Category Archives: Astronomy

Stellar nurseries are made up of molecular clouds of dust and gas where star formation occurs. Astronomers need to study how stars are born to understand the mechanisms behind the universe. Now, an astronomer and artist used 3D printing to allow scientists to hold stellar nurses in their hands.

According to Phys.org, astronomy assistant professor, Nia Imara from UC Santa Cruz created the resin globes using data acquired from these star-forming regions to reveal features in unparalleled detail that are often unseen in the usual renderings and animations of stellar nurseries.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)This shot from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a maelstrom of glowing gas and dark dust within one of the Milky Ways satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This stormy scene shows a stellar nursery known as N159, an HII region over 150 light-years across. N159 contains many hot young stars.

Imara, an astrophysicist and artist, and her collaborators used a sophisticated 3D printing process to create the resin globes that show fine-scale densities and gradients of turbulent clouds of dust and clouds as described in simulations of star-forming regions.

These 3D-printed stellar nurseries are highly polished spheres that are 8 centimeters in diameter. Imara said that this interactive object would help astronomers visualize structures where star formation occurs to better understand their physical processes.

Imara told UC Santa Cruz News Centerthat she got an idea from a sketch she made a few years back wherein she was holding a star. As someone who specializes in star formation within molecular clouds, it somehow occurred to her that she could build a 3D model of stellar nurseries using data from simulations of these star-forming regions.

Imara said that the 3D-printed stellar nurseries are an example of science imitating art. They were both visually striking and scientifically illuminating that astronomers begin to notice complex structures that are often obscured when using the usual techniques for visualizing simulations of stellar nurseries.

For instance, the spheres helped them to better see structures that are hard to distinguish in 2D slices or projections. Also, they reveal features that are more continuous than they would appear when presented in 2D projections.

"If you have something winding around through space, you might not realize that two regions are connected by the same structure, so having an interactive object you can rotate in your hand allows us to detect these continuities more easily," Imara said in the news release.

She described the 3D-printed stellar nurseries in her study, titled "Touching the Stars: Using High-Resolution 3D Printing to Visualize Stellar Nurseries," published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

ALSO READ: Stars Gobble Up Planets; Instability of Solar Systems Could Help Identify Sun-Like Stars Hosting Earth-like Planets

Orion Nebula is a famous region in the universe where stars were born. According to NASA, turbulence deep within these clouds of dust and gas gives rise to knots with enough mass for it to collapse on its gravitational pull. As these clouds collapse, the protostar within them begins to heat up to become a star someday.

Scientists have used 3D computer models before to predict that spinning clouds of dust and gas could break up into two to three blobs, which explains why many stars in the Milky Way are paired or in groups.

But not all of the pieces of the gathering dust and clouds become a star. Some become part of asteroids, planets, and comets, or sometimes they remain as dust clouds.

RELATED ARTICLE: Where Stars Are Born: NASA's SOFIA Telescope Captures High-Resolution View of a Star Nursery in the Milky Way

Check out more news and information on Starson Science Times.

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3D Printing Allows Astronomers to Hold Stellar Nurseries in Their Hands to Observe the Stars - Science Times

A multinational team of astronomers has discovered what happens when a large star accidentally eats a black hole or neutron star: it emits a catastrophically violent, galactic-scale burp that can be detected from over 450 million light years away.

Stellar boffins have previously theorised what would happen in this situation, but now a group based variously in the US, Israel, Canada and Japan have published a paper in the journal Science [behind paywall] and on Arxiv, which explains how they managed to observe the phenomenon using detective work and information from a number of different instruments and arrays.

The story starts, like Star Wars, long, long ago, in a small, star-forming galaxy far, far away (some 480 million light years). In this case, featuring an object with the catchy name of VT 1210+4956 on the galactic outskirts. The scientists learned from data from a study called the Very Large Array Star Survey (VLASS) that it had started pumping out huge amounts of radio waves, but had not been in another earlier survey using the same telescope array.

Further investigations revealed that an instrument called MAXI (Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image) on board the International Space Station had detected a massive burst of X-rays coming from the same object back in 2014. This burst had lasted just 15 seconds, but during that time its energy emissions had been 10 trillion times greater than those of the Sun.

This was a not-insignificant event.

The astonished astro-whitecoats worked out that the only process which could have created this sequence was a merger-triggered core collapse supernova, aka the stellar cannibalism incident mentioned earlier.

This process can come about because massive stars capable of ending their lives in a supernova are often created in pairs called binary systems, which orbit around each other. In a binary system, one of the stars will inevitably be larger than the other because the universe or at least, our part of it is an imperfect place.

Because both stars are very large, their immense mass will make them burn very hot and their lifespans in galactic terms will be comparatively short. Of the two stars, the larger one will burn hotter and use up its nuclear fuel faster, before swelling into a supergiant star and eventually exploding in a supernova. In the case of a merger, things then get very weird.

The remains of the first star, without the nuclear processes required to counteract the immense gravity its mass creates, will collapse into an ultra-dense neutron star or the gravitational singularity of a black hole, phenomena collectively known as compact objects.

We are now left with a massive star approaching the end of its lifespan orbited by a much smaller, but still gravitationally immense, compact object. When the second star swells up into a supergiant, it finds a compact object already there: in fact, the supergiant may increase in size to such an extent that it expands past the orbit of the compact object and the smaller body ends up inside the larger one. What then follows is the worst case of indigestion in the galaxy.

The compact object starts sucking in material from the star's outer layers, while at the same time the interaction of the compact object's orbit and the rotation of the star flings massive quantities of it out into space in a huge spiral of gas.

This process continues for a few hundred years, with the compact object moving deeper and deeper beneath the star's surface, throwing off spiralling streams of gas all the way, until it finally reaches the core.

At this point the interaction between the two binary partners, which has been very energetic but seems oddly sedate in human terms centuries are not a denomination of time that are often used in reference to stars suddenly becomes very explosive indeed.

Material from the star's core interacts with the intruder, creating a superhot disk of material expanding outwards and immense jets of energy and matter blasting out perpendicular to the disk at close to the speed of light. These emissions collide with slower-moving matter around the star with incredible energy, creating a blast of X-rays that you can see from 480 million light years away.

"That jet is what produced the X-rays seen by the MAXI instrument aboard the International Space Station, and this confirms the date of this event in 2014," said Dillon Dong, a graduate student at Caltech and lead author on a paper in an interview with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

While this is happening, the intrusion of the compact object into the star's core causes it to explode in a supernova almost instantly. The material from that explosion is also ejected outwards at great speed and after a few years it catches up with gases ejected earlier and slams into them.

"The companion star was going to explode eventually, but this merger accelerated the process," Dong added.

This creates a further burst of radio waves that you can also see from 480 million light years away.

The ultimate result of all this interstellar argy-bargy is a pair of compact objects black holes, neutron stars, or one of each orbiting around each other as before, surrounded by an expanding cloud of very brightly shining gas.

A salutary tale which proves that cannibalism is very bad for you and gives you terrible, brightly shining gas which can be seen from 480 million light years away.

"Of all the things we thought we would discover with VLASS," said Gregg Hallinan of Caltech, one of the paper's co-authors, "this was not one of them."

Well, you wouldn't. But it turns out the galaxy is a cruel, unforgiving and surprisingly windy place.

Originally posted here:

Astronomers detect burps of interstellar cannibal from 480 million light years away - The Register

A recent study examined the origin of ultra-diffuse dwarf galaxies (UDGs), a rare type of galaxies containing a small number of stars that are spread out over large regions in space, and have an extremely low surface brightness, making them highly difficult to detect.

Using sophisticated computer simulations, scientists detected a few quenched UDGs (ultra-diffuse galaxies that have stopped producing stars) in low-density environments in the universe.

What we have detected is at odds with theories of galaxy formation since quenched dwarfs are required to be in clusters or group environments in order to get their gas removed and stop forming stars, said co-author Laura Sales, an associate professor ofPhysics and Astronomy at the University of California, Riverside.

But the quenched UDGs we detected are isolated. We were able to identify a few of these quenched UDGs in the field and trace their evolution backward in time to show they originated in backsplash orbits.

According to Professor Sales, a backsplash galaxy looks like an isolated galaxy in the present, but in the past was a satellite of a more massive system. Isolated galaxies and satellite galaxies have different properties because the physics of their evolution is quite different, she explained. These backsplash galaxies are intriguing because they share properties with the population of satellites in the system to which they once belonged, but today they are observed to be isolated from the system.

Scientists believe that in the past, quenched UDGs coalesced within halos of dark matter with unusually high angular momentum. Similar to a cotton candy machine, such an extreme environment might have spun out dwarf galaxies that were unusually stretched out. Although they evolved within galaxy clusters, at a certain moment in the past, interactions within the cluster most probably ejected the UDGs into the void, giving them wide, boomerang-like trajectories (the so-called backsplash orbits). During this process, the UDGs gas was stripped away, leaving them unable to produce stars (quenched).

These orbits are almost like those of comets in our solar system, said Professor Sales. Some go out and orbit back around, and others may come in once and then never again. For quenched UDGs, because their orbits are so elliptical, they havent had time to come back, even over the entire age of the universe. They are still out there in the field.

The research is published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

By Andrei Ionescu, Earth.com Staff Writer

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Astronomers explain the origin of isolated ultra-diffuse galaxies - Earth.com

Students majoring in astronomy, applied physics, or physicshave the opportunity to graduate with honors in the major. They must maintain a minimum UI cumulative g.p.a. of 3.33and complete a research project under the guidance of a faculty member, which requires the submission of an acceptable honors thesis. Students must give an oral presentation to the faculty and participate in a campus scientific poster session to describe their research project. Students are responsible for finding a faculty member willing to supervise their honors project.

For a step-by-step list to graduating with Honors in the major(s), see the Steps towards Honors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

For more information, contact the Honors Advisor:

Wayne Polyzou, Ph.D.Professor / Honors Advisor306 Van Allen Hall (VAN)319-335-1856polyzou@uiowa.edu

In addition to honors in the major, students may pursuehonors study and activities through membership in the University of Iowa Honors Program. University honors students must maintain a 3.33 g.p.a., complete 12 s.h. of coursework designated as honors courses, and complete 12 s.h. of an experiential learning project. VisitHonors at Iowato learn about the University's honors program.

NOTE:Membership in the UI Honors Program is not required to earn honors in the astronomy, applied physics, or physicsmajors.

Excerpt from:

Honors in Physics and Astronomy - Iowa Now

The Master of Science program in astronomy requires a minimum of 30 s.h. of graduate credit. Students must maintain a g.p.a. of at least 3.00 to earn the degree.

Up to one-third of the program of study may be taken in related scientific fields (e.g., meteorology, geology, electrical engineering); selection of such courses is encouraged.

The degree is offered either with or without thesis. The M.S. may be a terminal degree or a step toward a Ph.D. in physics with subprogram and a dissertation in astronomy or astrophysics. In either case the final examination is oral, conducted by a committee of three faculty members.

Students in the thesis program earn the required 30 s.h. in courses numbered 4000 or above, with at least 15 s.h. at the 5000 or above level.

The M.S. may be a terminal degree or a step toward a Ph.D. In either case, the final examination is oral, conducted by a committee of three faculty members.

Listed below are the general categories of coursework required to earn the degree; for more specific information oncourses, curriculum, and requirements of the Master of Science in astronomy, visit the UI General Catalog.

Application Deadline: January 1st (for Fall semester enrollment)

Admission decisions are based on prior academic performance, letters of reference, and the applicant's statement about background and purpose. Applicants must meet the admission requirements of the Graduate College; see theManual of Rules and Regulations of the Graduate Collegeon the Graduate College website. For more information, see the Graduate Admissions Process page.

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Master of Science in Astronomy - Iowa Now

Christopher Intagliata: This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science, ImChristopher Intagliata.

The universe is littered with black holes. But where exactly theyre all hiding? Well, thats a little harderto say.

Priya Natarajan: Our current inventory of black holesis still highly incomplete.

Intagliata: Yale astronomer Priya Natarajan says black holes present unique challenges to those keeping count.

Natarajan: These are dark objects that have such peculiar properties, you can never directly quite image them like we image galaxies. Therefore, we have to infer their presence indirectly.

Intagliata:Natarajan and her colleagues recently predicted there might be a large population of previously undetected supermassive black holesjust wandering around galaxies. But supermassive black holes are, as the name implies, massively largewhich makes them easier to detect than their relatively tiny cousins: so-called stellar-mass black holes, which are closer in mass to our sun.

Natarajan: If you have a stellar-mass black hole, it doesn't have the same oomph. So its trickier to detect them.

Intagliata:Nowresearchers in Europe claim to have stumbled upon an unexpected trove of these stellar-mass black holesin a puffy star cluster called Palomar 5.

Mark Gieles: In the paper, we call it kind of a Rosetta stone.

Intagliata:Mark Gieles is an astrophysicist with the University of Barcelona and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies.

He says Palomar 5 is best known for its spectacular star trails, studded with stars ejected from the cluster over the last 11.5 billion years. But those trails turned out to be a critical clue, tipping Gieles and his team off to a large mob of black holes.

You see, the astronomers set out to determine how the trails formed. To do that, they ran more than three dozen computer simulations in which theyd let different configurations of black holes bully around hundreds of thousands of stars for about 11 billion years.

Gieles:Each of these models would run for several weeks up to several months. They were run on special hardware, like on graphics cards, GPUsthe ones you use for gaming, essentially.

Intagliata:The hope wasone of those models would spit out something that resembles Palomar 5 today. And eventually, one did.

Gieles: We saw stars were being removed very efficiently because the black holes were basically pushing the stars away from the center.

Intagliata:The model explained the star trails. But it also suggested Palomar 5 likely harbors more than 100 black holesthats three times as many as the astronomers expected to find there. The details appear in the journal Nature Astronomy. [Mark Gieles et al., A supra-massive population of stellar-mass black holes in the globular cluster Palomar 5]

Natarajan of Yale says this work gives black hole hunters another tool for their investigations.

Natarajan: This is another indirect signature of the presence of these lurking black holes.

Intagliata:And its also suggestive of just how much we could be missing in other star clusters like Pal 5.

Natarajan: If those globular clusters like Pal 5 are further littered with black holes, the inventory just explodes, basically.

Intagliata:In other words, our current census of black holes appears to have some significant holes in it.

Thanks for listening. For Scientific Americans 60-Second Science, ImChristopher Intagliata.

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

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Astronomers Find an Unexpected Bumper Crop of Black Holes - Scientific American

Gold, silver and bronze medals, as well as honorary awards for more than 40 students from the Capivari municipal educational network. Sixth to ninth grade primary school students were awarded at the Brazilian Olympiad in Astronomy and Astronautics (OBA) and at the 2020 National Science Olympiad (ONC). Medals and certificates were awarded at Prof Augusto Brown, this Thursday. twelveth.

This years edition of OBA, held on May 27 and 28, had a different format than previous years. Students took the tests in person and online. ONC, which is part of the schools science programme, is implemented by five scientific societies: the Brazilian Society of Physics (SBF), the Brazilian Society of Chemistry (ABQ), the Butantan Institute, the Brazilian Astronomical Society, and the State University of Campinas. . (UNICAM).

The National Science Olympiad is promoted by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and aims to awaken and stimulate interest in the study of natural sciences; In addition to identifying talented people and encouraging their entry into scientific and technological fields.

Because of the pandemic, the 2020 competition included one stage, where the exams were divided into levels, and objective and theoretical questions were asked including biology, physics and chemistry. Students are awarded at two levels: national and state, where up to 400 gold, silver, bronze, and honors medals will be awarded.

I want to congratulate our heroes. This moment is much more than just gratitude, it is an act of encouragement to all the students, schools and teachers in our network. I want to leave here my sincere words of support and encouragement to everyone who participated in the Olympiad. The Minister of Education, Rafael Silvera dos Santos, said, You, we all came out victorious.

In Capivari, at the Augusto Castanho School, the educational coordination was in charge of teacher Giuliana Toledo Pisa Fonseca, in collaboration with Rosemary Armeln Roque, Luciana Pasqualini Chincariol Ventura, Giulio Sergio Santos, Evangelina de Fatima Teixeira and Alaide Bonagorio. OBA collaborated with geography professors, highlighting Rafael and Gabriele. At the School of Professor Laura Quagliato Pacheco, Professor Karen Christine Manoel Pastrello coordinates with the support of Professor Giulio.

Watch the full award:

both of themAlessandra Martino de Limasilver medal

Alice Figoreto de SousaMedal: gold

Anna Caroline Anacleto Martinssilver medal

Anna Clara Bressemsilver medal

Annabelle AgarMedal: gold

Queiroz Araujo Perinosilver medal

Emily Fernanda Lopez Galvosilver medal

Gabriel Rodriguez da Rocha Fortesilver medal

Giovanna is still Ulitskasilver medal

Isabella Vega StucciBronze Medal

Isabel Fonseca pensilver medal

Joao Vitor BombonatiBronze Medal

Leonardo Jacques FrancoMedal: gold

Photo by Lorena Prado SilvaMedal: gold

Photography by Lucas Luis RosadaBronze Medal

Lirel Kimi da Fonseca dos Santossilver medal

Maria Beatriz Barroso VincentineBronze Medal

Maria Clara SantarinaMedal: gold

Maria Gabriella Bressemsilver medal

Maria LuisaBronze Medal

Maristella Campanhol Anastasiosilver medal

Natalia Caron dos SantosMedal: gold

Osiris Bueno Baptista Alvessilver medal

Petra Ten AsalenBronze Medal

Rebecca Lamari de OliveiraBronze Medal

Richard Bianchi FrancoMedal: gold

Saulo Henrique Tunin RicominiBronze Medal

Vinicius Lima Crocosilver medal

ONC

gold medalIsabel Fonseca pen

silver medalLeonardo Jacques Franco

Maria Luisa

Dandara Beatrice defeated Pinto de Oliveira

Leticia Artur Ferreira

Otavio Antunes Benevides

Bronze MedalYasmine Cario Bonfa

honoraryCamila Eduarda Tavares

Mariana Moraes dos Santos

Lucas Luis Rosadas photo

Saulo Henrique Tunin Ricomini

Richard Bianchi Franco

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Municipal Network students receive prizes in the Olympiad of Science, Astronomy and Astronautics - Sunday Vision

Professional Skills Classes

The three pillars of the academy are teaching, research and service. The department provides our graduate students with ample opportunities to professionally develop in these areas. The department offers a yearly "Professional Skills for Physics and Astronomy" course (PHYS:5000) that is aimed to equip physics and astronomy graduate students with some of the professional skills that they will need going forward after their graduations with M.S. or Ph.D. degrees. Topics include: CV (curriculum vitae) and a resume preparation, career prospects and options with a physics/astronomy degree, diversity in the physics/astronomy workforce, how to get involved with research at all levels (first year graduate students), skills employers are seeking, and applying for postdoctoral positions, various fellowships and jobs of all kinds. The course has guest presentations from a variety of physics and astronomy faculty, postdoctoral students and others from campus and the professional community.

During the yearly review, the research or academic advisor works with the graduate students to try to determine optimal pathways for their career aspirations and provide feedback on the students matriculation. One strategy is to use Individual Development Plans to clearly articulate career goals and maintain good communication channels between mentor and mentee.

Through teaching assistantships, and tutoring opportunities, graduate students are able to hone their teaching skills as well as improve their own understanding of physics and/or astronomy. The Graduate College also offers a Certificate in College Teaching for students who are considering careers in post-secondary education.

The Department offers a variety of opportunities for graduate students to be involved in outreach and public engagement. Some of these opportunities are The Hawk-Eyes on Science and Hawk-Eyes in Space programs, Clear Skies, and working with the Society of Physics Students.

The GradMAP peer mentoring program is designed to help early graduate students succeed in their transition to graduate school, navigate department resources, and provide a network of mentorship. This in-house community provides an additional space to build the personal and professional relationships which make our department a collaborative, welcoming, and inclusive space.

The Graduate College offers robust professional development services, including career guidance, national grants and fellowships support, and Iowa'sCenter for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning(CIRTL). For more information on graduate student professional development services, visit theProfessional Developmentpage in the Graduate College.

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Careers and Opportunities | Physics and Astronomy - The University of Iowa - Iowa Now

Red dwarf stars frequently erupt with powerful superflares, spewing torrents of high-energy particles into space that can alter or strip away planetary atmosphere. New research indicates such flares more tend to occur at high latitudes, sparing planets orbiting a stars equator. Image: AIP/J. Fohlmeister

Young red dwarf stars are among the most common in the galaxy, hosting numerous exoplanets that could be abodes for life. But red dwarf stars also produce powerful superflares, extreme bursts of radiation that would wreak havoc with exoplanet atmospheres, possibly preventing life as we know it from gaining a foothold.

But maybe not.

Based on observations from NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, working with astronomers in the United States and Spain, were able to track down where such superflares originate.

We discovered that extremely large flares are launched from near the poles of red dwarf stars, rather than from their equator, as is typically the case on the Sun, said Ekaterina Ilin, a Ph.D. student at AIP. Exoplanets that orbit in the same plane as the equator of the star, like the planets in our own solar system, could therefore be largely protected from such superflares, as these are directed upwards or downwards out of the exoplanet system.

This could improve the prospects for the habitability of exoplanets around small host stars, which would otherwise be much more endangered by the energetic radiation and particles associated with flares compared to planets in the solar system.

The researchers analysed the light of more than 3,000 red dwarf stars looking for the tell-tale brightness changes indicating large flares. They developed a technique for determining the latitude of a flare region and found four stars well suited for analysis. All four featured large flares above about 55 degrees latitude, much closer to the pole than more typical solar flares and sunspots.

While the sample size is small, it is significant, the researchers say. If the flares were spread out evenly, the odds of finding four in a row at high latitudes would be about 1-in-1,000.

Read the rest here:

Superflares may be less threatening than originally thought Astronomy Now - Astronomy Now Online

Not terribly long after Id pestered the Central Arkansas Astronomical Societys admin email for advice on how best to see the Perseids meteor shower this year, an invitation appeared in my inbox. Would I like to come set up a lawnchair and watch the Perseids from River Ridge Observatory, where the society observes the cosmos with fancy telescopes from the middle of nowhere in Perry County? Yes, I would. And was I fully vaccinated, by the way? And willing to wear a mask if entering one of the facilities? Even better, I thought.

So it was that I ended up booking it to Bigelow around sunset last night, my car loaded with a companion, a picnic blanket, a pillow, a cooler full of the fanciest snacks I could conjure from the contents of my pantry (stargazing deserved raspberry seltzer water and hunks of mozzarella with Kroger-brand prosciutto, I determined), two bottom-shelf headlamps that emitted low-power red light, plenty of mosquito repellent and the pair of camp chairs that have taken up permanent residence in the back hatch of my car since I forget when.

A few observations, astronomical and otherwise:

Adjusting your eyes to the dark and keeping them there is way more important than Id realized. I know, I know, every set of guidelines about stargazing tells you exactly this. Problem is, its really hard to do unless youre pretty intentional about it, or unless youre surrounded, as I was, by a handful of folks who know what theyre doing. Maybe youre watching from your backyard, and find yourself going inside for bathroom breaks, where harsh white lights undo any adjustments to the dark youve taken time to make. Or youre camping out and need to turn on your flashlight to find your Off! Deep Woods. Or, more likely, youre picking up your cell phone to google where in the sky do i look for the Perseids or when do the Perseids peak, and unless youve made some adjustments to your devices brightness, youre not doing yourself any favors. Should you ever make it out to the Society-owned River Ridge Observatory for a StarBQ or to one of the state parks where the Society holds (or held prior to the pandemic, and will again when it subsides) skywatching events, itll be crucial that you park your car in such a way as not to flood observers fields of vision with your bright headlights. Do some research beforehand on where in the sky to look for a particular astronomical event so you dont have to pick up that phone. Adjusting your eyes takes a while, and youll see a lot more if you can keep the light around you at an absolute minimum. River Ridges clubhouse and bathroom facilities have low red overhead lighting for this very reason.

The astronomers at Central Arkansas Astronomical Society consider what theyre doing amateur astronomy, which to true novices like me just means Were not NASA. It may be, technically, amateur astronomy, but make no mistake about it, the members of this group are pretty dang serious about it. Our brief tour of the grounds, courtesy of longtime member and tech guru Jim Dixon, came complete with definitions of the three types of telescopes, all of which are represented among the individual members equipment. One of those is a robotic research-class telescope that the group operates at River Ridge in partnership with Arkansas Tech University. At the Zoom meeting I attended last year, much of the camera and telescope jargon was way over my head. Dont let a lack of tech savvy or science background dissuade you. The stars belong to everyone, and intimate knowledge of fish-eye lenses and sky-tracking software is not a prerequisite for getting into astronomy.

Those time-lapse photos you see of hundreds of meteors streaking across the sky at the same time? Theyre absolutely gorgeous, but Im convinced they might be destructive to a skywatching experience. At one point, my companion leaned over and asked only half in jest, And theyre sure this thing is tonight? Real meteor shower watching is slow stuff, and the frenetic juxtapositions of hundreds of meteors in those photos doesnt prepare you well for the real deal. Two meteors might strut their stuff within a few seconds of each other, only to be followed by a quarter hour of pretty much nothing. You might miss a few in a row because youre not looking at that part of the sky. You might see nothing at all. Find other stuff to look at. And at the risk of sounding preachy, youre far better filling those in-between moments without the help of your phone.

Every single person has a breathless, involuntary response to seeing a bright meteor blaze across the sky, and its worth discovering what yours is. Dixons, endearingly, was a pragmatic There went one, followed by a location: right between Jupiter and Saturn, or right through Hercules. Another member somewhere in the dark would say, That was pretty. Mine is Whoa!

The demands of watching a meteor shower or even picking out constellations are antithetical to the way we live in 2021, and it is simultaneously one of the most humanity-affirming things you can do in the middle of an abysmal year. Meteor shower watching is not, generally speaking, productive. In fact, staying up until 3 a.m. to do it might well wreck your next work day. It doesnt produce any tangible commodity and it doesnt grow the economy or create a lot of jobs or directly solve any of our current social ills. When I arrived at River Ridge, longtime member Bruce McMath was giving his family and a couple of us within earshot a constellation tour using a tiny laser pointer to point out stars in the sky. First, Lyra. Then, gargantuan Scorpio and Sagittarius little teapot, with the steam of the Milky Way emerging from its spout and spilling across the ether. Because it was dark, the laser pointer he held was imperceptible, and it seemed for all the world like his extended hand was connected to the sky itself by a thin, perfectly straight green string. He showed us the hazy M-13 and the Ring Nebula star clusters on a telescope and told us the story of Cassiopeia and Andromeda. One of the familys younger subset asked earnestly, after an explanation of the life cycles of stars, Why doesnt the sun blow up, too? Because its not old enough, McMath replied. If he knew how poetic that reply was, he didnt show it (or, more accurately, his expression couldnt be seen in the dark) but it was a dose of perspective that kid probably needed. (And by that kid, I mean me.) Theres still a chance to go and get some for yourself, too. The Perseids peaked on Aug. 12, but theyll continue their nightly appearances until Aug. 18. Meteors or no, though, if you can find a time to recline on a blanket and stare at the night sky for a few hours tonight, next week, two months from now I doubt youll be sorry you did.

Keep up with the Central Arkansas Astronomical Society (and other skywatching groups across the state, linked under the New Observers page) at caasastro.org.

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Perseids and perspective: A trip to the Central Arkansas Astronomical Society's River Ridge Observatory - Arkansas Times