What's Up? Be Grateful for Earth's Forgiving Weather

Welcome back to What's Up?

The summer has finally provided us with some needed sunshine and clear nights allowing the Athena Community Astronomy Club to get in some boardwalk viewings. We go out to show the public the skies every clear Wednesday evening starting at 9pm.

During a recent viewing, August 26, the moon was starting to set in the western horizon. As it started sinking below the horizon it became a magnificent deep red. It looked very much like descriptions of the legendary burning ship reported to be seen occasionally over the Northumberland Strait.

As the crescent moon was dipping below the horizon it even resembled a curved sail, not too hard to imagine why someone would think of it as a burning ship.

Get out to take a look at the skies while you can, because winter will soon be rolling in and there's nothing more uncomfortable than standing out in the cold while trying to enjoy the beauty of night sky.

Weather in Canada can seem very harsh at times, with rain, heat waves in the Summer, frigid temperatures in the Winter, with sometimes ridiculous amounts of snow falling, and even the odd hurricane thrown in!

Earth's weather can seem pretty intense and hard to deal with, but it is nothing compared to the intense weather on the other planets in our solar system.

Let's take a quick tour of the weather conditions on other planets throughout the inner solar system.

On Earth, temperatures have reached 57º C ( 134º F) in Death Valley, California and have plummeted to a frigid -89º C (-130º F) in Antarctica. The fastest wind speed ever recorded on Earth was - hold onto your umbrella - a blistering 508 km/h (318 mph)!

The closest planet to the Sun, Mercury, is the second hottest planet in the solar system. It is a scorched and cratered planet with little or no atmosphere. The temperature during its day can reach 420º C (788º F) while at night the Mercury in a thermometer will plunge to as cold as -220º C (-364º F).

Venus is even more hostile, with a nearly constant temperature of 460º C (860º F), so hot that lead runs like water. It is so hot because of the runaway greenhouse effect, which is a reminder of what extreme global warming can look like.

The atmosphere is as dense as 92 Earth atmospheres with a pressure at the planet's surface similar to being under 1 km of ocean water here on Earth. If the heat and pressure weren't bad enough, it rains sulfuric acid!

After Venus, we fly by Earth and head out farther from the sun to check out the Martian weather.

Since Mars is farther from the Sun than the Earth and is much smaller it is very cold. Winter temperatures can dip as low as -140º C (-220º F) but throughout the year Mars has an average planet-wide temperature of a toasty -55ºC (-67º F).

Mars isn't always cold. In some regions near the equator temperatures have climbed up to 32º C (89.6º F) for short periods. These warm temperatures help spawn large dust storms and even cyclones that are similar to our hurricanes.

Let's hope our hurricanes stay away so we can have some clear skies for the remainder of the International Year of Astronomy.

To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy and Galileo first discovering the moons of Jupiter 400 years ago, come by the Summerside baywalk any clear Wednesday this month sometime around 9pm. Some members from the Athena Community Astronomy Club will be there to show Jupiter and its moons, Earth's moon, and other celestial objects through a telescope, to anyone interested.

The Moon was full on September 4 and will dwindle to a new moon by September 18.

Jupiter will be the brightest object in the South-East after sunset.

Finally, to finish off this month, is the monthly meeting of the Athena Community Astronomy Club. It will be held 7pm to 9pm on September 27 at the International Children's Memorial Place (Scales Pond, near Kinkora). There will be a sky viewing afterwards if weather permits.

Until next month, just look up!

Hey Kids...

Astronomers have just discovered what they call a suicidal planet around a distant star in our galaxy. It's a gas giant planet ten times the size of Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system. This enormous planet orbits its star in slightly less than one Earth day. It is slowly spiraling inwards and will finally fall into its star within a million years. Astronomers have discovered 370 planets around other stars so far, who knows what they will discover next!

NASA Funding is Spread too Thin

I've always known that NASA has been underfunded since the end of the Apollo program but that has been brought to extremes lately as NASA's budget has shrunk and inflation has reduced it further.

Early in Obama's first term as United States' president, he set out a group of people to do a review of NASA and in particular, the Constellation program.

The Constellation program was created in 2005 and initiated by the Bush administration to move humankind back to the moon, Mars, and beyond. It consists of the Ares I which launches the Orion crew capsule into space, the Ares V heavy cargo lifter, the Altair moon lander, and a whole new set of space suits, rovers, and other gear. The first moon landing is currently planned for 2020.

The budget required to develop the new Ares I and Ares V rockets was 108 billion dollars over 10 years. This budget has been hacked at and cut down by 30 billion dollars!

Obama's panel found that the Ares V won't be completed until 2028 on the current budget and moon landings won't be possible until early 2030s at the earliest. NASA was hoping on launching manned missions to Mars by the late 2030s.

Sally Ride, a former astronaut and one of the panel members concluded, “We can't do this program in this budget. This budget is simply not friendly to exploration.”

The panel's final review is due out by the end of August.

NASA has already put nine billion dollars into the Constellation program and is ready to test launch a mock-up of the Ares I crew launcher by October 2009.

Personally, I think that NASA should continue to develop the Ares I and use it until SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy Launcher is ready for crew. Then, NASA should scrap Ares I and continue development on the Ares V heavy cargo launcher. The Falcon 9 will cost around 50 million dollars per launch (the regular Falcon 9 costs only 27 million dollars per launch) while the Ares I will cost many hundreds of millions of dollars per launch.

The reason NASA needs to continue development of the Ares I if they want to launch the Ares V is because the Ares V requires many of the technologies that are being developed for the Ares I.

Another area where NASA's budget is stretched far too thin is the search for potentially hazardous asteroids. NASA has been mandated by Congress to find 90% of all Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that are 140 metres wide or larger by 2020.

Congress hasn't even approved any extra funding for NASA to do this, not one cent! This has lead to NASA taking money from other programs within NASA to help cover searched costs. Even with the NEO search program “stealing” money from other programs, NASA will finish the search by 2030, ten years late!

To give some perspective on how powerful an asteroid impact can be, think of Beringer Crater in Arizona. It is believed that the asteroid that impacted there was only 20 metres across, but hit so hard and so fast that the impact had the force of at least 150 times that of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. That single atomic bomb released more energy than ALL of World War I and World War II COMBINED.

These two extremely important programs aren't even close to being adequately funded yet Congress acts as if it's business as usual. More money is spent every year on pizza ($27 billion) or underage drinking ($23 billion) than the entire American space program!

It all comes down to this: stop cutting NASA's budget and instead cut or restrict spending (just a little bit) on something such as the defense program (the Americans' defense budget is more than half of the world's defense spending).

Start spending on science, new technology, and exploration and move humankind off of this tiny blue dot!

The Ares I-X test rocket shortly after completion in August 2009.

Check out http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Ares%20I-X/ to follow the Ares I-X test launch and http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Constellation to keep up to date with the Constellation program.

What's Up? 40 Years After the "Giant Leap for Mankind"

Welcome back to What's Up?

It was last month, on July 20, 40 years ago, that Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on another world.

The Apollo program was the greatest burst of technological development since human civilization began, yet it took only five percent of the yearly federal budget to accomplish this great feat. NASA's current budget stands at less than 17 billion dollars, half of a percent of the entire federal budget.

Other than beating the Soviets to the moon, the Apollo program produced much more than pretty pictures and a few hundred kilograms of moon rocks.

At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 workers and used 20,000 businesses and universities. The Apollo program provided a great economic boost for the United States and provided many technological benefits. Spin-offs from Apollo include improved kidney dialysis (basically a blood filter), fire resistant materials used in firefighters' suits, hazardous gas detectors, insulation used in oil pipelines, and the first flight guidance system, just to name a few.

The Moon landings inspired the next generation of scientists and engineers who have allowed for the many scientific discoveries and technological innovations made in the last few decades.

About 380 kilograms (840 pounds) of soil and rocks were returned from the Moon. What were they made of and what could that possibly tell us about the Moon?

While there was no mozzarella or cheddar, there were many similarities to Earth's composition. The amount of oxygen and iron in the rocks strongly supports the idea that the moon was formed when the Earth was hit with an object the size of Mars. The impact splashed material into orbit around the Earth. The material eventually cooled and clumped together to form the Moon.

The idea of going to the Moon has been around for hundreds of years, if not thousands, but actual plans to visit the moon weren't finalized until the early 1960s. John F. Kennedy set a goal of reaching the Moon by the end of the decade. Meeting this goal was one of the greatest challenges that a single nation has ever faced.

The rocket required for the mission, the Saturn V, was not even finished on paper yet, let alone a working model. The parts for the computers that were needed to guide the astronauts to the Moon were not even invented yet, the engineers just had to hope they would be invented in the next few years. The United States had barely even placed an astronaut into space before Kennedy backed Apollo in 1961.

Apollo spurred many great innovations in technology, inspired millions around the world, and did some great science along the way. Who knows what the next generation of Moon landings and maybe even Mars landings will bring.

Looking up at the Moon this month we will remember when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon 40 years ago.

While we're looking up at the Moon, it will be full on August 5 and then become a New Moon by August 20.

The Perseid meteor shower, the best meteor shower of the year with up to 100 meteors visible per hour, will be best seen on the night of August 11 and the very early morning of August 12.

Jupiter will be fairly low in the South-East during most of the month after sunset. It will appear brighter to the naked-eye and larger through a telescope than it has been since October 1999.

The Athena Community Astronomy Club will continue to be on the Summerside boardwalk every clear Wednesday evening showing anyone interested views through telescopes and answering any questions that may be asked.

To finish off the month is the astronomy club's monthly meeting on the last Sunday of the month, August 30, at the Wilmot Community Center.

Until next month, just look up!

Hey Kids...

On July 15 Jupiter got smacked with a large asteroid or comet. No one actually saw it before or when it hit. What astronomers did see was a big darkened patch in Jupiter's clouds after it hit. Something like this happened only fifteen years ago when a comet came in, broke up into little pieces, and one after another, smashed into Jupiter. If one heads our way hopefully we will have a bit of warning so we can get rid of it, scientists will just have to be sure to keep their eye on the "ball!"

What's Up? Quick and Easy Viewing

Welcome back to What's Up?

NASA returned to the moon last month with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the first mission to the moon in almost 40 years. This robotic mission will orbit the moon, map it in great detail, image the Apollo landing sites, and look for pockets of water ice hidden in deep craters. It will also look for good landing sites for the manned moon missions that will take place a decade from now.

There are many exciting spacecraft missions going on right now as well as giant telescopes taking beautiful images of distant planets, stars, nebula, and galaxies. Although reading about all of the great observations and discoveries of distant worlds is fascinating, sometimes seeing is believing.

What can be seen with just your eyes or maybe through a small pair of binoculars?

With only your eyes, you can check out the constellations, see the five brightest planets, and even spot a few of the brighter nebulae (plural of nebula) and star clusters. The nebulae and star clusters will look like dim smudges but being able to see these objects that are so far away (it takes thousands of years for their light to travel here) is quite remarkable.

On a clear night, a dark sky site (anywhere on PEI a few kilometers away from a large town) will show you the Milky Way as a faint band of light stretching across the sky, thousands of stars, and a few smudges of light that are the nebulae and star clusters.

A personal favourite dark site of mine is at the International Children's Memorial Place (in Scales Pond provincial park). The skies there are extremely dark, the trees don't block too much of the sky, and the air is very still. Frost and dew can be an issue but the darkness and stillness allow for some of the best viewing I've ever had.

Recently at the International Children's Memorial Place the dam overflowed and finally burst, creating a large hole in the dam wall. What used to be a beautiful pond is now nothing but a trickle of water through a silt-laden mess. The silt is a lot like quicksand and poses a serious hazard. Hopefully the government will fix the dam as soon as possible and return the pond to its natural state.

Once you've found a nice spot to view the sky you can start to find many things in the sky. At the moment Saturn is low in the Western sky right after sunset.

If you have a pair of binoculars, now is the time to get them out. All binoculars have two numbers, such as 7x35, for example. The 7 stands for how many times bigger the object will look and 35 is the diameter of the lens. 8x50 or 10x50 binoculars are preferred by most amateur astronomers.

Saturn through 10x50 binoculars may yield a hint of the rings around Saturn, but a small telescope will show them as a little donut around the planet. Through a larger telescope you may even be able to see a gap in the rings. This gap is called the Cassini division.

Later in the month, you'll be able to spot Jupiter rising in the West around 10:30. It will be the brightest object in the sky at the time, except for the moon. Jupiter displays very little color to the unaided eye, but may appear yellowish.

Through 8x50 binoculars, Jupiter will appear as a small white-yellow disk. What is really neat about viewing Jupiter is its four moons. These moons, called the Galilean moons, are named after the man who discovered them 400 years ago, and appear as four tiny stars in a line nearby Jupiter. The position of the moons can be seen to change noticeably night by night.

Carefully looking through a small telescope, some detail on Jupiter's disk may be apparent. There will likely be two stripes going across the planet. These are giant bands in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.

You may also see the Great Red Spot (a storm three times the size of the Earth that is at least 400 years old). Although the Great Red Spot used to be easily visible, it has faded in recent years and is very hard to spot.

If you do see the Great Red Spot you'll be able to see spot run across Jupiter's disk through the night because Jupiter rotates in only 8 hours.

Earth's moon is full on July 7th and will diminish to a New Moon by July 21st.

Space Shuttle mission STS-127 with Canadian astronaut Julie Payette onboard is scheduled to launch on July 11th.

July 20th marks the 40 anniversary of the first man walking on the moon. It was the first of six successful moon landings from 1969 to 1972.

The Athena Community Astronomy Club will continue its weekly viewing sessions. We'll be set up every clear Wednesday evening on the Summerside boardwalk by the shipyard market building.

To finish off the month is the Athena Community Astronomy Club's monthly meeting. As usual, it will be held the last Sunday of the month on July 26th.

Until next month, just look up!

Hey Kids...

July 20th marks the 40th anniversary of humankind first stepping on the moon. Did you know that the astronauts were put in a small chamber for three weeks when they got back to Earth? They were isolated like this because there were fears that the astronauts could be carrying deadly germs from the moon. We now know that there is no life on the moon and that the moon is definitely not made of cheese!

We're Finally Going Back to the Moon

With the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America began. Each tried to do something new in space before the other. In the beginning the Soviets were well ahead. They even got the first person into space, but this didn’t deter the Americans.

Before America put a single person into orbit they had created the Apollo program to send people to the Moon. This wasn’t just for science or for exploration; it was to show America's superiority over Russia and the world.

Later, when the United States’ Space Shuttle program started, the Soviets tried to keep up, but the Soviet Union crumbled and all plans were abandoned. This effectively ended the space race. After that, the United States and Russia have cooperated in low Earth orbit with the Russian Mir space station and more recently the International Space Station.

There hasn’t been any political motivation to reach farther, go back to the Moon, visit the asteroids, or go to Mars. NASA is currently planned to return to the Moon in 2020 and to go to Mars by the late 2030’s. It won’t be a space race, but it will still be exciting as the first person leaves Earth, crosses millions of miles of empty space, and sets foot on another planet for the very first time.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the first NASA spacecraft sent to the moon in many years, is expected to launch June 17, 2009. It will spend its time orbiting the Moon, mapping its surface in high detail and searching for water hidden in the dark lunar craters near the southern and northern poles. It carries with it a probe which will impact the moon. The dust plume that will result from the impact will be examined for water and other compounds.

NASA's Constellation program is making fairly good progress with the first test launch of the Ares I-X rocket planned for this summer. The rocket will test the main rockets and will have weight added to the top to simulate the crew and a payload. It will fly on a ballistic trajectory and land in the Atlantic Ocean. The first manned flight of the Ares-I will occur no earlier than 2014 and the first test flight of the Ares-V heavy lift rocket will happen no earlier than 2018.

The Immensity of the Universe is Staggering

This video puts the size of the planets, stars, and the universe in perspective for anyone who believes that they live at the center of the universe.

What's Up? What Does it Take to Become an Astronaut?

Welcome back to What's Up?

Last month, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched, carrying Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk along with two other astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This brings the ISS crew up to six for the first time ever. Another first was having a member from all five contributing space agencies in space at the same time. They are NASA (United States), the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japanese space agency (JAXA), and the Russian space agency (RKA).

Astronauts are routinely seen on the news floating around, smiling, and generally having a good time. It sometimes looks like it would be rather easy to become an astronaut. This brings up the question, what does it actually take to become an astronaut?

In order to apply to be a Canadian astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) you must be in great physical condition. To meet the minimum physical and medical requirements you must be between five feet and six feet three inches tall, have 20/20 vision (glasses are allowed), great hearing, and you must have a healthy blood pressure (and preferably not prone to panic attacks).

On the intellectual side you must either have a license to practice medicine, a bachelor's degree in science or engineering, or preferably, a PhD (highest degree possible) in a scientific field. Having a pilot license or being a fighter pilot can really help.

After the applicants are narrowed down to a few hundred, many psychological tests are done to see who is fit to spend long durations of time in a confined space with other people.

Once that is done, more psychological tests are done, as well as physical tests, such as swimming, running, strength, endurance, etc. Mental tests as well as emergency training drills dealing with fire, being trapped underwater, and survival tests are conducted.

The CSA then narrows the choices down to 16 highly skilled people. They get to go through parts of astronaut training. More physical and mental tests are conducted, until finally, after months of testing, two astronauts are chosen.

The CSA just selected two new astronauts on May 13 from a list of over 5000 applicants. It was the first Canadian astronaut recruitment in 16 years. The two selected Canadians are extremely intelligent, physically fit, and are already highly accomplished people.

The two new astronauts are Jeremy Hansen and David Saint-Jacques.

Jeremy Hanson, from London, Ontario, has a Bachelor of Science in Space Science and is an award-winning fighter pilot and is currently working as a combat operations officer in Cold Lake, Alberta.

The other astronaut chosen, David Saint-Jacques has a PhD in astrophysics and is currently a medical doctor working in Quebec.

Half of the 16 candidates are military pilots, some have a medical degree, and nearly all have a degree in science or engineering.

Any person who wishes to become an astronaut must be highly intelligent, physically fit, a great team worker, and a very skilled problem solver.

These are the people who are risking their lives to move humankind from this speck of dust we call Earth, to the final frontier.

There is nothing stopping those of us who wish to look upward, so let's see what's up this month.

The Space Shuttle will launch this month, on June 13 and will head up to the International Space Station.

NASA is also set to launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 17. It is the first probe that NASA has sent to the Moon in many years. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will map the moon in detail and look for water ice that may be lurking in deep craters near the north and south poles of the moon.

The moon will start off the month as a full moon on June 7. This will change to a new moon by June 22.

Saturn will spend the month in the south-western sky after sunset. It has been dimming and will continue to dim for the next few months. If you have access to a telescope this month, check out the rings, they are very close to being edge on and appear much thinner than usual.

Jupiter will be rising shortly after midnight and will be the brightest object in the sky (except for the moon) at the time.

Venus and Mars will spend the month next to each other in the east just before sunrise. Venus will be a brilliant white or yellow while Mars will be a dim orange.

Starting June 17, the Athena Community Astronomy Club will be spending every Wednesday evening this summer on the Summerside boardwalk near the shipyard market. Come by for a peek through a telescope at Saturn, the Moon, or whatever else may be up in the sky that night.

Finally, the monthly club meeting will be held on June 28 at the Wilmot Community Center.

Until next month, just look up!

Hey Kids...

One of the Mars rovers, named Spirit, a remote controlled vehicle with cameras, is stuck in very slippery sand. They used the robotic arm with a camera at the end to take a look at how far the wheels have sunken into the sand. As well as being stuck, the solar panels that Spirit uses to get energy from the sun were covered in dust. Recently a gentle gust of wind blew them clean. It appears that Spirit has a good chance of getting unstuck. Just remember, when traveling to Mars, make sure you bring your winter tires.