I know I tweeted this twice already, but I can’t stop laughing at it… “The Turkey that Ate St. Louis” or how astronomy grad students procrastinated in 1969…

Also, “Gettin’ Pissed with the FDO” from Dragon*Con 2009, finally posted! Well, the first one. Not safe for work, children, or anyone that is offended by… well… anything.

I’ll get back to the astronomy and what I’ve been up to very soon!

We’re doing a kickoff party today for a new school, yay! If you don’t hear from me in a few days, it’s probably because I’ve been trampled by 80 over-enthusiastic kidlets. Wheeeee!

A few people got this shot, but George is sitting right next to me!

And there’s video of it as well. I haven’t seen an embeddable version yet, but click to see this one hosted on spaceweather.com, taken by 13-year-old Anna Herbst from California. The ripples were seen in the clouds as a result of a shockwave just after the craft went supersonic and as it hit “max-Q” or the point at which the pressure on the craft is at its maximum. (I didn’t keep track of the timing, but Nancy Atkinson of Universe Today did!)

Such a shockwave occurs when an object is moving through a medium faster than the speed of sound in that medium (the atmosphere, in this case). The speed of sound sets the limit of how fast information about the gas can travel within that gas in the atmosphere. Sharp discontinuities in temperature, pressure, and density can occur. We could “see” these discontinuities as it reached the cirrus clouds. For whatever reason, it appeared to bust up the cloud material that was creating the sundog.

Little SDO put on quite a show in its first few minutes as a spacecraft! I’ll be writing more on SDO science and our amazing TweetUp adventure, once I get some darn sleep…

(and pictures on Flickr.)

George Privon was tweeting away as well while also posting videos on his vimeo channel including a hilarious time-lapse shoveling one, and his best impression of Les Stroud, but with a better soundtrack. He also has some stunning photos on Flickr!

The music is BEGGING for a cool tribal fusion-y choreography.  There’s a 3/4 shimmy in there, and slow up-to-down figure 8 in the chorus, no?  Time to break out the Asharah DVD. She would know what to do to that music…

Anyway, I then got distracted by a link on the side about Dan Brown and his views on science and religion. (Scroll down a bit. Yup, there it is.)  To be honest, I’ve never read his books, although I’ve seen some people get their knickers in a knot over his interpretation of religious stories.  But this blurb says that he “is sceptical about both” religion and science.  This quote from Brown follows:

I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, ‘I don’t get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?’ Unfortunately, the response I got was, “Nice boys don’t ask that question.’ A light went off, and I said, ‘The Bible doesn’t make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.’ And I just gravitated away from religion …The irony is that I’ve really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The farther you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, ‘Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.’

I’m not quite sure what physics Brown was studying, but I’m pretty sure my undergraduate classes did not at some point switch to metaphysics.  Science is more of a process than a body of knowledge.  There is nothing mushy about the rigorous standards of evidence that every study must be held up to before becoming part of our working explanation of the universe.

Rocking my SurlyRamics today!

If you delve too quickly into the cutting edge of theoretical physics, without understanding the scientific method first, science may seem like a whole lot of fantastical and “mushy” claims.  Quantum mechanics tells us that the fundamental nature of reality is probabilistic.  Relativity makes space and time malleable.  Dark energy is supposed to make up most of the energy budget of the universe, but we’re still scratching our heads over what it even is!  Although one can come up with philosophical ruminations on what this all means on a metaphysical, personal, or moral scale, that is stretching beyond science itself.

I don’t understand how one can be skeptical of science.  It is, by definition, one of the most skeptical exercises out there.  That is not to say that all scientists are skeptical, or that our discussions of reality should begin and end with science.  However, to assign to it a sort of mysticism is to talk about something that is not science at all.  Maybe it is just an admittance of where one’s understanding of science ends.

Oh, and here’s another explanation…

<3 TMBG

Semi-related… want to get a fantastic, nostalgic song stuck in your head? Thanks to Tim for tweeting this around last Friday…

I know what you are thinking, 140 characters is not enough to explain a scientific concept. In addition to following the twitter conversations with the hashtag, you can view longer answers at Asktronomy‘s official home on the web.  If you have some astro knowledge and want to help out, please do!

I’ll take this opportunity to also plug the UVa Astronomy question and answer service called AQuA.  This service rotates to a different volunteer grad student every day, giving you their email so you can ask your question! Help us out by adding “AQuA” somewhere in the subject heading. We also have a long archive of previously answered questions going back… well… does anyone know how far back this goes? (Do me a favor and don’t all use it at once, or whoever is assigned today will kick my butt!)

Finally, this is old news, but David Tennant narrates a really cool looking planetarium show that has been released in the UK.  It’s called “We Are Astronomers” and has really adorable animation and… hello… David freaking Tennant.  In his lovely accent. Talking about the thing that I do everyday.  Whoa.  I think it will be very inspiring, after the initial nerdgasm.  Check out the trailer if you haven’t already!  Please, please, please come to the States!

If it’s astronomy and David Tennant, you know I first heard of it from the Bad Astronomer.

Holy. Hilarious. Batman. Anyone feel like he and John Stewart had the same hair in the 90s?  There are a bunch of these videos well worth watching, including the lava lamp and Mike singing “My Way.”  Just as entertaining then as he is today.

Okay, off to finally see Star Trek! I’ll be in Philly all next week, including the Penn&Teller show at Harrah’s in Atlantic City on Saturday night. It’s a skeptic meetup, donchaknow? For the Skeptics in CVille, don’t forget there’s a meeting Saturday to plan upcoming events and talk about the future direction for our group.

But I have to celebrate today’s warm weather and note that it’s getting closer to BBQ season. Remember the bacon explosion? Hijinks Ensue gives it a new twist.

Please, please, please take half an hour to watch “Why is Science Important?” by Alom Shaha, a science teacher that explores the many reasons why science and science education are crucial to individuals and our society. It’s very well done and should be shown to teachers everywhere!

Oh, and lest I forget, Carnival of Space #94 is hosted by Out of the Cradle.