AEA Astronomy Club
Newsletter
October 2022
Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 7
General Calendar p. 11
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 11
Observing p. 14
Useful
Links p. 15
About the Club p.
16
Club News &
Calendar.
Club Calendar
Club Meeting Schedule:
--
6 Oct AEA Astronomy Club Meeting TBD – Great Courses video Teams
3 Nov 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:
Nominations for club V.P. & Treasurer being taken.
Mt.
Wilson – Confirmed reservation for the 60-inch Oct. 21 (Friday).
2024
Eclipse -- An update from the
2024 solar eclipse committee (Mark Clayson, Mai Lee, Melissa Jolliff, Nahum
Melamed, Judy Kerner, Marilee Wheaton):
We’ve heard from 2 Kerrville (on centerline, 1 hour
from San Antonio) hotels that think they can accommodate us (50 rooms for about
100 people anticipated) between them – Days Inn & Hampton Inn. We’re waiting for their contractual details,
and will 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. Still checking
other options just in case – some say they’ll require 3 or 4 day minimum stay –
we’ve been saying most of us will likely want 2 days (day before and of the
eclipse).
We have also made tentative arrangements for an
observing site at a local church in Kerrville 3 miles from the hotel. With adequate parking & restrooms. I believe they’ll also let us have our
pre-eclipse mtg. there the night before.
As courtesy, we’ll invite members of their congregation to join us.
Contact Jason Fields if interested in joining him for an observing
night with his 20” Dobs – per recent emails.
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: DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220927.html
Video Credit: NASA, JHUAPL, DART
Explanation: Could humanity deflect an asteroid
headed for Earth? Yes. Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth's past, sometimes causing mass
extinctions of
life. To help protect our Earth from some potential
future impacts,
NASA tested a new planetary defense mechanism yesterday by crashing the
robotic Double Asteroid
Redirection Test (DART)
spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small asteroid spanning about
170-meters across. As shown in the featured video, the impact was a success. Ideally, if
impacted early enough, even the kick from a small spacecraft can deflect a
large asteroid enough to miss the Earth. In the video, DART is seen in a time-lapse video
first passing larger Didymos, on the left, and then approaching the
smaller Dimorphos. Although the video ends abruptly with
DART's crash, observations monitoring the changed orbit of Dimorphos --
from spacecraft
and telescopes around
the world -- have just begun.
VIDEO:
Planets of the Solar System: Tilts
and Spins https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220911.html
Video Credit: NASA, Animation: James
O'Donoghue (JAXA)
Explanation: How does your favorite planet spin? Does it spin rapidly
around a nearly vertical axis, or horizontally, or backwards? The featured video animates NASA images
of all eight planets in our
Solar System to show
them spinning side-by-side for an easy comparison. In the time-lapse video, a day on Earth -- one Earth rotation -- takes just a few
seconds. Jupiter rotates the fastest, while Venus spins not only the slowest (can you see it?), but
backwards. The inner rocky planets across the top underwent dramatic spin-altering
collisions during the early
days of the Solar System. Why planets spin and tilt as they do remains a topic of research with much insight gained from modern computer
modeling and the recent
discovery and analysis of hundreds of exoplanets: planets orbiting other stars.
DART Asteroid Impact from Space
Image Credit: ASI / NASA
Explanation: Fifteen
days before impact, the DART
spacecraft deployed a small companion satellite to document its historic planetary defense
technology demonstration.
Provided by the Italian Space Agency, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging
Asteroids, aka LICIACube, recorded
this image of the event's aftermath.
A cloud of ejecta is seen near the right edge of the frame captured only
minutes following DART's impact with target asteroid Dimorphos while LICIACube was
about 80 kilometers away. Presently about 11 million kilometers from Earth, 160
meter diameter Dimorphos is a moonlet orbiting 780 meter diameter asteroid
Didymos. Didymos is seen off center in the LICIACube image. Over the coming
weeks, ground-based telescopic observations will look for a small change in Dimorphos'
orbit around
Didymos to evaluate how effectively the DART impact deflected its target.
Ringed Ice Giant Neptune
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam
Explanation: Ringed, ice giant Neptune lies near the center of this sharp near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The dim and distant world is the farthest planet from the Sun, about 30 times farther away than planet Earth. But in the stunning Webb view the planet's dark and ghostly appearance is due to atmospheric methane that absorbs infrared light. High altitude clouds that reach above most of Neptune's absorbing methane easily stand out in the image though. Coated with frozen nitrogen, Neptune's largest moon Triton is brighter than Neptune in reflected sunlight and is seen at upper left sporting the Webb's characteristic diffraction spikes. Including Triton, seven of Neptune's 14 known moons can be identified in the field of view. Neptune's faint rings are striking in this new space-based planetary portrait. Details of the complex ring system are seen here for the first time since Neptune was visited by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in August 1989.
All the Water on Planet Earth
Illustration Credit: Jack Cook, Adam Nieman, Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution;
Data source: Igor Shiklomanov
Explanation: How much of planet Earth is made of water? Very little, actually. Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth's surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth's radius. The featured illustration shows what would happen if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball. The radius of this ball would be only about 700 kilometers, less than half the radius of the Earth's Moon, but slightly larger than Saturn's moon Rhea which, like many moons in our outer Solar System, is mostly water ice. The next smallest ball depicts all of Earth's liquid fresh water, while the tiniest ball shows the volume of all of Earth's fresh-water lakes and rivers. How any of this water came to be on the Earth and whether any significant amount is trapped far beneath Earth's surface remain topics of research.
Equinox Sunrise Around the World
Collage Image Copyright: Luca Vanzella
Explanation: A planet-wide
collaboration resulted in this
remarkable array of sunrise photographs taken around the September
2022 equinox. The images were
contributed by 24 photographers, one in each of 24 nautical time
zones around the world. Unlike
more complicated civil time zone boundaries, the 24 nautical time zones are
simply 15 degree longitude bands corresponding to 1 hour steps that span the
globe. Start at the upper right for the first to experience a sunrise in the
nautical time zone corresponding to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) + 12
hours. In that time zone, the photographer was located in Christchurch, New
Zealand. Travel to the west by looking down the column and then moving to the
column toward the left for later sunrises as the time zone offset in hours from
UTC decreases. Or, you can watch a video of September 2022 equinox
sunrises around planet Earth.
An Iridescent Pileus Cloud over China
Image Credit & Copyright: Jiaqi Sun （孙嘉琪）
Explanation: Yes, but how many dark clouds have a multicolored lining?
Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar
size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts.
The featured image was taken last month in Pu'er, Yunnan Province, China. Also captured were unusual cloud ripples above the pileus cloud. The formation of a rare pileus cloud capping a
common cumulus cloud is an indication that the lower cloud is expanding
upward and might well develop
into a storm.
Astronomy
News:
ScienceNews.org
The James Webb Space Telescope spied the earliest
born stars yet
seen
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/james-webb-space-telescope-stars-earliest-born-sparkler-galaxy
The stars may have winked into existence just 800 million
years after the Big Bang
The James Webb Space Telescope observed
thousands of galaxies that were magnified by a galaxy cluster in the
foreground. Around just one of those galaxies, astronomers may have spotted
some of the earliest stars yet seen.
NASA, ESA, CSA AND STSCI
Some of the earliest
stars yet seen are now coming to light in one of the first images from the
James Webb Space Telescope.
Formed roughly 800
million years after the Big Bang, the stars live in dense groups called
globular clusters and surround a
distant galaxy dubbed the Sparkler, astronomers report in the Oct. 1 Astrophysical
Journal Letters. Globular clusters often host some of the
oldest stars in contemporary galaxies such as our own, but it’s hard to tell
their exact age. The new finding could help researchers pinpoint when such
clusters began to form.
Compared to a galaxy,
globular clusters are tiny, which makes them hard to see from across the
universe. But this time, a gargantuan natural lens in space helped. The
Sparkler is one of thousands of galaxies that lie far behind a massive, much closer
galaxy cluster called SMACS 0723, which was the subject of the first publicly released science image
from the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST (SN:
7/11/22). The cluster distorts spacetime such that the
light from the more distant galaxies behind it is magnified.
For all those remote
galaxies, that extra magnification brings out details that have never been seen
before. One elongated galaxy surrounded by yellowish blobs got the attention of
astronomer Lamiya Mowla and her colleagues.
“When we first saw it,
we noticed all those little dots around it that we called ‘the sparkles,’” says
Mowla, of the University of Toronto. The team wondered if the sparkles
could be globular clusters, close-knit
families of stars that are thought to have been born together and stay close to
each other throughout their lives (SN: 10/15/20).
“The outstanding
question that there still is, is how were the globular clusters themselves
born?” Mowla says. Were they born at “cosmic noon,” 10 billion years ago, when
star formation throughout the universe peaked? Or did they form 13 billion
years ago at “cosmic dawn,” when stars were first able to form at all (SN:
3/4/22)?
Light from the Sparkler
takes about 9 billion years to reach Earth, so if the sparkles are globular
clusters that shone that long ago, they might help astronomers answer that
question.
Mowla and her colleagues
used data from JWST to analyze the wavelengths of light coming from the
sparkles. Some of them appear to be forming stars at the time when their light
left the clusters. But some had formed all their stars long before.
“When we see them, the
stars are already about 4 billion years old,” says astrophysicist Kartheik
Iyer, also of the University of Toronto.
That means the oldest
stars in the sparkles could have formed roughly 13 billion years ago. Since the
universe is 13.8 billion years old, “there’s only a short amount of time after
the Big Bang when these could have formed,” he says.
In other words, these
clusters were born at dawn, not at noon.
Studying more globular
clusters around ancient galaxies could help determine if such clusters are
common or rare early on in the universe’s history. They could also help unravel
galaxies’ formation histories, say Mowla and Iyer. Their team has proposed
observations to be made in JWST’s first year that could do just that.
Being able to pick out
tiny structures like globular clusters from so far away was almost impossible
before JWST, says astronomer Adélaïde Claeyssens of Stockholm University. She
was not involved in the new work but led a similar study earlier this
year of multiple galaxies magnified by the SMACS 0723
cluster.
“It’s the first time we showed that, with James Webb, we will
observe a lot of these type of galaxies with really tiny structures,”
Claeyssens says. “James Webb will be a game changer for this field.”
CITATIONS
L.
Mowla et al. The Sparkler: Evolved high-redshift globular cluster
candidates captured by JWST. The
Astrophysical Journal Letters. Vol. 937, October 1, 2022, p. 937.
doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac90ca.
A. Claeyssens et al. Star
formation at the smallest scales; A JWST study of the clump populations in
SMACS0723.
arXiv: 2208.10450. Submitted August 22, 2022.
About Lisa Grossman
·
E-mail
·
Twitter
Lisa Grossman
is the astronomy writer. She has a degree in astronomy from Cornell University
and a graduate certificate in science writing from University of California,
Santa Cruz. She lives near Boston.
Related
Stories
Moveable
Feast: Milky Way dines on its neighbors
By Ron CowenJuly 24, 2002
A
spherical star cluster has surprisingly few heavy elements
By Lisa
GrossmanOctober
15, 2020
Little
middle ground for black holes
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
Zoom Webinar Platform
Night Sky Network Clubs
& Events
https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/clubs-and-events.cfm
6 Oct AEA Astronomy Club Meeting TBD – Great Courses video Teams
? Friday Night 7:30 PM SBAS Monthly General
Meeting Topic: TBD in
the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
October
13 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2022
Asteroid Ida and its moon
Dactyl, imaged by the Galileo spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
Near Earth Objects – Opportunities for Discoveries
October 13
Time: 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m.
EDT; 0300 UTC)
Comets and
asteroids offer clues to the chemical mixture from which the planets formed
some 4.6 billion years ago. If we wish to know the composition of the
primordial mixture from which the planets formed, then we must determine the
chemical constituents of the leftover debris from this formation process - the
comets and asteroids. In this talk, we'll discuss with how Near Earth Objects
are opportunities for discovery.
Speaker(s):
Dr.
Davide Farnocchia, Navigation Engineer, NASA/JPL
Host:
Marc
Razze, Public Services Office, NASA/JPL
Co-host:
Brian
White, Public Services Office, NASA/JPL
Webcast:
Click here to watch the event live on YouTube
|
Oct 16 |
UCLA Meteorite Gallery Lectures DR. EMMANUEL JACQUET; MUSÉUM NATIONAL
D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE
REFRACTORY INCLUSIONS, THE FIRST
SOLIDS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Location:
https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqduyupj0vGd3S0_52FsbHTbPjYr0sZQUj Among the components of chondrites (or primitive meteorites),
refractory inclusions, while making up only a minor proportion thereof, have
achieved prominence in being the oldest dated solids of the Solar System.
They are believed to have originally formed by condensation out of a gas of
solar composition at temperatures of 1500-2000 K, perhaps during the very
building stage of our protoplanetary disk. The exact astrophysical setting of
their formation is uncertain. Early models had them formed at the very inner
edge of the disk so as to benefit best from sunlight and account for the
presence of some short-lived radionuclides. However, that tiny region may
have been hostile to the survival of a significant number of refractory
inclusions and evidence is mounting in favor of formation over a wider range
of heliocentric distances, up perhaps to the current position of the Earth.
|
3 Nov 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 October:
Moon Oct 3 1st quarter, Oct 9 Full, Oct 17 last quarter, Oct 25 new
Planets:
Venus
is visible low at dawn until the 3rd. Mars
rises in the evening and is visible until dawn. Jupiter shines brightly at dusk and sets before dawn. Saturn
transits in the evening and sets after midnight. Mercury is visible at dawn to the 26th.
Other
Events:
LAAS Event Calendar (incl.
various other virtual events):
https://www.laas.org/laas-bulletin/#calendar
|
Oct. 5, 12, 19, 26 |
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. Time: 7:30
PM - 10:00 PM Location: Garvey
Ranch Obs. , 781 Orange Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91755 |
8 Oct Jupiter 2 deg N
of Moon, Mercury greatest elongation W (18 deg)
12 Oct Uranus 0.8deg
S of Moon
|
? |
SBAS In-town
observing session – In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest
Middle School– 28915 North Bay 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 |
|
22 Oct |
LAAS Private dark
sky Star Party |
|
Cancelled |
LAAS Public
Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm See http://www.griffithobservatory.org/programs/publictelescopes.html#starparties for more information. |
|
? |
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
e! Science News Astronomy & Space
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)
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)
The Local Group Astronomy Club
(Santa Clarita)
Ventura County Astronomical
Society
The
Astronomical Society of Greenbelt
Northern
Virginia Astronomy Club
Colorado
Springs 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
No comments:
Post a Comment