How Long Is the Orbit of Haley #39;s Comet? : Astronomy Lessons
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How Long Is the Orbit of Haley's Comet? : Astronomy Lessons - Video

Famous Galaxies : Space Astronomy
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Famous Galaxies : Space & Astronomy - Video

Damian Peach

Near the banks of the Potomac River, in an office cluttered with craft-beer coasters and a Doctor Who mug, Karl Battams keeps watch for daredevil comets that skim just above the surface of the Sun.

A decade ago, when the astrophysicist joined the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, he had no deep interest in comets. But he was pressed into service because the lab operates instruments on two solar-physics missions that can spot objects passing very close to the Sun. They have detected some 2,600 such 'sun-grazing' comets so far, and it is part of Battams' job to catalogue those discoveries. He is the only dedicated sun-grazing-comet tracker in the world. Hopefully, I'll be getting a summer student, he says one overcast January morning. But pretty much it's just me.

All of the Solar System's comets travel around the Sun, but sun-grazers are those that fly within about three solar radii of the star's centre (some 1.4 million kilometres above its surface). Battams rose to fame last autumn as the public face of a research group tracking the most famous sun-grazer of all, Comet ISON. As ISON sailed into the inner Solar System, expectations grew quickly among astronomers and amateur skywatchers. Many hoped that it might survive its close passage to become a dramatic sight in the night sky and continued fodder for scientific study. Instead, the comet disintegrated spectacularly in November, just hours before it was set to sweep past the Sun.

Scientists are left wondering why ISON suffered the fate it did. Early results suggest that it may have been just too small and too volatile to survive the Sun's searing heat (M. M. Knight and K. Battams Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.7028; 2014). ISON was a tiny, gassy comet making its first ever trip to the inner Solar System a combination that may have doomed it from the beginning.

Yet its death could mark a renaissance for the study of sun-grazing comets. ISON was spotted quite far out in the Solar System, and its unusual trajectory allowed spacecraft orbiting Earth, Mars and Mercury to photograph it from many vantage points. That made ISON the most studied sun-grazer yet. What researchers have learned so far suggests that sun-grazers have a lot to reveal about the diversity of comets, and how hard it is to predict what they might do. Even as they wring findings out of the ISON event, astronomers are gearing up for the next close cometary encounter, later this year.

The sheer amount of observational firepower involved in studying ISON set a new standard for coordinating a flotilla of spacecraft and ground-based telescopes. It was about bringing all of it together, says Battams. That's never been done before.

For centuries, skywatchers have recognized objects that disappear into the Sun and re-emerge on the other side. In 1687, Isaac Newton published the first calculations of a sun-grazer's orbit, showing that the great comet of 1680 moved according to his laws of gravitation. But it was not until the era of satellites that people could watch sun-grazers up close.

Amateur astronomers discover most sun-grazers, just days before they pass through the Sun's atmosphere, by trawling through images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Launched in 1995, SOHO stares at the Sun with a set of three US Navy-built coronagraphs that block out the central disk of the Sun, allowing astronomers to see details in and around its blazing outer atmosphere. Once they have found a candidate comet, the amateurs alert Battams.

Satellite Locations: NASA/STEREO. Photographs, Left to Right: Vitali Nevski/Artyom Novichonok; NASA/ESA/J.-Y. Li (Plan. Sci. Inst.)/Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Sci. Team; NASA/STEREO; ESA/NASA/SOHO

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Astronomy: Death of a comet

University to host stargazing event for National Astronomy Week

10:46am Wednesday 19th February 2014 in News

BUDDING stargazers can make the most of National Astronomy Week when the University of Southampton hosts a free astronomical event for all the family.

People are invited to see the stars and planets, in particular Jupiter which will be highly visible at this time, either from the comfort of the universitys inflatable mobile planetarium, or from the rooftop observatories.

The Astrodome will be running planetarium shows during the evening of March 8 from 5pm and there will be a number of tours to view the stars and planets through the roof telescopes.

As the event also takes place on International Womens Day, there will be three talks on astronomy research by Dr Caitriona Jackman, Dr Sadie Jones and Professor Malcolm Coe with theme of celebrating Women in Astronomy.

The roof tours, planetarium shows, Zooniverse workshops and talks are free but require tickets, which can be booked at womenastro.eventbrite.co.uk There are lots of other free activities throughout the evening that do not require tickets.

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University to host stargazing event for National Astronomy Week

The book is centered around the letters that might go to an advice columnist such as the USA's Dear Abby, or what's called an agony aunt in Britain. The author says that many of the questions are inspired by actual questions, even though the letters and responses are jazzed up for comic effect. The rest are obvious inventions. Ringwood used to write them for a local astronomy society newsletter.

Who is the audience? Amateur astronomers and their families and friends are most likely to find it amusing, as they're aware of the sometimes obsessive behavior of astronomers. And newbie observers would get a good deal of useful information from a seasoned observer. It could be fun light reading for anyone.

The author says Above all, the purpose of the book is to entertain.

The good 1. I liked the structure of the book: the letter and response, then some genuinely sensible advice, stories, histories and information.

2. There is an index, a commendable practice that some authors don't follow.

3. I enjoyed reading some new stories. For example, I didn't know that the McDonald Observatory in Texas has a telescope with three bullet holes in its primary mirror. In February 1970 an employee suffering a breakdown took a shot at his supervisor. After missing his first target he shot at the telescope. The mirror is fused silica, so not only did it survive, but the 107-inch reflector lost only an inch of its capability. This was such an amazing story, even for Texas, that I looked further. Click here to see William Keel's photo taken down the telescope tube.

4. I found some of the book entertaining. This comment, for example, could almost be an aphorism: Acquiring a new piece of astronomical equipment immediately initiates a protracted bout of cloudy weather. It also applies to any interesting astronomical event. The first time I saw Perseid meteors from west Wales was in 2013 - after years of cloudy night skies for the duration of every Perseid season. This is a problem of living in Britain.

For the reader who asked, I know the sky must clear eventually, but how can I improve my seeing conditions? the response was simple. Emigrate.

And someone could make a comedy sketch out of the suggested ways of dealing with a neighbor's tree that blocks your view of the sky.

The not-so-good I felt that the book's author finds himself much funnier than I do. But humor is an individual thing. I recall watching an in-flight comedy movie that I thought was cringingly unfunny. Yet someone else watched it and laughed loudly throughout.

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Astronomers Anonymous - book review