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Journal of the Amateur Astrono mers Association of New York February 2012 Volume 60 Number 2 ISSN 0146-7662

EYEPIECE
By Tony Hoffman
simultaneously over fiber -optic feeds. The instrument is contained in a vacuum to avoid spectral drift due to temperature and air pressure variations. This accuracy allows HARPS to detect planets with masses slightly greater than the Earth. Among the 50 new HARPS planet discoveries announced in September, the one that garnered the most attention orbits the star HD 85512 (aka Gliese 370), 36 light-years awa y in the southern constellation Vela. The planet, given the prosaic designation HD 85512 b, has a mass of about 3.6 times that of Earth and orbits its star, an orange K-type dwarf, in 59 days. But because Gliese 370 is cooler than its sun, the area of potential habitability, the so-called Goldilocks zone in which temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist, is much closer to the star than it is in our solar system. HD 85512 b orbits near the inside edge of the habitable zone and has a surface temperature of about 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Whether or not it actually has liquid water is unknown at this time. Fortunately, the star`s relative proximity to Earth will enable it to be studied closel y in the years to come in hope of unlocking some of its mysteries. A sister project to HARPS called HARPS-N (HARPSNorth) will use a similar spectrograph installed on a telescope in the Canary Islands. It will primarily be used to confirm planet candidates first detected by the Kepler mission using the transit method. Since HARPSs inception in 2003, its scientists have tweaked the spectrograph to greatly improve its resolution, but its successors may have the potential to find Earth -sized or even smaller exoplanets. ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) is a HARPS-like instrument being developed by the European Southern Observatory for use with its VLT (Very Large Telescope). It is designed with a required precision of 10 cm/s (our Earth induces a radial-velocit y of 9 cm/s on the Sun), though the aimed goal is to attain a precision of just a few centimeters per second. ESPRESSO is currently expected to be commissioned around 2016. An even more sensitive spectrograph, dubbed CODEX, one of the instruments being studied for inclusion with the European Extremely Large Telescope (E -ELT) ma y be up to fi ve times as sensitive as ESPRESSO, but the E -ELT is expected t o be at least a decade in construction. So for at least the next five years, HARPS is likely to continue to reign as the most prolific planet discoverer our world has known.

HARPS Discoveries Bring Us Closer To New Earths
The past year has been a busy time for exoplanetology-- the study of planets orbiting other stars. Last September, NASA`s Kepler team announced the finding of a Tatooinelike world (Star Wars fans, rejoice!) orbiting a double star, but most of the action came out of the Extreme Solar Systems II conference in Wyoming, with the announcements of discoveries by several planet-hunting teams. Among them, the largest trove of new planets was reported by the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher ) project: 50 exoplanets, including 16 super-Earth planets with masses between one and ten times that of Earth, including one orbiting at the edge of its star`s habitable zone. The HARPS announcement was the largest number of planet discoveries ever revealed at one time, and brought the project`s confirmed planet count to more than 150, nearly a quarter of all exoplanets confirmed to date. This result was revised again in October, when another 32 exoplanets were discovered by the science team. NASA`s Kepler exoplanet search program has on several occasions announced hundreds of new planetary candidates, but they require follow-up observations before they can be confirmed. This is because Kepler uses a different detection technique than HARPS, the so-called transit method in which astronomers look for minute, temporary dips in a star`s brightness caused by the passage of a planet across the star`s face. Other potential causes for these dips must be ruled out before these candidates can be acknowledged as planets. HARPS uses the radial velocit y or Doppler method to detect planets. It is an echelle spectrograph (which uses a high resolution grating) deployed at the European Southern Observatory`s (ESO) 3.6-meter La Silla telescope in the Atacama desert in Chile. It was devel oped by a consortium headed by the Geneva Observatory; its principal investigator is Michel Mayor who, in 1995, became the co-discoverer of the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star (51 Pegasi). By taking high -resolution spectrographs, HARPS can detect minute displacements in a star`s spectral lines, corresponding to changes in its radial velocit y (vel ocit y toward or awa y from the Earth). These changes could be caused by the tug of an unseen object--a potential planet--on the star. HARPS can attain a precision in measuring shifts in radial velocit y of less than one meter per second. Only t wo instruments worldwide can achieve such accuracy. The target star and reference spectrum from a thorium lamp are observed


EYEPIECE

February 2012

WHAT'S UP IN THE SKY
AAA Observer's Guide for February 2012 By Richard Rosenberg February's Evening Planets: Venus moves higher in the west, closing in on Jupiter. Mercury joins them the last week of the month in its best apparition for the year. But February`s highlight is Mars, approaching opposition on March 3rd. Watch the Red Planet brighten with the naked eye. Through a telescope its ice cap and other features should be visible. Check with us ­ we will have a special observing session. February's Evening Stars: The winter constellations are at their highest around 9 PM. Orion is surrounded by Canis Major (to the lower east), Canis Minor (east), Gemini (upper east), Auriga (above), and Taurus (upper right). Flanking them to the west are the autumnal stars of Andromeda, Perseus and Pegasus while rising to the east we see Leo, Hydra and the Big Dipper. February's Morning Planets: Mars is in the morning sky as well. Now retrograding, it moves back into Leo this month. Saturn is in Virgo, about 7° east (left) of the bright star Spica. Comet Garradd moves from Hercules into Draco. It should peak at magnitude 7. To find it, use the star chart at www.aaa.org/month1202. February's Morning Stars: The fainter spring constellations are now in the west, while brighter stars of summer rise in the east. Though they`re not as bright as the winter stars they have their own attractions. Look for Spica, the bright star in Virgo, near Saturn all month.

AAA LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS DR. GLENNYS FARRAR ON FEB

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February Day-by-Day
February 1 February 7 Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe br br br br br br br br uar uar uar uar uar uar uar uar y y y y y y y y 7 8 10 10 12 13 14 15 The Pleiades star cluster is 4° above the Moon Mercury at superior conjunction, entering the evening sky Full Moon at 4:54 p.m. Saturn is stationary, begins retrograde motion Mars is 10° south of the Moon Venus passes 0.3° north of Uranus Spica is 4° left of the Moon this morning Saturn is 8° above the Moon this morning Last Quarter Moon at 12:04 p.m Mars is at aphelion, farthest from the Sun (154.9 million miles) Antares is 5° below the Moon this morning Neptune is in conjunction with the sun, entering the morning sky New Moon at 5:35 p.m. Mercury, Moon, Venus, and Jupiter line up west to east in the evening sky Moon is 3° above Venus Moon is 4° above right of Jupiter Moon and the Pleiades are 4° apart First Quarter Moon at 8:21 p.m.

February 15 February 19 February 21 February 23 Fe Fe Fe Fe br br br br uar uar uar uar y y y y 25 26 28 29

For more information go to: www.aaa.org/month1202 2

By Dan Harrison Dr. Glennys Farrar, profess or of ph ys ics at NYU, will address the AAA Frida y, Februar y 10 on At Last: Seeing Supermassive Black Holes Shred Stars. The free public lecture begins at 6:15 p.m. in the Kaufmann Theater of the AMNH. A very exciting new frontier has been recently opened: the obs erva tion of the stella r tidal disruption` phenomenon, Farra r tells E yepiece. About once every 100,000 yea rs, a star passes so clos e to the supermassive bla ck hole (SM BH) at the center of its galaxy that it is torn apa rt b y the gra vita tional for ce, without being s o clos e that the debris completely falls into the hole. When this happens, an extremel y bright flare is generated that lasts weeks to months, something like a transient quas ar. The observational challenge is to distinguish the flares from far more common supernova e and va riable a ctive galactic nuclei. Yet the pa yoff is tremendous, becaus e the probability and properties of tidal dis ruption flares (TDFs) depend on the spin and mass of the bla ck hole, s o that a large databas e of TDFs will allow a census to be performed of SM BHs, including determining distribution of spins and masses. These are criticall y important in understanding the evolution of the univers e, yet extremely difficult to determine with any other technique. TDFs are als o valua ble for the insight they will give to the production of jets in quasars and gamma -ra y bursts, and the possibility they a re the s ources of ultrahigh energy cosmic ra ys . This talk will des cribe the discovery of the first two definitive exa mples of TDFs using optical techniques, in archiva l Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, and the requirements for future searches to do a success ful census of SM BHs with this technique. The rema rkable flare seen by the Swift X -ra y telescope last yea r--likel y to be an example of a TDF viewed in bla zar mode`--and theoretical efforts to model such flares will als o be discuss ed." Farra r received her Ph. D. in theoretical physics from Princeton in 1971, breaking the gender barrier in physics there in the process. She was a member of the Institute for Adva nced Study a nd on the fa culties of CalTech a nd Rutgers before moving to NYU in 1998. Among her a ccomplishments in particle physics, Farrar is perhaps best known for pioneering the phenomenological study of supers ymmetry (SUSY). With colleagues, she developed mos t present s earch techniques for superpa rticles, ga ve the first limits on SUSY breaking and superpartner masses from accelerator experiments and precision observables, and initiated the study of cosmological effects of SUSY. She made a number of predictions whos e experimental confirmation pla yed an important rol e in establishing the Standa rd M odel. Farra r`s current work focus es on problems at the intersection of astrophysics, cos mology and particle physics, including ultrahigh energ y cos mic ra ys, the nature of da rk matter and da rk energy, and the origin of the as ymmetry between ma tter a nd antimatter. Another thrust of NYU res earch is to improve simulation and reconstruction of cosmic -ra y air showers. Farrar is now engaged in several projects, including using obs erva tions of large-s cale structure and galactic dyna mics to constrain the possibility that da rk ma tter experiences non-gra vita tional forces.


EYEPIECE

February 2012

A Message from AAA President Richard Rosenberg Hello Members: Our autumn class, Evolut ion of the Solar System/Birth and Death in the Solar System was a great success. Thank you, Laird Whitehall, for your professio nal presentation over the six sessions. We hope to have a spring class soon and welco me member suggest ions. Please let us know what you`d like to see covered. A few possible topics include the history of astronomy, the solar system, observing (including telescopes) and astrophysics. Our seminar on current topics in astronomy will resume this mo nth at NYU on Thursday, February 9. Professor David Hogg from NYU will be our guest. We will have the locat ion and topic posted shortly on our website. The sky is interest ing this month. Watch Venus climb out of the low western sky and approach Jupiter. Meanwhile Mars is nearing its March 3 opposit ion, when it will be big and bright. Check wit h me for special observing sessio ns. Wit h winter upon us the skies are particularly clear. Enjo y the stars! Sincerely

Rich Rosenberg, AAA President Email: president@aaa.org ; Telephone: (718) 522-5014

KEPLER MAY HAVE HIT EXOPLANET JACKPOT Two planets found orbiting a Sun -like star 950 lightyears from Earth are the smallest, most Earth -size alien worlds known. One is smaller than Earth. The planets circle very close to their star, giving them temps most likely too hot to support life. The discover y brings scientists closer to finding a twin of Earth that may be habitable. To discover the planets, astronomers used Kepler and the transit method. Researchers then used ground-based observatories to confirm the planets exist by measuring minute wobbles in the star`s position caused by gravitational tugs from its planets. These first Earth -sized worlds found orbiting a Sun -like star, are among five worlds orbiting G-type Kepler-20, the same class as our Sun, and slightly cooler. Two of the planets, Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are 0.87 times and 1.03 times the width of Earth, respectivel y, making them the smallest exoplanets known. They also appear to be rocky, with masses less than 1.7 and three times Earth`s mass. Although lacking an atmosphere, scientists think they`re composed mainly of silicates and iron, much like Earth. Kepler -20e orbits every 6.1 days at a distance of 4.7 million miles, almost 20 times closer than Earth. Kepler -20f orbits ever y 19.6 days at a distance of 10.3 million miles. The close orbits give the planets temperatures of about 1,400 and 800 degrees. Researchers can`t exclude the possibility that the planets used to be habitable, when they might have been farther from their star. There`s also chance that there are habitable regions on the planets in spots between their day and night sides; the planets orbit with one half constantly facing their star and the other half alwa ys dark.

The planetary system is unusual. Scientists say rock y planets can`t have formed in their current locations. There`s not enough rocky material that close t o the star to form five planets. They probabl y migrated inward. Unlike our solar system, the five planets are in an odd order, with rocky worlds alternating with their gaseous neighbors, Neptune-size siblings. The star`s other planets are Kepler -20b, 20c and 20d. Their diameters are 15,000 miles, 24,600 miles and 22,000 miles, and they orbit ever y 3.7, 10.9 and 77.6 days. The largest, Kepler-20d, weighs a little under 20 times Earth`s mass, while Kepler-20c is 16.1 times as heavy as Earth and Kepler 20b is 8.7 times our mass.
NEBULA OF THE MONTH-- CARINA'S FOOTBALL

With the Superbowl coming on Feb. 5, it`s appropriate this month to highlight the Football Cluster, located 6,500 - 10,000 light years from Earth in the Carina Nebula. The nebula contains multiple O-type stars couched within surrounding clusters NGC 3532, NGC 3293 and the Gem Cluster. Although it is some four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is much less well known, due to its location far in the Southern Hemisphere. Canadian astrophotographer Alan Dyer (www.amazingsky.com) provides a myriad of stunning images of this and other celestial targets, as does our celebrated Hubble (www.hubblesite.org). ________________________ What is your favorite nebula?
Write eyepieceeditor@g ma il.co m to have yo ur ans wer publis hed!

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EYEPIECE

February 2012

AMNH LAUNCHES ITS VISION - THE FUTURE OF SPACE TRAVEL
By Dan Harrison AMNH astrophysicist Michael Shara, lead curator for Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration, an exhibition at the museum that opened November 19 and runs through August 12, 2012, told a recent media preview that the exhibition is coming at a critical time for NASA. We`re at a kind of crossroads. The shuttle program has ended, and that`s a little bit like graduating from kindergarten. We want to take those next steps out of our backyard into the neighborhood and then into the big cit y to visit all the other places in the solar system. The show offers a vision of the future of space travel as it explores our next steps in the solar system and beyond. It takes visitors on humanity`s journey t o explore the next frontier, either through ourselves or via robotic proxies. Highlighted conceptual future missions include building a space elevator on the surface of the Moon, deflecting a hazardous near-Earth asteroid and traveling to Mars--perhaps establishing colonies there. Before attending the exhibition, visitors can download a free augmented reality (AR) app for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad created for the show. The app, Beyond Planet Earth Augmented Reality, can activate 11 AR icons throughout the exhibition, which unlock animations and allow visitors to share images via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter in addition to accessing a special site with additional space-themed links. The icons and links can also be found on the Beyond Planet Earth section of amnh.org. The exhibition opens with a retrospective of historic manned and unmanned space missions: Sputnik 1, the first manmade satellite; the Vostok 1 space capsule that boosted Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, into orbit; the Hubble Space Telescope; and a Mars Exploration Rover. Authentic equipment and artifacts on display include a Soviet cosmonaut helmet and U.S. astronaut gloves. A model of Virgin Galactic`s SpaceShipTwo, a space plane in development, highlights emerging space-travel vehicles. The solar system theater has a video presentation that introduces visitors to future manned and unmanned space missions to Mars, Europa and beyond. The section on returning to the Moon notes that NASA and other space agencies have identified Shackleton Crater , near the South Pole, as a promising site for a lunar base because it offers access to resources such as water -ice and nearconstant sunlight to generate electricity. Along with a scale model of a habitat that could house four astronauts, this area features models of a space elevator that could transport mined materials and a liquid-mirror telescope on the Moon`s surface. Exploring Asteroids: This section features a 3-D recreation of the near -Earth asteroid Itokawa and the Japanese Ha ya busa spacecraft that rendezvoused with it in 2005 to collect samples. Obtaining pristine samples for study not onl y helps scientists better understand the formation of the solar system, but may reveal the presence of valuable metals. Iron 4 meteorites like the Knowles meteorite from the museum`s collection are 99% metal alloy and, like some asteroids, could be mined for valuable materials. Asteroids are also a constant threat to life on Earth. NASA has identified more than 1,200 asteroids wider than 500 feet whose orbits come within 5 million miles of Earth. A touch-screen interactive exhibit explores plausible scenarios for deflecting a doomsda y asteroid. Next comes Mars. There`s a full-scale model of the ninefoot-long Mars Science Laboratory Rover, Curiosity, which launched from Cape Canaveral in November and will go into insertion orbit in August. It will seek evidence of organic life. Miniature models show how astronauts might eat, sleep and exercise during a months-long journey aboard NASA`s Nautilus-X spaceship. Since not ever yone is suited for the trip, visitors can take a personality test to see how they`d fare. A prototype of a new space suit shows what an astronaut might wear. A walk-through diorama of the Martian surface and an interactive fl y-over simulation give visitors a sense of what it might be like to explore the planet. Visitors can zoom in on locations such as the Gale Crater, the landing spot for the Curiosit y Rover, and Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and tallest mountain in the solar system. The Mars terraforming table allows several visitors at once to transform Mars from a frozen, thin-aired environment to an Earth -like planet. The exhibit then moves t o the outer solar system. The search for life on Europa could fall to a robotic submersible, a prototype of which is featured, that would melt through the moon`s icy surface and explore its salty oceans. Now it`s time to exit the solar system. The exhibition concludes with a look at more than 1,000 stars that have been found to have planets. These exoplanets were detected by the Kepler Space Telescope in the first four months of operation. In conjunction with the show, the museum is offering lectures and educational programming. These include SpaceFest held on January 15, a family celebration that featured space-related activities, performances and special dome presentations. AMNH has also planned a March 11 program about extremophiles that will examine how organisms that survive in Earth`s most hostile environments offer clues about extraterrestrial life. See amnh.org for info on additional programs. Predictabl y, Shara and astronauts Mike Massimino and John Grunsfeld, who appeared on a panel at the media preview, asserted that benefits of space travel will be worth the expense. But it was clear they are cognizant of the challenge facing these far -reaching programs: pressure on all agencies of government, including NASA, to tangibl y pare budgets. That notwithstanding, the three agreed major advances can be expected starting in 10 years, with Shara predicting humans on Mars in 15-20 years. We`ll only know a bout Martian life by going there, Shara said.


EYEPIECE

February 2012

A pair of NASA spacecraft rang in the New Year by successfull y circling the Moon after journeying for more than three months. The Grail-B probe entered lunar orbit New Year's Da y, joining its twin spacecraft, Grail-A, which arrived December 31. The probes are on a mission to the Moon from crust to core. After gradually circling down to super -low orbits, the pair will zip around the Moon in tandem, working to map its gravity field in unprecedented detail. Scientists expect the probes' measurements to help unlock some longstanding mysteries about the Moon's composition and evolution. A major puzzle is wh y the Moon's near side, the face we al wa ys see from Earth, is so different from the far side. Plains of volca nic rock are much more widespread on the near side, while the far side is higher and more mountainous, with the surface an average 1.2 miles higher than the near side. One possible explanation is that a collision 4.5 billion years ago created two moons. The second moon, much smaller, later slammed into the Moon's far side, spreading itself over the surface rather than creating a crater. Grail -A and Grail-B will spend two months circling lower and lower, eventually settling into orbits 34 miles above the surface. Only then will the craft begin their science campaign. They'll chase each other around the Moon for 82 days, staying 75 -225 miles apart. Regional differences in the lunar gravity fi eld will cause the spacecraft to speed up or slow down slightly. ________________________

TWO GRAILS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

Astronomical Fact of the Month

Behold The Mighty Magnetar The universe's most powerful magnets are found in the death of ver y massive stars. First discovered a mere 14 years ago, magnetars are neutron stars with a super -strong magnetic eld a thousand trillion times stronger than Earth's. If the eld is really strong, then magnetism itself can keep the star hot about 10 million degrees C (18 million degrees F) at the surface and power the X-rays coming from its rotating surface. ________________________ "If a magnetar ew past Earth within 100,000 miles, the intense magnetic field of the exotic object would destroy the data on every credit card on the planet." ________________________ The density of a magnetar is such that a thimbleful of its substance , sometimes referred to as neutronium, would have a mass of over 100 million tons.

Calendric Quagmires and Missing Moons
By Thomas Haeberle There is an unusual arrangement of lunar phases this year partially contributed by February's short duration. The year starts off in January with five lunar phases two of which are First Quarter moons. But even February despite being a leap month of 29 days will be deprived of any First Quarter (FQ) moons. That is because a lunation (lunar cycle) or the time it takes bet ween one lunar phase to another (such as FQ to FQ) takes 29.5 days. Consequentially this will give March two Fi rst Quarter moons and again, because this month (like January) has a duration greater than a lunation (29.5 days). A similar turn of events will happen again in 2014 when both January and March will have two New Moons each, thereby depriving February of any New Moons. And then in 2018 when both January and March will have two Full Moons each, and none for February. These four Full Moons in the first three months will translate into 13 Full Moons for 2018. This is because 12 lunations which total 354 days is less than a calendar year of 365 da ys (366 days for a leap year) which makes that many calendric Full Moons possible. Of course the bigger question is when does the calendric "blue m oon" occur? An extra Full Moon in a month is popularly interpreted as being a blue moon (but not in the literal sense). There is another interpretation of this based on seasons but the monthly extra Full Moon is the preferred. Therefore in 2018 there will not only be one calendric blue moon in January, but March as well. This can only happen when February has none, as what happened in 1999.

Membership Renewal
If you haven't renewed your membership, this will be your last issue of Eyepiece. Stay informed and connected to the universe. Visit our website and fill out a membership form.
CALL FOR EYEPIECE WRITERS Those members who enjoy reading Eyepiece may want to learn more about astronomy by participating as a writer. For the past two years and now as current editor, I am constantly exploring leading-edge astronomical events through research for my articles and attending lectures and presentations as an Eyepiece representative. I encourage anyone focused on learning more about the science of astronomy and the exciting missions at NASA, ESA and other sources in the field to join our team of dedicated writers. Please contact me directly to discuss working together. Evan B. Schneider, Editor Email: editor@aaa.org Tel: 212-986-4225 Contacting AAA: Website - www.aaa.org; General Club Matters and Observing: president@aaa.org; Membership Business: members@aaa.or g; Classes : classes@aaa. or g; Seminars : seminar@aaa.org; Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org Telephone (voicemail): 212-535-2922

Attention all AAA Members

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EYEPIECE

February 2012

WHAT IF?

By Richard Brounstein NEUTRINOS GOING FASTER THAN LIGHT
finally break the light barrier. Scientists are certainly tryi ng and someday there might be conclusive results. We may create a particle that can travel faster than the speed of light. Don`t expect to see a space probe making a trip to Pluto in a few hours instead of 15 years. Neutrinos are practicall y mass-less and are produced in nuclear reactors, not clean rooms at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They are not easy to produce, but when you create them, they do gain a lot of speed naturally. You don`t need to invent a great propulsion system to get them going. So this breakthrough will not be used to power starships through the galaxy. It would be a great breakthrough for communications. Consider the challenges we have communicating across the vast distances of space. Since the invention of the radio, communications have happened at the speed of light. The distances on Earth are relativel y so small that a person in New York can speak to someone in Sydney, Australia and it feels instantaneous. Yet, as we venture into space, the finite speed of light becomes apparent and quite inconvenient. Even when astronauts were on the moon, they experienced a 3 second additional delay communicating to Houst on because of this finite speed. Communication to our probes on Mars takes an additional 10 to 20 minutes roundtrip so you can imagine how inconvenient this is as we continue to explore farther. So, if we can find particles that move faster than light, and use these to communicate like we do with radio waves then perhaps we can help exploration. Unfortunately, while these newl y discovered fast neutrinos may win a race against light, they don`t win by much. 60 nanoseconds speed improvement over 743 km do not add up to much in terms of time savings even when travelling across interstellar space. These fast neutrinos would travel from Earth to Mars about 0.1 seconds faster than light. Even a trip to Pluto would only save 0.5 seconds off the 5 hour 28 minute trip. A trip to Proxima Centauri would get the fast neutrinos there 56 minutes faster than light. After 4 years and almost 6 months, saving an hour is not going to make much difference. So, let us assume that we can someda y find particles that can travel many times the speed of light. If the limit can be broken, then maybe we can smash it. Who knows where the limit is? Imagine interactive communication with a colon y on Mars. Internet access and sharing information across vast distances in the Solar Syst em would be possible just as easy as it is to e-mail your friend in Asia and get a response in seconds. Consider that someda y we may advance propulsion systems to send space probes to other solar systems in a few decades. We would still want to communicate to those probes on a regular basis. Having particles that travel much faster than light would allow true active exploration of distant star systems. Wouldn`t that would be worth breaking a few laws? ________________________ Richard Brounstein is a monthly contributor to Eyepiece, exploring what today seems improbable or impossible. Stay tuned for more fascinating concepts in "WHAT IF."

Do you remember neutrinos? They are the tiny, almost mass-less, electrically neutral subatomic particles that pour out of the Sun and supernovas at incredibly fast speeds. There are trillions of them passing through my body right now and, because they have no electrical charge, they won`t affect that pizza particles digesting in my stomach. In fact, a single neutrino can pass through 2 light years of solid lead and not interact with a single atom. In September, 2011, the particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland created some exotic neutrinos. These neutrinos were directed toward a particle detector in Italy, 743 kilometers away and their speed was accurately measured. To the scientists` great surprise, the neutrinos reached their destination earlier than expected. They traveled the 743 km distance 60 nanoseconds (60/billionth of a second) faster than light could travel that same distance through a vacuum. In other words, these neutrinos went faster than the speed of light! Light speed is that cosmic speed limit set by Einstein in the early 20th century that cannot be achieved by an y particle in nature. And these particles reached that speed and a little bit more. They did the impossible and something that every scientist and engineer hoped we would someda y do. They broke the ultimate speed limit. Unfortunately, before we can pack our bags for a day trip to Mars, we must remember that these experiments are still not entirely verified. Many scientists think there was a mistake with how they timed the experiment. A 60 nanosecond measurement over any significant distance would require incredible accuracy of instruments. If the timing measurements are any bit off, then this great result is wrong and these super neutrinos are just more particles obeying the currently established laws of physics. An independent team of scientists needs to verify the experiment with different timing methods and many more tests have to take place. While I personally would love to see us break the speed of light, I`m still very skeptical. Putting aside our skeptic`s hat on this experiment, let us explore what this would mean to the world. Even if these experiments do turn up false, some future experiment may

Illustration by Joshua M. Erich (Copyright 2012)

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EYEPIECE

February 2012

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
FIRST EXOPLANETS, NOW EXOMOONS As astronomers search for potentially habitable alien planets, they`re hunt has expanded to include moons. Three new computer simulations may help identify exomoons that may harbor water on their surfaces i f their planets orbit close enough to their stars. When discover y of 1,235 planetary ca ndidates was announced a year ago, the list included 37 Neptune-sized and 10 Jupiter -sized planets within their stars` habitable zones, where liquid water can exist on a rocky planet. Although gas giants won`t contain surface liquid water, their moons might. Astronomers search for a wobble in starlight to distinguish between a moon and a starspot. A moon would tug slightly at the stellar body. The ESA`s Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits probe (CoRoT), sporting a 27cm afocal scope and a 4-CCD wide-field camera, should detect an exomoon with a radius 1.3 times as large as Earth, while Kepler would be able to spot a moon a third the size of our planet. A STAR IS BORN A telescope mounted in a jet has peered into the heart of a nebula where stars are being born. NASA`s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) snapped two photos of a star-forming region in the Orion nebula. Infrared images show a complex distribution of stars and interstellar dust. In one photo, a single blue source shines especiall y brightly. This dot is a gigantic protostar known as the BN (Becklin-Neugebauer) Object. The Ney-Allen Nebula region of intense infrared emission harbors young solar -mass stars surrounded by dusty disks, possible birthing grounds of planets. Photographs have been taken of the many stages of star formation, revealing cold interstellar clouds and stars. WHERE HAVE ALL THE LUNAR ROCKS GONE? NASA has lost or misplaced more than 500 moon rocks Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth. An agency report sa ys NASA lacks sufficient controls over its loans of moon rocks and other astromaterials, which increases the risk that these unique resources may be lost. The office audited 59 researchers who`d received samples from NASA, and found that 11, or 19%, couldn`t locate all borrowed materials. METEORITES DO THE WAVE ON MARS As meteorites careen toward the surface of Mars, they can trigger avalanches before they even hit the ground, a new study sa ys. Space rocks fl ying toward the surface can travel at several times the speed of sound, creating shockwaves in the air. These shockwaves pummel the ground, kicking up dust that rolls over slopes in dark streaks that can be seen from orbit. Researchers analyzed dark streaks and found many didn`t fit the pattern expected if they were caused by seismic shaking produced by an impact. Instead, the streaks bore signatures of shockwa ves that would have been created before any impact. When scientists used a computer model to simulate geologic features expected from such shockwaves, they found curved marks, called scimitars, matching those seen on the surface. DIZZY MECURY DIDN'T SEE IT COMING A collision with an asteroid might have set Mercury whirling oddly in its orbit, a new study suggests. Scientists had assumed Mercury was tidally locked with the Sun. Mercury`s tiny size and proximity t o the Sun suggested its gravitational pull would quickly force Mercury into such a state. However, radar observations revealed Mercury leads a stranger life, rotating three times on its axis for ever y t wo orbits it completes. Researchers suggest Mercury was once tidally locked, initiall y spinning opposite its orbit. Computer models suggest a giant asteroid impact then knocked it into its current configuration. HEARTBEAT OF A BABY BLACK HOLE Scientists may have found the smallest black hole yet by listening to its X-ray heartbeat. The black hole, if it exists, would weigh less than three times the mass of the Sun, putting it near the theoretical minimum mass for black hole stability. Researchers can`t directly observe the black hole, but measured a rise and fall in X-ray light coming from a binary system in the Milky Wa y they think signals a black hole. Until now, this X-ray pattern has been seen in only one other black hole system. The new X-ray heartbeat, in a star system 16,00065,000 light-years awa y, is believed t o include one normal star with a companion black hole. Mass would stream off the star and fall toward the black hole, forming a flattened disk around it. As friction in the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees, the disk would emit high -energy X-rays that can be seen across the galaxy. As changes occur inside the disk, cyclical variations are seen in X-rays streaming from it. Scientists think these patterns represent cycles of accumulation and ejection in an unstable disk. They see seven of them in the system. SLOW PULSAR FINISHES LAST Astronomers have discovered a strange spinning pulsar that appears to be older than the explosion that gave birth to it. The pulsar, SXP 1062, is spinning slowl y, suggesting an advanced age. But it can`t be as old as it looks, because the star probabl y exploded less than 40,000 years ago. Not many pulsars have been observed within their supernova remnant, and this is the first clear example of such a pair in the Small Magellanic Cloud. A second team independently confirmed findings that leftover supernova debris is 10,000-40,000 years old. The first team spotted X-rays emitted by SXP 1062. Most pulsars spin extremely rapidly, making hundreds of revolutions per second. But SXP 1062 spins once ever y 18 minutes. MICROBES COME IN FROM THE COLD Ice within lava tubes on Earth can host bacteria in cold, Mars-like conditions, hinting life could dwell in similar Martian lava tubes. Microbes were collected from a lava tube in Oregon`s Cascade Mountains, within ice on rocks 100 feet inside the tube. The unique qualities of one species of microbe allow it to grow in Mars-like conditions. Moreover, these microbes can grow without organic nutrients such as sugars, subsisting off iron in olivine, common on Earth and Mars. 7


EYEPIECE RED GIANT TOO FULL FOR DESSERT Astronomers have discovered two potential exoplanets that survived being engulfed by their bloated, dying star. It had been believed that no planet could withstand such a scorching. Also a surprise, the worlds have inflicted damage on the expanded star, consuming much of its mass. There has been no previous case where such a strong influence on evolution of a star has occurred. Kepler astronomers didn`t set out l ooking for these planets. They were studying a dying star, KIC 05807616. While observing its light, a team detected brightness variations every 5.8 and 8.2 hours. The cause was t wo planets slightly smaller than Earth circling the star in extremely cl ose orbits at less than 1% of 1 AU. Kepler normall y detects planets by the transit method however, researchers concluded dimming from planetary transits was not a factor. Instead, Kepler was flagging reflected planetary light and emissions. These exoplanets started out as Jupiter -sized gas giants, but before the red giant formed, both sat farther awa y and were engulfed during stellar envelope expansion. DAWN, FEELING GROOVY, EYES VESTA NASA`s Dawn spacecraft took its first close-up images of Vesta, revealing small grooves, lines and dimples along the surface. The asteroid is covered in craters from small -asteroid impacts. Dawn entered its closest orbit December 12, spiraling to 130 miles above the surface. Scientists plan to keep the probe there 10 weeks before sending Dawn higher to observe with a wider field again. While in lowest orbit, Dawn will collect data to shed light on composition of Vesta`s surface and its interior structure. The spacecraft will take optical photos, as well as measurements of gamma-rays and neutrons from the surface. In July, Dawn will depart Vesta and head for Ceres, where it will arrive by February 2015. MILKY WAY'S BLACK HOLE HAPPY MEAL The giant black hole at the Milky Wa y`s heart will soon rip apart a vast cloud of gas that could reveal how supermassive black holes gobble their meals. Observing through Chile`s Very Large Telescope, scientists named the region of the black hole Sagittarius A* and pinpointed its location based on radioemission. Since 2002, astronomers have monitored a dust y gas cloud three times Earth`s mass traveling up to more than 5.2 million mph in a straight line toward Sagittarius A*, putting out five times as much light as the Sun. The cloud has grown increasingly disrupted as it moves toward where matter begins its death spiral into the black hole. The cloud should arrive in 2012 or 2013. As it continues to be a bsorbed, its X-ray emissions should brighten and eject a giant radiation flare. FLY ME TO THE MOON (SOMEDAY) Microsoft`s Paul Allen is teaming up with aerospace designer Burt Rutan to develop a new approach to private space travel, cargo or satellites. Stratolaunch Systems will create airport-like operations for space travel. The company will use a giant twin -boom aircraft to launch a rocket and space capsule from the air to carry commercial and government payl oads, and eventually pa ying passengers, into orbit. The first flight is expected within five years. The company`s robotic Dragon capsule will launch a test flight to the space station this month. 8

February 2012

LUNAR RECON ORBITER BUZZES THE TOWER Spectacular images of a gigantic lunar crater were captured by a low-skimming NASA satellite. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over the Aristarchus crater, 25 miles wide and more than two miles deep. The spacecraft was onl y 16.2 miles above the surface; about two times lower than normal. That`s only a little over twice as high as commercial jets fl y. The Aristarchus plateau is one of the Moon`s most geologically diverse places: a mysterious raised flat plateau, a giant rille carved by enormous outpourings of lava and fields of explosive volcanic ash, all surrounded by massive flood basalts. Scientists think the crater was created relatively recently, geologicall y speaking, when a comet or asteroid smashed into the Moon. MOBY DICK'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER Goddard Space Flight Center scientists are designing a small harpoon that would fire into and collect samples from nearby comets. Scientists want to look at the primordial ooze, comet biom olecules that may have assisted the origin of life. Previous missions found amino acids in comets and meteorites. The new project could discover other ingredients necessary for life, supporting the theory that comet and meteorite impacts boosted development of life on Earth by delivering biomol ecules. Another goal is to figure out how comets are formed. This would provide scientists with details on how best to deflect space rocks. A spacecraft would carry harpoons with various powder charges to handle different areas on a comet. The spacecraft would choose a target and fire the appropriate harpoon based on presumed composition of the area.
TURNING BACK THE CLOCK ON A SUPERNOVA

Astronomers have found the first direct evidence that some star explosions are triggered by white dwarfs. Scientists studying the youngest type of 1a supernova ever found worked backward to pinpoint its explosion time with unparalleled accuracy. In doing so, they confirmed that a white dwarf was the source of the blast, and gleaned insights into the nature of the dwarf`s companion star. Only 21 million light-years away in the Pinwheel Galaxy, the supernova is the closest to our planet in 25 years. Knowing how much energy the supernova put out allowed researchers to rewind the stellar explosion to see how it began. Astronomers long suspected white-dwarf remnants were the source of type 1a supernovae. IN THE BEGINNING: Q UASICRYSTAL A rock made of a type of cr ystal never before seen outside a lab is most likel y a meteorite from the early da ys of the solar system, geologists sa y. T wo years after identifying the Russian rock`s composition, researchers say it`s a quasicrystal likely formed in space rather than inside the Earth. Its chemical composition of metallic copper and aluminum resembles what`s found in carbonaceous chondrites, primitive meteorites scientists think were remnants from the original building blocks of planets. Thirty years ago, labs began producing quasicrystals, a strange arrangement of atoms. Examination of oxygen isotopes in the rock indicated origins in the early solar system. Quasicrystals are one of the first minerals formed in the solar system, long before most common minerals on Earth.
ries continued on p


EYEPIECE FROM RUSSIA, WITH SPACE JUNK A Russian space probe on a mission to the Martian moon Phobos, having become stuck in Earth orbit, came down in flames in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile January 15. Pieces from the Phobos-Ground landed in water, 775 miles west of Wellington Island in southern Chile. The deserted ocean area is where Russia guides its discarded space cargo ships serving the ISS. Some Russian ballistic experts said fragments fell over a broader patch, spreading from the Atlantic and including territory of Brazil. The $170 million craft was one of the heaviest and most toxic pieces of space junk ever to crash to Earth, but space officials and experts said risks posed by its crash were minimal because toxic rocket fuel and most of the craft`s structure would burn up in the atmosphere high above the ground. The Phobos-Ground was designed to land on Phobos, collect soil samples and fly back to Earth in 2014 in one of the most daunting interplanetary missions ever. It got stranded in Earth orbit after its Novem ber 9 launch and efforts by Russian and ESA experts to bring it back to life failed. Russia`s space agency predicted only 20-30 fragments of the probe with a total weight up to 440 pounds would survive re-entry and plummet to Earth. Phobos-Ground weighed 14.9 tons, including 12 tons of highly toxic rocket fuel left unused. EUROPA: TWO LANDERS ARE BETTER THAN ONE NASA is considering dropping two robotic landers on Europa. JPL researchers are devel oping a concept mission that could launch in 2020 and deliver the landers six years later. The chief goal: to investigate whether life could have existed on the moon. The concept calls for launching identical landers, each 704 pounds with 79 pounds of instruments, a hedge against something going wrong. The landers` prime mission would last just seven days, to make sure they get their work done before radiation takes its toll. But the robots could last longer. The potential mission wouldn`t be explicitly to det ect life, but would assess the location`s ability to support past and present life. NASA is considering another mission, also to launch in 2020, which would send a spacecraft to study Europa from orbit. CONNECTING THE BLACK HOLE DOTS The universe`s first supermassive black holes grew so fast by gobbling up a steady stream of cold gas, a new study suggests. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey found supermassive black holes less than 1 billion years old. That they were the same size as today`s most massive black holes, which are 13.6 billion years old, was a puzzle. Normally, when cold gas flows toward a black hole, it collides with other gas in the surrounding galaxy, causing it to heat up before entering the black hole. This shock heating puts the brakes on black-hole growth somewhat. But simulations suggested early supermassive black holes encountered no such check on their growth. Rather, streams of cold gas were likel y channeled straight into them along filaments that give structure to the universe, causing the black holes to grow faster than anything in the early universe. MOVING AT THE SPEED OF GAMMA RAYS A well-known exploded star pumping out gamma rays may be the smoking gun in the search for origins of some of

February 2012

the fastest-moving particles in the universe, a new study reports. Fermi detected gamma rays emanating from the husk of Tycho`s supernova, a star that exploded in 1572. The detection provides evidence that supernova remnants can accelerate cosmic rays. Studying the supernova is yielding further insights. Fermi found gamma-ray emissions emanating from Tycho, which could shed light on where cosmic rays come from. Astronomers have long suspected supernovas are a key source of cosmic rays. Magnetic fields on either side of the shockwave trap particles, the idea goes, bouncing them back and forth ver y rapidly. The particles gain energy, eventually getting so amped up they burst free of the magnetic fields and start racing through interstellar space. 9 BILLION YEARS IN THE MAKING Astronomers have found the most distant Type 1a supernova, a kind of star explosion that should help scientists better understand the ever-expanding universe and the nature of dark energy, the strange force accelerating that expansion. Bursting into existence 9 billion years ago, the supernova (nicknamed SN Primo) was born from the violent death of a shrunken, super-dense star called a white dwarf. Light from such explosions falls within a very narrow range, which is why astronomers call them standard candles. As the light travels toward Earth, astronomers can measure how it is stretched by the expansion of the universe. The team used the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument on Hubble to observe the supernova in near-infrared wavelengths over eight months. In our search for supernovae, we had gone as far as we could go in optical light, said principal investigator Adam Riess, of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University. But it`s only the beginning of what we can do in infrared light. The discover y was part of a survey called the CANDELS+CLASH Supernova Project. The census searches regions targeted by t wo large Hubble programs, the Cosmic Assembl y Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey a nd the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey, over the course of three years, starting in 2010. SN Primo was found in October of that same year. The CANDLES+CLASH team searches for ancient supernovae in an effort to understand if they`ve changed over the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang. This discover y demonstrates that we can use the Wide Field Camera 3 to search for supernovae in the distant universe, Riess said. If we look into the early universe and measure a drop in the supernovae, then it could be that it takes a long time to make Type 1a supernovae...every supernova is unique, so it`s possible that there are multiple wa ys to make a supernova, said Steve Rodney, also of Johns Hopkins. If, on the other hand, such supernovae form quickly in the early stages of the universe, they should be plentiful. If the Type 1a supernovae from the early universe look different than toda y`s explosions, the variations could provide more insights into dark energy. Riess was one of three astronomers awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discover y of dark energy 13 years ago by studying Type 1a supernovae. The findings were announced at the 219th American Astronomical Societ y meeting in Austin, Tex., on Wednesday, Jan 11. 9


EYEPIECE

February 2012

FOCUS ON THE UNIVERSE
By Stan Honda
When we look up, it`s easy to see the wonders of the night sky. Yet capturing these celestial objects in a photograph can be a challenge. Although it doesn`t take much equipment, it requires a certain amount of patience and planning. But it`s worth the effort because ultimately photographs can reveal more of the night sky on a broader scale than can be seen by the unaided human eye. During the next few months I`ll write about simple night sky photography that can be done with a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera and basic lenses. Astrophotography through a telescope with specialized astronomy cameras is another field altogether. I`ll concentrate on wide views of the sky with interesting foreground objects, essentially landscape photography at night. Like other types of photography, it`s a combination of using the right equipment, finding the right subject matter, composition, exposure and processing of the image. For those of you who remember film, processing of film and printing were once major parts of the art. Now the computer is your darkroom, giving you a greater ability to experiment to produce the image you want. Digital cameras have made night sky photographs easier in some wa ys. You can check exposures and composition in the field for better results in the camera. Ultimately you have more control over the final image when you process it in a computer. One downside is digital noise from high ISO settings or very long exposures (both necessary for night photography), which can be mostly compensated for in the computer. If you have a digital SLR, you`re halfwa y there. The newer the model, the better. Any model allowing you to manually adjust the shutter speed and aperture is best. Make sure

As with telescopes, aperture is ever ything. In the case of camera lenses, the f-stop is crucial. Many DSLRs come packaged with a zoom lens with the widest aperture of f/3.5. This will do for most night photos. Ideally f/2.8 is better, but it will be m ore expensive. Everything really becomes a compromise; at f3.5 you`ll have to increase the exposure or increase the ISO, but then the digital noise increases as well. I will cover this in future articles. Many cameras have a high ISO noise reduction feature; look for that when pricing equipment Generally, the wider angle lens you have, the more flexibility you`ll have in taking night sky photos. Fast wide-angle lenses (with wide apertures, f2.8 and above) from camera manufacturers are usually expensive. Look at the independent companies such as Sigma, Tamaron or Tokina. The lenses ma y not be as sharp as those of Nikon and Canon but will often be much cheaper. Or look at used lenses. Older Nikon and Canon lenses in good condition are fine. Even manual focus lenses are good since you are mostly focusing on infinity. Make sure an older lens will attach to your newer camera; Nikon has not changed its lens mount, but Canon has done so several times over the decades. ________________________ Stan Honda is an accomplished professional photographer and contributing writer for Eyepiece. He will be writing a series of articles to share his extensive knowledge of photographic equipment and technique. Visit www.stanhonda.com for a complete overview of his work.

"The City Dark" Enlightens Us All
By Evan Schneider A powerful documentary film premiered Jan 18 at the IFC Center, leaving everyone in the audience with a profound understanding of the impact of light pollution on people, animals and our fragile planet. Filmmaker Ian Cheney travelled the globe to interview observers with a personal connection to the stars and night sky. AMNH director Neil deGrasse Tyson shared his perspective in the film. What`s happened over my lifetime is that you have some kind of sprawl of city lights spilling out into the surrounding regions...When you look at the night sky, you realize how small we are within the cosmos. It`s kind of a resetting of your ego. To deny yourself of that state of mind, either willingly or unwillingly, is to not live to the full extent of what it is to be human. Our lack of contact with the sky may affect us subtly leaving us without a daily reminder that we are a small part of the expanding universe. Birds in Chicago die fl ying into buildings. Hatchling sea turtles in Florida follow artificial light, endangering themselves by not reaching the sea. Cancer rates have been elevated in people who work indoors at night, lit by fluorescent lamps instead of the night sky. The City Dark completed its limited run on Jan 24, but remains available for schools, planetariums and special events screenings. Visit their website at thecitydark.com. Demonstrating our commitment to special astronomyrelated events, AAA members Joe Delfausse, Rori Baldari and Shana Tribiano provided scopes to view Jupiter.

Grand C anyon "Y aki Point" by Stan Ho nda (Copyright 2011)

there is a bulb setting for the shutter speed, which keeps the shutter open an indefinite time. Alwa ys set the camera to record files in the raw setting for maximum quality. High ISO settings are important ­ at least 1600 to 3200 at the high end. Don`t worry about megapixels ­ it`s generally meaningless. In toda y`s digital technology, the pixel count in each camera is so high that any difference in models is not significant. 10


EYEPIECE

February 2012

AAA Events on the Horizon February 2012
Thursday, February 9, 6:30 - 8 p.m., M AAA Seminar on Recent Advances in Astronomy Speaker, Prof. David Hogg, NYU Visit AAA website for location Next date: TBD Friday, February 10, 6:15 p.m., AAA Lecture, P AAA Lecture Series -- Glennys Farrar, "At Last: Seeing Supermassive Black Holes Shred Stars" AMNH Kaufmann Auditorium Next date: March 2 Saturday, February 25, 10 a.m.-noon, P, T, C Solar Observing in Central Park. At the Conservatory Water Next date: March 31
Legend for Events M: Members P: Ope n to t he public T: Bring your telescopes, binoculars, etc. C: Cancelled if cloudy

Future AAA 2012 Lecture Series Dates March 2: Charles Keeton, Rutgers, A Ray of Light in a Sea of Dark (Matter) March 30: Debra Fischer, Yale, Searching for Earthlike Worlds May 4: Alex Wolszczan, Penn State, The Astronomical Future of Humankind For more information, go to: www.aaa.org

JAN 6 AAA LECTURE "AT THE MOVIES" By Edward J. Fox The lights went down at the AMNH Kaufmann Theater as astrophysicist Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff of Michigan Technological University and NASA Goddard led his audience to an interstellar off ramp. Each year, he and fellow astrophysicist Dr. Jerry Bonnell have lectured with photographs published by the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website the y founded in 1995. This year they decided to enrich the program by presenting The Best Astronomy Videos of 2011. We started the APOD site and received just 14 hits on the first day, explained Dr. Nemiroff. It has grown over the years and now has an associated blog where anyone can offer comments or corrections. It really was a blog,` before the term blog` originated. We began receiving more and more videos, with the question Have you seen this?` Over the years the technologies and the quality of the videos have improved, so even vi deos from amateurs are ver y good. We have received one amazing video after the next. Among the many videos available on the APOD website (apod.nasa.gov/apod), some of the following were highlighted. "The Powers of Ten," ­ The nine minute sequence starts with a man on a blanket in a lakeside park in Chicago and demonstrates moving the vantage point awa y from him in increments demonstrating the power of ten...10, 102, 103...1040. The trip takes the viewer into the universe to near the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The sequence is then reversed and the vantage point returns to the man`s hand and proceeds to vi ew smaller and smaller increments of his body, well below the

size of an atom. Many people may have seen a version of t his video. It has been used in many teaching situations. How many have seen it before? A fair amount of hands were raised for this popular video. "A Solar Prominence Eruption from Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO)," ­ The 90-minute sequence of a dynamic explosion was captured in ultra-violet using time-lapse photography, where a new exposure was made ever y 24 seconds. This video dem onstrates our ability to do better monitoring of the Sun than ever before...the prominence falls back to the Sun`s surface along a magnetic line. "Star Size Comparisons," ­ The relative sizes of planets and stars are shown from smallest to largest. Nemiroff pointed out that, although there are some minor inaccuracies in the video, it is very popular with viewers on the web. As with all pictures, APOD readers are encouraged to complete the learning experience -- and possibl y help make future versions more accurate -- by pointing out any slight inaccuracies in the picture, video, or descriptive text. "Cassini Approaches Saturn," ­ This was my personal favorite video of the night. The various sequences are almost balletic. "Celestial Trails Over Greece," ­ In this sequence, the photographer uses a technique to make the star trails appear to fade-out. "Time-lapse Auroras Over Norway," ­ With the Sun expected to become ever more active over the next few years, there may be many opportunities to see similarly spectacular auroras from areas much closer to the equator. "Flying Over Planet Earth," ­ This gives a view of what it is like looking down from the International Space Station, fl ying over North America and then South America...the flashes are lightning seen from above. "Orange Sun Oozing," ­ Nemiroff volunteered that this sequence shows a lot about the composition of the surface of the Sun. Every time I view it, I feel I am learning more about it. The lighter areas are hotter and fall back to the cool er dark areas. "Earth Rotating Under Very Large Telescope," ­ The sequence is digitally made so that it looks as if the Earth is rotating around the camera viewpoint. "Kepler 16b ­ A Planet with Two Suns," ­ This is an illustration of a planet revolving around a binary star syst em... much like Luke Skywalker`s home planet! "Dark Matter Movie from the Bolshoi Simulation," ­ This sequence was created in a computer, and let to evol ve, hoping to find the parameters which would duplicate the universe as it is today. "Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth." ­ Try not to smile watching this. I like this video! I included it in the series, by adding on Planet Earth` to the title. Visit the APOD Archive at: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ archivepix.htm and read the information -filled paragraph at the bottom of each image. It is written by astrophysicists, but readers are encouraged to complete the learning experience and help make future versions more accurate. 11


EYEPIECE Nothing is Something Dr. Lawrence Krauss Explores Why We Exist By Thomas Haeberle Much ado about nothing? That may be the case in terms of how the universe came into existence, as explained by theoretical physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss on January 23 at the Rose Center`s Ha yden Planetarium. The lecture is based on his new book A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing (Free Press, $24.99) which includes an afterward by Richard Dawkins, a controversial evolutionary biol ogist and best-selling author. In addition to his scientific endeavors, Dr. Krauss is well known for his best seller The Physics of Star Trek, but my fi rst encounter with his work and style of writing was for his book Atom that I reviewed for Mercury magazine (Sept./Oct. 2001) and Eyepiece. That book describes the life of an oxygen atom, from its creation in a nuclear furnace of a star to its arrival on Earth in style as part of a water molecule in a comet. Similarly, Atom and the AMNH presentation based on his new book both discuss the future of matter and life and how the universe unfolds until its ultimate demise. Dr. Krauss displays a wide knowledge of various fields in science as he delves into topics such as general relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics and gravity. As with most prominent speakers that appear at the Ha yden, Dr. Neil deGrasse T yson kicked off the lecture with a brief introduction and moderated the question and answer ses-

February 2012

sion with a very special surprise guest in the audience (who will be revealed in the March issue of E yepiece when specifics of the lecture will be discussed in greater detail). Dr. Krauss`s topics were aptly titled Cosmic Myst eries: Beginnings, Light from the Beginning of Time, Much Ado About Nothing, Our Miserable Future, Nothing Is Something, to name a few. Dr. Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the physics department, CoDirector of the Cosmology Initiative, and Inaugural Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. He is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests, including the interface bet ween elementary particle physics and cosmol ogy, where his studies include the earl y universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity, and neutrino astrophysics. He received his Ph.D. in Physi cs from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined the Harvard Soci et y of Fellows, then the faculty of Ph ysics at Yale University, and later moved to Case Western Reserve University. NEXT MONTH IN EYEPIECE Here's a peek at March: Jason Kendall reports on his American Astronomical Society meeting; Richard Brounstein submit`s his latest observations in What If; Amy Wagner shares her final shuttle launch experience; Tom Haeberle reviews Dr. Lawrence Krauss; Dr. Glennys Farrar`s lecture At Last: Seeing Supermassive Black Holes Shred Stars reviewed; Peter Tagatac`s Sidewalk Astronomy; AAA Briefs in Astronomy continue to inform us; Rich Rosenberg`s What`s Up in the Sky and more...

Amateur Astronomers Association PO Box 150253 Brooklyn, NY 11215. ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

First Class
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