Tour of the Solar System News, from Mercury to outer limits of the Solar System

 Let's take another tour of the Solar System with current news about each of our major objects.

Mercury - Dramatic Flyby Confirms That Mercury's Radioactive Aurora Touches the Ground, backup link and source material.

Venus - The Founder of OceanGate Wants to Send 1,000 People to Colonize Venus, backup link.

Earth - Why Nasa is exploring the deepest oceans on Earth, backup link.

Mars - Mars helicopter Ingenuity breaks 3-month flight gap with 53rd Red Planet hop. backup link.

Ceres - The Dwarf Planet on Our Doorstep, backup link.

Jupiter - James Webb Space Telescope sees Jupiter moons in a new light, backup link.

Saturn - 100-year 'megastorms' on Saturn shower the ringed planet in ammonia rain, backup link.

Uranus - NASA's New Horizons will investigate Uranus from the rear (Neptune, too). Here's how you can help, backup link.

Neptune - Neptune's Disappearing Clouds Linked to the Solar Cycle, backup link.

Pluto - None Of Pluto's Five Moons Actually Orbit The Dwarf Planet, backup link.

Haumea - NASA Studies Origins of ‘Weird’ Solar System Object: Dwarf Planet Haumea, backup link.

Makemake - The Dwarf Planet Named for an Easter Island Fertility God, backup link.

Eris -  Meet the Solar System's five, backup link.

Quaoar - Dwarf planet Quaoar has a ring instead of a moon, and scientists don't know why, backup link.

Orcus - The Dwarf Planet Orcus, backup link.

Salacia - As big as Ceres, but much farther away, backup link.

Gonggong - First dwarf planet in solar system named after Chinese mythical figure, backup link.

Sedna - 2029 will be the perfect year to launch a mission to Sedna, backup link.

Movies I watched in 2022

2022 isn't a full return to form for the movie industry, but it's a good few steps forward.  There was still a significant period of time for me where I just wasn't interested to see any movie in the theaters for weeks, if not months.  Overall, though, I saw quite a number of movies.  This won't be a review, per se.  I'm just going to list what I saw with links for streaming if someone else wishes to see them now.

George the Welder

On a whim, I decided to get myself Krispy Kreme today.  I drove to the one nearest to my home.  As I approached the entrance to KK, a mother opened to door for her young son while holding her baby and bady bag in her left arm.  Then she did something rather strange. While juggling her baby and baby bag, she actually attempted to hold the door open for me as well.  I was like "Thank you, but I should be holding the door for you" as we exchanged smiles.  I politely reached over her to hold the door for them, and then again for the inside door.  She then took her son to check out the donut making machinery while I went to the counter to order my donuts.  

I got a warm and gooey glazed donut, along with a raspberry-filled donut, and a milk.

As I left the counter with my order, I decided to sit in the dining area.  After quickly devouring my glazed donut, I then pulled my raspberry donut from the bag to eat it.  That's when I was approached by a tall man, a gentleman.  He was wearing a rather colorful and intricately patterned shirt.  His hair and beard were long long since white, his face weathered, his stance slightly crouched, and his demeanor friendly.  I hadn't noticed at first though.  My face was down in my phone, playing a tired but engaging game.  

This gentleman approached me and got my attention by mentioning the fact that we were both eating raspberry-filled donuts.  He then asked me if I fish or hunt.  "I don't."  He asked how long I've in Colorado. "It's been a few years.  How about you?" I asked with expressive interest.

This sparked a conversation that lead to him asking if it OK to sit down at my table.  "Of course!" Our conversation continued.  He asked,  "what do you do for work?"  I replied with "software design", knowing full-well he wouldn't have the first clue what that is.  However, I answer this sort of question forthrightly and directly as a matter of respect.  As expected, he didn't know how to progress with that topic, so he just took the opportunity he needed to talk about his life, his father and family.

As we talked, I caught a glimpse of the mother as she was grabbing a table for her family. She give me knowing expression, like she briefly sympathized with me for getting roped into my situation.

Well, it turns out this gentleman has seen a few things in his long 88 years.  He has a sister that is 94. He moved to Colorado in the 50's from Chicago.  He was a welder.  He was in the Air Force, though I'm not sure if he was a welder in the Air Force, or not.  He mentioned how he was on the basketball team for the Air Force that won a championship.  I inquired about this further, thinking he might be someone I could look up later.  However, it turns out it was a league made up of the various squadrons, not college.  His team was the only team to have a black player.  It's my impression that he felt the need to make an excuse for this fact by saying the black guy was the only other member of his squadron willing to do the required daily run of four miles.  If so, it's interesting that he felt the need to make such an excuse. He was clearly proud that he was a part of the championship team.  I'm guessing that others at the time felt like his team cheated by accepting a black guy in the team?  However, my impression could be wrong; maybe he had other reasons for mentioning this fact in this manner.  Either way, this makes me question, what excuses am I making now for something that will be perfectly normal in 30 years?  

He talked about his time at Rocky Flats (backup link) working on equipment for the production of nuclear bomb triggers, I presume as a welder. This was his segue to discuss a particular incident that lead to multiple diseases that he now suffers.  I'm not going to talk about specifics of the incident or his resultant diseases, other than to say some incidents at that site are public knowledge and can be read about separately.  However, hearing his first hand account solidifies concerns over the defunct Rocky Flats facility.

We talked about other things too, but I did more asking than telling because I can see he was man facing his own mortality and seeking to share his experiences.  He just needs someone to listen.

His name is George.

Letter (at least some) that we should think about restoring to English

Eight years ago, I wrote an article about the letter thorn, that used to be used in English to represent TH sound.  Before that, I wrote about even more common sounds in English that aren't represented by English letters. Well, a few years ago, Austin McConnell also covered this topic in his video 10 Letters We Dropped From The Alphabet. In particular, my mind was blown at learning the origin for the name of "&".

Out of all these letters, I think we'd benefit from the restoration of thorn, and maybe some modification thereof so that the voiced and unvoiced TH sounds can both be represented.  (Much like Austin, I'm not a fan of eth.)

Telegram is still a thing, and it's an interesting holdover

I recently made a Facebook post about the pager network.  I pointed out that the Flex and reFlex protocols used by the pager network will still be running long after 2G, 3G and 4G are gone. (See below for the sunset schedule.)  It's weird that this old 90's tech will still be in operation after several generations of the cellular network are gone.  (See Old School: Pager Code for look-a-like codes and Beep Codes list for common standard 3 digit codes.)

What's weirder than that?  Telegraph networks are still operating.  That means a system originally started in 1840's will outlast several generations of the cellular network!  Wow!

Now, I must admit that I recently discovered telegrams are still a thing in the 21st Century from a Youtube video.

So, you know what I did?  I sent a xmas message via telegram to my friend.  And, I learned a few things about the process along the way.  Despite operating completely through a website (as all things must), it appears the process still has manual nuances.  For example, any type of special instructions must be typed into the either the address field or other special field, in specific ways.  There's no website checkboxes for many types of instructions, such as stating a delivery date or specifying to only deliver to the addressee.

My friend's telegram was sent by me in November, and slated for delivery yesterday.  However, it appears to have been delivered a day late.  I guess there's numerous possible reasons for the one day delay.  Either way, my friend is very delighted by this unique gift (well, unique for the 21st Century).  

Now, I didn't use iTelegram, which apparently is the successor to Western Union's telegraph service.  I think if I need to send a telegram as a legal document in the future, I would use iTelegram since they provide substantial proof of delivery.

In other news,

Upcoming cellular network sunsets from T-Mobile (some of these services have already been shut down by other carriers): [Edit: this schedule is outdated, as end dates have been pushed out.]

• 2G was already dropped most major services some time ago, but still hangs on with T-Mobile.  They'll be shutting it down in 2023.
• 3G is actually getting shut down before 2G, at the end of 2021.
• 4G is also getting shut down before 4G, sometime during 2022.

A wikipedia article all grown up: Brine Pools

I was watching some nature show back in the mid-aughts that covered the topic of the ocean floor.  This show mentioned the geological formation called brine pool.  Brine pools are amazing "lakes" of brine at the bottom of the ocean.  The water of a brine pool is separated from the ocean above due to the pool's extreme salinity.  Brine pools even have their own surface upon which objects can float.  Imagine this: a submarine floating on top of a brine pool at the bottom of the ocean.

So, why all this talk about brine pools now?  Well, at that time, I was interested to learn more about them.  Upon searching the topic on the Internet, I found nearly nothing.  Wikipedia didn't even have an article about brine pools.  That means it was up to me to create the article.  The only thing I had to go on was what I remembered from the nature show.  So, all I could say was this:

"Brine pools have been discovered at on the ocean floor near methane vents. Lifeforms around these pools do not depend on the sun for energy."

That's it.  That was the whole article.  It's dangerous (metaphorically) to add articles to Wikipedia.  Wikipedia is a vicious and uncaring environment with nearly draconian rules about what can stay and what must be removed.  It's doubly risky (again, metaphorically) to create an article with only one sentence for a topic that isn't well know.  The final risk is posting such an article without any citations.  

By some miracle, the brine pool Wikipedia article grew.  This happened due to other editors adding more detail and cited sources.  Images were added soon after.  I kept an eye on the article and helped edit it further from time to time until late 2010.  At that time, the article grew to include a couple of images and three subheadings, each with a short paragraph.  By the Wikipedia measure, it was "2,960 bytes".  

2010 is around the time I stopped editing on Wikipedia in general, but for no other reason than I just got too busy.  So, I forgot about this little article over time.  It wasn't forgotten by others, though.  The article had a moderate number of edits between 2010 and 2017.  Its size grew to a modest 3,410 bytes by the middle of 2018.  

In August of 2018, according to the article's history, something weird happened.  An anonymous editor added a new subheading with a rather large paragraph.  The problem with this edit was that the subject of the subheading had nothing to do with brine pools, but was actually about the land formation of artificial brine sinks.  The edit appears to have been made in good faith by someone who did not understand the topic of brine pools.  After some back-and-forth edits, the incorrect subheading was removed by other editors.  After that, edits to the article went quiet until September last year.

It appears that someone familiar with the topic of brine pools added a ton of detail in Fall of 2020.  Edits by others quickly followed.  The article ballooned to 10,269 bytes, then again to 21,471 bytes.  Over the past year, the article has received regular and quality edits.  It's turned into a good article about the subject.  The current version of the article is 28,184 bytes with five well flushed-out subheadings and tons of cited sources.  Of course, a lot new information has been discovered about brine pools in the past 15 years, which may have something to do with the explosion of information added to the article.  Most of the cited scientific studies were published since the inception of the brine pool article.

How did I suddenly remember this little article that could?  Literally yesterday, a related geological formation, called cold seep, showed up in a news feed.  Cold seeps are associated with one of the three methods that form brine pools.  So, I was reminded about the article I created all those years ago.  I checked out the brine pool article, and it is glorious (hyperbole, of course).  

I'm glad I was able to contribute in some small way to the dissemination of scientific knowledge.  I've created many other Wikipedia articles, but this one seems to be the most impactful.

One side note, I've actually referenced Wikipedia a lot over the years!  Check out this search: Wikipedia search.

Cubic Mile of fog has how much water?

 

Source: How Much Condensed Liquid Water is in a Cubic Mile of Fog?

Of Wolves and Rocks (Part 4)

Even with the current world crisis, and the lack of things to do regardless of where you might go, it was great being able to stay in the Colorado Springs area to see the wolves at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center.  It was also great to explore the Garden of the Gods for an afternoon.  That said, our original plans included a bit more.  There are still places to explore.  We'll be back.

Places we missed this time due to covid-time, that we'll try to do next time we are in the area:

• Pikes Peak
• Manitou Incline and other natural trails near Manitou Springs
• Colorado Springs Downtown
• The Broadmoor Seven Falls and restaurant
• Royal Gorge

Series:

Of Wolves and Rocks (Part 1)

Of Wolves and Rocks (Part 2)

Of Wolves and Rocks (Part 3)

Of Wolves and Rocks (Part 4)

Australian bush fire crisis isn't over by a long ways

As a reminder, the fire crisis in Australia isn't over by a long ways. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043)

Two organizations to which I've donated are Wires (https://www.wires.org.au/) for the animals and St. Vincent de Paul Society (https://www.vinnies.org.au) to help humans victims. It's my understanding that both organizations are applying donations directly to current relief efforts (if you choose the correct link on their websites).

There are also suggestions to donate to Red Cross and other similar organizations. This is also important because they respond to disasters. However, please realize that such donations are typically applied to their general fund and may or may not be applied to current relief operations. If you wish to donate to these, please do so at regular intervals as a separate donation to allow those organizations to continue to respond to future disasters.

Is it really Frankenstein's Monster?

Is the term really "Frankenstein's Monster" rather than just "Frankenstein" when talking about the monster?  How often has the term "Frankenstein's Monster" really appeared anywhere?   Why is there confusion about the monster's name?  Well, that's because he isn't actually given a proper name in the original story by Mary Shelley.

Without much context, a quick search on Google ngram reveals that the term "Frankenstein's Monster" does indeed show up in literature.  However, going back to 1800 finds that the term really didn't get started until well after 1870. Beyond that, the term wasn't really in use until the 1960's. Just for reference, the Frankenstein book was originally published in 1818.

So, what do we get when we compare the usage of the term "Frankenstein's Monster" with usage of just the name "Frankenstein"?

Well, usage of "Frankenstein" does occur well before 1818.  That makes sense since it is a real surname.  However, taking pre-1818 use of the name as noise, there is still substantial use of the term "Frankenstein" from 1818 and on.  "Frankenstein" appears so often that it literally relegates the use of "Frankenstein's Monster" to well below that of background noise.  Usage of "Frankenstein's Monster" is less than a blip, even nowadays.

Beyond that, is the distinction between the mad scientist and his monster really all that important, namewise?  If we count the monster as the scientist's child in a manner of speaking, the monster would carry the scientist's surname anyway.  Both the monster and the scientist carry the name "Frankenstein".  Maybe instead of trying to impose a ill-accepted term like "Frankenstein's Monster", we simply use the term "Dr. Frankenstein" for the mad scientist and "Frankenstein" for the monster.

"Dr. Frankenstein" appears orders-of-magnitude more often than "Frankenstein's Monster".  And, it's a bit more of a blip when compared to just "Frankenstein".