=========================================================================<br /><br /> * * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - August 9, 2002 * * * *<br /><br />=========================================================================<br /><br />Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories<br />abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,<br />SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. Clear skies!<br /><br />=========================================================================<br /><br />NOT A QUARK STAR AFTER ALL?<br /><br />Last April NASA organized a press conference to herald some remarkable<br />news: the possible discovery of two quark stars, objects even smaller than<br />neutron stars. These long-theorized objects would be so dense that their<br />neutrons would be squashed apart to form a sea of free quarks -- a totally<br />new state of matter. Now two Stanford University astronomers have<br />bolstered critics who said the announcement was premature....<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_692_1.asp<br /><br />- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<br /><br />ASTEROID HUNTERS RECEIVE GRANTS<br /><br />Last week five amateur astronomers specializing in the study, observation,<br />and early detection of Earth-crossing asteroids and comets received a<br />financial boost from the Planetary Society... Grants ranging from $900 to<br />$10,000. The proposals were selected among 37 applications from 13<br />countries. Funds were allocated depending on the researchers' needs and<br />expected results.<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_689_1.asp<br /><br />- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<br /><br />MAKING THE CASE FOR MERGING BLACK HOLES<br /><br />It's hardly news that many galaxies -- perhaps most -- harbor supermassive<br />black holes in their cores (our own Milky Way provides one example). Nor<br />is it news that two galaxies in a tight pair can merge. Taken together,<br />these two facts imply that supermassive black holes will be paired up from<br />time to time, with one eventually orbiting the other at a distance of a<br />few light-years.<br /><br />But it is still an open question whether two black holes that orbit one<br />another light-years apart can pull closer and closer until they eventually<br />merge. After all, the Einsteinian scenario -- with the two spiraling ever<br />more tightly into one another while gravitational radiation carries<br />orbital energy away -- doesn't come into play until the bodies are<br />hundreds of times closer together. Nevertheless, says Rutgers University<br />theorist David Merritt, "astronomers have assumed nature would find a way"<br />to bring black-hole pairs together. And thanks to a chance conversation by<br />radio astronomer Ron Ekers (Australia Telescope National Facility), he's<br />found "smoking-gun evidence that nature does 'find a way' to bridge the<br />gap...."<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_687_1.asp<br /><br />- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<br /><br />HILO CLUB WINS S&T ASTRONOMY DAY AWARD<br /><br />The Hilo Astronomy Club has been chosen by the Astronomical League as the<br />top winner for this year's Sky & Telescope Astronomy Day Award. The prize<br />consists of a commemorative plaque and a $250 gift certificate from Sky<br />Publishing. Club members created a daylong "AstroDay 2K2" program at the<br />Prince Kuhio Plaza shopping mall on Hawaii's Big Island last April 20th.<br />More than 12,000 people were on hand for guest speakers, native Hawaiian<br />presentations, Starlab planetarium shows, and exhibits and demonstrations<br />from the staff of professional observatories atop Mauna Kea. "There were<br />so many people at some of these exhibits that it was truly standing room<br />only," notes organizer Gary Fujihara.<br /><br />Despite its impressive showing, the Hilo club had only three months to<br />pull everything together. However, because he is a telescope operator for<br />the Subaru telescope, Fujihara was able to coax help from many of his<br />professional colleagues....<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_686_1.asp<br /><br />- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<br /><br />ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS<br /><br />Do Cosmic Rays Affect Global Warming?<br /><br />A paper published in the July 2002 issue of the Journal of Geophysical<br />Research-Space Physics suggests that cosmic-ray particles that impact the<br />Earth may have different effects at different cloud levels. The cosmic-ray<br />flux is modulated by the solar wind, which implies that solar weather can<br />directly affect Earth's climate. Fangqun Yu (State University New York,<br />Albany) suggests that cosmic-ray ions can accelerate the formation of<br />dense clouds by catalyzing atmospheric chemistry reactions that make<br />low-atmosphere clouds more opaque. High clouds tend to reflect incoming<br />sunlight while lower clouds generally retain and radiate surface heat.<br />More thick low-atmosphere clouds contribute to a greater greenhouse<br />effect. This may explain the different global warming rates that have been<br />measured at different altitudes in the atmosphere.<br /><br />Spacecraft Begins Stardust Collection<br /><br />Yesterday NASA's Stardust spacecraft began a four-month-long effort to<br />collect microscopic bits of dust passing through our solar system. Far<br />smaller than the width of a human hair, this interstellar dust is coming<br />from the direction of the vast Scorpius-Centaurus Association of young<br />stars. To capture it, Stardust has extended a tennis-racket-shaped<br />collector. Particles will become trapped in the collector's layer of<br />aerogel, where they will remain until the spacecraft returns to Earth in<br />early 2006. The collector's flip side will be reserved for collecting gas<br />and dust particles from the coma of Comet Wild 2, which will occur during<br />a high-speed rendezvous in January 2004.<br /><br />Seeding Intergalactic Space<br /><br />It appears that a substantial amount of the heavy elements in<br />intergalactic space (atoms heavier than hydrogen or helium) come from<br />active dwarf galaxies. Crystal Martin (University of California, Santa<br />Barbara) observed the dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 with the Chandra X-ray<br />Observatory. Martin found bubbles of million-degree hot gas leaving the<br />galaxies. Inside the bubbles were elements such as oxygen, neon,<br />magnesium, and silicon. According to Martin, "Because of their small mass,<br />[dwarf galaxies] have relatively low gravity, and matter can escape more<br />easily from dwarfs than from normal galaxies." This suggests that dwarf<br />galaxies enrich much of the intergalactic gas from which their larger<br />brethren form.<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_691_1.asp<br /><br />=========================================================================<br /><br />HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY<br /><br />* The Perseid meteor shower will peak on the nights of August 11-12. For<br />dark-sky locations, expect to see a meteor every minute or two.<br />* First-quarter Moon is on August 15th<br />* On August 11th, Venus shines below the crecent Moon in twilight.<br /><br />For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/<br /><br />=========================================================================<br /><br />Copyright 2002 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided<br />as a free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY &<br />TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as<br />long as our copyright notice is included, along with the words "used by<br />permission." But this bulletin may not be published in any other form<br />without written permission from Sky Publishing; send e-mail to<br />permissions@SkyandTelescope.com or call +1 617-864-7360. More astronomy<br />news is available on our Web site at
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