Southwest Florida Astronomical Society, Inc.



Southwest Florida Astronomical SocietySWFASThe EyepieceJanuary 2016Contents: Message from the President .............................................................................. Page 1In the Sky this Month ...................................................................................... Page 2Future Events ................................................................................................. Page 3Minutes of SWFAS Meeting – December 3, 2015 ................................................. Page 4Notable January Events in Astronomy and Space Flight ........................................ Page 5Rate the Darkness of Your Sky .......................................................................... Page 13Tale of Capella and the Two Red Dwarfs ............................................................. Page 16How will we finally image the event horizon of a black hole? .................................. Page 19Club Officers & Positions ................................................................................... Page 22 A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENTIn the Sky this MonthMoon: January – Last Quarter, 2nd; New, 9th; 1st Quarter, 16th; Full, 23rd; Last Quarter, 31st.The Planets: Most of the planetary action continues in the early dawn hours.Mercury is the only planet visible in the early evening sky for 1st week of the month; then it, too, returns to the morning sky. During this time, all five bright planets will be visible in the morning sky.Jupiter rises around 10:30 pm at beginning of month, 8:30 by end of month.Venus rises 3 hrs before the sun on 1st of month and shines at -4.0 magnitude. Saturn appears in the morning early in month and makes conjunction with Venus on the 9th. Mars continues to shine in morning hours, brightening and growing larger during the month.International Space Station: The ISS is visible in the mornings Jan 1-5, and later in the month, 23, 25-27. It returns to the evening sky late in the month. Evening dates are Jan 28-31. See this link for specific times: Catalina: This comet should be visible at dawn in Bootes after Dec. 24th, and near Arcturus Jan. 1. It will be 5thmagnitude most of this time, suitable for binocular viewing, depending on morning clouds. View is looking east. from Sky & TelescopeComet Catalina highlights:* December 23–24 — Comet crosses?into Bo?tes* January 1, 2016 — Close pass (0.5°) of Arcturus on the first day of?2016* January 9 — Comet crosses?into?Canes Venatici* January 12 — Closest to Earth at 66.9 million miles* January 14 — Comet crosses?into Ursa Major* January 14–15 — Passes just 1° north of Alkaid, star at end of the Big Dipper's handle* January 16 — Passes 2° southwest of the 8th-magnitude galaxy, M101* January 17 — Passes 3.4° northeast of the double star Mizar in the Big Dipper's handle* January 21 — Comet crosses?into Draco* January 25 — Comet crosses?into CamelopardalisFuture Events Star Party and Event Schedule Date Event Location Time Info/Contact January 7th,2016 Jack Berninger – Understanding Einstein Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium 7:30 pmBrian Risley January 9th Star Party CRPDusk Bruce Dissette January 15th Star Party Oasis Middle School6:30 pmJohnnie Royal & Carol Stewart January 23rd Solar Observing(4th Saturday)Harbour Heights Park, Port Charlotte (Deep Creek)9am- 12 Tom SegurFebruary 4th Monthly Business Meeting – Program on MeteoritesCalusa Nature Center & Planetarium 7:30 pmBrian Risley February 6th Star Party CRPDusk Bruce Dissette February 27th Burrowing Owl FestivalRotary Park Cape CoralBrian Risley February 27thSolar Observing(4th Saturday)Gilchrist Park, Punta Gorda 9am- 12 Tom SegurMarch 3rd Monthly Meeting - Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium 7:30 pmBrian Risley March 4th SWFAS Rotary Park Star PartyRotary Park Cape Coral7-10pmBrian Risley March 5th Star Party CRPDusk Bruce Dissette April 9thStar Party CRPDusk Bruce Dissette May 7thStar Party CRPDusk Bruce Dissette January Program – As we all know, Albert? Einstein forever changed man’s understanding of the universe.? Even?100 years after the publication of his Theory of Relativity his discoveries remain the backbone of modern physics, cosmology, and our future understanding of the cosmos.As a tribute to Dr. Einstein, Jack Berninger makes a return visit to the??onThursday,?January 7, 2016?to make a special presentation entitled "Understanding Einstein".? Mr. Berninger's presentation will begin at7:30pm?to be followed immediately by the regular monthly meeting of the South West Florida Astronomical Society.Minutes of the Southwest Florida Astronomical Society – December 3rd, 2015The program by Dr. Jeffrey Hutchinson on Dark Matter was presented before the business meeting. Forty-seven people were present.The regular monthly business meeting of the Southwest Florida Astronomical Society was called to order at 8:38 pm by president Brian Risley in the Calusa Nature Center Planetarium. Bruce Dissette made a motion to e-mail the monthly club newsletter to all Calusa Nature Center members. Scott Flaig seconded the motion, and the motion carried on a voice vote. Heather Preston will do this.Brian Risley reported a thank you gift to the club of $400 from the wife of Stewart Rorer.Heather Preston reported the Nature Center will have full time space camps. She needs volunteers to help move stuff and fix up the storage room to make it into a classroom. She also expressed a need for seed money to purchase items to sell at the Planetarium gift shop. Ron Madl will investigate this and have a proposal at a future meeting.All members are reminded that annual membership dues of $20 are now due.Previous events listed in the printed agenda were reviewed, and upcoming events listed in the printed agenda were discussed. The periodic solar observing conducted in Charlotte County by Tom Segur, Tony Heiner, and Dave ____? will be added to the club website and Facebook page.The current president Brian Risley, vice president Bruce Dissette, treasurer Tony Heiner, and secretary Don Palmer each expressed willingness to serve another year. Brian Shultis made a motion to keep the current officers for 2016. The motion was seconded by Carlos Perosio. The motion passed on a voice vote.Brian Shultis made a motion, seconded by Ron Madl, to appoint Doug Heatherly as Astronomical League coordinator. The motion carried on a voice vote. Bruce Dissette will do Night Sky Network updating.Tom Segur volunteered to meet with treasurer Tony Heiner to do the annual audit.Vice President Bruce Dissette announced the Nature Center has telescopes for sale.Bruce Dissette made a motion, seconded by Brian Shultis, to approve the October 1 minutes as contained in the newsletter. The motion carried on a voice vote. There was no business meeting in November.Treasurer Tony Heiner reported an October balance of $1512.93. Brian Shultis made a motion, seconded by Bruce Dissette, to accept the report. The motion carried on a voice vote.Treasurer Tony Heiner reported a November balance of $1605.36. Brian Shultis made a motion, seconded by Ron Madl, to accept the report. The motion carried on a voice vote.Equipment Coordinator Brian Risley reminded members to check with him if you want to use equipment.Program Coordinator Mike McCauley presented an overview of upcoming programs. He would appreciate feedback and suggestions regarding programs.The business meeting was adjourned at 9:35 pm.submitted by Don Palmer, secretaryNotable January Events in Astronomy and Space Flight HistoryCompiled by Mike McCauleyJanuary 1, 1801: Giuseppe Piazzi discovers Ceres. Giuseppe Piazzi (16 July 1746 – 22 July 1826) was an Italian Catholic priest of the Theatine order, mathematician, and astronomer born in Ponte, Valtellina, and died in Naples. His most famous discovery was the first dwarf planet, Ceres. Piazzi discovered Ceres, today known as the largest member of the asteroid belt. On 1 January 1801 Piazzi discovered a "stellar object" that moved against the star background. At first he thought it was a fixed star, but once he noticed that it moved, he became convinced it was a planet - but announced it as a comet. He was not able to observe it long enough as it was soon lost in the glare of the Sun. Unable to compute its orbit with existing methods, mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss developed a new method of orbit calculation that allowed it to be located it again. After its orbit was better determined, it was clear that Piazzi's assumption was correct and this object was not a comet, but more like a small planet. Coincidentally, it was also almost exactly where the Titius-Bode law predicted a planet would be. January 2, 1900: Leslie Copus Peltier was born this date in Delphos, Ohio. An amateur astronomer, he was a prolific discoverer of comets, a persistent observer of variable stars and member of the AAVSO. Harlow Shapley once described him as "the world's greatest non-professional astronomer". He wrote the heart-warming autobiographical Starlight Nights which evokes the magic of stargazing in simpler days, on a farm and without light pollution. Asteroid 3850 Peltier is named in his honor, as is the Leslie C. Peltier Award of the Astronomical League.January 3, 2004: Spirit rover lands on Mars. Spirit, also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), landed on the other side of the planet. The rover became stuck in late 2009, and its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010. Aided by cleaning events that resulted in higher power from its solar panels, Spirit went on to function effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners expected. Spirit also logged 7.73?km (4.8?mi) of driving instead of the planned 600?m (0.4?mi), allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission were published in a special issue of the journal Science. On May 1, 2009 (5 years, 3 months, 27 Earth days after landing; 21.6 times the planned mission duration), Spirit became stuck in soft soil. For the following eight months NASA analyzed the situation, running Earth-based simulations, and programming the rover to make extrication drives in an attempt to free itself. These efforts continued until January 26, 2010 when NASA officials announced that the rover was irrecoverably obstructed in soft soil, though it continued to perform scientific research from its current location. The rover continued in a stationary science platform role until communication with Spirit stopped on sol 2210 (March 22, 2010). JPL continued to attempt to regain contact until May 24, 2011. A formal farewell at NASA headquarters after 2011 Memorial Day holiday was televised on NASA TV.January 7, 1610: Galileo discovers Callisto, Europa, and Io. On 7 January 1610, Galileo observed with his telescope what he described at the time as "three fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness", all close to Jupiter, and lying on a straight line through it. Observations on subsequent nights showed that the positions of these "stars" relative to Jupiter were changing in a way that would have been inexplicable if they had really been fixed stars. On January 10th, Galileo noted that one of them had disappeared, an observation which he attributed to its being hidden behind Jupiter. Within a few days, he concluded that they were orbiting Jupiter: he had discovered three of Jupiter's four largest satellites He discovered the fourth, Ganymede, on January 13th. Galileo named the group of four the Medicean stars, in honor of his future patron, Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Cosimo's three brothers. Later astronomers, however, renamed them the Galilean satellites in honor of their discoverer. His observations of the satellites of Jupiter caused a revolution in astronomy: a planet with smaller planets orbiting it did not conform to the principles of Aristotelian cosmology, which held that all heavenly bodies should circle the Earth, and many astronomers and philosophers initially refused to believe Galileo. His observations were confirmed by Christopher Clavius and he received a hero's welcome when he visited Rome in 1611. Galileo continued to observe the satellites over the next eighteen months, and by mid-1611, he had obtained remarkably accurate estimates for their periods—a feat which Kepler had believed impossible. ?WikiMiniAtlasJanuary 8, 1942: Stephen Hawking born. Stephen William Hawking is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. His scientific works include collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set forth a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and has achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; his book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking suffers from a rare early-onset, slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), that has gradually paralyzed him. He now communicates using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device. Hawking married twice and has three children.January 12, 1820: Royal Astronomical Society founded. The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London to support astronomical research (mainly carried on at the time by 'gentleman astronomers' rather than professionals). It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV. A Supplemental Charter in 1915 opened up the fellowship to women. It is the UK adhering organization to the International Astronomical Union and a member of the Science Council. It encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and related branches of science. Meetings are held in Burlington House, in Piccadilly, London and across the United Kingdom (UK). They are involved in production of astronomical journals and periodicals. The society has over 3000 members, around a third of whom live outside the UK. Members of the public who have an interest in astronomy and geophysics and wish to support the work of the society may become Friends of the RAS.?WikiMiniAtlasJanuary 14, 2005: Huygens probe lands on Titan. Huygens was an atmospheric entry probe that landed on Saturn's moon in 2005. Built and operated by the European Space Agency, it was part of the Cassini–Huygens mission and became the first spacecraft to land on Titan. The probe was named after the Dutch 17th-century astronomer Christiaan Huygens who discovered Titan in 1655. The combined Cassini–Huygens spacecraft was launched from Earth on October 15, 1997. Huygens separated from the Cassini orbiter on December 25, 2004, and landed on Titan on January 14, 2005 near the Xanadu region. This was the first landing accomplished in the outer Solar System. It touched down on land, although the possibility that it could touch down in an ocean was taken into account in its design. The probe was designed to gather data for a few hours in the atmosphere, and a short time at the surface. It continued to send data for about 90 minutes after touchdown. It remains the most distant landing of any human-made craft.January 15, 1973: Luna 21 and Lunokhod rover land on moon. Luna 21 was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 21. The spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover (Lunokhod 2). The primary objectives of the mission were to collect images of the lunar surface, examine ambient light levels to determine feasibility of astronomical observations from the Moon, perform laser ranging experiments from Earth, observe solar X-rays, measure local magnetic fields, and study mechanical properties of the lunar surface material. Luna 21 carried the second successful Soviet lunar rover, Lunokhod 2, and was launched less than a month after the last Apollo lunar landing. The Proton-K/D launcher put the spacecraft into Earth parking orbit followed by translunar injection. On 12 Jan 1973, Luna 21 was braked into a 90 × 100?km orbit about the Moon, at a 60° inclination. On 13 and 14 Jan, the perilune was lowered to 16?km altitude. On 15 Jan after 40 orbits, the braking rocket was fired at 16?km altitude, and the craft went into free fall. At an altitude of 750 meters the main thrusters began firing, slowing the fall until a height of 22 meters. At this point the main thrusters shut down and secondary thrusters ignited, slowing the fall until the lander was 1.5 meters above the surface, where the engine cut off. Landing occurred at 23:35 UT in Le Monnier crater at 25.85° N, 30.45° E, between Mare Serenitatis ("Sea of Serenity") and the Taurus Mountains. The lander carried a bas relief of Vladimir Lenin and Soviet coat-of-arms. At 01:14 UT on 16 Jan, the rover disembarked onto the lunar surface. The 840?kilogram Lunokhod 2 was equipped with three TV cameras, an eight-wheel traction system, and additional scientific instruments. By the end of its first lunar day, Lunokhod 2 had traveled further than Lunokhod 1 in its entire operational life. On 9 May, the rover inadvertently rolled into a crater and dust covered its solar panels and radiators. On 3 June, the Soviet news agency announced that its mission was over. The rover took 80,000 TV pictures and 86 panoramic photos and performed hundreds of mechanical and chemical surveys of the soil.January 15, 2006: Stardust spacecraft returns samples of comet dust. Stardust was a 300-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on Feb 7, 1999. Its primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2, as well as samples of cosmic dust, and return these to Earth for analysis. It was the first sample return mission. En-route to comet Wild 2, the craft also flew by and studied the asteroid 5535 Annefrank. Stardust was launched on Feb 7, 1999, at 21:04:15 UTC by NASA from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, aboard a Delta II 7426 launch vehicle. The complete burn sequence lasted for 27 minutes bringing the spacecraft into a heliocentric orbit that would bring the spacecraft around the Sun and past Earth for a gravity assist maneuver in 2001, to reach asteroid Annefrank in 2002 and comet Wild 2 in 2004 at a low flyby velocity of 6.1?km/s. In 2004, the spacecraft performed a course correction that would allow it to pass by Earth a second time in 2006, to release the Sample Return Capsule for a landing in Utah in the Bonneville Salt Flats. During the second encounter with Earth, Stardust was put into a "divert maneuver" immediately after the capsule was released so the spacecraft avoided entering the atmosphere. On Jan 29, 2004, the spacecraft was put in hibernation mode with only the solar panels and receiver active, in a three-year heliocentric orbit that would return it to Earth vicinity on Jan 14, 2009. A subsequent mission extension was approved on July 3, 2007, to bring the spacecraft back to full operation for a flyby of comet Tempel 1 in 2011. The mission extension was the first to revisit a small Solar System body.January 19, 1747: Johann Bode born. Johann Elert Bode (19 January 1747 – 23 November 1826) was a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularization of the Titius–Bode law. Bode determined the orbit of Uranus and suggested the planet's name. His name became attached to the 'law' discovered by Johann Daniel Titius in 1766. Bode first makes mention of it in the Anleitung zur Kenntniss des gestirnten Himmels in a footnote, and although it is often officially called the Titius–Bode law, it is commonly called Bode's law. This law attempts to explain the distances of the planets from the Sun in a formula, although it breaks down for the planet Neptune. It was the discovery of Uranus at a position predicted by the law which aroused great interest in it. There was actually a gap (with no planet) between Mars and Jupiter, and Bode urged a search for a planet in this region which culminated in a group formed for this purpose, the so-called "Celestial Police". However before the group initiated a search, they were trumped by the discovery of the asteroid Ceres by Giuseppe Piazzi from Palermo in 1801, at Bode's predicted position (See Jan 1 above). The law fell out of favor when it was realized that Ceres was only one of a small number of asteroids and when Neptune was found not to be in a position required by the law. Discovery of planets around other stars has brought the law back into discussion.January 19, 1851: Jacobus Kapteyn born. Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, (January 19, 1851, – June 18, 1922) was a Dutch astronomer. He carried out extensive studies of the Milky Way and discovered evidence for galactic rotation. In 1897 he discovered Kapteyn's Star. It had the highest proper motion of any star known until the discovery of Barnard's Star in 1916. In 1904, studying the proper motions of stars, Kapteyn reported that these were not random, as it was believed in that time; stars could be divided into two streams, moving in nearly opposite directions. It was later realized that Kapteyn's data had been the first evidence of the rotation of our galaxy, which ultimately led to determination of galactic rotation by Bertil Lindblad and Jan Oort.January 19, 2006: New Horizons launched. New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute, with a team led by S. Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system, and a secondary mission to flyby and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects. On Jan 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral directly into an Earth-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 km/s (58,536?km/h; 36,373?mph). After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach Feb 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3?million km (1.4?million mi). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased New Horizons?'? speed. Most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode, except for brief annual checkouts. On Dec 6, 2014, New Horizons was brought back online for the Pluto encounter. On Jan 15, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto. On July 14, 2015, at 11:49?UTC, it flew 12,500?km (7,800?mi) above the surface of Pluto, making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons has maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69, expected to take place on Jan 1, 2019, when it is 43.4?AU from the Sun.January 20, 1930: Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin born. Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr., Jan 20, 1930) is an American engineer and former astronaut, and the second person to walk on the Moon. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing. He set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 on July 21, 1969 (UTC), following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is a former U.S. Air Force officer and a Command Pilot. Aldrin was chosen for the crew of Apollo 11 and made the first lunar landing with Commander Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969. The next day, Aldrin became the second person to walk on the Moon. Aldrin's first words on the Moon were "Beautiful view." In response to Armstrong’s, "Isn't it magnificent?" he responded, "Magnificent desolation.”January 22, 2003: Pioneer 10’s last signal to earth. Pioneer 10 is an American space probe that completed the first mission to Jupiter. Thereafter, Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. Pioneer 10 was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a 2.74 meter (9?ft. 0?in) diameter parabolic dish high-gain antenna. The spacecraft was spin stabilized around the axis of the antenna. Its electric power was supplied by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators that provided a combined 155 watts at launch. Pioneer 10 launched on March 3, 1972, by an Atlas-Centaur vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Photography of Jupiter began Nov 6, 1973, at a range of 25,000,000 km (16,000,000?mi), and about 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on Dec 4, 1973, at a range of 132,252 km (82,178?mi). During the mission, on-board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter, solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the Solar System and heliosphere. Radio communications were lost with Pioneer 10 on Jan 23, 2003, because of loss of electric power for its radio transmitter, with the probe at a distance of 12?billion kilometers (80?AU) from Earth.January 24, 1986: Voyager 2 flies past Uranus. Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977 to study the outer planets. Part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, on a trajectory that took longer to reach Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with Uranus and Neptune. It is the only spacecraft to have ever visited either of the ice giants. Its primary mission ended with the exploration of the Neptunian system on October 2, 1989, after having visited the Uranian system in 1986, the Saturnian system in 1981, and the Jovian system in 1979. Voyager 2 is now in its extended mission to study the outer reaches of the Solar System and has been operating for over 38?years. It remains in contact through the Deep Space Network. At a distance of 108?AU (1.62×1010?km) from the Sun as of April 2015, Voyager 2 is one of the most distant human-made objects, along with Voyager 1, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. The probe was moving at a velocity of 15.4?km/s (55,000?km/h) relative to the Sun as of December 2014 traveling through the heliosheath. Upon reaching interstellar space, Voyager 2 is expected to provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma. The closest approach to Uranus occurred on January 24, 1986, when Voyager 2 came within 81,500 km (50,600?mi) of the planet's cloud tops. Voyager 2 discovered the moons Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Perdita and Puck; studied the planet's unique atmosphere, caused by its axial tilt of 97.8°; and examined the Uranian ring system. All nine of the previously known Uranian rings were studied by the instruments of Voyager 2 and showed that Uranian rings are distinctly different from those of Jupiter and Saturn. They might be relatively young, and not formed at the same time as Uranus. The rings might be remnants of a moon that was broken up by either a high-velocity impact or torn up by tidal effects.January 25, 1736: Joseph Lagrange was born. Joseph-Louis Lagrange (25 January 1736 – 10 April 1813) was an Italian Enlightenment Era mathematician and astronomer. He made significant contributions to the fields of analysis, number theory, and both classical and celestial mechanics. Lagrange was one of the creators of the calculus of variations, deriving the Euler–Lagrange equations for extreme of functionals. Lagrange invented the method of solving differential equations known as variation of parameters, applied differential calculus to the theory of probabilities and attained notable work on the solution of equations. He proved that every natural number is a sum of four squares. His treatise Theorie des fonctions analytiques laid some of the foundations of group theory, anticipating Galois. In calculus, Lagrange developed a novel approach to interpolation and Taylor series. He studied the three-body problem for the Earth, Sun and Moon (1764) and the movement of Jupiter’s satellites (1766), and in 1772 found the special-case solutions to this problem that yield what are now known as Lagrangian points. But above all, he is best known for his work on mechanics, where he has transformed Newtonian mechanics into a branch of analysis, Lagrangian mechanics as it is now called, and presented the so-called mechanical "principles" as simple results of the variational calculus.January 25, 2004: Opportunity rover lands on Mars. Opportunity, also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, is a robotic rover active on Mars since 2004. Launched on July 7, 2003 as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on Jan 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin Spirit (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90 sol duration of activity Opportunity remains active as of 2015, having already exceeded its operating plan by 7008368474400000000?11?years, 247?days (in Earth time). Opportunity has continued to move, gather scientific observations, and report back to Earth for over 47 times its designed lifespan. Mission highlights include finding extra-martian meteorites such as Heat Shield Rock (Meridiani Planum meteorite), and over two years studying Victoria crater. It survived dust-storms and reached Endeavour crater in 2011, which has been described as a "2nd landing site". January 27, 1967: Astronauts White, Grissom, and Chaffee die in Apollo 1 fire. Apollo 1 was the first manned mission of the U.S. Apollo manned lunar landing program. The planned low Earth orbital test of the Apollo Command/Service Module never made its target launch date of Feb 21, 1967, because a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test on January 27 at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White II, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the Command Module. The name Apollo 1 was officially retired by NASA in commemoration of the crew on April 24, 1967. Manned Apollo flights were suspended for 20 months until design problems were corrected. The Saturn IB launch vehicle, SA-204, scheduled for use on this mission, was later used for the first unmanned Lunar Module (LM) test flight, Apollo 5. The first successful manned Apollo mission was flown by Apollo 1's backup crew on Apollo 7 in October 1968. January 28, 1986: Space Shuttle Challenger explodes in flight. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members, five NASA astronauts and two Payload Specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter. The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown; several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup. The shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable. The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had contributed to the accident. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures that morning and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors. What the Rogers Commission report did not highlight was that the vehicle was never certified to operate in temperatures that low. The O-rings, as well as many other critical components, had no test data to support any expectation of a successful launch in such conditions. Bob Ebeling from Thiokol delivered a biting analysis: "We’re only qualified to 40 degrees ...'what business does anyone even have thinking about 18 degrees, we're in no man's land.” As a result of the disaster, the Air Force decided to cancel its plans to use the Shuttle for classified military satellite launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, deciding to use the Titan IV instead. Approximately 17?percent of Americans witnessed the launch live because of the presence of Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space. The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.January 31, 1961: Chimp Ham suborbital flight. Ham (July 1956 – Jan 19, 1983), was a chimpanzee and the first hominid launched into space, on 31 Jan 1961, as part of America's space program. Ham's name is an acronym for the lab which prepared him for his historic mission — the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. On Jan 31, 1961, Ham was secured in a Project Mercury mission labeled MR-2 and launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a suborbital flight. Ham had his vital signs and tasks monitored using computers on Earth. The capsule suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, but Ham's space suit prevented him from suffering any harm. Ham's lever-pushing performance in space was only a fraction of a second slower than on Earth, demonstrating that tasks could be performed in space. Ham's capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and was recovered by a rescue ship later that day. He only suffered a bruised nose. His flight was 16?minutes and 39?seconds long. After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years. Rate the Darkness of Your SkyBy: Jan Hattenbach from Sky & TelescopeA new website shows how light pollution spreads around the globe — using data gathered by its users.It's no surprise, but Las Vegas is alarmingly bright as seen from orbit at night. This International Space Station image was taken November 30, 2010.Hundreds of millions of artificial lights illuminate our planet at night — and unfortunately the atmosphere above it. Astronomers have coined the term "skyglow" to describe a phenomenon that not only makes the stars disappear but has also become a problem for nocturnal life and human health.The ongoing global transition to LED lighting can make the sky even brighter or — used with care — improve the situation. Exactly where we are heading is an open question; the answer will most likely determine the fate of our night sky. Satellites alone won't be able to answer it; measurements from the ground are needed.For the past decade, citizen-science initiatives like Globe at Night have amassed tens of thousands of skyglow measurements made visually by amateur observers worldwide. These provide valuable aid for researchers trying to understand and quantify the subtle death of starry skies.Volunteers use a Sky Quality Meter to measure the darkness at Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona. Jeremy White / NPSOne of them is Chris Kyba, a Canadian physicist who in 2013 initiated the Loss of the Night app project. Using a simple app, observers around the world make observations of sky brightness by determining the number of visible stars in the night sky then send in those results. Other tools, such as the Dark Sky Meter app, measure the sky brightness more directly using your smart phone's camera. Sky Quality Meters are hand-held devices designed specifically to take brightness readings.Thousands of measurements have been submitted over the years, but so far most of these data have only been available to professional researchers. Now Kyba has partnered with the company Interactive Scape GmbH in Berlin to develop a web-based application called My Sky at Night. This portal makes available data from the Loss of the Night app and two other citizen-science projects that monitor skyglow.A screenshot from the new My Sky at night portal gives users access to more than 50,000 brightness measurements made across North America since 2006. More Than Just "Data Gatherers"The goal is no longer for the participants to merely collect measurements. Instead, the new web-based platform offers tools to visualize and analyze those data. Now amateur and professional scientists can navigate, view, and download the findings, and then perform their own analyses directly on the site using open-source code. Users of the Loss of the Night app can also create a profile to view their own data. The project, led by the German Research Centre for Geosciences and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, invites interested people from all over the world to examine changes in their night sky.The best maps of global light pollution undoubtedly come from orbiting satellites, like NASA's Suomi-NPP or the U.S. military's DMSP orbiters. But satellite data are only of limited use to research because they measure the light emitted directly upward — not the skyglow experienced on the ground by humans and other creatures.A further complication is that the most current satellites are not sensitive to the blue part of the visible spectrum. Yet right now most outdoor LED lighting emits a large portion of its light at these short wavelengths. Research shows that blue light creates the most skyglow and is most disruptive to nocturnal environments.Due to its proximity to world-class observatories, Tucson, Arizona, has maintained its dark night skies for decades. This plot is from My Sky at Night, a new webpage that lets you view and analyze citizen-science data about light pollution. Will the current transition to LEDs in public lighting reduce skyglow (because light can be directed to the ground more easily) or increase it (because of all that blue-rich light)? It's a question not yet answered. However, thousands of towns and cities on this planet are currently changing their public lighting or are planning to do so in the near future. Also concerning is the temptation to install higher-output fixtures because LEDs are so energy efficient, making our nighttime environment even brighter than before. Once installed, new lighting fixtures will remain in place for decades.To monitor these ongoing changes in lighting, observations from the ground are more important than ever. "The data from these observations are crucial for our science," Kyba says. "We urgently need them to evaluate how skyglow is changing worldwide." By introducing My Sky at Night, Kyba hopes you'll contribute to that effort.Tale of Capella and the Two Red DwarfsBy: Bob King from Sky & TelescopeBright Capella plays it close to the vest when it comes to companions, but with a good map and steady skies you can track down its dwarf binary.The close binary star Capella photographed with the COAST telescope . The stars are separated by just 1/20″. These two images were taken two weeks apart and clearly show the orbital motion of the pair about their common center of mass. MRAO and Cavendish Astrophysics'Tis the season of Capella's rise in the northeastern sky. This brilliant star, the alpha luminary of Auriga, announces the coming of?winter as loudly as any of Orion's stars; soon enough it will?sparkle overhead like?a glittering?shard of ice.Located 42 light-years from Earth, Capella is really a pair of first-magnitude yellow giants so close to one another only a telescope array?such as COAST (Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope), which uses interferometry techniques, can reveal them.Pictures obtained with COAST show the brighter star, Capella Aa, a G8 giant, separated from its G0 giant companion, Ab, by only 0.76 AU — almost the identical distance of Venus from the Sun. They revolve about their common center of mass every 104 days, never eclipsing one another from our perspective. Every time you look at Capella, both stars are always in view, even if you can't split them!But there's more going on with Capella to make it a tempting observing target. It's accompanied by a pair of red dwarf companions with the unusual name of Capella HL. Of the many putative companions of Capella, this compact pair appears to be the real thing; it's the only star in the?neighborhood that shares Capella's?proper motion.The star's original name was Capella H (the letters B through G were assigned to faint field stars), but in 1936, American astronomer Carl Stearns discovered "a small but distinct protuberance" on Capella H, with a magnitude of +12 and a separation of?1.8″. Named Capella L,?it forms a tight red dwarf binary with H and travels through space alongside the?equally "tight" pair of giants that comprise Capella. That makes our featured star?at least a quadruple.Capella HL hangs between two easy telescopic stars, one magnitude +8.7, the other +10.0, just 12′ southeast of Capella. 10th-magnitude Capella H's orange-red hue is a dead giveaway, but its companion requires high magnification and excellent seeing. Stars to magnitude +13. Click for detailed?B&W version . StellariumCapella HL is easy to spot even in a 6-inch scope. Start at Capella and?shift your gaze just 12′ (1/5°) to the southeast to a small arc of stars anchored on either end by magnitude +8.4 and +9.5 field stars. H, at magnitude +10.2,?sits almost?midway between them and looks like an orange-red spark.?In a 10-inch reflector, it was a snap to see.?A fainter ~11.5-magnitude star lies almost due east of H — this is not the companion. Capella L snuggles?approximately?3″ south of H and shines weakly at magnitude +13.7.(A note of caution when making your own charts to find the binary. The Hubble Guide Star Catalog integrated into many planetarium-style sky programs flips the position of Capella H with the neighboring star to the east. The map and photo in this article show it correctly.)Italian amateur astronomer Giorgio Rizzarelli made this photo of Capella and Capella HL with an 8-inch telescope. Giorgio RizzarelliSeparating the two dwarfs was too mighty a task for my 15-inch under average seeing conditions. I tried and suspected the dimmer companion, but didn't feel certain enough to call the observation a success. I'll be trying again at the next dark-sky opportunity. You may have better luck, especially when the seeing cooperates. Use high power in excess of 200x for best results.Capella HL's tiny red dwarfs stand in?dramatic contrast to?Capella's dual giants. The brighter (H) packs?just 30-40% of the Sun's mass and shines with 1.2-1.4% of its luminosity. L is even?shrimpier. It's not quite a third?as large, and has only 10% the mass of the Sun and 0.05% its luminosity.?48 A.U. separate the duo, and they orbit about each other every 388 years at the fantastic distance of 10,000 A.U. (932 billion?miles / 1.5 trillion km) from Capella proper.The Capella quadruple system to scale with the Sun for comparison. WikipediaRobert Burnham, author of the venerable guide,?Burnham's Celestial Handbook, paints a wonderful picture?of the entire Capella system:" ... a scale model would show Capella A and B as two globes 13 inches and 7 inches in diameter and 10 feet apart; the components of Capella H would then be each 0.7 inch in diameter, 420 feet apart, and 21 miles from the main pair A & B!" (Vol. 1, page 264)How will we finally image the event horizon of a black hole?By Ethan SiegelOne hundred years ago, Albert Einstein first put forth his theory of General Relativity, which laid out the relationship between spacetime and the matter and energy present within it. While it successfully recovered Newtonian gravity and predicted the additional precession of Mercury's orbit, the only exact solution that Einstein himself discovered was the trivial one: that for completely empty space. Less than two months after releasing his theory, however, the German scientist Karl Schwarzschild provided a true exact solution, that of a massive, infinitely dense object, a black hole.One of the curious things that popped out of Schwarzschild's solution was the existence of an event horizon, or a region of space that was so severely curved that nothing, not even light, could escape from it. The size of this event horizon would be directly proportional to the mass of the black hole. A black hole the mass of Earth would have an event horizon less than a centimeter in radius; a black hole the mass of the sun would have an event horizon just a few kilometers in radius; and a supermassive black hole would have an event horizon the size of a planetary orbit.Our galaxy has since been discovered to house a black hole about four million solar masses in size, with an event horizon about 23.6 million kilometers across, or about 40 percent the size of Mercury's orbit around the sun. At a distance of 26,000 light years, it's the largest event horizon in angular size visible from Earth, but at just 19 micro-arc-seconds, it would take a telescope the size of Earth to resolve it – a practical impossibility.But all hope isn't lost! If instead of a single telescope, we built an array of telescopes located all over Earth, we could simultaneously image the galactic center, and use the technique of VLBI (very long-baseline interferometry) to resolve the black hole's event horizon. The array would only have the light-gathering power of the individual telescopes, meaning the black hole (in the radio) will appear very faint, but they can obtain the resolution of a telescope that's the distance between the farthest telescopes in the array! The planned Event Horizon Telescope, spanning four different continents (including Antarctica), should be able to resolve under 10 micro-arc-seconds, imaging a black hole directly for the first time and answering the question of whether or not they truly contain an event horizon. What began as a mere mathematical solution is now just a few years away from being observed and known for certain!Note: This month’s article describes a project that is not related to NASA and does not suggest any relationship or endorsement. Its coverage is for general interest and educational purposes.Image credit: NASA/CXC/Amherst College/D.Haggard et al., of the galactic center in X-rays. Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at our Milky Way's center, which normally emits X-ray light of a particular brightness. However, 2013 saw a flare increase its luminosity by a factor of many hundreds, as the black hole devoured matter. The event horizon has yet to be revealed.50789641695500This article is provided by NASA Space Place. With articles, activities, crafts, games, and lesson plans, NASA Space Place encourages everyone to get excited about science and technology. 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