Nolan Ryan essays

Nolan Ryan essays Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr., more commonly known as Nolan Ryan, developed the position of pitcher in baseball more than anyone else in the history of Americas favorite past time. With his flaming fastballs and his deadly curve ball, he was able to mesmerize batters like no other. Nolan also defied the age barrier by playing 27 years in the MLB. Beyond his amazing baseball skill, he was an incredible role model to anyone that met him. He handled himself with a poised and friendly manner that made the fans believe that there was still good athletes that cared about the fans. Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr. was born January 31, 1947, in Refugio, Texas. He was the youngest of six children. He grew up playing Little League baseball, his father coaching, and later played in high school. It was there when a New York Mets scout saw him and signed him to play Minor league baseball in Virginia. It was not until he was brought up to the Mets pro team that he finally married his high school sweetheart, Ruth. He has three children, Reid, Reese, and Wendy. Unlike many other celebrities, his entire family is devout Christians. He continues to do a lot of charity work, realizing how lucky he is to have such a great ability of pitching. He lives in Austin, Texas, presently, with Ruth and his daughter Wendy. Baseball has been Americas game for generations. But until Nolan came around, no pitcher had ever been watched so closely as he was. He defied the age barrier, playing in the majors for 27 years, and his awesome ability to regularly throw 90 miles per hour the entire game defied the speed limitations of pitchers. He also had the accuracy of a sniper, able to pitch anything he wanted, a fastball, curve, changeup, anything, and get the batter to swing a it. Through the duration of his career, he struck out 5,714 batters, had seven no-hitters, and holds 15 other MLB records, such as the oldest man to pitch a no-hitter, single-season stri ...

Detecting Signs of E.T.

Detecting Signs of E.T. From time to time, the news media falls in love with stories about how aliens have been found. From the detection of a possible signal from a distant civilization to tales of an alien megastructure around a star observed by the Kepler Space Telescope to the story of the WOW! signal detected in 1977 by an astronomer at Ohio State University, any time theres a hint of a puzzling discovery in astronomy, we see breathless headlines that aliens have been found.   In point of fact, there hasnt been an alien civilization found...yet. But, astronomers keep looking! Finding Something Weird In late summer 2016, astronomers picked up what seemed like a signal from a distant sun-like star called HD 164595. Preliminary searches using the Allen Telescope Array in California showed that the signal picked up by a Russian telescope was not likely from an alien civilization. However, more telescopes will check out the signal to understand what it is and what could be making it. For   now, however, its problem not little green aliens sending us a howdy.   Another star, called KIC 8462852, was observed by Kepler for more than four years. It appears to have a variability in its brightness. That is, the light we perceive coming from this F-type star dims periodically. Its not a regular period of time, so its probably not caused by an orbiting planet. Such planet-caused dimmings are called transits. Kepler has cataloged many stars using the transit method and found thousands of planets this way. But, the dimming of KIC 8462852 was just too irregular. While astronomers and observers worked on cataloging its dimmings, they also talked to an astronomer who had been thinking hard about what we might see if a distant star had planets with life on them. And, in particular, if that life was technologically able to build superstructures around their star to harvest its light (for example).    What Could it Be? If a big structure orbited a star, it could cause the variability in the stars brightness to be irregular or even random-seeming. Of course, there are some caveats with this idea. First, distance is a problem. Even a fairly large structure would be difficult to detect from Earth, even with very strong detectors. Second, the star itself could have some strange variable pattern, and astronomers would need to observe it for longer periods of time to figure out what it is. Third, stars with dust clouds around them can also have fairly large planetary structures forming. Those planetesimals could also cause irregular brightness dips in the starlight we detect from Earth, especially if they were orbiting at staggered distances. Finally, catastrophic collisions between clumps of material around a star could deliver huge groups of objects such as cometary nuclei in orbit around the star. Those could also affected the perceived brightness of the star.   The Simple Truth In science, theres a rule that we follow called Occams Razor - it means, essentially, for any given event or object you observe, generally the most plausible explanation is the simplest one.   In this case, stars with clumps of dust, planetesimals, or roving exo-comets are more likely than aliens. Thats because stars FORM in cloud of gas and dust, and younger stars still have material around them left over from the formation of their planets. KIC 8462852 could be in in a planet-forming stage, consistent with its age and mass (its about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun and a bit younger than our star). So, the simplest explanation here is NOT an alien megacomplex, but swarms of comets.   The Search Protocol The search for extrasolar planets has always been a prelude to a search for life elsewhere in the universe. Each star and planet system discovered to have worlds has to be examined carefully so that astronomers understand its inventory of planets, moons, rings, asteroids, and comets. Once thats done, the next step is to figure out if the worlds are friendly to life -- that is, are they habitable? They do this by trying to understand if the world has an atmosphere, where it is in its orbit around the star, and what its evolutionary state might be.   So far, none have been found hospitable. But, theyll be found. Odds are, there is intelligent life elsewere in the universe. Eventually, we will detect it - or it will find us. In the meantime, astronomers on Earth continue to search for habitable planets around likely stars. The more they study, they more theyll be ready to recognize lifes effects elsewhere.