From: baalke@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) Newsgroups: sci.space.news Subject: Sky & Telescope News Bulletin - May 30, 2003 Date: 30 May 2003 23:12:21 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab Approved: sci-space-news@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov Message-ID: ========================================================================= * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - May 30, 2003 * * * ========================================================================= Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site, SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. Clear skies! ========================================================================= SOLVING THE PUZZLE OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS Like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the brink of completion, tantalizing clues to the mystery of long-duration gamma-ray bursts have come fast and furious in the past few months -- and they seem to be telling us at last what these enigmatic objects are, how they evolve, and what powers them. Long-duration GRBs, it seems, may simply be supernovae seen from a "privileged" perspective.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_966_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AN ANNULAR ECLIPSE IN MAY On Saturday morning, May 31st, the Moon will pass directly between the Earth and Sun as seen from Iceland, northern Scotland, and part of Greenland. But the Moon's angular size won't be quite large enough to mask the Sun totally. Instead, skywatchers in these fairly remote locations will experience a brilliant ring of sunlight -- the hallmark of an annular eclipse.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/eclipses/article_924_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EVERY GALAXY AN ACTIVE GALAXY? Quasars. Blazars. Seyfert galaxies of Type 1 and Type 2. Even some professional astronomers have trouble keeping the actors on the active-galaxy playbill straight. Some of these enormous beasts spew jets of plasma at near-light speeds. Others flicker and flare with stupendous luminosities that outshine the Milky Way's energy output hundreds of times over. But they all have the same basic makeup, Yale University astrophysicist C. Megan Urry told members of the American Astronomical Society during its Nashville meeting. In the consensus view today, every active galactic nucleus (AGN) contains a supermassive black hole feeding on gas from a tightly wound accretion disk encircling it, with a much larger, bloated torus (doughnut) of opaque material surrounding this "central engine." What the object looks like depends primarily on whether our line of sight is blocked by the opaque, puffy torus or goes through its "doughnut hole" to reach the bright center.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_964_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CELESTRON CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTORY The legal battles between telescope giants Celestron and Meade Instruments -- involving charges of patent infringement for computerized Go To telescope technology -- are continuing to be resolved by the courts. On May 23rd the US District Court in California delivered a partial summary judgment in Celestron's favor, saying that the company's Go To telescopes do not infringe on Meade's patents under the "doctrine of equivalents." In late February the court ruled that Celestron's products do not "literally infringe" upon Meade's patents.... While both rulings are clear victories for Celestron, they do not end the lawsuits between the archrival companies, which date back to 2001.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_965_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A CLOSE-UP LOOK AT THE YOUNG UNIVERSE Astronomers using a worldwide array of radio telescopes have delved deep into a galaxy and found what they're calling a "supernova factory" -- a superdense star-forming region that has more in common with the ancient early universe than with most galaxies today. The observations, announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Nashville, uncovered five very young supernova remnants -- one less than 13 months old -- in a dense young star cluster in the pair of colliding galaxies known as Arp 299. The star cluster, 350 light years wide, seems to produce a supernova every 2 or 3 years. By comparison, our entire Milky Way produces one only one every century or so.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_963_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X-RAYING PLANETARY BIRTHPLACES A team of researchers led by Joel Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology) is using a new technique to understand how planetary systems form. Armed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Kastner and colleagues looked for X-ray emission coming from the suns of infant solar systems. In a baby planetary system gas and dust collect into a flattened, rotating disk around a star, and some of it can end up on the stellar surface. As the flotsam spirals in, it can become ensnared by strong magnetic fields near the star's surface and accelerated onto "hot spots" on the star that glow in X-rays. Another, different source for X-rays is the normal hot corona (outer atmosphere) of the young star itself. "Young Sunlike stars are very energetic sources of X-ray emission," says Kastner.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_962_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PLANET-FORMATION PARADOX SOLVED? Astronomers aren't sure how long it takes to form planetary systems like our solar system. They know the basics. A cloud of interstellar matter falls together under its own gravity; the cloud shrinks to form a spinning star surrounded by a rotating disk; dust in the disk starts sticking together in clumps; the clumps grow big enough to start collecting matter faster by gravity; the process continues until all the dust and gas in the disk are incorporated into planets or blown away. The mystery involves the timescales.... At the American Astronomical Society meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, two teams of astronomers, working independently, announced that they have found puzzle pieces that may help solve the mystery.... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_961_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CLEAR SKIES AND CLEVERNESS AT CAMP OAKES The 35th annual RTMC Astronomy Expo was held May 23-25 under clear skies outside Big Bear, California. More than 1,700 astronomy enthusiasts from the US, Canada, Mexico, Austria, and Taiwan participated in the gathering at Camp Oakes, above 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) elevation in the forested mountains near Big Bear Lake. The star party featured vendor exhibits, lectures, panel discussions, beginners' activities, and daytime and nighttime observing. The theme of this year's event was "Building Your Own Observatory." Nearly a dozen guest speakers told a sometimes standing-room-only crowd about how they constructed their "dream domes."... > http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_960_1.asp ========================================================================= HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY * A big sunspot group has been flaring and sending coronal mass ejections toward Earth during the last few days. Keep a lookout for possible aurora activity this Friday and Saturday night. * New Moon on May 31st. * On May 31st there's a partial eclipse of the Sun for much of Asia and Europe; also Alaska, where the local date is May 30th. Parts of Greenland, Iceland, and northernmost Scotland see an annular eclipse. For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup: > http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/ ========================================================================= Copyright 2003 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as our copyright notice is included, along with the words "used by permission." But this bulletin may not be published in any other form without written permission from Sky Publishing; send e-mail to permissions@SkyandTelescope.com or call +1 617-864-7360. More astronomy news is available on our Web site at http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/. ========================================================================