Mapping the Goldilocks Zone - the Precious Atmospheres of Three Planets

Everyone remembers the college "urban legend" of a competitive major's first freshman class, where the Professor standing from a podium before an audience of "wide-eyed" students, almost proudly boasts a sneering threat on their probability of academic failure.

It goes something like ... "For those of you freshman just accepted to [insert your prestigious University name here]'s elite major in [insert Engineering, Pre-Med, Physics or similar rigorous speciality here], I offer a prediction. It is based on historical fact. Look to the left of you, look to the right of you.  [Insert choice of 'impending doom' exclusion - One, Both or All] of you will not be here at graduation."

Perhaps surprisingly, this never made me think of the value of a good education, or even the value of a good teacher (possibly because for "my undergrad" I went to Penn State, joined a fraternity, and arguably majored in beer). But it did make me think of how lucky we are to have a planet is the "Goldilocks Zone". It's the "precious place in cosmic space" which resolves the childrens' story conundrum of "not too hot & not too cold"; a planetary zone that can support life as we know it.

This recent graphic from the UNEP/GRID-Arendal again reminded me of this blessing, our planetary orbital 'cradle' that brought us here today. 

In layman's terms, to one side of Earth, we have a "freeze-dried" planet, Mars - also called the red planet from its reddish appearance yet almost inspite of its prevailing surface temperatures. Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −87 °C (−125 °F) during the polar winters to highs of up to −5 °C (23 °F) in summers. Summary: Too cold.

To the other side, Venus. While named for a goddess of beauty, it might as well be called the "microwave" planet. Also once called Earth's "sister" planet, it has an atmosphere that releases so little of the sun's energy that its effectively "overcooked", with an almost constant surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F). Summary: Too hot.

An there in "the middle" is our beautiful, brilliant "blue marble" of Earth, hanging in the same cold void of space yet somehow teaming with life. Just right! 

Now when I "look left, look right" on a planetary scale, I see what we as humans must avoid "at home" and also the future opportunity to "travel abroad".  Venus stands as a global warning of atmospheric change, loudly proclaiming "beware your fragile atmosphere". While Mars is a potential path of planetary colonization in the future - for if humans know one thing, its how to warm a place up! Still a foreboding message, but one I like to ponder (often with a beer) & smile.

Full credits:
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Sources	Calvin, J. Hamilton, Views of the Solar System, www.planetscapes.com; Bill Arnett, The nine planets: a multimedia tour of the solar system, www.seds.org/billa/tnp/nineplanets.html
Link to web-site	http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3056.aspx
Cartographer/ Designer	Philippe Rekacewicz, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Appears in	Vital Climate Graphics
Published	2000

Mapping Equinoxes - Understanding Seasonal Change from a Perspective in space

This is both a nice textual and visual explanation of the changes in season.

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:
" ....One of the most frequently misunderstood concepts in science is the reason for Earth’s seasons. As we experience the September equinox today .... we thought we’d offer a space-based view of what’s going on.... The shape of this line between night and day varies with the seasons, which means different lengths of days and differing amounts of warming sunshine...."

"....Of course, it is not the Sun that is moving north or south through the seasons, but a change in the orientation and angles between the Earth and its nearest star. The axis of the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane. The axis is tilted away from the Sun at the December solstice and toward the Sun at the June solstice, spreading more and less light on each hemisphere. At the equinoxes, the tilt is at a right angle to the Sun and the light is spread evenly...."

Full article link - click here

Full Credits:

NASA images and animation by Robert Simmon, using data ©2010 EUMETSAT. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument:

Meteosat

Related Readings:

1. Stern, D. (2005) From Stargazers to Starships: Seasons of the Year. Accessed September 22, 2011.
2. U.S. Naval Observatory Day and Night Across the Earth. Accessed September 22, 2011.
3. U.S. Naval Oceanographer Earth's Seasons. Accessed September 22, 2011.

Mapping Planetary Rotation in a Binary Star System

This link comes from NASA's Image of the Day and shows how the planetary system might look to a visiting spaceship.



A "Cut and Paste" highlight from the site:


Kepler-16b: A Planet with Two Suns
" Explanation: If you stay up long enough, you can watch both suns set. Such might be a common adage from beings floating in the atmosphere of Kepler 16b, a planet recently discovered by the space-based Kepler satellite. The above animated video shows how the planetary system might look to a visiting spaceship. Although multiple star systems are quite common, this is the first known to have a planet. Because our Earth is in the orbital plane of both stars and the planet, each body is seen to eclipse the others at different times, producing noticeable drop offs in the amount of light seen. The frequent eclipses have given Kepler 16b the most accurate mass and radius determination for a planet outside our Solar System. To find a planet like Saturn in an orbit like Venus -- so close to its binary star parents -- was a surprise and will surely become a focus of research."

Full credits:
APOD NASA Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC & Michigan Tech. U.

Illustrated Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle; Acknowledgement: djxatlanta

Mapping Adventures - the archeological fantasy locations of Indiana Jones

I will always be an Indiana Jones fan. This movie series was one of those "cultural foundation points" that shaped my younger life. Full credits to Matt Busch for this neat project. Really impressive - this is a complication of not only movie referenced locations, but comic books, video games, the television series and even the theme park references (?!) as well.

Had to post this "best geek-out" video.

Mapping the Future of Space Exploration - Orion

Look forward to the future of space travel - the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV).

Got Mail? Mapping the Expansion of the Post Office Network (1700-1900)

Posted this one for my brother-in-law, who keeps the US mail moving "rain or shine" (thank you, Juan Carlos).

I recommend pausing the time series for the War of 1812 and the Civil War in 1862. It helped me gain a geographic perspective of our nation's expansion from its colonial beginnings.




Posted: Visualizing US expansion through post offices. from Derek Watkins on Vimeo.
This is a visualization of US expansion in North America from 1700 to 1900, seen through changes in the spatial distribution of post offices.

Data from the USPS Postmaster Finder, with lat/long coordinates extracted from placenames through correlation with the USGS Geographic Names Information System.

Mapping Migration - a Visualization of Inflow & Outflows by Nation

As the election season matures and the Census decennial data slowing "leaks" out, there has been a lot of focus on America's changing demographics.  Below is a neat site that visualizes the migration inflow & outflows by nation.

Here is a screenshot (from peoplemov) of the US migration inflows, interesting how the drop off in count is dramatic after the Mexico-USA corridor is tabulated (oceans will do that to migration...).

"Cut & Paste" Highlights from peoplemovin:

"...the flows of migrants as of 2010 through the use of open data (see Data Sources below).... are presented as a flow chart that shows the connections between countries. The chart is split in two columns, the emigration countries on the left and the destination countries on the right ... [t]he thickness of the lines connecting the countries represents the amount of immigrated people. ..."

This isn't exclusively limited to US data.  The "world's top migration corridor" list makes me "muse" a bit.  It's fascinating where the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are "moving to".

Migration Data:

The World Bank Open Data
Bilateral Migration and Remittances 2010

Refugees and Asylum

Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011

World Population Data

U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base

 

Data Sources - All the presented data are the latest available as of 2010.

peoplemovin is an experimental project in data visualization by Carlo Zapponi. Credits also go to FlowingData for bringing this site to my attention.

Mapping New Nations - South Sudan

While it happens more often than you think, new nations are not "born" every day.  South Sudan has joined the ranks of the world's newest nation, obtaining independence on 9 July 2011. Below are some images and links to the latest references and population of South Sudan.  It should come as no surprise, forming a nation is just the beginning (and no guarantee of permanence).  While I wish the South Sudanese well in their independence, here is a list of former sovereign states (Wikipedia - List of former states)...
CIA Factbook - Listing by Nation:


 
CIA Factobook by Country

Continent/Country Listing - CAI Factbook

CIA Factbook of South Sudan:


CIA Factbook page for South Sudan

South Sudan country page - CIA Factbook



Specific to population cartograms, here is a quick "cut and paste" of a interesting population analysis of the now subdivided region:



"The following gridded population cartogram shows the population distribution within and between these two nations, giving every person living in the region the same amount of space. For the much smaller population in the south it will be hard work ahead in building a new nation.... (Guardian news article - "South Sudan: a nation in the making" )

Sudan Population Cartogram  South Sudan - Views of the World

Full credits to Views of the World for brining this top my attentions. In particular special map creation credit to: The map was created by Benjamin D. Hennig and is property of the Sasi Research Group (University of Sheffield). PhD research project of Benjamin David Hennig, University of Sheffield supervised by Professor Danny Dorling, Dr Mark Ramsden, Dr Dimitris Ballas.



Mapping the night sky - a stunning time lapse series

These are some absolutely stunning night sky compilations put together by Randy Halverson at DakotaLapse.com After watching every video on his site in "near awe", I just had to post these videos and links.



Milky Way preview from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.


These really are so visually stunning, they lead me to rethink the nature of the night sky & why we should always "look up to the heavens" for a different, perhaps more humbling, point of view.


Sub Zero - winter night time-lapse from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.


From his site feed:


" ... During the month of May, I shot Milky Way time-lapse in central South Dakota when I had the time, and the weather cooperated. The biggest challenge was cloudy nights and the wind. There were very few nights, when I could shoot, that were perfectly clear, and often the wind was blowing 25mph +. That made it hard to get the shots I wanted. I kept most of the shots low to the ground, so the wind wouldn’t catch the setup and cause camera shake, or blow it over. I used a Stage Zero Dolly on the dolly shots and a “Milapse” mount on the panning ones.

This was all shot at night. If you see stars and it looks like daylight, it is actually moon light. 20+ second exposures make it look like daylight..."

More at the page link to Plains Milk Way

Mapping Ice - Arctic and Antarctic Ice Depths

Recently the European Space Agency posted imagery of sea-ice thickness from ESA’s CryoSat mission to both poles of the earth. Here is a link to a nice time series image of ice loss over three decades: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cryosat/SEMQK4908BE_1.html 

From their site:
" ...CryoSat measures the height of the sea ice above the water line, known as the freeboard, to calculate the thickness. The measurements used to generate this first map of the Arctic were from January and February 2011, as the ice approaches its annual maximum.."

"... For the first time, data from ESA’s CryoSat mission have been used

to map the height of the ice sheet that blankets Antarctica. The preliminary data used here are from February and March 2011... CryoSat's ability to map the edges of the ice sheet is demonstrated by the detail that can be seen of the flow from east Antarctica onto the Ronne-Filchner ice shelf in the west. ... [t]he outer white circle represents the limits of earlier missions and the inner circle shows that CryoSat is collecting data up 88° latitude..."

Full credit to the Map Room for bringing this to my attention.

Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic maps - When Depictions of Life intersects Location

Neat blog post on Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic maps. Credits to The Map Room and Donna Seger's The Streets of Salem of bringing this to my attention.


From her post " ... The shift from conceptual to more realistic cartography in the early modern era is a very evident and important trend, but early modern mapmakers retained a bit of whimsy when they produced maps in the form of plants, animals and humans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries...."

 German theology professor Heinrich Bunting’s Travels according to the Scriptures (1581): 

Specific to this image, " ...Another lively early modern map is the “Dutch Lion” map (Leo Belgicus, Leo Hollandicus ) issued in a succession of variations from the late sixteenth century, contemporaneously with the Dutch Revolt against Spain. The rebellious Dutch provinces are shown in the form of a lion, roaring in the face of the powerful Spanish Empire...."

"Leo Hollandicus", JC Visscher, 1648

Chicago in 3-D

Mapping Oil Production - More Crude than you think

Found this via the Map Room with credits to Market Place (research by Adam Popescu).

Quick Cut & Paste:
" .... On the one-year anniversary of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we take a look at the future of crude as we enter an era of "tough oil." This interactive map - and our coverage below - examines how world crude oil production has shifted over the years, particularly from 1960 to 2010, as oil producers search for new locations and methods for extracting oil...."

Full article & interactive map - click here.

Mapping your LinkedIn Network

Neat way to understand your porfessional "spheres of connection".
From LinkedIn Labs  - InMaps - Visualize your LinkedIn network.

Mapping Android Usage - Activations by Continent

Interesting given all the recent press around "Apple-nation" - never count "the 'Droid" out.
Still no GSM for Apple iPhone on Verizon (aarrgghh).
Credits to FlowingData for bringing this to my attention.

Mapping Units of Measure -Size is relative in the Universe

Size is "relative" in the universe.



From the NASA APOD Project:
Star Size Comparisons



Credit & Copyright: morn1415 (YouTube)


Explanation: How big is our Sun compared to other stars? In a dramatic and popular video featured on YouTube, the relative sizes of planets and stars are shown from smallest to largest. The above video starts with Earth's Moon and progresses through increasingly larger planets in our Solar System. Next, the Sun is shown along as compared to many of the brighter stars in our neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy. Finally, some of the largest stars known spin into view. Note that the true sizes of most stars outside of the Sun and Betelgeuse are not known by direct observation, but rather inferred by measurements of their perceived brightness, temperature, and distance. Although an inspiring learning tool that is mostly accurate, APOD readers are encouraged to complete the learning experience -- and possibly help make future versions more accurate -- by pointing out slight inaccuracies in the video.

Mapping the International Space Station (ISS): A timeline visualization of construction

This is a nice timeline visualization from USA Today on the "evolution of construction" for the International Space Station (ISS) - beginning in 1998 thru 2010.

USA Today ISS timeline

The Alteryx Grand Prix - a video at Las Vegas Speedway