Category Archives: Other Topics

In Which I Reveal I’m a Writer, Am Judged Insane

Posted on March 21, 2013 | 5 Comments

science-magazines

So imagine this.  I was in the lovely American Book Center in the heart of Amsterdam (our flagship English language bookstore) about to buy an arguably trashy read I found in the bargain section.  The counter is right next to the giant news stand and while the clerk was ringing up my purchase I did a sudden double take when I saw what you see on the left.

I pulled the magazine out to confirm, with my heart beating rapidly- yes, this was the Astronomy magazine for which I wrote the cover article, sitting innocuously on the news stand with all the other magazines!

By this point the clerk wants the four Euro for the book and is giving me an odd look, so I feel obliged to explain.  “Sorry, but I wrote this cover article!” I say proudly.

“You wrote the cover.” He says this with a Dutch accent and a tone I’m not entirely certain of, but is very similar to one I hear if my native English pace of speech gets too fast and excited about something (which, let’s be honest, happens a decent amount).  So I explain.

“Yes, I’m an astronomer and I write, and I wrote this cover article.”  And I put the Astronomy magazine back on the newsstand- fun as it would be to purchase I have copies of the magazine already, and this is encouragingly the last one they have.

“I’m sure you did,” he says, with a funny look on his face.  It’s then I realize that the clerk’s tone is not the “I don’t understand” tone I assumed but rather one far more impossible to deal with- a tone that doesn’t just say “I don’t believe you” tone but downright “this girl is nuts!”

“The door is that way,” he says with the same tone and look as he points helpfully two meters behind us at a doorway that any sane, rational person can spot seeing as you have to walk past it to get to the counter.  And I realize at that moment you can’t actually tell someone you’re not crazy when they already think you’re making up being a scientist and writer for your own odd, perverted reasons.  So I go.

The funny thing though?  Though my pride took a hit the writer in me doesn’t really mind, as for the rest of my life I have a good story from it.

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Posted in 0. The Netherlands, Amsterdam, daily life, Writing

So my article made the cover of Astronomy Magazine…

Posted on February 4, 2013 | 4 Comments

ASY-CV0313_Vlnt650.ashx

While I do a PhD in astronomy
And I write about what I know
I write about beauty, I write about truth
At a couple cents a word each go
But I’ve got all kinds of chills and all kinds of thrills
From what I just got to see:
That thrill that’ll greet ya when you see your feature
On the cover of Astronomy!

(Astronomy) Yep that’s my feature on the cover
(Astronomy) Gonna buy five copies for my mother
(Astronomy) Cause that’s my article
On the cover of Astronomy!

Ok, forgive me, because unlike other teenagers who dreamed about being on the cover of the Rolling Stone I happened to dream about writing for Astronomy.  So Almost Famous for geeks, but unlike most people my dream came true!

One gets a touch philosophical when achieving such dreams, but I will refrain from sharing them all here except to say that I wonder if I’m a writer now.  My conclusion is I think so, though certainly an astronomer first, so for now I will settle for being an astronomer-writer like a six-year-old who says she will be a rock star and the president and a pony.  It’s just like then, who’s going to tell you no?

Oh and of course, as you can all imagine from such a lovely cover the article inside is even better, so you should all go check it out in the March 2013 edition of Astronomy.  The article is about cosmic rays and the Pierre Auger Observatory which I visited two years ago while working on my master’s thesis- a nice souvenir from that time of my life!- and seems to be nicely received on social media and the like.  And hey, what kind of writer would I be if I didn’t encourage everyone I know to go and check it out?!

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Posted in Science!, Writing

Photo: Upheval Dome Meteor Crater

Posted on January 31, 2013 | 2 Comments

upheval-dome-meteor-crater

Most of Canyonlands National Park (an hour’s drive from Moab) is filled with lovely canyon vistas as you’d expect, but there is one other major geological feature there that surprised be because I so totally did not expect it.  The feature is known as Upheval Dome, a dome of rocks surrounded by a jumble of others in a wall known as a synhline.  For decades scientists theorized that Upheval Dome was created by the world’s largest salt dome, where a bubble of salt under pressure deforms the surrounding rock, but that was back in the days when people assumed no traces of asteroids hitting the Earth really existed.  These days, however, we know better: Upheval Dome is, very very likely, a meteor crater.

The story here is that around 60 million years ago, around the time of the first primates on Earth, an asteroid about a third of a mile in diameter slammed into this area and created an unstable crater that partially collapsed (and the middle dome is from underground rocks pushing up after impact).  Erosion did the rest and washed away the meteorite debris, but shocked quartz which is created under extreme pressure (such as in a nuclear bomb blast, or a giant meteor) has been discovered on the site.  I’ve got to hand it to geologists: what they do is pretty cool!

Upheval Dome is a pretty easy hike from the parking lot, but Canyonlands was so very empty in early January that during my 20 minutes of sitting and pondering the crater I never saw a soul.  And it is quite something to sit on the edge of a giant meteor crater all alone and ponder creation.

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Posted in Science!, Utah

Photo: Double Arch, Arches National Park

Posted on January 15, 2013 | 3 Comments

double-arch

Continuing a series about the various arches in Arches National Park, Utah…

Double Arch ended up being one of my favorite arches for the simple reason that unlike many of the other ones it was very easy to climb into and was an amazing place to clamber around (once again, look carefully for people in the picture to scale).  In fact I later learned that this is where they filmed the opening scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Cruscade- the one where the Boy Scouts are wandering around- and even though the cave in the movie isn’t here it certainly has that adventurous feel to it!  Great view too…

double-arch-view

The other interesting thing to note here if you’re a geek like me is Double Arch was formed differently than most of the other arches in the park, which were primarily created through wind and water erosion from fins of sandstone.  Instead these are what are called “pothole arches,” where a basin near a cliff face gets eroded away from the water captured within it.  Which is very clearly something you can imagine after looking at the first picture.  Go science!

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Posted in Arches National Park, Science!

Photo: Landscape Arch, Arches National Park

Posted on January 11, 2013 | 2 Comments

landscape-archIf you ask me, for reasons above I believe Landscape Arch should have its name changed to that of Delicate Arch unlike the famous one in the park because it certainly looks a lot more delicate if you ask me!  I have also further proposed that the current Delicate Arch be renamed to what the local cowboys called it- “The Schoolmarm’s Bloomers,” cause it really does look like that- but as is often the case in this tragic world no one listens to me.

But anyway, Landscape Arch is impressive because as you can see it has a span one usually associates with man-made steel bridges, but unlike those does not look very structurally sound.  And the thing is it’s not- a giant slab fell off in 1991 which one tourist caught on video, at which point the National Park Service decided you can’t hike under the arch anymore.  The idea that Landscape Arch might not be there in a few decades is a very real one, particularly when you know Wall Arch, a nearby companion that was the 12th largest in the world, collapsed just 5 years ago…

Plus honestly, if that wasn’t reason enough to check it out, the hike up is quite lovely.  The whole thing is less than two miles and there are other arches along the way in this landscape of weird sandstone, such as Tunnel Arch-

tunnel-arch

The trail continues after this point to another famous arch in particular, the “Double O Arch,” which is supposed to be quite nice but the trail isn’t as good and the lovely snow everywhere was slippery, so I abstained.  Next time!

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Posted in Arches National Park, Uncategorized, Utah

Photo: Skiing Deer Valley, Utah

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 3 Comments

Skiing Deer Valley

Because if you live in flat country you’d best escape to the mountains when possible.  And why would you climb up mountains when you can ski down them instead?

Not a bad way to wrap up 2012 if you ask me.  Thank you all for the lovely gift of your attention this past year (when I had time to write and a PhD wasn’t getting in the way), and wishing you all the best in 2013!  And stay tuned for more on adventures in Utah…

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Posted in Skiing, Utah

My First Article for Sky & Telescope

Posted on December 1, 2012 | 2 Comments

ASTRON-radio-telescope

Things are in a very busy place right now in PhD Student World, so if you want to read something by me I encourage you to head out to your local news stand (remember those?) and pick up a copy of the January 2013 Sky & Telescope (I believe they do a digital edition as well these days).  My first article for them appears in the issue, all about the Dwingeloo radio telescope which I’ve mentioned here before.

This was a fun article to write, and I got to talk to a lot of lovely people while researching it.  It’s also a good one because saying you’ve been published in Sky & Telescope impresses a lot more geeks than saying you’ve written for Astronomy- it’s much more technical a magazine, and many people don’t realize the latter actually has a larger circulation.  Frankly I’m just amazed to see my name there at this stage, and reading my words in such professional circumstances seems bizarre to me.  I certainly never thought I’d be writing an article about a Dutch radio telescope!

Ok, back to busy PhD Student World.  Will re-emerge after my first-ever conference talk which will happen this coming week…

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Posted in ASTRON, Science!, Writing

Artie Aardvark Studies Southampton

Posted on November 16, 2012 | 1 Comment

Continuing our series of our lovable scamp exploring various interesting astronomical locations, Artie Aardvark has graciously agreed to cover a recent visit of mine to University of Southampton.  Take it away, Artie!

I was very excited to go to Southampton!  People told me it would be rainy in England, but the weather was actually very nice.  Here I am making friends with the ducks in Southampton Common on my way to the university.

Once I arrived, it was time to help with work.  Most astronomers these days do not work at their observatories most of the time but instead get their observations and spend months or even years analyzing them.  I suppose this is nice because then you don’t have to spend all of your time in the middle of nowhere anymore!  Here I am working on the code for a particularly troublesome data set.

Later in the afternoon, however, it was time for a break to explore the University of Southampton campus!  We of course first stopped at the LOFAR antenna next to the physics building- it’s not a real antenna, but a pretend one to show you what they look like.  It is kind of funny to think that a metal pole in the ground is a radio astronomy antenna because I thought they looked more like the Westerbork ones I visited once, but it turns out what really matters is what wavelength you are looking at.  Radio frequencies all have a matching wavelength that can be anywhere from sub-millimeter to longer than a football field from their peak to trough, similar to how waves in the ocean can sometimes be very tiny and sometimes very giant.  The wavelengths LOFAR is interested in are about as long as this pole, so that’s how big the antennas are- the fact that they are cheap to build helps too!

After that, I also enjoyed exploring the Southampton campus because it was very green like a giant park.  In fact, it was quite the jungle in some places!

It was really fun to explore all the plant life and clamber around for tasty bugs, and… oh no!  I’m stuck!  Yvette, help!!!!

Whew, I got saved!  To regale those who missed my adventure, after work the astronomers were nice enough to take me to The Crown Inn, a very cozy pub just down the road from the uni.  Where I got a nice big pint all to myself, and Yvette told me to take it slow but it was so tasty I didn’t and why did she say that anyway…

Zzzzzzzzzzzz….

When I woke up later I’d missed out on a lot, and boy did I learn my lesson!  So even though there was real Duff beer to be had during the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror marathon on Halloween I didn’t have very much of it.

Thanks to everyone in Southampton who helped me with the pictures!

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Posted in Artie Aardvark's Adventures, United Kingdom

Photo: The Coolest Street Act Ever

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 2 Comments

I was in Italy for a long weekend this past weekend, but until I get around to the lovely pictures of architecture and what not I thought I’d post a photo of a super neat street act I spotted in Verona.  Now over the years I’ve seen a lot of acts to the point where yet another Darth Vader or street statue doesn’t get a second glance, but I loved this one as I’d never seen anything like it.  Took a few minutes to work out the trick too- I’ll put the answer under the fold for those who want to figure it out on their own… Continue reading →

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Posted in Italy, Photos, Science!

Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum

Posted on September 17, 2012 | 4 Comments

When I was in the USA last month I spent a week in the Washington DC/ Virginia area, and when I do so I can’t resist a visit to the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall to visit “old friends”- the Apollo 11 capsule, The Spirit of St. Louis, the moon rock you can touch… you get the idea.  The National Air and Space Museum is the most visited museum after the Louvre in Paris, and the fact that surprisingly little of the primary exhibits has changed since it opened in the 1970s is both endearing and depressing when you realize there’s been no reason to update the Apollo-era exhibits because we last went to the moon in the 1970s.  But that’s a space geek rant for later… Continue reading →

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Posted in Science!, Virginia, Washington D.C.