Sonnet XXXIX

Galactic bubble with an embryonic star least 8 times the mass of the Sun nestled in its shell. This star could one day be one of the brightest in the galaxy.

Calculating the probabilities
that our world is constructed uniquely ―
intoxicating possibilities
that others will cross our way obliquely.
Let’s ponder how life might exist elsewhere,
it’s sensible! Where are the right pools
for life to begin, so temperate and fair?
Astrobiologists do not have those rules
to explain the riddles of creation,
or the imprint of initial cosmos.
Astronauts query, in the space station:
they study the origins of homos.
The knowledge they uncover is sublime,
to feed dreams we will share for all of time.

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Photo credit:  European Space Agency

Four Brilliance Senryu

Sunlight

lunar brilliance
what is intemperate darkness
if not the flip side

dancing in color
fabrics shimmer and reflect
chromatic brilliance

brilliance of the grass
blades blaze in radiation
yellow as the sun

a sign from above
brilliance from the heavens
to light up our days

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Written for:

This week’s theme is: Brilliance

Also Posted on:

A ray of hope flickers in the sky –  Prompt # 137

Also posted on:

A Word with Laurie: Ethereal

Sonnet VI

>  Logo of the Center for NanoScience was “written” by pushing around
atoms of Gold [PTCDA = Au(11) using a nanomanipulator.”]

Atomic beach balls tossed beyond the bumps
of solid golden strips will now design
a strange imaginary landscape. Clumps
of particles appear to now entwine.
Electrons guided with some magic wands
create a message to my covered eyes.
These nanonistic, small molec’lar bonds
reveal to me all earthly matter ties.
I track and hover through the quarks of chance
enthralled by how our measurements can rule
the future of all technical advance;
A strange discovery: a student’s tool.
By thought and reason great ones had their turn.
now, with my hands, some new things I shall learn.

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I wrote this one in 1993 after attending an IEEE convention in Seattle and learning about the Nanomanipulator. Warren Robinet was speaking and he said, “Imagine atoms the size of beach balls…” He was referring to a futuristic version of the nanomanipulator, where a virtual image of atoms (like a hologram) would be in the air, right in front of your face. You would have the capability of moving atoms around, like moving beach balls in the air. But that would not be a dream. That would not be a game. It would be a virtual interface to a nanomanipulator, and you would really be moving around atoms within the scanning tunneling microscope. He discussed how in the future, this could be a pedagogical method of teaching chemistry. That is, the students would learn molecular structure by actually moving around the virtual atoms and creating molecules.

His presentation was very stimulating, so I wrote this sonnet. I sent to him, and he sent it to the lab. They posted the sonnet on the bulletin board in their lab, and then Russell M. Taylor  published the sonnet in the appendix of “The nanomanipulator: a virtual-reality interface for a scanning tunneling microscope.”  http://www.warrenrobinett.com/nano/index.html

A great link to get an idea of how a nanomanipulator moves atoms around would be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W7lcYoBA98

Sonnet XXXIII

Illustration of the frame-dragging effect in which space and time are dragged around a massive body

Newton thought space and time were absolute
then Einstein discussed relativity.
It was easy to prove an attribute
of an attractive force: captivity
of bodies, was not new. Now imagine
a planet immersed in honey: as it
rotates, it swirls and pulls with an action
much like spinning space time. In an orbit
around the earth, four precise gyroscopes
measure this effect. Quantized current flows
until it detects magnetic stream slopes
differential. A spin-axis opposes
new directions. The strength of gravity
can’t match the speed of light’s velocity.

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This sonnet is about gravity Probe B (GP-B), a mission sponsored by NASA aimed to prove the effects of Albert Einstein’s 1916 general theory of relativity.

Rather than quoting them verbatim, you can read more about this project on:

http://einstein.stanford.edu/MISSION/mission1.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/gpb/gpb_results.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dc2487ce8ed9dc6,0

Posted on:

Open Link Night, Week 27

Sonnet XXXII

The Space Station's Massive Solar Arrays

The Space Station’s golden solar arrays
squeeze out the last morsel of energy
from each orbit. An instrument surveys
all dosages of power at every
diurnal spin as they revolve around
the planet. Large measures of power will
be sucked into the batteries. Compound
silicon solar cells dominate. Still,
it is the rotary joint that lets
the panels track the sun and seize
the rays. ISS spins until it sets
into shadow. It performs this with ease
just like a geometry, zipping all through
limited plasma fields of cobalt blue.

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This comes from @Astro_Ron ‘s (Ron Garan)  http://twitpic.com/4s3pix

This was a difficult sonnet to write in that it contained many engineering concepts. In general, it’s easier to incorporate science into poetry than it is to incorporate engineering.

Posted on:

Open Link Night, Week 26

Sonnet XXVI

Sunset over Western South America

Sonnet XXVI

The light scatters in ways no one ever
conceived. The sun’s effects permanently
continue, and there’s no chance to sever
ourselves from power that radiantly
shines on horizon’s edge, for sunlight
is as diffuse as life on earth below.
In orbit, at a superlative height,
the landscape is of mountain and plateau.
Observe the graphic spectacle, more real
than anything a human can witness.
It’s a palace spinning like a Ferris-wheel,
from whence no one leaves, yet all must egress.
On the planet, darkness is divided
by rays of light the sun has provided.

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NASA posted the picture above on the “Earth Observatory/Image of the Day Page.”

@NotAJoe on twitter tweeted the link. After viewing the image, I wrote the following haiku:

on the edge of space
sunlight lights the horizon
diffuse, like earthllife

Then I decided to write the sonnet I posted above. Check out the NASA link if you want to know more about it. The link discusses “the terminator.” Terminator is the changeover between day and night, as seen by someone in orbit.

Posted on:

Poet’s United

The Poetry Pantry Is Now Open! – #77