Jul 28 2009
The silent connection with the heavens
By David Finnigan
Our solar system is fairly straightforward. Some planets spin around an enormous nuclear furnace, humans all live on Earth, Mars is our wacky neighbour, nobody really likes Mercury (what is there to like?) and, if the Sun ever went on holidays, Jupiter would be left in charge.
Jupiter’s huge. It has 64 moons and most of them are bigger and smarter than the Earth and Moon combined. Jupiter could beat any other planet in a fight without breaking a sweat; and yet, on Friday July 19, something left a bruise the size of Earth on Jupiter’s handsome gaseous cheek.
Jupiter
No-one, not even the toughest Sumo wrestler, is capable of causing the kind of impact which left the dark scar-like patch near the planet’s southern pole, but NSW resident Anthony Wesley did the next best thing: he discovered the crash site from his home observatory in Murrumbateman.
“On Friday night I was imaging the same area that I was imaging Sunday night so I could tell pretty quickly when I saw this black mark coming into view that it was something that wasn’t there when I last looked two days before,” Wesley explained to a journalist at Discovery Channel news website, Discovery News.
If you want to join Wesley in witnessing Jupiter’s embarrassing ammonia-rich pimple, you need to get to the Science Centre and Planetarium in Wollongong for a public viewing night on August 28. This evening takes place as a part of the International Year of Astronomy’s celebration of the 400th birthday of the telescope in astronomy.
“Galileo’s observations of Jupiter and its moons changed our perceptions of the Earth’s place in the Universe forever,” says Glen Moore, Director of the Science Centre and Planetarium. ‘The telescope remains one of the most exciting devices ever invented.”
Galileo's Telescope
The public viewing night will involve the use of many telescopes provided by both the Science Centre and the Illawarra Astronomical Society. Providing the skies are clear, visitors will be able to experience views of Jupiter and its major moons since Jupiter is ideally suited for observations on this date. The evening has also been chosen to provide excellent views of the moon, one of the first objects viewed by Galileo.
The evening comes at the end of the Young Galileos project, a series of workshops as a part of Science Week in which young people are constructing working replicas of Galileo’s telescope, which they will be able to keep.
“A major role of the Science Centre is to reaveal the inner workings of science,” explains Moore. “The Centre has found that children have the ability to understand how lenses and telescopes work if taken through the building process step by step.”
As Director of the Planetarium, Glen Moore is the ideal candidate for 10 Days of Science editor Kate Hennessy’s Pink Floyd Challenge: Is there any finer accompaniment to an evening of stargazing than Pink Floyd’s Astronomy Domine?
Glen’s reply: “I prefer silence if actually observing as there is something quite magic about the chill of an evening and the silent connection with the heavens through the telescope eyepiece.”
Checkmate, Syd Barrett.
Find out more about the Young Galileos project here.
