The Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image (see description on the right, below)

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image
(10,000 galaxies in an area 1% of the apparent size of the moon -- see description on the right, below)

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

2016 June

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2016

Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 10
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 10
    Observing p. 12
Useful Links p. 13
About the Club p. 14

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:
2 June
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Carnegie Lecture:  “Bright Galaxies, Dark Universe Part I: The Dawn of Galaxies“
(A1/1735)

7 July
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

Pizza & “Meteor Swarms & Satellites,” Glenn Peterson
(A1/1735)

AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st  Thursdays at 11:45am.  For all of 2016, the meeting room is A1/1735. 


Club News:  

July 7 Club Mtg. & Pizza Party  Pizza & “Meteor Swarms & Satellites,” by Glenn Peterson, author of “Dynamics of Meteor Outbursts and Satellite Mitigation Strategies.”  Be sure to RSVP with your preference for pizza & drink to Mark Clayson, and be sure your membership dues are paid, or bring $5 for pizza.

May 9 Mercury Transit.  A few dedicated club members waited patiently for a 5 minute break in the clouds, and did indeed see the transit through our 8-inch Dobs. 

Mt. Wilson Trip Sept. 1.  We have reached the 25-person group size limit, and have 9 on the waiting list.

2017 (Aug. 21) Solar Eclipse Expedition.  We are extending the survey another 2 weeks.  So far 59 have responded to the survey.  About half are definitely committed to going to centerline, and the rest seriously thinking about it.  Most seem to lean towards the eastern Idaho area, near Yellowstone & Teton National Parks. We’ll be looking now into group lodging in the area, and possible group air travel.  If you haven’t visited this site or taken the survey, please do so:  https://aeropedia.aero.org/aeropedia/index.php/Astronomy_Club/Eclipse_2017

Here is a request by the Aerospace American Indian Alaskan Native Council (AAIANC) that could involve our club’s expertise/interests.  Let me know if you’re interested in being involved.

“I am writing to find out if you would be interested in participating in an event with Aerospace American Indian Alaskan Native Council (AAIANC) this summer. Our current plan is to book either A1 1029A/B or the Cafeteria rooms A and B and host a “Poetry Reading.” For AAIANC, we plan to select poems (the number of which will depend on how many other groups wish to participate) written by Native Americans or Alaskan Natives that focus on the cultural significance of the stars. The theme for this would be along the lines of storytelling as a means to pass on cultural knowledge and link that to how we perceive the stars through science today. We think it would be a great opportunity for your clubs to recruit new members, also! We intend to open this up to the other AGs also, but wanted to give you first dibs. We’re hoping that if at least a couple of the AGs join in on this, we can pool our resources sufficiently to cover light snacks and beverages for the attendees.

“A possible agenda would be:
11:15 set up room
11:30 AAIANC introduce event (if we have light snacks, people can get them at this time and settle in)
11:35 AAIANC lead with poem reading
11:41 Book Club reading? Offer suggestions for good books on these topics?
11:47 Astronomy Club reading?
11:53 ABC reading?
11:59 ALA reading?
12:05 ALMA reading?
12:11 AAPAA reading?
12:17 AAIANC closing remarks

“We would change this up depending on participation. All groups would be welcome to bring their brochures, etc. to recruit members and we will set them out on a table. Lisa Barnum and her group are looking into what other ADAC activities might be happening around that time so we don’t conflict. If you are interested, I will let you know what come up as possible dates.

Thanks!

Ginni Machamer
AAIANC President

Suggestions for how to best spend our AEA budget allotment are welcome, especially in preparation for the 2017 total solar eclipse.



Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month
(from Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html


VIDEO:   Webb Telescope Mirror Rises after Assembly http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160509.html 
Image Credit: NASA's GSFC, Francis Reddy, Syneren Technologies
Explanation: Move over Hubble -- here comes the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST promises to be the new most powerful telescope in space. In the last month, the 18-segment gold-plated primary mirror for JWST was unveiled. In the featured time-lapse video taken last week, the 6.5-meter diameter mirror was raised to a vertical position. The dramatic 30-second sequence shows NASA engineers monitoring the test as room lights glint brightly off the mirror's highly reflective surface. The beryllium mirrors have been coated with a thin film of gold to make them more reflective to infrared light. The science goals of JWST include studying the workings of the early universe and the properties of planets orbiting nearby stars. Because of the mirror's great size, it will be folded for launch and then, assuming all goes as planned, dramatically unfolded againin space. The JWST, a joint mission of the space agencies of the USA, Europe, and Canada, is currently scheduled to be launched in late 2018.
VIDEO:  A Mercury Transit Music Video from SDO http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160511.html
Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Genna Duberstein; Music: Encompass by Mark Petrie
Explanation: What's that small black dot moving across the Sun? Mercury. Possibly the clearest view of Mercury crossing in front of the Sun earlier this week was from Earth orbit. The Solar Dynamics Observatory obtained an uninterrupted vista recording it not only in optical light but also in bands of ultraviolet light. Featured here is a composite movie of the crossing set to music. Although the event might prove successful scientifically for better determining components of Mercury' ultra-thin atmosphere, the event surely proved successful culturally by involving people throughout the world in observing a rare astronomical phenomenon. Many spectacular images of this Mercury transit from around (and above) the globe are being proudly displayed.
VIDEO:  Galaxy Evolution Tracking Animation http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160530.html
Video Credit: Donna Cox (AVL NCSA/U. Illinois) et al., NASA's GSFC, AVL, NCSA
Explanation: How did the universe evolve from such a smooth beginning? To help understand, computational cosmologists and NASA produced the featured time-lapse animated video depicting a computer simulation of part of the universe. The 100-million light-year simulation starts about 20 million years after the Big Bang and runs until the present. After a smooth beginning, gravity causes clumps of matter to form into galaxies which immediately begin falling toward each other. Soon, many of them condense into long filaments while others violently merge into a huge and hotcluster of galaxies. Investigating of potential universe attributes in simulations like this have helped shape the engineering design the James Webb Space Telescope, currently scheduled for launch in late 2018.

ISS and Mercury Too 
Image Credit & Copyright: Thierry Legault
Explanation: Transits of Mercury are relatively rare. Monday's leisurely 7.5 hour long event was only the 3rd of 14 Mercury transits in the 21st century. If you're willing to travel, transits of the International Space Station can be more frequent though, and much quicker. This sharp video frame composite was taken from a well-chosen location in Philadelphia, USA. It follows the space station, moving from upper right to lower left, as it crossed the Sun's disk in 0.6 seconds. Mercury too is included as the small, round, almost stationary silhouette just below center. In apparent size, the International Space Station looms larger from low Earth orbit, about 450 kilometers from Philadelphia. Mercury was about 84 million kilometers away. (Editor's note: The stunning video includes another double transit, Mercury and a Pilatus PC12 aircraft. Even quicker than the ISS to cross the Sun, the aircraft was about 1 kilometer away.)
Falcon 9 and Milky Way 
Image Credit & Copyright: Derek Demeter (Emil Buehler Planetarium)
Explanation: On May 6, the after midnight launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up dark skies over Merritt Island, planet Earth. Its second stage bound for Earth orbit, the rocket's arc seems to be on course for the center of the Milky Way in this pleasing composite image looking toward the southeast. Two consecutive exposures made with camera fixed to a tripod were combined to follow rocket and home galaxy. A 3 minute long exposure at low sensitivity allowed the rocket's first stage burn to trace the bright orange arc and a 30 second exposure at high sensitivity captured the stars and the faint Milky Way. Bright orange Mars dominates the starry sky at the upper right. A few minutes later, booster engines were restarted and the Falcon 9's first stage headed for a landing on the autonomous spaceport drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, patiently waiting in the Atlantic 400 miles east of the Cape Canaveral launch site.
IC 5067 in the Pelican Nebula 
Image Credit & Copyright: Data - Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), R. Colombari, Processing - Roberto Colombari
Explanation: The prominent ridge of emission featured in this sharp, colorful skyscape is cataloged as IC 5067. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The Pelican Nebula, the ridge spans about 10 light-years following the curve of the cosmic pelican's head and neck. This false-color view also translates the pervasive glow of narrow emission lines from atoms in the nebula to a color palette made popular in Hubble Space Telescope images of star forming regions. Fantastic, dark shapes inhabiting the 1/2 degree wide field are clouds of cool gas and dust sculpted by the winds and radiation from hot, massive stars. Close-ups of some of the sculpted clouds show clear signs of newly forming stars. The Pelican Nebula, itself cataloged as IC 5070, is about 2,000 light-years away. To find it, look northeast of bright star Deneb in the high flying constellation Cygnus.

Inside a Daya Bay Antineutrino Detector 
Image Credit & Copyright: DOE, Berkeley Lab - Roy Kaltschmidt, photographer
Explanation: Why is there more matter than antimatter in the Universe? To better understand this facet of basic physics, energy departments in China and the USA led in the creation of the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. Located under thick rock about 50 kilometers northeast ofHong Kong, China, eight Daya Bay detectors monitor antineutrinos emitted by six nearby nuclear reactors. Featured here, a camera looks along one of the Daya Bay detectors, imaging photon sensors that pick up faint light emitted by antineutrinos interacting with fluids in the detector. Early results indicate an unexpectedly high rate of one type of antineutrino changing into another, a rate which, if confirmed, could imply the existence of a previously undetected type of neutrino as well as impact humanity's comprehension of fundamental particle reactions that occurred within thefirst few seconds of the Big Bang.


Astronomy News:
(from http://esciencenews.com/topics/astronomy.space)
http://www.space.com/32917-mars-tsunamis-ancient-oceans.html

Mega Tsunamis Rocked Mars Oceans Billions of Years Ago

By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | May 19, 2016 09:00am ET

These visible-light views of Mars show lobe-like deposits probably caused by tsunamis (top image) and the bouldery material the huge wave deposited (bottom image).
Credit: Alexis Rodriguez

Traces of tsunamis on Mars are the newest clues yet that the Red Planet once had oceans, which could have supported life, researchers said.
These killer waves might have been triggered by giant meteor impacts, scientists added.
Although the surface of Mars is now cold and dry, there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that an ocean's worth of water covered the Red Planet billions of years ago. Since life is found on Earth virtually wherever there is liquid water, some researchers have suggested that life might have evolved on Mars when the planet was wet. Life could survive there even now, hidden underground, some scientists have said.

Still, there remains much debate over the existence and extent of ancient seas on Mars. For example, until now, scientists lacked concrete evidence of ancient shorelines cut by waves on the Red Planet. [The Search for Water on Mars in Pictures]
But new thermal images of the northern plains of Mars reveal what may be ancient scars left by two mega tsunamis about 3.4 billion years ago, researchers said. That was back when the Red Planet may have possessed a cold, salty, icy ocean.
"Our work provides definitive evidence for the presence of large and long-lived oceans on Mars," studyhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png co-author Alberto Fairén, a planetary scientist at the Center of Astrobiology in Madrid and Cornell Universityhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png in New York, told Space.com.

On an ancient Martian shore

The scientists examined ancient Martian shorelines for anomalies and discovered lobes modifying portions of these coasts. "Lobes are curved, roundish projections formed by deposits of sediments," Fairén said.
These objects are huge, reaching up to hundreds of miles long and wide, said study lead author Alexis Rodriguez, a planetary scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Similar but smaller lobes are seen on Earth after catastrophic waves.
The researchers suggested that the Martian lobes were caused by two giant tsunamis, which extended over a wide range of elevations, from gently sloping plains to cratered highlands. The older tsunami inundated an area about 309,000 square miles (800,000 square kilometers) in size, while the younger one drowned a region about 386,000 square miles (1 million sq. km) large, the researchers said.
The older tsunami dragged boulders up to about 33 feet (10 meters) large along with it. As gravity rapidly pulled water from the wave back to where it came from, the water carved numerous channels ranging between up to about 655 feet (200 m) wide and about 12.4 miles (20 km) long. Similar channels are seen from the backwash of tsunamis on Earth, the researchers said.
In the time between the older and younger tsunami, the researchers said, the Martian climate apparently became significantly colder, since the second tsunami's lobes were rich in ice. "These lobes froze on the land as they reached their maximum extent, and the ice never went back to the ocean, which implies the ocean was at least partially frozen at that time," Fairén said in a statement.

Left: Color-coded digital elevation model of the study area showing the two proposed shoreline levels of an early Mars ocean that existed about 3.4 billion years ago. Right: Areas covered by the documented tsunami events extending from these shorelines.
Credit: Alexis Rodriguez
The scientists suggested that these two mega tsunamis were caused by two meteor strikes. The researchers' calculations estimated that such cosmic impacts would have generated craters about 18 miles (30 km) wide and triggered tsunamis with onshore heights of about 165 feet (50 m). Previous research suggested that about 3.4 billion years ago, impacts of this size happened about every 30 million years on Mars.

A beach on Mars?

Ancient Martian beaches would have been far from ideal for tropicalhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png resorts. "When imagining oceans on early Mars, don't picture Californian beaches, but instead a particularly cold and long winter in the Great Lakes," Fairén said.
These findings may provide further evidence that ancient Mars could have supported life, the researchers said. "Cold, salty waters may offerhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png a refuge for life in extreme environments, as the salts could help keep the water liquid," Fairén said in a statement. "If life existed on Mars, these icy tsunami lobes are very good candidates to search for biosignatures."
The researchers are exploring the possibility that some tsunamis may have struck glacier-rimmed shores, "triggering the release of big ice chunks that would drift in coastal waters as wandering icebergs," Fairén said. "We have some preliminary evidence for such a process, so stay tuned."
Futurehttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png research will closely inspect other portions of Martian shorelines, looking for additional tsunami deposits, the researchers said. "We would like to characterize landing sites that will allow us to sample ice from the tsunami to investigate the original composition of the ocean," Rodriguez told Space.com.
The scientists detailed their findings online May 19 in the journal Scientific Reports.
Scientists discover a huge new galaxy orbiting our Milky Way
http://3tags.org/article/scientists-discover-a-huge-new-galaxy-orbiting-our-milky-way

Like a silent congregation of stealth gemstones, astronomers have discovered a gigantic galaxy lurking right outside the Milky Way’s front door. Researchers at the University of Cambridge submitted a recent report in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society introducing humanity to the Crater 2 ultra-dwarf galaxy, an extremely dim and dark galaxy determined to be one of the feeblest, faintest galaxies ever spotted in the universe.
Now nicknamed “the feeble giant,” this fantastic collection of stars just around the cosmic corner has somehow escape detection despite being in such close proximity to the Milky Way. It’s cataloged as the fourth largest satellite of the Milky Way, surpassed only by the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (Sgr dSph).

One of the main reasons for its secret existence is that it falls under the nominal detection boundary in sky surveys and compares in relative obscurity to the recently discovered Tuc 2 and Tuc IV and UMa II. Crater 2 is 391,000 light-years from the sun and officially measures 3,500 half-light years across. It appears to be in alignment with the globular cluster Crater, the pair of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies Leo IV and Leo V, and the dwarf galaxy Leo II. Dwarf galaxies have no clear boundaries due to the density of their stars gradually decreasing toward the outer borders, so they’re measured by their half-light radius, the distance from their observed center.
Possibly formed by a series of galactic mergers, Crater 2 should give scientists a clearer window into the evolution of the Milky Way, and its discovery allows for the possibility that a healthy number of extremely low surface brightness dwarf galaxies may still be out there somewhere in the darkness.

 

General Calendar:

Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:
Colloquia:  Carnegie (Tues. 4pm), UCLA, Caltech (Wed. 4pm), IPAC (Wed. 12:15pm) & other Pasadena (daily 12-4pm):  http://obs.carnegiescience.edu/seminars/ 
Carnegie astronomy lectures – only 4 per year in the Spring www.obs.carnegiescience.edu.  Visit www.huntington.org for directions.  For more information about the Carnegie Observatories or this lecture series, please contact Reed Haynie.  . Click here for more information.
2 June
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Carnegie Lecture:  “Bright Galaxies, Dark Universe Part I: The Dawn of Galaxies“
(A1/1735)







3 June
Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Friday Night 7:30PM Monthly General Meeting
Topic:   The Ancient Art of Celestial Navigation…in Space!
Speaker: Ken Munson


4-5 June
JPL Open House See the JPL website for more information: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/open-house.php






13 June
LAAS LAAS General Meeting.
Griffith Observatory
Event Horizon Theater
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
June 16 & 17 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2016

2015-2016 El Niño Winter and California Water: What did we see from space?

El Niño and La Niña refer to changes in the patterns of sea surface temperatures across the Equatorial Pacific Ocean west of Peru. These changes can significantly influence ocean conditions and weather patterns the world over, creating extreme events from floods along the Pacific Coast of the United States to droughts in Southeast Asia and Australia. And although every El Niño event is different, in general the effects of El Niño in California are most noticeable as winter floods. The 2015-2016 winter, with such large temperature anomalies over broad areas of the eastern Pacific, was predicted to be, if not hoped to be, in a word, “wet” in California.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) observes many aspects of water on the Earth using cutting edge sensors on satellites and airplanes that include new insights into the Sierra snowpack and groundwater. Can these observations help to improve our understanding of the impacts of El Niño and La Niña on water resources critical to California? A panel of experts will be on hand to describe measurements over the past season in California focused on groundwater and mountain snowpack results and to discuss what these measurements might tell us of the future.

Speaker:
Dr. Tom Painter
Dr. Tom Farr
Dr. Jay Famiglietti
Dr. Duane Waliser

Webcast:
Click here to watch the event live on Ustream (or archived after the event)
Locations:
Thursday, June 16, 2016, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, June 17, 2016, 7pm
The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College
1570 East Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions
Webcast:
 We offer two options to view the live streaming of our webcast on Thursday:
› 1) Ustream with real-time web chat to take public questions.
› 2) Flash Player with open captioning
If you don't have Flash Player, you can download for free here.



7 July
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

Pizza & Meteor Swarms & Satellites, Glenn Peterson
(A1/1735)


8 July SBAS Friday Evening 7:30 PM Monthly General Meeting Topic: TBD




Observing:

The following data are from the 2016 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2016 Skygazer’s Almanac & monthly Sky at a Glance.

Current sun & moon rise/set/phase data for L.A.:  http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/los-angeles

Sun, Moon & Planets for July:

  

Moon: June 4 new, June 12 1st quarter, June 20 full, June 27 last quarter             
Planets: Saturn & Mars are up from sunset to a few hours after midnight.  Jupiter is up until midnight.  Venus is hidden in the Sun’s glare all month. Mercury is visible shortly before sunrise.
Other Events:

2-3 June Saturn reaches opposition

4 June
SBAS out-of-town Dark Sky observing – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.  

5 June Mercury at its Greatest Western Elongation

1,8,15,22,29 June
LAAS The Garvey Ranch Observatory is open to the public every Wednesday evening from 7:30 PM to 10 PM. Go into the dome to use the 8 Inch Refractor or observe through one of our telescopes on the lawn. Visit our workshop to learn how you can build your own telescope, grind your own mirror, or sign up for our free seasonal astronomy classes.

Call 213-673-7355 for further information.
Time: 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Location: Garvey Ranch Obs. , 781 Orange Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91755

11 June
LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm

19 June 2:30 PM UCLA Meteorite Gallery Lecture Series Oriented Meteorites: Sculpted by Fire Nick Gessler, Professor at Duke University 4863 Slichter Hall, 595 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles
20 June Summer Solstice

25 June
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party

 
25 June
SBAS Saturday Night In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest Middle School– 28915 North Bay Rd. RPV, Weather Permitting: Please contact Greg Benecke to confirm that the gate will be opened! http://www.sbastro.net/

2 July SBAS Saturday Night Out of Town Dark Sky Observing Session Contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location.

Internet Links:

Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying Guides


General


Regional (Southern California, Washington, D.C. & Colorado)
Southern California & Beyond Amateur Astronomy Organizations, Observatories & Planetaria
Mt. Wilson Observatory description, history, visiting


About the Club

Club Websites:  Internal (Aerospace): https://aeropedia.aero.org/aeropedia/index.php/Astronomy_Club  It is updated to reflect this newsletter, in addition to a listing of past club mtg. presentations, astronomy news, photos & events from prior newsletters, club equipment, membership & constitution.  We have linked some presentation materials from past mtgs.  Our club newsletters are also being posted to an external blog, “An Astronomical View” http://astronomicalview.blogspot.com/. 

 
Membership.  For information, current dues & application, contact Alan Olson, or see the club website (or Aerolink folder) where a form is also available (go to the membership link/folder & look at the bottom).  Benefits will include use of club telescope(s) & library/software, membership in The Astronomical League, discounts on Sky & Telescope magazine and Observer’s Handbook, field trips, great programs, having a say in club activities, acquisitions & elections, etc.

Committee Suggestions & Volunteers.  Feel free to contact:  Mark Clayson, President & Program Committee Chairman (& acting club VP), TBD Activities Committee Chairman (& club Secretary), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment & library, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President 
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