Cumberland-Times Sky Columns
February 2005

February 6 - Winter, Lent and New Year
February 13 - Astronomy and Astrology
February 20 - Earth's Shifting Plates
February 27 - Coal Versus Wind Power

February 6th - WINTER, LENT & NEW YEAR

Today marks the middle of winter, our shortest season. Winter began last December 21st and spring will begin on March 20. Winter is 88 days in length, our shortest season. Summer is our longest season, nearly 94 days long. Both fall and spring are just over 90 days in length.

The reason why winter is shortest is due to the Earth being closest to the sun in early January. Our more rapid motion about the sun quickens the time between the start of winter (when we lean away from the sun the most) and the start of spring (when sun shines equally on the Northern and Southern hemispheres).

Lent begins this Wednesday, February 9th. Lent lasts 40 days, not counting Sundays. Easter at the conclusion of Lent is based on the first full moon of spring. The moon will be full on March 25th, so Easter falls on the following Sunday, March 27th. The earliest Easter can occur on March 22nd and the lastest Easter falls on April 25th. Since we have an early Easter this year, Lent also starts early. A late Easter may have Lent starting in mid March.

Another key time of the year for Christians is Advent, which begins on the 4th Sunday before Christmas. But since Advent is based on a particular date, not a floating date, Advent is always in late November.

Sunset on Wednesday marks the beginning of Muslim Year 1426. The official start of the Muslim new year depends on the first sighting of a very slender crescent moon from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The event on which the Muslim date is based is the flight (Hejira) of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina in 522 AD. The Muslim year is nearly 354 days in length, 11 days short of our year of the seasons. This means that in 63 of our years, 65 Muslim years will have passed. The Muslim New Year comes 11 days earlier each year. If it occurs at sunset on February 9th this year, then four years from now (2009), it will be occuring in the first week of January.

The Hebrew Calendar also has its months based on the first sighting of the moon, but it adds an extra month 7 times in 19 years to keep its calendar in line with the season. Jewish New Year (5766 A.M.) occurs this year at sunset on October 3rd. This also is the beginning of Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims.

February 13 - Astronomy & Astrology

Two fields that are often confused are Astrology and Astronomy. Astronomy is the science of the heavens while Astrology claims that a knowledge of the positions of sun, moon and planets can guide us in our lives. Both fields can be traced to preliterate cultures.

Early humans were in awe of the heavens, seeing powerful forces at work there. Naturally, the sun, moon and brilliant planets became identified with their deities, watching over the Earth. When lightning struck, bitter cold set in or a hot blazing drought came, it was natural for early cultures to offer sacrifices to propiate these heavenly beings.

The regularities of the sun, the moon's changing shapes and the planets' and stars' appearances led to convenient time keeping for preliterate cultures. The sun's rising point and what stars first appeared at dusk in the East told the ancients the time of year, vital for planting, harvesting and hunting. So early humans saw how the regularities of the heavens could be valuable in their struggle to survive.

In China there developed an idea that the heavenly beings were happy and by following their regularities on Earth, humans could share in their contentment. This principle was encapsulated in the phrase "as above, so below". The Chinese and other early cultures became convinced that the motions and relative positions of the key heavenly bodies would provide guidance for the emperor and rulers. So by knowing the positions of the sun, moon and planets in advance, court astrologers could tell the rulers when was the best date to start a war, get married, pull back from enemy territory, etc.

In connection with astronomy and astrology, the ancient Greeks made two great contributions. Astrology up to that time was used only the rulers and royalty; the Greeks felt Astrology was for everyone. By knowing the sky at the moment of a person's birth, an Astrolger could predict the character of that person for the rest of his/her life. This birth sky chart is called a horoscope.

The ancient Greeks were also the first to see the sky objects as purely natural objects, not deities. They deveoped an elaborate model for the sun, Earth, moon and planets called the Geocentric System. In this system, the Earth sat unmoving in the middle of the universe. This system, refined by the Egyptian Greek astronomer Ptolemaic stood in place as the model for the heavens for nearly 1500 years. Elaborate tables were developed for heavenly body positions that lent themselves to horoscopes, astrological predictions, etc.

Astronomy and astrology began to separate in the 1600's with the discoveries of Galileo and Kepler and Newton's Law of Motion and Gravitation. We now had a scheme to explain the motion of the sun, moon, Earth and planets without invoking heavenly spirits. Now the two fields have drawn apart. Statistical tests of Astrology's predictions have cast doubt on Astrology's validity. But Astrology's appeal (quick analysis of other people, particularly romantic partners) is great; each day millions of people read the daily astrology newspaper columns.

February 20 - EARTH'S SHIFTING PLATES

Mountains on the Earth's surface slowly get worn down. A typical stream that runs down a moutain carries down 0.1 cubic meters of sand and grit each day. At this rate, a sizable mountain (ex. Pike's Peak) will be worn down in several hundred million years by four streams. Since the Earth is over 4 billion years, all the original mountains must be long ago eroded away. So there must be a process that produces new mountains. From rock analysis, our Appalachian Mountains date back over two hundred million years. At a time when dinosaurs roamed this area, our mountains were even higher than the Himalayas.

While erosion is incredibly slow, volcanoes and earthquakes can change the Earth's surface quickly on a large scale. In a volcano, magma, molten rock from the crust or upper mantle erupts, either in a explosive outburst (Mt.St.Helens in 1980) or in a gentle but destructive lava flow.

An earthquake occurs when the rock suddenly breaks along a fault. These displacements send tremendous waves out at speeds of thousands of miles per hour (several kilometers per second). If an earthquake takes place on the ocean floor, it can transfer huge amounts of energy into great waves or tsunamis.

Earthquakes are guaged by the Richter scale, a U.S. geologist who measured the displacement of the ground a given distance from the earthquake. Every increase of 1 on the Richter scale corresponds to a ten fold increase in ground movement. The December 26, 2004 earthquake off the cost of Aceh,Indonesia was rated at 9.0, the most powerful earthquake since the 1960's.

If one plots the earthquakes and volcanoes throughout the world, they form an oval along the east and west sides of the Pacific Ocean. Other Earthquake lines run across Turkey, India and along Indonesia and Malaysia. What can explain this?

Sir Francis Bacon in the 1600's noted the similarity of the coastlines of different continents, particularly the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa. Could these continents have once been together?

In the early 1900's German meteorologist Alfred Wegener revived this idea of continental drift, pointing out the similar fossils and rock formations in eastern South America and western Africa. But geologists rejected the idea, citing no mechanism to move the huge continental masses.

In the years following World War II, oceanographers began to map the ocean floor, finding over 50,000 miles of ocean ridges (Earth's circumference is 25,000 miles in length). In the 1950's the ocean floors began to be studied and magnetic stripes were discovered. (On the average, the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself every 750,000 years.) As rock is formed from cooling magma, the the current magnetic field fixes the magnetism within the rock. So the magnetic stripes acted as a magnetic tape, showing the gradual spreading of the seafloor with time. Then rock samples were taken from the ocean floor; these showed that the rocks closest to the ridges were youngest and the rocks farther away were older.

At this time, it became clear to geologists what was happening. The Earth's crust is broken up into huge plates that slowly move around. Their energy of motion is due to strong currents in the Earth's mantle. This causes typical plate motion of several centimeters a year (about the speed that your hair grows). At some plate boundaries, the plates collide and cause the ground to buckle up, leading to mountain formation (ex. Himalayas). At some plate boundaries, one plate goes under (subducts) another plate, leading to volcanoes where the gases are released from the submerged plate. In some areas, the plate scrape by each other, leading to Earthquakes (California's San Andreas fault).
Our Appalachian Mountains were formed about 1/4 million years ago when the Africa and North American plates collided.

This field is called Plate Tectonics and is one of the greatest discoveries of twentieth century science. The scientist mentioned most prominently in its discovery is Harry Hess of Princeton University.

February 27 - Coal Versus Wind Power

A month ago, I wrote a column on energy and alternatives to the fossil fuels that we are rapidly using up. I also mentioned some erroneous ideas about energy held by many Americans, for example that new technology will be developed to allow Americans to keep on using energy at a higher level than most industrialized countries.

I would like to present an idea that's seldom acknowledged by many opponents of new energy sources; every energy source has its drawbacks. Today's column will focus on the reality of both coal and wind power.

A 1,000 Megawatt coal burning power plant requires 10,000 metric tons of coal each day. This is 150 truck loads of coal or 1 trainload each day! This capacity plant would provide electricity to a 250,000 houses. The burning of 10,000 metric tons or 10 million kilograms of coal will produce each day 36 million kilograms of Carbon Dioxide (for every 12 kilograms of carbon burned, 32 kilograms of atmospheric oxygen combine with it to make 44 kilograms of carbon dioxide).

The traces of sulfur in the coal will also create thousands of kilograms of sulfur dioxide which combines with the water vapor in the atmosphere to make sulfuric acid. Since the coal also contains traces of uranium (a common element in concrete blocks), tens of kilograms of uranium will also be airborne.

And at the end of the year, a 1000 megawatt coal power plant will produce some 80,000 tons of ash to be disposed of in shallow ponds so it doesn't blow all over the countryside.

So each year, each 1000 megawatt coal powered electric plant will produce 13 billion kilograms or nearly 30 billion pounds of carbon dioxide to increase global warming. It's emissions will also cause acid rain and the uranium it emits into the atmosphere will exceed the emission of all the world's nuclear power plants! And its ash will exceed the amount of trash dumped into a large landfill.

Since coal burning power plants are about 40% efficient, 60% of the energy supplied from burning coal is released into the environment. For every 2.5 pounds of coal burned, only 1 pound goes into the actual generation of electricity. (This efficiency is actually higher than a standard automobile, which has an efficiency of less than 20%.)

At the same time, the coal must come from somewhere. Every year dozens of miners are killed in the nation's coal mines. Strip mining in some areas of West Virginia and Pennsylvania have gouged out mountains tops.

What about wind turbines? A typical wind turbine rated at 1.3 megawatts can eliminate 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide. To replace one 1000 megawatt coal power plant, we need about 9000 such turbines. Wind turbine costs have now dropped to $800 per kilowatt. The costs of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity by wind turbines has dropped from $1 in 1978 to a nickel at the present. At the end of 2003, the U.S. had 6400 megawatts of wind turbine power. Germany is the world's leader with 14,600 megawatts of wind power, supplying 3.5 % of that nation's electricity. Denmark gets 20% of its electricity from wind turbines and hopes to reach 35% by 2015.

With governmental subsidies, the U.S. could have 10,000 megawatts of wind power in 4 years. This would help offset a projected shortfall of billions of cubic feet per day of natural gas. The added wind turbines could be used to generate hydrogen for the new hydrogen cars without increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

As many as 40,000 birds die annually after hitting wind turbines. But some 60 to 80 million birds die from colliding with vehicles and as many as a billion birds die each year from hitting buildings and windows. Communication towers kill from 4 to 50 million birds a year. I have read that domestic cats kill dozens of millions of birds as well.

To read more about wind turbines, the current January-February issue of E, the Environmental Magazine has an excellent cover story.