Astronomy.com blog : Daniel Pendick, astronomy magazine

August 2009 web extras for magazine subscribers

Karri Ferron — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Now that the August 2009 issue of Astronomy is in the mail or already in hand, we’ve updated Astronomy.com with our newest web extras to give subscribers exclusive complementary information to this special issue about our return to the Moon.

Take a sneak peek inside the August 2009 Astronomy magazine.

If you subscribe to Astronomy, make sure you’re registered with Astronomy.com so you can access these great extras.

Here are this issue's highlights:

Senior Editor Richard Talcott shares a NASA video animation preview of the Constellation program that will put humans back on lunar soil in “Return to the Moon.”

Associate Editor Daniel Pendick explores the opinions on NASA’s concept of “Moon first, then Mars” in “Should we go to the Moon first?”

Pendick also explains the uncertain effects of long-term exposure to space radiation and low gravity in “What are the health risks of a Mars mission?”

Senior Editor Michael E. Bakich offers an in-depth preview of the LRO and LCROSS missions that jointly launched June 18 in “NASA's next Moon mission.”

Pendick answers the “Ask Astro” question: “How warm does it get on Mars?”

And I’ve included a few more Q&As with Frank Shu and Joan Najita in “Astro Confidential: Extending the conversations.”

Of course, we’ve also posted “Bob Berman’s Strange Universe,” “Glenn Chaple’s Observing Basics,” “Stephen James O’Meara’s Secret Sky,” and “David Levy’s Evening Stars.” There are also August’s “The Sky this Month” and five “Ask Astro” questions.

Related:

Astronomy.com's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission page

Cosmic jazz inspired by astronomy

Daniel Pendick — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:27:00 GMT

I recently received a telephone call from a jazz musician, Michael Roach. He explained to me that he and the other members of the trio TEN27 have created seven original compositions inspired by astronomy and cosmology. As it turns out, a news article I wrote about the galaxy I Zwicky 18 for the February 2008 issue inspired one of their songs.

The trio is holding an event this week called "The Black Book Project." It is a multimedia-live performance combining original jazz compositions with images of the cosmos from the Hubble Space Telescope. The performance takes place Saturday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. at The Egg, Empire State Plaza, in Albany, New York.

Other astronomy-inspired compositions in the program include:

"Oh Vera," honoring the work of astrophysicist Vera Rubin.
"4-9-6," in reference to the ratio of the three types of stuff that make up the universe — 4 percent normal “baryonic” matter, 96 percent dark matter/dark energy.
"Eta Carinae," a star that is about to go supernova.
"Nebulous," celebrating the “flowers of the universe.”

Our mysterious universe has inspired many works of art — from van Gogh’s painting Starry Night to Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets. It’s gratifying to know that something we published offered a few atoms of inspiration to the starry-eyed musicians in Ten27.

Mr. Roach kindly provided us with a recording of I Zwicky 18 for you to hear. If you’re in the Albany area, please consider giving these fine musicians your support.

Chandrayaan-1 nuggets from James Oberg

Daniel Pendick — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:40:00 GMT

India’s lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 finally blasted off last night. Make that one more space-faring nation on its way back to the Moon.

One of Astronomy magazine’s columnists, James Oberg, sent the information below out to the various media interests he writes for and agreed to let me share it with you. In case you don’t know who Jim Oberg is, he is one of the world's leading popularizers and interpreters of space exploration. His classic Red Star in Orbit is THE authoritative book on the Russian space program.

Oberg is also a former “rocket scientist,” having had a 22-year career as a space engineer in Houston, where he specialized in NASA space shuttle operations for orbital rendezvous. Read more on his web site: www.jamesoberg.com

You couldn’t ask for a more knowledgeable guide to international space science. I always look forward to receiving Oberg’s monthly “Space Science Update” articles for the magazine’s Astro news section. These gems are full of technical and historical insights that speak to the writer’s deep experience with the subject.

Here are Oberg’s Chandrayaan-1 tips:

The launch follows China's first Moon shot last year.

It's approximately the 70th moon probe from Earth over the past 50 years. The first one was August 1958.

The probe kicks off an enhanced Indian space program that could see astronauts from that nation in orbit by 2015. The probe is quite sophisticated and international in its suite of instruments.

As with the Chinese probe, Chandrayaan-1 will use rockets and hardware developed for launching communications satellites. Its initial parking orbit will be the same one used for communication satellites headed for the 24-hour synchronous orbit over the equator — then will thrust higher and out toward the Moon.

Relying on previously flown hardware and flight paths probably enhances the chance of a success — until they need to do lunar-distance navigation and control. Here, the Indians are new at the game, but they have been practicing.

Side note: India's recent launch of an Israeli spy satellite has put their space program into the cross hairs of Islamic terrorist groups, who have attacked facilities before. In India today, public enthusiasm for the launch is reaching astronomical levels — making it a tempting target, if any group really has the capability.

In recent years, lunar probes from Europe, Japan, China, and now India have opened the door to wider world participation in such exploration. The next expansion of Moon exploration is only a few years off when private teams begin sending probes to the Moon for the “Lunar X-Prize” and even as commercial cargo carriers for NASA.

So this event isn't just a one-off freak show, it is a milestone on a broadening highway.

A very thoughtful assessment of India and China and their approach to wider space activities was published last week on TheSpaceReview.com, "The new path to space: India and China enter the game."

More Chandrayaan-1 coverage on Astronomy.com:

Exploring dusty disks around baby stars

Daniel Pendick — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Trillions of miles way, disks and gas and dust encircle baby stars just a few million years old. Rocky planetary cores form, then sweep through the disks, accreting additional material around themselves like a cardboard tube swirling through a carnival cotton-candy machine. As the protoplanets gain mass, they carve racetrack-like gaps in the gaseous disk.

How do I know this? Dan Watson told me. He’s an astronomer at the University of Rochester in New York and a member of the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) team on the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA's infrared Great Observatory.

Next question — How does Dan Watson know planets are swirling around baby stars? Because the Spitzer Space Telescope told HIM so!

I’m developing a new illustration for a feature that will appear soon in Astronomy. I needed Watson to help me understand some of the finer scientific aspects of THIS piece of art distributed by NASA and the Spitzer science team.

The NASA art will be the basis for our new illustration. So I called Dan, and he patiently explained the details to me. Now I’ll work with our talented illustrators for the next month to produce the finished product.

Sometimes HOW scientists figure something out is every bit as inherently cool as WHAT they figure out. What impressed me is that the faintest trace of infrared light, broken down into its component colors by Spitzer’s spectrograph, can tell us so much.

The spectrum tells us if the system has a gap and how far from the star it lies. It tells us which solar systems are binaries (two suns). Scientists have even discovered a system with two binary systems orbiting each other — one pair with a young solar system, one without. And all of this information comes from subtle wiggles in the spectrum of infrared energy emitted by warm dust and gas encircling a distant baby star.

Pretty cool, huh? Look for it in the February issue of Astronomy.