Wednesday, June 04, 2008

June eNewsletter from the MN Planetarium Society

SCHEDULE THE EXPLORADOME FOR FALL 2008!

The stars are aligning now more than ever. After a sold-out spring tour, the Minnesota Planetarium Society's ExploraDome is taking reservations for fall 2008. And now, schools can save 20 percent by booking an ExploraDome experience for this September or October!
For more information:  http://www.mplanetarium.org/pdf/ExploraDome_Fall_2008.pdf
To schedule, call or email: 651-999-7300  exploradome@mplanetarium.org

In this issue from the Minnesota Planetarium Society:

President's Update
June Night Skies
The Biggest Blasts
Finding Swift

President's Update

Special thanks go to all who came to the Hennepin County Commissioner’s meeting on May 15 and to those of you who wrote to support the Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center. Several Commissioners remarked that numbers do count. We made a strong case for proceeding with the project, including an impassioned plea by our newest Board member Paul Douglas that science education is critical, and we need to invest in it now. Commissioner Gail Dorfman suggested forming a task force to explore and analyze alternatives and make recommendations to the Commissioners. We support that approach and we will work with County staff to map out our next steps. This is progress, and we are hopeful that it will lead to full County support of the Planetarium.

If you have not yet contacted your Commissioner or Richard Johnson, County Administrator, please do so now. See http://www.mplanetarium.org/links/ContactHC.html for talking points and contact information. Thank you!

The ExploraDome outreach program served its 30,000th visitor in May with fantastic reviews by students, teachers, and parents. Word is getting around that this is a superb teaching tool using technology that has to be seen to be believed.  Contact us now to book the ExploraDome for your school or business for the Fall!

Peggy Leppik, President, MNPS

June Night Sky Highlights

Most stargazers star hop by using one constellation to find another. In June, use the Big Dipper which lies almost directly overhead around 10 pm. First find the “pointer stars”, the two stars in the scoop farthest from the handle. Follow them away from the scoop to the first relatively bright star to locate Polaris, the North Star, in Ursa Minor. Follow the pointer stars in the opposite direction to find Leo the Lion low in the west. Trace along the handle of the Big Dipper as you “arc to Arcturus”, a red giant star in Bootes. Then speed on to Spica, the bright star in Virgo toward the southwest. For sky maps, try http://www.skymaps.com or http://www.heavens-above.com.

Saturn lies about two degrees left of Regulus in Leo. Mars begins the month about 15 degrees right of Regulus but by month’s end the two are less than one degree apart! Watch for mighty Jupiter rising around 11pm at the start of June. 

Conjunctions

Date         Time           With    

June 7      Dusk            Mars above Moon

June 8      Dusk            Regulus above and Saturn above left of Moon

June 16    11 pm          Antares above Moon

June 19    11 pm          Jupiter left of Moon

June 30    Dusk            Mars 0.7 degree above Regulus, Saturn 5 degrees right of Regulus

The Biggest Blasts

Today, astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite discover about one burst of gamma-rays -- extremely high energy photons -- each day, the biggest releases of energy since the Big Bang itself. Most bursts result from highly energetic supernova explosions which leave behind a black hole. But the origin of the shortest burst sources is still unknown - most popular now are ideas like the collision of two exotic neutron stars, each of them left behind from their own supernova explosions. The discovery of gamma-ray bursts dates to the late 1960s, when the Vela satellites were looking for such bursts originating on Earth, as a way for the US to verify whether the Soviets were conducting forbidden nuclear bomb tests. After discovery, astronomers had to figure out what objects were bursting, a task made very difficult by the poor information we had on their position in the sky. Now, we quickly turn optical and X-ray telescopes in the direction of a new burst, and can detect a faint afterglow which tells us about their origins. See http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/ for further information.

Finding Swift and Gamma Ray Bursts

Swift is located 375 miles above the surface of the Earth and orbits approximately once every 90 minutes.

See where over the world the Swift satellite is right now.
http://www.n2yo.com/?s=28485

See where the most recent gamma-ray bursts were seen in the sky.
http://grb.sonoma.edu/