Cosmos Computed

We got back home from our trip to Arizona about a week ago. Instead of driving back the way we came, we drove through New Mexico, so I didn't get to see the Grand Canyon again. But I got to see parts of New Mexico I hadn't seen before. Here are some photos, listed in chronological order: Looking back from New Mexico at mountains in Arizona. The tree is located at 32.2235, -109.018 A giant white patch barely inside New Mexico, on the I-10 Wind turbines in south-western New Mexico Looking ahead at a mirage Solar power plant The Rio Grande Gorge, near La Junta Looking back from Colorado at hills in New Mexico A 3-layer lenticular cloud in southern Colorado. Lenticular clouds are uncommon. At the beginning of our trip, we looked behind us at the Colorado border and saw a sign that said "Welcome to Colorful Colorado!" That didn't make much sense until we got back from our long trip in Arizona, and saw how colorful Colorado really was. New posts every month - subscribe...

When referring to multiple cactus plants in the English language, some say "cactuses", others say "cacti", and a few don't change anything and just say "cactus". All are acceptable, but I prefer to say "cacti". Cactus plants are very common in Arizona. They are specially adapted to the dry climate; some types can live through up to 10 years of drought. Their green, fleshy stems are often ribbed, making it easier to expand to hold water. The majority have sharp spines, instead of leaves; photosynthesis occurs in the stems. The spines only grow from areoles, which all cacti have. The largest type of cactus in Arizona is the  Carnegiea gigantea , or  " saguaro"  ( suh- wah -ro) . If you saw this type of cactus, you would remember it more easily than any others. It gets so tall when mature that none of the other cacti can even start to compare; mature saguaros dwarf even the tallest men. There are many other types of cacti besides the ...

On Monday we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert museum, which is just west of Tuscon. It's like a zoo, but there are a lot of things besides animals there - like meteorites, caves, and plants. Western Screech-Owl To the left is a Western Screech-Owl. The handler for this bird said the owl doesn't actually screech, and the name isn't accurate. American Kestrel On the right is a live male American Kestrel. Notice that the handler is wearing a glove to protect his hand from the sharp talons. In the wild, those talons are used for killing prey. This particular bird has never used its talons on live prey, however. It was born in captivity, and has never been fed anything alive. Because of this, the bird hasn't developed the skills it needs to survive alone in the wild. Here's a Harris's Hawk. Notice how much larger it is than the Kestrel: Harris's Hawk In a tree behind the Harris's Hawk, I saw a Cactus Wren for the first time. After that, we had a look at a me...

After we visited the Grand Canyon, we visited Meteor Crater, a ¾ mile wide impact crater in a northern Arizona desert. It is said to be the best-preserved crater in the world. In this photo, you can see the crater's bumpy rim on the horizon. Scientists believe that Meteor Crater was formed 50,000 years ago by a meteorite only 50 meters wide. It blasted such a large crater because it moved at a rate of something between 37 and 60 times the speed of sound. That's very fast. When the meteor hit the ground, it gave off energy equivalent to 10 - 20 million tons of TNT. The meteorite became extremely hot when it hit. It became so hot that most of it was vaporized, and the rest melted. The ground where it hit was no more fortunate; it vaporized and melted, too. A large quantity of material was thrown away from the site, and rained onto the ground for miles around. After the impact, fragments of the meteorite that had broken off in mid-air fell out of the sky onto the ground. Due to h...

On the second day of our road trip (see my last post here ), we visited the Grand Canyon, which is in northern Arizona. The Grand Canyon was formed by the Colorado River. The river ran over soil on the ground, and washed it away. Soon the river got to solid rock, and began to wear through that, too. As it wore through the rock, a huge gorge formed, with the river flowing through it. That gorge was the early Grand Canyon. As time went by, the canyon got deeper and deeper. The sides of the canyon fell into the river at places, and the river washed it away. When it rained, creeks and streams ran down into the canyon, eroding the sides and giving it an intricate, complicated shape. Finally, after about 40 million years of erosion, my family and I came along, and looked at the result. It's pretty impressive. Unfortunately, it was rather cold at the time, so we weren't able to stay as long as we would have liked; but it was a great experience just the same. While I was there, I took ...

I am currently on vacation in Arizona. It's really interesting here. For one, there are cool plants here that aren't where I live - like palm trees, and cacti taller than houses. For another, the weather is really nice; sunny  most of the time, and not too cold. To get to the place we're staying, my family drove for two days, from Colorado through New Mexico to Arizona. Here  are some of the photos I took along the way (just click to view): Colorado View looking up the side of a mountain Mesa Verde In these next pictures of Colorado, notice the "roots" of the mountain. They were likely carved by running rain-water. The following picture is of a butte I saw. Pardon the poor quality; the car was shaking like an earthquake for much of the trip. Arizona This picture is of some mountains far in the distance. The mountains are likely in Utah, but I'm not sure whether everything else is in Arizona or New Mexico. At first while we were in Arizona, we drove through a l...