SpaceWatchtower

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Rare Star/Asteroid Occultation to be Web-Cast Early Thur. Morning

This map of part of the sky shows the location of the bright Star Regulus in the Constellation of Leo the Lion. In a rare occultation of a first-magnitude star, Regulus will be obscured by the Asteroid (163) Erigone early on the morning of March 20, which can be viewed by web-cast, for those not in the prime viewing area.
(Image Sources: International Astronomical Union, Sky and Telescope Magazine, and Wikipedia.org )

By Glenn A. Walsh
Reporting for SpaceWatchtower

In a rare occultation of a first-magnitude star, Regulus (magnitude +1.35), in the Constellation Leo the Lion, will be obscured by the Asteroid (163) Erigone Wednesday night / early Thursday morning (2014 March 20) at 2:07 a.m. EDT (6:07 Coordinated Universal Time).

This is the best and brightest occultation of a bright star, by an asteroid, ever predicted to occur over a major populated area. This occultation will occur only 10 hours and 50 minutes before the Vernal Equinox, the official beginning of the season of Spring in Earth's Northern Hemisphere.

This occultation can be seen, by telescope, binoculars,or even by naked-eye, in a narrow band that includes New York City, Fairfield County, Connecticut, as well as parts of Bermuda, New York State, and Ontario. For people not in this viewing area, the event will be web-cast, live, on the Slooh robotic telescope web site:

Slooh Robotic Telescope Web Site: Link >>> http://events.slooh.com/

Of course, the event will be recorded and can be viewed later on the web site, for those who can not stay up that late to see the event live.

The International Occultation Timing Association is asking members of the public in the prime viewing area to watch and time the event. It is estimated that Regulus could be blocked from view for as long as 14 seconds. Although this sounds like a very short time, and it is (so make sure you are ready to view at the precise time of the event, or you could miss it), it still is a comparatively long time for such a rare event.

Although the predicted time of the event is 2:07 a.m. EDT (6:07 UTC), remember that predictions are simply estimates. It would be a good idea to be watching Regulus well before the predicted time, to be sure you do not miss it.

By observing the timing of the occultation, citizen scientists can help professional scientists learn more about the Asteroid (163) Erigone. Once the occultation observation is made, it can reported to the International Occultation Timing Association on their web site at:

Regulus / Erigone 2014 Occultation Reporting Web Page:
Link >>> http://www.occultwatcher.net/regulus-erigone/

If you are in the prime viewing path, and you plan to observe and time the event, you may want to check that web page for more information ahead of time.

More on the occultation of Regulus by Erigone:
Link >>> http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/RegulusOcc/

More on Star Regulus: Link >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulus

More on Constellation Leo the Lion: Link >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_%28constellation%29

More on Asteroid (163) Erigone: Link >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/163_Erigone

Source: Glenn A. Walsh Reporting for SpaceWatchtower, a project of Friend of the Zeiss.

2014: 75th Year of Pittsburgh's Buhl Planetarium

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Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
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Monday, March 17, 2014

Gravity Waves Found: Strong Evidence of Big Bang Theory

Proof of gravitational waves created by cosmic inflation is shown here in this image of the cosmic microwave background radiation collected by the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole.
(Image Source: BICEP2 Collaboration)

By Clara Moskowitz

Physicists have found a long-predicted twist in light from the big bang that represents the first image of ripples in the universe called gravitational waves, researchers announced today. The finding is direct proof of the theory of inflation, the idea that the universe expanded extremely quickly in the first fraction of a nanosecond after it was born. What’s more, the signal is coming through much more strongly than expected, ruling out a large class of inflation models and potentially pointing the way toward new theories of physics, experts say.

“This is huge,” says Marc Kamionkowski, professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved in the discovery but who predicted back in 1997 how these gravitational wave imprints could be found. “It’s not every day that you wake up and find out something completely new about the early universe. To me this is as Nobel Prize–worthy as it gets.”

The Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2 (BICEP2) experiment at the South Pole found a pattern called primordial B-mode polarization in the light left over from just after the big bang, known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This pattern, basically a curling in the polarization, or orientation, of the light, can be created only by gravitational waves produced by inflation. “It looks like a swirly pattern on the sky,” says Chao-Lin Kuo, a physicist at Stanford University, who designed the BICEP2 detector. “We’ve found the smoking gun evidence for inflation and we’ve also produced the first image of gravitational waves across the sky.”

Such a groundbreaking finding requires confirmation from other experiments to be truly believed, physicists say. Nevertheless, the result has won praise from many leaders in the field. “There’s a chance it could be wrong, but I think it’s highly probable that the results stand up,” says Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who first predicted inflation in 1980. “I think they’ve done an incredibly good job of analysis.” The BICEP2 detectors found a surprisingly strong signal of B-mode polarization, giving them enough data to surpass the “5-sigma” statistical significance threshold for a true discovery. In fact, the researchers were so startled to see such a blaring signal in the data that they held off on publishing it for more than a year, looking for all possible alternative explanations for the pattern they found. Finally, when BICEP2’s successor at the same location, the Keck Array, came online and began showing the same result, the scientists felt confident. “That played a major role in convincing us this is something real,” Kuo says.

More - Link >>> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-waves-cmb-b-mode-polarization/?&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20140317

Source: Scientific American Magazine.

SpaceWatchtower

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Rare Star/Asteroid Occultation to be Web-Cast Early Thur. Morning

2014: 75th Year of Pittsburgh's Buhl Planetarium

Monday, March 17, 2014

Gravity Waves Found: Strong Evidence of Big Bang Theory

2014: 75th Year of Pittsburgh's Buhl Planetarium

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