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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. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. ============================================================================================================================================= PUZZLES T D O B L C A U S E R E G I O N E R E E FIND E V D D X D I A E E S T A O V E M A L B THE WORD E R Y M E A L S C I R D A M O E P S R N S O C I H C E T N S H E S G A L I I S W N I C P A U O D K Y C F N E A R L Y A P ADDED AWASH CAUSE COSMIC DOUBLE EARLY EVERY FORCE NAMES NEARLY NOMAD PASSES PIECE REGION RINGS SEEDS SOLID SPACE TEXAS THICK SCRAMBLED ASTRONOMY Southern Sky CARTER __ __ __ __ __ __ DADARO __ __ __ __ __ __ HURDYS __ __ __ __ __ __ MANSE __ __ __ __ __ 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. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The YOUNG ASTRONOMERS NEWSLETTER is distributed by the Forsyth Astronomical Society. ACSUM , ASNEM .SURDYH ,ODAROD ,RETARC :SREWSNA Y’RTSA DELBMARCS