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Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York May 2013 Kepler Astounds NASA Finds Earth-Sized Exoplanets
By Evan Schneider
It was just a matter of time until NASA hit the conceptual exoplanet jackpot. The moment came on Apr 18, as they revealed the discovery of the smallest exoplanet (Kepler-62f) and its neighboring planet (Kepler-62e) in the habitable zone around distant star system Kepler-62. This brings the total known planets in that star system to five. Kepler-62 has been under observation for some time, but it takes many observations utilizing the transit method to detect orbiting planets as they dim the star's light when passing in front of it during orbit. Once detected, NASA sciKepler Space Telescope Snapshot entists can gauge the Launch Date: March 7, 2009 planet's size and distance Orbital Height: 92,955,807 miles from its sun, but composiSpeed on Orbit: 13,180 mph Cost: $550 million tion and mass can only be estimated at this time, based on similarly positioned planets discovered in other systems. Using the detection method, Kepler has identified 2,740 candidates so far. Various other observation techniques, and support from ground telescopes and other space assets, have allowed 122 planets have been confirmed. "The Kepler spacecraft has certainly turned out to be a rock star of science," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "The discovery of these rocky planets in the habitable zone brings us a bit closer to finding a place like home. It is only a matter of time before we know if the galaxy is home to a multitude of planets like Earth, or if we are a rarity."
Kepler (con't on Page 4)

EYEPIECE
Volume 61 Number 5 ISSN 0146-7662

Higgs Boson, The "God Particle"
(Not Quite) By Alan Rude
On July 4, 2012, two teams at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) completed massive, separate experiments, announcing the "discovery" of a Higgs-like boson particle. Higgs Boson, first theorized in 1964 by British physicist Peter Higgs, explains why matter has mass. In March, 2013, the same two teams announced with virtual certainty that the particle was "a Higgs Boson, if not the only kind of Higgs Boson". Originally named the "Goddamn Particle, "it was seemingly impossible to isolate. Leon Lederman, author of "The Goddamn Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?" was challenged by his editor, calling the title too controversial. The "Goddamn Particle" became "The God Particle," and the name stuck. The concept of the Higgs Boson was now posited to explain why matter has the mass it does, something no one had ever been able to physically prove. Higgs did not get it exactly right, though. The particle is

evidence of the Higgs Field, and that is what might give a particle mass. Defining mass or its opposite, "massless," is a part of the equation. Any particle without mass travels at speed of light (something we, as corporeal beings, are quite unable to do). If there were no Higgs Field in Standard Model theory, all particles would be massless and travelling at the speed of light. But the Higgs Field may actually act like a cosmic molasses, slowing down particles (aside from photons and gluons which remain massless), giving particles their mass. CERN scientists hunted for the Higgs Boson by smashing two beams of protons together at the LHC. Out of a trillion proton-proton collisions, perhaps one will create a Higgs particle, which then will decay almost instantaneously into other particles. Sensitive detectors placed at the sites of these smashups look for signatures of several ways the Higgs might have decayed. "It's not a needle in a haystack - it's much worse than a needle in a haystack," said Joe Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory.
Higgs Boson (con't on Page 10)


EYEPIECE

May 2013

WHAT'S UP IN THE SKY
AAA Observers' May Guide By Richard Rosenberg

Astronomical Fact of the Month

May's Evening Planets : Venus is now up in the western
sky, Jupiter is moving down to meet it, and late in the month Mercury makes it a beautiful threesome. Watch these three planets change their position all through the latter part of May. Although not part of the gathering, higher up is Saturn, with its rings. include Auriga the Charioteer, Gemini the Twins, Minor the Small Dog. Overhead is Ursa Major, the follow its handle to Bootes the Herdsman and Vir gin. Returning to Ursa Major, look below it to Leo

May' s Evening Stars: The remaining winter constellations

and Canis Big Bear ­ go.the Virthe Lion.

May's Morning Planets : Only Uranus and Neptune are

visible and require a large telescope. Mars is lost in the Sun's glare. The morning hours lack planets, but many bright stars and constellations compensate. They include the stars of the Summer Triangle - Vega in the constellation Lyra the Lyre, Cygnus the Swan, and Aquila the Eagle. Looking high in the northwest the handle of the Big Dipper in Ursa Major curves towards the bright star Bootes. Turning in the east we can see Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Perseus and Pegasus.

May's Morning Stars:

May "Skylights"
M M M M a a a a y y y y 2 5 9 10 Last Quarter Moon at 7:14 a.m. (EDT) Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks New Moon at 8:28 p.m. (EDT) The Moon is 8° below Jupiter in the lower west-northwest. Mercury in superior conjunction, entering evening sky The Moon approaches Regulus tonight First Quarter Moon at 12:35 a.m. (EDT) Jupiter is 10° upper left of Venus Spica is 8° left of the Moon tonight Mercury is 1.4° north of Venus Full Moon at 12:25 a.m. (EDT Mercury is 2.4° north of Jupiter Venus is 1.1° north of Jupiter Last Quarter Moon at 2:58 p.m. (EDT

What creates the beautiful aurorae in the skies? As Peter, Paul and Mary once sang: "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" - the solar wind, perhaps? Travelling at nearly 1 million mph away from the Sun in all directions, it is a constant stream of ionized particles that bombard the Earth daily. The Sun's corona is so hot, that it's gravity can not hold onto some of the gravitationally bound gases. Add heightened solar activity, like a coronal mass ejection, and the increased density and speed of that stream can wreak havoc with our planet's magnetic field, which deflects the wind most of the time. NASA/ESA's SOHO spacecraft (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) closely monitors real-time solar activity, keeping scientists The solar wind shakes our magnetoaware of these events. sphere, causing aurorae (NASA)
Nebula of the Month Butter y Nebula NGC 6302

Solar Winds Blow Fast By Evan Schneider

May 11 May 17 May 18 M M M M M M ay ay ay ay ay ay 22 24 25 27 28 31

Observers Note: The western sky will be spectacular in the last half of May as three planets (Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury) move among the early evening sky. Check internet listings for the distance of the planets from each other from May 18 through the end of the month.
For additional information visit: www.aaa.org/month513

Nearly 3,800 light-years from Earth, in our own Milky Way galaxy, lies the Butterfly Nebula. This bipolar planetary nebula, captured here by the Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 in UV and visible light, shows us the extreme characteristics of the raging and fast-expanding nebula. Gases, heated to 36,000°F, speed outward into space at over 600,000 mph, with the outer edges having taken over 2,200 years to spread cover over a two light-year expanse. At the center, clouded by a ring of dust, lies the dying star. NASA estimates this body to have a surface temperature of 400,000°F, making it one of the hottest in our galaxy. Hubble imagery tells the story of this fascinating nebula. The original star developed into a red giant, with a diameter 1,000 times that of our Sun. As gas was cast off at both slow and fast speeds, the star began to heat up, greatly increasing the velocity of its solar wind. This wind, travelling at over two million mph, stretched the butterfly shape into what we see today.

By Evan Schneider

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May 2013

AAA Spring Starfest: A Bronx Triumph
By Evan Schneider

Many AAA members live in the Bronx, so observing with AAA's Jupiter Joe Martinez at The Bronx Zoo or other locations, for some, is a weekly experience. Those of us who live far away from this borough can usually be found travelling there for a Yankee game. But, on Apr 13, hundreds gathered from both near and far to experience and enjoy the first AAA Spring Starfest held at Woodlawn Cemetery. Most would not think to use Woodlawn as a venue for viewing the cosmos but, in fact, the minimal lighting conditions there make gazing through a telescope more effective than standing amidst the bright lights of Manhattan. A focused team of AAA board members made it all happen. Starfest organizer Susan Andreoli, Ed Fox on production, and veteran observing team leader Michael O'Gara, joined president Marcelo Cabrera to make Starfest a reality in the Bronx. "If you build it, they will come," is an appropriate description of the evening. This was not the infinite cornfields of Iowa in "Field of Dreams," but certain simila rities abounded for sure. Many targets graced AAA scopes throughout the evening. Board member Tom Haeberle reported acquiring the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Sirius, Arcturus, Capella, Betelgeuse, and the Pleides. Starfest would not have been possible without the help of so many people, all too many to list. But it is important to thank them all, and to give a special thanks to the dedicated observing team who brought their equipment for all to share.
Michael O'Gara Joe Martinez Jaiden Martinez (age 10) Howard Fink Cary Horwitz Yajaira Hernandez A special acknowledgement to our Tom Haeberle Marcelo Cabrera Joe Delfausse David Kaufman Katherine Cintron Mike Gupta night sky photographer, Stan Hond Evan Schneider Jordan Kushner Tony Hoffman Julian Parks Ben Ngyun Ike Rodriguez a, for photographing the event while ca Bruce Kamiat Rori Baldari Ron McCollough Suraya White Joe White pturing the stars.

With this major annual event now behind us, we look forward to the fall, when AAA observers will, once again, appear in an ellipse in Central Park's Sheep Meadow, or some other carefully planned location. Until then, remember that it's spring, and summer is not far behind. That means you should be visiting the AAA website each week, and reading the AAA Events on the Horizon at the back of Eyepiece each month, to find and attend one or several of our observing sessions held weekly throughout the NY metropolitan area. We hope to see you all again and again, to share our love of astronomy, and to marvel at the universe all around us.

Looking at the crescent Moon in the early evening, and stars, planets and nebulae at night, Starfest observers and visitors, alike, enjoyed experiencing astronomy in the unique setting of Woodlawn Cemetery.

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May 2013

A Message from AAA President Marcelo Cabrera
Hello Members: We had a very successful first Spring Starfest on April 13 th, in the Bronx, with over 17 telescopes in attendance and more than 300 visitors. The location proved to be dark and appropriate. We look forward to continuing having events at Woodlawn Cemetery. We also had a fun weekend at NEAF - yes, we are back at NEAF, and will continue to expand our presence there in the future. Many thanks to our friends Al and Judi Nagler for making it possible, and to the many AAA members that volunteered to spread awareness about our association and its many activities. Our annual meeting is on May 15th, at 6:30 p.m., at Cicatelli Center - 505 Eighth Avenue (35th/36th Street), 20th floor. Complimentary soft drinks and appetizers will be served. Members only, I urge you to attend and socialize with your fellow membe rs and friends. This year's annual meeting will feature a lecture from David Kraft about Albert Einstein. Check out more about our observing sites at http://www.aaa.org/observing, and see our full calendar at http://aaa.org/ calendar. Thanks, everyone!

Sincerely,

Coming in May: May 15, 2013 505 Eighth Food, Fun,
Contacting AAA

AAA Annual Meeting 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Avenue, 20th Fl and Astronomy!

Marcelo Cabrera President, AAA
Kepler (con't from Page 1)

Membership: members@aaa.org Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org General Club Matters and Observing: president@aaa.org

Telephone: 212-535-2922

Website: www.aaa.org

Over 1,200 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Lyra, Kepler-62e and 62f orbit their K-2 dwarf sun every 122 and 267 days, respectively. Traversing the interior edge of the habitable zone, 62e is roughly 60% larger than Earth. Its new companion, 62f, however, is only 40% larger than our planet, making it the exoplanet closest in size to our own discovered to date. Applying data from other recent exoplanet research, 62f most likely has a rocky composition. NASA scientists have not developed the tools to fully investigate these targets however, they are moving closer each day to identifying what has affectionately been called "Earth 2.0." The Kepler space telescope simultaneously monitors and measures the brightness of 150,000 stars. It is NASA's keystone mission to unlocking the secrets of distant solar systems. On Apr 4, 2012, the mission was extended by NASA through 2016 because of its ongoing successes. Roger Hunter, Kepler project manager at NASA commented, "Kepler has revolutionized our understanding of exoplanets and the study of stellar seismology and variability. ...There is currently no other mission in development that can replace or su rpass the precision of Kepler. This extended mission will afford Kepler the unique opportunity to rewrite our understanding of the gala xy and our place in it."

Kleegor 's Universe
By Joshua M. Erich, www.pixelatedparchment.com

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May 2013

WHAT IF???

When Will the Higgs Boson Particle Matter?
By Richard Brounstein

Yes, the pun in the title is intentional. In recent sci- solar system. We need these formulas for our space laboratory communication, and GPS satellites. We need them to make ence news, CERN particle physicists revealed proof of a thesophisticated airplanes fly. Things that Sir Isaac could not ory now heard around the world. Everyone now knows the have even imagined, are touched by his discovery. words "Higgs Boson," even if they don't know its significance. Higgs is the sub-atomic particle responsible for giving So here we are in the present day. Scientists now have a us matter in the universe. solid set of formulas to predict the behavior of sub -atomic parJournalists attempting to simplify the definition of this ticles. Again, people are asking "So what?" Can you use these particle tell readers that the discovery confirms a key concept formulas to fix our current problems with the economy, fight in the Standard Model of particle physics, their field guide that wars, or cure disease? What will happen in the future to make theorizes how matter works. The disthese formulas relevant? Let's explore covery in itself is very exciting - if you some possibilities. are a physicist. With this proof, scienImagine it is the distant future. tists are absolved from wearing out We have learned how to create an "anti their dry-erase boards, trying to de-Higgs field" into which we have velop new theories explaining why placed a spacecraft, and the field can matter behaves the way it does - and somehow repel the Boson. Since there forget about trying to get new governare no Boson's in this field, our spacement funding for all of that theoretical craft now has zero mass, just like phoresearch in today's environment. tons of light. We've created a spaceBut will this particle "matter" to craft that can now travel the speed of the rest of us? To those of you worklight, or faster, since it does not dising in the majority of industries, this is obey Einstein's laws. Humans now just a curious new story. Only genuine CERN computer simulation of particle traces that explore the galaxy much more easily in produce a Higgs Boson Credit: Lucas Taylor science geeks care about it, but not our anti-Higgs field spacecraft. even for practical reasons. Will it increase our income, or cure Perhaps the Higgs Boson field properties will be critical diseases? Of course, not. It got me asking myself: "How in nanotechnologies using sub-atomic particles as parts. Will should we care, and WHAT IF we could?" these make tiny robots work in the human body to fight disA theory that explains how matter exists in the universe eases, or use in a quantum computer to dramatically increase is not a surprise to me. I interact with matter every day, so this computing speed and storage? As components get smaller and discovery only confirms what I already know. Matter exists in smaller in the future, these formulas in the Standard Model the universe. Everyone knows that. may be just as important to our technological efforts as the Let's put this great discovery of experimental physics formulas of gravity are critical for the space age. into a different perspective. Travel back in time to the 1680s of Maybe there will be a new power source. Imagine that Cambridge, England (well, time travel is not really here yet, we can manipulate the Higgs Boson and turn matter directly but that's another article, for another time). Isaac Newton toils into energy. We could have the first Higgs Boson engine that away in his laboratory on a theory to explain the mysterious is much more powerful than an ion propulsion or nuclear enforce that gives weight to all objects. After tireless efforts and gine. It might be like an antimatter engine, but without the some really cool new mathematics (for his time), Newton prodangerous explosions. duced a formula known as the Universal Law of Gravitation: Of course, maybe we want explosions. Maybe there will Force = (Mass 1 * Mass 2)/Distance2. be Higgs Boson bombs, if we can turn this energy source into Newton proved that this law of gravity worked everysomething devastating. Someone is always looking for a new where in the universe. He produced a single set of formulas weapon. A Higgs Boson (HB) bomb might eliminate matter that could explain why apples drop toward the ground, and quietly by removing the subatomic particles from the field. also explain the Earth's and other planets' motion around the This is very effective and leaves no radiation signature Sun. This was huge, and very exciting for astronomers. (maybe). OK, this is all so evil, but maybe the bomb can be But consider everyone else at the time. Why would they used to deflect an asteroid or comet, and be used for good. care? If you were an educated person, you knew that objects Maybe it's used to help mine resources in outer space. in space moved in predictable patterns. Everyone already knew We'll probably have to wait a couple of hundred years that objects would fall, if dropped. It had no application to the before knowing what practical applications develop. By then, challenges of the day: shipping, farming, warfare, disease, maybe, scientists will have solved much greater mysteries with exploration, trade, etc. Yet, as the world industrialized, and we even more impressive scientific instruments than the Large built powerful aircraft and rocket ships, these formulas proved Hadron Collider. We can only wait and see. Meanwhile, sadcritical to making our great accomplishments work. dle up - let's go out and catch a Higgs Particle together. We don't realize the impact of Newton's laws on everyday living. For NASA, it allows them to guide a spacecraft to Richard Brounstein's monthly column, "WHAT IF," explores what today seems improbable or impossible. Stay tuned for more fascinating concepts. the Moon and get space probes to explore distant planets in the 5


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May 2013

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
Lunch for a Black Hole Old Star Still Has What it Takes
A star thought to have passed the age at which it can form planets may, in fact, be creating new worlds. The disk of material surrounding the surprising star called TW Hydrae may be massive enough to make even more planets than we have in our own solar system. The findings were made using the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope, a mission in which NASA is a participant. At roughly 10 million years old and 176 light-years away, TW Hydrae is relatively close to Earth by astronomical st and ard s. Its planet-forming disk has been well studied. TW Hydrae is relatively young but, in theory, it is past the age at which giant planets already may have formed. "We didn't expect to Artist's concept of TW Hydrae (Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) see so much gas around this star," said Edwin Bergin of the University of Michigan. Bergin led the new study appearing in the journal Nature. "Typically stars of this age have cleared out their surrounding material, but this star still has enough mass to make the equivalent of 50 Jupiters," Bergin said. In addition to revealing the peculiar state of the star, the findings also demonstrate a new, more precise method for weighing planet-forming disks.

Astronomers have watched as a black hole woke up from a decades-long slumber to feed on a low-mass object ­ either a brown dwarf or a giant planet ­ that strayed too close. A similar feeding event will soon happen at the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. The discovery in galaxy NGC 4845, 47 million light -years away, was made by ESA's INTEGRAL space observatory, with follow-up observations from ESA's XMM-Newton, NASA's Swift gamma ray burst mission, and Japan's MAXI X-ray monitor on the ISS. Astronomers were using INTEGRAL to study a different galaxy, when they noticed a bright Xray flare coming from another location in the same wide field-ofview. Using XMM -Newton, the oriESA image of black hole "digesting" material gin was confirmed from a nearby star as NGC 4845, a galaxy never before detected at high energies. Along with Swift and MAXI, the emission was traced from its maximum in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened by a factor of a thousand, and then as it subsided over the course of the year. "The observation was completely unexpected, from a galaxy that has been quiet for at least 20­30 years," says Marek Nikolajuk of the University of Bialystok and lead author of the paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics. By analyzing the characteristics of the flare, the astronomers could determine that the emission came from a halo of material around the galaxy's central black hole as it tore apart and fed on an object of 14 ­30 Jupiter masses. This size range corresponds to brown dwarfs, sub-stellar objects that are not massive enough to fuse hydrogen in their core and ignite as stars. However, the authors note that it could have had an even lower mass, just a few times that of Jupiter, placing it in the range of gas -giant planets. Recent studies have suggested that free-floating planetary-mass objects of this kind may occur in large numbers in galaxies, ejected from their parent solar systems by gravitational interactions. The black hole in the center of NGC 4845 is estimated to have a mass of around 300,000 times that of our own Sun. It also likes to play with its food: the way the emission brightened and decayed shows there was a delay of 2 ­3 months between the object being disrupted and the heating of the debris in the vicinity of the black hole.

Kept in the Dark

Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in North America is reaching new heights, since the International Dark-Sky Association announced its designation as the world's newest and largest "Gold Tier" International Dark Sky Park. The park is distant enough from the large cities of the southwest so that much of the night sky above the desert floor is near pristine and, in many places, offers views close to what could be seen before the rise of cities. The skies there are affected by only the smallest amounts of light pollution classifying it at the highest level of IDA designation and star-filled skies, the "Gold Tier". Astronomical objects seen there are available only to some of the darkest locations across the globe. Death Valley is a place to gaze in awe at the expanse of the Milky Way, follow a lunar eclipse, track a meteor shower, or simply reflect on your place in the universe," said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. "We greatly appreciate the International Dark-Sky Association certification. It illustrates the park's commitment to protect natural darkness and supports the wider mission to protect nightscapes of the entire National Park System."
The Milky Way from Death Valley's Racetrack Playa (Photo Credit: Dan Duriscoe, NPS)

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May 2013

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
Dark Matter Matters Saturn is a Ringer

The antimatter hunter Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) on the ISS is searching for missing pieces of our universe. The project's first published results published hint at a new phenomenon, revealing more about invisible dark matter. AMS-02 consists of seven instruments that monitor cosmic rays. Unprotected by Earth's atmosphere the instruments receive a constant barrage of high-energy particles. As these particles pass through AMS-02, the instruments record their speed, energy and direction. The project is one of the largest scientific collaborations of all time involving 56 institutes from 16 countries. As part of his dark matter "DAMA mission," Space shuttle Endeavor's ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori transferred the instrument to the ISS in 2011. Since then, scientists have collected data on over 400,000 electrons, together

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn's rings. These observations make Saturn's rings the only location besides Earth, the Moon, and Jupiter, where scientists and amateur astronomers have been able to observe impacts as they occur. Studying the impact rate of meteoroids from outside the Saturn system helps scientists understand how different planet systems in the solar system formed. "These new results imply the current -day impact rates for small particles at Saturn are about the same as those at Earth - two very different neighborhoods in our solar system, and this is exciting to see," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA/JPL. "It took Saturn's rings acting like a giant meteoroid detector - 100 times the surface area of Earth - and Cassini's long-term tour of the Saturn system to address this question." The Saturnian equinox in summer 2009 was an especially good time to see the debris left by meteoroid impacts. The very shallow Sun angle on the rings caused the clouds of debris to look bright against the darkened rings in pictures from Cassini's imaging science subsystem. "We knew these little impacts were constantly occurring, but we didn't know how big or how frequent they might be, and we didn't necessarily expect them to take the form of spectacular shearing clouds," said Matt Tiscareno, lead author of the paper and a Cassini participating scientist at Cornell University. "The sunlight shining edge-on to the rings at the Saturnian equinox acted like an anti-cloaking device, so these usually invisible features became plain to see." (Romulans, beware!)
NASA Hears Mars in 3-D

NASA's AMS Dark Matter hunter sits comfortably atop the ISS, a state-of-the-art particle physics detector that is constructed, tested and operated by an international team composed of 56 institutes from 16 countries.

with their antimatter twins, the positrons. Data released today show how the ratio of positrons compared to electrons passing through AMS-02 changes depending on their energy, confirming data from previous instruments. The findings hint at a new phenomenon, but it is unknown whether the positron ratio comes from dark matter particles colliding with each other or from pulsating stars in our galaxy that produce antimatter. Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates. That does not mean that the room around you does not exist. Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly. ESA's Planck satellite refined our knowledge of what makes up our universe, showing recently that it is made of 26.8% dark matter. Despite recording over 30 billion cosmic rays since AMS-2arrived on the ISS, the findings are based on only 10% of the readings the instrument will deliver over its lifetime. Scientists are confident that AMS-02 will deliver the data needed to solve the riddle of where the changes in positron ratio come from in the near future. "Over the coming months, AMS will be able to tell us conclusively whether these positrons are a signal for dark matter, or whether they have some other origin." says Professor Samuel Ting, the project's lead investigator.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has provided images allowing scientists for the first time to create a 3-D reconstruction of ancient water channels below the Martian surface. The spacecraft took numerous images during the past few years that showed channels attributed to catastrophic flooding in the last 500 million years. Mars, during this period, had been considered cold and dry. These channels are essential to understanding the extent to which recent hydrologic activity prevailed during such arid conditions. They also help scientists determine whether the floods could have induced episodes of climate change. The estimated size of the flooding appears to be comparable to the ancient mega flood that created the Channeled Scablands in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States in eastern Washington. "Our findings show the scale of erosion that created the channels previously was underestimated and the channel depth was at least twice that of previous approximations," said Gareth Morgan, a geologist at the National Air and Space Museum's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. "This work demonstrates the importance of orbital sounding radar in understanding how water has shaped the surface of Mars." The channels lie in Elysium Planitia, an expanse along the Martian equator. Extensive volcanism throughout the last several hundred million years covered most of the surface, and this buried evidence of Mars' older geologic history, including the source and most of the length of the 620 mile-long (1000-kilometer-long) Marte Vallis channel system.
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May 2013

WHY WE EXPLORE NASA Mission Update
SOPHIA Observations Reveal a Massive Star Formation

Researchers using the airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) have captured the most detailed mid-infrared images yet of a massive star condensing within a dense cocoon of dust and gas. The star is G35.20-0.74, commonly known as G35. It is one of the most massive known protostars, and is located relatively close to Earth at a distance of 8,000 light-years. Until now, scientists expected the formation process of massive stars would be complicated by the turbulent, chaotic environments in the centers of new star clusters where they form. But observations of G35 suggest this giant star, more than 20 times the mass of our Sun, is forming by the same orderly process as do stars with the same mass as the Sun. Stars most like the Sun are understood to form by simple, symmetric collapse of interstellar clouds. "The focus of our study has been to determine how massive stars actually form," said Yichen Zhang of the University of Florida. Zhang, lead author of a paper about the discovery

SOPHIA and NASA chase plane climb to monitoring altitude

telescopes observing from the ground at visible wavelengths. Flying high above the light-blocking water vapor in Earth's atmosphere, the airplane-mounted Faint Object Infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) enabled astronomers to see G35 where it hides - inside a dark, dense, interstellar dust cloud ­ by collecting infrared light escaping the cloud. Uniquely suited for this work, FORCAST detected faint details next to bright structures at wavelengths inaccessible to any other telescope on the ground or in space. "Massive stars, although rare, are important because there is evidence they foster the formation of smaller stars like our Sun, and because ,at the ends of their lives, they create and distribute chemical elements that are the basic building blocks of Earth-like planets," said co-author James De Buizer, a SOFIA staff scientist with the Universities Space Research Association at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Imaging from SOPHIA's Faint Object Infrared Camera brings new light to unlocking the mysteries of G35

published April 10 in the Astrophysical Journal. "We thought the G35 protostar's structure would be quite complicated, but instead we found it is simple, like the cocoons of protostars with the Sun's mass." The observations of G35 were made in 2011 with a special camera aboard SOFIA, a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that can carry a telescope with an effective diameter of 100 inches (2.5 meters) to altitudes as high as 45,000 feet. G35 was an ideal target for investigations because it is in an early stage of development. But infrared light coming from G35 is so strong, it prevented infrared space telescopes from making detailed images. Also, the protostar is embedded so deeply in its natal cloud, that it cannot be detected by optical 8

Inside SOPHIA's airborne command center, scientists monitor results of equipment scans


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May 2013

FOCUS ON THE UNIVERSE NY Yankees Aren't the Only Bronx Stars
By Stan Honda

Night sky photography in NYC can be tricky. Bright lights wash out most objects in the sky. So I headed off to the AAA Spring Starfest on Apr 13 to see how the universe would photograph from the Bronx. As clouds dissipated around sunset, it was clear that I would have a good night for shooting. Woodlawn Cemetery is a great venue for both observing and photography, since there are no lights to interfere star gazing. The Moon and Jupiter were our main attractions on this evening. Both are bright, excellent, photographic subjects. I began by using a 300mm lens on my Nikon D4 camera to get a fairly big image of the crescent Moon in frame. Tall trees and a very tall obelisk made perfect reference points, as I placed the Moon above and to the left of the top of the obelisk, creating an interesting horizontal composition.
AAA member Eileen Renda alerted me to a good view from another angle 50 feet away. I grabbed my equipment and ran to catch the moment. This alignment required a wider shot, so I used a 70-200mm zoom and set it at 85mm. The Moon was close to the obelisk, and Jupiter was about 10° higher and to the left. I saw the opportunity for a good vertical composition, framing the obelisk to the right, and Jupiter and the Moon to the left. The sky was dark enough to see earthshine on the unlit portion of the Moon. As clouds floated across the sky, passing overhead, they reflected city lights and produced an eerie effect. The reddish hue of the light on the clouds made the Moon look as though it were in a deep space nebula. At home, while cropping the image to show just the Moon and the obelisk in a horizontal format, I noticed the camera had picked up a number of stars in addition to the

clouds. This often happens during an extended exposure. There are many ways to compose photos after a shoot. I converted a vertical image to horizontal a with creative cropping. Jupiter had to get cut, but the second version, with just the Moon, became a new way to look at the same scene. To properly photograph earthshine, you have to break a few rules and overexpose the lit portion of the Moon. Look closely at my images, you'll see there is no detail on the bright

crescent. That's the sacrifice one makes to get detail in the darker area. As long as you shoot a day or two past the New Moon, the crescent will be so small that the brightness is not objectionable. In fact, a picture taken at this time can be stunning, capturing the full orb, the thin crescent lit directly by the Sun, and the rest by earthshine. In night sky photography, manual settings work better than automatic. The camera can be fooled by light or dark objects ­ the dark sky, for example ­ causing exposures to be way off. Put your camera on manual, and you can control shutter speed and f-stop, giving you more control over the final picture. When photographing the Moon, I approximate the exposure, then make adjustments from there. For the Moon, Jupiter and the obelisk, I exposed for one second at f4/ISO 800. Once you get something that looks good on your camera's screen, shoot a few exposures over and under the setting you've selected. With night photos, it's easiest to change the shutter speed, as long as you have a sturdy tripod. Use a trigger on a cable to prevent jarring the camera when the shutter is released, and you will have great results. Jupiter was the other bright object in the sky that evening. The week before, I had photographed the planet and its moons from Manhattan. Again, it's a case of overexposing Jupiter in order to see its moons. Using a 300mm lens, the planet isn't very big in the image, so the overexposure doesn't really matter. I tried a half second at f5.6/ISO 1600. This produced what looked like a bright star on my camera screen. I enlarged the picture several times, and saw that the big dot had three tiny dots all in a row - three of the four major moons were in view, looking like a miniature solar system. Using this method, you won't get a Hubble quality photo (in fact, you'll have to crop the picture quite a bit to zoom in on Jupiter) but capturing the image of a planet and its moons is an exciting accomplishment to share with family and friends. Night sky photography in NYC? Definitely possible from the Bronx.
Stan Honda is an accomplished professional photographer and contributing writer. In this continuing series of articles, he shares his extensive knowledge of photographic equipment and techniques. (All photo credits: Stan Honda, 2013; www.stanhonda.com )

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EYEPIECE

May 2013

Higgs Boson (con't from Page 1)

Lykken explains: "This instability means that, at some point, billions of years from now it (the entire universe) is going to get wiped out." Building on Higgs research, Lykken performed a calculation identifying the potential for a quantum fluctuation - an event that would create a lower-energy-state bubble that expands at the speed of light and would "sweep everything before it." That is not scheduled for billions of years, so no worry - odds are that the Sun will go "super nova" first. In addition, if the new universe expands at the speed of light, it will take 26 billion years to cross the known universe anything but instantaneous.

NASA to Lasso an Asteroid
Washington - Senator Bill Nelson, chairman of the Senate science and space subcommittee, has announced that President Obama is putting $100 million into the 2014 budget to allow NASA to accelerate plans for a future asteroid mission. The plan would speed up, by four years, the existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid after an unmanned ship brought a space rock closer to Earth. The mission will deploy a robotic spaceship to "lasso" a small asteroid and put it near the Moon, for astronauts to explore. The tentative schedule calls for a 2019 mission to capture a 500-ton, 25 foot long asteroid, small by comparison to some recent near-Earth visitors, but big enough for this first step toward learning more about these bodies that hurl through space. An Orion space capsule, now being developed, and a crew of up to four astronauts, would rendezvous with the asteroid in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document obtained by The Associated Press. "It really is a clever concept," Nelson said in a press conference in Orlando. "Go find your ideal candidate for an asteroid, go get it robotically, and bring it back." "While there are thousands of asteroids that size out there, finding the right one that comes by Earth at just the right time to be captured will not be easy," said Donald Yeomans, who heads NASA's Near-Earth Object Program that monitors close-by asteroids. "Once a suitable rock is found it, would be captured with the space equivalent of `a baggie with a drawstring.' You bag it, you attach the solar propulsion module to

CERN's Large Hadron Collider accelerator ring runs 17 miles underground

String theorists are watching the CERN developments closely. Discovery of a Higgs Boson sustained hope that more exotic theories, such as super-symmetry (SUSY), would be validated. SUSY is attractive, because it could unify some of the other forces of nature, and even offer a candidate for the particle that makes up dark matter. So far, though, scientists have found indications of only a Standard Higgs Boson, without any hints of additional Higgs Bosons with supersymmetric characteristics. This has been a disappointment to scientists and theorists alike. In itself, discovery of the Higgs Boson offers major validation for the LHC and scientists who have searched for years. "This discovery bears on the knowledge of how mass comes about at the quantum level, and is the reason we built the LHC. It is an unparalleled achievement," CERN said in a statement last year. "More than a generation of scientists have been waiting for this very moment, and particle physicists, engineers, and technicians in universities and laboratories around the world have been working for many decades, waiting for science to arrive at this crucial point." As it turns out, discovering Higgs Boson was not such good news. The mass of the new particle is about 126 times the mass of the proton. If the particle really is the Higgs Boson, its mass turns out to be just about what's needed to make the universe fundamentally unstable. 10

The Orion capsule, designed for six, will be scaled down for four.

de-spin it, and bring it back to where you want it." Yeomans said a 25-foot asteroid is no threat to Earth, because it would burn up, should it inadvertently enter our atmosphere. "The mission, as Nelson described, is perfectly safe," he said. Nelson also said this would help NASA develop the capability to divert a potentially dangerous asteroid, if one headed to Earth in the future. It also would be training for a future mission to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. The government document said the manned mission, with no price tag at the moment, would inspire, because it "will send humans farther than they have ever been before."


EYEPIECE

May 2013

AAA Events on the Horizon
May 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 14, 21, 28 7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. P,T,C Observing on the High Line - Manhattan Next Month: June 4, 11, 18, 25 Friday, May 10 8 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., P,T,C Observing in the Bronx - Van Cortlandt Park Next date: June 14 Saturday, May 11 11 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., P,T,C Solar Observing - Riverwalk Entrance, Bronx Zoo Next date: June 15 Wednesday, May 15 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., P,T,C AAA Annual Meeting Meeting, Appetizers, and Presentations Cicatelli Center, 505 Eighth Avenue, 20th Floor (West 35th / 36th Streets) Friday, May 17 8 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., P,T,C Observing at Floyd Bennett Field­ Brooklyn (new location) Next date: June 14 Friday, May 17 8:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., P,T,C Observing at Carl Schurz Park - Manhattan Next date: June 21 Please confirm all events at www.aaa.org/events before attending
Legend for Events: M: Members; T: Bring telescopes, binoculars, etc. P: Open to the public C: Cancelled if cloudy

Solar Observations By Joe Fedrick

World Science Festival Opens May 29
The annual World Science Festival opens this month, bringing to light an amazing and wide range of subjects for members to experience. Eyepiece will be covering the opening salvo, "Spooky Action: The Drama of Quantum Mechanics", with Brian Greene, Maia Guest, Carl Howell, and Michael Roush. Open your mind to new concepts! Visit: www.worldsciencefestival.com for complete information about the program, and for tickets.

The Sun, for the most part, has not been very active lately in spite of the fact that this year was supposed to be the peak of this solar sunspot cycle. However, a fairly large sunspot began to rotate onto the solar disk on Sat, Mar 30. Three AAA club members had scopes set up in Central Park at the west side of the Conservatory Waters near 74th and Fifth, where a park ranger was showing some folks the nest of red tail hawks .Tom Haeberle and Cary Horowitz had each set up a Coronado scope with 40mm objectives and a Hydrogen Alpha filter. A view through these scopes revealed that the solar limb had numerous small prominences and spicules of red flame. A large sunspot could be seen emerging at the solar limb. Nearby, on the solar limb, was a rather large prominence. Julian Parks, our third club member, has set up another scope. This small refractor had an 80mm objective and a Herschelian wedge (an optical prism used in solar observation to refract most of the light out of the optical path) to counter the intense glare of the Sun. A green filter dimmed what was left of the solar glare. Four sunspot groups were visible. Three of the sunspot groups were very small and unimpressive, while a fourth near the solar limb was rather large. The following week, I projected the Sun's image with my 60mm f/15 refractor, and followed the large sunspot as it rotated onto the suns disk. By mid-week, the sunspot was quite impressive, and had a very dark central umbra that was trilobed, looking somewhat like a" Mickey Mouse" face. This dark, central umbra was surrounded by a rather large and impressive, but paler, penumbral shadow. The sunspot was still rather large and prominent on the solar disk by the morning of Apr 6, as I continued to track its development.

NEXT MONTH IN EYEPIECE
Everything you want to know about astronomy and current events in space! Stay tuned, and read Eyepiece every month.

Eyepiece Staff - May Issue
Editor: Evan B. Schneider
Writers: Richard Brounstein, Joseph Fedrick, Stan Honda, Alan Rude Special Sections: Marcelo Cabrera, Joshua Erich, Edward Fox, Richard Rosenberg

Focus On: Aricebo Observatory
Nestled deep in the forests of Puerto Rico, this 1,000 foot (305 meter) radio reflector dish is the largest single-aperture telescope ever built, with its spherical reflector consisting of 40,000 aluminum panels, each 3 feet by 6 feet. Targets for this scope? Distant quasars and galaxies emitting radio waves which reach Earth after travelling in space for 100 million years.

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