The Bad Astronomy Newsletter

Bad Astronomy Newsletter #27

Contents:

1. Moon hoax in the news again
2. New article in the Boston Globe
3. Bad Medicine now out
4. Report from NYC
5. Leonids on their way!
6. Subscribe/Unsubscribe info

1) Moon hoax in the news again

When will this thing finally go away? Never, I guess. Once again, the Moon hoax is in the news. First, NASA announced that it would be sponsoring author and space historian James Oberg to write a book detailing the problems with the hoax theory. A reporter for Knight Ridder (a syndicated news agency) wrote about it and the story was widely picked up by the press. Evidently the story made a bit of a splash; ABC TV news anchor Peter Jennings commented on this on his nightly national news program, basically making fun of the whole situation. Here is what he said:

"We didn't know that NASA had been so rattled by those people out there who think the Apollo moon landings, all six of them, were faked. But yes, a Gallup Poll in 1999 found six percent who thought they were. And yes, it's only a few thousand dollars NASA wants to spend, doesn't begin to compare to what a few politicians are spending just to get to Washington. But NASA has actually hired a former aerospace engineer, who's now an author, to write a book refuting the conspiracy theorists. A professor of astronomy in California said he thought it was beneath NASA 's dignity to give these Twinkies the time of day. Now, that was his phrase, by the way. We simply wonder about NASA."

I don't think NASA was all that "rattled"; they simply wanted to have a book available to provide a tool to teachers to answer student questions about the hoax. I talk to a lot of teachers, and many of them tell me that the Fox TV show really got to a lot of students. They were happy to find info on the web debunking the hoax theory , and in my opinion a book in school libraries across the nation would be a great benefit to these educators.

I don't think Mr. Jennings' light-hearted comments helped much, though, because I think it's a bit unfair about NASA's motivations. Yes, the "professor of astronomy in California" is me (though I am not a professor, but that's a different story). The "twinkies" comment was referring to the promulgators of the hoax, not those who believe in it. Also, the quotation is somewhat out of context; the full context is that it's too bad that NASA has to do this at all, just as it's too bad I need to debunk this theory in the first place on my own website.

Believe me, I really wish this nonsense didn't exist in the first place! I think it's distracting people from the real vision of NASA, which is quite simply the exploration of Earth and space. Still, all this foofaraw was enough to spark the next circumstance:  NASA canceled the book project for fear of bad publicity. They felt that the initial intent of the project -- to simply have an academic-style book about the Moon landings and why they were real-- was lost in the media hype. They feared that this was turning into a tabloid-like situation.

I know that NASA wants to make sure the truth gets out to people, and I think it's great that they are interested in countering the Moon hoax. But now I fear they may have done more damage than if they had simply ignored the situation all along. "In for a penny, in for a pound" is an apt expression here; once they decided to sponsor the book, they should have stuck with it. Now it's too late. If they change their minds again they'll look wishy-washy.

What I do know for sure is that it will now be incrementally harder to counter the kind of claptrap spewed by the hoax proponents. The book would have been a very nice and much-needed volume that teachers could have used in their classrooms. I know they use my site, as well as Jay Windley's site too.

Students generally don't yet have (and are usually never taught) the critical thinking skills necessary to see through the hoax hokum, and teachers need all the ammo they can get. James Oberg has said he will be pursuing funding to go ahead with the project anyway. He has a lot of support from people, including me. And if you think this issue is dying, think again: Reuters reporter Deb Zabarenko wrote about the hoax a few days ago, and mentioned my website. In three days my site had a quarter of a million hits. That's how many I usually get in a month!

As long as this thing lasts, people like James, Jay and I will fight it. Count on it. You can read the original article by Mr. Borenstein in many places, but here's one. Here is his follow-up article announcing the cancellation of the book. More articles about this are all over the web. The BBC has one. Ms. Zabarenko's article is everywhere, but here's one place. A good place to read more info is the NASA Watch website. And, as always, this topic and more are discussed with fervor on the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board.

2) New article in the Boston Globe

I am pleased to announce that I will be writing astronomy articles for the prestigious newspaper The Boston Globe. The premier article came out this week, and is about the Planet X nonsense. I am writing more right now, and hopefully this will become at least a semi-regular gig. You can read the article online.

3) Bad Medicine now out

Speaking of books and writing, the second book in the Bad Science series is now out: Bad Medicine. Written by my friend Chris Wanjek, it's a funny look at "alternative" medicines as well as misconceptions on how real medicine works. I laughed out loud many times while reading it, and learned a lot. You can get the book at fine bookstores anywhere, or through Amazon.com through my own website.

4) Report from NYC

I just returned from giving a Bad Astronomy talk at the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, part of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This is one of the world's best museums, and it's not hard to see why. I could only spend a day there, and could have stayed for a week. It's amazing. The Rose Center is a pretty cool place, with stunning architecture.

In the middle of the glass cube building is a huge 87 foot wide sphere made of metal panels. It's enormous, and reminds me of a larger version of the dodecahedron Jodie Foster rode in "Contact". There is a pathway on which you walk which compares the sizes of objects in the Universe to the sphere. If the sphere is the size of the Sun, the Earth, for example, is just a few inches across. They set different objects as the size of the sphere to help you understand the scale of the Universe. It's a fascinating walk.

My talk went pretty well. Too well, in fact; several friends came to see it and I hardly had time to talk to them! I hope they can be patient and I can catch up with them the next time I am up that way. You can read about the Rose Center, how it was constructed and see amazing images of it at their website.

My thanks to astronomer Dr. Neil Tyson for inviting me to give a talk, and to Stephanie Parello for helping me along when I got there.

5) Leonids on their way!

Hoo boy, the Leonids are back, and with a vengeance! This year, the fabled meteor storm is predicted to exceed previous years, if you can believe it. The United States is actually favored this time, and even the West Coast! I might actually see something this year, if it isn't raining. There are two predicted peaks, one at 11:00 p.m. (Eastern U.S. Time) on November 18, and another 6.5 hours later at 05:30 a.m. Eastern Time. All you need to do is go outside, lie down (I suggest a lawn chair and a blanket!) and look up. The meteors will appear all over the sky, although they will appear to be coming from the direction of the constellation of Leo, which rises around midnight or so.

Unfortunately, the full Moon's light will interfere with the show, but it should still be a good one. And the Moon will be mostly gone by the second peak for people on the East Coast of the U.S., so you may actually have better seats! For more info, check out these pages: http://www.astronomy.com/content/static/PressRoom/2002/Nov02Leonids/Leonids.asp
and http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/meteors/article_719_1.asp My own Leonids page is from the 1998 storm, but has links to other sites with general meteor observing info.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
badastro@badastronomy.com
http://www.badastronomy.com