FEBRUARY 2012


ACTIVITY ON THE SUN HEATS UP
 
The Sun has been busy this week, with a solar flare eruption that has sent billions of tonnes of matter streaming toward Earth.  
 
The 'coronal mass ejection' is a sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the Sun's atmosphere.
 
The current storm is likely to create more frequent and intense displays of aurora, the beautiful Northern Lights or Southern Lights of charged particles in the atmosphere that look like eerie, dancing neon lights in the sky.  
 
There are also concerns the flare will disrupt satellite communications and global positioning systems, and some airlines have rerouted aircraft away from polar regions – however, it seems the effects this time around will be mild to moderate.
 
Solar activity goes through an 11-year cycle, waxing and waning in periods marked by varying intensity of ‘sunspots’.
 
At present, our Sun is moving from a period of sunspot minimum to the more intense and frequent magnetic storms, expected to peak in 2013.
 
 
 
 
AURORAS AROUND THE WORLD
 
The extra solar activity has already produced some of the most spectacular aurora ever seen – here’s a gallery of some of the best photos to date.
 
 
 
SPACE ROCKS
 
A freezing cold mission to the Antarctic for nine meteorite hunters has returned more than 300 specimens of rocks from other worlds.
 
 

COSTA CONCORDIA FROM SPACE
 
The Costa Concordia shipwreck has made headlines around the world … but for a completely different perspective, it has been captured in an amazing image from space.
 


JANUARY 2012
 


 
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME – OR IS THERE?
 
Since NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope was launched in 2009, it has found 2,326 potential planets and has helped to show that planets are not all that rare in the universe. Most of the early planets to be discovered by Kepler and other instruments were large gaseous worlds, without sufficient solid surface to be anything like Earth or sustain life as we know it. But this month, the Kepler team announced the discovery of a pair of planets around a star not unlike our Sun - one about as big as Earth and the other slightly smaller than Venus. These are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a sun-like star.

Both appear to be rocky, like Earth, but are exceptionally hot, with calculated temperatures of about 760 Celsius and 425 Celsius. That puts both outside the “Goldilocks Zone” of potential habitation, but marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth.  The next step – finding one of that size at a similar orbital distance as Earth is from the Sun.

Could it happen in 2012? Watch this space! 

 
IS SANTA BRINGING A CHRISTMAS COMET?
 
The unexpected survival of Comet Lovejoy around the Sun this month means there could be a spectacular sight for astronomers just after Christmas, low in the eastern sky in the morning.
 
http://www.universetoday.com/91957/surprising-comet-lovejoy-now-becoming-merry-and-bright/ 
 

CASSINI STILL PRODUCING TOP PICS
 
Cassini started making headlines with its mission to Saturn years ago, but today is still making close passes of the Saturninan moons Dione and Titan and sending back the photos to prove it.  The beautiful new series of raw images are available from this NASA story.
 
 

TOP TEN ASTRONOMY DISCOVERIES OF 2011
 
It’s been a huge year for astronomy. Take a look back at the biggest finds of 2011 with these summaries.
 
 


DECEMBER 2011 



Total Eclipse of the Moon
 
 New Zealanders will get a rare opportunity to observe a total lunar eclipse in their skies in the very early morning of Sunday the 11th of December

The eclipse will begin just after 12:30am and be visible from all of New Zealand, where the skies are clear. The period of total eclipse lasts for less than an hour, from just after 3am to just before 4am.

Observatories around the country will be hosting special events to allow the public to observe this phenomenon through powerful telescopes. In Auckland a large crowd is expected to gather at Stardome Observatory & Planetarium where the public are invited to participate in viewing the event between 12am and 6am for a gold coin donation.

In a lunar eclipse the Moon is obscured as it passes through the Earth’s shadow. There are actually two shadows, called the umbra and the penumbra. The umbra is a smaller circle of dark shadow caused by the Earth blocking all the light from the Sun to the Moon. Only a partial eclipse can be seen when the Moon is in the penumbra.
  • 12:33am – First contact with penumbra (part shadow begins to creep across the Moon)
  • 1:46am – First contact with umbra (full shadow begins to cross the Moon)
  • 3:06am – Total eclipse starts (Moon in full dark shadow)
  • 3:32am – Mid-Eclipse
  • 3:57am – Total eclipse ends (lighter penumbral shadow only is across the Moon)
  • 5:18am – Final contact with umbra (full light begins to cross the Moon again)
  • 5:30am – Moon sets in NZ at this time

Stardome Astronomy Educator David Britten says, “The eclipsed Moon is likely to appear copper coloured to us. This is caused by a scattering of sunlight as it passes through the thin ring of the Earth’s atmosphere, removing the blue light and passing mainly the red, some of which weakly illuminates the Moon.”

The last lunar eclipse able to be observed in New Zealand was a total lunar eclipse in June of this year, but New Zealanders were only able to watch the first half of the eclipse before the Moon set for us. There are no total lunar eclipses in 2012. However, New Zealand is privy to prime viewing of two major celestial events next year: the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun on 6 June, and a solar eclipse on 14 November.



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