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YOUNG ASTRONOMERS NEWSLETTER
Volume 18
Number 7
STUDY + LEARN = POWER
JUPITER'S STRIPE DISAPPEARS
Jupiter has lost one of its big red stripes and scientists
are baffled as to why. The largest planet in our solar
system is usually dominated by two dark stripes with one
in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere. But
the lower stripe, the Southern Equatorial Belt, has
disappeared leaving the southern half of the planet
looking unusually bare.
The band was present in at the end of last year before
Jupiter ducked behind the Sun on its orbit. When it
emerged three months later the belt had disappeared.
See: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/
jupiter-cloud-belt-disappears-100513.html?utm
OLDEST CLUSTER OF GALAXIES
Astronomers have unearthed what may be the most
distant, primitive cluster of galaxies ever found. The
ancient cluster is dominated by old, red and massive
galaxies, typical of present-day clusters. It is similar to a
young version of the Coma Cluster which has had
billions of more years to develop.
MENKHIB
Menkhib is one of the bright stars in the constellation
Perseus and one of the hottest stars visible in the night
sky. Its surface temperature is about 66,000º F or more
than six times hotter than the Sun. Menkhib has about
40 times the mass of our star and gives off 330,000
times the amount of light.
It is a blue-white runaway star with a fast stellar
wind piling up in front of it to create a red cloud of dust.
See: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/
imagegallery/image_feature_1660.html
R136
R136 (NGC 2070) in star-forming region 30 Doradus,
is a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive
stars known. The cluster's energetic stars are breaking
out of a cocoon of gas and dust from which they formed.
It has thousands of hot blue stars, some about 50 times
more massive than the Sun.
A heavy runaway star is rushing away from the stellar
nursery at more than 250,000 miles an hour. This is the
most extreme case of a very massive star kicked out of
its home by a group of even heftier siblings. See:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010730.html
THE SUN'S SIZE
A group of astronomers has found that the Sun's size
has been remarkably constant. Its diameter has changed
by less than one part in a million over the last 12 years.
Scientists say that this constancy is baffling, given the
violence of the changes we see every day on the Sun's
surface, and the fluctuations that take place over the
Sun's 11-year solar cycle.
DEBRIS RINGS
Herschel has taken the first ultra-sharp images of cold
debris rings around Sun-like stars. The doughnut-shaped
rings appear to be similar to the Kuiper belt, the outer
solar system’s reservoir of comets and other frozen
bodies.
June 2010
CARINA'S CRADLE
Astronomers plan to observe a rare cosmic cradle for
the universe's largest stars, - baby bruisers that grow up
to have 50 times the Sun's mass. The Carina cloud is
also unusual in its rapid pace of collapse and the amount
of dust and gas, an amount so large it eclipsed the large
stars that had already formed inside the cloud. It gives
astronomers an unusual look at the birth of huge stars.
COSMIC CANNIBALISM
In the densest globular clusters, extremely close binary
systems are merging with the result that a single star is
more massive and hotter. These stars feed on hydrogen
from the outer layers of the former companions.
Most bright stars in these old clusters are swollen into
giants like Arcturus (probably the oldest bright star).
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_straggler
SUPERNOVAE
Gigantic stellar explosions (supernovae), are used as
cosmic yardsticks by cosmologists, and they are also
important chemical element factories. Astrophysicists
knew of two processes giving rise to these bursts: the
core collapse of a massive star at the end of its lifetime
or the thermonuclear explosion of an old white dwarf.
Scientists have now reported the first confirmed
observation of yet another very peculiar type of
supernova. It does not leave behind any remnant.
Depending on their mass, stars end their lives as white
dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes.
HELIUM WHITE DWARF STAR
Astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara have identified a
white dwarf star in a newly-discovered eclipsing binary
system as a relatively rare helium-core white dwarf with a
mass only 10 to 20 percent of that of the Sun. They were
also able to make the first direct radius measurement of
a rare white dwarf composed of pure helium.
MARS CRATER
An image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
covers a small portion of the northwest quarter of the
Hellas Planitia crater.
With a diameter of about 1,400 miles it is one of the
largest impact craters in the solar system and has a
number of unusual features. The inner crater has been
filled with material, which may be related to volcanic
activity or to water and water ice. See:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/
image_feature_1659.html
STARDATE ONLINE
StarDate is the public education and outreach arm of
the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. Their
Black Hole Encyclopedia is a unique website that has
the latest news on black holes. The glossary of terms,
book and website suggestions can also serve as helpful
tools for anyone looking for more information on black
holes. See: http://blackholes.stardate.org/
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SciWorks Planetarium - Call 767-6730 for
schedules & program information.
What’s in the sky tonight? See - http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html
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INSPIRE
High school students in the United States can participate in
NASA's INSPIRE program with its online learning community applications accepted through June 30, selections in September.
Students and parents can participate in an online learning
community with opportunities to interact with peers, NASA
engineers and scientists in appropriate grade level educational
activities, discussion boards and chat rooms. See:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/
programs/descriptions/INSPIRE_Project.html
STUDENTS LAUNCH VIRTUAL SPACE SHUTTLE
NASA is offering the ABCs of "3,2,1 liftoff" to students and
educators in a new computer simulation program that will allow
them to take on the roles of NASA engineers and launch the
shuttle from their own classrooms.
The program is based on software used for training at the
Kennedy Space Center and gives students the chance to monitor
important shuttle systems during a launch countdown and decide
whether they are "go" for liftoff.
They will work together as a team and learn about the different
responsibilities behind-the-scenes of a shuttle launch. See:
http://www.nasa.gov/education/klass
Scrambled Astronomy - Telescopes in space
RCANAHD __ __ __ __ __ __ __ BEBULH __ __ __ __ __ __ EIZTPRS __ __ __ __ __ __ __
CHLERHES __ __ __ __ __ __ __
ISINACS __ __ __ __ __ __ __
(Answers on page 4)
******
INTERNET SITES
******
 "No Boundaries" - http://www.noboundaries-stemcareers.com

- http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photo10-048.html
******
JUNE MOON
******
Last Quarter: 6/4
New Moon: 6/12 First Quarter: 6/18
Full Moon: 6/25
Apogee: 6/3 12:52 PM 251,198 mi. (404264 km) Perigee
 The June Full Moon was called the Strawberry Moon.  Partial Lunar Eclipse 6/26 - West coast/Pacific areas..
 Best observing nights: 6/4 - 6/17
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PLANETS IN JUNE
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VENUS is still in the west-northwest and sets 2.5 hours after the Sun. MARS is in the west-southwest west at dusk
and drops lower each night. SATURN is in the south-southwest at dusk and moves to the west-southwest. The rings
are about 2º from edgewise. JUPITER rises in the east about 3 hours before sunrise. MERCURY is very low in the
east-northeast morning twilight. it will be behind the Sun on the 28th (superior conjunction). Binoculars or a telescope
are needed to see URANUS - It is about 1º northeast of Jupiter on the 1st and about 2º to the west by month's end.
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METEOR SHOWERS
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NAME
DATES
BEST NIGHT PER HOUR
PEAKS
WHERE TO LOOK
JUNE BOOTIDS
6/22 - 7/22
6/27
Variable
9 PM
Overhead. The BOOTIDS
shower is rated as a "Class III" shower - those that do not provide annual activity. These showers are rarely active yet
have the potential to produce a major display on occasion. On June 27th, 1998, northern sky watchers were surprised
when meteors suddenly began to stream out of the constellation Bootes. Observers saw as many as 100 meteors per
hour during the 7-hour-long outburst. Similar outbursts from Bootes had been recorded in 1916, 1921 and 1927.
Astronomers call the June Bootids "unpredictable".
==========================================================================================================================================
LOOK FOR:
>>>>> Venus, Mars and Saturn closing to a 39º span by 6/30. >>>>> The Beehive Cluster on the 19th. It will be
just south of Venus as the sky darkens. >>>>> On the 6th, see Mars paired with Regulus (in Leo) - the last time until
July 2021. >>>>> The Coma Cluster below the handle of the Big Dipper. >>>>> The Summer Triangle in the
eastern night sky. It is three bright stars: Vega in Lyra,
Deneb in Cygnus, and Altair in Aquila.
METEORITE
University of Arizona meteorite curator Marvin Killgore
received a 300-gram piece of the object that exploded
over Wisconsin April 14th. People in southwestern
Wisconsin and northern Iowa heard a sonic boom and
saw a fireball that briefly - and spectacularly - lit up the
late evening sky. It was the result of an ancient rock that
ended its 4.5 billion year journey through the solar
system in a ball of fire.
CASSINI AND SATURN
In the six years the Cassini spacecraft has been
orbiting Saturn and taking detailed images of its ring and
many moons, it has helped answer many questions
about this planetary system, but also revealed new
mysteries for scientists to puzzle over.
One of the most important unknowns is the tiny moon
Enceladus with its plume of ice particles at its south pole.
If the plume is due to a reservoir of liquid water hidden
beneath the moon's surface ice, then where is the energy
coming from to keep that water in a liquid state?
And one of the unexpected findings was the gentle
corrugation in Saturn's rings, starting at the D ring and
found throughout the C ring. It may point to some event
occurring on Saturn or within the rings in the early 1980s.
Like a dropped stone causing ripples to spread in a
pond, we can still see the effects of whatever happened
in Saturn's rings 30 years ago. Also, -- the composition
of the rings. Although the rings are 95% water ice, the
composition of the remaining 5% and its reddish tinge
remains unknown.
More recently is the news from Mimas - a temperature
map of the moon's surface reveals extreme thermal
variations, including unexpectedly hot regions.
And an intriguing mystery is 'the glint' - the picture i that
suggests that there are seas on the surface of Titan.
Now that the Cassini mission has been extended to
2017, scientists will have even more opportunities to see
changes in the planet, its rings and its moons.
MOON ECLIPSES VENUS
On May 16th, amateur astronomers in India enjoyed
the celestial drama of Venus eclipsed as the Moon
occulted the brightest planet on 5/16.
The phenomenon was visible to the naked eye
throughout India. Members of the oldest amateur
astronomers' organization in the country observed the
phenomenon and took observations.
And for the second time in 3 years, Europeans were
fortunate to have the view of a daytime occultation of
Venus with a less-than 2.5-day-old Moon. It was quite
challenging due to the bright sky lit by the nearby Sun.
The two were last visible naked-eye in 2007.
NEW ESO TELESCOPE
The European Space Observatory council announced
plans to build a 137-foot diameter telescope near
Paranal in Chile.
The area stands out as the clearly preferred site because
it has the best balance of sky quality and can be
operated in an integrated fashion with ESO's
Paranal Observatory.
Chile has agreed to ensure the continued protection of
the site against all adverse influences.
M82
M82 is a typical example of an irregular type galaxy
and is also the closest starburst galaxy to the Milky Way.
M82 shows a rate of star formation 10 times greater than
our galaxy. Conditions for the starburst activity were
believed triggered by a close encounter with nearby M81
between 300 and 600 million years ago.
The two galaxies are imbedded in an immense gas
cloud which may represent material pulled from those
galaxies. Tidal tails and filaments comprise the extended
cloud and seem to converge on the two galaxies.
A collective outgassing of winds from thousands of new
stars and supernova-driven shock fronts has caused the
ejection of ultrahot gases (mostly hydrogen and nitrogen
at temperatures of several million degrees) which extend
out from the galactic core some several thousand light
years. The superheated gases which arise from the
combined particle winds of new stars and supernovae
are collectively known as a galactic "super wind". See:
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M82NM.html
RCW120
The Herschel infrared space observatory is revealing
previously hidden details of star formation. New images
show thousands of distant galaxies building stars along
with star-forming clouds draped across the Milky Way.
Observation of the star-forming cloud RCW 120 near
the constellation Scorpius has revealed an embryonic
star which looks set to turn into one of the biggest and
brightest stars in our Galaxy within the next few hundred
thousand years.
It already contains eight to ten times the mass of the
Sun and is still surrounded by an additional 2000 solar
masses of gas and dust from which it can feed.
Herschel is the largest astronomical telescope ever to
be placed into space. The diameter of its main mirror is
four times larger than any previous infrared space telescope and one and a half times larger than Hubble. See:
http://www.spacedaily.com/images-lg/
galactic-bubble-rcw-120-lg.jpg
DUAL BLACK HOLES
New evidence strengthens the case that two mid-sized
black holes exist close to the center of a nearby starburst
galaxy. These "survivor" black holes avoided falling into
the center of the galaxy and could be examples of the
seeds required for the growth of supermassive black
holes in galaxies, including the one in the Milky Way.
DECLINE OF NEW STARS
Measurements with the Herchel telescope indicate that
the formation of new stars in galaxies like the Milky Way
has declined five-fold in the last three billion years. The
telescope's infrared technology allowed scientists to see
galaxies, mainly spiral ones like the Milky Way, that were
previously hidden from scientists' view by cosmic dust
clouds. Scientists do not know the reasons for the
decline.
Herschel also managed to spot an embryonic "massive
star" -- a celestial object more than eight times the size of
the Sun.
Massive stars are rare and short-lived. Their radiation
should destroy them at some point - instead they
continue to grow.
ASTEROID PROPERTIES
University of Central Florida researchers detected a
thin layer of water ice and organic molecules on the
surface of 24 Themis, the largest in a family of asteroids
orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. The discovery of the
frosty mixture suggests that some asteroids and comets,
were the water carriers for a primordial Earth
Asteroids are chunks of rock from "failed" planets,
which never managed to coalesce into full-sized planets.
Asteroid belts can be thought of as construction sites that
accompany the building of rocky planets.
STUDENTS' TILT-ROTOR DESIGN CONTEST
Some helicopters of the future will look very different
from today's, as imagined by high school students for a
NASA aeronautics competition.
They were challenged to write a paper about a civilian
aircraft that could hover, rescue up to 50 survivors of a
disaster, land on ground or water, travel at least 920
miles and cruise at speeds up to 345 mph, The vehicle
had to be able to fight fires by siphoning water into an
internal tank, and dump it while airborne.
The top-scoring team entry had the most striking
design. It looks like a flying wing with rotor assemblies on
top of the nose and between two tail fins an came from
two high school seniors at Norfolk Technical Center.
See: http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/
competition_winners2010_hs.htm
PLUTO
Lonely Pluto floats in the darkness at the edge of our
solar system. It's so far away even the Hubble Space
Telescope has trouble making out the details.
It is an icy molasses-colored world with a surprising
amount of activity. Researchers think dark areas may be
primordial organic matter. It can get so cold that its
atmosphere freezes and falls to the ground Pluto's entire
blanket of air is a frosty film of nitrogen and methane.
See: http://science.nasa.gov/sciencenews/science-at-nasa/2010/14apr_molasses/
THE MOON
Some polar regions of the Moon are the coldest places
in the entire solar system -- even colder than distant,
frozen Pluto! Some craters are permanently blocked from
sunlight, and apparently lack sources of heat from
underground. These areas aren't just cold at certain
times. They never get warm at all.
The Moon's cold traps are interesting for another
reason. They apparently hold large quantities of water
ice, which could be highly useful to astronauts in the
future. Water can be turned into oxygen and rocket fuel,
in addition to its uses for drinking and cleaning.
SWIFT
In its first five years in orbit, the Swift satellite's
discoveries range from an emerging supernova to a blast
so far away that it happened when our universe was only
5 percent of its present age. Swift primarily studies
gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) - the biggest and most
mysterious explosions in the cosmos - more than 500 so
far. Because gamma rays are the highest-energy form of
light, the brief but brilliant blasts represent a colossal
energy release. See: http://www.nasa.gov/
mission_pages/swift/bursts/500th.html
SOLAR PROMINENCE
A new image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory
shows in great detail, a solar prominence during a March
eruption on the Sun's surface. See:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/
449080main_img_feature_1650_4x3_946-710.jpg
MASSIVE STARS
An international team of researchers found an
enormous cloud of cosmic gas and dust in the process of
collapsing in on itself - a discovery which could help
solve one of astronomy's enduring questions: 'How do
massive stars form? Astronomers have a good grasp of
how stars such as our Sun form from clouds of gas and
dust, but for heavier stars - ten times the mass of the
Sun or more - they are still largely in the dark.
Massive stars are rare, making up only a few per cent
of all stars, and they will only form in significant numbers
when really massive clouds of gas collapse, creating
hundreds of stars of different masses. Smaller gas
clouds are not likely to make big stars.
"NUCLEAR RINGS"
An international team of astrophysicists has just
unveiled the most complete atlas of nuclear rings, - an
enormous star-forming ring-shaped region that circles
the nucleus in some galaxies. They are very bright as
they contain an abundance of young stars and an
occasional extremely massive star with a short lifetime
before exploding as a supernova.
STUDENT RESEARCH IN EXPLORER SCHOOLS
70 Fourth through Ninth grade students shared their
research findings at a NASA Explorer Schools symposium May 5-8 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Future leaders in science, technology, education and
math presented their work to fellow students, educators,
NASA scientists and engineers.
Vance Elementary School of Asheville was the only
NC school taking part. Teacher info is at:
http://education.ssc.nasa.gov/nes.asp
VULPECULA
The constellation Vulpecula is an assembly line of
newborn stars. Large-scale turbulence from giant
colliding galactic flows causes this material to condense
into a web of filaments.
As the stellar material becomes colder and denser,
gravitational forces take over and fragment these
filaments into chains of stellar embryos that can finally
collapse to form baby stars. See: http://www.nasa.gov/
multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1658.html
NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID
A near-Earth asteroid was seen by the Arecibo Radio
Telescope in Puerto Rico and scientists ruled out an
Earth impact for at least 100 years. NASA said data
involving asteroid 2005 YU55 allowed the Near-Earth
Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory to refine the space rock's orbit, ruling out any
possibility of an Earth encounter.
The YOUNG ASTRONOMERS Newsletter is
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Summit School, Winston-Salem, NC and FAS
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