Oh, yay!  It’s Friday the 13th; that traditional ‘bad luck’ day in Western culture.  I’m sure we all know people who genuinely dread Friday the 13th, having been raised to believe something awful was going to happen to them.  Perhaps the day makes YOU uncomfortable, for whatever reason.

To celebrate, I thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at a few of the astronomy-related superstitions floating around out there.  I imply no negative connotation to the word “superstition”.  I’m not intending on pointing any fingers and laughing at anybody; after all, one person’s “superstition” is another person’s “religion”.  For blog purposes, a “superstition” is a belief or collection of beliefs that is without support of direct, scientific evidence. Notice — that doesn’t mean “wrong”; it means it’s a philosophy rather than a science.

Are you ready?  Jumping right on it, with:

FRIDAY THE 13TH: The belief that a specific day (calendar position) can be unlucky.  The roots of this one are right on top of Christianity.  According to Christian canon, Christ was crucified on Friday, the satanic “mass” is supposedly enacted with 13 participants (one lead, twelve actors), Noah’s flood began on Friday, there were 13 present at the Last Supper, and Adam and Eve fell from Grace on a Friday.  It’s the combination of Friday and 13 that supposedly makes the day unlucky.  Fear of the number 13 (triskaidekaphobia) is a widespread phobia, by the way.

Interesting Nugget: The Apollo 13 mission was launched on April 11, 1970 (4 + 11 + 70 = 85, 8+5=13).  It was launched from pad #39 (3 x 13 = 39).  The explosion took place at 1:13 pm (1313 hours in military time) on April 13th.

Gorgeous Full Moon by Luc Viatour, October 7, 2006, Hamois, Belgium http://www.lucnix.be

THE FULL MOON: There is supposed to be an increase in violence and irrational behavior during the full moon.  Also, to a lesser degree, during the “new” moon (the ‘dark’ of the moon).  Modern studies are contradictory, at best.  Usually they do not show a link between behavior and phases of the moon, except for the link associated with increase/decrease in the landscape brightness (i.e., hunting).

Interesting Nugget: Each full moon is given a name, usually associated with some activity occurring at or around the time of the phase.  Some of the names are:  Pink Moon, Harvest Moon, Cold Moon, Worm Moon, and Blood Moon.

WISH ON A FALLING STAR: The belief that if you can make your wish before the “falling star” fades, your wish will come true.  Of course, there are no stars really falling; I think everyone by now accepts that falling (or “shooting”) stars are meteoroids.  A whimsical, pleasant superstition.  (remember, by the way, a meteoroid or ‘meteor’ is falling; a ‘meteorite’ is what’s left over after it hits)

Interesting Nugget: Meteors are theorized to make noise.  Aside from the occasional sonic boom heard in association with meteors, a “hissing”, “crackling” noise has often been reported.  Sometimes the sounds are intercepted by unusual transducers, like your hair.

COMETS ARE HERALDS OF MISFORTUNE: Misunderstood for almost all of their known history, comets were believed to be the heralds of misfortune.  Not just personal misfortune, either.  Perceived as balls of fire thrown at us from the Heavens, comets were believed to foreshadow epic misfortunes such as drought, flood, and widespread disease (as in the plagues).

Interesting Nugget: Comets were viewed as important heralds of great misfortune, so the job of predicting their advent was given to the Chinese astrologers.  China took their astrology seriously; incorrectly predicting a comet or eclipse (or failing to predict one at all) was likely to cost the astrologer his life.

Superstition Mountains, AZ, image by Doug Dolde

Now it’s your turn!  What’s your favorite astronomy-related superstition?  Why?  I find it interesting to read about old superstitions and rituals.  Most of the time the origins are in man trying to make sense of the universe around him.  We were looking for the “cause” and the “effect”.  We were trying to answer the eternal question… why?

Is it medicine, or is it not?

In May, the University of California, Berkeley unveiled its “Bring Your Genes To Cal” program. The idea was, Berkeley’s 5,500 or so incoming freshman would have the option to have their DNA tested for three particular characteristics: Their metabolism of folate, tolerance of lactose, and metabolism of alcohol. Though the program was limited, it raised privacy hackles. And now the State of California has ruled: This is a medical test, and Cal can’t do it unless it’s in a clinical setting.

Mark Schlissel, UC Berkeley’s dean of biological sciences and an architect of the DNA program, said he disagreed with the state Department of Public Health’s ruling that the genetic testing required advance approval from physicians and should be done only by specially-licensed clinical labs, not by university technicians. The campus could not find labs willing to do the work and probably could not afford it anyway, Schlissel said. He also contended that the project deserved an exemption from those rules because it was an educational exercise [Los Angeles Times].

If you’ve been following this summer’s stories about personal DNA tests, this probably sounds familiar. The simmering question of whether or not they are “medical,” and therefore how they ought to be regulated, began to reach a boil after Walgreens announced its intention to sell DNA tests in its brick-and-mortar stores. In June, the FDA stepped in and said the tests are medical, and therefore it has the right to make the rules for them.

The Cal program’s leaders say they got about 700 samples returned as part of the voluntary program before the state clamped down on it. Because of the state’s ruling, the university can’t return individual results to students, but the researchers can analyze the samples to present the entire group as a data set—and then they must incinerate them.

Revealing himself to be a true teacher at heart, Berkeley geneticist Jasper Rine says the short-lived program was a success anyway because it provided a learning experience.

“Most of the benefit of this program has already been had,” Rine told reporters – “Every single student who opened the envelope had to make a judgment for themselves” regarding whether or not to get tested. The two biologists also said that the Berkeley program would undoubtedly raise wider issues of how universities around the country use genetic information, for both educational and research purposes [Nature].

A teachable moment may be all the Berkeley scientists get for a while. The experiment has shown that even a testing program with a limited scope can’t escape vexing questions about handing over the keys to individuals’ DNA.

Critics had raised questions about how the genetic information, even seemingly innocuous, could be misinterpreted or misused. For example, students who learn they metabolize alcohol well may mistakenly think they can overindulge without consequence [San Francisco Chronicle].

And given the authority relationship between a university and its students, allowing the school access to its students’ DNA invites the possibility of abuse, no matter how benign the intention or how detailed the legal papers.

Related Content:
Not Exactly Rocket Science: How I Got My Genes Tested
Discoblog: Welcome, UC Berkeley Freshmen! Now Hand Over Your DNA Samples
80beats: Government Sting Operation Finds Problems With Personal Genetics Tests
80beats: FDA: We’re Going To Regulate Those Personal Genetics Tests, After All
80beats: 5 Reasons Walgreen’s Selling Personal DNA Tests Might Be a Bad Idea

Image: Wikimedia Commons

So, the Decadal Survey (”Astro2010″) results are out. I missed the webcast (which I heard was of pretty sketchy quality), but read Roger Blandford’s slides, and have skimmed or read a reasonable fraction of the preliminary report. Here’s my summary and first reactions, broken down by regime. Steinn has also been blogging a running commentary of his reactions here.

Space Missions:

The top recommendation for a space mission is “WFIRST” — basically a 1.5m wide-field IR imager in space, with low-resolution spectroscopy capabilities. This concept is the latest realization of what was previously known as “JDEM” (for “Joint Dark Energy Mission”, which itself was an expanded and reconstructed version of “SNAP”, the Supernova (SN) Acceleration Probe). The goal would be to use some combination of high redshift SNe, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), and weak lensing to constrain the parameters of dark energy. The committee recommended that the mission allow for a general observer (GO) program (thank goodness) and have a component dedicated to exoplanet discovery through microlensing (really? not really something I follow, but this isn’t something I’ve heard much about. UPDATE: from the comments, Andy Gould has a white paper pointing out that the weak lensing requirements are essentially identical to what’s needed for a microlensing-based planet search. Basically, you get it for free if you decide to pursue weak lensing. However, they did not take Andy’s recommendation that the dark energy mission not pursue 3 independent techniques in one satellite.).

The next recommendation is for a mixed portfolio of smaller satellite missions. These “Explorer”-class missions have historically been hugely successful — WMAP, GALEX, etc — but have been squeezed out recently by funding limitations and pressure from flagship mission development (JWST) and operations.

The third recommendation is for continued development of LISA, an orbiting interferometric gravitational wave detector. LISA is a really nifty project — one that I was not inately that interested in, but that became more and more compelling the more I learned about it. Co-blogger Daniel has thought a lot about LISA, and maybe we can get him to talk some more about it.

Reactions to the Space Recommendations:

Overall: These were hard choices, and reading the report, it’s clear that a huge amount of weight was given to cost, feasibility, and competitiveness. IXO, the next generation flagship X-ray mission, dropped compared to its previous ranking, largely because the committee found it to be technologically and financially risky (”The Survey Committee also found IXO technologies to be too immature at present for accurate cost and risk assessment”). They instead flagged IXO as ripe for money for “technological development”, so that it’s ready to go for the next report. The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM, or SIMlite) dropped completely out, in large part due to cost vs scientific return.

The real bummer about these recommendations is that entire subfields of US astronomy are pretty much shut out of the only environment where they can operate. X-ray, UV, and high-resolution astronomy (outside of IR and radio) are fundamentally space-based enterprises, and when Chandra and HST shut down, there will be nothing left, and nothing in the pipeline for a decade or more. The good times are continuing to role if you’re an infrared astronomer — (considering the series of Spitzer, WISE, JWST, and now WFIRST), but entire communities are going to be gutted. I do think that IXO will eventually get a start, because it’s a strong mission, but are there going to be any X-ray astronomers left when it starts getting data?

WFIRST: It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because two of the three dark energy techniques are going to making a fair bit of progress over the next decade, even without this mission — two of the three new gigundo Hubble Multicycle Treasury programs will have a significant high-redshift SN component, and ground-based BAO surveys like BigBOSS are viable candidates for completion within a 10yr timescale. I’m sure discovery space will be left, but it will be interesting to see where we are in 10 years. There is also a highly ranked ESA mission with very similar capabilities. The only way it makes sense to go forward with WFIRST is if the projects somehow merge.

Explorer Missions: There will definitely be broad community support for this recommendation. For certain wavelength regimes, this will be the only game in town. UV astronomers can probably make some real progress here, because there are huge gains that can be made by increases in detector efficiency, rather than by larger apertures, which are expensive to build and launch. High-resolution questions can’t be addressed through the Explorer program, since you really need large baselines that are inaccessible at this cost limit (large baseline = big mirrors or interferometry = expensive). Not sure what can be done in the X-ray, but hard to go from Chandra or XMM down to what’s available through this approach.

LISA: I think LISA is pretty cool. I would have thought that the technological challenges for LISA are comparable to those that IXO faces, but I’ll sensibly assume that the committee spent infinitely more time evaluating this issue than I have. Of the two, LISA probably has more pure discovery space potential. We at least know something about x-rays from space, but we know close to nothing about gravitational radiation from space.

Ok, I gotta try to do some actually science today before I tackle the rest of the recommendations…more later

I’ve told you about Geek A Week before: artist Len Peralta is interviewing one Alpha Nerd ever week, and drawing a cool trading card for each. I was honored to be included, and I also mentioned my friend Brea Grant was one as well.

Len recently interviewed two other friends of mine: Adam Savage, and Grant Imahara. Yeah, two of the Mythbusters! You can grab Adam’s interview here, and Grant’s here.

Grant’s interview was interesting to me because I didn’t know his history. Well, I do now after hearing him talk about it, and he’s done a lot of very cool stuff. I really enjoyed his interview; he has an attitude about a lot of things he’s done (and still doing) that I find simpatico. It was fun to listen to.

Adam’s interview may surprise you. Most people know him through the TV show, of course, but you only get a glimpse of who he is there. If you’ve seen him talk at Dragon*Con or TAM, you know he is a man of deep intelligence, and dare I say wisdom. He is passionate, and — largely self-taught — has depth to his musings.

While I found myself laughing as I listened to Adam, I also found myself thinking about what he was saying. For example, when asked what quality he values most in other people, he said, "the ability to adapt to change". That’s an excellent answer, I must say. If everyone could adapt to change willingly and rapidly, how much better would the world be? Creationism would disappear over night, as would most forms of denialism.

His other answers are similarly thoughtful and interesting. When it was over, I was really goofily proud of him. If you’re a Mythbusters fan, I strongly urge you to listen to both those interviews. You’ll like ‘em.

Astronomers have confirmed it: Neptune has a stalker. They have spotted, for the first time, an asteroid follower that keeps a fairly constant distance behind the planet in its orbit around the sun. And there may be many more.

Asteroid 2008 LC18 can’t help itself. It’s caught in a balancing game between the gravitational tug of the sun and Neptune, and effects from its whirling course. The conflicting tugs cause the asteroid not to orbit Neptune or crash into it, but instead to follow the planet from a little distance behind (about 60 degrees on its path).

Neptune has five of the these pits–called Lagrangian points (see diagram below the fold)–but the spots ahead and behind the planet, researchers say, are best for asteroid-trapping, since the hold is particularly stable in these places. Researchers have previously spotted several asteroids in front of the planet (again by about 60 degrees), but this is the first time they’ve found one following it. The findings appeared online yesterday in Science.

Spotting followers in the place behind the planet was particularly difficult because astronomers’ line of sight to where these special Lagrangian asteroids–called Trojans–roam overlapped with the center of the Milky Way. Says lead author Scott Sheppard in a Carnegie Institute press release:

“The L4 and L5 Neptune Trojan stability regions lie about 60 degrees ahead of and behind the planet, respectively. Unlike the other three Lagrangian points, these two areas are particularly stable, so dust and other objects tend to collect there. We found 3 of the 6 known Neptune Trojans in the L4 region in the last several years, but L5 is very difficult to observe because the line-of-sight of the region is near the bright center of our galaxy.” [Carnegie Institution]

Using the 8.2-meter Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii, astronomers spotted the L5 Trojan by waiting for dust clouds in our galaxy to block out the light from the galaxy’s center. They determined its orbit using Carnegie’s 6.5-meter Magellan telescopes in Chile, and they believe finding 2008 LC18 means the planet may have many Trojan asteroids. Sheppard believes they’d be easier to spot if Neptune wasn’t so far away.

“We believe Neptune Trojans outnumber the Jupiter Trojans and the main-belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter,” Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., told Space.com. “If Neptune was where the main-belt was, we’d know thousands of these objects.” [Space.com]

Sheppard also notes that Neptune’s newfound Trojan has a slightly tilted orbit, which may mean that the planet captured the asteroid when it was in a different location and trajectory–lending support to the theory that the giant planets don’t have the same orbits that they started with in the early solar system.

“The Neptune Trojans can tell us a lot about how the giant planets formed,” Sheppard said…. “People have been saying that the giant planets were very chaotic,” that they formed closer together, in unusual orbits, and migrated outward, Sheppard said. The Neptune Trojans’ odd orbits “supports that theory.” [National Geographic]

Related content:
80beats: Study: Uranus & Neptune Have Seas of Diamond—With Diamond Icebergs
80beats: Did Galileo Spot Neptune Two Centuries Before Its “Discovery?”
80beats: The Earth’s Oldest Diamonds May Show Evidence of Earliest Life
Bad Astronomy: A New Ring Around Uranus
Bad Astronomy: Did Herschel See the Rings of Uranus?

Images: NASA & Scott Sheppard