Monthly Archives: June 2021

Victoria Kaspi is the co-winner of the 2021 Shaw Prize in AstronomyOwen Egan / Joni Dufour

Victoria Kaspi, physics professor and Director of the McGill Space Institute, has won the 2021 Shaw Prize in Astronomy, splitting the honour with Chryssa Kouveliotou, chair of the Department of Physics at George Washington University. In the Shaw Prize Foundations press release, Kaspi and Kouveliotou were commended for their contributions to our understanding of magnetars, a class of highly magnetized neutron stars that are linked to a wide range of spectacular, transient astrophysical phenomena.

In announcing the winners, the selection committee praised the two astrophysicists for developing new and precise observational techniques and establishing magnetars as a new and important class of astrophysical objects.

The Foundation website noted that astronomy has experienced tremendous growth and development during the past 50 years as the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays was opened to investigation. Remarkable progress has been achieved in our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe; the structure and dynamics of galaxies; the birth, life, and death of stars and stellar systems; and the formation and ubiquity of planetary systems. The names of exotic objects such as supernovae, quasars, pulsars, and black holes have entered the public lexicon, and have captured the imagination of people, young and old, all over the world.

A new golden age of astronomy can be expected in the 21st century.

Victoria Kaspi showed that a second class of rare X-ray emitting pulsarswere also magnetars, said the Foundations press release. Kaspi took the techniques used by radio astronomers to maintain phase coherence in pulsar timing and adapted them to work in the much more challenging X-ray domain. This allowed her to make extremely accurate timing measurements of X-ray pulsars [She] has also made fundamental contributions to the characterization of magnetars as a population Her work has cemented the recognition of magnetars as a distinct source class. Today, magnetars are routinely invoked to explain the physics underlying a diverse range of astrophysical transients including -ray bursts, superluminous supernovae and nascent neutron stars.

The Shaw Prize in Astronomy was one of five awards announced by the Foundation on June 1. The Hong Kong-based Shaw Prize Foundation honours five scientists worldwide who have made outstanding achievements in three categories; astronomy, life science and medicine and mathematical sciences. The prize salutes researchers who achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research or applications, and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind.

Each prize bears a monetary award of $1.2 million U.S.

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Victoria Kaspi named co-winner of the 2021 Shaw Prize in Astronomy - McGill Reporter - McGill Reporter

Weve always had a fascination with the stars, bright beacons of light that come alive when the sky darkens. Theyve been revered as gods, used to mark changes in the seasons, and as a way to navigate the globe. Its difficult to trace back when exactly people started looking up and taking note of familiar patterns that were formed by these points of light, but some propose that 17,000-year-old cave paintings in Lascaux, France, depict the constellations we today know as Taurus and Orion.

Ancient cultures across the world saw these patterns in different ways, often linking them to legends that were told among their people or the local fauna and flora, or creating new myths from the shapes they saw. The constellations that make up the Zodiac the stars that follow the ecliptic are some of the oldest recorded, and remain essentially the same today as ancient Babylonian astronomers recorded them in the 6th century B.C.

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Although there are older records from many different places and cultures that tell their own stories, it is the ancient Greeks that made a lasting impact on astronomy. Claudius Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer who lived in the city of Alexandria in the 2nd century A.D., made a comprehensive list of 1,022 stars, illustrating them as members of 48 constellations, many of which adopted imagery from Greek myths and legends and older Babylonian ideas. This ancient text, called Almagest, became the basis of what we recognize in the sky today.

About 800 years after Ptolemy recorded his knowledge of the heavens, a Persian astronomer, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, translated his Greek into Arabic, bringing his stellar stories to another part of the globe. As Ptolemy had never named the individual stars in his work, al-Sufi incorporated Arabic names. His observations were so advanced that his work, the "Book of Fixed Stars," traveled across Europe, his star names being accepted along with the constellations they were woven into.

After the invention of the telescope, more and more stars were discovered and named, with many different influences. To avoid confusion, in 1922 a group of astronomers from around the world decided it was time to properly map the stars, putting official boundaries between the constellations to make it easier to navigate the sky and locate specific objects. Now divided into 88 official constellations, drawing heavily from Ptolemy and al-Sufis works, next time you gaze up at them, think about the many stories that have been told about each one across the ages.

Today we know of trillions of stars, and even other galaxies. We have classifications for different stellar types, and can work out a stars mass, density and composition from many light-years away. We know that stars are dense balls of gas that are fusing hydrogen to power themselves, creating light as they do. But before the modern age of science, people could only guess at what these bright lights in the night were. Here are some of the oldest interpretations, and what the stars meant to these ancient observers.

Part of the Zodiac, this constellation is officially dubbed Scorpius, the Scorpion. But for hundreds of years Polynesians have seen its inverted tail as a fishhookone belonging to a demigod of legend: Maui. Maui possessed a magical fishhook, Manaiakalani, which could catch anything. He and his brothers set out to sea, where Maui cast his line. Tricking them into thinking he had caught a giant fish, Maui got his brothers to paddle the canoe as fast as they could to reel in his line, pulling up islands from the sea for humans to live on.

Sirius was very important to the ancient Egyptians. Each year in mid-August, it would be the first bright star to rise in the predawn sky, known as a heliacal rising. The timing coincided with the annual flooding of the River Nile, alerting people who lived near its banks that it was time to move inland to safety. A second calendar was created to measure the time until its return. They knew the star as Sopdet, the personification of a goddess associated with the fertility that the flooding brought to the land.

Mayans were keen astronomers, tracking the sun, moon, planets, and Milky Way across the heavens, and constructing incredibly accurate calendars for the time using their knowledge. They built many structures and buildings to align with certain stars, and theres evidence they had a 13-star Zodiac that took the shapes of the native wildlife. Polaris was also known to the Maya, though they knew it as Xaman Ek. It was sometimes associated with the rain god who brought the storms of winter.

Ancient Chinese astronomers charted the night sky into four regions, each of which was assigned one of the Four Symbols: the Azure Dragon of the East, a dragon god; the Black Tortoise of the North, who symbolized longevity; the White Tiger of the West, the king of beasts; and the Vermillion Bird of the South, an elegant fire-red bird. Seven constellations or "mansions" within each of these symbols were used as a way to follow the moons motion across the sky, forming an early lunar calendar.

Though some constellations were borrowed from the Babylonians brought to Greece by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the 4th century B.C. ancient Greek scholars considered astronomy to be a mathematic art, a way to use geometry to predict the motion of the heavens.

Many ancient Greek scholars mapped and wrote about the stars and their motions, but the most well known today is Ptolemys book Almagest. In it he identified the 12 constellations of the Zodiac, 21 to the north of the ecliptic and 15 to the south, naming them after heroes and beasts from famous poems and myths, whose deeds had allowed them to be made immortal among the stars and revered as semi-divine spirits.

Containing one of the most famous asterisms in the sky and pointing the way to Polaris, Ursa Major had been seen as a bear by many primitive cultures before the ancient Greeks. To the Greeks the bear was Callisto. Zeus had an affair with the huntress, which bore a son. When Zeus wife found out, she was so enraged that she turned Callisto into a bear. Zeus later placed her in the stars to keep her safe. Callisto is also the namesake of one of Jupiters moons.

An equatorial constellation, Pisces forms the shape of two fish connected by a rope of stars. In an effort to escape a monster that had been sent to attack Mount Olympus the home of the gods the goddess of love, Aphrodite, and her son, Eros, transformed themselves into fish in order to flee into the Euphrates River. They tied their tails together with a cord so that they would not lose one another. Its brightest star was originally given the name Kullat Nunu, meaning "the cord of the fish" due to its place in the constellation.

Visible in the Northern Hemisphere in the winter months, and easily recognized by his famous belt of three bright stars, Orion, the Hunter, has been identified in many cultures over thousands of years as a hunter, shepherd, or warrior.

In Greek mythology he was the demigod son of Poseidon, and an accomplished hunter. He proudly boasted to the goddess Artemis that he could hunt and kill any creature if he wanted to. This made Gaia, the earth goddess, angry, and she sent a giant scorpion to kill him as punishment for his pride. Orion and Scorpius were both placed in the sky as a warning against arrogance and upsetting Gaia though on opposite sides of the sky so that they could avoid each other.

Also known as Heracles, and a true icon in ancient Greek mythology, Hercules was perhaps the best-known hero in the stories of old, with tales of his deeds spreading to ancient Rome.

A demigod with incredible strength, Hercules was assigned 12 seemingly impossible tasks to atone for a crime he had committed. He used his power, courage, and skill to complete all 12 tasks, and was immortalized in the stars as a prize. Many of Hercules conquests have also been placed among the stars, such as Leo, a fierce lion; Draco, a great dragon; and the Hydra, a sea monster. This constellation is also known for hosting the stunning Great Globular Cluster, Messier 13.

In Greek mythology, Cepheus and Cassiopeia were the king and queen of ancient Ethiopia now they are the King and Queen in our stars. They had a beautiful daughter, Andromeda. Cassiopeia was incredibly vain, and boasted of her daughters beauty, telling people she was lovelier than even the Nereids, sea nymphs whose beauty was renowned. This vanity angered the Nereids, who complained to the sea god Poseidon about the vain queens words. To punish the queen for her arrogance, Poseidon sent floods and a sea monster, Cetus though this constellation is often called the Whale in astronomyto terrorize the coast of Ethiopia.

Wanting to appease the gods and end Poseidons wrath, the king and queen were told that they must sacrifice their daughter to the sea monster. They chained the beautiful maiden to a rock to await her fate hence why the constellation of Andromeda is often called "the Chained Maiden" in modern times. As luck would have it, the great hero Perseus was flying back over Ethiopia on his winged horse, Pegasus, after slaying the Gorgon Medusa. Falling in love at first sight with the beautiful damsel in distress below, Perseus saved her from her doom using the severed head of Medusa as a weapon, and took Andromeda as his bride. All of these characters have been placed into the stars, with the majority of them grouped together in a section of sky in the Northern Hemisphere, while Cetus lurks further south.

When the stars were later given names by al-Sufi, the variable star Beta Persei was named Algol, meaning the Demons Head. It is said to depict the eye of the severed head of Medusa in the constellation of Perseus although gazing up at this particular star wont turn you to stone.

The majority of the ancient constellations lie in the Northern Hemisphere, because that is what the ancient cultures that mapped them could see from their positions on Earth. When European explorers began to sail further south to investigate new parts of the sea for potential trade routes in the 1600s, they found that the star maps they used for navigation were lacking the further they went. They soon realized that the skies below the equator contained uncharted stars that formed new patterns above them.

Astronomers set out to map the entirety of the sky, classifying these newfound stars into constellations. Some of these built upon the legends of the northern constellations, while others were based on tools that helped in astronomy and navigation, or exciting new animals that had been discovered as new continents were conquered.

Sitting in the sky in the middle of the Summer Triangle, Vulpecula, Latin for "little fox," was originally envisioned as a fox with a goose clamped in its jaws by Johannes Hevelius, with him dubbing it Vulpecula et Anser the little fox and the goose.

Though Hevelius didnt see these two animals as separate constellations, the stars were later divided as such. Since then they have been merged into one constellation again, though the goose is remembered in the name of Vulpeculas brightest star, called Anser.

Not to be confused with its northern counterpart Triangulum, the Southern Triangle moved around the sky a little before it ended up where we find it today. The earliest depiction was by Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius in 1589 on a celestial globe, though he incorrectly placed the tiny triangle to the south of the much larger constellation of Argo Navis.

Plancius also originally listed the constellation as Triangulus Antarcticus. The German astronomer Johann Bayer later correctly depicted the constellation in his star atlas Uranometria in 1603, where it was given its current name of Triangulum Australe.

A long, narrow diamond of stars lying close to the ecliptic, Scutum was first classified by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1684. He originally named it Scutum Sobiescianum Shield of Sobieski after King John III Sobieski to commemorate his victory in the 1683 Battle of Vienna.

The king is also said to have helped Hevelius rebuild his observatory after a terrible fire almost destroyed it in 1679. The name was later shortened, like so many names of constellations have been over the years, to make it easier to reference. Scutum depicts a specific type of curved, oblong-shaped shield that was used in ancient Rome.

A small winter constellation in the Southern Hemisphere, Columba, the Dove, was first depicted on a planisphere by Petrus Plancius in 1592, where he listed the stars as Columba Noachi Noahs Dove. Not the only constellation to be named after a symbol of Christianity, the dove in the story of Noahs Ark was sent out to search for signs of land after the great flood.

Returning with an olive branch in its beak, doves became a symbol of hope and peace. The constellation is often drawn carrying this branch in its beak. Its brightest star is Phact, which derives from an Arabic word for ring dove.

Although humans had explored the stars for many years by the time telescopes came to use, as their use spread, astronomers could see more stars than ever before. The invention which can be traced back to a patent by the Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lippershey in 1608 was truly a revolution in observing the heavens.

Its no wonder that astronomers decided to honour the invention with a place among the stars. French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille first introduced it as a constellation in around 1751 after observing and cataloging 10,000 southern stars and forming 14 new constellations.

One of the smallest constellations in the entire sky, Leo Minor was assigned its leonine image in the 1600s by astronomer pair Elisabeth and Johannes Hevelius to fill a dark patch in the sky that Ptolemy had found unremarkable.

This constellation neighbors Leo, so is often depicted as a lion cub the name translates from Latin as little lion. The pattern of stars that makes up Leo Minor is very similar in shape to a northern constellation, Delphinus, the Dolphin. Both are diamond shapes with a tail, looking a little bit like kites, but the two are not related at all in their naming or story.

Though for around 200 years this constellation had a second name Apis, the Bee Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius originally named it De Vlieghe, Dutch for the Fly, when he established 12 new southern constellations based on observations by Dutch explorers who had sailed on a trading expedition and noted the new patterns above them.

It is the only constellation to be named for an insect. Due to its closeness to Chamaeleon named after the reptile first encountered by explorers of the timethey are often depicted together, with the Chameleon trying to snack on the Fly.

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What's the story behind the stars? - Space.com

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Southwestern Oregon Community College closes out the 2020-21 Physics and Astronomy Lecture Series by welcoming Dr. Holly Gilbert, director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research High Altitude Observatory. In her talk A New Era in Solar Observations, Gilbert will discuss some of the current solar and heliospheric observations (both space-based and ground-based) and the scientific implications thereof. The public is welcome to listen in on this fascinating subject on June 3, at 6:30 p.m. via Livestream at https://livestream.com/swocc/physicsandastronomy2020-21.

In a preview of her lecture Gilbert shares, The newest generation of solar observational data is allowing a pivot toward making connections in the various solar physics domains and facilitating advanced modeling for space weather conditions and impacts. We study important physical couplings in the solar atmospheric layers, as well as connections from the solar corona through the heliosphere. To advance our understanding of how solar activity and variability impact space weather conditions, improved and novel observations have recently come online from space and from the ground. For example, the Solar Orbiter mission is making connections between phenomena on the Sun and their manifestations in interplanetary space. Ground-based observations from the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory and the new Daniel K. Inouye telescope in Hawaii are advancing our understanding of emerging and evolving magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere.

Gilberts talk will highlight some of these observations, the science they are enabling and the implications for space weather forecasting and prediction.

The Southwestern Physics and Astronomy Lecture Series is sponsored in part by the Southwestern Foundation. For information about this month's lecture and future events, contact Dr. Aaron Coyner, associate professor of physics, ataaron.coyner@socc.edu. To learn more about physics and engineering degrees at Southwestern, visithttps://physics.socc.edu/.

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Physics and Astronomy Lecture: A New Era in Solar Observations - Coos Bay World

The big news about the sun is that there is no big news. We are blessed, astronomers like to say, to be living next to a boring star.

But the inhabitants (if there are any) of the planets orbiting the neighboring star Proxima Centauri, only 4.2 light-years away, are less fortunate. In April astronomers announced that a massive flare had erupted from its surface in 2019. For seven seconds, as a battery of telescopes on Earth and in space watched, the little star had increased its output of ultraviolet radiation 14,000-fold, in one of the most violent such flares ever seen in our galaxy.

This was more than serious sunburn territory. A human being on this planet would have a bad time, said Meredith MacGregor, an astronomy professor at the University of Colorado who led the worldwide observing effort.

Space weather on this scale could sterilize potentially habitable planets, and could augur bad news for the search for life beyond this solar system. Even mild space weather can be disruptive to creatures already evolved and settled; sunspots and solar storms, which wax and wane in an 11-year cycle, spray energy that can endanger spacecraft, astronauts and communication systems.

A new cycle of storms will begin any day now, and astrophysicists are divided on how active or threatening it will be. The sun may be about to set records for sunspot numbers and violent storms, or it may be sliding into a decline like the Maunder Minimum, from 1645 to 1715, when hardly any sunspots appeared a period that became known in Europe as the Little Ice Age.

We live in the atmosphere of a star, as Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., often says. As a civilization we take our star for granted.

Here, 93 million miles from the nearest star the one we call our sun we exist and mostly thrive on the edge of almost incomprehensible violence and complexity.

The sun is a medium-size star, a ball of blazing-hot ionized gas one million miles in diameter. Its large inside rotates faster than its outside, and the outer layers rotate faster at the equator than at the poles. The result is a snarled nest of magnetic fields, which manifest as sunspots and worse when they break the surface.

Every second, thermonuclear reactions in the center of the sun burn 600 million tons of hydrogen into 596 million tons of helium. The missing four million tons, turned into pure energy, constitute the mortgage payment for all the life on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the solar system. As the energy emerges from the sun, it rises through successively cooler and less dense layers of gas and finally, 100,000 years later, from the photosphere, or surface, where the temperature is a mere 5,700 kelvin, or 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The sun is amazingly consistent in making these mortgage payments. A few years ago an experiment in Italy confirmed that our star does not seem to have changed its energy output in at least the last 100,000 years, the time it takes that energy to migrate from the suns core. The researchers were able to calculate how much energy the sun produces in real time, by measuring subatomic particles called neutrinos that are produced by nuclear reactions inside the sun, escape in seconds and reach Earth in just eight minutes. This energy, they found, matched the output that was generated 100,000 years ago and is only now detectable.

The action doesnt stop at the suns surface. That friendly yellow photosphere boils like oatmeal and is pocked with dark magnetic storms (the infamous sunspots) that crackle, whirl and lash space with showers of electrical particles and radiation. The corona, composed of thin, superhot streamers of electrified gas, and visible only during solar eclipses, extends millions of miles from the glowing surface.

Things sometimes go wrong, although so far on a scale far below the outbursts seen on Proxima Centauri. As the magnetic fields generated by all that swirling, electrified gas emerge on the suns surface, they become twisted and tangled. Eventually they snap and reconnect in loops, releasing enormous amounts of radiation and charged particles an explosive solar flare that can be more powerful than millions of hydrogen bombs.

Sometimes these flares blow whole chunks of the suns outer layers into space, in events called coronal mass ejections. The mother of all known solar storms thus far occurred on Sept. 1, 1859, when a blob of sun slammed into Earth. Sparks flew from telegraph systems in Europe and North America, causing fires. The auroras that night stretched as far south as Hawaii and Cuba and were so bright that people could read their newspapers by their light.

In 2012 another a coronal mass ejection barely missed Earth. An earlier study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that a direct hit by such a storm could cause some $2 trillion in damage, shutting down the power grid and rendering satellites at least temporarily blind. Forget about trying to use the internet or your local A.T.M.; many people wouldnt even be able to flush their toilets without the electricity to run water pumps, the report noted. I think as a civilization we become screwed, Dr. McIntosh said.

Cloudy with a chance of sunspots

Such storms are more likely to occur during the high points of the suns mysterious 11-year cycle of sunspot activity.

Lately, the sunspot cycles have been getting weaker. During the last cycle, 101 spots were observed on the sun in 2014, the year of peak activity; that was well below the historical average of 160 to 240.

Last year, a committee of scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast that the coming cycle would be similarly anemic, with a peak in 2025 of about 115 sunspots.

But Dr. McIntosh and his colleagues have produced a radically different forecast, of more than 200 sunspots at its peak. The 11-year sunspot cycle, they say, based on an analysis of 140 years of solar measurements, belies a more fundamental 22-year Hale cycle, named after its discoverer, George Ellery Hale. During that period the suns magnetic field reverses its polarity, then switches back.

Each cycle ends or begins when two bands of magnetism, migrating from opposite, high latitudes of the sun, meet at the equator and annihilate each other. On average each phase of the cycle takes 11 years, but it can vary.

Dr. McIntosh and his team found that the longer a cycle went on, the weaker the next cycle would be, and vice versa. The current cycle, the 24th since record-keeping started, shows every sign of ending after a little more than 10 years shorter than average, which means the next cycle should be strong.

Sunspot Cycle 25 could have a magnitude that rivals the top few since records began, Dr. McIntosh said in late April. On Thursday, he and his team were still waiting for ignition to begin. It is very, very close, he wrote in an email. We are watching very closely.

At stake, besides the health of our planetary infrastructure, is the pride that astronomers take in feeling that they understand the complicated and violent processes going on behind the suns relatively calm face.

I think the problem with the sun is that were too close to it, and so theres too much data about the sun, Dr. McIntosh said. He called it a breaker of models: Your models are going to fail eventually. Its part of the reason why its so hard to forecast the weather, right? Because our observations are so detailed, but you know its hard to get it absolutely right.

Tony Phillips, an astronomer who runs the website Spaceweather.com, agreed in an email. In my experience, when people really understand something, they can explain it simply, he said. It is striking to me that almost no one in the solar-cycle prediction business can explain their favorite dynamo model in a way that lay people can get it.

The situation reminded him of the proverbial blind men who try to produce a Theory of Elephants, with one of them focused solely on feeling the animals trunk.

Scott and Bob are standing off to the side shouting, Hey, you guys are ignoring most of the elephant, he said. In other words, theres more to the solar cycle than is commonly assumed by conventional models. And so, according to Scott, they are doomed to get the big picture wrong.

Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College who has spent his life observing the corona during solar eclipses, said he did not put much store in such forecasts. In an email, he recounted a meeting during the last cycle that had an amusing set of talks.

The conversation, as he recalled it, went: The next cycle will be stronger than average, the next cycle will be weaker than average, the next cycle will be either stronger than average or weaker than average, the next cycle will be neither stronger than average nor weaker than average.

He added, So my plan is to wait and see.

Potential hazards aside, understanding how the sunspot cycle actually works is crucial from a purely human standpoint, if you want to understand stars, Dr. McIntosh said. And if you think about it, Earths magnetic field is largely why we probably have life on Earth.

Mars, he pointed out, doesnt have much of an atmosphere or a magnetic field. If your planet doesnt have a magnetic field, you can have all the atmosphere you want, he said, but your local friendly neighborhood star could whisk it away in a heartbeat.

Indeed, astrophysicists suspect that such a fate befell Mars, which was once warmer and wetter than it is now.

Proxima Centauri, a small star known as an M dwarf, harbors at least two exoplanets, one of which is Earth-size and close enough to the star to be habitable if it werent bathed in radiation. Dr. MacGregor offered one glimmer of hope for life in such neighborhoods.

Recent work has shown that ultraviolet light might be very important for catalyzing life turning complex molecules into amino acids and ultimately into single-celled organisms, she said. Since M dwarfs are so small and cold, they dont actually produce that much UV radiation, except when they flare. Perhaps there is a sweet spot where a star flares enough to spark life but not so much that it immediately destroys it!

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Will the Next Space-Weather Season Be Stormy or Fair? - The New York Times

The International Astronomical Union Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) is pleased to announce the selection of three projects in the second year of the IAU National Outreach Coordinator (NOC) Funding Scheme. The selected projects involve National Outreach Coordinators from 17 countries. They will focus on key areas of astronomy outreach, from building a global platform to share astronomy outreach events to taking astronomy to refugee camps or using art as a tool for astronomy outreach.

The IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) is a joint project of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The mission of the OAO is to engage the public in astronomy through access to astronomical information and communication of the science of astronomy. This is implemented through a network of IAU National Outreach Coordinators (NOCs) and the IAUs public engagement initiatives. The work of the OAO is about building bridges between the IAU and the global astronomy community of amateur astronomers, outreach professionals, educators, communicators, and the general public, and through international collaboration, to make the science of astronomy accessible to all.

In 2020, the IAU started to provide all IAU national outreach representatives with a dedicated funding system to support the network on their outreach initiatives. The funding scheme embodies the IAU mission of building international cooperation by encouraging the NOCs to form partnerships to present proposals addressing common challenges. This second year of the scheme brought together 45 country representatives and a total of 24 submitted proposals.

We are pleased to see the growing involvement of our NOC community in the OAO funding scheme and the spirit of collaboration and mutual support translated in the received proposals, says Jos Miguel Espinosa, IAU Assistant General Secretary.

The three projects selected are:

The Art of Astronomy: Recognising that art is greatly influenced by astronomy, this project, which involves Brazil, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Angola and Portugal, will create a virtual exhibition and an interactive virtual art gallery composed of astronomy-related artistic material produced by groups of young people (primary and high-school students) and engaging the public in astronomy.

Amanar: Under the same sky 2021 Summer Program:This programme, which involves Spain, Italy and Brazil, aims to expand the summer programmes of the Amanar project, a project to empower and inspire the Sahrawi community from the refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria, using astronomy. The project will also produce guidelines and lessons learnt about working with refugee communities in astronomy outreach projects to be applied to other refugee groups.

AstroGPS for the World:Increasing numbers of astronomical events are being organised all over the world. It is vital that target audiences can easily access information on these activities. This project, which involves NOCs from the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Mongolia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and is led by Poland, will build on a user-friendly and successful service and expand it for the benefit of the global community.

In 2021, the OAO partnered with the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO). The SKAO offered additional funding to sponsor projects on radio astronomy outreach, bringing together NOCs and the SKAOs own Communications & Outreach Network to foster new international collaborations.

In April 2021, the OAO host institutions, the IAU and NAOJ, signed a new agreement that, amongst other measures, assures the continuity of this funding scheme. The 2021/2022 NOC Funding Scheme will open in August 2021.

More information:

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 12,000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the worlds largest professional body for astronomers.

Links

IAU Office for Astronomy OutreachNational Outreach Coordinators (NOCs) NOCs Funding Scheme

Contacts

Lina Canas,Director, IAU OAO Tel: +81-(0)422-34-3966. Email: lina.canas@nao.ac.jp

Lars Lindberg Christensen, IAU Press Officer. Cell: +49 173 38 72 621.Email: lars@eso.org

Republished from IACs website here.

Faleti Joshua is an avid lover of space in all its incomprehensible nature. He holds a LL.B degree, and is a pessimist in his free time.

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International Astronomical Union OAO Announce Three Projects for Funding Scheme - Space in Africa

Welcome to The Curiosity Academy, Stylists new learning hub where you can access workshops, how-to guides, new research and learn the most up-to-date skills from the UKs most in-the-know people.

The only thing more magical than gazing at a velvet-black sky spangled with stars is being able to understand exactly what those sparkly dots are. Stargazing is a time-old tradition and once played a huge part in our society and culture (before we all turned our eyes to the even brighter glow of our smartphones).

If we go back thousands of years, the stars and the night sky were a huge part of life for our ancestors, says Hannah Banyard, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich. Many ancient calendars were based on the moon and it was really important for people to look at the phase of the moon to decide when to plant and harvest food.

As the modern worlds progressed, weve lost touch with it, but theres something really inspiring about the night sky, says Hannah. Just looking at it gives you a sense of feeling insignificant and part of something larger all at the same time.

With more time to slow down and stare at the world around us during the pandemic, enthusiasm for stargazing rocketed. Weve definitely seen interest kick up, says Hannah. Lockdown was a good time for people to just stop for a moment and look up at the sky properly for the first time.

Looking at the stars was also a way for people to connect with each other during a time when weve never been so far apart. When you had family all over the country, or the world, that you couldnt see, you could still go outside and look at the same things in the sky. Its a lovely way to bring people together, says Hannah.

If youre baffled when it comes to understanding your asterism from your asteroid, heres Hannahs expert guide to getting into stargazing as a beginner wherever you live, from getting the right equipment to knowing where to point your telescope. Happy star spotting.

You can start stargazing in your garden, if youre lucky enough to have one. If not, head to a park or another place thats as dark as possible.

If you want to look at the stars, rather than the moon, pick a night when the moon isnt really out. Moonlight blocks out the fainter stars, says Hannah. So, youre better off going out when you dont have a bright moon. Its also best to avoid cloudy nights, because the cloud cover will obstruct your view of the stars. You can track the movements of the moon on the Royal Observatorys monthly blog.

When youre stargazing its important to head out at the right time. As we enter into summer the days are getting longer so were getting to a time when we wont get a proper astronomical night, says Hannah. She recommends going stargazing later in the summer months when the brighter stars begin to appear. It does get cold though, so wrap up if youre going to be out for a while.

Its best to lie down when youre stargazing. This means you can see more of the night sky and helps to block out light pollution from things like street lamps or your neighbours windows.

To see stars properly, let your eyes adjust to the dark before you start stargazing. Around 20 minutes is enough to get your eyes used to the darkness.

Try not to look at your phone while youre stargazing because it will disrupt your night vision. Astronomers always use red lights, says Hannah, because it doesnt disrupt your night vision as much. You can switch your phone to red light mode.

Just because you live in a light-polluted city, doesnt mean you cant enjoy a spot of stargazing. Cities are filled with high buildings, which means people just dont look up, says Hannah. If they do, theyll notice lots of things in the night sky from the moon to some of our brighter constellations. The longer you keep looking up the more youll start to see.

The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is opposite Canary Wharf, which gives us so much light pollution, but we can still observe things in the night sky.

If you are stargazing in the city Hannah advises avoiding as many light sources as you possibly can. Turn your back and face away from any light, she says. Going up somewhere higher overlooking the city is also helpful. It means the city lights arent as bright and youre closer to the horizon so you can see more of the sky.

You dont actually need that much equipment at all to stargaze. You can observe the moon and lots of brighter constellations just with the naked eye or a pair of binoculars.

If you are more serious about getting into stargazing you might want to invest in a telescope. People can get quite intimidated when it comes to telescopes, but you dont really need to spend more than 100 on a telescope that will let you see things like the rings of Saturn, Hannah suggests buying a four-inch telescope if youre a beginner.

If you dont want to invest in equipment, try joining one of the many amateur astronomy groups around the country, like The Baker Street Irregular Astronomersin London. Youll find that one or two people in the group will have brought all the big equipment with them and theyre happy to share it and talk you through how to use it, says Hannah. These amateur groups are really, really passionate and more than happy to let other people come along.

The full moon is beautiful to look at just with your naked eye, says Hannah.

If you want to look at the moon in more detail its best to wait until its in a different phase. The full moon can look quite flat up close because theres so much light on it, says Hannah. But if you wait for a crescent moon or a quarter moon, you can look at the craters and the mountains on the moon with a pair of binoculars. Theyre quite easy to make out.

The North Star, or Polaris as its known in the astronomy world, is the easiest star to spot in the night sky. Its circumpolar, which means you can see it all year round in the Northern Hemisphere.

To spot it, Hannah suggests looking for The Plough, or The Saucepan as its sometimes called. The Plough is an asterism. This means its not an official constellation, but part of the constellation called Ursa Major or the Great Bear.

Its quite easy to spot because its in a saucepan shape, says Hannah. If you get to the end of the saucepan, the two stars that make up the pan end are Dubhe and Merak. If you draw a straight line between those with your eyes and continue in a straight line to the next star youll see Polaris. Its really, really easy to spot because its so bright.

Once you find Polaris that will face you North because its pretty much directly about the North Pole. This means that once youve found Polaris, youll be able to locate other things in the night sky. If theres something specific you want to look at and you know that North is in front of you, it means to your right will be East, South behind you and West to your left.

Polaris, the North Star, is in the tail of Ursa Minor, which is also known as the Little Bear.

You can see a couple of stars in this constellation with your naked eye, says Hannah. Look for Draco the Dragon, which runs between Ursa Major and around Ursa Minor.

The Summer Triangle is one of my favourite things to spot. You cant miss it, says Hannah. Its made up of three really bright stars. Theyre called Deneb, Vega and Altair.

Whats really beautiful about the Summer Triangle is that if youre somewhere dark enough you can see the stripe of the Milky Way running through it.

It also has a wonderful story behind it in Chinese folklore. The story is about two lovers - Vega and Altair - who are separated by a silver river running between them, which is the Milky Way. The story goes that once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, which is Chinas Valentines Day, the third star, Deneb, becomes a bridge of magpies so the two lovers can meet for one day.

It just shows that when we look up at the sky, its not just what you can see, its also about the culture around the stars and the stories they tell us.

If you decide to invest in a telescope you will be able to make out the constellation of Virgo, which is up in the South at the moment.

Virgo has a really bright star youll be able to spot called, Spica, says Hannah. In Virgo you can also see the Sombrero galaxy. Its a spiral galaxy that youll be able to see side on. It has a bulge in the middle, which is why it looks a bit like a sombrero.

A telescope will also allow you to see the stars different colours. When we look at the stars we just assume theyre all white, but this isnt the case at all.

If you look closer at the Summer Triangle with a telescope you can look for a star called Albireo. Its about halfway between Vega and Altair, says Hannah. If you look with your naked eyeAlbireo will just look like one star, but with a good pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you can make out two stars. One of them is blue and the other is orange. Its part of a double-star system.

A stars colour is due to its temperature. Its the opposite of your kitchen taps, says Hannah. So blue stars are hottest and red stars are the coldest. It goes red, orange, yellow, white, blue from hottest to coldest. For comparison, the Sun is a yellow-white star. Our Sun is actually not a very exciting star, its just the closest one to us.

Another colourful star Hannah suggests looking for is Arcturus. Above Virgo is a constellation called Botes or the herdsman, says Hannah. It really stands out because its got a really bright giant red star called Arcturus. You can see that easily with your naked eye.

If youre prepared to head out at 3am, you will be able to see Jupiter and Saturn in the southeast, says Hannah. They are quite low down on the horizon. You can see those just with your eyes. Theyll be pretty much the brightest things in the sky.

You can find out more about astronomy and stargazing on the Royal Observatory, Greenwich website, including monthly blogs about what you can see in the night sky. Find more e-learning guides on The Curiosity Academy.

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Astronomy: A beginner's guide to stargazing wherever you live - Stylist Magazine