These are The Books. Perfect.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A Starting Point...
An article published in Science on November 13th caught my eye. It was entitled, "Global Observations of the Interstellar Interaction from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX)" (McComas, D.J., et al. 326(5955): 959-62). Typically, when I read something such as this, my brain stops listening to my eyes as they continue to scan over the letters. This is not to say that my brain isn't interested, but rather, it is intimidated and overwhelmed by the realization that I do not understand the majority of the words in a sentence that is written in my native language. I would like to think that these sentences are becoming increasingly rare as I grow up. This does seem to be the case, but why? Is it because I am slowly learning more of the necessary words that will allow me to decipher a title such as the one above? Possibly. But I think it is also likely that to a greater extent, I am limiting myself, such that I am only reading sentences that I understand. And I think this is true of many people.
There are SO many things in this world that I don't understand, and only a limited number of things that I do. But I would like to learn more. And you do too. Definitely.
This is where it starts. We must be patient, and allow ourselves the discomfort of not understanding. All of these mysteries can be learned, or at least appreciated, if not understood, but we can't just "turn off" when we encounter something that seems too complicated.
And so, from that title above, which I still don't yet understand, I have found a number of things that I want to learn more about...including: boundaries in outer space!
For example, what defines the edge of the earth's atmosphere and the beginning of outer space? According to the wikipedia article on the exosphere, the outermost layer of the earth's atmosphere, the upper limit of the exosphere is roughly 120,000 miles above earth, which is incredibly, half the distance to the moon! And although there is no clear boundary between the end of the exosphere and the beginning of outer space, the theoretical definition is simple and makes a lot of sense: our atmosphere ends and space begins when earth's gravitational pull is no longer strong enough to pull the atoms that make up the atmosphere inward.
Next...the heliosphere?
There are SO many things in this world that I don't understand, and only a limited number of things that I do. But I would like to learn more. And you do too. Definitely.
This is where it starts. We must be patient, and allow ourselves the discomfort of not understanding. All of these mysteries can be learned, or at least appreciated, if not understood, but we can't just "turn off" when we encounter something that seems too complicated.
And so, from that title above, which I still don't yet understand, I have found a number of things that I want to learn more about...including: boundaries in outer space!
For example, what defines the edge of the earth's atmosphere and the beginning of outer space? According to the wikipedia article on the exosphere, the outermost layer of the earth's atmosphere, the upper limit of the exosphere is roughly 120,000 miles above earth, which is incredibly, half the distance to the moon! And although there is no clear boundary between the end of the exosphere and the beginning of outer space, the theoretical definition is simple and makes a lot of sense: our atmosphere ends and space begins when earth's gravitational pull is no longer strong enough to pull the atoms that make up the atmosphere inward.
Next...the heliosphere?
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