Dorothea Klumpke- Bibliography Listings

"Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Biography, Life and Career Facts, Invented." Web log post. Info. Page Rank Studio, 29 Sept. 2010. Web. 27 Feb. 2013. <http://pagerankstudio.com/Blog/2010/09/dorothea-klumpke-roberts-biography-life-and-career-facts-invented/>.

Jones, Jane H., and Don Stone, comps. Dorothea Klumke and the 1899 Leonids. Rep. Leonid MAC, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2013. <http://leonids.arc.nasa.gov/Klumpke.html>.

Roberts, Dorothea Klumpke. "Woman's Work in Astronomy." Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 31.182 (1919): 216-19. JSTOR. Web. 27 Feb. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40692050>.

Stone, Don. "Dorothea Klumpke Roberts, Pioneer Woman Astronomer." AANC. Astronomical Association of Northern California, 2002. Web. 28 Feb. 2013. <https://sites.google.com/site/aancsite/articles/donstone>.

..::h e l i x n e b u l a::..

NGC 7923. Also known as Caldwell 63. Best known as the Helix Nebula. Sometimes referred to as The Eye of God.

This planetary nebula is well-deserving of the dramatic nickname due to its beauty and shape. And God would get a pretty decent view of Earth anyhow, because of all the bright planetary nebula, the Helix Nebula is one of the closest to our planet- about 700 light-years away.

The Helix Nebula is located in the constellation Aquarius (...some say that the Age of Aquarius has dawned!). The very bright core we see in pictures is a nucleus that is to become a white dwarf star; it is so energetic that gases expelled around the area glow bright. In the attached image, this core is bright red from the infrared wavelength used for the picture. Around the core, the excitation temperature changes frequently in different areas. It is estimated that the age of the planetary nebula is about 10,600 years, give or take a couple thousand. In the helix there are also many "cometary knots"which are the result of an electric discharge phenomenon.

Astronomy Observation Log 3.2 (Astronomy Cast - Nebulae)

In place of an astronomy observation, I decided to listen to a podcast from astronomycast.com on my favorite celestial object- the nebula.

Dust and gas compose the beautiful nebulae that we all see in pictures. One of the speakers of the podcast denoted them as "everything-" having to do with stars, I think. They are huge.

Cold temperature condenses regions, keeps them dark. With emission and reflection nebulae, however, the heated gas gives off light in different colors.

I learned that if you're seeing a star "on the other side of the nebula," you're going to see it as red. But if you see one off to the side, you see the blue and the green (in reflection nebulae).

When you crank the energy up, that's when you get emission nebulae. In emission nebulae the stars also tend to be embedded in the cloud of gas. -I am now less confused about the differences between the types of nebulae- Reflection nebulae are cooler, emission ones are hotter.

The light we see does not come directly from the stars, but from absorption lines, where the light is re-emitted. We see oxygen lines in planetary nebulae, as they are still hot.

Gas becomes tens of thousands of degrees, and gravity pulls the gas together, but something has to cause it to collapse.

The bubble structures we see in nebulae are stars beginning to ignite and blow matter around them. And to see stars forming within them, we need infrared light.

The female narrator discussed stars that were likely to go supernova, and star clusters that show what our Sun may have looked like during its formation. Planetary nebulae and supernova are the forms of dead stars, on the other hand. The crazy shapes we see in nebula are defined by the physics of how the gas is moving. Some nebulae form over long periods of time (brightening, expanding, fading...), others form in a sort of "splat," depending on the stars.

The Protostar

The Protostar is what we consider to newly-forming star to be when it is in stages four and five. A solar-mass star typically lasts about 100,000 years as a protostar.

The video is about protostar V1647 Orionis; we derive information about it from its emission.

Protostars develop into main sequence stars with the formation of a T Tauri Star, found near molecular clouds.

APOD 3.5:Aurora in Alaska

The photo, taken by Todd Salat, shows a reflection of Aurora borealis over a lake in Alaska; the red part of the Aurora could only be seen with a camera (after a 20-second exposure) while the green was visible to the unaided eye. The human eye takes in light for a fraction of a second at a time but a camera shutter is left open for much longer. Auroras are created by the Sun's energetic particles, which impact Earth's magnetosphere. These particles case electrons and protons to rain down near the planet's poles, which shows in the air. The red and green are made by excited oxygen atoms. The scene from last autumn is near Anchorage, and lovely lily pads dot the lake encircled by trees. The sky annotations outline such sights as the Pleiades star cluster, and Jupiter, right above the clouds. 

APOD 3.4: Shadow at Point Lake on Mars

The picture was taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which has landed on Mars in August, on Gale Crater. Curiosity has been looking for more signs that water once ran through the planet, and also clues that life existed. The picture, taken in November, shows its shadow in the direction opposite the sun at "Point Lake." There are some areas near there that appear to have been dried streambeds. In the next few years, Curiosity is to climb Mt. Sharp, which has been a spot scientists have long been wanting to study.

Moon Surface Features

I labeled parts on the moon :)