Video up. I am really trying to break out of the mould of a typical science vlogger with this one. I try to channel my inner Brian Cox.

      Like, Comment and Subscribe but most importantly relax and enjoy the video. Cheers.

<-Video Transcript->

       Bonjour Tout le monde, c'est moi l'astronome fou SonOfTerra92 and we are here under another starry night in Malaysia for some stargazing. We are right now watching the death of a star, an event known as a Supernova in the direction of M82.


      It is the 3^rd of February 2014 and we are camped under the constellation Ursa Major translated as the Great Bear but more popularly known as the big dipper. It's the one you learn in elementary school as the giant scoop in the sky.

Yeah, that one.

      We are witnessing a very special and exciting astronomical event in the Galaxy Messier 82. A Type 1a supernova. The closest one to Earth detected in the last 150 years.

      Type 1a supernovas happen in binary star systems, when two stars orbit each other in a gravitational dance and one of the stars happens to be a White Dwarf star, the remnant of a star that has already completed its normal main sequence life cycle. The white dwarf star indulges in a bit of stellar vampirism by accreting mass from its partner and exploding at a critical point.

      What makes Type 1a supernovas of particular interest is that they always happen with a consistent brightness. This allows curious human beings on planet Earth to use them as a form of Universal Yard Stick to measure the immense distances in the Cosmos.

      Here's how it works.
 

********************************************************************************

       By comparing the much dimmer observed brightness with the known actual brightness of the Type 1a supernova, we can gauge the distance from our position as observers on Earth to the far flung explosive event. We do this through the inverse square law for light.

      Say you had a series of candles of the same brightness placed at equal distances from each other and you held the first candle in the series. The next candle would appear one-4th the brightness of the one in your hand and the one after that would be one-9th the brightness.

We use standard candles to find the distances to other Galaxies.

      By knowing the apparent dimness of the candle we can find the distance to other candles.

      Astronomers use Type 1a supernova's as the Standard Candle for measuring very far distances in the Universe and with them we've been able to figure out our place in an ever expanding Universe.

********************************************************************************

        Type 1a Supernovae excite astronomers because of their scientific significance. They are a rare opportunity to study the Universe in one of its most violent moments. To experience one in a single human life-time is to me a great privilege.

Great Chaos and Great Beauty at the same time.

      But the funny thing is that when I say we are right now observing a Type 1a in M82, the reality is that this rare event actually happened 12 million years ago. 

      Wow, Talk about being late to the party.

      Messier 82 sits just outside the Local Group, a group of 54 galaxies within a 10 million light year diameter in space. Messier 82 is 12 million light-years away. Cosmologically it's our next door neighbour. The light released by SN 2014J (What the astronomers are calling it for now. I call it Darlene) left M82 at a time when there were no humans on Earth. After crossing the vast intervening distance between galaxies the light that originally left 12 million years ago has finally arrived at out doorstep ending its journey in our telescopes, in your eyes and in mines. Some of it in the ground never to be observed by human eyes.

********************************************************************************

       Tuning into these events really makes you wonder about just how big the universe is on a scale of distance and time and how like a life raft adrift at sea our planet is adrift in a Cosmic Ocean.

       Our planet in its ordinariness is lost in a Universe of the Extraordinary. What amazes me even more is that on that planet of the mundane exists living things that can put the supernova in their minds and not have it suffer from a similarly violent explosive reaction which once you think about it is what should happen.

And its getting more extraordinary with each passing day.

       How is it that can we understand these things and not go absolutely bananas?

       I think it is because in the end we have to. If not for the imaginative and romantic purpose for some human to stand under a field of stars and talk about some distant event that happend a long time ago in a galaxy far far away or if not for the simple pleasure of watching the sky at night and feeling alive while you are doing it. Some day the ongoing journey of the human race will take us outwards into that Universe of the Extraordinary. A Universe that we are now beginning to understand.

      And after that, more than any other time ever before we will truly be alive as citizens of the Cosmos.

      My name is SonOfTerra92, and this has been another Science Epic Videolog. 

  

Working on Something really special right now. Stay tuned for more on Science Epic.

My Channel: Science Epic

Some Stuff on Energy.

     Energy, it runs our lives and we're made of it.

Reproduction, Energy and Planetary Annihilation.

     The above title is a play on the pop culture phrase "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll", the three things people commonly associate with life in the fast lane. 

     As far as article starters go what could be better?

    Our planet is currently racing headlong down a similar fast lane as a result of one of it's inhabitant species. No, I'm not referring to the smartest of the bunch that would be the dolphins (Haha, a Hitchhikers reference)

     I'm referring to us human beings and the rate that we are using the resources of currently our only home in the Cosmos. We are now in the process of reworking the environment of planet Earth towards more extreme conditions that have never been seen before on the planet in its entire 4.6 billion year history. 

    We have caused most of that change within the past 100 years resulting in more alterations to the surface our homeworld in less than 0.00000217% of the time that it has ever existed.

    Amongst all that change, human population growth from reproduction is increasing. We're addicted to energy and we still keep those pesky nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert, prepared for a war with no possible winners.

    So we really are living in the fast times of "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll".  An exceptional time of living on the edge, except it's our planet that is going to have to deal with the massive hangover.

Sorry Earth, We are never ever ever, going to reverse this.

The Cosmic Afterparty.

     All this talk about drastically changing landscapes, planetary engineering and global catastrophes has got me thinking of the vitality of addressing these challenges for emerging spacefaring civilizations.

     Imagine how across the entire Universe similar dramas are being played out on other planets and in other civilizations.

     I've been reading a lot of Isaac Asimov recently. I find his prose to be far more gripping and imaginative than Arthur C. Clarke. Many of Asimov's stories follow the adventures of spacefaring civilizations that have already made it past the fragile single planet stage. 

Our world, our struggles and the hopes and dreams of our species may be shared by other living things on other worlds as well.

     A common thread that lines Asimov's stories is the setting of a future civilization where all the challenges of today have already been dealt with.

     Asimovs' stories commonly reference the 21st century as the "Time of Troubles" or the "Perilous Days". The idea is that sometime in the future when we finally do solve our energy problems, our population growth problems and the various differences that divide the members of humanity we will look back to today and realize how childish it all was.

    I am an optimist. I look forward to the future and I try the best I can to communicate ideas that can hasten the arrival of that "World of Abundance" that everyone has been talking about. 

     But there is a big problem with this that I find very unsettling. 

    If we do solve today's problems some time in the future wouldn't there be equally greater problems to face once we've done so.

     This is where Sci-Fi stories commonly fall short in the details and leaves me reeling back to discover reality. 

We can imagine getting there, but can we imagine actually living there?

Infinity and Beyond

     Perhaps it is because of a lack of comprehension. We simply do not know where the future may take us and are content with just seeing the good that may come out of Science and Innovation without considering the consistent side effects.

    I think that even if we do solve the problems plaguing the humans of the 21st century, the problems plaguing the humans of the 22nd century would no doubt be 10x greater. Their energy crisis would be far beyond us. The algorithms they use for population control would perplex us to no end. Their ways of solving problems would simply stupefy us.

   All it takes is a little extra wisdom for our heads to catch up with our tails and realize that we are already living in the future and that all of tomorrows stories are written from the adventures of today.

Sincerely,
SonOfTerra92,
31/1/2014

A MALAYSIAN STORY: "ALLAH" in the Bible, A really pointless argument.

So this totally happened in Malaysia.

    Hello Internetland., It's me again SonOfTerra92 that obscure science slinging, bunk bashing,  guy on Science Epic. If you have watched the above video you can tell that I am a Malaysian. In the video I hint at the kind of hijinks we experience here in Malaysia when it comes to the politicization of religion.

     What a way to start the new year. Bravo, Malaysia, bravo. We've have definitely strong this time.

    Just a recap of what happened on the 2nd day of January.  Islamic religious department JAIS (of which is the religious department of my home state, Selangor represent) raided the office of the Bible Society of Malaysia in Damansara and confiscated a couple hundred Malay language bibles that were claimed to use used the word "Allah".

     20 JAIS people and 2 police offices barged into the Bible Society of Malaysia centre making arrests under the suspicion that they were propagating Christianity among Muslims.

     I am a science communicator. As far as these kinds of things go my role in them can usually be stretched so far as to battling creationists ideas, "Young Earthers" and the occasional moon landing conspiracy. You might be wondering why I would soil my hands in the affair of two religions taking stabs at each other? Would not it be better to leave them be? There are after all more experienced people that can comment on these events.

      This issue concerns me because of how it may affect the future of the country that I currently live in and ultimately my life as a bystander in religious debate in Malaysia.

      JAIS conducted the raid (not anything like the 2011 Indonesian action Movie) under the claim of the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988, a state enactment that prevents the use of Arabic words like Fatwa, Alhamdulillah, Insyaallah and most importantly "Allah"  in non-Islamic religious practice.

     Muslims in Malaysia have been made to think that  think that the word "Allah" is sacred to them and they are willing to legislate laws to rightfully defend it.

*********************************************************************************

     I am not a big fan of organised religion nor am I religious to begin with but  it doesn't take an expert (Or an ex-Muslim) to realize that a raid by an Islamic religious authority on a non-Islamic organization is a clearly in violation of something. At the very least its violating common sense. When I initially heard of this story that was that came to mindrst. Regardless of whatever law written or unwritten that we have in Malaysia, JAIS clearly has no jurisdiction over the Bible Sociey of Malaysia.

     Their actions were not a not just legally inappropriate but also morally unjustifiable.

    When it comes down to the actual raid I am reminded of the scene with the cops in Project X. In more civilised cases all the Christians had to do was pull off a Costa.

That's how it's done.

     If this raiding attitude persists how much longer before JAIS starts knock knock knocking on peoples homes (parody anyone)?

     What turned this issue from bad to worse was the long running debate of the use of the word "Allah" in non-Muslim religious practice. Which brings me to my next no-brainer. In a freethinking world the words protected by the 1988 state enactment are just that, WORDS.

     The 1988 enactment was put in place to supposedly protect the Muslim majority from potentially negative external influences. It is a clear example of  how far Malaysia still has left to go in its moral and ethical development.

     What we have here is a subtle attempt at thought control via word control. Forget 1984, this is 2014. The scary thing is that people actually buy into it. Most of the Muslim majority here consist of the see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil type. Trust me I've been around enough them.

     Because of  this attitude there exists a generation of Malaysian Muslims who don't care to ask the big questions and to me this represents a challenge in communicating science. The inroads towards sceptical inquiry among Malaysian Muslims are blocked. They can go to school and score straight A's in Astrobilological Nuclear Engineering but at the end of the day the key scientific values of scepticism and scrutiny are hard to communicate.

     That worries me because we still end up with a  people can be manipulated.

Question Everything, even the actions of  elected Leaders.

     Those are just my two cents on the issue. That's all from me. SonOfTerra92 signing off.And I'll see you next time.

10/1/2014