Space and astronomy news
Who had the best view of the Bastille Day fireworks last night? From this lovely video from astrophotographer Thierry Legault, it appears the low-hanging, bright waning Moon may have had the preferred vantage point to watch the fine pyrotechnics from the Eiffel Tower. But Thierry had a pretty good view, as well! He told us he took this video from a hill a few kilometers west of Eiffel Tower.
Enjoy! and thanks to Thierry for sharing.
Did you hear there was something special about the full Moon this weekend… that it would be, well… really super? I heard about it on every newscast I watched or listened to. Even xkcd got into the ‘Supermoon’ craze. The July “Buck” Moon was the first of three Supermoons on tap for 2014, where the Moon is at its perigee, the closest point to Earth in its orbit, close to the time when it is “officially” full.
If you didn’t hear about it, (or weren’t paying attention) you may not have noticed anything different, as its not radically different from a regular full Moon. Read all the detail of what a Supermoon is here. But as Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory, said on NASA’s website, “However, if it gets people out and looking at the night sky and maybe hooks them into astronomy, then it’s a good thing,”
And people were out with their cameras, too! Here’s a great collection of full Moon images from this weekend, as seen in our Flickr Gallery.
Thanks to everyone who submitted images! Check out even more great images in Universe Today’s Flickr Group!
Be advised that this month’s big full Moon was not the closest of the year. The closest Full Moon of 2014 occurs next month on August 10th at 18:11 Universal Time (UT) or 1:44 PM EDT. On that date, the Moon reaches perigee or its closest approach to the Earth at 356,896 kilometres distant at 17:44, less than an hour from Full.
Eureka – it’s Europa! And a brand-new image of it, too! (Well, kinda sorta.)
The picture above, showing the icy moon’s creased and cracked surface, was made from images acquired by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft during its exploration of Jupiter and its family of moons in 1997 and 1998. While the data itself isn’t new per se the view seen here has never been released by JPL, and so it’s new to you! (And to me too.)
The original high-resolution images were acquired on Nov. 6, 1997, in greyscale and colorized with data acquired during a later pass by Galileo in 1998. The whiter areas are regions of relatively pure water ice, while the rusty red bands are where ice has mixed with salts and organic compounds that have oozed up from deeper within Europa.
Read more: Hydrogen Peroxide Could Feed Life on Europa
The entire image area measures about 101 by 103 miles across (163 km x 167 km).
Europa has long been one of the few places we know of outside our own planet where life could very well have evolved and potentially still exist. Getting a peek below the icy moon’s frozen crust — or even a taste of the recently-discovered water vapor spraying from its south pole — is all we’d need to further narrow down the chances that somewhere, something could be thriving in Europa’s subsurface seas. Get a planetary scientist’s perspective in a video interview with Dr. Mike Brown here.
Launched in October 1989, the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter in December 1995. Through primary and extended missions Galileo explored the giant planet and its family of moons until plunging into Jupiter’s atmosphere on September 21, 2003. Learn more about Galileo here, and check out some of the amazing images it acquired on the CICLOPS imaging diary page here.
Source: NASA’s Planetary Photojournal
A mistake led to this stunning image of the crescent Moon and the Tower of Pisa this week.
Astrophotographer Giuseppe Petricca from Italy had in mind a certain shot he wanted to take of the crescent Moon on June 29. “So I went out during the evening to do so,” he told Universe Today via email. “Unfortunately, I totally miscalculated the time! But, luckily, in the end, I managed to get an even more captivating shot.”
The Moon has a bit of Earthshine and a reddish glow from its low elevation in the sky, snuggling up to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Truly a beautiful combination and an awesome scenery. Impossible to not take a picture of it!” Giuseppe said.
This photograph was taken with a Nikon Coolpix P90 Bridge Camera on tripod, ISO 100, f4.5, 2.5″ exposure.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
Have you ever heard that people go crazy during a full Moon? What’s going on to cause all this lunacy? Or maybe, just maybe, it’s all a myth and nothing special ever happens during full moons.
If I went crazy, like real actual cluster-cuss crazy, you might call me a lunatic. Or you might say I suffered from lunacy. What does that even mean? This word comes from lunaticus, meaning “of the moon” or moonstruck. It was more popular during the late 1800’s, yet it still hangs around.
Surely it must still be an important and useful diagnostic medical term. As when the Moon is full, everyone goes crazy. It’s called the lunar effect. Everyone knows that. Right?
People have theorized for thousands of years that the Moon has all kinds of impacts on us. It affects fertility, crime rates, dog attacks, and increases blood loss during surgery. It must be a full Moon, they say. Full moon tomorrow night! All the crazies will be out! they say.
So what causes all this moon madness. What makes us sprout metaphorical canines and race around in a fugue state hungry for manflesh when the moon is full? Are we experiencing tidal forces from the Moon on our internal organ juices? Is it a result of us evolving lockstep with the lunar cycle? Perhaps the light coming from the Moon affects our visual cortex in a way to stimulate the animalistic parts of the brain? It has been with us for so long as a belief, there must be something to it. Right?
Nope, it’s all a myth. All of it. Tidal effects on behaviour aren’t happening. We experience two high and two low tides every day, and it has nothing to do with the phase of the Moon. In fact, your body experiences more gravity from your chair than it does from the Moon. If the motion of blood was somehow that reactive, should you step into a full elevator everyone would pass out with all the blood rushing to their extremities pulled by your gravity.
No way! You say! It’s true! Because the Moon is closer when it’s full, and its tug on our “materia” and “humors” is stronger. Unfortunately for this theory, our Moon travels an elliptical orbit, and the time when the Moon is closest has nothing to do with when it’s full.
The Moon can be full and close – supermoon. Or it can be full but farther away – minimoon.
In 1985, a team of scientists did a meta study, looking at 37 separate research papers that attempted to study the Moon’s impact on all aspects of humanity. They found papers that demonstrated a correlation, and then promptly found the mistakes in the research. They found absolutely no evidence. We don’t get into more car accidents. Hospital rooms aren’t more crowded. Werewolves aren’t apparently a thing.
We do notice the coincidences, when something strange occurs and there happens to be a full Moon. But we don’t notice all the times when there wasn’t a full Moon. To learn more about this, I’d suggest heading over to the wonderful blog “You are not so smart” by David McRaney, and reading up on “Confirmation Bias”.
So, where did this idea come from? Historians suspect it’s possible that the brightness of a full moon disturbed people’s sleep schedules.
I’m partial to the idea that in history, the full Moon was a high time for people to be active at night, favoring work or travel by the light of the full moon. So, perhaps there were more accidents.
But not any more. People are superstitious about mundane things like black cats, ladders and broken mirrors, it’s not surprising they’re superstitious about our beautiful and bright companion prettying up the sky almost every night.
What do you think? What’s your favorite full moon superstition? Tell us in the comments below.
Did you see the crescent Moon near a bright star on Tuesday morning this week? Many of our Flickr group astrophotographers captured gorgeous shots of the two together in the sky, including this eye-candy image from Alan Dyer from Canada. Just take a look!
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
Ever notice how the brilliant star Sirius appears to change colors right before your eyes? Astrophotographer Roshaan Bukhari from Pakistan wanted to see for himself how this twinkling star changes in color due to the effects of our atmosphere as its light gets refracted and he did a little experiment with his telescope and camera. What resulted was a unique and colorful astrophoto!
“I pointed my telescope to sharply focus on Sirius and put my DSLR camera to 2 second exposure while holding it near the eyepiece and focusing Sirius from the camera viewfinder as well,” Roshaan told Universe Today via email. “I started shaking the telescope in a circular manner by holding it from the eyepiece so that Sirius was dancing all over the eyepiece in an ‘O’ shape. That’s when I pressed the camera shutter button and the shutter remained open for 2 seconds, recording the colours and the pattern of Sirius within the eyepiece.”
Roshaan said he did enhance the contrast to bring the trails out more clearly, but the color saturation and hues have not been altered in any way. The changes in color in just a two-second exposure are really amazing!
Roshaan shared how astronomy and astrophotography in Pakistan is becoming a “blooming field now” — which we are very happy to hear! “And I’m very happy to say that I am a part of it!” he said, adding, “I’m one of the biggest fans of Universe Today and have been listening to it’s podcasts on iTunes since i got my first iPhone back in 2008.”
Here are few more images from Roshaan Bukhari under Pakistan skies:
How does the look of the Moon change during the night? These images of the Moon — taken 7 hours apart — were shot through Roshaan’s telescope with his mobile phone camera using the handheld afocal method!
Phase of the moon at 7 pm was 96.8%, while at 2 am it was 97.5% (rate of change of lunar phase turns out to be 0.7% in 7 hours, figures estimated from Stellarium).
Roshaan said the quality of the images is not that great since he took them while there a lot of dust was up in the atmosphere due to some strong winds, but we think they look great!
Thanks to Roshaan for sharing his images from Pakistan.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
Goodbye Moon. Every year, the Moon slips a few centimeters away from us, slowing down our day. Why is the Moon drifting away from us, and how long will it take before the Earth and the Moon are tidally locked to each other?
We had a good run, us and the Moon. Grab your special edition NASA space tissues because today we’re embarking on a tale of orbital companionship, childhood sweethearts and heartache.
You could say we came from the same part of town. A long time ago the Mars-sized object Theia, collided with the Earth and the Moon was formed out of the debris from the collision.
We grew up together. Counting from the very beginning, this relationship has lasted for 4.5 billion years. We had some good times. Some bad times. Gravitationally linked, arm in arm, inside our solar family sedan traversing the galaxy.
But now, tragedy. The Moon, OUR Moon, is moving on to brighter horizons. We used to be much closer when we were younger and time seemed to fly by much faster. In fact, 620 million years ago, a day was only 21 hours long. Now they’ve dragged out to 24 hours and they’re just getting longer, and the Moon is already at a average distance of 384,400 km. It almost feels too far away.
If we think back far enough to when we were kids, there was a time when a day was just 2 – 3 hours long, and the Moon was much closer. It seemed like we did everything together back then. But just like people, massive hunks of rock and materials flying through space change, and their relationships change as well.
Our therapist told us it wasn’t a good idea to get caught up on minutiae, but we’ve done some sciencing using the retroreflector experiments placed by Apollo astronauts, and it looks as though the Moon has always had one foot out the door.
Today it’s drifting away at 1-2 cm/year. Such heartache! We just thought it seemed like the days were longer, but it’s not just an emotional effect of seeing our longtime friend leaving us, there’s a real physical change happening. Our days are getting 1/500th of a second longer every century.
I can’t help but blame myself. If only we knew why. Did the Moon find someone new? Someone more attractive? Was it that trollop Venus, the hottest planet in the whole solar system? It’s really just a natural progression. It’s nature. It’s gravity and tidal forces.
And no, that’s not a metaphor. The Earth and the Moon pull at each other with their gravity. Their shapes get distorted and the pull of this tidal force creates a bulge. The Earth has a bulge facing towards the Moon, and the Moon has a more significant bulge towards the Earth.
These bulges act like handles for gravity, which slows down their rotation. The process allowed the Earth’s gravity to slow the Moon to a stop billions of years ago. The Moon is still working on the Earth to change its ways, but it’ll be a long time before we become tidally locked to the Moon.
This slowing rotation means energy is lost by the Earth. This energy is transferred to the Moon which is speeding up, and as we’ve talked about in previous episodes the faster something orbits, the further and further it’s becomes from the object it’s orbiting.
Will it ever end? We’re so attached, it seems like it’ll take forever to figure out who’s stuff belongs to who and who gets the dog. Fear not, there is an end in sight. 50 billion years from now, 45 billion years after the Sun has grown weary of our shenanigans and become a red giant, when the days have slowed to be 45 hours long, the Moon will consider itself all moved into its brand new apartment ready to start its new life.
What about the neighbors down the street? How are the other orbital relationships faring. I know there’s a lot of poly-moon-amory taking place out there in the Solar System. We’re not the only ones with Moons tidally locked. There’s Phobos and Deimos to Mars, many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are, and Pluto and Charon are even tidally locked to each other, forever. Now’s that’s real commitment. So, in the end. The lesson here is people and planets change. The Moon just needs its space, but it still wants to be friends.
What do you think? If you were writing a space opera about the Earth and the Moon break-up, what was it that finally came between them? Tell us in the comments below.
Host: Scott Lewis
Guests: Michael Phillips, Bill McLaughlin, Paul Stewart
Continue reading “Virtual Star Party – June 1, 2014: Paul brings his “A” game!”
If the hoped-for meteor blast materializes this Friday night / Saturday morning (May 23-24) Earth won’t be the only world getting peppered with debris strewn by comet 209P/LINEAR. The moon will zoom through the comet’s dusty filaments in tandem with us.
Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, alerts skywatchers to the possibility of lunar meteorite impacts starting around 9:30 p.m. CDT Friday night through 6 a.m. CDT (2:30-11 UTC) Saturday morning with a peak around 1-3 a.m. CDT (6-8 UTC).
While western hemisphere observers will be in the best location, these times indicate that European and African skywatchers might also get a taste of the action around the start of the lunar shower. And while South America is too far south for viewing the Earth-directed Camelopardalids, the moon will be in a good position to have a go at lunar meteor hunting. Find your moonrise time HERE.
The thick crescent moon will be well-placed around peak viewing time for East Coast skywatchers, shining above Venus in the eastern sky near the start of morning twilight. For the Midwest, the moon will just be rising at that hour, while skywatchers living in the western half of the country will have to wait until after maximum for a look:
“Anyone in the U.S. should monitor the moon until dawn,” said Cooke, who estimates that impacts might shine briefly at magnitude +8-9.
“The models indicate the Camelopardalids have some big particles but move slowly around 16 ‘clicks’ a second (16 km/sec or 10 miles per second). It all depends on kinetic energy”, he added. Kinetic energy is the energy an object possesses due to its motion. Even small objects can pack a wallop if they’re moving swiftly.
Bright lunar meteorite impact recorded on video on September 11, 2013. The estimated 900-lb. space rock flared to 4th magnitude.
Lunar crescents are ideal for meteor impact monitoring because much of the moon is in shadow, illuminated only by the dim glow of earthlight. Any meteor strikes stand out as tiny flashes against the darkened moonscape. For casual watching of lunar meteor impacts, you’ll need a 4-inch or larger telescope magnifying from 40x up to around 100x. Higher magnification is unnecessary as it restricts the field of view.
I can’t say how easy it will be to catch one, but it will require patience and a sort of casual vigilance. In other words, don’t look too hard. Try to relax your eyes while taking in the view. That’s why the favored method for capturing lunar impacts is a video camera hooked up to a telescope set to automatically track the moon. That way you can examine your results later in the light of day. Seeing a meteor hit live would truly be the experience of a lifetime. Here are some additional helpful tips.
On average, about 73,000 lbs. (33 metric tons) of meteoroid material strike Earth’s atmosphere every day with only tiny fraction of it falling to the ground as meteorites. But the moon has virtually no atmosphere. With nothing in the way, even small pebbles strike its surface with great energy. It’s estimated that a 10-lb. (5 kg) meteoroid can excavate a crater 30 feet (9 meters) across and hurl 165,000 lbs. of lunar soil across the surface.
A meteoroid that size on an Earth-bound trajectory would not only be slowed down by the atmosphere but the pressure and heat it experienced during the plunge would ablate it into very small, safe pieces.
NASA astronomers are just as excited as you and I are about the potential new meteor shower. If you plan to take pictures or video of meteors streaking through Earth’s skies or get lucky enough to see one striking the moon, please send your observations / photos / videos to Brooke Boen ([email protected]) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Scientists there will use the data to better understand and characterize this newly born meteor blast.
On the night of May 23-24, Bill Cooke will host a live web chat from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. EDT with a view of the skies over Huntsville, Alabama. Check it out.