Category Archives: Astronomy

Jose Rodriguez has only two Grade 12 courses left to complete high school, and is already auditing a first-year math and second-year astronomy course at the University of Victoria

On a Saturday in September, 13-year-old Jos Valdes Rodriguez is in his room, using a stellar evolution and structure simulator to find the mass of a hypothetical galaxy.

I took 50 stars from each spectral type and multiplied the resulting masses by their respective frequencies, he said. Eventually I would take that, divide it by 5,000 what I ended up with is the average mass of every single star in the universe.

Jos isnt doing homework. The equation is just a little project he did for fun.

I was doing it so that I could find a way, if I wanted to mathematically construct a galaxy, and wanted to know how massive it was, he said.

The Esquimalt teen has only two Grade 12 courses PhysEd and Indigenous Studies left to complete high school, which he takes through distance learning. Hes already auditing a first-year math and second-year astronomy course as part of an accelerated entry to the University of Victoria.

He audited the first-year astronomy course when he was 11.

Its uncertain if the university will grant him credits for the courses, but he said he receives certificates of completion for each.

I dont really care what others think about me, he said of being the youngest student in his classes. Im just learning.

Diagnosed with autism when he was 31/2, Jos showed a strong memory and knack for learning early on, said his mother, Cynthia Rodriguez. He soaks up geography, history and math like a sponge. But astronomy has been his most enduring passion.

He doesnt play with a ball or go on a bike thats what his enjoyment is: learning, she said.

For several years, Rodriguez has been taking her son to the weekly UVic astronomy open house, where he is free to ask questions and engage in debates with other students and faculty.

It was at one of these sessions that Jos first met Karun Thanjavur, the senior lab instructor in the University of Victorias department of physics and astronomy.

Thanjavur has now known Jos for several years, and recommended getting the budding academic back for more classes.

Karun asked if he wanted to audit Astronomy 250, Rodriguez recalled. I said: Thats a second-year course isnt it?

Karun said: Yeah, but hes ready for it.

Because he requires a chaperone, Jos and his mother sit in the back of the class so she can still do her online work as an IT developer. Jos is just thrilled to be there. He completes weekly labs and has access to the full course materials.

He said Astronomy 250 is teaching him about astrophysics or, in his words, the physics governing the heavens.w

A lot of astronomy comes with lots of physics. And physics, by definition, comes with lots and lots of math, he said. Its not just knowing that this happens because of this, its knowing the laws, and knowing how to mathematically predict something.

So passionate is the young astronomer that his teacher had to limit his question period at the end of class to 10 minutes. He has questions for everything the instructor says, so she has to put a limit on his questions, Rodriguez said. Thats why he likes the astronomy open house he goes there and he can discuss everything. People challenge his ideas and he challenges other peoples ideas.

Jos said he tries to rein in his fervent curiosity, sometimes to no avail.

When somebody is talking about astronomy, sometimes I just cannot shut up because I am so excited about the topic, he said.

On days he doesnt have university, Jos attends John Stubbs Middle School, where he can take his final Grade 12 courses via distance learning and participate in Grade 8 courses like French and music with other students.

He plans to attend his Grade 8 graduation at the end of this year, but is undecided on going to high school. While he hopes to earn a scholarship and complete a four-year physics and astronomy degree at UVic, the timing is uncertain.

Im just doing the [high school] courses, but Im not knowing what its actually like to be there, he said. Its a tough choice. I still want the experience of socializing with high schoolers.

ngrossman@timescolonist.com

Continued here:

He's out of this world: 13-year-old tackles UVic astronomy courses - Times Colonist

Welcome to the 2022 edition of Quill & Pads early Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Genve (GPHG) predictions in which the team picks favorites and explains why.

The panelists are:

Elizabeth Doerr (ED), co-founder and editor-in-chief

Ian Skellern (IS), co-founder and technical director

Joshua Munchow (JM), resident nerd writer

GaryG (GG), resident collector

Martin Green (MG), resident gentleman

The Calendar and Astronomy category emphasizes mechanical watches comprising at least one calendar and/or astronomical complication (e.g., date, annual calendar, perpetual calendar, equation of time, complex moon phases display, etc.). Additional indications and/or complications are admissible.

GPHG 2022 Calendar and Astronomy category shortlist

JM: This is one of my favorite categories due to my love for astronomical complications such as moon phases and sky charts. Combining it with the calendar complication makes this a bit of a head-to-head competition since calendar complications are often necessary for astronomical complications, but each ones usefulness is very different.

Astronomical complications are poetic in nature, more emotional than practical. Calendar complications are the exact opposite: perfectly practical and useful complications for time management that might appeal to a very different type of person. Since the category doesnt dictate specifically what should be valued and only outlines what fits into the category, it leaves a lot up to us on what we subjectively value more and why.

GG: It pays to do your reading! While I was prepared at first glance to be a bit disappointed by the finalists in this category, some research into each revealed impressive designs and the participation of impressive makers.

ED: So impressive, in fact, Gary, that I am having an extremely hard time picking a winner. Can we accept a coin toss?

IS: I was also initially disappointed, Gary, that there werent more obviously outstanding watches in this group, but further research has me now sharing Elizabeths dilemma that its difficult to pick a winner.

MG: This is one of my favorite categories of the GPHG despite the fact that I am often not that fond of a date function on a watch, and the phases of the moon hold no practical use for me. That said, seeing these types of complications applied with care and creativity makes my horological heart go into high beat!

JM: I cant help but be torn as the Arnold & Son Luna Magna is one of my most favorite moon phase watches that Ive ever seen. It is a perfect highlight of the moon phase and the moon phase alone, letting it be the primary feature for all of us moon phase nerds to gawk at.

Arnold & Son Luna Magna Platinum

I loved it when it first came out and thought it was in the top two last year in this same category. But also like last year, I thought another piece was more deserving of top honors. Now, this is the second year its been nominated, and it is a variation instead of the original, which takes it down another peg or two. I adore the massive glowing luminescent moon, new for this version, and mixing it with meteorite is always a cool aesthetic. But given the competition, once again I dont know if it has what it takes to take the crown. I know the jury will love it, but that isnt always enough.

MG: Not the only three-dimensional moon phase on the market, but still one of the nicest. In platinum with a meteorite dial, it is simply irresistibly Arnold & Son at its finest. While I dont think it will be crowned winner in this category due to the heavy competition. It is a watch I would buy with my own money.

ED: This is one of my favorite watch families of recent years and picking against it really goes against my grain. However, in the 2021 GPHG Calendar and Astronomy category the jury voted against the original Luna Magna with aventurine dial in favor of the Christiaan van der Klaauw Planetarium Eise Eisinga.

Arnold & Son Luna Magna Platinum: at night the moon really comes out

Okay, okay, I already hear you: who in their right minds would vote against that in this category? And I agree. But it does make me unsure that this piece is as revered among the broader watch community as it is for me and, therefore, I think that another might come out victorious. Even if that dial made of octahedrite-class meteorite which offers particularly beautiful so-called Widmansttten criss-cross patterns after being PVD-coated with a sand-colored treatment also reveals a luminous surprise when the sun starts to go down and the moon dominates the night sky: both the Cachalong opal time dial and the opal half of the moon not covered by the rare meteorite are extremely luminous, emitting a stunningly bright bluish glow in low-light conditions. I do wonder what line extension those creative minds at Arnold & Son will come up with next!

GG: With the Luna Magna Platinum, Arnold & Son presents another variation on the big moon theme, this time with a meteorite dial and half-moon. Quite a nice piece, but not up to the inventiveness or novelty of the top watches in this category.

IS: I am a big fan of the Arnold Luna Magna and this platinum version is striking, but I dont think its as eye-catching as the original Luna Magna with aventurine dial and I suspect that the jury will look elsewhere for a winner.

Further reading: Arnold & Son Luna Magna And Luna Magna Ultimate 1: Marbles, Moons, And Magnificence

Quick Facts Arnold & Son Luna Magna PlatinumCase: 44 x 15.9 mm, platinumMovement: manually wound Caliber A&S1021, 90-hour power reserve, 21,600 vph/3 Hz frequencyFunctions: hours, minutes; moon phase, age of moon (on back)Limitation: 28 piecesPrice: CHF 71,000

ED: I have to admit I know nothing about this watch except that its made by grandmaster Dominique Renaud and friends. I have not seen it and I have no official information about it aside from what is on the GPHG page. Its very hard to pass judgement on a watch that you know so little about aside from the very basics.

But this information includes the fact that it is a secular perpetual calendar only the third such wristwatch in the history of wristwatches after Svend Andersens Secular Perpetual and Franck Mullers Aeternitas Mega.

DRT Tempus Fugit

That in itself is astounding, and I would very much like to handle this piece at the first opportunity. But for now, I have trouble making this very busy watch my winner sight unseen. Does anyone even see the time display?

MG: While I would love to love the DRT, and I find its technical design very impressive, it is simply too much. While the blue windows offer some order in the chaos that is the front, too many elements vie for your attention. The uniquely shaped case is also not helping in this matter. It is a lot of good things combined, but in my opinion they compete too much rather than achieve synergy.

IS: Okay, Ill give high points to the DRT Tempus Fugit for being a rare secular perpetual calendar (and a very compact one at that) and Ill double those points for Dominique Renauds involvement. Id like to learn more about the algorithm predicting the wearers power reserve of life, but its hard to judge a watch without having held and manipulated it. From the images the dial side looks very busy. This is definitely a watch to keep an eye on, but I cant see it winning here.

Back of the DRT Tempus Fugit

GG: If Dominique Renaud is involved, look out for something special! The DRT Tempus Fugit is just that, complementing a secular perpetual calendar with a life reserve indicator that counts down the time until the end of the owners life and contains a chip with the holders DNA and a hidden message revealed at the end of the reserve. For me the art of timekeeping is very much linked to mindfulness of our own mortality, so this complication intrigues me despite its slightly creepy nature. That said, its hard to tell what the finished watch will look like from the renderings presented and its visual design seems a bit of a hash.

JM: The DRT Tempus Fugit is a watch that seemingly has everything you would want to win this category from a mechanical standpoint: an interesting and innovative perpetual secular calendar in a 39-millimeter case with amazing pedigree and unique aesthetic. For that reason alone it gets me to call it my second runner up for this category.

But I cant help but feel that from the photos this watch looks like the first fully finished prototype of a just-graduated watchmaking student who has yet to find their design aesthetic and still has a few years until they can flesh out the details to make their groundbreaking watch. Clearly the skill, talent, and passion is there, but it needs refinement and a fair bit of feedback.

Given the names attached to this, Im a bit surprised, and at the same time it actually makes sense. An incredible horological concept from Renaud, a very industrially mechanical oriented design supported by the president of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, and a watch prototypist that seems fresh on the scene. Very skilled and knowledgeable people, but it lacks true cohesion for me to call it the best for this category.

Quick Facts DRT Tempus FugitCase: 39 x 10.6 mm, titaniumMovement: manual winding skeletonized caliber with 80-hour power reserve, 18,000 vph/2.5 Hz frequencyFunctions: hours, minutes; perpetual secular calendar with day, date, month, year; life reserve indicatorPrice: CHF 376,000

MG: What a good-looking watch! It has a confidence that one rarely sees in a timepiece. I guess it also has to as the brand logo is barely visible and the parts that make it recognizable as a perpetual calendar are hidden in the back. I am very torn whether this will be the winner in this category or the HYT, but I think the Moser will get the highest honor.

H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Perpetual Calendar

GG: Ive always loved H. Moser & Cies approach to the instantaneous perpetual calendar, and for fans of the Streamliner look the Streamliner Perpetual Calendar should be a must. My tastes run more to the original, but theres certainly nothing I dislike about this one.

JM: I have always loved Mosers minimalist aesthetic, and the implementation of a full perpetual calendar within that aesthetic was modern design genius. Then when Moser created the new Streamliner collection, I loved the new aesthetic and the sporty addition to the ultra-classical styling this brand usually brings to the table.

But I will admit I think some design decisions on this watch make the concept lack a clearly defined direction and it feels like it tries to straddle both worlds and sadly does not succeed in either. The dial is both too busy and too minimalistic to feel completely considered, with the busy markings for seconds along the outside and the inclusion of the tiny (intended to be mostly invisible at first glance) month indication, it makes me feel like it hasnt committed to the design fully.

Since it isnt the chronograph, the intense markings along the edge make much less practical sense, and the month pointer feels out of proportion. I think its a nice watch, but I think this design needs another pass or two for the team to figure out if it really is going to be a minimalist perpetual calendar or a sporty perpetual calendar with minimal indications. That doesnt mean the markings need to be tiny or nonexistent, it just means that dropping the perpetual calendar movement into the Streamliner isnt as simple of a swap as it would seem.

Moser Streamliner Perpetual Calendar

ED: While the low-key visuals and functionality of Mosers well known perpetual calendar remain intact in this new Streamliner, somehow it doesnt appeal to me. I think I need to see a more significant trace of the calendar functions to appreciate it fully which I know is not the purpose of this timepiece.

IS: If you are in the market for a perpetual calendar then the Moser Streamliner Perpetual Calendar should be on your shortlist. I like the neat power reserve indicator at 10 oclock, the large date, the discreet short central hand indicating the month, and the soft curves of the case. This Streamliner Perpetual Calendar is in my top three, but I think that it will be pipped at the post.

Further reading: H. Moser & Cie Streamliner Perpetual Calendar: Elegant Minimalism

Quick Facts H. Moser & Cie Streamliner Perpetual CalendarCase: 42.3 x 11 mm, stainless steelMovement: hand-wound Caliber HMC 812, 18,000 vph/2.5 Hz frequency, power reserve minimum 168 hours; twin spring barrels, Moser teeth for all wheels and pinions; modular interchangeable escapement, Straumann hairspring; gold escape wheel and pallet forkFunctions: hours, minutes, direct-drive central (hacking) seconds; perpetual calendar with large date and month; power reserve indicator; leap year cycle indicator on movement sidePrice: $54,900 / CHF 49,900

JM: Aesthetically, HYT is always going to be divisive. And so for that one reason I think it might be hard for this watch to win, but I think it presents a lot of points for why it should seriously be in the running.

HYT Moon Runner Supernova Blue

Aesthetics aside (which unlike other pieces are at least cohesive and well considered), the mechanics behind the watch have always been incredible (micro-fluidics) and the addition of a full calendar and spherical moon phase are so surprising for this type of watch that it could have been a disaster. But the implementation is so perfectly on point for this watch that the rings of month and date surrounding the giant moon phase in the center are brilliant, and having a cool, arching display window that hovers over the moon reminds me of many other astonishing timepieces from the GPHGs past.

The futuristic design will be hard to get past for some, but it really represents the best of what an astronomical calendar watch from HYT can be, and for that reason it deserves some clear recognition.

GG: If Renaud of DRT is a legend, so is Eric Coudray, caliber designer for the HYT Moon Runner Supernova Blue. With the steadying hand of CEO and industry veteran Davide Cerrato and aesthetic guidance from Paul Clementi, this watch seems to me considerably more refined than earlier HYT offerings. The central blue moon display surrounded by date and month rings catches the eye, and the retrograde liquid hour indication seems integrated into the overall presentation rather than the look at me mechanical gimmick of HYTs past.

HYT Moon Runner Supernova Blue

MG: To me, the Moon Runner is definitive proof that HYT is on its way back and proving that it is much more than a one-trick pony. Im personally not a fan of the strap attachment but love the integration of the calendar functions and the moon phase. Very well, and originally, executed. Additional honorable mention for the power reserve, which remains impressive at 72 hours despite the other complications.

ED: This is a very original watch in a new and improved version of HYT. While its immense size turns me off, its ingenuity and forward-thinking displays are intriguing. Im still not a super-fan of the liquid display, but I can see the appeal.

IS: The HYT Moon Runner Supernova Blue is the type of innovative out-of-the-box thinking that I like to see win at the GPHG and it signals a strong rebirth for HYT. Despite the groundbreaking signature fluid display for the hour display, I dont see it being a contender here due to its size: at 48 mm in diameter, its a watch that can only be worn on very large wrists.

Quick Facts HYT Moon Runner Supernova BlueCase: 48 x 52.3 x 13.3 mm, sandblasted titaniumMovement: manual winding Caliber 601-MO designed by Eric Coudray/PurTEC with liquid hour display inside capillary tube, 72-hour power reserve, 4 Hz/28,800 vph frequencyFunctions: retrograde hours, minutes; day, month, moon phasesLimitation: 27 piecesPrice: CHF 120,000

JM: The mechanical predecessor to the Anywhere (called Everywhere) won an Innovation prize at the 2018 GPHG because it was a completely genius watch. But it also was complicated and aesthetically busy, so I can understand why it may not have won over the jury that year.

But now the Anywhere tackles the same problem of providing sunrise and sunset around the world and does so in a better form factor for a (relatively) more affordable price, and does so in such a refined aesthetic way that this watch would look great on just about anyones wrist.

Krayon Anywhere

It has been mechanically reinvented yet delivers the same information in a clear, uncomplicated way. The engineering alone is amazing, but the complication is above everything else in this category this year. I personally think the Only Watch version is still the best version produced, but the standard blue model is so exquisite that I cant argue it deserves anything less than winning the crown this year.

GG: Its a tough call, but Im picking the Krayon Anywhere as my winner in this class. Im a bit put off by the fact that it was introduced in 2020, but I assume that it has passed the vetting requirements of GPHG for entry into this years competition. The idea of a sunrise and sunset watch that can be adjusted to any location and is based on a rack-and-yoke system rather than the traditional cam is extremely clever, and like the annual calendar complication is one of those good enough approaches that does what we really need it to do without all the bells and whistles of Krayons earlier user-adjustable Everywhere watch. Im also a fan of the aesthetics of this piece, including the variable day/night ring around the perimeter with its traveling sun.

ED: The GPHG lists its introduction date as September 2021, Gary, which, I believe, makes it legal. There have been a few different versions of this watch introduced during the pandemic time.

Krayon Anywhere movement and dial sides

MG: Krayon is a familiar face at the GPHG as already in 2018 its parent, the Everywhere Horizon, won the innovation prize. The Anywhere offers a similar appeal, displaying sunrise and sunset times in a very charismatic way. The watch is also very well proportioned with all the functions maintaining great legibility, but not overtaking the design as a whole.

ED: I think it would probably be folly to bet against this watch in this year, so Im going to join the chorus here and pick the Krayon Anywhere as my winner. The superb movement finishing alone is worth the price of admission, and the sublime dial elements work so beautifully together that it is hard not to fall in love with it.

Aside from that, it is eminently wearable for any wrist which is where I think the real coup is: fitting all that mechanical information into this size.

IS: Im another joining the Krayon Anywhere bandwagon. For all the similarities, the Anywhere is really is a very different watch to the original Krayon Everywhere. And aside from its clever sunrise/sunset complication, good looks, and eminently wearable 39 mm case, the movements hand-finishing is sensational. The Krayon Anywhere is my pick to win the 2022 GPHG Calendar And Astronomy category.

Further reading:

Krayon Anywhere: A Long Overdue Love Letter To A Practical Sunrise-Sunset Masterpiece

Krayon Everywhere: Who Knew Mechanically Calculating Sunrise/Sunset (Nearly) Anywhere On The Planet Would Be A Mental Workout (For The Author)? Plus Lots Of Videos

Quick Facts Krayon AnywhereCase: 39 x 9.5 mm, white goldMovement: manually wound Caliber C030 with 432 components, 86-hour power reserve, 3 Hz/21,600 vph frequencyFunctions: hours, minutes; sunset and sunrise times, month, date, 24-hour indication with day/nightPrice: CHF 125,000

ED: Sarpaneva is one of my favorite creators, and even without having seen this watch in person I am fully drawn into the multilevel story crafted on the dial. The Sarpaneva moon face is one of the most charismatic elements in all of watchmaking today, and combined with the decorative dial that takes what the Finnish watchmaker started with the Moomin watch and runs with it, it would be impossible not to love it. The cherry on top is the luminous moon face on the back. I am lusting after this.

Sarpaneva Nocturne White Glow Moon on the wrist by day

JM: The Sarpaneva Nocturne is a design watch first and foremost, using the artistic talents of Finnish illustrator and comic artist Ville Tietvinen to create a captivating scene surrounding the iconic Sarpaneva Moon Face.

But unlike some other Sarpaneva moon phase watches, this model has the lowest precision moon phase of the bunch, just 29.5 days for an accuracy of one day every two and half years, showcasing that the effort clearly went into aesthetics over mechanical prowess.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and it does not take away from this watch in any way. But in a competition surrounding astronomical and calendar complications, it keeps it from ranking highly. I love the watch, I want the watch, but it isnt the strongest contender in the category this year.

Sarpaneva Nocturne Orange Glow Moon at night

GG: Nocturne is another beautiful watch from Stepan Sarpaneva; he has really hit his stride with the use of Super-LumiNova accents and mythological motifs.

IS: The Sarpaneva Nocturne is the watch Id like to wear from this category and at 23,900 Swiss francs is half the price of the next least expensive watch here. I love the contrast between the monochromatic nothing-to-see-here look of the Nocturne by day and its burst of vivid colors at night. This is Super-LumiNova as art. While I dont feel that its technically complex enough to win here, its the watch Id like to own.

MG: Ask Sarpaneva to make a moon phase and he comes with this! Charismatic, innovative, but most of all very beautiful! I wish that some mainstream brands would also have the guts to come out with concepts like this as they enrich the watch world as a whole. In the meantime, lets enjoy Sarpaneva at what he does best!

Further reading: Sarpaneva Nocturne: Night And Day Are Different Worlds

Quick Facts Sarpaneva NocturneCase: 42 x 11.4 mm, Outokumpu stainless steel from Finland SUPRA 316LMovement: automatic Soprod Caliber A10 modified with in-house moon phase, 42-hour power reserve, 28,800 vph/4 Hz frequencyFunctions: hours, minutes, moon phasesLimitation: 30 pieces each of White Glow Moon and Orange Glow MoonPrice: 19,000 / CHF 23,900

Elizabeth: Krayon Anywhere

Ian: Krayon Anywhere

Joshua: Krayon Anywhere

Gary: Krayon Anywhere

Martin: H. Moser & Cie Streamliner Perpetual Calendar

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Complete List And Photos Of All Shortlisted Watches In The 2022 Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Genve (GPHG)

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Our Predictions In The Calendar And Astronomy Category Of The 2022 Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Genve (GPHG): Masterful Finishing, Extreme Creativity,...

Swindon and Wiltshire residents are being urged to take their chance to see an astronomical spectacle during October half term.

People across the county will be able to see celestial mechanics at work in the form of a partial solar eclipse as the moon appears to take a bite out of the face of the sun on Tuesday, October 25.

And members of astronomy club Swindon Stargazers will be on hand to explain to whole process and help spectators to observe the eclipse safely, after they agreed with the National Trust to set up their equipment at the historical Avebury site.

Committee member Robert Slack is encouraging members of the public to join them, weather permitting.

The eclipse will take place whilst most people are working first contact is at 10.08am and it willall be over by 11.47am but Robert is hoping that anyone with an interest in astronomy, or parents with children on the school break, will join them.

We will be following the same set up we had for a similar eclipse last year, he told the Adver.

Robert Slack

From about 10 oclock onwards looking through a telescope, and from the latter stages you would see it through eclipse viewing glasses, you would see a chunk of the sun disappear as the moon moves across it.

Whilst the overlap is not significant enough to cause it to get dark, the 58-year-old said it was something worth appreciating.

This is an event of not massive significance but an event that you could see safely with our guidance and our equipment to view it.

We would be very happy to explain to people what is going on, the significanceof eclipses, how they were held historically.

Robert, a maintenance engineer from Park North who was one of the founding members of the Swindon Stargazers in 2009, said that they have a good relationship with the National Trust, and highlighted Aveburys significance.

It has some sort of a historical significance, some people believe the stones had an astronomical function like Stonehenge.

Robert first became interested in astronomy as a child, after becoming a fan of science-fiction franchises such as Star Trek.

But it was in 1998 that his passion really developed he was gifted a telescope by his wife and managed to see Saturn.

I think that blows most people away.

This months partial eclipse is visible across most of Europe, the Middle East and western Asia, and will be the last solar eclipse visible in the UK until 2025.

More:

Swindon and Wiltshire residents urged to view astronomical spectacle during October half term - Swindon Advertiser

However, the kings convoy was unexpectedly submerged by water after powerful waves destroyed and sank wagons carrying food, valuables and, purportedly, the Crown Jewels.

Prof Donald Olson, an astronomer from Texas State University, discovered that the kings misfortune was not because of poor planning or route choice, but a freakishly large wave called a tidal bore.

On that fateful October day, the Sun and Moon were aligned in such a way that their gravitational force on tides was larger than normal. However, the Moon was also closer to Earth than normal, which further amplified the force of the tide.

This two-in-one combination of astronomical forces is known as a perigean spring tide, which leads to enlarged tides for a matter of days, and occurs just twice every 13 months.

Analysis of the Earth and Moons orbits showed that Oct 14 1216 was the lunar perigee, when it is at its closest point to the Earth, just two days after the alignment of the moon and sun on Oct 12 in a new moon.

The astronomical and hydrographical calculations show that the tidal bore would have arrived near 4pm on Oct 12 1216, Prof Olson told The Telegraph.

King John had the misfortune to attempt the crossing of The Wash on the day of a perigean spring tide. Perigean spring tides would have prevailed for a few days. A crossing a week before or a week after almost certainly would not have encountered destructive tides.

Prof Olson said that had the king tried to cross at the same time of day at any other time, the rising tide would not have been so damaging and the Crown Jewels likely never lost.

King John and his baggage train happened to attempt a crossing over the sands of The Wash on a day with an unusually great tidal range, he wrote in his book, Investigating Art, History and Literature with Astronomy.

A new moon fell exactly on that day. Moreover, this date was near the time of lunar perigee, when the Moon is closest to Earth and exerts the greatest tide-raising forces on Earths oceans.

This unusual lunar configuration produced perigean spring tides and the tidal bore that caused the loss of the Crown Jewels.

Read more:

How King John really lost the Crown Jewels... according to an astronomer - The Telegraph

Job Description

Yale-NUS College is a highly selective liberal arts and science college in Singapore. Co-founded by Yale University and the National University of Singapore, the College is committed to excellence in research and teaching in a full residential programme that integrates living and learning. Its curriculum educates students in Asian and Western intellectual traditions as well as current scientific thought.

Dr. Chelsea Sharon is seeking a candidate to perform the following duties and responsibilites:

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Location: Kent Ridge CampusOrganization: Yale-NUS CollegeDepartment : Division of Science

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Postdoctoral Fellow, Astronomy / Physics job with NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE | 312169 - Times Higher Education

According to the predominant cosmological model, the first stars in the Universe formed roughly 100,000 years after the Big Bang. Known as Population III stars, these early stellar masses were very large, short-lived, and contained virtually no metals or heavier elements. Over time, elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and iron formed in their interiors through nucleosynthesis. When these stars reached the end of their lifespans, they exploded in a supernova many times greater than anything we see today (a super-supernova), causing these elements to be dispersed throughout the cosmos.

For decades, astronomers have been attempting to find evidence of these earliest stars, yet all attempts to date have failed. But thanks to a recent study, a team led by the University of Tokyo thinks they may have finally spotted the first traces of one of the earliest stars in the Universe. While analyzing data previously obtained by the Gemini North telescope of the most distant quasar ever observed, the team noticed a massive cloud of material around it. Based on their analysis, they believe the material came from a first-generation star after it went super-supernova.

The study, which recently appeared in The Astrophysical Journal, was led by Yuzuru Yoshii, a laureate professor of astronomy at the University of Tokyo and the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. He was joined by researchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Tokyo Universitys Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU), the JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE) at the University of Notre Dame, and the Australian National Universitys Mount Stromlo Observatory.

As they indicate in their study, the team believes the most likely explanation for what they observed is that the material is the remains of a first-generation star that exploded as a pair-instability supernova (aka. a super-supernova). These happen when photons in the center of a star spontaneously turn into electrons and positrons the antimatter counterpart to the electron which reduces the radiation pressure inside the star, causing it to collapse. Much like how Population I and II stars collapse after exhausting their hydrogen and helium, this process caused Population III stars to go supernova.

While such an event has never been witnessed, they are theorized to occur when gigantic stars (between 150 and 250 Solar masses) reach the end of their lives. Unlike other supernovae, a pair-instability supernova leaves no stellar remnants and ejects all of the stars matter into its surroundings. In addition, astronomers theorize that this material would contain over ten times more iron than magnesium compared to the ratio of these elements in our Sun. Because of their peculiar characteristics, there are only two ways to find evidence of Population III stars.

First, astronomers can attempt to observe a pair-instability supernova as it happens, the odds of which are very slim. Second, they can attempt to detect the material these stars eject into interstellar space by identifying its chemical signature. In this case, Yuzuru and his colleagues relied on the latter method, which consisted of consulting previous observations made with the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) on the 8.1-meter Gemini North Telescope.

This telescope is one of two (located in the northern and southern hemispheres) that make up the International Gemini Observatory, which is operated by the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab). To identify the quantities of each element present, the team employed an analytical method developed by Yuzuru and co-author Hiroaki Sameshima, a project research associate at the University of Tokyos Graduate School of Science. This method involves measuring the intensity of wavelengths in the quasars spectrum, from which the chemical spectra of the material is extracted.

From their analysis, Yuzuru and his colleagues noted that ejected material contained over ten times more iron than magnesium compared to the ratio of these elements found in our Sun. As Yuzuru explained in a NOIRLab press release:

It was obvious to me that the supernova candidate for this would be a pair-instability supernova of a Population III star, in which the entire star explodes without leaving any remnant behind. I was delighted and somewhat surprised to find that a pair-instability supernova of a star with a mass about 300 times that of the Sun provides a ratio of magnesium to iron that agrees with the low value we derived for the quasar.

Similar searches have been conducted in the past, where astronomers looked for chemical evidence of Population III stars in the Milky Way. And while one tentative identification was made in 2014, Yuzuru and his colleague believe these new results are the clearest indication of a pair-instability supernova to date. If their findings are confirmed, it will provide new insight into how our Universe has evolved since the first stars and galaxies formed. In the meantime, more observations are necessary to see if there are other objects out there that have similar characteristics.

Evidence of these stars could also be found within the Milky Way, where ejecta from primordial stars could be found among objects in our local Universe. With this latest study, astronomers now have a potential pathway for identifying the chemical signatures of the stars that played a vital role in the evolution of the cosmos, gave rise to the first planets, and even life itself.

Further Reading: NOIR Lab, The Astrophysical Journal

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Astronomers see Tantalizing Evidence for one of the First Stars to Form in the Universe - Universe Today

There were 4,852 active satellites in orbit around Earth at the beginning of 2022, and the number is growing rapidly.

The night sky is a resource open to all of us, but it's rapidly becoming a 'tragedy of the commons' scenario. Thousands of satellites in the night sky are not only ruining the beauty of the stars, but are seriously hampering astronomers and pose a very serious space debris threat.

As World Space Week this year looks at the message of sustainability in space, it is important to ask: Are we reaching a point where the number of satellites in the night sky is becoming unsustainable?

Related: Wow! Shiny SpaceX Starlink satellites soar with glowing aurora in stunning video

SpaceX's Starlink internet satellite constellations now number more than 2,300 satellites with many thousands more on the way. Other internet providers also have plans to launch hundreds or thousands of satellites. In the latest turn of events, AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 communications satellite launched on Sept. 10, 2022 with a highly reflective 693-square-foot (64.4-square-meter) antenna that could shine brighter than anything in the sky other than Venus, the moon and the sun.

There are plans for more BlueWalker launches in the future, with even larger antenna arrays. SpaceX, meanwhile, wants to launch Starlink Generation 2, totaling 30,000 satellites. In total, various companies around the world are proposing to launch 400,000 satellites in the near future.

"We're sitting at a crucial branching point," said Andy Lawrence, Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, in an interview with Space.com. Lawrence has campaigned against the unregulated expansion of satellite constellations, writing a book on the topic called Losing the Sky (opens in new tab).

In addition, he has appeared as an expert witness in a legal case brought by a U.S. company, ViaSat, against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for excluding Starlink and other satellite constellations from being subject to environmental assessments. Although ViaSat lost their case, it was on a technical basis, and so a court has yet to crucially rule whether or not satellite constellations are exempt from environmental scrutiny. This is important because the FCC is currently considering SpaceX's proposal for their Gen 2 constellation.

"Starlink Gen 2 has made a request for 30,000 satellites, and they're ten times bigger [than the generation 1 satellites]," said Lawrence. "So this really is a crucial point. The FCC is really the gatekeeper on the decision of whether to go ahead with this."

Satellite megaconstellations are bad news for astronomers of all kinds. Long, deep exposures of the night sky become disfigured by the streaks of satellites passing through the field of view. The work of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, with its 26.2-foot (eight-meter) survey telescope that is set to begin science operations later this decade, is under threat from the growth of satellite constellations. Asteroid hunters increasingly find the trails of satellites rather than the fainter streaks of potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids. Astrophotographers discover their hard work spoiled by intruding satellites, and radio astronomers are in danger of being drowned out by the incessant chatter of satellites.

While there are ways around these problems writing software to try and remove the satellite trails from images, or pausing exposures if there is a satellite passing over head, for example it ultimately results in more work that costs more money, says Lawrence.

"It's a percentages game, because it won't make any particular type of astronomy suddenly impossible, but it does mean that we will miss some things, it will all get harder," said Lawrence. "We're developing software to try and take satellite streaks out, and that will work to some extent but not completely, depending upon how bright they are. We may just have to accept our losses, that a certain fraction of images will be ruined."

Lawrence and fellow astronomers aren't ready to throw in the towel just yet. He's also keen to point out that they're not being luddites. Satellite internet clearly has very important uses, as we have seen recently with Starlink bringing emergency internet connection to areas of Florida hardest hit by Hurricane Ian, or providing internet access to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion.

"Those of us who are concerned just want to say, 'whoa, slow down'," said Lawrence. "Let's do some independent environmental assessments, they may take a couple of years and that might be uncomfortable for SpaceX, but they're so far ahead of the competition that they should be able to live with that."

It would be unfair not to mention that engineers from SpaceX and one of its rival satellite companies, OneWeb, are working with astronomers to try and find solutions to these problems.

"They do speak to astronomers, and there are parts of their organizations that are quite serious about that," said Lawrence. "They want to help because astronomy is cool. For example, the engineers at SpaceX are working really hard on experiments such as VisorSat and new dark coatings [to make the satellites less reflective], but its all about mitigating the problems, and the only way to really mitigate them is to launch just 3,000 instead of 30,000."

Then there's the problem of space debris. The more satellites there are in orbit, the greater the chance of collisions between them, scattering debris across Earth orbit. These collisions can increase the chance of further impacts that produce even more debris in a runaway effect that, in the worst and most extreme scenario, could make launching new spacecraft too dangerous because there would be too much debris circling the Earth. It's called the Kessler syndrome, and it's beginning to become a real concern for some in the satellite industry.

"The debris problem is really quite worrying," said Lawrence. "It could end up being disastrous, and the whole industry could shoot itself in the foot. Some people in the industry are very concerned about it, but it's almost like, if it's going to be bad then we better get in there quick before it becomes impossible to launch a new satellite without it getting taken out by shrapnel."

Read more: Kessler Syndrome and the space debris problem

That would be the very definition on unsustainability, but Lawrence is keen to emphasize that we haven't reached that point yet. Much will depend upon the FCC's decision regarding Starlink Gen 2 and environmental assessments for satellite constellations in general. In the United Kingdom there have been discussions about having the equivalent of a 'Kitemark' (in the U.K. this is a certification that a product has been safety tested), where investors and insurers could buy into satellite internet, for example, knowing that it has been environmentally assessed and is mitigating its impact.

In the United States, Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, is leading an initiative called the Space Sustainability Rating that is connected to the World Economic Forum and encourages responsible behavior from satellite providers.

You, too, can get involved, by participating in a letter writing campaign to the FCC ahead of their decision regarding Starlink Gen 2.

"Anyone can write a letter to the FCC and say what they think," said Lawrence. "With my friends at ViaSat, I've put together instructions on how to write a letter to the FCC, and that seems to be slowly working with a number of people having written letters."

Lawrence recommends keeping letters short, describing how satellite constellations could adversely affect your own experience of the night sky, and how they are bad for both science and the sustainability of commercial activities in Earth orbit. You can find Lawrence's advice here (opens in new tab).

So what would be a sustainable number of satellites? Lawrence admits he's not sure. "My gut instinct is that we've not passed that point yet, but we will if we end up with 400,000 satellites. But I think this is a battle that, while I hesitate to say 'win' because we're not really trying to beat someone, we can hopefully arrive at a sensible solution."

For more details, you can also visit the website of the International Astronomical Union's Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, or CPS (opens in new tab).

Follow Keith Cooper on Twitter @21stCenturySETI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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World Space Week: Sustaining astronomy in an age of satellite megaconstellations - Space.com

Clean skies, high altitude and complete darkness are vital for Indias cutting-edge astronomical observatory in Ladakhs Hanle village. Jacob Koshy reports on the challenges in having it declared an International Dark Sky Reserve, and the efforts to make residents stakeholders in the process

Clean skies, high altitude and complete darkness are vital for Indias cutting-edge astronomical observatory in Ladakhs Hanle village. Jacob Koshy reports on the challenges in having it declared an International Dark Sky Reserve, and the efforts to make residents stakeholders in the process

Srinivasa Ramanujan was discovered twice in the 20th century. The first was when English mathematician G.H. Hardy discovered the genius mathematician in 1914; and the second was when Indian astronomers in India, led by R. Rajamohan, discovered an asteroid that was later named 4130 Ramanujan. It was the first time in 104 years that asteroids were discovered from India. Their instrument, the 45-cm Schmidt telescope, was housed on the Javadi hills in Kavalur, Tamil Nadu.

This spot is today the Vainu Bappu Observatory and is run by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, and is among India's foremost observatories. It was chosen in the 1960s because it was an impressive 750 metres above sea level, located amid a forest and offered fairly unobstructed vistas of the night sky.

Read | Can the Dark Sky Reserve at Hanle be a gamechanger for stargazing in India?

But this wasnt ideal. Kavalurs geography put it in the path of both monsoonal clouds, during June-September and the returning, or northeast, monsoon in November, forcing the observatory to often shut down for months. Rainclouds absorb starlight and radiation from cosmic objects, preventing them from being caught on the telescopes of cameras. So IIA scientists began their search in the early 1980s for a place least affected by the monsoon.

To be able to detect stars or traces of cosmic phenomena, such as supernovae or nebulae from light years away, astronomers must be able to catch the faintest slivers of their radiation that often lie outside the range of visible light. Such radiation is, however, easily absorbed by water vapour and so it helps to have a telescope high above ground where the atmosphere is drier. A dry, high-altitude desert is in many ways the ideal location, says Annapurni Subramaniam, Director of the IIA. Such terrain is difficult and quite inaccessible. We commissioned several expeditions and teams to different parts of the Himalayas and finally Hanle, Ladakh was chosen.

A largely smooth double-lane highway from Leh, the capital of Ladakh, to Hanle cuts through a valley scooped out of the mountains of the Ladakh range and the teal-coloured Indus. Army units and border check-posts punctuate the landscape that opens out into the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, where you can spot the occasional herd of the Tibetan wild ass and swarms of leaf warblers. As the road ascends, a smattering of hamlets, surrounded by pasture land, comes into view with herds of Changthangi sheep, the source of pashmina wool.

Situated at 14,000 ft above sea level and a little over 250 km southeast of Leh, Hanle is a village of about 320 houses and a population of about 1,500, according to Paljor Therchin, the sarpanch of Hanle.

Against the backdrop of a blue sky flecked with cottony clouds, two huge metallic capsules one higher than the other incongruously rise out of the hills. Next to them, satellite dishes, like ushers, point to the sky. From here, a tarred road spirals down about 900 ft to flat land where makeshift cabins and a small building serve as ancillaries to a giant, parabolic dish that is a complex of a thousand mirrors bathed white in sunlight, resting on criss-crossing steel frames of red and blue. Men, some perched, some dangling on the beams, weave out of the meshes of this honeycomb structure.

Facing this are what look like seven concrete cannons, one in the centre and six surrounding it. Each has seven mirrors that together resemble a robot-contingent of photographers training their apertures at some uncertain blink-and-you-will-miss cosmic event.

This entire set-up, laid out on the mountain called Digpa-Ratsa Ri, aka Mt Saraswati, comprises the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO). The multicoloured dish is the Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment Telescope (MACE) built by a consortium of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. and the IIA. The dish, with a diameter of 21 m, is the second largest of its kind in the world and the only one at such an elevation. Its goal is to detect Cherenkov radiation from space.

This is a special kind of light from gamma rays, or the most energetic sources of radiation, that can result from dying stars or several galactic events. The seven-telescope contingent, called HAGAR (High Altitude Gamma Ray), also looks at Cherenkov radiation, although at a lower range of energies. The metallic capsule, the highest of the observatories, is the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT), the oldest and active since 2000. An optical-infrared telescope with a 2-metre lens is designed to detect light from the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as that just below it, or the infra-red spectrum. The second capsule, situated slightly lower than the HCT, is the GROWTH-India telescope, a 70-cm telescope made by IIA and the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai that is equipped to track cosmic events that unfurl over time, such as afterglows of a gamma ray burst or tracking the path of asteroids. Because of the wide span of frequencies covered collectively, the IAO provides multiple vantage points to observe a range of cosmic phenomena and investigate the mysteries of the universe. Telescopes with small diameters generally can track a greater swath of sky but those with larger diameters can peer deeper when trained towards desired locations.

The Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle village in Ladakh.| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

The flip-side of Hanles seclusion, making it ideal for astronomy, is the weather and climate. The altitude means that atmospheric oxygen is low, making one prone to mountain sickness.

Among the recommended paraphernalia on a trip to Hanle are cans of oxygen cylinders. The desiccated air that helps the telescope catch ephemeral interstellar light translates to sub-zero winters for at least six months of the year. The summer months from April to September have cold, windy nights, and with no access to the electric grid, the eager stargazer must brave runny noses and chills.

The IAO telescopes, however, can be controlled remotely via a satellite link. Whatever the weather, astronomers at the IIAs Centre for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST), about 35 km from Bengaluru, can manoeuvre the HCT to face their desired spot of sky. The other instruments too are equipped to be remotely controlled. While the HCT is manned 24/7, those on site are required only for maintenance and not for using the telescopes. Researchers who want a shot at using the instruments must apply, in fact compete, for observation time made available in quarterly slots; the applications are scrutinised by scientific committees.

The available time is over-subscribed three times. Every astronomer, even when they have their own telescopes, applies to use these because of the quality of sky and the large number of viewable nights that the telescopes offer. It is their bread and butter, says Subramaniam.

In recent years, these telescopes have helped gain a better understanding of a system of Earth-sized planets orbiting the TRAPPIST-1 star, about 40 light years away from Earth, as well as gravitational waves that resulted from the collision of neutron stars from a billion years ago, she adds.

While these sophisticated instruments and their images are manipulated by scientists, all that novice visitors have to do to realise they are in a special place is look up at the night sky. At least 300 nights a year, the clouds would have been swept away, and the vista looks as if some invisible, giant being had kicked up a sandstorm of stars. Contrary to the thumb rule that the lights that twinkle are stars, those that dont are planets, the sky is studded with unblinking lights.

Twinkling stars imply starlight is being bounced around by atmospheric gases, dust and water vapour, and therefore obscuring to us on land its origins. At Hanle, the thinner air and the elevation means starlight is relatively unimpeded until it descends into the lower, more polluted stretches below.

Heres Jupiter, that bright point straight ahead. From here trace a straight line to the right till you see that dim star-like point. Thats Saturn, Dorje Angchuk gesticulates to craned necks. You dont need your phones flashlight to navigate here. Close your eyes, clear out the artificial light, absorb the darkness, and open them. Youll see everything. As chief engineer at IIA, Angchuk, a native of Leh and the person in-charge of the HCT systems, has made countless trips to Hanle in the last quarter century and been closely involved in the installation of IAO telescopes.

In the last couple of years, he has curated an avidly-followed Twitter stream of night-sky photographs of Hanle. Over the last several months, particularly since Ladakh was marked out as a distinct Union Territory from Jammu and Kashmir, he has been in the thick of a project that will shape the future of Hanle.

Light is the enemy, says Pawan Kotwal, Principal Secretary in the Ladakh Administration, referring to the phenomenon of light pollution in which artificial light from cities and home electrification have obscured the natural night sky. Recent studies show that clouds, the biggest reflectors of sunlight, scatter artificial light from ground-based sources, amplifying light pollution.

For astronomy, a discipline that hinges on the wisps of light, artificial sources of light are contaminants. Thubstan Rinchen, the officer in charge of MACE, said in an IIA-commissioned documentary that light from, say, the high beam of a vehicle at night would flood the sensors of the telescope. Separating this light from that collected as part of experiments is a cumbersome process and results in loss of scientific data.

Hanle, as it currently stands, is largely shrouded in darkness. Disconnected from the electric grid, solar panels and a diesel generator are the only sources of electricity. Hanle only gets electricity from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. The freezing months, says Padma Lazo, who runs a homestay here, can see temperatures dip to minus 40C, though cookstoves and dung provide heat. We dont need electricity all the time but better jobs and schools for our children would be welcome.

Ladakhs recent Union Territory status, a government eager to expand economic opportunities via tourism and the Indian Army expanding its infrastructure development, lighting to bolster its defence at the India-China border which is not far away all these are challenges in keeping light from seeping into Hanle.

To strike a balance, the Ladakh government along with the IIA and Indias Scientific Ministries is laying the groundwork to have Hanle declared as an International Dark Sky Reserve by the International Dark-Sky Association. Since 1988, the U.S.-based non-profit has been advocating the cause of minimising light pollution and certifies places where night skies are least polluted as International Dark Sky Reserves or sanctuaries.

The average tourist visits for high roads, exotic landscape, and the Pangong Lake. Hanle is already in a wildlife sanctuary and developing it as such a reserve would encourage a newer kind of tourism, or astro-tourism, says Kotwal. The most important condition, however, is that it must have the support of the local community.

In the weeks ahead, amateur and professional astronomers have been roped in by the IIA and the local government to give talks on constellations to villagers. As many as 18 telescopes will be set up in village clusters, and homestay owners trained in elementary astronomy to guide astro-tourists. Villagers will also be given dark curtains to minimise outgoing light from residences. Already, at night time, vehicles are restricted from pointing their beams upwards, and roads will be installed with light delineators.

Having been promised electrification in two years and funds from the government to improve their homes to homestays, residents of the village say they would be happy to comply with light restrictions. Thats not a problem for us. However, more than residential lights, its the light from Army bases that are actually stronger. That should be managed too, says Therchin, who is also a religious head at a nearby monastery.

Kotwal and Angchuk say Commanding Officers of the units have readily agreed to comply.

We have a long-standing relationship with the community and they were involved in construction of the existing facilities, says Subramaniam. So far, the relative height of the HCT had protected its observations from light pollution, and while the regions development is inevitable, setting out guidelines and restrictions on light would ensure that both astro-tourism and the immaculate skies can coexist, she adds.

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Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle, Ladakh | Where the stars must not twinkle - The Hindu

Have you checked NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day yet?

Oct 10, 2022, 07:49 pm 2 min read

If Space and the cosmos pique your interest, NASA's daily astronomy pictures will definitely find a spot in your heart. NASA features a different and unique photograph of our Universe every day with a brief explanation by a professional astronomer. Today's Picture of the Day is this surreal photo of a Double Lunar Analemma over Turkey, captured by architect and astrophotographer Betul Turksoy.

Imaging an analemma of the Moon

"An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year," read the explanation. To capture an analemma of the Moon one must wait a little longer. "On average, the Moon returns to the same position in the sky about 50 minutes and 29 seconds later each day."

Analemma-like curve forms over one lunar month

If you are intrigued about how this incredible image was captured, read on. To trace the full cycle, the moon must be photographed 50 minutes and 29 seconds later every following day from the first day. Over one lunar month, it will trace out an analemma-like curve since the actual position of the moon wanders owing to its tilted and elliptical orbit.

If you are wondering why there are two sets of moons in similar positions, here's why: "Since the featured image was taken over two months, it actually shows a double lunar analemma," read the explanation. The point where the moon seems to have vanished is where the crescent phases are too thin and become a new moon. The photo was shot during July and August.

Check out the astrophotographer's Instagram post

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A post shared by betul_turksoy on October 10, 2022 at 7:16 pm IST

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Have you checked NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day yet? - NewsBytes

Sometimes, the best-designed experiments fail. The effect youre looking for might not even be present, meaning that a null result should always be a possible outcome youre prepared for. When that happens, the experiment is often dismissed as a failure, even though you never would have known the results without performing it. While obtaining constraints on a phenomenons existence or non-existence is always valuable sometimes even revolutionary, as in the case of the famed Michelson-Morley experiment its usually disappointing when your search comes up empty.

Yet, every once in a while, the apparatus that you build might be sensitive to something other than what you built it to find. When you do science in a new way, at a new sensitivity, or under new, unique conditions, thats often where the most surprising, serendipitous discoveries are made: when youre capable of probing nature beyond the known frontier. In 1987, a failed experiment for detecting proton decay succeeded in detecting neutrinos, for the first time, from beyond not only our Solar System, but from outside of the Milky Way. This is the story of how the science of neutrino astronomy was born.

In this artistic rendering, a blazar is accelerating protons that produce pions, which produce neutrinos and gamma rays when they decay. Lower-energy photons are also produced. Although the science of neutrino astronomy for neutrinos generated beyond our own Solar System only began in 1987, weve already advanced to the point where were detecting neutrinos from billions of light-years away.

The neutrino is one of the great success stories in all the history of theoretical physics. Back in the early 20th century, three types of radioactive decay were known:

In any reaction, under the laws of physics, whatever the total energy and momentum of the initial reactants are, the energy and momentum of the final products need to match: thats the law of conservation of energy. For alpha and gamma decays, energy was always conserved, as the energy and momenta of both products and reactants matched exactly. But for beta decays? They never did. Energy was always lost, and so was momentum.

Heavy, unstable elements will radioactively decay, typically by emitting either an alpha particle (a helium nucleus) or by undergoing beta decay, as shown here, where a neutron converts into a proton, electron, and anti-electron neutrino. Both of these types of decays change the elements atomic number, yielding a new element different from the original, and result in a lower mass for the products than for the reactants. Only if the (missing) neutrino energy and momentum is included in accounting for beta decays can these quantities be conserved.

The big question, of course, was why. Some, including Bohr, proposed that the conservation of energy was not sacred, but was rather an inequality: energy could be conserved or lost, but not gained. However, in 1930, an alternative idea was put forth by Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli hypothesized the existence of a new particle that could solve the problem: the neutrino. This small, neutral particle could carry both energy and momentum, but would be extremely difficult to detect. It wouldnt absorb or emit light, and would only interact with atomic nuclei extremely rarely and extremely weakly.

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Upon its proposal, rather than feeling confident and elated, Pauli felt ashamed. I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected, he declared. But despite his reservations, the theory would eventually, a generation later, be vindicated by experiment.

In 1956, neutrinos (or more specifically, antineutrinos) were first directly detected as part of the products of a nuclear reactor.

The Palo Verde nuclear reactor, shown here, generates energy by splitting apart the nucleus of atoms and extracting the energy liberated from this reaction. The blue glow comes from emitted electrons streaming into the surrounding water, where they travel faster than light in that medium, and emit blue light: Cherenkov radiation. The neutrinos (or more accurately, antineutrinos) first hypothesized by Pauli in 1930 were detected from a similar nuclear reactor in 1956.

When neutrinos interact with an atomic nucleus, two things can result:

Either way, you can build specialized particle detectors around the area where you expect the neutrinos to interact, and look for those critical signals. This was how the first neutrinos were detected: by building particle detectors sensitive to neutrino signatures at the edges of nuclear reactors. Whenever you reconstruct the total energy of the products, including the hypothesized neutrinos, you find that energy is conserved, after all.

In theory, neutrinos should be produced wherever nuclear reactions take place: in the Sun, in stars and supernovae, and whenever an incoming high-energy cosmic ray strikes a particle from Earths atmosphere. By the 1960s, physicists were building neutrino detectors to look for both solar (from the Sun) and atmospheric (from cosmic ray) neutrinos.

The Homestake Gold Mine sits wedged in the mountains in Lead, South Dakota. It began operation over 123 years ago, producing 40 million ounces of gold from the 8,000 foot deep underground mine and mill. In 1968, the first Solar neutrinos were detected at an experiment here, devised by John Bahcall and Ray Davis.

A large amount of material, with mass designed to interact with the neutrinos inside of it, would be surrounded by this neutrino detection technology. In order to shield the neutrino detectors from other particles, they were placed far underground: in mines. Only neutrinos should make it into the mines; the other particles should be absorbed by the Earth. By the end of the 1960s, solar and atmospheric neutrinos had both successfully been found via these methods.

The particle detection technology that was developed for both neutrino experiments and high-energy accelerators was found to be applicable to another phenomenon: the search for proton decay. While the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that the proton is absolutely stable, in many extensionssuch as Grand Unification Theoriesthe proton can decay into lighter particles.

In theory, whenever a proton does decay, it will emit lower-mass particles at very high speeds. If you can detect the energies and momenta of those fast-moving particles, you can reconstruct what the total energy is, and see if it came from a proton.

High-energy particles can collide with others, producing showers of new particles that can be seen in a detector. By reconstructing the energy, momentum, and other properties of each one, we can determine what initially collided and what was produced in this event.

If protons were to decay, we already know that their lifetimes must be extremely long. The Universe itself is 13.8 billion (or about ~1010) years old, but the protons lifetime must be much longer. How much longer? The key is to look not at one proton, but at an enormous number. If a protons lifetime is 1030 years, you can either take a single proton and wait that long (a bad idea), or take 1030 protons and wait 1 year (a much better, more practical) to see if any decay.

A liter of water contains a little over 1025 molecules in it, where each molecule contains two hydrogen atoms: a proton orbited by an electron. If the proton is unstable, a large enough tank of water, with a large set of detectors around it, should allow you to either:

A schematic layout of the KamiokaNDE apparatus from the 1980s. For scale, the tank is approximately 15 meters (50 feet) tall.

In Japan, in 1982, they began constructing a large underground detector in the Kamioka mines to perform exactly such an experiment. The detector was named KamiokaNDE: Kamioka Nucleon Decay Experiment. It was large enough to hold over 3,000 tons of water, with around a thousand detectors optimized to detect the radiation that fast-moving particles would emit.

By 1987, the detector had been running for years, without a single instance of proton decay. With over 1031 protons in that tank, this null result completely eliminatedthe most popular modelamong Grand Unified Theories. The proton, as far as we could tell, doesnt decay. KamiokaNDEs main objective was a failure.

But then something unexpected happened. 165,000 years earlier, in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, a massive star reached the end of its life and exploded in a supernova. On February 23, 1987, that light reached Earth for the first time. All of a sudden, we found ourselves observing the closest supernova event we had seen in nearly 400 years: since 1604.

Three different detectors observed the neutrinos from SN 1987A, with KamiokaNDE the most robust and successful. The transformation from a nucleon decay experiment to a neutrino detector experiment would pave the way for the developing science of neutrino astronomy.

But a few hours before that light arrived, something remarkable and unprecedented happened at KamiokaNDE: a total of 12 neutrinos arrived within a span of about 13 seconds. Two burststhe first containing 9 neutrinos and the second containing 3demonstrated that the nuclear processes that create neutrinos do, in fact, occur in great abundance in supernovae. We now believe that perhaps as much as ~99% of a supernovas energy is carried away in the form of neutrinos!

For the first time ever, we had detected neutrinos from beyond our Solar System. The science of neutrino astronomy suddenly advanced beyond neutrinos created either from the Sun or from particles colliding with Earths atmosphere; we were truly detecting cosmic neutrinos. Over the next few days, the light from that supernova, now known asSN 1987A, was observed in a huge variety of wavelengths by a number of ground-based and space-based observatories. Based on the tiny difference in the time-of-flight of the neutrinos and the arrival time of the light, we learned that neutrinos:

Even today, some 35 years later, we can examine this supernova remnant and see how its evolved.

The outward-moving shockwave of material from the 1987 explosion continues to collide with previous ejecta from the formerly massive star, heating and illuminating the material when collisions occur. A wide variety of observatories continue to image the supernova remnant today, tracking its evolution.

The scientific importance of this result cannot be overstated. It marked the birth of the science of neutrino astronomy, just as the first direct detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. An experiment that was designed to detect proton decay an effort that still has yet to yield even a single positive event suddenly found new life by detecting the energy, flux, and location on the sky of neutrinos emerging from an astronomical event.

It also was the birth of multi-messenger astronomy, marking the first time that the same object had been observed in both electromagnetic radiation (light) and via another method (neutrinos).

It also was a demonstration of what could be accomplished, astronomically, by building large, underground tanks to detect cosmic events, leading to a slew of modern, superior detectors such as Super-Kamiokande and IceCube. And it causes us to hope that, someday, we might make the ultimate trifecta observation: an event where light, neutrinos, and gravitational waves all come together to teach us all about the workings of the objects in our Universe.

The ultimate event for multi-messenger astronomy would be a merger of either two white dwarfs or two neutrons stars that was close enough. If such an event occurred in near-enough proximity to Earth, neutrinos, light, and gravitational waves could all be detected.

In addition to being very cleverly repurposed, it resulted in a very subtle but equally clever renaming of KamiokaNDE. The Kamioka Nucleon Decay Experiment was a total failure, so KamiokaNDE was out. But the spectacular observation of neutrinos from SN 1987A gave rise to a new observatory: KamiokaNDE, the Kamioka Neutrino Detector Experiment! Over the past 35 years, this has now been upgraded many times, and multiple similar facilities have popped up all over the world.

If a supernova were to go off today, anywhere from within our own galaxy, we would be treated to upwards of 10,000 neutrinos arriving in our modern underground neutrino detector. All of them, combined, have further constrained the lifetime of the proton to now be greater than around ~1035 years: a bit of tangential science that comes along for free whenever we build neutrino detectors. Whenever a high-energy cataclysm occurs, we can be confident that it creates neutrinos speeding all through the Universe. Weve even detected cosmic neutrinos from billions of light-years away! With our modern suite of detectors online, neutrino astronomy is alive, well, and ready for whatever the cosmos sends our way.

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Neutrino astronomy arrived from proton decay searches - Big Think