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Eye of Sauron, X-Rays from the Cat's Eye (APOD 04 Aug 2008)

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:20 pm
by neufer
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080804.html

Eye of Sauron
Image
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron

<<Sauron (Quenya: "Abhorred") is the title character and the primary antagonist of the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" (the Red Eye, the Evil Eye) is the image most often associated with Sauron. Sauron's Orcs bore the symbol of the Eye on their helmets and shields, and referred to him as the "Eye" because he did not allow his name to be written or spoken, according to Aragorn. Also, the Lord of the Nazgûl threatened Éowyn with torture before the "Lidless Eye" at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

In the Mirror of Galadriel, Frodo had an actual vision of this Eye:

"The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing."

On a later occasion, Tolkien writes as if Frodo and Sam really glimpse the Eye directly, not in any kind of vision. The mists surrounding Barad-dûr are briefly withdrawn, and:

"one moment only it stared out...as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye... The Eye was not turned on them, it was gazing north...but Frodo at that dreadful glimpse fell as one stricken mortally."

There are many other instances where Sauron is referred to as the "Eye". Some readers take this to mean the Eye was Sauron's physical form in the Third Age. This interpretation appears in film adaptations (see below) and in David Day's Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (1996).

Another interpretation questions the physical existence of the Eye, but sees it as a metaphysical reflection of Sauron's piercing will. In The Two Towers, Tolkien writes:

"The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."

From various quotes it is clear that Tolkien cannot have intended the Eye as such to be Sauron's complete or sole manifestation; the Dark Lord's spirit did inhabit some kind of body.

Gollum (who has previously been tortured by Sauron in person) tells Frodo that Sauron has, at least, a "Black Hand" with four fingers. The missing finger is a sustained injury from when Isildur cut off the Ring; apparently Sauron then lost part of his basic template for a humanoid form, so that the finger was still missing when he materialized a new body centuries later. (Another instance of Sauron's injuries being sustained from one form to another is found in the tale of his battle with Lúthien and Huan, in which an injury to his throat is maintained even after transformation.)

In the third volume, The Return of the King, the heralds of the Army of the West call Sauron out before the Battle of the Morannon, telling him to "come forth", which would seem redundant if he did not have a body.

In one of his letters Tolkien does state that Sauron had a physical form in the Third Age:

"...in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. ... Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic."[72]

Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion that "the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure" even before his body was lost in the War of the Last Alliance.

J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator includes a drawing of Sauron by Tolkien himself. Tolkien depicted Sauron as a literally black humanoid.[74]

The sum of the textual evidence allows for different interpretations: the Eye is part of the physical body, or the Eye is a mental or psychic manifestation (of Sauron's will, thought, power or presence) coexisting with the physical body. The Eye cannot be purely metaphorical, as Frodo's encounter with it in the Mirror shows.

Those who favor the mental/psychic interpretation have appealed to a similar comment about the first Dark Lord Morgoth, Sauron's mentor:

"...Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did its pressure upon them... if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his 'eye' wherever they might be."[75]

Here "eye" (in quotes) represents Morgoth's attention. Plainly Sauron's Eye can likewise stand for Sauron's attention, whether or not there is also a physical reality to the Eye. Thus, when Sauron ponders what to do after Aragorn showed himself to him in the palantír, it is said that "the Dark Power was deep in thought, and the Eye turned inward."[76] In other words, Sauron was introspective.

Arguments in favour of the physical reality of the Eye (regardless of a physical body) would primarily focus on the fact that Frodo and Sam had a "dreadful glimpse" of it with their own physical eyes (though this may only mean the Eye exists in their senses and minds). Also, the same chapter of the novel[68] refers to "the Window of the Eye" in Barad-dûr, facing Mount Doom. When Sauron finally perceived Frodo on that mountain, "his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain" towards Mount Doom (though Tolkien may here be using "the Eye" to refer to Sauron himself, as in other passages).

In the draft text of the climatic moments of The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" stands for Sauron's very person, with emotions and thoughts:

"The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him [Frodo], the Eye piercing all shadows... Its wrath blazed like a sudden flame and its fear was like a great black smoke, for it knew its deadly peril, the thread upon which hung its doom... ts thought was now bent with all its overwhelming force upon the Mountain..."

Christopher Tolkien comments: "The passage is notable in showing the degree to which my father had come to identify the Eye of Barad-dûr with the mind and will of Sauron, so that he could speak of 'its wrath, its fear, its thought'. In the second text...he shifted from 'its' to 'his' as he wrote out the passage anew."

The exact nature of the Eye, and its relationship to the never-seen body used by Sauron, remains a matter of debate among Tolkienists.[78][79] Tolkien never elaborated further on these matters. Indeed he may intentionally have left many aspects of the Sauron character vague and mysterious.

So far, all adaptations of the story in visual media go with the interpretation that the Eye really exists physically. Obviously the Eye of Fire is visually effective, whereas the references to Sauron's never-seen body are so few that even readers of the novel often overlook them.>>

Re: Eye of Sauron (APOD 04 Aug 2008)

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 1:29 pm
by emc
neufer wrote:Eye of Sauron
Image
---------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron

<<Sauron (Quenya: "Abhorred") is the title character and the primary antagonist of the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. [snipped]>>
Remarkable resemblance... I wonder if... nah!

The Cat’s Eye Nebula is among my favorite outer space places for its intriguing shape. I very much enjoy today’s enhanced colors.

Today’s caption brought my attention to our 5 billion year destiny. 5 billion years seems like a long time, but not so long as can’t be comprehended… (Just think of the U.S. budget deficit). But eternity… now that’s a long time… actually eternity is beyond time and beyond complete comprehension. At any rate, today’s APOD reference to our 5 billion year end point made me worry in wonder as to where our descendants will live.

And now neufer has me wondering what our sun's nebula will look like. Would our SS planets have any effect on the outcome?... say, the shape of the nebula?

Re: Eye of Sauron (APOD 04 Aug 2008)

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:20 pm
by Case
emc wrote:Today’s APOD reference to our 5 billion year end point made me worry in wonder as to where our descendants will live.
We've only been around for some 35,000 years, so our descendants in 5 billion years may not be human like us. We could start spreading out to habitable planets in a thousand years or less. Wondering about 5 billion years from now is best left to the writers of Doctor Who.

"The meek shall inherit the Earth. And the rest of us will go to the stars."
- Omni Magazine (sometimes attributed to Asimov)

"If we are still here to witness the destruction of our planet some five billion years or more hence, then we will have achieved something so unprecedented in the history of life that we should be willing to sing our swansong with joy - Sic Transit Gloria Mundi."
- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Panda's Thumb"

"But does Man have any "right" to spread through the universe? Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics, you name it, is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what man is, not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be. The Universe will let us know - later - whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it."
- Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers"

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:16 pm
by Pete
The heavens are staring right back at us!

Even more disturbingly similar to Sauron's eye is the dusty ring around Fomalhaut: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050701.html
emc wrote: Today’s caption brought my attention to our 5 billion year destiny. 5 billion years seems like a long time, but not so long as can’t be comprehended… (Just think of the U.S. budget deficit). But eternity… now that’s a long time… actually eternity is beyond time and beyond complete comprehension. At any rate, today’s APOD reference to our 5 billion year end point made me worry in wonder as to where our descendants will live.
Looking back to recent history, I'm surprised that we didn't snuff ourselves out entirely. We were so close! There's plenty of time yet for something to smash our...

Our galaxy will collide with Andromeda in less than 5 gigayears (some estimates are higher). If that does indeed happen before our Sun expires, then at least Earth will still be around for any inhabitants to revel in the fireworks. That would be a sky I'd definitely want to observe.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:25 pm
by bystander
The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Chapter 1

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:56 pm
by Doum
Or may be the producer saw an image of a nebula taken by the hubble telescope and decide to use it to make the eye in "The Lord Of The Ring" :? :)

APOD 2008 August 4 X-Rays from the Cat's Eye Nebula

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:07 pm
by billclawson
Is it just me, or does it seem as though the central star has a wobble to it's axis, perhaps the magnetic axis and the rotational axis are different? That might account for the spiral appearance of the blasts coming from it. At least that's how the details in the cat's eye nebula look to me.

Re: APOD 2008 August 4 X-Rays from the Cat's Eye Nebula

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:40 am
by neufer
billclawson wrote:Is it just me, or does it seem as though the central star has a wobble to it's axis, perhaps the magnetic axis and the rotational axis are different? That might account for the spiral appearance of the blasts coming from it. At least that's how the details in the cat's eye nebula look to me.
A binary system might cause a very slow precession of the central star's axis consistent with what you observe.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991031.html

APOD: October 31, 1999 - The Cat's Eye Nebula <<Explanation: Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals The Cat's Eye Nebula to be one of the most complex planetary nebulae known. In fact, the features seen in the Cat's Eye are so complex that astronomers suspect the bright central object may actually be a binary star system.>>

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:46 pm
by Arramon
bystander wrote:The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Chapter 1
"It's always darkest before the dawn" -Harvey Dent, Darknight

=)

This has got to be my favorite astronomy image. Just look at dem colors mane!

And some newer images of Fomalhaut would be awesome to see how it looks with the newer telescopes and spectral analyzers.

Anyone know where a good animation of the Cat's Eye Nebula may be found? Says the Hubble started capturing images of it in 1995. A frame by frame should be somewhere of all images combined into a sweet lil' animation sequence. =)

Re: Eye of Sauron (APOD 04 Aug 2008)

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:15 pm
by emc
Case wrote:We've only been around for some 35,000 years, ...
In truth, we do not know how long we've been around...

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_old_is_mankind

Apparently, however, we are older than the Cat's Eye Nebula.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031101.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6543#age

Re: Eye of Sauron (APOD 04 Aug 2008)

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:54 pm
by andres
emc wrote: At any rate, today’s APOD reference to our 5 billion year end point made me worry in wonder as to where our descendants will live.
Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but most likely our species will and any descendants will be extinct well before 5 billion years from now. Whether mankind is 4.5 million or 6 million years old, or where you want to draw the line between "chimpanzee" and "human", is still a blink of the celestial eye, you might say.

The only life-forms that have been able to make it through the periodic cataclysms that affect our planet tend to be simple, small, and highly adaptable. Sorry, I just don't have much faith that Clint Eastwood in a space shuttle is going to knock out the next meteor headed our way. Say, I wonder if they can run the space shuttle on ethanol? :wink:

Re: Eye of Sauron (APOD 04 Aug 2008)

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:00 pm
by emc
andres wrote:
emc wrote: At any rate, today’s APOD reference to our 5 billion year end point made me worry in wonder as to where our descendants will live.
Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but most likely our species will and any descendants will be extinct well before 5 billion years from now. ...
I don’t think you’re being a wet blanket. But the truth is… neither you nor I know if we will make it to 5 years or 5 billion years from now, or whether we will become extinct at all… or living among distant stars… who is to say???

It does seem silly at times to ponder anything beyond my next meal… but silliness can be fun and sometimes interesting adventure. Take Buck Rogers, Captain James T. Kurk, Sigourney Weaver, for example. When I was young, I used to have great fun flying my bunk bed (spaceship) around the galaxies, exploring my bedroom (other planets).

It has been somewhat disappointing dealing with what the physicists teach…

The speed of light is about 670,616,629.4 mph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

Right now, they say that light is the universal speed limit.
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae91.cfm

The fastest man made object to date reached a speed of about 153,800 mph
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/sp ... 109c.shtml
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/sp ... 0260.shtml

The closest stars other than the sun are over 4 light years distant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars

We do not yet realize that any other life supporting planet exists.

Of course, 5 billion years (if we make it) will certainly include some changes.