armaghplanetarium astronotes · festival called ‘saturnalia’. ... spheres of blazing nuclear...

ASTRONOTESARMAGHPLANETARIUM

December 2008

The Mysterious Star of Bethlehem

The December Night Sky

Guide to the Galaxies

Astronomy Gifts

Apollo 8’s Lunar Odyssey

Incorporating FRIENDS’ NEWSLETTER

2 Astronotes December 2008

By Colin Johnston, Editor

Welcome to another Christmas issue of As-tronotes. Once again, this is a special extra-large edition, featuring a medley of articles as all your favourite contributors range throughout the Universe in search of fascinating astronomical

stories.

On behalf of everyone at Armagh Planetarium, I would like to wish you a very happy Christmas and another wonderful New Year of stargazing in 2009!

Season’s Greetings

Return of a favourite show Please book your seats in advance to avoid disappointment.

Image C

redit: Evans &

Sutherland

The Star of BethlehemBy Orla O’Donnell, Education Support Officer

Christianity is the world’s largest organised religion with 2.1 billion followers. Although the Christian faith is divided into many denomina-tions, all its followers share one basic belief in the birth and life of the man they call Jesus Christ. One element of the birth of Jesus that has always fascinated the scientific minds of astronomers was the majestic star that the Wise Men followed to see the baby Jesus. Astrono-mers and historians have for years tried to find an astronomical phenomenon to explain the wondrous star that the Wise Men were said to have been guided by. In this article I will review some of the main theories connected with the Star of Bethlehem and try to explore the possible answers to explain this enduring mystery.

First we must set the scene, when would it have been possible for Jesus to be born? His follow-ers celebrate the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December. Historians have uncovered that this is not his actual birth date but was selected by the Romans to coincide with a pre-Christian solar festival called ‘Saturnalia’. The year of the birth of Jesus is not known exactly, this is due to mis-calculations by a Roman monk called Dionysius Exiguus who made some major mistakes when calculating our calendar. For example, he stated that Jesus was born during the 28th year of the reign of Roman emperor Caesar Augustus but he failed to realise that during the first four year

of Augustus’ reign he was known as Octavianus. This error, and others, mean that his calculated year of Christ’s birth is off by a few years. Mod-ern historians have undertaken much research and have estimated the date of the birth of Jesus as being between 7 and 2 BC.

So now we have an estimated date, the second question we must ask ourselves when investigat-

December 2008 Astronotes 3

Guiding star? A brilliant comet is a stunning spectacle. This is Comet Hale-Bopp photographed in 1997.

ing the star of Bethlehem is who were the Wise Men and how did they know so much about as-tronomy? It is not certain where in particular the Biblical Wise Men originated from but Mesopo-tamia, Parthia, Syria and Persia in the East have been suggested as possible locations. The Wise Men are also quite commonly referred to as the Magi. This is often misinterpreted to imply that they were magicians and this was not the case.

The Magi were priests of the Zoroastrian religion, which is one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, founded by the prophet Zoroaster in Iran approximately 3500 years ago. Zoroastrian-ism is still practiced today with the majority of the community located in India. All the religion’s major festivals are linked to celestial activities so information on astronomy is important to its devotees. During Roman times the Magi would have been widely known as knowledgeable men who would have most importantly been recog-nised for practicing astrology. In contrast the Jewish people did not practice astrology, viewing it as a pagan practice so they would therefore be largely unaware of any changes in the night sky. To them anyone with in-depth knowledge of celestial phenomena may have seemed almost magical. So now that we know the pedigree of these men we can look at some of the possible suggestions to explain the Christmas Star.

We all know that not all the twinkly lights in the night sky are stars. The Magi did not have the advantages of telescopes to allow them to have such detailed views of the night skies. They called any astronomical object a star; meteors were shooting stars, comets were hairy stars and planets wandering stars. That some were vast spheres of blazing nuclear fire many light years

away, others balls of rock, gas and ice in our planet’s neighbourhood, or specks of inter-planetary grit vaporising mere miles above their heads was unknown to them. It is almost certain that the Star of Bethlehem was not a star as we define them today. So what kind of celestial object was the ‘Star of Bethlehem? Let us review some of the possibilities.

The first possibility we will review is that the Star of Bethlehem may have been a meteor. These are singular and transitory events, lasting mere seconds. A meteor would have moved across the sky very rapidly and not have given the Wise Men enough time to travel all the way from their homes to Bethlehem. We can quickly eliminate the possibility of the Star of Bethlehem being a meteor. A bright comet could be a real contender as they can remain visible to the naked eye for weeks at a time as they make their vast, lazy loops through the inner Solar System. There are two points that seem to remove the possibility of a comet being the explanation for the Star. Com-ets were interpreted at the time as a bad omen and would have signalled the death of a king to ancient scholars of the skies rather than the birth of one. The most famous comet of all, Halley’s,

“The exact year of the birth of Jesus is not known”

Imag

e C

redi

t: Ju

lie T

hom

pson

, Dig

ital T

heat

re M

anag

er

“The Magi called meteors shooting stars, comets hairy stars and planets

wandering stars ”

Imag

e C

redi

t: Ju

lie T

hom

pson

, Dig

ital T

heat

re M

anag

er


Imag

e C

redi

t: N

AS

A/E

SA

Distant supernova Supernovae are incredibly bright events. The point of light to the lower left in this image is Supernova 1994D in galaxy NGC 4526. The galaxy is about 55 million light years (16.9 Mpc) from us yet we pick out this individual star.

had already made an appearance in 11BC, this is too early to fit with the estimated birth of Christ and it is unlikely that two brilliant comets ap-peared so close together in time.

The next theory, which initially sounds more plausible, is that the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ was a supernova or nova. Novae are enormous explo-sive eruptions from the surface of white dwarf stars, events which are very difficult to predict , occurring every thirty years or so in our skies. A nova flares up and becomes extremely bright, lasting for a few days or weeks. Supernovae are the spectacular results of the death of stars. A supernova is a star that suddenly blows itself apart and the resulting energy produces an in-tense light which can persist for days or months. The explosion of a star could have been magnifi-cent enough to signal the birth of a King making a supernova a very real contender for the star of Bethlehem. There is however another possibility

Adoration of the Magi Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) based the Star in his painting on Comet Hal-ley. Giotto would have observed the comet during its 1301 apparition. Nearly seven centuries later ESA’s successful probe to the comet was named after this Italian artist.

that would have resulted in a wondrous sight in the night sky.

The Magi as I have described were scholars of the night skies and they would have been aware of the light produced by the bright planets like Venus (which they would have called a wander-ing star). If two or more of these planets came together they could produce a spectacular result. This rare occurrence when planets meet in the sky is referred to as a conjunction and would have been a marvellous sight in the heavens. Although planets in conjunction appear close to each other, this is a trick of our perspective; in the Solar System they are still separated by tens or more millions of kilometres. Could the Star have been a bright conjunction of planets? If it was, why would the Magi have seen it as signify-ing the birth of the King of the Jews?

Which of these possibilities is the most likely? Well, to learn more I suggest you come to Ar-magh Planetarium to see our show the ‘Mystery of the Christmas Star’ which is running for the month of December. We’ll look forward to see-ing you.

“Halley’s Comet had already made an appear-

ance in 11BC”

Image C

redit: via wikim

edia.org


and a mortal woman called Alcmena) and as she pulled him away a spray of her milk stained the sky. In modern days we know that it is our view of our galaxy, its stars, layers of interstellar dust and a central bulge where a supermassive black hole lurks. Galileo was one of the first to study our Milky Way with a telescope in 1610 and he discovered that it was composed of a huge number of faint stars. Our Milky way is just one galaxy, a vast island of stars, among a vast number of other galaxies set in a Universe which is otherwise largely empty.

Galaxies were not always known as such, until the first quarter of the twentieth century they were thought of as fuzzy patches of light and mis-classified as ‘spiral nebulae’, thought to be relatively small and nearby swirls of gas. At that time our Milky Way was thought of to be basi-cally the entire Universe. Then the Andromeda galaxy was first classed as a galaxy outside of our own Milky Way. This recognition of other galaxies outside of our own is important as it was our first clue to the immeasurable vastness of our Universe. Galaxies are amazing objects in our sky. They can contain anywhere in the region of 10 million to a trillion stars, not to mention the nebulae, interstellar clouds, globular clusters and possible planets that they include.

Since the recognition of galaxies outside of our own, many astronomers have devoted telescope time to their study. It was Edwin Hubble who, in 1936, invented a system for their classification. The Hubble scheme is a morphological clas-sification scheme for galaxies that divides them

Elliptical Galaxy This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows a good example of an el-liptical galaxy at the centre of a galaxy cluster that is over 450 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. The galaxy is as massive as 100 billion stars like our Sun.

“‘…recognition of other galaxies outside of our

own was our first clue to the immeasurable vast-ness of our Universe”

Image C

redit: NA

SA

The Guide to the Galaxies

by Alyson Kerr, Education Support Officer

Of the hundreds of millions points of light in the night sky, many are not limited to being just stars. As well as nebulae and globular clusters, we can also see innumerable galaxies of various shapes, sizes and distances from us. So what are galaxies?

The term galaxy is derived from the Greek term for our own galaxy, galaxias meaning ‘milky circle’. The Greek had their myths concerning the creation of this milky streak in the sky. They believed that Zeus placed the infant Hercules on the breast of his wife Hera while she was sleep-ing. By drinking her milk, Zeus believed his son Hercules would become immortal. Hera woke to find an unknown child feeding at her breast (Hercules was the son of the philandering Zeus


into three broad classes based on their visual appearance. The classes consist of elliptical, spiral and lenticular galaxies. Elliptical galaxies have smooth, featureless light distributions and appear as ellipses in images regardless of their

angle of viewing. Elliptical galaxies commonly do not show much star formation and are dominat-ed by an older generation of stars. Many giant el-liptical galaxies form from the collision and merg-ing of smaller galaxies. This is a similar process to the merging of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy expected in a few billion years from now. These giants among galaxies can grow to an amazing size and are often found at the centre of what are known as galactic clusters, where galaxies have tended to clump together due to gravitational attraction. We in the Milky Way are

The Spindle Galaxy is a lenticular galaxy located 44 million light years away in the constellation of Draco. In this image we can see the flattened disc of stars as well as a central bulge.

part of one such cluster called the Local Group containing over thirty galaxies including the Andromeda and Pinwheel (M33) galaxies.

Spiral Galaxies are similar to our own, until a few years ago we would have classed our galaxy as a spiral but the Milky Way now has the distinc-tion of being classified as a barred spiral galaxy. Spiral galaxies consist of a rotating disk of stars and interstellar medium, along with a central bulge of generally older stars. Extending outward from the bulge are relatively bright arms. Stars in a galaxy such as this tend to rotate around its centre at a uniform rate and all in the same direc-tion. Spirals are commonly high in star formation with the older stars at the centre. Lenticular galaxies are a mix of the two consisting of a bright central bulge surrounded by an extended, disk-like structure but, unlike spiral galaxies, the disks of lenticular galaxies have no visible spiral structure. This type of galaxy is not well known for its star formation as it produces very little star birth.

You don’t have to be a professional astronomer with access to satellite telescope to see galactic structures. If you have a telescope at home, it is now one of the best times of year to see the Andromeda Galaxy located in the constellation of Andromeda the Princess. As one of the brightest galaxies in our local group it is easy to spot and it really is an amazing sight. As it holds a special place in history, it’s a good candidate to be the first galaxy you see. Just think as you admire this misty patch of light, you are looking back 2.5 million years in time at about a trillion stars!

“The term galaxy is de-rived from the Greek term for our own galaxy, galaxi-as meaning milky circle ”

Image C

redit: HS

T/NA

SA

/ES

A.

Bode’s Galaxy This is an image of the spiral galaxy Messier 81 taken by the Hubble Space telescope. It is located 11.6 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. Its angle gives us an incredible view of its spiral structure..

Imag

e C

redi

t: N

AS

A/E

SA


The Sky in DecemberBy Tracy McConnell, Education Support Officer

Welcome back to the “Night Sky Guide” for December. Let me start by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We are now firmly into the winter months, so everyone should be experiencing early sunsets and long dark nights. I would like to remind you that star-gazing at this time of year has the added issue of the cold, to attend with, so please remember to wrap up warmly and have a hot drink handy to fend off the cold. Please consider that the general guide presented here is based on the stellar positions at 11:00pm on 15th December in the UK and Ireland.

Over the last few months we have been looking at the signs of the Zodiac. This month the most prominent signs are; Pisces (the fish), Aries (the ram), Taurus (the bull), Gemini (the twins), Cancer (the crab) and Leo (the lion).

We have looked at Pisces, Aries, Taurus and Gemini before but they are still clearly visible at this time of year. Pisces is high in the WSW sky, Aries is very high in the SW, Taurus is high in the south and Gemini is high in the east. If you imagine drawing a line through Castor and Pollux, the twin stars of Gemini which we looked at last month, and continue east, you will get to the faint constellation of Cancer. Using a stick diagram there is a central star with three stars connected by radial lines from the centre, look-ing vaguely like an upside down Y.

The Greek story of Cancer is entwined with that of Hercules, the son of Zeus. While engaged in a great battle with the multi-headed monster Hydra, Hercules stood on a crab and crushed it. The monster Hydra itself is just rising in the east below Cancer the crab. A small nodule of a head and a long line of body are slowly emerg-ing over the horizon. Near the central star of Cancer is a cluster of more that 300 stars, called Praesepe or M44. They have been nicknamed the Beehive as they resemble bees swarming around a hive.

Imag

e C

redi

ts: A

tlas

Imag

e co

urte

sy o

f 2M

AS

S/U

Mas

s/IP

AC

-Cal

tech

/NA

SA

/NS

F.

Our next constellation, which is also a sign of the Zodiac, is Leo. It is found low in the east and the most noticeable part of it is the arc of stars

“The Greek myth of this lion tells us of a ferocious

man-eater who was bless-ed with an impenetrable

hide.”Oh Beehive! M44, called Praesepe or the Beehive cluster, can be seen by the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the constellation of Cancer. But even with small binoculars you can resolve it into a great number of single stars. as seen in this Atlas Image obtained as part of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), a joint project of the University of Massa-chusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.

The Sun’s neighbours The Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Sirius A and B, a double star system located 8.6 light years from Earth. It shows a bright source and a dim source. The central bright source is Sirius B, a dense white dwarf star. The dim source (slightly above and to the right of Sirius B) is Sirius A, a normal star more than twice as massive as the Sun

that make up the head and front of the lion. They are bright stars and they appear in the shape of a reversed question mark, even the basic stick diagram of the complete constellation bears a close resemblance to a crouching lion. This pattern was revered in ancient Egypt as the Sun was always entering it as at the time of the Nile flooding. The Greek myth of this lion tells us of a ferocious man-eater who was blessed with an impenetrable hide. No arrows or spears could do damage to the animal’s skin. The great warrior Hercules battled this lion in close combat using only his hands, and he eventually managed to strangle the animal and save the local villagers.

Moving on from the zodiac to our other constel-lations we come to our next pattern. It’s home to the brightest star in the northern sky which can be found by following the line of Orion’s Belt. Trace a line through these three stars from right to left and continue on until you come to the brightest star you can see in the south east. This is Sirius, and is often called the Dog Star as it’s the brightest star in the constellation of Canis Major, the great dog.

Above Canis Major and half way up the SE sky, is a small constellation of two stars called Canis Minor, the little dog. Both of these dogs are said to be Orion’s hunting companions in Greek my-thology and they follow him across the sky. Sirius is actually a binary system of a pair of stars, the second of which was discovered in 1862 and was given the nickname “the Pup”. The Pup was first white dwarf star to be discovered.

Eridanus, the winding river, is the longest of all the constellations and it stretches from Orion’s

Imag

e C

redi

t: N

AS

A/S

AO

/CXC


lowest right hand star, Rigel, and trails all the way down to the southern celestial hemisphere. The Babylonians believed this pattern to be the celestial representation of their great river, the Euphrates. Most of these stars are faint with only the southern-most star Achernar being particularly bright, however it is only visible in the southern hemisphere.

We have a few planets visible at this time of year, at 6pm just after the sun has set, Venus and Jupiter will appear very bright and very low, in the SW sky. In fact Jupiter sets soon after 6pm with Venus following just after 7pm. Just after 12pm Saturn rises, due east, and slowly makes its way south before sunrise.

Enjoy your stargazing and I’ll see you next year.

“M44 is nicknamed the Beehive as its stars

resemble bees swarming around a hive”

Moon Phases, Dec. 2008 Fri 5 Dec. First Quarter Fri 12 Dec. Full MOON Fri 19 Dec. Last Quarter Sat 27 Dec. NEW MOON

“Eridanus the river is the longest of all the

constellations”


Sky Scout in action The device is a great toy even for experienced astronomers. A fun feature is the colllection of spoken commentaries you can listen to through headphones.

By Nigel Farrell, Education Support Officer.

It seems that the season of good tidings to all is upon us once again, where does the time go? I’m sure that as you are reading this latest edi-tion of Astronotes many of you will be frantically searching for the ideal Christmas gifts for your loved ones.

Although I would not entirely wish to outdo the seasonal stalwarts, socks and dodgy jumpers spring immediately to mind. I thought I would compile a list of gifts that might appeal to the astronomer in the family. So here are ten gifts, in no particular order which I hope might interest you this Christmas.

1) First up and priced at a very reasonable £18 is a family ticket to Armagh Planetarium. Come and see our special Christmas show, The Mystery of the Christmas Star, open to audiences of all ages we are sure this charming show will captivate everyone. For further information call 02837 523689 or go online at www.armaghplanet.com. Please note that pre-booking is essential.

2) Keep your hands warm while stargazing with a pair of battery heated gloves. These gloves are sure to be an essential piece of kit for the star-gazer. £14.99 from www.mensgiftshop.com

3) Green Laser Pointer. This powerful device

has a range of over 12 000ft according to the manufacturer and is ideal for group viewing. A separately available universal mounting bracket means this device can be fitted to virtually any telescope allowing the Green Laser to be used as a finderscope. £29.99 from www.telescope-planet.co.uk

4) The Meade Mysky is an expensive but impres-sive piece of kit. Costing around £299 the Mysky will locate and identify celestial objects in the night sky. It also has a large number of high qual-ity images stored within the machine alongside virtual tours of the sky and an update facility where new information can be downloaded online. For information go to www.astronomylog.co.uk.

5) Moon in My Room. With 12 different lunar phases the Moon in My Room would make a stunning feature to any bedroom wall or ceiling, Moon in My Room also comes with an audio CD, explaining lots of exciting facts about the moon. Great for little astronomers. £25 from www.armaghplanet.com

6) Sky Scout by Celestron. A personal plan-etarium which uses GPS technology to identify

“For $ 200 000 how about being an

astronaut? Just imagine being closer to the stars!”

Christmas presents for astronomers

Imag

e C

redi

ts: A

trm

agh

Pla

neta

rium

.


Put the Moon into your Room It’s a lot cheaper than going there!

thousands of stars, planets and constellations. Suitable for all ages, the Sky Scout delivers expert astronomical knowledge directly to the palm of your hand. £249.99 from www.science-museumstore.com

7) Laser Cosmos. Created from powerful green laser and holographic technology the Laser Cosmos space projector scatters a random display of sparkling green stars that will fill any

room with a crystal clear animated star display. Cleverly it makes some stars seem closer than others giving a three dimensional effect. £129.99 from www.iwantoneofthose.com

8) Red Observers Glasses. Ideal if you need to go back indoors during an observing session so you don’t lose your dark adaptation. £12.99 from www.seeviewo.org

9) The Sky at Night magazine subscription. Complementing the ever popular television programme presented by Sir Patrick Moore. The Sky at Night is also a practical guide to all things astronomical, featuring star charts, observing tutorials and equipment reviews it appeals to as-tronomers of every level. £38 for 12 issues from www.bbcmagazines.co.uk

10) Last, but by no means least, how about a gift for someone where money is no object. For $200,000 (around £133 400) how about becom-ing an astronaut. Not strictly an astronomy present I know, however just imagine being that little bit closer to the stars, around 107km to be exact. The flight will last approximately 2 ½ hours in total and passengers will experience weightlessness before returning to Earth. But at that price it might be a while before any of us “normal” people get to go.

Have fun shopping, Happy Christmas.

Image C

redit: Arm

agh Planetarium

Space Shuttle Fact ArchiveReview by Colin Johnston, Science Communica-tor

The end is now in sight for NASA’s Space Shuttle program. The remaining Orbiter vehicles are due for retirement by 2010. Once the epitomes of high-technology human spaceflight, the Shut-tles are now often dismissed as obsolete, and the whole project as waste of effort even by pro-space pundits. This seems unduly harsh; the project was oversold, yes, but it taught us

valuable technological lessons and gave NASA a generation’s worth of human spaceflight. In my experience, the chunky black and white bulk of a Shuttle Orbiter is the only manned spacecraft recognized by the majority of public. The name Soyuz is a meaningless foreign word, Apollo a vague memory to the over-40s, Gemini and Mercury just Greek gods. The Shuttle is still important, as a symbol of human space explora-tion. Hopefully after their withdrawal from service Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour will inspire


The Shuttle as planned 1 A NASA artist’s impression from the early 1970s shows how the Shuttle was expected to look. The ‘spike’ on the tip of the External Tank was to have housed a large rocket motor to push the empty tank away from the Orbiter, but this proved unnecessary and was removed from the design .

Image C

redit: NA

SA

Shuttle as planned 2 Note the open doors on the nose; these would have covered the Reaction Control System thrusters at launch. The ridge on the Orbiter’s back would have covered the manipu-lator arm but this was entirely enclosed inside the payload bay in the final design.

future generations as exhibits in museums.Robert Godwin’s ‘Space Shuttle Fact Archive’ is a member of Apogee Book’s series of ‘Pocket Space Guides’, which aim to cover “the entire gamut of space exploration in a user friendly format”. Each is a modestly-priced small paperback with 96 pages, half of which carry full-colour illustrations. Titles in the series include ‘Mars’, ‘Project Apollo: Exploring the Moon’, ‘Hubble Space Telescope’ and ‘Launch Vehicles’.

The ‘Space Shuttle Fact Archive’ is exactly what its title says. If want to find out something about the Shuttle program quickly or if you are just interested in the Shuttle as a really neat piece of engineering you will like this handy little volume. What altitude is the Shuttle at when it jettisons the Solid Rocket Boosters? Who were the five crewmembers on STS-54? What are all those ve-hicles that surround the Orbiter immediately after it rolls to a halt on the runway? All the answers are in this book, along with much more. There are complete lists of Shuttle astronauts and mis-sions with concise statistics, annotated diagrams of components and full descriptions of two of the Shuttle’s scientific payloads, Europe’s Spacelab and the lesser-known SPACEHAB. There is no soul-searching into the meaning of the Shuttle, NASA-bashing or consideration of might have-beens in this book, it is just a helpful collection of data in a handy format. As such I find it very useful and I expect space buffs will too.

Space Shuttle Fact Archive by Robert Godwin, Apogee Books, Burlington, Ontario, Canada, 2007 ISBN13-978-1894959-52-0, £6.95

Image C

redit: NA

SA

Shuttle as built and flown There are a multi-tutude of differences between the craft originally conceived and the vehicle which has served NASA these past decades.

Image C

redit: Arm

agh Planetarium


mini Simon Cowell to dish out the comments! The story involved a good witch and a bad witch in the final of a competition to create the best spell. The kids also treated the staff and parents to some dancing, choreographed by Sheena, in the Copernicus hall. Both the staff and all the children enjoyed the evening and we are looking forward to next year’s evening of terror, and even scarier costumes! I hope they were just costumes...

Halloween horrorsBy Alyson Skerred-Stiff, Exorcism Support Of-ficer

Halloween is always a popular time of year at Armagh Planetarium, this year proved to be no different. On Halloween Night spooky guests arrived from as far away as darkest Transylvania, Mount Doom, Sunnydale CA and the Sunken Corpse City of Ry’leh. The costumes were exceptional as usual, with suitably scary faces all around. Witches were out in force as well as a truly frightening number of zombies and vampires. Thankfully there were also some not-so-scary costumes too in the form of a pretty princess, a clown, a Spanish dancer and a very cute Peter Pan. As always the best costumes won a prize, and this year we encouraged the audience to choose the winners with some very loud cheering. Our spooky visitors were also treated to choose between the shows Zula Patrol and Pole Position in our Digital Theatre where terrifying special Halloween effects were added onto the shows to give a frightening beginning to the evening.

The autumn Pole Position show is particularly appropriate for Halloween as it takes the audi-ence through the constellations of Cetus the Sea monster and his attempt to devour Princess Andromeda. If you don’t know this myth make sure you come to see Pole Position before the season change! Costumed children and their parents stayed on after the shows to enjoy a special Halloween story from Sheena who has come back to us every year. This year the story was the ‘Hex Factor’, and we had our very own

Orla, Tracy and Alyson posing with a ghost in a futile attempt to lure Sam and Dean Winchester to Armagh (don’t ask!)

Image C

redit: Arm

agh Planetarium

1968’s Moon Odysseyby Colin Johnston, Science Communicator

To look back in history the year 1968 shows

humanity largely at its worst. Ongoing wars, invasions, riots, brutal suppressions of protests and shocking assassinations all disgraced 1968.

However forty years ago this month something unique and inspiring happened too. This was the lunar odyssey of Apollo 8’s crew.

In January 1968 it seemed by no means certain that NASA would successfully complete John F. Kennedy’s goal “of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the end of the sixties. A year earlier astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee had perished in a horrific fire on 27 January 1967. Their Apollo capsule was on the ground for a rehearsal rather than in flight, making their deaths seem even more of an empty waste of lives. Before any Apollo spacecraft flew into space the vehicle’s design would need thousands of changes to remove the flaws that had contributed to the tragedy. Moreo-ver, NASA’s mighty Saturn 5 rocket, central to any lunar flight, had made only one test flight. Superficially a stunning success, this launch had been a near disaster, as not only had there been multiple engine failures but also unexpected massive vibrations running up and down its structure had almost shook the rocket to pieces. Not only was the Apollo capsule design fatally defective, but the Saturn 5 was not safe to carry people either. Meanwhile behind a curtain of secrecy, the Soviet Union was preparing a titanic rocket, larger than its American equivalent and clearly designed for sending crews to the Moon. Perhaps the first man on the Moon would be a representative of totalitarian communism rather than democracy.

In October 1968, Apollo 7 was successfully launched with a crew of three on board. This was the first flight in the Apollo project to carry people, and was a sign of progress. However the mission only orbited Earth and was carried into space not by the Saturn 5 moonrocket but by its much smaller sibling, the Saturn 1B. The Moon seemed as far away as ever. But NASA mission planners had a dramatic trick up their sleeve…Apollo 8 was always to have been an important flight for the project. To be launched by a Saturn 5 (and the first manned flight of this launch

vehicle, after a masterful engineering effort had found the source of the vibration problem and resolved it) the flight was to have been another mission to low Earth orbit with its main goal to be testing of the Lunar Module. The Lunar

“Apollo 8 was the most dramatic step in the

unknown since Gagarin’s flight”


Imag

e C

redi

t: N

AS

A

Apollo 8 crew Lovell, Anders and Borman pic-tured before the flight.Module was yet another hugely complex vehicle and its development fell behind schedule, by August 1968 it was clearly not going to be ready for the planned December launch. Rather than reschedule the mission, its goal was radically altered: Apollo 8 would go to the Moon!

Although left unsaid at the time, this sudden (and to our twenty first century, more safety-conscious eyes, possibly reckless) change in plan was in response to a CIA report of Soviet preparations to launch a lone cosmonaut around the Moon on the proven Proton launch vehicle. There was very little time to plan and rehearse procedures for this new mission profile, but the crew was up to the challenge. Mission com-mander was Frank Borman (1928- ), smart even for the high-achieving astronaut corps, with a

“the CIA reported that a lone cosmonaut was preparing to fly around

the Moon”


Destination Moon Apollo 8 blasts off, despite concerns about its reliability the Saturn 5 sent the mission safely on its way.

Imag

e C

redi

t: N

AS

A

surface but a whole hemisphere below them. They were the first people in history to see their planet dwindle to a disc. The awesomeness of the situation was broken by the frailties of the human body: in something of a blow to his ironman reputation Frank Borman was violently ill (‘flu, Space Adaptation Syndrome or reaction to a sleeping pill, sources give varying causes) and the crew were forced to chase weightless globs of vomit around the cramped capsule with paper towels. Borman avowed that his health would not endanger the mission and doctors on Earth agreed to allow it to continue.

On the second day of the flight, audiences on Earth were thrilled by TV images from the mis-sion showing Earth as a disc in the immense ocean of night (this was the most watched television broadcast to date), while the crew discovered the unsettling realization that their world could be blocked from view by a thumb. The three men were far from home. Their isola-tion from the rest of the human race was to become even more extreme: just under 69 hours into the flight on 23 December Apollo 8 swung behind the Moon. All radio contact with Earth was cut-off, blocked by the Moon’s bulk and Anders, Borman and Lovell became the loneliest men in history. They were also the first human

blunt, no-nonsense style with subordinates and a winning manner with politicians (who held NASA’s purse-strings). He was respected and valued for all these qualities throughout NASA. Borman’s comrades were James Lovell (1928- ), a veteran of two missions in the Gemini pro-gramme and William Anders (1933- ) who was making his first spaceflight. Most inside NASA were quietly confident of success but many external observers saw Apollo 8’s flight as a risky gamble. To understand these concerns you only have to consider just how ambitious the mission was.

No lunar module would be carried, so the Moon’s dusty plains would not yet feel the tread of human feet, but the mission was still the most dramatic step into the unknown since Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight. The spacecraft would break out of its parking orbit around Earth at a meteoric speed of 10 822 m/s (the fastest speed yet flown by humans) through the van Allen Belts (no human being had ever ventured beyond these blizzards of sub-atomic particles before) to sail for three days through the 385 000 km wide gulf between our planet and its satellite. By the time Borman and colleagues reached the Moon they would have ventured a thousand times as far from their homeworld as any previ-ous space traveler. The conservative approach to preparing a Moonlanding would be to simply loop around it and return as the Russians were supposed to be planning to do but instead, daringly, Apollo 8 would enter into orbit around the Moon, becoming a satellite of a satellite. If all went well, after several lunar orbits the ship’s sin-gle main engine would fire to send it and its crew homeward, if things did not go to plan Apollo 8 would become a cold and lonely tomb.

Apollo 8 lifted off into the deep blue Florida sky on the morning of 21 December 1968. Three hours later the craft was securely on course for the Moon. Borman, Anders and Lovell watched until they were seeing not just part of Earth’s

“Apollo 8’s crew were the first people in history to see their planet dwindle

to a disc”


Stop Press!

Pale Blue Dot This image from Apollo 8 shows our world as a planet rather than a landscape, something never before seen by humans.

Imag

e C

redi

t: N

AS

Abeings to see the Moon’s farside with their own eyes. Ten minutes later, the spacecraft’s engine fired for four minutes, braking the craft into lunar orbit. If it had failed the craft would have flown past the Moon into an orbit which would have doomed the crew, so they described the burn time as the “longest four minutes of our lives”.

The crew squeezed around their ship’s small windows, gaping in awe at the bleak and rugged lunar surface before settling down to business of photographing it, surveying future landing sites. But they also looked Earthward, as you will see from our Image of the Month. Later during a televised press conference from lunar orbit the crew took turns reading the first ten verses of the book of Genesis. To many on Earth, this creation story expressed in majestic language read from outer space was the highlight of the mission (it may seem strange today but at the time some vocal Christians had been decrying the Moon programme as hubris, a latter-day Tower of Babel). Borman ended the broadcast with the words “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christ-mas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth”.

After twenty orbits, occasionally coming about to within about 70 miles (113 km) of the surface, it was time leave the Moon in its splendid isolation. On Christmas Day 1968 Apollo 8’s engine was to fire to boost the mission homeward. There was some anxiety; deep inside the rocket’s coiled complexity of pipes, pumps and valves could a vital component have frozen in the coldness of space?

Once again the craft was behind the Moon and therefore incommunicado as the engine performed its vital burn. After several minutes of tension at Mission Control, contact was restored when Lovell‘s voice broke the radio silence when he announced, “Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus” (ever since then dishonest or dim-witted UFO buffs have claimed this quote to be a code-phrase reporting contact with extra-terrestrials). It was Christmas Day and Apollo 8 was returning home.

The rest of the mission was a relaxing cruise for the crew. The ship’s Command Module made a perfect re-entry to the atmosphere and splash down the Atlantic. The seas were rougher than expected, the spacecraft rolled upside down at times and first Borman and then the others suf-fered seasickness as they awaited the recovery helicopters.

This was to be the final spaceflights for Borman and Anders. Borman went on to a sometimes successful, sometimes controversial career in the airline industry. Anders went into public service but later managed a major aerospace corporation. Lovell returned to space in 1970 to command the fateful Apollo 13 flight, followed by a couple of decades in obscurity running a tugboat company (again strange though it may seem now, he was in semi-disgrace for many years, seen as the man who led a failed mission), he was rehabilitated following his portrayal by Tom Hanks in the famous movie based on his experiences. What about the feared Soviet flight around the Moon that prompted Apollo 8’s radi-cal change in objective? It never happened and indeed was apparently never even planned.

1968 was a year when much that is deplorable happened. But that year Apollo 8 reaffirmed that human intelligence, craftsmanship and courage were capable of great things too. The road to the Moon was open.

“Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus”

“We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.”TS Eliot

Just like the great navigators of Earth’s oceans, Apollo crews navigated by taking fixes on celestial objects by sextant. On Apollo 8’s fourth orbit around the Moon the crew rotated the craft so that its windows faced away from the Moon’s surface and towards the horizon to take a sight-ing. The usually calm Frank Borman was startled by what he saw, blurting out “Oh my God! Look at the picture over there. Here’s the Earth com-

ing up!” The amazed crew watched our distant planet rise over the Moon’s horizon (actually Earth is stationary in the lunar sky, their craft was providing the motion).

William Anders seized a camera and photo-graphed the spectacle. One of the images he made became iconic. This image of the blue and white marble of Earth over the lifeless Moon reinforced our world’s position as an oasis of life and is often claimed to have inspired the environmental movement. Anders himself said “We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth.” (Caption by Colin Johnston, Science Communicator.)

Image of the Month

Astronotes, Incorporating Friends’ Newsletter is published monthly by Armagh Planetarium, College Hill, Armagh, Co. Armagh BT61 9DB Tel.: 02837 523689 Email: [email protected]

www.armaghplanet.comEditor: Colin JohnstonAssistant Editor: Alyson Kerr©2008 Armagh PlanetariumAll rights reserved


Imag

e C

redi

t: M

ajor

Gen

eral

Willi

am A

. And

ers,

NA

SA

armaghplanetarium astronotes · festival called ‘saturnalia’. ... spheres of blazing nuclear...

Documents