Hubble And The IYA; A Magnetar Acts Up

Another lovely, snowy/icy/slushy day is upon us here in central PA, enough said. It is Wednesday, so that means that a new Astronomy Video has been posted! The video discusses events for early February, including the appearance of Comet Lulin! A new Penn State Astronomy Article has been posted as well, it is all about 30 Doradus! Meanwhile, NASA has invited the public to vote on which astronomical object Hubble should study for the International Year of Astronomy, and an unusual type of pulsar has become rather active.

Check This Out!

Right now, we are at a solar minimum, and it is still considered to be the tail end of Solar Cycle 23 and the very start of Solar Cycle 24. Scientists are still aiming for 2011-2012 to be the time of the maximum, but more studies are being done to try to determine if this could still happen. Many of you have noticed that the sunspot activity has been much less than exciting of late, and unfortunately this could continue for sometime. Pinpointing the exact moment when the sun will reach its maximum during a cycle, or how strong a solar cycle will be is still very difficult. However, there is a recent article by NASA's David Hathaway which discusses the methodology of predicting the current solar cycle. It was previously thought that '24' would be stronger than '23'; however, it now appears that the opposite could occur. I found an interesting discussion about it as well.
 

Graphic Representation of Recent Sun Cycle Prediction-NASA/Hathaway

Speaking of the sun, Spaceweather.com has set up the gallery for the recent annular eclipse that was visible in the southern hemisphere, so check that out!

I've been getting some questions lately on where and when to see Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin). As usual, I turn to heavens-above.com, and if you have your location registered you can see not only when the ISS and shuttle and other objects fly over your location, but there is of course information about comet Lulin too, such as its coordinates, magnitude, distance from Earth, etc. Just look under the Astronomy section and where it says "Comets currently brighter than magnitude 12". The comet rises around 2:00am EST and sets around noon in the constellation Libra, so you have to be an early riser to catch this one, but I would say, just from the pictures I've seen so far, that it is worth it! If you use the Starry Night program (or any other sky plotting software that automatically updates its information), you can see some more information about the comet. Spaceweather.com of course has a lovely gallery you can check out.

Astronews!

Hubble fans, its time to cast your vote! NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope team want to invite the public to vote on which astronomical object Hubble will study in celebration of the International Year of Astronomy. Participants can choose their favorite among six different objects between now and March 1, 2009. The winning object will be revealed between April 2-5, 2009, during the IYA's 100 Hours Of Astronomy event, a global affair geared towards encouraging everyone to experience the night sky. The choices are tough, for sure, but I think I picked my favorite. Teachers! you can get your students involved in the You Decide event not only by having them vote, but also by having them create a collage of their favorite Hubble images, and topping it off with the winning image. See more at the Amazing Spacewebsite.

The International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) has been able to perform high-energy observations which have revealed that the Anomalous X-ray Pulsar (AXP) 1E 1547.0-5408 had entered what is known as outburst mode. This particular Pulsar is one of only nine that have been confirmed thus far. These types of Pulsars are young neutron stars that have abnormally strong magnetic fields. Together with "Soft Gamma Repeaters"(emits large bursts of both Gamma and X-rays at different intervals), they make up a class of objects called Magnetars. 1E was first detected by the Einstein X-ray observatory, and observations that followed by scopes like Chandra and Swift revealed it to in fact be an AXP. Over the past few years a small number of outbursts were reported, however they were much weaker and fewer in number than the ones reported more recently (nearly 200 compared to just a few per day). The more recent burst of activity started last Thursday when the Swift Burst Alert Telescope and Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor both recorded "hard X-ray triggers" originating from 1E. The bursts were also some of the brightest yet recorded in INTEGRAL's 6 years; they varied in length from 50 milliseconds to 8 seconds.

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.