Astronomy_News_20_11_2019
Astronomy_News_20_11_2019
This months research Papers 20_11_2019
RASNZ_20_11_2019
Further links and discussion can be found at the groups/links below
Astronomy in New Zealand - Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5889909863/
Astronomy in New Zealand - Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
Astronomy in Wellington
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11451597655/
Blogger Posts
http://laintal.blogspot.com/
This months research
A very low mass, wide co-moving brown dwarf system discovered through the citizen science project
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.04600
Electric sails are potentially more effective than light sails near most stars
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.02765
Exporting Terrestrial Life Out of the Solar System
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.06414
Orbits and resonances of the regular moons of Neptune
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13612
The first observed stellar occultations by the irregular satellite (Saturn IX) Phoebe
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12188
Thermal evolution of Uranus and Neptune
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.00447
Impact bombardment chronology of the terrestrial planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.11282
Susceptibility of planetary atmospheres to mass loss and growth by planetesimal impacts
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10731
A Centaur in the Gateway to the Jupiter-Family Comets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.04185
Morphology and Activity of Interstellar comet 2I/Borisov
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14004
A textbook on the universal processes behind planetary habitability
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14022
Quantifying the Influence of Jupiter on the Earth's Orbital Cycles
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14250
Layered Uncertainty in Planetary Thermal History Models
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13654
Red Dwarfs - Exo planets
Revised mass-radius relationships for water-rich terrestrial planets beyond the runaway greenhouse limit
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08878
JWST Transmission Spectra of Habitable Zone Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 System
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08596
An extremely low-density and temperate giant exoplanet
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.07355
Constraining the magnitude of climate extremes
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05577
Habitability and Spectroscopic Observability of Warm M-dwarf Exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.10048
Red Dwarf Planets and Habitability
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/11/13/red-dwarf-planets-and-habitability/
Identify Exo-Earth Candidates in Direct Imaging Data
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13440
Exomoons in the habitable zones of M dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12054
Connecting planet formation and astrochemistry
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13171
Evidence for an Earth-like geochemistry of exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12989
SETI - And the search for life
A Return to Venus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzY-r2fi4Y
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Updates from Andrew B,
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu (1999 JU3).
Imaged: Wednesday 13th - Friday 15th November 2019.
Here these are a few images (including the latest @ 22:59 hrs GMT) taken as the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft started leaving the tiny 980 metre wide C Type (Carbonaceous) asteroid. From the regular 'Home Position' some 20 KM / 12 miles away from the asteroid the hydrazine thrusters briefly fired at a carefully chosen time 03:15 HRS GMT on Wednesday 13th November 2019 to push Hayabusa 2 away from the asteroid at a very slow 10 CM / 3.93 inches per second or 360 metres / 1,181 feet per hour. This is just to initially to take Hayabusa 2 out of the tiny 'Hill Sphere' (volume of space that the gravity of the asteroid is dominant), which extends to only about 65 KM / 40 miles from 162173 Ryugu.
From Wednesday 13th to Monday 18th November 2019, the Hayabusa spacecraft will be taking departure images, as the distance slowly increases, then on Tuesday 19th November 2019, the spacecraft will take the final image of the asteroid then turn to point the Ion Thrusters in the correct direction.
On Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd December 2019 the Ion Thrusters will power up for a test, then will come on to start thusting Hayabusa 2 on a path towards Earth and the speed will increase to . Hayabusa 2 just before Earth arrival in December 2020, the sample return capsule will be jettisoned and land in Australia, with samples collected from the asteroid.
The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft will pass Earth and most likely be used again for a very close flyby on Tuesday 27th June 2023, of the small Near Earth Asteroid 172034 2001 WR1 (still unnamed as of November 2019), a 670 metre / 2,200 foot wide Type S, Silicate asteroid, very different to 162173 Ryugu. Many images and spectra will be obtained and it may be possible for Hayabusa 2 to encounter others, assuming fuel for course changes and spacecraft health.
The density of 162173 Ryugu is low, only about 1.2 g/cm3 or a mass of about 450 million tons, very low for even an object of this size. 162173 Ryugu is certainly a pile of dusty, rocky ancient rubble held together by gravity.
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu was chosen as is a very primitive Type C Carbonaceous Chondrite, enriched with hydrated minerals and organic compounds (ingredients to help build life, not life itself).
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu may have formed and most likely did in the furthest part of the Asteroid Belt and more recently ended up in an orbit that brings it into the inner solar system, at times very close to Earth.
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu rotates in a retrograde direction east to west, (Sun and stars would rise in the west and set in the east) about once every 7 hours & 37 minutes on it's axis & orbits the Sun once every 1 year & 109 days.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu and AIST.
Hayabusa 2 spacecraft.
KBO 486958 Arrokoth.
Imaged: Tuesday 1st January 2019.
The Kuiper Belt Object known as 2014 MU69 ' Ultima Thule' has at very long last been given an official name.
Arrokoth was named after the word "sky" in the Powhatan / Algonquian language of the Tidewater Region of Virginia and Maryland, USA, where the District of Columbia (as in the DC in Washington DC, the Capital City of the USA) is located.
The name Arrokoth was carefully chosen by the New Horizons spacecraft team to represent the Powhatan People, indigenous to the state of Maryland, where the discovery of 486958 Arrokoth took place.
The Earth orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory are both operated at Maryland and were prominently involved in the discovery of 486958 Arrokoth, back in June 2014.
The small KBO / Kuiper Belt Object seen here during the New Horizons spacecraft encounter, in full colour at an astonishing resolution of 33 metres, passing by @ about 51,000 KPH / 32,100 MPH.
This view shows even more detail than the earlier closest approach imagery. A few more craters are visible, but the KBO is still very bereft of impact craters none the less. Also there appears to be a landslide within the large Maryland Crater on the small lobe. Also the Maryland Crater looks more like a blowout feature rather than impact.
Full size through the link below.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/…/CA06_color_m-h_desmear_destrip_co…
My long standing theory of there being a general lack of impact craters has certainly held very well. There are a few, but not many at all on an object of this size. Many of the pits appear to be former blow out pits in linear configurations and the large depression on the 'head' looks as though it blew outwards, not caused by an impact. So was this object active once, even this far from the Sun?
There are a few 'grooves' similar to those on the Mars moon Phobos (which is a little bit smaller than 486958 Arrokoth and Main Belt Asteroid 21 Lutetia (which is very much larger) are also present.
486958 Arrokoth was discovered only as recently as Thursday 26th June 2014, during a search for possible Kuiper Belt Objects, using the Hubble Space Telescope for the New Horizons spacecraft to encounter after the Pluto & Charon encounter in July 2015. 486958 Arrokoth is by far the most distant object closely encountered by a human built spacecraft.
486958 Arrokoth is 31 KM / 19 miles long. There are two lobes with a fused contact, making this object a contact binary. The larger lobe 'Ultima' is 19 KM / 12 miles wide, the smaller, more spherical lobe 'Thule' is 14 KM / 9 miles wide.
486958 Arrokoth rotates on it's side in a prograde, west to east direction once every 15 hours & 55 minutes. During the encounter the north pole of rotation was more or less pointing straight at the Sun as a 'Summer Solstice'.
The surface temperatures on 486958 Arrokoth are extremely low. In 'Summer' the maximum is minus 213 Celsius / minus 351 Fahrenheit or 60 Kelvin. On the unlit 'Winter' side, drops to a real bone chiller of minus 263 Celsius / minus 441 Fahrenheit or 10 Kelvin, only 5 Celsius / 9 Fahrenheit or 5 Kelvin higher than the effective temperature in interstellar space!!! The average 'global' temperature is by far the lowest on any object seen up close by a human built spacecraft, minus 250 Celsius / minus 418 Fahrenheit or 23 Kelvin.
486958 Arrokoth orbits the Sun once every 298 years at a mean distance of 6.690 billion KM / 4.517 billion miles.
Resolution. Approx 33 Metres.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
Image Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
New Horizons spacecraft.
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Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand
eNewsletter: No. 227, 20 November 2019
Affiliated Societies are welcome to reproduce any item in this email newsletter or on the RASNZ website www.rasnz.org.nz in their own newsletters provided an acknowledgement of the source is also included.
Contents
1. International Starlight Conference – Messages for everyone
2. Methane-detecting Satellite Supported by NZ
3. The Solar System in December
4. NZ Astrophotography Weekend - December 7-9
5. 2020 Conference and RASNZ Centenary
6. Star Parties in 2020
7. RASNZ 100 Programme
8. Variable Star News
9. Papers on Aoteroa New Zealand's Astronomical History
10. Saturn's New Moons
11. Heavy Element Seen from Neutron Star Collision
12. 'Ultima Thule' Officially Named 'Arrokoth'
13. How to Join the RASNZ
14. Gifford-Eiby Lecture Fund
15. Kingdon-Tomlinson Fund
16. Quotes
1. International Starlight Conference – Messages for everyone
Tekapo hosted an International Starlight Conference over four days in October. “Participants left us with important messages,” said John Hearnshaw, Chair of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve and Chair of the conference organizing committee.
Well done Mackenzie was the first message. You welcomed us, you got on board with dark skies and astro-tourism 40 years ago and put in place ordinances to control artificial light at night and now over a dozen communities want to follow suit to work towards New Zealand being the first in the world to be designated a “Dark Sky Nation.”
We do not want the Blues – we want the stars and a good night’s sleep said the 112 conference participants from 14 countries including New Zealand. We want skies unpolluted by artificial light for astro-tourism, astronomy, nocturnal life and human health. “Did you know that humans are as sensitive to light as cockroaches?” said one presenter.
“International guests saw NZ as a thought leader, the people as environmental custodians with the power to engage its citizens. We were reminded that everyday needs a dark night and that sleep is a reset button” said John Hearnshaw.
Will we be safe with limited street lighting? There is no problem in the Mackenzie with low level bollards in new housing developments. Truth is, light makes the burglars feel safe because we are unaware of them – so says Paul Bogard, author of the best-selling book “The End of Night”.
Come on NZTA – get on board, remove the blue light from the LEDs and direct the street lights downwards. We will all be safe and our well-being and that of nocturnal life depends on it. We must have a platform for action if we are to achieve Dark Sky Nation status. The Mackenzie has done it, as have Great Barrier Island and Stewart Island. Dunedin and Hamilton are following. No one said it would be easy, but it is achievable. We need NZTA, DOC, and the Ministers for Environment, Health, Education, Tourism, Conservation all involved. We must get the young out as Ambassadors for Dark Skies.
The figure of 930 000 tourists in the Mackenzie in 2018-19 is not wrong. Star maps show NZ as dark except in the cities. People from all over the world come to see the stars, the Milky Way and the planets. They lament what they have lost in Europe, China the USA and say to us “Cherish and preserve what you have here in NZ”.
We have a goal – A Dark Sky Nation by 2025. Now we need a strategy to support the Districts interested in achieving the goal, collaborating and agreeing on guidelines and asking serious questions of those that determine policy. We need scientists talking and writing about the science of illumination. We have a responsibility to build on the well-being of citizens and looking after the wildlife.
You are invited to tell us what you think on: Contact Margaret Austin (austinme@xtra.co.nz), Steve Butler (s_butler@xtra.co.nz) or John Hearnshaw (john.hearnshaw@canterbury.ac.nz) of the Starlight Conference Organizing Committee. The conference was held at the Tekapo Community Hall and hosted by the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.
-- Margaret Austin
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A Conference report by John Hearnshaw will appear in 'Southern Stars'.
2. Methane-detecting Satellite Supported by NZ
A global methane-tracking satellite will be sent into orbit in New Zealand’s first Government-funded space mission. New Zealand will get its own space mission control centre as the Government puts $26 million behind a climate-change-combating satellite. But what is being described as our first state-funded journey into orbit, and a major step towards building a domestic space programme, won't be launching from Aotearoa.
Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods announced on Wednesday the Government will be contributing to a joint mission with the United States' Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to launch a state-of-art, methane-tracking satellite. The EDF – a major not-for profit environmental advocacy group - says the MethaneSAT will able to monitor methane pollution from oil and gas around the world. The organisation will give the data out for free in a bid help battle climate change.
As part of the agreement, the satellite's five-year mission - launching in 2022 - will be run out of New Zealand-based command centre, which the Government will set up and run for about $10 million. "It will enable us to grow our capabilities in the space sector and participate in future space missions," Woods said. She said the operations would likely be based out of existing facilities in a university – although where has yet to be determined – both to save costs and to give local scientists better access to the data.
New Zealand's contribution to the mission will also aim to adapt the research to agricultural emissions, which it currently doesn't cover.
The announcement is major step for the New Zealand Space Agency, a department quietly set up within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in 2016 and which has so far largely worked in policy and helping space-faring businesses.
From Boris Jancic's NZ Herald report at https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12282874
3. The Solar System in December
Dates and times shown are NZDT (UT + 13 hours). Rise and Set times are for Wellington. They will vary by a few minutes elsewhere in NZ. Data is adapted from that shown by GUIDE 9.
The Southern Summer Solstice is on 2019 December 22 at 5.20 pm.
An annular eclipse of the Sun on the 26th is not visible from NZ. More details are on the RASNZ web site: rasnz.org.nz/in-the-sky/eclipses-2019
THE SUN and PLANETS in December, Rise & Set, Magnitude & Constellation.
December 1 NZDT December 31 NZDT
Mag Cons Rise Set Mag Cons Rise Set
SUN -26.7 Oph 5.40am 8.39pm -26.7 Sgr 5.47am 8.59pm
Merc -0.6 Lib 4.48am 6.54pm -0.9 Sgr 5.17am 8.42pm
Venus -3.9 Sgr 7.27am 10.52pm -4.0 Cap 8.34am 11.03pm
Mars 1.7 Lib 4.09am 5.58pm 1.6 Lib 3.07am 5.43pm
Jup -1.8 Sgr 7.06am 10.14pm -1.8 Sgr 5.38am 8.46pm
Sat 0.6 Sgr 8.31am 11.28pm 0.5 Sgr 6.49am 9.42pm
Uran 5.7 Ari 5.25pm 4.07am 5.7 Ari 3.23pm 2.07am
Nep 7.9 Aqr 1.24pm 2.18am 7.9 Aqr 11.27am 12.21am
Pluto 14.5 Sgr 8.45am 11.44am 14.6 Sgr 6.52am 9.50pm
December 1 NZDT December 31 NZDT
Twilights morning evening morning evening
Civil: start 5.10am, end 9.10pm start 5.16am, end 9.31pm
Nautical: start 4.28am, end 9.51pm start 4.33am, end 10.14pm
Astro: start 3.40am, end 10.40pm start 3.42am, end 11.05pm
December PHASES OF THE MOON, times NZDT & UT
First quarter: Dec 4 at 7.58pm (06:58 UT)
Full Moon: Dec 12 at 6.12pm (05:12 UT)
Last quarter Dec 19 at 5.57pm (04:57 UT)
New Moon: Dec 26 at 6.13pm (05:13 UT)
PLANETS in DECEMBER
MERCURY is a morning object but virtually unobservable all month. It rises about 50 minutes before the Sun on the 1st and only 30 minutes earlier on the 31st.
VENUS sets a little over two hours after the Sun in December, so will be readily visible shortly after sunset, fairly low and a little to the south of west.
MARS is a morning object. By the 31st it rises more than 2.5 hours before the Sun. That morning Mars will be about 13.5° to the left of, and slightly higher than, Antares. Earlier in the month, on the 23rd the crescent moon will be about 7.5° to the left of the planet.
JUPITER is at conjunction with the Sun on the 28th. On the 1st Jupiter sets about 90 minutes after the Sun, so will be briefly visible low to the south of west. Within a few days the planet will be too close to the Sun to observe.
SATURN is easily visible in the evening sky early in December when it sets nearly 3 hours after the Sun. This interval drops to less than 45 minutes by the 31st making Saturn a difficult object in evening twilight. Saturn will then be a little over 1° from PLUTO.
URANUS is an evening object setting well after midnight. The gibbous moon is 4° above the planet at about 11pm on the 8th.
NEPTUNE is also an evening object moving very slowly in Aquarius. It sets just after midnight on the 31st.
POSSIBLE BINOCULAR ASTEROIDS in DECEMBER
December 1 NZDT December 31 NZDT
Mag Cons transit Mag Cons transit
(1) Ceres 9.2 Sgr 3.08pm 9.0 Sgr 2.03pm
(4) Vesta 6.8 Cet 11.41pm 7.5 Cet 9.30pm
CERES will be very low in the evening sky by the time it is dark enough to observe on the 1st. Only a little later in December it sets during evening twilight.
VESTA also an evening object is well placed for viewing all month. It is 4.5° to the upper right of the 91% lit moon on the 9th.
-- Brian Loader
4. NZ Astrophotography Weekend - December 7-9
At the Foxton Beach Bible Camp, Foxton Beach, Horowhenua.
The Horowhenua Astronomical Society is hosting the sixth New Zealand Astrophotography Weekend. Held in the lower North Island it is an annual event dedicated to astrophotography in a wonderful dark-sky location. It is open to everyone interested in astrophotography - from beginners to advanced. Come along and share your knowledge, tips and experiences
All sorts of astrophotography can be undertaken - solar-system/nightscapes/deep-sky.
The weekend shall consist of: practical astrophotography, image processing, presentations, bring-and-buy, fish and chips dinner, late-night movies. Everyone is encouraged to bring along their own telescopes, binoculars, mounts, cameras, etc. however basic they might be.
See www.nzapw.org.nz for costs and registration details.
Please book early so we know the numbers.
-- Steve Lang.
5. 2020 Conference and RASNZ Centenary
The 2020 Conference will be held Friday 8 - Sunday 10 May 2020 in Wellington. The Wellington Astronomical Society is hosting the Conference.
The Conference venue is the Wharewaka Function Centre located on the waterfront just 2 minutes walk from Te Papa.
As the programme will commence at the earlier than usual time of 1pm on Friday we encourage as many as possible to make their travel arrangements to arrive in the city during the morning. The Conference will conclude mid-afternoon on Sunday.
The conference will be followed by a Dark Skies workshop on Monday morning.
Invited Speaker: the SCC is pleased to announce that we will have, as our invited speaker, a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration who in April 2019 captured an image of the black hole in the centre of M87 using a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Dr Dom Pesce is currently a postdoctoral fellow working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics with research interests including black holes, active galactic nuclei, astrophysical masers, and the application of statistical techniques to astronomical data.
Planning for the conference is progressing and further details will be announced in the near future once they are confirmed. Keep watching the RASNZ website www.rasnz.org.nz. In the meantime please mark the above dates in your calendar and consider participating in this Conference as RASNZ celebrates its centenary.
-- Glen Rowe, Chair, Standing Conference Committee.
6. Star Parties in 2020
The following star parties are planned for 2020:
Central Star Party: Thursday January 16th to Sunday 19th at the Tuki Tuki Camp site in the Hawkes Bay. https://censtar.party/
Stardate North Island: Friday February 21st to Sunday 23rd at Stonehenge, Carterton. Check Phoenix website - http://www.astronomynz.org/
Stardate South Island: Friday February 21st to Sunday 23rd, at Staveley, South Island. Keep an eye on https://cas.org.nz/
Stargazers Getaway 2020 Camp Iona, Friday September 18th to Sunday 20th. This is new Moon, so we are targeting this weekend for dark skies! See
https://www.facebook.com/events/943327669369996/
NACAA: The 29th NACAA conference will be held in the NSW (Australia) regional city of Parkes (where the world-famous Parkes Radio Telescope is) over the 2020 Easter weekend, Friday April 10th – Monday 13th. For more details see http://nacaa.org.au/2020/about
-- Mostly from 'Keeping in Touch' #34, 27th Sept 2019.
7. RASNZ 100 Programme
The RASNZ Council is pleased to announce its RASNZ 100 Programme to support Affiliated Societies celebrating the RASNZ's Centennial year in 2020. The programme encourages Affiliated Societies to promote astronomy within their regions to raise the profile of the Society, the RASNZ and astronomy in general. The RASNZ is providing up to $500 to each Affiliated Society to support RASNZ 100 events run by Affiliated Societies. For more information, see https://www.rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/rasnz-100-events
-- From 'Keeping in Touch' #34. 27th Sept 2019
8. Variable Star News
Robotic Telescopes
A Conference on the use of Robotic Telescopes is to be held at Melbourne University, Parkville, Vic 3010, from the 8th to the 11th of December. The RTSRE conference series focuses on building a sustainable community around the educational, technical and student research uses of robotic telescopes, from small through to large aperture and from radio through to gamma-ray and involving both observed and archival data. It aims to be a meeting place for astronomers, teachers, educators, outreach practitioners, researchers, and observatory and telescope network developers and managers, in a continuing effort to share and combine resources, develop and enhance education and research programs, and foster global conversations and collaborations. It facilitates the storage of knowledge in the field through its yearly dual-peer-reviewed proceedings journal, RTSRE Proceedings and an astronomical journal, Astronomy, Theory, Observations and Methods. For further information visit https://rtsre.net/#1547878990191-d685bfc8-7731
Specialist workshops at separate venues from the main event bookend the main Conference On 7 Dec a workshop on “Connecting the Public to the Night Sky“ will be co-hosted by AAVSO Director Stella Kafka. On 12th Dec there will be a practical workshop on using “Robotic Telescopes for Student Research and Education” held at Eltham College, Eltham.
Information obtained on main event from https://www.asera.org.au/news/rtsre-conference-2019
Variable Stars South Symposium (VSSS 6)
VSSS6 will be held on Friday, April 10th, 2020 in Parkes NSW, just prior to the NACAA meeting. The symposium will have a single stream of presentations as well as a poster display.
The VSSS6 Programme Committee (David O’Driscoll and Mark Blackford) is now calling for presentations for the Friday sessions. Oral presentations are the main focus of these symposia, and we are inviting amateur and professional astronomers with an interest in variable stars to consider making a contribution, individually or as part of a group. Membership of Variable Stars South in not necessary, indeed we welcome anyone with a shared interest in this fascinating field of study. A poster display will also be available for those who prefer to present their work in that manner. These will be in place for the entire weekend giving delegates to the NACAA conference and other satellite meetings the opportunity to view them.
VSS 2019 October Newsletter
For science articles and publication watch visit:
https://www.variablestarssouth.org/vss-newsletter-october-2019/
-- Alan Baldwin
9. Papers on Aoteroa New Zealand's Astronomical History
Wayne Orchiston Co-Founder and Editor of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage writes:
Seeing the note in the previous Newsletter about Richard Taibi’s paper on the Warney & Swasey/Brashear 46-cm refractor at Lake Tekapo, prompted me to write this short report.
Since we founded the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (JAHH) in 1998, we have published 9 different research papers about New Zealand or Cook Voyage astronomical history, and they are listed below. JAHH is an international open-access peer-reviewed e-journal and is posted on the ADS and NARIT web sites where individual papers and book reviews, or whole issues, can be downloaded free of charge. Simply go to https://www.jahh.org, click ‘Back Issues’, and click on the relevant year to access any of the following papers (or individual issues of the journal).
Orchiston, W., Love, T., and Dick, S., 2000. Refining the Astronomical Unit: Queenstown and the 1874 transit of Venus. JAHH, 3(1), 23-44.
Orchiston, W., 2001. The English Equatorial Mounting and the Fletcher Telescope. JAHH, 4(1), 29-42 [This is about the 9.5-inch Cooke refractor at the Ward-Wanganui Observatory].
Kinns, R., 2009. Time-keeping in the Antipodes: a critical comparison of the Sydney and Lyttelton time balls. JAHH, 12(2), 97-107.
Harris, P., Matamua, R., Smith, T., Kerr, H., and Waaka, T., 2013. A review of Maori astronomy in Aotearoa-New Zealand. JAHH, 16(3), 325-336.
Orchiston, W., Romick, C., and Brown, P., 2015. James Henry Marriott: New Zealand’s first professional telescope-maker. JAHH, 18(3), 261-276.
Kinns, R., 2017a. The principal time balls of New Zealand. JAHH, 20(1), 69-94.
Kinns, R., 2017b. The time light signals of New Zealand: yet another way of communicating time in the pre-wireless era. JAHH, 20(2), 211-222.
Orchiston, W., 2017. Cook, Green, Maskelyne and the 1769 transit of Venus: the legacy of the Tahitian observations. JAHH, 20(1), 35-68.
Taibi, R., 2019. A tale of three telescopes: the John A. Brashear Company and its 46-cm objective of 1893. JAHH, 22(2), 247-265 [This is about the 46-cm refractor that is now at Lake Tekapo].
10. Saturn's New Moons
Jupiter may be the king of the planets, but — right now, at least — Saturn is the king of moons. Astronomers Scott Sheppard (Carnegie Institution for Science), David Jewitt (UCLA), and Jan Kleyna (University of Hawai‘i) have announced the discovery of 20 new moons circling the ringed planet, putting Saturn’s total at 82 compared to Jupiter’s 79. The moons are each around 5 kilometers (3 miles) in diameter.
The team used the Subaru telescope atop Maunakea, Hawai‘i, to find the moons. Sheppard had previously led a team in the discovery of 10 new moons around Jupiter, announced last year, using the 6.5-m Magellan-Baade reflector Las Campanas and the 4.0-m Blanco reflector on Cerro Tololo.
"Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, we are now completing the inventory of small moons around the giant planets,” Sheppard explains. The new discoveries are cool in and of themselves, but ultimately, it’s what they tell us about the solar system’s formation that motivates Sheppard’s search.
Of the 20 new moons, 17 are orbiting the moon “backwards,” that is, in a direction opposite to the planet’s motion. Astronomers call these orbits retrograde. They’re all at roughly the same distance from the planet, putting them in the Norse group of moons. The Norse group is diverse, but the orbits and inclinations of the newest moons suggest they all originated from the same parent body.
Three other moons are in prograde orbits, two orbiting at an inclination of 46° and one at an inclination of 36°. They belong to the Inuit and Gallic groups, respectively.
For a humorous take on the discoveries and what they mean for the moons’ formation here: https://youtu.be/0dNH-odX4qE
Name Those Moons!
You have until December 6, 2019, to tweet your suggested moon name to @SaturnLunacy with the hashtag #NameSaturnsMoons. Describe why you picked the name you did, and include photos, artwork, and videos to bolster your case.
It’s not the Wild West out there — the International Astronomical Union has rules for naming things in outer space, and the moons of Saturn are no exception. Saturn’s moons are named for mythological giants, and which mythology depends on which group the moon belongs to.
Two of the newly discovered prograde moons must be named for giants from Inuit mythology. One moon, which is also prograde but belongs to a different group, is to be named for a giant in Gallic mythology. Likewise, 17 retrograde moons must be named for giants in Norse mythology. Be sure to search the current database of IAU names to make sure the name you’ve picked out isn’t already in use.
For the original text and graphics see https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/help-name-saturns-20-newfound-moons/
-- From Monica Young's article of October 9 on Sky & Telescope's webpage.
11. Heavy Element Seen from Neutron Star Collision
For the first time, a freshly made heavy element, strontium, has been detected in space, in the aftermath of a merger of two neutron stars. The detection confirms that the heavier elements in the Universe can form in neutron star mergers, providing a missing piece of the puzzle of chemical element formation. The finding was observed by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO's) X-shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and published in Nature on October 23rd.
In 2017, following the detection of gravitational waves passing the Earth, ESO pointed its telescopes in Chile, including the VLT, to the source: a neutron star merger named GW170817. Astronomers suspected that, if heavier elements did form in neutron star collisions, signatures of those elements could be detected in kilonovae, the explosive aftermaths of these mergers. This is what a team of European researchers has now done, using data from the X-shooter instrument on ESO’s VLT.
Following the GW170817 merger, ESO’s fleet of telescopes began monitoring the emerging kilonova explosion over a wide range of wavelengths. X-shooter in particular took a series of spectra from the ultraviolet to the near infrared. Initial analysis of these spectra suggested the presence of heavy elements in the kilonova, but astronomers could not pinpoint individual elements until now.
“By reanalysing the 2017 data from the merger, we have now identified the signature of one heavy element in this fireball, strontium, proving that the collision of neutron stars creates this element in the Universe,” says the study’s lead author Darach Watson from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. On Earth, strontium is found naturally in the soil and is concentrated in certain minerals. Its salts are used to give fireworks a brilliant red colour.
Astronomers have known the physical processes that create the elements since the 1950s. Over the following decades they have uncovered the cosmic sites of each of these major nuclear forges, except one. “This is the final stage of a decades-long chase to pin down the origin of the elements,” says Watson. “We know now that the processes that created the elements happened mostly in ordinary stars, in supernova explosions, or in the outer layers of old stars. But, until now, we did not know the location of the final, undiscovered process, known as rapid neutron capture, that created the heavier elements in the periodic table.”
Rapid neutron capture is a process in which an atomic nucleus captures neutrons quickly enough to allow very heavy elements to be created. Although many elements are produced in the cores of stars, creating elements heavier than iron, such as strontium, requires even hotter environments with lots of free neutrons. Rapid neutron capture only occurs naturally in extreme environments where atoms are bombarded by vast numbers of neutrons.
“This is the first time that we can directly associate newly created material formed via neutron capture with a neutron star merger, confirming that neutron stars are made of neutrons and tying the long-debated rapid neutron capture process to such mergers,” says Camilla Juul Hansen from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, who played a major role in the study.
Scientists are only now starting to better understand neutron star mergers and kilonovae. Because of the limited understanding of these new phenomena and other complexities in the spectra that the VLT’s X-shooter took of the explosion, astronomers had not been able to identify individual elements until now.
“We actually came up with the idea that we might be seeing strontium quite quickly after the event. However, showing that this was demonstrably the case turned out to be very difficult. This difficulty was due to our highly incomplete knowledge of the spectral appearance of the heavier elements in the periodic table,” says University of Copenhagen researcher Jonatan Selsing, who was a key author on the paper.
The GW170817 merger was the fifth detection of gravitational waves, made possible thanks to the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and the Virgo Interferometer in Italy. Located in the galaxy NGC 4993, the merger was the first, and so far the only, gravitational wave source to have its visible counterpart detected by telescopes on Earth.
With the combined efforts of LIGO, Virgo and the VLT, we have the clearest understanding yet of the inner workings of neutron stars and their explosive mergers.
-- From an ESO press release forwarded by Karen Pollard. See the original with images at https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1917/
12. 'Ultima Thule' Officially Named 'Arrokoth'
In a fitting tribute to the farthest flyby ever conducted by spacecraft, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 has been officially named Arrokoth, a Native American term meaning “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquian language.
With consent from Powhatan Tribal elders and representatives, NASA’s New Horizons team -- whose spacecraft performed the record-breaking reconnaissance of Arrokoth four billion miles from Earth -- proposed the name to the International Astronomical Union and Minor Planet Center, the international authority for naming Kuiper Belt objects. The name was announced at a ceremony today at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“The name ‘Arrokoth’ reflects the inspiration of looking to the skies, and wondering about the stars and worlds beyond our own,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “That desire to learn is at the heart of the New Horizons mission, and we’re honored to join with the Powhatan community and people of Maryland in this celebration of discovery.”
New Horizons launched in January 2006; it then zipped past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted an historic first flight through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. The spacecraft continued its unparalleled voyage on New Year’s 2019 with the exploration of Arrokoth -- which the team had nicknamed “Ultima Thule” -- a billion miles beyond Pluto, and the farthest flyby ever conducted.
Arrokoth is one of the thousands of known small icy worlds in the Kuiper Belt, the vast “third zone” of the solar system beyond the inner terrestrial planets and the outer gas giant planets. It was discovered in 2014 by a New Horizons team -- which included Marc Buie, of the Southwest Research Institute -- using the powerful Hubble Space Telescope.
“Data from the newly-named Arrokoth, has given us clues about the formation of planets and our cosmic origins,” said Buie. “We believe this ancient body, composed of two distinct lobes that merged into one entity, may harbor answers that contribute to our understanding of the origin of life on Earth.”
In accordance with IAU naming conventions, the discovery team earned the privilege of selecting a permanent name for the celestial body. The team used this convention to associate the culture of the native peoples who lived in the region where the object was discovered; in this case, both the Hubble Space Telescope (at the Space Telescope Science Institute) and the New Horizons mission (at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory) are operated out of Maryland -- a tie to the significance of the Chesapeake Bay region to the Powhatan people.
“We graciously accept this gift from the Powhatan people,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “Bestowing the name Arrokoth signifies the strength and endurance of the indigenous Algonquian people of the Chesapeake region. Their heritage continues to be a guiding light for all who search for meaning and understanding of the origins of the universe and the celestial connection of humanity.”
The Pamunkey Reservation in King William County, Virginia, is the oldest American Indian reservation in the U.S. -- formed by a treaty with England in the 1600s and finally receiving federal recognition in July 2015. The Pamunkey tribe and its village were significant in the original Powhatan Confederacy; today, Pamunkey tribal members work collaboratively with other Powhatan tribes in Virginia and also have descendants who are members of the Powhatan-Renape Nation in New Jersey. Many direct descendants still live on the Pamunkey reservation, while others have moved to Northern Virginia, Maryland, D.C., New York and New Jersey.
For the original text and images see http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20191112
-- A press release issued jointly by NASA Headquarters, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Southwest Research Institute, forwarded by Karen Pollard.
13. How to Join the RASNZ
RASNZ membership is open to all individuals with an interest in
astronomy in New Zealand. Information about the society and its
objects can be found at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/membership-benefits
A membership form can be either obtained from treasurer@rasnz.co.nz or
by completing the online application form found at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/membership-application
Basic membership for the 2019 year starts at $40 for an ordinary
member, which includes an electronic subscription to our journal
'Southern Stars'.
14. Gifford-Eiby Lecture Fund
The RASNZ administers the Gifford-Eiby Memorial Lectureship Fund to
assist Affiliated Societies with travel costs of getting a lecturer
or instructor to their meetings. Details are in RASNZ By-Laws Section
H and at http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/ge-fund
The application form is at
http://rasnz.org.nz/Downloadable/RASNZ/GE_Application2019.pdf
15. Kingdon-Tomlinson Fund
The RASNZ is responsible for recommending to the trustees of the Kingdon
Tomlinson Fund that grants be made for astronomical projects. The grants may be to any person or persons, or organisations, requiring funding for any projects or ventures that promote the progress of astronomy in New Zealand. The deadline for this round of the Kingdon-Tomlinson Grants is Friday 1st November 2019. Full details are set down in the RASNZ By-Laws, Section J. Information on the K-T Fund is at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/kt-fund
Send applications to the RASNZ Executive Secretary at rasnz.secretary@gmail.com.
The application form at
http://rasnz.org.nz/Downloadable/RASNZ/KT_Application2019.pdf
16. Quotes
"During centuries of religious preaching, life expectancy was less than 30 years, killer diseases flourished as did cruel and vile superstitions. For most, living conditions were generally abysmal. Since the 19th century, with the rise of science and technology, all of this has been reversed massively. Religion played little or no part in these advances. Religion actually tried hard to prevent many of them." -- From a letter in 'Private Eye', No. 1507, 18 October 2019, p.22, defending Richard Dawkins's book 'Outgrowing God: A Beginner's Guide'.
"You do not need to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." -- Rabbi Tarphon quoted in The Economist's obituary for Harold Bloom, October 26th, p.78.
Alan Gilmore Phone: 03 680 6817
P.O. Box 57 alan.gilmore@canterbury.ac.nz
Lake Tekapo 7945
New Zealand
This months research Papers 20_11_2019
RASNZ_20_11_2019
Further links and discussion can be found at the groups/links below
Astronomy in New Zealand - Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5889909863/
Astronomy in New Zealand - Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
Astronomy in Wellington
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11451597655/
Blogger Posts
http://laintal.blogspot.com/
This months research
A very low mass, wide co-moving brown dwarf system discovered through the citizen science project
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.04600
Electric sails are potentially more effective than light sails near most stars
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.02765
Exporting Terrestrial Life Out of the Solar System
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.06414
Orbits and resonances of the regular moons of Neptune
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13612
The first observed stellar occultations by the irregular satellite (Saturn IX) Phoebe
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12188
Thermal evolution of Uranus and Neptune
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.00447
Impact bombardment chronology of the terrestrial planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.11282
Susceptibility of planetary atmospheres to mass loss and growth by planetesimal impacts
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10731
A Centaur in the Gateway to the Jupiter-Family Comets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.04185
Morphology and Activity of Interstellar comet 2I/Borisov
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14004
A textbook on the universal processes behind planetary habitability
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14022
Quantifying the Influence of Jupiter on the Earth's Orbital Cycles
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14250
Layered Uncertainty in Planetary Thermal History Models
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13654
Red Dwarfs - Exo planets
Revised mass-radius relationships for water-rich terrestrial planets beyond the runaway greenhouse limit
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08878
JWST Transmission Spectra of Habitable Zone Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 System
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08596
An extremely low-density and temperate giant exoplanet
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.07355
Constraining the magnitude of climate extremes
https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05577
Habitability and Spectroscopic Observability of Warm M-dwarf Exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.10048
Red Dwarf Planets and Habitability
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/11/13/red-dwarf-planets-and-habitability/
Identify Exo-Earth Candidates in Direct Imaging Data
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13440
Exomoons in the habitable zones of M dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12054
Connecting planet formation and astrochemistry
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13171
Evidence for an Earth-like geochemistry of exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12989
SETI - And the search for life
A Return to Venus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzY-r2fi4Y
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Updates from Andrew B,
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu (1999 JU3).
Imaged: Wednesday 13th - Friday 15th November 2019.
Here these are a few images (including the latest @ 22:59 hrs GMT) taken as the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft started leaving the tiny 980 metre wide C Type (Carbonaceous) asteroid. From the regular 'Home Position' some 20 KM / 12 miles away from the asteroid the hydrazine thrusters briefly fired at a carefully chosen time 03:15 HRS GMT on Wednesday 13th November 2019 to push Hayabusa 2 away from the asteroid at a very slow 10 CM / 3.93 inches per second or 360 metres / 1,181 feet per hour. This is just to initially to take Hayabusa 2 out of the tiny 'Hill Sphere' (volume of space that the gravity of the asteroid is dominant), which extends to only about 65 KM / 40 miles from 162173 Ryugu.
From Wednesday 13th to Monday 18th November 2019, the Hayabusa spacecraft will be taking departure images, as the distance slowly increases, then on Tuesday 19th November 2019, the spacecraft will take the final image of the asteroid then turn to point the Ion Thrusters in the correct direction.
On Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd December 2019 the Ion Thrusters will power up for a test, then will come on to start thusting Hayabusa 2 on a path towards Earth and the speed will increase to . Hayabusa 2 just before Earth arrival in December 2020, the sample return capsule will be jettisoned and land in Australia, with samples collected from the asteroid.
The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft will pass Earth and most likely be used again for a very close flyby on Tuesday 27th June 2023, of the small Near Earth Asteroid 172034 2001 WR1 (still unnamed as of November 2019), a 670 metre / 2,200 foot wide Type S, Silicate asteroid, very different to 162173 Ryugu. Many images and spectra will be obtained and it may be possible for Hayabusa 2 to encounter others, assuming fuel for course changes and spacecraft health.
The density of 162173 Ryugu is low, only about 1.2 g/cm3 or a mass of about 450 million tons, very low for even an object of this size. 162173 Ryugu is certainly a pile of dusty, rocky ancient rubble held together by gravity.
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu was chosen as is a very primitive Type C Carbonaceous Chondrite, enriched with hydrated minerals and organic compounds (ingredients to help build life, not life itself).
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu may have formed and most likely did in the furthest part of the Asteroid Belt and more recently ended up in an orbit that brings it into the inner solar system, at times very close to Earth.
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu rotates in a retrograde direction east to west, (Sun and stars would rise in the west and set in the east) about once every 7 hours & 37 minutes on it's axis & orbits the Sun once every 1 year & 109 days.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu and AIST.
Hayabusa 2 spacecraft.
KBO 486958 Arrokoth.
Imaged: Tuesday 1st January 2019.
The Kuiper Belt Object known as 2014 MU69 ' Ultima Thule' has at very long last been given an official name.
Arrokoth was named after the word "sky" in the Powhatan / Algonquian language of the Tidewater Region of Virginia and Maryland, USA, where the District of Columbia (as in the DC in Washington DC, the Capital City of the USA) is located.
The name Arrokoth was carefully chosen by the New Horizons spacecraft team to represent the Powhatan People, indigenous to the state of Maryland, where the discovery of 486958 Arrokoth took place.
The Earth orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory are both operated at Maryland and were prominently involved in the discovery of 486958 Arrokoth, back in June 2014.
The small KBO / Kuiper Belt Object seen here during the New Horizons spacecraft encounter, in full colour at an astonishing resolution of 33 metres, passing by @ about 51,000 KPH / 32,100 MPH.
This view shows even more detail than the earlier closest approach imagery. A few more craters are visible, but the KBO is still very bereft of impact craters none the less. Also there appears to be a landslide within the large Maryland Crater on the small lobe. Also the Maryland Crater looks more like a blowout feature rather than impact.
Full size through the link below.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/…/CA06_color_m-h_desmear_destrip_co…
My long standing theory of there being a general lack of impact craters has certainly held very well. There are a few, but not many at all on an object of this size. Many of the pits appear to be former blow out pits in linear configurations and the large depression on the 'head' looks as though it blew outwards, not caused by an impact. So was this object active once, even this far from the Sun?
There are a few 'grooves' similar to those on the Mars moon Phobos (which is a little bit smaller than 486958 Arrokoth and Main Belt Asteroid 21 Lutetia (which is very much larger) are also present.
486958 Arrokoth was discovered only as recently as Thursday 26th June 2014, during a search for possible Kuiper Belt Objects, using the Hubble Space Telescope for the New Horizons spacecraft to encounter after the Pluto & Charon encounter in July 2015. 486958 Arrokoth is by far the most distant object closely encountered by a human built spacecraft.
486958 Arrokoth is 31 KM / 19 miles long. There are two lobes with a fused contact, making this object a contact binary. The larger lobe 'Ultima' is 19 KM / 12 miles wide, the smaller, more spherical lobe 'Thule' is 14 KM / 9 miles wide.
486958 Arrokoth rotates on it's side in a prograde, west to east direction once every 15 hours & 55 minutes. During the encounter the north pole of rotation was more or less pointing straight at the Sun as a 'Summer Solstice'.
The surface temperatures on 486958 Arrokoth are extremely low. In 'Summer' the maximum is minus 213 Celsius / minus 351 Fahrenheit or 60 Kelvin. On the unlit 'Winter' side, drops to a real bone chiller of minus 263 Celsius / minus 441 Fahrenheit or 10 Kelvin, only 5 Celsius / 9 Fahrenheit or 5 Kelvin higher than the effective temperature in interstellar space!!! The average 'global' temperature is by far the lowest on any object seen up close by a human built spacecraft, minus 250 Celsius / minus 418 Fahrenheit or 23 Kelvin.
486958 Arrokoth orbits the Sun once every 298 years at a mean distance of 6.690 billion KM / 4.517 billion miles.
Resolution. Approx 33 Metres.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
Image Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
New Horizons spacecraft.
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Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand
eNewsletter: No. 227, 20 November 2019
Affiliated Societies are welcome to reproduce any item in this email newsletter or on the RASNZ website www.rasnz.org.nz in their own newsletters provided an acknowledgement of the source is also included.
Contents
1. International Starlight Conference – Messages for everyone
2. Methane-detecting Satellite Supported by NZ
3. The Solar System in December
4. NZ Astrophotography Weekend - December 7-9
5. 2020 Conference and RASNZ Centenary
6. Star Parties in 2020
7. RASNZ 100 Programme
8. Variable Star News
9. Papers on Aoteroa New Zealand's Astronomical History
10. Saturn's New Moons
11. Heavy Element Seen from Neutron Star Collision
12. 'Ultima Thule' Officially Named 'Arrokoth'
13. How to Join the RASNZ
14. Gifford-Eiby Lecture Fund
15. Kingdon-Tomlinson Fund
16. Quotes
1. International Starlight Conference – Messages for everyone
Tekapo hosted an International Starlight Conference over four days in October. “Participants left us with important messages,” said John Hearnshaw, Chair of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve and Chair of the conference organizing committee.
Well done Mackenzie was the first message. You welcomed us, you got on board with dark skies and astro-tourism 40 years ago and put in place ordinances to control artificial light at night and now over a dozen communities want to follow suit to work towards New Zealand being the first in the world to be designated a “Dark Sky Nation.”
We do not want the Blues – we want the stars and a good night’s sleep said the 112 conference participants from 14 countries including New Zealand. We want skies unpolluted by artificial light for astro-tourism, astronomy, nocturnal life and human health. “Did you know that humans are as sensitive to light as cockroaches?” said one presenter.
“International guests saw NZ as a thought leader, the people as environmental custodians with the power to engage its citizens. We were reminded that everyday needs a dark night and that sleep is a reset button” said John Hearnshaw.
Will we be safe with limited street lighting? There is no problem in the Mackenzie with low level bollards in new housing developments. Truth is, light makes the burglars feel safe because we are unaware of them – so says Paul Bogard, author of the best-selling book “The End of Night”.
Come on NZTA – get on board, remove the blue light from the LEDs and direct the street lights downwards. We will all be safe and our well-being and that of nocturnal life depends on it. We must have a platform for action if we are to achieve Dark Sky Nation status. The Mackenzie has done it, as have Great Barrier Island and Stewart Island. Dunedin and Hamilton are following. No one said it would be easy, but it is achievable. We need NZTA, DOC, and the Ministers for Environment, Health, Education, Tourism, Conservation all involved. We must get the young out as Ambassadors for Dark Skies.
The figure of 930 000 tourists in the Mackenzie in 2018-19 is not wrong. Star maps show NZ as dark except in the cities. People from all over the world come to see the stars, the Milky Way and the planets. They lament what they have lost in Europe, China the USA and say to us “Cherish and preserve what you have here in NZ”.
We have a goal – A Dark Sky Nation by 2025. Now we need a strategy to support the Districts interested in achieving the goal, collaborating and agreeing on guidelines and asking serious questions of those that determine policy. We need scientists talking and writing about the science of illumination. We have a responsibility to build on the well-being of citizens and looking after the wildlife.
You are invited to tell us what you think on: Contact Margaret Austin (austinme@xtra.co.nz), Steve Butler (s_butler@xtra.co.nz) or John Hearnshaw (john.hearnshaw@canterbury.ac.nz) of the Starlight Conference Organizing Committee. The conference was held at the Tekapo Community Hall and hosted by the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.
-- Margaret Austin
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A Conference report by John Hearnshaw will appear in 'Southern Stars'.
2. Methane-detecting Satellite Supported by NZ
A global methane-tracking satellite will be sent into orbit in New Zealand’s first Government-funded space mission. New Zealand will get its own space mission control centre as the Government puts $26 million behind a climate-change-combating satellite. But what is being described as our first state-funded journey into orbit, and a major step towards building a domestic space programme, won't be launching from Aotearoa.
Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods announced on Wednesday the Government will be contributing to a joint mission with the United States' Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to launch a state-of-art, methane-tracking satellite. The EDF – a major not-for profit environmental advocacy group - says the MethaneSAT will able to monitor methane pollution from oil and gas around the world. The organisation will give the data out for free in a bid help battle climate change.
As part of the agreement, the satellite's five-year mission - launching in 2022 - will be run out of New Zealand-based command centre, which the Government will set up and run for about $10 million. "It will enable us to grow our capabilities in the space sector and participate in future space missions," Woods said. She said the operations would likely be based out of existing facilities in a university – although where has yet to be determined – both to save costs and to give local scientists better access to the data.
New Zealand's contribution to the mission will also aim to adapt the research to agricultural emissions, which it currently doesn't cover.
The announcement is major step for the New Zealand Space Agency, a department quietly set up within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in 2016 and which has so far largely worked in policy and helping space-faring businesses.
From Boris Jancic's NZ Herald report at https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12282874
3. The Solar System in December
Dates and times shown are NZDT (UT + 13 hours). Rise and Set times are for Wellington. They will vary by a few minutes elsewhere in NZ. Data is adapted from that shown by GUIDE 9.
The Southern Summer Solstice is on 2019 December 22 at 5.20 pm.
An annular eclipse of the Sun on the 26th is not visible from NZ. More details are on the RASNZ web site: rasnz.org.nz/in-the-sky/eclipses-2019
THE SUN and PLANETS in December, Rise & Set, Magnitude & Constellation.
December 1 NZDT December 31 NZDT
Mag Cons Rise Set Mag Cons Rise Set
SUN -26.7 Oph 5.40am 8.39pm -26.7 Sgr 5.47am 8.59pm
Merc -0.6 Lib 4.48am 6.54pm -0.9 Sgr 5.17am 8.42pm
Venus -3.9 Sgr 7.27am 10.52pm -4.0 Cap 8.34am 11.03pm
Mars 1.7 Lib 4.09am 5.58pm 1.6 Lib 3.07am 5.43pm
Jup -1.8 Sgr 7.06am 10.14pm -1.8 Sgr 5.38am 8.46pm
Sat 0.6 Sgr 8.31am 11.28pm 0.5 Sgr 6.49am 9.42pm
Uran 5.7 Ari 5.25pm 4.07am 5.7 Ari 3.23pm 2.07am
Nep 7.9 Aqr 1.24pm 2.18am 7.9 Aqr 11.27am 12.21am
Pluto 14.5 Sgr 8.45am 11.44am 14.6 Sgr 6.52am 9.50pm
December 1 NZDT December 31 NZDT
Twilights morning evening morning evening
Civil: start 5.10am, end 9.10pm start 5.16am, end 9.31pm
Nautical: start 4.28am, end 9.51pm start 4.33am, end 10.14pm
Astro: start 3.40am, end 10.40pm start 3.42am, end 11.05pm
December PHASES OF THE MOON, times NZDT & UT
First quarter: Dec 4 at 7.58pm (06:58 UT)
Full Moon: Dec 12 at 6.12pm (05:12 UT)
Last quarter Dec 19 at 5.57pm (04:57 UT)
New Moon: Dec 26 at 6.13pm (05:13 UT)
PLANETS in DECEMBER
MERCURY is a morning object but virtually unobservable all month. It rises about 50 minutes before the Sun on the 1st and only 30 minutes earlier on the 31st.
VENUS sets a little over two hours after the Sun in December, so will be readily visible shortly after sunset, fairly low and a little to the south of west.
MARS is a morning object. By the 31st it rises more than 2.5 hours before the Sun. That morning Mars will be about 13.5° to the left of, and slightly higher than, Antares. Earlier in the month, on the 23rd the crescent moon will be about 7.5° to the left of the planet.
JUPITER is at conjunction with the Sun on the 28th. On the 1st Jupiter sets about 90 minutes after the Sun, so will be briefly visible low to the south of west. Within a few days the planet will be too close to the Sun to observe.
SATURN is easily visible in the evening sky early in December when it sets nearly 3 hours after the Sun. This interval drops to less than 45 minutes by the 31st making Saturn a difficult object in evening twilight. Saturn will then be a little over 1° from PLUTO.
URANUS is an evening object setting well after midnight. The gibbous moon is 4° above the planet at about 11pm on the 8th.
NEPTUNE is also an evening object moving very slowly in Aquarius. It sets just after midnight on the 31st.
POSSIBLE BINOCULAR ASTEROIDS in DECEMBER
December 1 NZDT December 31 NZDT
Mag Cons transit Mag Cons transit
(1) Ceres 9.2 Sgr 3.08pm 9.0 Sgr 2.03pm
(4) Vesta 6.8 Cet 11.41pm 7.5 Cet 9.30pm
CERES will be very low in the evening sky by the time it is dark enough to observe on the 1st. Only a little later in December it sets during evening twilight.
VESTA also an evening object is well placed for viewing all month. It is 4.5° to the upper right of the 91% lit moon on the 9th.
-- Brian Loader
4. NZ Astrophotography Weekend - December 7-9
At the Foxton Beach Bible Camp, Foxton Beach, Horowhenua.
The Horowhenua Astronomical Society is hosting the sixth New Zealand Astrophotography Weekend. Held in the lower North Island it is an annual event dedicated to astrophotography in a wonderful dark-sky location. It is open to everyone interested in astrophotography - from beginners to advanced. Come along and share your knowledge, tips and experiences
All sorts of astrophotography can be undertaken - solar-system/nightscapes/deep-sky.
The weekend shall consist of: practical astrophotography, image processing, presentations, bring-and-buy, fish and chips dinner, late-night movies. Everyone is encouraged to bring along their own telescopes, binoculars, mounts, cameras, etc. however basic they might be.
See www.nzapw.org.nz for costs and registration details.
Please book early so we know the numbers.
-- Steve Lang.
5. 2020 Conference and RASNZ Centenary
The 2020 Conference will be held Friday 8 - Sunday 10 May 2020 in Wellington. The Wellington Astronomical Society is hosting the Conference.
The Conference venue is the Wharewaka Function Centre located on the waterfront just 2 minutes walk from Te Papa.
As the programme will commence at the earlier than usual time of 1pm on Friday we encourage as many as possible to make their travel arrangements to arrive in the city during the morning. The Conference will conclude mid-afternoon on Sunday.
The conference will be followed by a Dark Skies workshop on Monday morning.
Invited Speaker: the SCC is pleased to announce that we will have, as our invited speaker, a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration who in April 2019 captured an image of the black hole in the centre of M87 using a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Dr Dom Pesce is currently a postdoctoral fellow working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics with research interests including black holes, active galactic nuclei, astrophysical masers, and the application of statistical techniques to astronomical data.
Planning for the conference is progressing and further details will be announced in the near future once they are confirmed. Keep watching the RASNZ website www.rasnz.org.nz. In the meantime please mark the above dates in your calendar and consider participating in this Conference as RASNZ celebrates its centenary.
-- Glen Rowe, Chair, Standing Conference Committee.
6. Star Parties in 2020
The following star parties are planned for 2020:
Central Star Party: Thursday January 16th to Sunday 19th at the Tuki Tuki Camp site in the Hawkes Bay. https://censtar.party/
Stardate North Island: Friday February 21st to Sunday 23rd at Stonehenge, Carterton. Check Phoenix website - http://www.astronomynz.org/
Stardate South Island: Friday February 21st to Sunday 23rd, at Staveley, South Island. Keep an eye on https://cas.org.nz/
Stargazers Getaway 2020 Camp Iona, Friday September 18th to Sunday 20th. This is new Moon, so we are targeting this weekend for dark skies! See
https://www.facebook.com/events/943327669369996/
NACAA: The 29th NACAA conference will be held in the NSW (Australia) regional city of Parkes (where the world-famous Parkes Radio Telescope is) over the 2020 Easter weekend, Friday April 10th – Monday 13th. For more details see http://nacaa.org.au/2020/about
-- Mostly from 'Keeping in Touch' #34, 27th Sept 2019.
7. RASNZ 100 Programme
The RASNZ Council is pleased to announce its RASNZ 100 Programme to support Affiliated Societies celebrating the RASNZ's Centennial year in 2020. The programme encourages Affiliated Societies to promote astronomy within their regions to raise the profile of the Society, the RASNZ and astronomy in general. The RASNZ is providing up to $500 to each Affiliated Society to support RASNZ 100 events run by Affiliated Societies. For more information, see https://www.rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/rasnz-100-events
-- From 'Keeping in Touch' #34. 27th Sept 2019
8. Variable Star News
Robotic Telescopes
A Conference on the use of Robotic Telescopes is to be held at Melbourne University, Parkville, Vic 3010, from the 8th to the 11th of December. The RTSRE conference series focuses on building a sustainable community around the educational, technical and student research uses of robotic telescopes, from small through to large aperture and from radio through to gamma-ray and involving both observed and archival data. It aims to be a meeting place for astronomers, teachers, educators, outreach practitioners, researchers, and observatory and telescope network developers and managers, in a continuing effort to share and combine resources, develop and enhance education and research programs, and foster global conversations and collaborations. It facilitates the storage of knowledge in the field through its yearly dual-peer-reviewed proceedings journal, RTSRE Proceedings and an astronomical journal, Astronomy, Theory, Observations and Methods. For further information visit https://rtsre.net/#1547878990191-d685bfc8-7731
Specialist workshops at separate venues from the main event bookend the main Conference On 7 Dec a workshop on “Connecting the Public to the Night Sky“ will be co-hosted by AAVSO Director Stella Kafka. On 12th Dec there will be a practical workshop on using “Robotic Telescopes for Student Research and Education” held at Eltham College, Eltham.
Information obtained on main event from https://www.asera.org.au/news/rtsre-conference-2019
Variable Stars South Symposium (VSSS 6)
VSSS6 will be held on Friday, April 10th, 2020 in Parkes NSW, just prior to the NACAA meeting. The symposium will have a single stream of presentations as well as a poster display.
The VSSS6 Programme Committee (David O’Driscoll and Mark Blackford) is now calling for presentations for the Friday sessions. Oral presentations are the main focus of these symposia, and we are inviting amateur and professional astronomers with an interest in variable stars to consider making a contribution, individually or as part of a group. Membership of Variable Stars South in not necessary, indeed we welcome anyone with a shared interest in this fascinating field of study. A poster display will also be available for those who prefer to present their work in that manner. These will be in place for the entire weekend giving delegates to the NACAA conference and other satellite meetings the opportunity to view them.
VSS 2019 October Newsletter
For science articles and publication watch visit:
https://www.variablestarssouth.org/vss-newsletter-october-2019/
-- Alan Baldwin
9. Papers on Aoteroa New Zealand's Astronomical History
Wayne Orchiston Co-Founder and Editor of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage writes:
Seeing the note in the previous Newsletter about Richard Taibi’s paper on the Warney & Swasey/Brashear 46-cm refractor at Lake Tekapo, prompted me to write this short report.
Since we founded the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (JAHH) in 1998, we have published 9 different research papers about New Zealand or Cook Voyage astronomical history, and they are listed below. JAHH is an international open-access peer-reviewed e-journal and is posted on the ADS and NARIT web sites where individual papers and book reviews, or whole issues, can be downloaded free of charge. Simply go to https://www.jahh.org, click ‘Back Issues’, and click on the relevant year to access any of the following papers (or individual issues of the journal).
Orchiston, W., Love, T., and Dick, S., 2000. Refining the Astronomical Unit: Queenstown and the 1874 transit of Venus. JAHH, 3(1), 23-44.
Orchiston, W., 2001. The English Equatorial Mounting and the Fletcher Telescope. JAHH, 4(1), 29-42 [This is about the 9.5-inch Cooke refractor at the Ward-Wanganui Observatory].
Kinns, R., 2009. Time-keeping in the Antipodes: a critical comparison of the Sydney and Lyttelton time balls. JAHH, 12(2), 97-107.
Harris, P., Matamua, R., Smith, T., Kerr, H., and Waaka, T., 2013. A review of Maori astronomy in Aotearoa-New Zealand. JAHH, 16(3), 325-336.
Orchiston, W., Romick, C., and Brown, P., 2015. James Henry Marriott: New Zealand’s first professional telescope-maker. JAHH, 18(3), 261-276.
Kinns, R., 2017a. The principal time balls of New Zealand. JAHH, 20(1), 69-94.
Kinns, R., 2017b. The time light signals of New Zealand: yet another way of communicating time in the pre-wireless era. JAHH, 20(2), 211-222.
Orchiston, W., 2017. Cook, Green, Maskelyne and the 1769 transit of Venus: the legacy of the Tahitian observations. JAHH, 20(1), 35-68.
Taibi, R., 2019. A tale of three telescopes: the John A. Brashear Company and its 46-cm objective of 1893. JAHH, 22(2), 247-265 [This is about the 46-cm refractor that is now at Lake Tekapo].
10. Saturn's New Moons
Jupiter may be the king of the planets, but — right now, at least — Saturn is the king of moons. Astronomers Scott Sheppard (Carnegie Institution for Science), David Jewitt (UCLA), and Jan Kleyna (University of Hawai‘i) have announced the discovery of 20 new moons circling the ringed planet, putting Saturn’s total at 82 compared to Jupiter’s 79. The moons are each around 5 kilometers (3 miles) in diameter.
The team used the Subaru telescope atop Maunakea, Hawai‘i, to find the moons. Sheppard had previously led a team in the discovery of 10 new moons around Jupiter, announced last year, using the 6.5-m Magellan-Baade reflector Las Campanas and the 4.0-m Blanco reflector on Cerro Tololo.
"Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, we are now completing the inventory of small moons around the giant planets,” Sheppard explains. The new discoveries are cool in and of themselves, but ultimately, it’s what they tell us about the solar system’s formation that motivates Sheppard’s search.
Of the 20 new moons, 17 are orbiting the moon “backwards,” that is, in a direction opposite to the planet’s motion. Astronomers call these orbits retrograde. They’re all at roughly the same distance from the planet, putting them in the Norse group of moons. The Norse group is diverse, but the orbits and inclinations of the newest moons suggest they all originated from the same parent body.
Three other moons are in prograde orbits, two orbiting at an inclination of 46° and one at an inclination of 36°. They belong to the Inuit and Gallic groups, respectively.
For a humorous take on the discoveries and what they mean for the moons’ formation here: https://youtu.be/0dNH-odX4qE
Name Those Moons!
You have until December 6, 2019, to tweet your suggested moon name to @SaturnLunacy with the hashtag #NameSaturnsMoons. Describe why you picked the name you did, and include photos, artwork, and videos to bolster your case.
It’s not the Wild West out there — the International Astronomical Union has rules for naming things in outer space, and the moons of Saturn are no exception. Saturn’s moons are named for mythological giants, and which mythology depends on which group the moon belongs to.
Two of the newly discovered prograde moons must be named for giants from Inuit mythology. One moon, which is also prograde but belongs to a different group, is to be named for a giant in Gallic mythology. Likewise, 17 retrograde moons must be named for giants in Norse mythology. Be sure to search the current database of IAU names to make sure the name you’ve picked out isn’t already in use.
For the original text and graphics see https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/help-name-saturns-20-newfound-moons/
-- From Monica Young's article of October 9 on Sky & Telescope's webpage.
11. Heavy Element Seen from Neutron Star Collision
For the first time, a freshly made heavy element, strontium, has been detected in space, in the aftermath of a merger of two neutron stars. The detection confirms that the heavier elements in the Universe can form in neutron star mergers, providing a missing piece of the puzzle of chemical element formation. The finding was observed by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO's) X-shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and published in Nature on October 23rd.
In 2017, following the detection of gravitational waves passing the Earth, ESO pointed its telescopes in Chile, including the VLT, to the source: a neutron star merger named GW170817. Astronomers suspected that, if heavier elements did form in neutron star collisions, signatures of those elements could be detected in kilonovae, the explosive aftermaths of these mergers. This is what a team of European researchers has now done, using data from the X-shooter instrument on ESO’s VLT.
Following the GW170817 merger, ESO’s fleet of telescopes began monitoring the emerging kilonova explosion over a wide range of wavelengths. X-shooter in particular took a series of spectra from the ultraviolet to the near infrared. Initial analysis of these spectra suggested the presence of heavy elements in the kilonova, but astronomers could not pinpoint individual elements until now.
“By reanalysing the 2017 data from the merger, we have now identified the signature of one heavy element in this fireball, strontium, proving that the collision of neutron stars creates this element in the Universe,” says the study’s lead author Darach Watson from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. On Earth, strontium is found naturally in the soil and is concentrated in certain minerals. Its salts are used to give fireworks a brilliant red colour.
Astronomers have known the physical processes that create the elements since the 1950s. Over the following decades they have uncovered the cosmic sites of each of these major nuclear forges, except one. “This is the final stage of a decades-long chase to pin down the origin of the elements,” says Watson. “We know now that the processes that created the elements happened mostly in ordinary stars, in supernova explosions, or in the outer layers of old stars. But, until now, we did not know the location of the final, undiscovered process, known as rapid neutron capture, that created the heavier elements in the periodic table.”
Rapid neutron capture is a process in which an atomic nucleus captures neutrons quickly enough to allow very heavy elements to be created. Although many elements are produced in the cores of stars, creating elements heavier than iron, such as strontium, requires even hotter environments with lots of free neutrons. Rapid neutron capture only occurs naturally in extreme environments where atoms are bombarded by vast numbers of neutrons.
“This is the first time that we can directly associate newly created material formed via neutron capture with a neutron star merger, confirming that neutron stars are made of neutrons and tying the long-debated rapid neutron capture process to such mergers,” says Camilla Juul Hansen from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, who played a major role in the study.
Scientists are only now starting to better understand neutron star mergers and kilonovae. Because of the limited understanding of these new phenomena and other complexities in the spectra that the VLT’s X-shooter took of the explosion, astronomers had not been able to identify individual elements until now.
“We actually came up with the idea that we might be seeing strontium quite quickly after the event. However, showing that this was demonstrably the case turned out to be very difficult. This difficulty was due to our highly incomplete knowledge of the spectral appearance of the heavier elements in the periodic table,” says University of Copenhagen researcher Jonatan Selsing, who was a key author on the paper.
The GW170817 merger was the fifth detection of gravitational waves, made possible thanks to the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and the Virgo Interferometer in Italy. Located in the galaxy NGC 4993, the merger was the first, and so far the only, gravitational wave source to have its visible counterpart detected by telescopes on Earth.
With the combined efforts of LIGO, Virgo and the VLT, we have the clearest understanding yet of the inner workings of neutron stars and their explosive mergers.
-- From an ESO press release forwarded by Karen Pollard. See the original with images at https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1917/
12. 'Ultima Thule' Officially Named 'Arrokoth'
In a fitting tribute to the farthest flyby ever conducted by spacecraft, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 has been officially named Arrokoth, a Native American term meaning “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquian language.
With consent from Powhatan Tribal elders and representatives, NASA’s New Horizons team -- whose spacecraft performed the record-breaking reconnaissance of Arrokoth four billion miles from Earth -- proposed the name to the International Astronomical Union and Minor Planet Center, the international authority for naming Kuiper Belt objects. The name was announced at a ceremony today at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“The name ‘Arrokoth’ reflects the inspiration of looking to the skies, and wondering about the stars and worlds beyond our own,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “That desire to learn is at the heart of the New Horizons mission, and we’re honored to join with the Powhatan community and people of Maryland in this celebration of discovery.”
New Horizons launched in January 2006; it then zipped past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted an historic first flight through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. The spacecraft continued its unparalleled voyage on New Year’s 2019 with the exploration of Arrokoth -- which the team had nicknamed “Ultima Thule” -- a billion miles beyond Pluto, and the farthest flyby ever conducted.
Arrokoth is one of the thousands of known small icy worlds in the Kuiper Belt, the vast “third zone” of the solar system beyond the inner terrestrial planets and the outer gas giant planets. It was discovered in 2014 by a New Horizons team -- which included Marc Buie, of the Southwest Research Institute -- using the powerful Hubble Space Telescope.
“Data from the newly-named Arrokoth, has given us clues about the formation of planets and our cosmic origins,” said Buie. “We believe this ancient body, composed of two distinct lobes that merged into one entity, may harbor answers that contribute to our understanding of the origin of life on Earth.”
In accordance with IAU naming conventions, the discovery team earned the privilege of selecting a permanent name for the celestial body. The team used this convention to associate the culture of the native peoples who lived in the region where the object was discovered; in this case, both the Hubble Space Telescope (at the Space Telescope Science Institute) and the New Horizons mission (at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory) are operated out of Maryland -- a tie to the significance of the Chesapeake Bay region to the Powhatan people.
“We graciously accept this gift from the Powhatan people,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “Bestowing the name Arrokoth signifies the strength and endurance of the indigenous Algonquian people of the Chesapeake region. Their heritage continues to be a guiding light for all who search for meaning and understanding of the origins of the universe and the celestial connection of humanity.”
The Pamunkey Reservation in King William County, Virginia, is the oldest American Indian reservation in the U.S. -- formed by a treaty with England in the 1600s and finally receiving federal recognition in July 2015. The Pamunkey tribe and its village were significant in the original Powhatan Confederacy; today, Pamunkey tribal members work collaboratively with other Powhatan tribes in Virginia and also have descendants who are members of the Powhatan-Renape Nation in New Jersey. Many direct descendants still live on the Pamunkey reservation, while others have moved to Northern Virginia, Maryland, D.C., New York and New Jersey.
For the original text and images see http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20191112
-- A press release issued jointly by NASA Headquarters, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Southwest Research Institute, forwarded by Karen Pollard.
13. How to Join the RASNZ
RASNZ membership is open to all individuals with an interest in
astronomy in New Zealand. Information about the society and its
objects can be found at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/membership-benefits
A membership form can be either obtained from treasurer@rasnz.co.nz or
by completing the online application form found at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/membership-application
Basic membership for the 2019 year starts at $40 for an ordinary
member, which includes an electronic subscription to our journal
'Southern Stars'.
14. Gifford-Eiby Lecture Fund
The RASNZ administers the Gifford-Eiby Memorial Lectureship Fund to
assist Affiliated Societies with travel costs of getting a lecturer
or instructor to their meetings. Details are in RASNZ By-Laws Section
H and at http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/ge-fund
The application form is at
http://rasnz.org.nz/Downloadable/RASNZ/GE_Application2019.pdf
15. Kingdon-Tomlinson Fund
The RASNZ is responsible for recommending to the trustees of the Kingdon
Tomlinson Fund that grants be made for astronomical projects. The grants may be to any person or persons, or organisations, requiring funding for any projects or ventures that promote the progress of astronomy in New Zealand. The deadline for this round of the Kingdon-Tomlinson Grants is Friday 1st November 2019. Full details are set down in the RASNZ By-Laws, Section J. Information on the K-T Fund is at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/kt-fund
Send applications to the RASNZ Executive Secretary at rasnz.secretary@gmail.com.
The application form at
http://rasnz.org.nz/Downloadable/RASNZ/KT_Application2019.pdf
16. Quotes
"During centuries of religious preaching, life expectancy was less than 30 years, killer diseases flourished as did cruel and vile superstitions. For most, living conditions were generally abysmal. Since the 19th century, with the rise of science and technology, all of this has been reversed massively. Religion played little or no part in these advances. Religion actually tried hard to prevent many of them." -- From a letter in 'Private Eye', No. 1507, 18 October 2019, p.22, defending Richard Dawkins's book 'Outgrowing God: A Beginner's Guide'.
"You do not need to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." -- Rabbi Tarphon quoted in The Economist's obituary for Harold Bloom, October 26th, p.78.
Alan Gilmore Phone: 03 680 6817
P.O. Box 57 alan.gilmore@canterbury.ac.nz
Lake Tekapo 7945
New Zealand
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