September 2022 News research and links
Research_News_20_10_2022
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
Google Group
https://groups.google.com/g/nzastrochat
Astronomy in Wellington
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11451597655/
Twitter
https://twitter.com/EdwinRodham
Astrophotography weekend
Planning is underway for another enjoyable weekend of Astrophotography at the usual Foxton Beach venue. Accomplished photographers
are keen to share their knowledge and experience.
The event will be held 25 thru 27 November. This will be the eighth New Zealand Astrophotography Weekend hosted by HASI. Is become a popular
annual event dedicated to astrophotography in a wonderful dark-sky location. Its open to everyone interested in astrophotography from beginners
to advanced. Come along and share your knowledge, tips and experiences. For more information visit our HASI Web site www.horoastronomy.org.nz
Astrophotography includes many styles and each with different gear. What do you think about when you hear the word ‘astrophotography’? You might
think of the James Webb Space Telescope and its incredible close-ups of nebulae and galaxies far away. Or perhaps you think it's more to do with
images of the Milky Way, the moon or the southern lights. Astrophotography means all kinds of things to photographers, from landscape photography
at night to the more technical pursuit of deep sky close-ups using telescopes and planetary cameras.
Astrophotography is becoming more popular and accessible in all of its guises. Photographing the deep sky is now surprisingly easy.
Armed with a DSLR or mirrorless camera on a tripod-mounted tracker, even novice Astrophotographer’s can capture great shots of star clusters,
nebulae, galaxies and other deep-sky objects. This is thanks to a new generation of simple equatorial mounts designed for cameras rather than telescopes,
which allow a simple tripod-and-tracker setup that’s both affordable and portable. When starting you will need clear skies and a dark location,
ut astrophotography also requires good ‘seeing’ (a lack of atmospheric turbulence) and ‘transparency’ (a lack of the moisture and dust in the air that
typically occurs after heavy rain). The upcoming HASI Astrophotography weekend is a good place to learn more about the subject.
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Research papers
Life on Exoplanets In the Habitable Zone of M-Dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.02860
A 1 to 20 Micron Spectrum of the Planetary-Mass Companion VHS 1256-1257 b
https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.00620
Did transit through the galactic spiral arms seed crust production on the early Earth
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G50513.1/616377/Did-transit-through-the-galactic-spiral-arms-seed
Swarm of lightsail nanosatellites for Solar System exploration
https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.10980
The Geophysical Environment of 486958 Arrokoth A Small Kuiper Belt Object
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021JE007068
Can We Fly to Planet 9
https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.10207
The discovery and characterization of a kilometre sized asteroid inside the orbit of Venus
https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.07253
The Interstellar Interlopers
https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.08182
Study of an Inflatable Moon Habitat
https://nebula.esa.int/content/pneumoplanet-study-inflatable-moon-habitat
System Architecture and Planetary Obliquity Implications for Long-term Habitability
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac87fd
Is the remnant of GW190425 a strange quark star?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.00544
A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02243-9
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Interesting News items
An extra moon of Saturn that was destabalised, breaking up to form the rings and leading to saturns tilt?
https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/09/15/chrysalis-the-lost-moon-that-gave-saturn-its-rings
As if the sky wasnt getting crowded enough
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/as-bluewalker-satellites-join-a-brightening-sky-heres-how-you-can-help
Rain Rain rain this winter!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/474033/new-zealand-has-its-warmest-and-wettest-winter-on-record
Race to find space rock near Dunedin: 'A loud sonic boom followed the fireball'
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/473982/race-to-find-space-rock-near-dunedin-a-loud-sonic-boom-followed-the-fireball
Otago meteorite may be nearly as old as the sun
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/129761551/scientific-goldmine-otago-meteorite-may-be-nearly-as-old-as-the-sun
Wellingtons deeps reefs
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/09/07/thriving-underwater-gardens-found-off-wellingtons-coastline/
An interesting binary red dwarf star system here
https://spaceref.com/science-and-exploration/vlba-produces-first-full-3-d-view-of-binary-star-planet-system/
NZ Space
https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2022/09/07/the-future-of-space-science-in-aotearoa-expert-reaction/
NZ seems to be doing well
https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/september-2022/new-zealands-quest-for-a-sustainable-space-industry
The strange case of eyeball planets
https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2022/08/the-strange-case-of-eyeball-planets
Another good study from Cornell
https://spaceref.com/science-and-exploration/how-terrain-evolves-on-icy-comets/
Frank Drake
https://theconversation.com/frank-drake-has-passed-away-but-his-equation-for-alien-intelligence-is-more-important-than-ever-189935
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Updates from Andrew B,
Jupiter.
Imaged: Wednesday 27th July 2022.
A beautiful James Webb Space Telescope calibrated image using the near Infrared NIRcam Camera.
The rings of Jupiter are clearly visible, along with the moons Amalthea & Adrastea. Amalthea is 250 KM by 146 KM by 128 KM / 155 by 91 by 80 miles in size. Adrastea is even smaller 20 KM by 16 KM by 14 KM / 12 by 10 by 9 miles in size, a bit smaller than the Mars moon Phobos.
The Great Red Spot and some other clouds appear bright as at this wavelength, they reflect a lot of sunlight.
High altitude lightning is visible, with possible 'jets' and 'elves'. Both of Jupiter's Northern and Southern lights (Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis) are clearly visible.
Also some background galaxies appear to be photobombing the image in the background.
The MIRI (mid infrared) camera detector had to be cooled to minus 267 Celsius / minus 449 Fahrenheit or 6 Kelvin in order to take mid infrared images!!!!!
Jupiter orbits the Sun once every 11.82 years or 11 years & 315 days at an average distance of 778.57 million KM / 483.78 million miles from the Sun. Jupiter rotates on it's axis once every 9 hours & 56 minutes, the shortest day of any of the planets in our solar stystem.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, 142,984 KM / 88,846 miles wide through the equator (11.21 times wider than the Earth) and 133,692 KM / 83,082 miles through the poles (10.25 times wider than the Earth). Jupiter is also the most massive planet in our solar system with a mass of 317.8 times that of the Earth or about 1.899 trillion trillion tons (1,898.2 followed by twenty two zeros) and a mean global density of 1.326 g/cm3 (grams per cubic centimetre). Jupiter's rapid rotation causes the equator to bulge out and the polar regions to flatten, hence the somewhat oval shape of Jupiter.
Our own Earth with a diameter of 12,742 KM / 7,917 miles, with a mass of 5,972.2 billion trillion tons (5,972.2 followed by twenty zeros) and a mean global density of 5.517 g/cm3.
Jupiter is a gas giant, mostly composed of compressed hydrogen and helium, with new evidence pointing at a dense core of rock and metal roughly 15 times the mass of the Earth at the centre, more recent findings suggest a more diffuse outer core. About the inner two thirds of Jupiter appears to be composed of Metallic Hydrogen, liquid hydrogen under so much pressure, that the regular diatomic hydrogen H2 (two atoms consisting on one Proton with one electron each) are squashed together so hard that the compressed hydrogen acts as liquid metal as is conductive. Within Jupiter to put it simply, this huge layer of metallic hydrogen is convecting and is generating Jupiter's gigantic magnetosphere, with traps particles from the Sun creating belts of very powerful radiation.
Two of Jupiter's large Galilean moons, Io and Europa orbit within one of these, hence radiation hardened spacecraft are needed to approach these two fascinating and very different moons
Both Io and Europa have been successfully approached by Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Galileo, these were radiation hardened as the earlier Pioneer 10 way back on Monday 3rd December 1973 was nearly fried by the trapped radiation near Io. It was by sheer luck Pioneer 10 survived but this finding meant all future spacecraft closely approaching Jupiter and the inner moons would be radiation hardened including the current JUNO spacecraft.
Ganymede (Jupiter's and the Solar System's largest and most massive moon) is sometimes inside and at times outside of intense radiation and only the very large Callisto (Jupiter's second largest and the Solar System's third largest moon) out of the very large moons orbits permanently outside of dangerous radiation. All of the four smaller inner moons (Thebe, Amalthea, Adrastea and Metis from outside in) are all within intense trapped radiation. Jupiter's vastly extended family of outer moons (most of which are very small) are all outside of the radiation belts.
The JWST was launched on Christmas Day 2021 on board an Ariane 5 booster from the Kourou Spaceport, French Guiana.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
NASA / ESA / CSA / STSCI/ Judy Schmidt. James Webb Space Telescope.
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity.
Wednesday 31st August 2022 & Thursday 1st September 2022.
Sols 3,579 & 3,580.
Not only is Mars Perseverance Rover over in Jezero Crater about 3,730 KM / 2,318 miles away delivering historic, unique views of a very rare feature (ancient river delta front) on Mars, MSL Curiosity continues to do likewise whilst climbing a very large mountain on Mars within Gale Crater.
Front & Rear HazCams / Hazard Cameras & NavCams / Navigation Cameras. Mast Cameras.
Multiple high resolution frames of Kulenan Butte, which is about 1,000 metres / 3,280 feet high in the backgrond. Also MSL Curiosity is making the way along Marker Band Valley following a further 14 metre long drive onto Magnesium Sulphate sedimentary rocks. There will be further drives going deep into the Magnesium Sulphate terrain and closer to Kulenan Butte. MSL Curiosity has entered a different geological unit as the rover continues to climb Aeolis Mons.
Most of the Mast Camera images appear black & white, but contain colour information. I do not have the software to convert them.
HazCams: 120 degree wide view.
NavCams: 45 degree wide views.
Left Mast Camera: 15 degree wide view.
Right Mast Camera: 5 degree wide views.
The layering and some of the patterns in some of the blocks are amazing. There had clearly been a great deal going on here during the very remote past some 3.5 billion years or more ago. These observations will be a nice contemporary set to those also being made by Mars Perseverance Rover in front of the Neretva Vallis Delta in Jezero Crater. Both data sets will certainly nail down the past habitability & hydrological cycle on very ancient Mars.
Another crop of beautiful and very scientifically important images from the veteran & venerable MSL Curiosity.
MSL Curiosity was climbing the 5,500 metre / 18,044 foot tall Aeolis Mons aka Mt Sharp, in turn inside the 4,850 metre / 15,900 foot deep and 154 KM / 96 mile wide Gale Crater, within the Aeolis Quadrangle on Mars.
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity continues to operate flawlessly.
It has been just announced that MSL Curiosity's mission has been extended for at least a further three years from this October to climb right up to the upper part of Aeolis Mons. There is still plenty of power being produced by the MMRTG, the instruments are still in full working order, and damage to the wheels has not continued at a quick rate and is somewhat less serious than previously feared, it is more cosmetic rather than actually damaging to motability.
Gale Crater, Aeolis Quadrangle.
Front & Rear HazCams / Hazard Cameras & NavCams / Navigation Camera.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
NASA / JPL / Malin Space Science Systems. Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity.
Released: Monday 12th September 2022.
Using the NIRI / Near-Infrared Camera the James Webb Space Telescope captured the central portion of M42, The Orion Nebula, some 1,600 light years away from our Solar System, within the constellation of Orion the Hunter. Also a second image showing the northern part of M42.
Millions of stars, planets, their moons, asteroids and comets are being born here. Our own solar system most likely formed in such a nebula. It has been suggested that the merging of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy with the Milky Way may had been the trigger for our own solar system's formation and the Sun's sibling stars.
The MIRI (mid infrared) camera detector had to be cooled to minus 267 Celsius / minus 449 Fahrenheit or 6 Kelvin in order to take mid infrared images!!!!!
The JWST was launched on Christmas Day 2021 on board an Ariane 5 booster from the Kourou Spaceport, French Guiana.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI. James Webb Space Telescope.
Imaged: Wednesday 21st & Thursday 22nd September 2022
The Asteroid 65803 Didymos bound DART / Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft last Sunday successfully deployed the Italian built LICIA / Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids The cameras were successfully tested, the colour camera captured the Pleiades / M45 open cluster in Taurus and the other camera captured the crescent Earth.
Both cameras will image the 65803 Didymos system, hopefully get some nice images of 65803 Didymos itself as well as of Dimorphos. LICIA CUBE will image the impact of the DART Spacecraft into Dimorphos.
The asteroid system that the DART Spacecraft is heading towards, is an Apollo & AMOR (Earth & Mars orbit crosser) tiny silicate asteroid only 780 metres wide, with a mass of only 528 million tons (very low for an object of this size) with a tiny moon named Dimorphos at only 163 metres long with a mass of only about 70 million tons.
65803 Didymos was discovered on: Thursday 11th April 1996, and was initially catalogued 1996 GT.
Dimorphos was discovered in radar observations on Thursday 20th November 2003, initially catalogued as S/2003 (65803) 1. Then the primary was formally named Didymos, Greek for Twins and Dimorphos is Greek for Two Forms.
Dimorphos orbits Didymos at a distance of only 1.18 KM once every 11 hours & 55 minutes.
65803 Didymos has been seen by radar to be a spinning top shape much like the asteroids 101955 Bennu & 162173 Ryugu, both seen up close and landed upon with samples obtained by the NASA OSIRIS-REx & JAXA Hayabusa 2 spacecraft respectively. The tiny moon Dimorphos is more elongated like a giant boulder.
The DART Spacecraft is to impact Dimorphos on its leading side, slowing Dimorphos by a very tiny amount at less than a mm per second. Over time Dimorphos will slowly lag behind the predicted position by about 10 minutes and will orbit very slightly closer to Didymos.
The DART spacecraft will impact Dimorphos on: Monday 26th September 2022 at a speed of 6.6 KPS / 4.1 MPS or 23,760 KPH / 14,765 MPH.
Ten days prior an Italian cubesat LICSIA / Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids will deploy from DART and will use two cameras, one narrow angle and one wide angle will image the
65803 Didymos system, hopefully get some nice images of 65803 Didymos itself as well as of Dimorphos prior to impact.
At around the time of impact LICIA will image the DART spacecraft impacting Dimorphos using the narrow angle camera, three images spaced six seconds apart. Afterwards, LICIA will image the impact site to see if there is a new crater and then the opposite side of Dimorphos to see if there are any changes to the terrain due to refocussing of potential shock waves from the impact.
Meanwhile on DART the one science instrument Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation / DRACO will take and transmit images of the imapact target right up to impact.
This powerful camera which is more or less a clone of the LORRI (LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager) camera on board the New Horizons spacecraft that successfully encountered the Pluto system & then the Cold Classical Kuiper Belt Object 486958 Arrokoth. Another is on board the LUCY spacecraft currently on route to the Jupiter Trojan Asteroids.
DRACO will be capturing images in quick succession, one per second, with them transmitted directly back to Earth during the approach up to impact on Dimorphos. DRACO will navigate the DART Spacecraft to impact on the centre of the leading side. The final images to be able to be transmitted will show Dimorphos in detail.
In September 2024 a follow up mission by the European Space Agency / ESA will be launched to the 65803 Didymos system with two spacecraft known as HERA to carry out detailed studies of both Didymos & Dimorphos. Arrival will be in January 2027.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
NASA / JHU-APL. DART Spacecraft. ISA / ESA. LICIA CUBE.
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RASNZ
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December Celestial Calendar by Dave Mitsky
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Minor Planet Occultation Updates:
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Further links and discussion can be found at the groups/links below
Astronomy in New Zealand - Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
Astronomy in New Zealand - Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5889909863/
Google Group
https://groups.google.com/g/nzastrochat
Astronomy in Wellington
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11451597655/
Blogger Posts
http://laintal.blogspot.com/
Twitter
https://twitter.com/EdwinRodham
Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/user/Edwin_Rod_NZ
Quaroa
https://www.quora.com/q/astronomyinnewzealand
Groups.io
Astronomy in New Zealand
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
AstronomyNZ@groups.io
Wellington Astronomers
https://groups.io/g/WellingtonAstronomers
WellingtonAstronomers@groups.io
AucklandAstronomers
https://groups.io/g/AucklandAstronomers
AucklandAstronomers@groups.io
North Island Astronomers
https://groups.io/g/NorthIslandAstronomers
NorthIslandAstronomers@groups.io
South Island Astronomers
https://groups.io/g/SouthIslandAstronomers
SouthIslandAstronomers@groups.io
NZAstrochat
https://groups.io/g/NZAstrochat
NZAstrochat@groups.io
NZ Photographers And Observers
https://groups.io/g/NZPhotographers
NZPhotographers@groups.io
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Please note:
My standard caveat that these are the views of a learned amateur, not a professional in the sector, applies as always.
The above post/email/update represents my own words, views, research and opinions, unless stated otherwise the above work
represents my own writing. I’ll give credit or thanks if I have used or represented other people’s words and/or opinions.
The links and references listed below represent the work and research of the respective author’s.
Questions and constructive criticism are always welcome, however I don’t believe anything written here by myself is any reason for impolite behaviour.
Thanks for your time and I hope you have enjoyed reading.
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