Powerless Beneath the Stars: Atacama, Peru

   I arrived in the town of Nazca by night, with a few days of travel under my belt and feeling ready for anything. As the bus rolled to a stop we were greeted by processions of locals. My guide's face glows in the darkness. "Its the 'Apagón'", I was told. My best translation? The Big Lights Out. Apparently it happens with some regularity: the power fails and the townsfolk surrender to the darkness armed with nothing more than candlesticks.

   The town of Nazca is smack dab in the middle of the Atacama Desert: the driest place on Earth, which is why the famous Nazca lines have been so well preserved. I would look down on these the next afternoon, by daylight, from a tiny 8 passenger plane: the monkey, the spider, the humming bird, and a dozen or so other figures cut into the sand centuries ago for mysterious purposes. A German woman, Maria Reiche, studied these lines all her life only to come up with a debunked theory relating the lines to the stars: a nice thought. She built a home, the only building anywhere near the lines, that is now a museum displaying unusual maps, precariously displayed bits of priceless earthenware and the odd mummified corpse. I would also visit a planetarium and see a show about the lines, and afterward join a lineup for a turn at a telescope aimed at Saturn. My first view but its nothing more than a tiny yellow plus sign. They could have upped the magnification so much more.
   It turns out that the Atacama desert is the ideal place to stargaze. Because of its almost total lack of humidity the atmosphere is very still and the air (superbly) unperturbed. I've just arrived at my hotel. I'm standing in the courtyard supplied with nothing more than a candle to acquaint myself to my surroundings, but its not on my mind. In the open air of the clearest night I've ever seen, I'm staring at a thick canvas of stars over Peru, shooting stars streak through the sky in every direction, dazzling my eyes with a spectacle I will never forget.
   Months or years later in Canada I am developing an interest in astronomy. Among other things I learn about meteor showers: regular shows put on when Earth barrels through debris left hanging in space by long passed comets and asteroids. The specks of dust ignite on entry into the atmosphere and burn up, putting on a display worth watching from any venue. But from Canada this austral meteor shower would scarcely send a streak of light above the horizon; from Peru it is the show of a lifetime. July, 2009, South Delta Aquarid Shower. Nazca, Peru. Lights out in the city.

Chess and Other Child's Play

   Children grow up fast. One stage they race through is particularly fascinating: a brief period in middle childhood where they become sponges and can learn anything that interests them at alarming rates. As an adult, it is critical to force your interests on a vulnerable child at this crucial time. Really. This is a great chance for bonding, a chance to share your passions and see them take shape in a fellow child of the universe. My dad this for me when I was a boy and now I'm practicing on my second nephew; its great fun! A child's enthusiasm is gloriously contagious.

   

   I have a theory. It's a simple one, but elegant. Children enjoy a fresh experience of the world and this results in their sense of wonder. When a 7 year old looks at a tree, it may be only the fourth or fifth time they have really looked at a tree. It may be one of the first times they've seen that particular color of green. Even the simple realization that birds live in trees is a new idea and fascinating. As adults, we don't even really look at the tree anymore. We know what to expect. We have seen thousands of trees and they are all the same. Of course we're wrong, but we feel forced to seek more and more complex concepts and forms in order to maintain a sense of wonder. This drive, this curiosity,  has propelled us to the moon, developed sciences, mathematics, revealed secrets of life, so I guess I'm not complaining. But the point I want to make is that the beauty of even the most complicated concepts, sciences, endeavors, etc., always boils down to something so simple, a child can understand it

   

   Take the game of Chess. The Royal Game. Like many children, I remember my father teaching me the pieces and the way they move. It was exciting. The appeal, as a child, lay in the look of the individual pieces and their special powers, the basic fact that they could be lost to the opponent or, better yet, capture enemies. Even the lowly pawn could be transformed into a powerful queen if it survived a difficult journey to the far side of the board. 

  

  Chess is a beautiful game, never the same, with such intricate levels of complexity it boggles the mind. But the fun of chess, as most things, is appreciated best through a child's eye. It is a battle where men are won and lost, the powerful can be outdone by the clever, and the weak can overcome their lot and ultimately change the course of history. Children lead by example; they are a constant reminder of the simple joys that surround us. So, yeah, I'm grateful for this gift, but I allow myself a little well-deserved envy: when I play my nephew, I play to win. Check. Mate.

Thank-You Moons of Jupiter

   The odds of aiming a department store trash-scope at the sky and finding anything interesting to look at are, well, astronomical. Perhaps I should consider retiring my age-old conviction that I am plagued by bad luck: chances are anyone that ever uses one of these toy telescopes will permanently give up any future in sky watching, tragic really.  Heck, I was even born with a fair chance of seeing Haley's Comet twice in my life, though I don't recall seeing it when I was 6 (thanks Mom and Dad). I never bothered to make much note of some of the major comets visible from my stomping grounds in the mid-nineties either though so I guess I can't blame them.... The astronomer me was born at the age of thirty. On a scale as large as space, some things only happen once in a lifetime and many more occur far less frequently. Meteor showers can be seen year in and year out, while other events occur less regularly. Jupiter, for example, takes a dozen years to orbit the sun.

    This past summer, Jupiter, the King of Gods,  was brighter than anything I had noticed in the sky for some time and I was blessed with a good view of it on many nights. With my interest piqued by this bright heavenly body, I decided to try a different approach to using the junky telescope I had borrowed from my nephew. He, like so many, got this scope for Christmas. It claimed 600X magnification though on the best night it might deliver somewhere near 100X. My novel approach was to set it up slowly and patiently, to align the finders-cope during the day, use the finder-scope to locate the planet and to patiently line it up in the telescope to see what I could see. I guess you could say I'm getting old and in many ways I've noticed this to be a surprisingly beneficial development in my life.

    So I aim the thing at Jupiter and get it lined up - a fuzzy blob - and I slowly turn the focuser, realizing, as I go that I'm about to see something, albeit unimpressive. But a little surprise awaits me as I bring the small yellow disk into focus: four tiny pin pricks of light accompany my little planet. My mind explodes in wonder: I am seeing four moons of Jupiter. Their orientation on a parallel plane to Earth leave no doubt as to their orbit around the gas giant. As I gaze in wonder, the spectacle is slipping from view. I have to re-aim my telescope and am suddenly struck by the rotation of my own planet beneath my feet and the incomprehensible distances of the universe. An Astronomer is born. In the coming weeks and months I keep an eye on the moons on clear nights as they dance around Jupiter. I even can barely make out the darker reddish band seen in photos. With the advancing seasons, Jupiter is clearly marching further westward as it circles our star, the Sun. We are neighbors, brothers in a journey of epic proportions.