Cover of “You will go to the Moon” from 1959. Credit: Robert Patterson / Random HouseMy wife and I are packing up our home of 22 years, and will be moving a few miles north. While I was clearing out my bookshelf, I found a book that I owned as a child, that has somehow remained with me, albeit a bit worse for wear: You Will Go To the Moon, published in 1959 by Mae and Ira Freeman, illustrated by Robert Patterson.
I was a child of the Apollo era, and like many others of that time, our lives where influenced-by, and in many cases shaped-by the events of the early space age. As I look at through the book now, many of the images are very reminiscent of Chesley Bonestell’s artwork – also something from my childhood. This book shows a Moon lander leaving from a toroidal space station – something Bonestell featured in many pieces of his art way before 2001: A Space Odyssey; there’s also a whimsical image of an adult and child, both in spacesuits, jumping off the Moon’s surface!
60 years after that children’s book was published, and 50 years after having landed on the Moon, we still don’t have cool toroidal space stations, or children on the Moon. But with the China National Space Agency recently landing 2 rovers on the Moon, and NASA’s announcement of plans to send the first woman to the Moon by 2024, I am hopeful that maybe my grandchildren may be the ones to finally “Go To the Moon” and stay. In the meantime, I’ll have to be satisfied with going there myself in Kerbal Space Program!
You can view You Will Go To the Moon here [Link]
The above is an edited version of the intro of my Outreach Officer’s Report for the July 2019 issue of the Warren Astronomical Society’s monthly newsletter.
Saturn rises shortly after sunset, and Jupiter is high in the southern sky – making for great observing targets this week.
Saturn rises later each evening; Jupiter is high in the southeastern sky around midnight all week. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.If you are up early in the morning, Saturn will be high in the southern sky at 3:00 AM.
Saturn high in the southeastern sky around 3:00 AM all week. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.Venus appears very low, and lower each day, in the northeastern sky just before sunrise.
Venus appears very lower each day near the northeastern horizon before sunrise. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.The very thin waxing crescent Moon appears low in the western sky on July 4th.
A thin waxing crescent Moon on the western horizon on July 4th just after sunset. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.The crescent Moon appear near the star Regulus on July 5th after sunset.
The Moon appears very near the star Regulus in the western sky after sunset on July 5, 2019. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.The constellation Cassiopeia appears in the North-northeastern sky after sunset all week.
The constellation Cassiopeia in the North-northeastern sky after sunset. This week’s observing target is in Cassiopeia. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.
NGC 436 – an Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
NGC 436 (top right) is an open star cluster located approximately 9,800 light-years away in Cassiopeia. NGC 457 (middle), also known as the Owl Cluster, is another open star cluster located approximately 8,000 light-years away. Credit: Astronomy.com user Dan Crowson.NGC 436 is an open cluster located in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered on November 3, 1787 by William Herschel. It was described by Dreyer as a “cluster, small, irregular figure, pretty compressed. – Wikipedia
Location of open cluster NGC 436 in the constellation Cassiopea. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.I found the image here:
The Moon is a waning crescent, rising around midnight, visible low to the east before sunrise.
The new Moon occurs on July 2nd.
After July 2nd the Moon will be a waxing crescent, visible toward the southwest in early evening; this weekend the Moon should be an excellent for early evening observing.
The Moon from July 2-8, 2019. Visualizations by Ernie Wright / NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.I frequently mention how I love seeing the waning crescent Moon through my kitchen window in the early morning – I captured this shot of it on June 26th.
https://twitter.com/BalrogsLair/status/1143804443751866368
Moon News – NASA’s “What’s Up for July” – #Apollo50th
The Sun has been spot-free for 4 days now. Coronal holes continue to appear at both poles, and a large hole appears along the Sun’s equator.
SpaceWeather.com says: “A SUNSPOT FROM THE NEXT SOLAR CYCLE: Solar Minimum won’t last forever. In fact, the next solar cycle made a brief appearance this week. On July 1st, a small sunspot materialized in the sun’s southern hemisphere (S21W02), then, hours later, vanished again. The polarity of its magnetic field marks it as a likely member of Solar Cycle 25.”
Some long-lived prominences appear all over the Sun’s limb for the last couple days.
The solar wind speed is 315.5 km/sec (↓), with a density of 2.1 protons/cm3 (↓).
Animated LASCO C2 Coronograph showing the solar corona above the Sun’s limb (the white circle). Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechYou can create your own time-lapse movies of the Sun here: AIA/HMI Browse Data.
You can browse all the SDO images of the Sun from 2010 to the present here: Browse SDO archive.
Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT)
|
Miss Distance
|
Velocity (km/s)
|
Diameter (m)
|
| 2015 XC352 |
2019-Jul-01
|
11.9 LD
|
4.1
|
26
|
| 2019 MT |
2019-Jul-01
|
8.9 LD
|
4.2
|
41
|
| 2019 MJ2 |
2019-Jul-02
|
18 LD
|
9.2
|
28
|
| 2019 MD1 |
2019-Jul-02
|
10.3 LD
|
9.5
|
18
|
| 2016 OF |
2019-Jul-07
|
12.8 LD
|
8.5
|
85
|
| 2016 NO56 |
2019-Jul-07
|
3.4 LD
|
12.2
|
26
|
| 2019 KD3 |
2019-Jul-12
|
15.5 LD
|
8
|
82
|
| 2016 NJ33 |
2019-Jul-12
|
15 LD
|
4.5
|
32
|
| 2019 MW1 |
2019-Jul-13
|
7.8 LD
|
8.5
|
45
|
| 2015 HM10 |
2019-Jul-24
|
12.2 LD
|
9.5
|
68
|
| 2010 PK9 |
2019-Jul-26
|
8.2 LD
|
16.5
|
155
|
| 2006 QQ23 |
2019-Aug-10
|
19.4 LD
|
4.7
|
339
|
| 454094 |
2019-Aug-12
|
17 LD
|
8.2
|
148
|
| 2018 PN22 |
2019-Aug-17
|
17.1 LD
|
2.3
|
11
|
| 2016 PD1 |
2019-Aug-26
|
11.4 LD
|
5.9
|
65
|
| 2002 JR100 |
2019-Aug-27
|
19.4 LD
|
8.4
|
49
|
Notes: LD means “Lunar Distance.” 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. Table from SpaceWeather.com
Potentially hazardous asteroids: 1983 (last updated May 8, 2019)
Minor Planets discovered: 796,080 (+47)
5th Annual International Asteroid Day – June 30th
Dozens of #AsteroidDay events where held across the globe:
2019 Asteroid Day Event Map. Credit: AsteroidDay.org / Google MapsThis Tweet by NASA discusses the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impact on Jupiter in 1994, and the formation of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). David Levy, one of the co-discovers of that comet writes a monthly post that we are honored to re-post here on the Sacred Space Astronomy blog.
On July 1, 2019, the NASA All Sky Fireball Network reported 60 fireballs.
(59 sporadics, 1 Northern June Aquilid)
In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point–Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). From: Spaceweather.comFireball & Meteor News:
This is the position of the planets and a couple bodies in the solar system:
Solar System News – Quad-copters on Titan!
Well kinda… I bet YOUR quad-copter doesn’t have a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG), and a neutron-activated gamma-ray spectrometer!
https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1144334797101260800
Artist concept of a Dragonfly Rotorcraft Lander on Saturn’s moon Titan. Credit: Johns Hopkins APL
OSIRIS-REx
NASA Deep Space Atomic Clock Launched in SpaceX Falcon Heavy
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – A Scientist Revisits an Old Friend
Orion Crew Spacecraft Abort Test
Climate
Data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive
Exoplanet Artwork by Bob Trembley
Kepler-903 b weighs in at 4.7 Earth-masses. It orbits its host G4-class star in a mere 10.4 days. It was discovered using the transit method, and its discovery was announced in 2016. When I went to this “hot subneptune” exoplanet in SpaceEngine, it was glowing red hot at 531°C.
Artist concept of exoplanet Kepler-903 b. Credit: SpaceEngine / Bob Trembley
Doug Bock is an astrophotographer friend from the Warren Astronomical Society.
https://twitter.com/Mars_1956/status/1143215052817928192
Apps used for this post:
NASA Eyes on the Solar System: an immersive 3D solar system and space mission simulator – free for the PC /MAC. I maintain the unofficial NASA Eyes Facebook page.
Stellarium: a free open source planetarium app for PC/MAC/Linux. It’s a great tool for planning observ
