Spotting the International Space Station

While we all go about our business here on the big ol' Earth, the ISS continues its orbital sweeps around the planet. About every 90 minutes is another sunrise followed 45 minutes later by a sunset. Although they may not be making headlines, the station crew continues to perform the daily maintenance of the station equipment, and perform experiments using the station's scientific instruments.

At 8:36 pm MDT tonight I'll be going outside to watch ISS float serenely across the sky in a matter of minutes, reflecting evening sunlight off its modules and solar panels. This time I'm taking my astronomy binoculars with me.

It's 8:47 pm now, and the excitement is all over... except for me, the space nerd! I went outside about 15 minutes early (after calling a couple of friends who would be interested in spotting it). I hung my 10 x 50 binoculars from my neck and went out to the driveway for a relatively unobstructed view of the northern sky. There are several distracting streetlights nearby, but they don't bother me as much as a very bright house light across the street. Still, it's dark enough to do some binocular astronomy. In a 5-minute period I spotted 3 polar-orbiting satellites moving south-north, several nebulas near Sagittarius, and of course, the galaxy Andromeda as it rose above the top of Mt. Timpanogos.

And I spotted Jupiter... Wow. Wow. Very nice and bright in my binocs, with the bonus of spotting three of its moons very easily. The Jupiter system is fascinating to watch, and the disk of Jupiter is just big enough in the binocs that on a very good viewing night with still air I can barely make out some different colored cloud bands. And the Moon - well I can always enjoy looking at the Moon. It's in a waxing crescent phase right now, which makes it fun to watch the terminator (sun-lit edge) as it slowly picks out craters and mountains.

Then, at 8:36, right on the button, a small light started moving from the horizon. As it rose higher in the sky, it quickly grew very bright from the reflected evening sunlight. it cruised steadfastly across the sky, about 50 degrees from the horizon, and then toward the ESE sky- which is of course crowded out by Mt. Timpanogos. But before it reached that point, it reached the Earth's shadow, and... swoosh. It faded out very fast. With the binocs I could follow it until it was just above the mountain shadow. During the flight, I still could only make out a blocky shape, no details, because of the extreme brightness in my view, and the sad fact that the weight of these binoculars causes a bit of shaking. I need to invest in a binocs monopod.

Mark Daymont
Space Center Educator
From his Blog: Spacerubble.blogspot.com

Water Discovered on the Moon.

The discovery of widespread but small amounts water on the surface of the moon, announced yesterday, stands as one of the most surprising findings in planetary science.

Three spacecraft picked up the signature of water, not just in the frigid polar craters where it has long been suspected to exist, but all over the lunar surface, which was previously thought to be bone dry.

"Widespread water has been detected on the surface of the moon," said planetary geologist Carle Pieters of Brown University in Rhode Island, who led one of the studies detailing the findings.

While the findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, don't mean there are pools of liquid water sitting on the moon, it does mean that there is — entirely unexpectedly — water potentially tied up or mixed in the minerals that make up the lunar dirt.

"What we're detecting is completely unexpected," Pieters said. "The moon continues to surprise us."

The moon dirt would be akin to soil from an arid environment like Arizona — it wouldn't feel wet to the touch, but there's certainly water bound up in it, Pieters told SPACE.com.

This discovery may well revolutionize our understanding of the nature of the moon's surface, experts say, and it has geologists eager to go back to the moon and dig up some lunar dirt.

"I rank this as a game changer for lunar science," said University of Colorado astrophysicist Jack Burns, chair of the science committee for the NASA Advisory Council. Burns was not involved in the new findings. "In my mind this is possibly the most significant discovery about the moon since the Apollo era."

From Space.com

The Final Push

An Update from James Porter. Re: Cache Valley Space Education Center, Logan.

With all that has been going on I have been able to do very little in relation to the space center and getting things moving in Logan. Luckily I am not the only one who has been involved. Volunteers such as Mr. Wall and Mr. Gee have been helping us to gather together the information and materials we need to make a presentation to the governing board of Thomas Edison. With bids gathered from moving and electric companies we are able to present the initial costs it would take to get the simulator moved and powered up. As a part of the presentation we will be making to the governing board I would love to hear what you have to say. Many of you who read this have experienced this kind of program before and have valuable insight into what can be accomplished. If there is anything that you would like to share with the governing board about experiences you have had or how the space center has touched your life, please send them to me by email (jamesorporter@gmail.com). Thank you for the support of everyone who has been involved in getting the Space Center experience off the ground in Logan.

James Porter