Astronomer of the Month Written and Edited by Matt Dibble Kuiper conducted research in stellar astronomy, he then shifted his interests and field of study to planetary research in the 1940’s. And in 1944 he was able to confirm the presence of a methane atmosphere around Saturn’s moon Titan. Kuiper correctly predicted in 1947 that a major component of Mar’s atmosphere is Carbon Dioxide, and he also predicted that the rings of Saturn are made up of ice. Also in 1947 Kuiper discovered Miranda the fifth moon of Uranus. Then in 1949 he discovered the second moon of Neptune known as Nereid. And in 1950 He obtained the first reliable measurement of the visual diameter of Pluto. In 1956 Kuiper proved that the polar ice caps of Mars are composed of water and not Carbon Dioxide as originally thought. In 1969 Neil Armstrong confirmed a previous claim made by Kuiper in 1964 that it would feel like the crunch of snow The astronomer Gerard Peter Kuiper, who’s original name of
when walking on the moon.
Gerrit Pieter Kuiper who was born on 7th December 1905 in Harenkarspel, Neth and died 23rd December 1973 in Mexico City, Mexico. He is a Dutch-American astronomer who is known for his discoveries and theories concerning our solar system. Kuiper had graduated from the University of Leiden in 1927 and then received his ph.D in 1933. In 1933 he then moved
It was in 1949 that Kuiper made the theory that the
to the United States, where he became a citizen in 1937.
origin of the Solar System, which Kuiper claimed the
Kuiper then joined the staff of Yerkes Observatory of the
planets had formed by the condensation of a large gas
University of Chicago in 1936. He served as director twice
cloud around the sun. He also gave light to the possibility
(1947-49 and 1957-60) of both Yerkes and McDonalds
that the existence of a disk shaped belt of comets that
Observatories. Kuiper had founded the Lunar and Planetary
orbit the sun at around a distance of 30 to 50
laboratory at the University of Arizona in about 1960 and
astronomical units. This belt’s existence was then
then he served as its director until Kuiper’s death.
confimred in 1990 and rightly named the Kuiper belt.
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Written by Russell Adam Webb
Last week, NASA revealed to the world that a red dwarf star called Trappist-1 has 7 exoplanets orbiting it, of which 3 lie in the potential habitable zone. They are all Earth-like in size and will be major targets for studies in the coming years. New research and recently completed studies indicate that volcanism on the surface of these planets may increase the habitable zone by up to 60%. Cornell University astronomers have noticed that a planet harboring active volcanos on frozen worlds might increase the chances of detecting life in some form, as the habitable zone would be increased and liquid water could have formed. The increase in distance could be increased by as much as 60%. Active volcanoes assist in warming the planet’s atmosphere and might create conditions on the surface that would be suitable for liquid water and life to develop. This would create biosignatures and astronomers are currently hard at work developing ways and methods to test for this. “On frozen planets, any potential life would be buried under layers of ice, which would make it really hard to spot with telescopes,” said Ramses Ramirez, a research associate at Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute and the lead author of the study. “But if the surface is warm enough, thanks to volcanic hydrogen and atmospheric warming – you could have life on the surface, generating a slew of detectable signatures.”
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Greenhouse gases, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, generated by a planets volcanic activity could extend a star’s habitable zone from 30 to 60 percent. This increases the amount of potentially habitable exoplanets found so far, some that have been dismissed as probably barren, and changes the parameters of how we are searching for Earth 2.0 and alien life. At a hydrogen concentration of 50%, the effective stellar flux required to support the outer edge decreases by ~35% to 60% for M to A stars. The corresponding orbital distances increase by ~30% to 60%. The inner edge of this HZ only moves out by ~0.1 to 4% relative to the classical HZ because H2 warming is reduced in dense H2O atmospheres. The atmospheric scale heights of such volcanic H2 atmospheres near the outer edge of the HZ also increase, facilitating remote detection of atmospheric signatures. “We just increased the width of the habitable zone by about half, adding a lot more planets to our ‘search here’ target list. Adding hydrogen to the air of an exoplanet is a good thing if you’re an astronomer trying to observe potential life from a telescope or a space mission. It increases your signal, making it easier to spot the makeup of the atmosphere as compared to planets without hydrogen.”
Potential biosignatures could become easier to detect as they would show as hydrogen increases. A planet can only hold the hydrogen for a few million years, but active volcanoes would keep the amount topped up for far longer.
“Where we thought you would only find icy wastelands, planets can be nice and warm– as long as volcanoes are in view,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, Cornell professor of astronomy and director of the Carl Sagan Institute. The new research suggests that the fourth Trappist planet now lies within the potential habitable zone of the star. Even more encouraging for the fourth Trappist planet is the fact that it has a reduced chance of being tidally locked and would receive less radiation from Trappist. Everything depends on volcanoes. Kaltenegger noted that the discovery of multiple worlds in the habitable zone “is a great discovery because it means that there can be even more potentially habitable planets per star than we thought. Finding more rocky planets in the habitable zone — per star — increases our odds of finding life. Although uncertainties with the orbit of the outermost Trappist-1 planet ‘h’ means that we’ll have to wait and see on that one.”
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Neil deGrasse Tyson was quick to point out that young red dwarf stars like Trappist-1 are often volatile and spew out solar winds very often. This could have killed off any atmosphere on some or all of the Trappist planets making life unlikely. “Because the star is a dwarf — it’s small — it’s still generating energy and the like, but it’s not as hot as the Sun is. Red dwarf stars a hugely turbulent on their surface and they are spewing forth plasma particles at high speeds.” Increasing the habitable zone increases the potential for finding life, which seems to be NASA’s main mission at the moment and many experts believe that 2017 will be the year we find it. Not only does the new research increase the probability of finding life in the Trappist system, but also in other systems around the galaxy. It is an exciting time to be an astronomer.
Edited by Matt Dibble
Written and Edited by Matt Dibble
NASA may soon launch our best chance yet of meeting aliens. Not the big green man type of alien but rather of the bacterial level alien. That is bacteria that is not native of or found on Earth. The space agency is planning to put together a lander to send to Europa. Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons and could be the most likely place to harvest extra-terrestrial life anywhere near Earth. First the lander will need to know how it can land on a surface of which we know nothing about, other than the surface of Europa is an Icey surface. The agency has started to seriously consider exploring the possibility by commissioning a report on the value of sending a lander to the Icey surface of the moon. The report itself is now with NASA and is looking at exploring the findings within the scientific community.
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The mission itself will be dived up into three main stages. The first and most important of which will be the search for life on Europa. The next two stages of the mission will be to consider how habitable Europa maybe. And then to explore to possibility of using robotics as a means of exploring the moon’s surface and oceans. Scientist believe that Europa’s oceans mainly consist of saltwater under the Icey surface crust. Europa’s has twice as much ocean as that of the Earth. The circumstances and geology of Europa have led scientist to believe that this is the most likely place to find life outside of the Earth which is close by. And as such, Scientist hope that with the plan to send a life detecting robot to the surface of Europa – this will be the first time NASA has done such a thing since the Viking Lander over 40 years ago. However the difficulty this time is that NASA has to cope with a moon that has no atmosphere, meaning the lander can’t make use of things like a heat shield or parachutes. All this on the a largely unknown surface. The lander itself is prepared to be launched after NASA’s solar-powered flypast of Europa which is expected around the 2020’s. The benefit of this is that it will then be able to take high resolution images of the Icey crust surface and its oceans beneath. Thus helping to further our knowledge of Europa and its oceans and Ice crust before any lander is sent there.
Astronomy Things To See During March 2017 (For UK Observers) The Vernal Equinox is on 20th March. British Summer Time begins on 26th March when the clocks go forward 1 hour
Moon: First Quarter: Full: Last Quarter: New:
5th March 11:32am 12th March 2:54pm 20th March 3:58pm 28th March 3:57am
The Lunar “X” and “V” are visible at around 09:00 UT which is an hour before the Moon rises so we can’t observe them from the UK this month
Lunar conjunctions & occultations: Note: When the Moon is waxing it is visible in the western sky after sunset. When near Full Moon it is visible most of the night. When it is waning, it is visible in the eastern sky before sunrise 1st March Waxing Crescent Moon lies close to Venus, Mars & Uranus th 4 March Thick Waxing Crescent Moon lies close to Aldebaran & The Hyades Cluster (occultation of Gamma Tauri) 6th March Waxing Gibbous Moon lies close to Alhena (Gamma Geminorum) 7th March Waxing Gibbous Moon lies close to Lambda Geminorum 10th March Waxing Gibbous Moon lies close to Regulus th th 13 14 March Waning Gibbous Moon lies extremely close to Porrima (occultation in some areas) 14th March Waning Gibbous Moon lies close to Jupiter and Spica th 15 March Waning Gibbous Moon lies close to 98 Vir 17th March Waning Gibbous Moon lies between Alpha & Beta Librae th 18 March Waning Gibbous Moon lies close to Beta Scorpii 19th March Waning Gibbous Moon lies close to Antares th 20 March Last Quarter Moon lies close to Saturn 22nd/23rd March Waning Crescent Moon lies close to Comet C/2015 ER61 (PanSTARRS) 23rd March Waning Crescent Moon lies close to Alpha & Beta Capricorni 29th March Waxing Crescent Moon lies close to Mercury th 30 March Waxing Crescent Moon lies close to Mars 31st March Thick Waxing Crescent Moon lies close to Aldebaran & The Hyades Cluster
Planetary Observations: Mercury – putting on its best evening appearance of the year, look for mag -0.5 Mercury from 17th March onwards. It becomes visible from around 8pm onwards as the twilight fades, located above the western horizon. It sets at around 9pm Venus – begins the month as a spectacular evening object, but passes between the Earth and Sun on 25 th March so by the end of March it will become a morning object. At mag -4.4 it is unmistakable Mars – lying in Aries, Mars is visible in the western sky after sunset, setting at around 9:45pm. Its magnitude this month is only +1.4, but its red colour is very noticeable. At the beginning of the month it lies close to Uranus Jupiter – located in Virgo, mag -2.2 Jupiter now rises at around 8:30pm and remains visible all night long. On 15th March it lies very close to the Waning Gibbous Moon. With Jupiter so well placed, there are multiple Jovian Moon events taking place throughout the month. Full details of these events can be found in Astronomy Now or Sky at Night magazines Saturn – located in Sagittarius, Saturn rises at about 2am then remains visible until dawn. On 20th March, Saturn lies close to the Last Quarter Moon Neptune – is not observable this month Uranus – located in Pisces, mag +5.9 Uranus lies close to Mars at the beginning of the month. On 25 th March it lies close to Mercury. By the end of the month it will be lost in the twilight Pluto – located in Sagittarius, Pluto rises at around 3am and is visible for a short time until dawn, low in the south east. At mag +14.2 you will need a moderate telescope to spot it
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Ceres – located in Cetus, Ceres becomes visible at around 7pm as the dusk twilight fades, then sets in the west at around 10pm. On 2nd March it lies very close to the Waxing Crescent Moon. At the end of March it lies close to Mars. At mag +8.5 you will need a telescope or binoculars to spot it Vesta – located in Gemini, Vesta becomes visible at around 7pm when the dusk twilight fades when it will be about 56 degrees above the south eastern horizon. It sets in the north west at around 4:30am. During the last few days of March it lies very close to the mag +4.05 star 69 Gem. At mag +6.85 you will need binoculars or a small telescope to spot it Makemake – the dwarf planet is at opposition this month. Located in Coma Berenices, it becomes visible above the eastern horizon after the sunset twilight has faded and remains visible all night long. It reaches its closest point to Earth on 24th March, but it is still 7.7 billion km away! It is close to the galaxy M64 in Coma Berenices all month. At mag +16 you will need a large telescope to spot it
Other Observations: Sunrise Over Plato – one of the most distinctive craters on the Lunar surface, sunrise over the crater Plato can produce some stunning shadows. This month, sunrise occurs over this crater on 6 th March. It begins during daylight hours at around 13:00UT, but you should still be able to track the shadows shrinking across the crater floor. Once it has gone dark at about 17:45 you will clearly see the distinctive shadows under the eastern wall Gamma Tauri Occultation by Moon - on 4th March, the Moon occults several stars within the Hyades cluster from some locations, but the occultation of Gamma Tauri is the only one which is readily visible from across the UK. The mag +3.7 star disappears behind the dark limb of the First Quarter Moon just before 20:48 GMT, and reappears on the bright side about an hour later. The exact timings of this event will vary depending on your location. Binocular Tour – This month’s Sky at Night Binocular Tour by Stephen Tonkin is focused on the sky around Canes Venatici and Coma Berenices. There are 4 targets for 10 x 50 binoculars. First look for the gorgeous globular cluster M3 which contains half a million stars. Next look for the line of sight double star comprised of mag +5.9 star 17 Canum Venaticorum and mag +6.3 star 15 Canum Vanaticorum. These stars are not a binary pair, they simply appear close together when viewed from Earth. The 3rd target is variable star 4 La Superba. Also known as Y Canum Venaticorum, it is a cool carbon star which varies in magnitude from +6.3 to +4.7 over a period of 160 days. It has a really distinctive red colour. If you are into spectroscopy, this star has some unusual spectral absorption lines. The final target for 10 x 50 binoculars is M94, a mag +8.9 spiral galaxy. You will need dark, transparent skies to spot this with low power binoculars. If you have 15 x 70 binoculars there are 2 targets for you. First is V Canum Venaticorum, a variable star which has a magnitude anywhere between +8.5 and +6.5. Its period is 191.5 days, but there have been many reported fluctuations in both the magnitude range and period. Finally, look for Upgren 1, which may be a very old open cluster or 2 clusters in the same line of sight. It is comprised of 8th and 9th magnitude stars which span about 14 arc minutes and they make a very pretty sight in binoculars. For full details on how to find these objects, look at the March edition of Sky at Night Magazine Deep Sky Tour – This month’s Sky at Night Deep Sky Tour is centred on the area around Virgo. All 6 targets this month are located within Markarian’s Chain, a line of galaxies located in the bowl of Virgo. The first target is M84, a face-on lenticular galaxy. A 6” telescope will show a hazy patch with a brighter core. Larger telescopes will reveal a bit more detail in the core. Next is the galaxy M86, which has been classified as elliptical or lenticular, although more recent classifications place it in the lenticular group. A 6” telescope reveals a hazy halo with a brighter core. Larger telescopes will reveal a larger sized halo. Next look for NGC 4388, a mag +11.0 edge-on spiral galaxy. It is dim and hard to see, looking like a needle of light through a 6” telescope. 8” or larger telescopes will reveal the spiral arms. Next look for a pair of galaxies, mag +11.0 NGC 4438 & mag +11.7 NGC 4435, also known as “Markarian’s Eyes”. NGC 4438 is a spiral galaxy which is gravitationally interacting with NGC 4435. Viewed with a 6” telescope they will appear as hazy patches; averted vision will assist. The 5th target is NGC 4473, which is an elliptical galaxy which appears to have been flattened into a disc-like structure. An 8” telescope will reveal an elongated haze, and the elongated core will show up well with higher magnification. The final targets are NGC 4477, a mag +11.4 barred lenticular galaxy & NGC 4459, a mag +11.3 lenticular galaxy which lies just 25 arc minutes north of 4477. This pair of galaxies are best viewed with an 8” or larger telescope. For full details of where to find these objects and how best to see them, pick up the March issue of Sky at Night magazine M66 – Astronomy Now’s object of the month is a bright spiral galaxy located in Leo, best known as one of the members of the Leo Triplet. A medium sized telescope will give a good view of M66, and under good seeing conditions and higher magnification, you may be able to trace out the dust lanes and spiral arms. To image it, you can use LRGB filters or a DSLR. There are some HII
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regions along the spiral arms which will respond well to H-alpha imaging. For more information on how to observe, image or sketch this object, take a look at the March edition of Astronomy Now magazine Constellation Canes Venatici – Astronomy Now’s constellation of the month is Canes Venatici. This may be a relatively faint constellation, but it is packed with interesting objects, including 5 Messier objects plus a host of other deep sky objects. One of the most striking is M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy. M63 the Sunflower Galaxy is a fantastic spiral galaxy which responds well to larger apertures. M94 is a face-on spiral galaxy which has tightly woven arms. There are also a number of prominent NGC galaxies in this constellation, including NGC 4490, 4485,4244, and if you want a challenge, NGC 4656 & 4631. If you have an 8” or larger telescope, look for Hickson 68 which is a galaxy group. Moving away from galaxies, another Messier object is M3 a great globular cluster. There are also many interesting stars and double stars in this region of sky, including La Superba as discussed above. For more information about this constellation and all of its treasures, take a look at the March edition of Astronomy Now magazine International Space Station – The ISS returns with some passes during the early hours of the morning from 4 th March onwards. By the 2nd week of the month there will be 2 passes each morning, then by the end of the month there are some low evening passes visible. For the exact timings of the passes from your location, visit www.heavens-above.com You can also check the Iridium flare times for your location at Heavens Above
Comets Visible This Month: Comet 2P/Encke – located in Pisces, you may catch a glimpse of this comet low in the west after sunset during the first few days of March. After that it will be lost in the solar glare. It is currently at mag +6.0 and brightening Click here to view the finder chart: http://bit.ly/2m2Gt4G Comet C/2015 ER61 (PanSTARRS) – moving from Sagittarius towards Capricornus this month, it rises at around 4am in the south east and remains visible very low in the south east for a short time until dawn. It is currently mag +7.6 and brightening. Around 16th March it lies close to Pluto. On 22nd & 23rd March it is located very close to the Waning Crescent Moon Click here to view the finder chart: http://bit.ly/2ljQB4Y Comet C/2015 V2 Johnson – currently located in Hercules, this comet becomes visible around 7pm in the northern sky, then remains visible until dawn, when it will be around 80 degrees above the eastern horizon. It is currently at mag +8.9 and brightening. At the beginning of March, the comet lies very close to the mag +3.9 star Tau Hercules Click here to view the finder chart: http://bit.ly/2mp2hbx Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak – this comet begins the month in Leo, then moves through Leo Minor towards Ursa Major as the month progresses. It becomes visible after dusk, about 37 degrees above the eastern horizon. It remains visible all night long, reaching its highest point at around 11:15pm when it will be 63 degrees above the southern horizon. It will become lost in the dawn twilight at around 5am. It is currently at mag +10 and brightening. On 22nd March the comet lies just half a degree NE of the galaxy M108. Click here to view the finder chart: http://bit.ly/2lPvDhP Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Padjusakova – located in Leo this month, this comet becomes visible after the dusk twilight has faded around 24 degrees above the eastern horizon. It reaches its highest point at around 1am when it will be 64 degrees above the southern horizon. It remains visible until the dawn twilight. It is currently at mag +10 and fading Click here to view the finder chart: http://bit.ly/2mGwUFR There are several other comets in the mag +11 to +15 range. Details of these can be found in the links below. For up to date information about the fainter comets which are visible, please visit: https://in-the-sky.org/data/comets.php, the BAA Comets Section: https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/ or Seiichi Yoshida’s home page: http://www.aerith.net/index.html
NB: All of the information in this sky guide is taken from Night Scenes 2017 by Paul L Money, Philips Stargazing 2017 by Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest, Astronomy Now Magazine, Sky at Night Magazine, Stellarium, the BAA Comets Section website https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/, www.inthesky.org and www.heavens-above.com Information collated by Mary McIntyre. For regular updates about the events happening in the sky this month, follow the Nightscenes Monthly Night Sky Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AstrospacePublications
Compiled By Online Astronomy Member Mary Spicer Page 10
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Written and Edited by Matt Dibble
A team of Astronomers have discovered 60 new planets near our own planet – Thus boosting the chances of finding that one of them could potentially support the building blocks of life. A team of international scientists then discovered a further 54 potential planets, meaning that all in all the researchers may have discovered a huge 114 new planets. Some of these new 114 planets could be Earth like and thus able to support life, Researchers have said. One of the Exoplanets was a hot ‘Super-Earth’ that has a rocky surface and it is found in the fourth nearest star to our own system. The planet in question known as Gliese 411-b, could that the stars near our own sun may have planets orbiting them. This could mean that as such that those could also be Earth like and then are capable of supporting alien life. The results are mainly based on almost 61,000 individual observations of 1.600 stars taken from over 20 year period. This was done by US Astronomers using the Keck-l telescope in Hawaii.
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The observations conducted were a part of the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet survey. Which was started in 1996 by Astronomers Steve Vogt and Geoffrey Marcy who were from the University of California and Paul Butler, from the Carnegie institute of science in Washington. Dr Tuomi, who was the only European scientist to be working on the project and lead Analysist of the Data said “It is fascinating to think that when we look at the nearest stars, all of them appear to have planets orbiting them. This is something astronomers were not convinced about, even as little as five years ago. These new planets also help us better understand the formation processes of planetary systems and provide interesting targets for future efforts to image the planets directly,” The groups findings and paper has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
Written and Edited by Matt Dibble In 2006 the international astronomical union changed the official working definition of what constitutes a planet. Although this left many astronomers less than pleased. This new vague definition for a planet was not to precise and that left a grey area of what could and couldn’t be classified as a planet. And as a result of this, Pluto lost it’s planetary status and was then demoted to a dwarf planet. Since then , this small planet has had planetary scientist’s perplexed to which they have attempted to understand with different contradictory and unique classifications. A team of scientist’s at NASA have devised a new set of rules for classifying a planet, which was published in the Lunar and planetary science journal. According to the new proposal, this new definition is intended to be able to remedy some of the unintended consequences of the IAU’s new definition. In the years that followed the supposed demotion of Pluto by the IAU, it seemed members of the public assumed that alleged ‘Non-Planets’ are no longer interesting enough to warrant any scientific exploration. The IAU did not intend for this consequence. A panel of NASA astronomers wrote the new definition of a planet based of what was called ‘intuition’ of the public, as opposed to the highly technical and specific orbital properties that the IAU used in the ruling in 2006. If the IAU approved the new proposal, it could then see over 100 new planets added to the solar system.
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The above definition of a planet, this now means that there are at least 110 known planets in the solar system. The number will continue to grow as long as astronomers discover more planets in the kuiper belt.It seemed that 110 planets is more than students could be expected to memorize, which they should not do. It seems much fairer for them to remember the main Planets of interest. It is a common criticism of the new definition that students would be unable to remember all of the Planets. Instead the authors of the paper propose a periodic type table. Thus whilst not being required to remember all of the Planets. Just the main and most important planets whilst having the ability to read such a table.
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