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| M17. Image credit: Hillary Mathis, N.A. Sharp, REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF. Click to enlarge. |
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| What's Up This Week - August 29 - September 4, 2005 |
Aug 29, 2005 - Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! This is going to be an exciting week as we start off watching two planets get farther apart and two planets getting closer. Deep sky studies aren't always the property of telescopes, and I encourage you to turn binoculars toward the "Swan Nebula". The next seven days mean dark skies and New Moon, so hitch your wagon to a star as we fly with the "Eagle", take part in a meteor shower, learn we are not "Dumbbells", reach for the "Ring", and quest for the holy "Veil". If all this leaves you "Blinking", then best get your binoculars and telescopes ready, because...
Here's what's up! (Full Story) |
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| Book Review: The Tunguska Fireball |
| Aug 29, 2005 - Dream up an hypothesis and envelop it with supporting evidence and you're well on the way to contributing to the scientific process. Given that nature surrounds us with a veritable nirvana of wonders, this reasoning process serves us well. A case in point - many years ago, bright flashes in the sky, followed by powerful explosions, teased our imaginations and brain power then and today. Surendra Verma in his book The Tunguska Fireball plays part detective, part historian and part scientist in presenting some highly speculative yet nevertheless plausible reasons for this natural wonder. Scientific processes by their nature are based on fact, but read this and you can judge for yourself how close imagination is its parody. (Full Story) |
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| Spaceships Made from Plastic? |
| Aug 29, 2005 - Wait, don't throw that garbage bag away. It might come in handy if you wanted to build a spaceship. At least, that's what NASA scientists working on new spacecraft materials are proposing. They've invented a new polyethylene-based material called RXF1 that's even stronger and lighter than aluminum. A plastic material like this is actually surprisingly protective against solar flares and cosmic rays since it doesn't produce "secondary radiation", like aluminum. (Full Story) |
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| GALEX , one of the telescopes that will study AE Aqr. Image credit: NASA Click to enlarge |
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| Astronomers Looking for Help with Cataclysmic Variable Star |
| Aug 29, 2005 - Amateur astronomers are helping unravel mysteries about about a strange binary star system. Even though space and ground-based observatories will be observing the cataclysmic variable star AE Aqr, astronomers are calling on amateurs to make additional observations as well. AE Aqr consists of a red dwarf feeding material to a white dwarf companion star. Instead of striking the white dwarf, this material is flung out of the system by the star's intense magnetic field. Amateurs are being asked to observe this object every night until September 3. (Full Story) |
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| Saturn's Moon Pan |
| Aug 29, 2005 - If you look closely, you can just see Saturn's moon Pan, making its way in between a gap in the planet's majestic rings. Pan is only 26 km (16 miles) across, and it lives inside the Encke Gap. It's also possible to see the subtle F ring in the upper right-hand corner of the photo. Cassini took this image on August 13, 2005 when it was approximately 2.3 million km (1.5 million miles) above Saturn. (Full Story) |
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| Similar close encounter last November. Image credit: Babak A. Tafreshi Click to enlarge |
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| Venus, Jupiter and the Moon Reunited Again |
| Aug 29, 2005 - Once again, the sky is getting ready to put on a beautiful show - one that doesn't require particularly dark skies, a telescope, or lots of time to enjoy. Three of the brightest objects in the sky: Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon will gather close together over the next two weeks. Jupiter and Venus will reach their closest point on September 1, but on September 6, all three will be relatively clustered together. All you have to do to enjoy this spectacle is look to the West after sunset. (Full Story) |
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| Earth's Core Rotates Faster Than Its Crust |
| Aug 29, 2005 - According to new research from geologists, the Earth's core rotates just a little bit faster - about 1 degree per year - than the crust of the planet. The scientists took advantage of historical records for "earthquake twins" near the South Sandwich Islands. These are quakes that occurred in virtually the same spot with the same magnitude, but were years apart. As the seismic waves passed through the Earth, they were bent as they passed through the Earth's iron core. The shape of this bending has changed over time, indicating the core's faster rotation. (Full Story) |
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