KC AstroNews MAR-APR 03

SPRING SPECIAL

• DOUBLE TREAT
• SETI@home: HELLO ET?
• STAR TREK INSPIRES RESEARCH
• 118 MOONS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
• FAREWELL PIONEER
• GOODBYE GALILEO

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Up This Month
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Look up!

Happy Equinox! Hello Springtime! Yes, spring is here and we now have 6 months of long days in the Northern Hemisphere.

DOUBLE TREAT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grab your binoculars to check out a two-for-one: a bright open cluster and a chance to watch the workings of the celestial clock.

M44 is one of the binocular sky’s best sights, a loose gathering of nearly two dozen bright stars and a smattering of fainter ones. If you follow Jupiter's progress from night to night, you will see the planet’s retrograde (east to west) motion halt on April 3rd and, after about a day, see its direct (west to east) motion begin.

The giant planet’s reversal of direction is the result of a change in perspective. When the Earth is near a point in its orbit where the Sun, Earth, and Jupiter form a 90 degree angle, the giant planet performs its slow, silent reversal against the background stars.

Recently astronomers have said farewell to two groundbreaking spacecraft: Pioneer and Galileo. More on that below.

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SETI@home: HELLO ET?

The Planetary Society is the founding and principal sponsor of SETI@home, which is based at the University of California, Berkeley. SETI@home harnesses the computing power of four million volunteers to analyze data from the Arecibo telescope. Designed as an innovative screen saver program, SETI@home parcels out packets of raw data from Arecibo to be processed in the personal computers of volunteers around the world.

SETI@home is the largest computation in human history, logging a staggering 1.3 million years of computer time. The screen saver program runs on computers in homes, offices and schools worldwide, and volunteers range in age from school children to retirees.

"Whether or not SETI@home succeeds in finding evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence at this early date," said Bruce Murray, Chairman of the Society's Board of Directors, "this project has already made history. SETI@home has performed the most sensitive and detailed SETI sky survey to date, has demonstrated the power of the Internet for doing scientific distributed computing, and has allowed the general public to participate directly in an exciting research project."

SETI@home has analyzed about 10,000 hours of data from the Arecibo radio observatory, producing a database of several billion events
(spikes, Gaussians, pulses, and triplets).

Download the latest free version of SETI@home software:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

ASTROTIP

STAR TREK INSPIRES RESEARCH

A program at NASA specifically charged with the task of turning science fiction concepts such as those in Star Trek into reality was the topic of a full page article in the Los Angeles Times Wednesday titled "Science by Scotty."

"Capt. Kirk clenches his jaw and barks out the command for warp speed. The stars whoosh past as the crew shoots through space faster than the speed of light," begins the article by P.J. Huffstutter which uses common Trek-isms to illustrate its points (it used a picture of the Enterprise NX-01 with the caption "Make It So") and quotes Star Trek's foremost science authority.

The story points out that American astronauts won't be "beaming down to planets" anytime soon, as NASA needs to find a way to travel at nearly the speed of light and develop a practical power source to accomplish that, before exploration of the Final Frontier can begin. But one scientist at the space agency "is boldly going where no scientist has gone before, heading a team of more than a dozen fellow researchers who try to turn the fantasy of 'Star Trek' and other science fiction into practical reality for NASA space explorers."

"This is about emerging science and pushing the boundaries but in a realistic way," said NASA aerospace engineer Marc G. Millis. "We're not asking anyone to develop a warp drive."

Millis heads the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, operating on a shoestring budget at NASA's John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. He solicits ideas from the scientific community as to how to tackle such questions as interstellar space travel, and since the program's inception in 1996, hundreds of serious ideas have poured in. Millis has narrowed the offerings to five projects to focus his limited resources on.

"Millis' philosophy was that he wanted to deal with fringe physics," said Harry Ringermacher, a physicist with General Electric who received a grant from the project. "'Fringe' doesn't mean crackpot. It means non mainstream physics. The point was to get really new concepts out there."

Ringermacher's study experiments with the manipulation of electromagnetism in the space-time continuum to create a slight physical shift that could have implications for advanced space propulsion. Another Breakthrough-funded project tests a theory that gravity can be manipulated using magnetized superconductors. The program has also funded work on "quantum tunneling" — an apparent faster-than-light phenomenon — and experiments dealing with changing the inertial mass of a future starship.

So far all the tests have yet to produce positive results.

"These things can't be answered overnight," Ringermacher said. "You need time, and yet there's pressure to finish the experiment, because you know that the money could run out."

And there are some skeptics in the scientific community who consider the Breakthrough research nonsense. One university physics department chairman was shocked by the amount of Star Trek paraphernalia at a 1997 gathering of scientists sponsored by the project. "I walked into the room and there had to be 50 various models of the U.S.S. Enterprise and posters from the show everywhere," he said. "I really began to question the seriousness of the research."

But the project's reputation for investigating esoteric science does give Millis, an avid movie fan, an interesting relationship with Hollywood. The article states that screenwriters often come to Millis' office seeking the latest out-there research that they can then incorporate into their scripts.

Andre Bormanis, story editor on Enterprise who has also been Star Trek's science consultant since 1993, is quoted, "We call NASA all the time." While developing the original TV show in the 1960's, Gene Roddenberry made a practice of tapping scientists for material, Bormanis pointed out. "Gene insisted on maintaining some sort of scientific credibility," he said. "The question was the same then as now: What might be fun that we haven't seen on the show, that's real?"

Although NASA funds the Breakthrough project at a tiny fraction of what it spends on other endeavors such as one Space Shuttle launch, even that shoestring budget is in danger from agency-wide belt tightening. But Millis is determined to keep the mission going, so he has partnered with the Ohio Aerospace Institute to form a nonprofit consortium to solicit private donors to keep the futuristic research alive. It's a fulfillment of the calling he found as a child when the Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon.

"My impression as a kid was that this was a big, grand challenge," Millis said. "It was a steady march to do something interesting and honorable; for a nation to conquer the frontiers, instead of conquering each other."

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DISTANT DISCOVERIES

118 MOONS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Discovering a planetary satellite used to be a rare event. Not anymore!

100 planets are known OUTSIDE our solar system. All discovered within the last 7 years!

But even within our solar system the count keeps climbing. Most recently another four Moons were found orbiting Jupiter.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. First lets recap the findings in our solar system of the last half century.

After the finding of Uranus's moon Miranda by Gerard Kuiper in 1948 and Jupiter's Ananke by Seth Nicholson in 1951, the total natural satellites count stood at 31:

Jupiter had 12,
Saturn had 9,
Uranus had 5,
Neptune had 2,
Mars had 2,
and Earth has 1.

Telescopic observers added only a few more in the ensuing three decades - most notably Pluto's moon, Charon - as satellite discovery largely fell to NASA spacecraft. After Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune in 1989, the total had nearly doubled to 60.

The advent of sensitive electronic cameras has put telescopic observers back in the driver's seat, resulting in dozens of finds over the past few years.

Indeed, some of the new objects are so small, only a few kilometers across, that they stretch the traditional notion of what constitutes a "moon." Sometimes faint objects appear fleetingly in images and are never seen again; others require patient follow-up observations over months or years to confirm their reality.

While comets bear the surname(s) of their discoverer(s), and observers retain naming rights for asteroids, those who spot planetary moons must yield this privilege to the International Astronomical Union. By convention, the IAU does not name a satellite until its orbit is known precisely - a threshold sometimes not reached until decades after the initial discovery.

As of March 2003 the count stands at 118:

Earth 1,
Mars 2,
Jupiter 52,
Saturn 30,
Uranus 21,
Neptune 11,
Pluto 1.

A Guide to Planetary Satellites:
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_827_1.asp

Extrasolar Planet Search:
http://exoplanets.org/

FAR OUT FACTS

FAREWELL PIONEER

After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on Jan. 22, 2003.

NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt Feb. 7, 2003. The previous three contacts, including the Jan. 22 signal, were very faint with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was April 27, 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10.

"Pioneer 10 was a pioneer in the true sense of the word. After it passed Mars on its long journey into deep space, it was venturing into places where nothing built by humanity had ever gone before," said Dr. Colleen Hartman, director of NASA's Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "It ranks among the most historic as well as the most scientifically rich exploration missions ever undertaken," she said.

"Originally designed for a 21-month mission, Pioneer 10 lasted more than 30 years. It was a workhorse that far exceeded its warranty, and I guess you could say we got our money's worth," said Pioneer 10 Project Manager, Dr. Larry Lasher.

Pioneer 10 was built by TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, Calif., and was launched March 2, 1972, on a three-stage Atlas-Centaur rocket. Pioneer 10 reached a speed of 32,400 mph needed for the flight to Jupiter, making it the fastest human-made object to leave the Earth; fast enough to pass the moon in 11 hours and to cross Mars' orbit, about 50 million miles away, in just 12 weeks.

On July 15, 1972, Pioneer 10 entered the asteroid belt, a doughnut-shaped area that measures some 175 million miles wide and 50 million miles thick. The material in the belt travels at speeds up to 45,000 mph and ranges in size from dust particles to rock chunks as big as Alaska. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt, considered a spectacular achievement, and then headed toward Jupiter. Accelerating to a speed of 82,000 mph, Pioneer 10 passed by Jupiter on December 3, 1973.

The spacecraft was the first to make direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. Pioneer also charted the gas giant's intense radiation belts, located the planet's magnetic field, and established Jupiter is predominantly a liquid planet. In 1983, Pioneer 10 became the first human-made object to pass the orbit of Pluto, the most distant planet from the Sun.

Following its encounter with Jupiter, Pioneer 10 explored the outer regions of the solar system, studying energetic particles from the Sun (solar wind), and cosmic rays entering our portion of the Milky Way. The spacecraft continued to make valuable scientific investigations in the outer regions of the solar system until its science mission ended March 31, 1997.

Since that time, Pioneer 10's weak signal has been tracked by the DSN as part of a new advanced-concept study of communication technology in support of NASA's future Interstellar Probe mission. At last contact, Pioneer 10 was 7.6 billion miles from Earth, or 82 times the nominal distance between the Sun and the Earth. At that distance, it takes more than 11 hours and 20 minutes for the radio signal, traveling at the speed of light, to reach the Earth.

"From Ames Research Center and the Pioneer Project, we send our thanks to the many people at the Deep Space Network (DSN) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who made it possible to hear the spacecraft signal for this long," said Pioneer 10 Flight Director David Lozier.

Pioneer 10 explored Jupiter, traveled twice as far as the most distant planet in our solar system, and as Earth's first emissary into space, is carrying a gold plaque that describes what we look like, where we are, and the date when the mission began. Pioneer 10 will continue to coast silently as a ghost ship into interstellar space, heading generally for the red star Aldebaran, which forms the eye of the constellation Taurus (The Bull). Aldebaran is about 68 light-years away. It will take Pioneer 10 more than two million years to reach it. Its sister ship, Pioneer 11, ended its mission September 30, 1995, when the last transmission from the spacecraft was received. Information about Pioneer 10 is on the Internet at:

http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNhome.html

GOODBYE GALILEO

After 13 years in space and 34 orbits around Jupiter, the Galileo spacecraft has reached the end of its mission. On February 28th, NASA controllers turned off Galileo's memory-bank tape recorder and transmission of stored data to Earth stopped. Currently looping around in a highly elliptical orbit, the aged craft is set to crash into Jupiter's Equatorial Zone on September 21, 2003.

After suffering high doses of radiation during its flyby of Amalthea in November 2002, the spacecraft's computer chips began to malfunction. Although engineers partially solved the problem, a nearly depleted supply of onboard fuel and a lack of funds to continue the project contributed to Galileo's shutoff.

However, some of the craft's instruments will continue operation until September. "Galileo is continuously sending science data in real time, but we have no intent to look at the information," says Eilene Theilig, Galileo's Project Manager. "We've put the spacecraft into a relatively quiet mode." Aside from a weekly Earth-Galileo contact to determine the craft's exact position (except for the summer months, when Jupiter disappears behind the Sun), scientists have laid the spacecraft to rest.

Launched in October 1989 from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Galileo successfully completed its primary mission to study Jupiter and its moons despite a near-catastrophic failure when its main antenna failed to deploy.

Among Galileo's diverse contributions:

· Documenting the first and only major planetary impact humanity has observed directly, Galileo stood 1.6 astronomical units from Jupiter when the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into the gas giant's surface in July 1994. The craft observed flashes caused by the cometary chunks hitting Jupiter's atmosphere, creating scorching fireballs at approximately 8000°K.

· The spacecraft studied the Galilean satellites — Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa — in unprecedented detail. Galileo's observations led scientists to believe Europa may harbor sub-surface seas, and the craft's magnetometer also revealed magnetic-field disturbances akin to those expected from a body covered by a salty ocean. In addition, magnetometer results predicted sub-surface seas underneath the ice crusts of Callisto and Ganymede. Galileo also imaged highly active sulfuric volcanic regions on Io's surface.

· After releasing a probe from Galileo into Jupiter's atmosphere, scientists studied just how hot, dense, and pressurized Jupiter is. In its one-hour lifetime, the space probe revealed that Jupiter's atmosphere is much drier than expected and sustains blustery winds that increase with depth. This may help explain the longevity of Jupiter's Red Spot.

The mission was fraught with trouble at the start — when the high-gain antenna aboard the craft failed to open, forcing astronomers to send the craft's stored data to Earth at a frustratingly slow rate from the backup low-gain antenna. After assessing what science was possible without the high-gain antenna, "we concluded that we could plan on achieving at least 70 percent of the planned science objectives," says Galileo scientist Torrence V. Johnson (NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

"The atmospheric probe was always rated as the highest priority part of the mission, and that was accomplished at 100 percent."

But despite the hindrance, the overall mission was deemed a tremendous success. Galileo far outlasted its life expectancy and was so successful in its extended mission that it more than made up for the science opportunities lost with the high-gain antenna.

"We had a basic plan to address all the major science objectives by December 1997 — and we did," says Johnson. "As with most missions of discovery, we ended up surpassing [the planned science objectives] just due to things we had not anticipated, such as Ganymede's magnetosphere, magnetic field, and the signature of oceans on the icy satellites."

The 30 full-time Galileo scientists (down from 300) are now being assigned to other JPL-managed projects such as Cassini, which is due to orbit Saturn in June 2004, and the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission.

But the team will have one final reunion: "We will celebrate the life of Galileo and its many accomplishments on September 21st," says Theilig. Everyone will be on hand to watch the signal disappear as Galileo flies behind Jupiter and plunges into the planet's atmosphere.

GOODBYE GALILEO:
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_888_1.asp

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My god! It's full of stars!