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)

Saturday, December 14, 2019

2019 December


AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter                         December 2019

Contents

AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 8
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 8
    Observing p. 10
Useful Links p. 12
About the Club p. 13

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule: -- note the possible change of date in Sept. due to Labor Day holiday week

5 Dec.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 The Antikythera Mechanism, Part 2 (The Great Course on Ancient Astronomies)
(A1/1735)


9 Jan.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting & Pizza Party
 "Overview and Status of the Giant Magellan Telescope,” Breann Sitarsky of GMT Corp. & Aerospace casual (works on the design and specification of the telescope and its subsystems)
(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. 

Club News:  

Mercury Transit Viewing Mon. Nov. 11, 9-10am in Paulikas Mall

The club set up in the Paulikas Mall to view the Nov. 11 Mercury transit.  And the clouds cleared for the last hour or so.  Here are some photos, including a 40mm H-alpha telescope, the SolarScope projection system, and an 8-inch Dobsonian. Mercury is in the 4:30 and 7:00 positions in the H-alpha (orange) & white light photos.

  








 



We need volunteers to help with: 

·         Assembling our new 16-inch Hubble Optics Dobs
·         Installing our new software on our tablet & laptop
·         Populating our club Sharepoint site with material & links to the club’s Aerowiki & Aerolink materials – Kaly Rangarajan has volunteered to help with this
·         Arranging future club programs
·         Managing club equipment & library (Kelly Gov volunteered to help with the library)

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


Spiral Galaxies Spinning Super-Fast
Image Credit: Top row: NASA, ESA, Hubble, P. Ogle & J. DePasquale (STScI);
Bottom row: SDSS, P. Ogle & J. DePasquale (STScI)
Explanation: Why are these galaxies spinning so fast? If you estimated each spiral's mass by how much light it emits, their fast rotations should break them apart. The leading hypothesis as to why these galaxies don't break apart is dark matter -- mass so dark we can't see it. But these galaxies are even out-spinning this break-up limit -- they are the fastest rotating disk galaxies known. It is therefore further hypothesized that their dark matter halos are so massive -- and their spins so fast -- that it is harder for them to form stars than regular spirals. If so, then these galaxies may be among the most massive spirals possible. Further study of surprising super-spirals like these will continue, likely including observations taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope scheduled for launch in 2021.



Hoag's Object: A Nearly Perfect Ring Galaxy
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: Benoit Blanco
Explanation: Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Arthur Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed, including its nearly perfectly round ring of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The featured photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and recently reprocessed using an artificially intelligent de-noising algorithm. Observations in radio waves indicate that Hoag's Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Many galaxies far in the distance are visible toward the right, while coincidentally, visible in the gap at about seven o'clock, is another but more distant ring galaxy.




The Star Streams of NGC 5907
Image Credit & Copyright: R Jay Gabany (Blackbird Observatory) - collaboration; D.Martinez-Delgado(IAC, MPIA),
J.Penarrubia (U.Victoria) I. Trujillo (IAC) S.Majewski (U.Virginia), M.Pohlen (Cardiff)
Explanation: Grand tidal streams of stars seem to surround galaxy NGC 5907. The arcing structures form tenuous loops extending more than 150,000 light-years from the narrow, edge-on spiral, also known as the Splinter or Knife Edge Galaxy. Recorded only in very deep exposures, the streams likely represent the ghostly trail of a dwarf galaxy - debris left along the orbit of a smaller satellite galaxy that was gradually torn apart and merged with NGC 5907 over four billion years ago. Ultimately this remarkable discovery image, from a small robotic observatory in New Mexico, supports the cosmological scenario in which large spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, were formed by the accretion of smaller ones. NGC 5907 lies about 40 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Draco.



Galileo's Europa Remastered
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SETI Institute, Cynthia Phillips, Marty Valenti
Explanation: Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean. Galileo's Europa image data has been remastered here, using improved new calibrations to produce a color image approximating what the human eye might see. Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface liquid water. The tidal flexing the large moon experiences in its elliptical orbit around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean liquid. But more tantalizing is the possibility that even in the absence of sunlight that process could also supply the energy to support life, making Europa one of the best places to look for life beyond Earth. What kind of life could thrive in a deep, dark, subsurface ocean? Consider planet Earth's own extreme shrimp.


Astronomy News:

NASA’s Solar Probe Found Things Near the Sun That We Can’t Explain

Scientists say the unexplained rogue waves and high winds mean we are “missing something really fundamental in our standard models of the Sun.”

By Becky Ferreira
04 December 2019, 10:10pm
ShareTweetSnap
THE SUN. IMAGE: NASA/SDO
This article originally appeared on VICE US.
The fastest object ever created by humans has discovered intensely energetic rogue waves within our Sun, and detected solar wind speeds beyond what any model had predicted. Neither discovery was expected, or can be easily explained, suggesting that there are significant gaps in our understanding of the Sun.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018, traveled closer to the Sun than any previous mission for several days last November and in April 2019. Scientists revealed the incredible findings from these first two close encounters from the swiftest spacecraft ever in a batch of four papers published in Nature on Wednesday.
Though the Sun is the center of the solar system and its radiation has nurtured life on Earth, it is one of the most unexplored objects in space because of its intense heat and radiation.
“It’s been very exciting,” said Justin Kasper, lead author of one of the studies and professor of space sciences at the University of Michigan, in a call. “It’s exploration at the cutting edge.”
During its two encounters, Parker traveled within 15 million miles of the Sun’s surface, far surpassing the 25-million-mile record first set by NASA’s Helios 2 mission in 1976. Parker has also claimed the title of the fastest human-made object in history from Helios 2, as it surfed near the Sun at over 153,000 miles per hour.
In a surprising discovery, Parker detected new phenomena within a quarter of an astronomical unit (AU), the distance between Earth and the Sun, of the solar surface. At that distance, the probe reported that the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, was rotating around the star at speeds far beyond what models had estimated.
“To our big surprise,” Kasper said, “by the time we got to our closest approach, [the solar wind] was flowing between 35 and 50 kilometers per second around the Sun. That’s something like 15 to 25 times faster than the standard solar models predict, so we’re missing something really fundamental in our standard models of the Sun—how it rotates and how the wind escapes—and that’s really interesting.”
Parker was also pummeled by a series of extraordinarily intense “Alfven waves” in the solar wind. Interplanetary missions have long observed less energetic Alfven waves, which are ripples that flow through magnetized plasma from the Sun. But Parker is the first to brace the “giant rogue waves” near our star.
“Every now and then, suddenly within seconds, the speed of the wind would jump by about 300,000 miles an hour,” Kasper explained. “Then, for seconds or hundreds of seconds, the spacecraft would sit there washed by this spike in the speed of the wind, and then just as quickly it goes away.”
These spikes are so violent that they distort and twist the magnetic field as they pass through it. “It gives you a sense of just how much energy is in these rogue waves as they go by compared to the regular Alfven waves that we’ve seen before,” Kasper said.
Though the mechanism behind these waves is still unknown, the sheer force of them may help explain two of the most persistent mysteries about the Sun: Why is solar corona, or the atmosphere of the Sun, about 1,000 times hotter than its surface? And why does the solar wind suddenly accelerate to supersonic speeds at a certain distance from the Sun?
Scientists suspect that an enigmatic process dumps heat and energy into the solar corona. The newly detected rogue waves might be a part of this dynamic.
“We were looking for buckets of energy when we got closer to the Sun, and we’re seeing some very large buckets going by, so that’s good,” Kasper said. “In our initial analyses, they’re definitely carrying a lot of energy so they are very promising as an energy source.”
“I’m not going to claim in any way that we’ve solved the mystery but we’ve had some very surprising results to paint the path to closing this question,” he added.
Parker’s new data challenges long-held assumptions about the Sun, which will lead to better models of solar storms that can affect Earth, as well as star evolution across the universe. Plus, the mission is only getting started.
 “We’re running out of unexplored territory now,” Kasper said.

 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 2019 Astronomy Lecture Series

Each year the Observatories organizes a series of public lectures on current astronomical topics.  These lectures are given by astronomers from the Carnegie Observatories as well as other research institutions.  The lectures are geared to the general public and are free.
– only 4 per year in the Spring www.obs.carnegiescience.edu.  For more information about the Carnegie Observatories or this lecture series, please contact Reed Haynie.  . Click here for more information.
5 Dec.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 The Antikythera Mechanism, Part 2 (The Great Course on Ancient Astronomies)
(A1/1735)


6 Dec.

Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Topic: “The Failed Dream of a Rocket Scientist Or Be Careful What You Wish For, It May Come True”
Shadan Ardalan, NASA

16 Dec. Monday, CalTech Astro: Astronomy on Tap Series “Exploding Stars”. For directions, weather updates, and more information, please visit: http://outreach.astro.caltech.edu




Jan. 23 & 24 (none in Dec.) The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2020


Spitzer: Final Voyage


The Spitzer Space Telescope has been observing the universe in infrared light for over 16 years. As the mission comes to a close, we’ll take a look at some of the amazing highlights and the lasting legacy of this incredible observatory
Host:
Brian White
Speaker(s):
Varoujan Gorjian, Spitzer Research Scientist, JPL
Robert Hurt, Spitzer Visualization Scientist, Caltech/IPAC
Suzanne Dodd, Former Spitzer Project Manager (2010-2016), JPL
Joseph Hunt, Spitzer Project Manager (Current), JPL

Location:
Thursday, Jan. 23, 2019, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, Jan. 24, 2019, 7pm
Caltech’s Ramo Auditorium
1200 E California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

› Click here to watch the event live on Ustream
* Only the Thursday lectures are streamed live.
* Only the Thursday lectures are streamed live.


9 Dec. 
LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory (private)



Dec. 21-Jan.1, 2019

UCLA Meteorite Gallery

Closed for winter break Dec. 21-Jan. 1

9 Jan.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting & Pizza Party
Pizza Party & "Overview and Status of the Giant Magellan Telescope,” Breann Sitarsky of GMT Corp. & Aerospace casual (works on the design and specification of the telescope and its subsystems)
(A1/1735)

Observing:

The following data are from the 2019 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2019 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 December:

   

Moon: Dec 4 1st quarter, Dec 12 Full, Dec 19 last quarter, Dec 26 new                
Planets: Venus visible at dusk all month.  Mars visible at dawn all month.  Mercury visible at dawn thru the 17th.  Saturn visible at dusk until the 27th. Jupiter visible at dusk thru the 12th.
Other Events:

7 Dec.
LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm See http://www.griffithobservatory.org/programs/publictelescopes.html#starparties  for more information.


4,11,18 Dec.
LAAS The Garvey Ranch Observatory is open to the public every Wednesday evening from 7:30 PM to 10 PM. Go into the dome to use the 8 Inch Refractor or observe through one of our telescopes on the lawn. Visit our workshop to learn how you can build your own telescope, grind your own mirror, or sign up for our free seasonal astronomy classes.

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

11 Dec. Venus 1.8 deg. S. of Saturn

14 Dec. Geminids meteor peak

21 Dec.
SBAS In-town observing session – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.  

22 December Ursids Meteor Shower Peak A minor shower radiating from near Kochab in Ursa Minor. Can typically see about 10 meteors/hour.

22 December Solstice

28 Dec.
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party


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

29 Dec. Venus 1 deg N. of Moon

4 Jan.
LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm See http://www.griffithobservatory.org/programs/publictelescopes.html#starparties  for more information.

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, Walt Sturrock, VP, Kelly Gov club Secretary (& librarian), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President



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