• Solar eclipse goes social and global

    Wally Santana / AP

    An annular solar eclipse is seen briefly during a break in clouds over Taipei, Taiwan.

    By Alan Boyle


    The sun, moon and Earth lined up today for a spectacular "Ring of Fire" annular eclipse that sparked social rites as ancient as Stonehenge and as modern as the Twitterverse.

    Eclipse fans gathered in locales ranging from Japan's Mount Fuji, to the alien-hunting Allen Telescope Array in California, to the ancient Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico. But they gathered online as well, to share the wonders of the event via webcasts and chatrooms and Twitter feeds.

    "Is it bad that instead of just going outside I'm watching photo updates of the eclipse on Instagram?" one tweeter asked.

    This event held special significance for American skywatchers: It marked the first time in 18 years that an annular solar eclipse could be seen from the United States. Such eclipses occur when the moon is too far away in its elliptical orbit to cover the sun's disk completely, as seen from Earth. As a result, a little ring of the sun remains visible around the moon's dark disk, even at the height of the eclipse. (The term "annular" comes from "annulus," a Latin word meaning "little ring.")

    Centuries ago, priests may have celebrated eclipses at Stonehenge with religious rites. But today, the residents of Redding, Calif., celebrated with barbecue parties. "It's become a very social event," said Tim Young, a physics professor from the University of North Dakota who helped organize an eclipse webcast from Shasta College in Redding.

    MSNBC's Thomas Roberts reports that the western U.S. and eastern Asia are seeing a rare type of solar eclipse.

    The event began in Asia, where the edge of the moon's shadow touched down at dawn on Monday (on the other side of the International Date Line). A camera crew atop Mount Fuji battled inclement weather that partially obscured the annular phase, but their live Internet stream still managed to catch a few glimpses through the clouds. More than 275,000 viewers tuned in to the webcast, the project's organizers said.

    Eclipse tours were arranged in Japan, China and Taiwan to take skywatchers to the central part of the moon's shadow, where the annular "Ring of Fire" effect was visible. Tokyo residents had a ringside seat, so to speak. "It was a very mysterious sight," Kaori Sasaki, who joined a crowd in downtown Tokyo, told The Associated Press. "I've never seen anything like it." 

    The moon's shadow raced eastward at a speed of more than 2,000 miles per hour. The annular phase could be seen only from locations along a roughly 200-mile-wide, 8,500-mile-long track, for just a few minutes in any one location. In contrast, the partial eclipse rose and receded over the course of a couple of hours, and was visible over a much wider swath of the world.

    The first hints of the partial eclipse didn't show up on the U.S. West Coast until around 5 p.m. PT (6 p.m. MT, 7 p.m. CT, 8 p.m. ET). The annular phase reached its peak for Americans after 9 p.m. ET, along a line stretching from the Oregon-California coast to around Lubbock, Texas.

    Astronomers and amateurs gathered to witness the annular eclipse at the Allen Telescope Array, 70 miles northeast of Redding. Guests walked among the facility's 20-foot-wide radio antennas, which monitor the skies for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, listened to talks from SETI researchers, and then watched the eclipse through safety glasses or specially designed solar telescopes.

    One of the guests, William Phelps, peered intently through his 80mm H-alpha telescope, looking for the first signs of the moon poking into the sun's disk. He's a veteran of 16 previous eclipse-viewing sessions, but he still let out a yelp when he spotted the moon's edge through the telescope.

    "Yahoo! That's No. 17!" he cried. Then he let the other guests take their own peeks.

    As the moon covered more and more of the sun, the California afternoon seemed to get a bit cooler and dimmer, as if a tinted window had materialized in front of the mountain landscape. The sunbeams filtering through the trees threw crescent-shaped patterns on the ground. At the appointed time, the dark moon was completely ringed by sunlight, and the crescents on the ground turned into tiny O's. A cheer went up from the little crowd.

    "God, that's beautiful!" Phelps said. After a few minutes, the moon began its slow exit from the sun's disk. "I'm seeing beads," Phelps reported, referring to the "Baily's Beads" effect that occurs when bits of sunlight leak out through the valleys of the moon. 

    Slideshow: Greatest solar eclipse hits

    Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis

    See stunning images from past solar eclipses going back to the 1920s.

    Launch slideshow

    Elsewhere, more than 5,000 people gathered at the University of Colorado's Folsom Field in Boulder for a mass eclipse-watching party. "We got several really long, good views, especially right close to sunset," university spokeswoman Erin Frazier told me. A full house attended an eclipse teach-in at Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico, a sacred site for the Pueblo people and one of the prime viewing spots for the "Ring of Fire."

    Would-be watchers heeded the warnings about eye safety, and snapped up thousands upon thousands of eclipse-viewing glasses in the days leading up to the event. The University of Nevada at Reno reported that it sold 17,000 of the glasses at $2 each last week, and had to order 10,000 more. Young said he brought 600 of the special spectacles with him to Redding. His supply quickly dwindled. "It's become a mad grab for resources," he said.

    Young, who has been involved in more than a dozen webcasts since 2004, said interest in today's eclipse picked up surprisingly quickly. "Three days ago, it was not that big a deal, but as the news started playing it up, people got excited," he said.

    Decades ago, before the rise of sun-watching satellites, eclipses provided the best opportunities for astronomers to learn about the sun's structure — and they're still of scientific interest. This weekend, for example, Williams College astronomer Jay Pasachoff organized an expedition to the Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico to monitor the sun's radio emissions during the eclipse. But experts say the phenomenon's main appeal nowadays has more to do with the human psyche than with scientific studies.

    "This can get people to look up from their little anthill lives, and maybe get a sense of the bigger cosmic cycles that are going on all the time over our heads," said Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine.

    The eclipse experience can have a long-lasting effect, said Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute who conducted a tutorial at the Allen Telescope Array. "Eclipses are like potato chips, notable for the fact that in all recorded history nobody has eaten only one," he joked. "Be warned."

    More about the eclipse:

    Ready for another "potato chip"? The next sky spectacular is a partial lunar eclipse, visible from Pacific locales on June 4. That'll be followed by a rare transit of Venus on June 5. The year's other big target will be a total solar eclipse, visible from Australia and the Pacific on Nov. 13. Stay tuned for coverage of all those astronomical events.

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

    Last updated 11:59 p.m. ET.

  • Eclipse Day! Get set for 'Ring of Fire'

    During the annular eclipse, the moon will travel in front of the sun, blocking its light -- except for a so-called "ring of fire" around the edge. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    By Alan Boyle


    It's time to put on your eclipse glasses, prepare your pinhole projectors or scout out a sun-watching website: The first annular solar eclipse to pass through the United States in 18 years is on its way.

    The moon will start eating away at the sun's disk around 5 p.m. ET today — although that's early Monday morning in Asia, where the eclipse begins. A wide swath of the world between south China and the American Midwest will see a partial solar eclipse, due to the moon's position between Earth and sun. And along a roughly 200-mile-wide track, skywatchers can witness a "Ring of Fire," in which just a thin ring of the sun's disk remains uncovered. There'll be no total eclipse this time around, because the moon is too far away in orbit to match the sun's apparent size. Nevertheless, it's a sight not to be missed.

    Here are seven things you need to know about witnessing the eclipse:

    Seeing the big picture: Solar eclipses occur when the moon, sun and Earth line up closely enough for the moon to throw its shadow on earthly locations. Annular eclipses, which create that fiery ring around the moon, are actually rarer than total eclipses because the moon has to be relatively far away in its orbit. Check out this interactive for the graphic details.

    Seeing it in Asia: The moon's shadow races eastward across Earth's surface at more than 2,000 mph, starting in China's southern Guangxi Province. Theoretically, the "Ring of Fire" could be visible after 6 p.m. ET over Asian urban centers such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, Osaka and Tokyo. But for many of those cities, the weather outlook isn't that great: Cloudy skies or even thundershowers are in the forecast.

    Seeing it in America: The partial eclipse begins over the U.S. West Coast and Canada around 8 p.m. ET, and even earlier in Alaska. Skywatchers in portions of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas can witness the "Ring of Fire" effect at its peak after 9 p.m. ET. As you go farther east, sunset becomes the limiting factor. The U.S. East Coast, for example, will miss out on all phases of the eclipse. Consult NASA's clickable map to find out what will be visible from your locale. The times are listed as UTC, so subtract five hours for Central Daylight Time, six hours for Mountain Time, and seven hours for Pacific Time. Don't forget to check the weather, too.

    Seeing it safely: Experts emphasize that you should never gaze at the sun without appropriate eye protection, even when the solar disk is almost completely blocked by the moon during an annular eclipse. You can look at the sun through specially designed eclipse-viewing glasses, or through welder's glass. Those are in short supply now, but you might still be able to find the right equipment at national parks, science centers and other eclipse hot spots. You can also create a pinhole projector with supplies as simple as a sheet of paper, aluminum foil and a box. Or you can just look at the weird crescent-shaped and ring-shaped patterns created when sunlight streams through the trees. Check out this safety guide for more tips.

    Seeing it online: If you're outside the eclipse zone, or if cloudy skies spoil your view, you can still choose from more than a dozen webcasts that are promising to follow the phenomenon. If one webcast isn't working, try another. Here's a list of the webcasts we've come across.

    Sharing what you see: If you're a Twitter user, you'll want to use a hashtag like #eclipse, #eclipse2012 or #annulareclipse to let the world know about your sky sighting. And if you snap a great picture of the eclipse, won't you please share it with us, via Twitter or Instagram or Facebook? Flag your submission with the #EclipseMSNBC hashtag. We have an extra special option for DSLR users: Just upload your images using the drag-and-drop feature on this PhotoBlog page. 

    Seeing the next sky spectacular: The annular eclipse is a treat, but it's not the end of this year's big sky shows. If you have the right equipment — for example, a telescope or a pair of binoculars equipped with solar filters — you can watch the June 5 transit of Venus. (This will be the last such transit until 2117.) There's a total solar eclipse coming up on Nov. 13 that can be seen from Australia and the Pacific, as well as via the Internet. And in five years, totality will make a huge splash across the United States, for the first time since 1979. Sunday's event will provide good practice for all these coming attractions.  

    NASA's ScienceCast explains the why, when, where and how of the May 20 annular solar eclipse.

    More about the annular solar eclipse:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

  • How to see the eclipse anywhere

    Jeroen Frans

    Second Life residents watch a virtual presentation about eclipses on Exploratorium Island, in an image by Jeroen Frans (a.k.a. Frans Charming) of VesuviusGroup.com. The Exploratorium is planning a Second Life teach-in during Sunday's annular solar eclipse.

    By Alan Boyle


    If the weather cooperates, millions of people can witness Sunday's rare "Ring of Fire" solar eclipse — but what if you're one of the billions who can't? You can still watch the event online.

    That's what Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine, is planning to do. He's based in the Boston area, where not a bit of the annular solar eclipse will be visible. So MacRobert will be cruising the Internet, looking for a webcast with a stable video stream.

    He should have plenty of webcasts to choose from. "There are more popping up as we get closer to the event," he told me.

    Sunday's spectacle isn't your garden-variety solar eclipse: Because the moon is farther away from Earth than usual, the angular size of the lunar disk isn't quite wide enough to cover up the sun completely. Thus, at the peak of the eclipse, a thin ring of the sun's bright photosphere will remain exposed around the moon's dark circle.

    NASA's ScienceCast explains the why, when, where and how of the May 20 annular solar eclipse.

    That's what's known as an annular eclipse, which gets its name from the Latin word for "little ring": annulus. The little ring can be seen from a 200-mile-wide strip of territory, extending from southern China, through Japan, across the North Pacific and over to the U.S. West Coast. From the Oregon-California border, the strip goes across parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

    The "Ring of Fire" effect lasts just a few minutes. For about an hour before and after the big event, a partial solar eclipse will darken the sun and then retreat. The partial phase can also be seen to varying degrees from a much wider swath of eastern Asia, the Pacific and North America.

    If you're in the eclipse zone, do not gaze at the sun without taking proper precautions. Such precautions can range from eclipse-viewing glasses, to specially designed solar filters, to pinhole projectors. Check out this NASA Web page or this video for the details. Here's a detailed video about eye safety from Eyes on the Sky. (Thanks, @AstronomyDave!)

    If you're not in the eclipse zone, you're not alone: The U.S. East Coast, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Antarctica will be totally left out. And let's face it: Even if you are in the zone, the weather may not cooperate. That's especially the case for places like Hong Kong and Guangzhou, where millions might miss the annular eclipse due to cloudy skies. "This is monsoon season in south China, so they're going to need quite a bit of luck to have a chance of seeing this one," MacRobert said.

    Watching the eclipse via a webcast isn't a sure thing, either. The skies might be clouded over at the camera location. There could be technical difficulties. And even if everything works, the webcast could freeze up if the video server becomes overwhelmed with traffic. That's why MacRobert is planning to play the field, and why you'd be best advised to do the same. Here are a few of the options for Sunday eclipse views over a computer screen or smartphone:

    Slooh Space Camera: The Slooh website has organized a series of webcasts from Japan, California, Arizona and New Mexico, accompanied by commentary from Astronomy Magazine columnist Bob Berman and Lucie Green, a BBC commentator and solar researcher at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. The show gets started at 5:30 p.m. ET Sunday, when the eclipse will be just getting good in Japan. Prime time for the webcasts from the American West will kick in around 8 p.m. ET. For more, check out Slooh's news release.

    Eclipse Live from Fujiyama: Panasonic is planning a solar-powered webcast from high atop Japan's Mount Fuji, which is inside the track of annularity. The team will charge up batteries from an array of electricity-generating solar cells at a base camp, then carry the batteries up to the camera site. Video coverage via Ustream is due to start up at 5 p.m. ET. This YouTube video previews the event. For updates, check out the project's Facebook page and Twitter stream.

    Hong Kong Observatory: The webcast from Hong Kong is due to begin at 5:41 p.m. ET.

    Live-Eclipse: Japanese eclipse-chasers plan to be webcasting via Ustream at 6 p.m. ET. 

    More from YokosoNews: This page from the Japanese news site lists lots of webcasts, generally beginning at 5 p.m. ET or later.

    More from Ustream: Do a search on "eclipse" and you'll find all sorts of Ustream goodies, from 5 p.m. ET onward. One user is promising a video stream from the northern tip of Taiwan starting at 4:50 p.m. ET.

    AstroBob's viewing guide: Duluth photographer Bob King provides a vivid guide to the phases of an annular eclipse and also links to AstronomyLive.com as a potential source of webcasts.

    University of North Dakota: UND's SEMS (Sun Earth Moon Systems) team is organizing an eclipse webcast from Shasta College in Redding, Calif. The streaming is due to begin at 8 p.m. ET, and there's a chat window that lets you compare notes with other eclipse fans. The UND team has been doing eclipse webcasts since 2004, so they've built up a loyal following over the years. 

    Scotty's Sky: Skywatcher Scotty Degenhardt is promising an unconventional webcast of the annular eclipse via his iPhone from Area 51's "Black Mailbox," a popular gathering place for UFO fans in the Nevada desert. The show is set to start at 8:10 p.m. ET. Check out Degenhardt's website for the details.

    Exploratorium in Second Life: Speaking of "unconventional" ... San Francisco's Exploratorium science center is planning to provide information about the eclipse in the Second Life virtual world. If you're a Second Life resident, set a course for Exploratorium Island.

    If you're wowed by webcasts, stay tuned: There'll be another big event on June 5, when the planet Venus makes a must-see transit across the sun's disk; and again on Nov. 13, when a total solar eclipse takes place.

    Are there any annular eclipse webcasts I'm missing? Pass 'em along in the comment section below.

    Update for 12:10 p.m. ET May 18: To find out whether any part of the eclipse will be visible from your locale, consult this clickable map from NASA. The times are listed in UTC. Subtract four hours to convert to ET, five hours for CT, six hours for MT, seven hours for PT.

    Correction for 4:50 a.m. ET May 20: I mistakenly placed Shasta College in Whittier, Calif., rather than Redding. That reference has been fixed ... sorry about that.

    More about the eclipse:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Scientists read a galaxy's entrails

    ESO

    The galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is pictured in this image, taken with by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile. With a total exposure time of more than 50 hours, this could be deepest view of Centaurus A ever created.

    By Alan Boyle




    Astronomers are taking a long, deep look at one of the best-known galaxies beyond our own Milky Way, to learn more about what happened when it gobbled up another agglomeration of stars that got too close.

    The entrails of the gobbled galaxy are prominent in this view of Centaurus A, a galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The bright haze of stars is the typical signature of an elliptical galaxy, but the dark, swirling band of dust around the center is a tip-off that the "A" in Centaurus A stands for "atypical."

    Scientists believe the band represents the dusty leftovers of the galaxy that has been consumed in a gravitationally driven merger. Flashes of fresh hot stars can be seen along the edges of the band. It's thought that an energetic black hole, 100 million times as massive as our sun, is blasting out strong radio emissions from the center of the haze.

    Much of this has been seen before, in previous images of Centaurus A. But today's image, captured by the Wide Field Imager on the European Southern Observatory's MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope in Chile, reveals extra details. That's because the camera exposure lasted for more than 50 hours, making this one of the deepest views of Centaurus A ever produced.

    One reddish filament of material is visible above the left edge of the dark band. A fainter filament can be made out near the upper left corner of the picture. These filaments, hotbeds for infant stars, appear to line up with radio-emitting jets that are being spewed out from the central black hole. Such features can help astronomers reconstruct how Centaurus A gobbled a galaxy in the first place, and how the remains are being digested. Further studies, involving ESO's ALMA Observatory, will shed additional light on the scene.

    A video from the European Southern Observatory zooms in on telescope views of Centaurus A, a giant cannibal galaxy.

    More about the gobbling galaxy:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • from:msnbc.com

    On the road again

    I'm on the road in the Pacific Northwest, hunting for a spot where I can watch Sunday's annular solar eclipse. That means Cosmic Log postings will be less frequent than usual. Watch for the occasional photo posting, for weekend coverage of the eclipse, and for the resumption of a more regular schedule on May 23. 

  • Saturn's moons make waves in rings

    NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI

    The Saturnian moon Daphnis and Pan stir ripples in the giant planet's rings due to their gravitational effect. Five-mile-wide Daphnis (lower left) is perturbing particles in Saturn's A ring, while 17-mile-wide Pan (upper right) has kicked up dark wakes in the ring propagating toward the middle of the image. This picture was taken in visible light by the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera on June 3, 2010, at a distance of about 329,000 miles from Saturn.

    By Alan Boyle




    This image from NASA's Cassini orbiter shows why Daphnis and Pan are known as "shepherd moons": The gravitational influence of those tiny satellites help keep Saturn's giant rings in line, creating subtle ripples and waves in the process.

    Five-mile-wide Daphnis, at lower left, makes its circuit around Saturn in the Keeler Gap, an open space in the planet's A ring. As it passes through, it perturbs the particles along both sides of the gap, sculpting the edges. To learn more about Daphnis' influence and watch a movie showing the shepherd at work, check out this Web page from the Cassini mission's imaging team.

    Meanwhile, 17-mile-wide Pan performs a similar function in the A ring's Encke Gap at upper right. You can see the dark waves left in the moon's wake by its gravitational influence on the icy particles in the disk. The images on this Web page provide additional perspectives on Pan. Such effects, documented in detail during Cassini's eight years in the Saturnian system, explain why Daphnis was named after a shepherd in Greek mythology, while Pan was named after the god of shepherds.

    More about Saturn's moons and rings:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Astronaut shares groovy space trip

    Don Pettit / NASA

    This is a composite of 18 time-exposure images photographed from a mounted camera on the International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. The image is filled with star trails and spiraling reflections from the space station's solar arrays.

    By Alan Boyle




    Flying on the International Space Station is the world's biggest high, and a series of psychedelic time-exposure images engineered by NASA astronaut Don Pettit proves it.

    This picture, showing the station's truss structure in the foreground and Earth's airglow in the background, is actually a composite of 18 different exposures. A couple of other pictures in the series step things up a notch by putting together 47 exposures. Here's Pettit's explanation of the process, as laid out in the NASA Twitter gallery:

    "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures, I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then 'stack' them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure."

    This isn't the only experiment Pettit has been conducting during his stint on the space station. A wide variety of scientific tests are under way in orbit, ranging from studies of human health in zero-G to the chemistry of Scotch whisky in weightlessness. Pettit has shown off some pretty trippy experiments in a couple of space station videos, including the creation of antibubbles within bubbles and the sight of sonic water droplets rockin' out to the sounds of ZZ Top. As Pettit says in one of the videos: "Oh, wow!" Check out the full "Science Off the Sphere" series, presented in cooperation with the American Physical Society.

    NASA astronaut Don Pettit injects bubbles inside bubbles in microgravity.

    Don Pettit demonstrates water oscillations on a speaker in microgravity.

    More about the space station:

    Tip o' the Log to Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog.

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • African-American's roots revised

    Nexdim Empire

    Atlanta-based family researcher William Holland sits alongside one of the Oku elders, Samuel Nshiom "Pa" Wambeng, during a visit to Cameroon in March. Wambeng passed away weeks after this picture was taken.

    By Alan Boyle




    If you're an African-American, tracing your roots back to the ancestral continent is hard enough — but tracing them back to the ancestral family? That requires genetic testing, plus family-history scholarship, plus trips to Africa, plus a little bit of faith. William Holland has filled all of those requirements, and to celebrate, he's planning a cross-continental family reunion for Memorial Day weekend in Virginia, where his ancestors were once held as slaves.

    "Memorial Day is a time for remembering the loved ones you lost, right?" Holland said. "So it's a good time to remember all those generations that were lost."

    It's taken more than a decade for the 43-year-old Atlanta genealogist to fill in the story of those lost generations — a story that leads back to Cameroon, and then even further back to present-day Syria. The historical record is so fragmentary, and the genetic analysis is so imprecise, that Holland couldn't possibly achieve iron-clad scientific certainty about the precise family relationships. But the story that Holland has pieced together is consistent with the genetic tests as well as with the tales told by families in Africa and America. And just as importantly, the story finally feels right.

    "What makes this more conclusive is that they had an authentic story that many people could verify," Holland said.

    Holland's initial investigative work took him back to the Civil War era in Virginia, where he found that his great-grandfather, Creed Holland, was a slave who was put to work as a wagon driver for the Confederate Army. That led Holland and his brothers to sign up for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans — which was a controversial move at the time.

    But Holland didn't stop there: He wanted to know how it was that Creed's ancestors became slaves in the first place. So he took advantage of a trend that was just getting started back then: genetic testing for the purpose of finding family connections. After a couple of false starts, Holland found enough matches to justify focusing in on a region of Cameroon in West Africa.

    When I first started writing about Holland's quest, two years ago, he was following up on connections to royalty in northwest Cameroon's Mankon tribe. Holland visited the tribal leader, or Fon, in the regional capital of Bamenda — and received an African name (Ndefru) from the Fon of Mankon himself during a ceremony. Holland reciprocated the next year by inviting the royal family to a gathering in Franklin County, Va. The idea was to bring together the descendants of slaves and their African relations, and even the descendants of slaveowners. But something about the event felt wrong.

    "The rest of the Mankon family really resisted the fact that they were coming over," Holland recalled. "That told me that 'this is not your family, because they should be happy, they should be welcoming you.'"

    During follow-up trips to Africa, Holland learned more about the reason for the Mankon tribe's reluctance: Their ancestors were among several ethnic groups in that region of Cameroon who played a murky role in the slave trade of the 18th century. "Mankon didn't trade in their own people, but they were the middlemen for people [from other tribes] going down the coast," Holland said. "The Europeans would come to the coast and provide them with whiskey and guns to make people fight."

    Some of this information came from the leaders of a different group, the Oku, who live in a region of Cameroon about 20 miles northeast of Bamenda. After visiting the region, hearing the tales of the elders and double-checking the genetic results, Holland feels confident that he now has the right story.

    "You felt the sense of coming back," Holland told me. "You felt the welcoming that you should have gotten. They were running down the hill to come and meet us. That's how it was."

    One of the Oku elders, Sam "Pa" Wambeng, told Holland that the Oku and other groups trace their heritage back to 7th-century Syria. When Islam took hold in the region, those groups made their way through the Middle East and Africa, eventually settling in Cameroon. In addition to the Oku, the settlers included the Mboum, Nso and Foumban peoples. 

    Wambeng and other elders said there was a widely respected member of the Oku tribe named Bailack who lived in the 1700s. Bailack had several wives and scores of sons, but many of them were abducted and passed on to the European slavers during the reign of a ruthless fon named Ney.

    "They say 70 individuals were taken directly from the family," Holland told me. "They would have been the children of Bailack. Two or three escaped, and that's how they continued with the family. The family has spread to more than eight villages in Oku, despite the number captured as slaves in the reign of Ney."

    The time frame for that abduction, in the 1770s, matched up with the time frame for the voyage of Holland's great-great-great-great-grandfather to Virginia, where he was sold as a slave. And the rest is American history.

    Courtesy of William Holland

    Residents of an Oku village turn out to welcome William Holland during his visit to Cameroon.

    Courtesy of William Holland

    William Holland (at right) and his brother Marvin flank the Fon of Oku during a visit in March.

    Courtesy of William Holland

    The house of an Oku patriarch named Bailack was built in the 1700s and is still standing in a Cameroonian village.

    Do the genetics support Holland's status as Bailack's great-great-great-great-great-grandson? The evidence isn't indisputable. Thirty-one of the 36 genetic markers on the test that Holland took match up with the results from the Cameroonian clan. Genetic genealogy is a matter of probabilities, and the more markers two people have in common, the more likely it is that they're closely related. Thirty-one out of 36 is not super-close, but close enough for Holland to feel as if he's on the right track.

    "The results from different family lines show that there were strong mutations that occurred in the 1600s and the 1700s. Given the amount of time from 1772 to this generation, it fits in a time frame where you can have those mutations occur," Holland told me. "I'm no geneticist by any means, but it sounds logical that could happen."

    It's logical enough that Holland has scheduled another gathering, this time with members of the extended Oku clan as the special guests. It's due to take place around 1 p.m. ET on May 27, at the Franklin County Recreational Park near Rocky Mount, Va. Holland hopes that some of his long-lost relatives will be in attendance — but one of the dearest friends he made in Cameroon won't be there. Pa Wambeng, the elder who told the story that Holland has now made his own, passed away just a few weeks ago.

    "I'm very honored to have gotten there and met him," Holland said, "because if we put off our trip, it would have been too late."

    Previous chapters in the African saga:

    Holland says the Memorial Day weekend reunion will serve as a memorial for "all the ancestors who traveled this path that affected our family line," including Pa Wambeng as well as Grace Ngum Tamufor, the recently deceased daughter of the previous Fon of Oku.

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Brain-teasers for blog birthday

    NASA / SDO

    Sunspot region 1476 points toward Earth like a loaded gun in this picture from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Experts say the active region is capable of generating major X-class flares.

    By Alan Boyle


    We're not only closing out the week — we're closing out the first 10 years of Cosmic Log. It was on May 13, 2002, that I first began noting the follies and mysteries of science, space and society in this space. To mark the occasion, I'm presenting not just one, not just two, but three sets of brain-teasers.

    The first puzzle has already played out on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. I asked Facebook followers to figure out which four-digit number is best associated with the picture above, and it just took a couple of minutes for multiple commenters to come up with the answer: 1476, the designation for the active region that's currently front and center on the sun's disk and capable of throwing X-class flares in our direction.

    Mitch Siff was the first to put it all together, and I'm sending him my last pair of sun-viewing safety glasses, suitable for watching the May 20 annular solar eclipse from his home in Colorado. Michael J. Tiano was also quick on the draw, and he'll be getting my second-last pair of 3-D glasses, along with a scary 3-D picture of yours truly.

    It's worth noting that a solar storm was one of the first topics tackled in Cosmic Log 10 years ago.

    Space Needle unscrambler
    Earlier in the week, I reported on the finals of a "Space Race 2012" competition at Seattle's Space Needle that resulted in Arizona law-school student Gregory Schneider winning a future suborbital trip into outer space. The final test was to solve a series of 10 brain-teasers while walking around a narrow ring-shaped platform just outside the Needle's 520-foot-high observation deck. I mentioned a couple of sample questions on Wednesday, but in honor of Cosmic Log's 10th birthday, here's the full set of 10 questions. The first commenter to give the correct answers to all 10 teasers — in a single comment, not a series of comments — will be eligible to receive my last pair of giveaway 3-D glasses.

    Unscramble the five following words:

    1. PALOLO

    2. IODEATSR

    3. VGATIYR

    4. OEREMTETI

    5. EFCRCAPTSA

    6. How many stars are in the Big Dipper?

    7. For the Space Needle's 50th Anniversary, the roof was painted which color: Orbital Orange, Galaxy Gold, Meteor Melon, Re-entry Red.

    8. True or false: The planet Venus rotates clockwise. It is the only planet to do so.

    9. Which is NOT the name of a NASA shuttle: Atlantis, Voyager, Discovery, Endeavour.

    10. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first men to walk on the moon in which year: 1968, 1967, 1969, 1966.

    Cosmic Log history lesson
    Finally, here are some trivia questions about the past 10 years of Cosmic Log. First person to get all the answers correct in a single comment will be eligible to receive a signed copy of my book "The Case for Pluto." (I'm not holding my breath.) 

    1. Where did the name "Cosmic Log" come from? A space mission? A TV show? A comic book? Or did I just make it up?

    2. Which "Star Trek" actor was interviewed for Cosmic Log? Nichelle Nichols? Leonard Nimoy? William Shatner? George Takei?

    3. Which would-be celebrity astronaut was interviewed for Cosmic Log? Lance Bass? Mark Burnett? James Cameron? Victoria Principal?

    4. Which Apollo astronaut was NOT interviewed for Cosmic Log? Buzz Aldrin? Alan Bean? Pete Conrad? Harrison Schmitt?

    5. Which magician has been interviewed for Cosmic Log? The Amazing Randi? The Amazing Kreskin? David Copperfield? Penn Jillette?

    6. Which medium/channel/psychic has been interviewed for Cosmic Log? Mary T. Browne? Theresa Caputo? Allison Dubois? JZ Knight?

    7. Which TV show has been the subject of Cosmic Log postings? "American Idol"? "Dancing With the Stars"? "The X-Files"? All of the above?

    8. What is the "CLUB Club"? A hangout for Cosmic Log fans in Seattle back in the early days? A concept I proposed for an anti-theft device? A list of book recommendations? A members-only gallery of cosmic pictures?

    9. What kind of celestial object got its name in part because of Cosmic Log? Asteroid? Comet? Crater? Mountain?

    10. Who was the object named after? Douglas Adams? Alan Boyle? Stephen Hawking? Robert Heinlein?

    I'll provide the answers to both of the 10-question teasers on Sunday, the 10th anniversary, and if I'm in a generous mood for the start of the next 10 years, I may give away a book even if no one gets all of the Cosmic Log trivia questions right.

    Answers to questions:
    Space Needle unscrambler: APOLLO, ASTEROID, GRAVITY, METEORITE, SPACECRAFT, seven stars, Galaxy Gold, true, Voyager, 1969. BigBenAlaska solved all the puzzles and richly deserves a pair of 3-D glasses.

    Cosmic Log history: To get the answers to some of these questions, you have to go back to the deep archive at Multiply.com. Julia Cline got all the answers right and is eligible to receive a signed copy of "The Case for Pluto."

    1. Cosmic Log's name was inspired by a 40-year-old quote from a character in Weird Mystery Tales #1: "My name is Destiny, and it is my Fate to walk alone throughout eternity and observe the follies and mysteries of mankind, and to note them all in the cosmic log." Among the rejected names: Quanta, Penultimate Questions and the Blog at the End of the Universe.

    2. William Shatner was our guest for a Cosmic Log chat on Oct. 14, 2002. 

    3. Although Lance Bass was the subject of frequent Cosmic Log items in 2002, I never did talk with Lance himself. I did, however, chat with James Cameron a couple of times about his space aspirations. 

    4. I've had items in Cosmic Log about Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 12's Alan Bean, Apollo 17's Harrison Schmitt and other astronauts from NASA's glory days. I interviewed Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad before his death in 1999 for a story about his Universal Space Lines venture — but that was before Cosmic Log got started. So Pete Conrad is the answer to this one.

    5. The Amazing Kreskin was the focus of a 2002 Cosmic Log item about his UFO stunt in Nevada.

    6. JZ Knight (who says she channels a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit named Ramtha) was the subject of an extended interview in 2010. I haven't yet checked in with Theresa ("Long Island Medium") Caputo or Allison Dubois of the "Medium" TV series, but I do stay in touch with my cousin Mary T. Browne, "the Wall Street psychic."

    7. All of the above: Who hasn't written about "American Idol," "Dancing With the Stars" and "The X-Files"?

    8. The CLUB Club is the "Cosmic Log Used Book Club." Since 2002, we've been highlighting books with cosmic themes that have been out long enough to become available at your local library or secondhand-book store. Even though I haven't been providing book club selections as often as I used to, the CLUB Club archive still makes for a pretty good reading list. 

    9 and 10. Back in 2003, I discussed the procedure for naming asteroids and solicited suggestions for folks who should have an asteroid named after them. Douglas Adams, the humorist behind the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, was one of the prospects mentioned — and I noticed that there was an asteroid out there that almost literally had his name on it. The space rock known provisionally as 2001 DA42 included the date of Adams' death (2001), his initials (DA) and the answer to the ultimate question from the Hitchhiker's Guide (42). Astronomer Brian Marsden, who headed the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center at the time, thought it was a great suggestion and helped make it so in 2005. You can get the full story here.

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • The verdict is in on that sea monster video: It's a jellyfish

    Experts say the "Cascade Creature" is a jellyfish that's been turned inside-out.

    By Alan Boyle




    Marine biologists say the spooky "Cascade Creature" seen drifting through the deep sea in a viral video isn't a whale placenta, a parachute, a plastic bag or an alien visitor: It's a type of jellyfish known as a Deepstaria enigmatica.

    The video, which was apparently captured by a remotely operated vehicle near an underwater drilling site, caused a bit of a stir over the past couple of weeks among weird-science fans. Now it looks as if the truth is out there, thanks to assessments from experts such as Steven Haddock at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Craig McClain at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center.

    "This bag-like jelly is not that rare, but is large, so rarely seen intact," Haddock and his colleagues write on the JellyWatch Facebook page. "In the video, the swirling from the sub makes the medusa appear to undulate, and it even turns inside-out." They provide a helpful picture of a more typical specimen.

    McClain is even more helpful in his posting at Deep Sea News. He provides citations on previous sightings of the beast, including explanations for the jellyfish's weirdly collapsed shape. And he shows through photographs and drawings that the strange appendage and whitish lumps seen in the video are D. enigmatica's gonads. TMI, Craig ... TMI.

    For a third opinion, look no further than Australia's Nine News, which quotes Daniel Bucher, a marine biologist at Southern Cross University, as saying that the gonads were the giveaway.

    Now that we've settled that, bring on the next sea monster.

    More sea monsters:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • $1.5 million NASA rover contest set for robo-showdown in June

    NASA / JPL-Caltech

    An artist's conception shows NASA's Curiosity rover zapping a rock during a sampling operation on Mars. Laser-zapping is not a requirement for the robots entered in a NASA-backed $1.5 million contest.

    By Devin Coldewey

    Mark June 16 on your calendar, interplanetary robot fans: That’s when autonomous rovers will face off in NASA's $1.5 million Sample Return Robot Challenge at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

    The challenge, one of several that NASA is sponsoring, was announced back in July 2010 — but a purpose-built autonomous robot isn't a simple thing to create, so it has taken nearly two years to collect and vet the entrants.

    The challenge, in brief, is to create a compact (1.5 cubic meters, 175 pounds) robot that can navigate varied terrain, find and collect certain items, and return them safely to the base. But it must do this without the use of GPS or any "Earth-based" systems, such as a compass or Internet connection, which naturally would not be available on celestial bodies other than our own. Furthermore, the robot can't use air cooling, ultrasonic rangefinders or a number of other techniques that wouldn't be workable in an airless environment.

    There are both private and public teams: Groups from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Waterloo  have both made the final 11, and the rest are start-up companies such as SpacePRIDE from South Carolina and True Vision Robotics from Atascadero, Calif. Six of the teams are based in California, while the rest are scattered around the US and Canada.

    The teams' robots will be unmanned and on their own once deployed, but they won't be going in completely blind. As would likely be the case on a real planetary mission, NASA is providing satellite imagery of the area, compete with topographic information and points of interest:

    NASA / WPI

    Topographic map of the competition's terrain

    The first phase of the challenge is a qualifying round, in which robots must retrieve a single sample within a quarter of an hour. Teams that succeed will be admitted to the second phase, the real challenge. There will be 10 samples in the vicinity, and a robot will have just two hours to collect as many as it can and return to a designated point. The prize money will be divvied up based on how the rovers perform this second task.

    A powerful and reliable sample-return robot will be a critical part of future robotic planetary missions. NASA has also set up competitions for other important parts of such endeavors, such as wireless power systems and digging mechanisms. Such research is readily adaptable to terrestrial applications such as disaster response and automated industry.

    WPI will be hosting the event on their campus in Massachusetts on June 14-18, with the competition beginning in earnest on June 16. NASA's deputy administrator, Lori Garver, and chief technologist Mason Peck will be on hand for the awards ceremony.

    Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

  • The World at Night finds beauty in darkness and light

    Slideshow: The World at Night 2012

    Christoph Otawa / The World at Night

    Experience the wonders of the night sky in a slideshow that features the winners of the 2012 "Earth & Sky" contest, presented by The World at Night.

    Launch slideshow

    By Alan Boyle




    Light pollution never looked so good: The World at Night's annual photography contest highlights the beauties of the night sky, but it also highlights the challenges posed by humanity's efforts to light up the night.

    This year's winners reveal how artificial lighting can add another dimension to the natural wonders of the stars and planets — or spoil the view forever. Hundreds of pictures were sent in from about 50 countries, including exotic locales such as the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, the national parks of Reunion Island and the savannas of South Africa, said Babak Tafreshi, the founder and leader of The World at Night. "We received a lot of submissions from Asian countries this year, especially China, India, Iran and Indonesia," the Iranian-born astrophotographer said in an email exchange.

    He said the message of The World at Night is definitely getting out: "In general, it looks as if TWAN's aim of reclaiming the natural beauty of the night sky and promoting nightscape photography is reaching a growing audience worldwide, while the activities by amateur and professional astronomers and environmentalists to increase awareness on the light pollution issue is truly getting a lot of public attention."

    This year's contest is limited to images taken since the beginning of 2011, but that leaves a lot to choose from — including pictures of Comet Lovejoy, the spectacular "Christmas Comet" that wowed skywatchers in the southern hemisphere, as well as the stunning auroral images that have cropped up over the past few months. Both those phenomena are represented in today's top-10 roundup from TWAN.

    Tafreshi drew attention to two potential perils facing astrophotographers nowadays: light pollution and photo fakery. He noted that the increasing glare of city lights was "not just an astronomer's problem," but also "a major waste of energy, and like any other form of pollution, it disrupts ecosystems and has adverse health effects."

    "Today, most city skies are virtually empty of stars," he said in his email. "About two-thirds of the human population today lives under light-polluted skies, not dark enough to see the Milky Way. Seeing a real dark sky is a must-see experience in the life of each of us, moments that you will not forget in your entire life."

    Tafreshi also said there's a fast-rising concern about images that may not be telling the truth about the earth and sky.

    "Unfortunately, a majority of photographers who are interested in nightscape photography are less familiar with astronomy, and the natural look and color of the night sky," he said. "So many landscape astrophotos today are intensely saturated, unnaturally contrasted, and sometimes with totally wrong colors of the sky. We had stunning compositions and amazing landscapes at night, some made by famous photographers, which were ruled out of the contest simply because they were 'overcooked' in processing."

    You can rely on TWAN's prize-winning pictures to show the true glories of the night sky, along with the glow of the world below. Check out our slideshow, and read more of Tafreshi's observations in the comment space below.

    More astronomy slideshows:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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