“Daddy, What Was Life Like Before the Internet?”
That is a question I will never have to answer because Mike Huckabee’s chances of becoming the next President of the United States are far greater than me being a father—although not a Daddy (wink, wink)—at this stage in my life.
But it’s still a valid question. While science has proven that our perception of the passage of time changes as we get older, it still seems I had more free time than I knew what do with before the arrival of ubiquitous devices into my life. I remember pre-PC Revolution not having to make time to see a movie, or go to a mall, or go to the beach (the first casualty of life in San Francisco after a computer arrived in my apartment), or when I lived in Tucson, drive out to Reddington Pass, take a hike and expose my totally bare bits to nature.
I used to paint, and while there were periods prior to devices that I went years without creating anything, the last time I picked up a brush was nearly eight years ago—and that’s rapidly closing in on a record. I’m not that concerned about that particular activity because my Muses have always been fickle bitches, but it seems I just can’t find time to do a lot of the other things I used to enjoy and always had time for—like wandering around downtown taking photos. That was something I did almost every weekend—if not more often—and now it seems to be a special occasion when I actually can get around to doing it.
And how did we live without Google and Wikipedia? It seems funny now, but once upon a time I was actually able to do my job with just the knowledge I had in my head. I also used to know what every single file in Windows (okay, it was version 3.1, but still) did. Now the whole tech field has become so…complicated…knowing everything about everything is simply no longer possible, and it seems a day doesn’t go by that I don’t have to refer to the Google for the solution some obscure problem (both Microsoft and Apple related).
Part of me really wants to just unplug, but on the other hand, so much of my life is wrapped up on these machines now it’s all but impossible unless I print out everything and keep hard copies. Do I know anyone’s phone numbers beyond Ben and my sister? Don’t be ridiculous. Do I know what I have scheduled for next week, or next month? Not a clue unless I bring it up. Some birthdays I remember, but I still need to double-check my phone when we’re out shopping to make sure I don’t neglect to buy cards. Do I know any of my bank account or credit card numbers? I used to possess that knowledge prior to being online, but now I can remember maybe the last four digits of one or two accounts. And now with all my ridiculously complicated passwords safely stored away in a secure vault program, do I even know more than a smattering of those? Ha ha! That’s funny!
I’ve always been interested in tech, so it’s no surprise I was a fish to water when this stuff first started arriving on the scene, but I wish I knew how to regain some of that free time that I used to enjoy without having to purposely carve it out.
I…I Just Can’t
Today is a “Mark ALL as Read” day in RSS land, because I just can’t. I’m done with stupid.
I started a new (contract) job today, and while I know it’s probably not fair to make a judgment after only 8 hours, I feel like I’ve reached the point in my life where I will never be happy in my work life ever again.
You never really know what you’re getting into when you take a new job until you actually get into it and overturn that stone to see all the squiggling unpleasantness that had been living underneath hidden from your initial [inter]view.
Don’t get me wrong; the people in the department seem nice. They’re dealing with a lot of the technical shit that comes from the merger of two separate companies, and my supervisor, while friendly and more than pleasant didn’t mince words in describing what they’re facing and how a multitude of things are broken and not getting fixed any time soon. I console myself by thinking, “There may be lifelong friendships waiting to happen somewhere out on that floor.”
I went into this thinking I was going to be working in a hospital again, so I was not overly concerned when the email arrived Friday telling me to report to the Network Service and Support Center this morning. I started out at Corporate when I worked at Abrazo (albeit at that time Corporate and the I.T. Department were based in one of the hospitals) so this didn’t seem out of line. However, it turns out I’m only working there until their ticket count goes down and then I may be one of the traveling technicians who drives to the multitude of clinics around the valley—while the as-yet-to-arrive second tech they hired will probably be assigned to the hospital on this side of town. (A possibility that was never communicated to me during the interview.) None of this is cast in stone however, and frankly I’m hoping that my immediate supervisor (who doesn’t even make the decision) was simply talking out her ass.
So when my friends and family have asked how it went today, I tell them it’s a job. It’s a decent income. It’s not DISH. That’s really about it.
And oh yeah, only seven more years (more or less) until I can retire. (Unless we happen to win the lottery between now and then. Stranger things have happened!)
Ghosts
A curious and unexpected effect of being back in Phoenix has been the appearance of ghosts. Not the horror movie variety, but rather memories of persons, places and things long gone. I’m not talking about memories of my life in Phoenix post San Francisco and pre Denver, but stuff from my 20s!
I had to run out to my new employer’s occupational health office to get screened and vaccinated prior to starting work several times over the past couple weeks, and the route takes me past the locations of three of my favorite gay bars from the late 70s and early 80s: Bullwinkle, The Forum, and Hotbods. Of course, none of those places are still in business, but the mere act of driving past conjures up so many good memories of the evenings I spent in them. Driving past The Forum, I am reminded of meeting friends Mike and Michael (and running into an acquaintance from high school whom I previously hadn’t a clue that we played on the same team), and the DJ George, who I often bumped into at lunch at the McDonalds (that used to be on the northeast corner of 16th Street and Camelback vs. its current location on the southeast) where we’d discuss the week’s latest disco releases over our fries and Big Macs. The Forum was where—to the strains of St. Tropez’s Violation, I first slow-danced with another man.
Bullwinkle, and later Hotbods were where my friend Steve worked. I remember many evenings spent at the latter venue in the DJ booth with him (at least until the pharmaceuticals he’s taken started flowing). It was the place where Dennis (my first partner) and I would drive two hours from Tucson to spend a Saturday night dancing—and then turn around and drive two hours back home after they turned the lights up.
Ah, youth.
Then there are the two audio equipment stores where I used to hang out: Jerry’s and Bruce’s—neither of which are still open, and in fact haven’t been in years—but nonetheless elicit memories of my first major purchase on credit and where I went every six months to get my stylus examined under a microscope for signs of wear. (No, not that stylus, you bitches!)
There are plenty of other examples of these 30 year old memories being dredged up, but I won’t bore you. The question I have to ask however is why? Why here, why now? I don’t remember this happening when I moved back from San Francisco in ’02…
A Curious Phenomenon
From my old blog, courtesy The Wayback Machine:
I have been blogging for close to two years now. What I’ve noticed during that time is while I’ve made new friends through the endeavor, several of my long-time fellow travelers in life’s journey have drifted away. One of whom in particular—a guy I’ve known nearly a quarter century—has all but vanished, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s because of something I’ve written along the way. Blogging’s semi-anonymity has allowed me to voice thoughts that even my closest confidants may not have known I was mulling.
This raises a fundamental question. Isn’t it better to have people love you for who you really are, other than for who they think you are?
While not nearly as political as I am, I know my buddy has no love for George Bush, so I doubt that’s the source of his withdrawl. The only other thing that may have caused this apparent chilling of our friendship are the writings about my increasing agnosticism. He’s not a religious guy, but a very spiritually oriented one; something that initially drew us together and that we’d shared these many years. I still respect his New Age beliefs, but at this point in my life I’m just finding it impossible to ascribe to a philosophy that’s become as rigid and entrenched as any other faith-based doctrine and offers no more proof of its validity than the fairy tales of traditional organized religion.
Before I started blogging, we’d chat or email each other several times a week, and I always felt welcome visiting. But over the last year or so (along with my posts examining my crumbling faith in New Age thought), all my emails seem to vanish into a black hole, never to be answered. (His excuse is that he gets so much spam he doesn’t even bother opening his email, despite my attempts to show him how to filter it out at his ISP before it ever reaches Outlook). So I’ve just given up emailing him altogether. At some point you just reach the point where you think, “Why bother?”
I no longer feel like I can just call and come down for the weekend like I’d been doing for years. It seems he always has houseguests, or previous plans, or the planets aren’t in proper alignment. The last time I was in the neighborhood, the ex and I just dropped in on him (we did call first), and neither of us exactly got the warm fuzzies while we were there. And don’t get me started on him coming here. It’s been over a year and a half since he’s been up to Phoenix. His excuse is that his back bothers him. It’s not like going to San Francisco, for Chrissake.
So I’m kind of at a loss. I have a feeling he’s dealing with some demons of his own, but he hasn’t shared any of it with me, and when I’ve asked if everything was okay he said it was. I’m not losing sleep over it, but it concerns me that a friendship I thought I would take to the grave with me may be coming to an end after having survived and flourished nearly twenty-five years.
Amazingly, nothing has changed with this particular friend since I wrote this eight years ago. During the years Ben and I were in Denver, my friend and I spoke once on the phone—and I was the one who initiated the call.
Still, I’ve kept him up to date via a change of address card regarding our return to Phoenix, and have thought many times about calling him, but as I wrote initially, I’m really starting to wonder, “Why bother?”
Mirror Mirror On The Wall (NSFW)
Wednesday
Distractions (NSFW)
Not Yet Feeling It
I mean, look at that. Already there’s fan-inspired art from a film that hasn’t even been released yet.
Seeing those AT-AT walkers looming on the horizon should send my heart fluttering the way they did on that Cinemascope screen in 1980. But they just aren’t. And it’s all George Lucas’s fault.
I turned 19 shortly after Star Wars originally hit the theaters in May 1977. (You do the math. I’m old.) So while I wasn’t a child per se, it nonetheless fired my imagination in a way that was to carry well into my adulthood. Surprisingly, initially I had no real desire to see the film, but a friend from high school dragged me to it one hot summer afternoon a couple weeks after its release, telling me it might just change my life. And it did.
As I’m sure I’ve written before, I came out of the theater that afternoon high, and it wasn’t from any pharmaceuticals. Star Wars set me on what I refer to now as nothing less than a spiritual quest. While I know this isn’t even close to being a record for total number of screenings, during the next year that it was parked at the old Cine Capri in Phoenix, I saw the film 30 more times. (I remember being outraged when they raised the price of a ticket from $2.75 to $3.00!)
When The Empire Strikes Back opened (again, at the Cine Capri) three years later, I wasn’t about to be caught with my pants down as I had been with its predecessor. I was in line opening night, rushing over immediately after work to join the crowd of other fans in line wanting to get their first glimpse at that galaxy far, far away.
I didn’t see Empire nearly as many times as Star Wars. Thinking back, it was probably only a dozen or so, but it wasn’t because I didn’t like the film. Quite the contrary, I loved how the story was progressing.
Three years later, I was now living in Tucson so I didn’t get to see Return of the Jedi at my preferred venue in Phoenix, but I was still there opening day. Anticipating more huge lines, I called out sick that morning and dragged my friend Lee along (who, by the way, found it appalling that I would play hookie for a movie). As it turned out, there was a line, but nowhere near as long as what I’d been expecting, and we were actually able to get into the first showing without any difficulty.
My reaction? Meh. Jedi was okay, but I overall I came away from it disappointed. Even then I thought it was the weakest of the three films. And the Ewoks were abominable. I should’ve seen the writing on the wall that Lucas had become more concerned with merchandising than actually telling a good story. Yes, it wrapped up the Skywalker-Vader saga and the rebels scored a significant victory against the Empire, but what next?
What came next—at least for me personally—was a relocation to San Francisco. When the tenth anniversary of the first film came around in 1987, one of the theaters in the North Bay threw a party and showed all three films at one sitting. I went because there were rumors that stars from the films would be in attendance, and even ten years later I still had a tremendous crush on Mark Hamill. Sadly, those rumors proved false, but it was still interesting to see all three films at one time, and while I didn’t leave with a Hamill autograph, I did walk away from the experience with a cool Tenth Anniversary sweatshirt.
Sidebar: I actually did run into Mr. Hamill—and his wife and son—on the F-Line in San Francisco many years later. We locked eyes, and I nodded as if to say, “I know who you are but I will respect your privacy and leave you alone,” and exchanged smiles. It was kind of an anti-climactic encounter considering I’d known since he first appeared on that screen in 1977 that eventually our paths would cross.
Flash forward to May 1999 and what I now refer to as “George Lucas’s ass-raping of my young adulthood” or as the rest of the world calls it, “The arrival of the Star Wars prequels.”
I’m not going to say much about these three films (or Lucas’s tinkering and reissue of the original trilogy) since so many words have been spilled over the last decade regarding the casting, acting, directing, make-your-eyes-bleed use of CGI, and all that midichlorian nonsense, but I will say they soured me to the idea of ever seeing another new Star Wars film lest the few remaining vestiges of my wide-eyed youth get ground into a bloody pulp.
That being said, I am curious about Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Curious. Not champing-at-the-bit I-can’t-wait-to-see it level of excitement as might’ve been the case if Episodes 1-3 had never happened, but curious. I haven’t kept up with any of the Star Wars spin-off stories, books, or animated series; I have no idea who any of these new characters are, but with only minimal Lucas involvement and J.J. Abrams at the helm—and the use of practical effects vs. CGI—I’m at least a little hopeful that it won’t be the giant steaming pile of Banta poodoo that the Prequels were.
I Have a Dirty Mind
It’s not an “O” I see poking up in that box, but rather something else in front of a red circle…
As the FSM is My Witness…
The day that “man-buns” start taking over gay porn is the day the amount of time I spend online drops dramatically.
Stop. Just stop. They aren’t attractive and they make you look like a flaming douchenozzle.
Reshaping Phoenix
I’ve often remarked—half jokingly—how my dad’s tenure at Hallcraft Homes in the 1970s reshaped the look of mass-produced residential architecture in Phoenix. Driving around town this afternoon, I realize I’m probably not far off the mark for saying that. You can’t go fifteen minutes in any direction without running into a house, townhouse or fourplex that my dad designed. But while driving around, I’m also reminded of the other builders who left their own unique mark on the Valley: John F. Long and Cavalier Homes are two that come to mind.
In my memory, it always seemed to be a bit of an arms race between the big builders at that time. Every year there’d be a slew of new floor plans (or at least new exteriors), with everyone “borrowing” design clues from everyone else; some more successfully than others.
I recall how as a family we used to tour the competition under the pretense of simply being potential homebuyers, and even then I remember remarking (sometimes to the point where I had to be shushed by my folks (because the model homes often did conceal hidden microphones) about how so-and-so blatantly ripped off one of Hallcraft’s design ideas from the previous year.
I wasn’t totally biased however. When dad’s designs stumbled I wasn’t afraid to say so. His response? “They put food on your table.” While he was the lead and chief architect, there were other designers in the mix, and I could tell without asking whether something was dad’s design or one of the juniors’. Perhaps not surprisingly, while they weren’t as good as what my dad did, I didn’t find their designs nearly as terrible as he did.
At one point I had a 3-ring binder that contained floor plans of everything Hallcraft built in the 1970s. (I seem to remember giving it to my dad for safekeeping in the 80s when we both lived in California and it was only many years later when I asked for its return that I learned he’d thrown it out before moving back to Arizona, thinking I no longer wanted it.) I now have only a few sheets remaining that were duplicates of what was in the notebooks, but they don’t even begin to scratch the surface of what was lost and after scanning and posting to a website would’ve made an excellent online resource for the new generations buying these homes now.
PSA
Again
I Am Incorrigible
Impure Thoughts
Squee!
As a child who grew up in the 1960s and being enthralled with the Apollo moon landings even then, I think I just orgasmed.
NASA has made their entire raw, unprocessed Hasselblad Apollo image archive available to Flickr. Conspiracy theorists and alien artifact hunters are undoubtedly going to have a field day. As for me, I just think they’re beautiful.
A small sampling of the hundreds of photos posted (warning: some of them are quite large so be patient while they load):
Autumn Finally Arrives
I am cautiously optimistic that we are finally done with the triple-digit temperatures for the year. Just as I remember the change of seasons in Phoenix from all my past years here, it was as if someone flipped a switch the other day and it was suddenly autumn. There’s a change in the air; a change in the light. While we’re not out of air conditioning season completely yet (another few weeks, if memory serves), it’s positively chilly in the mornings when I take the dogs out, and as I sit at the coffee house writing this tonight, they have the big rolling door up, letting in the glorious cool evening breeze.
And the mosquitos also seem to have departed. Even better, because I’ve grown very weary of being a walking buffet table.
El Capitan
My review, if anyone cares…
I got smart this time around. While I still had access to Apple’s Beta program, I didn’t actually install El Capitan as my main OS until the Gold Master had been released and all of the major bugs had been squashed. I’d jumped the gun a year ago with Yosemite and lived to regret it. (Yeah, yeah, I know…never install a beta OS on your main system, but not all of us have multiple pieces of hardware to play with.)
In addition, I didn’t feel the need to rush to El Capitan. There were no new features or design refinements that I felt were worth the hassle of upgrading.
That being said, there were still a few small issues when I did upgrade. Four applications I use weren’t fully compatible. Thankfully, those four (Fantastical 2, CleanMyMac 3, iStat, and cDock) had betas of their own while El Cap was in the testing phase, and for the most part they all worked without a problem. When the final release was available, so were the final upgrades for these apps.
Even after the upgrade to the final release, cDock (a great little app that lets you completely alter the appearance of the dock including returning the look to previous OS versions as well as making it completely transparent) was still a bit of a stickler to get working. It involved disabling the new SIP feature in El Cap, running the app, and then re-enabling SIP. Just this morning it auto-updated to Version 2.0 and it’s a huge improvement over Version 1.0, adding several new options and themes. (I don’t know if it still requires disabling SIP to get it running or not since it was an upgrade.)
Much like with iOS 9, I don’t actually use most of the new features in El Capitan. I came to the realization recently that despite my delusions to the contrary, I’m really not a “power user.” As long as basic functions work, I’m happy. At work, in the Windows world, I require dual screens. On my Mac at home, not so much. I’ve never even used Spaces, so Split Screen (having two applications running full screen on one display simultaneously—one of the bigger features of El Capitan) isn’t something I ever foresee myself needing.
The new incarnation of Spotlight is much more useful to me than it had been previously; I actually find myself using it now. But being able to move it around on screen? Again, not a big deal.
The improvements to Mail, like swipe-to-delete, are welcome, but again—not earth shattering. With Mail, I’m just glad nothing was broken.
Notes is now a content catch-all, allowing almost any type of data to be saved. You can save documents, web links, photos, map locations, PDFs, and videos with a simple drag and drop. I’ve already found this incredibly useful.
I don’t use Photos.
I love San Francisco, the new system font.
But more than all this, the most noticeable change in OS X has been the increase in speed and that alone is definitely be worth the upgrade if you’re a Mac user and haven’t taken the plunge yet.
Distractions (NSFW)
Sometimes You Don’t Need to Leave Earth…
…to go to another planet.
Discovered on one of my internet wanderings this morning, Panjin Red Beach is located in the north east of Beijing and is appropriately called this due to the seaweed which turns to a bright red colour in autumn. It has become known as the “Home of the Cranes” and is the home to 260 different types of birds, including the endangered Crown Canes and Blacak Beaked Gulls, and 399 different types of wild animals.
I Am Incorrigible
‘Murika!
This week’s school shooting (not to be confused with last week’s or the one the week before that or next week’s or the one the week after that) got me thinking about violence in America; something that as a society I believe we’ve grown increasingly numb to.
Perhaps numb isn’t the right term, but there’s no denying the schizophrenic way that violence is viewed by our society. Violence is woven into the American DNA and celebrated with an almost orgiastic frenzy in everything from our popular music to our movies, television shows and video games, yet we seem shocked and appalled when a shooting occurs. Do we really need car chases and killings in every damn episode of {Fill in pretty much any Television Show Name}?
Just the other night we were watching a preview of some upcoming series and I turned to Ben and said, “Does everything need to have a shoot out in it?”
It’s past time that we throw off any illusion of being a nation of Peace, because we most certainly are not. As a society we revel in death and destruction as exemplified by our popular entertainments—except of course when that death and destruction happens to visit itself upon good, god-fearing white christians or in those infrequent instances when karma comes back to bite us on our national ass. (See 9/11.)
I’m tired of politicians, lawmakers, and so-called “men of god” saying they want peace, yet with every step and word uttered, fetishize and advocate for never-ending violence and bloodshed. In short, I think it’s time we cut the crap and just embrace our murderous, bloodthirsty national identity. The ancient Romans never apologized for it and certainly never made excuses.
So yes, we are the planet’s dominant serial killer—not only of the other, but also of our own people. And we have the guns, the tanks, the missiles, the nukes and the military spending to prove it—not to mention the psychopaths with their personal arsenals wetting themselves over fevered visions of turning the United States into a christianist theocracy and meting out Old Testament punishments upon non-believers with impunity. ‘Murika! Fuck yeah!
It’s not like any of this is new—and to be honest it certainly is not limited to only the United States. But our country was birthed in bloodshed and it comes with the territory as much as we’d like to deny it as a nation. Yes, the United States was created with noble ideals (something I think has kept some of our basest instincts in check), but again and again it seems that as a society we reach for the gun, the assault rifle, the switchblade, the missile or the bomb to settle our differences—or to simply make a point instead of examining why we do it—or seeking alternative methods of resolution. And when something bad happens, we wring our hands ask, “How could this have been stopped?” while remaining stunningly, blindingly oblivious to the obvious answer and unable to affect any real change because of the NRA’s death grip on our politicians. And then we promptly forget about the whole thing until the cycle repeats. Ad nauseum.
Down the Rabbit Hole
If you ever have several hours to waste and don’t mind peering into one of darker recesses of the internet (or at least out of control pareidolia) head on over to YouTube, type in Mars anomalies (or for that matter, Moon anomalies) and in the immortal words of Bette Davis, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
Okay, I will admit that I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy*, and I fully believe that NASA and our government are withholding knowledge of a whole lot of what is actually “out there” with good (or at least misguided) intentions, but on the other hand, I don’t see birds, animals, insects, tiny little people, toppled statues of kings, masks, and carefully fashioned blocks of stone in every damn photo sent back from our various Mars rovers.
I would admit that yes—conservatively—5 to 10 percent of what these kids-living-in-their-mom’s-basements are finding is unexplainable, and many of the things they’re seeing are just on the edge of camera resolution and can therefore be interpreted as pretty much anything, but that five to ten percent of those images are undeniably fascinating.
In addition, there are many, many images where quite unmistakable (and poorly executed, I might add) image manipulation has occurred with the original NASA files. Obvious blurring is one thing—and can be attributed to data loss during transmission back to Earth—but when sloppy cut-and-paste duplication has occurred (a series of three identical rock outcroppings in one image come to mind) you have to ask why?
*I do, however, fully believe we went to the Moon and consider myself lucky that as a child I was witness to that incredible bit of history being made.
Time Flies. Too Fast.
I realized today that if my first lover—who died in 1991—had immediately reincarnated, he’d now be older than we were when we first met.
I feel old.
Another Day, Another Shooting in America
This is just too good not to pass on in its entirety:
From AMERICAblog:
Earlier today, someone took a killing machine and loads of ammunition into a heavily-trafficked area and opened fire, killing some and wounding more. The shooter may have a history of mental health problems; they may be a militant racist; they may be a Men’s Rights Activist; they may be a religious extremist; they may have just gotten laid off from work. Whatever their motive, they will almost certainly have obtained their killing machine legally.
You’ve probably read the details elsewhere by now, but at the end of the day, they don’t matter. This story isn’t all that different from the many that came before and are sure to come after. America averages one shooting of at least four fatalities per day, with one shooting per week at schools. These shootings are happening faster than we can meme them. The routine is familiar, and we already know how the next few days are going to play out:
First, we will be reminded that this is definitely not the time to discuss ways that we could have prevented this shooting, along with tomorrow’s and next week’s and the ones to follow. At times like these, a bad reading of the Second Amendment is more important than a basic understanding of the First:
There needs to be a mandatory waiting period imposed on anti-gun extremists commenting on breaking news crime incidents. #UCCShooting ~ Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 1, 2015
Instead, it would be much more productive for all of us to quietly appeal to a higher power—one that has pretty clearly signaled to us that they’re agnostic when it comes to American gun policy:
Praying for Umpqua Community College, the victims, and families impacted by this senseless tragedy. ~ Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 1, 2015
Second, we will be reminded that although America’s homicide rates are practically off the charts compared to other countries, now is definitely not the time to second-guess our borderline religious commitment to the killing machines that make it way easier to kill a bunch of people at once:
After all, don’t you know we might need to revolt against the government some day?
Third, someone from the NRA will say that the real solution that would have prevented all of this is more guns. Most of America will find this ridiculous. Congress will find this reasonable. President Obama will scold them.
Fourth, there will be a new round of public opinion polling showing broad support for public policies that could have prevented the shooting, ranging from universal background checks to a ban on high-capacity magazines. We will flash a momentary glance at Congress to see if they will pass any of these policies, and then remember how unbothered they were by what that guy from the NRA said.
Fifth, gun sales will go through the god damn roof.
Sixth, this video will go viral:
Seventh, another mass shooting will take place. We will go back to step one.
See you next week.”
And the Hits Keep on Coming!
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon—and these pictures show a surprisingly complex and violent history.
At half the diameter of Pluto, Charon is the largest satellite relative to its planet in the solar system. Many New Horizons scientists expected Charon to be a monotonous, crater-battered world; instead, they’re finding a landscape covered with mountains, canyons, landslides, surface-color variations and more.
“We thought the probability of seeing such interesting features on this satellite of a world at the far edge of our solar system was low,” said Ross Beyer, an affiliate of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team from the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, “but I couldn’t be more delighted with what we see.”
This composite of enhanced color images of Pluto (lower right) and Charon (upper left), was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it passed through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. This image highlights the striking differences between Pluto and Charon. The color and brightness of both Pluto and Charon have been processed identically to allow direct comparison of their surface properties, and to highlight the similarity between Charon’s polar red terrain and Pluto’s equatorial red terrain. Pluto and Charon are shown with approximately correct relative sizes, but their true separation is not to scale. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the spacecraft’s Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
High-resolution images of the Pluto-facing hemisphere of Charon, taken by New Horizons as the spacecraft sped through the Pluto system on July 14 and transmitted to Earth on Sept. 21, reveal details of a belt of fractures and canyons just north of the moon’s equator. This great canyon system stretches more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across the entire face of Charon and likely around onto Charon’s far side. Four times as long as the Grand Canyon, and twice as deep in places, these faults and canyons indicate a titanic geological upheaval in Charon’s past.
“It looks like the entire crust of Charon has been split open,” said John Spencer, deputy lead for GGI at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “With respect to its size relative to Charon, this feature is much like the vast Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars.”
Even higher-resolution Charon images and composition data are still to come as New Horizons transmits data, stored on its digital recorders, over the next year – and as that happens, “I predict Charon’s story will become even more amazing!” said mission Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
The New Horizons spacecraft is currently 3.1 billion miles (5 billion kilometers) from Earth, with all systems healthy and operating normally.
New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.
I Am Incorrigible
Cabin Fever
I needed to get out of the house today, so in my infinite wisdom I headed downtown to make some photos.
It’s still too damn hot to be running around outside for any length of time, so after an hour or so in the sun, I headed to our home-away-from home for a cold beverage.
Quote of the Day
I don’t even mind if people make up things about me as long as they don’t make me look boring or ordinary—as long as they don’t smooth me out or reduce me.” ~ Grace Jones, from her new autobiography, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs