Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 1
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:
3 Nov AEA Astronomy Club Meeting “The Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center,” Breann Sitarsky, Aerospace (A1/1735)
1 Dec AEA Astronomy Club Meeting the James Webb Space Telescope by Dr. Jon Arenberg of Northrop Grumman
(A1/1735)
AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st Thursdays at 11:45 am. For all of 2016, the meeting room is A1/1735.
Club News:
As part of our annual election, submit nominations (including self-nomination/volunteer) for any/all AEA Astronomy Club offices (president, vice president (or programs committee), secretary (or activities committee), treasurer (or equipment committee)) by Nov. 11. The ballot will be sent out shortly after, with votes due Nov. 29. Results will be announced at the Dec. 1 mtg.
Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month
(from Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
VIDEO: An Atlas V Rocket Launches OSIRIS-REx
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161017.html
Video Credit & Copyright: United Launch Alliance, NASA
Explanation: Have you ever seen a rocket launched into the Solar System? Last month a large Atlas V rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 41 in Florida carrying the OSIRIX-REx spacecraft. This robotic spacecraft will attempt to land on Asteroid Bennu and return some of its soil to Earth. Asteroid 101955 Bennu orbits the Sun near the Earth, spans about 500-meters, is dark because its surface is covered with carbon, and has about a 1 in 2500 chance of striking the Earth in the next few thousand years. The exciting 2.5-minute video shows the Atlas V rocket being rolled out, prepared, and launched -- complete with a clip of side-boosters separating. If things go according to plan, OSIRIS-REx will reach Bennu in 2018 and return samples to Earth in 2023. One science goal of OSIRIS-REx is to better determine whether ancient collisions between Earth andcarbonaceous asteroids like Bennu provided Earth with a significant amount of the water and organic molecules necessary for the development of life.
INTERACTIVE: The Winds of Earth https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161010.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Cameron Beccario, earth.nullschool.net;
Data & Processing (abridged): GFS & US National Weather Service (NOAA); GEOS-5 & Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA)
Explanation: Which way is the wind blowing? The featured map can tell you this and much more, no matter your location on planet Earth. The dynamic map displays supercomputer forecasts drawn from multiple sources of global satellite data updated every three hours. Bright swirls usually indicate low pressure systems with high wind speeds, including dramatic cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons. Although the globe can be rotated interactively here, to obtain full interactivity -- including the ability to zoom -- you should click the word "earth" on the lower left or send your browser directly to https://earth.nullschool.net. The "earth" control panel there further allows you to overlay temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, and carbon dioxide maps, or even switch to displaying higher altitude wind speeds or ocean currents. In particular during times of rapid change, the displayed maps may be outdated or inaccurate.
INTERACTIVE: Explore Rosetta's Comet https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161003.html
Image Credit: Science Office, ESA
Explanation: What would it be like to fly around a comet nucleus? To find out, just wait for your WebGL-compatible browser to load a detailed digital model of Comet 67P and then -- go exploring! With a standard mouse, the left button allows you to rotate the comet, the right button allows you to move the comet around, and the scroll wheel allows you to zoom in. ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft orbited Comet C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko from mid-2014 until last Friday, when, after a remarkable and successful mission, it was intentionally set down on the surface and powered down. Among many notable scientific achievements, Rosetta allowed humanity to better understand where comet jets form on comets as they near the Sun.
A Crumbling Layered Butte on Mars
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS; Compilation & Processing : Kenneth Kremer, Marco Di Lorenzo
Explanation: What is this unusual mound on Mars? NASA's Curiosity rover rolling across Mars has come across a group of these mounds that NASA has labelled Murray Buttes. Pictured is a recently assembled mosaic image of one of the last of the buttes passed by Curiosity on its way up Mt. Sharp -- but also one of the most visually spectacular. Ancient water-deposited layers in relatively dense -- but now dried-out and crumbling -- windblown sandstone tops the 15-meter tall structure. The rim of Gale crater is visible in the distance. Curiosity continues to accumulate clues about howMars changed from a planet with areas wet and hospitable to microbial life to the dry, barren, rusted landscape seen today.
HI4PI: The Hydrogen Sky
Image Credit: Benjamin Winkel & the HI4PI Collaboration
Explanation: Where are the Milky Way's gas clouds and where are they going? To help answer this question, a new highest-resolution map of the sky in the universe's most abundant gas -- hydrogen -- has been completed and recently released, along with its underlying data. Featured above, the all-sky map of hydrogen's 21-cm emission shows abundance with brightness and speed with color. Low radial speeds toward us artificially colored blue and low radial speeds away colored green. The band across the middle is the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, while the bright spots on the lower right are the neighboring Magellanic Clouds. The HI4PI map collects data from over one million observations with the northern Effelsberg 100-Meter Radio Telescope in Germany and the southern Parkes 64-Meter Radio Telescope in Australia, also known as "The Dish". The details of the map not only better inform humanity about star formation and interstellar gas in our Milky Way galaxy, but also how much light this local gas is likely to absorb when observing the outside universe. Many details on the map are not yet well understood.
Cylindrical Mountains on Venus
Image Credit: Magellan Spacecraft Team, USGS, NASA
Explanation: What could cause a huge cylindrical mountain to rise from the surface of Venus? Such features that occur on Venus are known as coronas. Pictured here in the foreground is 500-kilometer wide Atete Corona found in a region of Venus known as the Galindo. The featured imagewas created by combining multiple radar maps of the region to form a computer-generated three-dimensional perspective. The series of dark rectangles that cross the image from top to bottom were created by the imaging procedure and are not real. The origin of massive coronas remains a topic of research although speculation holds they result from volcanism. Studying Venusian coronas help scientists better understand the inner structure of both Venus and Earth.
Rosetta's Farewell
Image Credit & Copyright: ESA, Rosetta, MPS, OSIRIS; UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Explanation: After closely following comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 786 days as it rounded the Sun, the Rosetta spacecraft's controlled impact with the comet's surface was confirmed by the loss of signal from the spacecraft on September 30, 2016. One of the images taken during its final descent, this high resolution view looks across the comet's stark landscape. The scene spans just over 600 meters (2,000 feet), captured when Rosetta was about 16 kilometers from the comet's surface. Rosetta's descent to the comet brought to an end the operational phase of an inspirational mission of space exploration. Rosetta deployed a lander to the surface of one of the Solar System's most primordial worlds and witnessed first hand how a comet changes when subject to the increasing intensity of the Sun's radiation. The decision to end the mission on the surface is a result of the comet's orbit now taking it to the dim reaches beyond Jupiter where there would be a lack of power to operate the spacecraft. Mission operators also faced an approaching period where the Sun would be close to line-of-sight between Earth and Rosetta, making radio communications increasingly difficult.
Astronomy News:
(from http://esciencenews.com/topics/astronomy.space)
Milky Way had a blowout bash 6 million years ago
Published: Monday, August 29, 2016 - 14:39 in Astronomy & Space
Related images
Mark A. Garlick/CfA
The center of the Milky Way galaxy is currently a quiet place where a supermassive black hole slumbers, only occasionally slurping small sips of hydrogen gas. But it wasn't always this way. A new study shows that 6 million years ago, when the first human ancestors known as hominins walked the Earth, our galaxy's core blazed forth furiously. The evidence for this active phase came from a search for the galaxy's missing mass. Measurements show that the Milky Way galaxy weighs about 1-2 trillion times as much as our Sun. About five-sixths of that is in the form of invisible and mysterious dark matter. The remaining one-sixth of our galaxy's heft, or 150-300 billion solar masses, is normal matter. However, if you count up all the stars, gas and dust we can see, you only find about 65 billion solar masses. The rest of the normal matter - stuff made of neutrons, protons, and electrons - seems to be missing.
"We played a cosmic game of hide-and-seek. And we asked ourselves, where could the missing mass be hiding?" says lead author Fabrizio Nicastro, a research associate at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and astrophysicist at the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF).
"We analyzed archival X-ray observations from the XMM-Newton spacecraft and found that the missing mass is in the form of a million-degree gaseous fog permeating our galaxy. That fog absorbs X-rays from more distant background sources," Nicastro continues.
The astronomers used the amount of absorption to calculate how much normal matter was there, and how it was distributed. They applied computer models but learned that they couldn't match the observations with a smooth, uniform distribution of gas. Instead, they found that there is a "bubble" in the center of our galaxy that extends two-thirds of the way to Earth.
Clearing out that bubble required a tremendous amount of energy. That energy, the authors surmise, came from the feeding black hole. While some infalling gas was swallowed by the black hole, other gas was pumped out at speeds of 2 million miles per hour (1,000 km/sec).
Six million years later, the shock wave created by that phase of activity has crossed 20,000 light-years of space. Meanwhile, the black hole has run out of nearby food and gone into hibernation.
This timeline is corroborated by the presence of 6-million-year-old stars near the galactic center. Those stars formed from some of the same material that once flowed toward the black hole.
"The different lines of evidence all tie together very well," says Smithsonian co-author Martin Elvis (CfA). "This active phase lasted for 4 to 8 million years, which is reasonable for a quasar."
The observations and associated computer models also show that the hot, million-degree gas can account for up to 130 billion solar masses of material. Thus, it just might explain where all of the galaxy's missing matter was hiding: it was too hot to be seen.
More answers may come from the proposed next-generation space mission known as X-ray Surveyor. It would be able to map out the bubble by observing fainter sources, and see finer detail to tease out more information about the elusive missing mass. The European Space Agency's Athena X-ray Observatory, planned for launch in 2028, offers similar promise.
Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Reconciling dwarf galaxies with dark matter
Published: Wednesday, September 7, 2016 - 14:43 in Astronomy & Space
Andrew Wetzel.
Dwarf galaxies are enigmas wrapped in riddles. Although they are the smallest galaxies, they represent some of the biggest mysteries about our universe. While many dwarf galaxies surround our own Milky Way, there seem to be far too few of them compared with standard cosmological models, which raises a lot of questions about the nature of dark matter and its role in galaxy formation. New theoretical modeling work from Andrew Wetzel, who holds a joint fellowship between Carnegie and Caltech, offers the most accurate predictions to date about the dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way's neighborhood. Wetzel achieved this by running the highest-resolution and most-detailed simulation ever of a galaxy like our Milky Way. His findings, published by The Astrophysical Journal Letters, help to resolve longstanding debates about how these dwarf galaxies formed.
One of the biggest mysteries of dwarf galaxies has to do with dark matter, which is why scientists are so fascinated by them.
"Dwarf galaxies are at the nexus of dark matter science," Wetzel said.
Dark matter makes up a quarter of our universe. It exerts a gravitational pull, but doesn't seem to interact with regular matter--like atoms, stars, and us--in any other way. We know it exists because of the gravitational effect it has on stars and gas and dust. This effect is why it is key to understanding galaxy formation. Without dark matter, galaxies could not have formed in our universe as they did. There just isn't enough gravity to hold them together without it.
The role of dark matter in the formation of dwarf galaxies has remained a mystery. The standard cosmological model has told us that, because of dark matter, there should be many more dwarf galaxies out there, surrounding our own Milky Way, than we have found. Astronomers have developed a number of theories for why we haven't found more, but none of them could account for both the paucity of dwarf galaxies and their properties, including their mass, size, and density.
As observation techniques have improved, more dwarf galaxies have been spotted orbiting the Milky Way. But still not enough to align with predictions based on standard cosmological models.
So scientists have been honing their simulation techniques in order to bring theoretical modeling predictions and observations into better agreement. In particular, Wetzel and his collaborators worked on carefully modeling the complex physics of stellar evolution, including how supernovae--the fantastic explosions that punctuate the death of massive stars--affect their host galaxy.
With these advances, Wetzel ran the most-detailed simulation of a galaxy like our Milky Way. Excitingly, his model resulted in a population of dwarf galaxies that is similar to what astronomers observe around us.
As Wetzel explained: "By improving how we modeled the physics of stars, this new simulation offered a clear theoretical demonstration that we can, indeed, understand the dwarf galaxies we've observed around the Milky Way. Our results thus reconcile our understanding of dark matter's role in the universe with observations of dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way's neighborhood."
Despite having run the highest-resolution simulation to date, Wetzel continues to push forward, and he is in the process of running an even higher-resolution, more-sophisticated simulation that will allow him to model the very faintest dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way.
"This mass range gets interesting, because these 'ultra-faint' dwarf galaxies are so faint that we do not yet have a complete observational census of how many exist around the Milky Way. With this next simulation, we can start to predict how many there should be for observers to find," he added.
Source: Carnegie Institution for Science
Astronomers discover rare fossil relic of early Milky Way
Published: Thursday, September 8, 2016 - 05:10 in Astronomy & Space
ESO/F. Ferraro
Terzan 5, 19 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) and in the direction of the galactic centre, has been classified as a globular cluster for the forty-odd years since its detection. Now, an Italian-led team of astronomers have discovered that Terzan 5 is like no other globular cluster known. The team scoured data from the Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics
Demonstrator [1], installed at the Very Large Telescope, as well as from a suite of other ground-based and space telescopes [2]. They found compelling evidence that there are two distinct kinds of stars in Terzan 5 which not only differ in the elements they contain, but have an age-gap of roughly 7 billion years [3].
The ages of the two populations indicate that the star formation process in Terzan 5 was not continuous, but was dominated by two distinct bursts of star formation. "This requires the Terzan 5 ancestor to have large amounts of gas for a second generation of stars and to be quite massive. At least 100 million times the mass of the Sun," explains Davide Massari, co-author of the study, from INAF, Italy, and the University of Groningen, Netherlands.
Its unusual properties make Terzan 5 the ideal candidate for a living fossil from the early days of the Milky Way. Current theories on galaxy formation assume that vast clumps of gas and stars interacted to form the primordial bulge of the Milky Way, merging and dissolving in the process.
"We think that some remnants of these gaseous clumps could remain relatively undisrupted and keep existing embedded within the galaxy," explains Francesco Ferraro from the University of Bologna, Italy, and lead author of the study. "Such galactic fossils allow astronomers to reconstruct an important piece of the history of our Milky Way."
While the properties of Terzan 5 are uncommon for a globular cluster, they are very similar to the stellar population which can be found in the galactic bulge, the tightly packed central region of the Milky Way. These similarities could make Terzan 5 a fossilised relic of galaxy formation, representing one of the earliest building blocks of the Milky Way.
This assumption is strengthened by the original mass of Terzan 5 necessary to create two stellar populations: a mass similar to the huge clumps which are assumed to have formed the bulge during galaxy assembly around 12 billion years ago. Somehow Terzan 5 has managed to survive being disrupted for billions of years, and has been preserved as a remnant of the distant past of the Milky Way.
"Some characteristics of Terzan 5 resemble those detected in the giant clumps we see in star-forming galaxies at high-redshift, suggesting that similar assembling processes occurred in the local and in the distant Universe at the epoch of galaxy formation," continues Ferraro.
Hence, this discovery paves the way for a better and more complete understanding of galaxy assembly. "Terzan 5 could represent an intriguing link between the local and the distant Universe, a surviving witness of the Galactic bulge assembly process," explains Ferraro while commenting on the importance of the discovery. The research presents a possible route for astronomers to unravel the mysteries of galaxy formation, and offers an unrivaled view into the complicated history of the Milky Way.
Source: ESO
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.
3 Nov AEA Astronomy Club Meeting “The Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center,” Breann Sitarsky, Aerospace
(A1/1735)
4 Nov Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Topic: Update on JUNO
Speaker: Theo Clarke, JPL
Nov. 6 Exploring Your Universe 2016
Science outreach
Location: UCLA Campus - Court of Sciences
Time: 12PM
Exploring Your Universe is an annual science outreach day held on the UCLA campus, filled with exciting science demos, activities, and talks. EYU has family-friendly activities that provide a wonderful look into real science for all ages, “from K through Gray”! For more info go to: http://eyu.astro.ucla.edu/
14 Nov LAAS LAAS General Meeting.
Griffith Observatory
Event Horizon Theater
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
November 17 & 18 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2016
The James Webb Space Telescope: Successor to Hubble
The James Webb Space Telescope will continue to revolutionize our study of the cosmos after it is launched in late 2018. Built to address the questions asked by the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes but out of their reach, JWST will look deeper than either at infrared wavelengths with a suite of instruments that have capabilities that were not previously available.
Tonight’s talk will describe JWST as a whole, but will focus on the Mid-Infrared Instrument, one of the four instruments attached to JWST and that was built as a partnership between JPL and a consortium of European astronomical institutes.
MIRI is the longest wavelength instrument on JWST and plays a significant role in all the major JWST science themes.
Speaker:
Dr. Michael Ressler
U.S. MIRI Project Scientist, JPL
Webcast:
Click here to watch the event live on Ustream (or archived after the event)
Locations: Thursday, Nov 17, 2016, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions
Friday, Nov 18, 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.
4 November Friday Evening 7:30 PM SBAS Monthly General Meeting Topic: Update on JUNO Speaker: Theo Clarke, JPL
1 Dec AEA Astronomy Club Meeting The James Webb Space Telescope, by Dr. Jon Arenberg of Northrop Grumman
(A1/1735)
4 Dec. Prof. Ben Zuckerman
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) - And Why It Will Fail
Location: UCLA Slichter 3853
Time: 2:30PM
Many searches for radio and other types of electromagnetic signals from extraterrestrial civilizations have been carried out; such searches are dubbed "SETI". However, the union of space telescopes and interstellar spaceships guarantees that if technological extraterrestrials were common, then someone would have come here long ago. The absence of evidence of any such visitations implies that SETI searches will likely fail. Photo credit: ESO/Jose Francisco Salgado
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 November:
Moon: Nov 7 1st quarter, Nov 14 full, Nov 21 last quarter, Nov 29 new
Planets: Venus, Mars & Saturn are up for a few hours after sunset. Mercury is hidden by the Sun’s glare all month. Jupiter is visible for a few hours before sunrise.
Other Events:
5 Nov LAAS Public Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm
2,9,16,23,30 Nov 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
17 Nov The weak Leonid meteor shower peaks before dawn, but skyglow from the waning gibbous Moon will hide all but the brightest meteors.
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/
SBAS out-of-town Dark Sky observing – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.
26 Nov LAAS Private dark sky Star Party
Internet Links:
Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying Guides
Sky & Telescope Magazine -- Choosing Your Equipment
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars -- Buying Guides
Telescopes.com -- Telescopes 101
General
Getting Started in Astronomy & Observing
The Astronomical League
e! Science News Astronomy & Space
NASA Gallery
Astronomical Society of the Pacific (educational, amateur & professional)
Amateur Online Tools, Journals, Vendors, Societies, Databases
The Astronomy White Pages (U.S. & International Amateur Clubs & Societies)
American Astronomical Society (professional)
More...
Regional (Southern California, Washington, D.C. & Colorado)
Southern California & Beyond Amateur Astronomy Organizations, Observatories & Planetaria
Mt. Wilson Observatory description, history, visiting
Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS)
South Bay Astronomical Society (SBAS)
Orange County Astronomers
The Local Group Astronomy Club (Santa Clarita)
Ventura County Astronomical Society
The Astronomical Society of Greenbelt
National Capital Astronomers
Northern Virginia Astronomy Club
Colorado Springs Astronomical Society
Denver Astronomical Society
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
