Friday, 31 August 2012

amateur observing - Apparent size of M31

I am trying to understand something I read on wikipedia about M31.



Wikipedia says that M31 appears more than six times as wide as the full Moon.



But I remember that when I watched it naked eye it seamed a lot smaller, even considering that I was able to see only the central region. For this reason I also used the software Stellarium to check it and setting the same magnification for the two objects (see pictures), the wikipedia information still seems wrong ... or most likely I am wrong!



Where is that I fail?



"At an apparent magnitude of 3.4, the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the brightest Messier objects,[15] making it visible to the naked eye on moonless nights even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution. Although it appears more than six times as wide as the full Moon when photographed through a larger telescope, only the brighter central region is visible to the naked eye or when viewed using binoculars or a small telescope"



M31



Moon

Thursday, 30 August 2012

Milky Way Galaxy from Earth

The Milky Way Galaxy is a large spiral galaxy with some characteristic features worth mentioning:



1) The bulge - This refers to the collection of tightly packed stars located in the central region of the galaxy.



2) The spiral arms or the disk - This region extends from the inner region of the galaxy (where it meets the bulge) to outskirts of the galaxy, and contains stars, dust, and lots of gas. It's also very thin. The reason why a disk forms is largely thought to be due to slight asymmetries in the accretion of material early on in the galaxy's history. Over time, and due to conservation of angular momentum, the material collapses down into a disk. Incidentally, this is where the sun lives.



Diagram of galactic components.



That ribbon is the disk of the Milky Way. It looks cloudy because of the dust and gas which scatters light from the rest of the galaxy. The reason why gas accumulates here is because as things begin to collapse into a disk, the gas collides with itself, and sort of 'sticks' together. In other words, where a bunch of stars may very happily pass through a bunch of other stars without many of them colliding or being disturbed, gas has a much harder time doing this. If you want to learn more about what happens when galaxies and clusters collide, take a look at the Bullet Cluster.



Milky Way cartoon.



The majority of the other stars you you see which are not part of that structure are much more local. The reason why the rest of the sky looks rather transparent in comparison is because you are looking out of the plane of the galaxy. There is simply much less stuff (namely gas and dust which obscures your sight in optical wavelengths) that you are looking through. Because of this, most optical telescopes look in these directions when studying the rest of the universe.



For more about the classification and structures of galaxies, see the Hubble sequence.

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

length of Star lifetime - Astronomy


Why isn't this so?




If the mass of the star is about 1/4 the mass of our sun, then the core's (where fusion occurs) temperature and pressure will never be enough to fuse anything other than hydrogen into helium. The death of this star may be something like a fire dying. The flames disappear for a while, then you may get one or 2 popping back into existence.



Our sun will start to fuse helium into carbon before all the hydrogen in the core is used. In the description of a heavy star, it is described as a onion with its layers with the higher fusion products occurring in the lower layers. They use this model since the iron fusion requires temperature and pressures above a certain level. Neon has lower requirements, but still greater than carbon fusion, and so on. What is not mentioned, is that there is still hydrogen fusion occurring in the center, as well as all the other fusion, helium, carbon, neon, etc.

solar system - Are Barlow lenses stackable for bright objects?

Yes, stacking Barlow lenses is a common practice to effectively increase focal length by multiplying their individual focal lengths. When I say common, most advanced eyepieces actually have many glass elements and are a type of a Barlow lens themselves, so just by using a single Barlow lens in front of your eyepiece you'd already be, technically, stacking Barlows. It is a technique that is particularly useful for bright object like our Solar system's planets, with Jupiter that you mention perhaps even the best example.



Your image quality might vary substantially tho with the Barlow and eyepiece quality of glass elements and the manufacturing precision. You might also want to play with the order at which you stack them and find an optimal arrangement of all of the glass elements they add to the system. The more precisely they're made, the less the order will matter though. And you'd technically want the less precise ones at the end of the stack, so their deficiencies don't magnify with each added element. And yes, with any additional glass element you'll be losing a bit of the illumination so this is, like mentioned, most suitable for bright objects.



Do not however, under any circumstances, do this when observing the Sun! You shouldn't need additional glass elements anyway, but should you try, you'll most certainly cause them to overheat, expand and permanently deform quite fast, regardless what material their tube and thread are made of, metal, alloy or plastic.

Sunday, 26 August 2012

Has the conjunction between Venus, Jupiter, and Regulus only occurred twice in 2,000 years?

The 2 BCE conjunction had Regulus, Jupiter, and Venus within 5.346
degres, and the Sun was 19.371 degrees distant.



The 2015 conjunction had the three within 5.488 degrees, with the Sun
30.930 degrees away.



There are 81 conjunctions between those two dates where Regulus,
Jupiter, and Venus are less than 5.488 degrees apart, although, in
some cases, the Sun would be too close to see these conjunctions.



I list all of these conjunctions below, and also include conjunctions
as far back as 999 BCE and as far forward as 2999 CE.



The first two columns are the date and time.



The third column is the maximum pairwise separation (in degrees) of
Regulus, Jupiter, and Venus.



The fourth column is the smallest angular distance from the Sun (in
degrees) of the three.



Additional notes follow the list:




-998-08-13 17:47:22 4.460 17.341
-986-06-14 19:33:17 5.078 31.064
-962-06-13 20:42:13 1.599 37.154
-939-08-24 16:05:37 0.960 32.337
-903-06-23 23:23:31 4.166 23.499
-879-06-22 18:41:22 2.388 28.906
-856-09-02 02:38:31 0.900 40.426
-820-07-03 18:56:04 3.059 15.483
-796-07-02 11:36:42 3.326 19.880
-773-09-09 05:10:53 2.068 46.122
-737-07-14 22:02:17 1.914 7.202
-713-07-13 13:16:57 4.432 10.473
-654-07-25 04:03:45 0.919 0.676
-618-06-16 16:24:53 2.111 36.170
-571-08-04 08:00:55 0.890 9.482
-535-06-08 09:43:32 1.519 43.497
-512-08-15 20:18:35 4.304 21.310
-488-08-14 11:02:13 2.216 17.658
-452-06-14 20:40:52 1.507 38.039
-429-08-26 12:36:08 3.022 30.516
-405-08-25 05:36:22 3.500 25.655
-369-06-24 14:26:28 1.383 30.683
-346-09-04 07:24:03 2.055 38.915
-322-09-03 07:20:58 4.678 33.128
-310-07-05 12:23:59 4.755 15.643
-286-07-04 05:57:12 1.723 21.719
-263-09-10 01:35:27 1.743 44.339
-239-09-10 16:58:48 5.467 39.382
-227-07-15 14:17:13 3.299 7.717
-203-07-14 05:55:31 3.137 12.390
-156-09-12 06:11:05 5.008 41.107
-144-07-25 20:01:44 1.779 0.850
-132-06-30 22:00:27 4.887 21.625
-120-07-24 10:48:43 4.594 2.846
-61-08-06 01:53:32 0.781 8.312
-25-06-11 09:01:53 2.012 43.414
-2-08-17 13:43:06 5.346 19.371 (conjunction in 2 BCE)

-1-06-11 09:00:23 4.978 45.464
22-08-16 03:46:55 1.066 16.885
58-06-16 21:31:59 1.924 38.499
81-08-27 08:28:28 4.344 28.668
82-06-16 01:28:35 4.809 41.268
105-08-26 00:47:42 2.203 25.078
141-06-25 09:01:41 1.347 31.319
164-09-05 10:04:04 3.548 37.319
165-06-24 06:31:05 5.379 33.701
188-09-04 07:11:50 3.049 33.055
224-07-04 23:17:54 1.226 23.421
247-09-13 15:10:43 3.233 44.173
271-09-13 05:17:58 3.587 40.061
283-07-17 06:44:26 5.353 7.568
307-07-15 23:33:14 1.106 14.268
330-09-10 21:05:11 4.715 41.177
354-09-17 08:06:60 3.418 44.034
366-07-27 11:51:60 3.985 0.992
390-07-26 03:05:29 2.339 4.782
449-08-06 18:09:31 2.584 6.358
473-08-05 08:52:09 3.774 1.408
485-06-13 23:13:34 3.793 41.669
509-06-14 10:03:10 3.248 45.079
532-08-16 22:56:25 1.136 15.985
556-08-15 13:18:21 5.306 9.232
568-06-18 04:59:43 3.729 37.949
592-06-17 10:00:36 3.097 42.534
615-08-27 17:07:18 0.513 24.909
651-06-27 07:39:52 2.799 31.415
674-09-07 10:08:57 5.021 35.627
675-06-26 05:23:47 3.875 35.349
698-09-06 05:27:18 1.613 32.746
734-07-06 15:41:56 1.585 24.008
757-09-15 06:00:16 4.344 43.078
758-07-05 10:40:10 4.927 26.804
781-09-14 13:11:04 2.606 39.663
817-07-16 15:15:47 1.096 16.042
840-09-17 11:49:26 4.635 45.023
864-09-19 23:02:46 2.770 44.576
876-07-28 03:47:10 5.109 0.757
900-07-26 19:38:38 1.354 6.699
959-08-08 09:59:38 3.685 4.399
983-08-07 01:00:51 2.596 0.922
995-06-18 07:09:17 4.556 40.276
1019-06-19 20:30:29 2.698 43.446
1042-08-18 14:56:17 2.469 14.017
1066-08-17 05:54:20 3.837 8.756
1078-06-20 14:43:27 5.059 37.822
1102-06-19 21:49:33 1.707 43.667
1125-08-28 15:18:36 1.383 23.486
1149-08-27 06:37:45 4.987 17.075
1161-06-28 07:08:46 4.549 31.267
1185-06-27 05:43:18 2.039 36.937
1208-09-07 05:59:08 0.502 32.528
1244-07-07 11:31:14 3.647 23.669
1268-07-06 06:22:18 2.826 28.583
1291-09-17 00:48:31 0.553 40.580
1327-07-18 07:04:40 2.460 15.742
1351-07-17 00:10:09 3.975 19.529
1374-09-23 07:58:08 1.568 46.055
1410-07-28 09:20:39 1.073 7.770
1434-07-27 02:11:36 5.317 10.122
1493-08-07 16:51:42 0.882 0.938
1529-06-29 06:47:15 2.990 37.035
1552-08-19 07:13:29 4.307 12.057
1576-08-17 22:28:03 2.198 8.457
1612-07-01 16:15:13 0.936 44.541
1635-09-09 08:38:22 2.760 21.568
1659-09-08 00:14:25 3.635 16.511
1695-07-09 07:11:03 1.123 38.488
1718-09-20 00:58:55 1.552 30.735
1742-09-18 17:58:01 4.959 24.413
1754-07-20 07:11:04 4.686 24.403
1778-07-19 02:46:21 1.812 30.338
1801-09-29 19:39:12 0.682 39.105
1837-07-31 00:36:14 3.503 16.558
1861-07-29 17:54:30 2.897 21.392
1884-10-06 07:55:46 1.204 45.253
1920-08-11 02:21:34 2.259 8.435
1944-08-09 18:40:08 4.058 12.042
2003-08-22 07:15:20 1.041 0.825

2015-07-16 11:48:33 5.488 30.930 (conjunction in 2015 CE)
2027-08-20 23:44:27 5.261 2.523
2086-09-01 14:32:37 0.790 8.374
2122-07-08 16:51:26 1.516 43.744
2145-09-14 01:53:17 4.836 19.637
2146-07-08 12:23:30 5.417 45.470
2169-09-12 17:38:23 1.559 16.679
2205-07-15 09:10:00 1.372 38.734
2228-09-24 20:25:03 3.776 28.900
2229-07-14 10:39:27 5.357 41.055
2252-09-23 13:21:48 2.792 24.725
2288-07-23 23:00:59 1.054 31.616
2311-10-05 21:49:18 2.753 37.499
2335-10-04 18:19:54 3.841 32.416
2371-08-04 11:28:25 1.029 23.258
2394-10-13 02:17:26 2.210 44.307
2418-10-12 12:48:16 4.632 38.993
2430-08-15 18:58:06 4.175 8.408
2454-08-14 11:37:59 2.188 13.939
2477-10-10 03:40:59 3.897 41.142
2501-10-16 12:47:51 4.549 41.762
2513-08-26 23:54:34 2.667 0.875
2537-08-25 15:50:58 3.690 4.447
2596-09-06 05:26:08 1.151 6.635
2620-09-05 21:40:43 5.240 0.897
2632-07-15 02:33:17 2.386 43.108
2656-07-15 11:20:55 4.650 45.236
2679-09-18 10:25:21 0.705 15.875
2715-07-21 15:26:25 2.319 39.102
2738-09-30 15:29:27 4.810 27.036
2739-07-20 18:15:52 4.425 42.356
2762-09-29 08:12:17 1.644 24.014
2798-07-29 19:09:49 1.599 32.315
2821-10-09 21:38:10 3.932 35.818
2822-07-28 16:03:44 4.946 35.075
2845-10-08 17:02:38 2.697 31.836
2881-08-08 05:45:37 0.984 24.514
2904-10-18 16:53:19 3.435 43.217
2928-10-17 21:25:11 3.325 38.965
2964-08-19 03:36:41 0.956 15.872
2987-10-21 20:20:21 4.041 45.058


Notes:



  • You can (and should) check these numbers against a reliable source, such as Stellarium or HORIZONS (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons)


  • These numbers are imperfect for several reasons:



    • Like most planetarium programs, I neglect light travel
      time (Stellarium neglects light travel time by default, but you
      can change this in the settings). This is probably the largest
      error in the numbers above.


    • NASA solves differential equations from known constants to
      publish planetary positions. The constants aren't necessarily
      accurate (they are updated occasionally), and NASA publishes only
      approximations to the differential equations solutions. The
      approximations are usually good within a few meters, but if the
      constants were/are drastically different in the past/future
      (and/or are erroneous), these results would not apply.



  • My methodology:



    • I used the SPICE kernels
      (http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/toolkit_docs/C/req/kernel.html)
      to find the positions of Jupiter and Venus (in the ICRF J2000
      frame) daily from 999 BCE to 2999 CE.


    • I assumed the position of Regulus was constant in the ICRF J2000
      frame. Since ICRF J2000 is a non-precessing frame, this is
      essentially accurate, but neglects Regulus' small proper motion.


    • I computed the daily maximal angular separation between Jupiter,
      Venus, and Regulus.


    • I found local minima among the daily separations, and used the
      ternary method to find the instant of the actual local minimum.


    • I looked at the separations for 2 BCE and 2015 CE, and filtered
      the results to only show conjunctions with separations less than
      the maximum of these two separations.


    • I computed the position of the Sun on the filtered list, and
      included the separation between the Sun and the closest of the
      Jupiter, Regulus, and Venus.


    • I did most of the work in Mathematica, but used the Unix program
      j2d to convert Julian dates to calendar dates, because Mathematica
      uses the proleptic Gregorian calendar, which most people do not
      use.


    • You can see what I did (in extremely cluttered form) at:



https://github.com/barrycarter/bcapps/tree/master/ASTRO



  • I wanted to present the results in a sortable HTML table, but
    stackexchange doesn't allow tables of any sort.


  • Here are Stellarium screenshots of some of these
    conjunctions. Regulus is the light blue star, Venus is bright
    yellow, and Jupiter is the one with the moons. The object I've
    selected (if any) is not necessarily relevant to the conjunction.


enter image description here
enter image description here
enter image description here
enter image description here

Could the earth's atmosphere have been partially stripped by a passing rogue planet?

Very interesting question. I'm okay with this question being here since you specifically ask for the effect of rogue planets on Earth's atmosphere. Thinking "astronomically" could be useful in coming to conclusions about whether or not your idea is even a possibility.



When I saw this I instantly thought of ice cores, since trapped gas bubbles could tell you about the composition of the atmosphere. Unfortunately ice cores go nowhere near that far back to be able to tell you about the composition of the atmosphere during the Mesozoic.



Now for the answer:



I can't really speak to the title of your question effectively, since I am unaware of any research involving rogue planets and atmospheric stripping, however, from an astronomy point of view, here is one other thing I would like to point out that may work to reduce the thickness of the atmosphere with time.



  • A small fraction of the gasses of the atmosphere exceed the escape velocity of Earth at any given time. Over time, many of these gasses get bombarded by high energy photons (as well as other particles) and fly out of Earth's gravitational potential well. If there are no other sources of these lighter gasses then there is a net loss.

maxwell-boltzmann



Temperature does play a key role here (as the above plot suggests), but regardless, this process works to reduce the amount of atoms and molecules in the atmosphere (and it affects smaller mass atoms/molecules more so than heavier ones - this is why the Martian atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide. Essentially it wasn't massive enough to be able to hold on to its lighter gasses, and over time the vast majority of them escaped).



If you had temperature information going back as far as the Mesozoic era, you could in theory run the clock backwards by running a simulation of the evolution of the atmosphere. I don't know how helpful this would really be (or how accurate), since there are potentially other things like volcanic outgassing and the bi-products of living things to complicate the situation. Quite honestly, I know little about these topics and so I couldn't tell you whether there is a net loss or gain of atmospheric gasses.



  • As far as rogue planets are concerned, I would find it rather unlikely that such a massive object would still be lurking around the solar system between about 252 to 66 million years ago. The early solar system was certainly more chaotic than it is now (for example, Giant impact hypothesis: $sim 4.5$ Gya; the collision which caused Uranus' tilt: a few billion years ago), however it is not out of the realm of possibility.

Saturday, 25 August 2012

orbital mechanics - Sending a satellite towards or away from the Sun

Well, the way you said it isn't quite right. You could spend the same $Delta V$ to escape Earth in one direction as the other, and in one direction you would move away from the Sun, and in the other direction you would move towards it.



What I think you're referring to is the fact that it would take far less $Delta V$ from Earth to escape the Solar System than it would to reach the Sun and touch its surface. From low-Earth orbit, it takes $8.75,mathrm{km/s}$ to escape the Solar System completely, but it takes $16.8,mathrm{km/s}$ to dive into the Sun from low-Earth orbit.



Of course, you wouldn't do that $Delta V$ yourself. In either direction, you would use Jupiter to send you in or out (or perhaps even in for the out case, if you want to do an escape maneuver near the Sun, which can be very efficient).

Thursday, 23 August 2012

cosmology - How to determine scalar-to-tensor ratio r from CMB polarization spectrum?

CMB polarization spectrum can tell us about the primordial scalar and tensor perturbation. By analyze B and E mode angular spectrum power spectrum and temperature power spectrum we can determine the scalar-to-tensor ratio r, as many articles implies.



I know that r is defined by the ration of amplitude of primordial tensor and scalar perturbation. But what we in fact measure is the power spectra. So I wonder how can we get the value of r from the spectra we measure thus we can study the physics of primordial perturbations and inflation.

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

When the set of official dwarf planets is expected to increase?

As I noted in a previous answer, the official body for naming and classification of astronomical objects is the International Astronomical Union, or IAU. They are the ones responsible for designating bodies as "planets," "dwarf planets," etc. The scientific community recognizes them and their decisions as "official."



The IAU meets periodically for General Assemblies to discuss general issue; the next such meeting is scheduled for 2015. The topics discussed may range widely, covering all sub-fields of astronomy. Unfortunately, I don't know the exact topics for discussion, and while I imagine there will be a wide range, issues relating to dwarf planets may not be covered. However, the IAU does meet in between these meetings to discuss a variet of topics.



That might answer your question, but if you're talking about the possible discovery of dwarf-planet-like bodies, I can't help you. There are probably many on-going efforts to search for small bodies within our solar system, but I don't know of any recent discoveries of possible dwarf planet candidates.



I hope this helps.

Monday, 20 August 2012

telescope - What visual artifacts are expected from the JWST?

Are you asking about the PSF (point-spread function)?



There are some simulations at http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/software/webbpsf ; there are some basic images available at that site as well as a downloadable package you can use to compute the PSF for a particular instrument and wavelength. Since the telescope hasn't been fully assembled yet these are based on simulations.

Saturday, 18 August 2012

star - Instrumental magnitude to "real" magnitude - Photometry with not enough data?

I have a lot of data taken in R, B, V, Luminance and Halpha-bands which I want to analyse photometrically (one target in the frame).



The frames are already reduced (with flats, darks etc.) and have a correct wcs-header. I also already have the instrumental magnitude of my target and other stars in the frame (using APT).



My question now is, how do I calculate the real magnitude of my targets?



The most simple way would be comparing the other stars' instrumental magnitude and real magnitude and then applying the (logarithmic/linear?) transformation to the instrumental magnitude of my target. But I don't know how exact that would be and how I could calculate the error of the photometric solution (by applying the same transformation to the error of the instrumental magnitude APT gave me?).



For more exact photometry I don't have enough data, aka air mass or calibration fields.



Do you have any ideas or solutions?

galaxy - Is there a strong galactic magnetic field?

My main question is: Is there a strong galactic magnetic field, perhaps driven by the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy? I am also wondering if this field would be strong enough to make it so that the galaxy rotates in the way it does (with the outer stars moving faster than would be expected), and if this would be an alternate explanation for dark matter.



The thing that led me to ask this question is reading about Jupiter's magnetic field interactions with the plasma emitted by IO. Jupiter's magnetic field forces the plasma to orbit Jupiter about as fast as Jupiter spins, and I am wondering if likewise, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy "herds" the rest of the galaxy in a similar manner as per the article and image below.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere_of_Jupiter#Role_of_Io



IO's plasma and Jupiter's magnetic field

Friday, 17 August 2012

atmosphere - What causes the aurora of other planets to have different colors?

Ultimately, you are correct. However, there may also be some clarification in order: what blue aurora of Saturn are you referring to? The most well-known auroral images of Saturn like this one, are not true color images. That is, what we see in the photo isn't what you'd see with the naked eye; instead, the photo has been enhanced to emphasize something interesting, in this case the aurora. In reality, that beautiful blue you see in the picture isn't even of light that's visible with our eyes. It's UV light which would be completely invisible to us. People working with data taken by a specialized camera have to give the UV light some visible color or we wouldn't see it at all. The Saturn aurora images I am aware of all have been modified in this manner.



However, aurora themselves are the result of charged particles funneling down a planet's magnetic field and crashing into the planet's atmosphere. On Earth, the aurora occurs because of the atoms in the atmosphere getting energized by these collisions, and then emitting light when they de-energize. Here, it's the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere that are responsible for aurora light (primarily greens from oxygen, but also reds at higher altitudes from oxygen and occasionally blues from nitrogen). In other planets' atmospheres dominated by different atoms and molecules, the reactions will be different, and the wavelengths of light emitted will be different as well. For example, Saturn's aurora are due to energized H2 molecules. On Jupiter, it can be the infalling particles themselves (sulfur and oxygen) that are responsible for auroral emission.

Thursday, 16 August 2012

Are multiple satellites required to handle geostationary orbits?


Do geostationary satellites need to have the equator as the plane of rotation, and the earth's centre to be the centre of rotation?




To be stationary above a point, yes.




Can it rotate over, say, the Tropic of Cancer, focusing on a single city?




If the satellite's orbit touched the Tropic of Cancer, it would not be geostationary since the orbit about the center of the Earth would move the satellite north and south to reach the Tropic of Capricorn as well. Any geostationary satellite can be placed so that a designated city is always in line of sight, it doesn't need to be directly overhead.




If not, in which case, we need a chain of geostationary satellites to do a function, why employ geostat satellites at all?




Only one geostationary satellite is needed for some functions, such as TV broadcasts to the Eastern Seaboard.




Aren't there satellites at lower altitudes which could do a better job?




It depends on what the job is. For continuous broadcast and reception of signals, a geostationary satellite is best. For obtaining crop information, a low Earth orbit satellite might be better.

Gaia: What is the difference between CCDs used for astrometry, photometry, and spectroscopy?

CCDs are optimized for a certain wavelength range, and for a certain expected signal level. In astronomy, we tend to be short of light, so here we almost always want them to be as sensitive as possible (an exception may be observations of the Sun, which I don't know much about). But for instance, the Nordic Optical Telescope has a CCD which is optimized for blue wavelengths, but has quite a lot fringing in the near-infrared. And further out in the IR, CCDs aren't even used, instead using something which are just called "detectors".



However, whether the CCD is used for imaging (photometry and astrometry) or spectroscopy does not have anything to do with the CCD; it's just a matter of inserting a grism or not. I'm not really into the instruments of Gaia, but I assume that differences in the CCDs are due to different wavelength regions being probed. There may be a difference in how its sub-parts (it's actually an array of CCDs) are positioned (for instance, for spectroscopy in principle you don't need a large field of view, but can do with a long array rather than a more square one), but the design of the individual CCDs are the same.

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

universe - Does science need support from religion or philosophy to explain the creation?

The question seems to be based on the notion "before". This notion relies of the concept of the arrow of time, meaning time "flowing" in some "direction". The arrow of time itself is based, among others, on the notion of "time".



The Planck epoch - the first epoch of the current Big Bang model - lasted a little less than $10^{-43}mbox{ s}$. That's the shortest unit of time. To ask within this short time interval for an arrow of time doesn't make any sense. Hence a before/after didn't exist within the Planck epoch, and hence asking for a "before" isn't meaningful within the Planck epoch.



The Planck epoch to be able to exist needs the mere existence of space and time, not yet an arrow of time.



The cause for the existence of space and time at all is a matter of the pre-Planck epoch. In this phase using any notion which is based on space or time isn't meaningful. Cause and effect in the temporal sense, which underly most "why?"-questions, are based on time, and are meaningless in this epoch.



It's possible to construct other "pre-Big-Bang" models. But it's hard to find observational evidence for any of them.



If you suggest a creator of whatever kind, you just push the ultimate question a little bit further to the "past", and making it much more complicated. How could a creator be created, able to create such a complex thing like the universe? You need a chain of ever more complex meta-creators without end.



If you argue, that the first creator doesn't need a cause to exist, this applies also for the universe, formed from a pre-Planck medium. Hence nothing would be won.



Therefore it's rather unlikely, that religion or philosophy could be able to provide a more satisfying answer than science.



(Here some metaphysical multiverse theories.)

Monday, 13 August 2012

the sun - How often do stars pass close (~1ly) to the Sun?

I was curious about the same things. I believe it was in the astronomy I was referred to an online data base that gives position and velocity vectors for neighboring stars. From those I put together a spreadsheet. Here's a screen capture:



enter image description here



I only entered 48 of the closest stars so it's by no mean an exhaustive list.



It looks like your graphic matches my estimates which is reassuring. I don't know why the Ross Stars aren't in my list, possibly the omission is an error on my part when I was entering data to the spreadsheet.



Looks like the closest approaches are around 3 lightyears.



If each star has an Oort cloud, I believe the comets' velocity with regard to our sun would be pretty close to the star's relative velocity. Slowest star wrt our solar system seems to be Gliese 729 which is moving ~14 km/s wrt the sun.



If, for example, some of Van Maanen's Oort cloud came within a light year of our sun, they would have been moving 270 km/s. Those snowballs would have zoomed in and out of our neighborhood.



With these distances and relative velocities I don't see much opportunity for swapping comets.



It's speculated that our sun swapped comets with neighboring stars when our solar system was being formed. From Wikipedia:




Recent research has been cited by NASA hypothesizing that a large
number of Oort cloud objects are the product of an exchange of
materials between the Sun and its sibling stars as they formed and
drifted apart, and it is suggested that many—possibly the majority—of
Oort cloud objects were not formed in close proximity to the Sun.


galaxy - Why can't we see distant galaxies with the naked eye?

Not at all a dumb question, but actually you can see distant galaxies with the naked eye. From the northern hemisphere, the Andromeda Galaxy, our biggest neighboring galaxy, is visible if you know where to look, and is at a reasonably dark place. From the southern hemisphere, the two smaller, but nearer, irregular galaxies called the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds are visible.



The reason that more distant galaxies are not visible, is due to the inverse-square law: As the light particles (photons) recede from the galaxy (or any other light source), they are distributed over an ever-increasing surface. That means that a detector (e.g. your eye) of a given area will catch less photons, the farther it is placed from the galaxy. The law says that if in a time interval Δt on average it detects, say, 8 photons at a distance D, then in the same time interval, at a distance 2D it will detect 8/22 = 2 photons. At a distance of 4D, it will detect 8/42 = 0.5 photons. Or, equivalently, it will need twice the time to detect a single photon.



The bottom line is that in principle you can see the very distant galaxies, but the photons are so few and arrive so rarely, that your eye is not a good enough detector. The benefit of a telescope is that 1) it has a larger area than your eye, and 2) you can put a camera at its focal point instead of your eye and take a picture with a large exposure time, i.e. increasing the Δt.

Sunday, 12 August 2012

solar system - Looking for planetary position calculation

If you're only interested in the positions, you'll probably be best off just using a program instead of diving into celestial mechanics. Depending on what you exactly want with "planetary position", here are three different approaches to finding a planet's position at a given time:



  1. Stellarium is a free program to visually solve for the position of a planet, and it gives some precise data for the positions of the planets too, but it needs to be installed and run on your computer so it won't be the quickest way to find the position.

  2. If you're looking to get a planet's coordinates on ecliptic and/or equatorial planes, you can let this web app do the calculations for you for a given time.

  3. Also, a quick Google search came up with this web app meant for working with zodiacs.

Friday, 10 August 2012

cosmology - Are galaxies moving away with constant acceleration?

I think the correct answer is that nobody knows - it all depends on the behaviour, or equation of state, of the dark energy.



If the dark energy takes the form of a cosmological constant, then the energy density due to dark energy will end up completely dominant as the universe expands.



The acceleration of the scale factor $a$ is given by
$$frac{ddot{a}}{a} = -frac{4pi G}{3}left(rho + frac{3P}{c^2}right) $$
where $rho$ is the energy density, and $P$ is the pressure. A cosmological constant has $P = -rho c^2$, which leads to
$$ ddot{a} = frac{8pi G rho a}{3}$$



So, if dark energy dominates, then $rho a$ increases with time, so the acceleration is positive and increasing with $a$ and hence time.



If matter dominates, which it did in the past, then $P simeq 0$ and $rho a propto a^{-2}$, so the acceleration is negative, with a magnitude that becomes smaller.



The transition from deceleration to acceleration happens when $rho_{Lambda} + rho_m + 3P/c^2= 0$. If we assume a cosmological constant with $P = -rho_{Lambda} c^2$, where $rho_{Lambda}$ is the dark energy density (which is constant), and $rho_m$ is the matter density, where $rho_m = rho_0 a_0^{3}/a(t)^3$ and $rho_0$ and $a_0$ are the present-day matter density and scale factor respectively. Thus
$$ rho_{Lambda} + rho_m -3rho_{Lambda} = 0$$
and the transition point occurs when $rho_m = 2 rho_{Lambda}$. But because $rho_{Lambda}/rho_0 = 0.7/0.3$, then
$$ rho_{Lambda} = frac{7rho_0}{3} = frac{7}{3}left(frac{a}{a_0}right)^3 rho_m$$
and so the scale factor at the time of transition from decleration to acceleration is found from
$$ rho_m = frac{14}{3}left(frac{a}{a_0}right)^3 rho_m,$$
$$ a = left(frac{3}{14}right)^{1/3} a_0$$
i.e. when the scale factor was 60% of the present day value. According to this cosmology calculator, this happened roughly 6 billion years ago.



Thus the universe was decelerating then accelerated. So clearly the acceleration now is increasing with time.



On the other hand, if for whatever reason, the dark energy started to "decay" then it might be that the acceleration would decrease.

gravity - Will Saturn's rings become a moon?

The currently leading answer is correct to say that moon formation inside the Roche limit is unlikely.



However, the disk is evolving due to viscosity between the particles, and as a consequence it "spreads", so that material is able to move to outside the Roche limit.



In fact this is a leading possible explanation for the formation of the inner moons of Saturn - that an initially much more massive ring system underwent viscous evolution and spreading, and that material spread outside the Roche limit was able to condense into the inner moons. See for example http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.3360



Whether such a process can continue is doubtful. Models for viscous disk evolution show that the initial evolution is very rapid and that subsequent evolution is very much slower, so that the rate of mass transferral to outside the Roche limit is now quite small. It maybe that it is too slow to form anything new and that any mass would be just accreted onto existing Saturnian satellites.

Thursday, 9 August 2012

distances - When we say a galaxy is 200 million light years away, does this account for the expansion of space in the time it took it's light to reach us?

Usually the distance data doesn't take the expansion of the universe fully into account. That's not important for a distance of 200 million lightyears, but as we get close to the border of the visible universe, it makes a relevant difference. Therefore astronomers prefer to talk of redshift instead of distance.



To be a little more precise: The light travelling from a galaxy to Earth takes only that part of the expansion of the space between the galaxy and the Earth into account, which it still has to traverse.



For a proper distance measurement in the everyday's sense, we would have to send light to the galaxy and reflect it back to Earth, measure the time, divide it by the speed of light, and take the half of the resulting distance.



If this experiment would be performed, some of the now visible objects would never reflect light back to Earth, because they are already too far away.



For a more detailed discussion about the various notions of distance, read Wikipedia's article on distance measures in cosmology.
The usual distance data is provided in the (one-way) light travel distance.

Wednesday, 8 August 2012

star - How to complete the Hipparcos Catalog?

Most of the stars in the Hipparcos catalogue do not have a common name.



In the main catalogue file you will also find the Henry Draper (HD) number of the star (if it has one) at columns 391-396. You can use this ID to find the name in the Bright Star Catalogue.



The Bright Star Catalogue contains all stars brighter than magnitude 6.5 (naked eye stars) together with the HD number (columns 26-31) and a Name (columns 5-14), which in fact is the Bayer (greek letter - constellation) or Flamsteed (number - constellation) name.



Using both catalogues you can get the Bayer or Flamsteed name from the HIP identifier. I do not know of any catalogue to get the common name.



The distance of the star can of course be found in the Hipparcos catalogue, which is the reason the Hipparcos catalogue exists. Columns 80-86 give the trigonometric parallax $varpi$ in milliarcseconds. You can get the distance from: $$d=frac{1}{varpi}$$ where the distance $d$ is in parsec and the parallax $varpi$ is in arc seconds. For the Hipparcos catalogue you should divide the parallax by 1000 as the parallax is given in milliarcseconds.



You can get the constellation for any position in the sky from the algorithm and data in http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?VI/42

Can Summer Triangle asterism be used for navigation?

Yes, it can be used, but it is not easy.



For the latitude, you usually need to know the Alt of Polaris. You can derive that if you know the Alt of two of the three, but the (spherical geometry) formulas for that are not simple.



For the longitude, you need Greenwich time and the RA of any star. Any star includes Vega, Altair and Deneb ;)

Tuesday, 7 August 2012

What known comets are binary?

None. and that doesn't surprise me much.



Comets are thought to be Oort-cloud objects which by interaction either with other Oort-cloud objects or with objects passing the Solar system have been perturbed to venture into the gravitational reach of the outer planets, whence they are
flung into the inner Solar system via close encounters (gravitational slingshots) with one of the outer planets, in particular Jupiter and Saturn. For such a slingshot to be efficient, the encounter must be close when any binary (proto-)comet will most likly be disassociated by the gravitational tides of the sling-shooting planet.

Monday, 6 August 2012

stellar evolution - Rate of star collpse

Technically, collapsing of a star as a whole at any point of time happens dynamically, but due to the thermal timescale being much higher, the compression can be considered nearly adiabatic, which causes the star to become hotter and brighter and maintains hydrostatic equilibrium at a dynamical timescale. (There is little involvement of the core here since the photon diffusion timescales are high - ~ 100,000 years - and any effect of the core on the star will be seen much much later.) This is why you never see a 'star' collapse. You can, at best, see them pulsate. Typically the core is what collapses, which alters fusion rates and hence is NOT adiabatic. I will try to explain this process in a little detail; let me know if that answers you question.



When the star is almost out of fuel, it cannot burn fuel as effectively as before, so, the core compresses a little, increasing the temperature, which increases the efficiency and rate of fusion, which makes the 'running out of fuel' part faster leading to a positive feedback process (compression $rightarrow$ faster exhaustion $rightarrow$ more compression). This gradually keeps 'collapsing' and burning fuel faster till a point where it cannot counter the collapse using an increased fusion rate due to lack of sufficient fuel (this might still take a few million years, maybe, but it keeps collapsing faster in a runaway fashion till that point). Beyond this point, the collapse happens at the dynamical timescale till it hits degeneracy (or ignition temperature of the previously inert core), which leads to puffing, novae and supernovae based on the mass of the core and its composition.

galaxy - Supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies

This is a very well posed question, thanks!
The problem is, we still don't know.
What we suppose, is that dark matter came first.



Primordial fluctuations of dark matter made the right conditions to accrete enough mass to build SMBHs, and then the surrounding galaxy.



But still we don't know if, the SMBH comes from merging, of other SMBHs or galaxies, or from high massive BH that are called seed (of the order of $100,M_{Sun}$).
Perhaps, there are very recent developments, which could be known by the experts, but until few years ago, this was the scenario.



About the mass issue, we could have a better reasoning if we think to the influence spheres. We discovered a relation between the SMBH mass and many bulge properties (i.e., the luminosity, the velocity dispersion, and others). This means that an object of the order of $sim1$ pc, influences an object of the order of $sim1$ kpc (maybe $sim3$). Plus, the bulge structure is essential to the formation and characterization and classification of the host galaxy.

Does the gravity of the planets affect the orbit of other planets in our solar system?

It does - although the term 'disrupt' may be a bit too strong to describe the effect; personally, I think 'influence' would fit better.



An interesting consequence of such iterations is something called orbital resonance; after long periods of time - and remember that the current estimate for our planet's existence is 4.54 billion years - the ebb and flow of tiny gravitational pulls cause nearby celestial bodies to develop an interlocked behavior. It's a double-edged sword, though; it may de-estabilize a system, or lock it into stability.



Quoting the Wikipedia entry,




Orbital resonances greatly enhance the mutual gravitational influence
of the bodies, i.e., their ability to alter or constrain each other's
orbits.




Another gravity-related effect (although, as pointed out by Dieudonné, present only on our solar system between bodies that have very close orbits like the Earth-Moon and Sun-Mercury systems) is known as Tidal locking, or captured rotation.



More about orbital resonance on this ASP Conference Series paper: Renu Malhotra, Orbital Resonances and Chaos in the Solar System.

star systems - Who or what will the Arecibo message reach?

The Arecibo Message was not broadcast with the aim that it would intercept with a notable astronomical object. Neither do we realistically expect that anyone will ever listen to the Voyager Golden Records.



Such symbolic gestures are simply vectors for public relations and education. We send these "time capsules" into space because we can, as a showcase of our technological achievements, and as a token of hope.




"As the choice of frequency, duration of message, and distance of the
target clearly shows, the Arecibo message is very unlikely to produce
interstellar discourse in the foreseeable future. Rather, it was
intended as a concrete demonstration that terrestrial radio astronomy
has now reached a level of advance entirely adequate for interstellar
radio communication over immense distances."



-- NAIC staff (1975), http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975Icar...26..462






"The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."



-- Carl Sagan


Saturday, 4 August 2012

How does interstellar matter density vary?

Answer to my question partially answers this one, about density of intergalactic matter and matter within galaxy:




But it is mostly a hot, ionized void. How void? The density of the intergalactic medium is about 1 to 100 particles per cubic meter (you can compare it to the mean galactic density, of about a million particles per cubic meter, or that of Earth's atmosphere, of about 10^26 particles cubic meter). How hot? It can go from 10^5 to 10^7 K.




If we skip the most dense concentrations of matter (stars, planets, generally everything solid, liquid or plasma, and border conditions like their atmosphere) how dense interstellar matter can we find? What is the concentration of matter in densest nebulae that still don't collapse into bodies like planets or stars?



And conversely, how empty does the space get at its emptiest? I could imagine only very few particles in last their short moments of travel into the center exist under a black hole's event horizon, but other than that, how empty a space can be found in the universe, and where?

Thursday, 2 August 2012

rotation - What is the accepted theory as to why Uranus' axis is tilted so severely?

The planet Uranus is another solar system anomaly, where according to the NASA profile has an axial tilt of 97.8 degrees, also considered to be retrograde. This NASA summary "Uranus" suggests the current theory of a large planet-sized impact earlier in its history.



Does the planet-impact theory still hold true or have new accepted theories come to light?



Most of all, are there any results from any simulations available?



A note, this is posted as a separate question to my other question "What is the current accepted theory as to why Venus has a slow retrograde rotation?" as the axial tilt is significantly different.