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)

Thursday, May 3, 2018

2018 May


AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter                         May 2018

Contents

AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 3
Astronomy News p. 10
General Calendar p. 13
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 13
    Observing p. 17
Useful Links p. 19
About the Club p. 19

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:

3 May
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Additive Manufacturing on Mars
(A1/1026)
7 June
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Exoplanets: Finding Life in the Galaxy
(A1/1735)




AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st  Thursdays at 11:45 am.  For 2018:  Jan. 4 in A1/1029 A/B, Feb. 1 & March 1 in A1/2906 and for the rest of 2018 (April-Dec), the meeting room is A1/1735. 

May 3 Presentation: “From pasta machines to robotic arms -- 3D printing a Mars Habitat using indigenous materials”

As humanity moves closer to our vision to settle the moon, and then Mars, the ability to generate critical infrastructure “on site” in space becomes increasingly important for cost control, timelines and safety. 3D printing with indigenous Mars materials in an autonomous robotic way, before humans set foot on Mars may be the key. My team has been participating in the NASA Centennial Challenge to 3D print a Mars Habitat for the past 3 years to develop this concept and technology.

In this presentation I will first illustrate how our adventures started from the garage, while being unfunded and understaffed. We borrowed key hardware components, including a pasta machine that substituted for a clay printer extruder and a 10 foot robotic arm, from industry and academic partners. We even generated our own Mars regolith simulant based on volcanic basalt rocks we handpicked in Northern Israel.

Despite many challenges, ranging from limited access to materials, short deadlines, and zero dollars in funding, we were able to print the first physical deliverable, which significantly outperformed the NASA required minimum in initial mechanical testing. In delivering the second physical deliverable, we overcame operational challenges, recruited new team members from around the world, and increased the printing accuracy. We struggled with optimizing the curing time and heat exposure to the printing nozzle.

The BubbleBase team was recently “adopted” by Caltech, in a strategic move to enhance our US presence and increase manpower working on the project, especially in the field of robotics and autonomy. The talk will elaborate on additional challenges currently facing the team, including: merging teams from different disciplines and cultures, technology challenges in material science, robotics and civil engineering, funding requirements, and operational challenges. It will conclude with the team’s plans for the future (on Earth, and on Mars) and how you can follow our work and get involved in the project.


Speaker: Helen Wexler

Helen Wexler is an award winning “ArchiTech,” positioned at the intersection of architecture and technology. She is the founder of BubbleBase, an aerospace project developing technology to 3D print and robotically assemble housing on Mars for the NASA Centennial Challenge. She has served as architect in leading New York and Austria based firms before becoming a technology analyst in the VC industry.
She was previously Director of the The Jnext Hi-Tech & Entrepreneurship Program at the Jerusalem Development Authority, where she oversaw the emerging tech ecosystem of Israel’s capital city, while innovating economic development policy.
Ms. Wexler holds a degree in Architecture from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design where she is Lecturer on “Technology Paradigms in Architecture.” She is a graduate of the MEET MIT Computer Science Program and Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences (outstanding honors). Helen was named to Forbes Israel 30 under 30 list and has recently completed the International Space Studies Program as an Ilan Ramon Scholarship Fellow.


We have reserved the night of Sat. Sept. 8 on the Mt. Wilson 100-inch telescope.  We do have a full manifest already – carry-overs from the 2017 night cancelled due to bad weather.  But if interested, we can still put you on the waiting list in case of cancellations, which typically do occur.

June 7 speaker from JPL – Rob Zellem, doing research on exoplanetary atmospheres.

“Exoplanets: Finding Life in the Galaxy”

Rob was born just outside the Philadelphia city limits but grew up in Hendersonville, TN. He went to Villanova University where he graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Astronomy and Astrophysics, minoring in Physics, Mathematics, and Classics, and getting an Honors Concentration. His love of travel and learning about other cultures brought him to University College London in England where he got his MSc in Space Science. He then moved out west to Tucson, AZ, where he received his PhD in Planetary Sciences from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. He is currently a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory supporting ground- and space-based instruments that will measure the atmospheres of extrasolar planets.


Club News:  


We need volunteers to help with: 

·         Populating our club Sharepoint site with material & links to the club’s Aerowiki & Aerolink materials
·         Arranging future club programs
·         Managing club equipment

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

VIDEO: Wanderers https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180429.html
Video Credit: Visuals: Erik Wernquist; Music: Christian Sandquist Words & Voice: Carl Sagan
Explanation: How far out will humanity explore? If this video's fusion of real space imagery and fictional space visualizations is on the right track, then at least the Solar System. Some of the video's wondrous sequences depict future humans drifting through the rings of Saturn, exploring Jupiterfrom a nearby spacecraft, and jumping off a high cliff in the low gravity of a moon of Uranus. Although no one can know the future, wandering and exploring beyond boundaries -- both physical and intellectual -- is part of the human spirit and has frequently served humanity well in the past.
VIDEO:  Flyover of Jupiter's North Pole in Infrared https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180416.html
Animation Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, ASI, INAF, JIRAM
Explanation: What would it look like to fly over the North Pole of Jupiter? A fictional animation made from real images and data captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft shows an answer. Since the pole is presently in shadow, the video uses infrared light emitted by Jupiter -- specifically aninfrared color where the hottest features glows the brightest. As the animation starts, Juno zooms in on the enormous world. Soon, one of the eight cyclones orbiting the North Pole is featured. One by one, all eight cyclones circling the pole are inspected, each the size of an entire continent onEarth, and each containing bumpy and fragmented spiral walls. The virtual trip ends with a zoom out. Studying Jovian cyclones helps humanity to better understand dangerous storm systems that occur here on Earth. Juno has recently concluded another close pass by Jupiter -- Perijove 12 -- and seems healthy enough to complete several more of the two-month orbits.
VIDEO: The Sun Unleashed: Monster Filament in Ultraviolet https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180409.html
Video Credit: NASA GSFC's Scientific Visualization Studio, Solar Dynamics Obs.
Explanation: One of the most spectacular solar sights is an explosive flare. In 2011 June, the Sun unleashed somewhat impressive, medium-sized solar flare as rotation carried active regions of sunpots toward the solar limb. That flare, though, was followed by an astounding gush of magnetizedplasma -- a monster filament seen erupting at the Sun's edge in this extreme ultraviolet image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Featured here is a time-lapse video of that hours-long event showing darker, cooler plasma raining down across a broad area of the Sun's surface, arcing along otherwise invisible magnetic field lines. An associated coronal mass ejection, a massive cloud of high energy particles, was blasted in the general direction of the Earth,and made a glancing blow to Earth's magnetosphere.

Interactive: Play Saturn's Rings Like a Harp https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180424.html
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SSI, Cassini; Sonification: Matt Russo (SYSTEM Sounds)
Explanation: Sure, you've seen Saturn's rings -- but have you ever heard them? Well then please take this opportunity to play Saturn's rings like a harp. In the featured sonification, increasing brighter regions of Saturn's central B-ring play as increasingly higher pitched notes. With a computer browser, click anywhere on the image to begin, and pluck consecutive strings by sliding the spacecraft icon's magnetometer boom across the strings. Both manual and automatic modes are possible. The featured natural-color image was taken by the late Cassini spacecraft in 2017 July as itgrazed Saturn's rings and took the highest-resolution ring images ever. The reason why the mostly water-ice rings have a tan hue -- instead of white -- is currently a topic of research. Played in minor harmony, a different false-color version of the same image appears where regions with a greater abundance of water ice appears more red.
The Snows of Churyumov-Gerasimenko 
Image Credit: ESA, Rosetta, MPS, OSIRIS; UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA - 
GIF Animation: Jacint Roger Perez
Explanation: You couldn't really be caught in this blizzard while standing by a cliff on Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as comet 67P. Orbiting the comet in June of 2016 the Rosetta spacecraft's narrow angle camera did record streaks of dust and ice particles though, as they drifted across the field of view near the camera and above the comet's surface. Some of the bright specks in the scene are likely due to a rain of energetic charged particles or cosmic rays hitting the camera, and the dense background of stars in the direction of the constellation Canis Major. Click on this single frame to play and the background stars are easy to spot trailing from top to bottom in an animated gif (7.7MB). The 33 frames of the time compressed animation span about 25 minutes of real time. The stunning gif was constructed from consecutive images taken while Rosetta cruised some 13 kilometers from the comet's nucleus.
Martian Chiaroscuro 
Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA
Explanation: Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24, 2014 by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scene spans about 1.5 kilometers. From 250 kilometers above the Red Planet the camera is looking down at a sand dune field in a southern highlands crater. Captured when the Sun was about 5 degrees above the local horizon, only the dune crests were caught in full sunlight. A long, cold winter is coming to the southern hemisphere and bright ridges of seasonal frost line the martian dunes.
The Blue Horsehead Nebula in Infrared 
Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing & Copyright : Francesco Antonucci
Explanation: The Blue Horsehead Nebula looks quite different in infrared light. In visible light, the reflecting dust of the nebula appears blue and shaped like a horse's head. In infrared light, however, a complex labyrinth of filaments, caverns, and cocoons of glowing dust and gas emerges, making it hard to even identify the equine icon. The featured image of the nebula was created in three infrared colors (R=22, G=12, B=4.6 microns) from data taken by NASA's orbiting Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. The nebula is cataloged as IC 4592 and spans about 40 light years, lying about 400 light years away toward the constellation Scorpius along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. IC 4592 is fainter but covers an angularly greater region than the better known Horsehead Nebula of Orion. The star that predominantly illuminates and heats the dust isNu Scorpii, visible as the reddened star left of center.
Meteor Over Crater Lake 
Image Credit & Copyright: Brad Goldpaint (Goldpaint Photography)
Explanation: Did you see it? One of the more common questions during a meteor shower occurs because the time it takes for a meteor to flash is typically less than the time it takes for a head to turn. Possibly, though, the glory of seeing bright meteors shoot across and knowing that they were once small granules on another world might make it all worthwhile, even if your observing partner(s) could not share in every particular experience. Peaking late tonight, a dark sky should enable the Lyrids meteor shower to exhibit as many as 20 visible meteors per hour from some locations. In the featured composite of nine exposures taken during the 2012 shower, a bright Lyrid meteor streaks above picturesque Crater Lake in Oregon, USA. Snow covers the foreground, while the majestic central band of our home galaxy arches well behind the serene lake. Other meteor showersthis year -- and every year -- include the Perseids in mid-August and the Leonids in mid-November.
   
TESS Launch Close Up 
Image Credit & Copyright: John Kraus
Explanation: NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) began its search for planets orbiting other stars by leaving planet Earth on April 18. The exoplanet hunter rode to orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 is so designated for its 9 Merlin first stage engines seen in this sound-activated camera close-up from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In the coming weeks, TESS will use a series of thruster burns to boost it into a high-Earth, highly elliptical orbit. A lunar gravity assist maneuver will allow it to reach a previously untried stable orbit with half the orbital period of the Moon and a maximum distance from Earth of about 373,000 kilometers (232,000 miles). From there, TESS will carry out a two year survey to search for planets around the brightest and closest stars in the sky.

Fortuitous Flash Candidate for the Farthest Star Yet Seen 
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, & P. Kelly (U. Minnesota) et al.
Explanation: Was this flash the farthest star yet seen? An unexpected flash of light noticed fortuitously on Hubble Space Telescope images may prove to be not only an unusual gravitational lensing event but also an image of a normal star 100 times farther away than any star previously imaged individually. The featured image shows the galaxy cluster on the left complete with many yellowish galaxies, while on the right is an expanded square where a source appeared in 2016 that was not evident in 2011. The spectrum and variability of this source are strangely unlike a supernova, but rather appear more consistent with a normal blue supergiant star magnified by about a factor of 2000 by a confluence of aligned gravitational lenses. Dubbed Icarus, the source is in a galaxy well behind the galaxy cluster and far across the universe -- at redshift 1.5. If the lens interpretation is correct and Icarus is not an exploding star, further observations of it and other similarly magnified stars could give information about the stellar and dark matter content in the galaxy cluster and the universe.
Total Solar Eclipse Corona in HDR 
Image Credit & Copyright: Nicolas Lefaudeux
Explanation: How great was the Great American Eclipse? The featured HDR image shows it to be perhaps greater than we knew. On August 21 of last year, the Moon blocked the Sun for a few minutes along a narrow path across the USA. Although one of the most photographed events in human history, this image -- only recently completed after an extraordinary amount of digital processing -- shows one of the most detailed depictions of a solar corona ever taken. Composed of extremely hot gas, the solar corona is only visible to the unaided eye during a total solar eclipse. The featured image combined over 70 images of different time exposures. The series of complementary HDR images recovered enough detail to see motion of the solar corona. The images were taken in Unity, Oregon in the morning to get steady atmospheric seeing conditions. The next total solar eclipse visible on Earth will be in 2019 July, while the next one visible across North America and the USA will occur in 2024 April.


Astronomy News:
(from https://www.sciencedaily.com )

Mercury's thin, dense crust

Mercury's crust is thinner than anyone thought, new mathematical calculations reveal

Date:
April 27, 2018
Source:
University of Arizona
Summary:
A planetary scientist has used careful mathematical calculations to determine the density of Mercury's crust, which is thinner than anyone thought.
Share:
FULL STORY
Though Mercury may look drab to the human eye, different minerals appear in a rainbow of colors in this image from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University APL/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Mercury is small, fast and close to the sun, making the rocky world challenging to visit. Only one probe has ever orbited the planet and collected enough data to tell scientists about the chemistry and landscape of Mercury's surface. Learning about what is beneath the surface, however, requires careful estimation.
After the probe's mission ended in 2015, planetary scientists estimated Mercury's crust was roughly 22 miles thick. One University of Arizona scientist disagrees.
Using the most recent mathematical formulas, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory associate staff scientist Michael Sori estimates that the Mercurial crust is just 16 miles thick and is denser than aluminum. His study, "A Thin, Dense Crust for Mercury," will be published May 1 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters and is currently available online.
Sori determined the density of Mercury's crust using data collected by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment and Geochemistry Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft. He created his estimate using a formula developed by Isamu Matsuyama, a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and University of California Berkeley scientist Douglas Hemingway.
Sori's estimate supports the theory that Mercury's crust formed largely through volcanic activity. Understanding how the crust was formed may allow scientists to understand the formation of the entire oddly structured planet.
"Of the terrestrial planets, Mercury has the biggest core relative to its size," Sori said.
Mercury's core is believed to occupy 60 percent of the planet's entire volume. For comparison, Earth's core takes up roughly 15 percent of its volume. Why is Mercury's core so large?
"Maybe it formed closer to a normal planet and maybe a lot of the crust and mantle got stripped away by giant impacts," Sori said. "Another idea is that maybe, when you're forming so close to the sun, the solar winds blow away a lot of the rock and you get a large core size very early on. There's not an answer that everyone agrees to yet."
Sori's work may help point scientists in the right direction. Already, it has solved a problem regarding the rocks in Mercury's crust.
Mercury's Mysterious Rocks
When the planets and Earth's moon formed, their crusts were born from their mantles, the layer between a planet's core and crust that oozes and flows over the course of millions of years. The volume of a planet's crust represents the percentage of mantle that was turned into rocks.
Before Sori's study, estimates of the thickness of Mercury's crust led scientists to believe 11 percent of the planet's original mantle had been turned into rocks in the crust. For the Earth's moon -- the celestial body closest in size to Mercury -- the number is lower, near 7 percent.
"The two bodies formed their crusts in very different ways, so it wasn't necessarily alarming that they didn't have the exact same percentage of rocks in their crust," Sori said.
The moon's crust formed when less dense minerals floated to the surface of an ocean of liquid rock that became the body's mantle. At the top of the magma ocean, the moon's buoyant minerals cooled and hardened into a "flotation crust." Eons of volcanic eruptions coated Mercury's surface and created its "magmatic crust."
Explaining why Mercury created more rocks than the moon did was a scientific mystery no one had solved. Now, the case can be closed, as Sori's study places the percentage of rocks in Mercury's crust at 7 percent. Mercury is no better than the moon at making rocks.
Sori solved the mystery by estimating the crust's depth and density, which meant he had to find out what kind of isostasy supported Mercury's crust.
Determining Density and Depth
The most natural shape for a planetary body to take is a smooth sphere, where all points on the surface are an equal distance from the planet's core. Isostasy describes how mountains, valleys and hills are supported and kept from flattening into smooth plains.
There are two main types isostasy: Pratt and Airy. Both focus on balancing the masses of equally sized slices of the planet. If the mass in one slice is much greater than the mass in a slice next to it, the planet's mantle will ooze, shifting the crust on top of it until the masses of every slice are equal.
Pratt isostasy states that a planet's crust varies in density. A slice of the planet that contains a mountain has the same mass as a slice that contains flat land, because the crust that makes the mountain is less dense than the crust that makes flat land. In all points of the planet, the bottom of the crust floats evenly on the mantle.
Until Sori completed his study, no scientist had explained why Pratt isostasy would or wouldn't support Mercury's landscape. To test it, Sori needed to relate the planet's density to its topography. Scientists had already constructed a topographic map of Mercury using data from MESSENGER, but a map of density didn't exist. So Sori made his own using MESSENGER's data about the elements found on Mercury's surface.
"We know what minerals usually form rocks, and we know what elements each of these minerals contain. We can intelligently divide all the chemical abundances into a list of minerals," Sori said of the process he used to determine the location and abundance of minerals on the surface. "We know the densities of each of these minerals. We add them all up, and we get a map of density."
Sori then compared his density map with the topographic map. If Pratt isostasy could explain Mercury's landscape, Sori expected to find high-density minerals in craters and low-density minerals in mountains; however, he found no such relationship. On Mercury, minerals of high and low density are found in mountains and craters alike.
With Pratt isostasy disproven, Sori considered Airy isostasy, which has been used to make estimates of Mercury's crustal thickness. Airy isostasy states that the depth of a planet's crust varies depending on the topography.
"If you see a mountain on the surface, it can be supported by a root beneath it," Sori said, likening it to an iceberg floating on water.
The tip of an iceberg is supported by a mass of ice that protrudes deep underwater. The iceberg contains the same mass as the water it displaces. Similarly, a mountain and its root will contain the same mass as the mantle material being displaced. In craters, the crust is thin, and the mantle is closer to the surface. A wedge of the planet containing a mountain would have the same mass as a wedge containing a crater.
"These arguments work in two dimensions, but when you account for spherical geometry, the formula doesn't exactly work out," Sori said.
The formula recently developed by Matsuyama and Hemingway, though, does work for spherical bodies like planets. Instead of balancing the masses of the crust and mantle, the formula balances the pressure the crust exerts on the mantle, providing a more accurate estimate of crustal thickness.
Sori used his estimates of the crust's density and Hemingway and Matsuyama's formula to find the crust's thickness. Sori is confident his estimate of Mercury's crustal thickness in its northern hemisphere will not be disproven, even if new data about Mercury is collected. He does not share this confidence about Mercury's crustal density.
MESSENGER collected much more data on the northern hemisphere than the southern, and Sori predicts the average density of the planet's surface will change when density data is collected over the entire planet. He already sees the need for a follow-up study in the future.
The next mission to Mercury will arrive at the planet in 2025. In the meantime, scientists will continue to use MESSENGER data and mathematical formulas to learn everything they can about the first rock from the sun.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Arizona. Original written by Emily Walla. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
1.       Michael M. Sori. A thin, dense crust for Mercury. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2018; 489: 92 DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2018.02.033


 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.
Monday evenings:  April 9th, April 23rd, May 7th and May 21st.
AT THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY AND BOTANICAL GARDENS
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino
All Lectures are in Rothenberg Auditorium. Directions can be found here.
The lectures are free. Because seating is limited, however, reservations are required for each lecture through Eventbrite. Additionally, the lectures will be streamed live through Livestream and simultanously on our Facebook CarnegieAstro page. 
Doors open at 6:45 p.m. Each Lecture will be preceded by a brief musical performance by students from The Colburn School starting at 7:00 p.m. Lectures start at 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be available.


Image: SDSS / David Kirby
Monday, May 7th 2018
Dark Energy and Cosmic Sound
Dr. Daniel Eisenstein
Professor of Astronomy, Harvard University
Director, Sloan Digital Sky Survey III
Sound waves propagating through the Universe only 400,000 years after the Big Bang now offer some of our most-precise measures of the composiiton and history of the Universe. In the last decade, we have detected the fossil imprint of these sound waves using maps of the distribution of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Dr. Eisenstein will describe these waves and the ambitious experiments that use them to extend our cosmological reach. 


Image: Carnegie Institution for Science/ Robin Dienel
Monday, May 12st 2018
Astronomical Alchemy: The Origin of the Elements
Dr. Maria Drout
Hubble and Carnegie-Dunlap Fellow,
Carnegie Institution for Science
As Carl Sagan once said, "We are all made of star stuff." However, each element has its own astronomical origins story. Elements are created everywhere from the centers of stars, to supernovae explosions, to the Big Bang itself. Dr. Drout will take us on a journey through the perioidic table, highlighting how our recent discovery of a 'kilonova' associated with the cataclysmic merger of two neutron stars has filled in one of the final pieces of the elemental puzzle—the origin of many of the heaviest elements in the universe.

3 May
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Additive Manufacturing on Mars
(A1/2906)


4 May
Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Topic: ?  [still showing their March schedule online as of 5/1/18]





May 20



UCLA Meteorite Gallery --
Location: UCLA Campus

Dr. Alan Rubin

Searching for links between Asteroids and Meteorites

Location: Geology 3656
Time: 2:30PM
Meteorites are fragmental breccias consistent with the high abundance of impact craters on asteroids and old formation ages of meteorites indicate that they formed on small bodies that cooled within a few million years. Compositional links are provided by spectral reflectivities that match those of asteroids, and densities that indicate the presence of appreciable metal. LL-chondrite samples were returned to Earth from Asteroid 25143 Itokawa; other spacecraft missions will return more samples during the next decade.


14 May
LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory

 

The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2018


Juno and The New Jupiter: What Have We Learned So Far?
May 17 & 18
Juno is a solar-powered spacecraft which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 4, 2016. For a few hours every 53 days, Juno passes within a few thousand kilometers of the giant planet, and collects a wealth of new information about Jupiter. The data collected so far have revolutionized our understanding of Jupiter, and of giant planets in general. Dr. Steve Levin, Project Scientist for the Juno spacecraft, will present some of Juno’s current science results on the planet's origins, interior structure, deep atmosphere, and magnetosphere, and discuss the science expected from Juno in the coming years.
Speaker:
Dr. Steve Levin – Juno Project Scientist and lead co-investigator for Juno’s MicroWave Radiometer instrument

Location:
Thursday, May 17, 2018, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, May 18, 2018, 7pm
The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College
1570 East Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions


7 June
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Exoplanets: Finding Life in the Galaxy
(A1/1735)

Observing:

The following data are from the 2018 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2018 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 May:

  

Moon: May 8 last quarter, May 15 new, May 22 1st quarter, May 29 Full,  
            
Planets: Venus visible at dusk.  Mars rises near midnight, highest near dawn.  Mercury hidden in Sun’s glow all month.  Saturn rises late evening, visible until dawn. Jupiter visible at dusk, highest near midnight.
Other Events:


2,9,16,23,30 May
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

9 May Jupiter at opposition

 
?
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/

12 May
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party

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

19 May
LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm


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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