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Journal of the Amateur Astrono mers Association of New York August 2010 Volume 58 Number 8, ISSN 0146-7662

EYEPIECE
would be complicated by a low-lying Sun. Initial forecasts wer e gloomy, a special local flight had to be cancelled and it was the middle of the Austral winter ! The people who went there wer e taking a big chance. They might not have seen anything because the eclipse would be at the tail end of its path and would be just 1 degr ee above the horizon. But if the weather cleared, ther e would be dra matic colors. Thats what happened, as well as a golden corona instea d of a pearly white. Dr. Leo Metcalfe of the European Space Agency told me that going to Patagonia was precisely what he wanted. "The Moons shadow is stretched along the Earths curve and I expected interesting impacts on the visibility of the shadow. For the first time [in six totalities], I saw the shadow as really moving, and not just a growing [wall of] darkness. It was striking that the shadow stayed blue once totality ended, because it just lifted off the Earth into the sky." Daniel Fischer of the University of Bonn took stunning photos of the eclipse over the Andes. Stefa n Krause, with Fischer at the "Eclipse City" ca mp along the Mirador highway, nearly 1,000 meters up, also uploaded superb pictures: http://twitpic.com/24jbl. Metcalfe reported that the day before had ended with solid gray clouds, but on the morning of the eclipse and for much of that day ther e wasnt a cloud in the sky down to the horizon. "Later we would learn that skies as clear as we had are seen perhaps five times a year in Patagonia," Fischer said. Next total solar eclipse is November 13, 2012, with totality in norther n Australia and the southern Pacific.

Nobody Cried for Argentina During July 11 Solar Eclipse
By Thomas Haeberle
Astronomers from around the world, both a mateur and professional, traveled to the Pacific last month to behold a total eclipse of the Sun. The July 11 eclipse went over the South Pacific, with land a prized commodity. Some choices were the Cook Isla nds, Easter Island and El Calafate at the tip of Ar gentina. Professor Jay Pasachoff, who leads the league (if ther e ever was one) for viewing solar eclipses, notched his 51st. He observed from Easter Island with his students from Willia ms College. His research tea m was there to study the corona. "We obser ved the total eclipse in perfectly clear skies," Pasachoff e-ma iled SPACE.com. "The sky was wonderful." The National Geographic cha nnel air ed the Easter Island event the sa me night. SPACE.com reported that the global sky photography effort The World at Night (TWAN) stationed photographers all along the eclipse's visibility track, including on a chartered jet, cruise ships, islands and in Patagonia. TWAN director Babak Tafreshi told SPACE.com, "Eclipse chasing is not all about eclipses. Its also a way to meet people and learn and r espect other cultures. It's a cha nce to share your passion with others." Eclipse-chaser Bill Kramer watched the eclipse from the deck of the cruise ship Paul Gauguin, which, appropriately enough, was sailing near Tahiti with mor e than 300 sky watcher s. The chartered flight returned to Papeete after seven hours in which it extended the eclipse duration, making it last mor e than nine minutes. The eclipse at Easter Island lasted a not too shabby four minutes and 41 seconds. But the real miracle took place at El Calafate, which wasnt expected to have gr eat weather, and observing


What's Up
By Tony Hoffman The Sky for August 2010
A Good Year for Perseids (especially if you have Fridays off). The Moon, two da ys past new, wont be a factor for this years Perseid meteor shower, due to peak the night of August 12-13, with an expected peak rate of 60 to 100 meteors an hour from a dark-sky site. The meteors radiant, near the hea d of Perseus, wont be high in the sky until after midnight. If you cant get up in the wee hours Friday mor ning, you can expect a decent show the previous and following nights, with meteor counts still about half their peak rate. A Late-Evening Comet. Comet 10P/Tempel, which reached perihelion July 4, should shine at about 8th magnitude as it plies its way through Cetus the Whale between the stars Tau and Eta Ceti. Cetus isnt high in the sky until well after midnight, so is best for morning observers. 10P/Tempel is a short-period comet, taking just 5.4 years to orbit the Sun, and this year is making one of its best appearances in recent memor y. Worlds Abound. Venus is a dazzling sight in the wester n sky after sunset, brightening from ma gnitude 4.3 to -4.6 over the course of the month and reaching its gr eatest elongation (angular distance from the Sun) August 19. Mars and Saturn spend the month near Venus; they glow at magnitudes 1.5 and 1.1, respectively, more than 100 times fainter than Venus. In the first half of the month, Mercury may be glimpsed near the horizon, well to the lower right of Venus. Jupiter rises around 10 p.m. at magnitude -2.8, far outshining the faint stars of Pisces. Uranus starts the month 3 degr ees from Jupiter and closes to less than 2 degrees by the end of August. Uranus can be seen with the naked eye by keen-eyed observers from dark-sky sites. Neptune, in Capricornus near its border with Aquarius, reaches opposition August 20. Two dwarf planets are also on the scene. Eighth-ma gnitude Ceres, the first asteroid to be discover ed, is a binocular object in southern Sagittarius. Pluto lies in a rich Milky Way star field in northern Sagittarius. It requir es at least an 8-inch scope to be visually observed. Ive attempted to image it using a digital SLR camera yoked to a 300mm lens.
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August 1 Mars lies near Saturn. August 3 Last-quarter Moon at 12:59 a.m. August 6 Mercury at greatest elongation in evening sky. August 9 Venus near Saturn; new Moon, 11:08 p.m. August 10 Moon at perigee, 222,362 miles from Earth, 1:58 p.m. August 11 Moon lies near Mercury. August 12 Perseid meteor shower peaks. August 13 Moon lies near Saturn, Venus and Mars. August 16 First-quarter Moon at 2:14 p.m. August 19 Venus greatest elongation in evening sky. August 20 Neptune is at opposition. August 23 Venus lies near Mars. August 24 Full Moon at 1:05 p.m. August 27 Moon lies near Jupiter.

Jupiter Aligns With Uranus
By Joseph A. Fedrick
The clouds and haze parted in mid- and late June, and early July, to allow my observing of Jupiter as it overtook Uranus on its orbit around the Sun. I pointed my f/15 60mm achromatic refractor at Jupiter around 4:30 on the mor ning of June 7 and used an eyepiece that yielded 50x. Uranus appeared well within the same field of view. It appeared as a tiny, distinctly bluish disk, just barely non-stellar and slightly less than four seconds of arc in dia meter, while Jupiter displayed a much larger disk around 40 arc seconds and appeared ivor y-white with faint belts crossing it. Jupiters South Equatorial Belt was still very much faded, in fact barely visible, while the North Equatorial Belt was a prominent orange tan. I watched as Jupiter pulled a way from Uranus during the r est of June and in early July. By July 2, Jupiter was no longer in the same field of view in my 60mm refractor at 50x, but still in the same field of view as seen in my 10x50 binoculars. In my six-inch Newtonian r eflector, Jupiter still r evealed a much faded South Equatorial Belt. Uranus appeared as a distinctly non-stellar but tiny bluish disk. There will be two more times this year when Jupiter and Uranus will be in conjunction. These conjunctions will be obser vable at a more convenient evening hour as Earth overtakes both Jupiter and Uranus on its trip around the Sun.


MIT Professor Kicks Off AAA Lecture Series October 1
Dr. Max Tegmark, professor of physics at MIT, will kick off the AAAs 2010-11 lectur e series on Friday, October 1 when he discusses "The History of the Universe in One Hour." The fr ee public lectur e is in the Kaufma nn Theater of the AMNH at 6:15 p. m. "With a cosmic flight simulator, well take a scenic journey thr ough space and time. After exploring our local galactic neighbor hood, we'll travel 13.7 billion years back to explore the Big Ba ng itself and how state-of-theart measurements are transfor ming our understanding of our cosmic origin and ultimate fate." If attendees have questions about dark matter, dark energy, black holes, parallel universes or other matters cosmological, this will be a great opportunity to ask them, Tegmark says. A native of Stockholm, Tegmark r eceived his B.Sc. in physics from the Royal Institute of Technology. He received M. A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. Tegmar k worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, the Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Pennsylvania befor e joining the MIT faculty in 2004. Other lectures are as follows: November 5, Micha el Tuts, Columbia University, "Particle Physics at the Large Hadr on Collider and Cosmology." December 3, Suzanne Young, University of New Ha mpshir e and NASA, "Top 10 Discover ies of the Phoenix Mission to Mars." January 7, Robert Nemir off, Michiga n Technological University, "Best Astronomy Pictures of the Day, 2010." February 4, Neil Weiner, In addition, Rich Rosenber g finished a topic he pr esented in the AAA class on "Cavema n Astronomy". Richs excellent subject choice and novel approach to introductor y astronomy is a winning combination, and all in attendance exhorted him to turn his lectures into a book. His PowerPoints are available at aaa.org. In June, we covered a paper on Titan which elucidates the possibility of methanogenic life ther e. We examined the paper and supplementary material I gathered as part of my NAS A/JPL outreach. Id attended a lecture by a Cassini mission specialist, and presented his insights. Titans surface is too cold to sustain liquid water. But in 2005, researchers suggested or ganisms might exist by breathing hydr ogen and eating or ganic molecules such as acetylene and ethane. Cassini has found evidence ther es less acetylene on Titan than expected by the atmospher ic chemistry, and that levels of hydrogen may be actively being depleted at the surface, raising the possibility exotic life for ms are consuming these substances. I Seminar continued on page 12
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NYU, "Illuminating Dark Matter." March 4, Andrea Dupree, Harvard-S mithsonia n Center for Astrophysics, "Searching for Extrasolar Planets with Kepler." April 1, Greg Matloff, New York City College of Technology, "Regr eening the Earth Using Space Resources." May 6, David J. Thompson, NAS A, "Exploring the Extr eme Universe with the F er mi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. " Duprees talk will be the clubs annual John Marshall Memor ial Lecture, which honors a past president and executive dir ector of the AAA who was instrumental in its growth. Marshall died in 1997.

Report on the AAA Seminar
By Jason Kendall
In May, we covered a recent finding about over luminous super nova e. Theres a concern that ma ny Type 1a supernova e are too luminous for their progenitors to be simply accreting white dwarfs. Some of these supernova e imply the progenitor white dwarf is too massive to actually be a white dwarf before it explodes. Resolution of this issue has profound implications for cosmology.

A Note from the President
Hello members: I hope your e enjoying yourself this very hot summer. Ive been having fun going from one observing session to the next, and I hope you are also. Other wise, not much is going on, so Ill keep things short. Our next board meeting is at 6:30 p. m. Wednesda y, August 18 at hea dquarters, 120 Warren Street. Your e invited. Rich Rosenberg, president@aaa.org, (718) 522-5014


The Intensifying Search for Life on Other Planets
By Evan Schneider
What's being imple mented to adva nce discovery of Earthlike planets existing in "habitable zones," near enough to their stars for warmth but far enough away to support life? Whats needed to create the perfect environment for the cr eation and development of life? How can we identify these worlds in our own solar system, the Milky Way or deep into the universe? On June 14, James F. Kasting, professor of geosciences at Penn State, speaking at the Hayden, sought to answer many of these questions. His new book, "How to Find a Habitable Planet" (Princeton University Press, $29.95), provides a perspective on how best to utilize technology to find life on other worlds. Kasting discussed recent history and hypotheses of several well-known authors in this field, then brought his audience to the present, sharing methodologies being used and planned to seek life on other worlds. The lecture began with a review of several authors. James Lovelock, scientist, inventor at NASA a nd environmentalist, posits in "Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth" and "Ages of Gaia" that the biospher e regulates our envir onment that acts to sustain life. Peter Ward, paleontologist and professor of biology, and Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, asserts in "The Medea Hypothesis" that complex life is rare in the universe and that life itself is actually har mful to Earth. These perspectives show how life developed on Earth and its sustainability, but their hypotheses dont explore the possibility or extent of life on a universal scale. Kastings new book responds to Wards "Rare Earth," which questioned Carl Sagan in his belief that extraterrestrial civilizations number in the millions. Kasting showed how today's science is being used to measur e light spectra and characteristics of exoplanets to quantify data supporting parameters for life. Much of NASA is seeking life on Mars. While studying Jupiter, the Galileo probe scrutinized Europa, with its icy surface and liquid-water subsurface, suggesting the possibility of other life in our solar system.
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Today, Kasting observed, telescopes and spacecraft are measuring the radial velocity of light to ca lculate the speed and mass of distant planets ( www. exoplanets. org). The Kepler telescope mission looks for habitable pla nets mor e than 2,000 light-years away, monitoring the brightness of 150,000 stars while waiting to identify pla nets that may sustain life. Once identified, reflected light from a planet can be observed, providing a chemicalcomposition analysis of its atmospher e and possible planetary biology. New and future technologies are being planned and deployed to meet NAS As goals. The astrometr ic method, in calculating the mass of a planet, deter mines the ability to sustain life. NAS A, Northrop Grumman and JPL are developing the Space Interferometry Mission Lite telescope, scheduled to launch in 2015. It will use optical interfer ometr y (two mirrors collecting light) to hunt for exoplanets, map the Milky Way and assist in deter mining spatial distribution of dark matter. Large space-based telescopes will use direct ima ging to observe pla netary spectra. The James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2014, will use infrared equipment to peer through dusty clouds of our galaxy to look for galaxies formed in the early universe. This may help to explain the evolution of planets and their relationship to stars, supporting the exoplanet search. Direct imaging also has the capability of finding biomarkers: water, ozone and evidence of photosynthesis. If free oxygen is detected, life may not be far behind. Future discoveries ma y also be achieved by a NASA/JPL plan to block out bright starlight with a remote object, allowing a space-based telescope to see a planet. Kasting is wor king to advance this technology as chair of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Corona graph Mission Definition Tea m. The concept is also being developed by the New Worlds Mission, headed by Webster Cash, professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado. A final detection method to gauge a planets composition is measuring planet shine, wher e photons from a moon can be used to calculate a planets composition.


IMAX's Latest at the AMNH is a Stunning "Hubble" Film
By John Delaney
Few would disagree that the Hubble Space Telescope is the most important scientific instrument since Galileos handma de refractors revealed the wonder of the Moon, the pla nets and beyond. Hubbles discoveries have greatly expanded our knowledge of the universe, narrowed estimates of its age and detected entirely new elements of the cosmic realm. Thats why the new IMAX film, "Hubble," is such a gr eat idea. The massive, 40-foot-high scr een seems tailor -made for the scale of the scope, its orbital perch and the vastness of all it observes. The medium is the message, but the content is far from irreleva nt. It truly rises to the occasion (sorry, Mr. McLuhan). The film has proved to be a crowd-pleaser at the AMNH, wher e it opened July 3 and will rema in until January 10. For show times: amnh. org. For the most part, this blend of super -sized IMAX for mat, ground-brea king technology and astronomical ima gery triumphs. Made in cooperation with NASA, "Hubble" is the product of the same tea m that produced "Space Station." One tea m member, James Neilhouse, is director of photography and astronaut crew trainer. For the most part, the film highlights the service mission of Atla ntis STS-125, launched on May 11, 2009 to replace Hubbles failed gyroscopes and add new instruments. Some of the most impressive sequences of the film are views of the telescope from Atlantis. Space walks to repair the telescope are featured to great effect, in large part because the projected dimensions of the astronauts and the telescope (as large as a bus) are comparable to the actual objects. The narration, by Leonardo DiCaprio, effectively conveyed the difficulties of replacing circuit boards and other hardware in space, "like perfor ming brain surgery with oven mitts." While this shuttle mission to Hubble was the focus of the film, it also featured the telescopes troubled first years in space, interspersing televised news reports of Hubbles slightly fla wed mirror, which produced blurry ima ges. The first service mission to Hubble solved the problem with corrective optics, opening the floodgates of discovery that continue to this day. The film featured many of the Hubbles most celebrated ima ges, such as the Helix Nebula and the Ea gle Nebulas "Pillars of Creation." Other discover ies were aided by the addition of computer -generated sequences, including a trip to a swaddle of new-born stars in the Orion Nebula, and the super massive black hole inside Messier 87 (one of Hubbles big discover ies). The benefits of observing in both ultraviolet and infrared were illustrated by ima ges of Omega Centauri, revea ling different classes of stars. Of course, ther e are always quibbles, and IMAX films sometimes skew slightly into kitsch, either with over ly dramatic music or unctuous narration. There was a bit of both her e. However, assessing the worth of an IMAX film without consider ing the target audience-presumably childr en and families--would be missing the point. Large-for mat screens like this are a wonderful experience for childr en and their parents. And footage of a space shuttle blasting off, combined with the rumbling from a state-of-the-art sound system, is a spine-tingling experience for all age groups. "Hubble" also conveyed the importance of the worlds most famous telescope in probing the big questions: How old is the universe? How did the pla nets for m? How did the universe itself for m? DiCaprios dialogue provides just enough "Ther e may be 100 billion galaxies across the universe" to engage but not overwhelm viewers. As an IMAX production, "Hubble" succeeds, not only in its treatment of its glea ming bus-sized star and the astronaut crews who have repair ed and maintained it, but in providing an over view of its unprecedented scientific achievements. Curiously, what most impressed me about the film was not the telescope or its haul of incr edible ima ges, but the Earth. For instance, high-definition footage of the Cape of Good Hope was mesmerizing in its scale and beauty. The subtle but sharp outlines of the Hawaiia n Isla nds and their volcanic ca lderas as seen from space wer e breathtaking. Of all the visual wonders of the universe, the Earth stole the show.
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Sky and Tel's Naeye on the Big Gains in Amateur Astronomy
Earlier this year, Mike Simonsen of the podcast Slacker Astronomy interviewed Sky & Telescope editor in chief Robert Naeye about gains in amateur astronomy. An edited version of Naeye's comments follows. This last decade has been a golden age for amateur astronomy. First of all, the amount of differ ent types of equipment, the quality and affordability has just shot through the roof. For example, the "Go To" telescopes ma de by companies like Celestron, Meade and others have ma de it a lot easier for people to take their scopes out in the field, hit a keypad and bingo, theyr e looking right at the target they want to look at. I think thats helped spread a mateur astronomy to a lot of people. For example, wide-field and ultra wide-field eyepieces ma ke it almost feel like youre looking thr ough the portal of a spaceship into space. It started off with Televue, with its Ethos series. We now have other companies like Explor er Scientific jumping in. I think in ter ms of plain observing ther es been a great profusion of r eally good equipment, innovation and stuff thats quite affordable. When I talk to people it doesnt seem like Go-To is that big a deal anymor e. Ther e are so many of them out ther e that it has just become accepted. A lot of friends of mine, amateurs in differ ent states, know their way around the sky but still use Go To scopes. Theyr e on stable mounts. They just like the convenience. It makes it mor e likely that theyll see mor e maybe obscur e objects on a given night. I personally dont yet use Go To scopes. I just use Telrad or Red Dot finders. I guess in that sense Im a bit of an old-timer. I dont begrudge anyone who uses Go To scopes. I think theyve been very good for amateur astronomy. In the solar field, weve ha d an explosion of H-alpha and calcium scopes. That was led by Corona do and other companies ha ve jumped in. Its made solar observing much mor e affordable and mor e people can do it. Its gr eat because it ma kes amateur astronomy like a 24-hour around the clock kind of activity. Its kind of too bad that we have these great solar scopes which are more affordable, yet ther es not as much to see as ther e would have been 5 or 10 years ago when the Sun was much
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mor e active. We can just hope the Sun starts doing its thing in the new solar cycle. It has sort of gotten underway but its just very wea k. Another significant change in the last decade has been the CCD and digital revolution in astrophotography. Its exploded, making it much easier for many mor e people to do outstanding astrophotography. Years ago you had big na mes kind of dominating the field. Now new people constantly send us their work. Its really good wor k. CCDs are much more sensitive than film a nd you can do the processing, stuff you could never do in the past because you didnt wa nt to do the darkroom or pay for it. You can now use a variety of differ ent software programs to get r eally tremendous r esults. Im a mazed that ther e are people who live in fairly light-polluted areas and are still able to get r emarkable astrophotos. With digital, you get instant gratification. For a lot of reasons, I think this has been a great boon for astrophotography and amateur astronomy. One thing our imaging editor Sean Walker has been doing a great job with is that especially when Mars is close to opposition, you can take pictur es of Mars at differ ent times, differ ent nights and you can put it together in a movie. You get a time-lapse movie and see Mars rotate. A lot of these movies are r eally cool. Thats been as big a deal as the explosion of astrophotography. In the last 10 years, all this stuff has become ava ilable on the Internet and wir eless devices like iPods. A lot of the stuff we see toda y wouldnt have been predicted by anyone 10 years ago. It happened so fast and its gr eat how amateurs jumped on the bandwa gon. Amateurs are now taking better pictures of a whole variety of objects than the best professional obser vatories. Amateurs are going down well into the 20s ma gnitude -wise and catching Kuiper Belt objects and things like that. Two-to-four decades ago, the biggest professional scopes in the world with their older photographic plates couldnt detect these objects. Now an amateur in a light polluted environment with a relatively sma ll scope can see a mazing things and go really deep.


Review: Girdling the Globe to Probe the Edge of Physics
By Lynn Darsh
Physicists may be astronomers and neutrino detectors telescopes. Anil Ana nthaswa mys "The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earths Extremes To Unlock the Secr ets of the Universe" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:, $25) explores the frontiers of cosmology. Its a great trip, narrated by a superb storyteller whos a fine science writer. Ananthaswa my tells fascinating stories of visiting the remote outposts of Earth, wher e cosmologists are searching for dark matter, dark energy and antimatter. He begins at Mount Wilson "wher e Hubble discover ed that our universe is expanding, thus laying the observational foundation for the Big Bang theory and modern cosmology...Every evening, they open their giant domes to peer mor e than halfwa y across the universe, gather ing light, sometimes one photon at a time. The instruments that analyze this light are equally powerful, such as the 8.6-ton spectrograph thats helping astronomers study the universe slice by slice with incr edible accuracy." To learn about the search for a dark-matter candidate called a WIMP, a weakly interacting massive particle, Ananthaswa my travels 2,341 feet undergr ound into the Soudan Mine in the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota. Ther e, Cyrogenic Dark Matter Search experiments have been trying to find WIMPs using dir ect dark-matter detectors. Along the wa y, he interviews Vera Rubin at the Carnegie Institution on her pioneer ing work discover ing dark matter, the missing mass in Andromeda and other galaxies. He muses on the Standard Model of Particle Physics and the challenge its silence on dark matter poses to its completeness. "Nothing in the so-called standard model of particle physics...can explain dark matter. One way to solve the myster y would be to witness a dark-matter particle smashing into a nucleus of nor mal matter. The knowledge glea ned from even a single such unlikely event would reverberate through all of physics. But on Earths surface any interaction with a dark-matter particle would easily be swa mped by collisions with other kinds of particles, due to everything from radioactivity to cosmic rays. So scientists have been driven under ground in search of an unnatural silence that will let them ,,hear the ping of a dark-matter particle..." Ananthaswa my continues to Siberias Lake Baikal, wher e he stands on thick ice covering Russias neutrino telescope. Scientists there are searching for evidence of dark matter indirectly, by finding neutrinos created in the center of our galaxy, wher e "The mutual annihilation of densely packed dark-matter particles should be spewing out neutrinos." He travels to Antarctica to watch the construction and use of a newer, much larger neutrino telescope, IceCube, 2.5 km under the South Polar ice. At CERN near Geneva, he exa mines the ATLAS particle detector while its being built for the Large Hadron Collider. Scientists there seek clues about dark matter in the debris of proton collisions. "Will they find the neutralino?" to "open up our world to supersymmetr y." In the search for dark ener gy as well as dark matter, he travels to Chiles Ataca ma Desert and the dry air atop Cerro Paranal, wher e the Very Large Telescope looks back 8 billion years to capture an Einstein Cross, "the bending of light from a distant object by the gravitational field of a massive galaxy in the for eground." He attends the ESAs unveiling of the Planck satellite. Instruments aboard Planck and other satellites at L2 will be key to untangling competing mysteries of string theory, inflation and the multiverse. He travels to Mauna Kea, South Africa and the remote Indian Himala yas. Ananthaswamy, a consulting editor on New Scientist ma gazine, writes, "These ma gnificent telescopes and detectors can work only in the most extreme settings.... The cold, dry air above the Atacama Desert high in the Chilea n Andes...allows starlight that has traveled for billions of years to enter a telescope without being smudged...by something as mundane as water vapor." "The Edge of Physics" is a class by itself, fascinating as well as educationa l. If I cant get to remote locations, at least Ive read about them described by an acute observer with a novelists eye for telling detail a nd a reporters instinct for eliciting compelling commentary by experts. Ananthaswa my took vivid photographs and has arranged them by chapter on www. edgeofphysics.com. I highly recommend the book and his excellent website.
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Briefs: Experiment Suggests Matter Prevails over Antimatter
New results fro m a Fermilab particle-accelerator experiment suggest matter seems to win over antimatter . The experiment showed a 1% differ ence between the amount of matter and antimatter produced, which could hint at how our matter-dominated existence ca me about. A large number of star-for ming areas in the Milky Way have been discover ed, concentrated at the end of the galaxys central bar and in its spiral arms. A separate study located ma ny enor mous hydrogen gas clouds in portions of the galaxy above the central bars junction with a spiral arm. Researchers used infrared and radio telescopes to find these regions. The extr emely distant regions are in an area wher e only two wer e previously known. Abunda nce of hea vy elements seems to change with distance fr om the galactic center. Study of 650 clouds in widely-separated areas showed theyr e well above or below the galaxy plane. Theyr e believed generated as a byproduct of enor mous energy emitted into the galaxy from supernova explosions. The ESA's Planck satellite bea med its first map of the entir e sky as seen in micr owave light, providing a glimpse of the earliest days of the universe. The map also reveals the cosmic microwa ve background radiation (CMB), which can be seen in the mottled backdrop at the top and bottom of the ima ge. To get a full picture of the CMB, researchers must digitally remove the Milky Ways light from the for eground to revea l dimmer background radiation. Plancks observations are the most precise view ever of the CMB. These data may answer what happened immediately after the universe was for med, and whether wer e stuck in a cycle between r epeating Big Bangs and Big Crunches. Using Planck, scientists hope to deter mine whether the Big Bang was followed by incr edibly rapid expa nsion. A black hole has been spotted recoiling from a mysterious slingshot effect, possibly from encounters with several other black holes, a new study found. The cause of the black holes kickback is still unknown, but scientists have two theories. One suggests the slingshot effect was produced by interactions within a triple-black-hole system. The other attributes the action to gravitational waves produced by two super massive black holes as they mer ged together a few million years earlier. The recoiling black hole sits in a galaxy about 3.9 million light 8

years away. One big clue is a long tail trailing the black holes host galaxy. The tail suggests a merger between galaxies occurred only a few million years earlier. NASA's Kepler spacecraft hunting for Eart planets has found 706 candidates while gazing at than 156,000 stars packed into a single patch of s the 706 are confir med as planets, they could nearly the number of known exoplanets. h-like more ky. If triple

A new Hubble photo has rev ealed a space bubble filled with baby stars. The ima ge highlights a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within the Large Magellanic Cloud. The nebula is a well-studied patch of space spread across mor e tha n 1,000 light-years and has produced some of the most massive stars known. Scientists are concerned that the search for signs of life on Mars could be thrown off by microorga nisms from Earth. But a new study suggests that fear may be unwarranted. While some bacteria could potentially survive the trip, Mars atmospheric entry and landing, theyd most likely die soon after landing because of the harsh atmospher e, the study found. Its unlikely such microorganisms will be able to replicate on Mars surface. More than 3 billion years ago, the norther n plains of Mars wer e cover ed by a vast ocean that blanketed more than a third of the pla net's surface, new research suggests. Twenty-nine deltas investigated seem to have sat at roughly the sa me height some 3.5 billion years ago, apparently ringing a vast ocean shor eline in the northern lowla nds. The ocean cover ed more than 31 million square miles, an area greater than the Atlantic Ocean. A peculiar chemical compound has been found to be ubiquitous in interstellar gas clouds throughout the Milky Way and may provide a better way to track hydrogen across the universe. Hydrogen fluoride molecules can be found in interstellar gas clouds of all sizes. Almost all fluorine in clouds of hydrogen molecules is transfor med into hydr ogen fluoride. The hottest known planet in our galaxy is being stretched into the shape of a football a nd rapidly conContinued on page 9


Briefs: Matter Seen Falling into Black Hole for First Time
Continued from page 8 sumed by its parent star, new Hubble observations show. WASP-12b may only ha ve another 10 million years left. Its superheated to nearly 2,800 degr ees and stretched into an elongated shape by huge tidal forces. The planets atmospher e has thus ballooned to nearly three times Jupiter's radius and is pouring material onto its parent star. WASP-12B is 40% mor e massive than Jupiter. This effect of matter exchange between two objects is commonly seen in close binary-star systems, but this is the first time its been seen so clearly for a planet. Planet star WASP-12 is a yellow dwarf in Auriga. A halo-like cosmic structure around M81 has been discover ed. Ground-based scopes had only observed stars in halos around the Milky Way and Andromeda. Ther es now evidence of a faint, halo-like structure extending beyond M81s disk of stars. M81s "halo" could be several times brighter and contain mor e processed materials than the Milky Ways. Differ ences between the Milky Ways halo and the structure around M81 bolstert growing evidence that outer structures of apparently similar galaxies are mor e complex than thought. Comets may have formed around other stars and been snatched into orbit around the Sun when it was packed closely with hundreds of other stars, according to new simulations. Researchers modeled this process as an alternative to the standard picture of for mation of the Oort cloud. Until now, the leading model for Oort-cloud formation held that Jupiters gravity ejected icy balls of planetesima ls from inside the solar system. Scientists have watched matter falling into a black hole for the first time. Explosively brillia nt light produced from a black holes gobbling of matter reached telescopes thr ough gravitational micr olensing. Scientists studied a quasar in Hydra that dates from 9 billion years ago. They found 99% of its light originates in a region just 1,000 times larger than the black hole. Most ultraviolet light emitted by the quasar comes from a region 12 light-days across, a bit larger than our solar system. Enormous black holes apparently switch on after galaxies collide, researchers have found. The centers of as ma ny as a tenth of all galaxies generate mor e energy than can be explained by stars, with some of these active galactic nuclei releasing mor e radiation than the entire Milky Way, but from a space no larger than our solar system. This ener gy is believed r eleased when matter falls into super massive black holes at these galaxies cor es. The black holes are up to billions of times the Suns mass. A signal astrophysicists once dismissed as conta mination of X-ray observations could impr ove for ecasts of danger ous space weather. Charged particles within the solar wind give off "soft" X-rays when they collide with Earths magnetic field. The soft X-rays have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies tha n their hard X-ray cousins. This signal was once dismissed as local cosmic noise until scientists realized its significa nce. Measuring soft X-ray emissions could allow scientists to build a real -time picture of what's happening with Earths ma gnetic field, which protects us against solar storms. Venus may once have had an ample supply of water, possibly even oceans, and was a potentially habitable place when it was young, a new study suggests. Over time, Venus is thought to have lost a large quantity of water to space. Water could have been mostly locked in the atmospher e and existed only during the very earliest times, when the surface was all molten. Colliding comets ma y ha ve deliver ed additional water to the surface that could have created standing bodies of water. If Venus possessed surface water, it may have ha d an early habitable phase during which life could have for med. New photos of the Moon have r evealed the most detailed views yet of a rare hole in the surface, a pit large enough to swallow a football field. The irregularly shaped chasm is in Mare Ingenii in the souther n hemispher e. New images show a giant pit 427 feet in dia meter. Boulders and debris on the floor of the cavity, partially illuminated, likely originated at the surface, falling through the pit opening during its collapse. The hole is thought to be the result of a partially collapsed lava tube. Astronomers have found what appear to be the coldest failed stars found in the universe. The 14 stars are so cold and faint theyd be impossible to see with visibleContinued on page 10
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Briefs: Mars Water Existed More Recently than Thought
Continued from page 9 light telescopes, but Spitzer detected their feeble glow. Their temperatures are 350-620 degr ees. Most of the brown dwarfs are believed part of the coolest known class of brown dwarfs, T dwarfs. Minerals that can only be formed in the presence of liquid water have again been detected on Mars, in huge craters in low-lying terrain of the northern hemispher e. A survey found hydrated minerals in nine giant craters. The minerals appear to have been for med by liquid water mor e than 3 billion years ago, suggesting water altered Mars surface much mor e significantly than thought. Water flowed on Mars as recently as several hundred million years ago when sunlight melted a thin layer of glacier ice, r esearchers say. The evidence lies in dozens of channels on Mars carved by melting glacier water during the cold, dry period thats dominated Mars for 3.5 billion years. Such evidence surprised scientists, because it suggests running water existed much mor e recently than previously found. Evidence of liquid water since Mars Noachian era, which ended 3.5 billion years ago, had been scarce. A smashup between two galaxies left one with a wispy tail speckled with stars, according to a new NAS A photo. The ima ge revea ls the after math of a collision between IC 3418 and a member of its neighboring Vir go cluster. The collision occurred 54 million light-years from Earth. Gas in the galaxy is being blown back into a turbulent wake. But stars still ma nage to for m despite rough conditions in the galaxys tail, which stems from a mix of stellar winds and interstellar gas. Instead of bumping against one galaxy, IC 3418 is mingling with the Vir go cluster. The cluster is pulling IC3418 in, causing it to plunge through the clusters gas at mor e than 2 million mph. At this speed, IC 3418s gas is being shoved into the choppy tail thats visible in the ima ge. Scientists have discovered evidence of graphite on the Moon after taking a new look at a lunar rock collected by astronauts nearly 40 years ago. The graphite appears to have originated in a lunar meteorite strike around 3.8 billion years ago. That this for m of carbon
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survived suggests the surface could still possess remnants of carbon-rich organic molecules from ancient impacts. Scientists believe the carbon came from the object that made the impact basin or condensed from carbonrich gas released during impact. A supernova can briefly outshine a whole galaxy in blowups many astronomers thought exploded with some symmetry. But new observations suggest supernovae explosions can be unbala nced, beginning on one side of the star. Models depicting supernovas as spherical explosions should be replaced with asymmetric depictions. The Milky Way snatched up many of its most ancient stars from smaller galaxies that shr edded each other in violent collisions, a new study suggests. Researchers found some ancient Milky Way stars didnt for m natively with the r est of the galaxy about 10 billion years ago. Instead, theyre leftovers from other galaxies that collided about 5 billion years ago. These stars make up some r esidents in the Milky Wa y's stellar halo, which extends above and below the spiral galaxy's main disk. New simulations peer ed back to about 13 billion years ago, then charted how gravitational attraction of the galaxies dark-matter halos accumulated stars over time. A tiny Saturn moon has been caught cr eating ripples in the rings. Daphnis, though just five miles wide, is still large enough that its gravitational pull can disrupt ring material. In Cassini photos, shallow scalloped waves propagate along the edges of the Keeler Gap, a rift in Saturns outer A ring 26 miles wide thats home to Daphnis. The waves have vertical and horizontal components since the moon moves in an inclined orbit. European spacecraft zoomed past a mysterious asteroid to take the first-ever close look at the space rock while mor e than 282 million miles from Earth. The Rosetta space probe flew past Lutetia, an object discover ed in 1852 that had was only a bright speck to astronomers. New photos revea led it as a rock with a potato-like appearance. Rosetta was some 1,900 miles from the asteroid at closest approach. The rock, some 62 miles wide, is in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.


Obama Seeks International Cooperation in Space
The White House rolled out a sweeping national space policy for the U. S. June 28, one that aims to boost international cooperation and reiterates plans to send Amer ica ns to visit an asteroid by 2025. The policy reaches beyond President Oba mas plans for NASA, which would shift the goal of U. S. human spaceflight from the Moon to visiting asteroids and Mars, according to a plan unveiled in February, touching on future needs for Earth observation, space debris and space security. More robust international cooperation will be vital to develop more compr ehensive systems to track global climate change and space weather from orbit, as well as keep taps on the growing risk of space debris collisions with satellites and other vehicles, the White House said. The new policy reiterates Obamas proposed new dir ection for NASA, which calls on the agency to achieve a goal of sending astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s. The ISS, which was slated to end its orbital life in 2015, has been extended thr ough 2020 under the new plan. Under NASA's new plan, the agency will retir e its space-shuttle fleet by early 2011 and rely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the space station until U.S. commer cia l spacecraft are available. Supporting that nascent U.S. commer cialspaceflight industry is a vital part of our future in space, Obama said. This would "rapidly incr ease our capabilities in space while bolstering Amer icas competitive edge in the global economy, " he added. Despite the new policy's focus on internationa l cooperation, its too early to know if countries such as China will be able to participate in current projects involving NAS A, such as the ISS, or on future U.S. projects. NAS A officials have dismissed r ecent reports from Russia suggesting its officials invited China to join the ISS project. The $100 billion space station has been under construction by 16 partner countries since 1998 and is nearly complete.

Contacting the AAA
General club matters: president@aaa.org. Membership business, such as dues and change of address: members@aaa.org. Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org. Lectures: lectures@aaa.org. Classes: classes@aaa.org. Seminar: seminar@aaa.org. Observing: president@aaa.org. Please visit us on the web at www.aaa.org.

Amateur Astronomers Association Gracie Station P. O. Box 383 New York, NY 10028

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Events on the Horizon August 2010
M: me mbers; P: open to the public; T: bring your telescopes, binoculars, etc.; C: cancelled if cloudy; HQ: at AAA headquarters, Downtown Community Center, 120 Warren St. AMNH: For ticket information, call (212) 769-5200 For directions to AAA observing events, check the club's website, www.aaa.org. Tuesdays August 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 Observing at the High Line, Manhattan, P, T, C South of 14th Street. Next dates: Tuesdays in September. Tuesday, August 3, dusk-10 p. m. Observing at Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn, P, T, C Next date: September 14. Thursdays August 5, 12, 19, 26 Movies with a View, Pier 1, Brooklyn, P Learn to operate an 8-inch Dobsonia n scope and watch a free movie. Info: www.aaa.org/movieswith a view. Next date: September 2. Saturdays August 7, 14, 21, 28 Observing at Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan, P, T, C Next dates: Saturdays in September. Saturday, August 7, Observing at Fort G Directions: http://aaa. Next date: September dusk-10 p. m. reene Park, Brooklyn, P, T, C org/fortgr eene. 11. Recent Advances in Astronomy Seminar, M, HQ Pre-meeting dinner at Gee Whiz Diner, Warren and Greenwich streets. Next date: September 16. Saturday, August 14, dusk Observing at Great Kills Gateway National Park, Staten Island, P, T, C Next date: September 11. Wednesday, August 18, 6:30 p. m. Quarterly AAA board meeting, M, HQ All members are invited to attend. Friday, August 20, dusk-11 p. m. Observing at Carl Schurz Park, Manhattan, P, T, C Next date: September 24. Saturday, August 28, 10-noon Solar Observing at Central Park, P, T, C At the Conservator y Waters. Next date: S eptember 25. Tuesday, August 31, 6:30-8:30 p. m. Observers' Group, M, HQ Pre-meeting dinner at Gee Whiz Diner, Greenwich and Warren streets. Next date: S eptember 28. Seminar continued from page 3 described the guarded appraisal of the situation. Bernie Kleinman discussed dark matter. He outlined its discovery through galactic rotation curves and galaxycluster binding ener gies. He then gave a brief overview of the standard model of particle physics, highlighting possible candidates for dark matter. Bernie described lab experiments that seek to detect dark matter, which constitutes six times mor e material tha n the familiar protons, neutrons and electrons in our everyday life and thats the source of all luminous matter in the universe.

Saturday, August 7, dusk-wee hours North-South Lake Observing, Greene County, M,T,C For directions: http://aaa.org/northsouthlake or Rich Rosenberg at 718-522-5014. Rain date: August 14. Next date: September 11. Wednesday, August 11, 8-11 p. m. Observing at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, P, T, C Next date: September 15. Wednesday, August 11, 8:30-10 p. m. Observing at Fort Tryon Park near The Cloisters, Manhattan, P, T, C Next date: September 8. Thursday, August 12, 6:30-8:30 p. m.
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