Quick restart of Big Bang machine stuns scientists - USATODAY.com

Quick restart of Big Bang machine stuns scientists - USATODAY.com

Scientists are preparing the world's largest atom smasher to explore the depths of matter after successfully restarting the $10 billion machine following more than a year of repairs.

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Astronomy Day at The Herrett Center

The Herrett Center will be hosting its annual Astronomy Day events on Saturday May 2^nd. Our club, Magic Valley Astronomical Society, will be assisting throughout the day. During a break in the days events will be the monthly Astronomy club meeting. Please use the schedule below to better assist you.

1:00-3:00 Space and Astronomy Videos/Frost-Eccles Library

1:00-5:00 Space & Astronomy Make-n-Take Activities, Puzzles, and Coloring Pages/Rick Allen Room

Water Bottle Rocket Construction & Launch/Rick Allen Room & East Lawn

1:00-6:00 Solar & Daytime Target Viewing/Centennial Observatory (weather permitting)

Self-guided Scale Model of the Solar System/North College Road Fitness Trail

2:00 “Blown Away – The Wild World of Weather”/Faulkner Planetarium

4:00 “Mystery of the Missing Seasons w/ Live Sky Tour”/Faulkner Planetarium

4:00-7:00 Space and Astronomy Videos/Frost-Eccles Library

7:00 “Bad Astronomy – Myths and Misconceptions”/Faulkner Planetarium

7:00 Magic Valley Astronomical Society monthly meeting, “Barringer Impact Crater” by club president Terry Wofford

8:15 “Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon”/Faulkner Planetarium

8:30-12:00 Star Party/Centennial Observatory (weather permitting)

Magic Valley Astronomical Society

If you live in the South-central portion of the state of Idaho, and you have a fondness towards Astronomy, allow me to invite you to come out to the monthly meetings of the Magic Valley Astronomical Society!

We meet every 2nd Saturday of the month in the Rick Allen Room at the Herrett Center on the CSI Campus.

Meetings start at 7PM and run for approximately an hour. Afterwards is a free star party in the adjacent observatory.

Come on out! We hope to see you there!

Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

Microsoft has put out a free piece of software called WorldWide Telescope. This tool stitches together the entire Deep Sky Survey and allows the user to wander the heavens, even on a cloudy day!

In April, my presentation is going to be using the WorldWide Telescope to present to the Magic Valley Astronomical Society the complete Messier List with Holst's, The Planets as a backdrop.

Stop over to Microsoft's web site and grab yourself a copy!

Galaxy Zoo

The other day, while attempting to focus on my class prepping, I was tossed an interesting article by a colleague. It was a BBC News video on how Astronomers from Oxford University have come up with a solution to help count the stars in the cosmos and classify its galaxies.

They are asking members of the public to do the job.

With millions of galaxies photographed through the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, astronomers need your help cataloging them all. One astronomer has set up a web site called Galaxy Zoo. This allows anyone with an Internet connection to log on and participate in the project of cataloging and sorting all of these galaxies photographed. The interface is simple and easy to use, asking simple questions that lead to an accurate tag for a galaxy. It doesn't cost you anything and the project allows a non-professional get plugged into one serious program.

Kevin Schawinski, a member of Oxford University’s astrophysics department, said that using a large group of volunteers was still the most efficient way of completing the task.

“The human brain is actually better than a computer at pattern-recognition tasks like this,” he said. “Whether you spend five minutes, 15 minutes or five hours using the site your contribution will be invaluable.”

Visitors to the website can read a brief tutorial on galaxy identification before classifying the images, many of which have never been examined before, using a simple tick-box feedback form. Visitors will also be able to print out posters of the galaxies they have explored.

Lulin Has Arrived!

One of the more exciting opportunities an amateur astronomer has over others, who do not study the sky is that we get to view celestial objects that most people miss. Comet Lulin (aka C/2007 N3) is getting brighter in the night sky! Below are a couple of posts online regarding the comet.

Check it out and see if you can find it in your winter sky!

Related Articles:

• Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Catch Winter's Comet
• Scientific American
• Universe Today
  

UC Santa Cruz Astronomers Document Distant Planet's Exploding Skies

UC Santa Cruz astronomers document distant planet's exploding skies

By Michael Torrice - Sentinel correspondent
Posted: 01/28/2009 04:50:38 PM PST


Every 111 days, a distant planet called HD 80606b has its skies explode with swirling storms, say UC Santa Cruz astronomers.

The UCSC scientists produced their extraterrestrial weather report after watching the planet heat up as it passed by a nearby star.

"The temperature of the planet's atmosphere increased rapidly as it passed close to the star," said Gregory Laughlin, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. "The whole planet was glowing red-hot."

By studying weather on far-away planets, scientists hope to improve their understanding of the physics of weather on Earth, Laughlin says.

"It's useful to compare the predictable, sedate weather on Earth to the wildly changing weather on other planets," Laughlin said.

HD 80606b circles a star 200 light years, or over one quadrillion miles, from Earth. Like Jupiter, the planet is a gas giant 10 times larger than Earth.

Laughlin and his collaborators decided to study the planet because of its odd orbit. For one day of its 111-day orbit, the planet swings within three million miles of the star, closer than Mercury's distance to the sun.

"The planet makes a death-defying plunge toward the star and gets a heavy dose of heating," Laughlin said.

To measure the heating, the UCSC astronomers watched the infrared light streaming from the planet using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In the cover story of Wednesday's issue of Nature, they report the temperature of the planet's atmosphere jumped from 980 degrees to 2,240 degrees after it passed by the star.

Jonathan Langton, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSC and coauthor of the study, used the Spitzer telescope data to create a computer simulation of weather on the planet.

In the simulations, weather fronts erupt on the hot side of the planet with wind speeds exceeding 10,000 mph. The fronts then race toward the planet's dark side like shockwaves and develop into violent storms that eventually subside as the planet travels away from the star and cools.
"Even though it's a beautiful thing to observe, it would be a dramatically unpleasant place to be," Laughlin said.

Amateur astronomers may have a chance to glimpse HD 80606b in action Feb. 14. There is a 15 percent chance the planet will pass in front of its partner star causing the star's light to dim briefly, Laughlin said.

The Red Planet is Not a Dead Planet

Here is an article I found at SCIENCE.NASA.GOV. It details how methane has been discovered on what we once considered a dead planet.

- - -

Jan. 15, 2009: Mars today is a world of cold and lonely deserts, apparently without life of any kind, at least on the surface. Indeed it looks like Mars has been cold and dry for billions of years, with an atmosphere so thin, any liquid water on the surface quickly boils away while the sun's ultraviolet radiation scorches the ground.

The situation sounds bleak, but research published today in Science Express reveals new hope for the Red Planet. The first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars indicates that Mars is still alive, in either a biologic or geologic sense, according to a team of NASA and university scientists.

"Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas," says lead author Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "At northern mid-summer, methane is released at a rate comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, Calif."

Right: An artist's concept of a possible geological source of Martian methane: subsurface water, carbon dioxide and the planet's internal heat combine to release the gas. [animation]

Methane -- four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom -- is the main component of natural gas on Earth. It is of interest to astrobiologists because much of Earth's methane come from living organisms digesting their nutrients. However, life is not required to produce the gas. Other purely geological processes, like oxidation of iron, also release methane. "Right now, we don't have enough information to tell if biology or geology -- or both -- is producing the methane on Mars," said Mumma. "But it does tell us that the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It's as if Mars is challenging us, saying, hey, find out what this means."

If microscopic Martian life is producing the methane, it likely resides far below the surface, where it's still warm enough for liquid water to exist. Liquid water, as well as energy sources and a supply of carbon, are necessary for all known forms of life.

"On Earth, microorganisms thrive 2 to 3 kilometers (about 1.2 to 1.9 miles) beneath the Witwatersrand basin of South Africa, where natural radioactivity splits water molecules into molecular hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen (O). The organisms use the hydrogen for energy. It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon," says Mumma.

"Gases, like methane, accumulated in such underground zones might be released into the atmosphere if pores or fissures open during the warm seasons, connecting the deep zones to the atmosphere at crater walls or canyons," he says.

"Microbes that produced methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide were one of the earliest forms of life on Earth," notes Carl Pilcher, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute which partially supported the research. "If life ever existed on Mars, it's reasonable to think that its metabolism might have involved making methane from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide."

Above: This graphic shows one way methane is destroyed in the Martian atmosphere: the molecules are rapidly broken apart by solar ultraviolet radiation. Because methane doesn't last long in the martian environment, any methane found there must be recently produced. [animation]

However, it is possible a geologic process produced the Martian methane, either now or eons ago. On Earth, the conversion of iron oxide (rust) into the serpentine group of minerals creates methane, and on Mars this process could proceed using water, carbon dioxide, and the planet's internal heat. Another possibility is vulcanism: Although there is no evidence of currently active Martian volcanoes, ancient methane trapped in ice "cages" called clathrates might now be released.

The team found methane in the atmosphere of Mars by carefully observing the planet over several Mars years (and all Martian seasons) using spectrometers attached to telescopes at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, run by the University of Hawaii, and the W. M. Keck telescope, both at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

"We observed and mapped multiple plumes of methane on Mars, one of which released about 19,000 metric tons of methane," says Geronimo Villanueva of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Villanueva is stationed at NASA Goddard and is co-author of the paper. "The plumes were emitted during the warmer seasons -- spring and summer -- perhaps because the permafrost blocking cracks and fissures vaporized, allowing methane to seep into the Martian air. Curiously, some plumes had water vapor while others did not," he says.

Above: Methane plumes found in Mars' atmosphere during the northern summer season. Credit: Trent Schindler/NASA [animation]

According to the team, the plumes were seen over areas that show evidence of ancient ground ice or flowing water. For example, plumes appeared over northern hemisphere regions such as east of Arabia Terra, the Nili Fossae region, and the south-east quadrant of Syrtis Major, an ancient volcano 1,200 kilometers (about 745 miles) across.

It will take future missions, like NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, to discover the origin of the Martian methane. One way to tell if life is the source of the gas is by measuring isotope ratios. Isotopes are heavier versions of an element; for example, deuterium is a heavier version of hydrogen. In molecules that contain hydrogen, like water and methane, the rare deuterium occasionally replaces a hydrogen atom. Since life prefers to use the lighter isotopes, if the methane has less deuterium than the water released with it on Mars, it's a sign that life is producing the methane.

Whatever future research reveals--biology or geology--one thing is already clear: Mars is not so dead, after all.

NASA NEEDS YOU

NASA NEEDS YOU:
NASA is forming a mini-Deep Space Network to monitor the "Dark Side" of the Sun. Ham radio clubs with access to 10m dish antennas can join the effort. Read the full story from Science@NASA and, if you're an experienced ham with an interest in participating, contact the STEREO team for technical details.

Welcome to the Online Astronomer

Hi folks!

Well, I went ahead and did it again!!! I started another blog. I must be messed up in the head or something because this is my third blog I have started.

Back in the 1990's while still living in Pensacola, FL, I originally had a website called The Online Astronomer. It consisted on my personal observation logs and activities of the Escambia County Astronomical Association. Now that I am here in Twin Falls, ID, I figured to try and start up the old web site again.

A little about myself, if you don't mind. My name is John Calvin Hall, and I am a Bible Teacher/ Educator at our local Bible Institute run out of our church: Cornerstone Baptist Church in Twin Falls. I hold a B.A. in Bible and an M.A. in Biblical Exposition from Pensacola Christian College. I teach adult/ college level Bible classes as well as New Testament Greek. I maintain The Bible Blogger in an attempt to provide Biblical answers to contemporary questions. My other haunt is the Theology Online forum.

I also am an active member of the Magic Valley Astronomical Society, as well as a certified operator for the Centennial Observatory at the College of Southern Idaho. The society currently meets every Second Saturday of the month at the Herrett Center, located on the campus of CSI, with a Public Star Party at the Observatory afterward.

My third passion... ur... well, ok, it's more of an addiction is EVE Online! My avatar is currently defending the Amarr Empire from the nefarious hoards of barbarians and pirates! Stop by his blog at The House Theodoulos.

If you want to sent me a Tweet, you can follow me on Twitter at johncalvinhall.

My intention for the Online Astronomer is to provide interesting and stimulation articles relating to astronomy, either found on the Internet, sent to me by my friends, or stumbled across through my course in life. I hope you find this site useful, and fun!

4 Part Video Tour of the International Space Station

A friend of mine tossed me this URL for a video tour of the ISS. I was able to watch the first of four videos, and I have to warn you,
1.) it's totally fascinating, and
2.) you might get into trouble watching it, if you suffer from vertigo easily!

Well worth the time to watch it.

'Astronomy in South Africa is Thriving'

South Africa's achievements in astronomy can help the country overcome its shortage of maths, science and technology skills, said Science Minister Mosibudi Mangena on Monday.

"Our history in astronomical achievements reads like a novel. Our accomplishments in this field rank with the most glittering in the world. And our future in astronomy looks very rosy indeed," read a copy of the speech the minister delivered at South Africa's launch of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), at the Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town.

He said the country was suffering from a crippling shortage of maths, science and technology graduates.

One of the factors contributing to this was ignorance about the role that maths, science and technology graduates could play in society; something South Africa's long history of achievements in astronomy could help address.

Mangena said South Africa's involvement in classical western astronomy formally started in 1685 - 76 years after Galileo made his first observations through a telescope - when a temporary observatory was set up in Cape Town.

He said in 1751, the Abbe de Lacaille was sent by France's Royal Academy of Sciences to South Africa and set up an observatory in what is now Strand Street in Cape Town.

"From there he charted the positions of almost 10 000 stars, catalogued 42 nebulas, named a number of constellations; and is widely regarded as the person who laid the foundations for modern southern hemisphere astronomy."

Mangena also said the 180th anniversary of the completion of the first stage of the South African astronomical observatory was being celebrated on Monday.

"With this story we can inspire many and fulfil the dreams of the talented. To achieve this, we must all help to spread the story of South Africa's developments in astronomy."

The international celebrations for the year of astronomy - taking place in the year that was also the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first astronomical observations - were being led by Unesco.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation would support 11 cornerstone projects.

Cape Town's astronomical observatory would be running one of these projects, intended to help developing countries with no observatories or astronomy departments in their universities.

Mangena said events would take place all over the country at observatories, planetariums and science centres to use astronomy to stimulate interest in maths and science.

"To us IYA2009 is not just an occasion for promoting astronomy; it is also an opportunity for stimulating the imaginations of our young and old across the continent."

Mangena said South Africa was Africa's technological leader, and therefore had a responsibility to use its position to the continent's benefit.

Legislation had been passed over the last two years which preserved and protected areas which were uniquely suited for optical and radio astronomy.

He also said South Africa was currently short-listed with Australia to host the Square Kilometre Array Telescope - which would be by far the biggest radio telescope in the world.

"We stand a good chance of winning this bid," said Mangena.

"We have much to celebrate... astronomy in South Africa is thriving. Astronomy can become the catalyst by means of which more Africans can be drawn into the sciences and the maths disciplines." - Sapa