Hi all,
(NB, all times are summer time when in force, for convenience)
1 IAA AGM online, 26 August, 7.30 p.m. via Zoom. Details via this link -
https://irishastro.org/2020/08/21/iaa-agm-2020/ Only paid-up members can participate.
2. Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE - Third time lucky!
After two recent disappointments, this comet has been the best for N latitudes since Hale-Bopp last century. A final look from the HST https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200821134124.htm
3. ISS The ISS will start a new series of morning passes on 29 August. Full details for your location, and lots of other astronomy information, on the excellent free site www.heavens-above.com
4. TEASER – update with clue
Here's another to occupy your grey matter until things get back to 'normal'; it is of course astronomical:
Q. What's the connection between Bono & The Edge and 2090?
CLARIFICATION: In case of confusion, 2090 is the year 2090.
And as an extra clue, it's September 2090.
5. JUPITER and SATURN.
The two largest planets in the solar system are currently quite close together, low in the south around midnight. Thery are curretly about 8º apart, and both are retrograding slowly as Earth overtakes them on its speedier inside orbit. They both resume prograde motion in September, but will remain about 8º apart until mid-October when faster moving Jupiter starts to catch up with Saturn. By the end of October they are only 5º apart, and they will then slowly but inexorably get ever closer until 21 December, when they will be just over 6 arcminutes apart – 1/5 of the diameter of the Moon!
6. REGULAR FORTNIGHTLY SPACE and ASTRONOMY WEBINAR, September 1
After a very positive reaction to our first webinar on Mars, Nick Howes and I have been asked by Space Store Live to make it a regular fortnightly feature. It will be called "Space Store Live: Nick and Terry's Astro Round-up". The first one, on Tuesday 26th, was also very well received.
They will be approximately 30 minutes long, every second Tuesday, at 7.30 p.m., covering whatever is topical in space and astronomy. The next one will be on Tuesday 4 August: youtube.com/spacestorelive
It's a Zoom webinar, and will be Live streamed to YouTube SpaceStore Live! Channel and Live streamed to Facebook Live. I'll post any last minute news via Twitter.
7. Paul Evans has produced another excellent 'Lockdown Video guide to the sky:
8. IAU Online Astronomy@Home Awards Deadline Extended to August 31
The deadlines for consideration in the Online Astronomy@Home Awards has been extended by a month. The first application for the awards is due on 31 August 2020. These awards have been created in response to the sudden shift to online astronomy outreach amid societal lockdowns due to COVID-19. Currently, 250 activities have been submitted for consideration for the awards and we are looking forward to what more activities will be submitted for consideration.
Learn more here: https://www.iau.org/public/iauoutreachaward/
9. Art Contest in Partnership with International Observe the Moon Night closes Aug 31
Submissions are welcome to the international art competition "The Art of Planetary Science 2020: A Virtual Odyssey", a showing hosted by the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in the United States in partnership with the International Observe the Moon Night. Submissions are due 31 August 2020 MST.
Learn more here: https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/art/2020/prospectus
10. Very close miss by sizeable asteroid, September 01: Very close NEO / PHA pass on Sep 01. A 30m diameter asteroid will pass only 0.3 lunar distances from Earth at about 16.12 UT. .
. Miss distance: 0.00066564.8 AU. It's 2011ES4, estimated diameter 30m. Not a dinosaur killer, but still a significant event if it were to hit, with a velocity of 8.2km/sec. But it's still a miss.
11. Moon passes close to Mars, Sep 06. On the morning of 6 September, the waning gibbous Moon will pass closely below Mars. Closest approach will be just about sunrise. At 04.00 the separation will be 1º 14'. At 05.00 it's only 55', and at 06.00 it's a mere 36', just slightly over a Moon diameter. It's down to 27' at 07.00, but that's after sunrise. Those in the far west will get the best view, as the sky stays darker for longer there. Those separation distances are for Belfast; from Baltimore (Cork) minimum separation is only about 30'.
Mars is getting mujch brighter now as ikt approaches opposition in October
12. SPIE Photography competition open until 16 September
SPIE International Day of Light Photo Contest. SPIE, a professional society for optics and photonics technology, is holding a photo contest for the general public in honour of the International Day of Light. The contest is open internationally, and there are separate categories for youth and adults. It closes on 16 September 2020.
Read more here: https://spie.org/about-spie/international-day-of-light/spie-idl-photo-contest?utm_id=zidl18e&SSO=1
13. International Observe the Moon Night, Sat Sep 26.
See https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/event-view.cfm?Event_ID=96643
14. IAU Meet the Astronomers Programme. This is now open to everyone, for a virtual talk. See https://www.iau.org/public/meettheiauastronomers/
15. National Astronomy Week, 14 – 22 November.
National Astronomy Week (NAW) will be held in the UK from Saturday 14 November to Sunday 22 November, to celebrate the close approach of Mars. Amateur and professional astronomers will be holding observing events during the week. Seen through a telescope magnifying about 100 times, Mars will appear as a pale orange disc, with its markings clearly visible, at a distance of 80 million km.
Although Mars is at its closest to Earth a month earlier, by November it is well up in the sky during the early evening, allowing younger schoolchildren an opportunity to get a good view of the planet. It will not be as close again until 2033. As well as Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon will be on show during National Astronomy Week. Details of observing events will be posted on the NAW website.
16. INTERESTING WEBLINKS (Disclaimer - Use of material herein from various sources does not imply approval or otherwise of the opinions, political or otherwise, of those sources). NB: If the title in the weblink does not indicate the subject matter, I give a brief simple intro before the link. I may also comment about the link afterwards.
ASTROPHYSICS
Unequal neutron star mergers may produce quite a bang https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803184201.htm
RU Lupi? (An old astronomical joke – say it out loud) may not be loopy, but it has a complicated planet forming structure https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803140010.htm
Why Betelgeuse faded https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/nasa-s-hubble-space-telescope-discovers-reason-behind-betelgeuse-s-unusual-dimming/ar-BB17VmMn?ocid=msedgdhp and
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200813134558.htm
Mark your diaries: when white dwarfs will explode as supernovae. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200812113354.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ftop_news%2Ftop_science+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Top+Science+News%29
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mysterious-heartbeat-detected-coming-from-cosmic-gas-cloud/ar-BB183KwQ?ocid=msedgdhp and https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200817123059.htm
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/astronomers-spy-milky-way-galaxy-very-early-universe
How stars form in the smallest galaxies https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200812144106.htm
Meteorites contain pre-solar stardust, revealing element synthesis https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120111.htm
Recreating the densities in White Dwarfs https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200817123039.htm
Ultramassive Black Hole is growing at an incredible rate https://nerdist.com/article/fastest-growing-black-hole-34-billion-suns/
Spinning Black Hole powers jet by magnetic flux https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200821103858.htm
Dense cold gas being shot out of centre of MW like bullets https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819110911.htm
Brown dwarfs found in solar neighbourhood https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200818142137.htm
COSMOLOGY
The fundamental problem in cosmology remains unsolved https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-heavy-is-the-universe-conflicting-answers-hint-at-new-physics/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=august-spd-alert&utm_content=article&utm_term=SPSI-20200801_CVP_v1_s1_____OptinYes&spMailingID=68127191&spUserID=NDcyNjA3Njk3NzkzS0&spJobID=1924191178&spReportId=MTkyNDE5MTE3OAS2
No evidence yet for Sterile Neutrinos https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811125036.htm
EARTH & MOON
Climate change is already worse than we thought. https://climatenewsnetwork.net/climate-sciences-worst-case-is-todays-reality/ and see this
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/annual-planetary-temperature-continues-to-rise/
Auroral Beads mystery unlocked by THEMIS https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200814131005.htm
Tracking the dent in our magnetic field https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200817144121.htm
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/in-arctic-heat-greenlands-ice-loss-grows-faster-still/
Anthropogenic CO2 increase is unprecedented
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200820151335.htm
Supernovae could have caused mass extinctions https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200818142104.htm
EXOLIFE
Is there Lyfe on Mars – a new definition of 'Life' https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/is-there-lyfe-on-mars-new-concept-broadens-search-for-alien-organisms/ar-BB17lP77?ocid=msedgdhp
EXOPLANETS
Super-dense Neptune-sized planet is a problem https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200804122225.htm
VLBA uses new technique to reveal a giant planet round a nearby small cool star https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200804122220.htm
TESS completes primary mission, starts extended mission with improvements https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120040.htm
Billions of 'rogue planets'? https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/there-could-be-more-rogue-planets-wandering-through-our-galaxy-than-there-are-stars/ar-BB18mmLU
IMAGES
Simply beautiful! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8580763/Space-butterfly-created-giant-bubble-gas-floating-Milky-Way.html
Amazing images of Jezero crater on Mars https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7678581/Studies-suggest-NASAs-Mars-2020-mission-landing-site-hold-signs-ancient-life.html
More amazing images of Mars from MRO https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8627553/NASA-shares-stunning-photos-Mars-captured-Reconnaissance-Orbiter.html
SOLAR SYSTEM
Was young Mars covered in ice sheets, not oceans? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803120154.htm But what caused all the sub-glacial melting? The surface would have been exceptionally cold under that ice, as snow/ice would reflect a very high proportion of incoming solar radiation. And Mars had much less vulcanism than Earth, and what there was seems to have been restricted to confined areas: Elysium and the Tharsis Bulge and Olympus Mons. There's no evidence of plate tectonics either, so that goes against a molten liquid core or mantle. With such a low temperature, it would have taken extremely thick ice-sheets to cause enough pressure to give significant melting. As to what caused the huge and amazing Valles Marineris, that remains a mystery!
Just when all the focus is on Mars, Venus springs a major surprise! https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/huge-cloud-unlike-anything-else-else-in-the-solar-system-found-hiding-in-plain-sight-on-venus/ar-BB17BzZX?ocid=msedgdhp
Dawn's finding about Ceres https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/nasa-reveals-first-findings-after-journey-to-mysterious-ocean-world-at-the-edge-of-our-solar-system/ar-BB17MXNk?ocid=msedgdhp
And https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811134900.htm
Meteorites contain pre-solar stardust https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120111.htm
Did we once have a second Sun? https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/there-might-once-have-been-a-second-sun-in-our-solar-system-astronomers-suggest/ar-BB186Zsl?ocid=msedgdhp and
SPACE
Perseverance will test new spacesuit material https://newatlas.com/space/nasa-perseverance-rover-spacesuit-mars/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=760b16b8f2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_30_07_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-760b16b8f2-92786061
20 lunar days completed https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/china-s-chang-e-4-moon-mission-completes-20th-day-on-lunar-farside/ar-BB17npoZ?ocid=msedgdhp
Mars 2020 is the 3rd mission now successfully on its way to Mars https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200730133724.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ftop_news%2Ftop_science+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Top+Science+News%29
Humans back on Moon by 2024r, says Bezos https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7011507/Is-Blue-Origin-headed-moon-Jeff-Bezos-set-reveal-rocket-firms-space-vision.html
Frank Borman didn't like space, hated the Moon! https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/astronaut-gives-brutally-honest-interview-and-explains-just-how-much-he-hates-space/ar-BB181qd8?ocid=msedgdhp
Ingenuity helicopter powers up in space https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/nasa-powers-up-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-in-space-for-the-1st-time/ar-BB181rgB?ocid=msedgdhp
Rocket Lab to send private mission to Venus in 2023 https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/rocket-lab-aims-to-launch-private-venus-mission-in-2023/ar-BB183moM?ocid=msedgdhp
Asteroid sample return to land in Australia https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/japan-s-hayabusa2-asteroid-sample-return-capsule-cleared-for-landing-in-australia/ar-BB18a4E7?ocid=msedgdhp
Hayabusa may visit second asteroid https://www.space.com/japan-hayabusa2-asteroid-mission-eyes-second-target.html
Video by panel of experts on colonising Mars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfKr5Jll88o
Sustained planetwide storms may have filled Martian lakes and rivers https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819194243.htm
Japan plans private Moon mission https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/japanese-startup-ispace-raises-28-million-in-new-funding-for-private-moon-landings/ar-BB18cnnB?ocid=msedgdhp
Osiris-Rex ready for asteroid sample grab https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/osiris-rex-mission-on-course-for-asteroid-sample-collection/ar-BB18cRO5
SUN
A solar superstorm at solar minimum https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab6a18
The Sun's nuclear fusion finally explained https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neutrinos-reveal-final-secret-of-suns-nuclear-fusion/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=august-spd-alert&utm_content=article&utm_term=SPSI-20200801_CVP_v1_s1_____OptinYes&spMailingID=68127191&spUserID=NDcyNjA3Njk3NzkzS0&spJobID=1924191178&spReportId=MTkyNDE5MTE3OAS2
The quiet Sun isn't so quiet after all https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200804111457.htm
Telescopes, Instruments, Techniques
The best site on Earth for a telescope – but wrap up warm! https://newatlas.com/space/best-spot-telescope-dome-a-antarctica/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=760b16b8f2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_30_07_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-760b16b8f2-92786061 There may be an error in the text – surely the extreme cold will make the atmosphere more dense, not "very thin"? However, the cold will make it extremely dry, as all the water vapour will have condensed out.
AI is good at classifying galaxies https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120120.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120040.htm
The most sensitive instrument in the search for exolife https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819120720.htm
Deep Learning will guide future Mars rovers https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819120700.htm
Measuring gravity waves and is gravity quantized? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200818103801.htm
NASA's Roman Telescope (formerly WFIRST) will be able to detect lots of 'rogue planets'. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200821113725.htm
The most sensitive instrument yet for detecting exolife https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819120720.htm
17. JOINING the IRISH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION. This link downloads a Word document to join the IAA. http://documents.irishastro.org.uk/iaamembership.doc
If you are a UK taxpayer, please tick the 'gift-aid' box, as that enables us to reclaim the standard rate of tax on your subscription, at no cost to you. You can also make a donation via Paypal if you wish: just click on the 'Donate' button. See also https://irishastro.org/
The Irish Astronomical Association is registered with The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland NIC 105858
DISCLAIMER: Any views expressed herein are mine, and do not necessarily represent those of the IAA.
Clear skies,
Terry Moseley
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