About the Name

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent The-oph’ilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. -- Luke 1:1-4

Relax, I know I’m not writing the New Testament here, but I will try to follow a few things closely. — Dick Sandlin

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• The Known Universe
• Will TEC Adopt the Covenant?
• Observatories Explore Galactic Center
• St. Francis Dallas Joins Dio Ft. Worth
• Science and Religion Not at Odds
• Long-term Spacers Return Home
• Pope Offers Olive Branch to Anglo-catholics
• Jon Stryker Funds LGBT Initiative
• TEC’s Diocese of Western Louisiana “Affirms” Covenant
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• Hell Hath No Limits
• Robot Fish Swims with Wave Motion
• Armadillo Qualifies in NASA Challenge
• Wagner’s Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhäuser
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• Ft. Worth Wins 1st Round against TEC
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Science

is a useful way of understanding God's creation. I agree with Einstein that there is no conflict between science and religion.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Known Universe

Produced by the American Museum of Natural History, this is nothing short of “far out!”

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Observatories Explore Galactic Center

Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, and STScI

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has four “Great Observatories” that shared data to construct the above picture.  The European Space Agency (ESA), which provides much of the support for the Hubble Space Telescope; the Spitzer Science Center (SSC), responsible for the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope; the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC), which operates the Chandra X-ray Telescope; and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScl), responsible for the research done with Hubble and its planned successor, the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA has used its entire fleet of Great Observatories, and the Internet, to bring the center of our galaxy to us in greater detail and in more colors than ever seen before. A menagerie of vast star fields is visible, along with dense star clusters, long filaments of gas and dust, expanding supernova remnants, and the energetic surroundings of what likely is our galaxy’s central black hole.

Four hundred years ago today, a telescope took Galileo to the Moon to discover craters, to Saturn to discover rings, to Jupiter to discover moons, to Venus to discover phases, and to the Sun to discover spots.  NASA gives us this picture today in celebration of Galileo’s telescopic achievements and as part of the International Year of Astronomy.  Go NASA!

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Science and Religion Not at Odds

I stumbled onto an interesting site today, called Cosmic Fingerprints.  The site agrees with me that there is no conflict between science and the Christian religion, so it must be correct, right?  Perry Marshall offers a variety of methods for you to examine the idea that science actually provides persuasive evidence that God exists and that the Biblical account of creation is factual.  He presents a 1994 talk by Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross, called New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God, that argues that the discovery of dark matter (or exotic matter) is proof that God exists.  Dr. Ross presents a humorous, but very serious, explanation that is targeted to a nontechnical audience.  He combines his knowledge of the Cosmos with fluency in Hebrew and familiarity with Scripture to reveal that properties of the physical universe show that God is personal and that He created the Cosmos with great care to produce a home for us that is unique in nature.  I invite you to listen to Dr. Ross’s talk (and follow along with the transcript) and then come back here to enter a comment about it.  I don’t just invite you, I double-dog dare you.  This in no way replaces the elegant argument of St. Thomas Aquinas; but provides physical evidence to support his conclusions.

By the way, another interesting site for Cosmos fans is the Heavens Above site by Chris Peat.  It can tell you when Destiny Station (i.e., the International Space Station) is overhead.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Long-term Spacers Return Home

Three spacemen (a Russian, an American, and a Canadian) landed safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan on October 11th.  This NASA photo shows the three sitting in chairs outside their Soyuz capsule just minutes after their landing.  The event was not widely publicized in the West and I found the story today on the NASA website.  Two of the three men had spent 197 days in space, on Space Station Destiny (the International Space Station), before their landing near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft at 10:32 a.m. local time.

Seated on the left in the photo is Canadian spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte, who spent nine days on the station after launching with Expedition 21 on September 30th.  In the center is Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and on the right is NASA astronaut Michael Barratt.  Padalka and Barratt arrived at the station in March to begin Expedition 19 then transitioned to the six-member Expedition 20 crew in May. Padalka commanded both Expedition crews and Barratt was flight engineer for Expedition 20. 

The three flew back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia outside Moscow for reunions with their families, and for Padalka and Barratt, the start of their reorientation to a gravity environment after almost seven months off the planet.

Is it just me or does the steppe in the picture behind them look like the surface of Mars, as seen by the rovers Spirit and Opportunity?  Unfortunately, Spirit became embedded in soft soilat a site called “Troy” five months ago, more than five years into a mission on Mars that was originally scheduled to last for three months.  The NASA photo above shows efforts to extract Spirit, using a mock-up to identify the best escape strategy.  See the Free Spirit NASA page for more details.

As of Sol (Martian Day) 2042 (Oct. 21, 2009), Opportunity’s total odometry is 18,322.03 meters (11.39 miles).  That works out to about 9 meters per day over a five-year period.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Robot Fish Swims with Wave Motion

From SmartPlanet.com yesterday:

Dr. William Megill at the University of Bath in the UK has developed a robot fish called Gymnobot that swims by rippling a fin on its belly. They say it may lead to lighter, more efficient robotic submersibles. Would this make a super-quiet missile submarine go faster?