GC55JVZMad For Science: Exoplanets
Type: Traditional
| Size: Small
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By: Triggur@
| Hide Date: 05/25/2014
| Status: Available
Country: United States
| State: Colorado Coordinates: N40° 45.328 W105° 32.769 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
You're looking for a small, well-camo'd, water tight container containing a log, a handful of foreign coins, and one of the copper vacuum seal rings from my fusion reactor.
If you find that your sunny day coordinates are different from my cloudy day coordinates, please do let me know and I'll update them!
Until 1992, nobody had proof of the existence of "exoplanets," or planets outside our own solar system. It could have been that ours was unique, though scientists widely doubted it.
Since then, we have discovered thousands of them orbiting other stars. The closest known is a possibly terrestrial-sized planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, only 4 light years away.
Discoveries accelerated with the launch of the Kepler probe, designed to search for planets by measuring the brightness of stars over long periods of time to determine when planets might be passing between us and the star.
Though its mission is largely over now, we used Kepler's data to confirm the existence of 962 exoplanets and 3,601 unconfirmed potentials. Exoplanets are apparently so abundant that scientists have extrapolated the results to calculate that our galaxy alone contains perhaps 100 billion planets.
Now, only some of them might be Earth-like. This requires, among other factors:
that the star be like our sun,
that the planet exists in the "Goldilocks Zone"-- so named because the region's temperature is "just right" for for liquid water
that the planet is of rocky composition and not gas
This narrows the list of potential Earth-like planets down to approximate 8.8 billion. This is in our galaxy alone! With the potential of 500 billion galaxies in the universe, there could be upwards of 4 trillion habitable planets out there.
06/02/2015 By Pixel Magic I started my descent through the drainage areas heading east from the prior cache toward this location. I made good time going downhill, careful not to get too excited about my recent successes finding caches established here by Triggur.
This one was a little tricky getting a GPS device to work while I was between two caves hidden between two big boulders. I was able to move about and look for a likely spot to find a hidden container. From above I spotted a rock in a crack that was suspicious because a non-exfoliated edge was showing a deeper color than the rest of the rock. I climbed back down to the cave area only to find that there was nothing behind it. Did Triggur install a bogus clue? Nicely done. Moving around a bit I was able to find the tricky hiding spot. Container and contents were in good condition.
From here I descended further through the drainage areas to get to the valley below. The valley is where my previous hiking had taken place. The bushwacking from one high point to another was part of the fun and challenge of this excellent series of caches. Great job, Triggur. Great series of caches. Quite a challenge.
06/03/2014 By Denali41 As a scientist, this** Mad For Science:** series immediately captured my attention–especially when combined with its backcountry placements (the specific type of geocache locations that I favor as a cache hider and a cache seeker). Triggur has conceptualized and executed a wonderful series. I’ve loved the individual cache write-ups, the photography/illustrations that support the written material, the fantastic selection of cache hiding locations, and the intrinsically challenging issues of getting to and finding certain of the caches. I knew when my puppy Orizaba and I set out this morning hoping to find all eight Mad For Science caches that we had a long day ahead, some of it in very challenging terrain. And the day turned out as anticipated–long and challenging, indeed.
Because of very high flows in Elkhorn Creek, I decided to approach the caches from the north, to get to the farthest one first and begin with “Fusion”, and then to move clockwise from placement to placement. This might have been a mistake, because in retrospect it appears that the caches were hidden on two days, and they were most likely approached from different directions during the hiding activities. We got into very challenging route-finding between Star Scale and the three caches to the north (DNA, Large Hadron Collider, and Light Echo). This is steep, treacherous terrain with very tough rock formations and many fallen trees to circumvent--at least it was on the general route that I chose. There might be a better way from the south, but finding that “better way” toward the north, if one exists, might take some real time and testing. It was while I was mired in this terrain trap that I began thinking the unthinkable–that we might run out of time and not reach all eight caches! We did run out of time. When we eventually finished the climb up to the “saddle” just west of the Large Hadron Collider, south of Light Echo, and East of DNA, it was clear that I had insufficient time for all three of them plus Exoplanets on the way down. Of course “Collider” was my focal point for the entire day, so in the end I opted for it and Light Echo, unfortunately needing to omit DNA from my plans. But I still felt really good about reaching and finding seven of the eight Mad For Science caches. Doing this in a single day is a good workout, for sure! It certainly represented the toughest outing yet for my young puppy Orizaba. She did amazingly well, and is beginning to better appreciate just how far she can extend herself on ascending and descending decisions involving very steep terrain or boulders. It was a joy to have her with me today.
Apparently the 500 billion galaxies out there are absolutely cluttered with planets. If the hospitable planets come close to the estimated number of 4 trillion, think of the sheer number of geocaches that might be hidden on them. Some would obviously be very "lonely" caches!
I’ve been a backcountry cacher from the time I started geocaching. I believe this is the finest set of backcountry caches in a themed series that I’ve found. My congratulations and thanks to Triggur for their creation.I'm proud to have earned the {FTF} on this cache.
Mad For Science: Exoplanets
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