Category Archives: amateur astronomy

amateur astronomy, astronomy, Jupiter

Another Once in a Lifetime Event

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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!

amateur astronomy, astronomy, citizen astronomy

Citizen Astronomers

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The Research Amateur Amateur

I saw a story making the rounds yesterday about how citizens who aren’t necessarily scientists are making great strides in some areas of research simply because they’re interested in the science. I think that’s always been around in some form or another, and none more so than in amateur astronomy.  There have always been legions of dedicated amateurs watching the sky and making contributions to science — although there have been more of them in the past 20 or so years.  Astronomy was largely performed before the 20th century by dedicated amateurs (who were often quite well trained). Today there are amateur observatories out there that rival (and sometimes surpass) many university facilities, and their owners are making valuable contributions to astronomy research.

McNeil's Nebula
McNeil’s Nebula, courtesy of Gemini Observatory. It’s a rare glimpse of the birth process of a star and the discovery of this nebula by Jay McNeil led Gemini Observatory to take a look at this nebula. It lies about 1,500 light-years away. (Click to embiggen.)

When I first got to graduate school, I worked with a number of well-trained amateurs who sent in gobs of images of Comet Halley during its closest approach.  At that time, some professional astronomers scoffed at the idea of amateurs making any kind of contribution, but they were proved wrong. And wildly so.  Take, for example, all the folks who are discovering and providing amazing images of comets and asteroids. They’re helping fill in our gaps of knowledge about what populates the solar system.

Amateur astronomy work isn’t limited to the solar system. Dedicated amateurs have been doing work studying starbirth regions, variable stars, gravitational lensing, gamma-ray bursters, and the list goes on and on.

Every night and day (for solar observers), amateur astronomers train their telescopes (and other instruments) on the sky and make observations that add to the “corpus” of knowledge humanity has about the universe. I remember once hearing a colleague of mine comment that amateur astronomers can do observations that professionals couldn’t do, either because the big observatories are over-subscribed, or because they can’t point those big telescopes so close to the ground (or the Sun). That same colleague also pointed out that if professional astronomers who couldn’t get time on the big scopes knew there was so much “free glass” out there to be used, they’d be rushing to adopt amateur astronomers and their observatories. That was 15 years ago. Today, the amateur and professional communities are indeed cooperating more than ever — largely because dedicated amateurs have the equipment and know-how to perform observations that were once solely the province of the “big” (at that time) facilities.

So, long live the amateur astronomer!  It’s a long and honorable avocation!