Carnival of Space #243

Hi everybody and welcome to the 243th edition of Carnival of Space, hosted by the Venus Transit. As its name implies, the Venus Transit site has lots of articles about the upcoming rare event of Venus transiting the sun in June, and in addition  includes other articles on all aspects of astronomy.

Following are this week's articles:
Nextbigfuture covers the NASA Innovative Advanced Conference Spring meeting. One topic is the Fission Fragment Rocket Engine (FFRE). The FFRE requires small amounts of readily available, energy dense, long lasting fuel, significant thrust at specific impulse of a million seconds, and increases safety by charging the reactor after arrival in LEO. If this study shows the FFRE potential, the return could be immense through savings in travel time, payload fraction, launch vehicle support and safety for deep space exploration.

Nextbigfuture also covers Atomic metallic hydrogen. If metallic hydrogen can be metastable at ambient pressure and temperature, then it could be used as the most powerful chemical rocket fuel, as the atoms recombine to form molecular hydrogen. This light-weight high-energy density material would revolutionize rocketry, allowing single-stage rockets to enter orbit and chemically fueled rockets to explore our solar system. To transform solid molecular hydrogen to metallic hydrogen requires extreme high pressures, but has not yet been accomplished in the laboratory. In the proposed new approach electrons will be injected into solid hydrogen with the objective of lowering the critical pressure for transformation. If successful the metastability properties of hydrogen will be studied. This new approach may scale down the pressures needed to produce this potentially revolutionary rocket propellant. It would have an ISP of 1700 and would be usable for single stage to orbit launches (SSTO).
 
Discovery Space news writes about magnetic tornadoes measuring several Earths wide which have been spotted deep inside the sun's atmosphere. Using the high-definition eyes of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), researchers from Aberystwyth University have, for the first time, captured a monster solar twister evolving deep inside the corona. But far from the phenomena just being fascinating to watch, it is thought it may help predict space weather.
 
Air and Space magazine sent us the following story: Attendees at the recently concluded 43rd annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference had front row seats to a heated debate on new data from the Moon. As opposed to how many envision scientific debate – coolly logical, white-frocked intellectuals, dispassionately discussing points of contention in a laboratory – what they witnessed was an impassioned and stormy exchange of differing opinions. There is good reason for passion. Subsequent decisions based on these data, places the success or failure of future missions in the crosshairs.
 
AstroWOW explains what "heliopause" is in its "Ride with the Voyager probes to the edge of the solar system" article.
 
Dear Astronomer  writes about new research from the ESO’s HARPS mission that provides evidence that small, rocky, Earth-sized planets are extremely common, especially in the habitable zones around faint red dwarf stars. Based on this new research, an international team places an estimate of tens of billions of these worlds in our galaxy alone, and possible hundreds of billions in our cosmic neighborhood.
  
Chandra X-ray telescope blog shares a new X-ray study of the remains of an exploded star that indicates that the supernova that disrupted the massive star may have turned it inside out in the process.
 
Astronotes from the Armagh planetarium gives us a lookout for the coming month: "The month of April is fantastic month for stargazing and for astronomy in general with numerous dates to mark in your calendar. We get a front row seat to the beauty of Saturn visiting the bright star of Spica as well as some other yearly visitors that make the April and spring night skies so magical.
 
Cosmic blog writes about Amateur astronomers who have been marveling over a curious cloud that they spotted on Mars - and now the professionals have focused in on an explanation.
 
Cosmic blog also writes about a treasure found in the deep ocean: Amazon.com's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, says he's funded a successful effort to locate the mammoth rocket engines that sent the Apollo 11 mission on the first leg of its mission to the moon — and now he's planning to bring them up from the Atlantic Ocean floor.
 
The Meridian Journal updates us about the latest efforts to find liquid water on Mars: "New evidence from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter supports the possibility of liquid water brines on Mars."

Links Through Space fol­lows an Astron­omy Club as they travel through Spain. As they travel the south of Spain they visit beautiful sites and astro­nom­i­cal landmarks to bring you very cool astro-pho­tos and sto­ries about the his­tory of Span­ish Astronomy.

Some history from Vintage Space: Just over 47 years ago, NASA learned to fly in space with the first spacecraft designed for a pilot by a pilot. Read about Gemini 3 mission with Gus Grissom and John Young.

Riding with Robots writes: "With its geysers of water ice, Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus is quite possibly the most intriguing place in the entire solar system." Last week, the Cassini probe flew right through the plumes, and sent home some beautiful pictures along the way.

WeirdSciences also writes about Enceladus in a detailed article about What’s Wrong with NASA: Evidences of Life on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus?
 
And from this site, the major observational event of this week will be Venus in the Pleiades (M45), this will happen on April 3rd.


April 2012 is Global Astronomy Month (GAM), If you are an astronomer, from the novice to the expert, you will find lots of things to do and learn in GAM. Please visit GAM site and choose your desired activity or create your own!

Global Astronomy Month

April 2012 will be the "Global Astronomy Month", the world's largest global celebration of astronomy since the unprecedented International Year of Astronomy 2009. Unlike the IYA2009 which was an official decision of UNESCO, GAM is more unofficial evens which is leaded by private people all over the world and it's center is in a great organization "astronomers without borders". The idea is that astronomy and the skies belongs to all people all over the world.

The event schedule for GAM is full, and you can have many activities to choose from, either online or at your local astronomy club, such as solar observation, lunar week, join poetry contest, or even create an event yourself! If you have a telescope, just set a date, find a suitable place, advertize a little in your local neighborhood and show people the moon. First timers of the moon is always a pleasure to hear the wow and "I can't believe it"...

During April there are already some international events, mainly April 12 with the night of Yuri, dedicated to the first man in space.
Whatever it is check the AWB website for GAM2012 and join the biggest star-party of the year

Global Astronomy Month

Twinkle twinkle little star

We all know that stars twinkles, it is also easy to notice that stars twinkle more when they are low in the skies. The reason for all the twinkles is the Earth's atmosphere and winds which cause it. When the light comes from a star the air refracts it and make it changes in position a bit. Stars are so far always that they seems as a point and even the slightest change will cause them to twinkle. Planets also twinkle but much less since they are small disc and not tiny points (see more details here).

I've learned about a great and simple technique to visualize the twinkling or in the more formal name "Scintillation" of stars. I learned it from Monika Landy-Gyebnar, an Hungarian photographer who found it by mistake when she once accidentally kicker her tripod during star photography. Instead of deleting the photo she notices that the photo looks rather strange.Monika does not sure if she "invented" the method or just "rediscovered" it but the first photos I saw of this method are her.
The technique is quite simple. Take a photograph of a star for about 2 minutes without using a tripod. Look at the result. The stars colors change dramatically. This is the scintillation at work! Do the same for a planet, the brightness might change, but not the color! I was very eager to try for myself. It works. Here is Arcturus.

Arcturus scintillation

I even got a very nice photo for Spica.

Spica scintillation

Notice how the color changes as different wavelengths of the light are refracted. For planets it doesn't happen. Here is Mars.

Mars - no scintillation

Thanks Monika for sharing your technique with us!

Venus and the Pleiades

Venus in the Pleiades (M45) 3-April-2012. This is how it looked!   Below are the instructions for seeing Venus and the Pleiades.
Here is a short video to summarize the vent

Last photo from April 4th shows that Venus is leaving M45. Compare all photos and see that Venus is a planet and it moves between the fixed stars.

Venus in the Pleiades (M45) 4-Apr-2012

Venus in the Pleiades (M45) 3-Apr-2012

Venus in the Pleiades (M45)

Venus in the Pleiades (M45)

Venus in the Pleiades (M45)

Here is how it looked a day before

Venus in the Pleiades (M45) 2-Apr-2012

Photographing it is easy. Use the longest zoom lens you have, put the camera ona Tripod and expose for 1-10 seconds see what results are best for your taste, change the ISO from 200 too 800 and more and experience it.
Read below for the full article


Venus is moving fast leaving Jupiter well below. In the following nights, look a little up from Venus and you will see the Pleiades, known also as the seven sisters from the mythology. In two weeks they will have another sister, the eight - Venus.
Start by looking west about one hour after sunset, you will see Jupiter and Venus but look further up, and use the following picture:

Venus, Jupiter M45 and Aldebaran

You might see more or less stars depending on your location but you should see Aldebaran even from major cities. Look for the Pleiades. You shall see at least 4 or five star grouped together looking like a miniature of the well known big dipper. A more formal name for this groups is M45, which designate it as the 45th object in a catalog done by Charles Messier. It is an open cluster of several hundreds stars, very close (relatively) to each other, its distance from Earth is about 360-400 light years, and most people will be able to see seven of them with the naked eye from a very dark location. This is the reason that M45 got its mythological name "the seven sisters", and it might appearing in the bible as well under the name "Chima"
On April 3th 2012, Venus will be inside M45, so there will actually be eight sisters. Of course it will be great opportunity to observe such event, especially through a small telescope. here are some points to notice and learn before such observations

1. Notice Venus orbit and how it gets each day closer to M45. Planets moves and you can see it in your own eyes
2. check in advance how many stars from M45 you can see. Try to do it from darkest place, and even inside a city find a place which is not lighted directly
3. If you have a binocular or a telescope try to count how many stars you can see through it. Even a small binocular will show many more stars
4. During the event, Venus is so bright that it will be harder to see any of the M45 stars, so count again how many stars you can see with your naked eye and any optical device you have on April 3th 2012.
5. Make a sketch of what you see. Is it look similar to the below?

Venus inside the Pleiades M45 - April 3th 2012

Although Venus is in the Pleiades, it is really very far from them, It is just in the same point in the skies. Venus distance from earth is about 100M kilometers (60M miles), The Pleiades distance from Venus (and Earth) is about 400 light years!
Venus orbital period of 224.70069 days  make 13 Venus years almost identical to 8 Earth (orbital period 365.256363004) years. So we will see Venus in the Pleiades again on the same day in April  8 years from now and so on, although the day will slowly drift toward the 4th of April. For Example in 2036, Venus will be inside the dipper.
Good luck and enjoy your observation!