Lots of stuff going on this week, and I’m having a hard time keeping up. So briefly…
1) Damaris reports that the blanket issue on Atlantis is OK, and it can return to Earth safely as-is. Phew!
2) The UK government recently — and stupidly — decided to yank funding for a breathtaking number of scientific projects, including the magnificent Gemini Telescope. They may be rethinking that now.
3) The star Tau Boo A B (heh heh heh) just underwent a magnetic reversal, just like the Sun does ever 11 years. The reversal was pretty rapid, occurring in less than a year. Pamela and Fraser both wrote about it, and you can read the journal paper itself if you care to. Tau Boo B has a giant planet orbiting it very close in, and it appears that the gravitational interaction of the planet with the star has sped up the star’s rotation, and that might be linked with the rapid magnetic reversal. Cool. It’s unknown how long the cycle lasts, so more observations are planned.
4) Speaking of Pamela and Fraser, they have a new AstronomCast podcast up, about stellar populations and the creation of heavy elements.
5) The Very Large Array, a complex of 28 radio astronomy dishes made famous in the movie "Contact", is halfway done with an ambitious project to bring them up-to-date with cutting edge tech. I visited VLA a few years ago, and was very impressed with just the coolness of it, nevermind the incredible science it has produced over the decades. The new technology will make the array 10 times more sensitive than it was before and cover more of the radio spectrum.
6) My buddy Michelle Thaller from the Spitzer Space Telescope stars in a very cute videocast for kids about black holes, warring spaceships, and yes, a cute robot sidekick. The production quality of this video is very good, and I think kids will like it! Click the "Spaceship Spitzer" link to see it. The "Skinfrared" videos are very cool too. The music is great!
February 13th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
The magnetic reversal is interesting. I’ve read about the Earth having undergone this several times in the past. But…it takes a year? Does it on the Earth? How would a compass react during that year for a potential user on that star/planet/Earth?
February 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Cool stuff about the VLA. Having recently visited it myself (And Phil even put my picture up on this site! Search for “My readers are smart” on this blog), it somehow has a special place in my heart now. It’s such an amazing place to see with your own eyes, and the information in that article is nothing short of astounding.
“To provide the improved scientific capabilities, the EVLA will boast some impressive technical feats. For example, the fiber-optic data transmission system will carry as much information instantaneously as the entire current U.S. internet. The EVLA receiving system will be so sensitive that it could detect the weak radio transmission from a cell phone at the distance of Jupiter — half a billion miles away.”
February 13th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Speaking of the VLA, my sister and nephew just got back from a road trip down there and this last weekend I was over at her house looking at all the cool pictures they took of it. There were a couple of the dishes offline and one in the huge “shed” they use for repairs and upgrades, so it looks like they saw it in the process of what you mentioned above. To be fair, you might think my sister is an astro geek like me. Oh contrair; they also went to Roswell and enjoyed visiting the UFO museum. In fact, she got me a few “Aliens Are Here” t-shirts. What a hoot. And Im gonna wear em by golly!
February 13th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Re: Tau Boo B (yes, I love the name, too!)
I find it amazing that at more than 45 light years away we can detect not only that the star has a magnetic field, but its orientation. Ain’t science great?
In response to Jeffersonian, the Earth does change its magnetic field orientation, but this takes a long time (hundreds of years). (How long I don’t know.) Some reports say that we’re undergoing a shift now. (Google earth magnetic field reversal for sources.)
However, I think we have a slight miscommunication here. Tau Boo B is actually the planet (or so it appears from my web search.) The star is actually Tau Boo. (http://exoplanet.eu/planet.php?p1=Tau+Boo&p2=b) I forgive Phil for not being able to resist using the planet’s name. I’d be hard pressed to do the same.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Actually it is Tau Boo A which has undergone the magnetic reversal. The planet (Tau Boo b) orbits the star in a close orbit. Orbiting the system further out is Tau Boo B, a red dwarf star.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
There is indeed a lot going on in astronomy these days … beyond the regular space news sites and blogs. Such as a call for amateur(!) astronomers to join the hunt for a 5-Earth-mass planet, the discovery of a triple asteroid with radar, fantastic hi-res images of the ISS in orbit and much more: all discussed in the new Cosmos 4 U news blog. And just wait til the Portal to the Universe goes online later this year, one of the cornerstones of IYA 2009 …
February 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I always thought it was cool that the VLA ran on standard gauge railroad tracks.
(Yes, I know that they don’t really run, the track is used to re-position the antennas, and that there are two parallel tracks, and that they have to aquire used track materials from other government railroad lines to keep it working. But the maintenence engineer of the facility was [a few years ago] a member of AREMA — muddy boots, head in the stars!)
February 13th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Nuts, I misread the paper after reading Pamela’s post. I corrected my mistake.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
It still reads “Tau Boo B has a giant planet orbiting it very close in”.
February 13th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
That “Spaceship Spitzer” video is great!
“Why do you think they’re called the EVIL Zarconians?”
February 14th, 2008 at 1:45 am
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
February 14th, 2008 at 4:09 am
To clarify - or further muddify perhaps?
But hopefully clarify :
Tau Bootis* A is the primary star - an F7 yellow-white dwarf located 49 light years away making it a smidgin larger, hotter, brighter and short-lived than pour Sun - but notas much as Procyon the nearest and brightest F dwarf which is an F5 star 11 ly off.
Tau Bootis B - as andy correctly (i think) points out is ” …a red dwarf star” orbiting furtehr from that main near enough to sun-like star. Hadn’t ehardof tahtone myself so can’t give detaulils onits exact spectral type or ditsance formteh primary.
However, by my understanding that would make the hot Jupiter orbiting the F-type star Tau Bootis A b or perhaps Tau Boo Ab …
Hmm .. Reckon it’d be a lot easier if we just named the planet and perhaps even the star properly! (Hint, hint to any IAU members reading this!
)
Tau Boo B would work for teh red dwarf star - an exoplanets of that would Tau boo B b then Tau Boo Bc , d, e, .. s if there’s enough found! Reminds me of my fave number 80085 -worked well on those old calculators!
Incidentally, any binary star in Bootis has the same ah, … dodgy humour .. potential. For instance, if Arcturus (Alpha Bootis) has a binary partner (which it may or may not do, unsure) the second star would be Alpha Boo B; the famous double star Izar (Epsilon Bootis) is composed of a yellow or orange giant Epsilon Boo A & a blue-white companion star (co-star?) Epsilon Boo B, ad nauseam ..
Anyway, bad taste jokes & naming pedantry aside, its cool news from a hot object! Thanks.
———
(My info on Tau Boo A comes from a ‘Sky & Telescope’ magazine table (March 1998, “Extrasolar planets”, Page ??,)
————
* Tau Bootis should really have a couple of those pronunmication dots above it but mycomputer can’t add those here .. Boo is teh short abbreivated fornm of Bootis - indicating teh star is in the cosntelaltion Bootes whichhas Arcturus as its brightest member.)
February 14th, 2008 at 4:24 am
D’oh! T-yyy-ppp-oooosss!! Aaarrrgghhh !
Corrected version since I can’t edit what’s posted above (Dr Phil Plait, sir, please let us edit these! Please!) :
************************************
To clarify - or perhaps further muddify - hopefully clarify :
Tau Bootis* A is the primary star - an F7 yellow-white dwarf located 49 light years away making it a smidgin larger, hotter, brighter and short-lived than our Sun - although not as much as Procyon the nearest and brightest F dwarf which is an F5 star 11 ly off. It is _this_ star, Tau Bootis or Tau Boo A that we are talking about which is the object whose magnetic field has reversed! (Could also be written using the single Greek letter for Tau, a sort of wobbly small capital T type character, then Boo in English …)
Tau Bootis B - as andy correctly (I think) points out is ” …a red dwarf star” orbiting further from that main “near-enough-to-Sun-like” star. I
hadn’t heard of that one myself so can’t give details on its exact spectral type or distance from the primary.
However, by my understanding that would make the Hot Jupiter orbiting the F-type star Tau Bootis A b or perhaps Tau Boo Ab …
Hmm .. Reckon it’d be a lot easier if we just named the planet and perhaps even the star properly! (Hint, hint to any IAU members reading this!)
Tau Boo B would work for the red dwarf star - an exoplanets of that would Tau boo B b then Tau Boo Bc , d, e, etc .. up to Tau Boo B s if there’s enough exoplanets found!
Incidentally, any binary star in Bootis has the same ah, … dodgy humour .. potential. For instance, if Arcturus (Alpha Bootis) has a binary partner (which it may or may not do, unsure) the second star would be Alpha Boo B; the famous double star Izar (Epsilon Bootis) is composed of a yellow or orange giant Epsilon Boo A & a blue-white companion star (co-star?) Epsilon Boo B, ad nauseam ..
Hmm .. reminds me of my fave number 80085 - worked well on those old calculators! (Also try 43110 upside down for one in less questionable taste!)
Anyway, bad taste jokes & naming pedantry aside, its cool news from a hot object! Thanks.
———
(My info on Tau Boo A comes from a ‘Sky & Telescope’ magazine table (March 1998, “Extrasolar planets”, Page ??,)
PS. I also recomend you try James Kaler’s stars website - may well have a proper amount of good public-level info. I’ll check that out & post shortly -prob’ly.
————
* Tau Bootis should really have a couple of those pronunication dots above it but my computer can’t add those here .. Boo is the short abbreivated form of Bootis - indicating the star is in the constellation Bootes which boasts Arcturus as its brightest member.)
Yegods, I’m flipping verbose eh?
February 14th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Yep, James Kaler’s wonderful stellar astronomy website comes up with the goods again - its my second fave to this one!
Check out :
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/tauboo.html
The star, Tau Bootis is right next to Arcturus in the sky (there’s aphoto there too) & andy was right, it does also boast a red dwarf companion star circling it from 100-240 AU away. (Pluto is 30 AU for comparison.)
It sounds like a very interesting exoplanet - except we can never go there!
Why not?
Its Tauboo … (Taboo geddit?)
———————
Sorry, couldn’t resist one more bad joke ..
February 14th, 2008 at 4:42 am
One other small error - Procyon A is, most likely, an F-type sub-giant star beginning to evolve into a red giant rather than a main-sequence F-class dwarf.
Forgot about that for a moment - & it doesn’t make too much difference but still … mea culpa.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:46 am
Usually the designation would be written without a space, so “Tau Boo Ab” rather than “Tau Boo A b” (c.f. “16 Cyg Bb”, “HD 188753Ab”).
On the other hand it seems that in many cases the A is dropped from the planet designation, and then lower case is used to distinguish the planet from the star… not terribly precise, but it’s ok provided the other star doesn’t have planets as well. At present only one known star system presents this problem.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:50 am
** Spaceship Spitzer***
BAD ASTRONOMY ALERT!
1. Spaceships banking in space.
2. Sounds traveling in space.
*sigh*
Even scientist prefer the imaginary physical universe.
GOOD ASTRONOMY ALERT!
1. Everything else in the video
February 14th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Digitalastro: nice one. However, there are standard handwaves for banking and ship sounds in space battles.
They bank to keep the weapons and sensors oriented toward the target they’re following, and to allow simplified mounting of main thrusters. They’re not really banking like that either, the appearance is partly an illusion created by the artistic acceleration of the camera drone.
Sounds are integrated audio warning signals generated within the camera drone, “ship closing, ship passing, weapon discharged” and so on, programed to enhance the viewer’s understanding of the scene and surrounds.
Why, that’s almost good enough for creation science, if I don’t say so myself.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:31 am
And having watched the Spitzer thing, it’s
1: appallingly corny
2: product placement over education
3: a very pretty black hole graphic
4: a shockingly bad “fast travel” graphic
5: Bad Astronomy. If it takes full thrust to maintain a 2M orbit (which it did by the graphics displayed, if not the orientation) you ain’t escaping from a lower orbit. Perhaps they used their warp engines a little, like Kirk did that one time, only without saying.
6: Bad Astronomy. Lacking “shields”, that dust in the galactic core is going to explode them, let along worrying about hitting a star.
7: Warp engines? Really? Ew.