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Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York August 2012
Hiding in Plain Sight - Discovery of Higgs Boson Excites Physicists By Evan Schneider
"We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the m ass region around 126 Ge V." Fabiola Gianotti, noted Italian astrophysicist and leader of the CERN ATLAS project; July 4, 2012

EYEPIECE
Volume 61 Number 8 ISSN 0146-7662

Dark Energy - Emerging From the Dark By Alan Rude

History is made every day, but in the world of astrophysics, achieving illusive goals utilizing highly complex equipment is a labor of l ove and extreme dedication. On Jul y 4, the world reverberated with the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, the final missing ingredient in the Standard Model of particle physics and a milestone event that will reveal how mass is formed in the universe. The Higgs boson was first postulated in 1964 by British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, but it was not until 1976 that CERN's Professor John Ellis suggested that the research should be put to the test. What followed was 36 years of conception and construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built to create the ideal conditions to produce evidence of t his particle. The theory proposed that a "Higgs energy field" exists ever ywhere in the universe. As particles zoom around in this field, they interact with and attract Higgs bosons, which cluster around the particles in varying numbers, forming mass. The Atlas project, staffed by 300 scientists and led by astrophysicist Fabiola Gianotti, was the focal point of this research initiative. Located in a 17-mile tunnel beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland at a cost of $10 billion, the collider contains 1200 magnets cooled t o -271C, which accelerate protons to 99.9% of the speed of light. At this speed the protons then `collide', creating thousands of new particles. Physicists estimate that for ever y billion collisions 10 Higgs bosons are created.
"The Higgs boson is the last m issing piece of our current understanding of the m ost fundam ental nature of the universe."" Physicist Martin Arc her, Im perial College, London

In the 1990's, two competing groups of astrophysicists were working to measure the deceleration of the expansion of the universe. It seemed to be intuitivel y apparent that while the expansion had been known since Hubble, there should be a deceleration due to the lessening pull of gravity. Just as a ball thrown upward will lose velocit y (and even reverse course and come back to Earth), so too the universe would lose expansion velocit y and might even fall back in on itself in a reverse Big Bang. The two competing teams worked with Type 1a super novae which are "standard candles," very much like Cepheid variables, but have a far greater intrinsic brightness. These can be observed at vast distances in galaxies billions of light -years awa y. The two teams' data concurred, showing that the 1a supernovae were dimmer than expected and therefore farther awa y. This supported the theory that the universe's expansion was speeding up at far distances. The name given to the force causing this was "dark energy" to sound like the mysterious "dark matter." However it was not like dark matter at all. Dark energy completes the cosmic puzzle (at least through 2012) in the model that is known as "Concordance Cosmology." Dark energy is evenly distributed and not clumpy like dark matter and is not diluted in the accelerated expansion as are matter and energy. Cosmologists have calculated that it comprises 70% of the universe's mass/energy. Normal matter and energy (baryonic) are estimated to be 5% and the remaining dark matter accounts for the balance of 25%. This construct fits a wide variety of observed data relating to galactic rotation, gravitational lensing, primordial nucleosynthesis, and the cosmic microwave background.
Although we can surmise that dark energy is smoothly spread throughout the universe and very constant in time, we have ver y little idea of its composition. Quantum mechanics (QM) offers the best current explanation of its nature. Vastl y simplified, QM states that it is impossible to make space perfectl y empty - that even in the emptiest state there will be (virtual) particles that will pop in and out of existence. This is predicted by QM and effects of these virtual particles have been observed. They constitute what is called "vacuum energy," the leading candidate for quantum physicists' definition of dark energy.
Dark Energy continued on page 4

Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist at Caltech provided more clarity: "As successful as the Standard Model has been, we know it's not the final answer to how the universe works. Strong evidence comes from the existence of dark matter: myst erious, invisible stuff that adds up to five times as much mass as the ordinary atoms and particles in the universe. But we're trying. Multiple experiments are underway to look for the dark matter particles we think are all around us.
Higgs Boson continued on page 3 Photo Credit Above: Large Hadron Collider, CERN


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Augu st 2012

WHY WE EXPLORE

Human Space Exploration
By Amy Wagner
systems behave outside the influence of gravity. NASA will continue its unprecedented partnership with the commercial industry to support private companies developing and operating safe, reliable, and affordable systems to transport crew and cargo to and from the ISS and low-Earth orbit. This key to the success of future solar system missions. Why Asteroids? Asteroids are believed to have formed early in our solar system's history - about 4.5 billion years ago - when a cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula collapsed and formed our Sun and planets. By visiting these near -Earth objects to study the original solar nebula material, we will answer some of humankind's most compelling questions: How did the solar system form and where did the Earth's water and other organic materials such as carbon originate from? In addition to unlocking data about our solar system, asteroids will provide new information about our planet. A greater understanding about asteroids will reveal more about past Earth impacts, providing us with methodologies t o reduce the threat of future encounters with near Earth objects (NEOs). New NASA robotic missions to asteroids and private enterprise initiatives by companies like Planetary Resources will prepare humans for long-duration space travel and the eventual journey to Mars. Robotic missions will also provide reconnaissance information about asteroid orbits, surface composition, and even return samples to Earth for further evaluation. These are critical steps in preparing humans to visit asteroids where we will learn about the valuable resources available in space and further develop wa ys t o use them in our quest for more efficient and affordable exploration. Why Mars? Mars has always been a source of inspiration for explorers and scientists alike. Robotic missions have found evidence of water, but bi ological life beyond Earth still remains undiscovered. The remote exploration of Mars has revealed characteristics and a geological history similar to Earth, but scientists know that there are ever greater differences waiting to be uncovered. Humans can build upon this knowledge base, search for signs of life, and investigate Mars' geological evolution. A mission to our nearest planetary neighbor provides the best opportunity to demonstrate that humans can live for extended, even permanent, time beyond low-Earth orbit. The technology and systems required to transport and sustain explorers will drive innovation and encourage new wa ys to a ddress the multitude of l ogistical challenges. As previous space endeavors have demonstrated, the resulting ingenuity and technologies will have long-lasting benefits and applications. The impetus to travel to Mars and learn how to live on its surface will encourage nations around the world to work together to achieve such an ambitious undertaking. The ISS has shown that opportunities for collaboration will highlight our common interests and provide a global sense of communit y achievement.

Humanity's interest in the heavens has been universal and enduring. We are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of our scientific and technical limits - and then push further. The innate desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we have been has provided significant benefits for centuries. Human space exploration addresses fundamental questions about our place in the universe and the history of our solar system. Through acknowledging challenges inherent in this endeavor, we expand technology, create new industries, and help foster a peaceful connection with other nations. Curiosit y and exploration are vital to the human spirit. Exploring deep space will invite nations of toda y and generations of t omorrow to join NASA on this exciting journey. A Flexible Path This is the beginning of a new era in space exploration. NASA has been challenged to develop systems and capabilities required to explore beyond low-Earth orbit, including destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and eventually Mars. The International Space Station (ISS) is our test bed and stepping stone for the challenging journey ahead. By building upon what we learn, our astronauts will train to endure the physical challenges of long duration flight and permanent expansion beyond where we have previousl y travelled. Explorers may first visit near -Earth asteroids to provide valuable mission experience and prepare us for the next inevitable step - the first human exploration of Mars. Robotic exploration continues to deliver profound answers about our universe, visiting far off destinations, providing reconnaissance, and collecting scientific data. When combining both human and robotic exploration criteria, we will merge technology and our senses to increase the ability to observe, adapt, and uncover new knowledge to support future endeavors in space. Why the International Space Station? The first step in embarking on a long and challenging journey invol ved la ying a solid foundation for a successful mission. The International Space Station (ISS) serves as a national laboratory for human health, biological and materials research, space technology development, and as a platform for pushing farther into our solar system. On the ISS, we improve our "living in space" techniques, ensuring that astronauts are safe, healthy, and productive while exploring, and expand our knowledge about how materials and biological
Dragon Capsule Docks With ISS (N ASA, 2012)

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Higgs Boson - continued from page 1

Augu st 2012

Not onl y are they "dark," these particles hardly interact with ordinary matter at all. The Higgs boson could be the bilingual particle we've been looking for. We don't know exactly what dark matter is, but we certainly have our favorite theories. In many of those models, the Higgs is the one particle that readil y interacts both with ordinary protons and neutrons and also with dark matter." Now that scientists have discovered the Higgs boson particle, they must study its properties - how it is made and how it deca ys into other particles. Then their next goal will be to produce dark matter in the LHC, another historic and monumental achievement. It won't be easy, because dark matter interacts so weakly. Even if it can be made, it's hard to be sure, because the antisocial dark matter particles tend to zip out of the experiment without leaving any trace behind. Regardless of the time it takes to move science to the next level, these efforts have significant impact to humankind's understanding of how the universe was formed and where it is going. So quick, look around you - can you see the Higgs bosons now?

The Ring of Fire from the Grand Canyon By Tony Hoffman
On May 20 I drove north with friends I'd been staying with in Sedona, to Moran Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for the annular solar eclipse. This relatively secluded lookout still drew a substantial crowd. The weather was perfect, cloudless and with steady seeing despite the Sun's relativel y low altitude. I had brought my Personal Solar Telescope (PST) as well as my Canon T2i digital SLR with a 75-300mm lens and a Thousand Oaks R-G filter; we also had eclipse glasses. I set up at one edge of the parking lot, behind a low wall awa y from the canyon rim (as we had a very inquisitive 2-1/2-year-old girl with us). This site (by and large) provided a good balance bet ween conducting my own observations/ photography and being able to share the view in the PST with passersby. I took my first shots shortly after first contact. I ended up taking a lot of

images with the Canon (with focal length set at 300mm), and also some shots with a camera held to the eyepiece of my PST. Just before sunset, I took some unfiltered pictures of the Sun (with a bite still taken out of it) sinking into the canyon. I'm glad, though, that I also took some time to just gaze at the Sun in eclipse glasses and in my PST, especiall y during the annular phase. At the onset and end of annularity the display of Bail y's beads was impressive -I was a little surprised at how jagged the Moon's limb seemed to be. It was a beautiful event, my first successful viewing of a central solar eclipse -I had been clouded out during the total phase of the 2009 solar eclipse from Shanghai -and at a perfect location (though not on the centerline). I can also safel y discard the notion that I am somehow among the eclipse "jinxed". It's whetted my appetite for eclipse viewing, and look forward to my first successful viewing of a total solar eclipse perhaps as early as 2015.
Tony Hoffman is an active observer, astrophotographer, AAA board member, Managing Editor for PC Magazine, and writer for Sky & Telescope, as well as other publications.

Photo Credits: Tony Hoffman, 2012

Eyepiece Staff - August Issue
Editor Evan B. Schneider
Writing Staff: R ichard Brounstein, Joseph Fedric k, Tony Hoffman, Stan Honda, Amy Wagner Special Sections: Marcelo C abrera, Joshua Erich, Edward Fox, Richar d Rosenberg

Kleegor's Universe

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Augu st 2012 Dark Energy - continued from page 1

WHAT'S UP IN THE SKY
AAA Observer's Guide for August 2012 By Richard Rosenberg

August's Evening Planets : Mars and Saturn are the only
bright planets in the evening, but a lot happens this month. Mars rapidly approaches Saturn and the bright star Spica. On August 21 the Moon joins them. Watch their positions change night-to-night. August's Evening Stars : August's constellations include the Summer Triangle containing the bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair, in Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila respectivel y. Low in the south are Scorpius and Sagittarius. Starting to get low in the west is Arcturus, the bright star of Botes. Look east to spot Pegasus, the first hint of autumn. August's M orning Planets: Dominating the morning sky are Jupiter, Venus, and (later in the month) Mercury. Jupiter rises at 2 AM early in August and at midnight at month's end. It's in the constellation Taurus. Venus comes up at 3 AM all month, moving into Gemini during August. Mercury can best be seen between August 11 and 25 low in the eastern sky. August's Morning Stars: The constellations of winter are at their best. Look one or two hours before dawn to view Orion, Taurus, Gemini, Auriga, Procyon, Canis Minor and Canis Major.

August's "Skylights"
August 1 August 9
August 11

Full Moon at 11:27 p.m. (EDT) Last Quarter Moon at 2:55 p.m. (EDT)

Moon is 5МА upper right of Jupiter and 5НА above Aldebaran, the bright star of Taurus. These form an equilateral triangle August 12 Perseid meteors peak this morning August 13 Moon is 4А above Venus in the morning sky In the evening sky, Saturn is 2ОА above Mars, which in turn is 1ОА above Spica. A beautiful threesome August 14-20 Look for Mercury in the east a half hour before sunrise. August 15 Venus is at greatest western elongation from the Sun (46А) August 16 Mercury is at greatest western elongation from the Sun (19А) August 17 New Moon at 11:54 a.m. (EDT) August 21 Four bright objects appear in a close gather ing! From the Crescent Moon, go 2НА upper right to Spica, then 4НА above Spica to Saturn and see Mars 4МА lower left of Saturn August 24 Moon is 4ОА above Antares this morning First Quarter Moon at 9:54 a.m. (EDT) Neptune at opposition August 31 Full Moon at 9:58 a.m. (EDT)
For additio nal information visit: www.aaa.org/mo nth1208

We can calculate the likely total universal amount of vacuum energy from quantum fluctuations which gives 10ЙЙВ per cubic centimeter, an absurdly large number. This compares with the observed density of dark energy (observed through gravitational effects) of 10 per ccm. This enormous difference is called the "cosmol ogical constant problem," which no cosmologist knows how to solve. Several theories address this problem, one of which is the leader, quintessence. Quintessence proposes that dark energy is not vacuum energy after all but is the result of an undiscovered bosonic field, analogous to an electromagnetic field. Details are sketchy at this point, but one of the chief sub-theories is that quintessence is slowl y changing, is not associated with vacuum energy, and therefore would constitute no cosmological constant problem. There is another problem, or in this case a scandal - the "Coincidence Scandal." The energy density of matter and dark energy in the present universe are approximately equal, but they have not been equal forever. As stated above, dark energy has a constant density while matter (dark and baryonic) is diluted awa y as the universe expands. Therefore, in the young universe, matter predominated and in the future, dark energy will be the most abundant. The "scandal" arises in that that we are here to observe, at the balancing point between dark energy and matter. This is the best possible time for us, in that we are not adversel y affected by either the super -dense matter/radiation in the earlier universe or by the Big Rip, the final pulling apart by dark energy of ever ything, at the end. It gives us a special place in the evol ving universe which we have not had since we were dethroned by visionaries of science, Copernicus and Galileo. With the recent confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson, further testing and results from the Large Hadrons Collider at CERN are eagerly awaited in the hope of shedding more light on dark energy and these problems which it has raised.

Nebula of the Month: Trifid (M20)
Situated in Sagittarius, approximately 5,200 lightyears from Earth, the Trifid Nebula displays a threelobed appearance. First identified by Charles Messier in 1764, this beautiful object consists of both emission and reflection nebulae. The red emission nebula with its young star cluster near its center is surrounded by a blue reflection nebula which is particularly conspicuous to the northern end. The object is an unusual combination of an open star cluster, an emission nebula (the lower red portion), a reflection nebula (the upper blue portion), and a dark nebula (the apparent 'gaps' within the emission nebula that cause Above Photo: NASA Spitzer Space Telescope the Trifid appearance). (False Color Image)

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A Message from AAA President Marcelo Cabrera
Hello Members: Summer is here and our observing sessions are a lot of fun! Check out our summer schedule on the AAA website. If you haven't been out observing yet, join us at the many places we meet around the city to stargaze. Bring your scope or binocular s and learn more about the night sky as you observe with our trained observers. Do you want to volunteer and help organize a couple of social events for the AAA? We are looking for a dedicated person to help organize future informal gatherings for club members as a part of our program to bring members together. Please email me if you would like to join our team. Our AAA Spring/Summer Class is nearing its successful seven session run. Fifty-t wo members, some joining AAA for the first time, have shared in a unique and exciting experience. We are already planning the Fall/Winter class sessions, which wi ll provide two individual opportunities to join us at our midtown training center - one class covering a multitude of subjects and speakers, and a second class focusing on a single subject of interest. Watch the AAA website and Eyepiece for more information in early September. Remember - we now accept membership payments and donations online. New logo merchandise is also available online. Enjoy the summer night sky!

Sincer ely,

Contacting AAA Marcelo Cabrera President, AAA president@aaa.org
Membership: members@aaa.org Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org General Club Matters and Observing: president@aaa.org

Telephone: 212-535-2922

Website: www.aaa.org

Getting Ready For Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror"

NASA's most advanced planetary rover, Curiosity, follows its course for an August 5 landing beside a Martian mountain to begin two years of unprecedented scientific detective work. However, getting the rover to the surface of Mars will not be easy. "The Curiosity landing is the hardest NASA mission ever attempted in the history of robotic planetary exploration," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "While the challenge is great, the team's skill and determination give me high confidence in a successful landing." The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is a precursor mission for future human mission to Mars. President Obama has set a challenge to reach the Mars in the 2030s. To achieve the precision needed for landing safel y inside Gale Crater, the spacecraft will fly like a wing in the upper atmosphere instead of dropping like a rock. To land the one ton rover, an air bag method used on previous Mars rovers will not work. Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed a "sky crane" method for the final several seconds of the flight. A backpack with retro-rockets controlling descent speed will lower the rover on three nylon cords just before touchdown, drop the rover safel y and then speed upward and awa y to crash land on the Martian surface far awa y. During a critical period lasting only about seven minutes, the MSL spacecraft carrying Curiosity must decelerate from about 13,200 mph (about 5,900 meters per second) to allow the rover to land on the surface at about 1.7 mph (three-fourths of a meter per second). Touchdown is scheduled for approxi-

mately 1:31 a.m. (EDT) Aug. 6. "Those seven minutes are the most challenging part of this entire mission," said Pete Theisinger, JPL's MSL project manager. "For the landing to succeed, hundreds of events will need to go right, many with split-second timing and all controlled autonomously by the spacecraft. We've done all we can think of to succeed. We expect to get Curiosity safel y onto the ground, but there is no guarantee. The risks are real."

Artist's concept of Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity entry, descent and landing Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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WHAT IF??? I

Science Fiction Inspires Science By Richard Brounstein
nicknames to discovered celestial objects? In 1980, Voyager 1 made the first close observations of Saturn's moon, Mimas. A large crater was discovered on the surface. The moon resembled the large space station from "Star Wars." Today, the moon is referred to as the "Death Star." The same was true for Kepler16b, an extrasolar planet orbiting a distant binary star system. This discover y was nicknamed "Tatooine," also from Star Wars. Who can forget the image of Luke Skywalker watching the two suns setting? NASA scientists must find a double sunset across a desert plain much more exciting than an artist's concept of a remote star system and a planet. NASA knows how to use science fiction to get the general public interested in new discoveries and space science. If not for the use of science fiction films, these discoveries would not be so prominent in public media.

f you're reading this newsletter, then I already know you're a fan of science. But there's a significant chance that you enjoy science fi ction as well. Many science fans, even scientists, are drawn to the world of sci-fi. We love the dramatized stories of relationships and conflicts in a technologicall y advanced future, or travelling in spacecraft through the cosm os at unimaginable speeds, or living in a space col ony on an alien planet. We like experiencing natural disasters, alien attacks, and strange astronomical phenomena. We want to observe human societ y's courage and strength when encountering advanced alien technologies. From good science fiction ("2001: A Space Odyssey") t o bad ("Armageddon"), we want our dramatic stories end happily. We also want a good looking hero and an attractive heroine. Sci-fi is fun and entertaining, but it also provides benefits for technology, science, and exploration that might be lost if we didn't have these "inventions of the imagination."

Inspires exploration and technology
Consider the advanced technologies developed after conceptualization in, "Star Trek." Did the communicator inspire the invention of cell phones? Did the BIO bed inspire non invasive and non -surgical diagnostic techniques? Consider other "Trekkian" technologies like tricorders, holodecks, ION propulsion, androids, matter -antimatter energy systems, artificial eyes and interstellar spacecraft. These are all technological concepts now embraced by the scientific community. Star Trek fans are also responsible for the first NASA space shuttle orbiter being named "Enterprise." Yes, sci-fi and a motivated public are definitely intertwined. Did the 1902 Georges Mщliшs science fiction film, "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" inspire US scientists to choose the Moon as the goal to beat the Russians in the space race? Or perhaps it was the 1865 Jules Verne novel, "From the Earth to the Moon?" Before anyone could decide to make the attempt, someone had to first imagine it. I'm grateful for these non scientist authors who could imagine what must have seemed impossible in their time.

Inspire others to study science
Most people first spark an interest in science from books, television and movies. Fiction draws in audiences by bei ng easy understandable while providing fun and excitement. More people would rather watch a riveting space adventure, sa y, human explorers discovering rare minerals on a distant planet, than read the data from a NASA mission. The fictional story allows people to easily relate to the exploration theme and thus improves overall understanding on a broader basis. Through the imagination of writers and movie makers, we can transition from a great fictional adventure to a desire to learn more about our universe. Consider the impact on people watching the movie "Contact," where radio astronomers first communicate with an alien civilization. We see one of the astronomers travel through a wormhole to the center of the galaxy - much more fun to watch than reading about how SETI looks for alien life. At SETI, mathematicians write computer programs to analyze thousands of radio frequencies at once, looking for tiny patterns in the data, possibl y a candidate signal of alien origin. Not as exciting as wormhole travel, though. Once deepl y involved, working on science becomes a thrilling adventure of the mind, but a strong fictional story stays with us from the start.

The good and the bad
Sci-fi can also affect humanity in negative wa ys. In the 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast, "The War of the Worlds," the public developed a sudden interest in Mars and possible existence of alien life. This sparked fear and panic rather than scientific curiosity. People listened to a fictional Martian attack that some believed to be real. Why do people alwa ys assume that aliens are evil in nature? Because history has taught us that less advanced civilizations always suffer during encounters with more powerful forces. Once advanced, high -speed aircraft and space exploration became a technological fact, many sightings of unidentified fl ying objects were assumed to be extra-terrestrial life forms visiting Earth. Where did people get all of these ideas? From the many science fi ction books and movies about hostile aliens, of course. Without science fiction, people would interpret lights in the sky as messages from heaven or atmospheric phenomena. If we didn't have sci-fi, I would miss the little green men.

Report science results to the community
Sci-fi effectivel y communicates astronomical discoveries to the public. Why else does the science community give

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AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
Carrying a Heavy Load

Astrium Space Transportation and OHB of Germany will lead two consortia to perform the design of a new heavylift launch vehicle for the European Space Agency (ESA) following a bidding competition that included a surprise third bidder in Reaction Engines Ltd. of Britain. The new bid requests permit the industrial teams to design their own rockets without worrying about which government will contribute to it. Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, stated that the primary goal is a vehicle that will not need support payments under normal operations once it has proved its design. If the result is a rocket built almost entirely by just one or two nations, so be it. These nations would then be asked to finance it . ESA officials have been spooked by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., which has demonstrated its technical prowess with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule to the ISS in May. SpaceX

officials say one of the keys to its success is that Falcon 9 is built in one factory owned by SpaceX. The rocket design sought by ESA would place satellites weighing between 6,600 and 14,300 pounds into geostationary transfer orbit, the destination of most telecommunications satellites.

more than ten times wider than other comparabl y sensitive amplifiers, can amplify strong signals without distortion, and introduces nearly the lowest amount of unavoidable noise. In principle, the researchers say, design improvements should be able to reduce that noise to the absolute minimum. The team recently described the new instrument in the journal Nature Physics. One of the key features is that it incorporates superconductors - materials that allow an electric current to flow with zero resistance when lowered to certain temperatures. For their amplifier, the researchers use titanium nitride and niobium titanium nitride, which have just the right properties to amplify the weak signal. The team says that the instrument can directly amplify radio signals from faint sources like distant galaxies, black holes, or other exotic cosmic objects. Boosting signals in millimeter to submillimeter wavelengths (between radio and infrared) will allow astronomers to study the cosmic microwa ve background and to peer behind the dusty clouds of galaxies to study the births of stars, or probe primeval galaxies. The team has already begun working to produce such devices for Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observator y (OVRO) near Bishop, California. These amplifiers could be incorporated into telescope arrays like the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter -wave Astronomy at OVRO, of which Caltech is a consortium member, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. Instead of directly amplifying an astronomical signal, the instrument can be used to boost the electronic signal from a light detector in an optical, ultraviolet, or even x-ray telescope, making it easier for astronomers to tease out faint objects. Because the instrument is so sensitive and introduces minimal noise, it can also be used to explore the quantum world. For example, Keith Schwab, a professor of applied physics at Caltech, is planning to use the amplifier to measure the behavior of tiny mechanical devices that operate at the boundary between classical physics and the strange world of quantum mechanics. The amplifier could also be used in the development quantum computers - which are still beyond our technological reach but should be able to solve some of science's hardest problems much more quickly than any regular computer.

Pump up the Volume
esearchers at Caltech and NASA/JPL have developed a new type of amplifier for boosting electronic signals. The device can be used for ever ything from studying stars, galaxies, and black holes to exploring the quantum world and developing quantum computers. "This amplifier will redefine what it is possible to measure," says Caltech's Jonas Zmuidzinas, the chief technologist at JPL and a member of the research team. An amplifier is a device that increases the strength of a weak signal. "Amplifiers play a basic role in a wide range of scientific measurements and in electronics in general," said Peter Day, a principal scientist at JPL. "For many tasks, current amplifiers are good enough. But for the most demanding applications, the shortcomings of the available technologies limit us." Caltech and JPL researchers say their new amplifier, which is a type of parametric amplifier, combines the best features of other amplifiers. It operates over a frequency range

More Ice With Your Chondrites?

R

Scientists have long believed that comets and a type of primitive meteorite called "carbonaceous chondrites," were sources of early Earth's volatile elements. Understanding the origins is crucial to determining how water and life formed. New research focuses on frozen water distributed throughout much of the early solar system, but probabl y not in the materials that aggregated to initially form Earth. The evidence is preserved in comets and water -bearing carbonaceous chondrites. Carnegie Institute findings contradict theories about these bodies, suggesting that meteorites and asteroids are the most likely sources of Earth's water. Looking at the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in frozen water, scientists can project distance from the Sun. Objects farther out have higher deuterium content than objects that formed near the Sun. Objects formed in like regions have like compositions. Comparing deuterium content of water in carbonaceous chondrites to comets, suggests forming in similar regions.
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AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
Size Does Matter
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) plans to build the largest optical/infrared telescope in the world. At its meeting at the ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany, the ESO Council approved the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) Program. The E-ELT will start operations earl y in the next decade. Upon completion, this will be the world's biggest eye on the sky. The E-ELT will be a 39.3-metre segmented mirror telescope sited on Cerro Armazones in northern Chile, close to ESO's Paranal Observatory. The telescope has an innovative five-mirror design that includes advanced adaptive optics to correct for the turbulent atmosphere, providing exceptional image quality. The main mirror will consist of almost 800 hexagonal segments, each 1.4 meters across. The gain is substantial - the E-ELT will gather 15 times more light than the largest optical telescopes operating today. To take advantage of this unique science machine, sites in the northern and southern hemispheres have been carefully analyzed, with the final decision settling on Cerro Armazones in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The E-ELT will be a valuable tool in the quest for exoplanets orbiting distant stars. This will include not onl y the discover y of planets with Earth-like masses using indirect measurements of the wobbling motion of stars perturbed by the planets that orbit them, but also the direct imaging of larger planets and possibl y even the characterization of their atmospheres. The E-ELT's suite of instruments will allow astronomers to probe the earliest stages of the formation of planetary systems and detect water and organic molecules in protoplanetary discs around newl y forming stars. Thus, the E -ELT will answer fundamental questions regarding planet formation and evolution and bring us one-step closer to answering the question: Are we alone?

Three on a Quasar

Scientists using three telescopes spaced thousands of miles apart have caught the best look ever of the center of a distant quasar, an ultra-bright galaxy with a giant black hole at its core. By linking powerful radio telescopes in Chile, Arizona and Hawaii, astronomers created a deep-space observing system with two million times sharper vision than the human eye, which gave them the most detailed direct view ever of a supermassive black hole inside a galaxy five billion light-years from Earth. The telescopes revealed a fresh look at the flat spectrum radio-quasar 3C 279, a galaxy in the constellation Virgo that scientists classify as a quasar because it shines ultra -bright as massive amounts of material falls into the giant black hole at its core. The black hole is about one billion solar masses, with the linked-up telescopes providing details down to a resolution of one light-year or less. The new view utilized interferometry, "a remarkable achievement for a target billions of light-years away," explained ESO researchers. "The observations represent a new milestone towards imaging supermassive black holes and the regions around them." ESO's facilit y in Chile is home to the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope used in the quasar study. The other two instruments included the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii, and the Submillimeter Telescope in Arizona. [What Does Quasar 3C 279 Reall y Look Like (Video)] Altogether, the telescope arra y reached a resolution of just eight billionths of a degree arc in the night sky. For comparison, your closed fist held out at arm's length covers 10 full degrees in the sky.

Pluto Moons NASA
Pluto's newly discovered fifth moon could mean more debris surrounding the icy dwarf planet, which could pose a hazard for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft launched in 2006 with the aim of mapping Pluto's surface. On July 11, researchers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope announced the detection of P5, a tiny moon measuring just 6 to 15 miles in diameter. P5 brings Pluto's known satellite tally to five, and it comes just a year after Hubble spotted moon number four, the similarly diminutive P4.These two recent discoveries show that the Pluto system is more crowded than scientists had thought. So NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which is due to fl y by the dwarf planet in 2015, may have to watch its step. The concern is not necessarily that New Horizons will slam into a Pluto moon that has thus far eluded detection. The probe is traveling so fast that a particle the size of a BB could destroy it, so researchers are worried about the broad debris field that Pluto's moons may have spawned. "Every new satellite is a debris producer," according to New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "When these moons suffer impacts," he explained, "the ejecta goes into orbit around Pluto, and so the more satellites, the more concern we have." Adding a moon, though, does not help poor Pluto . It remains a dwarf planet. 8

Artist's C oncept of Q uasar 3C 279 Illustration Credit: ESA/M . Kornmesser

Earth Gets a Coronal Mass Ejection
arth experienced a geomagnetic storm, between July 14-16, which happens when Earth's magnetosphere quickl y changes shape and size in response to incoming energy from the Sun. The energy came from a July 12 X-class solar flare. The storms create aurorae visible at lower latitudes. STEREOB (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) observations show that the CME was traveling at over 850 miles per second. The X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the Sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. It erupted from Active Region 1520 which rotated into view on July 6.

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AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
Stardust Memories The Dark Galaxies Rise

Astronomers report a baffling discovery never seen before: an extraordinary amount of dust around a nearby star has mysteriousl y disappeared. "It's like the classic magician's trick - now you see it, now you don't," said Carl Melis of UC San Diego and lead author of the research. "Only in this case, we're talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system, and it really is gone!" "It's as if the rings around Saturn had disappeared," said co-author and UCLA physics professor Benjamin Zuckerman. "This is even more shocking because the dusty disk of rocky debris was bigger and much more massive than Saturn's rings. The disk around this star, if it were in our solar system, would have extended from the Sun halfwa y out to Earth, near the orbit of Mercury." The research on this cosmic vanishing act, which occurred around a star some 450 light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Centaurus, appeared July 5 in the journal Nature. "A perplexing thing about this discover y is that we don't have a satisfactory explanation to address what happened around this star," said Melis. "The disappearing act appears to be independent of the star itself, as there is no evidence to suggest that the star zapped the dust with some sort of mega-flare or any other violent event." Melis describes the star, designated TYC 8241 2652, as a "young analog of our Sun" that only a few years ago displayed all of the characteristics of "hosting a solar system in the making," before transforming completely. Now, ver y little of the warm, dusty material thought to originate from collisions of rocky planets is apparent. The dust had been present around the star since at least 1983 (no one had observed the star in the infrared before then), and it continued to glow brightly in the infrared for 25 years. In 2009, it started to dim. By 2010, the dust emission was gone; the astronomers observed the star twice that year from the Gemini Observatory in Chile, six months apart. An infrared image obtained by the Gemini telescope as recently as May 1 of this year confirmed that the warm dust has now been gone for two-and-a-half years. "We were lucky t o catch this disappearing act," Zuckerman said. "Such events could be relativel y common, without our knowing it."

Image at Left: The large red circle indicates Quasar HE0109-3518. The faint images from the glow of 12 "dark galaxies" are labeled in the smaller blue circles.

Photo Credit: ESO, Dig it ize d Sky Surve y 2 and S. Canta lupo (UCSC)

Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies in the early universe that are very inefficient at forming stars. They are predicted by theories of galaxy formation and are thought to be the building blocks of toda y's bright, star -filled galaxies. Astronomers think that they may have fed large galaxies with much of the gas that later formed into the stars that exist today. Because they are essentially devoid of stars, these dark galaxies don't emit much light, making them very hard to detect. For years astronomers have been trying to devel op new techniques that could confirm the existence of these galaxies. Small absorption dips in the spectra of background sources of light have hinted at their existence. However, this new study marks the first time that such objects have been seen directly. "Our approach to the problem of detecting a dark galaxy was simpl y to shine a bright light on it." explains Simon Lilly of the Zurich Institute for Astronomy, and co-author of the paper. "We searched for the fluorescent glow of the gas in dark galaxies when they are illuminated by the ultraviolet light from a nearby and very bright quasar. The light from the quasar makes the dark galaxies light up in a process similar to how white clothes are illuminated by ultraviolet lamps in a night club." The team took advantage of the large collecting area and sensitivity of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), and a series of ver y long exposures, to detect the extremely faint fluorescent glow of the dark galaxies. They used the FORS2 instrument to map a region of the sky around the bright quasar HE 01093518, looking for the ultraviolet light that is emitted by hydrogen gas when it is subjected to intense radiation. Because of the expansion of the universe, this light is actually observed as a shade of violet by the time it reaches the VLT. "After several years of attempts to detect fluorescent emission from dark galaxies, our results demonstrate the potential of our method to discover and study these fascinating and previousl y invisible objects," says Sebastiano Cantalupo (UC, Santa Cruz), lead author of the study. The team detected almost 100 gaseous objects which lie within a few million light -years of the quasar. After a careful analysis designed to exclude objects where the emission might be powered by internal star -formation in the galaxies, rather than the light from the quasar, they finall y narrowed down their search to 12 objects. These are the most convincing identifications of dark galaxies in the early universe to date. The astronomers were also able to determine some of the properties of the dark galaxies. They estimate that the mass of the gas in them is about one billion times that of the Sun, typical for gas-rich, low-mass galaxies in the earl y universe. They were also able to estimate that the star formation efficiency is suppressed by a factor of more than 100 relative to t ypical star -forming galaxies found at similar stage in cosmic history. "Our observations with the VLT have provided evidence for the existence of compact and isolated dark clouds. With this study, we've made a crucial step towards revealing and understanding the obscure early stages of galaxy formation and how galaxies acquired their gas," concluded Cantalupo. The MUSE integral field spectrograph, which will be commissioned on the VLT in 2013, will be an extremel y powerful tool for the study of these objects.
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FOCUS ON THE UNIVERSE Night Sky Photography Techniques
By Stan Honda

Now that the transit of Venus and annular eclipse are over, it's time to go back to night sky photography and talk about a few things only touched on in previous columns. Focusing can be quite difficult in the dark and with faint subjects. A bright moon is large enough to focus on and sometimes Venus works, but often it is too small. Sometimes you can use an artificial light on the horizon, but individual stars and the Milky Wa y are too faint for the camera to detect. What to do? Begin by placing your camera on a tripod as if you are shooting a scene. It's best to use a manual focus setting if you have one. You could also try to autofocus on the Moon or a bright distant light and then switch off the autofocus, which would lock in your target. If you can manually focus, start with the distance indicator on the lens at infinity, since ever ything we see in the sky is basically at infinity. Then shoot a test picture. It doesn't have to be a long exposure, just enough to show some detail. Look at it on the screen on your camera. If you can enlarge part of the image to single out a few stars, that will be a more accurate wa y to see if ever ything is in focus. If the image looks blurry, adjust the lens slightly towards the first numerical setting on the lens. Then take more test pictures until you're satisfied that the stars are sharp. Use a small piece of masking tape to secure the focusing ring onto the lens so it doesn't move. You can then position your camera to capture night landscapes. You shouldn't have to refocus since nothing is moving toward or awa y from you. If you don't have an external trigger or intervalometer to fire the camera, the camera's self-timer is a handy device. It's often used as a delay so photographers can get into their own photos. But it also can start the exposure so you don't have to touch the camera. With less movement of the camera, the pictures will be sharper. Set the shutter speed on its longest timer setting, usually 30 seconds. Set the self-timer to five seconds or the default setting, push the button to start it, and the camera will fire by itself. A camera that you can adjust manually allows you to be more creative. Everything that is shot at night is usually at the widest f-stop and longest exposure, which is easier to do with a manual setting. Newer cameras with menus of settings for portraits, landscapes and close-ups may include one for night landscapes. Try that and see if it works. If you can adjust the col or balance setting, change it from Auto to Daylight - or the setting with a Sun icon. That way you won't get too many variations from one photo to the next in case there are artificial lights nearby. Someone asked a great question at the AAA Night Sky Photography class last month - how to prevent dew on the camera lens? As with telescopes, condensation can form on camera lenses. I saw a nice solution to the problem on a night sky photography website - disposable hand warmers. You can use a rubber band or tape to attach the hand warmer to the barrel of your lens. It will keep the glass in the lens a few degrees
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above the ambient temperature so dew doesn't form. And it's inexpensive. Another topic we discussed at the class was electronic noise. The one drawback to digital cameras is that if you take ver y long exposures or shoot at high ISO settings, you see a lot of "noise," which shows up as colored speckles in the dark parts of the image. Unfortunately for our night sky photos, we need long exposures at high ISOs. Many cameras have "high ISO" and "long exposure noise reduction" settings in their menus. The first setting will work most of the time; the second one only works for single shots, not when you are doing a series of images to make a star trail photo. But if you're doing a landscape with just the Milky Wa y or a star field, then the long exposure noise reduction generally works well. Subject matter is often the hardest issue to deal with. What makes a good picture? Well, the landscape part is determined by your physical location. The sky, of course, changes from month to month. Most Eyepiece readers know what's up at night or how to find out. Conjunctions of the Moon and Venus or Jupiter often make great photos. Knowing when the Milky Wa y will rise or how high it will be can make planning your shooting session easier. The lunar phase will also have a big impact on your decisions. By using all of the astronomical information available, you will be able to plan out a good observing and photographic session.

Stan's friend Rush observes the sky and doubles as night landscape for his Petrified Forest shoot (Arizona, 2012) The image was taken with a Nikon D3S camera using a 16mm fisheye lens and set for a one minute exposure at f2.8, ISO 1600

Stan Honda is an accomplished professional photographer and contributing writer for Eyepiece. In this continuing series of articles, he shares his extensive knowledge of photographic equipment and techniques. Please visit www.stanhonda.com or submit your photography questions to stanhonda@gmail.com.


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Calling All Telescopes.....Calling All Telescopes Donate to Support AAA Outreach Programs
Dear Members, Many of you have telescopes and other astronomy-related equip ment (eyepieces, filters, etc.) that are no longer being used. Most likely, you have upgraded to better equipment and just couldn't part with your old scope. Now there is a way to clear out your closet, get an IRS donation receipt for 2012 taxes and make a difference by supporting our AAA Outreach Program and students who are developing their interests in astronomy. Consider donating your used telescope to the AAA. As a 501C3 Not for Profit, we will provide you with documentation to sub mit for tax purposes. Once your scope is received, our members will make any necessary repairs to bring the m up to observing specifications and use them for our outreach programs for schools around the city. We may also store these scopes close to the Highline and other AAA observing sites, making it possible for the public to use them as surprise adjunct observers. If this initiative is extremely successful, we may offer select scopes up for auction to the highest bidder at our annual AAA membership meeting to raise money for other club activities. Please think seriously about giving that telescope that's in your closet or laying on the floor under the bed a new lease on life and contact us today. To quote Galileo: "A telescope is a terrible thing to waste." If you would like to participate in this program contact Michael O'Gara at donateequipment@aaa.org or Marcelo Cabrera at president@aaa.org. Thank you in advance for thinking of others.
Michael David O'Gara AAA Board Member
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An Intimate Portrait of the Solar System By Tony Hoffman
n Lives of the Planets: a Natural History of the Solar System (Basic Books, $16.99), Richard Cornfield, a research fellow at Oxford, presents a detailed account of what humans have learned about the planets from ancient times into the space age. This livel y and informative tale combines history, science, personal anecdotes, the stories of some of the scientists (both well-known and obscure) who contributed to our knowledge of these worlds, and details the unmanned missions to the planets and what they have discovered. The book's rst chapter is devoted to the Sun and begins at Stonehenge, describing how 50 years ago American astronomer Gerald Hawkins deduced its role as an astronomical computer, with concordances going far beyond the position of sunrise on Midsummer's Day. This is followed by a description of the Sun as a star, its formation and future (with a discussion of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram), an account of Galileo's studies of sunspots; the cyclicity of sunspots and its possible e ects on Earth's climate, and brief descriptions of the space probes that have studied the Sun. The book then moves out ward from the Sun, devoting a chapter to each planet, including one for the asteroid belt. Cornfield focuses on the uniqueness of each world (or moon), stressing how they're not mere points of light in the sky anymore but destinations we have visited (or are about to visit) with unmanned missions. In that regard, Lives of the Planets is a fitting title, given that life, its origins, and the search for life in the cosmos is an integral part of the story. Conversely, Cornfield also expresses his disappointment and frustration, where he deems the Viking Mars-landing missions "...one of the most noble failures in the history of space exploration...." for its inability to find any traces of Martian life. Though Viking's biology experiments were an important aspect of the mission, the primary goal was to provide geological and thermal reconnaissance for future missions. In Lives of the Planets, Cornfield has done a good job in bringing our solar system alive to the reader, weaving a combination of science, history, biography, and the latest results from space probes t ogether into an eminently readable and informative narrative.

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Astronomical Fact of the Month
re you wondering how far is the nearest star? Well, apart from the Sun, the nearest star is Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star located at a distance of 4.24 light years away (27 trillion miles ) and approximately 14.5% the diameter of the Sun. It would take our fastest spacecraft more than 50,000 years to make the journey. The second nearest stars are also in the Centauri system. They're Alpha Centauri A and B, located about 4.36 light-years from Earth. Plan on visiting all three on your next galactic tour. 12

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On 7/25, the AAA Spring/Summer class session completed the classroom portion of the program with an amazing and informative interactive presentation by AAA member and NASA/JPL ambassador, Jason Kendall. Sporting 3D glasses, the class was taken to the surface of Mars at our high tech meeting facility in midtown, peering down craters and across the Martian landscape, contemplating the upcoming historic landing of Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity at 1:30 a.m. (EST) on Aug 6. From there, we travelled through the known universe utilizing the data set from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and reached the edge of the Big Bang and studied the intricacies of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in great detail. The class was comprised of seven sessions, five of which were held in midtown and one at the Hubble Planetarium in Brookl yn, a small facility where Marc Horowitz provided his own personal tour of the universe in a small dome setting using Ha yden Planetarium soft ware. A final class session (one of our "away missions") will be held on Aug 13 when class members travel to Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Westchester for a "graduation" star party observing session under a dark sky. There were many excellent presentations during the term, including AAA member/professional photographer Stan Honda (see Stan's column, "Focus on the Universe," in this issue of E yepiece) who shared his experiences, photographic techniques, showing us space shuttle launches and the recent Venus transit and annular eclipse . Peter Tagac, the Urban Astronomer, brought his observing equipment and aerial views of Central Park to demonstrate line of sight for viewing the Manhattan night sky. Dr. Denton Ebel, Curator of Meteorites at AMNH was our premiere speaker, discussing his research and passing around small meteorites that found Earth in their path. With Curiosity bearing down on Mars, an intimate evening with Andrew Kessler, the author of "Martian Summer," brought the Mars Phoenix rover mission to life for us all. We experienced the excitement of finding water ice on Mars and the personalities of the m i s s i on e n g i n e e r s t h r o u g h M r . Kessler's eyes. The class enjoyed rsthand access to someone who spent three months on "sol time," the time used to track the Martian solar day. The AAA Education Committee is preparing to serve up two classes for the Fall/Winter season. They will run concurrently at the midtown Cicatelli Associates Training Center at 35th Street and Eighth Avenue. One will be a single subject astronomy course for those who are looking for a more focused experience. The second will be a diverse program of multiple subjects and presenters. Watch for an email notification in September, the AAA website and future issues of Eyepiece for developing information.

AAA Spring/Summer Class Wraps Successful Session By Evan Schneider


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Augu st 2012

PROJECT 1640 SIFTS THROUGH STARLIGHT TO REVEAL NEW WORLDS
AMNH, which optically dims the star but not other celestial n advanced telescope imaging system that started objects in the field of view; a spectrograph built by AMNH taking data last month is the first of its kind capable of spotting and Cambridge University that records the images of other planets orbiting suns outside of our solar system. The collabosolar systems in a rainbow of col ors simultaneously; and a rative set of high -tech instrumentation and soft ware, called specialized wavefront sensor built at JPL that is imbedded in Project 1640, is now operating on the Hale telescope at the the coronagraph and senses imperfections in the light path at a Palomar Observatory in California after more than six years of precision of a nanometer. development by researchers and engineers at the American Although the coronagraph creates an "artificial eclipse" Museum of Natural History, the California Institute of Techinside Project 1640, blocking the bright light emanating from nology (CIT), and JPL. The project's first images demonstratthe star, about half of a percent of that light remains in the ing a new technique that creates extremely precise "dark form of a bright speckled background superimposed on the holes" around stars of interest were presented in July at the solar systems of interest. Each of these speckles can be hunInternational Societ y for Optics and Photonics Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation meeting in Amsterdam by Ben dreds of times brighter than the planets . R. Oppenheimer, an associate curator in the Museum's DepartProject 1640, however, has now demonstrated a techment of Astrophysi cs and principal investigator for Project nique to darken the speckles beyond any previous capability, 1640. carving a dark square in the speckle background Although hundreds of centered on the star. The planets are known from dark region can only be indirect detection methods created by measuring and to orbit other stars, it's controlling distortions in extremely difficult to see the distant star's light, them directly in an image. ca u s ed b y t r a vel i n g This is largely because the through the atmosphere light that stars emit is tens and optics, at the 5of millions to billions of nanometer level. Previtimes brighter than the ousl y, the dark hole created light given off by planets. by the Project 1640 tech"We are blinded by nique had only been obthis starlight," OppenBefore and after images showing the success of the new array served under laboratory condiheimer said. "Once we can actutions. Now, the effect on an actual star has been observed ally see these exoplanets, we can determine the colors the y through a telescope. emit, the chemical compositions of their atmospheres, and "High-contrast imaging requires each subsystem perform even the physical characteristics of their surfaces. Ultimately, flawlessl y and in complete unison to differentiate planet light direct measurements, when conducted from space, can be used from starlight," said Richard Dekany, the associate director for to better understand the origin of Earth and to look for signs of instrumentation at Caltech Optical Observatories. "Even a life in other worlds." small starlight leak in the system can inundate our photodetecEven though the scientists are imaging what are considtors and pull the shroud back down over these planets." ered relativel y nearby stars - those no more than 200 light Now that the full system is working, the researchers have years away - an extraordinary level of precision is needed to started a three-year survey, to image hundreds of young stars. produce accurate results. "The more we learn about them, the more we realize how "Imaging planets directly is supremely challenging," said vastl y different planetary systems can be from our own," said Charles Beichman, executive director of the NASA ExoPlanet JPL astronomer Gautam Vasisht. "All indications point to a Science Institute CIT. "Imagine trying to see a firefl y whirling tremendous diversity of planetary systems, far beyond what around a searchlight more than a thousand miles awa y." was imagined just 10 years ago." Project 1640 is based on four major instruments that imThe planets orbiting these bright stars are the size of age infrared light generated by stars and the warm, young Jupiter, too hot for life to exist, though it's possible that other planets orbiting them. The instruments are now in operation planets or moons in these systems could harbor life. One of the and producing some of the highest contrast images ever made, biggest research potentials is to unlock knowledge about what revealing celestial objects 1 million to 10 million times fainter the architectures of solar systems sa y about our own planet. than the star at the center of the image. "In order to understand the origin of Earth, we need to The core of this technical advance is the coordinated opunderstand the origin of planets in general," said Lynne Hileration of: the world's most advanced adaptive optics system, lenbrand, an astronomy professor at CIT. "How do they form, built at Caltech and JPL, which manipulates light by applying how do they evolve? How does our solar system with both gas over 7 million active mirror deformations per second with a giant and rocky small planets compare to others? These are precision level better than 1 nanometer - about 100 times smaller than a typical bacterium; a coronagraph, built at questions that are very important to humanity." 13

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Peering Into the Heart of a Supernova: How to Detect a Rapidly Spinning Stellar
ach century, on average, two massive stars in our own galaxy expl ode, producing magnificent supernovae. These stellar explosions send fundamental, uncharged particles called neutrinos streaming our way, and generate ripples in the form of gravitational waves in the fabric of space-time. Scientists are waiting for the neutrinos and gravitational waves from about 1,000 supernovae that have already exploded at distant locations in the Milky Way to reach us. Here on Earth, large, sensitive, neutrino and gravitational wave detectors have the ability to observe these respective signals, which will provide information about what happens in the core of collapsing massive stars just before they explode. If we are to understand that data, however, scientists will need to know in advance how t o interpret the information the detectors collect. To that end, Caltech researchers devel oped a computer simulation of what may be an unmistakable signature of a feature of such an event: if the interior of the dying star is spinning rapidly just before it explodes, the emitted neutrino and gravitational wave signals will oscillate together at the same frequency.

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The above image taken from the video simulation shows the inner regions of a collapsing, rapidly spinning massive star. At t=0, the inner core "bounces" and a protoneutr on star is made that violently oscillates, leading to a characteristic signature in gravitational waves and neutrinos. The colors indicate entropy, which roughly corresponds to heat - red regions are very hot, while blue regions are cold. This frame shows about 10.44 milliseconds after the stellar core has become a dense proto-neutr on star.
Watch a video of the simulation. (Credit: Simulation: Christian Ott, Visualization: Steve Drasco)

"We saw this correlation in the results from our simulations and were completel y surprised," says Christian Ott, an assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech and the lead author on a paper describing the correlation, which appears in the current issue of the American Physical Societ y journal Physical Review D. "In the gravitational wave signal alone, you get this oscillation even at slow rotation. But if the star is very rapidly spinning, you see the oscillation in the neutrinos and in the gravitational waves, which very clearl y proves that the star was spinning quickly - that's your smoking gun evidence." Scientists do not yet know all the details that lead a massive star (one that is at least 10 times as massive as the Sun) to become a supernova. What they do know (which was first hypothesized by Caltech astronomer Fritz Zwicky and his colleague Walter Baade in 1934) is that when such a star runs out of fuel, it can no longer support itself against gravity's pull, and the star begins to collapse in upon itself, forming what is called a proto-neutron star. There needs to be some mechanism - what scientists refer to as the "supernova mechanism" - that completes the explosion. But what could revive the shock? Current theory suggests several possibilities. Neutrinos could do the trick if they were absorbed just below the shock, re-energizing it. The protoneutron star could also rotate rapidly enough, like a dynamo, to produce a magnetic field that could force the star's material into an energetic outflow, called a jet, through its poles, thereby reviving the shock and leading to explosion. It could also be a combination of these or other effects. The new correlation Ott's team has identified provides a way of determining whether the core's spin rate played a role in creating any detected supernova. Ott's team happened across the correlation between the neutrino signal and the gravitational wave signal when looking at data from a recent simulation. Previous simulations focusi ng on the gravitational wave signal had not included the effect of neutrinos after the formation of a proto-neutron star. This time around, they wanted to look into that effect. "To our big surprise, it wasn't that the gravitational wave signal changed significantly," Ott says. "The big new discovery was that the neutrino signal has these oscillations that are correlated with the gravitational wave signal." The correlation was seen when the protoneutron star reached high rotational vel ocities - spinning about 400 times per second. Future simulation studies will look in a more fine-grained wa y at the range of rotation rates over which the correlated oscillations between the neutrino signal and the gravitational wave signal occur. Hannah Klion, a Caltech undergraduate student, will conduct that research this summer as a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship student in Ott's group. When the next nearby supernova occurs, the results could help scientists explain what happens in the moments right before a collapsed stellar core explodes. Article Credit: Kimm Fesenmaier, Caltech

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Augu st 2012

AAA Events on the Horizon August 2012
Tuesdays, August 7, 14, 21, 28 8:30 - 10:30 p.m., P, T, C Observing on the High Line, Manhattan Enter at 14th Street Next dates: Tuesdays in September

Observers Log: Venus and Jupiter Emerge in the Morning Sky
By Joe Fedrick

Thursdays, August 2, 9, 16, 23 Dusk - 10:00 p.m., P, T, C
Movies With a View/Observing Pier 1, Brookl yn Waterfront

Movie Info: gonyc.about.com Observing: aaa.org/movieswithaview
Next dates: Thursdays in September Wednesday August 8, Dusk 11 p.m., P, T, C Observing at Prospect Park, Brookl yn Next date: Visit AAA website for details Saturday, August 18 6:30 p.m. P, T, C Observing at Great Kills Gateway National Park, Staten Island Next date: September 15 Wednesday, August 22, 8:30 11 p.m., P, T, C Observing at Brooklyn Heights Promenade, At end of Montague Street Next date: September 19 Saturday, August 25 10 a.m. - noon, P, T, C Solar observing in Central Park, At the Conservatory Water Next date: September 29 Monday, August 28 6:30 p.m., P Astronomy Live - Sky to Space AMNH Hayden Planetarium Space Theater Friday, August 31 Observing in Carl Schurz Park Next date: September 28
Legend for Events M: Members P: Ope n to t he public

8:30 - 11 p.m., P, T, C

I awoke early on June 27 to see in the bright twilight to my northeast that Jupiter and Venus had emerged onto the morning sky. I had last seen Jupiter in early April when its north equatorial belt was rather narrow and faded, something I had not seen in 40 years of observing Jupiter. Venus, of course, I had last observed on June 5 as it transited across the solar disk. Jupiter and Venus were still rather low near the horizon in less than optimal view, but Jupiter revealed a rather odd pattern of cl oud belts in my 60mm refractor at 100x. The normally dark orange-brown north equatorial belt was still a somewhat faded gray-tan. It had partially merged with one of the north temperate belts to create a rather broad new equatorial-temperate belt, parallel to the southern belt and much wider. Venus was a rather thin, large crescent below Jupiter. By July 2, Venus had risen to within four degrees bel ow Jupiter and the crescent had grown thicker, while the apparent disk size was a bit smaller. Jupiter was still displaying the rather odd belt pattern that I observed a few days earlier. Hopefully l will get a chance to get a clearer view of the new pattern of Jupiter's cloud belts as Jupiter rises earlier and higher into a dark, steady visible sky. As for Venus, of course, it will just display a thicker and thicker crescent, then dichotomy (half phase), then a gibbous phase on a gradually shrinking apparent disk size, and then a nearly full phase as it then sinks again into the morning twilight in winter. I will have long joined the departed AAA members by December 2117, the time when Venus will once again appear as a black drop of India ink against the bright disk of the Sun. NEXT MONTH IN EYEPIECE
Our Look Ahead to September: Amy Wagner's new journey: "Why We Explore;" Stan Honda continues his amazing "Focus on the Universe" series; Richard Brounstein makes us think in "What If;" Ed Fox reviews "The 4% Universe;" Dan Harrison reports on dark skies from Sark in the English Channel Islands; "Kleegor's Universe" explores the funny side of astronomy; Ed Fox's AAA Briefs in Astronomy continue to inform us; Rich Rosenberg's "What's Up in the Sky" points our scopes in the right direction, plus Nebula of the Month, Astronomical Fact of the Month....and more!!!

T: Bring telescopes, binoculars, etc. C: Cancelled if cloudy

For the latest information about all AAA events, visit our webs ite at www.aaa.org.

International Observe the Moon Night Coming September 22, 2012

W

ant to look at the Moon? Go outside at night and look up. It's easy. You don't need super advanced technology to gaze up at the wonder that is Earth's natural satellite. Watch next month for events surrounding this yearly tribute to our neighbor in the sky. This event is sponsored by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that just returned images of the flag planted by the Apollo missions!

AAA Presents: A new and exciting wide selection of logo merchandise for our members to purchase online

AAA ONLINE STORE IS NOW OPEN

Credits for Aug ust Eyepiece Iss ue Page 3 - "Kleegor's Universe" Joshua M. Erich Webs ite: (www.pixelatedparc hme nt.com)

"Shop the Stars" www.aaa.org/store
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