Recently an exciting new type of ground-based telescope came online. It is a collaboration between the University of Arizona, the National Institute of Astrophysics in Italy, and several institutions in Germany. It is an innovative idea to use two large mirrors for the telescope, like a pair of binoculars. This will give the telescope a large collecting area while avoiding complications of making one very large mirror.

The idea first started back in 1992 between Arizona and Italy. They only had the funding to make one mirror, but in 1997 with the addition of Germany and Ohio State University, the project was under way. The telescope mount was constructed in Italy and shipped to Arizona, where it joined the mirrors being constructed. The observatory will be part of the Mt. Graham International Observatory near Safford, Arizona.

The telescope will consist of two 8.54-meter mirrors on a shared mount, which has the light gathering power equivalent to one 11.8-meter mirror and a resolving power of a 22.8-meter mirror. The building of the two mirrors is a delicate and complicated process. The mirrors must go through an extensive annealing and cooling process. Then two tons of glass are added and then a slow heating process started, then another round of annealing and cooling. During this process glass leaks are possible which can really complicate things. Once finished the mirror mold must be cleaned and polished very carefully and exactly. The mirrors must stay in a temperature-controlled environment to prevent temperature changes affecting the surface of the mirrors.

The first primary mirror saw first light in 2005, but it wasn’t until 2008 that both mirrors came online together. The optical instruments include a UV spectrograph, thermal infrared imager, near infrared camera, high-resolution optical spectrograph, optical direct imager, and more. The telescope is designed for observing in the UV, optical, and infrared wavelengths.

The Large Binocular Telescope observatory (LBT) is the world’s highest resolution and most technologically advanced optical telescope, creating images in the near infrared with 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. There should be some exciting new developments coming from the LBT once it really gets going. It is a great example of innovation and ingenuity to overcome the technological obstacles of making very large mirrors and by using an array of smaller (yet still large) mirrors.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… CY: wait… I: wait… L: wait… YCat: wait… I: wait… Top: wait… I: wait… L: wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Having been away from my Schopenhauer series for nearly 2 months, I’ve felt the longing pangs of unfinished business in my gulliver.  So it is with renewed vim and vigor that I return to the dais for yet another installment.

When I think back on my earliest encounter with philosophy, it is not dissimilar from my first brush with theology.  During the spring of my freshman year at the University of Minnesota, I became enamored of theology largely on account of dating an inordinately religious woman named S____.  My enamored fancy fell up Saint Thomas Aquinas via a medieval history course, and I soon found myself reading Summa Theologica at Coffman Union between classes.

Q:  Is there a more wearisome, and austere scholarly contribution than Summa Theologica?
A:  Not likely.

I find a it little amusing that my first forays into philosophy and theology resulted in overmatched efforts involving the aforementioned.  One might deem Socrates and CS Lewis a bit more age appropriate if not efficacious.

Immanuel Kant’s contribution to modern philosophy is well known for synthesizing empiricism and continental rationalism.  Where empiricists contended that knowledge arises from experience, and rationalists asserted that reason alone provides the basis of knowledge, Kant – in his own estimation – created a compromise between the two by presenting knowledge as function of comprehension involving 2 actors:  Concepts of the mind and phenomena.  Concepts (categories) of the mind are 4 fold with 3 aspects each – quantity (unity, plurality, totality), quality (reality, negation, limitation), relation (substance, cause, community) and modality (possibility, existence, necessity).  These concepts are universals; we cannot process phenomena (experience) without them.  For example, we cannot look at 2 apples on a table without immediately apprehending plurality.  Kant went on to refer to these categories as filters through which knowledge is made possible.

There remains in Kant the problem of things – in – themselves.  If knowledge is obtained by applying filters to phenomena arriving via our senses, then how can we ever say with certainty “That which I perceive exists as I perceive it”? On this point, Schopenhauer departs from Kant and is correct in doing so.  For Schopenhauer, the problem of knowing things – in – themselves is even deeper than Kant implied for it is not enough to merely enumerate the filters through which knowledge is made manifest without acknowledging the obvious conclusion:  That so long as filters lie between our senses and our reason, the extension of our knowledge cannot lie beyond our senses i.e. we do not know a sun “but only an eye that sees the sun…”

But we do know our bodies….

To be continued…

SN 1987A was a supernova in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy. It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs from Earth, close enough that it was visible to the naked eye however it could only be seen from the Southern Hemisphere. It was the closest observed supernova since SN 1604, which occurred in the Milky Way itself. Its brightness peaked in May of 1987 and slowly declined in the following months. It was the first opportunity for modern astronomers to see a supernova up close. But 1987A was different than most observed supernova. Most supernovas grow dimmer with the passage of time as they release their energy. But the X-ray and radio emissions from 1987A grew brighter which made it a bit of an oddity in the world of supernovas. Well it’s no longer alone in this category.

This new supernova, called SN 1996cr was singled out in 2001. It was discovered as a bright variable source in the Cygnus Spiral galaxy using the Chandra X-ray observatory. At the time it could not confidently be identified. Years later astronomers were reviewing the spectrum of the object as seen by Europe’s Very Large Telescope and interest was renewed. Astronomers began looking through the archives of data from many different space and ground based telescopes. 1996cr was identified not only as a supernova but as the brightest supernova ever seen in radio and x-ray. And like SN 1987A its brightness has increased over the years. The two look alike in many ways except that 1996cr is about a thousand times brighter.

The combined data from both supernovae have led astronomers to develop a model of what is happening with these types of explosions. Before the original star exploded, it cleared out a large area in the surrounding gas, either with strong wind or from an outburst late in its life. So the blast wave from the supernova itself could expand relatively unimpeded into this cleared area. However, once the blast wave hit the dense material surrounding it, the impact caused the system to glow brightly in X-ray and radio emission. The X-ray and radio emission from SN 1987A is probably fainter because the surrounding material is less compact.

SN 1987A used to be quite a mystery but with this new data answers are starting to come. And astronomers now think this type of pre explosion clear out could be quite common among dying massive stars. 1996cr not only helps answer questions about 1987A but also gives insight into the deaths of massive stars and the dynamics of what is exactly happening. Hopefully, now that we know what to look for, more of this types of events can be identified and studied.

After two mission extensions, the Phoenix Lander has been on the Martian surface for five months. But with an approaching winter, the Lander is already beginning to lose power, as it must now sit in five hours of freezing darkness each day. The rover will slowly lose power until the end of October when it will no longer be able to use its robotic arm. Even though its days are numbered the Phoenix Lander is still making discoveries.

For the first time in Martian history, Phoenix observed Martian snowfall. The snow observed at an altitude of about 4km above the Lander, and it appears to have vaporized before reaching the surface. The Lander has also discovered several minerals that, on Earth, would typically form in the presence of water.

Potentially, the most exciting mineral discovered is Calcium Carbonate, (CaCO₃). Calcium Carbonate is the main component of chalk, which forms in deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of calcite plates called coccoliths, which are shed from microorganisms called cocolithosphores. The discovery was made by the combined data of two instruments onboard the Phoenix Lander. The Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer,(TEGA), discovered that Carbon Dioxide was released from soil samples when exposed to high temperatures. The temperature at which the CO₂ was released is a temperature which is known to breakdown CaCO₃ into CO_2. The Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, (MECA), found concentration of (Ca) in the soil; this confirms the presence of CaCO3 in the soil. The presence of Calcium Carbonate does not immediately imply that chalk or microorganisms have been discovered, future tests will have to be done to determine if the CaCO₃ was formed due to ancient marine life.

Both MECA and TEGA discovered have smooth-faced layered particles which resemble clay. Clay minerals have a crystal structure which allows them to store water between Silicon and Oxygen Bonds. These bonds are relatively weak, this allows the bonds to expand and contrast depending on the water content of the environment they are in. These weak bonds also break easily along the bonding planes which give them the smooth and layered surfaces which were observed by the Lander.

Currently, Phoenix is beginning to analyze the soil found in a region called “Galloping Hessian”. This area is being explored because of its high concentration of salts. On Earth Salts are also commonly found in dried up sea beds. As the darkness and the cold settles in over the Lander its days of discovery are nearing an end. Because of the extreme conditions of the Martian winter, which loom in the Landers very near future, scientists do not think that they will be able to resurrect it when spring finally returns.