Quick explanation of this week’s Perseid Meteor shower

Meteors streaking across a starry sky
Photo of meteor shower by Prokhor Minin (unsplash.com/@len0xx43)

This week is the best time to watch for this year’s Perseid meteor showers.

From July 17 to August 24, the Earth is passing through the vast dusty path left from Comet Swift-Tuttle. But the peak of comet viewing will be this week, with the best views of comets likely in the early hours of Wednesday morning, August 12.

If you choose a dark viewing area any night this week–and if you are patient–you should be able to see some meteors. At its peak, the Perseid meteor shower could produce 100 meteors per hour.

Meteors are the pieces of debris that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. They pass through the atmosphere at high speed–37 miles per second!–burning up as they fall. They make bright streaks in the night sky. Most of the Perseid meteors are only the size of a grain of sand.

When a meteor is large enough to make it all the way to the ground without burning up, we call it a meteorite. When meteors are still in space, the pieces of debris are called meteoroids.

[What is a comet?]

Comet Swift-Tuttle, a large comet, is the largest object to regularly pass close to the Earth. Its nucleus is 16 miles wide. That is twice as big as the object that some scientists think struck Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.

Comet Swift-Tuttle orbits the sun, taking 133 years to complete one round-trip journey. The last time it was closest to the sun was 1992 and it won’t get that close to the sun again until 2125.

In the year 3044, scientists predict the comet will make one of its closest passes by Earth, when it will be close to 1 million miles away.

Orbits–Giant solar systems and tiny atoms both contain orbits. Let’s explore giant and microscopic worlds!

Old model of the solar system. Text: Orbits--Giant solar systems and tiny atoms both contain orbits. Let's explore giant and microscopic worlds!

The solar system is made of giant, orbiting bodies: planets

Eight planets orbit the sun, forming our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Asteroids also orbit the sun in the Main Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt. The planets and the Main Asteroid Belt orbit the sun in a flat plane, like an invisible plate in space where the planets pass mainly through the plate. Sometimes they rise higher than the plate, sometimes they travel a little lower, but not by much.

The planets are very large objects. The sun, at the center, is the largest object in our solar system.

Tiny atoms are made of microscopic bodies that orbit each other

Cover of The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

Next, let’s look at some of the very smallest objects in our universe: atoms. According to physicist and author Brian Greene, in his book The Elegant Universe, the ancient Greeks believed that “the stuff of the universe was made up of tiny ‘uncuttable’ ingredients that they called atoms.” The ancient Greeks thought the atom was the smallest building block of all matter. They said the atom was not made of anything smaller and could not be divided.

In the nineteenth century, scientists found that oxygen and carbon were made of the smallest pieces that could be recognized. “[F]ollowing the tradition laid down by the Greeks, they called them atoms. The name stuck,” Greene writes.

But it was later learned that oxygen and carbon atoms, and atoms of all the other elements, were made up of even smaller pieces. “Far from being the most elementary material constituent, atoms consist of a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, that is surrounded by a swarm of orbiting electrons,” Greene writes.

Writers create new ideas by converting large to small or small to large

Sci Fi writers create fascinating creatures by turning something very small in the real world into something very large in their story. Consider the lowly worm. Frank Herbert turned the worm, a creature of a few inches, into his gigantic and fearsome sandworms of Arrakis in Dune.

Today, let’s do the reverse. Let’s take something very, very large–our solar system–and imagine it as small as an atom. If a sun were the nucleus of an atom, and if each electron orbiting around that nucleus were a planet, what kind of solar system can you imagine?

Build your mini-system!

Imagine your miniature solar system.

  • Would your planets be inhabited? Would the third planet–like Earth–support life?
  • Would travelers cross the vast distances between atoms to visit?
  • Where would your atom-sized solar system be floating? Would it be safe?

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

What is that?–CYBORG-a person made from natural and mechanical parts

Photo by Judeus Samson (unsplash.com/@shotbyjudeus). Model/artist: Rio Sirah.

Today is Wednesday, so it’s time for our regular feature What is that? Here’s today’s term:

Cyborg – a cybernetic organism; a person or creature comprised of both mechanical and biological parts

Clynes and Kline coined the word “cyborg” to describe modifications to astronauts

Scientists Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline coined the term “cyborg,” which is merely a contraction of the words cybernetic organism. Cybernetics is a study comparing the human nervous system and systems that govern how machines operate.

Clynes and Kline created the word to use in scientific papers discussing how humans might one day be modified with machine or artificial parts so they could endure long travel times in space and survive the hardships of life in space. They even discussed how modifications might make it possible to live without breathing.

Cyberpunk explores future societies filled with cyborgs

Cover of Neuromancer by William Gibson

One of the most famous cyborgs from cyberpunk is a woman named Molly Millions, a “razorgirl” mercenary. Author William Gibson created Molly in his 1981 short story “Johnny Mnemonic.” The short story was later the inspiration for the 1995 film of the same name starring Keanu Reeves.

Molly is a cyborg with eye implants and blades built into her fingers. Here is how Gibson describes her in his cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer. (By the way, she carries a gun Gibson calls a “fletcher” that shoots flechettes or darts.)

“He realized that the glasses were surgically inset, sealing her sockets. The silver lenses seemed to grow from smooth pale skin above her cheekbones, framed by dark hair cut in a rough shag. The fingers curled around the fletcher were slender, white, tipped with polished burgundy. The nails looked artificial.

. . . .

“She wore tight black gloveleather jeans and a bulky black jacket cut from some matte fabric that seemed to absorb light.”

. . . .

“She held out her hands, palms up, the white fingers slightly spread, and with a barely audible click, ten, double-edged, four centimeter scalpel blades slid from their housings beneath the burgundy nails.

“She smiled. The blades slowly withdrew.”

Punk woman with bright red hair wearing black clothes and black surgical mask
Photo by Valery Sysoev (unsplash.com/@valerysysoev).

Become a cyborg!

If you could be a cyborg, what three cybernetic features would you add to your own body?

  • Would you add brain power with faster computing speeds or massive memory?
  • Would you improve your strength, speed, or vision?
  • Would you add wings to fly? Some other upgrade to do what no human can?

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

A review of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline–a sprawling Sci Fi adventure that explores nerd culture from the 1980s to the future

Cover of Ready Player One showing Wade Watts climbing the stacks.

Here’s an introduction to the sprawling science fiction blockbuster Ready Player One

The hero, Wade Watts, is a poor, orphaned teenager, whose real life exists on the OASIS, a massively multiplayer online game. He is stuck with a third-level avatar.  “Having a third-level avatar was a colossal embarrassment.”  Wade is a gunter, looking for the creator’s secret Easter Egg hidden in the OASIS.  “The Hunt, as the contest came to be known, quickly wove its way into global culture.  Like winning the lottery, finding Halliday’s Easter egg became a popular fantasy among adults and children alike. . . .  A new subculture was born, composed of the millions of people who now devoted every free moment of their lives to searching for Halliday’s egg.  At first, these individuals were known simply as ‘egg hunters,’ but this was quickly truncated to the nickname ‘gunters.’”

Cover of Ready Player One showing Wade climbing the stacks.

The story begins in the laundry room of Wade’s aunt’s trailer, which is in the Portland Avenue Stacks of Oklahoma City.  The stacks are neighborhoods of trailers-stacked-on-trailers in high-rise fashion.  Wade soon scampers to his hideout, the space in the back of a cargo van buried underneath a mound of discarded cars and trucks, where he can log into the OASIS.

The story moves to the OASIS, where most of the story occurs.  Here’s how Wade describes the OASIS:  “a massively multiplayer online game that had gradually evolved into the globally networked virtual reality most of humanity now used on a daily basis.”

The hero’s best friend is Aech, whose real identity and name were a secret.  “Aech pronounced his own avatar’s name just like the letter ‘H’” and he confided to Wade that his real first name began with the letter “H.”

Cover of Ready Player One showing cast members from the movie.

“Aech’s avatar was a tall, broad-shouldered Caucasian male with dark hair and brown eyes.  I’d asked him once if he looked anything like his avatar in real life, and he’d jokingly replied, ‘Yes.  But in real life, I’m even more handsome.’”

Aech is a senior at OPS #1172, a high school on the virtual education planet Ludus in the OASIS.  “He made quite a bit of dough competing in televised PvP arena games after school and on the weekends.  Aech was one of the highest-ranked combatants in the OASIS, in both the Deathmatch and Capture the Flag leagues.  He was even more famous than Art3mis.”  Aech is also a gunter.

In time, Wade and Aech meet the legendary Art3mis, pronounced “Artemis,” another gunter who is famous for her gunter blog, Arty’s Missives.  “Her avatar had a pretty face, but it wasn’t unnaturally perfect.  In the OASIS, you got used to seeing freakishly beautiful faces on everyone.  But Art3mis’s features didn’t look as though they’d been selected from a beauty drop-down menu on some avatar creation template.  Her face had the distinctive look of a real person’s, as if her true features had been scanned in and mapped onto her avatar.  Big hazel eyes, rounded cheekbones, a pointy chin, and a perpetual smirk.”

The villain is Innovative Online Industries (IOI).  IOI “was a global communications conglomerate and the world’s largest Internet service provider.  A large portion of IOI’s business centered around providing access to the OASIS and on selling goods and services inside it.  For this reason, IOI had attempted several hostile takeovers of Gregarious Simulation Systems [which controlled the OASIS], all of which had failed.”  

Stylized cover of Ready Player One showing a cross section of a head where the exposed brain looks like a maze puzzle

IOI also recruited legions of gunters to look for Halliday’s Easter egg.  These mercenaries of the OASIS are called “Sixers” because they all have six-digit employee numbers starting with the numeral “6.”  “To become a Sixer, you had to sign a contract stipulating, among other things, that if you found Halliday’s egg, the prize would become the sole property of your employer. . . .  The company also provided your avatar with high-end armor, vehicles, and weapons, and covered all of your teleportation fares.  Joining the Sixers was a lot like joining the military.”

This story feels like all your best memories of playing video games.  Any kind of game.  If you like space games, first-person shooters, quest games, arcade games, classic Atari, it does not matter.  Ernest Cline included them all in Ready Player One.  There is at least one scene dedicated to every kind of game, even video games that do not exist yet.  (The one exception may be sports games, unless you consider the jousting in Joust to be a sport.)

You should read this book because if you love reading fiction, then you probably love a good escape from reality.  Wade, the ultimate escapist who even goes to school in a virtual world, takes us on an epic journey through every kind of virtual adventure imaginable.

You may also want to read this book if you love 1980s movies, music, games and trivia.  Or if you love geek or nerd culture.  This book is chock full of references to everything we geeks and nerds love.  Everything!

Cover of Ready Player One showing the stacks in green schematic over black

If you read this book, you’d better not mind nerd culture, endless 1980s references, and the word “sucks.”  Wade likes that word a lot and a few other strong words now and then.  And you’d better not mind a long book.  It’s great, but it’s long.

Here’s a good part:  “I walked across the chamber to the foot of the dais.  From here I could see the lich more clearly.  His teeth were two rows of pointed cut diamonds arrayed in a lipless grin, and a large ruby was set in each of his eye sockets.

“For the first time since entering the tomb, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

Cover of Ready Player One showing gate, figure and key in 8-bit

“My chances of surviving one-on-one combat with a demi-lich were nonexistent.  My wimpy +1 Flaming Sword couldn’t even affect him, and the two magic rubies in his eye sockets had the power to suck out my avatar’s life force and kill me instantly.  Even a party of six or seven high-level avatars would have had a difficult time defeating him.”

Have you already read it?  What did you think?

If not, do you have a question about this book?  Give me a try.

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross