Betelgeuse: When will it reach its end?

Posted on February 8, 2018 by Katie
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From Forbes

Betelgeuse is in the top ten of the brightest stars in the sky. As one of the closest stars that has the potential to have a supernovae. This is super special not only because of the closeness of it, but because of its massive size.  According to Forbes Betelgeuse has the potential to light the sky and appear even brighter than the moon. However, there is no way of knowing when the supernovae will occur.

Betelgeuse is special because of its sheer size. It is a red giant and very bright in the sky. The only reason it doesn’t always appear that way because much of the energy released is blocked by the atmosphere. However, when Betelgeuse is at its brightest, it has the potential to be brighter than the moon at night. This is because of the amount of energy that the star will produce while heavier metals are going through fusion until eventually, they all collapse into the center of the star.

The question of when is anybody’s guess because there is no way to tell how much chemical fuel the red giant has left before it goes to its brightest state before supernovae. Currently, technology exists that has the ability to look inside the star to analyze the presence of certain elements, but this neutrinos technology is not yet sophisticated enough to analyze the make up of Betelgeuse. At 600 light years away,  for all we know, the red supergiant could have already exploded. It could also remain unchanged for thousands of years, but without the improvement of technology, the question of when will to continue to remain unanswered.

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On This Day in Astronomy History…

Posted on February 7, 2018 by maxflorsheim

 

McCandless EVA NASA
McCandless’ Unprecedented Spacewalk, Popular Science

Thirty-four years ago today, on February 7th 1984, NASA Astronaut Bruce McCandless II became the first person to fly untethered from their spacecraft. McCandless, who just recently passed December 21st at the age of 80, was able to travel 320 feet from the space shuttle Challenger without any connection to the shuttle. He accomplished this feat using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), a form of jetpack being tested for the time by NASA for retrieving malfunctioning communication satellites. The MMU was placed directly over his spacesuit, and used gas thrusters to propel him. Previously a captain in the US Navy, McCandless spent 312 hours of his NASA career in space, four of which were spent using an MMU. Robert L. Stewart, another NASA astronaut, subsequently followed McCandless’ lead during that same mission.

Prior to the famed walk, McCandless worked as a mission control communicator for renowned Apollo 11, the mission in which Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first two men to walk on the Moon. Further accomplishments include helping install the Hubble Telescope in 1990. Since McCandless, untethered spacewalks using the MMU have only been performed on two further missions. The only untethered spacewalks without the MMU occurred during a 1994 mission which tested the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER), an emergency fail-safe worn by tethered astronauts.

 

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Celestial Navigation

Posted on February 7, 2018 by haleytopper04

Celestial navigation, or astronavigation, allows a navigator to use sights and angular measurements between celestial bodies to determine their location. While the sun is the most commonly used body, the moon, planets, polaris, and some other 57 navigational stars can also be used. Those navigational stars have coordinates that are pre-calculated and located in the nautical and air almanacs.

Using certain tools (like a sextant), you can measure the angle between any of the celestial bodies mentioned above and the horizon. After some calculations, the measurements are used to plot a line of position, or LOP. The observer’s position would be somewhere on that line. Using three to five celestial bodies, you can get a pretty exact measurement of where you are. This would be super helpful to know if our satelies go out and we are unable to use GPS!

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Using your LOP to find your position!

Continue reading →

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The Largest Telescope in the World

Posted on February 7, 2018 by maxflorsheim

Roque_z04

Wikipedia Commons

In order to allow for astronomers to observe far into space, there are numerous gigantic telescopes laid out globally. None larger than the Gran Telescopio Canarias, located on the island of La Palma in the Spanish Canary Islands. As an infra-red telescope, the telescope seeks to explore questions such as the mystique surrounding black holes, the history of stars and galaxies in the early universe, distant planets orbiting other stars, and the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy in the universe. Opened in the 2007, this telescope contains 36 small hexagonal mirrors which together create a 10.4 meter mirror weighing an incredible 17000 kilogram, with each individual hexagon weighing 450 kilograms alone. Overall, the telescope has an unprecedented light-collecting area of 75.7 square meters. To put the immense size of this telescope in perspective, the height of the entire physical frame is 41 meters, only 6 meters shorted than New York’s Statue of Liberty. As a reflecting telescope, the Gran Telescopio Canarias uses this curved primary mirror to gather light, before a secondary mirror, along with a third, tertiary mirror, reflects this light to a focal point where scientific instruments process the images. It is placed on a mount which allows it to move vertically and horizontally, maximizing stability for precise viewing of the universe above.

The location for the telescope, ‘The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory’ was chosen due to the island’s optimal observing conditions. For one, the observatory is located above the area in which clouds are usually formed. This allows for researchers to enjoy cloudless skies while observing. The region is also beneficial in that it has minimal atmospheric turbulence, which allows for quality images to be seen with little atmospheric disturbance. A recent sky protection law has also guarded the region from light pollution which would have had negative effects on observations. It is these magnificent telescopes, like the Gran Telescopio Canarias, which allow us to explore the stars and galaxies millions of light-years away.

 

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GMT: What else is out there?

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Katie
From Harvard Magazine

This telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is currently in the process of being built. It is a refractory telescope with 7 separate mirrors that each have a diameter of 8.4 meters. This telescope is going to be incredibly large. In fact, it is going to be the largest optical telescope to be built. According to Wendy Freedman, this telescope is supposed to be ready to begin taking in information with four of the seven mirrors beginning is 2021. The amount of precision that this telescope is supposed to be able to capture is incredible, with seven ginormous mirrors and the ability to rotate to capture different sections of the sky, the potential for what this telescope will be able to see is incredible.

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Possible discoveries in the universe from presentation by Wendy Freedman

Another reason this telescope is incredibly impressive is because it is being built on earth, but it is still supposed to have much better precision than the Hubble telescope. This is an impressive feat because the GMT will have to absorb light through the atmosphere and other background light just to capture a picture of the universe. It is also supposed to be able to see further into the universe than any other telescope has, which means this telescope has the ability to look even further back into time. Obviously, the limit to what any telescope can see now is set by the age of the universe because of the amount of time some light would take to reach the telescope, but there is still so much space in the observable universe that still has not been captured that this new telescope can capture.

Some exciting concepts this telescope can expand on is the search for life, the discovery of new planets and star systems. All of which can provide insight into the universe, reveal potential for life in other places. Another exciting idea of this telescope that Freedman brought up in her Ted talk is that this telescope has the potential something completely new. The universe is so huge, and astronomers still do not have a complete understanding of it. The GMT can answer some of these questions, but it can also raise so many, but either way, this revolutionary telescope will provide more insight into the inner workings of the universe.

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Infinity

Posted on February 7, 2018 by kathrynkellner

 

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There is this prose poem that I love that I thought would be perfect to post on my astronomy blog. It’s featured on the blog website “I Wrote This For You” which is an alias for poet/short story writer Iain S. Thomas. The poem’s title is “The Importance of Correctly Numbering Things,” which you can read fully here (it’s fairly short) but the part I want to highlight is:

We live in a universe so big that a dying star, in the greater scheme of things, is as significant as spilled milk or an unkissed kiss. In an infinite amount of time, everything that can be forgotten, will be forgotten.

In infinity, spilled milk and dying stars matter the same.

With my past posts I’ve highlighted the fact that what astrounds me most about the universe is its size. It is fantastically huge – which is why I like to believe in the posibilty of life somewhere out there (because with a universe so big how could that not be a possibility? …I digress). But I think that this part of the poem does a good job of highlighting exactly what it is about the size of the universe that seems so majestically wonderful to me – that with a universe so vast, with so many stars (much more then there are people) every little event, each tiny success or mistake, maters as much, or as little, as you want it to in the grand scheme of things. In the end, our lives are just as important, or as insignifigant, as a dying star.

Kind of makes you feel special, doesn’t it?

 

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Johannes Kepler: A Sign of the Times

Posted on February 7, 2018 by kathrynkellner

Today I want to talk about Johannes Kepler (Born on December 27, 1571 at 1 PM; Died November 15, 1630).

Kepler was the guy who came up with the three laws of planetary motion and basically, is the reason why we know how planets orbit things today (NASA).

But did you know what was going on while he was alive and discovering these things? Because a lot was happening that I didn’t know were occurring at the same time.

For starters, one major historical event that was happening during the lifetime of Kepler was the disappearance of the Roanoke colony in America. To this day, no one is completely sure of what happened to the colonists. The colony was settled in 1587, and its mayor left soon after to ask for more help with the colony from England. When he returned, three years later, in 1590, the colonists were gone (Hogeback, “The Lost Colony of Roanoke”).

Another major event was the beginning of the 30 Years’ War. It started in 1618 (though it didn’t end until 1648 which is 18 years after Kelper’s death). The conflict involved a large mass of European countries and the main issue of contention was which religious faction – Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, or Calvinism – would dominate the majority of Europe (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, “Thirty Years’ War”).

Kepler even lived during the time of Oda Nobunaga. Born in 1534, and having died in 1582. Nobunaga was important because he helped to unify parts of Japan, and before his death set the country up for full reunification (Ebisawa, “Oda Nobunaga”).

This is why, I think, it is important to look at history within context because while I knew all these events happened, I didn’t know that they all happened at around the same time. What was most interesting about learning about all this history in context was how much chaos the world was in at the time. It was going through a lot of growing pains and it was despite, or perhaps through, these growing pains that new and important ideas and discoveries were made (like Kepler’s!). In many ways, it reminds me that the world today isn’t that much different from that of the past – we still are experiencing growing pains with war and conflict, but it’s nice to know that important discoveries will still be made to further our understanding of life despite such conflict.

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Posted on February 7, 2018 by justinrstevens

Tycho Brahe (Dec. 14, 1546 – Oct. 24,1601)

One of Brahe’s most acclaimed achievements was the observation of a supernova in 1572.  He used this event, along with a later observation of a comet, to refute the widely-accepted idea of celestial immutability.  Yet Brahe’s most important contributions to astronomy existed in the seemingly-mundane.  He recorded extremely accurate observations of planetary motion.  This led him to conclude that the Moon orbits the Earth and the planets orbit the Sun.  However, in this Tychonian model all celestial objects still revolved around the Earth.  In other news, Tycho Brahe lost most of his nose at a young age in a swordfight.  He lived the rest of his life with a metallic prosthetic glued to his face.

Historical Events

  • In 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated off the coast of France by an English naval fleet. The English fleet, commandeered in part by Sir Francis Drake, thus destroyed what was supposedly the most powerful navy in history

 

  • 1545-1563: The Council of Trent convenes in northern Italy.  Held by the Roman Catholic church, this council constructed a response to a the Protestant Reformation (known as the Counter-reformation).

 

Famous Person

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is considered by many to be one of the most important literary figures in the history of the English language. The prolific writer (he penned 39 plays) is credited with introducing over 1700 words to the English language.

 

Reflection

Above all, reading about Tycho Brahe led me to ponder the nature of true scientific research. Oftentimes when we think about science, we are drawn to attention-grabbing and exciting things.  We usually think that the cutting edge of scientific research is exhilarating and risky, with colorful explosions and flashy machines and so on.  But Tycho Brahe’s life and work go to show that beautiful science exists in the passionate dedication to the smallest of details.  And in the end, Brahe’s persistence and precision led to earth shattering realizations – literally turning our view of the universe on its head.

 

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Of Light and Glass (Blog #2)

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Chris K.
dbp_1984_1219_friedrich_wilhelm_bessel
West German stamp commemorating Friedrich Bessel, 1984.

Humans had been studying the stars for thousands of years before the first telescopes had been invented. The naked eye was enough to understand basic astronomical phenomena in the solar system, but if we wanted understand more, the human eye would need some help. Although they were primitive and only had magnifications of around three times, the first telescopes appeared in the Netherlands around 1609 and they quickly revolutionized the field. Within only a few years, Galileo had used the technology to prove the celestial orbs like the Sun and Moon were not perfect objects like Aristotle had claimed but instead had spots, mountains, and other oddities. He also saw that other planets had their own moon systems, another thing that was incompatible with the Ptolemaic universe. However, while Galileo was able to prove much with this new invention, he was still unable to show the one thing that would destroy the Ptolemaic model once and for all: parallax.

Parallax was the concept that was used by advocates of the Ptolemaic model to prove the Earth’s centrality to the universe. Simply put, it is apparent change in an object’s position based of a change in the observer’s position. Since the stars appear to be completely fixed in location, this implies Earth’s location is also fixed, thus proving it to be the center of universe. We know today that the stars are so far away that parallax is essentially impossible to measure with the neither the human eye nor small telescopes, but back then the stoic nature of the stars was enough proof for geocentrists. Two hundred years after Galileo, telescopes had finally advanced to the point where parallax was measurable. In 1838. German astronomer Friederich Bassel built a telescope so large and precise that he could finally measure parallax of distance stars. Although geocentrism was essentially dead by this point, any remaining doubts were now silenced. While it took thousands of years for telescopes to be developed, it only took a few hundred to make them so advanced they could disprove millennia old knowledge.

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The Life of Low Mass Stars

Posted on February 6, 2018 by laurenegish

heic1118a.jpgBirth of Star S106 IR

Birth:

Emerging from a cloud of gas and dust called a nebula, a star forms when gravity pulls hydrogen gas from the nebula together and spins it around at such a fast rate that it heats up. This creates what is known as a “protostar”. Once the soon-to-be star’s temperature reaches a point of 15 million degrees, nuclear fusion occurs, the protostar becomes stabilized, and then it becomes a star.

Mid-Life:

As the star shines on throughout its life, nuclear fusion continues to occur and the element hydrogen, that is found in its core, is constantly being converted to helium, which is then converted into heavier elements. The star continues to use nuclear fusion to transform lighter elements into heavier ones until a star reaches the element iron, where the energy required to produce a larger mass is too great.

Old Age:

As the star’s core runs out of hydrogen, the star stops producing heat through nuclear fusion and the core becomes unstable. The star’s outside shell (primarily composed of hydrogen) expands and begins to glow red. This phase is appropriately named the “red giant phase” because the star turns red as it cools off and it becomes a giant due to its expansion. At this point, all helium at the core of the red giant is transformed into carbon.

Death:

Stars with low mass, like our sun, will not turn into a supernova or a black hole. Instead, their core will collapse after all of its helium has been transformed into carbon. Ultimately the outer layers of the star are expelled and the core turns into a white dwarf, which eventually becomes a black dwarf once it cools.

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