Welcome back to our planetary weather series! Today, we look at Earth’s overheated “sister planet”, Venus!
Venus is often called Earth’s “Sister Planet” because of all the things they have in common. They are comparable in size, have similar compositions, and both orbit within the Sun’s habitable zone. But beyond that, there are some notable differences that makes Venus a molten hellhole, and about the last place anyone would want to visit!
Much of this has to do with Venus’ atmosphere, which is incredibly dense and entirely hostile to life as we know it. And because of its natural density and composition, the average surface temperature of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. All of this adds up to some pretty interesting weather patterns, which are also incredibly hostile!
Venus Atmosphere:
Although carbon dioxide is invisible, the clouds on Venus are made up of opaque clouds of sulfuric acid, so we can’t see down to the surface using conventional methods. Everything we know about the surface of Venus has been gathered by spacecraft equipped with radar imaging instruments, which can peer through the dense clouds and reveal the surface below.
From the many flybys and atmospheric probes sent into its thick clouds, scientists have learned that Venus’ atmosphere is incredibly dense. In fact, the mass of Venus atmosphere is 93 times that of Earth’s, and the air pressure at the surface is estimated to be as high as 92 bar – i.e. 92 times that of Earth’s at sea level. If it were possible for a human being to stand on the surface of Venus, they would be crushed by the atmosphere.
The composition of the atmosphere is extremely toxic, consisting primarily of carbon dioxide (96.5%) with small amounts of nitrogen (3.5%) and traces of other gases – most notably sulfur dioxide. Combined with its density, the composition generates the strongest greenhouse effect of any planet in the Solar System.
It is also the hottest planet in the Solar System, experiencing mean surface temperatures of 735 K (462 °C; 863.6 °F). Above the dense CO² layer, thick clouds consisting mainly of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets scatter about 90% of the sunlight back into space.
The planet is also isothermal, which means that there is little variation in Venus’ surface temperature between day and night, or the equator and the poles. The planet’s minute axial tilt – less than 3° compared to Earth’s 23.5° – and its very slow rotational period (the planet takes around 243 days to complete a single rotation) also minimizes seasonal temperature variation.
Artist’s impression of the surface of Venus. Credit: ESA/AOES
The only appreciable variation in temperature occurs with altitude. The highest point on Venus, Maxwell Montes, is therefore the coolest point on the planet, with a temperature of about 655 K (380 °C; 716 °F) and an atmospheric pressure of about 4.5 MPa (45 bar).
Meteorological Phenomena:
The weather on Venus is one of the aspects of the planet under constant study from Earth-based telescopes and space missions to Venus. And from what we’ve seen, the weather on Venus is very extreme. The entire atmosphere of the planet circulates around quickly, with winds reaching speeds of up to 85 m/s (300 km/h; 186.4 mph) at the cloud tops, which circle the planet every four to five Earth days.
At this speed, these winds move up to 60 times the speed of the planet’s rotation, whereas Earth’s fastest winds are only 10-20% of the planet’s rotational speed. Spacecraft equipped with ultraviolet imaging instruments are able to observe the cloud motion around Venus, and see how it moves at different layers of the atmosphere. The winds blow in a retrograde direction, and are the fastest near the poles.
Closer to the equator, the wind speeds die down to almost nothing. Because of the thick atmosphere, the winds move much slower as you get close to the surface of Venus, reaching speeds of about 5 km/h. Because it’s so thick, though, the atmosphere is more like water currents than blowing wind at the surface, so it is still capable of blowing dust around and moving small rocks across the surface of Venus.
Over the past six years wind speeds in Venus’ atmosphere have been steadily rising (ESA
Several flybys past the planet have also indicated that its dense clouds are capable of producing lightning, much like the clouds on Earth. Their intermittent appearance indicates a pattern associated with weather activity, and the lightning rate is at least half of that on Earth. Since Venus does not experience rainfall (except in the form of sulfuric acid), it has been theorized that the lightning is being caused by a volcanic eruption.
What is the weather like on Venus? Terrible, would be the short answer. The long answer is that it is extremely hot, the air pressure is extremely high, there are very strong winds, sulfuric acid rain (at higher altitudes) and lightning storms driven by volcanic eruptions. It is little wonder then why the only practical option for colonizing Venus involves creating floating cities above the cloud layer.
The Progress 65 cargo spaceship launched on time Thursday morning, Dec. 1, 2016 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA TV
The Progress 65 cargo spaceship launched on time Thursday morning, Dec. 1, 2016 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan but failed to reach orbit minutes later. Credit: NASA TV
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – An unmanned Russian Progress resupply ship bound for the International Space Station (ISS) was lost shortly after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday when its Soyuz booster suffered a catastrophic anomaly in the third stage, and the craft and its contents were totally destroyed.
The Russian launch failure deals somewhat of a setback to the ever ongoing efforts by all the space station partners to keep the orbiting outpost well stocked with critical supplies of food and provisions for the multinational six person crew and science experiments to carry out the research activities for which the station was assembled.
The three stage Soyuz-U rocket failed in flight around six and a half minutes after what had been an otherwise flawless nighttime liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 9:51 a.m. EST (8:51 p.m. Baikonur time), Thursday, Dec. 1.
Telemetry from the Progress 65 vehicle, also known as Progress MS-04, stopped after 382 seconds of flight while soaring about 190 km over the southern Russian Republic of Tyva.
“The Russian space agency Roscosmos has confirmed a Progress cargo resupply spacecraft bound for the International Space Station and her six person crew has lost shortly after launch,” said NASA.
“According to preliminary information, the contingency took place at an altitude of about 190 km over remote and unpopulated mountainous area of the Republic of Tyva,” said Roscosmos in a statement.
The Progress vehicle burned up during the resulting and unplanned fiery plummet through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Per protocol, the Russian space agency Roscosmos has formed a state commission to investigate the accident, seek out the root cause and implement measures to prevent such failures in the future.
“The first few minutes of flight were normal, but Russian flight controllers reported telemetry data indicating a problem during third stage operation. The Russians have formed a State Commission and are the source for details on the specific failure cause,” NASA said.
Crew launches on a different version of the Soyuz rocket were delayed and put on hold several months following last year’s Progress 59 failure and accident investigation.
Despite the failure there was no immediate impact on the current Expedition 50 crew and life goes on.
“The loss of the cargo ship will not affect the normal operations of the ISS and the life of the station crew,” said Roscosmos.
“The spacecraft was not carrying any supplies critical for the United States Operating Segment (USOS) of the station,” NASA reported.
Currently there is a satisfactory level of supplies.
“Six crew members living aboard the space station are safe and have been informed of the mission’s status. Both the Russian and U.S. segments of the station continue to operate normally with onboard supplies at good levels.”
However the continued useful utilization of the million pound station is totally dependent on receiving a steady train of supplies from Earth – comprising Russian, US and Japanese cargo freighters launching multiple times per year.
The Progress 65 cargo freighter was jam packed with 2.6 tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the space station crew, including approximately 1,400 pounds of propellant, 112 pounds of oxygen, 925 pounds of water, and 2,750 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware.
The Russian Progress 62 spacecraft approaches the International Space Station on July 1, 2016. Credits: NASA
The Progress was carrying a few items from NASA but they are all replaceable, says NASA. The US items packed on board included spare parts for the station’s environmental control and life support system, research hardware, crew supplies and crew clothing.
Had all gone well, Progress 65 would have docked to the rear port of the space station’s Russian Zvezda Service Module at 11:43 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 3.
Japan is all set to launch the next cargo flight to the ISS on Friday, Dec. 9 when the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) HTV-6 resupply ship will blast off atop the H-II rocket.
The Orbital ATK Antares rocket topped with the Cygnus cargo spacecraft launches from Pad-0A, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016 at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Orbital ATK’s sixth contracted cargo resupply mission with NASA to the International Space Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer
The next US cargo launch could be either an Orbital ATK Cygnus launch atop a ULA Atlas V in March 2017 or a SpaceX Dragon launch perhaps in Jan 2017.
The US has also suffered ISS cargo launch failures from both of the commercial resupply providers; SpaceX on the Dragon CRS-7 mission in Jun 2015 and Orbital ATK on the Cygnus Orb-3 mission in October 2014.
First stage propulsion system at base of Orbital Sciences Antares rocket appears to explode moments after blastoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, VA, on Oct. 28, 2014, at 6:22 p.m. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The cargo ships function as a railroad to space and function as the lifeline to keep the station continuously crewed and functioning. Without periodic resupply by visiting vehicles from the partner nations the ISS cannot continue to operate.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.
In the 18th century, observations made of all the known planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) led astronomers to discern a pattern in their orbits. Eventually, this led to the Titius–Bode law, which predicted the amount of space between the planets. In accordance with this law, there appeared to be a discernible gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and investigation into it led to a major discovery.
Eventually, astronomers realized that this region was pervaded by countless smaller bodies which they named “asteroids”. This in turn led to the term “Asteroid Belt”, which has since entered into common usage. Like all the planets in our Solar System, it orbits our Sun, and has played an important role in the evolution and history of our Solar System.
Structure and Composition:
The Asteroid Belt consists of several large bodies, along with millions of smaller size. The larger bodies, such as Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea, account for half of the belt’s total mass, with almost one-third accounted for by Ceres alone. Beyond that, over 200 asteroids that are larger than 100 km in diameter, and 0.7–1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more.
Ceres compared to asteroids visited to date, including Vesta, Dawn’s mapping target in 2011. Credit: NASA/ESA/Paul Schenck
It total, the Asteroid Belt’s mass is estimated to be 2.8×1021 to 3.2×1021 kilograms – which is equivalent to about 4% of the Moon’s mass. While most asteroids are composed of rock, a small portion of them contain metls such as iron and nickel. The remaining asteroids are made up of a mix of these, along with carbon-rich materials. Some of the more distant asteroids tend to contain more ices and volatiles, which includes water ice.
Despite the impressive number of objects contained within the belt, the Main Belt’s asteroids are also spread over a very large volume of space. As a result, the average distance between objects is roughly 965,600 km (600,000 miles), meaning that the Main Belt consists largely of empty space. In fact, due to the low density of materials within the Belt, the odds of a probe running into an asteroid are now estimated at less than one in a billion.
The main (or core) population of the asteroid belt is sometimes divided into three zones, which are based on what is known as “Kirkwood gaps”. Named after Daniel Kirkwood, who announced in 1866 the discovery of gaps in the distance of asteroids, these gaps are similar to what is seen with Saturn’s and other gas giants’ systems of rings.
Origin:
Originally, the Asteroid Belt was thought to be the remnants of a much larger planet that occupied the region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This theory was originally suggested by Heinrich Olbders to William Herschel as a possible explanation for the existence of Ceres and Pallas. However, this hypothesis has since been shown to have several flaws.
For one, the amount of energy required to destroy a planet would have been staggering, and no scenario has been suggested that could account for such events. Second, there is the fact that the mass of the Asteroid Belt is only 4% that of the Moon (and 22% that of Pluto). The odds of a cataclysmic collision with such a tiny body are very unlikely. Lastly, the significant chemical differences between the asteroids do no point towards a common origin.
Today, the scientific consensus is that, rather than fragmenting from an original planet, the asteroids are remnants from the early Solar System that never formed a planet at all. During the first few million years of the Solar System’s history, gravitational accretion caused clumps of matter to form out of an accretion disc. These clumps gradually came together, eventually undergoing hydrostatic equilibrium (become spherical) and forming planets.
However, within the region of the Asteroid Belt, planestesimals were too strongly perturbed by Jupiter’s gravity to form a planet. As such, these objects would continue to orbit the Sun as they had before, with only one object (Ceres) having accumulated enough mass to undergo hydrostatic equilibrium. On occasion, they would collide to produce smaller fragments and dust.
The asteroids also melted to some degree during this time, allowing elements within them to be partially or completely differentiated by mass. However, this period would have been necessarily brief due to their relatively small size. It likely ended about 4.5 billion years ago, a few tens of millions of years after the Solar System’s formation.
Though they are dated to the early history of the Solar System, the asteroids (as they are today) are not samples of its primordial self. They have undergone considerable evolution since their formation, including internal heating, surface melting from impacts, space weathering from radiation, and bombardment by micrometeorites. Hence, the Asteroid Belt today is believed to contain only a small fraction of the mass of the primordial belt.
Computer simulations suggest that the original asteroid belt may have contained mass equivalent to the Earth. Primarily because of gravitational perturbations, most of the material was ejected from the belt a million years after its formation, leaving behind less than 0.1% of the original mass. Since then, the size distribution of the asteroid belt is believed to have remained relatively stable.
When the asteroid belt was first formed, the temperatures at a distance of 2.7 AU from the Sun formed a “snow line” below the freezing point of water. Essentially, planetesimals formed beyond this radius were able to accumulate ice, some of which may have provided a water source of Earth’s oceans (even more so than comets).
Distance from the Sun:
Located between Mars and Jupiter, the belt ranges in distance between 2.2 and 3.2 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun – 329 million to 478.7 million km (204.43 million to 297.45 million mi). It is also an estimated to be 1 AU thick (149.6 million km, or 93 million mi), meaning that it occupies the same amount of distance as what lies between the Earth to the Sun.
The asteroids of the inner Solar System and Jupiter: The donut-shaped asteroid belt is located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. Credit: Wikipedia Commons
The distance of an asteroid from the Sun (its semi-major axis) depends upon its distribution into one of three different zones based on the Belt’s “Kirkwood Gaps”. Zone I lies between the 4:1 resonance and 3:1 resonance Kirkwood gaps, which are roughly 2.06 and 2.5 AUs (3 to 3.74 billion km; 1.86 to 2.3 billion mi) from the Sun, respectively.
Zone II continues from the end of Zone I out to the 5:2 resonance gap, which is 2.82 AU (4.22 billion km; 2.6 mi) from the Sun. Zone III, the outermost section of the Belt, extends from the outer edge of Zone II to the 2:1 resonance gap, located some 3.28 AU (4.9 billion km; 3 billion mi) from the Sun.
While many spacecraft have been to the Asteroid Belt, most were passing through on their way to the outer Solar System. Only in recent years, with the Dawn mission, that the Asteroid Belt has been a focal point of scientific research. In the coming decades, we may find ourselves sending spaceships there to mine asteroids, harvest minerals and ices for use here on Earth.
The canes venatici constellation, located in the northern skies in proximity to Bootes, Ursa Major and Coma Berenices. Credit: maps.seds.org
Welcome back to Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we will be dealing with Canes Venatici constellation.
In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of the then-known 48 constellations. His treatise, known as the Almagest, would be used by medieval European and Islamic scholars for over a thousand years to come. Today, this list has been expanded to include the 88 constellations recognized by the IAU.
The small northern constellation of Canes Venatici represents the hunting dogs – Chara and Asterion – of Boötes. It is also one of three constellations that represent dogs, along with Canis Major and Canis Minor. Given its comparatively recent origin, there is no real mythology associated with this asterism. However, it does have an interesting history.
Canes Venatici depicted in Hevelius’s star atlas. Note that, per the conventions of the time, the image is mirrored. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Atlas Coelestis
History of Observation:
During Classic Antiquity, the stars of Canes Venatici did not appear very brightly in the night sky. As such, they were listed by Ptolemy as unfigured stars below the constellation Ursa Major in the Almagest, rather than as a distinct constellation. During the Middle Ages, the identification of these stars as being the dogs of Boötes arose due to a mistranslation.
Some of the component stars in the nearby constellation of Boötes (which was known as the “herdsman”) were traditionally described as representing his cudgel. When the Almagest was translated from Greek to Arabic, the translator – the Arab astronomer Hunayn ibn Ishaq – did not know the Arabic word for cudgel.
As such, he chose the closest translation in Arabic – “al-`asa dhat al-kullab” -which literally means “the spearshaft having a hook” (possibly in reference to a shepherd’s crook). When the Arabic text was later translated into Latin, the translator mistook the Arabic word “kullab” for “kilab” – which means “dogs” – and wrote the name as hastile habens canes (“spearshaft having dogs”).
This representation of Boötes having two dogs remained popular and became official when, in 1687, Johannes Hevelius decided to designate them as a separate constellation. The northern of the two hunting dogs was named Asterion (‘little star’) while the southern dog was named Chara – from the Greek word for ‘joy’,.
Canes Venatici can be seen in the orientation they appear to the eyes in this 1825 star chart from Urania’s Mirror. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Library of Congress
Notable Features:
The constellation’s brightest star is Cor Caroli, which is perhaps one of the most splendid of all colorful double stars. The name literally means “Charles’ heart”, and was named by Sir Charles Scarborough in honor of Charles I – who was executed in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The star is also associated with Charles II of England, who was restored to the throne after the interregnum following his father’s death.
Cor Caroli is a binary star with a combined apparent magnitude of 2.81 which marks the northern vertex of the Diamond of Virgo asterism. The two stars are 19.6 arc seconds apart and are easily resolved in small telescopes and steady binoculars. The system lies approximately 110 light years from Earth. It’s main star, a² Canum Venaticorum, is the prototype of a class of Spectral Type A0 variable stars (the so-called a² Canum Venaticorum stars).
These stars have a strong stellar magnetic field, which is believed to produce starspots of enormous extent. Due to these starspots, the brightness of a² Canum Venaticorum stars varies considerably during their rotation. Their brightness also varies between magnitude +2.84 and +2.98 with a period of 5.47 days. The companion, a¹ Canum Venaticorum (a spectral type F0 star), is considerably fainter at +5.5 magnitude.
Y CVn, “La Superba”, and a simulation of what it would look like close-up, created using Celestia. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Kirk39
Next up is Y Canum Venaticorum (Y CVn), which was named “La Superba” by 19th century astronomer Angelo Secchi for its uncommonly beautiful red color. This name was certainly appropriate, since it is one of the reddest stars in the sky, and one the brightest of the giant red “carbon stars”.
La Superba is the brightest J-star in the sky, a very rare category of carbon stars that contain large amounts of carbon-13. Its surface temperature is believed to be about 2800 K (~2526 °C; 4580 °F), making it one of the coldest true stars known. Its appearance, temperature and composition are all indications that it is currently in the Red Giant phase of its life-cycle.
Y CVn is almost never visible to the naked eye since most of its output is outside the visible spectrum. Yet, when infrared radiation is considered, Y CVn has a luminosity 4400 times that of the Sun, and its radius is approximately 2 AU. If it were placed at the position of our sun, the star’s surface would extend beyond the orbit of Mars.
Canes Venatici is also home to several Deep Sky Objects. For starters, there’s the tremendous globular cluster known as Messier 3 (M3). Messier 3 has an apparent magnitude of 6.2, making it visible to the naked eye. It was first resolved into stars by William Herschel around 1784. This cluster is one of the largest and brightest, made up of around 500,000 stars, and is located about 33,900 light-years away from our solar system.
Messier 51, aka. the Whirlpool Galaxy, is a spiral nebula – a large galaxy with a well defined spiral structure located over 60,000 light-years across. Credit: NASA
Then there’s the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51 or NGC 5194. This interacting, grand-design spiral galaxy is located at a distance of approximately 23 million light-years from Earth. It is one of the most famous spiral galaxies in the night sky, for both its grace and beauty. The galaxy and its companion (NGC 5195) are easily observed by amateur telescopes, and the two galaxies may even be seen with larger binoculars.
Canes Venatici is also home of the Sunflower Galaxy (aka. Messier 63 and NGC 5055), an unbarred spiral galaxy consisting of a central galactic disc surrounded by many short spiral arm segments. It is part of the M51 galaxy group, which also includes the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51). In the mid-1800s, Lord Rosse identified the spiral structure within the galaxy, making this one of the first galaxies in which “spiral nebulae” were identified.
Now hop over to the barred spiral galaxy known as Messier 94 for some comparison. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 and catalogued by Charles Messier two days later. Although some references describe M94 as a barred spiral galaxy, the “bar” structure appears to be more oval-shaped. The galaxy is also notable in that it has two ring structures, an inner ring with a diameter of 70″ and an outer ring with a diameter of 600″.
These rings appear to form at resonance locations within the disk of the galaxy. The inner ring is the site of strong star formation activity and is sometimes referred to as a starburst ring. This star formation is fueled by gas that is dynamically driven into the ring by the inner oval-shaped bar-like structure.
Messier 63, also known as the Sunflower Galaxy, seen here in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/ESA/HST
For a completely different galaxy, try Messier 106 (NGC 4258). This spiral galaxy is about 22 to 25 million light-years away from Earth. It is also a Seyfert II galaxy, which means that due to x-rays and unusual emission lines detected, it is suspected that part of the galaxy is falling into a supermassive black hole in the center. Nearby NGC 4217 is a possible companion galaxy.
The constellation does not have any stars with known planets, and there is one meteor shower associated with the constellation – the Canes Venaticids.
Finding Canes Venatici:
While it basically consists of only two bright stars, the Canes Venatici constellation is still fairly easy to locate and is bordered by Ursa Major, Boötes and Coma Berenices. It can be spotted with the naked eye on a clear night where light conditions are favorable. However, for those using binoculars, finderscopes and small telescopes, the constellation has much to offer the amateur astronomer and stargazer.
The location of the Canes Venatici constellation. Credit: IAU/Sky&Telescope magazine
It’s brightest star, Cor Calroli can be found at RA 12h 56m 01.6674s Dec +38° 19′ 06.167″, while beautiful Y Canum Venaticorum (aka. “La Superba”) can be seen at RA 12f 45m 07s Dec +45° 26′ 24″. And M51 is easy to find by following the easternmost star of the Big Dipper, Eta Ursae Majoris, and going 3.5° southeast. Its declination is +47°, so it is circumpolar for observers located above 43°N latitude.
CERN visualization showing two electrons (green), one to two muons (red lines) resulting from a collision between two Z bosons. Credit: CERN
During the 19th and 20th centuries, physicists began to probe deep into the nature of matter and energy. In so doing, they quickly realized that the rules which govern them become increasingly blurry the deeper one goes. Whereas the predominant theory used to be that all matter was made up of indivisible atoms, scientists began to realize that atoms are themselves composed of even smaller particles.
From these investigations, the Standard Model of Particle Physics was born. According to this model, all matter in the Universe is composed of two kinds of particles: hadrons – from which Large Hadron Collider (LHC) gets its name – and leptons. Where hadrons are composed of other elementary particles (quarks, anti-quarks, etc), leptons are elementary particles that exist on their own.
Definition:
The word lepton comes from the Greek leptos, which means “small”, “fine”, or “thin”. The first recorded use of the word was by physicist Leon Rosenfeld in his book Nuclear Forces (1948). In the book, he attributed the use of the word to a suggestion made by Danish chemist and physicist Prof. Christian Moller.
The Standard Model of Particle Physics, showing all known elementary particles. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/MissMJ/PBS NOVA/Fermilab/Particle Data GroupThe term was chosen to refer to particles of small mass, since the only known leptons in Rosenfeld’s time were muons. These elementary particles are over 200 times more massive than electrons, but have only about one-ninth the the mass of a proton. Along with quarks, leptons are the basic building blocks of matter, and are therefore seen as “elementary particles”.
Types of Leptons:
According to the Standard Model, there are six different types of leptons. These include the Electron, the Muon, and Tau particles, as well as their associated neutrinos (i.e. electron neutrino, muon neutrino, and tau neutrino). Leptons have negative charge and a distinct mass, whereas their neutrinos have a neutral charge.
Electrons are the lightest, with a mass of 0.000511 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), while Muons have a mass of 0.1066 Gev and Tau particles (the heaviest) have a mass of 1.777 Gev. The different varieties of the elementary particles are commonly called “flavors”. While each of the three lepton flavors are different and distinct (in terms of their interactions with other particles), they are not immutable.
A neutrino can change its flavor, a process which is known as “neutrino flavor oscillation”. This can take a number of forms, which include solar neutrino, atmospheric neutrino, nuclear reactor, or beam oscillations. In all observed cases, the oscillations were confirmed by what appeared to be a deficit in the number of neutrinos being created.
Muons, a type of lepton, shown being produced by the Large Hadron Collider. Credit: CERN
One observed cause has to do with “muon decay” (see below), a process where muons change their flavor to become electron neutrinos or tau neutrinos – depending on the circumstances. In addition, all three leptons and their neutrinos have an associated antiparticle (antilepton).
For each, the antileptons have an identical mass, but all of the other properties are reversed. These pairings consist of the electron/positron, muon/antimuon, tau/antitau, electron neutrino/electron antineutrino, muon neutrino/muan antinuetrino, and tau neutrino/tau antineutrino.
The present Standard Model assumes that there are no more than three types (aka. “generations”) of leptons with their associated neutrinos in existence. This accords with experimental evidence that attempts to model the process of nucleosynthesis after the Big Bang, where the existence of more than three leptons would have affected the abundance of helium in the early Universe.
Properties:
All leptons possess a negative charge. They also possess an intrinsic rotation in the form of their spin, which means that electrons with an electric charge – i.e. “charged leptons” – will generate magnetic fields. They are able to interact with other matter only though weak electromagnetic forces. Ultimately, their charge determines the strength of these interactions, as well as the strength of their electric field and how they react to external electrical or magnetic fields.
None are capable of interacting with matter via strong forces, however. In the Standard Model, each lepton starts out with no intrinsic mass. Charged leptons obtain an effective mass through interactions with the Higgs field, while neutrinos either remain massless or have only very small masses.
History of Study:
The first lepton to be identified was the electron, which was discovered by British physicist J.J. Thomson and his colleagues in 1897 using a series of cathode ray tube experiments. The next discoveries came during the 1930s, which would lead to the creation of a new classification for weakly-interacting particles that were similar to electrons.
The first discovery was made by Austrian-Swiss physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, who proposed the existence of the electron neutrino in order to resolve the ways in which beta decay contradicted the Conservation of Energy law, and Newton’s Laws of Motion (specifically the Conservation of Momentum and Conservation of Angular Momentum).
The positron and muon were discovered by Carl D. Anders in 1932 and 1936, respectively. Due to the mass of the muon, it was initially mistook for a meson. But due to its behavior (which resembled that of an electron) and the fact that it did not undergo strong interaction, the muon was reclassified. Along with the electron and the electron neutrino, it became part of a new group of particles known as “leptons”.
In 1962, a team of American physicists – consisting of Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger – were able to detect of interactions by the muon neutrino, thus showing that more than one type of neutrino existed. At the same time, theoretical physicists postulated the existence of many other flavors of neutrinos, which would eventually be confirmed experimentally.
The tau particle followed in the 1970s, thanks to experiments conducted by Nobel-Prize winning physicist Martin Lewis Perl and his colleagues at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Evidence of its associated neutrino followed thanks to the study of tau decay, which showed missing energy and momentum analogous to the missing energy and momentum caused by the beta decay of electrons.
In 2000, the tau neutrino was directly observed thanks to the Direct Observation of the NU Tau (DONUT) experiment at Fermilab. This would be the last particle of the Standard Model to be observed until 2012, when CERN announced that it had detected a particle that was likely the long-sought-after Higgs Boson.
Today, there are some particle physicists who believe that there are leptons still waiting to be found. These “fourth generation” particles, if they are indeed real, would exist beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, and would likely interact with matter in even more exotic ways.
For more information, SLAC’s Virtual Visitor Center has a good introduction to Leptons and be sure to check out the Particle Data Group (PDG) Review of Particle Physics.
Portrait of Giovanni Domenico Cassini, with the Paris Observatory in the background. Credit: Wikipedia Commons
During the Scientific Revolution, which took place between the 15th and 18th centuries, numerous inventions and discoveries were made that forever changed the way humanity viewed the Universe. And while this explosion in learning owed its existence to countless individuals, a few stand out as being especially worthy of praise and remembrance.
One such individual is Gionvanni Domenico Cassini, also known by his French name Jean-Dominique Cassini. An Italian astronomer, engineer, and astrologer, Cassini made many valuable contributions to modern science. However, it was his discovery of the gaps in Saturn’s rings and four of its largest moons for which he is most remembered, and the reason why the Cassini spacecraft bears his name.
Early Life and Education:
Giovanni Domenico Cassini was born on June 8th, 1625, in the small town of Perinaldo (near Nice, France) to Jacopo Cassini and Julia Crovesi. Educating by Jesuit scientists, he showed an aptitude for mathematics and astronomy from an early age. In 1648, he accepted a position at the observatory at Panzano, near Bologna, where he was employed by a rich amateur astronomer named Marquis Cornelio Malvasia.
During his time at the Panzano Observatory, Cassini was able to complete his education and went on to become the principal chair of astronomy at the University of Bologna by 1650. While there, he made several scientific contributions that would have a lasting mark.
La Meridiana, the meridian line calculated by Cassini while living in Bologna. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Ilario/Cassinam
This included the calculation of an important meridian line, which runs along the left aisle of the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna. At 66.8 meters (219 ft) in length, it is one of the largest astronomical instruments in the worl and allowed for measurements that were (at the time) uniquely precise. This meridian also helped to settle the debate about whether or not the Universe was geocentric or heliocentric.
During his time in Italy, Cassini determined the obliquity of the Earth’s ecliptic – aka. it’s axial tilt, which he calculated to be 23° and 29′ at the time. He also studied the effects of refraction and the Solar parallax, worked on planetary theory, and observed the comets of 1664 and 1668.
In recognition of his engineering skills, Pope Clement IX employed Cassini with regard to fortifications, river management and flooding along the Po River in northern Italy. In 1663, Cassini was named superintendent of fortifications and oversaw the fortifying of Urbino. And in 1665, he was named the inspector for the town of Perugia in central Italy.
Paris Observatory:
In 1669, Cassini received an invitation by Louis XIV of France to move to Paris and help establish the Paris Observatory. Upon his arrival, he joined the newly-founded Academie Royale des Sciences (Royal Academy of Sciences), and became the first director of the Paris Observatory, which opened in 1671. He would remain the director of the observatory until his death in 1712.
An engraving of the Paris Observatory during Cassini’s time. Credit: Public Domain
In 1673, Cassini obtained his French citizenship and in the following year, he married Geneviève de Laistre, the daughter of the lieutenant general of the Comte de Clermont. During his time in France, Cassini spent the majority of his time dedicated to astronomical studies. Using a series of very long air telescopes, he made several discoveries and collaborated with Christiaan Huygens in many projects.
In the 1670s, Cassini began using the triangulation method to create a topographic map of France. It would not be completed until after his death (1789 or 1793), when it was published under the name Carte de Cassini. In addition to being the first topographical map of France, it was the first map to accurately measure longitude and latitude, and showed that the nation was smaller than previously thought.
In 1672, Cassini and his colleague Jean Richer made simultaneous observations of Mars (Cassini from Paris and Richer from French Guiana) and determined its distance to Earth through parallax. This enabled him to refine the dimensions of the Solar System and determine the value of the Astronomical Unit (AU) to within 7% accuracy. He and English astronomer Robert Hooke share credit for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter (ca. 1665).
In 1683, Cassini presented an explanation for “zodiacal light” – the faint glow that extends away from the Sun in the ecliptic plane of the sky – which he correctly assumed to be caused by a cloud of small particles surrounding the Sun. He also viewed eight more comets before his death, which appeared in the night sky in 1672, 1677, 1698, 1699, 1702 (two), 1706 and 1707.
Illustration of Jupiter and the Galilean satellites. Credit: NASA
In ca. 1690, Cassini was the first to observe differential rotation within Jupiter’s atmosphere. He created improved tables for the positions of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, and discovered the periodic delays between the occultations of Jupiter’s moons and the times calculated. This would be used by Ole Roemer, his colleague at the Paris Observatory, to calculate the velocity of light in 1675.
In 1683, Cassini began the measurement of the arc of the meridian (longitude line) through Paris. From the results, he concluded that Earth is somewhat elongated. While in fact, the Earth is flattened at the poles, the revelation that Earth is not a perfect sphere was groundbreaking.
Cassini also observed and published his observations about the surface markings on Mars, which had been previously observed by Huygens but not published. He also determined the rotation periods of Mars and Jupiter, and his observations of the Moon led to the Cassini Laws, which provide a compact description of the motion of the Moon. These laws state that:
The Moon takes the same amount of time to rotate uniformly about its own axis asit takes to revolve around the Earth. As a consequence, the same face is always pointed towards Earth.
The Moon’s equator is tilted at a constant angle (about 1°32′ of arc) to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun (i.e. the ecliptic)
The point where the lunar orbit passes from south to north on the ecliptic (aka. the ascending node of the lunar orbit) always coincides with the point where the lunar equator passes from north to south on the ecliptic (the descending node of the lunar equator).
A collage of Saturn (bottom left) and some of its moons: Titan, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea and Helene. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Thanks to his leadership, Giovanni Cassini was the first of four successive Paris Observatory directors that bore his name. This would include his son, Jaques Cassini (Cassini II, 1677-1756); his grandson César François Cassini (Cassini III, 1714-84); and his great grandson, Jean Dominique Cassini (Cassini IV, 1748-1845).
Observations of Saturn:
During his time in France, Cassini also made his famous discoveries of many of Saturn’s moons – Iapetus in 1671, Rhea in 167, and Tethys and Dione in 1684. Cassini named these moons Sidera Lodoicea (the stars of Louis), and correctly explained the anomalous variations in brightness to the presence of dark material on one hemisphere (now called Cassini Regio in his honor).
In 1675, Cassini discovered that Saturn’s rings are separated into two parts by a gap, which is now called the “Cassini Division” in his honor. He also theorized that the rings were composed of countless small particles, which was proven to be correct.
Death and Legacy:
After dedicating his life to astronomy and the Paris Observatory, Cassini went blind in 1711 and then died on September 14th, 1712, in Paris. And although he resisted many new theories and ideas that were proposed during his lifetime, his discoveries and contributions place him among the most important astronomers of the 17th and 18th centuries.
A comparison of the geocentric and heliocentric models of the universe. Credit: history.ucsb.edu
As a traditionalist, Cassini initially held the Earth to be the center of the Solar System. In time, he would come to accept the Solar Theory of Nicolaus Copernicus within limits, to the point that he accepted the model proposed by Tycho Brahe. However, he rejected the theory of Johannes Kepler that planets travel in ellipses and proposed hat their paths were certain curved ovals (i.e. Cassinians, or Ovals of Cassini)
Cassini also rejected Newton’s Theory of Gravity, after measurements he conducted which (wrongly) suggested that the Earth was elongated at its poles. After forty years of controversy, Newton’s theory was adopted after the measurements of the French Geodesic Mission (1736-1744) and the Lapponian Expedition in 1737, which showed that the Earth is actually flattened at the poles.
For his lifetime of work, Cassini has been honored in many ways by the astronomical community. Because of his observations of the Moon and Mars, features on their respective surfaces were named after him. Both the Moon and Mars have their own Cassini Crater, and Cassini Regio on Saturn’s moon Iapetus also bears his name.
Then there is Asteroid (24101) Cassini, which was discovered by C.W. Juels at in 1999 using the Fountain Hills Observatory telescope. Most recently, there was the joint NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens missions which recently finished its mission to study Saturn and its moons. This robotic orbiter and lander mission was named in honor of the two astronomers who were chiefly responsible for discovering Saturn system of moons.
Artist’s impression of the Cassini space probe, part of the Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons. Credit: NASA/JPL
In the end, Cassini’s passion for astronomy and his contributions to the sciences have ensured him a lasting place in the annals of history. In any discussion of the Scientific Revolution and of the influential thinkers who made it happen, his name appears alongside such luminaries as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.
An artificial meteor shower coming to a sky-scape near you? Image credit: Sky Canvas.
A company named Sky Canvas plans to launch a colorful artificial meteor shower barrage via micro-satellite.
In the ‘strange but true department’ and a plan that would make any super-villain envious, a Japanese start-up plans to shoot meteoroids at the Earth to create the first orchestrated artificial meteor shower. The effort is benign in a bid to study the behavior of meteors and reentry characteristics, while also putting on a good show.
The idea is brainchild of Lena Okajima, who started the ALE Company which is funding the project.
“I’m very excited about this project, not only because it will turn my childhood dream into a reality, but also because it can contribute to fundamental scientific research in a new form without relying on public funds and donations,” Okajima said on her biography on the ALE website.
First, a clarification: despite what several news sites have reported, Sky Canvas/ALE have not made a formal bid to incorporate the proposal as part of the 2020 Olympics in Japan, though they’re certainly open to the idea. An artificial meteor shower during the opening ceremonies for the 2020 Olympics in Japan would definitely be a unique first!
A meteor shower-dispensing satellite in low Earth Orbit. Image credit: Sky Canvas.
Early testing and a first satellite launch with an as-yet unannounced carrier may occur in the later half of 2017, with another launch per year, each year following.
Long a dream of astronomer Lena Okajima, an artificial meteor shower may soon grace a sky near you.
A ball-bearing sized artificial meteor on reentry. Image credit: Sky Canvas.
Visibility Prospects
The meteoric payload will be carried into low Earth orbit aboard a small 50x 50x 50 centimetre cubical satellite dispenser. Different pellets will burn blue, orange and green. The team won’t reveal the ‘secret formula’ for the colors, but you only have to think back to high school chemistry class and Bunsen Burner flame tests to imagine the elements probably used. (hint: the green isn’t kryptonite). Laboratory tests suggest that the artificial meteors should be visible from about 200 kilometers (120 miles) away. Said satellite dispenser will carry about a 300-500 pellets. At say, a meteor a second, such a display would last from five to just over eight minutes in duration.
A rainbow of elemental colors. Image credit: Sky Canvas.
A test carried out in the lab verified that the brightness for the pellets should be right around apparent magnitude -0.86, just a bit fainter than the brightest star in the sky Sirius at magnitude -1.5.
Looking for an artificial meteor shower to light up your next event? Well, such a performance isn’t cheap. With a roughly eight million dollar price tag, an artificial meteor shower breaks down to about $16,000 USD per meteor.
The plan is to place the 50 kilogram satellite (fully loaded) in a sun-synchronous orbit. This is a highly inclined retrograde polar orbit, also favored by Earth-observing and (supervillians take note) spy satellites.
The visibility prospects for Sky Canvas over a major urban area. Image credit: Sky Canvas.
The Sky Canvas system will also have the ability to ‘weather abort’ about 100 minutes prior to the event in case of inclement weather. Once in low Earth orbit, said satellite will orbit the planet once every 90 minutes. Such a dispenser is a one shot affair, and will burn up shortly after use.
Are artificial meteor showers a great idea? On one hand, it might be a great educational resource, and a way to get the general public excited about space and astronomy. Still, for those of us who have endured many an early morning vigil for the occasional surprise flash of a meteor, there’s perhaps something a bit kitschy about meteor showers on demand. It’s also slightly reminiscent of the early Space Age ideas to create nighttime illumination via large mirrors floating in space, or place advertising (!) in low Earth orbit. Streaks of artificial satellites already routinely photobomb deep sky images… do we want to contend with orbiting Pepsi logos as well?
Some may also bemoan the advent of yet more artificial light – however ephemeral — streaking across the already brightening sky. And here’s another possible dilemma: will a -1 magnitude artificial meteor appear all that impressive from the already garish glare of downtown Tokyo, Las Vegas or Dubai? Still, I’d make the trip to see the world’s first artificial meteor shower… and humanity already routinely creates similar unheralded “shows” every time a piece of space junk reenters the Earth’s atmosphere.
I also can’t help but think of the fictional metal band Disaster Area from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which ended each concert with a sun-diving spaceship.
There are also possible practical applications for the project, including understanding meteor showers, spacecraft reentry, studying the upper atmosphere, etc. And though this may seem far-fetched, NASA already uses luminous chemicals dispersed from sounding rockets to do the same thing.
JAXA has already performed similar artificial meteor experiments here on Earth using an arc-heated wind tunnel laboratory, mimicking and modeling the Chelyabinsk meteor and the asteroid sample return mission Hayabusa-1 and the future return of Hayabusa-2.
Just maybe though, light pollution awareness might prove to be the project’s greatest strength. An artificial meteor shower might just cause city dwellers and urban planners to turn the lights down, and simply gaze up at the night sky for a brief moment.
Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova photographed inside the Vostok-6 spacecraft on June 16, 1963. Credit: Roscosmos
When it comes to the “Space Race” of the 1960s, several names come to mind. Names like Chuck Yeager, Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, and Neil Armstrong, but to name a few. These men were all pioneers, braving incredible odds and hazards in order to put a man into orbit, on the Moon, and bring humanity into the Space Age. But about the first women in space?
Were the challenges they faced any less real? Or were they even more difficult considering the fact that space travel – like many professions at the time – was still thought to be a “man’s game”? Well, the first woman to break this glass ceiling was Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet Cosmonaut who has the distinction of being the first woman ever to go into space as part of the Vostok 6 mission.
Early Life:
Tereshkova was born in the village of Maslennikovo in central Russia (about 280 km north-east of Moscow) after her parents migrated from Belarus. Her father was a tractor driver and her mother worked in a textile plant. Her father became a tank officer and died during the Winter War (1939-1940) when the Soviet Union invaded Finland over a territorial dispute.
Russian BT-5 tank destroyed during the Winter War (1939-1940). Credit: Wikipedia Commons/SA-kuva/Finnish Army Pictures
Between 1945 to 1953, Tereshkova went to school but dropped out when she was sixteen, and completed her education through correspondence. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she began working at a textile factory, where she remained until becoming part of the Soviet cosmonaut program.
She became interested in parachuting from a young age and trained in skydiving at the local Aeroclub. In 1959, at the age of 22, she made her first jump. It was her expertise in skydiving that led to her being selected as a cosmonaut candidate a few years later. In 1961, she became the secretary of the local Komsomol (Young Communist League) and later joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Vostok Program:
Much like Yuri Gagarin, Tereshkova took part in the Vostok program, which was the Soviet Unions’ first attempt at putting crewed missions into space. After the historic flight of Gagarin in 1961, Sergey Korolyov – the chief Soviet rocket engineer – proposed sending a female cosmonaut into space as well.
At the time, the Soviets believed that sending women into space would achieve a propaganda victory against the U.S., which maintained a policy of only using military and test pilots as astronauts. Though this policy did not specifically discriminate on the basis of gender, the lack of women combat and test pilots effectively excluded them from participating.
Valentina Tereshkova, pilot-cosmonaut, first female cosmonaut, Hero of the USSR. Pictured as a Major of the Soviet Air Forces. Credit: RIA Novosti/Alexander Mokletsov
In April 1962, five women were chosen for the program out of hundreds of potential candidates. These included Tatyana Kuznetsova, Irina Solovyova, Zhanna Yorkina, Valentina Ponomaryova, and Valentina Tereshkova. In order to qualify, the women needed to be parachutists under 30 years of age, under 170 cm (5’7″) in height, and under 70 kg (154 lbs.) in weight.
Along with four colleagues, Tereshkova spent several months in training. This included weightless flights, isolation tests, centrifuge tests, rocket theory, spacecraft engineering, parachute jumps, and pilot training in jet aircraft. Their examinations concluded in November 1962, after which Tereshkova and Ponomaryova were considered the leading candidates.
A joint mission profile was developed that would see two women launched into space on separate Vostok missions in March or April of 1963. Tereshkova, then 25, was chosen to be the first woman to go into space, for multiple reasons. First, there was the fact that she conformed to the height and weight specifications to fit inside the relatively cramped Vostok module.
Second, she was a qualified parachutist, which given the nature of the Vostok space craft (the re-entry craft was incapable of landing) was absolutely essential. The third, and perhaps most important reason, was her strong “proletariat” and patriotic background, which was evident from her family’s work and the death of her father (Vladimir Tereshkova) during the Second World War.
The Vostok 6 capsule at the Science Museum, London. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Andrew Grey
Originally, the plan was for Tereshkova to launch first in the Vostok 5 ship while Ponomaryova would follow her into orbit in Vostok 6. However, this flight plan was altered in March 1963, with a male cosmonaut flying Vostok 5 while Tereshkova would fly aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963. After watching the successful launch of Vostok 5 on 14 June, Tereshkova (now 26) began final preparations for her own flight.
Launch:
Tereshkova’s Vostok 6 flight took place on the morning of June 16th, 1963. After performing communications and life support checks, she was sealed inside the capsule and the mission’s two-hour countdown began. The launch took place at 09:29:52 UTC with the rocket lifting off faultlessly from the Baikonur launchpad.
During the flight – which lasted for two days and 22 hours – Tereshkova orbited the Earth forty-eight times. Her flight took place only two days after Vostok 5 was launched, piloted by Valery Bykovsky, and orbited the Earth simultaneously with his craft. In the course of her flight, ground crews collected data on her body’s reaction to spaceflight.
Aside from some nausea (which she later claimed was due to poor food!) she maintained herself for the full three days. Like other cosmonauts on Vostok missions, she kept a flight log and took photographs of the horizon – which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere – and manually oriented the spacecraft.
First woman in space Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova is seen during a training session aboard a Vostok spacecraft simulator on January 17, 1964. Credit: AFP Photo / RIA Novosti
On the first day of her mission, she reported an error in the control program, which made the spaceship ascend from orbit instead of descending. The team on Earth provided Tereshkova with new data to enter into the descent program which corrected the problem. After completing 48 orbits, her craft began descending towards Earth.
Once the craft re-entered the atmosphere, Tereshkova ejected from the capsule and parachuted back to earth. She landed hard after a high wind blew her off course, which was fortunate since she was descending towards a lake at the time. However, the landing caused her to seriously bruise her face, and heavy makeup was needed for the public appearances that followed.
Vostok 6 would be the last of the Vostok missions, despite there being plans for further flights involving women cosmonauts. None of the other four in Tereshkova’s early group got a chance to fly, and, in October of 1969, the pioneering female cosmonaut group was dissolved. It would be 19 years before another woman would fly as part of the Soviet space program – Svetlana Savitskaya, who flew as part of the Soyuz T-7 mission.
After Vostok 6:
After returning home, certain elements within the Soviet Air Force attempted to discredit Tereshkova. There were those who said that she was drunk when she reported to the launch pad and was insubordinate while in orbit. These charges appeared to be related to the sickness she experienced while in space, and the fact that she issued corrections to the ground control team – which was apparently seen as a slight.
Nikita Khrushchev, Valentina Tereshkova, Pavel Popovich and Yury Gagarin at Lenin Mausoleum on June 22nd, 1963. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/RIA Novosti Archive
She was also accused of drunken and disorderly conduct when confronting a militia Captain in Gorkiy. However, General Nikolai Kamanin – the head of cosmonaut training in the Soviet space program at the time – defended Tereshkova’s character and dismissed her detractors instead. Tereshkova’s reputation remained unblemished and she went on to become a cosmonaut engineer and spent the rest of her life in key political positions.
In November of 1963, Tereshkova married Andrian Nikolayev, another Soviet cosmonaut, at a wedding that took place at the Moscow Wedding Palace. Khrushchev himself presided, with top government and space program leaders in attendance. In June of 1964, she gave birth to their daughter Elena Andrianovna Nikolaeva-Tereshkova, who became the first person in history to have both a mother and father who had traveled into space.
She and Nikolayev divorced in 1982, and Nikolayev died in 2004. She went on to remarry an orthopaedist named Yuliy G. Sharposhnikov, who died in 1999. After her historic flight, Tereshkova enrolled at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy and graduated with distinction as a cosmonaut engineer. In 1977, she earned her doctorate in engineering.
Her fame as a cosmonaut also led to several key political positions. Between 1966 and 1974, she was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. She was also a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1974 to 1989, and a Central Committee Member from 1969 to 1991. Her accomplishments also led to her becoming a representative of the Soviet Union abroad.
The wedding ceremony of pilot-cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Andriyan Nikolayev, Nov. 3rd, 1963. Credit: RIA Novosti Archive/Alexander Mokletsov
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tereshkova lost her political office but remained an important public figure. To this day, she is revered as a hero and a major contributor to the Russian space program. In 2011, she was elected to the State Duma (the lower house of the Russian legislature) where she continues to serve.
In 2008, Tereshkova was invited to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo for the celebration of her 70th birthday. In that same year, she became a torchbearer of the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She has also expressed interest in traveling to Mars, even if it were a one-way trip.
Legacy and Honors:
For her accomplishments, Tereshkova has received many honors and awards. She has been decorated with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal (the USSR’s highest award) as well as the Order of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and many other medals.
Foreign governments have also awarded her with the Karl Marx Order, the Hero of Socialist Labor of Czechoslovakia, the Hero of Labor of Vietnam, the Hero of Mongolia, the UN Gold Medal of Peace, and the Simba International Women’s Movement Award. She has honorary citizenship in multiple cities from Bulgaria, Slovakia, Belarus and Mongolia in the east, to Switzerland, France, and the UK in the west.
Commemorative Hungarian stamp featuring Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Andrian G. Nikolayev (her husband). Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Darjac
Due to her pioneering role in space exploration, a number of astronomical objects and features are named in her honor. For example, the Tereshkova crater on the far side of the Moon was named after her. The minor planet 1671 Chaika (which translates to “Seagull” in Russian) is named in honor of her Vostok 6 mission call sign.
Numerous monuments and statues have been erected in her honor and the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow features her image. Streets all across the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations were renamed in her honor, as was the school in Yaroslavl where she studied as a child. The Yaroslavl Planetarium, built in 2011, was created in her honor, and the Museum of V.V. Tereshkova – Cosmos exists near her native village of Maslennikovo.
The Space Age was a time of truly amazing accomplishments. Not only did astronauts like Tereshkova break the surly bonds of Earth, but they also demonstrated that space exploration knows no gender restrictions. And though it would be decades before people like Svetlana Savitskaya and Sally Ride would into space, Tereshkova will forever be remembered as the woman who blazed the trail for all female astronauts.
When we do finally learn the full truth about our place in the galaxy, and we’re invited to join the Galactic Federation of Planets, I’m sure we’ll always be seen as a quaint backwater world orbiting a boring single star.
The terrifying tentacle monsters from the nightmare tentacle world will gurgle horrifying, but clearly condescending comments about how we’ve only got a single star in the Solar System.
The beings of pure energy will remark how only truly enlightened civilizations can come from systems with at least 6 stars, insulting not only humanity, but also the horrifying tentacle monsters, leading to another galaxy spanning conflict.
Yes, we’ll always be making up for our stellar deficit in the eyes of aliens, or whatever those creepy blobs use for eyes.
What we lack in sophistication, however, we make up in volume. In our Milky Way, fully 2/3rds of star systems only have a single star. The last 1/3rd is made up of multiple star systems.
The Milky Way as seen from Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. Image Credit: Wally Pacholka
We’re taking binary stars, triple star systems, even exotic 7 star systems. When you mix and match different types of stars in various Odd Couple stellar apartments, the results get interesting.
Consider our own Solar System, where the Sun and planets formed together out a cloud of gas and dust. Gravity collected material into the center of the Solar System, becoming the Sun, while the rest of the disk spun up faster and faster. Eventually our star ignited its fusion furnace, blasting out the rest of the stellar nebula.
But different stellar nebulae can lead to the formation of multiple stars instead. What you get depends on the mass of the cloud, and how fast it’s rotating.
Check out this amazing photograph of a multiple star system forming right now.
ALMA image of the L1448 IRS3B system, with two young stars at the center and a third distant from them. Spiral structure in the dusty disk surrounding them indicates instability in the disk, astronomers said. Credit: Bill Saxton, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NRAO/AUI/NSF
In this image, you can see three stars forming together, two at the center, about 60 astronomical units away from each other (60 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun), and then a third orbiting 183 AU away.
It’s estimated these stars are only 10,000 to 20,000 years old. This is one of the most amazing astronomy pictures I ever seen.
When you have two stars, that’s a binary system. If the stars are similar in mass to each other, then they orbit a common point of mass, known as the barycenter. If the stars are different masses, then it can appear that one star is orbiting the other, like a planet going around a star.
When you look up in the sky, many of the single stars you see are actually binary stars, and can be resolved with a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. For example, in a good telescope, Alpha Centauri can be resolved into two equally bright stars, with the much dimmer Proxima Centauri hanging out nearby.
The two bright stars are (left) Alpha Centauri and (right) Beta Centauri. The faint red star in the center of the red circle is Proxima Centauri. Credit: Skatebiker at English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
You have to be careful, though, sometimes stars just happen to be beside each other in the sky, but they’re not actually orbiting one another – this is known as an optical binary. It’s a trap.
Astronomers find that you can then get binary stars with a third companion orbiting around them. As long as the third star is far enough away, the whole system can be stable. This is a triple star system.
You can get two sets of binary stars orbiting each other, for a quadruple star system.
In fact, you can build up these combinations of stars up. For example, the star system Nu Scorpii has 7 stars in a single system. All happily orbiting one another for eons.
If stars remained unchanging forever, then this would be the end of our story. However, as we’ve discussed in other articles, stars change over time, bloating up as red giants, detonating as supernovae and turning into bizarre objects, like white dwarfs, neutron stars and even black holes. And when these occur in multiple star systems, well, watch the sparks fly.
There are a nearly infinite combinations you can have here: main sequence, red giant, white dwarf, neutron star, and even black holes. I don’t have time to go through all the combinations, but here are some highlights.
VFTS 352 is the hottest and most massive double star system to date where the two components are in contact and sharing material. ESO/L. Calçada
For starters, binary stars can get so close they actually touch each other. This is known as a contact binary, where the two stars actually share material back and forth. But it gets even stranger.
When a main sequence star like our Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core, it expands as a red giant, before cooling and becoming a white dwarf.
When a red giant is in a binary system, the distance and evolution of its stellar companion makes all the difference.
If the two stars are close enough, the red giant can pass material over to the other star. And if the red giant is large enough, it can actually engulf its companion. Imagine our Sun, orbiting within the atmosphere of a red giant star. Needless to say, that’s not healthy for any planets.
An even stranger contact binary happens when a red giant consumes a binary neutron star. This is known as a Thorne-Zytkow object. The neutron star spirals inward through the atmosphere of the red giant. When it reaches the core, it either becomes a black hole, gobbling up the red giant from within, or an even more massive neutron star. This is exceedingly rare, and only one candidate object has ever been observed.
A white dwarf accreting material from a companion star. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
When a binary pair is a white dwarf, the dead remnant of a star like our Sun, then material can transfer to the surface of the white dwarf, causing novae explosions. And if enough material is transferred, the white dwarf explodes as a Type 1A supernova.
If you’re a star that was unlucky enough to be born beside a very massive star, you can actually kicked off into space when it explodes as a supernova. In fact, there are rogue stars which such a kick, they’re on an escape trajectory from the entire galaxy, never to return.
If you have two neutron stars in a binary pair, they release energy in the form of gravitational waves, which causes them to lose momentum and spiral inward. Eventually they collide, becoming a black hole, and detonating with so much energy we can see the explosions billions of light-years away – a short-period gamma ray burst.
The combinations are endless.
How Earth could look with two suns. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz.
It’s amazing to think what the night sky would look like if we were born into a multiple star system. Sometimes there would be several stars in the sky, other times just one. And rarely, there would be an actual night.
How would life be different in a multiple star system? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
In our next episode, we try to untangle this bizarre paradox. If the Universe is infinite, how did it start out as a singularity? That doesn’t make any sense.
We glossed over it in this episode, but one of the most interesting effects of multiple star systems are novae, explosions of stolen material on the surface of a white dwarf star. Learn more about it in this video.
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