May Astronomy guide

Once again the planets dominate the night sky this month with mars and saturn in the south and east (mercury is also visible to very early risers) and venus in the western sky. But  the new moon on the 20th (which also rises and sets with the sun) brings plenty of opportunity for deep sky observations too. The globular cluster M13 reaches its highest point in the sky in the constellation of hercules) on the 17th, which is very impressive to see, but will require a telescope.
  The only meteor shower that was due this month has already passed, but was drowned out by the full moon. Dont give up on meteors though, they can be seen on most nights, with the normal rate being as high as 10 per hour.

 Please remember though, that it can take up to 20 minutes for your eyes to get used to dark conditions, so the longer you stay outside, the more you're likely to see!!

  Happy stargazing everyone

Meteor Video from the Youtube Channel

  This is a video about an unexpected meteoric even that occurred on the 3rd March 2012 at 21:40 over England. I hope you all like my vid, and subscribe to the channel to get even more out of the StudentAstro site!

 Happy Starzing everyone

The Terminator Line

Observe that on the Half moon, craters are visible along the Terminator that are not visible on the full moon picture. This is because the low lighting conditions throw smaller craters into relief, as light is reflected of part of their walls, but not others, allowing us to see them 

OK, March 2012. What can we expect to see?

 Fantastic question. And lets starts right at the beginning. Planets.

  The starting week of march this year will be the best opportunity to see all 5 of the planets closest to the Earth. Jupiter, Venus and Mercury light up the Western horizon from sunset. The easiest way of locating them is by looking towards the moon, and then drawing a diagonal line to the brightest stars between it and the horizon. You should notice that these stars do not twinkle. This is because they are the aforementioned planets. Jupiter is highest in the sky, followed my Venus, and finally mercury.

    Over to the Eastern horizon, and we see the Red Planet, Mars and from midnight each night, Saturn rises in the East. If you have a telescope, I would definitely suggest trying to find Jupiter or Saturn in it, they are truly amazing views.
   Don't have a telescope? Why not focus a pair on binoculars upon the moon? Its always on of the most majestic objects in our sky,  look to the terminator (where the dark and light areas of the moon meet) and see some incredible detail on the craters that you'll see there.

  There are no meteor showers due this month, but never fear, there will be 2 in April to compensate!!

  Happy Planet gazing everyone!

Lets Talk Higgs

Ok, Ladies, Gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, its time for the BIG ONE.

  I've been saying for ages that I would eventually post a blog about the Higgs Boson, and THIS IS IT.

 To start though, I should probably talk about magnetism. Why? Because magnetism is a very good mechanism for explaining what the Higgs boson is and what it does. This is because both magnetism and the Higgs operate through FIELDS. Fields are defined in physics as a physical quantity associated with a point in spacetime (those unfamiliar with space-time would do well to read the earlier post about general relativity) and can possess the properties of particles, and are able to interact with them. A particle creates a field (an electron would create an electromagnetic field, for example) and the field can in itself interact with another particle. in this way, one can think of all fields permeating all of space-time. The higgs field is no different to an electron in this. But whereby the electromagnetic field mechanism creates the forces of magnetism and electric charge, the higgs field enables the existence of mass in fundemental particles (quarks and electrons are two such examples)

  The Higgs exists in concept due to the Standard Model of Particle Physics, and is a requirement if the theory is to be proved to be correct. This theory predicts everything but the mass of the higgs boson (the boson itself being the particle caused by exciting the higgs field above its lowest energy value [called its ground state]), as it suggests it will have no charge or spin.

   At the latest official announcement, CERN had narrowed down the mass range in which the higgs boson can exist (a good metaphor for this is thinking of a game of battleships, with only the smallest ship remaining, you narrow down areas where it would no longer fit in order to help you find its location) to within 1Gev (Giga electron volt) and hence it is now up to a 3.5 sigma level of certainty.

  There is still some way to go though, as the Higgs will not have officially have been discovered until they are able to determine its existence to a level of 5sigma!! The current level of sigma is expected to go up by the March announcements (even though no experiments have been ran over the winter break) due to the further analysis of current data.

 Some physicists hope to have found the Higgs by the Start of 2013.



  If you're unsure on anything, feel free to ask


 Happy Stargazing!!

Hate to do this to you guys, but Rant time. 2012, my foot.

I have to start this blog post with two  apologies, for not posting as often as I intended, (exams have gotten a bit in the way) and the main reason for my apology is for the content of tonight's post.

  Too many times today I have overheard conversations about "the end of the world", so I felt the need to set the record straight. And let me make this as plain as possible; the world is no more going to end on December 21st 2012 than I am going to sprout wings and fly up Ron Weasleys left nostril. And here is why:

     

    First things first, The Mayan Long Count Calendar. Yes, if we use this, the Mayan long count calendar does indeed end on the 21st December 2012, but after this calendar ends, another one will simply begin. Yes, Mayan mythology does dictate that the universe is destroyed and remade whenever this happens, but why does this somehow signify our imminent doom? None of the other advanced civilizations myths about the end of the world have ever caused such a uproar! 

   Also, I've heard people mentioning Asteroids and Meteors on collision courses with the Earth, again, this isnt true! There are whole teams of astrophysicists and astronomers screening the night sky for any oblect on a collision course (or a course that could be directed into a collision course, by gravitation influences or other collisions) with the Earth, and those objects are kept under extremely close observation. There are no such objects near the Earth at this point. 

  Hopefully we can all sleep a little more soundly in our sleep now, and tone down this "end of the world" gubbins. Although, be free to live each day like its your last, and live life to its fullest :)

  Happy Stargazing Folks    (and sorry again for ranting)

Calling All UK Astronomers!!

Do you like Astronomy? Are you hampered by excessive light pollution? Well, now is your chance to do something about it!!

   Thanks largely to the BBC stargazing Live team, a petition has been started to help us to convince the government to reduce street lighting in the UK, of course, this will cut light pollution for astronomers, but it will also save taxpayers money on electricity, and will make the UK much more energy efficient and help to cut our carbon footprint.

 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/27603

 Hope you all sign!! And don't forget to Spread the word!!

  Happy Stargazing!!

Geminid Meteor Shower

The Geminid meteor shower is due to peak on the 14th and 15th of December 2011, and usually gives one of the best displays of meteors of the year. If you wish to see this shower, it is best to go somewhere away from streetlights after about 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening (here in the UK) and look to the east. However your vision of them may be impaired by the waning gibbous moon that will preside over that portion of the sky for the majority of the evening.

In other News, tomorrow Cern are due to make several announcements about the Higgs Boson. Whilst it is extremely unlikely that they will announce its discovery, it is believed that they will reveal the amount of evidence that they currently have in the search for what has been named "the God Particle". I'll post tomorrow with a summary of their announcement.

 Happy stargazing (and meteor watching) Folks!!

StudentAstro on Youtube!!

  Yes folks, Ive just started a youtube channel, on which i shall hopefully be making videos full of use tips on stargazing, exam revision for physics and sciences, a bit more of what I do on here and whatever else you kind folks comment and ask for from the StudentAstro Channel!! (StudentAstro1011 is the channel name by the way)

 Happy Stargazing everyone

News update

Ok guys, sorry that I've not been broadcasting at my usual rate, but life here at Uni has been pretty mad, what with exams and revision and the like.
Well, lets do the news: Remember the Faster than light neutrinos? Well, the experiment was repeated with the same result, so they have decided to move the experiment to the LHC complex at CERN, to observe the particles close up when they travel at high speeds, as some particle physicists have discovered that if neutrinos can travel faster than light, then there should be a particle decay occurring (the higher energy particle losing energy by emitting other particles) which they should be able to see at the LHC.

Happy Stargazing folks

Big News Folks!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you news, big news. Literally big news, not “big” in the sense of the discovery of the Higgs boson or anything quite like that, but BIG.

An asteroid, with a diameter of 400 metres (or, if you’re a fan of the imperial scale of measurement, 1,300 feet) is currently passing by the Earth. The asteroid will reach its closest point to the Earth in its “flyby” at 23:28 GMT, and will be 325,000 kilometres away (or 202,000 miles) from the surface of our planet.

  To put this into some perspective, the moon is 384,399 kilometres (238854 miles) away from us. This means that this asteroid will be passing by the earth between the Moon and ourselves, and will be inside the moons orbit.

 Whilst we have been assured that the trajectory of the asteroid is not one that would lead to a collision course (and modern astrophysicists can predict the trajectory of these asteroids for many hundreds of years) it is the closest “flyby” of any near Earth object (which is the term given to any object that passes through the trajectory of the Earths’ orbit) since 1976, and we shall not receive another such close visit until the year 2028.

The asteroid (named 2005 YU55) will not be visible to the naked eye astronomer (if it were, we should be worried!!) but any of you with a telescope with a diameter of 15cm or larger should stand a very good chance of seeing the largest asteroid flyby that we have ever known about in advance as it travels across our sky between now and Thursday the Tenth of November.

  If I am able, your very own StudentAstro shall attempt to see and photograph the asteroid tonight as it passes across the sky over  StudentAstroHQ (my Uni digs).

Happy Asteroid hunting (and stargazing)!!! 

Newtons Laws of Motion

Sir Isaac Newton is definitely most famous because of his exploits with an apple tree, and apple and (probably) a sore head, which infamously enabled him to proclaim the existence of a Force of nature which he called "Gravity" but he did discover something else, something which is still used today, and in the exact same form as Newton first discovered. (Unlike Gravity, (which has been improved upon by the likes of Albert Einstein) His Laws of Motion are still used today to enable physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and many others to calculate the behaviour of any object that is moving.

Newton devised just 3 simple laws of motion, all of which are essential to anybody with an interest in physics or engineering.

The First law was worded thus: Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform (unaccelerated) motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force

Now, whilst this may seem fairly obvious to everybody reading this, as it simply means that (for example) your computer (which is presumably stationary as you read this) will remain stationary until you pick it up, or push it away or pull it towards you. But this law has one part that people at the time had trouble grasping: uniform motion without the application of a force. And, if you think about it, the notion of something moving without you putting any force into moving it does seem to contradict our understanding of "the way things are", however; Newton explained that forces of friction were always present, so the object was being acted upon by invisible forces. Only in special cases, such as upon a frozen lake, where friction is practically zero, can Newton’s first law of motion be easily observed.

Another point of the First law was a concept of inertia, which is defined at the reluctance of a body to move from a stationary position (such as pushing a heavy box) or to stop when it is already in motion ( for example a person falling over the handlebars of a bike when it crashes into a wall). The law shows that in cases of inertia, a force must be applied. The mass of a body is effectively a measure of its inertia. If an objects velocity only changes by a small amount when a force is applied, then we say it has a high inertia (and usually a high mass). Centripetal force is another concept derived from Newton’s first law, which states that an object must have a force applied if it is to move in a circular fashion.

Newton’s Second Law of Motion is the more famous of the three, and has the majority of the mathematical concept and formulae within it. It is worded as: The rate of change of momentum in a body is directly proportional to the external force acting on the body and takes place in the direction of the force

The formula for momentum can be written as p=mv as it is the product of an objects mass and its velocity, and the applied force, stated in Newton’s law has the formula F=ma and is the definition of the Newton (unit of force and weight) with one Newton being the force which produces an acceleration of 1ms^-1 in a mass of 1kg. This brings up the question of the difference between mass and weight, which are often incorrectly used interchangeably. Mass is a fundamental property of all objects and cannot change. The weight of that object is the force acting upon the object due to gravity.

Finally, Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that: If a body A exerts a force on a body B, then B exerts an equal and oppositely directed force on A.

This law suggests, therefore, that all forces act in pairs, for example, I am exerting a force upon the chair on which I am now sat, the force being equal to my own weight, and the chair is exerting an equal force upwards, against my weight, which is why I do not simply fall through the chair.

 So, that was a (fairly) brief explanation of the 3 Laws of Motion put forth by Sir Isaac Newton, I hope that you have found this useful, please feel free to comment with questions, and suggestions for further posts.

 Happy Stargazing folks!!

METEOR STORM THIS WEEKEND!!!

Ok guys, once in a lifetime news here, the draconid meteor shower is due in October, as per usual, but this time, as the comet that produces the debris that we view as the shower passes, we shall see it from up close, and pass through a cloud of its debris from an earlier pass by the sun. This shall cause a meteor storm to occur, with possibly more than 1 meteor (sometimes known as shooting stars) per second. This is truly worth going out to look for, it doesnt happen very often. If i can do, I'll post pictures of it on here, and if not, please feel free to send me yoyrs to include on this blog.

 Tips on viewing the storm: you dont need any equipment like telescopes or binoculars, just avoid looking towards the moon, as it is a gibbous moon and will therefore be quite bright. Look out between the hours of 6pm and 10pm on the 8th of October, and try on the 7th and the 9th just in case.


 Hope you all see an amazing event!!
 Happy meteor gazing!!

STUDENTastro

Its official dear readers, this is now definitely STUDENTastro. I moved into university digs two weeks ago, and I have just managed to set my laptop up to the internet, so lets resume the blog!!
   Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for reading this in the first place, I only do this because it seems that you enjoy reading my ramblings about the universe and all it holds.
   But, going back down to business, I'm sure you'll have read somewhere, or heard someone mention (especially if you follow me on twitter) that the folks over at CERN thought that they had managed to accellerate a neutrino to a speed greater than the speed of light. It now trandspires that this wasnt correct, and there was a malfunction in some of the equipment used to measure the speed of the neutrino.
  I therefore presume that you're wondering why I'm mentioning something that didnt happen? Well, its because if it had happened, it would have had massive repercussions for the entire world in which we live, not just the realm of high energy particle physics.
  Essentially what it would have meant was that Albert Einstein was wrong about there being a "cosmic speed limit" at which only light has the ability to travel. This would have meant that General Relativity, as well as Special Relativity would have been greatly compromised as valid scientific theories, as would any theory that has come since, and has been based off this idea of a cosmic speed limit.
 So, besides kncoking us back 100 years in terms of our understanding of the universe, how else would this news have effected us? This is where things get... Interesting. If an object can travel faster than light, the time travel would be much more possible, as would teleportation. However, the more unusual repercussion would be to our understanding of cause and effect. As it stands, action 2 can cause action 2, but action 2 cannot have caused action 1 because it occured after action one had been completed. But if objects can travel faster than light, this wouldnt be the case. Actoin 1 could both cause AND BE CAUSED BY action 2. Weird isnt it?
   So this is why physics sighs with relief that this was not the case, and it was just an instrumental error. Or was it...? The folks over at CERN are going to recreate the experiment a few more thousand times, just to make sure.
   Hope you enjoyed this post, and I'm glad to be back on your internets!! Feel free to comment below with suggestions for future posts and your questions!!
  Happy stargazing guys

Recent Updates

Ok. Let's get back in business tonight. Well, to begin with, I must once again apologise for not blogging this last week ladies and Gentlemen, but sue to the rioting that has occurred in Manchester and the nearby towns, as well as London, it has just been too manic to be able to sit down and write a blog about anything other than the sheer panic that these sporadic outbursts of violence has caused.

So, anyway, let's get up to date with recent developments, all of which shall be further explained in their own individual blog posts as soon as I am able to write them up. So, first order of business is one that occurred last weekend. Due to solar flares and geomagnetic storms, the Northern Lights were visible as far south in the UK as Birmingham (for those of you unfamiliar with the geography of the UK, Birmingham is in the Midlands of England). But, defeated by cloud cover once again (as with the lunar eclipse) your friendly StudentAstro was unable to see the Lights. Which is very sad as it is a lifes ambition of mine to see them. Now, theoretically you should get this oppotunity to see them over the more southern regions of the Northern hemisphere every ten years, as I will explain in further blogs, but the truth is that solar storms of sufficient size rarely occur in the direction of the Earth. Why the Northern lights occur, and why we should see them more every ten years will be explained in a future post.

Right, more news. Big news. NASAs is believed to have discovered liquid salt water on the surface of Mars. Now, this is a truly massive piece of news in the world of astrophysics, cosmology, astronomy and the whole scientific world in general, because it greatly effects the Fermi Paradox, and therefore the odds of finding extra-terrestrial life forms elsewhere in the Universe, and even within our own solar system!! But, again, more about this in an upcoming post.

Ok, so, other news, which is more in line with upcoming events more than current news. We are due a fly-past from 2 comets, and an asteroid over the next few months and years. An asteroid is due to fly past the Earth at its closest proximity to the Earth in the entire of its orbit. But it is nowhere near close enough for mass death and destrustion, so please don't panic!!! And the two comets are Elenin and Gerradd. Gerradd will be visible in the sky until 2013. But once again, more will be coming on this is future blogs, along with where the comets will be visible, how to spot them and even a few pictures.

Hope everyone is safe, well and continuing to enjoy reading this blog. Please comment with any questions that you may have.

Happy Stargazing folks!!!

apologies and Thanks

I would like to apologise for my absence from the internet this past couple of months, but I have been suffering from technical difficulties. However, I shall soon be able to resume your normal service of blogs about Space, Astronomy, the Universe and anything else that you might find interesting.
Next, I would like to thank you, dear readers for being patient with me, and it seems, for continuing to show your support for this blog by continuing to follow it.
In my next entries I shall try to write about things that will be much more interesting for all of you to read.
If you have any requests or comments, please feel free to comment, or to drop me a line on Twitter. My username is @Waltonluke

Happy Stargazing

Galaxies and other objects in the fantastic Lunar Eclipse image

I did say that I would point out a few of the galaxies and other objects visible in this amazing picture of the Lunar eclipse that took place on the 15th of June 2011 and here it is:

·         M17 is the Swan Nebula, which is a star formation region of gas and dust, about 5000 light years away from the earth.

·         M18 is an open star cluster in the constellation of Sagittarius, is approximately 32 million years old, and is 4,900 light years away.

·         M20 is known as the Trifid Nebula, and is also a star forming region, approximately 7600 light years away from the Earth, and is a favourite amongst amateur astronomers to try to spot, due to its bright colouring.

·         M21 is another open cluster of stars, with about 57 small, dim stars to be found within it, due to its young age, as it is only 4.6 million years old.

·         M22 is a globular cluster (meaning that all the stars in it orbit a galactic centre point, like a super massive black hole, or a very massive star), located some 10600 light years away from the earth.

·         M23 is another open cluster, approximately 2,150 light-years away from Earth

·         M25 is an open cluster, with a diameter of 19 light years, and is 2000 light years away from our planet.

·         M8, more commonly known as the Lagoon Nebula, has an area of 5500 light years, and is estimated to be between 4,000-6,000 light years from the Earth.

·         M6, or the Butterfly cluster, is an open cluster in the constellation of Scorpius, compromised of numerous hot blue stars and the K-type orange star BM Scorpii, and is 1600 light years away from the Earth

Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere

For anyone living in, or travelling to the Southern Hemisphere, these are the constellations that you can expect to see. Happy stargazing!!

A Solstice Guide

Ok, today, being the 21st of June, is the summer Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Winter solstice in the Southern, and well, I thought that a brief explanation of what they are, and why they occur might be in order, as it seems to be an event that is almost taken for granted during the modern era.

Well, as to why it occurs, this is also due to the reason that seasons occur, and equinoxes happen as part of this. They all occur because the Earth is tilted upon its axis by between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. This tilt, whilst being a relatively small angle has the ability to ensure that the two hemispheres of the Earth (northern and southern) have different exposure to the sun at all times during the year, causing the natural seasons to occur.

It also means that, on certain days in the year sunrise and sunset occur roughly 12 hours apart, these being called equiluxes, and these are usually mistaken for exquinoxes. Rather, an equinox is when the sun is aligned with the Earths equator, meaning that the axis is tilted neither away nor towards the sun. Hence the equinoxes occur in spring and autumn.

Right, so let us now return to Solstices, as this is our main topic today. The sun appears to be at its most northern and southernmost points in the sky, depending on which hemisphere you are in (if you are in the northern hemisphere, when the sun is at its most northern point, this is the summer solstice, and is the winter solstice for the southern hemisphere. And when the sun is at its most southern position, it is the winter solstice for the northern hemisphere, and the summer solstice for those living south of the equator.) It’s is called a solstice, from the Latin meaning "sun to stand still", due to the apparent movement of the sun in the sky stopping, before reversing direction.

It occurs because of the tilt of the earth’s axis, which means that each hemisphere is either facing away or towards the sun, and these solstices happen when the process reaches its extremes, so when the northern hemisphere is facing the sun at its maximum exposure, this is a summer solstice for the northern hemisphere, and a winter one for the southern hemisphere, and vice versa.

I hope that this has cleared up any existing confusion about solstices, equinoxes and equiluxes.

Just an Amazing Picture.

This is a Picture of the lunar eclipse taken in Iraq, behind it you can see the milky wayand other galaxies, along with other universal objects. I shall label them, and post the picture again soon, with explanations of the objects visible... Its just a beautiful image anyway =)