Are you feeling the heat yet? Well, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you probably are as we prepare to enter the Dog Days of Summer, the traditional 40-day sizzle that lasts from July 3 to August 11 and that, more often than not, marks the hottest time of the year. So, while we all know that it’s hot, where did the ‘Dog Days’ moniker come from?

Thank the Ancient Egyptians.

For the Egyptians, the Star Sirius was very important, so much so that it eventually became identified with the goddess Isis, who brought her husband, Osiris, back from the dead after he was killed by his jealous twin brother, Seth. So why associate a star with a goddess identified with the triumph of life over death?

Every year at the same time in early July back in ancient times, Sirius would rise just ahead of the Sun in an event called the helical rising of Sirius. Shortly thereafter, like clockwork, the Nile would flood, which was caused by a combination of snow in central African mountains melting and the rainy season beginning. Between these two events, the Nile River would start to swell in its central African upstream location. As the weeks progressed, the swollen Nile would travel downwards through Egypt before emptying itself into the Mediterranean Sea.

While people not familiar with Ancient Egypt would think of this as an annual disaster and question the Egyptians’ logic of living right on the Nile’s shores, this was not the thought process of the Ancient Egyptians themselves. As the Nile Valley flooded, the river deposited a layer of nutrient-rich, good for farming Nile mud over the landscape as it went, thus ensuring a good harvest for the next growing season. In fact, after Egypt was annexed by Rome in 30BC, Egypt became known as “the bread basket of Rome” because its soil was so fertile. In fact, some ancient writers speculated that the richness of the soil was directly tied to why the Egyptians tended to have large families.

It is through this, the natural cycle of death and rebirth represented by the arid land being reborn via the Nile flood every year, that the Egyptians began to associate Siruis with Isis, and thus life triumphing over death.

Okay, back to astronomy.

In the time frame from early July to mid August, Sirius was visible very close to the Sun after having disappeared into the twilight glare a few weeks previously. The re-emergence of Sirius as a morning star so close to the Sun led the Egyptians to believe that the bright star lent its heat to the Sun in the period from early July to mid August, the hottest time of year.

Of course, we now know that this is all a convenient coincidence and that Sirius has nothing to do with our weather here on Earth thanks to its distance of roughly 8.6 light years. However, for people who love their history and/or trivia, this is why we have the Dog Days.

For people who really like to think, consider this: thanks to precession, the Dog Days should fall much later in the year as, unlike in Ancient Egyptian times, Sirius is now lost in the glare of the Sun until early August, a full month after it reappeared to the Ancient Egyptians all those centuries ago.

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

Listed below are dates with notable astronomical events that can be seen with just the unaided eye during this month. Expect more in-depth coverage of some events to be made in the weekly featured sights column, which drops every Sunday. Also look for these items to appear in notes the day they happen. I’ll time these notes for around noon EDT for my fellow Americans, which also allows my EU readers to catch them in the evening before sunset.

Early Month: The Big Dipper points down in the Northwest at nightfall
There’s now a realistic chance to spot Mars in the predawn sky
July 3: The Dog Days begin
July 4: Mars meets Uranus
July 6: Earth at aphelion
July 7: Third Quarter Moon meets Saturn
July 9: Saturn rises 5 hours before the Sun
July 10: Moon meets Pleiades
July 11: Moon meets Mars, Pleiades, and Hyades
July 12: Mercury at inferior conjunction
July 13: Moon at perigee
July 14: New Moon
July 15: Mars rises 3 hours ahead of the Sun
Mid Month: The Milky Way is just about due South come nightfall
Vega near zenith at midnight
Fomalhaut due South at first light, Saturn Southeast
July 16: Moon meets Regulus (very low)
July 17: Moon meets Venus
July 21: First Quarter Moon
July 22: Saturn rises 6 hours ahead of the Sun
July 23: Venus setting 2 hours after the Sun
July 24: Moon meets Antares
July 25: Moon at apogee
July 26: Saturn enters retrograde
July 29: Full Moon
Jupiter at solar conjunction
July 30: Southern Delta Aquarids peak
Late Month: Mars is now observable under a dark sky
Make it a point to catch Scorpius!
Try to spot Mercury low in the predawn East 30 minutes before sunrise

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

July brings the first full month of summer and, appropriately, the summer stars are coming into prime viewing position come nightfall, though optimal positioning will require staying up to nearly midnight in many locations as the July nights are essentially as short as those of June. As an added bonus, the Milky Way, along with all of its telescopic treasures, is coming into prime viewing position as well.


Cool Constellations
With the arrival of July, the summer sky is at its peak for viewing as all the major sights are now visible without having to stay up half the night. First of all, spring leftovers Hydra (or at least its head end), Corvus, Cancer, Leo, and Crater will be disappearing for the year. Virgo, highlighted by bright Spica, is also getting very low in the Southwest. Also, the Big Dipper signpost is now obsolete as the last two stops in the chain are gone with only Arcturus (alpha Bootes ) and Spica (alpha Virgo) still remaining in the sky, although Ursa Major itself is still well-placed. Back to the Dipper, it’s now pointing downward come nightfall. Onto the summer sky and the cosmic picture book. First up, Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, with no imagination, looks like its namesake, or at least a tiara. Moving over, mythological hero Hercules looks somewhat human, with the Keystone constituting his torso. Continuing into the Summer Triangle, Lyra looks like an ancient lyre. Going down, Cygnus is very swan-like and Aquila, with a little imagination, looks like an eagle. The mini constellations Delphinus and Saggita? Yes, they look like their namesakes, too. Now, moving to the South, Libra, though dim, does look like an ancient string scale. Scorpius? Well, using your imagination, the profile can resemble a scorpion. Finally, Sagittarius, one look at it instantly reveals why it is nicknamed the Teapot. Also, there is the Milky Way, which arches high overhead on summer nights and serves as a good measure of how good (or bad) your sky is when it comes to light pollution. By the time the sky starts to brighten, a fall preview in the form of Pegasus, both Pisces, Cetus, Andromeda, Aries, Capricorn, Aquarius, and even Perseus is on tap, too. To test your Northeast horizon, see if you can spot Capella rising just ahead of the Sun.


Planetary Perceptions
With July, we lose a pair of planets as Mercury and Jupiter drop into the Sun’s glare early in the month in the evening sky. Staying in the evening, Venus pretty much holds steady in the Western twilight just after sunset, setting roughly 2 hours after the Sun all month long. As a special item of note, Venus will make a close pass by Regulus, alpha Leo, on the nights of the 9^th and 10^th. On the other end of the night, Saturn continues to rise earlier and earlier each day, cresting the Eastern horizon just before midnight at month’s end. By the end of July, Saturn will be roughly half way between horizon and zenith in the Southwestern sky as the predawn sky starts to brighten in the morning. Worried about trouble finding it? Don’t! Saturn is shining around +0.6 magnitude in an area of sky completely devoid of bright stars. The highlight of July is Mars, which is finally reemerging from the Sun’s glare after a months-long period of invisibility. At the dawn of July, look low in the Eastern sky for distinctly reddish Mars, which is shining at around magnitude +1.3. As July moves along, Mars will rise earlier and earlier to the tune of about an hour. This, combined with the later rising Sun, which is starting to become noticeable by month’s end, will have Mars observable under a dark sky by month’s end, roughly 20 degrees high in the Eastern sky an hour and a half before sunrise. Don’t want to get up that early? The Red Planet will still be easily visible about 45 minutes before the Sun breaks the horizon. On a final note, the final days of July will bring Mercury reemerging low in the East-Northeast sky just ahead of the Sun. An almost flat horizon and binoculars are both musts!


Weather Watch
July is the first full month of summer and, for many locations, the hottest month of the year. July’s heat is legendary. The Dog Days, the 40 day sizzle lasting from July 3 to August 10, which the Ancient Egyptians erroneously believed was caused by the close proximity of Sirius to the Sun, dominate the month. In revolutionary France, the month was renamed Thermidor because it was so hot. In addition to being the hottest month, July is also the clearest in many locations, meaning that the month offers many opportunities to view as a way of making up for having to stay up so late. Unfortunately, the light pollution-amplifying humidity is also entrenched in many parts of the world by now, only broken by short lived cool fronts. During these reprieves from the stickiness, make it a point to look for the faint, fuzzy galaxies and nebulae through the telescope. Forget the extra layers, but don’t forget the bug spray, either!

Observe at a different time/location?
Create a star map just like the one above just for you at: https://theskylive.com/personalized-star-map.

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s a Wednesday, which makes it time to take another trip back into the past. For a week that ends with fireworks (for my fellow Americans, at least), this week’s way back is especially appropriate is it features a gigantic explosion that has fueled even bigger conspiracies. This week’s feature is the Tunguska Event, which took place on June 30, 1908.

The morning of June 30, 1908 dawned like any other in the Tunguska region of Siberia, Northern Russia. The region was sparsely populated and few people witnessed the event that was soon to unfold. However, those who witnessed what happened would never forget what they saw.

Shortly after 7am, an object described by witnesses as every bit as bright as the Sun was seen to streak across the sky, then explode in a fireball that was so powerful that it flattened over 1,000 square miles of trees and created a shock wave that traveled around the world three times. Some estimates from Europe, which had the seismometers closest to the blast, placed the initial shock wave from the explosion as equaling a magnitude 5 earthquake. The only thing more amazing than the power of the explosion is the belief that, thanks to the remoteness of the region, no one was confirmed killed in the event.

While the event was of immense curiosity thanks to the seismic shocks and nights that were as bright as day as far away as London, no scientist made it to the area until over 20 years later due to both the remoteness of the site, WW1, and the Russian Civil War that followed. However, when Russian Leonid Kulik finally made it to the site in 1929, the scene was breathtaking: trees were flattened out in a butterfly pattern as far as the eye could see except for at the center, where the trees remained upright but stripped of limbs and scorched to cinders. Kulik expected to find a meteorite, which was a controversial idea in 1929 as meteor craters were then almost universally thought to be extinct volcanoes. Kulik was shocked to find no crater anywhere in the area.

Not deterred, Kulik and his team braved the wilderness, weather, and mosquitoes in order to pump several swamps dry in a search for the meteorite that their leader was convinced lie beneath. Coming up empty in 1929, Kulik led further teams to the site throughout the 30s, coming up empty every time. Science was put on hold by Stalin’s purges and later WWII and would not resume at Tunguska until the 1960s but, when it did, the mystery only deepened. Speaking of WWII, Kulik died during the conflict in 1942 after being captured in battle and interned in a German POW camp.

One thing Kulik could never explain was why trees were left standing at the epicenter of the blast while the others were knocked down in a pattern all pointing away from the presumed explosion’s origin. Come the post-war era and atomic tests, the answer became clear: whatever caused the explosion exploded in mid air. Nuclear weapons are not designed to explode on the ground. While the radiation is bad, it is the shock wave caused by the almost unimaginably powerful explosion that causes all of the damage.

From the blast in mid air, the pressure wave descends to Earth, flattening everything as it initially makes contact with the ground and then continuing to do so as it spreads out from the epicenter itself. Want to see this for yourself? Just drop something into water and watch the ripples form. At Tunguska, the ‘ripple’ was a pressure wave moving at several hundred miles per hour. The result is that everything falls away from the blast in a pattern similar to how flower petals radiate out from the center of the flower itself. In the 1930s, Kulik had no explanation for what had happened. Come the 1950s and our new-found knowledge of air burst explosions, what was incomprehensible 20 years previously now made perfect sense.

But what caused the explosion?

Scour the Siberian forests as they might, scientists have been frustrated in their search for definitive pieces of whatever object caused the explosion. For most scientists, there are only two choices: asteroid or comet. Unfortunately, both theories have holes. The asteroid theory is weak on the fact that no abnormally large concentrations of materials characteristic of an asteroid have been found in the region, which seems to point to the comet theory, except that the comet hypothesis is weak on account of the fact that current understandings don’t seem to point to comets having the tendency to self-destruct in mid-air.

With neither mainstream hypothesis having any conclusive evidence going for it, all sorts of fringe ideas have sprung up, including but not limited to: mini black holes, an exploding alien spacecraft, antimatter impact, a death ray, and a naturally occurring nuclear explosion. Whatever caused it, we were lucky that the object hit in the Siberian wilderness and not over a populated area.

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s a new week, which means that it’s time to spotlight something especially noteworthy in the sky yet again. This week’s feature is all about a planet that, if you’ve been following me awhile, have yet to see mentioned: Mars. Yes, after months of invisibility, the Red Planet is once again returning to our skies.

So, how to see it.

To see Mars right now may involve rearranging one’s schedule a bit. This week, Mars rises approximately 2 hours ahead of the Sun, which means that there is a realistic possibility of catching the long-MIA planet about an hour before sunrise by looking low in the East. How low does one need to look? You’ll need a clearance of about 10 degrees from the horizon. Use your handy hand to determine if your observing spot is a good one. If it is, great. If not, start scouting out another location. The good news is that Mars is only going to be getting better in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Once you have an observing location picked, arrive at your spot about an hour before your local sunrise time. As the sky will be starting to brighten noticeably by now, you may want to bring the binoculars if you have them as, though not hard to see from a dark site, lights near the horizon can play havoc with spotting the planet in a built-up area.

To aid in finding Mars, look for bright, white Capella in the Northeast. Shining at magnitude +0.2, Capella is about 2 ½ times brighter than Mars (+1.3 now) but sits at roughly the same elevation. Capella found, shift your attention to about 30 degrees right and start looking. So long as nothing near the horizon is blocking the view, the Red Planet should pop into view rather quickly.

The good news: Mars is only going to get brighter and easier to see at a more reasonable hour, eventually coming to opposition on February 19, 2027.

Other Items of Note:
Tonight, the Moon is at a spot in its orbit called apogee, which is just a fancy way of saying that the Moon will be as far away from Earth as it can get today.

The Summer Solstice was a week ago but, as nonsensical as it seems, the latest sunsets of the year are taking place this week. Why? The Earth’s orbit is not a circle and the Sun is not at the center. For the in-depth explanation, go here and read all about it!

Summer is here and the signs are written in the stars. Come midnight, which is not too long after the arrival of true night for most of us, Scorpius is just about due South and in prime position for viewing. Due to its Southerly location, hurry to view it and its telescopic treasures as it won’t be sticking around for long. On the opposite side of the sky, the Big Dipper is now bowl-down in the North.

Returning to Mars, if you have a telescope or, at the very least binoculars, it will be at its closest to Uranus on Saturday. Go here for a detailed finder chart to help guide you on your search for the former Planet George! The best news: the pair is just about directly below the Pleiades, which makes them easy too find.

That’s it for the week. However, there’s a much bigger picture going on in the sky right now. Check out the Monthly Guides to stay current on ‘what’s up’ in a sky above you!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s Friday, which means that the Space News Roundup has arrived. This week features an especially large payload of the usual collection of especially eye-catching stories relating to our favorite science/hobby. Enjoy!



Swift Observatory Facing Swift End Without Help
NASA’s Swift Observatory, which scans the sky for gamma ray bursts, could soon meet a fiery end if something isn’t done, and fast. The reason? Swift doesn’t have any thrusters to maneuver in orbit. Since it launched in 2004, Swift has gone through 2 complete solar cycles, the peaks of which increase drag on a satellite and, if left uncorrected, will cause it to reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Now, in just 9 months, a craft has been built to save Swift by coupling with it and then using its rockets to boost Swift to a higher, safe orbit. If this whole scenario sounds familiar, it is: Skylab faced a similar dilemma in the late 1970s for the same reason and we all know how that went. Hopefully, Swift will meet a better fate. The mission to save Swift is set for launch June 27.

The Full Story





Making Space Pharmacies Reality
In a mission into deep space, astronauts’ health is vital for mission success. As the recent emergency medical evacuation from the ISS showed, simply making an appointment with a doctor is just impossible in space, thus necessitating that astronauts be their own physicians. Even now, mission planners are expecting that plants will be a vital component to a deep space mission for reasons including air purification and food. Now, a new study out of the University of California San Diego has found another way to put plants to work: producing medicines. The team used techniques to simulate space here on Earth and early results are promising. While not a pharmacy in the traditional sense, much possibility exists when it comes to making medicine n space.

The Full Story

Space Does not Kill Microbes
It’s the stuff of sci-fi nightmare scenarios: what if astronauts returning from another world bring back alien microbes that then unleash a global plague here on Earth? While nowhere near as much thought has been given to the inverse scenario, the idea of taking our germs to space should be a consideration according to a new study. Why? Space may not only not kill germs, but it may promote adaptations that can make them more dangerous. A study conducted at the German Aerospace Center found, among other things, that Klebsiella pneumoniae, nasty enough here on Earth, became more difficult to kill after being exposed to conditions that mimic space. It is already established that the immune system suffers in space and that infections must be taken with all seriousness, especially in the confined conditions of a spacecraft. All the more reason for the research in the above story to be investigated further!

The Full Story

What Would Aliens Eat?
Here’s a cool thought experiment: if aliens arrived on Earth, what would they eat? Writer José Miguel Soriano del Castillo explores that very question by stating what we know about metabolism in Earthly life and then projecting that onto hypothetical alien life forms that may be purely biological or a cross between biology and machine before branching off onto the topic of alien life potentially requiring a completely different set of nutrients than what we do here on Earth. Food for thought!

The Full Story

SpaceX a ‘Monster’
Everyone knows that SpaceX is the world’s dominant private space company, but just how dominant is it? Christian Keil, a former space industry executive, just noticed that SpaceX has now launched more satellites (15,262) than all other entities, public and private, combined (15,138). Started in 2002, many people thought that Elon Musk, best known for his role in Paypal at the time, was nuts. The first 3 launches of the in-house Falcon 1 rocket failed and Musk even later admitted that a 4^th probably would have doomed his company. Of those satellites, over 12,000 are of Starlink broadband satellites. Such industry dominance has led Space.com writer Mike Wall to christen the company a ‘launch monster.’ While already a big player, Musk has floated the idea of a million-satellite megaconstellation earlier this year. Whatever your opinion of it, there’s no doubt that space is now the final frontier for business.

The Full Story

Asteroid Day is Next Week
It’s a holiday that you’ve probably never heard of: Asteroid Day, which is ‘celebrated’ on June 30, the anniversary of the Tunguska Event (Way Back Wednesday, next week?). The holiday was first celebrated in 2015 to raise awareness about the dangers that space rocks pose to our planet. While a little early, this year’s Schweickart Prize has already been announced as going to University of Edinburgh researchers Brian Murphy and Richard Cannon for their work calling for a permanent international body to study risks and then suggest appropriate responses to compliment the patchwork efforts of the present. The prize is named for Rusty Schweickart, the Apollo 9 astronaut who founded the B612 Foundation, whose purpose is to both publicize the threat posed by asteroids and then develop defensive strategies.

The Full Story





ISS Retirement Poses Environmental Concerns
The International Space Station (ISS) is well past its intended life expectancy and is scheduled for decommissioning in the early 2030s. Unfortunately, there is no space junkyard where one can simply deposit unwanted vehicles and forget about them. The only solution to rid oneself of a no longer wanted space station: deorbit it, which is intentionally steering it into the atmosphere where it will, for the most part, burn up before any parts hit the ground. However, Ocean Foundation president Mark Spalding has raised concerns over the environmental impact of dunking an unwanted space station into the ocean, stating that “the ocean and its creatures deserve the same protection that international law affords to national territories.” By international treaty, the launching nation is responsible for any damage caused by falling space debris that impacts any national territory. The high sea, defined as 200 nautical miles from a nation’s coastline, is not addressed.

The Full Story

Worlds in Collision Now Serious Science
My headline may bring back memories for some people. In 1950, a man named Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a book with that title that suggested that a close pass of Earth and Venus triggered numerous events described in the Bible, including the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus and the stoppage of the Sun in Joshua. The book was widely dismissed as pseudo-scientific nonsense by the mainstream. Now, over 75 years later, a scientific paper titled “Mass Extinctions by Gravitational Tides” by Daniele Fargion, a research professor from Rome University and the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte in Naples, has speculated that the close pass of dwarf planets very near Earth in the distant past could have spawned worldwide catastrophes that led to global extinction events. While still speculative, the paper does make use of serious science on orbital mechanics that was not yet even thought of back in the 1950s.

The Full Story

Bumming a Ride into Space Becoming Difficult
Space is booming business and new space startup companies are popping up continually. While building a satellite is no easy task, a new, unexpected problem is looming for companies that want to launch their assets into space: lack of space on available rockets. Right now, SpaceX is the undisputed leader in the private spaceflight industry, but soon demand may be outpacing rockets according to industry experts, forcing companies to leave their payloads on the ground or opt for more expensive launch options via smaller rocket companies.

The Full Story

Hackers Declare Aliens Have Landed
And now for the back of the book article, one that’s especially ‘out there.’ This week’s story focuses on a problem prevalent in today’s digital world: hackers. Late last week, hackers took over Brazil’s official emergency alert system and decided to have some fun, sending out a message declaring ‘Protect yourselves: ALIEN ATTACK, PEOPLE, WE HAVE ARRIVED!’ The response was mixed. Subsequent interviews found that reactions included genuine concern, bewilderment, and even complete indifference (this was 1:30am, after all). Brazil’s National Civil Protection agency confirmed that the message was the result of an ‘unauthorized third party’ accessing the emergency alert system. Brazil’s Federal Police are now busy trying to track down the hacker(s).

The Full Story

That’s it for news in the traditional sense. However, the sky is making news as we speak. Check out the Monthly Guides to stay current on ‘what’s up’ in a sky above you!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s another Wednesday, which means that it’s time for another trip in the time machine. In what is a first for this column in its history, we take a repeat trip back to a year already visited (2004) in order to witness history in the making. It was on June 21, 2004, that the first privately owned spacecraft left the Earth and claimed a prestigious prize along the way.

While exploration for its own sake is a noble pursuit, there are often other considerations involved in nudging humans to push the proverbial limits. A great motivator, past and present, was/is money. The Great Age of Exploration that began with Columbus (re)discovering the Americas in 1492 was set in motion 4 decades earlier in a quest to economize on the cost of imports.

In 1453, a watershed event in world history took place: the Byzantine Empire, which had survived its Roman brother for 1,000 years, finally collapsed. Until then, Western European traders had a pretty easy time of it traversing the Byzantine trade routes in order to procure exotic goods from the Far East. When the Ottoman Turks took over, seeing the potential for revenue, they upped the fees to assure safe passage for traders so much that some monarchs deemed it cheaper in the long run to try and find a new way to Asia than pay the Ottomans. It was essentially the desire to avoid high tolls, not discovery, that inspired Europeans to set sail all over the globe.

Come the early 20^th century, the world was largely mapped, but the spirit of exploration, bolstered by the advent of technology unimaginable in the 1400s, remained intact. In 1919, Raymond Orteig, a wealthy New York City hotel owner, offered $25,000 (roughly $500,000 in 2026 money) to any pilot who could make a non-stop solo flight from New York to Paris. The prize would go unclaimed for 8 years before Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight in 1927.

Come the 1990s and more advances in technology, the bar was raised, literally. In 1994, American engineer, doctor, and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis read a book about Lindbergh and was inspired to start gathering funding for a new prize that was updated to reflect the Space Age. To meet this goal, Diamandis created the XPRIZE Foundation and announced a $10 million prize to be awarded to the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space, defined as the 62 mile high Karman Line, twice within two weeks. The funding came by way of the Ansari family and the prize was renamed the Ansari XPRIZE in their honor. The challenge would attract 26 teams from 7 countries.

The winning combination would come by way of engineer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Their final product was named SpaceShipOne, which was actually an air-launched, rocket-powered space plane capable of flying at 2,000mph. For comparison, Lockheed’s legendary SR-71 Blackbird could fly faster, but it could only fly about a quarter of the way to what the XPRIZE Foundation defined as being space.

As is to be expected, the trip from the drawing board to above the Karman Line took a lot of time. SpaceShipOne would not even make its first powered flight (it had previously done glides like during the development of the Space Shuttle) until December 17, 2003. Not coincidentally, this was the 100^th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first heavier than air flight. In the intervening months, SpaceShipOne would make two more flights that pushed the craft ever higher into the atmosphere.

On June 21, 2004, the big day came: SpaceShipOne, piloted by Mike Melvill, was set to enter space for the first time. The flight nearly ended in disaster as SpaceShipOne rolled 90 degrees due to wind shear as it climbed. Melvill was able to level out and continue the climb. The rockets burned out at 180,000 feet and the craft continued climbing using only its own forward momentum. Due to the control troubles in the climb, SpaceShipOne fell well short of the planned height of 360,000 feet but reached an altitude of 328,491 feet, which was just enough to carry pilot and space plane above the Karman Line and become the first privately-owned and operated craft to enter what was defined as ‘space.’

SpaceShipOne would fly into space again on September 29. On October 4, SpaceShipOne claimed the Ansari XPRIZE by making a pair of spaceflights well within the prescribed 2-week window. The prize in hand, future flights were canceled to avoid damaging the first of its kind craft. SpaceShipOne was then transported across the country and made a few stops for the purpose of public display before being unveiled at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on October 5, 2005, a year and a day after claiming the official title of world’s first privately-owned spacecraft.

The past is cool, but so is the present. Check out the Monthly Guides to stay current on ‘what’s up’ in a sky above you!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

The arrival of June also heralds the arrival of summer, which arrives astronomically with the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, which happens to be today for 2026. The Solstice is the day the Sun takes its longest, highest path through the sky. For many, this is a surprising revelation as, although the weather will get hotter in many places into July, the Sun’s power will only weaken for the next six months.

Everyone is familiar with the four seasons. Depending on where one lives, the seasons can bring dramatic changes in temperatures and amounts of daylight in some locations and in other locations, not so much, but still enough to be noticeable to most. Still, for all of our familiarity with them, many people still ask the same question: why do we have seasons, anyway?

Short answer: it’s all about Earth’s tilt. For the longer answer, read on.

The reason that we have seasons is that Earth is tilted on its axis at 23.5 degrees. As the Earth goes around the Sun, either hemisphere will be tilted more toward/away from the Sun at different times of year. Additionally, if the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, The Southern will be tilted away from it. This is why the seasons in the two hemispheres are always opposite one another.

The four big days in terms of the seasons are the days that mark the seasonal changes: the Summer and Winter Solstices and the Vernal (spring) and Autumnal Equinoxes. Because these dates mark a change in the seasons, they are especially significant in Earth’s relation to the Sun.

The Summer Solstice is today and is the day that one’s hemisphere is tilted most toward the Sun. As a result, the Sun will take its longest and highest path through the sky, resulting in the longest day of the year. Following the Summer Solstice, the days will get shorter, almost imperceptibly at first, but then within increasing rapidity until the Autumnal Equinox, and the first day of fall arrives. The term ‘equinox’ actually means ‘equal night’ and is only one of two days in the entire year where the day and night are both exactly 12 hours long and where the Sun will rise due East and set due West. In terms of the Sun’s path, it exactly splits the difference between its highest and lowest arcs through the sky. Following the Autumnal Equinox, the days will continue to shorten rapidly but the shortening of the days will start to slow as the Winter Solstice approaches. On the Winter Solstice, the Sun takes the shortest, lowest path through the sky as the observer’s hemisphere is tilted most away the Sun, resulting in the shortest day of the year. Following the Winter Solstice, the days will start to lengthen, very slowly at first but then with increasing speed, as the Vernal (spring) Equinox approaches. On the Vernal Equinox, the day/night will again be exactly 12 hours long (or will they?) and the Sun will again contact the horizon due East/West as it exactly splits the paths it takes through the sky on the solstices. From the Vernal Equinox, the amount of daylight will rapidly increase, gradually slowing until, once again, the Summer Solstice arrives.

See also: How to make a pinhole camera.


Now for some fun: it’s possible to figure out exactly how high the Sun will be at local noon when it is exactly due South in your sky on either solstice or an equinox by using a simple formula.

First, find the latitude of your location. Latitude known, simply subtract your latitude from 90 to find the maximum solar elevation on an equinox. For our purpose, we’ll assume a latitude of 40N, which basically halves the continental United States. So, 90-40 is 50, which means that, on an equinox, the Sun will attain a maximum elevation of 50 degrees. For the Summer Solstice, add 23.5 to 50 for a maximum solar elevation of 73.5 degrees. For the Winter Solstice, subtract 23.5 from 50, giving a maximum solar elevation of only 26.5 degrees.

It is for these two reasons: (1) the incoming angle of sunlight and (2) the length of the Sun’s path through the sky that make summer hot and winter cold in many areas on Earth, especially the farther you go North/South from the Equator. If you live around the 40N latitude, you know that your seasons change dramatically though the course of the year.

For confirmation, go out near local noon on a sunny day near an equinox and the solstices and note how long your shadow appears. For more fun, capture a snapshot of your shadow on each of these three days and, once the set is complete, put them in a slideshow and compare. The difference will be very, very obvious.

So there they are: the reasons for seasons.



Other Items of Note

On Tuesday, the Moon will be passing very close to Spica, alpha Virgo. While it may be possible to see without optical aid, the Moon is over half lit and binoculars can be just the thing to cut through the glare.


Throughout the month of June, Saturn rises earlier and earlier to the tune of about 4 minutes per night. This week, the ringed wonder reaches a milestone: it is now rising 4 hours ahead of the Sun, which means ample time to observe the planet under a dark sky. Unfortunately, thanks to the short nights, seeing Saturn can be a hardship for most whether one stays up late or gets up early.

On Friday and Saturday, the Moon will park itself near Antares, alpha Scorpius. Antares means ‘rival of Mars’ in Greek and the star is aptly named as its red color closely resembles that of the Red Planet. The best part: this is 2-day event, meaning that Saturday offers a repeat should Friday be cloudy.

Speaking of the Summer Solstice, why not check out these related articles, too? Between seemingly impossible phenomenon and Earth-shaping discoveries made with essentially nothing, there’s much to learn by clicking below!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year (for us North of the Equator) and the official start of the summer season. For many people, this serves as a chance to celebrate what is, for many people, their favorite season. For astronomers, and especially those interested in the history of the science, the Summer Solstice also marks a major anniversary in the quest to understand the universe and our place in it.

The birth of permanent settlements gave rise to civilization as we know it, which in turn spurred the growth of agriculture. With agriculture supplanting hunting and gathering as the primary means for feeding oneself, it became matter of life and death, literally, for early farmers to get their planting done at the correct time. Having no abundance of entertainment as we do today, early people often looked to the sky. Looking up, these early people started to notice patterns to the sky, such that, following a regular cycle, the same stars would be visible in the same season year after year. In time, it became apparent that the appearances of various stars could be used to predict the weather on Earth and thus help in the odds for a successful crop.

Up until the Ancient Greeks, people could describe ‘how’ the sky behaved, but couldn’t explain the ‘why.’ By 600 B.C., every culture had a complex mythology describing why the world worked the way it did. Chief mechanism for changes in the natural world: gods. The Greeks were no exception. However, in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) science as we know it was born when prominent thinkers started suggesting that the world operated according to natural laws that could be explained without divine intervention. This idea, which cropped up around 600 B.C., was the birth of science.

Fast forward 350 years and the Greeks had produced the greatest of the early scientists. While their ideas were often wrong, the fact that they all sought to explain the world via the natural instead of the supernatural was what counted in the big picture.

The Library of Alexandria needs no introduction to most people even the least bit familiar with ancient history. As much a library as a research institute, the Library contained the largest collection of manuscripts in the world until the Renaissance and the books it contained often begged questions leading to further knowledge.

In the late 200s B.C., the chief librarian was a man named Eratosthenes. A true Renaissance Man nearly 2,000 years before the term was coined, Eratosthenes would literally reshape the world thanks to a question that arose from reading a book.

One of the books told an interesting story. In the South of Egypt in a town named Syene (near modern Aswan), there was a well so deep that its bottom was in shadow for the entire year, save noon on the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year where the Sun takes its longest, highest arc through the sky. Simultaneously, all shadows disappeared. In Alexandria, Eratosthenes noticed that the Sun cast very noticeable shadows at the same exact time.

How could the Sun cast no shadows in one place but obvious shadows in another at exactly the same time? That was easy: the Earth had to be spherical. In fact, the idea of a spherical Earth was nothing new: earlier scientists/philosophers had already postulated the same thing while offering observational evidence in support of the then-radical idea.

While lesser minds may have been content with discovering the first measurable physical evidence of a spherical Earth, Eratosthenes was not, he thirsted for more. Calculating the angle of the shadows by observing them against the known height of buildings, Eratosthenes determined that the shadow in Alexandria was at an angle of about 7 degrees, or about 1/50th of a circle, at noon on the Summer Solstice. Thinking in terms of the big picture, he reasoned that the distance from Alexandria to Syene was about 1/50th the distance around the Earth. The solution to finding the circumference of the Earth: find the distance between these two cities and then multiply by 50.

In theory, that was elementary geometry. In practice, this would be anything but easy.

The odometer would not be invented until the always-practical Romans devised their first machine for measuring the distances between two points during the reign of Augustus. Before then, if you wanted to find the distance between two far away places, you had to hire someone to pace out the distance. As hard as it may be to believe, this was a real occupation conducted by highly-trained men known as bematists (thank you to random_curious_mind for that!). Eratosthenes hired a man (or maybe a team of men) to pace out the distance between Alexandria and Syene, which is over 500 miles! If having to keep in perfect step while counting each time your foot hits the ground wasn’t enough, having to account for directional changes in roads was another complication to the enterprise.

While the name of the man (or men) is lost to history along with the fee, Eratosthenes chose his bematist(s) well as the result has survived to the present day. Alexandria and Syene were determined to be 5,000 stadia apart from Each other. This being 1/50 of a circle, Eratosthenes multiplied 5,000 stadia by 50 to give the Earth a circumference of 250,000 stadia. Unfortunately, stadia wasn’t a standardized unit of measure across the Greek world, but could be anywhere between 500 and 600 modern feet. Either way, when converting stadia to miles, one winds up with a circumference of anywhere between 24,000 and 29,000 miles. The Earth’s circumference is, on average, 24,900 miles.

Eratosthenes and his bematist did pretty good for using just shadows, feet, and brains.



Another cool Summer Solstice fact: while it is the longest day of the year, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset never take place on the Solstice. How can this seemingly nonsensical statement be true? Click below to learn all about it!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

The Space News Roundup has landed right on schedule yet again to close out the traditional work week. Collected, summarized, and linked below is the regular collection of especially eye-catching stories relating to the science/hobby that brings us all together. Enjoy!



Space Force Looks to Launch Orbital Warehouses
The Space Force is now looking to launch what it calls “warehouses” into orbit. The goal: a network of orbital depots that can store fuel and other supplies for future space missions that also allows for moving supplies from one space warehouse to another. The goal of such a network is to allow the Space Force to keep its assets maintained and ready to respond to any orbital threat, most likely stemming from China or Russia, both of which have been maneuvering satellites close to ours for what are probably anything but a friendly hello. The Space Force is already soliciting aid from private companies to make its orbital logistics a reality. Two demonstrations are already scheduled for next year.

The Full Story




Missile Manufacturing Hits Logistics Roadblock
The United States military is learning one of the most fundamental tenants of economics, supply and demand, when it would rather not: a time of increasing geopolitical tension. While rocket motor manufacturing is on the rise, nearly doubling since 2021, production is still falling short of goals by over 50%. Next year, the Pentagon is targeting a goal of producing 5,000 air and missile defense interceptors. However, it realistically expects only around 2,100. If this weren’t bad enough, these targets don’t even factor in all of the missiles expended during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. If that wasn’t bad enough already, a study by defense consultants Raytheon Technologies, Ursa Major and X-Bow Systems states that American missile production is wholly inadequate for a long-term war making extensive use of missiles.

The Full Story





Space Miners to Target Titan?
Many space enthusiasts are philosophically opposed to use other bodies in space purely for resource extraction. While lunar and asteroid mining is all the rage for space industry startups, some are setting their sights on a much more distant target: Titan, Saturn’s largest Moon. A recent study made with support of NASA specifically investigated what resources could be had on Titan and how they could be used by humans in future generations. The study sees Titan as a giant gas station, a base of operations for exploring the Saturn system, and as a factory to make products from local resources that could then be shipped elsewhere. As for all of the hydrocarbons both on the Moon and its atmosphere, they have already gotten Titan described as a “Persian Gulf” in space.

The Full Story

NASA to SpaceX, Blue Origin: Hurry Up!
With the crew of Artemis III newly announced, the new biggest worry for NASA is the mission hardware. With a target launch of mid 2027, the main objective of Artemis III will be the testing of a pair of lunar landers: one from SpaceX and another from Blue Origin. Based on this mission, NASA will then choose which vehicle it will use to land astronauts on the Moon for Artemis IV, targeted for as soon as early 2028. For NASA, this is truly going boldly where no one has gone before as the Apollo missions never had the element of competition among private contractors. This, coupled with China’s pledge for a crewed lunar landing “by 2030,” will make for a very interesting next few years!

The Full Story





Do You Need Legs in Space?
We have them but never think about them until there’s a problem with one of them, but do you need legs at all in microgravity? Well, that question is one step closer to being answered as it has been announced that John McFall could become the first amputee to take part in a long-term space mission. At age 19, McFall lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, but he didn’t allow it to slow him down, becoming a Paralympic sprinter, a surgeon, and now an ESA astronaut. If all does according to plan, McFall will participate in a mission to Haven 1, the world’s first commercial space station, which is set for a 2027 launch. While the physiology of how the human body adapts after losing a limb here on Earth is well understood, McFall will truly be going where no man in his condition has ever gone before. Being a doctor himself, McFall would make the best possible observer.

The Full Story





Aging ISS Causes International Tension
The International Space Station (ISS) is already lasted nearly double its original mission design life (originally just 15 years) and is showing its age. This came into the fore earlier this month when an air leak caused NASA to order its astronauts into a SpaceX Dragon capsule, which effectively signaled the possibility of an immediate, emergency departure. Now, the international tensions behind the scare are coming to light. The Russian cosmonauts decided to do some ‘physical modifications’ (sawing off a bracket) in the leaky module, which NASA objected to over safety concerns. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, initially brushed concerns aside and ordered the work to continue, that is until NASA ordered its astronauts into the Dragon. As of now, the situation is this: the leaky module will be left as it is, but will be sealed for regular crew activity.

The Full Story

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Show Me the Alien!
In a recent appearance on “The Fox News Rundown,” Neil deGrasse Tyson weighed in on the hot topic of disclosure and what it would mean to the world. Reflecting on 100+ years of aliens in entertainment, recent document declassification, as well as people testifying under oath to Congress about alien visitation being real, deGrasse Tyson then mused “is it too much to ask at this point for them to just show the alien? That’s all, I don’t think I’m asking too much here.” He has a point. This is not 1938 when Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of War of the Worlds sent people into a panic. Virtually everyone alive today grew up with aliens in the public consciousness. DeGrasse Tyson even speculated that, with so much time for hype to build, real declassification may actually be anticlimactic.

The Full Story





Fighting ADD in Space
Some people have a hard enough time paying attention to someone talking directly in front of them. Researchers led by a team out of Michigan State University have been busy tackling the problem of communication across space, namely the delays that are an inherennt nature of the proverbial beast that is a mission to Mars. A radio signal can take as few as 4 minutes to as many as 24 to go one way between Earth to Mars. For a 2-way conversation, double that. The study, published in Personnel Psychology, found that intentional design in how teams are trained and how they interact, will be a key to success on a space mission where a simple conversation is not so simple at all.

The Full Story





Out of This World Wine
There are more nuanced techniques for making wine than ever could be listed here, but you may soon be able to add another: grapes from space. Texas A&M AgriLife researchers are about to send grape seeds to the International Space Station for 6 six months to study how cosmic radiation impacts their ability to produce plants, eventually fruit, and finally, just possibly, wine. The grapes that traveled to the ISS will be planted alongside grapes that never left Texas in order to study how being in space could impact genetics. If all goes according to plan, the vines will start to produce grapes in 4-5 years and the team hasn’t ruled out turning the grapes into wine, either.

The Full Story





Psychic Envisions Mass Alien Abduction at World Cup
In the vein of many news broadcasts that save something really weird for the proverbial back of the book, a self-described psychic in Brazil has announced online that she has experienced visions suggesting that a mass alien abduction will take place during the World Cup, specifically at the Hard Rock Stadium, during the June 24 match between Brazil and Scotland. According to Vó Bahiana, her vision indicated that ‘thousands’ will be taken away to another world. Well, by the end of next Wednesday, we’ll know whether she was right or not!

The Full Story




That’s it for this type of news, but there is plenty going on in the sky making for observing news. Check out the June Monthly GUides to plan some stargazing for the remainder of the month!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s a Wednesday, which means that it’s time to fire up the time machine yet again. Unlike last week where we took a short trip of only a couple decades, this week will take us nearly a millennia into the past: way back to June 18, 1178. It was on this date in history that the monks of Canterbury witnessed an explosion (we think!) on the Moon.

In the year 1178, opinions on the heavens were a lot different than today. For starters, the heavenly bodies were assumed to be perfect and unchanging. Aside from the differing phases during the course of a month and the occasional eclipse, the Moon fit this pattern well. That is, until the evening of June 18.

The only record of the event described in the following account comes from a chronicler named Gervase of Canterbury. Very little is known of Gervase’s early life. The first verifiable event was his ordination as a monk, possibly by St. Thomas Beckett, at Christ Church Monastery in 1163. This date leads many historians to place his birth around 1140. Gervase may have been personally involved in the funeral and burial of Beckett, who was famously murdered on orders of Henry II in 1170. In the 1180s, he began writing, chronicling the history of Britain starting in the early 1100s to the then-present. In general, Gervase is considered a reputable source for information of his time. This is what makes the following account so interesting.

On the evening of June 18, 1178, something extraordinary happened with the Moon, inspiring Gervase to record “the upper horn [of the moon] split in two.” Going into further detail, Gervase continues that, “from the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.”

What was going on?

Most modern astronomers believe that the Monks of Canterbury witnessed something exceedingly rare: a large asteroid or comet hitting the lunar surface. While reports of small, bright flashes on the surface of the Moon are nothing new and even made headlines during the Artemis II mission, the witnessing of an impact large enough to throw up enough debris to darken the entire Moon is unprecedented. However, scientists have physical evidence to support the impact theory.

In the area where the flames are described as originating, there is a unique crater named after Giordano Bruno. The Moon has virtually no atmosphere to speak of, but space is not completely empty. Erosion on the Moon does happen. What takes a puff of wind an instant to blow away on Earth can endure for billions of years on the Moon. Most of the Moon’s craters are believed to be very old, being made by impacts during what is known as the Heavy Bombardment, which took place soon after the formation of the solar system. In the 4+ billion years since then, fine particulates surrounding these craters would have been eroded, leaving no fine particulate matter ejected from the impact in the area, or at least distinguishable from the surroundings.

Giordano Bruno is different. It is surrounded by fresh, distinctly light rays coming out in all directions that resemble the petals of a flower, which signal that the crater is new. New as in dating to June 18, 1178? No one will ever know for sure, but one thing is certain: only noteworthy events were recorded for posterity in the 1100s. Books were expensive and literate people few and far between. It is highly unlikely that Gervase, a reputable historian, would have recorded gossip into his chronicle.

While we will never know for sure what the monks of Canterbury saw on a June evening in 1178, there is no doubt that they witnessed something spectacular.

As for Gervase, he continued adding to his chronicles until around 1210, when the writing style abruptly changed. At the time, he would probably have been around 70, a great age for the period. One can only assume that Gervase either died or retired around this time. As for what he did write as it unfolded, Gervase offers a unique window into the times of Richard the Lionheart and John, the king who, by signing the Magna Carta, initiated the process of democratization in England, which stood in stark contrast to the situation on the Continent, where absolute monarchs would continue to reign for centuries.


The past is cool, but so is the present. Check out June’s Monthly Guides to learn about ‘what’s up’ right now!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s Sunday, which means that it’s time to spotlight an especially noteworthy event taking place in the sky this upcoming week. This week’s feature is on our closest celestial neighbors, the Moon and Venus, which also happen to be the brightest two objects in the night sky. On Wednesday, the Moon will occult Venus, albeit in the daytime.

So, what does this all mean for hobbyists?

For starters, the word ‘occultation’ may lead some to view dark undertones to the event. This is not true in any sense. The English word ‘occult’ derives from the French ‘occulte,’ which itself originates from the Latin ‘occultus,’ which simply means “hidden, concealed, secret.” The transformation of the word into its commonly perceived definition of having something to do with esoteric knowledge and/or black magic did not take place until the 1800s.

Referring to the word’s original definition, the term is very appropriate for the astronomical event because a lunar occultation is simply when the Moon conceals a star/planet by passing directly in front of it as seen from Earth. This is what will happen with Venus on Wednesday, June 17. The event will be visible for the entire continental United States plus some parts of Canada, Mexico, and South America. However, because the Moon is so close to Earth, the parallax is extreme, which means that actual start/finish times can vary a lot depending on location. Go here for a basic list of start/finish times and here (albeit not HTTPS and in universal time) for a huge list (734 cities!) of times. Don’t know how to convert universal into local time? No problem! Go here for a tool that does it for you! If you are able to see the occultation itself, keep reading. If not, content yourself with a close pass of the two bodies after sunset and skip the next few paragraphs to this week’s Other Items of Note section.

If you can see the event itself, you will need optical aid as it will take place during daylight. The good news: binoculars are inexpensive and can be had at just about any store that sells sporting goods. If you already own binoculars or a telescope, you’re good to go!

The time to observe is when Venus disappears and/or reappears. With your local times known, be sure to go outside ahead of time and get ready. The Moon will be a thin crescent, 3 days past new and roughly 15% illuminated. While not hard to spot in twilight, finding the Moon this thin in broad daylight can be a little bit of a challenge, but it can be done. The best way to improve one’s odds is to observe from a place where the Sun is blocked by either a building or a tree. With the Sun’s glare blocked, the much dimmer Moon becomes much easier to find. For the record, the Moon will be about 40 degrees to the left (East) of the Sun, use your handy hand to guide you on where to start looking!

Moon found, aim your telescope or binoculars at the Moon just before the occultation takes place. Venus should appear as a bright star next to the Moon. As the seconds tick away, keep your instruments aimed skyward and, almost in an instant, Venus will disappear from view. The inverse is true on the other end of the occultation, except in reverse.

Other Items of Note
As the week begins, the earliest sunsets of the year are now taking place, even though the Summer Solstice is still a week away. The exact day of earliest sunrise will vary depending on your location. As nonsensical as this seems, it is true! So, for you early birds, now’s the time to squeeze the most into your morning.

On Tuesday evening, the Moon will be meeting up with Mercury, Jupiter, Castor, and Pollux. Unlike last month when this was visible under a dark sky, this month’s repeat takes place in dusk. With the sky so much brighter, the binoculars are a good idea this time. Speaking of Jupiter, now is the final opportunity to catch the planetary king under a dark sky as the planet is only setting about 2 hours after the Sun come this week. You’ll need a horizon with roughly 10 degrees of clearance. Use your handy hand to determine if your observing spot is good enough.

Speaking of Mercury, it is rapidly dropping in the Western sky an hour after sunset, so make it a point to spot it if you haven’t already done so last week.

On Friday evening, the Moon will be meeting up with Regulus, alpha Leo. If you missed catching the planets, they’re all still around, too!

On the other end of the night, Mars is continuing to slowly reemerge from the Sun’s glare in the predawn sky. By the time this week wraps up, the Red Planet will be rising just over 2 hours ahead of the Sun. Look low in the East.

That’s it for the week, but there’s a lot left for the month. Check out the Monthly Guides for June to plan your long-range stargazing!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s time for another CME (Chance Media Ejection) post dealing with an evergreen topic once again. While the amount of such posts is small right now, the list will grow under the ‘resources’ tab in the navigation bar under my title header.

Solstices are the longest or shortest days of the year. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, is just over a week away. For anyone who makes it a point to catch the local TV weather reports, something seemingly impossible may be taking place this week: the meteorologist may note the earliest sunrises are taking place right now. How can this be with the solstice a week away?

Well, it all has to do with the shape of the Earth’s orbit.

In any science textbook picture, the planets appear to go around the Sun in circular orbits. This isn’t true. In the text, it will be specified that the planets orbit the Sun in ellipses, which are slightly elongated in shape. On top of that, the text will then add that an ellipse has two foci and that the Sun is located at one of these. In everyday terminology, the Sun is not at the center of the Earth’s non-circular orbital path.

Herein lies why extreme sunrise/set times will never happen on a solstice.

Because the Sun is not at the center of Earth’s orbit, it will appear to actually exhibit an East-West shift of its position in the sky (more follows). If one is really dedicated, this effect can be photographed. Simply take the camera out to the same location several times over the course of a year at regular intervals and photograph the Sun at exactly the same time of day while disregarding the time changes due to DST/ST. Thanks to digital technology, it is easy to overlay the photos one on top of the other to get a composite. The result: the Sun will appear to move in a figure eight pattern called an analemma. For such a picture, go here before continuing with the article.

By looking at the analemma, there is another problem: there is a lot more variance in the Sun’s position near the Winter Solstice (low in the sky) than the Summer Solstice (high in the sky). What’s going on here? This time, the answer is very simple: the greater solar movement in winter is because the Earth moves faster near the Winter Solstice because it is closer to the Sun at a point called perihelion, which results in a greater apparent solar motion simply because the planet is moving more each day. This is also why winter is the shortest season of the year for us in the Northern Hemisphere. Oh, if you’re interested, the Earth will move about 75,000 miles more on the perihelion than the aphelion day, which takes place in early July when Earth is at its farthest from the Sun.

It is for these two reasons, the Sun not being at the center of the Earth’s orbit and the changes in the Earth’s speed, that the latest sunrise times don’t match up with the solstices, but are shifted to either side. For the record, the earliest sunrises of the year take place about a week before the Summer Solstice and latest sunsets about a week thereafter. In winter, this shift increases, with the earliest sets about 2 weeks before and the latest rises 2 weeks after the solstice date.

To be specific, actual sunrise/set extremes vary by latitude but, in general, take place sometime this week.

So, for you early risers, you’ll have the most morning daylight time this week, all the better to get things done before things get too hot. Benjamin Franklin would be proud of you, but others beg to disagree!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

The work week is just about at its end, which means only one thing here: Friday’s regular edition of the Space News Roundup, the usual collection of decidedly unusual stories related to our favorite science/hobby. Enjoy!


Corralling ‘Space Unicorns’
Leading news website spacenews.com has just compiled a list of what it terms ‘space unicorns,’ startup companies now worth over $1 billion. As of this writing, 30 companies fit the profile with roughly 2 of 3 achieving the feat since just the start of 2025. The fact that so many companies are gaining such high valuations so quickly shows how eager investors are to get in on the space economy, which was worth over $600 billion just last year. For many of these companies, the AI Gold Rush has been the road to potential riches, with orbital AI data centers being a prime focus for revenue. In the end, only time will tell what happens as the vision of orbital computing remains purely theoretical at the moment.

The Full Story





SETI Updates Disclosure Procedures
In an appropriate sense of timing, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute has just update its protocol for what to do in the event that alien life is discovered. Citing an evolving media environment, a committee of international scientists has made the first update to SETI protocols since 2010. Chief concern: making sure that nothing is announced prematurely by ensuring the most rigorous of scientific methodology. A key change: no public announcement should be made until a signal or an artifact has been authenticated by independent organizations using different instrumentation. If verification is confirmed, the panel now recommends that SETI go to the UN, which should then make the first public pronouncement.

The Full Story




SpaceX Denied Immediate S&P 500 Listing
There has been a lot of hype about SpaceX making its first public sale of company stocks, which is set for today. The S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that it will not waive a rule requiring newly-public companies to wait for 12 months before they can apply for inclusion on the S&P 500 Index. The rule exists to ensure a ‘seasoning period,’ during which the public can get a sense of what a company is really worth before purchasing stock. If SpaceX had gotten its way and got an automatic inclusion on the Index, a buying rush could have taken place, something Wall Street seeks to avoid. Additionally, SpaceX will not be eligible for inclusion until it turns a profit. Last year, the hottest company in space reported a loss of nearly $5 billion.

The Full Story




Space Telescopes’ Images Wrecked by Satellites
If you’re into astrophotography and are sick of satellites streaking through your images, you are not alone. In a new study out of NASA’s Ames Center, over 70% of images taken by the new SPHEREx Space Telescope, which orbits at roughly 430 miles in elevation, contained at least 1 satellite trail. While the aesthetics are bad, there’s a deeper problem: SPHEREx is designed to shut down data collection in response to bright cosmic rays hitting the sensor. Some of these satellites are so bright that they’re tripping the sensor, which thinks that they’re cosmic rays, instead. Needless to say, this could be a huge problem for scientists moving forward. As anyone who even somewhat regularly checks out the Space News Roundup knows, the issue of satellites junking up orbit is a common theme here. From ruining stargazing to hampering science, the effects of space becoming cluttered are sure to only get exponentially worse if these AI companies get their way with orbital data centers.

The Full Story

Tiny Telescope Could Map Moon
Imagine mapping the entire surface of the Moon using X-Rays with a telescope so small that it could fit into a lunchbox. Sound crazy? It’s a very real possibility according to a research published in Earth, Planets and Space, a single small X-Ray telescope could map oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, and silicon across its entire surface of the Moon within just two years. Meanwhile, scientists out of Tokyo Metropolitan University have unveiled plans for a X-Ray telescope weighing less than 10kg. The sensor itself has already been subjected to radiation more powerful than what could be expected in lunar orbit and has come through with flying colors. If launched, this telescope could also be useful in planning future manned missions by identifying areas of scientific and/or industrial interest.

The Full Story




Rubin Observatory Could Find Hypothetical ‘Planet Nine’
For the past 10 years, scientists have been busy searching for what has, so far, been a cosmic phantom: a 9^th planet at the outer edges of our solar system. Spearheaded by astronomer Mike Brown, whose discovery of Eris led to the whole big Pluto mess, tantalizing indirect evidence has led many to speculate that something very large (5-10 Earth masses) and very distant (20x farther than Neptune) could be lurking in the outermost regions of the solar system. Unfortunately, no direct observation has been made, but there is hope that could change with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which has the most powerful digital imaging capabilities ever installed on a telescope. If Planet Nine exists, there’s a good chance that Rubin could spot it.

The Full Story




Teen Redefines How to Look For ET Life
A high school student in Turkey named Sahin Torlakcik has just published a paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that could reshape the way that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) operates. How? Torlakcik points out a practical problem that often gets overlooked: where not to point the telescope. Not all stars are created equal. Some are too short-lived and others possess chemical properties that make the evolution of life unlikely, among other factors. Using Torlakcik’s 7-factor system designed to weed out the worst stellar candidates for hosting alien life, scientists can avoid wasting their time observing a system where life is unlikely to ever take hold, let alone survive into a form capable of interstellar communication. New perspectives can be truly illuminating.

The Full Story




Time to Revamp the 1967 Outer Space Treaty?
A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, negotiated primarily between the United States and Soviet Union, is out of date and in need of a major revamp. The Treaty has been instrumental in preventing the militarization of space, so far, by prohibiting claims of national sovereignty in space, restrictions on weapons in space, and binding signatories to use space for peaceful purposes. For all of its good, the Treaty is 60 years old and makes no provisions for dozens of countries with space launch capabilities, the private sector, space infrastructure, and space mining, all of which were non-existent at the time it was written. Solution? Keep the foundation, but make updates that take into account the modern, multi-faceted world of space exploration of today while emphasizing cooperation and the preservation of space for its intrinsic value.

The Full Story



’Disclosure Day’ Hits Theaters
The movie that has gotten quite the buzz hits theaters today. Is the buzz in anticipation of something monumental taking place or is this just another movie?

My Take



That’s it for the news from the farthest reaches of the known internet. However, there is a lot of interesting things taking place in the sky as we speak. Catch up with June’s Monthly Guides to stay up to date with ‘what’s up.’

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

There’s been a lot of hype about Steven Spielberg’s upcoming movie, Disclosure Day, ever since the knowledge that the film was being made at all made its way to the public. The movie hits theaters tomorrow and excitement is reaching a fever pitch. In recent years, hope has been on the rise that the United States government will finally tell the world what it knows about the ever-controversial topic of UFOs, which most people suspect as having to do with aliens. So, will there be some kind of Earth-shaking revelation coming about by way of a movie?

Sorry to be the party crasher, but that’s highly unlikely.

The government is not about to finally do disclosure via Hollywood for the simple reason that the entertainment industry is founded in the world of make-believe. Hollywood got to where it is today by selling fiction. If you had a serious, true story to tell and wanted to tell it via someone else, are you going to pick the village Pinocchio to do it for you? Hardly. The government has a credibility problem as it is and, even if the president (whether it be Trump tomorrow or someone else in the future), decided to go public on national TV in a joint session of Congress with the Cabinet secretaries along with the 9 Justices of the Supreme Court all present, there would still be doubt. Disclosure is not a job for Hollywood as many people will simply refuse to believe the story coming straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth, which is perfectly reasonable since the government is known to have lied about the topic in the past (how can there be 3 ‘true’ explanations for Roswell?).

On the other hand, this seems more likely to be a case of Hollywood looking to capitalize on something that’s coming to the forefront of public consciousness.

In December, 2017, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico all reported that the United States government had been funding a secret project to investigate UFOs that ran from 2007 to 2012 with a price tag of $22 million, all the while the government’s official position was that it had no interest in the topic. More tantalizing were 3 accompanying videos said to show supposed close encounters captured on camera from Navy fighter jets. Unlike in the past, this time the story didn’t disappear. Instead, it grew, especially after the Pentagon confirmed that the videos were real. Whatever one thinks of these 3 media outlets, the fact that such major players in the news world would cover the topic seriously was a major paradigm shift. Until this point, coverage of UFOs always contained a distinct hint of ridicule, if not outright hostility towards the topic.

The proverbial dam had broke and the flood was unleashed.

Come 2026, UFOs, now rechristened unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAPs), are being discussed mainstream with straight faces among the public, media, politicians, and even some scientists. All of this is a positive development because we have no idea what these objects (whatever you want to call them) are, all the while they continue to violate our airspace (and other nations’) with impunity, making them a very real security concern.

With UFOs and disclosure being hot topics, it would be stupid not to make a movie about them.

Humans have always projected topics at the forefront of their collective thought into media, even before what we could term ‘media’ itself was even a real thing. To illustrate this, one just has to look up at the sky. Throughout history, people have seen patterns in the sky and projected their own interests into the firmament. The Northern constellations we recognize today all originate with Ancient Greece and Rome. Classical Civilization loved its mythology and projected these stories into the sky. Come the Age of Exploration, a whole new hemisphere of stars was opened to Europeans, who then saw the latest in scientific instrumentation and other modern technology among the stars.

Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution and the technology it spawned in the 1800s and it was only then that topics at the forefront of pop culture began to find their ways into media as we now recognize it, namely through print. Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon (1865) is widely recognized as opening the literary floodgate for space travel stories. H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (1898) is the work that thrust the possibility of alien invasion into the public consciousness. Ever since then, we’ve been continually injecting aliens into our media. While crude by today’s standards, 1902’s A Trip to the Moon is widely considered the first alien film in history. From there, aliens found themselves starring in increasingly realistic films, TV programs, and now digital media.

As for Steven Spielberg, this is not his first time seriously dealing with the topic, as he did so near the start of his career back in 1977 with a move you may have heard of: Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This movie was released at another time when the public’s interest in UFOs/aliens was at a high tide after a long period of disinterest.

When the first reports of UFOs started coming en-mass during the late 1940s, the thought immediately went to national security. What if the Russians were using captured German technology that was decades ahead of ours? With the potential for mass panic clearly present, the government sought to immediately allay fears, but secretly feared that foreign adversaries could capitalize on UFO jitters in order to create mass panic in the country. While UFOs were a serious topic in the late 1940s, by the mid 1950s, the situation had changed dramatically as the contactee movement created charlatans aplenty, most famously George Adamski. Often using the guise of wisdom from space people to speak in ways that could be considered politically subversive, supposed contactees talked of having visits with aliens from Venus, Mars, and Jupiter who were all amazingly human in appearance. Accompanying photographs intended to serve as evidence of the claims were quickly debunked as hoaxes. By the mid 1970s, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter were known to be inhospitable to life as we know it and the sheer absurdity of the contactees’ claims drove legitimate researchers away from the topic for decades.

In 1976, the tone changed dramatically when then-candidate Jimmy Carter talked openly of seeing a UFO himself and filing an official report while serving as governor of Georgia. Despite the story initially breaking by way of the National Enquirer, the public, undoubtedly harboring a decades’ old curiosity, took notice. As 1977 dawned, there was hope that now President-Elect Carter would finally tell the world what the government knew. As this was happening, Steven Spielberg got an idea for a movie he thought the public would like.

Come 2026, this is true again.

The pattern is clear: when the public is interested in something, turn it into entertainment and make money. This is what Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures just did with Disclosure Day. Bottom line: it’s just a movie, don’t go expecting the veil of secrecy to come fluttering to the floor. About the only sure thing to come via Disclosure Day are conversations, often serious ones where giggles and smirks increasingly have no part.

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s a Wednesday, which means that it’s time to take another spin in the time machine. This week, we are taking our shortest trip thus far, going back just 22 years to an astronomical event that was one so rare that made the non-science news media. The event in question: the transit of Venus that took place on June 8, 2004.

First, why was this such a big deal?

Graphics of the solar system paint an incomplete picture of our celestial neighborhood. On paper or on a screen, the solar system is automatically rendered flat, wherein the planets all orbit the Sun on a perfectly flat ecliptic plane. This is not the case. As anyone who has observed planets for some time knows, planets do make close passes on the ecliptic plane, with conjunctions of within a degree, a little finger at arm’s length while using your handy hand, being especially noteworthy. That’s close, but not an overlap. Why don’t the planets ever come directly in front of each other? The planets are not orbiting the Sun on a flat plane at all, but at slightly inclined orbits. The same is true of the Moon relative to Earth. If everything was perfectly flat, eclipses would take place every New and Full Moon (and no one would care about them). For an eclipse or a solar transit to take place, everything has to line up just right.

On June 8, 2004, everything lined up just right.

On that date, the orbits of Venus and Earth aligned in a manner that brought Venus directly between Earth and the Sun. While inferior conjunctions happen all the time when Venus comes between the Sun and Earth, these actually take the planet just above or below the Sun as seen from our home planet. This time, Venus came directly between the Earth and the Sun in a path that would take it across the solar disc itself. For anyone with a solar filter, eclipse shades, or a #14 or darker welder’s visor, a small dot that was the planet could be observed crossing the Sun.

Like a lunar eclipse, a transit of Venus is widely observable, over roughly half of the planet. This time, the event was visible from start to finish in all of Europe, as well as most of Asia and Africa. For Eastern North American and much of South America, it was already in progress at sunrise and for East Asia and Australia, Venus would be transiting the Sun as it set.

The cool thing about transits of Venus is that they happen at regular intervals. Transits always happen in pairs and a pair of transits takes place almost exactly eight years apart, followed by a gap of 121.5 years, before another pair occurs eight years apart, followed by another gap, of 105.5 years. The June 5, 2012 event that I photographed for all the images in this article will be the last transit until December 10-11, 2117, which made it a literally a ‘last chance to see it’ astronomical event for anyone alive to witness it.

As a consolation prize, the other inferior planet, Mercury, offers more frequent transits. The next transit of Mercury will take place on November 13, 2032 and will be visible, at least in-part, across the entire populated world except for North America and Eastern Russia. After that, the next 3 transits of Mercury will take place on November 7, 2039, on May 7, 2049 (finally one visible in North America-I hope I’m still alive!), and on November 8-9, 2052.

Because Mercury is a lot smaller than Venus and a lot farther from Earth, optical aid to magnify the view is necessary when observing a transit of Mercury, unlike a transit of Venus, which can be discerned without magnification. Being 6 years away, there’s plenty of time to prepare and put in vacation requests at work!


The past is cool, but so is the present. Check out the Monthly Guides to plan some long-range sky watching!

This week in itself offers a rare opportunity to see all 5 of the naked eye planets! Learn how to see them all by clicking below!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s a new week, which means it’s time to spotlight a new marquee event taking place in the sky for the upcoming 7 days. This week marks the culmination of the event first spotlighted in last week’s edition. While last week was all about the convergence of Venus and Jupiter, this week is all about their close pass, which takes place on Tuesday, June 9.

For anyone doing planet watching in the evening for the past few weeks, the sky has been dominated by Venus and Jupiter, the 2^nd and 3^rd brightest objects in the sky after the Moon, respectively. From Earth, the planets are appearing to get closer, but their direction of travel is decidedly opposite of each other.

It’s now or never to catch Jupiter, which is rapidly sinking into the Sun’s glare. Coming to opposition back in January, Jupiter has been a fixture in the night sky for months, but its days are now numbered. The planetary king began May setting roughly 5 hours after the Sun. As June begins, it’s setting about only 3 hours after our nearest star. True darkness does not arrive until roughly 1 ½ hours after sunset, which means that there’s only about 1 ½ hours to observe the planet under a dark sky, provided that you don’t live in an area that’s built up and full of obstructions near the horizon, which is the case for about the 80% of Americans that live in suburban/urban settings.

As for Venus, it’s been slowly (key word ‘slowly’) getting better over the past several months due to its positioning on the far side of the Sun. As this week begins, Venus is now setting a little over 2 ½ hours after the Sun. While it actually peaked in elevation the last week of May, Venus isn’t going anywhere fast come June.

By reading the above two paragraphs, a clear pattern emerges: one planet (Venus) is rising while another (Jupiter) is sinking. End result: the planets are on a cosmic collision course along the ecliptic plane that will culminate on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the two brightest planets will be separated by roughly 1 ½ angular degrees. Use your handy hand and simulate a degree by holding a little finger at arm’s length. While planetary conjunctions can be closer, 1 ½ degrees is a close shave and worth a look, especially when considering that it is a meet-up of the two brightest planets.

Being a dusk event, this is the perfect opportunity to try some basic astrophotography as there is still some brightness to the sky. Even a smartphone or a simple point and shoot pocket camera should be able to do the job provided you find the right setting. If you own a camera with full manual control, set the ISO to its lowest setting and adjust the shutter speed until you capture a shot that replicates the night sky. Don’t forget to bring the tripod if you own one. No tripod? Rest the camera on a solid object when shooting and/or up the ISO a bit to get the same capture with a faster shutter speed. However you decide to take your pictures, don’t forget to enable the time delay mode to avoid streaking planets!

Other Items of Note
Since we’re talking about just after sunset planets already, let’s discuss something that would have been the Weekly Feature in most weeks. Mercury reaches its highest elevation this apparition on Wednesday. Even 45 minutes after sunset, the elusive first rock from the Sun will still be about 10 degrees above the Western horizon, which is exceptionally good for this time of year and gives one a little of extra time to observe as the sky gets darker. On top of that, Mercury will be at its brightest this week, shining roughly at the same magnitude as Vega and Arcturus. An hour after sunset, Mercury should be naked eye without much problem so long as haze doesn’t linger around the horizon. Here’s a quick tip: if you own binoculars, use them to find Mercury and note its location relative to ground features. Then, ditch the binoculars for your eyes alone. Most of the time, you’ll suddenly spot the planet that was ‘invisible’ just a moment beforehand. Try it, it works!

Starting this week, specifically on Tuesday, Saturn will now be rising 3 hours ahead of the Sun. If you have a good Eastern horizon, that means that you have a very realistic opportunity to observe Saturn under a truly dark sky once again as the sky doesn’t start to brighten until about 1 1/2 hours before local sunrise. Speaking of Saturn, the Moon will be parking itself very near the ringed wonder on Wednesday morning.

On Friday morning, the Moon will be parked right above Mars. You’ll want to make sure you have a good horizon that has a clearance of 5 degrees (use the handy hand again) as Mars will be very low in the sky. The good news is that, roughly 45 minutes before sunrise, Mars will be located about half way between the Moon and the horizon, so it should be easy to locate. Bring the binoculars!

What a week for planets! It’s not often than an opportunity to catch all of the naked eye planets presents itself in the course of just 7 days.


That’s it for the week, but the month is just getting started. Check out June’s Monthly Guides to plan some long-range stargazing!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s Friday, which can mean only one thing here: it’s time for the weekly Space News Roundup. As usual, some of the most eye-catching stories related to our favorite science/hobby are gathered, summarized, and hyperlinked below. Enjoy!



Space as Vital Infrastructure
A provision in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) could be a major boon for the private space industry in that the OBBBA allows private space facilities to gain access to the municipal bond market. Previously, private space facilities were financed through short-term, high cost capital. Now, these same facilities can be financed through the sale of municipal bonds, which are lower-cost and longer term, which have traditionally been used to finance infrastructure improvements like air or sea ports. By making the shift, lawmakers are clearly raising the space economy into the realm of traditional infrastructure. For the record, I am no financial expert and did my best to concisely explain the article!

The Full Story




New Glenn Explosion Seen for Over 100 Miles
Last week, Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket went viral for all the wrong reasons after it exploded on the launchpad. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no expensive payloads were lost thanks to this being strictly a test. Now, as cameras are more prevalent than ever before, videos capturing the explosion from great distances, some over 100 miles away, are coming to light. On the practical side, the explosion did a lot of damage to the launch facility and the halting of New Glenn flights will undoubtedly have ripple effects for companies looking to utilize the services of the heavy lift rocket itself.

The Full Story




Space Laundromats to Utilize Plasma
While engineering and human health are at the forefront of problems that need to be solved if we are to colonize other worlds, there are many other, much more mundane tasks that will have to be addressed differently in space than on Earth. One of these: doing the laundry. Clearly, using water to do laundry on the Moon is not an option, which has forced researchers to come up with other options. A potential winner: plasma. Researchers have just completed a study wherein they tested plasma, compared to controlled lightning, as a disinfectant. While plasma won’t do any good for removing stains, it was found to be more effective at killing bacteria than the dry vacuuming and surface wipes currently used on the ISS. While it can’t ‘clean’ in the traditional sense, killing bacteria and keeping astronauts healthy is a more important priority than having bright, crisp clothes in space.

The Full Story





Astrobiology’s Numbers Problem
Everyone knows that astrobiology is a mostly theoretical pursuit for the simple reason that there is only 1 other planet where we can look for life: Mars. Outside of the Red Planet, we won’t be going to any other potentially habitable worlds anytime soon. That known, astrobiologists are forced to rely on models, models that a recent study points out rely on scientifically insufficient data. Statisticians like to have large sample sizes before they become comfortable drawing any conclusions. Problem: according to statistics, astrobiologists need a minimum of over 12,000 identical data points (planets) before they can come to any scientifically sound conclusion. Problem: we’ve just detected over 6,000 exoplanets, all different, which is not nearly enough to develop good statistics for the possibility of extraterrestrial life. For a field that’s highly speculative enough as it is, the number problems only muddies the proverbial waters even more.

The Full Story





The Moon as a Quarantine Facility
It’s the stuff science fiction nightmares are made of: what if some microbe gets brought to Earth on a sample return mission from another planet and then goes on to spawn a worldwide plague? In a joint American and Canadian effort, researchers Frederick Moxley and Anthony Ricciardi propose to use the Moon as a secure containment facility for any samples returned from another world. The researchers propose that all extraterrestrial samples be handled by way of robots in a lunar facility designed to the highest standards of microbe containment. This way, the Moon could act as a natural firewall against any Earth contamination caused by either a return vehicle failure or astronaut exposure. Moxley even stated that “humanity is entering a new era of space exploration, but our planetary protection strategies have not kept pace with the risks associated with returning extraterrestrial samples to Earth.”

The Full Story





Taming the Sun
Space weather, a loose term for solar activity originating due to disturbances on the Sun, may be on the verge of being tamed, according to a new study. It has long been known that solar activity can play havoc with our modern electronics, impacting, among other things: cell phone signals, GPS navigation, the power grid, and, at worst case scenario, destroy satellites’ fragile electronics. Using computer models, researchers have suggested that firing canisters loaded with alkaline metal particulates into geosynchronous orbit at the edge of the magnetosphere could create an artificial plasma, which could then, in theory, reduce the effects of a solar storm by up to half by rerouting the incoming solar particles around our planet rather than down into it. With space becoming a booming business, there will undoubtedly be a good base of deep-pocketed customers lining up to pay for the service should it prove to work in real life. However, the idea of launching fine metallic dust into the magnetosphere does pose ethical and philosophical questions, too.

The Full Story

SpaceX to the Rescue?
The Space Force has just announced that it has awarded SpaceX a $4+ billion contract to create a satellite constellation capable to “track and target airborne threats globally.” So, is SpaceX going to be Earth’s first line of defense against the rogue space rock capable of wiping out a city, a state, or even a small country? Hardly. This satellite constellation, set to be up and running by 2028, is all about monitoring military threats over contested airspace. Traditionally, this role has been fulfilled by planes but, as geopolitical adversaries obtain ever more advanced weapons technology, flying planes over enemy territory becomes more dangerous, necessitating even higher eyes in the sky. While we on Earth can debate the ethics of militarizing space six ways to Sunday, space is undoubtedly the ultimate high ground for the military, ground that every world power will want to occupy.

The Full Story




Deep State Played No Role in ‘Disclosure Day,’ - Steven Spielberg
The much-anticipated movie Disclosure Day is set to be released on June 12, a week from today. The movie has spawned much discussion among conspiracy theorists, who speculate that the film will feature real life ET craft and/or serve as the real life disclosure event. Speaking on ‘The Rewatchables’ podcast, Spielberg flatly denied that any shadowy forces had anything to do with the making of his new movie. Let’s remember, Close Encounters of the Third Kind didn’t lead to anything nearly 50 years ago.

The Full Story



That’s it for the news gathered from the farthest reaches of the known internet, but there’s a lot of news up in the sky as we speak. The Monthly Guides for June are all here, check them out to plan some long-range stargazing!

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

History
Hercules is one of the 48 constellations recognized by the ancient Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who is famous for ‘perfecting’ the geocentric solar system model. In Greek mythology, Hercules was born a man and elevated to a god upon his death and is considered the greatest of the Greek heroes. Born of a divine father, Zeus, and a mortal mother, Hercules was considered half divine and half man. In his youth, he was visited by Vice and Virtue, who offered him a mundane, pleasant life or a glorious, hard life, respectively. After killing his wife and children in a fit of insanity brought upon by Zeus’ angry wife, Hera, Hercules goes to an oracle and is told to serve King Eurystheus for 10 years and to do anything his master asked of him. If he completed his tasks, Hercules’ sins would be forgiven and he would become divine. Hercules completes his famous 12 Labors, goes on to have many more adventures, and is raised to Olympus (and the stars) as he dies. In the traditional visualization, Hercules is depicted as praying to his father, Zeus, as he prepares to battle two giants.

Visual/Where to Find
Hercules is a large constellation, the 5^th largest in the sky in terms of angular degrees. Unfortunately, the constellation of the hero is also dim, with no stars brighter than magnitude +2.5. The best way to find Hercules is to look between the bright blue star Vega and the small constellation of Corona Borealis, a small arc of stars. Between these two and with the aid of a star map, the mythological hero will emerge from the firmament. In fact, Hercules is notable for being the largest constellation to have no stars brighter than second magnitude. The good news is that Hercules is is a rather Northerly location, with an arc through the sky that takes the constellation through zenith, meaning that it will be visible in the sky for a good portion of the year.

In the Telescope

The telescopic highlights offered by Hercules are a pair of spectacular globular clusters. Known as the ‘Great Cluster’ for a reason (and more clinically as M13), this is the best globular cluster visible in the Northern sky, bar none. Shining at magnitude +5.8, M13 is visible to eagle-eyed observers under a dark sky without optical aid. For those of us without exceptional vision and/or who live in a built-up area, M13 will reveal itself nicely in binoculars or a finder scope. The best part: it’s easy to find, conveniently located in the line of the Keystone asterism. In telescopes, it’s a case of pick your power. Low power will show a large fuzzy ball bracketed by a pair of comparatively bright stars. Medium power will resolve individual stars while high powers will reveal an almost 3D sphere of distant suns. Needless to say, the bigger the telescope, the better the view. The ‘Other Hercules Cluster’ is M92, located above the Keystone. If it weren’t for nearby M13, M92 would be quite the draw in itself. Shining around magnitude +6.4, M92 is among the brightest of globular clusters and is notable for its high surface brightness. Again, the higher the power, the better. At high powers, the cluster reveals an exceptionally dense, bright core.

For double star fans, Hercules has its share of beauties. The first target should be Alpha Hercules, which reveals itself a close, but very doable, double star. With an orange +2.8 magnitude main and a blue +5.4 companion, Alpha Hercules is a quite the sight for color contrasts. With a separation of around 4.5 arc seconds, the split is not overly difficult even in small scopes at high power. Delta Hercules has a main star at magnitude +3.1 with a +8.2 companion. At 8.5 arc seconds separation, the split is downright easy in small telescopes. Kappa Hercules is another great double that is a +5 primary and a +6.3 secondary. A 28 arc second split is very wide and both stars will appear yellow/yellow-orange. Rho Hercules is a pair of blue stars of +4.5 and +5.5 separated by about 4 arc seconds, an easy job for even small telescopes. Want a challenge? Zeta Hercules is for you. With a split of just under 1.5 arc seconds and a large magnitude difference (+2.8 and +5.4), high power, good optics, and a steady sky are all required to see both components of this extremely tight pair. If you can get a split, both stars appear the same yellow-orange color.

A Moment in Time
Distances across the stars are so vast that they’re measured in light years, which is the distance light travels in one year. For the record, light travels 186,000 miles per second. That’s enough to circle the Equator almost 7 ½ times in one second. So, when it is said that a given star is 10 light years distant, that means that the light we’re seeing from the star tonight is 10 years old and we’re actually seeing the star as it looked 10 years ago. When we look at the sky, we are looking back in time. For our moment in time tonight, we focus on Alpha Hercules, a spectacular double star, which is located approximately 360 light years away (exact measurements can vary slightly by source). When we look at Alpha Hercules, we’re seeing as it appeared in roughly 1666, which is a monumental year in history for both the United Kingdom and the world.

The years 1665-1666 were not good ones for London. First, the final major outbreak of Plague (not caused by planetary conjunctions) struck London in the spring of 1665 and would run into the new year. By the time the Great Plague burned itself out (more later), it is estimated that roughly 15% of the city’s population had died from it. During this time, measures were put in place to try and stop the spread of the disease. One of these was a closure of universities. It was during the closure that one undistinguished (to this point) student named Issac Newton would make some very consequential scientific discoveries, discoveries he may well have never made if he were too occupied with his formal studies and not forced to take a 2-year break due to the Plague. Speaking of the Plague burning itself out, the irony is that a second great disaster is widely considered the reason the first ended. While the deadliest wave of disease ended in early 1666, Plague cases were still appearing throughout London into late summer. On September 2, 1666, fire broke out within the walls of the medieval city and would eventually spread out into newer areas to the West. Over 80% of central London was burned to the ground but, along with the buildings, the plague-carrying rats/fleas were also incinerated in great numbers. Of the 3 events highlighted, the one with the longest-reaching implications were Newton’s discoveries, which would serve as the foundation of physics as we know it.

This is what could be termed the final stage of the ‘early heavy bombardment’ that is the regular dropping of the Monthly Guides at the start of each month. Why not check out the other 3 and plan some long-term stargazing for June?

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone

It’s a new week, which means another trip through time. The past month of May has (not by design) been focusing on the early days of America’s space program. The trend continues with the dawning of June as we return to another American first that took place on June 3, 1965. The event: Ed White becomes the first American to ‘walk’ in space.

Before we get to today’s big story, a brief recap of the Space Race to that point is in order.

Following the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the United States was in panic mode. If the Soviets could launch a beach ball-sized satellite into orbit, they would probably soon have rockets powerful enough to launch nuclear warheads into orbit and thus gain a major strategic advantage in the stalemate that was the Cold War. Few inside Washington ever expected this to happen so soon and the race was on to show the Soviets that American science was every bit equal and, hopefully superior to theirs. As a result, NASA was established in 1958.

In the meantime, the Space Race continued at breakneck speed. Unfortunately for the United States, one pattern remained: the Soviets were winning the race to accomplish various milestones, such as: first to launch an animal into orbit, first to launch an animal into space and safely recover it, and first to launch an animal into orbit and safely recover it. The United States finally achieved a first when it launched a chimpanzee named Ham into space on January 31, 1961, allowing us to claim responsibility for the first spaceflight of a Great Ape. Unfortunately for the United States, the Soviets jumped back into the lead on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter space (and complete a full orbit). The United States answered on May 5 when Alan Shepard was launched on a 15-minute suborbital flight. The United States would not achieve orbital flight until John Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight in 1962, by which time the Soviets were continually pushing their endurance records to greater lengths. In 1964, the Soviets struck first again with Voskhod 1, which became the first craft to carry multiple astronauts into space.

As 1965 dawned, the Soviets seemed to have a huge lead in the Space Race.

NASA’s manned spaceflight program had taken a strategic hiatus after Gordon Cooper completed the final Project Mercury flight in May, 1963. The basic plans for the following programs, Gemini and Apollo, had already been laid at the end of 1961 and American engineers were hard at work to make President Kennedy’s vision of going to the Moon become a reality. One of the essential components of landing on the Moon was conducting an extravehicular activity (EVA). A major goal of Gemini was to test and refine EVA techniques. This objective was public knowledge.

Cue the Soviets, again.

When the Soviets launched their 3-man Voskhod 1 mission in October, 1964, there were a pair of major omissions in what they decided to share with the outside world. First, the craft itself was not new: it was a modified Vostok, the same craft that had carried Yuri Gagarin into space solo in 1961. Another omission: the 3 cosmonauts were not wearing space suits due to lack of room. Yes, the Soviets had launched the first multi-man spaceflight (the United States would not launch 3 men until 1967), but the mission planners had greatly jeopardized the lives of the cosmonauts in order to have the bragging rights of achieving another first. When it came to the first EVA, the Soviets were prepared to cut corners again to achieve the feat, which they accomplished with Alexei Leonov on March 18, 1965. This was done by way of attaching an inflatable airlock chamber to the craft, which would be jettisoned after Leonov returned to the actual capsule itself. An unexpected problem was when Leonov entered space: his pressure suit expanded like a balloon and he could not initially reenter the Voskhod craft. Solution: partially depressurize his space suit in order to squeeze back inside the craft. The world would not learn of these difficulties for decades.

The United States would pull even again with Gemini 4, launched on June 3, 1965. There were 3 main objectives going into the mission: surpass the 24-hour mark, conduct the first orbital rendezvous with another craft, and perform America’s first EVA. The rendezvous did not go according to plan and had to be abandoned, allowing the astronauts to focus on their main goal: the EVA, which was postponed until the third orbit.

On June 3, 1965, Ed White became the first American to ‘walk’ in space. The EVA almost never happened due to a simple oversight: the astronauts had already begun to depressurize the cabin before White attempted to open the hatch but the latches holding the capsule’s hatch in place had not worked in a vacuum test. Fortunately, mission control was able to radio a work-around to command pilot Jim McDivitt, who managed to get the hatch to open. Hatch open, White exited the craft, spending roughly 23 minutes floating in space, connected to the craft only by a tether, during which he took photos and experimented with a Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit (a gun filled with compressed gas), which quickly ran out of propellant but which would go on to spur a much more effective unit come the 1980s.

A further, comparatively minor complication arose when the communications system failed to work properly. After the message was relayed that he had to return to the craft before communication was lost with Earth due to the Gemini craft moving out of radio range, a reluctant White reentered the space capsule and McDivitt was able to use the same work-around to get the hatch closed. If the hatch had failed to lock, it would have meant death for the astronauts upon reentry.

The mission came to a conclusion on June 7, 1965.

During the remainder of Project Gemini, the techniques for EVAs would continue to be refined, albeit with difficulty. The 3 EVAs that followed White’s would see the astronauts tasked with doing actual work, which saw them endure a combination of fatigue and overheating that was deemed unsafe. It was only with the final Gemini flight and Buzz Aldrin’s spacewalks that the technique of slow but steady was determined to be the right one for working in space.

White was scheduled to fly on Apollo 1, which was a shakedown flight of the new space capsule in Earth orbit to test its systems. Tragically, White would die during a test, along with Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee when a fire broke out in their 100% oxygen cabin. McDivitt would go on to fly on Apollo 9 before moving to Earth-based roles within NASA before finally retiring from the Air Force as a brigadier general and leaving the space agency at the same time, June 1972. McDivitt would later go on to a successful career in business. He died at age 93 in 2022.

Today is a double feature. Why not check out the other half?

Share

Share Astronomy for Anyone