APOD 1.5

2011 September 26
Mars' southern pole houses a ice cap of carbon-diaoxide that sublimates every year during the martian summer. When the carbon dioxide sublimates it converts directly from dry ice to its gaseous form of matter. What I find most interesting is the gold dust-like substance that surrounds the permanetly frozen portions of the caps. Currently we have no idea what this substance is yet. This just proves how vast and mysterious the universe is to us still! The exciting things waiting to be discovered are theoretically limitless!

The image of this dust was captured by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Observational Orbiter. The orbiter was launched in 2006 and since then has only captured 1% of Mars' surface at its high resolution quality.

In the coming winter seasons the gas will once again freeze and form larger ice caps.

P.S. Dry ice can be made to use comets! http://www.dryiceinfo.com/science.htm

Neat!

Sources for John Flamsteed

Printed Source:
"Flamsteed, John." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 22-26. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Sep. 2011.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX2830901448&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w


Electronic/Web Source:
Anonymous. "Greenwich England: John Flamsteed." Greenwich England: Home Page of World Heritage Site - Royal Observatory, Cutty Sark, Maritime Museum, Queens House, Millennium Dome. Greenwich 2000, 27 Sept. 1995. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://wwp.greenwichengland.com/heritage/people/astronomers/flamsteed.htm>.

Podcast 1.1

Sky watch Podcast

6/30/11

The Hubble Telescope has found an almost “fountain of youth” for stars in a classification of stars known as The Blue Stragglers or “born again stars”. They are the hottest and bluest, but burn out first leaving behind yellow stars like our sun and other dwarf stars. In addition, when compared to other stars around them they appear to be lagging behind in the aging process. Never have Blue Stragglers been detected in our own Milky Way galaxy… until now! The Hubble Telescope has located forty-two of these “oddball” stars; however, there is still no concrete explanation on how these aging stars change into youthful looking blue hot stars. There is one idea regarding this transformation. A pair of closely orbiting stars make one, massive star, when this happens their hydrogen is stirred up. This makes the newly merged stars hotter and bluer, resulting in Blue Stragglers.

The most important star in the universe has no name and is not even visible to the naked eye. What makes it special is that in 1923 Edwin Hubble discovered it was in a special class of pulsating star known as Cepheid variable stars. The rate at which they pulsate is a direct indication of their true brightness, which can then be measured to record actual distance. The variable star that Hubble analyzed (in Andromeda) was located outside the Milky Way; this proved that there are other galaxies outside our own. This expanded our knowledge of the known universe as Edwin Hubble proved that stars could exist outside our galaxy. Nearly a century later we can use the Hubble Space Telescope to look onto these distance galaxies and verify his results.

APOD 1.4

September's Aurora
2011 September 23
Today is the day that we will experience (roughly) twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness under the Atumnal Equinox. Equinox itself means equal night. Another notable feature of this change is the beginning of auttum in the northen hemisphere. This season (along with spring) brings with it many geomagnetic storms. Amazingly enough these storms are caused by "solar winds" that hit Earth's magnetosphere, causing electrons and protons to be knocked loose and percipitate from the sky. This light is then carried along towards the poles, which explains why we almost never see any magnetic storms in Florida. The one time I remember seeing something like this was on Halloween in 2003, but since then I have yet to experience another geomagnetic storm. Hopefully one day I can travel north and see much an Aurora Borealis.

Quarter 1 / Observations #1

September. 22, 2011

I saw moon today in school parking lot around 6:50 A.M, was directly overhead and waning crescent. 6:50 A.M. - 6:55 A.M.

I saw the sunset around 7:10-7:15 P.M on the horizon.

I stayed out from 8:00 to 8:45 P.M because thunderstorms ruined my sky.

I was told the Autumnal equinox is tomorrow, I wonder if this will change the constellations in the sky tomorrow.

September. 16, 2011

At 6:00 A.M. saw a red light in the eastern sky, Mars maybe?

Jupiter is small and bright this morning. It is relatively close to the moon now, just to the right of it in the sky.

Moon is waning gibbous.

6:00 A.M. -6:10 A.M.

September. 11, 2011

I saw harvest moon at 8:30 P.M. in the eastern sky. The moonlight was extra bright tonight.

I went looking for constellations and saw the Summer Triangle (Vega, Altair, and Deneb).

I could not make out Aquila or Lyra.

Clouds started to cover the sky around 8 P.M.

7:30 - 8:30 P.M.
P.S - Harvest moon is orange.

Total observation hours so far... 2 hours and 5 mins.

APOD 1.3

Great Orion Nebulae
2011 September 13
One of the greatest and brightest nebulas in the night sky is visable now just south of Orion's Belt. This is known as the "Great Orion Nebulae", "Great Nebula in Orion", or even M42. It is made of of two nebula in close proximity to one another the one on the right is full of gaseous young stars making it appear red, while the nebula to the left is actually a reflection nebula. In addition, it is estimated to be 24 light years across and be the closest reigon of massive star formation to Earth. I think it will be exciting to look for this bright cluster in tonight's sky; thank goodness I can see it with my naked eye!

APOD 1.1

Nov.20,2008

Endeavour in the Moon


On the 10th anniversary of the constructing of the International Space Station, the space shuttle "Endeavour" would embark on the 27th launch to the International Space Station. What was truly remarkable (and beautiful) about this spectacle was the launch coinciding with the moon in perigee. The moon is in perigee when it is closest to the Earth in it elliptical orbit, this gives us the chance to see the the largest full moon possible. Unfortunately, there will not be another one till 14th November 2016, but by then the world will have already ended in 2012!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081120.html

APOD 1.2

2011 September 7
"SDSS J102915+172927: A Star That Should Not Exist"

The Sloan Sky survey catalogued a new star that has the lowest amount of metals yet. This would indicate that the star is one of the oldest ever studied since newer star tend to have more heavy metals such as lithium in them. What I found surprising was the "Population" numbering of stars that is used to differentiate between the ages of stars in the galaxy. In addition, I did not know that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the galaxy (about 90% of it) with helium is the second most abundant element. Besides random trivia, I learned that the population grading scale, that goes from I,II, III or earliest to latest stars, actually does not apply to SDSS because it is fifty times less lithium than what was thought to be needed for stars to form. This 13-billion old star, that exists in the constellation Leo and is 4/5ths the size of our own sun, is just one of a new group of stars that are smaller and less "metallic" than ever before. Maybe we can look forward with great anticipation for a new category of stars, Population IV!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110907.html