and some more Zooniverse

5-23:  Galaxy Zoo Mergers (1 hour)
5-25:  Galaxy Zoo Mergers (1 hour)
5-26:  Ice Hunters (1 hour)
6-1:    Ice Hunters (1 hour)

APOD 4.7

Space Shuttle Rising

This picture is of the Endeavour Spacecraft taking off on May 16th, 2011 from the Kennedy Space Center.  As it disappeared from view below the clouds, the shuttle became visible to passing aircrafts.  The huge shuttle looks like a spec on the flat cloud layer, with a long shadow of its trail behind it.  The picture was taken from a shuttle training aircraft, but pictures from other planes are available.  The shuttle docked with the International Space Station on the 18th, and will return in early June.  This was the final flight planned for the craft, as well as for any other spacecrafts in the coming years.

zooniverse

5-16:  Ice Hunters (1 hour)

Jocelyn Bell Biography

Valerie Korszen

Percival

Astronomy Period 1

18 May 2011

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

            Jocelyn Bell was born in 1943 in Belfast, Ireland.  Her full name is Susan Joselyn Bell Burnell, but often it is simply written as Jocelyn Bell.  Man people do not expect scientists to be religious, but her Quaker community was very supportive of her interests, as they highly value women’s education.  Her father read many books, and she became very interested in his books on astronomy at an early age. 

Her early years did not look bright, when she failed the test needed to pursue higher education in Britain.  At age eleven, her parents decided to send her to a boarding school in England, where she recalls having a very inspiring physics teacher.  Both of her parents encouraged her to try hard in school and become involved in the Quaker community.  If she had not gotten this support and inspiration, she may have never gone to college or spent hours a day analyzing miles of telescope data. 

Jocelyn is most well known for her work with Anthony Hewish, with whom she discovered pulsars.  After studying physics at Glasgow University, she went on to Cambridge University for graduate studies.  She assisted Anthony Hewish in building a large radio telescope, which they used to study quasars.  In 1967, she found strange radio signals that were too fast to come from quasars.  These bursts came in regular intervals, and after ruling out all other possibilities, her and Hewish decided that they could only have come from very dense, rapidly spinning collapsed stars.  Hewish received a Nobel Prize for the discovery, but she was not awarded for this work.  Jocelyn claims that she does not wish to win a Nobel Prize for her research, because if they were awarded to too many research students, it would decrease the significance of the awards given to people who truly deserve them.  She has received awards from other organizations in England and America, and eventually became a professor at a school for nontraditional students like herself, who may not have succeeded from the beginning.

Jocelyn Bell is a modest and determined researcher and professor who has become an inspiration to her students.  She has studied the universe in almost every category of the electromagnetic spectrum.  She is usually credited with the discovery of the first four pulsars, with the use of radio radiation.  She is married with one child and has traveled with her family to various observatories and locations, staying involved with the scientific world. 

Works Cited

CWP. "Jocelyn Bell Burnell." Physics & Astronomy. UCLA, 18 Apr. 1997. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/Phase2/Burnell,_Jocelyn_Bell@841234567.html>.

Ey, Julie. "Jocelyn Bell Burnell." Cal Poly Pomona. NASA, 1998. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.csupomona.edu/~nova/scientists/articles/burn.html>.

PBS. "People and Discoveries: Jocelyn Bell." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, 1991. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/babell.html>.

Zooniverse

5-10: Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

Zooooniverse

5-03:  Galaxy Zoo: Classify Galaxies (1 hour)
5-05:  Galaxy Zoo: Classify Galaxies (1 hour)

APOD 4.6

The Antennae

The image above shows two galaxies colliding with each other.  This event is about 60 million light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Corvus.  Since the stars are so far apart, they do not collide with stars from the other galaxy, but the dust and gas clouds create new areas of star formation.  The whole collision takes hundreds of millions of years, since they are so large and they are not moving very fast (relative to each other).  The galaxies will likely tear each other apart due to the gravitational changes.  Scientist think that the two galaxies have collided already and are going to continue to collide until they merge together into one.

APOD 4.3

Comet McNaught Passes NGC 1245



The comet in this image was discovered by Robert McNaught.  In 2007, the spacecraft Ulysses flew through the tail of Comet McNaught (C 2009 R1), and found that the speed of the solar wind was smaller in the tail than the surrounding area.  Again, this is not one image , but many short exposure shots combined into one so that everything would appear to be moving at the same speed.  I suggest clicking on the link above and moving your cursor over the original image to see the comet without the background.  At the time this image was taken in 2010, the comet was visible in the constellation Perseus with the help of a pair of binoculars.

APOD 4.2

The Tadpoles of IC 410

This is the emission nebula IC 410.  The nebula does not look like this in visible light- blue represents the presence of oxygen, hydrogen is green, and sulfer is in red.  This is a composite image taken from both narrow band and broad band filters, which separte the atoms so that astronomers can study the composition of the nebula.  The nebula is located 12,000 light years from Earth and can be found in the constellation Auriga.  The dark area in the middle is not the absence of the gases, but an area blocked by cosmic dust. The "tadpoles" (located in the upper left part of the nebula) are each 10 light years long and most likely are the location of star formation.  The nebula surrounds the galactic star cluster NGC 1893.

Zooniverse

4/26- Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4/28- Galaxy Zoo Hubble: Classify Galaxies (1 hour)

Zooniverse!

4/18- Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4/19- Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

More Zooniverse

4-12: Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4-14: Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4-15: Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

Zooniverse Activity

3/31- Classified galaxies in Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)
4/05- Identified supernovae in Galaxy Zoo: The Hunt for Supernovae (1 hour)
4/07- Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

APOD 4.1

MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula

This is a strange nebula, because no one can understand why it is shaped like a square.  This picture is a combination of infrared images.  The nebula contains a hot star system, MWC 922, located in the constellation Serpens, about 5,000 light-years from Earth.  The shape suggests minimal distortion and turbulence in this area.  The three rings are similar to what was seen in supernova SN1987A, but many questions still remain.  The angle at which we view the nebula influences its shape, and it is thought to resemble the ring nebula when viewed from a different angle, but this is just one theory.

APOD 3.5

Star Colors in Orion

This image was composed by combining 35 images of the stars in Orion.  The red supergiant star in the upper left is Betelgeuse.  It is a reddish color, because its surface temperature is much lower than the surrounding blue stars.  The image was purposefully shown with blurred star trails in order to get more saturated colors and make it easier to see what color the stars are.  The Horsehead Nebula is the reason for the pinkish tint under Orion's Belt, which is in the center of the image.  In the lower right is the bright star Rigel.  Our sun's temperature is not quite as cool as Betelgeuse, but not nearly as hot as Rigel; that is why it appears to be yellow.

APOD 3.2

The Rippled Red Ribbons of SNR 0509

The red "ripples" seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud are thought to be remnants of a large supernova 160,000 light years away.  The red ring is about 23 light years across, but it is rapidly expanding at aproximately 5,000 km/s, or 11,000 mph.  The star that caused this was most likely a white dwarf star.  This picture was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the red parts of the image represent hydrogen gas.  This event should have been seen on Earth 400 years ago, but there are no records of this ever happening.  Astronomers are still theorizing what caused the ripples and why people on Earth did not see the supernova.

APOD 3.1

Globular Star Cluster 47 Tuc

This star cluster is in the southern sky, and it spans about 120 light years.  It is approximately 13,000 light years away from Earth.  It is the largest cluster visible from Earth and the second brightest, but due to its low declination, it was cataloged as a star until 1751.  47 Tucanae is moving toward Earth at about 19 km/s.   The cluster is located in the Halo of the Milky Way Galaxy, which means that most of its time is spent outside of the disk of the galaxy in a more elliptical orbit.  Since it is so bright, it can be seen with the naked eye, near the  Small Magellanic Cloud.  It also houses x-ray binary star systems, as I previously referred to in another entry.

Lunar Eclipse

I went to the lunar eclipse viewing at school, and spent some time huddled up on the ground watching the moon disappear.  It was very cool how the color went from white, to an orange glow, to a reddish color.  I also saw two comets, one in the East, and one to the North.

APOD 2.5

The Local Fluff

As much as ten percent of visible matter in our solar system is actually Interstellar Mass.  is is a gas, and is not uniformly distributed.  It is mainly composed of Hydrogen, then Helium, and some interstellar dust.  It plays an important role in the formation of new stars, and it is always moving around in the universe.  The "Local Fluff" is another name for our local interstellar cloud.  Our sun is slowly moving out of this cloud, and may be out of it in the next 10,000 years.  Interstellar medium is mainly detected by looking for the hydrogen gas that it is mainly composed of.

APOD 2.4

Slope Streaks in Acheron Fossae on Mars

Although no one is sure about where these dark streaks came from, there are a few accepted theories.  Many believe that they are caused by sand particles traveling down the sides of a big trough on Mars.  It has been shown that the most recent lines are the darkest, and they sometimes travel right over the older, lighter ones.  In addition to other environmental occurrences, this may lead to rapid changes in Mars' surface.  No one has been able to figure out what lightens the streaks over time.  The picture was taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.  The sand also appears so move like a fluid around big objects, such as boulders.

APOD 2.3

Gas and Snow Jets from Comet Hartley 2

The huge jets are carbon dioxide snowballs flying out from the center of the comet.  The comet also leaks frozen water vapor as it travels around the sun.  This picture was taken by the EPOXI spacecraft, which flew by it in 2009.  The carbon dioxide jets have never been seen before and will hopefully be studied much more thoroughly in the future.  The comet is expected to completely evaporate in the next 1,000 years.  As with any comet, meteor, or asteroid studied, it is helping us learn more about the development of our solar system.  The Deep Impact mission also went to this comet to study its composition and properties. 

Awesome Sun Stuff

This is so cool! video that shows the winding up of the magnetic field:
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/NVA2~9~9~12051~112588:Animation-of-how-the-Sun-s-magnetic?qvq=q:sun;lc:NVA2~63~63,NVA2~30~30,NVA2~62~62,NVA2~61~61,NVA2~60~60,nasaNAS~22~22,NVA2~19~19,nasaNAS~20~20,NVA2~18~18,NVA2~49~49,NVA2~16~16,NVA2~8~8,NVA2~48~48,NVA2~15~15,NVA2~47~47,NVA2~9~9,NVA2~14~14,NVA2~79~79,NVA2~46~46,NVA2~13~13,NVA2~45~45,NVA2~44~44,NVA2~76~76,NVA2~43~43,NVA2~75~75,NVA2~42~42,nasaNAS~2~2,NVA2~74~74,NVA2~41~41,nasaNAS~4~4,NSVS~3~3,nasaNAS~5~5,NVA2~29~29,nasaNAS~6~6,NVA2~28~28,nasaNAS~7~7,NVA2~27~27,NVA2~59~59,NVA2~26~26,NVA2~58~58,nasaNAS~8~8,NVA2~25~25,NVA2~57~57,NVA2~24~24,nasaNAS~9~9,NVA2~56~56,NVA2~23~23,NVA2~55~55,NVA2~22~22,NVA2~54~54,NVA2~21~21,NVA2~53~53,nasaNAS~16~16,NVA2~20~20,NVA2~52~52,NVA2~51~51,nasaNAS~13~13,NVA2~50~50,NVA2~82~82,nasaNAS~12~12,NVA2~81~81,NVA2~80~80,nasaNAS~10~10,NVA2~33~33,NVA2~31~31,NVA2~32~32,NVA2~34~34,NVA2~1~1,NVA2~35~35,NVA2~36~36,NVA2~37~37,NVA2~38~38,NVA2~39~39&mi=80&trs=14759

Not quite sure what that black line is
http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/media/p/461247.aspx

Big picture of some solar activity
http://www.telescopes.cc/sun10-26-03large.htm

Spinning sunspot
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/NSVS~3~3~11139~111139:The-Spinning-Sunspot?qvq=mgid:2675&mi=13&trs=24

Magnetic field lines
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap970904.html

Friedrick Bessel Biography

Friedrich Bessel

            Friedrich Bessel was born in 1784 in Germany.  He stayed in Germany his whole life and did not move around much.  When he was young, he did not seem to advance in any subjects in school.  He was not very good at Latin, but he taught it to himself when he was older.  For this reason, people believe that he was simply not inspired or interested in the language.  He was obviously gifted, because he earned a doctorate without attending a university.

Bessel started working at an import-export firm at the age of 14, where he first became interested in navigation, leading to his interest in astronomy and mathematics.  After publishing his first paper on Halley’s Comet in 1804, most of his work seemed to focus on astronomy.  A few years later, he got a job at an observatory in Konigsberg, where he spent much of his life.  There, he used astronomer James Bradley’s observations as a data base, but in order to do so he had to fix any errors in Bradley’s measurements.  Although he earned less at the observatory, he preferred working there so that he could gain a better understanding of the sky.  For a brief period of his life, Bessel worked at another observatory assisting Johann Schroter.

            His study of celestial mechanics eventually allowed him to use the effect of parallax to calculate the distance to the star 61 Cygni.  In 1838, the Royal Astronomical Society rewarded him with a gold medal for his results.  Compared to today’s accepted value, he was only off by about two one-hundredths of a degree.  Of course, Bessel’s accomplishments earned him other awards and titles, such as the Lalande Prize from the Institut de France, another from the Berlin Academy, and a position as a Fellow of the Royal Society.  He was highly respected and popular around the world, since he spent his whole adult life helping the world understand astronomy and mathematics.

            Most likely Bessel’s most memorable accomplishment is what is now known as the Bessel functions.  This is a series of functions derived by Bessel that are all related to the perturbation of the planets in our solar system.  These equations are still used in mathematics, physics, and engineering.  Another helpful publication of his was Fundamenta Astronomiae in 1818.  The book was a catalogue of over 3,000 stars.  He continued working on this until he had about 63,000 stars catalogued in 1833.

            Many other astronomers and mathematicians used his discoveries to make intriguing discoveries of their own.  One astronomer, named Walter Adams, calculated the size and mass of a distant star, and, thanks to Bessel’s work, found that this star was so much denser than our sun that a thimbleful of the star’s mass would weigh about ten tons here on Earth.

            A major issue during his lifetime was the possibility of life on other planets in our solar system.  He did not believe it was possible, other than perhaps on Mars.  He also observed the lack of an atmosphere on the moon.  This is something he wrote on the subject:  “The moon is decisively different from the earth in the primary point of an atmosphere; the sun is of an entirely different nature; for Mercury and Venus we have found no basis for assuming a similarity; Mars appears to possess an atmosphere and summer and winter, even snow and ice; ... Jupiter and Saturn are very dissimilar to the earth...”

A few other contributions Bessel made include a correction to the seconds pendulum (a pendulum that had a period of exactly one second) and his calculation of the eccentricity of the Earth.  He came up with an eccentricity of about 1/299.  Today’s accepted value is approximately 1/298.3.  Another interesting fact about Friedrich Bessel is that even without having been to college himself, he was a very well known university professor.  He died in 1846, after a life of respect and praise.  

Friedrick Bessel Works Cited

O'Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. "Bessel Biography." MacTutor History of Mathematics. University of St. Andrews, Oct. 1997. Web. 07 Jan. 2011. <http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Bessel.html>.

Soter, Steven, and Neil D. Tyson. "Friedrich Bessel and the Companion of Sirius." AMNH.com. American Museum of Natural History, 2000. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/cosmic/cs_bessel.html>.

Stetson. "Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel." Stetson.edu. Stetson University. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/periodictable/html/Bk.html>.

The Worlds of David Darling. "Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm (1784-1846)." The Internet Encyclopedia of Science. The Worlds of David Darling. Web. 05 Jan. 2011. <http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/Bessel.html>.