Monthly Archives: April 2011

astronomy, astronomy education, Astronomy outreach, Planetarium, science museums

Want to Learn Astronomy?

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Where Do You Go?

Venus against a starry backdrop. Courtesy CoolCosmos.

I often write on these pages about “stepping out” and checking out the stars and planets. That accessibility to the elements of astronomy is what makes this science so approachable. You really DO only have to step outside and look up, provided of course that you have a good safe place to view from and you’re not terribly plagued with light pollution. I’ve found in my experiences in many big cities that a few stars are usually visible, along with whatever bright planet there is. And, of course, it’s tough to miss the Moon.

But, what if you don’t have regular access to a safe viewing area?  Where do you go if you’re into astronomy and want to learn more? I would hope that astronomy is still a subject being taught in the schools, and if so, that’s a good place to start if you’re still a student.

The Web, of course, is a good place to surf for astro-info.  Sky&Telescope and Astronomy.com are good places to start online. (If you’re looking for magazines and periodicals, this site has a good list to get you started.)  There are plenty of scientifically accurate sources (including this page) on the Web, many of which are listed in my blog links at left. So, if you’re stuck inside doing your astronomy research, these are good places to start.

There are also many good books — I’ve listed some here and here. You can, as I have done much of my life, cruise the cosmos through the pages of many an astronomy tome. The beauty of that approach is that you can do it anytime, and it’s ideal for those cloudy, cold nights when stepping outside isn’t much of an option.

But, there are many other good places to actually GO and learn about astronomy.  If you live in (or visit) Los Angeles, there’s always the venerable Griffith Observatory. It has been bringing people to astronomy (and vice versa) for 77 years.  At the other end of the U.S., there’s the Rose Center for Earth and Space, in New York City.  It’s part of the American Museum of Natural History and another historically significant place to learn astronomy.

Many cities around the world have their science centers and museums and planetariums, ranging from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (near London) in the United Kingdom to the Sydney Observatory in Australia, the Beijing Planetarium in China, and many, many other places where you can take in a planetarium show, see astronomy exhibits, and even take classes.  There are, in fact, thousands of these institutions to learn astronomy in the world. Step out…or in… or wherever you can… to learn more about the cosmos through the science of astronomy.

galaxies, galaxy interactions, galaxy shapes, Gemini Observatory

Not Your Typical Science Fair Project

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Australian Students and Gemini Observatory

Image of NGC 6872 (left) and companion galaxy IC 4970 (right) locked in a tango as the two galaxies gravitationally interact. The galaxies lie about 200 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pavo (the Peacock). Image credit: Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club, Travis Rector (University of Alaska, Anchorage), Ángel López-Sánchez (Australian Astronomical Observatory/Macquarie University), and the Australian Gemini Office.

Remember back when you entered the science fair at school? I remember a winning entry that I did — something about yeast that my mother helped cook up.  I didn’t get to go get my ribbon for that one because I was at home with measles. Nowadays, kids get vaccinated for measles (the smart parents all do this), and so having spotty bumps on one’s skin is no excuse for missing out on a science fair award.

A group of students from Sydney Girls High School in Australia went way beyond science fair with their idea — to use Gemini Observatory to study a pair of interacting galaxies called NGC 6872 and IC 4970. They were participating in a country-wide contest to suggest scientifically interesting and aesthetically pleasing objects for the observatory’s telescope to snare with its 8-meter mirror.

The contest sponsors liked their proposal so much that it was selected as the winner, and the image at right was the result. The main instrument used to make this image was the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), in its imaging mode on the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

The primary galaxy in the image (NGC 6872) shows what happens when galaxies interact and their original structure and form is distorted. When galaxies like these get too close to each other, the mutual gravitational pull starts to distort their structures. Their spiral arms get stretched out to enormous distances, with streamers of starburst knots following along. In NGC 6872, the arms have been stretched out to span hundreds of thousands of light-years—many times further than the spiral arms of our own Milky Way galaxy.

Over hundreds of millions of years, NGC 6872’s arms will fall back toward the central part of the galaxy, and the companion galaxy (IC 4970) will eventually be merged into NGC 6872. The coalescence of galaxies often leads to a burst of new star formation. Already, the blue light of recently created star clusters dot the outer reaches of NGC 6872’s elongated arms. Dark fingers of dust and gas along the arms soak up the visible light. That dust and gas is the raw material out of which future generations of stars could be born, and possibly even countless numbers of planets.

The search for these dynamic changes in galaxy structure was what sold the selection committee on the students’ observation proposal. They wrote, “If enough color data is obtained in the image it may reveal easily accessible information about the different populations of stars, star formation, relative rate of star formation due to the interaction, and the extent of dust and gas present in these galaxies.”

The team also presented a more emotional perspective by looking at the impact this image might have on people trying to understand our place in the universe. When viewers consider this image “in contrast to their daily life,” the team explained, “there is a significant possibility of a new awareness or perception of the age and scale of the universe, and their part in it.”

When I look at this picture, I really envy those kids.  Imagine getting to have your science project executed on one of the world’s premier telescopes!