We've Received Our First Visitor From Another Solar System

Well, when I say we, I mean "our solar system", and when I say visitor, I mean "cigar shaped asteroid". But the point stands! Sort of. Alright, so this isn't the most exciting thing to have as our first official interstellar visitor, but it's still interesting.

Credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO

Meet 1I/2017 U1, or if you want to be a normal person, 'Oumuamua. Yes, that apostrophe is part of the name. It's about 1,300 feet long, made of rock with some metal, is a dark reddish color (that's an artist's rendition above), and has absolutely no coma around it. It's not a weird looking comet.

How do we know it's from another solar system? Well, the whole 'not a comet' thing helps. 'Oumuamua is moving very fast, much faster than any asteroid from our solar system can. Comets from the Oort Cloud can move that fast, but as we've established, this isn't a comet. And in case you were wondering, yes, 'Oumuamua does mean "messenger from afar traveling fast" in Hawaiian. It's very literal.

Unfortunately, 'Oumuamua was detected too late and is moving far too fast for us to learn anything more about it. No spacecraft we have right now could catch up to it. We'll just have to wait for the universe to lob us another cosmic cigar. So for now, we'll have to settle for simply knowing that we've received a visitor from interstellar space.

Review: The Greens at Hamilton Run

It sounds fancy, but trust me, the Greens at Hamilton Run is not a fancy golf course. Located in the middle of Hagerstown, Maryland, this course used to be called Hagerstown Municipal Golf Course. And that's what it is. A bare-bones, basic 9 hole muni.

Unlike the other reviews I've done recently, I've played this course before. Once. About 15 years ago. I couldn't remember it at all. And since I needed a course for this month, and I didn't have a lot of money, I went to the Greens. It's very exciting.

The first hole is a downhill par 4 (They're all short). There's a big net to the left of the fairway (which I didn't get a picture of because a group was letting me play through and I was hurrying), so that means you probably won't be going out of bounds on your first swing. But I imagine a lot of people bail out towards the right anyway, which results in a more difficult pitch over the greenside bunker. The greens here are small, and not interesting in any way. It's muni golf, after all.

The 1st from about 150 yards out

The approach is slightly harder because of the bunker. Slightly.

The second hole is the only par 5 on the course. It's dead straight, running between a stream and an OB line to the left, and a row of houses to the right. The most notable thing about this hole is that you have to leave your bag about 250 yards short of the green, because the hole works itself into a section of the property so narrow it couldn't fit two holes next to each other. Yeah, this course is pretty shoehorned in.

Not a lot to see on the second tee.

Still not a lot to see on the second fairway.

And a not very interesting green.

The third hole is a medium length par 3, played to a bunkerless green. And that's about it.

The third hole

The fourth hole is a short par 3, played to a small green over a fronting bunker. Not exceedingly interesting, but a veritable masterpiece compared to the last hole.

The fourth hole

The fifth hole is an interesting hole. For one thing, it's very wide. At only 250 yards, it's about as short as par 4s get. And the tee shot is blind. There's a lot of elevation change on this hole, it goes down, then up, then down and up again to the green. If the green were defended in...any way, it would be better. Right now, there's no reason at all for you not to go for it if you can hit a golf ball that far. Make the layup the better play, that's what a hole like this is looking for.

Not much to see from the fifth tee.

You have to get to the top of the second hill to see the green.

And what a reward you get for climbing over those hills.

The sixth hole is a par 4 with a stream to the right. It's not a bad looking hole, but there's nothing more to it then that. There's no reason why the golfer should come anywhere close to the stream, unless they hit a terrible shot (I did just that).

For whatever reason, this picture didn't come out great.

Definitely took the picture over here of my own accord and not because I hit it over here.

The seventh hole is brought to you courtesy of AutoZone. Seriously, look at that product placement, I expect an endorsement before the year is out. Oh, you want something about the hole? Well, just look at it. There's no more to it than what you see.

That's U.S. Route 40 running to the left of the hole. Like I said, the middle of town.

The eighth hole has a nice view from the tee, which is up on top of a hill. The drive is best hit down the left side to take the greenside bunker out of play.

That's South Mountain in the background.

This is a good spot to approach the eighth green.

The last hole plays back up the hill to a semi-blind green. I actually didn't take a putt on this hole. My drive ended up behind a tree, the punch shot out stopped just short of the greenside bunker, and I pitched in from there. That's always a nice way to end a round.

I'm not going to sugarcoat this one. It's not a good golf course. Even in terms of basic little 9 holers, it's not that great. The most interesting thing about the course is that it's still around. You sort of get a sense this course is surrounded by town from the pictures, but I really do mean it when I say that the Greens is in the middle of Hagerstown. I can't believe the town makes more money from golf than they would if they sold it to developers. And let's not forget, Hagerstown already has a municipal golf course, and a rather good one at that. Black Rock Golf Course is actually the best municipal golf course in Maryland, according to Golf Digest. It's not the best course I've ever played, but it's a whole lot better than the Greens. But hey, it's not my town.

This hasn't been the most exciting photo tour ever, but hopefully, that will change next month. I've been travelling, and I've got enough material for the next 4 months. Granted, I didn't travel to the most visually compelling place, but it was very warm, and I hope it'll be a nice treat as we head through winter.

Memorializing the Only Cat That's Been to Space

Be honest, did you even know that a cat had been to outer space? And that the French were responsible? I didn't. Frankly, I and most other people probably hadn't given it any thought. But someone out there has, and they want to set up a memorial in Paris to Felicette, a stray cat found in Paris who was launched into space on October 18, 1963, and returned home safely.

You may think that a memorial to a cat may be a bit silly, even for one that went into outer space. But consider this, Laika the dog has a bronze memorial at the site where Russia trains its astronauts as well as a spot on the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow. Ham the chimpanzee (the first hominid to fly in space) is buried at the International Space Hall of Fame. A nice little memorial in Paris for the first and only cat to fly in space probably isn't too much to ask for. There's a donation page for it, which runs until November 17th.

It's Spooky Exoplanet Time!

Okay, so Halloween was a few days ago, but I think this is still kind of cool. The search for exoplanets is really about searching for another planet like Earth, and the day we find that little blue dot will be a big day. Until then though, it's a strange galaxy out there, and it's worth reminding ourselves that we've found some strange exoplanets. I've heard of most of these, but the planet sitting at 12,000 degrees was a new one. Just last week I was talking about how a planet at 5,000 degrees was one of the hottest exoplanets ever discovered. This is more than twice that! And the pulsar planets are even more inhospitable than I thought, I didn't know the radiation was THAT strong. Anyway, give it a look to see just how unpleasant exoplanets can get.