#have. image 2: the moon and two stars (or planets)!! not a very good photo/barely visible but I'm suprised I was able to get anyting

[icewindandboringhorror]

more photo diary posts.. various life images...

[beyondtheuniversesstuff]

How to see Uranus in the night sky (without a telescope) this week

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft captured this image of the planet Uranus on Dec. 18, 1986. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Just how many planets are visible without a telescope? Not including our own planet, most people will answer "five" (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

Those are the five brightest planets, but in reality, there is a sixth planet that can be glimpsed without the aid of either a telescope or binoculars.

That sixth planet is the planet Uranus. This week will be a fine time to try and seek it out, especially since it is now favorably placed for viewing in our late-evening sky and the bright moon is out of the way.

Related: Photos of Uranus, the tilted giant planet

This sky map shows where Uranus will be located around midnight on Sept. 13-14, as seen from New York City. Look for it in the constellation of Aries, the ram. (Image credit: SkySafari app)

Of course, you'll have to know exactly where to look for it. Astronomers measure the brightness of objects in the night sky as magnitude. Smaller numbers indicate brighter objects, with negative numbers denoting exceptionally bright objects. But Uranus is currently shining at magnitude +5.7, relatively dim on the scale; barely visible by a keen naked eye on very dark, clear nights.

It is currently located within the constellation of Aries, the Ram, about a dozen degrees to the east (left) of the brilliant planet Mars. It's already one-third up from the eastern horizon by 11:30 p.m. local daylight time and will reach its highest point — more than two thirds up from the southern horizon — just before 4 a.m.

It is best to study the accompanying chart first, then scan that region with binoculars. Using a magnification of 150-power with a telescope of at least three-inch aperture, you should be able to resolve it into a tiny, blue-green featureless disk.

An icy, cold world

This week Uranus is about 1.771 billion miles (2.851 billion kilometers) from Earth (only Neptune is farther away). It takes 84.4 years to orbit the sun. The planet has a diameter of about 31,518 miles (50,724 km), making it the third-largest planet, and according to flyby magnetic data from Voyager 2 in 1986, has a rotation period of 17.23 hours.

At last count, Uranus has 27 moons, all in orbits lying in the planet's equator in which there is also a complex of nine narrow, nearly opaque rings, which were discovered in 1978.

Uranus likely has an icy, rocky core, surrounded by a liquid mantle of water, methane and ammonia, encased in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. In fact, Uranus has the coldest atmosphere of any planet in the solar system with a minimum temperature

of -371 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 224 degrees Celsius).

A freakish tilt

A bizarre feature is how far over Uranus is tipped. The other planets are tilted somewhere between 3 degrees and 29 degrees, but Uranus' north pole lies 98 degrees from being directly up and down to its orbit plane.

From our point of view, this means that sometimes we see Uranus with its north pole pointing at us. At other times we see it with its equatorial belt oriented vertically instead of horizontally. From the point of view of a hypothetical astronaut visiting Uranus, daylight and darkness would be nothing short of extraordinary. Its seasons are extreme: when the sun rises (as an example) at the north pole, it stays up for 42 Earth years; then it sets and the north pole is in darkness for 42 Earth years.

Accidental discovery

In the late winter of 1781, British astronomer Sir William Herschel had just finished building a new 6.3-inch (16 centimeters) reflecting telescope and began to study the stars through it. On the night of March 13, he had his telescope turned on the constellation of Gemini, the twins. There, to his great surprise, he came across an extra star that was not plotted on any of his star charts. An accomplished astronomer, Herschel was quick to realize that what he found could not possibly be a star, for it appeared in his telescope as a glowing disk as opposed to a twinkling speck of light.

Continuing his observations of this unusual object night after night, Herschel soon perceived movement; it was slowly shifting its position among the background stars of Gemini. Finally, he decided that he had discovered a new comet and he wrote up a detailed report of his observations, which were published on April 26.

The report of a new comet excited astronomers all over Europe, and they all eagerly trained their telescopes on Herschel's discovery. King George III, who loved the sciences, had the astronomer brought to him and presented him with a life pension and a residence at Slough, in the neighborhood of Windsor Castle.

Multiple monikers

Soon, enough observations were made to calculate an orbit for Herschel's "comet." That's when an increasing number of astronomers began to doubt that what they were looking at was really a comet. For one thing, it seemed to be following a nearly circular orbit out beyond Saturn.

Eventually it was determined that Herschel's "comet" was in fact a new planet. For a while, it actually bore Herschel's name, though Herschel himself proposed the name Georgium Sidus — "The Star of George," after his generous benefactor. However, the custom for a mythological name ultimately prevailed and the new planet was finally christened Uranus.

Prior to its discovery, the outermost planet was considered to be Saturn, named for the ancient god of time and destiny. But Uranus was the grandfather of Jupiter and father of Saturn and considered the most ancient deity of all.

It probably was for all for the best. After all, if Herschel's request was granted, just think of how we might have listed the planets in order from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and ... George?

And then came Neptune by plotting the path of a planet, astronomers can draw up a table (called an "ephemeris") that can show them exactly where the planet will be at any given time. So, after the discovery of Uranus, they set about determining an ephemeris for it.

But this method didn't seem to work; sometimes Uranus turned up ahead of its predicted position; sometimes it lagged behind. It seemed to astronomers that some unknown body was somehow perturbing Uranus's orbit.

Adams was a student at Cambridge University, and he sent his results to Sir George Airy (1801-1892), the Astronomer Royal, with specific instructions on where to look for it. For some unknown reason Airy delayed a year before starting the search. In the meantime, Leverrier wrote to the Berlin Observatory requesting that they search in the place he directed. Johann Galle and Heinrich d'Arrest at Berlin did exactly as instructed and found the new planet in less than an hour.

The naming of this new eighth planet was more complicated than for Uranus. Initially, Janus and Oceanus were suggested. Leverrier wanted it to be named after him. But while the population of France seemed in favor of this, the other European countries resisted this moniker. Eventually, it was named for Neptune after the god of the sea.

Ice giant

Neptune is slightly smaller than Uranus, measuring 30,599 miles (49,244 km) in diameter. Like Uranus, Neptune is a frigid world, with temperatures at its cloud tops of -361 degrees F (-218 C). Because they are similar both in size and temperatures, Uranus and Neptune are referred to as "ice giants."

Because of its gaseous composition, its speed of rotation varies from 18 hours at the equator to just 12 hours at the poles. This differential rotation is the most pronounced of any other planet and results in exceedingly strong winds reaching speeds upward to 1,300 mph (2,200 kph). Most of the winds on Neptune move in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation.

Finding Neptune

This sky map shows where to find Neptune will be located around midnight on Sept. 13-14, as seen from New York City. Look for it in the constellation of Aquarius, to the right of the bright planet Mars. (Image credit: SkySafari app)

Unlike Uranus, Neptune is much too faint to be viewed with the unaided eye, lying at a mean distance from the sun of 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion km); the most distant planet. It's about seven times dimmer than Uranus, but if you have access to a dark, clear sky and carefully examine the map above, you should have no trouble in finding it with a good pair of binoculars.

September is Neptune's month. It will be at opposition to the sun on Sept. 11, so it will be in the sky all night long, reaching its highest point in the southern sky at around 1 a.m. local time. Neptune can currently be found among the stars of Aquarius, the water bearer.

With a telescope, trying to resolve Neptune into a disk will be more difficult than it is with Uranus. You're going to need at least a 4-inch (10 cm) telescope with a magnification of no less than 200-power, just to turn Neptune into a tiny blue dot of light.

[2whatcom-blog]

How Outdated Are Saturn’s Rings The Debate Rages On

Of our photo voltaic system's wonders, one reigns as the logo of all that's alien and otherworldly: the majestic rings of Saturn, rising resplendent and shimmering above the enormous planet's buttery, cloud-crossed face. Stretching almost 300,000 kilometers from tip to tip and containing numerous icy particles ranging in measurement from "microscopic" to "mobile home," the rings make Saturn undeniably eye-catching. However greater than mere ornament, they're one of the crucial enduring enigmas in planetary science. Put merely, consultants can't agree on how the rings shaped and even how outdated they're. Are Saturn's bangles a primordial characteristic of the photo voltaic system, having emerged roughly 4.5 billion years in the past when chaos and collisions sculpted a lot of what we see at this time? Or did they come up far more just lately? The reply not solely issues for scientists working to grasp planetary rings and reconstruct the photo voltaic system's historical past; it may have dizzying implications for astrobiologists questioning whether or not alien life would possibly thrive beneath the icy crust of Enceladus, a small internal moon of Saturn whose buried, international sea is taken into account top-of-the-line locations to search for biology past Earth. Although not definitive, the most effective out there information to settle the controversy got here through the ultimate years of NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Based mostly on Cassini's measurements of the rings' mass and brightness, many scientists now imagine they're remarkably youthful, having burst into existence maybe as just lately as 100 million years in the past, when dinosaurs nonetheless roamed the Earth--which signifies that, seen by some saurian telescope, Saturn may have been bizarrely bereft of rings. However not everyone seems to be satisfied; it's simply too exhausting, some critics say, to craft such expansive rings within the comparatively placid photo voltaic system of now and near-yesteryear. "I have no objection to young rings. I just think no one has found a very plausible way of making them," says ring professional Luke Dones of the Southwest Analysis Institute. "It requires an unlikely event." A Many years-Outdated Debate As we speak's debate over the provenance of Saturn's rings traces its origin to a number of a long time in the past, mainly to the primary close-up reconnaissance of the system by the interplanetary Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions. These observations hinted that the rings have been surprisingly mild, missing enough heft to have retained their pearly gleam throughout the photo voltaic system's multibillion-year historical past. The rings, it appeared, have been fairly young--but theorists struggled to plan a mechanism to clarify their comparatively current formation. Then got here Cassini. In direction of the mission's finish, the spacecraft carried out two dozen daring dives between Saturn's cloud tops and the ring system's innermost edge. Because it threaded that needle, Cassini fastidiously measured the mass of the rings and got here up with a quantity just like Voyager's: roughly half the mass of Mimas, a small icy moon bearing uncanny resemblance to the "Death Star" house station from Star Wars. However that's solely a part of the story. Earlier in its mission, the spacecraft had additionally grazed the perimeters of the rings, scooping up mud and different particles to assist estimate how a lot darkish particles the constructions sopped up from their surroundings--another essential measurement for pinning down their age. Like its measurements of the system's mass, Cassini's readings of mud in Saturn's neighborhood additional hinted at youthful rings: Regardless of being frequently dusted by darkish particles shed by dingy objects within the outer photo voltaic system, Saturn's rings of water ice are nonetheless shiny white. Because the logic goes, the older the rings, the darker they need to be--unless they're large sufficient to one way or the other accumulate darkish mud over billions of years, whereas nonetheless sustaining their youthful gleam. Robin Canup, of the Southwest Analysis Institute, refers to this line of proof because the "pollution argument" for younger rings. "The fact that the rings are bright tells us in some way that they have not been efficiently polluted, or at least that we don't see the evidence of that," she says. Extra observations counsel that not solely are the rings absorbing materials, they're additionally shedding it in large portions, always sending showers of icy particles into the planet's ambiance. In truth, with one estimate suggesting such showers may deplete the rings inside 300 million years, plainly Saturn's most distinctive characteristic could possibly be surprisingly transient certainly. "The idea that they could be around for 4.5 billion years really defies explanation in my mind," says Erik Asphaug of the College of Arizona, who research interactions between Saturn's rings and its many moons. Younger Rings, Made to Order Even so, many compelling arguments stay towards Saturn's supposedly youthful rings. Making such an expansive ring system so just lately, it seems, is not any small process; the chances are stacked towards it. Certain, the planet may have shredded a passing comet in complete or partially, scattering the stripped stays into rings; or, sure, possibly an interloping object smashed into certainly one of Saturn's moons, forming rings from the splattered, pulverized moon-bits. However to any trustworthy theorist, such made-to-order eventualities smack of particular pleading. "We do have a pretty good idea, a census, of how many comets are flying around the outer solar system, and you just don't have enough of them to make that scenario likely," Dones says. "Within the last hundreds of millions of years, the chance of that is maybe a few percent." However suppose as a substitute that no comets have been concerned at all--that the ring's dad or mum our bodies originated solely from inside somewhat than exterior the Saturnian system. Whereas finding out the curious orbits of the planet's close-in moons, the SETI Institute's Matija Cuk and his colleagues discovered one thing shocking. In laptop fashions that traced these moons' orbits again in time, every thing went a bit off-script roughly 100 million years in the past, with the moons being jostled onto orbits that merely will not be noticed at this time. "Their orbits do get knocked out of the plane of Saturn's equator way more than we observe," Cuk says. "Meaning that this history that we are modeling never happened, and the current moons must be younger than that." In different phrases, an earlier system of moons will need to have been rearranged into the system we see at this time. Cassini snapped this partial portrait of Saturn's rings and moons in July 2011. From left to proper, 5 moons are seen on this image: Janus, Pandora (on the fringe of the skinny ring close to the picture's middle), Enceladus, Mimas and Rhea. Credit score: NASA, JPL-Caltech and the House Science Institute At first, it was not clear what might need provoked that rearrangement, however subsequent work fingered an sudden wrongdoer: the solar. Even throughout huge distances, the solar's gravity can perturb the motions of planets--and extra importantly for this story, their moons. Cuk and his colleagues discovered that it's potential for Saturn's orbit to have approached a degree the place the solar's tenuous gravitational affect may ever so barely nudge a big, internal moon onto a special pathway, resulting in a collision with a sibling. "And then you form a ring that's 10 times bigger than the ring you have now, some of which accretes and forms new moons," he says. One confounding corollary to this state of affairs is that Saturn's present internal moons would have, as Cuk says, coalesced and grown out of the collision's debris--meaning that Enceladus, Mimas and any physique orbiting as shut or nearer to the planet than the big moon Rhea would even be about 100 million years outdated. This state of affairs, nevertheless, stands in stark distinction to age estimates for the internal moons based mostly on counting craters on their surfaces. As nicely, a younger Enceladus may current main issues for astrobiologists hoping that the moon's international, subsurface sea has existed lengthy sufficient for all times to evolve there. "I don't think people like to hear that," Cuk says. Canup and others say that whereas Cuk's speculation is believable, it fails to clarify how the fabric generated by a moon-moon smashup would type a hoop. To do this, the collision's particles would have to be shut sufficient to Saturn for the planet's gravity to maintain it scattered, as a substitute of within the farther-flung areas the place moons type and reside. "How do you get material from that kind of collision back into low orbits where the rings are, and how do you get that material to be only ice?" Canup asks. Primordial Air pollution? The actual fact is, older rings are simply simpler to make. Billions and billions of years in the past, when the planets have been settling into their present positions, they rocketed smaller our bodies all through the photo voltaic system like over-caffeinated billiards gamers with shaky intention. So, Canup says, essentially the most parsimonious clarification is that some historic cataclysm adorned the beforehand ringless world, and scientists have to revisit their air pollution argument pointing to younger rings. If the speed at which darkish mud falls onto the rings varies over time, or if fundamental assumptions about how that mud darkens the rings are improper, it's potential for the rings to be primordial--albeit with a preternaturally sprightly sheen. "It's clear that snow is beautiful and bright when it falls, and it doesn't take much dirt to make the snow look quite dark," Dones says. However, he notes, high-speed impacts between mud and icy ring particles may not be coloring the rings within the precise methods scientists suspect, maybe depositing much less shade than anticipated. Extra convincing for the outdated rings story, Canup says, are simulations of an historic, ring-forming collision. If the preliminary mass of particles is considerably larger than that within the present rings, it'll shortly unfold out and dissipate. A few of it'll fall into Saturn, some will escape into orbit, and the remainder will settle into moons and rings. Curiously, she says, no matter whether or not you begin with one or 10 instances the mass of Mimas, over billions of years, fundamental orbital dynamics counsel it'll settle out at virtually the precise quantity of fabric we see at this time. "The rings just happen to have the exact mass that one would expect if they had been colliding and spreading for four billion years," Canup says. And when Cassini observations concurrently help outdated rings and younger rings, albeit in numerous methods, touchdown on a ultimate reply is hard. "When you have predictions or interpretations that are independent and end up being at odds with each other, it gets interesting," she says. Captured by Cassini in March 2016, this edge-on view of a portion of Saturn's rings additionally contains three moons: Mimas (at high), Janus (simply above the rings) and Tethys (beneath the rings). Any clarification for the formation of the planet's rings should additionally account for its enigmatic moons. Credit score: NASA, JPL-Caltech and the House Science Institute One Ring (System) to Rule Them All Our meandering efforts to discern Saturn's reality are removed from full. One thing put rings across the planet although we have now but to grasp how. "I see the Saturn system as being in the middle of a cascade--a chaotic cascade. It doesn't look finished to me," Asphaug says. Certainly, all the Saturn system is one thing of an enigma. Not solely are the planet's rings perplexing, however its huge and numerous array of moons are additionally robust to clarify. From Iapetus, a two-toned moon that resembles a walnut resulting from a weird equatorial ridge and flattened poles, to hazy Titan, an enormous moon with oily lakes and alien chemistry, to internal moons which may as soon as have had rings of their very own, the Saturnian system is a cornucopia of weirdness. So, any story that purports to clarify the rings should additionally, in a roundabout way, account for these and different oddballs. "I see a lot of impossible geologic things. I see a planet that should look like Callisto, but instead looks like Titan. I see satellites that shouldn't exist like Enceladus and Mimas, that have heavy cratering histories--whether that means they're old or not, we don't know. And then you see Enceladus going off like a rocket, and it's the most reliably eruptive body in the solar system, and that doesn't make any sense to me as a geologist," Asphaug says. "Mimas gets more tidal heating than Enceladus and it's dead as a doornail! None of it makes sense!" The options to Saturn's mysteries, maybe, lie within the realm of planetary dynamics, the place simulations of gravitational interactions reconstruct the previous (and future) of what we observe at this time. Or the reply would possibly depend on laboratory-based examinations of high-speed collisions between darkish mud and icy particles, to find out how precisely mud colours ice. It'd imply reexamining assumptions about how probably it's for a comet to have a fateful encounter with Saturn. Or, it'd require a extra detailed evaluation of the cratered surfaces of Saturn's retinue of internal moons, to higher know their true ages, maybe by one other spacecraft despatched to roam the planet's neighborhood. "That old idea that the rings are ancient and have been steadily bombarded by polluting material that's the same as we see today? That idea won't work," says Larry Esposito, on the College of Colorado Boulder. "But what possible mechanism could form rings to recently? No existing theory is satisfactory." Read the full article

[yeskhanzadame11]

Europa's Ocean Is Only Skin Deep!

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep--A Proverb

Europa is a fascinating, icy little moon that orbits the gasoline-massive planet Jupiter. This frigid little global, determined in 1610 through Galileo test, harbors a significant ocean of liquid water beneath a shattered, tortured crust of ice. Europa is the 6th largest moon in our Sun's mesmerizing circle of relatives, and few our bodies have enticed astronomers as a great deal as this cracked and jumbled little world, because wherein there may be water, there is the possibility--although not the promise--of life as we know it to exist. In March 2013, planetary scientists introduced that the substantial ocean of liquid water underneath Europa's shattered egg-shell of an icy crust, in all likelihood makes its way to the floor in a few locations. This suggests that astronomers might not need to drill down very deep a good way to look at it!

Europa is one of the four huge Galilean moons of Jupiter, named in honor in their discoverer, who discovered them whilst he was watching up into the darkish night sky over Papua together with his small, primitive "spyglass"--one of the earliest telescopes. The different Galilean moons, the bewitching sisters of Europa, are Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. Both Ganymede and Callisto are icy-rocky worlds, and Ganymede is the most important moon in our Solar System. Io, however, is a bit ball of hell, pockmarked with volcanoes, and heavily splotched with sulfur.

For a long term, bizarre and jumbled regions of ice disruption on Europa, referred to as the chaos terrains, have been considered by means of astronomers as bizarre areas whose origins had been cloaked in mystery. Regions just like the chaos terrains had been discovered no where else in our Solar System. Now, it's far thought that those strange terrains were formed through the sloshing of a subsurface body of liquid saltwater.

Although Europa became visited via the 2 sister spacecraft Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 inside the early Nineteen Seventies, and the dual Voyagers in 1979, these early flybys frustratingly sent lower back to the curious eyes of fascinated astronomers only a few very dim and grainy pics. However, those early photos discovered enough about the tantalizing moon to make it interesting. Pale yellow icy plains were observed within the Voyager photos. The plains were additionally mottled with crimson and brown areas. Long cracks had been visible, and they prolonged for heaps of miles over the shattered icy crust. On our very own planet, similar cracks suggest functions like deep canyons and tall mountains. However, nothing higher than some kilometers become found at the little moon. In truth, Europa proved to be one of the smoothest worlds in our whole Solar System!

NASA's particularly successful Galileo spacecraft (1989-2003) imaged Europa throughout a flyby on September 7, 1996. Galileo regarded Europa's floor a whole lot extra closely than the Pioneers and Voyagers, and it discovered to astronomers a very bewitching and weird floor crust that seemed like shattered glass, repaired through an icy paste that changed into oozing up from below.

The maximum exact snap shots of Europa display even more signs of slush lurking under its icy coating. Europa is barely smaller than Earth's very own Moon, and its surface temperature should without problems freeze an ocean solid over a span of simplest numerous million years. However, planetary scientists think that warmth derived from a recreation of tidal tug-of-struggle between Europa and its figure planet, Jupiter, as well as with other sister moons, is retaining Europa's subsurface ocean in a life-pleasant liquid country. This manner, termed tidal heating, refers to a series of actions whereby the gravitational tugs of a close-by item (or objects) flex and bend and contract and amplify some other item mercilessly. This constant churning causes the victimized item, in this example Europa, to warm up considerably and be a lot more balmy than its huge distance from our searing-warm Star, the Sun, could otherwise allow it to be.

Based on evidence launched in March 2013, astronomers now recommend that chloride salts bubble up from Europa's global ocean of liquid water, and jitter-computer virus as much as the icy surface in which they are closely pelted with sulfur from the many volcanoes p.C.-marking Jupiter's innermost, hellish sister-moon, Io. As a March 5, 2013 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Press Release notes: "If you could lick the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, you would surely be sampling a chunk of the sea below."

Only Skin Deep

A March 2013 paper by means of Dr. Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology (Cal tech) in Pasadena, California, and Dr. Kevin Hand from the J PL, additionally in Pasadena, info the most robust proof to date received that there is certainly a vast salt water ocean sloshing under Europa's shattered, frozen crust--and that during a few places the liquid water genuinely makes its manner to the floor!

The astronomers have spotted chemicals on Europa's frigid surface that could handiest originate from the huge international liquid-water ocean under. This shows that the 2 are in touch, and this will doubtlessly provide a peek into the watery surroundings that probable can host life.

"We now have proof that Europa's ocean is not isolated--that the sea and the surface speak to every other and change chemical substances," Dr. Brown, the observe's lead creator, defined inside the March 6, 2013 Space.Com. "That way that strength is probably going into the sea, which is important in phrases of the possibilities for life there. It additionally means that if you'd like to know what is in the ocean, you can simply go to the floor and scrape a few off," he persisted to observe.

This finding is primarily based on a number of the excellent records of its kind obtained for the reason that NASA's Galileo mission indicated that a chemical interplay became taking area between the salty worldwide ocean and the icy crust of Europa.

Europa's ocean is assumed to cover the complete moon, and is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) thick, sloshing beneath a totally thin cracked icy coating that composes the crust of the little international. The infrared spectrometer aboard Galileo become incapable of supplying the details necessary to identify a number of the chemical substances on the surface. However, with the aid of using the Keck II Telescope perched on Sauna Ea in Hawaii, and its OSIRIS spectrometer, Brown and Hand have succeeded in figuring out a spectroscopic function on Europa's crust that suggests the existence of a mineral called sodomite, which is a magnesium sulfate, that probably shaped by using the oxidation of a mineral that originated in the global ocean underneath.

Brown and Hand commenced their investigation through mapping the distribution of natural water ice as opposed to the whole lot else. The spectra found out that even Europa's leading hemisphere sports a big quantity of non-water ice. Then, at low latitudes at the trailing hemisphere--that is the region displaying the greatest awareness of non-water ice--they found a very small, and now not-formerly detected dip inside the spectrum. After undertaking a chain of exams, the two researchers determined that that they had spotted the unmistakable signature of magnesium sulfate.

The magnesium sulfate is most in all likelihood fashioned via the irradiation of sulfur shot off from Io and, Brown and Hand deduce, magnesium chloride salt born in Europa's considerable subsurface ocean. Chlorides like sodium and potassium chlorides, which might be expected to be gift on Europa's icy, cracked crust, are not commonly detectable because they display no definitive infrared spectral capabilities. However, magnesium sulfate does display itself, and the authors of the study assume that the chemical makeup of Europa's ocean may additionally intently resemble the salty oceans of our personal planet.

Europa is a prime goal within the search  Galileo test for existence beyond Earth, Dr. Hand stated in the March 5, 2013 J PL Press Release. He further noted to the press that "If we have learned anything approximately life on Earth, it is that wherein there's liquid water, there is usually existence. And of path our ocean is a pleasing salty ocean. Perhaps Europa's salty ocean is likewise a brilliant location for life."

The look at might be posted inside the Astronomical Journal.

Judith E. Brahman-Miller is a creator and astronomer whose articles were published for the reason that 1981 in numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers. Although she has written on a selection of subjects, she in particular loves writing about astronomy as it offers her the opportunity to speak to others the various wonders of her field. Her first e book, "Wisps, Ashes, and Smoke," might be published quickly.

[astrogeoguy]

A Late Night Moon, a Planet Parade, Clocks Fall Back, and Some Spooky Treats!

(Above: This image of the spooky Witch’s Head Nebula, taken by Jeff Signorelli, was the APOD for October 30, 2015. The blue colour arises from light from the bright star Rigel reflecting off of interstellar gas and dust. Jeff’s website of images is here .)

Astronomy Skylights for this week (from October 28th, 2018) by Chris Vaughan. (Feel free to pass this along to friends and send me your comments, questions, and suggested topics.) I post these with photos at http://astrogeoguy.tumblr.com/ where the old editions are archived. You can also follow me on Twitter as @astrogeoguy! Unless otherwise noted, all times are Eastern Time. Please click this MailChimp link to subscribe to these emails. If you are a teacher or group leader interested joining me on a guided field trip to York University’s Allan I. Carswell Observatory or the David Dunlap Observatory, visit www.astrogeo.ca.

I can bring my Digital Starlab inflatable planetarium to your school or other daytime or evening event, visit DiscoveryPlanetarium.com and request me. We’ll tour the Universe together!

Public Events

Every Monday evening, York University’s Allan I. Carswell Observatory runs an online star party - broadcasting views from four telescopes/cameras, answering viewer questions, and taking requests! Details are here. On Wednesday nights they offer free public viewing through their rooftop telescopes. If it’s cloudy, the astronomers give tours and presentations. Details are here. 

On Thursday evening, November 1 at 7:30 pm, the Ontario Science Centre will present a lecture and conversation featuring Canadian astronaut Dave Williams. Tickets and details are here. 

At 8 pm on Thursday evening, November 1 the public are invited to attend a free RASC Hamilton Centre Meeting at the Royal Canadian Legion, 79 Hamilton St. North, Waterdown, ON. The speaker is Michael Watson, presenting Under Southern Skies. Details are here. 

On Thursday, November 1, starting at 8 pm, U of T’s AstroTour will present a free talk entitled Cosmic Rays: Astrophysics at Maximum Energies, followed by a planetarium show. Details are here. 

On Friday, November 2 at 7 pm, Ryerson University will host the world-renowned Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield presenting Beyond the Horizon: The Hadfield Experience. This event aims to inspire, motivate and guide you to becoming changemakers of society. Tickets and details are here. 

If it’s sunny on Saturday morning, November 3 from 10 am to noon, astronomers from the RASC Toronto Centre will be setting up outside the main doors of the Ontario Science Centre for Solar Observing. Come and see the Sun in detail through special equipment designed to view it safely. This is a free event (details here), but parking and admission fees inside the Science Centre will still apply. Check the RASC Toronto Centre website or their Facebook page for the Go or No-Go notification. 

On Saturday, November 10, from 7 to 10 pm, adults aged 19+ can enjoy a social evening of astronomy and music at the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill. There will be live jazz music by THE CALDERONS, a "WATER WORLDS" talk by Dr. Bhairavi Shankar, tours of the DDO, and stargazing through telescopes (weather dependent). There will be a merchandise table and a photographer on site, a cash bar and refreshments. Tickets and details are here.

(Above: An animation of a Taurid meteor, compiled of frames imaged by Adam Trenholm in 2015.) 

Taurids Meteor Shower

We’ve now entered meteor shower season! Over the next few months, we’ll experience a wave of several showers. The excellent Orionids Meteor Shower, which is derived from material dropped by repeated past passages of Comet Halley, is now tapering off. Meanwhile, the weaker Taurids shower, derived from Comet 2P/Enke, is underway. The maximum number of Taurids will appear between about 1 to 2 am local time. 

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but true Taurids will be travelling in a direction away from a location (the radiant) about two fist diameters to the upper right of the bright, orange-red star Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull). You can watch for meteors in the evening, too – but some of them will be hidden from view below the Earth’s horizon. 

To see the most meteors, find a wide-open dark location, preferably away from light polluted skies, and just look up with your unaided eyes. Binoculars and telescopes are not useful for meteors – their field of view are too narrow. If the peak night is cloudy, several nights on either side will be almost as good. Happy hunting! 

The Moon and Planets

During this week of the moon’s monthly cycle, it will be rising late and then lingering into the morning daytime sky. Tonight (Sunday), the waning gibbous (i.e., more than half full) moon will rise in mid-evening and situated near the feet of Gemini (the Twins). On Halloween evening, the moon won’t rise until after midnight, but it will have reached its Last quarter phase at around noontime in the Eastern Time Zone. If you are up late celebrating, look for its waning, half-illuminated disk an outstretched fist’s width in front of the nose of Leo (the Lion). The moon will spend the rest of the week passing under Leo and ending up next Sunday morning among the stars of Virgo (the Maiden) before sunrise.

(Above: Jupiter will aid in finding Mercury after sunset for the next several nights, as shown here on Sunday, October 28 at 6:50 pm local time. Look for  the bright star Antares to the left and Saturn at upper left.) 

Mercury will still be visible for the early part of this week, but it will be tough to see it from the Northern Hemisphere because it will be barely above the west-southwestern horizon after sunset. The elusive planet will set at about 7 pm local time. Mercury. Because Mercury is on the far side of the sun right now, its appearance in a telescope will be a nearly fully illuminated disk. (For eye safety, be sure to wait until the sun has vanished completely before using binoculars or a telescope on Mercury.) 

For an added bonus, and some help to find Mercury, the bright planet Jupiter has been passing near Mercury for the past few days. Tonight (Sunday, October 28), Jupiter will sit only 3 finger widths above, and just to the right of, Mercury. The two planets will be moving apart from now on. See if you can spot the bright star Antares sitting 1.3 fist diameters to the left of Jupiter. It marks the heart of Scorpius (the Scorpion). Jupiter will set in the west-southwest before 7:15 pm local time. After this week, we’ll have to wait until next May before the mighty planet will return to the evening sky. 

The next planet to set in the west will be Saturn. The ringed planet will appear as a medium-bright, yellowish dot sitting relatively low in the southwestern sky after dusk, above the Teapot-shaped stars of Sagittarius (the Archer). Saturn will set at about 9:30 pm local time. 

After the sky has darkened, even a small telescope should be able to show you some of Saturn’s larger moons, especially its largest satellite, Titan. Using a clock’s dial analogy, Titan will move counter-clockwise over the course of this week – starting from a position at 3 o’clock (to the right of Saturn) tonight, and ending next Sunday at 10 o’clock (to the upper left of Saturn). (Remember that your telescope might flip and/or invert the view. Use the moon to find out how your telescope changes things and keep a note of it, since that will always be the case.) Unlike Jupiter, Saturn’s moons can appear above and below the planet because their orbits are tipped toward us right now, allowing them to circle the planet, instead of merely shifting side-to-side.

(Above: Mars at right and the ice giant planets Neptune at centre and Uranus at lower left, are all well-placed for observing this week, as shown here for October 31 at 7 pm local time. The bright star Fomalhaut is below Mars.) 

Reddish Mars will continue to dominate the southern evening sky this week – even though it is gradually dimming as Earth pulls farther away from it. The fact that the planet is sitting amidst the modest stars of Capricornus (the Sea-Goat) and Aquarius (the Water-Bearer) will emphasize it, too. Mars will set in the west at about 1 am local time. 

If you have an open southerly horizon, look for the bright star named Fomalhaut sitting a little more than two fist diameters to the lower left of Mars. This star is one of the sky’s brightest stars due to its closeness to our sun (it’s only 25 light-years away). It’s a baby, too. Astronomers believe that this star is only a few hundred million years old and is still forming its solar system. They’ve taken photographs of its protoplanetary disk and probable planets orbiting within it! 

Distant Neptune is located only two fist diameters to the left (east) of Mars now. The blue, ice giant planet continues to be visible from dusk until nearly 3 am local time. Using a decent quality telescope you can see the magnitude 7.8 planet sitting roughly midway between the modestly bright star Phi (φ) Aquarii and the brighter star Hydor (Lambda Aquarii). Neptune will highest in the sky (and best viewing conditions) at about 9:30 pm local time. 

Blue-green Uranus is farther to the east than Neptune. A week ago, Uranus reached opposition, when it became visible all night. It’s still close to its peak brightness (magnitude 5.7) and size for this year. You can see it without optical aid under very dark skies, but binoculars and telescopes will work better. After mid-evening, Uranus will be high enough in the eastern sky to see it clearly. Look for it about 3 finger widths to the left (east) of the modestly bright star Torcular (Omega Piscium). That star sits a generous palm’s width above the “V” where the two starry cords of Pisces (the Fishes) meet. The planet will be carried higher in the sky until 12:30 am local time.

(Above: The planetary nebula known as the Skull Nebula (aka NGC246) in Cetus, imaged by the Liverpool Telescope in La Palma and processed by Göran Nilsson)

Halloween Treats

It’s time to seek out some spooky treats in honour of Halloween. The Skull Nebula (also designated NGC246) in Cetus (the Whale) is located in the southeastern sky in mid-evening. This planetary nebula’s oval shape and dark voids resemble a skull. For a challenge, try to spot Mirach’s Ghost (NGC 404), a magnitude 11.7 galaxy tucked just above the bright star Mirach in Andromeda (the Princess).

(Above: The Witch’s Head Nebula is located just west of the bright star Rigel, as shown here at 11:40 pm local time on Halloween.) 

Night owls can try for the Witch Head Nebula (NGC 1909). This large, bluish reflection nebula measures 3 by 1 finger widths in size. It is centred 2.5 finger widths to the upper right of Rigel in Orion (the Hunter).

It’s Time to Fall Back

Set your clocks back an hour next Saturday night! I have a confession to make – we astronomers love the end of Daylight Savings Time every autumn. Presto - on Sunday, November 4, the sky is dark enough for observing right after dinner! 

In fact – we’d like to abolish DST. In late June and July, we have to wait until nearly midnight for the sky to get dark enough to observe faint fuzzies. And just when the weather is gets nice enough to host spring star parties for school kids in March, we can’t start the festivities until bedtime!

Keep looking up to enjoy the sky! I love getting questions so, if you have any, send me a note.