3/2/2021
Club Newsletter
America celebrates its independence on every July
4th. Part of the celebration includes a
multitude of fireworks in the night sky.
In 1054 AD, another type of fireworks was witnessed by Chinese
astronomers. According to their records, this new object appeared on July 4th. They
called it a ‘guest star’. The object was visible for over two years in the
night sky. For a period of 23 days the new star was even visible during the
day. The Japanese and the Native American also recorded
the new star. This object faded from the minds of humanity for over 700 years.
In 1758, Charles Messier located an object while he
was tracking a comet. Messier decided to
list this object and its location so others wouldn’t mistake it for a
comet. He named it Messier 1. It was to
become the first object on his list of 110 objects known today by amateur
astronomers as the Messier list. Later it became known as the Crab Nebula due
to its unusual shape.
Through photographs taken over a long period, astronomers
noticed that the gaseous cloud was expanding.
Tracing the expansion backwards, they discovered that this object was
the one seen by the Chinese astronomers in 1054.
In the early 1960’s, radio telescopes picked up
periodic signals from the sky. One of
these objects gave off a periodic burst every 33 millisecond. At first, they were puzzled on what could
spin this fast. After further investigation, the source was located where the
Chinese astronomers saw the explosion in 1054 AD. The star was composed of only neutrons, and
was about 17 miles in diameter. This
type of star was named a pulsar. The spin was caused by the explosion of a
massive star. What the Chinese
astronomers had witnessed was a supernova, the violent death of a star.
With a telescope, anyone can view the remnant of the
supernova. It looks like a pale whitish patch against the night sky. This
ghostly remnant is all that remains from the ‘guest star’ first seen over 900
years ago.
Look to the
west after sunset on the first to see Venus and Jupiter to be extremely close
to each other. They will slowly separate
from each other over the month.
Saturn will dominate the night time skies. It will be the brightest object to the right
of the constellation Scorpius. If you have access to a telescope, try viewing
its rings and its largest moon, Titian.
Mercury will be visible in the early morning hours
during the first two weeks of July.
Though not visible, Pluto will be visited by the
space probe New Horizon. It is scheduled
to fly by on the 14. Visit NASA’s web site for the latest images.