Exploring the Scale of the Universe: Our place in time and space

First, on the very near scale, this miracle year in space just keeps delivering, with amazing results from Mercury, Venus, Earth-climate sensing satellites, Mars, a Mars-grazing comet, landing on another comet, visiting Ceres, and more news from Saturn and Titan! Plus we've announced plans for a Europa mission, deployed a solar sail, arrived at Pluto(!) and confirmed hundreds of additional extrasolar planets. 

It's been the best year for exploratory space missions since 1972... Teach this to your kids and neighbors! It's a civilization that - if flawed - is reason for great pride. On the other hand, let's not get carried away.  We're just getting started and the universe is pretty darn big.  

How big?

== There's a whole lot of space in space! ==

How to envision the immensity of the universe? Almost beyond our comprehension... here is a list of interactive sites that let you zoom or scroll through the vastness of the cosmos, scaling in from galaxies to planets to buildings to atoms and quarks -- or to explore the realm of Time... from the Big Bang through the evolution of life on Earth and the history of humanity. Many of these are wonderful resources for teachers... and for those who want to expand their horizons...

Magnifying the Universe

1) Magnifying the Universe: I've always been a big fan of "powers of ten" style zoom-in and zoom-out graphics and films that bring home the incredible ranges of scale that we must deal with, in our puny, brittle minds.  Now see this supercool slide-able graphic that really brings it home. Dizzyingly fun: this interactive version of the universe (from Number Sleuth) takes you in scale from a hydrogen atom to a cell to a human to a star -- then on to our galaxy, local superclusters and beyond. Explore!

2) The Scale of the Universe: This interactive site (from Cary Huang) expands in scale from the extremely small to the incredibly immense -- starting with quantum foam (at the Planck length of 10 -35 m) to neutrinos, quarks, atoms, and cells all the way up to humans, buildings, planets, stars, galaxies and superclusters (on the gigaparsec level). You'll encounter a wide range of lesser known units for measurement: yoctometer, heptameter, attometer, femtometer, picometer...

3) If the Moon Were Only One Pixel: This is fun! A ginormously accurate scale model of our solar system (from Josh Worth) lets you scroll from the sun to Earth... and all the way out to Pluto (if you have the extraordinary patience to go that far). Read the comments along the way (Most of space is just space... and passing through the Asteroid Belt you will never actually see a single asteroid.) This truly lends some perspective on the vastness and emptiness of just our solar system... and perhaps our insignificance in the grand scale of things.

4) The Scale of Our Solar System: This infographic (from Space.com) lets you scroll out from the sun to the outer reaches of the solar system, past the Kuiper Belt to the Oort Cloud, marking off the astronomical units in terms of the distance travelled by light from the sun, from 1 to 14 hours. It also shows the relative distances traveled by the New Horizons, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes.

5) The Known Universe: This gorgeous six minute film (from the American Museum of Natural History) zooms you from the Himalayan mountains, to the orb of planet Earth -- through the outer reaches of our solar system to the spiral of the Milky Way galaxy to distant quasars in the depths of space... then reverses course to plunge back toward home.

Noteworthy.  If you visit and use ALL of these sites, some of these scale notions might sink in better than with just one. Check in and let us know the psychological effects!

6) How Big is Space? This interactive site from the BBC allows you to pilot your rocket ship up through the layers of the atmosphere through the planets, then out to the edge of the solar system, passing the New Horizons and Voyager probes along the way.

7) The Interactive Universe: this site from the History Channel is less extensive than the others listed here, but it provides information as you click to zoom in on the sun, planets, asteroids, comets, nebulae, then on to the Andromeda Galaxy or black holes.


8) 100,000 Stars: an interactive 3D visualization (created for Google Chrome) of our stellar neighborhood, showing the location and identity of over 100,000 nearby stars. Zoom in to explore.

9) The original Powers of Ten clip: This 1977 film by Charles and Ray Eames begins at a lakeside picnic near Chicago. Starting at a scale of one meter, the film moves outward by a factor of ten every ten seconds, zooming out to Lake Michigan to the globe of the Earth, then on to the solar system, the galaxy, then out the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies... before diving back to our earthbound picnickers and closing in explore inside a single carbon atom. Narrated by the great Phil Morrison, of SETI fame.

10) Solar System Orrery: This lovely interactive animation (by Jeroen Gommers) allows you to envision where the planets in our solar system will be, relative to each other at any given date. It also tracks smaller bodies such as the dwarf planets Pluto, Ceres, and Eris. It's fascinating to let the animation run and watch the planets orbit the sun at different speeds. For a simpler view of their current relative locations, see The Planets Today.

11) Times Infinity offers an updated look at the size comparisons of the universe, starting with the Planck scale and quantum foam, up to neutrinos, quarks and atoms.... and onward to stars, nebulae, galaxies and superclusters, ending with the Great Wall, the largest structure observed in the universe. Accompanied by gorgeous images and music. 


And now on to Time...

Chronozoom

12) Chronozoom: This visual timeline of the universe expands from the Big Bang to the birth of the Milky Way Galaxy to the formation of our planet, then on through Earth's geological eras... to the prehistory of Earth, the evolution of life and the history of humanity. This open source project (designed at Microsoft Research and UC Berkeley, and developed at Moscow State University) also has links to a wealth of teaching resources for the classroom.

Here Is Today website

13) Here is Today: By progressively clicking, this site (from Luke Twyman) takes you from "Here is Today" to the month, year, century, millennium, epoch, compressing the timeline to reach the geologic period, era, then eon of Earth’s history ... and then expands to show the lifespan of the universe.

Evolution: What's Next?

14) Evolution: What’s Next? This site (from John Kyrk and Uzay Sezen)) offers a slider to move through time: it shows the formation of various elements after the Big Bang, then moves through the accretion of the sun and planets... and on to the formation of the earth's atmosphere and evolution of life.

Human Evolution Timeline

15) Human Evolution Timeline: this interactive (from the Smithsonian Institution) traverses the milestones in the evolution of humans  -- through australopithecus, paranthropus, to homo erectus, charting climate fluctuations along the way.

16) Timeline of Space Exploration: Where have we been and where are we going in space? See this awesome visual chart showing the exploration of our solar system -- showing space probes from Pioneer to Mariner, Cassini to Galileo, and Juno to New Horizons. A work in progress, created by Olaf Frohn. What missions are currently out there, exploring space? See this timeline from Emily Lakdawalla, charting active space missions from 2003 to 2018.

A few more amazing sites well worth your time...

Historic Spacecraft website

17) Historic Spacecraft: a comprehensive exploration of space history, with photos, drawings, updates and background information (accumulated by Richard Kruse) -- covering space probes, rockets, rovers, launch pads, space suits...plus timelines, size comparisons, cut-away views, history, quotes and more. Truly a wealth of information!

Atomic Rockets website

18) Atomic Rockets: "So You Wanna Build a Rocket?" is an incredibly detailed website devoted to rocket and spaceship design. The site (from Winchell Chung) offers equations, designs, illustrations, even parts lists, behind rocket drives, space stations, spaceships, spacesuits, weapons and so much more. It has entries on Space Law, world building -- and more far-out speculation on aliens and space colonization. A wonderful resource for authors seeking scientific accuracy -- and an aid to getting the science right in science fiction films or stories.

Science Fictional Spaceships by Dirk Loechel

19) Size comparison of Science fictional spaceships by Dirk Loechel -- an epic-scale illustration that shows side-by-side images of spacecraft from Star Trek to Star Wars, Dr. Who to Stargate and Starship Troopers. Really fun to explore.

Though... ahem... you guys are missing some (* cough Streaker! *) starship classics that were included in a similar display at Seattle's (alas now defunct) Science Fiction Museum.

20) A 360 degree view of the flight deck of the Discovery space shuttle: A dizzyingly detailed virtual tour of Discovery's deck during its last mission STS-133. Discovery is now at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC.

21) An Interactive Panoramic Tour of the International Space Station: Explore the modules of the ISS as you navigate through the station. Watch full screen to get the full effect; zoom in to see more detail. Click "Play" to hear ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti demonstrate or explain the operation of various parts of the station. Almost like being there!

Mars Trek website

22) Mars Trek: Fly over the surface of Mars! Explore the planet in 3D with this NASA site: Click and zoom, pan in and out to view the detailed surface geology of the red planet. Almost like being there! You can also access and visualize scientific data sets by overlaying information from probes such as the Mars Rovers - Spirit, Opportunity, Sojourner, and Curiosity.

23) Goldilocks.info visualizes all known exoplanets (nearly 2000) and their host stars. You can explore their similarity to earth -- whether the planets are in the habitable (so-called 'Goldilocks zone') of their host star, along with their surface temperature, mass, atmosphere and other data (designed by Jan Willem Tulp and the ESA).

24) Earth Wind Map shows up-to-date air and ocean currents across the globe -- showing stunning atmospheric circulation patterns. Another site for visualizing wind forecasts is Windyty.  Or see the wind map of the U.S. -- with surface wind data and circulation patterns, updated hourly. See also this collection of beautiful weather maps -- providing essential data on our planet. 

25) Deep Space Network: Our Eyes in the Sky: Which spacecraft are phoning home right now? Check out NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) -- an international array of radio antennae that communicate with interplanetary space missions. These include antennae in California (Goldstone), Madrid and Canberra. View which antennae  are actively receiving signals, which spacecraft are currently talking to earth.  

26) Satellite Flybys: Do you want to look up and see the Hubble Space Telescope? Enter your location, and this site (from SpaceWeather.com) shows which satellites are currently overhead. It tells when the satellite is over the horizon, the direction to look, and the magnitude. Similarly, Heavens Above charts the visibility of the International Space Station.  

27) Space Engine is a free space simulation program that enables you to explore the universe, pilot a starship -- and land on any planet, moon or asteroid. Or try Explore Mars Now, which allows you to explore a simulated Mars base, and walk through the habitats, laboratories, rovers and greenhouses necessary for a manned mission to Mars.

28) See this: A true scale model of the solar system, created on a dry lake bed in Nevada, covering 7 miles of empty space -- by Wylie Overstreet and Alex Goresh. An attempt to give you perspective on the distances between planets. Here's their video on Vimeo.

29) And finally... XKCD's take on illustrating scale: the observable universe from top to bottom, showing height above earth's surface on a logarithmic scale.

To explore further, see Magnitude: the Scale of the Universe, by Megan Watzke and Kimberly Arcand - which offers a mind-blowing journey across the cosmos, spanning immense scales of distance, time, temperature, mass, speed, density, rotation, and so much more. With vivid illustrations and infographics help visualize... to infinity and beyond!

As well as Powers of Ten: A Flipbook, based on the classic film by Charles and Ray Eames.

Explore...and be amazed!

More Space! Expanding the cosmos

You thought I was done talking about space?  We are currently living through the most exciting time for astronomy and spaceflight and expanding our horizons since the 1970s... cool stuff is happening monthly!  

I don't know which to be more amazed-at. The wonders spilling forth from human competence and cooperative effort... or the astonishing silliness of a people who paid for it all, and cannot turn their head to be cheered by such wonders!

== Universal expansion? Tweeking the biggest question ==

Thirty years ago, it was still an open question whether our universe was “open” or “closed.” If closed, then gravity would eventually overcome the expansion set in motion by the Big Bang, reversing the dispersal of galaxies, commencing infall to a Big Crunch. 

This possible destiny led Tulane University physicist Frank Tipler to author one of the most entertaining, dense and infuriating “popular” science books, THE PHYSICS OF IMMORTALITY — a stunning just-so story about the final era, just before the Final Crunch, when our godlike descendants might collect every photon lingering from earlier eras and study every ray, including those that your body emitted, on a cool night, and thereby they would know enough about you — trillions of years from now — to model-resurrect you into infinite computational realms at the end of time…

Did that just make sense? Sorry. Tipler’s tome is one of the more ornate science fantasy speculations, ever, almost infinitely entertaining! And it would have merited calling Tipler the ‘greatest theologian of the 20th Century.’ That is, if we did seem headed for a Crunch.

(Side note: see the Big Crunch... and its aftermath... portrayed vividly in Poul Anderson's classic novel Tau Zero.  It also feature's in Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem.)

Ah, but the Big Crunch appears to have been ruled out. Instead, the greatest theologian encomium belongs to another physicist, Freeman Dyson, who appraised how long creatures made of matter might eke out continuation of thought and life amid a Big Dissipation into nothingness that might extend trillions, even quadrillions of years. 

Indeed, that seems to be the direction of things, especially since studies of a particular kind of supernova provided us with a Standard Candle to measure the rate of universal expansion… which we now perceive to be speeding up!  Propelled into acceleration by something theoretical called “dark energy.”

Well, well.  Science oscillates, even as we bracket in, edging closer to true models of reality.  The latest news?  Some University of Arizona astronomers now think those Standard Candles — type 1a supernovas — might come in two types, and one kind might have been more common in the early universe.  If so, the resulting mis-calibration of distances might have had an effect upon those Hubble Expansion factors, causing us to exaggerate the perceived acceleration of the universe….

… a bit.  Maybe. Not enough to reverse the expansion!  Indeed, I am a bit doubtful and would put a burden of proof on those contending that type-1a supernovae were different in the early universe.  Still… how cool to live in such times!  

(Unless that very coolness is a clue?  See my short story “Reality Check.”)

Oh but stay tuned for the next shaker!  That type 1a supernovas might be influenced/altered by... dark matter!

= Another "universal rule" of the cosmos revived? =

The Titius-Bode law was formulated around 1770 and correctly calculated the position of Uranus before it was even discovered. Under this rule-of-thumb, the ratio between the orbital period of the first and second planet is the same as the ratio between the second and the third planet and so on. Now a group of Australians and Danes claim that “We decided to use this method to calculate the potential planetary positions in 151 planetary systems, where the Kepler satellite had found between 3 and 6 planets. In 124 of the planetary systems, the Titius-Bode law fit with the position of the planets as good as or better than our own solar system.”

If this is true, then the T-B law is resurrected from the dead, because I knew of very few  astronomers who gave it credence, deeming it quasi-mystical.  In fact, if these ratios hold up (and I’ll want to see it verified) it would  rank as among the most important discoveries of the Kepler mission or, indeed, planetary science.  Moreover: “Using T-B’s law we tried to predict where there could be more planets further out in the planetary systems.”

Mind you, this flies in the face of a major Kepler discovery, that a vast fraction of planetary systems hug closer to their star that the orbit of Mercury, including massive Jovian gas giants.  Many planetologists hold that this indicates systems that shift orbits considerably, especially in their early epochs. A result that cannot be consistent with the authors’ claims of a powerful Titus-Bode resonance. At least, it’s hard to reconcile.

My, what times.  Oh, but there's more!

== The cosmos is a lonely place ==

A new study indicates that alien super civilizations are absent from 100,000 nearby galaxies: Lee Billings — now astro-editor at Scientific American — explores the implications of a recent search for Kardashev level-3 civilizations. An important part of possibility space! (So to speak.) And also quoting me. Here’s the salon version: The universe is a lonely place.

And see the original paper. Griffith, White, Maldonado et. al  sampled 10,000+ galaxies for the kind of infrared excess that might indicate Kardashev Type III civilization, which might tap all of the energy output of a galaxy. None of their sampled galaxies showed signs that a vastly powerful society is utilizing more than 85% of their stellar output and re-emitting the energy as waste heat. 

If you think about it, that is both a big result and not surprising. If there are no Kardashev Type III civs, that still leaves it possible for perhaps many type K 2.5 societies… that have surrounded "only" a billion of their galaxy's hundred billion stars with Dyson spheres (as I kind of depict in Heaven's Reach.) This paper leaves that Partial-Kardashev level still quite possible.

“If Hart’s reasoning is sound, then we should expect that, unless intelligent, spacefaring life is unique to Earth in the local universe, other galaxies should have galaxy-spanning supercivilizations, and a search for K3’s may be fruitful. If there is a flaw in it, then intelligent, spacefaring life may be endemic to the Milky Way in the form of many K2’s, in which case a search within the Milky Way would be more likely to succeed. It is prudent, therefore,

to pursue both routes.”

Hm... we've only just begun exploring the possibilities.  This result is -- as I said -- both huge... and unsurprising.  And the plethora of remaining possibilities....

== Messaging the cosmos ==

Regarding "Messaging ExtraTerrestrial Intelligences,"  Doug Vakoch – in a short paper for the Astrobiology Science Conference in Chicago -- has added another pro-METI argument:  "Economic Exchange:  An alternative rationale for  conducting an Active SETI project calls into question  the assumption that ETI is altruistically transmitting  signals for our benefit, without requiring anything of us  in advance. However, perhaps interstellar communication is a sort of economic  exchange, in which civilizations share valuable information with one another in a  multigenerational form of reciprocal altruism [3 ] . We  see examples of reciprocal altruism in a variety of species on Earth, and such behavior can be modeled with  game theory, for example, with the Tit for Tat scenario.  But in every case of reciprocal altruism, one party needs to take the initiative ; someone needs to make the  first gesture of generosity."

How utterly bizarre! 

By raising my own argument -- that quid-pro-quo is more common in nature than altruism -- he drops out the most important implication! That our culture/music/art/ and other products of human creativity are our trade goods, of great value. His own assertion makes his ally, Seth Shostak -- who wants to beam "the whole internet" into space -- a would-be traitor to humanity, for aiming to impoverish our kids, by giving away all our trade goods, for free!

In any event quid-pro-quo is NOT the same thing as "reciprocal altruism." The later is more rare and requires extensive reasons for trust, that will not be present at the beginning.

Here's the crux for my friend Doug, "someone needs to make the first gesture of generosity" begs the question of why he assumes the party who has the least information or situational awareness has to be the initiator!  Carl Sagan said that the elder races should "do the heavy lifting."  Nothing about that sage advice has changed.

Mind you, the list of talks and topics at the Chicago Astrobiology Science Conference (coming in June) is simply stunning in its breadth and depth and sheer numbers of researchers engaged in a field that was once a small, side niche topic.  Attend if you can!

== Traveling the cosmos? ==

And...  Okay, SMBC does it again!  Only he left out a major clue to this being a simulation.  A Speed Limit that prevents the test subjects from going and inspecting the crude “stars” and “planets” out there!   Of course, to see this concept explored in much more depth, see “Stones of Significance.”  

Spaceward Ho! Brian McConnell and Alexander Tolley lay down their argument for “spacecoach” interplanetary ships that usewater for life, for shielding and as propellant.  

Roger Shawyer, the British scientist who invented the highly controversial electromagnetic space propulsion technology called EmDrive, claims that NASA Johnson Space Center’s Eagleworks lab has verified his propellant-free, microwave-based propulsion system in hard vacuum.  

As for the em-drive, I am intrigued, of course.  As you know, I am on the board of external advisers for NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts group (NIAC), and I have an open mind.  I have, for example, never believed there was an inherent conflict with conservation of momentum.

On the other hand, look at the quality of journalism in the linked article and indeed, the articles to which it links.  If this is true, we won't be getting anything definitive from such sources. It'll take a little while. 

As for talk of increasing power by FIVE orders of magnitude? Well, that'd certainly nail it!  Moreover, the key thing is that Shawyer seems to be getting all the funding -- and competition -- that he needs.  Given that, I am happy to sit back and wait. 

Can the Earth be conscious?  A question I explored from several angles, in my novel, EARTH.  This essay ponders it seriously. "So, even without asking if planets are literally alive, we still can ask meaningful questions about life and planets "co-evolving." We can see it makes real scientific sense to understand life as more than just some green scruff forming on a planet's surface. Thus, even if biospheres don't control planets, they can still play huge roles in how those planets change in time."  And... "This is a particularly important point to consider as we enter the so-called Anthropocene, an era when humans become the dominant force on the Earth's systems."

meanwhile...

Recent one-dimensional (globally averaged) climate model calculations by Goldblatt etal. (2013) suggest that increased atmospheric CO2 could conceivably trigger a runaway greenhouse on present Earth if CO2 con- centrations were approximately 100 times higher than they are today. The new prediction runs contrary to previous calculations by Kasting and Ackerman (1986), which indicated that CO2 increases could not trigger a runaway, even at Venus-like CO2 concentrations.  Prof. James Kasting and his former student Ramses Ramirez suggest that such a runaway to Venus-like conditions is unlikely in the near term.  But all members of this community agree that we should still be far more prudent about the climate. 

And finally... Re: climate change and the GOP, this comic says it all... 

Seriously.  Morons.  Waging outright war on science and every other field of human sagacity.  If you are conservative or libertarian, this rises above all other considerations.  If you are even remotely thinking of voting for the obscenity that has taken over the Republican Party, then you are at very best an utter fool.   This is not "left versus  right."

It is normal (with bits of foolishness and corruption... versus stark jibbering insane.

Moreover, deep down, you know it.

A brief added SETI thought or two

Following up on my earlier posting that contained updates on SETI...

I like and respect the Neil de Grasse Tyson. His new COSMOS (produced by Ann Druyan) is a delightful rallying call for the Enlightenment against encroaching darkness. Indeed, here he is introducing and moderating the 2014 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, this time on the topic "Selling Space."

Still… sometimes it seems that he is too used to being the only smart guy in a room. And that leads to mental laziness. Like this piece of "logic:"

"There's a worm in the street, you walk by it. Does the worm know that you think you're smart? The worm has no concept of your smarts. Because you're that much smarter than the worm. So the worm has no idea that something smart is walking by it. Which makes me wonder whether we have any concept -- if a super species walked by us. Maybe they're uninterested in us because we're too stupid for them to even imagine having a conversation. You don't walk by worms and go "Gee, I wonder what the worm is thinking." This is just not a thought that you have! So one of the best pieces of evidence for why we haven't been visited by aliens is that they have actually observed us, and concluded there is no intelligent sign of life on earth."

Neil's generally a very smart and wiseguy, but his reasoning on this SETI-related matter is just lazy and specious. No… it is hogwash. But that isn't unusual in this topic area! Nowhere else have I seen so many bright people leap to simplistic and unjustified "answers" than in this, the one scientific topic without any known subject matter.

Think about Neil's analogy. We do have experts who are very curious about the brain activity of worms! I could introduce you to some.

True, your average worm won't meet such specialists! But that proves nothing because the scaling is not the same. There are millions of worms per person on Earth. But the maximum possible or conceivable rate of appearance of a new technological/sapient species in our galaxy is perhaps once per year. In other words, each arrival of intelligent life in the Milky Way is an "event" – noteworthy and meriting effort to study -- even if we are far lower than the godlike elite.

Moreover, this elite won't have to deign to stoop to our level. They will be able to deputize sub-intelligences, commanding them to be interested and study new sapient races. Indeed, it could be dangerous for them not to create such deputies, designed to be just a bit smarter than us, to study us and other "worms" at our level. And sure, that may be happening! Read some of my Uplift novels...

...or Childhood's End -- where Arthur C. Clarke provides a chilling glance of a universe in which humans are at the bottom of an intellectual food chain. Yet they do not ignore us; in fact they take great interest in our species.

What it comes down to is that the “we’re like worms” explanation for lack of contact is worth discussing! But it is not an “of course” that can blithely dismiss the Fermi Paradox. It is one hypothesis - and not one of the top ones - among a hundred or so that range from barely-possible, to somewhat plausible, all the way to "kind-of likely."

The crux of this? That even brilliant guys can be lazy. Duh? I have that on good authority, from a friend of mine who does not always drink beer. But when he does....

Oh! Here’s a far more cogent summary (from xkcd) of the reason why we shouldn’t make much noise in the cosmos… at least until we know a little more.

COSMOS Brings Back the Wonder!

I hope you all have been enjoying the remake of COSMOS. (Sundays: Fox Entertainment and Mondays on National Geographic.) While episodes one and two were merely very good -- with some stretches of preachiness -- we were awed by the third installment, which was stunning on a par with… even exceeding… the Carl Sagan original.

Yes, all right, I'm biased: Edmund Halley has always been one of my heroes and the depiction of comets (so well-executed by show science director Andre Bormanis) seem to have been taken from my doctoral dissertation!

(See below about the controversial earlier choice of Giordano Bruno as the historical centerpiece of episode one.)

== What's wrong with us? ==

But none of those elements mattered next to the awesome vistas and deeply-moving messages of this exciting and enlightening show, so well delivered by Neil deGrasse Tyson. If you have not watched… and heavily proselytized… this event, then you must have simply fallen into a torpor. Wake up!  It's time to restore our civilization's confidence and sense of can-do wonder.

Just ponder one absolutely amazing fact.

Last week, it was announced that a telescope on the south pole, financed by your tax dollars, just mapped out the inflation event that occurred in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second of the Big Bang.  Is that the amazing thing Brin is referring-to? No, it is not.

Or was it last year, when your taxes paid to send a capsule threading the narrow atmosphere of of a distant planet. A capsule that then -- in the exact-right millisecond -- deployed a parachute, that precisely deployed a rocket, that used a crane to gently lower a complete, mobile science lab onto %$#! Mars… was that the amazing thing?

Nope, nor was it the discovery last week of an asteroid with rings, or finding a new mini-planet beyond Pluto, nor the announcement of seven hundred new planets beyond our solar system (see below.)

No, the amazing thing is that YOU, when you heard about these things… and dozens more, in just the last year… , did not run outside -- (even naked) -- grabbing every random person you met, telling them about it, bursting with pride and shouting "I am a  member of a civilization that DOES stuff like this!"

Admit it.  You didn't do that. Now admit it reveals that something has gone very wrong with us.

Yes, restoring that sense of confidence and joy is what COSMOS is about.

== One small fret? ==

As one of the show's side-endeavors -- and a way cool one -- kids all over the world have been invited to use an online drawing tool to scrawl "messages to extraterrestrials" on a stylized version of the Sagan-Lomberg "Golden Record" that is carried aboard the Voyager space probes. Have a look: some of them are endearing and give hope for the next generation. A worthy activity that stimulates thought!  However…

…there is this rumor going around, that some of the producers -- perhaps Neil himself -- plan to announce a surprise stunt to "beam" some of these messages into space by radio dish.  And if it turns out to be true, well, that would be a major blunder.  Ever increasing numbers of prestigious scientists are coming out against such "METI" stunts, which arrogate a peremptory right to change one of our planet's major observable characteristics without ever exposing the endeavor to critique by scientific peers.

There are no good reasons to do such a thing, without discussing it with humanity's greatest sages and with the public involved.  Indeed, a number of us have come up with some very good reasons not to! So please, Neil, just in case the rumor is true, stay scientific and don't do it. And if you do it anyway, recall that a Klystron can transmit at very low power.  Talk to us…all of us. You're doing a great job at that. Leave such stunts for a later, more-knowing generation.

== Oh, in keeping with the spirit of Cosmos… ==

…see this very moving essay: "It's time we fell back in love with science," which bemoans how British attitudes toward science are becoming crazier… as in America.

"When science used to tell us things we didn’t want to hear, we listened. Now we stick our fingers in our ears and say “lalalala” before finding someone who will tell us what we do want to hear." writes Alex Proud in The Telegraph.

==Was Bruno the best choice? ==

Interesting articles spin online, about how COSMOS producers chose in episode one to focus so long and hard on Giordano Bruno, whose immolation in Italy cast into stark focus the fear and wrath provoked by heretical beliefs.  (I was surprised that Tyson did not pose next to the statue of Bruno that now towers over the square where he burned.) Although I speak of Bruno often, I never portray him as a saint of science. Rather, he was a paladin of confrontation… the top contrarian of an era that was just learning how to accept the prodigious benefits of open and fair argument.  And this fellow contrarian appreciates him in that ornery spirit.

As far as science goes, well, this article (Did Cosmos Pick the Wrong Hero?) compares Bruno to the Englishman, Thomas Digges, who was quietly doing much more to bring the ideas of Copernicus into the  mainstream of European thinking, without the accompanying in-yer-face theological dross that Bruno added, that multiplied his troubles.

Oh, certainly, I am more like Bruno, I suppose.  But with just enough maturity to know that civilization is actually pushed forward by more modest men and women of science.

== More compact!  Yet cogent ==

Less flashy than Cosmos, the "inFact" series by science journalist Brian Dunning, aims to offer net-era brevity to snappy-but-wise riffs on science for the interested layman.  I especially recommend the short piece on global climate change which aims -- above-all -- to calm folks down and get us no longer making science decisions based upon our political party.  Compact enough to get your crazy uncle to watch!  Oh, also see his video about Tesla!

Kind of impressive.  I would have added a couple of notes… e.g. that the mavens of weather forecasting make vastly more money than climate scientists and have no vested interest. They are the geniuses who transformed the old, 4 hour joke of a "weather report" into a ten day miracle. They know their stuff and have no reason to foist a scam on us… their "grants" are safe. Yet all of them agree we should take reasonable steps to become more efficient and reduce the worst effects of climate change.

Still, a very compact and cogent missive.  I recommend it highly, especially as a bridge for all your crazy uncles, out there.

== And yes, we live in a time of wonders, this month! ==

Have you been paying attention to the news just in recent weeks?

Again, let me reiterate… a special polarimetry telescope (at the south-freaking pole!) has tracked the subtle light twists that may show the gravity wave echoes of the first pico-pico-second of the Big Bang?  (Formerly, the cosmic background studies could only penetrate to about 300,000 years AB (after bang.)  Your taxes paid for this.  An earlier, science friendly Congress voted to be the kind of civilization that invested in such glories.  Run into the street about this!

Better yet… make sure science-friendly folk aren't lazy about voting, this year! Think of the Supreme Court and get busy!

And in the same month: we tracked an asteroid passing in front of a star and found it had rings!  And also… we (you and me and others) discovered a new dwarf planet out there beyond the Kuiper Belt.

A little more than a month ago, Kepler scientists have confirmed the existence of 715 new exoplanets — four of which are located within their star's habitable zone. It's the single largest windfall of new confirmations at any one time. That's a 70% increase... in just one announcement.

And we're all taking part. See a chart of astronomers and physicists who have the most twitter postings and followers. And how many years they've been at it. All told, I suppose I score pretty well (@DavidBrin on Twitter). Especially since I don't tweet that much… and science is not all I talk about!

Still, I won't compete with Neil deGrasse Tyson.  The New COSMOS is a wonder.  Drag everyone you know into watching. It is a tonic for a scientific civilization, fighting to save itself from those agitating for a new Dark Age.