Big boost for science in latest NASA budget

NASA got an unexpected gift from Congress to close out the 2015 holiday season: a significant increase in funding. The 2016 omnibus spending bill is the most generous in years. It allocates $19.3 billion to NASA. Previous versions of the bill included cuts for some programs, but those were almost completely reversed in the final version approved by the House and Senate. NASA’s Planetary Science program picked up a 13 percent increase to $1.63 billion, and the space agency’s overall science budget increased by 6.6 percent to $5.6 billion. Even Earth science saw an increase of 8.4 percent after much noise about cuts earlier in the year. The new budget includes $175 million for a mission to Europa and mandates the mission carry a lander as well, something NASA didn’t want on the current mission

Lightsaber star

THE FORCE AWAKENS. In the Orion B molecular cloud complex, a young star is still gathering the material that will one day make up its bulk. It shoots out jets of excess gas from its poles, forming a bright beam reminiscent of a Star Wars lightsaber. The jets collide with surrounding clouds of material, producing shock waves and forming a nebulous region called a Herbig-Haro (HH) object. This protostar has formed HH 24, and astronomers are studying it carefully to learn more about how stars form and grow.

WHATS A PARSEC

A parsec
corresponds to
exactly 648,000/
astronomical
units (AU; the
average Earth-
Sun distance).

A UNIT OF DISTANCE. Ignore Han Solo’s Kessel run. A parsec is an astronomical unit of distance based on geometry. Also equal to 3.26 light-years, it represents how far away an observer would be to observe the Earth and Sun separated by 1 arcsecond on the sky. By flipping the system around, astronomers can measure distances to stars by parallax, or how much they appear to move as the Earth travels around the Sun

Astrobabble From asterisms to Thorne-Żytkow objects, we turn gibberish into English

Yarkovsky effect

Cos·mo·drome
from the Greek drómos, or race track A Russian launch site, like the $13.9 billion Vostochny Cosmodrome being prepped for Soyuz spacecraft in that country’s far east. Vladimir Putin wants a new spaceport following disputes with Kazakhstan, the current launch host

Hex·a·hy·drite
A type of magnesium sulfate — like the soothing salts you drop in a hot bath — with six water molecules that forms flaky, fibrous layers and is now thought to explain the strange bright spots in Occator Crater on the asteroid Ceres.

Blue Strag·gler
The result of stellar cannibalism or a collision that turns two old red stars into one massive, hot blue star that looks like it’s lagged in its evolution. These brilliant stars confuse astronomers by finding the fountain of youth in otherwise ancient globular clusters.

Yar·kov·sky ef·fect
Caused when photons from the Sun hit a spinning rock (typically meteoroids and small asteroids) and are re-emitted as heat in a random direction, ever so slightly changing the space rock’s path

Did the positions of bright stars have anything to do with the layout of Washington, D. C.

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught astronomer and mathematician from Baltimore County, Maryland, helped survey the boundaries of our nation’s capital using the stars as guides. Over the years, a rash of books has flavored this episode in American history with sprinkles of the occult, including sacred alignments of key structures with bright stars. But critics have picked apart many of these claims like crows on roadkill.

Indeed, American historian Silvio Bedini, who wrote the definitive biography of Banneker, notes that “considerable confusion” exists among writers concerning Banneker’s role in the survey of our federal city. Nevertheless, we can still look to the stars this month and imagine something “capital” about them.

Banneker’s role
Banneker’s assignment was to assist Maj. Andrew Ellicott, whom President George Washington appointed as the head of a six-man team. First observations commenced February 11, 1791, and Banneker was the principal observer. Ellicott tasked him mainly with determining the starting point of the survey and maintaining a clock that could relate points on the ground to the positions of the stars at specified times.

Banneker made observations of “about a half-dozen different stars crossing the meridian at different times during the night, and the observations were repeated a number of times,” Bedini says

Exposure to inclement weather, especially the cold, took its toll on 60-year-old Banneker, who often would stay up all night, making observations — until he fell ill and returned home probably in late April 1791.

Triple threat
A parade of bright stars crossed the south meridian during Banneker’s stay, including Regulus (Alpha [α] Leonis), Spica (Alpha Virginis), and Arcturus (Alpha Boötis). According to David Ovason, author of Lost Symbols? The Secrets of Washington DC, this seems “to reflect the central triangle in the plan of Washington, D.C.” (the Capitol Building, the White House, and the Washington Monument).

Alas, none of these stars passes directly over the city at any time, and not any of Ovason’s suggested celestial and terrestrial triangles match up upon projection. Still, people wonder if Banneker saw these three stars as fitting symbols of our nation’s capital. Could anything have fueled his imagination?

Capital triangle?
Nicolas Copernicus named Regulus (the Little King) from the belief that it “ruled the affairs of the heavens” — a fitting symbol, as our nation’s government has political authority to rule over the actions and affairs of the people. Regulus also leads Arcturus and Spica across the heavens. Arcturus (the Bear’s Guard) escorts the Great Bear around the North Celestial Pole. This might symbolize the flow of cosmic justice throughout the night, just as our government keeps watch over its flock and reigns supremely over any injustice. And finally, there’s Spica (Ear of Grain), a just symbol of our nation’s health (amber waves of grain).

Banneker’s attention could have been drawn to this trio of stars by Jupiter, which lay about midway along a line between Regulus and Spica in Virgo, whom we see in a classical dress holding an ear of grain. I mention the description of Virgo because the original design of the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol Building was a female in a classical dress holding an ear of wheat.

So rather than trying to force stars onto Earth, all one has to do this month is look east around 9 p.m. and see the three capital stars that Banneker must have seen (if not measured and identified) in his nightly transit surveys of our nation’s capital.

As always send all of your thoughts to sjomeara31@gmail. com.

MERCURY IN THE EVENING

SHY PLANET. Mercury has a reputation for being difficult to see because it typically hugs the horizon during twilight either after sunset or before sunrise. The chart plots the innermost planet’s positions 45 minutes after sunset for observers at both 35° north and south latitudes for the planet’s three evening elongations in 2016 (except for its April Southern Hemisphere appearance, when it appears less than 1° high). Note that Mercury’s peak altitude often doesn’t coincide with its greatest solar elongation (dates highlighted in white

When NASA takes off for Europa in 2022, humanity can thank this lifelong space enthusiast from the Houston suburbs

THE EUROPA MANDATE. U.S. Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) poses with members
of NASA’s Europa mission team. The congressman gets regular mission updates in
meetings with engineers and scientists

John Culberson got his first telescope at age 12. It was 1968, and humanity was headed to the Moon. Growing up in the Houston suburbs, he saw those Apollo astronauts as heroes. Flat feet and bad vision pushed him into a career in public service instead, but he never turned away from his love of astronomy.

Then, in 2014, Culberson finally got the job in Congress he’d wanted for more than a decade. He was selected chair of the Commerce, Science and Justice appropriations subcommittee, which controls the budget for, among other things, NASA and the National Science Foundation. His goal is to restore NASA to its Apollo glory days.

And he’s just getting started. Culberson wants NASA to go to Europa to find alien life. When they do, he says, it will be a catalyzing moment for humanity that will boost NASA budgets to the level necessary to begin planning for the next step: interstellar travel. Astronomy caught up with Culberson in early January after the omnibus spending bill passed.

Q: Why Europa? What’s driving your interest in these ocean worlds?

A: I believe the good Lord has seeded life all around us as far as the eye can see, and I am convinced that we will find life on another world for the first time in our own backyard. Odds are that will end up being in the oceans of Europa. That’s the consensus of the planetary science community — of the best minds in the space program. They all agree that the one place in our solar system where all the conditions are present for life to have evolved safely and securely, and in an environment that has all the right ingredients, is in the oceans of Europa.

Q: NASA didn’t want a lander on this mission, but would it be disappointing if we went there and didn’t look for life?

A: Absolutely. You cannot answer the question “Is there life on other worlds?” without landing on the surface and testing and tasting the ice and the plumes that are undoubtedly there. There’s no other way to know if there’s organic molecules there

— if there’s life in that ocean — unless you land on the surface. That’s the consensus of the scientific community. I’m convinced they’re right. And you know, since NASA’s a big bureaucracy, it’s difficult to get them to move or do things, so it was necessary for me to write it into law. In fact, this Europa mission with a lander is the only mission that it is illegal for NASA not to fly. And I made certain of that.

Q: What would finding life there do for humanity?

A: When that happens — when life is discovered on another world — that will be remembered forever as a transformational moment in human history. And it will galvanize the human race and the people of the United States to support our space program to the extent that’s necessary to take NASA to the next level. That will allow us to develop for the longer term the first interstellar rocket propulsion to take the first mission to Alpha Centauri. I want to lay the groundwork to see that happen. I want to see us be able to make it safe for humans to do very deepspace long-range flights that protect the health of our astronauts and allow them to do great science. That’s going to require a massive investment in new technology to shield the astronauts from coronal mass ejections and the constant threat of cosmic radiation. And that can be done, but NASA’s not making those investments.