Year: 2015

Court rules Obamacare requires nuns to buy contraceptives

11:54 am

You must comply! A federal appeals court has ruled that Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic chartable organization run entirely by celibate nuns, must provide contraceptives, under the Obamacare mandate, to their employees or face IRS fines.

The court’s ruling ends the temporary injunction that prevented the Little Sisters from being fined while awaiting a final court decision. They either must get that injunction reinstate by a higher court or abandon their work. As they stated today,

As Little Sisters of the Poor, we offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they will be welcomed as Christ, cared for as family and accompanied with dignity until God calls them to Himself.  We have done this for over 175 years because of our faith in God and our vocation as Little Sisters of the Poor.

But now the government demands we choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith.  We cannot do that and we should not have to.  It is a choice that violates our nation’s historic commitment to ensure that people from diverse faiths can freely follow God’s calling in their lives. But the government forces us to either violate our conscience or take millions of dollars that we raise by begging for the care of the elderly poor and instead pay fines to the IRS.

We are not seeking special privileges.  The government exempts huge corporations, small businesses, and other religious ministries from what they are imposing on us–we are simply asking to carry on our mission to serve the elderly poor as we have always done for 175 years.

Once again, the Obama administration, through its use of Obamacare, demonstrates its totalitarian nature. You must do as they demand, regardless of your religious beliefs.

Rather than abandon their work, the Little Sisters should continue doing it while also defying the law and the courts. Let the Obama administration and the IRS put some nuns in prison while bankrupting their organization. Only by doing that will there be any chance of continuing their work by getting this monstrous law changed, or repealed.

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Peace in our time!

10:53 am

President Obama today announced a nuclear deal with Iran.

For a good summary of the deal go here. The response from many has generally been very hostile, with both Israel and most other Middle Eastern Arab countries in agreement that they think the deal stinks. Others note that it will likely start an arms race in the Middle East, as the deal really does nothing but slow Iran’s effort to develop the bomb.

Sadly, the Republican leadership in Congress pushed through a law earlier this year that makes it harder for them to block this deal. The Constitution requires two-thirds of the Senate to approve any treaty. This law lowered that standard significantly, allowing the deal to go through if only one-third of Congress approves it.

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Some speculations from scientists about Pluto data

10:28 am

Using the images and data so far received from New Horizons, planetary scientists outline some of their tentative conclusions as well as speculate about what it means.

[Alan Stern, New Horizons’ principal investigator] says Pluto’s surface appears to be much less heavily cratered than its large moon, Charon—which implies that the surface has been paved over in some way. That smoothing process could come from internal heat that keeps rock and ice soft, or by the frosts that snow down and blanket the surface in fresh ice. “Either [Pluto’s] internal engine continues to run, and there are active processes that are taking place,” Stern says, “or those atmospheric processes are themselves covering up the geology, and covering up the craters.”

Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at Cornell University, not on the New Horizons team, favors the latter explanation. His initial impression is that Pluto is far more cratered than Triton, the moon of Neptune that is about the same size as Pluto and is thought to be a captured Kuiper belt object. Triton has a famous “cantaloupe” terrain, thought to have formed as heat, driven by Saturn’s tidal pull, allowed molten blobs of ice to rise and overturn. Parts of Pluto’s rugged surface seem to be far more carved and cratered, Lunine says. “It’s telling me that [Pluto’s] crust was not heated and modified to the extent that it was on Triton.”

Above all, however, I like Lunine’s comment at the end of the article:

Lunine says the emerging diversity on Pluto—of both active atmospheric and geological processes—makes him disagree with the decision of International Astronomical Union to call Pluto a dwarf. “This really is a planet,” he says. He notes that electrons have a double definition as a particle and a wave. “Why can’t we call Pluto a planet and a Kuiper belt object?” he asks. “I think we have to think of it as both.”

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Road to Mauna Kea opened, with restrictions

9:59 am

The University of Hawaii has reopened the road to the summit of Mauna Kea, subject to the emergency restrictions imposed by Hawaii’s Board of Land and Natural Resources.

The visitors center remains closed, and access by the public is much more limited. However, with the road open to employees it means astronomy can resume on the mountain as well as construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.

I fully expect some of the protesters to defy these restrictions and get arrested. Based on their behavior these past four months, they don’t have much respect either for the law, or for the sacredness of the mountain.

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Pluto just before close encounter

9:39 am

Pluto just before close encounter

Today’s cool image, on the right, is the last one New Horizons sent back to Earth before its July 14th close encounter. Be sure you click here to see the full resolution version. It is quite spectacular. It was taken from about 476,000 miles, about twice the distance to the Moon.

The quality of this image strongly suggests that all will go well with the encounter today. However,

Per the plan, the spacecraft currently is in data-gathering mode and not in contact with flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physical Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Scientists are waiting to find out whether New Horizons “phones home,” transmitting to Earth a series of status updates that indicate the spacecraft survived the flyby and is in good health. The “call” is expected shortly after 9 p.m. tonight.

So, at 9 pm (Eastern) we will hear from New Horizons on its status. Images and data from the encounter itself however will arrive over time, beginning tonight and continuing throughout the coming months.

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The size of Pluto pinned down

12:59 pm

Data from New Horizons has allowed scientists to more firmly determine, for the first time, Pluto’s precise size.

Mission scientists have found Pluto to be 1,473 miles (2,370 kilometers) in diameter, somewhat larger than many prior estimates. Images acquired with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were used to make this determination. This result confirms what was already suspected: Pluto is larger than all other known solar system objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. “The size of Pluto has been debated since its discovery in 1930. We are excited to finally lay this question to rest,” said mission scientist Bill McKinnon, Washington University, St. Louis.

Pluto’s newly estimated size means that its density is slightly lower than previously thought, and the fraction of ice in its interior is slightly higher. Also, the lowest layer of Pluto’s atmosphere, called the troposphere, is shallower than previously believed.

This means that Pluto is at this moment the largest Kuiper Belt object so far known, bigger than Eris, the Kuiper Belt planet discovered in 2005 that had been thought to be bigger than Pluto and whose existence was used by some to demote Pluto’s status as a planet.

I say, they are both planets, because they are both heavy enough for gravity to have forced them to become spherical.

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On the radio

12:34 pm

A minor note of interest: Coast to Coast has decided to name me their official science adviser. This means they will be giving me more air time to talk about space, astronomy, and other issues relating to science. Should be lots of fun.

And I must say it, for every minute I am on the air talking about the really exciting discoveries in real science, it will be one less minute they can waste talking about silly stuff like UFOs and ancient civilizations on the far side of the Moon. Without doubt this can only be a gain, for them, their audience, and society in general.

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The approaching perihelion of Comet 67P/C-G

9:08 am

The Rosetta science team has prepared a FAQ outlining what we should expect next month as Comet 67P/C-G reaches and passes its closest point to the Sun, with Rosetta (and hopefully Philae) there to watch.

The most interesting detail they note is this:

Will the comet break apart during perihelion?

The comet has not broken apart during its many previous orbits, so it is not expected to do so this time, but it cannot be ruled out. Scientists are keen to watch the possible evolution of a 500 m-long fracture that runs along the surface of the neck on the comet during the peak activity.

You can see an image from Rosetta that shows this fracture here. As I wrote then,

The biggest fracture line appears to be a meandering line that is traveling from the image’s top center to its mid-right. There also appear to be parallel lines below it. As we are looking at the nucleus’s neck, these lines suggest that the connection between the two large lobes is somewhat strained, and that it is not unlikely that these two sections will break apart at some time in the future. Though there is no way to predict at this time when that will happen, it will be truly exciting if it happens when Rosetta is in the neighborhood.

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Pluto on July 11

8:55 am

Pluto on July 11

Another cool image for Monday morning: As the spacecraft zooms towards its Tuesday fly-by, it continues to take images of Pluto, even as the planet rotates. For example, compare today’s image on the right with the one I posted yesterday. You can see some of the same features (the donut-like, crater-like feature is the most obvious), but their positions are different because of the planet’s six-day rotation.

Note also that the row of black spots along the equator show more details. Not unexpectedly, they are not as simple as the early fuzzy images suggested. Unfortunately, we will not get to see even more details, as these features will not be in view during the fly-by.

Update: See this link for a new image of Charon.

More and more to come!

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The last image of Pluto’s opposition hemisphere

11:42 pm

Pluto's opposition hemisphere

Cool image time! The New Horizons team has released the best image they are ever going to get of the hemisphere that will be facing away from the spacecraft when it does its fly-by on July 14.

The spots appear on the side of Pluto that always faces its largest moon, Charon—the face that will be invisible to New Horizons when the spacecraft makes its close flyby the morning of July 14. New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, describes this image as “the last, best look that anyone will have of Pluto’s far side for decades to come.”

The spots are connected to a dark belt that circles Pluto’s equatorial region. What continues to pique the interest of scientists is their similar size and even spacing. “It’s weird that they’re spaced so regularly,” says New Horizons program scientist Curt Niebur at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, is equally intrigued. “We can’t tell whether they’re plateaus or plains, or whether they’re brightness variations on a completely smooth surface.”

No one will likely have the answers to these questions for a long time, as it might take as long as a half century before before anyone can get another spacecraft there.

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