News Archives

October 16, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

What’s Orbiting KIC 8462852 – Shattered Comet or Alien Megastructure?

Something other than a transiting planet makes the Kepler star KIC fluctuate wildly and unpredictably in brightness. Astronomers suspect a shattered comet, but who knows? Credit: NASA

“Bizarre.” “Interesting.” “Giant transit”. That were the reactions of Planet Hunters project volunteers when they got their first look at the light curve of the otherwise normal sun-like star KIC 8462852 nearly.

Of the more than 150,000 stars under constant observation during the four years of NASA’s primary Kepler Mission (2009-2013), this one stands alone for the inexplicable dips in its light. While almost certainly naturally-caused, some have suggested we consider other possibilities.

Kepler-11 is a sun-like star around which six planets orbit. At times, two or more planets pass in front of the star at once, as shown in this artist's conception of a simultaneous transit of three planets observed by NASA's Kepler spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2010. Image credit: NASA/Tim Pyle — Kepler-11, a sun-like star orbited by six planets. At times, two or more planets pass in front of the star at once, as shown in this artist’s conception of a simultaneous transit of three planets observed by the Kepler spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2010. During each pass or transit, the star’s light fades in a periodic way.
Credit: NASA/Tim Pyle

You’ll recall that the orbiting Kepler observatory continuously monitored stars in a fixed field of view focused on the constellations Lyra and Cygnus hoping to catch periodic dips in their light caused by transiting planets. If a drop was seen, more transits were observed to confirm the detection of a new exoplanet.

And catch it did. Kepler found 1,013 confirmed exoplanets in 440 star systems as of January 2015 with 3,199 unconfirmed candidates. Measuring the amount of light the planet temporarily “robbed” from its host star allowed astronomers to determine its diameter, while the length of time between transits yielded its orbital period.

Graph showing the big dip in brightness of KIC 8462852 around 800 days (center) followed after 1500 days whole series of dips of varying magnitude. Credit: Boyajian et. all — Graph showing the big dip in brightness of KIC 8462852 around 800 days (center) followed after 1500 days whole series of dips of varying magnitude up to 22%. The usual drop in light when an exoplanet transits its host star is a *fraction of a percent*. The star’s normal brightness has been set to “1.00” as a baseline. Credit: Boyajian et. all

Volunteers with the Planet Hunters project, one of many citizen science programs under the umbrella of Zooniverse, harness the power of the human eye to examine Kepler light curves (a graph of a star’s changing light intensity over time), looking for repeating patterns that might indicate orbiting planets. They were the first to meet up with the perplexing KIC 8462852.

dsafad — A detailed look at a small part of the star’s light curve reveals an unknown, regular variation of its light every 20 days. Superimposed on that is the star’s 0.88 day rotation period. Credit: Boyajian et. all

This magnitude +11.7 star in Cygnus, hotter and half again as big as the Sun, showed dips all over the place. Around Day 800 during Kepler’s run, it faded by 15% then resumed a steady brightness until Days 1510-1570, when it underwent a whole series of dips including one that dimmed the star by 22%. That’s huge! Consider that an exo-Earth blocks only a fraction of a percent of a star’s light; even a Jupiter-sized world, the norm among extrasolar planets, soaks up about a percent.

Exoplanets also show regular, repeatable light curves as they enter, cross and then exit the faces of their host stars. KIC 8462852’s dips are wildly a-periodic.

Could a giant comet breakup followed by those pieces crumbling into even smaller comets be the reason for KIC's erratic changes in brightness? Credit: NASA — Could a giant comet breakup and subsequent cascading breakups of those pieces be behind KIC 8462852’s erratic changes in brightness? Credit: NASA

Whatever’s causing the flickering can’t be a planet. With great care, the researchers ruled out many possibilities: instrumental errors, starspots (like sunspots but on other stars), dust rings seen around young, evolving stars (this is an older star) and pulsations that cover a star with light-sucking dust clouds.

What about a collision between two planets? That would generate lots of material along with huge clouds of dust that could easily choke off a star’s light in rapid and irregular fashion.

A great idea except that dust absorbs light from its host star, warms up and glows in infrared light. We should be able to see this “infrared excess” if it were there, but instead KIC 8462852 beams the expected amount of infrared for a star of its class and not a jot more. There’s also no evidence in data taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) several years previously that a dust-releasing collision happened around the star.

Our featured star shines around 12th magnitude in the constellation Cygnus the Swan (Northern Cross) high in the southern sky at nightfall this month. A 6-inch or larger telescope will easily show it. Use this map to get oriented and the map below to get there. Source: Stellarium — Our featured star shines at magnitude +11.7 in the constellation Cygnus the Swan (Northern Cross) high in the southern sky at nightfall this month. A 6-inch or larger telescope will easily show it. Use this map to get oriented and the map below to get there. Source: Stellarium

After examining the options, the researchers concluded the best fit might be a shattered comet that continued to fragment into a cascade of smaller comets. Pretty amazing scenario. There’s still dust to account for, but not as much as other scenarios would require.

Detailed map showing stars to around magnitude 12 with the Kepler star identified. It's located only a short distance northeast of the open cluster NGC 6886 in Cygnus. North is up. Source: Chris Marriott's SkyMap — Detailed map showing stars to around magnitude 12 with the Kepler star identified. It’s located only a short distance northeast of the open cluster NGC 6886 in Cygnus. North is up. Click to enlarge. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap

Being fragile types, comets can crumble all by themselves especially when passing exceptionally near the Sun as sungrazing comets are wont to do in our own Solar System. Or a passing star could disturb the host star’s Oort comet cloud and unleash a barrage of comets into the inner stellar system. It so happens that a red dwarf star lies within about 1000 a.u. (1000 times Earth’s distance from the Sun) of KIC 8462852. No one knows yet whether the star orbits the Kepler star or happens to be passing by. Either way, it’s close enough to get involved in comet flinging.

So much for “natural” explanations. Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale, who oversees the Planet Hunters and the lead author of the paper on KIC 8462852, asked Jason Wright, an assistant professor of astronomy at Penn State, what he thought of the light curves. “Crazy” came to mind as soon he set eyes on them, but the squiggles stirred a thought. Turns out Wright had been working on a paper about detecting transiting megastructures with Kepler.

There are Dyson rings and spheres and this, an illustration of a Dyson swarm. Could this or a variation of it be what we're detecting around KIC? Not likely, but a fun thought experiment. Credit: Wikipedia — There are Dyson rings and spheres and a Dyson swarm depicted here. Could this or a variation of it be what we’re seeing around KIC 8462852? Not likely, but a fun thought experiment. Credit: Wikipedia

In a recent blog, he writes: “The idea is that if advanced alien civilizations build planet-sized megastructures — solar panels, ring worlds, telescopes, beacons, whatever — Kepler might be able to distinguish them from planets.” Let’s assume our friendly aliens want to harness the energy of their home star. They might construct enormous solar panels by the millions and send them into orbit to beam starlight down to their planet’s surface. Physicist Freeman Dyson popularized the idea back in the 1960s. Remember the Dyson Sphere, a giant hypothetical structure built to encompass a star?

From our perspective, we might see the star flicker in irregular ways as the giant panels circled about it. To illustrate this point, Wright came up with a wonderful analogy:

“The analogy I have is watching the shadows on the blinds of people outside a window passing by. If one person is going around the block on a bicycle, their shadow will appear regularly in time and shape (like a regular transiting planet). But crowds of people ambling by — both directions, fast and slow, big and large — would not have any regularity about it at all. The total light coming through the blinds might vary like — Tabby’s star.”

The Green Bank Telescope is the world's largest, fully-steerable telescope. The GBT's dish is 100-meters by 110-meters in size, covering 2.3 acres of space. — The Green Bank Telescope is the world’s largest, fully-steerable telescope. The GBT’s dish is 100-meters by 110-meters in size, covering 2.3 acres of space. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

Even Wright admits that the “alien hypothesis” should be seen as a last resort. But to make sure no stone goes unturned, Wright, Boyajian and several of the Planet Hunters put together a proposal to do a radio-SETI search with the Green Bank 100-meter telescope. In my opinion, this is science at its best. We have a difficult question to answer, so let’s use all the tools at our disposal to seek an answer.

Star with a mystery, KIC 8462852, photographed on Oct. 15, 2015. Credit: Gianluca Masi — KIC 8462852, photographed on Oct. 15, 2015. It’s an F3 V star (yellow-white dwarf) located about 1,480 light years from Earth. Credit: Gianluca Masi

In the end, it’s probably not an alien megastructure, just like the first pulsar signals weren’t sent by LGM-1 (Little Green Men). But whatever’s causing the dips, Boyajian wants astronomers to keep a close watch on KIC 8462852 to find out if and when its erratic light variations repeat. I love a mystery, but answers are even better.

September 28, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

A Bloody Beautiful Supermoon Eclipse!

"The red Moon did not disappoint tonight," writes Arnar Kristjansson. Credit: Arnar Kristjansson

Like some of you, I outran the clouds just in time to catch last night’s total lunar eclipse. What a beautiful event! Here are some gorgeous pictures from our readers and Universe Today staff — souvenirs if you will — of the last total lunar eclipse anywhere until January 31, 2018. The sky got so dark, and the Moon hung like a plum in Earth’s shadow for what seemed a very long time. Did you estimate the Moon’s brightness on the Danjon Scale? My brother and I both came up with L=2 from two widely-separated locations; William Wiethoff in Hayward, Wisconsin rated it L=1. All three estimates would indicate a relatively dark eclipse.

Nicely-done sequence of eclipse phases taken early September 28, 2015. Credit: Own Llewellyn — Nicely-done sequence of eclipse phases taken early September 28, 2015. Click to enlarge. Credit: Own Llewellyn

The darkness of the umbra was particularly noticeable in the west quarter of the Moon in the giant volcanic plain known as Oceanus Procellarum. This makes sense as that portion of the Moon was located closest to the center of the Earth’s dark, inner umbra. The plain is also dark compared to the brighter lunar highlights, which being more reflective, formed a sort of pale ring around the northern rim of the lunar disk.

Salute to the eclipse! Credit: Jason Major — Salute to the final eclipse of the current tetrad that began 17 months ago. Credit: Jason Major

The bottom or southern rim of the Moon, located farthest from the center of the umbra, appeared a lighter yellow-orange throughout totality.

Wide angle view of the Moon during totality in star-rich sky with the Aquila Milky visible at right. Credit: Bob King — Wide angle view of the Moon (lower left) during totality in a star-rich sky with the Aquila Milky Way visible at right. Credit: Bob King

This is just a small sampling of the excellent images arriving from our readers. More are flowing in on Universe Today’s Flickr site. Thank you everyone for your submissions!

A crowd gather to watch the Moon during partial eclipse prior to totality. Credit: Robert Sparks

A hint of the penumbra shows in this photo. Hint: look near left top. Credit: Roger Hutchinson

A bloody Moon iindeed! Credit: Chris Lyons — A bloody Moon iindeed! Notice how dark Oceanus Procellarum (top) appears. Credit: Chris Lyons

"Super Blood Moon". Credit: Alok SInghal — “Super Blood Moon”. Credit: Alok Singhal

Nice montage of images from eclipse start to finish. Credit: Mike Greenham

One of the most awesome aspects of the eclipse was how many stars could be seen near the Moon. This picture was taken with a 100mm telesphoto lens. Credit: Bob King

Rare shot of the totally eclipsed Moon and bright meteor. Credit: VegaStar Carpentier Photography

A lucky break in the clouds made this photographer happy. Credit: Moe Ali

Mary Spicer made exposures every 5 minutes. During totality the Moon dropped behind a tree so I had to relocate the camera, hence the small gap in the sequence. 35 shots in total, stacked using StarStax. Credit: Mary Spicer — Mary Spicer made exposures of the eclipsed Moon every 5 minutes. During totality, the Moon dropped behind a tree so she had to relocate the camera, hence the small gap in the sequence. 35 shots in total and stacked into one frame using StarStax. Credit: Mary Spicer

The Moon caught after totality between clouds through a small refracting telescope. Credit: Bob King

Another nice montage displaying all the partial phases, early, mid and late totality. Credit: Andre van der Hoeven — Another fine montage displaying all the partial phase plus early, mid and late totality. Credit: Andre van der Hoeven

August 30, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Eclipse By Fire! Smoky Haze Pervades Night Sky, Darkens Moon

The Full Moon at 10:30 p.m. last night (Aug. 30). Even at 25 altitude, it glowed a deep, dark orange due to heavy smoke from western forest fires. Credit: Bob King

Did you see the Moon last night? I walked outside at 10:30 p.m. and was stunned to see a dark, burnt-orange Full Moon as if September’s eclipse had arrived a month early. Why? Heavy smoke from forest fires in Washington, California and Montana has now spread to cover nearly half the country in a smoky pall, soaking up starlight and muting the moonlight.

If this is what global warming has in store for us, skywatchers will soon have to take a forecast of “clear skies” with a huge grain of salt.

The Pacific Northwest is abundantly dotted with wildfires in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.This natural-color satellite image was made using the Aqua satellite on August 25, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team — The Pacific Northwest is abundantly dotted with wildfires in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana in this Aqua satellite image taken on August 25, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Smoke from the fires has been drifting east, blanketing Midwestern skies and blotting out the stars at night. Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team

By day, the sky appears the palest of blues. By night, the stars are few if any, and the Moon appears faint, the color of fire and strangely remote. Despite last night’s clear skies, only the star Vega managed to penetrate the gloom. I never saw my shadow even at midnight when the Moon had climbed high into the southern sky.

Last night's Full Moon seen through an 8-inch telescope. The colors are true. Credit: Bob King — Last night’s Full Moon seen through an 8-inch telescope at 11:30 p.m. The colors are true. Credit: Bob King

We’ve seen this smoke before. Back in July, Canadian forest fires wafted south and west and covered much of the northern half of the U.S., giving us red suns in the middle of the afternoon and leaving only enough stars to count with two hands at night. On the bright side, the Moon is fascinating to observe. I set up the telescope last night and spend a half hour watching this unexpected “eclipse”; sunsets appear positively atomic. The size of the smoke particles is just right for filtering out or scattering away blues, greens and even yellow from white light. Vivid reds, pinks and oranges remain to tint anything bright enough to penetrate the haze.

GOES-8 satellite view of the central U.S. taken at 8:15 a.m. CDT August 30, 2015 show a veil of grayish forest fire smoke covering much of the Midwest with clearer conditions to the southeast. The red line is the approximate border between the two. Credit: NOAA

But smoke can cause harm, too. Forest fire smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and soot. On especially smoky days, you can even smell the odor of burning trees in the air at ground level. Some may suffer from burning eyes, asthma or bronchitis on especially smoky days even a thousand miles from the source fires.

Wide-angle view of last night's melon Moon. Notice that the smoke is thicker along the horizontal left and right of the Moon. Above, at a higher elevation, we see through less smoke, so the moonlit sky is a little brighter there. No stars are visible. Credit: Bob King — Wide-angle view of last night’s Moon. Notice that the smoke is thicker along the horizontal – left and right of the Moon. Above, at a higher elevation, we see through less smoke, so the moonlit sky is a bit brighter there. No stars are visible. Credit: Bob King

On clear, blue-sky days, I’ve watched the smoke creep in from the west. It begins a light haze and slowly covers the entire sky in a matter of several hours, often showing a banded structure in the direction of the Sun. A little smoke is OK for observing, but once it’s thick enough to redden the Moon even hours after moonrise, you can forget about using your telescope for stargazing. Sometimes, a passing thunderstorm and cold front clears the sky again. Sometimes not.

The only cures for fire soot are good old-fashioned rain and the colder weather that arrives with fall. In the meantime, many of us will spend our evenings reading about the stars instead of looking at them.

August 19, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Watch HTV-5 Chase the International Space Station From Your Backyard

A JAXA H-IIB rocket departs Tanegashima Space Center in a dramatic night shot. Image credit: JAXA/NASA TV

It’s away… and the hunt is on. The Japanese Space Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle Kounotori automated cargo spacecraft rocketed out of the Tanegashima Space Center today, headed for the ISS.

Loaded with over 6,000 kilograms of experiments and supplies, HTV-5 is on a five day odyssey that you can follow from your backyard, starting tonight. Kounotori stands for ‘white stork,’ or the purveyor of joyful things in Japanese, and in this instance, the name is appropriate, as the HTV-5 is delivering much needed supplies to the International Space Station.

HTV-5 during encapsulation. Credit: JAXA

Launch occurred this morning at 11:50 UT/7:50 AM EDT, hitting an instantaneous window to chase after the International Space Station for grapple and berthing on Monday.

Unlike the Progress and Soyuz spacecraft, which have the capability to rendezvous and dock with the ISS, the HTV-5 and Dragon spacecraft are grappled with the Canadian Space Agency’s Canadarm 2, and stowed or ‘berthed’ in place.

Grapple with berthing to the nadir node of the Harmony module is set for Monday, August 24th, at 11:54 UT/7:54 AM EDT.

Unlike other vehicles that periodically visit the International Space Station, the HTV does not incorporate deployable solar panels, but instead, has panels wrapped around its body. This can also lend itself to some pretty bright flares as it passes overhead.

Grapple of HTV-4 by the Canadarm 2. Image credit: NASA/JAXA

The H-IIB is a two stage rocket, and ground observers should keep an eye out for the second stage booster during ISS passes as well. Debris was also jettisoned during last weeks’ spacewalk, and there’s no word as of yet if this has reentered as well, though ground-spotters have yet to report any sightings. This is a typical EVA maneuver, and cosmonauts conducted the release in such a fashion as to pose no danger to the ISS or HTV. Debris jettisoned from the ISS typically reenters the Earth’s atmosphere after about a week or so.

Prospects for Seeing HTV-5 this Weekend

Grapple of the HTV-5 will occur Monday over central Asia. Keep in mind, the HTV-5 will have to perform several burns to reach the elevation of the ISS: this means its orbit will evolve daily. Heavens-Above and NASA’s Spot the Station tracker typically publish sighting predictions for cargo vehicles such as the HTV-5 along with ISS sighting opportunities online.

And we’ll be posting daily updates and maps as @Astroguyz on Twitter. We see the best prospects for spotting the ISS and HTV5 over the next few days leading up to Monday’s berthing are for latitudes 25-45 north (dusk) and latitudes 30-50 south (dawn). That covers a wide range of observers in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia/New Zealand.

A capture of the passage of HTV-4. Image credit and copyright: Fred Locklear

We’ve caught sight of JAXA’s HTV on previous missions, and contest to it being a conspicuous object.

Pro-tip: the trick to a successful sighting is to start watching early. The HTV-5 will be fainter than the brilliant ISS, but still visible to the naked eye at about magnitude +1 to +2 or so when directly overhead. The HTV-5 will follow the same orbital trace as the station. Spot the ISS and still don’t see HTV-5? Linger for a bit and keep watching after the ISS has passed, as the HTV might follow shortly. And the darker the skies you can find to carry out your HTV-5 vigil under, the better!

Aug 19 — Initial estimations for the passage of the HTV-5 about 10 minutes ahead of the ISS on Wednesday, August 19th. Image credit: Orbitron

Here’s a sampling of ISS passes for Washington D.C. for the next few days:

Wednesday, August 19^th: 8:46 PM EDT (Elevation 65 degrees NE)

Thursday, August 20^th: 9:29 PM EDT (Elevation 23 degrees SW)

Friday, August 21^st: 8:35 PM EDT (Elevation 48 degrees SW)

Clouded out? You can still watch the grapple and berthing action online courtesy of NASA TV.

Want more? Other orbital alumni that have placed a port of call at humanity’s orbital outpost include: SpaceX’s Dragon, the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet (excepting the Columbia orbiter), Progress, ATV, HTV, Soyuz, and Orbital Science’s Cygnus spacecraft. And while the shuttle and the European Space Agency’s ATV fleet are retired, you can follow the next launch of a crewed Soyuz (TMA-18M) on September 2^nd from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a four-orbit fast-track docking.

JAXA plans to launch one HTV a year, out to HTV-9 in 2019.

Good luck, and good sat-spotting… next time we park the Jeep Liberty in the garage, we’re going to refer to it as a ‘grapple and berthing…’ it just sounds cool.

Got a picture of the International Space Station and friends? Be sure to send ‘em in to Universe Today.

August 12, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Revealed: Mars to Appear Larger Than a Full Moon!

A recipe for a three ring circus? Image credit:

We can finally reveal the truth.

A massive conspiracy, spanning over a decade, has been revealed at last by basement bloggers, YouTubers and Facebook users everywhere, implicating ‘big-NASA’ and the powers that be in a massive cover-up.

Yes, it’s the month of August once again, and the Red Planet Mars is set to appear ‘larger than a Full Moon’ over the skies of Earth, as it apparently does now… every year.

Um, no. Stop. Just… stop.

Sure, by now, you’ve had the hoax forwarded to you by that certain well-meaning, but astronomically uninformed family member/co-worker/anonymous person on Facebook.

What’s new under the Sun concerning the August Mars Hoax? To see where the hoax was born, we have to journey all the way back to the close opposition of Mars on August 27^th, 2003. Hey, we actually took two weeks leave in the Fall of 2003 just to sketch and image Mars each night from our backyard lair in the Sonoran desert south of Tucson, Arizona from the then known Very Small Optical Observatory. Those were the days. We measured dial-up internet speeds in kbit/s, ‘burned CDs,’ and Facebook and Twitter were still some years away. Even spam e-mail was still sorta hip.

Two years later in 2005, we were all amused, as the ‘August Mars Hoax’ chain email made its first post-2003 appearance in our collective inboxes. Heck, we were even eager in those halcyon days to take to the nascent web, and do that new hipster thing known as ‘blogging’ to explain just exactly why this couldn’t be so to the masses.

Later in 2006, 2007, and 2008, it wasn’t so funny.

The Mars Hoax just wouldn’t die. “One more unto the breach,” the collective astro-blogging community sighed, as we all dusted off last year’s post explaining how the Red Planet could never approach our own fair world so closely.

It. Just. Couldn’t. Because orbital mechanics. Because physics.

Even the advent of social media couldn’t kill in annual onslaught of the Mars Hoax, and over a Spiderman movie reboot later, we’re now seeing it shared across Facebook, Twitter and more.

Sure, the Mars Hoax is as fake as Donald Trump’s hair. If there’s any true science lesson to learn here, it’s perhaps the mildly interesting social science study of just how the Mars hoax weathers the lean months of winter, to reemerge every August.

Here’s the skinny (again!) on just why Mars can’t appear as large as the Full Moon:

-The Moon is 3,474 kilometers in diameter, and orbits the Earth at an average distance of just under 400,000 kilometers.

-At this distance, the Moon can only appear about 30’ (half a degree) across.

-Think that’s a lot? Well, you could ring the 360 degree circle of the local horizon with 720 Full Moons.

-Mars, like the Earth, orbits the Sun. Even with Earth at aphelion (its most distant point) and Mars at perihelion, we’re still 206.7 – 151.9 = 54.8 million km apart. Sure, aphelion and perihelion of our respective worlds don’t quite line up in our current epochs, but we’ll indulge imagination and fudge things a bit.

-Though Mars is just over 2x times larger in diameter than the Moon, it’s also more than 143 times farther away, even at its said hypothetical closest.

Credit Dave Dickinson — Mars vs Earth; oppositions from 2003 to 2018, including perihelion and aphelion positions. Image credit: Dave Dickinson

-Still want to see Mars as big as a Full Moon? Perhaps one day, astronauts will, though they’ll have to be orbiting just over a 800,000 km from the Red Planet to do it.

If we sound a little pessimistic in our characterizing the Mars Hoax as a recurring non-story, it’s because we see many truly fantastic things in space news that get far from their far shake. Real stories, of collapsing stars, rogue exoplanets, and intrepid rovers exploring distant worlds. Tales of humanoids, exploring space and doing the very best and noble things humanoids as a species can do.

Want to trace the history the Mars Hoax?

Here’s the saga of Universe Today’s coverage of all things ‘Mars Hoax’ since those olden days of the early web:

2005- No, Mars Won’t Look as Big as the Moon

2006- No, Mars Won’t Look as Big as the Moon in August

2007- Will Mars Look as Big as the Moon on August 27? Nope

2008- Please (Again) – Mars Will NOT Look as Big as the Full Moon

2009- Mars Will NOT Look as Big as the Full Moon… But You Can Watch it Get Closer

2010- Tonight’s the Night Mars Will NOT Look as Big as the Full Moon

2011- Is the Moon Mars Myth Over?

2013- The Cyber Myth that Just Won’t Die

2016- ????

Hey, it looks like the hoax did take a break in 2012 and 2014, so that’s encouraging at least…

The great Mars opposition of 2003. image credit: Dave Dickinson — The great Mars opposition of 2003. Image credit: Dave Dickinson

Now, I’m going to do my best to truly terrify all of science blogger-dom, and leave you with one final thought to consider. Mars reaches opposition (otherwise known in astronomical circles as ‘when it’s really nearest to the Earth’) once roughly every 26 months. All oppositions of Mars are not created equal, owing mostly to the eccentric orbit of the Red Planet. We have another fine opposition of Mars coming right up next year on May 22^nd, 2016, followed by one that’s very nearly as favorable as the historic 2003 opposition in 2018, falling juuuuust shy of August on July 28^th of that year…

Will the Mars Hoax meme find a new unwitting audience, and with it, new life?

Sleep tight…. we’ll be covering real science stories in the meantime, ’til we’re called to do battle with the Mars Hoax once again.

July 4, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Red-faced Pluto Full of Surprises

New Horizons scientists combined the latest black and white map of Pluto’s surface features (left) with a map of the planet’s colors (right) to produce a detailed color portrait of the planet’s northern hemisphere (center). Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Hey, Mars, you’ve got company. Looks like there’s a second “red planet” in the Solar System — Pluto. Color images returned from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, now just 10 days from its encounter with the dwarf planet, show a distinctly ruddy surface with patchy markings that strongly resemble Mars’ appearance in a small telescope.

Animation of Pluto rotating from photos taken by New Horizons two weeks before the flyby. Credit: — Animation of Pluto’s rotation from photos taken by New Horizons two weeks before the flyby. What are those four nearly parallel dark streaks? Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

On Mars, iron oxide or rust colors the planet’s soil, while Pluto’s coloration is likely caused by hydrocarbon molecules called tholins that are formed when cosmic rays and solar ultraviolet light interact with methane in Pluto’s atmosphere and on its surface. Airborne tholins fall out of the atmosphere and coat the surface with a reddish gunk.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University’s Hörst Laboratory have produced complex chemical compounds called tholins, which may give Pluto its reddish hue. Credits: Chao He, Xinting Yu, Sydney Riemer, and Sarah Hörst, Johns Hopkins University — Scientists at Johns Hopkins University’s Hörst Laboratory have produced complex chemical compounds called tholins, which may give Pluto its reddish hue.
Credits: Chao He, Xinting Yu, Sydney Riemer, and Sarah Hörst, Johns Hopkins University

A particular color or wavelength of UV light called Lyman-alpha is most effective at stimulating the chemical reactions that build hydrocarbons at Pluto. Recent measurements with New Horizons’ Alice instrument reveal the diffuse glow of Lyman-alpha light all around the dwarf planet coming from all directions of space, not just the Sun.

Since one of the main sources of Lyman-alpha light besides the Sun are regions of vigorous star formation in young galaxies, Pluto’s cosmetic rouge may originate in events happening millions of light years away.

Triton's pink too! Montage of Neptune's largest moon, Triton (1,683 miles in diameter) and the planet Neptune showing the moon's sublimating south polar cap (bottom) and enigmatic "cantaloupe terrain". Credit: NASA — Triton’s pink too! Montage of Neptune’s largest moon, Triton (1,683 miles in diameter) and the planet Neptune showing the moon’s sublimating south polar cap (bottom) and enigmatic “cantaloupe terrain”. Photo taken by Voyager 2 in 1989. Credit: NASA

“Pluto’s reddish color has been known for decades, but New Horizons is now allowing us to correlate the color of different places on the surface with their geology and soon, with their compositions,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

Tholins have been found on other bodies in the outer Solar System, including Titan and Triton, the largest moons of Saturn and Neptune, respectively, and made in laboratory experiments that simulate the atmospheres of those bodies.

True color photos showing the two hemispheres of Pluto. At right, you can clearly see the four streaks in a row. New Horizons will approach fly by the hemisphere on the left side. — True color photos showing the two hemispheres of Pluto photographed on June 27, 2015. At left, a large, dark red patch is visible. The four streaks in a row are seen at right. New Horizons will fly by the hemisphere in the left image. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

As you study the photos and animation, you’ll notice that Pluto’s largest dark spot is redder than the most of the surface; you also can’ help but wonder what’s going on with those four evenly-spaced dark streaks in the equatorial zone. When I first saw them, my reaction was “no way!” They look so neatly lined up I assumed it was an image artifact, but after seeing the rotating movie, maybe not. It’s more likely that low resolution enhances the appearance of alignment.

Dark streaks on Triton formed by deposits from ice or cryovolcanos. Credit: NASA — Dark streaks on Triton deposited downwind from ice or cryovolcanos. Credit: NASA

But what are they? Located as they are on the Charon-facing side of Pluto, they may be related to long-ago tidal stresses induced by each body on the other as they slowly settled into their current tidally-locked embrace or something as current as seasonal change.

Voyager 2 photographed cyrovolcanos at Triton during its 1989 flyby of the Neptune system. Nitrogen geysers and plumes of gas and ice as high as 5 miles (8 km) were seen erupting from active volcanoes, leaving dark streaks on its icy surface.

Images showing the increase in detail from late June through July 1 as New Horizons homes in on Pluto. Credit: — Images showing the increase in detail from late June through July 1 as New Horizons homes in on Pluto. That possible big crater (seen in bottom middle photo) now looks more like a large, dark patch, BUT we still don’t know for sure what it is. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Björn Jónsson

It's instructive to compare these images based on observations with the Hubble Space Telescope made well before New Horizons's arrival. They appear to record the large dark spot and possible the multiple streaks. Credit: NASA/ESA — It’s instructive to compare these images, based on observations with the Hubble Space Telescope made well before New Horizons’s arrival, with current photos. They appear to record the large dark spot and possibly the multiple streaks. Credit: NASA/ESA

Seasonal heating from the Sun is the most likely cause for Triton’s eruptions; Pluto’s dark streaks may have a similar origin.

Animation of Pluto and Charon from images taken between June 23 and June 29. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWR

To give you a better picture in your head how big these small bodies are, Pluto and Charon would both fit within the United States with room to spare. Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) — To better picture in your head how big these small bodies really are, Pluto and Charon would both fit within the United States with room to spare. Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)

Today, New Horizons lies just 7.4 million miles (11.9 million km) from its target. Sharpness and detail visible will rapidly improve in just a few days.

“Even at this resolution, Pluto looks like no other world in our Solar System,” said mission scientist Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder in a recent press release.

Indeed!

June 6, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Leonard Nimoy’s Legacy Lives On in the Asteroid Belt

On June 2, 2015 a small asteroid - Nimoy - was named for Leonard Nimoy who played the fictional Mr. Spock in Star Trek. Credit: NASA/JPL

“Fascinating, Captain.” If he were alive today, Leonard Nimoy, who played the half Vulcan-half human Mr. Spock in the Star Trek TV and movies series, would undoubtedly have raised an eyebrow and uttered a signature “fascinating” at the news this week that an asteroid now bears his name.

4864 Nimoy, a mountain-sized rock roughly 6 miles (10 km) across, orbits the Sun once every 3.9 years within the inner part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Vulcan, er Jupiter.

Here’s the announcement from the Minor Planet Center made on June 2:

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. Credit: CBS Television

(4864) Nimoy = 1988 RA5
Discovered 1988 Sept. 2 by H. Debehogne at the European Southern Observatory.
Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) was an American actor, film director and poet. Best known for his portrayal of the half-Vulcan/half-human science officer Spock in the original “Star Trek” TV series and subsequent movies, Nimoy wrote two autobiographies:
I Am Not Spock (1975) and I Am Spock (1995).
M.P.C. 94384

4864 Nimoy was discovered by Belgian astronomer Henri Debehogne on September 2, 1988 and given the provisional designation 1988 RA5. This month, Spock’s “star” doesn’t get any brighter than 16th magnitude as it slowly tracks from Capricornus into Sagittarius in the late night sky. Come mid-July, amateurs with 14-inch or larger telescopes might glimpse it when it brightens to magnitude 15.

Spock – Fascinating!

Though portrayed as logical to a fault, Spock’s chilly exterior hid a heart as big as Jupiter. He was the hero of every nerd, and the perfect foil to Shatner’s Captain Kirk’s emotional excesses. Nimoy’s character showed that command of the facts and rational thinking made one very useful in dangerous and difficult situations. And great to poke fun at.

A few “Best of Spock” moments

While Leonard Nimoy’s name will forever tumble about the asteroid belt, his fictional character got there before him. Or did it? 2309 Mr. Spock (former 1971 QX1) was discovered by James Gibson on August 16, 1971. An outer main belt asteroid about 13 miles (21 km) across and orbiting the Sun every 5.23 years, it’s actually not named for the Star Trek character. Nope. Gibson named it for his cat.

The sky facing southeast around 2 a.m. in early June. Leonard Nimoy's asteroid is currently in Capricornus near its border with Sagittarius. Source: Stellarium — The sky facing southeast around 2 a.m. in early June. Leonard Nimoy’s asteroid is currently in Capricornus where it borders with Sagittarius. Source: Stellarium

The act prompted the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1985 to ban the use of pet names for asteroids. Aw, come on IAU, where’s your sense of humor? Then again, Nimoy’s Spock might have considered the new rule quite logical.

July 28, 2010December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

New Geek Destination: Klingon Cave Tours

Klingon vanity license plate, via Charven.com

Since “Star Trek: The Experience” is no longer open, here’s the next best thing. A company is getting ready to provide self-guided tours of the Jenolan Caves west of Sydney, Australia, and one of the languages soon available for the tours is Klingon. Yes, it is a fictional, completely fabricated Star Trek language, but I’m guessing there will be some takers on this. Why Klingon?

Well, if you have watched Star Trek you may recognize the name Jenolan as one of the ships featured in the episode of The Next Generation where Scotty (from the original series) appeared. The only Klingon in that episode was Worf, and Scotty stayed pretty clear of him (still jumpy from that Tribble incident, no doubt). So there’s not a clear Klingon connection, but obviously there’s some fan love involved.

Australia’s ABC reports that earlier this month two Klingon scholars (yes, really!) from the United States flew to Australia to tour the caves and finalize the translation of a self-guided tour. They have recorded it at a Sydney studio and the commentary will be available sometime in August on a digital audio device.

Map showing the location of the Jenolan Caves in western Australia. Credit: ABC

The Jenolan Caves are the world’s oldest dated limestone cave system. And if you aren’t fluent in Klingon, the tours will also be available in 10 other more commonly-spoken languages.

And can anyone read the Klingon words in the top image?

April 30, 2008May 19, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Shape Shifting Robot Can Reassemble After Crashing Apart

It’s fairly certain that the Mars Polar Lander and the Beagle lander crash landed on Mars, never to be heard from again. Well, what if crash landing was no problem? What if a robotic spacecraft could just reassemble and fix itself if there was a mishap on the way to another planet’s surface? That type of science fiction is getting closer to reality. A group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a robot made of separate modules that can recognize each other and reassemble itself if they crash or get kicked apart. Maybe this could solve the problems of landing on Mars!
Except we haven’t figured out how to reassemble people, yet.

Take a look a the video. It’s pretty remarkable, although I have to admit, I had visions of the Terminator after watching it….

Original News Source: New Scientist