APOD 3.2

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100127.html

The APOD from the 27th of January shows Saturn's moon Titan occulting a small portion of the other moon Tyths. The image was taken from the Cassini orbiter which I wrote about in my quarter 2 project. Titan appears to be out of focus, but this is most likely caused by the hazey atmosphere. On a superficial level, the creator Odysseus on Tyths makes the gray moon look like the Death Star coming around the gas giant Yavin to destroy its forested moon.

3.1

The APOD from the 19th shows sand dunes on Mars covered in frost. The image is striking because it shows something as mundane how frost sublimating on sand dunes can create a magnificent scene of natural beauty. One of the main problems that astronomers seem to face is that some people simply don't care about a "dead hunk of rock." But when an image like this is released, it shuts them up. At least for two or three weeks.

APOD 2.6

The APOD from the 17th of January shows the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. The image and the description makes it seem as though space travel is simultaneously awe inspiring (it being space travel and all) and almost mundane (there is a launch about once a week). This situation is interesting to think about. We are at a comparable point with space travel that aviation was at in 1905, where people know the very basics of the technology, but few have experienced it, so it is still exciting, but not that mysterious. While this stage will probably last 50 to 100 years at the most, I doubt that space travel will ever reach the point of 2001, where one could sleep through a flight from Earth to a space-station in the L1 point between the Earth and Moon.

APOD 2.5

The APOD from the 11th of January shows astronaut Dale Gardner capturing the Westar 6 satelite. The image is striking because it shows a man with no tether floating in the vacuum of space, with only a small back-pack to get him back to the relative safety of the space shuttle Discovery, and a few layers of rubber and fabric to protect him from the harshness of space.

Joseph-Louis Lagrange

Joseph-Louis Lagrange was an Italian mathematician and astronomer. He lived from the 25th of January 25, 1736 to the 10th of April, 1813. Born of a French father and Italian mother in Turin, Lagrange lived in poverty for much of his early life due to his father squandering the family wealth on bad investments. He was educated in Turin, and at age 17 he showed his interest in mathematics. In the 1750’s and 60’s, he developed calculus of variations and well as many other problems such as the reason for the moon showing the same face to the Earth at all times. In 1766 he moved to Berlin from Saint Petersburg. There he did his work with full support of the king, who would frequently have him as a guest. While in Berlin, he modified Newtonian mechanics, making them simpler to use. These became known as Lagrangian mechanics. While attempting to solve the three-body-problem, he discovered the Lagrangian points, places where an object will remain in stable orbit between two other objects. By a lucky coincidence, these points were already named after him. Along with the discovery of the L-points, he published several astronomical papers. In 1786, Lagrange accepted an offer from Louis XVI to move to France. He quickly rose through the scientific ranks, and was given housing in the Lourve and was admitted to the French academy of science. Every form of government created by the French revolution, all the way through Napoleon, supported him fully, which surprised him as he was planning to escape during the first part of the uprising.

APOD 2.7

The APOD from the 3rd of January shows a small (.1 mm) metal ball that moves slightly in a vacuum due to energy fluctuations. When I first read that, I thought of the defunct Aether theory, that a substance fills every where in space. Another thing that struck me was the fact that normally the APODs are of very very large things, the smallest I had seen before this was a cloud formation. The fact that a ball invisible to the naked eye could prove that the universe is expanding is quite extraordinary in my view.

Observation log,

Date:12/30/09
Time:11:30 PM-12:10 AM
Objects observed:
The practically full moon, which was directly overhead, and had great views of the Tycho and Clavius craters through my telescope.
Mars, but only for a minute or so due to clouds moving into view.
The double cluster in Perseus.
M44 in Cancer.
Constellations:
Orion, which was slightly south of the moon.
Cancer, which was slightly west of Mars.
Perseus, which was north west of the moon.