Bill's Natural Science Blog

My favortite Movies:  ” Thirteen Days” (A fine motion picture dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962)

“Fatman and “Little Boy”, The
Manhattan Project- the development of a the first nuclear bomb in the eary 1940′s.

“Steal Magnolias ” A fine drama set in the South and showing that life goes on and that women sometimes have to take charge of everyday life.

“Apollo 13″ a compelling space documentary of a nealy failed and deadly in the late 1960′s.

“All The Right Stuff” Another space documentary of the develpoment of our space program over several decades. Thesde are all good watching!

And… “The World’s Fastest Indian” A fun and unique movie made by the same New Zealander who made “Thirteen Days.” It’s about the strength, courage and enthusiasm of an elderly New Zealander who loves his “Indian” motorcycle and breaks land speed marks with it at the Bonniville Salt Flats in up in Utah. Anthony Hopkins stars in it.

_{^{Now to the Comet-}}

A comet treat has hit the night skies. In fact, this comet showed the greatest brightness last night, Halloween. I found it while I was sitting out watching for meteors and happened to have my binoculars. I looked to the Constellation Perseus in the north to middle of the sky. I had heard there was a rather dim comet coming, yet I thought would scan the skies for it anyway. But instead I immediately saw this bright, bluish-white ghostly looking snowball with a halo around it. This was the dim comet?!

It appeared to be about 30 percent the size of our Moon. But only as we would see it because the Moon is so close to us compared to the 150 million miles from us this comet is now. This morning, after seeing this last night, I decided to name the comet the The Great White Pumpkin. I guess this comet was out trick-or-treating – wearing its all new, bright Halloween costume. This new “costume” was the result of an explosive burst of brightness one million times brighter than what had been the brightness a day before. And that outburst came on October 23. (I wish to believe in the memory of my Mother’s birthday. That was her special day.)

This comet is named Comet Holmes, after British observer Edwin Holmes back in 1892. Since then it has made 16 trips around our Sun and probably should have long fizzled away. But look what it is doing even this week.(Comet Holmes has been known to be a trickster anyway.) In fact, this world-wide show is as bright as any comet has been in the past decade or more. And while the comet displays no visible tail yet, it may definitely have one which we may be able to see as its position changes from our point of view. I am hoping the tail will be notable. Probably moreso fanned out than elongated.

Comets are fuzzy “snowballs” made of ice, frozen and vaporous gases, dust and with a rocky nucleus. When they approach the Sun they heat up. The ice melts and water vapor, rocky debris and ions steam out. Ions are parts of an atom which are stripped of some of their electrons. These ions glow in the electrical charges sent out by the Sun, as do the ions high in our atmosphere do which renders the Northern Lights.

But this comet is moving away from the Sun and the Earth and is now between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This greatly lessens any chances of solar energy to kick up the brightness and visual size of the comet. The less energy from the Sun to the comet, the less activity and the less brilliance. At that distance the comet would be essentially frozen and inactive.

But why this huge outburt has happened so suddenly is the question astronomers are now asking. I have some reasonable answers for them about what may have happened:

Comet Holmes is traveling through our Solar System somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. But there’s something else traveling between Mars and Jupiter- the asteroid belt. Billions of rocks of greatly varying sizes drifting in orbit between Mars and Jupiter. I think this comet may have probably been hit by an asteroid, perhaps the size of a house or baseball field. I can only guess. But that would explain the debris and parts of the comet bursting out from it. That could be what is producing this exciting flair. The Sun would now be shinning on it like a movie screen. That’s what make comets the show that they are, what I call the movie screen affect.
 
Now, to see this celestial spectacle go outside about 9 PM and look about a hand’s length to the north west of the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. Hopefully, the sky where you are will be moderately dark. (And remember to stay warm.) The comet appears like a star to the unaided eye but has a magnitude (brightness) as much as the stars in the famous Big Dipper. Then to see it just aim a pair of binoculars in that area (10 power or better). And there it will be, the ghostly snowball of Comet Holmes. Happy Halloween!

Comet Update: As of 7 PM Pacific Standard Time, Nov. 5, I am sorry to report that Comet Holmes appears to be fading. Our ghosty friend is leaving us. Please try to see the comet before it goes. But remember, there is always so much to see up there in the night sky. I recall the lyrics from an oldies song by the Drifters called Up on the Roof. It tells about climing up on the roof to get away from the hustle and bustle of life below and reminds us “At night the stars put on a show for free.” You can see this “show for free” most any night.

Comet Update: Tonight, November 6 at 7:30 PM Pacific Time the comet is still visible- even through a thin layer of high clouds. It definitely has moved away from its previous place in Perseus and southward. Comets are always moving, but slowly- like the hour hand on a clock. But it is still there. Now, if only these clouds would move away. More updates to come. I wonder what Edwin Holmes of the 1890′s would think if he knew about all of the fuss and excitement his comet was instigating in the Fall of 2007. I think he might just be proud and excited!

November 9 Comet Update: Though the comet is getting dimmer it seems to be growing in size. Maybe because the material sent out by the comet is spreading out. But I do see something- maybe something special. It appears that a cat’s eye has formed in the comet, but horizontally from my prospective. I am not sure. Although the comet has moved slightly west of Perseus it is still there. It just refuses to go away. On Halloween Night when I first saw the comet it was considerably brighter. I was sitting outside in the desert darkness and I thought of the poem by British writer William Blake: TIGER, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

November 14 Update: The comet has certainly become dimmer but has speard out somewhat and is a larger, round fuzzy ball. It seems to have a gray-green tinge to it now. It really hasn’t drifted out the Constellation Perseus- which means it is probably moving directly away from us and losing the sunshine as it travels away further from the Sun. We are looking at it from behind and therefore the tail, which is there, cannot be seen from our angle. The greenish color maybe be coming from the nickle in the comet. Maybe even phosphorus. I guess nickle.

Meteor Shower Coming:  The famous Leonid meteor shower is coming this week. It actually starts on Nov. 14 and continues through Nov. 20, with maximum numbers of meteors expected on the 17th. It is called the Leoonid because the meteors seem to come out of the Constellation Leo in the east after 1 AM. The shower is caused by dribis left behind by a comet and we pass through that material each year at this time.  Unfortunately this shower has been a fizzle. I watched at 1 am and later at 4 am- 5 am on three nights. There were no meteors I could see. Perhaps one faint one. So maybe the dates have changed because the cloud of comet debris has just moved on. It does have motion, but slowly. But it moves. Astronomers should adjust the dates for this shower. I probably saw it about three weeks ago.

November 17:  Comet Holmes has all but faded. It still still weakly there but hardly more than the faint brightness of the Andromeda Galaxy, our sister galaxy, 2.3 million light years away. It has spread out larger now and has a definite gray-green color. It has lessoned in brightness because the particles of the original cloud are just further spaced and therefore as an open group relect less light. Also the comet seems to be moving to occult, cover up, a bright star in the area of Perseus. I am working on finding out the name of this star- perhaps it is Capella. If this happens the star will fall behind the haze of the comet. It may even go completely dark if for a very short time the body of the comet passes in front of it.

November 20: The star’s name I was searching for is the alpha star in Perseus, Mirfak. Capella is instead in the Constellation Auriga 15 degrees below Mirfak. Comet Holmes has broached, passed over Mirfak but the its solid body will not pass over the star.

November 27: Comet Holmes is spreading out greatly and is more the 2 times the size when I first saw it on October 31. It has definitely faded and hardly brighter than the Andromeda galaxy. It does not appear to be drifting through the sky much at all and still is near the Constellation Perseus. That is because it is moving almost directly away from us, head out deep into our solar system away from the Sun. It is noticeably greenish/blue now.

The comet cloud is almost occulting (covering over) a small star in the region of Perseus but the star still softly twinkles through the cloud. Through my binoculars the comet has little visible color because of its dimness but with some quick imagination Comet Holmes does look like a faint but large planet -bigger than the Moon- maybe not that much different than Neptune or Uranus would appear had they wandered into this part of our Solar System.

Christmas Update: As of 6:20 pm Pacific Time, December 25 Comet Holmes has almost completely faded to where it is less visible than the ghostly Andromeda Galaxy. The only luminosity I could see was near the center of the comet. It is sad to see it fade like this but it has lasted for months all the same. And I still did get to see it tonight, Christmas. The comet’s cloud has undoubtedly epanded outwards even further- and would otherwise appear to be larger than our Moon if it were not so dim. Its dust is there but that dust is just too spread out to shine much from the light coming from our Sun now far away.

Comet Holmes continues to appear to be moving away from us almost directly, drifting little from where I first saw it on Oct. 31.

January 12 Update: Comet Holmes is no longer visible to me and has not been for two weeks now. It’s gone and won’t be back for some ten years. But it was new to me and fun to watch. But Mars, that rusty white star, is still bright in the evening sky floating along to the north of Orion and his hunting dog, Canis Major, the Dog Constellation. And that bright blue-white star following behind Orion is Sirius, the Dog Star about 8.7 light years away from us. It is the alpha star in the Dog Constellation. It is even bright enough to be seen from the city in winter, rising in the south east in the evenings. See if you can find it.

Update Feb. 08: If you happen to be seeing what looks like two brights stars in the eastern morning sky about 5:30 am- those are planets. Venus and Jupiter have been close to each other for about the past week or so but now are moving away from one another. Jupiter is drifting westerly while Venus, because it is close to the Sun, is staying back near the Sun. The two planets are not actually close at all, they just appear that way in their positions. They are hundreds of million of miles (hundreds of millions of kilometers) from each other. Also little Mercury is setting in the evening about 6pm and you might see it by looking in the west north of where the Sun just set. Usually that little planet takes binoculars to see. But the Venus and Jupiter show is worth getting up early to see.

                      No, Really Kind of Special For Me!

The Perseid meteor shower of this August: Lots of intersting new things I found for the first time about this mid-summer shower and meteors in general. 

But first a sunspot update: There is a small to medium sized spot crossing the Sun’s equator , now about two-thirds  the way across face of the Sun. Though I had not checked recently until fiinding this one on August 26, this sunspot may have formed on the side of the Sun facing us, as I suspected as happening. It also is taking the same route I have observed sunspots take- along the Solar equator. They always seem to huddle near the Sun’s equator, only straying a few degrees north or south of that equator. (Please see my previous sunspot posts.)

As of August 30, 5 PM Pacific Time the small sunspot disappeared. It just couldn’t make it across the Sun’s face. The little tyke died. But then these sunspots are not just cute little tykes. They are actually monsters throwing out lots of particle debris, and worse, electromagnetic debris- dangerous X-rays. These X-rays, as mentioned in previous posts, are a danger to humans in space. These rays increase as the size and count of sunspots multiply. Sunspots are rated by an X factor, “X” representing the level of X-ray radiation. I would guess this little one I saw last week may have measured about an X-1 or X-2. Those in the double digit range are definitely a health hazard to those aboard the International Space Station and our Space Shuttle.

Astronauts wear dosimeters (dose meters) which measure exposure to X-rays. (You may have seen medical or dental X-ray technicians here on Earth wearing these tags hanging from there clothing.) When the space travelers finish their mission and return to Earth the dosimeters are processed to determine how much radiation the astronauts received while in space. (The Earth’s atmosphere shields us from X-rays here on our planet’s surface.) If the results show too much X-ray radiation exposure, even from just one stint in space, an astronaut can be prohibited from ever returning into space He or she can be retired permanently as a space traveler.

One interesting story I heard tells of a NASA astronaut who was worried about how much X-ray exposure he had already absorbed and that one more space flight might just put him over the lifetime X-ray dose limit- and out as a space pilot forever. NASA (The National  Aeronautics & Space Administration) requires that these dosimeter badges be worn at all times during space flights but this astronaut apparently decided to take his dosimeter off and hide it in a drawer compartment aboard the space shuttle.

According to the account, the compartment was not really X-ray proof and the space radiation was higher in the drawer than it would be if he had just worn it on his person. Back on Earth after the flight when all the dosimeters were examined his badge revealed much more radiation exposure than any of the other astronauts. NASA wanted to know why. When NASA found out what he had done… well that part has never actually been reported- exactly what happened to this errant space traveler, or whether or not he lost his job.

But I would recon whoever this astronaut was must have been in trouble. The technicians at NASA who reviewed these dosimeters would have had to drawn on comparisons from the other astronaut’s dosimeters and then estimated what the naughty crew member’s dosimeter would have otherwise read. If that estimated dosage, combined with his past dosage records, exceeded the life time limit of exposure to X-rays he would be prohibited from ever going up again. But I wonder why the other crew members didn’t notice that one of their team wasn’t wearing a dosimeter? 

Now on to the meteor shower…

The Perseid meteor shower arrives every year about early August until the middle of the month. It is most active around August 12. The meteors we see are cosmic dust that has been moving along through the solar system, left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle which appears every 130 years. The last time it was here was 1992 but it did not come as close to the Earth as its appearance in 1862 during the American Civil War.  It is the largest known object to pass by the earth repeatedly and has been observed since 69 B.C. Eventually its return obit will one day bring the comet to smash into the Earth or Moon. Every summer particles left behind from  Comet Swift-Tuttle do crash into our planet. Of course, our planet’s 18,000 MPH (about 28,970 KPH)speed usually adds to the velocity of the collision.

This year’s Perseid meteor shower was especially fun for me. Serious meteor watching is new to me over the past few years. And last summer the Moon was up at the wrong times and lit up the sky so much as to really ruin the show. But this year the Moon was dark. As early as mid-July tiny meteors began to streak high above the earth at fantastic speeds, almost as to herald the big show that was coming. Because they were small and traveling at high rates of speeds, as much as 130,000 MPH, (209,213 KPH) they flashed almost instantaneously in the upper atmosphere, traveling so fast they compressed the rarified atmosphere and burned up in only parts of a second- never getting near the lower atmosphere. I saw these. I knew they were moving very fast. One only lasting less than a half of a second. It was so fast and short I wasn’t sure if I saw it. But I did see it and others like it, mostly high above the horizon near the top of the sky. I later again saw these ghosty sprites after the main meteor shower had passed and it then the 21th of August. (Much more about the shower to come)

                Spectacle in the Sky   

I saw it again after quite a while now, the Star and Crescent Moon- but this time it was more impressive. (Please see my Star & Crescent Moon photo in the astronomy album). I saw this inspiring sight from the California desert on Saturday night May 19 at 8:10 pm Pacific Time. This is the renowned configuration of the Moon and the planet Venus. It is especially revered in the Middle East and is depicted on flags and emblems. Certainly far back into the centuries of the past peoples and civilizations must have been awestruck and taken with fear when the Moon and Venus lined up this way. Plans for war, spiritual connotations, impending catastrophe and any manner of imaginings must have filled the hearts of those who looked on this close conjunction of the two brightest objects in the night sky.

Presently Venus is about 79 million miles (126,000,000 km) from Earth and the Moon is 240,000 miles (392,000 km) from us. The jagged edges on the Moon’s surface in my photo are the many craters on the Moon lit by the Sun. 

Since the Moon retrogrades, going backwards against the night sky, it rises and sets later each night. (I suspect that in the earlier time zones Venus may have even appeared closer to the Moon.) By 11 pm Saturday night the Moon had moved backwards enough so that Venus appeared to be hanging directly under the Moon. I thought then that this view bore a good resemblance to the Dreamworks Pictures logo where a boy is sitting on the edge of a crescent moon, dropping his fishing line down below. Venus looked like the hook at the end of the line.

It will be a while to come yet but this celestrial show will be back.