Last October 16th was a big day for the Chinese astronomical community. Nearly 200 kilometers northeast of Beijing, at the Xinglong Observing Station of the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), leaders of the Chinese Academy of Sciences held a ceremony to celebrate the founding of something new and unique: LAMOST, the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope.

The LAMOST observatory buildings, aligned on the meridian.

Renjiang Xie

LAMOST is a survey instrument like no other. It was designed for maximum efficiency for one vital purpose: taking spectra of many millions of individually selected, very faint objects. Its designers had to find the best balance for this purpose between aperture, field of view, and many other factors.

The surface shape of LAMOST's 4-meter segmented primary mirror will be actively controlled, allowing the segments to be thin and light.

Renjiang Xie

The instrument's segmented thin mirror, seen above, has an aperture of 4 meters (160 inches), with the segments controlled by active-optics techniques. This aperture will enable LAMOST to obtain spectra of objects as faint as magnitude 20.5 magnitude in a 1.5-hour exposure.

LAMOST's fiber-optic image detector, seen from behind.

Renjiang Xie

That's not remarkable by today's standards — LAMOST's real power comes from its extraordinary field of view. The working focal plane is an immense 1.75 meters in diameter, corresponding to a 5° field on the sky.

As many as 4,000 optical fibers can be automatically positioned onto selected objects in the field, with each fiber feeding light to a spectral analyzer. As a result, the telescope has the highest spectrum-acquiring rate of any in the world.

Being a survey telescope, LAMOST needs to look only near the sky's north-south meridian to catch, in time, a large fraction of the celestial sphere passing across. As a result the telescope occupies special domes that look less like a traditional observatory than like some spaceport from a sci-fi movie.

“LAMOST’s equipment was completely installed by the end of August after four years’ of building," says Yongheng Zhao, the general manager of the project. "We are now in the stage of doing test observations and refining performance, which may take two years.”

With a diameter of some 500 meters (1,600 feet), FAST will be the world's largest radio dish. Click image for cross-section diagram.

NAOC / Chinese Academy of Sciences

FAST Radio Dish

Meanwhile, the ambitious Five hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) has been allocated government funds of nearly 700 million RMB yuan (nearly US$100 million). FAST will be built in a limestone karst valley in a sparsely populated mountanous area of Guizhou province about 1,800 kilometers southwest of Beijing.

FAST's dish will be composed of about 2,000 active panels, each 15 meters square, that can reshape into a paraboloidal surface for pointing in any direction as much as 40° from the zenith. Construction has begun and should be finished in 2014. FAST is expected to be 10 times as sensitive as the 300-meter dish radio telescope near Arecibo, Puerto Rico, currently the world's largest.
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In the game of astronomy, size matters. To get crisp, clear images of things billions of light years away, a telescope needs to be big.

"The bigger the better," says astronomer Harley Thronson, who leads advanced concept studies in astronomy at the Goddard Space Flight Center. And he thinks "NASA's new Ares V rocket is going to completely change the rules of the game."

Ares V is the rocket that will deliver NASA's next manned lunar lander to the moon as well as all the cargo needed for a lunar base. Its roomy shroud could hold about eight school buses, and the rocket will pack enough power to boost almost 180,000 kg (396,000 lbs -- about 16 or 17 school buses) into low Earth orbit. Ares V can haul six times more mass and three times the volume the space shuttle can.

"Imagine the kind of telescope a rocket like that could launch," says Thronson. "It could revolutionize astronomy."

Right: The roomy shroud of the Ares V could hold about eight school buses. Credit: NASA

Optical engineer Phil Stahl of the Marshall Space Flight Center offers this example: "Ares V could carry an 8-meter diameter monolithic telescope, something that we already have the technology to build. The risk would be relatively low, and there are some big cost advantages in not having to cram a large telescope into a smaller launcher."

For comparison, he points out that Hubble is only 2.4 meters wide.

An 8-meter monolithic telescope would see things more than three times as sharply as Hubble can. More importantly, in the same amount of observing time, the larger mirror would see objects that are about 11 times fainter than Hubble sees because the 8-meter telescope has 11 times the light collecting area.

But Ares V can go yet bigger. It could transport a huge segmented telescope – one with several separate mirror panels that are folded up for transport like the James Webb Space Telescope--but three times the size!

The Space Telescope Science Institute's Marc Postman has been planning a 16-meter segmented optical/ultraviolet telescope called ATLAST, short for Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope. The science from an aperture its size would be spectacular.

"ATLAST would be nearly 2000 times more sensitive than the Hubble Telescope and would provide images about seven times sharper than either Hubble or James Webb," says Postman. "It could help us find the long sought answer to a very compelling question -- 'Is there life elsewhere in the galaxy?'"

ATLAST's superior sensitivity would allow astronomers to hugely increase their sample size of stars for observation. Then, discovery of planets hospitable to life could be just around the corner!

"With our space-based telescope, we could obtain the spectrum of Earth-mass planets orbiting a huge number of nearby [60 - 70 light years from Earth] stars," says Postman. "We could detect any oxygen and water in the planets' spectral signatures. ATLAST could also precisely determine the birth dates of stars in nearby galaxies, giving us an accurate description of how galaxies assemble their stars."

This telescope could also probe the link between galaxies and black holes. Scientists know that almost all modern galaxies have supermassive black holes in their centers. "There must be a fundamental relationship between the formation of supermassive black holes and the formation of galaxies," explains Postman, "but we don't understand the nature of that relationship. Do black holes form first and act as seeds for the growth of galaxies around them? Or do galaxies form first and serve as incubators for supermassive black holes? A large UV/optical telescope could answer this question: If our telescope finds ancient galaxies that do not have supermassive black holes in their centers, it will mean galaxies can exist without them."

Dan Lester of the University of Texas at Austin envisions another 16-meter telescope, this one for detecting far-infrared wavelengths.

"The far-infrared telescope is quite different from, and quite complementary to, the optical telescopes of Stahl and Postman," says Lester. "In the far-infrared part of the spectrum, we generally aren't looking at starlight itself, but at the glow of warm dust and gas that surrounds the stars. In the very early stages of star formation, the proto-star is surrounded by layers of dust that visible light can't penetrate. Our telescope will allow us to see down into the innards of these giant dense clouds that are forming stars deep inside."

Observations in the far-infrared are especially challenging. These long wavelengths are hundreds of times larger than visible light, so it's hard to get a clear picture. "A very big telescope is necessary for good clarity at IR wavelengths," notes Lester.


Like the telescopes of Stahl and Postman, Lester's Single Aperture Far-Infrared Telescope ('SAFIR' for short), comes in two flavors for the Ares V: an 8-meter monolithic version and a 16-meter segmented version. Lester realized that, with an Ares V, he could launch an 8-meter telescope that didn't need complicated folding and unfolding. "But on the other hand, if we don't mind adding the complexity and cost of folding and still use an Ares V, we could launch a really mammoth telescope," says Lester.

In addition to all the above telescopes, Ares V could boost an 8-meter-class X-ray telescope into space. NASA's highly-successful Chandra X-ray Observatory has a 1 meter diameter mirror, so just imagine what an 8-meter Chandra might reveal!

Roger Brissenden of the Chandra X-ray Center is excited about the possibility of a future 8-meter-class X-ray telescope called Gen-X.

"Gen-X would be an extraordinarily powerful X-ray observatory that could open up new frontiers in astrophysics," he says. "This telescope will observe the very first black holes, stars and galaxies, born just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and help us determine how these evolve with time. Right now, the study of the young universe is almost purely in the realm of theory, but with Gen-X's extreme sensitivity (more than 1000 times that of Chandra) these early objects would be revealed."

Indeed, Ares V flings shutters open wide on our view of the cosmos. It shakes off the shackles of mass and volume constraints from science missions and sweeps us into deep space to view "...a hundred things/ You have not dreamed of."

"We could get incredible astronomy from this big rocket," says Thronson, a professional dreamer. "I can't wait." Read more!

International Year of Astronomy 2009

by the Editors of Sky & Telescope

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IAU

New Year's Day marks the beginning of what will undoubtedly be more than 12 months of celebrating astronomy. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has designated 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations using a telescope. IYA2009 has been endorsed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the U.N. General Assembly.

Much of IYA2009's activities revolve around 11 Cornerstone Projects. While some initiatives are already underway, others still remain under development. The links to their individual sites are listed below. You'll find even more information at U.S. National Node. If you don't live in the U.S., see IYA2009's main site for a link to your country's node.

100 Hours of Astronomy: 400 Years in the Making
The Galileoscope: Millions of People Looking at the Sky
Cosmic Diary: The Life of an Astronomer
Portal to the Universe: A One-stop Universe of News
She Is an Astronomer: Breaking Down Misconceptions
Dark Skies Awareness: Seeing in the Dark
Astronomy and World Heritage: Universal Treasures
Galileo Teacher Training Program: Teaching the Teachers
Universe Awareness: One Place in the Cosmos
From Earth to the Universe: The Beauty of Science
Developing Astronomy Globally: Astronomy for All

And while it's not an official Cornerstone Project, the amateur-led The Earth at Night project is another important element for IYA2009.

Make room on your iPod for the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. There's a fact-filled, fun episode every day.

We're happy to provide the article "The Year to Celebrate Astronomy" by organizers Catherine Cesarsky, Pedro Russo, and Lars Lindberg Christensen from the January 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope as a free download in PDF format. (To display PDF files, download and install the free Adobe Reader.)

Be sure to check out the official movie of IYA2009: Eyes on the Skies produced by the European Space Agency and European Southern Observatory.

Read more!

Oct. 28, 2008: Stop! Take your finger off that doorbell. Something spooky is happening behind your back. Turn around, tip back your mask, and behold the sunset.

It's a Halloween sky show.

On Oct. 31st, the crescent Moon will sneak up on Venus for a close encounter of startling beauty. The gathering is best seen just after sunset when the twilight is pumpkin-orange and Halloween doorbells are chiming in earnest. Venus hovers just above the southwestern horizon, the brightest light in the sky, while the exquisitely slender Moon approaches just a few degrees below: sky map.

Above: Venus and the crescent Moon photographed in July 2007 by Dan Bush of Albany, Missouri. The scene will be much the same on Halloween 2008. [Larger image]

Okay, stop staring. There's candy to be gathered.

One night later, you can give the sequel your undivided attention. On Nov. 1st, Venus and the Moon emerge from the twilight side-by-side, Venus on the right, the Moon on the left: sky map. Look carefully at the Moon. Can you see a ghostly image of the full Moon inside the bright horns of the crescent? That’s called "Earthshine" or sometimes "the da Vinci glow" because Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to explain it: Sunlight hits Earth and ricochets to the Moon, casting a sheen of light across the dark lunar terrain. A crescent Moon with Earthshine is one of the loveliest sights in the heavens.

The show continues on Nov. 2nd with Venus, the still-slender crescent Moon, and Jupiter arrayed in a broad line across the southwestern sky: sky map. This linear arrangement attracts attention almost as much as the luminosity of its points: Venus, the Moon and Jupiter are the brightest objects in the heavens, visible from light-polluted cities even before the twilight sky fades to black.

Trace your finger upward along the line—that is where the Moon is going. Nightfall on Nov. 3rd reveals the Moon transported to Jupiter: sky map. The two form a pair so tight and eye-catching, it may take your breath away.

As hard as it may be to believe, these nights of dark beauty are just a hint of things to come. The real show begins one month after Halloween when Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter converge on a tiny patch of sky no bigger than the end of your thumb held at arm's length: sky map. Dec. 1st is the best night to look, even better than Halloween.

Now that's scary. Read more!

by Sean Walker

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Asteroid 2008 UZ drifted across the field during an evening imaging run. Click on the image to see an animation of the object's movement.

Paul Mortfield

Despite the growing number of professional surveys searching for near-Earth asteroids, amateurs still can bag a few new discoveries.

Amateur Paul Mortfield spends time with every imaging run he completes blinking each exposure and comparing the results to older survey images to see if something new appeared.

The effort has paid off. Mortfield has been credited with the discovery of two new asteroids, officially designated 2008 UY and 2008 UZ. Both objects are roughly 20th magnitude, and barely noticeable above the background signal in his exposures.

"Using a 16-inch telescope at f/8.9, I managed to capture these faint objects slowly drifting across my CCD images while taking 15-minute exposures," Mortfield explains. "They were only noticeable when I stretched each frame and blinked the results. I suppose if this stuff was easy, everyone would be doing it!"

Mortfield details a few simple steps that any imager can perform to search for asteroids, variable stars, and supernovae, as well as other scientifically useful information, hidden in the images we capture every clear night. Read about his experiences in Sky & Telescope's December issue, on newsstands now.

Read more!

Rob Cardinal was looking for an asteroid, but found a comet. / Photo by Leanne Yohemas

Watch a short video of the comet
Comet.wmv or Comet2.mov

Rob Cardinal was looking for an asteroid, but ended up finding a comet. It is the first time a comet has been discovered at U of C’s Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, which is located about 35 kilometres southwest of Calgary, and only the second Canadian discovery of a comet, using a Canadian telescope, in nearly a decade.

On Oct. 1, Cardinal thought he saw something move while observing a patch of sky near the North Celestial Pole while using the observatory's Baker-Nunn telescope. A subsequent computer analysis of the images taken, showed a moving object that although faint by visual standards, was actually exceptionally bright for what was a suspected asteroid at the time.

A few more pictures taken about a week later verified that a never-before-seen member of our solar system had been discovered, and it was confirmed by other observations by astronomers in the U.S. and Japan and the Minor Planet Center, based at Harvard University, that it was a new comet. As per protocol, it was named after Cardinal and is officially designated as C/2008 T2 Cardinal.

“I was so excited when I found out,” says the astronomer. “It’s satisfying to see your hard work pay off.”

Russ Taylor, the head of the physics and astronomy department, called the find a tribute to the team of scientists and the dark sky quality at the observatory.

“Alan Hildebrand, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science, and his research team at the Rothney have put together the premier wide-field telescope for space imaging in Canada. The discovery of comet Cardinal is an exciting achievement,” he says.

There is not much known yet about the Cardinal comet. U of C scientists are trying to determine more information about its orbit, whether its passing by Earth is periodic or whether it will only come by the sun once, which would mean its orbit is parabolic.

“The vast majority of the known comets, and the comets now being discovered, are found near a region of the sky called the ecliptic–that's because their orbits are similar to the orbits of the planets,” says Phil Langill, the observatory’s director.

"Comet Cardinal is on a very unusual orbit compared to normal solar system objects–it’s almost 60 degrees out of alignment with all the others. It is currently near the north star. It was brilliant for Alan and Rob to search that part of the sky, because everyone else is looking where the likelihood of asteroid discovery is high."

Cardinal says the comet is visible right now only in the northern hemisphere until June and after that, it will be visible, and likely brighter, in the southern hemisphere.

Langill says that if you could get hold of cometary material, you would be holding a 4.5 billion year old piece of history, with clues about how things were when the Sun and the solar system came together. Comet Cardinal is made up of bits of debris and ice left over when the solar system was created.

Langill adds he credits the local community for remembering to keep their lights off at night. The observatory has been working with the MD of Foothills to educate folks about smart lighting choices, light abatement, and what the astronomers at the U of C’s observatory do.

“This discovery can, in part, be attributable to them,” he says. Read more!

The landmark 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's Hubble Heritage Project is being celebrated with a 'landscape' image from the cosmos. Cutting across a nearby star-forming region, called NGC 3324, are the "hills and valleys" of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. Set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas as well as dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height. NGC 3324 is located in the constellation Carina, about 7,200 light-years away from Earth. This image is a composite of data taken with two of Hubble's science instruments. Data taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in 2006 isolated light emitted by hydrogen. More recent data, taken in 2008 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), isolated light emitted by sulfur and oxygen gas. To create a color composite, the data from the sulfur filter are represented by red, from the oxygen filter by blue, and from the hydrogen filter by green. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/34/

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Dense clusters of crack-like structures called deformation bands form the linear ridges prominent in this image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone.

Researchers used images from the spacecraft's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera. Images of layered rock deposits at equatorial Martian sites show the clusters of fractures to be a type called deformation bands, caused by stresses below the surface in granular or porous bedrock.

"Groundwater often flows along fractures such as these, and knowing that these are deformation bands helps us understand how the underground plumbing may have worked within these layered deposits," said Chris Okubo of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Visible effects of water on the color and texture of rock along the fractures provide evidence that groundwater flowed extensively along the fractures.

"These structures are important sites for future exploration and investigations into the geological history of water and water-related processes on Mars," Okubo and co-authors state in a report published online this month in the Geological Society of America Bulletin.

Deformation band clusters in Utah sandstones, as on Mars, are a few meters or yards wide and up to a few kilometers or miles long. They form from either compression or stretching of underground layers, and can be precursors to faults. The ones visible at the surface have become exposed as overlying layers erode away. Deformation bands and faults can strongly influence the movement of groundwater on Earth and appear to have been similarly important on Mars, according to this study.

"This study provides a picture of not just surface water erosion, but true groundwater effects widely distributed over the planet," said Suzanne Smrekar, deputy project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Groundwater movement has important implications for how the temperature and chemistry of the crust have changed over time, which in turn affects the potential for habitats for past life."

The recent study focuses on layered deposits in Mars' Capen crater, approximately 70 kilometers (43 miles) in diameter and 7 degrees north of the equator. This formerly unnamed crater became notable due to this discovery of deformation bands within it and was recently assigned a formal name. The crater was named for the late Charles Capen, who studied Mars and other objects as an astronomer at JPL's Table Mountain Observatory in Southern California and at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz.

The HiRISE camera is one of six science instruments on the orbiter. It can reveal smaller details on the surface than any previous camera to orbit Mars. The orbiter reached Mars in March 2006 and has returned more data than all other current and past missions to Mars combined.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver built the spacecraft. The University of Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp. of Boulder, Colo.

Images of the deformation band clusters and additional information about the mission are on the Internet at: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .
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A competition to find a European name for De Winne's mission to the ISS

ESA looks for a name for its next long-term mission to the ISS

11 September 2008
In May 2009, ESA astronaut Frank De Winne, of Belgian nationality and a member of the European Astronaut Corps, will fly to the International Space Station for a six-month mission. ESA is holding a competition to find a name for the mission.

During his stay on the ISS, De Winne will conduct scientific experiments developed by scientists from different European countries and others worldwide. In addition he will also perform technology demonstrations and an education programme.

De Winne's ISS mission reflects the long-term commitment of Europe to human spaceflight and exploration. ESA's participation in the ISS programme is a stepping stone for Europe in human exploration of the Universe.

After delivering the Columbus laboratory and successfully launching the first ATV, Jules Verne, Europe is well placed to play an essential role in the upcoming international space exploration missions to orbital outposts, e.g. ISS, the Moon and beyond. The next long-term mission of Frank De Winne to the ISS helps to prepare space exploration and benefits life on Earth.

In preparation for De Winne's flight, ESA launches a competition to find a European name for its next long-term mission to the ISS. The competition is open to all citizens of the ESA Member States*, who are invited to propose a name for De Winne’s mission. The winning name will become the official European name of the mission and the winner will receive a frame with the mission logo signed by European astronauts.


How to participate

The name has to reflect the following aspects:

• Europe is exploring space
  Humans are explorers by nature. Europe has a legacy in exploring Earth and will live up to the expectations in exploring space.
• Europe has its own Columbus laboratory permanently in space
  Europe uses its Columbus laboratory on the ISS for science, technology and education for the benefit of life on Earth.
• From space our planet looks blue because of the water
  Water is the basis of life. Clean water is the basis for healthy life of all humans on Earth.

Conditions

• The proposal should contain the name and an explanation why this would be an appropriate name for an ESA human mission to space.
• The proposal has to illustrate the above messages.
• The proposal should be maximum one A4 page, 12 pt, single space.
• The name should be a word (or a short combination of words), not a personal name (unless it is a mythological name which has a commonly known symbolic meaning).
• The proposals should be submitted via email to mission.name@esa.int. The proposal can be written in the body of the email or in an attached Word document. The attachment should not exceed 3 MB.
• Regardless of the email address you are using for the submission, please write in your email your real full name, age, home address and phone number. This is very important – we need to be able to contact you if you win.
• Please put 'Mission Name Competition' into the subject line of the email. This would allow us to make sure that your email does not accidentally get lost in the spam filter.
• The proposals have to arrive in the mission.name@esa.int mailbox the latest by 18:00 CEST, 15 October 2008. ESA bears no responsibility for any delay or loss of email.
• The proposals should be submitted in English language. If you are having doubts about the fluency of your English writing, please go ahead and submit your proposal nevertheless. As long as the idea is interesting and understandable it will be considered. If you win, the editorial help for final publication will be provided.
• The winning proposal will be published on the ESA web site in November 2008 with the announcement of the name of the winner and possibly with the link to the winners’ web site.
• By submitting the application, the applicant gives permission to ESA to publish their name and hands over to ESA all the rights to use the proposal for the purposes outlined in this announcement and for purposes related to ESA communications.
• All submissions are individual. No group submissions will be accepted.
• By submitting the proposal, the participant declares that this is their own work and is not copied from any other original work. ESA bears no responsibility for verifying the authenticity of the proposals.
• For applicants below age of 18, by submitting the proposal they confirm that a parent/legal guardian is informed about the submission and agreed to it, taking into account the above conditions.
• ESA staff members and their relatives are not allowed to take part in this competition.

* Residents of the following states are allowed to participate in the competition: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Read more!