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

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

You may remember my entry last week about Mars and how good it would look in a telescope as it approached its opposition with Earth on January 29. Well, opposition has come and gone, but things are about to get a little more interesting. Tonight and tomorrow night (Feb 1) offer a special treat for those astronomers that are willing to carry their equipment back out into the frigid winter temperatures. Mars and The Beehive Cluster (M44) will be within 4 degrees of each other as they rise together in eastern sky after 1830 EST. The Beehive is a magnitude 4.00 open cluster of stars in the Constellation Cancer and should be relatively easy to see with a small to moderate sized telescope.

If you are lucky enough to have clear skies then you should step outside tonight and see Mars (magnitude -1.23) in its most brilliant display of the year as it moves quickly toward its opposition, the point when our planet, Mars, and the Sun are lined up, on January 29. Mars rises in the Eastern sky at 1828hrs EST and is best visible around midnight. Click here for a Starry Night screenshot showing Mars as it will appear at 1930hrs EST. While a small telescope will definitely show the round shape of Mars, a medium to large sized scope (recommended w/color filters) is necessary to bring out any of the red planet’s details. Assuming that the weather clears up at some point during the day I plan to set up my C9.25 and try to see Mars, but I am confident that the rain, snow, fog, and cloudy skies that have plagued Southwest Ohio for the last month will continue well into the rest of my life. If you live in the Southwest Ohio area and are up for a trip to Cincinnati, then check out the Cincinnati Observatory! They started an event on Thursday called Marsapalooza 2010 which gives the general public a chance to see the red planet as it approaches its closest distance to Earth on January 27. Marsapalooza 2010 lasts from January 21-24 and reservations are required. Call the Observatory at (513) 321-5186 or email Craig Neimi to RSVP.

Just as with any other close Mars approach, the famous “Mars Hoax E-mail” is once again making the rounds. I received one this morning in my university e-mail account and the person sending it had been worked into a frenzy. After explaining the origin and truth behind this message to so many people, I just felt shame. A lot of other space/astronomy websites and blogs have already debunked this annoying e-mail so I will simply point you in their direction. Suffice to say that at no point will Mars appear as large and detailed as the Moon. Our Moon is roughly 250,000 miles away and has an apparent magnitude of -12.6 while Mars is about 34,000,000 miles away with an apparent magnitude of -1.23. It would take a significant celestial event to move Mars anywhere near our world. SPACE.com’s article about the Mars approach has an excerpt at the bottom which explains the Mars Hoax E-mail. NASA has a page on the e-mail. Last but not least, there is a Wikipedia entry on the e-mail.

Image Credit: NASA

Imagine that you live on a distant planet in the Alpha Centauri star system and you have decided to spend the evening watching the suns set. Yes, I said suns. It is late in the evening and the twin suns that dominate your sky are slowly making their way toward the horizon. Your face catches a gentle rush of wind as Centauri A and Centauri B begin to disappear behind the curve of your home world. The enchanting spectacle is short lived, but extremely common among worlds orbiting G-class stars. The two suns disappear beneath the horizon and ultimately give way to a sea of glistening stars. One of those stars…is our home…

That star, our Sun, is an unbound G-class star—a lonely outcast. Fortunately it did not take years of psychotherapy and a library of self-help books for astronomers to realize it. Observations of distant star systems such as Alpha Centauri have helped us understand that most G-class stars are binary—meaning that they are part of an orbiting pair—each star orbits the other just as the planets in our solar system orbit the Sun. Centauri A and Centauri B are gravitationally linked to each other just as are a majority of the G-class stars in our galaxy. Why are we so special? Where is our companion star? Unfortunately, we do not have one. Our Sun is alone and this is a very valuable thing for us to understand.

Astronomers used to believe that a majority of stars were gravitationally linked. That line of thinking has changed in the last few years as we have learned that over half of the stars in our own galaxy are not gravitationally bound to other stars. That is because a majority of those are stars M-class which tend to be less massive than our own. The stars with higher masses such as our Sun often form in darker clouds of matter where it is theorized that their cores are more susceptible to fragmentation. A prime example of a star formation region where this may take place is the Eagle Nebula. Imagine a new, high-mass star has formed inside the nebula but its core is unstable and fragments during formation. The two fragments then gather enough matter between the two of them to form separate, but gravitationally bound stars.

Another theory is that all stars are born as binary systems and are torn apart after their formation. This could be from passing too close to a black hole or being caught in the gravitational pull of other stars. Whatever the answer is, the fact remains that our star is unique among its G-class brothers and the fact that it is a single system adds another item to the list of reasons that our place in the universe is precious.

Some interesting facts…

- 70% of stars are single star systems/30% are multiple star systems
- G-class stars (i.e. our Sun) only make up 7% of our galactic star catalogue

There are many fascinating regions of space that are forming new stars. These can be seen with a small to moderate sized telescope. Two of the most visible are The Great Nebula in Orion (Messier 42) and The Eagle Nebula (Messier 16).

I’m a few days late getting to this story, but you’ll have to bear with me as I’m still getting caught up on all the space and astronomy news since my move to Ohio. NASA’s amazing Spitzer Space Telescope recently detected the remnants of a collision of two planetary bodies around a small star called HD 172555 in the Constellation Pavo. Astronomers estimate that the collision occurred a few thousand years ago between an object the size of Mercury and another roughly the size of the Moon. Spitzer was able to detect the remnants of the two worlds and pockets of refrozen lava scattered across the star system. The force of such an impact would be so strong that it would literally melt the surface of these two colliding bodies. The resulting destruction would be beyond anything that our race has ever experienced.

Detection of the particles was conducted using a spectrograph to detect the different chemical light fingerprints left behind by the collision. This wave chart shows what scientists used to detect the remnants of the collision. It may be difficult for a layman (including myself) to fully comprehend the data at hand, but it is relatively easy to get a general idea of how the scientists researching this star system were able to detect the collision. Each chemical compound leaves a different fingerprint which the telescope can separate from other compounds. Melted glass, lava, and other chemicals left floating in space after the collision effect the light transmission from HD 172555 to our own solar system and were ultimately detected by Spitzer.

An exoplanet collision such as the one around HD 172555 is extremely interesting because it gives us a window into the history of our own planet. In the accretion disc theory, our solar system’s history is littered with massive collisions such as the one around HD 172555. These collisions played an important role in the formation of the planets in our solar system. In fact, it is widely believed that a Mars-sized object collided with and was vaporized by a primordial version of our own planet. The resulting collision created a cloud of dust that eventually condensed and became our Moon. Unfortunately, the Constellation Pavo is only visible to people in the Southern Hemisphere, so don’t expect to get out your telescope in Ohio or Texas and see this curious star. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, HD 172555 is located very close to Delta Pavonis.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

While many people in the United States are watching the formation of the first tropical storms of the 2009-2010 hurricane season, scientists working on the Cassini-Equinox (formerly Cassini-Huygens) mission are analyzing an India-sized storm cell on Saturn’s moon Titan. The storm cell was discovered in April 2008 at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii and appears to cover a “tropical” area of the moon that is not known for generating excessive cloud cover. These storms are way cool because they are believed to cause a significant amount of methane rainfall and play a significant part in the geographical formations on the planet’s surface. Imagine a hurricane of liquid methane washing up on the shores of Ft. Lauderdale and you’ll have an idea of what these storms are like.

For years, Titan has been a source of inspiration and curiosity. Many scientists and science fiction writers have written about what it would be like to exist on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon. Covered by a dense atmosphere of methane and nitrogen, it is believed that Titan’s storm regularly rain down liquid methane into massive lake and river formations. This interaction of methane on Titan is particularly fascinating as it gives us an opportunity to see the existence of a chemical compound in a uniquely alien environment. Astronomers have theorized that Titan is very similar to primordial Earth and often look to it for ideas about the history of our own planet. In 2005, the Huygens probe separated from the Cassini orbiter and traveled through the dense Titan atmosphere; ultimately returning photos of the planet’s surface.

Titan is one of the few Saturn moons that can be seen with a small telescope. With an apparent magnitude of 8.6, it is one of the brightest in the Saturn system. Unfortunately, Saturn is below the Northern Hemisphere horizon. It rises around 9:00 a.m. and is best visible around 3:15 p.m. when the Sun is still high in the sky. It will return to the night sky in late November.

In non-astronomy related news, I would like to take a moment to send my condolences to the residents of The Promenade at Beavercreek Apartments in Beavercreek, OH not far from where I work. One of the luxury apartments was gutted by a massive fire this afternoon. I only mention it because this happened very close to where I live and work. I can only imagine the horror that these people experienced as they sit around watching helplessly as the fire consumed their homes. This fire was much more massive than the photos and news recordings make it out to be. I saw it on my way home from work and it was terrifying to see the fire coming up from over a treeline from so far away. My thoughts are with the families that lived there.

Image Credit: NASA

So far, trying to see the 2009 Perseid Meteor Shower has been a bust for me. A continuing series of clouds, a menacing light dome from nearby Dayton, and the Moon have made it virtually impossible to see the shower. The only ones I’ve been fortunate enough to spot where two quick blips of light early this morning on my way to work. I’m sure that members of the Miami Valley Astronomical Society and those out at John Bryan State Park are getting a much better view than I am. I plan to take the refractor out east this weekend to get a glimpse of a few deep sky objects and to test out the local visibility. The Clear Dark Sky website says that the local area limits visibility to 5.6-5.9 so I’m hoping that a trip out of town will increase my visibility enough for a few more Messier and NGC objects.

The Perseids Meteor Shower will peak August 11-14 and it is going to be a challenging year for those of us who enjoy this wonderful celestial event. This year, observers will have to work through the light of a waning Moon just as the Perseids make their way across the sky. The Moon will rise around 11:00 p.m. southeast of the constellation Perseus, the origin of the Perseid meteoroids. The additional light may obscure some of the more spectacular meteors, but it should not be a deterrent against watching the shower itself. Perseid meteors are famous for being visible in heavily light polluted metropolitan regions and intense Moonlight. The Perseids Meteor Shower is caused by the remnants of 109P/Comet Swift-Tuttle which was discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle.

Image Credit: Katsuhiro Mouri & Shuji Kobayashi

Additional Information
Perseid Meteor Shower Might Dazzle (Space.com)
109P/Swift-Tuttle (Cometology)

As the clouds continue to linger over the nightShifted Observatory site, I’m taking this time to get some well deserved rest and relaxation that consists mostly of watching the X-Files, Bones, American Dad!, and a few other shows on DVD while simultaneously searching the internet for the latest and greatest space news. There’s not much that hasn’t been covered repeatedly by other blogs and that’s the difficulty with running a site with such a specialized topic arena. At times there can be so little space or astronomy news that it’s quickly picked up by some of the bigger sites and then run into the ground by sites like nightShifted (i.e. Steve Eve’s rocket story). Imagine the anxiety I feel when I first realized that all I have to get people to actually read this site is my charm and my wit! Oh, the humanity! :-)

Rembrandt Crater on Mercury | Image Credit: NASA

Of the stories I’ve found so far today, the recent (as in a few days ago) story about data extracted from Messenger’s Mercury flyby last October seems to be the most interesting, so I’m going to post about it…adding one more redundant news posting to the internet! I remember that one of the talking points of that flyby was the discovery of a crater called Rembrandt that covers an area of the surface equal to the distance between Washington D.C. and Boston. I’m going to assume that NASA has compensated for the inflated egos of Boston Red Sox fans when making that size comparison or else the crater may not end in our solar system. *cough* The Rembrandt crater/basin is huge, but it’s just a small part of the continuing discoveries we’re making about Mercury. Until recently, astronomers believed that Mercury was much like our Moon, but the new observations by Messenger are changing that! I was hoping that Zeta Reticulans with advanced laser beams were responsible, but instead it appears that surface patterns and mineral composition evidence is leading researchers to conclude that volcanism played a significant role in the development of Mercury’s surface. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of the planet’s surface may have been shaped by ancient volcanoes!

As opposed to bad Diet Coke or good Nickelback songs, volcanoes are actually quite common throughout our solar system. Venus, Earth, Mars, Enceladus (a Saturn moon), and perhaps other worlds have either past or currently active volcanoes. As we all know, Earth has a very active global volcano network and that’s a good thing! Volcanoes are an important part of our planet’s life support system and are in some way responsible for many of the geographical features of our planet. Venus, Mars, and the other worlds in our solar systems are no different. Each planet has its own unique set of volcanoes that helped to form their individual surface features. Can you think of the name of the largest volcano in the solar system? No cheating!

Olympus Mons | Image Credit: NASA

The Mercury discovery is exciting because it once again shows that we can still make incredible discoveries in our own backyard. It’s kind of like using a telescope to spy on the popular girl who lives on the other side of the city and forgetting that there’s a sorority two houses down in our own neighborhood.

General Disclaimer: nightShifted Astronomy does not condone the use of telescopes for spying on your neighbors. It’s unethical and creepy…unless you’re with the FBI. Then it’s just cool.