NORTHERN COLORADO CONTENTS Page 2: Philae has landed! ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Page 3-4: Science news Page 5: NCAS info November 2014 Newsletter Page 6-7: November & December event calendars Page 8: NoCo resources MEETINGS The Singing Comet Follow the Philae Lander Date: December 4, 2014 Meeting (NEW TIME): 6:15 pm Dinner (NEW TIME): 7:45 pm 2014 OFFICERS Location: FoCo Museum of Discovery Speaker: Zach Schierl add @ncastro.org to email Topic: Impacts, Dinosaurs and YOU! TITLE: NAME: EMAIL: Want more? President Dave Karp pres@ Check out The Museum of Discovery Vice President Greg Halac vp@ Secretary David Auter sec@ news & events here or the Northern Treasurer Jeff Blume treas@ Colorado Astronomical Society (NCAS) Newsletter Editor Amanda Bell objview@ website. Web Editor & Outreach Coordinator Greg Halac web-edit@ ! LANDING ON A COMET, A EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY MISSION PHILAE HAS AIMS TO UNLOCK THE MYSTERIES OF EARTH: “How exciting! How unbelievable to be able to dare to land on a comet,” said LANDED! James L. Green, the director of NASA’s planetary sciences division. PHILAE SCORES A 310-MILLION-MILE BULL’S-EYE: Imagination became reality Wednesday when a mechanical space traveler called the Philae probe plunked down on its target, a comet with a much less romantic name -- 67P -- some 310 million miles from Earth. This is the first soft, or controlled landing, in history. LEROY CHIAO: PHILAE’S COMET LANDING IS AMAZING: The Philae lander is capturing the public's imagination after an eventful few weeks for space news. Leroy Chiao: “Philae's comet landing is amazing.” Editor's note: Leroy Chiao is a former NASA astronaut and commander aboard the International Space Station. FIRST IMAGE FROM THE SURFACE: The European Space Agency's Philae lander performed not one, not two but three historic landings yesterday. That's according to data downloaded overnight from the spacecraft that confirms Philae bounced twice as it settled down on to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE PHILAE LANDER? The European Space Agency's Philae lander touched down on a comet more than 300 million miles from Earth on Wednesday, completing its 10-year journey. However, it’s not clear how long the Philae lander will be able to carry out its mission. It’s currently receiving “very little power from the solar generator,” ESA officials said. BLACK HOLE MAY BE A NEUTRINO FACTORY: SCIENCE The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, seen in this image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, may be producing mysterious particles NEWS called neutrinos. Share your favorite stories, articles, photos or events with your fellow members! Submit anything and everything to your newsletter editor, COSMIC QUERIES: GRAVITY: Amanda, at objview at ncastro.org. Do you want to learn about gravitons, find out how we would know if a gravity wave passed over us, learn more about Isaac Newton’s equations or why gravity is essentially irrelevant to particle physics? Listen now. Visiting NYC? Don’t miss Tyson, Mirmin, Dawkins and Gaffigan at StarTalk live! THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER BEAUTY EXPERIMENT (LHCB): The LHCb experiment specializes in investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the “beauty quark” or “b quark”. It will shed light on why we live in a universe that appears to be composed almost entirely of matter, but no antimatter. FOLLOW THE DUST TO FIND PLANETS: Researchers studying what appears to be a beefed-up version of our solar system have discovered that it is encased in a halo of fine dust. The dusty star system, called HD 95086, is located 295 light-years from Earth in the constellation Carina. BIRTH OF PLANETS REVEALED IN ASTONISHING DETAIL: Astronomers have captured the best image ever of planet formation around an infant star while testing the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array’s (ALMA) new high-resolution capabilities. ASTRONAUTS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN: ROSETTA SPACE MISSION INSPIRES A Curious about the behavior of water surface tension in microgravity, three SHORT, MAGICAL FILM: astronauts aboard the International Space Station decided to stick a GoPro Why watch ESA & Rosetta movie ‘Ambition’? Because camera inside a floating ball of water. They also filmed the event using a 3D we want to know what is possible. The short film camera. ‘Ambition’ and the Rosetta mission is a reminder of what American ambition accomplished in the 60’s – Apollo, and the 70s – the Viking Landers, but then it began to falter in the 80s. QUANTUM MECHANICS AND SPACE-TIME IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Prepare to be amazed. Arkani-Hamed will explore how recent research into quantum mechanics (nature's most fundamental forces and phenomena) promises to shed new light on our understanding of he universe's fabric of time and space. ! PLANET WITH PUNCTUALITY PROBLEM: Because of PH3c's odd schedule, astronomers initially missed it. “The outer planet’s year is 1.91 times longer than the middle planet’s year, and the middle planet’s year is 1.91 times longer than the inner planet’s year.” ! PROPOSED EXISTENCE, INTERACTION OF PARALLEL UNIVERSES: Parallel universes really exist and interact, says a team of scientists from the University of California Davis and Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. “Such an interaction could explain everything that is bizarre about quantum mechanics.” ‘WHEEL IN A WHEEL’ BINARY SYSTEM EXAMINED: For the first time, astronomers have detected a streamer of gas flowing from a massive outer disc of planet-forming material toward the inner, smaller disc of a double star system. FROM NCASTRO.ORG NCAS was officially established in 1995 as a non-profit organization to promote interest in the science and hobby of astronomy. We meet the first Thursday of each month to discuss our interests and share our experience in the universal world of astronomy. MEMBER PHOTO BORROW ALBUMS: EQUIPMENT Don’t forget to renew your membership today! HERE: You'll want to see all of the amazing Club items may be photos taken by our borrowed at NO members. COST to NCAS members. Find out Membership dues are only $20 / more here. year, collected in January and pro- NCAS EMAIL: CLUB MEETING rated for new members who join at OVERVIEW: Anyone can join the other times of the year. Membership email lists but Recommend a future subscription requests speaker or find out benefits include: membership in the are monitored. Only how to join speakers Astronomical League (and their approved subscribers for dinner before the are allowed to post. NCAS meeting. Reflector Magazine), use of club equipment and books and a NCAS NCAS PUBLIC discount on Sky and Telescope ADMINISTRATIVE OUTREACH Magazine and/or Astronomy INFO PROGRAMS: Renew your Help NCAS fulfill its magazines. membership here. primary mission: to Find group bylaws educate and engage and constitution. the public with year- round public events. NCAS Event Calendar November Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 30 Open House 1 !Chamberlin Obsv. Public skygazing Fossil Creek, 7-9pm 2 3 4 5 Taurid meteor 6 7 8 !School outreach !shower Taurid meteor NCAS Meeting shower 6:15pm, FoCo MoD 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Taurid meteor America By Air shower Opened 2007 Taurid meteor ! ! shower Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Leonids meteor Leonids meteor shower shower LTO public star night ! ! ! LTO volunteer Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night training night 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Public skygazing AMNH Astronomy Fossil Creek, Launch to ISS Live 7:30-9pm NCAS Event Calendar December Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 1 2 3 4 5 6 NCAS Meeting Olander ES (private) 6:15pm 6:30 pm Fort Collins MoD 7 8 9 10 Geminid shower Colorado Skies at ! Fiske Planetarium Public skygazing Public skygazing ! ! 7:30pm Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night ! 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ! Colorado Skies at !Geminid shower ! !Fiske Planetarium ! ! Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night Globe at Night 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Ursids shower ! Public skygazing December solstice Ursids shower Ursids shower 7:30pm 28 29 30 31 ! Happy restart of the earth's tropical orbital period! NORTHERN COLORADO Astronomy Clubs, Museums, Observatories and Planetariums BOULDER ASTRONOMY & SPACE DENVER ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY ESTES PARK MEMORIAL OBSERVATORY SOCIETY (BASS): (DAS): (EPMO): Meetings are hosted by the UC campus at the DAS Promotes understanding of astronomical Has many goals, including raising interest of kids in Fiske Planetarium. Open to students and the phenomenon with monthly meetings, outreach K-12th grade in math, physics and science. EPMO public. Membership and meeting and activities at the University of Denver’s historic encourages enthusiasm for physics and math and info here. Chamberlin Observatory. Don’t forget wants their facility to be free of charge to everyone. to follow the Chamberlin Observatory on Twitter. FORT COLLINS MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY FRONT RANGE ASTRONOMICAL FRONT RANGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE (FOCO MOD): SUPERCLUSTER (FRASC): (FRCC) OBSERVATORIES: The MoD isn't just where we hold our meetings. A confederation of regional astronomy clubs for Sunlight Peak Observatory and Stargazer Check out their calendar for current events to find sharing information and hosting joint summertime Observatory of Fort Collins are both operated by out more or just schedule a visit any time. star parties. Includes societies in Denver, CO FRCC. Sunlight Peak Observatory is located on Springs, Pueblo, Cheynne, FoCo (That's us!), campus; Stargazer Observatory Longmont, Boulder and many more… in Observatory Village near Fossil Ridge High School.