Terence Dickinson's SkyNews.ca E-news

2007-10-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

A STARRY ROMP
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

Have you ever wondered if the stars you see tonight are the same ones you saw last night? Or last summer? Or ten summers before that?

Stars are suns, like our sun. They last for millions, sometimes billions of years. Even though they are moving through the arms of our galaxy, the change in position of the stars is so ponderous it’s completely unnoticeable over several human life spans. We see exactly the same stars in the same place as those seen by our grandparents and their grandparents before them. That's why the ancient constellations like Pegasus, Scorpius and Andromeda are still there just the way the Greeks saw them.

Over a time span of thousands of years, there are a few stars that would be in slightly different positions, enough to be detected by a seasoned stargazer. Two of the brightest stars, Sirius and Arcturus, are in this group. But these are the exceptions. It would take tens of thousands of years for the starry sky to begin to look different enough that some of the constellations would be unrecognizable.

For instance, the best known of all the star groups, the Big Dipper, would have a bent-down handle and bent-open bowl after 20,000 years, but it would still be recognizable in that distant future.

Next time you look at the Big Dipper, think about this: As the tiny, fragile spears of light from each of the Dipper's stars enter your eyes, a journey that began decades ago comes to an end. Five of the seven stars in the Big Dipper are relatively nearby stars about 75 light-years away. The light from them takes a human lifetime to reach Earth. Light from the other two, at the extreme ends of the configuration (the ones that will appear to distort the Dipper’s shape in the remote future), are about two lifetimes away.

Use the two stars on the outer edge of the Dipper's bowl to point to Polaris, the North Star, one Dipper length away out the “open” side of the bowl. Polaris appears as bright as the Dipper stars to us, but it is 430 light-years from Earth, three to six times farther than the Dipper stars. Polaris is an enormously brilliant star, 4,000 times more luminous than our sun, significantly brighter than any of the Dipper stars.

Although astronomers have learned the brightness, temperatures and distances of the stars, even their approximate ages, the actual sizes of the very largest stars have remained elusive. Estimates from different experts sometimes vary by a factor of three because the outer extent of these stars are difficult to measure.

In 2005, a team of astronomers who had spent years studying giant stars announced more accurate estimates of the sizes of the biggest stars. They say that three stars, KW Sagittarii, V354 Cephei, and KY Cygni, are the largest known stars, each about 14 times wider than the diameter of the Earth’s orbit. That’s enormous--almost as large as the orbit of Saturn--and bigger than most researchers had expected.

None of the big three are visible without a telescope. Of the well-known stars, the largest is Antares, the orange star at the heart of the constellation Scorpius, the scorpion. It varies in size over time and can bloat out to four times the diameter of the Earth’s orbit, or 850 times the size of the Sun. If Antares replaced the Sun, the Earth would orbit deep inside it.

Celestial Observing Tips, October 2007

By Todd Carlson, SkyNews Assistant Editor

Venus, shining brighter than any star-like object in the sky, is easy to locate this month, in the east an hour or two before sunrise.

By mid-month Mars is the brightest starlike object in the east around midnight. Mars will be closest to Earth in December.

Map.

The first two weeks of October provide a good opportunity to view the Andromeda Galaxy (2.4 million light-years distant), the nearest celestial star city similar to our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Binoculars will show it as an elongated hazy patch, while some observers may be able to glimpse the galaxy with the naked eye from a location well away from sources of nighttime light pollution.

Map.

5) The Big Dipper is now hugging the northern horizon as darkness falls. If you have difficulty locating some of the major constellations, try identifying them an hour after sunset when only the brightest stars are visible.

2007-09-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

WHAT TO BELIEVE

by Terence Dickinson
SkyNews Editor

I have always been fascinated with the difference between what I regard as "public astronomy," by which I mean the tidbits of celestial knowledge that one hears in coffee-shop or office water-cooler conversation, and the telescope/astronomy-laden talk commonly heard among backyard skywatchers. Not too surprisingly, there can be a world of difference.

For example, one water-cooler topic recently was the "Mars Spectacular" e-mail making the rounds in August. You probably know the one. It claimed that Mars would look as large as the Full Moon on August 27 at 12:30 a.m. "It will look like the Earth has two moons!" the message proclaimed. Nonsense, of course. It was a hoax.

Yet, in late August I had a few newspaper and radio station news people calling checking just in case it was true. I guess I've been immersed in astronomy too long, but how could any adult even think for a moment that the sky would suddenly have two moons--and that the ONLY way people are finding out about it is through spam e-mail and coffee shop conversations! (For details on how the hoax got started, see the excellent website www.snopes.com)

I suppose I could fly off the handle on a rant at this point about the state of critical thinking and lack of science literacy among the general public. But I won't. Furthermore, I shouldn't. The world is not going you-know-where in a handbasket. Here in this country, people are better educated than ever before, and, in my view at least, more civilized than ever before.

The fact is, knowledge of astronomy is nice to have, but it is not something one needs to know as an essential life skill, such as the ability to read well in at least one language, and the ability to managing your personal finances. I long ago accepted that most folks neither know much nor care much about astronomy. Many are interested and would like to know more about the cosmos but there are always other priorities.

With this in mind, I have always found particular fascination with polls conducted by reputable polling firms that include astronomy-related questions. One that caught my eye recently was a poll of 1000 adults in the United States showing that 57 percent say it is "somewhat" or "very likely" that life exists on other planets. The survey, conducted by the Rasmussen polling firm, found that 35 percent say life on other planets is not very likely, or not at all likely.

I wasn't at all surprised. I've been following this line of polling question for decades. The figures just mentioned are almost identical to earlier surveys conducted since the space age began 50 years ago. Thus, more than half of the population think we are not alone in the universe, and about one third say the reverse.

And it's not just in the USA. The figures are almost the same in the several similar surveys conducted in Canada on this subject since the 1960s. Perhaps predictably, younger adults are more likely to think life will be found on other planets than their elders. Seventy-three percent of adults under 30 say it's likely or very likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Among seniors, just 38% say it's likely or very likely that life exists on other planets. On this question, men and women think about the same. Across all age groups, there are few significant differences in the responses between men and women.

The survey was conducted during the June mission of the space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station, a mission seen by those surveyed as so routine that few were paying any attention to it. Specifically, only 9% said that they were following stories of the mission on a daily basis, a significantly lower percentage than a generation ago. Even so, 72% still maintain a favorable opinion of the manned space program, only slightly less than a generation ago.

I think it's safe to assume that when asked a general question like, "Do you think it's likely that life exits on other planets?" as asked in this poll, most people automatically think of creatures more or less like humans rather than lower forms of life. Thus, what the poll tells us is that more than half of the adult population think we are not alone in the universe, and that creatures something like us are out there.

Celestial Observing Tips, September 2007

by Todd Carlson
SkyNews Assistant Editor

1) The Moon is beside Mars on September 5. Rising in the east after midnight, Mars appears as a moderately bright "star" to the right of the Moon. Mars will continue to increase in brightness as it approaches opposition in December. Most backyard astronomy telescopes won't show any detail on the small desert planet until late November. Keep in mind that two ride-on lawn mower-sized robotic spacecraft, Spirit and Opportunity, continue to explore Mars at this very moment.

2) On the morning of September 9, the thin crescent Moon is to the left of Venus close to the eastern horizon near 5:00 a.m. A viewing location with an unobstructed horizon offers the best opportunity for viewing the pair.

3) The Moon is beside Jupiter in the evening sky on September 18. Found low along the southwestern horizon, Jupiter is bright and easy to identify. When viewed with binoculars, up to four of the planet's moons are visible - appearing as tiny stars - on either side of the planet.

4) The first two weeks of September present the first opportunity to observe the Andromeda galaxy (M31) in the late evening sky. This is the most distant object visible to the unaided eye. Through binoculars, the galaxy appears as a distinct oval-shaped smudge, easily discerned from nearby stars (provide you are well away from light polluted skies). With a 6-inch or larger telescope, dust lanes and two companion galaxies, M32 and M110 can be seen. M31 is approximately 2.4 million light-years away.

2007-09-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

BINOCULARS BEST FOR BEGINNING BACKYARD ASTRONOMY

by Terence Dickinson
SkyNews Editor

You don't have to own a telescope to be an amateur astronomer. Binoculars will reveal an amazing variety of cosmic sights. In my opinion, a good binocular is a better first instrument for the budding backyard astronomer than the so-called beginner's telescopes that appear every year about two months before Christmas in big-box discount stores. Binoculars are easier to use, provide bright, right-side-up images, and have a range of other applications besides astronomy.

Any size and type of binoculars will get you started, but the precise optics in better quality models produce images of celestial objects that are brighter and sharper than cheaper models of the same size. There is usually a good reason why one binocular is three times the price of another even though they look the same on the outside.

A popular size binocular is 8x40, which means a magnification of 8 times and main lenses 40mm in diameter. The minimum for celestial observation is 7 magnification, usually written 7x, and 30mm lenses. Maximum is 10x and 56mm lenses. You would think that the more power the better, but more magnification of the image also means more magnification of the quivers and shakes of your arms as you hold the binoculars to your eyes. I consider 10x the practical limit.

Similarly, bigger main lenses are a good thing because larger lenses mean more light is collected, which means a brighter image - a particularly important advantage in astronomy. But bigger lenses also mean bigger binoculars and more weight. In my opinion, 56mm is the limit for handheld glasses. This is why the only optical product sold by SkyNews is 8x56 binoculars, which I think is the ideal size for backyard astronomy. Other sizes frequently used in astronomy are 7x50, 10x50 and 8x42.

An essential binocular accessory for astronomy is an adapter for attaching the glasses to a camera tripod. One type of adapter (about $12) is L-shaped with a bolt at the top of the L that screws into a threaded hole at the front of the binocular's focusing bar. The base of the L attaches to the tripod like the base of a camera. When buying new binoculars, ensure that they have the threaded receptacle, not all do. If you already own a binocular without the threaded hole, a clamp tripod adapter is available for about $20. The difference in image clarity between hand-held and tripod-mounted binoculars is especially striking at night.

What celestial sights can binoculars show? Here's an abbreviated list:

- Fantastic detail on the moon, including at least 100 craters, mountain ranges and flat plains that seventeenth-century astronomers thought were seas.

- Countless thousands of stars in the Milky Way that are invisible to the unaided eye. This is a good time of year to see the Milky Way if you can get well away from city lights.

- Star colors become more evident with binoculars than without. Besides plain old white, stars range from sapphire blue to yellow, orange and red.

- From two to four of the large moons of Jupiter can be seen close beside the brilliant planet. (Jupiter is that bright object in the southwest during autumn evenings.)

- The planets Uranus and Neptune, which are too dim to be seen with unaided eyes.
The Andromeda Galaxy, a huge city of stars larger than our entire Milky Way Galaxy, is plainly seen as an oval smudge high in the east around midnight at this time of year.

- Star clusters of exquisite beauty, such as the Pleiades and Hyades, are seen in their entirety in binoculars whereas most telescopes (due to their smaller fields of view) can show only portions of them.

All backyard astronomers have binoculars whether or not they own a telescope. They are essential equipment.

CELESTIAL OBSERVING TIPS, AUGUST 2007

by Todd Carlson
SkyNews Assistant Editor

On August 21 the Moon will be one degree below Antares and six degrees below Jupiter. Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, translates as "rival of Mars" and glows a fiery red colour. Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, appears as a bright creamy-white star and is brighter than any other object in that part of the sky (other than the Moon).

A total eclipse of the Moon will occur in the early morning hours of August 28 when the Moon will be dimmed to less than one one-thousandth of its normal brightness as it passes through the Earth's shadow. Observers in Alberta and British Columbia will have the best seats in the house as they will see the entire eclipse in a dark sky. From Manitoba and Saskatchewan, dawn begins during totality. Areas further east will see the Moon set during totality. The eclipse is visible without optical aid, though binoculars offer enhanced views of the coppery colour of the shadowed Moon. For more detail, see the July/August SkyNews, or www.skynews.ca.

2007-09-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

SEEING SATELLITES

by Terence Dickinson
SkyNews Editor

Any clear evening this summer you can catch a satellite. Just watch the sky for the first hour after the stars become visible at dusk and you’ll see several steady, starlike dots march across the constellations.

One could be the International Space Station, another a military spy satellite, a third simply a spent rocket still in orbit. A satellite easily visible to the unaided eye is typically 200 to 400 kilometres up, travels at 28,000 km/hr and crosses the sky in two or four minutes.

With a little experience, distinguishing a satellite from an airplane is easy. Most aircraft have either flashing lights or red or green wing lights, though a few have a steady white light like a satellite. Binoculars usually reveal engine exhaust or other lights on planes that appear to the naked eye as single white lights. Satellites always appear starlike but untwinkling.

Satellites are made visible by sunlight shining on their metallic surfaces. As a satellite changes orientation with respect to the observer as it passes over, its brightness can surge for a few seconds because of direct reflection of sunlight from a solar panel or other flat surface. If the satellite fades and disappears as it cruises across the sky, it has entered the Earth’s shadow. The Earth’s shadow climbs higher as the sun sinks lower, which is why the best time to scan for satellites is the first hour after darkness falls.

Well away from city lights, an observer on a careful watch should see a dozen or more satellites in that first hour. The number drops after that and is quite low around midnight or 1 a.m.

Even more interesting is watching for specific satellites. By far the brightest is the International Space Station (ISS). On the evening of June 17, a few days after the space shuttle Atlantis astronauts had installed a huge new solar panel to increase the electrical supply for the station, the ISS made a perfect overhead pass over my home in eastern Ontario. As it passed over, its brightness ranged from magnitude -1 to a dazzling -5, slightly brighter than Venus. It shone with a golden glow, reflecting the colour of the solar panels which now account for most of its brilliance.

When will the ISS pass over your town? An excellent website that will tell you is www.heavens-above.com. Once you are there, take a few minutes to register. It’s free, and it will make your future visits faster and more enjoyable. Not only will you learn which satellites are passing over, you also will get times of sunset, sunrise and twilight, phases of the Moon, constellation maps and much more. The best feature is the sky map showing the path of the ISS (and other satellites) through the constellations for your site.

The ISS is visible from any given site for a few weeks at a time, then is unfavourably positioned for a few weeks, then visible again, in a repeating visibility cycle. Overhead passes are the brightest because they closer to you. In the case of the ISS, the altitude of an overhead pass is about 400 kilometres.

How much stuff is up there? The U.S. Air Force Space Command operates telescopes on the Hawaiian island of Maui and other strategic locations to track working satellites as well as the orbiting junkyard of defunct satellites and rocket casings. They keeps tabs on more than 12,000 objects ranging from van-sized communication satellites to a hatch hinge the size of a cell phone that broke away from a European satellite’s covering in 1988. Less than 1000 orbiting objects are doing anything useful, the rest is rubbish accumulated since the dawn of the space age nearly half a century ago.

Everything larger than a walnut flying in low orbit—200 to 400 kilometres above the Earth—is monitored along with all objects larger than a baseball out to geosynchronous orbit at 35,900 kilometres, where a fleet of communication satellites is stationed. The trajectory of the space shuttles are regularly altered to avoid a close brush with any of these potentially lethal chunks.

CELESTIAL OBSERVING TIPS FOR JULY 2007

by Todd Carlson
Assistant Editor

Although summer is a time when vacations can mean more time to observe the night sky, recreational astronomers have to contend with long days and short nights. The first rule of summer stargazing is remembering to bring along binoculars. Binoculars can reveal star clusters, dozens of craters on the Moon and up to four of the moons of Jupiter. Steady the binoculars by leaning against a wall or propping your arms on a picnic table or fence.

In order to make the most of the short July nights, here are the celestial highlights for the month.

1) Mid-July presents the best opportunity of the month to view deep into our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Looking high in the east after 11:00 p.m. from a dark site, you should be able discern a hazy swath of the Milky Way cutting towards the southern horizon. Use binoculars to examine the section towards the southern horizon where you should notice the density of stars increasing. That’s where the centre of our galaxy is located.

2) July 15-17. Watch for Earthshine, the portion of the Moon illuminated by light reflecting off of the Earth. Binoculars enhance the view. The Moon will be near Venus on July 17th.

3) All month: Jupiter can be found rising in the southeast after sunset and appears as the brightest "star" in that area of sky. Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, has a family of 63 moons, four of which can be seen in binoculars—Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io. Depending on the position of each moon during its orbit, observers may see two, three or all four moons on a particular night.

4) All month: Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, rides high in the northwest once darkness falls. The constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius can be located in the south. An unobstructed southern horizon is essential for viewing both.

2007-06-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

SATURN: LORD OF THE RINGS

The latest spacecraft to visit Saturn has given us our best views yet of the giant ringed planet.

by Terence Dickinson
SkyNews Editor

Imagine a gigantic globe more than 700 times larger than the Earth made entirely of gas and clouds--hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia--the froth of the universe. This colossal object is light enough to float in water... if a large enough ocean could be found to launch it. Now surround the great world with trillion moons and spin them into a thin disk.

What do we have?

Saturn.

Immediately recognized as a symbol of all things cosmic, Saturn is an icon of the universe. Most people have never seen the planet for real. It looks like a bright star to the eye, yet no other sight in the heavens is more impressive in a telescope. The creamy globe of Saturn with its symmetrical bracelet, white as snow, is unforgettable.

My first view of Saturn was at age 15. It was a mild spring evening in the late 1950s. I was stargazing from the backyard in suburban Toronto using a small telescope my parents had given me the previous Christmas.

As Saturn floated into the telescope’s field of view, I was immediately paralyzed with excitement at seeing the famous world for real--the planet looking like a tiny marble with a perfect ring around it suspended in the blackness. Then... I felt myself falling through space! So overwhelmed was I by the exquisite beauty of the remote orb, I had tipped backwards too far on my observing stool and fell with a thump on my back on the grass. Fortunately the ground was soft, and I just stayed there flat on my back for a time, gazing past the telescope tripod at Saturn, one of the great wonders of the universe.

Since the dawn of the space age, four robot spacecraft have explored Saturn. The first, Pioneer 11, flew past the ringed planet in 1979, taking a few pictures on the way by. Voyager 1 followed a year later, then its twin, Voyager 2, flew past in 1981. Equipped with superior cameras, the Voyagers transmitted back a library of beautiful images that remained our best views of Saturn until the Cassini space probe arrived at the planet in January 2004. Rather than cruising past as its predecessors did, Cassini fired its engines and swept into orbit around the ringed giant. From its orbital perch, Cassini has transmitted a flood of images back to Earth.

Research over the years is pointing more and more toward the idea that Saturn was not born with this adornment. Most likely Saturn's rings are a temporary rather than permanent structure, though by “temporary” I mean in the astronomical sense--that is, many millions of years, but still significantly less than the 4.6-billion-year age of the solar system.

The thinking is that the rings were most likely created when a comet smashed into one of Saturn's moons and some of the debris remained in orbit around Saturn and eventually formed into rings. Another possibility is that the rings are debris from a collision of two of Saturn’s moons.

Saturn is nine times the Earth-Sun distance from us this month. A radio signal takes 75 minutes to reach the Cassini spacecraft as it loops in its elongated orbit around Saturn. (Radio signals travel at the same speed as light: For example, from the Earth to the Moon in just over a second.)

If an object the size of Earth were at the same distance as Saturn, we would see it merely as a dim star, barely visible from a dark location in the country. Instead, Saturn is as bright as the brightest stars in our spring sky this year.

In 1888, American astronomer James Edward Keeler began using the largest telescope in the world at the time, a 36-inch refractor telescope at Lick Observatory near San Jose, California, to study the rings of Saturn. He proved that the rings are not rotating as a single, solid structure as some had thought.

Using a spectroscope attached to the big Lick telescope in 1895, Keeler was able to measure the comparative red shift and blue shift of sunlight reflected off different parts of Saturn's rings. He found that the parts closest to Saturn were moving faster than the parts farther out and correctly concluded that the rings must consist of individual particles revolving around Saturn like swarms of tiny moonlets.

Those ring moonlets range from tiny crystals like those in an ice fog to flying icebergs the size of small mountains. Each particle has its own individual orbit about Saturn, although a gentle jostling occurs as the particles are affected by the gravitational pull of Saturn's major moons, and each other.

The rings are truly enormous in extent. From one edge to the other, they span a distance equivalent to two-thirds of the gulf between the Earth and the Moon. Yet the particles that make up the rings seldom stray more than a few hundred meters from a perfectly flat disc, making the structure about as thick as the height of a 50-story building. A scale model of the rings made of paper the thickness of the page you are now reading would be larger than a football field.

For every house-sized ring boulder there are a million the size of a baseball and trillions the size of a grain of sand. In denser sections of the rings, the baseball-sized particles would be separated by a meter or so, while the house-sized ones would be relatively rare, sometimes kilometers apart. But if the entire ring structure could be melted and refrozen in place as a solid body, it would be a solid disk less than two feet thick.

CELESTIAL HIGHLIGHTS, June 2007

by Todd Carlson
Assistant Editor

On June 5, Jupiter is at opposition, the point at which the Sun, Earth and Jupiter are aligned. The largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter can be found low in the southeast at sunset. By the middle of the night it is due south and easily identified due to its overwhelming brilliance compared to the surrounding stars. Binoculars will reveal up to four of its moons huddled close to the planet.

Venus is at its greatest elongation on June 8, which means it is at its maximum apparent distance from the Sun. Over the next few months Venus will appear to sink farther into the twilight sky on each night.

The Beehive cluster, M44, and Venus form a pretty pairing in the night sky on June 12 and 13. Sitting just one degree above the cluster, binoculars or a telescope at low power will provide the best views. Click here to view the map.

On June 17 the thin crescent Moon will join Venus and the Beehive cluster and create a striking scene. To photograph the event with a digital camera, use a tripod and keep the camera’s zoom lens at wide angle. If the camera’s auto exposure is not quite right (it often isn’t in twilight) use manual settings and bracket exposures between 2 and 10 seconds at ISO 200.

Venus and Saturn appear very close to each other in the western sky shortly after sunset on June 30. This is a very rare occurrence and an event not to be missed if the sky is clear. Both planets will appear in the same telescopic field of view.

From a dark observing location, the Milky Way, our own galaxy, arches over the eastern horizon after 11:00 p.m. on nights without moonlight interference. The plane of our disc-shaped galaxy appears as a faint white-coloured haze that becomes more intense approaching the southern horizon. Scanning the southern Milky Way with binoculars will reveal more stars in this part of the sky than any other since we are looking directly towards the centre of our galaxy.

2007-06-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

THE SAGA OF THE BOGUS BLUE MOON

Is there really such as thing as a blue Moon?

by Terence Dickinson
SkyNews Editor

If your calendar shows the phases of the Moon, check either May or June this year for two full Moons in a single month. Depending on whether the calendar maker used moon phase data for the Eastern Time zone (eastern North America) or for Universal Time (Greenwich Observatory, England), the second full Moon will fall on either May 31 or June 30. Whichever date is selected, that second full Moon in the month is said to be the blue Moon.

By this definition, blue Moons occur once every three years or so. However, this two-full-moons-in-a-month definition is pure astro-baloney. It's based on neither astronomical fact or historical tradition. It's nothing more than an urban legend, that emerged in the 1980s as a result of a series of misinterpretations of facts and--believe it or not--a question in the board game Trivial Pursuit!

Yet, as likely as not, you will hear or read about this upcoming bogus blue Moon on news broadcasts and in newspapers. Yet there's not a shred of scientific or historical fact in the definition. The Moon doesn't turn blue, nor is it larger or smaller than usual. There is not a thing special about it compared to any other full Moon. The legend claims that's where the phrase "once in a blue Moon" comes from. But it isn't.

According to Memorial University (St. John's, Newfoundland) folklore historian Philip Hiscock, the term "blue Moon"--meaning once in a lifetime, or once in a long while--has been around for more than 400 years. However, Hiscock says its urban legend meaning (the second of two full moons in a month) has become widespread only since the late 1980s.

Both folklore historians like Hiscock, and astronomy writers like me wondered where the second-full-Moon-in-a-month definition came from so recently, and how it became so widespread so fast. Before the mid-1980s, if you asked astronomers what is meant by a blue Moon, they would explain that very rarely, certain types of dust and smoke from volcanoes or forest fires can absorb red light and tint the Moon blue--the Sun too. The phenomenon is so rare, few people have ever seen it.

The last widespread blue Moons and blue Suns seen in this part of the world were back in 1950, caused by smoke blown all the way to Europe from huge forest fires in Alberta. A similar effect was caused by emissions from the 1980 Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption in Washington state. The rarity of these true blue Moons matches the long-standing historical definition of a blue Moon, meaning once in a very long time.

The bogus two-full-Moons-in-a-month definition was eventually traced to a mistake published in Sky & Telescope magazine in the 1940s. Apparently, the error was not noticed for more than three decades until it was gathered by a researcher for Star Date, an internationally syndicated radio program, who was sifting through old magazines and took the error as fact and used it on the show. From there, the author of a children's book published in 1985 used the definition as a "science fact."

Because the children’s book was not a best-seller, the error probably would have returned to obscurity at that point. But the book just happened to be in the library used by a researcher for the immensely popular board game Trivial Pursuit, Genus II edition. This gave the bogus definition widespread circulation and legitimacy--all to the mystification of astronomers who had never heard of it.

Sky & Telescope admitted to its “blue Moon blooper,” in its May 1999 issue, but by then it was more than a decade after the Trivial Pursuit appearance and too late to undo the mess.

As a cross-check to ensure that the erroneous two-full-Moons-in-a-month definition might indeed be century-old folklore, every edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac has been thoroughly examined and nowhere in any edition does it contain any reference to the blue Moon as the second full Moon in a month.

Now that we know the second-full-moon-in-a-month definition has neither historical or scientific validity, there’s the problem of what to do to reverse it. My guess is that it’s too late. The erroneous concept of a blue moon as the second full moon in a month now appears to be part of the English language. It is given as the first blue Moon definition in the American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Co., 4th edition, 2000), and as the second definition in my favourite dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate (Merriam-Webster, Inc., 11th edition, 2003).

But I’m not giving up. Every time a so-called blue Moon comes up on the calendar, I’ll be fighting for truth, justice, and the astronomically correct way!

CELESTIAL OBSERVING TIPS, May 2007

by Todd Carlson
Assistant Editor

With summer approaching and daylight extending further into the evening, sometimes the late spring sky over Canada is not fully dark until after 11 p.m. But brighter objects, especially the Moon and planets, are visible perfectly well in deep twilight, without waiting for total darkness.

Here are the most prominent naked eye observing highlights for May.

1. After 11 p.m. on the night of May 4/5, the Moon is beside Jupiter and easy to identify. As the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter shines with a brilliant creamy hue, brighter and steadier than any stars. Later in the month, Jupiter is seen rising low in the southeast during dusk, and higher in the south later on in the night.

2. The planet Venus is the brightest celestial object after the Moon. Look for it standing above the western horizon during May evenings. Enshrouded in clouds, Venus reflects 65 percent of the light it receives from the Sun, resulting in a brilliant diamond-like appearance in our twilight sky.

3. On May 19 and 20, the thin crescent Moon will join Venus on the western horizon at dusk. Look for Earthshine, sunlight reflecting off of the Earth and illuminating the night side the Moon, as the sky darkens. Binoculars will enhance the view.

4. Mercury can be observed during the last two weeks of May below and to the right of Venus about 75 minutes after sunset. Use binoculars to aid in sighting Mercury, which looks like a star (brighter than other stars in the vicinity, but much dimmer than brilliant Venus).

2007-04-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

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If you would like to receive a digital subscription to the complete SkyNews magazine, please tell us now and, for a limited time, you'll save $10." The cost is just US$16 for a full year of SkyNews. To register now to take advantage of this offer click here. You won’t have to pay until the first issue is set to ship.

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THE SAGA OF THE BOGUS BLUE MOON

Is there really such as thing as a blue Moon?

by Terence Dickinson
SkyNews Editor

If your calendar shows the phases of the Moon, check either May or June this year for two full Moons in a single month. Depending on whether the calendar maker used moon phase data for the Eastern Time zone (eastern North America) or for Universal Time (Greenwich Observatory, England), the second full Moon will fall on either May 31 or June 30. Whichever date is selected, that second full Moon in the month is said to be the blue Moon.

By this definition, blue Moons occur once every three years or so. However, this two-full-moons-in-a-month definition is pure astro-baloney. It's based on neither astronomical fact or historical tradition. It's nothing more than an urban legend, that emerged in the 1980s as a result of a series of misinterpretations of facts and--believe it or not--a question in the board game Trivial Pursuit!

Yet, as likely as not, you will hear or read about this upcoming bogus blue Moon on news broadcasts and in newspapers. Yet there's not a shred of scientific or historical fact in the definition. The Moon doesn't turn blue, nor is it larger or smaller than usual. There is not a thing special about it compared to any other full Moon. The legend claims that's where the phrase "once in a blue Moon" comes from. But it isn't.

According to Memorial University (St. John's, Newfoundland) folklore historian Philip Hiscock, the term "blue Moon"--meaning once in a lifetime, or once in a long while--has been around for more than 400 years. However, Hiscock says its urban legend meaning (the second of two full moons in a month) has become widespread only since the late 1980s.

Both folklore historians like Hiscock, and astronomy writers like me wondered where the second-full-Moon-in-a-month definition came from so recently, and how it became so widespread so fast. Before the mid-1980s, if you asked astronomers what is meant by a blue Moon, they would explain that very rarely, certain types of dust and smoke from volcanoes or forest fires can absorb red light and tint the Moon blue--the Sun too. The phenomenon is so rare, few people have ever seen it.

The last widespread blue Moons and blue Suns seen in this part of the world were back in 1950, caused by smoke blown all the way to Europe from huge forest fires in Alberta. A similar effect was caused by emissions from the 1980 Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption in Washington state. The rarity of these true blue Moons matches the long-standing historical definition of a blue Moon, meaning once in a very long time.

The bogus two-full-Moons-in-a-month definition was eventually traced to a mistake published in Sky & Telescope magazine in the 1940s. Apparently, the error was not noticed for more than three decades until it was gathered by a researcher for Star Date, an internationally syndicated radio program, who was sifting through old magazines and took the error as fact and used it on the show. From there, the author of a children's book published in 1985 used the definition as a "science fact."

Because the children’s book was not a best-seller, the error probably would have returned to obscurity at that point. But the book just happened to be in the library used by a researcher for the immensely popular board game Trivial Pursuit, Genus II edition. This gave the bogus definition widespread circulation and legitimacy--all to the mystification of astronomers who had never heard of it.

Sky & Telescope admitted to its “blue Moon blooper,” in its May 1999 issue, but by then it was more than a decade after the Trivial Pursuit appearance and too late to undo the mess.

As a cross-check to ensure that the erroneous two-full-Moons-in-a-month definition might indeed be century-old folklore, every edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac has been thoroughly examined and nowhere in any edition does it contain any reference to the blue Moon as the second full Moon in a month.

Now that we know the second-full-moon-in-a-month definition has neither historical or scientific validity, there’s the problem of what to do to reverse it. My guess is that it’s too late. The erroneous concept of a blue moon as the second full moon in a month now appears to be part of the English language. It is given as the first blue Moon definition in the American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Co., 4th edition, 2000), and as the second definition in my favourite dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate (Merriam-Webster, Inc., 11th edition, 2003).

But I’m not giving up. Every time a so-called blue Moon comes up on the calendar, I’ll be fighting for truth, justice, and the astronomically correct way!

CELESTIAL OBSERVING TIPS, May 2007

by Todd Carlson
Assistant Editor

With summer approaching and daylight extending further into the evening, sometimes the late spring sky over Canada is not fully dark until after 11 p.m. But brighter objects, especially the Moon and planets, are visible perfectly well in deep twilight, without waiting for total darkness.

Here are the most prominent naked eye observing highlights for May.

1. After 11 p.m. on the night of May 4/5, the Moon is beside Jupiter and easy to identify. As the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter shines with a brilliant creamy hue, brighter and steadier than any stars. Later in the month, Jupiter is seen rising low in the southeast during dusk, and higher in the south later on in the night.

2. The planet Venus is the brightest celestial object after the Moon. Look for it standing above the western horizon during May evenings. Enshrouded in clouds, Venus reflects 65 percent of the light it receives from the Sun, resulting in a brilliant diamond-like appearance in our twilight sky.

3. On May 19 and 20, the thin crescent Moon will join Venus on the western horizon at dusk. Look for Earthshine, sunlight reflecting off of the Earth and illuminating the night side the Moon, as the sky darkens. Binoculars will enhance the view.

4. Mercury can be observed during the last two weeks of May below and to the right of Venus about 75 minutes after sunset. Use binoculars to aid in sighting Mercury, which looks like a star (brighter than other stars in the vicinity, but much dimmer than brilliant Venus).

2007-03-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

STEPHEN HAWKING'S UNIVERSE
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

His withered body is but a shell for his soaring mind, which grapples with problems at the frontiers of quantum physics and cosmology-and, apparently, colonizing other worlds Stephen Hawking, arguably the world's most famous living scientist, is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, the same position held by Isaac Newton three centuries ago. A few weeks ago, he received the oldest award for scientific achievement, the Copley Medal, for his contributions to theoretical physics and theoretical cosmology. First awarded by The Royal Society of England in 1731, the Copley Medal predates the Nobel Prize by 170 years and has been awarded to such scientific luminaries as Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Louis Pasteur.

Hawking's work has been fundamental in understanding and classifying black holes. He has also authored four popular-science books, including A Brief History of Time, the second-best selling science book of all time. (Number one is Carl Sagan's Cosmos.)

Hawking is probably equally famous for being one of the longest-surviving people on Earth with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease, a rapidly progressive neurological disease that attacks the nerve cells (neurons) responsible for controlling voluntary muscles. Hawking was diagnosed with ALS when he was 21. He is now 64 and, for more than three decades, has been conducting his daily life from a high-tech motorized wheelchair fitted with a computer and voice synthesizer. Since the mid-1980s, he has required full-time nurses as well as at least one student or colleague who sees to his technical and professional arrangements.

His withered body-he can slightly move only two fingers and cannot speak-is but a shell for his soaring mind, which grapples with problems at the frontiers of quantum physics and cosmology. "I try to lead as normal a life as possible and not think about my condition or regret the things it prevents me from doing," says Hawking. "Fortunately, I do theoretical cosmology, which requires only thinking."

He is also known for his dry wit. The high point of his sixtieth birthday party was an appearance by an actress impersonating Marilyn Monroe, who sang a rendition of "I Want to Be Loved by You." When the applause died down, Hawking told the audience, "Marilyn and I go way back."
Far from being confined, he conducts a daily schedule of theoretical research at his office at Cambridge, a short wheelchair trip from his home. Students and faculty used to regard him as a bit of a terror on wheels, as he would beetle around campus at bicycle speed. That ended in 2002, when a wheel became jammed in a sidewalk crack and Hawking was sent flying into a wall, breaking his hip. Now he drives the chair at a more sedate walking speed.

His stature in theoretical physics was established in the 1980s for his work on black holes, and he has been in demand ever since to speak at research conferences, traveling from England to North America more than 30 times. During the past six months, he was in China, Singapore and Washington, D.C.

Hawking visited Ontario in 1998 to officially open the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. While he was here, he gave a talk to a standing-room-only crowd of more than 3,000 at Convocation Hall, University of Toronto.

At a reception afterwards, I was standing near him, and for some reason, I caught his gaze. Compared with his rumpled, immobilized child-sized body, his lively blue eyes are compelling-and, I admit, a bit unsettling when they are staring directly at you.

"Hello." The greeting, clearly intended for me, emerged in synthetic clarity from the speakers in his wheelchair. I stepped forward and introduced myself, adding that I had enjoyed his talk and appreciated his description of the instanton, which was new to me. This immediately identified me as a novice in quantum field theory. Hawking replied with a slight smile, then his gaze turned elsewhere as his chair speakers said, "Thank you." (Note to fellow quantum field theory novices: An instanton is a topologically nontrivial field configuration in four-dimensional Euclidean space. No, I don't understand it either, despite what I told the great man himself.)

Well, at least we conversed, however briefly. So I was naturally drawn to some remarks he made in a BBC interview after the Copley Medal presentation.

“It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species,” he began. “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”

Hawking went on to say that humans must colonize planets in other solar systems, traveling there using advanced “Star Trek”-style propulsion, or face extinction. He said that advances yet to come could revolutionize the velocity of space travel and make such colonies possible.
“Science fiction has developed the idea of warp drive, which takes you instantly to your destination,” he added. “Once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe.”

When I read these remarks, I was a bit surprised at such talk, which may sound daring for a respected scientist but is, in fact, rather hackneyed. Not only has the idea of colonizing other planets as a way of saving humanity from disaster been a staple of science fiction for nearly a century, it is one of its most well-worn tenets. I first encountered it around age 10 on a Saturday afternoon in the early 1950s at the Biltmore movie theatre in Toronto.

The film was When Worlds Collide. Astronomers had spotted a star on a collision course with our solar system. Earth would be destroyed in the collision. The only escape was to build a rocket to carry a couple of dozen humans to an apparently habitable planet of the intruder star. In the final scene, the ship lands safely on the new world, which has a breathable atmosphere and a greenish sky.

When Worlds Collide won the 1951 Academy Award for special effects, though even by the standards of the day, it was pretty hokey. Of course, as a 10-year-old who was already interested in the stars, I was thrilled. A few years later I read the book on which the movie was based, written in 1931. Presumably Professor Hawking is aware that these ideas go back a long way. If I ever meet him again, I might ask him whether he has ever seen the movie. (In any case, he’ll get a chance to see a modern big-budget version in 2008 when Steven Spielberg produces a remake.)

Whether he has seen the film or not, I’m curious as to why he chose to mention the subject at all. Maybe he’s working on his own science fiction novel, one with a new twist on this old idea. Or perhaps he sees hints in his theoretical work that warp drive might not be purely in the realm of science fiction. Or he could be tossing ideas forward simply to inspire young minds, as mine was by a 1950s science fiction movie more than half a century ago.

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BINOCULAR OBJECTS FOR THE AMATEUR ASTRONOMER
by Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

Binoculars, as SkyNews Editor Terence Dickinson discussed in the previous E-News, can be used to see a number of deep sky objects.

Here is a list showcasing some of the best binocular objects currently visible. Note that the best observations will come from locations with minimal light pollution. Observers from areas with heavy light pollution may not be able to find every object.

Alcor and MizarSharp-eyed observers may have previously noticed that the second star from the end of the handle of the Big Dipper is in fact two stars—Alcor and Mizar (the brighter of the pair). Binoculars will easily show the 1.5° separation between them. Even though both are roughly the same distance from Earth (Alcor 81 light-years; Mizar 78 light-years), note the difference in luminosity.
Click for a sky chart

The Pleiades Star Cluster—M45Occasionally misidentified as the Little Dipper, the Pleiades actually do resemble a small spoon. Rising in the east just after the dinner hour, the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, is 370 light-years away and within the constellation Taurus.
Click for a sky chart

The Hyades ClusterFound to the lower left of the Pleiades is the Hyades star cluster. Also part of Taurus, this cluster is easily identified by its “V” shape and is 153 light-years distant. The bright red star Aldebaron appears to be part of the Hyades but is less than half way to the cluster.
Click for a sky chart

M35This open cluster covers about half a degree and appears as a bright hazy patch. Found near the bottom of Gemini, the cluster is 2800 light-years from Earth and spans 30 light-years wide.
Click for a sky chart

M44Another beautiful star cluster. Commonly referred to as the Beehive Cluster, it is visible to the naked eye as a small but distinct fuzzy patch. 550 light-years from Earth.
Click for a sky chart

The Orion Nebula—M42Appearing as a star to the naked eye, binoculars easily reveal it to be a small cloud. At 1,400 light-years away, the Orion Nebula is one of the premier winter deep sky objects to view. Note: Best observed from a location devoid of light pollution.
Click for a sky chart

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In the March/April 2007 issue of SkyNews:

The Great Comet of 2007.
Total Lunar Eclipse March 3.
Exploring the Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White—Deep-sky Gems in Gemini.
Product Reviews: Celestron’s Computerized Backyard Telescopes.
Readers’ Gallery.
And more!

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SkyNews.ca-Keep us in your sites!
Is there an aurora occurring tonight? What special events are happening in the night sky this week? Looking for reviews of the latest telescope? Visit www.skynews.ca for all your astronomy needs—news, product reviews, satellite transit times, Photo of the Week, aurora monitoring and more!

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2006-11-17T07:19:00.000-08:00

A TELESCOPE FOR CHRISTMAS?
By Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

Every December, thousands of telescopes in the $75 to $300 range are bought as Christmas gifts. Although a telescope might seem to be the ideal gift for someone with a budding interest in astronomy and stargazing, most veteran amateur astronomers instead say that a better choice in the same price bracket is a beginner’s package that includes excellent quality binoculars as well as one or two guidebooks with introductory star charts.

There is a common misconception that any telescope will reveal hundreds of celestial objects in glowing splendor. This is only reinforced by pictures of colourful nebulas and galaxies on the telescope box. True, a typical department store or Christmas catalogue telescope will show the Moon’s craters, Jupiter's four largest satellites, and Saturn's rings. Apart from that though, you are probably farther ahead with binoculars.

Binoculars cost less than telescopes and are much easier to use, especially at first. Binoculars allow the comfort of two-eye viewing while providing wide, bright, right-side-up images. Any size and type of binoculars will get you started, but the most widely recommended sizes for astronomy are 7x50, 10x50, and 8x56. The first number in these designations is the magnification, the second is the diameter of the main lenses in millimetres. There are many good quality glasses in these sizes the under-$300 category. For example, SkyNews offers the Celestron Ultima DX 8x56 for $215 plus taxes and shipping (Canadian orders only please—www.skynews.ca/pages/store.html).

A useful binocular accessory for astronomy is an adapter for attaching the glasses to a camera tripod. One type of adapter (about $20) is L-shaped with a bolt at the top of the L that screws into a threaded hole at the front of the binocular's focusing bar. The base of the L attaches to the tripod like the base of a camera. When buying binoculars, ensure that they have the threaded receptacle—not all do.

What celestial sights can binoculars show? Here's an abbreviated list:

The brightest star clusters, like the Pleiades and Hyades are seen in their entirety in binoculars whereas most telescopes (with their smaller fields of view) can show only portions of them.
Fantastic detail on the moon, including at least 100 craters, mountain ranges and flat plains that seventeenth-century astronomers thought were seas.
Thousands of stars in the Milky Way and elsewhere in the sky that are invisible to the unaided eye.
Star colors become more evident with binoculars than without. Besides plain old white, stars range from sapphire blue to deep orange.
The Andromeda Galaxy, a vast city of stars larger than our entire Milky Way Galaxy, is plainly seen as an oval smudge near overhead at this time of year.

OK, I know the urge to buy a telescope can be irresistible. So here are a few basic rules for telescope shoppers who have made up their minds that binoculars just won’t do: (1) Don't pay any attention to claims about high magnification; even large telescopes seldom use more than 200 power. (2) If there is a choice, select the telescope with the sturdiest mount and tripod. (3) The telescope should have a finderscope (a miniature telescope for sighting) at least 30mm in aperture. (4) Don’t agonize over what type of telescope to buy, rather be prepared to spend at least $300 to insure a minimum level of quality. (5) If a telescope specialty store is available locally, it should be your first choice for wider choice and expert advice.

For more tips on buying a scope and where to buy one, see “Astronomy Stores & Equipment Guide,” on the left menu of the SkyNews home page at www.skynews.ca.

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Observing Highlights for November and early December 2006
By Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

The annual Leonid meteor shower peaks on the night of November 17/18. From a dark observing location, viewers can expect to see 10 to 15 meteors per hour after midnight on November 18. The meteors will appear to radiate from the head of the constellation Leo, which rises in the east after 11:00 p.m. Observing Alert: In New England, and Canada east of Lake Ontario here is a possibility that a larger than average number of Leonid meteors with extremely long paths reaching most of the way across the sky will be visible around 11:30 p.m (Nov. 17). These are “earthgrazer” meteors that come in on low trajectories, just skimming the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Geminid meteor shower occurs on the night of December 13/14 and likely will be the best shower of the year. Forty or more meteors per hour should be seen from a dark site. The shower peaks near 6:00 a.m. EST on the 14th although meteors should be seen streaking across the sky all night.

Meteor showers are best observed with the naked eye—telescopes and binoculars are not required, nor are they useful for meteor observations. A reclining chair and warm clothes are all that is needed.

The nearly full Moon occults the Pleiades star cluster on December 3. The glare of the Moon will make observations difficult, but nonetheless all of North America will be able to observe the event which begins shortly after 8:00 p.m. EST, lasts for about 2 hours and is best observed with a telescope or binoculars.

December 9, 10 and 11 offer an excellent opportunity to see movement within our solar system. On the morning of December 9, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter can found low in the eastern sky forming a tight one-degree triangle. Jupiter will appear as a bright “star” and will be the easiest to identify. On the 9th, Mercury will form the top of the triangle, with Jupiter on the left and Mercury on the right. On December 10, Mercury will be slightly above Jupiter (within 10 arc minutes) with Mars to their right. On the morning of December 11, Jupiter will be the top of the triangle, with Mercury to the left and Mars to the right.

Click HERE to view an image showing where to locate the three planets on the morning of December 9th.

For more information on these and other celestial events, see the November/December 2006 issue of SkyNews.

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SkyNews.ca has everything for the amateur astronomer!
Are you searching for holiday gift ideas or stocking stuffers for your favourite astronomer? Is there is an aurora occurring tonight? What interesting events are happening in the night sky this week? Looking for a review of the latest telescope or eyepiece? SkyNews.ca has all this and more!

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In the November/December 2006 issue of SkyNews:

SkyNews reviews two new apochromatic refractors from William Optics.
Exploring the Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Astrophotography or Sleep? A personal guide to getting your astronomy fix without losing sleep.
Christmas gift ideas for the backyard astronomer.
Readers’ Gallery.
And more!

2006-10-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

PLANET NEWS FROM NEAR AND FAR
Astronomers have been busy booting Pluto out of the solar system, finding a new planet orbiting a nearby star, and exploring a crater on Mars

by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

Astronomers have been busy lately. A major astronomical meeting in late August was the scene of the now-famous dumping of Pluto as a full-fledged planet of the solar system. Pluto, they said, was much too small for it to properly qualify as a planet. More crucially though, the scientists said that other similar-sized bodies had been found orbiting the Sun in the same vicinity as Pluto--one of them slightly larger than Pluto. Rather than designate that object a planet too, the final decision was to demote Pluto and reduce the planet count from nine to eight.

Astronomers have been busy lately. A major astronomical meeting in late August was the scene of the now-famous dumping of Pluto as a full-fledged planet of the solar system. Pluto, they said, was much too small for it to properly qualify as a planet. More crucially though, the scientists said that other similar-sized bodies had been found orbiting the Sun in the same vicinity as Pluto--one of them slightly larger than Pluto. Rather than designate that object a planet too, the final decision was to demote Pluto and reduce the planet count from nine to eight.

Also on the planet front, just last week astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope announced that they had gathered definitive evidence for the existence of the nearest planet beyond our solar system. It’s a Jupiter-sized world that orbits the Sun-like star Epsilon Eridani, which is 10.5 light-years (approximately 100 trillion kilometres) from Earth. That may sound far away, but it’s next door in astronomical terms.

The as-yet unnamed planet is calculated to be slightly larger than Jupiter with about 1.5 times Jupiter's mass. It orbits once around its parent star, Epsilon Eridani, every 6.9 years, compared to 11.9 years for years for Jupiter to circle the Sun.

The Hubble observations show that the planet's orbit is tilted 30 degrees to our line of sight, which is the same inclination as a disk of dust and gas that also encircles Epsilon Eridani. This is a particularly exciting result because, although it has long been inferred that planets form from such disks, this is the first time that a planet and the remnants of such a disk have been observed around the same star.

The planets in our solar system share a common alignment in a flat plane--evidence that they were created at the same time in the Sun’s primordial disk. But the Sun is a middle-aged star some 4.5 billion years old, and its debris disk dissipated long ago. Epsilon Eridani, however, still retains its disk because it is young, only 800 million years old.

Astronomers originally detected the planet in 2000 by measurements that were interpreted as a rhythmic, back-and-forth wobble in Epsilon Eridani caused by the gravitational tug of an unseen planet. However some astronomers wondered if in fact there might be some other reason for the wobble. The Hubble observations have settled any uncertainty, making this the closest so-called extrasolar planet (planet of another star) to our sun.

Although the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes have not taken a picture of the planet, the evidence for its existence was gathered by tracking changes in the star’s wobbling motion. However, astronomers hope to snap pictures of it in 2007, when its orbit is closest to Epsilon Eridani. Then the planet may be bright enough in reflected starlight to be imaged by Hubble or large ground-based telescopes.

Meanwhile, another group of researchers at mission control for NASA’s robotic Martian rovers were making news of their own much closer to home on our planetary neighbour Mars. After more than two years driving the solar-power rovers Spirit and Opportunity around the desert planet, scientists said last week that they were plotting how to navigate the rover Opportunity down into Victoria Crater, a deep and geologically interesting structure, probably more than a billion years old.

The six-wheel robot has spent its first week at Victoria crater acting like a tourist, snapping pictures of the kilometre-wide jagged pit filled with cliffs of thickly layered rocks which undoubtedly hold clues about the Martian past. For scientists, an exciting new dimension to the mission is new aerial images of the craters mapped by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has just become operational. In one image, the rover appeared as a speck with its wheel tracks visible in the soil.

This kind of technological achievement on other worlds is not exactly routine, but you don’t hear much about it in the mainstream news either. The idea is that by studying close-ups of the rover's surroundings using aerial shots taken by the orbiter, scientists hope to zero in on the safest route for the rover to enter the big crater and probe the inner walls--before the vehicle konks out. Both rovers were designed to last six months and they are still working after more than 30 months on Mars.

A preliminary analysis of the pictures seen so far shows distinct patterns in the sedimentary rock layers in the crater, suggesting the area experienced a fluctuating climate--sometimes watery, sometimes dry--scientists said. Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have both uncovered geologic evidence of past water activity on the planet. The question remains: How long was water in liquid form on the planet, and what happened to it? Mars is now dust-dry. Is this the long-term fate of Earth? Can Mars tell us anything about the destiny of our own planet?

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Constellation Watch
By Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

The most famous constellations visible in the autumn—Capricornus, Aquarius and Pisces—tend to be among the least prominent in the sky. Constellations such as Orion and Taurus, seen in the winter, or Scorpius and Sagittarius found in the summer, have dominant stars that make identification easy.

Not only are the stars of these famous constellations dim, but they don’t link together into a shape that looks like their namesakes. Over the years I have created my own visual representations of some constellations which help me to identify them.

Capricornus is a perfect example of a constellation which is difficult to identify. While it may be a goat in mythology, to me it appears to be kite-shaped, with the top pointed towards the horizon. Editor Terence Dickinson says it looks to him like an upside-down Napoleon hat.

To the left of Capricornus is Aquarius, the water bearer. Once you identify the jugs of water held at the end of a stick, the visual appearance of this grouping might get a passing grade as somewhat matching its water bearer description.

Pisces, the fish, looks more like a tadpole and is found to the left of Aquarius. The key to locating Pisces is identifying the Circlet, an asterism (grouping of stars) at the head of the constellation. From its head, a trail of stars flow eastward, creating the tadpole’s tail.

The lesson in this is that you can personalize the sky by memorizing the constellations in your own way. A beginner may not see a goat, a bull or a whale. But the grouping of stars that forms the form a constellation can be personalized in a way the makes the night sky easy to navigate.

Click HERE for an image showing where to locate Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

Planetary Roundup

Saturn rises near 3:00 a.m. in October in the constellation Leo and can be seen high in the eastern sky at dawn. On the morning of October 16, the 24-day old Moon is near Saturn.

Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury are all hidden by the glare of the Sun and are not visible.

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SkyNews Observer's Guide

Is there an aurora occurring tonight? What special events are happening in the night sky this week? Looking for reviews of the latest telescope? Visit www.skynews.ca for all your astronomy needs—news, product reviews, satellite transit times, Photo of the Week, aurora monitoring and more!

In the November/December 2006 issue of SkyNews:

SkyNews reviews two new apochromatic refractors from William Optics.
Exploring the Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Astrophotography or Sleep? A personal guide to getting your astronomy fix without losing sleep.
Christmas gift ideas for the backyard astronomer.
Readers’ Gallery.
And more!

-----------------------

SUBSCRIBE NOW and your subscription will start with this exiting issue and also be entered in a draw for a chance to win your very own 12-inch Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope!Subscribe online and save up to 30% off the newsstand price.

Click HERE to subscribe now!

2006-09-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

DREAMS OF A SUPERCOLOSSAL TELESCOPE
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

Astronomers ranging from the backyard stargazer peering through a small telescope to the Ph.D. astrophysicist planning where to point the Hubble Space Telescope all have the same wish. They dream of someday using a larger and better telescope. In those dreams, larger is almost always the most important part.

Larger in astronomy typically means doubling the size of the telescope’s main lens or mirror. Dreaming about it is called aperture fever.

The most serious case of aperture fever in astronomical history afflicted an Irishman named William Parsons (1800-1867), who, after age 40, was known as Lord Rosse. Using his considerable personal wealth, he built a large telescope even by today’s standards that boasted a main mirror 36-inches (0.9 metres) across.

After just a few looks through this instrument, Lord Rosse was so impressed by what he saw that he immediately began work on a behemoth with a 72-inch (1.8-metre) mirror. Completed in 1845, it was the largest telescope in the world until it was dismantled in 1908.

When pointed overhead, Lord Rosse’s monster scope was five storeys tall and was supported by ropes and pulleys strung between two massive stone walls. The telescope tracked the sky by pure manpower. Four men from the Lord’s estate were trained to crank and pull the giant telescope tube to follow each celestial object being viewed. Although cumbersome, the telescope’s main problem was frequent cloud cover at Birr Castle, 125 kilometres east of Dublin. Undeterred, Lord Rosse and his “gentlemen scientist” colleagues discovered the existence of spiral galaxies during the telescope’s first year of operation. Although no one at the time knew the nature of the spiral nebulae, as they were then called, drawings made at the eyepiece of the big scope led an American scientist, Stephen Alexander, to correctly suggest for the first time that our own galaxy, the Milky Way, might also have spiral arms.

The huge telescope at Birr Castle became a world centre for astronomy during the middle of the 19th century, and has now been restored to its original state as a historical exhibit. But the legacy of Lord Rosse as having the world’s most serious case of aperture fever lives on. In fact, it may be overtaken by research astronomers considering the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope with its 2.4-metre optical mirror.

One of the ideas being floated is a telescope on the Moon with a 30-metre mirror. That’s big enough to image an Earth-sized planet in orbit around a sunlike star 50 light-years away. It could also detect if there is any oxygen in the planet’s atmosphere--a key signature of life. For many billions less than the cost of the International Space Station, an international 30-metre telescope on the Moon could be operational in less than 20 years. It’s the ultimate aperture fever dream.

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CONSTELLATION WATCH
by Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

The autumn and winter constellations are once again coming into view with the change of seasons. By 11:00 p.m., the constellations Cassiopeia, Andromeda and Perseus are all high enough in the northeast to allow a convenient look at their deep sky treasures.

Cassiopeia, easily identified due to its distinctive “W” shape, is embedded in the autumn and winter sector of the Milky Way. As you look at toward this part of the Milky Way, you are gazing toward the outer edge of our galaxy. Try this comparison: Using binoculars soon after dusk, note the difference in density of Milky Way stars visible while looking towards the centre of our galaxy in Sagittarius and Scorpius along the south-western horizon, compared to what can be seen looking towards the Cassiopeia Milky Way later in the evening. As you would expect, the “downtown” section around Sagittarius is more crowded.

Cassiopeia can be used as a guide to finding two deep sky treasures, NGC869 and 884 and the Andromeda Galaxy. Commonly known as the Double Cluster, NGC869 and 884 are two fifth-magnitude clusters 7,000 light-years away which are visible to the naked eye as distinctive hazy spots within the Milky Way. Located to the left of the “W” at this time of year, the Double Cluster provides a splendid view in binoculars, while a telescope will reveal a treasure-trove of stars.

From a dark observing site, Cassiopeia can aid in finding the Andromeda galaxy, also known as M31. Appearing as a fuzzy patch amongst the stars, at 2.3 million light-years away it is the most distant object that can be seen with the naked eye. Binoculars will show an elongated haze while a telescope will also show its two companion galaxies.

For a sky chart showing the location of the Andromeda Galaxy and NGC869 and 884, click HERE.

PLANETARY ROUNDUP

Jupiter is low in the southwest at dusk in September and early October. By the end of October the big planet is too close to the Sun to observe.
Venus hugs the south-eastern horizon just before dawn but will soon be disappearing behind the Sun.

Saturn rises a few hours before dawn, appearing as a yellow-coloured “star” in the constellation Leo. On September 19 the crescent Moon will be 5° below Saturn.

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SkyNews Observer's Guide
Are you considering buying a telescope for Christmas? Do you have an interest in astronomy but aren’t sure how to begin observing? What special events are occurring in the night sky this week? The SkyNews Observer’s Guide contains articles such as “Tips For First-Telescope Buyers” and “10 Steps to Successful Stargazing” as well as a synopsis of what can be found in the night sky for the upcoming week.

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In the September/October 2006 issue of SkyNews:

2005 SkyNews Photo of the Week contest winners.
Exploring the Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Guide to the Outer Planets.
Strange Bedfellows: Making Sense of M81 and M82.
Moon map.
Star chart for September and October.
And more!

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SUBSCRIBE NOW and your subscription will start with this exiting issue and also be entered in a draw for a chance to win your very own 12-inch Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope! Subscribe online and save up to 30% off the newsstand price.

For more information or to subscribe now, please call 1-866-759-0005 or click HERE to subscribe online.

2006-08-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

THE MARS HOAX
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

Thanks to the Internet, information spreads around the world faster than ever before. But so does false information. Sometimes it’s hard to know which is which--what’s a rumour and what’s factual.

Take the case of the item now making the rounds on the Internet called “The Red Planet is about to be Spectacular.” It says that in August, Earth and Mars will make the closest approach to each other in recorded history. Then comes this statement: “On August 27th ‚ Mars will look as large as the full Moon.” And this: “No one alive today will ever see this again.”

The tip-off that this is a hoax is that the “information” is anonymous. No source is mentioned, no scientist is attributed, no news agency is credited. Somebody just made it up--almost.

Mars did in fact come closest to Earth in recorded history on August 27, but that was August 27, 2003, not this year. It was bright, but it looked like a bright star, not anything like the full Moon. Never has. Never will.

To the unaided eye, Mars always looks like a bright rust-hued star, a pinprick of light, certainly nothing like the full Moon. Sometimes it is bright and conspicuous, as it was in August, 2003, when it came within 56 million kilometres of Earth, setting a 60,000-year record. Other times it looks the same as a moderately bright star. But it never appears anything other than starlike.

So, what are we to make of this Internet Mars story with its crude combination of outdated and wildly incorrect “facts?”

It’s not junk science because no scientist or organization is claiming it is true. Nobody signed it. No source is indicated. It’s just plain junk--a hoax. Yet because of the Internet, millions of people have heard about it. I know, because everywhere I speak or teach, I get asked about it. (Is Mars really going to be as bright as the full moon in August?)

Why would somebody go to the effort of creating such a hoax? Maybe it’s the class clown syndrome--doing it to get attention. But that doesn’t make much sense because the message doesn’t promote a product, an organization, an ideology, or any individual’s name. It’s something that never could have happened in the pre-internet era.

What this incident does do, I hope, is prove once again that just because a message comes out of a computer, that doesn’t necessarily give it any more validity than a conversation overheard in a coffee shop.

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AUGUST NIGHT SKY
by Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

METEORS: The annual Perseid meteor shower, a favourite celestial event for backyard astronomers and vacationers alike, reaches its peak on the night of August 12. Unfortunately, the nearly full Moon will be illuminating the night sky, washing out all but the brightest meteors. Although fewer meteors will be visible--about 15 per hour compared to triple that on a dark, moonless sky--the best observations will occur after midnight when the constellation Perseus has risen above the eastern horizon. (Perseus is the region of the sky from which the meteors seem to emerge.) Sometimes called “shooting stars,” meteors have nothing to do with stars. They are bits of interplanetary debris, ranging from a sand grain to a peanut in size, that are quickly incinerated when they plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere.

PLANETS: Mercury, Venus and Saturn can all be observed hugging the eastern horizon shortly before dawn in mid-August. On August 20 and 21, Saturn and Mercury will be within one degree of each other, appearing as faint stars to the lower left of brilliant Venus, the brightest planet. On August 22, the thin crescent Moon joins the group to form a striking scene.

Observers should seek out a location with an unobstructed view toward the eastern horizon to view both Mercury and Saturn.

Click HERE for an image showing the location of Mercury, Venus and Saturn on August 22, 2006.

Capturing the planetary conjunction with a digital camera is easy. Simply mount the camera to a camera or video tripod and, using manual mode, set the lens to f2.8 or f3.5. Using ISO 400, bracket your exposures between 1 and 10 seconds since the approaching daylight can quickly change the exposure time required. Some digital cameras can be also be used in auto mode, allowing the camera to adjust for the changes in brightness.

Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, can be seen shortly after sunset, appearing as a bright “star” low in the southwest. Take note of the position of Jupiter relative to an object, such as a tree or building, at your observing location. As each day passes, Jupiter will appear to move slightly closer to the western horizon, eventually disappearing into the glare of the Sun by late September.

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SkyNews Observer's Guide

What planets can be seen in the night sky tonight? When is the full Moon? Are there any special sky events occurring this month?

To find out the answers to these questions and more, visit the SkyNews Observer’s Guide webpage.

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In the September/October 2006 issue of SkyNews:

2005 SkyNews Photo of the Week contest winners.
Exploring the Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Moon map.
Star chart for September and October.
And more!

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Do you have an aspiring young astronomer? Will your children be studying astronomy in school this year? Containing sky charts, the latest news, a detailed summary of upcoming celestial events and more, SkyNews is an excellent resource for astronomers of all ages.

For more information or to subscribe now, please call 1-866-759-0005 or click HERE to subscribe online.

2006-07-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

JUPITER PLAYS KEY ROLE IN BOMBARDMENT OF EARTH
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

The giant planet Jupiter, currently visible as the brightest starlike object in the southwest just after dusk, has played a more important role in the history of the Earth than previously suspected according to recent research by astronomers and geologists. It appears that Jupiter caused a huge asteroid bombardment of the Earth 3.9 billion years ago. Yet, paradoxically, today Jupiter protects the Earth from impacts from other celestial vagabonds, the comets. Jupiter’s immense gravity now acts as an invisible shield by vacuuming up 99 percent of the comets that could strike the Earth.

What led to the new research was Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which crashed into Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1994, exploding with the force of a million hydrogen bombs. The explosions left huge black scars in Jupiter’s atmosphere that lasted for months. If a similar comet smashed into the Earth, it would be by far the greatest natural disaster in history.

Astronomers have calculated that a similar impact occurs on Jupiter every few centuries. Its great bulk and enormous mass, equivalent to 318 times the mass of the Earth, makes Jupiter the solar system’s punching bag for errant comets and asteroids. But unlike Earth, Jupiter’s deep atmosphere swallows the intruders, allowing the big planet to effectively shrug off the impacts with no lasting effects. Earth’s relatively thin atmosphere offers no protection against an asteroid hundreds of metres or larger in diameter.

If Jupiter weren’t there to vacuum this stuff up, roughly once every million years the Earth would suffer a comet or asteroid impact similar to the incredibly devastating one that wiped the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

But according to University of Arizona astronomer Robert Strom, four billion years ago Jupiter wasn’t where it is now. It was farther out, but doing the same thing--vacuuming up solar system debris. There was more debris to collect back then, and the process caused Jupiter to gradually move inward, toward where it is now at five times the Earth’s distance from the sun.

Jupiter’s inward migration displaced the asteroid belt, throwing millions of asteroids throughout the solar system--many of which collided with the Earth and other planets. Astronomers now estimate that during a 50-to-100-million-year interval about 3.9 billion years ago, this cataclysm produced more than 20,000 craters on Earth ranging between 10 kilometers and 1,000 kilometers in diameter. Most of the big craters on the Moon date from this era.

Whatever oceans existed on Earth were vapourized by the impact explosions. However, conditions must have soon stabilized because fossil evidence of the most primitive living organisms can be traced back at least 3.5 billion years.

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JULY NIGHT SKY
by Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

Observing Highlight: In the early morning night sky of July 20, the waning crescent Moon passes in front of (occults) the Pleiades star cluster. From most of North America, at least one of the major named stars of the Pleiades and several of the fainter stars will be occulted. The event begins at 3:02 a.m. EDT and lasts for 2 hours. Because the night side portion of the 25-day-old Moon will be illuminated by Earthshine (sunlight reflecting off of the Earth), the entire disc of the Moon will be visible during the Pleiades occultation, even though only a thin crescent is lit directly by the Sun.

Jupiter, the largest planet of our solar system, is easily observed shortly after dusk. Appearing as a bright “star” in the southwest, binoculars will reveal up to four of its moons.

From locations outside cities on moonless nights, the Milky Way is visible directly overhead on mid-summer nights. It appears as a hazy patch extending from the overhead region to the southern horizon. Moonlight and light pollution both reduce the ability to view our home galaxy, though moonlight interference is minimal to non-existent the last two weeks of July.

From a dark sky observing location, the naked eye view of the Milky Way is breathtaking. Binoculars enhance the experience even more. At the zenith (overhead), look for the large constellation Cygnus the Swan, also known as the Northern Cross. The hazy ribbon of the Milky Way cuts a swath through the middle of Cygnus, along the long arm of the cross. The density of stars in the Milky Way increases towards the southern horizon, culminating in the constellation Sagittarius, where the centre of our galaxy is located 26,000 light-years away.

Click HERE for an image showing the location of Cygnus and Sagittarius.

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SkyNews Observer's Guide

Taking your own photos of the night sky is easier than you may think. For tips on how to photograph constellations or the northern lights, see the SkyNews astrophotography webpage.
Are you considering buying a telescope but don’t know where to begin?

See the SkyNews Buyer’s Guide for tips, advice and store listings.

------------------

Don't miss the SkyNews July/August issue featuring:

SkyNews reviews the new Meade 12-inch LightBridge Dobsonian telescope and William Optics SWAN eyepieces.
Exploring the Summer Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Solar eclipse and Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann gallery of reader images.
Star chart for July and August.
And more!

SUBSCRIBE NOW and your subscription will start with this exiting issue and also be entered in a draw for a chance to win your very own 12-inch Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope!

Subscribe online and save up to 30% off the newsstand price.

Click HERE to subscribe now!

2006-06-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

SUMMER STARGAZING
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

A few weeks ago, I was approached by a television production company to read the script for a made-for-TV movie to be filmed in Canada. One of the main characters in the story is an amateur astronomer, and the producer wanted an expert to look it over.

Soon after I started reading the script, it was evident that the writer had never looked through a telescope, nor had any idea what people interested in astronomy actually talk about. So I dutifully scribbled my suggested changes throughout, and returned the manuscript.

However, this little exercise got me thinking that at least astronomy as a hobby was deemed interesting enough by the producers to make it part of a romantic drama—astronomers actually fall in love!—suitable for general audiences.

But the fact is, astronomy as a hobby has taken off in the last decade as more people than ever are enjoying the visual and cerebral delights of summer nights under the stars. Backyard telescopes, while not commonplace, are owned by at least 30,000 families in Canada according to survey data gathered by SkyNews, the Canadian magazine of astronomy and Stargazing.

“I had a small telescope as a teenager in the 60s, but got too busy to keep up the interest,” says Mike Rowlands of Toronto. Since retiring in 2005, Rowlands bought a new telescope and has been watching Saturn and Jupiter this spring. He’s thrilled with his rekindled interest in astronomy.

But like thousands of other astronomy enthusiasts, Rowlands has always lived and worked under the amber dome of light over the city at night—illumination from street lamps, parking lot lighting and other sources that light up the moisture and dust in the air above.

To really see the sky, he travels to a relative's farm two hours from the City where the nights are black and the stars shine forth. But he also says he has learned to time his trips to take advantage of the best conditions. Here are a few guidelines that apply to anyone wanting to try stargazing.

Rule #1: Avoid the Full Moon. No sense traveling to be away from city lights with the moon providing nearly equivalent interference. The period from five days before to five days after Full Moon is the time to avoid, if possible.

Rule #2: Cloudless skies are important, but not necessarily enough if you are looking for ideal conditions. Wait for high pressure to roll in with deep blue daytime skies, low humidity and brisk air with average or below average temperatures. The clearest nights follow these conditions.

Rule #3: Take a red filtered flashlight for reading star charts. The best plan is to buy a penlight size flashlight specifically for this purpose from specialty telescope stores. Most cities with a population over 300,000 have at least one such store for a list of retailers, click HERE

Rule #4: Take binoculars when traveling away from the city. Easily stowed in a suitcase or car trunk, these miniature telescopes can reveal the craters and plains of the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, the star clouds of the Milky Way and dozens of other celestial sights invisible to the unaided eye.

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JUNE SKY
by Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

The Big Dipper is arguably the most recognized grouping of stars in the night sky. Part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, the Big Dipper is actually an asterism—a group of stars that form a pattern but are not officially a constellation.

Five of the seven stars in the Big Dipper are part of a widely-spread star cluster that our Sun and planets are passing through. The Dipper stars are therefore relatively nearby, varying in distance from 79 to 123 light-years away. Sharp-eyed observers may notice that Mizar, the second last star of the handle, has a companion. Located three light-years farther away, Alcor is not gravitationally linked to Mizar and the pair are referred to as an optical double star.

It is an urban myth that the North Star is the brightest star in the night sky. In fact, it is the 35th brightest star seen from Canada. The Big Dipper can be used as a guide to locating Polaris.

Take the two stars in the bowl of the Dipper opposite the handle and for a sight line out the “open” side of the bowl. Extend it out the open side one Dipper length. You should end up near a star about as bright as the brighter Dipper stars. This is Polaris, the North Star.

Near the end of June, Jupiter can be found shortly after dusk, shining as a bright cream coloured “star” low in the south. On July 5 the Moon will be just below Jupiter.

For the past few weeks, Mars has slowly been approaching Saturn in the western sky. The two planets will be within half a degree of each other on June 17 (half a degree is less than the width of your little finger nail at arm’s length). From June 15-25, those with an unobstructed view to the west can also see Mercury hugging the horizon to the lower right of the pair. Appearing the same brightness as Saturn, Mercury is often difficult to see because it never appears far from the horizon.

Click HERE for an image showing where to locate Mars and Saturn in the western sky.

Early summer nights are an excellent time to watch for satellites. Able to be seen due to sunlight reflecting off their shiny metallic bodies, they appear as moving “stars.” In June, often a dozen or more can be seen in the first hour of darkness.

The International Space Station is visible this June. Traveling rapidly across the sky from west to east, the ISS and its two man crew circle the Earth in 95 minutes at a current altitude of 348 kilometres.

To find out when the International Space Station can be seen from your location, click HERE.

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SkyNews Observer's Guide

What can I see in the night sky tonight?
Getting the most out of your telescope.
How to identify features on Jupiter.
Transit times for Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
2006 Celestial Preview.

Visit the SkyNews Observer’s Guide for information on these topics and more.

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Don't miss the SkyNews July/August issue featuring:

SkyNews reviews the new Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope and Celestron's 8-inch CPC telescope.
Exploring the Summer Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Solar eclipse and Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann gallery of reader images.
Star chart for July and August.
And more!

SUBSCRIBE NOW and your subscription will start with this exiting issue and also be entered in a draw for a chance to win your very own 12-inch Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope!

Subscribe online and save up to 30% off the newsstand price.

Click HERE to subscribe now!

2006-05-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

DOES OUR GALAXY HAVE REGION OF “OLDER” LIFE?
by Terence Dickinson, SkyNews Editor

The idea that there must be life on other planets in the universe is more than two thousand years old, but it is only in the last half century that scientific research journals have contained even a few words on the subject.

The breakthrough came in 1959 with the publication an article by physicists Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison on searching the skies for radio signals from possible extraterrestrial intelligent life on planets of distant stars. Until then, any speculation on life on other worlds was simply taboo, and could compromise a promising career.

Cocconi and Morrison did not suffer career damage. In fact their idea was embraced by many--though not all--scientists. Since then, dozens of articles have appeared on the possible nature of alien communication, speculations on the types of planets upon which alien civilizations could arise, calculations of the number of planets with extraterrestrial civilizations, and so on.

The articles, “papers” as scientists call them, have appeared in virtually all the top research publications such as Nature, Science, and the Astronomical Journal. However, so much has now been said on the subject that new papers cause hardly a ripple either in the mainstream news media, or the scientific press. A recent article, which appeared in the journal Science last year, was an assessment of what the authors called “the galactic habitable zone.” The paper was titled, “The Galactic Habitable Zone and the Age Distribution of Complex Life in the Milky Way.”

The three Australia-based authors, an astronomer, a biologist and a supercomputer specialist, looked at whether some sections of our galaxy might be unsuitable for life as we know it. They first assumed that life would arise on a planet something like the Earth, then theoretically tracked the evolution of such planets in various parts of the galaxy.

Three dangers repeatedly cropped up. One was a nearby star blowing up as a supernova. The blast could sterilize the planet of life. In certain environments where supernovas are regularly erupting, such as the central regions of the galaxy, life probably would not evolve.

A second hazard is ordinary stars swinging close to the planet’s sun, which would stir up clouds of comets that would rain down on the planet. Repeated episodes could be devastating on a world with life evolving.Both of these scenarios, the researchers say, eliminate environments anywhere around the central sector of the Milky Way Galaxy, which includes more than half of the stars in the galaxy.

The third factor the authors finger is the recent discovery of the prevalence of Jupiter-sized planets in other solar systems in the same locations where smaller Earth-sized planets are in our solar system.

When they crunched the numbers, the researchers found that a habitable ring of stars (and their planets) began to emerge in the galaxy about 8 billion years ago at roughly the sun’s distance from the galactic centre. On average, these stars and planets are one billion years older than the Earth, which, the authors suggest, means the average civilization in our galaxy would be relatively nearby and one billion years older than us.

However, this idea, like so many others that revolve around the possibility of extraterrestrial life, were thoroughly hashed through more than a generation ago during the 1960s and 70s when some of the world’s leading scientists regularly gather for international conferences to discuss intelligent life on other worlds. It was a more optimistic era, a time when Carl Sagan, a regular at the ET-life conferences could be heard presenting statistics to support his suggestion that civilizations could inhabit a million planets in our galaxy alone.

No one takes those estimates seriously any more. In fact, astronomers in the 21st century seem to have evolved toward a more sober outlook on alien intelligence. Speculations about possibilities or probabilities now stir little reaction. If there is intelligent life out there, we remain as utterly unaware of its existence as we did when Cocconi and Morrison’s article first appeared nearly half a century ago.

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Now Appearing In Your Night Sky
by Todd Carlson, Assistant Editor

On May 30 a close grouping of the crescent Moon, Mars and Saturn can be seen in the western sky shortly after sunset. The four-day old Moon will be between orange-coloured Mars and the star Pollux. Binoculars will enhance detail on the Moon and will also reveal the Beehive, an cluster of stars 550 light-years distant, slightly above Saturn.

On June 17, Mars and Saturn will be within half a degree of each other. However, don’t wait until that night to take a look. Each night, until then, the distance between the pair is decreasing—from our perspective.

Imagine crouching down and viewing a billiard table edge-on with one yellow ball placed in the centre and a red ball slowly rolling the length of the table. From this vantage point it is difficult to determine the distance between the two balls as one passes the other.

This is akin to Mars and Saturn as we view them from Earth—the planets appear to be close but are actually separated by a vast distance. On May 30, the two planets are more than one billion kilometres apart. However, on June 17 when they seem to be next to each other, Saturn is 1.13 billion kilometres beyond Mars. Although it may be difficult to envision due to the lack of depth perspective, there are vast distances between all celestial objects visible in the night sky.

The motion of Mars against the background stars can be discerned even after a few nights. Note how the position of Mars relative to Saturn and the stars of Gemini changes each evening, culminating with the conjunction on June 17.

Diagrams, showing the position of each object for the events occurring on May 30 and June 17 can be found HERE.

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SkyNews Observer's Guide
Do you have an interest in astronomy but don't know how to begin? Are you considering buying a telescope for the first time? Visit the SkyNews Observer's Guide for tips and advice from editors Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer.

----------------------

Don't miss the SkyNews July/August issue featuring:

SkyNews reviews the new Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope and Celestron's 8-inch CPC telescope.
Exploring the Summer Night Sky by Alan Dyer.
Scoping the Sky by Ken Hewitt-White.
Solar eclipse and Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann gallery of reader images.
Star chart for July and August.
And more!

SUBSCRIBE NOW and your subscription will start with this exiting issue and also be entered in a draw for a chance to win your very own 12-inch Meade LightBridge Deluxe Dobsonian telescope!

Subscribe online and save up to 30% off the newsstand price.

Click HERE to subscribe now!