I’m having flashbacks now. I feel as though it’s 2012, and I was just in the midst of examining the Houston cancer quack known as Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski. As you recall, he’s the Polish expat doctor who discovered peptides in the blood that he dubbed “antineoplastons” and postulated to be endogenous cancer suppressors. He ultimately made them into a cancer treatment that he’s been using on patients for over 40 years now, despite never having demonstrated its efficacy or safety. Despite that, he’s become a rock star in the world of alternative cancer cures, with two propaganda movies disguised as documentaries made lionizing him as the man who can cure cancers that no one else can and a steady stream of patients paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for his treatment.
Indeed, this makes the third time in two months that I’ve written about him. Two months ago, I lamented how, once again, the Texas Medical Board had failed to strip Burzynski of his medical license (or, as I put it, Burzynski slithered away from justice once again), even though he richly deserves that and continues to represent an ongoing threat to cancer patients everywhere. Then, last week, I noted that Burzynski is back in business again, as though nothing happened when I recounted the tragic case of a British boy with an incurable tumor whose family is frantically raising money to bring him to Houston to the Burzynski Clinic for antineoplaston therapy. It was as depressing a case as I’ve ever discussed over the six years or so that I’ve been chronicling Burzynski’s “career,” and, remember, I’ve discussed the case of Amelia Saunders, whose parents were flat out lied to by Burzynski up to her death. Sadly, the last update to the story of Cristiano Sousa explains how Cancer Research UK has weighed in on Cristiano’s case, explaining how Burzynski’s antineoplastons have never been shown to be effective against cancer. Unfortunately, Cristiano’s mother Ewa Sitkowska is so far into false hope sold by Burzynski that there appears to be no coming back:
But Ewa says she has little choice but to give her son every last chance and is aware of concerns expressed about the clinic.
After the story first appeared in the Examiner, several people got in touch to say the clinic’s experimental ‘antineoplaston therapy’ cancer treatment was unproven and gave false hope to vulnerable people.
And she revealed the heartache of Cristiano telling her last year: “I don’t want to live anymore” after a particularly unpleasant bout of radiotherapy.
What parent wouldn’t feel as though her heart had been ripped out to hear her child say that? Unfortunately, that’s how Burzynski works. He exploits such feelings to sell his unproven treatments. And he’s doing it again.
Yes, he’s doing it again. He’s back in business, as though the Texas Medical Board action had never been. This time around, it’s a child named Anna Ortega:
An Arizona family is reaching out for help after their 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given a 0 percent chance of survival.
Anna Ortega, who has five sisters and one brother, once enjoyed soccer and playing piano competitively, but now requires help to walk. The aspiring baker and chef, who loves school because she gets to spend time with her friends, broke down in a touching video as she said she prays to live long enough to have a family of her own.
And:
Her parents, Ted and Mindi, have traveled to Texas with Anna and her six siblings for an alternative treatment plan that will cost $200,000 over the next month and is not covered by insurance. A GoFundMe page has kept supporters updated on her condition, and Porter is hosting a massive charity auction in hopes of raising enough funds to help keep Anna alive.
Texas? Yes, it is exactly what you think. It’s Houston, and it’s Burzynski:
Unable to accept the grim prognosis for their daughter, who pens notes every week to each of her family members expressing her gratitude for their love, they took their search to Texas. On April 17, Anna and her parents met with Dr. Burzynski at his clinic in Houston to begin a strict regimen, which involves taking four medications. The family will live near The Burzynski Clinic for the next month before returning home and outsourcing the medication from various countries for a lower cost.
Outsourcing the medication from “various countries”? It sounds as though Burzynski has finally branched out and moved his manufacturing operation out of the U.S., at least in part.
Not surprisingly, the family has a GoFundMe page, where we learn:
On Friday, March 24, 2017 Anna Ortega ran over to her mom, Mindi, mid-soccer game and told her she needed to make an appointment to see an eye doctor because her eyes were getting blurry. A few days later she said she didn’t feel well and complained of double vision. Her mom picked her up from her school and noticed her eye looked like it wasn’t fully able to focus. She was immediately taken to Phoenix Children’s Hospital where she had a CT scan and MRI. They found 2 brain tumors, deep within the brain. One tumor was removed via surgery on Thursday, March 30th. The remaining tumor, as mentioned earlier, is inoperable.
Ted and Mindi need to go and find an innovative way to cure their daughter. The treatments at these facilities must be paid up front and in cash. We are asking for any help you feel you can give to bless this little girl’s life and help Ted and Mindi Ortega as they embark on this emotional and financially stressful journey. We believe in miracles. They are extremely grateful for any help you could give on Anna’s behalf.
We’ve heard this story before so many times with Burzynski that I’ve lost track of how many unfortunate children like Anna that I’ve discussed. Indeed, there’s nothing in the video included on the GoFundMe page that I haven’t seen, heard, or read about in one form or another before over the years. That doesn’t mean that the video still didn’t move me and even bring me to the edge of tears:
That’s its intent, and Anna is a lovely girl. It’s not fair that she should be facing death as she is. When she talks about the things she wants to do when she gets older at the end of the video above, I was simultaneously close to tears and angry, angry that Stanislaw Burzynski is taking advantage of the love of this family for this lovely girl to extract maximum cash out of them, all in the service of chasing false hope. You see, Anna has diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), which, unfortunately, seems to be one of the most common forms of cancer in patients whose family seeks out Burzynski.
Unfortunately, the family seems to have fallen under Burzynski’s sway, as you can see on the website set up to raise money for Anna:
April 26, 2017:
This is us with Dr. Burzynski. Ava came along to hang out with Anna and of course meet Dr. Burzynski herself. Anna got the last of her medicines today and is now officially on 5 medications. So far so good on her body responding well to them! Yay! We know that the best combination to fight this are these 5 drugs so we are hoping her body can tolerate all 5 of them. She will continue to get blood tests twice a week to make sure her levels are all good. She ended up having high levels of acid in her urine yesterday which is a good sign that her tumor is breaking down but is a bad sign in the sense that her kidneys need to start working over drive to help cleanse her body of the toxins. We are increasing every nutrition we can to help with her kidneys as well as increasing her lemon water so they can do it on their own so she won’t have to add one more medication to the list. Anna is so good and will eat anything we give her. We follow each day at the clinic by going to a juice bar where they juice fresh vegetables and fruit. We are making sure we give her the ones with the beets in it right now. Today Dr. B. told us he would like to start weening her off the steroids. We couldn’t be more excited to do that! Long term steroids cause a lot of damage. Short term it gives her a ravenous appetite, sleep problems, and irritability. Anna has been such a trooper and hasn’t acted irritated at all-which is unbelievable given the circumstances. I told her that it will be good to get her off them and she said “Mom, I can’t walk-I think I might still be a little irritated even after I get off steroids.” I laughed. She has to have someone help her to do EVERYTHING! She is so independent I’m sure it’s killing her but you wouldn’t know it. She is just so grateful that everyone is helping her. All the other girls are doing well. They are rockstars and it’s good to be together.
Wean Anna off the steroids? If there’s one thing I wouldn’t trust Burzynski to do (actually, I wouldn’t trust him to do anything more medically complex than give an aspirin, and even then I’d hesitate), it’s to wean a brain tumor patient off of her steroids. It’s not as though oncologists dose brain cancer patients with steroids willy-nilly for no reason. They do it to reduce brain swelling due to the tumor and any rsponse that the tumor has to conventional treatment. As for the five medications, I have to speculate here based on my knowledge of Burzynski. Antineoplastons are usually administered by infusion, frequently by Portacath or Hickman (long-term indwelling catheters that usually enter the subclavian or jugular veins and have to be placed surgically). So I’m not sure whether Anna’s getting antineoplastons or not. However, it does appear that she’s probably getting Burzynski’s “make it up as you go along” version of what he calls “gene-targeted therapy,” which is really just precision medicine done incompetently. In the old days, Burzynski would also make patients buy all the expensive targeted drugs from a pharmacy that he owned. I wonder if he can get away with that any more since the Texas Medical Board put his practice under scrutiny two months ago as part of its judgment against him.
No parents want to learn that their child has a uniformly deadly cancer like DIPG. Any parent, faced with that diagnosis in his child and the grim pronouncements of oncologists and surgeons, would be susceptible to a message that tells them that there might be a way to save their child. Unfortunately, in the case of Burzynski, those messages are false, and Ted and Mindi Ortega will waste the remaining time their daughter has left chasing a unicorn. They’ve already raised more than half their $200,000 goal, and a friend held a charity auction for her earlier this week, while the family posts updates on Anna’s Facebook page.
It’s a story I had hoped I wouldn’t be covering again; yet I’ve come across two patients like this in less than a month, and I know there are more out there. Burzynski is back in business, and it’s as though he never left. I’m reminded of that by these words on Anna’s GoFundMe page:
The treatments at these facilities must be paid up front and in cash.
That’s how Burzynski operates. That’s how he’s always operated. That’s how he’s operating again. The Texas Medical Board has utterly failed again, and Burzynski is partying like it’s 1999. Even worse, it’s not just UK media that’s feeding the Burzynski myth and facilitating his activities. Fox 10 in Phoenix, for instance, failed journalism in the service of a feel-good human interest story, oblivious to the true nature of the story, which is a desperate family of a dying girl being taken in by a snake oil salesman. It looks as though the ABC affiliate in Phoenix has done or will do the same. These news reports, as uplifting as they seem, are deeply irresponsible and only feed the Burzynski myth.
They also show that, as much as I had thought that the news media had learned Burzynski’s true nature over the last five years, I was wrong. The media remain as gullible as ever, willing accomplices to Burzynski’s extraction of cash from desperate families. The human altruism that leads so many to be so willing to help a girl like Anna is a beautiful thing. It never ceases to sadden and anger me to see a man like Burzynski take advantage of that glorious human trait to sell false hope to desperate families for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I’m having flashbacks now. I feel as though it’s 2012, and I was just in the midst of examining the Houston cancer quack known as Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski. As you recall, he’s the Polish expat doctor who discovered peptides in the blood that he dubbed “antineoplastons” and postulated to be endogenous cancer suppressors. He ultimately made them into a cancer treatment that he’s been using on patients for over 40 years now, despite never having demonstrated its efficacy or safety. Despite that, he’s become a rock star in the world of alternative cancer cures, with two propaganda movies disguised as documentaries made lionizing him as the man who can cure cancers that no one else can and a steady stream of patients paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for his treatment.
Indeed, this makes the third time in two months that I’ve written about him. Two months ago, I lamented how, once again, the Texas Medical Board had failed to strip Burzynski of his medical license (or, as I put it, Burzynski slithered away from justice once again), even though he richly deserves that and continues to represent an ongoing threat to cancer patients everywhere. Then, last week, I noted that Burzynski is back in business again, as though nothing happened when I recounted the tragic case of a British boy with an incurable tumor whose family is frantically raising money to bring him to Houston to the Burzynski Clinic for antineoplaston therapy. It was as depressing a case as I’ve ever discussed over the six years or so that I’ve been chronicling Burzynski’s “career,” and, remember, I’ve discussed the case of Amelia Saunders, whose parents were flat out lied to by Burzynski up to her death. Sadly, the last update to the story of Cristiano Sousa explains how Cancer Research UK has weighed in on Cristiano’s case, explaining how Burzynski’s antineoplastons have never been shown to be effective against cancer. Unfortunately, Cristiano’s mother Ewa Sitkowska is so far into false hope sold by Burzynski that there appears to be no coming back:
But Ewa says she has little choice but to give her son every last chance and is aware of concerns expressed about the clinic.
After the story first appeared in the Examiner, several people got in touch to say the clinic’s experimental ‘antineoplaston therapy’ cancer treatment was unproven and gave false hope to vulnerable people.
And she revealed the heartache of Cristiano telling her last year: “I don’t want to live anymore” after a particularly unpleasant bout of radiotherapy.
What parent wouldn’t feel as though her heart had been ripped out to hear her child say that? Unfortunately, that’s how Burzynski works. He exploits such feelings to sell his unproven treatments. And he’s doing it again.
Yes, he’s doing it again. He’s back in business, as though the Texas Medical Board action had never been. This time around, it’s a child named Anna Ortega:
An Arizona family is reaching out for help after their 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given a 0 percent chance of survival.
Anna Ortega, who has five sisters and one brother, once enjoyed soccer and playing piano competitively, but now requires help to walk. The aspiring baker and chef, who loves school because she gets to spend time with her friends, broke down in a touching video as she said she prays to live long enough to have a family of her own.
And:
Her parents, Ted and Mindi, have traveled to Texas with Anna and her six siblings for an alternative treatment plan that will cost $200,000 over the next month and is not covered by insurance. A GoFundMe page has kept supporters updated on her condition, and Porter is hosting a massive charity auction in hopes of raising enough funds to help keep Anna alive.
Texas? Yes, it is exactly what you think. It’s Houston, and it’s Burzynski:
Unable to accept the grim prognosis for their daughter, who pens notes every week to each of her family members expressing her gratitude for their love, they took their search to Texas. On April 17, Anna and her parents met with Dr. Burzynski at his clinic in Houston to begin a strict regimen, which involves taking four medications. The family will live near The Burzynski Clinic for the next month before returning home and outsourcing the medication from various countries for a lower cost.
Outsourcing the medication from “various countries”? It sounds as though Burzynski has finally branched out and moved his manufacturing operation out of the U.S., at least in part.
Not surprisingly, the family has a GoFundMe page, where we learn:
On Friday, March 24, 2017 Anna Ortega ran over to her mom, Mindi, mid-soccer game and told her she needed to make an appointment to see an eye doctor because her eyes were getting blurry. A few days later she said she didn’t feel well and complained of double vision. Her mom picked her up from her school and noticed her eye looked like it wasn’t fully able to focus. She was immediately taken to Phoenix Children’s Hospital where she had a CT scan and MRI. They found 2 brain tumors, deep within the brain. One tumor was removed via surgery on Thursday, March 30th. The remaining tumor, as mentioned earlier, is inoperable.
Ted and Mindi need to go and find an innovative way to cure their daughter. The treatments at these facilities must be paid up front and in cash. We are asking for any help you feel you can give to bless this little girl’s life and help Ted and Mindi Ortega as they embark on this emotional and financially stressful journey. We believe in miracles. They are extremely grateful for any help you could give on Anna’s behalf.
We’ve heard this story before so many times with Burzynski that I’ve lost track of how many unfortunate children like Anna that I’ve discussed. Indeed, there’s nothing in the video included on the GoFundMe page that I haven’t seen, heard, or read about in one form or another before over the years. That doesn’t mean that the video still didn’t move me and even bring me to the edge of tears:
That’s its intent, and Anna is a lovely girl. It’s not fair that she should be facing death as she is. When she talks about the things she wants to do when she gets older at the end of the video above, I was simultaneously close to tears and angry, angry that Stanislaw Burzynski is taking advantage of the love of this family for this lovely girl to extract maximum cash out of them, all in the service of chasing false hope. You see, Anna has diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), which, unfortunately, seems to be one of the most common forms of cancer in patients whose family seeks out Burzynski.
Unfortunately, the family seems to have fallen under Burzynski’s sway, as you can see on the website set up to raise money for Anna:
April 26, 2017:
This is us with Dr. Burzynski. Ava came along to hang out with Anna and of course meet Dr. Burzynski herself. Anna got the last of her medicines today and is now officially on 5 medications. So far so good on her body responding well to them! Yay! We know that the best combination to fight this are these 5 drugs so we are hoping her body can tolerate all 5 of them. She will continue to get blood tests twice a week to make sure her levels are all good. She ended up having high levels of acid in her urine yesterday which is a good sign that her tumor is breaking down but is a bad sign in the sense that her kidneys need to start working over drive to help cleanse her body of the toxins. We are increasing every nutrition we can to help with her kidneys as well as increasing her lemon water so they can do it on their own so she won’t have to add one more medication to the list. Anna is so good and will eat anything we give her. We follow each day at the clinic by going to a juice bar where they juice fresh vegetables and fruit. We are making sure we give her the ones with the beets in it right now. Today Dr. B. told us he would like to start weening her off the steroids. We couldn’t be more excited to do that! Long term steroids cause a lot of damage. Short term it gives her a ravenous appetite, sleep problems, and irritability. Anna has been such a trooper and hasn’t acted irritated at all-which is unbelievable given the circumstances. I told her that it will be good to get her off them and she said “Mom, I can’t walk-I think I might still be a little irritated even after I get off steroids.” I laughed. She has to have someone help her to do EVERYTHING! She is so independent I’m sure it’s killing her but you wouldn’t know it. She is just so grateful that everyone is helping her. All the other girls are doing well. They are rockstars and it’s good to be together.
Wean Anna off the steroids? If there’s one thing I wouldn’t trust Burzynski to do (actually, I wouldn’t trust him to do anything more medically complex than give an aspirin, and even then I’d hesitate), it’s to wean a brain tumor patient off of her steroids. It’s not as though oncologists dose brain cancer patients with steroids willy-nilly for no reason. They do it to reduce brain swelling due to the tumor and any rsponse that the tumor has to conventional treatment. As for the five medications, I have to speculate here based on my knowledge of Burzynski. Antineoplastons are usually administered by infusion, frequently by Portacath or Hickman (long-term indwelling catheters that usually enter the subclavian or jugular veins and have to be placed surgically). So I’m not sure whether Anna’s getting antineoplastons or not. However, it does appear that she’s probably getting Burzynski’s “make it up as you go along” version of what he calls “gene-targeted therapy,” which is really just precision medicine done incompetently. In the old days, Burzynski would also make patients buy all the expensive targeted drugs from a pharmacy that he owned. I wonder if he can get away with that any more since the Texas Medical Board put his practice under scrutiny two months ago as part of its judgment against him.
No parents want to learn that their child has a uniformly deadly cancer like DIPG. Any parent, faced with that diagnosis in his child and the grim pronouncements of oncologists and surgeons, would be susceptible to a message that tells them that there might be a way to save their child. Unfortunately, in the case of Burzynski, those messages are false, and Ted and Mindi Ortega will waste the remaining time their daughter has left chasing a unicorn. They’ve already raised more than half their $200,000 goal, and a friend held a charity auction for her earlier this week, while the family posts updates on Anna’s Facebook page.
It’s a story I had hoped I wouldn’t be covering again; yet I’ve come across two patients like this in less than a month, and I know there are more out there. Burzynski is back in business, and it’s as though he never left. I’m reminded of that by these words on Anna’s GoFundMe page:
The treatments at these facilities must be paid up front and in cash.
That’s how Burzynski operates. That’s how he’s always operated. That’s how he’s operating again. The Texas Medical Board has utterly failed again, and Burzynski is partying like it’s 1999. Even worse, it’s not just UK media that’s feeding the Burzynski myth and facilitating his activities. Fox 10 in Phoenix, for instance, failed journalism in the service of a feel-good human interest story, oblivious to the true nature of the story, which is a desperate family of a dying girl being taken in by a snake oil salesman. It looks as though the ABC affiliate in Phoenix has done or will do the same. These news reports, as uplifting as they seem, are deeply irresponsible and only feed the Burzynski myth.
They also show that, as much as I had thought that the news media had learned Burzynski’s true nature over the last five years, I was wrong. The media remain as gullible as ever, willing accomplices to Burzynski’s extraction of cash from desperate families. The human altruism that leads so many to be so willing to help a girl like Anna is a beautiful thing. It never ceases to sadden and anger me to see a man like Burzynski take advantage of that glorious human trait to sell false hope to desperate families for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, an enduring monument of ancient Egypt. Egyptologists believe that it was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC.Image via Nina Aldin Thune/Wikimedia Commons.
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Thuban is not a particularly bright star, but it holds a special place in the hearts of stargazers. That’s because Thuban was the Pole Star some 5,000 years ago, when the Egyptians were building the pyramids. follow the links below to learn more about Thuban, now a relatively inconspicuous star in the constellation Draco the Dragon.
What is Thuban’s connection with the pyramids of Egypt?
Why does the identity of the pole star keep changing?
This diagram shows the so-called air shafts in the Great Pyramid. Although it's known they were aligned with certain stars, to this day their purpose is not entirely clear. Image via Ancient Egypt Online
What is Thuban’s connection with the pyramids of Egypt? Among the many mysteries surrounding Egypt’s pyramids are the so-called “air shafts” in the Great Pyramid of Giza. These narrow passageways were once thought to serve for ventilation as the pyramids were being built. In the 1960s, though, the air shafts were recognized as being aligned with stars or areas of sky as the sky appeared for the pyramids’ builders 5,000 years ago.
One of the “air shafts” follows a crooked course through the Great Pyramid, so you couldn’t have sighted stars through it. To this day, the purpose of these passageways inside the Great Pyramid isn’t clear, although they might have been connected to rituals associated with the king’s ascension to the heavens. Whatever their purpose, the Great Pyramid of Giza reveals that its builders knew the starry skies intimately. They surely knew Thuban was their Pole Star, the point around which the heavens appeared to turn.
The 26,000-year precession cycle causes the north celestial pole to move counter-clockwise relative to the backdrop stars. Whichever star is closest to the north celestial pole is the Pole Star.
Earth never changes its axial tilt, but its axis does point out at different pole stars. Many compare this movement of Earth to the wobble of a spinning top before it falls. Animation via AstroBob
Past and future pole stars. Indeed, Thuban at times made a better pole star than our modern Polaris. Various sources claim that Thuban almost exactly pinpointed the position of the north celestial pole in the year 2787 B.C.
Meanwhile, our modern Polaris – which many centuries ago was an ordinary star known by the name Phoenice – won’t match Thuban’s precision when it most closely aligns with the north celestial pole on March 24, 2100. Polaris will be 27’09” (0.4525o) from the north celestial pole at that time (a little less than the angular diameter of the moon when at its farthest from Earth), according to the computational wizard Jean Meeus.
The Northern Hemisphere also has had long stretches without a pole star. After the reign of Thuban but before that of Polaris, Kochab in the Little Dipper served as a rather poor pole star in 1100 BC. Kochab was only half again as close to the north celestial pole as it is today.
Looking into the future, Errai will become the northern pole star around 4000 AD and Alderamin will take its turn around 7500 AD.
Why does the identity of the pole star keep changing? Earth’s axis maintains a tilt that varies from about 22o to 24o from perpendicular every 41,000 years, with respect to the plane of our orbit around the sun. But, over a period of 26,000 years, Earth’s axis points out at different pole stars, tracing out a slow circle in the heavens. Whichever star lies on or near that circle will eventually be a pole star.
Many compare this motion of Earth – which is called precession or sometimes precession of the equinoxes – to that you sometimes see in a spinning top, which wobbles before it falls.
You can always find Thuban using the Big and Little Dippers as a guide.
How to see Thuban. Thuban is part of the constellation Draco the Dragon. Although it’s not a super bright star, it is bright enough to see with relative ease on a dark night.
Most people star-hop to Thuban from the Big and Little Dippers. Draw an imaginary line that connects the stars Pherkad and Mizar. You’ll see Thuban, the former North Star, midway between these two guide stars.
Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
Bottom line: Thuban was the Pole Star 5,000 years ago, when the Egyptian pyramids were being built. It is part of our constellation Draco the Dragon.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, an enduring monument of ancient Egypt. Egyptologists believe that it was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC.Image via Nina Aldin Thune/Wikimedia Commons.
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Thuban is not a particularly bright star, but it holds a special place in the hearts of stargazers. That’s because Thuban was the Pole Star some 5,000 years ago, when the Egyptians were building the pyramids. follow the links below to learn more about Thuban, now a relatively inconspicuous star in the constellation Draco the Dragon.
What is Thuban’s connection with the pyramids of Egypt?
Why does the identity of the pole star keep changing?
This diagram shows the so-called air shafts in the Great Pyramid. Although it's known they were aligned with certain stars, to this day their purpose is not entirely clear. Image via Ancient Egypt Online
What is Thuban’s connection with the pyramids of Egypt? Among the many mysteries surrounding Egypt’s pyramids are the so-called “air shafts” in the Great Pyramid of Giza. These narrow passageways were once thought to serve for ventilation as the pyramids were being built. In the 1960s, though, the air shafts were recognized as being aligned with stars or areas of sky as the sky appeared for the pyramids’ builders 5,000 years ago.
One of the “air shafts” follows a crooked course through the Great Pyramid, so you couldn’t have sighted stars through it. To this day, the purpose of these passageways inside the Great Pyramid isn’t clear, although they might have been connected to rituals associated with the king’s ascension to the heavens. Whatever their purpose, the Great Pyramid of Giza reveals that its builders knew the starry skies intimately. They surely knew Thuban was their Pole Star, the point around which the heavens appeared to turn.
The 26,000-year precession cycle causes the north celestial pole to move counter-clockwise relative to the backdrop stars. Whichever star is closest to the north celestial pole is the Pole Star.
Earth never changes its axial tilt, but its axis does point out at different pole stars. Many compare this movement of Earth to the wobble of a spinning top before it falls. Animation via AstroBob
Past and future pole stars. Indeed, Thuban at times made a better pole star than our modern Polaris. Various sources claim that Thuban almost exactly pinpointed the position of the north celestial pole in the year 2787 B.C.
Meanwhile, our modern Polaris – which many centuries ago was an ordinary star known by the name Phoenice – won’t match Thuban’s precision when it most closely aligns with the north celestial pole on March 24, 2100. Polaris will be 27’09” (0.4525o) from the north celestial pole at that time (a little less than the angular diameter of the moon when at its farthest from Earth), according to the computational wizard Jean Meeus.
The Northern Hemisphere also has had long stretches without a pole star. After the reign of Thuban but before that of Polaris, Kochab in the Little Dipper served as a rather poor pole star in 1100 BC. Kochab was only half again as close to the north celestial pole as it is today.
Looking into the future, Errai will become the northern pole star around 4000 AD and Alderamin will take its turn around 7500 AD.
Why does the identity of the pole star keep changing? Earth’s axis maintains a tilt that varies from about 22o to 24o from perpendicular every 41,000 years, with respect to the plane of our orbit around the sun. But, over a period of 26,000 years, Earth’s axis points out at different pole stars, tracing out a slow circle in the heavens. Whichever star lies on or near that circle will eventually be a pole star.
Many compare this motion of Earth – which is called precession or sometimes precession of the equinoxes – to that you sometimes see in a spinning top, which wobbles before it falls.
You can always find Thuban using the Big and Little Dippers as a guide.
How to see Thuban. Thuban is part of the constellation Draco the Dragon. Although it’s not a super bright star, it is bright enough to see with relative ease on a dark night.
Most people star-hop to Thuban from the Big and Little Dippers. Draw an imaginary line that connects the stars Pherkad and Mizar. You’ll see Thuban, the former North Star, midway between these two guide stars.
Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
Bottom line: Thuban was the Pole Star 5,000 years ago, when the Egyptian pyramids were being built. It is part of our constellation Draco the Dragon.
Image via Steve Scanlon Photography.
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Steve took this shot on Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, Florida on April 24, 2017.
Thanks for sharing it with us Steve!
Image via Steve Scanlon Photography.
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Steve took this shot on Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, Florida on April 24, 2017.
Thanks for sharing it with us Steve!
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Tomorrow before dawn – May 5, 2017 – the forecast calls for meteors! The greatest number of Eta Aquarid meteors will be lighting up the predawn darkness, as seen from all parts of Earth, over the next few mornings. This shower particularly favors the Southern Hemisphere. No matter where you are, watch before dawn on May 5 and 6. Although the bright waxing gibbous moon will light up most of the night, the moon will set before the prime time viewing hours for the predawn Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
It’s hard to say with certainty which morning will be the better of the two – May 5 or 6 – since this shower has a relatively broad peak. Possibly, May 5 could be the better morning to watch, because the moon will set at an earlier hour on the morning of May 5 than it will on the morning of May 6.
Just remember that – as seen from all parts of Earth – the dark hour before dawn typically presents the greatest number of Eta Aquarid meteors. The beginning of astronomical twilight closes the curtains on the final hour of complete darkness. Don’t know when the moon sets or astronomical twilight begins in your sky? Find out with this handy custom sunrise-sunset calendar.
Everything you need to know: Eta Aquarid meteor shower
EarthSky’s meteor shower guide for 2017
View larger. | Yuri Beletsky caught these Eta Aquarids meteors from the Atacama Desert in 2015.
Under ideal conditions, the Eta Aquariid meteor shower produces up to 20 to 40 meteors per hour. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, and you have a very dark sky with no moon, you might see that many. Those at mid-northern latitudes might catch some meteors, too. In the Northern Hemisphere, tropical and subtropical latitudes are favored, including latitudes like that of the southern U.S.
North of about 40o north latitude the meteors tend to be fewer. The reason has to do with the time of twilight and sunrise on the various parts of Earth. To learn more, check this post on why more Eta Aquarid meteors are visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
The radiant point for the Eta Aquarid meteor shower lies in front of the "Water Jar" asterism in the constellation Aquarius.
The point in the sky from which meteors in annual showers appear to radiate is called the radiant. You don’t have to locate the radiant to watch the Eta Aquariid meteors, but people often ask about them. Although the Eta Aquariid meteors streak all over the sky, they appear to radiate from the Y-shaped group of stars called the Water Jar. The Water Jar is part of the constellation Aquarius.
To star-hop to the Water Jar, first of all find the four stars of the Great Square of Pegasus. (See sky chart below.) Looking eastward at about 4 a.m. (Daylight Saving Time), the Great Square of Pegasus glitters like a celestial baseball diamond. Imagine the bottom star as home base. Draw a line from the third base star through the first base star, then go twice that distance to locate the star Sadal Melik.
To the lower left of Sadal Melik is the small Y-shaped Water Jar, marking the approximate radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.
Just remember, you don’t need to know the shower’s radiant point to watch the meteors!
Use the Great Square of Pegasus to star-hop to the radiant of the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
Bottom line: In 2017, the Eta Aquarid meteor produces the most meteors before dawn on May 5 and 6. May 7 before dawn might be good as well. This is a great shower for the Southern Hemisphere! But mid-northern latitudes might still enjoy a decent sprinkling of meteors, and the moon will be out of the way during the dark hour before dawn. Have fun!
EarthSky’s meteor shower guide for 2017
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Tomorrow before dawn – May 5, 2017 – the forecast calls for meteors! The greatest number of Eta Aquarid meteors will be lighting up the predawn darkness, as seen from all parts of Earth, over the next few mornings. This shower particularly favors the Southern Hemisphere. No matter where you are, watch before dawn on May 5 and 6. Although the bright waxing gibbous moon will light up most of the night, the moon will set before the prime time viewing hours for the predawn Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
It’s hard to say with certainty which morning will be the better of the two – May 5 or 6 – since this shower has a relatively broad peak. Possibly, May 5 could be the better morning to watch, because the moon will set at an earlier hour on the morning of May 5 than it will on the morning of May 6.
Just remember that – as seen from all parts of Earth – the dark hour before dawn typically presents the greatest number of Eta Aquarid meteors. The beginning of astronomical twilight closes the curtains on the final hour of complete darkness. Don’t know when the moon sets or astronomical twilight begins in your sky? Find out with this handy custom sunrise-sunset calendar.
Everything you need to know: Eta Aquarid meteor shower
EarthSky’s meteor shower guide for 2017
View larger. | Yuri Beletsky caught these Eta Aquarids meteors from the Atacama Desert in 2015.
Under ideal conditions, the Eta Aquariid meteor shower produces up to 20 to 40 meteors per hour. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, and you have a very dark sky with no moon, you might see that many. Those at mid-northern latitudes might catch some meteors, too. In the Northern Hemisphere, tropical and subtropical latitudes are favored, including latitudes like that of the southern U.S.
North of about 40o north latitude the meteors tend to be fewer. The reason has to do with the time of twilight and sunrise on the various parts of Earth. To learn more, check this post on why more Eta Aquarid meteors are visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
The radiant point for the Eta Aquarid meteor shower lies in front of the "Water Jar" asterism in the constellation Aquarius.
The point in the sky from which meteors in annual showers appear to radiate is called the radiant. You don’t have to locate the radiant to watch the Eta Aquariid meteors, but people often ask about them. Although the Eta Aquariid meteors streak all over the sky, they appear to radiate from the Y-shaped group of stars called the Water Jar. The Water Jar is part of the constellation Aquarius.
To star-hop to the Water Jar, first of all find the four stars of the Great Square of Pegasus. (See sky chart below.) Looking eastward at about 4 a.m. (Daylight Saving Time), the Great Square of Pegasus glitters like a celestial baseball diamond. Imagine the bottom star as home base. Draw a line from the third base star through the first base star, then go twice that distance to locate the star Sadal Melik.
To the lower left of Sadal Melik is the small Y-shaped Water Jar, marking the approximate radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.
Just remember, you don’t need to know the shower’s radiant point to watch the meteors!
Use the Great Square of Pegasus to star-hop to the radiant of the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
Bottom line: In 2017, the Eta Aquarid meteor produces the most meteors before dawn on May 5 and 6. May 7 before dawn might be good as well. This is a great shower for the Southern Hemisphere! But mid-northern latitudes might still enjoy a decent sprinkling of meteors, and the moon will be out of the way during the dark hour before dawn. Have fun!
EarthSky’s meteor shower guide for 2017
Andrew Jackson was born in March, 1767.
Jackson was about 9 years old when the Revolutionary War started.
The Revolutionary War and the Civil War were two different wars. There was another war in between called the War of 1812. It was approximately in 1812.
Andrew Jackson was a lawyer, a judge, and a congressional representative, before he was President.
Andrew Jackson was an officer in the Tennessee Militia, and fought Native Americans, killing or ordering his men to kill, a bunch of them. He also sort of started one of the Indian wars he fought in. He also fought in the War of 1812.
Andrew Jackson was a big loser in 1824 when he lost the presidential election. That was one of the strange elections because the winner didn’t win either, and the US House decided the election. It was about then that they should have gotten ride of the Electoral College but they didn’t.
Andrew Jackson and his supporters were the founders of the Democratic Party. Most people don’t know that. Most people don’t even ask that.
Andrew Jackson was a Big Winner in 1828 when he ran for president again and won big league.
The big deal when Jackson was President was that the government had imposed a tariff, and the states rights people in South Carolina said they would leave the country and go back to Russia or something if it was enforced. Andrew Jackson wrote a letter that forced them to follow the law. Sad.
Later, Abraham Lincoln read Andrew Jackson’s letter and used some of it, but with attribution, in his first speech to Congress. But by that time, Andrew Jackson was long dead.
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, and he was in his mid thirties when Jackson died, yet, they were still not the same person.
Andrew Jackson is probably best known for helping gold miners in the South and others push Indians off their land so they could take it, by passing, signing, and enforcing the Indian Removal Act. Under Jackson, and his successor (who was not Abraham Lincoln) thousands of Indians died during the removals.
Andrew Jackson was a pretty good businessman and deal maker, especially when it came to buying and selling humans, which he did very well as a big league slave owner.
Andrew Jackson was vehemently against paper currency, yet his picture appears, for now, on the $20 bill. This is thought to be because not a lot of people at the US Treasury like him.
Over time, Jackson’s picture has appeared on many different bills and many different postage stamps, right up there just behind Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln (Jackson is a different person than Lincoln). No one is sure why, but it is thought by some that this is because Andrew Jackson had great hair.
One bad dude tried to assassinate Jackson, and this was the first known attempt at an assassination of a US President. The assassin had two pistols (one bullet each) and both misfired because it is so damn humid in Washington DC. It is said that Jackson then went after the would-be assassin with his cain, but this is widely thought to be alt-History.
In any event, that started a long tradition. To date, four US Presidents have been killed in office, to match the four who died in office of supposedly, but maybe we don’t really know if you know what I mean, causes. (So, there is about an 18% chance, given our history, that a given president will die in office.)
Finally, and in sum, Andrew Jackson was as stated not Abraham Lincoln, but he was also not Stonewall Jackson, who was an entirely different dude who fought in the Civil War and is famous for his stone walls. You wouldn’t believe his beautiful walls.
Andrew Jackson was born in March, 1767.
Jackson was about 9 years old when the Revolutionary War started.
The Revolutionary War and the Civil War were two different wars. There was another war in between called the War of 1812. It was approximately in 1812.
Andrew Jackson was a lawyer, a judge, and a congressional representative, before he was President.
Andrew Jackson was an officer in the Tennessee Militia, and fought Native Americans, killing or ordering his men to kill, a bunch of them. He also sort of started one of the Indian wars he fought in. He also fought in the War of 1812.
Andrew Jackson was a big loser in 1824 when he lost the presidential election. That was one of the strange elections because the winner didn’t win either, and the US House decided the election. It was about then that they should have gotten ride of the Electoral College but they didn’t.
Andrew Jackson and his supporters were the founders of the Democratic Party. Most people don’t know that. Most people don’t even ask that.
Andrew Jackson was a Big Winner in 1828 when he ran for president again and won big league.
The big deal when Jackson was President was that the government had imposed a tariff, and the states rights people in South Carolina said they would leave the country and go back to Russia or something if it was enforced. Andrew Jackson wrote a letter that forced them to follow the law. Sad.
Later, Abraham Lincoln read Andrew Jackson’s letter and used some of it, but with attribution, in his first speech to Congress. But by that time, Andrew Jackson was long dead.
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, and he was in his mid thirties when Jackson died, yet, they were still not the same person.
Andrew Jackson is probably best known for helping gold miners in the South and others push Indians off their land so they could take it, by passing, signing, and enforcing the Indian Removal Act. Under Jackson, and his successor (who was not Abraham Lincoln) thousands of Indians died during the removals.
Andrew Jackson was a pretty good businessman and deal maker, especially when it came to buying and selling humans, which he did very well as a big league slave owner.
Andrew Jackson was vehemently against paper currency, yet his picture appears, for now, on the $20 bill. This is thought to be because not a lot of people at the US Treasury like him.
Over time, Jackson’s picture has appeared on many different bills and many different postage stamps, right up there just behind Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln (Jackson is a different person than Lincoln). No one is sure why, but it is thought by some that this is because Andrew Jackson had great hair.
One bad dude tried to assassinate Jackson, and this was the first known attempt at an assassination of a US President. The assassin had two pistols (one bullet each) and both misfired because it is so damn humid in Washington DC. It is said that Jackson then went after the would-be assassin with his cain, but this is widely thought to be alt-History.
In any event, that started a long tradition. To date, four US Presidents have been killed in office, to match the four who died in office of supposedly, but maybe we don’t really know if you know what I mean, causes. (So, there is about an 18% chance, given our history, that a given president will die in office.)
Finally, and in sum, Andrew Jackson was as stated not Abraham Lincoln, but he was also not Stonewall Jackson, who was an entirely different dude who fought in the Civil War and is famous for his stone walls. You wouldn’t believe his beautiful walls.
Economist watch: Farewell to the Arctic is one of the headlines on the front cover of the April 29th edition, and The Arctic as it is known today is almost certainly gone is one of the leaders. Which is sort-of nice, to see it so prominently and starkly.
THOSE who doubt the power of human beings to change Earth’s climate should look to the Arctic, and shiver. There is no need to pore over records of temperatures and atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations. The process is starkly visible in the shrinkage of the ice that covers the Arctic ocean. In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040.
The pic is nicked from yet another article, The decline of Arctic sea ice. In which I find
OVER the past three decades the area of sea ice in the Arctic has fallen by more than half and its volume has plummeted by three-quarters. So says a report “Snow, Water, Ice, Permafrost in the Arctic” (SWIPA), produced under the auspices of the Arctic Council, a scientific-policy club for the eight countries with territory in the Arctic Circle, as well as observers including China and India. SWIPA estimates that the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer by 2040. Scientists previously suggested this would not occur until 2070.
You just knew I was going to quibble that 2040, didn’t you? I think we need to look at http://ift.tt/2pl7YYW. When I first checked an hour or two ago it appeared to be f*ck*d so here’s an archive since it’s now working. Who are these people and why have I never heard of them? Wiki hasn’t either, and the urban dictionary is at best a rough guide. I guess we want the SPM from which:
The Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) assessment is a periodic update to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, published in 2005 by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). SWIPA focuses on changes to the Arctic cryosphere (the portion of Arctic land and water that is seasonally or perennially frozen), and the implications of those changes. The first SWIPA assessment was conducted between 2008 and 2010, and was published in 2011.
Aanyway, unlike the IPCC SPM’s the SWIPA SPM doesn’t reference it’s statements back to where they come from, so it’s no use to me. Oh, but The results of the SWIPA assessment are presented in reports, targetting different audiences. The results of the 2017 SWIPA assessment are currently available in a Summary for Policy-Makers and series of Fact Sheets. The detailed technical background that is the basis for the other reports will be availble [sic] in the summaer [sic] of 2017. That’s just a touch disappointing, and I’m not referring to their inability to speak English, which I’ll forgive since I can’t manage a word of Norge. The fact sheets are empty.
Well, without something to back up the 2040 claim you can colour me unconvinced for the while.
Economist watch: Farewell to the Arctic is one of the headlines on the front cover of the April 29th edition, and The Arctic as it is known today is almost certainly gone is one of the leaders. Which is sort-of nice, to see it so prominently and starkly.
THOSE who doubt the power of human beings to change Earth’s climate should look to the Arctic, and shiver. There is no need to pore over records of temperatures and atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations. The process is starkly visible in the shrinkage of the ice that covers the Arctic ocean. In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040.
The pic is nicked from yet another article, The decline of Arctic sea ice. In which I find
OVER the past three decades the area of sea ice in the Arctic has fallen by more than half and its volume has plummeted by three-quarters. So says a report “Snow, Water, Ice, Permafrost in the Arctic” (SWIPA), produced under the auspices of the Arctic Council, a scientific-policy club for the eight countries with territory in the Arctic Circle, as well as observers including China and India. SWIPA estimates that the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer by 2040. Scientists previously suggested this would not occur until 2070.
You just knew I was going to quibble that 2040, didn’t you? I think we need to look at http://ift.tt/2pl7YYW. When I first checked an hour or two ago it appeared to be f*ck*d so here’s an archive since it’s now working. Who are these people and why have I never heard of them? Wiki hasn’t either, and the urban dictionary is at best a rough guide. I guess we want the SPM from which:
The Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) assessment is a periodic update to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, published in 2005 by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). SWIPA focuses on changes to the Arctic cryosphere (the portion of Arctic land and water that is seasonally or perennially frozen), and the implications of those changes. The first SWIPA assessment was conducted between 2008 and 2010, and was published in 2011.
Aanyway, unlike the IPCC SPM’s the SWIPA SPM doesn’t reference it’s statements back to where they come from, so it’s no use to me. Oh, but The results of the SWIPA assessment are presented in reports, targetting different audiences. The results of the 2017 SWIPA assessment are currently available in a Summary for Policy-Makers and series of Fact Sheets. The detailed technical background that is the basis for the other reports will be availble [sic] in the summaer [sic] of 2017. That’s just a touch disappointing, and I’m not referring to their inability to speak English, which I’ll forgive since I can’t manage a word of Norge. The fact sheets are empty.
Well, without something to back up the 2040 claim you can colour me unconvinced for the while.
