December 2017

First things first—

The Club is deeply shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of our former President and very active Club member, Steve Plank, on Friday, December 8, following heart surgery earlier that day. Steve’s contributions to the Club—organizing countless star parties at Tri-County, Sooner Park, the BCC parking lot, and other venues, such as Camp Wah-Shah-She with the Girl Scouts and Kane Elementary; planning the equipment test party prior to the total solar eclipse this summer; working with schools; leading Astronomy Club meetings; working with Rick Bryant to get the Youth Group launched; and his efforts in many, many other ways, will be very long remembered and very greatly missed. He always downplayed his knowledge of the heavens. It was immense. And he was so eager, always, to share that knowledge (and his expertise with telescopes and finding celestial objects with them) with others. He was a very, very special person. I hope that he is visiting first hand now the nebulae and star clusters he loved so much…

Financials at the December club meeting:

Beginning balance Nov.1 $2458.31

3 new memberships, 6 renewals totaling $190.00

Ending balance Nov. 30 $2648.31

One new family membership tonight.

Annual dues are now due for those who have not yet renewed!

20 people in attendance including 1 visitor. Our visitor found about the Club via Facebook.

Abby’s astronomy news highlights:

Image of starburst galaxy NGC 253

Modeled image (not photograph!) of asteroid 1I/2017 U1 Oumuamua

Image of huge cloud of gas around quasar 4C 10.29

Image of SNJ 2014J at the upper right of Messier 82

Image of Nebula NGC 2170 reflecting the light of a nearby hot star. The Giant molecular cloud Mon R2 is only about 2,400 light-years away.

Lapland Finland fireball

Image of center of the Milky Way Galaxy/11 young protostars

Image of Comet Machholz, 4 miles in diameter

Steve introduced Michelle Larkin, who faithfully observes full moons near Blue Mound. She had noticed that there was a recent full moon that came up north of Blue Mound rather than to the south of it, and she wondered why. We speculated that it was due to the timing of the full moon.

Sarah Colaw, Ken Willcox’ widow (who has since remarried) has an Edmund Scientific lap-held telescope that Ken had purchased before he died. It has 4 eyepieces with different focal lengths. He paid $299 for the telescope. The last one of these types of telescopes was made in 2013. The current value of the scope with 4 eyepieces is around $500. She would like to know if someone in the Club would be interested in buying it.

Daryl’s astronomy pictures:

Supernova taken Dec. 2.

And his new pet possum!

Main presentation—Down to Earth Astronomy by Bob Young

Bob is a retired paleontologist with experience working for 3 oil companies.

Bob discussed an apparent correlation between solar activity and earthquakes as well as a current theory, for which there is some evidence, that the meteorite impact that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is part of a cycle.

Bob discussed sunspot activity over long time cycles. (We are currently in a Maunder minimum period with fewer sunspots.) Mass corona ejections block cosmic rays. As sunspot activity decreases, radiation increases; solar activity is inversely proportional to our receiving cosmic rays. Bob showed a chart of stratospheric radiation from March 2015-May 2017. (Spaceweather.com is a good source for this data.)

There appears to be a slight correlation between mass corona ejections and earthquakes and tremors. Certain areas like the Pacific Ring of Fire where there are shifting continental and oceanic plates seem to be sensitive to lunar tides and mass coronal ejections.

Bob said that there is also tentative speculation that sudden cardiac death can be related to higher neutron activity.

The solar system rotates through the galactic plane every 60 million years. At the midpoint of that rotation—every 30 million years—the chances increase of Earth being hit by a very large meteorite, such as the one that hit Mexico that is responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs and marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary geologic periods on Earth. In other words, there is a cycle of possible extinction points every 30 million years. Dark matter also plays a role in causing such meteorites to hit Earth. Bob showed a chart of large-scale cratering on Earth that supports this 30-million-year increased chance of larger meteorite impacts.

Bob also discussed that iridium is more common in deep-space rocks than on Earth. He showed pictures of a rock layer composed of condensed sinkholes of rain/marine water (after-effects of the 66-million-year-ago hit to Mexico) that have much higher iridium content than would be otherwise expected. Evidence of this rock layer can be found as far away as Wyoming, the Canadian Rockies and even Denmark—the meteorite hit was responsible for global climate change. There is also rock evidence of material from widespread fires following the impact.

Bob said that overall the evidence is not taken to be conclusive in the scientific community to prove the correlation between solar activity and earthquakes, and the correlation between the passage of the solar system through the galactic plane and large meteorite hits, but that the evidence he presented to us is real.