A Night Under the Con Trails

Last week we enjoyed a night under the moon and planets with Ada Beth and Chuck Cutler from New Jersey. Ada Beth is on a sabbatical from Montclair State University where she is the Dean of the Education Department. Although it was a full moon night with few dim stars visible, we did get to see the Israeli air force pilots put on a great air show in the moon light sky. The weather in the Negev is not often conducive to seeing con trails. In fact, after being here for almost three years I have only seen three days on which they form. But last week was the exceptions and the planes filled the moon light sky with their con trails, which later spread out and became a high thin cloud cover that partly interfered with our observing. :(

Nevertheless, it is a really stomach churning experience to see the F16 fighters do high rolls at a tremendous altitude, after burners aglow, and then drop like rocks for tens of thousands of feet until they pull up at tooth pulling high Gs. The planes fly so fast that normally it can be difficult to follow them, but with contrails spewing behind them it was rather easy that night. We also had our star tour binoculars at the ready and so could follow them up close. They usually fly at sub-sonic but high speed, but the previous week they were throwing huge sonic booms all night long, which were rather alarming to the guests that night. :) They aren't supposed to do that, but sometimes I guess they just get carried away. I can't guarantee an air show, but there's no extra charge if one happens. ;)

F16s over Machtesh Ramon (during the daytime!)

Ada Beth did pay us this nice compliment on her blog:

...it was amazing to see the moon, Saturn and Jupiter through Ira’s telescopes and to learn about stars, constellations, and the night sky. The other feature in the sky that night was quite a scene- numerous Israeli fighter jets coursing and diving through the sky at amazing speeds and leaving their contrails of smoke. The Negev is the largest part of Israel, mostly uninhabited, and therefore the site of various military maneuvers. In any case, stargazing with Ira is a definite must-do should you find yourself in the Negev!

Thanks Ada Beth and Chuck for joining us for a night under the con trails.

And remember - Keep On Lookin' Up!

Hunter Moon Over Mt. Nimrod

While setting up for a night of observing last week I saw this beautiful near-full moon rising over Mt. Nimrod, just outside of Mitzpe Ramon. This was the full moon of October, called the Hunter Moon by the American Indians, the full moon following the Harvest Moon of September. The Harvest Moon lights the sky for gatherers of the harvest in the fall while the Hunter Moon lights the sky for the hunters of meat needed for the coming winter.

The Hunter Moon of October rising over Mt. Nimrod

I have no idea what this little mountain is actually called, but I observe in its shadow where it shields from the light of Mitzpe Ramon and the desert wind (somewhat). The winter constellation of Orion rises over its peak at about 10:30 this time of year, with Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation, rising directly over the peak from where I observe. It is a lovely sight to behold, a brilliant blue-white star twinkling madly as it rises directly above the top of the mountain.

In Jewish star lore the hunter Orion is identified with Nimrod, the first hunter in the Bible. Thus, my decision to call it Mt. Nimrod instead of Mt. Orion, I think more appropriate for this Holy Land mountain. It is also the test site of Raphael Industries and the IDF's new field radar system, or so I have been told. Here in the lee of the mountain we are also shielded from the light pollution that comes from the test site atop it. For some reason, the testers seem to feel the need to put up klieg lights at night whenever the tests are going on. Recently, tho, they have cut back on the lights, now using a single mercury vapor light instead of a battery of sodium vapor ones. Better, but still not good enough. Light pollution is becoming a big issue in the desert and will be ever more so with plans to move 500,000 new Olim into the desert in the next 10 years.

On the night I took this picture I saw the radar system spinning for the first time. It had always been stationary in the past. Here's a little video of it at work.

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Why is the Sky Dark at Night?

This seemingly childish question, of course because there is no sun shining at night!, is actually a very profound question called Olbers' Paradox. Its answer awaited the discoveries of modern cosmology, including the discovery of the Big Bang and of the Cosmic Microwave Backgroud Radiation (CMBR) by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs in 1964.

If the universe is eternal and infinite, when we look out into space at night we should eventually see a star. So, the night sky should be filled with star light, bright as day. But, of course, it is not. Why not? That is the paradox.

ANSWER:
The universe had a beginning when it exploded from an infinitely small point, a "singularity", and space, time and matter were created. This singularity did not exist in space or time. Rather space and time were created as it exploded and began expanding. A fraction of a smidge of a tiny bit of a second after this "Big Bang", as it is called, the universe began expanding exponentially faster than the speed of light. This is called the period of Inflation, and no central banker had anything to do with it. When this period of inflation ended, just a smidge of a second after it began, the universe was stretched out and homogeneous in all directions, with little seeds of unevenness that eventually became the stars and galaxies we see today. With the expansion of space-time and all within it, many stars and galaxies have been carried beyond our horizon of visibility, so the light from its earliest era comes from stars too distant to ever see, while much of the rest is shifted into the infrared where it is invisible to our eyes.

So, our universe is neither infinite nor eternal. Some of the stars and galaxies from the earliest era of creation are too far away for us to ever see and others have their light shifted toward infrared wavelengths that are invisible to our eyes. Surrounding and permeating it all is the afterglow of the Big Bang, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, which is the remnant of the Big Bang that started everything 13.72 billion years ago. This CMBR shines at a temperature of just 2.725 degrees Kelvin, invisible to our naked eyes but detected by radio telescopes in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. If we had radio telescopes for eyes, the sky would be filled with this "light" of creation. "And G-d said, Let there be light!"

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, how our night sky would look in all directions if we had radio telescopes for eyes.

If you would like a capsule video explanation of Olbers' Paradox here is this from Minute Physics, but it takes four minutes to explain:

Blue Moon Over Machtesh Ramon

The full moon that rises today, Friday August 31st, will be a blue moon. Well...not really like the photo I've tinted here for you. The moon is never actually blue. A "blue moon" is the second full moon in a calendar (Gregorian calendar) month. Its color is no different from a regular full moon. The first full moon this month fell on August 1st; the second on August 31st. Since the  moon has a period of 29 1/2 days, it sometimes happens that two will fall in the same 31 day month.

In the Hebrew calendar, based on a lunar cycle, there can never be two full moons in a month, by definition. The full moon of August 1st fell on the 15th of Av; the full moon of August 31st falls on the 14th of Elul. So, a blue moon is really just a coincidental occurrence. It happens 7 times in 19 years, a Metonic cycle of the moon, so about once every 2.7 years. Not exactly rare, but rare enough for the term "once in a blue moon" to have entered the common parlance, meaning an event that does not occur often. The next one is on July 31, 2015.

"Blue Moon" rising over Machtesh Ramon.

Why a "blue moon" and not, say, a "green moon"? The name apparently derives from the Old English word "blewe" which means "betaryer" and also "blue". In the Middle Ages when the Church announced the date of Lent and Easter to the populace, these events were calculated from the appearance of the full moon. If there was an extra full moon before Lent, it threw off the calculations. Hence the calendar had been "betrayed" by a "blewe" moon. Perhaps betrayer was chosen as the term since it was reminiscent of Jesus's betrayal by Judas, but that is just my speculation. In any case, the "blewe moon" was intercalated so as not to throw off the dates of Lent and Easter. If this is the case, then a "blewe moon" would have indeed been very rare, since only the second full moon in the month before Lent would have qualified for that designation.

As it happened, the name came to be applied to any second full moon falling in the same calendrical month of the year. In the case of the Hebrew calendar this is the 15th of Elul, two weeks before Rosh Hashannah. The theme of Elul is "Hamelech Ba'Sadeh", The King is in the Field, accessible to all who wish to reach out to him, make amends and a better start for the new year about to begin. Kesivah and Chasimah Toavah to all k'lal Yisroel!

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Neil Armstrong, First Man to Walk on the Moon, Dies at 82

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died yesterday at the age of 82. I remember watching the lunar landing and the first moon walk in July 1969 when I was a student at the University of Chicago. It was the culmination of many long NASA space TV sessions that began for me as a teen with the Mercury program that launched Alan Shepard into space in the first sub-orbital flight, in a race with the Russians to be the first on the moon. Those were the days. Getting up early in the morning to watch the Redstone rockets launch the first astronauts, the coundowns, the agonizing holds at T-1 second, and finally the "lift off", as we learned - not "blast off" as the science fiction books had it - with the mighty rockets roaring into space with their manned payloads, just in time to rush out the door and catch the bus to school. (Yes, I was bussed to Jewish day schools in the South before busing was busing.)

Now we have no more manned space program, but we have excelled at sending probes to the most distant planets and robotic explorers to Mars. In just 400 years we have progressed from Galileo's first glimpse of the distant heavens using a telescope so primitive that you wouldn't give it to a child today to actually visiting these far, far away places. Who knows what the next 400 years might bring, if the savages of the world and their sympathizers and enablers don't ruin it for everyone.

According to the press Armstrong died of complications from cardiac procedures. Does that mean a medical mistake? Sure hope not.

In tribute, here is the video that I remember watching so well from his first steps on the moon.

The flag that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placed on the moon still "flies", but no one gave any thought to longevity at the time, so ultra-violet rays from the sun have bleached it completely white, the color of surrender. Hopefully, not symbolic...

"Curiosity" Rover Party Party Party!!!

The Mars-bound Curiosity Rover is scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on Monday, August 6, at 8:31AM Israel Daylight Time (IDT). To honor and celebrate the most complex and difficult mission NASA has ever done for a robotic explorer we will have an impromptu party at the CafeNeto in Mitzpe Ramon, starting at 8:00AM on Monday morning, August 6th. NASA will be streaming live video of the event from their web site which we will watch using the CafeNeto's wifi connection. Bring along a computer, tablet, or smartphone and you can stream from there, too. Of course the CafeNeto will be serving their always exceptional drinks and food, and Ami's convenience store (all kosher) is open next door for those who wish to roll their own.

Curiosity Rover is lowered to the surface of Mars by its hovering sky crane.

It seems that parties are being held all over the world for this event, including one that NASA is hosting in Times Square where the landing will be streamed onto the Jumbotron at 42nd street. This could be even bigger than the Facebook IPO, and it won't cost you a cent!

This is NASA's Curiosity home page which includes a countdown timer clock for the event: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

List of Curiosity landing parties around the world. Find your nearest one!
http://getcurious.com/landing-parties/

This is where you can watch the streaming video of the landing on NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Facts about Curiosity and the landing: http://www.universetoday.com/96553/quick-and-curious-facts-about-the-mars-science-laboratory-mission/#more-96553

What you will see on TV as Curiosity lands:
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/02/13080174-what-well-see-from-mars-and-when

Astronomy Israel party listing on the official world-wide Curiosity party site:
http://yurisnight.net/explore-mars-events/?partyid=2256

The seven minutes of the landing has been described by NASA as "seven minutes of sheer terror", as Curiosity goes from a cosmic velocity of 13,000 MPH to zero through its landing sequence to finally be lowered to the surface by a hovering sky-crane using over 70 pyrotechnic elements that will finally fly the sky-crane safely away from Curiosity where it will crash to the surface of Mars.



It takes transmissions from Curiosity 14 minutes to reach earth, observing the universal cosmic speed limit of 186,000MPS, so mission operators won't know whether Curiosity has survived its seven minutes of terror for 14 minutes after its landing. The 8:31 landing time is calculated to include the 14 minutes of transmission delay, so the actual landing will occur at 8:17AM IDT.

Come and join us as we find out the ultimate fate of the greatest robotic mission to the planets ever undertaken by mankind!

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