Star trails over Lake Minnewanka in Alberta, Canada. Credit and copyright: Jack-Fusco.
Ready for an adventure? One of our favorite photographers, Jack Fusco, created this stunning travel video for Travel Alberta and viewing it might be enough to make you start packing your bags.
“There’s a certain feeling that you get from standing under a truly dark sky for the first time,” Jack wrote. “Although it’s hard describe the exact feeling of awe that’s felt, it’s an experience that doesn’t leave you. In fact, it’s something that can change you. It can make you forget about sleeping when the sun has set and instead readies you for an adventure. This timelapse is about capturing the adventure of chasing star filled skies and the feeling you get from experiencing it. I hope it inspires people to find their own adventure chasing the stars.”
See some of his beautiful still images from his photo-shoot below:
Chasing Starlight was shot using a Nikon D800E & a Nikon D810 equipped with Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 lenses. See more of Jack’s wonderful work at his website, Instagram, or Jack Fusco Photography.
Aurora over Peyto Lake in Alberta, Canada. Credit and copyright: Jack Fusco.
Time lapse-photo showing geminids over Pendleton, OR. Credit: Thomas W. Earle
Wouldn’t it be nice if a meteor shower peaked on a weekend instead of 3 a.m. Monday morning? Maybe even showed good activity in the evening hours, so we could get our fill and still get to bed at a decent hour. Wait a minute – this year’s Geminids will do exactly that!
Before moonrise this Saturday night December 13th, the Geminids should put on a sweet display. The radiant of the shower lies near the bright pair of stars, Castor and Pollux. Source: Stellarium
What’s more, since the return of this rich and reliable annual meteor shower occurs around 6 a.m. (CST) on Sunday December 14th, both Saturday and Sunday nights will be equally good for meteor watching. After the Perseids took a battering from the Moon last August, the Geminids will provide the best meteor display of 2014. They do anyway! The shower’s been strengthening in recent years and now surpasses every major shower of the year.
The official literature touts a rate of 120 meteors per hour visible from a dark sky site, but I’ve found 60-80 per hour a more realistic expectation. Either way, what’s to complain?
The third quarter Moon rises around midnight Saturday and 1 a.m. on Monday morning. Normally, moonlight would be cause for concern, but unlike many meteor showers the Geminids put on a decent show before midnight. The radiant, the location in the sky from which the meteors will appear to stream, will be well up in the east by 9:30 p.m. local time. That’s a good 2-3 hours of meteor awesomeness before moonrise.
The author takes in this year’s moon-drenched Perseids in comfort.
Shower watching is a total blast because it’s so simple. Your only task is to dress warmly and get comfortable in a reclining chair aware from the unholy glare of unshielded lighting. The rest is looking up. Geminid meteors will flash anywhere in the sky, so picking a direction to watch the shower isn’t critical. I usually face east or southeast for the bonus view of Orion lumbering up from the horizon.
Bring your camera, too. I use a moderately wide angle lens (24-35mm) at f/2.8 (widest setting), set my ISO to 800 or 1600 and make 30-second exposures. The more photos you take, the better chance of capturing a meteor. You can also automate the process by hooking up a relatively inexpensive intervalometer to your camera and have it take the pictures for you.
As you ease back and let the night pass, you’ll see other meteors unrelated to the shower, too. Called sporadics, they trickle in at the rate of 2-5 an hour. You can always tell a Geminid from an interloper because its path traces back to the radiant. Sporadics drop down from any direction.
Captured by an all-sky camera, a Geminid fireball brighter than Venus streaks across the sky above New Mexico on Dec. 14, 2011. Before disintegrating in the atmosphere the meteoroid was about 1/2 inch across. Credit: Marshall Space Flight Center, Meteoroid Environments Office, Bill Cooke
Geminid meteors immolate in Earth’s atmosphere at a moderate speed compared to some showers – 22 miles per second (35 km/sec) – and often flare brightly. Green, red, blue, white and yellow colors have been recorded, making the shower one of the more colorful. Most interesting, the meteoroid stream appears to be sorted according to size with faint, telescopic meteors maxing out a day before the naked eye peak. Larger particles continue to produce unusually bright meteors up to a few days after maximum.
Most meteor showers are the offspring of comets. Dust liberated from vaporizing ice gets pushed back by the pressure of sunlight to form a tail and fans out over the comet’s orbital path. When Earth’s orbit intersects a ribbon of this debris, sand and gravel-sized bits of rock crash into our atmosphere at high speed and burn up in multiple flashes of meteoric light.
Phaethon sprouts a tail (points southeast or to lower left) when close to the Sun in this image taken by NASA’s STEREO Sun-observing spacecraft in 2012. Credit: Credit: Jewitt, Li, Agarwal /NASA/STEREO
But the Geminids are a peculiar lot. Every year in mid-December, Earth crosses not a comet’s path but that of 3200 Phaethon (FAY-eh-thon), a 3.2 mile diameter (5.1 km) asteroid. Phaethon’s elongated orbit brings it scorchingly close (13 million miles) to the Sun every 1.4 years. Normally a quiet, well-behaved asteroid, Phaethon brightened by a factor of two and was caught spewing jets of dustwhen nearest the Sun in 2009, 2010 and 2012. Apparently the intense heat solar heating either fractured the surface or heated rocks to the point of desiccation, creating enough dust to form temporary tails like a comet.
While it looks like an asteroid most of the time, Phaethon may really be a comet that’s still occasionally active. Periodic eruptions provide the fuel for the annual December show.
Most of us will head out Saturday or Sunday night and take in the shower for pure enjoyment, but if you’d like to share your observations and contribute a bit of knowledge to our understanding of the Geminids, consider reporting your meteor sightings to the International Meteor Organization. Here’s the link to get started.
And this just in … Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi will webcast the shower starting at 8 p.m. CST December 13th (2 a.m. UT Dec. 14) on his Virtual Telescope Project site.
Like a Christmas ornament dangling from string, Comet Lovejoy Q2 is headed north and coming into good view for northern hemisphere observers in the next two weeks. This photo was taken on November 26th. Credit: Rolando Ligustri
Hmmm. Something with a long white beard is making an appearance in northern skies this week. Could it be Santa Claus? No, a bit early for the jolly guy yet, but comet watchers will soon find a special present under the tree this season. Get ready to unwrap Comet Lovejoy Q2, now bright enough to spot in a pair of 10×50 binoculars.
Comet Lovejoy Q2 starts out low in the southern sky in Puppis this week (6° max. altitude on Dec. 9) but quickly zooms north and west with each passing night. On the night of December 28-29, the comet will pass 1/3° from the bright globular cluster M79 in Lepus. This map shows the sky and comet’s position facing south from 42° north latitude around 1:30 a.m. CST. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
Following a rocket-like trajectory into the northern sky, this visitor from deep space is no longer reserved for southern skywatchers alone. If you live in the central U.S., Lovejoy Q2 pokes its head from Puppis in the early morning hours this week. Glowing at magnitude +7.0-7.5, it’s a faint, fuzzy cotton ball in binoculars from a dark sky and visible in telescopes as small as 3-inches (7.5 cm). With the Moon past full and phasing out of the picture, comet viewing will continue to improve in the coming nights. What fun to watch Lovejoy gradually accelerate from its present turtle-like amble to agile cheetah as it leaps from Lepus to Taurus at the rate of 3° a day later this month. Why the hurry? The comet is approaching Earth and will pass nearest our planet on January 7th at a distance of 43.6 million miles (70.2 million km). Perihelion follows some three weeks later on January 30th.
Terry Lovejoy discovered the comet in this triplet of images taken on August 17th. The comet moves slightly counterclockwise around the larger fuzzy spot during the sequence. Credit: Terry Lovejoy
The new object is Australian amateur Terry Lovejoy’s 5th comet discovery. He captured images of the faint, 15th magnitude wisp on August 17th with a Celestron C-8 fitted with a CCD camera at his roll-off roof observatory in Brisbane, Australia. Comet Lovejoy Q2 has a period of about 11,500 years with an orbit steeply inclined to the plane of the Solar System (80.3°), the reason for its sharp northern climb. As December gives way to January the comet crosses from below to above the plane of the planets.
Another awesome shot of Comet Lovejoy Q2 taken on November 26, 2014. Gases in the coma including carbon and cyanogen fluoresce green in the Sun’s ultraviolet light. The comet’s moderately condensed coma currently measures about 8 arc minutes across or 1/4 the size of the full Moon. Credit: Damian Peach
Comet Lovejoy is expected to brighten to perhaps 5th magnitude as it approaches Earth, making it faintly visible with the naked eye from a dark sky site. Now that’s what I call a great way to start the new year!
To help you find it, use the top map to get oriented; the detailed charts (below) show stars to magnitude +8.0. Click each to enlarge and then print out a copy for use at night. Bonus! Comet Lovejoy will pass only 10 arc minutes (1/3°) south of the 8th magnitude globular cluster M79 on December 28-29 – a great opportunity for astrophotographers and observers alike. Both comet and cluster will pose side by side in the same binocular and telescopic field of view. In early January I’ll post fresh maps to help you track the comet all through next month, too.
Detailed map showing the comet tomorrow December 9th through December 27th in the early morning hours (CST). Stars shown to magnitude +8.0. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap softwareBecause Comet Lovejoy moves rapidly into the evening sky by mid-late December, its position on this detailed map is shown for 10 p.m. (CST) nightly. Credit: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
A drone shot of Yerkes Observatory in Chicago. Credit: Adam Novak / Vimeo (screenshot)
It’s hard to do many types of astronomy in the daylight, so that can be a good time to do a different kind of observing — enjoying the architecture of the telescope! This new video shot by a drone shows off Yerkes Observatory in snowy Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The video was uploaded by Adam Novak.
Yerkes, which is operated by the University of Chicago, calls itself the “birthplace of modern astrophysics” because it combined astronomical observations with experimentation in physics and chemistry. That’s something that’s normal in astronomy today, but certainly not in 1897.
Observations began with a 40-inch refractor (billed as the biggest such telescope ever finished) that weighs about 20 tons. While the telescope itself is from the turn of the century, the means of moving it is much more modern — from about 50 years ago, according to a National Park Service book on the observatory:
The telescope was modernized in 1969 permitting more accurate and rapid setting of the position of the telescope. The efficiency of the telescope was further increased by the addition of an automatically guiding camera. The driving clock, by which the telescope is made to follow the stars, consists of a synchronous motor controlled by an electronic oscillator, the frequency of which can he set so as to make the telescope follow the sun, the moon, or stars.
Nine shots of the Moon overlap in this view of the terminator taken Nov. 29, 2014. Credit: Roger Hutchinson
While space explorers often set their sights far out in the Solar System — or even beyond — we can’t forget the majesty of our next-door neighbor. The Moon, a mere three days’ flight away from Earth during the Apollo years, is an easy beacon in the darkness for anybody to observe. Even without a telescope.
Lately, several Universe Today readers have contributed awesome shots to our Flickr pool showing some close-ups of this barren world. Take the panorama above by Roger Hutchinson, for example, showing the view along the terminator (darkness-light line). And we’ve collected some more stunners below.
Copernicus, a huge crater near the Moon’s equator, captured on Dec. 4, 2014. Credit: Ralph SmythTycho, a crater that dominates the lunar southern highlands, on Dec. 2, 2014. Credit: John BradyThe Mare Nubium region on the Moon, imaged Dec. 2, 2014. Credit: Paul M. HutchinsonThe waxing gibbous moon captured on Dec. 3, 2014 from Wednesbury, West Midlands. Credit: II AsH II
Artist’s impression of the deep blue planet HD 189733b, based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/ESA.
If you think exoplanet detections are only in the realm of professional planet-hunting telescopes such as Kepler, take a look at the video above. David Schneider, a senior editor for IEEE Spectrum, explains that it takes little more than a DSLR camera and a camera lens to catch a glimpse.
Schneider told Universe Today that he’s not an experienced amateur observer, nor should his equipment be expected to detect new exoplanets. But the potential for the future is interesting, he explained.
“I was simply trying to detect the signature of a known exoplanet, one that was discovered years ago with far more sophisticated gear,” he wrote in an e-mail. “I knew exactly which star to look at, when the transit occurs, and what the change in brightness would be. I relied on the expertise of professional astronomers to provide all that information.”
Here’s the setup: a Canon EOS Rebel XS DSLR, a 300-millimeter Nikon telephoto lens, an adapter to get the Nikon talking to the Canon, and a self-built “barn door tracker” that he constructed based on descriptions he found on the web. (His IEEE Spectrum article has more details.)
Schneider chose HD 189733, whose hostile-to-life “deep blue” exoplanet is about 63 light-years away and transits the face of the star every 2.2 days. But often these transits take place at inconvenient times (such as during the day, and the star is low on the horizon). He also faced several cloudy nights, meaning it was several weeks until he could take the imagery.
Once that was finished, Schneider ran the pictures through a piece of astronomical imaging software called Iris. In Schneider’s words, this is how the software helped him pick out the planet:
At the most basic level, Iris allows you to perform the corrections that are customary for really all types of digital astrophotography. In particular, you correct for ‘hot pixels’ in your camera sensor and for variations in the sensitivity of the sensor across the frame. This is standard stuff in astrophotography, requiring that you take images with the lens cap on (so-called “darks”), of a uniformly illuminated background (“flats”), and so forth.
For this project, you also need to use the tools that Iris provides to do what’s called aperture photometry. In a nutshell, you have to adjust the registration of the set of images you collect so that the stars are in the same position in each image. Then you have to set up things in Iris to do photometric measurements of a selected set of stars in one frame. After that, Iris will perform the photometry you want on the whole set of images you have in an automated fashion.
While his equipment isn’t sophisticated enough to account for “false positives” such as a sunspot going across a star — amateurs are more at the stage of confirming professional observations — Schneider pointed out there are many similar projects to his own. Among them are KELT-NORTH (which inspired his search), Evryscope, and this group at the University of Arizona.
“My project merely highlights that you can get your feet wet in this area with some really cheap hardware,” Schneider said. He recommends those that want to do similar work to his read the IEEE Spectrum article, buy the hardware required, read up on astrophotography and Iris, and not be afraid to experiment.
Schneider added he wasn’t trying to do “anything special” — many amateurs have encountered similar success — but he had a lot of fun. “Maybe because I’m a bit of a computer nerd, I found digital astrophotography to be a lot more enjoyable than actually looking through a telescope, which in the few times I’ve done that often involved a lot of squinting and unpleasant vibration.”
An Ariane 5 heads spaceward. Credit: Ariane.tv screenshot.
A new generation of space rockets ready to lift new and exciting payloads spaceward is coming to a sky near you.
Tomorrow, a Delta IV Heavy rocket will boost the Orion space capsule on a two orbit journey around the Earth that will test key systems. And though tomorrow’s launch is uncrewed, the Orion Command Module will one day form the core of NASA’s Orion MPCV Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and is slated to care out humanity’s first mission to an asteroid and beyond in the next decade.
But a second, lesser known launch also leaves Earth tomorrow as well, atop a rocket that will soon give way to a new generation of lift boosters as launch services vie for new customers. Just over eight hours after the launch of EFT-1, an Ariane 5 rocket lifts off from French Guiana with GSAT-16.
The EFT-1 Delta IV Heavy posed for roll out. Credit: Jason Major. @JPMajor
Is the ‘battle of the boosters’ heating up?
This comes after the December 2nd announcement earlier this week by participating members of the European Space Agency to proceed with the development of the next generation Ariane 6 rocket. Also included in the 5.9 billion Euro (7.3 billion USD) budget proposal is funding for the 2018 ExoMars mission, along with further support of ESA’s International Space Station commitments.
To date, ESA has fielded five of its Automated Transfer cargo Vehicles (ATVs) on missions to the International Space Station. ESA will also design the Service Module segment of the Orion MPCV.
“I can summarize this ministerial council by say it was a success… I’d even go so far as to say that it is a great success,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, the director-general of the European Space Agency.
The Ariane 6 is expected to be on the launch pad by 2020, and will feature two variants capable of placing 5 to 11 tonnes in a geostationary transfer orbit. The solid fuel booster to be incorporated will be based on the Vega rocket design, while the upper stage Vinci engine is already currently in development.
A look at the Ariane 6 rocket. Credit Wikimedia Commons, SkywalkerPL.
The design has been hotly contested among European Space Agency members, many of whom are in favor of other variants based on the upgraded Ariane 5. Some of the largest rockets of all time included those developed by NPO Energia, capable of lofting 100,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit. An Energia N1 Moon rocket exploded on the pad on July 3rd 1969, effectively ending the Soviet Union’s bid to put a man on the Moon. In comparison, the massive Saturn V rocket — thus far, the largest and most powerful ever fielded by the United States — could deploy the equivalent of 118,000 kg to low Earth orbit and 47,000 kg to a Trans-Lunar Insertion orbit around the Moon.
But that’s just the beginning. Though the Orion capsule will ride atop a United Launch Services Delta IV Heavy tomorrow — a system usually employed for launching clandestine spy satellites — NASA hopes to have its own Space Launch System (SLS) rocket sitting on the pad by the end of 2018. Boeing was awarded the contract for SLS earlier this year, and the system largely rose re-imagined from the ashes of the cancelled Constellation program. The SLS Block 1 is expected to have a lift capacity of 70,000 kg to LEO, while Boeing’s proposed SLS Block 2 variant would, if fielded, have the largest lift capacity of all time at 130,000 kg to LEO. Only the Long March 9 proposed by China approaches that lofty goal.
An artist’s concept of Orion headed towards deep space. Credit: NASA.
And the wild card is Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Already in the game of sending cargo via its Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, SpaceX is developing a reputation for dependability when it comes to getting satellites into orbit at relatively low cost. SpaceX hopes to field its Falcon 9 Heavy with a lift capacity of 53,000 kg to LEO sometime in 2015, and many proposed missions are banking on the the Falcon 9 Heavy as a future service provider for solar system exploration. Certainly, with the recent failure of the Antares rocket on October 28th, SpaceX may look like the more attractive option to many, and the development of the Ariane 6 is expected to face stiff competition in the brave new world of high tech rocketry.
Ever wonder what all of these launch vehicles and spacecraft past and present look like stacked up against each other? There’s a graphic for that, recently featured on Io9:
A breakdown and comparison of spacecraft launch systems. Click to enlarge. Credit: Reddit user Heaney555.
From Almaz to Zarya, this is a fascinating study in scale comparison. Be sure to zoom in and check out the tiny ant-like crew compliment of each, also to scale. Of course, the backyard satellite-tracker in us can’t help be notice the brightness-versus size comparison for many of these. For example, the International Space Station on a good pass can appear as bright as Venus at -4th magnitude — and even look “TIE Fighter shaped” in binoculars — while the smaller Shenzhou and Soyuz modules are often barely visible as they pass overhead. And how we miss watching the Shuttle paired with the International Space Station as they both glided silently by:
But such orbital drama can still be caught if you know when and where to look for it. And speaking of which, viewers in western Australia and the southwestern United States may be able to see Orion and EFT-1 on its first lap around the Earth tomorrow before it fires its engines over the Atlantic headed for a 5,800 km apogee over southern Africa. Assuming EFT-1 lifts off at the beginning of its 159 minute launch window at 7:05 AM EST/12:05 UT, expect it to see it crossing dusk skies over western Australia at 55 minutes after liftoff, and dawn skies for the southwestern U.S. at 95 minutes post-launch respectively.
An awesome sight to behold indeed, marking the start of a brave new era of space exploration.
So what do you, the astute and space-minded reader of Universe Today think? Are the SLS and its kin the lift vehicle(s) of the future, or ‘rockets to nowhere?’ Will they survive the political winds that are bound to blow over the coming decade? Will the Ariane 6 best the Falcon 9 as the lift platform of choice?
One thing is for sure, expect coverage of space exploration drama and more to continue here at Universe Today!
A 3-D model of 6 Hebe based on its light curve. The asteroid is about 120 miles in diameter and orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credit: Charles University_Josef Durech_Vojtech Sidorin
In the reeds that line the banks of the celestial river Eridanus, you’ll find Hebe on the prowl this month. Discovered in 1847 by German amateur astronomer Karl Ludwig Hencke , the asteroid may hold the key to the origin of the H-chondrites, a large class of metal-rich stony meteorites found in numerous amateur and professional collections around the world. You can now see this interesting minor planet with nothing more than a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
Judging by his demeanor, it might have been unwise to tell Karl Hencke he was wasting his time looking for asteroids.
The first four asteroids – Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta – were discovered in quick succession from 1801 to 1807. Then nothing turned up for years. Most astronomers wrongly assumed all the asteroids had been found and moved on to other projects like measuring the orbits of double stars and determining stellar parallaxes. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Hencke, who worked as a postmaster during the day, doggedly persisted in sieving the stars for new asteroids in his free time at night. His systematic search began in 1830. Fifteen years and hundreds of cold nights at the eyepiece later he turned up 5 Astrae (asteroid no. 5) on Dec. 8, 1845, and 6 Hebe on July 1, 1847.
Hebe orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter with an average distance from the Sun of 225 million miles. It spins on its axis once every 7.3 hours. Credit: Wikipedia
Energized by the finds, astronomers returned to their telescopes with renewed gusto to join in the hunt once again. The rest is history. As of November 2014 there are 415,688 numbered asteroids and a nearly equal number of unnumbered discoveries. Fittingly, asteroid 2005 Hencke honors the man who kept the fire burning.
You’ll find Hebe trucking along in Eridanus this month just north of Delta (left) and Epsilon Eridani, a pair of +3.5 magnitude stars. This map shows stars to magnitude +9.5 with Hebe’s position marked every 5 nights. Click to enlarge. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
At 120 miles (190 km) across, Hebe is one of the bigger asteroids (officially 33rd in size in the main belt) and orbits the Sun once every 3.8 years. It will be our guest this final month of the year shining at magnitude +8.2 in early December, +8.5 by mid-month and +8.9 when you don your party hat on New Year’s Eve. All the while, Hebe will loop across the barrens of Eridanus west of Orion. Use the maps here to help track it down. I’ve included a detailed color map above, but also created a “black stars on white” version for those that find reverse charts easier to use.
Use this wide view of the sky to get oriented before zeroing in with the more detailed map above. Hebe lies just a few degrees north of Delta and Epsilon Eridani for much of December. Best viewing time is from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. local time early in the month. Source: Stellarium
In more recent times, Hebe’s story takes an interesting turn. Through a study of its gravitational nudges on other asteroids, astronomers discovered that Hebe is a very compact, rocky object, not a loosey-goosey pile of rubble like some asteroids. Its high density provides strong evidence for a composition of both rock and iron. Scientists can determine the approximate composition of an asteroid’s surface by studying its reflectance spectrum, or what colors or wavelengths are reflected back from the object after a portion is absorbed by its surface. They use infrared light because different minerals absorb different wavelengths of infrared light. That data is compared to infrared absorptions from rocks and meteorites found on Earth. Turns out, our friend Hebe’s spectrum is a good match to two classes of meteorites – the H-chondrites, which comprise 40% of known meteorites – and the rarer IIE silicated iron meteorites.
Did this slice of meteorite come from Hebe? A 12.9-gram specimen of NWA 2710, an H5 stony chondrite, sparkles in the light. The shiny flecks are iron-nickel metal set in a stony matrix. Credit: Bob King
Because Hebe orbits close to an unstable zone in the asteroid belt, any impacts it suffers are soon perturbed by Jupiter’s gravity and launched into trajectories than can include the Earth. When you spot Hebe in your binoculars the next clear night, you might just be seeing where many of the more common space rocks in our collections originated.
It’s a dangerous universe out there, for a budding young space-faring species.
Killer comets, planet sterilizing gamma ray bursts, and death rocks from above are all potential hazards that an adolescent civilization has to watch out for.
This week offers two close shaves, as newly discovered Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) 2014 WC201 and 2014 WX202 pass by the Earth-Moon system.
The passage of 2014 WC201 is coming right up tonight, as the 27-metre space rock passes about 570,000 kilometres from the Earth. That’s 1.4 times farther than the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
And the good news is, the Virtual Telescope Project will be bringing the passage of 2014 WC201 live tonight starting at 23:00 Universal Time/6:00 PM EST.
Shining at an absolute magnitude of +26, 2014 WC201 will be visible as a +13 apparent magnitude “star” at closest approach at 4:51 UT (December 2nd)/11:51 PM EST (December 1st) moving through the constellation Ursa Major. This puts it within range of a large backyard telescope, though the 80% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon will definitely be a mitigating factor for observation.
The JPL Horizons ephemerides generator is an excellent place to start for crafting accurate coordinates for the asteroid for your location.
A capture of NEO 2003 DZ15 from 2015. Credit: The Virtual Telescope Project.
At an estimated 27 metres/81 feet in size, 2014 WC201 will no doubt draw “house-sized” or “building-sized” comparisons in the press. Larger than an F-15 jet fighter, asteroids such as WC201 cry out for some fresh new descriptive comparisons. Perhaps, as we near a “Star Wars year” in 2015, we could refer to 2014 WC201 as X-wing sized?
Another Apollo NEO also makes a close pass by the Earth this week, as 6-metre 2014 WX202 passes 400,000 kilometres (about the same average distance as the Earth to the Moon) from us at 19:56 UT/2:56 PM EST on December 7th. Though closer than WC201, WX202 is much smaller and won’t be a good target for backyard scopes. Gianluca Masi over at the Virtual Telescope Project also notes that WX202 will also be a difficult target due to the nearly Full Moon later this week.
The orbital path of NEO asteroid 2014 WX202. Credit: NASA/JPL
The last Full Moon of 2014 occurs on December 6th at 6:26 AM EST/11:26 Universal Time.
2014 WX202 has also generated some interest in the minor planet community due to its low velocity approach relative to the Earth. This, coupled with its Earth-like orbit, is suggestive of something that may have escaped the Earth-Moon system. Could WX202 be returning space junk or lunar ejecta? It’s happened before, as old Apollo hardware and boosters from China’s Chang’e missions have been initially identified as Near Earth Asteroids.
The Earth also occasionally hosts a temporary “quasi-moon,” as last occurred in 2006 with the capture of RH120. 2014 WX202 makes a series of more distant passes in the 2030s, and perhaps it will make the short list of near Earth asteroids for humans to explore in the coming decades.
And speaking of which, humanity is making two steps in this direction this week, with two high profile space launches.
First up is the launch of JAXA’s Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on December 3rd at 4:22 UT/11:22 PM EST. The follow up to the Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission, Hayabusa 2 will rendezvous with asteroid 1999 JU3 in 2018 and return samples to Earth in late 2020. The vidcast for the launch of Hayabusa 2 goes live at 3:00 UT/10:00 PM EST on Tuesday, December 2nd.
And the next mission paving the way towards first boot prints on an asteroid is the launch of a Delta 4 Heavy rocket with EFT-1 from Cape Canaveral this Thursday morning on December 4th near sunrise at 7:05 AM EST/12:05 UT. EFT-1 is uncrewed, and will test key technologies including reentry on its two orbit flight. Expect to see crewed missions of Orion to begin around 2020, with a mission to an Earth crossing asteroid sometime in the decade after that.
NASA gotchu: An artist’s rendition of a future asteroid capture. Credit: NASA.
And there are some decent prospects to catch sight of EFT-1 on its first pass prior to its orbit raising burn over the Atlantic. Assuming EFT-1 lifts off at the beginning of its launch window, western Australia may see a good dusk pass 55 minutes after liftoff, and the southwestern U.S. may see a visible pass at dawn about 95 minutes after EFT-1 leaves the pad.
The footprint of EFT-1 on its first North American pass. Credit: Orbitron.
We’ll be tracking these prospects as the mission evolves on launch day via Twitter, and NASA TV will carry the launch live starting at 4:30 AM EST/9:30 UT.
The Orion capsule will come in hot on reentry at a blistering 32,000 kilometres per hour over four hours after liftoff in a reentry reminiscent of the early Apollo era.
Of course, if an asteroid the size of WC201 was on a collision course with the Earth it could spell a very bad day, at least in local terms. For comparison, the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated to be 18 metres in size, and the 1908 Tunguska impactor was estimated to be 60 metres across. And about 50,000 years ago, a 50 metre in diameter space rock came blazing in over the ponderosa pine trees near what would one day be the city of Flagstaff, Arizona to create the 1,200 metre diameter Barringer Meteor Crater you can visit today.
A fragment of the Barringer meteorite on display at the Lowell Observatory. Photo by author.
All the more reason to study hazardous space rocks and the technology needed to reach one in the event that we one day need to move one out of the way!
It happens to all lovers of astronomy sooner or later.
I once had a friend who was excited about an upcoming conjunction of Saturn and Venus. They were passing closer than the apparent diameter of the Full Moon in the dawn sky, and you could fit ‘em both in the same telescopic field of view. I invited said friend to stop by at 5 AM the next morning to check this out. I was excited to see this conjunction as well, but not for the same reasons.
Said friend was into astrology, and I’m sure that the conjunction held a deep significance in their world view. Sure, I could have easily told them that ‘astrology is bunk,’ and the skies care not for our terrestrial woes… or I could carefully help guide this ‘at risk friend’ towards the true wonders of the cosmos if they were willing to listen.
We bring this up because this weekend, the Sun enters the constellation Ophiuchus, one of 13 modern constellations that it can appear in from our Earthly vantage point.
If you’re born from November 30th to December 18th, you could consider yourself an “Ophiuchian,” or being born under the sign of Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer. But I’ll leave it up to you to decide what they might be like.
Seen at the Albany Park Zoo: Herpetology, or a modern day “serpent bearer?” Photo by author.
You might remember how the “controversy” of the 13th sign made its news rounds a few years back. Hey, it was cool to at least see an obscure and hard to pronounce constellation trending on Twitter. Of course, this wasn’t news to space enthusiasts, and to modern astronomers, a ‘house’ is merely where you live, and a ‘sign’ is what you follow to get there.
The modern 88 constellations we use were formalized by the International Astronomical Union in 1922. Like political boundaries, they’re imaginary constructs we use to organize reality. Star patterns slowly change with time due to our solar system’s motion — and that of neighboring stars —about the galactic center.
Astrologers will, of course, counter that their craft follows a tropical scheme versus a sidereal cosmology. In the tropical system, ecliptic longitude 0 starts from the equinoctial point marking the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, and the zodiac is demarcated by 12 ‘houses’ 30 degrees on a side.
This neatly ignores the reality of our friend, the precession of the equinoxes. The Earth’s poles do a slow wobble like a top, taking about 26,000 years to make one turn. This means that in the sidereal scheme of things, our vantage point of the Sun’s position along the zodiac against the background stars if reference to our Gregorian calendar is slowly changing: live out a 72 year lifespan, and the constellations along the zodiac with respect to the Sun will have shifted about one degree due to precession.
Our changing pole star. Credit: Starry Night Education Software.
Likewise, the direction of the North and South Pole is changing as well. Though Polaris makes a good pole star now, it’ll become increasingly less so as our north rotational pole begins to pull away from it after 2100 A.D. To the ancient Egyptians, Thuban (Alpha Draconis) was the pole star.
Precession over time. Credit: Tfr000 under Wikimedia Creative Commons 3.0 license.
Astrology and astronomy also have an intimate and hoary history, as many astronomers up until the time of Kepler financed their astronomical studies by casting royal horoscopes. And we still use terms such as appulse, conjunction and occultation, which have roots in astrology.
But the science of astronomy has matured beyond considering whether Mercury in retrograde has any connection with earthly woes. Perhaps you feel that you’re unlucky in love and have a vast untapped potential… sure, me too. We all do, and that just speaks to the universal state of the human condition. Astrology was an early attempt by humanity to find a coherent narrative, a place in the cosmos.
But the rise of the Ophiuchians isn’t nigh. Astrology relented to astronomy because of the latter’s true predictive power. “Look here, in the sky,” said mathematician Urbain Le Verrier, “and you’ll spy a new planet tugging on Uranus,” and blam, Neptune was discovered. If the planets had any true influence on us, why didn’t astrologers manage to predict the same?
Combating woo such as astrology is never simple. In the internet era, we often find tribes of the like-minded folks polarized around electronic camp fires. For example, writing ‘astrology is woo’ for an esteemed audience of science-minded readers such as Universe Today will no doubt find a largely agreeable reception. We have on occasion, however, written the same for a general audience to a much more hostile reception. Often, it’s just a matter of being that lone but patient voice of rationalism in the woods that ultimately sinks in.
Zodiacal artwork seen at the Yerkes observatory. Photo by author.
So, what’s the harm? Folks can believe whatever they want, and astrology’s no different, right? Well, the harm comes when people base life decisions on astrology. The harm comes when world leaders make critical decisions after consulting astrologers. Remember, Nancy and President Ronald Reagan conferred with astrologers for world affairs. It’s an irony of the modern age that, while writing a take down on astrology, there will likely be ads promoting astrology running right next to this very page. And while professional astronomers spend years in grad school, you can get a “PhD in Astrology” of dubious value online for a pittance. And nearly every general news site has a astrology page. Think of the space missions that could be launched if we threw as much money at exploration as we do at astrology as a society. Or perhaps astronomers should revert back to the dark side and resume casting horoscopes once again?
But to quote Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility,” and we promise to only use our astronomical powers for good.
What astronomers want you to know is that we’re not separate from the universe above us, and that the cosmos does indeed influence our everyday lives. And we’re not talking about finding your car keys or selling your house. We’re thinking big. The Sun energizes and drives the drama of life on Earth. The atoms that make you the unique individual that you are were forged in the hearts of stars. The ice that chills our drink may well have been delivered here via comet. And speaking of which, a comet headed our way could spell a very bad day for the Earth.
Don’t leave home without one… a travelling “pocket planetarium” circa 16th century seen at the Tampa Bay History Center. Photo by author.
All of these are real things that astronomy tells us about our place in the cosmos, whether you’re an Ophiuchian or a Capricorn. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the heavens may (seem to) blaze forth for the death of princes, but the fault lies not in the heavens, but ourselves. Don’t forget that, as James Randi says, “you’re a member of a proud species,” one loves to look skyward, and ultimately knows when to discard fantasy for reality.
