Astronomy Archives

July 28, 2015August 11, 2016 by Matt Williams

Eris’ Moon Dysnomia

Tenth planet? Artists concept of the view from Eris with Dysnomia in the background, looking back towards the distant sun. Credit: Robert Hurt (IPAC)

Ask a person what Dysnomia refers to, and they might venture that it’s a medical condition. In truth, they would be correct. But in addition to being a condition that affects the memory (where people have a hard time remembering words and names), it is also the only known moon of the distant dwarf planet Eris.

In fact, the same team that discovered Eris a decade ago – a discovery that threw our entire notion of what constitutes a planet into question – also discovered a moon circling it shortly thereafter. As the only satellite that circles one of the most distant objects in our Solar System, much of what we know about this ball of ice is still subject to debate.

Discovery and Naming:

In January of 2005, astronomer Mike Brown and his team discovered Eris using the new laser guide star adaptive optics system at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. By September, Brown and his team were conducting observations of the four brightest Kuiper Belt Objects – which at that point included Pluto, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris – and found indications of an object orbiting Eris.

Provisionally, this body was designated S/2005 1 (2003 UB³¹³). However, in keeping with the Xena nickname that his team was already using for Eris, Brown and his colleagues nicknamed the moon “Gabrielle” after Xena’s sidekick. Later, Brown selected the official name of Dysnomia for the moon, which seemed appropriate for a number of reasons.

For one, this name is derived from the daughter of the Greek god Eris – a daemon who represented the spirit of lawlessness – which was in keeping with the tradition of naming moons after lesser gods associated with the primary god. It also seemed appropriate since the “lawless” aspect called to mind actress Lucy Lawless, who portrayed Xena on television. However, it was not until the IAU’s resolution on what defined a planet – passed in August of 2006 – that the planet was officially designated as Dysnomia.

Size, Mass and Orbit:

The actual size of Dysnomia is subject to dispute, and estimates are based largely on the planet’s albedo relative to Eris. For example, the IAU and Johnston’s Asteroids with Satellites Database estimate that it is 4.43 magnitudes fainter than Eris and has an approximate diameter of between 350 and 490 km (217 – 304 miles)

However, Brown and his colleagues have stated that their observations indicate it to be 500 times fainter and between 100 and 250 km (62 – 155 miles) in diameter. Using the Herschel Space Observatory in 2012, Spanish astronomer Pablo Santo Sanz and his team determined that, provided Dysnomia has an albedo five times that of Eris, it is likely to be 685±50 km in diameter.

Forget about Pluto for a moment. Should Eris be our tenth Planet? Like Pluto it has a prominent moon- Dysnomia. Human perception and conceptions of the Universe have shaped our view of the Solar System. The Ptolemaic system (Earth centered), Kepler's Harmonic Spheres, even the fact that ten digits reside on our hands impact our impression of the Solar System (Photo Credits:NASA/ESA and M. Brown / Caltech) — *Eris and its moon, Dysnomia, as imaged by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Credits:NASA/ESA and M. Brown/Caltech*

In 2007, Brown and his team also combined Keck and Hubble observations to determine the mass of Eris, and estimate the orbital parameters of the system. From their calculations, they determined that Dysnomia’s orbital period is approximately 15.77 days. These observations also indicated that Dysnomia has a circular orbit around Eris, with a radius of 37350±140 km. In addition to being a satellite of a dwarf planet, Dysnomia is also a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) like Eris.

Composition and Origin:

Currently, there is no direct evidence to indicate what Dysnomia is made of. However, based on observations made of other Kuiper Belt Objects, it is widely believed that Dysnomia is composed primarily of ice. This is based largely on infrared observations made of Haumea (2003 EL61), the fourth largest object in the Kuiper Belt (after Eris, Pluto and Makemake) which appears to be made entirely of frozen water.

Astronomers now know that three of the four brightest KBOs – Pluto, Eris and Haumea – have one or more satellites. Meanwhile, of the fainter members, only about 10% are known to have satellites. This is believed to imply that collisions between large KBOs have been frequent in the past. Impacts between bodies of the order of 1000 km across would throw off large amounts of material that would coalesce into a moon.

This is an artist's concept of Kuiper Belt object Eris and its tiny satellite Dysnomia. Eris is the large object at the bottom of the illustration. A portion of its surface is lit by the Sun, located in the upper left corner of the image. Eris's moon, Dysnomia, is located just above and to the left of Eris. The Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory took images of Dysnomia's movement from which astronomer Mike Brown (Caltech) precisely calculated Eris to be 27 percent more massive than Pluto. Artwork Credit: NASA, ESA, Adolph Schaller (for STScI) — Artist’s concept of Kuiper Belt Object Eris and its tiny satellite Dysnomia. The Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory took images of Dysnomia’s movement from which astronomer Mike Brown (Caltech) precisely calculated Eris to be 27 percent more massive than Pluto. Credit: NASA/ESA/Adolph Schaller (for STScI)

This could mean that Dysnomia was the result of a collision between Eris and a large KBO. After the impact, the icy material and other trace elements that made up the object would have evaporated and been ejected into orbit around Eris, where it then re-accumulated to form Dysnomia. A similar mechanism is believed to have led to the formation of the Moon when Earth was struck by a giant impactor early in the history of the Solar System.

Since its discovery, Eris has lived up to its namesake by stirring things up. However, it has also helped astronomers to learn many things about this distant region of the Solar System. As already mentioned, astronomers have used Dysnomia to estimate the mass of Eris, which in turn helped them to compare it to Pluto.

While astronomers already knew that Eris was bigger than Pluto, but they did not know whether it was more massive. This they did by measuring the distance between Dysnomia and how long it takes to orbit Eris. Using this method, astronomers were able to discover that Eris is 27% more massive than Pluto is.

With this knowledge in hand, the IAU then realized that either Eris needed to be classified as a planet, or that the term “planet” itself needed to be refined. Ergo, one could make that case that it was the discovery of Dysnomia more than Eris that led to Pluto no longer being designated a planet.

Universe Today has articles on Xena named Eris and The Dwarf Planet Eris. For more information, check out Dysnomia and dwarf planet outweighs Pluto.

Astronomy Cast has an episode on Pluto’s planetary identity crisis.

Sources:

July 28, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Faces of the Solar System

Move over, Pluto... Disney already has dibs on Mercury as seen in this MESSENGER photo. Image credit: NASA/JHAPL/Carnegie institution of Washington

“Look, it has a tiny face on it!”

This sentiment was echoed ‘round the web recently, as an image of Pluto’s tiny moon Nix was released by the NASA New Horizons team. Sure, we’ve all been there. Lay back in a field on a lazy July summer’s day, and soon, you’ll see faces of all sorts in the puffy stratocumulus clouds holding the promise of afternoon showers.

Pluto's moon Nix as imaged by New Horizons from 590,000 kilometers distant. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI — Pluto’s moon Nix as imaged by New Horizons from 590,000 kilometers distant. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

This predilection is so hard-wired into our brains, that often our facial recognition software sees faces where there are none. Certainly, seeing faces is a worthy survival strategy; not only is this aspect of cognition handy in recognizing the friendlies of our own tribe, but it’s also useful in the reading of facial expressions by giving us cues of the myriad ‘tells’ in the social poker game of life.

And yes, there’s a term for the illusion of seeing faces in the visual static: pareidolia. We deal lots with pareidolia in astronomy and skeptical circles. As NASA images of brave new worlds are released, an army of basement bloggers are pouring over them, seeing miniature bigfoots, flowers, and yes, lots of humanoid figures and faces. Two craters and the gash of a trench for a mouth will do.

Now that new images of Pluto and its entourage of moons are pouring in, neural circuits ‘cross the web are misfiring, seeing faces, half-buried alien skeletons and artifacts strewn across Pluto and Charon. Of course, most of these claims are simply hilarious and easily dismissed… no one, for example, thinks the Earth’s Moon is an artificial construct, though its distorted nearside visage has been gazing upon the drama of humanity for millions of years.

Do you see the 'Man in the Moon?' Image credit: Dave Dickinson — Do you see the ‘Man in the Moon?’ Image credit: Dave Dickinson

The psychology of seeing faces is such that a whole region of the occipital lobe of the brain known as the fusiform face area is dedicated to facial recognition. We each have a unique set of neurons that fire in patterns to recognize the faces of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and other celebs (thanks, internet).

Damage this area at the base of the brain or mess with its circuitry, and a condition known as prosopagnosia, or face blindness can occur. Author Oliver Sacks and actor Brad Pitt are just a few famous personalities who suffer from this affliction.

The 'Snowman of Vesta,' as imaged by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA — The ‘Snowman of Vesta,’ as imaged by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Conversely, ‘super-recognizers’ at the other end of the spectrum have a keen sense for facial identification that verges on a super-power. True story: my wife has just such a gift, and can immediately spot second-string actors and actresses in modern movies from flicks and television shows decades old.

It would be interesting to know if there’s a correlation between face blindness, super-recognition and seeing faces in the shadows and contrast on distant worlds… to our knowledge, no such study has been conducted. Do super-recognizers see faces in the shadowy ridges and craters of the solar system more or less than everyone else?

A well-known example was the infamous ‘Face on Mars.’ Imaged by the Viking 1 orbiter in 1976, this half in shadow image looked like a human face peering back up at us from the surface of the Red Planet from the Cydonia region.

Image credit: The 'Face on Mars': HiRISE vs Viking 1 (inset): Image credit: NASA/JPL — Image credit: The ‘Face on Mars’: HiRISE vs Viking 1 (inset): Image credit: NASA/JPL

But when is a face not a face?

Now, it’s not an entirely far-fetched idea that an alien entity visiting the solar system would place something (think the monolith on the Moon from Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) for us to find. The idea is simple: place such an artifact so that it not only sticks out like a sore thumb, but also so it isn’t noticed until we become a space-faring society. Such a serious claim would, however, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, demand serious and rigorous evidence.

But instead of ‘Big NASA’ moving to cover up the ‘face,’ they did indeed re-image the region with both the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor at a much higher resolution. Though the 1.5 kilometer feature is still intriguing from a geological perspective… it’s now highly un-facelike in appearance.

A 'face' or... more fun with 'scifi spacecraft pareidolia. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Paramount Pictures — A ‘face’ or… more fun with ‘scifi spacecraft pareidolia.’ Image credit: NASA/JPL/Paramount Pictures

Of course, it won’t stop the deniers from claiming it was all a big cover-up… but if that were the case, why release such images and make them freely available online? We’ve worked in the military before, and can attest that NASA is actually the most transparent of government agencies.

We also know the click bait claims of all sorts of alleged sightings will continue to crop up across the web, with cries of ‘Wake up, Sheeople!’ (usually in all caps) as a brave band of science-writing volunteers continue to smack down astro-pareidolia on a pro bono basis in battle of darkness and light which will probably never end.

What examples of astro-pareidolia have you come across in your exploits?

July 27, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Blues for the Second Full Moon of July

An artificially created 'Blue Moon,' using the white balance settings on the camera. Image credit and copyright: John Chumack

Brace yourselves for Blue Moon madness. The month of July 2015 hosts two Full Moons: One on July 2^nd and another coming right up this week on Friday, July 31^st at 10:43 Universal Time (UT)/6:43 AM EDT.

In modern day vernacular, the occurrence of two Full Moons in one calendar month has become known as a ‘Blue Moon.’ This is a result of the synodic period (the amount of time it takes for the Moon to return to a like phase, in this case Full back to Full) of 29.5 Earth days being less than every calendar month except February.

In the ‘two Full Moons in one month’ sense, the last time a Blue Moon occurred was on August 31st, 2012, and the next is January 31^st, 2018. The next time a Blue Moon occurs in the month of July is 2034, and the last July Blue Moon was 2004.

We say “once in a blue Moon,” as if it’s a rarity, but as you can see, they’re fairly frequent, occurring nearly once every 2-3 years or so.

Now, we’ll let you in on a secret. Like its modern internet meme cousin the ‘Super-Moon,’ astronomers don’t sit in mountain top observatories discussing the vagaries of the Blue Moon. In fact, astronomers rarely like to observe during the weeks surrounding the light-polluting Full Moon, and often compile data from the comfort of their university offices rather than visit mountaintop observatories these days…

The modern Blue Moon is now more of a cultural phenomenon. We’ve written previously about how an error brought us to the current ‘two Full Moons in one month definition.’ A more convoluted old timey definition was introduced in ye ole Maine Farmer’s Almanac circa 1930s as “the third Full Moon in an astronomical season with four.”

Legend has it that the Maine Farmer’s Almanac denoted this pesky extra seasonal Full Moon with ‘blue’ instead of black ink… to our knowledge, no examples exist to support this intriguing tale. Anyone have any old almanacs in the attic holding such a revelation out there?

The ghostly glow of the gibbous moon in Jean-Francois Millet's The Sheepfold. Image Credit: Public Domain — The ghostly glow of the gibbous moon in Jean-Francois Millet’s The Sheepfold. Image Credit: Public Domain

We’ve also laid out the occurrences for both types of Blue Moons for the remainder of the decade, as well as its New Moon cousin and internet meme to be, the Black Moon.

Untitled — The rising waxing gibbous Moon on the night of September 23rd, 1950. Image credit: Stellarium

Of course, the Moon most likely won’t appear to be physically blue, no matter what friends/family/co-workers/anonymous persons on Twitter say. The Moon can actually appear blue, as it did on September 23^rd, 1950 for much of the eastern United States and Canada through the haze of several forest fires in western Canada. The Moon was actually at waxing gibbous phase on the evening of this phenomenon, and as far as we can tell, no photographic documentation of this event exists. Spaceweather, has, however gathered a gallery of blue moon eyewitness reports over the years, including a few images. This occurs when moonlight is filtered through suspended oil drops about a micrometer in diameter which scattered yellow and red light, leaving a Moon with a ghostly indigo glow.

The 2012 Blue Moon as seen rising from Hudson, Florida. Image credit: Dave Dickinson

So there’s definitely another challenge to catch and photograph a truly ‘Blue Moon’ under such rare atmospheric circumstances… and remember, the Moon doesn’t have to be near Full to do it!

Watch that Moon, as we’ve got a few red letter dates coming up through the remainder of 2015. First up: the Supermoon season cometh in August, as we have a series of three Full Moons falling less than 24 hours from perigee on August 29^th, September 28^th, and October 27^th. Our money is on that middle one as having the potential to generate the most online lunacy, as it’s also the last total lunar eclipse of the current tetrad of four total lunar eclipses for 2014 and 2015, a ‘super-blood moon eclipse’ anyone? Though the dead won’t rise from the grave to mark such an occasion, you can be sure that many a sky aficionado will stumble zombie-like into the office the next day after pulling an all-nighter for the last good North American total lunar eclipse until 2018.

And it’s worth noting the path of the Moon, as it reaches its shallow mid-point in the last half of 2015. The Moon’s orbit is tilted about five degrees relative to the ecliptic, meaning that it can ride anywhere from 18 degrees—as it does this year—to 28 degrees from the celestial equator. This cycle takes about 19 years to complete, and a wide-ranging ‘long nights Moon’ last occurred in 2006, and will next occur in 2025.

A 'mock Blue Moon...' — A ‘mock Blue Moon…’ induced by use of a military flashlight filter. Image credit: Dave Dickinson

So don’t fear the Blue Moon, but be sure to take a stroll under its light this coming Friday… and perhaps enjoy a frosty Blue Moon beer on the eve of the sultry month of August.

July 23, 2015April 26, 2016 by Alan Boyle

A Place for Alien Life? Kepler Mission Discovers Earth’s Older Cousin, Kepler-452b

Scientists say NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has discovered Earth’s “older, bigger first cousin” – a planet that’s about 60 percent bigger than our own, circling a sunlike star in an orbit that could sustain liquid water and perhaps life.

“Today, Earth is a little bit less lonely, because there’s a new kid on the block,” Kepler data analysis lead Jon Jenkins, a computer scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said Thursday during a NASA teleconference about the find.

The alien world, known as Kepler-452b, is about 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus – too far away to reach unless somebody perfects interstellar transporters. But its discovery raises the bar yet again in the search for Earth 2.0, which is a big part of Kepler’s mission.

Jenkins said that Kepler-452b has a better than even chance of being a rocky planet (though there’s some question about that). Its size implies that it’s about five times as massive as Earth. He said the planet might be cloudier than Earth and volcanically active, based on geological modeling. Visiting Earthlings would weigh twice as much as they did on Earth – until they walked around for a few weeks and “lost some serious pounds,” he joked.

An artist's impression shows the surface of Kepler 452b. In the scenario depicted here, the planet is just entering a runaway greenhouse phase of its climate history. Kepler 452b could be giving us a preview of what Earth will undergo more than a billion years from now as the sun ages and grows brighter. Credit: Danielle Futselaar / SETI Institute/ — An artist’s impression shows the surface of Kepler 452b. In the scenario depicted here, the planet is just entering a runaway greenhouse phase of its climate history. Kepler 452b could be giving us a preview of what Earth will undergo more than a billion years from now as the sun ages and grows brighter. Credit: Danielle Futselaar / SETI Institute

The planet is about 5 percent farther from its parent star than Earth is from our sun, with a year that lasts 385 days. Its sun is 10 percent bigger and 20 percent brighter than our sun, with the same classification as a G2 dwarf. But Kepler-452b’s star is older than our 4.6 billion-year-old home star – which suggests the cosmic conditions for life could be long-lasting.

“It’s simply awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star, which is longer than the age of the Earth,” Jenkins said. Models for planetary development suggest that Kepler-452b would experience an increasing warming trend and perhaps a runaway greenhouse effect as it aged, he said.

Kepler-452b’s advantages trump the mission’s earlier planetary discoveries. One involved a rocky planet, just a little bigger than Earth, that was found in its parent star’s habitable zone – that is, the kind of orbit where liquid water could exist. But that star, known as Kepler-186, is a shrunken red dwarf rather than a close analog to the sun.

Kepler research scientist Jeff Coughlin said it’s not clear how hospitable a planet circling a red dwarf might be. A rocky planet in the right orbit around a sunlike star is a surer bet. “We’re here on Earth, we know there’s life here,” he said.

Scientists said Kepler-452b is on the target list for the SETI Institute’s search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, using the Allen Telescope Array in California – but no alien detection has been reported. “So far, the 452b-ians have been coy,” Seth Shostak, the institute’s senior astronomer and director of the Center for SETI Research, told Universe Today in an email.

Planetary system comparison — This size and scale of the Kepler-452 system compared alongside our own solar system, plus another planetary system with a habitable-zone planet known as Kepler-186f. The Kepler-186 system has a faint red dwarf star.

John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science, characterized the newly announced planet as the “closest twin” to Earth discovered so far. However, he said further analysis of the Kepler data may turn up even closer relatives.

Launched in 2009, Kepler detects alien worlds by looking for the faint dimming of a star as a planet crosses its disk. The SUV-sized telescope has spotted more than 4,600 planet candidates.

So far, about 1,000 of those have been confirmed as planets using other methods, ranging from detecting their parent stars’ Doppler shifts to carefully measuring the time intervals between the passages of planets. For Kepler-452b, scientists used ground-based observations and computer models to estimate the mass and confirm the detection to a level of 99.76 percent, Jenkins said.

The findings were due to be published online Thursday by the Astrophysical Journal, Jenkins said. In addition to Kepler-452b, another 521 planet candidates have been added to the mission’s checklist – including 12 candidates that appear to be one to two times as wide as Earth and orbit in their parent stars’ habitable zones. Nine of the stars are similar to our own sun in size and temperature, NASA said in a news release.

There’s sure to be more to come. In 2013, Kepler was crippled by failures of its fine-pointing navigation system, but it returned to its planet-hunting mission last year, thanks to some clever tweaking that makes use of the solar wind as an extra stabilizer. “It’s kind of the best-worst thing that ever happened to Kepler,” Jenkins said.

July 23, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Astronomers Spot a Intriguing ‘5-Star’ Multiple System

An interesting multiple star discovery turned up in the ongoing hunt for exoplanetary systems.

The discovery was announced by Marcus Lohr of Open University early this month at the National Astronomy Meeting that was held at Venue Cymru in Llandudno, Wales.

The discovery involves as many as five stars in a single stellar system, orbiting in a complex configuration.

The name of the system, 1SWASP J093010.78+533859.5, is a phone number-style designation related to the SuperWASP exoplanet hunting transit survey involved with the discovery. The lengthy numerical designation denotes the system’s position in the sky in right ascension and declination in the constellation Ursa Major.

And what a bizarre system it is. The physical parameters of the group are simply amazing, though not as unique as some media outlets have led readers to believe. What is amazing is the fact that both pairs of binaries in the quadruple group are also eclipsing along our line of sight. Only five other quadruple eclipsing binary systems of this nature are known, to include BV/BW Draconis and V994 Herculis.

The very fact that the orbits of both pairs of stars are in similar inclinations will provide key insights for researchers as to just how this system formed.

The first pair in the system are contact binaries of 0.9 and 0.3 solar masses respectively in a tight embrace revolving about each other in just under six hours. Contact binaries consist of distorted stars whose photospheres are actually touching. A famous example is the eclipsing contact binary Beta Lyrae.

An animation of the orbits of the contact binary pair Beta Lyrae captured using the CHARA interferometer. Image credit: Ming Zhao et al. ApJ 684, L95

A closer analysis of the discovery revealed another pair of detached stars of 0.8 and 0.7 solar masses orbiting each other about 21 billion kilometres (140 AUs distant) from the first pair. You could plop the orbit of Pluto down between the two binary pairs, with room to spare.

But wait, there’s more. Astronomers use a technique known as spectroscopy to tease out the individual light spectra signatures of close binaries too distant to resolve individually. This method revealed the presence of a fifth star in orbit 2 billion kilometers (13.4 AUs, about 65% the average distance from Uranus to the Sun) around the detached pair.

“This is a truly exotic star system,” Lohr said in a Royal Society press release. “In principle, there’s no reason it couldn’t have planets in orbit around each of the pairs of stars.”

Indeed, ‘night’ would be a rare concept on any planet in a tight orbit around either binary pair. In order for darkness to occur, all five stellar components would have to appear near mutual conjunction, something that would only happen once every orbit for the hypothetical world.

Such a planet is a staple of science fiction, including Tatooine of Star Wars fame (which orbits a relatively boring binary pair), and the multiple star system of the Firefly series. Perhaps the best contender for a fictional quadruple star system is the 12 colonies of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series, which exist in a similar double-pair configuration.

How rare is this discovery, really? Multiple systems are more common than solitary stars such as our Sun by a ratio of about 2:1. In fact, it’s been suggested by rare Earth proponents that life arose here on Earth in part because we have a stable orbit around a relatively placid lone star. The solar system’s nearest stellar neighbor Alpha Centauri is a triple star system. The bright star Castor in the constellation of Gemini the Twins is a famous multiple heavyweight with six components in a similar configuration as this month’s discovery. Another familiar quadruple system to backyard observers is the ‘double-double’ Epsilon Lyrae, in which all four components can be split. Mizar and Alcor in the handle of the Big Dipper asterism is another triple-pair, six-star system. Another multiple, Gamma Velorum, may also possess as many as six stars. Nu Scorpii and AR Cassiopeiae are suspected septuple systems, each perhaps containing up to seven stars.

Fun fact: Gamma Velorum is also informally known as ‘Regor,’ a backwards anagram play on Apollo 1 astronaut ‘Roger’ Chaffee’s name. The crew secretly inserted their names into the Apollo star maps during training!

What is the record number of stars in one system? Hierarchy 3 systems such as Castor are contenders. A.A. Tokivinin’s Multiple Star Catalogue lists five components in a hierarchy 4 system in Ophiuchus named Gliese 644AB, with the potential for more.

How many stars are possible in one star system? Certainly, a hierarchy 4 type system could support up the eight stars, though to our knowledge, no example of such a multiple star system has yet been confirmed. Still, it’s a big universe out there, and the cosmos has lots of stars to play with.

A wide-field view of the constellation Ursa Major, with Theta Ursae Majoris selected (inset). image credit; Stellarium — A wide-field view of the constellation Ursa Major, with Theta Ursae Majoris selected (inset). Image credit; Stellarium

And you can see 1SWASP J093010.78+533859.5 for yourself. At 250 light years distant, the +9^th magnitude binary is about 1.5 degrees north-northwest of the star Theta Ursa Majoris, and is an tough but not impossible split with a separation of 1.88” between the two primary pairs.

Finder chart for 1SWAP J093010.78+533859.5 with a five degree Telrad foV. Image credit: Stellarium

Congrats to the team on this amazing discovery… to paraphrase Haldane, the Universe is proving to be stranger than we can imagine!

July 23, 2015December 23, 2015 by Vanessa Janek

What’s the Big Deal About the Pentaquark?

The pentaquark, a novel arrangement of five elementary particles, has been detected at the Large Hadron Collider. This particle may hold the key to a better understanding of the Universe's strong nuclear force. [Image credit: CERN/LHCb experiment]

“Three quarks for Muster Mark!,” wrote James Joyce in his labyrinthine fable, Finnegan’s Wake. By now, you may have heard this quote – the short, nonsensical sentence that eventually gave the name “quark” to the Universe’s (as-yet-unsurpassed) most fundamental building blocks. Today’s physicists believe that they understand the basics of how quarks combine; three join up to form baryons (everyday particles like the proton and neutron), while two – a quark and an antiquark – stick together to form more exotic, less stable varieties called mesons. Rare four-quark partnerships are called tetraquarks. And five quarks bound in a delicate dance? Naturally, that would be a pentaquark. And the pentaquark, until recently a mere figment of physics lore, has now been detected at the LHC!

So what’s the big deal? Far from just being a fun word to say five-times-fast, the pentaquark may unlock vital new information about the strong nuclear force. These revelations could ultimately change the way we think about our superbly dense friend, the neutron star – and, indeed, the nature of familiar matter itself.

Physicists know of six types of quarks, which are ordered by weight. The lightest of the six are the up and down quarks, which make up the most familiar everyday baryons (two ups and a down in the proton, and two downs and an up in the neutron). The next heaviest are the charm and strange quarks, followed by the top and bottom quarks. And why stop there? In addition, each of the six quarks has a corresponding anti-particle, or antiquark.

Six types of quark, arranged from left to right by way of their mass, depicted along with the other elementary particles of the Standard Model. The Higgs boson was added to the right side of the menagerie in 2012. (Image Credit: Fermilab)

An important attribute of both quarks and their anti-particle counterparts is something called “color.” Of course, quarks do not have color in the same way that you might call an apple “red” or the ocean “blue”; rather, this property is a metaphorical way of communicating one of the essential laws of subatomic physics – that quark-containing particles (called hadrons) always carry a neutral color charge.

For instance, the three components of a proton must include one red quark, one green quark, and one blue quark. These three “colors” add up to a neutral particle in the same way that red, green, and blue light combine to create a white glow. Similar laws are in place for the quark and antiquark that make up a meson: their respective colors must be exactly opposite. A red quark will only combine with an anti-red (or cyan) antiquark, and so on.

The pentaquark, too, must have a neutral color charge. Imagine a proton and a meson (specifically, a type called a J/psi meson) bound together – a red, a blue, and a green quark in one corner, and a color-neutral quark-antiquark pair in the other – for a grand total of four quarks and one antiquark, all colors of which neatly cancel each other out.

Physicists are not sure whether the pentaquark is created by this type of segregated arrangement or whether all five quarks are bound together directly; either way, like all hadrons, the pentaquark is kept in check by that titan of fundamental dynamics, the strong nuclear force.

The strong nuclear force, as its name implies, is the unspeakably robust force that glues together the components of every atomic nucleus: protons and neutrons and, more crucially, their own constituent quarks. The strong force is so tenacious that “free quarks” have never been observed; they are all confined far too tightly within their parent baryons.

But there is one place in the Universe where quarks may exist in and of themselves, in a kind of meta-nuclear state: in an extraordinarily dense type of neutron star. In a typical neutron star, the gravitational pressure is so tremendous that protons and electrons cease to be. Their energies and charges melt together, leaving nothing but a snug mass of neutrons.

Physicists have conjectured that, at extreme densities, in the most compact of stars, adjacent neutrons within the core may even themselves disintegrate into a jumble of constituent parts.

The neutron star… would become a quark star.

The difference between a neutron star and a quark star (Chandra) — The difference between a neutron star and a quark star. (Image Credit: Chandra)

Scientists believe that understanding the physics of the pentaquark may shed light on the way the strong nuclear force operates under such extreme conditions – not only in such overly dense neutron stars, but perhaps even in the first fractions of a second following the Big Bang. Further analysis should also help physicists refine their understanding of the ways that quarks can and cannot combine.

The data that gave rise to this discovery – a whopping 9-sigma result! – came out of the LHC’s first run (2010-2013). With the supercollider now operating at double its original energy capacity, physicists should have no problem unraveling the mysteries of the pentaquark even further.

A preprint of the pentaquark discovery, which has been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters, can be found here.

July 23, 2015December 23, 2015 by Alan Boyle

What’s Up With Ceres’ Mysterious Bright Spots? Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later

Ceres' spots — The brightest spots on dwarf planet Ceres are seen in this image taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on June 6, 2015. The picture was taken from an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The crater that contains those puzzlingly bright spots on Ceres may harbor an equally puzzling haze. Or not. The hints of haze on the dwarf planet, seen in some of the images coming from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, add another intriguing twist to Ceres’ mysteries.

The hubbub over haze arose this week during the Exploration Science Forum at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. For months, Dawn’s scientists have been observing – and trying to make sense out of – unusually reflective spots within Ceres’ craters that show up when the asteroid turns into the sunlight. The team has speculated that they could be frozen pools of water ice, or patches of light-colored, salt-rich material.

The brightest spots are known collectively as Spot 5, and sit inside Occator Crater on Ceres. Dawn’s principal investigator, Chris Russell of the University of California at Los Angeles, told the forum that some type of haze could be seen inside the crater at certain times of Ceres’ day, according to reports from Nature and the Planetary Society. Nature quoted Russell as saying the bright spots “could be providing some atmosphere in this particular region of Ceres.”

Last year, scientists with the European Space Agency’s Herschel mission reported detecting signs of water vapor rising from Ceres’ surface, and it would be tempting to suggest that the water vapor is emanating from bright icy spots and creating the haze. That would strengthen Ceres’ status as the only asteroid with a significant atmosphere and a subsurface reservoir of water, and stoke speculation about life on Ceres.

However, Russell told Universe Today that it’s way too early to give in to temptation.

“I was speaking from less than a handful of images, and the interpretation of the images is disputed by some team members,” Russell said in an email. “I would like the debate to go on internally before we make a pronouncement one way or the other. I of course have my personal opinion, but I am not always right.”

"Whateer the cause of the bright spots, Ceres is active today". #nasaames #ceres #sservi pic.twitter.com/y718IDloda

— Sidney N. Nakahodo (@snnaka) July 21, 2015

Russell said the ice-vs.-salt debate is continuing. “I originally was an advocate of ice, because of how bright the spots seemed to be,” he said. However, the bright material’s albedo, or reflectivity factor, is about 50 percent – which is less than Russell originally thought. “This could be salt and is unlikely to be ice. I think the team opinion is now more in line with salt,” he said.

Either way, Russell doesn’t see any way for the spots to form without internal activity on Ceres. “Thus, the very existence of the spots tells us that there is some active process going on,” he told Universe Today.

Will we ever know if the haze is for real? Or what the spots are made of? As the Magic 8-Ball might say, “Ask again later.” The Dawn spacecraft recently recovered from a mechanical glitch and is gradually descending to a closer mapping orbit, around an altitude of 900 miles (1,500 kilometers). That will provide a much better look at Occator Crater and what lies within.

“Eventually I am expecting the spectral data will unambiguously tell us what has happened to the surface,” Russell said, “but it is a little too soon to be sure.”

July 21, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Moonspotting-A Guide to Observing the Moons of the Solar System

Like splitting double stars, hunting for the faint lesser known moons of the solar system offers a supreme challenge for the visual observer.

Sure, you’ve seen the Jovian moons do their dance, and Titan is old friend for many a star party patron as they check out the rings of Saturn… but have you ever spotted Triton or Amalthea?

Welcome to the challenging world of moon-spotting. Discovering these moons for yourself can be an unforgettable thrill.

One of the key challenges in spotting many of the fainter moons is the fact that they lie so close inside the glare of their respective host planet. For example, +11^th magnitude Phobos wouldn’t be all that tough on its own, were it not for the fact that it always lies close to dazzling Mars. 10 magnitudes equals a 10,000-fold change in brightness, and the fact that most of these moons are swapped out is what makes them so tough to see. This is also why many of them weren’t discovered until later on.

But don’t despair. One thing you can use that’s relatively easy to construct is an occulting bar eyepiece. This will allow you to hide the dazzle of the planet behind the bar while scanning the suspect area to the side for the faint moon. Large aperture, steady skies, and well collimated optics are a must as well, and don’t be afraid to crank up the magnification in your quest. We mentioned using such a technique previously as a method to tease out the white dwarf star Sirius b in the years to come.

What follows is a comprehensive list of the well known ‘easy ones,’ along with some challenges.

We included a handy drill down of magnitudes, orbital periods and maximum separations for the moons of each planet right around opposition. For the more difficult moons, we also noted the circumstances of their discovery, just to give the reader some idea what it takes to see these fleeting worlds. Remember though, many of those old scopes used speculum metal mirrors which were vastly inferior to commercial optics available today. You may have a large Dobsonian scope available that rivals these scopes of yore!

Mars- The two tiny moons of Mars are a challenge, as it’s only possible to nab them visually near opposition, which occurs about once every 26 months. Mars next reaches opposition on May 22^nd, 2016.

Phobos:

Magnitude: +11.3

Orbital period: 7 hours 39 minutes

Maximum separation: 16”

Deimos:

Magnitude: +12.3

Orbital period: 1 day 6 hours and 20 minutes

Maximum separation: 54”

The moons of Mars were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall during the favorable 1877 opposition of Mars using the 26-inch refracting telescope at the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Jupiter- Though the largest planet in our solar system also has the largest number of moons at 67, only the four bright Galilean moons are easily observable, although owners of large light buckets might just be able to tease out another two. Jupiter next reaches opposition March 8^th, 2016.

Ganymede:

Magnitude: +4.6

Orbital period: 7.2 days

Maximum separation: 5’

Callisto

Magnitude: +5.7

Orbital period: 16.7 days

Maximum separation: 9’

Magnitude: +5.0

Orbital period: 1.8 days

Maximum separation: 1’ 50”

Europa

Magnitude: +5.3

Orbital period: 3.6 days

Maximum separation: 3’

Amalthea

Magnitude: +14.3

Orbital period: 11 hours 57 minutes

Maximum separation: 33”

Himalia

Magnitude: +15

Orbital period: 250.2 days

Maximum separation: 52’

Note that Amalthea was the first of Jupiter’s moons discovered after the four Galilean moons. Amalthea was first spotted in 1892 by E. E. Barnard using the 36” refractor at the Lick Observatory. Himalia was also discovered at Lick by Charles Dillon Perrine in 1904.

Titan and Rhea imaged via Iphone and a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope. Image credit: Andrew Symes (@failedprotostar)

Saturn- With a total number of moons at 62, six moons of Saturn are easily observable with a backyard telescope, though keen-eyed observers might just be able to tease out another two:

(Note: the listed separation from the moons of Saturn is from the limb of the disk, not the rings).

Titan

Magnitude: +8.5

Orbital period: 16 days

Maximum separation: 3’

Rhea

Magnitude: +10.0

Orbital period: 4.5 days

Maximum separation: 1’ 12”

Iapetus

Magnitude: (variable) +10.2 to +11.9

Orbital period: 79 days

Maximum separation: 9’

Enceladus

Magnitude: +12

Orbital period: 1.4 days

Maximum separation: 27″

Dione

Magnitude: +10.4

Orbital period: 2.7 days

Maximum separation: 46”

Tethys

Magnitude: +10.2

Orbital period: 1.9 days

Maximum separation: 35”

Mimas

Magnitude: +12.9

Orbital period: 0.9 days

Maximum separation: 18”

Hyperion

Magnitude: +14.1

Orbital period: 21.3 days

Maximum separation: 3’ 30”

Phoebe

Magnitude: +16.6

Orbital period: 541 days

Maximum separation: 27’

Hyperion was discovered by William Bond using the Harvard observatory’s 15” refractor in 1848, and Phoebe was the first moon discovered photographically by William Pickering in 1899.

Uranus- All of the moons of the ice giants are tough. Though Uranus has a total of 27 moons, only five of them might be spied using a backyard scope. Uranus next reaches opposition on October 12^th, 2015.

Titania

Magnitude: +13.9

Orbital period:

Maximum separation: 28”

Oberon

Magnitude: +14.1

Orbital period: 8.7 days

Maximum separation: 40”

Umbriel

Magnitude: +15

Orbital period: 4.1 days

Maximum separation: 15”

Ariel

Magnitude: +14.3

Orbital period: 2.5 days

Maximum separation: 13”

Miranda

Magnitude: +16.5

Orbital period: 1.4 days

Maximum separation: 9”

The first two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon, were discovered by William Herschel in 1787 using his 49.5” telescope, the largest of its day.

Neptune- With a total number of moons numbering 14, two are within reach of the skilled amateur observer. Opposition for Neptune is coming right up on September 1^st, 2015.

Triton

Magnitude: +13.5

Orbital period: 5.9 days

Maximum separation: 15”

Nereid

Magnitude: +18.7

Orbital period: 0.3 days

Maximum separation: 6’40”

Triton was discovered by William Lassell using a 24” reflector in 1846, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune itself. Nereid wasn’t found until 1949 by Gerard Kuiper.

Pluto-Yes… it is possible to spy Charon from Earth… as amateur astronomers proved in 2008.

Charon

Magnitude: +16

Orbital period: 6.4 days

Maximum separation: 0.8”

In order to cross off some of the more difficult targets on the list, you’ll need to know exactly when these moons are at their greatest elongation. Sky and Telescope has some great apps in the case of Jupiter and Saturn… the PDS Rings node can also generate corkscrew charts of lesser known moons, and Starry Night has ‘em as well. In addition, we tend to publish cork screw charts for moons right around respective oppositions, and our ephemeris for Charon elongations though July 2015 is still active.

Good luck in crossing off some of these faint moons from your astronomical life list!

July 16, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Three-tailed Comet Q1 PanSTARRS Lights Up Southern Skies

A cosmic pair extraordinaire! Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS joins the crescent Moon (overexposed here to show details of the comet) on July 18 from Australia. Credit: Terry Lovejoy

Call it the comet that squeaked by most northern skywatchers. Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS barely made an appearance at dawn in mid-June when it crept a few degrees above the northeastern horizon at dawn. Only a few determined comet watchers spotted the creature.

Two weeks later in early July it slipped into the evening and brightened to magnitude +4. But decreasing elongation from the Sun and bright twilight made it virtually impossible to see. Now it’s returned — with three tails!

Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS looks pretty against pink dusk seen from Swan Hill, Victoria, Australia on July 15. The comet is quickly moving up from the western horizon into a darker sky. Credit: Michael Mattiazzo

Comet Q1 PANSTARRS photographed at extremely low altitude just 10° from the Sun 45 minutes after sunset from Austria on July 4, 2015, with a 10-inch telescope. Credit: Michael Jaeger

After taunting northerners, it’s finally come out of hiding, climbing into the western sky during evening twilight for observers at low and southern latitudes. C/2014 Q1 peaked at about 3rd magnitude at perihelion on July 6, when it missed the Sun by just 28 million miles (45 million km). The comet is now on a collision course with the Venus-Jupiter planet pair. Not a real collision, but the three will all be within about 7° of each other from July 21 to about the 24th. A pair of wide-field binoculars will catch all three in the same view.

An amazing three tails are visible in this photo taken with a 200mm lens on July 15 at dusk. Credit: Michael Mattiazzo — Not one, not two but three tails are visible in this photo of C/2014 Q1 taken with a 200mm lens on July 15 at dusk. The ion or gas tail splits from the dust tail a short distance up from the comet’s head. A third broad dust tail 1° long points north (to the right and below head). See photo below for further details. Credit: Michael Mattiazzo

More striking, a sliver Moon will hover just 2.5° above the comet on Saturday the 18th, one day before its closest approach to Earth of 109.7 million miles (176.6 million km). Q1 has been fading since perihelion but not too much. Australian observers Michael Mattiazzo and Paul Camilleri pegged it at magnitude +5.2 on July 15-16. Although it wasn’t visible with the naked eye because of a bright sky, binoculars and small telescopes provided wonderful views.

Another excellent capture. C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS photographed through visual (top) and red filters with a 300mm telephoto lens on July 14, 2015. Credit: Martin Masek

Here’s Mattiazzo’s observation:

“The view through my 25 x 100 mm binoculars showed a lovely parabolic dust hood about half a degree to the east,” he wrote in an e-mail communication. “Photographically the comet showed three separate tails, a forked ion tail about 1.5° long. Embedded within this was the main dust tail about half a degree long to the east and an unusual feature at right angles to the main tail — a broad “dust trail” 1° long to the north”.

Mattiazzo points out that the unusual trail, known as a Type III dust tail, indicates a massive release of dust particles around the time of perihelion. This comet got cooked!

Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS is now best seen from the southern hemisphere (Alice Springs, Australia here) during the winter months of July and August. On July 18th (shown here) the comet joins the crescent Moon, Jupiter, and Venus for a scenic gathering in the west at nightfall. Stars to magnitude 6. — Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS is best seen from the southern hemisphere during the winter months of July and August. The map shows the nightly position of the comet seen from Alice Springs, Australia facing west about an hour after sundown from July 16 – August 11. Stars to magnitude 6. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap

In the coming nights, C/2014 Q1 will cool, fade and slide into a darker sky and may be glimpsed with the naked eye before moving into binoculars-only territory. It should remain an easy target for small telescopes through August. Use the map above to help you find it. For longer-term viewing, try this map.

Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS displays three remarkable tails in this photo taken on July 15, 2015. The ion or gas tail stretches to the left. The primary dust tail is bright and overlaps the gas tail. A third broad and diffuse tail juts off to the upper left of the coma. Credit: Michael Jaeger — Comet C/2014 Q1 PanSTARRS displays three remarkable tails in this photo taken on July 15, 2015. The ion or gas tail stretches to the left. The primary dust tail is bright and overlaps the gas tail. The Type III dust tail juts off to the upper left of the coma. Click for another amazing image taken July 18. Credit: Michael Jaeger

While I’m happy for our southern brothers and sisters, many of us in the north have that empty stomach feeling when it comes to bright comets. We’ve done well by C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy (still visible at magnitude +10 in the northern sky) for much of the year, but unless a bright, new comet comes flying out of nowhere, we’ll have to wait till mid-November. That’s when Comet Catalina (C/2013 US10) will hopefully jolt us out of bed at dawn with naked eye comet written all over it.

July 15, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Catch a Fine Lunar Planetary Grouping This Weekend

Image Credit: Andrew Symes (@FailedProtostar).

Phew! Our eyes and thoughts have been cast so far out into the outer reaches of the solar system following New Horizons and Pluto this week, that we’re just now getting to the astronomical action going on in our own backyard.

You’ll recall that Venus and Jupiter have made a fine pairing in the evening sky since their close approach on July 1^st. Despite some of the incredulous ‘Star of Bethlehem’ claims that this was a conjunction that happens ‘once every two thousand years,’ this sort of pairing is actually quite common. In fact, Venus and Jupiter are set to meet up again in the dawn sky later this year on October 25th. Continue reading “Catch a Fine Lunar Planetary Grouping This Weekend”