03/09/2017 – Ephemeris – More on the definition of a planet controversy

Ephemeris for Thursday, March 9th.  The Sun will rise at 7:05.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 35 minutes, setting at 6:41.  The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 6:03 tomorrow morning.

Last Friday’s Weekly Space Hangout, on Google Hangouts featured Dr. Alan Stern, principal Investigator of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto and beyond.  Dr. Stern considers himself a planetary scientist, rather than an astronomer, and doesn’t much care for the IAU or International Astronomical Union’s definition of a planet.  To him and other planetary scientists: if it’s round and not a star… it’s a planet.  They’re are more concerned about what it is than where it is, or what it’s orbiting.  Planetary science encompasses geology, climatology,  chemistry, and astrobiology among others.  For instance astrobiology is looking at the origin of life on the Earth and looking for life on other worlds like the planet Mars and at least three moons, Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Check out last Friday’s Weekly Space Hangout here

For the latest on astronomical, space events and discoveries this is a good place to go.

07/14/2016 – Ephemeris – The first anniversary of New Horizons flyby of Pluto

Ephemeris for Thursday, July 14th.  Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 14 minutes, setting at 9:25, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:11.  The Moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 2:57 tomorrow morning.

One year ago today the New Horizons Spacecraft flew past Pluto for our first closeup look at this small world and its satellites.  And wow, what we saw.  In actuality not all the data from the few hours of the flyby have been returned to the Earth.  We saw ice mountains as high as the Rockies,  Nitrogen plains that look like they flowed from what may be heat from below, and a possible subterranean water ocean, which was recently reported.  New Horizons has already tweaked its orbit to pass near another Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU₆₉.  Recently The New Horizons team received the go-ahead for the encounter with this, perhaps 20 mile diameter body.  The flyby will take place on January 1, 2019.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Krun Macula – Krun is the lord of the underworld in the Mandaean religion, and a macula is a dark feature on a planetary surface – is believed to get its dark red color from tholins, complex molecules found across Pluto. Krun Macula rises 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) above the surrounding plain – informally named Sputnik Planum – and is scarred by clusters of connected, roughly circular pits that typically reach between 5 and 8 miles (8 and 13 kilometers) across, and up to 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) deep.  Image and caption credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

These odd fault lines are also seen on the Jovian moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus and could be the surface signs of an underground ocean. Credit New Horizons/ NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.

Here’s more information from EarthSky.

New Horizon’s location as of yesterday. Heading out to 2014 MU69. Credit jhuapl.edu.

 

12/29/2015 – Ephemeris – Some space triumphs of 2015

Ephemeris for Tuesday, December 29th.  The Sun will rise at 8:19.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 5:10.   The Moon, half way from full to last quarter, will rise at 9:58 this evening.

This past year had several important events.  Perhaps the biggest was the flyby of Pluto and its moons July 14th By the New Horizons spacecraft.  The transmission of data and images will continue for most of 2016, but what has been revealed has been spectacular if puzzling.  In other space news Blue Origin landed their New Shepard rocket vertically after sending it straight up 60 miles.  In June the SpaceX Falcon 9 blew up while attempting to send its 7th resupply Dragon capsule to the International Space Station.  Eight days ago The Falcon 9 returned to flight orbiting 11 satellites for Orbocomm, and flew the booster from over 100 miles up and 100 miles out over the Atlantic to land upright on its designated landing pad back at the cape.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Enhanced color portrait of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.

Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, with landing legs expended about to land. Credit: Blue Origin.

First stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 descending on its center rocket engine to the center of the main landing pad at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX.

These weren’t the only highlights of 2015.  Having only 45 seconds to devote to the story, I picked the three most important events.  I consider the reuseability of rockets to be the Holy Grail of reducing the cost to access to space.  The Space Shuttle was a partial, but ultimately failed solution.  SpaceX had the most difficult task in refurbishment and reuse because the first stage had to endure a supersonic reentry, though it didn’t need a heat shield.  We’ll have to see if the cost of recycling rocket boosters is cheaper than building one from scratch.

10/29/2015 – Ephemeris – The blue skies of Pluto

Ephemeris for Thursday, October 29th.  The Sun will rise at 8:16.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 6:36.   The Moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 8:40 this evening.

Images from the New Horizons spacecraft are streaming back slowly.  It’s like trying to download a modern megapixel camera image using a thousand to two thousand bits per second telephone modem back in the ’90s.  That’s why the images are dribbling out.  They are released each Thursday or Friday.  One of the last images was a colored image of the ring of atmosphere of Pluto backlit by the Sun, showing that the dwarf planet had a blue sky.  The reason is still debated because there appear to be minute particles thought to be tholins in Pluto’s atmosphere.  These would be colored brown or red.  However they seen to preferentially scatter blue light like the nitrogen molecules in our atmosphere.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Pluto seen in silhouette, backlit by the Sun in color. Released October 10, 2015 by NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

10/02/2015 – Ephemeris – I talk about Pluto and New Horizons tonight

Ephemeris for Friday, October 2nd.  The Sun will rise at 7:41.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 7:21.   The Moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:53 this evening.

This evening yours truly will be reviewing the results so far from the New Horizons spacecraft and its close encounter with Pluto and its moons July 14th. This will be at the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society meeting at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory at 8 p.m.  If you’ve not been keeping up with the releases of photos of Pluto and its moons be prepared to be amazed by the beauty of this frozen but apparently active world.  Afterward from 9 p.m. there will be time to view the wonders of the autumn skies if it’s clear.  If not there will be guided tour of the autumn skies via computer simulation.  The observatory is located south of Traverse City on Birmley Road between Garfield and Keystone Roads.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Latest high resolution color image of Charon released yesterday. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.

09/29/2015 – Ephemeris – New Horizons is now downloading some really cool pictures to Earth

Ephemeris for Tuesday, September 29th.  The Sun will rise at 7:38.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 7:27.   The Moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 8:38 this evening.

Two and a half months ago the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, spending the day incommunicado, not wasting any time sending anything back to the Earth.  Starting the next day came the flood of data including some highly compressed images.  Starting Labor Day weekend the high-resolution, uncompressed images started to come down at one to two thousand bits per second.  At that rate a 4 megapixel monochromatic image might take 36 hours to download.  Now every Thursday or Friday the New Horizons Team puts several new processed images on the NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory websites, along with explanations of what is in the images and the questions they raise.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

This image, taken just 15 minutes after the New Horizons spacecraft flew its closest to Pluto shows a low angle shot of the lands the spacecraft saw really close up. Check out too the many layers of the atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL.  Click on the image to enlarge.

I’ll be exploring this and the other amazing photos and other results from New Horizons this Friday at the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society meeting at 8 p.m. at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory south of Traverse City on Birmley Road.

08/25/2015 – Ephemeris – Waiting for more images from New Horizons

Ephemeris for Tuesday, August 25th.  The Sun rises at 6:56.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 35 minutes, setting at 8:32.   The Moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 3:16 tomorrow morning.

The New Horizons team is downloading data now from all the instruments gathered from the encounter with Pluto, but in mid-September the pictures again will be flowing down to Earth.  What was downloaded in the day and a half after close encounter with Pluto were highly compressed images of an area of Pluto and Charon’s surface showing a wider view than we will see later on and in full resolution.  The team is already beginning to name the features that can be seen in sufficient detail.  The International Astronomical Union has decided the types of names for Pluto, Charon and the rest of the Satellites.  Pluto is set aside for explorers, both human and robotic.  Charon, for mythical and fictional space and adventure heroes, vessels and authors.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Map of Pluto with unofficial place names so far. Credit NASA/JPL. Click to enlarge.

Map of Charon with unofficial place names so far. Credit NASA/JPL. Click to enlarge.

The International Astronomical Union approves all names of objects off the Earth.  Go to either http://www.iau.org or more specifically http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.

07/30/2015 – Ephemeris – Pluto’s enigmatic atmosphere

Ephemeris for Thursday, July 30th.  The Sun rises at 6:26.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 44 minutes, setting at 9:11.   The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:45 tomorrow morning.

The last image released last week from the New Horizons spacecraft was a stunning one.  It was Pluto backlit, showing a glow completely around the planet, the atmosphere, showing layers.  Also when New Horizons went behind the planet and again went behind Charon from the Earth’s point of view.  Beams of radio waves from seven of the antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network were sent toward Pluto and New Horizons four and a half hours earlier.  The spacecraft turned its antenna toward Earth and listened.  As the radio waves passed through the atmosphere of Pluto they were refracted and distorted giving clues to the state of the atmosphere.  First takeaway is that Pluto’s atmosphere appears to be collapsing with its increasing distance from the Sun.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Looking back at Pluto backlit by the Sun from 1.25 million miles. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.

Click here for more information on the above image.

Data from the Alice ultraviolet instrument when Pluto occulted the Sun. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.

Click here for more information on this Alice observation.

07/28/2015 – Ephemeris – The first close up images of Pluto

Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 28th.  The Sun rises at 6:24.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 9:13.   The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 4:32 tomorrow morning.

Two weeks ago the New Horizons spacecraft zipped through the Pluto system gathering a wealth of information including a whole host of images.  Due to their large size the images will take some time to be sent back, however some highly compressed images have been returned and yield a tantalizing look at the dwarf planet Pluto and its large moon Charon.  Rather than an apparently dead heavily cratered body, the first images presented a young surface with plains and mountains with nary a crater to be found.  Young is relative, perhaps 100 million years old or so and implied heating where there appears no source to be found… yet.  The first of many mysteries.  And we have 16 months more  of data and images to be returned.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

First closeup picture the New Horizon Team showed. Two mile high ice mountains, plains, and interesting terrain, but no craters. A young surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.  Click on image to enlarge.

Sputnik Planum (Plain) next to the ice mountains showing polygons and troughs, some with hills. This is part of Pluto’s “Heath”. Note the rectangular lossy compression artifacts in the image. An uncompressed version will be downlinked later. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.  Click on image to enlarge.

 

06/18/2015 – Ephemeris – 26 days to Pluto!

Ephemeris for Thursday, June 18th.  Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:31.   The Moon, 2 days past new, will set at 10:57 this evening.  Tomorrow the Sun will rise at 5:56.

I hope everyone’s been following the progress of the New Horizons spacecraft as it nears the Pluto system.  It will reach and pass through the Pluto system on July 14th, only 26 days from now after a journey of 9 years. Now, Pluto is more than a dot in the probe’s cameras, which are used to look for possible hazardous rings of debris, more moons and for navigational purposes.  New Horizons is aimed for a window less than a hundred miles on a side, and a few minutes in time.  All its moves to study Pluto and its moons have been pre-programmed in and actually tested two years ago to make sure everything works.  We will not hear from the spacecraft on encounter day, it will be too busy.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Artist conception of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizon’s trajectory through the solar system. Credit: NASA/APL.

New Horizons Encounter Timeline. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.

New Horizons at closest approach to Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.