The Young Astronomers Newsletter

The Young Astronomers Newsletter Volume 26 Number 2 February 2018

By Bob Patsiga

In this month’s edition of the newsletter Bob discusses:

• Using the Very Long Baseline Array of radio telescopes, astronomers have gotten detailed structure of the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy. The region is over 65,000 light years away and is part of a project to create a detailed map of the Milky Way.
• The NASA probe New Horizons will soon adjust its instruments to examine Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 on New Years Day, 2019. New Horizons had brilliant success in 2015 by giving us details about Pluto and its moons.
• Astronomers are developing new techniques for studying extra solar planets. A combination of a telescope adapter called a chronograph with a deformable mirror system may lead to gaining information about extra solar planetary atmospheres.
• An interstellar object called Oumuamua, has been tracked from telescopes in Hawaii since October. Careful trajectory analysis indicates that it is on its way out of the Solar System. Being a one-time visitor to the Solar System, it has been given its own classification by the International Astronomical Union.
• There is now sufficient evidence accumulated for us to be confident that there is a vast amount of frozen subsurface water on Mars. This is significant information relative to future human exploration.
• Moon phases for February.
• Finding the planets during February.
• Word search: 20th century astronomers.
• Unique conditions on the International Space Station.