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Journal of the Amateur Astrono mers Association of New York December 2010 Volume 58 Number 12, ISSN 0146-7662

EYEPIECE
out. There wer e about a dozen scopes and ma ny shared their binoculars. Sunset was fabulous. Venus, Saturn and Mars were cluster ed in the shape of a right triangle in the wester n sky. Further north along the horizon, Mercury could be seen above the distant mountaintop. Over the course of the session, we watched Jupiter and its moons, Uranus, Neptune and the rising crescent Moon. One session highlight was hunting for Pluto. Tony brought a printed star chart, which enabled him to star hop with a 10" reflector to the star field. He reduced the field of view to a half -degr ee a nd recognize a bow tie-shaped asterism that we refer enced to share our observations. Field notes and sketches seemed to r einforce Sam Brown's "All About Telescopes " guidelines for the 10-inch scope, wher e it reached ~13.9 limiting ma gnitude, just shy of Pluto's mag 14.1. The September 11 session was really over befor e we arrived, but a small group of devoted dark-sky trippers ascended the stairway to the Milky Way to take in the late summer sky. Riding up, the sky remained overca st, although we wer e hopeful and optimistic. The clouds broke, revea ling some patches of clear sky around the Summer Triangle. We caught glimpses of open clusters in Cygnus and the Ring Nebula, Double Double and globular cluster M56. By 11:30, we left. It had been uneventful beyond the company of fellow AAAers. On October 2, things started off with really windy conditions, up to 30 mph gusts, and it was a given that the temperature would drop lower than previous visits. At sunset, the sky pr esented Sagittarius, Scorpius and Upstate continued on page 10

Heading Upstate to Climb the Stairway to the Milky Way
By Peter Tagatac and Thomas Haeberle
Some have called it the backbone of the night and without the Milky Way, fragments of darkness would come crashing to our feet. In summer, the Milky Way splits the sky from Cassiopeia down to Sagittarius. In the early 20th century, with the r ealization that "spiral nebulas" are exter nal galaxies and are themselves Milky Ways, the universe all of a sudden beca me incomprehensively infinite. And so a multitude of Milky Ways a waited those who went upstate this summer a nd fall to observe at NorthSouth Lake in the Catskills. Our stairway to the heavens began from Palenville, riding a winding road to what locals call the mountaintop. For our second year of deepsky observing, we'd developed a routine. "The restaurants are gr eat. Going up that mountain for the viewing was fun," enthused Gerceida Jones. The AAA organized four trips, from July through October. The ritual of eating at Selena's & Nick's Diner, talking Astro shop and observing with like-minded folks is gratifying and fulfilling, a community of people one could never tire of. Some of the rock-stea dy observers on our trips wer e: Rich Rosenber g, Stan Fertig, Yee Wei Mui, Tony Hoffman, Mark Dallmeyer, Lynn Darsh, Shoba Bandi-Rao, Petra Tomse, Tim Law and us. We wer e greeted by a raging storm in the distance on our first trip and watched it advance towards us. Tony, camera on hand, captured some dramatic shots. With telescopes still assembled, the storm abruptly arrived at the la ke, causing the tea m to pack up and lea ve in a hurry by midnight. Next month's trip offered another chance. The August 7 session was best in terms of weather and sky conditions, duration of the session and observer turn-


What's Up
By Tony Hoffman The Sky for December 2010
An Eclipse for the Longest Night. The first lunar eclipse visible fr om New York in nearly three years occurs the night of December 20-21, just hours befor e the Winter Solstice. The eclipse won't start until after midnight. The Moon begins to enter Earth's dark umbral shadow at 1:33 a.m. Totality begins at 2:41 a.m. and lasts mor e than an hour. Around the Solstice, the Sun is at its most southerly point of the year, which mea ns the Full Moon will be riding exceptionally high, just past the horns of Taurus near the Gemini border. Good Year for Geminid Meteors. The Geminid meteor shower, one of the year's best, peaks on the night of December 13-14. Prospects will be best after the fir stquarter Moon sets around midnight. Observers under dark skies can expect to see 100-120 meteors per hour radiating from a point near Castor. Unlike most meteor showers, the debris responsible for the shower comes not from a comet but a rocky asteroid, 3200 Phaeton. An Amateur-Discovered Comet in Outburst. In early November, two Japanese amateur astronomers independently discover ed a comet the old-fashioned way: visually, through the eyepieces of their telescopes. It is the seventh comet discover y by Kaoru Ikeya --who also co-discover ed the gr eat Kreutz sungrazer Comet Ikeya Seki in 1965 and 2002's bright Comet Ikeya -Zhang--a nd the second for Shigeki Murakami. The comet was likely in outburst when discover ed, and has exhibited a rapidly cha nging appearance reminiscent of 2007's Comet Holmes (although without the tremendous incr ease in brightness). In December, the comet will pass from Virgo into Libra in the mor ning sky and ma y be visible in small to medium-sized telescopes. December sky; Moon December December 4.9. December December December
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near Jupiter. December 14 Geminid meteor shower peaks. December 21 Full Moon at 3:13 a.m.; total lunar eclipse (see above); Winter Solstice at 6:38 p.m. December 25 Moon at perigee, 228,953 miles from Earth, 7:16 a.m. December 27 Last-quarter Moon at 11:18 p.m. December 28 Moon lies near Saturn. December 31 Moon lies near Venus.

Jupiter Ruled the Sky at Starfest
By Joseph A. Fedrick
The night of October 16-17 was clear, starlit and Moonlit. The waxing gibbous moon was already rising in the east as I saw it from Central Park around 4 p. m., just appearing between two buildings at 74th Street and 5th Avenue. I gradually made my way to the Sheep Mea dow and the AAA's annual Starfest. By the time I arrived, it was already dark, a score of telescopes wer e set up and the big dark shadow of the Jovia n moon Ganymede ha d already transited the Jovian disk. The smaller shadow of Jupiter's moon Europa soon followed and transited the disk later. I observed that shadow through one of the scopes. I could see Jupiter's South Equatorial Belt was still ver y much faded while the North Equatorial Belt was a dark orange-brown. Just a few degr ees northeast of Jupiter was Uranus. I observed it through another scope a nd glimpsed its tiny but definable non-stellar pale gr een-blue disk. Among the many Starfest scopes was a Galileoscope, similar to one Galileo used. Craters of the Moon wer e easily discer nible through it. Other scopes pointed at the Moon and other objects, including the ghostly pale smoke ring-like Ring Nebula, the M13 globular star cluster, the M11 open-star cluster and the contrasting topazyellow and sapphir e-blue stars of Alberio in Cynus. Starfest was a great success, but by November observing sessions wer e waning and the few sessions still open wer e at relatively remote locations. Ther efor e, I retreated to my home and used a 60mm r efractor to observe Jupiter for any evidence of a so-called revival of the South Equatorial Belt. As of November 12-13, I saw none. It was still very pale.

1 li 2 4

Mercury at greatest elongation in evening es near Saturn. Moon lies near Venus. Venus at greatest brillia ncy, ma gnitude -

5 New Moon at 12:36 p.m. 7 Moon lies near Mercury. 13 First-quarter Moon at 8:59 a.m.; Moon lies


A Message from AAA President Richard Rosenberg
Hello members: If you have alr eady r enewed your membership in the club, thank you. If you haven't, please send us your renewa l promptly. The fewer notices we ha ve to send out, the mor e we save on mailing costs and effort. Just send a check or money order for your dues ($25), and if you can, a donation. Send it to Amateur Astronomers Association, PO Box 150253, Brooklyn, NY 11215. In the wee hours of December 21, ther e will be a total lunar eclipse. Partial phase will run from 1:32 to 5:01 a. m., with totality between 2:41 and 3:53. We'll also look at Saturn and objects in the spring sky. We ha ven't decided on a spot to view the eclipse (suggestions are welcome). When we decide on a location, I'll send out an e-ma il. If you'r e not online, give me a call. Another winter event will take place at Belveder e Castle in Central Park on December 22. From 5 to 7 p. m., I'll give a talk which will be based on a Power Point presentation on the history of our solar system a nd the evolution of the Sun. I'll put it on the website after the talk is given. The talk will be followed by observing. We should have gr eat views of the Pleiades, Orion Nebula and Jupiter, among other targets. If you'r e online, look at T current month. Each month cember's main subject will month's Evening Sky to get his Month's Sky. Go to www.aaa we look at gatherings of planets be the eclipse of the Moon. We star charts for the current month, .org, click on Obser ving, then This Month's Sky, then the in the mor ning or evening sky, illustrated by charts. Dealso list daily events of the current month. Click on the and a description of how to find stars and constellations.

Happy holidays to all of you! Rich Rosenberg, president@aaa.org, 718-522-5014

AAA December Lecturer to Discuss Phoenix Mission to Mars
Dr. Suzanne M. M. Young, chemistry instructor at the University of New Hampshire, will addr ess the AAA Friday, December 3 on "Top 10 Discoveries of the Phoenix Mission to Mars and the Implications for Biohabitability." The fr ee public lecture begins at 6:15 p. m. in the Kaufma nn Theater of the AMNH. "The [2007-09] mission had a goal of sa mpling to deter mine whether this environment may have been habitable for life at some time. " Young notes. "It made extensive atmospher ic and ground measurements. Water ice in the regolith was confir med. Salts discover ed offer evidence for the presence in the past of liquid water. These and other discover ies will be discussed. Sources of bioener gy, key bio-elements and ions, and environmental toxicity and pH will be outlined." Young did mission research for several years. She helped design instruments and develop exper imental procedures, and was science plan integrator at mission control during the entir e operation, primary and extended. Other lectur es are: January 7, Robert Nemiroff, Michiga n Technological University, " Best Astronomy Pictures of the Day, 2010." February 4, Neil Weiner, NYU, "Illuminating Dark Matter." March 4, Andrea Dupree, Harvard-S mithsonia n Center for Astrophysics, "Searching for Extrasolar Planets with Kepler." April 1, Greg Matloff, New York City College of Technology, "Regr eening the Earth Using Space Resources." May 6, David J. Thompson, NAS A, "Exploring the Extr eme Universe with the F er mi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. " Dupree's talk will be the annual John Marshall Memorial Lecture, which honors the late president and executive director of the AAA who died in 1997.
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Physicists Hone In on the Building Blocks of Matter
By Lynn Darsh
What questions about fundamental particles and forces are puzzling particle physicists? How do these touch on cosmology? Wher e and when might answers be found? Dr. Micha el Tuts, professor of physics at Columbia University, offer ed insights and expla nations in an October 22 AAA lecture at the AMNH, "Particle Physics at the LHC and Cosmology." Tuts described the basic building blocks of matter, the denizens of the particle zoo that scientists ha ve experimentally verified and the hypothesized particles that physicists hope to discover using the world's highest ener gy particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) run by CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research). "We'r e opening up a new ener gy frontier wher e the most exciting discover y may be the unexpected," he predicted. The LHC will be capable of accelerating particles to the high energies seen at 10-10 of a second after the Big Bang. Tuts said physicists want to recreate conditions of the early universe to answer such funda mental questions as: How do elementary particles get their mass? Are ther e more tha n three space dimensions? What is dark matter? How do we account for the matter -antimatter asymmetr y? Will string theory provide a way to unify all the forces, including gravity? In the LHC's 27-km.-long tunnel near Geneva, filled with mor e than 1,200 34-ton ma gnets, protons sla m into protons 40 million times a second, creating new particles. The 7,000-ton ATLAS particle detector captures ima ges at the sa me rate. Trigger systems elimina te "garbage collisions" and r educe 40 terabytes of data produced per second to a few hundr ed hertz of recorded data. Nationa l computing centers, such as Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Isla nd, receive the output and send it on to a worldwide computing grid of 26,000 CPUs. Tuts, the U. S. ATLAS program ma nager, and 2,800 other scientists from 38 countries and 176 institutions analyze r esults in hopes of detecting new particles to answer those funda mental questions. One of four particle detectors connected to the LHC, ATLAS is the size of an eight-story building, took 20
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years to build and has about 100 million channels of electronics. Tuts compared it to a ship in a bottle, showing a one-minute time-lapse photographic montage of its construction. ATLAS was designed to search for particles like the Higgs boson, an elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of Particle Physics. "To observe the Higgs requires tremendous precision and the ability to sift through all the data and throw out the uninter esting stuff." Because the Standard Model theorizes that particles get their mass by interacting with the Higgs field, a field that would per meate all of space if the Higgs particle exists, physicists have been searching for the Higgs at Fer milab outside Chicago. "The last piece of the Standard Model that's missing would be solved by finding the Higgs particle," said Tuts, who worked on the project at Fermilab. "We're closing in on wher e the Higgs mass could be and the LHC will surely find it if it exists." Currently, the LHC operates at lower energy levels than the high levels for which it was designed. It will shut down for repairs and upgrades for 15 months, starting in 2011. Tuts thinks it will be 2014 or 2015 before the LHC could provide evidence of the Higgs. If by then ther e's no evidence, theor ists would need to get to work to extend the Standard Model. To understand how particles might acquir e mass, Tuts asked the audience to ima gine the effect of Einstein walking into a crowded cocktail party. People cr owd around Einstein, slowing him down. "Elementary particles interacting with the Higgs field are like Einstein interacting with the people in the cocktail party. Massive particles (Einstein) are massive because they interact strongly with the Higgs field."

Space-Imaging Website Gets Backing
The Planetary Society has joined forces with unma nnedSpaceflight.com (UMSF) to support the a mateur space-ima ging website. The society will host a galler y of amateur-processed photos. The ima ges are photos from interplanetary voya ges. The goal is to produce views of Website continued on page 7


NASA Invites People to be Twitter Correspondents
By Tony Hoffman
Representing the AAA at the Custer Institute's annual ja mboree in October, I spoke on "NASA's Socia l Butterfly Effect," detailing its use of social media as a PR tool, and my experiences as an invited Twitter correspondent at launches and other NASA events. Early this year, I was chosen by NASA to attend two launches at the Kennedy Space Center, the Solar Dyna mics Observator y (SDO) in February and Space Shuttle Atlantis in May. I also attended the Washington press confer ence wher e the first SDO images wer e released, and an event accompanying the World Science F estival (WSF) in which participants met astronauts and NASA's only Nobel laureate, John Mather, who won in 2006 for work on the cosmic micr owave background infor mation. NASA's "Tweetups" (twitter meet-ups) are an growth of the agency's aggr essive outr each through Web and social media--Facebook, Twitter, YouTube others--in communicating its mission a nd sparking cussion and enthusiasm about it. outth e and disWe saw the launch closer than anyone not in a bunker. At the press confer ence to unveil SDO ima ges, we sat in the first row and asked questions. All NAS A asked was that attendees tweet their experiences, photos and videos. I learned how much of a roller-coaster ride the space business is. Delays and scrubs are part of the process, in which launch safety and success are paramount. Fewer than half of shuttle flights go up when scheduled. I flew into Orlando three days before the SDO launch tweetup, because Space Shuttle Endea vour was scheduled to launch the next morning. At midnight, weather prospects looked good, but it soon clouded up, and at 4 a.m., half an hour befor e launch, they scrubbed it. The next morning, the launch went flawlessly. Similarly, the night befor e SDO's scheduled launch, a cold front blew through, leaving clear skies but high winds. NAS A won't launch an unma nned spacecraft if winds exceed 20 knots, and although winds exceeded it as the launch window opened, they subsided to a point wher e a go was given. The countdown clock stopped at four minutes, but when it resumed, a wind gust triggered a halt, and launch was postponed until the next da y. I called my Custer talk "NASA's Social Butterfly Effect," from the chaos-theory Butterfly Effect in which sma ll events can prove consequential down the line, just as an idea of merit or an intriguing ima ge ca n be tweeted and retweeted, eventually reaching a large audience a nd stimulating discussion. NAS A outreach progra m manager Beth Beck notes the butterfly effect is evident in NAS A Buzzr oom (http://buzzroom. nasa.gov/), a website that follows current discussions, photos, videos, tweets, Facebook posts and more about NASA. "The info spreads like wildfire. We can understand what the world is saying about us. You call it butterfly. I call it buzz. "The biggest benefit of social media is that they crack open the castle door. People really wa nt access. Social media allow us to share and others to share with us. But it's more tha n two-way. It's a multiplier effect. People share with people who share with people. The coolest thing is seeing how astronauts are embracing socialmedia tools to reach out to the public in new wa ys."
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Twitter is a "micro-blogging service" that lets people post very short updates (140 characters max), which may include links to photos or videos. NASA has made effective use of social media, including Twitter, to build a bridge between its engineers and astronauts, and ordinary citizens. Aboard the final Hubble repair mission, Mike Massimino (@AstroMike) beca me the first astronaut to tweet from space. His descriptions prompted me to post a screenshot of his musings on Facebook, with the caption "Why Twitter Matters." (http://on.fb. me/d6Vj10). Although NASA previously hosted Twitter events, they really hit stride when it invited 100 people who applied through Twitter to attend a Space Shuttle launch in 2009 and communicate their experiences. I missed that event, but applied for the next. Out of about 300 applicants to the SDO-launch tweetup, I was one of 15 chosen. We met astronauts and project personnel. We got enhanced tours of NASA facilities. The night befor e the Atlantis launch, we wer e driven to near the launch pad, wher e we sa w retraction of the rotating service structure that surrounds the shuttle while it's prepped for launch.


Tenth Anniversary of the 3-D Digital Universe Atlas
By Edward J. Fox
Today, 3-D movies are, again, becoming the rage. But researchers at the American Museum of Natural History have been thinking about the universe in 3-D for years. The museum celebrated the 10th anniversary of the 3-D Digital Universe Atlas October 26 at the Hayden Planetarium. Brian Abbott, the Hayden's mana ger, digital universe, and Carter Emmart, director of astrovisualization, demonstrated evolution of the Digital Atlas as a tool to catalog and present ever-growing knowledge about the universe. Abbott and Emmart first demonstrated the Zeiss Mark IX Projector, intended to be the heart of the planetarium. With its state-of-the-art fiber optics, it can project a catalog of about 9,000 stars on the dome with ver y high r esolution. But the Zeiss, as fine an instrument as it is, has limitations. It's limited in the number of objects it can project and the fact that it can't project or orient the viewer in three dimensions. Ten years ago, the evolution of data about the universe and the ability of computers to help manipulate that data opened up new possibilities, including cataloging and presentation of the universe in thr ee dimensions. This was demonstrated with the digital-universe presentation. The relative positions of stars was demonstrated by orienting the projection, not just from Earth, as we see them, but from other positions in space. The projection was rotated so the audience exper ienced that stars are at vastly differ ent distances from Earth. This was accomplished by projecting the image on the twodimensional dome. This isn't the in-your-face action 3-D movie feel, requiring special glasses. It's achieved by computer manipulation of data in such a way that the audience's perspective is changed and it appreciates the depths of the universe. It's transported into space so it can, for exa mple, see stars in the Big Dipper from the side, rather than our nor mal head-on observing. In so doing, the audience ca n see that stars vary in distance from Earth. The key is knowing as much as possible about each star's distance from Earth and its relative brightness. One by one, each must be cataloged and infor mation entered
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into the digital atlas. Then computer programs must be written to ma nipulate and present the data for use by professional researchers and to awe lay audiences. This project was begun by the AMNH with cooperation and funding from NAS A. It was started with a room full of computers and infor mation on fewer than 10,000 stars and space objects. Over the years it evolved to be even mor e impr essive. Computers beca me mor e powerful, and can now be operated by laptops. Available da ta beca me mor e accessible from multiple sources, so have steadily grown to include millions of stars and objects. Graphics computer programs were developed to present infor mation with better resolution. It still doesn't match the fiber-optic clarity of the Zeiss, but it presents millions of stars. The demonstration flew viewers around the known universe and back in time. They appreciated the vast size and distances of the Milky Way and the universe. One milestone was superimposition of a graphic spher e that delineates the distance radio waves have traveled for the last 70 years, the timefra me in which strong radio waves have been generated on Earth and sent into space. This spher e has a radius of 70 light-years. As viewers saw a depiction of the Milky Way, with a dia meter of some 100,000 light-years, they comprehended the size of the galaxy, locations of known exoplanets and, even more so, the vastness of the universe. The new software is the Uniview program developed by Sciss AB of Sweden and the AMNH. It provides sea mless visualization of the known universe, enabling viewers to be flown from the Earth to the farthest reaches of the universe, using data from multiple sources. The return to Earth demonstrated the timeliness of the da ta input. Cloud cover in the Chicago area was visible, showing a huge October 26 storm that hit the area. The basic Digital Universe Atlas is distributed via packages that contain the Milky Way Atlas and the Extragalactic Atlas. Free software (Partiview, precursor to Uniview) allows one to explor e the universe by flying t h r o u g h i t o n y o u r c o mp u t e r . S e e h t t p : / / www. haydenplanetarium.org/universe/download/


Grand Unification Theory is Strongly Rebutted
By Alan Rude
Speaking at the Hayden pla netarium October 18, Dartmouth College professor of natural philosophy, and professor of physics and astronomy Marcelo Gleiser took the contrarian view to that of physicists and cosmologists who have been seeking, for decades, a so-called theory of ever ything--a grand unification theor y combining electroma gnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. In a lecture on "A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe," based on his recent book of the sa me na me (S imon & Schuster, $25), Gleiser called these mainstr ea m scientists the "unifiers" and suggested strongly their efforts will be in vain, since we'll never be able to observe and test their theories through obser vation. This is especially true for string and superstring theories, he said. Gleiser proposed that this search by the unifiers-Einstein among the first and foremost--is the logical outcome of huma n inquiry which has been seeking to find a simple, all encompassing rea lity underlying the diversity of the physica l world. He described this as "oneness," the belief that there's a creator and driver of all ther e is. This belief goes back at least to the time of the P haraoh Akhenaten, was continued by the great Greek philosophers--Thales, Pytha goras, Plato--and then by the gr eat monotheistic religions--Judaism, Christia nity and Islam-with their concept of one all-powerful creator. Scientists pursuing the grand unification theor y believe the cosmos is orderly and symmetrical, and that through mathematics we can discover these symmetries. A corollary belief is that symmetry is beautiful and that, as Keats put it, "beauty is truth." Gleiser argued that symmetry is violated at both the macro and the micr o level and that this is a good thing. The universe is full of imperfections. At the time of the Big Bang, ther e was a tiny imbalance between matter and anti-matter, with matter predominating. Since matter and anti-matter destroy each other upon contact, the tiny excess of matter left over beca me the building blocks of the universe. If matter and anti-matter had been in perfect balance, there would be no matter. The cosmos would be only a bath of radiation. Imperfection, therefor e, is the most important factor in our existence, he asserted. The speaker cited a few imperfections discover ed by mathematicia ns and scientists over the years: Kepler's elliptical orbits when circles wer e deemed the perfect shape, the right-handed a nd left-handed configurations of DNA and, most significant of all, the " arrow of time," which runs only one wa y. He displayed a large hea dshot of Marilyn Monroe on the domed ceiling of the planetarium. Citing the mole on her left cheek, he asked if a similar mole on her right cheek would have added or detracted from her appearance. So much for the idea that symmetry always r esults in gr eater beauty. At the end, Gleiser jumped to a startling conclusion which was, in my opinion, not grounded in anything he'd said before: Because the universe has no discernable pattern or organization, humankind is just an accident. He ma intained the odds against intelligent life developing are astronomical (no pun intended). His blea k picture is that we are effectively and utterly alone in the cosmos and ther efore our mission is to concentrate on saving our planet and its envir onment. A fine ecological message, no doubt, but one that didn't flow logically from his earlier arguments. I hope he's wrong. It would be a sad thing for huma nkind to be isolated in the cosmos and bound for ever by the "surly bonds of Earth." Website continued from page 4 other worlds as they might appear to huma n voya gers. AmateurSpaceIma ges.com will be an online gallery wher e ima ge processors can share images. Anyone can uploa d ima ges, but a UMSF tea m will OK what's placed in the ga ller y. Amateurs can breathe new life into old data. Only a tiny fraction of spacecraft-ima ge data is processed into pictures released to the public.
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A Roundup of Some Noteworthy Recent Astronomy Books
Eyepiece typically reviews one book per issue. Once again, the large volume of astronomy titles and the holiday season have impelled us to do a book roundup, so readers can be aware of as many books as possible. Happy holidays!--Dan Harrison "Sizing Up the Universe: The Cosmos in Perspective" (National Geographic, $35) is by Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott and Robert J. Vanderbel, chair of Princeton's department of operations research and financial engineering, and a researcher in probability and optimization who pursues astrophotography as a hobby. It provides new r esearch into the massiveness of planets, stars, and galaxies using scaled maps, photographs and object comparisons to demonstrate actual size. Gott's map of the universe allows him to plot everything from satellites orbiting Earth to distant galaxies. He speaks at the Hayden December 6 (see page 15). As a bonus, the authors' 1.5-million-selling Map of the Universe is published for the first time in a book, presented on an oversize foldout page that maximizes its presentation of satellites, planets, stars and galaxies. To write "Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star that Gives Us Life" (Random House, $35), British author Richard Cohen did mor e than seven years of research to illuminate our relationship with the Sun. The result is a look at the Sun's role in science, medicine, language, mythology, religion, art and literature. Reporting from locations in 18 countries, Cohen offers observations on ever ything from the ways early Christians saw the Sun and its rays to the Sun's role in creating tidal ener gy to the wa ys such leaders as Mao and Hitler coopted the Sun to enlarge their authority. Dr. Bryan E. Penprase, chair of the physics and astronomy department, and professor of astronomy at Pomona College, has written "The Power of Stars: How Celest i a l O b s e r v a t io n s H av e S h a p e d C iv i l i z ation" (Springer, $39.95). The book covers a history of the huma n response to the sky, including sections describing constellation lore from many cultures, star maps and star tales. The book also describes a wide range of models of the universe, timekeeping systems, and celestial architecture from a ncient and moder n civilizations. "Having a better understanding of how other cultures responded to the sky ma kes the entir e experience of star 8

gazing mor e enjoyable," Penprase says. "How Old Is the Universe?" (Princeton University Press, $29.95) by Vanderbilt University astronomy professor David Weintraub, will be published next month. Weintraub doesn't simply answer the titular question. He explains how scientists arrived at the age of 13.7 billion years. He also introduces r eaders to funda mental concepts and cutting-edge advances in modern astronomy. The age of our universe carries profound implications for science, religion and philosophy. Weintraub traces the centuries-old quest by astronomers to fathom the secr ets of the night sky. He shows how independent lines of inquiry and painstakingly gather ed evidence, when fitted together like pieces in a cosmic puzzle, led to the longsought answer. Weintraub familiarizes readers with the ideas and phenomena at the heart of moder n astronomy, including red gia nts and white dwarfs, cepheid variable stars and supernovae, clusters of ga laxies, gravitational lensing, dark matter, dark energy and the accelerating universe. Chris Impey, university distinguished professor of astronomy and deputy head of the department at the University of Arizona, has edited interviews with scientific luminaries that explore current ideas about the search for life in the universe. The result is "Talking about Life: Conversations on Astrobiology" (Cambridge University Press, $29.99). Ther e are interviews with astronomers, geologists, biologists and writers about the origin and range of terrestrial life and likely sites for life elsewher e. Interviewees discuss what we've learned from missions to Mars and Titan, talk about the search for Earth clones, describe the surprising diversity of life on Earth, speculate about post -biologica l evolution and explor e what contact with intelligent aliens will mea n to us. Those interviewed include Timothy Ferris, Neil Tyson, Ann Druyan, David Grinspoon, Carolyn P orco, Guy Consolma gno, Alan Boss, Seth Shostak and Sir Martin Rees. "Essays on Giordano Bruno" (Princeton University Press, $35, paper) by Hilary Gatti gathers works on the Renaissance philosopher and cosmologist. Many essays Books continued on page 16


Review: The Impressive Record of the Sloan Sky Survey
By Greg Matloff
Ann Finkbeiner, who directs the science-writing graduate program at John Hopkins University, has written "A Grand and Bold Thing" (Free Press, $27) to chronicle the cr eation and accomplishments of The Sloan Sky Survey (SDDS). Using a 2.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, since its inception in 2000 SDSS has obtained multi-color images of more tha n 25% of the sky and utilized them to create thr ee-dimensional sky maps of more than 900,000 galaxies and mor e than 100,000 quasars. Most ima ges wer e obtained from 2005 to 2008. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, National Science Foundation, NASA, the Max Planck Society and other inter national institutions have supported the SDSS. According to the Sloa n Sky Survey website (www.sdss.org), the 120-megapixel CCD camera used in the survey can ima ge 1.5 square degr ees of the sky at a time. Spectrographs fed by optical fibers can simultaneously measure spectra and distance of 600 galaxies or quasars. The Sloan scientific output has been prodigious. As an exa mple, 500 intergalactic Type Ia supernova e were discover ed dur ing one thr ee- month ca mpa ign. As Finkbeiner reveals, most astronomers wor k well on individual projects. But only ver y talented managers can pull them together on a dedicated research tea m. Most contemporary scientific projects require tea mwork, schedules and large budgets. If you put all this together with a hydra-hea ded mana gement tea m, cost overruns and delays are inevitable in any large-sca le scientific endea vor. The author documents the checker ed early history of SDDS. It must have been a nightmare to coordinate operation of the main telescope, spotting telescope, drive mechanisms, detectors, hardware, software, etc. Not to mention that fact that Mother Nature--in the for m of moths within the drive mecha nism--chose not to cooperate with the "Sloanies." Meetings between project managers and funding agencies regarding delays and cost overruns must ha ve been less than enjoyable. Sloan and similar surveys have done much to expand our knowledge regarding the solar system, and interstellar, galactic and intergalactic objects. They've also provided accessibility to a ver y wide community. Hundr eds of thousands of people can now participate in the enterprise, evaluating data on computer screens from the comfort of their homes and offices. These tronomy consider would electronic sky surveys ha ve also changed asforever. Many modern astronomers must be ed "data miners" as opposed to observers. What Galileo or the Herschels have thought?

"A Grand and Bold Thing" succeeds in capturing the excitement of doing science. It also presents the interpersonal dyna mics of people used to wor king independently or with a few collaborators suddenly thrust into a large research group. But the book isn't perfect. It would have been nice if some online CCD ima ges from SDDS had been included. Descriptions of equipment would be easier to follow with a few line drawings. In the tradition of big science, the book contains many acronyms, so a nomenclature would have been a good idea. Many scientific papers have resulted from SDDS; a bibliography listing some would ha ve been a nice addition. In addition, Finkbeiner has succeeded in reporting some of Sloan astronomers' dialog verbatim. But the colorful langua ge used during stressful exchanges might offend some r eaders. Let's not quibble, though. "A Grand and Bold Thing" is a good read. It will appeal to students, and both amateur and professional astronomers inter ested in the Milky Way and beyond. The book will make a fine a ddition to an astronomy bookshelf.

Contacting the AAA
General club matters: president@aaa.org. Membership business, such as dues and change of addr ess: members@aaa.org. Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org. Lectures: lectures@aaa.org. Classes: classes@aaa.org. Seminar: seminar@aaa.org. Observing: president@aaa.org. Please visit us on the web at www.aaa.org.
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Upstate continued from page 1 Ophiuchus on their descending path, setting into the hillside. In the northeast sky, rich star fields and open clusters wer e abunda nt, offering attractive sights such as the Double Cluster, the Running Man Cluster and even the Alpha Persei Association. Other loose and sparse open clusters wer e obser ved in this part of the sky, each exhibiting a differ ent character. Those easy to locate included Trumpler 2, Owl Cluster, M52, NGC225 and NGC 7789. First-timer Petra was impressive with her rookie observational skills. She perfor med her ver y first star hop and located a small planetary nebula, the Cat's Eye Nebula in Draco, only using the printed star chart from Karkoschka's Star Atlas. Without much difficulty, she could spot very faint, low-contrast objects such as the Veil Nebula and Comet Hartley 103/P. The comet, not a naked-eye or binocular object, stirred a lot of excitement, especially for Yee, who observed it in Peter's scope. We could see at ~60x that its nucleus appeared as two stellar points with a roundish coma. We revisited the comet over the course of the five-hour session and obviously saw its position cha nge r elative to the brighter stars in the field of view. Further into the night, Auriga rose, trumpeting its three well-known clusters: M36, M37 and M38. The Cheshir e Cat discover ed by Ben Cacace is an easy asterism to find with binoculars by locating M38 and the well -known asterism called the Leaping Minnows, halfway between Iota Auriga e and Beta Tauri. M38 sits in the cheek of the Cat and south-southwest a couple of degrees of the Leaping Minnows. Another favorite is the Andromeda Galaxy, easily seen without optical aid. It's by far the furthest object seen with the naked eye. Long ago, whoever first noticed its faint glow established a record for far seeing. Compared to urban skies, star hopping in dark skies is child's play. Each session could be a Messier marathon, but this is the time and place to drink in the light and notice shape, size, brightness, orientation a nd the deep -sky object's location relative to other stars in the field of view. We observed bright nebulae, globular clusters, open clusters, and galaxies using all types of instruments. These dark skies offer ed a theatre of light!
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Can We Create Universes? New Play Probes the Possibility
Nearing their destruction, the last inhabitants of Earth furiously search for an escape from the dying Sun. Can they cr eate "baby universes"? If scientists find the Higgs boson particle--the possible source of all mass-- will this be doable? That's one theme of "Baby Universe," a puppet play that runs December 1 through January 9. It will tackle such questions as: What does a huma n-ma de universe mea n? Why are humans creating new universes? Once we've created one, what will happen? Wher e will it go? Does creating a new universe mea n that humans can create life, and if so, what or who created us? "Baby Universe" will be at the Baruch College Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue. There's a discount for AAA members. The discount na me is AAANY and the code for it is Polaris. The link to buy tickets is https:// admin.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/788335/prm/Polaris, or you can go to http://www.theater mania.com/off-broa dway/ shows/baby-universe-a-puppet-odyssey_175144/. On Thursdays after the play, a speaker will discuss some of the issues raised in the pla y. On December 16, it will be AAA president Richard Rosenberg.

Brian Marsden Dies at 73
Brian Marsden, the well-known astronomer who specialized in tracking asteroids and comets, and served as dir ector of the Minor Planet Center, the clearinghouse of data for these objects, from 1978 to 2006, died November 18 at 73. He was an astronomer at the Smithsonia n Astrophysical Observator y in Cambridge, Mass. Marsden's work was crucial in helping to track potentia lly Earth-threatening objects. One person called him "a tireless asteroid hunter who, with limited funding and an incredibly small staff, seemed to be at the helm whenever a new space-rock report came in." Marsden predicted Comet Swift-Tuttle would return to the inner solar system in 1992 rather than 1981, as predicted. He also had a key role in demotion of Pluto from full pla net to a new categor y of dwarf planet.


Briefs: Galaxy Sets Record for Most Distant Point in the Sky
An ancient galaxy has broken the recor d for the most distant point in the sky known to date, with its light taking 13.1 billion years to reach Earth. UDFy-38135539 contains roughly 1 billion stars that would ha ve for med within 600 million years of the Big Bang. Researchers measur ed how much the ga laxy's extr emely faint glow was distorted by the universe's expansion. UDFy38135539 is 100 million light-years farther than the previous record-holder, a gamma-ray burst. It's the first galaxy known to have lived fully within the epoch of reionization, which lasted 150 million-800 million years after the Big Bang. Then, ultraviolet radiation from the first stars cleared the fog that filled the cosmos by splitting its hydrogen atoms into electrons and protons (reionization). The most massive conglomeration of galaxies ever spotted in the early universe has been found. The cluster contains about 800 trillion suns packed inside hundr eds of galaxies. And it's not finished growing. SPT-CL J0546-5345 is about 7 billion light-years from Earth. By now, it likely will ha ve qua drupled in size. While there are heavier clusters in the near universe, if we could see this cluster as it is toda y, it would likely rank a mong the most massive. The cluster must have formed relatively soon after the Big Bang to have a massed such a girth so early. It's full of "old" galaxies, meaning it came together within the first 2 billion years of in the universe. Astrophysicists think they've tracked down the signature of dark matter. After sifting through observations of the Milky Way's center, researchers cite evidence of annihilation of dark-matter particles in powerful explosions. Fermi has obser ved a brighter -than-expected ga mma-ray signal at the center of the galaxy. Researchers conclude it must be caused by dark-matter particles packed in so densely they're destroying each other and releasing ener gy in the form of light. By studying data on this radiation, scientists calculated dark matter must be ma de of particles called WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) with masses almost nine times the mass of a proton. They also calculated a property known as the cross-section, which describes how likely the particle is to interact with others. Knowing these two properties would represent a leap for ward in our understanding of dark matter. A NASA spacecraft beamed back the first close-up photos from its rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2. The ima ges show an ice ball that looks like a giant chicken drumstick, or perhaps a peanut or bowling pin. Deep Impact zoomed to within 435 miles of Hartley 2 November 4. The comet is about a mile wide. Stunningly bright fir eballs cr eated by meteors from Comet Hartley 2 amazed skywatchers when Hartley 2 made a close pass by Earth October 20 and apparently created a new meteor shower of dust. They came after two fir eballs, also likely from Hartley 2, wer e observed October 16. Hartley 2 orbits the Sun every six-a nd-a-half years. NASA's infrared James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to cost at least $1.5 billion mor e than current estimates and its launch will be delayed a minimum of 15 months, according to an independent review panel tapped to investigate escalating costs and ma nagement issues with the next-generation mission. The JWST will now cost $6.5 billion, $1.5 billion mor e than estimated in NAS A's February budget request. Launch will be delayed from June 2014 to S eptember 2015. The panel attributed cost growth and schedule delays to "budgeting and program management, not technical perfor mance." However, "There ma y be...low-pr obability threats whose occurrence could cause an additional year delay in launch and a correspondingly higher cost." The panel recommended restructuring the JWST project office to emphasize cost and schedule ceilings. It found the JWST Project has invested funds wisely in adva ncing necessary technologies and reducing technical risk so funds ha ven't been wasted. NASA administrator Charles Bolden, agreeing with the panel's findings, said NASA would over haul the program's ma nagement structure. A huge alien planet has a strange hot spot on its side. Upsilon Andromeda e b, a hot gas giant, is tidally locked, mea ning one side is perpetually boiling. But the war mest part of the planet isn't this star -baked face, a new study reports. The spot on the side of the planet is much hotter. Upsilon Andromeda e b, about 44 light-years away in Andromeda, is about 70% as massive as Jupiter, orbiting its star every 4.6 days. Astronomers used Spitzer to measur e total infrared light from the planet and its star in February 2009. The planet's hottest parts aren't under its star's full glare. Astronomers think fierce winds may Continued on page 12
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Briefs: Exoplanet in 2-Sun System Forces Some Rethinking
Continued from page 11 push hot gases around on such pla nets. But the new study found such a dramatic offset that other mechanisms are likely at work. Possibilities include supersonic winds triggering shock wa ves that heat material up, as well as star-planet ma gnetic interactions. An exoplanet discovered in a system with two suns is forcing astronomers to rethink their theories about how gas gia nts for m. The stars are close enough that the leading planet-for mation theory--that dust and gas circling stars slowly accrete into planets' rocky cores--isn't likely. The stars' gravity would disrupt this process long befor e it could get very far. Instead, findings support an alternative theory, gravitational collapse, which holds that super-dense regions of the dust cloud for m pla nets much mor e rapidly, pulling together via the force of their own gravity. The new planet, about the size of Jupiter, orbits HR 7162, 49 light-years away in Lyra. The pla net was found using astrometry, which tracks stars' positions over time. It's the first time astronomers have used astrometry to find a planet. The gas giant isn't the only known planet with more than one sun; researchers have discover ed dozens. HR 7162's compa nion star is close enough to its partner and the planet that its gravitational pull could have affected planet for mation. In models of the system's evolution, the second star's gravity should have disrupted planet-forming gas and dust in just thousands of years, ejecting them from the system. That a planet exists despite these predictions challenges core accretion as the sole model for gas-giant for mation. Nearly one in four Sun-like stars might have a planet roughly the size of Earth orbiting close around them, a new study says. There may be no shortage of planets with masses from five to 30 times Earth's, conflicting with pr evious models. Findings also suggest solar systems with Earth-size pla nets like us ma y be common. Scientists focused on 33 alien planets orbiting 22 stars. They studied 166 Sun-like class G and K stars within 80 light-years of Earth for five years. They looked for any minute wobbles in each star potentially caused by pla nets between thr ee and 1,000 times the size of Earth orbiting closely around them--just one-fourth the distance between Earth and the Sun. Scientists estimate 1.6% of Sun -like stars in the sample had Jupiter -size planets, while
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12% had super Earths three to 10 times Earth's mass, the sma llest currently detectable. The new findings conflict with current models of pla net for mation and migration. After planets for m a protopla netary disk, researchers thought only giants spiraled inward. Instead, wher e current models predict no small planets, researchers found a surplus. Researchers believe Kepler, sent to survey 156,000 faint stars for planets, will detect 120-260 plausibly terrestrial worlds orbiting near some 10,000 nearby G and K dwarf stars. A new study of Hubble observations revea ls the earliest known ga laxies, present 800 million years after the Big Bang, may have emitted enough ultraviolet light to strip electrons from (ionize) hydrogen gas between galaxies. Before this reionization of the universe, hydrogen gas absorbed light, limiting the distance over which the earliest galaxies could have been observed. Astronomers knew reionization must have been complete by about 1 billion years after the Big Bang. Hubble allowed them to pinpoint infrared signatures of mor e than 50 galaxies that date to 800 million years after the Big Bang. The reddish hue of many objects in the solar system's outer reaches may be evidence of complex organic molecules, perhaps even the building blocks of life, new research suggests. A computer model explains the ma ny colors in the Kuiper Belt. The model suggests Kuiper Belt objects have ma ny layers, and reds could come from organic materials in a layer near the surface. This would support theories that organic materials might be common in the universe. The young universe spiked a fever 1.5 billion years or so after the Big Ba ng, warming up as huge black holes poured out massive amounts of energy, a new study suggests. The find is a surprise since the universe is generally thought to have cooled over time. But from 12 billion to 10 billion years ago or so, ultraviolet light emitted from black holes at the centers of galaxies seems to have heated up the gas that spread throughout the cosmos. One billion years after the Big Ba ng, the gas was 14,432 degr ees. By thr ee and a half billion years, the temp had climbed to at least 21,632 degr ees. In the universe's youth, gas clouds wer e much more extensive, since ma ny Continued on page 13


Briefs: The Evidence Keeps Growing for Past Martian Water
Continued from page 12 of them hadn't coalesced to for m stars and galaxies. Scientists took the gas' temperature by studying light from quasars. Seas and lakes thought to have filled basins of ancient Mars could ha ve emer ged from cracks in the ground, scientists suggest. Although Mars is now cold and dry, water is thought to have cover ed much of it long ago. This could explain, for instance, why northern lowlands hold extensive sedimentary deposits. The origin of these deposits is controversial. One theory suggests ancient ocea ns for med after huge volumes of water and sediment wer e suddenly released from zones of collapsed crust. However, these zones of collapse are rare, while plains deposits are widespr ead. A new study suggests this water emer ged from aquifers, through extensive and widespread fractures in the floors of continent scale basins. The residue of hydrother mal vents on flanks of a Martian volcano could be a sign of one of the most recent habitable envir onments on the planet. Scientists investigated data gather ed on volcanoes in the Syrtis Major region. They focused specifically on deposits near the relatively young Nili Patera volcanic cone, which da te back 3.7 billion years. When hot water flows through rock, it dissolves minerals, enriching the water with silica, or silicon oxide. When this water cools off and is exposed to air, hydrated silica crystallizes, which is what the investigators unexpectedly detected in deposits near Nili Patera. This suggests the vents once served as tiny habitable pockets wher e primitive forms of life, if any existed, could have found r efuge. The fan shape of the deposits and their location in and around a volcanic cone also suggest they ca me from a hydrother mal system. NASA's stuck Mars rover Spirit has found mor e evidence that water trickled beneath the surface, perha ps within the last few hundred thousand years. The sandy spot wher e Spirit bogged down last year harbors stratified layers of dirt with differ ent compositions close to the surface, a new study reveals. Researchers suspect these la yers wer e caused by seepage of thin films of water on Mars, perhaps from melting frost or snow. This could have occurred during cyclical climate changes when Mars was tilted mor e on its axis. The water may have moved down into the sand, carrying soluble minerals deeper than less -soluble ones. The fact that Spirit found these la yers in the dirt, rather than in rock, further suggests water was seeping relatively recently. Relatively insoluble minerals near the surface include what's thought to be hematite, silica and gypsum. Mor e soluble iron-rich ferric sulfates appear to have been dissolved and carried down deeper by water. Some mysterious Martian gullies are likely carved by frozen carbon dioxide, not melting water, a new study finds. Researchers tracked recent changes in 18 sanddune gullies in seven locations on southern Mars. They found these changes --which occurred over the past 15 years or so--popped up most often in winter, consistent with the buildup of carbon dioxide frost, not runoff from melting water. The channels range in length from 165 feet to more tha n two miles. A frigid crater at the Moon's south pole is packed with water ice, with some spots wetter than Earth's Sahara desert, boosting hopes for future lunar bases. Six new studies analyzed the intentiona l crash of a NASA spacecraft in October 2009. The agency's Lunar Crater Observation and S ensing Satellite probe was looking for signs of water when it smashed into Cabeus Crater at the south pole, and the spacecraft found plenty of it, as scientists announced last year. New results expand on those findings, revea ling Cabeus harbors many materials, such as carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, mercury and silver. Water ice makes up 5.6% of the total mass on the floor of Cabeus, making the crater about twice as wet as Sahara soil. The water ice is also relatively pure. The origina l source of the water and much else is likely asteroid or comet impacts. Two massive Jupiter-like planets have been discover ed orbiting extr emely close sister stars. This is an unexpected find given the gravitational effects within most binary-star systems that usually disrupt planets from for ming. The planets orbit system NN S erpentis 1, 670 light-years away. The mor e massive star is a very small white dwarf, 2.3 times Earth's dia meter, with a temper aContinued on page 14
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Briefs continued from page 13 ture of more tha n 89,500 degrees, almost nine times hotter than the Sun's surface. The other star's larger but cooler, with a mass one-tenth the Sun's. The stars are in a very tight mutual orbit. The larger planet is 5.9 times mor e massive tha n Jupiter. It orbits the stars every 15.5 Earth years at a distance of 558 million miles. The second planet orbits the pair ever y 7.75 Earth years and is 1.6 times Jupiter's mass. NN Serpentis' planets don't orbit very close to the stars, but the double-star system wasn't always as tight as now. When the mor e massive star ended its nor mal life of burning hydr ogen in its core, it bloated into a red giant and engulfed the second star in its outer envelope. The friction of the compa nion star moving within the r ed giant's envelope eventually caused the r ed giant to lose a whopping 75% of its mass. This left only the intensely hot core of the origina l star and a relatively unscathed companion star that orbits very close to the newly created white dwarf. Saturn's rings spontaneously shake a nd shimmy, and a new study suggests the principle behind the movement is also at work in the spiral arms of the galaxy. Cassini ima ges show odd oscillations in the massive B ring aren't caused by moons or other bodies. Instead, the ring is dense enough, and its edges sharp enough, for unforced "free" wa ves to grow on their own and then reflect back again at the edge. Researchers think this behavior is common in other disk systems, such as spiral galaxies, including the Milky Way, and in protoplanetary disks found around nearby stars. NASA and the National Park Service have partner ed to share infor mation with park visitors about wher e and when to look up to see the ISS. With the Park Service's help, NASA assembled coordinates of 507 locations, including national parks and seashor es, historic sites, monuments, and wild and scenic rivers. These locations, coupled with the orbital path of the space station, yield times when people can see the station. Sighting predictions are available on NASA's SkyWatch website, its new mobile website and NASA iPhone/iPad applications. It's a good idea to check sighting opportunities ahead of time since many remote national parks have limited Internet or cell-phone coverage. For sightings infor mation a nd a guide to using it, go to http:// spaceflight.nasa.gov/rea ldata/sightings.
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AMNH Launches iPhone/iPodApp On Cosmic Discoveries
To mark the 10th anniversary of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, the Amer ican Museum of Natural History has launched its third application for iPhone a nd iPod touch, "Amer ican Museum of Natural History: Cosmic Discoveries." Free and easy to use, Cosmic Discover ies features an interactive photo mosaic comprising 1,000 images stitched together to for m one of the most iconic shapes in the solar system: Saturn and its rings. Images are drawn from the museum's archives and Science Bulletins, as well as dozens of space agencies and observatories around the world. Clicking on each ima ge revea ls detailed infor mation about an array of cosmic phenomena, including planets, stars and other celestial bodies. Cosmic Discoveries also features in-depth stories about comets, galactic clusters, pulsars, X-ray galaxy clusters, protostars and very young stars, neutrino bursts, planetary nebula e and planets in the solar system. In order to spark real-time conversations about space and its exploration between astronauts, astrophysicists and a mateurs, the app includes socia l networking functionality that allows users to share ima ges, notes and comments. Cosmic Discoveries was produced by the museum's digital-media department and curated by Dr. Micha el Shara, curator in the astrophysics department, whose research inter ests include the structure and evolution of novae and supernovae; collisions between stars and the remnant descendants of those collisions; and the populations of stars inhabiting star clusters and galaxies. "The classes of astronomical objects in this introductory release wer e chosen to span the widest range in size possible, from the subatomic neutrino to clusters of galaxies," Shara said. "Still, we could only scratch the surface because modern astrophysics is so rich in subject matter. Future chapters will allow us to explore ma ny mor e cosmic discoveries." Earlier this year, the AMNH launched " Amer ican Museum of Natural Histor y: Explorer ," a mobile app designed as an "indoor GPS" within the museum. "American Museum of Natural History Collections: Dinosaurs" showcases the AMNH's fossil collection


Events on the Horizon December 2010
M: me mbers; P: open to the public; T: bring your telescopes, binoculars, etc.; C: cancelled if cloudy; HQ: at AAA headquarters, Downtown Community Center, 120 Warren St. AMNH: For ticket information, call (212) 769-5200 For directions to AAA observing events, check the club's website, www.aaa.org. Friday, Dece mber 3, 6:15 p. m. AAA lecture, FREE, P Dr. Suzanne M. M. Young, chemistry instructor at the University of New Ha mpshir e, will discuss "Top 10 Discoveries of the Phoenix Mission to Mars and the Implications for Biohabitability." The free public lectur e is at 6:15 p. m. in the Kaufmann Theater of the AMNH. Next lectur e: January 7. Monday, December 6, 7:30 p. m. Hayden Planetarium Lecture, P, AMNH In "Sizing Up the Universe," Princeton astronomy professor J. Richard Gott will discuss his map of the universe, which allows him to plot ever ything from satellites orbiting the Earth to distant galaxies. Saturdays, December 4, 11, 18 Observing at Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan, P, T, C Next dates: Saturdays in January. Thursday, December 9, 6:30-8:30 p. m., 726 Broadway, sixth floor conference room Recent Advances in Astronomy Seminar, M The seminar now incorporates the Observers' Group. Next date: January 13. Friday, Dece mber 10, 8-10 p. m. Observing at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, P, T, C Saturday, Decmber 11, dusk Observing at Great Kills Gateway National Park, Staten Island, P, T, C Saturday, December 18, 10 a. m.-noon Solar Observing at Central Park, P, T, C At the Conservator y Waters, Next date: January 29. Wednesday, December 22, 5-7 p.m. Observing, Belvedere Castle, Central Park, P, T, C Highlights include Jupiter, Pleiades and the Orion Nebula, and a talk on the histor y of the solar system.

Allan Sandage Dies at 84
Allan R. Sandage, who rose from being Edwin Hubble's observing assistant to become one of the most prominent astronomers of the past century, died November 13 at 84. Sandage defined the fields of observationa l cosmology and extragalactic astronomy. At Cal Tech, he was famous astronomer Walter Baade's Ph.D. student in stellar evolution. During the early 1950s, he served as Hubble's observing assistant at Mount Wilson and Palomar. Sandage joined the staff of the Carnegie Observatories in 1952 and, after Hubble's death in 1953, took over the cosmology program. His primary focus was to carry on Hubble's work and deter mine the rate at which the universe is expanding, research he continued for almost six decades. Although he officially retired in 1997, he was still working until August of this year. During the course of his studies, Sandage ma de seminal contributions to dating the ages of stars and the expansion age of the universe, classifying galaxies, and understanding galaxy for mation and evolution. He was in charge of the first major redshift surveys of galaxies, from which he cr eated a three-dimensional map to explore galaxy distribution and the dyna mics of the nearby universe. Sandage was also the first to recognize the existence of quasars without strong radio emission. He developed new techniques for observing, which affected a broad range of astronomical topics.
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Books continued from page 8 wer e originally written in Italian and appear in English for the first time. Bruno (1548-1600) is principally famous as a proponent of heliocentrism, the infinity of the universe and the plurality of worlds. The book is divided into three sections: the r elationship between Bruno a nd the new science, the history of his reception in English culture and the principal characteristics of his natural philosophy. A final essay exa mines why this advocate of a "tranquil universal philosophy" ended up being burned at the stake as a her etic. "What if" questions take center stage in "What If the Earth Had Two Moons? And Nine Other ThoughtProvoking Speculations on the Solar System" (St. Martin's Press, $26.99) by popular astronomy writer Neil F. Comins. The title chapter gives us a moon orbiting closer to Earth than the one we have now. Although the night sky is much brighter, that won't last for ever. Eventually the moons collide, with one extra -massive moon emer ging after a period during which Earth sports a Saturn-like ring. Other questions include: What if the Moon orbited backwards? What if the Earth's crust were thicker? What if the Earth had for med elsewher e in the galaxy? What if the Sun wer e less massive? What if the Earth had two suns? What if another galaxy collided with the Milky Way?

Pat Duggins, who's cover ed mor e than 100 spaceshuttle missions for National Public Radio, has written " T r a i lb l a z i n g M ar s : N A S A ' s N e x t G i a n t Leap" (University Press of Florida, $24.95) which looks at current efforts to fulfill the dr ea m of la nding huma ns on the red planet. Most of the book exa mines extr eme new challenges that will be faced by astronauts on the journey to Mars and back. Duggins answers such questions as: Can technological hur dles be cleared? Will the public accept the possibility of astronaut death? Should a mission be publicly or privately funded? Is the science worth the cost? One of the biggest astronomy developments in r ecent years has been the discover y of almost 500 extrasolar planets. "Planet Hunter: Geoff Marcy and the Search for Other Earths" by Vicki Oransky Wittenstein (Boyds Mills Press, $17.95), trains its lens on the man who's discover ed mor e planets than anyone else, but it also discusses other planet hunters. The book is aimed at 10-to-14-year-olds, but is written at an erudite level from which adults can easily benefit.

Correction
The print version of last month's issue ha d an incorrect na me for a panelist at the Isaac Asimov event. He's Paul Falkowski, not Galkowski.

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

First Class
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