Download Volume 20 Number 5 April 2012 - Forsyth Astronomical Society

THE YOUNG ASTRONOMERS NEWSLETTER
Volume 20
Number 5
STUDY + LEARN = POWER
OWER
SURPRISES
TEXAS On the evening of February 1st, a fireball
over central Texas wowed thousands of onlookers in the
Dallas-Fort Worth area.
"It was brighter and longer-lasting than anything I've
seen before," reports one eye-witness. "The fireball took
about 8 seconds to cross the sky. I could see the fireball
start to slow down; then it exploded like a firecracker
artillery shell into several pieces, flickered a few more
times and then slowly burned out."
Another observer in Coppell, Texas, reported a loud
double boom as "the object broke into two major chunks
with many smaller pieces."
The fireball was bright enough to be seen on NASA
cameras in New Mexico more than 500 miles away and
was estimated to be 3 – 6 feet in diameter.
NORWAY A Norwegian family was flabbergasted to
find what turned out to be a piece of a meteorite had
crashed through the roof of their allotment garden hut in
the middle of Oslo.
The rock, weighing one pound four ounces was
probably part of a meteorite observed as it passed
overhead.
GEORGIA A Portal, Georgia resident said that in the
middle of the night on February 13th, something disturbed
the animal population - cows started mooing anxiously and
local dogs howled at the sky. The cause of the commotion
was a rock from space.
He added, “I witnessed an amazing fireball! It was very
large and lit up half the sky as it fragmented. The event set
dogs barking and upset cattle which began to make
excited sounds. I regret I didn't have a camera; it lasted
nearly 6 seconds."
April
2012
A SATURN MOONLET?
Four new, raw images of Saturn’s rings show a bright
point in the center of the rings, directly above Enceladus.
It may be a tiny moonlet, irregularly shaped, with sunlight
glinting brightly off a bright flat surface.
GALAXIES
RED CLUSTER - A team of astronomers discovered
the most distant cluster of red galaxies ever observed. It is
located 10.5 billion light years away in the direction of the
constellation LEO. The cluster is made up of 30 galaxies
packed closely together, forming the earliest known
"galaxy city" in the universe.
They used a new technique which allows them to
measure accurate distances between Earth and thousands
of distant galaxies at one time, providing a 3-D map of the
early universe
EARLY GROWTH - Astronomers have known that the
earliest galaxies were much smaller than the impressive
spiral and elliptical galaxies that now fill the Universe.
Galaxies have since put on a great deal of weight but their
“food, and eating habits” are still mysterious.
Apparently, galaxy growth may result from violent
merging events when larger galaxies eat smaller ones, or,
from a flow of gas leading to new stars being created.
MERGING DWARFS - New images of a dwarf
galaxy show a dense stream of stars in its outer regions the remains of a smaller companion galaxy in the process
of merging with its host, NGC 4449. It is the smallest
primary galaxy in which a stellar stream from an ongoing
merger has been identified and studied in detail. See:
http://www.zeitnews.org/space-science/astronomyteam-discovers-nearby-dwarf-galaxy.html
VIRTUAL OPTICAL TELESCOPE
AMINO ACIDS
NASA researchers have evidence that crucial
components of life created when cold or hot increases the
likelihood that life emerged elsewhere in the Universe.
They analyzed samples from fourteen carbon-rich
meteorites with minerals that indicated high temperature
sources - in some cases, over 2,000° F.
They found amino acids, which are the building blocks
of proteins, used by life to speed up chemical reactions
and build structures like hair, skin, and nails.
COMETS AND THE SUN
Comets are not dirty snowballs - they have no ice or
snow in them at all, totally black, solid, and dry. Every time
a comet hits or passes close to the Sun, a massive Corona
Mass Ejection (CME) is caused and observed.
Comets are not big enough to influence the Sun by
force, gravity or chemistry, so it must be a charge effect
with varying conductivity in their long ion tails making an
electric connection that triggers the CMEs each time, every
time.
Astronomers at the VLT complex in Paranal, Chile,
have brought together signals received from four large
optical telescopes, each of which is about 100 feet high
and has a mirror 25 feet in diameter. This technique,
known as interferometry, creates a virtual mirror 400 feet
in diameter, and improves the resolution and ability to
"zoom" in on an object.
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The latest count is: 2321 candidates, 762 confirmed.
-- A STUDY SUGGESTION -Read up on “Nanotubes” – they are the future.
And check the NanoDaily Express.
MILKY WAY DISCOVERY
New images from the Planck mission show previously
undiscovered islands of star formation and a mysterious
haze of microwave emissions in our Milky Way galaxy.
They show a haze around the center of the galaxy, and
cold gas not seen before
NEW JAPANESE SPACE PROBE
The Japanese are heading back into space on a
second attempt to collect samples from a nearby asteroid.
It should be rich in primitive materials, - specifically,
organic molecules and hydrated minerals from the early
days of our solar system.
EXOPLANETS
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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
VENUS - Venus and Earth are almost the same distance from the Sun yet Venus is some 100 times hotter
than Earth, and a day on Venus is like 243 Earth days. The atmosphere is so thick that the longest any
spacecraft has survived on its surface before being crushed is a little over two hours. Earth has a magnetic
field and Venus does not. As the solar wind rushes outward from the Sun at nearly a million miles per hour, it
is stopped about 44,000 miles away from Earth when it collides with the giant magnetic envelope - the
magnetosphere.
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PUZZLES
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TEXAS
THICK
SCRAMBLED ASTRONOMY
Southern Sky
CARTER __ __ __ __ __ __
DADARO
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HURDYS __ __ __ __ __ __
MANSE
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SUMAC __ __ __ __ __
(Answers on page 4)
******
INTERNET SITES
******
“WE ARE THE EXPLORERS" video - http://go.nasa.gov/wearetheexplorers
Mars dust devil - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-63&rn=news.xml&rst=3300
SITE OF THE MONTH
Planetary Society – for kids: http://www.planetary.org/kids/activities.html
******
APRIL MOON
******
Full Moon: 4/6 Last Quarter: 4/13 New Moon: 4/21 First Quarter: 4/29
Perigee: 4/7 8:59 AM 222,646 mi. (358314 km) Apogee: 4/22 9:48 AM 252,537 mi. (406419 km)
o April’s Full Moon is known as the Egg Moon and The Pink Moon. Both names indicate
the sprouting of seeds, and “Pink” is for the many pink phlox flowers.
o Best observing nights: 4/11 – 4/27
o Most--northern Moon on the 24th.
******
PLANETS IN APRIL
******
MARS is high in the southeast at nightfall.
NEPTUNE shines very faintly, low in the east, before sunrise.
JUPITER is very low in the west after sunset and sets in mid-twilight.
VENUS, in the west, is about 20° high after sunset and at its brightest on the 30th.
MERCURY rises in the east about 40 minutes before sunrise on the 17th and later each day
SATURN - low in the southeast 1 1/2 hours after sunset, --- up all night, and opposite the Sun on the15th
(at opposition).*
NAME
DATES
* * * * * METEOR SHOWERS
BEST NIGHT
PER HOUR
******
WHERE TO LOOK
LYRIDS
4/15 – 4/28
4/21-4/22
15 – 20
Low in the northeast. The Lyrids produce
some bright dust trails lasting several seconds. There’s no moonlight so we should have a good show.
PI PUPPIDS 4/15 – 4/28
4/23-4/24
Variable
Low in the southwest. The meteors are
yellow/orange. This shower varies with some years at 2 per hour and others as high as 24 per hour. The month
of April has 3 minor, 1 Southern hemisphere, 1 daylight, and 2 showers observed by radio.
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LOOK FOR: >>>>> *Saturn, in mid-April, is at its best viewing this year (spectacular with binoculars or a
telescope.) >>>>> Spica, close to Saturn on the 5th (on the right) after sunset and below Saturn before
sunrise on the 6th. An old saying: “Follow the arc of the Big Dipper’s handle to Arcturus and drive a
spike to Spica.” >>>>> Regulus, close to Mars’ right, on the 30th.
STUDENT COMPETITIONS
CHINA’S SPACE PROGRAM
Student teams in two national science competitions:
Dropping In a Microgravity Environment (DIME) for high
school teams and What If No Gravity? (WING) for fifth
through eighth grade teams, will test their science
experiments in the 2.2-second drop tower at NASA's
Glenn Research Center from March 15-20.
While in free fall, the students' experiments will
experience microgravity conditions similar to those on
the International Space Station. Four DIME and twentyfour WING teams were selected to participate. See:
http://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/DIME.html
After confusing reportage by the Chinese media, the
Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, now expected to launch in July
or August, will carry three astronauts to Tiangong 1,
China's space laboratory.
It seems likely that the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft will be
docked with Tiangong for about a week. (Check the web
for a variety of details).
THEMIS
Ten years ago the THEMIS, a multi-band camera on
the Mars Odyssey orbiter, began scientific operations at
the Red Planet. Since then the camera has circled Mars
nearly 45,000 times and taken more than half a million
images at infrared and visible wavelengths. "THEMIS
has proven itself to be a workhorse."
EUROPA’S OCEAN
Researchers say the ocean underneath the icy shell
of Jupiter's moon Europa could be too acid to support
life, due to compounds that may regularly migrate
downward from its surface.
Europa could possess an ocean about 100 miles
deep overlaid by an icy crust of unknown thickness
although some estimates are that it could be only a few
miles thick.
Water apparently regularly gets pushed up from
below and chemicals found on the surface might
jeopardize any chances of life evolving there.
ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The prevailing understanding since the 18th century,
assumes that the Solar System's planets grew as small
grains colliding, growing into bigger ones, and colliding
yet more until they formed planetesimals. The
planetesimals then collided until they formed planets as
varied as the Earth and Jupiter.
The process is called “planetary accretion”, and
“fractal assembly.” Another model presented recently,
suggests a three-dimensional gas cloud as the source.
ORION’S YOUNG STARS
Astronomers have spotted colorful young stars strung
across the Orion nebula that are rapidly heating up and
cooling down in the turbulent, rough-and-tumble process
of reaching full stellar adulthood. Infrared images reveal
a host of embryonic stars hidden in gas and dust clouds
at the very earliest stages of evolution.
A star forms as the gas and dust collapses, creating
a warm glob of material fed by an encircling disk. In
several hundred thousand years, some of the forming
stars will gather enough material to trigger nuclear fusion
at their cores, and then blaze into stardom. See:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/
herschel/news/herschel20120229.html
NOMAD PLANETS
The Milky Way galaxy may be awash in homeless
planets wandering through space instead of orbiting a
star. There may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets"
than stars, according to a new study by researchers.
They said “If observations confirm the estimate, this
new class of celestial objects will affect current theories
of planet formation and could change our understanding
of the origin and abundance of life.
If any of these nomad planets are big enough to have
a thick atmosphere, they could have trapped enough
heat for bacterial life to exist.". The research produced
evidence that roughly two nomads exist for every typical,
so-called main-sequence star in our galaxy.
HELP SETI SEARCH
The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
Institute scientists are asking the public to join in its hunt
for signals from intelligent civilizations out in the
universe. There are parts of the spectrum where SETI’s
sophisticated signal processing system is overwhelmed
because there are so many signals.
They hope to put together an army of citizen
scientists to help figure out which signals to follow up on
and said, “We want you be actively involved and it has to
be quick.”
“You have to recognize patterns, mark patterns, try
and remember if you've seen that pattern before. And
you have to get it done within 90 seconds."
Anyone can register on the new website, SETI Live
(http://setilive.org), to help analyze data from SETI's
radio telescope devoted to scanning the heavens for
signals from “Extra-Terrestrials”.
NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID
Asteroid 2011 AG5 is one of 8,744 near-Earth
objects that have been discovered. It is approximately
460 feet in size (larger than a football field) and orbits
beyond Mars' orbit and halfway between Earth and
Venus.
This asteroid has been receiving a lot of attention
lately because it may be on an Earth-interception course
28 years from now. It is currently ranked a "1" on the 1 to
10 Torino Impact Hazard Scale! It will next be near Earth
in February of 2023 when it will pass no closer than
about 1 million miles.
LONG DAY ON VENUS (MORE)
Contrary to its alluring name, Venus has an
atmosphere so hot, toxic and heavy that any visitor
would risk being simultaneously melted, suffocated and
crushed. The second planet from the Sun turns on its
axis so slowly that, for any survivor, a Venusian day
would seem interminable - it is the equivalent of 243
days on Earth.
To make things worse, a day on Venus is getting
even longer. Six and a half terrestrial minutes have been
added to a Venus day since it was measured in 1990.
MOON’S CRUST
New images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter spacecraft show the Moon's crust is being
stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on
the lunar surface. See: http://www.nasa.gov/
mission_pages/LRO/news/lunar-graben.html
VENUS TRANSIT
LUNAR CATACLYSM
Two months before the last transit of Venus in this
century (it passes in front of the Sun as seen from Earth),
scientists are finalizing their observation plans.
The transit of Venus on June 5-6 will give scientists
two important opportunities for science: 1) to use Venus
as an example of a transiting exoplanet and, 2) they will
be able to make simultaneous Earth- and space-based
observations of Venus's atmosphere. These joint
observations will give new insights into the complex
middle layer of Venus's atmosphere, a key to
understanding the climatology of our sister planet.
By examining the history of crater formation on the
Moon, scientists discovered that a second wave of debris
that caused a "lunar cataclysm" on the Moon 4 billion
years ago struck it at much higher speeds than those
that made the most ancient craters. This increase could
reflect the origin of the debris, where main belt asteroids
were dislodged and sent into the inner solar system by
shifts in the orbits of the giant planets.
DIONE
The Cassini spacecraft has detected oxygen ions
around Saturn's icy moon Dione, confirming the
presence of a very thin atmosphere. The oxygen ions are
sparse but the discovery shows that Dione does have an
atmosphere.
VESTA
The Dawn spacecraft is continuing its explorations at
Vesta, performing detailed studies of the colossal
asteroid from its low altitude mapping orbit. Like Earth,
Vesta is broadest near its equator and the ancient
surface, battered over billions of years in the rough and
tumble of the asteroid belt, displays remarkable
variations in shape.
Dawn is 309 million miles from Earth - radio signals
take 55 minutes to make the round trip.
MEXICO IMPACT SITE
Researchers say that a layer of thin, dark sediment
buried in the floor of a lake in central Mexico may have
been caused by a cosmic body crashing into Earth nearly
13,000 years ago.
Exotic materials in the sediment layer strongly
support a belief that a major cosmic impact with Earth
coincided with the onset of an unusual cold climatic
period. The researchers said they identified an impact
form of nanodiamonds called lonsdaleite that could not
be formed through volcanic or other natural terrestrial
processes, and form only through cosmic impact.
NGC 6752
NGC 6752 is a globular cluster over 10 billion years
old. It is one the most ancient collections of stars known
and has been blazing for more than twice as long as our
solar system has existed.
NGC 6752 contains a high number of "blue straggler"
stars that display characteristics of stars younger than
their neighbors. Their origin is something of a mystery.
It appears that up to 38 percent of the stars within its
core region are binary systems. Collisions between stars
in this turbulent area could produce the blue stragglers
that are so prevalent. See:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120210.html
ROSETTA
The Rosetta spacecraft is en route to orbit around
comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and land a probe
on it. Comets are primitive leftovers from our solar
system's 'construction' about 4.5 billion years ago.
Because they spend much of their time in the deep
freeze of the outer solar system, comets are well
preserved-a gold mine for astronomers who want to
know what conditions were like back "in the beginning."
MARS
The United States will scale back Mars exploration
under a proposed budget by President Barack Obama
that has some scientists fuming over the risk of a NASA
brain-drain. The plan kills a deal between the US and
European space agencies to cooperate on the ExoMars
mission in 2016 and 2018.
ASTEROID IN CLOSE
In 2013, a newly discovered asteroid will pass within
15,000 miles of Earth - closer than many commercial
satellites. The 165 foot asteroid’s visit highlights the
growing need to keep watch on hazards from space.
An amateur team in Spain discovered the unusual
asteroid in February after it had flown past Earth at about
seven times the distance to the Moon. An impact with
Earth has been ruled out on the asteroid's next visit.
FERMI DISCOVERIES
Outside the realm of human vision is an entire
electromagnetic wealth of wonders. Each type of light
from radio waves to gamma-rays reveals something
unique about the universe. Some wavelengths are best
for studying black holes; to reveal newborn stars and
planets; and some illuminate the earliest years of cosmic
history.
The Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope has just crossed a
new electromagnetic frontier. An astrophysicist at the
Goddard Space Flight Center said “Fermi is picking up
crazy-energetic photons - and it's detecting so many of
them we've been able to produce the first all-sky map of
the very high energy universe. Before Fermi was
launched in June 2008, there were only four known
celestial sources of photons in this energy range. In 3
years Fermi has found almost 500 more.”
THE NASA “VISUALIZATION EXPLORER”
NASA's “game plan” is organized into four areas:
Heliophysics (the Sun), Planetary, Astrophysics and
Earth science. This structure has put NASA scientists at
the forefront of discovery about our home planet; the
Sun; planets in our solar system and beyond; and the
farthest reaches of the universe.
A new NASA “app” showcases the results from
legendary spacecraft such as the Hubble Space
Telescope and Voyager, from the Earth-observing
satellite fleet, and from newcomers such as the Solar
Dynamics Observatory and Cassini. The app will publish
new stories each Tuesday and Thursday. See:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasaviz/index.html
For more information about the NASA Viz app, see:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/
2011/11-044.html
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The YOUNG ASTRONOMERS NEWSLETTER is
distributed by the Forsyth Astronomical Society.
ACSUM , ASNEM .SURDYH ,ODAROD ,RETARC :SREWSNA Y’RTSA DELBMARCS