Astronomy

Last night was one of the best nights to look at the sky. It was clear but cold. I wasn't motivated to get out the binoculars, but tonight, if it stays that way I'll look for that comet. It is probably past Lepus. It occurred to me if I wanted to see Jupiter reverse directions I could use the app on my phone, however, that is sort of cheating.

Don't know anything about mobile phones, but I just read this article in EarthSky. I can't imagine suns that big, mind-boggling. And no-one knows how they are possible. They don't seem to fit the life-cycle of suns that we know of.

It looks like the existence of those large stars falsifies some of the current views of how stars are formed. They are rather close to us. If they are likely to result in a supernova, we might be engulfed in it. But I am not sure. Just how far do the destructive effects of a supernova extend? Unlike an asteroid, we wouldn't know it was coming.

I could see Venus clearly in the west and Mars became visible with the binoculars above it. Jupiter was very bright in the east although I was not able to make out its moons with the binoculars. Perhaps I could see them in a darker area. I remember once seeing the phases Venus goes through with binoculars in northern Wisconsin. It was very dark there.

Also, I found a book by John W. McAnally, "Jupiter and How to Observe It". He mentioned the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers: http://alpo-astronomy.org/ If I ever build that telescope this spring-summer, I'll probably join this organization. They keep recordings of amateur obsevations along with a form and style for making records. At the moment with my binoculars, I don't see the cloud segments on Jupiter anyway.

I found out that the supernova would have to be within 100 light years of the earth to be a threat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova

These stars are further out than that.

I have no idea how far a supernova of such a massive star extends. But planets near supernova would be turned to cinder. When our sun is ready for that we are done for. But that is just the life-cycle of all stars. I think we have many hundred thousand or even billions of years before our sun goes, at least according to what astronomers today know.

That is an interesting website you found! I've added it to my astro bookmark to look closer at it later.

I say Jupiter again but trying to stand outside and watching with my binoculars I couldn't make out anything like the planet's moons. Have to wait until spring, I guess.

I looked through a telescope only once. I saw Saturn with its ring. It was a beautiful feeling.

All I have are binoculars and Google's sky map app on my phone to help me identify what is up there. I am normally not in a dark enough area to see what most people from the past would have easily recognized. The planets (Venus and Jupiter) are very clear. Orion, Sirius, the two main stars in Gemini, the Pleiades and Aldebaran are also amazingly bright. But I can't even see the big dipper clearly.

We wouldn't be here without those supernovas creating the elements that make up the earth. There is a conjecture that an ancient supernova might have caused one of the extinction periods, but it didn't remove all life. Although the sun has some billions of years to go, the earth will probably no longer be in the habitable zone of the sun much sooner.

I was just looking at Jupiter close to its high point in the sky and I think I can see three of the four Galilean moons with my 7X50 binoculars. Galileo had a 26mm refractor telescope 500 years ago to see these: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/ed...s/galileo.html

Thats very encouraging, I look forward to using my 7x50 binoculars in the spring. Too cold still.

Our sun will long outlive the earth and then will destroy it. http://www.space.com/28553-don-t-pan...l?cmpid=559072.

It looks like we will be able to move to Mars once Earth becomes uninhabitable when the Sun becomes too bright.

I am going to try to reproduce all of Galileo's experiments with the binoculars. Some of them are pretty easy to do like observe the craters on the moon.

After reading McAnally's book on Jupiter, I think I see why I wasn't able to see the moons previously. It was not that the "transparency" wasn't acceptable but that the "seeing" wasn't good. The seeing affects how the Earth's atmosphere distorts what one is trying to look at. A way to improve it is to observe later in the evening. When I saw the moons it was nearly midnight. I should also let the binoculars cool down so they are close to outside temperature before trying to use them. That might be a challenge since it has been rather cold here as well. Also I should not stand on the sidewalk or be near a building early in the evening that is cooling down from the warmer day.

From a Popular Astronomy email update:
METEORITE MAY REPRESENT BULK OF MARS' CRUST

Brown University

NWA 7034, a meteorite found a few years ago in the Moroccan desert, is like no other rock ever found on Earth. It has been shown to be a 4.4-billion-year-old piece of the crust of Mars and, according to a new analysis, rocks just like it may cover vast swaths of Mars. In a new paper, scientists report that spectroscopic measurements of the meteorite are a spot-on match with measurements from orbit of the Martian dark plains, areas where the planet's coating of red dust is thin and the rocks beneath are exposed. The findings suggest that the meteorite is representative of the 'bulk background' of rocks on the Martian surface. When scientists started analyzing the meteorite in 2011, they knew that they had something special. Its chemical make-up confirmed that it came from Mars, but it was unlike any other Martian meteorite. Previously, all the Martian rocks found on Earth were classified as SNC meteorites (shergottites, nakhlites, or chassignites). They are mainly igneous rocks made of cooled volcanic material, but the new object is a breccia, a mash-up of different rock types welded together in a basaltic matrix. It contains sedimentary components that match the chemical make-up of rocks analyzed by the Mars rovers. Scientists concluded that it is a piece of Martian crust -- the first such sample to be found on the Earth.

I realize I didn't know what a breccia was, but now it makes sense. I don't see why this particular type of black beauty does not occur on Earth.

Since it is Chinese New Year, I thought I'd try to figure out what that meant. It seems that it is first based on the winter solstice, a solar phenomenon. The second new moon after that is Chinese New Year with the celebration lasting three days.

In the process of looking that up, I found http://live.slooh.com/ which supposedly offers astronomical events for view. I'll try to make it for the new crescent moon event tomorrow.

Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter (the one with surface seas) may be explored for signs of life: http://www.space.com/28614-nasa-euro...l?cmpid=559074.

The Europa Clipper is one of the projects under consideration, a probe that sails around Euro in its atmosphere taking measurements.

Interesting observation about there being no threads (but this one) on astronomy. Is mainstream literature anti-astronomy? Here's some quotes to back up my thesis:

Tennyson:

"Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams!
For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Perchance
We do but recollect the dreams that come
Just ere the waking. Terrible: for it seem'd
A void was made in Nature, all her bonds
Crack'd; and I saw the flaring atom-streams
And torrents of her myriad universe,
Ruining along the illimitable inane,
Fly on to clash together again, and make
Another and another frame of things
For ever. "

Whitman:

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

William Blake was critical of reductive scientific thought. In his famous picture "Newton", the straight lines and sharp angles of Newton’s profile suggest that he cannot see beyond the rules of his compass.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-newton-n05058

Behind him, the colourful, textured rock may be seen to represent the creative world, to which he is blind.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by free

I looked through a telescope only once. I saw Saturn with its ring. It was a beautiful feeling.

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I was obsessed with astronomy, for a period, as a kid, and young adult. Seeing Saturn's rings was certainly a highlight, along with seeing Jupiter's moons and some of the Messier objects. This seems like a Whitmanesque response, "In the mystical moist night-air ... Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars." But I found, on getting heavily into it, it becamet rather tedious, "When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;..., I became tired and sick".

Whitman makes astronomy, here, sound like filling in tax return. Astronomy is strange! Part poetry and part accountancy.

Note Tennyson's "illimitable inane". He has a point - I mean what's up there really? Not Gods or even humans, just a bunch of inane rocks. But then again, these rocks are playing in a vastness beyond comprehension, within endless time; which leads to incomprehension, awe, and terror. Maybe issues too big and difficult for literature to comprehend and cope with? On one side, the most extreme inanity, on the other, the highest sublimity. Strange subject!