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)

Friday, October 11, 2019

2019 October


AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter                         October 2019

Contents

AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 5
Astronomy News p. 8
General Calendar p. 10
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 10
    Observing p. 13
Useful Links p. 15
About the Club p. 15

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

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

3 Oct.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Pizza Party & Viking Navigation, Mark Clayson
(A1/1735)


7 Nov.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 "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)

4 Oct. – Dana Middle School star party 6:30-8:30pm

5 Oct. – Club Mt. Wilson night (booked full)

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:  

We had a very busy night at the Dana Middle School Stargazing Night Oct. 4 – even busier after dark.  Here are some photos.  Thanks to Phil Martzen & Bonnie Valant-Spaight for bringing and shepherding the club equipment.  And for other members who brought family. 





 
 
Here’s the observing list & photos from another successful club night on the Mt. Wilson 60-inch telescope:







We need volunteers to help with: 

·         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)
VIDEO:  Perijove 11: Passing Jupiter https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190908.html
Video Credit & License: NASA, Juno, SwRI, MSSS, Gerald Eichstadt; Music: Moonlight Sonata (Ludwig van Beethoven)
Explanation: Here comes Jupiter! NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its 53-day, highly-elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. The featured video is from perijove 11 in early 2018, the eleventh time Juno has passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. This time-lapse, color-enhanced movie covers about four hours and morphs between 36 JunoCam images. The video begins with Jupiter rising as Juno approaches from the north. As Juno reaches its closest view -- from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter's cloud tops -- the spacecraft captures the great planet in tremendous detail. Juno passes light zones and dark belt of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms, many of which are larger than hurricanes on Earth. After the perijove, Jupiter recedes into the distance, now displaying the unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter's south. To get desired science data, Juno swoops so close to Jupiter that its instruments are exposed to very high levels of radiation.

VIDEO: Unusual Signal Suggests Neutron Star Destroyed by Black Hole https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190903.html
Illustration Video Credit: NASA, Dana Berry (Skyworks Digital)
Explanation: What created this unusual explosion? Three weeks ago, gravitational wave detectors in the USA and Europe -- the LIGO and Virgo detectors -- detected a burst of gravitational radiation that had the oscillating pattern expected when a black hole destroys a neutron star. One object in event S190814bv was best fit with a mass greater than five times the mass of the Sun -- making it a good candidate for a black hole, while the other object appeared to have a mass less than three times the mass of the Sun -- making it a good candidate for a neutron star. No similar event had been detected with gravitational waves before. Unfortunately, no light was seen from this explosion, light that might have been triggered by the disrupting neutron star. It is theoretically possible that the lower mass object was also a black hole, even though no clear example of a black hole with such a low mass is known. The featured video was created to illustrate a previously suspected black hole - neutron star collision detected in light in 2005, specifically gamma-rays from the burst GRB 050724. The animated video starts with a foreground neutron star orbiting a black hole surrounded by an accretion disk. The black hole's gravity then shreds the neutron star, creating a jet as debris falls into the black hole. S190814bv will continue to be researched, with clues about the nature of the objects involved possibly coming from future detections of similar systems.



Sand Dunes Thawing on Mars
Image Credit & License: ESA, Roscosmos, CaSSIS
Explanation: What are these strange shapes on Mars? Defrosting sand dunes. As Spring dawned on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, dunes of sand near the pole, as pictured here in late May by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, began to thaw. The carbon dioxide and water ice actually sublime in the thin atmosphere directly to gas. Thinner regions of ice typically defrost first revealing sand whose darkness soaks in sunlight and accelerates the thaw. The process might even involve sandy jets exploding through the thinning ice. By Summer, spots will expand to encompass the entire dunes. The Martian North Pole is ringed by many similar fields of barchan sand dunes, whose strange, smooth arcs are shaped by persistent Martian winds.


Eye Sky a Dragon
Image Credit & Copyright: Anton Komlev
Explanation: What do you see when you look into this sky? In the center, in the dark, do you see a night sky filled with stars? Do you see a sunset to the left? Clouds all around? Do you see the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy running down the middle? Do you see the ruins of an abandoned outpost on a hill? (The outpost is on Askold Island, Russia.) Do you see a photographer with a headlamp contemplating surreal surroundings? (The image is a panorama of 38 images taken last month and compiled into a Little Planet projection.) Do you see a rugged path lined with steps? Or do you see the eye of a dragon?


Gigantic Jet Lightning over India
Image Credit & Copyright: Hung-Hsi Chang
Explanation: Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this? While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught something unexpected: gigantic jet lightning. The jet was captured on a single 3.2-second exposure above Bhadrak, India. Although the gigantic jet appears connected to the airplane's wing, it likely started in a more distant thundercloud, and can be seen extending upwards towards Earth's ionosphere. The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remains an active topic of research.

Astronomy News:


Discovery one-ups Tatooine, finds twin stars hosting three giant exoplanets

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/08/31/discovery.one.ups.tatooine.finds.twin.stars.hosting.three.giant.exoplanets

Published: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 - 14:44 in Astronomy & Space

Related images
(click to enlarge)


This is an illustration of this highly unusual system, which features the smallest-separation binary stars that both host planets ever discovered. Only six other metal-poor binary star systems with exoplanets have ever been found.

Illustration is courtesy of Timothy Rodigas.
A team of Carnegie scientists has discovered three giant planets in a binary star system composed of stellar ''twins'' that are also effectively siblings of our Sun. One star hosts two planets and the other hosts the third. The system represents the smallest-separation binary in which both stars host planets that has ever been observed. The findings, which may help explain the influence that giant planets like Jupiter have over a solar system's architecture, have been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. New discoveries coming from the study of exoplanetary systems will show us where on the continuum of ordinary to unique our own Solar System's layout falls. So far, planet hunters have revealed populations of planets that are very different from what we see in our Solar System. The most-common exoplanets detected are so-called super-Earths, which are larger than our planet but smaller than Neptune or Uranus. Given current statistics, Jupiter-sized planets seem fairly rare--having been detected only around a small percentage of stars.

This is of interest because Jupiter's gravitational pull was likely a huge influence on our Solar System's architecture during its formative period. So the scarcity of Jupiter-like planets could explain why our home system is different from all the others found to date.
The new discovery from the Carnegie team is the first exoplanet detection made based solely on data from the Planet Finder Spectrograph--developed by Carnegie scientists and mounted on the Magellan Clay Telescopes at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory. PFS is able to find large planets with long-duration orbits or orbits that are very elliptical rather than circular, including the new trio of planets discovered in this `"twin'" star study. This special capability comes from the long observing baseline of PFS; it has been taking observations for six years.
Led by Johanna Teske, the team included a number of Carnegie scientists from both the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, DC, and the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, CA, as well as Steve Vogt of the University of California Santa Cruz.
"We are trying to figure out if giant planets like Jupiter often have long and, or eccentric orbits," Teske explained. "If this is the case, it would be an important clue to figuring out the process by which our Solar System formed, and might help us understand where habitable planets are likely to be found."
The twin stars studied by the group are called HD 133131A and HD 133131B. The former hosts two moderately eccentric planets, one of which is, at a minimum, about 1 and a half times Jupiter's mass and the other of which is, at a minimum, just over half Jupiter's mass. The latter hosts one moderately eccentric planet with a mass at least 2.5 times Jupiter's.
The two stars themselves are separated by only 360 astronomical units (AU). One AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This is extremely close for twin stars with detected planets orbiting the individual stars. The next-closest binary system that hosts planets is comprised of two stars that are about 1,000 AU apart.
The system is even more unusual because both stars are "metal poor," meaning that most of their mass is hydrogen and helium, as opposed to other elements like iron or oxygen. Most stars that host giant planets are "metal rich." Only six other metal-poor binary star systems with exoplanets have ever been found, making this discovery especially intriguing.
Adding to the intrigue, Teske used very precise analysis to reveal that the stars are not actually identical "twins" as previously thought, but have slightly different chemical compositions, making them more like the stellar equivalent of fraternal twins.
This could indicate that one star swallowed some baby planets early in its life, changing its composition slightly. Alternatively, the gravitational forces of the detected giant planets that remained may have had a strong effect on fully-formed small planets, flinging them in towards the star or out into space.
"The probability of finding a system with all these components was extremely small, so these results will serve as an important benchmark for understanding planet formation, especially in binary systems," Teske explained.

Source: Carnegie Institution for Science


 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.
3 Oct.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Pizza Party & Viking Navigation, Mark Clayson
(A1/1735)



4 Oct.

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

Oct. 17 & 18 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2019



Darkness Surrounds Us: The Other 95% of the Universe

All the material we can see is just a small fraction of the universe. The rest, a full 95 percent, is invisible and mysterious. These are the enigmatic dark matter and dark energy. While dark matter keeps things like galaxies together, dark energy acts in an opposite way – it pushes groups of galaxies apart and expands the universe itself. This event will discuss how astronomers are working to map the universe’s dark matter so they can see the effects of dark energy. The results could help us understand if the universe will expand at an accelerating rate forever.
Host:
Preston Dyches

Speaker(s):
Alina Kiessling — Astrophysicist, NASA-JPL
Jason Rhodes — Astrophysicist, NASA-JPL
NASA People Profile of the speakers

Location:
Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, Oct. 18, 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.

21 Oct. Monday, 8 PM CalTech Astro: Stargazing and Lecture Series “Astronomy on Tap”. For directions, weather updates, and more information, please visit: http://outreach.astro.caltech.edu


21 Oct. 
LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory (private)




Oct. 27, 2019

DR. PAUL WARREN

LUNAR EXPLORATION: PROSPECTS FOR THE NEXT FEW DECADES

Location: Geology Building - Slichter Room 3656
Time: 2:30PM
The past three decades have seen much progress in lunar science, driven mainly by orbital probes, lunar meteorites, and ever-improving technology for sample analysis. Because the Moon’s surface is well-sampled and not highly diverse, limited progress can be expected from additional orbiters, unmanned rovers, and even sample-acquisition missions, unless the landing targets is a geologically novel area, and/or includes Apollo-15/16/17 style selective and ample sampling by astronauts. The good news is, China and the USA are racing to a second era of manned exploration; and technically challenging unmanned-probes may be seen as relatively inexpensive complements to manned exploration.

7 Nov.
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 "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 October:

   

Moon: Oct 5 1st quarter, Oct 13 Full, Oct 21 last quarter, Oct 28 new                   
Planets: Venus visible at dusk all month.  Mars visible at dawn after the 14th.  Mercury hidden in the Sun’s glow all month.  Saturn visible at dusk, sets mid-evening. Jupiter visible at dusk, sets early evening.
Other Events:


2,9,16,23,30 Oct
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


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


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

21 October Orionids Meteor Shower Peak The Orionid meteor shower, usually shortened to the Orionids, is the most prolific meteor shower associated with Halley’s Comet. In some years, meteors may occur at rates of 50–70 per hour.

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

26 Oct.
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party

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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