Stargazer January 2017
Online astronomy Society Academy
Contents Image of the Month - Page 2 January Night Sky - Page 3 Rings of Saturn - Page 4 Earth 2.0 located: Conditions are perfect for life to exist Page 5 Exoplanet watch: HAT–7b - Cloudy with a chance of rubies - Page 6 NASA Launched eight satellites that will help save lives Page 7 Composition of Saturn - Page 8-11 January night sky diary - Page 12-13 100 billion times more luminous than the sun - Page 14 New study reveals giant sub-surface ice deposits on mars Page 15 Sir Isaac Newton’s book Auctioned for record amount Page 16-17 Astronomer of the month - Page 18 Front Cover image courtesy of Guy Wells - Online Astronomy Society Member Rear Cover image courtesy of Alastair Leith - Online Astronomy Society Member
Image by Online Astronomy Society Member - Damon Rowley Page 2
January Night Sky By Russell Adam Webb
If your New Year resolution was to take up astronomy, or your Christmas present consisted of a brand new telescope, here’s what you can expect to see in January. lso Check: 2017 is the year of Tesla January 4th: The Quadrantid Meteor Shower January in astronomy kicks off with the Quadrantid meteor shower today, 4th January. Those in the US will likely get the best views at it peaks between 19:00-21:00. Those in the UK might not see a great deal as it will be early afternoon. Astronomers located close to the Mississippi River will have the best views and can expect to see between 60 and 120 meteors per hour during the peak period. Magnesium burning up on entry to the Earth atmosphere should show as a blue streak in the sky and you should see the effects for a few hours either side of the peak. This particular meteor shower is expected to have originated in the Quadrans Muralis constellation and is the remnants of a meteor that broke up more than half a millennia ago; asteroid 2003 EH1.
January 12th: Venus Comes Into View January 12th will see the point in which Venus will reach its furthest Eastern elongation. The planet will be 47.1 degrees away from the Sun and provide the best views of the month. If you run on UTC time, you should be able to spot Venus after the sun sets, providing you scan the sky to the west. Read More: Was Venus Once Habitable?
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January 17th: The Vesta Asteroid The biggest and brightest asteroid on offer this month, Vesta, comes into view on the 17th of January. NASA say this one is pretty special and should well be worth a look. Locating the asteroid should not be too demanding, provided you have a decent telescope and look for Castor and Pollux; the twin stars of Gemini.
January 19th: Mercury Comes Into View The 19th of January should provide our best opportunity to spot Mercury as the planet reaches its furthest elongation. The furthest elongation puts this planet at 24.1 degrees from our very own Sun. This should put it high in the Eastern sky before the sunrise using UTC time.
D ring inner most very faint C ring wide and faint B ring largest and brightest of the rings A ring outer most of the large bright rings, its inner boundary is the Cassini division. F outer most ring, and the most active. Its features change hourly.
Anthe ring faint ring discovered in 2007 Pallene ring a faint dust ring E ring, second most outer ring and is very wide. It starts at the orbit of Mimas and ends a Rhea. It consist of ices, silicates, carbon dioxide and ammonia. The particles are mainly microscopic.
Janus/Epimetheus ring faint dusty ring, the moons Janus and Epimetheus orbit in this ring. Material in this ring is ejected material from the moons; this would have been caused by impacts. G ring very thin ring and faint, positioned half way in between the F and the beginning of the E ring, its inner edges is in the orbit of the moon Mimas. Methone Ring Arc faint ring discovered in September 2006, the moon Methone orbits within this ring.
Phoebe Ring in Oct 2009 the rings discovery was announced, it is just in the orbital plane of the moon phoebe. Moons So far 62 moons have been discovered and 53 have been named, the largest being Titan. The moons themselves are different from moon to moon, one of the more interesting moon s is the second largest in the solar system, Titan. This moon is the only other place apart from Earth where a liquid freely  ows on the surface.
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EARTH 2.0 LOCATED: CONDITIONS ARE PERFECT FOR LIFE TO EXIST By Russell Adam Webb K2-3d sounds more like a Star Wars droid than an exoplanet but scientists are getting pretty excited about the discovery of this planet as it potentially has a warm climate and all the necessary conditions to support life Exoplanet discoveries are fairly commonplace these days but the vast majority of the planets found are not usually suitable for life in any shape to exist. They are usually too far from their star, too close, or have some other wild characteristic that means life as we know it would never have evolved. Recently though, Kepler’s K2 mission located a potential planet around 150 light-years away that could well be home to alien life. The planet is around 1.5 times bigger than our own and a year on the planet would take around 45 days. Japanese scientists who’ve taken a great interest in the planet have signaled that conditions could be pretty similar to what we have here. If that is the case, then there is no reason why K2-3d shouldn’t be teeming with life. They say that K2-3d has a tolerable temperature and water, which should be enough for life. These are, admittedly, speculations at the moment as we have not been able to to confirm anything about the exoplanet. Some theories about K23d could be confirmed in the New Year so we should keep an eye on this one. NASA is aiming to use the hardware at their disposal, namely Hubble, and eventually the James Webb Space Telescope,
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To take a better look at the potential discovery. They would be looking for characteristics that would indicate life could exist on the planet’s surface. These characteristics include the presence of clouds and a hydrogenic atmosphere. “NASA is aiming for a more in-depth examination of the likely planet. They hope to find a hydrogenrich atmosphere, or a blanket of clouds. If we found any signal, then we would hit K2-3d extremely hard with James Webb Space Telescope.” Dr Björn Benneke – California Institute of Technology. We probably shouldnt get too excited. These discoveries have been made before and tuned out to be against us in the hunt for life. We still do not know if the planet is tidal-locked, meaning the planet may permanently face it’s star on one side, meaning one half would be scorched and the other half frozen. There is a line on a tidally-locked planet where the temperature might be in the right region, however this is all speculation at this stage. Do you think we will find life on an exoplanet any time soon?
Exoplanet Watch: HAT-P-7b – Cloudy With A Chance Of Rubie By Russell Adam Webb
The first ever exoplanet meteorology report has found the building blocks of sapphires and rubies in the clouds of an exoplanet.
Whilst it might not have a particularly catchy name, scientists think that HATP-7b has some rather interesting characteristics. Scientists from the University of Warwick, UK, have spent time looking closely at the brightness of a distant exoplanet, called HAT-P-7b, in an effort to learn more about the huge planets unusual composition. They have found that the planet is about 40% larger than the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, and it’s pretty hot due to the proximity to its star. A year on the planet lasts just 2 of our own days, causing the heat to rise to about 1927 °C or 2200 degrees kelvin. The brightest parts of the planet moved around over time, which is probably caused by clouds and great storms in the atmosphere. Like many exoplanets that are close to their star, HAT-P-7b is observed to be tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing the star and the other constantly faces away. It is thought that because the side facing away from the star would be much cooler than the other side, clouds might form in this region and get blown onto the hot side of the planet.
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“The winds transport clouds from the night side, so the cloud bank stretches some way into the day side before finally evaporating. As the clouds evaporate, the planet absorbs more light and warms up, strengthening the winds.” – David Armstrong, University of Warwick. The scientists think that the clouds would be made mostly of corundum, which is a mineral that build sapphires and rubies over long periods of time on Earth. This is believed to be because of the boiling temperature necessary, but more studies are needed to confirm these speculations. “When we say clouds, they’re definitely not clouds like on the Earth. The planet is so hot that minerals would be vaporized.” – David Armstrong, University of Warwick. The Kepler Space Telescope was used to look at the planet in details, but future projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s PLATO telescope will be more advanced and allow us to see the planet up close.
NASA Launched Eight Satellites That Will Help Save Lives Taken from planetscitech.com
NASA launched eight satellites that will help save lives on Earth. Eight small CYGNSS orbiting satellites will be able to measure the winds to the surface of the ocean in the middle of a storm. This will help experts more quickly and precisely predict the maximum power of the storm. After several delays, NASA on Thursday successfully launched a rocket Pegasus XL, which is in orbit brought CYGNSS eight satellites to track hurricanes. Eight small satellites equipped with GPS receivers soon after launch was set in orbit, and they will be used to study the winds to the surface of the ocean in the middle of a storm. This will help scientists to forecast the maximum power of hurricanes. Fox their measurements will be the tropical area in which to form the most hurricanes. Previous satellites could accurately measure the speed of the winds to the surface of the ocean in the middle of a hurricane because their signals could significantly weaken the strong rainfall. CYGNSS is designed to make it just changed. The benefits of the existing GPS signals and technology, but in a reduced version. Each of the eight satellites in orbit will receive direct or reflected signal from which it can calculate the wind speed. NASA says that a satellite can usually measure one location every two or three days and these eight will be able to measure any location approximately every seven hours. Unlike conventional rockets, this has brought the plane that took off from Florida. When they were at the planned location overlooking the Atlantic, the pilot dropped the rocket has been fired a few seconds later. Satellites are subsequently separated from the rocket as planned to set off towards the location from which to look at the Earth. The value of the mission is $ 157 million.
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By David Bood s we move into the summer months we enter a period of lighter nights. This makes viewing deep sky objects more difficult. However for the amateur astronomer there is a celestial body which fills us with awe. This wonder of the solar system was the first object that I viewed through a telescope. And I must admit I was blown away. This celestial body is Saturn. Saturn sits in the outer reaches of the solar system; it is a huge gas giant. Saturn is the sixth planet from our star (the sun); it has a ring system and many moons. Composition of Saturn Saturn as mentioned before is what we call a gas giant, composing of mostly hydrogen (H) 88%*, Helium (He) 11%* with trace elements of water, methane and ammonia. Its outer layers are that of gas, however as you move towards the centre the gas becomes denser eventually forming a metallic mantle of hydrogen and helium. This metallic structure is a good electrical conductor and the electrical currents formed possibly by fast moving molecules creates electrical currents which are possibly responsible for the planets magnetic field.
The core may contain heavier elements and its structure is icy and rocky. Note: * % content differ from different sources.
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What is interesting is that both Saturn and Jupiter are still evolving, they are still settling in gravitational terms. This means they are contracting which in turn created internal heat. Saturn radiates 3 times more heat than it receives from the sun. Could it be possible the gas giants were a lot bigger in their early history? And is it possible they will become smaller and denser in their future? Saturn has some of the fastest winds in the solar system; storm clouds on the equator have rotated around the planet in just over 10 hrs giving wind velocities of 1700 Km/h. The Rings Saturn’s rings can be seen with a small telescope; however larger telescopes give you more detail. The rings are amazing to see. With a smaller telescope the rings appear more as one ring, larger scopes you can make out in more detail individual rings. The rings have been identified and labelled in order of discovery and using a simple identification system, (A,B,C to G).
The rings are mainly composed of water ice; they range from small particles to larger lumps. Some of the material in the ring is rocky however this is mainly trace elements. Other planets have ring systems however Saturn’s are the most stunning We have found the rings vary in density and there are gaps in the system, we have also discovered moons embedded into the system.
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How were they formed? There are two main theories on how the rings were formed. One theory is that a moon moved inwards during its orbit, the tidal forces of Saturn ripped the moon apart and created the ring system. Theory two is that the ring system are the remains or left over’s from nebular material from which Saturn was formed. Other theories include a moon collision. The densest parts of the ring system are the A and B rings. There is a gap in between the rings called the Cassini division. This was discovered by Giovann Doenico Cassini in 1675. The C ring which makes up the main three rings was discovered in 1850. The main rings contain larger particles. The other rings D,E,F,G can be described as dusty rings and are not as dense as the main three. D ring inner most very faint C ring wide and faint B ring largest and brightest of the rings A ring outer most of the large bright rings, its inner boundary is the Cassini division. F outer most ring, and the most active. Its features change hourly. Janus/Epimetheus ring faint dusty ring, the moons Janus and Epimetheus orbit in this ring. Material in this ring is ejected material from the moons; this would have been caused by impacts. G ring very thin ring and faint, positioned half way in between the F and the beginning of the E ring, its inner edges is in the orbit of the moon Mimas Methone Ring Arc faint ring discovered in September 2006, the moon Methone orbits within this ring Anthe ring faint ring discovered in 2007 Pallene ring a faint dust ring
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E ring, second most outer ring and is very wide. It starts at the orbit of Mimas and ends a Rhea. It consist of ices, silicates, carbon dioxide and ammonia. The particles are mainly microscopic. Phoebe Ring in Oct 2009 the rings discovery was announced, it is just in the orbital plane of the moon phoebe.
Moons So far 62 moons have been discovered and 53 have been named, the largest being Titan. The moons themselves are different from moon to moon, one of the more interesting moon s is the second largest in the solar system, Titan. This moon is the only other place apart from Earth where a liquid freely flows on the surface.
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100 billion times more luminous than the Sun. By James Goode
Image Credit: A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA
Arp 256 is a system of two barred spiral galaxies in the early stages of colliding and merging, located about 350 million light-years away at the western end of the constellation of Cetus ( the Whale ). The system is a luminous infrared system radiating more than a hundred billion times the luminosity of our Sun. Despite the large separation of the galaxies’ nuclei, the two galaxies are strongly disrupted. The strong interaction between the galaxies is responsible for an astonishing number of blue knots of star formation. The galaxy on the right (MCG-02-01-052) consists possibly of two overlapping galaxies, and the large galaxy to the left (MCG-02-01-051) has two very notable extended ribbon-like tidal tails of gas, dust and stars. Some of these super hot blue stars may really not be related to the galaxy itself. It is the 256th galaxy in Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which is a catalog of 338 peculiar galaxies produced by Halton Arp. Page 14
New Study Reveals Giant Sub-Surface Ice Deposits On Mars. By Russell Adam Webb
A layer of ice beneath the surface of Mars has been discovered. Scientists reckon it could be larger than the state of New Mexico and hold twice the volume of Lake Superior The layer of ice lies in the northern hemisphere of Mars and is covered by between 1-10 meters of soil, possibly making this a valuable find for future explorers. The researchers analyzed Mars‘ Utopia Planitia region, using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument aboard NASA‘s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This equipment has the ability to see below the surface of Mars and can detect ice, water, rock and other materials. The research was led by Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas.
“This deposit is probably more accessible than most water ice on Mars, because it is at a relatively low latitude and it lies in a flat, smooth area where landing a spacecraft would be easier than at some of the other areas with buried ice.” – Jack Holt, University of Texas.
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The focus was on Utopia Planitia because they noticed certain characteristics that were similar to what had been identified in Canada. These were labeled ‘scalloped depressions’ and scientists theorized that the conditions could be similar to Mars. The SHARAD instrument allows scientists to peek beneath the surface and differentiate between rock, water and ice. The data was painstakingly analyzed and the team carefully worked out the volumes of ice located beneath the ground. Some of the ice goes well over 100 meters below the surface. The sheer volume of ice has not been found on Mars before and could
SHARAD hasn’t yet found any liquid water in this region, meaning that there are minimal chances of finding life. Life on Earth is linked directly to liquid water and wouldn’t have evolved if everything was in ice form. It may not always have been the case as researchers noted that some melting had taken place in the past. This is linked with the periods in Mars’ history when the poles tilted at different angles. Mars is thought to go through 120,000-year cycles with tilting. The water probably accumulated during one of these shifts and snow may have formed in the same region.
By Laura Geggel, Courtesy of Live Science
A bound copy of Sir Isaac Newton's seminal book on mathematics and science was sold for $3.7 million, making it the most expensive printed scientific book ever sold at auction, according to Christie's, the auction house that handled the sale. The book has a Latin title — "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica," which translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy," but scholars often call it the Principia. After Newton (16421727) wrote the Page 16
book, he gave it to the English astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742) for editing, and it was printed and sold in London more than 300 years ago, in 1687. The book is a pivotal piece of science and history, and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein called it "perhaps the greatest intellectual stride that it has ever been granted to any man to make." Even so, Christie's expected the goatskincovered book to bring in between $1 million and $1.5million, but the unnamed bidder bought it for nearly four times that value at $3,719,500.
The Principia famously elucidates Newton's three laws of motion, explaining how objects move under the influences of external forces. Physics students today still use the laws, which include: -An object will remain in a state of inertia unless acted upon by force.-The relationship between acceleration and applied force is force equals mass times acceleration (F=MA). -For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The crimson book measures about 9 inches by 7 inches (23.7 by 18.6 centimeters) and contains 252 leaves — some with woodcut diagrams — and a folding plate, according to Christie's. Only one other original leather-bound copy of Newton's Principia has been sold at auction in the past 47 years — a copy that was presented to King James II (16331701) and bought at Christie's New York for about $2.5 million in December 2013.
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In
the Principia's preface, Newton thanked Halley for encouraging him to write the book, saying, "Mr. Edmund Halley not only assisted me with his pains in correcting the press and taking care of the schemes, but it was his solicitations that its becoming public is owing; for when he had obtained of me my demonstrations of the figure of the celestial orbits, he continually pressed me to communicate the same to the Royal Society..." (translated by Andrew Motte).In a letter to the king in 1687, Halley wrote, "And I may be bold to say, that if ever Book was worthy the favourable acceptance of a Prince." Halley also paid for the printing of the book; the Royal Society didn't have enough money at the time to cover the costs because it had just published another book, "De Historia Piscium" or "The History of Fishes" by John Ray and Francis Willughby. Luckily, Halley's contribution paid off: Newton's work was not seriously challenged until Einstein's theories of relativity and German theoretical physicist Max Planck's quantum theory were published in the 1900s. In fact, Newton's principles and methods are still used by scientists today.
Astronomer of the Month Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Taken from sheisanastronomer.com Cecilia was an English-American astronomer and one of three children. She won a scholarship to read botany, physics and chemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge University in 1919, where her interest in astronomy was sparked by a lecture given by Eddington, on his eclipse expedition to Africa as a test of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Although she completed her studies, Cambridge did not grant degrees to women at this time, although she was elected a member of the Royal Astronomical Society while still a student at Cambridge.
Having met Harlow Shapely of Harvard College observatory, she left England for the US to persue a graduate program in astronomy. Payne was the second student, after Adelaide Ames, to join a fellowship program at the Observatory to encourage women to study there. She became the first person to earn a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe for her thesis "Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars". Astronomer Otto Struve characterized it as "undoubtedly the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy". Her work allowed her to relate the spectal classes of stars into actual temperatures. She also showed that the variation in stellar absorption lines was due to differing amounts of ionization that occurred at different temperatures, and not due to the different abundances of elements. She also correctly suggested that silicon, carbon, and other common metals seen in the Sun were found in about the same relative amounts as on Earth but the helium and particularly hydrogen were vastly more abundant, by about a factor of one million in the case of hydrogen, concluding that hydrogen was the main constituent of stars. However, she is not fully credited with the discovery because her male superiors convinced her to retract her findings on stellar hydrogen and publish a far less definitive statement. By the time she was awarded her PhD she had also already published six papers on stellar atmospheres, all by age 25. By the time of her death she had published over 150 papers and monographs.
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Payne married in 1934 and had three children, but remained scientifically active throughout her life, spending her entire academic career at Harvard. However, she received little pay, and despite her work, had a low status and held no official position, serving only as a technical assistant to Shapely from 1927-1938. In 1938 she was given the title of astronomer, and once Donald Menzel took over as Director in 1954 she became the first female to be promoted to full-professor from within the faculty at Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Later, with her appointment to the Chair of the Department of Astronomy, she also became the first woman to head a department at Harvard. After her thesis Payne contined to study stars of high luminosity in order to understand the structure of the Milky Way. Later with her husband, she surveyed all the stars brighter than the tenth magnitude. She then studied variable stars, making, with her assistants over 1,250,000 observations. This was later extended to the Magellanic Clouds, adding a further 2,000,000 observations of variable stars. This data was used to determine the paths of stellar evolution. Payne-Gaposchkin’s PhD is considered by many as the turning point of the Harvard College Observatory, and of women in astronomy, allowing women to enter the mainstream world of astronomy. She received the Annie Cannon Award in astronomy in 1934 for her work. The asteroid 2039 Payne-Gaposchkin is named after her.
Cody’s Nebula Cody Jai Murray, aged 12 who comes from Oldham, Lancashire has created a Nebula using oil pastels and her fingers in order to blend together. An amazing set of images which are included here.