June Round Up

The month of June has been a little slow getting to the blog, so I've condensed it into one post for your reading pleasure.

On June 16th 2010, Prof. Michael DeRobertis lead us through the workshop he went to in Ottawa titled "A Workshop on the Governance of National Astronomical Facilities." The workshop was Canada-centric, discussing what the future looks like for Canadian astronomy. The report PDF will be sent around to everyone, if you're interested in looking at it.

On June 30th, Stu Dack brought us some of the past week's astronomy news stories.

Climate change may be increasing the amount of space junk we have hanging around our planet. Go to the story here to find out how!

NASA has listed the top ten cool things that LRO did in its first year.

Was venus a habitable planet at some point. Check out this article from ESA.

Brown University adds to the ever increasing evidence of liquid water on mars in the past.

The GoogleX prize is still up for grabs, but who's in contention?

Check out this wicked cool Earth gravity map.

Hayabusa has much to tell us, hopefully we'll talk to it soon!

Recap: Jun 9th

Another week of interesting discussion, here is a list of the talking points:

A study on retrograde blackholes show that these backwards spinning blackholes seem to have much more energetic jets.

Another Jupiter impact! Comes almost exactly one year since the last impact of Jupiter, both observed by the same amateur astronomer.

The NASA rover Spirit has found very high concentrations of carbonates in its area, indicating a very wet and relatively neutral environment.

A recent story about life on Titan has been more thoroughly explained, read it all here. But let's be clear, there is NO life on Titan.

More on titan, the largest methan/ethane lake is roughly 4 times the size of lake superior.

An old russian lunar rover has been found again, will spark new laser/orbit research.

SpaceX had a successful launch of its Falcon9 into orbit of approx the height of the ISS! good news for private space industry.

A mars crew is embarking on a grounded 520-day mock-mission to mars. Check it out

see you all next week!

June 2 Recap

Another succesful summer addition of the astronomy journal club. Jesse Rogerson hosted, here are a list of the various talking points.

First off, if you've ever been interested in seeing a full video of the inside of the ISS, check out this youtube video.

Marshall also provided video of one entire night time-lapse video of the sky above the volcano Cotopaxi, it's quite impressive.

During the years of the moon landings, President Nixon provided each of the 50 states with a commerative chunk of moon rock (approx the size of a golf ball) attached to a plaque. Unfortunately the governors of the states at the time seem to have found these trinkets unimportant as many of them have been lost. Just recently, Colorado both lost and found there little piece of moon history. Check out the story here.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has seen first light! Jupiter never looked so good in IR.

With NASA seemingly out of the race, other countries seem to be stepping up to aim for the moon. JAXA has a plan to have a moon base operational 2020...for robots.

A small chunk of space something went whizzing by Earth recently, although it seems to be manmade.

Herchel has released an image probing to z~5. This galaxy-studded image is impressive to say the least.

The blackhole at the centre of M87 seems to be slightly off-centre (to the tune of 0.1"). A number of reasons have been hypothesized for this difference, though we're not sure why.

Andromeda's black hole seems to be accreting as we speak, over the past 10 years adromeda has brightened over 100 times.

Gemini has observed one of the most massive galaxies in the local universe!

Ever wondered why the martian polar ice caps look the way they do? have no fear, katabatic winds are the reason!

Thanks for coming everyone, see you next week!

May 26 Recap

Laura Chajet was kind enough to take us through the latest astronomy news. Here are a list of some of the articles we talked about.

CITA celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, a number of talks were recounted. Check out the latest Millenium II simulation here and the Aquarius Project here. Also, check out the Canadian Cluster Comparison Project here.

An overluminous supernovae that possibly tips the scales of the Chandrasekhar limit was observed, see the Physics Today article here.

Could galaxy mergers be the reason for type 1 and type 2 quasars? Obscuration is studied in mergers in this article in science.

Unique supernovae require careful consideration as described in this nature article.

May 19 Recap

Paul Delaney regaled us with this weeks astronomy news, and was also the recipient of the Sandford Fleming Medal of the Royal Canadian Institute. He was awarded this for his outstanding contribution to the public understanding of science. Here is a list of talking points of this weeks meeting:

Voyager 2 has been diagnosed! click here to see the prognosis.

Cassini continues its studies of Saturn and its satellites. Specifically Enceladus and Titan, see the latest results.

Astronomers think they have solved the missing baryon problem, it's all tied up in hot gas located in between galaxies in the Sculptor wall. Check out the article.

Jupiter surprised us all recently when its southern equatorial band suddenly disappeared. We'll keep a watchful eye in the next couple months.

Japan is launching a Venus orbiter and something that comes right out science fiction!

A in depth analysis of SOHO's data over the last 13 years has shown the sun to be roughly static in size.

The space station is currently getting one of its last upgrades before the shuttles stop running. check out the article here.

Finally, BBC reports a US-based might have found clues as to why there is the lopsided matter-antimatter ratio.

Enjoy the reading. See you all next week!

May 10 Recap

Thanks everyone for the stimulating conversation. Here is a list of the talking points covered at this past meeting.

In a press release from the Max-Planck Institute, astronomers have spectroscopically confirmed the highest redshift galaxy cluster at z=1.62. Click here for the press release and here for the arXiv manuscript.

The Large Magellanic Cloud has provided astronomers with the first direct observation of a runaway star. Kicked out of its stellar nursery, the star has traveled roughly 120pc. Here is the universe today, which has links to the published article.

A candidate for the 'recoiling blackhole' theory has been discovered using a combination of X-ray and optical observations. Find the article here.

NASA's Voyager 2 (out at 13 billion km from earth) has run into some technical glitches with its science data. Let's stay vigilant.

ESA's Herchel Infrared Space Telescope has begun officially releasing data, find many new press releases here.

See you all at the next meeting!

May 5 Recap

Kicking off the summer term for the astro journal club, we talked about everything from NASA robots to planetary migration theory. Jesse Rogerson hosted, below is a list of talking points.

Challenge your brain with the universe today puzzle, check out the question and the answer here.

NASA intends to launch a 'humanoid robot' to the ISS to help out with the mundane tasks. Dubbed 'R2,' read the press release here.

The Keck Observatory recently observed the light echoes of the supernova remnant of Cassiopeia A, producing a 3 dimensional view of the, now confirmed, lopsided supernova. Read about it here.

ESO has decided the location for the E-ELT. The mountain Cerro Armazones in the Atacama desert will one day house the largest optical telescope on Earth.

Turning planetary formation models on their heads was the Gemini Observatory with its observations of a brown dwarf/planetary-mass binary.

Asteroids between Mars and Jupiter have been shown to have icy surfaces, and potential ice reservoirs below the surface. Read the nature article here.

Finally, observations of exoplanets from WASP show there is planets out there that are in retrograde motion around their parent stars, lending credence to some new planetary migration theories. Read the Science Daily article here.

That's it for this week!