Phil Plait Commentary on "Death from the Skies"

Phil Plait talks about his latest book, "Death from the Skies" and some of the really cool ways that space could kill us.

What's Up? The Outer Solar System's Frigid, Yet Fierce Weather

Welcome back to What's Up?

Now that Summer has come to an end, the Athena Community Astronomy Club has wrapped up their weekly boardwalk viewings. Thanks to club members who made this possible and to everyone who dropped by to take a peek through one of the telescopes.

Although the weather wasn't great throughout the Summer, it doesn't even compare to the weather on other planets. Let's continue last month's tour of the weather on other planets in our solar system.

Last month we looked at the inner solar system, the rocky planets, and this month we'll continue to move outwards into the outer solar system.

Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun, is the largest planet in the solar system. If you were to take all of the planets, comets, and asteroids, and put them together, they would easily fit within Jupiter.

Jupiter's massive size also comes with intense weather. A normal wind-speed that you could expect "on" Jupiter (it is made of gas and has no solid surface) is about 360 km/h (225 mph). The fastest wind speed ever recorded on Jupiter was an astounding 620 km/h (390 mph). Combined with Jupiter's -150°C (-238°F) "surface" temperature, there would be one nasty windchill!

Category five hurricanes are dwarfed by all of Jupiter's storms. It's biggest storm is currently twice the volume of the Earth and has been going non-stop for at least 400 years! This storm has sustained wind-speeds of 430 km/h (270 mph)! Another thing to watch out for: lightning, and lots of it. From Jupiter's night side, space probes have watched some of the largest lightning storms ever seen.

Moving on to Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun, and the second largest, is a planet with some of the fastest winds in the solar system. In many regions there are sustained winds of up to 1760 km/h (1100 mph)! Combined with it being a gas giant like Jupiter (no solid surface), intense lightning, and a frigid average temperature of -184°C (-300°F), Saturn is not a good place to plan this year's vacation!

The next planet from the Sun, Uranus, another gas giant, is the third largest planet and doesn't have much better weather than Saturn. Even though it is the second coldest planet, at -210°C (-350°F), it still boasts impressive wind-speeds of up to 825 km/h (515 mph).

Last but not least, Neptune, the eighth and final planet from the Sun, is also the coldest, with an average temperature of -220°C (-370°F)! For some reason that has eluded scientists so far, the coldest planet in the solar system also has the fastest winds. These winds blow around the planet at a break-neck speed of up to 2100km/h (1300 mph), almost 600 meters (1800 feet) per second!

Pluto, now a dwarf planet, is so small it barely holds on to an "atmosphere" that is 700,000 times thinner than the Earth's atmosphere. It is so cold here, -235°C (-390°F), that its atmosphere (mainly Nitrogen), literally freezes out of the sky and snows to the ground!

Before Pluto reminds us of our upcoming winter, let's check out what's up.

The Moon will be full October 4 and will diminish to a new Moon by October 18.

Jupiter will be in the South in the early evening sky, it will be the brightest "star-like" object in the sky.

In the morning sky, half an hour or so before sunrise, will be Venus, Saturn, and Mercury. Venus will be by far the brightest object in the sky (other than the Moon and the Sun). Saturn and Mercury will be fairly dim and hard to pick out, Mercury will be only staying around during early October. All three can be seen in the East.

The Athena Community Astronomy Club's monthly meeting will be held on the last Sunday of the month, October 25, at the Wilmot Community Centre in Summerside. It starts at 7pm and runs to 9pm. All guests are welcome.

The astronomy club's website, although a work in progress, is up and running. Check it out at:http://acac.wetpaint.com.

Until next month, just look up!

Hey Kids...

Last month, NASA scientists announced the discovery of water on the Moon. The Moon rocks brought back in the 1960's contained no water but now the scientists have found water all over the Moon. It's not much, but it will be enough to allow future colonies on the Moon to mine water from the soil. People living on the Moon may seem pretty far off, but NASA is planning on returning people to the Moon by 2020. Living on the Moon may not be science fiction for much longer!

The Importance of Space Exploration to the World

Space exploration is extremely important to the world. One of the main reasons why it is so important is because it fulfills human curiosity and increases our understanding of how the universe works. Space exploration has helped discover how the dinosaurs went extinct, how the moon formed, and how nuclear reactions work, just to name a few.

A second major reason why space exploration is so important is because it provides every person with a sense of where they stand in the universe. It is very humbling to know the Earth is a tiny speck orbiting a mediocre yellow-dwarf star nowhere near the centre of our galaxy, let alone the universe!

A third reason why space exploration is so important is the spinoffs created from new technologies that are developed. From space exploration technology thousands of products have been developed such as digital cameras, cordless power-tools, memory foam, and UV-proof sunglasses. These three reasons are just a few of the reasons why space exploration is so important to the world.

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!