Posted by Davin Flateau on 25 Mar 2006 at 10:27 am.
Make a Comment. Filed under Astronomy.
Thanks for an incredible run, Shockers.
While it seems that everyone in south central Kansas is caught up in the NCAA basketball tournament, did you know that March brings “Astronomy’s March Madness” to the entire northern hemisphere? It’s the Messier Marathon! The sky is aligned just right, allowing you to see all 110 Messier objects in one night. Tracy Tuttle at Mabee Observatory at Bethel College in North Newton invites you to join the fun tonight and fill out your bracket with spiral galaxies, giant clouds of gas and dust, star clusters, and supernova explosion debris.
The Messier Objects are a list of 110 “fuzzy” sky objects cataloged starting in 1774 by French astronomer and comet-hunter Charles Messier. Messier wanted to catalog and map all the permanent faint fuzzy objects in the sky to avoid mistaking them for the comets he was hunting for.
Tip off begins not long after sunset, and that’s when caffeine-fueled astro-athletes put their skills to the test. Keeping an eye on the shot clock, the players follow a precise schedule, dribbling their telescopes from object to object. Some targets are easy lay-ups, like M31, The Andromeda Galaxy and M45, The Pleiades while others are more of A 3 pointer from the corner, like the elliptical galaxy M59 and M76, the Little Dumbell Nebula. The contest continues all into the night until the buzzer goes off in the glow of dawn rising in the east.
But don’t worry - you don’t have to be a seasoned athlete for tonight’s event. I gather that they’re going to make it a little easier on you, using the observatory’s excellent computerized telescope, and taking high resolution images for all to see.
Tracy Tuttle describes tonight’s keys to winning:
The marathon is a collaborative effort between Mabee Observatory, The North Central Kansas Astronomical Society (NCKAS) and The Outhouse Observatory. The purpose of the marathon is to: 1) Simply the challenge to image all 110 Messier objects in one night and 2) to foster astronomical interest and to raise awareness of light pollution. Light pollution issues can be found at the website of the International Dark-Sky Association.
You can also call the Observatory for more information at 316-284-5568.
Good luck, and try not to get into foul trouble!
Posted by Davin Flateau on 24 Mar 2006 at 6:55 pm.
Make a Comment. Filed under General.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 24 Mar 2006 at 12:34 pm.
3 Comments. Filed under Astronomy.
Being a big hub for observational astronomy, this can probably be said for most nights in Tuscon, Arizona: there are a lot of tired astronomers down there today. Mars’ newest artificial satellite, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, sent back its first images from its high powered camera last night and early this morning. Engineers and planetary scientists at the University of Arizona were all smiles, as you can probably guess from the pictures above. These images are really just to test the camera and get it calibrated. Spectacular!
The thing you have to remember about these images is: You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.
The top image is a reduced scale of 10 different shots. The mosaic is presented at a much smaller scale than what they’re getting at NASA. The full resolution of an image like this will be 20,000 x 9500 pixels!
The box in the lower right of the image is the second image, and is a section they released at the full resolution of the camera. The detail in these images is simply incredible.
Here’s the kicker: these images were taken at an altitude of 1,547 miles, with a pixel covering about 98 inches of Mars surface. When MRO starts its main mission this fall, its altitude will be just 174 miles above the red planet, with each pixel covering just 11 inches of the surface. We’ll be able to see the Mars Rovers with no problem, as well as the Viking landers, the crashed polar lander, and that’s just the hardware we dropped off. These powerful new eyes will be the catalyst for a whole new generation of discoveries on Mars.
One of the first things they’re going to image is the landing site for the next Mars lander - Mars Phoenix, going up in 2007.
A fair warning to any undiscovered Martians out there - you are being watched!
Posted by Davin Flateau on 24 Mar 2006 at 11:32 am.
Make a Comment. Filed under General, Astronomy, Exploration Place.
I recently saw a full page ad in the Sunday New York Times placed by the Ad Council for the Girl Scouts of America. That’s probably the largest printed public service message you can get on the planet. Click on the ad for a larger view:
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (resung by science)
Twinkle, twinkle little star
You’re a ball of gas that’s very far.
32 light years in the sky
10 parsecs which is really high
Helium, carbon and hy-dro-gen
Fuse to make our starry friend.
When it enters supernova stage
It explodes with bursts of rays.
And if the star’s mass is big and bold
It will become a black hole!By the 6th grade, many girls lose interest in math and science, which they may need for future jobs. So next time your daughter asks you to sing a lullaby, sing it in science. For some simple ideas, go to girlsgotech.com
Maybe you’ve seen it running in other magazines and newspapers, or have heard the radio ad.
It’s been tough to inspire young Americans to become scientists and engineers lately. The boom in the U.S. medical industry has spawned a surge in college biology majors, but aside from that, less and less young people see science and engineering as lucrative or desirable careers. The years of schooling and the relative low pay when compared to law or business careers are often cited.
Many people can recognize, too, that the glamour, or the esteem that once gleaned the title of scientist or engineer has been rubbed dull. This is in stark contrast to the pace and excitement of scientific discovery; science has never been more exciting or accessible. But too many kids see science as something “other people” do. Today’s popular culture heroes are athletes, businessmen (Donald Trump and Bill Gates) and custom car technicians.
I’m willing to bet that many kids couldn’t name one scientist, let alone one they could cite as a role model. Combine that with the negative experience a lot of kids have with math and science at the middle and high school level (and who hasn’t had these experiences), and you start to wonder why we have any science or technology majors at all!
But there’s some good news when it comes to the effort to close the gap the boys vs. girls that has always existed when it comes to careers in science. As recently documented in a recent NPR story, academic and education groups have been hard at work for decades trying to steer more girls into science and technology. And their efforts are starting to pay off.
This is also a huge role that informal science education facilities have. If science centers and planetariums can inspire excitement and awe about technology, science and math, then we have a fighting chance to make a better society.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 22 Mar 2006 at 5:04 pm.
Make a Comment. Filed under Astronomy.
Yes, astronomy and space fans, here’s a list of recent articles worthy of your unwavering attention. It’s the return of our Astronomy News Roundup!
Phil Plait “The Bad Astronomer” gets into a spin about Sirius.
British astronomers use a computer simulation to show how solar systems can form big rocky planets, like have been observed around other stars.
More amazing discoveries keep coming from carefully studing the afterglow of the Big Bang (called the cosmic microwave background radiation). The latest findings by analyzing data from the WMAP satellite tells us that the Universe’s first stars were formed about 400 million years after the Big Bang, and there’s even more evidence that the Universe might have gone through a huge, almost instantaneous growth spurt, called inflation, in its first .00000000000000000000000000000000001 (10-35) second of its existence. Stop and think about that - science has allowed us to see back to the very birth of all matter, space and time.
For decades now, we’ve been trying to figure out what causes explosions in the sky so powerful, they pack the power of a billion suns in just a few seconds. These gamma ray bursts seen regularly in the sky were thought to be colliding neutron stars, or a neutron star spiraling into a black hole. But recent findings hint that there may other causes for some of the explosions we’re seeing.
Comet dust from Comet Wild 2 retrieved by the Stardust mission indicate that some of the comet’s materials were originally formed near the sun or possibly other stars. This shakes up the theory of comet formation, which theorizes that the dirty snowballs all formed in the outer reaches of the solar system, where most of them currently reside today.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 21 Mar 2006 at 10:43 am.
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I was just watching NASA TV, and caught a nice summary of Discovery class missions to asteroids and comets. The dual asteroid orbiting mission DAWN was still in there. Take that as either a good sign or someone at NASA TV didn’t realize that their agency had cancelled the program. Hmm!
Posted by Davin Flateau on 20 Mar 2006 at 5:51 pm.
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In between dodging trucks in the morning highway traffic, and somewhere between a left turn signal and a stop sign, I was briefly thrown out of my car, transported to the clear, cold dark sky of the Utah night. On NPR’s Morning Edition today, author Craig Childs shared with listeners the lost beauty of camping under the expansive, luminous night sky our planet shares with us.
Overhead, the huge frame of Orion swings around the north star, dragging all the other constellations along with it in an outrageous show… I’m left sitting on a dark earth, floating among the stars. This is why I do not withdraw into a tent in the winter. Some people say such an expanse of sky makes them feel small and insignificant. I feel just the opposite. Like a giant, limitless, like I could lift this stick and touch any one of the stars… There’s a whole Universe out here passing by. And tonight, I feel like I could stand up from these shackles of cold, and step out across the stars, striding like a God through this beautiful night.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 20 Mar 2006 at 12:21 pm.
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Happy vernal equinox! Time to break out the Nox Nog, and raise a glass to the first day of spring. Just in time for a snow storm to dump feet of snow here in Kansas. I can smell the snowblower exhaust and road salt wafting through the fragrant spring air already.
The term equinox, latin for “equal night”, hints at what’s going on today. On only two days, the vernal (spring) and autumnal (fall) equinoxes, the alignment of the earth’s tilt and its orbit around the sun allows an equal amount of daylight and night for all the places on the earth (if you want to get really technical, there’s slightly more day than night today due to the fact the sun’s a round disc and the effects of atmospheric refraction).
This is one of those classically hard-to-explain brain teasers in astronomy that you really need a good diagram for, but it’s worth hanging in, since it ties into the explanation of our seasons.
Our earth rotates on its axis, spinning quite happily, completing one whole day every 24 hours. That spinning ball is also travelling around the sun in a circle, but the spinning earth is titled about 23.5 degrees, and always pointing in the same direction in the sky during our trip around the sun. Because of this tilt, we experience differing amounts of day and night during different parts of the year, depending on where on the earth you are. Only two times in our orbit around the sun is the tilt “nullifieid”, creating equal day and night for those of us who are trapped on our spinning world.
Also because of earth’s tilt, the sun’s angle to the surface changes, affecting how much energy different parts of the earth receive. This creates the seasons: summers result from more hours of daylight with more direct sunlight, and winters from less hours of daylight with less direct sunlight. Check out a really good basic explanation, and more in depth one.
You may have heard your grandfather or some other mysterious relative spin an archane tale about how there’s something special about this day on earth. Somehow the normal laws of physics go on vacation for a day, allowing you to balance an egg on its long side on the vernal equinox.
Well, as many eggless breakfasts will attest, this is just one of those crazy stories that gets passed down for who knows what reason. Our friend Phil Plait over at badastronomy.com has a good article where he actually stands eggs on their end! But in October.
How did this rumor get started? Eggs have long been associated with the spring, fertility and new life. Somehow, somewhere the astronomical spring collided with the cultural symbol, and the crazy pseudo-scientific superstition was born.
It could be a harmless myth, or it could be just part of an insidious conspiracy led by the Egg Council this time of year to drive us all insane.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 17 Mar 2006 at 12:31 pm.
1 Comment. Filed under Astronomy.
Right on the heels of my previous post about NASA’s termination of the asteroid-orbiting mission DAWN, CNN reports that NASA is taking a second look at the mission.
NASA’s unusual step to review Dawn’s termination came after the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which manages the mission, presented new evidence in support of it, the space agency said Wednesday in a statement.
Space.com also has an article up on the breaking news.
The death of Dawn has stirred up anger in scientific circles, both in the United States and abroad – a fact that surfaced here earlier this week at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC).
When pressed by scientists to clarify whether or not the Dawn mission has been restored, NASA Associate Administrator for Science, Mary Cleave, said NASA is responsive to Congressional language that dictates “if we get to a certain percentage cost overrun we have to review a project. And if it gets to another percentage Congress will zero the money going in and we will be in this limbo with no money going in.”
…
Another reply regarding the status of Dawn came from Andrew Dantzler, director of NASA’s solar system division in Washington, D.C.
“I really can’t get into the details on Dawn,” Dantzler told the LPSC gathering, but noted that the cancellation “is under review by our management.” Because of that fact, he added, it would not be appropriate to get into specifics.
Space probes like these usually involve international partners. In DAWN’s case, they were none too happy with the cancellation, or the fact that apparently no one even bothered to pick up the phone.
“It’s totally unacceptable what’s happening now,” said Gerhard Neukum, professor of planetary sciences at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and a member of the Dawn team.
There is international involvement in Dawn, Neukum pointed out. “NASA has responsibility to their cooperation partners first and foremost before they go to the last resort of canceling a mission,” he told SPACE.com.
…
“This is absolutely unacceptable what’s going on there. It was unilateral, without prior warning and no discussion,” Neukum said. “I know that there were some other technical problems, but no fundamental ones. They all could be fixed,” he explained.
Let’s hope that NASA can find a way to make DAWN happen, especially so late in its development. It’s going to be an incredible mission, orbiting the two largest asteroids in the solar sytem - Ceres and Vesta.
DAWN was originally slated to launch this summer, arriving at Vesta in October of 2011, orbiting and studying the huge asteroid for 7 months, then heading to Ceres, arriving at the largest “minor planet” in the solar system in August of 2015. By studying the largest members of the asteroid belt, scientists can study the results of two very different ways that planetary bodies were made when the planets and asteroids were first formed. It’s also thought that Ceres may harbor a tenuous atmosphere, which would be unique for an asteroid.
I also couldn’t help but notice that DAWN’s website was down yesterday. It’s now back up. I have no clue whether that was related to the cancellation and subsequent review or not, but it sure is a rather odd coincidence.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 16 Mar 2006 at 11:50 am.
1 Comment. Filed under General.
The 36th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference is currently being held in Houston, and is slated to wrap up on Friday. It’s a gathering of scientists, students, NASA, and educators sharing the latest discoveries about solar system. Topics about Jupiter’s moons, asteroids, comets, our moon, Saturnian moons, current missions, future missions, Mars, more Mars, even more Mars all get jammed into crowded hotel meeting rooms.
There are some great stories coming out of the conference, including plans this fall to crash the European SMART-1 lunar orbiter into the moon. I’m willing to bet that most people didn’t know that there was a probe orbiting the moon. Well, don’t get too attached to it now.
Unrelated to SMART 1 (which is a European Space Agency probe), another hot topic at the meeting is the massive budget cuts in scientific research that NASA has announced. You know it’s going to bad when the government uses the word “challenges” over and over again. I’ve heard from folks down there that planetary scientists let NASA “have it” in a presentation by Mary Cleave over the proposed budget cuts. In response, she released this letter.
The budget cuts have caused the cancellation of DAWN, which was slated to orbit not one but two asteroids. SOFIA, an airborne infrared observatory is now under review, and may be cancelled. I’m also sad to hear about the cancellation of any probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa to search for life in its probable vast ocean.
Some members of congress are starting to act to restore the money for science.
I don’t know if it’s related but I hope that NASA isn’t responsible for this dire message on this year’s conference web page:
* * * There will be NO chili cookoff this year. * * *
The horror!
You can get more information about this and other cool stuff coming out of the conference through Emily Lakdawalla’s blog over at the Planetary Society.
Posted by Davin Flateau on 15 Mar 2006 at 11:03 am.
Make a Comment. Filed under General, Astronomy.
Even though I produce astronomy documentaries for the really big screen, I’m generally not a huge fan of ones produced for the small screen. Some TV astronomy documentaries go out of their way to bore the viewer, playing right into that stereotype that astronomy is an abstract and meaningless topic best left to the eggheads. Others are not so bad, but cover topics and missions that happened many years ago, draining the sense of wonder and ignoring the urgency that the current pace of discovery is creating.
Lately, The Science Channel has been spot on, producing good documentaries that talk about new missions that are happening right now.
Last night, I caught the excellent Revealing Mars, which focuses in on the current Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, which just went into orbit around the red planet last week. It dives deep into each experiment on board, including the high-powered camera, radar and weather monitoring instruments.
Revealing Mars also talked in depth about the upcoming Mars Phoenix Lander in 2007-2008, and the ambitious car-sized Mars Science Laboratory rover, which now has a really bizarre and risky-looking landing scheme (hint - no more airbags). By the end of the show, I felt excited about what we were doing on Mars, and couldn’t wait to see the data from current and future missions. That’s the power of TV documentaries in today’s world of breakneck science.
Another Science Channel show that’s worth catching is Passport to Pluto, which covers the recently launched New Horizons probe to far flung Pluto. New Horizons will fly by the speck of a planet in humanity’s first visit there in 2015.
It’s refreshing to see current missions get a more elaborate treatment than the cursory 30 second blurb on the local news. But for a more sweeping view of the Universe, The Science Channel has been re-running what I consider the greatest TV documentary of all time - Cosmos (TV Listings).
Carl Sagan’s Cosmos inspired me to get into the business of astronomy education. It was a huge television event when it premiered on PBS in 1980, and being a 9 year old space cadet, I was excited to say the least. It was the day before VCRs, so I actually watched with an audio cassette tape recorder carefully placed near the tiny speaker in the TV to capture the lyrical musings of Carl Sagan. It was way past my bedtime, and I fell asleep before most episodes ended, but I always had those cassette tapes to play back the next day.
When I did play back those tapes, I was enthralled. Sagan was a storyteller, deftly weaving the individual threads from each episode into one giant tapestry relating the origin of our species, the air, trees, the grass, the planets, stars, galaxies, all the way out to the edge of space and time. Against a compelling soundtrack of electronic and classical music, he tells us that we are made of star stuff, and in sifting through a handful of sand on a beach, reflects on the fact that there are more suns in the Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on the earth. Sagan reminds us that solid science and critical thinking are the essential tools we use to understand the Universe around us while postulating that “We are a way for the Universe to know itself.”
I hadn’t watched it for 25 years (it was acutally out of print even on video for a period of time), so I wondered how it would translate into today’s high tech media world. Cosmos Studios re-produced the computer graphics, and updated the astronomical images in 2001. I’m happy to say that aside from a few turtlenecks and tweed jackets, it translates just great, and is incredibly refreshing to see such an artful and inspiring piece of television back in our lives. The entire Cosmos series is available on DVD.
Happy watching!
Posted by Davin Flateau on 14 Mar 2006 at 1:13 pm.
Make a Comment. Filed under Astronomy.
In yesterday’s post, I meant to write a followup and mention that Google used Lowell’s birthday to launch Google Mars, a way cool way to learn about Mars. Go there now and start clicking and zooming on stuff!
One really great feature is “Stories” which links geographic features on the red planet to the scientific discoveries from the Mars rovers, Odyssey, Global Surveyor, Mars Express and others. What a great way to visually browse everything Mars has to offer.
