Aroostook Skies: Magic meteor moments
“So teach us to number days that we apply our hearts unto wisdom.” – Moses, the man of God
When electronic news first featured filmed details of the recent meteoritic event over central Russia, I initially felt I was viewing a rather B-rated science fiction thriller, entitled: “The Rock.” I needed repeated viewings to persuade my brain the true nature of this cosmic catastrophe — and leave the popcorn behind.
And I further required a week or two more to fully process the remarkable importance of this event for my cosmic constituency: the preoccupied peoples of north central Aroostook County. Since childhood, I can vividly recall the unique thrill of spying a “shooting star” stealth-fully sneaking across the night canopy. And over the years, unusual meteor falls unforgettably worked their way into my astronomical memory. As a youth in northern Wisconsin, I canoed with fellow campers into the wilderness, tenting under the magnificent silence of those deep forests. Between the branches and leafy boughs above, I caught a breathtaking sight of two trails of meteoritic dust burning and melting away as I fell asleep cocooned in a favorite sleeping bag.
Thirty years later, I stood half frozen outside our Limestone doorway, facing south, as Leonid fireballs blazed to great lengths in early morning hours. One intruder even “corkscrewed” into fiery friction with Mother Earth high above my head. On several occasions, my students at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics caught a stranger event as a single mass of meteoritic material broke into fragments before flaming out. Then, too, smoky-style, strange ionized trails of atmospheric molecules evidenced recent meteoritic announcement. And, my wife and I added to our domesticity years back as a rock from space exploded above our heads, visible from our car dash and windshield as we drove away from the kids’ daycare provider.
Now all these magic meteor moments burst into a strange personal odyssey, gelling together over a frightened central Russian metropolis. The terrible toll upon our brothers and sisters should serve as a warning to our entire planetary village, including you, my County cousins. No, I did not say a biblical, apocalyptic warning. I am hardly qualified to forecast the good Lord’s ways and means. But I am your astronomy educator in America, who stands guard, seeing in the dark while interpreting wonder with some learned eloquence.
Here’s my take. Billions, perhaps trillions of cosmic fragments permeate and perforate our solar system. They hold no obedience to spiritual truths or consequences. They simply serve the laws of physics, subject to the errant encounters they may or may not enjoy with fellow travelers, good looking or not. Sheer probability dictates that on occasion a rather large specimen will spoil our spoiled children here on Planet Fast Food.
And that, as far as my Stanford educated eye can detect, remains the best explanation for last month’s former Soviet “sockerooni.” With seven billion humans driving (and texting) on life’s highway, surely a close encounter over a city of one million seems regrettable yet inevitable.
And don’t feel alarmed the next time a sonic boom disturbs your peace. The rock may come addressed to Caribou next time. Or Fort Fairfield, Or Presque Isle. Or Easton.
How do we respond? It is beneath us to simply either ignore the space race or to fearfully hide in our comfort caves, benumbed. It is commensurate with our dignity to accept our place upon the pale blue dot, our Earth, and seek greater communion with the cosmos. Read a Carl Sagan book, buy a telescope, search for the International Space Station. Become a meteor watcher while documenting your discoveries. Seek the scientific space within you and nurture that gift. As President Kennedy eloquently reminded us over 50 frozen years ago: “Let us invoke the wonders of science rather than its terrors.”
For the historically minded, consider the “bombing” of Chelyabinsk as a necessary reminder us of human cruelties inflicted from the sky over the last 100 years. From primitive but barbarous air attack upon the English town of Folkestone in 1917, to the unforgiving pounding of WW II targets by B-17 or V-2, to the atomic attacks upon Japan, to the manifestation of robotic drones, we should see this cosmic shock as a reminder of the terrors we humans rationalize to destroy lives and property. And ironically, the Russian people suffered unrelieved loss of life during the Second World War. And it was also in Russian Siberia where the comet impact over Tunguska shocked life, both wild and civilized, in 1908. History teaches us, I pray, to reclaim the sky for its original astronomical intentions: gentle awe, curiosity, and beauty.
For the community of the faithful, I call for renewed concern and love for all the victims of air attack, whether intentional or unintentional. That remains the Rock to stand upon in our day and age.
Why not write a letter, send an e-mail, or an act of random kindness to any of the Russian families who suffered physical or mental injury from the recent example of celestial “shock and awe”? Why concern ourselves with biblical revelation and prophecy when the times call for converting, what Adlai Stevenson once remarked, of the fearful and suspicious into friends and neighbors. Then we can all shout and celebrate with the old Christian manifesto: “Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. No one was there.”
Larry Berz of Caribou is director of Easton’s Francis Malcolm Planetarium and astronomy instructor at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics. He invites all sky citizens to stand together at Caribou’s Shop ‘N Save to view the friendly skies with “Goliath” telescope, Wednesday, March 13, weather permitting. Comet Pan-Starrs, the wafer-thin lunar crescent, and King Jupiter await you.
