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ECLIPSE NEWSLETTER

The Eclipse Newsletter is dedicated to increasing the knowledge of , Astrophysics, Cosmology and related subjects.

VOLUMN 3 - NUMBER 3

MAY – JUNE 2019

All previous copies of the ECLIPSE are on the mountcuba.org Wed site.

PLEASE SEND ALL PHOTOS, QUESTIONS AND REQUST FOR ARTICLES TO [email protected]

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CONTENTS:

CONSTELLATION -

WHAT ARE THE MESSIER OBJECTS?

MESSIER OBJECT NUMBER 44 BEHIVE CLUSTER

WHAT IS THE LIFECYCLE OF A STAR? PART 3.

BLACK HOLE SPITS OUT HIGH-ENERGY JETS AT NEAR LIGHT SPEED.

HUGE “GOD OF CHAOS” TO PASS NEAR EARTH IN 2029.

TYPES OF .

If you see text in green, my hope is you will do some research. I will continue to use hyperlinks. Just swipe, right click, open hyperlink.

Hyperlinks are in Blue.

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CONSTELLATION - VIRGO

The bright star indicated here is , the fifteenth brightest star in the night star. Virgo is the second largest constellation and is visible in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. In the Northern hemisphere Virgo can be seen from March to July.

Lying between and , Virgo is the only zodiacal constellation representing a woman. Virgo is the second largest constellation. The key to Virgos location is not just following the curve in the big dippers handle but the location the star Spica.

Instead of me attempting to telling the readers how to find Virgo, I suggest you view the following. On YouTube – find Virgo Constellation. I recommend Virgo the Maiden. Happy viewing.

WHAT ARE THE MESSIER OBJECTS?

The Messier objects are a set of over 100 astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer in 1771.[1] Messier was a hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not , so he compiled a list of them,[2] in collaboration with his assistant Pierre Méchain, to avoid wasting time on them. The number of objects in the lists he published reached 103, but a few more thought to have been observed by Messier have been added by other astronomers over the years.

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For a list of Messier objects:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of Messier objects

MESSIER OBJECT NUMBER 44 – BEHIVE CLUSTER ALSO KNOWN AS PRAESEPE

Only 600 light-years away, M44 is one of the closest star clusters to our solar system. Also known as the Praesepe or the its stars are young though, about 600 million years old compared to our Sun's 4.5 billion years. Based on similar ages and motion through space, M44 and the even closer in are thought to have been born together in the same large molecular cloud. An spanning some 15 light-years, M44 holds 1,000 stars or so and covers about 3 full (1.5 degrees) on the sky in the constellation . Visible to the unaided eye, M44 has been recognized since antiquity. Described as a faint cloud or celestial mist long before being included as the 44th entry in Charles Messier's 18th century catalog, the cluster was not resolved into its individual stars until telescopes were available. A popular target for modern, binocular- equiped sky gazers, the cluster's few yellowish tinted, cool, red giants are scattered through the field of its brighter hot blue main sequence stars in this colorful stellar group snapshot.

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WHAT IS THE LIFECYCLE OF A STAR? PART 3.

In the March – April edition, I left off with a supernova which is the largest explosion that takes place in space.

As you can see from the picture above, there is another object a Red Giant can become. A White Dwarf. That is our destiny.

Today, our Sun is a healthy yellow dwarf star. If you want to be precise, it is a “G V star”. This yellow dwarf will happily burn 600 million tons of hydrogen per second in its core for 10 billion years, generating the light that is required to make our planet habitable. The Sun is approximately half-way through this hydrogen burning phase, so its OK, things aren’t going to change (for the Sun at least) for a long time yet.

But what happens when the supply of hydrogen runs out in about 4-5 billion years? Although our Sun isn’t massive enough to go out as a supernova, it will still go through an exciting, yet terrifying death. After evolving through the hydrogen-burning phase, the Sun will puff up into a huge red giant star as the hydrogen fuel becomes scarce, expanding 200 5 times the size it is now, probably swallowing the Earth. Helium, and then progressively heavier elements will be fused in and around the core. The Sun will never fuse carbon however, instead it will shed its outer layers forming a planetary .

In time, things calm down, a small sparkling star called a white dwarf star will remain. This tiny remnant will have a mass of around half that of our present Sun, but will be the size of the Earth.

In the end, we are left with an old Solar System, where little is left of the inner planets. It is likely that anything within the orbit of the Earth will have been swallowed by the Sun as it expanded through the red giant phase. Although the future white dwarf Solar System will seem very alien to present day, some things won’t change. Jupiter’s orbit might have receded with the drop in solar mass, it will remain a planetary heavyweight, causing disruption in asteroid orbits. Using known asteroid data, the motion of these chunks of rocks are allowed to evolve, and over millions of years, they may get thrown out of the Solar System, or more interestingly, pushed closer to the white dwarf. Once the whole system has settled down, resonances in the asteroid belt will become amplified; Kirkwood Gaps (caused by gravitational resonance with Jupiter) will widen, and according to Deus simulations, the edges of these gaps will become perturbed even more, making more available to be tidally disrupted and shredded to dust.

In the next issue of the Eclipse, I will review what causes a Supernova and let the readers in on the final results.

I shall call it - Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

HUGE “GOD OF CHAOS” ASTEROID TO PASS NEAR EARTH IN 2029.

NASA has ruled out a collision with earth during another flyby near earth in 2036. A 1,110-foot-wide asteroid named for the Egyptian god of chaos will fly past earth in 2029 within the distance of some orbiting spacecraft, according to reports.

The asteroid, 99942 Apophis, will come within 19,000 miles of earth on April 13, a decade from now, but scientists at the Planetary Defense Conference are already preparing for the encounter, Newsweek reported. They plan to discuss the asteroid’s effects on earth’s gravity, potential research opportunities and even how to deflect an incoming asteroid in a theoretical scenario.

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Scientists say most asteroids that pass near earth aren’t more than 30 feet wide, making Apophis, named for an Egyptian god of chaos, a rare opportunity for research.

The asteroid will be visible to the and will look like a moving star point of light, according to NASA. It will pass over the United States in the early evening.

BLACK HOLE SPITS OUT HIGH-ENERGY JETS AT NEAR LIGHT SPEED.

Above. A NASA image shows the M87 , in the middle of which is the black hole that was imaged for the first time earlier this month (bottom-most box). The top zoomed-in box shows the shockwaves caused by jets of plasma spewed out from the black hole.

A stunning new image reveals two jets of high-energy material being spewed at nearly light-speed from the first-ever photographed black hole.

The supermassive black hole, M87 — dubbed Pōwehi — lives 55 million light-years away from Earth in a galaxy called . The new image of M87 was released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Supermassive black holes gobble up everything around them. But some particles don't fall into the black hole and instead — for reasons still unknown to scientists — are propelled out of the hole at a high speed, in opposite directions. All Your Questions About the New Black Hole Image Answered

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When the particles in these high-speed jets interact with gas in the vast, empty space around a black hole, the particles slow down and create shockwaves. Those shockwaves give off radiation that our devices can detect. This photo of M87 shows those shockwaves created by the jets flying out of Pōwehi's grasp — one aiming almost straight toward our planet and the other flying away from Earth, according to a statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The high-speed jet that's racing toward Earth is visible on the right of the zoomed-in photo. The straight part of the line reveals the high-speed jet itself; where the line begins to curve — because the particles are slowing down — is where the shockwave begins.

The brightness of the jet is amplified because it's traveling at high speed in our direction, according to the statement. But the jet traveling in the opposite direction (on the left-hand side of the image) is moving so quickly away from us that it's invisible. The shockwave it creates, however, is visible and resembles the letter "C."

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope measured the infrared light emanating from this galaxy. That’s in contrast to the radio waves that were stitched together to produce the first-ever photo of a black hole, which was released earlier this month.

These jets are not a new discovery, however. Astronomer Heber Curtis first discovered "a curious straight ray" emanating from the center of M87 more than a century ago, according to the statement. Since then, astronomers have been working to understand how and why they form.

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THREE BASIC TYPES OF GALAXIES.

From these three, we can also add a few more that derive from the three basic types. The most obvious is the Barred Spiral.

Going a bit further, what type of Galaxy is our solar system a part of.

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Our Galaxy is classified as a Sb type.

This is as fairly good artist sketch of our Galaxy and where our solar system is located.

Breaking it down even more, we are a Barred .

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Breaking it down even more, Hubble came up with the following.

More on our Galaxy as well as other specific Galaxies in the July – August issue.

MCAO PUBLIC NIGHTS AND FAMILY NIGHTS. The general public and MCAO members are invited to visit the Observatory on select Monday evenings at 8PM for Public Night programs. These programs include discussions and illustrated talks on astronomy, planetarium programs and offer the opportunity to view the planets, and other objects through the telescope, weather permitting. Due to limited parking and seating at the observatory, admission is by reservation only. Public Night attendance is limited to adults and students 5th grade and above. If you are interested in making reservations for a public night, you can contact us by calling 302-654- 6407 between the hours of 9 am and 1 pm Monday through Friday. Or you can email us any time at [email protected] or [email protected]. The public nights will be presented even if the weather does not permit observation through the telescope. The admission fees are $3 for adults and $2 for children. There is no admission cost for MCAO members, but reservations are still required. If you are interested in becoming a MCAO member, please see the link for membership. We also offer family memberships. Family Nights are scheduled from late spring to early fall on Friday nights at 8:30PM. These programs are opportunities for families with younger children to see and learn about astronomy by looking at and enjoying the sky and its wonders. It is meant to teach young children from ages 6-12 about astronomy in simple terms they can really understand. Reservations are required and admission fees are $3 for adults and $2 for children. MCAO WEB SITE IS mountcuba.org

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PUBLIC AND FAMILY NIGHTS SCHEDULE

Monday, January 7, "The Solar Wind: From the Sun to the 8PM Ben Marucca 2019 Earth and Beyond" Monday, January 21, "How to Use the New Telescope You Got 8PM Greg Weaver 2019 for Christmas" Monday, February 4, 8PM Scott Jackson "Galileo’s Neptune" 2019 Monday, February 18, "Rare Earth, Rare Life, or Rare 8PM Matt Shultz 2019 Intelligence?" Monday, March 4, 2019 8PM Stan Owocki "Colliding Galaxies" Monday, March 18, Dylan "The Drake Equation and the Search 8PM 2019 Hilligoss for Extra Terrestrial Life" "The Latest and Greatest in Monday, April 8, 2019 8PM Judi Provencal Astronomy" Monday, April 22, 2019 8PM Paul Stratton "Big Bang in Layman's Terms" "Magnetospheres from Planets to Monday, May 6, 2019 8PM Matt Shultz Stars" "Getting Started in Amateur Monday, May 20, 2019 8PM Rob Lancaster Astronomy" Harry Monday, June 10, 2019 8PM TBD Shipman "Star Charts, Atlases and Phone Apps Monday, June 24, 2019 8PM Budd Howard for Beginners"

NEW AT MOUNT CUBA We now have a new store of sorts. Anyone can buy the following items. Pencils ...... 25 Bookmarks...... 25 Galaxy Pens...... 50 Star Charts...... $4.00 Mugs...... $6.00 Hats...... $20.00 Soon to be added: stickers, water bottles and stress balls. These items are in a cabinet just to your left after you enter the main doors. See Kim or Greg for payments.

HOW TO FIND

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Step 1. Orient the Star Chart. You will notice there are two sides to the chart. One side is for viewing the sky to the North. The other side is for viewing to the South. Let’s start with the side for the North. You will notice that the white part of the chart rotates. At the bottom, you will see months. Above the month is the date and above that the time. The month and date will rotate so now line them up with the time you are ready for viewing. Simply look at the chart to pick out the object then look up at the sky. Compare the stars on the star chart and the stars you see in the night sky. 2. To view South, turn the chart over and turn around to face South.

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