This map shows how elephants moved across Kruger National Park in South Africa over one year. Image Credit: Thaker, M., et al. (2019)
Scientists have been underutilizing a key resource we can use to help us understand Earth: animals. Our fellow Earthlings have a much different, and usually much more direct, relationship with the Earth. They move around the planet in ways and to places we don’t.
Artist's depiction of a pair of O'Neill cylinders. Credit: Rick Guidice/NASA Ames Research Center
“It is possible even with existing technology, if done in the most efficient ways. New methods are needed, but none goes beyond the range of present-day knowledge. The challenge is to bring the goal of space colonization into economic feasibility now, and the key is to treat the region beyond Earth not as a void but as a culture medium, rich in matter and energy. Then, in a time short enough to be useful, the exponential growth of colonies can reach the point at which the colonies can be of great benefit to the entire human race.”
-Gerard K. O’Neill, The Colonization of Space, 1974
During the 1960s and 70s, coinciding with the height of the Space Age, scientists pondered how human beings could one day live in space. Among the many benefits, the migration of humans and industry to other celestial bodies and orbiting habitats presented a possible solution to overpopulation and environmental degradation. As O’Neill suggested in his writings, the key was to make this migration an economically feasible venture. Given the renewed efforts to explore space that are now underway and the rise of commercial space (NewSpace), there is a growing sense that humanity’s migration to space is within reach – and even inevitable.
But to paraphrase famed British historian AJP Taylor, “nothing is inevitable until it happens.” In a new study, Cornell graduate researcher Morgan A. Irons and Norfolk Institute co-founder and executive director Lee G. Irons reviewed a century of scientific studies to develop the Pancosmorio (“World Limit”) theory. They concluded that specific life-sustaining conditions on Earth that are available nowhere else in the Solar System could be the very thing that inhibits our expansion into space. Without an Earth-like “self-restoring order, capacity, and organization,” they argue, space settlements would fail to be sustainable and collapse before long.
Titan in front of Saturn. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Where did Saturn’s bizarro-moon Titan form? Did it form where it is now, or has it migrated? We have decades of data to look back on, so scientists should have some idea.
A new study based on all that data says that Titan is drifting away from Saturn more quickly than thought, and that has implications for where the moon initially formed.
The moon provides the perfect backdrop for watching birds migrate at night. Observers with spotting scopes and small telescopes can watch the show anytime the moon is at or near full. Photo illustration: Bob King
Tonight’s the Harvest Moon, the full Moon closest to the fall equinox. A perfect time to catch a big orange Moon on the horizon AND the annual fall bird migration. Every September and October anyone with a small telescope or spotting scope magnifying 30x can enjoy the sight of one bird after another flying over the cratered lunar landscape. It’s so easy.
Point your telescope at the Moon and watch for dark silhouettes to flutter across its face. Because the angle of the full Moon’s path to the horizon is very shallow in September and October, the time difference between successive moonrises is only about 20-30 minutes instead of the usual 50-60. That means you’ll catch both moonlight and bird flight on successive nights without having to stay up late.
The Harvest Moon rises over Lake Superior in Duluth, Minn last September. When you’re out moon and birdwatching, look for the dark band below the rising moon. That’s the Earth’s shadow. It’s visible for about 15-20 after sunset and topped by the pink-tinged “Belt of Venus”, where the atmosphere is still reflecting reddened sunlight. Credit: Bob King
Many birds migrate at night both because it’s cooler and to avoid predators that could otherwise pick them off in a daylight run. Identifying the many warblers, blackbirds, sparrows, vireos, orioles and other species that fly across the moon while we sleep may be next to impossible for anyone but an expert, but seeing them is easy. Two night ago for fun, I counted a dozen birds in the five-minute interval around 10 o’clock through my 10-inch telescope at low power (76x). Assuming they continued to fly by at a steady rate, I could potentially have spotted 144 birds in just an hour’s time.
Two of my favorite migrating birds: the winter wren (left) and chestnut-sided warbler. Credit: Bob King
As you might suspect, most of those birds crossed the Moon from north to south (about two-thirds) with the other third traveling either east to west or northeast to southwest. Only one little silhouette flapped back up north in the ‘wrong’ direction.
According to the Chipper Woods Bird Observatory, located in Indianapolis, most nighttime migrators begin their flight right after sunset and continue until about 2 a.m. Peak time is between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Bird typically migrate at altitudes ranging from 1,500 to 5,000 feet, but on some nights, altitudes may range from 6,000 and 9,000 feet. I could tell the high ones from the low ones by their size and sharpness. Nearby birds flew by out of focus, while distant ones were sharply defined and took longer to cross the moon.
Check out this animation showing a wave of bird migration after sunset on Aug. 27 made with NEXRAD. Birds are visible funneling down both shores of Lake Superior and moving south of Duluth, Minn (city at center). Credit: NWS
While birders may continue to use the moon night birding, they now have a new tool – NEXRAD or NEXt-generation of Weather RADar. About 150 NEXRAD sites were set up in the 1990s to track weather and storm systems across the U.S. When precipitation gets pinged by the radar’s pulse it reflects back a signal that identifies it as rain, snow or whatever. Included in the information is the material’s speed and direction of travel. NEXRAD works equally well on meteorite falls, birds and even insects. While storm activity typically shows up as familiar blotches of yellow, orange and red, birds appear as fine stipplings. By compiling NEXRAD loops, during particularly heavy migration times, you can actually watch swarms of birds wing their way south. Click HERE for a map of all U.S. NEXRAD locations, each of which links to current radar maps.
On the less technological side, watching birds pass across the Moon in a small telescope is a very pleasant activity reminiscent of meteor shower watching. At first you see nothing, then blip! a bird (meteor) flies by. You wait another minute and then suddenly two more appear in tandem. Both activities give you that delicious sense of anticipation of what the next moment might hold.
The best time to watch the nighttime avian exodus is around full Moon, when the big, round disk offers an ideal spotlight on the birds’ behavior, but anytime between waxing and waning gibbous phase will work. It’s an enchanting sight to see Earth’s creatures streak across an alien landscape, and another instance of how a distant celestial body “touches” Earth in unexpected ways.