Do you regret not taking that astronomy course in college? Starting tonight, the Cincinnati Observatory is offering an weekly introductory course called A-2-Z Astronomy taught by University of Cincinnati Professor Dave Bosse. The course will cover everything from the Moon to our Solar and Galactic systems. The course is free to Observatory members in the $50 range and higher. Reservations are required as space is very limited. Contact the Observatory at 513-321-5186 to register.

As the blizzard of the century continues to pound on my front door I felt inspired to write an entry about another icy world in our solar system that has astronomers’ horns locked in a “heated” debate over ice volcanoes, underground oceans, and the growing religious status of Lime Diet Coke. Ok…so not so much the Diet Coke thing, but Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is a really cool (no pun intended) place that has baffled astronomers for years and now a general consensus has been reached that there is an ocean of liquid water beneath the planet’s surface. This makes Enceladus one of two places in the solar system that scientists suspect of harboring a subterranean ocean; the other is Europa, the legendary Jupiter moon that is science fiction home of the monolith race from 2001: A Space Odyssey. While the debate over the presence of liquid water raged in science labs and UFC octagons across the world, the Cassini probe silently performed a series of flybys in 2008 to search for the presence of negative ions. According to SPACE.com, the sample that provided the data set came from Cassini’s much-publicized plunge through an ice geyser eruption in 2008. These geysers pump gigantic plumes of ice into space which become caught up in Saturn’s gravitational pull and ultimately form the planet’s gigantic e-ring. These negative ions are believed to represent the flow of water and have only been found on Earth, Enceladus, and passing comets. Their discovery has shifted the balance of discussion in favor of a subterranean ocean and should definitely make the planet a prime candidate for the search for life outside of our world.

Enceladus is one of the larger moons in the Saturn system and can easily be seen with a small telescope. I recommend nothing smaller than 3” reflector although I have had some success in seeing the Saturnian moons with a 1.5” department store refractor (bad bad bad). I highly recommend using an astronomy program such as Starry Night or TheSKY to ensure that you know exactly how to identify Enceladus among the other Saturnian moons.

Image Credit: Starry Night Professional

In light of the Spirit Rover recently getting stuck in the Martian sand, I felt that this XKCD comic was very appropriate to repost. XKCD is one of the funniest and most enlightening comics available on the web today. Visit the official website for more math, language, and love.

As it struggles to come to terms with the loss of its manned space program and begins to divert funds to other missions, NASA has extended the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn until 2017. Cassini has been returning beautiful photos of the ringed planet as well as important data on the composition and behavior of its moons since 2004. The probe arrived at Saturn in June of 2004 carrying the European-built Huygens probe designed to land on Titan. In January of 2005, Huygens became the first man-made object to penetrate the atmosphere and land on the surface of Titan. The first photos of Titan’s surface revealed a hazy world sculpted by lakes of liquid methane and mountains made of rock-hard ice and exposed a place that is considered by many scientists to be the closest example we have to what our own little world looked like in its primordial stages of development. The 2011 extension known as Cassini-Solstice will be the second extension since the probe arrived and is sure to continue a Cassini tradition of giving us incredible views of the jewel of our solar system.

CASSINI-HUYGENS 2010 MISSION HIGHLIGHTS 

• Rhea Flyby – March 2
• Titan Flyby – April 5, May 20, June 5, June 21, July 7, September 24, November 11 
• Enceladus Flyby – April 28, May 18, August 13, November 30, December 21

Saturn is primed to put on a dazzling show for professional and amateur astronomers this year. Right now, it is rising through Virgo in the eastern sky just after 2245 EST. While the ringed planet always makes for wonderful observing with even the most modest of telescopes, it will be perfectly positioned to show off its magnificant rings around April. To celebrate the event, the Cincinnati Observatory will be hosting “Saturnday” on April 17-April 24 to give the general public an opportunity to see it through a professional-grade telescope. The cost of the event is $6 per person. You can visit the observatory’s website to learn more information. Weather permitting, nightShifted Astronomy will be set up in the Dayton area around that time. Watch the blog and events calendar for details.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cassini-Equinox

Astronomers working at NASA’s Infrared Observatory at Mauna Kea in Hawaii have announced an exciting new ability to identify molecules in the atmosphere of planets around distant stars using small, ground-based observatories. The new method used a spectrograph to isolate the unique light signatures generated by carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere around planet HD189733b located around the star HD 98505 in the Constellation Vulpecula. Spectrographs have been used to detect molecules in the atmospheres of dozens of exoplanets, but a new calibration method developed by the research team has allowed for extremely sensitive atmospheric characterization research to be conducted using Earth-based facilities. The research is extremely promising since the Mauna Kea Observatory ranks as #40 among ground based telescopes which mean that larger and more precise scopes should be able to detect compounds and characterize the atmosphere of exoplanets with greater efficiency and accuracy. Right now, a majority of planets orbiting other stars are Jupiter-like and orbit very close to their host stars. Using this new research method, astronomers hope to use larger telescopes to detect rocky, Earth-like planets.

HIP 98505 is a magnitude 7.65 orange-dwarf star located in the Constellation Vulpecula about two degrees from 13 Vulpeculae. If you would like to see the star for yourself, it rises at 0425 EST in the east-northeast sky and travels about ninety degrees before sunrise at 0615 EST. I recommend a medium to large telescope and would begin looking for this star without a filter.

Image Credit: Starry Night Professional