Archive for the ‘Cosmic Calendar’ Category

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Cosmic birthday: HE 1523-0901

2010/01/14

I would like to make a confession.  I am beginning to feel some of the symptoms of age.  Not old age, so much.  Just age.  Exercise is becoming something I need to consciously undertake, no longer something that simply happens among all the stuff I do in the week.  Lifting my daughter is no longer as effortless as it was a year ago.  (Okay, so that’s more a sign of her age than mine.)  Sleep is becoming a welcome goal at the end of the day, instead of an unwelcome necessity getting in the way of things I’d rather be doing.

But I have the perfect way to avoid falling into worry about my aging:  I think about HE 1523-0901. Here’s a picture of her with a few of her sisters:

Let's call her "Nan"

Yes, HE 1523-0901 is a star.  But not just any star.  She is the oldest observed object in the Milky Way.  Astronomers have estimated her age at 13.2 billion years (though, being a lady, she’s not acknowledging the estimate).  On the Cosmic Calendar, that’s today, the 14th of January.  Happy birthday, HE 1523-0901!

Keep in mind, when considering her age (born only 500 million years after the Big Bang), that the Milky Way itself is not thought to have come together in the form we now know until (at the earliest) 10.1 billion years ago – by which time HE 1523-0901 was already over three billion years old.

She is a slim star, weighing in at (forgive me, my lady) about 0.8 times the mass of our own sun.  She is a red giant, and is found about 7500 light years away in the direction of Libra.  She is apparently difficult to find from as far north as I am, so I will have to content myself with images like the above one, taken by the professional paparazzi to the stars.

I invite you to look up more about this lovely Grand Dame of our galactic family.  It certainly helps me to put my aging worries in perspective.

Finally, a note to any astronomers reading this:  she needs a better name!  I vote we call her “Nan”, after my granny.  Before you think that this is a rather backhanded way to honour my maternal forbear, let me explain.  My granny is now … well, somewhat less than 13.2 billion years old, but old enough to have three great-grandchildren.  She can still out-walk folks my age when she goes hiking around the Essex countryside.  So, just as Granny doesn’t seem to let the years touch her, I propose we honour our long-lasting stellar neighbour.  May she live another 13.2 billion years!

Photo credit:

Photo of HE 1523-0901 (Nan) from the gallery of Anthony Ayiomamitis.  (Copyrighted but assuming fair use.  Go check out his collection of amazing and educational astronomical photos!)

Redundancy note:

I’ve mentioned HE 1523-0901 before, but that’s the beauty of birthdays:  you can celebrate them anew each year.

Posted in Cosmic Calendar, education, inspiration, reflections, science | Leave a Comment »

Cosmic Advent

2009/12/17

It’s that time of year again, when the Cosmic Calendar brings almost daily events to reflect on. Today we see the Cambrian Explosion (about 540 million years ago), and the first vertebrates (around 534 million years ago). See the list of upcoming events in the sidebar on the right for the next 5, or go to the Google Calendar for the whole schedule.

I’m still working out, for myself and my family, how to integrate the Cosmic Calendar into personal holiday traditions. I like the idea of building some sort of advent calendar around these last couple of weeks. How would you go about that? Would you used biologically-themed sweets? Toys? Snappy passages from The Ancestor’s Tale?

I’d also like to fill in the blank days – the 20th, 24th, 25th, and 29th. I’m sure things were happening during these periods – every day represents about 37.5 million years of time, after all. But the big-ticket events like the first amphibians, the first birds, etc just haven’t happened to fall on those days.

Would you like to participate? Do you have any thoughts for things to include in the Cosmic Calendar? Corrections on the dates I’m using? Other ideas? Please let me know!

Posted in Cosmic Calendar, evolution | Leave a Comment »

Meditation on the origin of life

2009/09/27

In the Cosmic Calendar, the Origin of Life falls somewhere around now.* About three and a half billion years ago, the great abundance of life on Earth began, probably with a single replicating molecule – a precursor to DNA. Every living organism today, from the tiniest bacterium to the largest whale, descends in an unbroken line from that tiny bundle of atoms.

Today, I invite you to consider this:

We still reproduce as single-celled organisms.

Every act of human reproduction involves one cell from each parent. A single cell. For all our wondrous complexity, our bountiful organs and tissues, our towering intellects and tender thoughts … for all that, we still have to humble ourselves to the level of our distant, millions-of-generations-past ancestors in order to participate in that most ancient, most definitive act of life: reproduction.**

Footnotes:

* In fact, the details of this event, including its exact date, are difficult to pin down. The Wikipedia article on abiogenesis gives possible dates ranging from 4.2 billion years ago (bya) to 2.4 bya – that is, 11 September to 29 October. However, today falls somewhere in the middle of the range, just over 3.5 bya. The fact that 28 September is also my daughter’s birthday makes me even more prone to contemplating life’s origins today.

** Not all multi-cellular organisms are so constrained. Many plants do a significant part of their reproduction by sending out shoots or otherwise cloning themselves, rather than going through the whole one-cell business. Who’s superior now, eh?

Posted in calendar, Cosmic Calendar, evolution, inspiration | 1 Comment »

Cosmic Calendar: Solar System forms

2009/08/31

That season is upon us again.

I’m talking, of course, of the busiest months in the Cosmic Calendar. For those who don’t know what the Cosmic Calendar is, please see my earlier posts on the topic (starting here).

I’ve added a list of upcoming Cosmic Calendar events to the (increasingly busy) sidebar on the right.

Today (4.6 billion years ago), the Solar System begins to form. In a day or two, the Earth will have formed (4.5 billion years ago). I apologize for not having more to say right now – this kind of snuck up on me, and I still have limited Internet access outside of work. Check out last year’s post for a little more background on today’s anniversary.

(Also see last year’s post on Earth’s birthday. If anyone has any insight into the bizarre claim made in the comments, please let me know. It still baffles me. I don’t know if I could have responded more constructively.)

Posted in calendar, Cosmic Calendar | Leave a Comment »

Earth birthday

2008/09/01

Another Cosmic Calendar event already!

Only the day after the Solar System begins to form, our own humble planet comes into being.

(Remember, because we are compressing the entire history of the cosmos into one year, each day represents 37.4 million years.*)

I apologize for not having more to say just now – I am still in PhD write-up mode.

References used:
[1] Wikipedia, as usual.
[2] Talk Origins page on dating the age of the Earth

* For those who have followed this series from the beginning, you might remember that I claimed before the each day is 41 million years. I am now calling it 37.4 million. What gives? The earlier figure was based on a 15 billion-year-old universe. I have since learned that the consensus is for a slightly younger universe, at 13.7 billion years. Remember, this is a calendar based on what we know, and so when what we know changes, so does the calendar. If anyone else wants to fact-check my figures and calculations, please let me know.

Posted in calendar, Cosmic Calendar | 8 Comments »

Solar System forms

2008/08/31

For those of you who enjoyed the Cosmic Calendar posts in December (here and here), I must apologize for the dearth of them so far this year. Not much happens before December, but I did miss announcing the formation of the Milky Way galaxy back on April 6th (10.1 billion years ago).


Some time about 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system began forming from a large cloud of dust and gas. In the Cosmic Calendar, that corresponds to today. So … happy Solar System Day, everybody!

Next up … birth of the Earth.

References used:
[1] The Wikipedia article on the Formation and evolution of the Solar System reports the cloud from which it formed starting to collapse about 4.6 billion years ago. That’s also where I got the pretty picture, which is a public-domain depiction courtesy of NASA.
[2] The Natural History Museum reports an age of 4.5 billion years – slightly different (two days later in the Cosmic calendar). As the formation of the solar system probably took some time, any specific moment chosen as its “formation date” (birthday?) will be somewhat arbitrary.


Posted in calendar, Cosmic Calendar | 1 Comment »

Oldest Milky Way star

2008/01/11

Only 500 million years after the Big Bang, a star was born that would later be part of globular cluster NGC 6397, 7200 light years from Earth, which contains of around 400 000 stars. This star, perhaps not the oldest in the galaxy, is the oldest one so far observed in the Milky Way galaxy: about 13.2 billion years old. That’s January 14th for those following the Cosmic Calendar. Celebrate the birth of this early-starting star, HE 1523-0901, by getting up just after dawn on Monday.

Note that the galaxy itself didn’t start to form from these early stars (and various other bits and bobs) until between 6.5 and 10.1 billion years ago – no earlier than April 6th in our Cosmic Calendar.

I would like to appeal to any experts or students in astrophysics or cosmic evolution to help me populate this sparse end of the Cosmic Calendar with interesting events in the early universe. For now, I’m digging up the occasional tidbit from Wikipedia with my own meagre understanding of the cosmos – a more systematic set of dates would be very welcome.

Posted in calendar, Cosmic Calendar | 1 Comment »

Flowers and the end of the year

2007/12/29

Around 125 million years ago – December 29 on the Cosmic Calendar – the oldest flowering plant fossils currently dated were alive and blooming. Perhaps you can celebrate by giving a flowering plant to a loved one. This is not difficult, as only a few of the commonly-known plants are non-flowering.

Flowering plants include not only flowers themselves; they also include most trees, and even virtually microscopic plants.

Heck, you could even whip up a nice winter broth from nothing but flowering plants and water (seasoned with other flowering plants). Remember, we all depend on flowering plants for our survival (they constitute most of the photosynthetic base of the planetary food cycle).

====

I will be occupied for a few days now, and am unlikely to blog until several days into 2008. So here’s a summary of the major events in the Cosmic Calendar over the next few days.

I apologize for the lack of links to my source material. I’m a little ill, and not up to hunting them all down. New Year’s Resolution #1: Be more organized with the Cosmic Calendar announcements next year.

  • 30 December (tomorrow): A moment of silence at 10:00 might be an appropriate way to mark the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
  • 31 December, 10:30 pm (2.5 million years ago): Ancestors of humans appeared. This is the genus Homo, not Homo sapiens yet. Start working on your posture.
  • 31 December, 11:46 pm (420 thousand years ago): Domestication of fire. Light a thin candle (420 thousand years passes quickly in the Cosmic Calendar).
  • 31 December, 11:52 pm (250 thousand years ago): Birth of Homo sapiens. Find some other humans and welcome them to the planet.
  • 31 December, 11:59:40 pm (10 thousand years ago): Earliest farming. Phone a farmer and give thanks for the food you eat.
  • 31 December, 11:59:50 pm (4500 years ago): Pyramids built. That’s right, you have less than ten seconds to embarrass your friends with your “Walk like and Egyptian” tribute to these great symbols of superstition and slavery.
  • 31 December, 11:59:59 pm (500 years ago): Astronomer Nick Copernicus and others mark the dawn of science, a new stage on our path to understanding our real place in the universe, which will eventually culminate in the global adoption of the Cosmic Calendar as an annual cycle of reality-based festivities.
  • 31 December, 11:59:59.9998 pm: Last year’s New Year’s Eve, at which you were woefully unaware of the Cosmic Calendar. Spend the last 2 milliseconds of the year thanking your good fortune for finding it in time for this year’s festivities.
  • 1 January: The Big Bang! We get to start all over again, some 15 billion years ago.

See you all next year.

Posted in calendar, community, Cosmic Calendar, reflections, science | 1 Comment »

Cambrian Explosion

2007/12/19

For those of you following the Cosmic Calendar, yesterday was the Cambrian Explosion!

Sometime around half a billion years ago, a great deal of diversity in animal body plans appeared in a relatively short period of time. This was a major event in the development of the rich and complex biosphere we now enjoy.

Yesterday is also an ideal start for a Cosmic Advent Calendar. After the Cambrian Explosion, there is some sort of significant evolutionary event at least every day (every 41 million years) until the present moment (midnight on December 31st). In my Google Calendar version, I have found examples for every day except December 25th and 27th. Perhaps you can help fill them in?

I would love to announce an event every day on this blog through the advent period, but I will be away for a week visiting family. So I’ll cover my lapse by inviting you to do this the freethinking way.

First, check out the Google Calendar. Feel free to check my accuracy – I’m no evolutionary biologist.

Second, think of two or three of your favorite animals. Think of (or research) a significant evolutionary event for each. Put that event on your own personal Cosmic Calendar.

Third, meditate on how life might have been like in the deep past. Today, the first vertebrates appear: fish. Can you imagine a world without fish? With only one species of fish? What did it look like? The land is still effectively barren – no plants, no animals (not even insects).

Finally, do something that is relevant to the day’s Cosmic event. My impulse is to make it food-related – eat fish and chips, or fish-shaped crackers.

Enjoy, and have an exciting Cosmic Countdown!

Posted in calendar, Cosmic Calendar, education, science | 1 Comment »

Humanist calendars

2007/12/15

I’ve already written about the idea of humanist holidays. Well, I’ve been a a little active on that, in between being a dad and working on my PhD.

The latest products of my inspiration are two public Google Calendars.

The first is a Cosmic Calendar:

The second is a list of Humanist Holidays:

Many humanists are interested in holidays that they can celebrate without compromising their beliefs – Thanksgiving seems safe; some form of a winter festival can be more iffy, but I don’t see the problem (even the 25th of December has suitable humanist significance if you look). And there are other dates too with the potential to become new, secular days of celebration.

So tell me: What have I missed? What have I misplaced? What changes would you make? (Astrophysicists, can we fill in the early months of the Cosmic Calendar any more?)

I’ve made the calendars public not to persuade everyone to adopt my version of Humanist celebrations, but to invite everyone to comment, participate, modify.

So sign up for Google Calendars. Add one or both of these to your set of calendars (events for each one show up in a different colour). You can even import individual events into your personal calendar and modify them as you like.

Let me know what you think.

[Postscript: I notice others have taken parallel tracks in this pursuit. Pastafarians also have a Google Calendar resource to keep track of their seasonal observances (just search the public calendars for Flying Spaghetti Monster.)]

Posted in actions, calendar, Cosmic Calendar, inspiration | 4 Comments »

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