February 2010 Astro News 1

NCRAL 2010

The Twin City Amateur Astronomers proudly announce that they will be hosting the 2010 annual meeting of the North Central Region of the Astronomical League (NCRAL) on April 16-17, 2010 in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. The conference will be held at the Holiday Inn hotel at the Bloomington airport.

Online registration and additional information about the conference is available at http://www.ncral2010.org.

The theme of the conference is Generations: Past, Present and Future of the Telescope. We start discussing the beginnings of modern astronomy to Galileo, his life and instruments and his tragic end. We will follow through the Evolution of Modern Astronomy discussing the people and their scientific instruments that have expanded our understanding of the universe. We will give you a peek at the Future of Modern Astronomy discussing the current and planned developments astronomy.

The conference registration fee of $75 includes attendance at the conference as well as a banquet with a keynote address.

The unique resources offered by our location offers a

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Society Notes

Greetings all,

I’m hoping to see you all on Tuesday evening for our next meeting, despite the cold temperatures and otherwise

seasonal weather. That’s February 2nd , of course.

Things are about to heat up as they usually do in the beginning of the year. March 7th is our annual brat fry in Sheboygan (at the south side Piggly Wiggly). As usual, we’ll need volunteers to work and/or donate a few items.

March 27th is our third annual Swap ‘n Sell at the Aviation Heritage Center. We’ll need some volunteers to help with concessions there as well. With enough people, you should still have plenty of time to cut some deals, too!

Astronomy Day is on April 24th. We still need to decide if we are going to do anything at Maywood besides our already-scheduled viewing session. Telescopes and members will be needed if the sky is clear, of course.

May brings Rockets for Schools, which the club normally has a presence at. That’s officially on May 7th and 8th at Blue Harbor Resort.

Other than that, we still need ideas for meeting programs for March, April, and May. Your ideas are welcome!

Clear skies, -ed.

Upcoming Meetings

February 2nd Google Moon & Mars

Goodies Calendar

February—Brian H.

Sheboygan Ast ronomica l Soc ie ty

Astro News Issue #178 February, 2010

Inside this Issue:

Science@NASA: Spirit is Now a Stationary Science Platform .......................................................................................... 2

Blazing Stellar Companion Defies Explanation ................... 3 February Calendar ................................................................ 3 Jeff’s Binocular Picks ........................................................... 4 February Sky Map ................................................................ 5 NASA's Space Place: Building a Case Against Ozone ......... 6 January Meeting Minutes ..................................................... 7 xkcd on Spirit ....................................................................... 7

SAS Library Corner

I sort of like the old-and-new offerings we have been presenting, so we will continue this month.

First the old: I recommend spending a few cloudy winter nights relaxing in a comfortable chair and allowing Starlight Nights by Leslie C. Peltier to transport you back about 100 years to a much simpler time. Yeah, I know I've featured it before and on top of that it's a juvenile book, but what do you expect from a guy who lists this book as well as The Red Car by Don Standford & Bulldozer by Stephen W. Meader as the top three of his all time favorites. I find a little light reading to be very relaxing and I try to reread the above books about once a year.

My second offering is Far Out: A Space Time Chronicle

by Michael Benson, an expensive coffee table type picture book that promises to delight. Enjoy (or is it Engage?).

-Allen

2 Astro News February 2010

Surfing the NET: Space Science Online

http://nasascience.nasa.gov/

five functioning wheels – the sixth wheel quit working in 2006, limiting Spirit's mobility. The planning included experiments with a test rover in a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., plus analysis, modeling and reviews. In November, another wheel quit working, making a difficult situation even worse.

Recent drives have yielded the best results since Spirit became embedded. However, the coming winter mandates a change in strategy. It is mid-autumn at the solar-powered robot's home on Mars. Winter will begin in May. Solar energy is declining and expected to become insufficient to power further driving by mid-February. The rover team plans to use those remaining potential drives for improving the rover's tilt. Spirit currently tilts slightly toward the south. The winter sun stays in the northern sky, so decreasing the southward tilt would boost the amount of sunshine on the rover's solar panels.

"We need to lift the rear of the rover, or the left side of the rover, or both," said Ashley Stroupe, a rover driver at JPL. "Lifting the rear wheels out of their ruts by driving backward and slightly uphill will help. If necessary, we can try to lower the front right of the rover by attempting to drop the right-front wheel into a rut or dig it into a hole."

At its current angle, Spirit probably would not have enough power to keep communicating with Earth through the Martian winter. Even a few degrees of improvement in tilt might make enough difference to enable communication every few days.

"Getting through the winter will all come down to temperature and how cold the rover electronics will get," said John Callas, project manager at JPL for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity. "Every bit of energy produced by Spirit's solar arrays will go into keeping the rover's critical electronics warm, either by having the electronics on or by turning on essential heaters."

Even in a stationary state, Spirit continues scientific research.

"There's a class of science we can do only with a stationary vehicle that we had put off during the years of driving," said Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University and principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity. "Degraded mobility does not mean the mission ends abruptly. Instead, it lets us transition to stationary science."

One stationary experiment Spirit has begun studies tiny wobbles in the rotation of Mars to gain insight about the planet's core. This requires months of radio-tracking the motion of a point on the surface of Mars to calculate long-term motion with an accuracy of a few inches.

"If the final scientific feather in Spirit's cap is determining whether the core of Mars is liquid or solid, that would be wonderful -- it's so different from the other knowledge we've gained from Spirit," said Squyres.

Tools on Spirit's robotic arm can study variations in the

Spirit is Now a Stationary Science Platform

January 26, 2010: After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is no longer a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated Spirit a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.

The venerable robot's primary task in the next few weeks will be to position itself to combat the severe Martian winter. If Spirit survives, it will continue conducting significant new science from its final location. The rover's mission could continue for several months to years.

"Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its

long life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"We told the world last year that attempts to set the beloved robot free may not be successful," adds McCuistion. "It looks like Spirit's current location on Mars will be its final resting place."

Ten months ago, as Spirit was driving south beside the western edge of a low plateau called Home Plate, its wheels broke through a crusty surface and churned into soft sand hidden underneath.

After Spirit became embedded, the rover team crafted plans for trying to get the six-wheeled vehicle free using its

Spirit's last tracks. This view from Spirit's navigation cam-era shows tracks left by the rover as it drove backward, dragging its inoperable right-front wheel, to the location

where the rover became trapped in soft sand in April 2009.

February 2010 Astro News 3

February Calendar

1 Asteroid 9937 Triceratops Closest Approach To Earth (1.588 AU)

2 SAS Meeting, Aviation Heritage Center,

Sheboygan County Memorial Airport,

7:00PM

5 Last Quarter Moon, 5:48 PM CST (23:48 UT) 7 STS-130 Launch, Space Shuttle Endeavour,

Node 3, Cupola, International Space Station 8 10th Anniversary (2000), Discovery of GRV

99027 Meteorite (Mars Meteorite) 9 Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Atlas 5

Launch 9 20th Anniversary (1990), Galileo, Venus

Flyby 10 Asteroid 6000 United Nations Closest

Approach To Earth (2.018 AU) 11 40th Anniversary (1970), Ohsumi Launch

(Japan's 1st Satellite) 12 Intelsat 16 Proton M-Briz M Launch 12 Asteroid 1991 Darwin Closest Approach To

Earth (1.721 AU) 13 New Moon, 8:51 PM CST (2/14 2:51 UT) 13 Cassini, Distant Flyby of Calypso,

Epimetheus, Janus & Tethys 13 Cassini, Mimas Flyby 14 Chinese New Year 14 Cassini, Distant Flyby of Titan 14 10th Anniversary (2000), NEAR, Asteroid

Eros Orbit Insertion 14 20th Anniversary (1990), Voyager 1, Family

Portrait Images 14 25th Anniversary (1985), Solar Maximum

Mission Launch 15 Asteroid 2598 Merlin Closest Approach To

Earth (1.744 AU) 18 Asteroid 2991 Bilbo Closest Approach To

Earth (1.760 AU) 18 80th Anniversary (1930), Clyde Tombaugh's

Discovery of Pluto 19 Asteroid 9941 Iguanodo Closest Approach To

Earth (1.066 AU) 20 Asteroid 4 Vesta At Opposition (6.1

Magnitude) 21 First Quarter Moon, 6:42 PM (2/22 0:42 UT) 21 Tom Gehrels' 85th Birthday (1925) 26 Asteroid 3808 Tempel Closest Approach To

Earth (0.974 AU) 28 Full Moon, 10:38 AM CST (16:38 UT) Wolf

Moon, Snow Moon, Hunger Moon, Storm Moon, Candles Moon

Some items used with permission of Ron Baalke (baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov)

composition of nearby soil, which has been affected by water. Stationary science also includes watching how wind moves soil particles and monitoring the Martian atmosphere.

Spirit may have been stopped, but it hasn't stopped discovering the secrets of Mars. Stay tuned to Science@NASA for updates.

Blazing Stellar Companion Defies Explanation

By Ray Villard, Discovery Space News

As the 1970s Jerry Reed pop song went: "When you're hot, you’re hot!" But a planet? Not!

That’s the story from this week's American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington D.C. where astronomers reported that NASA's Kepler planet-hunting observatory has found two normal stars orbited by objects that are too blistering hot to be planets but too small to be stars.

So what are they? It's anybody's guess. They're simply called "objects of interest" by the Kepler team.

The Kepler space telescope is monitoring the light from 100,000 stars to search for planets that briefly pass in front of their stars.

The scheme is to get a representative sample that will yield an estimate of the abundance of Earth-like planets in the galaxy. (By definition this means planets the size of Earth orbiting at just the right distance from their parent star to have moderate temperatures for water and life as we know it.)

In sifting through the Kepler data taken so far, postdoctoral student Jason Rowe found a very curious light signature. When an object passed behind its central star, the light from the system dropped significantly. This means the ob-ject -- called KOI 74b -- must be glowing fiercely with its own light that was blocked out when the object was eclipsed.

In fact calculations show that the mystery object is hotter than the parent star. It is seething at 70,000 degrees Fahren-heit while the parent star is 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The strange object can’t be a star because the transit data show that it is no bigger than Jupiter. It is so close to the central star it completes an orbit in 23 days.

If that isn't weird enough, a super-hot Neptune-sized com-panion called KOI 81b was found orbiting another star with a 5.2-day orbital period.

Both parent stars are hot and short-lived A-class stars that bathe the companions in a torrent of ultraviolet light. What's more, gravitational tidal effects would heat the inte-riors of the companion objects. But that still probably doesn’t explain why the mystery objects are so unbelieva-bly hot, even if they were newborn planets. (The hottest

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4 Astro News February 2010

confirmed exoplanet to date in 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit.)

One idea is that a white dwarf migrated close to the prima-ry star and was gravitationally stripped of some of its mass. With less mass and therefore lower gravity the dwarf would swell to the size of Jupiter.

The companion stars are each only about 300 million years old. Could a shorter-lived slightly more massive star have accompanied the primary star and burned out quickly to become a white dwarf? If so, how did the white dwarf mi-grate so closely to its star to be in such short period orbit?

Kepler cannot measure the mass of the hot companions. But if ground-based measurements can be made of the star's wobble due to the tug of the companion, it might shed more light on the companion's pedigree.

Perhaps Kepler has stumbled across some entirely new class of celestial object.

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Jeff's Binocular Picks for February 2010 This monthly list of binocular objects contains some of my choices of the best objects visible through binoculars. Many of these are easy targets and visible thru ordinary binoculars, but a few of them can be quite challenging. Viewing some the more challenging objects from a dark location will help, and the steadiness obtained by mounting your binoculars on a tripod will also help! Use this list along with a current copy of the monthly sky map from www.skymaps.com and try to locate as many as you can. This will help you learn your way around the night sky. This list is also good for small scopes, too! Good Luck and have fun hunting!

~ Jeff Benuzzi ~

Seen? Object Type Constellation In / Near

√ Early Evening ____ µ Cephei (Herschel's Garnet Star) Red Variable Star Cepheus (a.k.a. Erakis) ____ M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) Galaxy Andromeda ____ NGC 457 ("ET" Cluster) Open Cluster Cassiopeia ____ M103 (Mini Dipper) Open Cluster Cassiopeia ____ Double Cluster (NGC 869 & 884) Open Clusters Perseus / Cassiopeia

Mid Evening ____ M34 Open Cluster Perseus ____ M45 (Pleiades or 7 Sisters) Open Cluster Taurus ____ Hyades Open Cluster Taurus ____ M38, M36, & M37 Open Clusters Auriga ____ M42 (Great Orion Nebula) Diffuse Nebula Orion ____ M35 (Kermit Cluster) Open Cluster Gemini ____ NGC 2264 (Xmas Tree Cluster) Open Cluster Monoceros / Gemini ____ M41 Open Cluster Canis Major ____ M46 & M47 Open Clusters Monoceros ____ Castor & Pollux Multiple Stars Gemini ____ M44 (Beehive Cluster) Open Cluster Cancer ____ Mars Planet Cancer ____ M81 & M82 Galaxy Pair Galaxies Ursa Major

Later in the Night ____ M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) Galaxy Ursa Major ____ Mel 111 (Berenices Hair) Open Cluster Coma Berenices ____ M3 Globular Cluster Boötes / Coma Berenices ____ M104 (Sombrero Galaxy) Spiral Galaxy Corvus ____ Corona Borealis Constellation Corona Borealis ____ M13 (Hercules Cluster) Globular Cluster Hercules

© 2002-2010 Jeff Benuzzi – http://astronomy.wd9gvu.com – all rights reserved

surprising variety of activities. Our local Challenger Center for Space Science Education will hold a Mission to Mars for attendees of NCRAL 2010 on Friday evening April 16. You can fly simulated space missions, offering the next best thing to actual space flight with a Mission Control room designed after NASA Johnson Space Center and an orbiting space station

The Twin City Amateur Astronomers was founded in 1960 and is celebrating its 50th year of bringing astronomy down to Earth so people can enjoy the wonders of the cosmos. We are looking forward to having you at NCRAL 2010.

If you have any questions, please contact me by email at tcaa@tcaa.us or by phone at (309)-824-2804.

Lee Green TCAA President

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February 2010 Astro News 5

created with SkyMap Pro 11 Demo

6 Astro News February 2010

Building a Case Against Ozone

by Patrick Barry

When it comes to notorious greenhouse gases, carbon diox-ide is like Al Capone—always in the headlines. Mean-while, ozone is more like Carlo Gambino—not as famous or as powerful, but still a big player.

After tracking this lesser-known climate culprit for years, NASA’s Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) has found that ozone is indeed a shifty character. Data from TES show that the amount of ozone—and thus its contribu-tion to the greenhouse effect—varies greatly from place to place and over time.

"Ozone tends to be localized near cities where ozone pre-cursors, such as car exhaust and power plant exhaust, are emitted," says Kevin Bowman, a senior member of the TES technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But the ozone doesn't necessarily stay in one place. Winds can stretch the ozone into long plumes. "Looking out over the ocean we can see ozone being transported long distances over open water."

Unlike CO2, ozone is highly reactive. It survives in the atmosphere for only a few hours or a few days before it degrades and effectively disappears. So ozone doesn't have time to spread out evenly in the atmosphere the way that CO2 does. The amount of ozone in one place depends on where ozone-creating chemicals, such as the nitrogen ox-ides in car exhaust. are being released and which way the wind blows.

Other Area Clubs’ Meetings

Northern Cross Science Foundation, first Thursday of eve-ry month at Unitarian Church North in Mequon.

www.gxsc.com/ncsf

NEWSTAR (Northeast Wisconsin Stargazers) meetings are on the third Wednesday of every month at UW-Fox Valley in Menasha.

www.new-star.org

Milwaukee Astronomical Society’s membership meeting is the third Friday each month at the MAS observatory in New Berlin.

www.milwaukeeastro.org

Neville Public Museum Astronomy Society meets on the second Wednesday of each month at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay.

www.npmas.com

This short lifespan also means that ozone could be easier than CO2 to knock off.

"If you reduce emissions of things that generate ozone, then you can have a quicker climate effect than you would with CO2," Bowman says. "From a policy standpoint, there’s been a lot of conversation lately about regulating short-lived species like ozone."

To be clear, Bowman isn’t talking about the famous "ozone layer." Ozone in this high-altitude layer shields us from harmful ultraviolet light, so protecting that layer is crucial. Bowman is talking about ozone closer to the ground, so-called tropospheric ozone. This "other" ozone at lower alti-tudes poses health risks for people and acts as a potent greenhouse gas.

TES is helping scientists track the creation and movement of low-altitude ozone over the whole planet each day. "We can see it clearly in our data," Bowman says. Countries will need this kind of data if they decide to go after the heat-

trapping gas.

Ozone has been caught red-handed, and TES is giving authori-ties the hard evidence they need to prosecute the case.

Learn more about TES and its at-mospheric science mission at tes.jpl.nasa.gov. The Space Place has a fun “Gummy Greenhouse Gases” activity for kids that will introduce them to the idea of atoms and molecules. Check it out at spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/tes/gumdrops.

This article was provided by the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory, California

Institute of Technology, under a

contract with the National Aero-

nautics and Space Administration.

These images are TES ozone plots viewed with Google Earth. Colors map to tropo-spheric ozone concentrations. The image on the left shows ozone concentrations at an altitude of approximately 32,000 feet, while the one on the right shows ozone at approximately 10,000 feet. The measurements are monthly averages over each grid segment for December 2004.

February 2010 Astro News 7

SAS Minutes January 5, 2010

Today’s Topic: 400 Years of the Telescope

Goodies: Diane

February topic: The Crowded Universe – Goodies: Brian March Topic: TBD – Goodies: Carol April Topic: TBD – Goodies: Allen

May Topic: TBD – Goodies: Randy

The meeting began with the ‘thinning of the library’, as decided upon at last month’s meet-ing.

Upcoming Events:

Rockets for Schools: 39 teams are paid and another 4 are com-mitted, which is already ahead of last year at this point. They are in the process of lining up exhibits.

Brat Fry: March 7, from 9am-2pm (Setup at 8am). Wayne will help with grilling, Diane will cre-ate a sign-up sheet. We decided to buy 5 café press aprons with the SAS logo for promotional purposes.

Swap & Sell: Saturday, March 27. We decided to provide basic food items for sale: hot dogs, chips, soda & coffee. Tom shared that he will be giving away door priz-es from the website from 10am-noon.

Viewing Schedule is posted on the SAS website. Diane noted that the SAS has a Facebook page.

Observing:

Randy & Diane noted a halo around the moon on New Year’s Eve.

Reports: Treasurer:

Opening Balance (12/1/09) $1,463.39 Income $180. 00

($110 dues, $34 Astronomy subscriptions, $32.95 S&T Subscriptions, $3.05 misc)

Closing Balance (12/31/01) $1,643.39

VP:

Shared a question from the Maywood Center – do we want to do an indoor program? If so, we should submit a pro-posal.

On January 26th, 2213 days into its mission, NASA declared Spirit a 'stationary research sta-tion', expected to stay operational for several more months until the dust buildup on its solar

panels forces a final shutdown. (Always mouse-over xkcd to read the alt-text.) www.xkcd.com

8 Astro News February 2010

Sheboygan Astronomical Society, Inc c/o Randy Lutz 915 Wilson Ave. Sheboygan, WI 53081