ISRO: EXPLORING THE SPACE BEYOND!

Indian Space Research Organization

It is the space station of the government of India, head quartered in the city of Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

It’s vision is to ‘harness space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary.

Moto: Space technology in the service of human kind

ISRO was established in the year 1961 to focus the talent of Indian Researchers into advancing the space program. Dr Vikram Sarabhai was the founding father of Indian space program. After the launch of Sputnik in 1957 by Russia, he recognized the potential that satellites provided.

He was born on 12 August 1919. He was an Indian scientist and innovator widely regarded as the father of India’s space program. Dr. Sarabhai was considered as a great institution builder and established or helped to establish a large number of institutions in diverse fields. He was instrumental in establishing the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL).

The establishment of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was one of his greatest achievement. He successfully convinced the government about the importance of a space program for a developing country like India.

Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely regarded as the father of India's nuclear science program, supported Dr. Sarabhai in setting up the first rocket launching station in India. This center was established at Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram on the coast of the Arabian Sea, primarily because of its proximity to the equator. After a remarkable effort in setting up the infrastructure, personnel, communication links, and launch pads, the inaugural flight was launched on November 21, 1963 with a sodium vapour payload.

As a result of Dr. Sarabhai's dialogue with NASA in 1966, the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was launched during July 1975 - July 1976 (when Dr. Sarabhai was no more). Dr. Sarabhai started a project for the fabrication and launch of an Indian Satellite. As a result, the first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was put in orbit in 1975 from a Russian Cosmodrome. Dr. Sarabhai was very interested in science education and founded a Community Science Centre at Ahmedabad in 1966. Today, the Centre is called the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre.

Centers:

Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC): SHAR, Sriharikota, the Spaceport of India, is responsible for providing Launch Base Infrastructure for the Indian Space Programme. This Centre has the facilities for solid propellant processing, static testing of solid motors, launch vehicle integration and launch operations, range operations comprising telemetry, tracking and command network and mission control centre.

The Centre has two launch pads from where the rocket launching operations of PSLV and GSLV are carried out. The mandate for the centre is (i) to produce solid propellant boosters for the launch vehicle programmes of ISRO (ii) to provide the infrastructure for qualifying various subsystems and solid rocket motors and carrying out the necessary tests (iii) to provide launch base infrastructure for satellites and launch vehicles.

SDSC SHAR has a separate launch pad for launching sounding rockets. The centre also provides the necessary launch base infrastructure for sounding rockets of ISRO and for assembly, integration and launch of sounding rockets and payloads.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC): It is a major space research centre of the ISRO focusing on rocket and space vehicles for India’s satellite programme. It is located in Thiruvananthapuram, in the Indian state of Kerala. The centre had its beginnings as the thumb an equatorial rocket launching station (TERLS) in 1962. It is one of the main research and development establishments within ISRO.

Liquid Propulsion System Centre (LPSC): It is the centre of excellence in the area of liquid propulsion for ISRO’s launch vehicle and spacecraft programmes. Its headquarters and design office is at Thiruvananthapuram.

ISRO satellite centre (ISAC): ISAC at Bangalore is engaged in developing satellite technology and implementation of satellite systems for scientific, technological and application missions.

ISRO propulsion complex (IPRC): IPRC, Mahendragiri is equipped with state of-the-art-facilities necessary for realizing the cutting edge technology products for ISRO’s space research programme.

National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC): The centre is responsible for remote sensing satellite data acquisition and processing data dissemination, aerial remote sensing and decision support for disaster management.

Master Control Facility (MCF): MCF at Hassan in Karnataka; Bhopal and in Madhya Pradesh monitors and controls all the geo-stationary satellites of ISRO.

ISRO telemetry tracking and command network (ISTRAC): ISTRAC is responsible for providing space operation services that include space craft control, TTC support services and other related projects and services, for the launch vehicle; low earth orbiting space craft and deep space missions of ISRO and other space agencies around the world.

Achievements:

Aryabhata: The Aryabhata spacecraft, named after the famous Indian astronomer, was India's first satellite; it was completely designed and fabricated in India and launched by a Soviet Kosmos-3M rocket from Kapustin Yar on April 19, 1975.

Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV): India successfully tested the launched of indigenously made Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), capable of launching satellites into orbit around earth and then re-enter the atmosphere, from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. RLV is dubbed as India’s own space shuttle. (The ‘Space Shuttle’ was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as part of the Space Shuttle program.)

RLV is the unanimous solution to achieve low cost, reliable and on—demand space access. The making of the Indian space shuttle or RLV-TD has taken five years and the government has invested Rs. 95 crore in the project. This flight will test the capability of the vehicle to survive a re-entry at speeds higher than that of sound. The solution to reducing cost of launching satellites into orbit is to recycle the rocket or make it reusable.

(Nasa grounded its space shuttle programme in 2011 after using its reusable vehicles like Discovery, Endeavor, Columbia and Challenger for over three decades to launch various missions, including the International Space Station (ISS) and the Hubble telescope.)

Indian national satellite system (INSAT): Launched by ISRO in 1983, INSAT is a series of multi-purpose geostationary satellite. It is used for telecommunication, broadcasting, meteorology, search and reuse operations. Commissioned in 1983, INSAT is the largest domestic communication system in the Asia Pacific Region. It is a joint venture of the Department of Space, Department of Telecommunications, India Meteorological Department, All India Radio and Doordarshan.

Space capsule recovery experiment (SRE-1): On 10 January 2007, an Indian experiment spacecraft was launched using the PSLVC3 rocket from Sriharikota. Before reentering the atmosphere of the earth and diving into the Bay of Bengal, the capsule stayed in the orbit for twelve days.

SRE-1 was designed to demonstrate the capability to recover an orbiting space capsule, and the technology of an orbiting platform for performing experiments in microgravity conditions. It was also intended to test reusable Thermal Protection System, navigation, guidance and control, hypersonic aero-thermodynamics, management of communication blackout, deceleration and flotation system and recovery operations. The information obtained from this technology and experiment is being applied to the design of India's Gaganyaan crewed orbital capsule.

Chandrayaan-1: Is the India's first mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon. The spacecraft carried 11 scientific instruments built in India, USA, UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.

After the successful completion of all the major mission objectives, the orbit has been raised to 200 km during May 2009. The satellite made more than 3400 orbits around the moon and the mission was concluded when the communication with the spacecraft was lost on August 29, 2009.

Mangalayaan (MOM): The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is India's first interplanetary mission and it made it the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It is the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, and the first nation in the world to do so in its first attempt

PSLV-C37: Was the 39th mission of the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) program and its 16th mission in the XLconfiguration. PSLV-C37 successfully carried and deployed (in one go) a record 104 satellites in sun-synchronous orbits. Launched on 15 February 2017 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, it broke the earlier record of launching 37 satellites by a Russian Dnepr rocket on 19 June 2014. According to ISRO, the 101 international satellites were launched as part of a commercial arrangement between several firms and its commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited, run under the auspices of the Indian Government's Department of Space. PSLV-C37 is also known as cartosat-2 series satellite. The cartosat-2 serves as, India’s earth observation satellite.

Future Projects: 

Chandrayana-II: Is India's second lunar exploration mission after Chandrayaan-1 (will be launched in the January-March window in 2019 ) Developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the mission is planned to be launched to the Moon by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III). It includes a lunar orbiter, lander and rover, all developed by India.

NISAR: The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission is a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual frequency synthetic aperture radar satellite. The satellite will be the first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequency and it is planned to be used for remote sensing to observe and understand natural processes on Earth

Collected By:

Havyashree G P

Ivy Anjali Dsouza

Lekshmi Priya L

Pallavi V M

Source: Internet

DWARF PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEMS

There are 5 officially recognized dwarf planets in our solar system; they are Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris. With exception of Ceres, which is located in the asteroid belt, the other dwarf planets are found in the outer solar system. There are another 6 objects in our solar system that are almost certainly dwarf planets and there are as many as 10000. Of the dwarf planets only 2 have been visited by space probes, in 2015 NASA’s Dawn and New Horizons missions reached Ceres and Pluto respectively.

WHAT IS DWARF PLANET?

A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a planet nor a natural satellite. The International Astronomical Union’s definition of a dwarf planet is:

A “dwarf planet” is a celestial body that

• is in orbit around the Sun,
• has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces, so that it assumes a hydro static equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
• has not cleared, the neighborhood around its orbit, and
• is not a satellite.The key difference is that a planet has cleared other objects in the area of its orbit, while a dwarf planet has not.

The largest dwarf planet in the solar system is Pluto followed by Eris, Makemake, Haumea with the smallest being Ceres. The order of dwarf planet from closest to Sun outwards is Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and with the Eris being the farthest from the Sun.

HISTORY

Starting in 1801, astronomers discovered Ceres and the other bodies between the Mars and Jupiter which were for decades considered as a planet. Between then and around 1851, when the numbers of planet had reached 23, astronomers started using the word asteroid for the small bodies. With the discovery of Pluto in 1930, most astronomers considered Solar System to have 9 planets. For almost 50 years Pluto was thought to be larger than Mercury, but with the discovery of Pluto’s moon Charon, it was determined that mass of Pluto was much smaller than initial estimate. It was roughly one-twentieth the mass of Mercury. Furthermore, having some unusual characteristics, such as larger orbital eccentricity and a high orbital inclination, it became evident that Pluto was a different kind of body from any of the other planets.

Eris (then known as 2003UB313) was discovered in January 2005; it was thought to be slightly greater than Pluto, and some reports informally referred to it as the 10th planet. The issue became matter of intense debate during a IAU general assembly in August 2006. The IAU’s initial draft proposal included Pluto, Charon, Eris and Ceres in the list of planets. After all astronomer objected to this proposal, an alternative drawn up by Uruguayan astronomer Julio Angel Fernandez: He proposed an intermediate category for objects large enough to be round, but had not cleared their objects of planetesimals. Dropping Charon from the list, the new proposal also removed Pluto, Ceres and Eris, because they have not cleared their orbits. Thus the IAU resolves that planets and the other bodies except satellites, in our solar system be defined into 3 distinct categories. By this problem regarding to dwarf planet was solved.

EXPLORATION

On March 6, 2015, the ‘Dawn’ Spacecraft began to orbit Ceres, becoming the first Spacecraft to orbit of a dwarf planet. On July 14, 2015 the ‘New Horizons’ space probe flew by Pluto and its 5 moons. Dawn has also explored the former dwarf planet Vesta. This exploration helps in the study of the evolution of dwarf planet.

PLUTO

Pluto was discovered in 1830 by an astronomer from the United States. An astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto on February 18th 1930. Pluto was known as the smallest planet in the solar system and the ninth planet from the Sun.

But today Pluto is known as ‘dwarf planet’. A dwarf planet orbits the Sun just like other planets, but it is smaller. A dwarf planet is so small it cannot clear other objects out of its path.

Pluto is in the region called Kuiper (KY-per) Belt. Thousands of small, icy objects like Pluto are in the Kuiper belt. Pluto is only 1400 miles wide. That about half the width of the united states Pluto is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon. It takes Pluto 248 years to go around the Sun. One day on Pluto is about 6.5 days on the earth.

Pluto is called as Plutoid. A Plutoid is a dwarf planet that is farther out in space than the planet Neptune. The three known Plutoids are Pluto, Eris and Makemake. Astronomers used telescope to discover new objects like Plutoids scientists are learning more about the universe and the Earth’s place in it.

Pluto is very cold. The Pluto is far from Earth that scientist known very little temperature. Pluto is probably covered with ice. Pluto has about one-fifteenth the gravity of earth. A person who weighs 400 pounds in earth would weigh only 7 pounds on Pluto.

NASA learns about Pluto from pictures taken with telescopes. Pictures from Hubble space telescope helped scientists to find the four light areas on Pluto. Pluto is so far away that even pictures taken by telescope area little fazzy.

In 2006, NASA launched the first mission to Pluto’ New Horizon’. New Horizon is the space craft that is going to the edge of the solar system. This space craft is about the size of piano. It was 9 years trip. In 2015, New Horizon arrived at Pluto. New Horizon has cameras that will take pictures of Pluto. These pictures and information will help scientists to learn more about dwarf planet.

Pluto having one-third of water. This is in the form of water ice which is more than 3 times as much water as in all the earth’s ocean, the remaining two-third are rock.

Pluto’s location was predicted by Percival Lowell in 1915. When Pluto’s elliptical orbit takes it closer to the Sun, its surface ice melts and forms a thin atmosphere primarily of nitrogen which slowly escapes the planet. It also has methane. The methane is dissociated by sunlight when a Pluto travels away from the Sun. When Pluto travels away from the atmosphere then freezes back to its solid state.

Diameter - 2372 km

Mass - 1.31*1022 kg (0.17 moons)

Orbit Distance - 39.2 AU

Orbit Period - 248 years

Surface Temperature - 229 degree C

CERES

Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the sun and is located in asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, making it the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. Ceres is the smallest of the bodies current classified as dwarf planets with a diameter of 950km. Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered by Giuseppe Pazzi at Palermo on 1st January 1801. It was originally considered as planet, but was reclassified as an asteroid in the1850’s after many other objects in the similar orbits was discovered.

Dawn is a space probe launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying dwarf planet Ceres with the other protoplanets of the asteroid belt and Vesta.

Ceres is the largest known asteroid in the asteroid belt until 2006. In 2006, the IAU formed a new class of solar system objects known as dwarf planets. By the definition a dwarf planet is spherical and travels in an orbit around the Sun. Ceres fit the definition perfectly. Hence it is considered as a dwarf planet.

The surface is probably a mixture of water-ice and various hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. Ceres appears to be differentiated in to a rocky core and an icy mantle, and may have a remnant internal ocean of liquid water under the layer of ice. Ceres has a tenuous water vapor atmosphere out-gassing from water-ice on the surface.

Ceres was the first object considered to be an asteroid. The first visit to Ceres is due in 2015. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has been making its way to Ceres from the asteroid Vesta since September 2012. There is a high interest in this mission and is one possible destination for human colonization gives its abundance of ice, water and minerals.

Ceres has a mysterious white spot. This can be seen in both the old Hubble images and the more recent photos taken by Dawn spacecraft on its approach.

Every second Ceres loses 6 kg of its mass in steam. Plums of water vapor shooting up from Ceres surface were observed by the Herschel Space Telescope. This was the first definitive observation of water vapor in the asteroid belt.

Ceres accounts for one-third of the mass in the asteroid belt. For roughly the first 50 years after this discovery Ceres was frequently referred as a Planet. Ceres is the only dwarf planet with no moons. The other planets Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris all have at least one moon.

HAUMEA

Haumea is the third closest dwarf planet from the Sun and is unique in its elongated shape making it the least spherical of the dwarf planets. It is spinning so quickly that it has been stretched in to the shape of an ellipsoid.

It was discovered in 28th December 2004 by a team headed by Mike Brown of Caltech and independently in 2005 by a team headed by Jose Luis Ortiz Moreno. On September 17, 2008 it was recognized as a dwarf planet by International Astronomical Union (IAU) and named after Haumea, the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth.

Haumea is a plutoid, a dwarf planet beyond Neptune’s orbit. It is classified as a dwarf planet because it is presumed to be massive enough to have been rounded by its own gravity into a shape in hydrostatic equilibrium, but not massive enough to have cleared its neighborhood of similarly sized objects.

A day in Haumea lasts 3.9 hours. Its rotational speed as well as its collision origin also makes Haumea one of the densest dwarf planets discovered to date. Haumea has a red spot, which stands for surrounding crystalline ice. Haumea is roughly one third of mass of Pluto.

Equatorial diameter - 1960 km to 1518 km

Polar diameter - 996 km

Mass - 4.01*1021 kg (0.05 moons)

Orbit distance - 6452000000 (43.13 AU)

Orbit period - 283.3years

Surface temperature - -241 degree C

Moons - 2 ( Hi’iaka and Namaka )

ERIS

Eris is the most distant dwarf planet from the Sun and has the greatest mass. Eris is the second largest dwarf planet and at one point was considered for the position of the 10th planet. Eris discovery promoted discussion that eventually leads to the classification of “Dwarf planets”.

Eris was discovered in 5th January 2005 by M. E. Brown, C.A. Trujillo and D.J. Babinowitz from images taken on October 21, 2003. The discovery was announced on July 29, 2005 the same day Makemake and two day after Haumea is declared.

Eris is unquestionably the most massive of the known dwarf planets (the largest object that is not a planet that orbits the Sun) and was once thought to be the largest due to its relative brightness. After a stellar occultation in 2010 its diameter was calculated to be smaller than previously thought and more recent measurement suggested Pluto was larger than thought making it the largest. All the objects in the Asteroid Belt could fit inside Eris. Eris is still smaller than Earth’s moon, having about two third of the moon’s diameter and one third of its volume. Eris is not always the most distant dwarf planet. At its closest point it is closer than Pluto’s most distant point.

Diameter - 2,326 km

Mass - 1.66*102 2 kg (0.23 moons)

Orbit distance - 68.01 AU

Orbit period - 560.9 years

Surface temperature - -231 degree C

Moons - 1 (Dysnomia)

MAKEMAKE

Makemake is the second farthest dwarf planet from the Sun and is the third largest dwarf planet in the solar system. Makemake was discovered on March 31st 2005 and was recognized as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in July 2008. Until April 2016 Makemake was thought to be the only one of the four outer dwarf planets to not have any moons.

Makemake is the second brightest Kuiper Belt object after Pluto. Makemake and its moon MK2, which was spotted about 20000 km from Makemake is viewed by Hubble Space Telescope. Makemake was expected to have an atmosphere similar to that of Pluto, but in 2011 it was revealed that it mostly lacks a gas envelop. Makemake is a Kuiper Belt object; hence it remains stable over the age of the solar system since, it is not affected by the Neptune’s gravity.

Equatorial diameter - 1434 km

Polar diameter - 1422 km

Mass - 2.5*1021 kg

Orbit distance - 6850000000 km

Orbit period - 309.9 years

Surface temperature - -239 degree C

Moons - 1( MK2-5/2015(136472)1)

Collected By:

Tashreefa

Vidhya Saraswathi

Vijitha

Vinutha

Source: Internet

Supermoon images captured at St Philomena College Campus on November 14th 2016

What is Supermoon?

A supermoon is a new or full moon closely coinciding with perigee – the moon’s closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit. An astrologer, Richard Nolle, coined the term supermoon over 30 years ago, but now many in astronomy use it as well. Are supermoons hype? In our opinion … gosh, no, just modern folklore. They’ve entered the popular culture (check out Sophie Hunger’s music video in this post, for example). And they can cause real physical effects, such as larger-than-usual tides. According to the definition of supermoon coined by Nolle, the year 2016 has a total of six supermoons. The new moons of March, April and May and the full moons of October, November and December all qualify as supermoons. Follow the links below to learn more about super moons and about the supermoons of 2016.

What is a supermoon? We confess: before a few years ago, we in astronomy had never heard that term. To the best of our knowledge, astrologer Richard Nolle coined the term supermoon over 30 years ago. The term has only recently come into popular usage. Nolle has defined a supermoon as:

… a new or full moon which occurs with the moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit.

That’s a pretty generous definition, which is why there are so many supermoons. By this definition, according to Nolle:

There are 4-6 supermoons a year on average.

What did astronomers call these moons before we called them supermoons? We called them a perigee full moon, or a perigee new moon. Perigee just means “near Earth.”

The moon is full, or opposite Earth from the sun, once each month. It’s new, or more or less between the Earth and sun, once each month. And, every month, as the moon orbits Earth, it comes closest to Earth. That point is called perigee. The moon always swings farthest away once each month; that point is called apogee.

About three or four times a year, the new or full moon coincides closely in time with the perigee of the moon—the point when the moon is closest to the Earth. These occurrences are often called ‘perigean spring tides.’ The difference between ‘perigean spring tide’ and normal tidal ranges for all areas of the coast is small. In most cases, the difference is only a couple of inches above normal spring tides. Image and caption via NOAA.

When are the supermoons of 2016? By Nolle’s definition, the new moon or full moon has to come within 361,524 kilometers (224,641 miles) of our planet, as measured from the centers of the moon and Earth, in order to be considered a supermoon.

By that definition, the year 2016 has a total of six supermoons. The first supermoon, for 2016, comes with the March 9 new moon. The new moons on April 7 and May 6 are also considered supermoons, according to Nolle’s definition, and that same definition dictates that the full moons of October, November and December will be supermoons, too. Thus, the full moon supermoons – aka near-perigee full moons – in 2016:

Full moon of October 16 at 4:23 UTC

Full moon of November 14 at 13:52 UTC

Full moon of December 14 at 00:05 UTC

The full moon on November 14, 2016, will present the closest supermoon of the year (356,509 kilometers or 221,524 miles). What’s more, this November 14, 2016 full moon will showcase the moon at its closest point to Earth thus far in the 21st century (2001 to 2100), and the moon won’t come this close again until the full moon of November 25, 2034.

In 2016, the moon comes closest to Earth on November 14 (356,509 kilometers), and swings farthest away some two weeks before, on October 31 (406,662 kilometers). That’s a difference of 50,153 kilometers (406,662 – 356,509 = 50,153). Ninety percent of this 50,153-figure equals 45,137.7 kilometers (0.9 x 50,153 = 45,137.7). Presumably, any new or full moon coming closer than 361,524.3 kilometers (406,662 – 45,137.7 = 361,524.3) would be “at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth.”

Spring tides will accompany the supermoons. Will the tides be larger than usual at the March, April and May 2016 new moons and the October, November and December 2016 full moons? Yes, all full moons (and new moons) combine with the sun to create larger-than-usual tides, but closer-than-average full moons (or closer-than-average new moons) elevate the tides even more.

Each month, on the day of the new moon, the Earth, moon and sun are aligned, with the moon in between. This line-up creates wide-ranging tides, known as spring tides. High spring tides climb up especially high, and on the same day low tides plunge especially low.

The closest new moon of the year on April 7 and the year’s closest full moon on November 14 are bound to accentuate the spring tide all the more, giving rise to what’s called a perigean spring tide. If you live along an ocean coastline, watch for high tides caused by the November 14 perigean full moon.

Will these high tides cause flooding? Probably not, unless a strong weather system accompanies the perigean spring tide. Still, keep an eye on the weather, because storms do have a large potential to accentuate perigean spring tides.

Dates of closest full supermoons in past and future years. More often than not, the one day of the year that the full moon and perigee align also brings about the year’s closest perigee (also called proxigee). Because the moon has recurring cycles, we can count on the full moon and perigee to come in concert in periods of about one year, one month and 18 days.

A lunar month refers to the time period between successive full moons, a mean period of 29.53059 days. An anomalistic month refers to successive returns to perigee, a period of 27.55455 days. Hence:

14 x 29.53059 days = 413.428 days

15 x 27.55455 days = 413.318 days

Therefore, the full moon and perigee realign in periods of about 413 days (one year and 48 days). So we can figure the dates of the closest full moons in recent and future years as:

March 19, 2011

May 6, 2012

June 23, 2013

August 10, 2014

September 28, 2015

November 14, 2016

January 2, 2018.

There won’t be a perigee full moon in 2017 because the full moon and perigee won’t realign again (after November 14, 2016) until January 2, 2018.

Looking further into the future, the perigee full moon will come closer than 356,500 kilometers for the first time in the 21st century (2001-2100) on November 25, 2034 (356,446 km). The closest full moon of the 21st century will fall on December 6, 2052 (356,425 km).

What is a Black Moon? We had never heard the term Black Moon until early 2014. It doesn’t come from astronomy, or skylore, either. Instead, according to David Harper, the term comes from Wiccan culture. It’s the name for the second of two new moons in one calendar month. January 2014, for example, had two new moon supermoons, the second of which was not only a supermoon, but a Black Moon. Does a Black Moon have to be a supermoon in order to be called Black? No. You can read more about Black Moons here.

The next Black moon by the above definition will occur on October 30, 2016. Sten Odenwald at astronomycafe.net lists some other names for the second new moon in a month: Spinner Moon, Finder’s Moon, Secret Moon.

However, we’ve also come across another definition for Black Moon: the third of four new moons in one season. This last happened with the new moon supermoon of February 18, 2015, because this particular new moon was the third of four new moons to take place between the December 2014 solstice and the March 2015 equinox. The next Black Moon by this definition will occur on August 21, 2017, to feature a Black Moon total solar eclipse in the United States.

Bottom line: The term supermoon doesn’t come from astronomy. It comes from astrology, and the definition is pretty generous so that there are about 6 supermoons each year. This post explains what a supermoon is, how many will occur in 2016, which moon is the most “super” of all the 2016 supermoons, and gives a list of upcoming full supermoons for the years ahead.

Source: http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-supermoon

NOBEL PRIZE-2016

This year’s Nobel Prize in physics goes to three men, who, in their work in the 1970s and 1980s, explained the very weird thing that happens to matter when you squish it down to a flat plane, or cool it down to near absolute zero.

Half the prize goes to David Thouless of the University of Washington, and the other half is split between Duncan Haldane of Princeton University and J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown. All the laureates were born in the UK.

The prize is a reward for their theoretical work, said Thors Hans Hansson, a Nobel committee member, at the Nobel announcement. “It has combined beautiful mathematics and profound physics insights, and achieved unexpected results that has been confirmed by experiments,” Hansson said.

So what, exactly, did Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz prove?

In essence, they showed that the bizarre properties of matter at cold or condensed states — for instance, when super-cold materials conduct electricity without resistance — could be explained by the mathematics of topology.

Topology is a branch of math that studies what properties are preserved when objects are stretched, twisted, or deformed. Hansson, apparently anticipating our total ignorance of topology, helpfully brought along a cinnamon bun, a bagel, and a pretzel to explain it at the prize announcement.

You can describe the number of holes in each shape topologically, he said. A bun has zero holes, a bagel has one, and a pretzel has two. There are no half holes. And the number of holes in these objects stays the same if you stretch or twist them.

Here he is explaining:

Using topology, Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz were able to elucidate mysteries like how super-cold films of helium change their phase of matter, and how those phase transitions then change their properties (like how conductive they are to electricity and magnetism).

Beyond theory, the research has also led scientists to develop new materials with novel properties, said Nils Mårtensson, acting chair on the Nobel committee on physics. Some of these materials are called “topological insulators,” which conduct electricity solely on their surface.

These topological insulators haven’t made it into any commercial products yet, but the Nobel committee and the scientists are still excited about the possibilities for using them in quantum computing and other yet-to-be discovered applications. One of these insulators,called stanene — basically a one-atom thick layer of tin — will conduct electricity at high temperatures with little resistance. One day, scientists hope stanene could perhaps replacecopper components in computers.

That this work on topological insulators won the prize is a bit of a surprise. The detection of gravitational waves at LIGO was one of the most stunning physics announcements of the year, confirming a prediction made by Einstein more than 100 years ago. Many predicted the scientists who led that work would win.

Why wasn’t LIGO selected? One answer: The discovery, announced in February, missed Nobel’s deadline for consideration in January. The Nobel Committee also typically awards scientific discoveries many years after they are first shared — after they’ve truly changed the field.

Source: www.vox.com, www.nobelprize.org

CSIR Physical Science June 2016