Blue Collar Scientist

I thought I’d collect all the online examples I could find of reactions to the recent asteroid names. I’ll try to keep it up to date over the next few days. Please let me know of anything I’ve missed!

First, stuff written by the namesakes:

PZ Myers has posted on Pharyngula.

Michael Stackpole has some remarks here. I’m assuming this is going to get wide play on science fiction and gaming blogs; if you are reading this, would you alert me if you know of something?

Phil has posted on the asteroid bearing his name (Michael Stackpole and Rebecca Watson both drop by to comment) and then followed up about the relative sizes of the various asteroids I named in this batch (Rebecca does some good-natured gloating in the comments, and I clarify a few things as well).

Skepchick has coverage by a.real.girl, with Rebecca in the comments; and Rebecca herself posts to the SGU Blog.

Next, stuff written by others:

Archaeoporn covers all the names in one post!

Greg Laden heard about it on the radio and then followed up PZ’s posting.

The Bad Astronomy/Universe Today Forums are discussing things here.

I alerted the Skeptic Friends Network where I expect there will be some follow-up discussion.

The JREF Forums have a discussion kicked off by Rebecca.

Stuart Goldman, my old editor at Sky & Telescope, pointed out some T-Shirts of interest.

Phil is already getting international coverage.

John Scalzi waxes jealous.

Robert Sim, the roboticist, covers the story and demands photos.

The Classic BattleTech forums are discussing Stackpole here.

The Farpoint Forums are abuzz about Stackpole as well.

Jim Lippard discusses Stackpole on the Lippard Blog.

And Say We Did discusses the utter coolness of all this.

There’s a discussion going on at Atheism From Mexico (Ateísmo Desde México) which I don’t fully understand, because my Spanish is next to non-existent. I guess that the OP says I’ve named asteroids after four famous skeptics, and the follow-on has something to do with Rebecca’s house being seen in Google Earth? Someone help me out?

Brian Griggs, in a short and to-the-point message, approves of the asteroid Stackpole.

Rebecca makes the front page of Current with the story (permalink here).

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast for this week leads with the news of Rebeccawatson and the other asteroids.

Tapetenageln reports on Stackpole.

AnakinWeb has a French-language discussion of Stackpole. I know French, and it seems someone reading the discussion thought it might have been an April Fool’s Day joke.

The Daily Camera, a Colorado newspaper, has a story and interview with Phil Plait about the asteroid named for him.

Michael Stackpole came to my attention in the late 1980’s when I read of some of his research that debunked claims that role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons led to involvement in Satanic cults and killings. The research was eventually compiled into The Pulling Report in 1990.

For some years now, Mike has been the Executive Director of the Arizona Skeptics. Every year he and his fellows in that group compile a list of predictions, some of them serious and some of them humorous, that are of the style of the annual predictions that so-called psychics make. Year in and year out, the organization comes up with more accurate predictions than the psychics, by wildly huge margins.

Although I follow the predictions every year, it was from his appearance on Skepticality some time ago that I learned more about some other things Mike does - namely, he goes toe-to-toe with the crazies on radio shows, representing skepticism and rational thinking in the mass media, where the cards are stacked most strongly against you. After doing a bit of research last November, I put Mike on my list of people who needed to have an asteroid named after him.

So there I was at TAM 5.5 last January, eating dinner with a bunch of complete strangers, when Mike walks in and sits down next to me. Nobody else at the table seemed to have “made” him, so I brought up the Pulling Report and said something that probably sounded sycophantic. Mike and I later waxed nostalgic in the hotel bar - which contained an original Star Wars poster - and I ended up having lunch with him and a bunch of other great people on the last day of the conference. The whole time I’m sitting there thinking how much I’d love to spill the beans that I’d just written a proposal to name an asteroid after him - but couldn’t, because the process is supposed to be secret.

The citation I submitted for Mike reads:

Michael Stackpole (b. 1957) is a prolific and popular science fiction author, and is a popular advocate for science and rational thinking through media appearances, public speaking, and writing.

I may have named an asteroid after her, but I’m really not sure what to say about Rebecca Watson. There’s simultaneously too much, and not enough.

She has been an important catalyst in the skeptical movement. Despite skepticism’s generally firm philosophical condemnation of sexism, we have not always done a good job of making women feel welcome, and I think in most places, and at most times, we’ve utterly failed at putting skeptical women in touch with one another and facilitating the discovery of like minds. Leaving aside any reasons to abhor this that spring from our dislike of sexism, there’s still sufficient reason to regret it from the lost tactical and strategic advantage of having some women prominently on our side¹. Over the years, our movement, which I think we can all admit tends to attract a disproportionate number of white, middle aged men, has suffered as a result.

It seemed to me that Rebecca came out of nowhere and started fixing these problems, even before the rest of us had really noticed she was doing it.

So Rebecca first came to my attention and earned my admiration for defining a culture for skeptical women, and bringing them into our movement in such a way that many of them are now leaders. She’s a practitioner of practical, not merely theoretical, feminism. However, if she had not done this, I still would have considered naming an asteroid after her for the simple reason that she appears to have overcome physical laws and can occupy many spaces at the same time. I’m reliably told she has a real job; on top of this, she blogs; in addition to that, she’s on a weekly podcast - a very long weekly podcast, not a ten minute thing; on top of that, she had time to enter a contest to host a radio show at NPR; and guess what, she won, and now she’ll be hosting an NPR show on a regular basis; I hear her as a guest on all kinds of skeptical podcasts all the time; she has solved the global problems of crime and poverty²…. I’m exhausted just telling you about it; if I had to do all the stuff she does so well, I’d probably not last more than a week.

I guess I named an asteroid after Rebecca because I’m extremely impressed with her on a number of different levels.

The naming citation I submitted for Rebecca Watson reads:

Rebecca Watson (b. 1980), once a street juggler and magician, promotes science and rational thinking as publisher of the Skepchick blog, a personality on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast, and as host of the radio show Curiosity Aroused.

Yeah, Rebecca was once a street juggler. How cool is that?

1. Nothing I say here should be so construed as to minimize the contribution of Eugenie Scott, etc. [↩]
2. Ok, so I’m getting a little carried away…. [↩]

Phil Plait is a great guy, and I’m just tickled pink that I’m the person who got to name an asteroid after him.

I first had interactions with Phil in 1995, when I was literally a nobody, an amateur astronomer with no research under my belt and only one article published in a major astronomy magazine almost ten years before. From time to time over the years we exchanged e-mail about various subjects, but we never met, and contact was separated by enough time that I assumed each time I got in touch he’d have forgotten me from the last time. When I called him on the phone a couple years ago to help me name asteroids after the Skepticality hosts, I was surprised that he recognized my name.

When Bad Astronomy went from a static website to a blog, and when Bad Astronomy (the book) was published, Phil started to look like a serious heavy hitter in astronomy education to me. It seemed to me that he, more than anyone else, was doing the hardest kind of astronomy education. He was taking on the kind of harmless cranks that show up at a public star parties to look through my telescope, and regale me with stories about how the moon landing was faked, or about how gravity from some planetary alignment would destroy the Earth. I began to get laser printer business cards, on which I printed an appropriate collection of URLs from Phil’s website, to hand out at these events to people wanting or needing real information.

I’ve been following Phil’s work now for more than ten years, and finally met him last January at TAM 5.5. I am persuaded - having given it a lot of thought - that he will likely be our next Carl Sagan. I take nothing away from Tyson, or any of the many others doing outstanding work in communicating astronomy, but Phil has not only the knowledge and professionalism, but also the enthusiasm and the sense of humor needed to fill those shoes. And more importantly, Phil is a free agent, devoting himself to science communication full time, on his own terms. I am very much looking forward to seeing what he accomplishes in the next few years.

The naming citation I submitted for Phil reads:

Phil Plait (b. 1964) is an astronomer, educator, and author. Since 1998 Plait has educated the public and debunked astronomy myths and misconceptions through his popular website, books, and media appearances.

I have a confession. I would have named an asteroid after Phil years ago, but stupidly, I assumed it had already been done - and I never checked to make sure until last December. Better late than never, Phil!

When I started thinking about how I should name some asteroids, I quickly discovered that PZ Myers had not yet had one named for him. I believe that the work he’s doing to explain evolution and oppose creationism is absolutely critical to the public perception of science, and I’m very aware that evolution is just the issue of the day. It is abundantly clear from my own (modest by comparison) science education activities that those who hate evolution have an equal hatred for the big bang theory, for the notion of cosmological distances, and for many other things that we have learned from astronomy.

If the biologists are overrun, the hordes will storm the big bang next. So PZ is doing yeoman service at insulating my discipline from the denialists. But more than this, he’s damn good at what he does¹. I remember reading PZ in the talk.origins days, and I’ve been reading his blog just about forever. I’ve benefitted enormously from it, in terms of the amount of knowledge I’ve soaked up (in a field well outside my own discipline), and it has materially enhanced my ability to respond to antievolutionists that attend my own programs. Besides this, I’ve derived hours - probably a few too many hours - of enjoyment from his writing.

The naming citation I submitted for PZ Myers reads:

Paul Myers (b. 1957), associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, was among the first to study zebrafish as models for evolution and human development. As author of the blog Pharyngula and through public appearances and debates, he educates the public about evolution and science.

I talked to PZ on the telephone Sunday evening, to tell him of the asteroid naming and give him a little warning that he was likely to see some publicity about it. Although I was quite nervous calling up one of my heroes in such a brazen manner, I’m happy to report that PZ is an incredibly likable guy, and that I had no unpleasant experiences with stray tentacles. I will doubtless never know PZ well, but I’m glad that I can say I feel this naming is appropriate not only because of Dr. Myers’ professional accomplishments, but also because of his good character.

1. regardless of what Nisbet and Mooney say. [↩]

Let’s cut right to the chase:

I am deeply privileged to have named asteroids after PZ Myers of Pharyngula; Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer; Rebecca Watson, founder of Skepchick; and Michael Stackpole, skeptic and science fiction author¹. Quick links to my thoughts on the names:

• PZ Myers
• Phil Plait
• Rebecca Watson
• Michael Stackpole

Please go off to their respective blogs and websites and offer these people the congratulations they richly deserve, and then come back to read the rest of the story.

…

As my handful of readers probably know, I’m an astronomer. I’ve done a bit of research on cataclysmic variable stars, active galactic nuclei, and asteroids. During the course of the asteroid work, my collaborator, Dave Healy, and I have discovered almost 500 asteroids.

Back in 2000 and 2001, I was involved day-to-day in an asteroid observing program in southern Arizona, at an observatory bearing the peculiar name Junk Bond Observatory. Its name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the way it was financed, but it is a serious place, with robotic 0.4 and 0.8 meter (16 inch and 32 inch) telescopes devoted to research every clear night.

On the night of November 23, 2001, I was sitting in the cold at the 16″ instrument, trying to debug one of the endless problems this telescope had. In the course of a test run of my latest attempt to overcome the problem, I took three images of a previously unknown asteroid. The following night, I followed up on the find, and reported it to the Minor Planet Center, at Harvard. Within a day or two, I was credited with having discovered (yet another) new asteroid.

When first discovered, asteroids get a “provisional designation” - the year followed by a letter-number code. After the asteroid is followed for a while, and an accurate orbit is determined - something that typically takes several years - the asteroid receives a number. Once an asteroid is numbered, it may be named. The naming process takes a few months, so the asteroid names I’m discussing today, which I learned had been approved by the IAU last Friday, were being worked on in December and January, and were formally proposed to the IAU in February.

The asteroid I discovered on November 23, 2000 was originally called 2000 WG11. It was followed for a few orbits, and eventually numbered 165347. Now, it is officially named Philplait - but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

By the following spring, most of the telescope’s problems were under control, either fixed with nuts and bolts, or worked around with clever software techniques. My collaborator, Dave Healy, observed for most of the month of March, including the latter half of the month. He discovered new asteroids in the same way I had, on March 22, 23, and 29. After being tracked for a few years, they were duly given numbers:

• 2001 FB10, discovered on March 22, was numbered 153289. It is now officially known as Rebeccawatson.
• 2001 FP86, discovered the following night on March 23, was numbered 165612. It is now officially known as Stackpole.
• 2001 FC122, discovered on March 29, was numbered 153298. It is now officially known as Paulmyers.

A peculiarity of astronomy is that by long-standing tradition, the person who discovers an asteroid gets to name it. In order to do so, the discoverer must write a short explanation of the proposed name (called a “name citation”), and send it to the International Astronomical Union for approval. The International Astronomical Union is the international authority for celestial nomenclature - what they say goes, and their decisions about naming are respected by astronomers worldwide. These are the same people that demoted Pluto from planet status a few years back, so it is best not to trifle with their power.

(The IAU’s activities in naming celestial objects stand in sharp contrast to the companies selling the opportunity to name a star after a loved one. While some may consider this practice to result in an entertaining and worthwhile novelty, the name has no official standing and will never be heard of or used by astronomers.)

The number of asteroids Dave and I have discovered that are numbered but not named has been growing over the last year or two, and Dave started bugging me to propose some names. Discussions and brainstorming ensued. I take the responsibility of naming an asteroid exceptionally seriously. An asteroid name is forever, as Phil Plait points out:

Think of it: unless some future astronaut mines it, a billion years from now that rock will still be orbiting the Sun. Itʼs almost literally a piece of immortality.

I feel as though I have to give some careful consideration to the matter, and to choose names that are meaningful and important in some way. My longstanding interest in skepticism and in science education had previously resulted in me naming asteroids after Derek Colanduno and Robyn “Swoopy” McCarthy, the hosts of Skepticality, who had pioneered the new media of podcasting and put it to service for skeptical thinking. It seemed logical to continue the practice.

The next few postings to my blog will be about the people I chose to name asteroids after - and their namesake space rocks.

1. I’ve listed them in order of Technorati “authority.” [↩]

Welcome, Mix 103.1 Listeners!

It is often believed that on the equinox, the length of daylight and nighttime are the same. The very term “equinox,” with its similarity to equality, implies it. But in reality, there’s more daylight than nighttime on the date of equinox.

The moment of equinox is when the center of the sun is directly over the equator. If you were standing on the equator, the sun would pass directly overhead. But the sun wouldn’t stay above the horizon for twelve hours, and then set, leading to twelve hours of night. If you had a stopwatch and timed it, you’d find there were several minutes of excess daylight at the equator. And if you timed it in Alaska, the excess would be far greater - more than a third of an hour!

Why would this be?

The biggest factor in messing up this otherwise perfect symmetry is our atmosphere. When looking along the horizon, we are looking through a vast sea of air, which refracts the light from all celestial bodies - including the sun. The result of this refraction is to make everything low to the horizon appear to be higher in the sky than it really is. The effect is so extreme that while the sun is still below the horizon, the atmosphere refracts its image and makes it appear to have already risen. At the horizon, atmospheric refraction bends this image by more than the apparent size of the sun. If we took the atmosphere away the instant that the entire sun became visible over the horizon, the sun would disappear, and it would be a few seconds before it rose a second time.

Of course this effect works in reverse as well. Because the atmosphere makes the sun appear higher in the sky, during sunset the real sun is below the horizon even though the image of the sun is still visible.

How much of a difference this makes depends on your latitude. On the equator, when the sun rises it goes directly up, gaining altitude but remaining over whatever distant mountain or building it rose from behind. So the difference in time between the optical illusion of sunrise and the moment when the actual sun would appear above the horizon if there weren’t an atmosphere is only a few dozen seconds. Similarly, during sunset, the sun plunges straight below the horizon, leading to a similar time difference.

But from more northerly and southerly latitudes, the sun moves to the left or the right during sunrise and sunset. At the latitude of Anchorage, this motion is to the right, and the sun actually moves more to the right than vertically during the course of the day. One consequence of this is that sunrise and sunset are protracted, long-lasting events. When the first bit of the sun appears above the horizon, it does not appear to be in as big a hurry and it doesn’t rise straight up into the sky; it skirts along the horizon, allowing the sunrise to linger for many minutes. This means that the image of the sun appears above the horizon for quite a long while before the “true” sun would appear if there were no atmosphere. And again, the same process works during sunset to further extend the period of daylight.

The end result is that we get far more daylight on the equinox than we do nighttime. Today, sunrise was at 7:56 AM, and sunset will be at 8:19 PM. That’s 23 minutes of excess daylight! For us, here in Anchorage, we had equal daylight and nighttime on Monday (March 17) - when the sun rose at 8:08 AM and set at 8:08 PM.

In a few days, I’ll be at the Eagle River Nature Center to talk about exoplanets - planets orbiting stars other than our sun. The talk is at 7:00 PM on March 21.

I’ll be covering some pretty interesting topics:

• how they are detectable - this will involve my semi-famous “swinging of the heavy ball” demonstration
• why we’ve found a lot of big, short-period planets, and fewer earth-sized, long period ones
• how we find them - what kind of telescopes and instruments are used
• who is finding them - including some amateur astronomers who have made these discoveries
• how many there are
• what we’re likely to find in the future

Come on out and join us!

Yesterday I gave the debut of my talk on exoplanets at the Campbell Creek Science Center, to a packed house, despite a lot of items competing for attention on the Anchorage social calendar that evening. Luise certainly knows how to do the publicity for these events. The CCSC is a consistently great venue; everything always works, the publicity is always done professionally and they almost always pack the house, and as a result of my eight appearances there I have a complete set of CCSC commemorative coffee cups to show off to my friends. (And I do use them!)

Anyway, while talking about exoplanets, I presented some evidence that showed that space is “filthy” with amino acids, sugars, and the elements necessary for life as we know it - i.e., carbon-based life, not necessarily life that looks like what we see on Earth. Unbeknownst to me, two pertinent studies on these topics were published the day of my talk - I didn’t hear about them until afterwards, because I hadn’t had a chance to go online anytime on Thursday.

Anyway, the two results bear directly on what I was speaking about. The first reports that the Spitzer Space Telescope has found more life-forming stuff in a protoplanetary disk:

Researchers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered large amounts of simple organic gases and water vapor in a possible planet-forming region around an infant star, along with evidence that these molecules were created there. They’ve also found water in the same zone around two other young stars.

This isn’t exactly Earth-shattering news. We’ve found all these chemicals in protopl