The Monthly Newsletter of the Bays Mountain …The Monthly Newsletter of the Bays Mountain Astronomy...

The Monthly Newsletter of the

BaysMountain AstronomyClub

Edited by Adam Thanz M o re o n t h i s i m a g e .

S e e F N 1

May 2016

Chapter 1

Looking Up

B r a n d o n S t ro u p e - B M A C C h a i r

M o re o n t h i s i m a g e .

S e e F N 2

Hello BMACers,

Welcome to the month of May. Spring and allergy season is in full swing. Many of us are miserable with all the different symptoms of those dreaded allergies. I admit that I am one of them. Hopefully they will come and go quickly. Enough about that, we have a lot going on this month. We have the meeting on May 6th, the Mercury transit on May 9th, and Astronomy Day on May 14th. It is a busy month for our wonderful hobby. These upcoming events will also be a very good opportunity to get the public interested in astronomy, especially the kids. I believe getting the kids interested in astronomy is essential to the continuation of this field of study. Most of us can remember what got us hooked as a kid or maybe even as an adult. We need to try to get the same thing to happen to our future generations.

Our meeting this month will feature some of Tom Rutherford’s high school students. Our May meeting has become the month that Tom always has some of his students come and give a presentation on the projects they have been working on in his research class. Though not all of them are about astronomy, they are about science and they are always very interesting. Tom is an

active science teacher at Sullivan South High School in Kingsport. Every year, some of his students are chosen to give their presentations at local and regional science fairs. Some even make it to the national level. Just this year, a few of his students were chosen to present their papers at the Tennessee Junior Academy of Sciences meeting in Nashville. Tom just seems to have a way to motivate and get his students very interested in the sciences. Well, that or they just seem to end up in his class. Either way, we are glad to see students so excited and motivated. As for the meeting, the topics of the presentations have not been revealed but they will most certainly be informative and enjoyable. I hope everyone will come up and see these students’ presentations.

At our April meeting, we featured one of our very own members, Robin Byrne. She is an Associate Professor in the Science Department at Northeast State Community College in Blountville, TN. Her presentation was about Margaret Geller, a woman in astronomy who has met both success and frustration in her quest to discover the structure of the Universe. This was the final presentation on our series on “Women in Astronomy.” Robin

Brandon Stroupe

Looking Up

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter May 2016 3


S e e F N 3

4 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter May 2016

Canes Venatici

image from Stellarium

layout by Adam Thanz

talked about her early life and where she received her education and the various jobs at a couple of universities she had in her career. One major achievement she talked about was Margaret Geller’s work in mapping the Universe. Her work in mapping the Universe led to the discovery of the Great Wall, which is an immense galaxy filament. There are even a few movies about her. Margaret Geller is also the co-discoverer of hypervelocity stars. Margaret is now currently the senior research professor at the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research now is on HectoMAP which is a more distant survey of the Universe. This was a very good presentation on the life of a great woman in astronomy. Thank you, Robin, for your informative and enjoyable presentation. I hope everyone enjoyed this series and hopefully we can do more like it again in the future.

Our constellation this month will be Canes Venatici. It is translated to “The Hunting Dogs.” These are the hunting dogs held on a leash by Boötes as he hunts for the bears Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Although the stars in this constellation are not very bright, they are home to a few well known deep-sky objects. Canes Venatici has 5 Messier objects in it. Four of which are galaxies. The galaxies are M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy), M63 (the Sunflower Galaxy), M94, and M106. The 5th Messier object is the globular cluster M3. All of these objects can be easily seen in a small to large size telescope. Another really cool feature of this constellation is that is home to possibly the largest void ever

discovered. It is called the Giant Void. Like its named suggests, it is an extremely large part of the Universe containing very few galaxies. Next time you get a chance to get out under the stars, remember to give Canes Venatici a look and enjoy the beauty of its objects and in the Giant Void’s case, the lack thereof.

That will be it for this month. Remember that the StarWatches end in April and they will pick back up in October. I would like to thank everyone that came out to help with them. It is always fun to get to show the public the wonders of our Universe. Please remember that the SunWatches will still happen every Saturday and Sunday from 3:00-3:30 p.m. if it is clear and we are always happy to have volunteers from the club to help out with this too. If you would like to help out, please arrive about 30 minutes early to help set up the equipment. Also, don’t forget about Astronomy Day. It will be on Saturday, May 14th beginning at 1 p.m. The table displays will run from 1 to 4:30 p.m. After our dinner break, we’ll continue with night viewing starting at 8:30 p.m. and go until about 10 p.m. Any help is welcome, especially for manning a table. If you would like to help, please contact me or William Troxel. I also want to remind everyone about the Mercury Transit coming up on May 9th. It will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at “the Yards” which are located on ETSU grounds in Johnson City, TN. This will probably be a very popular public event, so please feel free to come out and help and enjoy the transit for yourself. Until next month… Clear Skies.


Chapter 2

BMACNotes


S e e F N 4

ReschedulingNote, due to scheduling needs, the June 2016 meeting will be held on the 10th.

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Public Mercury Transit Viewing May 9, 2016The BMAC will co-host a free, public viewing of the Mercury transit with the ETSU Physics Dept. at ETSU on either the CPA Front or Side Yard. The viewing is 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. BMACers wanting to help man a scope will need to arrive by 9 a.m. If the weather is poor, the event is cancelled. Please see the website for details.

http://www.baysmountain.com/astronomy/observatory/?GTTabs=2

If you are able to spend the day, please come help. Bring a scope with a proper solar filter or use one of the Park’s scopes if one is available.

Remember, it will be outside in the sun most of the day (hopefully). Bring plenty of water, a hat, a chair, and lunch.

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Astronomy Day May 14, 2016The BMAC will host the annual, international day of astronomy with displays and observing. The displays start for the public at 1 p.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. If you want to help man a table and share astronomy with the Park’s visitors, please show up by noon to set up tables and materials. If you are thinking of helping, maybe even with your own display you’ve put together, please contact William Troxel at [email protected].

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BMAC News



S e e F N 3





mailto:[email protected]


Chapter 3

Star Stuff

Te r r y A l f o rd


S e e F N 5

May is going to be an exceptional month for planetary watchers. First out of the box is tiny Mercury. It will travel across the face of the Sun on May 9. The event starts about 7:12 a.m. EDT and lasts until 2:42 p.m. So there’s plenty of time to set up a camera and take a few shots and/or to share the view with others through your telescope. My plans are to be at ETSU for this outreach event. It has been about 10 years since the last Mercury transit. I am sure we will not have nearly the same public attendance as we did during the last Venus transit, but it should still be a fun event. Otherwise, both Venus and Mercury are lost in the Sun’s glare this month.

Mars is going to put on quite a show! The red planet is at opposition on May 22 and is actually closest to Earth on May 30. This is the closest approach in 11 years, so unless the planet is cloaked in a massive dust storm this should be an excellent month for Mars viewing. It starts the month at magnitude –1.5 and by month’s end is –2.1, getting about as bright as Jupiter. It will also reach a maximum diameter of 18.6” by the end of May. Unfortunately, Mars is located pretty far south in Scorpius but

don’t let that slow down your viewing efforts. Wait for those clear, steady moments of sky and crank up the magnification.

Jupiter is still an impressive object shining brightly in Leo as soon as darkness settles in. At the start of the month it is –2.3 magnitude and 41” wide. By the end of May it shrinks to –2.1 mag and 37” wide but still plenty large enough to show considerable details in the cloud cover. Enjoy Jupiter while it is still high in the sky.

Saturn is near Mars all month and forms a neat triangle with Mars and Antares in Scorpius. It is not quite as bright as the Red Planet at mag 0.0 but still very noticeable. The ring system is still tilted very favorable for viewing at 26°. The public is always wanting to see Mars and Saturn. What an opportunity to see both so close to each other in the Summer sky.

Uranus and Neptune are very poorly placed for viewing this month.

New Moon is on May 6 and Full Moon is on May 21.

Terry Alford

Star Stuff



S e e F N 3

The Eta Aquariid meteor shower should peak on the mornings of May 5th and 6th. This event is associated with Comet Halley and under ideal conditions can produce 60 meteors per hour. There will be no Moon presence this year so enjoy a nice meteor display right before dawn.


Chapter 4

TheQueenSpeaks

R o b i n B y r n e

This month, we honor a woman who, to this day, holds more aviation records than any man or woman, living or dead. Jacqueline Cochran was born May 11, 1906 in the Florida Panhandle (either Pensacola or DeFuniak Springs, depending on the source). Her birth name was Bessie Lee Pittman. Already we’ve encountered one of the problems with telling Jackie’s story - there are multiple versions, partly due to her own 1953 autobiography, in which she recreated her early life to tell a better story. As Jackie herself said, “I added and subtracted information at will, as it suited me. I didn’t see it as lying, so much as survival.”

Despite claiming to have been raised in extreme poverty by adoptive parents, Jackie’s early years, although tough, were not quite as melodramatic. No, she was not adopted, although she stuck to that story and required family members to uphold the charade in later years. She did work as a child to help the family financially, including working in a textile mill and sweeping floors in a beauty parlor. Jackie married very young, either 13 or 14 years old, to Robert Cochran. They had one son, who died at the age of five. The marriage ended, but Jackie kept the name

Cochran, and it was at this time that she began calling herself Jacqueline. Jackie advanced in the beauty parlor to cutting and dressing hair, but wanted more. She enrolled in nursing school, and even worked in a doctor’s office, but it wasn’t right for her.

With a plan to improve her life, Jackie moved to New York City and talked her way into a job for a prestigious salon at Saks Fifth Avenue. Jackie quickly advanced and wanted to start her own cosmetics line. In 1932, on a trip to Miami, Florida, Jackie attended a dinner and found herself seated next to Floyd Odlum, a wealthy business financier and founder of the movie studio RKO. They immediately hit it off, and he was interested in helping Jackie with her plans. With the Depression in full swing, he knew she would need to offer something unique to make it in the business world. He suggested she learn to fly an airplane, and use the gimmick of flying into towns to attract customers. This was the beginning of a relationship that went beyond business, despite Odlum being married with children.

It took Jackie only 3 weeks to get her pilot’s license, and she had discovered her true love. Two years later, she had entered her first air race and had a commercial pilot’s license. She and

Robin Byrne

Happy Birthday Jackie Cochran



S e e F N 3


1938 Bendix Race "Before the United States joined World War, she was part of "Wings for Britain"

that delivered American built

aircraft to Britain and she became the first woman to fly a

bomber (a Lockhead Hudson

V) across the Alantic."

Source: Wikipedia


Jacqueline Cochran 1943

Source: Wikipedia

Amelia Earhart became close friends, often flying in the same competitions. By 1935, Jackie was not only making a name for herself as a pilot, but she was also the owner of a multi-million dollar cosmetics business. In 1936, Odlum divorced his wife and married Jackie, though she never changed her name to Odlum.

Jackie’s accomplishments as a pilot are overwhelming. In 1934, she was the only woman to compete in the MacRobertson Air Race. In 1937, she was the only woman to compete in the Bendix race. That same year, she set a women’s speed record and was the first woman to make a blind instrument landing. In 1938, she won the Bendix race and set a transcontinental speed record, plus multiple altitude records.

With the imminent approach of America’s involvement in World War II, Jackie volunteered in the “Wings for Britain” program, flying aircraft built for Britain from the states to England. In this capacity, she became the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. While in England, she helped recruit American female pilots for the British Air Transport Auxiliary. In 1940, Jackie wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt to propose a similar program in America to use female pilots in non-military positions, in order to free up male pilots for combat. Her request was passed on to Lt. Col. Robert Olds, who asked for information about how many women were available and their qualifications. The final say had to come from Lt. General “Hap” Arnold, who asked Jackie to take some of the women pilots to England to observe their program. In 1942,

General Arnold created the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), with Nancy Harkness Love in charge. Jackie felt that the women pilots could contribute much more than just ferrying aircraft. She convinced Arnold to create the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), with Jackie at its head. In 1943, the two were combined to create the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), and, of course, Jackie was in charge. For her service, Jackie received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945. In 1948, Jackie became a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. She was later promoted to colonel.

With the end of the war, Jackie returned to record-setting. At the encouragement of Chuck Yeager, a long-time friend, Jackie flew a Canadair F-86 Sabre faster than the speed of sound, becoming the first woman to break the sound barrier. Two years later, she became the first woman to fly Mach 2. While consulting for Northrop Corporation, Jackie flew their supersonic trainer, setting speed, distance, and altitude records. She also was the first woman to land a plane on an aircraft carrier.

In addition to flying, Jackie also had an interest in politics. During her wartime efforts, she had become friends with Dwight D. Eisenhower. She and her husband helped convince him to run for president in 1952. In 1956, Jackie ran for Congress. She won the Republican nomination (beating out five men), but lost a close race to her Democratic opponent. One of the very few times in her life that Jackie ever lost anything, friends said the defeat



Jackie Cochran and Chuck Yeager

being presented with

the Harmon International Trophies by President Dwight D.

Eisenhower. (Photo

courtesy Air Force Flight Test Center

History Office)

Source: Wikipedia


Jackie Cochrane in her record-setting Canadair F-86,

talking with Charles E.

Yeager

Source: Wikipedia

haunted her the rest of her life.

The 99’s was an organization of female pilots established in 1929. Jackie had been a member for ages, even serving as its president from 1941 to 1943. In the early 1960’s, William Randolph Lovelace had begun a program to put women through the same tests the Mercury astronauts were being subjected to. Looking for women with flight experience, the 99’s were a natural source. Although Jackie was past the age limit, she made her own contribution by financing some of the tests and helping the women afford the travel involved. The group of women were narrowed down to thirteen, so they were dubbed the Mercury 13. Never officially sanctioned by NASA, the program was eventually cancelled, in part due to Jackie testifying against it during a congressional hearing. Despite being an original supporter, some of the women in the group suspected Jackie was becoming jealous of the attention paid to Jerrie Cobb (the first woman involved with the group), taking away Jackie’s spotlight. Her revenge was to have the program shut down.

The last of Jackie’s firsts occurred in 1971 when she became the first woman inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. It was not long after this honor that Jackie was told she would need to wear a pacemaker. That put an end to her flying days. She retired to Indio, California. After her husband died in 1976, her health quickly deteriorated. Jackie Cochran died August 9, 1980 at the age of 74. Her memorial service was held at

the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Among her numerous honors and awards received both during her life and after her death, the one that stands out for me has an astronomical connection. When the Magellan Spacecraft mapped the surface of Venus (the only planet named after a goddess), it was decided to name the features for prominent women. In 1985, the International Astronomical Union named a 100 km diameter crater after Cochran. Even though Venus is currently not visible, when it returns to the night sky in August, take a moment to remember Jackie Cochran, an amazing, accomplished woman.

References:

Jacquelin Cochran - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Cochran

WASP Museum Jackie Cochran Biography

http://waspmuseum.org/jackie-cochran-biography/

Jacqueline Cochran - Pilot - biography.com

http://www.biography.com/people/jacqueline-cochran-9252061#breaking-records

National Aviation Hall of Fame

http://www.nationalaviation.org/cochran-jacqueline/21 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter May 2016









http://www.nationalaviation.org/cochran-jacqueline/

http://www.nationalaviation.org/cochran-jacqueline/

Chapter 5

Space Place


S e e F N 6

The farther away you look in the distant Universe, the harder it is to see what’s out there. This isn’t simply because more distant objects appear fainter, although that’s true. It isn’t because the Universe is expanding, and so the light has farther to go before it reaches you, although that’s true, too. The reality is that if you built the largest optical telescope you could imagine -- even one that was the size of an entire planet -- you still wouldn’t see the new cosmic record-holder that Hubble just discovered: galaxy GN-z11, whose light traveled for 13.4 billion years, or 97% the age of the Universe, before finally reaching our eyes.

There were two special coincidences that had to line up for Hubble to find this: one was a remarkable technical achievement, while the other was pure luck. By extending Hubble’s vision away from the ultraviolet and optical and into the infrared, past 800 nanometers all the way out to 1.6 microns, Hubble became sensitive to light that was severely stretched and redshifted by the expansion of the Universe. The most energetic light that hot, young, newly forming stars produce is the Lyman-α line, which is produced at an ultraviolet wavelength of just 121.567 nanometers. But at high redshifts, that line passed not just into the visible but all the way through to the infrared, and for the newly discovered galaxy, GN-z11, its whopping redshift of 11.1

pushed that line all the way out to 1471 nanometers, more than double the limit of visible light!

Hubble itself did the follow-up spectroscopic observations to confirm the existence of this galaxy, but it also got lucky: the only reason this light was visible is because the region of space between this galaxy and our eyes is mostly ionized, which isn’t true of most locations in the Universe at this early time! A redshift of 11.1 corresponds to just 400 million years after the Big Bang, and the hot radiation from young stars doesn’t ionize the majority of the Universe until 550 million years have passed. In most directions, this galaxy would be invisible, as the neutral gas would block this light, the same way the light from the center of our galaxy is blocked by the dust lanes in the galactic plane. To see farther back, to the Universe’s first true galaxies, it will take the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s infrared eyes are much less sensitive to the light-extinction caused by neutral gas than instruments like Hubble. Webb may reach back to a redshift of 15 or even 20 or more, and discover the true answer to one of the Universe’s greatest mysteries: when the first galaxies came into existence!

Dr. Ethan Siegel

Hubble Shatters the Cosmic Record for Most Distant Galaxy



S e e F N 3



S e e F N 8

This article is provided by NASA Space Place. With articles, activities, crafts, games, and lesson plans, NASA Space Place encourages everyone to get excited about science and technology. Visit spaceplace.nasa.gov to explore space and Earth science!


Chapter 6

BMAC

Calendar

and more


S e e F N 7

BMAC Calendar and more



S e e F N 3

Date Time Location NotesB M A C M e e t i n g sB M A C M e e t i n g sB M A C M e e t i n g sB M A C M e e t i n g s

Friday, May 6, 2016 7 p.m. Nature CenterDiscovery Theater

Program: BMACer Tom Rutherford will have some of his Sullivan South High School students present their research work.; Free.

Friday, June 10, 2016 7 p.m. Nature CenterDiscovery Theater Notice date! Program: TBA; Election for chairperson. free.

Friday, August 5, 2016 7 p.m. Nature CenterDiscovery Theater Program: TBA; free.

S u n W a t c hS u n W a t c hS u n W a t c hS u n W a t c h

Every Saturday & SundayMarch - October

3-3:30 p.m. if clear At the dam View the Sun safely with a white-light view if clear.; Free.

S t a r W a t c hS t a r W a t c hS t a r W a t c hS t a r W a t c h

Saturday, April 23, 30, 2016 8:30 p.m. 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.

S p e c i a l E v e n t sS p e c i a l E v e n t sS p e c i a l E v e n t sS p e c i a l E v e n t s

Monday, May 9, 2016 10 a.m -3 p.m.

ETSU CPA Front or Side Yard

Mercury Transit - Come help with this public viewing program. Please show up by 9 a.m. to set up. BMACers will need to bring a scope with proper solar filtration, plenty of water, a hat, a chair, and lunch. See the website

for more details. http://www.baysmountain.com/astronomy/observatory/?GTTabs=2

Saturday, May 14, 20161-4:30 p.m.

8:30-10 p.m.

Nature Center; Dam;

Observatory

Annual Astronomy Day - Displays et al. on the walkway leading to the Nature Center, 1-4:30 p.m.; Solar viewing 3-4 p.m. at the dam; Night viewing 8:30-10 p.m. at the observatory.

Saturday, July 16, 2016 6 p.m. till nighttime

Natural Tunnel State Park, VA

Annual club picnic. BMACers and their families are most welcome to enjoy the evening at the gazebo along with a potluck dinner and stargazing for the Park’s campers. Please bring a dish to share. You’ll need to bring your

own chair and telescope to share the night sky.



Bays Mountain Astronomy Club

853 Bays Mountain Park Road

Kingsport, TN 37650

1 (423) 229-9447

www.baysmountain.com

[email protected]

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/

Regular Contributors:

Brandon Stroupe

Brandon is the current chair of the club. He is a photographer for their business,

Broader Horizons Photography and an avid astrophotographer. He has been a member

since 2007.

Terry Alford

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.


http://www.baysmountain.com

http://www.baysmountain.com



http://www.baysmountain.com/astronomy/astronomy-club/

http://www.baysmountain.com/astronomy/astronomy-club/

Footnotes:1. The Rite of SpringOf 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 (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. Duke on the Craters EdgeAstronaut Charles M. Duke Jr., Lunar Module pilot of the Apollo 16 mission, is photographed collecting lunar samples at Station no. 1 during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity at the Descartes landing site. This picture, looking eastward, was taken by Astronaut John W. Young, commander. Duke is standing at the rim of Plum crater, which is 40 meters in diameter and 10 meters deep. The parked Lunar Roving Vehicle can be seen in the left background.Image AS16-114-18423Creator/Photographer: NASA John W. Young

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

Section 3

Footnotes



S e e F N 3

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://ciclops.org

http://ciclops.org

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-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. 47 TucanaeIn 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."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 Earth-sized 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 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)

6. Space Place is a fantastic source of scientific educational materials for children of all ages. Visit them at:http://spaceplace.nasa.gov

7. NGC 3982Though 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)

8. Images credit: (top); NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale University), G. Brammer (STScI), P. van Dokkum (Yale University), and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz) (bottom), of the galaxy GN-z11, the most distant and highest-redshifted galaxy ever discovered and spectroscopically confirmed thus far.


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