It is a sad day indeed to share the news of William (Jack) Welch’s passing. I won’t duplicate here his achievements and awards, list his papers, nor attempt to wax poetic about his outsized contributions to the fields of radio astronomy and SETI. That’s all here and here.
What I’d like to add is that he was a wonderful person. As you can see from the picture below, he always had a smile, kindness, warmth, fun, and positive energy to share. He had the soul of an explorer, realistic yet indefatigable.
Eclipses are one of those things that are easy to assume they’ve been around and will always be around. But no. While the Anthropic Principle guarantees the universe must be sufficiently fined tuned for us to exist, there’s nothing which requires us to be alive during the “Golden Age of Eclipses.”
So we’re just lucky. I like to think about what other wonders are there to be appreciated: nearby, on our planet, elsewhere in our universe. They must be uncountable.
Happy holidays to all and please enjoy as many wonders as you can!
One of my favorite aspects of SETI work is the scientific breadth required. While no one can be an expert in everything, every corner of human knowledge has the potential to affect SETI theory or practice.
So while this video does discuss spectroscopy, I hope you’re now in the muod for some mind-bending atomic chemistry that’s admittedly only peripherally related to LaserSETI.
After watching the video, in case you’re wondering: yes, it technically is an isotope of hydrogen since its atomic number is the same. Its nucleon count, however, is zero. If that seems odd, just wait, it gets better. Since there’s a third type of lepton, there’s not one but two hydrogen isotopes of nucleon count zero. 🤯
If your head is hurting by this point, perhaps you should drink a nice, cold glass of dihydrogen monoxide.
And not the cartoon kind! 🐦💫 The Bay Area isn’t done with rain storms, and this definitely isn’t a great observing night by any standard, but it’s so nice to see stars again. It’s been weeks!
RFO1 Console screenshot showing stars and clouds
The news isn’t quite as good from Haleakala, unfortunately. Hawaiin Telecomm repaired the fiber, decided they needed to redo it, redid it, and yet we still haven’t made Contact with the instruments. Checking multiple times per day hasn’t seemed to help. Something about a “watched kettle never boils” I think?
It’s still Dec 13st here on the West Coast, and we’re hoping the New Year brings better luck and better skies for LaserSETI and a wonderful 2023 for each and every one of you!
We’ve had a lot of rain in California recently. I can’t remember the last clear night we’ve had. I was excited because the astronomer’s forecast was (and still is) good for tonight, but there must be valley fog or something else low in the sky that it’s blind to. The only photons making it to the instruments tonight are from our Sun, bounced off our lovely but obscured Moon.
View from RFO2, with only the Moon bright enough to break through the moisture
And, you might’ve noticed, it’s been a long time since even the PiCams have updated from IFA on Haleakala in Maui. Almost two weeks ago now, there was a large ice storm which knocked out power. You can still see the frost on the instrument windows just before they went offline on the Status page. On Tuesday, we got power back, but only to find there was another internet cable cut somewhere halfway up the mountain, so we’re still without connectivity to the instruments.
It can be easy to get frustrated when things don’t go your way time after time, but I think that’s shows something special about the holiday season and New Years. Everyone wishes things were better, and that’s natural, that’s how we keep making progress. But we all have a million things to be grateful for, to appreciate how we got where we are and what or who is going to help us keep going tomorrow.
So let’s focus on what’s great in the world and in our lives, and leave some greatness to achieve in 2023!
Yesterday, the SETI Institute hit its goal of raising $10,000 for our projects that search for life beyond Earth, succeeding on a challenge grant from long-time SETI Institute supporter Fritz Demopoulos. Now he has extended the September Challenge by $2,500!
The SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in Hat Creek, CA
There are only two days left to unlock a $12,500 gift for LaserSETI and its siblings. If you donate before Oct 1, your gift will go twice as far. A gift of any size helps the search!
LaserSETI would like the sympathize with all of the humans experiencing a heat wave today.
We spent a long time refining the thermal protection system for the instruments. Internal circulation, special heat-shedding paint, multiple exhaust fans, sunshades with embedded mirrors to reject even more heat. Days like today prove the value of that investment.
It’s 44 C (112 F) right now at Ferguson Observatory (RFO) and the cameras are the hottest I’ve ever seen them: 61 C (142 F)!
For comparison, the cameras on top of Haleakala, Maui (IFA) are a cool 16 C (61 F) right now.
My friend Laurance had some very touching and appropriate words on this sad day, and he agreed to let me share them here.
“I was very sorry to hear of Frank’s passing this morning. I could not help but think of the huge scientific legacy he has left.
His Drake Equation set the agenda for thousands of researchers to investigate all aspects of life in the universe. And he co-founded the SETI Institute which would become a world-class place to do this research. I spent my career researching up and down the Drake Equation, including 35 years at the SETI Institute (so far). When he retired from UC Santa Cruz, he asked me to teach his Life in the Universe class (which I did for seven years).
It would be difficult to overestimate his legacy in establishing the study of life in the universe and the search for it as a legitimate scientific field into which young scientists could do legitimate research.
It isn’t often that one gets to know someone who got there first – who was the first one to open up a wholly new field of science. But Frank certainly did that with quiet but definitive authority.
I’m sure that our own “L”, from the Drake Equation, was made longer by having had Frank grace our planet. Bending humankind’s thinking to consider our (and our planet’s) place in the universe is his legacy for the ages. It was a great honor to be around to see it all happen and to get to know Frank.”
Dr. Laurance R. Doyle Director, Quantum Astrophysics Group Principal Investigator, Whale-SETI Project Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute
On a personal note, I took that Life in the Universe class, and it definitely had an impact on me. It may be the class I remember best. It’s only today that I realize that it was his class, and the guest lecture he gave one day wasn’t a guest lecture. Now, if you do a search for it, the results are a long list of prestigious universities, teaching those who will listen to consider their place in the universe.
