By ESO, Garching, Germany — Published: October 4, 2011

Humanity’s most complex ground-based astronomy observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has officially opened for astronomers. The first released image, from a telescope still under construction, reveals a view of the universe that cannot be seen by visible-light and infrared telescopes. Thousands of scientists from around the world competed to be among the first few researchers to explore some of the darkest, coldest, furthest, and most hidden secrets of the cosmos with this new astronomical tool.
At present, around a third of ALMA’s eventual 66 radio antennas, with separations up to only 410 feet (125 meters) rather than the maximum 10 miles (16 kilometers), make up the growing array on the Chajnantor plateau in northern Chile at an elevation of 16,400 feet (5,000 meters). And yet, even under construction, ALMA has become the best telescope of its kind — as reflected by the extraordinary number of astronomers who requested time to observe with it.
“Even in this very early phase, ALMA already outperforms all other submillimeter arrays. Reaching this milestone is a tribute to the impressive efforts of the many scientists and engineers in the ALMA partner regions around the world who made it possible,” said Tim de Zeeuw from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
ALMA observes the universe in light with millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, roughly 1,000 times longer than visible-light wavelengths. Using these longer wavelengths allows astronomers to study extremely cold objects in space — such as the dense clouds of cosmic dust and gas from which stars and planets form — as well as distant objects in the early universe.
ALMA is radically different from visible-light and infrared telescopes. It is an array of linked antennas acting as a single giant telescope, and it detects much longer wavelengths than those of visible light. Its images, therefore, look quite unlike more familiar pictures of the cosmos.
The ALMA team has been busy testing the observatory’s systems over the past few months in preparation for the first round of scientific observations known as…….

Click here to read the full article on the Astronomy website…

The impact of a coronal mass ejection resulted in strong compression of our planet’s magnetosphere.

By NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland — Published: September 27, 2011

Sunspot 1302 has already produced two X-flares (X1.4 on September 22 and X1.9 on September 24). Each of the dark cores in this image from SDO is larger than Earth, and the entire active region stretches more than 62,00 miles (100,000 km) from end to end.
Photo by NASA/SDO/HMI
A strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm is subsiding following the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME) at approximately 8:15 a.m. EDT September 26. The Goddard Space Weather Lab reported a strong compression of Earth’s magnetosphere. Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma penetrated close to geosynchronous orbit at 9 a.m. Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields. Clear locations as far south as the northern United States were witness to aurorae due to the storm. Skywatchers at the highest latitudes should remain alert for northern lights as Earth’s magnetic field continues to reverberate from the CME impact.
Behemoth sunspot 1302 unleashed another strong flare on Saturday morning — an X1.9-category blast at 5:40 a.m. EDT. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash.
The movie also shows a shadowy shock wave racing away from the blast site. This is a sign that the blast produced a coronal mass ejection (CME) that delivered the glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field yesterday.
Since the X1.9-flare, active region (AR) 1302 has unleashed M8.6 and M7.4 flares on September 24 and an M8.8 flare early on September 25. None of the blasts have been squarely Earth-directed, but this could change as the sunspot turns toward our planet in the days ahead. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40 percent chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours. Any such eruptions would be Earth-directed as the sunspot crosses the center of the solar disk. ………

Click here to read the full article in the Astronomy.com website

A huge doughnut-shaped cloud of water vapor created by the moon encircles Saturn.

By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California — Published: September 22, 2011

Water vapor and ice erupt from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, the source of a newly discovered doughnut-shaped cloud around Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteChalk up one more feat for Saturn’s intriguing moon Enceladus. The small, dynamic moon spews out dramatic plumes of water vapor and ice — first seen by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2005. It possesses simple organic particles and may house liquid water beneath its surface. Its geyser-like jets create a gigantic halo of ice, dust, and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn’s E ring. Now, thanks again to those icy jets, Enceladus is the only moon in our solar system known to substantially influence the chemical composition of its parent planet.
In June, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that its Herschel Space Observatory, which has important NASA contributions, had found a huge doughnut-shaped cloud, or torus, of water vapor created by Enceladus encircling Saturn. The torus is more than 373,000 miles (600,000 kilometers) across and about 37,000 miles (60,000 km) thick. It appears to be the source of water in Saturn’s upper atmosphere.
Though it is enormous, the cloud had not been seen before because water vapor is transparent at most visible wavelengths of light, but Herschel could see the cloud with its infrared detectors. “Herschel is providing dramatic new information about everything from planets in our own solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away,” said Paul Goldsmith from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The discovery of the torus around Saturn did not come as a complete surprise. NASA’s Voyager and Hubble missions had given scientists hints of the existence of water-bearing clouds around Saturn. Then in 1997, ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory confirmed the presence of water in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. NASA’s Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite also observed water emission from Saturn at far-infrared wavelengths in 1999.
While a small amount of gaseous water is locked in the warm, lower layers of Saturn’s atmosphere, it can’t rise to the colder, higher levels. To get to the upper atmosphere, water molecules must be entering Saturn’s atmosphere from somewhere in space. But from where and how? Those were mysteries until now.
Build the model, and the data will come The answer came by combining Herschel’s observations of the giant cloud of water vapor created by Enceladus’ plumes with computer models that researchers had already been developing to describe the behavior of water molecules in clouds around Saturn. …….

Click here to read the full article in the Astronomy.com website

Scientists unveiled a ready-made method for detecting the collision of stars with an elusive type of black hole.
By Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey — Published: September 22, 2011

Princeton and New York University researchers have simulated the effect of a primordial black hole passing through a star. Primordial black holes are among the objects hypothesized to make up dark matter — the invisible substance thought to constitute much of the universe — and astronomers could use the researchers' model to finally observe the elusive black holes. This image illustrates the resulting vibration waves as a primordial black hole (white dots) passes through the center of a star. The different colors correspond to the density of the primordial black hole and strength of the vibration. Credit: Tim Sandstrom

Princeton and New York University researchers have simulated the effect of a primordial black hole passing through a star. Primordial black holes are among the objects hypothesized to make up dark matter — the invisible substance thought to constitute much of the universe — and astronomers could use the researchers’ model to finally observe the elusive black holes. This image illustrates the resulting vibration waves as a primordial black hole (white dots) passes through the center of a star. The different colors correspond to the density of the primordial black hole and strength of the vibration. Credit: Tim SandstromScientists looking to capture evidence of dark matter — the invisible substance thought to constitute much of the universe — may find a helpful tool in the recent work of researchers from Princeton University in New Jersey and New York University (NYU).
The team unveiled a ready-made method for detecting the collision of stars with an elusive type of black hole, which is on the short list of objects believed to make up dark matter. Such a discovery could serve as observable proof of dark matter and provide a much deeper understanding of the universe’s inner workings.
Researchers Shravan Hanasoge from Princeton and Michael Kesden from NYU simulated the visible result of a primordial black hole passing through a star. Theoretical remnants of the Big Bang, primordial black holes possess the properties of dark matter and are one of various cosmic objects thought to be the source of the mysterious substance, but they have yet to be observed.
If primordial black holes are the source of dark matter, the sheer number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy — roughly 100 billion — makes an encounter inevitable. Unlike larger black holes, a primordial black hole would not “swallow” the star, but instead cause noticeable vibrations on the star’s surface as it passes through.
Thus, as the number of telescopes and satellites probing distant stars in the Milky Way increases, so do the chances to observe a primordial black hole as it slides harmlessly through one of the galaxy’s billions of stars, Hanasoge said. The computer model developed by Hanasoge and Kesden can be used with these current solar-observation techniques to offer a more precise method for detecting primordial black holes than existing tools.
“If astronomers were just looking at the Sun, the chances of observing a primordial black hole are not likely, but people are now looking at thousands of stars,” Hanasoge said.
“There’s a larger question of what constitutes dark matter, and, if a primordial black hole were found, it would fit all the parameters — they have mass and force so they directly influence other objects in the universe, and they don’t interact with light. Identifying one would have profound implications for our understanding of the early universe and dark matter.” ………

To read the full article click here

Hermanus Observatory aerial view

Hermanus Observatory SW view

Hermanus Observatory SE view

THE HERMANUS ASTRONOMY EDUCATION CENTRE & OBSERVATORY

The physical facility

Hermanus’s Astronomy Education Centre & Observatory (AEC&O) comprises four different structures for differentiated and specific purposes:

1. A Φ16m (diameter) hall which will serve as display area and meeting or presentation facility with a kitchenette, toilets and office.  The walls and slightly domed ceiling will be utilised for thematic astronomy educational displays.
2. A three-tiered open-air amphitheatre catering for 120 people on top of the hall (to reduce the Centre’s footprint) will be used for conducting night presentations – weather permitting! – and star-gazing sessions, or day-time astronomy, fynbos and/or other science lectures or classes.  The seats will be thermally neutral and the floor grassed to avoid heat-induced vortices which are detrimental to seeing, since 4 – 5 electrically serviced telescope piers will be built into the floor for members to mount their telescopes on.

Similar to Stonehenge, Avebury or similar ancient astronomy sites the directions of cardinal points will be indicated through slits in the amphitheatre seats at the summer and winter solstice and equinox sunrises and sunsets.  This will undoubtedly become a popular venue from which science and geography classes will be able to observe the sunrises and sunsets at these important milestones on the astronomical calendar.

The fact that the entrance axis of the Centre coincides exactly with the direction of the summer solstice is either a fortuitous coincidence, benign blessing or both!

The outside walls of both the hall and amphitheatre will be bermed and planted with indigenous plants to ensure that the overall structure blends in with the environment in an aesthetically pleasing manner.  Ironically, the only visible infringement on the natural environment will be an (initially) “unusually uniform” green area, which will “roughen” and blend more completely with the environment with the passage of time.

1. A 6 x 15m observatory with roll-off roofs which will be able to house three telescopes and serve as convenient base from which to conduct both casual and serious observation sessions.  As with the hall and amphitheatre the non-South walls will be bermed and, like the roll-off roof, vegetated.

1. There will also be Sunrise-Movement Wall on which the directions of sunrise over the Walker Bay horizon at various times of the year between summer and winter solstices will be embossed, as viewed from an Observation Rock.  A sundial around the Observation Rock will use the observer as its gnomon, so that the observer’s shadow will indicate the local time in sunny daylight.

A 5 – 8m diameter celestial sphere showing the positions of 15 – 20 of the best-known celestial objects in mid-March, when the dominant winter (Scorpio, Sagittarius) and summer (Orion) constellations are both visible, will be installed over the Observation Rock.

The centre will be self-sufficient service-wise: Solar Panels+Batteries+Invertor for electricity, gas for heating, water tanks (buried in the berms) for water and a conservancy tank for sewerage.

The attached plans and 3D views of the design quantify and visualize the above description.

Educational focus : Daytime astronomy

The Centre will embody the concept of Daytime Astronomy, whereby both casual and pre-meditated visitors to the Centre will learn more about astronomy in a ½ – 4 hour visit than they would normally learn from weeks or even months of night-time observation through telescopes in an/any  observatory.

Because of its proximity to the main lookout point it is certain that the open air amphitheatre will become a popular sun-downer spot.  The HAC therefore plans to teach all visitors to the Centre – whether incidental or intended – two concepts:

1. How and why sundials work.  This implies that the Centre includes as many different types of sundials as can be reasonably incorporated into it.  There will be graphical depictions as well as worded explanations of where the “Time Correction” or “Equation of Time” which is printed/ engraved on every sundial actually come from:

1. The eccentric, as opposed to circular, orbit of the earth around the Sun, and
2. The fact that the earth’s axis of rotation is tilted at 23.44 degrees to the plane of the earth’s (and other planets) orbit around the sun.

1. How celestial objects move across the sky in 24 hours and 12 months.  These concepts will be illustrated b.m.o. of an interactive model of the celestial sphere (similar to the earth’s lines of latitude and longitude) on which the best known constellations and celestial objects will be depicted, probably using optical fibres.  As far as the HAC knows, this will be the first educational model of this nature yet to be constructed anywhere.

Display themes

All possible display areas (walls, slightly domed ceiling, floors, surrounding nature reserve) will be utilised to display static or varying themes.  Static themes will include several Solar System scale models: Hanging from the hall’s ceiling (with a football-sized Sun), in the amphitheatre floor (with the central daylight window for the hall below fixing the Sun’s diameter) or rocks depicting the planets to size and distance along Rotary Drive using the amphitheatre diameter as Solar diameter.  These will practically and repetitively illustrate the difficult-to-grasp concept of the huge scale of the Solar System.

Understandable models to approximately illustrate the size and scale of the Milky Way, the local group of galaxies and the large scale structure of the Universe have yet to be conceptualised and designed, but will be mandatory.

Other thematic concepts such as Lunar Phases and variations, Milestones in Astronomy, Giants in Astronomy (both of whom start with Aristarchus almost 3 centuries BC!), Spectroscopy (the analysis of starlight), the Milky Way structure, Exo-planets, Stellar Evolution (the birth and death of stars) will be displayed either physically through models, wall plastering techniques or electronic means.

It is safe to predict that the AEC&O will become a popular – maybe even mandatory – outing for science classes from local and other Western Cape schools to teach basic astronomy principles in a hands-on, physically modelled manner.

Hopefully this concept, or inevitable refinements thereof, will be replicated in other (all?) parts of the country to stimulate an awareness of astronomy in particular – and science in general – throughout the country.

The “bottom line”

In summary, the proposed Astronomy Education Centre will set a new benchmark in Astronomy and Science awareness and hands-on education in South Africa, which through replication will make a significant contribution to the important and lofty ideal of promoting awareness of and interest in Astronomy and Science in South Africa.

Object type: Exoplanet

Mass: Equal to Jupiter

Cruising through the Milky Way in your reconnaissance craft, your sensors pick up a powerful radio beacon. Altering your course to take a closer look, you find not a ship in distress, but an ultradense sphere of neutrons, packing a sun’s worth of mass into something the size of a city.

This dead remnant of a star glows red like a hot ember, and is spinning 173 times per second, emitting powerful radio beams that sweep across the sky as it rotates. While such pulsars are striking, they are nothing out of the ordinary, so you are about to resume your original course when your eye catches something sparkling near the dim red glow.

A closer look reveals it to be an orb with the mass of Jupiter and about half as wide.

Sensors indicate it’s made of – wait, this can’t be right – diamond! Your instruments don’t lie. You’ve just stumbled upon a 1031-carat diamond.

Glitter ball

Fanciful as it may sound, a team led by Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia may have made a similar discovery – via telescope, not a starship.

Click on the link to read the complete New Scientist article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20832-astrophile-the-diamond-as-big-as-a-planet.html

In a function hosted by Overstrand Mayor Councilor Nicolette Botha-Guthrie on 10th August 2011 a ceremony was held to announce the naming of  the newly-discovered asteroid Hermanus. In the words of John Saunders, Chairman of the Hermanus Astronomy Centre, this is the story of how Hermanus got its own asteroid:

“At one of the early MONET sessions, Rick Hessman via SKYPE from Gottingen and whose “baby” the MONET telescopes are, made a quick comment that now we have mastered MONET maybe we should have an Asteroid named after Hermanus.

That set me thinking and the idea grew within my thoughts over several weeks.

With the idea now gathering some momentum, I e-mailed Dr. Amanda Gulbis in Cape Town, who I knew had been able to name an asteroid as a naming competition as a project with Pinelands school in Capetown, for advice on if and how we could go about it.

Her advice was as follows:-

First, contact someone who has discovered an asteroid and studied its orbit for a few years and then ask for his or her permission to rename it.

In our case one of Amanda contacted one of her close friends David Trilling; a professional astronomer based Tucson, Arizona, to see if he could help. Sure enough David was willing to have Asteroid 260824 he had found in 2005 renamed.

With that in mind, I found that you have to draft a citation to go with the renaming of your asteroid.

In our case my wife Irene and I drafted a four sentence citation and submitted it to Amanda for consideration.

Amanda through her experience explained that it should be just one sentence and so she shortened it as follows:-

The village Hermanuspietersfontein, later shortened to Hermanus, was founded in honour of a man who taught Dutch to farmers’ children. This minor planet is named in recognition of the Hermanus Astronomy Centre’s enthusiasm for astronomy and their dedication to educational outreach in South Africa.

Once this had been agreed, the citation was sent to David Trilling who in turn submitted on our behalf to the Minor Planet Committee in the USA.

The next step was to wait patiently….for approximately three months.

Just over three months later, after a few e-mails, we found that Asteroid 260824 had indeed been renamed “Asteroid Hermanus”.

The asteroid is 2.79 Astronomical Units from the Sun and that is equal to 417.3 million kilometres.

Its orbit is close to circular with an eccentricity of only 0.095.

Its orbit has an inclination 5.13 deg from the lateral ecliptic.

It has a diameter of approximately 1–2 km.

It has a magnitude of 16.6 which means it is very, very faint.

It must be noted that there is only one other Asteroid in South Africa named after a town or city and that is Asteroid Pretoria.

Citation for renaming Asteroid “260824” to “Hermanus”

Click here to download the framed version of the citation presented to Mayor Nicolette Botha-Guthrie

Framed certificates of Honorary Membership to the HAC were given to

1. To Dr. Amanda Gulbis for her enormous assistance and advice with –

(i)                 MONET

(ii)               ASTEROID HERMANUS

1. To Steve Kleyn

(i)                 One of the founding members of the HAC and more importantly

(ii)               His donation of the 13.1”, self-made telescope which kick-started the idea for an education centre and observatory for the HAC

(iii)             His vast knowledge and advice as our Technical Expert of all things astronomy

(iv)             His designs for the forthcoming sun dials at Swallow Park

Observations will help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system’s history.

On July 16, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will begin a prolonged encounter with the asteroid Vesta, making the mission the first to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.
The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will study Vesta for 1 year, and observations will help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system’s history.
As the spacecraft approaches Vesta, surface details are coming into focus, as seen in this recent image taken from a distance of about 26,000 miles (41,000 kilometers).
Engineers expect the spacecraft to be captured into orbit at approximately 1 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 16. They expect to hear from the spacecraft and confirm that it performed as planned during a scheduled communications pass that starts at approximately 2:30 a.m. EDT Sunday, July 17. When Vesta captures Dawn into its orbit, engineers estimate there will be approximately 9,900 miles (16,000 km) between them. At that point, the spacecraft and asteroid will be approximately 117 million miles (188 million km) from Earth.
“It has taken nearly 4 years to get to this point,” said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Our latest tests and check-outs show that Dawn is right on target and performing normally.”
Engineers have been subtly shaping Dawn’s trajectory for years to match Vesta’s orbit around the Sun. Unlike other missions, where dramatic propulsive burns put spacecraft into orbit around a planet, Dawn will ease up next to Vesta. Then the asteroid’s gravity will capture the spacecraft into orbit. However, until Dawn nears Vesta and makes accurate measurements, the asteroid’s mass and gravity will only be estimates. The Dawn team will refine the exact moment of orbit capture over the next few days.

This single STEREO image (June 27, 2011) in extreme UV light from the Ahead spacecraft contains three major, magnetic solar features, all clearly identifiable: a coronal hole, an active region, and a long filament. The coronal hole is a dark area, where there is less material in the wavelength being imaged and from which streams high-speed solar wind. The large, central active region (and there are a few others) is actually a group of active regions, often the source of solar storms. These areas appear brighter in extreme UV light. Lastly, a long, meandering filament stretches across more than half the width of the Sun, over 500,000 miles. These are clouds of cooler gases that hover above the Sun?s surface, suspended by magnetic forces. While all three features are fairly common, they do not usually appear to stand out so well at the same time.

The eerily lethargic sun shows no signs of perking up, solar physicists say. The sun may wallow in inactivity for the next decade – or longer, which could affect Earth’s climate as well as the health of orbiting satellites.

The sun has been unusually placid lately. In 2008, the solar wind slowed to a 50-year low, coinciding with the least active point in the 11-year sunspot cycle. That dip in activity has also been deeper and longer than usual.

Now, other diagnostic measurements of the sun also point to weird behaviour, suggesting the normal sunspot cycle may be interrupted.

“The sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation,” says Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. He and other researchers are presenting their findings this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Physics Division in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Too weak

Solar cycle peaks are normally preceded by bright disturbances in the sun’s wispy outer atmosphere or corona. Over several years, these drift towards the sun’s poles after starting at lower latitudes.

But these migrating disturbances have not shown up on schedule for the next predicted maximum in 2013, say researchers led by Richard Altrock of the National Solar Observatory. “We’ll see a very weak solar maximum in 2013, if at all,” Altrock predicts.

And the sun may sit out the following solar maximum as well. Another team led by William Livingston, also of the National Solar Observatory, has observed magnetic fields necessary to produce sunspots steadily weakening for the past 13 years. If the trend continues, the fields may be too weak to birth new sunspots for the following cycle in 2022, they say.

A third team led by Hill has been tracking winds that blow beneath the sun’s visible surface. A wind pattern that preceded previous solar cycle peaks has not appeared on schedule, which is another indication that the normal behaviour has broken down, they say.
Shields are down

The peak of the solar cycle, when sunspots are abundant, tends to unleash more outbursts of plasma from the sun, which can fry satellite electronics and interfere with radio communication and power grids on Earth. If the sun becomes especially quiet, these storms may be fewer and farther between.

Click on this link to Read the full New Scientist article