Monthly Archives: July 2009

amateur astronomy, astronomy, Jupiter

Another Once in a Lifetime Event

Leave a comment

Something Smacked Jupiter

An image of the large impact site on Jupiter, as captured by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea. Click to embiggenify.
An image of the large impact site on Jupiter, as captured by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea. Click to embiggenify.

Back when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was headed in for a crash landing in Jupiter’s upper cloud decks, the event was often referred to as a “once in a lifetime” happening.  And, for most of us at that time, it was, since we hadn’t seen something like that before.

Not that stuff hasn’t been whanging into Jupiter regularly — it does, proably more than we think about. But, we just didn’t happen to see it often, and having a visible comet headed for a Jovian plopdown was (and probably is) rarer than having smaller pieces of space debris headed inbound for a rough landing.

How do astronomers know this spot was caused by an impact and not just a particularly nasty storm whirling up from below the cloud decks?  It’s all in the light being emitted by the region.  At infrared wavelengths in data and images taken by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i, the spot is quite bright, but it also shows evidence of an outburst of bright, upwelling particles from beneath the cloud tops, just like what you’d see if something smacked in and stirred up the region, sending materials up and out.

So, what came crashing down into the Jovian atmosphere? Could likely be a comet — and the evidence for that will be hidden in the signatures of chemicals (the ices in the comet) that were given off as the comet came slamming in.  It’s a busy time for astronomers who are watching this event unfold in real time — all spurred by the first discovery image posted by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley a couple of days ago.

There’s another cool story here that I want to take a moment to discuss: how this discovery shows that amateur astronomers can and do (and have been for quite a while) been making valuable contributions to science, and occasionally they make discoveries that the big boys didn’t make!  This isn’t new — back in the 1990s, when I was in grad school, I worked with amateur observers around the world to chart comet orbits and apparitions across a range of comets. These folks, who often have observatories to rival good university facilities, were often sending me stunningly gorgeous and scientifically useful images of such objects as Comet Hale-Bopp, DeVico, and Hyakutake. They were valued partners in our research efforts.  And, that tradition continues with the discovery of this crash site on Jupiter, with ongoing observations of Mars, charts of variable star activity, and in many other areas of astronomy research.  Amateurs rule!

apollo 11, Lunar exploration, lunar landing

It Was 40 Years Ago Today

1 Comment

When the Astronauts Came Out to Play

The first astronauts on the Moon achieved something for more than the U.S. (which funded the mission); they took that giant leap for all people on Earth. From Apollo: through the eyes of the astronauts. (Click to embiggen.)
The first astronauts on the Moon achieved something for more than the U.S. (which funded the mission); they took that giant leap for all people on Earth. From "Apollo: through the eyes of the astronauts". (Click to embiggen.)

And what a grand play it was — not “play” in the sense of “fooling around getting nothing done”, but “play” as in making one of the biggest plays that humanity could achieve since the discovery that Earth is a planet, the Sun is a star, and we’re all part of a galaxy that wheels the cosmos with other galaxies.  That big. Maybe even bigger.

A lot of us who were watching the events unfolding on TV have a lot of happy remembrances of that time. It was a time to look forward to being in space, to establishing careers in space science or as astronauts, astronomers, engineers, and more.  Far more than a “plant the flag, pick up a few rocks, and head home” mission that short-sighted and ignorant Apollo detractors since then have sneered about, the mission was a symbolic and scientific first step off Earth to another world.  It told us that we can do this thing. And, the memory of that singular accomplishment lives on.

Does it still mean a lot today?  I suggest that it does. It reminds us that humans can do great things when we put our minds to it. We can focus on things that aren’t war and hate and bigotry and misogyny and ignorance and religious strife and all the other things that humans do to and think about one another.  This is a good day to remember that we are not ignorant savages living by our wits and controlled by fear and hate.  We are better than that.  If Apollo 11 and its sister missions (including the Soviet-era missions) don’t teach us anything else than this one lesson, they’ll have been worth all the work, expense, sacrifice, and exhiliration. Without any of the successes on the Moon, I seriously doubt that any of the world’s space programs would be what they are today–for they were, at least in part, inspired by the lunar explorations of the 1960s and 70s.