To sleep perchance to...sleep!

   You’d think a guy who has almost zero stress in his life and leads a very healthy lifestyle would sleep like a baby. Unfortunately, for the past several months (years?) I have had very few nights of truly restful sleep - part of the reason I am doing some physical therapy on my neck and shoulders, trying to gain some comfort and eliminate reasons why I just can’t string together six or seven hours of solid unconsciousness.

   I learned a couple of years ago that I have arthritis in my neck, which certainly doesn’t help, but it also turns out that I suffer from thoracic outlet syndrome, which results in numbness in my hands and fingertips. While this certainly doesn’t help my sleep, I noticed this symptom has become worse this spring during some of my longer bicycle rides. I’m very aware of it, change hand positions often and occasionally sit up to shake my arms out, but I figured seeking some professional help might be a better solution.

   However, it seems for the short term the therapist’s twisting and stretching of my upper torso has only “angered” my nerves, so I can’t find any position in which to sleep comfortably, and I’m tossing and turning constantly. Last night, for the first time in about a week, I was sleeping soundly for about three hours until a violent thunderstorm woke me up. I knew I was finished, since I also have the unfortunate ability to let my mind race out of control with useless thought processes, memory recall or pretty much anything that will not let my brain calm down enough to fall back asleep!

   This is why I rolled out of bed at 5:00 AM this morning, exasperated and looking for something to do besides thrash around on the mattress. I feel pretty confident that conditions will improve, if those three straight knocked-out hours are any indication, and I’ve noticed recently that I am able to pedal longer without the fingertips tingling.

   You would think that my nighttime mind races (pun) with visions of the Tour de France, but as exciting as the first week had been, the dominance of Chris Froome and Team Sky is now making the event almost anti-climactic. Instead, I have had college memories and, of all things, astronomy dancing around in my head.

   A friend had asked me for help to find a bicycle for her college-bound son, which reminded me of the joy I had felt when my parents surprised me with an overhaul of my old Ross ten-speed (its shifting mechanism had failed completely) and delivery to my University of Maryland dorm. I rode that bike all over Prince George’s County and into D.C. a few times. I even entered the Campus Criterium a couple of years, even though that bike was definitely not an elite racing machine.

   I recalled the route of the event around Byrd Stadium and the athletics complex, and a sharp downhill curve right by the Computer Science Building. I was very familiar with that structure, not only because I would often shortcut through it to get back and forth to work for the Campus Recreation Department at North Gym, but I also took some astronomy courses there.

   I’ve always had an interest in studying outer space and was disappointed that high school science wasn’t more focused on related subject matter. Although my math skills weren’t quite up to the level of a prospective astrophysicist, I did choose some astronomy classes at the University to take up some of those pesky “undergraduate studies” credits. In fact, after a glance at the syllabus for the 100-level course, I was confident that with my enthusiasm for the subject and the previous knowledge I had gained, I could probably ace the course without even attending lectures. I’ll confess that, except for a couple requisite “visits”, I undertook a successful testing of that theory. The fact that the professor was one of the most boring lecturers EVER, made me feel like I didn't really miss a thing!

   Later in life, when we first moved to Royersford and the area was still pretty rural, you could often find me looking up into the sky with binoculars and/or a small telescope. I had learned all of the constellations and used them as keys for the location of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. As our neighborhood succumbed to commercial development and the sky became light-polluted, we had to resort to small road trips to see Perseid meteor showers and the like.

   Although astronomy became part of the homeschooling curriculum for my sons, I found myself devoting more time to other hobbies and eventually my cycling business. However, recent reports on NASA’s New Horizons probe and its recent fly-by of Pluto had sparked my interest in “catching up” on any new discoveries, and I even looking into any updated facts within our solar system.

   If you don’t find this particular digression very interesting, you are certainly free to bail now, but I thought I’d share some of my favorite planetary facts. If nothing else, it’ll prove I don’t just think about bicycles all day (and night…argh!) long.

   1. I’ve known since I was in college that Venus rotates on its axis in the opposite direction (think sunrise in the west) and is the only of our seven “neighbors” to do so. Some scientists believe this may have been caused by a large impact during the planet’s formation. I also knew Venus has a longer day (equal to 243 Earth days) than year (224 days), but I didn’t know its spin actually slows 6.5 minutes per year. This could mean eventually the planet will be in synchronous rotation with the sun, much like the same side of our moon always faces towards Earth, or may even start spinning on its axis in a counter-clockwise manner, as the other seven planets do.

   2. The fact that Uranus’ axis is almost at 90 degrees was also stored away in my brain, and I always visualized the planet kind of rolling along as it made its way around the sun. If you recall, the Earth’s tilt of 23 degrees causes our change of seasons, but imagine that with one of its poles pointing directly at the sun during its winter and summer solstices, Uranus has 42 days of complete darkness at one end and light at the other! This is the only planet named after a figure from Greek mythology, the sky god Ouranos, whose name was Latinized – I suppose to go with the other Roman-named planets?  Personally, I think we should go back to that pronunciation “ow-RAN-ohs”, and we wouldn’t have to hear anyone giggle about that poor planet’s name anymore.

   3. Jupiter is interesting because it is so huge (its mass is over twice that of all the other planets combined), you can see it in the sky with the naked eye and easily sight four of its moons with a set of binoculars. Its largest moon, Ganymede, is bigger than the planet Mercury. Most people know about the planet’s Great Red Spot, but this amazing storm is larger than the diameter of Earth and has been gusting with over 400 mph winds for more than 250 years!

   4. Most folks name the planet Saturn as their favorite because it is so visually beautiful, or perhaps Mars because of its proximity to Earth and/or because of the wild stories of creatures there, but I’d pick Neptune because it is so quirky. First of all, it is the only planet to have been discovered by mathematical prediction (brought about by a detection of unexplained changes in Uranus’ orbit) instead of visual observation. The planet’s size and chemical makeup are almost identical to that of Uranus, but scientists aren’t quite sure why Neptune’s blue is so much more vivid than the color of its neighbor. Neptune has a Great Dark Spot, much like Jupiter, except that its winds are an incredible 1300 mph!  Neptune has fifteen known moons, but its largest, Triton, revolves in a plane tilted 23 degrees from the rest (see illustration below) and is also the only moon in the solar system that is in retrograde orbit - that is it revolves around Neptune in a clockwise direction, while its planet rotates on its axis counter-clockwise! These factors suggest that Triton did not form in orbit around Neptune but was instead gravitationally captured by the planet. Neptune also has a tilt very similar to that of Earth, but its slow revolution around the sun means its seasons last 40 years each – and I complain about being on the indoor trainer during our winter!

Triton orbit displayed in red, all others in light blue

   5. Finally, I knew nothing about Trojan objects – minor planets or natural satellites that share an orbit with a planet or larger moon, but do not collide with it because they orbit near one of the two Lagrangian points of stability, which lie approximately 60° ahead of and behind the larger body, respectively. (Yeah, click on that link for an explanation!) Anyway, the Earth has an asteroid about 1000 feet in diameter (categorized 2010 TK₇), along with some interplanetary dust, that precedes it in orbit around the sun. 

Now don’t you feel all astrophysicist-like? I’ll be taking the next two weeks off from writing (unless something spectacular happens) while I am enjoying a couple of separate mini-vacation trips with the family. Enjoy the rest of the Tour de France and be safe on the roads!