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September 2020 RASC Calgary Centre - Current Astronomical Highlights by Don Hladiuk Follow Don on: ("astrogeo") ASTRONOMICAL HIGHLIGHTS provides information about space science events for the upcoming month. The information here is a rough transcript of information covered on the popular CBC Radio One Calgary Eyeopener segment on 1010 AM and 99.1 FM usually on the first or second Monday of each month at 7:37 AM. Don is a life member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and was twice President of the Calgary Centre. Since June 1984, Don has had a regular radio column on the Eyeopener describing monthly Astronomical Highlights to southern Albertans. For additional sources of sky information see the list of links below this month's article. For information about the Calgary Centre of the RASC, please visit our web site. Interested in Astronomy? Become a member of the RASC! Click here to find out about RASC membership and RASC publications. ASTRONOMICAL HIGHLIGHTS September 2020 Broadcast Date September 7, 2020 Prime Time Planets If you go out for an evening walk after sunset, you will notice two bright star-like objects in the southern sky. These two objects are the two largest planets in our solar system. Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter is the brighter of the two planets located in the constellation Sagittarius. Sagittarius sort of looks like a ‘Teapot’ and is situated just to the left of a dim path of light that arcs across the sky, our Milky Way galaxy. Jupiter is a gas giant and could hold over 1300 Earths and it takes 12 years to complete one orbit around the sun. Jupiter is over 670 million km away and the sunlight we see reflected from its cloud tops take over 37 minutes to reach us. Jupiter has around 79 moons but 4 can easily be seen from Earth with a small telescope. In fact, Galileo observed and documented these moons back in the early 1600s and this is why they are known as the Galilean moons. These 4 large moons are named Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. Io has almost nonstop sulphur volcanism and Europa is believed to have an ocean beneath its icy crust that could support simple life. Ganymede is the largest moon and even has its own magnetic field. Saturn is a little to the left of Jupiter and is noticeably dimmer. Saturn is also a gas giant and is known for its incredible ring system. It is also located in the constellation Sagittarius and takes 29 years to make one orbit around the sun. This beautiful world is over 1.38 billion km away and light takes over 1 hour and 16 minutes to reach us here on Earth. Saturn also has dozens of moons and its largest moon, Titan, even has an atmosphere that is denser than Earth’s. However, because Saturn and Titan are far from the sun, the surface temperatures are so cold (-1730C) that it rains methane and ethane. Titan appears to go through seasons and has lakes of liquid hydrocarbons during its rainy season. If you ever get the opportunity, look at Saturn through a small telescope and I promise you, you will not be disappointed. Mark this day in your calendar – December 21. If the sky is clear, find a location with a clear southwestern horizon. Just after sunset look for bright Jupiter and only 6 arc minutes away will be Saturn. That is only about 11 Jupiter diameters away. With a high-power eyepiece, you will be able to see both planets in the same field of view with your telescope. According to the RASC, Observer’s Handbook, this close of a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn has not occurred since 1623 (during the time of Galileo)! Hope for clear skies! Mars rises about 10pm local time and is in the constellation Pisces. The Earth continues to catch up to the Red Planet as our orbit is on the inside track and we pass Mars every 26 months. As we close the distance between us and Mars, its apparent brightness increases dramatically. But don’t expect Mars to be a big as the Full Moon (internet folklore) as it is still over 70 million km away with a light travel time of about 4 minutes. Even through a large telescope it is not easy to see the polar caps and the characteristic light and dark markings. Mars is small, only about half the size of the Earth and it is still millions of km away. Earlier this summer three separate missions were launched to Mars. In February 2021 the three spacecraft will arrive culminating with the landing of the NASA Mars 2020 (Perseverance) rover with a small helicopter (Ingenuity) on February 18. One of the main goals of this robotic explorer is to answer one of the big questions, “Did life ever start on other planets?”. If you get up early before sunrise and look to the eastern sky, you will see brilliant Venus. Venus rises around 3am local time and it is located in the constellation Gemini. This earth sized planet shines so bright because of its highly reflective cloudy atmosphere. Venus is only about 130 million km away with a light travel time of 7 minutes. Largest Solid Rocket Motor in the World Engineers have completed the first Flight Support Booster (FSB-1) test at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah. The solid rocket booster is for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The full-scale test with the booster lasted a little more than 2 minutes, the same amount of time the boosters fire to help send SLS to orbit. The 47 metre long motor burns 6 tons of solid propellent per second and the two boosters together will provide 75% of the thrust needed to lift the massive SLS rocket off the launch pad. Engineers will use data from the test to evaluate new materials and developments for SLS rockets that will power NASA’s Artemis lunar missions beyond Artemis III. Northrop Grumman, the lead SLS contractor for the boosters, have delivered an earlier version of the booster segments for Artemis I to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they are being prepared for launch. FSB-1 firing at the Promontory, Utah, facility’s Test Area. Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman Mystery Solved: Bright Areas on Ceres Come from Salty Water Below (NASA News Release) Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. And when the NASA spacecraft called Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft. Ceres makes up almost a third of the asteroid belt's total mass, but it is still far smaller than Earth's Moon. Ceres is heavily cratered with large amounts of ice underground. Called an asteroid for many years, Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. Even though Ceres comprises 25 percent of the asteroid belt's total mass, tiny Pluto is still 14 times more massive. Ceres is named for the Roman goddess of corn and harvests. The word cereal comes from the same name. NASA's Dawn spacecraft gave scientists extraordinary close-up views of the dwarf planet Ceres, which lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. By the time the mission ended in October 2018, the orbiter had dipped to less than 22 miles (35 kilometers) above the surface, revealing crisp details of the mysterious bright regions Ceres had become known for. Scientists had figured out that the bright areas were deposits made mostly of sodium carbonate – a compound of sodium, carbon, and oxygen. They likely came from liquid that percolated up to the surface and evaporated, leaving behind a highly reflective salt crust. But what they hadn't yet determined was where that liquid came from. This simulated perspective view from NASA's Dawn mission shows the bright areas of Occator Crater, which contains the brightest area on Ceres, Cerealia Facula in the center and Vinalia Faculae to the side. This simulated perspective view shows Occator Crater, measuring 57 miles (92 kilometers) across and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep, which contains the brightest area on Ceres. This region has been the subject of intense interest since Dawn's approach to the dwarf planet in early 2015. This view, which faces north, was made using images from Dawn's low-altitude mapping orbit, 240 miles (385 kilometers) above Ceres. Dawn's close-up view reveals a dome in a smooth-walled pit in the bright center of the crater. Numerous linear features and fractures crisscross the top and flanks of this dome. Prominent fractures also surround the dome and run through smaller, bright regions found within the crater. The central dome area is called Cerealia Facula and the dimmer bright areas are called Vinalia Faculae. A second simulated perspective view, facing south, is also available (Figure 1). Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.
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