Volume21, Issue 7 NWASNEWS March 2016 Newsletter for the Wiltshire, Swindon, Beckington Gravitational Waves, Meteors and Mars Astronomical Societies and Salisbury Plain Observing Group On September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. East- The gravitational waves themselves ern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC), the twin would not be seen by a human near the Wiltshire Society Page 2 Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave black holes and so do not show in this Swindon Stargazers 3 Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in video, with one important exception. The Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Wash- gravitational waves that are traveling out- Beckington and SPOG 4 ington, USA both measured ripples in the ward toward the small region behind the fabric of spacetime – gravitational waves – black holes disturb that region’s stellar Software list: Downloadable 4 software and apps. arriving at the Earth from a cataclysmic images in the Einstein ring, causing them event in the distant universe. The new Ad- to slosh around, even long after the colli- Space Place : Nearest 6 vanced LIGO detectors had just been sion. The gravitational waves traveling in Young stars to Earth brought into operation for their first observ- other directions cause weaker, and short- ing run when the very clear and strong er-lived sloshing, everywhere outside the Space News: 6-15 signal was captured. ring. One year on ISS, Missing This discovery comes at the culmination of Dark Matter, in Black Holes More in the Space news section. or Higgs Bosun or both. decades of instrument research and devel- Gravitational waves how opment, through a world-wide effort of We have also had two big meteor/bolide and why. How destructive thousands of researchers, and made pos- incursions into the Earths atmosphere, the Sun, Growing flowers sible by dedicated support for LIGO from the first last week landing somewhere in on the ISS, Great Attractor the National Science Foundation. It also the South Atlantic. This was larger than found?, Galaxies found on proves a prediction made 100 years ago Chelynabinsk meteorite of 2014, but no other side of Milky Way. by Einstein that gravitational waves exist. ripple in the waves was detected onshore. More excitingly, it marks the beginning of a Another fireball lit up the skies in Scotland Viewing tips and notes: new era of gravitational wave astronomy – above the skies of Glen Livet (hope it Globular Clusters M5, M3 the possibilities for discovery are as rich missed the fine distilleries) but it probably and boundless as they have been with light landed in the sea, Nick has abandoned Viewing log and images 16-17 -based astronomy. his shovel. Stonehenge Mercury The two merging black holes are each But any one of these non-meteor showers Transit roughly 30 times the mass of the sun, with meteors could be income debris from a one slightly larger than the other. The young Moon or Mars. On of these Martian What’s Up March 2016 18-19 event took place 1.3 billion years ago. meteorites picked up from the surface of a glacier on Mars in 1987 was later to Constellation of the Month 20-22 The stars appear warped due to the in- Leo credibly strong gravity of the black holes. cause a stir as possible signs of former The black holes warp space and time, and life were found inside the meteorite. Space Station Timings 23 this causes light from the stars to curve Detecting life on Mars has not burn the around the black holes in a process called aim of any of the landers other than the IMAGES, VIEWING SES- 24 SIONS and OUTREACH gravitational lensing. The ring around the Beagle 2 mission. Tonight’s speaker, Dr black holes, known as an Einstein ring, Mark Sims worked on this project and he arises from the light of all the stars in a is working on many detection systems some of which cross over into diseasede- Two Black Holes small region behind the holes, where gravi- tection. Merge into One tational lensing has smeared their images into a ring. Clear skies Andy Image Credit: SXS, the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) pro- ject (http://www.black- holes.org) The collision of two black holes holes—a tremendously powerful event detected for the first time ever by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Ob- servatory, or LIGO—is seen in this still from a computer simulation. LIGO detected gravita- tional waves, or ripples in space and time gen- erated as the black holes spiralled in toward each other, collided, and merged. Page 2 Volume21, Issue2 Wiltshire Society Page Membership Changes in fees to be discussed. Could be lowered! Wiltshire Astronomical Society Meeting nights £1.00 for members £3 for visitors Web site: www.wasnet.org.uk Wiltshire AS Contacts Meetings 2015/2016Season. Andy Burns (Chairman, and Editor ) Tel: 01249 654541, NEW VENUE the Pavilion, Rusty Lane, Seend email: [email protected] Meet 7.30 for 8.00pm start Vice chair: Keith Bruton Bob Johnston (Treasurer) 2016 Philip Proven (Hall coordinator) Mar1st Life on Mars : Professor Mark Sims Peter Chappell (Speaker secretary) Apr 5th The Story of Star Names : Mark Hurn Nick Howes (Technical Guru) May 3rd Oddities of the Solar System : Bob Mizon Observing Sessions coordinators: Jon Gale, Tony Vale June 7th The Current State of SETI : Martin Griffiths Contact via the web site details. This is to protect individuals from unsolicited mailings. Rusty Lane, Pavilion Professor Mark Sims Observing Sessions Professor Sims ob- tained his PhD from The Wiltshire Astronomical care shown we may get the the University of Society’s observing sessions National Trust to do some- Leicester, working on are open, and we welcome thing with them! x-ray astronomy shad- visitors from other societies ow cameras. He was as well as members of the PLEASE see our proposed an European Space public to join us. changes to the observing Agency Research We will help you set up sessions, contacting and Fellow based at ES- equipment (as often as you other details. Back Page TEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands working on high energy x- need this help), and let you ray astronomy detectors from May 1981 to January 1984. test anything we have to help He returned to Leicester in February 1984 to work as as- you in your choice of future sembly integration and test manager on the German-USA- astronomy purchases. UK X-ray and XUV ROSAT mission of which he became Please treat the lights and mission manager for the first year of operations post its return to full working order launch in June 1990. He then became Leicester project before leaving. With enough manager for the JET-X ray telescope for the Russian Spec- trum-RG mission until the project was cancelled in 1999. From July 1997 until September 2004 he was mission man- ager for the Beagle 2 Mars lander project (part of ESA’s Mars Express mission) responsible for project study man- agement until 1999 and instrumentation and mission opera- tions thereafter. He led the internal inquiry into Beagle 2 following its failure to communicate following landing and its release from Mars Express. Professor Sims has been involved in 9 space missions over his career with roles from data analysis, through launch site operations to flight operations and acting as Principal Inves- tigator on the LMC project. He is co-director of the Diagnos- tics Development Unit based at the Leicester Royal Infirma- ry which is developing techniques for non-invasive diagno- sis of disease currently as a screening tool in Accident and Emergency and Acute Care Page 3 Meetings for 2016 Swindon’s own astronomy group The club meets once a month at Liddington Hall, At Liddington Village Hall, Church Road, Liddington, Church Road, Liddington, Swindon, SN4 0HB at 7pm. SN4 0HB – 7pm onwards See programme below. The hall has easy access from Junction 15 of the M4, Let’s Celebrate Jupiter! a map and directions can be found on our website at: http://www.swindonstargazers.com/clubdiary/ Jupiter reaches opposition on the 8th March and this is directions01.ht probably one of the best months to view it. Of particular interest this month is the transit of Jupi- ter’s largest and smallest Galilean moons (Ganymede Friday 18 Mar 2016 th and Io) on the night of Wednesday 16 March, start Programme: AGM plus a presentation looking from 9pm to 10pm to get the best views (if it’s clear!). Friday 15 Apr 2016 On the 20th March Jupiter will be close to the waxing Programme: Mark Radice: Observing the Moon rd Moon, as indeed it was on the 23 February, a great Friday 20 May 2016 sight! Programme: Owen Brazell: Shrouds of Night - Ob- For more information on the transit please see the fol- serving Dark Nebulae lowing link: Friday 17 Jun 2016 http://www.swindonstargazers.com/telescope/ telescope.htm Programme: James Fradgely: How (on Earth) Did Life Start Ad-hoc viewing sessions Friday 16 Sep 2016 Regular stargazing evenings are being organised near Programme: Guy Hurst: Star Clusters Swindon. To join these events please visit our website Friday 21 Oct 2016 for further information. Programme: Paul Roche: Robotic Astronomy Friday 18 Nov 2016 Lately we have been stargazing at Blakehill Farm Na- ture Reserve near Cricklade, a very good spot with no Programme: Mike Leggett: Exploration of Mars distractions from car headlights. Friday 16 Dec 2016 Programme: Christmas Social We often meet regularly at a lay-by just outside the Website: village of Uffcott, near Wroughton. Directions are also http://www.swindonstargazers.co shown on the website link below. Chairman: Peter Struve Tel No: 01793 481547 ad http://www.swindonstargazers.com/noticeboard/ Email: [email protected] noticeboard06.ht Address: 3 Monkton Close, Park South, Swindon, SN3 2EU If you think you might be interested email the organiser Robin Wilkey (see website).