Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal

Best quote: “. . .the women writers on the show. . . they just want to blow sh*t up.”

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Where have I been all week? Writing. And writing. And writing.

Same as Basement Cat?

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(#46)

We may have lost Pluto, but there are plenty of other planets in the universe worthy of holding our attention. Granted, these new kids on the block are outside of our solar system.

Left, the sunlit side of 51 Pegasi b, the first planet ever detected around a sun-like star. Image source: Extrasolar Visions.

(1) Gliese 581 d: About 20 light years from Earth, this is the third planet of the red dwarf star Gliese 581. Gliese 581 d is the only terrestrial exoplanet discovered that orbits close to the habitable zone of its star. This zone is sometimes called the “Goldilocks Zone” because it is neither too hot or too cold on the planet’s surface. Technically, Gliese 581 d resides outside this “Goldilocks Zone”, but the greenhouse effect may offset the tendency toward being too cold and create enough heat to support liquid water.

(2) 16 Cygni B b: This water cloud Jovian planet has a very eccentric orbit, which means the surface of the planet experiences extreme differences in temperature throughout its year. Just over every two years, the planet’s orbit swings from a Venus-like distance of 0.6 AUs to a distance of 2.7 AUs, further than Mars.

(3) Epsilon Eridani b: At 10 light years away, Epsilon Eridani b is the closest confirmed planet to our solar system. Because of its close proximity, Eridanus shows up in Science Fiction often, such as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation’s Edge and Robots and Empires; Greg Bear’s Eon; and C. J. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union Universe.

(4) Lalande 21185 b: This unconfirmed planet is thought to orbit a red dwarf star approximately eight light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The fourth closest star to our solar system, Lalande is a variable flare star that periodically increases in brightness. Lalande 21185 b may lie just over 2 times the Earth-Sun distance (AU) to its star, may be about nine tenths of Jupiter’s mass, and likely has an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium.

(5) 51 Pegasi b: This was the first planet discovered orbiting another sun-like star. 51 Pegasi b is a massive Jupiter-like planet orbiting at a distance far closer than Mercury, a distance thought to be impossible for its size at the time of discovery. Its sun-like star is large enough to be visible from Earth by the naked eye under dark sky conditions. Unofficially named Bellerophon, this gas giant’s atmosphere is thick enough not to be blown away by solar wind despite its close proximity.

(6) PSR 1257+12 A: One of the first exoplanets ever discovered, this planet is over 908 light years away in the constellation Virgo. PSR 1257+12 A has a mass similar to that of the moon, and long ago its volcanism and tectonics subsided. Probably heavily cratered, it likely is comprised mostly of heavy elements, like iron.

(7) Tau Boötis b: About 50 light years away, this planet is the hottest known exoplanet. It is so hot that it may have silicate clouds and it may be visibly red. Tau Boötis b orbits its star in a “torch orbit,” that is at a distance from less than one seventh that of Mercury’s from the Sun.

(8) 55 Cancri b: This planet orbits its start every 14.65 days and was the fourth known extrasolar planet. 55 Cancri b was discovered by detecting variations in its star’s radial velocity caused by the planet’s gravity.

(9) Upsilon Andromedae b: This planet is a “hot Jupiter” type, meaning that it is extremely hot due to proximity to its star, so hot that it may glow red and its heat prevents water clouds from forming. Occasionally referred to as Upsilon Andromedae Ab to distinguish it from the red dwarf star Upsilon Andromedae B, it is about 44 light-years away in the constellation of Andromeda.

(10) Iota Draconis b: This planet is the “first object of planetary size detected around a red giant star.” Located about 100 light years from Earth, Iota Draconis b is over 8 times the mass of Jupiter, but may in fact be a brown dwarf star.

(11) 79 Ceti b: This planet was one of the first planets of sub-Saturn mass to be discovered around sun-like stars. Over 100 light years from Earth, 79 Ceti b orbits its star every 75 days. At potentially 111 times the mass of Jupiter, the planet may in fact be a very dim brown dwarf star.

(12) HD 209458 b: Unofficially also known as Osiris, this planet orbits the Solar twin star HD 209458 in the constellation Pegasus, 150 light-years from Earth. With the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have detected sodium in the planet’s atmosphere.

(13) Rho Indi b: This planet is a water cloud Jovian type whose axis places Rho Indi b just outside the habitable zone. At over twice the mass of Jupiter, this planet orbits its star every 3.7 years.

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For more on exoplanets:
Space Topics: Extrasolar Planets
Physics World Extrasolar planets
The Planetary Society

I’m blogging today over at Writers At Play about how the Romance genre is like ABBA’s music, to quote Salon:

[ABBA’s appeal is] it’s the potent cocktail of the subliminally spiritual mixed with the flat-out libidinous…Despite the clothes, the awkward choreography, the often nonsensical lyrics, ABBA endure because there’s something spiritual and sexual and just plain sweet in their harmonies, something playfully innocent and disarmingly sophisticated.

Like ABBA, people have been for years shy about admitting that they like Romance. Come join us and chime in with your own cheesy musical favorites.

Me, I’m going to be singing Neil Diamond in my head all day.

The bell-bottoms. The Mrs. Brady hair (on a guy). The leopard print jacket (again, on a guy). The almost nonsense lyrics that never leave your brain. The cheesy awesomeness I’ve loved since I was a kid. Guess what I saw yesterday?

This week’s Danger Gal Friday is Dr. Helen Magnus portrayed by actress Amanda Tapping in the new science fiction series Sanctuary.

There are so many fun things about Helen Magnus, I’m not sure where to start, except to say that Tapping has some great taste in choosing roles to play since she’s the first actress to have character be profiled more than once as a Danger Gal. Sanctuary is setting new precedents for the production and distribution of Science Fiction television. Most notably, the series is shot on a green screen with most of its complicated sets being CGI and that originally the show was distributed via the web only. The series, with Tapping as executive producer, has since been picked up by the SciFi Network. The premise is an interesting way to bridge the gap between the Paranormal and Science Fiction: that the world is full of “abnormals,” some of whom need protection and some of a dangerous few need captured.

Magnus is a 157-year old female doctor. Yeah, read that again. She was born in Victorian England when few women were allowed that kind of education. Sometimes I find it difficult to suspend my disbelief while watching this show (but mostly I do very much enjoy it), and this is one of those moments. I’d much rather have had Magnus actually obtain her medical degree on her own later in her life when it was much more possible than in Victorian England, due to her fabulous daddy who was the “most brilliant and controversial medical researcher of his day” in his Super Secret Lab. This situation just makes me think of the daughter of a king who has no son, so she gets the throne by default. It seems to be a much more elaborate explanation for her medical degree than is actually needed.

That being said, I like that Magnus is almost 200 years old and looks to be in her 40s. She’s the main protagonist, built and runs the Institute. She answers to no one. I like that she doesn’t micromanage her weapons expert and martial artist daughter (and future Danger Gal) Ashley. Though it relates to the show overall and not to her character, I like that Ashley is the smart muscle while Dr. Will Zimmerman is the emotional muscle.

In a recent From Inside the Box review Zap2It said:

Similarly, Helen is too detached, with her Mona Lisa smile promising, but never fulfilling, the need for warmth. She’s also rightfully mysterious. After all, she is revealed to be 157-years-old, so apparently there’s something about her that makes her one of those “abnormals” that she protects, but she is on occasion exasperating when she speaks in riddles or withholds vital information from Will. In addition, Tapping is at times a bit too reserved, perhaps which is why when Helen is upset or angry, she seems almost laughably melodramatic

I don’t see why it should be important that Magnus exhibit warmth, in fact, it think it would be quite out of character. She’s seen a lot, came of age in a time when emotions were expected to be kept in check, and she has a lot to protect Zimmerman both from and against. She needs to play her cards close, as Tapping herself notes in a Zap2It interview:

But when you watch everyone you’ve ever known grow old and die — all your lovers and your friends — I think that her heart is very well protected now because if it wasn’t, she would be heartbroken all the time.”

Fans of Stargate will notice a few familiar faces, especially in the SciFi Channel premiere: David Hewlett, Kavan Smith and Christopher Heyerdahl.

(#45)

You think space is empty? Well, it was before we started leaving junk up there.

Image courtesy NASA via NatGeo.

Debris comprised of thousands of nuts and bolts, defunct satellites, space probes, lost gloves, hatches, and paint fragments now orbit our planet. In 2000, NASA counted 8,927 man-made objects floating around the Big Blue Marble, 2,671 of which were satellites, 90 were space probes, and 6,096 were chunks of debris. One of the most well-known chunks of space junk was Skylab:

The most spectacular re-entry in the short history of the phenomenon was Skylab. Launched in 1973 (two years after Russia put its first space station into orbit), the first and only U.S. space station stumbled home six years later, part of it splashing into the Indian Ocean and another portion ending up in Australia.

Maybe I’m dating myself here, but as a kid when I learned about Skylab I wanted to be an astronaut. I had this fantastic pop-up book about the space station that fired up my imagination. I really don’t want to think of it as space junk.

This is an important issue. Not only are we mucking up the planet’s surface with junk, but our local space as well. To educate us all, I offer Thirteen Facts About Space Junk:

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