Category Archives: Astronomy

Astronomy Night at the Museum

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The night opened with few clouds and a bright waxing gibbous moon. Alex and I, interns at the National Air and Space Museum, stood outside with Sean O’Brien, astronomy educator at the Museum and Albert Einstein Planetarium technician, to survey the sky and anticipate the night. This was my first star party at the Museum.

As we set up, the first line of visitors formed outside the door of the Public Observatory waiting for 6 p.m. — opening time. We set up the Tele Vue telescope first. The view was spectacular. Along the terminator, the line between the dark and light sides of the Moon, craters popped between the stark white of the moon and the blue of the sky.

 

Moon

The Moon at 10:50am, April 25, 2011 taken by Katie Moore an Astronomy Educator at National Air and Space Museum using the Tele Vue-85 telescope and Lumenera 2-2 camera.

At 6 p.m., visitors stepped up to take their first close-up look at the Moon in the Tele Vue with Sean’s guidance. Children jumped up and down with excitement while parents assured them that if they study hard they’ll get to work on things like these too. Heads poked through the doorway of the observatory. Many folks were curious about what they would find inside so Alex began to show them around. Solar observing is our main practice during the daylight hours, Wednesday through Saturday. It isn’t often that you have access to equipment that makes it safe to look at the Sun, but we’ve got it!

 

Sun

The Sun taken January 19, 2011 by Erin Braswell, using the 100mm Lunt Hydrogen-alpha telescope in the Public Observatory.

Alex went over the Museum’s Solar observation methods and displayed pictures the observatory has taken of the Sun. The clouds played with us all throughout the night by jumping around and in front of our targets. Often I would ask the crowd to blow in the same direction with me so perhaps we could get those pesky clouds to move just a bit. Still, it did not dampen the spirit of everyone that waited.

Noah, another Museum intern, arrived and we set up the Celestron C-11 telescope on the Moon. The line split into three. One to hear Alex speak about Solar observing, one to look at the Moon through the Tele Vue, and one to look through the 11-inch Celestron that Noah manned. I ran from telescope to telescope making sure each had a target and each was in focus.  Occasionally we would exchange eyepieces to see if we could get a better view.

As the Sun set we began to keep an eye out for Saturn. Then the clouds split and Saturn shined out! I ran into the observatory ready to switch the 16” Boller & Chivens (B&C) telescope from close-ups of the now dark Moon craters to the bright point of the ringed planet. After a bit of searching the planet swam into view and the beauty of the rings and moons was thrilling. Quickly, Alex and I passed the update down the line and cheering floated in through the observatory door. Alex and Rick, a Museum volunteer, took over inside the observatory to help visitors see what they had been waiting for since we opened.

 

Observatory

Lines curled around the side of the building as many excited visitors waited to see Saturn, the Moon, and even Albireo. Photo by Ameé J. Salois.

Next I went to check on Noah and the Celestron telescope. After some minutes and some growling at the clouds we had Saturn in our view as well. This line cheered as well and people filed past excitedly bouncing in front of the eyepiece the minute they glimpsed the beauty of the rings. One fellow told me that tonight he came to have his first view of the iconic planet and he didn’t mind waiting the whole night to fulfill his dream. Later, he told me that he wasn’t disappointed. The night ended with a search for Albireo, a binary star iconic because of its bright blue and gold coloring.

 

Albireo

Albireo. Photo by Rachel Wilkerson and Ameé J. Salois taken on the 36” telescope at the McDonald Observatory.

Sean began looking through the Tele Vue and called me over to help. After some quick searching I had it in my sight! Sean tightened the telescope mount and we centered and focused the image. Next, we changed the eyepiece, but when I pushed it in the mount jerked and the stars were lost. The search began again! This time was successful and the last visitors were pleased to see the bright sparkling of such a unique binary star.

Finally, we said goodnight and the visitors wandered away still looking up and wondering about what else was hidden in that dark sky. We had more than 300 visitors and they looked through the telescopes more than 870 times. It was a thrilling night with many telescope adventures and many new experiences.

Joe DePasquale of Chandra and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) visited with us and put together a fabulous video summation of our adventures.

Ameé Salois is an astronomy education intern for the National Air and Space Museum this summer.

From Earth to the Solar System

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For the month of June, 30 beautiful images of the solar system are on display on the terrace by the Independence Avenue entrance.  They are part of the From Earth to the Solar System exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory/Chandra with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

 

Titan

The Mysterious Titan: A Moon of Saturn. This moon may hold the answers to other forms of life. Take "A Myriad of Moons Tour" and learn about how it differs from our own planet’s development.

Make connections between our home planet and the rest of our solar system and take an exciting journey from the soil of our planet to the far reaches of cold space. If you aren’t able to make it to the National Mall this month to see the exhibition, a preview is available online, and it will be traveling around the world over the next year.

The amazing images in this exhibition show our efforts to explore other worlds to uncover their secrets. Let’s take a quick tour. Starting with our understanding of the Earth and moving outwards, we apply this knowledge to each world we encounter opening a new window to the limits of our solar system. We begin our investigation with Australian stromatolites, ancient rock structures created by microbes. Next, studies at Mono Lake, CA have revealed a different possibility that life can sprout from unexpected sources such as arsenic. These examples provide two points of reference when studying solar system objects. Titan, compared to an early Earth, may be the home to methane/ethane-based organisms similar to the organisms at Mono Lake. These are only a few connections. More exploration and study reveals ever-increasing intrigue existing between our own experiences on Earth and the many diverse planets, moons, and other bodies within our solar system.

Each weekday of June, we will offer two 15-minute tours at 9:40am and 9:45am. Take a tour about the theme Cosmic Weather and find out about other solar system bodies with seasons. Created and presented by intern Lauren Bittle, this tour discusses the connection between atmosphere and weather on Earth as well as throughout the solar system. Highlights of this tour include solar activity, volcanic Io, and the great storms of the solar system. What would our moon look like if it were covered in volcanoes? Take the A Myriad of Moons tour, created and presented by intern Ameé Salois, and learn the answer, along with many other facts about the diversity of moons in the solar system. Highlights of the tour include investigations into our own Moon; Io and Europa, moons of Jupiter; and Titan and Iapetus, moons of Saturn.

 

Lauren Bittle

Lauren Bittle visits her favorite moon, Io, on the "Cosmic Weather" tour.

Please come join us for one or both of these exciting journeys through the solar system.

 

Ameé Salois

Find out about ice skating on Europa in "A Myriad of Moons" tour by Ameé Salois.

 

From Earth to the Solar System is a continuation of the 2009 exhibition From the Earth to the Universe, created for the International Year of Astronomy, which visited the Museum that summer. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education is helping coordinate exhibit locations.

Lauren Bittle and Ameé Salois are astronomy education interns this summer.

 

 

Transit Authority

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On the morning of March 2, I got an excited text message from fellow astronomy educator Shelley Witte, telling me that the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle Discovery would be coming very close to transiting the Sun from our position at the National Air and Space Museum’s Public Observatory at exactly 3:08 pm.  A transit is when one object in space passes in front of another object; in this case it was the ISS and Discovery passing in front of the Sun, appearing as a dark shape on the Sun’s disk. She got this information from calsky.com, a website that lets observers know when and where the ISS will be passing overhead at any location, including any encounters with the Sun, Moon, planets, or bright stars.  We were unsure about whether or not we could actually see the transit across the Sun, since we were just outside of the predicted path, but we decided to try our luck.

We have several telescopes, which let through different types of light that highlight different features on the Sun. For the transit of the ISS, we used our Tele Vue-85 refracting telescope equipped with a filter that significantly dims the Sun’s light evenly, letting through the light from the Sun’ surface. Using this filter, we can see sunspots in great detail.

sun

Sunspots through Tele Vue-85

We set up our Sun imaging laptop, telescope, and video camera at about 3:00 pm, and waited for the big moment. Fellow Astronomy Educators Katie Moore, Shelley Witte, and other Museum staff and volunteers eagerly watched a large monitor connected to the laptop displaying a live image of what the video camera could see through the telescope.  We began recording a video at 3:07 pm, and waited. At 3:10 pm, we were still waiting for something to happen, and concluded that the ISS and shuttle Discovery must have been too far away from the Sun after all.

The next Friday, I decided to look more carefully at the video just to make sure that we had not captured anything.  About one minute into the video I saw something streak across the top left corner of the Sun and disappear as quickly as it had come. We HAD caught the ISS and Discovery passing in front of the Sun!  Somehow none of the six people watching in real time had seen it with their own eyes.

I was able to process each frame of the video that caught the ISS streaking across the Sun, and make it into a series of images that shows its progression.  I also processed a nice still image that shows most of the ISS’ silhouette against the bright Sun. Unfortunately you cannot see Discovery, even though it was docked with the ISS at the time of the transit. We were all overjoyed to have captured such a rare and fleeting event!

ISS Transit

This image of the International Space Station transiting the Sun was taken on March 2, 2011 at 3:08 pm from the terrace outside of the Pubic Observatory. The ISS is transiting the Sun to the upper left.

ISS Transit

This series of images shows the ISS moving across the Sun in slow motion, and repeats to allow you to see the details.

Erin Braswell is an astronomy educator in the Public Observatory of the National Air and Space Museum.

Jumping In Tweet First

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On Saturday, March 19, I was thrilled to participate in the first ever Sun-Earth Day Tweetup organized by the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center. It was also the first time the Smithsonian officially participated in a Tweetup. The event was a great opportunity to give twitter fans (aka “tweeps”) some face-to-face interaction with our research scientists, curators and educators, and provide some fun hands-on learning that illustrated the Sun-Earth connection.

We had discussed the idea of holding a Tweetup at the National Air and Space Museum for some time, so when Aleya Van Doren at NASA Goddard asked our Museum to participate in the Sun-Earth Day Tweetup, it was  a no-brainer for me and co-host Isabel Lara in our Office of Communications. We jumped at the opportunity to partner with NASA, learn from their experience, and meet some great Twitter fans. Museum educators, scientists, and volunteers were eager to participate as well, and we enlisted two of our social media friends at the Smithsonian, Sarah Banks (National Museum of Natural History) and Sarah Taylor (Public Affairs), to help us host.

On the big day, 100 Tweetup participants and NASA Goddard team members arrived at the Museum before we opened to the public.  Usually, this is a quiet time in the Museum, but that day there was a great deal of activity as staff and volunteers prepared for the Kites of Asia Family Day.  After watching the “3D SUN” IMAX film (as perhaps the first group of theater patrons ever encouraged to use our phones – we had to tweet, after all!), everyone split up into groups and took off to explore learning stations setup around the Museum.

RT JoeCLucas: Watching the surface of the sun in 3D on an IMAX screen. Freaking awesome. #nasatweetup#sed2011

The pace was very fast as we moved through the activities. Educator Dr. Steve Williams described Galileo’s observations of the Sun some 400 years ago, and showed copies of his original drawings, which are in the Smithsonian collection. Participants were able to touch a 4.6 billion year old Allende meteorite, leftover debris from the formation of the solar system. Astronomy curator Dr. David DeVorkin talked about telescopic observations of the Sun made from the Skylab Orbital Workshop in the 1970s, and the legacy of Skylab’s Apollo Telescope Mount in today’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Planetary geologist Sharon Wilson Purdy described her work on the Mars HiRISE mission and explained the role of the Sun in studying seasonal and global climate change on Mars. Tweeps got a chance to view the Sun through three different telescopes outside by our Public Observatory.  The forecast had been for cloudy skies all week, so we were relieved when Saturday came and the skies were clear. The viewing of sun spots and solar prominences was great!  Our three astronomy educators Katie Moore, Erin Braswell, and Shelley Witte, and volunteer Heather Goss, were all on hand to answer questions.  Tweeps were excited to learn one of the telescopes they were looking through was a real Dobsonian telescope built by amateur astronomer John Dobson in 1988. Everyone was tweeting the experience and sharing photos using the #sed2011 and #NASATweetup hash tags.

RT @chaalz: Just touched a rock that was created before our solar system was created. #NASATweetup#SED2011

A Tweetup participant views the Sun through an original Dobsonian telescope. Photo by Todd Stowell.

RT: @pilotconway: Saw some sun spots. So cool. #sed2011#nasatweetup

 

Tweetup participants could view solar prominences through two telescopes. This image of the Sun’s chromosphere was taken through one of the telescopes at the Public Observatory that day. Image by Shelley Witte.

Last but not least, tweeps took a quick tour of Museum highlights led by our knowledgeable volunteer docents, many of whom are pilots, engineers, or scientists and have had amazing careers in the aviation and space industry. Days before the event, I told them not to worry if the group was looking down at their phones a lot; it just means they’re telling everyone about the cool things they’re learning on their tours!  Participants saw objects representing early powered flight to landing humans on the Moon and beyond, including the 1903 Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, Moon rock, Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, and SpaceShipOne.

RT @CG____: Amazing. Only 66 years elapsed between Wright Bros flight and landing on the moon. #NASATweetup @airandspace

RT @adcunningham: Do you want to inspire a kid today? Bring him/her to @airandspace#sed2011#nastweetup

All of the Tweetup participants were friendly and fun, but I have to say I have a particular fondness for NASA SDO’s BFF Camilla Corona SDO (aka @Camilla_SDO). She was a big hit with tweeps and visitors alike, posing beside many of our most famous objects and tweeting photos and fun historical facts.

Camilla checks out sun spots on the monitor connected to one of the telescopes at the Public Observatory. Photo by Camilla Corona SDO.

 

The entire morning was buzzing with excitement. There was plenty of sharing going on, not just among the Tweetup participants, but also via @NASA and others who were following on Twitter.  So much so that at one point, we discovered, @airandspace and @Camilla_SDO were trending on Twitter in the DC region. In the end, we all had a great time, learned and shared a lot, and we made a lot of new friends. Before the Tweetup group left to return to NASA Goddard, they posed for a photo outside the Museum.

NASA Goddard Sun Earth Day Tweetup participants and Smithsonian hosts. Photo by Mark Avino.

RT @Smithsonian: Group photo of super fun tweeps who came to @airandspace for the #sed2011#NASATweetup. Enjoy @nasagoddard! http://ow.ly/i/9kRx

RT @bsettlemyer‎ My fave was probably the solar telescopes. But the description of galileo telescope and drawing was interesting too. #NASATweetup #SED2011

Sarah Banks and I were also able to attend the NASA Goddard portion of the Tweetup, where participants watched a NASA EDGE webcast and toured the NASA Goddard facilities, meeting many of the scientists and engineers working on missions like Solar Dynamics Observatory (@NASA_SDO), Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (@LRO_NASA) and more.  The NASA Goddard team produced an amazing event and we were so glad to be a part of it.

What’s next? I’m eager to see the Smithsonian host Tweetups to engage more directly with Twitter followers and provide some great behind-the-scenes access to our experts and collections. My Tweetup co-host Isabel and I are actively planning an official Tweetup at the National Air and Space Museum. Stay tuned and follow @airandspace on Twitter for more info!  Also, look for the Public Observatory to start tweeting soon!

Would you like to participate in a National Air and Space Museum Tweetup?  What would you like to see?  Help us plan by sharing your thoughts!

Vicki Portway is Chair of the Web & New Media Division in Collections and Curatorial Affairs at the National Air and Space Museum.

Ten Events of Great Significance in Space Exploration during the Twenty-first Century’s First Decade

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As the first decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close—I know that one could make the case that the first decade ended in 2009 but we had this argument during Y2K and I’m not going to rehash it here—what might we consider the ten most important events in space exploration and discovery? Everyone is free to come up with their own lists, but here is mine. These are in no particular order, at least it is not a countdown, and it is weighted toward recent acquisitions at the National Air and Space Museum. What would your list look like?

•   SpaceShipOne, June 21, 2004, September 29, 2004, and October 4, 2004: Launched from its White Knight mothership, the rocket-powered SpaceShipOne and its pilot ascended just beyond the atmosphere, arced through space (but not into orbit), then glided safely back to Earth. The three flights of SpaceShipOne represented the first times in which a privately-developed spacecraft reached space. The flights were part of the Ansari X-Prize competition to develop a robust and reliable piloted space vehicle that could offer space tourism to a broad set of participants. Based on this success, prospects for suborbital space tourism are expanding as successor vehicles are being built. SpaceShipOne is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Milestones of Flight” exhibition.

SpaceShipOne

•    Mars Exploration Rovers, 2004-Present: On January 3, 2004, the “Spirit” rover landed on Mars in Gusev crater, followed on January 25 by “Opportunity” reaching the Sinus Meridiani region, halfway around the planet from its twin. Since that time, both rovers have been operating on the Martian surface and returning stunning scientific findings that are restructuring our knowledge of the red planet. For one, we now know that Mars was once a watery world, and that water may yet be under its surface. This discovery has profound consequences for the possibilities of life having once been there. A mockup of the Mars Exploration Rover is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring the Planets” exhibition.

Mars Exploration Rover (Image courtesy NASA/JPL)

•    Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission, 1999-2006, extended mission, on-going: Stardust was the first U.S. space mission dedicated solely to returning extraterrestrial material from beyond the Moon. It collected samples from Comet Wild 2 and interstellar dust. Launched in 1999, it returned to Earth seven years later, parachuting to a landing in the Utah desert in 2006. The Stardust canister containing samples was sealed in an exterior shell that protected them from the heat of reentry. The material Stardust returned may date from the formation of the solar system. Scientific studies of the samples are altering our understanding of the universe. One major discovery is that ice-rich comets, the coldest and most distant bodies in the solar system, also contain fragments of materials. This return capsule is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Milestones of Flight” exhibition.

Stardust Return Capsule on display in "Milestones of Flight"

•    Columbia Accident, 2003, and return to flight, 2005: The tragedy of STS-107 on February 1, 2003, cannot be overemphasized. It led to a stand down of the Space Shuttle program for more than two years, a hiatus on most construction for the International Space Station, and the decision to retire the shuttle by the end of the decade. The loss of the crew of seven, including international astronauts, was traumatic. The return to flight with STS-114 on July 26, 2005, brought a return to activity for the U.S. human spaceflight program, but the imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle opens questions about how the U.S. will undertake human activities in space. The Space Shuttle program is a major focus of the “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum.

Space Shuttle Discovery Launches on Return to Flight mission STS-114, July 26, 2005. (Image courtesy NASA/KSC)

•    Building of International Space Station (ISS), 1998-2009: With the first elements launched and joined in orbit in 1998, the building of ISS has consumed most of the human space missions of both the United States and Russia for the last decade. Since the occupation of the Expedition One crew to ISS—William M. (Bill) Shepherd, Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko, and Sergei K. Krikalev—in 2001 there has been a crew of between two and six aboard the station throughout the decade. The ISS is a major focus of the “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum.

International Space Station (ISS) in August of 2001. Photographed from the Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (STS-105) after separating from the ISS. (Image courtesy NASA/MSFC)

•    Discovery of Extrasolar Planets, 1995-present: The first planet discovered around another star was announced on October 6, 1995, and since that time 358 extrasolar planets have been discovered. Although no Earth-like planets have been discovered yet, the prospects seem good for discovery in the next few years. Imagine the excitement of such a discovery? Information about cosmology, astronomy, and astrophysics is available in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Explore the Universe” exhibition.

Artists concept of an extrasolar planet. (Image courtesy NASA/STScI)

•    Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker Mission, 1996-2001: NEAR Shoemaker was launched on February 17, 1996, journeyed to the Mathilde asteroid for a flyby, and then landed on the Asteroid 433 Eros on February 12, 2001, while transmitting 69 close-up images of the surface during its final descent. It was the first spacecraft mission specifically designed to study an asteroid. We would really like to collect NEAR Shoemaker for the National Air and Space Museum, but that will have to await a return to Asteroid 433 Eros with capability to return cargo. I probably won’t see this in my lifetime. There is more information on asteroids and their exploration in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring the Planets” exhibition.

433 Eros (Image courtesy JHU/APL)

Last image of 433 Eros sent back from NEAR Shoemaker before it landed. (Image courtesy JHU/APL)

•    Chandra X-Ray Observatory, 1999-Present: Since its launch on July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has engaged in X-ray astronomy of the universe, taking its place in the fleet of what NASA calls its “Great Observatories” program. Designed to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars and even particles up to the last second before they fall into a black hole, Chandra has greatly enhanced our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe. There is a Chandra 1/5-scale model in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Explore the Universe” exhibition.

1/5-scale model of Chandra X-ray Observatory hangs in "Explore The Universe"

•    Hubble Servicing Missions, STS-109 (2002), STS-125 (2009): The Hubble Space Telescope is acclaimed as one of the most significant astronomical instruments in history. First deployed in 1990, it has been serviced five times by astronauts visiting it aboard the Space Shuttle. These missions have extended its service life, and the most recent in 2009 appears to have extended its capabilities for the better part of the next decade. The structural dynamics test article for the Hubble Space Telescope is on display in the “Space Race” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum. During that last servicing mission, NASA removed the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) and it is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibition.

Hubble Test Telescope in "Space Race"

COSTAR

•    Shenzou V, 2003: Until 2003 only two nations had sent humans into space. On October 15-16, 2003, China joined Russia and United States in that exclusive club when taikonaut Yang Liwei completed 14 orbits of the Earth. The trip into space started when the Long March rocket carrying Yang in the Shenzhou V capsule blasted off from the Jiuquan launch center. The National Air and Space Museum looks forward to the prospect of displaying objects associated with the Chinese space program.

I could have offered several other events for this list—the completion of the Milstar constellation, the advance of GPS into everyday life, the launch of Falcon 9 with its Dragon capsule, and the recognition of John Mather and George Smoot with the Nobel Prize for their elucidation of the Big Bang theory with data from the Cosmic Background Explore—all come to mind. I invite others to offer their own lists of significant space events in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.