Dear Friends,
I’ve been remiss in sending out these updates, so lots of interesting space news to catch up on. Hope you enjoy it.
Best wishes,
Jeff
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Contents
1. Mars in the Night Sky
2. Lunar Eclipse: Feb. 20
3. MESSENGER at Mercury
4. Ulysses at the Sun
5. Beyond UFOs Tour
6. Other New Books
7. The 2008 Presidential Election
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1. Mars in the Night Sky
Be sure to look for Mars, easy to spot as it shines bright and red throughout most of the night. It is currently rising in the east around sunset, making its way across the southern half of the sky, and setting in the west near dawn. More info: Lots of good web sites can give you details of the night sky. Larry Sessions, who contributes that calendar, also has his own web site with more information at http://home.comcast.net/~sternmann/.
Questions for Class:
* Mars becomes bright in the night sky about every 26 months. Explain why. (Answer: Look at relative orbits of Earth and Mars. Earth takes one year to orbit Sun and Mars takes a little less than 2 years. If Mars took exactly 2 years to orbit the Sun, then Earth and Mars would pass closest every 2 years. With Mars moving a bit more slowly than that, the actual time from closest approach (called “opposition”) to the next is a bit more than 2 years.
* When is the best time to send a spacecraft to Mars? (Answer: Since the journey to Mars currently takes at least about 6 months, the best time to launch the spacecraft is a few months before closest approach, with the spacecraft arriving at Mars after closest approach. That is why, for example, the Phoenix lander (http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/) was launched in August and will arrive in May.)
2. Lunar Eclipse: Feb. 20
There’s a lunar eclipse coming up on Feb. 20 that should be great from most of North America, as well as South America and western Europe.
3. MESSENGER at Mercury
Until this week, no spacecraft had visited Mercury since 1974. On Monday Jan. 14, the MESSENGER spacecraft made the first of its three flybys of Mercury en route to settling into Mercury orbit in 2011. See the new images of Mercury at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/.
4. Ulysses at the Sun
The Ulysses spacecraft has been studying the Sun since its launch in 1990. It is currently flying over the Sun’s north pole, just in time to study how this region of the Sun changes with the start of a new solar cycle. See the great article from NASA Science News at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/14jan_northpole.htm?list68612.
5. Beyond UFOs Tour
Beyond UFOs, my new book for the general public, will be released in a few weeks. The web site is now live (http://www.beyondufos.com/). Confirmed tour dates include:
March 6: San Antonio, B& N at San Pedro Crossing
March 20: Denver, The Tattered Cover
April 8: Houston Museum of Natural History
April 16: Seattle, Pacific Science Center
April 21: Tucson, U of A Steward Public Evening
Please contact me if you would like to setup a visit to your area.
6. Other New Books
For those teaching at the college level, we have just released new editions of my textbooks in astronomy (The Cosmic Perspective, 5e) and statistics (Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life, 3e).
For those interested in my children’s books, last fall we released Max’s Ice Age Adventure (see http://www.bigkidscience.com/max_iceage.html); this fall (2008) we will release Max Goes to Jupiter.
7. The 2008 Presidential Election
The election may seem disconnected from the space news topic of this newsletter, but it is not. As a publicly funded enterprise, the space program always depends on politics. But this election is particularly important: There are so many challenges facing us as a nation that I believe the security of our future is at risk. I therefore hope that everyone will look closely at all of the presidential candidates and make an informed decision about who to support — and then go out and cast your votes. Different people will reach different conclusions about who is best-suited to lead us to a better future, but if for some reason you would like to know who I am personally supporting, send me an e-mail and I’ll reply privately.