Astro-metagame

This weeks Metagame will commemorate astronomy, appropriately as I cannot be at Russcon this week because I am spending a lot of the month on the top of the McDonald Observatory in west Texas. The winner of the Metagame is whoever answers the most of the following ten questions:

#1 - Which is closer to our Sun; the planet Mercury or Pluto?

#2 - What is the star closest to our Earth?

#3 - Which movie has a more accurate depiction of the way astronomers really work; Deep Impact, Armageddon, Contact, or Buckaroo Bonzai?

#4 - How old is our Earth?

#5 - How have astronomers measured how old our Earth is?

#6 - Where on Earth was the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs?

#7 - Statistically, are *you* (and me and anyone) more likely to die from (a) an airplane accident, (b) a meteor/asteroid impact, (c) reading Bill Clinton's memoirs, or (d) a nearby Supernova?

#8 - What constellation is overhead when Russcon starts tomorrow?

#9 - What is the latitude and date for the observations used to construct the astronomy lore that appears in Aratus' poem titled "The Phaenomena"?

#10 - What is the mechanism for transport of the high magnetic fields hypothesized to come out of the collapsing black hole at the center of a massive star collapsing into a Gamma Ray Burst and go to a shock at many tens of AUs away?

All correct answers can be expressed in under three words. Entry can be by email (which is how I became the current Metadevil even while on a 7000 foot mountain as Fina's neighbor). I will grade the answers from email, and will send a solution set to Russ for grading homework handed in on Wednesday evening. (Geez, maybe this Metagame also commemorates my upcoming professorial position at LSU.) Tiebreaks will be by whoever plays the most games with astronomical 'content' (loosely interpreted) and then alphabetical by second letter of first name.

The last several nights have been horribly frustrating as clouds move in-and-out. Last night, I was able to get three hours on a very small icy body out past Pluto (called 2002GB10) for which I though I discovered a change in brightness from the oblong body rotating with a period of ~3 hours. Right now, there are only small puffy clouds ('fair weather clouds') in the sky and these generally clear up, although the official forecast is for much high cirrus clouds.

#1 - Which is closer to our Sun; the planet Mercury or Pluto?
Mercury.

#2 - What is the star closest to our Earth?
Our Sun. [Four people have fallen for the false-sophistication of answering Proxima Centauri or Alpha Centauri.]

#3 - Which movie has a more accurate depiction of the way astronomers really work; Deep Impact, Armageddon, Contact, or Buckaroo Bonzai?
Contact. But Deep Impact is not horrible. [Apparently for the opening scene where the astronomer at the telescope was reducing his data to realize that the comet was aimed at Earth, the original screenplay had the astronomer observing in the nude!] Bruce Willis in Armageddon was a great comic masterpiece. We all *wish* that it was more like Buckaroo Bonzai.

#4 - How old is our Earth?
4.56+-0.01 billion years. I'll accept anything from 3-6 billion years.

#5 - How have astronomers measured how old our Earth is?
Radioactive dating, or Uranium decay models. There are actually several good ways of making the measurement, so I accept answers like "Age of the Sun" or "Age of meteors", even though this leaves unsaid how we know their ages.

#6 - Where on Earth was the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs?
Chixulub, Yucatan, Mexico. The crater actually extends out into the Gulf of Mexico. The dinosaurs became extinct because they were not a space faring race -- so what is the future of humanity?

#7 - Statistically, are *you* (and me and anyone) more likely to die from (a) an airplane accident, (b) a meteor/asteroid impact, (c) reading Bill Clinton's memoirs, or (d) a nearby Supernova?
(b) meteor/asteroid impact. Few got this right. Airplane accidents are moderately common but they only kill perhaps a hundred people at a shot. Big meteor/asteroid impacts are very rare, but when they come the death toll can be in the billions!

#8 - What constellation is overhead when Russcon starts tomorrow?
Leo. But I accept Leo Minor, Coma Bernices, Lynx, and Ursa Major. [Two people got lucky by mentioning Ursa Major as the only constellation that they knew about.]

#9 - What is the latitude and date for the observations used to construct the astronomy lore that appears in Aratus' poem titled "The Phaenomena"?
1130+-80BC and 36.0+-0.9N. The common 'voidist' conclusion of 2500BC (or 2000BC) is trivially wrong (see the latest issue of the Journal for the History of Astronomy for a complete expose` by myself on the scandal of their claims). I've been spending about a man-month since Christmas (plus a lot of a Christmas Caribbean cruise) on the study of this issue.

#10 - What is the mechanism for transport of the high magnetic fields hypothesized to come out of the collapsing black hole at the center of a massive star collapsing into a Gamma Ray Burst and go to a shock at many tens of AUs away?
Poynting flux.

Here are people's scores in the order that I received them:

Marty 6 [fast response]
Mark 5.5
Dan 'The Sasser' Becker 6-1=5
Clayton 5
Zack 3
Russ 5
PJ 6.5
Dudley Fox 3
RussD 6
Fina 6 [my old neighbor]
MarkH 5
Clay 4
Jeff Summer 8.5 [the metadevil]
Martha 8 [she did this off the top of her head! If she had checked the constellation on-line, then she'd have a 9.]
Justin 4