June Night Skies
June Night Skies over Tanzania
By Dr. N. T. Jiwaji
ntjiwaji at yahoo dot com
June Highlights
§ Mars: The Phoenix has landed….
§ Private problems in space
§ Space workshop in Tanzania
§ Send your name into space
§ Saturn, Mar, Moon interplay 7 to 9 June
§ Brilliant Jupiter rises early
§ Sigma Sagitti hidden by Moon 19th June
§ International Space Station 19th June
§ Solstice 21st June
The Phoenix has landed… safely on Mars
This was a very significant mission that was expected to give problems during landing due to the delicate maneuvers required to land a spacecraft safely, upright and in the right place using (retro) rockets to slow it down from 21,000 km per hour to 8 km per hour for a soft landing. Only five out of 11 previous missions (less han 50%) had landed spacecrafts successfully on Mars with hard or cushioned drops. So this was nail biting time for mission controllers for the rockets to land in the right spot and upright.
A robotic arm designed to excavate the soil underneath the lander to dig for water below has already sent pictures of an area that was cleared during landing and looks like a patch of permafrost ice! The robotic arm will pick samples and deliver it to instruments inside the Phoenix space craft to analyse if there is water and also to find traces of previous life on Mars.
Private problems in space
As a sign of increasingly direct human presence in space, a very private human activity has hit astronomy news. After of breakdown of toilet facilities and backups, a timely Space Shuttle Discovery launch will deliver the required plumbing to fix this very essential need.
Space Workshop in Tanzania
Early last month a select group of Tanzanians, school children and teachers, were privileged to meet an astronaut during a Space Education workshop organised by UNESCO. Jean Jacqes Favier had flown on a Columbia flight STS 78 previous to the ill fated Columbia for which he was also on stand by. He is extremely humble about his achievements. His curiosity was aroused during the Lunar Landing in 1967 when he was only 11 years old. Having earned a double PhD in 1977 he entered 11 years of training as an astronaut with the last 5 years being fully committed to the training for a space mission. That determination is still etched on his face as he related his experiences during the workshop as young students and adult teachers listened in awe. It was a truly unique experience. While on the subject of astronauts, there is a great demand for budding astronauts with space programs running in Europe, India, China, Japan, Canada and of course USA. So plunge into the unknown and apply for a place – applications are being received. Read about it in universetoday.com for more details.
Your name in space
Space is a buzz word everywhere with the International Year of Astronomy around the corner only 200 days remaining). NASA’s “Name in Space” program is receiving names from people who want their names to be sent in a spacecraft whose mission is to gain first knowledge about earth-like planets circling other stars. There is no charge for registering at kepler.nasa.gov and the only limit is the people’s interest. So register and this site and send your message about why you think this mission is important. You will also get a certificate for participating.
The Planets
Mars and Saturn are high in the western sky with the red Mars below Saturn at the beginning of the month. Mars closes in fast on Saturn by nearly a degree per day, shifting nearly 20 degrees during June and overtaking it. Take note of their positions and see a distinct change in the sky during the month. In particular, on 7th, 8th and 9th June, Saturn, Mars and Moon come together, the Moon switching places over the three days. On 9th, Moon, Saturn and Mars form an almost straight line. In between these you will see the star Regulus which is closest to Saturn. Try to distinguish between the planets and the star by noticing the twinkling of the star while the planets shine with a steady light.
Bright Jupiter breathes a new life into the early night sky this month, rising before 9 pm in the eastern sky while brilliant Venus joins the show next month as an evening star soon after sunset in the western sky.
Star hidden by the Moon
A unique event takes place on 19th June with the star Sigma Sagitti in the Sagittarius constellation will be occulted (i.e. hidden) by the Moon as the latter comes between us and the star, which will disappear 1:30 am after midnight (20th June!) and reappear just past 3 am.
Numerous Constellations
June sky shows us nearly 18 constellations and asterisms (smaller star groups). Our positions at the equator allows us to see most of the sky, in both north and south allowing us to enjoy quarter of the constellations at a time. The cools skies of June are clear and crisp with very good seeing conditions. Marked alphabetically from A to R are, from south to north and east to west: A – Sagittarius the archer, B –Scorpius, the long winding shape of a scorpion with tentacles at the top and a sweeping tail ending in a double starred sting. C – is Ara the Alter while D – is Triangulum Australe, the southern triangle. E – is the famous kite shaped Southern Cross always pointing south. F – is the False Cross bigger than the Southern Cross and G – is Vela, the Sail. H – is the zodiacal constellation of Libra the scales of justice and I – is long Hydra the snake. J - is Virgo the virgin. K – is king Leo with an inverted question mark. L - is Cancer the crab. M – is Hercules. N – is Bootes the herdsman. O – is the Big Dipper seen as an inverted sauce pan with its edge stars always pointing north. P – is Ursa Major, the big bear. Q – is Draco the dragon while R – is the Little Dipper the little bear.
Bright Stars
Among the bright stars are: ‘m’ – the closest star to us, Rigil Kentarus also known as Alpha Centauri, yet light traveling at 300,000 km per second still takes 4.3 years to reach us). ‘n’ – is Hadar also known as Beta Centauri. The pair rises up vertically in the evening skies in the southeast and rotates around the south pole, becoming horizontal as the night progresses. ‘o’ - is Antares the bright red star in the neck of Scorpius. ‘p’ – is Spica in Virgo while ‘r’ – is Regulus in the neck of Leo. ‘s’ – is Procyon the small dog star. Just after sunset and setting in the southwest by 7:30 p.m. you can also see Sirius which is the brightest star in the sky and towards the south you will see the second brightest star Canopus. The full glory of the dense concentration of stars and dust can be seen in the Milky Way which stretches across our sky at the moment from southwest to southeast.
International Space Station
June 19th is an eventful day since besides the star occultation, in the early evening, the International Space Station (ISS) will be seen as a very bright light rising slowly upto 45 degrees after rising in the north-north-west horizon at quarter to seven and disappearing about seven minutes later in the southeast.
Solstice and cool clear skies
June 20th is the Solstice day when the northern summers and southern winters begin when the Sun is overhead at the northern extreme of the tropical belt (Tropic of Cancer - twenty three and a half degrees north of equator). Conditions for viewing the stars in the night sky improve dramatically for the next three or four months with steady clear skies as the air get cooler and drier after the end of the rainy season.
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