Monthly Archives: May 2021

Being able to look up at a clear, dark sky is becoming more and more rare in the rich world. Authors, artists, and even scientists have started to express concern about what our lack of daily exposure to a dark night time sky might mean for our psyche and our sense of place in the universe. Now a team has collected photometric data at 44 sites around the world in an attempt to quantify how dark the night sky actually is at different places on the globe. So where was the darkest place surveyed? The Canary Islands.

It just so happens that the lead researcher on the project, Dr. Miguel Alarcn is from that set of islands off the west coast of Africa. The paper he and his colleagues wrote, soon to be published in The Astronomical Journal, used a series of photometers, confusing called TESS (not to be confused with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) to try to get a baseline of how dark the night sky is throughout the world.

The team collected 11 million points of data from places as far apart as Namibia, Australia, and the US. While this did not include some more popular astronomy spots, such as the highlands of Antarctica, it was a good sample of different conditions. As mentioned above, the Canary Islands had the lowest levels of background light of anywhere studied. Only about 2% of the light in the sky at night comes from artificial light at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Garafia.

However, there are other, natural sources of light pollution that affect different geographies differently. The moon and the milky way are standard features of the night sky and certainly contribute to the natural brightness of it. However, there are other, more variable sources that this study monitored. These include a glow in the upper atmosphere that is caused by a combination of factors, such as the solar cycle, geographical location, and the time of year.

Another source is known as the gegenschein or the anti-solar point, directly opposite from the sun in the night sky. This can only be seen in extremely dark places, and the astronomy institute on the Canary Islands (IAC) is one of them.

Just because it has some of the darkest skies does not mean its the best place for all observations though. Other factors, such as atmospheric seeing and temperature fluctuations can cause problems with observations. The real take away from this research is that if you truly want to see the night sky as our ancestors did, it might be worth a trip to some islands off the coast of Africa.

Learn More:IAC The natural brightness of the night skyUT Most light pollution isnt coming from streetlightsUT See Light Pollution in Action

Lead Image:Image of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the Canary Islands (upper part) and the La Silla Observatory in Chile in the lower part. The composition makes the Milky Way appear circular.Credit: Juan Carlos Casado & Petr Horlek

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Astronomers Measure the Background Brightness of the Night sky Across the World. Canary Islands are the Darkest in the Survey - Universe Today

Ready your picnic blankets and grab a pair of binoculars. Astronomy events, 2021's highly-anticipated happenings, are about to light up the summer sky, and you wont want to miss a single one. From meteor showers to blue moons, our solar systems free entertainment is certainly going to be a crowd-pleaser.

Although the fun kicks off in May with a Blood Moon, we've rounded up what you can expect during the dog days of summer. Make sure to mark your calendars!

On July 12, after sunset, people can turn their direction towards the western horizon for more astronomy events to catch a glimpse of this planetary meet-cute, where Venus and Mars will touch and be joined by a crescent moon. This will most easily be seen through a backyard telescope, per National Geographic.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Exactly one month after the Venus-Mars Conjunction, astronomy enthusiasts will be able to enjoy the Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks on August 12 and 13. Up to 60 shooting stars per hour are expected, and this years sky will be especially clear and dark, making the happening all the more visible.

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The seasonal blue moon on August 22 means that there is an extra full moon; typically, there are three, but this year weve been gifted with four. While we might not necessarily witness a blue tint, the moon will look stunningly bright.

Before marking your summer calendars, be sure to circle May 26, the date of the highly-anticipated Blood Moon. This celestial phenomenon is technically a total lunar eclipse, and we see the red hue due to the way the planets align. (Its super spooky and eye-catching!) From an astrological standpoint, the significance of a Blood Moon symbolizes new beginnings and a clean slate, so you might feel as if certain elements are heightened. (Be sure to consult your weekly horoscope with any Qs!)

Although the summer 2021 forecast might be a bit dismalFarmers Almanac is anticipating a lot of rain, heat, and humiditywe can at least look forward to a few nighttime spectaculars!

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Astronomy events 2021: These happenings will make you starry-eyed this summer - Woman & Home

May 14, 2021, 11:14 AM HST * Updated May 17, 5:53 AM

University of Hawaiiastronomer J.D. Armstrong and three Maui teens he mentors will be featured on an episode of the award-winning science program Xploration Awesome Planet. The episode airs May 15 at 2:30 pm on KHON.

The Earth science series, which airs on FOX channels nationwide, will showcase Maui students Wilson Chau, Holden Suzuki and Jed Teagarden, who are part of UH Institute for Astronomys mentorship program,HI STAR(Hawaii Student/Teacher Astronomy Research).

Xploration Awesome Planet is hosted by legendary explorer Jacques Cousteaus grandson, Philippe Cousteau.

Armstrong, and education and outreach specialist who is based on Maui, mentors intermediate and high school students. They are given access to observational data from telescopes on Haleakal, such as theLas Cumbres Observatory Faulkes Telescope North,Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert Systemand UHsPAN-STARRS, the worlds leading Near Earth Object (NEO) discovery telescope.

The students Im working with do some pretty amazing work, Armstrong said. Take this situation as an example. An object was detected that was going to impact the earth, and I called these guys. It might bother some people to think that the safety of the world might end up in the hands of some teenagers, but it shouldnt. They know what they are doing.

Observational data has led HI STAR students to make cutting-edge discoveries including apotentially hazardous NEO. Chau and Suzuki netted national headlines in 2020 after they helped scientists determinea 1,070-pound space satellite would break upover the South Pacific. Teagarden, 15, who earned top honors for his research on a comet-like asteroid, and co-authored more than a dozenMinor Planet Centercirculars.

HI STAR has mentored more than 100 students in Hawaii. Many have gone on to pursue careers in astronomy and physics. Armstrongs students are regular winners in the Hawaii State Science and Engineering Fair and have competed in events at the international level.

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Maui Teens and UH Astronomer Featured in Xploration Awesome Planet TV Show - Maui Now

We know that dark matter exists, but, irritatingly, we dont know what it is.

One way to figure that out is to look for signs of it here on Earth, using subatomic particle detectors. But a new idea just published in a scientific journal is that we need to go bigger. A lot bigger: Using entire exoplanets as detectors.

I give them points for thinking originally, for sure.

Dark matter is a form of matter that has mass and gravity, but doesnt emit light or interact with normal* matter directly. It affects the way galaxies rotate, the way galaxies behave in clusters, the way clusters affect the light of objects behind them, and a host of other things, too. We know it exists. And over the decades people have looked for it, but almost everything that could possibly work has been eliminated. Its not teeny black holes, or rogue planets, or cold gas. Nothing made of normal matter works, leaving only exotic subatomic particles like axions as candidates. Attempts have been made to look for those, too, but so far zip.

Heres where the new idea comes in.

Most theoretical models of dark matter as subatomic particles show that our Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in a vast halo of it hundreds of thousands of light years across, but this halo is not homogeneous. Its denser toward the galactic center, and less dense out here in the suburbs 26,000 light years from the core.

Also, one theoretical type of dark matter (generically called WIMPs, for weakly interacting massive particles) can interact with normal matter but does so, well, weakly. If one of these encounters an electron or proton, it can bounce off it, what physicists call scattering. The critical part here is that if this happens, the dark matter particle loses energy think of it as the particle slowing down.

Now picture a big old planet out there in space. It has a lot of electrons and protons in it, so tons of chances for a dark matter particle to scatter. If the particle slows enough, the gravity of the planet might be enough to capture it, so it becomes part of the planet. In a sense the planet provides friction to slow the particle enough to stop, and this generates heat just like your brake pads on a car or bike get hot when you use them.

Also, these same kind of dark matter particles may self-annihilate; that is, if two of them come together they turn into pure energy (like when matter and antimatter collide). This also generates a lot of heat. So first they can heat a planet by being captured, and then as they collect inside the planet they can annihilate and generate more heat.

It takes a lot of dark matter to heat a planet appreciably, of course. But models of the galactic halo show it gets pretty dense toward the galaxys center. Running the numbers in their paper, the scientists find that the there may be enough dark matter in the galactic center that it could be detected by looking for extra hot planets.

Whoa.

The amount of heating depends on two things: how hot a planet is in general, and where it is in the galactic dark matter halo. The colder an object is, the easier it is for dark matter heating to outperform the objects own non-dark-matter induced internal heat. For example, Jupiter is still hot leftover from its formation, and it cools with time. Looking for an exoplanet thats really old but still hot would be supportive evidence for this idea. A rogue planet one in space not orbiting a star would be even better since a star wont interfere with the observations And looking for one near the galactic center would help since theres more dark matter there.

The best bet, they find, is a two-step process. The first step is to look for Jupiter-mass exoplanets in our local neighborhood to see if they are warmer than expected, because if theyre close by itll be easier to see even though theres less dark matter to heat them up.

The second step is to look for more massive ones technically brown dwarfs, objects more than about a dozen times Jupiters mass up to about 80 times (any more massive and they become stars) closer in to the galactic center, where dark matter is more dense. Some models indicate an otherwise cold brown dwarf could be heated to over 1000 C just by dark matter interactions!

The key to looking for this is not so much looking for hot brown dwarfs, but looking for cold ones. Hot ones are expected if theyre young anyway, but if you find cold ones in the galactic center that falsifies (or at least weakens) the hypothesis. The scientists propose using James Webb Space Telescope or the upcoming Nancy Roman Space Telescope to look in the infrared for both nearby Jupiters and more distant brown dwarfs.

Ill note theres a lot of ifs between the hypothesis and actually finding these objects. Its an interesting idea, but the odds are a tad long. Still, given how elusive dark matter has been, its probably worth a shot, especially if they can use other observations these telescopes were making anyway and search the data for their target exoplanets. The scientists involved have more papers planned with details.

And I have to note: Incredibly, one of the two scientists who wrote the paper, Juri Smirnov, says he got the idea from Crash Course Astronomy! This is a series of videos I made with Hank and John Greens Complexly production company thats an introductory course into astronomy.

Smirnov is a particle physicist and was in the Ohio State Astronomy departments journal club a common practice, where grad students and faculty get together informally every morning (they call it Astro Coffee) for a half hour to discuss recent papers. He said he wasnt familiar with all the objects and phenomena discussed, so he looked online and found Crash Course, specifically the episode on brown dwarfs. That got him thinking about using them as particle detectors, and yada yada yada, he and his colleague Rebecca Leane did the work and wrote the paper.

So. Ill be honest: Im rooting for them to detect dark matter this way because 1) the scientific importance of it is huge, and b) its a cool idea and would be fun if this method worked.

But also, I would be the guy that inspired the discovery.

Im OK with that.

*As Ive pointed out before, dark matter outnumbers normal matter by a ratio of around 5:1, so it makes you wonder which flavor of matter is normal.

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Dark matter might heat exoplanets enough to make them glow - SYFY WIRE

Greater Victoria residents can celebrate International Astronomy Day May 15 with a virtual Star Party hosted by the Friends of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory and the Royal Astronomical Society. (Black Press Media file photo)

Virtual event celebrates International Astronomy Day May 15

Greater Victoria space enthusiasts have an opportunity to learn about fossils in our galaxy, tour a telescope and ask questions of astronomers during a virtual event Saturday evening.

The Star Party, hosted by the Friends of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory and the Royal Astronomical Society, celebrates International Astronomy Day. The main event of the night is a presentation by University of Victoria physics and astronomy professor Kim Venn called Fossils in Our Galaxy.

Fossils, Venn explains, dont present themselves the same way in space as they do on earth. Instead of being found in rock, ancient information in space is stored in the stars. They contain a kind a sort of historical record of the chemistry of the universe at the time and place they were born.

READ ALSO: Victoria astronomer helps discover 10 billion-year-old galaxy cluster

Also included in the night will be virtual tours of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory and University of Victoria telescope, a live solar viewing, a question and answer period with two astronomers and a planetarium show.

The event runs from 7 to 11 p.m. and can be registered for at centreoftheuniverse.org.

READ ALSO: Victoria man wants your help securing a free ticket to the moon

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Tour UVic's telescope and chat with astronomers during Greater Victoria's 'Star Party' Victoria News - Victoria News

As an astronomy educator, Dr N Rathnasree always wanted to make the cosmos more accessible to the younger generation. She devoted her 21-year-long stint as director of the Nehru Planetarium to that very cause.

Dr Rathnasree was always looking up telescopes or some planetary movements on her computer, shares Shakti Sinha, former director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, under whose aegis the Nehru Planetarium falls. Dr Rathnasree died on Sunday of Covid-related complications. The 57-year-old educator had contracted the virus in the beginning of May.

Dr Rathnasree was also a notable member of the Astronomical Society of India, and was also the first ever chairperson of the Public Outreach and Education Committee (POEC) set up in 2014. Even till her last days, she remained active in the POEC. An avid astronomy communicator and accomplished pulsar astronomer, she was pivotal in most astronomy outreach projects of ASI in the last two decades read a statement issued by the ASI.

She was an outstanding professional and hard working public educator. She wanted to demystify the universe and make it accessible for everyone. She headed the planetarium with absolute dedication. Her focus was to develop new programmes to help educate the young, and she was very innovative in designing such programmes, as it is often very expensive, said Sinha, who worked with Rathnasree between 2016 and 2019.

One of the key initiatives of Rathnasree was Astro Adda, an online discussion forum held every fortnight where students could come together and discuss astronomy-related topics.

Dr Rathnasree had graduated from the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai and later pursued her postdoctoral research at the University of Vermont, Burlington. She joined the Nehru Planetarium in 1996 as a senior planetarium educator and then became its director in 1999.

The Ministry of Culture mourned her passing with a tweet: Extremely saddened to learn about the unfortunate demise of Dr N Rathnasree, Director of Nehru Planetarium under @_NMML passed away on Sunday. Heartfelt condolences to the family & prayers for the departed soul & God to provide strength to the bereaved family.

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Nehru Planetarium director, who helped make astronomy accessible to the young, dies of Covid - The Indian Express

International Astronomy Day is here, so it's the perfect time for astronomy enthusiasts of all ages to enjoy space-related things.

International Astronomy Day is actually celebrated twice a year -- once in the spring and then in the fall.

The idea is to celebrate the changing constellations and the different things that can be seen in the sky at different times of the year, Days of the Year (DOTY) explained.

This year, the first International Astronomy Dayfalls on May 15, and the next will be on Oct. 9.

First started in 1973 by Doug Berger, the president of the Astronomical Association of Northern California at the time, the idea for the occasion is to make space more accessible to everyone and encourage interest in astronomy.

Enthusiasts and beginners alike maycelebrate International Astronomy Day by engaging themselves in astronomy. On this day, let's look at some quotes about astronomy that will encourage you to explore thecosmostoday. (Courtesy:Sea and Sky, Good Readsand Wise Sayings)

This photo of the brightest stars in the Milky Way was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo: NASA

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International Astronomy Day: Astronomy Quotes That Will Inspire You To Explore The Cosmos - International Business Times

When a supernova appeared in a relatively nearby galaxy in 2019 Astronomers trying to better understand exploding stars got a lucky break. They discovered that the Hubble telescope had taken a picture of what they think is the same star two years before it blew up.

And to their surprise, the star didn't look very much like what they thought a star heading for a supernova like this should look like.

When supernova 2019yvr was spottedMaria Drout, an Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and her colleagues checked back on Hubble observations to see if they could see a star in the same location as the supernova. Finding a progenitor star is normally a long shot, but in this case archived Hubble imaging showed a massive star just where they hoped it would be.

In their newstudythe team described how the the star defied their expectations. The star exploded in what's calleda Type 1b supernova, which is expected to come from hot, blue and compact massive stars. But the progenitor star they identifiedwas yellow, cool and very large.

Another big surprise was that the star was found to be surrounded by an envelope of hydrogen. After it exploded however, the astronomers were baffled because there wasn't any evidence of that hydrogen.

Drout explained a couple of theories for the discrepancy. In the years after the star was seen by Hubble, it may have experienced a violent eruption that resulted in the loss of hydrogen. Another possibility is that its envelope of hydrogen was stripped off by another star in its orbit. She said both theories are plausible but amazing in terms of timing as the kind of steller evolution they imply usually happens over centuries or more rather than in a couple of years..

But the observation may mean astronomershave to rethink models of progenitor stars for this type of supernova.

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Astronomers get rare and surprising before and after shots of a star going supernova - CBC.ca