Tales of the unexpected, Sirius A and B, Dogon people, 1844, twin stars

My eldest son Nason visited us from Edinburgh last weekend with his four-year-old child, Milo.  Apart from loads of cuddles with my grandson there was also an opportunity for Nason to share memories of his own childhood in his grandmother’s home.  He showed Milo the brass bed warmer on the wall at the front entrance of the bungalow and lifted the lid to show the tiny knitted mouse hidden inside.  It has been there for over many decades and on occasional visits I catch my almost forty-year son checking its contents to check the mouse is still there.  We all have those homecoming rituals that ground us with a younger version of ourselves.  Another memory was conjured up by a Reader’s Digest book called Mysteries of the Unexplained. 

My son remembered being quite scared by its contents when a child.  Things like human spontaneous combustion were covered along with a photograph of a burnt figure seated on a sofa along with other weird happenings.  No wonder it quite mesmerised and frightened him in equal measure.  After my visitors left I happened to flick through the book and it did indeed have a Ripley’s Oddities feel to it.  

There was a section on the Dogon people of Southern Mali in West Africa who passed on, through their oral traditions, information on astronomical details of the Sirius star that seemed incredibly precise in terms of details for a simple tribal people.  

According to French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who worked on field missions during the 1930s and 1940s the Dogons had their own ancient knowledge of astronomy and believed that Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, had a twin star (which is invisible to the naked eye) and that it had an elliptical orbit with Sirius A at its focus and took 50 years to complete its orbit.  This second star was said to be white in colour.  In fact, in their tradition, there was even a third star in the system even smaller than the other two which had a single satellite orbiting it.  

Being the brightest star in the sky Sirius A has long played a powerful role on earth throughout history. The star is twice the size and 25 times as luminous as our Sun it is certainly noticeable. The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and was equally important for ancient Greeks, even the Polynesians, in the Southern Hemisphere, used this star as an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean.

This Reader's Digest book was published in 1982 so it prompted me to do a little research on what modern astronomy has to say about all this.  I was curious about what had been discovered since and how this compared with the Dogon’s tales.  Sirius is a twin (binary) star consisting of a main-sequence star of Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion termed Sirius B. The mass of the dwarf star Sirius B was only calculated in 2005 by the Hubble Telescope. The distance between the two varies between 8.2 and 31.5 astronomical units as they complete orbit every 50 years.  So far so good and remarkably in tune with the Dogon oral tales. 

In a letter dated 10 August 1844, the German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel had reasoned from changes in the proper motion of Sirius that it had an unseen companion. Eighteen years later an American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark was the first to successfully observe the faint companion, Sirius B which was a white dwarf star.  Fascinating to read that since 1894, some apparent orbital irregularities in the Sirius system have been observed, indicating the possibility of a third very small companion star, but this has never been confirmed.  

By now you will be pretty impressed with the accuracy of the Dogon people and their traditions. However, there could be other interpretations.  There is some speculation that Marcel Griaule’s accounts may be flawed as his observations were not borne out by other researchers.  In Griale’s accounts the Dogon people indicated that their information was passed on by half-fish and half-human creatures which feels slightly far-fetched.  Also, information on astronomical data on Sirius B could have been conveyed to the Dogon people during 5 weeks in 1893 when French astronomers travelled to the region to observe a solar eclipse on 16 April of that year.  Who knows, but how impressive would it be if a third star was found?  At present the scientific opinion is that Sirius is a twin star system and some fascinating details already known about this star system blew me away.

Sirius is expected to increase in brightness slightly over the next 60, 000 years to reach a peak magnitude and around the year 66, 270 CE Sirius will take its turn as the southern Pole Star. After that date, it will become fainter, but it will continue to be the brightest star in the Earth's night sky for approximately the next 210,000 years, then Vega, another A-type star becomes the brightest star.  The time scale blows the mind as does the magnitude of a starry sky at night.  Perhaps on a fundamental level, these star-filled skies are there to remind us of the wonders of this world we live in.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. 

Og Mandino

Transmutation, reactors and reactions - amazing stuff

 

In 1956 Paul Kazuo, in a published academic paper, proposed that it was possible for the Earth itself to create a natural nuclear reactor and to sustain its reactions. Given that humans had only discovered nuclear fission was possible in 1939 and then managed to design the very first nuclear reactor in 1942 that claim must have seemed downright outrageous.  How could the earth manage the required conditions to make a running nuclear reactor?    Well, surprisingly it did.  A French physicist Francis Perrin in 1972 found 17 sites at the Oklo mines in Gabon, West Africa where the earth made its own nuclear reactor.  It happened 1.7 billion years ago and the reactor ran for 300,000 years.  Mind-blowing isn’t it?

In order to have the conditions for a nuclear reactor to take place you need a concentration of uranium U235 of more than 3%.  The average amount of this isotope found today in the environment is usually 0.72% so those conditions are very rare.  But 1.7 billion years ago, the perfect conditions were found in Oklo, West Africa to produce a concentration of 3.1%.  A moderator to slow down neutrons produced was required and fortunately there was a water source present.  If there had been boron or lithium they would have stopped the reaction but fortunately they were both absent from this particular geographical area.  It is thought that oxygen, which was required, was contributed by aerobic oxygen from bacteria. There needed to be a uranium layer 1 metre thick, which Oklo had and as the fission reaction took place it generated heat.  This heat gradually boiled away the available water which stopped the reaction.  Then after cooling, water would return and the reaction started again. In three hours, one whole cycle would be completed but imagine this cycle successfully repeating itself for 300,000 years!  Eventually with time the fissile material concentration was reduced so that it could no longer sustain a chain reaction.  

All of this is pretty amazing and Paul Kazuo’s predictions turned out to be completely verified.  It helps to understand a bit of the chemistry and physics behind this world we live in.  The periodic table contains all the elements or atoms that exist.  From the lightest Hydrogen which has just one proton and one electron to very heavy atoms like one of the heaviest uranium with 92 protons, 92 electrons and 143 neutrons.  As you go up the periodic table the atoms get fatter!  They gain neutrons and protons deep inside the nucleus. The neutrons have no charge but they do add weight. Radioactive decay comes from deep inside the nucleus and involves a change in the number of neutrons or protons due to instability in their neutron/proton ratio.  This instability means they will decay. All elements with atomic numbers greater than 83 have unstable nuclei and are radioactive. As a radioactive element tries to stabilize, it may transform into a new element in a process called transmutation. I just want to emphasis here that nuclear reactions involve changing the fundamental nature of the element you started with.  This transformation happens right at the heart of the atom and when you have nuclear fission you divide the atom nucleus creating two smaller lighter nuclei along with a lot of neutrons, alpha particles, gamma radiation and electrons from deep inside the nucleus.

The story could end there but this planet is more mysterious than we suspected.  It keeps surprising scientists regularly.  It has now been proposed that georeactors could (earth’s natural reactors) exist deep beneath us where the earth’s mantle meets its metalcore.  It is thought such reactors burn uranium and produce plutonium with other products such as helium and xenon.  This would explain the confusing ratios of such gases found in volcanic magma.  

Radioactive decay of unstable isotopes of heavy metals such as uranium contribute to the heat of the earth’s mantle and help to create convection currents in the mantle rock that power the drift of the tectonic plates at the surface of the earth causing mountain ranges and earthquakes.  Nuclear fission reactors deep below us could release an immense amount of heat and it is thought that radioactive decay provides over 50% of the earth's total heat.  It has long been known that the earth is radiating much more heat than it should (45TW, where a TW is unit of power equal to one million million (1012) watts).

But how do we find out if this proposed explanation is true?  Well, fortunately when nuclear reactions take place neutrinos and antineutrinos are released.  These particles pass right through the earth easily.  In Japan there is Kamioka Liquid Scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND).  It is an underground neutrino detection facility situated in a drift mine shaft in the Japanese Alps. Kamland is surrounded by Japanese commercial nuclear reactors and is, therefore, able to measure antineutrinos from these reactors.  When The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the largest single nuclear power station in the world, was completely shut down for 21 months following an earthquake in 2007 it allowed the KamLAND to monitor antineutrinos that might be coming from deep beneath the earth’s mantle.  It did find evidence of antineutrinos from deep in the earth’s mantle.  

The jury is still out on exactly what is going on but this earth is an amazing place that we need to have so much respect for.  It somehow strikes me as an important metaphor that transmutation (the change in the nucleus of the atom) powers the earth's tectonic plates producing earthquakes and volcanoes that shape our physical world.  Perhaps our inner spiritual transmutation should achieve changes in our world’s society of equally epic dimensions.

“..every atom in the universe possesses or reflects all the virtues of life”

Abdu’l Bahá

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” ― Marcus Aurelius

My aunt and my Mum visited me on Malta again this April and as usual bowled me over with their laughter and good natures.  In their eighties, (or there about) it was their toughness that struck me this time.  The young tend to think of themselves as indestructible and drive too often like lunatics.  As if death was a far off fictional destination.  The elderly, who have lived a long full life, have suffered bereavement, ill health and pain the young cannot imagine.  They look back on decades of experiences, good and bad.  Their hindsight encompasses so many highs and lows.  The tumultuous adolescent is like a crawling baby to them and middle-aged angst akin to a long forgotten skin infection.  Death is on their map.  My father used to say that the grim reaper had reached his field.  He is no stranger; they've encountered this foe many times.  Their familiarity with what it means, breeds in them not recklessness but determination.  Battled hardened troops, they buckle on their weapons, check their gear, keep a watchful eye on their surroundings and for hidden land mines around.  They are appalled by the ignorance of the raw recruits they see on every side.  Who have not experienced the heat of real battle but preen and boast of future endeavours.  These veterans don’t waste energy boasting.  They've seen it all!  Begun to know themselves, their own bravery or cowardice.  The bits of themselves and those loved ones left on battlefields decades ago.  They hug their maimed limbs monitoring for new sores not old.  Watchful but not defeated.

I decide to take them to my school on Malta.  We caught a bus for it is a good forty-minute walk away and I showed them the three buildings.  The high School section of the school resembles a hobbit village.  It is a former barracks and is in the shape of a hexagon with a deep moat all around. The buildings are set into the ground, hence the hobbit look, but were designed not to look cute but to hide the establishment from bombers from above.  Circular buildings of old sandstone and little courtyards with benches under trees abound.  Plenty of lovely corners for teenagers to hang out and chat with their friends.  The surrounding moat gives the High School a secluded secret garden appeal and the only access is via a single bridge over the moat. 

The Middle School is across the road and despite its age has a dignified grandeur.  Beside it sits the Elementary School, a separate building with colourful play areas.  My aunt and mum are pleasantly surprised by the school, it is not what they expected.  The art exhibition of the school is running and I decide to let them check out the student’s artwork.  In a large hall, all the students from elementary to high school have decorated the walls, tables and stands with their creations.  During the week each class takes turns to man the exhibition.  They have been carefully drilled to show guests around.  Our guide is around eight or less and is barely up to our waists.  But eager to engage and be our guide.  He stands straight and shows us his own painting of the sun and planets.  Anxious that we look at his work and not others he points precisely at his own masterpiece and announces,

“And this is mine! Not the blue one, that one there.”

Andy directs our attention.  My mother a primary and secondary teacher for all of her life switches instantly into teacher mode after a mere twenty years of retirement.

“Can you name all the planets?” she challenges.

Andy shakes his shoulders and gamely recites eight planets but Saturn appears three times in his list.  My mother explains to him our family method for remembering the order of the planets from the sun.

Maurice (mercury) vomits (Venus) every ((earth) morning (Mars) just (Jupiter) slowly (Saturn) until (Uranus) night (Neptune) prevails (Pluto).

Sadly, Pluto has been removed from the list of planets since our rhythm was devised!  Maurice my eldest brother was a sickly child so the rhythm made a lot of sense to us all.  It feels unfair though, now that he is in his sixties and a professor, for Andy to be reciting his sickly past.  Once he’s got it, Andy drags my mother to the pottery table.  He is mesmerised by her ability to really listen and yet also to challenge him too.  He shows her his pottery pig/elephant/dragon (I must confess I was not sure which) and she asks him how he made it.  Putting it in her hands he explains he used a ‘pinch pot’ technique.  After hearing the method my mother places the pottery piece carefully back in the middle of a sea of pigs/elephants.  Andy leans over and carefully readjusts his pig turning it a fraction.  Obviously, even placing work in a display is an artistic business not to be trusted to amateurs!  Another small boy wants to show his pig to my mother but Andy will have none of it.  Grabbing her by the arm he leads her over to a wall of colourful volcanoes.  He wants her to look at only his, but cannot reach his own work high on the wall above and so spends some anxious moments checking she is looking at his masterpiece.  It has red triangles spouting down its slopes and Andy told us all he knew about volcanoes.  Then once he had run out he checked again, very concerned.

“Which one are you looking at?”

My mother dutifully pointed to the red one and answered,

“It’s that one isn't it?”

Andy wriggled in delight and in the silence of our contemplation of his work found new inspiration,

“When ~I was painting it I was thinking about…” and here he imitated the sounds of a volcano erupting.  It went on for a few dramatic minutes, the full soundtrack accompanied with arms gesturing upwards and then down.

I began to feel our guide to the exhibition was a unique little character indeed.  Perhaps, my only criticism was his desire to show us only his handiwork.  But then again, which artist, if he is really honest, does not feel the same in his heart, “All the other artists can go hang!”

All too soon we had to leave and Andy just did not want his audience to go.  Reluctantly, we thanked our guide, the teachers manning the table and began to leave the hall.  Unfortunately, one of my guests (I have promised to not to say which one) tripped over the edge of the top of the ramp at the exit and fell flat on her back from a height of three steps.  I was horrified!  I have a dear elderly friend who manages to break her wrist just cleaning windows.  Running to her side I told her to lie still and see she how she felt.  Her embarrassment overcame any pain and she wanted to get up immediately and go.  Terrified of a broken leg/hip or ankle, it was a huge fall, I called for a chair and glass of water.  Carefully, we lifted her onto the chair and she drank a sip of the water.  Despite my urging her to rest, she was determined to stand and walk and she got to her feet and tested her legs.  She pronounced herself fine and I could see with relief she could stand and walk.  I found myself crying in gratitude that she was unhurt and hugged her close.  That slow motion turning and twisting gigantic fall and hard smack on the tiles was burnt on my retina and heart.  Suddenly, from across the room ran Andy who threw his arms around my relative and pressed his face against her waist.  It was so unexpected and so genuine, so filled with love and concern, we were all stunned,  Small people can blow you away with their capacity to love.  Both my aunt and mother insisted on walking the whole way home and as I paced behind these sisters I felt the privilege of knowing their strength and resilience.  Their capacity to deal with pain and shrug it off.  The next day when I was teaching Andy’s class computing in elementary his first question when he came into the class was,

“How is the nice lady?  Is she okay?  I was very worried about her!”

My breath is taken away by his loving concern.  The old and the young are a privilege to have around.  Their hearts are both huge and intense.  The former because they have exercised it so much and the latter because theirs is brand spanking new, just out of the box.

The Amazing World we Live in

There’s something about the world we live in that is so jaw droppingly amazing you find yourself wondering how fantastic it all is.  From the tiny subatomic particles to the stars and galaxies it is pretty impressive.  How sad it is then that our educational system too often manages to take this world and its beauty and make it plain boring.  Packaging up facts to be memorised until it reaches blackboard scrapping dimensions.  Learning should have never have been left in the hands of the few.  It is far too precious and the methods of learning too varied for such restrictive hands.  Mind you, finance could have something to do with it.  I remember being involved with writing a computer aided package for educational purposes and being shocked how far behind the games industry our output was.  Then it was pointed out the vast sums being spent in the gaming industry and how miniscule the amounts used in educational packages.  You get for what you pay, as they say.  I was sent this link (see below) this week and found myself loving the way it takes you from the small to the massive.  Allowing you to get a glimpse of this wonderful world and its weirdness.  Click on start and then the planet looking icon above.  Then just slide the bar (located AT THE BOTTOM of this link) to the left or right;  Be sure to slide the bar both ways to see the very small and the very large.

The Amazing World We live In