ECLIPSE NEWSLETTER

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

VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2 MARCH – APRIL 2019

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

Beginning in this issue, if it is in green, my hope is you will do some research. I will continue to use hyperlinks. Just swipe, right click, open hyperlink.

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CONTENTS:

CONSTELLATION

WHAT ARE THE MESSIER OBJECTS?

MESSIER OBJECT NUMBER 17 THE

WHAT IS THE LIFECYCLE OF A ? PART 2.

ASTROBIOLOGY

MORE ON PLANET NINE.

NEUTRINOS

MARS ROVER OPPORTUNITY IS DEAD.

MCAO PUBLIC NIGHTS AND FAMILY NIGHTS.

HOW TO FIND

UPCOMING STAR PARTIES

HYPERLINKS IN BLUE

NORMALLY - DEFINITIONS IN RED

DO THE RESEARCH. YOU WILL LEARN MORE THAN IF I TELL YOU THE DEFINITION.

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CONSTELLATION CANCER – THE

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Cancer constellation is located in the northern sky. Its name means “the crab” in . Cancer is the faintest of the 12 constellations. The constellation was first catalogued by the Greek astronomer in the 2nd century.

Cancer contains a number of famous deep sky objects, among them the Praesepe, also known as the (Messier 44), the open cluster , and the interacting spiral NGC 2535 and NGC 2536.

Cancer is the 31st largest constellation in the sky, occupying an area of 506 square degrees. It lies in the second quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ2) and can be seen at latitudes between +90° and -60°. The neighboring constellations are , , , , , and .

Cancer belongs to the Zodiac family of constellations, along with , , Gemini, Leo, , , , , , , and .

Cancer contains two Messier objects – the Beehive Cluster (M44, NGC 2632) and M67 (NGC 2682) – and has two with known planets. The brightest star in the constellation is Al Tarf, Beta Cancri. The Delta Cancrids are the only associated with the constellation.

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 comet hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not comets, 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.

For a list of Messier objects:

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

The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Lobster, and the Horseshoe Nebula Messier 17.

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The above is a sketch from the Naval Observatory in 1875

This is a photo taken recently of the Omega Nebula. If you study this photo long enough, you will start to see the various parts of the above sketch.

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M17 Omega Nebula is located upper left hand corner.

The Omega Nebula (nicknamed the Swan Nebula) is an H II region in the constellation of Sagittarius. It is about 5,500 light-years away from . It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745 by Charles Messier added it to his catalog as M17 on the night of 3 June 1764.[2] M17 has more name’s than any other deep-sky object. In addition to the Omega Nebula and Swan Nebula, it is also called the Horseshoe Nebula, the Checkmark Nebula and the Lobster Nebula. Omega can be seen through binoculars or a small telescope

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WHAT IS THE LIFECYCLE OF A STAR? PART 2

What causes a Supernova and why does it come apart? There are currently two explanations involving theoretical mechanisms that are related to the two ways in which stars die. Stars cannot shine forever for the simple reason that their energy supply— nuclear burning—is finite. What happens to stars once they exhaust their nuclear fuel (mainly hydrogen) is believed to depend crucially on their mass. One of the most important theoretical discoveries in astrophysics is that a critical mass exists above which stars cannot 7

sustain themselves against their own gravitational pull without a continuous supply of energy. The two types of star endings depend on whether their mass is above or below this critical mass, which is called the Chandrasekhar mass limit, named after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar one of its discoverers. If, by the time a star exhausts its fuel, it has a mass greater than this limit, the core of the star cannot sustain itself and collapses. A huge amount of energy is released when the core collapses to the tiny size of a few kilometers, becoming a black hole or a neutron star. While most of this energy is emitted in invisible neutrinos (See topic below), a small fraction of this energy ejects the outer parts of the star, creating an explosion sufficient to produce a supernova. Such a theoretical event is called a core-collapse supernova.

Just before the collapse of a star, you can see Fe, O, Ne and C have developed. He and H now occupy the outer edges.

There is another type of demise our may encounter. Stars vary in size, mass and temperature, some are smaller than the Sun, while some are thousands of times larger; temperatures can range from 3,000°C to 50,000°C.

The energy produced by stars is by nuclear fusion in the stars' core. Stars that are fusing hydrogen into helium, they are known as '' stars. Astronomers believe, over 90% of the stars in the observable universe are in main sequence. Our Star, the Sun is an example. More massive stars tend to have higher core temperatures than smaller stars, as a consequence of which large stars exhaust the hydrogen fuel in the core quickly, whereas, small stars burn it more slowly.

When a small star eventually exhausts all the hydrogen fuel, the fusion stops, but there is a lot of helium in the core; the core temperature drops, and so it expands, and starts to fuse helium into Carbon even though this process generates a little less energy than fusing hydrogen to helium. Because the temperature is low, it appears red in color - and hence the term ''. Eventually, when the helium fuel is also exhausted, only a core of carbon remains - but it is not massive enough to start fusion so it remains as a glowing white-hot sphere of carbon - a ''. Stars that are less than one are too small and cool even to fuse helium to carbon, so they will end up as a white dwarf made of helium.

More massive stars are different. If a star about 8 to 10 times as massive as the Sun exhausts the hydrogen, it continues to fuse helium into carbon, and then carbon to neon, neon to oxygen, oxygen to silicon, and finally silicon to iron.

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Image courtesy of: google images

Take note of ’s orbit. At this point in time, Earth’s orbit is well within the outer edge of the supergiant star.

When a main sequence star runs out of hydrogen atoms in its core, the star may begin to fuse helium atoms. This causes a change in heat and pressure which in turn may cause the star to expand many times its original size, creating a supergiant.

Once the star reaches the iron stage, it’s doomed. The star has reached the end of its life. Iron cannot be fused into anything heavier because of the huge amounts of energy and pressure required to fuse iron atoms.

Suddenly, the Star is no longer in equilibrium, it becomes unstable and collapses in on itself and it casts off its gaseous outer shells in one big explosion, sparking a supernova. What is left behind after a supernova explosion may be a (1) neutron star - if the mass of the core is between 1.4 and 3 solar masses, or (2) a black hole - if the mass is 3 or more solar masses.

According to NASA, supernovae are “the largest explosion that takes place in space.” On average, a supernova occurs about once every 50 years in a like the Milky Way. Taken the observable universe as a whole, a star explodes every second somewhere in the universe.

THE LIFE CYCLE OF A STAR PART 3 WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE SUPERNOVE EXPLODES WILL BE IN THE MAY JUNE ISSUE.

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ASTROBIOLOGY

From astrobiology.com

Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe: extraterrestrial life and life on Earth. Astrobiology addresses the question of whether life exists beyond Earth, and how humans can detect it if it does. Astrobiology makes use of physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, molecular biology, ecology, planetary science, geography, and geology to investigate the possibility of life on other worlds and help recognize biospheres that might be different from that on Earth.

Astrobiology seeks to understand the origin of the building blocks of life, how these biogenic compounds combine to create life, how life affects - and is affected by the environment from which it arose, and finally, whether and how life expands beyond its planet of origin.

None of these questions is by any means new - but for the first time since they were posed, these questions may now be answerable. Astrobiology seeks to provide a philosophical and programmatic underpinning whereby life's place in the universe can be explored - at levels of inter-related complexity ranging from molecular to galactic. At first, one might not think that their field of expertise might be relevant to Astrobiology. Indeed, with Astrobiology's cosmic perspective, they could well see their interests as being somewhat distant from such an expansive endeavor. Dive into even the most superficial description of Astrobiology and you'll soon see that not only are a vast array of scientific and engineering disciplines involved, but that the intersection points between these disciplines are often novel. At some point everyone has a stake in Astrobiology. The challenge which lies ahead is not so much the framing of questions as it is of how to channel all relevant expertise to the right task so as to answer these questions. It also requires the willingness of all participants to challenge old assumptions and conceive of novel ways to do things.

As Albert Einstein once said, "the universe is stranger than we can imagine". None the less, armed with this caveat, Astrobiologists should never stop trying to imagine how the universe works - nor shy away from attempting to understand their personal place amidst its splendor and mystery.

You can be an astrobiologist simply by deciding that you are one.

How do life and the world upon which it resides affect each other over time? Oceanographers and climatologists will be called upon to help understand how life and the planet upon which it arose affect the composition of that planet's atmosphere. At issue is understanding how oceans and atmospheres form, how they interact to perpetuate the 10 conditions necessary for life, how changes in atmosphere and ocean can change the course of evolution, and how the activity of lifeforms can in turn, alter the character of a planet's atmosphere and its oceans.

But Earth is just one planet - and hardly representative of all of the worlds in this solar system. What happens to life on a planet (Mars) when its oceans dry up (or sink into the ground) and most its atmosphere escapes into space with the remainder freezing out at its poles? Can the same life-inducing steps which occurred on Earth be initiated on a world (Europa) where a thick ice crust has a high radiation vacuum environment on one side and a liquid ocean on the other - one where the main energy source is not from a star but from the tidal interactions with a giant gas planet?

On the immediate front: how do all of these interactions between air, water, and life on Earth bode for the way we are transforming our planet? Can we control the process in time to prevent serious consequences? Have we initiated a process that would otherwise occur naturally? That is, is the inevitable consequence of a planet's fostering of intelligent life the modification of its biosphere? If we have managed to alter Earth's biosphere in a haphazard, unplanned fashion, could lessons be derived from this uncontrolled experiment such that we could deliberately transform an inhospitable world (terraform it) into one capable of supporting life?

How do you assess a planet's life history? Paleontologists, evolutionary biologists and perhaps even archaeologists will be called upon to help understand the record of previous life on Earth in a planetary context - that is, what lessons can we learn from unraveling our own past to guide us as we figure out what happened on other planets? It is in this context that the planetary geologists and astronomers join in. What are the implications that can be drawn from Earth's fossil record regarding the time and rate at which life forms in a planet's history? Does complexity arise at a constant rate or does it happen in spurts? Do changes in planetary environments lead or follow periods of change? Do events of external origin such as large impacts, a nearby supernova, or stellar variations affect the pace and character of life's evolution? Does life arise as soon as conditions permit? Does life arise only to be extinguished by cataclysmic events only to arise again? Is it possible to truly extinguish life once it has spread across (and within) a planet?

Can we expect to find fossils on other worlds? If so, where do we look? Was Mars' early history similar enough to Earth's that evidence of life can be found as easily as it is on Earth? Can planets swap material containing fossils? If so, what are the implications for the exchange of living material between planets? If material is exchanged, is this a rare or common phenomenon? Can fossil records on several planets be used to calibrate if/when such exchanges occurred and whether foreign life forms managed to thrive?

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MORE ABOUT PLANET NINE

Planet Nine may not exist but another mysterious object deep in the solar system could be lurking.

There has been much speculation about the existence of Planet Nine and its impact on distant objects in the solar system. But a new study suggests that some of the farthest celestial bodies in our planetary system aren't being impacted by this yet-to-be-discovered planet, but rather another mysterious object deep in the echoes of space. The study, published in the Astronomical Journal, suggests the six known objects in the Kuiper Belt, all of which have elliptical orbits that point in the same direction, could be affected by other trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) and not a giant planet. "If you remove planet nine from the model and instead allow for lots of small objects scattered across a wide area, collective attractions between those objects could just as easily account for the eccentric orbits we see in some TNOs," said study co-author, Antranik Sefilian, a PhD student in Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, in a statement. Sefilian added that since Planet Nine has so far eluded detection, the researchers wanted to see if there was another possibility for the disturbances of the TNOs. "We thought, rather than allowing for a ninth planet, and then worry about its formation and unusual orbit, why not simply account for the gravity of small objects constituting a disc beyond the orbit of Neptune and see what it does for us?"

A copy of the study can be read in its entirety here. Researchers have found the existence of 30 TNOs and there may be more. Given the combined gravitational pull of these objects and a potential disk of material in the furthest reaches of the solar system, it provides a possibility that Planet Nine may not exist at all.

"The problem is when you're observing the disc from inside the system, it's almost impossible to see the whole thing at once. While we don't have direct observational evidence for the disc, neither do we have it for Planet Nine, which is why we're investigating other possibilities," Sefilian said. "Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that

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observations of Kuiper belt analogues around other stars, as well as planet formation models, reveal massive remnant populations of debris."

NEUTRINOS

A neutral subatomic particle with a mass close to zero and half-integral spin, rarely reacting with normal matter. Three kinds of neutrinos are known, associated with the electron, muon, and tau particle.

There has been a good deal of research to determine are Neutrinos faster than light? Most results indicate Neutrinos are not. If it is ever determined they are, most of what we know about Physics would be turned on its head.

The latest published information I can find is from Physicist Sergio Bertolucci, research director at Switzerland's CERN physics lab, presented the results at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics.

"Although this result isn't as exciting as some would have liked, it is what we all expected deep down," Bertolucci said in a statement. The new findings come from four experiments that study streams of neutrinos sent from CERN in Geneva to the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. All four, including the experiment behind the first faster-than-light findings, called OPERA, found that this time around, the nearly massless neutrinos traveled quickly, but not that quickly.

For more fun reading, checkout the following.

https://www.livescience.com/13593-exotic-particles-sparticles-antimatter-god-particle.html

MARS ROVER OPPORTUNITY IS DEAD AFTER 15 YEARS ON RED PLANET.

From space.com

One of the great exploration stories of our time is officially over.

NASA declared its Opportunity Mars rover dead today (Feb. 13), more than eight after the solar-powered robot went silent during a raging dust storm on the Red Planet — and a day after the final calls to wake Oppy up went unanswered. "I declare the Opportunity mission as complete, and with it the Mars Exploration Rover mission complete," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said today during an event at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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(JPL) in Pasadena, California. [Mars Dust Storm 2018: What It Means for Opportunity Rover] Opportunity roamed the Martian surface for nearly a decade and a half, covering more than a marathon's worth of ground and finding conclusive evidence that the Red Planet hosted large bodies of liquid water in the ancient past. The golf-cart-size rover and its twin, Spirit, also helped bring Mars down to Earth, in the minds of scientists and laypeople alike. Spirit and Opportunity "have made Mars a familiar place," Opportunity project manager John Callas, of JPL, told Space.com last year, a few months after the dust storm flared up. "When we say, 'our world,' we're no longer just talking about the Earth. We have to include parts of Mars as well."

Artist's illustration of NASA's Opportunity on the surface of Mars, which touched down on the Red Planet in January 2004.

Follow the water

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Spirit and Opportunity launched separately in the summer of 2003, kicking off the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, and landed a few weeks apart in January 2004. Spirit came down first, settling in at a called Gusev situated about 14 degrees south of the Martian equator. Opportunity landed on the equatorial plain Meridiani Planum, on the other side of the planet from Gusev. Both rovers then embarked on surface missions designed to last for about 90 Earth days, during which they hunted for signs of past water activity. Such evidence had previously been spotted from above — by NASA's Viking 1 and Viking 2 orbiters, for example, which photographed what appeared to be ancient river channels on the Red Planet's dusty surface. But Opportunity nailed it down. "It conclusively established the presence of persistent surface liquid water on Mars," Callas said. "We'd always speculated about it, and we'd seen evidence, but the mineral signature was confirmed by Opportunity." Data the rover gathered during its extensive travels also showed that "we're not just talking about a puddle or a pond, but at least kilometer-scale bodies of water on the surface of Mars," he added.

And Opportunity's analyses of clay minerals on the planet's surface indicated that at least some of this ancient water, which flowed between 4 billion and 3.5 billion years ago, had a relatively neutral pH. That is, it wasn't overly acidic or basic.

"So, I'd say the rover established the physical habitability of Mars at the time life started on Earth," Callas said.

Spirit was no slouch in this regard, either. The rover uncovered an ancient hydrothermal system at Gusev, for instance, showing that at least some parts of Mars had both liquid water and an energy source that life could tap into for stretches in the ancient past. [10 Amazing Mars Discoveries by Rovers Spirit & Opportunity] "Spirit’s contributions and discoveries were every bit as significant as Opportunity's," mission scientific principal investigator Steve Squyres, a professor of physical sciences at Cornell University in New York, told Space.com.

Later missions confirmed and extended such findings. For example, NASA's Curiosity rover has determined that the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater hosted a long- lived, potentially habitable lake-and-stream system about 4 billion years ago.

Breaking records

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Both Spirit and Opportunity kept roving long after their warranties expired.

Spirit finally got bogged down in a sand trap in early 2010. As a result, the rover couldn't reorient itself to catch the sun during the approaching Martian winter and essentially froze to death.

Opportunity avoided such pitfalls for eight additional years, studying rocks on the rims of four different craters, as well as the Meridiani Planum flats. The rover put 28.06 miles (45.16 km) on its odometer during these travels — more than any other vehicle, robotic or crewed, has traveled on the surface of another world.

Then came the dust storm. In late May 2018, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter saw a storm brewing near Opportunity's locale, on the rim of the 14-mile-wide (22 km) Endeavour Crater. The maelstrom grew quickly, engulfing the rover and eventually spreading to enshroud the entire planet. The thick, sunlight-blocking dust prevented the rover from recharging its batteries, and Opportunity went into a sort of hibernation. And it slept without being able to fire up its onboard heaters — a dangerous proposition on frigid Mars, where temperatures can drop enough to break soldering joints and other important pieces of internal hardware. Something bad apparently did happen: Opportunity hasn't made a peep since June 10. "Opportunity likely experienced a low-power fault, a mission clock fault and an up-loss timer fault," mission team members wrote in a December update. "We needed a historic dust storm to finish this historic mission," MER deputy project scientist Abigail Fraeman, of JPL, said during today's event.

Giving Opportunity a chance.

The dust storm started to die down in late July, and by mid-September it had abated so much that NASA began a concerted effort to rouse Opportunity. This "active listening" campaign involved sending commands to the silent rover and listening for any peeps it may have made on its own.

It was important to continue this campaign for several months, NASA officials and rover team members said, because the windy season in Opportunity's locale began in November. The hope was that strong breezes would clean some of the dust off the rover's solar panels, allowing Opportunity to recharge its batteries and wake up at long last.

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This has not happened, however, and it apparently never will. So, for the first time in 15 years, we'll just have to get used to a world — or two worlds, rather — without Opportunity.

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, moon 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

HOW TO FIND CONSTELLATIONS Step 1. Purchase a Star Chart as shown below. Mt. Cuba Astronomical Observatory sells this one for $4.00.

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Step 2. 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 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. 3. To view South, turn the chart over and turn around to face South.

UPCOMING STAR PARTIES For more information on DAS STAR PARTIES, visit the mountcuba.org web site. Select Delaware Astronomical Society DAS.

Select Events at top and then STAR PARTIES.

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