(issue 1), january 2014
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SUPARCOASTRONOMY &ASTROPHYSICSNewsletterVolume 07, January 2014
PAKISTAN SPACE & UPPER ATMOSPHERERESEARCH COMMISSION
2014contentsB U L L E T I N
Volume-07, Jan 2014
Pakistan’s Space Vision 2040, was approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan which inter-alia included augmentation / strengthening of the Astronomy and Astrophysics program of SUPARCO. SUPARCO`s astronomy and astrophysics program is mainly focused on theoretical and observational research, for which an astronomical observatory is planned to be established. Research studies pertaining to deep space objects including galaxies, nebulae and variable stars are also being initiated. Search for earth-like planets is a hot topic in astrophysics nowadays. It is planned to conduct research studies in this field also.
1) Asteroids
2) Solar flare detection using Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (Super SID) Monitor
3) Software Review
4) Website Review
5) Book Review
6) Monthly Star Guide
7) Monthly Science News
8) Events of the Month (jan)
9) Geomag-Strom-Monitered by-SUPARCO
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PA K I S TA N S PA C E & U P P E R AT M O S P H E R ER E S E A R C H C O M M I S S I O N
Space pirates lurk in the asteroid belt in science fiction, but astronomers have found that there isn’t much in the asteroid belt for a pirate to stand on. Hundreds of thousands of asteroids are known, but most are quite small. Movies and TV have created a Common Misconception that flying through an asteroid belt is a hair-raising plunge requiring constant dodging left and right. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is actually mostly empty space. In fact, if you were standing on an asteroid, it would be many months or years between sightings of other asteroids.
Properties of AsteroidsAsteroids are distant objects too small to study in detail with Earth-based telescopes. Astronomers nevertheless have learned a surprising amount about these little worlds, and spacecraft plus space telescopes have provided a few close-ups.Most asteroids are irregular in shape and battered by impact cratering. Many asteroids seem to be rubble piles of broken fragments.Some asteroids are double objects or have small moons in orbit around them. This is further evidence of collisions among the asteroids.A few larger asteroids show signs of geological activity that happened on their surfaces when those asteroids were young.Asteroids can be classified by their albedo, color, and spectra to reveal clues to their compositions. This also allows them to be
ASTEROIDS
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compared to meteorites in labs on Earth.
Before you continue, you should note that not all asteroids lie in the asteroid belt. A large number of asteroids, perhaps as many as half the number in the main belt, travel in Jupiter’s orbit ahead of and behind the planet. These are called Trojan asteroids because the largest ones are named after heroes of the Trojan War. Also, a few thousand objects larger than 1 km follow orbits that cross Earth’s orbit. A number of searches are under way to locate these Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). For example, LONEOS (Lowell Observatory near Earth Object Search) is searching the entire sky once a month and these searches should be able to locate all of the largest NEOs by 2010. Astronomers are searching for these asteroids to understand asteroids better but also because such asteroids can collide with Earth. Although such collisions occur very rarely, a single impact could cause planet wide devastation. You will learn about such impacts on Earth.
The Origin of the AsteroidsAn old hypothesis proposed that asteroids are the remains of a planet that exploded. Planet-shattering death rays may make for exciting science-fiction movies, but in reality planets do not explode. The gravitational field of a planet holds the mass so tightly that completely
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disrupting the planet would take tremendous energy. In addition, the present-day total mass of the asteroids is only about one-twentieth the mass of the moon, hardly enough to be the remains of a planet. Astronomers have evidence that the asteroids are the remains of material lying 2 to 4 AU from the sun that was unable to form a planet because of the gravitational influence of Jupiter, the next planet outward. Over the 4.6-billion-year history of the solar system, most of the objects originally in the asteroid belt collided and fragmented and also were perturbed by the gravity of Jupiter and other planets into orbits that collided with planets or caused some asteroids to leave the solar system. The present-day asteroids are a very minor remnant of the original population of planetesimals in that zone, mostly fragmented by collisions with one another. Rocky S-type asteroids are believed to be fragments from the crust and mantle, and M-types from the metallic cores, of differentiated asteroids. C-type asteroids, which appear to have plentiful carbon compounds, are more common in the outer asteroid belt. It is cooler there, and the condensation sequence predicts that carbonaceous material would form there more easily than in the inner belt. As you saw in the case of Vesta, a few large asteroids may have been geologically active with lava fl owing on their surfaces when they were young. Perhaps they incorporated short-lived radioactive elements such as aluminum-26. Those radioactive elements were produced by a supernova explosion that might also have been the trigger for the formation of the sun and planets while seeding the young solar system with its nucleosynthesis products. Not all large asteroids have been active. Ceres, 900 km in diameter, is almost twice as big as Vesta, but it shows no spectroscopic sign of past activity and evidently has an ice-rich mantle. Although there are still mysteries to solve, you can understand the compositions of the meteorites.They are fragments of planetesimals, some of which developed molten cores, differentiated, may have had lava flows on their surfaces, and then cooled slowly. The largest asteroids astronomers see today may be nearly unbroken planetesimals, but the rest are fragments produced by 4.6 billion years of collisions.
Sun is the main source of producing, maintaining and causing disturbances in the ionosphere. This study describes the ionospheric disturbances analyzed by receiving Very Low Frequency (VLF) signals. A simple instrument called SuperSID (Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance) monitor has been used for this purpose, installed at Sonmiani (25.42N, 66.59E). SuperSID monitor has been developed and distributed through Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) for the purpose of space awareness and education. Data of transmitter station NWC 19.8 kHz, Cape
SOLAR FLARE DETECTION USING SUDDEN IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE (Super SID) MONITOR
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Fig. 1: Normal day plot (No solar flare) of signal received of NWC transmitting station(27-01-2013).
North Australia) showed very good results of solar flare event happening. SuperSID captures VLF radio transmitting station NWC Cape North Australia via D-layer in daytime and via E and F-layer in night time at the reflection points in the ionosphere. We have indentified many solar flares while using NWC data (see fig. 2-4). One day plot of NWC data under normal conditions (i.e. without any flare) have shown as fig. 1 for comparison with flares. M and X-class flares can easily be detected with this instrument.
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Fig. 3: The effect of solar flare observed in NWC data. The peak happens exactly at the same time when x-ray flux increases (see solar x-ray plot of the same day on right)
Fig. 4: The effect of solar flare observed in NWC data. The peak happens exactly at the same time when x-ray flux increases (see solar x-ray plot of the same day on right)
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SOFTWAREREVIEWComputer Aided Astronomy (aka C2A) is planetarium software. There are a lot of images included with the program. Unlike several of the other planetarium programs the images are viewed through a separate window in the image browser. If there is an internet connection, the program can download images from either the ESO or the STScl sky surveys for display in either the image viewer or directly in the planetarium field of view. Computer Aided Astronomy has an ephemeris generator which can generate tables for the sun, planets, moon, comets, and asteroids between any two dates. There are tools to generate trajectories of planets, asteroids, and comets between any two dates. One tool shows the moon phases for the entire month. The Ecliptic View tool displays an animated view of the solar system with comets and asteroids.
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WEBREVIEWHeavens Above is very interesting website because it gives up to date information on the Greatest man made structure in space, the International Space Station. All you have to do is input your location and it will tell you when the space station will appear. There can be weeks when it won’t be visible overhead, then all of a sudden you will have weeks filled full of ISS spotting. The Website also gives information on the brightness of the ISS, the height and how long it will be Visible for. When you see the space station from Earth it will look like a tiny bright star moving across the sky. Some people mistake it for an aero plane and some even could believe it is a UFO! When you spot it, just think that there are astronauts and cosmonauts looking right back down at you.
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BOOK REVIEWHeavens Abovewww.heavens-above.com
Heavens Above is very interesting website because it gives up to date information on the Greatest man made structure in space, the International Space Station. All you have to do is input your location and it will tell you when the space station will appear. There can be weeks when it won’t be visible overhead, then all of a sudden you will have weeks filled full of ISS spotting. The Website also gives information on the brightness of the ISS, the height and how long it will be Visible for. When you see the space station from Earth it will look like a tiny bright star moving across the sky. Some people mistake it for an aero plane and some even could believe it is a UFO! When you spot it, just think that there are astronauts and cosmonauts looking right back down at you.
MONTHLY STAR GUIDE (JANUARY)Nights are at their longest and days at their shortest in the Northern Hemisphere, and the vice versa in the south. Much of the sky as it appears in the far south is occupied by constellations that were never seen by the astronomer of ancient Greece. A bright meteor shower radiates from Gemini in mid-month.
Northern Latitudes:Looking North Perseus is almost overhead with Capella and the other stars of Auriga to its right. Gemini farther east, with cancer rising beneath it .On the north-eastern horizon, Regulus leads the stars of Leo into view. In the north-west are Cassiopeia and Cepheus, with Deneb closer to the Horizon.
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Looking SouthTaurus is high in the south. Ideally placed for observing the Pleiades and Hyades clusters Eri-danus is beneath it, while to its lower left Orion is still rising, followed by brilliant Sirius and Pro-cyon. Cetus can be seen in the southwestern sky, with Pisces and Pegasus visible progressively farther to the west.
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Announcing Project AGORA: Ambitious Comparison of Computer Simulations of Galaxy EvolutionA long-standing difficulty with supercomputer simulations of the formation and evolution of galaxies has been getting consistent results among different codes (programs) and with actual observations, so that computationally simulated galaxies look like real galaxies. While such conflicts could be evidence of complex physics in invisible dark matter, emerging evidence suggests that inconsistencies may originate from a poor understanding of processes involving ordinary matter as well as limitations in computational capability and differences in computer codes.
MONTHLY SCIENCE NEWS
Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn’t Be ThereThe discovery of a giant planet orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has astronomers puzzled over how such a strange system came to be
Astronomers Solve Temperature Mystery of Planetary AtmospheresAn atmospheric peculiarity Earth shares with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune is likely common to billions of planets, University of Washington astronomers
have found, and knowing that may help in the search for potentially habitable worlds
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Experts to Image Event Horizon of Black Hole Was Einstein right? The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded 14 Million Euros to a team of European astrophysicists to construct the first accurate image of a black hole. The team will test the predictions of current theories of gravity, including Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. The funding is provided in the form of a ‘Synergy Grant’, the largest and most competitive type of grant of the ERC.
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Innovative Instrument Probes Close Binary Stars, May Soon Image ExoplanetsTMost stars in the galaxy are surrounded by swirling disks of dust, circling planets or other orbiting stars, yet astronomers have a hard time studying these companions because of glare from the main star.
Massive Stars Mark out Milky Way’s ‘Missing Arms’A 12-year study of massive stars has reaffirmed that our Galaxy has four spiral arms, following years of debate sparked by images taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope that only showed two arms.
Nearby Failed Stars May Harbor Planet, Astronomers FindAstronomers, including Carnegie’s Yuri Beletsky, took precise measurements of the closest pair of failed stars to the Sun, which suggest that the system harbors a third, planetary-mass object. The research is published as a letter to the editor in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Noble Gas Molecule Discovered in SpaceA molecule containing a noble gas has been discovered in space by a team including astronomers from Cardiff University
Onboard Camera Captures Juno’s Approach to EarthWhen NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew past Earth early in October 2013, recording a first-of-a-kind movie of the approach was a special assignment for an onboard camera system known as a star tracker.
Smithsonian’s Submillimeter Array Reveals Giant Star Cluster in the MakingW49A might be one of the best-kept secrets in our galaxy. This star-forming region shines 100 times brighter than the Orion nebula, but is so obscured by dust that very little visible or infrared light escapes.
EVENTS OF THE MONTH (JANUARY 2014)January 1 - New Moon. The Moon will be directly between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from Earth. This phase occurs at 11:14 UTC. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.
January 2, 3 - Quadrantids Meteor Shower. The Quadrantids is an above average shower, with up to 40 meteors per hour at its peak. It is thought to be produced by dust grains left behind by an extinct comet known as 2003 EH1, which was discovered in 2003. The shower runs annually from January 1-5. It peaks this year on the night of the 2nd and morning of the 3rd. The thin crescent moon will set early in the evening leaving dark skies for what could be an excellent show. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Bootes, but can appear anywhere in the sky.
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January 16 - Full Moon. The Moon will be directly opposite the Earth from the Sun and will be fully illuminated as seen from Earth. This phase occurs at 04:52 UTC. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Wolf Moon because this was the time of year when hungry wolf packs howled outside their camps. This moon has also been know as the Old Moon and the Moon After Yule.
January 30 - New Moon. The Moon will be directly between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from Earth. This phase occurs at 21:38 UTC. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.
January 5 - Jupiter at Opposition. The giant planet will be at its closest approach to Earth and its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. This is the best time to view and photograph Jupiter and its moons. A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details in Jupiter’s cloud bands. A good pair of binoculars should allow you to see Jupiter’s four largest moons, appearing as bright dots on either side of the planet.
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The Space Weather Monitoring Facilities at SUPARCO recorded mostly quiet geomagnetic conditions throughout the month of November but the magnetometers captured traces of two significant X flares. The first being an X1.7 flare on Oct 25 at 0801 UT (1301 PST) from Active Region AR 1882 and the second being an X 1.1 flare on Nov 10, 2013 at 0510 UT (1010 PST) from Active Region AR 1890. Energetic Solar Flares (especially the fast spontaneous flares like the X-class Flares) tend to cause ‘Magnetic Crochet’ effects seen in Magnetograms as a sudden jump in the Horizontal Component of the localized Magnetic Field. This happens during the occurrence of the flare because excessive radiation from the flaring region ionizes the upper atmosphere (which has electrical currents flowing between 60 to 100 km above the ground) and causes a brief disturbance in the terrestrial magnetic field. The magnetograms given below shows the subsequent signatutres recorded by the Abdus Salam Geomagnetic Observatory at Sonmiani with the solar images showing the respective flaring regions.
SOLAR FLARE TRACES CAPTURED IN MAGNETOGRAMS BY SUPARCO
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Designed by: Aley Ali Naqvi
Contact InformationSPAS Directorate
Gulzar-e-Hijri SUPARCO RoadSector 28, SUPARCO, Karachi, Pakistan
Tel: 021-34690765-74Fax 021-34690795
Email: [email protected]
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