Celebrate summer’s start ’round about midnight Friday

Posted on June 19, 2013 by astrobob

A radiant sun shines through a cluster of Norway pine needles. This Thursday-Friday marks the summer solstice or first day of summer. The season begins at 1:04 Eastern time June 21 and 10:04 p.m. Pacific June 20. Credit: Bob King

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” - Henry James

So it’s always seemed to me at the start of a summer vacation. Endless time laps ahead like a wave that never breaks. Those splendid hot stillnesses are returning. Come Friday June 21 at 12:04 a.m. CDT summer tiptoes through the dark to quietly unseat spring; the next three months belong to the high sun, iced drinks and late evening light.

Whichever end of Earth’s axis points toward the sun, it’s summer in that hemisphere. In June, the north polar axis tilts that direction and we experience summer (left). When it points away, it’s winter. At the fall and spring equinoxes, the planet is tilted neither toward nor away and day and night are equal. Credit: Tau Olunga

That’s in the northern hemisphere of course. Way down south it’s the first day of winter and the sun is never lower in the sky than on June 21. Here in the north, the sun beams from its highest point in the sky. Since it spends a great deal of time climbing to this lofty perch and an equally long time descending, summer days are exceptionally long. Daylight squeezes night into a narrow slot fewer than 9 hours long. With darkness beginning after 10 o’clock, skywatchers are forced to choose between sleep and stars.

A mosquito from early Miocene times (~ 20 million years ago) frozen in time in Dominican amber. Credit: Didier Desouens

If the choice is stars, you’ll be sharing it with tiny, whining friends of the night. Mosquitos have been around for millions of years; our most distant human ancestors slapped and batted them away just like you and I do every time we look up in wonderment without protection on a pleasant June evening. But there are fireflies too and owls and frogs about, making a clear summer night as much a sonic experience as a visual feast.

All this summer stuff happens for one reason – the tilt of Earth’s axis. Simple as that. No need to bring in the experts, no special app required. Earth circles the sun tilted 23.5 degrees from vertical. Every June 20 or 21 the northern hemisphere points toward the sun, causing it to appear high in the sky. Not only do the days reach their maximum length, the sun’s high angle means the energy per unit area it pours over Earth’s surface is more than twice as intense as during the winter.

Six months later the north tilts away from the sun. A low sun and less intense surface heating means wintry consequences.

Male fireflies flash as they fly over the ground looking for a mate on a June night. Credit: Bob King

Spring and autumn fall between winter and summer extremes with Earth broadside to the sun and neither axis tilted toward or away. Day and night briefly agree to share the clock equally before charging off to the next season.

So yes, I’m ready for summer. Bring on the sweet smells of morning air, those endless afternoons and nights of fireflies tearing across the sky like biological meteors.

Saturn-moon engagement plus a peculiar star worth watching

Posted on June 18, 2013 by astrobob

Look south this evening and you’ll see Saturn and Spica on either side of the moon. Farther down in the southeast, Antares sparkles with a reddish hue. Our featured star Delta is just in front. Created with Stellarium

Tonight look to the south and you’ll see the waxing gibbous moon paired up with two bright “stars”. One’s a real star – Spica in Virgo – and the other is the planet Saturn. If you let your gaze slide further south and east you’ll soon run into a third luminary – the red-orange heart of the Scorpius Antares (an-TAR-eez).

While Antares is one of the sky’s most interesting red supergiant stars, we’re going to turn our attention instead the three stars to its west that forms the head of Scorpius and in particular to the middle star Delta Scorpii. Delta is in the throes of a tantrum that’s lasted more than a dozen years.

The hot subgiant star Achernar, very similar to Delta Scopii, is flattened into an oval shape by its extreme rotation. Credit: Wikipedia

Back in June 2000, this unassuming 2nd magnitude star quite suddenly began to brighten until by 2001 and 2002 it had nudged up almost to 1st magnitude, the class which includes includes the brightest. It peaked in 2003-2004 at magnitude 1.6. Delta’s since faded back to about 2.0 magnitude (I checked two nights ago) which is still a third brighter than normal.

What could cause such an outburst? Astronomers think it may have to do with how fast Delta spins. Hot giant stars of its ilk rotate so rapidly – at least 155 miles per second vs. the sun’s 1.2 mile per second – they sometimes fling hot, luminous gaseous masses from their equators like a plump clown tossing candy at a parade.

The hydrogen gas forms a flattened bright disk around the star causing a temporary brightening. Complicating matters, Delta has a very close companion star that circles it every 10.8 years. Searching back through earlier data, astronomers found that a similar though weaker outburst occurred in 1990-91 a short time after the smaller star passed closest to Delta as it did again in 2000.

Every clear night I look to the southern sky to see what Delta’s up to. It’s so easy to do. If you’d like to try it yourself, compare Delta to nearby Beta Scorpii (magnitude 2.6) and Spica (mag. 1.0). If it’s exactly between the two, its magnitude is 1.8. For the moment, our featured star has yet to return to its original brightness, so you never know what’s next. That’s the fun of it of course.

Galactic cannibals devour hapless neighbors, don’t pick up after themselves

Posted on June 17, 2013 by astrobob

NGC 5907, also known as the Splinter Galaxy, is surrounded by loop de loops of stars and dust either ripped from a companion galaxy in an act of galactic cannibalism or spewed when two galaxies merged. Click to supersize. Credit: Jay Gabany, Blackbird Observatory

Four billion years ago and 40 million light years away, an act of galactic cannibalism was committed. No human eyes saw the smaller galaxy shredded and ripped apart by the gravitational might of the larger. No tears were shed when its remains were finally devoured, but clues of the catastrophe remain to this day.

The Splinter Galaxy, an 11th magnitude edge-on spiral, is located high in the June sky in the constellation Draco. You can star-hop to it with your telescope using the Big and Little Dippers and the detailed map below. Edasich is also known as Iota Draconis. Maps made with Stellarium

High in the northern sky in the constellation Draco the Dragon ghostly ribbons of stars and dust swirling about the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5907 are all that remains of its one-time companion. Don’t expect to see those ethereal streams in a typical telescope; only long time-exposures reveal the remaining clots of dust and streams of stars torn from the companion galaxy during the close encounter and likely merger. The gigantic loops extend for more than 150,000 light years from NGC 5907, nicknamed the Knife-Edge or Splinter Galaxy.

In this closeup view, NGC 5907 is just a short star-hop from Edasich. Field of view is about 3 degrees.

Astronomers call these rivers of stars tidal streams. They’re created by disruptive gravitational tides induced when two galaxies pass near or through one another. As the companion orbited through the Splinter’s disk, repeated encounters stripped it of most of its goodies – stars, dust clouds and even dark matter – and flung the material into multiple tidal streams. When nothing but the compact stellar core was left it presumably merged (was eaten) by NGC 5907 and lost its individuality forever.

This illustration shows a stage in the predicted merger between our galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as it will unfold over the next several billion years. The image represents Earth’s night sky in 3.75 billion years. Andromeda (left) fills the field of view and begins to distort the Milky Way with tidal pull. After some 6 billion years the two will merge into a single elliptical galaxy. Click for more details. Credit: NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger

Or … it could have happened a different way when two equally mighty galaxies on a collision course yanked swirls of stellar debris from each other before their eventual merger into one serene spiral we see today. Here neither was the winner – two came together much as the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy will several billion years from now to meld into something altogether new.

Milky Way Sag Dwarf tidal stream NGC 5907

Tidal streams of stars torn by gravitational tides exerted by the Milky Way on one of its small satellite galaxies the Sagittarius Dwarf. The dwarf’s core is shown to the right of our galaxy’s disk. Credit: David R. Law, UCLA

As far as galactic cannibalism goes, we needn’t look any farther than our own Milky Way, which has been munching on the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy for at least the past billion years. Four separate whirls of stars peeling off above and below the plane of the Milky Way attest to our galaxy’s systematic preying on what was once a bright companion. Now half its contents are gone, dumped along the winding highway by an unrepentant galactic litter bug. Over time the dwarf and its contents will be fully absorbed by our galaxy with little left of its presence save a few stray globular clusters that once called it home.

Meet the James Webb Space Telescope, time machine extraordinaire

Posted on June 16, 2013 by astrobob

The James Webb Space Telescope, which will launch in October 2018, has a large, segmented mirror 255 inches across. A sunshield protects the telescope from heat so it can study the cosmos in infrared light. Credit: NASA

Remember when the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Mt. Palomar in California was the biggest in the world? It’s now surpassed by at least 18 other scopes, the largest of which is the Gran Telescopio Canarias with a mirror 410 inches in diameter. The bigger the mirror, the greater its light-gathering ability and farther we can see across the universe.

From the semi-stable L2 Langrangian point a million miles from Earth opposite the sun, the Webb can both block the sun, Earth and moon from view as well as study deep space 24/7. Credit: NASA

Soon we’ll recall when the Hubble with its 94-inch mirror was the biggest orbiting telescope.

In October 2018, NASA plans to launch the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with a behemoth 255-inch (6.5-m) mirror coated in gold.

The Webb will set up stakes one million miles from Earth at the L2 Lagrangian Point, a region of space where the sun’s and Earth’s gravities strike a balance, allowing a spacecraft there to “hover” indefinitely with only an occasional firing of its thrusters to maintain position.

James Webb Credit: NASA

Named after the NASA administrator James Webb, best known for his leadership in the Apollo moon program, it will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. It
will observe the most distant objects in the universe, including the very first galaxies and search for clues left behind by the earliest stars.

Closer to home, it will examine planets in our solar system as well as planets around nearby stars. The telescope will be able to determine the composition of an exoplanet’s atmosphere by studying the light of its host star filtering through the alien air. The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA engineer Ernie Wright looks on as the first six flight ready James Webb Space Telescope’s gold-coated primary mirror segments are prepped to begin final cryogenic testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA’s MFSC/David Higginbotham

Its unique mirror, made of the lightweight metal beryllium and coated with a golf-ball’s worth of gold spread into an ultra-thin layer across 18-hexagonal mirror segments, is optimized for infrared light. That’s the invisible light just beyond the red of the rainbow that we sense as heat.

Light from celestial objects like galaxies receding rapidly from Earth is stretched and reddened. Light from objects approaching Earth appears bluer.

Why infrared? Our expanding universe got its start in the Big Bang. Because light takes time to travel to our eyes from distant regions of the universe, we also peer back into time when we look into space. Since the universe is expanding, the farther back we look, the faster objects appear to be moving away from us. Like the sound of an ambulance siren dropping in pitch as it races to the hospital, light from a distant star or galaxy “drops in pitch” as it recedes from Earth, becoming redder in color. Astronomers say the star’s light is redshifted.

Since the Webb’s primary mission is to discover the farthest objects to light up the early universe, they’ll also be the ones receding most quickly. Light that left the earliest galaxies started out as visible and ultraviolet but has been redshifted by the expansion of the universe into the near and mid-infrared range, beyond the reach of the human eye and most telescopes.

Earth’s atmosphere happily lets visible light – colors of the rainbow – and radio waves pass to the ground but blocks most of the infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays.

Unfortunately we see little of that light from the ground. Our atmosphere acts as a barricade to much of the infrared beaming from space. The only way to sample this crucial slice of light is to loft a telescope above the atmosphere into space.

Gold is used as a mirror coating instead of the more typical aluminum because gold is an excellent reflector of yellow, red and infrared light. Think about why gold is golden-colored in the first place – it absorbs blue and green light and reflects that delicious buttery yellow back to our eyes.

If the Hubble Space Telescope’s 94-inch (2.4 m) mirror were scaled to be large enough for Webb, it would be too heavy to launch into orbit. The Webb team had to find new ways to build the mirror so that it would be light enough – only one-tenth of the mass of Hubble’s mirror per unit area – yet very strong. The sides of the mirror also fold back like leaves on a table for a compact fit in a rocket. Credit: NASA

Not only does infrared vision help astronomers see back to the universe’s teething years, it also penetrates dust to see otherwise hidden stars and planets cloaked in their dusty birth cocoons. The Webb will spy stars 10 to 100 times fainter than the Hubble Space Telescope. Click HERE for a nice summary of the mission’s primary science goals.

Because all things radiate some amount of heat or infrared light, including the telescope itself, everything must be kept very cold otherwise pictures would look like fogged film. That’s why a large, five-layered sunshield will be deployed toward the sun, blocking both visible and infrared light from the sun, Earth and moon that would otherwise heat up the telescope. Looking like a hi-tech Viennese layer cake, the vacuum of space between each layer serves as fabulous insulation.

Shielded this way, the Webb’s operating temperature will drop to a nippy -370 F (-223 C) or just 50 degrees above absolute zero. From the L2 vantage point described earlier, all three objects are almost in a straight line behind the space telescope and straightforward to block with the sunshield.

Group photo of the Webb Telescope team with a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Credit: NASA

Getting a telescope with 255 inches (21.3 feet) of mirror into space means designing the craft and optics to fold up into a compact package that resembles a backpack. Once in orbit, the Webb will be carefully unfolded and tested before observations begin. Electricity generated by solar cells will provide the power needed to run this magnificent machine.

Delays and cost overruns have been part of the project to build the telescope, but work continues and a launch window has been set. The thought of looking back to the time when the universe’s lights first turned on not only gives me the chills but makes it worth the few extra bucks.

Big Dipper sure, but have you seen the Great Bear?

Posted on June 15, 2013 by astrobob

The Great Bear Ursa Major stands high in the northwestern sky at the end of evening twilight this month and into July. The moon is shown for tonight June 16. Created with Stellarium

The Big Dipper is the #1 most familiar star group in the northern hemisphere. Just about everyone has seen it. Orion comes in second and everything else a distant third. As many of you already know, the Dipper is only part of a constellation, what astronomers call an asterism. If you connect the rest of the dots you’ll make a bear up there by the name of Ursa Major. The Great Bear.

June and and the first half of July are good times to take a few minutes at the end of dusk and see if you can go beyond the familiar Dipper outline.

Mythological depiction of Ursa Major on the 19th century Urania’s Mirror atlas.

While none of Ursa Major’s additional stars are as bright as the Dipper, they form distinct shapes, especially the long, furry legs and two-toed claws, although in the sky the whole works appears rather bony. The head is triangular and with a little imagination bears some resemblance to a bear’s. What you’ve always pictured as a dipper bowl is repurposed as back and belly, and the handle is an unnaturally long but still very believable tail.

The seven brightest stars of Ursa Major form the familiar Big Dipper. Many civilizations past and present recognized the form and often pictured it as a bear. Each star has its own name, all derived from Arabic. The star in the bend of the handle is a true double star. Credit: Bob King

I’ve always been impressed with the large size of the Ursa Major constellation. In that regard it’s most like a real bear with a commanding physical presence. Checking a list of constellation size by area, I see that the Great Bear takes 3rd place behind Virgo and Hydra with 1,280 square degrees of heavenly territory. Good thing it isn’t trapped in its cage. Earth’s rotation day and night ensures our ursine friend gets plenty of exercise circling round the polestar Polaris.

Evening moon, popular planets and extreme sports on Mars

Posted on June 14, 2013 by astrobob

Face west-northwest tonight to see the moon near the star Regulus as well as a tight group of four bright sky objects – two stars an two planets. Created with Stellarium

The ambling moon is one day shy of first quarter phase tonight and lights up the sky near the star Regulus in Leo the Lion. Closer to the horizon, Venus and Mercury couple up with Gemini’s brightest stars Pollux and Castor, with bright Capella glimmering alone in the north.

Mercury and Venus join up for a conjunction (close pairing) on the 19th and 20th, while the moon passes near Saturn on June 18-19. Mars and Jupiter are both too close to the sun to see, but will soon return to morning twilight in the next several weeks.

A recent image from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft showing dark-bordered streaks caused by winds blowing around the dual craters’ walls. The dark areas are scoured of surface dust; the light zones are where the winds deposited their load of dust after being braked by the craters’ walls. Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

Speaking of Mars, I came across some great images recently of wind streaks and dry ice “snowboard” trails on the Red Planet. Wind streaks can appear either dark or light-colored on Mars. When strong winds converge around craters and cliffs they can sweep away the lighter surface dust exposing the darker lava plains beneath. Craters can also slow down the winds, causing them to drop their loads of dust as light-colored streaks on the obstacle’s lee side. Sometimes both happen at the same time as in the photo above.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter photo of “linear gullies,” which may be explained by slabs of dry ice gliding down the slopes of sand dunes. Different in form from other streaks and gullies on Mars, they can extend up to a mile (2 km) and end abruptly in pits. Scale in meters at left. Click to enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

While wind streaks make sense because of their earthly analogs, dry ice chunks gliding down the slopes of sand dunes on cushions of their own vaporizing gas sounds distinctly more alien. Yet that’s what NASA researchers believe is happening to create the zillions of narrow furrows seen along the slopes of some Martian sand dunes.

“I have always dreamed of going to Mars,” said Serina Diniega, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and lead author of a report published online by the journal Icarus. “Now I dream of snowboarding down a Martian sand dune on a block of dry ice.”

Dry ice gliding on sand dunes

Carbon dioxide frost coats the dunes during the Martian winter which lasts about twice as long one on Earth. Over time, the ice accumulates and gets compressed into slabs which can break off and glide downhill during the spring season. As frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) changes directly from a solid to a gas on contact with the warmer sand, the gas pushes against the surface to create a cushion of air. The block rides the cushion all the way to the bottom where it continues to vaporize, forming a little pit at the end of the gully. Be sure to watch the short video – I think you’ll be delighted at the experiment using dry ice on sand dunes here on Earth.

Amateur astronomers eye new supernova in galaxy NGC 4414

Posted on June 13, 2013 by astrobob

The new supernova 2013df is 32″ east and 14″ north of the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 4414 in Coma Berenices. This photo was taken on June 10, 2013. Credit: Joseph Brimacombe

A new gem sparkles in Berenice’s hair. Supernova 2013 df burst to light in the spiral galaxy NGC 4414 in the constellation Coma Berenices (Queen Berenice’s Hair). The exploding star was discovered on June 7 by four Italian amateur astronomers who are members of the Italian Supernova Search Project (ISSP).

NGC 4414, host of the new supernova, is located near the star Gamma in Coma Berenices. Use the detailed map below to get you in for a closer look. The moon is shown for tonight June 13. Created with Stellarium

The supernova shimmers at about 13th magnitude – on the brighter side for a star going boom 62 million light years away – and is visible from dark skies in telescopes 8 inches or larger. The host galaxy is moderately small but bright at 10th magnitude and very easy to spot in smaller scopes. Pinned to its northeast side along the outer rim of the galaxy’s hazy disk, the supernova is hard to miss. You can try for it anytime starting at the end of evening twilight until 2 or 3 a.m. Earlier is better because the galaxy’s higher in the sky. I caught a view of this “new star” two nights ago around 11 o’clock in my 15-inch scope. Very easy to see.

Illustration of a massive star ending its life as a Type II supernova. Credit: ESO

Tagged as a Type IIb supernova, 2013df star-like appearance only hints at the enormous violence involved in its creation. Type II supernova explosions occur in supergiant stars at least 8 times more massive than the sun that burn through the nuclear fuel in their cores until it’s exhausted.

When the burning stops, so does the pressure from heat that counteracts the ever-present force of gravity. Result: the star collapses in upon itself, creating shock waves that blast it to bits in a titanic explosion.

Closeup map showing NGC 4414, surrounding galaxies and the star Gamma in Coma Berenices to help you point your telescope. Click image for an even more detailed finder chart. Credit: made by Jan Wisniewski with Guide 7.0 software

The enormous energy released makes the former supergiant suddenly brighten by millions of times. That’s why even amateur telescopes can pick up this titanic event across millions of light years.

The “b” in Type IIb indicates a star that’s lost hydrogen gas in its outer atmosphere before the catastrophe.

For more information, updates and photos on 2013df, check out Dave Bishop’s Latest Supernovae site.

Noctilucent clouds and other encounters with the twilight zone

Posted on June 12, 2013 by astrobob

Noctilucent clouds last night June 11 around 11 p.m. in the northeastern sky against the starry backdrop of the constellation Perseus. Credit: Bob King

The mosquitos have returned but so have the night-shining clouds. Last night they feathered the late twilight sky until almost 11:30 p.m. Thanks to a tip from a friend, I was able to get up on a hill with a good view to the north to make a few photographs.

Wide-angle view of the northern sky and NLCs about 11 p.m. last night. The bright star at left is Capella in the constellation Auriga. Credit: Bob King

I’d just written about noctilucent clouds (NLCs) over the weekend and had hoped they’d materialize in time to illustrate the article with fresh images. Of course they didn’t because that’s not how nature works. But who’s complaining?

After the noctilucent clouds faded and twilight supposedly ended, a very faint glow (not aurora) still lingered. Since the night was very clear, it was probably the faintest remains of twilight. Credit: Bob King

I suspected something was ‘amiss’ with the horizon twilight glow at 10:30 p.m. an hour and a half after sunset. Sure enough, they slowly became more distinct very low in the north-northwest as the sky grew darker and darker. Never more than 5 degrees (3 fingers held together at arm’s length against the sky) high, the wispy, layered, phosphorescent strands were hard to miss by 10:45-11 p.m. Noctilucent clouds form 50 miles up – 10 times higher than regular clouds – when water vapor in the Earth’s middle atmosphere condenses on meteor soot.

Denver is closer to the equator than Duluth, with the sun making a steeper angle to the horizon. In an hour’s time, the sun travels farther below the horizon than it does during the same time in Duluth. This causes the sky to get darker sooner in Denver during the summer months. Angles are exaggerated for clarity. Illustration: Bob King

My last sighting was at 11:30 p.m. at twilight’s end. Though the official twilight length for Duluth, Minn. according to the Farmer’s Almanac is 2 hours 30 minutes, a pallid glow lingered in the north until at least 12:30 a.m.

Twilight lingers as the faint glow near the horizon in this photo taken around midnight last night. Twilight occurs when sunlight from below the horizon still illuminates the atmosphere overhead. Credit: Bob King

Amazing how long twilight does last in the summer months. For every degree of latitude north of 40 degrees north, twilight increases by an average of about 12 minutes. Duluth’s latitude is 47 degrees and Denver’s is 40. That makes twilight linger more than an hour later here in my neck of the woods. It also makes summertime observing the ken of the insomniac and masochist (the mosquitos, remember?).

Each type of twilight depends on how far below the horizon the sun is either after sunset or before sunrise. 10 degrees is equal to one fist held out at arm’s length against the sky. Credit: TW Carlson

Just like there are degrees of dark chocolate, so too is twilight sliced into varying degrees of darkness. Civil twilight is the interval of time from sunset until the center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. That’s about up to 30-40 minutes after sunset or before sunrise. During this time there’s still enough sunlight reflecting off the atmosphere overhead to see your way around and recognize faces and landmarks. The brightest planet Venus is also visible at this time.

Nautical twilight spans the time when the center of sun is between 6 and 12 degrees below the horizon or about 60-80 minutes after sunset. The horizon is indistinct but still visible and the brighter stars are easily visible. ‘Nautical’ refers to when sailors can still see the horizon while using the stars to determine their position at sea.

True night with no trace of sun-stoked glowing atmosphere begins when the center of the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. This marks the end of astronomical twilight. Sky watchers must wait anywhere from 90 minutes up to 3 hours after sunset before the guardians of the night finally chase away the dusk. The three twilight flavors also play out in the morning hours (in reverse) before sunrise.

With twilight hours longest in the northern hemisphere summer months, watching the stars come up is a languorous affair perfectly suited to wine-sipping or kicking back on a beach.

Martian clay contains chemical believed crucial for life’s origin

Posted on June 11, 2013 by astrobob

Electron microscope image showing the 700-million-year-old Martian clay veins containing boron (100 µm = one tenth of a millimeter) in a sample of the Martian meteorite MIL 090030 discovered in Antarctica. Credit: UHNAI

University of Hawaii astrobiologists have discovered high concentrations of boron within ancient clays in a Martian meteorite. Boron may sound boring but when it comes to life’s list of favorite ingredients, it’s crucial. When it hooks up with oxygen atoms to become ‘borate’, boron may have played an important role in the formation of RNA, one of the building blocks of life.

A thin section of the Martian meteorite MIL 090030 analyzed by the UHNAI researchers. Credit: UHNAI

Its more famous brother, DNA, is key in transmitting genetic information; RNA or ribonucleic acid is essential for the synthesis of proteins, which literally build our bodies from the ground up. If DNA is the master plan, RNA is the construction crew. At life’s beginning, RNA may even have served as a precursor to DNA.

RNA is similar to DNA but takes the shape of single, shorter strands. There are other chemical differences too. Credit: Wikipedia

“On Earth, borate-rich salt, sediment and clay deposits are relatively common, but such deposits had never previously been found on an extraterrestrial body,” according to the study.

The new research suggests that when life was getting started on Earth, borate could also have been concentrated in deposits on Mars. Borate is essential in stabilizing ribose, the R in RNA.

To read more on the subject, check out this synopsis of the original article.

Remember the Mars Opportunity Rover? Scientists have kept it busy for more than 9 years and 22 miles tracking from one fascinating landscape to another.

Esperance Rock on Mars is located along the rim of Endeavour Crater. Credit: NASA/ JPL-CalTech

The rover recently examined a patch of Martian soil named “Esperance” along the rim of Endeavour Crater. Analysis shows it appears to be clay once heavily altered by water. The newer rover, Curiosity, has also found clay minerals in Gale Crater and is now on the move to layered clay deposits in the crater’s central mound Mt. Sharp.

‘Einstein’ arcs across the sky above the W of Cassiopeia Saturday night June 8. Credit: Bob King

On a different topic, the International Space Station (ISS) still cruises by every evening and will continue making passes through early next week. If you haven’t seen it or ATV-4 (aka ‘Einstein’) yet, now’s the time.

I caught Einstein several nights ago during one of its passes across the northern sky. It moved fast – quicker than the ISS – and appeared as bright as a Big Dipper star. Docking with the station is expected on June 15, so you still have a few days. Go to Heavens Above, log in and click the ATV-4 and ISS links to find times when they fly over your house.

Gamma Delphinid meteor shower a no-show