Through The Nebulae.

Diwan Ghazza's amateur astronomers took off on a journey through the nebulae, the spectacular paintings across our  vast universe..

To kick start the event I delivered a cosmic perspective talk:

''The nebula is a beautiful cosmic contradiction, you may ask why?. It's in these deep beauties lies the secrets of star birth and death. When you gaze at a nebula you may find yourself wondering about what it once was, you start thinking about the colossal loss of the star death, the huge explosion that left this cosmic rubble, state of sadness might overcome you, and you start grieving this loss, and for a moment you forget about all this expanding space around you and you'd feel stuck in space and time.. 

But there's another side to the nebula story. A nebula is also the home of new beginnings, you might find yourself gazing with optimism wondering about the future potentials being  born in front of your eyes, how many news stars are being formed, how many new solar systems and how many of them could form planets that could support life.. you find yourself light-hearted with happiness and you start to see possibilities where you thought they would never exist.. It depends on how you see it, so let your cosmic cups be half full today and let our journey through the nebulae inspire you to see the optimistic possibilities.''

I finished my talk and scanned the audience and I was overjoyed to see smiles on their faces, they seemed receptive and excited, and then the movie rolled, we started watching the documentary ''The Nebulae'' from the TV series ''The Universe'' a production of History Channel.

''Nebulae are everything in the galaxy that stars are not''

An hour long of beautiful imagery of the colorful glowing clouds of gases known as nebulae. We felt what it would like to fly ''inside'' the Orion Nebulae, a breathtaking experience! The film also featured a segment on Astrophotography, how some amateur astronomers take their equipment and camp and spend hours and hours trying to catch the perfect photographs of the cosmic wonders especially nebulae. 

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After the documentary, Khaled Shehab, one of the team's organizer's presented a slide show themed ''We Are The Universe'' to point out our connection to the nebula we just watched and how the universe is not something that's ''out there'' not something that is disconnected from us but in fact it's something within us.

''We are all connected;

to each other biologically,

To the Earth, chemically,

To the rest of the universe atomically.''

- Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I'm so proud of the Diwan Ghazza amateur astronomers, you guys are astronomically amazing! :)

#Atoms2Cosmos

After organizing two successful events with the support and participation of Dr.Suleiman Baraka  we managed to attract a huge audience and everyone seemed eager to be a part of this new merging community of Space fanatics to enjoy the beauty of being a human at this moment in time surrounded by the most brilliant discoveries of science. Membership applications were arriving like crazy and the number reached over a hundred applicant some of which are life-long Space Geeks. As I looked through the applications to pick out my ‘’Organizers Team’’ and as I read their answers, I muttered to myself: ‘’Hey, there’s life on this planet, I’m not alone.’’.  The team was selected and I held our first brainstorming meeting to discuss our vision and ideas for the future. And that was the moment when the Diwan Ghazza ‘’astronomy club’’ advanced to be the ‘’Amateur Astronomers Club’’

I was very impressed with their energy and enthusiasm, you could just feel the passion flooding their hearts and eyes and I thought to myself: This is going to be fun!

We all had agreed on the topic of our next event and wheels were turning to get everything ready for the Big Day, the day of our first team event.

The idea of #Atoms2Cosmos was presented by the brilliant  Amjad Shehada (Communication Engineering Student)   He proposed the BBC documentary series and suggested the idea of the event, we all agreed on watching it first and then discussing the selection. And we did.

The team liked the documentary because of its simplicity and elegance, now we had to agree about the dynamic of the event. And another meeting was held.

The Big Day:

We arrived 2 hours earlier to practice and solve any potential problems and avoid any delays. The time was approaching 3 pm and people were arriving and the event was on.

Mohammad Al-Muzaini (Architecture Student) did an amazing job presenting the concept of the today’s event along with a historical background about the discovery of the atom. The interactive introductory was smooth and fun; some space jokes were made and the audience seemed to be pleased.

The second segment of the event was screening the BBC documentary: Atoms, Keys To The Cosmos. The audience watched and tweeted their thoughts and feelings to #Atoms2Cosmos.

The third and final segment of the event was an interactive discussion between the audience and Amjad who presented the interactive video ‘’The Scale Of The Universe’’ http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html and took us from Planck length through atoms, cells, humans, trees, earth, moon, Jupiter, sun, Polaris, the horsehead nebula all the way to the Known Universe just to get a sense of our place in this colossal universe.

Our event has ended and we couldn’t be happier with its success. Our first team event. I couldn’t be prouder of my team. They are brilliant and passionate and we’ll surprise you in our future events, stay tuned! 

Dark Matter: A Change in Perspective.

                               ‘’It’s the stuff that makes up you and me but it’s not shining.’’- Richard Ellis.

One of the simplest definitions of dark matter. It’s an invisible matter that fills our universe. Dark matter lured scientists to its secretes when Professor Fritz Zwicky measured the motion of a cluster of galaxies and calculated how much mass it ‘’should’’ contain, he discovered that the mass that makes this high speed is much larger than the ‘’visible’’ matter that appeared to light up the cluster, actually at least 400 times larger. It appeared as if something was missing, actually, colossal thing.

We know the galaxies are formed of stars, nebulae, planets, cosmic dust and countless of comets and moons, that’s what you see when you look at a picture of a galaxy, you see glowing pinpoints, millions of them and you think, there’s nothing more to it.

There is more than what you see.

Our human bodies are like the galaxies of our vast universe, when you see a human, you see their physical form, but you know, being a human yourself that there is more than flesh and bones to you. You act upon what you think, your facial expressions change depending on how you feel, you speak of what you think is socially acceptable. But even that is a superficial look to us as humans. As it was to assume that galaxies are only made of the stars and things that you see. But wait, let’s not get judgmental, a change of perspective does not happen over night.

It took years for astronomers to entertain the mere idea of dark matter and a lot of work to try to develop ways to detect it, and yet zero dark matter particles were directly detected. So how do you know it even exists if you can’t see it or prove it’s there? Well, it’s simple, scientists observed the radical effect that this dark matter exerts on the universe, it has a huge gravitational attraction that was able to influence the speed of entire galaxies. It has to be there right?

‘’Scientists now realize it’s not what shines in the light but what hides in the dark that holds the true secrets of our sky’’- The Universe series.

Dark matter particles are very rebellious, they don’t absorb light, and they don’t emit light, however, they ‘’deflect’’ the light like all matter does. And once new techniques were used scientist discovered that 96% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy. . It’s everywhere, it binds stars and galaxies together, it affects their speeds, and it’s basically the skeleton of our universe. Kind of insane right? A huge shift of perspective.

The same thing goes to us on the human level, we are breathing-walking creatures, but there’s more to us than skin and bones, there’s more to us than what an X-ray can reveal. Your muscles, heart and lungs do not make you human. Your pain, your emotions (unless correctly directed) don’t make you human enough either. So what does? Just like our universe, the secret lies within.

Astronomers didn’t need to look very far to find the answer, dark matter is literally everywhere, and it connects everything you see. You don’t have to look far either, the answer is inside you.

Think about it. What really made you the human that you are at this point in your life? To most

Of us out there, the answer would be ‘’I am who I am today because I followed everything I was told was expected of me.’’ You were taught to think a certain way to meet the social standards, which are not always correct as you already know and may not always be our true calling either. We even see ourselves in the light that others point on us whether it’s positive or negative, and it’s mostly negative.  We desperately seek their validation that we are good enough. Then we grow up and become miserable adults and we are the only ones who face the consequences of every choice we thought we were ‘’forced’’ to make because it’s the ‘’accepted’’ thing to do. Waking up every morning with a soul-ache because we have to go to a job that we hate, a job  that its sole purpose is to pay the bills.

You live your life going through the motions till you reach a point of meaninglessness. You stop feeling anything you become indifferent towards everything and everyone around. You function on your muscle memory. And the only reason you’re still doing it even though it’s making you miserable is because you believe you can’t change it, for whatever the reason, the excuse are countless. And I’m not interested in listing them here.

We lie to ourselves, a lot. We give ourselves permission to do certain things, act a certain way, limit ourselves and think this is it because we're ''told'' so. This is as far as we can go. Even if it doesn’t make sense, we do it anyways, and list countless of reasons why it’s Okay to put ourselves in a box. Maybe it feels good? Well good luck if it still feels good in 10 years.

It’s not until you realize that the power lies in you, that much like the dark matter, the largest quantities and qualities are deep inside your heart, how you feel about yourself, what you think about yourself determines how you interact with others and therefore gain everything you want. You can re-shape your reality if you change your ‘’perspective’’ of you. You don’t start by changing everything or everyone around you because you’d be resisting the truth.

It’s beautifully put in holly Quran:

‘’ALLAH does not change a people’s condition unless they change what is in their hearts’’ [13:11]

It’s a lot easier to think that you can change if you would adopt a positive attitude and think everything would turn around as if you’re flipping a light switch, I wish it was that simple.

The universal fact that is staring us in the face is that you unequivocally can not gain any long-term happiness if you don’t see yourself worthy of it. You must first seek self-validation from within.

The recipe is simple;

You must change your perspective of you, to change how you feel about you and develop habits that will support this view. Those critical factors are the dark matter that makes you a human being, its gravitational pull on your character keeps you mentally, emotionally and to a large extend-physically composed. It will hold you together; make you strong enough to face life. So I guess ‘’dark matter’’ is not as gloomy as it sounds?

Self-Tolerance

|| P.S.: This post may not make any sense at many points. I just wrote it how I felt it.  

Our bodies are designed to be their own saviors.  We were created with countless mechanisms that collectively work to keep our bodies safe from any internal or external attacks. But what if the attack is external? Like a virus or an accident?

Could it be avoided? If you know what it is that is lurking to get you maybe you could avoid it if you’re careful enough?

 Some people over do it, they think disinfecting their hands million times can keep them safe from germs or some sort of an external invader that will have them trembling with sickness. So they over protect themselves and their children and the whole family ends up germophobic with OCD. Is that really a life? - To me, most defiantly not.

But what if the attack is internal? What if your own body is attacking itself? And what if your lines of defence are standing by just watching the battle you’re losing?

Your immune system recognizes the various cells of your body as foreigners and starts recruiting its defence lines against, well basically against you. Your body is destroying itself from the inside out. Cell by cell, tissue by tissue, organ by organ and system by system. This is called an autoimmune disease.

I know this comparison highly underestimates the severity of autoimmunity but, doesn’t it feel the same way when you're overwhelmed with doubt and countless questions that are eating your head day and night?

When you feel like overthinking is literally self-destructive to a point where you can no longer function and all you really want to do is stay in bed and avoid the day.

To me both cases bring up the same choices and present the same fundamental question; would you go looking for answers and solutions or would you give up completely and go dying in a loved one’s arms?

I know this sounds depressingly tragic. But I’m just warming up.

Autoimmune disease is hard to diagnose. Because all you have is signs and symptoms given to you by the patient. Sometimes doctors can’t really detect the exact autoimmune mechanism that is doing the harm. So many patients are diagnosed incorrectly or accused of making up the symptoms. Does this ring a bell?

On many levels it does. How many times you felt it in your gut that something is wrong? You can’t quiet put your hand on it but you just feel its void. You just feel it with every cell of your existence. Some people are lucky enough to figure it out; others are destined for life with absolutely no joy regardless of how hard they look for it, or how many times they think they’ve chased it down. That thing that will make everything alright and restores life to normal.

If my father heard me saying this he’d accuse me of making a problem out of nothing, maybe he has a point. Life should be simple right? No?

Speaking of simplicity, let’s go back to immunity. When it comes to our immune system, it’s not all destructive and tragic.

Our immune system presents the most beautiful concept I’ve ever encountered. The term ‘Self Tolerance’ as defined in Robin’s Basic Pathology by ‘’the lack of immune response to one’s own tissue antigens.  Obviously, such self-tolerance is necessary if our own tissues are to live harmoniously with a marauding army of lymphocytes. ‘’ 
I mean how majestic does that sound? Beautiful beautiful beautiful. 

Our bodies’ immune system sounds peacefully perfect doesn’t it? Well if you’re a normal-healthy person that’s exactly what it should be like. The body detects the self-destructing molecules and gets rid of them before the reach our vital tissues and organs. Don’t you just wish we have a filter exactly like that for your unwanted feelings, doubts and insecurities? And everyone ends up living and everyone is satisfied. Or maybe they just think they are? Maybe they’re just Okay with settling for simply just that. An ordinary life. You know; graduate, work and then die.

But if you’re one of those handful of people who are striving to make something out of their lives. Refusing to settle for anything less than that. These insomniac perfectionists, the counter of all stereotypes, living in a constant battle with themselves. Hiding behind million fears and insecurities but trying anyways.

Are you hopelessly autoimmune-d to peace of mind?

Questions that bring up more questions. Let’s end it shall we?

Aside from that, I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe our immune system is telling us something here, it’s giving us a priceless lesson, one that is not learned very easily, ‘Self tolerance’ learn to tolerate yourself, your moods, your insecurities, learn to accept your fears, and the most important lesson of all is learning how to understand them in order to co-exist peacefully. Because in life everything requires self tolerance first.

We Are The Universe: Salt Edition.

Reporting from the land of duty and after 5 weeks I can honestly say that today is the first day that I actually ENJOYED working at the laboratory. After countless and soul oppressing venipunctures here comes redemption, also known as The Microscope.

I’ve started working at the parastiology section today. Preparing the perfect slides and adjusting to make the perfect field and then observing the miniature universe and finally writing down these observations.

As being the intern has it’s perks (sarcasm) and for it being my first day I wasn’t on the fighting front right from the start so my supervisor worked most of the time and then called me to watch the prepared slides under the microscope. Few slides has passed and then there it was. My supervisor with her hands on the fine adjustment knob of the microscope  called me specifically saying ‘’Drop whatever you’re writing down this second and come see these dancing stars, Subhan Allah’’ – She had me at stars.

The actual slide that I saw today.

Closer look at the calcium oxalate crystals - Google search.

Needless to say I had my eyes through the lenses in a fraction of a second and then said, ‘’what am I looking at?’’ They did look like perfect shapes of what we learned to draw as stars.

These tiny perfect starry shaped are calcium oxalate salt crystals. And when my supervisor told me this, at that exact second this Hubble photo crossed my mind.

Like Salt Sprinkled on Black Velvet
Click here for more details on the photo

I’ve seen it a while ago and remember its title clearly ‘Like Salt Sprinkled on Black Velvet’. 

Kind of awesome right? And maybe a bit scary in the most poetic way possible..

This Hubble Telescope photo of this realm of the universe has a striking resemblance of the slide I saw today

This can mean whatever you want to mean, to me it's only saying that the very small resembles the very big. That is if you can understand the small scale stuff you will find your way to the bigger picture, whatever that is for you. It makes you think, we're as humans are floating universes on this Earth. We often complain about 'Finding our way' or trying to see this bigger picture and figuring out what to do with our lives. Here's what I learned today: Adjust your knobs, find your field and make sure your lenses are clean and ready.

 I’ll leave you to look. I’m speechless.

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'Like Salt Sprinkled on Black Velvet'

From NASA To Gaza : An Inside Look.

A week ago I was a fresh senior embarking on my summer training with nothing but optimism and excitement; after all, I was going to get a sneak peak of how my future job would look like. My first day at the laboratory of Maen Clinic was shocking to say the least, despite everyone being very welcoming and understanding of my little experience as a young intern. It was everything I didn’t imagine or expect. I was blind sided.

Three years ago I quit pharmacy school at Al Ain University Of Science and Technology – UAE after finishing 2 semesters and came to Gaza to study Laboratory Medicine. It was love that drove me to this major, that miniature universe under the microscope and the peace that you feel when you work in the lab. But the first day of training was the contrary. The work load was huge; people didn’t stop flowing till the last hours of the work day. There was no peace, there was no ‘’Microscope Meditation’’. It was a battlefield. Everyone working in the lab were on their feet trying to catch up to stay as organized as possible. I came home and spent 2 hours on Skype complaining to my parents and telling them that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing this. Shocked and mortified are understatements of what I felt after my first day. Nothing and no one made sense. I was on the verge of giving up. I felt weary. Everything I ever dreamed of seemed like a joke.

A Breath Of Fresh Air

From NASA To Gaza

Last Saturday there was a seminar organized by Gaza Group of culture and Development. titled ‘’From NASA to Gaza’’ for Dr. Suleiman Baraka who is an astrophysicist from Gaza that worked with NASA. I was the first one to arrive. The seminar started and Dr. Suleiman being the inspiring person that he is can simply trigger your emotions with his wit and wisdom, he talked about what ignited his passion to physics and how despite the unstable circumstances of Gaza he managed to get his PhD from university of Pierre and Marie Curie – Paris and then found his way to NASA. And about how with imagination you can reach the maximum potential of your mind. For the entire seminar an overwhelming feeling of peace occupied my every sense. For a brief period of time I lost contact with the outside world because there was no force in this universe that could’ve distracted me from the undeniable power of Dr. Suleiman speaking from his mere experience. Here he is a living example of someone from the heart of Gaza, the home of uncertainty, contradictions, siege and occupation and against all odds he achieved what many may think was impossible or somehow, insane!.


Dreams Know No Borders 

You listen to him and you just believe, with your heart, with your brain, with your soul, you believe. You believe in yourself, in your maddest dreams, in your world, you believe that you too can make it. You believe. And then something that I thought died inside me a week ago was rising from beneath the molten anger caused by the shocking reality of my ‘’future job’’. And I finally saw what was staring me in the face the entire time. This was only the beginning. 

 I couldn’t see the sun any clearer than I did after I left the seminar. There she was the mesmerizing lady of fire smiling at sundown with the promise of a splendid tomorrow. Thank you Dr. Suleiman, thank you Gaza Group, thank you for everyone who worked on the event! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!  

It was a full house! 

Cosmic Chaos: Student's Life in Gaza

Just another exam, just another day full of countless hours of studying and revising. Or at least that’s what I thought it’s going to be. I woke up early to study for my Parasitology final exam. Sitting quietly in my room and everything was perfect, the electricity was on, what more a student can ask for?

It was hours later when the beloved electricity decided to depart leaving me angry and frustrated. But anyhow that didn’t stop me from studying, there was sun out there. I pulled a chair and opened the balcony and sat down and started studying under the beautiful Gazan sky. Perfect again? No. and then the bombs started flying around. East Khan Younis where I live was under attack. Almost every hour there was sounds of gun shots, explosions and the following ambulance sirens. The Earth was agitated like it’s never been in a while. Regardless I continued studying because god knows no amount of time is enough for Parasitology, I kept that in mind and decided to block out the sounds of everything around in order to finish but imagine how hard it was when you’re sitting in the middle of this unpleasant action. RPGs. Arterially shells. Ambulance sirens. You’d think I’d freak out and drop my books but to tell the truth the idea of not being able to study and revise properly scared me more. So I kept on studying while being continually interrupted by the sounds of gun shots and explosions and again screaming ambulance sirens. This seemed endless. But I kept on going anyways, it took me longer than it usually does to memorize the classes and diseases caused by each parasite because I kept forgetting them, thanks for the countless distractions around and that’s when I decided to use them in my favour. I linked each class of parasites to a time we were being bombed and  I eventually did get them right. Israel eat your heart out!

Now the sun was also departing declaring that I can no longer use her beautiful rays to study. And that’s when I decided to go grab some coffee from a nearby café in Khan Younis. Hoping by the time I get home they would’ve turned on the generator and I can continue studying.

I came back home after 30 minutes to find my mother and sister  still drowning in the darkness they were in before I left. I was mad. I still had an astronomical amount of studying to do and there was no light! Then the conversation drifted not to be about the absent electricity but about my short temper, which got even shorter when it was the centre of attention. As if they don’t know that it’s a good thing that I’m still sane after all. I went to search for the ‘’Kaz light’’ I haven’t used it in ages and it was time for it to shine (literally). I lit it and started studying. Ok it’s a summer day it was hot already and the little kaz light wasn’t helping the matters. Anyhow, continuing: intestinal nematodes, tissue and blood nematodes and life goes on. And my vision doesn’t.

Hours later the generator magically started working! It was like an adrenaline shot straight to the heart, I jumped and turned on the lights and guess what!

Due to fluctuating current of the generator the light bulb decided to explode, as if it wasn’t enough being bombed all morning.

You’d think I’d go mad and drop my books.

But instead I started laughing hysterically. The day has been hilarious no?

At that point I had no fight in me and my eyes started to give up.

I made myself another mug of coffee and got up to the roof to watch the mesmerizing night sky, something has to be good about this day.

Perfect again? Sad to report that it wasn’t.

The sky was perfect but that wasn’t the issue. As I gazed  at the sky I noticed the lonely creatures roaming above aka DRONES. And other warplanes making a pattern in the sky that could distract you even from Vega.

The whole day felt like a cosmic chaos from the start, most days in Gaza are like this, we’re bombed but we choose to continue studying. The power is out but we choose to continue studying. The generator is not working, we choose to continue studying. The drones are so loud that you can’t sometimes hear yourself think, we choose to continue studying. Regardless of the circumstances we choose to continue studying because we know very well that as Palestinians our education is our ticket to freedom. And that’s what was engraved in every cell of my brain from the moment I was born.

So cheers to all the Gazan students  studying when the power is out and losing their eyesight just like I’m losing mine. We can make it!