<<< Return to Newsletter Archives list Tuesday, September 29, 2009 October eNewsletter from the Minnesota Planetarium Society In this issue from the Minnesota Planetarium Society: Moon-Planet Conjunctions to See We have had a busy month getting settled into our new office. A corporate grantor requested a site visit and we turned the whole day into an "Open Dome". Throughout the day we had grantors and major donor prospects into our office to tour the Universe. Yes there is enough room to inflate the ExploraDome. It was an enormous success. In October, we are slated to present the Dome at both the Educate Minnesota Conference (Oct.15th) and the NSTA conference (Oct. 29-31st). Jupiter is particularly bright in the evening sky right now. Was it this bright in January 1610 when Galileo pointed his homemade 20-power telescope into the sky and observed for the first time ever objects orbiting another planet? Today, these four moons are known as the Galilean satellites and Jupiter's moons number 62 and counting! We invite you to take a peek yourself on a clear evening this fall. Angus M. Vaughan October seems to be a month to fly this year. About 9pm, face south and marvel at bright Jupiter about 30 degrees above the horizon looking like an airplane flying toward you. Tilt your head back and Deneb is the bright star directly overhead. Deneb is the tail end of Cygnus the swan who flies toward the west this time of year. The bright star 25 degrees northwest of Deneb is Vega. About 35 degrees below those two lies bright Altair. Deneb, Vega and Altair form the summer triangle. To the left of Deneb lies the Great Square of Pegasus, an upside down half a flying horse, trailed by the beautiful Andromeda. In dark skies, trace the Milky Way galaxy from Cassiopeia in the NE through Cygnus overhead and on to Sagittarius low in the southwest. Venus is still bright in the early morning skies. Moon-Planet Conjunctions to See October 12 from 3-6am: Mars ~5 degrees above Moon 374! That's the latest count of planets found around other stars. Since the discovery of the first planet outside of our solar system in 1991, the numbers continue to skyrocket, based on very clever observing strategies and now, a host of new telescopes, both in space and on the ground. So far, our detection techniques have not been sensitive enough to pick up planets as small as the Earth, and have instead found lots of Jupiter-like planets. But we're on the way. The latest space telescope to join the search is called "CoRoT", or Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits, a project of the European Space Agency. And in September, they made the exciting announcement of the discovery of a rocky planet with a radius only 50% more than Earth's, and a mass only five times as great. This new rocky planet, in orbit around the star now designated as Corot-7, is not likely to harbor life. Its orbit is much smaller than Mercury's, and temperatures are above 3600 degrees Fahrenheit. So, our journey to other Earths continues -- you can stay tuned at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ |
