southwest florida astronomical society … · web viewa detailed analysis indicates the problem...
TRANSCRIPT
Southwest Florida Astronomical SocietySWFAS
The EyepieceJuly 2012
A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENTJuly has some nice things to observe including natural fireworks! The planets are hanging in there in the evening sky and some are re-appearing in the morning sky. Mars is getting smaller and dimmer as it approaches Saturn in the evening sky. Catch them while you can. Jupiter and Venus are bright beacons in the morning sky. At the end of the month, the Delta Aquarid meteor shower should provide some nice natural fireworks on July 28th/29th. The summer Milky Way is now well placed for observing.I would like to thank Carol Stewart for handling camp presentations at Rotary Park and the Calusa Nature Center.I am checking on the Cape Coral Parks and Rec day to see if we can setup again at the Yacht Club Park on July 28th.I have been going over the equipment that Mark Kelly provided to the club. The 8” F6 Meade Starfinder is now tracking properly and gives excellent views of the planets. The short tube Celestron 4.5” reflector is ready to go. I have added a motor drive to it and it tracks pretty well. The 60mm Meade Alt-Az refractor is shaping up and should be ready shortly. I will have some of the other teaching materials that he provided at the meeting.Bruce Dissette has provided a scope for the loan-a-scope program as well that I will be working with. The CPC-800 is available for those interested. It has a large rolling case now that may not fit in some cars. I was able to get it into the back seat of a 4-door Ford Focus, with the tripod in the trunk.CRP Star Party Schedule for 2012: July 21st, August 18th, September 15th, October 13th, November 10th, and December 15th. Please contact Bruce Dissette if you have any questions.Carole Holmberg will be giving Thursday evening’s presentation on "Tarantulas and the Tarantula Nebula." She is planning to have a real tarantula at the meeting!Moon: Full Moon 3rd, Last Quarter 11th, New 19th, 1st Quarter 26th
Club Positions:President:Brian [email protected] (239-464-0366)Vice President:Bruce [email protected] (239-936-2212)
Secretary: Kathleen [email protected](239-689-8707)Treasurer: Tony [email protected]
(941-457-9700)Program Coordinator:Vacant
Viewing Coords./Fakahatchee:Tony Heiner [email protected] (941-629-8849)Chuck Pavlick [email protected] (239-560-1516)Viewing Coord./CaloosahatcheeBruce [email protected] (239-936-2212)
Librarian:Maria Berni(239-940-2935)
Club Historian:Danny Secary [email protected] (239-470-4764)
Equipment Coordinator: Brian [email protected] (239-464-0366)
Website Coordinator:Dan [email protected](239-282-2292) Astronomical League Coordinator (ALCOR):Carol [email protected](239-772-1688)
Newsletter Editor:Carole [email protected](239-275-3435)
July MeetingOur July monthly meeting will be held on Thursday July 5 at 7:30 pm at Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium. Our program is entitled Tarantulas and the Tarantula Nebula. Carole Holmberg will give a PowerPoint about the Tarantula Nebula, the largest known star-forming region in the Local Group of galaxies. A naturalist will also be on hand to show and talk about the Nature Center’s tarantula.
Upcoming MeetingsWe have a talk on Spectroscopy “You Can Almost Touch the Stars!” by Tom Field covering amateur spectroscopy equipment scheduled for December. The talk will be a remote presentation.
CRP Star Party ScheduleJuly 21st, August 18th, September 15th, October 13th, November 10th, and December 15th. Please contact Bruce Dissette if you have any questions.
Mars Science Lab on Track for August LandingNASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover is in good shape and on target for a nail-biting seven-minute plunge to a bulls-eye landing on the red planet in early August, thanks to upgraded software and post-launch improvements that will enable the craft to make a more precise descent to the floor of Gale Crater, project scientist John Grotzinger told reporters.Launched Nov. 26, 2011, the Mars Science Laboratory "Curiosity" rover is the most sophisticated robotic lander ever built, equipped with six electrically-driven wheels, a robot arm, multiple cameras and a suite of state-of-the-art instruments. The goal of the mission, expected to last at least two Earth years, is to explore Gale Crater's intriguing sedimentary formations to help scientists understand whether Mars ever had, or still has, the raw materials and an environment hospitable to life.Given the distance between Earth and Mars at the time of the rover's arrival, the entry, descent and landing will be carried out autonomously by the craft's main computer. To give engineers insight into the descent, the orbits of three NASA science satellites already circling Mars are being tweaked to make sure they are passing within sight of the rover on landing day to relay telemetry back to Earth.Curiosity is the size of a small car and weighs nearly 2,000 pounds. It is too big to use an airbag landing system like those employed for the Mars Pathfinder and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Instead, engineers came up with the novel sky crane design, lowering the rover directly to the surface attached to a cable unreeled from a rocket-powered
descent stage."We start the entire process of landing at about 13,200 miles an hour relative to the planet, 78 miles above the surface," said Dave Lavery, MSL program executive. "Hopefully, if all goes well, about seven minutes later we'll be down on the surface with a relative velocity of zero, safely resting on six wheels."But he cautioned that nothing is guaranteed and that Mars missions have a mixed-bag history of dramatic successes and devastating failures. Historically, only about 40% of the missions to Mars have been successful for any of a number of various different reasons.The only technical issue has been a Teflon contamination problem in the drill, which was discovered shortly before launch. The drill is mounted in a turret on the end of Curiosity's robot arm. It is designed to operate in rotary or percussive mode, moving rock fragments through the drill's interior and on to an instrument designed to look for signs of carbon compounds.Testing shows internal Teflon seals can degrade during normal operation, allowing small amounts of Teflon to mix in with the sample material. A detailed analysis indicates the problem will not prevent the drill from being used but it's not yet clear what effect the expected contamination might have on the analysis of soil samples.- By William Harwood, CBS News
NASA's Next Mars Rover to Face 7 Minutes of Terror It may be described as reasoned - even genius - engineering. But even the engineers who designed it agree it looks crazy. Six vehicle configurations, 76 pyrotechnic devices, 500,000 lines of code, zero margin for error. What exactly will it take to land NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, on the surface of Mars on Aug. 5? The latest video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory breaks down all "7 minutes of terror." Watch it at http://bit.ly/edlemail.
Titan's Underground OceanData from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed Saturn's moon Titan likely harbors a layer of liquid water under its ice shell.
"Cassini's detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a hidden ocean at depth," said Luciano Iess, Cassini team member at the Sapienza University of Rome. "The search for water is an important goal in solar system exploration, and now we've spotted another place where it is abundant."
This artist's concept shows a possible scenario for the internal structure of Titan, as suggested by data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The evidence is tidal. Saturn's powerful gravity stretches and deforms Titan as the moon moves around the gas giant planet. If Titan were composed entirely of stiff rock, the gravitational attraction of Saturn should cause bulges, or solid "tides," on the moon only 3 feet in height. Instead, the data show Saturn creates solid tides approximately 30 feet in height. This suggests Titan is not made entirely of solid rocky material.An ocean layer does not have to be huge or deep to create the observed tides. A liquid layer between the external, deformable shell and a solid mantle would enable Titan to bulge and compress as it orbits Saturn. Because Titan's surface is mostly made of water ice, which is abundant in moons of the outer solar system, scientists believe Titan's ocean is likely mostly liquid water.On Earth, tides result from the gravitational attraction of the moon and sun pulling on our surface oceans. In the open oceans, those can be as high as two feet. The gravitational pulling by the sun and moon also causes Earth's crust to bulge in solid tides of about 20 inches.The presence of a subsurface layer of liquid water at Titan is not by itself an indicator for life. Scientists think life is more likely to arise when liquid water is in contact with rock, and these measurements cannot tell whether the ocean bottom is made up of rock or ice.The results have a bigger implication for the mystery of methane replenishment on Titan. Methane is abundant in Titan's atmosphere, yet researchers believe the methane is unstable, so there must be a supply to maintain its abundance."The presence of a liquid water layer in Titan is important because we want to understand how methane is stored in Titan's interior and how it may outgas to the surface," said Cassini team member Jonathan Lunine. "This is important because everything that is unique about Titan derives from the presence of abundant methane, yet the methane in the atmosphere should be destroyed on geologically short timescales."A liquid water ocean, "salted" with ammonia, could produce buoyant ammonia-water liquids that bubble up through the crust and liberate methane from the ice. Such an ocean could serve also as a deep reservoir for storing methane.- The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-190&cid=release_2012-190
Stellar Flare Blasts ExoplanetA team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected significant changes in the atmosphere of a planet located beyond our solar system. The scientists conclude the atmospheric variations occurred in response to a powerful eruption on the planet's host star, an event observed by NASA's Swift satellite. The stellar flare, which hit the planet like 3 million X-flares from our own sun, blasted material from the planet's atmosphere at a rate of at least 1,000 tons per second.
This artist's rendering illustrates the evaporation of HD 189733b's atmosphere in response to a powerful eruption from its host star. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected the escaping gases and NASA's Swift satellite caught the stellar flare. (Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)
"The multiwavelength coverage by Hubble and Swift has given us an unprecedented view of the interaction between a flare on an active star and the atmosphere of a giant planet," said researcher Alain Lecavelier des Etangs at the
Paris Institute of Astrophysics.
The exoplanet is HD 189733b, a gas giant similar to Jupiter, but about 14% larger and more massive. The planet circles its star at a distance of only 3 million miles, or about 30 times closer than Earth's distance from the sun, and completes an orbit every 2.2 days. Its star, named HD 189733A, is about 80% the size and mass of our sun. Astronomers classify the planet as a "hot Jupiter." Previous Hubble observations show that the planet's deep atmosphere reaches a temperature of about 1,900° Fahrenheit.HD 189733b periodically passes across, or transits, its parent star, and these events give astronomers an opportunity to probe its atmosphere and environment. In a previous study, Hubble was used to show that hydrogen gas was escaping from the planet's upper atmosphere. The finding made HD 189733b only the second-known "evaporating" exoplanet at the time. The system is just 63 light-years away, so close that its star can be seen with binoculars near the famous Dumbbell Nebula. This makes HD 189733b an ideal target for studying the processes that drive atmospheric escape.In April 2010, researchers observed a single transit using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, but they detected no trace of the planet's atmosphere. Follow-up observations in September 2011 showed a surprising reversal, with striking evidence that a plume of gas was streaming away from the exoplanet at 300,000 mph. At least 1,000 tons of gas were leaving the planet's atmosphere every second.This turn of events was explained by data from Swift's X-ray Telescope. On Sept. 7, 2011, just eight hours before Hubble observed the transit, Swift was monitoring the star when it unleashed a powerful flare. After accounting for the planet's enormous size, the team notes that HD 189733b encountered about 3 million times as many X-rays as Earth receives from a solar flare at the threshold of the X class.- Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
New Way of Probing Exoplanet Atmospheres: Tau Boötis b revealed
For the first time a new technique has allowed astronomers to study the atmosphere of an exoplanet in detail — even though it does not pass in front of its parent star. A team used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to directly catch the faint glow from the planet Tau Boötis b. They have studied the planet’s atmosphere and measured its orbit and mass precisely for the first time — in the process solving a 15-year old problem. Surprisingly, the team also finds that the planet’s atmosphere seems to be cooler higher up, the opposite of what was expected. The planet Tau Boötis b was one of the first exoplanets to be discovered back in 1996, and it is still one of the closest exoplanets known. Although its parent star is easily visible with the naked eye, the planet itself certainly is not, and up to now it could only be detected by
its gravitational effects on the star. Tau Boötis b is a large “hot Jupiter” planet orbiting very close to its parent star.Like most exoplanets, this planet does not transit the disc of its star (like the recent transit of Venus). Up to now such transits were essential to allow the study of hot Jupiter atmospheres: when a planet passes in front of its star it imprints the properties of the atmosphere onto the starlight. As no starlight shines through Tau Boötis b’s atmosphere towards us, this means the planet’s atmosphere could not be studied before.But now, after 15 years of attempting to study the faint glow that is emitted from hot Jupiter exoplanets, astronomers have finally succeeded in reliably probing the structure of the atmosphere of Tau Boötis b and deducing its mass accurately for the first time. The team used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. They combined high quality infrared observations (at wavelengths around 2.3 microns) with a clever new trick to tease out the weak signal of the planet from the much stronger one from the parent star.Matteo Brogi (Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands) explains: “Thanks to the high quality observations provided by the VLT and CRIRES we were able to study the spectrum of the system in much more detail than has been possible before. Only about 0.01% of the light we see comes from the planet, and the rest from the star, so this was not easy”.The majority of planets around other stars were discovered by their gravitational effects on their parent stars, which limits the information that can be gleaned about their mass: they only allow a lower limit to be calculated for a planet’s mass. The new technique pioneered here is much more powerful. Seeing the planet’s light directly has allowed the astronomers to measure the angle of the planet’s orbit and hence work out its mass precisely. By tracing the changes in the planet’s motion as it orbits its star, the team has determined reliably for the first time that Tau Boötis b orbits its host star at an angle of 44° and has a mass six times that of the planet Jupiter in our own Solar System.“The new VLT observations solve the 15-year old problem of the mass of Tau Boötis b. And the new technique also means that we can now study the atmospheres of exoplanets that don’t transit their stars, as well as measuring their masses accurately, which was impossible before”, says Ignas Snellen (Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands). “This is a big step forward.”As well as detecting the glow of the atmosphere and measuring Tau Boötis b’s mass, the team has probed its atmosphere and measured the amount of carbon monoxide present, as well as the temperature at different altitudes by means of a comparison between the observations and theoretical models. A surprising result from this work was that the new observations indicated an atmosphere with a temperature that falls higher up. This result is the exact opposite of the temperature inversion — an increase in temperature with height — found for other hot Jupiter exoplanets.The VLT observations show that high resolution spectroscopy from ground-based telescopes is a valuable tool for a detailed analysis of non-transiting exoplanets’ atmospheres. The detection of different molecules in future will allow astronomers to learn more about the planet’s atmospheric conditions. By making measurements along the planet’s orbit, astronomers may even be able to track atmospheric changes between the planet’s morning and evening.
International Dark-sky Association Membership PromotionEnter the International Dark-Sky Association’s Darksky Giveaway for an astronomically grand prize— a set of eight TeleVue Ethos eyepieces valued at $5,665, generously donated by Televue Optics.To enter the IDA's Darksky Giveaway, you must be an IDA member before the entry closeout date of August 31, 2012. If you are not a member, joining is easy and the cost of a one-year membership is only $35.00. To join or renew your membership, visit www.darksky.org and select the “Join” tab at the top of the webpage. You can also join by calling the IDA office at (520) 293-3198. Entering to win is also a breeze. Visit
darksky.org/giveaway where you can fill out the entry form online and read the official rules.Individual memberships help IDA perform its mission in stopping light pollution and helps to support its many programs. Through the International Dark Sky Places program, IDA and its partners certify locations with exceptional nightscapes as International Dark Sky Communities, International Dark Sky Parks, and International Dark Sky Reserves. The Dark Sky Parks and Protected Area Program currently works with national parks to help them utilize quality outdoor lighting. IDA’s new Suburban Outreach Sites project partners with astronomy clubs to establish accessible programs for kids and their parents. These programs help IDA to engage communities and to raise awareness and ultimately “to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through environmentally responsible outdoor lighting.” IDA members make a big difference in their communities and around the world, which is why IDA is thrilled to offer its members such a premium giveaway from Televue Optics. Make sure you enter the DarkSky Giveaway by the deadline and good luck! To learn more, visit www.darksky.org. The winner will be announced at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show in September 2012, but does not need to attend PATS to win.- W. Scott Kardel, Public Affairs Director, International Dark-Sky Association, email: [email protected], phone: 520 293-3198 ext. 402 The Great Galactic Alignment of 2012Some who claim that the Maya predicted the end of the world in 2012 use a particular astronomical alignment that is believed will occur at the end of the 13th Bak'tun in the Maya Long Count calendar (December 21st, 2012) as evidence to support their notions. The claim is that on that date the Sun will align with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which only happens once every 25,772 years. They claim that the Maya knew about this alignment and set their Long Count calendar to end on this day because the alignment will cause something to happen. Just what this something is seems to depend only on the imagination. You can visit Wikipedia for more about such claims and the people making them. Note that the claims are not being made by Maya people themselves. Let’s examine the facts to see if this claim of an alignment is true.The Galactic ContextThe Sun is but one of a few hundred billion stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy is shaped like a disk with a bulge in the center. The disk is about 100,000 light-years across and 1,000 light-years thick. Remember, a light-year is the distance that light travels in one year. It is not a measurement of time, but of distance. A good scale model for the Galaxy would be a CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc with a marble in the center.The Sun is located about 30,000 light-years from the center, about halfway out. The Sun moves in a roughly circular orbit about the center of the Galaxy (the fine details of the orbit are pretty messy), taking about 250 million years to complete one trip.Since we are located inside the disk of the Milky Way, we do not have that outsider view of it. Here on Earth, we see it as a band of hazy light running through the sky with dark rifts inside it. From this perspective and using only the unaided eye, it is difficult to discern its center. But with modern tools like telescopes that can see infrared and radio light, we now know that the center is located in the constellation of Sagittarius, which is most prominent in the summertime sky in the Northern hemisphere.At the center of the Milky Way Galaxy lies a black hole with the mass of millions of Suns. We’ve found that most, if not all, big galaxies in the Universe contain these monstrous black holes in their centers.
Left: Top-An artist’s concept of the Milky Way Galaxy seen from above. This map uses the latest knowledge of the structure of the Galaxy and the Sun’s location.Bottom- The entire sky projected like a map shows the Milky Way Galaxy’s appearance from our perspective within the disk. This image was constructed from infrared data.
Infrared light passes through much of the dust in the Galaxy allowing us to see more of its structure than we can with our eyes.Right: A CD with a marble in its center is a good model for the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy. Note that this model is stuck to a stand and viewed at two different angles: mostly face-on (top) and edge-on (bottom). Alignment With the Galactic CenterWhen people talk about alignments we need to be clear. The Sun and the center of the Galaxy are only two points: they always form a line! So an alignment in space of the Sun with the Galaxy is meaningless. Throwing Earth into the mix changes the situation. In this case, an alignment of all three objects is probably something rarer, right? Indeed!It won’t be happening in 2012. In fact, an alignment of Earth, the Sun, and the Galactic center will not happen for over 4 million years! In our current position in the Galaxy, the Sun never appears to align exactly with the Galactic center, from Earth’s perspective. The closest the Sun appears to be next to the Galactic center is about 6.4°, nearly 13 times the width of the full moon. That’s not much of an alignment. It will take well over 4 million years for the Solar System to move around the Galaxy enough to allow us to see the Sun projected directly in front of the Galactic center.From our perspective on Earth, the Sun does appear to pass in front of the band of the Milky Way twice per year (currently once in December and once in June). It has done this every year since the beginning of the Solar System, 5 billion years ago. So there is nothing special at all about this kind of alignment. From a perspective in space, we can see that the Earth and the Sun do not align with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy on December 21st, 2012.Above Left: This perspective is from within the plane of the Solar System looking from behind Earth toward the Sun and toward the center of the Galaxy. Above Right: This perspective is from above the plane of the Solar System and we can see the two different lines of sight from Earth to the Sun and from Earth to the Galactic center. Also note that there is no alignment of planets on this date, which some 2012 doomsday theorists claim.Solstice AlignmentOn December 21st, 2012, the Sun will be aligned with the middle of the Milky Way band, from our perspective on Earth (though it is not aligned with the Galactic center). In this
part of the Milky Way, there are several dark rifts and the Sun appears in one of them.The date of this “alignment,” December 21st, is the Winter Solstice (the shortest day/longest night of the year) in the northern hemisphere. However, when the Maya created the Long Count calendar over 2,000 years ago, the Sun would not have been seen in this location in the Milky Way on the Winter Solstice. The date of any annual alignment
of the Sun with the stars (including the Galaxy) changes by one day every 72 years due to a wobble in Earth’s rotation called precession. The exact alignment of the Sun with any spot in the heavens on a specific date therefore only occurs every 25,772 years.Left: A snapshot from a NASA animation that demonstrates the concept of precession of Earth’s axis of rotation, which is the cause of the precession of dates of solar alignments with celestial objects.There is evidence that has convinced several scholars
to think that the classical Maya knew about this precessional drift in time of solar-stellar alignments. Indeed, the evidence indicates that the ancient Maya may have synchronized several of their calendars to alignments of important constellations with the Sun. They may have calculated the locations of these constellations into prehistory to make these alignments coincide with mythological events. If they were able to run the precessional clock backwards, they could just as easily run it forward. Such astronomical observations were well within their observational capabilities. For example, let’s say the ancient Maya noted the date that the Sun appeared in the middle of the dark rift in the Milky Way located in the constellation Sagittarius. After 72 years they would note that the alignment was happening one day later. After 144 years, the date would now be 2 days later than the first observation. After several generations they would have enough data to be sure that the precession was real (not a mistake in counting days) and be able to accurately account for it. This leads us to wonder if the ancient Maya set their Long Count calendar to reach the end of the 13th Bak’tun when the Sun was seen in one of the dark rifts in the Milky Way during the Winter Solstice. This cannot be directly observed on this date since the Sun’s brightness lights up the sky making it much brighter than the stars.These rifts are actually made up of enormous clouds of dust and gas where new stars are forming. There are so many of these clouds between us and the stars of the Galaxy behind them, that the light from those distant stars is blocked out. So we see the shapes of these clouds in silhouette. We can see the clouds themselves in infrared light. NASA missions like IRAS, Spitzer, and WISE have mapped out the plane of the Milky Way to understand the roles these clouds play in the life cycle of the Galaxy.The Sun does appear to cross through a rift on December 21st, 2012. But it began crossing through the rift on the Winter Solstice date back in about the year 1800 AD. The rift does not have exact boundaries since it is made of clouds of dust and gas. The Sun will continue to be viewed against the backdrop of this rift during the Winter Solstice until at least the year 2100.If the ancient Maya were aware of precession, they would have known that the Sun would be viewed within this rift during the Winter Solstice for about 400 years. So what importance would they have given such an alignment, what would they have thought that it meant? This is an open question for Maya researchers. We know that their understanding of the sky was intimately tied to their mythology and religion. Scholars are trying to understand and decipher that mythology as best as they can, through the study of the empirical evidence.But What If?What if there was an exact alignment of the Sun with center of the Galaxy, as seen from
Earth? Would there be any physical effects on us?Well, the central part of the Galaxy has the mass and luminosity of tens of billions of suns. But it is 30,000 light-years away. Because of that great distance, the strength of its gravity on Earth is several hundred million times weaker than the strength of the Sun’s gravity. Plus, the Sun is hundreds of millions of times brighter in the sky than the Milky Way, also because of the huge difference in distance. So the answer is a resounding “no.” It makes no difference if the Sun is aligned or not, the effects of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy on Earth are utterly insignificant any day of the year. People often worry about the effects of gravitational tides when there is talk of an astronomical alignment. Tides are a shearing/stretching aspect of gravity and are much weaker than regular gravitational forces. So if the gravity of the Milky Way is totally insignificant compared to that of the Sun, or even the Moon, then the tidal forces will be all the more insignificant.Even if the very talented ancient Maya astronomers and priests meant for the 13th Bak’tun anniversary to occur with the alignment of the Sun in a dark rift of the Milky Way on the Winter Solstice, it isn’t a rare alignment. So nothing physical could be expected to happen in 2012 that wouldn’t have been occurring already for hundreds and even billions of years.It looks like the “great Galactic alignment” of 2012 is much ado about nothing.- From calendarinthesky.org
Hasta La Vesta CelebrationIt seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Dawn’s arrival at Vesta with Vesta Fiesta, and now it is time to say: “Hasta La Vesta.” I want to announce to you that on September 8th at 3 pm Eastern Time, we will celebrate Dawn leaving Vesta and traveling to Ceres. Please hold September 8th in your calendars as we highlight three components of the mission:Completion of most data collection at Vesta, a new phase in solar system exploration – ion propulsion space flight, and expectation and anticipation of arriving at Ceres. We are planning to have an international cyber-event. Our initial plans have similarities to Vesta Fiesta, but new elements as well. The event is in final planning stages, and we anticipate participation with scientists/engineers in Italy, Germany, and the US. As we did with Vesta Fiesta, we will have an interactive map indicating locations of specific celebrations. A new technology being developed by Star Club allows interaction between Dawnites and Dawn science/engineers in a way that we hope will personalize the mission and provide visibility for the mission and your programs/mission We will have more information in the coming weeks. Look for updates at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov- Joe Wise, Dawn Mission EPO
How Many Discoveries Can You Make in a Month?By Dr. Tony PhillipsThis year NASA has announced the discovery of 11 planetary systems hosting 26 planets; a gigantic cluster of galaxies known as “El Gordo;” a star exploding 9 billion light years away; alien matter stealing into the solar system; massive bullets of plasma racing out of the
galactic center; and hundreds of unknown objects emitting high-energy photons at the edge of the electromagnetic spectrum.
That was just January.Within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, the Astrophysics Division produces such a list nearly every month. Indeed, at this very moment, data is pouring in from dozens of spacecraft and orbiting observatories. “The Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and Fermi space telescopes continue to make groundbreaking discoveries on an almost daily basis,” says NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.NASA astrophysicists and their colleagues conduct an ambitious research program stretching from the edge of the solar system to the edge of the observable Universe. Their work is guided in large part by the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics, which identified the following priorities: Finding new planets—and possibly new life—around other stars, Discovering the nature of dark energy and dark matter, Understanding how stars and galaxies have evolved since the Big Bang, Studying exotic physics in extreme places like black holes. Observing time on Hubble and the other “Great Observatories” is allocated accordingly. Smaller missions are important, too: The Kepler spacecraft, which is only “medium-sized” by NASA standards, has single-handedly identified more than 2300 planet candidates. Recent finds include planets with double suns, massive “super-Earths” and “hot Jupiters,” and a miniature solar system. It seems to be only a matter of time before Kepler locates an Earth-sized world in the Goldilocks zone of its parent star, just right for life.A future astrophysics mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to study the atmospheres of many of the worlds Kepler is discovering now. The telescope’s spectrometers can reveal the chemistry of distant exoplanets, offering clues to their climate, cloud cover, and possibilities for life. That’s not the telescope’s prime mission, though. With a primary mirror almost 3 times as wide as Hubble’s, and a special sensitivity to penetrating infrared radiation, Webb is designed to look into the most distant recesses of the universe to see how the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang. It is, in short, a Genesis Machine.Says Bolden, “We’re on track in the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope, the most sophisticated science telescope ever constructed to help us reveal the mysteries of
the cosmos in ways never before possible.” Liftoff is currently scheduled for 2018.How long will the list of discoveries be in January of that year? Stay tuned for Astrophysics.For more on NASA’s astrophysics missions, check out http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/. Kids can get some of their mind-boggling astrophysics questions answered by resident Space Place astrophysicist “Dr. Marc” at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/dr-marc-space.
Artist’s concepts such as this one are based on infrared spectrometer data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. This rendering depicts a quadruple-
star system called HD 98800. The system is approximately 10 million years old and is located 150 light-years away in the constellation Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)
- This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Now if you don’t have an iPhone, the popular Comet Quest game is also available on The Space Place website as an equally exciting Flash game. Learn about comets and the Rosetta mission while playing this fast-moving, immersive action game. It’s like the real Rosetta mission, but with you in control of the spacecraft: First, drop the comet lander carefully onto the nucleus; observe and record gas jets, craters, cracks, and other happenings; dodge and dart around ice chunks flying off the nucleus; and, in your spare
time, communicate with the lander and with Earth. Go to a comet at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comet-quest. Check out our great sites for kids:http://climate.nasa.gov/kids, http://scijinks.gov, http://spaceplace.nasa.gov If you have admired the beautiful collage that is the Space Place home page, now you can wear it! We’ve added a page with artwork you can download and print on iron-on transfer paper (widely available), then iron it onto a t-shirt, a bag, or any fabric you like. There’s also a transfer for the back of the t-shirt with a portrait of the solar system, colorful planets more or less to scale, orbits not. This activity requires help from a grown-up, of course. Check it out at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/t-shirt.- Distributed by Laura K. Lincoln, on behalf of the Space Place Team.
Hello NSN StarGazers:We want to thank all of you for the terrific Transit of Venus outreach. We had the most traffic we’ve ever experienced on the NSN website the week of the ToV. NSN is getting the word out about your great outreach events more than ever. When you post your event on NSN, it automatically appears on the Go StarGaze and Distant Suns mobile apps. Not to mention the “Find Events and Clubs” widget is now posted on many sites, including EarthSky, JPL, and local libraries. You can ask your local community partners (library/museum, etc.) to add the widget to their page. Be sure to let us know whenever you get the widget posted, just send us an email so we can track publicity. Win a Mars Globe in July. Get your events logged!Be sure to get your second quarter events logged by Sunday, July 8th to qualify for the
Quarterly Prizes - Mars Globes in time for Curiosity’s landing! We will pick five clubs randomly from the events held between April 1 and June 30 that use NSN ToolKits and resources. The more events you log, the better your chances to win. (If your club hasn’t received all the ToolKits yet, log at least two qualifying events and you’ll automatically receive another ToolKit.) We'll hold the drawing on Monday, July 9th.*Bonus* One more Mars Globe will be given away to a club that posts an upcoming event for the weekend of August 3rd-5th, in honor of Curiosity's landing on Mars! Get your events posted by July 15th to
qualify.The odds are in your favor here!
The Mars Curiosity Telecon: Exclusively for Night Sky Network Members!The Curiosity rover was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet's "habitability." Join Mars Science Laboratory Deputy Project Scientist and eloquent public speaker Dr. Ashwin Vasavada as he gives us the highlights and more from this mission.*Bonus* One lucky Night Sky Network telecon listener will receive the new book, Destination Mars: New Explorations of the Red Planet by Rod Pyle.
To join the Teleconference on Monday, July 23rd at 9:00 pm Eastern call the toll-free conference call line: 1-888-455-9236Call anytime after 5:45 pm the evening of the telecon. An operator will answer and:- You will be asked for the passcode: NIGHT SKY NETWORK- You will be asked to give your NAME and the CLUB you belong to, and number of people listening with you.The PowerPoint will be available after July 21st at https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/club/download-view.cfm?Doc_ID=499 (log into NSN first).Welcome to all the NSN clubs that joined in the last 12 months. We're glad to have you as members! The NSN now has over 400 clubs across the United States, and we're still growing.Adirondack Public Observatory in NY, Amateur Astronomers Association of NY, Astral Astronomers in TX, AstroTerps in MD, Astronomical Association of Southern Illinois, Astronomical Society of East Texas, Astronomical Society of Las Cruces, Astronomical Society of Nevada, Bandelier National Monument Night Sky Team in NM, Bartlesville Astronomical Society in OK, Black River Astronomical Society in OH, Celestial Observers Guild in ME, Central Ohio Astronomical Society, Charlotte Amateur Astronomers Club, Chester County Astronomical Society in PA, Downeast Amateur Astronomers in ME, Dudley Observatory in NY, Elmore County 4-H in AL, Fargo-Moorhead Astronomy Club in MN, Fox Park Astronomy Club in MI, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in AZ, Harper Astronomy Club in IL, Henry Ford Community College Astronomy Club in MI, Huntsville Amateur Astronomy Society in TX, Indiana Astronomical Society, Inola AFJROTC Astronomy Club in OK, Iowa County Astronomers in WI, John C. Wells Planetarium @JMU in VA, Keene Amateur Astronomy Club in NH, Litchfield Hills Amateur Astronomy Club in CT, Modesto Junior College Astronomy Club, North Shore Amateur Astronomy Club in MA, Oak Canyon Astronomy Group in CA, Peninsula Astronomical Society in CA, Phoenix Astronomy Club in MA, Plantation Astronomy Club in FL, Queen of Peace Catholic Academy Astronomy Club in FL, Salina Astronomy Club in KS, Seattle Astronomical Society, Shreveport / Bossier Astronomical Society, Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers in WV, Southern Colorado Astronomical Society, Southern Oregon Skywatchers, Star City Astronomy Network in VA, Starcreek Astronomical Society in OK, Sunland/Tujunga Astronomical Research Society in CA, Sussex County Astronomy Society in DE, Taylor Creek Observatory in SC, The Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project in GA, Tulare Astronomical Association in CA, University of
Arizona Astronomy Club, Western Colorado Astronomy Club
NOTE: The NASA Night Sky Network is a nationwide coalition of nearly 400 amateur astronomy clubs. The NASA Night Sky Network is managed by The Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
Wishing you clear skies and oodles of outreach.- Marni Berendsen, Vivian White, and Jessica Santascoy, Night Sky Network
SWFAS MinutesJune minutes will be published in a future newsletter.
Future EventsCALUSA NATURE CENTER PLNTRM 7-5-12 7:30 PM MONTHLY MEETING CALOOSAHATCHEE REGIONAL PARK 7-21-12 DUSK STAR PARTYCALUSA NATURE CENTER PLNTRM 8-2-12 7:30 PM MONTHLY MEETING CALOOSAHATCHEE REGIONAL PARK 8-18-12 DUSK STAR PARTY
Southwest Florida Astronomical Society, Inc.P.O. Box 100127Cape Coral, FL 33910
www.theeyepiece.org