February...The month of Planets

Here comes the February once again to bring you the planets of our solar system. The skies will be dazzled with these planets all throughout the month and don't you afford missing it. All you need to do is just know the timings in which the planets can be seen on your stairs. Let me present you the schedule of planets and their shows.
1. Go upstairs and find the Venus in the south western part of your sky. By the end of the month Venus will be in such a position that it could be seen 4 hours after the sun set.
2. Jupiter can be seen overhead to the left of the Venus.
3. Mercury can be seen up in the sky to the west side of the horizon. The Mercury rises after the late night.
4. Mars will rise in the East , most probably around 8:30 pm.
5. Saturn rises in the East by 11:30 pm after the Mars rises. But the Mars and Saturn can be distinguished by their Orange-red and glow colours, respectively.

So ultimately we have 5 planets dazzling the February night skies, as every time. Don't miss watching any of the 5 planets. Stay glued for more updates. I will keep the blog updating with more info.

Signing off for today yours Pranu :)
31-01-2012 

Asteroid fever is over now

The long await is over today and nothing as feared has happened with the asteroid 2012 BX34. The space rock as seen from the NASA was approximately11 metres in diameter and passed the Earth at a distance of 36,750 miles. The astronomers called it a "bus-sized" and declared it as a very small object to enter the earth's atmosphere and pose some sort of hazard. Even though this is over today, this declaration can be of further help to avoid the asteroids smaller than this into consideration. But due to its closer move, the world suspected a hit from it. In fact its recorded as the 20th closest asteroid, ever. Scientists at NASA's Asteroid Watch tweeted: "Thanks to spotting assistance from pro and amateur astronomy community, we were able to observe 2012 BX34 with the Goldstone DSN radar."

References : PhysOrg.com, HeraldScotland
Date: 28-01-2012

Pranu :-)

Simulation answers the questions about spirality of Milky-way's arms

Christopher W. Purcell, postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, and his colleagues have reported their observations in a paper, on September 15. They have reported that the spirality is a result of  the impact of Sagittarius Dwarf  during the early stages of the universe.

Supercomputers are generally used by the astrophysicists to produce a small scale simulation of what might have happened to the particular body in it's earlier stages of life. Then they would speed up the time and observed the simulated model to make further predictions of what might have happened during the course of it's life. Finally the results will be tested, observing the present universe. I hope now you understood what these simulations have got to do in our present context.
In the simulations, Purcell ended up finding two interesting things. One about the stars of the Sagittarius dwarf and other about the dark matter present in the dwarf. Our earlier observations using infrared telescopes in 2003 reported that the Dwarf had collided with the Milky-way twice as of date. Purcell says that theirs is the first ever to find out the effects of this impact on our galaxy.
Purcell says, "When all the dark matter smacked into the Milky Way, 80 to 90 percent of it was stripped off,". He added that this was when the first impact took place. He explains the spirality of the arms of Milky-way galaxy as follows: our galaxy rotates faster towards its center than towards it's edges. As a result, the instabilities were stretched and ended up forming spiral arms. The simulations conclude that by the time the second impact took place, the dwarf had completely lost it's dark matter and thus leaving free all the stars in it which then were pulled apart by the Milky-way's gravitational force.
Interesting thing about this whole story is the researches found out that the galaxy will be subjected to another impact by the next 10 million years. When asked about this Purcell said, "Immediately on the opposite side of us, we can see this blob of stars crashing into the southern face of the disc from beneath. We can measure the velocities of these stars. We know that the dwarf galaxy is just about to smash the disc—in only another 10 million years.". Lol you might be laughing after listening the left over time but let me tell you, the thing here is how appreciable the works are !! Congrats to the team and stay glued, more news about this yet to come .


Ref: eurekalert
September 15, 2011.

Pranu :-)

1 more Low-mass Extra Solar Planet

The European astronomers finally ended up with discovering a low mass extra solar planet, which was named as HD 85512b. It is discovered using the HARPS ( High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher), at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) location in La Silla, Chile. This is in the constellation Vela and is found to orbit around a star at 36 million light years away from the Earth. This planet is about 3.6 times in mass to that of the Earth, completing it's orbit around it's star within 60 days. The scientists are using a method of reflectivity to find out the reflection of the energy by the surface of the planet and more the reflection would simply imply more possibility of the planet having cloudy atmosphere. Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer with Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany says, "If we are really, really lucky, this planet could be a habitat comparable to Earth. This is a very exciting planet because if it is rocky, it will be the second confirmed planet that is within the habitable zone of its star,". Best noticeable thing out of all is that the planet is expected to have a temperatures around 30 to 50 degrees centigrade, which is an awesome thing if you can really understand !! Future studies are promised to test the nature of the planet; rocky or gaseous or anything else and as usually, as it comes to these Extra solar planets, am quite curious about the further results. Well, I seriously wish it has a rocky surface !!


Ref: ib times
September 14, 2011.

Pranu :-) 

Australia @ Astrophysics with the new CAASTRO

The all new CAASTRO (Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics) is launched today in Australia. The centre will deal with the major unsolved questions of Astronomy. Professor Bryan Gaensler from the School of Physics at the University of Sydney is the Director of the CAASTRO. Today, on the occasion of the launch of this new centre, Bryan answered to some of the questions posed by the media.

The whole system would revolve around the concept that many of the questions related to Astronomy can be solved only when we look at the sky as the whole. This is what they meant by that "All-sky Astrophysics". Bryan says that they will study on 3 main areas: Evolution, Dynamic Expansion and Dark Part of the Universe. When asked about the instruments they are going to use as a part of this new mission, he said, "You have to have telescopes that have very high quality, crisp, detailed images like Hubble but which have much wider fields of view". Regarding the budget, he announced that they have a seven year budget (of just over $4 million a year).The University of Sydney, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Swinburne University of Technology are the places from which the researchers are going to take part in this Centre. Anyways , lets wait and see if the Australians are going to be the ones answering the prominent and ultimate questions of Astronomy.

Ref: The Conversation
September 12, 2011.

Pranu :-)

Kepler 19c...Fake or Real?

Kepler 19b, the Earth like planet is doubted to have an invisible world exerting force on it. But no visible evidence is yet found. Kepler's spacecraft traces the details of the planets those pass by. The same spacecraft has found the orbit of Kepler 19b around it's star delays by about 5 minutes. This made the world doubt if there is an other invisible world which is exerting force on this Kepler 19b. This is not all but astronomers named it as Kepler 19c. Astronomer Sarah Ballard of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics says, "This invisible planet makes itself known by its influence on the planet we can see,". Once found, the things may turn out very crazy, as happened with the Neptune, which has been found by studying the unknown force acted upon the Uranus. Even the gravitational force exerted by this unknown world on the Kepler 19b is also very less, which is leaving us helpless in calculating the mass, at least. Co-author Daniel Fabrycky of the University of California, Santa Cruz says, "Kepler-19c has multiple personalities consistent with our data. For instance, it could be a rocky planet on a circular 5-day orbit, or a gas-giant planet on an oblong 100-day orbit,". I wish this is going to turn out into an amazing piece of study and anyways, Stay glued for more updates :)


Ref: Science 20
September 10, 2011

Pranu :-)

2 Days to go @ Supernova

Peter Nugent, the senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory spotted an exploding star in the Pinwheel Galaxy. 2 days more to have the best view of the supernova SN 2011fe. Its going to be September 12 when the Supernova is going to reach the maximum explosion and star the night! Wondering what's behind this Supernova getting publicized so much? Well, I've picked up 2 very good reasons for this: one is its just 25 million light years away from us and the other, its earlier spotting. Nugent says," the supernova is getting brighter by the minute, and increasing in brightness by sixfold each night". One more good news for Amateurs is no fancy or NASAian telescopes are needed to observe this. A pair of high resolution binoculars or a 3 inch long normal telescope would actually suffice. The very first thing you have to do is spot the pinwheel galaxy and then the job is over, watch the spectacular explosion. Unable to spot the Pinwheel? No problem. Find out the Big Dipper's handle and focus to the last two stars, where to the north of these stars you can find the Pinwheel galaxy. Don't miss the spectacular show by VJ SN 2011fe. Happy Watching Amateurs :-)

Ref: Los Angeles Times
September 10,2011.

Pranu :-)