Saturday: Are
you an early morning riser? If so, get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning and look
two fists held upright and at arm’s length above the east horizon. Mars is in
the Beehive Cluster, an open cluster of about 600 stars, all about 600 light-years
from Earth. If you were standing on Mars, the Beehive cluster would not look
any different because being “in” a celestial grouping just means being in line
with that grouping as viewed from Earth. But if you were standing next to the
Mars Curiosity Rover on August 17, you would have seen Mars’ moon Phobos
eclipse the Sun. Since Mars tickets are difficult to acquire, NASA made a short
video for you http://goo.gl/79sr59.
Sunday: Geometry
review, part 4. Previously in this column, we have reviewed triangles. You’re
feeling pretty confident about the definition of a triangle, aren’t you? But do
you know what an obtuse triangle is? At 8 p.m., the moon, Venus, and Spica will
make a small obtuse triangle about a half a fist above the west-southwest
horizon. A triangle where one of the interior angles is greater that 90 degrees
is called obtuse.
Monday: Science
is Central! This week, faculty, staff, and students in the College of the
Sciences at CWU will kick off the start of the academic year by hosting a
series of evening science lectures and demonstrations geared for all ages. All
events are taking place on the CWU Ellensburg campus and all are free. The
series kicks off tonight with CWU professor, astronomy club advisor and
columnist extraordinaire Bruce Palmquist at 7:00 – 8:00 pm in Lind Hall 215 on
the CWU campus. He’ll be doing and teaching demonstrations about electricity
and magnetism. They’ll make you say, “Wow”, Ohhh”, and “Ahhh”. Go to http://www.cwu.edu/newmap.html for a map
of campus. Parking is free after 4:30 p.m. For more information about the
week’s events, go to http://www.cwu.edu/cesme/upcoming-events.
Tuesday:
In most parts of the country, a mixture of tasty carbon-based material and
healthy minerals is called a casserole. In Minnesota, it is called a hot dish.
(Uffdah, you betcha!) In space, it is called a supergiant. Antares, a
supergiant in the constellation Scorpius, is forging lighter elements into
carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron in its core. It is on the main course table
one fist above the southwest horizon at 7:30. Make sure it cools off before you
take a bite.
Wednesday:
Saturn is one fist above the southwest horizon at 8 p.m. It is to the upper
left of the much brighter Venus.
Thursday:
In 1987, the rock group Def Leppard sang “Pour some sugar on me, in the name of
love. Pour some sugar on me, come on fire me up”. In 2012, some European
astronomers “found some sugar near stars, they were very young. Found some
sugar near stars, out where planets formed.” Astronomers observed molecules of
glycolaldehyde, a simple form of sugar, in the disk of gas and dust orbiting
young binary stars. This is the first time astronomers have found this simple
sugar so close to a star indicating that organic molecules can be found in
planet-forming regions of stars. For more information, go to
http://goo.gl/tfwy1.
Friday: Did
you know that Friday the 13th is not a lucky day? “Beating the odds” is one
definition of luck. Because of the pattern of the Gregorian calendar, Friday is
the most common day of the week to be the 13th day of the month. Thus, when you
encounter a Friday the 13th, you are not beating the odds because Friday is the
most likely 13th day. The least likely day? A tie between Thursday and
Saturday.
The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate
for the entire week.
No comments:
Post a Comment