Science is Real

I have been on the road a lot recently and haven’t had much time to write. On of the blog entries that I know I needed to do is to plug They Might Be Giants new album Here Comes Science. This bargain comes with a 19 track CD as well as a DVD with videos for all the songs. All the songs are science based ditties laced with TMBGs sensibilities that have made them a long time favorite of mine.

I am lucky enough to be at the Association of Science and Technology Centers annual convention in Forth Worth. TMBG signed copies of their CD Saturday night (yeah, I got mine signed) and did a performance at the reception last night. They rocked the house and had a bunch of nerds belting out the chorus to songs such as “I am a Paleontologist” and “My Brother The Ape”. They did some of their classic songs as well.

Here are a couple of videos of songs from Here Comes Science.

A Little Perspective From Mars

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has the HiRise camera on board.  HiRise is the largest telescope ever sent to another planet and has been returning spectacular pictures of Mars for the last few years.

On October 3rd, 2007, they turned it around to look at Earth and got the following image (courtesy of NASA/JPL/and the University of Arizona…click to embiggen).

Since Earth is closer to the Sun than Mars, you see Earth has phases just like the Moon.  In fact they both have the same phase (the Sun is off to the right in this image).  If you look at the full size image, you can make out the cost of South America.  It also shows the relative sizes of the Earth and Moon nicely.

Sometimes we just need to see Earth from a different perspective.

The Milky Way from Bryce

Just a quick photo I got of the Milky Way tonight over some trees at Bryce Canyon National Park.  Enjoy!

A Pretty Morning Threesome

Weather and clouds seemed to be conspiring against me in my attempt to get the conjunction of Saturn and Venus.  As an added bonus, Mercury is also in the morning sky right now and fairly bright.

Well, I finally got my chance.  I am at a workshop at Bryce Canyon.  I got up early and drove to Fairyland Canyon near the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park and set up there to get the conjunction.  Venus and Saturn are at the top (Venus is the bright one) and Mercury is the bright one lower in the sky (click to embiggen).

You still got another chance or two.  Saturn will be moving up above Venus the next few days and Mercury will be getting lower.  You can really watch the movement of the planets from day to day when they are this close together in the sky.

Nice Morning Conjunction

When I was outside trying to image the LCROSS impact this morning, I couldn’t help but noticing that we have three planets fairly close together in the morning sky, Venus, Saturn and Mercury.  Mercury is the lowest of the three, Venus is the highest and Saturn is in the middle, all in a fairly nice line.  They will be nice for the next few days.  Here is what you will see tomorrow morning (map for 5:30 am in Tucson…click to embiggen).

Over the next couple of days, Saturn will get progressively closer to Venus until they are right next to each other on October 13th.  This should be a spectacular conjunction and I will be luck enough to be in Bryce Canyon.  Yeah, I am thinking pictures!

Monster New Ring Around Saturn

Saturn is famous for its rings which are one of the best sites to view through a small telescope.  As the years have gone on, we kept discovering new rings.  Surely there couldn’t be more discoveries now…I mean, we have spacecraft there and stuff, right?

Wrong…the Spitzer Space Telescope just discovered a very large, diffuse new ring around Saturn.  This ring is over 3.7 million miles from the planet and extends outward another 7.4 million miles. It’s also very thick…over a million miles from top to bottom.  For comparison, the rings you see in a telescope are only a hundred feet thick or so.

Of course this ring is very large and diffuse.  The density of it is much lower than the other rings, so low that we have had spacecraft fly through this ring unharmed. It is not visible to normal telescopes, but cool objects give off infrared light making it the perfect target for the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Here is an artist conception of the ring.  Saturn is way too small to see at this scale, a mere dot at the middle.

This ring is orbiting Saturn in the opposite direction of the other rings…so is the nearby Moon Phoebe.  This leads to us to believe that Phoebe may be the source of material for the ring.  And it solves a second mystery of the moon Iapetus.  Iapetus is dark on one side and light on the other.  It orbits inside this new ring in the opposite direction.  Material from this ring appears to be spiraling in toward Saturn and coating one side of Iapetus giving rise to its unusual appearance.

Unfortunately, Spitzer ran out of coolant in May.  These observations were made before the coolant ran out.  Observations such as this illustrate the importance of observing in all parts of the EM spectrum.

Watch the Moon Get Whacked Courtesy of Slooh

This Friday morning, October 9th, at 4:30am PDT, the Moon is going to take a hit for science.  The LCROSS mission (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) will impact a crater near the Moon’s south pole.

There will be two impacts.  The first one (which is the upper stage of the rocket that sent the mission on its way) will impact first and kick up a bunch of dust and debris.  A few minutes later, the second spacecraft, known at the Shepherding Spacecraft, will fly through the debris with a suite of sensors before it crashes into the Moon as well.  Although we stand to learn a lot about the composition of the Moon from this, the real goal is to find water (the Apollo missions landed near the equator so they couldn’t do this when they were there).

You might be able to see this with a small telescope.  I am going to be out with an 11 inch telescope and video camera optimized for astronomical recording to try and get it (well, I hope to…its a brand new scope that has not been tested or even put together yet…I know you are supposed to practice in advance and all that but we just got the scope and timing requires that the first test is live!)  If I get anything interesting, I will post it here.

If you don’t have a telescope, the good folks at Slooh will give you a chance to watch online.  Slooh is a network of remote telescopes that you can watch as they take data live.  Most of the time you have to pay to do this (a yearlong membership is a very reasonable $50…they have a telescope in the Canary Islands which is ideal for early evening observing in the entire U.S.).  For this event, they are using a telescope in New Hampshire and one in Arizona to webcast the event.  You can watch the webcast here.

So set your alarms early for Friday morning to catch this unique event.

White House Star Party

There will be a star party this Wednesday, October 7th at the White House.  This is the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people working for the International Year of Astronomy.  About 20 telescopes will be set up at the White House and students from around DC will attend as well doing hands-on activities and observing.

I am in DC right now doing sidewalk astronomy at night (and maybe a little solar during the day) in support of the WHSP.  Look for me around the Mall or at Meridian Hill Park the next couple of days if you are in DC!  I will be the guy with a telescope.

Any local DC astronomers who want to coordinate something can send me a direct message on twitter (rsparkles).

Introducing This Year’s IgNobel Laureates…

Yep, it’s that time of year again, time for the IgNobel prizes. These are given annually for the science research that makes you laugh then makes you think.

This year we had a great visual which is making the rounds as Public Health IgNobel winner Elana Bodnar demonstrating a bra that can be quickly turned into a gas mask in an emergency.  So you better be nice to your wife or she might not give you one in the case of a gas attack.

The IgNobel Physics Prize was given to Katherine K. Whitcome for determining (analytically mind you) why pregnant women don’t tip over.

The Mathetmatics Prize went to Gideon Gono of Zimbabwe’s Reserve bank for printing money in denominations from one cent to $100 trillion (can’t we all see Dr. Evil with a $100 trillion bill?)

And the IgNobel chemistry prize went to a group from Mexico who managed to create diamonds from tequila. Check out the rest of the 2009 Winners.

The ceremony will be posted online as a podcast and video.  They are always entertaining featuring segments such as the “Welcome, Welcome” address, The Big Bank Opera, the 24/7 lectures (24 second technical explanation of a topic followed by 7 words anyone can understand) and the Win a Date With a Nobel Laureate game.  Don’t worry about the speeches running long…if they do, they have a young girl on hand who will start telling them, “Please stop, I’m bored” repeatedly until they stop talking.

Be sure to check out one of the highlights of the year in science.

Monday Night Pictures

I saw that the ISS was makinga pass tonight and decided to go outside and check it out.  It was only about 20 minutes past sunset, so long exposures to pick up the trail were difficult.  Using a zoom and low ISO got some results.

There was supposed to be cargo ship nearby, but it was too bright to see the much dimmer satellite.

I turned a little to the south of this image and saw the Moon and Jupiter rising over the Rincon Mountains.

Go out tomorrow shortly after sunset.  The Moon will have moved  to the east (left) of Jupiter.  Should be a nice pairing.