Hawaii Astro News

Star Dust on Your Pizza!
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Greetings Fellow Stargazer,

A spacecraft named Stardust returned to Earth on 15 Jan 06 completing its
7 year-long mission. Stardust flew past a comet and grabbed some pieces
of star dust from the comet. The spacecraft then returned these dust
particles to Earth so scientists can study them. The scientists hope to
learn about the history of our Solar System from this dust. Stardust was
launched in 1999 and flew by the comet in January 2004. It snapped the
best pictures ever of the nucleus of a comet as it flew past Comet Wild
2. It also grabbed some star dust from the comet's atmosphere using a
high-tech material called aerogel.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html

Speaking of star dust, every year, approximately 100,000 tons of star
dust falls into Earth's atmosphere and settles down to the surface of the
planet. The largest of these particles would just barely be visible
without a microscope, and most are far smaller. Sometimes you can notice
these micro-meteorites when you get that little extra crunch when you
bite into a pizza at at Star Party!

Americans consume an average of 22.5 pounds of pizza (and who know how
much star dust) annually. We as a nation eat about 90 acres of pizza per
day... enough to fill Yankee Stadium more than eight times!!!!! 60% of
all pizza orders are for thin crust; 25% for thick, 13% for pan and 2%
for stuffed pizza! So do the math... which is heavier... a year of dust
or all the pizza Americans consume in a year. Send me your results.

So bring a pizza and a cosmic dust cover for it and look for me and my
little red telescope at this month's Star Party. Speaking to Star
Parties, where telescopes and pizzas abound, you are invited to one on
January 21st!
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Star Party Invitation for January 21st,
Sponsored by the Hawaiian Astronomical Society
http://www.hawastsoc.org
Dillingham Airfield - before sunset 6:15 pm)
(Star Party Directions are at the end of this message)
Bring:
http://www.bishopmuseum.org/planetarium/skyWatch/2006/01/jan06.pdf

Here is where I go to check the weather on a Star Party Night:
http://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?num=6&delay=15&scale=1&noclu
tter=0&ID=HMO&type=N0R&lat=0&lon=0&label=you

If it is clear, you will be able to see many astronomical sights.
It's now that time of year to see Mars and Saturn, the Orion
Nebula, THE TWINS, the Seven Sisters and many other heavenly bodies!

If you won't be in Hawaii, fear not. Check this link for a Star
Party near you!

http://SkyandTelescope.com/resources/organizations/
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If you miss this month's HAS Star Party then join us at the next:

***** 2006 *****
February 18th
April 1st
May 27th
June 17th
July 15th
August 26th
September 23rd
October 14th
November 11th
December 23th

***** 2007 *****
January 20th

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Meteorites fall roughly into three categories:

(1) Aerolites - the stony meteorites. These are rarely very large and are
made up of earthy materials, silicates, and compounds of magnesium with
tiny particles of nickel-iron alloys called chrondules embedded in them.
(2) Siderites - the metallic meteorites. Composed of 80-90 percent iron,
5-15 percent nickel, with occasional small amounts of cobalt1 the
siderites pepper the Earth in all sizes. The great craters in Africa,
Canada, United States, Russia, and Australia were all created by
siderites, yet they can also be as small as an ounce or two.
(3) Siderolites - the 'iron-stone' meteorites. Much rarer than the other
types, the siderolites are spongy arrangements of iron ores in which the
spaces are filled with minerals. They have a mottled often pitted
appearance.

Tiny particles called micro-meteorites also penetrate our atmosphere
without damage and are made up microscopotic parts of any of the above.
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NASA on Hazardous Objects

It is the brush with an large meteorites that I worry about. The general
awareness generated by movies, have generated fallout from NASA. The
space agency announced that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be home
for the Near-Earth Object Program Office. The department will be
responsible for detecting, tracking, and studying potentially hazardous
comets and asteroids. Its goal is to find at least 90 percent of the
estimated 2,000 objects larger than about 1 kilometer in diameter that
approach the Earth, and to do so by the year 2010. In addition, the
science director for solar-system exploration in NASA's Office of Space
Science, the new office will also take charge of reporting findings to
the public, should a potentially hazardous objects be found.

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HOW MUCH OF A HAZARD?

The most dangerous asteroids, those capable of causing major regional or
global disasters, are extremely rare. These bodies impact the Earth only
once every 100,000 years on average. Comets in this category are thought
to impact even less frequently, perhaps once every 500,000 years or so.

The risk from NEO impacts increases with the size of the projectile. The
greatest risk is associated with objects larger than a half-mile to a
mile, which are large enough to perturb Earth's climate on a global scale
by injecting large quantities of dust into the stratosphere. Such an
event could depress temperatures and the amount of surface sunlight
around the globe, leading to a loss of food crops and related problems.
An ocean impact could trigger large ocean waves, or tsunamis.

Such global catastrophes are qualitatively different from other more
common hazards that we face daily, given that these common events occur
with much greater frequency but affect fewer people. No individual person
should worry about being struck by a comet or asteroid. The daily threat
to an average person from disease, car accidents, home accidents, and
other natural disasters is much higher.

For further information on this topic, see the NASA Ames Research
Center's Asteroid & Comet Impact Home Page at the following Web address:

http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/

It is entirely feasible that we could divert a large asteroid or comet
that may collide with Earth from its orbit using existing technologies.
The potential response depends on the lead time. If we can predict the
event long in advance, by at least 10 to 100 years, then conventional
rockets and explosives would probably be adequate, even for bodies as
large as a half-mile. However, if we discover the object only a few years
before impact, these technologies might not be adequate. Such a response
would be coordinated in the United States by the Departments of Defense
and Energy, and likely would include international partners.

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Asteroids, Comets, and NASA Research

Asteroids and comets are believed to be ancient remnants of the earliest
years of the formation of our solar system more than four billion years
ago. From the beginning of life on Earth to the recent spectacular impact
of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, these so-called "small bodies"
play a key role in many of the fundamental processes that have shaped the
planetary neighborhood in which we live.

Comets are bodies of ice, rock, and organic compounds that can be several
miles in diameter. Comets are thought to originate from a region beyond
the orbits of the outermost planets. Scientists believe that
gravitational perturbations periodically jar comets out of this
population, setting these "dirty snowballs" on orbital courses that bring
them closer to the Sun. Some, called long-period comets, are in
elliptical orbits of the Sun that take them far out beyond the planets
and back. Others, called short-period comets, travel in shorter orbits
nearer the Sun.

When comets venture into the more intense sunlight of the inner solar
system, the ices in the comet nucleus begin to vaporize and fall away.
The evolved gas forms a tenuous atmosphere around the nucleus called a
coma, while the dust previously in the nucleus forms a tail that can be
thousands of miles long and sometimes can be seen from Earth. While
striking the early Earth billions of years ago, comets are thought to
have created major changes to Earth's early oceans, atmosphere, and
climate, and may have delivered the first carbon-based molecules to our
planet, triggering the process of the origins of life.

Most asteroids are made of rock, but some are composed of metal, mostly
nickel and iron. They range in size from small boulders to objects that
are hundreds of miles in diameter. A small portion of the asteroid
population may be burned-out comets whose ices have evaporated away and
been blown off into space. Almost all asteroids are part of the Main
Asteroid Belt, with orbits in the vast region of space between Mars and
Jupiter.

Some asteroids pass very close to Earth's orbit around the Sun.
Scientists have found evidence that asteroids have hit our planet in the
past. Usually, asteroids and smaller debris called meteoroids are too
small to survive the passage through Earth's atmosphere. When these burn
up on their descent, they leave a beautiful trail of light known as a
meteor or "shooting star." Larger asteroids occasionally crash into
Earth, however, and create craters, such as Arizona's mile-wide Meteor
Crater near Flagstaff. Another impact site off the coast of the Yucatan
Peninsula in Mexico, which is buried by ocean sediments today, is
believed to be a record of the event that led to the extinction of the
dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Fortunately for us, these big asteroid
impacts are rare. A smaller rocky meteoroid or comet less than 100 yards
in diameter is believed to have entered the atmosphere over the Tunguska
region of Siberia in 1908. The resulting shockwave knocked down trees for
hundreds of square miles.

Over the next 10 years, NASA expects to spend more than $1 billion
gaining a better scientific understanding of asteroids and comets. Major
areas of research supported by NASA include detecting and tracking
so-called Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that could possibly impact Earth in
the future and numerous spacecraft missions to learn more about the
physical properties and evolution of asteroids and comets, including
returning samples of them to Earth.

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GROUND-BASED RESEARCH: DETECTING, TRACKING, AND CHARACTERIZING

Earth and all the other planets and moons of our solar system have been
continuously pelted by asteroids and comets ever since their
formation--just look at the Moon's craters through a small telescope or a
good pair of binoculars.

NASA supports several ground-based programs and related technology
development efforts that use sensitive electronic detectors to scan the
skies for undiscovered NEOs. Less than 10 percent of the estimated 2,000
or more NEOs that are larger than about a half-mile in diameter have been
detected to date. (Most scientists believe that objects of this size have
the potential to cause global effects should they hit Earth.)

Major examples of these programs include the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
(NEAT) system operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in
conjunction with the U.S. Air Force on Mt. Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii; the
Spacewatch program run by the University of Arizona in Tucson at Kitt
Peak, Arizona; and the Lowell Observatory NEO Survey (LONEOS) program in
Flagstaff, Arizona.

For further information on these programs, see these Internet sites:

http://newton.dm.unipi.it/cgi-bin/neodys/neoibo?riskpage:0;main

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/spacewatch/index.html

http://asteroid.lowell.edu/

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The Wanderers (The Planets) this Month

Mercury is "combust": an old astronomical word meaning hidden in the
glare of the Sun.

Venus too is very close to the Sun, passing 5.5° north of it at inferior
conjunction on January 13­14.

Mars (in Aries) shines yellow-orange high in the south to southwest
during evening. It's shrinking and fading into the distance as Earth
pulls farther ahead of it in our faster orbit around the Sun.

Jupiter (in Libra) is the very bright "star" in the southeast to south
before and during dawn. The much fainter star Alpha Librae appears only
about 1° from it.

Saturn (in Cancer) rises in the east-northeast in twilight, below Castor
and Pollux. By 9 p.m. it's posing high in the east. Binoculars show the
Beehive star cluster just above it.

Uranus and Neptune are disappearing into the evening twilight.

Pluto is hidden in the glow of dawn.

2003 UB313 (magnitude 19, in Cetus) is high in the south during early
evening. This is the newly discovered "tenth planet". Advanced amateurs
with good CCD setups have been imaging 2003 UB313 and tracking its
motion. The discovery team is informally calling the object and its moon
Xena and Gabrielle, for the TV warrior princess and her longtime
companion. The official names they will eventually get are still tied up
in committees of the International Astronomical Union.
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Annual Meteor Showers

Quadrantids: January
Virginids: March/April
Lyrids: April
Scorpiids: May
Delta Aquarids: July
Perseids August
Piscids: September
Orionids: October
Leonids: November
Geminids: December
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Find what is moving overhead after sunset:
http://www.bester.com/
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/3d/JTrack3d.html

Check out when the next Iridium Satellite is available for you to
see:
http://www.heavens-above.com/Neighbours.asp?PlaceID=593409
(for non Oahu Star Gazers...)
http://www.heavens-above.com/selecttown.asp?CountryID=US
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Check out:
http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/12months/m-jan-i.html

and bring the above list...

As for the rest of the Messiers, check out
http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/messier.html It also has a link to:

http://www.hawastsoc.org/messier/index.html
(all the Messier Objects as photographed by HAS's local Jay Wrathall)
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Star Party Directions
(http://www.hawastsoc.org/directions/dillingham.html)

To reach the Dillingham observing site, take the H2 to the end at
Schofield Barracks. Drive past Schofield and follow the signs to
Waialua. At the Y intersection at Waialua, bear left and pass under
the bridge. Drive out of town a few miles until you reach Dillingham
Airfield. Dillingham is several miles long. It has three gates. You
need to drive to the far end to the third gate (marked as Gate 1 on
the color map). When you enter the gate, the road will curve left
behind some hangars. It will then take you through a very sharp S
curve. 1/4 mile beyond that is a stop sign in the middle of nowhere.
Turn right at the stop sign, and you will be there. You can find me
by looking for the big red telescope in the corner with a table with
lots of pizza on it.

You will need to reach the site before sunset in order to find the
gate open!!!

A few words on light. We try to maintain dark conditions at the site.
Therefore we have certain rules about light. First, no white
flashlights. The only flashlights that you should use are not too
bright, red ones.

When entering and exiting the site, do not use headlights. Some cars
now can't turn off their headlights. If you have a car like that
please park nearer the windsock then the telescopes. Point it away
from the telescopes. Headlights make you lose your night vision for
up to 30 minutes. It immediately ruins any astro photography that
might be in progress.

Bring some warm clothes, something to sit on, some real powerful bug
spray, a dim or red covered flashlight and some munches to share with
your friends.

Remember there is an absolute need to remain clear of the runway, and
anyone attending the star party needs to remain in the immediate star
party area. Do not be wandering around in areas where we are not
permitted. Especially near any planes (parked or moving)!
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Bishop Museum Planetarium Happenings
http://www.bishopmuseum.org/visitors/dailyschedule.html

Daily Planetarium schedule:
(808) 848-4136 for pre-recorded planetarium schedule.

12:00 a.m. The Stars Tonight (30 Minutes)
12:45 p.m. Explorers of Polynesia in Japanese, (30 Minutes)
1:30 p.m. Explorers of Mauna Kea, (30 Minutes)
2:30-3:15p.m. Observatory is open for solar viewing
3:30 p.m. Explorers of Polynesia in English, (45 Minutes)

Barry Peckham will host the Sky Tonight program on the first Friday
of each month. Reservations are required as there is limited seating
in the planetarium. Call 848-4168 for information and reservations.
Tickets cost $4 for adults, $3 for kids, free to Bishop Museum
members and Hawaiian Astronomical Society members.
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After Dark with Stars in the Park
Waikele Community Park
OR... Kahala Park
(Weather permitting)
***** 2006 *****
February 4th
March 4th
April 8th
May 6th
June 3rd
July 29th
September 30th
October 28th
November 25th
December 30th

***** 2007 *****
January 27th

FROM DUSK to 9:30 PM
Bring your children! Tell your friends!
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Visit the cosmos via:

The HAS HomePage: http://www.hawastsoc.org/ or go to
(or show up at meeting 7:30pm first Tue of month)
and check out the Bishop Museum Planetarium Home Page
http://bishopmuseum.org/exhibits/planetarium/planetarium.html
and the Institute for Astronomy Colloquia/Seminars
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/
http://apollo-society.org/launchpad39_A.html

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Keep Looking Sky Ward

Namaste...Gary "MacYoda" Ward

http://homepage.mac.com/macyoda/PhotoAlbum6.html
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--

The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond
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