Sunday 8 May 2011
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Werskwinkel by Boyden-Sterrewag - Saterdag, 9 April 2011
Foto by Boyden geneem tydens die Venus/Maan okkultasie
Kom sluit die vakansie af met `n Sterrrekunde-belewenis!
Die Bloemfontein Amateur Sterrekundige vereniging hou op 9 April `n Werskwinkel by Boyden-Sterrewag, by Bloemfontein.
Dit gaan `n praktiese dag wees, waar deelnemers gaan leer om met ander oë na die uitspansel te kyk.
Datum: Saterdag, 9 April 2011
Tyd: 14:30 vir 15:00 - 22:00
Plek: Boyden-Sterrewag, by Bloemfontein.Werkswinkel: Sterrekunde vir beginners
Tyd: 14:30 vir 15:00 - 22:00
Plek: Boyden-Sterrewag, by Bloemfontein.Werkswinkel: Sterrekunde vir beginners
Van die lesings is onder meer: `n Zoemreis van 100 meter bo Boyden tot `n paar miljoen ligjare verder; Astrowaarneming vir beginners; Wat kan ons alles in die naghemel waarneem en later gaan kyk ons daarna; Inligting oor Teleskope en verkykers voor jy gaan koop.
As dit donker word gaan ons met `n verskeidenheid teleskope en verkykers kyk na al die voorwerpe waarvan ons vroeër gehoor het. Voor die maan teen 20:00 sak gaan ons ook na die hemelliggaam kyk. Jy gaan ook die geleentheid kry om self na iets in die lug te soek.
Pak vir jou `n piekniekmandjie vir die aandete en kom geniet die hemelruim. Ons sal sorg vir koffie en koeldrank.
- Hulpmiddels vir die Werkswinkel (Bo-aan)
Die koste vir die werkswinkel is:
- Per gesin (3) = R240; Ekstra kind = R60;
- 1Volwassene = R 120;
- Skoolkind en volwassene R180;
(Kinders graad 7 tot 9 moet deur ouers vergesel word.
Elke inskrywing ontvang `n Sterrekunde DVD propvol inligting en nuttige sterrekunde sagteware. - Klublede van die Bloemfontein Sterrekundevereniging is R60.
- Besoek die webtuiste www.assabfn.co.za/2011_werkswinkel.htm vir `n meer volledige program.
- Om te bespreek
- E-pos assabfn@gmail.com
- Bel vir Yolande Fick by 051 4019751 (Soggens)
Friday 25 March 2011
Earth Hour 2011
Are you burning candles this Earth Hour?
Click here to find out how to do it safely. Keep your children and home safe.
Saturday 26 March 8:30 - 9:30PM
Sign up now to show your support for Earth Hour and to receive regular updates and information.
Earth Hour is the largest mass participation environmental event in the world and every year, WWF encourages people all over the world to turn off their lights for one hour in a symbolic gesture to pledge their commitment to combating climate change.
This year is especially important for South Africa as we will host the crucial COP17 climate change conference in Durban in December and will once again be in the global spotlight. This annual conference is where world leaders meet to assess progress in dealing with climate change and negotiate obligations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The significance is huge: South Africa will play host to a point in history at which humanity has the opportunity to prevent runaway climate change. We encourage everyone in South Africa to take a stand against climate change as it affects all of us, our country and our planet.
This year, Earth Hour is asking everyone to ‘go beyond the hour’ and commit to an on-going personal action to benefit the environment. With COP 17 on the horizon, it is especially important for people in South Africa to make their voices heard and to go beyond the hour.
Sunday 20 March 2011
Thursday 17 March 2011
Time Is Now For Human Mission To Mars
MarsDaily
"The time for a human mission to Mars is now," write the editors of "A One Way Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet," a collection of articles published in book form this month by the Journal of Cosmology. "The overall message of this volume is not just that going to Mars is a worthwhile scientific program and a great adventure worthy of Homo sapiens. It is that we can begin the project now," write the editors, astrobiologists Paul Davies of Arizona State University and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University.
Read more..
NASA spacecraft trying to get into Mercury's orbit
A desk-sized NASA spacecraft is riding the brakes all the way to Mercury, about to pull a tricky maneuver Thursday night to become the first man-made object to orbit the tiny planet.
This image released by NASA shows an enhanced photo image of Mercury from its Messenger probe’s 2008 flyby of the planet. NASA says it was a taste of pictures likely to come after March 17, 2011, when the probe enters Mercury’s orbit. This photo shows the eastern part of the smallest and closest planet in our solar system. The colors in this picture are different than what would be seen with the naked eye, but show information about the different rock types and subtle color variations on the oddball planet. The bright yellow part is the Caloris impact basin, which is the site of one of the biggest in the solar system. Earth is about to get better acquainted with its oddball planetary cousin.
(AP Photo/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
This image released by NASA shows an enhanced photo image of Mercury from its Messenger probe’s 2008 flyby of the planet. NASA says it was a taste of pictures likely to come after March 17, 2011, when the probe enters Mercury’s orbit. This photo shows the eastern part of the smallest and closest planet in our solar system. The colors in this picture are different than what would be seen with the naked eye, but show information about the different rock types and subtle color variations on the oddball planet. The bright yellow part is the Caloris impact basin, which is the site of one of the biggest in the solar system. Earth is about to get better acquainted with its oddball planetary cousin.
(AP Photo/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
An asteroid the size of a house swoops by Earth
An asteroid the size of a house zoomed by Earth Wednesday, flying within the orbit of the moon just one day after astronomers spotted the space rock in the sky, NASA says.
But don't worry, danger was small, those at NASA watching space rock say
Read more...
Russian craft brings astronauts back to Earth
by Staff WritersArkalyk, Kazakhstan (AFP) March 16, 2011
A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying a US and two Russians astronauts Wednesday parachuted amid hailing winds into a snow-swept Kazakh steppe after a five-month mission to the International Space Station.
Europe agrees 2020 space station
Europe has formally agreed to the extension of operations at the International Space Station until 2020.
Member states have also put in place the financing to cover their commitments at the platform for the next two years.
Read more...
Super Full Moon
Perigee moons are as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons.
by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science@NASA
Huntsville AL (SPX) Mar 17, 2011 Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years.
Read more...
Super full moon
Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years.
The Moon looks extra-big when it is beaming through foreground objects--a.k.a. "the Moon illusion."
Credit: NASA
Read more...
Shell plans could threaten SKA
Shell plans could threaten SKA: "Shell's plans to prospect for shale gas in the Karoo could affect South Africa's bid to build the world's biggest radio telescope, MPs have heard."
Saturday 12 March 2011
Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
Help us bring the SKA project to Africa
 | The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be a mega radio telescope, about 100 times more sensitive than the biggest existing radio telescope. | ||
| SKA is a €1.5 billion project, with operating costs of about €100 million a year. | ||
| It will be the first to provide mankind with detailed pictures of the “dark ages” 13.7 billion years back in time. | ||
| This mega telescope will be powerful and sensitive enough to observe radio signals from the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. | ||
| If there is life somewhere else in the Universe, the SKA will help us find it. | ||
| At least 24 organisations from 12 countries, including Australia, Canada, India, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA, are involved. | ||
| The SKA will consist of approximately 4 000 dish-shaped antennae and other hybrid receiving technologies. | ||
| Both South Africa and Australia have suitably remote, radio quiet areas for hosting the SKA and have competing bids to host the SKA. | ||
| If Africa wins the SKA bid, the core of this giant telescope will be constructed in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape Province near to the towns of Carnarvon and Williston, linked to a computing facility in Cape Town. | ||
| Other countries where stations will be placed include Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya and Zambia. | ||
| South Africa is already building the Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT) which is a precursor instrument for the SKA, but will in its own right be amongst the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world. | ||
| Why is Africa the best site for the SKA? Most valuable for science Low levels of radio frequency interference and certainty of future radio quiet zone. Significant investment in skilled human resources - bursaries for scientists from across Africa, training for technicians and artisans. Best imaging An ideal physical environment (little water vapour, calm stable weather conditions). Most Affordable Required land, labour and support services available and very affordable. Most Reliable Core basic infrastructure of roads, electricity and communication already in place . Ideal geographical location, sky coverage and topography. Safe and stable area with very few people and no conflicting economic activities. Most Options The astronomical "richness" of the southern skies & strong tradition of astronomy. Excellent academic infrastructure to support SKA science and technology. | ||
| More info... Who is the barefoot astronomer? | |||
Thursday 10 March 2011
The Southern Star Party (2011 March, Bonnievale, South Africa)
The Southern Star Party | Suidelike Sterrefees
2011 March, Bonnievale, South Africa
2011 March, Bonnievale, South Africa
The mere utterance of the words "star party" makes me tingle. As a school kid I read with wide-eyed longing of Stellafane, a mystical place far, far away where all they did at night was look at deep sky objects and spent the days pushing glass. It's taken a while, but the first inkling of a local Stellafane happened this past week-end just outside Bonnievale in the Western Cape.
Monday 21 February 2011
Sunday 20 February 2011
Vriende van Boyden Ope-aand, 19:00 op Vrydag 25 Februarie
Vriende van Boyden Ope-aand,
19:00 op Vrydag 25 Februarie
English translation follows at the bottom
19:00 op Vrydag 25 Februarie
English translation follows at the bottom
Bespreek asseblief vroegtydig!
Bel 051 401 2561 tydens kantoorure
Of stuur 'n epos aan vjaarsdp@ufs.ac.za
Toegang: R 30 per motor
Verversings en ligte etes te koop.
Aangebied deur: Vriende van Boyden Sterrewag en die Amateur Sterrekunde Vereniging
Of stuur 'n epos aan vjaarsdp@ufs.ac.za
Toegang: R 30 per motor
Verversings en ligte etes te koop.
Aangebied deur: Vriende van Boyden Sterrewag en die Amateur Sterrekunde Vereniging
Die Ingenieurswese agter Sterrekunde
Sterrekunde het by die publiek en selfs die wetenskaplike gemeenskap die gesig van mooi foto’s, sterrekundige data en uiteindelik wetenskaplike resultate. Daar is egter ‘n enorme ingenieurspoging nodig om dit alles te laat gebeur – die meeste daarvan ongesiens agter die skerms. Willie Koorts se lesing sal op hierdie aspek fokus en sal aantoon hoe instrumentasie en beheersisteme op die voorpunt van die tegnologie wat vir die moderne sterrekunde noodsaaklik is, tot stand kom.
Willie Koorts werk vir die afgelope 23 jaar as ’n Elektroniese Tegnikus by die Suid-Afrikaanse Astronomiese Observatorium in Kaapstad. Hy het begin by SAAO se buite stasie in Sutherland in die Karoo en skuif later na hulle hoofkantoor by die sterrewag in Kaapstad as deel van die ingenieurspan. Hier ontwerp en bou hulle die beheersisteme en instrumentasie vir die teleskope in Sutherland. Die SAAO het ook die kontrak gekry om twee kameras vir SALT te bou waarby Willie Koorts nou betrokke was, spesifiek met die verantwoordelikheid vir die installasie van dié baie duur detektore.
Willie Koorts het as ’n amateur sterrekundige geïnteresseerd geraak nadat hy in Sutherland, en as deel van ’n UNISA Rekenaarwetenskap kwalifikasie, sommige B.Sc. Astronomie modules geneem het. Hy is ook ’n amateur teleskoopbouer (ATB) en werkskaf ook met die aanpassing van webkameras en donkerlig videokameras vir astronomiese gebruik. ’n Ander belangstelling van Willie Koorts is sterrekunde geskiedenis waaroor hy navorsing gedoen het en ’n paar artikels gepubliseer het. Hy het ook geïnteresseerd geraak in satellietopsporing en het ’n rekenaarbeheerde montering vir die opsporing van satelliete ontwikkel - ’n geheime Amerikaanse spioensatelliet is onlangs met so ’n sisteem opgespoor. Ander belangstellings is fotografie en in die laaste tyd, Geocaching- die “sport” om skatte te vind (en te versteek) met die gebruik van ’n GPS.
Vir die laaste vier jaar was Willie die redakteur van MNASSA (Maandelikse Notas van die Astronomiese Vereniging van Suidelike Afrika). Hy skryf gereeld vir die WEG, De KAT en ONS EIE en vertaal ’n paar publikasies vir Struik Uitgewers. Hy is die voorsitter van die OWG (die Orion Waarnemingsgroep), ’n informele sterrekundeklub in die Boland en is taamlik betrokke by die Voortrekkers en reik spesiale astronomie kentekens uit. Ander publieke uitreikaktiwiteite sluit in sy rol as toergids vir die jaarlikse ATKV bustoer vanaf Wellington (sy tuisdorp) na Sutherland.
Friends of Boyden Open Evening,
19:00 on Friday 25 February
Reservation is Required. Book early!
Contact 051 401 2561 during office hours
Or send an e-mail to vjaarsdp@ufs.ac.za to book.
Entrance: R 30 per car
Refreshments and light meals will be for sale.
Presented by: Friends of Boyden Observatory and the Amateur Astronomy Association.
The Engineering behind Astronomy
The face of astronomy to the public or even the scientific community are pretty pictures, astronomical data and ultimately scientific results. But a huge engineering effort is required to make this all happen - most of which happens unseen, behind the scenes. Willie Koorts’ talk will focus on this aspect and reveal how the cutting edge instrumentation and control systems needed in modern astronomy comes about.
Willie Koorts has been working as an Electronics Technician at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town for the past 23 years. He started at SAAO's observing outstation in Sutherland in the Karoo and later moved to their head quarters in Observatory, Cape Town as part of the engineering team there. Here they design and build the control systems and instrumentation for the telescopes in Sutherland. SAAO also got the contract to build two of the cameras for SALT with which Willie was intimately involved, with the responsibility of installing the super-expensive detectors himself.
Willie got interested as an Amateur Astronomer after starting in Sutherland and, as part of a UNISA Computer Science qualification, did some BSc Astronomy modules. He's also an ATM (Amateur Telescope Builder) and tinkered with modifying webcams and low-light video cameras for use in astronomy. Another interest is Astronomical History for which he did some research and published a few articles. He also got interested in satellite tracking and developed a computer controlled mount for tracking satellites - a secret American spy-satellite was recently tracked down using such a system. Other interests are photography and, lately, Geocaching - the "sport" of finding (and hiding) hidden treasures using a GPS.
For the last four years Willie has been the editor of MNASSA (Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa). He regularly writes articles for WEG, de Kat and Ons Eie and translated a few publications for Struik Publishers. He's the chairman of OOG (the Orion Observation Group), an informal astronomy club in the Boland and is quite involved with the Voortrekkers, presenting special astronomy badges. Other public outreach activities include being the tourguide for an annual ATKV bustour from Wellington (his hometown) to Sutherland.
Willie got interested as an Amateur Astronomer after starting in Sutherland and, as part of a UNISA Computer Science qualification, did some BSc Astronomy modules. He's also an ATM (Amateur Telescope Builder) and tinkered with modifying webcams and low-light video cameras for use in astronomy. Another interest is Astronomical History for which he did some research and published a few articles. He also got interested in satellite tracking and developed a computer controlled mount for tracking satellites - a secret American spy-satellite was recently tracked down using such a system. Other interests are photography and, lately, Geocaching - the "sport" of finding (and hiding) hidden treasures using a GPS.
For the last four years Willie has been the editor of MNASSA (Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa). He regularly writes articles for WEG, de Kat and Ons Eie and translated a few publications for Struik Publishers. He's the chairman of OOG (the Orion Observation Group), an informal astronomy club in the Boland and is quite involved with the Voortrekkers, presenting special astronomy badges. Other public outreach activities include being the tourguide for an annual ATKV bustour from Wellington (his hometown) to Sutherland.
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Invitation to the Southern Star Party (2011 March 04-06)
You're invited
Join us for a week-end of star gazing and friendly chat at the Southern Star Party, which will be held on March 04-06 on a farm just outside of Bonnievale, near Robertson, in the Western Cape.
The GPS position to point your car to is 34:00:45 South, 19:59:43 East.
The organizers of the event are Willie Koorts, Edward and Lynnette Foster, Martin Lyons, Suki Lock and Auke Slotegraaf.
Visit the website at the Southern Star Party blog for more.
Programme
As of this writing, the programme will consist of:
- "What astrophotography teaches us about the deep sky" – Dr Dieter Willasch
- "Basic astrophotography with a digital camera" - Kos Coronaios
- "The next step: astrophotography through a telescope" - Lucas Ferreira
- "How to care for and clean your telescope" – Willie Koorts
- "Fossils, Light & Time" – Edward Foster
- "Astronomy for beginners" – Edward Foster
- "Deep Sky Observing Workshop" – Auke Slotegraaf
There will also be an "Astronomy Pub Quiz", and a sale table.
Night-time events include:
- "What's up in the sky tonight" – Willie Koorts
- "Learning the Constellations: Using ConCards to find star patterns and bright deep sky objects" – Auke Slotegraaf
- "A Guided Binocular Starhop" – Auke Slotegraaf
Find out more
For more details, and the all-important booking and registration, visit the Southern Star Party blog. Space is very limited, so please book right away.
Monday 14 February 2011
Valentines day in NGC 2547 in Vela
Click to enlarge
Hi all Stargazers
May you have health, wealth, prosperity and joy in abundance this year!
About 7 years ago I “discovered” this cluster and took the liberty of naming it the Heart Cluster. I made mention of it in my book as well. It is cluster NGC2547, located near the bright multiple star Gamma Velorum in the constellation Vela.
I have copied Neville Young, a member and friend of the Pretoria Centre for ASSA. Hope you like it Neville!
Look Up and Discover the Cosmic Gems We All Deserve to See!
Best regards
Wayne Mitchell,
Author of the STAR GAZER'S DEEP SPACE ATLAS
Member of the Pretoria Centre of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa
Wednesday 12 January 2011
Eclipse Photo Gallery: January 4, 2011
Thursday 6 January 2011
Help! Is this book available in South Africa? Where?
Has anyone seen this book (2nd Edition) in a bookshop in South Africa.
Email and let us know! (assabfn@gmail.com) or post a comment!
The book 
Finding your way around the sky is easy with this Atlas
Atlas of the Southern Night Sky – by Steve Massey and Steve Quirk
Finding your way around the sky is easy with this Atlas
This top-selling, Australian-authored and -published hardcover atlas has been specially produced for Southern Hemisphere stargazers.
Fully revised and updated with new information, images and maps, the latest edition has easy-to-follow starcharts and details of astronomical objects that are within reach of most backyard telescopes.
Beginning with a basic introduction to the night sky—what you can see, how to find your way around the sky and what to look for— Atlas of the Southern Night Sky then delves into lunar and planetary observing, with authoritative information on how best to observe these celestial targets. This comprehensive reference book will be appreciated for years to come.
- 290 full-colour pages, hardcover
- Over 100 star charts and maps (use in conjunction with the Red Light Torch included in this pack)
- Maps of the Moon and planets
- Fully illustrated with images by Australian and New Zealand amateur astronomers to give a realistic perspective on what can be seen and photographed
- List of constellations and astronomical objects visible throughout the year
- Tips and tricks
- Guide to astrophotography and image processing
Monday 3 January 2011
Go Voyager! Go!
The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was about 16 light-hours away from Earth as of 9 October 2010. It took that space probe 33 years to cover that distance, and will take over 18,000 years to reach one light-year at the same speed.
Voyager 1 is about to kiss the solar system goodbye.
The plucky spacecraft – one of two Voyagers launched more than 30 years ago and now bound for interstellar space – appears to have reached a region within a broad boundary between the sun's influence and interstellar space where the speed of the solar wind's outflow reaches zero, scientists report.
The region is known as the heliopause, where the solar wind – a continuous flow of charged particles that streams from the sun in all directions at roughly 1 million miles per hour – is brought to a standstill as it meets interstellar winds head-on and gets deflected sideways.
"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, the mission's project scientist, in a statement. The Voyager team presented its evidence at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, currently under way in San Francisco.
The boundary between the sun's influence, known as the heliosphere, and interstellar space is thought to consist of four onion-like layers: the termination shock, where the solar wind grows increasingly turbulent as the sun plows through interstellar space; the heliosheath, where the wind grows turbulent and get compressed and heated; the heliopause, Voyager 1's current location, and the bow shock, the outermost region where the solar system in essence generates a wake in the tenuous gas and dust between stars.
Voyager 1 passed through the termination shock and into the heliosheath in December 2004. The craft passed into the heliopause last June, at a distance of some 10.6 billion miles from the sun. It's currently traveling at 38,000 m.p.h.
How much time remains before Voyager 1 enters interstellar space?
A research team led by University of Arizona physicist Ke Chiang Hseih has analyzed data from Voyagers 1 and 2, as well as from spacecraft closer, to suggest that the heliopause at Voyager 1's location is only about 21 astronomical units wide (give or take 6 A.U.), or roughly 21 times the distance between the Earth and sun.
The team acknowledges that its estimate represents a "very coarse cut" at taking the measure of "a very dynamic region." But if it's correct, Voyager could take as few as four years to clear the heliopause and enter the bow shock.
The estimate was published in August in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The latest data from Voyager 1 should help refine those estimates, researchers say.
- Today Voyager1 is 16 hrs 08 mins 22 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Sunday 2 January 2011
Catalina Sky Survey Discovers Possible Extinct Comet
Image: This image combines thirty exposures made with the Catalina Sky Survey's 60-inch telescope a few days after the initial discovery. It shows the outburst of (596) Scheila. (Image by Alex Gibbs and Steve Larson)
An asteroid discovered more than 100 years ago my not be an asteroid at all, but an extinct comet that is coming back to life, according to new observations.
The night of Dec. 11, Steve Larson, senior staff scientist with the Catalina Sky Survey, was searching for potentially hazardous asteroids when he came across what looked like a comet: a faint, wispy tail surrounding a bright, star-like core. Four images taken over the course of 30 minutes revealed the object was moving relative to the background stars.
"Its brightness of a total magnitude of 13.4 visual, which is about 900 times fainter than the faintest star you can see in a clear, dark sky, led me to suspect that it was a known comet, but I checked the comet database and got nothing," Larson said.
According to Larson, comets are thought to be a major source of Earth's water, and "extinct" comets may be useful resources for space exploration.
Further investigation revealed that the object was a known asteroid called (596) Scheila, discovered in 1906. The extraterrestrial rock is tumbling through space alongside thousands of similar objects in our solar system's main asteroid belt, roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, out of the ecliptic plane in which most planets and asteroids travel.
Catalina Sky Survey team member Alex Gibbs checked previous images in the survey's archives but found no activity until Dec. 3. At that time, the object appeared brighter and slightly diffuse.
Previous analysis of (596) Scheila's color indicated that it is composed of primitive carbonaceous material left over from the formation of the solar system and might be an extinct comet.
After the discovery was announced, the astronomical community responded by pointing many of the world's largest telescopes at the object to obtain images and spectra to determine if its tail consists of ice and gases spewing out of the body or if it is dust left behind from a collision with another asteroid. Preliminary spectra of the outburst show that the coma surrounding the asteroid is composed of dust, but more observations will be needed to understand just what is happening with (596) Scheila.
"Most asteroids are collision fragments from larger asteroids and display a range of mineral composition," Larson explained. "But a fraction are thought to be former comets whose volatile ices have been driven off by the sun. If the activity in Scheila proves to be cometary in nature, this will be only the sixth known main-belt comet, and about 100 times larger than previously identified main belt comets."
In 1998, Larson founded the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-supported project to discover and catalog Earth-approaching and potentially hazardous asteroids. It operates two telescopes in the Catalina Mountains and one in Australia and is currently discovering 70 percent of the world's known near-Earth objects, including one that fell in northern Sudan in 2008.
The night of Dec. 11, Steve Larson, senior staff scientist with the Catalina Sky Survey, was searching for potentially hazardous asteroids when he came across what looked like a comet: a faint, wispy tail surrounding a bright, star-like core. Four images taken over the course of 30 minutes revealed the object was moving relative to the background stars.
"Its brightness of a total magnitude of 13.4 visual, which is about 900 times fainter than the faintest star you can see in a clear, dark sky, led me to suspect that it was a known comet, but I checked the comet database and got nothing," Larson said.
According to Larson, comets are thought to be a major source of Earth's water, and "extinct" comets may be useful resources for space exploration.
Further investigation revealed that the object was a known asteroid called (596) Scheila, discovered in 1906. The extraterrestrial rock is tumbling through space alongside thousands of similar objects in our solar system's main asteroid belt, roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, out of the ecliptic plane in which most planets and asteroids travel.
Catalina Sky Survey team member Alex Gibbs checked previous images in the survey's archives but found no activity until Dec. 3. At that time, the object appeared brighter and slightly diffuse.
Previous analysis of (596) Scheila's color indicated that it is composed of primitive carbonaceous material left over from the formation of the solar system and might be an extinct comet.
After the discovery was announced, the astronomical community responded by pointing many of the world's largest telescopes at the object to obtain images and spectra to determine if its tail consists of ice and gases spewing out of the body or if it is dust left behind from a collision with another asteroid. Preliminary spectra of the outburst show that the coma surrounding the asteroid is composed of dust, but more observations will be needed to understand just what is happening with (596) Scheila.
"Most asteroids are collision fragments from larger asteroids and display a range of mineral composition," Larson explained. "But a fraction are thought to be former comets whose volatile ices have been driven off by the sun. If the activity in Scheila proves to be cometary in nature, this will be only the sixth known main-belt comet, and about 100 times larger than previously identified main belt comets."
In 1998, Larson founded the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-supported project to discover and catalog Earth-approaching and potentially hazardous asteroids. It operates two telescopes in the Catalina Mountains and one in Australia and is currently discovering 70 percent of the world's known near-Earth objects, including one that fell in northern Sudan in 2008.
Source:spaceREF
Saturday 1 January 2011
Asteroid Itokawa Sample Return
Source: Nasa Science News
Asteroid Itokawa Sample Return
Dec. 29, 2010: The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa spacecraft has brought home to Earth tiny pieces of an alien world–asteroid Itokawa."It's an incredible feeling to have another world right in the palm of your hand," says Mike Zolensky, Associate Curator for Interplanetary Dust at the Johnson Space Center, and one of the three non-Japanese members of the science team. "We're seeing for the first time, up close, what an asteroid is actually made of!"
He has good reason to be excited. Asteroids formed at the dawn of our solar system, so studying these samples can teach us how it formed and evolved.
Hayabusa launched in 2003 and set out on a billion kilometer voyage to Itokawa, arriving a little over two years later. In 2005, the spacecraft performed a spectacular feat -- landed on the asteroid's surface(1). The hope was to capture samples from the alien world.
But there was a problem. The projectiles set to blast up dust from the surface failed to fire, leaving only the particles kicked up from landing for collection. Did any asteroid dust made it into the collection chamber?
More ...
Venus is closest to the Earth today
If you're feeling romantic tonight, it might be because Venus is closest to the Earth today for 2011. Just 92,750,680km away.
- Auke Slotegraaf on Twitter
Space Photos This Week
As the Stars Turn
Photograph by Kwon O Chul, TWAN
Star trails create arches over the horizon in a long-exposure picture of the night sky taken from Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
The shot, captured in July and released this week, shows the apparent motion of the stars around Polaris, the star that's almost exactly aligned with Earth's north celestial pole. Also called the North Star, Polaris is the brightest dot in the constellation Ursa Minor.
Equatorial regions, such as Kilimanjaro, are the only places on Earth where the celestial poles sit right at the horizon.
Published December 30, 2010
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