Edible Asteroids?!?!?

As a classroom activity to get elementary school interested in space rocks, NASA has cooked up a recipe to make your own "edible rocks." Go here for the recipe, and enjoy! Please let me know below how it tastes, I'm always on the look out for good recipes.

Human History of the Perseid Meteor Shower

Peaking right about now is the the Perseid Meteor shower, when the Earth runs into debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle as it orbits around the Sun - causing these rocks to enter the Earth's atmosphere where they burn up as little meteorites should, producing lovely little trails of fire. In today's New York Times there is an interesting article by Prof. Christopher Cokinos of Utah State University on the history of this meteor show. Go here to read it, I personally enjoyed it quite a bit. Enjoy!

Perseid Meteor Show

The Perseid meteor shower, one of the most active of the year, will peak between sunset on Tuesday, August 11th, and sun rise on Wednesday, August 12th. This is the result of the Earth passing through the tail of dust and ice left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle as it passes around the Sun. This material isn't stationary, but actually in orbit around the Sun, which is why each year the Earth hits some material. This year the Earth is expected to pass through a denser-than-usual filament of dust, so it should be even more active than normal - with a meteor rates possibly as high as 200 per hour. For more information on this event, read this NASA Science article and visit spaceweather.com. Lots of Astronomy clubs in the NY area are holding observing events, look at the calendar to the right to see if there are any convenient for you. Enjoy!

Also, if you take any pictures, I'd love to link to them from this site. Just leave the URLs in the comments section below.

Perseid Meteor Shower

Earth, as it travels around the Sun, is passing through the trail of ice and dust left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle (again), bringing not death and destruction but a very pretty sky show (for free!) known as the Perseid Meteor shower. Go here to read a NASA science article with more details - the Perseid meteor shower is one of most active, and really is a site to behold. Please leave below links to any pictures you take of this event, I'd love to see them. Enjoy!

Peak of Lyrid Meteor Shower tomorrow morning

Earth is currently passing through the stream of debris left behind by Comet Thatcher as it orbits the sun, are the resulting (Lyrid) meteor shower should peak tomorrow morning before dawn
with 10-20 meteors per hour crashing through the northern hemisphere. For full coverage, go here. And don't forget the Moon occulting Venus tomorrow morning around 5 AM. Go here for more information, and hope for clear skies!

Description of October 29th Radio Show: Evolution of Low Mass Stars

Long available here, below is a detailed description of the October 29th edition of this radio show. On this program I talked about:

• Opening Song: Why Are Stars of Different Colors? by Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans
• News: Phoenix Mars Lander survives a dust storm that lowered its solar power intake (link), HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter sees evidence for a crater underneath the polar ice caps on Mars (link) and the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer sees evidence for opal on Martian surface - evidence for the presence of liquid water at some point in the past; detection of plumes of methane erupting on Martian surface may change landing location for future Mars Science Laboratory rover; both NASA and ESA having major cost overruns on next generation Mars missions; images of Mars's moon Phobos by Mars Express satellite suggests it is a rubble pile of many smaller asteroids stuck together; Cassini successfully sweeps into geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus; radio observations of the nucleus of the Comet Tuttle suggests it consists of two objects orbiting each other very closely; new comet discovered by Rob Cardinal at University of Calgary (link); University of Western Ontario automated cameras video another meteor crashing down on Earth (link, videos); NASA launches IBEX spacecraft to study particles accelerated at the boundary of our Solar System (link); India launches its first spacecraft to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1 (link) - contains instruments built by NASA and ESA; NASA's next Lunar spacecraft, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, begins testing before launch; congrats to Armadillo Aerospace for winning prizes at NASA's recent Lunar Landing Challenge; ESA hosts university challenge for Lunar Rovers; NASA tests its own future lunar rovers in Arizona and Hawaii (link); NASA and Challenger Center for Space Education host naming contest for astronaut housing prototype in Antarctica (link); waterless concrete developed to built structure on the Moon using only the lunar surface (link); ESA develops "replicators" to build future structure on Mars (link); backup computer on Hubble Space Telescope has glitch, causing spacecraft to go into safe mode (since resolved); ESA lost contact with XMM-Newton temporarily, since restored; Fermi Gamma Space Telescope (born GLAST) discovers first gamma-ray only pulsar (link); letter in Science about funding GLAST and Advanced Technology Solar Telescope; ESA satellite GOCE delayed due to rocket malfunction, cause identified; continued fighting over AMS experiment to Space Station; NASA reinstalls mirror on SOFIA observatory, scientists selected to do projects with this observatory; congrats to Kenneth Ford for becoming chairman of NASA Advisory Council Service and to Expedition 17 to the International Space Station for safe return home; Great World Wide Star Count begins.
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (a response to this and this ESPN column): eta Carinae's bright flash not a supernova but something else, sci-fi explanations not science, I agree that launch of Chandrayaan-1 does not represent a decline in US capabilities at all.
• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy and science events in the greater Poughkeepsie and New York City area.
• Evolution of Low-Mass Stars: The definition here of low mass stars are stars born with a mass less than eight times that of the Sun, because these stars do NOT end their life in a core-collapse supernova. When these stars fuse all of their hydrogen to helium, fusion stops and they contract. As they contract, the stars core will get hot enough and dense enough to fuse helium to heavier elements. Helium fusion releases more energy than Hydrogen fusion, causing star to expand again and possibly blowing off outer layer. This results in structures called planetary nebula, and this mass loss process is poorly understood but important in understanding effect of stars on their surroundings. New observing techniques (link) being developed to better study this. Images of planetary nebula, like Cat's Eye Nebula and NGC 2371 (link) suggest process extremely complicated and variable. When Helium fusion stops, star's core begins to collapse again. In doesn't get dense or hot enough to fuse these heavier elements, but electrons in the core get close enough that their repulsion supports the core from gravity (this is called "electron degeneracy pressure"). Such an object is called a white dwarf. The internal structure of white dwarfs is poorly understood, and the best way to study it is by looking a pulsations from them. "Starquakes" in a white dwarf will change the brightness, and by studying these pulsations can learn about their structure. A new campaign to do this by the Whole Earth Telescope has begun (link). These pulsations also depend on the chemical composition of the white dwarf, and for the first time were detected from a Carbon white dwarf (link). Young white dwarfs produce a lot of ultraviolet light, which ionizes and illuminates the planetary nebula produced by the progenitor star - though in one case the white dwarf response for this has yet to be detected (link). If a white dwarf is close to another star, matter from that star will flow onto the surface of the white dwarf. This matter, as it accumulates will heat up until it is hot and dense enough to star fusion, releasing a flash of light called a "nova". XMM-Newton serendipitously observed X-ray from such a nova produced by a previously unknown white dwarf. Mass flowing from one object to another often produces radio jets - radio emission from fast moving material flowing AWAY from the central source. These jets had not been observed from a type of white dwarf system, until now. These nova explosions also believed to produce dust - the fusion creates heavier elements which, as they cool, condense to dust grains. Recent observations of a nova in 2006 suggests this might not be the case (link) for this one, though dust production has been observed in other novae (for example, this one.). If a white dwarf accumulates so much material that electron degeneracy pressure can no longer support it against gravity, it explodes in an event called a Type Ia supernova. How it explodes is currently unknown, and being simulated on lots of super-computers at the University of Chicago (link) - among other places. Additionally, it has been theorized that a white dwarf which passes to close to a black hole might be ripped apart and explode (link).
• Closing Song: Wolf 359 by The Chromatics

Thank you very much for listening. As always, any questions, comments, or concerns are deeply appreciated.

New video of meteor falling to Earth

The University of Western Ontario Meteor Group has a network of cameras which scan the sky looking for previously unknown meteorites falling onto Earth. On October 15th they saw one, and you watch the pretty incredible videos here. Enjoy!

Taurid Meteor Shower

Going on now till November 12th is the Taurid Meteor Shower, so named because the meteors appear to come from the direction of the Taurus constellation. This meteor shower is the result of the Earth passing through the debris field left by comet 2P/Encke as it orbits the Sun, and this year it is believed the Earth is passing through a dense region - making for a more spectacular shower. The best time to look is during the hours around midnight when the constellation Taurus is high in the sky, and go here for more info. Enjoy!

Orionid meteor shower tomorrow morning

Before sunrise tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct. 21st) is a good time to see the annual Orionid meteor shower which peaks today and tomorrow. This meteor shower is caused by the Earth passing through the dusty debris from Halley's Comet, but is hard to observed during the night due to the Full moon. Check out spaceweather.com for updates and a sky map, and happy meteor hunting!

September Perseid Shower

According to spaceweather.com, yesterday morning all-sky cameras at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recorded 25+ meteors, most as bright as Jupiter or Venus, which are believed to be an outburst of "September Perseids," a little-known shower that has erupted this way three times in the past century. I actually saw a shooting star this morning while driving from New York City to Poughkeepsie, so this rare meteor shower might be visible tonight as well. Happy meteor hunting!

eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

Courtesy of spaceweather.com:

"ETA AQUARID METEOR SHOWER: If you see a meteor flit across the sky tonight, it could be a piece of Halley's Comet. Earth is crossing a stream of dusty debris from Halley and this is causing the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. Sky watchers in the tropics and southern hemisphere (where the shower is most intense) could see as many as 70 meteors per hour during the dark hours before dawn on Monday, May 5th, and Tuesday, May 6th. The show is diminished at northern latitudes where rates may be 15 meteors per hour or less. Check http://spaceweather.com for sky maps and more information."

Happy meteor shower watching!

March 12th show online

I know it is unconscionably late, but the 2008 March 12th show is finally online and available here. On this program, I discussed:

• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/science events in the greater New York and Poughkeepsie area
• Interview with Dr. Tod Strohmayer of Goddard Space Flight Center on accreting neutron stars, and what you can learn by observing them with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
• News:Doritos plans to broadcast advertisement into space; astronomers at University of Western Ontario videotape a meteor falling to Earth - numerous on-going and future projects are trying to identify and track such Near-Earth Objects before they hit the Earth; with Spring beginning, so is peak Aurora Borealis season - likely the result of a favorable alignment between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind; Cassini to dive into the water plume being ejected by Saturn's moon Enceladus

Thank you very much for your patience, and hope you enjoyed listening to it. As always, please email me any questions you might have or leave them below.