A Trip to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black-and-white silent film by Georges Méliès. It was extremely popular at the time of its release, and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is considered the first science fiction film with its use of innovative animation and special effects. It is based loosely on two popular novels of the time: Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon. The film depicts six brave astronomers who build a space capsule and a huge cannon which shoots them into space. On the moon the astronomers find the unexpected.

Outer Space

Perhaps at first the images seem like the brush strokes of artist infatuated with geometry and abstract forms. Then precise patterns becomes unmistakable and you envision the path the spacecraft traced in space and its journey over space and time. The origin of the images only serves to heighten your realization of how amazing the universe is.

Perspectives on the Vertical

Cabinet Magazine has an interesting cultural perspective on human's attempts to zoom in and out of nature in the vertical. Particularly they focus on one of my favorite science films ever, Power of Ten.

Powers of Ten was originally inspired by a 1957 book by the Dutch educator Kees Boeke titled Cosmic View. By 1963, the Eameses were experimenting with tracking shots that gave the effect of a camera pulling away with accelerating motion from an object, and in 1968 used these in a film called A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of Things in the Universe. Shot in black and white, it was followed by an extended color version—the one known as Powers of Ten—made in 1977. The basic set-up of the latter film is well-known. It opens with a picnic scene in a park in Chicago. From a ground level view, the camera then switches to a vertical, aerial position from which it looks down, the frame centered—as we later find out—on an atom in the man’s hand. At this point the narrator tells us that we are one meter away and looking at a square one meter by one meter. Now the camera pulls away vertically and begins to accelerate so that every ten seconds our distance from the initial scene is ten times greater. The camera continues its upward trajectory until just after 10²⁴ meters (100 million light years) when it gradually slows and begins its descent, collapsing beyond its original position and now decelerating through the ever-smaller dimensions of cells, molecules, atoms, and beyond.

Read on.

The Stars seen from the the International Space Station

'Dedicated to those who dream of exploring the solar system, and those who are sharing their experiences while doing it.'

ASTRONOMICAL - The Movie

A scale model of our solar system in twelve 500 page volumes printed-on-demand. On page 1 the Sun, on page 6,000 Pluto. The width of each page equals one million kilometres.

This film takes us through the first volume where we encounter the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt.

Yes, this is just a film of someone flipping through a book that is the solar system to scale. Highlights include the Earth at minute 4:00, Mars at 5:25, and the asteroid belt at 6:40 (actually this is interesting because while even the sun fits on just two pages the asteroid belt spans for several minutes). The entire 12 volume set is available for the discerning and precise sky aficionado. Strange. Cool. Want.

Nostalgia de la Luz

The present does not exist. All notions of the present are built upon the history of light. Patricio Guzmán's makes these surreal claims as he narrates in his documentary Nostalgia de la Luz (or Nostalgia for the Light) as he draws out the connections between astronomers and those searching for bones in Chile's Atacma Desert. Guzmán is obsessed with history and talented at drawing strange parallels in this compelling film. Chile under the rule of Pinochet in the '70s has a dark history of kidnapping, concentration camps, and mass murders of political dissidents. Chile also has clear dark skies which astronomers have fallen in love with.

I saw this film this evening and I was impressed. It takes one of the best parts of astronomy and projects it on to a real human conflict in a way that is scientifically tasteful and touching at once. There is a lot that could be said about the film and the director as well who was in exile from Chile in the '70s, but there is an easy way to summarize the film: the most profound questions about the Universe and human existence are the same. However, this summary doesn't do the film justice as it uses strong imagery to evoke what can't be said. I did not know that the half illuminated moon and a human skull looked so similar. In the end though you are left with the realization that those searching in Chile's deserts will not be able to change the past.

Colliding Particles

Colliding Particles is a series of films following a team of physicists involved in research at the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is a creative documentary series (catch more episodes here) which is really well done and worth watching. Colliding Particles follows Gavin, Jon and Adam and their project, code name Eurostar, in their attempts to find the elusive Higgs Boson. One of the main aims of the the LHC is to discover once and for all whether the Higgs actually exists or not, and ‘Eurostar’ might just hold the key to finding out:

The Moon, where the Helium-3 from the Sun is

Moon is a 2009 science fiction film about astronaut Sam Bell who is the solitary worker on the moon. Sam is at the end of a three-year stint on the Moon so the film begins as if it was the denouement of another quieter story. When an accident occurs Sam suddenly meets himself for the first time.

I am adept at finding flaws in science fiction films, but Moon nails a lot of science as well as could be expected. The most incredulous point about the film for me was the lack of a radio array on the far side of the moon, I mean why else would we go to the moon? There is a very good and scientifically feasible answer for this. The movie begins, as you can see above with the first seven minutes of the film, with a commercial by Lunar Industries:

There was a time when energy was dirty word, when turning on your light was a hard choice. Cities in brown out, food shortages, cars burning fuel to run, but that was the past, where are we now? How did we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom? Right now we're the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun trapped in rock harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today we deliever enough clean burning helium-3 to supply the energy needs of nearly 70% of the planet. Who would have thought all the energy we ever needed, right above our heads? The power of the moon, the power of our future.

When I saw this at the beginning of the film I was delighted that they had based the story on a kernel of truthful science. The energy source they are gathering from the moon is Helium-3 (³He), but they aren't exactly burning it for fuel as they say. Helium-3 is a light isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron which is suitable as a fusion fuel. I have done some research into the literature to determine just how feasible this ³He mining on the moon is with two specific questions in mind. Why use ³He? Why go to the moon?

An advanced fusion reactor would combine ³He and deuterium (²H) in a fusion reaction to produce a helium-4 nucleus (⁴He) and a high-energy proton. Energy is released as charged particles and that is what powers the world in this science fiction vision of the future. ³He fuel offers some advantages over other types of fusion fuel because it is efficient and because less radioactive byproducts are produced (it is often stated or assumed that fusion power does not create any dangerous materials, but in reality the reactor housing can become radioactively activated and remain so for a number of years. However, the time scale on which it remains active is comparable to human lifetimes and is overall not as dangerous as the byproducts of fission reactors). ³He is very scarce on earth. It is possible to manufacture ³He on earth though the neutron bombardment of certain elemental targets which results in tritium, which then decays to ³He with a half-life of 12 years. This is a complicated, dangerous and inefficient process so other sources would be required to make ³He a viable fusion fuel.

The cosmological abundance of ³He is paltry, but its abundance and chemical evolution is of interest to astronomers because it can be a tracer of various stellar phenomena so it has been studied for many years. The primordial cosmological ratio of ³He to ⁴He is ~1.4 × 10 ^-6, however this abundance can be thousands of times greater in the solar wind. The solar wind is primarily protium traveling at a velocity of ~450 km/s with a flux of ~6 × 10 ¹⁰  ions/(m² s). Of this flux there is ~4% He which has an unusually high ratio of ³He to ⁴He of ~480 atomic parts per million (Heber V. 2003). ³He should be abundant on the moon's surface of regolith where it has been deposited by solar wind over billions of years.  Hence, we could go to the moon and mine it. However, to gather enough fuel to power the earth at current energy consumption rates more than one Space Shuttle load and the processing of 4 million tons of regolith per week, on the lunar surface, would be necessary. Further, to really nail the science here I cite Fa and Jin who state:

The [lunar] inventory of ³He is estimated as 6.50×10⁸ kg, where 3.72×10⁸ kg is for the lunar nearside and 2.78×10⁸ kg is for the lunar far side.

There is a bounty of lunar fuel available, but I wouldn't place my base on 'the far side of the moon' as Lunar Industries states they have done because it would be cold, there is less ³He, and it would be, well, lonely. In conclusion I have found the academic literature validates the idea that Helium from the moon could power terrestrial fusion reactors one day.

Apparently Sam Bell is working alone on the moon to cut costs for the company. In order to mine the necessary amounts of ³He with minimal overhead costs Lunar Industries has chosen a one man job; and based on the size of the lunar regolith harvesters seen in the movie 4 million tons processed per week would not be unfeasible. As the movie continues themes of alienation and societal deception emerge. I have discussed some science that the film never divulges, but in fact, the film never even mentions anything about ³He or the reasons why any of this is going on again. This is a strong point for the film which actually raises deep philosophical questions, which I could dive into, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. It is a great film and not the craziest science, really:

Online resources:
Mining the Moon from Popular Mechanics
Lunar ³He and Fusion power by J. Santarius
Non-Lunar  ³He Resources by L. Wittenberg
Moon for Sale from the BBC

References:

FA, W., & JIN, Y. (2007). Quantitative estimation of helium-3 spatial distribution in the lunar regolith layer Icarus, 190 (1), 15-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2007.03.014

Heber, V., Baur, H., & Wieler, R. (2003). Helium in Lunar Samples Analyzed by High‐Resolution Stepwise Etching: Implications for the Temporal Constancy of Solar Wind Isotopic Composition The Astrophysical Journal, 597 (1), 602-614 DOI: 10.1086/378402

To Octavio Paz

It looks like the NASA STEREO mission is continuing to not only study our closest star, but also inspire artists. Some lines from The Broken Jar by Octavio Paz,

A world of spin and flame is born in the head of the dreamer, blue suns, green whirlwinds, bird beaks of light pecking open the pomegranate stars

In this next film scientists at UC Berkeley talk about their research and the secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries,

Photons take hundreds of thousands of years to random walk there way from the core [of the sun] all the way out to where we see them in the photosphere yet in a millionth of second a [magnetic field line] reconnection completely changes topology of the corona

Saturn 3

In an isolated sector of our solar system suspended in orbit from the sixth planet from our sun lies a distant outpost. A technologically perfect world where mistakes are impossible because the impossible is unthinkable. It is called Saturn 3...

I haven't seen Saturn 3, but it sure looks like fun. I also just mentioned the science fiction gem Missing Pages a little while ago, but I forgot to mention what got me started thinking about alternative film. It was the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF. It has been going on at a hand full of theatres across Seattle since May 21st and ends June 14 (and no it doesn't have any particular focus on science fiction, that is just me). There are lots of intriguing science fiction films out or coming out now, but I don't think any of them can match Saturn 3 at least as a candidate for Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Missing Pages

This film mesmerizes me. Missing Pages is a short film by Jerome Oliver about a genius professor and the time machine he creates which leads him into internal battles, a war for humanities humanness, and a reckoning with reality. It is set in a sort of post-singularity minimalist landscape. The entire film is composed of manipulated digital photography with a technique called fotomation. If you enjoy film for films sake then one would argue solely on their use of an experimental approach that it should be watched, but I just really liked the film all around. The music adds a depth which keeps bringing me back.

Above is just the first third of the film. The above clip does not do justice to the film's quality. The clip was removed because it violated terms of service. Anyways, you can get all three parts of the film in high definition full screen for free from itunes here.

We Are Astronomers

We are Astronomers is a clever project to showcase what astronomers do. It is a 360° video meant for projection in digital planetariums showing in the United Kingdom soon. I don't know if or when it will make its way around the world, but this short clip below makes astronomy look really fun and exciting.

I want to also take this opportunity to give credit to Amanda Bauer and her wonderful Astropixie blog where I always find amazing links like the video above or a series she is highlighting on sixty symbols physicists and astronomers use. Amanda was a graduate student when I was an undergraduate at The University of Texas and she is now a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Nottingham. She is perpetually ahead of me in astronomy and the blogosphere. And now time to rock out in outer space:

Black Rain

A film, Black Rain, by Semiconductor Films. They say:

Black Rain is sourced from images collected by the twin satellite, solar mission, STEREO. Here we see the HI (Heliospheric Imager) visual data as it tracks interplanetary space for solar wind and CME's (coronal mass ejections) heading towards Earth. Data courtesy of courtesy of the Heliospheric Imager on the NASA STEREO mission.

Working with STEREO scientists, Semiconductor collected all the HI image data to date, revealing the journey of the satellites from their initial orientation, to their current tracing of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Solar wind, CME's, passing planets and comets orbiting the sun can be seen as background stars and the milky way pass by.

As in Semiconductors previous work 'Brilliant Noise' which looked into the sun, they work with raw scientific satellite data which has not yet been cleaned and processed for public consumption. By embracing the artefacts, calibration and phenomena of the capturing process we are reminded of the presence of the human observer who endeavors to extend our perceptions and knowledge through technological innovation.