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)

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

2022 June

 

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter                        

June  2022

 

Contents


AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 10
General Calendar p. 13

    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 13
    Observing p. 14

Useful Links p. 16
About the Club p. 17

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

 

Club Meeting Schedule: --

 

 

2 June                 AEA Astronomy Club Meeting     TBD – Great Courses video        Teams

 

7 July       AEA Astronomy Club Meeting     TBD – Great Courses video        Teams

 

 

AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st  Thursdays at 11:30 am.  Virtual meetings on Teams until further notice.  When live meetings resume, our preferred room has been A1/1735, when we can reserve it. 

 

Club News:  

 

Mt. Wilson – Tentative reservation requests have been made for the 60-inch Oct. 21 (Friday), and 100-inch Oct. 22 (Sat.).  This year would normally be our every-other-year for the 60-inch, but we put in the 100-inch request as backup in case we don’t get the 60-inch.

 

 

2024 Eclipse --   An update from the 2024 solar eclipse committee (Mark Clayson, Mai Lee, Melissa Jolliff, Nahum Melamed, Judy Kerner, Marilee Wheaton):

 

We continue to try to nail down a hotel, but it may be a while (several months?) as most are not yet taking reservations or negotiating contracts.  We’ll continue to keep you informed.  But typical group contracts allow individual group members to make their individual reservations and deposits directly with the hotel.  And deposits may not be required until month(s) before the stay.

Contact Jason Fields if interested in joining him for an observing night with his 20” Dobs.

We need volunteers to help with:

·         Serving as club Astronomical League representative

·         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, Sam has a fair chunk of the equipment)

 

Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month

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

VIDEO:  Simulation TNG50: A Galaxy Cluster Forms  https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220529.html
Video Credit: IllustrisTNG ProjectVisualization: Dylan Nelson (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics) et al.
Music: Symphony No. 5 (Ludwig van Beethoven), via YouTube Audio Library

Explanation: How do clusters of galaxies form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving computer simulations are created to help find out. A recent effort is TNG50 from IllustrisTNG, an upgrade of the famous Illustris Simulation. The first part of the featured video tracks cosmic gas (mostly hydrogen) as it evolves into galaxies and galaxy clusters from the early universe to today, with brighter colors marking faster moving gas. As the universe matures, gas falls into gravitational wells, galaxies forms, galaxies spin, galaxies collide and merge, all while black holes form in galaxy centers and expel surrounding gas at high speeds. The second half of the video switches to tracking stars, showing a galaxy cluster coming together complete with tidal tails and stellar streams. The outflow from black holes in TNG50 is surprisingly complex and details are being compared with our real universeStudying how gas coalesced in the early universe helps humanity better understand how our EarthSun, and Solar System originally formed.

VIDEO: A Martian Eclipse: Phobos Crosses the Sun https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220509.html
Video Credit: NASAJPL-CaltechASU MSSSSSI

Explanation: What's that passing in front of the Sun? It looks like a moon, but it can't be Earth's Moon, because it isn't round. It's the Martian moon Phobos. The featured video was taken from the surface of Mars a month ago by the Perseverance rover. Phobos, at 11.5 kilometers across, is 150 times smaller than Luna (our moon) in diameter, but also 50 times closer to its parent planet. In fact, Phobos is so close to Mars that it is expected to break up and crash into Mars within the next 50 million years. In the near term, the low orbit of Phobos results in more rapid solar eclipses than seen from Earth. The featured video is shown in real time -- the transit really took about 40 seconds,as shown. The videographer -- the robotic rover Perseverance (Percy) -- continues to explore Jezero Crater on Mars, searching not only for clues to the watery history of the now dry world, but evidence of ancient microbial life.

 

Rocket Transits Rippling Sun
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Cain

Explanation: The launch of a rocket at sunrise can result in unusual but intriguing images that feature both the rocket and the Sun. Such was the case last month when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying 53 more Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. In the featured launch picture, the rocket's exhaust plume glows beyond its projection onto the distant Sun, the rocket itself appears oddly jagged, and the Sun's lower edge shows peculiar drip-like ripples. The physical cause of all of these effects is pockets of relatively hot or rarefied air deflecting sunlight less strongly than pockets relatively cool or compressed air: refraction. Unaware of the Earthly show, active sunspot region 3014 -- on the upper left -- slowly crosses the Sun.

The Milky Way's Black Hole
Image Credit: X-ray - NASA/CXC/SAO, IR - NASA/HST/STScI; Inset: Radio - Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Explanation: There's a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Stars are observed to orbit a very massive and compact object there known as Sgr A* (say "sadge-ay-star"). But this just released radio image (inset) from planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope is the first direct evidence of the Milky Way's central black hole. As predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the four million solar mass black hole's strong gravity is bending light and creating a shadow-like dark central region surrounded by a bright ring-like structure. Supporting observations made by space-based telescopes and ground-based observatories provide a wider view of the galactic center's dynamic environment and an important context for the Event Horizon Telescope's black hole image. The main panel image shows the X-ray data from Chandra and infrared data from Hubble. While the main panel is about 7 light-years across, the Event Horizon Telescope inset image itself spans a mere 10 light-minutes at the center of our galaxy, some 27,000 light-years away.

The Lively Center of the Lagoon Nebula
Image Credit: NASAESAHubbleProcessing & Copyright: Mehmet Hakan Özsaraç

Explanation: The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. A tremendously bright nearby star, Herschel 36, lights the area. Vast walls of dust hide and redden other hot young stars. As energy from these stars pours into the cool dust and gas, large temperature differences in adjoining regions can be created generating shearing winds which may cause the funnelsThis picture, spanning about 10 light years, combines images taken in six colors by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8, lies about 5000 light years distant toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius).




NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide
Image Credit & Copyright: Capture: Greg TurgeonProcessing: Kiko Fairbairn

Explanation: Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of startling sights like NGC 1316. Investigations indicate that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that started, about 100 million years ago, to devour a smaller spiral galaxy neighbor, NGC 1317, just on the upper right. Supporting evidence includes the dark dust lanes characteristic of a spiral galaxy, and faint swirls and shells of stars and gas visible in this wide and deep image. One thing that >remains unexplained is the unusually small globular star clusters, seen as faint dots on the image. Most elliptical galaxies have more and brighter globular clusters than NGC 1316. Yet the observed globulars are too old to have been created by the recent spiral collision. One hypothesis is that these globulars survive from an even earlier galaxy that was subsumed into NGC 1316. Another surprising attribute of NGC 1316, also known as Fornax A, is its giant lobes of gas that glow brightly in radio waves.

Ice Halos by Moonlight
Image Credit & CopyrightAlan Dyer, Amazingsky.com, TWAN

Explanation: An almost full moon on April 15 brought these luminous apparitions to a northern spring night over Alberta Canada. On that night, bright moonlight refracted and reflected by hexagonal ice crystals in high clouds created a complex of halos and arcs more commonly seen by sunlight in daytime skies. While the colors of the arcs and moondogs or paraselenae were just visible to the unaided eye, a blend of exposures ranging from 30 seconds to 1/20 second was used to render this moonlit wide-angle skyscape. The Big Dipper at the top of the frame sits just above a smiling and rainbow-hued circumzenithal arc. With Arcturus left and Regulus toward the right the Moon is centered in its often spotted 22 degree halo. May 15 will also see the bright light of a Full Moon shining in Earth's night skies. Tomorrow's Full Moon will be dimmed for a while though, as it slides through Earth's shadow in a total lunar eclipse.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: The Inner Rings
Image Credit: NASAESAHubble Space Telescope

Explanation: Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have two? To begin, the bright band near NGC 1512's center is a nuclear ring, a ring that surrounds the galaxy center and glows brightly with recently formed stars. Most stars and accompanying gas and dust, however, orbit the galactic center in a ring much further out -- here seen near the image edge. This ring is called, counter-intuitively, the inner ring. If you look closely, you will see this the inner ring connects ends of a diffuse central bar that runs horizontally across the galaxy. These ring structures are thought to be caused by NGC 1512's own asymmetries in a drawn-out process called secular evolution. The gravity of these galaxy asymmetries, including the bar of stars, cause gas and dust to fall from the inner ring to the nuclear ring, enhancing this ring's rate of star formation. Some spiral galaxies also have a third ring -- an outer ring that circles the galaxy even further out.

Mercury's Sodium Tail
Image Credit & Copyright: Sebastian Voltmer

Explanation: That's no comet. Below the Pleiades star cluster is actually a planet: Mercury. Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun. Sunlight also liberates these atoms from Mercury's surface and pushes them away. The yellow glow from sodium, in particular, is relatively bright. Pictured, Mercury and its sodium tail are visible in a deep image taken last week from La PalmaSpain through a filter that primarily transmits yellow light emitted by sodium. First predicted in the 1980s, Mercury's tail was first discovered in 2001. Many tail details were revealed in multiple observations by NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015. Tails, of course, are usually associated with comets.

 

Astronomy News:

From ScienceNews.org

 

The sun’s searing radiation led to the shuffling of the solar system’s planets

Sunlight evaporating gas jumbled the giant planets’ orbits, simulations suggest

Sunlight heating and evaporating the disk of gas and dust around a young star (as seen in this illustration) may have triggered a shift in the orbits of the still-forming giant planets in the solar system’s early history.

JPL-CALTECH/NASA

By Liz Kruesi

MAY 10, 2022 AT 7:00 AM

In the solar system’s early years, the still-forming giant planets sidestepped, did a do-si-do and then swung one of their partners away from the sun’s gravitational grasp. Things settled, and our planetary system was in its final configuration.

What triggered that planetary shuffle has been unknown. Now, computer simulations suggest that the hot radiation of the young sun evaporating its planet-forming disk of gas and dust led to the scrambling of the giant planets’ orbits, researchers report in the April 28 Nature.

As a result, the four largest planets may have been in their final configuration within 10 million years of the solar system’s birth about 4.6 billion years ago. That’s much quicker than the 500 million years that previous work had suggested.

Bottom of Form

The planetary-shuffling mechanism that the team uncovered in the computer simulations is very innovative, says Nelson Ndugu, an astrophysicist who studies forming planetary systems at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, and Muni University in Arua, Uganda. “It has huge potential.”

Heaps of evidence, including observations of extrasolar planetary systems forming (SN: 7/2/18), had already indicated that something in our solar system’s early history jumbled the giant planets’ orbits, which scientists call the giant-planet instability (SN: 5/25/05).

“The evidence for the giant-planet instability is really robust,” says Seth Jacobson, a planetary scientist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. “It explains many features of the outer solar system,” he says, like the large number of rocky objects beyond Neptune that make up the Kuiper Belt (SN: 12/31/09).

To figure out what triggered that instability, Jacobson and colleagues ran computer simulations of the thousands of ways that the early solar system could have developed. All started with a young star and a planet-forming disk of gas and dust surrounding the star. The team then altered the disk parameters, such as its mass, density and how fast it evolved.

The simulations also included the still-forming giant planets — five of them, in fact. Astronomers think a third ice giant, in addition to Uranus and Neptune, was originally a solar system member (SN: 4/20/12). Jupiter and Saturn round out the final tally of these massive planets.

When the sun officially became a star, that is, the moment it began burning hydrogen at its core — roughly 4.6 billion years ago — its ultraviolet emission would have hit the disk’s gas, ionizing it and heating it to tens of thousands of degrees. “This is a very well-documented process,” Jacobson says. As the gas heats, it expands and flows away from the star, beginning with the inner portion of the disk.

“The disk disperses its gas from inside out,” says Beibei Liu, an astrophysicist at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. He and Jacobson collaborated with astronomer Sean Raymond of Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux in France in the new research.

In the team’s simulations, as the inner part of the disk dissolves, that area loses mass, so the embedded, still-forming planets feel less gravity from that region, Jacobson says. But the planets still feel the same amount of pull from the disk’s outer region. This gravitational torquing, as the team calls it, can trigger a rebound effect: “Originally, the planets migrate in, and they reach the [inner] edge of this disk, and they reverse their migration,” Liu says.

Because of Jupiter’s large mass, it’s mostly unaffected. Saturn, though, moves outward and into the region, which, in the simulations, holds the three ice giant planets. That area becomes crowded, Liu says, and close planetary interactions follow. One ice giant gets kicked out of the solar system entirely, Uranus and Neptune shift a bit farther from the sun, and “they gradually form the orbits close to our solar system’s configuration,” Liu says.

In their computer simulations, the researchers found that as the sun’s radiation evaporates the disk, a planetary reshuffle nearly always ensues. “We can’t avoid this instability,” Jacobson says.

Now that the researchers have an idea of what may have caused this solar system shuffle, the next step is to simulate how the evaporation of the disk could affect other objects.

“We’ve focused really heavily on the giant planets, because their orbits were the original motivation,” Jacobson says. “But now, we have to do the follow-up work to show how this trigger mechanism relates to the small bodies.”

Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us at feedback@sciencenews.org

CITATIONS

B. Liu, S.N. Raymond and S.A. Jacobson. Early solar system instability triggered by dispersal of the gaseous diskNature. Vol. 604, April 28, 2022, p. 643. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04535-1.

About Liz Kruesi

·         E-mail

Liz Kruesi is the temporary astronomy news writer for Science News. She has written about astronomy and space since 2005, and received the AAS High-Energy Astrophysics Division science journalism award in 2013. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisc.


 

 General Calendar:

Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:


Colloquia:  Carnegie (Tues. 11am), UCLA, Caltech (Wed. 4pm), IPAC (Wed. 12:15pm) & other Pasadena

(daily 12-4pm):  http://obs.carnegiescience.edu/seminars/ 

 

https://carnegiescience.edu/events/carnegie-digital-series

 

Carnegie Zoom Digital Series

Register to Join Us!

 

Zoom Webinar Platform

 

January Night Sky Network Clubs & Events   https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/clubs-and-events.cfm  

 

2 June       AEA Astronomy Club Meeting     TBD – Great Courses video        Teams

 

June 3 will be the 1st since COVID  Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting

in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)

13 June   LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory (private)


June 23  The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2022

Spacecraft Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO)


 

In this image, taken on June 13, 2019, engineers at JPL install the starboard legs and wheels on NASA's Mars 2020 rover.

 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech 

Full Image Details

Spacecraft Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO)

June 23

Time: 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT; 0300 UTC)

What does it take to build a spacecraft? It’s up to the Spacecraft Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO) team to assemble it, bake it, shake it, get it to the pad and launch it.

Speaker(s):
Michelle Tomey Colizzi, Mechanical Engineer, NASA/JPL
Luis A Dominguez, ATLO Electrical & Dep. Systems Lead, NASA/JPL

Host:
Nikki Wyrick, Public Services Office, NASA/JPL

Co-Host:
Brian White, Public Services Office, NASA/JPL

Webcast:
Click here to watch the event live on YouTube

 

 

 NO EVENT IN JUNE 2022   UCLA Meteorite Gallery Lectures

 

7 July       AEA Astronomy Club Meeting     TBD – Great Courses video        Teams

 

Observing:

 

The following data are from the 2022 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2022 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 7 1st quarter, June 14 Full, June 21 last quarter, June 29 new

Planets: Venus is visible in the east at dawn all month.  Mars visible at dawn all month. Jupiter visible at dawn low all month.  Saturn rises around midnight and is visible until dawn.  Mercury is visible at dawn beginning on the 16th.

Other Events:

 

LAAS Event Calendar (incl. various other virtual events):  

https://www.laas.org/laas-bulletin/#calendar

 

June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

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

 

16 June Mercury greatest elongation W (23deg)

 

21 June Solstice

 

22 June Mars 0.9deg N of Moon

 

24 June Uranus 0.05deg N of Moon

 

25 June?

SBAS In-town observing session – In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest Middle School– 28915 NortbBay Rd. RPV, Weather Permitting: Please contact Ken Munson to confirm that the gate will be opened. http://www.sbastro.net/.   Only if we get permission to use the school grounds again and CDC guidelines are reduced

 

25 June

LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party   

 

26 June Venus 3deg S of Moon

 


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

28 June

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

 

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 Kaly Rengarajan, 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:  Jason Fields, President & Program Committee Chairman, Sam Andrews, VP, Kelly Gov club Secretary (& librarian), or Kaly Rangarajan, (Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter Editor

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