An Avoidable Pitfall

Tonight, after lights-out, Daniel asked me whether the moon is fire.

This is actually a very reasonable question; the sun is fire, after all - plus helium and other stuff, yeah, yeah, we know, but for our purposes, it's fire. And the moon shines in the sky at night. So why shouldn't the moon be fire? I prefer the blue cheese motif, but fire works pretty well, until you bring in the actual scientists or astronauts.

In fact, to answer this question, I drafted our resident scientist/astronaut. Ian has some interest in being an astronaut when he grows up, and I'm sure that he already knows more astronomy than I do. So I invited Ian to answer that question, and he did so, with extreme detail and precision, and a pinch of metaphor.

At that point, Daniel mentioned black holes. Daniel thinks about black holes a great deal - mostly because of a rather sadistic film that we watched at the nearby Space Center, ironically intended for an audience of young adults, at the space center. The irony of its dedication to children is that it has managed mostly to make Daniel terrified of black holes. This series works that way; they had a film ostensibly focused around meteors entitled, "Impact Earth." The Black Holes movie actually shows what "would happen" if an astronaut were actually to attempt the adventure of travelling into a black hole. Gradually, you see this simulated image of an astronaut stretch out like salt water taffy as he makes the unfortunate journey toward the center of the black hole. And Ian rose to the occasion tonight, to address Daniel's question, explaining how nobody could actually make it into a black hole, because their flesh would be torn to shreds well before lunch.

And Daniel's reaction was wonderful: he said something like, "Ian, maybe you don't wanna be - I know you want to be a astronaut, but maybe you shouldn't be one."

In other words, Daniel was trying to dissuade Ian from pursuing a career in space, so that he wouldn't have an occasion to fall, accidentally, into a black hole.

This is where Ian came through with a listing of the reasons that probably the U.S. won't be in danger of losing astronauts to black holes an time soon. Suddenly, the discussion was focused on physical space, rather than astronomic space.

I guess Ian can go to medical school, now that we know he'll be safe.

(February 7, 2012)