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)

Monday, July 16, 2018

2018 July


AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter July 2018

Contents

AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 9
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 9
    Observing p. 13
Useful Links p. 14
About the Club p. 15

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:

5 July
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting & Pizza Party
“The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) Mission,” – Tom Heinsheimer, Aerospace
(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. 


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:  

The Hubble Optics 16-inch ultralight/portable Dobsonian has been ordered, and should be here by early November (long production & shipping lead time from China).  Along with a large array of accessories, including digital setting circle.  We’ve also got a new 15-inch laptop for the club, and will begin loading it up with software (Starry Night, Sky Safari, software with our various scopes and cameras, etc.). 

Suggestions for purchases in FY19 are solicited – we must present tentative ideas in our club budget due July 31.  So far considering a tablet computer or 2 (to drive the new 16-inch & host Sky Safari etc. software), software like Maxim DL, Starry Night Pro, etc., a wireless telescope controller (e.g., Sky Fi III), and another small, portable GoTo scope.

In September we will schedule a club tour of the Webb Telescope at NGC – sometime in the Fall.  Stay tuned.

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:  Star Size Comparison 2 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180612.html
Video Credit: morn1415 (YouTube); Images Credit: NASA (typically); Music: Alpha (Vangelis)
Explanation: How big is our Sun compared to other stars? In dramatic and popular videos featured on YouTube, the relative sizes of planets, stars, and even the universe are shown from smallest to largest. The featured video begins with Earth's Moon and progresses through increasingly larger moons and planets in our Solar System. Soon, the Sun is shown and compared to many of the brighter stars in our neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy. Finally, star sizes are shown in comparison with the Milky Way Galaxy, galaxies across the observable universe, and speculatively, regions of a potentially greater multiverse. Note that the true sizes of most stars outside of the Sun and Betelgeuse are not known by direct observation, but rather inferred by measurements of their perceived brightness,temperature, and distance. Although an inspiring learning tool that is mostly accurate, APOD readers are encouraged to complete the learning experience -- and possibly help make future versions more accurate -- by pointing out slight inaccuracies in the video.
VIDEO: Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano 
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180604.html
Video Credit & Copyright: Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias); Music: Piano della Moon (Dan Silva)
Explanation: These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What is moving is mostly the Earth, whose spin causes the Moonto slowly disappear behind Mount Teide, a volcano in the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. The people pictured are 16 kilometers away and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise behind the photographer. It is not a coincidencethat a full moon rises just when the Sun sets because the Sun is always on the opposite side of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made last week during the full Milk Moon. The video is not time-lapse -- this was really how fast the Moon was setting.


Fermi Science Playoffs 
Image Credit: NASA, DOE, International Fermi LAT Collaboration, Jay Friedlander (Goddard Spaceflight Center)
Explanation: NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was launched into orbit on June 11th, 2008. Its instruments detect gamma-rays -- light that is thousands to hundreds of billions of times more energetic than what we see with our eyes. In the last decade Fermi's high-energy voyage of exploration has resulted in a cornucopia of astonishing discoveries, from extreme environments above our fair planet and across the distant Universe. Now you can vote for Fermi's best result so far. To mark Fermi's 10th anniversary, images representing 16 scientific results have been selected and seeded to create brackets. Follow this link to cast your first round vote for your favorite out of each pair and then return every two weeks to vote in the next round. The winner of the Fermi Final will be announced on August 6, the 10th anniversary of the first science data from Fermi.
Hayabusa2 Approaches Asteroid Ryugu 
Image Credit & Copyright: ISAS, JAXA, Hayabusa2 Team
Explanation: It looks like a big space diamond -- but with craters. It's 162173 Ryugu (Dragon's Castle), and Japan's robotic Hayabusa2 mission is now arriving at this near-Earth asteroid. Ambitious Hayabusa2 is carrying an armada of separable probes, including two impactors, four small close-proximity hoverers, three small surface hoppers, and the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) which will land, study, and move around on Ryugu's surface. Most of these are equipped with cameras. Moreover, Hayabusa2 itself isscheduled to collect surface samples and return these samples to Earth for a detailed analysis near the end of 2020. Previously, what was known about asteroid Ryugu was its orbit, that it spans about one kilometer, and that it has a dark surface that reflects unusual colors.Studying Ryugu could tell humanity not only about Ryugu's surface and interior, but about what materials were available in the early Solar System for the development of life. Pictured, a series of approach images shows features suggestive of large boulders and craters.

Ancients of Sea and Sky 
Image Credit & Copyright: Jingyi Zhang
Explanation: They may look like round rocks, but they're alive. Moreover, they are modern versions of one of the oldest known forms of life: stromatolites. Fossils indicate that stromatolites appeared on Earth about 3.7 billion years ago -- even before many of the familiar stars in the modern night sky were formed. In the featured image taken in Western Australia, only the ancient central arch of our Milky Way Galaxy formed earlier. Even the Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our Milky Way and visible in the featured image below theMilky Way's arch, didn't exist in their current form when stromatolites first grew on Earth. Stromatolites are accreting biofilms of billions of microorganisms that can slowly move toward light. Using this light to liberate oxygen into the air, ancient stromatolites helped make Earth hospitable to other life forms including, eventually, humans.

Mars Engulfed 
Image Credit: J. Bell (ASU), M. Wolff (Space Science Inst.), Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA), NASA
Explanation: What's happened to Mars? In 2001, Mars underwent a tremendous planet-wide dust storm -- one of the largest ever recorded from Earth. To show the extent, these two Hubble Space Telescope storm watch images from late June and early September (2001) offer dramatically contrasting views of the martian surface. At left, the onset of smaller "seed" storms can be seen near the Hellas basin (lower right edge of Mars) and the northern polar cap. A similar surface view at right, taken over two months later, shows the fully developed extent of the obscuring global storm. Although this storm eventually waned, in recent days a new large dust storm has been taking hold of the red planet.


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

Breakthrough in the search for cosmic particle accelerators

Scientists trace a single neutrino back to a galaxy billions of light years away

July 12, 2018

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
In a global observation campaign, scientist have for the first time located a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, ghostly elementary particles that travel billions of light years through the universe, flying unaffected through stars, planets and entire galaxies.
FULL STORY

Artist's impression of the active galactic nucleus. The supermassive black hole at the center of the accretion disk sends a narrow high-energy jet of matter into space, perpendicular to the disc.
Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab
Using an internationally organised astronomical dragnet, scientist have for the first time located a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, ghostly elementary particles that travel billions of light years through the universe, flying unaffected through stars, planets and entire galaxies. The joint observation campaign was triggered by a single neutrino that had been recorded by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole, on 22 September 2017. Telescopes on earth and in space were able to determine that the exotic particle had originated in a galaxy over three billion light years away, in the constellation of Orion, where a gigantic black hole serves as a natural particle accelerator. Scientists from the 18 different observatories involved are presenting their findings in the journal Science. Furthermore, a second analysis, also published in Science, shows that other neutrinos previously recorded by IceCube came from the same source.
The observation campaign, in which research scientists from Germany played a key role, is a decisive step towards solving a riddle that has been puzzling scientists for over 100 years, namely that of the precise origins of so-called cosmic rays, high-energy subatomic particles that are constantly bombarding Earth's atmosphere. "This is a milestone for the budding field of neutrino astronomy. We are opening a new window into the high-energy universe," says Marek Kowalski, the head of Neutrino Astronomy at DESY, a research centre of the Helmholtz Association, and a researcher at the Humboldt University in Berlin. "The concerted observational campaign using instruments located all over the globe is also a significant achievement for the field of multi-messenger astronomy, that is the investigation of cosmic objects using different messengers, such as electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves and neutrinos."
Messengers from the high-energy universe
One way in which scientists expect energetic neutrinos to be created is as a sort of by-product of cosmic rays, that are expected to be produced in cosmic particle accelerators, such as the vortex of matter created by supermassive black holes or exploding stars. However, unlike the electrically charged particles of cosmic rays, neutrinos are electrically neutral and therefore not deflected by cosmic magnetic fields as they travel through space, meaning that the direction from which they arrive points straight back at their actual source. Also, neutrinos are scarcely absorbed. "Observing cosmic neutrinos gives us a glimpse of processes that are opaque to electromagnetic radiation," says Klaus Helbing from the Bergische University of Wuppertal, spokesperson for the German IceCube network.""Cosmic neutrinos are messengers from the high-energy universe."
Demonstrating the presence of neutrinos is extremely complicated, however, because most of the ghostly particles travel right through the entire Earth without leaving a trace. Only on very rare occasions does a neutrino interact with its surroundings. It therefore takes huge detectors in order to capture at least a few of these rare reactions. For the IceCube detector, an international consortium of scientists headed by the University of Wisconsin in Madison (USA) drilled 86 holes into the Antarctic ice, each 2500 metres deep. Into these holes they lowered 5160 light sensors, spread out over a total volume of one cubic kilometre. The sensors register the tiny flashes of light that are produced during the rare neutrino interactions in the transparent ice.
Five years ago, IceCube furnished the first evidence of high-energy neutrinos from the depths of outer space. However, these neutrinos appeared to be arriving from random directions across the sky. "Up to this day, we didn't know where they originated," says Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich, whose group contributed crucially to the findings. "Through the neutrino recorded on 22 September, we have now managed to identify a first source."
From radio waves to gamma radiation
The energy of the neutrino in question was around 300 tera-electronvolts, more than 40 times that of the protons produced in the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at the European accelerator facility CERN outside Geneva. Within minutes of recording the neutrino, the IceCube detector automatically alerted numerous other astronomical observatories. A large number of these then scrutinised the region in which the high-energy neutrino had originated, scanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum: from high-energy gamma- and X-rays, through visible light, to radio waves. Sure enough, they were able for the first time to assign a celestial object to the direction from which a high-energy cosmic neutrino had arrived.
"In our case, we saw an active galaxy, which is a large galaxy containing a gigantic black hole at its centre," explains Kowalski. Huge "jets" shoot out into space at right angles to the massive vortex that sucks matter into the black hole. Astrophysicists have long suspected that these jets generate a substantial proportion of cosmic particle radiation. "Now we have found key evidence supporting this assumption," Resconi emphasises.
The active galaxy that has now been identified is a so-called blazar, an active galaxy whose jet points precisely in our direction. Using software developed by DESY researchers, the gamma-ray satellite Fermi, operated by the US space agency NASA, had already registered a dramatic increase in the activity of this blazar, whose catalogue number is TXS 0506+056, around 22 September. Now, an earthbound gamma-ray telescope also recorded a signal from it. "In the follow-up observation of the neutrino, we were able to observe the blazar in the range of very high-energy gamma radiation too, using the MAGIC telescope system on the Canary Island La Palma," says DESY's Elisa Bernardini, who coordinates the MAGIC observations. "The gamma-rays are closest in energy to neutrinos and therefore play a crucial role in determining the mechanism by which the neutrinos are created." The programme for the efficient follow-up observation of neutrinos using gamma-ray telescopes was developed by Bernardini's group.
The NASA X-ray satellites Swift and NuSTAR also registered the eruption of the blazar, and the gamma-ray telescopes H.E.S.S., HAWC and VERITAS as well as the gamma-ray and X-ray satellites AGILE, belonging to the Italian Space Agency ASI, and Integral, belonging to the European Space Agency ESA, all took part in the follow-up observations. All in all, seven optical observatories (the ASAS-SN, Liverpool, Kanata, Kiso Schmidt, SALT and Subaru telescopes, as well as the Very Large Telescope VLT of the European Southern Observatory, ESO) observed the active galaxy, and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) studied its activity in the radio spectrum. This led to a comprehensive picture of the radiation emitted by this blazar, all the way from radio waves to gamma-rays carrying up to 100 billion times as much energy.
Search in archives reveals further neutrinos
A worldwide team of scientists from all the groups involved worked flat out, conducting a complicated statistical analysis to determine whether the correlation between the neutrino and the gamma-ray observations was perhaps just a coincidence. "We calculated that the probability of it being a mere coincidence was around 1 in 1000," explains DESY's Anna Franckowiak, who was in charge of the statistical analysis of the various different data sets. This may not sound very large, but it is not small enough to quell the professional scepticism of physicists.
A second line of investigation rectified this. The IceCube researchers searched through their data from the past years for possible previous measurements of neutrinos coming from the direction of the blazar that had now been identified. And they did indeed find a distinct surplus of more than a dozen of the ghost particles arriving from the direction of TXS 0506+056 during the time between September 2014 and March 2015, as they are reporting in a second paper published in the same edition of Science. The likelihood of this excess being a mere statistical outlier is estimated at 1 in 5000, "a number that makes you prick up your ears," says Christopher Wiebusch from RWTH Aachen, whose group had already noted the hint of excess neutrinos from the direction of TXS 0506+056 in an earlier analysis. "The data also allows us to make a first estimate of the neutrino flux from this source." Together with the single event of September 2017, the IceCube data now provides the best experimental evidence to date that active galaxies are in fact sources of high-energy cosmic neutrinos.
"We now have a better understanding of what we should be looking for. This means that we can in future track down such sources more specifically," says Elisa Resconi. And Marek Kowalski adds, "Since neutrinos are a sort of by-product of the charged particles in cosmic rays, our observation implies that active galaxies are also accelerators of cosmic ray particles. More than a century after the discovery of cosmic rays by Victor Hess in 1912, the IceCube findings have therefore for the first time located a concrete extragalactic source of these high-energy particles."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal References:
1.       The IceCube Collaboration et al. Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A. Science, 2018 DOI: 10.1126/science.aat1378
2.       The IceCube Collaboration et al. Neutrino emission from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506 056 prior to the IceCube-170922A alert. Science, 2018 DOI: 10.1126/science.aat2890


 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.
5 July
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting & Pizza Party
“The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) Mission,” – Tom Heinsheimer, Aerospace
(A1/1735)






13 July
Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Topic: TBD







July 15



UCLA Meteorite Gallery --
Location: UCLA Campus

EAN PIERRE WILLIAMS

MYSTERIOUS COLD SPOTS ON THE MOON: A NEW CLASS OF IMPACT CRATERS

Location: Geology 3656
Time: 2:30PM
Mapping by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed areas having unusually low temperatures called “cold spots”; regions associated with recently formed impact craters. The cold spots identify the recently formed impact craters. Studying them improves our ability to use impact chronology to date planetary surfaces. The larger cold spot craters are candidate source craters for lunar meteorites; their formation ages are a few hundred thousand to a million years, similar to ejection ages of most lunar meteorites.

9 July
LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory

 

The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2018

 

Walking on Mars

July 13
Virtual and augmented reality promise to transport us to places that we can only imagine. When joined with spacecraft and robots, these technologies will extend humanity's presence to real destinations that are equally fantastic. NASA's Operations Laboratory at JPL is spearheading several ambitious projects applying virtual and augmented reality to the challenges of space exploration. Through partnerships with multiple VR and AR companies, scientists on the Curiosity Mars Rover mission are exploring the Martian terrain, engineers are finding new ways to collaborate on 3D designs, and astronauts on the International Space Station are preparing to perform their work more efficiently than ever before. The lead of these projects at NASA will share their progress so far, the challenges that lie ahead, and their vision for the future of VR and AR in space exploration.
Speaker:
Primary Presenter/Speaker: 
Victor Luo – Operations Lab Lead

Panel Speakers: 
Alice Winter – User Experience Researcher
Parker Abercrombie – OnSight Project Lead
Abby Fraeman – MSL Scientist
Location:

Friday, July 13, 2018, 7pm
Caltech’s Ramo Auditorium
1200 E California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions



2 Aug
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
TBA (report on IMAX planetary defense events?)
(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 July:

  

Moon: July 6 last quarter, July 13 new, July 19 1st quarter, July 27 Full,               

Planets: Venus visible at dusk.  Mars rises near sunset, highest after midnight.  Mercury visible at dusk through the 17th.  Saturn visible at dusk, sets before dawn. Jupiter visible at dusk, sets near midnight.
Other Events:

 
7 July
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/


11,18,25 July
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

12 July Mercury greatest elongation E (26 deg)

13 July New Moon

14 July
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party

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

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

27 July Mars at opposition

31 July Mars closest approach (largest apparent size)

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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