Astronomy – October 2019

8 ASTRONOMY • OCTOBER 2019

ASTRO LETTERS

Memories from The Outer Limits

Michael Bakich’s article “The Outer Limits Universe” in

the June 2019 issue brought back memories of what I con-

sider the best television show of all time. I still remember

watching that very first episode in September 1963. As the

credits rolled, the combination of the haunting musical

score and the beautiful astronomical photos (especially

M104) always made me think of what could be out there.

— Robert Lindner, Oak Creek, WI

Another eclipse perspective

“Ask Astro” in the June 2019 issue posed the question of

how a full eclipse of the Sun would differ from the vantage

point of a Moon observer. The answer, I believe, neglected

to cite the most obvious and glaring difference: the very

large size variation of the occluding bodies. From a practi-

cal standpoint, this would mean that a full Earth eclipse of

the Sun would last considerably longer, it would be more

frequent, and it would be much more difficult to see any

of the Sun’s corona (since the latter, at the point when the

eclipse is exactly full, would have to extend more than

1,000,000 miles on either side of the Sun to be visible past

Earth’s circumference). — Chris Skillern, San Diego, CA

What’s normal?

I was amused while reading “Tension at the Heart of

Cosmology” in the June 2019 issue when it pointed out

that the analysis of the Planck data seems to indicate the

universe’s contents as 68.3 percent dark energy, 26.8 per-

cent dark matter, and 4.9 percent “normal” matter. If we

were less biased by our own experiences, “normal” matter

seems to be the least “normal” of these constituents.

Perhaps renaming these would present a more correct

impression. Perhaps we are in a universe of dark and light

matter and dark and light energy, all of these being

“normal.” — Dennis Geake, Orem, UT

Interstellar chase

I have been intrigued by ‘Oumuamua since I first read

about it. But not until reading Bob Berman’s column in

the May 2019 issue did I know that we could catch up to it.

How is this not being screamed for? To not at least attempt

to catch up to and photograph the first identified inter-

stellar object would be a travesty of science! Who can say

what we will discover? Or it could be just a rock. But that’s

fine. After all, what did we bring back from the Moon?

— Kyle Perkins, Big Stone Gap, VA

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