Download (Issue 1), January 2014

SUPARCO
ASTRONOMY &
ASTROPHYSICS
Newsletter
Volume 07, January 2014
PAKISTAN SPACE & UPPER ATMOSPHERE
RESEARCH COMMISSION
2014
contents
BULLETIN
Volume-07, Jan 2014
Pakistan’s Space Vision 2040, was
approved by the Prime Minister of
Pakistan which inter-alia included
augmentation / strengthening of
the Astronomy and Astrophysics
program of SUPARCO. SUPARCO`s
astronomy and astrophysics program
is mainly focused on theoretical and
observational research, for which an
astronomical observatory is planned
to be established. Research studies
pertaining to deep space objects
including galaxies, nebulae and
variable stars are also being initiated.
Search for earth-like planets is a hot
topic in astrophysics nowadays. It is
planned to conduct research studies
in this field also.
1)Asteroids
Pg : 01
2)
Solar flare detection using Sudden Pg : 07
Ionospheric Disturbance (Super SID) Monitor
3)
Software Review
Pg : 09
4)
Website Review
Pg : 11
5)
Book Review
Pg : 12
6)
Monthly Star Guide
Pg : 13
7)
Monthly Science News
Pg : 15
8)
Events of the Month (jan)
Pg : 17
9)
Geomag-Strom-Monitered by-SUPARCO
Pg : 19
PA K I S TA N S PA C E & U P P E R AT M O S P H E R E
RESEARCH COMMISSION
ASTEROIDS
Space pirates lurk in the asteroid belt in science
fiction, but astronomers have found that there
isn’t much in the asteroid belt for a pirate to
stand on. Hundreds of thousands of asteroids
are known, but most are quite small. Movies
and TV have created a Common Misconception
that flying through an asteroid belt is a hairraising plunge requiring constant dodging left
and right. The asteroid belt between Mars and
Jupiter is actually mostly empty space. In fact,
if you were standing on an asteroid, it would
be many months or years between sightings of
other asteroids.
Properties of Asteroids
Asteroids are distant objects too small to
study in detail with Earth-based telescopes.
Astronomers nevertheless have learned a
surprising amount about these little worlds,
and spacecraft plus space telescopes have
provided a few close-ups.
Most asteroids are irregular in shape and
battered by impact cratering. Many asteroids
seem to be rubble piles of broken fragments.
Some asteroids are double objects or have
small moons in orbit around them. This is
further evidence of collisions among the
asteroids.
A few larger asteroids show signs of geological
activity that happened on their surfaces when
those asteroids were young.
Asteroids can be classified by their albedo,
color, and spectra to reveal clues to their
compositions. This also allows them to be
Page no. 01
compared to meteorites in labs on Earth.
Before you continue, you should note that not
all asteroids lie in the asteroid belt. A large
number of asteroids, perhaps as many as half
the number in the main belt, travel in Jupiter’s
orbit ahead of and behind the planet. These
are called Trojan asteroids because the largest
ones are named after heroes of the Trojan War.
Also, a few thousand objects larger than 1 km
follow orbits that cross Earth’s orbit. A number
of searches are under way to locate these NearEarth Objects (NEOs). For example, LONEOS
(Lowell Observatory near Earth Object Search)
is searching the entire sky once a month and
these searches should be able to locate all of
the largest NEOs by 2010. Astronomers are
searching for these asteroids to understand
asteroids better but also because such
asteroids can collide with Earth. Although such
collisions occur very rarely, a single impact
could cause planet wide devastation. You will
learn about such impacts on Earth.
The Origin of the
Asteroids
An old hypothesis proposed that asteroids are
the remains of a planet that exploded. Planetshattering death rays may make for exciting
science-fiction movies, but in reality planets do
not explode. The gravitational field of a planet
holds the mass so tightly that completely
Page no. 02
disrupting the planet would take tremendous
energy. In addition, the present-day total mass
of the asteroids is only about one-twentieth
the mass of the moon, hardly enough to be the
remains of a planet. Astronomers have evidence
that the asteroids are the remains of material lying
2 to 4 AU from the sun that was unable to form
a planet because of the gravitational influence
of Jupiter, the next planet outward. Over the
4.6-billion-year history of the solar system, most of
the objects originally in the asteroid belt collided
and fragmented and also were perturbed by the
gravity of Jupiter and other planets into orbits that
collided with planets or caused some asteroids
to leave the solar system. The present-day
asteroids are a very minor remnant of the original
population of planetesimals in that zone, mostly
fragmented by collisions with one another.
Rocky S-type asteroids are believed to be
fragments from the crust and mantle, and
M-types from the metallic cores, of differentiated
asteroids. C-type asteroids, which appear to have
plentiful carbon compounds, are more common
in the outer asteroid belt. It is cooler there,
and the condensation sequence predicts that
carbonaceous material would form there more
easily than in the inner belt. As you saw in the
case of Vesta, a few large asteroids may have been
geologically active with lava fl owing on their
surfaces when they were young. Perhaps they
incorporated short-lived radioactive elements
such as aluminum-26. Those radioactive elements
were produced by a supernova explosion that
might also have been the trigger for the formation
of the sun and planets while seeding the young
solar system with its nucleosynthesis products.
Not all large asteroids have been active. Ceres, 900
km in diameter, is almost twice as big as Vesta, but
it shows no spectroscopic sign of past activity and
evidently has an ice-rich mantle. Although there
are still mysteries to solve, you can understand the
compositions of the meteorites.
They are fragments of planetesimals, some of
which developed molten cores, differentiated,
may have had lava flows on their surfaces,
and then cooled slowly. The largest asteroids
astronomers see today may be nearly unbroken
planetesimals, but the rest are fragments
produced by 4.6 billion years of collisions.
Page no. 03
SOLAR FLARE
DETECTION
USING SUDDEN
IONOSPHERIC
DISTURBANCE
(Super SID)
MONITOR
Sun is the main source of producing, maintaining
and causing disturbances in the ionosphere. This
study describes the ionospheric disturbances
analyzed by receiving Very Low Frequency (VLF)
signals. A simple instrument called SuperSID
(Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance) monitor has
been used for this purpose, installed at Sonmiani
(25.42N, 66.59E). SuperSID monitor has been
developed and distributed through Society
of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) for the
purpose of space awareness and education.
Data of transmitter station NWC 19.8 kHz, Cape
North Australia) showed very good results of
solar flare event happening. SuperSID captures
VLF radio transmitting station NWC Cape North
Australia via D-layer in daytime and via E and
F-layer in night time at the reflection points in
the ionosphere. We have indentified many solar
flares while using NWC data (see fig. 2-4). One
day plot of NWC data under normal conditions
(i.e. without any flare) have shown as fig. 1 for
comparison with flares. M and X-class flares can
easily be detected with this instrument.
Fig. 1: Normal day
plot (No solar flare) of
signal received of NWC
transmitting station
(27-01-2013).
Page no. 07
Fig. 3: The effect of solar flare observed in NWC data. The peak happens exactly at the same time
when x-ray flux increases (see solar x-ray plot of the same day on right)
Fig. 4: The effect of solar flare observed in NWC data. The peak happens exactly at the same time
when x-ray flux increases (see solar x-ray plot of the same day on right)
Page no. 08
SOFTWARE
REVIEW
Computer Aided Astronomy (aka C2A) is
planetarium software. There are a lot of
images included with the program. Unlike
several of the other planetarium programs
the images are viewed through a separate
window in the image browser. If there is
an internet connection, the program can
download images from either the ESO
or the STScl sky surveys for display in
either the image viewer or directly in the
planetarium field of view.
Computer Aided Astronomy has an
ephemeris generator which can generate
tables for the sun, planets, moon,
comets, and asteroids between any
two dates. There are tools to generate
trajectories of planets, asteroids, and
comets between any two dates. One tool
shows the moon phases for the entire
month. The Ecliptic View tool displays an
animated view of the solar system with
comets and asteroids. Page no. 09
WEB
REVIEW
Heavens Above is very interesting website because it gives up to date information on the
Greatest man made structure in space, the International Space Station. All you have to do is input
your location and it will tell you when the space station will appear. There can be weeks when it
won’t be visible overhead, then all of a sudden you will have weeks filled full of ISS spotting. The
Website also gives information on the brightness of the ISS, the height and how long it will be
Visible for. When you see the space station from Earth it will look like a tiny bright star moving
across the sky. Some people mistake it for an aero plane and some even could believe it is a UFO!
When you spot it, just think that there are astronauts and cosmonauts looking right back down
at you.
Page no. 11
BOOK REVIEW
Heavens Above
www.heavens-above.com
Heavens Above is very interesting website because it gives up to date information on the
Greatest man made structure in space, the International Space Station. All you have to do
is input your location and it will tell you when the space station will appear. There can be
weeks when it won’t be visible overhead, then all of a sudden you will have weeks filled full
of ISS spotting. The Website also gives information on the brightness of the ISS, the height
and how long it will be Visible for. When you see the space station from Earth it will look
like a tiny bright star moving across the sky. Some people mistake it for an aero plane and
some even could believe it is a UFO! When you spot it, just think that there are astronauts
and cosmonauts looking right back down at you.
Page no. 12
MONTHLY STAR
GUIDE (JANUARY)
Nights are at their longest and days at their shortest in the Northern
Hemisphere, and the vice versa in the south. Much of the sky as it appears
in the far south is occupied by constellations that were never seen by the
astronomer of ancient Greece. A bright meteor shower radiates from Gemini
in mid-month. Northern Latitudes:
Looking North
Perseus is almost overhead with Capella and the other stars of Auriga to its
right. Gemini farther east, with cancer rising beneath it .On the northeastern horizon, Regulus leads the stars of Leo into view. In the north-west
are Cassiopeia and Cepheus, with Deneb closer to the Horizon.
Page no. 13
Looking South
Taurus is high in the south. Ideally placed for observing the Pleiades and Hyades clusters Eridanus is beneath it, while to its lower left Orion is still rising, followed by brilliant Sirius and Procyon. Cetus can be seen in the southwestern sky, with Pisces and Pegasus visible progressively
farther to the west.
Page no. 14
MONTHLY SCIENCE NEWS
have found, and knowing that
may help in the search for
potentially habitable worlds
Astronomers
Discover Planet
Announcing
Experts to
Project AGORA: That Shouldn’t Image Event
Be There
Ambitious
Horizon of
The discovery of a giant
planet orbiting its star at 650
Comparison
Black Hole
times the average Earth-Sun
Was Einstein right? The
distance has astronomers
of Computer
European Research Council
puzzled over how such a
(ERC) has awarded 14 Million
strange system came to be
Simulations
Euros to a team of European
astrophysicists to construct
of Galaxy
the first accurate image of a
black hole. The team will test
Evolution
the predictions of current
A long-standing difficulty with
supercomputer simulations of
the formation and evolution
of galaxies has been getting
consistent results among
different codes (programs)
and with actual observations,
so that computationally
simulated galaxies look like
real galaxies. While such
conflicts could be evidence of
complex physics in invisible
dark matter, emerging
evidence suggests that
inconsistencies may originate
from a poor understanding of
processes involving ordinary
matter as well as limitations in
computational capability and
differences in computer codes.
Page no. 15
Astronomers
Solve
Temperature
Mystery of
Planetary
Atmospheres
An atmospheric peculiarity
Earth shares with Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
is likely common to billions
of planets, University of
Washington astronomers
theories of gravity, including
Einstein’s theory of General
Relativity. The funding is
provided in the form of a
‘Synergy Grant’, the largest
and most competitive type of
grant of the ERC.
Innovative
Instrument
Probes
Close Binary
Stars, May
Soon Image
Exoplanets
TMost stars in the galaxy
are surrounded by swirling
disks of dust, circling planets
or other orbiting stars, yet
astronomers have a hard time
studying these companions
because of glare from the
main star.
Nearby Failed
Stars May
Harbor Planet,
Astronomers
Find
Astronomers, including
Carnegie’s Yuri Beletsky, took
precise measurements of
the closest pair of failed stars
to the Sun, which suggest
that the system harbors a
third, planetary-mass object.
The research is published
as a letter to the editor in
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Massive Stars
Mark out Milky
Noble Gas
Way’s ‘Missing
Molecule
Arms’
A 12-year study of massive
Discovered in
stars has reaffirmed that our
Space
Galaxy has four spiral arms,
following years of debate
sparked by images taken
by NASA’s Spitzer Space
Telescope that only showed
two arms.
A molecule containing a noble
gas has been discovered in
space by a team including
astronomers from Cardiff
University
Onboard
Camera
Captures Juno’s
Approach to
Earth
When NASA’s Juno spacecraft
flew past Earth early in
October 2013, recording
a first-of-a-kind movie of
the approach was a special
assignment for an onboard
camera system known as a star
tracker.
Smithsonian’s
Submillimeter
Array Reveals
Giant Star
Cluster in the
Making
W49A might be one of the
best-kept secrets in our galaxy.
This star-forming region
shines 100 times brighter
than the Orion nebula, but is
so obscured by dust that very
little visible or infrared light
escapes.
Page no. 16
EVENTS OF THE MONTH
(JANUARY 2014)
January 1 - New Moon.
The Moon will be directly
between the Earth and
the Sun and will not be
visible from Earth. This
phase occurs at 11:14 UTC.
This is the best time of the
month to observe faint
objects such as galaxies
and star clusters because
there is no moonlight to
interfere.
January 2, 3 - Quadrantids Meteor Shower. The Quadrantids is an above average shower, with up
to 40 meteors per hour at its peak. It is thought to be produced by dust grains left behind by an
extinct comet known as 2003 EH1, which was discovered in 2003. The shower runs annually from
January 1-5. It peaks this year on the night of the 2nd and morning of the 3rd. The thin crescent
moon will set early in the evening leaving dark skies for what could be an excellent show. Best
viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation
Bootes, but can appear anywhere in the sky.
Page no. 17
January 5 - Jupiter at Opposition. The giant planet will be at its closest approach to Earth and its
face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. This is the best time to view and photograph Jupiter and
its moons. A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details in Jupiter’s
cloud bands. A good pair of binoculars should allow you to see Jupiter’s four largest moons,
appearing as bright dots on either side of the planet.
January 16 - Full Moon. The
Moon will be directly opposite
the Earth from the Sun and
will be fully illuminated as
seen from Earth. This phase
occurs at 04:52 UTC. This full
moon was known by early
Native American tribes as the
Full Wolf Moon because this
was the time of year when
hungry wolf packs howled
outside their camps. This
moon has also been know as
the Old Moon and the Moon
After Yule.
January 30 - New Moon.
The Moon will be directly
between the Earth and
the Sun and will not be
visible from Earth. This
phase occurs at 21:38
UTC. This is the best time
of the month to observe
faint objects such as
galaxies and star clusters
because there is no
moonlight to interfere.
Page no. 18
SOLAR FLARE
TRACES
CAPTURED IN
MAGNETOGRAMS
BY SUPARCO
The Space Weather Monitoring Facilities at SUPARCO recorded mostly quiet geomagnetic
conditions throughout the month of November but the magnetometers captured traces of two
significant X flares. The first being an X1.7 flare on Oct 25 at 0801 UT (1301 PST) from Active
Region AR 1882 and the second being an X 1.1 flare on Nov 10, 2013 at 0510 UT (1010 PST) from
Active Region AR 1890.
Energetic Solar Flares (especially the fast spontaneous flares like the X-class Flares) tend to
cause ‘Magnetic Crochet’ effects seen in Magnetograms as a sudden jump in the Horizontal
Component of the localized Magnetic Field. This happens during the occurrence of the flare
because excessive radiation from the flaring region ionizes the upper atmosphere (which
has electrical currents flowing between 60 to 100 km above the ground) and causes a brief
disturbance in the terrestrial magnetic field. The magnetograms given below shows the
subsequent signatutres recorded by the Abdus Salam Geomagnetic Observatory at Sonmiani
with the solar images showing the respective flaring regions.
Page no. 19
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CO M M I S S I O
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PA K I S TA N S PA C E & U P P E R AT M O S P H E R E
RESEARCH COMMISSION
PA
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Designed by: Aley Ali Naqvi
Contact Information
SPAS Directorate
Gulzar-e-Hijri SUPARCO Road
Sector 28, SUPARCO, Karachi, Pakistan
Tel: 021-34690765-74
Fax 021-34690795
Email: [email protected]
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ASTROPHYSICS Bulletin is a
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