It’s Upon Us

If you are reading this from somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, then you’re getting ready for summer. It starts in a few weeks, but summer stargazing is already upon us. If you want to know more about what’s up, browse on over to Astrocast.TV, where I do a monthly webcast about what’s up. It’s called “Our Night Sky”.  There’s a lot going on in June, but what will catch your eye right after sunset the first week of the month is the appearance of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury low in the western sky.  Check those out — in fact, you probably can’t miss them!

After that, it’s pretty much up to you where you want to look in the sky. The Big Dipper (the Plough for some folks) is high in the north. You can also look up overhead and see Hercules high in the east. Leo is setting in the west, and Virgo is due south.

Looking for some help to find things in the sky?  You can always check out the websites at Sky & Telescope and Astronomy for useful star charts. If you have a smart phone, there are any number of wonderful apps that can guide you across the sky. I use one called Starmap on my iPhone and iPad. I’ll be writing more about that one soon.

On your computer, you can generate nice star charts using free programs such as Stellarium or Cartes du Ciel.  You simply put in your location, time and date, out come some nice charts that help you find things in the sky.

Astronomy is our oldest science. People have been stargazing for millennia. So, when you step outside tonight and look up, you’re following in a long, honorable, and ancient tradition that introduces you to the universe. Get out there!

Our Second Home World?

As a kid, I wanted to go to Mars. I played a game called “Going to Mars” with my sibs and cousins, and it was the most exotic place we could think of. Later on, in college, I wanted to be part of a Mars team, but ended up studying comets (that’s what happens when your advisor’s grant money is focused on comet studies). I always kept my love of Mars going, and figured someday I’d get to go. Of course, that was back when it looked like a crewed Mars mission would be happening by the end of the 20th century or maybe 2015 at the latest.

Today, the human mission to Mars possibilities are kind of limited. One: you can go with your spouse on a three-year flyby (and never land), or two, you can join with a crew that will land and probably  not come back.

Okay, both of them kind of appeal to the pioneer spirit in many of us, but gosh, by now I’d thought we’d have more chances and choices.  One mission scenario I remember from my days in the academic world was to build bases on the Moon, use those or orbital stations to build trans-Mars ships while training crews for eventual missions to the Red Planet. Once there, crews would set up a rotating visit schedule so that while some crews were on the ground doing survey work, others would be in orbit and/or heading back to Earth so that the next round of Mars visitors could make their way out.

Will those plans ever happen?  Hard to tell. I think that such exploratory missions will progress much as the exploration of Earth did: sending small groups out to do the survey work, and then when things looked safe (or as safe as they could be), the families and governments and companies followed along. Of course, we see how well that worked in some parts of the world, so maybe the future Mars explorers will find a way to do it better that we did here.  Not that Earth is a training world; right now it’s the only place we have, and we’re kind of not treating it too well. That, too, will change, when the realities of climate change grow more apparent to more people.  These are one-of-a-kind planets we have here, and Earth IS our home world. Mars, because of its very different weather conditions, atmospheric pressure, gravity, and other factors, will not be humanity’s assured second home.  It will be a place where we send our children, and then THEIR children will make it their home. How long before humanity adapts to Mars?  Good question.