EYEPIECE Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

December 2010

Volume 58 Number 12, ISSN 0146-7662

Some have called it the backbone of the night and

without the Milky Way, fragments of darkness would

come crashing to our feet. In summer, the Milky Way

splits the sky from Cassiopeia down to Sagittarius. In the

early 20th century, with the realization that “spiral nebu-

las” are external galaxies and are themselves Milky

Ways, the universe all of a sudden became incomprehen-

sively infinite.

And so a multitude of Milky Ways awaited those who

went upstate this summer and fall to observe at North-

South Lake in the Catskills. Our stairway to the heavens

began from Palenville, riding a winding road to what

locals call the mountaintop. For our second year of deep-

sky observing, we’d developed a routine. “The restau-

rants are great. Going up that mountain for the viewing

was fun,” enthused Gerceida Jones. The AAA organized

four trips, from July through October.

The ritual of eating at Selena’s & Nick’s Diner, talk-

ing Astro shop and observing with like-minded folks is

gratifying and fulfilling, a community of people one

could never tire of. Some of the rock-steady observers on

our trips were: Rich Rosenberg, Stan Fertig, Yee Wei

Mui, Tony Hoffman, Mark Dallmeyer, Lynn Darsh,

Shoba Bandi-Rao, Petra Tomse, Tim Law and us.

We were greeted by a raging storm in the distance on

our first trip and watched it advance towards us. Tony,

camera on hand, captured some dramatic shots. With

telescopes still assembled, the storm abruptly arrived at

the lake, causing the team to pack up and leave in a hurry

by midnight. Next month’s trip offered another chance.

The August 7 session was best in terms of weather and

sky conditions, duration of the session and observer turn-

out. There were about a dozen scopes and many shared

their binoculars. Sunset was fabulous. Venus, Saturn and

Mars were clustered in the shape of a right triangle in the

western sky. Further north along the horizon, Mercury

could be seen above the distant mountaintop. Over the

course of the session, we watched Jupiter and its moons,

Uranus, Neptune and the rising crescent Moon. One ses-

sion highlight was hunting for Pluto.

Tony brought a printed star chart, which enabled

him to star hop with a 10” reflector to the star field. He

reduced the field of view to a half-degree and recognize

a bow tie-shaped asterism that we referenced to share our

observations. Field notes and sketches seemed to rein-

force Sam Brown's “All About Telescopes” guidelines

for the 10-inch scope, where it reached ~13.9 limiting

magnitude, just shy of Pluto’s mag 14.1.

The September 11 session was really over before we

arrived, but a small group of devoted dark-sky trippers

ascended the stairway to the Milky Way to take in the

late summer sky. Riding up, the sky remained overcast,

although we were hopeful and optimistic. The clouds

broke, revealing some patches of clear sky around the

Summer Triangle. We caught glimpses of open clusters

in Cygnus and the Ring Nebula, Double Double and

globular cluster M56. By 11:30, we left. It had been un-

eventful beyond the company of fellow AAAers.

On October 2, things started off with really windy

conditions, up to 30 mph gusts, and it was a given that

the temperature would drop lower than previous visits.

At sunset, the sky presented Sagittarius, Scorpius and

Upstate continued on page 10

Heading Upstate to Climb the Stairway to the Milky Way

By Peter Tagatac and Thomas Haeberle

2

What’s Up

By Tony Hoffman

The Sky for December 2010

An Eclipse for the Longest Night. The first lunar

eclipse visible from New York in nearly three years oc-

curs the night of December 20-21, just hours before the

Winter Solstice. The eclipse won’t start until after mid-

night. The Moon begins to enter Earth’s dark umbral

shadow at 1:33 a.m. Totality begins at 2:41 a.m. and lasts

more than an hour. Around the Solstice, the Sun is at its

most southerly point of the year, which means the Full

Moon will be riding exceptionally high, just past the

horns of Taurus near the Gemini border.

Good Year for Geminid Meteors. The Geminid me-

teor shower, one of the year’s best, peaks on the night of

December 13-14. Prospects will be best after the first-

quarter Moon sets around midnight. Observers under

dark skies can expect to see 100-120 meteors per hour

radiating from a point near Castor. Unlike most meteor

showers, the debris responsible for the shower comes not

from a comet but a rocky asteroid, 3200 Phaeton.

An Amateur-Discovered Comet in Outburst. In

early November, two Japanese amateur astronomers in-

dependently discovered a comet the old-fashioned way:

visually, through the eyepieces of their telescopes. It is

the seventh comet discovery by Kaoru Ikeya--who also

co-discovered the great Kreutz sungrazer Comet Ikeya-

Seki in 1965 and 2002’s bright Comet Ikeya-Zhang--and

the second for Shigeki Murakami. The comet was likely

in outburst when discovered, and has exhibited a rapidly

changing appearance reminiscent of 2007’s Comet

Holmes (although without the tremendous increase in

brightness). In December, the comet will pass from

Virgo into Libra in the morning sky and may be visible

in small to medium-sized telescopes.

December 1 Mercury at greatest elongation in evening

sky; Moon lies near Saturn.

December 2 Moon lies near Venus.

December 4 Venus at greatest brilliancy, magnitude -

4.9.

December 5 New Moon at 12:36 p.m.

December 7 Moon lies near Mercury.

December 13 First-quarter Moon at 8:59 a.m.; Moon lies

By Joseph A. Fedrick

The night of October 16-17 was clear, starlit and

Moonlit. The waxing gibbous moon was already rising in

the east as I saw it from Central Park around 4 p. m., just

appearing between two buildings at 74th Street and 5th

Avenue. I gradually made my way to the Sheep Meadow

and the AAA’s annual Starfest.

By the time I arrived, it was already dark, a score of

telescopes were set up and the big dark shadow of the

Jovian moon Ganymede had already transited the Jovian

disk. The smaller shadow of Jupiter’s moon Europa soon

followed and transited the disk later. I observed that

shadow through one of the scopes. I could see Jupiter’s

South Equatorial Belt was still very much faded while

the North Equatorial Belt was a dark orange-brown.

Just a few degrees northeast of Jupiter was Uranus.

I observed it through another scope and glimpsed its tiny

but definable non-stellar pale green-blue disk.

Among the many Starfest scopes was a Galileo-

scope, similar to one Galileo used. Craters of the Moon

were easily discernible through it. Other scopes pointed

at the Moon and other objects, including the ghostly pale

smoke ring-like Ring Nebula, the M13 globular star clus-

ter, the M11 open-star cluster and the contrasting topaz-

yellow and sapphire-blue stars of Alberio in Cynus.

Starfest was a great success, but by November observ-

ing sessions were waning and the few sessions still open

were at relatively remote locations. Therefore, I retreated

to my home and used a 60mm refractor to observe Jupi-

ter for any evidence of a so-called revival of the South

Equatorial Belt. As of November 12-13, I saw none. It

was still very pale. ■

Jupiter Ruled the Sky at Starfest

near Jupiter.

December 14 Geminid meteor shower peaks.

December 21 Full Moon at 3:13 a.m.; total lunar eclipse

(see above); Winter Solstice at 6:38 p.m.

December 25 Moon at perigee, 228,953 miles from

Earth, 7:16 a.m.

December 27 Last-quarter Moon at 11:18 p.m.

December 28 Moon lies near Saturn.

December 31 Moon lies near Venus.

3

Hello members:

If you have already renewed your membership in the club, thank you. If you haven’t, please send us your renewal

promptly. The fewer notices we have to send out, the more we save on mailing costs and effort. Just send a check or

money order for your dues ($25), and if you can, a donation. Send it to Amateur Astronomers Association, PO Box

150253, Brooklyn, NY 11215.

In the wee hours of December 21, there will be a total lunar eclipse. Partial phase will run from 1:32 to 5:01 a. m.,

with totality between 2:41 and 3:53. We’ll also look at Saturn and objects in the spring sky. We haven’t decided on a

spot to view the eclipse (suggestions are welcome). When we decide on a location, I’ll send out an e-mail. If you’re

not online, give me a call.

Another winter event will take place at Belvedere Castle in Central Park on December 22. From 5 to 7 p. m., I’ll

give a talk which will be based on a Power Point presentation on the history of our solar system and the evolution of

the Sun. I’ll put it on the website after the talk is given. The talk will be followed by observing. We should have great

views of the Pleiades, Orion Nebula and Jupiter, among other targets.

If you’re online, look at This Month’s Sky. Go to www.aaa.org, click on Observing, then This Month’s Sky, then the

current month. Each month we look at gatherings of planets in the morning or evening sky, illustrated by charts. De-

cember’s main subject will be the eclipse of the Moon. We also list daily events of the current month. Click on the

month’s Evening Sky to get star charts for the current month, and a description of how to find stars and constellations.

Happy holidays to all of you!

Rich Rosenberg, president@aaa.org, 718-522-5014

A Message from AAA President Richard Rosenberg

AAA December Lecturer to Discuss Phoenix Mission to Mars

Dr. Suzanne M. M. Young, chemistry instructor at

the University of New Hampshire, will address the AAA

Friday, December 3 on “Top 10 Discoveries of the Phoe-

nix Mission to Mars and the Implications for Biohabita-

bility.” The free public lecture begins at 6:15 p. m. in the

Kaufmann Theater of the AMNH.

“The [2007-09] mission had a goal of sampling to de-

termine whether this environment may have been habit-

able for life at some time.” Young notes. “It made exten-

sive atmospheric and ground measurements. Water ice in

the regolith was confirmed. Salts discovered offer evi-

dence for the presence in the past of liquid water. These

and other discoveries will be discussed. Sources of bio-

energy, key bio-elements and ions, and environmental

toxicity and pH will be outlined.”

Young did mission research for several years. She

helped design instruments and develop experimental pro-

cedures, and was science plan integrator at mission con-

trol during the entire operation, primary and extended.

Other lectures are: January 7, Robert Nemiroff,

Michigan Technological University, “Best Astronomy

Pictures of the Day, 2010.” February 4, Neil Weiner,

NYU, “Illuminating Dark Matter.” March 4, Andrea

Dupree, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,

“Searching for Extrasolar Planets with Kepler.” April 1,

Greg Matloff, New York City College of Technology,

“Regreening the Earth Using Space Resources.” May 6,

David J. Thompson, NASA, “Exploring the Extreme

Universe with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.”

Dupree’s talk will be the annual John Marshall Memo-

rial Lecture, which honors the late president and execu-

tive director of the AAA who died in 1997. ■

4

Physicists Hone In on the Building Blocks of Matter

What questions about fundamental particles and

forces are puzzling particle physicists? How do these

touch on cosmology? Where and when might answers be

found? Dr. Michael Tuts, professor of physics at Colum-

bia University, offered insights and explanations in an

October 22 AAA lecture at the AMNH, “Particle Physics

at the LHC and Cosmology.”

Tuts described the basic building blocks of matter, the

denizens of the particle zoo that scientists have experi-

mentally verified and the hypothesized particles that

physicists hope to discover using the world’s highest-

energy particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider

(LHC) run by CERN (The European Organization for

Nuclear Research). “We’re opening up a new energy

frontier where the most exciting discovery may be the

unexpected,” he predicted.

The LHC will be capable of accelerating particles to

the high energies seen at 10-10 of a second after the Big

Bang. Tuts said physicists want to recreate conditions of

the early universe to answer such fundamental questions

as: How do elementary particles get their mass? Are

there more than three space dimensions? What is dark

matter? How do we account for the matter-antimatter

asymmetry? Will string theory provide a way to unify all

the forces, including gravity?

In the LHC’s 27-km.-long tunnel near Geneva, filled

with more than 1,200 34-ton magnets, protons slam into

protons 40 million times a second, creating new parti-

cles. The 7,000-ton ATLAS particle detector captures

images at the same rate. Trigger systems eliminate

“garbage collisions” and reduce 40 terabytes of data pro-

duced per second to a few hundred hertz of recorded

data. National computing centers, such as Brookhaven

National Laboratory on Long Island, receive the output

and send it on to a worldwide computing grid of 26,000

CPUs. Tuts, the U. S. ATLAS program manager, and

2,800 other scientists from 38 countries and 176 institu-

tions analyze results in hopes of detecting new particles

to answer those fundamental questions.

One of four particle detectors connected to the LHC,

ATLAS is the size of an eight-story building, took 20

years to build and has about 100 million channels of

electronics. Tuts compared it to a ship in a bottle, show-

ing a one-minute time-lapse photographic montage of its

construction. ATLAS was designed to search for parti-

cles like the Higgs boson, an elementary particle pre-

dicted to exist by the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

“To observe the Higgs requires tremendous precision

and the ability to sift through all the data and throw out

the uninteresting stuff.”

Because the Standard Model theorizes that particles

get their mass by interacting with the Higgs field, a field

that would permeate all of space if the Higgs particle

exists, physicists have been searching for the Higgs at

Fermilab outside Chicago. “The last piece of the Stan-

dard Model that’s missing would be solved by finding

the Higgs particle,” said Tuts, who worked on the project

at Fermilab. “We’re closing in on where the Higgs mass

could be and the LHC will surely find it if it exists.”

Currently, the LHC operates at lower energy levels

than the high levels for which it was designed. It will

shut down for repairs and upgrades for 15 months, start-

ing in 2011. Tuts thinks it will be 2014 or 2015 before

the LHC could provide evidence of the Higgs. If by then

there’s no evidence, theorists would need to get to work

to extend the Standard Model.

To understand how particles might acquire mass, Tuts

asked the audience to imagine the effect of Einstein

walking into a crowded cocktail party. People crowd

around Einstein, slowing him down. “Elementary parti-

cles interacting with the Higgs field are like Einstein in-

teracting with the people in the cocktail party. Massive

particles (Einstein) are massive because they interact

strongly with the Higgs field.” ■

By Lynn Darsh

Space-Imaging Website Gets Backing

The Planetary Society has joined forces with un-

mannedSpaceflight.com (UMSF) to support the amateur

space-imaging website. The society will host a gallery of

amateur-processed photos. The images are photos from

interplanetary voyages. The goal is to produce views of

Website continued on page 7

5

NASA Invites People to be Twitter Correspondents

By Tony Hoffman

Representing the AAA at the Custer Institute’s annual

jamboree in October, I spoke on “NASA's Social Butter-

fly Effect,” detailing its use of social media as a PR tool,

and my experiences as an invited Twitter correspondent

at launches and other NASA events.

Early this year, I was chosen by NASA to attend two

launches at the Kennedy Space Center, the Solar Dynam-

ics Observatory (SDO) in February and Space Shuttle

Atlantis in May. I also attended the Washington press

conference where the first SDO images were released,

and an event accompanying the World Science Festival

(WSF) in which participants met astronauts and NASA’s

only Nobel laureate, John Mather, who won in 2006 for

work on the cosmic microwave background information.

NASA’s "Tweetups" (twitter meet-ups) are an out-

growth of the agency's aggressive outreach through the

Web and social media--Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and

others--in communicating its mission and sparking dis-

cussion and enthusiasm about it.

Twitter is a “micro-blogging service” that lets people

post very short updates (140 characters max), which may

include links to photos or videos. NASA has made effec-

tive use of social media, including Twitter, to build a

bridge between its engineers and astronauts, and ordinary

citizens. Aboard the final Hubble repair mission, Mike

Massimino (@AstroMike) became the first astronaut to

tweet from space. His descriptions prompted me to post a

screenshot of his musings on Facebook, with the caption

“Why Twitter Matters.” (http://on.fb.me/d6Vj10).

Although NASA previously hosted Twitter events, they

really hit stride when it invited 100 people who applied

through Twitter to attend a Space Shuttle launch in 2009

and communicate their experiences. I missed that event,

but applied for the next. Out of about 300 applicants to

the SDO-launch tweetup, I was one of 15 chosen.

We met astronauts and project personnel. We got

enhanced tours of NASA facilities. The night before the

Atlantis launch, we were driven to near the launch pad,

where we saw retraction of the rotating service structure

that surrounds the shuttle while it’s prepped for launch.

We saw the launch closer than anyone not in a bunker.

At the press conference to unveil SDO images, we sat in

the first row and asked questions. All NASA asked was

that attendees tweet their experiences, photos and videos.

I learned how much of a roller-coaster ride the space

business is. Delays and scrubs are part of the process, in

which launch safety and success are paramount. Fewer

than half of shuttle flights go up when scheduled. I flew

into Orlando three days before the SDO launch tweetup,

because Space Shuttle Endeavour was scheduled to

launch the next morning. At midnight, weather prospects

looked good, but it soon clouded up, and at 4 a.m., half

an hour before launch, they scrubbed it. The next morn-

ing, the launch went flawlessly.

Similarly, the night before SDO’s scheduled launch, a

cold front blew through, leaving clear skies but high

winds. NASA won’t launch an unmanned spacecraft if

winds exceed 20 knots, and although winds exceeded it

as the launch window opened, they subsided to a point

where a go was given. The countdown clock stopped at

four minutes, but when it resumed, a wind gust triggered

a halt, and launch was postponed until the next day.

I called my Custer talk “NASA's Social Butterfly

Effect,” from the chaos-theory Butterfly Effect in which

small events can prove consequential down the line, just

as an idea of merit or an intriguing image can be tweeted

and retweeted, eventually reaching a large audience and

stimulating discussion. NASA outreach program man-

ager Beth Beck notes the butterfly effect is evident in

NASA Buzzroom (http://buzzroom.nasa.gov/), a website

that follows current discussions, photos, videos, tweets,

Facebook posts and more about NASA. “The info

spreads like wildfire. We can understand what the world

is saying about us. You call it butterfly. I call it buzz.

"The biggest benefit of social media is that they crack

open the castle door. People really want access. Social

media allow us to share and others to share with us. But

it’s more than two-way. It's a multiplier effect. People

share with people who share with people. The coolest

thing is seeing how astronauts are embracing social-

media tools to reach out to the public in new ways.” ■

6

Today, 3-D movies are, again, becoming the rage. But

researchers at the American Museum of Natural History

have been thinking about the universe in 3-D for years.

The museum celebrated the 10th anniversary of the 3-D

Digital Universe Atlas October 26 at the Hayden Plane-

tarium. Brian Abbott, the Hayden’s manager, digital uni-

verse, and Carter Emmart, director of astrovisualization,

demonstrated evolution of the Digital Atlas as a tool to

catalog and present ever-growing knowledge about the

universe.

Abbott and Emmart first demonstrated the Zeiss Mark

IX Projector, intended to be the heart of the planetarium.

With its state-of-the-art fiber optics, it can project a cata-

log of about 9,000 stars on the dome with very high reso-

lution. But the Zeiss, as fine an instrument as it is, has

limitations. It’s limited in the number of objects it can

project and the fact that it can’t project or orient the

viewer in three dimensions.

Ten years ago, the evolution of data about the universe

and the ability of computers to help manipulate that data

opened up new possibilities, including cataloging and

presentation of the universe in three dimensions.

This was demonstrated with the digital-universe

presentation. The relative positions of stars was demon-

strated by orienting the projection, not just from Earth, as

we see them, but from other positions in space. The pro-

jection was rotated so the audience experienced that stars

are at vastly different distances from Earth. This was

accomplished by projecting the image on the two-

dimensional dome. This isn’t the in-your-face action 3-D

movie feel, requiring special glasses. It’s achieved by

computer manipulation of data in such a way that the

audience’s perspective is changed and it appreciates the

depths of the universe. It’s transported into space so it

can, for example, see stars in the Big Dipper from the

side, rather than our normal head-on observing. In so

doing, the audience can see that stars vary in distance

from Earth.

The key is knowing as much as possible about each

star’s distance from Earth and its relative brightness. One

by one, each must be cataloged and information entered

into the digital atlas. Then computer programs must be

written to manipulate and present the data for use by pro-

fessional researchers and to awe lay audiences.

This project was begun by the AMNH with coopera-

tion and funding from NASA. It was started with a room

full of computers and information on fewer than 10,000

stars and space objects. Over the years it evolved to be

even more impressive. Computers became more power-

ful, and can now be operated by laptops. Available data

became more accessible from multiple sources, so have

steadily grown to include millions of stars and objects.

Graphics computer programs were developed to present

information with better resolution. It still doesn’t match

the fiber-optic clarity of the Zeiss, but it presents mil-

lions of stars.

The demonstration flew viewers around the known

universe and back in time. They appreciated the vast size

and distances of the Milky Way and the universe. One

milestone was superimposition of a graphic sphere that

delineates the distance radio waves have traveled for the

last 70 years, the timeframe in which strong radio waves

have been generated on Earth and sent into space. This

sphere has a radius of 70 light-years.

As viewers saw a depiction of the Milky Way, with a

diameter of some 100,000 light-years, they compre-

hended the size of the galaxy, locations of known

exoplanets and, even more so, the vastness of the uni-

verse. The new software is the Uniview program devel-

oped by Sciss AB of Sweden and the AMNH. It provides

seamless visualization of the known universe, enabling

viewers to be flown from the Earth to the farthest reaches

of the universe, using data from multiple sources. The

return to Earth demonstrated the timeliness of the data

input. Cloud cover in the Chicago area was visible,

showing a huge October 26 storm that hit the area.

The basic Digital Universe Atlas is distributed via

packages that contain the Milky Way Atlas and the

Extragalactic Atlas. Free software (Partiview, precursor

to Uniview) allows one to explore the universe by flying

through it on your computer. See http://

www.haydenplanetarium.org/universe/download/ ■

Tenth Anniversary of the 3-D Digital Universe Atlas

By Edward J. Fox

7

Grand Unification Theory is Strongly Rebutted

Speaking at the Hayden planetarium October 18,

Dartmouth College professor of natural philosophy, and

professor of physics and astronomy Marcelo Gleiser took

the contrarian view to that of physicists and cosmologists

who have been seeking, for decades, a so-called theory

of everything--a grand unification theory combining

electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, and

gravity.

In a lecture on “A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A

Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe,”

based on his recent book of the same name (Simon &

Schuster, $25), Gleiser called these mainstream scientists

the “unifiers” and suggested strongly their efforts will be

in vain, since we’ll never be able to observe and test their

theories through observation. This is especially true for

string and superstring theories, he said.

Gleiser proposed that this search by the unifiers--

Einstein among the first and foremost--is the logical out-

come of human inquiry which has been seeking to find a

simple, all encompassing reality underlying the diversity

of the physical world. He described this as “oneness,”

the belief that there’s a creator and driver of all there is.

This belief goes back at least to the time of the Pharaoh

Akhenaten, was continued by the great Greek philoso-

phers--Thales, Pythagoras, Plato--and then by the great

monotheistic religions--Judaism, Christianity and Islam--

with their concept of one all-powerful creator.

Scientists pursuing the grand unification theory believe

the cosmos is orderly and symmetrical, and that through

mathematics we can discover these symmetries. A corol-

lary belief is that symmetry is beautiful and that, as

Keats put it, “beauty is truth.”

Gleiser argued that symmetry is violated at both the

macro and the micro level and that this is a good thing.

The universe is full of imperfections. At the time of the

Big Bang, there was a tiny imbalance between matter

and anti-matter, with matter predominating. Since matter

and anti-matter destroy each other upon contact, the tiny

excess of matter left over became the building blocks of

the universe. If matter and anti-matter had been in per-

fect balance, there would be no matter. The cosmos

By Alan Rude

would be only a bath of radiation. Imperfection, there-

fore, is the most important factor in our existence, he

asserted.

The speaker cited a few imperfections discovered by

mathematicians and scientists over the years: Kepler’s

elliptical orbits when circles were deemed the perfect

shape, the right-handed and left-handed configurations of

DNA and, most significant of all, the “arrow of time,”

which runs only one way.

He displayed a large headshot of Marilyn Monroe on

the domed ceiling of the planetarium. Citing the mole on

her left cheek, he asked if a similar mole on her right

cheek would have added or detracted from her appear-

ance. So much for the idea that symmetry always results

in greater beauty.

At the end, Gleiser jumped to a startling conclusion

which was, in my opinion, not grounded in anything he’d

said before: Because the universe has no discernable pat-

tern or organization, humankind is just an accident. He

maintained the odds against intelligent life developing

are astronomical (no pun intended). His bleak picture is

that we are effectively and utterly alone in the cosmos

and therefore our mission is to concentrate on saving our

planet and its environment. A fine ecological message,

no doubt, but one that didn’t flow logically from his ear-

lier arguments.

I hope he’s wrong. It would be a sad thing for human-

kind to be isolated in the cosmos and bound forever by

the “surly bonds of Earth.” ■

other worlds as they might appear to human voyagers.

AmateurSpaceImages.com will be an online gallery

where image processors can share images. Anyone can

upload images, but a UMSF team will OK what’s placed

in the gallery.

Amateurs can breathe new life into old data. Only a

tiny fraction of spacecraft-image data is processed into

pictures released to the public. ■

Website continued from page 4

8

“Sizing Up the Universe: The Cosmos in Perspec-

tive” (National Geographic, $35) is by Princeton astro-

physicist J. Richard Gott and Robert J. Vanderbel, chair

of Princeton’s department of operations research and

financial engineering, and a researcher in probability and

optimization who pursues astrophotography as a hobby.

It provides new research into the massiveness of planets,

stars, and galaxies using scaled maps, photographs and

object comparisons to demonstrate actual size. Gott’s

map of the universe allows him to plot everything from

satellites orbiting Earth to distant galaxies. He speaks at

the Hayden December 6 (see page 15). As a bonus, the

authors’ 1.5-million-selling Map of the Universe is pub-

lished for the first time in a book, presented on an over-

size foldout page that maximizes its presentation of satel-

lites, planets, stars and galaxies.

To write “Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the

Star that Gives Us Life” (Random House, $35), British

author Richard Cohen did more than seven years of re-

search to illuminate our relationship with the Sun. The

result is a look at the Sun’s role in science, medicine,

language, mythology, religion, art and literature. Report-

ing from locations in 18 countries, Cohen offers observa-

tions on everything from the ways early Christians saw

the Sun and its rays to the Sun’s role in creating tidal

energy to the ways such leaders as Mao and Hitler co-

opted the Sun to enlarge their authority.

Dr. Bryan E. Penprase, chair of the physics and astron-

omy department, and professor of astronomy at Pomona

College, has written “The Power of Stars: How Celes-

tial Observations Have Shaped Civiliza-

tion” (Springer, $39.95). The book covers a history of

the human response to the sky, including sections de-

scribing constellation lore from many cultures, star maps

and star tales. The book also describes a wide range of

models of the universe, timekeeping systems, and celes-

tial architecture from ancient and modern civilizations.

“Having a better understanding of how other cultures

responded to the sky makes the entire experience of star-

gazing more enjoyable,” Penprase says.

“How Old Is the Universe?” (Princeton University

Press, $29.95) by Vanderbilt University astronomy pro-

fessor David Weintraub, will be published next month.

Weintraub doesn’t simply answer the titular question. He

explains how scientists arrived at the age of 13.7 billion

years. He also introduces readers to fundamental con-

cepts and cutting-edge advances in modern astronomy.

The age of our universe carries profound implications for

science, religion and philosophy. Weintraub traces the

centuries-old quest by astronomers to fathom the secrets

of the night sky. He shows how independent lines of in-

quiry and painstakingly gathered evidence, when fitted

together like pieces in a cosmic puzzle, led to the long-

sought answer. Weintraub familiarizes readers with the

ideas and phenomena at the heart of modern astronomy,

including red giants and white dwarfs, cepheid variable

stars and supernovae, clusters of galaxies, gravitational

lensing, dark matter, dark energy and the accelerating

universe.

Chris Impey, university distinguished professor of as-

tronomy and deputy head of the department at the Uni-

versity of Arizona, has edited interviews with scientific

luminaries that explore current ideas about the search for

life in the universe. The result is “Talking about Life:

Conversations on Astrobiology” (Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, $29.99).

There are interviews with astronomers, geologists, bi-

ologists and writers about the origin and range of terres-

trial life and likely sites for life elsewhere. Interviewees

discuss what we’ve learned from missions to Mars and

Titan, talk about the search for Earth clones, describe the

surprising diversity of life on Earth, speculate about post

-biological evolution and explore what contact with in-

telligent aliens will mean to us. Those interviewed in-

clude Timothy Ferris, Neil Tyson, Ann Druyan, David

Grinspoon, Carolyn Porco, Guy Consolmagno, Alan

Boss, Seth Shostak and Sir Martin Rees.

“Essays on Giordano Bruno” (Princeton University

Press, $35, paper) by Hilary Gatti gathers works on the

Renaissance philosopher and cosmologist. Many essays

Books continued on page 16

A Roundup of Some Noteworthy Recent Astronomy Books Eyepiece typically reviews one book per issue. Once

again, the large volume of astronomy titles and the holi-

day season have impelled us to do a book roundup, so

readers can be aware of as many books as possible.

Happy holidays!—Dan Harrison

9

Contacting the AAA

General club matters: president@aaa.org. Member-

ship business, such as dues and change of address: mem-

bers@aaa.org. Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org. Lectures: lec-

tures@aaa.org. Classes: classes@aaa.org. Seminar: semi-

nar@aaa.org. Observing: president@aaa.org. Please visit

us on the web at www.aaa.org. ■

Ann Finkbeiner, who directs the science-writing

graduate program at John Hopkins University, has writ-

ten “A Grand and Bold Thing” (Free Press, $27) to

chronicle the creation and accomplishments of The Sloan

Sky Survey (SDDS).

Using a 2.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observa-

tory in New Mexico, since its inception in 2000 SDSS

has obtained multi-color images of more than 25% of the

sky and utilized them to create three-dimensional sky

maps of more than 900,000 galaxies and more than

100,000 quasars. Most images were obtained from 2005

to 2008. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, National Sci-

ence Foundation, NASA, the Max Planck Society and

other international institutions have supported the SDSS.

According to the Sloan Sky Survey website

(www.sdss.org), the 120-megapixel CCD camera used in

the survey can image 1.5 square degrees of the sky at a

time. Spectrographs fed by optical fibers can simultane-

ously measure spectra and distance of 600 galaxies or

quasars.

The Sloan scientific output has been prodigious. As

an example, 500 intergalactic Type Ia supernovae were

discovered during one three-month campaign.

As Finkbeiner reveals, most astronomers work well on

individual projects. But only very talented managers can

pull them together on a dedicated research team. Most

contemporary scientific projects require teamwork,

schedules and large budgets. If you put all this together

with a hydra-headed management team, cost overruns

and delays are inevitable in any large-scale scientific

endeavor.

The author documents the checkered early history of

SDDS. It must have been a nightmare to coordinate op-

eration of the main telescope, spotting telescope, drive

mechanisms, detectors, hardware, software, etc. Not to

mention that fact that Mother Nature--in the form of

moths within the drive mechanism--chose not to cooper-

ate with the “Sloanies.” Meetings between project man-

agers and funding agencies regarding delays and cost

overruns must have been less than enjoyable.

Sloan and similar surveys have done much to expand

our knowledge regarding the solar system, and interstel-

lar, galactic and intergalactic objects. They’ve also pro-

vided accessibility to a very wide community. Hundreds

of thousands of people can now participate in the enter-

prise, evaluating data on computer screens from the com-

fort of their homes and offices.

These electronic sky surveys have also changed as-

tronomy forever. Many modern astronomers must be

considered “data miners” as opposed to observers. What

would Galileo or the Herschels have thought?

“A Grand and Bold Thing” succeeds in capturing the

excitement of doing science. It also presents the interper-

sonal dynamics of people used to working independently

or with a few collaborators suddenly thrust into a large

research group.

But the book isn’t perfect. It would have been nice if

some online CCD images from SDDS had been in-

cluded. Descriptions of equipment would be easier to

follow with a few line drawings. In the tradition of big

science, the book contains many acronyms, so a nomen-

clature would have been a good idea. Many scientific

papers have resulted from SDDS; a bibliography listing

some would have been a nice addition. In addition, Fink-

beiner has succeeded in reporting some of Sloan astrono-

mers’ dialog verbatim. But the colorful language used

during stressful exchanges might offend some readers.

Let’s not quibble, though. “A Grand and Bold Thing”

is a good read. It will appeal to students, and both ama-

teur and professional astronomers interested in the Milky

Way and beyond. The book will make a fine addition to

an astronomy bookshelf. ■

Review: The Impressive Record of the Sloan Sky Survey

By Greg Matloff

10

Nearing their destruction, the last inhabitants of

Earth furiously search for an escape from the dying Sun.

Can they create “baby universes”? If scientists find the

Higgs boson particle—the possible source of all mass—

will this be doable?

That’s one theme of “Baby Universe,” a puppet play

that runs December 1 through January 9. It will tackle

such questions as: What does a human-made universe

mean? Why are humans creating new universes? Once

we’ve created one, what will happen? Where will it

go? Does creating a new universe mean that humans can

create life, and if so, what or who created us?

“Baby Universe” will be at the Baruch College Arts

Center, 55 Lexington Avenue. There’s a discount for

AAA members. The discount name is AAANY and the

code for it is Polaris. The link to buy tickets is https://

admin.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/788335/prm/Polaris, or you

can go to http://www.theatermania.com/off-broadway/

shows/baby-universe-a-puppet-odyssey_175144/.

On Thursdays after the play, a speaker will discuss

some of the issues raised in the play. On December 16, it

will be AAA president Richard Rosenberg. ■

Can We Create Universes?

New Play Probes the Possibility Ophiuchus on their descending path, setting into the hill-

side. In the northeast sky, rich star fields and open clus-

ters were abundant, offering attractive sights such as the

Double Cluster, the Running Man Cluster and even the

Alpha Persei Association. Other loose and sparse open

clusters were observed in this part of the sky, each exhib-

iting a different character. Those easy to locate included

Trumpler 2, Owl Cluster, M52, NGC225 and NGC 7789.

First-timer Petra was impressive with her rookie

observational skills. She performed her very first star

hop and located a small planetary nebula, the Cat’s Eye

Nebula in Draco, only using the printed star chart from

Karkoschka’s Star Atlas. Without much difficulty, she

could spot very faint, low-contrast objects such as the

Veil Nebula and Comet Hartley 103/P.

The comet, not a naked-eye or binocular object, stirred

a lot of excitement, especially for Yee, who observed it

in Peter’s scope. We could see at ~60x that its nucleus

appeared as two stellar points with a roundish coma. We

revisited the comet over the course of the five-hour ses-

sion and obviously saw its position change relative to the

brighter stars in the field of view.

Further into the night, Auriga rose, trumpeting its

three well-known clusters: M36, M37 and M38. The

Cheshire Cat discovered by Ben Cacace is an easy aster-

ism to find with binoculars by locating M38 and the well

-known asterism called the Leaping Minnows, halfway

between Iota Aurigae and Beta Tauri. M38 sits in the

cheek of the Cat and south-southwest a couple of degrees

of the Leaping Minnows.

Another favorite is the Andromeda Galaxy, easily

seen without optical aid. It’s by far the furthest object

seen with the naked eye. Long ago, whoever first noticed

its faint glow established a record for far seeing.

Compared to urban skies, star hopping in dark skies is

child’s play. Each session could be a Messier marathon,

but this is the time and place to drink in the light and no-

tice shape, size, brightness, orientation and the deep-sky

object’s location relative to other stars in the field of

view. We observed bright nebulae, globular clusters,

open clusters, and galaxies using all types of instruments.

These dark skies offered a theatre of light! ■

Upstate continued from page 1

Brian Marsden Dies at 73

Brian Marsden, the well-known astronomer who

specialized in tracking asteroids and comets, and served

as director of the Minor Planet Center, the clearinghouse

of data for these objects, from 1978 to 2006, died No-

vember 18 at 73. He was an astronomer at the Smith-

sonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

Marsden’s work was crucial in helping to track po-

tentially Earth-threatening objects. One person called

him “a tireless asteroid hunter who, with limited funding

and an incredibly small staff, seemed to be at the helm

whenever a new space-rock report came in.”

Marsden predicted Comet Swift-Tuttle would return

to the inner solar system in 1992 rather than 1981, as

predicted. He also had a key role in demotion of Pluto

from full planet to a new category of dwarf planet. ■

11

An ancient galaxy has broken the record for the most

distant point in the sky known to date, with its light tak-

ing 13.1 billion years to reach Earth. UDFy-38135539

contains roughly 1 billion stars that would have formed

within 600 million years of the Big Bang. Researchers

measured how much the galaxy’s extremely faint glow

was distorted by the universe’s expansion. UDFy-

38135539 is 100 million light-years farther than the pre-

vious record-holder, a gamma-ray burst. It’s the first gal-

axy known to have lived fully within the epoch of reioni-

zation, which lasted 150 million-800 million years after

the Big Bang. Then, ultraviolet radiation from the first

stars cleared the fog that filled the cosmos by splitting its

hydrogen atoms into electrons and protons (reionization).

The most massive conglomeration of galaxies ever

spotted in the early universe has been found. The cluster

contains about 800 trillion suns packed inside hundreds

of galaxies. And it’s not finished growing. SPT-CL

J0546-5345 is about 7 billion light-years from Earth. By

now, it likely will have quadrupled in size. While there

are heavier clusters in the near universe, if we could see

this cluster as it is today, it would likely rank among the

most massive. The cluster must have formed relatively

soon after the Big Bang to have amassed such a girth so

early. It’s full of “old” galaxies, meaning it came to-

gether within the first 2 billion years of in the universe.

Astrophysicists think they've tracked down the sig-

nature of dark matter. After sifting through observations

of the Milky Way’s center, researchers cite evidence of

annihilation of dark-matter particles in powerful explo-

sions. Fermi has observed a brighter-than-expected

gamma-ray signal at the center of the galaxy. Research-

ers conclude it must be caused by dark-matter particles

packed in so densely they’re destroying each other and

releasing energy in the form of light. By studying data on

this radiation, scientists calculated dark matter must be

made of particles called WIMPs (weakly interacting

massive particles) with masses almost nine times the

mass of a proton. They also calculated a property known

as the cross-section, which describes how likely the par-

ticle is to interact with others. Knowing these two prop-

erties would represent a leap forward in our understand-

ing of dark matter.

A NASA spacecraft beamed back the first close-up

photos from its rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2. The

images show an ice ball that looks like a giant chicken

drumstick, or perhaps a peanut or bowling pin. Deep Im-

pact zoomed to within 435 miles of Hartley 2 November

4. The comet is about a mile wide. Stunningly bright

fireballs created by meteors from Comet Hartley 2

amazed skywatchers when Hartley 2 made a close pass

by Earth October 20 and apparently created a new me-

teor shower of dust. They came after two fireballs, also

likely from Hartley 2, were observed October 16. Hartley

2 orbits the Sun every six-and-a-half years.

NASA’s infrared James Webb Space Telescope

(JWST) is expected to cost at least $1.5 billion more than

current estimates and its launch will be delayed a mini-

mum of 15 months, according to an independent review

panel tapped to investigate escalating costs and manage-

ment issues with the next-generation mission. The JWST

will now cost $6.5 billion, $1.5 billion more than esti-

mated in NASA’s February budget request. Launch will

be delayed from June 2014 to September 2015. The

panel attributed cost growth and schedule delays to

“budgeting and program management, not technical per-

formance.” However, “There may be…low-probability

threats whose occurrence could cause an additional year

delay in launch and a correspondingly higher cost." The

panel recommended restructuring the JWST project of-

fice to emphasize cost and schedule ceilings. It found the

JWST Project has invested funds wisely in advancing

necessary technologies and reducing technical risk so

funds haven’t been wasted. NASA administrator Charles

Bolden, agreeing with the panel's findings, said NASA

would overhaul the program’s management structure.

A huge alien planet has a strange hot spot on its side.

Upsilon Andromedae b, a hot gas giant, is tidally locked,

meaning one side is perpetually boiling. But the warmest

part of the planet isn’t this star-baked face, a new study

reports. The spot on the side of the planet is much hotter.

Upsilon Andromedae b, about 44 light-years away in

Andromeda, is about 70% as massive as Jupiter, orbiting

its star every 4.6 days. Astronomers used Spitzer to

measure total infrared light from the planet and its star in

February 2009. The planet’s hottest parts aren’t under its

star’s full glare. Astronomers think fierce winds may

Continued on page 12

Briefs: Galaxy Sets Record for Most Distant Point in the Sky

12

Briefs: Exoplanet in 2-Sun System Forces Some Rethinking

push hot gases around on such planets. But the new

study found such a dramatic offset that other mecha-

nisms are likely at work. Possibilities include supersonic

winds triggering shock waves that heat material up, as

well as star-planet magnetic interactions.

An exoplanet discovered in a system with two suns is

forcing astronomers to rethink their theories about how

gas giants form. The stars are close enough that the lead-

ing planet-formation theory—that dust and gas circling

stars slowly accrete into planets’ rocky cores—isn't

likely. The stars’ gravity would disrupt this process long

before it could get very far. Instead, findings support an

alternative theory, gravitational collapse, which holds

that super-dense regions of the dust cloud form planets

much more rapidly, pulling together via the force of their

own gravity. The new planet, about the size of Jupiter,

orbits HR 7162, 49 light-years away in Lyra. The planet

was found using astrometry, which tracks stars’ positions

over time. It’s the first time astronomers have used as-

trometry to find a planet. The gas giant isn’t the only

known planet with more than one sun; researchers have

discovered dozens. HR 7162’s companion star is close

enough to its partner and the planet that its gravitational

pull could have affected planet formation. In models of

the system’s evolution, the second star’s gravity should

have disrupted planet-forming gas and dust in just thou-

sands of years, ejecting them from the system. That a

planet exists despite these predictions challenges core

accretion as the sole model for gas-giant formation.

Nearly one in four Sun-like stars might have a planet

roughly the size of Earth orbiting close around them, a

new study says. There may be no shortage of planets

with masses from five to 30 times Earth’s, conflicting

with previous models. Findings also suggest solar sys-

tems with Earth-size planets like us may be common.

Scientists focused on 33 alien planets orbiting 22 stars.

They studied 166 Sun-like class G and K stars within 80

light-years of Earth for five years. They looked for any

minute wobbles in each star potentially caused by planets

between three and 1,000 times the size of Earth orbiting

closely around them--just one-fourth the distance be-

tween Earth and the Sun. Scientists estimate 1.6% of Sun

-like stars in the sample had Jupiter-size planets, while

Continued from page 11 12% had super Earths three to 10 times Earth’s mass, the

smallest currently detectable. The new findings conflict

with current models of planet formation and migration.

After planets form a protoplanetary disk, researchers

thought only giants spiraled inward. Instead, where cur-

rent models predict no small planets, researchers found a

surplus. Researchers believe Kepler, sent to survey

156,000 faint stars for planets, will detect 120-260 plau-

sibly terrestrial worlds orbiting near some 10,000 nearby

G and K dwarf stars.

A new study of Hubble observations reveals the ear-

liest known galaxies, present 800 million years after the

Big Bang, may have emitted enough ultraviolet light to

strip electrons from (ionize) hydrogen gas between gal-

axies. Before this reionization of the universe, hydrogen

gas absorbed light, limiting the distance over which the

earliest galaxies could have been observed. Astronomers

knew reionization must have been complete by about 1

billion years after the Big Bang. Hubble allowed them to

pinpoint infrared signatures of more than 50 galaxies that

date to 800 million years after the Big Bang.

The reddish hue of many objects in the solar system’s

outer reaches may be evidence of complex organic mole-

cules, perhaps even the building blocks of life, new re-

search suggests. A computer model explains the many

colors in the Kuiper Belt. The model suggests Kuiper

Belt objects have many layers, and reds could come from

organic materials in a layer near the surface. This would

support theories that organic materials might be common

in the universe.

The young universe spiked a fever 1.5 billion years

or so after the Big Bang, warming up as huge black holes

poured out massive amounts of energy, a new study sug-

gests. The find is a surprise since the universe is gener-

ally thought to have cooled over time. But from 12 bil-

lion to 10 billion years ago or so, ultraviolet light emitted

from black holes at the centers of galaxies seems to have

heated up the gas that spread throughout the cosmos.

One billion years after the Big Bang, the gas was 14,432

degrees. By three and a half billion years, the temp had

climbed to at least 21,632 degrees. In the universe's

youth, gas clouds were much more extensive, since many

Continued on page 13

13

Briefs: The Evidence Keeps Growing for Past Martian Water could have occurred during cyclical climate changes

when Mars was tilted more on its axis. The water may

have moved down into the sand, carrying soluble miner-

als deeper than less-soluble ones. The fact that Spirit

found these layers in the dirt, rather than in rock, further

suggests water was seeping relatively recently. Rela-

tively insoluble minerals near the surface include what’s

thought to be hematite, silica and gypsum. More soluble

iron-rich ferric sulfates appear to have been dissolved

and carried down deeper by water.

Some mysterious Martian gullies are likely carved by

frozen carbon dioxide, not melting water, a new study

finds. Researchers tracked recent changes in 18 sand-

dune gullies in seven locations on southern Mars. They

found these changes--which occurred over the past 15

years or so--popped up most often in winter, consistent

with the buildup of carbon dioxide frost, not runoff from

melting water. The channels range in length from 165

feet to more than two miles.

A frigid crater at the Moon’s south pole is packed

with water ice, with some spots wetter than Earth’s Sa-

hara desert, boosting hopes for future lunar bases. Six

new studies analyzed the intentional crash of a NASA

spacecraft in October 2009. The agency's Lunar Crater

Observation and Sensing Satellite probe was looking for

signs of water when it smashed into Cabeus Crater at the

south pole, and the spacecraft found plenty of it, as sci-

entists announced last year. New results expand on those

findings, revealing Cabeus harbors many materials, such

as carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, mercury and

silver. Water ice makes up 5.6% of the total mass on the

floor of Cabeus, making the crater about twice as wet as

Sahara soil. The water ice is also relatively pure. The

original source of the water and much else is likely aster-

oid or comet impacts.

Two massive Jupiter-like planets have been discov-

ered orbiting extremely close sister stars. This is an un-

expected find given the gravitational effects within most

binary-star systems that usually disrupt planets from

forming. The planets orbit system NN Serpentis 1, 670

light-years away. The more massive star is a very small

white dwarf, 2.3 times Earth’s diameter, with a tempera-

Continued on page 14

of them hadn’t coalesced to form stars and galaxies. Sci-

entists took the gas’ temperature by studying light from

quasars.

Seas and lakes thought to have filled basins of an-

cient Mars could have emerged from cracks in the

ground, scientists suggest. Although Mars is now cold

and dry, water is thought to have covered much of it long

ago. This could explain, for instance, why northern low-

lands hold extensive sedimentary deposits. The origin of

these deposits is controversial. One theory suggests an-

cient oceans formed after huge volumes of water and

sediment were suddenly released from zones of col-

lapsed crust. However, these zones of collapse are rare,

while plains deposits are widespread. A new study sug-

gests this water emerged from aquifers, through exten-

sive and widespread fractures in the floors of continent-

scale basins.

The residue of hydrothermal vents on flanks of a

Martian volcano could be a sign of one of the most re-

cent habitable environments on the planet. Scientists in-

vestigated data gathered on volcanoes in the Syrtis Major

region. They focused specifically on deposits near the

relatively young Nili Patera volcanic cone, which date

back 3.7 billion years. When hot water flows through

rock, it dissolves minerals, enriching the water with sil-

ica, or silicon oxide. When this water cools off and is

exposed to air, hydrated silica crystallizes, which is what

the investigators unexpectedly detected in deposits near

Nili Patera. This suggests the vents once served as tiny

habitable pockets where primitive forms of life, if any

existed, could have found refuge. The fan shape of the

deposits and their location in and around a volcanic cone

also suggest they came from a hydrothermal system.

NASA’s stuck Mars rover Spirit has found more evi-

dence that water trickled beneath the surface, perhaps

within the last few hundred thousand years. The sandy

spot where Spirit bogged down last year harbors strati-

fied layers of dirt with different compositions close to

the surface, a new study reveals. Researchers suspect

these layers were caused by seepage of thin films of wa-

ter on Mars, perhaps from melting frost or snow. This

Continued from page 12

14

To mark the 10th anniversary of the Rose Center for

Earth and Space, the American Museum of Natural His-

tory has launched its third application for iPhone and

iPod touch, “American Museum of Natural History: Cos-

mic Discoveries.”

Free and easy to use, Cosmic Discoveries features an

interactive photo mosaic comprising 1,000 images

stitched together to form one of the most iconic shapes in

the solar system: Saturn and its rings. Images are drawn

from the museum’s archives and Science Bulletins, as

well as dozens of space agencies and observatories

around the world. Clicking on each image reveals de-

tailed information about an array of cosmic phenomena,

including planets, stars and other celestial bodies.

Cosmic Discoveries also features in-depth stories

about comets, galactic clusters, pulsars, X-ray galaxy

clusters, protostars and very young stars, neutrino bursts,

planetary nebulae and planets in the solar system. In or-

der to spark real-time conversations about space and its

exploration between astronauts, astrophysicists and ama-

teurs, the app includes social networking functionality

that allows users to share images, notes and comments.

Cosmic Discoveries was produced by the museum’s

digital-media department and curated by Dr. Michael

Shara, curator in the astrophysics department, whose re-

search interests include the structure and evolution of

novae and supernovae; collisions between stars and the

remnant descendants of those collisions; and the popula-

tions of stars inhabiting star clusters and galaxies. “The

classes of astronomical objects in this introductory re-

lease were chosen to span the widest range in size possi-

ble, from the subatomic neutrino to clusters of galaxies,”

Shara said. “Still, we could only scratch the surface be-

cause modern astrophysics is so rich in subject matter.

Future chapters will allow us to explore many more cos-

mic discoveries.”

Earlier this year, the AMNH launched “American Mu-

seum of Natural History: Explorer,” a mobile app de-

signed as an “indoor GPS” within the museum.

“American Museum of Natural History Collections: Di-

nosaurs” showcases the AMNH’s fossil collection ■

ture of more than 89,500 degrees, almost nine times hot-

ter than the Sun’s surface. The other star’s larger but

cooler, with a mass one-tenth the Sun’s. The stars are in

a very tight mutual orbit. The larger planet is 5.9 times

more massive than Jupiter. It orbits the stars every 15.5

Earth years at a distance of 558 million miles. The sec-

ond planet orbits the pair every 7.75 Earth years and is

1.6 times Jupiter’s mass. NN Serpentis’ planets don’t

orbit very close to the stars, but the double-star system

wasn’t always as tight as now. When the more massive

star ended its normal life of burning hydrogen in its core,

it bloated into a red giant and engulfed the second star in

its outer envelope. The friction of the companion star

moving within the red giant’s envelope eventually

caused the red giant to lose a whopping 75% of its mass.

This left only the intensely hot core of the original star

and a relatively unscathed companion star that orbits

very close to the newly created white dwarf.

Saturn’s rings spontaneously shake and shimmy, and

a new study suggests the principle behind the movement

is also at work in the spiral arms of the galaxy. Cassini

images show odd oscillations in the massive B ring

aren’t caused by moons or other bodies. Instead, the ring

is dense enough, and its edges sharp enough, for un-

forced “free” waves to grow on their own and then re-

flect back again at the edge. Researchers think this be-

havior is common in other disk systems, such as spiral

galaxies, including the Milky Way, and in protoplanetary

disks found around nearby stars.

NASA and the National Park Service have partnered

to share information with park visitors about where and

when to look up to see the ISS. With the Park Service’s

help, NASA assembled coordinates of 507 locations,

including national parks and seashores, historic sites,

monuments, and wild and scenic rivers. These locations,

coupled with the orbital path of the space station, yield

times when people can see the station. Sighting predic-

tions are available on NASA’s SkyWatch website, its

new mobile website and NASA iPhone/iPad applica-

tions. It's a good idea to check sighting opportunities

ahead of time since many remote national parks have

limited Internet or cell-phone coverage. For sightings

information and a guide to using it, go to http://

spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings. ■

Briefs continued from page 13

AMNH Launches iPhone/iPodApp

On Cosmic Discoveries

15

Events on the Horizon

December 2010

M: members; P: open to the public; T: bring your telescopes, binoculars, etc.;

C: cancelled if cloudy;

HQ: at AAA headquarters, Downtown Community Center, 120 Warren St.

AMNH: For ticket information, call (212) 769-5200

Friday, December 3, 6:15 p. m.

AAA lecture, FREE, P

Dr. Suzanne M. M. Young, chemistry instructor at the

University of New Hampshire, will discuss "Top 10 Dis-

coveries of the Phoenix Mission to Mars and the Impli-

cations for Biohabitability." The free public lecture is at

6:15 p. m. in the Kaufmann Theater of the AMNH. Next

lecture: January 7.

Monday, December 6, 7:30 p. m.

Hayden Planetarium Lecture, P, AMNH

In "Sizing Up the Universe," Princeton astronomy pro-

fessor J. Richard Gott will discuss his map of the uni-

verse, which allows him to plot everything from satel-

lites orbiting the Earth to distant galaxies.

Saturdays, December 4, 11, 18

Observing at Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan, P, T, C

Next dates: Saturdays in January.

Thursday, December 9, 6:30-8:30 p. m., 726 Broad-

way, sixth floor conference room

Recent Advances in Astronomy Seminar, M

The seminar now incorporates the Observers' Group.

Next date: January 13.

Friday, December 10, 8-10 p. m.

Observing at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, P, T, C

Saturday, Decmber 11, dusk

Observing at Great Kills Gateway National Park,

Staten Island, P, T, C

Saturday, December 18, 10 a. m.-noon

Solar Observing at Central Park, P, T, C

At the Conservatory Waters, Next date: January 29.

For directions to AAA observing events, check the club's website, www.aaa.org.

Wednesday, December 22, 5-7 p.m.

Observing, Belvedere Castle, Central Park, P, T, C

Highlights include Jupiter, Pleiades and the Orion Neb-

ula, and a talk on the history of the solar system.

Allan Sandage Dies at 84

Allan R. Sandage, who rose from being Edwin Hub-

ble’s observing assistant to become one of the most

prominent astronomers of the past century, died Novem-

ber 13 at 84.

Sandage defined the fields of observational cosmology

and extragalactic astronomy. At Cal Tech, he was fa-

mous astronomer Walter Baade’s Ph.D. student in stellar

evolution. During the early 1950s, he served as Hubble’s

observing assistant at Mount Wilson and Palomar.

Sandage joined the staff of the Carnegie Observato-

ries in 1952 and, after Hubble’s death in 1953, took over

the cosmology program. His primary focus was to carry

on Hubble’s work and determine the rate at which the

universe is expanding, research he continued for almost

six decades. Although he officially retired in 1997, he

was still working until August of this year.

During the course of his studies, Sandage made semi-

nal contributions to dating the ages of stars and the ex-

pansion age of the universe, classifying galaxies, and

understanding galaxy formation and evolution. He was in

charge of the first major redshift surveys of galaxies,

from which he created a three-dimensional map to ex-

plore galaxy distribution and the dynamics of the nearby

universe. Sandage was also the first to recognize the ex-

istence of quasars without strong radio emission. He de-

veloped new techniques for observing, which affected a

broad range of astronomical topics. ■

16

Amateur Astronomers Association

PO Box 150253

Brooklyn, NY 11215

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

First Class

were originally written in Italian and appear in English

for the first time. Bruno (1548-1600) is principally fa-

mous as a proponent of heliocentrism, the infinity of the

universe and the plurality of worlds. The book is divided

into three sections: the relationship between Bruno and

the new science, the history of his reception in English

culture and the principal characteristics of his natural

philosophy. A final essay examines why this advocate of

a “tranquil universal philosophy” ended up being burned

at the stake as a heretic.

“What if” questions take center stage in “What If the

Earth Had Two Moons? And Nine Other Thought-

Provoking Speculations on the Solar System” (St.

Martin’s Press, $26.99) by popular astronomy writer

Neil F. Comins. The title chapter gives us a moon orbit-

ing closer to Earth than the one we have now. Although

the night sky is much brighter, that won’t last forever.

Eventually the moons collide, with one extra-massive

moon emerging after a period during which Earth sports

a Saturn-like ring. Other questions include: What if the

Moon orbited backwards? What if the Earth’s crust were

thicker? What if the Earth had formed elsewhere in the

galaxy? What if the Sun were less massive? What if the

Earth had two suns? What if another galaxy collided

with the Milky Way?

Books continued from page 8 Pat Duggins, who’s covered more than 100 space-

shuttle missions for National Public Radio, has written

“Trailblazing Mars: NASA’s Next Giant

Leap” (University Press of Florida, $24.95) which looks

at current efforts to fulfill the dream of landing humans

on the red planet. Most of the book examines extreme

new challenges that will be faced by astronauts on the

journey to Mars and back. Duggins answers such ques-

tions as: Can technological hurdles be cleared? Will the

public accept the possibility of astronaut death? Should a

mission be publicly or privately funded? Is the science

worth the cost?

One of the biggest astronomy developments in recent

years has been the discovery of almost 500 extrasolar

planets. “Planet Hunter: Geoff Marcy and the Search

for Other Earths” by Vicki Oransky Wittenstein

(Boyds Mills Press, $17.95), trains its lens on the man

who’s discovered more planets than anyone else, but it

also discusses other planet hunters. The book is aimed at

10-to-14-year-olds, but is written at an erudite level from

which adults can easily benefit. ■

Correction

The print version of last month’s issue had an incor-

rect name for a panelist at the Isaac Asimov event. He’s

Paul Falkowski, not Galkowski. ■