TC Training Camp: Day Six

The Bohunk scurries up the Muur…(This is what I imagine I look
like on the bike. Everyday.)
About a mile and a half from getting home from my ride today, a middle-aged woman waddling across the road with her equally wide pal made a comment about me. It’s rare I actually hear people say anything because I am most often cruising along too fast or too far away. But this lady, I heard. As I rounded a corner and tore into the pavement to keep the pace up, she said, quite flatly, “Well, he is serious.” Yes, ma’am, I am. And let me tell you why…

Your skills of perception, madam, are lacking. What you saw was a 22 year old in tight clothing on a full suspension bicycle that is more than a bit too big for him. But what that young man really was doing was launching an attack off the front to get a gap over a select group of eight, including, just to name a few, Fabian Cancellara, Thor Hushovd, Tylar Farrar and Juan Manuel Garate. And trust me, the young man you saw was digging himself to China in an effort to get away.

You believe you saw this on a normal, cold and wet Thursday in Traverse City, Michigan, whilst in (my) reality, I was really just rolling of the top of the Muur climb at the Tour of Flanders, Belgians yelling and spiting obscenities at me in a drunken fervor as if I was Lance Armstrong his very self. You can see then, ma’am, that yes I was indeed quite serious. Thank you heartily for taking a moment to notice.

The sixth day of the TC Training Camp was a mountain-bike-on-the-road-ride because of the deep slush and snow on most of the roads. I only did an hour and twenty minutes and about 22 miles because of a very strong and cold wind, but I was really feeling the effects of a long run yesterday. Looking forward very much to the weather tomorrow, which promises partly cloudy skies and a temperate 37 degrees. More from the roads tomorrow!

Earths Are One-In-Four…

As a planet with liquid water in abundance, just the right temperatures and a moving, fluctuating internal structure of rock, earth is pretty darn lucky. But it is our placement in relation to the sun that makes life possible. We had always assumed we were a rare occurrence, lucky beyond the odds of the universe. But now, we’ve found that we are not so special after all. Scientists now believe we are but a statistical minority, not an impossible rarity. Of the sun-like stars we know of, they claim, roughly 23 in 100 have planets in the same area and of the same basic dimensions of earth. Masses ranging from one-half to two times the size of earth are relatively common, present near roughly one in four stars systems similar to the sun. Much of this research is the result of extensive study of stars 166 G and K, just 80 light years away and very similar to our own sun in most respects. They found that there is almost a sort of formula, with planets sized similar to those found in our own system at relatively the same locations. For example, there is a planet roughly the size of Jupiter within a few thousand miles of where it is located in our own solar system.

Scientists found 156,000 stars that fit this formula, and the Keck telescope being used for the project will be able to detect roughly 120-260 possible planets in the next two months. What does this matter? We are not the mathematical anomaly we always imagined ourselves. There are planets with the same opportunities for life that we have had over the last 4.2 billion years, some of which have existed for a similar period of time. Is there life out there? Could we find it in the next 100 years? Or 200? Or ever. We don’t know everything. We know almost nothing. The universe, my friends, is the greatest mystery.

Planets That May Have Life (If They Exist At All)

When scientists announced on September 29th that they had discovered a planet that could be inhabitable by living things, the Bohunk took it as a two-day early cosmic birthday present; I enjoy this stuff. Gliese 581g and Gliese 581f are both roughly 20 light years away from our own rock in the universe and are rare, like us, in that they occupy a space close enough but far enough away from their star to have liquid water. The discovery of these two planets was, frankly huge. Heretofore, only four known planets in the universe were known to exist in this “habitable zone”, and adding two more in a single study was, to science nerds, a startlingly big deal. Using radial velocity they studied the wobble of the nearby star produced by planets close by, something that utilizes the HARPS telescope in Chile and the HIRES spectrograph in Hawaii. Dr. Vogt, the discoverer, became one of the Bohunk’s heroes.

Until now. A team led by Rene Andrae, a very, very German scientist, is now claiming the planets do not exist and that other scientists have found no reliable evidence that these two planets even exist. They charge that Vogt made an incorrect assumption; Vogt’s calculations and research was based on the star having six planets with a circular orbit. In fact, the other scientists have essentially proven that the orbits are elliptical and that, because of the change in degrees, the gravitational wobble experienced by the star is the product of only these four planes on separate planes, not six on a predictable, even orbital path.

An artistic guesstimation of the possible planets that may or may
not actually exist.

Vogt has fired back with several papers and more data, and charges that the Bayesian techniques used by Andrae and a pal, Dr. Gregory, are inconsistent and largely unproven. Do these planets exists? Will we ever have the technology to see these planets, let alone visit them or look for life on their surfaces? We don’t know every thing, we know almost nothing. The universe, my friends, is the greatest mystery.

The Oldest Galaxy In The Universe

The Hubble Space Telescope, the lingering tool of NASA as programs and funding are cut or shut down, has found what might be the oldest galaxy ever encountered. The so-far unnamed galaxy (the Bohunk proposes "Bohunkxia 23) is estimated to have originated when the universe was just 480 million years old, a fresh, doe-eyed age when galaxies were forming at amazing rates. The light of the galaxy has been travelling to earth for about 13.2 billion years now, making it oldest known entity we have yet encountered. This discovery is still unconfirmed, but it should be quite soon and dethrone other galaxies as the oldest around. Before this discovery, the oldest galaxies known were formed around 650 millions years after the Big Bang. The discover still leaves some basic questions unanswered. Why is the universe transparent? With all these elements, especially unbound atoms and neutrinos zooming about, why are even waves invisible or elusive in the light of stars and galaxies? Does the universe hold enough heat and light to burn of this 'mist', or is some other aspect of the universe at work? We don't know everything, we know almost nothing. The universe, my friends, is the greatest mystery.