BAN #419: Year 5 Meteorite Giveaway!, Colliding Cthulhu galaxies

18 April 2022 Issue #419

April 18, 2022

About this newsletter

Ooo, meta

Welcome to the first issue of the fifth year of this newsletter! I sent out the Bad Astronomy Newsletter Issue #1 on April 16, 2018, four years and two days ago, and that makes this, Issue 419, the first one of Year Five.

Now you might think that 104 issues per year (two per week) times four years means Issue 417 should be the first one of Year Five, but there was a leap year in there and there aren’t an even number of weeks in a year, so the numbers don’t quite match. It’s also possible that I simply misnumbered an issue or two somewhere along the line because I’m terrible at bookkeeping*, which is why my wife takes care of all our finances and not me.

Still, I want to celebrate this kilometerstone by doing something fun that gives me a chance to thank all y’all for subscribing but is also a thinly veiled attempt to get more people to sign up.

And I will do this by HAVING A METEORITE GIVEAWAY!

Yes, actual chunks of iron (with some nickel and cobalt and phosphorus and sulfur and germanium and a soupçon of iridium) that FELL FROM SPACE. I collect meteorites, and one of the coolest is called Sikhote-Alin (pronounced seek-HOTE-ay ah-LEEN, more or less), which fell in eastern Russia in 1947. The original asteroid probably had a mass of 100 tons (!!) and when it exploded in our atmosphere it rained down debris, from tiny flakes to pieces that you couldn’t lift if you tried. These meteorites have been picked up the years and are a favorite among collectors, including me.

And I am giving away 20 small pieces of Sikhote-Alin to you, my subbies! Each is about 4 grams and 1.5 to 2 centimeters in length. To be clear, these are real meteorites, actual pieces of an actual asteroid that actually impacted our plane almost exactly 75 years ago, which makes this a fun confluence of events.

[The actual 20 meteorites that will be sent to 20 subscribers of the newsletter. Ruler and astronomer for scale. Credit: Phil Plait]

And all you have to do to win one is… nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but close enough. I will semi-randomly pick 20 subscribers, send them an email, and if they respond with their address I will send them a Sikhote-Alin meteorite in the mail. Easy peasy.

Here’re the details:

By semi-random I mean I am giving away 10 meteorites to paid subscribers and 10 to free subscribers. On Monday, April 25, 2022, at noon Mountain US Time (18:00 UTC), I will download my subscribers list into two files, one for paid and one for free subbies, sorted by subscription date. I will then use an online random number generator (such as this one) to generate ten numbers for each list, going from 1 to the number of people on the list. I’ll then check the ten people on each list whose entry number matches the ones generated — if you’re family or I know you personally (like we’re friends or something) or you have a complimentary subscription then I’m sorry, but to be fair to everyone else I’ll pick another number and give someone else a chance.

I’ll then contact those 20 people to let them know they won! If I don’t hear back from one or more winners by noon Mountain Time on Monday, May 2 I’ll pick people again to replace them. I’ll give them a week as well, and I’ll repeat this process until all 20 meteorites are accounted for.

I’ll cover all mailing costs. Also, I’ll include a one-page description of Sikhote-Alin meteorites I wrote, which talks about the asteroid impact and how the meteorites formed.

See? Like I said, you have to do very nearly nothing except wait and check your email on or about Monday April 25. Now, one thing you could do is tell your friends about the newsletter and the giveaway and tell them to subscribe, which would be very cool of you. Of course this will lower your own particular chance of winning, but only by a little bit, and you will bask in the glow of self-righteousness knowing you did something nice for a friend. And if they win, you can demand they cut the meteorite in half and give one piece to you**.

What are the odds of winning? As of this current issue posting there are roughly 6,700 total subscribers, with about 400 paying subs (so, becoming a paid subscriber increases your chances of winning by more than 15 times! Hint hint). I expect those numbers will go up when I announce this on Twitter and Instagram. So, probably higher than any state-run lottery you can play but on the other hand also lower than getting hit by lightning while simultaneously being bitten by a shark as a vending machine falls on you. Caveat: I haven’t done that math.

So hang tight, and I hope you — yes, YOU — win one.

And without snark and with an abundance of sincerity: THANK YOU for subscribing. I really didn’t know this newsletter thing was going to work out when I started it — I had a very Dread Pirate Roberts attitude about it at first: “Good night. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning” — but it’s actually been a lot of fun to work on, a way to vent or share fun info or expand on news in a way I can’t on the blog or just opine about stuff, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

So stick around! There’s plenty more stuff in the Universe to talk about.

* One of my favorite words, since it has not just three double letters but three double letters in a row.

** This may be illegal in some states or provinces or municipalities or potentially impactable planets, and would be considered a “dick move” anywhere.

Pic o’ the Letter

A cool or lovely or mind-bending astronomical image/video with a short description so you can grok it

And as a congratulations for reading this far (or scrolling past everything above, which really you shouldn’t do: READ THAT, because YOU MIGHT WIN A METEORITE) here is a way cool Hubble Space Telescope image of three galaxies colliding:

The description on the ESA Flickr page is actually pretty good, so click that link above and read it. It almost sounds like something I would write except that I absolutely do not see the Enterprise in the shape of those galaxies. Cthulhu maybe. Or a pelican with a curved beak about to eat a fish that jumped out of the water in front of it. Pareidolia is weird.

Blog Jam

[Three supernovae seen simultaneously in the galaxy NGC 5605. Credit: CRTS / Stan Howerton / Mirko Villi]

Monday 11 April, 2022:  DUDE, where's my carbon star?

Et alia

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!

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