Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin -- Jun 4

From: Stuart Goldman (stuartgoldman_at_aol.com)
Date: 06/05/04 

Date: 05 Jun 2004 03:05:46 GMT

========================================================================

 * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - June 4, 2004 * * *

========================================================================

Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. (If the links don't work, just
manually type the URLs into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

========================================================================

YOUR GUIDE TO THE TRANSIT OF VENUS

On Tuesday, June 8th, the planet Venus will glide directly across the face of
the Sun. No one alive today has seen Venus "transit" the Sun -- it last
happened in 1882 -- and astronomers around the world are eagerly awaiting the
event. Only one other transit of Venus will occur this century, eight years
from now on June 6, 2012.

During this 6-hour-long event, Venus will appear as a perfectly round black dot
slowly moving across the Sun's face....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/article_1258_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SEEING THE VERY FIRST GALAXIES

Using the largest telescopes in space and on Earth, various groups of
astronomers are shedding new light on the dawn of the cosmos. The verdict so
far: the "Dark Age" that followed the Big Bang probably lasted longer than
thought and ended only gradually, with the first stars and galaxies lighting up
the cosmos in fits and starts rather than in one nearly simultaneous, grand
opening of light. Moreover, these very first stars may not have been as massive
and brilliant as recently believed.

"To see the first stars and first galaxies has been the Holy Grail of cosmology
for a long time," comments Space Telescope Science Institute director Steven
Beckwith. "Right now, we're beginning to see this...."

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1273_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SPITZER EXPOSES MYSTERY HOLES

In a cosmic game of hide and seek, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has ferreted
out the host galaxies of supermassive black holes in the young universe that
had escaped identification up to now. Moreover, the Spitzer data suggest that
most active galactic nuclei in the universe are shrouded from view by thick
envelopes of obscuring dust. Finally, the infrared space observatory may have
detected some of the very first galaxies to have formed. According to Mark E.
Dickinson (National Optical Astronomy Observatory), "the performance of Spitzer
is much better than originally anticipated."

Dickinson is the principal investigator for the new observations: four 24-hour
exposures with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera of a small area in the southern
constellation Fornax....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1267_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NASA'S O'KEEFE DETAILS HUBBLE PLANS

NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe says that plans are moving forward to service
the Hubble Space Telescope with a robotic mission by the end of 2007. In a June
1st address at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Denver,
Colorado, O'Keefe maintained that the space agency is committed to extending
the orbiting observatory's lifetime, and to that end he has decided to solicit
formal proposals to service Hubble without the use of the Space Shuttle.

Addressing the 1,400 astronomers gathered in Denver, O'Keefe also detailed what
he called the "very painful" decision he made earlier this year not to proceed
with another shuttle mission to replace Hubble's failed gyroscopes and
weakening batteries....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1269_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AMATEUR IMAGES VENUS'S SURFACE

In a first for amateur astronomy, backyard observer Christophe Pellier in Bruz,
France, has captured images of the eternally cloud-shrouded surface of Venus.

Using a 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, a webcam, and a 1-micron infrared
filter, Pellier imaged Venus's night side glowing right through the planet's
clouds on May 12th, when Venus showed a 19-percent-illuminated crescent. He has
taken several more images since then, stacking 100 eight-second exposures to
make each one....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1266_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MYSTERIES OF THE NORTH STAR

William Shakespeare couldn't have been more wrong. In his 1599 play Julius
Caesar, the English bard had the Roman ruler declaim, "I am as constant as the
northern star." Since then astronomers have learned not only that Polaris is a
variable star (in fact it's the closest and brightest Cepheid variable), but
also that its period and amplitude are changing. Now, astronomers at Villanova
University in Pennsylvania say that even the variation in Polaris's variability
is varying -- and that, moreover, Polaris's average brightness is on a slow
increase....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1265_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Itsy-Bitsy Galaxy

German astronomers have identified the dimmest galaxy ever seen. It probably
contains a mere one million stars, spread out over an area 3,000 light years
wide. According to Daniel Zucker (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy,
Heidelberg, Germany), this is "a singularly unimpressive galaxy."

The new record holder is a dwarf companion of the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million
light-years away. Zucker and his colleague Eric Bell detected Andromeda IX, as
it is called, as a slight overdensity of stars in images from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey. They presented their results at last week's meeting of the American
Astronomical Society in Denver, Colorado.

Bell says there could be more of these ultra-faint satellites hiding out there,
with even lower surface brightness. That would be good news for cosmologists.
Current theories about galaxy formation predict many more small satellite
galaxies than are actually being observed.

Maunder Mysteries

The "Little Ice Age" that froze the northern hemisphere in the late 17th
century coincided with a period of extreme solar inactivity known as the
Maunder Minimum. Climatologists have often wondered whether the two had any
connection. If so, it's up to astronomers to determine if the Sun might undergo
such a minimum again. To answer that question, they are studying other Sun-like
stars to see if other objects regularly undergo Maunder Minima of their own.
One group presented its results last week in a poster presentation at the AAS
meeting.

Using their observatory's 1.1-meter telescope, Lowell astronomers Jeffrey C.
Hall and G. Wesley Lockwood checked various stars for magnetic activity
variations by measuring the brightness of calcium emission lines in the stellar
spectra. They found that many Sun-like stars show no sign of cyclic activity
over periods of 6 to 9 years, suggesting possible minima. They also found the
same stars have widely varying, constant magnetic activity. Thus it isn't clear
if the stars they observe are undergoing true "minima."

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1270_1.asp

========================================================================

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter's central meridian (the
imaginary line down the center of the planet's disk from pole to pole) around
12:03 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday, June 5th.
* Transit of Venus, Tuesday, June 8th. The transit happens after sunrise for
eastern and central North America and most of South America; during the height
of the day for most of Europe, Africa and Asia; and before sunset for Japan,
Korea, parts of China, and Australia. Maps, timetables, and much more
information available on our website.
* Last-quarter Moon, Wednesday, June 9th.

For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/

========================================================================

REMEMBER DAD THIS FATHER'S DAY (Advertisement)

This June, be sure to get the shining star in your life the gift he wants from
Shop at Sky!

The Modern Moon: A Personal View
by Charles Wood
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=377

SKY & TELESCOPE Polo Shirt
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=386

Sky Publishing Gift Certificate
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=175

========================================================================

Copyright 2004 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a
free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE
magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as our
copyright notice is included, along with the words "used by permission." But
this bulletin may not be published in any other form without written permission
from Sky Publishing; send e-mail to permissions@SkyandTelescope.com or call +1
617-864-7360. More astronomy news is available on our Web site at
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

To subscribe to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin or to S&T's Skywatcher's Bulletin,
which calls attention to noteworthy celestial events, go to this address:

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/shopatsky/emailsubscribe.asp

========================================================================

   *-----------------------------------------------------*
   | Stuart Goldman sgoldman@SkyandTelescope.com |
   * Associate Editor StuartGoldman@aol.com *
   | Sky & Telescope |
   * 49 Bay State Rd. Sky & Telescope: The Essential *
   | Cambridge, MA 02138 Magazine of Astronomy |
   *-----------------------------------------------------*

Loading