Mon Sep 25, 2023 PIONEER 11
In September 1979, Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to travel past Saturn. Launched in 1973, it took six years to cross the billion-mile gap between Earth and Saturn. When Pioneer 11 passed Jupiter, it nearly got its circuits fried by the giant planet’s powerful magnetosphere. But it made it to Saturn, and Pioneer 11 was first to see Saturn's twisted, outermost F ring. If you’d like to take a look at the ringed planet tonight, you’ll find it in the southeastern sky after sunset, a bright, yellow-tinged star just to the east of the moon in the constellation Aquarius. Small telescopes can reveal those rings, but you can’t see Pioneer 11, even with the most powerful telescopes on earth. The little spacecraft is well to the west of Saturn in the constellation Scutum, over 10 billion miles out, in the great beyond.
Tue Sep 26, 2023 TCAS MEETING
There will be a meeting of the Treasure Coast Astronomical Society this Tuesday evening, at 7:30 p.m. It will be at the Hallstrom Planetarium on the main Fort Pierce campus of Indian River State College. Many of the Treasure Coast Astronomical Society members own at least one telescope, but if all you have is a pair of binoculars, or even just an interest in the sky and astronomy, then this is the club for you. Each meeting features astronomy lessons and highlights all the space news like next month’s solar eclipse. And this evening, TCAS members and guests will be previewing our next planetarium show, “Stars to Starfish,” which discusses the earth’s oceans and of course, the ocean of space. So once again, come on out to the meeting at 7:30 this evening at the IRSC Science Center’s Hallstrom Planetarium, here in Fort Pierce.
Wed Sep 27, 2023 SPECIAL RELATIVITY DAY
Even if you’ve never had a science class, you still probably know this one little formula: E equals m c squared. On September 30, 1905, that amazing equation was introduced to the world when Albert Einstein published it in his theory of special relativity. And in so doing, Einstein showed us how the sun has been able to shine steadily for all these years. There once was a lot of disagreement about how the sun produced so much energy. One theory was that meteor bombardment heated it and made it glow. Another theory was that it was burning like an immense lump of coal. The best theory suggested that the sun had once been as large as the whole solar system; as it shrank, it produced heat. None of these theories worked. But by invoking nuclear fusion, where hydrogen is fused to make helium and a lot of energy, Einstein solved the problem.
Thu Sep 28, 2023 NEPTUNE’S DISCOVERY
Neptune was discovered on September 23rd, 1846. Johanne Galle used the Berlin Observatory’s nine-inch refracting telescope to search for a possible eighth planet in a small spot in the sky where the mathematician Urbain Leverrier had calculated it to be. Searching that spot, Galle saw a tiny, faint blue dot in the telescope’s eyepiece. Galle and his assistant Heinrich d’Arrest opened up their book of star maps, something called, the Berliner Akademischen Sternkarte, (I think I said that right,) and found that his star was “not on the map!” The next night they found that the tiny dot had moved against the background of fixed stars - it was a wanderer, a planet. Tonight, Neptune will be in the southeast after sunset, just above the moon – but while the moon shines brightly, you’ll need a good telescope to find Neptune!
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ri Sep 29, 2023 FULL MOON OF SEPTEMBER
The moon is full. September’s full moon is the Barley Moon of medieval England, or the Singing Moon in Scotland and Ireland, while in the Americas it is the Corn Moon. The Cherokee call it the Black Butterfly Moon or the Nut Moon. Similarly it is the Little Chestnut Moon of the Creek and the Seminole people. It is the Drying Grass Moon of the Arapaho and the Cheyenne people, and the Choctaw Indian’s Courting Moon. To the Omaha Indians it is the Moon When the Deer Paw the Earth while the Sioux say it is the Moon When Calves Grow Hair. This is also the Harvest Moon, the full moon which occurs nearest the autumnal equinox, the beginning of fall, which was on September 23rd. Over several nights, the light of this full moon proves helpful to farmers who bring in their harvest of crops after sunset.
