Annual Report 2018
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The Solar System What’S in Our Solar System?
The Solar System What’s in Our Solar System? • Our Solar System consists of a central star (the Sun), the eight planets orbiting the sun, several dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteors, interplanetary gas, dust, and all the “space” in between them. • Solar System: a star (sun) together with all the objects revolving around it (planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, and so on). What’s in Our Solar System? • The word solar comes from the Latin solaris, meaning “of the sun.” Sol is the Latin word for “sun.” • The eight planets of the Solar System are named for Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses. Planetary System Planetary System: a planet with its moon(s), • The Earth and moon are a planetary system. • The word planet comes from a Greek word meaning “wandering.” To the ancients, the five visible planets to the naked eye appeared to move, unlike the other fixed stars that were “fixed.” • Orbit: the path followed by a planet, asteroid, or comet around a star, or a moon around a planet. The word comes from the Latin orbita, meaning a “wheel track.” Planets, Dwarf Planets, Moons, Asteroids, and Comets • Planet: a large body, spherical because of its own gravity, orbiting a star and not sharing its orbit with any other large bodies. • Dwarf Planet: a planet-like body that orbits the sun and does not clear its orbital zone of other massive bodies, and is not a moon. • Moon: object revolving around a planet. The word moon is from an ancient German root meaning “moon” or “month.” Planets, Dwarf Planets, Moons, Asteroids, and Comets • Asteroid: a rocky or metallic object a few feet or a few miles in dimeter. -
Crater Copernicus John Paladini Took This Image of Crater Copernicus with His Home-Built 6" F/8 Refractor (10 Frames a Second Neximager Stack of About 100)
WESTCHESTER AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS MAY 2010 Sky tch Crater Copernicus John Paladini took this image of crater Copernicus with his home-built 6" f/8 refractor (10 frames a second neximager stack of about 100). An impact crater, Copernicus is thought to be about 800 million years old. The crater is 93 km in diameter and about 3700m deep. The crater’s central peaks are visible in the above photo. They rise about 1200m above the crater’s floor. SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1983 Page 1 WESTCHESTER AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS MAY 2010 Events for May 2010 WAA Lectures the public. The scheduled rain/cloud date is May 15th. “No Place for the Timid: Participants and quests should read our General The Engineering Saves of NASA": Observing Guidelines. Friday May 7th, 8:00pm Miller Lecture Hall, Pace University Renewing Members. Pleasantville, NY Bill Forsyth - Hartsdale Alan Witzgall will be giving a behind the scenes look Donna Cincotta - Yonkers at NASA, featuring the engineering saves and Arumugam Manoharan - Yonkers technical support which make space flight possible. James Peale - Bronxville Alan is a well-known astronomy lecturer and science Paul Alimena - Rye writer; he is active in many metropolitan area astronomy organizations. Free and open to the public. Call: 1-877-456-5778 (toll free) for announcements, weather cancellations, or Upcoming Lectures questions. Also, don’t forget to periodically visit the June's lecture will be a teleconference featuring the WAA website at: senior astronomer from the SETI institute, Dr. Seth http://www.westchesterastronomers.org/. Shostak. It will take place at 7:00 pm on Thursday June 10th. -
Predicting Maximum Sunspot Number in Solar Cycle 24 Nipa J Bhatt
J. Astrophys. Astr. (2009) 30, 71–77 Predicting Maximum Sunspot Number in Solar Cycle 24 Nipa J Bhatt1,∗, Rajmal Jain2 & Malini Aggarwal2 1C. U. Shah Science College, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad 380 014, India. 2Physical Research Laboratory, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad 380 009, India. ∗e-mail: [email protected] Received 2008 November 22; accepted 2008 December 23 Abstract. A few prediction methods have been developed based on the precursor technique which is found to be successful for forecasting the solar activity. Considering the geomagnetic activity aa indices during the descending phase of the preceding solar cycle as the precursor, we predict the maximum amplitude of annual mean sunspot number in cycle 24 to be 111 ± 21. This suggests that the maximum amplitude of the upcoming cycle 24 will be less than cycles 21–22. Further, we have estimated the annual mean geomagnetic activity aa index for the solar maximum year in cycle 24 to be 20.6 ± 4.7 and the average of the annual mean sunspot num- ber during the descending phase of cycle 24 is estimated to be 48 ± 16.8. Key words. Sunspot number—precursor prediction technique—geo- magnetic activity index aa. 1. Introduction Predictions of solar and geomagnetic activities are important for various purposes, including the operation of low-earth orbiting satellites, operation of power grids on Earth, and satellite communication systems. Various techniques, namely, even/odd behaviour, precursor, spectral, climatology, recent climatology, neural networks have been used in the past for the prediction of solar activity. Many investigators (Ohl 1966; Kane 1978, 2007; Thompson 1993; Jain 1997; Hathaway & Wilson 2006) have used the ‘precursor’ technique to forecast the solar activity. -
ASTRONAUTICS and AERONAUTICS, 1977 a Chronology
NASA SP--4022 ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 A Chronology Eleanor H. Ritchie ' The NASA History Series Scientific and Technical Information Branch 1986 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Washington, DC Four spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977: left to right, top, ESA’s Geos 1 and NASA’s Heao 1; bottom, ESA’s Isee 2 on NASA’s Isee 1, and Italy’s Wo. (NASA 77-H-157,77-H-56, 77-H-642, 77-H-484) Contents Preface ...................................................... v January ..................................................... 1 February .................................................... 21 March ...................................................... 47 April ....................................................... 61 May ........................................................ 77 June ...................................................... 101 July ....................................................... 127 August .................................................... 143 September ................................................. 165 October ................................................... 185 November ................................................. 201 December .................................................. 217 Appendixes A . Satellites, Space Probes, and Manned Space Flights, 1977 .......237 B .Major NASA Launches, 1977 ............................... 261 C. Manned Space Flights, 1977 ................................ 265 D . NASA Sounding Rocket Launches, 1977 ..................... 267 E . Abbreviations of References -
Our Sun Has Spots.Pdf
THE A T M O S P H E R I C R E S E R V O I R Examining the Atmosphere and Atmospheric Resource Management Our Sun Has Spots By Mark D. Schneider Aurora Borealis light shows. If you minima and decreased activity haven’t seen the northern lights for called The Maunder Minimum. Is there actually weather above a while, you’re not alone. The end This period coincides with the our earth’s troposphere that con- of Solar Cycle 23 and a minimum “Little Ice Age” and may be an cerns us? Yes. In fact, the US of sunspot activity likely took place indication that it’s possible to fore- Department of Commerce late last year. Now that a new 11- cast long-term temperature trends National Oceanic and over several decades or Atmospheric Administra- centuries by looking at the tion (NOAA) has a separate sun’s irradiance patterns. division called the Space Weather Prediction Center You may have heard (SWPC) that monitors the about 22-year climate weather in space. Space cycles (two 11-year sun- weather focuses on our sun spot cycles) in which wet and its’ cycles of solar activ- periods and droughts were ity. Back in April of 2007, experienced in the Mid- the SWPC made a predic- western U.S. The years tion that the next active 1918, 1936, and 1955 were sunspot or solar cycle would periods of maximum solar begin in March of this year. forcing, but minimum Their prediction was on the precipitation over parts of mark, Solar Cycle 24 began NASA TRACE PROJECT, OF COURTESY PHOTO the U.S. -
Occurrence Characteristics of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron
Upadhyay et al. Earth, Planets and Space (2020) 72:35 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-020-01157-7 FULL PAPER Open Access Occurrence characteristics of electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves at sub-auroral Antarctic station Maitri during solar cycle 24 Aditi Upadhyay1*, Bharati Kakad1, Amar Kakad1, Yoshiharu Omura2 and Ashwini Kumar Sinha1 Abstract We present a statistical study of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves observed at Antarctic station (geo- graphic 70.7◦ S , 11.8◦ E , L = 5 ) on quiet and disturbed days during 2011–2017. The data span a fairly good period of both ascending and descending phases of the solar cycle 24, which has witnessed extremely low activity. We noted EMIC wave occurrence by examining wave power in diferent frequency ranges in the spectrogram. EMIC wave occurrence during ascending and descending phases of solar cycle 24, its local time, seasonal dependence and dura- tions have been examined. There are total 2367 days for which data are available. Overall, EMIC waves are observed for 3166.5 h (≈ 5.57% of total duration) which has contributions from 1263 days. We fnd a signifcantly higher EMIC wave occurrence during the descending phase (≈ 6.83%) as compared to the ascending phase (≈ 4.08%) of the solar cycle, which implies nearly a twofold increase in EMIC wave occurrence. This feature is attributed to the higher solar wind dynamic pressure during descending phase of solar activity. There is no evident diference in the percentage occurrence of EMIC waves on magnetically disturbed and quiet days. On ground, EMIC waves show marginally higher occurrence during winter as compared to summer. -
Solar Cycle 23 and 24 and Their Geoeffectiveness
Study of Space weather events of Solar cycle 23 and 24 and their Geoeffectiveness B. Veenadhari Selvakumaran, S Kumar, Megha P, S. Mukherjee Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Navi Mumbai, India. UN/US International Space Weather Initiative Workshop Boston, USA July 31 – 4 August, 2017 Out line Colaba - Bombay old magnetic records Solar and Interplanetary drivers, estimation of interplanetary conditions. Space weather events – Solar cycle 23 and 24 Geomagnetic response from low and equatorial latitudes On the reduced geoeffectiveness of solar cycle 24: a moderate storm perspective summary Magnetic Observatories In India by IIG Oldest Indian magnetic observatory at Alibag, established in 1904. Alibag(ABG) and Jaipur(JAI) are INTERMAGNET Observatories World Data Center (WDC) Mumbai - is member of ISCU World Data center(WDS),. The Colaba (Bombay) magnetogram for the extreme Geomagnetic storm 1-2 September, 1859. Tsurutani, B. T., W. D. Gonzalez, G. S. Lakhina, and S. Alex, The extreme magnetic storm of 1–2 September 1859, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 2003. The 1 September 1859 Carrington solar flare most likely had an associated intense magnetic cloud ejection which led to a storm on Earth of DST ~ -1760 nT. This is consistent with the Colaba, India local noon magnetic response of H = 1600 ± 10 nT. It is found that both the 1–2 September 1859 solar flare energy and the associated coronal mass ejection speed were extremely high but not unique. Superposed epoch plot of 69 magnetic storms (- 100nT) with clear main phase were selected during the solar cycle 23 period. (a) the associated interplanetary electric fields Some of the intense magnetic storms recorded (b) the Dst index. -
Statistical Study of Solar Activity Parameters of Solar Cycle 24
Volume 65, Issue 1, 2021 Journal of Scientific Research Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. Statistical Study of Solar Activity Parameters of Solar Cycle 24 Abha Singh1 and Kalpana Patel*2 1Department of Physics, T.D.P.G. College, Jaunpur-222002, U.P., India. [email protected] 2Department of Physics, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Delhi-NCR Campus, Delhi-Meerut Road, Modinagar-201204, U.P. India. [email protected]* Abstract: The solar atmosphere is one of the most dynamic smoothed sunspot numbers that was brought into existence with environments studied in modern astrophysics. The term solar its classification (Kunzel, 1961). The number predicts short term activity refers to physical phenomena occurring within the periodic high and low activity of the Sun. The part of the cycle magnetically heated outer atmosphere of the Sun at various time with low sunspot activity is referred to as "solar minimum" scales. S un spots, high-speed solar wind, solar flares and coronal while region with maximum solar activity is called as "solar mass ejections are the basic parameters that govern maximum”. Hathaway et al. (2002) examined the ‘group’ solar activity. All solar activity is driven by the solar magnetic field. The present paper studies the relation between various solar sunspot number which shows it use in featuring the Sun’s features during solar cycle 24. The study reveals that there exists a performance during the solar year (Hoyt & Schatten, 1998a). good correlation between various parameters. This indicates that they all belong to same origin i.e., the variability of Sun’s magnetic Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the explosions in the solar 42field. -
Variations of the Galactic Cosmic Rays in the Recent Solar Cycles
Draft version April 19, 2021 Typeset using LATEX manuscript style in AASTeX63 Variations of the Galactic Cosmic Rays in the Recent Solar Cycles Shuai Fu ,1, 2 Xiaoping Zhang ,1, 2 Lingling Zhao ,3 and Yong Li 1, 2 1State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa 999078, Macau, PR China 2CNSA Macau Center for Space Exploration and Science, Taipa 999078, Macau, PR China 3Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR), University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA Submitted to ApJS ABSTRACT In this paper, we study the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) variations over the solar cy- cles 23 and 24, with measurements from the NASA's ACE/CRIS instrument and the ground-based neutron monitors (NMs). The results show that the maximum GCR intensities of heavy nuclei (5 6 Z 6 28, 50∼500 MeV/nuc) at 1 AU during the so- lar minimum in 2019{2020 break their previous records, exceeding those recorded in 1997 and 2009 by ∼25% and ∼6%, respectively, and are at the highest levels since the space age. However, the peak NM count rates are lower than those in late 2009. The arXiv:2104.07862v1 [astro-ph.SR] 16 Apr 2021 difference between GCR intensities and NM count rates still remains to be explained. Furthermore, we find that the GCR modulation environment during the solar minimum P24=25 are significantly different from previous solar minima in several aspects, including Corresponding author: Xiaoping Zhang [email protected] Corresponding author: Lingling Zhao [email protected] 2 Fu et al. -
SOLAR CYCLE #24 and the SOLAR DYNAMO Kenneth Schatten* A.I. Solutions, Inc. Suite 215 10001 Derekwood Lane Lanham, MD 20706
Source of Acquisition NASA Goddard Space Flight Center SOLAR CYCLE #24 AND THE SOLAR DYNAMO Kenneth Schatten* a.i. solutions, Inc. suite 215 10001 Derekwood Lane Lanham, MD 20706 and W. Dean Pesnell Code 671 NASA’GSFC Greenbelt, MD 20771 ABSTRACT We focus on two solar aspects related to flight dynamics. These are the solar dynamo and long-term solar activity predictions. The nature of the solar dynamo is central to solar activity predictions, and these predictions are important for orbital planning of satellites in low earth orbit (LEO). The reason is that the solar ultraviolet (UV) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral irradiances inflate the upper atmospheric layers of the Earth, forming the thermosphere and exosphere through which these satellites orbit. Concerning the dynamo, we discuss some recent novel approaches towards its understanding. For solar predictions we concentrate on a “solar precursor method,” in which the Sun’s polar field plays a major role in forecasting the next cycle’s activity based upon the Babcock- Leighton dynamo. With a current low value for the Sun’s polar field, this method predicts that solar cycle #24 will be one of the lowest in recent times, with smoothed F10.7 radio flux values peaking near 130+ 30 (2 4, in the 2013 timeframe. One may have to consider solar activity as far back as the early 20thcentury to find a cycle of comparable magnitude. Concomitant effects of low solar activity upon satellites in LEO will need to be considered, such as enhancements in orbital debris. Support for our prediction of a low solar cycle #24 is borne out by the lack of new cycle sunspots at least through the first half of 2007. -
Astronomy Handbook
ASTRONOMY HANDBOOK 63 Table of Contents Section 1 – The Night Sky Purple Section 2 – The North Polar Sky Green Secton 3 – The Winter Sky Pink Section 4 – The Spring Sky Yellow Section 5 – The Summer Sky Blue Section 6 – The Autumn Sky Orange Section 7 – Other Information Red 64 Section 1 – The Night Sky Table of Contents Page Subject Myths & Legends included? 2 Teaching Astronomy - 4 A Little History - 6 The Universe & Milky Way Estonian 9 The Stars & Our Sun Greek, Native American, Scandinavian 16 The Planets Greek, Native American 25 The Moon Native American, Chinese 36 Asteroids, Comets, Meteoroids Native American 39 Greek & Roman Gods - 40 Constellations: An Intro Native American 65 Teaching Astronomy Most schools that come to TOS like to take astronomy. It’s a great opportunity for the kids to sit quietly, look at stars and planets that they may not be able to see in a town or city, and listen to myths and legends about the night sky. This information offers a good foundation to astronomy. Please read it and absorb as much as you can before you arrive. During training we will concentrate on learning constellations and the stories associated with them. Astronomy lasts an hour-and-a-half. We will usually start off with a few games (which we will also show you during training) to burn off some of the kids’ energy, and to wait for it to get dark. Once the stars come out, you will gather your team and find somewhere around camp to look at the night sky. -
Bulfinch's Mythology
Bulfinch's Mythology Thomas Bulfinch Bulfinch's Mythology Table of Contents Bulfinch's Mythology..........................................................................................................................................1 Thomas Bulfinch......................................................................................................................................1 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE......................................................................................................................3 AUTHOR'S PREFACE...........................................................................................................................4 STORIES OF GODS AND HEROES..................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................7 CHAPTER II. PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA...............................................................................13 CHAPTER III. APOLLO AND DAPHNEPYRAMUS AND THISBE CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS7 CHAPTER IV. JUNO AND HER RIVALS, IO AND CALLISTODIANA AND ACTAEONLATONA2 AND THE RUSTICS CHAPTER V. PHAETON.....................................................................................................................27 CHAPTER VI. MIDASBAUCIS AND PHILEMON........................................................................31 CHAPTER VII. PROSERPINEGLAUCUS AND SCYLLA............................................................34