwalker in the movie "Terms of Endearment."  Shepard and Deke Slayton were at the top of NASA's astronaut managment, in charge of chosing the prime and backup crew assignments for all the manned missions.  

Both were grounded by medical problems (Shepard an ear balance problem; Slayton a heart murmur) and than ran the astronaut office until medical treatment cleared their problem.  Shepard put himself originally as commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13, but needed more training and moved to Apollo 14.


  Slayton flew the historic Apollo mission link with a Russian Soyuz spaceship in 1975.  Navy Rear Admiral Shepard died in 1998 at age 74, and his ashes were spread at sea.  Shepard has been immortalized in a US postage stamp. 

JOHN H. GLENN  Mercury 3 1962; Shuttle Discovery 1998

Look up the word "hero" in the dictionary, and there is John Glenn, one of America's finest.  At age 40, he took "Friendship 7" around the world 3 times, the first American to orbit Earth.  

Glenn, wife Annie and Vice President LBJ

The spaceman came back way too valuable to risk sending back to space. So after a few years of spreading NASA's good will, he became a Senator from Ohio for 25 years.  But he yearned for space, kept in shape, and flew again at age 77 aboard Shuttle Discovery in 1998.


In 2016, Glenn was age 94 and retired to his boyhood home of Cambridge, Ohio.

VIRGIL "GUS" GRISSOM  Mercury 2 July 21, 1961; Gemini 3 March 23, 1965


Born in Mitchell, Indiana, Grissom was 34 years old when he strapped a rocket on his back and blasted into space on a Mercury mission that duplicated Shepard's first American foray into outer space.  The mission was a success except for one problem...a big one--the Mercury capsule sunk after filling with water, and Grissom nearly drowned when water filled his suit. 

Grissom on ship after rescue

 Grissom claimed the emergency hatch explosion was not caused by him, but he may have accidentally hit the button. Anyrate, he was redeemed, and chosen to fly the maiden flight of the two-man Gemini spaceship with rookie John Young.  That highly successful mission in March 1965 paved the way for Grissom to be given the nod as commander of America's new moonship, the Apollo. While testing a simulated flight while on top of their Saturn rocket at Cape Kennedy, a spark inside the pressurized spacecraft caused a flash fire that killed Grissom and two other astronauts in a minute. Date was Jan. 27, 1967. 

 The first US spacewalker Ed White and rookie Roger Chaffee perished with Grissom because of shoddy workmanship. Space history has many twists and turns in its story, and this is one that may have kept the name Grissom from eternity's history books as the first man to walk on the Moon.  

REBOOT YOUR SENSES AT TXMOST

 MARQ NOTES:  This "start-up" science museum is on the southwest side of Austin--a large city that lacks a quality science center.  That has been the mission of executive director Torvald Hessel for more than a decade, and his efforts with many others has come to this adequate facility with an impressive little planetarium built by Full Dome. The planetarium show is worth the price of admission, and there is plenty of science to experience in a super clean, spacious yet inviting atmosphere.  The best years are ahead for this quaint science museum that will certainly become a magnet for the inquisitive minds of the Austin area. 

MARQ PLAYING AT TXMOST

Stories and Photos By Mark D. Marquette  

        You tune up your car and maybe your guitar or piano. But how about a tune-up of your senses?

       A perfect place to work your eyes, ears, hands and sometimes your nose is the Texas Museum of Science & Technology (TXMOST) in Cedar Park on the northwest side of Austin.

       Easy to find off East Whitestone Blvd at 1220 Toro Grande Drive, there are plenty of hands on exhibits of experiments at TXMOST, as well as a fabulous small planetarium to show the night sky and short educational movies about all things spacey.

       Science centers are a great place to reboot one’s senses. But look around the metropolis of Austin and one is hard-pressed to find a science museum. Because there isn’t one outside the learning halls of academia.

       And that has been a decades-long mission of Torvald Hessel, executive director of TXMOST, a professional astronomer and science educator. 

Torvald Hessel, TXMOST executive director

       “I’m among a group of people eager to bring a nationally-renowned public science facility to Central Texas, said Hessel.  “Our current exhibitions in a start-up space is just a glimpse of what’s to come.”

Welcomed by Cedar Park when a 30,000-square-foot building was leased for five years in March 2015, the first six month saw 60,000 people experience the popular “Body Worlds” exhibit that featured anatomical cadavers of the human body.

       “We’re growing, and we’re off to a great start,” said Hessel. “People are discovering we exist, and new exhibits are already in the works.”

       TXMOST’s mission is to stimulate an awareness, understanding and participation through real-life demonstrations of the rewards from engineering, math, science and technology.

       “Everybody on our staff is incredibly talented in their science field and very dedicated to TXMOST,” said Hessel. “We all believe that a strong appreciation and education of science makes for a better society.”

        The 2016 TXMOST year opens with 30 hands-on science interactive exhibits that can fool your eyes, tingle your ears and allow you to carry on a conversation in a whisper with someone 80-feet away.

MarQ photo

       TXMOST is the reinvention of the Friends of Austin Planetarium, known for the past 13 years as Austin Planetarium that brings a portable star show to schools, scouts and even social events. Now, the science center has a permanent planetarium that has a show every hour as part of the admission price.

       The Larry K. Forrest Memorial Planetarium is a cutting edge concept in space education that has eight projectors, a powerful computer and many high-production educational programs with amazing animation.

       The portable planetarium is still a part of TXMOST, and education director Lucia Brimer says the experience is always a big hit.

Bobby Damiano, planetarian,
 and  Lucia Brimer, education director

       “Kids just love it.  And adults love it,” said Brimer, a Harvard-trained astronomer. “You hear the kids go ‘Wow!’ when the lights go down. And when the program is over, they don’t want you to leave.”

       That’s the mesmerizing effect of good science education, and TXMOST is blessed with a staff of real scientists and lots of amateur astronomers.

       “If you’ve been here once and like it, come back as we will constantly be changing,” said Brimer. “We’re here to serve the public.”

       The goal is to build a permanent museum in the Austin area, one that will eventually attract the premier science exhibits that tour the world.

       “We want to become your community science museum,” said TXMOST executive director Hessel.  “We are here to serve the public and welcome community input.”

       Future public events will include stargazing in the parking lot and private events like a day camp and overnights with scouts.

       “Education is our main goal,” said Hessel.  “We want guests no matter what age to leave TXMOST feeling they have learned something and that it was fun.  And maybe instilling sense of wonder and curiosity for more.”

       Exhibits that are on the way for 2016 include a Nikon show of microscope photography. And it is a goal of the science center to acquire the biggest draw of any museum—dinosaurs!

       The TXMOST staff are in negotiations to bring a substantial dinosaur collection to Austin. That will keep the public’s interest at a high level as nearly everyone loves looking at dinosaurs.

       The current exhibit of science interactives is a partnership with the Exploratorium, an internationally recognized science center in San Francisco.  Concepts of sound, light and energy are demonstrated in simple, easy-to-understand experiment stations.

       Want to play with colors and see why the sky is blue and a sunset red? You can play with prisms and colored filters to answer those questions. 

       Or how about a “Soundscope” chamber where you guess the location of everyday sounds? That’s a cool experiment as you listen to a short recording of some familiar place, like a restaurant, and try to guess the location.  There’s even a “hint” button to push. 

       There are demonstrations of how the body produces energy, how sound waves move and ways energy is stored for transfer to devices.  

       One interesting “low-tech” demonstration has one person sitting inside a half-sphere and another person facing them 80 feet away in an identical half-sphere.  The two people can quietly carry on a conversation because of the dynamics of soundwaves being shaped by the “parabolic” spheres, projecting the voices far across the room.

       The planetarium is one constant fixture at TXMOST, and visitors will be impressed with the comfort and visually stimulating programs presented by staff astronomers.  From shows aimed at children to some mind-bending visuals explaining black holes, the programs are stunning in appearance and professional in production, and outstanding in educational value.

       The giant, gray planetarium is an 8-foot tall dome that is 33-feet wide and decorated with an attractive astronomy motif.  Looking larger once inside, comfortable lounge chairs greet the stargazers and a modest console has the resident astronomer at the controls.  Questions are always welcome.

       One bit of space memorabilia on hand is a signed poster by Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise Jr. who gave his “Best Wishes” to the success of TXMOST.

       The appropriate voice exhibits have Hispanic. The restrooms are large and clean, and available are drinks and snacks. A souvenir section includes science experiment kits, 3-D artwork of space objects and stuffed animals.

       TXMOST has a six-member board of directors that include a strong mix of individuals who are community leaders, educators and business executives—all with a keen interest in the sciences. 

MarQ photo

 HOURS: Monday-Thursday                         10 am-7 pm

                 Friday-Saturday 

                     9 am-9 pm

                Sunday 11 am-6 pm

       ADMISSION: 

                Includes all exhibits and planetarium.

One-year and sustaining memberships are available at different levels to accommodate individuals to families.

                 Adults    $15

                 Seniors age 62+    $13

                 Students/Military with ID    $13

                 Youth ages 13-17    $13

                 Youth 3-12    $11

                 Children under age 3    Free

Texas Museum of Science and Technology

TXMOST

1220 Toro Grande Drive

Cedar Park, Texas 78613

Web: www.txmost.org

Phone: (512) 961-5333

E-mail: info@txmost.org

      

TOP 10 ASTRONOMY STORIES OF 2015

        Hands down, the robotic flyby of Pluto at the farthest reaches of our Solar System is the top story in astronomy for 2015.

       Other stories that everybody heard about one time or another during the past year include the orbiting of Ceres in the asteroid belt by another amazing NASA spacecraft and the confirmation that water exists on the surface of Mars.

       Astronomy highlights of the year 2015 also include the 15th year of people on the International Space Station and 25 years of fantastic images from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.    

     Let’s look at my personal Top 10 Astronomy Highlight of 2015:

1)             Pluto: the flyby last July by NASA’s
New Horizons spacecraft revealed a dynamic world of active geology despite the minus -370 below zero temperatures.  

Pluto, smaller than Earth’s Moon at just under 1,400 miles wide has frozen nitrogen, water and methane that has created a bizarre landscape of mountains, moving glaciers and ice volcanoes. Also bizarre and an active world is the 375-mile-wide moon Charon, which has a hemisphere of ice spewed off Pluto. See the latest imagery at the New Horizons web site headquartered at Johns Hopkins University.

2)             Ceres: this dwarf planet in the asteroid
Belt surprised planetary scientist when cameras onboard the Dawn spacecraft revealed more than 100 white splotches mostly inside craters and a pyramid-like mountain. 

Dawn began orbiting in August 2015, and is the first spacecraft to orbit two bodies, having spent a year in 2012 around the asteroid Vesta. The now famous image of the bright spots inside crater Occator are revealed to be a mineral like magnesium sulfate—Epsom salt. Dawn has been lowered to is final orbit height of 240 miles and is already sending back incredible images.  Check out the Dawn website or Facebook at 1 Ceres Protoplanet being revealed.  

3)             Water on Mars: A decade of orbiters
and rovers, the collaborative knowledge has finally yielded the discovery worth waiting for; liquid water does flow on the surface of Mars.

 The visual evidence of water breaching the surface on the sides of many crater and canyons has been confirmed as salty water welling up from the ground.  NASA’s car-sized rover Curiosity has also found Martian mud a foot below its wheels as it works in the middle of an ancient riverbed. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together about a wet Mars maybe 3 billion years ago.

4)             Earth-like Exoplanets Found: 

The search for extraterrestrial live in our Universe has taken some big leaps in 2015 as the Kepler Telescope and those powerful lenses on Earth keep narrowing the life indicators on planets orbiting other stars. 

5)             Europe Spacecraft Continues Orbiting Comet: 

European Space Agency (ESA) has a year of orbiting its spacecraft Rosetta around two-mile long Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. 

In November 2014 the spacecraft ejected refrigerator-sized lander Philae on the surface, and it sent photos before batteries ran out—all The odd, two-lobed shaped comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko was created when two comets collided at a low speed, giving it a distinctive “rubber duck” shape.

6)             International Space Station occupied 15 years: 

Since the year 2000, there have been at

least two people aboard the ISS orbiting 225 miles above Earth. 

That includes more than 320 people from all 17 countries that are part of the consortium that built the $400 billion “Station.” Aboard and heading to end their year-long mission in March 2016 are American and Russian experienced space men, Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko. The ISS is easy to see in our post twilight skies as a very bright, slow moving star, usually one week a month in the morning and one week in the evening. The NASA website will give you accurate times to see the ISS.

7)             Super Moon Lunar Eclipse:  

North America was captivated by the Sept. 30 total eclipse of the Moon that also happened when our celestial satellite was at its closest point to Earth, 338,000 miles away. 

Beautiful photos were captured as the Moon slipped into the shadow of the Earth, creating lasting memories across America.  A new awareness of these frequent “super moons” have piqued the public to look up at Full Moon time—and maybe do a little howling.

8)              Commercial Supply Runs to ISS:

Orbital Services spaceship Cygnus and SpaceX’s Falcon have flow to the ISS with supplies as private industry becomes a big player in the business of space flight.  After a disaster that lost its cargo ship in October, SpaceX rallied in December by launching its Falcon 9 rocket, safely landing its first stage vertically at Cape Canaveral while the second stage successfully deployed a constellation of 11 satellites. The year 2016 will be an active year for private industry continuing to push into the space frontier.

9)             Hubble turns 25:

 Launched on April 24^th, 1990 aboard

 the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates 25 years in space in 2015. The final servicing mission in 2009 gave Hubble a reprieve from the space junk scrap heap, and the orbiting telescope is still going strong. Hubble has no less than pushed the limits in modern astronomy to become a modern icon of the space age.

10)      Messenger Ends 10 years at Mercury:

NASA’s Mercury exploring spacecraft wraps up its mission next year. Launched in 2004, MESSENGER arrived in orbit around Mercury after a series of flybys on March 18^th, 2011. MESSENGER has mapped the innermost world in detail, and studied the space environment and geology of Mercury. In late March 2015, MESSENGER achieved one final first when it impacted the surface of Mercury to end its extended mission.

11)      BONUS: The book and movie “The Martian:”

Written by a computer programmer Andy Weir, this first novel created a sensation with a simple rescue mission that was written around plausible survival techniques that are capable now.  The movie was a hit as actor Matt Damon turned in a credible performance about a man stranded on Mars having to survive more than 500 days before being rescued.  Even “non-space” people love it, so check the book or movie soon!

     These are just the headline stories of space exploration for 2015 as there are other breakthrough discoveries about Dark Matter, Black Holes and the cosmological questions of the String Theory and alternate Universes. 

     And 2016 will be just as fascinating...keep your heads up and your mind open!

PLUTO REVEALS ITSELF
THIS WEEK TO NASA PROBE

       Our first and only close up view of famous dwarf planet Pluto will happen Tuesday, July 14, and the Space Age will have taken 58 years to reveal the faces of all the Solar System’s major members.

       Pluto is the last of the classic nine planets to show its face, and as you read this NASA’s New Horizons gets closer by 32,000 miles every hour.

       On July 14, New Horizons will begin its closest approach that will have it traveling 30,000 mph through the Pluto system that includes its large moon Charon and four tiny ones.  At a closest approach of just 8,000 miles, the spacecraft will be busy taking photos, measuring the atmosphere and making other measurements with seven instruments. Pluto is knocked over on its side (like Uranus) and the approach of New Horizons to the dwarf planet and its moons will be like flying through a bull’s-eye.

New Horizon spacecraft...the size of a Grand Piano   NASA artwork

       The first photos and data will take more than more than 9 hours to travel the 4 billion miles distance between Pluto and Earth.  But 85 years after its discovery, the wait will be worth it.

       Since May 2015 New Horizons has been sending back new photos across the millions of miles, each batch reveals details that tantalize astronomers anxious for the close-ups. Each day the nuclear-powered New Horizons has become 744,000 miles closer—the nine-year journey for the 1,000 pound spacecraft shaped like a grand piano is almost over. Here’s what we’ve learned about Pluto in the last 60 days from the $700,000 investment by US taxpayers in the last 60 days about Pluto:

·      Pluto is 1,471 miles wide; while moon Charon is 750 miles wide (our Moon is 2,190 miles in diameter) Astronomers are surprised that each is extremely different in appearance.

·      Pluto has two distinct faces, one dark and one bright. There appear to be several large craters, and a thin atmosphere of super-cold methane (-200 F.) might mean there are clouds. And there is a series of four, equally spaced dark circles maybe 300 miles in diameter around the equator that have created speculation from volcanoes to alien origins.

·      Charon has a dark polar cap, and is grayish. It also shows sign of some large craters. The other four moons, Kerberos, Styx, Nix and Hydra, will have to await the close encounter to be revealed.     

·      From the distance of four billion miles from the Sun is just a bright star, daylight on Pluto is similar to late twilight on Earth.

PLUTO and CHARON two hemispheres

       The controversy over Pluto’s demotion from planet status—though logical—is not going away, particularly with these new images giving the dwarf planet some character.

       New Horizons was launched in January 2006, when Pluto was still a planet.  But that changed in Prague, Czech Republic, at a meeting of the 1,600-member International Astronomical Union, the governing body that officially names celestial objects, among other duties. 

       Because there have been so many Pluto-size objects discovered beyond Pluto 4 billion miles away in the Kuiper Belt, the IAU met with a dilemma in 2006—add four or five new planets, or demote Pluto and create a new class of objects like it. The Kuiper Belt contains perhaps hundreds of thousands of rock and ice objects that were leftovers of the creation up to 10 billion miles from the Sun.

       The IAU opted for the demotion, and for Pluto supporters—named after a deity of Hyades—all hell broke loose!  Many astronomers and science educators still refuse to acknowledge the IAU's dwarf status for Pluto

       Also changing its status to dwarf planet is the largest asteroid, Ceres, orbiting in a ring of rubble between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres, 700 miles wide, is the only round object in the asteroid belt, is currently being orbited by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft.

       Beyond Pluto are dwarf planets Eris and Quaoar, each more than 2,000 miles wide. And another dozen dwarf planets have been discovered in the 1,000 mile range. 

       The fact that Pluto has five moons is reason enough to call it a planet, some say.  So, it is reasonable to think that other dwarf planets will also have moons.  Pluto's big moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978, and orbits extremely close at just 12,000 miles above the surface! They are in fact a “binary planet” revolving around a point outside the center of Pluto.  The other two 20-mile-wide moons, Nix and Hydra were discovered by the Hubble Telescope in 2005, and 10 miles moons Kerberos and Styx were found by Hubble in 2012.

CLYDE TOMBAUGH and DISCOVERY PLATES

       Many supporters of the planetary status for Pluto are endeared to its popular discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, and the man who first began seeking “Planet X,” wealthy socialite Percival Lowell. Known for his promotion of the canals on Mars in a series of popular books in the early 1900s, Lowell theorized that Neptune was being gravitationally pulled by an unseen Planet X.  He employed Tombaugh in 1927 to begin a search mission, and the humble astronomer discovered Pluto in the constellation Gemini in 1930 as a result of a tedious search of photographic plates.

       The discovery of Pluto was big news, it doubled the size of the Solar System, and the planet was at first thought to be as large as the Earth.  Tombaugh became famous as the third human to discover a planet (William Herschel in England discovered Uranus in 1781 and J.G. Galle in Germany first confirmed Neptune in 1846.) He later developed military optical tracking cameras for rocket launches. But he was always accessible to amateur astronomers at his Albuquerque, New Mexico home.

       When he died in 1997, he was an icon among the astronomy community, and often toured regions of the country, autographing posters and books at star parties and Pluto lectures.

       And the memory of Clyde Tombaugh is likely to live on for many more years as some of the astronomer's ashes are being carried aboard the New Horizon spaceship bound for Pluto. 

       When blasted off the USA Cape Kennedy Space Port on Jan. 19, 2006, New Horizon was the fastest spacecraft to leave Earth at some 25,000 mph, passing the Moon in just 9 hours—a trip that took 72 hours for Apollo astronauts.

       July 15, 2015 will be an historic day for planetary astronomers as the first close-up images of Pluto will complete the photo gallery of the traditional Solar System. 

       The only detailed images of Uranus and Neptune (and some of their moons) are courtesy of the Voyager 2 flybys in 1986 and 1989, respectively.  Soon Pluto, a planet for 66 years and a dwarf planet for the last nine years, will have a face.

       Websites to keep up with the latest include: nasa.gov; seeplutonow.com; dailypluto.com; spacedaily.com; space.com; universetoday.com; facebook/New Horizons and spaceweather.com.