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Letters To Dave

Hi Dave

I had a chance to read some of your newsletters. I noticed you stated: “NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has just returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites.” Are those photos available on the Internet? I also heard you talk about this on the radio a while back and thought that would be convincing proof that they did go to the moon. I also noticed that you stated that a large meteor shower is going to peak on 12-8-09. Is that still the case? I remember seeing one a few years back maybe about 4AM. It was very good. The meteors were coming from the northeast. Do you think the one in a couple of days could be as good?

Your help is appreciated, Regards Richard.

Hi Richard

Nice to hear from youa nd thanks for the support. Yep, they are on the net. Just Google ‘LRO lunar landing images.’ Yep again, it is final proof the landings did take place. Only a Nit-Wit now would doubt that. The meteor shower by now has passed BUT we saw a few whoppers. Hope you did too.

AstroDave

OUR TOP STORY

Is This The End Of The U.S. Space Program?

US ambitions to send astronauts back to the moon as a prelude to missions to Mars have been put in doubt by budgetary constraints 40 years after man’s triumphant landing on the Moon. A presidential panel wrapping up a review of options for future U.S. manned space flight operations delivered a grim assessment last week, showing NASA’s current plan to retire the shuttle, finish the space station and return to the moon by the early 2020s is not even remotely feasible without a significant restoration of previously cut funding.

In the absence of a major spending increase, “our view is that it will be difficult with the current budget to do anything that’s terribly inspiring in the human spaceflight area,” said Norman Augustine, chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee.

Augustine’s committee was set up by the Obama administration to examine NASA’s current plans for retiring the shuttle, completing the space station and returning to the moon as well as alternative strategies for moving beyond low-Earth orbit. The committee also is assessing how long NASA and its partners should operate the International Space Station. NASA currently has no money in its projected downstream budget to operate the space station beyond 2015.

The Augustine committee believes the station cannot be operated without direct U.S. mission control and management and that it will cost some $1.5 billion to safely drive the huge complex out of orbit at the end of its life, whenever that might be. NASA’s current long-range plan, developed in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster as a Bush administration initiative, is to complete the space station, retire the shuttle fleet and develop a new Orion crew capsule that will be launched to the station by Ares 1 rockets.

During the gap between shuttle operations and the debut of Ares-1/Orion, U.S. astronauts will have to hitch rides to the station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets. NASA managers have assumed all along the station program would be extended and Ares 1/Orion would be used to deliver crews and supplies.

NASA also plans to develop a huge new unmanned heavy lift rocket called the Ares 5 that eventually will boost Orion capsules and Altair lunar landers to the moon for long-duration exploration. But during a final public hearing last week in Washington, the Augustine panel provided a sobering look at NASA’s projected budget and the requirements of various manned space flight scenarios.

Panel member and former astronaut Sally Ride said NASA would need an additional $50 billion or so through 2020 to implement the program as currently planned. This scenario is known as the “unconstrained budget” case. It assumes the shuttle is retired on schedule and that the space station is deorbited in early 2016, an option no one on the panel seems to favour. In that scenario, the new Orion/Ares 1 system would have no destination until the Ares 5 heavy lifter debuted and moon flights began after 2021. Assuming NASA is forced to live within the 2010 budget guidelines provided by the Obama administration, the Ares 5 heavy lift moon rocket would not be ready until the 2028 timeframe.

Sadly, even an additional $3 billion a year would not cover space station operations past 2015. NASA’s international partners in the project – Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency – want to extend station operations at least through 2020, a goal Augustine panel members endorsed today. If the White House ultimately decides to stay with an “ISS-focused” approach, development of the Ares 1 rocket likely would be suspended because money needed for the booster’s development would be funneled into space station operations instead. Under this scenario, the Ares 1 would not be available until near the end of the station’s life.

Finally, the panel is assessing options for deep space exploration that might bypass the moon in favor of near-Earth asteroids, lunar reconnaissance flybys and even flybys of Mars, with “off ramps” for development of systems for use on the lunar surface and eventual manned landings on Mars. The panel agreed that Mars is the ultimate objective for human spaceflight in the foreseeable future, but members decided to stop short of suggesting budgets or timetables, concluding manned flights to Mars are simply beyond the scope of current planning.

Augustine said he plans to brief the Office of Management and Budget on the proposed options Friday. The commission’s report is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month. When the Obama administration might act on the options is unknown, but the goal of the review was to assess scenarios before the next budget cycle this fall.

Spaceflight Now

MORE ASTRO-SPACE NEWS

Pluto still not a planet after astronomy meeting

An international astronomy meeting ended last Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, and Pluto is still not a planet. The closing ceremonies of the 2009 International Astronomical Union (IAU) concluded with nary a peep about the planetary brouhaha that saw walk-outs and table-banging three years ago at the venerable astronomer’s assembly, in Prague.

In 2006, the IAU meeting assembly demoted Pluto into a “dwarf planet” (sometimes called a “plutoid”) because it has failed to have “cleared the neighborhood around its orbit,” in the words of the assembly’s resolution. Plus it’s small size let it downa s well.

Two members split on whether Pluto is a planet, with one arguing for the demoted world. “Pluto is still the people’s planet and, if anything, more popular as an underdog than ever before,” he s aid.

It is believed that the IAU had no interest in revisiting the question of Pluto this year. The vocal disagreements that occurred at the General Assembly in 2006 embarrassed the organization. The decision made then, whether we like it or not, solved the IAU’s practical problem, by specifying how objects in the Kuiper Belt will be classified, for purpose of assigning names to them, an IAU responsibility. They name planets according to one practice and dwarf planets and asteroids in another way. Meanwhile, astronomers are generally agreed that the 2006 IAU planet definition is not helpful in our scientific work, and will fall into disuse. That may not bring Pluto back, however.

Indeed, the IAU meeting ended with a resolution to develop more astronomical resources for poorer nations, instead of a fight over Pluto. But the battle isn’t likely over.

Dan Vergano

Send Text Messages to ET

The website has been set up to mark national science week in Australia, and people from all over the world are invited to submit a message, no longer than 160 characters, that will be beamed in to space by satellites at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex.

The messages are being sent to Gliese 581d, a planet eight times heavier than our own located more than 20 light years away in the constellation Libra. Scientists have identified Gliese 581d as the nearest Earthlike planet outside our solar system, and thus perhaps likely to support life.

But the team behind the HelloFromEarth website has warned that it will take 20 years for the text messages to reach the planet – and there’s no guarantee of a response. “It’s like a message in a bottle cast out into the stars,” said Wilson da Silva, a spokesman for the project. “What’s interesting is not just whether there’s anyone listening, but what the public will say to intelligent life on another planet.

“The project is our way of showing that science can make the impossible possible. We have been to the moon and now, we can speak to the stars.” Kim Carr, Australia’s science minister, hailed the project. “As a child I, like many Australians, stared up at the stars and wondered what was out there,” said Mr Carr. “Now science has allowed me to send a personal message that may answer that question.”

Mr Carr was the first person to submit a message to the site, and his text read: “Hello from Australia on the planet we call Earth. These messages express our people’s dreams for the future. We want to share those dreams with you.”

More than 5,000 other messages have been sent in to the project so far, and the collection of missives will be beamed in to space in 11 days time. “You are cordially invited to an Interplanetary BBQ. 6.00pm, 4th October, 2452 at my place BYO Meat and Beer. RSVP: Year 2100,” joked Daniel Edmonds from Melbourne.

“All you need is love,” wrote Kai from the United States.

Telegraph UK

NASA Doesn’t Receive Enough Money for Asteroid Search

In 2005, the US Congress mandated that NASA discover 90 percent of all near-Earth objects 140 meters in diameter or greater by 2020. But they forgot one minor detail: Congress or the administration did not request or appropriate any new funds to meet this objective, and with NASA’s existing budget, there is no way NASA can meet the mandated goal.

Does anyone else see a pattern here? “For the first time, humanity has the capacity and the audacity to avoid a natural disaster,” says Irwin Shapiro of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., who headed a National Research Council panel to asses NASA’s progress in reaching the asteroid detection goal . “It really is a question of how much to invest in an insurance policy for the planet.”

NASA was also directed by the Bush administration to build spacecraft to return to the Moon, and perhaps go on to Mars, but do the job (as well as complete the space station and make sure the shuttles can fly safely) with no real increase in budget.

Currently, the U.S. government spends a relatively small amount of money funding a search and survey program to discover and track near-Earth objects, and virtually no money on studying methods of mitigating the hazards posed by such objects. Although Congress has mandated that NASA conduct this survey program and has established goals for the program, neither Congress nor the administration has sought to fund it with new appropriations. The report is available here (download the free pdf version)

But in summary, the report says that since only limited facilities are currently involved in the asteroid survey/discovery effort, NASA cannot meet the goals of the Congressional mandate on the existing budget. Instead, the three current survey efforts dedicated to the problem, supported at current levels, will likely find only about 15%.

Only three surveys are currently involved in the search (Catalina Sky Survey, Spacewatch and Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research), and the panel suggests that moretelescopes and spacecraft would be beneficial to the search. Several ground-based telescopes have been proposed or are currently under development that could contribute substantially to meeting the goal established by Congress. However, none has yet been fully funded, nor principally dedicated to the NEO discovery goal.

Right now, the US is the only country that currently has an operating survey/detection program for discovering near-Earth objects. Canada and Germany are both building spacecraft that may contribute to the discovery of near-Earth objects, but neither mission will detect fainter or smaller objects than ground-based telescopes.

But the US isn’t alone in the non-funding of asteroid searches. “Virtually no international funds are spent supporting ground-based NEO surveys, and international NEO discovery efforts are largely conducted on an ad hoc, voluntary, or amateur basis. NASA is the agency that has funded more than 97 percent of the discoveries of NEOs in the last decade,” says the report.

Universe/USA Today

China Bans Bad Breath from Space

In space, no one can hear you scream… but on the space shuttle, they can certainly smell your breath. That’s why China’s space program is barring aspiring astronauts with halitosis — just one of 100 new rules for wannabe taikonauts.

One hundred candidates, both male and female, have reported to the No. 454 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army in in the hopes of joining the burgeoning ranks of China’s astronauts.

Nanjing doctor Shi Bing Bing revealed to Chinese newspapers that, in addition to passing rigorous mental and physical tests, the candidates will have to fulfill a list of 100 mandatory standards before they’ll be allowed to fly. One item on the list: absolutely no bad breath, as one’s breath and other body odors can negatively affect colleagues in the confines of a space craft.

Other requirements include no cavities, no scars (they “might burst and bleed when spaceships are accelerating”), no drug allergies, no ringworm, no runny noses, and no serious family illness in the last three generations. Married aspirants must get permission from their spouses before they can leave the Earth. And candidates are expected to possess a generally “pleasant and adaptable disposition.”

If the requirements sound nearly impossible to fulfill, that’s more or less the point. Mere mortals, it seems, simply don’t qualify to fly under the Chinese banner. Shi says it himself: “These astronauts could be regarded as super human beings.”

i09

Biggest Exoplanet Yet Orbits the Wrong Way

Planet hunters from the UK have discovered the largest exoplanet yet, and its uniqueness doesn’t end there. Dubbed WASP-17, this extra large world is twice the size of Jupiter but is super-lightweight, “as dense as expanded polystyrene” one astronomer said. Plus it is going the wrong way around its home sun, making it the first exoplanet known to have a retrograde orbit. As a likely a victim of planetary billiards, astronomers say this unusual planet casts new light on how planetary systems form and evolve.

Astronomers say the planet must have flipped direction after a near miss with another huge “big brother” planet swung it around like a slingshot. “Newly formed solar systems can be violent places,” said David Anderson, of Keele University. “Our own moon is thought to have been created when a Mars-sized planet collided with the recently formedEarth and threw up a cloud of debris that turned into the moon. A near collision during the early, violent stage of this planetary system could well have caused a gravitational slingshot, flinging WASP-17 into its backwards orbit.”

Though it is only half the mass of Jupiter it is bloated to nearly twice Jupiter’s size. Astronomers have long wondered why some extra-solar planets are far bigger than expected, and WASP-17 points to the explanation. Scattered into a highly elliptical, retrograde orbit, it would have been subjected to intense tides. Tidal compression and stretching would have heated the gas-giant planet to its current, hugely bloated extent. “This planet is only as dense as expanded polystyrene, seventy times less dense than the planet we’re standing on”, said Coel Hellier, also of Keele University.

WASP-17 is the 17th new exoplanet found by the Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) consortium of UK universities. The WASP team detected the planet using an array of cameras that monitor hundreds of thousands of stars, searching for small dips in their light when a planet transits in front of them. Geneva Observatory then measured the mass of WASP-17, showing that it was the right mass to be a planet.

Universe Today

Astronomers discover five planets

Astronomers have discovered a distant sun orbited by at least five planets, marking the first time that a solar system with that many circling bodies has been found. The central star, named 55 Cancri, has planets circling on paths similar to those in our solar system. Astronomers said that while the planets are unlike those in our solar system in terms of their size and distance from the sun, the fact that they are all circling in stable orbits is highly significant.

“Now we know our sun and its family is not unusual,” said Geoff Marcy, an astromer at the University of California at Berkeley. “Our Milky Way has 200 billion stars and billions of solar systems. We suspect that many harbor Earth-like planets.” While scores of extrasolar, or “exo-planets,” have been located so far, they said, millions remain to be found.

One of the five planets has just been found. The new planet, which eluded detection for years because it was tucked in between two other orbiting planets that had been detected previously, appears to be a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn and so is unlikely to sustain life. But it orbits in what is termed the “habitable zone” of its solar system – a band around the star where the temperature would permit liquid water to pool on solid surfaces – meaning that a rocky moon orbiting the planet, if there is one, could theoretically support life.

“The gas giant planets in our solar system all have large moons,” said Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San Francisco State University. “If there is a moon orbiting this new, massive planet, it might have pools of liquid water on a rocky surface.”

The star 55 Cancri resides in the constellation Cancer, nearly 41 light years away. It has about the same mass as our sun and is easily visible with binoculars. The planets that orbit it, however, are far too small to be seen with the most powerful telescopes and were located and identified by measuring the “wobble” their gravity creates in the motion of their sun.

Using the wobble method, as well as looking for distant specks crossing the face of stars, astronomers have identified about 260 exo-planets since the first was discovered in the early 1990s. Most are single planets circling their sun, with a few cases of three and four in a solar system.

The planet closest to 55 Cancri is believed to be about the size of Neptune and circles the star in less than three days. The second planet is a little smaller than Jupiter and completes an orbit every 14.7 days. The third planet, similar in mass to Saturn, completes one orbit every 44 days, and the newly found fourth planet is about the size of Saturn and orbits in 260 days. The furthest out planet is huge – four times the mass of Jupiter – and orbits every 14 years.

The researchers said there may well be other, smaller planets in the vast space between the fourth and fifth, but no telescopes are powerful enough to detect them or measure their effects on the star. Finding the five planets circling 55 Cancri took 18 years of continuous research . While finding the fifth is an unprecedented achievement, astronomer Marcy said it marks a beginning rather than an end. “Finding five extrasolar planets orbiting a star is only one small step,” he said. “Earth-like planets are the next destination.”

Washington Post

The limits of space law

The core provisions of space law as it is currently understood are, for the most part, embodied in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), and the most important provision of that treaty is the prohibition on any claims of national sovereignty on the Moon and other celestial bodies. Along with the ban on weapons of mass destruction in space, this has been the most significant legal factor in shaping human activities off this planet over the last 42 years.

In his new book, The Development of Outer Space: Sovereignty and Property Rights in International Space Law, Thomas Gangale makes the case that it is now settled international law that there can be no private property on the Moon or on other bodies, at least as private property is understood here on Earth. He makes the case that some sort of internationally recognized body, probably under UN control, will have to legitimate any commercial activity. He believes that there may be a way for private companies to harvest lunar resources without contravening the provisions of the OST, but he cannot clearly define how this would work.

What really seems to bother Gangale is the fact that the Moon Treaty of 1979 was rejected by the US as well as by most other spacefaring nations. He believes that it would be a good idea to reintroduce it.

The truth is that international space law has been losing its legitimacy for decades. By trying to do everything and to extend its reach everywhere, its advocates have taken what might have been a useful, limited tool of statecraft and turned it into an institutional power grab that is slowly collapsing of its own weight. The refusal of so many nations—not just the US—to agree to the Moon Treaty is a sign of just how strong the resistance really is. What now?

Extracted: Taylor Dinerman

New Device Extracts Oxygen from Moon Rocks

Are we perhaps one step closer to being able to live on the Moon? A new device developed by scientists in Cambridge, UK, can extract oxygen from Moon rock. This technology would be extremely important for creating a lunar bases for long term habitation, or using the Moon as a jump-off point to explore the deeper reaches of space.

The new device, a reactor developed by Derek Fray and his colleagues, was created from a modified electrochemical process the team invented in 2000 to get metals and alloys from metal oxides. The process uses the oxides — also found in Moon rocks — as a cathode, together with an anode made of carbon. To get the current flowing through the system, the electrodes sit in an electrolyte solution of molten calcium chloride (CaCl2), a common salt with a melting point of almost 800 °C.

The current strips the metal oxide pellets of oxygen atoms, which are ionized and dissolve in the molten salt. The negatively charged oxygen ions move through the molten salt to the anode where they give up their extra electrons and react with the carbon to produce carbon dioxide — a process that erodes the anode. Meanwhile, pure metal is formed over at the cathode.

To make the system produce oxygen and not carbon dioxide, Fray had to make an unreactive anode. “Without those anodes, it doesn’t work,” said Fray. He discovered that calcium titanate, which is a poor electrical conductor on its own, became a much better conductor when he added some calcium ruthenate to it. This mixture produced an anode that barely erodes at all — after running the reactor for 150 hours, Fray calculated that the anode would wear away by roughly three centimeters a year.

To heat the reactor on the Moon would need just a small amount of power, Fray said, and the reactor itself can be thermally insulated to lock heat in. The three reactors would need about 4.5 kilowatts of power, which could be supplied by solar panels or even a small nuclear reactor placed on the Moon.

In their tests, Fray and his team used a simulated lunar rock called JSC-1, developed by NASA. Fray anticipates that three reactors, each a meter high, would be enough to generate a ton of oxygen per year on the Moon. Three tons of rock are needed to produce a ton of oxygen, and in tests the team saw almost 100% recovery of oxygen, he says. Fray presented the results last week at the Congress of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in Glasgow, UK.

Source: Nature/ Universe Today

Clouds Discovered Over Tropics of Saturn’s Moon

In a case of persistent interplanetary detective work using powerful ground-based telescopes, a team of astronomers located and tracked the first bright but transient clouds over tropical latitudes on Saturn’s moon Titan. The astronomers observed a convective pulse at mid-latitudes that generated a wave in Titan’s atmosphere. This wave went on to trigger cloud formation over both the equatorial and south polar regions.

These new observations of this type of equatorial cloud may help explain the formation of liquid methane-carved channels and rivers located in the vicinity of the Huygens probe landing site. These types of dramatic global weather events on Titan are rare and only last a few weeks.

On April 13, 2008 observations showed a dramatic increase in cloud activity on Titan. The next night, and for many nights thereafter, they acquired quick imaging snapshots of Titan using the larger Gemini North telescope. These images revealed that the initial cloud system was at 30 deg S latitude, but within days additional clouds appeared over Titan’s tropics and south polar region. “It was as though we observed a giant storm covering South Africa that days later caused clouds to form over Antarctica and Indonesia,” said team member Schaller.

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is larger than Mercury and Pluto and is the only moon in our solar system to be surrounded by an atmosphere. While weather on Earth is based on water, on Titan conditions are too cold for liquid water to exist. However, conditions on Titan are just right for weather to be methane based. In January 2005 NASA’s Cassini mission deployed the Huygens probe into Titan’s atmosphere. The probe landed near Titan’s equator and returned images of channels and dry streambeds. This posed a conundrum as weather models predicted that Titan’s equatorial regions were a desert and should never be cloud covered or receive rainfall.

This new research has shown that clouds can form in times and places not predicted by the current generation of computer weather models of Titan’s atmosphere. On Titan strong storm activity in one area can trigger clouds and storms elsewhere on the moon. “These observations show that the channels and streambeds in Titan’s tropical desert can be explained by infrequent but strong downpours, much like many of the landforms here in the Southwestern United States,” said Roe.

Titan’s year is 30 Earth years long and so far we’ve only been observing Titan with this type of precision and frequency for less than one Titanian season. Imagine trying to understand Earth’s weather having only seen what happens in January, February, and part of March. We have our work cut out for us to continue watching the weather on Titan for many more years.

Space Collection Put Up For Sale

The UK’s largest private collection of space artefacts, which includes meteorites and rocks from the Moon and Mars, is being put up for auction. More than 170 items, collected by self-proclaimed meteorite chaser Robert Elliott, are expected to fetch more than £500,000.

Among the most notable pieces is the remaining part of the Hambleton meteorite, found in Yorkshire in 2005. The Lyon and Turnbull auction will take place in Edinburgh on 18 August.

Mr Elliott found the 5.8kg remnant of the Hambleton meteorite beside a forest track in North Yorkshire. It is expected to fetch between £60,000 and £90,000. The collection also features a helium tank from the Russian Salyut 7 spacecraft which went out of control and fell to earth as a fireball.

Rocks from two different parts of the Moon, a piece of the Vesta asteroid and a piece of Mars rock are also going under the hammer. Mr Elliott, who has been collecting space artefacts since he was a young boy, said the sale did not spell an end to his collecting days.

He added: “I have collected meteorites from around the world since I was a child. If I hear of a sighting I leap on a plane and head to the area and try to find a piece of space rock. They are incredibly beautiful when you slice them open and I find it incredible that they were once hurtling through space.”

Also for sale is one of the oldest meteorites known on earth, the Lake Murray meteorite, which was found in rock over 110 million years old in Oklahoma. The Glenrothes meteorite, which was the first to be found on UK soil by Mr Elliott in the summer of 1998, is also up for sale along with part of the famous Park Forest meteorite which fell in Chicago, Illinois, peppering the area with space rocks, hitting and damaging several homes.

Special interest items include part of a witnessed fall in Iowa of the Estherville Mesosiderite and the Barwell Meteorite, also known as the “Christmas Meteorite”, which fell to earth on Christmas Eve 1965, in Barwell, Leicestershire.

Auctioneer Gavin Strang said: “Lyon & Turnbull are boldly going where no other auction house has gone before in holding the first auction of meteorites and space memorabilia in the UK. “We expect a great deal of interest from around the world with serious collectors heading to Edinburgh for the sale.”

BBC News

EVENTS: For the International Year of Astronomy in Australia.

There is a plethora of events running around Australia in the next month. Details are online at www.astronomy2009.org.au. Highlights this month include:

The Big Aussie Star hunt

Kicking off in Science Week, The Big Aussie Star Hunt will run until Sunday 30 August. Here you can learn how to find your way around the night sky, find south using the stars, contribute to a light pollution map of Australia, and learn about Indigenous stories associated with the night sky.  www.starhunt.net.au

Scinema

Australia’s national science film festival has taken astronomy and space as a theme this year. Events run at venues around the country: see www.scinema.com.au for events near you.

Exhibitions: August and onwards

Exhibitions of astronomy-related artworks are and will be running at several venues around the country. Some of them are:

The David Malin Awards – an annual exhibition of works by amateur astrophotographers, showing in Sydney and Coonabarabran NSW this month (and at other venues later);

The World At Night – international photographs of landscapes and historic locations against the beautiful background of the night sky, also in Sydney;

From Earth to the Universe – an international exhibition created for IYA, opening at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum on 11 September;

Starlight – Celestial Visions on Second Life – an exhibition running both in the Physics building of the University of Western Australia and in the online world of Second Life;

Celestia Photographica at the Western Australian Museum in Geraldton

Light Years: Photographs And Space at the National Gallery Victoria International in Melbourne

Astronomy in a nutshell exhibition Monash Science Centre, Clayton, Victoria.

Online, do have a look at the Ilgarijiri project (http://ilgarijiri.wordpress.com/), a collaboration of the Yamaji Arts indigenous arts cooperative in Geraldton, WA, and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth.

Galileo and Copernicus at the theatre

Bertolt Brecht’s play, The Life of Galileo, is getting at least two airings this month. In Western Australia, Geraldton’s Theatre Eight is performing the work on 20-22 August. In NSW, it’s running at the Zenith Theatre in Chatswood, Sydney, from 29 August to 12 September.

Coming up is Transit Theatre’s production of Copernicus, a new work about the astronomer Nicholas Copernicus that incorporates mime and animation. This will run 16 September to 4 October at the Melbourne Planetarium as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

And looking ahead to October …

Internationally for IYA, 23 and 24 October have been designated as the “Galilean Nights” – an occasion, like the 100 Hours of Astronomy in April, for everyone to get out to see the stars and planets.

And on 26 October, the University of NSW is going to run Galileo’s trial all over again. Perhaps this time the result will be different! This is a one-night-only performance, so grab a ticket if you can.

Read more about all these activities below.

National

• ACT
• New South Wales
• Queensland
• Victoria
• Tasmania
• South Australia
• Western Australia
• Northern Territory

If you have any queries, please contact Niall Byrne on iya@aao.gov.au or (02) 9372 4251.

If you  want to subscribe or unsubscribe to their bulletins, please send your request to astronomy@scienceinpublic.com:

Source:  Helen Sim

Single Point of Contact (SPOC) in Australia for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy iya@aao.gov.au

Events to mid September

Events coming up include the following. More information at http://www.astronomy2009.org.au/ .

National

• The Big Aussie Star Hunt – www.starhunt.net.au . Until 30 August.
• National – Galactic Television Streamcast – Friday 14 August 2009 (8:00PM) and then every day until 31 December 2009
• Scinema 09 – At venues around the country from Saturday 15 August 2009. www.scinema.com.au
• Astronomy Webcast from Charles Sturt University –Tuesday 25 August 2009 (7:00PM)

ACT

• Bootleg postcards: the unofficial biography of space exploration – a public talk by Glen Nagle. CSIRO Discovery, Clunies Ross St, Acton, Friday 21 August (4:00 PM)
• The role of the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex – at CSIRO Discovery, Clunies Ross St, Acton, Friday 21 to Sunday 23 August (10:00 AM to 4:00 PM)
• Unsolved mysteries of the Universe – a public talk by Paul Francis – Questacon, Canberra, Saturday 22 August (12:00 noon and 2:00 pm)
• The Physics of Star Trek – a public talk by physicist Lawrence Krauss. CSIRO Discovery, Clunies Ross St, Acton, Saturday 22 August. Free, but bookings essential. (6:00 PM)
• Space films at Scinema – Synergy Café and Optus Theatre, CSIRO Discovery, Clunies Ross St, Acton, Sunday 23 August. The works include documentaries made for the International Year of Astronomy. (10:00 am)

New South Wales

• The David Malin Awards exhibition – the annual photographic competition for amateur astrophotographers. At Sydney Observatory 15 August-18 October AND at Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran from Monday 24 August to Sunday 13 September (Mon-Sun. 9:20 AM to 4:00 PM)
• The World at Night exhibition opening talk by astrophotographer David Malin – The Muse Gallery, UTS Sydney, Saturday 22 August (2:00 PM). Bookings required.
• “Observation”, “Revolution” and “A Leap of Faith” – videos of three lively short plays featuring Galileo, Charles Darwin, Caroline Herschel and Isaac Newton. At Sydney Observatory, Saturday 22 August (6:15 PM) – bookings required. ALSO at the ABC Ultimo Centre, Sydney, Saturday 29 August (11:00 am)
• Mars Hoax Night – Have you seen an email saying Mars will look the size of the full Moon in August? Sorry folks, it ain’t so. But at Sydney Observatory you can see Mars in the 3-D theatre and Jupiter (and maybe Neptune) through a telescope. Thursday 27 August (8:15 PM)
• Discovery Night – public astronomy viewing night hosted by the University of Wollongong’s Science Centre. Friday 28 August (6:30 PM)
• History Week at Sydney Observatory – Convicts, soldiers, signallers and the children in the windmill. For ages 7-12 and adults. Saturday 5 September (5:30 PM). Bookings required.
• Harmonious Revolutions: Galileo and the Music of the Spheres – early-music multimedia show about Galileo. Mittagong, Saturday 5 September (5:00 PM)
• Information session: tour to Easter Island for the 2010 solar eclipse. Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Saturday 5 September (2:00 pm). Bookings required.
• The sky’s the limit: astronomy in antiquity is an exhibition at the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, exploring the astronomical understanding of ancient cultures – from Sunday 3 May to Sunday 13 December
• Macquarie University Observatory – Friday Night Observing offers a weekly “starfinder” session and telescope observation – every Friday until 27 November

Queensland

• Night Sky Tour (Ballandean, Queensland) at the Twinstar Guesthouse – Wednesday 16 September 2009 (7:30PM)
• Galileo’s invention of the telescope – a talk by David Jamieson – Friday 21 August, University of Queensland (4:00 PM)
• Stars In The Park Friday, Brisbane – Friday 28 August, 2009 (5:30PM)
• The Cosmic Distance Ladder – public lecture by Terence Tao – Tuesday 8 September, Gardens theatre QUT (6:00 PM) Bookings required.

Victoria

• Light Years: Photographs And Space exhibition at the National Gallery Victoria International, St Kilda Rd, brings together photographs of real and imagined space travel – until Sunday 27 September
• Astronomy in a nutshell exhibition at Monash Science Centre, Clayton
• Discover The Night Sky Melbourne Planetarium at Scienceworks – Thursday 27 August 2009 (7:00PM)
• Lawrence Krauss, Life, The Universe, And Nothing, RMIT Capitol Theatre Melbourne Writer’s Festival www.mwf.com.au – Sunday 23 August 2009 (8:00PM) http://tickets.mwf.com.au/session.asp?s=2343
• Heavens Above! Briars Historic Park Observatory, (east side of Nepean Highway) Mount Martha – Friday 4 September 2009 (8:00PM)
• Particle Astronomy – The Second Window, Hercus Theatre, University of Melbourne – Thursday 17 September 2009 (6:30PM)

Tasmania

• St Helens Public Astronomy Viewing – Saturday 22 August 2009 (3:00PM)

South Australia

• The Physics of Star Trek – a talk by Lawrence Krauss. University of Adelaide, Friday 21 August (7:00 PM)
• Ancient Skies: how different cultures have viewed the sky. South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide – Sunday 23 August 2009 (2:00PM)
• Galileo: night of the stars – a discussion of Galileo’s Europe, from art to telescopes, hosted by the Royal Institution of Australia. The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, Hindmarsh, Adelaide, Wednesday 26 August (7:00 PM for a 7:30 PM start)
• Stockport Observatory Public Star Party – at Stockport, 80km north of Adelaide. Sunday 29 August (8:00 pm)

Western Australia

• Space Trail, WA, various locations – Friday 21 August to Sunday 23 August 2009 (8:00AM)
• Western Australia – The Night Sky In The Pilbara, Karratha – Friday 21 August 2009 (7:00PM)
• Zadko Telescope And Gamma Ray Burst Science, Gingin Observatory Saturday 22 August 2009 (7:00PM)
• The Cosmic Distance Ladder – public lecture by Terence Tao – Thursday 3 September at UWA, Perth (6:00 PM)
• The Astronomy Of Aboriginal Australians, public lecture, Scitech, Perth – Wednesday 9 September 2009 (6:00PM)

Northern Territory

• The First Astronomers? – a discussion of the relationship between modern astronomical observation and Aboriginal lore. Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Saturday 22 August (7:30 pm)

BOOK REVIEW

The New Moon Race

by Morris Jones

Rosenberg Publishing

For those of us who lived through it, the Space Race, as it came to be known, was a time that galvanized the entire world. You just knew you were experiencing something raw that would never happen again. Space dominated the print media and the 5 o’clock news bulletins. Everywhere you turned it was there. Every kid wanted to be an astronaut.

We watched huge rockets launching men with the ‘Right Stuff’ and knew that President Kennedy’s dream would soon become a reality. Men would be walking on the Moon before the end of the decade – and we couldn’t get enough of it! America Vs the Soviet Union – us against them. It was a race into space.

It’s history now. America won the moon race, but who says there can’t be a rematch? Morris Jones believes there can and gives his reasons why in his new book, ‘The New Moon Race’ from Rosenberg Publishing. In a well researched, well written hardback he reviews the first fledgling steps of a developing space program, detailing its hopes, dreams, failures and repercussions. Jones then introduces us to the latest players in a new reach for space. Russia, China, India and Japan all have their eyes set on fresh goals in space exploration, and it could see the United States take a backseat if their Shuttle replacement falters.

Space advocates have warned that China could send humans to the Moon before the end of the next decade, even before NASA returns under current exploration plans. Former NASA administrators have said that and most of the space community see it happening as well. A red flag on the Red Planet is becoming a distinct possibility, probably within 10-15 years. Others, though, have expressed skepticism and Jones acknowledges this in his book as he traces a future timeline that seems not only realistic, but sensible as well.

Determining what China, and other nations, are really planning to do in terms of future solar system exploration lies at the heart of The New Moon Race. Private missions to the Moon, including Space Adventures’ proposal for a Soyuz circumlunar flight and the Google Lunar X PRIZE, are also discussed.

Jones hedges his bets and falls just short of predicting the certainty of a second ‘space race’. Shrewdly, he leaves the reader to form his or her own opinion. I found myself wrestling with this question throughout the entire 180 pages of the book.

The author is an Australian spaceflight analyst. He writes with enthusiasm and authority. I found the larger print easier on the older eyes and the illustrations and photographs were possibly some of the best I’ve ever seen in a book of this nature. As for the title of the book, it’s up to you. If there is another race to anywhere let’s hope it is to the Moon and eventually Mars. I was promised that as a kid and I want my legacy. Reading ‘The New Moon Race’ gave me hope it will happen.

Reviewed by: David Reneke

== IN THE SKY THIS WEEK ==

The last quarter Moon was Friday August 14, and the new Moon is Thursday August 20. Mercury is now easily visible in the western evening twilight. Mercury rises rapidly in the sky, meeting Saturn on Monday August 17. Saturn is visible in the early evening but sets around 8pm local time. It can be easily seen as the third brightest object above the north-western horizon, Mercury is now brighter than it. Jupiter is easily seen as the brightest object above the eastern horizon from around 6pm local time.

Jupiter will be at opposition, where it is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, this week, on Saturday August 15. If you don’t have a telescope to view Jupiter, why not go to one of your local Astronomical Societies or Planetariums open nights? Jupiter’s moons are readily visible in binoculars or a small telescope. On Sunday August 16 Jupiter has an interesting alignment of moons.

In the morning, Venus and Mars are readily visible in the eastern sky. Red Mars (which will NOT be as big as the full Moon this month) forms a triangle with two bright red stars Aldebaran and Betelguese in Orion. Between Sunday 16 August and Tuesday 18 August the crescent Moon lines up with Mars and Venus.

Credit: ABC http://abcmail.net.au/t/593330/682450/11560/0/ * Details given are for the Southern Hemisphere

ASTRO PIC OF THE WEEK

Whoomp! Mars’ Victoria Crater

This image of the Victoria Impact Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at more of a sideways angle than earlier orbital images of this crater. The camera pointing was 22 degrees east of straight down, yielding a view comparable to looking at the landscape out an airplane window. The crater is named after Victoria -one of the five ships of Ferdinand Magellan and the first ship to circumnavigate the globe . Along the edges of the crater are many outcrops within recessed alcoves and promontories, named for bays and capes that Magellan discovered. Opportunity traveled for 21 months to Victoria before finally reaching its edge on September 26, 2006.

This view is a cutout from a HiRISE exposure taken on July 18, 2009. Some of Opportunity’s tracks are still visible to the north of the crater (left side of this cutout).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

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The Evening Sky Map (PDF) is a 2-page monthly guide to the night sky suitable for all sky watchers including newcomers to Astronomy. AND its entirely FREE. Designed to print clearly on all printers, The Evening Sky Map is ready-to-use and will help you to:

• Identify planets, stars and major constellations
• Find sparkling star clusters, wispy nebulae & distant galaxies
• Locate and follow bright comets across the sky
• Learn about the night sky and Astronomy

The Evening Sky Map is free for personal non-commercial educational use. Astronomy Education and Outreach groups may freely distribute printed handouts of The Evening Sky Map subject to the Terms of Use. Follow Skymaps.com onTwitter. Receive news of updated sky maps, reminders of Sky Calendar events, and other noteworthy news for sky watchers. And it’s FREE! Sky Map Download

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A NEW PUBLICATION YOU SHOULD SUBSCRIBE TO

UNIGALACTIC Space Travel Magazine

UniGalactic Space Travel Magazine was launched with the first issue published on May 29, 2009. You’ll find articles on a variety of topics including but not limited to SpaceX’s and Virgin Galactic’s NEW space tourism developments, international space station, Mars missions, future space launches, as well as outer space news. Amazon will ship ANYWHERE in the Globe. Footnote from Dave: I’m so impressed with this magazine and it’s contents that I’ve asked to write for them and have been accepted. I highly recommend this publication for it’s different slant and content we don’t normally get a chance to hear about in Oz. Subscribe to UniGalactic Space Travel Magazine Website: Click here

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As the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) reaches its six-month milestone, over a million people have already looked at the sky through a telescope for the first time, and even more have newly engaged in astronomy. This is just one of many achievements, as countless ongoing projects and planned initiatives indicate that the IYA2009 is well on the way towards achieving many of its goals.

The IYA2009 is a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, with events at national, regional and global levels throughout the whole of 2009. Now, halfway through 2009, much has been achieved and even more can be expected in the future. The Galileoscope project headlines the IYA2009. With the aim of providing low-cost telescopes that offer views far better than those obtained by Galileo Galilei some 400 years ago, the venture has picked up significant pace since the IYA2009 began.

By the end of July, the first 60 000 Galileoscopes will have been shipped, and a further 100 000 are currently in production. More than 4000 Galileoscopes have been generously donated by the IYA2009 and individuals to organisations and schools in developing countries. This gesture aptly demonstrates the commitment of astronomy enthusiasts to the IYA2009 goal of making the skies accessible to all.

But perhaps the most impressive figures for the IYA2009 have come from the national activities that have brought together hundreds of thousands of people in many countries for astronomy-themed events. For example, more than 400 000 people gathered for the Sunrise Event on New Year’s Day in Busan City, South Korea. In Brazil, more than 750 000 students participate from 32 500 schools. In Norway, every student from grades 5-11 will soon receive a free astronomy kit, including a Galileoscope and an educational guide. For the first time in postal service history, and in just six months, more than 70 postal agencies around the world have issued over 140 new stamps inspired by astronomy. IYA

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Events & Activities

* Tours: Some exciting news about a serties of New Zealand astronomy tours I’ve been invited to take part in with Grand Pacific Tours P/L and closer to the end of the year I have been asked to take part in and run a couple of back to back astro lectures and sky viewing travelling on Great Southern railway trains – namely the ‘Sourthern Star’. Stay tuned!

* Book Reviews: I’ve recently been given the opportunity to become a book reviewer for some of the most respected publication houses in the world. This offer has been extended to the review and critique of DVDs as well so, in the coming months, I’ll be looking at a few new releases and giving you my impression of them in an impartial and non-biased manner. Any other publishers interested in having me review their material as well as are asked to contact me direct from any of the personal adresses on these pages. The first publication just receieved is the newly released hard cover book ‘The New Race For Space’ from Rosenberg Sales N.Y. followed by another new release ‘Rocket Men – The Epic Story Of The First Men On The Moon by Craig Nelson by the Penguin Group New York. Stay tuned!

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Southern Cross Observatory – Tasmania, Australia.

If you are interested in Astro-Photography, at any level, then this is the site for you. Take note and learn from the experts!

Shevill Mathers is recognized as one of the world’se leading amateur astronomers and is a specialist in his field. His regular columns and newspaper articles are now augmented by a wide range of articles including ATM articles, Astro News items and Activities from Tasmania as well as reviewing a wide range of astronomical equipment.

Shevill is a regular contributor to many various magazines including the Tasmania 40 Degrees South magazine, Leatherwood On-Line, Discover Tasmania, Quasar Publishing ‘Astronomy Yearbook’, Universe Today and various overseas scientific forums. He is a local media source for TV, radio and the print media.

Shevill Mathers has been a keen amateur astronomer / telescope and camera builder in the UK since the early 60’s, with a special interest in astrophotography. A member of the BAA, London (Lunar Section), his photographic expertise was greatly encouraged by Patrick Moore, with whom he has maintained a lasting friendship. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1968.

Southern Cross Observatory – IYA – Two special sites have been established at the International ’Macedon Ranges Observatory’, in Victoria, to coordinate and share images, experiences and events around the world, the links are:http://www.southerngalactic.com/andhttp://www.northerngalactic.com/

Contact details:shevill.mathers@southernphone.com.au Shevillm@gmail.com Web:www.shevillmathers.id.au

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