Two moons on 27 August 2008

Two moons on 27 August 2008*

*27th Aug this year is the Whole World is waiting for...........*

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will
cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles off earth.. Be
sure
to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am . It will look like the earth has 2
moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

We at Nakshatra Club

of IBS, HYDERABAD

will try to capture this memorable event through our telescopes.

So, friends don't forget to watch this memorable event

&

keep praying that there are no clouds that night in the sky.

Keep checking our Blogspot for information about any such future events.

Issued in public interest

BY

NAKSHATRA CLUB

IBS,HYDERABAD

What Are Constellations?

So just what are these constellations you keep hearing about? You may go outside some night and see all kinds of stars, and maybe you have even spotted the Big Dipper (northern hemisphere) or the Southern Cross (southern hemisphere), but what about Leo the Lion or Pisces the Fish? What are they?

Looking at the Constellations

The first thing you need to know is that constellations are not real!

When you look in a sky atlas, you might see diagrams like this:
Obviously, this is very different from the photo above. This type of schematic draws the stars as different sizes to represent different brightnesses. In addition, there is a standard way to connect the stars that allow astronomers and others who use charts like this to quickly tell what they are looking at. In almost every star atlas, you will see Orion drawn with these same lines.

You might also notice that every star on the chart is labeled (sorry that it came out a little blurry). This chart is useful because it accurately shows the relative positions of the stars in this small region of the sky. In addition, other things besides stars are also labeled on the chart. For example, Barnard's Loop on the left and M42 in the bottom middle are pointed out. Barnard's Loop is a cloud of faintly glowing gas, which can't be seen without a telescope. M42 is the Great Orion Nebula and it is the red splotch in Orion's Sword in the photo above.

New Planet found in Leo

Spanish and UCL (University College London) scientists have discovered a possible terrestrial-type planet orbiting a star in the constellation LEO.The new planet, which lies at a distance of 30 light-years from Earth, has a mass five times that of our planet but is the smallest found to date. One full day on the new planet would be equivalent to three weeks on Earth.

The team of astronomers from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) working with Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, a visiting astrophysicist at UCL, made the discovery from model predictions of a new exoplanet — planet outside our solar system — orbiting a star in the constellation Leo. Simulations show that the exoplanet, dubbed GJ 436c, orbits its host star, GJ 436, in only 5.2 Earth days, and is thought to complete a revolution in 4.2 Earth days, compared to Earth's revolution of 24 hours and full orbit of 365 days. On Earth, a full day coincides quite closely with the rotation period. On the new planet these two periods do not coincide, since the orbital translation period and the rotation period are very similar. For this reason, a full day on the new planet would take four planetary years, or roughly 22 Earth days.
Most of the 280 or so planets discovered to date are gas giants similar to Jupiter, although some with masses below 10 times that of the Earth have already been found. Planets with masses of between one and 10 times the Earth are often dubbed super-Earths. In this case, current models predict that the new planet is a rocky type and has a radius some 50 percent larger than the Earth.

NASA SCIENTISTS GET FIRST IMAGES OF EARTHLY FLYBY AESTROID :
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,have obtained the first images of asteroid 2007 TU24 usinghigh-resolution radar data. The data indicate the asteroid is somewhat asymmetrical in shape, with a diameter roughly 800 feet (250 meters) in size. Asteroid 2007 TU24 will pass within 1.4 lunar distances, or 334,000 miles (538,000 kilometers), of Earth on January 29 at 12:33 a.m. Pacific time (3:33 a.m. Eastern time).

"With these first radar observations finished, we can guarantee that next week's 1.4-lunar-distance approach is the closest until at least the end of the next century," says Steve Ostro, JPL astronomer and principal investigator for the project. "It is also the asteroid's closest Earth approach for more than 2,000 years."

Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL have determined that there is no possibility of an impact with Earth in the foreseeable future.

Asteroid 2007 TU24 was discovered by the NASA-sponsored Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007. The first radar detection of the asteroid was acquired on January 23 using the Goldstone 230-foot (70-meter) antenna. The Goldstone antenna is part of NASA's Deep Space Network Goldstone station in Southern California's Mojave Desert. Goldstone's 230-foot (70-meter diameter) antenna is capable of tracking a spacecraft traveling more than 10 billion miles (16 billion kilometers) from Earth. The surface of the 230-foot reflector must remain accurate within a fraction of the signal wavelength, meaning that the precision across the 41,400-square-foot (3,850-square-meter) surface is maintained within 0.4 inch (1 centimeter).

Ostro and his team plan further radar observations of asteroid 2007 TU24 using the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico on January 27-28
and February 1-4.

The asteroid will reach an approximate apparent magnitude 10.3 on January 29-30 before quickly becoming fainter as it moves farther from Earth. On that night, the asteroid will be observable in dark and clear skies through amateur telescopes with apertures of at least 3 inches (7.6 centimeters). An object with a magnitude of 10.3 is about 50 times fainter than an object just visible to the naked eye in a clear, dark sky.

NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers, characterizes and computes trajectories for these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.