Download Volume 20 Number 10 September 2012

THE YOUNG ASTRONOMERS NEWSLETTER
Volume 20
Number 10
STUDY + LEARN = POWER
OWER
FIRST 360-DEGREE PANORAMA FROM
CURIOSITY – AND MORE
September
2012
MORE RUSSIAN-STYLE MOTIVATION
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he will
name officials responsible for a failed satellite launch: "I
would like to hold a meeting on this …. it will be prepared
by the appropriate deputy prime minister and structures.
They are tasked with reporting who should be punished
and what to do next,"
And “"I don't know what the cause of the failures is but this could not be tolerated anymore .… We are losing
authority and billions of rubles.”
Remarkable image sets from the Curiosity rover and
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) are continuing to
develop the story of Curiosity's landing and first days on
Mars. The first images include the rover's first self-portrait
and the first 360-degree view of its new home in Gale
Crater.
Curiosity, the centerpiece of the Mars Science
Laboratory mission, touched down in Mars' Gale Crater
PERSIEDS METEOR SHOWER
on August 5th. It is expected to explore the chemical
composition of this area and figure out how it was formed, Some comments from the Internet:
with an eye out for signs that Mars once had conditions “It did not disappoint. Some were huge and slow, and
some more typical streaks in the sky.”
suitable for life. See: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0
“What an incredible treat, I saw enough to lose count. “
NEW KEPLER DISCOVERIES
“Some were fast, some had long trails some were red
The Kepler spacecraft has discovered 41 new and orange balls with long bright trails.”
transiting planets in 20 star systems, increasing the “The second one I saw was the brightest one I ever saw.
number of Kepler's confirmed planets to 116 in 67 It was so bright that it cast shadows and left an ionized tail
systems, over half of which contain more than one planet. for about 20 to thirty seconds.”
19 of the 20 have two closely spaced planets and one “Spectacular! I was delighted with this rain of stars.
system has three. The planets range up to seven times “Simply perfect!”
the radius of Earth, but generally orbit so close to their “WOW! Simply Awesome!”
parent stars that they are hot, inhospitable worlds.
SPAIN’S MOON ROVER
China will send a Spanish rover to the Moon in June
2014, according to the company which heads the
"Barcelona Moon Team" that is competing in the Google
Lunar X Prize contest. It is the only team based in Spain
to take part in the Google Lunar X Prize, which challenges
participants to create a robot that can move over the lunar
surface and send live images back to Earth before
December 2015.
A LONELY GALAXY
Many galaxies are comparatively isolated without
close neighbors. One such example is the small galaxy
known as DDO 190 ("DDO" stands for the David Dunlap
Observatory, now managed by the Royal Astronomical
Society of Canada, where the catalog was created). DDO
190 is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy as it is
relatively small and lacks clear structure.
Older, reddish stars mostly populate the outskirts,
while some younger, bluish stars gleam brightly in the
more crowded interior. See: http://www.nasa.gov/
multimedia/imagegallery/Image_feature_2336.html
THE VOYAGER SPACECRAFT
Thirty-five years ago, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft,
the first Voyager spacecraft to launch, departed on a
journey that would make it the only spacecraft to visit
Uranus and Neptune and the longest-operating NASA
spacecraft ever.
Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, that launched 16
days later on Sept. 5, 1977, are still going strong, hurtling
away from the Sun.
Mission managers are eagerly anticipating the day
when they break on through to the other side - the space
between stars.
GLIESE 581D
Based on new data, astronomers now believe
exoplanet Gliese 581g is the best candidate as a
potentially habitable exoplanet. Its star, Gliese 581 is well
known for having four planets with the outermost planet,
Gliese 581d, already suspected as habitable.
FASTEST CME
On July 23rd, a massive cloud of solar material
erupted off the Sun’s right side and zoomed out into
space. Scientists clocked this giant cloud (a coronal
mass ejection) as traveling between 1,800 to 2,200 miles
per second as it left the Sun.
This was the fastest CME ever observed by the
STEREO spacecraft. The mission consists of two
spacecraft with orbits that give them views of the Sun that
cannot be had from Earth.
VICTIM OF A HUGE BLACK HOLE
In 2011, astronomers watched a star at the center of a
galaxy in Draco send out a distress flare when a giant
black hole tore it to shreds.
Now, some of the deceased star's glowing remains
whirl around the black hole and emit x-rays and reveal the
black hole’s mass. Satellites discovered that the x-rays
fluctuate in strength every 200 seconds.
Assuming this is the orbital period of hot gas revolving
near the black hole, the astronomers calculated that the
monster weighs 450,000 to 5 million times more than the
Sun.
This agrees with previous estimates and makes the
black hole comparable to the one at the Milky Way's
center.
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SCIWORKS – for information and planetarium
schedules call: 767-6730
The Sky Tonight? See - http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html
and also http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/tonights_sky/
Astronomy Picture of The Day - http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
SLOAN SKY SURVEY – The new data is available to students, teachers, and the public. The SkyServer website
includes lesson plans for teachers that use DR9 data to teach astronomy and other topics in science, technology,
and math. DR9 data will also feature a new release of the Galaxy Zoo citizen science project, which allows online
volunteers to contribute to cutting-edge astronomy research. See: http://www.sdss3.org/dr9
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SLOAN
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SCRAMBLED ASTRONOMY
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MORE MOONS
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STALA
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SAJUN
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(Answers below)
******
INTERNET SITES
******
 Time Lapse Video from the ISS - http://vimeo.com/44801709
 NGC 4700’s new stars - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/ngc4700.html .
 Pipe Nebula - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1233/
Can you count the stars?

SITE OF THE MONTH

Kids’ Astronomy - http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/Astronomy%20Kids.aspx
******
SEPTEMBER MOON
******
Last Quarter: 9/8
New Moon: 9/16
First Quarter: 9/22
Full Moon: 9/30
Apogee: 9/7 2:53 PM 251,217 mi. (404295 km)
Perigee: 9/18 10:53 PM 227,265 mi. (365748 km)
 Best observing nights: 9/7 – 9/21  The Full Moon was called the Harvest Moon.  9/22 - 1st day of Autumn.
******
PLANETS IN SEPTEMBER
******
VENUS is rising in the east before sunrise. JUPITER rises in the east before midnight and is the brightest planet
every night. MARS – its red glow is to the left of Saturn after sunset. MERCURY is near the western horizon in
late September. SATURN is low in the west-southwest after sunset and sinking lower each evening. URANUS
rises low in the east after sunset, below the Great Square of Pegasus, and visible all night. It is opposite the Sun on
the 29th (opposition). Uranus is a blue dot in telescopes and binoculars but can even be seen from a dark site. The
Moon passes within 5° of Uranus at 1 AM on the 30th.
******
METEOR SHOWERS
******
NAME
DATES
BEST NIGHT
PER HOUR
WHERE TO LOOK
ALPHA AURIGIDS
8/25 – 9/8
9/1
7
Low in the north. Alpha Aurigids is
a “maybe” with an erratic history. It is believed to be occasional debris from Comet Keiss 2 and has produced up
to 30 meteors per hour. The meteors are bright with some leaving trails.
SEPTEMBER PERSEIDS 9/5 - 10/10
9/8
6
Northeast. This shower is not the
same as the spectacular Perseids shower which peaks in mid-August and is one of the year's highlights. They
both appear to radiate from the same constellation but are not related - they were formed by different comets.
September has five minor showers with three or less per hour.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------LOOK FOR: >>>>> The Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda constellation is twice the size of the Milky Way
and looks like a narrow “V” as it spreads to the northeast. It is to the northeast from the Great Square of Pegasus.
The Galaxy is a misty patch and the most distant object visible without a telescope or binoculars. >>>>> The
Beehive Cluster (M44) to the upper left of Venus in mid-September. >>>>> The Moon passes only .6° south of
Jupiter on the 6th. >>>>> Antares – a big, red bloated super-giant low in the southwest – the “Rival of Mars“.
MISSING PLANET
PHOENIX CLUSTER
An international team of astronomers has discovered
the first evidence of a planet's destruction by its aging
star. The missing planet was devoured as the star began
expanding into a "red giant" - the stellar equivalent of
advanced age. The astronomers also discovered a
massive planet in a surprisingly elliptical orbit around the
same lithium-polluted red-giant star.
New observations of the Phoenix Cluster may force
astronomers to rethink how these colossal structures and
the galaxies that inhabit them evolve. Clusters are some
of the largest objects in the universe. (The largest is the
Sloan Great Wall.)
Stars are forming in the Phoenix Cluster at the
highest rate ever observed for the middle of a galaxy
cluster. It is also the most powerful producer of X-rays of
any known cluster and among the most massive. The
data also suggest the rate of hot gas cooling in the
central regions of the cluster is the largest ever
observed. While galaxies at the center of most clusters
may have been dormant for billions of years, the central
galaxy in this cluster seems to have come back to life
with a new burst of star formation.
See: http://www.nasa.gov/chandra and
http://chandra.si.edu
SPRITES
High above the clouds during thunderstorms, some
50 miles above Earth, a different kind of lightning
dances. Bursts of red and blue light, known as "sprites,"
flash for a scant one thousandth of a second. They are
often only visible to those in flight above a storm, and
happen so quickly you might not even see it unless you
chance to be looking directly at it.
Astronauts on the ISS recently captured the signature
red flash of a sprite, offering the world and researchers a
rare opportunity to observe one.
See: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/
sunearth/news/seeing-sprites.html
MERGING CLUSTERS
Astronomers observed two clusters full of massive
stars that may be in the early stages of merging. They
are in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite
galaxy to our Milky Way. The two clusters in the core of
the Tarantula Nebula differ in age by about one million
years.
The nebula, also known as the 30 Doradus
complex, has been an active star-forming region for 25
million years. Smaller systems that merge into larger
ones could help to explain the origin of some of the
largest known star clusters.
See: http://www.30doradus.org/ and also
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/
imagegallery/image_feature_2337.html
and http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/
science/tarantula.html
NEW PHOBOS IMAGE
An image taken by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft as
it passed just 60 miles above Mars' largest moon Phobos
is seen in fantastic detail - and in 3D. This view is much
different to the faint object that astronomer Asaph Hall
would have just been able to make out as he observed
the Red Planet through the United States Naval
Observatory's 66 cm telescope in 1877.
Through this telescope he discovered Mars' smaller,
outermost moon Deimos and the larger, innermost moon
Phobos.
A bite-sized chunk appears to be missing from the
right edge of the irregular shaped moon - this is a side-on
view of the rim of large impact crater Stickney, so-called
after the maiden name of the discoverer's wife.
Families of grooves appear to emanate from
Stickney, carving channels across the approximately 27
km length of the moon. Initially thought to be associated
with the Stickney impact crater, one recent theory
suggests that they were instead formed when Phobos
passed through debris clouds thrown up from the surface
of Mars by asteroid impacts onto the planet's surface.
See: http://www.esa.int/esaSC/
SEMDAB1YZ5H_index_1.html
NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS
Noctilucent clouds are a mystery dating back to
1885 when northern sky watchers first noticed them
about two years after the eruption of Krakatoa. Ash from
the Indonesian volcano caused such splendid sunsets
that evening sky watching became a worldwide pastime.
One observer, German T.W. Backhouse, noticed
something odd. He stayed outside long enough for the
twilight to fully darken, and on some nights he saw wispy
filaments glowing electric blue against the black sky.
Scientists thought they were some manifestation of
volcanic dust until Krakatoa's ash settled and the sunsets
faded. Strangely the noctilucent clouds did not go
away. They're still present today, stronger than ever. But
the dust behind the clouds we see now is meteor dust.
SUPERNOVA WITH THREE STARS
A research group from Japan used the Subaru
Telescope to conduct observations of supernovae (plural
of supernova) with clumpy 3-D structures. This finding
supports a new scenario of supernova explosions
instead of the widely accepted bipolar explosions. Five of
six showed the signature of the clumpy 3-D geometry.
NEW CHEMICALS?
A new study concludes that white dwarfs - aged stars
with the mass of the Sun or greater that have collapsed
to the size of a planet, could generate unusual types of
chemical bonds. Because the magnetic field around a
white dwarf can be hundreds of thousands of times the
strength of Earth's magnetic field, it can actually distort
the shape of the electron clouds around atoms.
Simulations suggest the intense fields may actually
stimulate chemical reactions that typically don't take
place on Earth.
FAST GALACTIC WINDS
Fierce galactic winds powered by an intense burst of
star formation may blow gas right out of massive
galaxies, shutting down their ability to make new stars.
Astronomers found 29 objects with out-flowing winds
measuring up to 1,600 miles per second, twice as fast as
most observed galactic winds. Young, bright, and
compact, these massive galaxies are in the midst of or
just completing a period of star formation as intense as
anyone has ever observed.
IMPACT CRATERS
NGC 1187
Researchers in Canada's western Arctic have found
evidence of a crater that formed when a huge meteorite
slammed into Earth millions of years ago. Measuring
about 15 miles across, the formation was named the
Prince Albert impact crater after the peninsula where it
was discovered. Researchers don't know exactly when it
was created, but evidence suggests the crater is
between 130 million and 350 million years old.
Earlier this summer, researchers in Greenland
documented possibly the oldest and largest meteorite
crater ever found on Earth. The crater, estimated to be 3
billion years old, currently measures about 62 miles
across. But the researchers believe its width before
erosion was likely more than 310 miles — much bigger
than the largest visible crater, the 2-billion-year-old
Vredefort crater in South Africa which measures 186
miles across.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1187 in the constellation of
Eridanus (The River) has six prominent arms, each
containing large amounts of gas, dust, and young stars
born out of the clouds of interstellar gas. It looks tranquil
and unchanging, but it has hosted two supernovae
explosions since 1982.
In this image, the bulge of the galaxy is glowing
yellow and is mostly made up of old stars. Around the
outside of the galaxy many much fainter and more
distant galaxies can also be seen. A supernova is near
the bottom of the image. See:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1231/
MOST MASSIVE STARS
In 2010, observers reported the most massive stars
ever seen, - it exceeded what many astronomers thought
was a maximum about 150 times the mass of the Sun.
The heavyweight champs resided 160,000 light-years
from Earth in Radcliffe 136, a dense star cluster within
the Large Magellanic Cloud, the brightest galaxy that
revolves around our Milky Way.
They have simulated the evolution of this star cluster
and found that a stellar heavyweight can result when two
massive stars born orbiting each other merge into a
single giant due to the frequent juggling of other stars in
such a dense environment.
Though the idea is plausible because massive stars
usually have partners, observers need to test the claim
by measuring how fast the record-breaking stars spin.
SLOAN SKY SURVEY
Researchers have released the largest threedimensional map of black holes and massive galaxies, it pinpoints the locations and distances to more than 1
million galaxies, each of which contains more than 100
billion stars,
This will enable scientists to retrace the history of the
universe for the last 6 billion years, and also, develop
better estimates of how much is "dark matter" that can’t
be directly seen, and "dark energy," the mysterious force
that’s driving the expansion of the universe.
The survey has so far covered about 8% of the sky.
When completed, researchers will have mapped all
massive galaxies outside the plane of the Milky Way that
are visible from the Northern Hemisphere - about onefourth of the sky visible from Earth. (See page 2.)
ORIGIN OF THE MOON
About 4.53 billion years ago, a Mars-sized impactor
slammed into Earth, forming a young, molten moon and
astronomers now think that the impactor scored a direct
hit, crashing into Earth at a steep angle and at a very
high speed.
The resulting smashup would have ejected far more
Earth debris into space than some models have
indicated, and with much hotter temperatures.
This would mean the Moon formed from more
Earthlike material than previously thought. The origin of
the impactor itself is an open question. A new model
suggests an origin from far-away in the solar system.
SOLAR SYSTEM
For decades it has been thought that a shock wave
from a supernova explosion triggered the formation of
our Solar System - the shock wave also injected material
from an exploding star into a cloud of dust and gas, and
the newly polluted cloud collapsed to form the Sun and
its surrounding planets. A new Carnegie study has
provided the first fully three-dimensional models for how
this process could have happened.
SN1006
Astronomers say that the brightest supernova in
recorded history left no star after the explosion. In 1006,
observers watched a star explode in the constellation
Lupus shining about a dozen times more brilliantly than
Venus. The explosion was a Type Ia supernova, the
most luminous variety, which occurred when a small,
dense star known as a white dwarf blew up.
Such a supernova is supposed to result when a larger
companion star dumps material onto the white dwarf,
triggering a runaway nuclear reaction that annihilates the
small star. But a thorough search for the larger
companion, has turned up nothing.
This finding suggests the explosion arose when two
white dwarfs that were in orbit around each other merged
and blew up - more Type Ia supernovae may stem from
double white dwarfs than astronomers had thought. See:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/sn1006/
KEPLER-30
Earlier this year, scientists discovered three planets
circling a star (Kepler-30) which is about the size and
mass of the Sun it has ahuge, dark spot similar to the
sunspots on the face of the Sun. By tracking the spot,
they determined that the star rotates once every 16 days
suggesting that Kepler-30 is a young, very active star.
SUPER-SPEEDY PULSAR
Scientists say that a newly discovered pulsar fleeing
from the scene of a violent supernova explosion may be
the fastest traveling pulsar yet discovered. The small but
powerful neutron star is almost 25 times faster than
most similar objects move. The explosion sent it flying
away between 5.4 and 6.5 million miles per hour.
When the dust clears from a supernova, the outer
layers of the dying star blow into space leaving behind a
neutron star - a city-sized object with a mass
comparable to the Sun.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The YOUNG ASTRONOMERS NEWSLETTER is
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