As the former communications officer [...]]]> Recalling, as I do, the birth and short life of the long-echoing “Star Trek” television series, I was honored to meet the real Lt. Uhura — Nichelle Nichols — at the Astrobiology Science Conference in Atlanta this week. We exchanged pleasantries with “Live long and prosper” hand salutes.

Nichelle Nichols in her signature role.

As the former communications officer aboard the starship Enterprise, Ms. Nichols, still glamorous at 79, moderated a competitive event called “FameLab,” which challenged young scientists to communicate scientific concepts in language anyone might understand. The evening’s entertainment featured eleven “FameLab” finalists from fields as diverse as astronomy and paleontology. Each had three minutes to expound on a topic with as much clarity, enthusiasm and humor as he or she could muster.

When the panel of three judges left the stage of the Georgia Tech Conference Center to deliberate, Ms. Nichols called up memories of auditioning for her life-changing role. The part of Lt. Uhura not only carried her through three television seasons and six movies, but also led to an affiliation with NASA as a recruiter of women astronauts. In fact, she had long since unwittingly inducted Mae Jemison, who watched “Star Trek” at age nine and followed Lt. Uhura’s lead to become first a medical doctor and later a Space Shuttle mission specialist.

During a question-and-answer period, a young astronomer leapt to his feet, star-struck almost to the point of speechlessness by the presence of Ms. Nichols. “I want to thank you,” he said. “Your appearance on that TV show led to my decision to study astronomy, and made me what I am today. I never thought I would get to thank you in person!”

For many years, I’ve credited Carl Sagan and his “Cosmos” series with creating an entire generation of astronomers. While that assessment remains valid, I’m happy to acknowledge the parallel effect of “Star Trek.” Even in re-runs of its re-runs, the show spawned legions of “Trekkies” whose ranks include untold numbers of bona fide scientists.

I’m fond of meteor showers because they’re so low-tech. You don’t need a telescope to observe them, or even binoculars, but just the willingness to lie outside in [...]]]> On the first truly frigid night of winter (Jan. 3-4), I set an alarm for 2 a.m. and went out to take in the Quadrantid Meteor Shower.

I’m fond of meteor showers because they’re so low-tech. You don’t need a telescope to observe them, or even binoculars, but just the willingness to lie outside in the dark and look up.

Over-eager, I started my vigil too early. My fingers (inside mittens under blankets) froze before the first shooting stars arrived. While waiting I got reacquainted with the available constellations: the Big Dipper, from whose ladle the promised meteors would pour, Gemini standing on Orion’s shoulders, and Leo, looking like a real lion, pinning Mars underfoot. The cloudless dark and absent Moon set up perfect viewing conditions.

I had the cordless phone in my coat pocket. Should the display turn spectacular, I would call a couple of not-quite-die-hards and encourage them to leave their beds. But I counted only eleven meteors in the two-plus hours I could bear the cold. The forecast had predicted as many as one hundred or more per hour. I wondered whether the friends I’d alerted in advance to these potential fireworks were also out somewhere in the night, perhaps annoyed with me for sending them on a fool’s errand.

I found plenty of time to question what made me want to spend the pre-dawn hours this way, and also to realize why. Staring up at the unchanging pattern of the stars, panning for surprise, I thrilled every time a bright ball of fire materialized out of that reliable background to slide across the heavens in less than a moment.

The new year promises other meteor showers along with two major astronomical events — the Transit of Venus in June and a total solar eclipse in November. Attendance at those sky shows will demand large investments of time and travel expense in addition to pluck, plus readiness for a different flavor of risk. No one doubts that the syzygies — the exact planetary alignments that permit Venus to be seen crossing the Sun’s face or a sector of Earth to immerse in the Moon’s shadow — will occur on schedule according to the laws of physics. The only question is, Will the local weather in any particular viewing area allow witnesses to watch the natural miracle unfold?

The story of the first Christmas at the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe was the [...]]]> “We’ll plant trees in the spring,” their leader promised. Meanwhile the few young nuns newly arrived from Chicago must embrace the sere brown fields of their new home in New Mexico, and try to forget about snow.

The story of the first Christmas at the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe was the first season’s greeting to reach me this year. The nuns of this convent belong to the same religious order as Galileo’s two daughters. The friendship we formed while I was writing Galileo’s Daughter continues, although Mother Mary Francis, my special correspondent and guide to the cloistered life, died five years ago. I’m grateful to the current abbess, Mother Mary Angela, for sharing this memory from Mother Mary Francis, who woke on December 24, 1950 to sing the solemn Christmas Martyrology, only to find her surroundings strangely bright:

“The 15-watt bulb in the dormitory hall furnished the only light for all our cells, and what illumination this Poor Clare chandelier managed to provide through cell doors open two or three inches to admit it was rather less than dazzling. The light that was washing down our habit skirt this morning and gleaming on my bare feet was something different. Then I saw it — the snow! Snow whirling, singing, laughing everywhere! Snow insistent on the window ledge, snow fitting great ballerina skirts on the elm trees. It tore the last cobwebs of sleep form my eyes before the cold water in the pitcher followed to shiver me awake. I swept down the dormitory stairs and across the community room to the east window.

“There was the big field. But, no, it was a huge lake of light! Thick masses of stars reached down arms of light toward our new little monastery. The white grounds reached back. Evidently our Lord had decided to tear up the weather forecasts for Roswell this year of our first coming. I looked at the light streaming up from the snow and down from the sky again; and I walked slowly into the choir, a little shaken with the beauty of the embrace.”

Only, I had already reported this news in the new book. The  designation of super-heavy atomic element number 112 as “copernicium” (symbol Cn) occurred nearly a [...]]]> A few friends sent me excited word this week that a new element had been named for Copernicus — and perfectly timed for the release of my book about him.

Only, I had already reported this news in the new book. The  designation of super-heavy atomic element number 112 as “copernicium” (symbol Cn) occurred nearly a year ago, on February 19, the date of Copernicus’s birthday (his 537th), as announced then by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The recent news concerns the acceptance of the name copernicium by a sister organization, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, which voted in favor during its General Assembly in London this past week.

Copernicus earns his place on the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Nice to know that everyone agrees.

Copernicium is a radioactive element that does not exist in nature. A few atoms’ worth were created in 1996 from a fusion of zinc and lead under laboratory conditions at the Center for Heavy Ion Research (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) in Darmstadt, Germany. The tiny sample of new substance decayed into extinction within microseconds of its synthesis. Yet its significance lives on. Chemists and physicists the world over have since reviewed the experiment and authenticated its results.

According to custom, the scientists who produced the copernicium earned the right to suggest a name for it. The team’s leader, Sigurd Hoffman, drew a nice comparison between Copernicus’s world view (of planets orbiting the Sun) with the structure of a copernicium atom, in which 122 electrons orbit a nucleus of 122 protons and 155 neutrons.

First, on approaching the theater for the 7 p.m. event, I saw [...]]]> The first round of U.S. travel to promote A More Perfect Heaven landed me last Sunday (October 9) in Concord, New Hampshire as a guest of Gibson’s Bookstore. Two extraordinary experiences bracketed my talk at the Capitol Center for the Arts.

Elisabeth Jewell of Gibson's Bookstore captured my one-night name in lights.

First, on approaching the theater for the 7 p.m. event, I saw my name in lights.

Upon exiting later, however, after speaking to a most congenial audience, I learned that every car parked near the venue had been leafleted with anti-Copernican literature.

The headline on the three-sheet handout, “Selected Profiles in the Geocentric-Heliocentric Debate,” made me think the document must be a prank. Surely no one in New England in 2011 still clung to a flat Earth or an Earth-centered cosmos. But I regret to say I was wrong.

“In the 16th century, anti-God forces waged an all out war on Biblical truth,” the printed diatribe began. “Copernicus proclaimed that the earth was not stationary–in direct contradiction to the holy scriptures. With no proof, Copernicus dethroned the earth as the jewel of all creation and enthroned the sun in its place.”

Since the distributor of this document did not attend my talk to confront me, I had no chance to defend Copernicus–or Galileo, who was similarly defamed on page 2: “None, but none among the fanciful assertions of the believers in Galileo’s sun-centered astronomical gospel has ever been proven.”

Surrounded by friendly nerds as I usually am, I’ve been shielded from this desperate brand of deceit. It jibed all too well with the laments I heard last month from staff at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, ruing the energy they expend fending off “deniers” who insist the Apollo landings were faked.

Things are worse than I thought.