2009: International Year of Astronomy

2009 has been designated the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations General Assembly. And I'm not sure they could have picked a better year for the designation.

During 2009, a space shuttle mission will be launched to make repairs and upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the greatest scientific and technical feats we've achieved. Not only will these upgrades replace some failed systems, but newer and better instruments will be added to the orbiting observatory, meaning that over the next several years (until it is de-orbited in a fiery mass) Hubble will be more powerful than it has ever been before. And we've all seen what it could do before!

Not only that, but the Kepler mission will finally launch this year and, while it is unlikely to find many planets its first year, its discoveries will excite the imaginations of a great many people.

And the year has started off with some great night skies showing the moon and Venus, Jupiter, and the vastness of stars in the Milky Way. CNN also has a collection of great astronomy photos in their Space Spotlight.

Go out when you get a chance, preferably with a telescope, and take a good look at the sky. Consider the vastness of it all, and wonder why it's there, if not so we can go see it, explore it, touch it.

Amateur Discovers Spacial Anomaly

Over the past couple of years, since I started this blog, I've encouraged you to get involved in science and technology, including pointing you toward Galaxy Zoo as a way to contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

Well, since then, one amateur using Galaxy Zoo—Hanny van Arkel, a schoolteacher from the Netherlands—has made a discovery that has stumped astronomers and physicists. The anomaly, a bright gaseous mass with a gaping hole in its middle, has come to be known as Hanny's Voorwerp (Voorwerp is Dutch for object). And now, thanks to Hanny's discovery, the Hubble space telescope will be pointed at the Voorwerp sometime in 2009 to help determine what it is.

So thanks to amateurs like Hanny (and me, and you, if you've been participating in any of the amateur science opportunities I've highlighted in the past) the amount that we know about our universe is growing. Are you doing your part?

Small, Rocky Worlds

Paul Gilster over at Centauri Dreams has written a post about the prevalance of small, rocky worlds in our galaxy. He reports on 45 new planet reports revealed at the International Astronomical Union's meeting in Boston which have yet to be confirmed, one of which includes a planet projected to have roughly four times the mass of Earth. If confirmed, that would be the smallest exo-planet found yet.

Even if not confirmed with exactly those specifications, these findings provide more information about the universe around us. The planets were found using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla 3.6m telescope.

And if you read the post at Paul's site, you should also pay attention to the comments. Several of them are highly insightful.

LA Times Interviews Maarten Schmidt

The Los Angeles Times has an interview with Kavli Prize winner Maarten Schmidt about the research for which he won the prize, his current research, his background, and his beliefs. It's really very interesting. One example is below.

What's the biggest mystery left in astronomy?

The expansion of the universe. You would expect that because of the gravity between galaxies, that it goes slower and slower. . . . It now turns out that rather than decelerating, it is accelerating. There is a repulsive force at work. This thing is 10 to the 120th power smaller than Einstein would have wanted. We just don't know what it is. It's called dark energy.

WorldWide Telescope

In case you missed it, Microsoft released its WorldWide Telescope software for free yesterday. This is an application that combines their Photosynth technology with astronomy images and data to create an interactive view of the universe around us.

It's a pretty cool application, and even cooler that they released it for free. Check it out.

Hey Buddy, Wanna Be an Astronomy Researcher (Again)?

Back in January, I posted my first Hey Buddy... post, introducing a service called systemic that allowed amateurs (like you and me) to contribute to astronomical research. I bring this up now to introduce a new program that will allow amateurs and school children to participate in a project to help map star visibility.

The program, known as the Great World Wide Star Count, allows citizen scientists and school children to record their observations of various constellations during the period of October 1-15. The event, which is free and open to everyone who wants to participate, is organized by the Windows to the Universe project at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), in conjunction with planetariums and scientific societies across the country and abroad. Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.

Bright outdoor lighting at night is a growing problem for astronomical observing programs around the world. By searching for the same constellations, participants in the Great World Wide Star Count will be able to compare their observations with what others see, giving them a sense of how star visibility varies from place to place. The observers will also learn more about the economic and geographic factors that control the light pollution in their communities and around the world.

This is a great opportunity to get involved in scientific research by enjoying a fun, educational family activity with your kids. I know I plan to participate!

Hey Buddy, Wanna Be an Astronomer?

Thanks to Phil Plait for turning me onto a new opportunity for amateurs like me (and, presumably, you) to participate in scientific research. In the past several years, advanced astronomical telescopes have collected vast amounts of data--more than can be reasonably processed by astronomers. The solution, of course, was to use advanced pattern-recognition algorithms to analyze the images.

That introduced a secondary problem... namely, that the most advanced pattern-recognition algorithms available today are still not advanced enough to catch everything. That's where amateurs, like me (and, presumably, you) come in. From the GalaxyZoo website:

Why do we need you?
The simple answer is that the human brain is much better at recognising patterns than a computer can ever be [EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't think this is acutally true... eventually computers will surpass our ability to recognize patterns, but certainly not anytime soon.] . Any computer program we write to sort our galaxies into categories would do a reasonable job, but it would also inevitably throw out the unusual, the weird and the wonderful. To rescue these interesting systems which have a story to tell, we need you.

The site includes a tutorial to explain what they're looking for and how to get started, and once you get used to it, it's pretty fun. After that, there's a trial that challenges you to identify galaxies, and if you get at least eight correct (out of 15) you'll be able to get started classifying galaxies and contributing to the advancement of our understanding of the universe.

Happy hunting!

Potentially Habitable Planet Found Around Another Star

You've probably heard by now, but scientists at the European Southern Observatory have announced that they have found the smallest planet yet around another star (other than around pulsars, which would be completely inhospitable to life). It's still bigger than Earth, about five times our mass, which means it would have a surface gravity about 1.6 times ours.

Most exciting, though, is that this planet is relatively temperate. It orbits a weak, red dwarf star (Gliese 581), that doesn't give off much heat. But it orbits close enough--about 6.7 million miles--to its parent star that its surface temperature is estimated to be between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius (32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit).

It's too early to tell if the planet would be hospitable to life or--and how exciting is this?--if it already has life on it. All scientists know for sure is the planet's mass and distance from its parent star... the planet could be icy, with a much larger diameter and lower temperature. Or it could be shrouded in a very dense atmosphere, like Venus, in which case it would be extremely hot. But so far indications are good for the planet to be capable of sustaining liquid water, and thus capable of supporting life.

Gliese 581 is one of the one hundred closest stars to Earth, at only about 20.5 light years distant, in the constellation Libra. More resources should be put into probing stars in our stellar neighborhood, as it is quite possible that there are many, many more Earth-like planets to be found.

Over the next several years, several space-based missions will join the terrestrial telescopes that are already searching. Earlier this year, the ESA's COROT went into service studying the accoustical waves that ripple across the surface of stars as a result of planets orbiting around them, similar to tidal effects in our oceans here on Earth due to the orbit of the moon. Astronomers expect to find between 10-40 rocky worlds, together with tens of new gas giants, in each star field that COROT will observe. Every 150 days COROT will move to a new field and begin observing again.

Next to launch will be NASA's Kepler mission, currently scheduled for launch in October 2008. Kepler will essentially be a super-powerful photometer that measures the brightness of stars. When a planet passes between Kepler and its parent star, it will block a portion of the star's light, and Kepler will register this difference. It will do this for 100,000 stars over the course of its 4-6 year mission.

No sooner than 2015 or 2016, NASA will launch SIM Planetquest (formerly known as the Space Interferometry Mission), which will use interferometry to amplify the light of any planets and negate out the glare of the parent star to look for planets. The launch date for this mission has already been pushed back five times, and with NASA's science budget continuing to be squeezed, it's likely that it will be pushed back farther, or even cancelled.

NASA is also planning a pair of missions, called the Terrestrial Planet Finder missions. The first of these, the Visible Light Coronagraph (TPF-C), will collect starlight and the very dim reflected light from the planets. The telescope would have special optics to reduce the starlight by a factor of one billion, thus enabling astronomers to detect the faint planets. TPF-C could conceivably launch as early as 2014, but I wouldn't count on it.

The second TPF mission, the Infrared Optical Interferometer (TPF-I), will small telescopes on a fixed structure or on separated spacecraft floating in precision formation would simulate a much larger, very powerful telescope. The interferometer would utilize a technique called nulling to reduce the starlight by a factor of one million, thus enabling the detection of the very dim infrared emission from the planets. TPF-I could conceivably launch by 2020, but I doubt NASA will let it get that far.

Also on the far horizon is the ESA's Darwin mission, which would use three space telescopes flying in formation as an interferometer, similar to TPF-I. In addition to detecting Earth-sized planets, Darwin would be capable of determining their atmospheric content. Darwin is currently slated for a launch no sooner than 2020.

Some of these missions will never be launched for political or economic reasons, but the ones that do manage to make it to launch will bring potentially hundreds or thousands of discoveries of worlds outside our solar system, many of which may be capable of supporting human life.

Then we'll just need to find a way to get there.

Hey Buddy, Wanna Be an Astronomy Researcher?

I recently discovered a website that will allow any astronomy enthusiast, even amateurs such as myself, to participate in astronomy research. The website is called systemic, and is focused on helping amateurs sift through astronomical observations to try to identify star systems with extrasolar planets.

Basically, the software allows users to simulate planetary systems and determine how well the simulated systems fit observational data. Systems that match the observations closely are then uploaded back into the database as potential matches.

As part of testing the system, the systemic team has also added the radial velocity observations for all known extrasolar planetary systems into their database to determine whether users' simulations match scientifically-accepted facts.

If you'd like to help out with some astronomy research, you can download the software here. I certainly plan to do so.