Hot off the heels of my guest lecture on the Solar System at the Community College of Baltimore County, I’ve been invited back to the Berks County Amateur Astronomical Society in Reading, PA to discuss the same thing, which is a good thing as I’ll probably be teaching it in greater depth at the upcoming Launchpad Astronomy Workshop in July. From their website:

Our Solar System – Exploring Strange New Worlds in our Cosmic Back Yard

Our understanding of our Solar neighborhood has fundamentally changed over the last few decades.  What used to be just the Sun and 9 planets is now a celestial city of gas giants, rocky planets, ice giants, dwarf planets, asteroids, water worlds, and primordial comets all in orbit around a single star, our Sun.  In this talk, astronomer Christian Ready will discuss the similarities and differences of these worlds and what they can tell us about the formation and history of our Solar System.

There really is a lot going on in our Solar System nowadays, with active missions to Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Saturn, and spacecraft on their way to Jupiter and Pluto. So what used to be considered an elementary topic in astronomy is being updated at a pretty remarkable rate. And of course there’s the whole Pluto controversy that will probably need to be discussed.

I enjoy giving these talks and if you’re in the Reading area, please feel free to drop by the Reading Public Museum on Thursday, June 13 2013 at 7:30 pm.

And since we’re still talking about Pluto, here’s a video I made explaining the whole mess:

Last week I was at cf.Objective() 2013 in Minneapolis, MN. cf.Objective() is an excellent software development conference, and I was there to help promote Railo, as well as talk a little bit about HTML5, I decided to do a lightning talk on the hunt for exoplanets with the Kepler Space Telescope.

Lightning talks are fun to watch and even more fun to give (if your definition of fun is figuring out how to discuss a potentially complicated topic in under 7 minutes). The rules of engagement are that talks must consist of 20 sides which automatically advance every 20 seconds. The result is a 7-minute geek fest where the speaker attempts to keep up with the slides while still trying to convey something that resembles the points he was trying to make (at least that’s how it felt for me).

Since this was a talk aimed at software developers, I couldn’t help but point out a few goodies like the awesomely awesome Exoplanet app, and the Open Exoplanet Catalogue on GitHub. And I couldn’t help but give a shout out to Exoplanets.org, PlanetHunters.org, and Uwingu.

As it turned out, my talk couldn’t have been more timely with the announcement of the cessation of science operations just the day before, so I had to end my talk on a bit of a downer. However, I hope that the point of the tremendous advance in our knowledge of exoplanets thanks to Kepler was clear. No matter Kepler’s ultimate fate, the search for Earth’s twins continues.

Finally, I have to say a huge thank-you to the folks at cf.Objective() for organizing a great conference, and for having the insight to offer the opportunity to talk about something fun and interesting outside of our regular day jobs. And to my friend David Epler for capturing the video of me, and to the folks at Codebass Radio for the world-class audio recording.

Oh, and here is the lightning talk I gave at this same conference last year on the lifecycle of stars:

Sequestration is having a horrific effect on Americans from one coast to another (except, of course, for those that enacted it) and it’s only going to get worse as time goes by. We’re watching it unfold before our eyes – cuts in funding for schools, airport towers shutting down, federal employees and contractors being furloughed, and some rather horrible cuts to NASA.

But the news is decidedly mixed.

The Bad News is that NASA has had to suspend its Education and Public Outreach funding, which is funding that the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop depended on for some time, followed by National Science Foundation funding, which also has been sequestered. There is much I could write about this, but the folks over at Sci Show have done a great job summing it up for me very nicely:

Ironically, there is some good news here. Despite the cutbacks to its EPO programs, NASA’s budget actually got an increase of $200 million to develop planetary exploration – including a possible mission to Europa!

Not mentioned in the video is an exciting new BRAIN Initiative announced by the White House today. This could bear some very beneficial fruit in understanding just how we’re wried and how we can treat traumatic brain injuries and possibly psychological disorders.

Such as who the hell thought sequestration was a good idea?

Update

Lest I get too snarky, I have to say that the BRAIN program is exactly what government should be doing to promote science. If it can benefit all of us and/or no private enterprise can justify investing in it, government funding should get it started. Just ask any company that uses technology pioneered by NASA, for example.

I should also point out that my Launch Pad partner Mike Brotherton offers his take on the sequester as well.

Earth imaged by the GOES-13 satellite at 7:45 ET on March 20, 2013. Image credit: NOAA

As you can see, Earth is positioned with respect to the Sun in such a way that both the northern and southern hemispheres are equally lit. The image is a tad misleading as the straight line of the equator is oriented “directly” toward the Sun on the right, giving the impression that Earth’s axis is perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. But remember, Earth is tilted 23 1/2 degrees from the plane of its orbit, like this:

Axial Tilt of Earth. From Wikipedia

Putting all of this together and we have a representation of Earth in its orbit around the Sun, keeping its tilt in the same alignment year-round:

Earth’s relative position to the Sun during its orbit. Not to scale, obviously. Source: Wikipedia

So remember, Earth’s tilt is the reason for the season! Happy Spring!

Here’s some hopeful news! There is a bill before Maryland’s House of Delegates to require energy-efficient lighting, and done so in such a way as to reduce light pollution – that is, street light spilling into the night sky where it does nobody any good whatsoever. Here’s the synopsis:

Expanding the prohibition on the use of State funds to install or replace specified luminaires by including funds to operate specified luminaires in the prohibition and applying the prohibition to all permanent outdoor luminaires unless the luminaires meet specified requirements; establishing specified requirements for luminaires intended for specified lighting purposes; etc.

As legislation goes, this a no-brainer:  the State of Maryland would only purchase energy-efficient outdoor lighting that is designed to light the subjects in question (the streets, the buildings, the flags) and not the stuff we want to keep dark, such as the night sky. The result is money saved, carbon emissions reduced, public safety preserved, and a darker sky that we can all look up and enjoy.

Thats why there is a petition on change.org asking for public support for HB1295. Please sign and tell your friends!

Thanks to my friend Mark Kochte, we have an idea of what such skies could look like, without having to drive for 2 1/2 hours from the nearest city to appreciate it. Enjoy this video, and support HB1295!

Maryland Nights II from Mark ‘Indy’ Kochte on Vimeo.

Screen shot from Stardust from PostPanic director Mischa Rozema.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged (sorry about that, much has been going on in the last month but still), but I would be more than a little remiss if I didn’t share this amazing video:

This is Stardust from PostPanic director Mischa Rozema. It depicts Voyager 1, currently on its way out of our Solar System, “looking back” billions of years from now at our Sun as it becomes Giant, engulfing Earth, and dissipating as a Planetary Nebula. Earth and the Sun are returned to the Cosmos as stardust, while Voyager 1 carries with it a final message from the people of Earth: We were here.

Of course, the video has some inaccuracies takes some artistic license. The timeframe of the Sun’s demise will take place over a much longer time period than depicted in the film (as in millions of years longer). The Sun won’t become a planetary nebula until long after it has engulfed the inner planets and will span up to several light years across at the time. And Voyager 1 itself will have long stopped transmitting back to Earth, its Plutonium-238 power source having long since depleted by then.

But that’s ok, because that’s not the point of the film. Instead, it’s an artistic reminder that no matter how short our time here on Earth is, our real destiny is to return to the universe as the stardust that we are and to seed the next generation of stars.

When that time comes, Voyager 1 and the other probes will be out there, carrying a message for that next generation: We were here.

Saturn’s night side, as seen by Cassini on Oct. 17, 2012 at a distance of approximately 500,000 miles (800,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Get the full-resolution image here! Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Is that amazing or what? And you really have to get the full-resolution, 6672×3104-pixel image to really grok the awesomeness. This image was created on October 17, 2012 by the Cassini spacecraft while Saturn was backlit by the Sun. In other words, this is Saturn’s night side. The image was taken when Cassini was looking “up” towards Saturn’s equator from an orbital latitude of about 19 degrees. The result is a stunning image of the planet’s silhouette, surrounded by the backlit rings.

There is a lot going on here and Phil Plait has a great breakdown of all of the features of the image, so I’ll refer you there. But I should like to point out that the green glow is light reflected by the rings onto Saturn’s cloud tops. In other words, forget moonlight, this is ringlight!

Another feature that is really cool is the diffuse band of light toward the bottom of the image. This is the outermost E-ring, which is the least dense and most diffuse of the rings. This ring comes courtesy of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which spews geysers of water vapor and ice as it orbits Saturn.

Enceladus in Saturn’s E-ring. Enceladus appears as the dark spot in the middle of the flare at center. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteNASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

It’s worth mentioning that these colors aren’t real, but are a combination of infrared, red and violet spectral filters. When combined, Saturn takes on a serene, eerie hue that reveals subtle details in its atmosphere that you simply cannot get any other way.

Since the only way to obtain an image like this is when the Cassini spacecraft is directly behind Saturn, such images are very rare. The last time this sort of image was taken was back in 2006. During that encounter, images were taken using filters to create a natural-color view of the backlit planet:

In Saturn’s Shadow – the Pale Blue Dot. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

And if you haven’t, you must click that image for the full view. If you look carefully, you’ll see a pale blue dot in that image on the left side just inside G-ring. That’s Earth. That’s home. That’s us.

And we made this.

Planetary Nebula NGC 5189. Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Click here to get the full-resolution version!

Do you see what I see? A star, a star, dying in the night, and it’s bringing us goodness and light! This is NGC 5189, which lies about 1,800 light-years away in the southern constellation Musca. Once upon a time it was a star very much like our own Sun, but is now in its death throes. When stars like our Sun die, they cast off their outer atmosphere in a spectacular fashion, forming what is known as a planetary nebula (because way back in the day, their fuzzy blob-like appearance reminded astronomers of planets; since astronomers are terrible at naming things, the term planetary nebula stuck – hey, don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger).

Although imaged in great detail by the Gemini South Telescope, it wasn’t until astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to create the most detailed image of NGC 5189 yet. And what an image it is!

There’s a lot going on here, so you may want to grab the full-resolution version of this image and play along at home because it’s a gold mine of stellar wreckage.

The first thing I noticed is the twisted, reverse “S”-shaped structure. The “S” is fragmented into comet-shaped structures like this one, taken from the upper left-hand corner of the image:

Fragments of debris, blown out from the central star in NGC 5189. Image Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Each of those knots is a clump of what used to be the central star’s outer atmosphere. We’ve seen these spoke-like clumps before; they are the result of slower-moving material blown out by the star in an earlier wind that have since been blasted again by a later, faster wind from the same central star. The clumps are a powerful reminder of just how vast NGC 5189 is, because each of those clumps are about the size of our entire Solar System!

The second major feature of NGC 5189 are the bipolar (perhaps quadrupolar) lobes blowing out from the central star. The lobes are arranged in an hourglass shape with one lobe coming toward us (moving toward the upper-right) and the other moving away from us (toward the lower left). These lobes are being driven by the star’s howling winds, which are reaching 2,700 kilometers (about 1,700 miles) per second. And it’s these same winds that sculpted the knotty clumps as they slammed into the slower-moving material in the mebula’s “arms.”

Finally, at the center of it all, is the now-exposed core of the star itself, known as a white dwarf. Designated HD 117622, this white dwarf is a hot (10,000K), dense ball of degenerate helium, no larger than the Earth. (Note: the light from the star saturates Hubble’s detectors and “spills” into adjacent pixels. The white dwarf itself simply too small to be seen – all we can see is its light.) Even so, it’s hot enough to illuminate the surrounding nebula, which by now is more than 2 light-years across!

Demonstration of orbital precession, using the Earth’s orbit around the Sun

So what is responsible for the strange shape of this nebula? The most likely explanation is that HD 117622 has an as yet undetected companion. That would allow for HD 117622 to wobble, or precess in its rotation as it lost mass. Furthermore, its orbit with its companion would also precess, creating a “wobble within a wobble.”

All the while, HD 117622 is loosing mass, first in a slow, gradual wind, perhaps creating the reverse “S” shape over a long period of time, much like a stellar garden sprinkler. Later, the second wind emerges, creating the lobes but also slamming into the slower-moving material in the “S” creating the comet-shaped fragments.

That said, I’m making an educated (to be generous) speculation here  because no such companion to HD 117622 has been detected as of yet. There is also a lot about how planetary nebulae form that astronomers still do not yet fully understand. There may be some other mechanism at work here, waiting to be discovered.

In the meantime, we can sit back and gaze in amazement at its full beauty. It’s a sobering reminder of our own Sun’s demise to come, billions of years from now. But for the moment, we are here to admire the universe that created us.

Happy Holidays.

But sometimes communicating science to the public is, ironically, a challenge for those who practice it. Thankfully, we have some incredible artists and science communicators who pick up the slack, and in so doing, not only excite the public, but those of us who already “know” science as well. The latest example:

Album artwork for Terra Lumina – Image credit: MelodySheep

Terra Lumina is a project by John D. Boswell and William Crowley, aka MelodySheep, the same artists who brought us the amazing Symphony of Science series. Unlike Symphony of Science, Terra Lumina is a collection of original music. Despite the lack of auto-tuned scientists, the music conveys the awe and beauty of the natural world. It’s a different vibe from some of the Symphony of Science work, and that’s entirely appropriate as there is more than one way to sing the universe’s praises.

If you want to get a taste, head over to the Terra Lumina website, or check out this really cool preview video:

Suffice to say, this just made my Wish List for this Christmas

And there’s also this:

There are several parodies of Gangham style out there, but this, for some strange reason, is my favorite