These days cat videos seem to be popping up everywhere, even in outer space.
A 15-second cat video featuring Taters the cat was beamed back to Earth by laser from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft 31 million kilometers away. The spacecraft is on its way to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to study these objects.
The new laser communications system is 10–100 times faster than the radio system that NASA currently uses for deep space missions.
During the 15-second cat video, NASA downloaded 1.3 terabytes of information. That’s more data transmitted back to Earth from the entire Magellan Venus mission from 1990–1994.
The new Deep Space Optical Communications system will revolutionise communications in future NASA interplanetary missions. However, since the technology is new, NASA warns that there may be bugs.
By the way, on January 2 the Earth will be about three percent closer to the Sun at 147 million kilometers due to the elliptical orbit of the Earth around the Sun. The reason it’s cold in the northern hemisphere is due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis.
Here’s this week’s quick summary of what’s happening in the Night Sky.
The August 1 Full Moon is called the Sturgeon Moon because early Native people saw an abundance of Sturgeon in the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, these fish have declined in numbers over the years due to pollution, loss of habitat, and overfishing.
This year, the Sturgeon Moon is also a Supermoon since the Earth sits a little closer to the Moon. That’s because the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical and the distance from the Earth to the Moon varies and isn’t always the same.
When there is a Full Moon at the same time that the moon is at its closest distance to the Earth there will be a Supermoon. When this happens, the Full Moon may seem a little brighter and bigger than usual.
As a bonus this month we have two Full Moons. When this happens, the second Full Moon, which is on August 30 is called a Blue Moon. This second Full Moon of the month will also be a Supermoon.
We won’t have two Supermoon Full Moons in a single month again until 2037. Also, this year we have four supermoons right in a row beginning in July and ending in September.
Also, on August 3, you can see the Moon close to the planet Saturn in the southern morning sky.
Take care everyone and make sure you take the time to explore your night sky.
Make your lunar observing sessions more productive with LunarPhase Pro (affiliate link).
July is prime time to see the core of our home galaxy,y the Milky Way, which is 30,000 light years away. It can be seen in the southern evening sky as a band of stars. Each star is a Sun that could have planets with life. Often, as I gaze here, I wonder who’s looking back.
Redish planet Mars is now at its furthest and dimmest and will be closest to blue-white star Regulus on July 9 and 10 in the western evening sky. You can see the contrast in colors through binoculars.
Giant planets Jupiter and Saturn can be seen in the late evening and morning sky. On July 11 Jupiter is under the crescent Moon in the east.
At this time of year, if you look southward in the evening sky, you’ll see two bright stars including starlight from the star Arcturus that opened the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Organizers from the early 20th century were looking for a memorable way to open the event and they found something that made a stellar performance.
At the time, Arcturus was believed to be 40 light years from Earth. A light year is the amount of time that light travels in one year traveling at about 186,000 miles per second.
What a coincidence, since the last World’s Fair also happened 40 years ago in 1893, they thought of an idea that would tie the events together on a universal level.
At 9:15 a.m. Chicago time on May 27, 1933, light from the star Arcturus was focused through telescopes onto photoelectric cells. Photoelectric cells were new technology at the time.
The starlight created electricity on the cells that switched on the floodlights to light up the 1933 World’s Fair exhibition grounds. A very cool idea to link astronomy and the universe to a progressive world event.
It was a great idea, but unfortunately but we now know that the star is closer to 37 light-years not 40 light-years away. The light actually started making its journey from Arcturus in 1896, not 1893.
Let that be a lesson to you that everything in astronomy changes.
Arcturus is a bright giant orange-red star in the constellation Bootes, the Herdsman, and is the fourth brightest star in the night sky. It’s also more than seven billion years old. Our Sun by comparison is just a youngster of about five billion years old.
Some astronomers believe that Arcturus could be approaching its later stages of life. Stars such as our Sun, fuse hydrogen nuclear particles together to form energy. That’s how light is created in the Sun.
However, Arcturus is believed to have used most of its hydrogen and is now in the stages of fusing heavier elements such as carbon. Most of its energy is also radiated as heat.
Spica is the other bright star that can be seen now in the southern sky. It’s a blue-white star in the constellation Virgo, the Maiden and it’s further away from us than Arcturus at about 250 light years away.
It’s actually two stars orbiting each other every four days at a distance closer than the orbits between Mercury and our Sun.
Spica and Arcturus are easy to find. Just find the Big Dipper, and make an arc to bright star Arcturus then spike down to Spica.
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Scientists now think that amino acids, the building blocks of life, could have formed in interstellar clouds before hitching a ride on asteroids that crashed into the Earth.
This week if you look into the west after sunset, you’ll notice bright Venus getting higher every night. Interestingly, it’s always at the same point in the sky every eight years. Ancient Mayans saw significance in this rhythm and inscribed their observations onto their monument.
If you turn to the southern evening sky, you’ll see the constellation Orion the Hunter standing tall, and beside him to the left is the brightest star in the night sky Sirius. Ancient Egyptians praised Sirius because it appeared in the night sky just before the annual flooding of the Nile.
My name is Mario Carr with the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers. Stay safe everyone and remember to take the time to explore your night sky.
In the 1800s, Medical doctor Henry Draper assisted by his wife Mary Anna made significant contributions to astronomy.
They both loved astronomy as much as they loved each other.
Their plan was to study the stars together when he retired. However, when Henry died early in 1882 Mary Anna was devasted. She donated Henery’s equipment and money since she was wealthy to the Harvard College Observatory.
Harvard used her funds to hire women as computers in the observatory. Henrietta Swan Levitt was one of them and devised a method to calculate distances to far-away objects, which showed that the universe was bigger than once thought. It changed astronomy forever.
The stars that Levitt was studying are known as Cepheid variables that vary in brightness, named after the first star of this type discovered in the constellation Cepheus. Cepheid variables are pulsating stars that brighten and dim in a regular pattern.
Levitt noticed that the brighter Cepheid variables had longer periods of brightness. There was a precise relationship between time and brightness. This allowed her to calculate the distance to any Cepheid variable just by observing its period.
Levitt’s discovery was a breakthrough in astronomy, as it allowed for the measurement of distances to stars and galaxies that were too far away to be measured by any other method. Before Levitt’s discovery, astronomers had tried to measure the distance to these objects using various methods, but they were often inaccurate and unreliable.
One of the first applications of Levitt’s discovery was to measure the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest galaxy to the Milky Way. In 1923, the astronomer Edwin Hubble used Cepheid variables to measure the distance to Andromeda and found it was about 2.5 million light years, farther away than previously thought.
This meant that the universe was much larger than anyone had imagined and that there were many more galaxies beyond the Milky Way. Today, the Cepheid variable method is still widely used by astronomers to measure the distance to stars and galaxies, and it continues to help us understand the vast and complex universe in which we live.
Hubble and others thought she should have received a Noble Prize for her work. But she didn’t.
Just think about it, this incredible method of finding distances to faraway stars wouldn’t have occurred without the love of astronomy and the love between Henry Draper and his wife Mary Anna.
By the way, the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers is having a telescope clinic Saturday, February 18, 2023, 2– 4 pm at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton, Ontario.
Stay safe everyone. Remember to take the time to explore your night sky.
On February 5, this month’s Full Moon is called the Snow Full Moon due to the fact that we get a lot of snow in February and this month hasn’t been an exception so far this month. It’s also called the Bear Full Moon by some indigenous people.
You can see it in the eastern sky near the bright star Regulus in the constellation Leo the Lion. Also tonight and for the rest of the month, if you look into the western early evening sky just after sunset, you’ll see two bright planets. Venus is just above the horizon and above Venus is bright Jupiter.
As the month progresses, the two planets will get closer together until they merge on March 1. Stay safe everyone and remember, make sure you take the time to explore your night sky.
Astronomy can be a great way to ignite a young child’s imagination to teach them how to read. It might stimulate their interest in other STEM subjects that could lead to a high-paying career.
If your child is having trouble reading, an astronomy book might be a good way to help them. Your first step is to develop their curiosity about the universe. Maybe one clear night you could take them out in the backyard to stargaze and look at the Moon, stars, and planets.
Show them well-known constellations such as Orion, and the Big Dipper to peak their curiosities. Ask your child questions about the night sky, such as:
What do you think the Moon is made of?
How far do you think the Moon, planets, and stars are?
What are the stars made of?
The number of questions to ask is endless. This will lead to more questions and develop a curiosity about the night sky that only a good astronomy book can answer. You could even turn their bedroom into a cool planetarium.
Every week, you could take them on a fun journey to the library and check out some books about astronomy. You could read about the solar system, the stars, and the planets. They could learn about the moon, its phases, and how it affects the tides.
They could even read about black holes and the mysterious universe beyond our own. Hopefully, your child will become so fascinated by what they’re learning that they can’t wait to read more. Look for books that explain space and astronomy in an easy-to-understand way.
Some classics are”The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System” by Joanna Cole and “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown. This classic bedtime story is beloved by children and parents alike and features a soothing rhythm and repetition that make it easy for young readers to follow along.
The book takes the reader on a journey through the night sky, bidding goodnight to the moon, stars, and other celestial objects. The colorful illustrations and simple text make it a great choice for young children just beginning to learn to read.
Thanks to your efforts, your child’s reading skills can improve dramatically. Instead of a hard task, they could see it as a way to explore the amazing universe around them. Every time they looked up at the night sky, they might remember all the exciting things they learned in the books.
Getting your child interested in outer space can make them confident readers with a lifelong love of astronomy. They might spend hours outside, looking up at the stars and dreaming about the possibilities of space and their future careers
Who knows someday they could become an astronaut or a famous astronomer all thanks to that first night that you stepped out in the backyard to stargaze.
Night Sky Mario 