Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, H. Hammel (SpaceScience Institute) and Jupiter Impact Team
Jupiter is in both the dusk and the dawn horizons as it rises over CB South at sunset and hangs over Kebler Pass at sunrise after traversing our southern mountains through the night. It is by far the most reflective object in any given night sky when it is viewable.
Jupiter, like Venus, is so exceptionally bright to us here on Earth because it has a very thick atmosphere. Atmosphere is far more reflective of sunlight than rock alone. For example, the Moon has virtually no atmosphere and is a terrible reflector of light despite its apparent brightness to our eyes when it is full. The Moon is actually the worst reflector of light in the entire Solar System reflecting about as much light as a lump of coal. The Moon appears exceptionally bright to us because it is so very near and because the surrounding darkness enhances its apparent brightness to the way our eyes receive light.
On July 17th amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley of Australia recorded a major impact event on the southern surface of Jupiter that left a large black scar in the atmosphere. It is very similar to a mark that was left 15 years ago to the day by an observed comet impact in 1994. Scientists and the rest of us are left to speculate about the nature of the impact being left by a comet, an asteroid or some other phenomenon because nobody observed any objects travelling a collision course with Jupiter. Space is so vast that there can never be enough interested eyes watching all of the items spiraling along their gravitational trajectories. If it can happen to Jupiter, it can happen to Earth.
The past decade has seen the birth of the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, the NASA Constellation program to return us to the Moon, and lately there is emphasis on attempting a mission to Mars to keep us tantalized with humans in space as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing mission this week.
While Mars is a more admirable goal than a return to the Moon we now know that Mars is just about as desolate as the Moon. Mars would be the next logical manned space jump from a conservative standpoint of engineering but it would achieve little in the sense of human exploration or domination of the Solar System. We do, however, know that the moons of Jupiter contain more essential life sustaining resources like atmosphere, water and fuel. They would also be optimal as bases for deeper exploration of our Solar System and beyond. Engineering a program to put humans in the Jovian system is just as achievable as a Mars program, yet humanity would reap far more knowledge and advantage. It would require resources and focus from the entire international community combined. It would be a project akin to what John F. Kennedy wanted the Apollo program to be: world unifying and USA exemplifying. And it was.
Meanwhile the International Space Station offers our best laboratory for understanding the long term effects of space on human biology. This is practical knowledge we will need for longer space missions wherever the destination. For those interested in tracking the ISS orbit and when it will be visible in Gunnison Valley skies please refer to the website http://heavens-above.com for real time tracking.
Each Friday the Gunnison Valley Observatory hosts a guest speaker to compliment the open telescope viewing program. Clear skies or not we have been drawing crowds upwards of 60 visitors at a time.The GVO dome can only accommodate about 15 viewers at a time.Therefore we offer rotations amongst the classroom and the telescopic viewings. The success of the programming is gaining momentum.
Mike Zawaski entertained us with his concepts on archaeoastronomical research this past Friday. This is a scientific field that connects ancient cultural studies with inferences of their astronomical understandings. Mike has dealt extensively with the Incas in Peru however he mentioned several closer phenomena such as Chaco Canyon, New Mexico and its sun dagger petroglyph.
For those unfamiliar with the sun dagger I will illuminate you. There is a spot on a rock in New Mexico that has a spiral carved into it. It happens that this rock is covered by another rock that has a crack in it. When the summer solstice arrives in late June each year the sun shines directly through the cracked rock producing a dagger of light that perfectly bisects the spiral from top to bottom. When I was made aware of this phenomenon I inferred that the spiral represented the motion of the moon or perhaps a larger understanding of the spiraling process of the cosmos.
The more I study astronomy I realize that more often than not the motions and functions that we observe on our planets’ surface are simply reflections and manifestations of the larger motions at work in the cosmos around us. Astronomy is far more than observing the night skies alone. I’ll leave it to the archaeoastronomers to infer the deeper cultural significance.
A few weeks ago the GVO team went into the field and visited the Gunnison 4th grade classes. We offered a hands on demonstration of telescope tubes and lenses and a discussion oriented power point presentation on the Solar System by Bill Powell.
Bill Maier brought along his solar hydrogen detecting scopes and shared an opportunity to look for sun spots. The sky was mostly clear of clouds but somewhat obscured by diffusion of contrails throughout the mid morning.
The students asked really good questions and offered excellent answers. When I asked a crew of them awaiting their turn at the solar scopes, “Why bother studying astronomy?” One quick minded young lady replied, “Because it’s interesting!”
Which pretty much sums up why I bother with the art of science.
Graduate level physicists from the University of Dallas have begun using the Gunnison Valley Observatory for extrasolar planet research. Extrasolar planet or exoplanet research is one of the emerging frontiers of astronomy as our observational instruments become more fine tuned and accurate.
Exoplanets have long been hypothesized to have existed but defied detection of any kind until 1988. Verification of the first exoplanet had to wait until 2003 due to caution and the lack of sufficient instrumentation. Since then some 347 planets outside of our solar system have been verified.
The first exoplanet to be directly verified visually was Fomalhaut b orbiting around the bright star Fomalhaut by the Hubble Space Telescope just last year. Fomalhaut, Arabic for ‘mouth of the whale’, is one of the brighter stars to the naked eye found in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, or Southern Fish. Fomalhaut transits the sky following the constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius meaning that right now it can be seen rising in the south east around 5 AM. As the summer progresses we’ll be able to see Fomalhaut more prominently earlier in the night.
Exoplanet research falls on the applied side of astronomical research. If humans ever expect to personally explore the greater reaches of our own galaxy we will need to identify hospitable places with which to interlink so that life support and fuel supplies can be replenished without having to return to Earth.
Gunnison Valley Observatory staff hosted the Crested Butte Cub Scouts and visited the Gunnison 4th grade classes last week. The good news is that the minds of our young are exceptionally inquisitive and open which are the two fundamental ethics of good scientific method.
The more astute minds in the classes were curious about the nature of black holes, and with good reason. These phenomena represent the frontier of our cosmological understandings despite being used as the plot device for the latest Star Trek film. While we can’t actually see black holes we can observe their functioning by using a broad spectrum of energy detection techniques. These new and enhanced methods have led to the discovery of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 27,000 light years away, and the hypothesis of a supermassive black hole therein named Sagittarius A.
Observe the location of the black hole in the center of our own galaxy in Crested Butte’s southern night sky during the summer months along the visible dust lane of the Milky Way between the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpio. Viewers should look to the north of where the spout of the Sagittarius teapot dips into the Milky Way. These constellations are visible in the early morning hours in our southern skies right now. It won’t be until the middle of July that they will become visible after sunset for evening viewing.
The sunset lit western face of Crested Butte Mountain provides an inspirational horizon for early evening Gunnison Valley full moon risings. The first full moon of spring traditionally signals celebrations of renewal and Easter always falls on the following Sunday. This April’s sunset and moon rise cycle portends to be especially unique considering that the landscape itself is phenomenally pink from last week’s desert sand infused snowfall.
As the light fades from the sunset I look to pick out the stars appearing in the night. Distinctly bright, Sirius pops out first about 20 degrees up off the southern horizon. The naked eye astronomer can gauge degrees in the sky by using the width of a finger held at arms’ length. One finger equals 1 degree and 5 degrees on the horizon can be found by making a fist. Greater sums can be achieved by stacking fists and fingers.
Rising in the east, near the path of the full moon, the next star to appear is the red giant Arcturus. This star has a long relationship with human cultures both modern and ancient. It is referred to in ancient Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Hindu texts as well as Inuit, Greek and Native American Indian mythology. The Polynesians used it to navigate their kayaks through the Pacific between Tahiti and Hawaii. Today Arcturus is used for study in emerging fields of astronomy and defining its true nature remains elusive despite its relatively close proximity of +/-40 light years away.
Last week we had a great turnout for the opening night lecture but the clouds did not cooperate for telescope viewing. This Friday evening I will be presenting the International Year of Astronomy lecture series segment “What is Astronomy?” at the observatory.
March is National Women’s History Month and coincidentally March 8 was International Women’s Day. Women have made some unbelievable contributions to the field of astronomy throughout history and especially over the last century.
For instance, until the early 1900’s the large scale scope of the Universe wasn’t known. It was suspected that there were items outside of our spatial domain, referred to as dark nebula, but there were no tools to gauge their distances.
Then Henrietta Swan Leavitt, laboring over photographic plates of stars at the Harvard College Observatory, made an astute observation that would transform our ability to calculate intergalactic distances and better understand the scale of the observable Universe. She recognized the pattern of a particular type of star called a Cepheid Variable that could be used as a constant to decipher astronomical distances. It functions as a standard candle, meaning that if you have a car headlight that you know the relative brightness of then you can roughly calculate its distance based upon its apparent brightness. If it is brighter, then it is closer and if it is more diffuse, then it is further. Henrietta made this observation in 1908 and in 1912 derived the mathematical calculation. Edwin Hubble, a full decade later, made use of this extremely important concept in conjunction with his telescopic observations at the Mount Wilson Observatory. Hubble is generally credited with demonstrating that other galaxies than our own do exist and that they are expanding away from each other. His name is synonymous with all modern cosmology and astronomy but he would have been impotent without the important work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt.
Further, the pioneering work of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin led to our understanding that the Sun is mainly composed of Hydrogen and to her being the first recipient of a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard in 1925. It is the apex of intellect to intuit and calculate the structure of astronomically distant phenomena. Regardless of the observers’ gender these pioneering astronomers and their concepts are absolutely inspiring to me.
A few weeks ago the GVO team went into the field and visited the Gunnison 4th grade classes. We offered a hands on demonstration of telescope tubes and lenses and a discussion oriented power point presentation on the Solar System by Bill Powell.
