The Earth...at night!

Maui astronomer Harriet Witt asks a simple question: what is night?  The answer requires us to view our planet from a completely different perspective. The answer just might surprise you.

Listen here [4:24m]:

What’s the facts:

Night or nighttime is the period of time when the sun is below the horizon. Nights are shorter than days on average, but vary in length as it is based on factors such as season, latitude, longitude and timezone. Night lets our bodies know when to sleep and when animals can go out to hunt, but it’s also important to science. Without the absence of the Sun, we may never have seen the stars in the sky, and astronomy would not be what it is today. So next time you’re taking out the trash and you get spooked when something stirs in the dark, take a minute to look at the sky and appreciate it, and remember that light is right around the corner.

Original air date 30 June 2009.

The best way to enjoy the night sky

Charae’ interviews local Maui astronomer Harriet Witt, an international award winning writer and speaker.  She has been teaching astronomy since 1980 and offering astronomy-as-entertainment at Maui resort hotels and teaches “Making Friends with the Night Sky” classes at Maui Community College.  Harriet is also the official astronomer to the annual Maui Film Festival.  Find out more about Harriet at her site, http://www.passengerplanet.com.

Listen here [18:47m]:

Original air date 26 June 2009.

I’ve applied for some unusual jobs in my time, but nothing caps sending my completed form to the European Space Agency, in the hope of becoming an astronaut. Never have I been keener to be invited for interview.

It’s the first time since 1992 that ESA has opened up its doors to potential new recruits and I’m delighted to have the chance to become a candidate. Fewer than five hundred people have left the Earth to go into space and I can think of no greater privilege to be a representative of humanity as we take our first steps on what I hope will become a great adventure.

Our place in the universe thanks to Aeree Chung of Columbia University

There’s a vast galaxy out there, which is a tiny part of a mind-bogglingly enormous universe. What a waste if our species is confined, for a short time, to Earth before humanity ceases to exist.

Some people say that spending money on space exploration is a waste. To me the argument doesn’t stand up. Without going into space, we would know so much less about the changes the Earth is experiencing and would have even less idea of how to deal with them.

The space industry has also enabled better forecasting (helping to avert natural disasters or minimizing their effects when they occur), improved agricultural yields and more efficient exploitation of raw materials, vastly more efficient communications (bringing the world closer together which in turn has seen the flow of information across previously closed borders as well as connecting remote societies where other means are impossible), satellite navigation in planes, our cars and in many other devices, and the creation of new technologies and industries. And, in the longer term, without going into space the human race will inevitably become extinct. If we are to survive, to go on, we need to place our eggs in more than one basket.

Of course money spent on space exploration is spent on Earth anyway. It’s not as if it is frittered away on the surface of some other planet. It all goes to pay salaries and purchase materials here and now, and so is recycled into our economy.

I think, though, that there is another reason why space exploration is important. We are at our best as a species when we have a purpose, a goal to work towards. I find it incredible that we went to the Moon in the 1960s. And even stranger that no one has set foot on its surface for over thirty-five years. As Kennedy said:

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone…”

All these years on, imagine what we could achieve if we set our minds to it? I was part of the generation inspired by the Moon landings. When people saw the fragile globe of the Earth from space, with no borders, it created a new outlook for humanity and the possibility of a bright shared future. My hope has always been that Johnny Mackintosh will help encourage a new generation of scientists and explorers to seize that future, to boldly go where no one has gone before. But how much more inspiring it will be when others, perhaps even me, are exploring space for real and the coming generations know they can become a part of that?

Nellie McKay, TED 2008 Day 4

Taking a breath…last session, last day of TED…. 

Poverty

Global Meltdown

Moral imbalance

Complaints, Complaints, Complaints

Too much talk and not enough listening

The last day at TED shined a clear, bright light through the 4 day multi-focal lens on BIG QUESTIONS, pointing to obvious political facts: The world is broken. We can fix it. Let’s stop kvetching. “Yes We Can” (TED played the recent YouTube video of DigDive’s musical re-enactment of Obama’s history making speech — the producers are TEDsters who brought the video to Monterey).With the help of economist Paul Collier, activist Al Gore, musicians/activists Nellie McKay and Bob Geldof, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, planetwalker John Francis, and the Kids Table Collective, TEDsters were called to taking first steps:

Collier: Draw from the lessons of post WWII reconstruction to begin the process of saving the “billion bottom” of starving nations.

Gore: Embrace Democracy, Embrace Citizenry; don’t let the “Lucifer effect” of the past 8 years of American governance hypnotize you into fear and political paralysis. (The Lucifer Effect comment refers to the talk given by Philip Zimbardo, mentioned in my recap blog: Day 2: Does Evil Prevail).

McKay: Protect and Defend the Innocent (dogs and other best friends). Use plenty of catchy, playful satire and remember…”if you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair.”

Geldof: Avoid Cultural Extinction. Salvage every flotsam and jetsam of human meme-making.

Haidt: Escape the warping of the Moral Matrix. Recognize the “ying and yang” of moral non-duality. “If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease.” – Jonathan Haidt, quoting Sent-ts’an, from 700CE China.

Francis: Listen more. Question Assumptions. Listen even more.

The Kids Table Collective: Leave no stone, no toilet seat unturned in search for the origins of life!Our work begins.

Begin with a breath. (Breath precedes initiation).

Thank you TED.     We Love You! M. A. from L. A.

What’s Out There? What Stirs Us? TEDsters clearly have both curiosity and a love for story telling (who doesn’t?) and DAY 3 at TED gave everyone several chances to downshift from high math to the intimacies of personal and collective narrative — from the heartfelt reporting on the great redwoods and mushroom forests by science writer Richard Preston and mycologist Paul Stamets to the recounting of experiences in a Nigerian prison by the soulful, sexy writer and poet Chris Abani.

Of course, one can’t forget the boyish charisma of British physicist Brian Cox charming us with the “creation story” of the physical universe and impassioned plea by ocean explorer Robert Ballard, reminding us that in addition to space probes, the stories of the vast ocean deeps await exploration by the curious and video game talented! Ballard is banking only on youth, but surely there are some aging multi-intelligent somanauts out there who could convince Ballard otherwise!