Astronomy Israel

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Cold Fusion - It's B-A-C-K

While we're on the subject of disruptive science, here's one you probably haven't heard about, since the mass media seem to be ignoring it, probably because claims about cold fusion have been proven bogus so often in the past. But, on October 6th this year physicist Andrea Rossi demonstrated his energy catalyzer or E-cat in Bologna, Italy before a group of invited scientists from around the world. It generated lots of heat over a period of four hours with no visible input. This doesn't mean it's the real deal, but of course this would change everything if it were true. We would be able to cancel every country's deficit just by turning the thing on for a few years. Everyone remains skeptical, but you can follow the progress of future tests here, some scheduled for the end of this month.

--by Ira Machefsky

The Speed of Light - "Not just a Good Idea, It's The Law" Challenged

It's been a disruptive few weeks for physics. First scientists at CERN report possibly finding particles (neutrinos) that travel slightly faster than the speed of light (c), formerly thought to be the cosmic speed limit. They've asked for scientists around the world to confirm their findings or show where they have gone wrong. The neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds (a billionth of a second) faster than expected. This is an exceedingly short, but significant, time, amounting to a distance of some 60 feet in the 500 or so miles the experiment involved.

Although the press touted this as possibly proving Einstein wrong, that was a bit of an exaggeration. General relativity has been tested and confirmed so many times that Einstein would be proven no more "wrong" by this than Newton was proved "wrong" by Einstein. You can still send rockets to the planets using good-old Newtonian mechanics without considering general relativity at all. Newton's laws are a very good approximation of how gravity works, within the limits where Newtonian physics is valid. The same would be true for Einstein's general theory of relativity. We'll have to wait to see how this turns out, but I have a feeling that Einstein will be vindicated.

One reason for this has to do with neutrinos from supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud, our nearest galactic neighbor at 168,000 light years distant. Supernovas release copious amounts of neutrinos a short time before the light from the explosion is emitted. At the distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud those neutrinos should have arrived a year before the supernova itself became visible, if neutrinos do indeed travel faster than light. Instead they arrived just a short time before, as predicted by current theory and a cosmic speed limit for light of 186,000 miles/second.

There's an old saying in physics that the surest way to loose alot of money is to bet against Einstein. Or you could play the stock market.

--by Ira Machefsky

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Draconids Meteor Storm - This Could Be Very Big...

...or not. This year the Draconids meteor shower peaks on the night of October 8th, right after the end of Yom Kippur. Scientists this year are predicting a possible meteor storm from the Draconids, a condition in which over 750 meteors per hour might be seen. Let me do the math for you - that's over 12 meteors per minute. The Draconids, formerly called the Giacobinids, come from our encounter with the orbit of comet Giacobini-Zinner, which passes our way every 6.6 years. Every time it orbits the sun it lays down a stream of particles, kind of like a family in a car throwing litter out the window as they go along. Most years, we pass through the streams without touching them, or just grazing them. This year, we are predicted to have a head-on encounter with three of the streams!

In the late 1880s the comet had a close encounter with that big, bad boy of planets, Jupiter, which altered its course and made predicting its streams uncertain. But in 1933 there were over 10,000 Draconids per hour reported, and also large outbursts in 1946 and lesser ones in 1985, 1998, and 2005. So, this is predicted to be a big year. As always, there is a fly in the ointment, or rather a moon in the sky. The moon will be nearly full on the 8th, and it's light will block all but the brigthest meteors, considerably reducing the number visible even should a meteor strom occur. Still, it could be quite a nice sight nonetheless.

The meteor shower is predicted to have a number of peaks, as the earth encounters the orbit of the streams throughout the night, starting at 8:00PM Israel local time through 1:00AM Sunday morning. Israel is perfectly placed for this display since it begins to occur early in the evening after Yom Kippur and continues for another five hours. In any case, we are much better than the US where the peaks all occur in broad daylight (and on Yom Kippur day).

To observe the meteor shower you can look anywhere in the sky. You should just have a clear horizon and as little additional light pollution as possible. Mitzpe Ramon, or any desert location in the Negev, will be perfect for this, but I don't expect many people to come down after Yom Kippur. Just go outside, if you have no other choice, and look up!

Comet Giacobini-Zinner, as seen in 1998.

You might also be interested in: Draconid Meteor Outburst

What's that bright object in the east early in the evening?

We have been getting alot of this question by phone and email from sky watchers. That very bright object in the east-northeast just after the end of twilight is Jupiter, now shinning at magnitude -2.8 in the constellation Aries. It is so bright now that you can become gobsmacked just looking at it from a dark sky. Jupiter will come to opposition on October 28th, when it will rise as the sun sets and be in the sky all night long. In a telescope Jupiter now presents the largest planetary disk of all the planets in the solar system, 48" of arc in diameter. This disk is, of course, to small to see with the naked eye, but it may be just visible in 10x binoculars. In a telescope it looks gigantic at high power.

If you have binoculars, be sure not to miss the 4 Galilean moons -- Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto -- at least some of which are easy to spot in binoculars depending on their orbital location. You can watch their position change over the course of an hour, an example of a mini-solar system and gravity at work!

Jupiter, at center (over exposed), surrounded by the four Galilean satellites, named after their discoverer, Galileo Galelli.

And remember to "Keep on Looking up!"

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Hurricane Irene and Galaxy Formation

We find ourselves in St. Louis for a wedding this coming Sunday as hurricane Irene barrels up the east coast. These amazing satellite photos of the hurricane remind me of models of galactic formation. Especially interesting is the counter-cyclonic motion of the outer edges of the storm.

Make sure you watch the time lapse video at the end.

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/gsfc/6083128930/

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location: Shandel Dr,St Louis,United States

Friday, August 5, 2011

Ninety Gerer Chasid Girls at a Star Party

We had a star party for 90 Gerer Chasid teenage girls in Mitzpe Ramon. Well, they had their own party as I, being male, was not really allowed to participate. However, I did get to stand by my telescope as they crushed it and me to death. It was a full moon night, so we looked at the moon. All the girls wanted to see stars, but there weren't many to show because of the bright light of the moon, plus running 90 girls through a telescope line is hard to manage. It should work better when I have my video cam up and running next month.