Astronomy, UFOs, Gold and finding the right locations:

You may wonder what Astronomy has to do with this highway -- for that matter, this highway in Nevada. Astronomers would consider other states or countries more amenable to Astronomy. But to the amateur, there is no other place to experience Astronomy than in Nevada, particularly on State Route 375, also known as the Extraterrestrial Highway, which by the way is not far from Area 51 -- a UFO historical site, of sorts. Or US Route 50, the Loneliest Road in America -- the best highway to experience Basin and Range country. About 15 million years ago, the Pacific oceanic plate ended its slide under the west coast and started to slip north, creating the San Andreas Fault. As the two plates slid by each other, tension caused the continental crust inland to stretch to the breaking point. Nevada was at the center of the action. Basins dropped thousands of feet and mountains rose thousands of feet buoyed by great plumes of magma below the crust. Walk up to a mountain in Nevada and you won't see much in the way of foothills. These are young mountains, the peaks have not been eroded enough to create piles of debris which form most mountain foothills. These mountains are still active and moving in Nevada. Stand next to them and you'll feel the energy. Pull your car over on a highway like the one in the photo and you'll feel the energy of new and growing earth below you and more energy in the sky. Drive through Nevada at night and you have to look up at the display -- stars, planets, meteorites and maybe a UFO. This is where you study Astronomy in a very amateur and wonderful way.

Consciousness and Reality:

Anthropologists have not been able to pinpoint when Homo sapiens first developed consciousness. It is clear that consciousness develops through contact with the reality that surrounds us. It is also influenced by what we've learned from parents and in school, or for that matter out on the street. As we look back at early Homo, we might assume that his (or her) consciousness was much more limited than ours. After all, there wasn't that much to stimulate the brain other than keeping the species going and surviving. But now we are bombarded by all kinds of stimuli as our brains expand beyond that of early Homo. Thousands of years from now someone may be wondering the same about us. Their reality would probably be exponentially expanded beyond ours just as ours is to early Homo's. The bottom line is that there is most probably a greater reality out there that our consciousness is not prepared for. Now is the time to be open to a greater reality. Hence, my feeling that there is energy out on that Nevada highway. And the only way to sense it is away from the crowds, surrounded by the quiet, preferably at night and watching the sky. Doing Astronomy your own way.

The Big Bang and rocks from outer space:

In other sections of this web site we mentioned the Big Bang that formed the universe, which by the way is still expanding. At the beginning of it all, energy and matter were closely concentrated. The Big Bang (15 billion years ago), is described as a huge "cosmic inflation" that occurred a trillionth of a second after the beginning of time. This vast explosion sent matter through space. Atoms, then elements formed -- the chemical building blocks of the universe, planets and stars. Cosmologists believe the universe was more than 10 billion years old when our solar system was formed, 4.6 billion years ago. Earth's age is dated at about 4.6 billion years. Much of this material is extensively covered in my first book Spirit of the American Southwest.

Between Mars and Jupiter, scientists have found a huge ring of debris orbiting the sun along with the planets. This debris could be the remains of a planet that never formed when the solar system took shape. Many thousands of these orbiting bodies, called Asteroids, move in an erratic fashion, often colliding and sending off smaller debris into other parts of our solar system. This debris, called Meteoroids, are often seen in the night sky (most commonly known as meteors or falling stars). When they collide with earth, they are called Meteorites. And occasionally, from the outer reaches of our solar system, Comets may travel deeper into the solar system and can be seen almost stationary in the night sky, with a tail that can be millions of miles long. All these heavenly bodies have collided with other planets, and earth, many times in the past. On earth, the locations of these collisions are not as easy to recognize as those on the moon because geologic processes such as erosion, plate collisions, sea level changes and glaciers obscure the impact zones. But their effects have been documented in layers of space dust (Iridium) found in ancient strata. Some impacts have been devastating. Like the monster asteroid that killed off all dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Astronomy is obviously connected to Geology and Paleontology in a big way! The best way to start the learning experience is with a star chart. We'll leave the rest up to you. But please, get out of the car, get on the trail, out of the tent at night and just watch. Be open, there has to be a greater reality and what better place or time to experience it.

Interesting considerations about the night sky:

The Universe contains some 10 billion galaxies. Ours is the Milky Way.

The Milky Way Galaxy is 80,000 light-years across with over 100 billion stars, some with their own solar system like ours.

The Andromeda Galaxy can be found in the hind leg of Pegasus, the great flying horse, and contains a black hole 20,000 times the mass of our sun.

Antares, the 15th biggest star in the sky, is a great red giant in the heart of the constellation Scorpio (Scorpius). In size, it equals 14 quadrillion of our moons. Put another way, if Antares took the place of our sun it would consume half our solar system.

Astronomy -- where to go, where to hike, what to know:

The Universe has existed for some 15 billion years. Knowing how difficult it is for the human mind to comprehend such a span of time, Carl Sagan created a calendar to represent this vast span within the standard 12 months of the year. On January 1st, the Universe was created in the Big Bang. The Milky Way galaxy emerged within the vast and expanding Universe on May 1. Our Solar System began to form on September 9. Life in the form of single cell organisms appeared on Earth on September 25. Finally, just before midnight on December 31, the first human-like primates appear in Africa. If you are a member of the Homo sapiens species as I am, it's a humbling thought. Stand out on a Nevada highway, or in the middle of Monument Valley, at night and you'll feel the same way -- humbled and in awe.

Any location across the country is suitable for star gazing, as long as there are no trees to block the view, or buildings, or bright lights, or smog and you have a cloudless sky. For all those reasons, Nevada is the place to be for perfect uninterrupted views. And some areas of Nevada have a lot more to offer. The Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in the west central section of the state offers an old ghost town along with a park dedicated to a 200+ million year old fossil (Ichthyosaur) of the Jurassic Period (Mesozoic Era). If you visit the ghost town of Berlin, keep an eye on the ground for a white rock, actually a vein of white rock. This rock is Quartz and Gold tends to be found with Quartz -- it travels with Quartz as a liquid before both solidify. At this particular area, much Gold was pulled out of the ground. Thanks to Basin and Range mountain building activity, the Gold which existed underground for millions or even billions of years, was brought to the surface as exposed veins when the mountains rose. The Ichthyosaur, a marine reptile meaning fish lizard, was the size of a whale, with long jaws filled with teeth. It was a killing machine like the Great White Sharks of Jaws fame. It weighed up to 40 tons but had to surface for air to survive but they gave birth in the sea. There's a campground at the park -- a great place to view the night sky. From US 50 turn south on State Route 361 to SR 884 and follow the signs.

By far the best:

Great Basin National Park is on the opposite side of the state, southeast of Ely, Nevada. My road-buddy Charles and I agreed not to tell anyone about this best kept secret of the national park system but I couldn't help myself. The park has so much to offer. If you're into spelunking, Lehman Caves are next to the park. But if you want to star gaze and hike, this is the place to be. Glaciers sculpted the peaks in this area. A rock glacier still sits at the base of Wheeler Peak along with other glacial landforms such as moraines and glacial lakes. Along the ground, look for rocks of various colors that sparkle as you rotate them in the sun. The rock is Quartzite. It originally formed as sand when this area of Nevada was underwater. Over millions of years, the Quartz-rich sand solidified to a hard metamorphic rock called Quartzite. After millions of years of mountain uplift, which brought the former beach into the sky, the Quartzite rocks that formed the peaks have eroded and been transported downhill by wind, water and gravity. In the Pleistocene Epoch, which we discussed in the Archaeology section, glaciers covered much of northern North America. Farther south, ice sheets covered the higher peaks. As the ice sheets receded, what remained were these glacial landforms. Camp at the top campground (there are 3) and take the trail to Wheeler Peak, at over 13,000 feet, it's the second highest in Nevada. On the way up, you'll see this beautiful glacial lake at the base of the peak. Enjoy the night sky!