APOD 4.5

APOD 4.5
3 ATs
2012 April 21

 When my eyes read the title, my mind jumped immediately to AT-ATs and Star Wars. Yuri Beletsky warns readers that these R2D2 look-alikes are "not the droids" we're looking for. While not as interesting as a sentient repair robots or All Terrain Armored Transports, these Auxiliary Telescopes do serve a greater purpose; they gather light into a common focal point to act as a interferometer. The three Auxiliary Telescopes are on tracks and shift with another (off camera) telescope to gather enough light for higher resolution stargazing. The picture above was taken in Chile's Paranal Observatory, which makes sense since the Large and Small Magellanic clouds are visible in the southern hemisphere.



APOD 4.4

The Flight Deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour

2012 April 18

Ben Cooper begins his article by imagining how fun it would be to pilot a space shuttle... even though all of NASA's shuttles have been retired.

Smashed dreams of ever being an astronaut go below.

While any hopes I have of taking a NASA shuttle to the moon are dashed, there is always the possibility of new shuttles being built in the future, perhaps commercially. On the other hand, the retired shuttles are to be spread to different museums across the United States; including California, New York, Virginia, and Florida. Luckily, trips to the International Space Station can still be taken aboard the Russian spacecraft, Soyuz

Quarter 4 / Observations #1

Group Stargaze at school service road on April 15th 2012 from 8:30 -10:30 P.M
It had been ages since we have had an astronomy night, but the clouds finally gave way Sunday night and we spring's celestial sky. At first we could only see three out of four planets with Jupiter low in the west and Venus high above it; Venus was in its waning crescent phase. Mars was to the southeast, also its red due to its high concentration of iron oxide. Saturn turned up later that evening in the constellation Virgo, off to the left of Spica. Virgo the Virgin, Corvus the Crow, and Coma Bernices were visible around 10 P.M in the east. Additionally Leo the Lion could be seen with its tail (Denebola) pointing to Virgo. In the south was Hydra, Antlia, Sextans, the ship Argo, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Orion, and Lepus. The west had Auriga with the Kids below Capella. The Hyades in Taurus were visible under the binoculars near Aldebaran. Finally the north featured Ursa Major and Minor, with the Great Bear pointing to Polaris with its pointer stars and its arc pointing to Arcturus. Since we have not had a astronomy night in ages, I managed to learn to recognize a large assortment of new stars.
Total hours gazed at group event = 2 X 2 = 4!

APOD 4.3

A Dust Devil of Mars
2012 April 13

Dust Devils, a metological phenomena that we never see in Florida, occurs regularly on Mars! The HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught this dust devil; it has a diameter of 30 meters and the plume towers 800 meters into the martian atmosphere. This is caused by the sun's warming of Mars' surface, causing winds that pick up dust particles and cause a tornado-like effect. As hot low-pressure air is picked up it circulates and then cools as the air moves upward; the wind speed is usually around 110 km or 68 mph. The dust it displaces leaves tracks in the surface of Mars. The picture taken was of the Amazonis Planitia reigon of Mars, named for the "Land of the Amazons.






Additionally, time on Mars is easily divided into days based on its rotation rate and years based on its orbit.  Sols, or Martian solar days, are only 37 minutes and 22 seconds longer than Earth days. I guess that means there is a unique martian solar year!

APOD 4.2

2012 April 4
Centaurus A

Centaurus A has yet to be featured in a COTW quiz, yet we already know so much about it. The class has already learned that Centaurus A is the closest active galaxy to Earth at a distance of only 11 million light-years away! Active galaxies are known for their black holes and Centaurus A is no different with its black hole in the galaxy's center. The black hole's center is a billion times the mass of the sun. What is truly amazing is that Centaurus A might have been caused by the collision of two normal galaxies! Hopefully the Milky Way is not consigned to the same fate one day, that would suck more than a black hole!
P.S - Pardon my use of "suck" :)

APOD 4.1

The New Moon in the Old Moon's Arms

2012 March 24

"Earthshine" is not the infamous equivalent of "moonshine"; rather, it is the reflection of sunshine off the Earth's surface onto the moon's surface and back again to our eyes. This effect also has the name the ashen glow due to its grayish hue. As the title suggests the new crescent moon pictured here looks like it is cradling the old moon in its "arms". The explanation for this astronomical occurrence was given by Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago. I wondered why this does not occur more often but further research explained that every 29.5 days the alignment is what causes this effect to occur. When the sun is setting and the moon in crescent, we will have the ashen glow of the moon.

Bok Biography Source

Bok Biography Sources

Strand, Levy, David ." Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography. By Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 19. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. 328-332. Print. American Council of Learned Societies.

"Bart Jan Bok." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 6: 1900 to 1949. Detroit: Gale, 2000. 501. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

Anonymous. "Bok Globules." Science News, Technology, Physics, Nanotechnology, Space Science, Earth Science, Medicine. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 4 June 2010. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://phys.org/news194877369.html>.

http://planetfacts.org/bok-globules/