The Sky-Watcher USA Star Adventurer multi-purpose mount is perfect

for anyone — Milky Way photographers, eclipse chasers and budding

astrophotographers. It’s the ideal night-and-day, grab-and-go package.

Star Adventurer Compact and portable — weighing only 2.5 pounds — this versatile
Photo package mount is also powerful. Its quality construction, utilizing precision all-metal
Only $319 gearing, delivers an impressive 11-pound payload capacity.

The Star Adventurer converts easily from a tracking photo mount to a grab-
and-go EQ astronomical mount. Allowing you to spend more time doing what
you love and less time setting up.

The Star Adventurer features:

• Multiple preprogrammed speeds perfect for time-lapse

photography, wide angle astrophotography and astronomical tracking
• Tracking selectable between multiple rates, sidereal, solar and lunar
• Built-in polar scope with illuminator
• DSLR interface for automatic shutter control

• Built-in auto-guiding interface

• Long battery life — up to 72 hours
• External Mini USB power support
©2018 Sky-Watcher USA. Specifications and pricing subject to change without notice. 20-17021.

• Compatible with 1/4-20 and 3/8 inch camera tripod

You may have noticed that we’re using a new green on our products. It’s our new look and you’ll

• Comes in two packages:

Astro pack (includes Dec L bracket)
be seeing more of it over the next few months. Let us know what you think of it!

Photo pack (includes ball head adapter)

Optional accessories

Ball head adapter - $15

Dec L bracket - $40

Latitude base - $65 Counterweight kit - $30

Photographer: Carlos Guana

Camera: Canon 5D IV
Lens: Rokinon 14mm 2.8
Mount: Star Adventurer

For information on all of our products and services, or to find an authorized Sky-Watcher USA dealer near you, just visit www.skywatcherusa.com.
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!
 E D TIME OF
IT

FE
LIM
70%

R
off

7
RD

O
I

L
E R BY A PR

Pull Back the Curtain

on the Unseen Universe
For a few hundred thousand years, we used our eyes as our primary
astronomical tool. But all that changed in the 1930s when a young
engineer named Karl Jansky detected radiation below the visible part
of the spectrum emanating from an astronomical object—and radio
astronomy was born.
Radio Astronomy: Observing the Invisible Universe takes you on a
thrilling journey through astounding discoveries and a virtual tour of the
world’s most powerful radio telescopes with Felix J. Lockman, Ph.D.,
of the Green Bank Observatory as your guide. But perhaps the most
astounding of all radio astronomy discoveries is this: The dominant
molecular structures in interstellar space are based on carbon. That is
not what scientists had expected. We have always labeled these molecules
“organic” because life on Earth is carbon based. Now we know the
chemistry of the entire Milky Way is organic, not just our home planet,
and it is likely that any extraterrestrial galactic life would be related to us,
at least on the molecular level. Will we find other organic life forms out
there? Radio astronomers don’t know. But they’re certainly working on it.

Offer expires 04/07/18

THEGREATCOURSES.COM/9ASTR
1-800-832-2412
 Online Content Code: ASY1803
Enter this code at: www.astronomy.com/code
to gain access to web-exclusive content
MARCH 2018
VOL. 46, NO. 3

NASA/JPL-CALTECH
ON THE COVER
The Cassini-Huygens mission
produced an amazing new
understanding of Saturn and

CONTENTS
its moons.

20
COLUMNS
Strange Universe 8
FEATURES BOB BERMAN
20 COVER STORY 38 55 Secret Sky 16
Cassini unveils Saturn StarDome and In pursuit of exoplanets STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA
This intrepid spacecraft spent 13 Path of the Planets Two massive telescopes in the
For Your Consideration 18
years studying the ringed planet, RICHARD TALCOTT; Lone Star State monitor 450 suns
JEFF HESTER
transforming our view of this ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROEN KELLY in the hopes of finding other
captivating world. LIZ KRUESI worlds. ROBERT REEVES Binocular Universe 67
44 PHIL HARRINGTON
28 Ask Astro 60 Observing Basics 68
Saturn’s small wonders Brown dwarf jets. The photographic GLENN CHAPLE
Usually known for its rings, the legacy of Lowell’s
Saturn system is also home to 46 Great Refractor QUANTUM GRAVITY
some of our solar system’s most A detailed look Over decades, the observatory’s
Snapshot 7
intriguing moons. inside Cassini powerhouse instrument charted a
FRANCIS REDDY The spacecraft’s 12 instruments new course in planetary imaging. Astro News 10
showed Saturn and its family KLAUS BRASCH
36 in unprecedented detail. IN EVERY ISSUE
Sky This Month RICHARD TALCOTT 64 From the Editor 6
Mercury at its evening best. Astronomy tests
MARTIN RATCLIFFE AND 48 Celestron’s CGX mount Astro Letters 9
ALISTER LING 72 minutes on Titan If you’re ready for the next level New Products 66
In 2005, the Huygens probe of telescope mounts, this may be Advertiser Index 69
pierced the moon’s shroud to the one for you. TOM TRUSOCK
reveal a surprisingly Earth-like Reader Gallery 70
world. KOREY HAYNES Breakthrough 74

ONLINE Astronomy (ISSN 0091-6358, USPS 531-350) is

published monthly by Kalmbach Publishing
Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P. O. Box 1612,
FAVORITES Waukesha, WI 53187–1612. Periodicals post-
age paid at Waukesha, WI, and additional
offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Astronomy, P.O. Box 62320, Tampa, Fla. 33662-2320.
Canada Publication Mail Agreement #40010760.
Go to www.Astronomy.com My Science Ask Astro Trips and Sky This
for info on the biggest news and Shop Archive Tours Week
Perfect gifts for Answers to all Travel the world A daily digest of
observing events, stunning photos,
your favorite your cosmic with the staff of celestial events.
informative videos, and more. science geeks. questions. Astronomy.

4 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 'HGLFDWHGWR
&UDIWVPDQVKLS
$XWR$GMXVWLQJ
*72 0RWRU*HDUER[HV
$EVROXWH(QFRGHU
2SWLRQ
9'&

AVAILABLE AT

NEW L-SERIES MOUNTS

• DIRECT-DRIVE • ALT/AZ OR EQUATORIAL
• HIGH-RES ENCODERS • SLEWS 50O PER SECOND
&RQQHFWLYLW\

*72&3

ZZZDVWURSK\VLFVFRP L350
$10,000
0DFKHVQH\3DUN,/86$
3K

100 LB.
PAYLOAD

The best $299

eyepiece you’ll L500
ever buy. MOUNT ONLY

$18,000
No computer required. Battery-
powered 7” color monitor included. 200 LB.
PAYLOAD

L600
$29,000
M16 Eagle Nebula 300 LB.
8” Celestron Evolution PAYLOAD
Metropolitan Skies

REVOLUTION IMAGER SEND US YOUR OLD EQUIPMENT FOR CREDIT TOWARDS

RevolutionImager.com A NEW L-SERIES MOUNT

EXCLUSIVELY WITH
High Point Scientific
Agena AstroProducts
Oceanside Photo & Telescope
BUYBACK PROGRAM
Woodland Hills Telescope W W W. O P T C O R P. C O M • 8 0 0 - 4 8 3 - 6 28 7
Skies Unlimited
Orange County Telescope

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 5
FROM THE EDITOR
BY DAV I D J. E I C H E R
Requiem
for a
spacecraft
L
aunched in 1997, the
Cassini-Huygens
spacecraft sped toward
Saturn and its moons
for nearly seven years,
entering orbit in 2004. Last
September, Cassini ended its
journey by plummeting into
the saturnian atmosphere,
burning up. Those 13 years
in between gave us some of
the most incredible planetary
science in recent memory.
With Cassini in mind,
this issue carries a special
theme of giving you every-
thing you need to know
about this historic mission.
Four special stories
deliver the goods: Liz Kruesi
reports on the major scien-
tific findings of the Cassini
spacecraft at Saturn itself;
Frank Reddy describes
the incredible findings the
mission made at Saturn’s
moons; Korey Haynes details
the Huygens lander’s
Follow the Dave’s Universe blog:
www.Astronomy.com/davesuniverse
Follow Dave Eicher on Twitter: @deicherstar
6 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
extraordinary touchdown
on Saturn’s big moon Titan;
and Rich Talcott gives us
an “exploded” view of the
spacecraft and its retinue
of instruments.
The mission’s list of scien-
tific achievements is stun-
ning. The spacecraft tested
general relativity (and
Einstein won again). It dis-
covered seven new saturnian
moons. It revealed Titan to
be a world saturated with
methane lakes. The mission
detected and imaged water-
rich geysers and plumes
casting skyward from the
surface of Enceladus. It
imaged and studied the
planet’s rings and spokes in
far greater detail than ever
before. It studied Saturn’s
great atmospheric storms
and hurricanes with a dis-
tinct eyewall. The craft
focused on the strange hexa-
gon at Saturn’s north pole. It
NASA/JPL-CALTECH
studied the weird moons
Phoebe and Hyperion. The
list goes on and on and on.
Rarely in recent times
have I seen such attachment
to a space probe. That hap-
pened with New Horizons as
well, no doubt. But when
Cassini took its final plunge
last fall, Twitter lit up with
science types who were
downright depressed, and
some even to the point of
sending alarming, morose
tweets.
I hope this special issue
will only boost your feelings
about Cassini. This mission
was one of the greatest we’ve
seen in recent times. Now we
can bask in the details of the
science while we hope fund-
ing for future missions
regains a more healthy
composure.
Yours truly,
David J. Eicher
Editor
Editor David J. Eicher
Art Director LuAnn Williams Belter
EDITORIAL
Managing Editor Kathi Kube
Senior Editors Michael E. Bakich, Richard Talcott
Associate Editors Alison Klesman, Jake Parks
Copy Editors Dave Lee, Elisa R. Neckar
Editorial Assistant Amber Jorgenson
ART
Graphic Designer Kelly Katlaps
Illustrator Roen Kelly
Production Specialist Jodi Jeranek
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Bob Berman, Adam Block, Glenn F. Chaple, Jr., Martin George,
Tony Hallas, Phil Harrington, Korey Haynes, Jeff Hester, Liz
Kruesi, Ray Jayawardhana, Alister Ling, Steve Nadis, Stephen
James O’Meara, Tom Polakis, Martin Ratcliffe, Mike D.
Reynolds, Sheldon Reynolds, Erika Rix, Raymond Shubinski
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Buzz Aldrin, Marcia Bartusiak, Timothy Ferris, Alex Filippenko,
Adam Frank, John S. Gallagher lll, Daniel W. E. Green, William K.
Hartmann, Paul Hodge, Edward Kolb, Stephen P. Maran, Brian
May, S. Alan Stern, James Trefil
Kalmbach Publishing Co.
CEO Dan Hickey
Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing Daniel R. Lance
Vice President, Content Stephen C. George
Vice President, Consumer Marketing Nicole McGuire
Art and Production Manager Michael Soliday
Corporate Advertising Director Ann E. Smith
Circulation Director Liz Runyon
New Business Manager Cathy Daniels
Retention Manager Kathy Steele
Single Copy Specialist Kim Redmond
ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT
Phone (888) 558-1544
Advertising Sales Manager Steve Meni
Advertising Sales Representative
Dina Johnston, djohnston@kalmbach.com
Ad Services Representative
Christa Burbank, ads@astronomy.com
RETAIL TRADE ORDERS AND INQUIRIES
Selling Astronomy magazine or products in your store:
Phone (800) 558-1544
Outside U.S. and Canada (262) 796-8776, ext. 818
Fax (262) 798-6592
Email tss@kalmbach.com
Website www.Retailers.Kalmbach.com
CUSTOMER SALES AND SERVICE
Phone (877) 246-4835
Outside U.S. and Canada (813) 910-3616
Customer Service Astronomy@customersvc.com
Digital Astronomy.Digital@customersvc.com
Back Issues Astronomy.SingleCopy@customersvc.com
CONTACT US
Ad Sales adsales@astronomy.com
Ask Astro askastro@astronomy.com
Books books@astronomy.com
Letters letters@astronomy.com
Products products@astronomy.com
Reader Gallery readergallery@astronomy.com
Editorial Phone (262) 796-8776
Copyright © 2018 Kalmbach Publishing Co., all rights reserved. This pub-
lication may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Printed
in the U.S.A. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for new subscriptions and address
changes. Subscription rate: single copy: $5.99; U.S.: 1 year (12 issues)
$42.95; 2 years (24 issues) $79.95; 3 years (36 issues) $114.95. Canadian:
Add $12.00 postage per year. Canadian price includes GST, payable in
U.S. funds. All other international subscriptions: Add $16.00 postage per
year, payable in U.S. funds, drawn on a U.S. bank. BN 12271 3209 RT. Not
responsible for unsolicited materials.
Follow Astronomy
www.twitter.com/ www.facebook.com/ plus.google.com/
AstronomyMag AstronomyMagazine +astronomymagazine
QG
HOT BYTES >>
TRENDING
TO THE TOP
BIG FUTURE
QUANTUM
GRAVITY
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH . . .
As the Sun ages, it will
expand. ALMA has found
a red giant star the size
our Sun is expected to
reach at the end of its life.
The south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus contains a geyser basin that spews water vapor into space at velocities up to 1,360 mph (about 2,190 km/h). The moon is heated internally
through tides, radioactivity, and chemistry, and it contains a salty, subsurface ocean that feeds the periodic jets.
SNAPSHOT The Cassini-Huygens mis-
sion, which came to an end in
What Cassini late 2017, rewrote the book on
Saturn and its moons. Arguably
taught us the loveliest planet, at least from
an observational standpoint,
Saturn is now better understood
During the spacecraft’s by orders of magnitude, thanks
exploration of the Saturn to the spacecraft that visited it
system, we saw eerie, for 14 years beginning in 2004.
otherworldly sights, and also There’s no doubt that Cassini
took us to some weird new
a glimpse of ourselves.
heights. The closest ever exami-
nation of Saturn’s rings, storms
on the planet, lakes on Titan,
COLD COMFORT
The James Webb
Space Telescope has
completed cryogenic
testing, moving it a
step closer to launch.
flybys of incredibly strange
moons like Hyperion and
Phoebe, and close-ups of many
otherworldly surfaces are just a
few of the countless milestones.
But Cassini also told us a
little something about our-
selves. The spacecraft imaged
watery jets emanating from the
moon Enceladus. The strange
moon has a subsurface, salty
ocean that could contain an
enormous amount of water.
And maybe it contains some
sort of microbial life.
LET IT SHINE
The Zwicky Transient
Facility at Palomar
Observatory in
California saw first
light November 14.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI; TOP FROM LEFT: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. VLEMMINGS; NASA; CALTECH OPTICAL OBSERVATORIES
As we look out into the
universe, we find that in
many places, what seems com-
pletely strange and alien also
holds connections to what we
know best.
The chemistry of the cosmos
is uniform throughout. The
presence of water on Enceladus
should remind us that we are
likely not so incredibly special,
that life probably exists in
countless places in this vast
cosmos we call home.
— David J. Eicher
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 7
 STRANGEUNIVERSE
BY BOB BERMAN
Lessons learned
Spectacular sky events stand out in years past
— and in years to come.
T
he Great American
Eclipse is long over.
But there’s always a
“next time” for super
celestial events —
and lessons to learn.
I recall the big events that lay
ahead when I completed school
in the ’60s. I vividly remember
the sky spectacles that beck-
oned, dreamlike, in the distant
future. I ached to see them.
Comet Halley’s return in 1986.
The longest upcoming totality
in 1991. The expected Leonid
meteor storm in 1999. The
transits of Venus in 2004 and
2012. The mysterious eclipse of
Epsilon Aurigae in 2009. The
Great American Eclipse in 2017.
I’ve not been entirely lucky.
When I took a group to the
equator to optimally see Halley,
its tail fell off. Earth and the
famous comet were on opposite
sides of the Sun during its
February 1986 perihelion, and
the comet’s tail disappeared just
when it was supposed to be
best. It was the worst Halley
apparition since the days of the
Roman Empire. We’ll do much
better in 2061.
The 1991 totality was won-
derful, and yet, looking back,
the unusual disparity between
the lunar and solar disk sizes
made prominences harder to
see. As for the Leonids, well, a
storm like we had in 1966 and
1833 did not materialize. No
one saw 80 meteors per second
this time around. But we still
got a heck of a nice display in
the wee hours of November 18,
2001: five brilliant green mete-
ors per minute with trains.
The first Venus transit was
yummy, though clouds blocked
the second. And in 2009,
BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Berman.
8 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
Epsilon Aurigae (the nearest
little star to Capella) lost half
its light. In those days, I was
perilously riding my bike
through Asia. At night, I’d
stare at Epsilon. It was amazing
to see it so dim, a three-year-
long event that occurs every 27
years. Researchers at the time
announced they’d finally found
the source of the dimming: a
huge orbiting cloud of particles,
each about the size of a piece of
gravel. Weird!
A few eclipse chasers make
their totalities a matter of
pride. They add up their cumu-
lative shadow time. They
scored big during the 1991
totality, when they picked up
6½ minutes in one shot. We can
hope that science won’t some-
day learn that the Moon’s
shadow gives you Alzheimer’s
or something.
It keeps going. Our lives, marked
by dramatic events in the sky.
Farfetched? Well, in India
they believe eclipses are
“unhealthy,” and most still hide
from them. I saw this firsthand
in 1980, as citizens huddled
behind shuttered windows.
As for last August’s
American totality, I loved
watching as our guests were
swept away by the magic, and
in the process I learned two
new things.
First, I noticed that some
respectable news sources like
The New York Times wrongly
urged observers to only use
shade 14 welder’s goggles. I’ve
preferred shade 12 during all
my totalities going back to 1970,
Comet Halley’s February 1986 apparition was disappointing, as it lacked a long, trailing
tail by the time the comet reached perihelion. NASA
but this time I bought lots of 14s
for the group because I thought
the high position of the Sun and
the resulting increased bright-
ness called for a darker filter.
But as a test, when guests
stepped off their coach we asked
each to look at the Sun using a
12 and then a 14, and decide
which they preferred. Both are
equally safe. I’m glad I’d brought
along a bunch of 12s — without
exception, everyone preferred
the brighter image through the
12 to the fainter Sun through
the 14. A few said that having a
12 was very important to them.
So for the next two totalities
(both in southern South
America), with the Sun fairly
low both times, we’re definitely
sticking with 12s.
My other lesson involved
binoculars. My long-held advice
has always been to mostly
watch totality naked eye and
use binoculars as an adjunct.
But this time around, using the
best of my three image-stabi-
lized Canons (the obscenely
expensive 10x42 L), I have to say
that the rock steadiness and
clarity made the pink nuclear
flames so “present,” I felt I was
closely hovering above the
prominences. I gasped. It deliv-
ered the most exquisite eclipse
views of my entire life as a dog
— not a sundog, but a dog that
can’t help chasing these things
like a fire engine. So now I’ll
bark even louder about the
value of good binoculars as a
vital totality tool.
My new top five “wonders to
come” for the next two decades?
Some are very unusual. First
the winter solstice hypercon-
junction of 2020, when Saturn
will appear as close to Jupiter as
some of its moons! Then the
2024 four-minute U.S. totality,
followed by the longest total
eclipse until the 22nd century,
under virtually guaranteed
clear skies on the Nile River in
2027. Then the Friday the 13th
Apophis visit — that’s April
2029, when the 3rd-magnitude,
Empire State Building-sized
asteroid will come just a tenth
of the Moon’s distance and
glide across the sky, visible to
the naked eye. Then in 2036,
Epsilon Aurigae’s next weird
eclipse occurs as it is covered by
that gravel cloud, or whatever
its companion may be.
It keeps going. Our lives,
marked by dramatic events in
the sky.
Join me and Pulse of the Planet’s
Jim Metzner in my new podcast,
Astounding Universe, at
http://astoundinguniverse.com.
ASTROLETTERS
CCD challenge accepted
I often look for challenges when it comes
to CCD imaging. One of the main places I
go to is my monthly Astronomy magazine.
In the November issue, I read “Fall into
autumn galaxies” by Stephen James
O’Meara, which covered my favorite sub-
ject: galaxies. The challenge here was to
image NGC 7814, which looks great in the
magazine but through a 130mm scope? I
said, “Why not?”
So I took ten 15-minute exposures
using my Starlight Xpress SX694C cam-
era, and this is the result. Thank you,
Mr. O’Meara. — Eugene Faulkner, Whiting, NJ
Latin pronunciations
In the October issue, there was a fas-
cinating article about pronunciation
errors in stars and constellations by Bob
Berman. It was a very interesting read,
and I too can be very picky about correct
pronunciations. However, Mr. Berman
made an error when discussing the Latin
genitive.
I’ve studied Latin for several years now
and intend to make it a minor in college.
While “ae” is the ending for the Latin
genitive singular in the first declension
(also used for the dative singular and
nominative plural), it is not pronounced
“EE.” Latin in the church, such as at a
Latin Mass, would pronounce the “ae”
ending as “AY” like in “May” or “weigh.”
However, I’m sure we’re all interested in
using the classical Latin pronunciation,
which would be “EYE” as in “eyeball” or
“light.” So, Ursae Majoris would be
UR-sye mah-JOR-is, not UR-see.
However, I do still thank Mr. Berman
for reigniting my interest in this topic.
(Unfortunately, I will probably continue
to pronounce Uranus as yor-AY-nis, but
that is really just for the joke material.)
— Maggie Bradley, Asheville, NC
Praise for balance
Bob Berman’s column has always been
my favorite in your magazine. I can
hardly see how this will ever change after
reading his December column entitled
“Intelligent design?” I’ve never before
seen a better, more even-handed and bal-
anced treatment of this subject that you
could fit onto a single page. Well said.
— Richard S. Wright Jr., Lake Mary, FL
Sky Puppies
I enjoyed Tom Trusock’s article in the
December issue entitled “How to get kids’
heads in the stars.” I would add one more
item to all that Trusock suggested.
The Astronomical League offers a mul-
titude of observing programs. One of
these programs, Sky Puppies, is designed
specifically to help get kids’ heads in the
stars. Like its other observing programs,
the League offers a certificate and a pin to
anyone who successfully completes the
program. Unlike other observing pro-
grams, membership in the League is NOT
required of the Sky Puppies program.
There is an age limit in this program.
One must be 10 years old or younger.
Details on the program can be found at
the Astronomical League website, or by
going to www.astroleague.org/al/
obsclubs/skypuppy/skypuppy2.htm.
— W. Maynard Pittendreigh, Orlando, FL
Two sides of the same coin
Bob Berman’s editorial in the December
2017 issue of Astronomy — “Intelligent
design?” — is among the best and clear-
est I have read on the subject of scientific
truth and spiritual beliefs. Science has
long accepted the dual nature of man,
and even as we enter the age of scientific
enlightenment, the more we explain, the
more we find unexplainable.
I am a creature of this planet, and have
been around for 74 years. I have been for-
tunate to have done many things and
experienced a great deal, and I continue
EUGENE FAULKNER
to wonder at life and its mysteries. I have
trained my mind to open new doors as
they are discovered but do not close doors
behind me. Intelligent design is one of
these doors, and I often revisit it.
If you consider yourself a scientist, you
will undoubtedly become a wrestler in the
match between science and spiritual
beliefs. This event is held regularly, and
the outcomes are always different for each
person. I would call your attention to two
men who went through this experience
and left behind very clear and compelling
descriptions of their ideas. Jacob
Bronowski’s work, The Ascent of Man,
and the essays of Allan Sandage on reli-
gion and science will give you an excel-
lent background if and when you start
your wrestling match. They were, by all
standards, great scientists who left com-
pelling legacies for all of us. I would hope
that as you proceed with your mental
exercises, you keep the attitude of “we do
not know.”
As for my personal beliefs, I view sci-
ence and religious beliefs as two sides of
the same coin. In order to spend the coin,
both sides need to be present. In order to
find truth, you must be able to see both
sides. — Donald Craig, Jr., Indianapolis
We welcome your comments at
Astronomy Letters, P. O. Box 1612,
Waukesha, WI 53187; or email to letters@
astronomy.com. Please include your
name, city, state, and country. Letters
may be edited for space and clarity.
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 9
 IT ANTI-MATTERS. Researchers at JILA in Colorado are exploring whether the electron is more egg-shaped than round,
ASTRONEWS which could explain why there’s more matter than antimatter in the universe.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM RECEIVES AN INTERSTELLAR VISITOR

JUST PASSING THROUGH. 1I/2017 U1

(’Oumuamua), a visitor from another solar
system, swung past our Sun in September
2017. Aside from its strange cigar-shaped
appearance, the asteroid bore striking
similarities to those found in our inner solar
system. EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY/M. KORNMESSER

O
n October 19, University of Hawaii
astronomer Rob Weryk noticed an
unusual 20th-magnitude streak in
images taken with the 1.8-meter Pan-
STARRS 1 telescope. After spotting the
same object in images taken the previous
night, he contacted European Space Agency
astronomer Marco Micheli. Sure enough,
his telescope in the Canary Islands had
caught it, too.
“Its motion could not be explained using
either a normal solar system asteroid or
comet orbit,” Weryk said. “When both our
datasets were fit together, it became clear
that the only explanation was a hyperbolic
trajectory.” The object was an “interstellar
interloper,” an asteroid from outside our
solar system, swinging around the Sun only
once before racing away, never to return.
The object is now designated 1I/2017 U1
(’Oumuamua), a Hawaiian name loosely
translating to mean the first “scout” or
“messenger,” signifying its discovery as the
first identified traveler from one solar sys-
tem to another. It entered the solar system
at 57,000 mph (25.5 kilometers per second);
as it passed through, astronomers raced to
observe it. “We had to act quickly,” Olivier
Hainaut of the European Southern
Observatory in Garching, Germany, said in
a press release. “ ’Oumuamua had already
passed its closest point to the Sun [in
September 2017] and was heading back into
interstellar space.”
’Oumuamua was visible only for 10 days
and never reached a magnitude above 19.7.
Observations with the European Southern
Observatory’s Very Large Telescope revealed
an oblong, reddish, solid chunk of rock or
metal nearly a quarter-mile (400 m) long Asteroids require careful observation and
and 10 times longer than it is wide. It came sensitive instruments to detect, especially if
from the region of sky now occupied by they’re moving fast. But surveys like Pan-
Vega, but that star was in a different posi- STARRS and those planned with the
tion 300,000 years ago when ’Oumuamua upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
would have passed through the region. should be able to detect other objects like it.
While its shape is unusual, ’Oumuamua’s Such interstellar objects have been
color and rotation rate are similar to prop- roaming the frigid depths of space for eons,
erties seen in asteroids in our inner solar with few evolutionary forces — such as
system. “The most remarkable thing about heating or collisions — acting upon them,
U1 is that, except for its shape, how familiar essentially stored in deep freeze. “They are
and physically unremarkable it is,” said well-preserved examples of things made in
Jayadev Rajagopal of the National Optical other star systems,” planetary scientist and
Astronomy Observatory. This has led New Horizons principal investigator Alan
astronomers to liken it to comets and aster- Stern told Astronomy. “For that reason,
oids believed to have been ejected from our they’re going to be valuable as the popula-
solar system during its formation, and is tion is studied.”
likely the story behind ’Oumuamua’s fate. With these interstellar objects, astrono-
While ’Oumuamua is the first discovered mers can learn more about other solar sys-
interstellar asteroid, it’s likely not the first tems — and our own. — Robert Naeye,
to have passed through our solar system. John Wenz, Alison Klesman
‘Oumuamua’s path around the Sun
Mercury
Venus
Sun
Earth
Mars’ orbit
1I/2017 U1 (’Oumuamua)
QUICK TRIP. ’Oumuamua’s trajectory brought it within 23,400,000 miles (37,600,000 km) of the Sun; it passed
closest to Earth October 14, just days before its discovery. Its path will now take it out of the solar system, never
to return. This figure shows the planets and ‘Oumuamua on October 25, 2017. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER NASA/JPL-CALTECH

10 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 NIGHT SKY THREAT. The adoption of LED lighting led to a 2 percent per year increase in light pollution
ASTRONEWS between 2012 and 2016, according to research published November 22 in Science Advances.
Early results
of NASA’s
Twins Study
As part of NASA’s Twins Study, astro-
naut Scott Kelly spent a year in zero
gravity on the International Space
Station. In the meantime, his identical
twin brother, former astronaut Mark
Kelly, went about his daily life on Earth.
When Scott returned, he was tempo-
rarily two inches taller, but his height
wasn’t the only thing that changed.
According to preliminary results
from the study, Scott’s year in space
also drastically increased his rate of
DNA methylation, the process respon-
sible for turning genes on and off. By
regulating gene expression, DNA
methylation is essential for normal
human development, but it is also
believed to play a major role in the
progression of many diseases, ranging
from cancer to cardiovascular disease.
“With this study, we’ve seen thou-
sands and thousands of genes
change how they are turned on and
turned off,” said Chris Mason, princi-
pal investigator of the Twins Study.
“This happens as soon as an astro-
naut gets into space, and some of the
activity persists temporarily upon
return to Earth.”
WHERE DOES WATER FREEZE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM?
Ceres
2.8 AU
Mars
1.5 AU
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
Sun
Earth
1 AU
2.2 AU
Although 71 percent of Earth is covered by oceans,
water represents only about 0.02 percent of the planet’s mass.
SIBLING RIVALRY. Former astronaut Mark Kelly (left) poses with his identical
twin brother, astronaut Scott Kelly. As part of NASA’s Twins Study, Scott spent nearly
a year in space, while Mark stayed on Earth. This gave researchers a chance to study
the health effects of long-term spaceflight. NASA
Over the last year, NASA has
released a number of fascinating pre-
liminary results from some of the 10
research projects that make up the
Twins Study. For example, researchers
were surprised to find that Scott’s
telomeres — the protective caps that
shield the ends of DNA strands —
were longer than Mark’s. Previous
research has shown that longer
Jupiter
5.2 AU
Water
snow line
3 AU
Asteroid belt
3.2 AU
FAST
FACT
QUICK TAKES
LIGHTNING STRIKES
Lightning on Earth can
generate gamma rays that
produce antimatter particles
called positrons and kick off
matter-antimatter annihilation.
•
BRIEFER HISTORY
The University of Cambridge
made Stephen Hawking’s
Ph.D. thesis publicly available
as part of Open Access Week
in October.
•
ANCIENT ECLIPSE
Historical accounts of a solar
eclipse in 1207 B.C., mentioned
in the Bible and ancient
Egyptian texts, may help
better pinpoint the reign of
Ramses the Great.
•
APOLLO ASTRONAUT
PASSES AWAY
Gemini XI and Apollo 12
telomeres are associated with fewer astronaut Richard “Dick”
age-related problems. Gordon passed away
“This study represents one of the November 6 at the age of 88.
most comprehensive views of human
biology,” Mason said. “It really sets
•
ANCIENT SUNS
the bedrock for understanding New analyses of star
molecular risks for space travel as movements identified 29
well as ways to potentially protect nearby suns as belonging to
and fix those genetic changes.” some of the first groups of
— Jake Parks stars formed in the Milky Way.
•
TWINKLE, TWINKLE,
LITTLE PLANET
A “twinkle” every 18 months in
the young star EC53 suggests
FREEZING TEMPERATURES. The that a newly minted planet
snow line, also called the frost line or ice has formed around it.
line, is the distance from a star at which
the temperature drops enough that a
•
DRONES FOR MARS
given molecule — such as water — will NASA, the SETI Institute, the
freeze into a solid. The simplest models of Mars Institute, and sensor
planet formation state that objects (such manufacturer Fybr are
as planets) that form inside the snow line collaborating on drones for
are smaller and composed of mostly rock; use in Mars’ thin atmosphere.
those that form outside the snow line are
more massive and include a higher per- •
OLD BATTLE
centage of ices. Cornell University astronomers
The location of the snow line depends found two massive galaxies
on the properties of the star itself, as well merging 13 billion light-years
as the molecule in question, as some
away, only 500 million years
molecules freeze at higher or lower tem- after the universe formed.
peratures than others. In our forming
solar system, the water snow line occurred
at about 3 astronomical units (AU; 1 AU
•
RE-FUNDED
equals 93 million miles [150 million kilome- The fifth generation of the
ters]), or three times the distance between Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Earth and the Sun. This lies between the gained funding from the Alfred
orbits of Mars and Jupiter, separating the P. Sloan Foundation, allowing it
terrestrial and giant planets in our solar to begin continuous
observations in 2020.
system. However, other young stars have
been observed with water snow lines tens
of AU in distance. This indicates the loca-
•
WE ARE STARDUST
tion of the snow line may evolve over time, Space dust colliding with
while giant planets close to their stars organic molecules in our
(inside the snow line) likely migrated there upper atmosphere could fling
after forming farther out. — A.K. microbes off our planet — or
bring life from other planets or
moons to us. — J.W.
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 11
 CALM SUN. Astronomers announced Ross 128b, a potentially habitable planet in the Ross 128 system,
ASTRONEWS November 15. Ross 128 is a calmer M dwarf, reducing the likelihood that it has blown away Ross 128b’s atmosphere.

THE WORLD’S Positron excess may have dark matter origins

10 LARGEST REFRACTORS
OBSERVATORY DIAMETER
Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay, Wisconsin 40 inches Full Moon (to scale)
Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, Canary Islands 38.6 inches
Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, California 36 inches Geminga
Paris Observatory, France 32.7 inches
Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam, Germany 31.5 inches
Nice Observatory, France 30.3 inches
Allegheny Observatory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 30 inches
Royal Greenwich Observatory, London, England 28 inches
Rolfsche Refractor, Rathenow, Germany 27.6 inches
Vienna Observatory, Austria 27 inches

PSR B0656+14

40
Yerkes Observatory, UNDERPOWERED. Extended gamma ray emission from the Geminga and PSR B0656+14 pulsars (yellow
Williams Bay, Wisconsin and red) cannot account for the positron excess measured in Earth orbit. Instead, a more exotic source is
likely responsible. HAWC COLLABORATION; MOON IMAGE: GREGORY H. REVERA; COURTESY MIGUEL MOSTAFA (PENN STATE)
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

The European PAMELA satellite first registered
an unexpectedly high number of positrons
in near-Earth space in 2008. Since then, two
competing theories to explain the anomaly
have developed.
The simple explanation is that the extra
positrons — the antimatter counterparts to
electrons that have a positive charge — are
coming from nearby stellar remnants called
pulsars. The more exotic theory is that heavy
dark matter particles in our galaxy are mutu-
“The gamma rays that we measure [with
HAWC] are a tracer for the electrons and posi-
trons near the [pulsar] source. Using this, we
can map out how fast the electrons and posi-
trons are moving away from the source.
Knowing the age and the distance of the pul-
sars, we can figure out if [the positrons] can
get here,” says the HAWC principal investiga-
tor and U.S. spokesperson, Jordan Goodman
of the University of Maryland.
The team concluded that the pulsars are

27 ally annihilating one another whenever they

come into close proximity, self-destructing
into a cascade of positrons and other particles.
Vienna Observatory, Although Occam’s razor suggests the first
Austria explanation is more likely, a recent paper
published by an international team of scien-
tists November 17 in Science all but excludes
it. And if nearby pulsars are not responsible
for the excess of positrons, scientists are left
to entertain the second option.
not producing anywhere near enough posi-
trons to explain the observed excess.
Furthermore, because these two pulsars are
among the closest to Earth, it seems clear
that pulsars in general cannot account for
the anomaly.
So if pulsars can’t explain the positron
excess, what can? Some theorists have pro-
posed supernova remnants and black hole
jets as the culprits. HAWC has also detected

4 The study uses observations taken with

the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC)
Observatory. HAWC consists of 300 large
water tanks in the Mexican state of Puebla to
detect high-energy gamma rays, the highest-
Backyard telescope energy form of light. When a gamma ray
strikes an atom in Earth’s upper atmosphere,
it creates a shower of secondary particles that
FIRST GLASS. A refractor telescope uses a lens to rain downward, triggering detections in
collect and focus light. Because lenses are glass and glass HAWC’s water tanks.
can behave like a fluid, any lens larger than 40 inches From November 2014 to June 2016, HAWC
in diameter will sag under its own weight, rendering it clearly detected high-energy gamma rays
unusable. Also, casting and figuring such behemoths coming from an extended region around two
are time-consuming and expensive processes. Because relatively nearby pulsars in the constellation
huge refractors are no longer practical, this list probably
Gemini the Twins. The pulsars, known as
is the final one. — Michael E. Bakich
Geminga and PSR B0656+14, are roughly 800
and 900 light-years away, respectively. As
The 40-inch Yerkes refractor
FAST each pulsar spins, it throws off positrons and
collects 2.2 times as much FACT electrons, which, in turn, interact with nearby
particles to produce gamma rays.
light as the 27-inch Vienna
refractor and 100 times as
much as a 4-inch scope.
12
these objects, but “most are too far away and
too young to send particles all the way to
Earth,” Goodman explains.
This leaves dark matter annihilation as the
most likely explanation. This theory has been
on the books for many years, and it’s not con-
tradicted by any astronomical observations. If
annihilating dark matter is indeed responsi-
ble for the positron excess, the particles
themselves would have whopping masses of
about a thousand protons — about the mass
of four uranium atoms.
Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider
in Switzerland and in underground laborato-
ries around the world have yet to turn up
direct evidence for dark matter particles. So
although HAWC seems to have ruled out pul-
sars as the source of the excess positrons,
their origin remains a mystery, as does the
nature of dark matter. — J.P., R.N.
 OVER THE MOON. The Indian Space Research Organisation has nearly
ASTRONEWS completed its second moon probe, Chandrayaan-2, set to launch soon.

LINE UP.
The Mars
Reconnaissance
Orbiter snapped
this image of
seasonal recurring
slope lineae —
dark, narrow
streaks cutting
through the
landscape — on
the southern rim
of Tivat Crater.
Once thought
to form due to
subsurface water
seepage, these
features now
appear to be dry
granular flows.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UA/USGS

Evidence mounts for a dry Mars

Although Mars is cold and
dry today, planetary scientists
believe it could have been
warmer and wetter in the past,
and that a significant volume
of water may still exist below
the surface.
In particular, dark streaks on
the planet’s surface called
recurring slope lineae (RSL)
have been cited as evidence of
subsurface water flows. These
features appear and grow over
time during the warmest part of
the Red Planet’s summer, then
fade away again — behavior
suggestive of seeping water.
But new evidence from a
study conducted by the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), the
University of Arizona, the
Planetary Science Institute, and
Durham University paints a dif-
ferent picture: RSL are more
likely granular flows of dry
material that don’t require
water to form.
Their findings, published
November 20 in Nature
Geoscience, are based on a
study of 151 RSL and state that
the ends of RSL look identical
to the slopes of aeolian sand
dunes formed by wind found
elsewhere on Mars.
If RSL were due to water,
more liquid would be neces-
sary to form longer features.
But the end result of dry flows
should look similar regardless
of length, which was exactly
the finding from the study.
“This new understanding of
RSL supports other evidence
that shows that Mars today is
very dry,” said the lead author,
Colin Dundas of the USGS, in a
press release. — A.K.

10 YEARS
The timeframe within which astronomers expect
to detect gravitational waves from a merger
of supermassive black holes.

Comets swarm
a distant star
A study published October 31 in Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society out-
lines a big first: the discovery of the first transit-
ing exocomet.
Working with Kepler data as part of the
Planet Hunters project, citizen scientist Thomas
Jacobs spotted the telltale signs of a comet’s
tail in the light of the star KIC 3542116, a dim
M dwarf. He noticed a 0.1 percent dip in the
star’s light occur three times. An MIT team
helped confirm that the dip represents a com-
et’s trail of debris or tail, which spreads over a
much wider area than the nucleus.
The team and other collaborators spent
months trying to figure out what the object
was. It resembled a disintegrating planet, but it
lacked the same periodicity expected from
transiting planet debris, which should be short
based on the type Kepler usually spots.
After they refined the data further, six total
comets were found in the system, leading
MANY TAILS. A group of comets circles a distant
star, leaving behind trails of debris. Citizen scientist
Thomas Jacobs discovered such a trail around a star
observed with the Kepler telescope. DANIELLE FUTSELAAR
discoverers to believe that the system could be
in the middle of a “bombardment era” where
large planets fling smaller objects like comets
and asteroids into the inner planetary system.
Such events could have seeded life on Earth, or
even caused extinction-level events in the past.
KIC 3542116 may be the smallest star an exo-
comet has ever been discovered circling. Most
exocomets, usually discovered through spec-
troscopy, have been around A-type stars, which
are larger and more massive than the Sun. — J.W.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 13
 DENSE JETS. Magnetic fields are thought to prevent neutron stars from forming jets, but the belief is
ASTRONEWS being challenged by University of Amsterdam astronomers after analyzing data from 27 telescopes.
Earth stops energetic neutrinos
Neutrinos are chargeless, nearly massless
particles created in some of the most extreme
events imaginable: exploding stars and the
mergers of black holes and neutron stars.
They are small and fast, interacting with very
little in the universe — they typically zip right
through most matter, including humans,
Earth, and even the instruments used specifi-
cally to detect them.
But while interactions are rare, they do
occur. Now, an international team of research-
ers associated with the IceCube Neutrino
Observatory at the South Pole has brought us
one step closer to understanding when those
collisions are most likely to happen, confirm-
ing current particle physics theories and
shedding light on how to study neutrinos fur-
ther. The work, published November 22 in
Nature, hinges on measurements taken of the
number of neutrinos that do interact with
Earth instead of passing right through.
Each neutrino has a cross section for colli-
sion. The cross section represents the probabil-
ity that a particle will collide with another; if
you picture a particle as a ball, its diameter
would be analogous to its cross section.
Particles with larger cross sections are more
likely to collide with others. When a neutrino
MERCURY IN THE EVENING
15°
10
Altitude
10°
March 5
5° 6 Nov.
11 1 snakelike image. Though warped, the image is also
27
16 Oct. 22
0°
WORLD AT DUSK. The innermost planet has a reputation for
being elusive because it rarely appears outside of twilight from
mid-northern latitudes. This chart plots Mercury’s position 45
minutes after sunset for an observer at 35° north latitude for the
planet’s three evening elongations of 2018. Notice that Mercury’s
peak altitude doesn’t necessarily coincide with its greatest solar
elongation (dates highlighted in yellow). — Richard Talcott
14 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
BRIEFCASE
DEEP DOWN. PROBING A PYRAMID
To detect Physicists used a technique called muonography to
neutrinos discover a large chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
zipping by, the The authors of the November 2 Nature paper revealed
IceCube Neutrino the void by tracking subatomic particles called muons,
Observatory which are produced when cosmic rays strike atoms in
lowers “strings” the upper atmosphere, creating a cascade of secondary
equipped with particles that rain down to Earth. Since muons are
neutrino detectors partially absorbed by stone, the researchers could
into deep holes in “image” the hidden chamber by measuring where the
the Antarctic ice. flux of muons was higher than expected. Although the
These detectors purpose of the void remains unknown, Egyptologists
have confirmed hope the discovery will provide insights into how the
that energetic 4,500-year-old pyramid was built.
neutrinos are
more likely than
•
STEADY AS SHE GOES
their lower-energy Using over 60 years of observations, astronomers have
counterparts discovered that microwaves from the Sun during the
to interact past five solar minimums have been surprisingly
with Earth. constant, whereas microwaves from the past five
NSF/B. GUDBJARTSSON maximums have drastically varied. “It is very
meaningful to discover a trend extending beyond a
passes closer to another particle than the single solar cycle,” said Masumi Shimojo, lead author of
extent of this cross section, the two will inter- the study published October 10 in The Astrophysical
act. But because a neutrino’s cross section is Journal. “This is an important step in understanding the
small, collisions with other particles don’t occur creation and amplification of solar magnetic fields,
often. which generate sunspots and other solar activity.”
By measuring the rate of neutrino interac-
tions and the types of neutrinos that do inter-
•
MERGER MADNESS
act with Earth, IceCube has confirmed that Scientists confirmed yet another gravitational wave
the size of a neutrino’s cross section is deter- detection November 15, with the discovery of
mined by its energy, with higher-energy par- GW170608. The merging black holes that produced it
ticles generating a bigger cross section. Such were about a billion light-years away and roughly seven
high-energy neutrinos are more likely to be and 12 times as massive as the Sun, making this the
stopped by interactions with Earth — a pre- smallest merger observed by Advanced LIGO so far.
diction made by our current Standard Model During the merger, energy equivalent to about 1 solar
of physics. mass was released in the form of gravitational waves,
This work represents the first study of leaving behind a lone black hole nearly 18 times as
high-energy neutrinos with energies 1,000 massive as the Sun. — J.P.
times greater than previously measured. It is a
first step toward a greater understanding of
not only neutrinos, but the field of particle
physics. “IceCube was built to both explore
the frontiers of physics and, in doing so, pos-
sibly challenge existing perceptions of the
nature of universe. This new finding and oth-
ers yet to come are in that spirit of scientific
discovery,” said James Whitmore, a program
director with the National Science
Foundation’s physics division. — A.K.
ESA/HUBBLE, NASA
Secrets of a cosmic snake
15 EARLY DEVELOPMENT. The Cosmic Snake is a
20 gravitationally lensed galaxy sitting behind the massive
7 July 2
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
12 27 galaxy cluster MACSJ1206.2–0847. As light from this
22 distant, young galaxy passes near the cluster, it is bent
25 17 by the cluster’s mass and re-formed into a squiggly,
22 June 17
magnified, making the galaxy appear much brighter
and its minute details easier to discern. By studying
West
Azimuth the areas of star formation visible in this image and
others like it, astronomers can piece together how stars
formed in very early galaxies. Studies of less-detailed
Mercury’s best evening FAST images suggested that early galaxies host areas of star
appearance of the year FACT formation much more massive than those seen today.
comes in mid-March, But recent work studying the Cosmic Snake finds that
when it reaches a peak the galaxy’s massive star-forming regions are actually
altitude of 8.3°. made up of smaller, distinct clumps of star formation,
more like those found in nearby galaxies. — A.K.
 “I can’t say when I’ve ever
enjoyed owning anything more
than my Tele Vue products.”
— R.C, TX Tele Vue-76

At Tele Vue, We Aim to Please!

While others may aim for Tele Vue, for
40-years we’ve focused on a single target;
delivering amateur astronomers unique NP101is flat-field APO
refractor, 110° Ethos-SX
telescopes, eyepieces, and accessories of eyepiece, Starbeam, Gib-
raltar-HD4 Mount with Sky
heirloom quality with performance that Air-Chair Tour digital setting circles.

stands time’s test. How are we scored by our valued customers? Receiv-
ing written superlatives like: “truly amazing, awesome, beautiful,
work of art, exceeded expectations by a mile, best quality available,
WOW, uncompromised, gorgeous...” We’ll call that, BULLSEYE!
@televueoptics 32 Elkay Drive, Chester, NY 10918 845.469.4551 TeleVue.com

NEW JIGSAW
PUZZLES!
Science enthusiasts
and jigsaw puzzle
lovers alike will love
completing these
beautiful puzzles! Discover Heroes of Science Puzzle
Celebrate the genius of Albert Einstein,
Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, and Charles

550 Darwin. Illustration by Mark Marturello,

created exclusively for Discover magazine.
PIECES Finished size: 18” x 24”.

ORDER NOW!
Astronomy Crab Nebula Puzzle
Enjoy this high-resolution image of the Crab
Nebula, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space
Telescope. Created exclusively by Astronomy
magazine. Finished size:18” x 24”.
MyScienceShop.com/Puzzles
P31483

Sales tax where applicable.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 15
 SECRETSKY
BY STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA
What’s
“overhead”?
Looking straight up may be harder than you think.
R
ecently, I went out-
side for a walk and
casually noticed that
the Sun was about
one-third of the way
up the eastern sky. Or was it?
Out of curiosity, I noted the
time and later used software
to determine that the Sun was
actually only 17° high at that
time. How could I have been so
far off?
Part psychology,
part physiology?
In Light & Color in the Open
Air, Marcel Minnaert helps us
to understand why it is com-
mon for us to overestimate the
heights of objects in the sky.
It stems from a psychological
effect in which we naturally
perceive the hemisphere of sky
as a flattened vault that appears
about twice as close overhead
as it does to the horizon. If you
try to estimate the midpoint
between these two points, the
result will not lie at a height of
45° but generally somewhere
between 20° and 30°.
“It is very important that
unprejudiced observers be
found” who must divide “not
the angle but the arc” into two
equal parts, Minnaert says.
The illusion intensifies
under cloud cover and lessens
on clear and crisp starlit nights.
Generalities also come into
play. Some of us use the word
overhead loosely. This is espe-
cially true for those living at
mid-northern latitudes, when,
say, we see the noonday Sun
sailing “high overhead” in
summer, or a “midnight”
BROWSE THE “SECRET SKY” ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/OMeara.
16 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
winter Moon. In reality, the
Sun never passes overhead from
these latitudes but 20° to 30°
from it (depending on the lati-
tude from which we observe).
Part pain
in the neck
Typically, when looking
straight ahead, the eye can
see objects about 60° above its
center point. So a Sun 60° high
will appear at the summit of
the eye’s field of view. Tilting
the head back to see a 70°-high
Sun or Moon only seems to
affirm that it is overhead — a
location most observers will
admit can literally be a “pain
in the neck,” so little bother
is given to the accuracy of the
observation. “Overhead,” in the Determining a specific star’s altitude, or even finding the overhead point, is not as easy
most casual sense, means an as you might think. A star-filled sky helps. STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA
object within 30° of the zenith.
which speaks to Minnaert’s to within a couple of degrees of
Of voids and warning of having only unprej- true overhead.
optic moths udiced observers make the The reason? I believe that
Like Minnaert, I also found initial observations. our eyes are attracted like
that casually estimating the For instance, when I made moths to the brightest object
midpoint of the sky during my first observation of a wan- near our invisible target desti-
the day was difficult. It was ing daytime Moon midway up nations (midpoint or zenith),
easier on a starlit night for the the sky from the horizon, I was drawing our attention away.
simple reason that it’s hard to off by 15°. Later, I refined the When only faint stars are vis-
be accurate in a blank sea of observation to within 3°, and ible, we spend more time scru-
sky, but easier when it’s full finally to the correct value by tinizing the sky, which
of stars serving as guideposts. taking the average of three sharpens our accuracy. Bright
Accuracy in the perceived observations over an hour. stars may serve well as “imme-
midpoint increases if the Sun At night, I also began by diate” signposts, but they actu-
or Moon is near it — espe- misjudging a star’s altitude but ally lead us astray.
cially if you take the average was able to refine it to an As always send your
of three observations (similar acceptable value. I also found thoughts and comments to
to what visual Jupiter observ- that I misplaced “overhead” sjomeara3@gmail.com.
ers do when making transit when a bright star was within
estimates). The accuracy also 20° of the zenith. One night, Stephen James O’Meara
increases dramatically the however, when no bright star is a globe-trotting observer
more you make these observa- was available near that point, I who is always looking for the
next great celestial event.
tions over the course of days, accurately selected a faint star
 GRACEFUL EXIT. NASA ended the Gravity Recovery and Climate
ASTRONEWS Experiment after 15 years studying gravitational anomalies around Earth. 8BUFSUPO(MBDJFS
*OUFSOBUJPOBM
%BSL
4LZ
1BSL

This star exploded not once, but twice 8&
/&&%
:06


For the first time, astronomers
have discovered a star that has
gone supernova more than
4VNNFS
"TUSPOPNZ
once. This so-called “zombie &EVDBUJPO
7PMVOUFFST
star” — which reportedly
exploded at least twice in the
past 60 years — has baffled sci-
entists by challenging many of
the existing theories about how *OUFSFTUFE

massive stars end their lives.
ZZZQSVJRYJODFDVWUR9,3KWP

“This supernova breaks
everything we thought we
knew about how they work,”
said Iair Arcavi, lead author of a
letter published November 9 in
Nature, in a press release. “It’s
the biggest puzzle I’ve encoun-
tered in almost a decade of
studying stellar explosions.”
The undying star, named
iPTF14hls, was first discovered
in September 2014 by research-
ers using the Palomar Transient
Factory (PTF). Although the
supernova initially faded after
its 2014 explosion, within a few
months it began to mysteri-
ously grow brighter again.
Over a subsequent three-year
span, iPTF14hls fluctuated
between bright and dim at
least five separate times.
When the astronomers real-
ized iPTF14hls was not an aver-
age supernova, they decided
NASA/MARIA-JOSE VIÑAS
RINSE AND REPEAT. In this artist’s concept of a supernova, an
expanding shell of dust and gas is blown outward from the star’s dense,
white dwarf core. Most stars explode just once, ending their lives for good.
However, iPTF14hls appears to have gone supernova twice in just 60 years.
to search through archival hot that it generates antimatter
data. They were flabbergasted in its core, causing it to become
to find that in 1954, another violently unstable and undergo
explosion was recorded in the multiple bright eruptions.
exact same location. Somehow, “These explosions were only
this star survived its first explo- expected to be seen in the
sion, waited 60 years, and early universe and should be
exploded again. extinct today,” said co-author
Although researchers are Andy Howell, leader of the Las
still uncertain about what Cumbres Observatory super-
caused iPTF14hls to go super- nova group. “This is like finding
nova twice, one theory is that a dinosaur still alive today. If
the “zombie star” is actually a you found one, you would
pulsation pair-instability super- question whether it truly was a
nova — a star so massive and dinosaur.” — J.P.

23 The number of cameras the Mars 2020

rover will carry to the Red Planet.
ESA/ROSETTA/MPS FOR OSIRIS TEAM MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Rosetta spots a cometary dust jet

NICE SHOT. On July 3, 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft caught an eruption of material from Comet 67P/Churyumov-
Gerasimenko. The plume is rising from the comet’s Imhotep region as it rotates into the light of the Sun, warming
the surface and providing Rosetta with a picture-perfect view. Using measurements taken by instruments that
captured dust grains from the eruption, European Space Agency researchers found that the plume was filled with
more dust than normal. This led them to suspect it was an eruption from deeper inside the comet, rather than
sunlight sublimating surface ice into water vapor. — J.W.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 17
 FORYOURCONSIDERATION
BY JEFF HESTER
The mind’s siren call
Our craving for certainty can make us blind to true knowledge.
W
e all know
the feeling.
You’re sitting
there try-
ing to figure
something out, but it just won’t
come together. Frustration and
annoyance grow until suddenly
you get it — or at least you
think you do. “Aha!” The relief
comes flooding in.
Neurologist Robert Burton
talks about that feeling in his
book On Being Certain:
Believing You Are Right Even
When You’re Not.
Physiologically speaking, our
brains crave certainty in the
same way a junkie craves a fix.
Satisfying those cravings acti-
vates the neural pathway
responsible for pleasure and
motivation. An aha moment
feels good because it releases a
lovely hit of dopamine in the
brain.
It’s not hard to understand
where our addiction to cer-
tainty comes from. For our
evolutionary ancestors living
on the savanna, often the worst
possible strategy was to do
nothing. The feeling of know-
ing frees us from paralyzing
indecision. It enables us to act.
But feeling certain has squat
to do with being right, Burton
stresses. The feeling of know-
ing is not even a cognitive pro-
cess. Rather, certainty is a
sensation that need not be
associated with any particular
thought at all, he explains.
In The Logic of Scientific
Discovery, Karl Popper argues
that the foundation of knowl-
edge is falsifiability. “I know”
means that I have worked to
discover that an idea is false,
but so far have failed. If an idea
can withstand that challenge, I
BROWSE THE “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION” ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Hester.
18 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
am obliged to keep it, at least
for now. But if the idea can’t
take that heat, out the window
it goes.
Certainty pulls the rug out
from under the whole notion of
justified knowledge. Logically,
once we reject the possibility
that we are wrong, our sup-
posed knowledge becomes
nothing but illusion.
Of course, none of this
changes the fact that certainty
feels really good. So like any
addict, our natural tendency is
to do the worst possible thing
— we try to score. We seek out
information and people that
reinforce our certainty, always
craving the next hit of dopa-
mine while turning our backs
on anything or anyone that
might call our certainty into
question. Here lies a road paved
with confirmation bias, group-
think, and a menagerie of other
cognitive errors.
Once we embrace without
question that deep, heartfelt,
compelling sensation of cer-
tainty that we so desperately
crave, we become blind to real-
ity. We build ourselves a house
of cards, believing the whole
time that it is made of brick.
Knowing something (experi-
encing the sensation of know-
ing) and really knowing
something (having reasonably
justified belief) are two com-
pletely different things, even if
we call them by the same
name. The irony is thick
enough to cut with a knife! Our
brains crave certainty, but if we
want real knowledge, certainty
is the one thing that we can’t
allow ourselves.
Which is not to say that the
feeling of knowing is always a
bad thing! When mistaken for
For our
evolutionary
ancestors like
Australopithecus
afarensis, quick
thinking and
the feeling
of knowing
often made
the difference
between life
and death. JOHN
GURCHE/SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION
justified knowledge, the feeling
of knowing can lead us down a
primrose path. But when rec-
ognized for what it is, that sen-
sation can be a valuable guide.
In his book Blink: The Power of
Thinking Without Thinking,
Malcolm Gladwell discusses
the way our brains rapidly and
subconsciously combine even
small amounts of information
with our previous knowledge
and experience to reach tenta-
tive conclusions. Those
thoughts, accompanied by a
feeling of knowing, enter our
conscious minds as intuition.
Intuition alone is never a sub-
stitute for justified knowledge.
But if grounded in justified
knowledge and enough rel-
evant experience, intuition can
suggest a path.
Science is all about justified
knowledge, but intuition is
vitally important even here.
Scientists often rely on gut feel-
ings to decide what ideas might
be worth pursuing, or what
approach might be likely to
yield good results. The abso-
lutely crucial caveat is that
while intuition might be a good
place to start, it is only a start.
An idea might feel right, but
that doesn’t matter to scientists
until it’s put through the
wringer. By the way, if you
don’t look for the flaws in your
pretty idea, rest assured that
someone else will do it for you!
Knowledge is a slippery jux-
taposition of philosophical
considerations and ages-old
neurological imperatives bur-
ied deep within our brains.
With that comes a practical
challenge with profound real-
world consequences for each of
us. In a complex world where
knowledge matters, how do we
navigate treacherous waters
filled with comfortable, spe-
cious ideas eager to abduct our
all-too-willing brains?
After decades in the
trenches as a scientist, I can
share what works for me. I lis-
ten to my intuition, but I’m
gun-shy. When I start feeling
too certain about something
that’s my cue to get out the
sledgehammer and start
pounding on my precious idea
to see if it breaks.
Only then can I talk about
what I know.
Jeff Hester is a keynote speaker,
coach, and astrophysicist.
Follow his thoughts at
jeff-hester.com.
 ODD ONE OUT. NGTS-1b, a planet whose mass is similar to Jupiter’s, was found orbiting a red dwarf star supposedly
ASTRONEWS too small to have formed a planet that big, challenging planet formation theories.

The case of the shrinking white dwarf

Astronomers have observed
many white dwarfs over the
years. But a study published
November 13 in Monthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society
presented the first observational
evidence of a contracting white
dwarf that has been steadily
shrinking for the past 2 million
years.
“For decades, it has been the-
oretically clear that young white
dwarfs are contracting,” Sergei
Popov, an astrophysicist and
lead author of the study, said in
a press release. “Yet that very
phase of contraction has never
been observed in ‘real time.’ ”
The contracting white dwarf
is part of a binary system named
HD 49798/RX J0648.0–4418,
located some 2,000 light-years
away in the constellation Puppis.
Astronomer Sandro Mereghetti,
co-author of the study, recently
discovered that the white
dwarf’s rotational velocity was
the fastest ever observed for
such a remnant, and has been
speeding up over the past
20 years. Mereghetti also found
that the white dwarf’s original
13-second spin period — the
time it takes to complete one
full rotation — was decreasing
by about 7 nanoseconds each
year.
Although a few nanoseconds
per year may not seem like
much, for an object as massive
and compressed as a white
dwarf, this corresponds to a sig-
nificant shift in angular momen-
tum — something that could
not be accomplished solely
through the accretion of matter.
Instead, the researchers demon-
strated that the white dwarf’s
faster spin could be easily
explained if the star were con-
tracting, much like the way a
spinning figure skater rotates
faster as she pulls in her arms.
“Thanks to this discovery,
astrophysicists will be able to
study and evaluate the evolution
patterns of young white dwarfs SPEED SPINNING. In this artist’s concept, the white dwarf (left) in the binary system
— and successfully look for simi- HD 49798/RX J0648.0–4418 is spinning while surrounded by an accretion disk of matter
lar systems in the galaxy,” Popov taken from its larger companion star (right). Astronomers think the white dwarf is
said. — J.P. spinning faster over time because it is contracting. FRANCESCO MEREGHETTI

Journey to Iceland for an unforgettable view

of the aurora borealis!
Everyone should experience the astonishing beauty of the aurora borealis once in
their lives — and one of the best places on Earth to take in the spectacle is under
Iceland’s northern skies.
This unique, new Iceland itinerary features:
• 8 nights of viewing just steps away from your comfortable countryside accommodations.
• The seldom-visited Great North region and the stunning Westfjords peninsula.
• Whale watching, fascinating local museums, a superb local guide, and much more.
P32345

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 19
This intrepid spacecraft spent 13 years
studying the ringed planet,
transforming our view of
this captivating world.
by Liz Kruesi

Saturn’s globe blocked the Sun while the evening of September 11,
Cassini captured this panoramic view 2017, Griffith Observatory
showing the planet’s ring system in
exquisite detail. The imaging team hosted an enthusiastic group
created this mosaic from 165 separate of observers. The assembled
images taken over a three-hour period. crowd looked through the
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
12-inch Zeiss refracting tele-
scope, the centerpiece of
the venerable public astron-
omy venue in Los Angeles.
They watched as light from Saturn and its
largest moon, Titan, passed through the
telescope’s optics, where lenses bent and
focused it onto their eyes.
The onlookers could see the beautiful
rings circling Saturn, the planet’s yellowish
cloud bands, and the orange-tinged dot of
the big moon near the planet; what they
couldn’t make out was a much smaller,
human-made target. On that late summer
evening, the Cassini spacecraft was just
75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) from
Titan on its final path toward Saturn. The
spacecraft and Titan had enjoyed their
“goodbye kiss,” as the astronomers and
engineers on the mission called the last
gravitational yank that would send the

20 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018

spacecraft into the planet it had been
studying for 13 years.
These observers at Griffith were no
ordinary members of the public. They
were members of Cassini’s Project Science
Group, watching their beloved spacecraft
on its final journey around the giant world.
“It was a magical evening,” says Cassini’s
Project Scientist Linda Spilker.
Over the next few days, hundreds of
scientists and engineers on the Cassini
mission team would reminisce about the
spacecraft, which had launched from
Cape Canaveral, Florida, nearly 20 years
earlier. But their thoughts were not all on
the past: Cassini was still collecting data
and sending it back to Earth.
On September 15, at 3:31 a.m. PDT,
Cassini entered Saturn’s upper atmosphere
at a shallow angle. It would travel through
the gas for nearly 1½ hours. The team
members were gathered at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California, where they watched and waited.
“The room got quieter and quieter as we got
down to those final minutes,” says Spilker.
2004-2017
At 4:55 a.m. PDT, they saw the last signal
from Cassini fade away on the screen. The
room erupted in applause — not for the end
of the mission, but for what the spacecraft
and those hundreds of people had achieved.
Cassini revealed surprise after surprise
at Saturn: an incredibly complex system of
moons and moonlets, rings that change
structure on hourly timescales, and a beau-
tiful atmosphere wracked by huge storms.
The 13 years of images and measurements
changed humanity’s view of the ringed
world. But there’s still more to learn from
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 21

Above: Cassini could probe Saturn’s ring
structure by sending radio signals through
the rings. In this simulated view of the A ring
and the Cassini Division (at left center), red
denotes particles 2 inches (5 cm) or more in
diameter; green indicates particles less than
2 inches across; and blue signifies particles
less than 0.4 inch (1 cm) across. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
Right: Vertical structures at the B ring’s
outer edge cast long shadows onto the rings
two weeks before Saturn’s August 2009 equinox.
The structures rise some 1.6 miles (2.5 km)
above the rest of the rings, which average
about 33 feet (10 m) thick. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
the last several months of data that Cassini
collected. Scientists hope those final obser-
vations will tell them about Saturn’s interior
— in particular, how it generates a mag-
netic field and how its mass is distributed.
An extended stay
Spacecraft already had visited Saturn three
times before Cassini arrived in mid-2004,
so scientists had some inkling of what they
might find. But as with any new mission
— especially one involving a machine with
12 sophisticated instruments that would
remain in orbit instead of flying past as
its predecessors had — Cassini revealed a
complex planet full of surprises. And that’s
a good thing. “If Saturn had been exactly
as expected, it would have been a lot more
boring,” says Spilker.
Cassini arrived at Saturn for a primary
mission set to last four years. But when
mid-2008 came, the spacecraft continued
with its Equinox Mission extension. And
in September 2010, the mission began its
22 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
Solstice extension, which ultimately bled
into the Grand Finale. This final stage
commenced in April 2017 and featured
22 close-in orbits that skimmed just above
Saturn’s cloud tops.
Because Cassini’s 12 instruments were
attached directly to the spacecraft, the
entire contraption had to rotate for an
instrument to point toward a specific tar-
get. That meant multiple instruments
couldn’t observe the same spot at the same
time. Instead, while one looked at a moon,
another might observe Saturn’s rings.
And that made the last five months of the
mission — the Grand Finale — a work
of impressive coordination. Although
22 orbits might sound like a lot, they
aren’t much to work with when you have to
divide the limited time during those close
flybys among the full instrument lineup.
Rings, rings, and more rings
Saturn’s rings are the planet’s defining
characteristic. From afar, they look like a
vinyl record circling the yellow gas giant.
But bring a camera close to Saturn, and
the smooth disk resolves into belt after belt
after belt, with spaces separating them.
That was the view revealed by the Voyager
flybys in 1980 and 1981, which led scien-
tists to think the rings were probably made
of tiny ice particles that slowly bump into
one another as they orbit the planet.
Use Cassini’s instruments to watch as
the rings filter light from a background star,
however, and all of a sudden those belts
become far more complex. The particles
clump together and form bigger bodies. The
gravity of those objects — boulders and
minimoons — controls the rings, herding
smaller particles and building structures
and patterns. And they change quickly, says
Larry Esposito, principal investigator on
Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph,
who has studied Saturn’s rings for more
than four decades. “Structures develop
within hours in the rings.”
Planetary scientists have identified sev-
eral different types of structures. Some,
which come and go and come back again,
are called kittens — “because they seem to
have multiple lives,” says Esposito. Others,
called propellers, migrate slightly inward
or outward. They are consequences of
gravitational interactions between a small
moon embedded within the rings and the
ring particles themselves. The moon tries,
unsuccessfully, to clear away the particles
and create a gap.
Bigger moons tend to have more notice-
able effects. Prometheus, for example,
whose diameter averages 53 miles (86 km),
“dips in almost to the edge of the F ring and
pulls out streamers,” says Spilker. Several
other moons also leave their gravitational
imprints. Scientists had long known that
Mimas creates the Cassini Division — like
the spacecraft, named for the 17th-century
Italian-French astronomer Giovanni
Cassini — the broadest gap in the rings. But
it took data from the Cassini probe to reveal
that seven midsized moons combine to
keep the outer A ring from dispersing.
The rings also contain density waves
that show up as variations in brightness
and thickness. After studying these pat-
terns, scientists, including the University of
Idaho’s Matt Hedman, showed that these
brightness changes are tied to Saturn’s inte-
rior. The researchers used fine-scale den-
sity variations in the rings as a seismometer
of sorts to learn about how the planet’s
interior oscillates, in much the same way

that solar astronomers have studied how
brightness variations at the Sun’s surface
correspond to its inner pulsations.
Despite all the incredible ring structure
that Cassini’s cameras and spectrometers
resolved, scientists still have questions.
The biggest one concerns the ring system’s
mass. They don’t want to know this mass
just for knowledge’s sake. Instead, the mass
is linked to the age of the rings and how
they formed.
This is important because Saturn’s rings
are the closest example astronomers have of
astrophysical disks — such as the flattened
disks of gas and dust out of which solar sys-
tems form. “It’s not the same, but it’s analo-
gous,” says Hedman. And this means, “if we
don’t understand what’s going on in the
rings, we could be missing things about,
say, how the solar system formed.” The pro-
cesses going on in the rings could give
astronomers valuable insights into how
planetary systems develop.
The Grand Finale data are getting scien-
tists closer than ever to figuring out the
rings’ mass. During those final months,
Cassini flew between the inner rings and
Saturn’s upper atmosphere 22 times.
Throughout the previous 12½ years of
Saturn exploration, the spacecraft stayed
outside the rings, and thus it felt the com-
bined pull from Saturn and the rings.
“When you are between the rings and
Saturn, the rings are pulling in one direc-
tion, and Saturn is pulling in the other,
so you can disentangle the two effects,”
Above left: A disturbance in Saturn’s narrow
F ring appeared April 8, 2016. The disorder likely
arose when a small body embedded in the ring
interacted with material at the ring’s core. The
small moon Pandora (lower right) was a mere
bystander. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
Above right: Potato-shaped Prometheus
(lower left) dips into the F ring’s inner edge
once each 15-hour orbit, pulling particles
into a streamer. This image captures the moon
as it creates a new streamer; the dark streamers
at upper right formed during the moon’s
previous two incursions. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
Left: Tiny Daphnis orbits in the Keeler Gap near
the A ring’s outer edge. Here, the 5-mile-wide
(8 km) moon makes waves from the fine particles
at the gap’s edge. The waves dissipate quickly,
however, as the moon travels toward the image’s
right side. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
says Luciano Iess, who is leading Cassini’s
gravity data analysis. Disentangling the
two will not be easy, however. The prelimi-
nary analysis, he says, “seems to indicate
that the rings did not form with Saturn.”
It will take more research to firm up this
result, and to find out when and how the
rings formed.
Cloudy weather
Beneath Saturn’s majestic rings lies the
planet’s equally magnificent cloud tops.
Cassini unveiled churning and swirling
clouds in the upper atmosphere, and places
where warm gases rise up through cooler
layers and erupt into long-lasting thunder-
storms. Cassini resolved these thunder-
storm clusters into minute detail, watching
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 23
 Tiny embedded
moonlets create
“propellers” as they
unsuccessfully try
to open gaps in the
rings. In one of its
final images, Cassini
captured one such
feature just above
the Keeler Gap in
the outer A ring.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI

The informally named

Earhart propeller
resides in the A ring
just inside the Keeler
Gap (right). Earhart
is the attempt of an
unseen moonlet to
create a ring gap,
but the large mass
of the surrounding
material quickly fills
the nascent breach.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
Dozens of small propellers occupy the so-called propeller belts in the
middle of the A ring. The propellers look like double dashes and appear
on both sides of the density wave that cuts diagonally across this scene.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI

them evolve and listening to the radio Cassini’s imaging camera first saw high-frequency radio emissions created in
static from lightning flashes. the storm December 5, at the same time lightning strokes.
While normal photos painted pretty another instrument heard it — or at least, The jet streams in Saturn’s atmosphere
pictures of the whirling atmosphere, infra- the radio bursts created by its lightning. A carried the northern hemisphere storm
red images let scientists see below the cool similar phenomenon happens on Earth. If along its cloud band. By late January 2011,
cloud tops to warmer regions beneath. “And you have ever been in a car listening to an it wrapped around the planet and stretched
that’s our secret weapon for how to analyze AM radio station during a thunderstorm, 9,000 miles (15,000 km) north-south. As
the depths of Saturn,” says Cassini scientist you probably heard what sounded like the storm progressed, scientists used the
Kevin Baines. “[It’s] how Saturn was static. “That static is not actually static,” imaging instruments and RPWS to view
revealed to be not this nice demure place, says William Kurth. “It’s actually radio it. In summer 2011, after some 200 days of
but this roiling dynamic place.” He and his emissions from the lightning strokes and roiling, swirling, and spreading, the storm
colleagues watched as clouds in the upper the thunderstorm, and they propagate at died out and the atmosphere cleared. The
atmosphere blocked heat from below. They the speed of light.” Kurth is the principal region, says Baines, “has been very boring
also identified vortices and a giant cyclone investigator of Cassini’s Radio and Plasma ever since.”
at each of Saturn’s poles, though only the Wave Science (RPWS) instrument, which Because scientists could watch the great
north pole features a hexagonal jet stream. listened in on the Great White Spot’s storm evolve with Cassini’s broad array of
But one storm stood out from all the
others. The Great White Spot erupted
unexpectedly December 5, 2010. Earth-
based observations of Saturn over the past
140 years had shown that a giant, long-
lasting storm pops up every 30 years or so,
alternating between cloud bands in the
northern hemisphere and near the equator.
In 1876, one appeared at the equator; in
1903, another developed at mid-northern
latitudes; and in 1933, a storm emerged
back at the equator. The pattern continued
over the decades, and scientists expected
the next storm would arrive around 2020
— after Cassini’s reign. But it fortuitously
arrived 10 years early, and gifted Cassini Saturn’s north polar hexagon is a meandering A giant vortex resides at Saturn’s north pole.
jet stream near 77° north latitude. Each side The storm, which appears red in this false-color
scientists with an up-close look at how of the hexagon measures slightly longer than image, spans 1,250 miles (2,000 km) and has
these giant storms evolve. Earth’s equatorial diameter. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI winds up to 330 mph (540 km/h). NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI

24 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
The Great White Spot appears as a multihued
snake in this false-color mosaic from February
2011. Yellow and white reveal high, thick clouds
associated with thunderstorms; red shows
deep clouds with no towering tops; and
blue areas are cold spots. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI

instruments, they could piece together a

coherent picture of what causes these long-
lived events. Caltech’s Andrew Ingersoll
and his then-graduate student Cheng Li
put forth the most likely theory. They say
it’s due to a convective competition
between water-rich clouds and the lighter-
weight atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and
helium. The heavier, wet clouds can’t rise
until the lightweight upper clouds become
denser and sink.
But this competition is a marathon.
“The air above has to cool off, radiating its
heat to space, before its density is greater
than that of the hot, wet air below,” said Li
in a press release. “This cooling process
takes about 30 years, and then come the
storms.” Once the storm rains out its water
The Great White Spot erupted in December 2010 and quickly evolved into a massive storm. By the
content, convection shuts down, and the time Cassini captured this image 12 weeks later, Saturn’s jet streams had carried the storm completely
storm stops. around the planet. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI

Magnetic makeup the region the field controls, called the generate, in much the same way it heard
When you think of Saturn, the ornate magnetosphere. radio flashes associated with lightning.
rings and cloudy atmosphere likely come Previous observations of Saturn had “We’ve been able to use the intensity of
to mind first, but no object exists in isola- shown aurorae at the planet’s poles, similar these radio emissions as a proxy,” says
tion. So, how does the giant planet affect its to the northern and southern lights seen in Kurth, to address questions of “how
surroundings? That’s where Saturn’s mag- Earth’s polar regions. Cassini’s RPWS intense are the auroras and is there a lot of
netic field factors in, and it’s why Cassini instrument monitored auroral activity activity going on.” RPWS also monitored
brought along instruments to study it and by detecting the radio waves that aurorae how Saturn’s magnetosphere and aurorae
changed when the Sun delivered a burst of
high-energy particles and radiation.
But how does Saturn produce its mag-
netic field? To find out, scientists used
Cassini’s magnetometer. This instrument
measures the strength and location of the
planet’s magnetic field lines, which trace
how charged particles travel. Electrons, for
example, have a negative charge, and they
always move toward a magnet’s positive
pole. Both Saturn and Earth are essentially
giant dipole magnets: They have a positive
pole and a negative one. Each planet gener-
ates its magnetic field deep in its interior.
For Earth, researchers have a pretty good
Although Saturn’s north polar hexagon has lasted for at least 35 years (the Voyager spacecraft idea of how it happens. “You have heat, you
first imaged it in the early 1980s), it does change. These natural-color views show the hexagon in
June 2013 (left) and April 2017. Scientists think an increase in solar radiation during those four years have convection taking place in the inte-
caused yellowish smog to form. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI/HAMPTON UNIVERSITY rior, you have rotation in the interior, and

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 25

Above: Saturn’s aurora glows blue while the underlying
atmosphere appears deep red in this infrared composite
image. As on Earth, the aurora arises as Saturn’s magnetic
field funnels energetic solar particles to the polar regions.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Left: Cassini captured the ultraviolet glow from Saturn’s aurora
one day before the spacecraft crashed into the planet. The
north pole lies at the center of this image, while the bottom
faces the Sun. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO/UNIVERSITY OF LIEGE-LPAP
you have flowing electrical currents,” says thick atmosphere hides the planet’s solid
Michele Dougherty, principal investigator core — assuming it has one.
of Cassini’s magnetometer. “All of those To measure Jupiter’s day, for example,
combine to give you the magnetic field that scientists track the magnetic axis and find
you measure outside the planet.” it wobbles with respect to the planet’s rota-
A key component in understanding tion. The magnetic field’s axis and the rota-
Saturn’s magnetic field is the length of a tion axis tilt relative to each other, and that
saturnian day, and this was a major ques- wobble relates directly to how fast the plan-
tion scientists hoped Cassini would resolve. et’s core is spinning. The problem with
This shouldn’t be a difficult question, Saturn, though, is that the two axes are
right? It’s just the rotation period. But that’s nearly perfectly aligned. This makes it
a much harder problem to solve for gas awfully hard to find that wobble.
giant planets than it is for Earth. The cloud The precise alignment also perplexes
tops rotate at different speeds, and the researchers because it implies that the
On May 28, 2017, Cassini flew between Saturn’s rings and its cloud tops, capturing the images for this mosaic. Saturn appears in the left foreground,
adorned with shadows cast by the rings. The rings themselves emerge from behind the planet’s limb and extend to the right. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
26 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
Enceladus prepares to set behind Saturn’s limb
September 13, 2017. This was one of the last
images Cassini took of the geologically active
moon before the probe crashed into the gas
giant September 15. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI
magnetic field should be decaying — and
scientists have seen no evidence of a
diminishing magnetic field at Saturn.
When Cassini flew close to Saturn during
the Grand Finale, the magnetometer col-
lected data about the magnetic field. “We
really expected these Grand Finale orbits to
clearly measure the tilt, and all we’ve been
able to do so far is put a limit on it,” says
Dougherty. The angle between the two
axes must be less than 0.06°.
The team has had the data for only a
couple of months, however, and Dougherty
is confident that after she and her col-
leagues complete their careful and thor-
ough analysis, they’ll know what Saturn’s
internal magnetic field is like. The biggest
hurdle is accurately calibrating the instru-
ment. The analysis requires absolute preci-
sion — the exact location and timing of the
spacecraft’s trajectory, and knowledge of
where Cassini was when the instrument
collected each bit of data. Researchers have
predicted orbits, positions, and times, but
they have to know whether Cassini’s actual
orbit followed them precisely. For example,
Saturn posed for Cassini one last time September 13, 2017. The imaging team assembled this natural-color mosaic from 42 wide-angle images taken
through three color filters from about 15° north of the ring plane. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI

During its Grand Finale mission, Cassini captured

subtle atmospheric details. In this view, the Sun
shines at a low angle near Saturn’s terminator, Cassini crashed into Saturn’s atmosphere September 15, 2017, at the spot marked by the oval.
where day turns to night, and some high clouds This nighttime infrared view shows heat coming from the planet’s interior in red; the dark regions
cast shadows on lower regions. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI are silhouetted clouds. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

might there have been a half-second delay
because the craft felt more drag from the
atmosphere than expected? “It’s a really
complicated process,” says Dougherty of
the analysis. “It’s like trying to find three
or four needles in a haystack that’s chang-
ing shape and size at the time.”
Mapping gravity’s pull
The magnetic field analysis isn’t the only
one proving to be extremely complex and
requiring precise calibration. Scientists also
want to know about Saturn’s interior, and
in particular, how the planet’s mass is dis-
tributed. To do that, they need to measure
the planet’s gravity. That’s not as simple as
it might sound. “There is no instrument
aboard a satellite which can reveal the grav-
ity field by itself,” says Iess. Instead, scien-
tists passed radio signals between Earth
and Cassini and measured the slight chang-
es in radio frequency. Those changes arose
from gravitational tugs of mass pulling on
the spacecraft — the more mass, the bigger
the tug. So Iess and his colleagues can use
those tiny frequency changes to map the
distribution of mass within Saturn. Because
Cassini skimmed the planet’s cloud tops
during its final months, it felt a stronger
gravitational pull from those mass distribu-
tions, and was able to sense finer details.
Precisely understanding those Grand
Finale orbits is crucial to the gravity analy-
sis of Saturn. So far, the team has learned
that theoretical models of Saturn’s gravity
do not match the data. “The gravity field of
Saturn is surprising,” says Iess. “We found
Saturn has features that can be explained
only by differential rotation,” meaning
some portions or layers of the planet move
at different speeds than others. The
researchers still have more orbit trajectories
to calibrate, and thus are still months away
from a major announcement.
Revealing that the interior doesn’t align
with models would be a fitting discovery
from a mission that already has found so
many surprises at the Saturn system.
Cassini’s suite of instruments offered the
flexibility that allowed scientists to make
those discoveries. The mission’s scientists
and engineers worked in sync for decades
to perform what Spilker calls Cassini’s
“intricate ballet.”
“It’s for the unknown, the unexpected,”
she says. “That’s why you do science.”
Contributing Editor Liz Kruesi writes about
distant objects from her Earthbound home
in Austin, Texas.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 27
Saturn’s
small
wonders
Usually known
for its rings,
the Saturn system
is also home
to some of our
solar system’s most
intriguing moons.
by Francis Reddy

ye candy is not in short supply at Saturn.
For visitors who tire of watching the plan-
et’s stormy atmosphere or gazing into the
solar system’s most beautiful and complex
ring system, there's always the giant satel-
lite Titan to explore. This colossal moon
is bigger than Mercury and sports a hazy
orange atmosphere denser than Earth’s,
producing methane rains that flow across
Titan’s icy landscape and pool into vast lakes.
But look again. Even Saturn’s small moons
display some unusual dynamic relationships. For
instance, Pan and Daphnis dwell in the Encke
and Keeler ring gaps, respectively, where their
gravity rumples the ring’s boundary and sweeps
away particles to keep the gap clear. There’s
Janus and Epimetheus, whose orbital differences
are smaller than their diameters, so they should
collide, but don’t. Instead, these “co-orbiting”
moons effectively play leapfrog, swapping orbits
over a four-year cycle.
Other small satellites orbit in the gravitational
safe zones — called Lagrangian points — of the
midsized moons Dione and Tethys. Lagrangian
points are locations 60° in front of and behind a
larger object’s orbit where a less-massive body
can move in an identical stable orbit. Dione trav-
els with Helene and Polydeuces, while Telesto
Above: NASA’s Cassini
mission took images as
the spacecraft approached
and Calypso orbit along with Tethys — an (left) and departed (right)
arrangement thus far unseen among any other Saturn’s moon Phoebe
moons in the solar system. during its only close flyby
of the satellite. Cassini
And this is just for starters. “The Saturn sys- passed just 1,285 miles
tem is full of surprises,” says Paul Schenk, a plan- (2,068 km) above the
etary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary surface on June 11, 2004.
Institute in Houston. There’s a satellite that likely Phoebe is thought to be
a centaur that might have
originated in the Kuiper Belt, the storehouse of become a Jupiter-family
icy bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit; a piebald comet, had Saturn not
moon nearly encircled by an equatorial ridge captured it. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
containing some of the tallest mountains in the
solar system; a spongy-looking tumbling satellite; Opposite: Cassini took
and a moon that vents its subsurface sea into this Saturn mosaic
October 21, 2013. NASA/JPL/SSI
space, providing scientists with an unexpected
potential niche for extraterrestrial life.
Phoebe was discovered in 1899 and is the first
satellite found photographically. NASA’s Cassini
spacecraft made its only close flyby of the dis-
tant moon June 11, 2004, about three weeks
before slowing to enter orbit around the planet.
At only about 130 miles (210 kilometers) across,
Phoebe is about one-sixteenth the size of our
Moon. Its heavily cratered surface is mostly
dark as soot with no signs of resurfacing due
to geological activity. But bright cliffs on the
rims of the largest craters, as well as bright rays
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 29
 Ring king
Saturn
Titan
Saturn’s Phoebe ring is the solar system’s largest. The bulk of the material starts 3.7 million miles
(5.9 million km) from the planet and extends outward to 10 million miles (16 million km), and
possibly farther. The ring is also about 20 times as thick as the planet’s diameter. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
extending from smaller ones, reveal
ice beneath a layer of dark material up
to about 1,600 feet (490 meters) deep.
Ground-based telescopes have detected
the presence of frozen water, and
Cassini’s instruments showed the pres-
ence of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice)
and organic material as well.
Phoebe orbits in the opposite direction
of Saturn’s spin, on a path that is both
more eccentric and more highly inclined
than the planet’s inner moons. On the
basis of these orbital characteristics,
astronomers have long suspected Phoebe
of being an interloper ensnared by the
planet’s gravity, rather than a native to
the Saturn system. Phoebe’s chemical
makeup resembles C-type asteroids com-
monly found in the farthest regions of the
main asteroid belt, while its density sug-
gests an ice-rock mixture similar to
Neptune’s moon Triton (itself thought to
be a captured object) and Pluto.
Phoebe could have been a centaur.
Centaurs are comet-like bodies that
follow planet-crossing orbits between
30 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
g
e rin
hoeb
P
Jupiter and Neptune. Gravitational inter-
actions with the giant planets will even-
tually destabilize their orbits. It’s thought
centaurs originated in the Kuiper Belt
and were perturbed into their current
orbits by Neptune. Once they start cross-
ing the orbits of giant planets, centaurs
may collide with or be captured by them,
be flung out of the solar system, or be
rerouted by Jupiter into orbits bringing
them much closer to the Sun, where they
become Jupiter-family comets. The idea
that Phoebe may have been a centaur
before being captured by Saturn is con-
sistent with its surface composition, but
it’s difficult to say more with the avail-
able observations.
In 2009, infrared observations by
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope showed
that Phoebe resides within a supersized,
tenuous ring of ice and dust particles that
had been previously undetected. “If you
could see the ring, it would span the
width of two Full Moons’ worth of sky,
one on either side of Saturn,” says Anne
Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University
Iapetus
Phoebe
of Virginia, Charlottesville, who led the
research. A 2015 study using data from
NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey
Explorer found this king of rings extends
even farther, starting 3.7 million miles
(5.9 million km) from the planet and
reaching at least 10 million miles
(16 million km). Continual small impacts
on Phoebe regularly eject dust that main-
tains the ring, while particles smaller
than a few inches gradually migrate
inward, likely the source for dark material
found on the surfaces of other satellites,
especially Iapetus.
In 1671, Italian astronomer Giovanni
Domenico Cassini discovered Iapetus,
the next moon of Saturn as we move
inward from Phoebe. He noticed that
when Iapetus was on one side of Saturn,
it was very bright, but on the opposite
side, it nearly disappeared from view. He
correctly proposed that Iapetus is tidally
locked — meaning it always turns the
same face to Saturn — just as our Moon
 As it approached Iapetus on September 10, 2007, Cassini captured this
view, shown in enhanced color. The prominent equatorial ridge is at
center left. Inset: This view along the ridge system shows mountains with
elevations reaching 6 miles (10 km). In places, the peaks of Iapetus extend
twice as high. A fresh impact crater on the distant slope has exposed bright
subsurface ice. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE

Global color mosaics of Iapetus were assembled from images taken by Cassini during its first decade at Saturn. The colors are enhanced
relative to human vision, extending from the ultraviolet into the infrared. Left: The bright trailing hemisphere. Right: The dark leading
hemisphere. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE/LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 31
 Daphnis
Atlas
6 miles
(10 kilometers)
is to Earth, and that the hemisphere
centered on the direction of motion is
covered with a dark material. Planetary
scientists later named this dark feature
Cassini Regio in his honor, as well as the
Cassini mission.
At 927 miles (1,492 km) across, Iapetus
is the third-largest moon of Saturn, and
the planet’s only large satellite in a highly
inclined orbit, which carries the moon in
the same direction Saturn rotates, unlike
Phoebe. Among the moons in the solar
system that exhibit tidally locked rota-
tion, Iapetus is by far the most distant
from its planet. The moon’s density is
only slightly greater than frozen water,
indicating that rock makes up perhaps
only one-fourth of its composition.
As Iapetus circles Saturn, dust migrat-
ing in the opposite direction from the
Phoebe ring smacks into Cassini Regio
like bugs on a windshield, but the shape
of the dark patch can’t be fully explained
by this simple accumulation of material.
For one, the dark side of Iapetus is much
redder than Phoebe.
In 2010, John Spencer at the Southwest
Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado,
and Tilmann Denk at the Free University
of Berlin proposed that the dark deposits,
which reflect as little sunlight as fresh
asphalt, warm the leading hemisphere
just enough that water ice molecules can
sublimate, turning directly to a gas. These
molecules migrate from the warmer lead-
ing hemisphere to the colder trailing
hemisphere, where they freeze onto the
surface again. The slow, tidally locked
spin of Iapetus produces unusually high
daytime temperatures and water ice subli-
mation rates for a given reflectance, so
once this thermal migration begins
32 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
Ring moons Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan are shown
here in color-enhanced Cassini images at the
same scale. Atlas orbits just outside the A ring,
the outermost of Saturn’s main rings. Pan orbits
in the ring’s Encke Gap, clearing it of particles
except for a single ringlet, which the moon
Pan maintains. Both Atlas and Pan have equatorial
ridges of accreted ring material, making
them look like ravioli. Smaller Daphnis orbits
within the A ring’s narrow Keeler gap, where its
gravitational pull generates ripples along the
edges. The combined gravitational influence
of Atlas and the moons Pan, Prometheus,
Pandora, Epimetheus, Mimas, and Janus help
corral particles within the A ring and sculpt its
outer edge. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE
(thanks to the initial deposits from scientists. Did it erupt or grow from the
Phoebe), it can be sustained. As the sur- inside, when Iapetus was young and its
face ice departs from Cassini Regio, interior was still warm? Or is it the
what’s left behind is a residue native to accreted remains of a ring either kicked
Iapetus mixed in with material from the up by an impact or formed when a small
Phoebe ring. satellite passed too close and was crushed
On New Year’s Eve, 2004, the Cassini in the tides of Iapetus?
spacecraft approached Iapetus for the A 2014 study led by Erica Lopez
first time, and planetary scientists were Garcia at Brown University examined the
enthralled with the images it returned. topography of the ridge and found pre-
The heavily cratered body showed dominantly triangular slopes, much like
numerous large impact basins — the what you’d get by slowly pouring sugar
largest in the Saturn system — but its into a pile, suggesting an external source.
standout feature was a conspicuous But new models exploring possible inter-
ridge running almost exactly along the nal formation mechanisms continue to
equator, giving the icy moon the look of a appear. “I think more people favor the
walnut. The ridge extends over 800 miles ring explanation, but the debate is still
(1,300 km) and cuts completely across ongoing,” says Francis Nimmo, a plan-
Cassini Regio. In places, it breaks into etary scientist at the University of
isolated mountain peaks that may reach California, Santa Cruz.
12 miles (19 km) high, rivaling the giant Supporting the ring interpretation are
martian volcano Olympus Mons but equatorial bulges on other moons in the
located on a world five times smaller. system, especially Atlas, Pan, and
There is nothing like it anywhere else Daphnis, which accumulate particles
in the solar system, and a completely sat- while orbiting in and near Saturn’s A
isfactory explanation of its origin eludes ring. And then there’s Rhea, Saturn’s
Blue streaks on the moon Rhea, enhanced here to highlight color differences, reveal fresh ice
re-exposed when material in Rhea’s ring struck the surface. The streaks form a very narrow
band only about 6 miles (10 km) wide, straddling Rhea’s equator, that can be traced over at least
75 percent of the moon’s circumference. These views were created using stereo topography from
Cassini imaging data returned in 2008. It remains unclear whether the moon retains a tenuous ring
today. PAUL SCHENK, LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE
second-largest moon, which may or
may not retain a tenuous ring today.
“On Rhea, we found very unusual
bluish spots along its equator, which
are now interpreted as evidence for the
re-accretion of a very thin ring of debris
surrounding that moon in the not-so-
distant past,” says Schenk.
Inward of Iapetus lies Hyperion,
Saturn’s largest irregularly shaped moon,
measuring 224 miles by 165 miles (360 km
by 266 km). A 2005 Cassini flyby revealed
a bizarre spongelike appearance, a single
giant crater surrounded by a profusion of
smaller ones, and about half the mean
density of pure, solid water ice — one of
the lowest-density materials in the outer
solar system. This means Hyperion truly
must be spongelike, full of tiny holes that
greatly reduce its overall mass and surface
gravity. Hyperion’s high fraction of pores
helps it preserve older craters because
more recent impacts eject less debris to
cover them up.
But the moon’s most unusual charac-
teristic is its rotation. Hyperion’s irregular This color-enhanced view of Saturn’s moon Hyperion, imaged by Cassini in 2005, reveals crisp
shape, eccentric orbit, and proximity to details across the strange, tumbling moon’s surface. Hyperion’s naturally reddish tint was reduced
and other colors emphasized to better show subtle color variations across the surface. Hyperion’s
Saturn’s big moon Titan create conditions low density and low gravity combine to preserve the original shapes of its craters. Impacts tend
that wrench it out of any kind of stable to compress the porous surface rather than blast it out, and what little ejecta is produced is more
spin and even prevent it from tidally lock- likely to leave the moon than cover up older craters. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE
ing to Saturn. Its rotational period and
the direction of its spin axis can change
unpredictably over days or weeks as in geological terms. “We knew there
Hyperion tumbles along its orbit. Once In 1981, Voyager 2 imaged parts of was something special about Enceladus
believed unique, we now know Hyperion’s Enceladus, a midsized moon, at high res- because it reflects almost all the sunlight
chaotic spin is shared by at least two of olution, revealing troughs, scarps, groups striking it. It had markings indicating it
Pluto’s moons, Nix and Hydra, thanks to of ridges, and craterless plains — all types had an active geologic life,” says Ed Stone,
large torques generated by Pluto and its of terrain indicating internal forces had project scientist for the Voyager mis-
largest moon, Charon. altered the surface comparatively recently sions. Such diversity was surprising for a
satellite only 313 miles (504 km) across,
leading some to suggest that Enceladus
needed an unexpectedly large internal
heat source to power these changes.
Soon after the flyby, researchers
noticed that Enceladus orbits within
Saturn’s broad, diffuse E ring, which
extends from about 131,000 miles to
298,000 miles (211,000 km to 480,000 km)
and thickens away from the moon. Ice
grains in the E ring have limited survival
times because of collisions with high-
energy ions trapped in Saturn’s rotating
magnetic field. This process, called sput-
tering, whittles away micrometer-sized ice
grains in decades and breaks down
smaller particles in just a few years. So for
the E ring to exist, a regular supply of
new grains must be ejected from
Long, wispy fingers of icy particles extend from the geysers on Enceladus (black dot, center) Enceladus. In the early 1980s, several sci-
and into Saturn’s E ring. NASA/JPL/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE entists suggested meteorite impacts,

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 33
 This enhanced-color mosaic of Enceladus’ southern hemisphere was produced from images taken during Cassini’s first decade at Saturn. The famous
tiger stripe fractures, which vent water vapor and ice crystals into space, appear bluish due to large-grained ice exposed on the surface. PAUL SCHENK,
LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE

boils and freezes, creating the vapor and

Dramatic plumes spray water ice and vapor from locations along the tiger stripes. Alexandria
Sulcus, the least active, is on the left; Baghdad and Damascus, the most active, are on the right.
NASA/JPL/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE
geysers, or volcanic eruptions as possible
ejection mechanisms, but the matter
remained speculative.
“Prior to Cassini, nobody would have
anticipated that there was an ocean
beneath the surface of Enceladus,” says
Nimmo. “I think seeing actual geysers
erupting was one of the biggest surprises
in planetary science in recent memory.”
Cassini observations in 2005 revealed
Enceladus as one of the most extraordi-
nary bodies in the solar system. Four
warm, roughly parallel trenches at the
moon’s south pole, nicknamed “tiger
stripes,” erupt plumes of water vapor,
hydrogen, and hydrocarbons that regu-
larly strengthen and weaken as Enceladus
orbits Saturn. “The eruption mechanism
is understood, at least in outline,” Nimmo
explains. “The tiger stripes appear to be
water-filled cracks, connected to an ocean
beneath, which open and close every orbit
under the influence of tides.” The water
exposed to the vacuum simultaneously
ice crystals we see, some of which fall
back to paint the landscape as white as
freshly fallen snow.
Due to mutual gravitational interac-
tions, Enceladus orbits Saturn twice for
every orbit of its more distant neighbor
Dione. This orbital resonance forces
Enceladus into a slightly eccentric orbit
where tides heat the moon’s interior.
“Tidal heating is slightly stronger at the
poles anyway, so you might get a feedback
loop: The polar region warms up, it
becomes more deformable, giving rise to
more tidal heating and so on,” Nimmo
notes. “But why this only happened at the
south pole is a mystery.”
There is certainly evidence that other
parts of the surface were warmer in the
past. Some impact craters look like they
have flowed, indicating warm ice near the
surface, and it seems fairly clear that dif-
ferent parts of Enceladus were heated at
different times. “There are even features
that look a bit like ancient tiger stripes,
though this is controversial,” Nimmo
explains. “It’s hard to tell from observa-
tions whether the activity was episodic,
but the fact that you see heavily cratered
and very lightly cratered areas, but not
moderately cratered areas, suggests that
activity was not continuous.”

34 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
Unusual reddish arcs cut across the surface of Saturn’s ice-rich moon Tethys in this enhanced-color mosaic. The arcs are only a few miles wide
but extend over several hundred miles. Among the most oddly colored features on any moons seen by Cassini, their origin remains a mystery.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE/PAUL SCHENK, LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE

Cassini flew through the plumes and
sampled their composition, showing that
nearly 98 percent of the gas in the plumes
is water vapor, about 1 percent is hydro-
gen, and the rest is a mixture of other
molecules, including carbon dioxide,
methane, and ammonia. Phosphorus
remains the only element essential to life
on Earth that has yet to be found in the
Enceladus plumes, but it’s likely present.
With the necessary ingredients — a warm
subsurface sea, plentiful hydrogen that
organisms could potentially harness as a
chemical energy source, and geysers con-
veniently delivering samples into space
— Enceladus is arguably the most likely
and exciting target for the search for life.
While it’s hard to top Enceladus, the
neighboring midsized moons Dione and
Tethys tantalize planetary scientists with
as-yet-unexplained features. “On Dione, a
magnificent set of tectonic fractures was
observed, some in a very pristine state
of preservation,” says Schenk. A pair of
unusual walled depressions in the moon’s
smooth terrain might be volcanic vents;
half of Dione’s surface is covered by what
is likely ancient volcanic ice deposits; and
some propose that Dione may possess a
subsurface sea.
On Tethys, a huge rift zone named
Ithaca Chasma runs nearly three-quarters
of the moon’s circumference, and
Cassini’s cameras detected a set of myste-
rious red arcs that appear to have formed
very recently. “So while Enceladus has
been stealing our attention, these moons Dione’s trailing hemisphere displays a network
have shown intermittent signs of activity, of long, deep, steep-sided fractures flanked
too,” Schenk adds. by bright, icy cliffs. The pattern may be related
to Dione’s orbital evolution and tidal stresses
On September 15, 2017, Cassini over time. Cassini imaged the moon in visible
plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere, ending light in 2015. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE
its mission. Scientists will be mining the
data Cassini returned on these diverse
worlds for decades to come. Even from Francis Reddy is the senior science writer for
the perspective of its smaller satellites, the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA’s
Saturn beckons. When will we return? Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 35
 SKYTHIS
MONTH
March 2018: Mercury at its evening best
The MESSENGER spacecraft revealed Mercury’s stunning geology in this
false-color image. Even under the optimal viewing conditions in March,
however, the planet appears bland through amateur scopes. NASA/JHUAPL/CIW
M
ercury and Venus
rule the early eve-
ning sky, a pair of
bright worlds seem-
ingly tethered to
each other for much of March.
Uranus joins the party late in
the month as it wraps up a fine
evening appearance, though
you’ll need binoculars to see its
fainter glow. Not to be outdone,
the morning sky features three
bright planets — Mars, Jupiter,
and Saturn — that grow more
prominent by the week.
As March begins, Mercury
appears deepest in evening
twilight. In the Northern
Hemisphere, the innermost
planet has a deserved reputa-
tion for being an elusive target.
Its tight orbit around the Sun
means it never strays far from
our star, so it typically appears
in twilight either shortly after
sunset or before sunrise.
36 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
MARTIN RATCLIFFE and ALISTER LING describe the
solar system’s changing landscape as it appears in Earth’s sky.
But two factors make its
appearance this month stand
out. First, the ecliptic — the
apparent path of the Sun
across the sky that the planets
follow closely — makes a steep
angle to the western horizon
after sunset. Mercury’s elon-
gation from the Sun thus
translates mostly into altitude.
But the bigger reason for
Mercury’s easy visibility in
March is its proximity to
Venus. Earth’s closest plan-
etary neighbor shines bril-
liantly at magnitude –3.9 and
stands out in the western sky
after sundown. Locate it, and
finding nearby Mercury will
be a snap. The two remain in
a single binocular field during
March’s first three weeks.
You can start searching for
the planets early this month.
On the 1st, Venus hangs 5°
above the horizon a half-hour
after sunset and Mercury
appears 1.8° to its lower right.
Mercury glows at magnitude
–1.3, about 10 times dimmer
than its companion, but shows
up nicely through binoculars
and should be visible to the
naked eye in good conditions.
The two planets climb
slowly away from the Sun
during the next two weeks.
Mercury orbits our star along
a faster track, however, and
gains altitude more quickly.
The two come closest to each
other March 3, when Mercury
lies 1.1° to Venus’ right. Turn
a telescope on the pair and
Venus sports a 10"-diameter
disk that appears nearly full.
Mercury appears 5.6" across
with an 87-percent-lit phase.
Mercury passes 1.4° due
north (to the upper right) of
Venus on March 5. Five days
later, Venus stands 7° above
the western horizon 30 min-
utes after sunset and Mercury
appears 3° higher. A telescope
reveals essentially no changes
to Venus’ size and shape, but
Mercury now shows a disk that
The innermost planet’s exceptional show
PISCES
Mercury
Venus
CETUS
March 15, 30 minutes after sunset
Looking west
Use brilliant Venus as a guide to locating Mercury as it reaches its peak
altitude for the year in mid-March. ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
Visible to the naked eye
Visible with binoculars
Visible with a telescope
measures 6.5" across and is
64 percent illuminated.
The innermost planet
reaches its peak at greatest
elongation March 15. It
then lies 18° east of the Sun
and stands 12° high in the
west 30 minutes after sun-
down. (It’s still 6° high in a
darker sky a half-hour later.)
Although it has dimmed to
magnitude –0.4, that’s brighter
than any other early evening
object except for Venus and
the night sky’s brightest star,
Sirius. A telescope shows
Mercury’s 7.3"-diameter disk,
which appears slightly less
than half-lit.
After greatest elongation,
the innermost planet sinks
lower with each passing day.
It passes due north of Venus
again March 17, this time at
a distance of 4°. Be ready to
capture some twilight shots
on the 18th, when a crescent
Moon stands 4° to Venus’ left
and Mercury appears the
same distance to Venus’ upper
right. The trio stands 10° high
30 minutes after sunset.
PEGASUS
5°
 RISINGMOON
A First Quarter Moon eureka moment Archimedes

Towering turrets, chains of pointy peaks,
and a parade of rugged crater walls
highlight any First Quarter Moon. For the
best views, look along the terminator —
the dividing line between day and night
that cuts the Moon in half. The evening
of March 24 provides splendid views as
the rising Sun casts long shadows.
North of the lunar equator, Montes
Apenninus (Apennine Mountains) lies
west of Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity).
This mountain arc forms the southeast-
ern edge of the giant Mare Imbrium. The
massive impact that created this basin
threw out an incredible amount of mate-
rial. Later on, lava welled up from below
and buried much of it. But some of this
excavated material remains on view,
most prominently on the southeastern
side of the Apennine chain.
Inside the mountainous arc lies the Aristillus
attractive circular form of Archimedes.
Acting like a canvas, the crater’s smooth
floor displays a remarkable series of
saw-toothed shadows cast by the
rim. Lunar cartographers named this Autolycus
52-mile-wide crater after the famed
Greek mathematician and physicist of Archimedes
the third century B.C. After looking at
this striking feature, take a moment to
enjoy the smaller craters Aristillus and us
n in
Autolycus nearby. en
Ap
You can heighten your experience by t es
watching carefully during the evening on
M N
hours. The long daggers of darkness
knifing westward onto Archimedes’
E
floor retreat with each passing hour. By
March 25, the much shorter shadows are At First Quarter phase, jagged peaks along the rim of
merely pointy, and they disappear in a Archimedes cast pointed shadows across its smooth
couple more nights. floor. CONSOLIDATED LUNAR ATLAS/UA/LPL; INSET: NASA/GSFC/ASU

Mercury fades quickly as

it falls toward the Sun. The
planet becomes a challenge
in twilight by the 23rd, when
it glows at 2nd magnitude.
Mercury will pass between the
Sun and Earth on April 1,
setting up a poor morning
appearance in late April.
Meanwhile, Venus contin-
ues to climb away from the
Sun. Its ascent sets up a close
conjunction with Uranus
on March 28. From North
America that evening, the two
lie a mere 4' apart, their closest
since the same date in 2003.
Uranus glows at 6th magni-
tude, however, and will be
hard to see in twilight. Track
Venus through binoculars or a
telescope as twilight darkens
and watch for the more distant
planet to pop into view.
You’ll have an easier time
catching Uranus in early
March when it stands 25° high
in the west once twilight fades
to darkness. Look for it 2.3°
due west of 4th-magnitude
Omicron (ο) Piscium in the
southeastern corner of Pisces
the Fish.
— Continued on page 42
METEORWATCH
The zodiacal light’s soft glow
The Sun lights up
solar system dust
on Moon-free
March evenings.
The pyramid-
shaped glow
seems to point to
the Pleiades star
cluster. DEREK MELLOTT
Dusty debris sets the evening sky aglow
March is a lean month for meteor asteroid collisions and comets glow to the naked eye. To see
observers. No major showers passing through the inner solar this so-called zodiacal light,
occur, and the only minor one system. This dust concentrates plan to observe sometime
(the Gamma Normids) resides along the ecliptic, the plane in between March 3 and 18, when
deep in the southern sky. Still, which the planets orbit. When the Moon is out of the evening
dark skies always offer a chance the ecliptic angles steeply to sky. Then, find a site far from
to see sporadic meteors. the western horizon after sun- the city, wait for twilight to
The dust particles that give set, as it does every March, the fade away, and search for the
rise to meteors are debris from dust appears as a pyramidal soft glow.
OBSERVING Mercury puts on its best evening appearance of 2018 during
HIGHLIGHT the first three weeks of March.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 37
 N
STAR
DOME
How to use this map: This map portrays the
sky as seen near 35° north latitude. Located IA
inside the border are the cardinal directions H
and their intermediate points. To find R
E
C DR
stars, hold the map overhead and LE
U AC
orient it so one of the labels matches O EUS
the direction you’re facing. The NE S MINOR
URSA
CEPH

stars above the map’s horizon

now match what’s in the sky. Polaris
NCP IS L
DA
AR P
The all-sky map shows LO
how the sky looks at:

BO
10 P.M. March 1 TEÖ
10 P.M. March 15 M81
S

9 P.M. March 31

M
M5

iza
1

r
M82
Planets are shown
at midmonth

CA

lla
ES N

M RS
A
U
VE

JO
NX

N
Arct

R
BER

A
C

LY

AT
O
urus

I
E

CI
NIC
A

LEO M
NGP
ES

Castor

GEMINI
M64

E INOR

x
lu
LE

l
M44

Po
Den

O
M66

M6
ebo
VIR

5
la

Re
GO

gu CANCER
lu
s n
yo IS
STAR Proc N R
A
C INO
MAGNITUDES M
Spic

SE
M1

X HY
Sirius DR
a

TA
04

A
N O
0.0 C
R S
C ER
NO
CO

3.0 A
T
1.0 E MO
RV

4.0 R
US

2.0 5.0
M47 S
NI
CA JOR
STAR COLORS MA
A star’s color depends
on its surface temperature. PYXIS

• The hottest stars shine blue SE AN Adh

• Slightly cooler stars appear white TL
IA PUPP
IS
• Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow yellow

• Lower-temperature stars appear orange

• The coolest stars glow red NGC 2

477

• Fainter stars can’t excite our eyes’ color

receptors, so they appear white unless you VELA
use optical aid to gather more light

38 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018 S
 Note: Moon phases in the calendar vary
in size due to the distance from Earth
MARCH 2018 and are shown at 0h Universal Time.
SUN. MON. TUES. WED. THURS. FRI. SAT.
MAP SYMBOLS
Open cluster
A 1 2 3
P ED Globular cluster
IO
SS M
CA O
R Diffuse nebula
D
N 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
A
Planetary nebula
NW
Galaxy

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

9 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
86 GC
N
3
M3

4
88 GC
ME
UM

N 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
CA
L
GU N
IA

25 26 27 28 29 30 31
TR

IES
S

l
go
EU

Al

AR
S
ER

) Calendar of events
P

t ic
lip
(e c
p
Ca

n
s

Su
ade

1 The Moon passes 0.9° north of 18 The Moon passes 8° south of

th e
GA

ho
f Regulus, 1 A.M. EST Mercury, 2 P.M. EDT
Plei

Pat
RI
AU

Full Moon occurs at The Moon passes 4° south of

M38
M36

7:51 P.M. EST Venus, 3 P.M. EDT

CETUS
TAU R U S
M35 M37

Hyades

4 Neptune is in conjunction with 19 The Moon passes 5° south of

the Sun, 9 A.M. EST
W Uranus, noon EDT
M1

Aldebaran

5 Mercury passes 1.4° north of 20 Vernal equinox occurs at

Venus, 1 P.M. EST 12:15 P.M. EDT

7 The Moon passes 4° north of Dwarf planet Ceres is

N

Jupiter, 2 A.M. EST stationary, 5 P.M. EDT

IO
OR

9 Jupiter is stationary, 5 A.M. EST 22 Mercury is stationary, 1 P.M. EDT

se

Last Quarter Moon The Moon passes 0.9° north of

eu

occurs at 6:20 A.M. EST Aldebaran, 7 P.M. EDT

g
tel

US
Be

AN

The Moon passes 4° north of 24 First Quarter Moon

42 Mars, 8 P.M. EST occurs at 11:35 A.M. EDT
ID

M
S
ER
l
ge

10 The Moon passes 2° north of 26 The Moon is at perigee

Ri

Saturn, 9 P.M. EST (229,352 miles from Earth),

ius S
1:17 P.M. EDT
Sir P
U 11 The Moon is at apogee
LE (251,455 miles from Earth), 28 The Moon passes 1.0° north of
5:14 A.M. EDT Regulus, 10 A.M. EDT
1
M4 15 Mercury is at greatest eastern SPECIAL OBSERVING DATE
elongation (18°), 11 A.M. EDT 28 Venus passes 0.07° north
of Uranus in evening
a 17 New Moon occurs at
har SW twilight.
9:12 A.M. EDT

Mercury passes 4° north of 31 Full Moon occurs at

A Venus, 9 P.M. EDT 8:37 A.M. EDT
MB
LU
CO

BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT www.Astronomy.com/starchart.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 39
 PATH OF THE
PLANETS The planets in March 2018
CAS DR A
Objects visible before dawn UM a

L AC
CVN
C YG H ER
LMi
LY R BOÖ
C rB
VUL C OM
PEG LEO

S GE e Moon
E QU of th
PSC SER Path
AQL OPH
Sun SER VI R
Celestial equator c)
ipti
un (ecl
Neptune eS SEX
AQR LI B f th
ho
CAP
SCT
Pat
CET Vesta CRV
HYA
CRT
Pluto Saturn Jupiter
Mars AN T
Ps A
S CL S GR
M IC LU P
C rA SC O VEL
PHE CEN
GRU

Moon phases Dawn Midnight

19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

31 30 29 28

The planets These illustrations show the size, phase, and orientation of each planet and the two brightest dwarf planets at 0h UT
for the dates in the data table at bottom. South is at the top to match the view through a telescope.
in the sky

Mercury Uranus
Mars
S

W E

N
Pluto
Saturn
Venus Ceres Neptune
10"
Jupiter

Planets MERCURY VENUS MARS CERES JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO
Date March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15
Magnitude –0.4 –3.9 0.6 7.6 –2.3 0.5 5.9 8.0 14.3
Angular size 7.3" 10.2" 7.4" 0.7" 40.7" 16.2" 3.4" 2.2" 0.1"
Illumination 47% 96% 88% 98% 99% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Distance (AU) from Earth 0.927 1.630 1.268 1.815 4.838 10.257 20.729 30.922 33.956
Distance (AU) from Sun 0.314 0.724 1.554 2.561 5.420 10.066 19.895 29.944 33.523
Right ascension (2000.0) 0h42.4m 0h37.4m 17h52.2m 8h42.3m 15h23.4m 18h34.4m 1h38.5m 23h02.8m 19h29.2m
Declination (2000.0) 6°44' 2°52' –23°23' 31°57' –17°19' –22°19' 9°40' –7°06' –21°30'

40 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 This map unfolds the entire night sky from sunset (at right) until sunrise (at left).
Arrows and colored dots show motions and locations of solar system objects during the month.

Objects visible in the evening

CAS
Jupiter’s moons
LY N Dots display positions
L AC
PER AND Io
AUR of Galilean satellites at
TR I
4 A.M. EDT on the date Europa
G EM PEG shown. South is at the
Ceres
top to match
C NC MercuryA appears
RI bright in the S
the view
Iris evening sky in mid-March Ganymede
through a W E

TAU telescope. N Callisto

Uranus
PSC
1
CMI Sun
Ven
u s 2 Io
OR I
MON 3
Pal
la s CET AQR
4 Jupiter
C MA
5
LEP Ps A
PYX ERI F OR 6
PU P C OL SCL
7
CAE
PH E 8 Ganymede
Early evening
9 Callisto
To locate the Moon in the sky, draw a line from the phase shown for the day straight up to the curved blue line.
10
Note: Moons vary in size due to the distance from Earth and are shown at 0h Universal Time.
11

27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 12

13 Europa

14
Mercury
Greatest eastern elongation 15
is March 15
16

17
Ceres
18

Venus
Earth 19
Vernal equinox
is March 20 20

Mars 21

22

23
Jupiter
24

25

26

The planets Uranus

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

27

in their orbits Jupiter 28

Arrows show the inner planets’ Neptune

29
Saturn Solar conjunction
monthly motions and dots depict is March 4
the outer planets’ positions at mid- 30
month from high above their orbits.
31
Pluto

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 41
— Continued from page 37
WHEN TO VIEW THE PLANETS
EVENING SKY MIDNIGHT
Mercury (west) Jupiter (southeast)
Venus (west)
Uranus (west)
Once Uranus sets, the sky
remains devoid of planets
until Jupiter rises shortly
before midnight. The giant
planet lies against the back-
drop of Libra the Scales, but it
is far brighter than any of that
constellation’s stars. Jupiter
shines at magnitude –2.2 in
early March and at magni-
tude –2.4 by month’s end.
If you target the planet
through a telescope, wait until
an hour or two before dawn.
This is when it appears high-
est in the south and its light
passes through less of Earth’s
image-distorting atmosphere.
You’ll be rewarded with
sharper views of fine details
in the jovian cloud tops.
COMETSEARCH
Going to California
It appears as though our extend-
ed drought without a bright
comet will continue through
the spring. But while Comet
PANSTARRS (C/2016 R2) may lack
in luster, it shines for its consis-
tency. This first-time visitor from
the distant Oort Cloud should
remain at 10th or 11th magni-
tude for several months.
Comet PANSTARRS lies high
in the west after darkness falls in
March. You can find it between
the star patterns representing
Perseus the Hero and Auriga
the Charioteer. Deep-sky observ-
ers know this region best as
home to the California Nebula
(NGC 1499). The comet slides
less than 5° southeast of the
nebula in mid-March.
To best see PANSTARRS,
you’ll want to observe it from a
42 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
MORNING SKY
Mars (south)
Jupiter (south)
Saturn (southeast)
Neptune (east)
Jupiter’s equatorial diam-
eter grows from 39" to 43"
during March, plenty big
enough that any scope can
deliver exquisite views. The
most prominent features are
the two dark belts that strad-
dle a brighter zone coinciding
with the equator. More subtle
aspects abound on the periph-
ery of both belts.
Also keep an eye out for
the Great Red Spot. This
massive storm lies near the
southern edge of the South
Equatorial Belt and displays a
distinctive pinkish-red color.
You can see it about half the
time — whenever Jupiter’s
rotation places it on the hemi-
sphere facing Earth. The
dark-sky site during the Moon-
free window from March 5 to 21.
If you happen to be out for a
Messier marathon the weekend
of March 16 and 17, spare a
few minutes to track down
C/2016 R2. A 4-inch or larger
telescope will reveal the comet,
but you’ll want to pump up the
power to 150x or so to see subtle
detail. Look for a fuzzy, out-of-
round object with a brighter
core and a more defined edge
toward the southwest.
The enduring popularity of
comets comes in part from their
wide range of shapes and sizes.
When located far from the Sun,
they often mimic elliptical galax-
ies. And PANSTARRS qualifies —
at its closest to the Sun this May,
it will lie well beyond the orbit of
Mars. But our comet currently
The Galilean satellites take sides
March 25, 5:00 A.M. EDT
W
Io
Europa
Jupiter’s four large moons line up west of the planet before dawn March 25,
just a couple of hours after Callisto passes due north of the giant world.
planet spins once on its axis in
less than 10 hours, so if you
don’t see it right away, you
shouldn’t have to wait long.
Once you’ve examined
Jupiter’s disk, look for the plan-
et’s four bright moons. They
present a constantly changing
vista as they revolve around
the planet. Io shifts position
most quickly because it circles
the planet in only 1.8 days,
while Europa takes 3.6 days,
Ganymede 7.2 days, and
Callisto 16.7 days. These move-
ments occasionally bring all
four satellites to one side of the
planet. For North American
observers, this happens four
times in March — on the 1st,
Comet PANSTARRS (C/2016 R2)
N
21
54 17
E
13
Path of Comet
PANSTARRS
9
Spring’s brightest comet rides high in the evening sky during March. The
dirty snowball slides southeast of the California Nebula (NGC 1499).
lies in the Milky Way, far from
any comparison galaxies.
C/2016 R2 does share some
characteristics with the nearby
California Nebula, however:
S
Jupiter
Ganymede
Callisto
30"
11th, 24th, and 25th — but the
events on the 11th and 25th
provide the best views.
The moons all orbit Jupiter
in the same plane, and that
plane tilts significantly to our
line of sight this month. This
means outermost Callisto can
pass north or south of the
planet. You can see one of
these rare events the night of
March 24/25, before Callisto
joins the other three moons
west of Jupiter.
A few hours after Jupiter
rises, Mars pokes above the
southeastern horizon. The
Red Planet has begun what
will be its finest appearance
in 15 years. Although it won’t
NGC 1499
j
PERSEUS
c
March 5
1°
Both consist of gas and dust lit
up by starlight. And there’s no
doubt that somewhere within
NGC 1499 lurks a star with an
Oort Cloud of its own.
 The Red Planet meets the deep sky
SAGIT TARIUS
Saturn Path of Mars
E which puts it within range
31 28
M22
M28
h stands high in the east at night-
Mars shines brightly as it passes near several bright nebulae and star
clusters in northern Sagittarius during the second half of March.
peak until July, the rocky
world improves noticeably in
March. Observers and astro-
imagers who want to get the
most out of this summer’s
show should start honing their
skills now.
Mars begins the month
among the background stars
of Ophiuchus, some 12° east-
northeast of Antares in neigh-
boring Scorpius. The planet
glows at magnitude 0.8, a
touch brighter than the star.
If you take a moment to study
the colors of the two objects,
you’ll understand why ancient
observers named the star
Antares, which literally means
“rival of Mars.”
The planet moves steadily
eastward against the starry
backdrop during March. It
crosses into Sagittarius on the
12th, setting up a series of
wonderful conjunctions with
some of the Milky Way’s best
and brightest deep-sky objects.
It passes midway between the
Lagoon Nebula (M8) and the
Trifid Nebula (M20) on the
morning of March 19, provid-
ing a stunning binocular view
and a prime photo opportu-
nity. The trio climbs 20° above
the horizon by 5:30 a.m. local
daylight time, just before twi-
light starts to dim the Milky
Way star clouds.
As Mars continues across
Sagittarius, it meets up with
N
LOCATINGASTEROIDS
Discover the nearest dwarf planet
+
M20
25 22 19 March
16
M8
1°
the 7th-magnitude globular
star cluster M28 on March 28.
The planet appears 1.3° north
of the cluster that morning.
Mars ends the month just
0.9° west-northwest of an
even brighter globular, 5th-
magnitude M22. The planet
then shines at magnitude 0.3,
some 60 percent brighter than
it started March.
Mars brightens this month
in part because its apparent
diameter grows by 25 percent,
from 6.7" to 8.4". You should
be able to tease out a few sur-
face details during moments
of steady seeing, particularly
as it grows larger late in the
month. Look for the distinc-
tive dark smudge of Syrtis
Major — one of the planet’s
most conspicuous features
— on March’s final few
mornings.
If you track Mars all
month, you’ll notice it
approaching another promi-
nent point of light. On the
31st, the Red Planet pulls
within 1.7° of Saturn. The
ringed planet orbits much
farther from the Sun than
Mars and thus moves east-
ward more slowly. It remains
about 2° north of M22 all
month. Saturn appears con-
spicuous at magnitude 0.5,
and its golden hue offers a
GET DAILY UPDATES ON YOUR NIGHT SKY AT www.Astronomy.com/skythisweek.
March offers a great opportuni-
ty to track down the king of the
asteroid belt. Ceres dims from
magnitude 7.4 to 8.0 this month,
through binoculars or a small
telescope from the suburbs. The
object resides in Cancer, which
fall and passes nearly overhead
around 10 P.M. local daylight
time in mid-March.
Ceres lies about two binocu-
lar fields north of the Beehive
star cluster (M44). You can get
a head start by sketching a
framework consisting of 4th-
magnitude Iota (ι) Cancri and
the group of four 5th- and
Ceres slides through Cancer the Crab
N
m
m
m m
E
57
61
The biggest object in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and
Jupiter executes a tight loop in northern Cancer this month.
striking color contrast with its
ruddy neighbor.
Enjoy viewing Saturn
against the Milky Way back-
drop with your naked eye or
binoculars. You’ll need a tele-
scope to see its superb rings,
which span 37" and tilt 26° to
our line of sight this month.
You also might catch a brief
glimpse of Neptune at the end
of March. The outer planet
rises an hour before the Sun on
6th-magnitude stars labeled
Sigma1 (σ1) to Sigma4 (σ4) Cancri
on the chart below. Then head
outside, dark adapt, and add
the stars you see to the west of
this field. One of these points of
light will be Ceres. To find out
which one, return to this field in
a week or so and see which dot
has shifted position.
Astronomers once thought
Ceres was the supposed miss-
ing planet between Mars and
Jupiter. It was later down-
graded to an asteroid and then,
in 2006, elevated to dwarf
planet status. Italian astrono-
mer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered
Ceres on New Year’s Day 1801.
March 1
11
21
Path of Ceres
31
CANCER
f 0.5°
the 31st and likely will be lost
in twilight from mid-northern
latitudes. (Your chances
increase the farther south you
live.) It will return to view for
everyone by late April.
Martin Ratcliffe provides plane-
tarium development for Sky-Skan,
Inc., from his home in Wichita,
Kansas. Meteorologist Alister
Ling works for Environment
Canada in Edmonton, Alberta.
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 43
ASKASTR0
BROWN
DWARF JETS
Q: WHAT IS THE BROWN DWARF
MECHANISM THAT ALLOWS AN ENERGY
JET LIKE THE ONE MAYRIT 1701117 HAS?
John Siller, Commerce Township, Michigan
A: Young stars not only accrete
gas as they form, but also expel
material in outflows that shoot
from their poles. Whether
lower-mass objects undergo the
same process as their stellar
cousins was an open question
until the first substellar object
(aka, brown dwarf) was found
undergoing this process by
Emma Whelan and collabora-
tors. Their find was published
in Nature in 2005.
Mayrit 1701117 is one of the
newest examples of a young
brown dwarf exhibiting a jet.
In fact, it is so early in the pro-
cess of forming that it is
really a “proto” brown dwarf,
with plenty of accretion from
its surroundings left to
undergo. While a lot of the
details about these jets are still
The forming brown dwarf Mayrit 1701117 (bright orange-yellow) has
a 0.7 light-year-long jet, shown in green emission from ionized sulfur
in this image. CESAR BRICENO AND SOAR/NOAO/AURA/NSF
44 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
Astronomy’s experts from around the globe answer your cosmic questions.
being studied, we do know that
they are driven by rotating
magnetic fields in the young
brown dwarf. These magnetic
fields sweep up material
from the gas accreting into
the brown dwarf and drive
some of it toward the poles,
where it ends up being ejected
as a jet. Note these jets can be
quite large, often several
parsecs! (One parsec is 3.26
light-years.)
When these jets impact
other gas along their path, they
can excite it and become
detectable on images or via
spectroscopy, allowing us to
study properties of the jet itself
as well as the nearby gas.
Scott Fleming
Archive Scientist, Space Telescope
Science Institute, Baltimore
KELT-9b is the hottest gas giant discovered to date. As it orbits its huge,
hot parent star, the planet’s atmosphere puffs up and then evaporates,
likely trailing behind the planet like a giant cometary tail, as shown in this
artist’s concept. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
Q: WHY ARE GLOBULAR
CLUSTERS NOT
CONSIDERED GALAXIES?
HOW FAR APART ARE THEIR
STARS, AND DO THEIR
MAGNETIC FIELDS AFFECT
EACH OTHER? CAN A
CLUSTER’S STARS HAVE
PLANETS, AND WOULD YOU
NEED SUNGLASSES TO
TRAVEL THROUGH ONE?
Martin Heuer
St. Petersburg, Florida
A: Globular clusters aren’t con-
sidered galaxies because they
are gravitationally bound to
and orbiting galaxies like the
Milky Way, and they have rela-
tively small masses. When
comparing the two, a typical
globular cluster might contain
a mass of 100,000 Suns,
whereas the Milky Way has
nearly 1 trillion solar masses.
In other words, the Milky Way
Galaxy contains 10 million
times more mass than a typical
globular cluster.
The stars in a globular clus-
ter are 50 times closer to each
other than the stars in our
solar neighborhood. To put this
in perspective, in a typical
globular star cluster, we’d
likely find stars separated by a
distance 5,000 times greater
than the Sun is from Earth. But
even at these distances, the
magnetic fields of individual
stars would have little effect on
each other.
If you were flying through
the core of a globular cluster,
you likely wouldn’t need sun-
glasses because even at these
close separations, individual
stars would still appear dim-
mer than our Moon. But given
that you’d have many stars in
close proximity to each other,
there would be nearly 1,000
stars brighter than the planet
Venus in the nighttime sky of
any fictitious planet near the
center of a globular cluster.
Their combined light would
add up to roughly the light of a
Full Moon.
In the center of a globular
cluster, conditions aren’t favor-
able for the formation of plan-
ets because the tidal forces of
passing stars could destroy any
protoplanetary disks. If a planet
did somehow form, it would
still find itself in danger, since
the occasional close passage of
a star would likely disrupt the
planet’s orbit, flinging the
planet into interstellar space.
Brian Murphy
Professor of Physics and Astronomy,
Butler University, Indianapolis
 This eclipse sequence
Q: SINCE THE SUN AND begins at upper left
MOON MOVE FROM EAST TO and ends at lower right.
WEST, WHY DID THE ECLIPSE During this event,
MOVE FROM WEST TO EAST? the Moon moves from
west to east, across the
Mary Lanphier
Sun’s face. BEN COOPER
Wichita Falls, Texas

A: Because Earth rotates on its

axis from west to east, the
Moon and the Sun (and all
other celestial objects) appear
to move from east to west
across the sky. Viewed from
above, however, the Moon
orbits Earth in the same direc-
tion as our planet rotates. So,
the Moon actually moves from
west to east through our sky,
albeit so slowly that we almost
never notice it.
During a total solar eclipse,
however, we can see the Moon’s
true motion as it crosses the
Sun’s face from west to east. As
this occurs, the Moon’s shadow
follows it — moving in the
same direction — and tracks a
path across Earth’s surface.
NASA has created a helpful
video, “Flying Around the
Eclipse Shadow,” which illus- this; rather, it is the mass of the exoplanets, which look like learn about their atmospheres
trates this geometry if you’re planet and the radiation from giant comets, with a tail of gas and environments, the more
still having trouble picturing it. the star it orbits. For the atmo- streaming away from the direc- we can understand and per-
You can watch it online at sphere to escape the planet, it tion of the planet’s orbit. haps work out why that did not
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4579. must overcome the gravita- How the planets got to orbit happen in our own solar sys-
Alison Klesman tional pull of the planet itself. so close to their stars in the tem — and whether that might
Associate Editor The more massive the planet, first place is another question, be the reason I am here to
the more likely it is to hold on and it is still a matter of scien- answer your question!
to its atmosphere. tific inquiry. The process that Hannah Wakeford
Q: MANY EXOPLANETS However, the host star can moved them so close to their Giacconi Fellow, Space Telescope
ROTATE AROUND THEIR help the atmosphere escape. stars is called migration; there Science Institute, Baltimore,
SUN IN DAYS INSTEAD OF Sometimes the gravity of the are a number of theories as to and Research Fellow, University
YEARS, AS IN OUR SOLAR host star pulls the atmosphere what causes it. For example, of Exeter, United Kingdom
SYSTEM. HOW DO YOU from the planet because it is another star could have come
EXPLAIN THIS, AND HOW stronger. More commonly, the close to the system, pulling the
CAN THEY MAINTAIN THEIR intense heat from the star and planet and moving it inward. Send us your
ATMOSPHERES WITH THOSE energetic explosions called Or, while the planet was form- questions
INCREDIBLE SPEEDS? flares give so much energy to ing, other forming planets Send your astronomy
Daniel Gerritsen the particles in the planet’s could have caused an imbal- questions via email to
Baarn, Netherlands atmosphere that they vibrate ance, prompting the planets to askastro@astronomy.com,
and move enough to overcome move around until they settled or write to Ask Astro,
A: You are right in thinking it the planet’s gravity and escape. and became stable. P. O. Box 1612, Waukesha,
is hard to hold on to an atmo- In this way, the atmosphere The truth is, we are not sure WI 53187. Be sure to tell us
sphere under those conditions, will lose its lightest constitu- yet what caused this to happen your full name and where
and not all close-in exoplanets ents first, and astronomers can to more than 300 known exo- you live. Unfortunately, we
have been able to do it. But it is detect hydrogen streaming planets, spiraling them in to cannot answer all questions
not the speed of the planet away. We have been able to settle where we see them today. submitted.
around the star that dictates measure this for some But the more we discover and

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 45
2004-2017

VISIBLE AND INFRARED MAPPING SPECTROMETER (VIMS)

VIMS comprised two cameras: One operated at visible wavelengths,
the other at slightly longer infrared wavelengths. The cameras
separated that light into its component colors, allowing scientists to
ascertain the temperature and composition of Saturn’s atmosphere
and rings as well as of the moons’ surfaces and atmospheres.

DUAL TECHNIQUE
MAGNETOMETER
(MAG)
Essentially a sensitive
and precise compass,
MAG recorded the
strength and direction
of the magnetic fields
around the spacecraft.
It helped scientists
learn about Saturn’s
magnetosphere as well
as the interiors of the
planet and its moons. IMAGING SCIENCE
SUBSYSTEM (ISS)
RADIO AND PLASMA This instrument
WAVE SCIENCE contained a pair of digital
INSTRUMENT (RPWS) cameras — a wide-
As the name suggests, angle one for context
this suite of antennas and a narrow-angle
and sensors detected one for high resolution.
radio and plasma waves. ISS photographed the
The instrument “heard” Saturn system at visible,
radio emissions from ultraviolet, and infrared
lightning in Saturn’s wavelengths.
atmosphere and from
the planet’s aurorae.

ULTRAVIOLET IMAGING
SPECTROGRAPH (UVIS)
The four telescopes of UVIS
took ultraviolet images of
Saturn’s atmosphere, moons,
and rings, and also split the
incoming light into its constitu-
ent wavelengths to reveal the
objects’ compositions.

COMPOSITE INFRARED SPECTROMETER (CIRS)

This spectrometer captured infrared radiation and split it into its
component colors. Scientists used this information to deduce the
temperature and composition of objects in the Saturn system.
 The spacecraft’s 12 instruments showed
Saturn and its family in unprecedented detail.
by Richard Talcott

O
n October 15, 1997, the main engines of a Titan/Centaur rocket
ignited, and the Cassini spacecraft and attached Huygens probe
rose into the sky above Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rockets
didn’t have enough power to get the pair out to Saturn, how-
ever. So, Cassini and Huygens embarked on a circuitous trip through
the inner solar system, stealing a bit of orbital energy from Venus
(in April 1998 and June 1999) and Earth (in August 1999). The probes
received an even bigger boost from massive Jupiter in December
2000, setting them on course to reach Saturn in June 2004.
For 13-plus years, Cassini orbited the giant planet. Engineers
used the gravity of Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan, to tweak its
course and get close-up views of the planet’s atmosphere, rings,
magnetic field, and dozens of smaller but no-less-intriguing
moons. Early on, Huygens dropped from Cassini, parachuting
through Titan’s thick, hazy atmosphere and landing on the surface
in January 2005.
Together, the two spacecraft carried 18 scientific instruments:
Cassini held 12 and Huygens six. These powerful tools unveiled the
ringed world and its surroundings in unprecedented detail. And
amazingly, only one of the orbiter’s instruments, the Cassini Plasma
Spectrometer, failed before the spacecraft burned up in Saturn’s
atmosphere September 15, 2017, nearly 20 years after launch.

HUYGENS PROBE
RADAR

CASSINI SPACECRAFT: NASA/JPL; VIMS PHOTO: NASA/JPL/ASI/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA/UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER; ISS PHOTO: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SSI; UVIS PHOTO: NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO; HUYGENS PHOTOS: ESA
This instrument sent radio signals through
Titan’s hazy atmosphere and recorded how DESCENT IMAGER/SPECTRAL
long they took to return, allowing scientists RADIOMETER (DISR)
to build high-resolution pictures of the This instrument’s imagers built
moon’s surface. up mosaics of the moon’s surface
in the landing site’s vicinity. Solar
sensors measured the Sun’s
RADIO SCIENCE SUBSYSTEM (RSS) intensity and allowed scientists
The RSS used Cassini’s high-gain antenna to to study the size and density of
send radio signals to Earth through the rings airborne particles. Still another
or the atmospheres of Saturn and its moons. sensor measured the atmo-
Scientists then studied how the intervening sphere’s heat flow.
material altered the signal to learn more
about its structure. GAS CHROMATOGRAPH
MASS SPECTROMETER
ION AND NEUTRAL MASS HUYGENS (GC/MS)
SPECTROMETER (INMS) ATMOSPHERIC DOPPLER WIND This instrument pair
This instrument determined the chemical STRUCTURE EXPERIMENT (DWE) analyzed gases in Titan’s
composition of neutral particles and low- INSTRUMENT (HASI) DWE recorded wind atmosphere at high
energy ions, particularly in Titan’s upper Multiple sensors measured speeds of up to 270 mph altitudes and near the
atmosphere and in Saturn’s rings and the density, pressure, (430 km/h) in Titan’s surface. The two deter-
magnetosphere. temperature, and electrical atmosphere. Although mined how the abun-
properties of Titan’s atmo- Cassini never received dances of nitrogen and
sphere during the probe’s the data, Earth-based methane changed with
CASSINI PLASMA SPECTROMETER descent. A microphone radio telescopes recov- altitude and discovered
(CAPS) also recorded sounds. ered some of it. argon in the air.
CAPS measured the energy, electrical charge,
and direction of motion of charged particles.
One of its sensors also determined the mass SURFACE
of each particle. A short circuit in CAPS ended SCIENCE
its life in June 2012. PACKAGE (SSP)
Multiple sensors
helped determine
MAGNETOSPHERIC IMAGING
the physical proper-
INSTRUMENT (MIMI)
ties of the surface
MIMI’s three sensors worked in concert
at Huygens’ landing
to detect energetic charged particles in
site, including
Saturn’s vast magnetosphere, to under-
its hardness and
stand how it interacts with the solar wind.
structure. Several of
SSP’s sensors were
designed to work in
ON THE BACK SIDE a liquid environ-
AEROSOL COLLECTOR AND PYROLYSER (ACP)
COSMIC DUST ANALYZER (CDA) ment in case the
The ACP pulled in aerosol particles and heated them to vapor-
This detector established the size, speed, probe landed in a
ize volatile substances and decompose organic compounds.
direction of motion, and chemical compo- sea or ocean.
It then passed these products to the GC/MS for analysis.
sition of tiny dust particles near Saturn.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 47
 72 minutes
The Huygens probe
became — and thus far
remains — the most
distant human-made
landing craft when it
touched down on Titan’s
surface in 2005. NASA
WHEN THE HUYGENS PROBE dropped into Titan’s atmosphere
January 14, 2005, no one knew what to expect. Would it splash
down into a methane ocean? Sink into a tar pit? Crash into sharp
rocks or tumble off a ravine? And, most importantly, what manner
of world lurked beneath Titan’s thick shroud of haze and clouds?
For landings on Mars or the Moon,
mission scientists plotted out landing sites
with meticulous care. Telescopes and orbit-
about Saturn’s largest moon. What the
Huygens descent probe would find was
anyone’s guess. Huygens had to be pre-
ers scanned the ground, imaging danger- pared for anything.
ous terrain and safe zones, and flight Alex Hayes, a Titan researcher at
engineers pored over their maps and Cornell University who has been part of
planned accordingly. the Cassini orbiter team since the craft’s
But Titan was a mystery. Aside from a arrival at Saturn, is enthusiastically proud
brief pass by Voyager 1, little was known of the probe’s success, though he didn’t

48 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
on Titan
work with Huygens himself. “No matter
what data Cassini collects over the 13 years
of its mission, there is something special
about reaching out and touching some-
thing,” he says. “There’s something special
about landing on the surface, about getting
data from the surface, and Huygens pro-
vided that ground truth.”
PLANNING FOR THE UNKNOWN
Huygens was the European Space Agency’s
contribution to the greater Cassini-Huygens
mission. With very few exceptions, all of
Huygens’ instruments and components were
built by individual members of ESA, culmi-
nating in one magnificent spacecraft.
While Huygens did touch down and
collect data on Titan’s surface, that outcome
was far from certain. When Voyager 1
passed by the moon in 1980, it couldn’t
peer through Titan’s thick atmosphere and
obscuring clouds. The best it could offer
was a tantalizing reveal that Titan sported
organic materials, which led to the under-
standing that it was possibly covered in
oceans made of methane or ethane. Later,
the massive Goldstone radio telescope
received radar echoes from Titan indicat-
ing that at least some solid surface existed
under the clouds.
But without any mapping of Titan’s sur-
face, and limited control over where
In 2005, the
Huygens probe
pierced the moon’s
shroud to reveal
a surprisingly
Earth-like world.
by Korey Haynes
Huygens might land, the mission team
designed the craft for any condition.
Engineers built Huygens light enough to
float and with enough battery life to oper-
ate for at least a short while on the surface
— assuming it survived impact. But over-
all, engineers designed a descent probe:
Huygens would collect all of its primary
science during a fall through Titan’s atmo-
sphere lasting two to two and a half hours.
Whatever it did or didn’t see afterward
would be a fabulous bonus.
Engineers at Caltech even had a betting
pool going for what Huygens would find on
touchdown, with options for “ice,” “tar,”
“liquid,” “undeterminable,” “DOA,” and
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 49
 the gases making up the air it sailed
through. Another instrument measured
the physical properties of its surroundings:
temperature, pressure, the probe’s speed,
and how hard it might impact the ground
or the rocking motion of Titan’s waves if it
hit liquid. It could even measure how the
winds pushed it across Titan’s skies. It car-
ried a whole package of sensors to analyze
whatever it landed on, be it liquid sea or
solid ground.
And, of course, Huygens included a
camera, to reveal what is still the most
distant world on which humans have
landed a spacecraft.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

While the Huygens mission was a rousing
success, it had two notable hiccups, both
related to communications issues between
the probe and Cassini, its relay to Earth.
In 2000, with Cassini well into its jour-
ney toward Saturn, an engineer took it
Huygens sits safely within its larger descent module, equipped with heat shields to protect the
probe during its trip through the uppermost portions of Titan’s atmosphere. Its two redundant upon himself to test the communications
black antennas extend from the flat top of the probe. ESA on the spacecraft. He pinged Cassini with a
simulated message from the Huygens’ engi-
neering model on Earth, hoping to receive
it back. He did receive a response, but it
was gibberish.
The flaw turned out to be in the way the
receiver on Cassini handled Doppler shift-
ing of signals it received. As the craft
moved, any signals approaching it would
shift in frequency, the same way a siren
rises and falls in pitch as it speeds toward
and away from a listener. Cassini’s receiver
for communication with Huygens could
not adjust for these changes. Worse, the
receiver’s abilities were locked in, and
Cassini was already hundreds of millions
of miles away.
Luckily, the team had four years to work
on a solution. If the receiver couldn’t han-
dle Doppler shifting, then the team would
avoid motions that caused such shifts. But
this meant changing how the orbiter and
probe would maneuver through the Saturn
system. Instead of releasing Huygens on its
A scale model of the Huygens probe rests in the snow after surviving a drop test from a height of 24
miles (38 km) to make sure its protective shields would separate and the parachute release system first Titan pass, Cassini would now cart
would deploy as expected on Titan. ESA Huygens along for a few Titan flybys, slow-
ing down with each pass until it could
even a facetious vote for “eaten” — as in by and how do global wind patterns flow? release the probe more gently, on a path
sea monsters. What does the top of the atmosphere look that minimized the Doppler shifting of the
To conduct its science, Huygens was like and how does it behave, including the probe’s transmissions. Another solution
equipped with six main instruments, aimed ionosphere? And what are conditions like at called for the probe to “wake up” earlier
to answer a slew of questions: What gases the bottom of the atmosphere, just above or than initially planned after separating
make up Titan’s atmosphere, and what — fingers crossed — at the surface? from Cassini, since the temperature of the
kinds of particles, hazes, or clouds float Huygens carried an aerosol collector to instrument also influenced the signal.
there? What chemicals churn through the sample tiny particles floating through Although these changes used up pre-
skies? How warm or cool is the atmosphere, Titan’s skies and a spectrometer to analyze cious fuel (for Cassini) and battery life (for

50 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 Huygens’ final resting place

Scientists wondered whether Cassini’s final view

of the Huygens probe, captured December 25,
2004, would be the last they ever saw of the
lander. This parting shot was taken 12 hours
after Huygens detached from the larger craft on
December 24, from a distance of about 11 miles
(18 km). Huygens would coast ever closer to Titan
for three weeks before entering the moon’s
upper atmosphere January 14, 2005, successfully
completing its mission. NASA/JPL

Huygens), the spacecraft had reserves of

both. And they were well worth it to avoid
Cassini relaying nothing but nonsense
from Huygens’ precious stream of data. By
the time Cassini arrived at Saturn, the new
plan was well in place.
But this wasn’t the end of the mission’s
communications problems. Only after
Huygens was well into its descent at Titan
did operators notice that only one of
Cassini’s two channels was relaying infor-
mation from the probe. Huygens was
meant to send information over both of
Cassini’s channels, Channel-A and Huygens’ final landing
Channel-B. But Cassini’s programming site (left) reveals a bed of
was missing a crucial command to turn on water and hydrocarbon
ice, dotted with rocks
the Channel-A receiver. showing smoothed edges
While critical data was duplicated on and other signs of erosion.
both channels, and some other transmis- This image was taken with
sions were eventually recovered directly by the probe’s Descent Imager/
Spectral Radiometer and
Earth-bound receivers, much other infor- colored based on spectral
mation, including half of Huygens’ images, data to give a true sense of
was lost forever. Even so, the information the terrain’s appearance.
A familiar image of an
that Huygens sent back was enough to take astronaut’s footprint from
Titan from fuzzy orange ball to a fully real- the Apollo Moon landings
ized world, in the span of only a few hours. (right) illustrates the scale
of Huygens’ view. ESA/NASA/JPL/
GERONIMO! UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Cassini released Huygens December 24,

2004, nearly six months after first entering
Saturn’s orbit. The probe then underwent
a sleepy, three-week fall through space
before encountering Titan’s atmosphere.
The last the mission team ever saw of the
probe was an image snapped by Cassini
shortly after decoupling.
 Huygens sent Far from reassuring, the ESA team
back this
found the sight eerily reminiscent of the
stereographic
projection picture captured by the Mars Express
view of orbiter the previous year of the Beagle 2
Titan’s surface probe, just before it disappeared while
features from
a height of dropping to the Red Planet’s surface. That
3 miles (5 km) craft would not be found for 12 years.
as it descended “When Cassini took the image of
toward a Huygens on its descent, we had to hope
surface that
appeared that wasn’t the last we saw of Huygens,”
much darker recalls Ralph Lorenz, a member of the
than planetary Huygens team who has also written
scientists had
expected. ESA/
numerous books on the subject.
NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF Huygens entered the atmosphere
ARIZONA enclosed in a heat shield to protect it from
the strain of entry. After it passed through
a danger zone, it ejected the back cover and
deployed its large parachute. Once stabi-
lized, Huygens blew off its front heat
shield, ready to start its science mission.
Huygens immediately started analyzing
and recording, snapping its first image as it
Titan’s atmospheric profile drifted 89 miles (143 kilometers) above
Titan’s surface. It sampled the atmosphere
0.003
140 as it passed through, measuring electrical
signals and cataloging its journey in detail.
Tholin haze After 15 minutes, Huygens ejected its
main parachute and continued descending
120 under a smaller chute. Mission engineers
had planned this switch-over to allow
Huygens to explore the upper atmosphere
Temperature first, then descend more quickly so it
100 0.01 would still have battery life by the time it
reached the ground, if it survived.
Huygens continued collecting data as it
descended more rapidly through Titan’s
Pressure (bar)

80 haze and clouds, encountering some turbu-

Altitude (km)

lence on the way — nothing the little probe

Condensate haze couldn’t handle.
0.03
As luck would have it, Huygens did not
60 land on sharp rocks or hard ice, which
might have crumpled the craft. Neither did
0.1 its parachute obstruct its view — a concern
held by a few members of the mission
40
team. It did not splash down in any of
Methane-nitrogen clouds Titan’s numerous lakes or seas. Instead, it
(CH4-N2)
0.3 thumped gently down onto a bed of some-
thing with the consistency of damp sand or
20
packed snow, the ground around it strewn
Plume with rocks and pebbles that wouldn’t look
Ethane fog
(C2H5) 1.0 out of place on an earthly lakeside beach.
0 Lake 1.5 Safely aground, Huygens continued its
Possible Impacts melt mission. It assiduously recorded image
River water/ammonia Organic water/ammonia
(H2O/NH3) volcano sediments (H2O/NH3) after image of its final resting place for 72
80 100 120 140 160 180 minutes after touchdown. In all, it sent
Temperature (K) back some 100 pictures of the same slice of
terrain before Cassini and its link to Earth
Titan’s atmosphere consists of a hazy upper layer and a liquid-driven weather cycle closer to the
surface. Although Titan is smaller than Earth, the pressure at its surface is greater because its atmo-
disappeared over Titan’s horizon. A short
sphere is thicker. The green line shows Titan’s atmospheric profile: the temperature and pressure of time later, its batteries ran out, and the
its atmosphere at a given height. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER ESA/NASA/JPL probe quietly shut down.

52 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 South West North East South
A PICTURESQUE LANDSCAPE
From the first images, Huygens forever
changed scientists’ understanding of Titan.
Its pictures showed riverbeds — channels
cut clearly into Titan’s face. These rivers
showed drainage networks similar to those 100 miles (150 km)
found all over Earth: small channels feed-
ing into larger rivers, which empty out into
flat deltas.
Bright highlands showed rough, jagged
terrain. Steep river valleys and canyons
indicated that Titan’s rivers could be prone
to flooding, and likewise showed signs of
methane rain erosion. Other riverbeds
hinted at gentler streams. Scientists think
these are fed not by rainfall but from
“spring sapping,” where liquid methane
wells up through the ground. 10 miles (15 km)
Closer up, Huygens took stock of its
landing site. The probe touched down on a
dark plain. While it saw no sign of current
surface liquid, the region strongly resem-
bled a dried lake bed or floodplain.
Scattered around Huygens’ base were cob-
blestones, edges rounded as if shaped by
flowing liquid. The stones are of a similar

1.2 miles (2 km)

0.25 miles (0.4 km)

The Huygens probe showed a landscape shaped
by the flow of liquid on Titan’s surface, such as
this drainage system thought to channel liquid
methane runoff into a larger river. NASA/JPL/ESA/
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
This progression of vistas from four different altitudes, from highest (top)
to lowest (bottom), shows flattened (Mercator) projections of the moon
as Huygens punched through Titan’s haze to reveal its strangely Earth-like
surface features. ESA/NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Huygens’ final resting

place is estimated to
fall within the white
circle on this image
taken with the probe’s
Descent Imager/
A 360° mosaic of images snapped from about 5 miles (8 km) above Titan’s surface shows a plateau (center) and Huygens’ Spectral Radiometer.
eventual landing site (darker area on the right side of the image). This image and other data from the probe have been used NASA/JPL/ESA/UNIVERSITY
to determine that the wind speed in Titan’s atmosphere was about 4 mph (6–7 km/h). NASA/JPL/ESA/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA OF ARIZONA

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 53

After entering Titan’s atmosphere, the Huygens probe deployed a parachute to slow its descent,
eventually ejecting its protective outer shell and exposing its instruments. The probe took
measurements of the atmosphere and imaged the world around it, continuing to beam back data
from its landing site for over an hour. ESA–C. CARREAU
size, implying that the same currents might
have moved all of them, but scientists
remain unsure whether this is the case.
Hayes points out that the rounded cob-
bles near Huygens’ landing site appear like
stones ground smooth by a river carrying
them over distance. But on Earth, a river
drops larger stones earlier in its path, then
smaller stones as the flow begins to peter
out. “What intrigues me personally,”
Hayes says, “is that in the decade since
those images and data were taken, we
started to question everything, or find
that every answer you get leads to three
new questions.”
Huygens quite literally scratched Titan’s
surface. And by opening up an entire new
world to researchers, it also jump-started a
new generation of research, inviting ques-
tions by the thousands. Scientists then and
now look to Huygens as the only eyewit-
ness to an entire complex world, but stud-
ies are limited by the short time and tiny
area the probe could explore.
So far from the Sun and under Titan’s
hazy skies, Huygens took its pictures in a
twilight sort of lighting. At one point, its
vision included a dewdrop that formed on
the probe’s exterior. While probably
induced by Huygens itself and the heat
from its landing, the single drop was none-
theless the first in situ sighting of liquid on
a world other than Earth.
COLLECTING GASES
On its way down, Huygens sampled the
gases circulating in Titan’s atmosphere and
confirmed they were mostly nitrogen and
methane. More importantly, it measured
54 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
the temperature, pressure, and abundance
of gases from the atmosphere’s top all the
way to the ground, creating a one-dimen-
sional map of Titan’s skies. It revealed high
levels of stratification, passing from one
zone to another as it fell.
One of Huygens’ goals was to hunt for
noble gases, such as argon. Noble gases are
chemically disinclined to join with other
elements to form compounds, so their
abundances hint at long histories, stretch-
ing back to the availability of these gases at
the birth of the solar system. Their pres-
ence helps scientists understand how
Titan’s atmosphere came to be — and, like-
wise, how other worlds like Earth might
have attained similar thick atmospheres.
But Huygens, despite descending quite
literally through the thick of things,
detected low abundances of argon com-
pared with nitrogen, especially a particular
isotope known as argon-36. Huygens found
it roughly a million times less abundant
than in the Sun, implying that Titan could
not have gathered its atmosphere directly
from the early solar nebula. Instead, its
atmosphere was likely delivered by bom-
bardments of space rocks, bolstering the
case for Earth’s atmosphere forming in the
same way.
On the other hand, detection of another
isotope, argon-40, tells a different story.
This isotope arises from the radioactive
decay of potassium found in rocks. For
Huygens to sniff out such a gas in the
atmosphere implies that Titan must have a
way to release it: an active geologic, or at
least cryologic, cycle where rocks or ice are
churned from Titan’s depths to its surface
and atmosphere, and released by ice volca-
noes. But whether this process is powered
by Titan’s own internal heating mecha-
nisms, by the heat of Saturn’s tidal pull, or
even if the process truly exists at all is still
under debate.
While Voyager’s original methane dis-
covery had raised the faint specter of alien
biology as its origin, Huygens laid these
hopes mostly to rest. Scientists knew that
some kind of activity must refresh Titan’s
methane stores, or else sunlight would
destroy the gas in a matter of a few million
years. But the arrangement of methane
layers in Titan’s atmosphere, coupled with
the carbon isotopes Huygens sampled,
indicated once again that geologic pro-
cesses were the likely methane source.
However, in Titan’s haze layers,
Huygens detected molecules similar to
tholins produced in earthly laboratories.
Tholins are thought to be important to the
development of life on Earth, and the com-
plex carbon molecules are a source of
active research. Their presence on Titan is
an encouraging sign that the building
blocks of life are not unique to Earth.
SMALL CRAFT,
BIG CONTRIBUTION
While Huygens’ science mission lasted a
fraction of Cassini’s decade-plus adven-
ture, its contributions were mammoth. It
remains the only human-made craft to
touch the face of any moon other than
our own. And its “come what may” design
approach gives it pride of place even among
planetary exploration missions, already an
intrepid collection of engineering projects.
“All of our atmospheric knowledge is
tied to that one observation taken at the
equator,” Hayes points out. This makes
Huygens, in his words, the linchpin of
Titan atmospheric science: “Any predic-
tions or interpretations you make about
Titan, you have to show how it’s explained
by what Huygens saw, or provide a reason
why it should be different.”
Over a decade later, researchers con-
tinue to mine the data and publish new
findings. And any future Titan mission
will certainly start with Huygens’ success
story. For all its brevity, the probe saw,
sampled, and touched what Cassini never
could: Titan, below the veil.
Korey Haynes is a former associate editor
of Astronomy who now works as a freelance
science writer and outreach specialist in St. Paul,
Minnesota.

IN PURSUIT OF
EXOPLANETS
Two massive telescopes MICHAEL ENDL IS ON A MISSION:
As a research scientist with the University
in the Lone Star State of Texas at Austin, he hopes the sum of his
monitor 450 suns in astronomy career will be a chart character-
izing exoplanets, like you might find on a
the hopes of finding futuristic starship exploring faraway stars.
other worlds. As a planet hunter, Endl is a member of a
growing league of astronomers who seek other
text and photographs worlds like our own to answer basic questions:
by Robert Reeves Do certain types of stars host only certain
types of planets? What’s the frequency of
rocky planets within a star’s habitable zone?
Do the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets
contain biosignatures indicating possible life?
The exoplanet search is an exciting field.
A generation ago, it was considered a career
dead end. Now, Endl and his colleagues are
Almost 50
years old, the
2.7-meter Harlan
Smith Telescope
at McDonald
Observatory
in West Texas
remains one
of the premier
instruments for
recording stellar
spectra.
zeroing in on the answers to those questions.
Search techniques
Endl and his colleagues find extrasolar plan-
ets using techniques simple in theory but
painstaking in execution. The two most pro-
ductive are the transit and the radial velocity
methods. The transit method is well suited for
space observatories like NASA’s Kepler space-
craft. It can stare at a field of stars for weeks
while measuring any stellar brightness dip
caused by a planet crossing in front of a star.
The transit method is limited to detecting
planets whose orbital planes are aligned with
our line of sight, presumably only a small per-
centage. The transit method has had success
scooping up hundreds of exoplanet candidates
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 55
 2

1
1. The Harlan
Smith telescope’s
closed tube design
makes it unique.
because of Kepler’s ability to stare at
A row of teapot- thousands of stars at once.
shaped cooling The radial velocity method is
fans around the more forgiving of observational gaps
base stabilizes
air currents within caused by daylight or poor weather
the tube, allowing and is thus better suited for Earth-
the telescope based observatories. This technique
to achieve 1"
uses spectroscopy to measure a star’s
resolution.
velocity changes. These changes
2. Astronomer occur because of a planet’s gravita-
Michael Endl tional pull on its star. This works
ponders his
next target as well for many stars, but massive
he progresses ones are not affected much by the
through his list pull of small Earth-like planets.
of exoplanet When a planet is detected, the radial 3
candidate stars.
velocity method can also be used to
3. The Harlan determine its minimum mass.
Smith telescope Not all stars are candidates for planets seem to be plentiful, but we intense, and their habitable zone is
peers into the
night sky while
searches. “Triple star systems are want to determine if Jupiter-sized closer to the star. Planets circle
recording spectra. ignored because the combined stel- planets are the rule.” M-type stars in several days, and the
Researchers lar gravity fields destroy planetary star’s lower mass responds more
use the data formation disks,” Endl says. “Close Exoplanet science at readily to the planet’s gravitational
in their search
for exoplanets. binary stars are also ignored by McDonald Observatory perturbations, making them easier to
radial velocity surveys because the The University of Texas exoplanet detect. A planet close to an M-type
component stars have radial veloci- program is but one of many searches star can even be detected in one mul-
ties in kilometers per second, mak- worldwide. It began in 1988 and tiday observing run.” Although plan-
ing it impossible to discriminate the routinely observes a set of 200 ets around M-type stars may be
meters-per-second velocity changes nearby stars with the 2.7-meter relatively easy to find, Endl empha-
induced by a planet’s gravity.” Harlan Smith Telescope. It targets sizes that long-term observations are
Endl has been spent 20 years nearby suns across all stellar classes. necessary to refine masses and
using radial velocity to find exo- Another 250 stars are the targets orbital periods.
planets. “Today, the existence of of the 10-meter Hobby-Eberly The Harlan Smith Telescope was
exoplanets is no longer in doubt,” he Telescope at McDonald Observatory built in the 1960s with help from
says proudly. “The discovery rate is in West Texas. NASA to support the Apollo pro-
not as important as characterizing Small M-type stars are popular gram. The telescope can be config-
the known exoplanets. The goal of search targets because they are more ured to feed light into a massive
our research is to find the difference abundant than G-type stars like our spectrograph that takes up the entire
between the planets around M-type, Sun. Endl explains more advantages: floor under the telescope. It is well
G-type, and supergiant stars. Rocky “Being smaller, their radiation is less suited for recording spectra for radial

56 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018

velocity detection.
Exoplanet search time occurs
during the brighter Moon phases
because moonlight has little effect
on spectra. Most targets are naked-
eye stars, but some are as dim as
10th magnitude. The spectrograph
is sensitive enough to measure radial
velocities down to 4 meters per sec-
ond, allowing detection of a Saturn-
sized exoplanet 5 astronomical units
from a Sun-like star. (An astronomi-
cal unit is the average Sun-Earth
distance.)
Using the Harlan Smith
Telescope
Endl’s turn with the Harlan
Smith Telescope comes every four
months. Last summer I joined
him at McDonald Observatory
while he searched for exoplanets.
4 spectrograph
5 exposure is only a minute long.
Endl emphasized several things:
“Important aspects of an observing
run are good coffee and good music.”
As we listened to his eclectic play-
list and sipped exotic coffee, I
quickly deduced that finding exo-
planets is not easy. There are few
“Eureka!” moments when an
observer spots a planet and quickly
confirms it. Exoplanet searches
require gathering extensive data that
are analyzed over time to prove or
disprove the existence of a planet
around another star.
The spectrograph exposures are
limited to 20 minutes, not because
the sensor will become saturated,
but because Earth’s motion smears
the spectra and makes the star’s
radial velocity hard to calibrate.
Because denser layers of air absorb
and distort starlight, no stars are
4. The key
to the telescope’s
success as a
spectrographic
instrument begins
by routing the
f/33 Coudé focus
through the
telescope polar
axis to the massive
spectrograph
housed on the
floor under the
telescope.
5. Like all
visitors touring
the telescope’s
room, the author
had to take a selfie
using one of the
instrument’s large
mirrors. The dim
lighting inside
6 the spectrograph
room required
a 10-second
observed below about 25° altitude. exposure.
The observer controls the tele- 6. Endl points out
scope. The desired target stars are the thorium-argon
listed in a software script that selects emission lamp
and flat-field box
the next star after each spectrum is used to calibrate
recorded. An efficient autoguider the telescope’s
built into the spectrograph slit guides spectrograph.
the telescope during the exposure. A
light meter within the optical path
counts the photons and determines
when a sufficient exposure has been
recorded, often terminating the expo-
sure before the 20-minute limit. If the
star is as bright as 4th magnitude, the
When an exposure finishes, the
telescope does not automatically move
to the next target. The operator must
exit the control room, walk to the tele-
scope and dome control desk, and
hold down a dead man’s switch to
move the telescope. This keeps eyes on
the telescope to prevent possible colli-
sions with either the pier or objects on
the dome floor. The operator returns
to the control room and may record as
many as 30 spectra per night.
Watching the Harlan Smith
Telescope operate was awe-inspiring,
but nothing prepared me for the
stunning complexity of the spectro-
graph. Within its room, which is as
large as the interior of a modest-size
house, a vast array of relay and cam-
era mirrors passes the light beam
from the spectrograph slit at the tele-
scope’s Coudé focus through the dif-
fraction grating, then onto a CCD
camera chip.
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 57
 8

7
7. A small
commercial
telescope
intersects part The spectrograph’s CCD detector Light refracts differently as Earth’s
of the light beam remains continuously below –100° atmospheric pressure and tempera-
entering the Celsius (–148° Fahrenheit), cooled ture change, altering the spectrograph
spectrograph
and directs it with liquid nitrogen. An operator calibration. To offset this, equipment
onto a light meter calibrates the detector each evening keeps the telescope and spectrograph
that controls with a thorium-argon emission room at the same temperature. As the
the camera’s lamp to match specific emission spectrograph creates an image, an
exposure time.
lines to specific pixels on the detec- iodine reference spectrum is simulta-
8. The catwalk tor. The operator can adjust the neously recorded near the star’s spec-
surrounding position of the spectrum on the tra. This anchors known spectral lines 9
the telescope
dome provides
CCD detector vertically by tilting to known pixels in the spectrograph,
gorgeous views the prism and horizontally by tilting allowing spectral shifts induced by
of sunrise in the the diffraction grating. telescope flexure and atmospheric If such options are ruled out, more
Davis Mountains. A stellar radial velocity of 1,500 conditions to be removed. follow-up observations search for
This event signals
the end of the meters per second will shift a spec- Unlike other large professional the telltale radial velocity curve
observing run. tral line by one pixel on the CCD telescopes, the Harlan Smith indicating the star is slowly drifting
detector. The small stellar radial Telescope has a closed tube. A venti- back and forth along our line of
9. Relay mirrors
velocity shifts induced by a planet’s lation system stabilizes the tempera- sight because of the minute pull of a
direct the
telescope’s light gravity cannot be seen through ture in the telescope, allowing it to planet’s gravity.
path onto the visual comparison of the spectra. The routinely achieve 1" resolution.
spectrograph slit
and autoguider
spectrograph data reduction software A signal from the Kepler space- A bright future
camera. The brass measures radial velocity shifts to the craft that a star has briefly dimmed Years of research indicate that
eyepiece tube nearest 0.002 pixel, allowing the tele- is not sufficient proof that a planet planetary formation is a robust
is used to focus scope to detect 4-meter-per-second circles it. Here is where Endl and his mechanism. Kepler data suggests
the telescope. stellar velocity shifts. collaborator, Bill Cochran, dig in and that 30 percent of Sun-like G-type
The spectrograph’s CCD detector do the detective work. Endl observes stars have 1 to 1.5 Earth-radii plan-
is so sensitive that operators are for- the candidate star and transmits data ets within their habitable zones.
bidden from turning on fluorescent from each night’s observations to However, the statistical error could
lights in the room because lingering Cochran at the University of Texas. be as much as 20 percent; thus,
emission will affect the instrument’s Next, the two collaborators deter- Earth-like planets could be as rare
observations. Even incandescent mine if the candidate star’s periodic as existing around only 10 percent
lights cannot be turned on several dimming is due to factors such as a of G-type stars or as plentiful as cir-
hours before calibration or binary companion, intrinsic variabil- cling half of them.
observations. ity, or large “starspots” on its surface. Hot Jupiters orbiting close to

58 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 10

Data for a super-Earth

1Cnc e
30

20

dRV (m/s) 10

–10
HJST
–20 HEY
KECK
LICK
–30
0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Phase 11
10. The spectro-
graph CCD camera
is cooled with
their stars are rare. Researchers transiting planets with 1.5 to 2 Earth Telescope launches in spring 2019, liquid nitrogen
wonder whether such planets have masses, as well as the hot Jupiters or when the WFIRST satellite comes and controlled
migrated inward, destroying the rest that lie close to their stars. However, online in the next decade. through a complex
electronic interface.
of their star’s planetary system. They many of these exoplanets have a hazy In the meantime, researchers like
would also like to know whether atmosphere whose spectra reveal lit- Endl continue their detective work 11. The 0.7-day
Jupiter-sized planets are a normal tle about it. by scanning nearby stars and refin- orbital period
part of planet formation. Of course, astronomers would like ing techniques. With each new of a super-Earth
orbiting the
The future of exoplanet research to detect biosignatures — gases pro- observation, Endl fills in the blanks star 55 Cancri
is getting brighter. NASA’s 2.4m duced as a byproduct of life. To do and comes closer to answering the is displayed in
Wide Field Infrared Survey this with today’s technology would persistent questions about planets this plot of data
gathered by
Telescope (WFIRST) satellite, sched- require a 30 m telescope or a space far beyond our solar system. Endl’s the McDonald
uled for a mid-2020s launch, will mission. Perhaps the Giant Magellan dream of creating the exoplanet Observatory’s
have a powerful coronagraph to Telescope under construction in chart is getting closer to reality. His 2.7m and 10m
image planets close to a star. Chile will be able to detect biologi- current research will be the facts of telescopes, along
with data from
Understanding an exoplanet’s cally produced gases in the atmo- future textbooks that describe the Keck and Lick
atmosphere is also a key area of spheres of planets orbiting the nearby amazing alien worlds undreamed of observatories. The
research. The current problem is stars Proxima Centauri and several decades ago. width of the line
depicting the
that the spectrum of the atmosphere TRAPPIST-1. Direct imaging of a
orbital plot lines
of a transiting planet is a fraction of non-transiting exoplanet will be Robert Reeves is an astroimager reflects the
the star’s total spectrum. Present- more efficient at detecting biosigna- and author who lives in San Antonio. uncertainty of
day techniques can analyze the tures, but such searches will have to He loves to shoot the Moon in the planet’s mass.
COURTESY OF MICHAEL ENDL
rough atmospheric composition of wait until the James Webb Space high resolution.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 59
 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC LEGACY OF
Lowell’s Great
Refractor
Over decades, the observatory’s powerhouse instrument
charted a new course in planetary imaging. by Klaus Brasch
H
istoric Lowell Observatory in
Flagstaff, Arizona, is com-
monly associated with two
notable astronomical bodies:
Mars and Pluto. Percival Lowell, who was
determined to study the Red Planet and its
putative canals, established the observa-
tory in 1895. Its centerpiece was the leg-
endary 24-inch Clark refractor.
Lowell was convinced that the illusive
canals were built by intelligent beings to
irrigate the deserts of a dying world. In
addition to indulging such fanciful notions,
however, Lowell was also an innovator and
competent mathematician who posited a
trans-Neptunian planet and was deter-
mined to find it. He initiated several photo-
graphic searches for “Planet X,” but sadly
he did not live to see the success of these
efforts. Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto
One of Percival Lowell’s early sketches of “canals” on Mars, which he believed to be irrigation channels
cut by intelligent beings, contrasts with one of his early photographs of the Red Planet. The photo
shows no such tiny, linear features. LOWELL OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES
60 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
in 1930, 14 years after Lowell’s death.
Amid all these undertakings, it is easy
to forget that in the first half of the 20th
century, the observatory and its great
refractor were at the forefront of many
other scientific discoveries. Notable among
these were Lowell astronomer Vesto Melvin
Slipher’s first spectra of spiral “nebulae”
(later determined to be galaxies), showing
that most were moving away from Earth
and thereby setting the stage for Edwin
Hubble’s discovery of the expansion of the
universe. Slipher also discovered via spec-
troscopy that the Merope Nebula in the
Pleiades radiates by reflected light rather
than emitted light, thereby confirming the
presence of the interstellar medium.
It’s important to remember that in sci-
ence, key technological advances are often
a prelude to new discoveries. The century
spanning 1750 to 1850 saw major advances
in optics and related instrumentation that
extended astronomy beyond the purely
visual realm. These included the invention
of achromatic lenses and silver-coated glass
telescope mirrors. Concurrently, German
physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer invented
diffraction gratings and spectroscopy, and,
equally important, the German equatorial
mount with its clock drive mechanism.
These advances led to the production of
far better and more versatile refracting tele-
scopes, as exemplified by Fraunhofer’s leg-
endary 9.5-inch Great Dorpat Refractor in
1824. In the mid-1800s, Louis Daguerre
and others developed the first photographic
methods, which were quickly applied to
astronomical objects. By the time Lowell
founded his observatory, the preceding
technological advances made much of the
pioneering work there possible.
Notable in this regard was Lowell’s judi-
cious application of photography to study
the planets. He primarily attempted to pho-
tograph his controversial martian canals, to
prove beyond any doubt they were “real”
and not just illusive features visible only to
Lowell’s eyes. Although the results were
anything but convincing, subsequent work
by two Lowell astronomers — Carl Otto
Lampland and Slipher’s younger brother
Earl C. (E.C.) Slipher — continued and per-
fected planetary photography well into the
1960s. Lampland was a skilled craftsman
who developed novel instrumentation,
including specialized cameras for the Clark
refractor to facilitate large-scale, multi-
image capture on a single photographic
plate. He and E.C. Slipher also pioneered
color filter photography to highlight differ-
ent levels and compositional features of the
atmospheres of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn.
Arguably, E.C. Slipher’s signature contri-
bution to the advancement of planetary pho-
tography was his application of integration
printing. By combining successive images of
planets into a single print, he could minimize
the inherent noise of the grainy photographic
emulsions in use at that time, and also vastly
improve contrast and detail in the resultant
pictures. This process was, effectively, the
precursor of image stacking as routinely
practiced today with digital imaging. Using
this approach, E.C. Slipher produced some of
the finest and most detailed planetary images
of the photographic era. Most of these are
featured in his two classic books: Mars, the
Photographic Story (1962) and A Photographic
Study of the Brighter Planets (1964).

Into the modern age

The arrival of the Space Age in the late 1950s
heralded renewed interest and research
in lunar and planetary astronomy. Lowell
Observatory and the venerable Clark refrac-
tor again played central roles. Two NASA-
funded programs were initiated at that time,
both centered on the observatory and part-
ner institutions. One was the International
Planetary Patrol Program (IPPP), and the
other was the Lunar Aeronautical Charts
(LAC) project.
The IPPP, led by Lowell astronomer
William Baum, involved several observato-
ries worldwide and was designed
to constantly monitor the major planets
photographically whenever they were favor-
ably placed for observation. The goal was
to garner as much information as possible
on atmospheric, weather, compositional,
and physical characteristics of each planet, in
preparation for space probe missions to them.
To these ends, telescopes in the 24- to
26-inch aperture range at eight observato-
ries around the globe were
modified to a stan-
dard image

The 24-inch Clark

refractor was built
just before the turn
of the 20th century.
A renovation was
completed in 2015.
DAVID J. EICHER
scale and then coupled with specially
designed 35mm film cameras. These semi-
automatic devices used innovative focusing,
guiding, and color filter applications to
ensure as much uniformity in the resulting
images as possible. By the time this program
ended in the mid-1970s, it had generated over
a million high-quality planetary images and
provided an enormous amount of new infor-
mation on the atmospheric dynamics of mar-
tian clouds and dust storms, rotational
currents of the jovian cloud deck, the retro-
grade rotation of the venusian upper atmo-
sphere, and the physical characteristics of
Saturn’s rings.
The Clark refractor’s last major scientific
contributions did not involve direct photogra-
phy, but provided visual backup for astrono-
mers, geologists, and cartographers involved
with the LAC project in preparation for the
Apollo and early spacecraft era. This project
combined the best available lunar photo-
graphs from Mount Wilson, Lick, McDonald,
Yerkes, and Pic du Midi observatories, with
visual observations obtained with the Clark
telescope. The latter resolved far finer lunar
detail than the grainy photographs of the This famous planetary camera was used with the 24-inch Clark refractor for years by astronomer
time could record. The LAC series charts pro- Earl C. Slipher. KLAUS BRASCH
duced in the early 1960s thus marked the cul-

Differing colors of martian storm clouds

mination of Earth-based lunar mapping
efforts.
October 16, 1973
Current imaging
with the scope Red Green Blue Ultraviolet

Today, the Lowell refractor is completely

dedicated to public outreach and education,
and it has enchanted hundreds of thousands
of visitors over the decades. As a participant
in that educational effort, I have been fortu-
nate to try digital imaging through this clas-
sic telescope. I was particularly interested in
International Planetary Patrol Program
seeing how well my results compared to the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona
film-based images of yesteryear, and more
specifically to the best lunar charts of the Mars was a frequent target of Lowell Observatory astronomers from 1960 to 1974, when they
pre-Apollo era. operated the International Planetary Patrol Program at Lowell and captured Mars through
various filters. LOWELL OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES
My first go at planetary imaging with
the Clark was in October 2003 when Saturn
was exceptionally well placed with nearly
wide-open rings. Webcams weren’t popular
yet, but at the time, I really needed a larger
sensor to accommodate the image scale that
a telescope of 9,770mm focal length produces.
My choice was a Nikon Coolpix 995 camera
with a (then-impressive) 3.3-megapixel
CCD sensor and 4x optical zoom. I took some
half-dozen exposures in quick succession
and then stacked them in an early version
of RegiStax.
Although seeing conditions were well
above average that night, I soon discovered a Examples of Slipher’s finest planetary photographs made with the Clark reveal subtle
more serious limitation — chromatic atmospheric and surface features on Jupiter (left) and Mars. LOWELL OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES

62 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 aberration. At the relatively fast f/16 focal
ratio, the classic achromat exhibits consider-
able secondary color. Since the telescope is
equipped with a front-end iris diaphragm,
even closing it down to 18 inches left dimin-
ished, but still evident, purple color fringes.
Of course, it’s important to realize that at the
time of its manufacture in the late 1800s, the
refractor was corrected principally for visual
observations and not color photography.
Even extensive image processing left
residual color. After I converted my first digi-
tal image of Saturn to black and white, it
The author took this image of Saturn with the Lowell refractor in 2003. It shows color unprocessed wasn’t quite on par with E.C. Slipher’s best.
and processed versions (left and center), and a modern black-and-white version (right). KLAUS BRASCH Clearly the better way to proceed is with a
monochrome webcam and tri-filter imaging,
which I hope to try soon.
Since then, I’ve enjoyed a number of
opportunities to image the Moon with the
Clark telescope and far better digital equip-
ment, including a Canon 50 DSLR and just
recently an ASI-120 webcam. Fortunately,
chromatic aberration is not a significant issue
with lunar imaging, provided one shoots in
monochrome or black and white. For a tele-
scope with such a large aperture and focal
length, atmospheric steadiness, or seeing, is
far more critical. This is particularly impor-
tant since the Clark is always in high
demand, and access to it must be scheduled
well in advance with no guarantees about
weather or seeing conditions. Still, I have
been fortunate to have occasionally experi-
enced seeing conditions most amateurs
would rate 7 to 8 out of 10 — fair to good,
but not excellent.
I take pride in sharing a few examples of
This photo-geologic map of the area surrounding Copernicus Crater on the Moon was made modern images taken through the great
by Gene Shoemaker and R.J. Hackman in 1960. Topographic details were based on the best Clark refractor. They include a wide-angle
Earth-based photos available at the time; Lowell’s refractor contributed some of them. NASA/USGS mosaic of the Catharina, Cyrillus, and
Theophilus crater trio on the Moon, taken
with the DSLR at prime focus under good
seeing. The mosaic was compiled from a
stack of 50 exposures combined in RegiStax 6.
The smallest craterlets resolved are about
1.25 miles (2 kilometers) in diameter.
Capturing fresh images with a storied old
instrument, linked to several of the great dis-
coveries about the universe, is thrilling. If
you haven’t visited Lowell Observatory, do so.
You’ll find history and current science — in
areas of solar system, galactic, and extraga-
lactic — seeping from the place. It’s an amaz-
ing blend of past and present.

Klaus Brasch is a retired bio-scientist and public

program volunteer at Lowell Observatory. He is
grateful to Lowell Observatory archivist Lauren
Amundsen, public program manager Samantha
A panoramic view of the Mare Nectaris region of the Moon was created by the author using the Gorney, and historian Kevin Schindler for invalu-
Clark refractor. Near center is the crater trio of Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina. KLAUS BRASCH able support and assistance with this project.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 63
 Astronomy tests
Celestron’s
CGX mount
If you’re ready for the next level of telescope mounts,
this may be the one for you. by Tom Trusock
A CRITICALLY IMPORTANT,
but often overlooked, component of any
observing setup is the mount. At a mini-
mum, a mount needs to do two things:
support the payload properly and allow for
smooth tracking at high powers.
Although these requirements seem sim-
ple, a good mount can be a difficult pur-
chase. Too often, amateurs deliberately
choose mounts too small for their equip-
ment, mainly due to expense. While
visual observers can get away with this,
Celestron’s
CGX equatorial
mount will drive loads
up to 55 pounds (24.9
kilograms) with a
high degree of
accuracy.
64 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
astroimagers cannot. If you’re taking pho-
tos, you’re far better off stepping up to
the next level of support, rather than try-
ing to make do with something that is
barely sufficient.
Enter Celestron’s CGX equatorial
mount. This welcome piece of equipment
is the company’s new entry in mid/heavy
class German equatorial mounts (GEM).
The specs
At a weight of 63.2 pounds (28.7 kilo-
grams) — 44 pounds (20 kg) for the
head alone — and sporting a 55-pound
(25 kg) capacity, the CGX mount is the
new Celestron workhorse for scopes with
apertures of 6 to 11 inches.
The CGX reflects an overall redesign to
accommodate new control systems for both
observers and imagers. It features internal
cabling and two AUX ports, which support
both SkyPortal WiFi and StarSense
AutoAlign technology. For those observ-
ing remotely, Celestron has included
sensors that return the mount to
its index position in case of a
power failure. Also, the sensors
will shut off slewing or tracking
before the system reaches its hard
stop to prevent damage.
Imagers will be pleased with the
new software to control operation and
imaging. Particularly attractive is the
ability to compensate for individual
variations in the mechanics of the
mount through multipoint mount
modeling. Additionally, you’ll find
an autoguider port and a USB 2.0
port (for software updates).
 The CGX
equatorial
mount and tripod
comes with
everything you
see here.
Celestron also touts the fact that the mount
supports Programmable Periodic Error
Correction. The drive system is now belt
driven with spring-loaded worm gears to
ensure a solid connection.
And, of course, the Celestron NexStar+
control drives the entire system. If you’ve
used the NexStar system within the past
few years, you’ll feel right at home. The
40,000-object database contains the
Messier, NGC, Caldwell, and other astro-
nomical object catalogs.
The arrival
The CGX comes in two boxes labeled
“team lift.” If you’re getting this deliv-
ered, you may want to enlist some help
moving it to where you plan to unpack it.
While the mount itself is not difficult for
a healthy individual to handle, it’s a little
awkward when boxed.
As you unpack, you’ll find a tripod,
accessory tray, hand controller, GEM head,
two 11-pound (5 kg) counterweights, and a
DC power adapter. The combined 22 pounds
(10 kg) of counterweights should be suffi-
cient to balance most equipment while keep-
ing the entire setup under the 55-pound
(25 kg) rating. Celestron also offers an AC
power adapter and 17-pound (8 kg) counter-
weights as options. In the box, you’ll find
a code to download a special Celestron
edition of the Starry Night 7 software for
Windows or Mac.
The dovetail that ships with the CGX is
a two-in-one unit that supports both CGE
(otherwise known as a Losmandy D plate)
and CG-5 (Vixen) dovetails. Because the
CG-5 saddle is recessed under the CGE
portion, you may find certain CG-5 dove-
tail bars do not fit properly, although I had
no issues. The ability to support both dove-
tails is a nice touch and something that I’d
like to see become standard.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Celestron CGX equatorial mount
Weight, head: 44 pounds (20 kilograms)
Weight, tripod: 19.2 pounds (8.7 kg)
Load capacity: 55 pounds (24.9 kg)
Tracking rates: Sidereal, solar, lunar
Tripod height: 47¼ to 77½ inches
(120 to 197 centimeters)
Included accessories: tripod, accessory
tray, two counterweights, DC power
cable, NexStar+ hand controller
Price: $2,199
Contact: Celestron
2835 Columbia St.
Torrance, CA 90503
310.328.9560
www.celestron.com
A polar scope is not included, but
Celestron notes that one will be available as
an option soon. The mount does support
Celestron’s All-Star Polar Alignment tech-
nology, which allows you to use the loca-
tion of any bright star to fine-tune the
polar alignment. If you use this, I recom-
mend running the routine a couple of
times for the best accuracy.
Under the stars
Field setup requires the included
8-millimeter Allen wrench to tighten the
head attachment bolt. Celestron engineers
have provided a place on the mount to
store the wrench, but if you frequently
travel to dark sites and break down the
mount on a regular basis, I’d recommend
that you store an extra Allen (or two) in
your observing kit.
I tested the CGX with a variety of pay-
loads, from a lightweight refractor to a
The connector
that comes
with the mount
Celestron C11 SCT can accommodate
Losmandy or Vixen
(about 30 pounds
[14 kg]). The mount
dovetail plates.
bore the payloads well
for visual use, and settle
time was more than acceptable.
While observing through the C11, I could
tell that Celestron has definitely improved
the damping time in this class of mount.
The pointing accuracy of the NexStar+
system was top-notch. For more difficult
targets, I found the high-precision pointing
mode (Precise GoTo) very helpful. For
those unfamiliar with it, you perform an
alignment on a bright star near your target,
and then the mount determines how far off
you are from the ideal model and compen-
sates when slewing to your next target.
Astrophotographers who routinely image
objects too faint to be seen through the
optics will appreciate this.
A positive verdict
In all, I was impressed with Celestron’s
CGX equatorial mount. At its price point,
it offers a good array of standard features
and expandability. I’d recommend anyone
who carries a cellphone, tablet, or laptop
consider purchasing the SkyPortal WiFi
module. At $99.95, this is a relatively
inexpensive add-on. Amateurs who want
to bypass the manual alignment proce-
dure will be interested in the StarSense
AutoAlign ($349.95).
Celestron has developed a solid, usable,
and expandable mount at a decent price.
The CGX will serve an amateur well for
years of either visual or photographic use
no matter which optical tube(s) you couple
it with. I highly recommend it.
Tom Trusock is an equipment guru
who does most of his testing near his
home in Ubly, Michigan.
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 65
 NEW Attention, manufacturers: To submit a product
PRODUCTS for this page, email mbakich@astronomy.com.

10mm eyepiece Guide scope

Omegon Orion Telescopes & Binoculars
Landsberg, Germany Watsonville, California
Omegon’s Panorama II 10mm Orion’s 30mm Ultra-Mini Guide
Okular 1.25" eyepiece offers a Scope is a mere 4.7 inches (11.9
100° apparent field of view. centimeters) long and weighs
This product is waterproof, just 7.6 ounces (215 grams). The
has an eight-element design company designed it for use
and 19.7 millimeters of eye relief, with its StarShoot AutoGuider
and fits 1¼" focusers. It is 4
Future eclipses map Pro Mono, StarShoot All-In-One
inches (101 mm)
GreatAmericanEclipse.com Camera, and similar eyepiece-
long and weighs
Santa Fe, New Mexico sized autoguiders.
20mm eyepiece
GreatAmericanEclipse.com’s Orion Telescopes & Binoculars
13.2 ounces (375 $129.99 Watsonville, California
World Map of Solar Eclipses
grams). It has 800.447.1001 Orion’s 20mm LHD 80-Degree
from 2011 to 2060 shows the
internal filter www.telescope.com Lanthanum Ultra-Wide Eyepiece
path of every total, hybrid, and
threads and
annular eclipse during that offers 20 millimeters of eye
an adjustable
50-year span. Two inset maps relief, an 80° apparent field of
eye cup.
show eclipses over the Arctic view, and fully multicoated
199 euros optics. Its 2" barrel has threads
and Antarctic regions without
+49 (0) 8191- that accept 2" filters, and it has
distortion. The company prints
94049-0 a rubber eyeguard. The body
the map on heavy stock.
www.omegon.eu is aluminum and weighs
It measures 19 by 27 inches
(48.3 by 68.6 centimeters). 20 ounces (567 grams).
$10 $269.99
GreatAmericanEclipse@gmail.com 800.447.1001
www.GreatAmericanEclipse.com www.telescope.com

SEE REPORTS ON 350+ PRODUCTS AT www.Astronomy.com/equipment.

ScopeBuggy
• For use with most tripods,
DOBs and piers
MARKETPLACE

THE FINAL DAYS

• 10" Pneumatic tires for soft ride STARMUS III: A TRIBUT
STEPHEN HAWKING
E TO
OF CASSINI p. 26
Sk o t !

p. 54
y 2 he
7
ht e t US

JANUARY 2017
01
Nig Guid ON

$345.00*
B

Plus S&H
Approx. $60 Shipping
ine
lling astronomy magaz
The world’s best-se

USA SPECIAL ISSUE

SCOPEBUGGY *Subject to change

P.O. BOX 834
Elephant Butte, NM
87935 Patent Pending • Gravitational waves found
discovered
• Earth-mass planet
a Centauri
around Proxim
• Juno arrives at Jupiter
• Planet Nine lurks in?
915-443-9010 outer solar system
• Strange radio bursts detecte
d

www.scopebuggy.com AND MORE p.

18

STUNNING GUIDE: nebulae p. 44

Sizing up planetary
pe making p. 46
The lost art of telesco

*REWARD*
Keeping it “Beautifully” Simple Get a Full Year of
Almost Zero Add-Ons... Robotic right out of the box
Almost Zero Installation... Takes hours not months
Astronomy!
$25,000.00 • Spectacular celestial
photography.
The solar system formation theories have all
been disproven. The first person to PROVE
the Accretion Theory or DISPROVE The AP • Observing tips and
Theory which logically states that gravity is monthly star maps.
not holding our atmosphere and describes
the formation of water and our solar system • Coverage of the latest
wins. Must include an example in nature
P30379

(on Earth) and a successful experiment. NASA missions.

READ: www.aptheory.info
www.21st-century-astronomyHOME.com
domesales@astrohaven.com COMMENT: aptheory@aptheory.info
949.215.3777 www.astrohaven.com  no purchase necessary

66 A S T R O N O M Y • MA R CH 2018
 BINOCULARUNIVERSE
BY P H I L H A R R I N G TO N
Star clusters
in Monoceros
Little-known star groups offer gemmy views.
T
his month, three of
the season’s brightest
stars — Betelgeuse,
Sirius, and Procyon
— form a large equi-
lateral triangle that many know
as the Winter Triangle.
Although they blaze brightly on
clear nights, they frame a sur-
prisingly barren part of the late
winter sky. Much of this vast,
starless region belongs to
Monoceros the Unicorn.
Although hapless Monoceros
holds little to grab the attention
of constellation hunters, it over-
flows with open star clusters for
us binocularists. Yet, while
many of those clusters are vis-
ible in binoculars, only one
found its way into Charles
Messier’s catalog. That’s our
first stop this month, M50.
M50’s story is an interesting
one. The Italian-born French
astronomer Giovanni Cassini is
often credited with its discov-
ery. He is said to have spotted a
“nebula” between Canis Major
and Canis Minor sometime
before 1711. Although Messier
searched for Cassini’s nebula in
α Mon
Pakan’s 3 is an asterism that lies close to M50. This zigzag clump was named
by amateur astronomer Randy Pakan from Edmonton, Alberta. TONY HALLAS
1771, he never found it. Only a
year later did he chance upon
an errant open cluster in the
same vicinity; it became M50.
Most assume that this was
Cassini’s “nebula,” but we will
probably never really know for
sure.
One thing we do know for
sure is that even though M50
lies in the middle of nowhere,
it’s surprisingly easy to find
with binoculars. Begin your
hunt at Sirius and slowly scan
northeastward toward Procyon.
Along the way, you’ll pass
Theta (θ) Canis Majoris about
a binocular field from Sirius.
Another field-hop in the same
direction should bring a tiny
blur of starlight into view.
That’s M50.
Through my 10x50 binocu-
lars, M50 offers a soft blur of
light peppered by a few faint
points. The brightest cluster
star, at 8th magnitude, lies just
south of center. When I use my
16x70 binoculars, more stars
emerge from the fog, while
under dark skies my 25x100s
reveal that those stars seem to
β Mon
Pakan’s 3
The sparse open star cluster M50 makes a good sight in binoculars. It is one of the
highlights of Monoceros. RICHARD MCCOY
fall into curved lines and arcs
that some see as heart-shaped
or possibly like an arrowhead
oriented east-west. If your eyes
are especially color-sensitive,
you may notice that M50’s
brightest star shows a subtle
golden tint. All other cluster
members appear white.
A trio of open star clusters
lies southeast of M50. The most
obvious is NGC 2353. With
M50 still in view, shift your
attention about half a field to
the southeast. There, you’ll spot
three 6th-magnitude stars in a
gentle arc ¾° long. Look care-
fully, and you may see that the
center star in the arc looks a
little fuzzy and is accompanied
by some fainter companions.
That’s the cluster. All told, some
100 stars belong to NGC 2353,
although most fall below the
reach of binoculars. The other
two clusters, NGC 2335 and
NGC 2343 are fainter still.
As you approach M50 from
Theta Canis Major to the south,
you may notice a tiny zigzag
clump of faint stars a little west
of the line connecting those
two. That asterism is best
known as Pakan’s 3, named
after amateur astronomer
Randy Pakan from Edmonton,
Alberta, who first noted its
shape. Depending on your bin-
oculars, it should be in the
same field as M50, since both
are separated by only 3°. Put
M50 in the northeastern part of
your view, then look to the
southwest for a collection of
eight faint stars that together
form an angled number 3.
None of those stars shines
brighter than 9th magnitude,
however, so you’ll need a very
clear March night to see them.
Finally, let’s visit another
fun asterism that I first
bumped into more than three
decades ago while researching
for my book Touring the
Universe Through Binoculars.
Look about 5.5° west of
M50, and less than half a
degree northwest of the 5th-
magnitude red giant SAO
133585. There, you’ll find a
compact clump of seven faint
stars forming an inverted
letter V. Given the constellation
they lie within, the group has
since become known as the
Unicorn’s Horn. All seven stars
span a compact 7', so they may
look nebulous. Since none
shines brighter than 9th mag-
nitude, 10x70 binoculars are
probably the smallest that will
show them well. The group is
clear in my 16x70s and striking
in my 25x100s.
Let me know how you do
in sighting the Unicorn’s Horn,
as well as the other targets
mentioned this month. Contact
me through my website,
philharrington.net. Until next
month, remember that two
eyes are better than one.
Phil Harrington is a longtime
contributor to Astronomy and
the author of many books.
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 67
 OBSERVINGBASICS
BY GLENN CHAPLE
EIGHT MORE DOUBLE STAR WONDERS
Name R.A. Dec. Mags. Sep. P.A.
41 Aurigae 6h11.6m 48°43' 6.2, 6.9 7.4" 357°

Is this stellar 20 Geminorum

17 Hydrae
6h32.3m
Nu1 (ν1) Canis Majoris 6h36.4m
8h55.5m
17°47'
–18°40'
–7°58'
6.3, 6.9
5.8, 7.4
6.7, 6.9
19.7"
17.3"
4.0"
211°
264°
4°

pair marathon- 35 Sextantis

83 Leonis
88 Leonis
10h43.3m
11h26.8m
11h31.7m
4°45'
3°01'
14°22'
6.2, 7.1
6.6, 7.5
6.3, 9.1
6.7"
28.2"
15.7"
239°
149°
332°

worthy? Putting the finishing

touches on the double
star marathon.
90 Leonis 11h34.7m 16°48' 6.3, 7.3
Key: R.A. = Right ascension (2000.0); Dec. = Declination (2000.0);
Mags. = Magnitudes; Sep. = Separation; P.A. = Position angle
3.5" 208°

I
have to share this one with
you. At the November 9,
2017, meeting of my
astronomy club, the
Amateur Telescope
Makers of Boston, member
John Sheff announced that
it was Carl Sagan’s birthday.
“How old would he have been
were he still alive?” I asked.
Without batting an eye, he
replied, “Billions and billions!”
Who says astronomy enthusi-
asts are mirthless individuals?
I want to make a personal
plea for help — not of the men-
tal or physical variety, though
most folks who know me well
would argue the point. No, I’m
looking for assistance in fine-
tuning and finalizing the
1
The near-twin stars of Psi Psc lie in the
northeastern corner of Pisces the Fish.
JEREMY PEREZ
double star marathon I intro-
duced in my March 2016
column.
For those of you who missed
that article and a follow-up in
March 2017, I created the dou-
ble star marathon as a counter-
point to the annual Messier
marathon. The latter is typi-
cally held in mid- or late
March when all the objects in
the Messier catalog can be seen
in a single evening. I picked
110 stellar pairs to match the
number typically included on
the Messier marathon roster,
and all lie in the same areas as
the Messier objects.
Swimming with
the Fish
Here’s where I need your
help. California double star
aficionado Phil Kane has sug-
gested that I include Psi1
(ψ1) Piscium on the list.
This striking pair of
near-twin stars shine
with a pure-white
hue at magnitudes
5.3 and 5.5 and
are separated by a
comfortable 30".
They lie just 9°
northwest of the
spiral galaxy M74,
a notoriously dif-
ficult Messier mara-
thon object because it
glows faintly and hangs
low in the west on March
evenings. Psi1 Psc would add
a challenging element to the
double star marathon, but
would it be too much?
N
PISCES
l
E
M74
d
Double star Psi1 (ψ1) Piscium lies 9° northwest of spiral galaxy M74, one of the most
difficult Messier marathon objects. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
On the weekend of this
year’s Messier marathon
(Friday and Saturday nights,
March 16 and 17), I’ll be tack-
ling Psi1 before moving on to
my main list. I encourage you
to back me up by doing the
same and letting me know how
you fare. If positive sightings
outnumber the negative ones,
I’ll officially add Psi1 to the
list. And then I’d face the
heartbreaking task of culling
one double from my original
list. By the way, if you’d like to
run the marathon this year
and don’t have the list, send
me an email, and I’ll forward
you a copy.
Best of the rest
As any diehard double star
observer would tell you,
selecting 110 pairs meant
omitting some real gems. In
r
1°
the table above, I highlight
eight that failed to make the
cut but deserve your atten-
tion. The data come from the
Washington Double Star Catalog,
which is available online at
http://ad.usno.navy.mil/wds. I
have split all of them through
a 3-inch reflecting telescope at
60x, but I suggest using a larger
aperture to better reveal their
colors and bumping up the
magnifying power to 100x for
some of the closer pairs.
Questions, comments, or
suggestions? Email me at
gchaple@hotmail.com. Next
month: tips for hosting an
Astronomy Day star party.
Clear skies!
Glenn Chaple has been an
avid observer since a friend
showed him Saturn through a
small backyard scope in 1963.

BROWSE THE “OBSERVING BASICS” ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Chaple.

68 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 Fine Meteorite Jewelry

MARKETPLACE
Build Your Own
Custom Astronomical Adapter
In Gold &
www.preciseparts.com
Platinum
+1 305 253-5707
info@preciseparts.com www.JewelryDesignsforMen.com

ScopeStuff INDEX of
Telescope Accessories & Hardware ADVERTISERS
World’s largest inventory of telescope accessories,
adapters and hardware. Free shipping in the USA! ADM Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
www.scopestuff.com AP Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
512-259-9778
Astro Haven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Astro-Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Astrodon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Astronomy Puzzles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Bob Berman Tours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Bob's Knobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Celestron. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Dream Telescopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
$330 .00 Glacial National Park Conservancy . . . . . 17
Iceland 2018 -
Great North, Westfjords & Aurora . . . . 19
ADM ACCESSORIES iOptron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
www.admaccessories.com
Jewelry Designs for Men. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Lumicon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
NexDome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Oberwerk Corporation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Oceanside Photo & Telescope . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Optic Wave Laboratories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Peru & Chile -
Ancient Paths to the Present Total
Solar Eclipse Northbound . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Portrait of the Milky Way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Precise Parts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Rainbow Symphony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Revolution Imager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Scope Buggy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
ScopeStuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Sky Shed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
SkyWatcher - USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Stellarvue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Teaching Co., The. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Technical Innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Tele Vue Optics, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Woodland Hills Cameras & Telescope. . . 17
The Advertiser Index is provided as a service to Astronomy
magazine readers. The magazine is not responsible for
omissions or for typographical errors in names or page
numbers.
3KRQH‡ZZZKRPHGRPHFRP

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 69
 READER
GALLERY

1. TAKE HEART, HAVE SOUL

The Heart and Soul nebulae (IC 1805
and IC 1848) lie some 7,500 light-years
away in the constellation Cassiopeia
the Queen. Both are emission nebulae,
which glow with a reddish hue.
This false-color image made in the
Hubble palette shows details that are
different from the true-color version.
• Kfir Simon

2. NIGHTFALL
As his telescope cooled to ambient
temperature October 22, 2017, this
photographer set up a camera on a
tripod and captured the scope, its
observatory, and the waxing crescent
Moon. • Jared Bowens

70 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 3. IN FULL BLOOM
Sharpless 2–101, also known as the
Tulip Nebula, is a large emission nebula
in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.
The cloud spans nearly 70 light-years
and lies at a distance of 8,000 light-
years. The several bright stars within
the cloud emit prodigious amounts of
ultraviolet radiation, exciting the gas
and causing it to glow.
• Georges Chassaigne

4. WORTH THE EFFORT

IC 166 is a relatively unknown open
cluster in Cassiopeia. A large telescope
will reveal a tightly packed region in a
3 rich star field. The cluster glows softly
at magnitude 11.7. • Al Kelly

5. MORNING PLANET LINEUP

On September 18, 2017, the
Moon returned to the spot in the
constellation Leo where, one lunar
month earlier, it had eclipsed the Sun.
Regulus (Alpha [α] Leonis) is to the
Moon’s lower left. Venus lies above
the pair, and Mars (higher, fainter) and
Mercury lie near the cloud line. The
photographer captured this grouping
from Uludağ, Turkey. • Tunç Tezel

Send your images to:

Astronomy Reader Gallery, P. O. Box
1612, Waukesha, WI 53187. Please
include the date and location of the
image and complete photo data:
telescope, camera, filters, and expo-
sures. Submit images by email to
4 readergallery@astronomy.com.

5
6. SPARE-TIME IMAGING
From a recent email: “We work at
Lowell Observatory at the Discovery
Channel Telescope. A few months
ago, we had a couple of hours of
engineering time with nothing to
do. We decided to take some pretty
picture data and settled on the Ring
Nebula (M57).” The galaxy in the
shot is IC 1296. • Andrew Hayslip/
Jason Sanborn/Charles B. Ward

7. CITIES OF STARS
Spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is the largest
and one of the brightest members of
the Fornax Cluster, named for the con-
stellation in which it lies. This group
floats through space some 60 million
light-years away. • Dan Crowson

NGC 1374
NGC 1382

NGC 1375
NGC 1381

NGC 1379
NGC 1399

NGC 1427 NGC 1387

PGC 013230

NGC 1404

NGC 1389

NGC 1365
NGC 1369

72 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
 TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE: Ancient Paths to the Present
Journey from Peru’s Sacred Valley of the Incas to the ancient mountaintop city of
Machu Picchu — and enjoy an unforgettable view of the July 2 total solar eclipse!
Join us for a once-in-a-lifetime South American odyssey with a dramatic focal point: a total solar eclipse.
Our itinerary weaves together two dimensions of this fascinating continent: spectacular landscapes with
unmatched views in remote areas of Chile and Peru; and a legacy of engineering, architecture, art, and
philosophy that includes a tradition of astronomical observation dating back two millennia.

RESERVE YOUR SPOT TODAY!

P32424
Astronomy.com/magazine/trips-tours/2019-chile-northbound

ASTRONOMY E XCLUSIVE

Jon Lomberg’s Limited-Edition

PORTRAIT MILKY WAY POSTER OF
THE

Originally commissioned in 1992

for the Smithsonian, Jon Lomberg’s
Portrait of the Milky Way mural is
considered to be one of the most
accurate depictions of our galaxy
ever created.
Astronomy presents the first-ever
reproduction of the mural, now re-
vised to reflect the most recent data
available. The magnificent poster
comes with a finder’s guide that
identifies 30+ nebulae, exoplanets,
39" x 25" globular clusters, and more.

Buy Now at MyScienceShop.com/MilkyWay

P32263

Sales tax where applicable.

W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 73
 BREAK
THROUGH
“Vermin of
the skies”
Astronomer Edmund
Weiss coined this phrase
to describe asteroids and
their annoying habit of
interfering with views of
the distant universe. This
Hubble Space Telescope
image nicely illustrates
his point. Seven different
asteroids photobombed
this field near galaxy
cluster Abell 370, which
lies near the plane of the
solar system. These not-
so-magnificent seven left
16 curved and S-shaped
streaks in the image.
Hubble’s orbital motion
around Earth caused the
nearby asteroids to trace
out arcs relative to the
background galaxies, and
several left multiple trails
because the final image
combined many Hubble
exposures. NASA/ESA/B. SUNNQUIST
AND J. MACK (STS CI)

74 A ST R O N O M Y • MA R C H 2018
TH E SECR ET TO G R EAT I MAG ES
HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGING WITH CELESTRON
What do so many of the world’s best planetary imagers have in common?
They trust Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain and EdgeHD optics.

Armed with a Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain, Christopher Go can capture more than just the cloud bands on Jupiter; his
images include detailed festoons within those bands. Robert Reeves pushes his Celestron optics to reveal craters on
the moon—and the smaller craterlets inside them. And Thierry Legault can capture a crisp shot of the International Space
Station as it whizzes by at nearly 5 miles per second.

CHRISTOPHER GO ROBERT REEVES THIERRY LEGAULT

Jupiter Ptolemaeus Alphonsus Arzachel ISS Transit
Celestron C14 Celestron EdgeHD 11 Celestron EdgeHD 14

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Ideally suited to planetary and lunar imaging, Celestron Schmidt-
Cassegrain and EdgHD optics offer the perfect combination
of aperture, focal length and portability for large image scale
astrophotos full of fine detail other telescopes can’t capture. You’ll
also enjoy improved image scale thanks to focal ratios as high as
f/10 or f/11.

Don’t settle for a 6” refractor when you can capture high-contrast,

high-resolution images for a fraction of the cost. Discover for
yourself what these world-class imagers already know. You’ll see
the difference in your images.

celestron.com/imaging

B&H Photo – 800.947.9970 – bhphotovideo.com Optics Planet – 800.504.5897 – opticsplanet.com Adorama – 800.223.2500 – adorama.com
High Point Scientific – 800.266.9590 – highpointscientific.com Astronomics – 800.422.7876 – astronomics.com Focus Camera – 800.221.0828 – focuscamera.com
OPT Telescopes – 800.483.6287 – opttelescopes.com Woodland Hills – 888.427.8766 – telescopes.net
 SOUTHERN
SKY
May 2018: Jupiter at its peak
As May begins, the solar sys-
tem’s two brightest planets
adorn the evening sky. Venus
disappears during twilight,
however, while Jupiter stays
up all night.
Venus shines brilliantly at
magnitude –3.9 and is easy to
spot low in the northwest if you
have a clear and unobstructed
horizon. On the 1st, it stands
nearly 10° high 45 minutes
after sunset. It lies 7° to the
lower right of 1st-magnitude
Aldebaran, the orange-red
luminary of Taurus the Bull.
The planet maintains its
brightness throughout May,
but becomes easier to see as it
climbs higher. On the 31st, it
appears 15° high an hour after
sundown and remains visible
past nightfall. Venus has little
to offer to observers using a
telescope, however. Even at
month’s end, its 13"-diameter
disk appears nearly full.
On the opposite side of early
May’s evening sky, Jupiter
rises shortly after sunset and
shows up easily as twilight
fades. The giant world reaches
opposition May 9. Although
this point typically marks a
planet’s peak visibility, Jupiter
barely suffers the rest of the
month — it shines at magni-
tude –2.5 throughout May.
The planet resides in Libra all
month, moving slowly west-
ward against this backdrop. It
lies 3° east of the fine binocular
pair Alpha1 (α1) and Alpha2 (α2)
Librae at opposition; the gap
closes to 1° by May 31.
By late evening, Jupiter has
climbed high in the sky and will
be a wonderful sight through
any telescope. The gas giant’s
MARTIN GEORGE describes the solar system’s changing landscape
as it appears in Earth’s southern sky.
disk measures 45" across the
equator and is noticeably flat-
tened — its polar diameter is 3"
less. Although two dark atmo-
spheric belts are almost always
visible, additional features pop
into view during moments of
good seeing. Also watch for
Jupiter’s quartet of bright
moons. Discovered by Galileo
in 1610, all four stand out as
long as none of them is hiding
in front of or behind the planet.
By midevening, glorious
Saturn pokes above the eastern
horizon. The ringed planet
moves slowly westward against
the backdrop of Sagittarius the
Archer, north of that constella-
tion’s conspicuous Teapot aster-
ism. Although far dimmer than
Venus or Jupiter, magnitude 0.3
Saturn appears prominent
among the stars of the
Sagittarius Milky Way.
Saturn remains an exquisite
sight through any telescope
once it climbs well clear of the
horizon. Although its disk,
which measures 18" across at
midmonth, shows much less
detail than Jupiter’s, the rings
more than make up for this
lack. The beautiful system
spans 40" and tilts 26° to our
line of sight. You’ll also see
Saturn’s brightest moon, 8th-
magnitude Titan; several others
show up through 10-centimeter
and larger instruments.
By late evening, you can find
Mars lurking to the lower right
of Saturn. The Red Planet
moves eastward against the
background stars, crossing from
Sagittarius into Capricornus in
mid-May. If you’ve been follow-
ing the planet’s appearance over
the past few months, you’ll defi-
nitely notice how much brighter
it has become. The trend con-
tinues in May — during the
month’s 31 days, Mars doubles
in brightness from magnitude
–0.4 to –1.2.
Mars’ apparent diameter
makes a similar leap. The
ocher-colored disk grows from
11" to 15" across, making it a
great target for observing
through a telescope. To see the
most detail, wait for it to climb
high in the sky after midnight.
By late May, the planet’s south
pole tips 15° toward us, deliver-
ing impressive views of the
south polar cap.
As Saturn and Mars climb
high in the north before dawn,
Mercury rises in the east.
The innermost planet shines
brightly and remains conspicu-
ous for most of May. Early in
the month, the magnitude 0.3
world rises two hours before
the Sun and stands nearly 15°
high an hour before sunup.
And it remains a pleasing tele-
scopic sight, with a nearly half-
lit disk spanning 8". As it sinks
lower during the following
weeks, Mercury grows brighter,
hitting magnitude –0.3 in mid-
May. Unfortunately, it then
appears smaller and shows a
less interesting gibbous phase.
The planet disappears into the
Sun’s glow by month’s end.
The starry sky
Approximately midway
between Regulus, the brightest
star in Leo the Lion, and Spica,
Virgo the Maiden’s luminary,
is a direction that receives
little attention. But I want you
to focus on this area, which
stands high in the north in
midevening, at least once this
month. On a more local scale,
the spot of interest lies about
one-third of the way from Beta
(β) to Eta (η) Virginis.
It may surprise you that this
direction in the sky is called
the First Point of Libra, but that
indeed is its name. You might
be a bit more familiar with the
First Point of Aries, which like-
wise is not in the constellation
after which it is named. It lies
in neighboring Pisces.
These two points are where
the ecliptic — the apparent
path of the Sun across the sky
— crosses the celestial equator.
The First Point of Aries marks
the point where the Sun crosses
the celestial equator from south
to north at the time of the
March equinox; the First Point
of Libra denotes where the Sun
crosses back into the southern
celestial hemisphere at the time
of the September equinox.
So, how is it that Libra has
a point named after it that
belongs to another constella-
tion? It’s all because of the phe-
nomenon of precession. The
gravitational pulls of the Sun
and Moon cause Earth’s axis
to rotate in the same way as a
spinning top does. So, the axis
describes a circle about 47° wide
in both the northern and south-
ern sky that completes a circuit
in about 25,800 years. Because
of precession, the right ascen-
sions and declinations of the
stars change continuously, apart
from the slight changes result-
ing from their own motions
through space. This causes the
points where the ecliptic and
the celestial equator intersect to
gradually progress westward.
 STAR S
DOME
NGC 104
THE ALL-SKY MAP
SHOWS HOW THE
SKY LOOKS AT: SMC
O C TA N S
9 P.M. May 1
8 P.M. May 15 TI
RE
US
HYDR
VO
7 P.M. May 31 LU
CU PA
M
Planets are shown DO
MEN
LMC
at midmonth DO
RA SA
7
SCP PUS A E 39 6

C
M
20 AL LU

A
PI NGC70 TR GU
E
CT S
LU O C HA M A E L E ON AU IA N
M
R TR
VO
_ LA
NG C A N S CA S
MUS U

A
Ca
C 2 RI N

M
CI

n
51 N A

op
6 R
CI
CO

us
5
LU

475 C _

P
_
LEP

U
NG `
M

US
PP
3372
BA

NGC
IS

P
US

LU
`

RU
b

39
X

U
a
C RU

51
a

TA
GC

EN
c

N
V
EL
¡

C
28
247 C
NG

A
M41

51
7
`

C
NG
MAJOR

PYX
CANIS
_

ANT
Sirius

M83
IS
MONOCER

LIBRA
W
L IA
M47

US
RV
OS

CO
Alp

ca
Spi
TER
har

4
CRA 10

_
d

M
_

)
tic
H

lip
YD

(ec O
Pro

Sun G
RA

SE
_ C INO

f th
e IR
cyo N I S

X V
TA ho
`

Pat
n

N
M

S
A

C
A
a

N
C
ER

_ Re M65 M66 ola

g ulu
s Deneb

A
LEO `
M a 4
44 M6

NGP S _
CE
NI
`

E
B ER
Po

MA
llu

CO
_

MAGNITUDES
Ca
s to

Sirius Open cluster LEO

r

MIN
LY OR
0.0 Globular cluster NX
ES
1.0 CAN TICI
Diffuse nebula A
2.0 VEN
3.0 Planetary nebula M51
4.0 URSA MAJOR
5.0 Galaxy

N
 HOW TO USE THIS MAP: This map portrays
the sky as seen near 30° south latitude.
Located inside the border are the four
MAY 2018
directions: north, south, east, and
west. To find stars, hold the map Calendar of events
overhead and orient it so a
M

direction label matches the 3 Venus passes 7° north of 13 The Moon passes 5° south of
IU

direction you’re facing. Aldebaran, 17h UT Uranus, 15h UT

P
O
SC

The stars above the

4 The Moon passes 1.7° north of The Moon passes 2° south of
LE

map’s horizon now

E

Saturn, 20h UT Mercury, 17h UT

T

match what’s
NG
in the sky.
6 The Moon is at apogee 15 New Moon occurs at 11h48m UT
S
IU

(404,457 kilometers from Earth),

R

0h35m UT 16 The Moon passes 1.2° north of

TA
A

Aldebaran, 13h UT
R

M7

T
A

M8
US

GI

The Moon passes 3° north of

17 The Moon passes 5° south of
I

SA

Mars, 7h UT
M6
RP
31
O

Venus, 18h UT
2

O
N

C6

M20
SC

Eta Aquariid meteor shower

NG

peaks The Moon is at perigee

(363,776 kilometers from Earth),
8 Last Quarter Moon occurs at 21h05m UT
res

2h09m UT
Anta

22 First Quarter Moon occurs at

_

Asteroid Vesta is stationary, 3h49m UT

M4

10h UT
27 The Moon passes 4° north of
9 Jupiter is at opposition, 1h UT Jupiter, 18h UT
OPHIUCHUS

10 The Moon passes 2° south of 29 Full Moon occurs at 14h20m UT

Neptune, 9h UT
E
Jupiter

12 Mercury passes 2° south of

Uranus, 21h UT
T
PUA
S C
M5

PEN
SER
us
ur
ct
Ar

STAR COLORS:
Stars’ true colors
depend on surface
temperature. Hot
stars glow blue; slight-
ES ly cooler ones, white;
T
Ö intermediate stars (like
O
B the Sun), yellow; followed
by orange and, ultimately, red.
Fainter stars can’t excite our eyes’
color receptors, and so appear white
without optical aid.

Illustrations by Astronomy: Roen Kelly

BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT www.Astronomy.com/starchart.

 SHOP NOW FOR
SCIENCE &
ASTRONOMY
PRODUCTS
Huge selection!
Books • Magazines • Globes & Maps
Posters • Downloads • And more!

MyScie n ce S h o p.co m
P29014