Feb 2015 - Bays Mountain Park

The Monthly Newsletter of the
Bays
Mountain
Astronomy
Club
February 2015
Edited by Adam Thanz
Bays
Mountain
Astronomy
Club
Edited by Adam Thanz
February 2015
The Monthly Newsletter of the
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Chapter 1
Reflections
W i l l i a m Tr o x e l - B M A C C h a i r
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William Troxel
Reflections
Greetings fellow amateur astronomers!
Here we are in the second month of 2015. While the weather
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will be hearing many great reports from your students in the
future.
man is telling us that we are to have a nice February, we all know
This February, I want to continue my goal to focus on one
that will remain to be seen. The major factor for us will be how
constellation for the month in my newsletter article. However, I
many nights will be clear enough for us to do what we all love.
want to focus on an area within a constellation that is not always
I wanted to spend a few lines to share the overview of the
January annual dinner meeting. For those of you who missed the
event I am very sorry. Our keynote speaker, Jeremy McLaughlin,
did an excellent presentation on the project that his students will
be working on this year. It was very interesting to see his plans
for the project. I invited him to keep us updated as the students
learn and the project starts to become a reality. It is very exciting
to see young men and women being given the chance to have
hands on experience. Maybe one (or all) of them can be a future
professional astronomer.
looked at or studied. This month, I want to encourage you to
focus on Orion's Belt. The center star in the belt is Alnilam (HIP
26311). Some of the basic facts about this star are that it is the
center star of Orion's Belt. It is a blue supergiant 1341 light years
away from us. I want to remind you that when focusing on this
star, be sure to get the star in the center of the view. The stars of
the belt are all bright. However, this star is the 30th brightest star
in our night sky at a magnitude of 1.69. Because it is a very
bright star, this is a great star to see with all of our equipment:
naked eye, binoculars, telescopes (all sizes) and radio
telescopes. Currently, it is not listed on any of the Astronomical
I think everyone enjoyed the food, the company, and the
Leagues’ viewing lists, but your can still list it in your personal
wonderful presentation. Thank you, Jeremy, for your wiliness to
logs books. Remember, there are a lot of very bright stars around
share you goals. We wish you much success and hope that we
this star and you could get some washout from them. I hope that
Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
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you have a wonderful session even if you should not choose to
and have a viewing session focused on comets. Of course, if the
add this star to your observing program for February.
weather is on our side. Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 may still be
Now for a bit more information about the next big event for the
club. Astronomy Day is April 25, 2015. I hope you looked at the
list I posted in BMASTRO. I still need club members to offer to
work the displays. I have said many times how much fun it is to
share our hobby with visitors to the park. If you want to bring your
family and want to work a while and then spend time with your
family members, I will be happy to work with you so you can have
breaks. The display table topics will be: Club Table, General
visible with our equipment. If you would like to bring your
binoculars to share with the members that will be great.
According to Sky & Telescope, Comet Lovejoy should be at mag.
4 by late January 2015 and should be high in the sky for us in the
northern hemisphere. If this information is correct, then it should
make this a good target for both our telescopes and binoculars.
The back up plan will be to do a show in the planetarium. I hope
to see you at the meeting.
Telescope, Radio Astronomy, Careers/Education and Solar. I will
I want to leave you with this thought and a thank you. I really have
have the list and sign up sheet at the meeting.
enjoyed the last 2 1/2 years as your chairman. I continue to learn
I have created the sign-up sheets for the upcoming StarWatches.
These public programs will be here before we know it. It will be
great to have more members help with this wonderful set of
public programs. I hope you will consider being part of it. I will
have the sign up sheets at the meeting as well. If the weather is
not good enough to be outside for the program, the planetarium
staff will provide an alternate program in the theater. The staff
always welcomes any club member that would like to stay, but
you do not have to unless you want.
new things each month. I really think that continuing to learn is
what it is all about, however it is also fun. Yes, I wrote fun. Being
your chairman gives me a chance to get to know you better
because we share the enjoyment of the same hobby. If you ever
look into a visitor’s eyes when they see a star or one of the
planets or the sun for the first time though a telescope, it’ll make
you smile. At least it does to me. I know this is an old cliché, but I
think it holds true. “We are planting a seed.” No one can say what
will turn out, but what better way to ensure the future. Think
about it…. Until next time, clear skies.
Februarys’ meeting will be an outdoor meeting for the most part.
We will have a short business meeting and then a short
presentation on comets in the Discovery Theater classroom. After
the presentation on comets, it is my hope that we can go outside
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
Chapter 2
BMAC Dinner
Adam Thanz
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Adam Thanz
BMAC Dinner
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The Annual BMAC Dinner held on
January 10, 2015 was a great
evening. Twenty-two BMACers
gathered for a very nice Italian meal
at Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant in
Kingsport, TN. Our keynote
speaker was Jeremy McLaughlin,
the astronomy instructor at Sullivan
Central High School. We must be
doing something right when two of
our high schools include astronomy
as part of their curriculum!
Jeremy spoke about backyard
radio astronomy using a common
small satellite dish, some simple
electronics and very little cash to
receive celestial signals. He is
currently working to carry this into a
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
project for his students as well.
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
Chapter 3
Star Stuff
Te r r y A l f o r d
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Terry Alford
Star Stuff
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What's going on in our Solar System in February? If it is still too
outshine Mars so much that it will take optical aid to separate the
cold for you to go outside at night to observe, then wait for a
two that particular evening.
sunny day and view the Sun. Ol' Sol is still putting on a good
show… most of the time. Usually sunspots can be seen with a
The Moon is full on February 3 and new on the 18th.
white light filter and an H-α scope will show some prominences
The asteroid Juno is well placed for viewing this month. Its 8th
and maybe a filament or two. You just never know what to expect
magnitude spot of reflected light lies near the head of Hydra.
since the Sun is so unpredictable.
Check the internet or astro magazines for finder charts.
Little Mercury had a “quasi conjunction” with much brighter
Jupiter really is the “King” of the planets in February. It's
Venus in the evening January sky. The only time I was able to
brightness of -2.6 mag and a diameter of 45″ means Jupiter will
observe this event was the night of January 6. Unfortunately for
be the brightest object in the sky after Venus sets. Not counting
me it was cloudy the next few days and I missed the closest
the Moon, of course. Opposition is February 6th so it will be
approach of 39' on January 10. This month Mercury starts off
visible virtually all night long. Jupiter is in the Leo/Cancer area.
very low in the morning sky. On the 28th it will reach it's greatest
This part of the ecliptic is pretty high for us northern hemisphere
elongation of 27° from the Sun but will still be very low in the
observers so observing details on the largest planet is a real
southeast.
opportunity. Of course, seeing conditions play a large part in
Venus and Mars dance closely together in the early evening sky
this month. Venus (magnitude – 3.9) is more than 100 times
brighter than ruddy Mars (mag +1.2). By mid-month they are 2°
apart. From the 17th through the 26th they a less than 1° apart.
But on the 21st they are only 24′ apart! Venus will probably
Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
viewing subtle details. A tip is to try sketching Jupiter (or any
other astro subject). This forces the eye to look for more minute
details. Be aware that Jupiter rotates in a little less than 10 hours
so a particular feature you are sketching or observing may not be
visible very long if it is close to its western limb. Another bonus
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this month is that there will be many mutual occultations and
eclipses among Jupiter's Galilean moons themselves. Go to the
net or astro mags for details.
Saturn is getting more interesting. It rises a little after 2 a.m. at the
start of the month. Four weeks later it will come up a little after
midnight. The best time to view is probably before dawn. Its +0.5
magnitude and 16″ diameter makes it very visible just above the
three bright stars that make up the “head” of Scorpius. An added
bonus is that the rings are tilted at almost 25°. It doesn't get
much better than this to study the ring system.
Uranus and Neptune are very low and faint in the west when
twilight sets in.
Comet Lovejoy has been putting on a better than expected show.
I observed it twice during the first full week of January. From a
light polluted location, I could see a small fuzzball with my 8X
binoculars. With a 60mm ED spotting scope set at 20X it had a
nice elongated nucleus /coma with a very faint tail. On the night
of the 10th I just used the binoculars and it was noticeably
brighter, maybe +4.5 mag. It is racing north and should be visible
for a good while. Again, check the net and mags for charts.
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
Chapter 4
Happy
Birthday
Roger
Chaffee
Robin Byrne
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Robin Byrne
Happy Birthday Roger Chaffee
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This month we remember one of our fallen astronauts. Roger
Purdue University for his Sophomore year. When Roger was a
Chaffee was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 15,
Junior, he earned extra money teaching freshman level math
1935. His family, however, didn’t actually live in Grand Rapids;
classes at Purdue. As part of his scholarship requirements, Roger
they lived in Greenville, MI. The previous month, his father, Don,
took courses in flight training over the summers. In May of 1957,
was quarantined with scarlet fever. Since Roger’s mother,
Roger was awarded his private pilot’s license. A month later, he
Blanche, had been exposed to it, she was not allowed in the
graduated from Purdue with a bachelor of science degree.
local hospital, and giving birth at home raised the risk of
infection. So, she temporarily moved in with her parents in Grand
Rapids until Roger was born.
During his Junior year at Purdue, Roger was set up on a blind
date with Freshman Martha Horn, who was from Oklahoma City.
Although Roger described her as “naive” and Martha described
Don Chafee had a side career as a pilot, mainly as a barnstormer
him as a “smart-alec,” they continued to date. They became
performing at local fairs. When Roger was seven years old, he
engaged in 1956 and were married on August 24, 1957. They
had his first ride in a plane. As they flew over Lake Michigan,
would have two children.
Roger became hooked on flight. Soon, a part of the house was
devoted to model airplanes. Whenever Roger saw a plane fly
over, he would say, “I’ll be up there flying in one of those
someday.”
After graduation and marriage, Roger began his career in the
Navy. At Pensacola, Florida he began military flight training. He
then moved on to Kingsville, Texas to train on different aircraft.
Within a year, he had worked his way up to training for landing on
After graduating from high school in 1953, Roger was awarded a
aircraft carriers. By the beginning of 1959, Roger had his aviator
Naval ROTC scholarship to the Illinois Institute of Technology. By
wings. While in the Navy, Roger eventually rose to the rank of
the end of his first year, Roger had chosen as his major
Lieutenant Commander. Most of his assignments involved photo
aeronautical engineering. He was accepted into the program at
reconnaissance while stationed at Jacksonville, Florida. One of
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his jobs included photographing Cape Canaveral, which was
flows. The next stage of training focused on contingency
being set up as a launch complex for the manned space program.
preparation in case of an emergency landing. The candidates had
Roger also found himself frequently flying over Cuba to take
to survive with the limited supplies they would have with them in
pictures. Some of his images helped to alert the government
case of an ejection during launch. Jungle training in Panama and
about the Soviet Union sending missiles to Cuba. Roger received
desert training in Nevada put their skills to the test. The final
official recognition for his service during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
stage of instruction introduced the men to the equipment they
Speaking of his years in the Navy, Roger said, “Ever since the first
seven Mercury astronauts were named, I've been keeping my
studies up…. At the end of each year, the Navy asks its officers
what type of duty they would aspire to. Each year, I indicated I
wanted to train as a test pilot for astronaut status.” In 1962,
would be using, learning every system on board, and working
through simulations of various problems during a flight. They also
got their first taste of weightlessness, went through high g-force
simulations, and trained in water tanks to learn how to complete
tasks during an extravehicular activity.
Roger’s dream got closer when he was accepted in the initial pool
Roger did not get the opportunity to make a Gemini flight, but he
of 1800 candidates for the third group of astronauts. While vying
did serve as Cap-Com (Capsule Communicator) during the
for the astronaut corps, Roger was also working on his Master of
Gemini 4 flight when Ed White made the first space walk by an
Science degree in Reliability Engineering. By the beginning of
American. It was during the Gemini years that America lost its first
1963, he was still in the running when the candidate group was
astronauts, and they weren’t lost during a spaceflight. Ted
narrowed down to 271. On October 18, 1963, Roger Chaffee was
Freeman died in a jet crash while on a training mission. Charlie
officially named a member of Astronaut Group 3.
Bassett and Elliot See died when their plane crashed in St. Louis.
In 1964, Roger’s astronaut training went into full throttle. The first
Roger was one of the pallbearers for Elliot See.
round focused on academics. Between classroom lectures on
Roger’s first taste of Apollo came when he and Gus Grissom flew
science and engineering issues related to spaceflight plus field
chase planes to photograph the launch of an unmanned Saturn
trips, the experience was intense. They learned about geology at
1B rocket. On March 21, 1966, just after the flight of Gemini 8, the
the Grand Canyon, lunar craters at Kitt Peak Observatory, and
announcement was made of who would be on the first Apollo
surveying techniques at Slate Hill in New Mexico. Trips were
mission. Gus Grissom would be Commander, Ed White as Senior
made to Alaska and Hawaii to study rock formations and lava
Pilot, and Roger Chaffee as Pilot. Originally, Donn Eisele was
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going to be the Pilot, but he dislocated his shoulder during
weightlessness training and was bumped to the second flight.
Officially dubbed Apollo 1 in June, 1966, the mission goals were
to fly in Earth orbit for up to two weeks while testing and
References:
Roger B. Chaffee - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Chaffee
evaluating the spacecraft plus ground control and tracking
Detailed Biographies of Apollo 1 Crew - Roger Chaffee by Mary
facilities. On January 27, 1967, the crew entered the capsule to
C. White
perform a plugs-out test during which they would go through all
of the procedures that lead up to the moment of launch. Roger’s
http://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/zorn/chaffee.htm
primary duty involved communications with ground control. At
some point during the long, grueling day, a short circuit sparked
one of the wires in the capsule. This spark eventually led to a
raging fire in the 100% high pressure oxygen conditions in the
spacecraft. In less than a minute, the men were dead from the
toxic fumes and smoke produced by the fire.
It is an unfortunate truth with NASA that it takes a tragedy to
realize something was amiss. Much was wrong with the original
spacecraft. After the deaths of the three astronauts, the Apollo
command module was redesigned with many more safeguards in
place, including using fewer combustible materials. While the loss
of Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom and Ed White was a national
tragedy, their deaths were not in vain. The improved Apollo
spacecraft performed beautifully and delivered a total of 12
people to the Moon and back. The success of the Apollo
missions will live on as their legacy.
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
Chapter 5
Space Place
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Dr. Ethan Siegel
Minor Mergers Have Massive Consequences for
Black Holes
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When you think of our sun, the nearest star to our world, you
relatively isolated galaxies didn't simply form from the monolithic
think of an isolated entity, with more than four light years
collapse of an isolated clump of matter, but by hierarchical
separating it from its next nearest neighbor. But it wasn't always
mergers of smaller galaxies over tremendous timescales. If
so: billions of years ago, when our sun was first created, it very
galaxies with large amounts of stars all have black holes at their
likely formed in concert with thousands of other stars, when a
centers, then we should be able to see some fraction of Milky
giant molecular cloud containing perhaps a million times the
Way-sized galaxies with not just one, but multiple supermassive
mass of our Solar System collapsed. While the vast majority of
black holes at their center!
stars that the universe forms—some ninety-five percent—are the
mass of our sun or smaller, a rare but significant fraction are
ultra-massive, containing tens or even hundreds of times the
mass our star contains. When these stars run out of fuel in their
cores, they explode in a fantastic Type II supernova, where the
star's core collapses. In the most massive cases, this forms a
black hole.
It was only in the early 2000’s that NASA's Chandra X-ray
Observatory was able to find the first binary supermassive black
hole in a galaxy, and that was in an ultra-luminous galaxy with a
double core. Many other examples were discovered since, but
for a decade they were all in ultra-massive, active galaxies. That
all changed in 2011, with the discovery of two active, massive
black holes at the center of the regular spiral galaxy NGC 3393, a
Over time, many generations of stars—and hence, many black
galaxy that must have undergone only minor mergers no less
holes—form, with the majority eventually migrating towards the
than a billion years ago, where the black hole pair is separated
centers of their host galaxies and merging together. Our own
by only 490 light years! It's only in the cores of active, X-ray
galaxy, the Milky Way, houses a supermassive black hole that
emitting galaxies that we can detect binary black holes like this.
weighs in at about four million solar masses, while our big sister,
Examples like NGC 3393 and IC 4970 are not only confirming our
Andromeda, has one nearly twenty times as massive. But even
picture of galaxy growth and formation, but are teaching us that
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
supermassive relics from ancient, minor mergers might persist as
standalone entities for longer than we ever thought!
Check out some cool images and artist reconstructions of black
holes from Chandra: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/category/
blackholes.html
Kids can learn all about Black Holes from this cool animation at
NASA’s Space Place: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/black-holes.
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
Chapter 6
BMAC
Calendar
and more
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BMAC Calendar and more
Date
Time
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Location
Notes
BMAC Meetings
Friday, February 6, 2015
7 p.m.
Friday, March 6, 2015
6:30 p.m.
Friday, April 3, 2015
7 p.m.
Friday, May 1, 2015
7 p.m.
Nature Center
Learn about comets and we’ll attempt to
Starts in Discovery Theater,
see Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 at the
then we’ll proceed to the
observatory. If the weather is poor, then
Observatory
we’ll continue in the Planetarium.
(Planetarium if cloudy)
Free.
Observatory Cleaning
Observatory
Program: TBA; Free.
Nature Center
Program: TBA; Free.
Discovery Theater
Nature Center
Program: TBA; Free.
Discovery Theater
SunWatch
Every Saturday & Sunday
March - October
StarWatch
3-3:30 p.m. if clear
Saturday, March 7, 2015
7 p.m.
Saturday, March 14, 21, 28, 2015
8 p.m.
Saturday, April 4, 11, 18, 25, 2015
Special Events
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
BMP:
at the dam
View the Sun safely with a white-light
view if clear.; Free.
Observatory
View the night sky with large telescopes.
If poor weather, an alternate live tour of
the night sky will be held in the
planetarium theater.; Free.
Nature Center
Astronomy Day - Astronomical displays
and activities!; Free.
8:30 p.m.
12:30-4 p.m.
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club
853 Bays Mountain Park Road
Kingsport, TN 37650
Regular Contributers:
William Troxel
William is the current chair of the club.
1 (423) 229-9447
www.baysmountain.com
thanz@kingsporttn.gov
Terry Alford
Annual Dues:
Dues are supplemented by the Bays Mountain Park
Association and volunteerism by the club. As such, our
dues can be kept at a very low cost.
$16 /person/year
$6 /additional family member
Note: if you are a Park Association member (which incurs
an additional fee), then a 50% reduction in BMAC dues
are applied.
The club’s website can be found here:
www.baysmountain.com/astronomy/astronomy-club/
23
Terry is a founding member since 1980 and
has been chair many times. He has worked
as an astronomy lab instructor at ETSU
since 2001.
Robin Byrne
Robin has been writing the science history
column since 1992 and was chair in 1997.
She is an Associate Professor of Astronomy
& Physics at Northeast State Community
College (NSCC).
Adam Thanz
Adam has been the Editor for all but a
number of months since 1992. He is the
Planetarium Director at Bays Mountain Park
as well as an astronomy adjunct for NSCC.
Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
Footnotes:
1. The Rite of Spring
Of the countless equinoxes Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured
here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from Earth …
none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini.
Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn’s rings during equinox is extremely foreshortened and
limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems. From 20 degrees above the ring
plane, Cassini’s wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing
Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the
sun’s disk was exactly overhead at the planet’s equator.
The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun’s angle to the ring
plane, significantly darkens the rings, and causes out-of-plane structures to look anomalously
bright and to cast shadows across the rings. These scenes are possible only during the few
months before and after Saturn’s equinox which occurs only once in about 15 Earth years. Before
and after equinox, Cassini’s cameras have spotted not only the predictable shadows of some of
Saturn’s moons (see PIA11657), but also the shadows of newly revealed vertical structures in the
rings themselves (see PIA11665).
Also at equinox, the shadows of the planet’s expansive rings are compressed into a single, narrow
band cast onto the planet as seen in this mosaic. (For an earlier view of the rings’ wide shadows
draped high on the northern hemisphere, see PIA09793.)
The images comprising the mosaic, taken over about eight hours, were extensively processed
before being joined together. First, each was re-projected into the same viewing geometry and
then digitally processed to make the image “joints” seamless and to remove lens flares, radially
extended bright artifacts resulting from light being scattered within the camera optics.
At this time so close to equinox, illumination of the rings by sunlight reflected off the planet vastly
dominates any meager sunlight falling on the rings. Hence, the half of the rings on the left
illuminated by planetshine is, before processing, much brighter than the half of the rings on the
right. On the right, it is only the vertically extended parts of the rings that catch any substantial
sunlight.
With no enhancement, the rings would be essentially invisible in this mosaic. To improve their
visibility, the dark (right) half of the rings has been brightened relative to the brighter (left) half by a
factor of three, and then the whole ring system has been brightened by a factor of 20 relative to the
planet. So the dark half of the rings is 60 times brighter, and the bright half 20 times brighter, than
they would have appeared if the entire system, planet included, could have been captured in a
single image.
The moon Janus (179 kilometers, 111 miles across) is on the lower left of this image. Epimetheus
(113 kilometers, 70 miles across) appears near the middle bottom. Pandora (81 kilometers, 50
miles across) orbits outside the rings on the right of the image. The small moon Atlas (30
kilometers, 19 miles across) orbits inside the thin F ring on the right of the image. The brightnesses
of all the moons, relative to the planet, have been enhanced between 30 and 60 times to make
them more easily visible. Other bright specks are background stars. Spokes -- ghostly radial
markings on the B ring -- are visible on the right of the image.
This view looks toward the northern side of the rings from about 20 degrees above the ring plane.
The images were taken on Aug. 12, 2009, beginning about 1.25 days after exact equinox, using the
red, green and blue spectral filters of the wide angle camera and were combined to create this
natural color view. The images were obtained at a distance of approximately 847,000 kilometers
24
(526,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 74 degrees. Image
scale is 50 kilometers (31 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and
the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in
Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The
Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
2. Spirit Mars Rover in 'McMurdo' Panorama
This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the panoramic camera
(Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From April through October 2006, Spirit stayed
on a small hill known as "Low Ridge." There, the rover's solar panels were tilted toward the sun to
maintain enough solar power for Spirit to keep making scientific observations throughout the
winter on southern Mars. This view of the surroundings from Spirit's "Winter Haven" is presented in
approximately true color.
› Panoramic view
The Pancam began shooting component images of this panorama during the 814th Martian day, or
sol, of Spirit's work on Mars (April 18, 2006) and completed the part shown here on Sol 980 (Oct.
5, 2006).
This beautiful scene reveals a tremendous amount of detail in Spirit's surroundings. Many dark,
porous-textured volcanic rocks can be seen around the rover, including many on Low Ridge. Two
rocks to the right of center, brighter and smoother-looking in this image and more reflective in
infrared observations by Spirit's miniature thermal emission spectrometer, are thought to be
meteorites. On the right, "Husband Hill" on the horizon, the rippled "El Dorado" sand dune field
near the base of that hill, and lighter-toned "Home Plate" below the dunes provide context for
Spirit's travels from mid-2005 to early 2006.
Left of center, tracks and a trench dug by Spirit's right-front wheel, which could no longer rotate,
exposed bright underlying material. This bright material is evidence of sulfur-rich salty minerals in
the subsurface, providing clues about the watery past of this part of Gusev Crater.
A version of the McMurdo panorama without the rover deck, but including a supplemental figure
with landscape features labeled, is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01907.
This is an approximately true-color, red-green-blue composite panorama generated from images
taken through the Pancam's 600-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 480-nanometer filters. Some
image mosaic seams and brightness variations in the sky as well as several other small areas of
color mis-alignments or other mismatch problems have been smoothed over in image processing
in order to simulate the view that a human would see if he or she were standing here and looking
around. This "natural color" view is the rover team's best estimate of what the scene would look
like if we were there and able to see it with our own eyes. It is presented as a cylindrical projection.
Spirit completed its three-month prime mission on Mars in April 2004, then continued operating in
bonus extended missions into March 2010, when it ceased communicating.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.
Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
3. The Cat's Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most
complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat's Eye.
Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain) and Z. Tsvetanov (NASA)
4. Jupiter & Ganymede
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peeka-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant
planet.
Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is
tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of and disappearing behind
its giant host, only to reemerge later.
Composed of rock and ice, Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system. It is even larger
than the planet Mercury. But Ganymede looks like a dirty snowball next to Jupiter, the largest
planet in our solar system. Jupiter is so big that only part of its Southern Hemisphere can be seen
in this image.
Hubble's view is so sharp that astronomers can see features on Ganymede's surface, most
notably the white impact crater, Tros, and its system of rays, bright streaks of material blasted from
the crater. Tros and its ray system are roughly the width of Arizona.
The image also shows Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the large eye-shaped feature at upper left. A
storm the size of two Earths, the Great Red Spot has been raging for more than 300 years.
Hubble's sharp view of the gas giant planet also reveals the texture of the clouds in the Jovian
atmosphere as well as various other storms and vortices.
Astronomers use these images to study Jupiter's upper atmosphere. As Ganymede passes behind
the giant planet, it reflects sunlight, which then passes through Jupiter's atmosphere. Imprinted on
that light is information about the gas giant's atmosphere, which yields clues about the properties
of Jupiter's high-altitude haze above the cloud tops.
This color image was made from three images taken on April 9, 2007, with the Wide Field Planetary
Camera 2 in red, green, and blue filters. The image shows Jupiter and Ganymede in close to
natural colors.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)
5. BMACers enjoy dinner prior to Jeremy McLaughlin’s presentation.
Image by Adam Thanz
6. Jeremy McLaughlin speaks about his backyard radio astronomy research project.
Image by Adam Thanz
7. 47 Tucanae
In the first attempt to systematically search for "extrasolar" planets far beyond our local stellar
neighborhood, astronomers probed the heart of a distant globular star cluster and were surprised
to come up with a score of "zero".
To the fascination and puzzlement of planet-searching astronomers, the results offer a sobering
counterpoint to the flurry of planet discoveries announced over the previous months.
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"This could be the first tantalizing evidence that conditions for planet formation and evolution may
be fundamentally different elsewhere in the galaxy," says Mario Livio of the Space Telescope
Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD.
The bold and innovative observation pushed NASA Hubble Space Telescope's capabilities to its
limits, simultaneously scanning for small changes in the light from 35,000 stars in the globular star
cluster 47 Tucanae, located 15,000 light-years (4 kiloparsecs) away in the southern constellation
Tucana.
Hubble researchers caution that the finding must be tempered by the fact that some astronomers
always considered the ancient globular cluster an unlikely abode for planets for a variety of
reasons. Specifically, the cluster has a deficiency of heavier elements that may be needed for
building planets. If this is the case, then planets may have formed later in the universe's evolution,
when stars were richer in heavier elements. Correspondingly, life as we know it may have appeared
later rather than sooner in the universe.
Another caveat is that Hubble searched for a specific type of planet called a "hot Jupiter," which is
considered an oddball among some planet experts. The results do not rule out the possibility that
47 Tucanae could contain normal solar systems like ours, which Hubble could not have detected.
But even if that's the case, the "null" result implies there is still something fundamentally different
between the way planets are made in our own neighborhood and how they are made in the cluster.
Hubble couldn't directly view the planets, but instead employed a powerful search technique
where the telescope measures the slight dimming of a star due to the passage of a planet in front
of it, an event called a transit. The planet would have to be a bit larger than Jupiter to block
enough light — about one percent — to be measurable by Hubble; Earth-like planets are too small.
However, an outside observer would have to watch our Sun for as long as 12 years before ever
having a chance of seeing Jupiter briefly transit the Sun's face. The Hubble observation was
capable of only catching those planetary transits that happen every few days. This would happen if
the planet were in an orbit less than 1/20 Earth's distance from the Sun, placing it even closer to
the star than the scorched planet Mercury — hence the name "hot Jupiter."
Why expect to find such a weird planet in the first place?
Based on radial-velocity surveys from ground-based telescopes, which measure the slight wobble
in a star due to the small tug of an unseen companion, astronomers have found nine hot Jupiters
in our local stellar neighborhood. Statistically this means one percent of all stars should have such
planets. It's estimated that the orbits of 10 percent of these planets are tilted edge-on to Earth and
so transit the face of their star.
In 1999, the first observation of a transiting planet was made by ground-based telescopes. The
planet, with a 3.5-day period, had previously been detected by radial-velocity surveys, but this was
a unique, independent confirmation. In a separate program to study a planet in these revealing
circumstances, Ron Gilliland (STScI) and lead investigator Tim Brown (National Center for
Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO) demonstrated Hubble's exquisite ability to do precise
photometry — the measurement of brightness and brightness changes in a star's light — by also
looking at the planet. The Hubble data were so good they could look for evidence of rings or Earthsized moons, if they existed.
But to discover new planets by transits, Gilliland had to crowd a lot of stars into Hubble's narrow
field of view. The ideal target was the magnificent southern globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, one of
the closest clusters to Earth. Within a single Hubble picture Gilliland could observe 35,000 stars at
once. Like making a time-lapse movie, he had to take sequential snapshots of the cluster, looking
for a telltale dimming of a star and recording any light curve that would be the true signature of a
planet.
Based on statistics from a sampling of planets in our local stellar neighborhood, Gilliland and his
co-investigators reasoned that 1 out of 1,000 stars in the globular cluster should have planets that
Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015
transit once every few days. They predicted that Hubble should discover 17 hot Jupiter-class
planets.
To catch a planet in a several-day orbit, Gilliland had Hubble's "eagle eye" trained on the cluster
for eight consecutive days. The result was the most data-intensive observation ever done by
Hubble. STScI archived over 1,300 exposures during the observation. Gilliland and Brown sifted
through the results and came up with 100 variable stars, some of them eclipsing binaries where the
companion is a star and not a planet. But none of them had the characteristic light curve that
would be the signature of an extrasolar planet.
There are a variety of reasons the globular cluster environment may inhibit planet formation. 47
Tucanae is old and so is deficient in the heavier elements, which were formed later in the universe
through the nucleosynthesis of heavier elements in the cores of first-generation stars. Planet
surveys show that within 100 light-years of the Sun, heavy-element-rich stars are far more likely to
harbor a hot Jupiter than heavy-element-poor stars. However, this is a chicken and egg puzzle
because some theoreticians say that the heavy-element composition of a star may be enhanced
after if it makes Jupiter-like planets and then swallows them as the planet orbit spirals into the star.
The stars are so tightly compacted in the core of the cluster – being separated by 1/100th the
distance between our Sun and the next nearest star — that gravitational tidal effects may strip
nascent planets from their parent stars. Also, the high stellar density could disturb the subsequent
migration of the planet inward, which parks the hot Jupiters close to the star.
Another possibility is that a torrent of ultraviolet light from the earliest and biggest stars, which
formed in the cluster billions of years ago may have boiled away fragile embryonic dust disks out
of which planets would have formed.
These results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in December. Follow-up
observations are needed to determine whether it is the initial conditions associated with planet
birth or subsequent influences on evolution in this heavy-element-poor, crowded environment that
led to an absence of planets.
Credits for Hubble image: NASA and Ron Gilliland (Space Telescope Science Institute)
8. Apollo 1 crew in training
The prime crew of Apollo 1, Virgil I (Gus) Grissom, Edward H. White, II, and Roger B. Chaffee,
during training in Florida. On January 27, 1967, the crew was killed when a fire erupted in their
capsule during testing. Apollo 1 was originally designated AS- 204 but following the fire, the
astronauts’ widows requested that the mission be remembered as Apollo 1 and following missions
would be numbered subsequent to the flight that never made it into space.
Creator/Photographer: NASA
Higgins White II, and Lt. Cdr. Roger Bruce Chaffee died quickly in the tragic accident. An
investigative board was promptly set up to examine the accident and identify the cause of the fire.
The final report gave the results of the investigation as well as detailed suggestions for major
design and engineering modifications, revisions to test planning, manufacturing procedures, and
quality control. With these adjustments, the Apollo program became safer and successfully sent
astronauts to the Moon.
Creator/Photographer: NASA
Original Source: NASA
11. Space Place is a fantastic source of scientific educational materials for children of all ages. Visit
them at:
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov
12. NGC 3393 in the optical (L) by M. Malkan (UCLA), HST, NASA (L); NGC 3393 in the X-ray and
optical (R), composite by NASA / CXC / SAO / G. Fabbiano et al. (X-ray) and NASA/STScI
(optical).
13. NGC 3982
Though the universe is chock full of spiral-shaped galaxies, no two look exactly the same. This
face-on spiral galaxy, called NGC 3982, is striking for its rich tapestry of star birth, along with its
winding arms. The arms are lined with pink star-forming regions of glowing hydrogen, newborn
blue star clusters, and obscuring dust lanes that provide the raw material for future generations of
stars. The bright nucleus is home to an older population of stars, which grow ever more densely
packed toward the center.
NGC 3982 is located about 68 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy
spans about 30,000 light-years, one-third of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. This color image is
composed of exposures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
(WFPC2), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The
observations were taken between March 2000 and August 2009. The rich color range comes from
the fact that the galaxy was photographed invisible and near-infrared light. Also used was a filter
that isolates hydrogen emission that emanates from bright star-forming regions dotting the spiral
arms.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: A. Riess (STScI)
9. Astronaut Roger Chaffee
Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee (left) receives instruction from Maxwell W. Goode, a scientist at
NASA's Langley Research Center. Goode is explaining the operation of the Lunar Landing
Simulator at the Lunar Landing Research Facility.
Creator/Photographer: NASA Bob Nye
10. Apollo 204 Astronauts Training
Originally designated as the Apollo/Saturn 204 mission, but more commonly known as Apollo 1,
this photograph shows the crew in training. On January 27, 1967, disaster fell upon the Apollo 1
mission when a sudden fire broke out in the command module during a launch pad test in which all
three of the primary crew perished. Astronauts Lt. Col. Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom, Lt.Col. Edward
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Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2015