mac february 2011 magazine

www.midlandsastronomy.com

Page - 12

Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine

Issue 21- February, 2011

Latest Astronomy and Space News

Kids Astronomy

Quizzes and Games

Monthly Sky Guide

Sky Guide - Beginner’s targets for February Telescope Targets Orion and Auriga continue to be in great position for viewing this month. See December's and January's picks for these targets. For this month, we'll add Canis Major and Monoceros to our list. M41 is an open cluster in Canis Major which is quite easy to locate due to it's proximity to Sirius. Simply find Sirius (the sky's brightest star) shining below Orion, about 4º (or about one finderscope field) below Sirius is M41. M41 is a spectacular open cluster, with dozens of stars visible in scopes.

M50 is another of Messier's open clusters located in the constellation Monoceros. As Monoceros itself doesn't contain any very bright stars, I use Beetlegeuse, Sirius, and Procyon to locate this one. These 3 stars form a nice triangle (the winter triangle?) to aid in locating it. The side of the triangle connecting Procryon and Sirius contains M50. M50 is located slight-ly less than halfway on the way from Sirius to Procryon.

Two other open clusters in the area are M46 and M47. Using Procryon as the top of the vertical leg and Sirius as the edge of the vertical leg of the letter "L", M46 forms the corner of the "L". Once you've located M46, simply move slightly to the Southeast (about 1 low powered Field of View) to locate M47.

Planets Saturn can be located in Leo this month. It rises at 20:30 at the start of the month and by month’s end; it rises at 18:30. It brightens from mag +0.7 to mag +0.5 during the month. With the planet’s ring plane almost edge on, this is not a good time to try and observe the rings. It is however a good time to try and observe the smaller satellites and details on the planet’s surface with the rings out of the picture. It lies close to Sigma Leonis (mag +4) through out the month.

Venus is wel l p laced for observation in the West after sunset this month. At the start of the month it sets at 21:40 and by month’s end; sets at 21:45. It maintains its brightness at mag -4.6 during the month.

General notes Always keep an eye out f o r A u r o r a e . C h e c k o u t w w w . s t r o n g e . o r g . u k /spaceweather.html for the most up-to-date information on the aurorae. Other interesting naked eye phenomena to look out for include the Zodiacal Light and the Gegenschein. Both are caused by sunlight reflecting off dust particles which are present in the solar system.

The Zodiacal Light can be seen in the West after evening twilight has disappeared or in the East before

the morning twilight. The best time of year to see the phenomenon is late-Feb to early-April in the evening sky and September/October in the morning sky - it's then that the ecliptic, along which the cone of the zodiacal light lies, is steepest in our skies. The Gegenschein can be seen in the area of the sky opposite the sun. To view either, you must get yourself to a very dark site to cut out the light pollution. When trying to observe either of these phenomena, it is best to do so when the moon is below the horizon. If you are observing them when the moon has risen, restrict your efforts to the period 4 days

either side of the new moon as otherwise the moonlight will be sufficient to drown them out.

Finally check out www.heavens-above.com for the latest passes of the International Space Station and satellites, details of the NanoSail-D and for details of Iridium Flare activity.

Well, that should get you going in February. Clear skies and good hunting!

By Kevin Daly http://members.aol.com/kdaly10475/index.html

Above: Monoceros is a constellation that is not very easily seen with the naked eye, however, Monoceros does have some interesting features to observe with the aid of a small telescope. Beta Monocerotis is an impressive triple star sys-tem, the three stars form a triangle which seems to be fixed. William Herschel discovered it in 1781 and commented that it is 'one of the most beautiful sights in the heavens'. Canis Major's alpha star, Sirius, is the brightest object in Earth's sky after the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. It is also one of the nearest stars to Earth. The star VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant star in Canis Major. It is the largest known star and also one of the most luminous known. It is located about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years) from Earth.

Club Notes

Club Observing:

Remember the next club meets every first Friday of the month for our observing sessions held in the MAC grounds. If you wish to be informed of these sessions please email your name and mobile number to [email protected] who will confirm if the session is going ahead (depending on weather).

MAC is a proud member of


Page - 11


Page - 2

Exercise your brainExercise your brainExercise your brainExercise your brain Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine

c o n t e n t sc o n t e n t sc o n t e n t sc o n t e n t s Latest Astronomy and Space News New light on galactic pair – M81 and M82 ............................. 3

Massive rogue star racing through the Milky Way .................. 3

Earth may soon have a second sun ...................................... 4

Hubble spots oldest Galaxy ever seen ................................... 5

A monster star -100 Million x's power of the Sun ................... 5

Hubble eyes Hanny’s Voorwerp ............................................ 6

Deep, deep look at NGC 891 ................................................ 7

See NanoSail-D in orbit and maybe win a prize! .................... 7

"Suicide" Comet storm hits Sun - Is there a bigger Sun-Kisser coming? ............................................................. 8

The Constellation Taurus ..................................................... 9

Duelling Supermassive Black Holes observed ........................ 9

Kids Section Kids Korner ....................................................................... 10

Quizzes and Games Exercise your brain ............................................................ 11

Monthly Sky Guide Beginners sky guide for January ......................................... 12

Front cover image: This gorgeous image of M78 was selected as

the winner of the Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition. Held by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the

competition challenged amateur astronomers to process data from ESO's astronomical

archive in search of cosmic gems.

The winning entry shows off amazing details within bluish M78 (centre) embraced in dark, dusty clouds, along with a smaller reflection nebula in the region, NGC 2071 (top). Yellowish and even more compact, the recently discovered, variable McNeil's

Nebula is prominent in the scene below and right of centre.

Credit & Copyright: ESO / Igor Chekalin

MAC meets on the first Tuesday of the month in the Presbyterian Hall, High Street, Tullamore from 8pm.

All are welcome to attend. It also holds infrequent Observing Nights at its Observing Site in

Clonminch, or at a member’s house (weather permitting) on the first

Friday of every month..

You can see more about the club and its events on

www.midlandsastronomy.com or contact the club via e-mail at [email protected] Meetings are informal and are

aimed at a level to suit all ages.

1. Which of the following

is a moon of Mars that scientists predict will

crash into its host planet soon?

� Deimos

� Phobos

� Eros

� Beratos

2. Clouds on Mars are usually made up of

what?

� Methane

� Water Vapour

� Frozen Carbon Dioxide

� Carbon Monoxide

3. Which of the following mountains is NOT

located on Mars?

� Gunung Lawu

� Albor Tholus

� Charitum Montes

� Scandia Tholi

4. What Mars lander was

famous for discovering

water ice on Mars in 2008?

� Houston Mars Lander

� Phoenix Mars Lander

� Dallas Mars Lander

� Kennedy Mars Lander

5. Which of the following gases exists in Mars's

atmosphere?

� Hydrogen

� Oxygen

� Helium

� Fluorine

6. What did the Babyloni-

ans name Mars?

� Nergal

� Ares

� Raewt

� Babtran

7. Mars has no ________.

� Volcanoes

� Atmosphere

� Magnetic field

� Solid Core

8. The name given to the

planet we call Mars by the ancient Egyptians

was:

� Horus the Red

� Isis the Red

� Ra the Red

� Osiris the Red

9. Both the mantle (not

as in a synonym of fireplace, but rather as

the layer of Mars' interior) of Mars and

the Earth are made up

chiefly of what?

� Sovite

� Basalt

� Peridotite

� Diorite

10.Why is Mars red in

colour?

� The reason is not

entirely known

� A certain amount of

pressure creating naturally red rocks and dust

� Rust in the soil, mostly in

the very upper layers

� Large amounts of copper

in the soil

8 1 9

7 9

4 8 5 6

6 8 2

2 5 4 1

1 9 3

1 2 4 3

2 8

3 7 2

SUDOKU

Check your answers

Answer 1: The correct answer was Phobos. Mars has only two moons,

Phobos and Deimos. Phobos, the larger of the two small moons, orbits very

close to Mars. Many astronomers predict that it could crash into Mars in as little as 50 more years. Neither Eros

nor Beratos are moons of Mars. 433 Eros is the name of an asteroid with an

orbit near Earth (known as NEA, or Near-Earth asteroid) and is notable as

the first NEA to be discovered, and Beratos is not the name of any celestial body.

Answer 2: The correct answer was

Frozen Carbon Dioxide although, there is sometimes fog of water vapour.


Gunung Lawu which is a mountain located in the island of Java. Mars has

tons of mountains, and larger canyons than Earth. Its tallest point is the inactive volcano Olympus Mons, at

thrice the height of Mt. Everest.

Answer 4: The correct answer was Phoenix Mars Lander which touched

down on Mars on May 25, 2008, and the discovery of water ice was con-firmed in June.

Answer 5: The correct answer was Oxygen. 0.13% of the Martian atmos-

phere is oxygen.

Answer 6: The correct answer was Nergal. Nergal meant one who is great

and heroic.

Answer 7: The correct answer was Magnetic field. Mars has an atmos-

phere, but not one that can sustain human life. The thinness of it may cause this lack of magnetosphere. This

may also show that Mars is solid throughout. Mars does have volcanoes

(most notably Olympus Mons, the volcano that's thrice as high as Mt. Everest).

Answer 8: The correct answer was Horus the Red. It was also sometimes known as the backwards traveller.


Peridotite which is in turn mostly made up of a mineral known as olivine.


Rust in the soil, mostly in the very upper layers. The rust is better known

as iron oxide. Usually it is only found on the surface, so if you were to dig down a few inches you'd probably find

dust/rock that's not red.


Page - 3 Page - 10

The WISE mission completed its main goal of mapping the sky in infrared light in October 2010, covering it one-and-one-half times before its frozen coolant ran out, as planned. During that time, it snapped pictures of hundreds of millions of objects, the first batch of which will be released to the astronomy community in April 2011. WISE is continuing its scan of the skies without coolant using two of its four infrared channels — the two shorter-wavelength channels not a f f e c t e d b y t h e w a r m e r temperatures. The mission’s ongoing survey is now focused primarily on asteroids and comets. Because WISE has imaged the entire sky, it excels at producing large mosaics like this new picture of Messier 81 and Messier 82, which covers a patch of sky equivalent to three-by-three full Moons, or 1.5 by 1.5 degrees.

It is likely these partner galaxies will continue to dance around each other, and eventually merge into a single entity. They are both spiral galaxies, but Messier 82 is seen from an edge-on perspective, and thus appears in visible light as a thin, cigar-like bar. (To me it has always looked like a child’s dirty kite string wrapped around a stick, eh?) When viewed in infrared light, Messier 82 is the brightest galaxy in the sky. It is what scientists refer to as a starburst galaxy because it is churning out large numbers of new stars. “The WISE picture really shows how spectacular Messier 82 shines in the infrared even though it is relatively puny in both size and mass compared to its big brother, Messier 81,” said Tom Jarrett, a member of the WISE team at the

California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In this WISE view, infrared light has been color coded so that we can see it with our eyes. The shortest wavelengths (3.4 and 3.6 microns) are shown in blue and blue-green, or cyan, and the longer wavelengths (12 and 22 microns) are green and red. Messier 82 appears in yellow hues because its cocoon of dust gives off longer wavelengths of light (the yellow is a result of combining green and red). This dust is made primarily of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are found on Earth as soot.

Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, appears blue in the infrared image because it is not as dusty. The blue light is from stars in the galaxy. Knots of yellow seen dotting the spiral arms are dusty areas of recent star formation, most likely triggered by the galaxy’s encounter with its rowdy partner. “It’s striking how the same event stimulated a classic spiral galaxy in Messier 81, and a raging starburst in Messier 82,” said WISE Project Scientist Peter Eisenhardt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “WISE is finding the most extreme starbursts across the whole sky, out to distances over a thousand times greater than Messier 82.”

Next time you view M81 and M82, perhaps you’ll see them in a new light?

http://www.universetoday.com

Almost every amateur astronomer has viewed the ghostly glow of galactic pair, Messier 81 and Messier 82. They’re easily visible in small binoculars from a dark sky site and reveal wonderful details in a telescope as aperture increases. We’ve marvelled over M81‘s smooth, star-rich structure and the disturbed spindle-shaped structure of M82. We know the pair have interacted and the huge spiral has ingested stars from its companion – but today we know a whole lot more…

in yellow hues. The Cigar Galaxy is pictured above Messier 81. “What’s unique about the WISE view of this duo is that we can see both galaxies in one shot, and we can really see their differences,” said Ned Wright of UCLA, the principal investigator of WISE. “Because the Cigar Galaxy is bursting with star formation, it’s really bright in the infrared, and looks dramatically different from its less active companion.”

According to today’s press release from the American Astronomical Society, when the pair swept by ea ch o t he r , g r a v i t a t i o n a l interactions triggered new bursts of star formation. In the case of Messier 82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, the encounter has likely triggered a tremendous wave of new star birth at its core. Intense radiation from new born massive stars is blowing copious amounts of gas and smoky dust out of the galaxy, as seen in the WISE image


Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine

New light on galactic pair – M81 and M82

Massive rogue star racing through the Milky Way

'A massive star named Zeta Ophiuchi flung away from its former companion is racing through space dust, creating a brilliant bow shock, seen above as a yellow arc in this new image (below) from NASA's Wide-field Infrared.

The star is huge with a mass of about 20 times that of our sun. In this image, in which infrared light has been translated into visible colours we see with our eyes, the star appears as the blue dot inside the bow shock.

Zeta Ophiuchi once orbited around an even heftier star. But when that star exploded in a supernova, Zeta

A WISE look at Messier 81 and Messier 82


Ophiuchi shot away like a bullet. It's traveling at a whopping 54,000 miles per hour (or 24 kilometres per second), and heading toward the upper left area of the picture. As the star tears through space, its powerful winds push gas and dust out of its way and into what is called a bow shock. The material in the bow shock is so compressed that it glows with infrared light that WISE can see. The effect is similar to what happens when a boat speeds through water, pushing a wave in front of it.

This bow shock is completely hidden in visible light. Infrared images like this one from WISE are therefore important for shedding new light on the region.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com

Kid’s�

It is easy to see that the sky is blue. Have you ever wondered why? A lot of other smart people have, and it took a long time to figure it out!

The light from the Sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colours of the rainbow.

A prism is a specially shaped crystal. When white light shines through a prism, the light is separated into all its colours. The light you see is just one tiny bit of all the kinds of light energy beaming around the Universe--and around you!

Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. The sun-light reaching us from low in the sky has passed through even more air than the sunlight reaching us from overhead.

As the sunlight has passed through all this air, the air molecules have scattered and rescattered the blue light many times in many directions.

Also, the surface of Earth has reflected and scattered the light. All this scattering mixes the colours together again so we see more white and less blue.

Korner�Why is the Sky Blue?

What Makes a Red Sunset? As the Sun gets lower in the sky, its light is passing through more of the atmosphere to reach you. Even more of the blue light is scattered, allowing the reds and yellows to pass straight through to your eyes.

Sometimes the whole western sky seems to glow. The sky appears red because larger particles of dust, pollution, and water vapor in the atmosphere reflect and scatter more of the reds and yellows.

Why Does Light Scattering Matter? How much of the Sun's light gets bounced around in Earth's atmos-phere and how much gets reflected back into space? How much light gets soaked up by land and water, asphalt freeways and sunburned surfers? How much light do water and clouds reflect back into space? And why do we care?

Sunlight carries the energy that heats Earth and powers all life on Earth. Our climate is affected by how sunlight is scattered by forests, deserts, snow- and ice-covered surfaces, different types of clouds, smoke from forest fires, and other pollutants in the air.

Like energy passing through the ocean, light energy travels in waves, too. Some light travels in short, "choppy" waves. Other light travels in long, lazy waves. Blue light waves are shorter than red light waves.

All light travels in a straight line unless something gets in the way to:

• reflect it (like a mirror)

• bend it (like a prism)

• or scatter it (like molecules of

the gases in the atmosphere)

S u n l i g h t r e a c h e s E a r t h ' s atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases

and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny m o l e c u l e s o f air in Earth's atmos-phere . B lue i s s c a t t e r e d m o r e than other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.


Page - 9


Page - 4

The star is located in the Orion constellation, about 640 light-years away from Earth. It's one of the brightest and biggest stars in our galactic neighbourhood - if you dropped it in our Solar System, it would extend all the way out to Jupiter, leaving Earth completely engulfed. In stellar terms, it's predicted to explode in the very near future. Of course, the conversion from stellar to human terms is pretty extreme, as Betelgeuse is predicted to explode anytime in the next million years.

But still, whether the explosion occurs in 2011 or 1002011 (give or take 640 years for the light to reach Earth), it's going to make for one of the most unforgettable light shows in our planet's history. For a few weeks, the supernova will be so bright that there will appear to be two stars in the sky, and night be will indistinguishable from day for much of that time. So don't count on getting a lot of sleep when Betelgeuse explodes, because the only sensible thing for the world to do will be to throw a weeks-long global supernova party.

Physicist Brad Carter explains what Earth (and hopefully humanity) can

look forward to:

"This is the final hurrah for the star. It goes bang, it explodes, it lights up - we'll have incredible brightness for a brief period of time for a couple of weeks and then over the coming months it begins to fade and then eventually it will be very hard to see at all."

Indeed, just in case anyone is concerned, Betelgeuse is way too far away from Earth to do us any damage. There's been some doomsday speculation of late around the eventual supernova - which might not happen for a million years, it bears repeating - but, as with pretty much all doomsday speculation, you can just ignore it.

In any event, the Betelgeuse explosion will likely be the most dramatic supernova Earth ever witnesses - well, unless our Sun eventually explodes and destroys our planet, which would probably leave Betelgeuse the runner-up. Either way, it isn't the first, as h is tory has recorded the appearance of several so-called "guest stars." Most of these just looked like short-lived stars in the


Earth may soon have a second sun

night sky, but some were bright enough to be seen in the day.

The first supernova that history records is thought to have occurred in 185 CE, when a star 8,200 light-years away exploded. Chinese astronomers make explicit note of the sudden appearance of a star and its subsequent disappearance several months later, and the Romans may also have made more c r yp t i c re f e r ences t o i t . Astronomers have since located the remnants of the exploded star, confirming the accuracy of the ancient accounts.

The two most dramatic supernova explosions occurred in the 11th century. A supernova in 1006 - you can see its modern remnant above - is the brightest star ever recorded, appearing in the records of China, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Japan, and Switzerland. There's even some thought that a rock painting by the Hohokam, a Native American tribe in what is now Arizona, represents the first recorded sighting of a supernova in the Americas. Here's the petroglyph in question, which might well record the presence of an unexpected bright light in the sky:

The various observations even allow us to pinpoint what specific type of supernova it was. In all likelihood, it was a Type Ia supernova, which for a few weeks burn as brightly as five billion suns. The supernova of 1054 wasn't quite

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is getting ready to go supernova, and when it does Earth will have a front-row seat. The explosion will be so bright that Earth will briefly seem to have two suns in the sky.


as dramatic, and it seemed to go almost entirely unrecorded in Europe, although there's some thought that records of the new star made by Irish monks got corrupted into allegorical accounts of the Antichrist. Still, the rest of the world saw it just fine, with records popping up in China, Japan, Korea, Persia, and the Americas. Astronomers of the time period wrote that it could be seen in daylight for over three weeks and remained visible in the night sky for nearly two years.

A pair of supernovas in 1572 and 1604 were extensively studied by two generations of legendary astronomers, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Since then, the Milky Way hasn't had any supernovas visible from Earth, and so our night sky has remained rather tediously ordinary.

There's about sixteen known candidates in our galaxy for a future supernova explosion, and quite a few of them would have a dramatic effect on our skies. But Betelgeuse is by far one of the closest, and its huge size means its explosion will be particularly dramatic. This is one cosmic disaster that we actually want to see happen sooner than later, because there may never be a sight quite like this ever again.

www.io9.com

Above: An artists impression of Betelgeuse going Supernova.

Taurus is one of the loveliest constellations of the northern winter sky. A much smaller group than Orion, Taurus two open star clusters, the Hyades and the Pleiades, are a magnificent sight with the unaided eye or with binoculars. In January and February, Taurus is high overhead for northern observers, and low on the northern horizon for southern observers.

If you can find Orion in the night sky, finding Taurus is pretty easy. Just extend the line of Orion’s belt to the right (northwest) until you find a bright orange star nestled in a V-shaped cluster of stars. The bright star in this V-shape is the star Aldebaran (“all-DEB-a-run”), it is a swollen giant star some 45 times the diameter of our own sun.

This same “V”, which marks the head of the bull, is the nearby Hyades star cluster. It’s remarkably beautiful in dark sky, with several close star pairs to challenge your visual acuity.

And let’s not forget the tiny dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster. Just

northwest of the “V”, the Pleiades is perhaps the most famous of all star groupings.

Nearly every world culture has a name and legend for this star cluster. In Sanskrit, the cluster is called Kṛttikā, which refers to the six sisters of the god Murugan. The Japanese refer to this cluster as Subaru, from which the famous car company takes its name and logo.

I have seen absolute beginners get their first view of the Pleiades through binoculars or a low-power telescope, then come away as avowed stargazers. An overhead comment: “I had no idea anything could be so beautiful”.

The silver-blue stars of the Pleiades are young, for stars… about 110 million years old. The cluster lies 440 light years from Earth and is a great object to view in binoculars, low-powered telescope or even a high powered telescope.

www.oneminuteastronomer.com

The Constellation Taurus The constellation Orion points the way to two other prominent constellations this month, Taurus and Canis Major. Let’s look at Taurus and its two stunning star clusters, both are ideal targets for beginning observers, and are worth returning to frequently.

Above: Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is a Latin word meaning 'bull', and its astrological symbol is a stylized bull's head.

Duelling Supermassive Black Holes observed

The two bright sources at the centre of this composite x-ray (blue)/radio (pink) image are thought to be co-orb i t ing supermassive black holes powering a giant radio source 3C 75. Surrounded by multimillion degree x-ray emitting gas, and blasting out jets of relativistic particles the supermassive black holes are separated by 25,000 light-years. At the cores of two merging galaxies in the Abell 400 galaxy cluster, they are some 300 million light-years away.

NASA Astronomers conclude that these two supermassive black holes

are bound together by gravity in a binary system in part because the jets' consistent swept back appearance is most likely due to their common motion as they speed through the hot cluster gas at 1200 kilometres per second. Such spectacular cosmic mergers are thought to be common in crowded galaxy cluster environments in the distant universe. In their final stages the mergers are expected to be intense sources of gravitational waves.

www.dailygalaxy.com

Above: Just over a thousand years ago, the stellar explosion known as superno-va SN 1006 was observed. It was brighter than Venus, and visible during the day for weeks. The brightest supernova ever recorded on Earth, this spectacular light show was documented in China, Japan, Europe, and the Arab world.

Above: The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters (Messier object 45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.


Page - 5


Page - 8


Since its launch in 1995, NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, orbiter has captured pictures of 2,000 comets as they've flown past the sun.

Most of these comets are so-called sungrazers, relatively tiny comets whose orbits bring them so near the sun that they are often vaporized within hours of discovery.

The sun-watching telescope usually picks up one sungrazer every few

days. But between December 13 and 22, SOHO saw more than two dozen sungrazers appear and disintegrate.

Seeing "25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," Karl Battams, of the United States Naval R e s e a r c h L a b o r a t o r y i n Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "It was crazy!"

According to Battams and colleagues, the comet swarm could be forerunner fragments from a much larger parent comet that may be headed along a similar path. And such a large icy body coming so near the sun would result in a spectacular sky show.

Sun-Kissing Comet "Granddaddy" on the Way? Despite becoming a leading comet hunter, SOHO was initially designed to study the sun. For example, one camera on the probe uses a device called a coronagraph to block out the main body of the sun so that it can see fainter features in the star's upper atmosphere.

As it happens, this setup also allows SOHO to spot tiny, house-size comets taking their death plunges. Over the years, the number of sungrazing comets detected by SOHO has increased, from 69 in 1997 to 200 in 2010.

Even after accounting for more participation from comet hunters and efforts to optimize images for comet-spotting, the numbers appear to show a significant increase in sungrazers, the astronomers say.

And the recent flurry of kamikaze comets may be pieces from a larger body similar to the Ikeya-Seki comet of 1965, Battams and colleagues say.

The granddaddy of all sungrazing comets, the three-mile-wide (five-

kilometre-wide) core of Ikeya-Seki swept within 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometres) of the solar surface.

Rather than vaporizing, the large comet survived its close encounter and whipped around the sun, becoming so bright in Earth's sky that, for a time, it was visible during the day. Since there were no space-based solar probes at the time, no one knows whether that event was preceded by a storm of smaller comets.

Comet Storm Remnants of a Broken Body? But according to comet hunter David Levy, the coming of a large sungrazer is just speculation for now. Comets in general are quite fragile and break apart easily, so this comet storm may simply be the last gasp of a bigger body that no longer exists, he said.

"Most of the comets that SOHO has discovered have been rather small and are probably little fragments that have spilt off of much larger comets that had prev ious encounters with the sun," said Levy, co-discoverer of the famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that hit Jupiter in 1994.

Hubble spots oldest Galaxy ever seen

"We were astonished to find that the star birth at 500 million years was dramatically less than it was at 650 million years," he said.

Using Hubble observat ions, astronomers estimate the rate of star birth in the universe increased ten-fold in the period between 500 million years and 650 million years after the Big Bang, a relatively short period of time in cosmic terms.

"So not only did this image tell us about or show us a glimpse of the galaxy at very early times, but it also told us about how the star birth was increasing in the universe," he said.

Illingworth says he believes Hubble will enable astronomers to find more 500-million-year-old galaxies, but he says it will take the next generation of telescope to see older objects and earlier times.

interactions with dwarf satellites, supporting studies of galaxy formation.”

www.voanews.com

That changed after Hubble got an upgraded camera in May 2009, which allowed scientists to look even deeper into space and further back in time.

That is when astronomers spotted what looked like a faint dot of starlight in the Hubble exposures.

"We managed eventually to find an ob jec t , " Ga r th I l l i ngwor th said. "This galaxy [that formed] 500 million years after the Big Bang is extraordinarily faint, a very blue, dynamic object full of stars, forming star birth. There's a whole lot of stars being formed in the object."

Scientists involved in this Hubble discovery say they are about 80 percent confident that this object is a compact galaxy of blue stars, less than one percent of the size of our Milky Way. They say this object's light traveled 13.2 billion years to reach the lenses of the Hubble telescope.

Illingworth says that makes this object the most ancient thing ever seen in the 13.7-billion-year-old universe. And, according to Illingworth, this galactic finding has even greater implications.

"We've gone back through 96 percent of the life of the universe to when the universe was only four percent of its current age, to 500 million years after the Big Bang," he said.

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was born 13.7 billion years ago in a single violent event, and, since that time, galaxies outside our Milky Way have been speeding away from us, creating a rapidly expanding universe.

Speaking at a NASA teleconference Wednesday, Illingworth explained that scientists had pored through Hubble's observations and already discovered nearly 50 galaxies that date back to 650 million years after the formation of the universe.

To help find your way around the night sky, Skymaps.com makes available for free each month a map of the night sky.

The Evening Sky Map is suitable for all stargazers including newcomers to astronomy and will help you to:

• identify planets, stars and

major constellations.

• find sparkling star clusters,

wispy nebulae & distant galaxies.

• locate and follow bright comets

across the sky.

• learn about the night sky and

astronomy.

Comet expert Don Yeomans, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, agrees.

"I would be surprised if there really is a larger object waiting to come in and take center stage and these smaller objects are its precursors," Yeomans said. "It's more likely these could be the remnants of a much larger object that broke up and is no longer with us."

The only way to know for sure, Yeomans said, is to watch and see if the rate of increase in sungrazers continues, which he admits would be "pretty amazing and unusual."

He also warns that if there is another Ikeya-Seki barrelling toward the sun, sky-watchers shouldn't hold their collective breath. After all, if you trace the orbital paths of the comet storm, any parent body would be coming from the farthest reaches of the solar system.

"We are talking about long waiting periods" until such a comet neared the sun, he said, "possibly anywhere upward of thousands to millions of years."

www.nationalgeographic.com

Above: The sun-kissing comet Ikeya-Seki, as it appeared in the dawn sky in 1965.

From its orbiting vantage point 568 kilometres above the Earth, NASA's Hubble telescope has forever altered the meaning of the phrase "as far as the eye can see."

Garth Illingworth, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, i s H u b b l e ' s p r i n c i p a l investigator. He says this telescopic eye has spotted what is likely the oldest and most distant object ever seen in the universe - a galaxy that dates back 13.2 billion years.

Since 1990, the Hubble space telescope has served as a stunning observatory, sending hundreds of thousands of images of the universe back to Earth. The latest Hubble discovery - what scientists believe to be a tiny galaxy of blue stars that is perhaps the oldest object ever seen in the universe.

"Suicide" Comet storm hits Sun - Is there a bigger Sun-Kisser coming?

A recent storm of small comets that pelted the sun could herald the coming a much bigger icy visitor, astronomers say.

Above: The farthest and one of the very earliest galaxies ever seen in the universe appears as a faint red blob in this ultra-deep–field exposure taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope

The Pistol Star, a luminous blue variable 1.7 million times as bright as the Sun, and 120-200 times as massive was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 1990s. The star surrounded by a huge nebula located near the centre of the Milky Way, radiates about as much energy in 20 seconds as does the Sun in a year, is thought to have ejected almost 10 solar masses of material in giant outbursts perhaps 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Its stellar wind is over 10 billion times stronger than the Sun's. Its exact age and future are not known, but it is expected to end in a brilliant supernova or hypernova in 1 to 3 million years. Some astronomers conjecture that its large mass may be related to its location near the Galactic Centre, since the star formation process there may favour massive objects.

www.dailygalaxy.com

A monster star -100 Million x's power of the Sun


Page - 7


Page - 6


Hubble eyes Hanny’s Voorwerp

Galaxy Zoo enlists the public to help classify more than a million galaxies catalogued in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The project has expanded to include Galaxy Zoo: Hubble, in which the public is asked to assess tens of thousands of galaxies in deep imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope.” In the sharpest view yet of Hanny’s Voorwerp, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys have uncovered star birth in a region of the green object that faces the spiral galaxy IC 2497 — a bright, energetic object that is powered by a black hole.

This Hubble view reveals new details in colourful clarity – such as

a area of star clusters whose members are only a couple of million years old… and the chemically charged yellowish-orange area at the tip of Milky Way sized Hanny’s Voorwerp.

“The star clusters are localised, confined to an area over a few thousand l ight-years wide,” explains astronomer William Keel of the University of Alabama, leader of the Hubble study. “The region may have been churning out stars for several million years. They are so dim that they have previously been lost in the brilliant light of the surrounding gas.”

The press release goes on to state that recent X-ray observations have revealed why Hanny’s Voorwerp caught the proverbial eye of as t ronomers . The ga laxy ’s rambunctious core produced a quasar, a powerful light beacon powered by a black hole. The quasar shot a broad beam of light in Hanny’s Voorwerp’s direction, illuminating the gas cloud and making it a space oddity. Its bright green colour is from glowing oxygen. “We just missed catching the quasar, because it turned off no more than 200,000 years ago, so what we’re seeing is the afterglow from the quasar,” Keel says. “This implies that it might flicker on and off, which is typical of quasars, but we’ve never seen such a dramatic change happen so rapidly.”

The quasar’s outburst also may have cast a shadow on the blob. This feature gives the illusion of a gaping hole about 20,000 light-years wide in Hanny’s Voorwerp. Hubble reveals sharp edges around the apparent opening, suggesting that an object close to the quasar may have blocked some of the light and projected a shadow on Hanny’s Voorwerp. This phenomenon is similar to a fly on a movie projector lens casting a shadow on a movie screen. Radio studies have revealed that Hanny’s Voorwerp is not just an island gas cloud floating in space awaiting a three-hour tour. The glowing blob is part of a long, twisting rope of gas, or tidal tail, about 300,000 light-years long that wraps around the galaxy. The only optically visible part of the rope is Hanny’s Voorwerp. The illuminated object is so huge that it stretches from 44,000 light-years to 136,000 light-years from the galaxy’s core. The quasar, the outflow of gas that instigated the star birth, and the long, gaseous tidal tail point to a rough life for IC 2497.

“The evidence suggests that IC 2497 may have merged with another galaxy about a billion years ago,” Keel explains. “The Hubble images show in exquisite detail that the spiral arms are twisted, so the galaxy hasn’t completely settled down.” In Keel’s scenario, the merger expelled the long streamer of gas from the galaxy and funnelled gas and stars into the center, which fed the black hole. The engorged black hole then powered the quasar, which launched two cones of light. One light beam illuminated part of the tidal tail, now called Hanny’s Voorwerp.” says Keel. “About a million years ago, shock waves produced glowing gas near the galaxy’s core and blasted it outward. The glowing gas is seen only in Hubble images and spectra. The outburst may have triggered star formation in Hanny ’s Voorwerp. Less than 200,000 years ago, the quasar dropped in brightness by 100 times or more, leaving an ordinary-looking core.

Fasc inat ing evidence which confirms the team’s original explanation… Go Zoo!

www.universetoday.com

According to the American Astronomical Society press release: “One of the strangest space objects ever seen is being scrutinised by the penetrating vision of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. A mysterious, glowing green blob of gas is floating in space near a spiral galaxy. Hubble uncovered delicate filaments of gas and a pocket of young star clusters in the giant object, which is the size of the Milky Way. The Hubble revelations are the latest finds in an ongoing probe of Hanny’s Voorwerp (Hanny’s Object in Dutch). It is named after Hanny van Arkel, the Du t ch s c hoo l t e a che r w ho discovered the ghostly structure in 2007 while participating in the online Galaxy Zoo project.

Almost four years ago a group of astronomers known as the Galaxy Zoo made a very exciting discovery – one they named “Hanny’s Voorwerp“. Although the action occurred a hundred thousand years ago and somewhere in the neighbourhood of 700 million light years away, a once upon a time quasar burned brighter than its neighbouring galaxy. While the tidal pull of massive spiral IC 2497 shredded a gas rich dwarf galaxy, the incredible outpouring of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation combined with the quasar ignited the gases to light… but what exactly is it? The Hubble Space Telescope turned its eye in the direction of Leo Minor to find out…

Above: This diagram explains the formation of the strange green object known as Hanny’s Voorwerp. Astronomers believe that it is part of the long streamer of gas that extends from galaxy IC 2497, lit up brightly by the searchlight beam of a recently extinguished quasar.

Deep, deep look at NGC 891

w o r l d ’ s l e a d i n g a m a t e u r astrophotographers for the past decade, “who has single-handedly, through his dedicated and careful work, spawned a new research direction in the exploration of galaxy evolution via low-surface-brightness imaging of galaxy halo substructure,” the AAS press release said. “GaBany has devoted hundreds of hours working with professional astronomers to make deep images that reveal faint tidal streams and rings in the outer halos of galaxies, indicative of recent and ongoing galaxy interactions with dwarf satellites, supporting studies of galaxy formation.”

www.universetoday.com

easily visible with a small telescope this time of year and is a favourite subject for astrophotographers. “However, no image of this galaxy (to my knowledge) has gone as deep as this picture,” Jay said.

Also, Universe Today would like to send our congratulations to Jay for being recognized by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and Sky & Telescope Magazine, as he was awarded the Chambliss Amateur Achievement Award for his work with Dr. David Delgado and his team of professional astronomers! The award is given annually to an amateur astronomer from North America who makes outstanding contributions to scientific research.

Jay was cited as being one of the

correctly. As a result, I chose a familiar subject so I could spot problems quickly. Luckily, I had very few challenges and my new remote observatory is now operating both smoothly and reliably!”

NGC 891 is located in the northern constellation of Andromeda. It’s

Looking for the orbiting NanoSail-D just got more exciting! NASA and Spaceweather.com have teamed up to offer prizes for the best amateur astronomy image of the now-orbiting and unfurled NanoSail-D solar sail. NanoSail-D unfurled the first 100-square-foot solar sail in low-Earth orbit on Jan. 20.

To encourage observations of NanoSail-D, Spaceweather.com is offering prizes for the best images of this historic , pioneer ing spacecraft in the amounts of $300 (first prize) and $100(second prize). The contest is open to all types of images ff NanoSail-D is in the field of view, the image is eligible for judging. The solar sail is about the size of a large tent. It will be observable for approximately 70 to 120 days before it enters the atmosphere and disintegrates. The contest continues until NanoSail-D re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.

See NanoSail-D in orbit and maybe win a prize!

This first photograph from his new observatory in California includes almost 35 hours of exposure time! “As a result, hundreds of small, much more distant galaxies can be seen in the image as well as very small scale structures across the galaxy’s edge,” Jay wrote us. If you g o t o J a y ’ s w e b s i t e , Cosmotography.com, you can see larger versions where you can see very faint dust clouds, called cirrus, that have never been imaged within NGC 891 at this scale.

“Last fall, I moved my remote observatory from the south central mountains of New Mexico, where I have been taking pictures for the past five years,” Jay said, “to high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, between Yosemite and King’s Canyon National Parks, in the east central part of California….For me, the first picture included many test exposures taken to insure my instruments were functioning

This image is a “first light” for noted amateur astronomer R. Jay GaBany’s new observatory, and it might be the deepest, most detailed view of the iconic edge-on spiral galaxy NCG 891.

Above: 35 hours of exposure time by R. Jay GaBany resulted in this deep, detailed view of NGC 891.

NanoSail-D will be a target of interest to both novice and veteran sky watchers . Exper ienced astrophotographers will want to take the first-ever telescopic pictures of a solar sail unfurled in space. Backyard stargazers, meanwhile, will marvel at the solar sail flares — brief but intense flashes of light caused by sunlight glinting harmlessly from the surface of the sail.

NanoSail-D could be five to 10 times as bright as the planet Venus, especially later in the mission when the sail descends to lower orbits. The NanoSail-D satellite was jointly designed and built by NASA engineers from the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, Calif.

www.universetoday.com Above: Visit www.Heavens-Above.com for a complete list of local passes.


Page - 5


Page - 8


Since its launch in 1995, NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, orbiter has captured pictures of 2,000 comets as they've flown past the sun.

Most of these comets are so-called sungrazers, relatively tiny comets whose orbits bring them so near the sun that they are often vaporized within hours of discovery.

The sun-watching telescope usually picks up one sungrazer every few

days. But between December 13 and 22, SOHO saw more than two dozen sungrazers appear and disintegrate.

Seeing "25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," Karl Battams, of the United States Naval R e s e a r c h L a b o r a t o r y i n Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "It was crazy!"

According to Battams and colleagues, the comet swarm could be forerunner fragments from a much larger parent comet that may be headed along a similar path. And such a large icy body coming so near the sun would result in a spectacular sky show.

Sun-Kissing Comet "Granddaddy" on the Way? Despite becoming a leading comet hunter, SOHO was initially designed to study the sun. For example, one camera on the probe uses a device called a coronagraph to block out the main body of the sun so that it can see fainter features in the star's upper atmosphere.

As it happens, this setup also allows SOHO to spot tiny, house-size comets taking their death plunges. Over the years, the number of sungrazing comets detected by SOHO has increased, from 69 in 1997 to 200 in 2010.

Even after accounting for more participation from comet hunters and efforts to optimize images for comet-spotting, the numbers appear to show a significant increase in sungrazers, the astronomers say.

And the recent flurry of kamikaze comets may be pieces from a larger body similar to the Ikeya-Seki comet of 1965, Battams and colleagues say.

The granddaddy of all sungrazing comets, the three-mile-wide (five-

kilometre-wide) core of Ikeya-Seki swept within 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometres) of the solar surface.

Rather than vaporizing, the large comet survived its close encounter and whipped around the sun, becoming so bright in Earth's sky that, for a time, it was visible during the day. Since there were no space-based solar probes at the time, no one knows whether that event was preceded by a storm of smaller comets.

Comet Storm Remnants of a Broken Body? But according to comet hunter David Levy, the coming of a large sungrazer is just speculation for now. Comets in general are quite fragile and break apart easily, so this comet storm may simply be the last gasp of a bigger body that no longer exists, he said.

"Most of the comets that SOHO has discovered have been rather small and are probably little fragments that have spilt off of much larger comets that had prev ious encounters with the sun," said Levy, co-discoverer of the famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that hit Jupiter in 1994.

Hubble spots oldest Galaxy ever seen

"We were astonished to find that the star birth at 500 million years was dramatically less than it was at 650 million years," he said.

Using Hubble observat ions, astronomers estimate the rate of star birth in the universe increased ten-fold in the period between 500 million years and 650 million years after the Big Bang, a relatively short period of time in cosmic terms.

"So not only did this image tell us about or show us a glimpse of the galaxy at very early times, but it also told us about how the star birth was increasing in the universe," he said.

Illingworth says he believes Hubble will enable astronomers to find more 500-million-year-old galaxies, but he says it will take the next generation of telescope to see older objects and earlier times.

interactions with dwarf satellites, supporting studies of galaxy formation.”

www.voanews.com

That changed after Hubble got an upgraded camera in May 2009, which allowed scientists to look even deeper into space and further back in time.

That is when astronomers spotted what looked like a faint dot of starlight in the Hubble exposures.

"We managed eventually to find an ob jec t , " Ga r th I l l i ngwor th said. "This galaxy [that formed] 500 million years after the Big Bang is extraordinarily faint, a very blue, dynamic object full of stars, forming star birth. There's a whole lot of stars being formed in the object."

Scientists involved in this Hubble discovery say they are about 80 percent confident that this object is a compact galaxy of blue stars, less than one percent of the size of our Milky Way. They say this object's light traveled 13.2 billion years to reach the lenses of the Hubble telescope.

Illingworth says that makes this object the most ancient thing ever seen in the 13.7-billion-year-old universe. And, according to Illingworth, this galactic finding has even greater implications.

"We've gone back through 96 percent of the life of the universe to when the universe was only four percent of its current age, to 500 million years after the Big Bang," he said.

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was born 13.7 billion years ago in a single violent event, and, since that time, galaxies outside our Milky Way have been speeding away from us, creating a rapidly expanding universe.

Speaking at a NASA teleconference Wednesday, Illingworth explained that scientists had pored through Hubble's observations and already discovered nearly 50 galaxies that date back to 650 million years after the formation of the universe.

To help find your way around the night sky, Skymaps.com makes available for free each month a map of the night sky.

The Evening Sky Map is suitable for all stargazers including newcomers to astronomy and will help you to:

• identify planets, stars and

major constellations.

• find sparkling star clusters,

wispy nebulae & distant galaxies.

• locate and follow bright comets

across the sky.

• learn about the night sky and

astronomy.

Comet expert Don Yeomans, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, agrees.

"I would be surprised if there really is a larger object waiting to come in and take center stage and these smaller objects are its precursors," Yeomans said. "It's more likely these could be the remnants of a much larger object that broke up and is no longer with us."

The only way to know for sure, Yeomans said, is to watch and see if the rate of increase in sungrazers continues, which he admits would be "pretty amazing and unusual."

He also warns that if there is another Ikeya-Seki barrelling toward the sun, sky-watchers shouldn't hold their collective breath. After all, if you trace the orbital paths of the comet storm, any parent body would be coming from the farthest reaches of the solar system.

"We are talking about long waiting periods" until such a comet neared the sun, he said, "possibly anywhere upward of thousands to millions of years."

www.nationalgeographic.com

Above: The sun-kissing comet Ikeya-Seki, as it appeared in the dawn sky in 1965.

From its orbiting vantage point 568 kilometres above the Earth, NASA's Hubble telescope has forever altered the meaning of the phrase "as far as the eye can see."

Garth Illingworth, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, i s H u b b l e ' s p r i n c i p a l investigator. He says this telescopic eye has spotted what is likely the oldest and most distant object ever seen in the universe - a galaxy that dates back 13.2 billion years.

Since 1990, the Hubble space telescope has served as a stunning observatory, sending hundreds of thousands of images of the universe back to Earth. The latest Hubble discovery - what scientists believe to be a tiny galaxy of blue stars that is perhaps the oldest object ever seen in the universe.

"Suicide" Comet storm hits Sun - Is there a bigger Sun-Kisser coming?

A recent storm of small comets that pelted the sun could herald the coming a much bigger icy visitor, astronomers say.

Above: The farthest and one of the very earliest galaxies ever seen in the universe appears as a faint red blob in this ultra-deep–field exposure taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope

The Pistol Star, a luminous blue variable 1.7 million times as bright as the Sun, and 120-200 times as massive was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 1990s. The star surrounded by a huge nebula located near the centre of the Milky Way, radiates about as much energy in 20 seconds as does the Sun in a year, is thought to have ejected almost 10 solar masses of material in giant outbursts perhaps 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Its stellar wind is over 10 billion times stronger than the Sun's. Its exact age and future are not known, but it is expected to end in a brilliant supernova or hypernova in 1 to 3 million years. Some astronomers conjecture that its large mass may be related to its location near the Galactic Centre, since the star formation process there may favour massive objects.

www.dailygalaxy.com

A monster star -100 Million x's power of the Sun


Page - 9


Page - 4

The star is located in the Orion constellation, about 640 light-years away from Earth. It's one of the brightest and biggest stars in our galactic neighbourhood - if you dropped it in our Solar System, it would extend all the way out to Jupiter, leaving Earth completely engulfed. In stellar terms, it's predicted to explode in the very near future. Of course, the conversion from stellar to human terms is pretty extreme, as Betelgeuse is predicted to explode anytime in the next million years.

But still, whether the explosion occurs in 2011 or 1002011 (give or take 640 years for the light to reach Earth), it's going to make for one of the most unforgettable light shows in our planet's history. For a few weeks, the supernova will be so bright that there will appear to be two stars in the sky, and night be will indistinguishable from day for much of that time. So don't count on getting a lot of sleep when Betelgeuse explodes, because the only sensible thing for the world to do will be to throw a weeks-long global supernova party.

Physicist Brad Carter explains what Earth (and hopefully humanity) can

look forward to:

"This is the final hurrah for the star. It goes bang, it explodes, it lights up - we'll have incredible brightness for a brief period of time for a couple of weeks and then over the coming months it begins to fade and then eventually it will be very hard to see at all."

Indeed, just in case anyone is concerned, Betelgeuse is way too far away from Earth to do us any damage. There's been some doomsday speculation of late around the eventual supernova - which might not happen for a million years, it bears repeating - but, as with pretty much all doomsday speculation, you can just ignore it.

In any event, the Betelgeuse explosion will likely be the most dramatic supernova Earth ever witnesses - well, unless our Sun eventually explodes and destroys our planet, which would probably leave Betelgeuse the runner-up. Either way, it isn't the first, as h is tory has recorded the appearance of several so-called "guest stars." Most of these just looked like short-lived stars in the


Earth may soon have a second sun

night sky, but some were bright enough to be seen in the day.

The first supernova that history records is thought to have occurred in 185 CE, when a star 8,200 light-years away exploded. Chinese astronomers make explicit note of the sudden appearance of a star and its subsequent disappearance several months later, and the Romans may also have made more c r yp t i c re f e r ences t o i t . Astronomers have since located the remnants of the exploded star, confirming the accuracy of the ancient accounts.

The two most dramatic supernova explosions occurred in the 11th century. A supernova in 1006 - you can see its modern remnant above - is the brightest star ever recorded, appearing in the records of China, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Japan, and Switzerland. There's even some thought that a rock painting by the Hohokam, a Native American tribe in what is now Arizona, represents the first recorded sighting of a supernova in the Americas. Here's the petroglyph in question, which might well record the presence of an unexpected bright light in the sky:

The various observations even allow us to pinpoint what specific type of supernova it was. In all likelihood, it was a Type Ia supernova, which for a few weeks burn as brightly as five billion suns. The supernova of 1054 wasn't quite

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is getting ready to go supernova, and when it does Earth will have a front-row seat. The explosion will be so bright that Earth will briefly seem to have two suns in the sky.


as dramatic, and it seemed to go almost entirely unrecorded in Europe, although there's some thought that records of the new star made by Irish monks got corrupted into allegorical accounts of the Antichrist. Still, the rest of the world saw it just fine, with records popping up in China, Japan, Korea, Persia, and the Americas. Astronomers of the time period wrote that it could be seen in daylight for over three weeks and remained visible in the night sky for nearly two years.

A pair of supernovas in 1572 and 1604 were extensively studied by two generations of legendary astronomers, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Since then, the Milky Way hasn't had any supernovas visible from Earth, and so our night sky has remained rather tediously ordinary.

There's about sixteen known candidates in our galaxy for a future supernova explosion, and quite a few of them would have a dramatic effect on our skies. But Betelgeuse is by far one of the closest, and its huge size means its explosion will be particularly dramatic. This is one cosmic disaster that we actually want to see happen sooner than later, because there may never be a sight quite like this ever again.

www.io9.com

Above: An artists impression of Betelgeuse going Supernova.

Taurus is one of the loveliest constellations of the northern winter sky. A much smaller group than Orion, Taurus two open star clusters, the Hyades and the Pleiades, are a magnificent sight with the unaided eye or with binoculars. In January and February, Taurus is high overhead for northern observers, and low on the northern horizon for southern observers.

If you can find Orion in the night sky, finding Taurus is pretty easy. Just extend the line of Orion’s belt to the right (northwest) until you find a bright orange star nestled in a V-shaped cluster of stars. The bright star in this V-shape is the star Aldebaran (“all-DEB-a-run”), it is a swollen giant star some 45 times the diameter of our own sun.

This same “V”, which marks the head of the bull, is the nearby Hyades star cluster. It’s remarkably beautiful in dark sky, with several close star pairs to challenge your visual acuity.

And let’s not forget the tiny dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster. Just

northwest of the “V”, the Pleiades is perhaps the most famous of all star groupings.

Nearly every world culture has a name and legend for this star cluster. In Sanskrit, the cluster is called Kṛttikā, which refers to the six sisters of the god Murugan. The Japanese refer to this cluster as Subaru, from which the famous car company takes its name and logo.

I have seen absolute beginners get their first view of the Pleiades through binoculars or a low-power telescope, then come away as avowed stargazers. An overhead comment: “I had no idea anything could be so beautiful”.

The silver-blue stars of the Pleiades are young, for stars… about 110 million years old. The cluster lies 440 light years from Earth and is a great object to view in binoculars, low-powered telescope or even a high powered telescope.

www.oneminuteastronomer.com

The Constellation Taurus The constellation Orion points the way to two other prominent constellations this month, Taurus and Canis Major. Let’s look at Taurus and its two stunning star clusters, both are ideal targets for beginning observers, and are worth returning to frequently.

Above: Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is a Latin word meaning 'bull', and its astrological symbol is a stylized bull's head.

Duelling Supermassive Black Holes observed

The two bright sources at the centre of this composite x-ray (blue)/radio (pink) image are thought to be co-orb i t ing supermassive black holes powering a giant radio source 3C 75. Surrounded by multimillion degree x-ray emitting gas, and blasting out jets of relativistic particles the supermassive black holes are separated by 25,000 light-years. At the cores of two merging galaxies in the Abell 400 galaxy cluster, they are some 300 million light-years away.

NASA Astronomers conclude that these two supermassive black holes

are bound together by gravity in a binary system in part because the jets' consistent swept back appearance is most likely due to their common motion as they speed through the hot cluster gas at 1200 kilometres per second. Such spectacular cosmic mergers are thought to be common in crowded galaxy cluster environments in the distant universe. In their final stages the mergers are expected to be intense sources of gravitational waves.

www.dailygalaxy.com

Above: Just over a thousand years ago, the stellar explosion known as superno-va SN 1006 was observed. It was brighter than Venus, and visible during the day for weeks. The brightest supernova ever recorded on Earth, this spectacular light show was documented in China, Japan, Europe, and the Arab world.

Above: The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters (Messier object 45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.


Page - 3 Page - 10

The WISE mission completed its main goal of mapping the sky in infrared light in October 2010, covering it one-and-one-half times before its frozen coolant ran out, as planned. During that time, it snapped pictures of hundreds of millions of objects, the first batch of which will be released to the astronomy community in April 2011. WISE is continuing its scan of the skies without coolant using two of its four infrared channels — the two shorter-wavelength channels not a f f e c t e d b y t h e w a r m e r temperatures. The mission’s ongoing survey is now focused primarily on asteroids and comets. Because WISE has imaged the entire sky, it excels at producing large mosaics like this new picture of Messier 81 and Messier 82, which covers a patch of sky equivalent to three-by-three full Moons, or 1.5 by 1.5 degrees.

It is likely these partner galaxies will continue to dance around each other, and eventually merge into a single entity. They are both spiral galaxies, but Messier 82 is seen from an edge-on perspective, and thus appears in visible light as a thin, cigar-like bar. (To me it has always looked like a child’s dirty kite string wrapped around a stick, eh?) When viewed in infrared light, Messier 82 is the brightest galaxy in the sky. It is what scientists refer to as a starburst galaxy because it is churning out large numbers of new stars. “The WISE picture really shows how spectacular Messier 82 shines in the infrared even though it is relatively puny in both size and mass compared to its big brother, Messier 81,” said Tom Jarrett, a member of the WISE team at the

California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In this WISE view, infrared light has been color coded so that we can see it with our eyes. The shortest wavelengths (3.4 and 3.6 microns) are shown in blue and blue-green, or cyan, and the longer wavelengths (12 and 22 microns) are green and red. Messier 82 appears in yellow hues because its cocoon of dust gives off longer wavelengths of light (the yellow is a result of combining green and red). This dust is made primarily of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are found on Earth as soot.

Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, appears blue in the infrared image because it is not as dusty. The blue light is from stars in the galaxy. Knots of yellow seen dotting the spiral arms are dusty areas of recent star formation, most likely triggered by the galaxy’s encounter with its rowdy partner. “It’s striking how the same event stimulated a classic spiral galaxy in Messier 81, and a raging starburst in Messier 82,” said WISE Project Scientist Peter Eisenhardt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “WISE is finding the most extreme starbursts across the whole sky, out to distances over a thousand times greater than Messier 82.”

Next time you view M81 and M82, perhaps you’ll see them in a new light?

http://www.universetoday.com

Almost every amateur astronomer has viewed the ghostly glow of galactic pair, Messier 81 and Messier 82. They’re easily visible in small binoculars from a dark sky site and reveal wonderful details in a telescope as aperture increases. We’ve marvelled over M81‘s smooth, star-rich structure and the disturbed spindle-shaped structure of M82. We know the pair have interacted and the huge spiral has ingested stars from its companion – but today we know a whole lot more…

in yellow hues. The Cigar Galaxy is pictured above Messier 81. “What’s unique about the WISE view of this duo is that we can see both galaxies in one shot, and we can really see their differences,” said Ned Wright of UCLA, the principal investigator of WISE. “Because the Cigar Galaxy is bursting with star formation, it’s really bright in the infrared, and looks dramatically different from its less active companion.”

According to today’s press release from the American Astronomical Society, when the pair swept by ea ch o t he r , g r a v i t a t i o n a l interactions triggered new bursts of star formation. In the case of Messier 82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, the encounter has likely triggered a tremendous wave of new star birth at its core. Intense radiation from new born massive stars is blowing copious amounts of gas and smoky dust out of the galaxy, as seen in the WISE image



New light on galactic pair – M81 and M82

Massive rogue star racing through the Milky Way


The star is huge with a mass of about 20 times that of our sun. In this image, in which infrared light has been translated into visible colours we see with our eyes, the star appears as the blue dot inside the bow shock.

Zeta Ophiuchi once orbited around an even heftier star. But when that star exploded in a supernova, Zeta

A WISE look at Messier 81 and Messier 82


Ophiuchi shot away like a bullet. It's traveling at a whopping 54,000 miles per hour (or 24 kilometres per second), and heading toward the upper left area of the picture. As the star tears through space, its powerful winds push gas and dust out of its way and into what is called a bow shock. The material in the bow shock is so compressed that it glows with infrared light that WISE can see. The effect is similar to what happens when a boat speeds through water, pushing a wave in front of it.

This bow shock is completely hidden in visible light. Infrared images like this one from WISE are therefore important for shedding new light on the region.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com

Kid’s�

It is easy to see that the sky is blue. Have you ever wondered why? A lot of other smart people have, and it took a long time to figure it out!

The light from the Sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colours of the rainbow.

A prism is a specially shaped crystal. When white light shines through a prism, the light is separated into all its colours. The light you see is just one tiny bit of all the kinds of light energy beaming around the Universe--and around you!

Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. The sun-light reaching us from low in the sky has passed through even more air than the sunlight reaching us from overhead.

As the sunlight has passed through all this air, the air molecules have scattered and rescattered the blue light many times in many directions.

Also, the surface of Earth has reflected and scattered the light. All this scattering mixes the colours together again so we see more white and less blue.

Korner�Why is the Sky Blue?

What Makes a Red Sunset? As the Sun gets lower in the sky, its light is passing through more of the atmosphere to reach you. Even more of the blue light is scattered, allowing the reds and yellows to pass straight through to your eyes.

Sometimes the whole western sky seems to glow. The sky appears red because larger particles of dust, pollution, and water vapor in the atmosphere reflect and scatter more of the reds and yellows.

Why Does Light Scattering Matter? How much of the Sun's light gets bounced around in Earth's atmos-phere and how much gets reflected back into space? How much light gets soaked up by land and water, asphalt freeways and sunburned surfers? How much light do water and clouds reflect back into space? And why do we care?

Sunlight carries the energy that heats Earth and powers all life on Earth. Our climate is affected by how sunlight is scattered by forests, deserts, snow- and ice-covered surfaces, different types of clouds, smoke from forest fires, and other pollutants in the air.

Like energy passing through the ocean, light energy travels in waves, too. Some light travels in short, "choppy" waves. Other light travels in long, lazy waves. Blue light waves are shorter than red light waves.

All light travels in a straight line unless something gets in the way to:

• reflect it (like a mirror)

• bend it (like a prism)

• or scatter it (like molecules of

the gases in the atmosphere)

S u n l i g h t r e a c h e s E a r t h ' s atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases

and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny m o l e c u l e s o f air in Earth's atmos-phere . B lue i s s c a t t e r e d m o r e than other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.


Page - 11


Page - 2

Exercise your brainExercise your brainExercise your brainExercise your brain Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine Midlands Astronomy Club Magazine

c o n t e n t sc o n t e n t sc o n t e n t sc o n t e n t s Latest Astronomy and Space News New light on galactic pair – M81 and M82 ............................. 3

Massive rogue star racing through the Milky Way .................. 3

Earth may soon have a second sun ...................................... 4

Hubble spots oldest Galaxy ever seen ................................... 5

A monster star -100 Million x's power of the Sun ................... 5

Hubble eyes Hanny’s Voorwerp ............................................ 6

Deep, deep look at NGC 891 ................................................ 7

See NanoSail-D in orbit and maybe win a prize! .................... 7

"Suicide" Comet storm hits Sun - Is there a bigger Sun-Kisser coming? ............................................................. 8

The Constellation Taurus ..................................................... 9

Duelling Supermassive Black Holes observed ........................ 9

Kids Section Kids Korner ....................................................................... 10

Quizzes and Games Exercise your brain ............................................................ 11

Monthly Sky Guide Beginners sky guide for January ......................................... 12

Front cover image: This gorgeous image of M78 was selected as

the winner of the Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition. Held by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the

competition challenged amateur astronomers to process data from ESO's astronomical

archive in search of cosmic gems.

The winning entry shows off amazing details within bluish M78 (centre) embraced in dark, dusty clouds, along with a smaller reflection nebula in the region, NGC 2071 (top). Yellowish and even more compact, the recently discovered, variable McNeil's

Nebula is prominent in the scene below and right of centre.

Credit & Copyright: ESO / Igor Chekalin

MAC meets on the first Tuesday of the month in the Presbyterian Hall, High Street, Tullamore from 8pm.

All are welcome to attend. It also holds infrequent Observing Nights at its Observing Site in

Clonminch, or at a member’s house (weather permitting) on the first

Friday of every month..

You can see more about the club and its events on

www.midlandsastronomy.com or contact the club via e-mail at [email protected] Meetings are informal and are

aimed at a level to suit all ages.

1. Which of the following

is a moon of Mars that scientists predict will

crash into its host planet soon?

� Deimos

� Phobos

� Eros

� Beratos

2. Clouds on Mars are usually made up of

what?

� Methane

� Water Vapour

� Frozen Carbon Dioxide

� Carbon Monoxide

3. Which of the following mountains is NOT

located on Mars?

� Gunung Lawu

� Albor Tholus

� Charitum Montes

� Scandia Tholi

4. What Mars lander was

famous for discovering

water ice on Mars in 2008?

� Houston Mars Lander

� Phoenix Mars Lander

� Dallas Mars Lander

� Kennedy Mars Lander

5. Which of the following gases exists in Mars's

atmosphere?

� Hydrogen

� Oxygen

� Helium

� Fluorine

6. What did the Babyloni-

ans name Mars?

� Nergal

� Ares

� Raewt

� Babtran

7. Mars has no ________.

� Volcanoes

� Atmosphere

� Magnetic field

� Solid Core

8. The name given to the

planet we call Mars by the ancient Egyptians

was:

� Horus the Red

� Isis the Red

� Ra the Red

� Osiris the Red

9. Both the mantle (not

as in a synonym of fireplace, but rather as

the layer of Mars' interior) of Mars and

the Earth are made up

chiefly of what?

� Sovite

� Basalt

� Peridotite

� Diorite

10.Why is Mars red in

colour?

� The reason is not

entirely known

� A certain amount of

pressure creating naturally red rocks and dust

� Rust in the soil, mostly in

the very upper layers

� Large amounts of copper

in the soil

8 1 9

7 9

4 8 5 6

6 8 2

2 5 4 1

1 9 3

1 2 4 3

2 8

3 7 2

SUDOKU

Check your answers

Answer 1: The correct answer was Phobos. Mars has only two moons,

Phobos and Deimos. Phobos, the larger of the two small moons, orbits very

close to Mars. Many astronomers predict that it could crash into Mars in as little as 50 more years. Neither Eros

nor Beratos are moons of Mars. 433 Eros is the name of an asteroid with an

orbit near Earth (known as NEA, or Near-Earth asteroid) and is notable as

the first NEA to be discovered, and Beratos is not the name of any celestial body.


Frozen Carbon Dioxide although, there is sometimes fog of water vapour.


Gunung Lawu which is a mountain located in the island of Java. Mars has

tons of mountains, and larger canyons than Earth. Its tallest point is the inactive volcano Olympus Mons, at

thrice the height of Mt. Everest.

Answer 4: The correct answer was Phoenix Mars Lander which touched

down on Mars on May 25, 2008, and the discovery of water ice was con-firmed in June.

Answer 5: The correct answer was Oxygen. 0.13% of the Martian atmos-

phere is oxygen.

Answer 6: The correct answer was Nergal. Nergal meant one who is great

and heroic.

Answer 7: The correct answer was Magnetic field. Mars has an atmos-

phere, but not one that can sustain human life. The thinness of it may cause this lack of magnetosphere. This

may also show that Mars is solid throughout. Mars does have volcanoes

(most notably Olympus Mons, the volcano that's thrice as high as Mt. Everest).

Answer 8: The correct answer was Horus the Red. It was also sometimes known as the backwards traveller.


Peridotite which is in turn mostly made up of a mineral known as olivine.


Rust in the soil, mostly in the very upper layers. The rust is better known

as iron oxide. Usually it is only found on the surface, so if you were to dig down a few inches you'd probably find

dust/rock that's not red.


Page - 12


Issue 21- February, 2011

Latest Astronomy and Space News

Kids Astronomy

Quizzes and Games

Monthly Sky Guide

Sky Guide - Beginner’s targets for February Telescope Targets Orion and Auriga continue to be in great position for viewing this month. See December's and January's picks for these targets. For this month, we'll add Canis Major and Monoceros to our list. M41 is an open cluster in Canis Major which is quite easy to locate due to it's proximity to Sirius. Simply find Sirius (the sky's brightest star) shining below Orion, about 4º (or about one finderscope field) below Sirius is M41. M41 is a spectacular open cluster, with dozens of stars visible in scopes.

M50 is another of Messier's open clusters located in the constellation Monoceros. As Monoceros itself doesn't contain any very bright stars, I use Beetlegeuse, Sirius, and Procyon to locate this one. These 3 stars form a nice triangle (the winter triangle?) to aid in locating it. The side of the triangle connecting Procryon and Sirius contains M50. M50 is located slight-ly less than halfway on the way from Sirius to Procryon.

Two other open clusters in the area are M46 and M47. Using Procryon as the top of the vertical leg and Sirius as the edge of the vertical leg of the letter "L", M46 forms the corner of the "L". Once you've located M46, simply move slightly to the Southeast (about 1 low powered Field of View) to locate M47.

Planets Saturn can be located in Leo this month. It rises at 20:30 at the start of the month and by month’s end; it rises at 18:30. It brightens from mag +0.7 to mag +0.5 during the month. With the planet’s ring plane almost edge on, this is not a good time to try and observe the rings. It is however a good time to try and observe the smaller satellites and details on the planet’s surface with the rings out of the picture. It lies close to Sigma Leonis (mag +4) through out the month.

Venus is wel l p laced for observation in the West after sunset this month. At the start of the month it sets at 21:40 and by month’s end; sets at 21:45. It maintains its brightness at mag -4.6 during the month.

General notes Always keep an eye out f o r A u r o r a e . C h e c k o u t w w w . s t r o n g e . o r g . u k /spaceweather.html for the most up-to-date information on the aurorae. Other interesting naked eye phenomena to look out for include the Zodiacal Light and the Gegenschein. Both are caused by sunlight reflecting off dust particles which are present in the solar system.

The Zodiacal Light can be seen in the West after evening twilight has disappeared or in the East before

the morning twilight. The best time of year to see the phenomenon is late-Feb to early-April in the evening sky and September/October in the morning sky - it's then that the ecliptic, along which the cone of the zodiacal light lies, is steepest in our skies. The Gegenschein can be seen in the area of the sky opposite the sun. To view either, you must get yourself to a very dark site to cut out the light pollution. When trying to observe either of these phenomena, it is best to do so when the moon is below the horizon. If you are observing them when the moon has risen, restrict your efforts to the period 4 days

either side of the new moon as otherwise the moonlight will be sufficient to drown them out.

Finally check out www.heavens-above.com for the latest passes of the International Space Station and satellites, details of the NanoSail-D and for details of Iridium Flare activity.

Well, that should get you going in February. Clear skies and good hunting!

By Kevin Daly http://members.aol.com/kdaly10475/index.html

Above: Monoceros is a constellation that is not very easily seen with the naked eye, however, Monoceros does have some interesting features to observe with the aid of a small telescope. Beta Monocerotis is an impressive triple star sys-tem, the three stars form a triangle which seems to be fixed. William Herschel discovered it in 1781 and commented that it is 'one of the most beautiful sights in the heavens'. Canis Major's alpha star, Sirius, is the brightest object in Earth's sky after the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. It is also one of the nearest stars to Earth. The star VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant star in Canis Major. It is the largest known star and also one of the most luminous known. It is located about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years) from Earth.

Club Notes

Club Observing:

Remember the next club meets every first Friday of the month for our observing sessions held in the MAC grounds. If you wish to be informed of these sessions please email your name and mobile number to [email protected] who will confirm if the session is going ahead (depending on weather).

MAC is a proud member of

mac february 2011 magazine

Documents