Dave Reneke’s

‘WORLD of SPACE and ASTRONOMY’

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Here’s a selection of Astronomy/Space related stories you may find interesting. Be sure to sign up for your own copy of Astro Space News. I absolutely do not disclose your address to anyone! There is no cost and no obligation for this service. Anyone can subscribe by completing the opt in form just over there on the right … see it, do it now! We work 24/7/365 to report the most relevant ‘Astro-Space’ news back to you … virtually as it breaks. Bookmark this page and check back regularly.

For The Media

If you are interested, an interview with astronomer, writer, educator and public lecturer representing Australasian Science Magazine and Editor of Astro Space News, Dave Reneke(Astro-Dave) can be arranged by contacting Dave by Phone/Fax(02) 65 85 2260 Mobile: 0400 636 363 or email Dave for an instant reply to davereneke@gmail.com. David is well experienced talking to the media and presents information in an easy to understand, up to date and informative manner. Interviews can be on any subject, tailored to your requirements.

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Letters To Dave

Hi Dave,

Hope you are feeling better. Thanks for the great work. Cheers, Alvin

Sorry to hear that you have been ill, trust you are better now. Setterfield

Hello Dave. I have a question about buying a first telescope. I’m looking to spend about a $1000. Can you suggest any good models. I’ve been looking at a Tasco SW880. any thought s on that model. Great site by the way. Thanks Michael McRae

Hi David I am a primary teacher currently teaching a unit on space.  Could you please shed some light on when this month we can see Mars ’up close’.  What time of night and where in the sky will it be most visible?  I would like my class to experience this.  Your assistance is greatly appreciated.Regards, Tracy N.

Dear David, I have seen emails and other people have told me about the Mars close encounter tonight – is it really going to be close to the earth tonight and as big as a full moon or is this a hoax!! I thought rather than keep searching the net and getting various answers – I would ask the man who would know. Thanks, Dale R

Nice to hear from you both. Sorry to tell you but this is unfortunately a hoax. It circulates each year about this time and proclaims, among other things, that mars will be as “big as the full moon” and ” no-one alive will ever see this again” etc etc.  Just Google ‘Mars Hoax’ and you’ll read more. Good luck

Thanks Dave really appreciate that.  Thanks for the website too. Kind regards, Tracy

Hello Dave. I have a question about buying a first telescope. I’m looking to spend about a $1000. Can you suggest any good models. I’ve been looking at a Tasco SW880. any thought s on that model. Great site by the way. Thanks Michael M.

Hi Michael Thanks for the email and the positive feedback. This is an excellent choice. A good telescope for an experienced amateur and even better scope for a beginner as you are getting good optics in a trusted name scope which is simple to use and very transportable. I like these scopes. I’m actually putting together a webpage dealing in telescope enquiries and showing a range of suggested scopes for beginners and advanced amateurs. It won’t be ready for awhile but this scope is featuring heavily in it. I am concerned where you intend to buy and at what cost. Let me know what you’ve decided here OK and I’ll shop around for you. Dave

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OUR TOP STORY

Asteroid Strike?

The Military Won’t tell You

In the US, the military has decided to deny scientists data on incoming meteors in order to protect military secrets.  Anyone who can’t see any problems with this arrangement, well done on never having seen a movie -ever.

The most likely reason is an upgrade to the satellite defence network, with the top brass believing that any risk of revealing the capabilities of the new system is unacceptable.  The worst thing is that it isn’t really secrecy that’s stopping the data transfer, but miserliness.

It’s the work of moments to boil out any unwanted information revealed by records of meteor strikes, but with their hundred-billion dollar budget the USAF just doesn’t see the point in hiring someone to do it.  They’re literally throwing out incredible data because they can’t be bothered to keep it.  This is everything that’s wrong with human ambition right here.

While you’re tossing and turning wondering if ‘the big one’ is out there lurking somewhere ready to flatten you – think about this:

Playing around the with this impact calculator yields some sobering estimates of what even a smallish asteroid or meteor strike could do. A 200 metre space rock hitting at 40 kilometres per second would produce the explosive equivalent of 2400 megatons, about 160,000 times the “Little Boy” that was dropped on Hiroshima. If it hit land the final crater would be over 5 kilometres wide.

From thirty kilometres away, the fireball would be close to 100 times brighter than the sun, many structures would be damaged or destroyed by the initial blast, 6.8 magnitude quake, and the metre wide flaming boulders that would rain down about a minute later. Quoting New Scientist: existing sky surveys miss many asteroids smaller than 1 kilometre across, leaving the door open to damaging impacts on Earth with little or no warning, a panel of scientists reports.

Doing better will require devoting more powerful telescopes to asteroid hunting, but no one has committed the funds needed to do so, it says. NASA calculated that to spot the asteroids as required by law would cost about $800 million between now and 2020, either with a new ground-based telescope or a space observation system, Johnson said. If NASA got only $300 million it could find most asteroids bigger than 1,000 feet across, he said. But so far NASA has gotten neither sum.

That’s why a small group of dedicated astronomers spend their lives catalogingNEOs, so that they can warn people ahead of time, or maybe give us the option of nudging it safely away while it’s still a long ways off. Sleep well tonight, OK?

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MORE ASTRO-SPACE NEWS

Report: UFO Sightings Coincide with Popular Sci-Fi Films, TV

The British Ministry of Defense released 4,000 pages of documents detailing hundreds of UFO sightings between 1981 and 1996. A summary of the documents by UFO expert David Clarke comes as no surprise to scientists and skeptics: many of the sightings coincide with the release of popular sci-fi movies or television shows.

609 UFO sightings in 1996, compared with 117 in 1995 correspond with the rise in popularity of the X Files television show and the release of the alien blockbuster film Independence Day. ”Obviously, films and TV programs raise public awareness of UFOs and it’s fascinating to see how that appears to lead more people to report what they see to the authorities,” Clarke said.

The documents released include sightings reported by police officers and fighter pilots as well as young children, the Daily Mail reported Monday. 90% of the sightings could be explained by mundane objects such as bright stars and planets, meteors, artificial satellites and airship advertising.

The other 10% were listed as “unexplained,” mainly because of insufficient information. For an excellent overview of what really happened in one of the most famous UFO stories of all, the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico alien spaceship crash, listen to Brian Dunning’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast on the subject.

Reuters, UPIT

Amino Acid Found in Stardust Comet Sample

NASA scientists studying the comet samples returned by the Stardust spacecraft have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life. Stardust captured the samples from comet Wild 2 in 2004 and returned them toEarth in 2006.

Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a come. The discovery supports the theory that some of life’s ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.

Proteins are a major component of all living cells, and amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acids in a huge variety of arrangements to build millions of different proteins.

As Stardust passed through dense gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt-2″), special collection grids filled with aerogel – a novel sponge-like material that’s more than 99 percent empty space – gently captured samples of the comet’s gas and dust. The grid was stowed in a capsule which detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth on January 15, 2006.

Since then, scientists around the world have been busy analyzing the samples to learn the secrets of comet formation and our solar system’s history. Earlier, preliminary analysis in the Goddard labs detected glycine in both aluminum foil that lined the collection grids, as well as in a sample of the aerogel. However, since glycine is used by terrestrial life, at first the team was unable to rule out contamination from sources on Earth.

Isotopes are versions of an element with different weights or masses; for example, the most common carbon atom, Carbon 12, has six protons and six neutrons in its center (nucleus). However, the Carbon 13 isotope is heavier because it has an extra neutron in its nucleus. A glycine molecule from space will tend to have more of the heavier Carbon 13 atoms in it than glycine that’s from Earth. That is what the team found. The Stardust-returned glycine has an extraterrestrial carbon isotope signature, indicating that it originated on the comet.

NASA

Buzz Aldrin to Accept an Emmy for NASA

Buzz Aldrin may have been the second astronaut on the moon, but he’ll be the first astronaut to accept an Emmy Award.

Aldrin  accepted the gold statue on NASA’s behalf last Saturday, when the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honoured the space agency with the Philo T. Farnsworth Award.

The honour recognizes contributions that impacted television technology or engineering; NASA will be recognized for the innovations that allowed it to broadcast live television images from the moon.

The award comes just a few weeks after the 40th anniversary of Aldrin’s walk on the moon with colleague Neil Armstrong.

News-Yahoo

Planck Sees Light Billions of Years Old

The Planck space telescope has begun to collect light left over from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe.

The mission, which is led by the European Space Agency with important participation from NASA, will help answer the most fundamental of questions: How did space itself pop into existence and expand to become the universe we live in today?

The answer is hidden in ancient light, called the cosmic microwave background, which has traveled more than 13 billion years to reach us. Planck will measure tiny variations in this light with the best precision to date. The mission officially started collecting science data yesterday, Aug. 13, as part of a test period.

If all goes as planned, these observations will be the first of 15 or more months of data gathered from two full-sky scans. Science results are expected in about three years.

JPL/NASA

Space Rock Crooks Strike

A meteorite survived a plummet to Earth, but not a theft. Someone made a pretty brazen move when they pilfered a 30-pound chunk of nickel and iron from outer space.

The rather bulky meteorite, about the size of a cantaloupe, was stolen from the gift shop at Dinosaur Place in Montville, USA. State Police were quite surprised. They said, ‘You lost a what?” recallsDinosaur Place owner Roger Phillips, who called Connecticut State Police Monday to report the meteorite stolen.

Phillips says a worker last saw the $2,200 hunk of rock on Thursday. ”When she came to work Saturday, she came over to congratulate me on the sale,” said Phillips. “Because it was gone, she assumed that someone had bought it during her absence.” But Phillips thinks a customer swiped it for a private collection. That person could have walked off with it during business hours because there was no sign of a break-in, Phillips said.

“Something like this is unusual because of its weight,” Roger Phillips. “Of course, we wonder, how did they get it out of the store?”  That’s what other Dinosaur Place visitors were wondering Tuesday afternoon. ”I don’t know what an adult would do with it,” said Sarah Simon, who was visiting the nature center from Pennsylvania. The meteorite was valuable because it was made of nickel and iron. More common meteorites are made of stone.

When asked if he think he’ll get the meteorite back, Phillips said, “Honestly, probably not.” But others think that something as unusual as a piece of outer space, won’t stay secret for long. ”Something like that will probably show up with time,” said nature center visitor Bill Greeley. “It’s too much for one person to keep to themselves.”

The Promise of  Commercial Space

One of the great dreams of the space age is the idea of purely commercial companies launching supplies and even human beings into space. Unfettered by the bureaucratic restrains of a government space agency such as NASA, disciplined to keep costs down by competition and the market, the idea is the commercial space companies can bring down the cost of space travel and expand the opportunity to travel in space to a wider number of people.

NASA’s solution to low cost space travel, the space shuttle, proved to perform somewhat less (and for more money) than advertised. Attempts by the government to replace the space shuttle, including the National Aerospace Plane, the National Launch System, the Venture Star, and so on all proved to be still born. The current space effort, the Orion/Ares system, is designed to take astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and beyond with resupplying the International Space Station as an afterthought.

The quest for commercial access to space has not been without its problems. Attempts to build purely commercial space systems, dating back to the Otrag in the late 1970s, have tended to founder on the rocks of too little money, insufficient markets, and insurmountable technical challenges. The Conestoga, the Rotary Rocket, the Beal BA-1, and many other attempts to commercialize space travel have come and gone.

That seems to be about to change. In October, 2004, SpaceShipOne took the first private astronaut into the last of a series of suborbital jaunts, winning the Ansari X-Prize. That feat has sparked a kind of commercial space race involving a variety of commercial space companies, including Virgin Galactic, in a bid to build and operate suborbital space craft to take paying passengers on the thrill rides of a lifetime.

Meanwhile, a company called SpaceX, created by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, has succeeded in launching its privately designed and built Falcon 1, meant to deploy small satellites in low Earth orbit. With investment capital from NASA, SpaceX is building a much larger launch vehicle, the Falcon 9, with the purpose of not only launching larger satellites cheaply, but to resupply the International Space Station. Along with a company called Orbital Sciences, SpaceX will take over much of the resupply of the ISS from the space shuttle, scheduled to retire next year. Current proposals call for the expansion of the commercial program to include taking people to and from the ISS. SpaceX is designing a space craft to the launch on the Falcon 9 for that purpose, the Dragon.

NASA had been traditionally indifferent or even hostile to commercial space ventures. During the Bush administration, though, NASA underwent a change in its attitude; the space agency began to see commercial space companies as partners rather than rivals. The idea is that if commercial space companies could take over Earth to low Earth orbit operations, NASA would be free to once again explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

In the meantime, commercial space companies gain a core market and a source of revenues from NASA that can be use to develop other commercial space markets. For example, a company calledBigelow, is developing the first commercial space station that could be serviced by the same space craft that are proposed to service the ISS.
Like every great idea, the NASA/commercial space partnership could leave everyone a winner.

Xaminer.Com

NASA May Begin Outsourcing Due to Financial Problems

NASA will rely on contractors to help pick up additional tasks as the U.S. space agency deals with money issues. Facing growing financial issues that may eliminate future missions to the moon and Mars, NASA may be prepared to let private contractors have a larger role in its future space endeavors.

President Barack Obama hasn’t made any official decisions regarding the future of NASA, but several unnamed government officials and other space experts claim the private sector will be responsible for a larger amount of NASA-backed missions. Currently, each shuttle launch is government-led, including the use of the current space shuttle fleet, but cost restraints may end up crippling anticipated missions.

During the previous administration, former President George W. Bush outlined a plan for NASA to return to the moon, but Obama’s blueprint involves $30 billion to $50 billion less than what was expected over the next decade. Outsourcing work to the private sector would allow the federal government to save the $30 billion to $50 billion, with contractors expected to help develop rocket-propulsion technology and plan manned launches to Mars.

As space nations outline plans to return to the moon by 2025, NASA is unlikely to launch a manned mission to the moon by 2020, as necessary funding will simply be unavailable.  The U.S. space agency is currently unable to finance any manned launches anywhere past theInternational Space Station (ISS) at the moment, according to former astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, who said NASA “just can’t get there,” regarding the moon. Once the current space shuttle fleet is retired — which is expected to take place in 2010 — private contractors will help NASA get back to the ISS, along with the Russian space agency.

If NASA continued with its current budget, a return back to the moon wouldn’t be possible until 2028, if not later. Obama recently put together the Human Space Flight Committee of space experts and politicians to study how feasible it would be to launch towards the moon or Mars, but “at the end of the day, the President will make the decision, not a committee.”

Until a final decision is made, the future of the U.S. space agency remains extremely confusing for the public, politicians, and contractors who may be called upon to help NASA with future space missions.

Daily Tech

Mars’ Methane: Signs of Subsurface Life?

Scientists are studying the mysteries of the methane cycle on Mars, and have upgraded it from “We don’t know” to “There’s a lot more we don’t know.”  But that’s a good thing!  Challenging the unknown instead of acting awkward about it is science’s entire job, and new research has raised some important questions about what’s going on up there – and how we need to find out.

Scientists from the Parisian Universite Pierre et Marie Curie decided that working out how the things we’ve seen could happen might tell us more about Mars, building a computer model to explain observations of methane in the atmosphere.  It couldn’t, of course, but that’s not a failure – it was the entire point.  Because the differences between the assumptions in the model and on actual Mars tell us what to look for.

Mars seems to by cycling its methane six hundred times faster than Earth, meaning that there are major sources and sinks for the stuff.  It’s the sources that really interest us: they could be geological, venting methane from rock reactions with other chemicals, or there could be subsurface layers of life hiding in the cracks of the red planet.

So what do you do when the models won’t fit?  More data!  There’s a whole array of options being brought to bear on Mars as part of the rejuvenated space program.  The fastest will be an adaptive-optics analysis of the Martian atmosphere, identifying the chemicals present by tracking which wavelengths are emitted.  Then there’s the nuclear powered Mars Science Laboratory scheduled for 2011, and that phrase is just so fantastic we’re looking forward to saying it a million more times between now and then.  Nuclear-powered science laboratory!

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The Himalayas Seen from Space

The Himalayas (meaning “abode of snow”) separate the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau and includes the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and other, lesser, ranges that extend out from the Pamir Knot.

The mountain system is the planet’s highest and home to the world’s highest peaks, include Mount Everest and K2. To grasp the enormous scale of this range consider that Aconcagua, in the Andes, at 6,962 m (22,841 ft), is the highest peak outside Asia, whereas the Himalayan system includes over 100 mountains exceeding 7,200 metres (23,622 ft).

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)

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BOOK REVIEW

Buzz Aldrin talks About His New Book – ‘Magnificent Desolation’

The second man on the moon, at 79, says his life is ‘busier than it’s ever been.’ He has a new book, ‘Magnificent Desolation,’ is Twittering and advocating the colonization of Mars.

His mother’s maiden name was Moon. Buzz Aldrin, it seems, was destined from birth to travel to the rocky sphere more than 200,000 miles away from planet Earth.

Today he says, of being on the moon: “I was exhilarated but guarded. . . . I knew that our every move and word were on display to the entire world, even though we were the only living creatures within a quarter of a million miles.”

While walking on the moon, Aldrin uttered the words “magnificent desolation,” describing the monochromatic vastness of the cratered surface. Those words became the title of his new memoir, in which he lays bare his adult life — from Apollo 11 and beyond.

The return to Earth was hard. Alcoholism, depression and divorce riddled his life post-moonwalk. He considers the wherewithal to climb out of dark moments among his great triumphs, he writes.

Aldrin, now 79, has written children’s books and science fiction, and made documentaries. He’s even tried his hand at rapping, recently laying down tracks with Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli: “Moonwalking is such a trip,” he says at the microphone, accompanied by background crooners.

Aldrin talked about his new book, his Twitter feed and the possibility of living on Mars.

What’s your life like now?

It’s busier than it’s ever been. That includes training and isolated appearances.

You spent 21 hours on the moon. Do you ever wish you could go back?

No. I went there once and had the lucky brass ring. I was at the right place at the right time. Combined with the turmoil I had returning to the Air Force and having to deal with other inherited and cultivated traits, it was a tough return.

What’s the future of the U.S. space program?

Without a doubt, I think I have the prescribed plan of what we should do now in the space program. When you have a fork in the road, you take it. We had a fork in the road with the Columbia accident.

We learned lessons from that accident, and the implementation of those lessons is the road to take.

The first time, we got to the moon too soon because we were in a race with the Soviets. It was continuous and there was no gap — from Sputnik to Apollo. Now, after the Challenger and Columbia, it’s as if we have said: That’s enough! We have to take our experience and go to the next level.

In one of your chapters you envision space hotels on Mars. Do you think human beings could live on Mars? Should we send people there?

Absolutely. We need to accumulate people there. Just like the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, we need to settle Mars. We could have human intelligence in orbit around Mars, building things there.

Ideally, we’d send people there in intervals and they’d stay there 1½ years at a time and come back.

Think about it. The leader of a group of people on Earth — whoever the leader is — who establishes a settlement of humans on another planet. That’s huge. Much bigger than two people holding nuclear weapons to each other’s heads.

Mars is much closer to the characteristics of Earth. It has a fall, winter, summer and spring. North Pole, South Pole, mountains and lots of ice. No one is going to live on Venus; no one is going to live on Jupiter.

You rapped with Snoop Dogg. What made you do it?

I want to reach a new generation. That’s why I am Twittering now. I have a BlackBerry, an iPhone and a Mac.

My favorite music is Karen Carpenter, but people are into this rap. So I thought maybe I could work a deal where I could have some space experts appreciate rap and have the rappers understand space.

I kind of learned the words and picked up the rhythm and I got some advice from experts like Snoop Dogg and others. I was rapping about space exploration. “All you need is a rocket experience!” That’s the chorus. We had a ball, and we’re getting a lot of reaction from Twittering.

“Magnificent Desolation” covers your life after returning from the moon. You even ask: “What does a man do for an encore after walking on the moon?” You were only 39 at the time of your return. What was going through your head?

“Magnificent Desolation” — I was a little hesitant about that title. Originally we thought, “The Real Buzz” or just “Buzz.” I didn’t want [the title] to make my life sound a like a big glittering nothing. The book is really about the long journey home. It encapsulates what it is like coming back to being an Earthling. I was on my own, not knowing what to do.

There’s a love story in the book.

Yeah, I’d been a bachelor for 10 years and I was getting tired of looking around. I decided that I’d been living in West L.A., but I really liked the ocean, and so I wanted to move to Laguna. I purchased a condominium down there.

One Friday night, I went to a singles event on the beach in L.A. That’s where I met Lois. I asked her for a date. She said, “No, you don’t want to go out with me, I live in Laguna.” And I said, “Well, I’m moving there tomorrow!”

What is your greatest wish for future generations in terms of space travel, science, and future discoveries? What about the kids out there who still want to be astronauts?

It appears to me that we have a generation coming along that’s confused and not sure what they should focus on. It seems they think: What’s in it for me? It seems that Wall Street just did that very same thing in a very professional way, and it got us in a lot of trouble.

It seems there are many chasing the cash wagon.

Maybe this recession is bringing some things to light — there’s more to life than accumulating as much wealth as you possibly can.

For the future, primarily, we must educate people in science, engineering, technology and math.

Thanks to: Lori Kozlowski

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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 thi

s 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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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!

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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Sources: NASA, SKY & SPACE Magazine, Associated Press, Nature, Space.Com, Universe Today, BBC Science News, JPL, European Space Agency, Science Daily, ABC News Online, New Scientist Magazine, Reuters, Astrobiology News, Google Astronomy/Space News Alerts, Cornell University News Service, The Australian, NASA Science News, SpaceRef Interactive Inc. and Associated Affiliates. (E&OE)