European Association for Astronomy Education

I am the Moon – Look at Me  by Deirdre Kelleghan

15 Day Moon Durrus, West Cork Ireland 26th August 2010 23:05 UT – 00:08 UT Pastel and conte on black paper 200 mm Dob/ FL 1,200 mm / 32 mm eyepiece

I am the Moon – Look at Me by Deirdre Kelleghan

We are privileged to live on a beautiful but fragile planet moving through space at 18.5 miles per second. We are born, live and die here; in our lifetimes we owe it to ourselves to become even a little knowledgeable of our place in the Universe.  Just a small fraction of us ever get to leave the planet and become acutely aware of the startling reality that we do in fact live in space.

We all admire humans and robots who explore off planet, but each of us here on the Earth can still reach out to grab a bit of wonder for ourselves by simply looking up. Our moon is a beautiful object whether you look at it with an instrument or just by eye.

The Moon is our nearest natural orbiting satellite, so let us stand a while and look at it together.

Let’s think about what we see when we gaze upward.  On International Observe the Moon night the moons appearance is described as waxing gibbous.  The gibbous shape of the moon on September 18^th is exactly in-between the first quarter and full moon. This phase gives us the opportunity to view naked eye most of the Maria. In the northern section close to the terminator, Mare Imbrum, (The Sea of Rains) just a bit to the right is Mare Serenitatis,  (The Sea of Serenity) below Imbrium is Mare Insularium, (The Sea of Islands). Below Serenitatis, is Mare Tranquillitatis   (The Sea of Tranquillity), the place where men first stood upon the moon.

Just three days previous most people would refer to it as a half moon but have a think for a minute or two. The Moon is a spherical object, like a ball, it moves around our planet approximately once every twenty nine days.  On its journey it presents a different shape to us depending on its position to the sun in relation to the person viewing the near side from Earth.  The sun illuminates the moon’s surface and reflects that light towards our eyes. When the moon is at first quarter, half of its surface is lit up by the sun. At all times one half of the moons surfaces is bathed in sunlight while the other half rests in total darkness.

The Earth and the moon do a little orbital dance together which the sun lights up for our pleasure.

This dance involves the larger Earth partner holding the moons near side face towards itself the entire time .The orbital waltz created by the Earth and the moon as they swing around the sun together produces various phenomena during their annual soiree. These include eclipses, both lunar and solar, depending on the angle and varied positions between the three of them, the dancers and their light.

When you use your eyes only to look at the moon on International Observe the moon night, what are you looking at exactly? You will see the moon present itself to you when it is positioned a little more than one quarter way around the Earth. You will see the bright limb of the moon; you will see the line that separates daytime on the moon from night time on the moon. It is called ‘The Terminator’. Look closely and observe the darker markings ‘The Maria’ large lava filled impact basins. You will see the brighter higher areas and maybe if you have good eyesight you will see some of the larger craters and their rays. The lovely small rounded area to the upper right of The Sea of Tranquillity, close to the limb, is Mare Crisium (the sea of crisis).

With even a small pair of binoculars your view will be enhanced with detail. With a telescope depending on the size and quality of the eyepieces your view will be awesome.  There is a lifetimes worth of observing to be had with the moon alone. The contrast, the rich lunarscape, the play of light against the blackness of space, it is an exploration adventure available for all to view.

What\’s Up for September 2010 – The Moon

In this podcast Jane Houston Jones talks about the Moon and International Observe the Moon Night

Source: Brown University

A research team led by Brown University has documented dozens of channels carved by melted water from glaciers located in the midlatitude region of Mars. The glaciofluvial valleys were carved in Mars’ most recent epoch, the team reports, supporting the idea that the Red Planet was home to diverse watery environments in its recent past. Results are published in Icarus. (read more)

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, according to a new study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists.

The CU-Boulder study is the first to combine the analysis of water-related features including scores of delta deposits and thousands of river valleys to test for the occurrence of an ocean sustained by a global hydrosphere on early Mars. While the notion of a large, ancient ocean on Mars has been repeatedly proposed and challenged over the past two decades, the new study provides further support for the idea of a sustained sea on the Red Planet during the Noachian era more than 3 billion years ago, said CU-Boulder researcher Gaetano Di Achille, lead author on the study.

A paper on the subject authored by Di Achille and CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Brian Hynek of the geological sciences department appears in the June 13 issue of Nature Geoscience. Both Di Achille and Hynek are affiliated with CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

More than half of the 52 river delta deposits identified by the CU researchers in the new study — each of which was fed by numerous river valleys — likely marked the boundaries of the proposed ocean, since all were at about the same elevation. The research team says twenty-nine of the 52 deltas were connected either to the ancient Mars ocean or to the groundwater table of the ocean and to several large, adjacent lakes. (read more)

Source: NASA Science News

In a surprising development that has transformed the appearance of the solar system’s largest planet, one of Jupiter’s two main cloud belts has completely disappeared.

Jupiter before and after the disapearance of the South Equatorial Band.
Credit: Anthony Wesley

Known as the South Equatorial Belt (SEB), the brown cloudy band is twice as wide as Earth and more than twenty times as long. The loss of such an enormous “stripe” can be seen with ease halfway across the solar system. (read more)

Source: ESA News

Volcanic ash in Meridiani Planum
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Deposits of volcanic ash colour this view of the Meridiani Planum, as seen by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera. They also give clues to the prevailing wind direction in this region of Mars. (read more)

Source: American Society for Microbiology

Mars. Credit: NASA/ESA/HST

Bacteria common to spacecraft may be able to survive the harsh environs of Mars long enough to inadvertently contaminate Mars with terrestrial life according to research published in the April 2010 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The search for life on Mars remains a stated goal of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program and Astrobiology Institutes. To preserve the pristine environments, the bioloads on spacecraft headed to Mars are subject to sterilization designed to prevent the contamination of the Martian surface.(read more)

Source: NASA/JPL

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured images of lightning on Saturn. The images have allowed scientists to create the first movie showing lightning flashing on another planet.

After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft’s cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck. (read more)

Source: ESA News

This figure shows the volcanic peak Idunn Mons
(at 46°S, 214.5°E) in the Imdr Regio area of Venus.
Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL

ESA’s Venus Express has returned the clearest indication yet that Venus is still geologically active. Relatively young lava flows have been identified by the way they emit infrared radiation. The finding suggests the planet remains capable of volcanic eruptions.(read more)

Source: NASA Science News

Researchers who once confidently stated that the Moon was bone-dry are now thinking the unthinkable: The Moon has so much water, there’s actually a “lunar hydrosphere.” International spacecraft have recently discovered no fewer than three “flavors” of moonwater and no one knows when the discoveries will end. (read more)

Source: ESO Science Release eso1010

New ground-breaking thermal images obtained with ESO’s Very Large Telescope and other powerful ground-based telescopes show swirls of warmer air and cooler regions never seen before within Jupiter’s Great
Red Spot, enabling scientists to make the first detailed interior weather map of the giant storm system linking its temperature, winds, pressure and composition with its colour. (read more)

Source: Messenger

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recently approved a proposal from the MESSENGER Science Team to confer names on 10 impact craters on Mercury. The newly named craters were imaged during the mission’s three flybys of Mercury in January and October 2008 and September 2009.

The IAU has been the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919. In keeping with the established naming theme for craters on Mercury, all of the craters are named after famous deceased artists, musicians, or authors.

“All of the newly named features figure importantly in ongoing analysis of Mercury’s geological history,” says MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “The MESSENGER Science Team is pleased that the IAU has responded promptly to our latest request for new names, so that the identities of these craters in the scientific literature can be clearly conveyed.”

The newly named craters include:

• Bek, named for the chief royal sculptor (active c. 1340 B.C.) during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten, a Pharaoh of the 18^th dynasty of Egypt. Bek is credited with the development of the “Amarna Style,” the distinctive and often peculiar combination of the exceptionally mannered and the naturalistic.
• Copland, for Aaron Copland (1900-1990), an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition and is widely known as the dean of American composers.
• Debussy, for Claude Debussy (1862-1918), among the most important of French composers and one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music. He was a central figure in European music at the turn of the 20^th Century.
• Dominici, for Maria de Dominici (1645-1703), a Maltese sculptor and painter said to have made portable cult figures used for street processions on religious feast days.
• Firdousi, for Hakīm Abu’l-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī (935-1020), a revered Persian poet and author of the Shāhnāmeh, the national epic of Persian people and of the Iranian world.
• Geddes, for Wilhelmina Geddes (1887-1955), an Irish stained-glass artist and member of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Her work represented a rejection of the Late Victorian approach, and she created a new view of men in stained glass windows, portraying them with close-shaven crew cuts.
• Hokusai, for Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), a Japanese artist and printmaker of the Edo period. He was Japan’s leading expert on Chinese painting and is best-known as author of the woodblock print series, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the iconic and internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
• Kipling, for Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), a British author and poet regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story. He is best known for his works of fiction, poems, and many short stories, including those in The Jungle Book (1894).
• Picasso, for Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work.
• Steichen, for Edward Steichen (1879-1973), an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz’s groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917.

These 10 newly named craters join 42 other craters named since MESSENGER’s first Mercury flyby in January 2008.

Link:
Press Release – Messenger

Source: ESA

The Phobos-Grunt landing site. Credit:ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Images from the recent flyby of Phobos, on 7 March 2010, are released today. The images show Mars’ rocky moon in exquisite detail, with a resolution of just 4.4 metres per pixel. They show the proposed landing sites for the forthcoming Phobos-Grunt mission.(read more)

Source: ESA

Artist’s representation of a human mission to Mars.
Image credit: NASA/ David Mattingly and Pat Rawlings.

A crew of six, including two Europeans, will soon begin a simulated mission to Mars in a mockup that includes an interplanetary spaceship, a Mars lander and a martian landscape. The Mars500 experiment, as long as a real journey to Mars, will be second to none as the ultimate test of human endurance.

Four ESA-selected Europeans, Belgian Jerome Clevers, Arc’hanmael Gaillard and Romain Charles from France and Colombian-Italian Diego Urbina, started the mission training at the end of February with the other crew-members at the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow. Two of these four candidates will be selected as European participants in Mars500. This first full-duration simulated mission to Mars will start in a special human habitat at IBMP in Moscow next summer.

The Mars500 name comes from the blueprint for a possible human Mars mission in the future using conventional propulsion: 250 days for the trip to Mars, 30 days on the martian surface and 240 days for the return journey, totalling 520 days. (read more)

Source: ESA

Phobos image by Mars Express. Credit: ESA

Mars Express encountered Phobos last night, smoothly skimming past at just 67 km, the closest any manmade object has ever approached Mars’ enigmatic moon. The data collected could help unlock the origin of not just Phobos but other ‘second generation’ moons.

Something is not right about Phobos. It looks like a solid object but previous flybys have shown that it is not dense enough to be solid all the way through. Instead, it must be 25-35% porous. This has led planetary scientists to believe that it is little more than a ‘rubble pile’ circling Mars. Such a rubble pile would be composed of blocks both large and small resting together, with possibly large spaces between them where they do not fit easily together.(read more)

Source: ESA

Phobos. Credits: ESA/ DLR/ FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

ESA’s Mars Express will skim the surface of Mars’ largest moon Phobos on Wednesday evening. Passing by at an altitude of 67 km, precise radio tracking will allow researchers to peer inside the mysterious moon.(read more)

Source: HiRISE

HiRISE has captured at least four avalanches, or debris falls, in action.

Avalanches on North Polar Scarps
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The image above shows the context of where these avalanches occurred, with white boxes indicating the locations of the more detailed image portions shown to the right (all images are false color). Material, likely including fine-grained ice and dust and possibly including large blocks, has detached from a towering cliff and cascaded to the gentler slopes below. The occurrence of the avalanches is spectacularly revealed by the accompanying clouds of fine material that continue to settle out of the air. The largest cloud (upper images) traces the path of the debris as it fell down the slope, hit the lower slope, and continues downhill, forming a billowing cloud front. This cloud is about 180 meters (590 feet) across and extends about 190 m (625 ft) from the base of the steep cliff. Shadows to the lower left of each cloud illustrate further that these are three dimensional features hanging in the air in front of the cliff face, and not markings on the ground (sun is from the upper right). (read more)

Source: Universe Today

Asteroid Vesta as seen by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Image credit: NASA/ESA/U of Md./STSci/Cornell/SWRI/UCLA

An asteroid could be visible with binoculars, or even the naked eye on Wednesday, February 17, 2010. No, it’s not coming close to Earth, although this second most massive object in the asteroid belt will be at its closest point to Earth in its orbit, about 211,980,000 kilometers (131,700,000 miles) away. Asteroid Vesta – one of the asteroids that the Dawn spacecraft will visit – will be at opposition on Wednesday, meaning it is opposite the sun as seen from Earth, and is closest to us. Vesta is expected to shine at magnitude 6.1, and that brightness should make it visible for those with clear skies and a telescope, but perhaps even those blessed with excellent vision and little or no light pollution. Vesta will be visible in the eastern sky in the constellation Leo, and will continue to be visible — although less so — in the coming months. (read more)

Source: ESA

Phobos image was obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express on 28 July 2008 (orbit 5870), at a distance of 351 km from the moon’s centre.

Today Mars Express began a series of flybys of Phobos, the largest moon of Mars. The campaign will reach its crescendo on 3 March, when the spacecraft will set a new record for the closest pass to Phobos, skimming the surface at just 50 km. The data collected could help untangle the origin of this mysterious moon.(read more)

Source: ESA General

Composite of Huygens DISR images shows patterns of drainage, flow and erosion in the Huygens landing site region. Credits: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Five years ago today, ESA’s Huygens probe descended to the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Today planetary scientists from around the world have gathered in Barcelona to discuss the legacy of Huygens and to consider future Titan exploration missions.(read more)

Source: Space.com

Our solar system is enriched with a rare isotope of Oxygen and this can only be explained by the explosion of a supernova that has enriched the nebula where it was formed.

This idea isn’t new but is part of the conclusions of a research team that were presented Thursday during the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. (read more)