Science Behind Things

Spectacular Grapefruit Sized Meteorite Lands in Canada

Around 5:30 PM Mountain Time (7:30 PM Eastern Time), a brilliant meteor flashed down from the sky, glowing yellow, red, green, white and blue before it struck the ground near central Saskatchewan, hundreds of miles north of the U.S./Canadian border.

Everyone is okay, and no little green men stepped out and demanded to be taken to the Canadian leader, but people were shaken up by the loud noise and bright light of the unexpected visitor.

As spectacular as that was, the return of the Lord will be far greater, and seen by all, even those Roman Centurions who pierced Him to the cross 2,000 years ago.  In the meantime, what a delight it is to see such displays!

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Source: http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/11/it-came-from-ou.html

Solar Plane Breaks Endurance Record

An unmanned solar-powered aircraft flew 54 hours at an altitude above 50,000 feet in New Mexico, breaking the previous record, which had been 30 hours and 24 minutes in a flight on July 23.

QinetiQ’s trapezoid-shaped, ultra-thin “Zephyr” plane is built from carbon fibers, is 59 feet (about 20 meters) long and weighs about 66 pounds (having a mass of about 30 kilograms).

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070910/ap_on_hi_te/solar_plane

Solar Eclipse to Take Place September 11th

The second partial solar eclipse of 2007 will take place Tuesday, Sept. 11, after central and western Asia got to see the last one.  The umbra of the moon (the dark shadow cone of the moon) will miss the Earth, passing 499 miles (802 kilometers) below the South Pole.  But the moon’s penumbra (the moon’s outer shadow) will pass over part of Antarctica and the lower two-thirds of South America, first touching down over Bolivia at 10:26 UT (Universal Time).  South Americans will get to see it by 11:30 UT.  At 12:31 UT, the greatest eclipse occurs over open ocean waters.  The partial eclipse will cover at most 74.9 percent of the sun.  The penumbra passes over Antarctica and then leaves the Earth at 14:37 UT.

A word of caution: Protect your eyes!  Do not ever look at the sun, even when so much of it is covered by the moon!  Either use welder’s glasses or project the image through a pinhole and onto a piece of white paper or cardboard.  Even then you’ll see that it can be fairly bright.

Astronomical Highlights for Thursday, Sept. 6

Cassiopeia rises higher this month than last in the northeast during evening.  It’s shaped like a flattened (or stretched out) W, with the W’s right side (the brighter side) tilted up.  Look way below and to the left of Cassiopeia to see bright Capella slowly rising above the horizon around 9 or 10 PM depending on where you live.

What is a Planet? – Part 2

I last wrote about the new definition of a planet last year on August 18th, 2006, in a post entitled, “What is a Planet?“. I’d like to update my personal definition of a planet:

1. It must be large enough to hold itself together. This is seen if it is spherical and not “potato” shaped. A really small object that is potato shaped is going to have gravity that isn’t strong enough to hold all its matter to itself, and fall apart easily.
2. It must be small enough to not be a star. Jupiter radiates twice as much energy as it receives, and if it was much larger it might ignite like a star, burning its abundant hydrogen as fuel. Tremendous size means tremendous gravity, which in turn means tremendous compression of itself toward the core, and possible ignition of that fuel.
3. It must orbit a star. Our moon is larger than Pluto, but it is orbiting the earth, not the sun, so it is a moon and not a planet according to my definition. Pluto’s moon, Charon, would still be a moon. But Ceres is round and orbiting the sun (between Mars and Jupiter), so it would be a planet, albeit a small one. And 2003 UB313 (Xena) is round and also larger than Pluto, so it would be a planet (orbiting much farther from the sun than Pluto).

That brings the total to eleven planets in our solar system. Doesn’t that sound reasonable? And more importantly, simple?

What do you think?

Astronomical Highlights for Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Europa, one of the four large moons of Jupiter, casts its shadow on Jupiter’s face tonight from 6:35 p.m. to 9:09 p.m. in California; 9:35 p.m. to 12:09 a.m. EDT and in Chile, South America; 7:35 a.m. to 10:09 a.m. in Moscow; 11:35 a.m. to 2:09 p.m. in China; and 1:35 p.m. to 4:09 p.m. in Sydney Australia.

Astronomical Highlights for Monday, July 30th, 2007

Jupiter’s Red Spot transits around 10:44 p.m. EDT. (Reminder, that means the Red Spot will be halfway around the giant gas planet. But because Jupiter is receding a bit farther into the distance, compared with earlier this month, detail on the Red Spot is getting harder to see and image. The planet Jupiter itself has a brightness of magnitude –2.5, and is located in southern Ophiuchus). Jupiter glares in the south during twilight and lower in the southwest later after dark, with Antares, less bright, sparkling redly 5° below it. Both Jupiter and Antares are evening companions all summer. Other stars of Scorpius shine below them and to their right.

Southern Ophiuchus – formerly referred to as Serpentarius, is one of the 88 constellations and was also one of the 48 listed by Ptolemy. It is a large constellation located around the celestial equator northwest of the center of the Milky Way. The southern part lies between Scorpius to the west and Sagittarius to the east. Of the 13 zodiacal constellations, Ophiuchus is the only one not counted as an astrological sign. It is best visible in the northern summer and located opposite Orion in the sky (Orion comes out every winter). Ophiuchus is depicted as a man supporting a serpent.

Antares – the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius and the sixteenth or fifteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky. Along with Aldebaran, Spica, and Regulus, it is one of the four brightest stars near the ecliptic. The similarly colored Aldebaran lies almost directly opposite Antares in the Zodiac.

Scorpius – one of the constellations of the zodiac. In western astrology it is known as “Scorpio”. It lies between Libra to the west and Sagittarius to the east. It is a large constellation located in the southern hemisphere near the center of the Milky Way. It is also the name of the bad guy in the dreadfully awful, canceled (ya!!!) TV show, Farscape.

Astronomical Highlights for Sunday, July 29th, 2007

The moon will be full at 8:48 p.m. EDT.

From North America, the eclipsing binary star SZ Herculis dips from magnitude 10.5 to 12 and back.  The RA coordinate for SZ Herculis is either 17h 39.6m or 17h 29.6m.

Astronomical Highlights for Saturday, July 28th, 2007

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot transits around 9:06 p.m. EDT.  Jupiter’s Red Spot is a great anti-cyclonic (high pressure) storm similar to a hurricane on Earth, but it is enormous (three Earths would fit within its boundaries) and it has persisted for at least the 400 years that man has observed it through telescopes. Since it is anti-cyclonic in Jupiter’s Southern hemisphere, the rotation is counterclockwise, with a period of about 6 days.  The persistence of the Great Red Spot is possibly due to the fact that it never comes over land, as in the case of a hurricane on Earth, and that it is driven by Jupiter’s internal heat source.   Jupiter transmits twice as much energy as it receives from the sun.  Jupiter rotates in about 9 hours, 50.5 minutes, so the Red Spot comes back into view at those intervals.  Remember, though, that as the earth rotates around the sun, that nearly 10 hour rotation of Jupiter will vary ever so slightly, as the earth’s vantage point of Jupiter changes.

Astronomical Highlights for Friday, July 27th, 2007

Io, one of four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo, and easily visible with binoculars in our day, reappears out of eclipse from Jupiter’s shadow around 11:31 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (7:31 AM in Moscow). With a small telescope, you can watch it growing into view just off the planet’s eastern limb.  Io looks like it was hit with thousands of pizzas.  Yes, that’s right: pizza.  Pepperoni and maybe extra cheese.  It’s constantly erupting due to being squeezed by Jupiter’s immense gravity.

Around 10:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (6:30 AM In Bejing), the bright asteroid 4 Vesta (6th magnitude in brightness, so barely visible to the naked eye) passes about a half arcminute (the moon is about 60 times larger at half a degree or 30 arcminutes) from the star HIP 78968, magnitude 7.8 (binoculars needed to see it). The two can be found less than 2° north of Beta Scorpii, the most northern of the three bright stars forming the head of Scorpius.