The Grand Finale

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 27 April, 2017.

On 26 April, 2017, at 2 am Pacific Daylight Time, the Grand Finale began. The spacecraft Cassini started its first dive into the space between Saturn and its magnificent rings – the first of 22 such dives it will perform before finally crashing into that remote planet. For 13 years, Cassini has been sending back its remarkable readings and photographs of Saturn and its moons – the latest just two weeks ago, with data that indicated that Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, contains an ocean of liquid water underneath its icy surface, which may be capable of supporting life. 

 Cassini started on its journey almost 20 years ago, launched on 15 October 1997 from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 in a Titan IV/Centaur rocket, as the Cassini-Huygens Mission. A joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, it cost about US$ 3.2 billion. Cassini itself was designed and constructed by NASA, with the ASI providing its high-gain radio antenna for communication with Earth, as well as its radar and its radio science subsystem. The ESA constructed the Huygens probe and lander, destined for Titan, Saturn’s largest moon (which is in fact larger than the planet Mercury).

Fitting for a mission to Saturn, these two were named after those who had made discoveries about Saturn first. Giovanni Domenico Cassini had discovered the divisions between Saturn’s rings, and 4 of its moons, while Christiaan Huygens had discovered its moon Titan. Cassini-Huygens, though, had to travel a bit further than they did to get a closer look, and utilized some quirks of physics to do so.

First it dropped into the Sun’s gravity well, and approached Venus. On 26 April 1998 it did a close fly-by of Venus to get a gravitational-assist, or gravity slingshot, to place it into orbit around the sun. This was not enough, however, and it made a second fly-by of Venus to slingshot it out to the asteroid belt on 24 June 1999. With the sun’s gravity pulling it back once more, it was time for a final slingshot manoeuvre around Earth on 18 August 1999 before it finally had enough momentum to propel it into the outer solar system.

By 30 December 2000, Cassini-Huygens made its closest approach to the planet Jupiter, sending back over 26 000 images, which contributed to major findings about Jupiter’s atmospheric circulation. On its way to Saturn, it further participated in a test of the General Theory of Relativity on 10 October 2003, when its radio waves passed close to the sun, and its frequency shift could be measured as predicted by Einstein.

On 11 June 2004, Cassini-Huygens flew by Saturn’s moon Phoebe, returning the first images of that moon. Finally, on 1 July 2004, Cassini-Huygens became the first spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, after a seven-year journey. Now its work would really begin. On 24 December 2004, Huygens was released, and began its decent to Titan. On 14 Jaruary 2005, it entered Titan’s atmosphere and after a two and a half hour descent, landed on solid ground, the first landing ever in the outer solar system. 

Cassini, now on its own, continued its mission of exploration. During the next 4 years of its prime mission, it encountered Titan 45 times, explored 10 icy satellites and orbited Saturn 76 times. On 15 April 2008, its mission was extended for another 27 months, called the Equinox mission. This involved 64 more orbits, 28 Titan encounters, 8 Enceladus encounters, 3 with other smaller icy satellites and an equinox crossing in August 2009. Still, its job was not done, for in February 2010 it received another missions extension, called the Solstice Mission. With its mission extended by seven years, it involved another 155 orbits, 54 Titan encounters, 11 Enceladus encounters, 5 other icy moon encounters, and the opportunity to observe spring–early summer in northern hemisphere of Saturn.

The wealth of data Cassini sent back was enormous. The spacecraft had sent back more than 500 gigabytes of data, that enabled the publication of more than 3000 scientific papers, and in its time there, had discovered seven more moons of Saturn – Methone, Pallene, Polydeuces, Daphnis, Anthe, Aegaeon and the as yet unnamed S/2009 S 1.

Besides the discovery of water via plumes on Enceladus as mentioned, it also uncovered that Titan has rain, rivers, seas and lakes and is covered in a nitrogen-rich atmosphere. It discovered that there are vertical structures in the rings of Saturn, piled in bumps of almost 3km high. It captured the first complete view of the odd hexagon at Saturn’s North Pole, and discovered giant hurricanes at both poles. These are but the tip of the iceberg of its remarkable discoveries.

But all good things come to an end. By 2016, Cassini had started to run out of fuel. Due to the discoveries made by Cassini about the potential existence of life on Saturn’s moons, it could not be allowed to drift indefinitely and potentially crashing on them – it was imperative to protect them from any potential biological contamination. 

Thus, it now embarks on its final mission, and its most daring one. Climbing high above Saturn’s poles before diving between the rings to plunge close to the planet, before climbing up again and repeating it 22 times. As it does this, it will collect rich and valuable information about the planet’s magnetic and gravitational fields, revealing how it is composed on the inside, and possibly solving the mystery of just how fast the interior is rotating. It will improve our knowledge of the materials in the rings, and help us to understand its origins. All this, while taking ultra-close images of the planets rings and clouds, before finally, on 15 September 2017, crashing into the planet in a blaze of glory. To quote NASA: “It’s inspiring, adventurous and romantic — a fitting end to this thrilling story of discovery.”

For Queen and Country

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 20 April, 2017.

Yesterday, the Parliament of the United Kingdom voted 522 MP’s to 13 to call a general election on 8 June 2017. This might seem quite strange to us, with a parliament with fixed terms – and in fact, it is a bit strange for the UK as well – after all, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act of 2011 had not even survived two successive parliaments. 

What makes it even more significant is that this is the first time a sitting parliament has voted to dissolve parliament and initiate an election. Before the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, parliaments in the UK usually dissolved on their own, initially after 7 years, in line with the Septennial Act of 1715, and from 1911 onwards after 5 years, in line with the Parliaments Act of 1911. 

This self-dissolution, however, rarely happened. Due to the existence of the UK parliament, we tend to consider the UK a democracy. However, it is the United KINGDOM of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and parliament could always be dissolved by Royal Proclamation of the Monarch by virtue of his or her Royal Prerogative. 

Originally, this meant the King or Queen decided when parliament would dissolve, but as parliament’s power grew, this was done less and less on the Monarch’s whim, and increasingly only on advice of the Prime Minister. As such, by the nineteenth century, the Prime Minister in essence dissolved parliament and decided when elections would be held – not an insignificant power for the party in charge, and the reason why parliament so rarely dissolved on its own.

The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011 changed that, of course. The Act removed the royal prerogative to dissolve parliament, and repealed the Septennial Act of 1715 as well as any other reference to this royal prerogative. It thus vested this duty in parliament itself, allowing it to dissolve parliament itself either by a two-thirds vote for an early parliamentary election, or by a motion of no confidence in the government.

Lest you think that the queen has given up much, it should be remembered that she still retains quite a large set of prerogative powers. While she these days only exercises them on advice of her government, it remains within her power to do so in case of a governmental crisis. These powers include appointing a Prime Minister of her own choosing – which she last did in 1963 when she appointed Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Prime Minister, on the advice of outgoing Harold Macmillan.

She can also dismiss a Prime Minister and government on her own authority. The last time a monarch did this was in 1834, by King William IV. She can also refuse royal assent on a parliamentary bill, though a monarch last did that in 1708, when Queen Anne withheld assent on the Scottish Militia Bill.  

Inter alia, her other powers still include: to summon and prorogue parliament; to command the Armed Forces;  to dismiss and appoint Ministers; to commission officers in the Armed Forces; to appoint Queen's Counsel; to issue and withdraw passports; to create corporations via Charter; to declare War and Peace; to deploy the Armed Forces overseas; to ratify and make treaties; to grant honours; to grant Prerogative of Mercy; and to appoint Bishops and Archbishops of the Church of England.

Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly. Even though we call Queen Elizabeth II a monarch, the United Kingdom is in fact a theocracy. In 1534, King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church, seized its assets and declared himself Head of the new Church of England. Even today, Queen Elizabeth II has as part of her titles ‘Defender of the Faith,’ with the Church of England being a state religion, with its measures approved by both houses of Parliament. In the UK House of Lords, there are still 26 Bishops of the Chruch, the Lords Spiritual, who retain seats in the upper house of parliament.

What about parliament then? Well, while the United Kingdom may be a theocracy, the royal prerogative is these days only exercised by the Queen on advice of her government. And these powers have been greatly diminished over the years. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, Parliament established itself as the source of legislation. By 1707, the Acts of Union had established Parliamentary Sovereignty.

Essentially, this devolved into three basic concepts. One – Parliament can make laws concerning anything. Two – No Parliament can bind a future parliament. In other words, no previous parliament can make a law a future one cannot overturn. And three – A valid act of Parliament cannot be questioned by the court. Parliament is the supreme lawmaker. 

So when we come back to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act of 2011, we see that it is in fact powerless to bind any parliament to its provisions. According to parliamentary sovereignty, any future parliament can vote simply to repeal it. While it has for now survived, it did not need to for Prime Minister Theresa May to call an election – she could simply have used her Conservative majority to nullify it. And not even the Queen with her vast prerogative powers could have stopped it.

In truth, the government of the world’s fifth-largest economy is a strange affair, a result of its long existence. This is why we remain curious whenever something strange occurs on that tiny island off the coast of Europe. That, and the fact that that tiny island nation, with its odd form of government, once controlled the largest empire known to man, with a quarter of the earth’s population and land area under its dominion.

The Origins of Easter

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 13 April, 2017.

It is that time of year again. There is chocolate eggs and bunnies in stores, and most people are getting ready for the long weekend. It is Easter! But to whom do we owe this break? Where does it come from? For most Namibians, the answer would be easy – Easter is a Christian holiday. However, just like Christmas, Easter has longer history than the Christian faith that most people do not know about. 

“Aha,” you say, “It’s actually a Jewish holiday!” Moreover, you would be partially correct. Nevertheless, even Jewish traditions had to come from somewhere, and the Jewish people were not always of the Jewish faith. What is now known as the Passover ritual actually comes from something even older – apotropaic magic rituals and harvest/rain rituals. 

Apotropaic magic (from Greek apotrepein "to ward off" from apo- "away" and trepein "to turn") was a household ritual that was supposed to ward again evil and turn away the evil eye. In this apotropaic ritual, Hyssop was used to dab the blood of slaughtered sheep on lintels and doorposts, ensuring that demonic forces were kept outside the home. 

Then, in the Canaanite religion, the barley harvest was of great significance. However, the rains that made the grains grow during the winter had to stop at just the right time, or the storms would decimate the fields and rot the grains, starving the people. Therefore, the rain god Baal had to be stopped – and every year, the Canaanite god of death Mot needs to kill the god of rain, Baal. Baal then spends the summer in the netherworld before being resurrected in the spring. Thus, Mot kills Baal by eating him, like eating the flesh of a lamb. After the rains have stopped, there was a ceremony made with unleavened bread, to be made as quickly as possible afterwards, while a lamb is eaten without the bones to symbolise Mot’s killing of Baal.

Does that sound familiar? Once the Jewish people coalesced from the various Canaanite tribes, and the Priestly Code was developed, these rituals were incorporated into Passover. It also explains why Passover is at the time of year that the rains stop in the Israel area. With the construction of the Exodus myth, great care was taken to ensure that it would fully replace the previous rituals – a specific warning was inserted into the myth about the dangers of Baal worship to guarantee its replacement.  

Hence, the Jewish Passover was born, based on the myth of freedom from Egyptian enslavement. Thus, when Paul the Apostle was developing the Christian Church, he incorporated the Jewish festival of ‘freedom from the Egyptians’ into his nascent faith, as a festival of ‘freedom from sin’, and connected it to the death of Jesus. As a result, it became the foundation of the Christian faith. As Christianity spread, so did the new Passover. In most of the world, that is still what it is called – Pascha, the Greek for Passover. 

When it reached Western Europe, however, it found itself replacing another spring festival in honour of the dawn goddess Eostre. Since Pascha was celebrated in the Month of Eostre, it gradually became known as the Eostre festival and from there, Easter, as it is known in English.

What then of the chocolate bunnies and eggs? They seem suspiciously absent from these accounts. Well, the Easter bunny springs from their reputation as prolific breeders, and as such were venerated as fertility symbols. It is popularly believed that the Easter Hare was thus sacred to Eostre, and that is how it came to be associated with Easter, but in fact, it was believed in ancient times to be a hermaphrodite, and as such, could reproduce without loss of virginity, resulting in the early church associating it with the Virgin Mary. With Easter occurring in spring in the northern hemisphere, its association with spring fertility rituals resulted in an easy integration with the early Easter festival. 

Originally, the Easter Bunny also served as a sort of judge – similar to Santa Claus – that judged whether children were disobedient during Easter, and originally was depicted as wearing clothes. However, the Easter Bunny is not a worldwide phenomenon. In Australia, the rabbit is considered a national pest, and as such, they use an alternative – the Easter Bilby.

Easter eggs, however, remain a firm Christian invention, despite attempts to link it to Eostre as well. It originally started amongst Christians in Mesopotamia, who dyed their eggs red in memory of the blood of Christ. When the practise of Lent began, Christians were forbidden to eat eggs during Lent, and had consumed all their eggs before that time. However, chickens kept producing eggs during Lent, and to keep them from spoiling they were often boiled. When Lent ended on Easter Sunday, there was thus a surplus of eggs available. 

Thus, the cracking open of eggs on Easter was linked to symbolise the empty tomb of Jesus by the church, and a new tradition was born. With the invention of refrigeration, it was no longer necessary to consume all the eggs, and it was linked to the Easter Bunny, who would only bring decorated eggs to good children. As a children’s gift, it should come as no surprise that when Fry & Sons made the first chocolate ones, they were immediately popular, and as such, are now the predominant form Easter eggs take. 

Yet perhaps the most famous variant of the Easter egg is the Fabergé eggs. Commissioned originally by the Tsar Alexander III as a gift for his wife, a tradition continued by Tsar Nicolas II, these exquisitely crafted eggs were made from precious metals and decorated with the most expensive of gemstones, these have become symbols of splendour and wealth. 

So while we all take some time off this weekend, we should all take some time to reflect on the wide range of cultures and traditions that had to come together to make this long weekend possible. Because the first answer is not always the most correct one, and once you start to scratch the surface of any seemingly simple matter, fascinating details can emerge.