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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
The Algonquin Indians had names for each of the seasonal Full Moons, many of which survive today. The Full Snow Moon pictured occurs in the month of December, when the first large winter storms coat the ground with snow. This Full Moon also tends to fall near the Winter Solstice, and thus rides high in the nightly sky opposite to the Sun on long winter nights.
Every rocket launch is unique, but twilight shuttle launches where by far the most impressive. The image pictured was of the April 5th, 2010 launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center at dawn. The exhaust plume caught the rising Sun overhead just right, and numerous noctilucent clouds persisted right up until sunrise. Unfortunately, space shuttle launches are now relegated to the pages of history.
Review: The Stardust Revolution by Jacob Berkowitz.
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Pity the astronomers of yore. Unlike other scientists, they couldn’t take pieces of their objects of study and place them under scrutiny in a lab. Were the heavens truly unchanging and immutable, made of truly different “stuff” than mundane Earthly goods?
Enter the exciting new age of spectroscopy and Jacob Berkowitz’s new book, The Stardust Revolution: the New Story of Our Origin in the Stars. Just recently released by Prometheus Books, The Stardust Revolution traces the history of the chemistry of astronomy and our modern day understanding of the composition of the universe. Far from being a separate realm, scientists have discovered the elements and chemical compounds found here on Earth are also present in the distant universe. In some cases, such as the discovery of helium in the spectrum of the Sun or certain isotopes of technetium, elements were actually discovered in space first! This also proved the predictive power of Mendeleev’s new-fangled invention in the mid-19th century, the periodic table of the elements.
The Stardust Revolution also stands as a testament to our place in the universe, literally “matter that can contemplate itself.” Sagan was fond of saying that “we’re all stardust,” and it was a major mystery where the heavier elements were synthesized. Hans Bethe demonstrated the process of the proton-proton chain of nuclear fusion that makes stars shine, and with it, the fusion of hydrogen into helium. This process runs out at the element iron, and more energy must be put in than is produced to venture farther up the periodic table. Some elements like isotopes of the aforementioned technetium simply have too short a half life to be found on a 4.5 billion year old Earth. Interestingly, the author also looks at the curious ratios of the isotopes of magnesium-26 (a daughter isotope of aluminum-26) found in many meteorites, a testament to a nearby supernova early in our solar system’s history. Did such an event trigger the collapse and formation of the inner rocky planets? Could we someday pinpoint our old birth cluster and brethren somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy spectroscopically?
New techniques have also led to striking new discoveries in the field of astronomy. Two of the biggest were the advent of radio and infrared astronomy in the 20th century. Far from being bone dry, the molecular clouds between the stars were found to be teeming with that all important universal solvent on which life as we know it depends; water. Soon, a whole host of compounds were being found in the astronomical wild, including the key ingredients for life. We may be linked to the cosmos in ways more intimate than we suspected, even in Carl’s day. I thought it was interesting that the molecule C8H10N4O2 has also been discovered in space, a favorite of late-night astronomers and astro-bloggers known as caffeine. Perhaps Star Trek: Voyager’s Captain Janeway was correct in stating “There’s coffee in that nebula…”
The author closes with one of the greatest prospects for spectroscopy, the detection of life. The discovery of the spectral signature of free oxygen or chlorophyll in the spectrum of an exoplanet would be a sure sign that something interesting is going on, as in our solar system, these are only sustained by life. Missions such as ESA’s Gaia spacecraft or NASA’s currently shelved Terrestrial Planet Finder have the potential to make just such a groundbreaking discovery in the next decade…
Just think, a chance to point to a place in the sky and state, “the chemistry of life has arisen separately from us, right there.” Only a little over two decades ago, no exoplanets were known; thanks to the revolution driven by the study of stardust, 839 and counting are known of today, enough that we can classify and characterize other solar systems. Will our children live in an era that reaps the consequence of the next revolution, a time when we can classify other galactic biospheres as well? Stay tuned, as the sequel to Stardust Revolution is far from over!