A Golden Anniversary for Space Exploration

By Irwin Horowitz, 10-01-07

This past observing season has been quite successful here in Boise, with a very well attended public star party at Bogus Basin back in July, the Perseid meteor shower and a total lunar eclipse in August, and the Idaho Star Party™ last month.  In addition, Idahoans were very proud of our own Educator-Astronaut Barbara Morgan on her highly successful space shuttle mission to the International Space Station and of the 18 students who posed very sophisticated questions from the Discovery Center in Boise to Barbara and her shuttle colleagues.

As the summer fades into autumn, which officially began last Sunday morning, the days start to get shorter, the air starts to get cooler and the sky starts to get cloudier over much of the intermountain west.  While these shorter days (and consequently longer nights) mean more time to observe the heavens each night, the other two effects tend to make such observations less comfortable and less frequent than they were during warm summer nights.

Astronomy activities tend to cool down along with the temperature, so I will focus my next several monthly columns on issues other than observing and star parties.  This month I wish to discuss a very important anniversary that will occur later this week.

It was 50 years ago this Thursday, on October 4, 1957, that the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit.  Sputnik I revolutionized our society.  A mixture of fear, awe and determination overtook America in the wake of that fateful day.  At the time, we were locked in what seemed to be a bitter struggle for survival against the forces of communism, having lost mainland China and divided the Korean peninsula after the 1953 armistice.  The Soviets had demonstrated an ability not only to launch a basketball sized object into orbit, but to lob nuclear bombs halfway around the world to threaten our cities and national security.

However, the launch also presaged an entirely different competition.  A few months later, on January 31, 1958, after one failed attempt to match the Soviet feat, the United States launched Explorer 1.  The primary accomplishment of this first American space mission was the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding our planet.  These belts formed as a result of trapping charged particles primarily from the Sun in the Earth’s magnetic field.

A few years later, in April 1961, the Soviets launched the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit.  He was followed three weeks later by the launch of Alan Shepherd on a 15 minute suborbital flight.  Before the end of that month, President Kennedy was committing our nation to the goal of a manned lunar mission by the end of the 1960s.

The space race really took off at that point, with both the Soviets and the Americans engaging in a battle of outdoing each other.  Both sides experienced triumphs and tragedies.  However, it was the United States who eventually won the greatest prize by fulfilling the dream of a murdered President when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the lunar surface in July 1969 and uttered the immortal words “That’s one small step for man…one giant leap for mankind.”

In the five decades since the launch of Sputnik, there have been a total of 12 Americans who walked on the surface of our Moon.  The space agencies of several nations have launched hundreds of men and women into low orbit around our planet.  We have a continually occupied space station flying overhead every ninety minutes.

We have launched robotic probes to every planet in our solar system as well as to several of the smaller bodies like comets, asteroids and even one currently enroute to Pluto.  We place into orbit numerous satellites that engage in communications and remote sensing of our world.  Much of the instant access to information from every corner of the Earth is a result of the utilization of outer space.  We also have placed several satellites in orbit that look outwards and explore our universe in detail that is impossible to achieve from the surface.  The Hubble Space Telescope, despite its initial manufacturing flaw, has proven to be an indispensable tool used by astronomers worldwide for over fifteen years.

Who knows what the future holds in store for us in space.  Will we return to the Moon?  Will we proceed on to Mars and other worlds in our solar system?  Will we someday venture out beyond our pedestrian cosmic neighborhood and visit other star systems?  While we may not be able to answer some of these questions today, we are able to pose them because of a little satellite that got its start 50 years ago.
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This month we see that Jupiter is rapidly fading into the evening twilight, as it will pass behind the Sun just prior to Christmas and re-emerge in the morning sky early next year.  Mars starts to dominate the night sky, rising around midnight at the start of the month and shortly after 10 p.m. by the Halloween.  For the early risers out there, Venus is the brilliant object seen above the eastern horizon before sunrise and Saturn is now once again visible as well in the morning sky. 

If you have an interest in sky lore and mythology, one of the best known Greek myths is the story of the Kingdom of Ethiopia.  Ruled by King Cepheus and his beautiful but vain queen, Cassiopeia, they had a daughter Andromeda, whom they believed was more beautiful than the Nereids, sea nymphs who were the attendants to Poseidon, God of the Seas.  This boasting did not sit well with the Nereids, and Poseidon wrecked havoc on the kingdom as punishment for the queen’s vanity.  Cepheus learned that the only way to prevent further devastation to his kingdom was to sacrifice his daughter to a sea monster.  Andromeda was chained to some rocks on the shore awaiting her fate.

In the meantime, a young warrior named Perseus had recently disposed of the hideous creature Medusa with the help of Athena.  He placed the severed head in a sack and sought out the king and queen.  Offering to save their daughter in exchange for her hand in marriage, to which the royals quickly assented, he went out on his flying horse Pegasus to defeat the sea monster Cetus.  Using the severed head and a bronzed mirror in order to avoid gazing at it himself, he turned Cetus to stone and saved the beautiful young maiden.

Upon returning to the kingdom with their daughter, he encountered unexpected resistance from her parents regarding their part of the agreement.  It seems that they had already promised her hand to another man and an argument ensued at the wedding, which was resolved when Perseus once again used the head of Medusa to turn his rival into stone.

All of the major personalities in this story have been immortalized in the night sky with constellations or asterisms of their own.  Cepheus and Cassiopeia constantly circle around the North Star, being most prominently displayed on autumnal evenings.  Depending on whether she is right side up or upside down, Cassiopeia appears as either an “M” or a “W” in the sky. 

Nearby are their daughter Andromeda and her savior Perseus.  In his hand, he carries the head of the Medusa, also known as Algol or the “Demon Star”.  This star system undergoes periodic eclipses every 2.8 days due to a chance alignment of the orbital plane of the two primary stars.  Within the boundaries of the beautiful maiden lies the most distant object anyone can see without the use of a telescope.  This is the Andromeda Galaxy, located over 2 million light years from our Milky Way.  It is readily apparent on clear, moonless nights far from the lights of civilization.

The winged horse Pegasus is located to the southwest of Andromeda.  The four brightest stars make up the “Great Square of Pegasus,” though technically the star Alpheratz in the northeast corner is actually part of Andromeda.  Finally, the sea monster Cetus the Whale is further south of all of these other constellations.

The ancient Greeks observed these patterns in the sky and made up these rich stories replete with politics and romance and tragedy.  Not unlike much of what passes for entertainment today.

On Friday, October 12th, the Boise Astronomical Society will hold their regular monthly membership meeting in Classroom B at the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise.  The meeting will start at 7 p.m.  The evening’s speaker is our group’s representative to the Astronomical League, Mr. Steve Bell, who will discuss what steps members must take to qualify for various observing awards issued by the organization.  The following evening, we will hold a public star party at the Visitor’s Center of the Deer Flat Wildlife Refuge on Lake Lowell south of Nampa.  Weather permitting; we will begin around 5 p.m. with some solar observing, followed by a presentation by yours truly and continuing with the star party after dark.  In the event of poor weather, the presentation will still be scheduled to start around 6:30 p.m.

Next month I will dispense some advice for those of you thinking of purchasing a new telescope as a gift for the holidays.