Daily Archives: June 1, 2006

Just a Pile of Gravel?

Very interesting:

The small asteroid Itokawa is just a loosely packed pile of rubble that collected after a collision between asteroids, according to a slew of new studies based on data from Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft. The asteroid appears to be plagued by recurring impacts and tremors today, making its continued survival a mystery.

Hayabusa made two attempts to collect samples from the 535-metre-long space rock in November 2005. The attempts appear to have failed, but that will not be clear unless the spacecraft can be returned to Earth, which scientists are hoping to do in 2010. But during its approach, the spacecraft did take images and other data on Itokawa’s topology, composition and gravity field.

According to the article, the asteroid is 40% porous, compared with a handful of sand which is about 20% porous. Over time, one would expect that it would have collided with other objects, either breaking it apart or condensing it together. It’s current form seems highly unlikely.

Pura Vida

I said I would try to publish some of my Costa Rican pictures, but I haven’t gotten around to uploading any of them yet. However, I did scan in this one picture that our friend Jorge gave us of a charming waterfall that we saw on our first day. A waterfall doesn’t have to be big to be beautiful or impressive.

wfall1.jpg

Better than the Da Vinci Code

It’s got some of the same vibe, sans the wonky conspiracy theories, of course. But what makes it truly compelling is that it’s real:

Ancient scroll may yield religious secrets

ATHENS, Greece – A collection of charred scraps kept in a Greek museum’s storerooms are all that remains of what archaeologists say is Europe’s oldest surviving book — which may hold a key to understanding early monotheistic beliefs.

More than four decades after the Derveni papyrus was found in a 2,400-year-old nobleman’s grave in northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to uncovering new text — through high-tech digital analysis — from the blackened fragments left after the manuscript was burnt on its owner’s funeral pyre.

The book may have been transcribed during the reign of Philip of Macedon, who is remembered primarily for being the father of Alexander the Great. It was probably written a century or so earlier than that. One Scholar asserts that the book was most likely authored by a philosopher connected to Anaxagoras.

dionysus.jpgThe difficult task of reading the text is ongoing. Apparently it deals with the beliefs of the mystery cult of Orpheus, which is asserted to be an early step in the direction of monotheism (early for the Greeks, anyhow) and a precursor to Christianity. Based on the limited information available (and my very limited knowledge of these matters) it looks more like a precursor to some of the gnostic cults.

Anyhow, discoveries like this are always exciting. Even if nothing world-shaking is found in the text, it can give us a clearer picture of that time — what people were interested in, what some of them believed. I was intrigued to read that Anaxagoras was accused of atheism, although he was described by David Hume as being “the first undoubted theist” among all the philosphers.

People were arguing aout these things 2500 years ago, and 500 years ago, and they’re still arguing about them today. Comforting or depressing? You decide.