Tonight is “International Observe the Moon Night” https://www.lpi.usra.edu/observe_the_moon_night/ or InOMN for short. Observers and lovers of the Moon (like me) around the world will be observing the Moon and sponsoring Moon watching events.
As stated on the InOMN webpage, “International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) is an annual worldwide public event that encourages observation, appreciation, and understanding of our Moon and its connection to NASA planetary science and exploration, as well as the cultural and personal connections we all have with Earth's nearest neighbor. Everyone on Earth is invited to join the celebration by hosting or attending an InOMN event — and uniting on one day each year to look at and learn about the Moon together.”
In the DMV there are a number of InOMN events being held. NASA Goddard, Baltimore Science Center, the National Air and Space Museum’s Haas Public Observatory and Udvar Hazy Center are all hosting InOMN events. Click their links on the InOMN website for further information.
On a personal note I watched LRO https://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission.html being built at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center and have stayed in touch with the mission throughout the years. LRO is currently the ONLY active lunar mission and has enough fuel for another ten years of operations. LRO’s mission team is working on getting NASA funding to extend the mission. LRO is a pathfinder for humanity’s return to the Moon which all of the spacefaring nations are preparing to do.
Take a look at the Moon tonight, or any night. It is beautiful, eternal and transforms the night into something magical.
While we contemplate the Moon the solar system has a passing through visitor that has come from outside our solar system - WOW!
Designated A/2017 U1 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6983 astronomers have been making ongoing observations of what they believe may be an asteroid or comet that originated in another part of our galaxy.
Traveling for untold eons this denizen from the vastness of space was discovered on October 19th and determined to have come from the direction of the constellation Lyra, which is currently visible in the western sky. It passed closest to Earth on October 14th at 15 million miles and is now on a course to the constellation Pegasus which we see right after sunset high in the eastern sky.
I have been following the email traffic on this discovery and astronomers have determined that A/2017 U1 is reddish in color - perhaps similar in color to the objects that occupy the outer reaches of our solar system - and traveling a very fast 27 miles a second. It was predicted that such objects existed in our Milky Way Galaxy, especially with planet formation being a natural byproduct of the birth of stars. Now we know.
Enjoy the Moon’s night and contemplate the vastness and splendor of the Universe in which you live and are part of.
The Moon returns to the early evening sky this week. I was able to get my youngest Moon pic ever at 1.1 days old.
1.1 Day Old Waxing Crescent Moon 10/20/17 Greg Redfern
Before the Moon gets bright in the evening sky try to look for the farthest planet you can see with your unaided eye - Uranus. Almost 2 billion miles away it takes light 157 minutes to get to your eye or camera.
If you have dark skies you can find Uranus AND see it with your own eyes. I did on October 20, 2017. Try following the tips here and if you have binoculars use them to zero in on the 7th planet from the Sun and then try using just you eyes.
Orion the Hunter its visible rising in the East at around 11 pm local and remains visible all night. The mighty hunter prepares to roam the skies of winter with his trusty hunting dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor.
Tonight into tomorrow morning before dawn be on the look out for shooting stars - meteors - from the Orionid Meteor Shower. The expected peak of the Orionids, which can produce up to 10 meteors an hour and peak at 25 an hour, is on Saturday-Sunday night. The best time to look is after midnight and before dawn as we will be facing the meteor stream.
Star Chart For The Orionid Meteor Shower
Credit: Sky & Telescope.com
None other than Halley's Comet is the source for these dust particles which hit our atmosphere at a speed of 238,000 KM/SEC....that dear reader is SMOKING!!!
Artist's impression of the Moon, looking over Imbrium Basin, with lavas erupting, venting gases, and producing a visible atmosphere. Credit: NASA MSFC
This lunar atmosphere would have been 1.5 times thicker than the current atmosphere on Mars. Calculations show that a water volume twice that of Lake Tahoe could have been released into the lunar atmosphere. The water at the Moon's poles could have been deposited during this era.
This animation captures phenomena observed over the course of nine days following the neutron star merger known as GW170817. They include gravitational waves (pale arcs); a near-light-speed jet that produced gamma rays (magenta); expanding debris from a "kilonova" that produced ultraviolet (violet), optical and infrared (blue-white to red) emission; and, once the jet directed toward us expanded into our view from Earth, X-rays (blue).
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab Two seconds after LIGO’s gravitational wave detection NASA’s space based Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-missions-catch-first-light-from-a-gravitational-wave-event and shortly thereafter the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL spacecraft also observed gamma rays.
This was the first-ever glimpse in visible light of two neutron stars colliding and pinpointed the origin of the gravitational wave signal less than 11 hours after it was detected by LIGO. This team also obtained the earliest spectra - or chemical fingerprints - of the merger, which will help astronomers explain how many of the universe’s heavy elements were created.
Their observations and others using the Italy based VIRGO gravitational wave observatory, 70 telescopes both space and ground based, 100 instruments and thousands of astronomers and physicists resulted in the birth of “Multi-Messenger Astronomy”.
For the first time ever observation of gravitational waves and light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum had been conducted. The source of this neutron star merger was in a galaxy called NGC 4993 located 130 million light years from Earth in the southern constellation Hydra http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1717c/ .
During the media telecon sponsored by the National Science Foundation I asked if astronomers knew what the new object was resulting from the merger and subsequent kilonova. The panel responded that, “No firm knowledge of the end state (yet) but X-ray observations suggest it should be a very light mass black hole or the most massive neutron star. More observations will help us determine the answer”.
What astronomers do know is that the kilonova produced heavy elements, especially gold, platinum, uranium. Stars during their lives and deaths manufacture all of the natural elements we see on the Periodic Table of Elements other than Hydrogen which was created by the Big Bang. This process, called nucleosynthesis https://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/nucleo.html continuously seeds the Universe with the elements necessary to create planets and life.
According to Dr. Edo Berger, an astronomer at Harvard University and part of today’s panel, the observed kilonova showed “The direct fingerprints of the (creation of) heavy elements for the first time ever, producing 16,000 times the mass of the Earth in heavy elements and tens of times the mass of the Earth in gold and platinum”.
This groundbreaking discovery was made possible by the 30-plus years of LIGO-gravitational wave funding provided by NSF. Dr. Frances Cordova, NSF’s Director, was kind enough to respond to my email questions about this discovery.
As an astrophysicist, what are your personal feelings about this discovery?
An as astrophysicist and director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), I couldn’t be more excited knowing that on any given day a wondrous discovery is waiting to be found. Each discovery is unique and serves as a beacon to keep searching, to keep seeking, and for NSF, to keep investing in fundamental research. One of my early engagements as a young astronomer was to further multiwavelength astronomy, or linking together telescopes around the world and in space to observe transient phenomena. This was the same theme as today's announcement, but there weren’t gravitational waves then. We had no idea at that time how much more information could be derived by opening the gravitational wave window on the universe.
As a follow up, what is the scientific significance of this discovery?
This discovery is the first verification of a "kilonova" explosion, confirming binary neutron star collisions as one source for the universe's heaviest elements, such as gold and uranium. The fact that we can still learn about the universe is worth its weight in gold, or should I say uranium. It is also confirmation that binary neutron star infall is one way to produce short gamma-ray bursts, whose origin has been a mystery.
The significance for the National Science Foundation is LIGO demonstrates the value of funding basic research by doing extraordinarily hard engineering projects that can have profound implications for our understanding of the nature and evolution of the universe. LIGO is one of the largest experiments the agency has ever funded and researchers at NSF's twin LIGO detectors and the Virgo detector located GW170817 with unprecedented precision, allowing telescopes on the ground and in space to rapidly turn their attention towards the area of sky where the neutron stars collided.
What do you think will be the "Next Big Discovery" in Gravitational Wave Astronomy?
Not sure! Could be witnessing gravitational waves from supernovae, or the imprint of gravitational waves on the microwave background formed during a very early epoch in the formation of our universe. We didn't know what the first results would be from LIGO, and we can't truly foresee what the next results from this or other gravitational wave experiments operating at different frequencies will be. That's the whole point of fundamental research -- it can lead to new and surprising results that transform our understanding of nature and the cosmos.
What is the future role of the NSF as to LIGO/Gravitational Wave Astronomy?
This was the first event in a new era of "multi-messenger" observations, a new window on the universe. Moving forward, LIGO-VIRGO will be making many more observations. With multi-messenger astronomy, scientists will observe the most powerful events in the universe from the first gravitational-wave pulse to the cascade of particles and electromagnetic energy that streams toward Earth, offering new and more complete insights into nature's biggest explosions. The role of NSF is to keep moving ahead to increase the volume of the universe sampled, and hence the number and perhaps kinds of sources detected; this can be done by steadily increasing the sensitivity of the gravitational wave facilities.
This was a fortuitous discovery as the LIGO observatories were due to be shut down for a year to undergo major upgrades in sensitivity that will greatly expand their capabilities. Not only that, but just nine days later the Sun would have blocked the signal.
Observations will continue and more science papers will be written about this historic event. But as explained by Dr. Cordova the future is bright for “Multi-Messenger Astronomy” - all you have to do is look at whatever gold you own for proof.
This coming Monday, October 16, there will be a HUGE announcement made by the Gravitational Wave Astronomy community.
I have been provided advance notice of the announcement by those involved but it is embargoed until Monday, which of course I am honoring.
I will have this exciting news available for you as soon as the embargo ends which will be after 10 am EDT. I will be participating in the media telecon so I expect to have a blog out after it concludes.
We will have a close call from an asteroid tonight (Oct 11/12) that will pass well within the Moon's orbit at 26,000 miles above the Earth. It is similar in size to the Chelyabinsk asteroid that exploded over that city on 2/15/14 with over half a million tons of TNT explosive force.
This animation depicts the flyby of small asteroid 2012 TC4 as it passes under Earth. On Oct. 12 EDT (Oct. 11 PDT), 2012 TC4 will safely pass by Earth at a distance of approximately 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA and others will be testing the international asteroid warning network to see how well observations are coordinated.
BIG DISCOVERY announced on 10/9/17 - Two teams of astronomers have discovered the missing normal matter in the Universe. This really is a big deal as you will read about in this article.
On October 5th at sunset the Full Harvest Moon will be making a grand appearance in the Northern Hemisphere. Look once again to the East after sunset to see the beautiful Harvest Moon.
The 1st citizen scientist project of the Space Age - Project Moonwatch - was started to monitor the orbit of Sputnik and other satellites to help refine the Earth's shape and orbit.
At some point we will have the detection of a neutron star merging event - maybe with a black hole or another neutron star. That will be something.......not that merging black holes are dull ;-)
