| Astronomy News - July 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hello, and welcome to the monthly astronomy news page! Of course the main goal of the Austin Planetarium is fund raising to make possible building a planetarium in Austin. But we thought it would be nice to also start offering some astronomy information. After all, a planetarium is all about the fun of astronomy and astronomy education. This page offers some limited information about astronomical events for the Austin area this month. Sections that will always be included on this page are:
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An almanac, like the famous Farmers' Almanac, is an annual publication with all kinds of data on weather or on the calendar. Astronomical almanacs show data like the rise and set times of the Sun and Moon for a given date. With the advent of computers and the internet, we can now generate data on the fly and display them in a variety of useful formats. So, instead of data for an entire year, often an astronomical almanac shows data for one day. This is exactly what we're showing in the table to the right: The Austin Planetarium Alamanac! The data displayed is for right now and updates automatically. Of course the Sun and Moon rise and set times do not change during the course of a day, but the illumination changes continuously. That may surprise you, but in 28 days, the Moon goes from New (zero percent illumination), to Full (100%) and back to new again. So in 14 days, we cover 100%, or about 7% per day. Divided by 24 hours in the day, the illumination changes 0.30% each hour! Additionally we are also showing a picture of what the illumination actually looks like, and we're also displaying when the next Lunar event takes place. |
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Monthly Calendar 
In July we have no less then 14 good chances to see the International Space Station right from Austin! There are both early evening viewings, as well as for early in the morning. There is no need to find a dark location, your yard or balcony will do just fine, as long as you can see the proper area of the sky. The ISS will appear as a very bright star and will cross the sky in about 3 minutes. If you have never seen our largest artificial neighbor, be sure to check it out one night or morning; you won't be disappointed. If you click on the dates you will get a pop-up with a small sky-chart: the path of the ISS is drawn as a line.
Even though NASA (or any other space agency) has not put any more people on the Lunar surface, we have sent a lot of spacecraft to the Moon for research purposes. With the imminent retirement of the Shuttle fleet, there is talk once again about sending people to the Moon. This time the idea is building a permanent presence. The idea behind a Lunar base would be that the Moon has a much lower gravity, so it is much easier to launch something from the Moon then it is to launch from Earth. For example, if we want to build a space ship capable of flying people and cargo to Mars, we would save an enormous amount of energy, if we can build and launch this from the Moon. Maybe in the next decade or two, we will finally reach the times that have been so long predicted in Science Fiction books and movies alike. Maybe one day, when I go on vacation I have the choice between Hawaii, Europe, or the Moon. I know what I would choose! Even to this day, there are people that firmly believe we never visited the Moon. They claim that the entire Moon landing was faked, and that it was all staged somewhere in a Hollywood studio. This is commonly reffered to as the "Moon Hoax", and I am in the good company of the Bad Astronomer Phil Plait if I state that I am "Skeptical of Denialism" Now, of course, some people will never be convinced of the truth no matter how much evidence is staring at them. There are still people that believe the Earth is flat, and that the Sun revolves around the Sun and not vice versa! But we do have a great opportunity to settle this issue, and maybe convince a denier or two. Late last June, a new space craft arrived in orbit around the Moon. This is a mission launced by NASA and its name is LRO, which is short for the Lunar Reconneaissance Orbiter. This craft will do a lot of cool and spectular things (like crashing things into the Moon), but the main thing we want to talk about here is the camera that is on board, specifically the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). This camera will be able to take very detailed images of the Moon. As a matter of fact the images will be so detailed, objects as small as half a meter (about 18 inches) can be spotted. This means that we should be able to see materials left behind by the Apollo Astronauts! Parts of the landers should easily be visible, as well as several Lunar rovers. And although this month is July, and we celebrate the founding of our nation on the 4th, there is a disappointment. The flag placed on the Moon by the astronauts, is too small to be seen. For more information on: The Moon Hoax NASA, LRO Home page |
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This page is maintained and developed by Torvald Hessel and Steve Rung. |
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