October 2009

October Meeting, Monday, October 5

Bartlesville Public Library Meeting Room

Informal Discussion: 7:00 p.m. Bring anything you think might be interesting.

Program: 7:30 p.m. Joyce Ritchie will present “Teaching Tools for Astronomy” - A Show and Tell presentation of astronomy concepts that can be taught using hands on materials, to students in an age appropriate and tested manner. On October 5th the initial concepts for students in grades 2 - 4 will be demonstrated.

After the program we'll have a brief business meeting. The discussion will include The Astronomical League, liability insurance, club name and other business.

Meteorite Impacts Reveal Ice on Mars

Recent meteorite strikes on Mars have exposed deposits of frozen water near the Martian surface. Pictures of the impact sites taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that frozen water may be available to explorers of the Red Planet at lower latitudes than previously thought.

"This ice is a relic of a more humid climate from perhaps just several thousand years ago," says Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Byrne is a member of the team operating the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, which captured the unprecedented images.

So far, the camera team has found bright ice exposed at five Martian sites with new craters that range in depth from approximately half a meter to 2.5 meters (1.5 feet to 8 feet). The craters did not exist in earlier images of the same sites. Bright patches darkened in the weeks following initial observations, as freshly exposed ice vaporized into the thin Martian atmosphere. The finds indicate water-ice occurs beneath Mars' surface halfway between the north pole and the equator, a lower latitude than expected in the dry Martian climate. For more information visit:

<http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/24sep_martianice.htm>

October Astronomical Calendar

d h d h

2 22 Uranus 5.0S of Moon 14 7 Regulus 3.3N of Moon

3 23 Mars 5.9S of Pollux 18 3 Spica 2.9N of Moon

4 6 FULL MOON 18 5 NEW MOON

6 3 Mercury greatest elong W(18) 21 15 Antares 1.0S of Moon Occn

8 5 Mercury 0.3S of Saturn 22 12 Moon furthest South (-26.0)

9 9 Moon furthest North (26.1) 24 20 Mercury 3.5N of Spica

11 8 LAST QUARTER 25 22 Moon at apogee

12 1 Mars 1.1N of Moon Occn 26 0 FIRST QUARTER

13 8 Jupiter stationary 27 6 Jupiter 3.0S of Moon

13 10 Venus 0.5S of Saturn 27 19 Neptune 2.9S of Moon

13 12 Moon at perigee 30 4 Uranus 5.1S of Moon

Bartlesville Sky (looking south) October 15, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. (source: Voyager 4 by Carina Software)

Bartlesville Planet Report October 16, 2009

October Meteor Showers

Shower: Orionids Date: October 22

Rate: 25 per hour Duration: 20 days

Next Meeting

November 2 in the Bartlesville Public Library Meeting Room (tentative). Program to be determined (volunteers appreciated).

BAS Public Website: http://sites.google.com/site/bartlesvilleastronomyclub/

BAS Yahoo Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BvilleAstro/