[ FirstLight Astronomy Club ] The Skies Above

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You Think Things Are Bad Now?

The Earth >

I have good news and I have bad news. Most people would want to hear the bad news first to get it out of the way, so here it comes.

The bad news is that life in the universe is doomed to extinction --- sooner or later. Brutal, cold news that, but it must be told.

Assuming for the moment that we don't commit global suicide through our own actions, things are destined to get worse on their own. Just look at the sun.

You may have heard that it has still billions of good years left in it before it dies out. That's true. But even before it experiences those last death throes it will probably do us in another way.

In the next couple ten thousand years its energy output will increase to such a degree that it will get unbearably hot; "as hot as Palm Springs in the summer, all over the earth" as a scientist friend of mine puts it. And it will just keep getting hotter and hotter ... and hotter.

Let's move to a different planet, farther out! Assuming we ever develop a way to get to and survive there, the sun is still doomed to sputter out completely.

Let's go to a different star system! Name one. Almost all the stars up there are non-life-support stars. Finding a star similar in properties to our sun means one must also find a life-support planet orbiting around that star. Even if we can find one, and then find a way to travel those dreadful distances, that star is doomed to die too.

Assume the miraculous, that we can find a new star with a planet like ours and then get to it! Sorry. Our galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy! In about 3 billion years we will both collide and pretty much assure the destruction of any life in either galaxy.

But even if humanity dies out life will persist somewhere! Well ... not quite. Assuming another miracle, that there is life somewhere else out there, our entire universe is going dark.

Our universe is expanding. And recent research allows me to expand on that: We are not only expanding, but that expansion is accelerating. We are getting bigger and bigger, faster and faster.

If this turns out to be true, then our runaway universe will eventually get to a point that we expand so quickly that stars will fizzle, energy flow will stop, communication of any kind will cease, all conceivable life will end.

Depressed? If you put all your hope and faith in only space, time, matter, and energy, you might be.
But here is the good news, the positive spin on these impending dooms. Right now, it can't get any better.

Those qualities mentioned above --- star life, expansion of the universe, available life-support planets --- and hundreds more are precisely fine-tuned for a wonderful life right now. This universe has been around for about 14 billion years being shaped and formed to perfection. Only in these last tens of thousands of years have things been the most ideal for human life.

But now, we see, we are soon to move out of life's "window of time." What to think?!

One of the awesome things about astronomy is that it screams out the big questions. We can take off our scientist hat, don our theologian's or philosopher's cap, and go to work.

Why are things perfect now, but destined for destruction? Is all of this cosmic happenstance or is there meaning and purpose from above and beyond all this? Those are great starter questions; now go seek and find. The truth is out there.

Mark Ritter teaches astronomy at Temecula Valley High School and can be reached at mritter@firstlightastro.com.

(Image from Cosmos by Carl Sagan, the painting is by A. Schaller.)

Posted by Administrator at 2003.08.30 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

Lyra: For Your Musical Enjoyment

Observing >

This week we are shopping for musical instruments. And you need look no further than directly above your head tonight at the constellation Lyra, the jeweled instrument of the summer skies.

All you need is 15 minutes of time and maybe a little star chart (a printable one provided for you here). Binoculars would help, too. But before we go outside, a little history.

Orpheus, one of the sons of the sun god Apollo, could play a mean lyre, boy howdy! His superb playing won him the heart of a nymph, Eurydice. Though a complicated set of circumstances that would spin the head of even the most hardened soap-opera fanatic, Eurydice ends up dying and being sent to the underworld.

Smitten Orpheus makes his way down there and, despite the dangers of bargaining with underworld characters, manages to musically finagle an agreement to get his wife out of there.

But Orpheus messes up on the way out and Eurydice falls back into that hellhole never to return. He goes into a deep depression, sulkily playing his lyre the whole time. Our hero ends up getting violently murdered by some jealous and drunken Thracian maidens enamored by his music but shunned by him. A sympathetic Jupiter places the lyre in the sky to be immortalized.

You thought you had problems.

You will find this special place literally directly above your head tonight. Face northeast and look straight up.

That very bright star is Vega, aka Alpha Lyrae, the brightest star in Lyra. Vega gets its name, as many stars do, from the Arabs. They called this part of the constellation Al Naar al Waki. Waki eventually evolved into Vega.

Vega is a star about 3 times bigger than our sun, only about 25 light years away (very close), and has the distinction of being the first photographed star, way back in 1850.

Just "below" Vega is Epsilon Lyrae, a famed Double Double (without the grilled onions). This is actually a double star when seen through your binoculars or telescope. But those two stars also have invisible companions for a total of four stars, all revolving around a common center of gravity.

Equidistant from Vega but to the "right" a little is Zeta Lyrae. With Vega and the Double Double it makes a nice triangle. Arabian desert dwellers named this triad as one of their Athafiyy, or Tripods --- three rocks on which nomadic people would place their kettle.

Follow a slightly crooked line from Vega to Zeta and just a little further down to Delta Lyrae, a star couple of vastly different color. Delta 1 is a big and hot star, thus it is blue --- blue meaning very hot to astronomers. It is over 1000 light years away. Its reddish and cooler buddy, Delta 2, is 900 light years away but over 300 times bigger than the sun. This is an opportune time to see two of the many colors of stars using nothing more than a pair of binoculars.

Now we move to the far end of little Lyra, to the other side of the parallelogram. There are two stars there, brighter Beta and dimmer Gamma. What is fascinating over here is what is stuck between them.

There lies M57, the Ring Nebula. It is here that one can see (with a telescope!) the remains of a star that shed its outer layers about 20,000 years ago. These thrown-off gas layers are lit up by radiation flowing profusely from the white-hot core of the deed star --- a "white dwarf" --- that still remains in the center of the Ring.

Lyra is full of fun for everyone. Get out his week and see some beautiful music.

Mark Ritter teaches astronomy at Temecula Valley High School and can be reached at mritter@firstlightastro.com.

Posted by Administrator at 2003.08.16 01:16 PM | Comments (0)

Another Martian Invasion is Underway!

Suspended over the eastern horizon later this evening is a bright pinkish light. It hovers there, menacingly, rising slowly in the sky as night progresses. Look out! Another Martian invasion in underway!

Mars wins the lead role in Amazing Sky Objects of the Month for August. This is not our typical biennial appearance of our nearest outside neighbor, oh no. This is its closest approach in about 50,000 years, farther back than most of us can remember.

So why so close this year? It has to do with a rare position of orbits, ours and Mars.

Mars doesn’t travel in a perfectly circular orbit; actually, no planet does. Its orbit, like ours, is elliptical, like a slightly stretched out circle. As a result, sometimes it is closer to the sun, sometimes farther. It is nearly at its closet approach to the sun now.

Add to that another important event: Mars is also near opposition. That is, it is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth as the sun. Opposition is the time we get as close as we can to an outside planet.

Follow the logic here. If Mars is as close to the sun as it gets, and if we are then between the sun and Mars, it follows that we are now about as close to Mars as we can ever get.

During a distant opposition, when we are between the sun and Mars but Mars is not at its close approach to the sun, it can be over 60 millions miles away. But in this alignment it creeps up to a stone’s throw 35 million miles! Translation: big and bright!

It is this closeness that gets astronomers and planet lovers all giddy this month. Yes, even at this proximity Mars is still a small planet. We can’t get around that. Even as big as it seems this month, it is only about the size of a quarter held up more than 2 football fields away. But this is the best time in our lifetime to get a close-up glimpse from the comfort of our backyard. So take advantage of it!

The downside for many people is that one needs a telescope to really enjoy it. Using your own scope or one wrestled from a friend or local astronomy club, there are several things to look for in a backyard sighting.

One can see Mars' polar ice caps standing out white against the rest of the planet. They are made of combinations of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide, and they shrink and grow with the seasons.

There are geographic areas all over the Red Planet that reflect different amounts of sunlight and give the surface dark and light detail. Alas, if you are looking for canals you won’t find them. They are the thing of myth and legend.

It is probably important to start observing even before Mars gets to its closest approach on the 27th. This is because of the dreaded Martian dust storms that kick up as the weather changes there at this time of its year. These storms can literally cover the entire planet, erasing the detail that makes Mars watching so interesting.

You might consider calling a local astronomy club to see if they are hosting any star parties this month. They are usually more than willing to let you and your family sit in on one. And check out the websites of Astronomy or Sky & Telescope magazine to use all their resources --- maps, charts, histories, and useful viewing tips --- to fully enjoy this close encounter of a Martian kind.

Mark Ritter teaches astronomy at Temecula Valley High School and can be reached at mritter@firstlightastro.com.

Posted by Administrator at 2003.08. 2 01:18 PM | Comments (0)



Looking for something?	« July 2003 \| Main \| September 2003 » You Think Things Are Bad Now? The Earth > I have good news and I have bad news. Most people would want to hear the bad news first to get it out of the way, so here it comes. The bad news is that life in the universe is doomed to extinction --- sooner or later. Brutal, cold news that, but it must be told. Assuming for the moment that we don't commit global suicide through our own actions, things are destined to get worse on their own. Just look at the sun. You may have heard that it has still billions of good years left in it before it dies out. That's true. But even before it experiences those last death throes it will probably do us in another way. In the next couple ten thousand years its energy output will increase to such a degree that it will get unbearably hot; "as hot as Palm Springs in the summer, all over the earth" as a scientist friend of mine puts it. And it will just keep getting hotter and hotter ... and hotter. Let's move to a different planet, farther out! Assuming we ever develop a way to get to and survive there, the sun is still doomed to sputter out completely. Let's go to a different star system! Name one. Almost all the stars up there are non-life-support stars. Finding a star similar in properties to our sun means one must also find a life-support planet orbiting around that star. Even if we can find one, and then find a way to travel those dreadful distances, that star is doomed to die too. Assume the miraculous, that we can find a new star with a planet like ours and then get to it! Sorry. Our galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy! In about 3 billion years we will both collide and pretty much assure the destruction of any life in either galaxy. But even if humanity dies out life will persist somewhere! Well ... not quite. Assuming another miracle, that there is life somewhere else out there, our entire universe is going dark. Our universe is expanding. And recent research allows me to expand on that: We are not only expanding, but that expansion is accelerating. We are getting bigger and bigger, faster and faster. If this turns out to be true, then our runaway universe will eventually get to a point that we expand so quickly that stars will fizzle, energy flow will stop, communication of any kind will cease, all conceivable life will end. Depressed? If you put all your hope and faith in only space, time, matter, and energy, you might be. But here is the good news, the positive spin on these impending dooms. Right now, it can't get any better. Those qualities mentioned above --- star life, expansion of the universe, available life-support planets --- and hundreds more are precisely fine-tuned for a wonderful life right now. This universe has been around for about 14 billion years being shaped and formed to perfection. Only in these last tens of thousands of years have things been the most ideal for human life. But now, we see, we are soon to move out of life's "window of time." What to think?! One of the awesome things about astronomy is that it screams out the big questions. We can take off our scientist hat, don our theologian's or philosopher's cap, and go to work. Why are things perfect now, but destined for destruction? Is all of this cosmic happenstance or is there meaning and purpose from above and beyond all this? Those are great starter questions; now go seek and find. The truth is out there. Mark Ritter teaches astronomy at Temecula Valley High School and can be reached at mritter@firstlightastro.com. (Image from Cosmos by Carl Sagan, the painting is by A. Schaller.) Posted by Administrator at 2003.08.30 01:14 PM \| Comments (0) Lyra: For Your Musical Enjoyment Observing > This week we are shopping for musical instruments. And you need look no further than directly above your head tonight at the constellation Lyra, the jeweled instrument of the summer skies. All you need is 15 minutes of time and maybe a little star chart (a printable one provided for you here). Binoculars would help, too. But before we go outside, a little history. Orpheus, one of the sons of the sun god Apollo, could play a mean lyre, boy howdy! His superb playing won him the heart of a nymph, Eurydice. Though a complicated set of circumstances that would spin the head of even the most hardened soap-opera fanatic, Eurydice ends up dying and being sent to the underworld. Smitten Orpheus makes his way down there and, despite the dangers of bargaining with underworld characters, manages to musically finagle an agreement to get his wife out of there. But Orpheus messes up on the way out and Eurydice falls back into that hellhole never to return. He goes into a deep depression, sulkily playing his lyre the whole time. Our hero ends up getting violently murdered by some jealous and drunken Thracian maidens enamored by his music but shunned by him. A sympathetic Jupiter places the lyre in the sky to be immortalized. You thought you had problems. You will find this special place literally directly above your head tonight. Face northeast and look straight up. That very bright star is Vega, aka Alpha Lyrae, the brightest star in Lyra. Vega gets its name, as many stars do, from the Arabs. They called this part of the constellation Al Naar al Waki. Waki eventually evolved into Vega. Vega is a star about 3 times bigger than our sun, only about 25 light years away (very close), and has the distinction of being the first photographed star, way back in 1850. Just "below" Vega is Epsilon Lyrae, a famed Double Double (without the grilled onions). This is actually a double star when seen through your binoculars or telescope. But those two stars also have invisible companions for a total of four stars, all revolving around a common center of gravity. Equidistant from Vega but to the "right" a little is Zeta Lyrae. With Vega and the Double Double it makes a nice triangle. Arabian desert dwellers named this triad as one of their Athafiyy, or Tripods --- three rocks on which nomadic people would place their kettle. Follow a slightly crooked line from Vega to Zeta and just a little further down to Delta Lyrae, a star couple of vastly different color. Delta 1 is a big and hot star, thus it is blue --- blue meaning very hot to astronomers. It is over 1000 light years away. Its reddish and cooler buddy, Delta 2, is 900 light years away but over 300 times bigger than the sun. This is an opportune time to see two of the many colors of stars using nothing more than a pair of binoculars. Now we move to the far end of little Lyra, to the other side of the parallelogram. There are two stars there, brighter Beta and dimmer Gamma. What is fascinating over here is what is stuck between them. There lies M57, the Ring Nebula. It is here that one can see (with a telescope!) the remains of a star that shed its outer layers about 20,000 years ago. These thrown-off gas layers are lit up by radiation flowing profusely from the white-hot core of the deed star --- a "white dwarf" --- that still remains in the center of the Ring. Lyra is full of fun for everyone. Get out his week and see some beautiful music. Mark Ritter teaches astronomy at Temecula Valley High School and can be reached at mritter@firstlightastro.com. Posted by Administrator at 2003.08.16 01:16 PM \| Comments (0) Another Martian Invasion is Underway! > Suspended over the eastern horizon later this evening is a bright pinkish light. It hovers there, menacingly, rising slowly in the sky as night progresses. Look out! Another Martian invasion in underway! Mars wins the lead role in Amazing Sky Objects of the Month for August. This is not our typical biennial appearance of our nearest outside neighbor, oh no. This is its closest approach in about 50,000 years, farther back than most of us can remember. So why so close this year? It has to do with a rare position of orbits, ours and Mars. Mars doesn’t travel in a perfectly circular orbit; actually, no planet does. Its orbit, like ours, is elliptical, like a slightly stretched out circle. As a result, sometimes it is closer to the sun, sometimes farther. It is nearly at its closet approach to the sun now. Add to that another important event: Mars is also near opposition. That is, it is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth as the sun. Opposition is the time we get as close as we can to an outside planet. Follow the logic here. If Mars is as close to the sun as it gets, and if we are then between the sun and Mars, it follows that we are now about as close to Mars as we can ever get. During a distant opposition, when we are between the sun and Mars but Mars is not at its close approach to the sun, it can be over 60 millions miles away. But in this alignment it creeps up to a stone’s throw 35 million miles! Translation: big and bright! It is this closeness that gets astronomers and planet lovers all giddy this month. Yes, even at this proximity Mars is still a small planet. We can’t get around that. Even as big as it seems this month, it is only about the size of a quarter held up more than 2 football fields away. But this is the best time in our lifetime to get a close-up glimpse from the comfort of our backyard. So take advantage of it! The downside for many people is that one needs a telescope to really enjoy it. Using your own scope or one wrestled from a friend or local astronomy club, there are several things to look for in a backyard sighting. One can see Mars' polar ice caps standing out white against the rest of the planet. They are made of combinations of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide, and they shrink and grow with the seasons. There are geographic areas all over the Red Planet that reflect different amounts of sunlight and give the surface dark and light detail. Alas, if you are looking for canals you won’t find them. They are the thing of myth and legend. It is probably important to start observing even before Mars gets to its closest approach on the 27th. This is because of the dreaded Martian dust storms that kick up as the weather changes there at this time of its year. These storms can literally cover the entire planet, erasing the detail that makes Mars watching so interesting. You might consider calling a local astronomy club to see if they are hosting any star parties this month. They are usually more than willing to let you and your family sit in on one. And check out the websites of Astronomy or Sky & Telescope magazine to use all their resources --- maps, charts, histories, and useful viewing tips --- to fully enjoy this close encounter of a Martian kind. Mark Ritter teaches astronomy at Temecula Valley High School and can be reached at mritter@firstlightastro.com. Posted by Administrator at 2003.08. 2 01:18 PM \| Comments (0)
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