[Spacetalk] welcome back

Tue Jan 5 00:01:11 CST 2016

good morning all,
 HAPPY NEW YEAR :-) :-) I think most of you started yesterday while some today….it is funny to hear all the teachers suffering at getting back after the 2 week vacation…I see so much of it on Facebook as well as hearing all the kids dreading having to get up...you know I try to mention it to you often, maybe not enough but I admire you all so much…I honestly believe you have the most difficult job in the world….so much responsibility…. 20-25 kids….different personalities, different learning abilities, different backgrounds, different ambitions…teach them all the same thing at the same pace….deal with administration, state and national tests, parents micro managing everything you do while not supporting you when their kids need discipline, kids who are unruly and know you can’t really do anything…not to mention fights, bullying, kids getting sick….all in a day :-) :-) trying to decorate your classrooms for a fun learning environment...often spending your own money…doing lesson plans at home, grading papers at home, and spending so much time away from school preparing for school….so I just want you all to know how much I admire you, support you, and appreciate what you are doing…that you are shaping lives, giving hope to many who may never hear it anywhere else, and we know everyone remembers their favorite teacher for life…I am so thankful for all you do to help me with the school visits…over the past year I visited 65 schools speaking with about 12,000 kids…I couldn’t do it without you and always appreciate all you do to support the visits….already planning the next few months so if you are interested in me coming to your school, please let me know….

 There are some fun missions ahead and you should be able to involve the kids…I will give you more info as it becomes available…wishing you a wonderful day...we have to remember to always do our best, enjoy everything we do, live in the present, make each day special, be appreciative of the good in our lives, smile & have fun!:-) gabe

What's Up - January 2016
What's Up for January? A meteor shower, a binocular comet, and the winter circle of stars! Hello and welcome. I’m Jane Houston Jones from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

In case you missed last month’s Geminid and Ursid meteor showers, January 4th’s Quadrantids will either sizzle or fizzle for observers in the U.S. The shower may favor the U.S., or it could favor Europe, depending on which prediction turns out to be correct. The shower’s radiant, in the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis, is in a star-poor but familiar area in the northeast sky. It makes a triangle with Ursa Major and Ursa Minor – the big and little dippers. U.S. Observers should begin looking at 08:00 Universal Time – that’s midnight Pacific or 3 a.m. Eastern - and European observers should look 8 hours earlier at 00 UT. The peak should last about two hours, with rates of 120 meteors per hour predicted in areas with a dark sky.

In the middle of the month, midnight through pre-dawn will be prime time for viewing comet Catalina.  It’s also near Ursa Major this month. It should be visible in binoculars if you have a dark sky, but a telescope would be ideal. Between the 14th and the 17th, the comet will pass by two stunning galaxies: M51, the Whirlpool galaxy and M101, a fainter spiral galaxy.

Winter is also the best time to view the constellation Orion in the southeastern sky. Even from the city, you’ll see that its stars have different colors. No telescope needed.  Just look up a few hours after sunset. Orion’s shoulder star Betelgeuse is a red giant while its opposite knee is blue.  And below the familiar belt stars is the Orion Nebula, a star-forming region, easily visible with binoculars.

The colorful stars of Orion are part of the Winter Circle of Stars. Let’s start with Orion’s blue star Rigel, and work clockwise to create the circle. At 6 o’clock, notice the brilliant white of Sirius, the brightest star in our northern hemisphere skies. Next up is faint yellow Procyon at 8 o’clock, and the colorful Gemini Twins Pollux and Castor at 10 o’clock. Brighter Pollux is faint orange and Castor is white. Yellow Capella appears at 12 o'clock. Finally at 2 o'clock stunning orange Aldeberan is near the Pleiades, in the constellation Taurus the bull. In the middle of our circle lies red Betelgeuse.

A star’s color reveals the star’s temperature and age. In a flame, the hottest part is blue, and the cooler parts are yellow and red. Stars work the same! The hotter a star, the more blue light it produces. The cooler the star, the more red light it produces. Medium-hot stars like our sun are yellow.

You can learn about all of NASA’s studies of the stars and much more at www.NASA.gov <http://www.nasa.gov/> 

A Precocious Black Hole

In July 2015, researchers announced the discovery <http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/15_releases/press_070915.html> of a black hole, shown in the above illustration, that grew much more quickly than its host galaxy. The discovery calls into question previous assumptions on the development of galaxies. The black hole was originally discovered using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and was then detected in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and by ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Benny Trakhtenbrot, from ETH Zurich's Institute for Astronomy, and an international team of astrophysicists, performed a follow-up observation of this black hole using the 10 meter Keck telescope in Hawaii and were surprised by the results. The data, collected with a new instrument, revealed a giant black hole in an otherwise normal, distant galaxy, called CID-947.

Zinnia Flowers Starting to Grow on the International Space Station <http://links.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTUxMjIzLjUzMTMyNjYxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE1MTIyMy41MzEzMjY2MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MjQyMjgxJmVtYWlsaWQ9Zm9yZGdhYmVAbmV0emVyby5jb20mdXNlcmlkPWZvcmRnYWJlQG5ldHplcm8uY29tJmZsPSZleHRyYT1NdWx0aXZhcmlhdGVJZD0mJiY=&&&100&&&http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/zinnia-flowers-starting-to-grow-on-the-international-space-station?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery>

Zinnia flowers are starting to grow in the International Space Station's Veggie facility as part of the VEG-01 investigation. Veggie provides lighting and nutrient supply for plants in the form of a low-cost growth chamber and planting "pillows” to provide nutrients for the root system.

Astronomy Picture of the Day 

Discover the cosmos! <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html> Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 January 5 
 <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1601/LagoonHSO_Nemcik_1829.jpg>
The Lagoon Nebula in Hydrogen, Sulfur, and Oxygen 
Image Credit & Copyright: John Nemcik <mailto:  john32712 (at) yahoo (dot) com>
Explanation: The majestic Lagoon Nebula <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_Nebula> is filled with hot gas and the home for many young stars. Spanning 100 light years <http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html> across while lying only about 5000 light years distant, the Lagoon Nebula <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap021006.html> is so big and bright that it can be seen <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980907.html> without a telescope <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011014.html> toward the constellation <http://www.comfychair.org/~cmbell/myth/myth.html> of the Archer (Sagittarius <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_(constellation)>). Many bright stars are visible from NGC 6530 <http://messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/n6530.html>, an open cluster <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/open_clusters.html> that formed in the nebula <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081019.html> only several million years ago. The greater nebula, also known as M8 <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010103.html> and NGC 6523, is named "Lagoon" for the band of dust seen to the right of the open cluster's center. The featured image was taken in the light emitted by Hydrogen <http://periodic.lanl.gov/1.shtml>(shown in brown), Sulfur <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5H6DVe5FAI> (red), and Oxygen <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_OxygenBalance/> (blue) and displayed in enhanced color <http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/eagle.php>. The featured picture is a newly processed panorama of M8 <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070804.html>, capturing twice the diameter of the Full Moon. Star formation <http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve/>continues in the Lagoon Nebula <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130817.html> as witnessed by the many globules <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120612.html> that exist there.

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