Moon Rock Mischief!

Posted on March 16, 2021 by olivesobservatory
Image Courtesy of The Atlantic

Apparently theft isn’t exclusive to Earth! In 2002, college NASA interns Thad Roberts, Tiffany Fowler, and Shae Saur stole more than $20 million worth of moon rocks from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. How did they pull it off, exactly? An elaborate heist that eventually ended in an FBI sting operation. In May 2002, another accomplice, Gordon McWhorter, helped them find a buyer. The client, an amateur Belgian mineralogist, promptly notified the FBI, who continued the correspondence from there by posing as the mineralogist’s sister-in-law. [1] Getting into the facility was easy enough- all they had to do was show their IDs to security under the guise that they were working late, and they were in. [2] They used a code emailed to them from a former coworker, and they made it into Building 31 North, which housed all of the moon rocks collected thus far in a vault devoid of oxygen. Thad and Tiffany put on their wetsuits (equipped with oxygen tanks, which gave them 15 minutes of air) but ran into trouble with the lock on the safe itself. As it turns out, the code was not written on its label (as Thad had previously assumed by watching a coworker read the label and open the safe); rather, it was an algorithm that helped the employee remember the combination. The duo then decided to wheel the entire safe out using a dolly, which they eventually stashed in the motel room they were staying at. They threw out the safe itself (along with notebooks which had 30 years of research in them) and moved the samples to Fowler’s apartment. [1] A week later, on the 33rd anniversary of the moon landing, Thad, Fowler, and McWhorton met their “client” in a restaurant in Florida. Right before the swap was to be made, 40 FBI agents descended upon the scene, arresting the trio. They were all arrested and eventually sentenced. [1] Thus concluded the heist that was, quite literally, out of this world! Do you know any other crazy crime stories related to astronomy?

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What if the Carrington Event Occurred Today?

Posted on March 16, 2021 by olivesobservatory
Frederic Edwin Church’s 1865 painting “Aurora Borealis”

Are we ready for a Carrington-level event today? The short answer- not really. In 1859, Richard Carrington observed “two patches of intensely bright and white light” (a solar flare followed by a coronal mass ejection) on the surface of the Sun. The next morning, brilliant red, green, and purple auroral displays appeared as far as the Bahamas, Cuba, El Salvador, Hawaii, and Jamaica. [1] They were so bright that people were able to read the newspaper in the middle of the night and miners in Colorado woke up to begin their morning shift! However, it was also powerful enough to disrupt telegraph machines, consequently causing fires in some places and even shocking some telegraph operators. [2] Looking at this event, it’s difficult not to wonder what its modern-day equivalent would be like. In terms of cost and recovery time, a modern Carrington event is estimated to cause $1-2 trillion damages in the first year and take around 4-10 years for the planet to fully recover. [1] Most elements of society would be threatened- electric grids (especially those that are more interconnected, which are more prone to a domino effect), electronics (including GPS, which relies on satellites), and even astronauts in space if they are unprotected. [2][3] According to Scientific American, “unlike other threats to our planet, such as supervolcanoes or asteroids, the time frame for a cataclysmic geomagnetic storm… is comparatively short.” [4] However, scientists are taking important steps to prepare for the next event, including using new spacecraft to better understand the Sun’s behavior to help with better forecasting. [5] To open this up for discussion, in the event of a Carrington-level catastrophe, what will be your favorite activity (that doesn’t use electronics or electricity) to partake in? For me personally, I’ll definitely take up gardening if I can get a good source of water! Gardening might be difficult without Google’s help though 😦 On a more serious note, do you think an event such as this one will be as catastrophic as it sounds? Are we doing as much as reasonably possible to prepare for this?

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Posted on March 16, 2021 by yvan247

Nicholas Copernicus (Feb 9th, 1473- May 24th, 1543)

Copernicus was born just 5 years before first Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was a tactic by the catholic monarch ruling over Europe to spread Catholicism all across territories they controlled. They deployed officers to target individuals engaging in heresy, that is displaying beliefs or actions that is contrary to the norm—In this case, anyone who didn’t follow strict Catholicism, namely Jews. Also, during Copernicus lifetime was when Christopher Columbus first set sail on his way to Asia and ended up landing in the Americas.

Copernicus live during the time with Michelangelo, who was born on March 6th, 1475 and died on February 16th, 1564. Michelangelo was famous for his sculptures, paintings, and architecture during the Italian renaissance. Some of his most famous works is his painting on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel at the Vatican, depiction of the creation of Adam from the book of genesis, and his sculpture of David.

  • Postcards from the edge: The power of frames | Christie's
    Sistine Chapel ceiling
  • Michelangelo - Creation of Adam (cropped).jpg
    Creation of Adam
  • 'David' by Michelangelo Fir JBU002.jpg
    David

Hindsight is always 20/20 and in astronomy I feel as though it is easy to criticize how wrong the knowledge of the world was in 15th century and earlier. But after diving a little bit into Copernicus’s era, I realized that A LOT was happening in the world back then. I doubt that most people cared dive deep into whether the sun or the earth was the center of the universe when they had wars to wage, inquisitions being conducted, and Michelangelo’s art to fond over. I mean we still hadn’t even understood our own planet, just ask Christopher Columbus. It’s simple to look at the past as whole but you take the time to see how much took place in just a decade in the past, you start to cut the people of yesteryear some slack, and praise those like Copernicus who challenged the status quo even with everything going on in the world at their time.

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Spacecraft in the Milky Way

Posted on March 11, 2021 by gracelearnsspace
Parker Solar Probe Imagined

Since 1958 over 250 spacecraft have entered our solar system to explore and have given a little bit more insight to the huge universe around us. One of those spacecraft, Parker, is on a mission to get seven times closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft before. Parker was launched in 2018 by the US and is on a 7 year mission, where it will orbit the Sun 24 times to sample the Sun’s atmosphere, giving humans insight into space weather. Another spacecraft is Gaia, launched in 2013 by the European Space Agency. Gaia’s goal is to create the most realistic 3D map of the Milky Way by measuring the motion of the Milky Way’s stars orbiting the center. Overall, there are a lot of active spacecraft gathering information every day that gives us a little bit more insight into the vast unknown of space.

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History of Telescopes

Posted on March 2, 2021 by weatherbysofferings
See the source image
A sketch of what the earliest Reflecting Telescopes would have looked like (Source).

While there were some objects artificially resembling telescopes in the ancient world, and even some used for sighting, the first modern telescope would have been the work of a Dutch glasses-maker named Hans Lippershey, in 1608. This is merely the first documented one though, as he was the person to file a patent, and the design seems to have existed before. Regardless, this is the best we have to go off of, and in the following year of 1609, Galileo made improvements to the optics of Lippershey’s design, resulting in a telescope of roughly 23x magnification and recorded the first known astronomical observations with a telescope! 

In 1611, Kepler then improved on the design of telescopes by suggesting the use of convex lenses to achieve a wider field of view. This would eventually overtake Galileo’s design for common use, though not for a long time. In 1668, Isaac Newton would provide the next great leap forward for telescopes by pioneering the reflecting telescope, which used a combination of mirrors to preserve the light being taken in by the telescope, as opposed to other lenses which distorted it. Eventually, in the 1700s, easier production of curved mirrors would become a reality, allowing the concentration of reflected light which aided telescope magnification greatly, and in the 1800s, massive telescopes would start to be constructed that would allow even greater magnification and detail. And that is where we’ll leave the story, as it moves into the world of orbital telescopes and radio and x-ray telescopes!

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Nabta Playa

Posted on February 28, 2021 by adisonfields
NabtaPlayastonecircle
The Nabta Playa stone circle

Nabta Playa is the world’s first astronomical site, having been built at an estimated 7000 years ago.  For reference, this was when the Neolithic Revolution was occurring, and agriculture was first being practiced.  In order to assist with this, the Nabta Playa stone circle was built, about 700 miles south of the Great Pyramid of Giza in what is today Egypt.  During this time, civilizations were moving through a much wetter Sahara.  One civilization in particular, known now for domesticating and sacrificing cattle, built this astronomical site atop and radiating out from a burial mound of cows.  This location, at one point in time, was an oasis in the desert and would fill with water during certain seasons.  Different nomadic groups would stop there before moving on to the next.  For the first time, the civilization that worshiped cattle stayed in one place for a longer time and began to farm the land.  Because of this, they built the Nabta Playa stone circle to be aligned with the sun and stars, which served two purposes.  

Firstly, it tracked the summer solstice, which would mark the arrival of monsoon season.  This allowed for them to know when to plant and when to harvest crops.  Additionally, it assisted with celestial navigation.  During monsoon season, the land surrounding the stones would be fully covered with water.  This allowed for the stars to reflect onto this seasonal lake and align with the circle, making navigation much easier than tracking the sky.  Although there are many examples of massive stone circles around the world, Nabta Playa is the first.  Up until a few decades ago it was buried in sand, so unfortunately it is less well known than many of the famous archaeoastrological sites.  Despite this, it is incredible to think that it was built for the first examples of agriculture and that people were making the connections between the sky and the earth so many thousands of years ago.

The stones of the Nabta Playa circle and the two primary lines of sight
The stones of the Nabta Playa circle and the two primary lines of sight

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Evolution of Spectroscopy

Posted on February 28, 2021 by miichellewang
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Spectroscopy describes the study of the interaction between matter and the wavelength of the light it produces, although this definition has been updated to include anything measured as a function of frequency or wavelength.

Isaac Newton was one of the first people to demonstrate that light from the Sun could be scattered into a spectrum of colors. He built a machine with a small opening to focus the light, a lens, a prism, and a screen that would show the results. This was the very first spectroscope. The first spectral lines were observed by Joseph Fraunhofer, who saw dark lines in the continuous spectrum when the light was scattered enough. Later discoveries of the significance of these spectral lines came from Gustav Kirchhoff, a German physicist who established that each element had its own corresponding spectrum.

Spectroscopy has been used in pretty much every aspect of science, but we’ll specifically be focusing on its applications in astronomy. One of its main uses is telling scientists which elements are present in a star. Each element produces a unique spectrum that astronomers can use to identify a star’s composition. Besides this, scientists can also identify the density and temperature of that particular element in the star. They can also learn about how the star is moving, the mass of the star, and much more all from spectral lines. Without spectroscopy, much of the universe would still be unknown to us today.

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Mound 72

Posted on February 28, 2021 by wslopes

Image Source

Mound 72 is a very interesting example of the knowledge early Native Americans had about astronomy in at least 950 CE. Mound 72 is the sight of one of several “woodhenges” created by the Cahokia people of south west Illinois. These woodhenges were all relatively identical in relation to the positioning of the wooden posts encompassing the area. They all included posts at cardinal North, South, East and West, as well as markers for the sunrises and sets of the equinoxes and solstices. Similar to Stonehenge, it is believed that religious ceremonies happened inside the bounds of the circle. Another thing that sets this woodhenge apart is the fact that the mounds were set 30 degrees off the East/West line, which is different the way they were usually oriented– east/west or north/south. This different orientation is actually along the same line of the summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset for the location. Archeological interest in Mound 72 goes even past its astonishing placement, but to the fact that it was a mass burial grave for over 100 young men and women. This area is the subject of much inquiry as it has many unanswered questions. The women in the burial were of a different ethnic composition and social class as the men, and there is another burial on the other side of the woodhenge that is of men who were brutally killed, missing everything from heads to hands. Though exactly what is up for contention, Mound 72 was a place very significant to the Cahokia people, and their use of advanced astronomical knowledge to denote it lends itself to the fact the pre-Columbian Native Americans were much further ahead than given credit for.

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Reflecting Telescopes

Posted on February 27, 2021 by zhengjs1

Telescopes have allowed us to bring what is far and mysterious up close and personal. Scientists and astronomers have built telescopes for a variety of uses, whether it’s for imaging, spectroscopy, or time monitoring. Within the realm of telescopes, there a two main types: refracting and reflecting telescopes. Between the two types, reflectors are the type mainly used in current astronomical research.   

Mechanics of a Reflecting Telescope (Source)

Reflecting telescopes use two mirrors to reflect the light coming in into a focus. The primary mirror, which gathers the light, reflects it onto a secondary mirror that lies somewhere in front of it. This secondary mirror then focuses the light into one spot, where a recording device, such as our eyes or some type of instrument, takes it in. There are three main variations of reflecting telescopes: Cassegrain, Newtonian, and Nasmyth focus. These variations differ in the where the light is ultimately focused as well as the possession of a third mirror within the Nasmyth-focus type.  Reflecting telescopes are primarily used in astronomy due to being more practical and easier to construct. While refracting telescopes required two high-quality lenses, reflecting telescopes need only one. Reflecting telescopes also placed most of its weight at the bottom, making it far easier to stabilize than refracting telescopes. Throughout history, reflecting telescopes have helped astronomers discover new star systems and further examine ones we known, helping us broaden our knowledge of the universe as a whole.  

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Pi’ilanihale Heiau

Posted on February 27, 2021 by solarcecily

Pi’ilanihale Heiau is located on the island of Maui, Hawai’i. It’s the largest shrine on the island, and throughout all of Hawai’i. Temples like this one are custom throughout ancient Polynesia, and many individual households would build their own smaller, personal household shrines. In face, “Pi’ilanihale” directly translates to “house of Pi’ilani.”

The structure extends over three acres of land, but its grandest feature is an enormous platform in the center supported by volcanic stone walls. The entire structure is more expansive than a customary football field! While the primary purpose of this monument was for religious ceremonies, it was constructed in such a way that some of its structures point to certain constellations, important for indicating the timing of planting seasons.

Archaeology, Hawaii, Heiaus, History, Kahanu Gardens, Landscape, Maui, Photography, Pi'ilanihale Heiau, seascape, Travel
Photo by Murray Foote

What’s left of the monument dates back to 1294, which is actually 400 years earlier than archaeologists had previously determined!

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