2018 June

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2018

Contents

AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 3
Astronomy News p.9
General Calendar p. 12

    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 12
    Observing p. 14

Useful Links p. 15
About the Club p. 16

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:

7 June

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

Exoplanets: Finding Life in the Galaxy, Rob Zellem, JPL

(A1/1735)

AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1^st  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. 

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.

July 5 speaker – Tom Heinsheimer, Aerospace, “The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) Mission”

A team at The Aerospace Corporation has been collaborating with JPL to explore the feasibility of sending a coronagraph/spectrometer to the outer reaches of the solar system, with the hope of visualizing an exoplanet at km scale resolution.  The solar gravity lens (SGL), made conceivable by Einstein and general relativity maintains that it is possible to directly view an exoplanet.   Aerospace is about to start with JPL on a Phase 2 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) study on the feasibility of such a mission and the daunting requirements for reliability and PNT that must be in place for the travel to 550 AU.  While the SGL mission is clearly a NASA endeavor, the technologies necessary for mission success are also relevant to our core customers given the new space architectures under investigation.  Aerospace will present the SGL mission and the notional space architecture under consideration.  Please join us and give us your insight on how to build a more resilient space architecture.    This is an encore of a June 5 iLab presentation.

Club News:  

From Jason Fields:  Attached is a picture of a 17” f/6.8 astrograph in one of our D8 labs on my personal 10 micron mount. It took three of us to get that monster telescope up onto the mount. Hope to image with it soon! 

Asteroid Detected Hours Before Entering Earth’s Atmosphere

[info forwarded by Ray Russell]

From Steward Observatory (they use the “other” 1.5 m on top of Mt. Lemmon – the sister scope to the UMinn scope - for this project):

The asteroid mentioned was designated 2018 LA, and it was found with the 60” about 8.5 hours before impact.  We followed it up with the 1-meter and 60”, it was seen by a telescope in Hawaii, and the next observations were of the fireball as it impacted over southern Africa, probably Botswana.  It was only about a 2-meter asteroid.

Eric

-

Eric J. Christensen

Director, Catalina Sky Survey

The University of Arizona

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

           2018 LA

    This object no longer exists (in its original form), following its entry into the Earth's atmosphere on 2018 June 2.  A news item on the event is in preparation by JPL's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies.  The orbit below, based on only the given astrometric observations, indicates that the object reached 50-km height above the Earth's surface around 16:51 UTC over southern Africa.

2018 LA

    An asteroidal object of mag 18.0-18.3 that was discovered on CCD images taken by R. A. Kowalski on June 2.34-2.36 UT with the Mount Lemmon Survey's 1.5-m reflector was followed up in the subsequent 3-4 hours with additional observations with the Steward Observatory 1.0-m reflector at Mt. Lemmon and with the ATLAS 0.5-m f/2 Schmidt telescope at Mauna Loa.  These three sets of astrometry yielded a solution (published by G. V. Williams on MPEC 2018-L04) that suggested entrance into the earth's atmosphere around June 2.702, less than five hours after the last astrometric observation at Mauna Loa.  The published orbit had a = 1.37 AU, q = 0.78 AU, P = 1.61 yr, i = 4.28 degrees, and absolute magnitude H = 30.6 (suggesting an object not more than a few meters across).

    A fireball was observed widely across southern Africa after dark around the predicted time.  A camera on a farm recorded the incoming fireball, with the video posted at website URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnBvSNYy-EY.

This is only the third small asteroidal object discovered prior to entering the earth's atmosphere, after 2008 TC_3 (which dropped surviving rocks on

2008 Oct. 7 that were collected in Sudan) and 2014 AA (which evidently entered over the Atlantic Ocean on 2014 Jan. 1).

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: Jupiter Cloud Animation from Juno https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180521.html
Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS; Processing: Gerald Eichstädt

Explanation: How do Jupiter's clouds move? To help find out, images taken with NASA's Juno spacecraft during its last pass near Jupiter have been analyzed and digitally extrapolated into a time-lapse video. The eight-second time-lapse video, digitally extrapolated between two images taken only nine minutes apart, estimates how Jupiter's clouds move over 29 hours. Abstractly, the result appears something like a psychedelic paisley dream. Scientifically, however, the computer animation shows that circular storms tend to swirl, while bands and zones appear to flow. This overall motion is not surprising and has been seen on time-lapse videos of Jupiter before, although never in this detail. The featured region spans about four times the area of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Results from Juno are showing, unexpectedly, that Jupiter's weather phenomena can extend deep below its cloud tops.

VIDEO: The Case of the Backwards Orbiting Asteroid 

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180530.html
Illustration Video Credit & Copyright: Western U., Athabasca U., Large Binocular Telescope Obs.

Explanation: Why does asteroid 2015 BZ509 orbit the Sun the backwards? As shown in the featured animation, Jupiter's trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in two major groups -- one just ahead of Jupiter, and one just behind -- but all orbit the Sun in the same direction as Jupiter. Asteroid BZ509however, discovered in 2015 and currently unnamed, orbits the Sun in retrograde and in a more complex gravitational dance with Jupiter. The reason why is currently unknown and a topic of research -- but if resolved might tell us about the early Solar System. A recently popular hypothesisholds that BZ509 was captured by Jupiter from interstellar space billions of years ago, while a competing conjecture posits that BZ509 came from our Solar System's own distant Oort cloud of comets, perhaps more recently. The answer may only become known after more detailed models of the likelihood and stability of orbits near Jupiter are studied, or, possibly, by observing direct properties of the unusual object.

VIDEO: Coronal Rain on the Sun https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180527.html
Video Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, SVS, GSFC, NASA; Music: Thunderbolt by Lars Leonhard

Explanation: Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a Coronal Mass Ejection and a moderate solar flare. What was more unusual, however, was what happened next. Plasma in the nearby solar corona was imaged cooling and falling back, a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Because they are electrically charged, electrons, protons, and ions in the rain were gracefully channeled along existing magnetic loops near the Sun's surface, making the scene appear as a surreal three-dimensional sourceless waterfall. The resulting surprisingly-serene spectacle is shown in ultraviolet light and highlights matter glowing at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. Each second in the featured time lapse video takes about 6 minutes in real time, so that the entire coronal rain sequence lasted about 10 hours. Recent observations have confirmed that that coronal rain can also occur in smaller loops for as long as 30 hours.

Attack of the Laser Guide Stars 
Image Credit & License: European Southern Observatory / Gerhard Hudepohl (atacamaphoto.com)

Explanation: Dodging powerful laser beams, a drone captured this stunning aerial view. The confrontation took place above the 8.2 meter diameter Very Large Telescopes of the Paranal Observatory on planet Earth. Firing during a test of the observatory's 4 Laser Guide Star Facility, the lasers are ultimately battling against the blurring effect of atmospheric turbulence by creating artificial guide stars. The guide stars are actually emission from laser excited sodium atoms at high altitudes within the telescopic field of view. Guide star image fluctuations are used in real-time to correct for atmospheric blurring by controlling a deformable mirror in the telescope's optical path. Known as adaptive optics, the technique can produce images at the diffraction limit of the telescope. That's the same sharpness you would get if the telescope were in space.

Rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud 
Image Credit & Licence: ESA, Gaia, DPAC

Explanation: This image is not blurry. It shows in clear detail that the largest satellite galaxy to our Milky Way, the Large Cloud of Magellan (LMC), rotates. First determined with Hubble, the rotation of the LMC is presented here with fine data from the Sun-orbiting Gaia satellite. Gaiameasures the positions of stars so accurately that subsequent measurements can reveal slight proper motions of stars not previously detectable. The featured image shows, effectively, exaggerated star trails for millions of faint LMC stars. Inspection of the image also shows the center of theclockwise rotation: near the top of the LMC's central bar. The LMC, prominent in southern skies, is a small spiral galaxy that has been distorted by encounters with the greater Milky Way Galaxy and the lesser Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).

Kepler's House in Linz 
Image Credit & Copyright: Erich Meyer (Astronomical Society of Linz)

Explanation: Four hundred years ago today (May 15, 1618) Johannes Kepler discovered the simple mathematical rule governing the orbits of the solar system's planets, now recognized as Kepler's Third Law of planetary motion. At that time he was living in this tall house on The Hofgasse, a narrow street near the castle and main square of the city of Linz, Austria, planet Earth. The conclusive identification of this residence (Hofgasse 7) as the location of the discovery of his third law is a recent discovery itself. Erich Meyer of the Astronomical Society of Linz was able to solve the historical mystery, based in part on descriptions of Kepler's own observations of lunar eclipses. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, Kepler supported Galileo's discoveries and the Copernican system of planets orbiting the Sun instead of the Earth. He showed that planets move in ellipses around the Sun (Kepler's First Law), that planets move proportionally faster in their orbits when they are nearer the Sun (Kepler's Second Law), and that more distant planets take proportionally longer to orbit the Sun (Kepler's Third Law).

A Plurality of Singularities at the Galactic Center 
Image Credit: NASA/CXC / Columbia Univ./ C. Hailey et al.

Explanation: A recent informal poll found that astronomers don't yet have a good collective noun for a group of black holes, but they need one. The red circles in this Chandra Observatory X-ray image identify a group of a dozen black holes that are members of binary star systems. With 5 to 30 times the mass of the Sun, the black hole binaries are swarming within about 3 light-years of the center of our galaxy where the supermassive black hole identified as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) resides. Yellow circles indicate X-ray sources that are likely less massive neutron stars or white dwarf stars in binary star systems. Alone, black holes would be invisible, but as part of a binary star system they accrete material from their normal companion star and generate X-rays. At the distance of the galactic center Chandra can detect only the brighter of these black hole binary systems as point-like sources of X-rays, hinting that many fainter X-ray emitting black hole binaries should exist there, as yet undetected.

The Observable Universe 
Illustration Credit & Licence: Wikipedia, Pablo Carlos Budassi

Explanation: How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the observable universe. In light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background, a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale, with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System, nearby stars, nearby galaxies, distant galaxies, filaments of early matter, and the cosmic microwave background. Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as "the universe" where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but speculative reasoning that assert that even our universe is part of a greater multiverse where either different physical constants occur, different physical laws apply, higher dimensionsoperate, or slightly different-by-chance versions of our standard universe exist.

Aurora and Manicouagan Crater from the Space Station 
Image Credit: NASA

Explanation: How many of these can you find in today's featured photograph: an aurora, airglow, one of the oldest impact craters on the Earth, snow and ice, stars, city lights, and part of the International Space Station? Most of these can be identified by their distinctive colors. The aurora here appears green at the bottom, red at the top, and is visible across the left of image. Airglow appears orange and can be seen hovering over the curve of the Earth. The circular Manicouagan Crater in Canada, about 100 kilometers across and 200 million years old, is visible toward the lower right and is covered in white snow and ice. Stars, light in color, dot the dark background of space. City lights appear a bright yellow and dot the landscape. Finally, across the top, part of the International Space Station (ISS) appears mostly tan. The featured image was taken from the ISS in 2012.

Astronomy News:

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

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/10/the-answer-to-life-the-universe-and-everything-might-be-73-or-67

The answer to life, the universe and everything might be 73. Or 67

A new estimate of the Hubble constant – the rate at which the universe is expanding – is baffling many of the finest minds in the cosmology community

Hannah Devlin, Science correspondent

 @hannahdev

Thu 10 May 2018 11.02 EDTLast modified on Fri 11 May 2018 05.20 EDT

 Gaia’s all-sky view of our Milky Way galaxy and neighbouring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars. Photograph: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

A crisis of cosmic proportions is brewing: the universe is expanding 9% faster than it ought to be and scientists are not sure why.

The latest, most precise, estimate of the universe’s current rate of expansion - a value known as the Hubble constant - comes from observations by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which is conducting the most detailed ever three-dimensional survey of the Milky Way.

The data has allowed the rate of expansion to be pinned down to a supposed accuracy of a couple of percent. However, this newest estimate stands in stark contradiction with an independent measure of the Hubble constant based on observations of ancient light that was released shortly after the Big Bang. In short, the universe is getting bigger quicker than it should be.

The mismatch is significant and problematic because the Hubble constant is widely regarded as the most fundamental number in cosmology.

“The fact the universe is expanding is really one of the most powerful ways we have to determine the composition of the universe, the age of the universe and the fate of the universe,” said Professor Adam Riess, at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, who led the latest analysis. “The Hubble constant quantifies all that into one number.”

In an expanding universe, the further away a star or galaxy is, the quicker it is receding. Hubble’s constant – proposed by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s – reveals by how much.

So one approach to measuring it is by observing the redshifts of bright supernovae, whose light is stretched as the very space it is travelling through expands. A challenge, though, is pinpointing the exact distance of these stars.

Riess, who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, is part of a team focussed on developing ultra-precise methods for measuring distances.

The latest Gaia observations have advanced this effort by identifying dozens of new Cepheid stars, which have the special feature that their light flickers at a rate that is directly linked to their brightness at source. So through observing the pulsations of these so-called standard candles, scientists can work out their original luminosity and, therefore, how far away they and their native galaxies are.

The new data puts the Hubble constant at 73, which translates to galaxies moving away from us 73km per second faster for each additional megaparsec of distance between us and them (a megaparsec is about 3.3m light-years).

However, a separate estimate of Hubble comes from observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background, relic radiation that allows scientists to calculate how quickly the universe was expanding 300,000 years after the big bang.

“The cosmic microwave background is the light that is the furthest away from us that we can see,” said Riess. “It’s been travelling for 13.7bn years... and it’s telling us how fast the universe was expanding when the universe was a baby.”

Scientists then use the cosmic equivalent of a child growth chart (a computational model that roughly describes the age and contents of the universe and the laws of physics) to predict how fast the universe should be expanding today. This gives a Hubble value of 67.

Until recently, scientists had hoped that as measurements became more precise, this mismatch would narrow, but instead the difference has widened and the latest calculation gives a chance of only 1 in 7,000 of the discrepancy being down to chance. “If this continues to hold up we may be dealing with what we call new physics of the universe,” said Riess.

What form might this take? One proposal is that dark energy, believed to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, is becoming more potent. Scientists are not sure why this would happen - since space is being stretched out, one might expect its strength to be diluted instead. Another possibility is that a fourth, not yet observed, variety of neutrino could have skewed calculations. Dark matter could also be to blame if it turns out to interact more with normal matter than current models predict.

“I’m not in the business of ensuring that everything fits,” said Riess. “I think: ‘Ah this is very interesting’.”

More prosaic explanations have also been put forward. John Peacock, professor of cosmology at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Beyond a certain level of complexity you have to be open to the possibility that there may be little assumptions that might not be quite right.”

“I’m sticking with [a Hubble value of] 70 for the foreseeable future,” he added.

The crisis in cosmology, as it was described a meeting of the American Physical Society last month, could soon be resolved through new measurements of the Hubble constant based on gravitational wave observations by the Ligo collaboration. “Within the next five years, we’ll probably nail this,” said Peacock.

 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.

7 June			AEA Astronomy Club Meeting	Exoplanets: Finding Life in the Galaxy	(A1/1735)
	1 June	Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance) Topic: “Exploring Deep Space Beyond the Solar System by Flying Through Einstein's Rings” Dr. Thomas Hiensheimer
	June 10
		UCLA Meteorite Gallery -- Location: UCLA Campus DR. PAUL WARREN AND PROF. JOHN WASSON UREILITES, DIAMONDS AND METEORITES FROM BODIES THE SIZE OF MERCURY Location: Geology 3656 Time: 2:30PM They will discuss and critique a recent Nature article about diamonds found in a ureilite that fell in the Sudan in 2008. Although the diamonds are relatively small, it is inferred that they originally reached sizes of 100 micrometers; they contain some tiny Fe3(P,S) minerals which have compositions that require pressures only obtained at a depth of >2000 km in a planet the size of Mercury or Mars. These would be the first confirmed evidence of such high static pressures in meteorites. Picture: A colorized scanning transmission electron microscope image showing diamond (blue), inclusions (yellow), and graphite in the Almahata Sitta meteorite. (F. Nabiei, E. Oveisi, C. Hébert/EPFL, Switzerland)

11 June

LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory

 

The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2018

 

June – no lecture this month

5 July

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

Pizza & “The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) Mission,” Tom Heinsheimer, Aerospace

(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 June:

  

Moon: June 6 last quarter, June 13 new, June 20 1^st quarter, June 28 Full,                       

Planets: Venus visible at dusk, sets ~10pm.  Mars rises about 10pm, highest before dawn, heading towards opposition July 27.  Mercury is visible just after sunset before setting.  Saturn reaches opposition June 26, rising just after sunset, visible until dawn. Jupiter transits 8-10pm.

Other Events:

6,13,20,27 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

9 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/

16 June

LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party

16 June

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

16 June Venus 2 deg N of Moon

21 June Summer Solstice

23 June

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

27 June Saturn at opposition

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