AstroNews April 2001

CONTENTS

1. ASTRONOMY WEEK
2. BACK TO MARS
3. SPACE JUNK WORRIES
4. HOW'S THE WEATHER... WAAAY UP THERE?
5. 11 NEW PLANETS
6. COMING SOON: THE FIRST SOLAR SAIL
7. M51: A CELESTIAL BEAUTY

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Up This Month
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Look up! April 8 is the day of FULL MOON. This one is called the
PLANTERS MOON. The star SPICA is just below to the right.

April 22 is the day the LYRID METEOR SHOWER peaks.

JUPITER and SATURN are low in the west early in the evening. Jupiter is
the brightest object; yellowish Saturn is on it's lower right. To the
upper right of Saturn are the PLEIADES (aka the Seven Sisters).

Fun tip: find the BIG DIPPER high in the northeast after dark. it's
tilted so it's standing on its handle. The curve of the Dipper's handle
makes an arc. You can "Arc to Arcturus", meaning you follow the curve
until you reach the bright star Arcturus, one Dipper length away.

Confused? Need a sky map? Try this one:
http://www.skypub.com/sights/northern/0104skyn.shtml
 

ASTRONOMY WEEK

Find a local club or planetarium hosting an Astronomy Day celebration!
Check the Sky & Telescope's international Astronomical Directory:
http://www.skypub.com/resources/directory/directory.shtml
 

BACK TO MARS

The $300 million orbiter should reach Mars in October after a journey of
286 million miles (460 million km). Odyssey will join the Mars Global
Surveyor, which has been circling Mars since 1997, snapping hundreds of
thousands of high resolution pictures.

Thinking of humans on Mars someday? One experiment will monitor martian
radiation levels, checking possible hazards for future colonists.

2001 Mars Odyssey:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/

SETI@home IS WAY COOL

How does it work? The SETI@home screen saver is a complicated piece of scientific analytical software. It performs a large set of mathematical operations on the data that you are downloading from the SETI program.

SETI@home uses the largest telescope in the world, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, to continuously scan the sky for radio signals. So far, nearly all the sky visible from the Arecibo telescope has been scanned at least once. But still no signs of life. So if you want to help, maybe you can be the lucky one who finds ET!

Get SETI@home version 3.03 NOW:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu

SUPER PRINTER/SCANNER BUNDLE!

Both are great! The BJC-3000 PRINTER got 5 stars! Users gave it 8 out of
10! The best output for printers under $100! It uses four independent
CMYK ink cartridges so you SAVE MONEY ON INK. All other inexpensive
printers use single or dual black-and-color cartridge system (cartridges
must be replaced entirely if one color runs dry).

PRINTER REVIEWS:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/Products/bjc3000/

The Canon CanoScan FB 630U offers great image quality and compactness.

SCANNER REVIEWS:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/Products/canoscanfb630u/

GRAB THE BUNDLE at the KC TechShop:

http://www.kahl.net/shopping

SPACE JUNK WORRIES

The three countries are at risk because they inhabit the edges of a vast oceanic area informally known as the "graveyard." The area between New Zealand and Chile has been used for years to drop space junk.

Existing treaties cover space junk under secondary rules, such as those governing disposal of hazardous waste and protection of marine environments. But the three countries want more explicit rules targeted at space junk.

Mir’s destruction took place in textbook fashion, causing little unease. But it did underscore that the three nations are in the firing line.

ASTROTIP

HOW'S THE WEATHER... WAAAY UP THERE?

After recent eruptions of SOLAR FLARES and consequent sightings of AURORA BOREALIS (aka Northern Lights) all the way down in Mexico, it's time we check the weather up in space regularly!

For information about the Sun-Earth environment try any of these sites:

SpaceWeather.com
http://www.spaceweather.com/

Space Environment Center
http://www.sel.noaa.gov/

Space Weather Today
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/spaceweather/

BARGAINS IN THE AMAZON

• Up to 50% off toys and electronics and up to 60% off kitchen essentials
• Books under 5 bucks, CDs under $7, and videos under $10

DISTANT DISCOVERIES

11 NEW PLANETS

Among these are:
* a planet that orbits twice as fast as a sibling planet
* a planet with the most elongated orbit detected so far
* a planet around a sun like star in an Earth like orbit (ooh!)

The last one is in a so-called "habitable zone," where terrestrial temperatures are possible. Here conditions would be ideal for liquid water, a necessary ingredient for known life. But like all extra-solar planets discovered so far, this one is huge, similar in size to Jupiter.

Maybe it has moons on which a more bio-friendly environment has evolved. Natural satellites around giant planets is not far-fetched - look at Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune, which all have multiple moons. And some may even have saltwater oceans.

One of the planets was the second detected in a SYSTEM WITH THREE STARS. If you were standing on this planet you would get plenty of light, at times seeing three suns in the sky.

And to think that the first "exoplanet" was observed only six years go! How are they discovered? Ground based telescopes measure the WOBBLE such bodies produce as they orbit their host stars. None has been observed directly.

Much smaller planets, perhaps terrestrial sized ones, may be found when more powerful observatories and satellites expand the search in the coming years.

ET PHONE HOME!

Check out VOICENET "PRECISION" and "POWER" CALLING PLANS for USA!

How does this sound:
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* 9.9¢ per minute domestic calling card calls (from any phone!)
* NO MONTHLY FEE

GO GLOBALCOM!

FAR OUT FACTS

COMING SOON: THE FIRST SOLAR SAIL

The Planetary Society with sponsor Cosmos Studios is going to launch a SOLAR SAIL! The spacecraft is being built by the Babakin Space Center in Russia, under contract to The Planetary Society. Cosmos 1 will be the first solar sail EVER! And it is the first time a NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION is paying for a spacecraft.

Cosmos 1 is a 30 meter diameter sail, configured in 8 triangular blades. The sails are made of 5-micron-thin aluminized reinforced Mylar, so the entire spacecraft only weighs 40 kilograms. It will be launched by Volna, a submarine launched converted ICBM. That's right, an InterContinental Ballistic Missile launched from a SUBMARINE will propel Cosmos 1 into a 850 kilometer near polar orbit!

The submarine launch will be from the Barents Sea north of Murmansk sometime late this year. A test of the solar sail deployment will be conducted in a Volna-launched, suborbital flight scheduled between April 19 and 24, 2001.

How does a solar sail work? The solar sail will use the pressure of sunlight to increase its orbital energy and raise its orbital altitude. The sail is controlled by pitching the blades, thus turning the direction of the solar force. The inflatable tubes keep the sail rigid.

The great advantage of a solar sail is that it REQUIRES NO FUEL. Standard chemical rockets give spacecrafts a quick boost into Earth orbit. The spacecraft then coasts most of the way to its destination, with some small blasts from thrusters to adjust its trajectory. This requires a lot of fuel. Solar sails give a very low thrust, but they can work continuously, pushing spacecraft faster and faster. A solar sail spacecraft can, in time, move the spacecraft even faster than a chemical rocket.

When the light from the Sun hits the surface of the solar sail the energy, or momentum, of photons (light particles) is transferred to the sail – as the light is reflected away, it gives the sail a slight "push." The force is controlled by the angle of the sail with respect to the Sun, adding to or subtracting from the orbital velocity.

WHY a solar sail? To demonstrate the technique for traveling between planets -- and someday, to the stars!

To the stars? Sure, once you get much beyond the orbit of Jupiter, energy from sunlight is too weak. But lasers can be directed at the sails. Lasers stay in a tight beam so that most of their energy can be imparted to the sail, and not diffuses into space. Very large lasers
could be used to help us travel to other stars. In the future, people may travel to distant stars using laser powered solar sails.

Cosmos 1 Solar Sail Website
 
 

M51: A CELESTIAL BEAUTY

M51 is really a celestial beauty - take a look at the CLOSE UP PHOTO in our
AstroImages section.

M51 is 20 million light-years away, in the constellation Canes Venatici. Why is M51 so pretty? The bright red spots dotting the spiral arms and dust clouds of galaxy are regions of STAR BIRTHS. These are triggered by the gravity of a neighbor galaxy (just off the edge of the image).

The clusters of young, luminous and energetic stars are glowing red because this is the color of hydrogen gas emissions.

Images from Hubble and Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona were combined in this composite picture. They reveal the intricate structure of cold dust clouds associated with the hot hydrogen emissions. Note the darker dust "spurs" branching out almost perpendicular to the main spiral arms.
 

COMING UP!

MAY 2001: VOYAGER SPECIAL

JUNE: SUMMER SOLSTICE SPECIAL

JULY: SUMMER STARGAZING SPECIAL

LIFT OFF!
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