Wonders of Nature

     T here is a diffuse and disk-shaped region of our immediate neighborhood filled with trillions of icy bodies, a few approach the size of our moon. The most famous, of course, is the once the ninth planet, Pluto. We have only known about this heavenly realm for a few dozen years and there is so much more to discover... Source: Nasa Space Place      T he Kuiper belt is a resting place for comets, but change is everpresent in the universe, and so objects from it occasionally wonder off. Some have fundamentally shaped life here on earth. You see, all of the heavenly bodies around Sol are bound to each other through the wonder of gravity. The icy bodies speak to each other through fundamental forces, and we humans on this tiny rock are left to imagine the outcomes of their conversation.       T here is something worthwhile about contemplating ourselves as living on a tiny rock floating in the unknow ether of the cosmos. From our minut...

The Orion Nebula T he vastness of space belies human experience. In comparsion, we are tiny, ephmeral creatures living on a speck of dust. It is not truly possible, I believe, to grasp the grandeur of the cosmos, to hold the whole of it in our imagination, but we can see enough to wonder, to feel our place in it. Most of us, as we peruse through social media, will scroll by images like The Pillars of Creation and marvel at their beauty, even if for a moment. Perhaps some may consider all the scientific and technological achievement required to take such an image. Most common elements in Nebulas N ebulas are where stars and solar systems are born out of the interstellar medium, a dance of radiation, magnetism and matter that exists among the stars. The Orion Nebula , owing to its largeness in the sky, may be the most famous. We see it because the gases within have ignited in color. Hydrogen is the main ingredient.  As it transitions form one state of energy to...

S tanding on a glacier is a geographer’s dream. It is rather like stepping through a time portal... not like a door that takes you to another age, but one that allows you to observe the scale of geologic time. The earth is constantly in motion, the landscape churns with activity, but we humans cannot see it, not until you stand on atop a melting ice river, and you know what to look for. Terminal end of Sólheimajökulsvegur Glacier, Iceland T he terminal end of a glacier is much like I imagined it to be, perhaps not much different that the surface of a comet. There is a lot of grit, in this case, black and grey ground from lava and basalt. Moving ice is eroding the sides of this volcaninc range quite effectively. Streaks and splotches interrupt the deep, dull grey with minerals from broken veins, rusty red, vibrant ocre, and turquoise in color. A n iceberg floats along the far end of a small lake. By the glacier, mounds of till merge with geometric ice forms. Glaciers l...

Source: Nasa.gov I f you really want to know... I 'm a very flighty person, never satisfied with the view.  I like to explore, look beyond the next hill. That's why I became a geographer. This is particularly true of the mental realm, the landscape of ideas. It's gotten me in trouble. T he problem is, unlike the material world where the ground feels solid beneath me, it didn't take me long to realize the landscape of my mind is quite different. I can simultaneously be situated in completely contrary ideas and not even know it for years.  When I discovered this apparent flaw, I didn't take it well. M ost of my really important finds, have come in stages, like for example, the notion that belief itself has much to do with the physical.  My body, through feelings and emotions, shapes my thoughts in a way that counter what I was taught in school. The physical and mental, are not separate realms, rather they connect through my body. To live and be healthy one ...