August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 1

The Usefulness of Logbooks Doug Norton Below are my logbook entries from the last two observing sessions. I have a Palm Pilot with a keyboard that I use to enter my impressions of whatever objects I look at during an observing run. My criteria are pretty loose but I generally only write down objects I haven't seen before or have been years since the last time I looked at them. For example if I wrote down my impressions every time I looked at M13 I'd probably have 300 entries just on M13 alone! So to keep the logbook useful I just enter the objects that are new to me. As my equipment has changed over the years I'll write down impressions of objects I have already observed to note what is possible to see in which instruments. In the entries below NGC6826 was observed on the 8th but it is left blank. i looked at it but I couldn't remember what I thought of it because I didn't write my impressions down right after I observed it. I got distracted. So I re-observed it last night and this time wrote down what I thought of it. I give people a hard time about keeping a logbook mostly just in jest. However for me I like to keep a running tab of objects so I can refer back to them in the fu-ture to decide which objects are worth observing and which aren't. I like to trail blaze and look at things no one else does. It is very hard to get out under a sky like we did last night and not be tempted to just look at all of the objects you know are spectacular. I mean to have a night like that and not look at M13 or M11 or M57 would be a sin! But I try to resist getting bogged down in the same old objects. So the day before an observing run I'll sit down with a wide variety of references and make a list

(See Logbooks on page 6)

Star Gazer News Newsletter of the Delmarva Stargazers

www.delmarvastargazers.org Prez comments… As many of you know I’ve had some health problems lately. I found a lump and it was cancer in my lymph nodes under my right arm. I had them removed and have been doing chemo and radiation as a follow up. This has zapped me of energy and I’ve been spending most of my time in waiting rooms and none star gazing. These are things we have to go through sometimes in life and I’m a person who always tries to find the good in any situation. With this I’ve had a lot of time to read and my Kindle has become my constant companion. I’ve reread “Rare Earth: Why complex life is uncommon in the universe” by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee and “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins a detailed guide through evolution. Both are excellent books that I highly recommend. I also read “The Vision Revolution” by Mark Changizi a very new look at why human’s see the way we do. My current book is “Spectroscopy: The Key to the Stars” by Keith Robinson which is part of the Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy series. You may recall that our fellow club member Michael Borgia also contributed an excellent book to this series “Human Vi-sion and the Night Sky”. If you haven’t already you need to get Mike’s book. I enjoyed it a great deal and I had an in on getting it signed by the author. Yeah I got the hard copy; Mike did not sign my Kindle. By the time you read this I’ll be finished with my treatments and I hope busy join-ing all the fun and excitement going on at Black Bird observing with the gang. I know one thing I’ll have lots of new knowledge to share.

Upcoming Events: Meeting ! Aug 3rd 7 PM SHWC Observing ! Aug 6th Dusk Equestrian Cntr

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 2

Your 2010-2011 Officers Office Officer Phone email President Jerry Truitt 410-885-3327 President-elect Lyle Jones 302-736-9842 Secretary Michael Lecuyer 302-284-3734 Treasurer Kathy Sheldon 302-422-4695 Past President Don Surles 302-653-9445

A little bit of Chinese Astronomy

We all know, well most of us, that a majority of the stars we see have Arabic names. As the Europeans traveled the Middle East, the names and constellations were passed on and kept by these travelers. The Arab astronomers kept detailed records of the sky, especially of unusual events. But they may not have been the first. Long before the telescope, computers, Palm Pilots, and other neat gadgets, the Chinese kept track of the sky. More than just out of curiosity, it was a need to track time and predict events for the Dynasties. Have you noticed that the Chinese New Year starts in our Spring? The Chinese sky and calendar starts with the Big Dipper and is broken into 28 Mansions. Records of these Mansions go back to 3,000-6,000 BC. Many printed star maps exist for the Chinese sky, with the oldest, “The Dunhuang”, dates from ~705 AD and represents 1350 stars on a scroll. As one Dynasty ended and another began, the Chinese astronomers would redo the calendar to reflect these changes. Many events were recorded: here is a partial list:

The earliest records of Sun spots, dating from 28 BC. The earliest supernova record, dating from 14 BC. A record of the supernova in 1054, now generally associated with the Crab Nebula. 700 meteorite records. The earliest eclipse records, dating from 1300 BC in the Yin Dynasty. There are also around 1000 records of eclipses up to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The earliest record of a comet, dating from 613 BC. In total there are 360 Records of Comets from Yin Dynasty up until 1911. 31 records of Halley's Comet. (That’s ~2356+ years !) Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) talks about eclipses: “The sun is like fire and the moon like water. The fire

gives out light and the water reflects it. Thus the moon's brightness is produced from the radiance of the sun, and the moon's darkness (pho) is due to (the light of) the sun being obstructed (pi). The side which faces the sun is fully lit, and the side which is away from it is dark. The planets (as well as the moon) have the nature of water and reflect light. The light pouring forth from the sun (tang jih chih chhung kuang) does not always reach the moon owing to the obstruction (pi) of the earth itself—this is called 'an-hsü', a lunar eclipse. When (a similar effect) happens with a planet (we call it) an occultation (hsing wei); when the moon passes across (kuo) (the sun's path) then there is a solar eclipse (shih).”

Shen Kuo (1031–1095) Explained to the Chinese Observatory (~1088) on the shapes of planets and moons: “I replied that these celestial bodies were certainly like balls….The moon itself gives forth no light, but is like a ball of silver; the light is the light of the sun (reflected). When the brightness is first seen, the sun (-light passes almost) alongside, so the side only is illuminated and looks like a crescent. When the sun gradually gets further away, the light shines slanting, and the moon is full, round like a bullet. If half of a sphere is covered with (white) powder and looked at from the side, the covered part will look like a crescent; if looked at from the front, it will appear round. Thus we know that the celestial bodies are spherical.”

On page 7 you’ll find a listing of the 4 Chinese seasons, and their 28 Mansions. The Mansions are listed on the skymap for August on page 3.The Chinese symbol for the mansions are circled. Can you find the ‘teapot’ in Sagittarius ? How about Cassiopeia?

I’ve also selected a small piece of the Duhuang sky map. It’s below. The original map / scroll is 24 cm wide and 3.9 meters long, with the first 1.8 meters dedicated to cloud shape and meaning.

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 3

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 4

More Short Astronomy… Don Surles Here’s a word you don’t hear everyday even if you are an avid, learned amateur astrono-mer: Nubecula…and there is a Major and a Minor Nubecula… they are found only in the Southern Hemisphere approx 20-25 degrees from the south celestial pole…give up yet? These are the formal astronomical names for the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Further info…these irregular galaxies WERE the closest galaxies to our Milky Way Gal-axy, until 1994 when we found the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy within the Milky Way…they were first reported by survivors of Magellan’s voyage around the Earth in 1516. BTW…Nubecula is latin for “a little cloud”. More info…it seems the Europeans were a bit tardy in learning about the Magel-lanic Clouds…”The Magellanic Clouds have been known since the earliest times by the an-cient Middle Eastern peoples. The first preserved mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was by Persian astronomer Al Sufi, who in 964, in his Book of Fixed Stars, calls it al-Bakr, meaning "the Sheep", of the southern Arabs, and points out that while invisible from Northern Arabia and Baghdad, this object is visible from the strait of Bab el Mandeb, at 12°15' Northern latitude”…Wikipedia. METON…the next topic…Bet you were playing hooky the day Meton was discussed in history class. Here’s the skinny on Meton. He was an Athenian astronomer that flour-ished around 432 BC…side thought…what ‘zactly does “flourish” mean, ie, are we flour-ishing today? Back to Meton…it is easy to get distracted when studying this guy…that’s why so little is known about him. Anyway he studied the cycles of the moon, ie, luna-tions, and attempted to create a calendar based on lunar lunations. He discovered the moon took 235 cycles to get back to where it started in its orbit around Earth so he tried to create a calendar based on 235 lunations. Thank the astro gods no one under-stood him or else we might now have some ridiculous 19 year (235 lunations) calendar, aka, the Metonic Cycle. The present method for determining the date of Easter is based on the Metonic Cycle. More info…Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon that follows the Spring Equinox. Albedo…this is the measure of a body to reflect light from its surface. But as-tronomers can’t have something that simple…they have have two albedo measures…The Bond and the Geometric. The bond albedo is the fraction of power in the total electromagnetic radiation incident on an astronomical body that is scattered back out into space. The geometric albedo of an astronomical body is the ratio of its actual bright-ness at zero phase angle (i.e., as seen from the light source) to that of an idealized flat, fully reflecting, diffusively scattering (Lambertian) disk with the same cross-section. Here are the albedos of our solar system members…did you notice Enceladus’ num-bers…that’s a bright boy!

I know your eyes glazed with this worthless info…get ‘em unglazed for the next star party. Don…

Bond GeometricName Albedo AlbedoMercury 0.119 0.138Venus 0.75 0.65Earth 0.29 0.367Moon 0.123 0.113Mars 0.25 0.15Jupiter 0.343 0.52Saturn 0.342 0.47Enceladus 0.99 1.4Uranus 0.300 0.51Neptune 0.290 0.41Pluto 0.4 0.44

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 5

One Paragraph Astronomy Don Surles For those of us who have impaired attention spans…’cause there is nothing new for us to learn…here are some astro topics only one paragraph long. This follows the writing principle I learned long ago…say what you want to say in the first sentence of the first paragraph because that is probably the only one that will be read. OK…I said it in the 2nd sentence. Trojan Asteroids…a large group of objects that share the orbit of the planet Jupi-ter around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each Trojan librates around one of the planet's two Lagrangian points of stability, L4 and L5, that respectively lie 60° ahead of and be-hind the planet in its orbit. Trojan asteroids are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU. Great Comet of 1843…formally designated C/1843 D1 and 1843 I, it was a comet that became very bright in March 1843 (it is also known as the Great March Comet of 1843). It was discovered on February 5, 1843 and rapidly brightened to become a great comet. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a family of comets resulting from the breakup of a parent comet (X/1106 C1) into multiple fragments in about 1106. Now, that must have been a LARGE comet! These comets pass extremely close to the surface of the Sun—within a few solar radii—and often become very bright as a result. First observed in early February, 1843, it raced toward an incredibly close perihelion of approx 500,000 miles on February 27, 1843; at this time it was observed in broad daylight roughly a degree away from the Sun. It passed closest to Earth on March 6, 1843, and was at its greatest brilliance the following day; unfortunately for observers north of the equator, at its peak it was best visible from the Southern Hemisphere. It was last observed on April 19, 1843. At that time this comet had passed closer to the sun than any other known object. Total time for viewing…Feb 5 to Apr 19…just a little over 2 months. The Great Comet of 1843 developed an extremely long tail during and after its peri-helion passage. At 205 million miles in length, it was the longest known cometary tail until measurements in 1996 showed that Comet Hyakutake's tail was longer (the Ulysses spacecraft unexpectedly crossed the comet's tail at a distance of approx 350 million miles from the nucleus, showing that Hyakutake had the longest tail known for a comet). There are no photographs of the 1843 comet but there is a painting in the National Mari-time Museum that was created by astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth. The purpose of the painting is to show the overall brightness and size of the tail of the comet. Widmanstatten Figures…in 1808, these figures were named after Count Alois von Beckh Widmanstätten, the director of the Imperial Porcelain works in Vienna. While flame heat-ing iron meteorites, Widmanstätten noticed color and lustre zone differentiation as the various iron alloys oxidized at different rates. He did not publish his findings, claim-ing them only via oral communication with his colleagues. The discovery was acknowledged by Carl von Schreibers, director of the Vienna Mineral and Zoology Cabinet, who named the structure after Widmanstätten. However, it is now believed that full credit for the discovery should actually be assigned to G. Thomson as he published the same findings four years earlier. At right is an example: Denderah Stone…Denderah is the name of a northern Egyptian village along the Nile. There is a stone, in the temple of the Egyp-tian god Hathor, showing the sky as it was known to the Egyptians about the beginning of the Christian Era. Planet Vulcan…was a small planet proposed to exist in an orbit between Mercury and the Sun. In an attempt to explain peculiarities of Mercury's orbit, in the 19th-century French mathematician Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier hypothesized that they were the result of an-other planet, which he named Vulcan. No such planet was ever found, and Mercury's orbit has now been explained by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The name was later given to the home planet of the Star Trek character Spock when the series was cre-ated in the 1960s. Planetary Nebula…a cloud of dust and gas in space with a more regular form than the ordinary gaseous nebulae. They were named by Sir William Hershcel because, when seen thru a telescope, they show a disk…somewhat like the distant planets Uranus and Neptune. They are in no way connected to planets. Enuf of this…let’s go outside and look at the stars. Don…

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 6

The August Sky—From Half-Hours with the Stars (1911) RICHARD A. PROCTOR, F.R.A.S.

The Great Bear (Ursa Major) is low down, between northwest and north, the Pointers (α and β) directed slantingly upward toward the Pole. A line from the Pole Star (α of the Little Bear, Ursa Minor) to the Guardians of the Pole (β and γ), is in the position of the minute hand of a clock 12 minutes before an hour. Between the Great Bear and the Little Bear run the stars of the Dragon (Draco), round the Little Bear toward the north, thence toward the northwest, where we see the head of the Dragon high up, its two bright eyes, β and γ, directed toward Hercules, which occupies the western mid-heaven. Above Hercules is Lyra, the Lyre, with the bright steel-blue star Vega high up toward the point overhead. Right overhead is the Swan (Cygnus).

Low down in the northwest we see in the chart one star of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici). Nearer the west stands the Herdsman, rather slanting forward, however, with the Crown (Corona Bo-realis) on his left, almost due west. The long winding Serpent (Serpens) runs from near the Crown (where we see its head due west) to farther south than southwest, high up on the western side of the Serpent Holder (Serpentarius or Ophiuchus), now standing upright in the southwest. Low down creeps the Scorpion (Scorpio), its heart Antares, rival of Mars, in the southwest, the end of its tail between south and southwest. Above and south of the Scorpion's tail we see the Archer (Sagittarius).

Due south, and high up, is the Eagle (Aquila), its tail at ζ and ε, its head at θ, the bright steel-blue Altair marking its body. On the left, or east, of the Eagle lies the neat little Dol-phin (Delphinus). Midway between the Dolphin and the horizon is the tip of the tail of the Sea Goat (Capricornus), whose head lies nearly due south.

On the southern horizon is the head of the Indian (Indus); on its left a part of the Crane (Grus), and low down in the southeast lies Fomalhaut, the chief brilliant of the Southern Fish (Piscis Australis). Above lies the Water Bearer (Aquarius), in the southwestern mid-heaven.

Due east, fairly high, is "the Square of Pegasus," the head of the Winged Horse, Pegasus lying close by the Water Pitcher of Aquarius (marked by the stars ζ, γ, and α).

The Fishes (Pisces) are low down in the east. A few stars of the Whale (Cetus) are seen on their right, very low down. On the left of Pisces we see the Ram (Aries), low down; above it the Triangle; and above that the Chained Lady (Andromeda).

Low down in the northeast is the Rescuing Knight (Perseus); above whom is Cassiopeia, and on her left, higher up, the inconspicuous constellation Cepheus.

Lastly, immediately below Cepheus, we find the Camelopard, below which, very low down, between north and northeast, is the Charioteer (Auriga), the brilliant Capella being just above the hori-zon.

of objects to hunt down. I have a huge collection of old astronomy magazines going all the way back to the 60's and they are great pools of information on objects to observe. I overhear people at star parties talk about objects, I see references to objects in books and also on-line. So I'll make a note and add them to my list. The first 30 minutes of any observing run are spent quickly star hopping to the usual suspects to not only enjoy their beauty but to get an idea of seeing conditions. I would only encourage people to keep a logbook for their own reference. It is pretty neat to look at my log entries from when I first started to see what my first ob-servations were and what my impressions were when I was only 15 years old. Plus after all these years I have something to look back on to use as a guide for what objects visible and what they look like. My Palm Pilot has three programs on it. One is called J-Moons and it simply shows you where Jupiter's moons are at a given date and time and will show you which moons will transit and which will eclipse. Another program is called Messier and it is a database of Messier objects. It allows you to sort the M objects by RA, DEC, name or any other way you can think of. It also displays all of the important information about each object. Common names, RA, DEC, magnitude, size, etc. And the last program is called NGC. It is a database of all of the NGC and IC objects. This is also a searchable database and can sort the objects in any way imaginable. For instance you can sort by NGC, IC, Messier, Object type, magnitude and constellation. Or any combination of those parameters. So if you wanted to search for globular clusters with NGC numbers brighter than 10th magnitude in the constellation Sagittarius it would display only those objects. Choose an object from the resulting list and it will give you all of the information you would need to know to observe it. Then when you click on the Observe button it brings up a journal en-try with the date, time, object already filled out. Then you add your equipment, rating and notes. Once back home I import the entries and add them to by logbook. Some of my latest entries are on the next page. http://www.douglasnorton.com

(Logbooks from page 1)

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 7

Four Symbols Mansion (宿宿宿宿) pinyin lit. translation vicinity in sky 四象四象四象四象

The Azure Dragon of the

East 東方青龍 Spring

角 Jiǎo Horn Spica (α Vir) 亢 Kàng Neck Virgo 氐 Dī Root Libra 房 Fáng Room Libra 心 Xīn Heart Antares 尾 Wěi Tail Scorpius 箕 Jī Winnowing Basket Sagittarius

The Black Tortoise of the North 北方玄武 Winter

斗 Dǒu Dipper Sagittarius 牛 Niú Ox Capricornus 女 Nǚ Girl Aquarius 虛 Xū Emptiness Aquarius 危 Wēi Danger, Rooftop Aquarius/Pegasus 室 Shì Room, Encampment Pegasus 壁 Bì Wall Algenib Pegasus

The White Tiger of the

West 西方白虎 Fall

奎 Kuí Legs Andromeda 婁 Lóu Bond Aries 胃 Wèi Stomach Aries 昴 Mǎo Hairy Head Pleiades 畢 Bì Net Taurus 觜 Zī Turtle Beak Orion 參 Shēn Three Stars Orion

The Vermil-lion Bird of the South 南方朱雀 Summer

井 Jǐng Well Gemini 鬼 Guǐ Ogre/Demon, Ghost Cancer 柳 Liǔ Willow Hydra 星 Xīng Star Alphard 張 Zhāng Extended Net Crater 翼 Yì Wings Corvus 軫 Zhěn Strongly (as of

emotion), Chariot Corvus

NGC 4631 !!! Bright, lots of detail in the galaxy at high power. Star just above nucleus and outer arm. Long, mottling at core. 8-Jul-10

NGC 4656 Nice and easy tonight! Long, thin. Bright core. Not much detail in the arms. Just in same field as 4631 with low power! Nice! 8-Jul-10

M51 !!! Bright and easy to see. Circular spiral around central bulge. Long arm leading to satellite galaxy. Awesome at low power. High powers start to

show more detail. Foreground star inside galaxy. 8-Jul-10 8 Lac Multiple star. 4 components situated in a curved line. Hard to be be-

lieved. A beautiful string of stars. All easily separated. 8-Jul-10 NGC 6826 8-Jul-10

NGC 7027 Intensely bright planetary nebula. Lobed appearance with eastern lobe

bright and western lobe fainter. What a beautiful object. Highest power brings out stunning detail. 8-Jul-10

NGC 6572 Intense green. Even more intense in color than most others. Very striking. Very small. 8-Jul-10

NGC 6751 Very large planetary. Easily seen against background sky. Surprisingly large as most are nearly stellar. 8-Jul-10

NGC 6781 Large, faint, seems to have a darker center. 8-Jul-10 NGC 7662 Blue Snowball. Bright. Small. Blue green. 8-Jul-10 NGC 6960 Veil. Stunning! Bright! Large! Easily followed throughout entire nebula. 8-Jul-10 NGC 7331 Much more detail tonight. Dust lane more prominent. 8-Jul-10

M27 Much better tonight than usual! Wonderful large pn. 8-Jul-10 NGC 6543 Big, bright, greenish white. Diffuse, slightly elongated. No detail seen

across face. 11-Jul-10

NGC 6826 Awesome! Bright, central star easy and bright. Nebulosity greenish blue. Perfect circle. Slightly brighter near center. Outer edges seem to fall

off in brightness. 11-Jul-10 NGC 6905 Success! Nice fairly small pn nudged in between three stars. Wispy thin

nebulosity circular with irregular edges. No central star. Nice! 11-Jul-10 NGC 7009 Awesome! Saturn Nebula. Bright. Large. Antennae visible with 13mm Nagler

and 9mm TMB. Light Green. 11-Jul-10

NGC 7026

Really awesome! Small. Fairly faint although easy once found. No real color other than bright. Appears to be lobed, pinched in the middle. Right next to a star. No central star detected. Really pretty star field. Awe-

some object! Visible at all powers. 9mm TMB shows the pinching. 11-Jul-10 NGC 7662 Blue Snowball. Blue Green color. Bright, big, some detail seen in disc.

Faint star right off limb. Beautiful. 11-Jul-10 NGC 6572 Tiny, bright, easy find. No discernible detail. Nearly stellar. Small.

Fuzzy, not clearly defined. 11-Jul-10 IC 4593 Appears nearly stellar. Green. Bright. High power shows slight nebulosity. 11-Jul-10

The Chinese Mansions

August 2010 Volume 17 Number 02 Page 8 Moondark is on hiatus this month. The column should return soon. Look here or keep an eye out on the Moondark web site ).

How to Join the Delmarva Stargazers: Anyone with an interest in any aspect of astronomy is welcome NAME________________________________________________________________________________________ ADDRESS_____________________________________________________________________________________ CITY, STATE & ZIP______________________________________________________________________________ E-MAIL ADDRESS (If any)_________________________________________________________________________ Do you need the newsletter snail mailed to you (Y/N)?___________________________________________________ Please attach a check for $15 made payable to Delmarva Stargazers and mail to Kathy Sheldon, 20985 Fleatown Rd, Lincoln, DE 19960. Call club President Don Surles at 302-653-9445 for more information.

The Sun Can Still Remind Us Who’s Boss by Dr. Tony Phillips

Grab your cell phone and take a good long look. It's indispensible, right? It tells time, surfs the web, keeps track of your appointments and, by the way, also makes phone calls. Modern people can hardly live without one. One good solar flare could knock it all out. “In the 21st century, we’re increasingly dependent on technology,” points out Tom Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. “This makes solar activity an important part of our daily lives.” Indeed, bad space weather can knock out power systems, telecommunications, financial and emergency services—basically, anything that needs electronics to work. That’s why NOAA is building a new fleet of “space weather stations,” the GOES-R satellites. “GOES-R will bring our existing fleet of weather satellites into the 21st century,” says Bog-dan. “They're designed to monitor not only Earth weather, but space weather as well.” NOAA's existing fleet of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) already includes some space weather capabilities: solar ultraviolet and X-ray telescopes, a magnetometer and energetic particle sensors. GOES-R will improve upon these instruments and add important new sensors to the mix. One of Bogdan’s favorites is a particle detector named “MPS-Low,” which specializes in sensing low-energy (30 ev – 30 keV) particles from the sun. Who cares about low-energy particles? It turns out they can be as troublesome as their high-energy counterparts. Protons and other atomic nuclei accelerated to the highest energies by solar flares can pene-trate a satellite’s exterior surface, causing all kinds of problems when they reach internal electronics. Low-energy particles, particularly electrons, can’t penetrate so deeply. Instead, they do their damage on the out-side. As Bogdan explains, “Low-energy particles can build up on the surfaces of spacecraft, creating a mist of charge. As voltages increase, sparks and arcs can zap electronics—or emit radio pulses that can be misin-terpreted by onboard computers as a command.” The Galaxy 15 communications satellite stopped working during a solar wind storm in April 2010, and many researchers believe low-energy particles are to blame. GOES-R will be able to monitor this population of particles and alert operators when it’s time to shut down sensitive systems. “This is something new GOES-R will do for us,” says Bogdan. The GOES-R magnetometer is also a step ahead. It will sample our planet’s magnetic field four times faster than its predecessors, sensing vibrations that previous GOES satellites might have missed. Among other things, this will help forecasters anticipate the buildup of geomagnetic storms. And then there are the pictures. GOES–R will beam back striking images of the sun at X-ray and extreme UV wavelengths. These are parts of the electromagnetic spectrum where solar flares and other eruptions make themselves known with bright flashes of high-energy radiation. GOES-R will pinpoint the flashes and identify their sources, allowing forecasters to quickly assess whether or not Earth is in the “line of fire.” They might also be able to answer the question, Is my cell phone about to stop working? The first GOES-R satellite is scheduled for launch in 2015. Check www.goes-r.gov for updates. Space weather comes down to Earth in the clear and fun explanation for young people on SciJinks, http://scijinks.gov/space-weather-and-us. This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Admini-stration. In spite of Earth’s protective magnetosphere, solar storms can wreak havoc with Earth satel-lites and other expensive electronics on the ground.